The Development of a Tank


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Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4432

Joined: Friday, 8th May 2015, 17:51

Post Friday, 2nd February 2018, 06:03

Re: The Development of a Tank

I think of ziggurates when talking about tanks. Nowhere to run and steady flow of monsters coming.
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Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Friday, 2nd February 2018, 18:31

Re: The Development of a Tank

Siegurt wrote:
duvessa wrote:
Siegurt wrote:Don't get the wrong idea, Gargoyles are not bad by any means, it's just that Nagas are better.
I've been trying to ignore this thread, but this post finally made me snap and ask what are you people smoking

I wasn't saying gargoyles are *generally* better but *for this specific purpose* aka "high ability to withstand damage with limited mobility, because you're worshipping chei and/or are using statue form" in other words what I was saying was "when you take movement (mostly) out of the equation, Nagas can survive (a little) more punishment than Gargoyles, given similar levels of equipment"
This is even more puzzling for me. Why would you pick naga for this, when it's one of the worst races for Chei and it completely loses its innate AC and barding while in statue form? I suppose Na is still better than Gr at casting statue form since Gr literally can't cast it, but I doubt that's what you meant.
Wouldn't it be better to use deep dwarf, ogre, or troll? DD has Na's HP bonus and damage shaving, not to mention innate heal wounds and much better aptitudes. Ogre also has better aptitudes and much better HP, Tr has better HP, and all of these will have the same AC as Na in statue form.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5382

Joined: Friday, 25th November 2011, 07:36

Post Friday, 2nd February 2018, 19:13

Re: The Development of a Tank

I don't think statue form was a requirement - it's just a very strong 'tank' spell for a lot of races. The nagas I listed as examples all used heavy armor + blade hands. I think this one is probably the best example of what I mean (of the five previously linked):

  Code:
 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.16.1 (webtiles) character file.

1855099 tasonir the Wrestler (level 27, 268/268 HPs)
             Began as a Naga Monk on Mar 22, 2015.
             Was the Champion of Cheibriados.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 3 runes on Mar 24, 2015!
             
             The game lasted 04:46:04 (66260 turns).

tasonir the Wrestler (Naga Monk)                   Turns: 66260, Time: 04:46:04

Health: 268/268    AC: 70    Str: 38    XL:     27
Magic:  44/50      EV: 39    Int: 37    God:    Cheibriados [******]
Gold:   8772       SH: 22    Dex: 49    Spells: 11 memorised, 9 levels left

rFire  + + .     SeeInvis +       - Unarmed
rCold  + + .     Clarity  .     Y - +11 crystal plate armour {rC+}
rNeg   + + .     SustAb   .     N - +5 shield "Chirphio" {rF+ Regen+ Dex+3}
rPois  +         Gourm    .     Z - +2 hat "Xaihufim" {rElec rN+ MP+9}
rElec  +         Spirit   .     B - +2 cloak {rC+}
rCorr  .         Warding  +     y - +1 pair of gloves {Dex+3}
rMut   .         Stasis   .     q - +4 naga barding
MR     +++..                    l - amulet of warding {Ward, rN+, !d}
Stlth  ..........               K - +3 ring of protection
                                t - ring of Naratwio {+Fly rPois rF+ Dex+7}

@: mighty, brilliant, agile, phasing, stone skin, very slow, extremely resistant
to hostile enchantments, extremely unstealthy
A: spit poison, constrict 1, see invisible, deformed body, deterioration 1,
poison resistance, slowness 2, forlorn, AC +9
a: Spit Poison, Bend Time, Temporal Distortion, Slouch, Step From Time, Renounce
Religion, Evoke Flight
0: Orb of Zot
}: 3/15 runes: barnacled, silver, gossamer

The EV here is slightly inflated from agility/phasing, and I had stone skin, but even with those removed these are very good defenses.

