The Tavern

... based on its wiki article, at least. What sorts of characters do well there, what sorts of characters do poorly? Which tactical suggestions do you have? It seems that you don't want to get surrounded. Does teleporting get you in more trouble or can it reliably get you out of trouble? Frankly, I'm scared by it and probably won't take this portal, only the second one I've ever seen.

There is an open square area surrounded by an infinite wasteland of salt (continual scrolling until you step back into the center). Scattered around the edges are ruined buildings and there are big dust storms or whatever (fog effect) that shrink and expand but tend to stay in place.

The monsters can do a fair amount of damage if they gang up on you, and there are some higher lvl mummy type monsters too. I seem to remember one of the monsters can call a crowd over to your position. Ive done it with heavy melee and heavy conjurations characters. With melee its fairly easy if you are careful with position, with conjurations I had to be much more careful but ultimately it wasnt a huge risk.

Loot is a mix between melee/caster stuff, can be pretty good on occasion.

Strategy: Immediately walk towards the edge (the infinite salt is a fog effect too if I recall correctly) and work your way around the edges in a big circle. Stay near to fog so you break LoS and lose the mob if it starts to build up. All the ruins tend to have a lot of monsters in them, so clear them carefully. Teleport is as good as it ever is.

It's ok if you move slowly and avoid engaging many enemies at once. The danger however can spike really fast, especially near the ruins, where there usually are larger groups of baddies. -clouds in particular leaves you really unprotected, and you need some time to learn how the monster powers interact with each other, because that's what makes them dangerous.

Start by reading magic mapping then go to whichever area offers the best killhole, and lure everything there. This is one of the few places where shouting is actually useful.

Fighting from the center or the actual map edges/corners is generally bad IMO because you don't want to allow halazid warlocks, ragged hierophants, or peacekeepers to exist alongside other monsters in LOS.

Never realized it was _that_ dangerous. I've never died in there before.

I entered and followed duvessa's advice, particularly the part about not wanting to give the special foes constructs to do their magic on. Not cleared yet, but it is clearly a place that rewards luring. I'm glad I entered and now I can better assess it for future characters. The one other time I was there, I got mobbed in my first combat and had to bail--that left a nasty taste in my mouth.

As already stated, pulling the minimum number of enemies at a time is the key. I'll add that because of the very shifty clouds, one specific strategy which can be helpful for ranged characters (and for melee to lure a smaller portion in at once) is to kite enemies from out of direct LOS. Establish where the enemies are but (hopefully) don't get seen yet, back off and put clouds between you and them, then fire any (long) ranged attack towards the direction of the target while they are still in range, but out of line of sight due to the clouds. This can gain you a few extra turns of damaging the target if/until they get a chance to see you. Experience messages are helpful to know when to stop firing if you've killed the target.

This strategy can be applied in general where clouds are present (steam is one good example), but it's particularly notable in this level since the cloud cover is intense.

I had a fun experience yesterday clearing Salt by thoughtlessly casting chain lightning as I had just entered, which made all the monsters come at me, as I kept casting tornado and chain lightning to kill them, making more noise and calling in even more. There was a bad -clouds moment, I think I threw an orb at that guy and went casting again. In the end it cost me a potion of healing, I only survived because I had Veh replenishing my MP and regen mutation + amulet of regeneration, but the floor was almost completely cleared. I don't think it's advisable, but it can happen.

what is this -clouds thing?

It's the effect of the "still winds" spell, by servants of whispers. It removes all clouds from los and impedes making new ones.

Desolation of salt... is harmless, but then, i play mostly melee and DESU, so i dont get injured or even hit that much.

I only ever entered Desolation twice, both times with super heavy armor Melee Dudes so for them it was just run to monster and tab tab tab. Nothing was able to damage my super armored Gargoyle and Minotaur and noting survived melee with them. From what the wiki tells you, you probably don't want to be surrounded by saltlings as at least one monster can cast a spell that travels through the saltlings and does more damage to you for how ever many saltlings it went through.

I never knew that and Ive done desolation at least twenty or more times on various characters. Probably because crawl has taught me to lure everything if there is the slightest risk, and portal-worlds are inherently risky.

Wait a minute, so your telling me there is a portal that leads to the desolation of salt in the normal game of crawl? Not a fork or anything? A) this game never ceases to amaze me B) Maybe its like the wiz lab? I've only seen two of those

Yes, it is a timed portal, similar to other timed portals (Labyrinth, Ice Cave, Volcano, Wizlabs etc.). It is not a Wizlab, so you may get both Desolation and one of the Wizlabs in the same game.

I have never seen Desolation
It makes me want a new game mode where you start as XL 3 character and visit nothing but Temple, Sewer, Ossuary, Bailey, Labyrinth, Ice Cave, Volcano, Desolation and finally Wiz lab which has orb of wiz lab

Would be an interesting sprint, VAF. Don't forget Bazzar and Trove.