And the "naga for megazigs" is also probably a good overall choice, although I don't like how slow megazigs are, and gave up after doing the 4th zig.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6454

Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06

Post Saturday, 3rd February 2018, 04:40

Re: The Development of a Tank

duvessa wrote:
Siegurt wrote:I wasn't saying gargoyles are *generally* better but *for this specific purpose* aka "high ability to withstand damage with limited mobility, because you're worshipping chei and/or are using statue form" in other words what I was saying was "when you take movement (mostly) out of the equation, Nagas can survive (a little) more punishment than Gargoyles, given similar levels of equipment"
This is even more puzzling for me. Why would you pick naga for this, when it's one of the worst races for Chei and it completely loses its innate AC and barding while in statue form? I suppose Na is still better than Gr at casting statue form since Gr literally can't cast it, but I doubt that's what you meant.
Wouldn't it be better to use deep dwarf, ogre, or troll? DD has Na's HP bonus and damage shaving, not to mention innate heal wounds and much better aptitudes. Ogre also has better aptitudes and much better HP, Tr has better HP, and all of these will have the same AC as Na in statue form.

In this particular case I wasn't picking the two races that were being compared, I was just commenting on the earlier comparison, I agree that there are other races would be as good or better suited for "can be built to take a lot of punishment, ignoring movement considerations" also it appears that it was unclear that the OP was even actually attempting to try to accomplish what I had interpreted was the desired result.
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Swamp Slogger

Posts: 174

Joined: Saturday, 16th September 2017, 21:17

Post Saturday, 3rd February 2018, 04:48

Re: The Development of a Tank

Well, Naga or gargoyle I see the advatanges or each, and thank those who posted here for the advice.
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Blades Runner

Posts: 568

Joined: Wednesday, 5th March 2014, 03:52

Post Tuesday, 6th February 2018, 15:06

Re: The Development of a Tank

Two things:

Nagas are really, really, really bad starting out. Just so bad. Mummies are supposedly a "bad" race, but they are infinity billion percent better than nagas until lair. I mean eventually you are tabbing through vaults with 50 AC and 200 hit points so they do *get* good, but nagas are a terrible start.

Chei is not a particularly strong God. I would go so far as to say that Chei is a *bad* choice - like, worse than atheist - for new players. Once you learn what monsters are really serious threats and what all the spells do than Chei is sort of a little bit kind of okay maybe.

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nago

Blades Runner

Posts: 616

Joined: Thursday, 25th October 2012, 03:19

Post Saturday, 10th February 2018, 11:52

Re: The Development of a Tank

In my experience, when faced with the worst of the worst situations you don't want a tank with the largest amount of health. A huge amount of health can simply become a liability if you're unable to replenish it quickly enough. What you do want is either maximum damage mitigation or maximum offensive potential combined with life on kill from Mak or TSO.

Gargoyle is the ultimate in mitigation for me because of several reasons: innate AC, torment resistance, [rPois, rN+ and rElec] allow you better options when selecting gear resulting in more bonuses from gear usually. As it was pointed out previously, when you mitigate damage much better, regeneration becomes quite a more notable statistic. Life on kill when using AOE spells such as firestorm and tornado is a very serious "tank" in essence. To a much lesser degree, not taking up spell point slots with statue form can be a small advantage if you're doing lots of zigs.

A demonspawn with lucky mutations worshipping Mak is probably the ultimate tank "in essence" if it has the right mutations. Getting high regen on kill is a big one, enough that you can even consider an alternate god without life on kill. Augmentation packs a huge offensive punch. Nightstalker is possibly one of the strongest defensive supplements, limiting the number of enemies which can mess with you at once (torment, smites, hellfires) Last, but not least, they can use sublimation of blood to replenish mana.

Granted, these character builds don't worship Chei, and may not absorb as much damage as a Naga if they are all sitting there taking hits until dead, but if you think about tank in more active terms, and as survivability in the screen full of orbs of fire or pan lords then consider the larger picture. The most zigs I ever ran was somewhere around 30, and I quit out of going insane rather than getting killed. The workhorses were firestorm+ring of flames, tornado, shatter, crystal spear, necromutate, ozocubu's freezing, necromutate, sublimate, regen, the old summon portal monster spell (before it was nerfed, not for damage but to use up enemy spaces and buy time, also mostly firestorm proof), Darkness... (other junk I don't recall off the top of my head, I think I was using dragonform for UC combat on pan lords with tons of resists at times also)
and the winner was...... Demonspawn
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