Surviving orb run


Ask fellow adventurers how to stay alive in the deep, dark, dangerous dungeon below, or share your own accumulated wisdom.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Thursday, 15th February 2018, 14:42

Surviving orb run

I (again) lost a character on the orb run. Now I am weak player, for example I may forgot to actually haste, but pan lords still seem to be brutal.

I would like to ask how do you survive the orb run? Apart from learning level 8+ spells and worshipping overpowered gods.

(Now I have died to some pan lord with "orb of electricity", whatever it is. I also died to pan lords with chaos attacks, shatter, glaciate, etc. With my average character, fighters of okawaru with few/no spells I have no idea how to survive them.)

Spider Stomper

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Post Thursday, 15th February 2018, 15:15

Re: Surviving orb run

Tools for orbrun/getting away:

- passwall: getting away without them having a % to get to you. They cannot even see you anymore
- source of invisibility. A lot of demons still cannot sinv.
- fog. Even better when you're not out in the open
- blink. You're in a corridor ? Close the door. Now you can only blink into 1 direction. Works fine in combination with fog.
- nets. You can net Panlords (check their ev). Against hell sentinel you have excellent %. Zot 5 should have some nets. Check each tile for net traps if you want more.
- b.vile.clutch: they'll lose turns to get out.
- wand of digging: create your own path. Works even better with fog+blink
- summons (butterflies). Works even better with digging, fog, blink and nets :) !

There is more but you get the picture: You don't have to be faster by becoming faster, you can also slow other by putting obstacles into their way :)
Passwall/butterflies/blink are there for everyone but Trog-follower. He has other ways of getting summons

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 15th February 2018, 16:39

Re: Surviving orb run

A lot of the time it's simply a matter of providing the least opportunity for being ambushed, for each floor, figure out where the closest staircase is, and beeline for it, digging paths if they will save you more than a small number of steps.

1. Autotravel optimizes for the shortest *total* path which may include a longer path on a given floor, but your odds of having something unpleasant dropped on something your head grow with how long you are on any given *floor* not how long your escape takes in total, so don't use autotravel to D:1. It could be (and frequently is) fine, but it could also put you in more danger, it also can't optimize for stuff like "this path (possibly X floors up) would be way way shorter if I dug out this one square right here".

2. Don't stop to fight things unless you literally can't get away, taking a couple hits from a nonthreatening thing as you walk around/away from it is fine. If you can't get away and there's nothing dangerous around, then kill them on the upstairs, rest until something appears (use regeneration if you have it) then go upstairs and keep moving. Swiftness is great for a burst of speed to give you some separation to get to the upstairs so you can escape if you're desperate. Don't be afraid to dig a path around something so you don't have to fight it too.

3. If something strong comes into view, and there's something nonthreatening around, keep in mind that often keeping a nonthreatening bad guy around to shield you from a threatening thing is the best thing to do, even when the nonthreatening thing isn't popcorn, but is like a level 2/3 demon or something, they may whittle away at your hps, but they aren't going to kill you outright, you can always finish off your blocking buddy upstairs once you escape that pan lord. Note that a blocking buddy isn't a panacea, pan lords are perfectly capable of killing you through a blocking buddy, it's just less likely. The only certain way to not be killed by a pan lord is to have it not be on the same floor with you.

I personally fight stuff roughly once every 3-4 ascents, and usually it's just one thing when I do.
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Post Thursday, 15th February 2018, 17:24

Re: Surviving orb run

Pan lords are frequently faster than you even with haste. I mostly find summon butterflies and blink are the surest method to escape form a pan lord. Both should be castable with minimal investment. Even with the teleport delay effect of the orb, it can be worthwhile to read a scroll of tele. You'll never be certain that a Pan lord does or does not have a devastating ability, so it's simply best to either escape them or fight them face up as quickly as possible. Either fight them or escape them, don't move away from them if you can't escape simply by moving.
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Tomb Titivator

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Post Thursday, 15th February 2018, 19:29

Re: Surviving orb run

I'm not a really super player and I tend to over-favor gear rather than spells, so I rarely have more than level 6 spells (except as an all-out conjurer blaster sort). More often, I'm just trotting around as a fighter sort with some hefty weapons and a few level 1-3 spells. While you sometimes just get a particularly awful sequence of rng with the pan lords, it's still generally quite doable.

More or less what Siegurt said, but especially this:
A lot of the time it's simply a matter of providing the least opportunity for being ambushed, for each floor, figure out where the closest staircase is, and beeline for it, digging paths if they will save you more than a small number of steps.

Save wands of digging for the ascent whenever possible. I generally only use them for blasting grates, transparent rock and statues (when they block shops or other important stuff), and (mostly) for the ascent. Some games produce so many that you can use them much more liberally, but don't bet on it before you actually see heaps of charges. 15 or 20 charges is a decent minimum for quick ascent I'd say, but it's much nicer to have a lot more.

As always, knowing the mobs inside and out makes a huge difference. I don't know all of them down to the fine point stats and for the "extreme" combo situations the ascent can put you in after multiple encounters, so once in a while I still get shocked. But I try to LOS or else engage asap with anything that has torment, mutate, or a particularly serious ranged ability. Nastier summoning or disabling sort of mobs are also worth eliminating fast, if they can pump out anything your'e still vulnerable to. Other than that, try to follow the narrower paths to the nearer stairs up. If you come onto a level far from all of the stairs, it's sometimes good to either go back down -- that's IF there's any other stair choice nearby on the previous level -- or even read teleport and hope you land somewhere better.

Ranged weapons are very strong in the game, so having a very well enchanted arbalest, longbow, or white upgrades along those lines can often be competitive. Also don't forget to check the mobs for low evasion and prefer to keep right on shooting low EV ones at point-blank. Also if you can get the Portal Projectile spell up. With that spell, you can smite bomb targets behind enemy lines maybe before they're ready to attack you. The spell also helps accuracy generally if I gather correctly. You might not hit quite as hard per shot as high-powered AOE conjurations, but hitting stuff "well enough" or "fast" at a distance is still valuable. Just don't carried away -- only shoot what's really going to be a PITA if you don't preempt it soon. Otherwise, keep on moving.

On fighter types with only 3-4 runes, I find the spell game a mixed bag. It depends a bit on how much Int your artifacts add, what mutations you get slapped with in Zot etc., and even what species you play. I still haven't learned to Passwall or to use Summon Butterflies consistently. And it starts to get to be so many schools of spells if you do all of the handy possibilities. Blink can be extremely useful. I don't so often get around to all the others. Many of them can be strong, but they take specific situations or practice. A few slots of stored evocables may do a lot of the things you'd otherwise want spells for: teleporting, blocking LOS, summoning temporary block/distraction minions.

Nets are awesome if usually limited availability (and some things are just too big). As usual, don't be too afraid to read Teleportation early if things look very dicey. Or maybe dig yourself a sheltered path around the edge of the situation/map if you have enough of a head start, have wand charges and a touch of space to dig through, and aren't getting smited too much getting started!
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 15th February 2018, 21:21

Re: Surviving orb run

I always use autotravel to D:0 (not 1!), because it is so convenient. I've died once on the orb run, but it was years ago.

I usually don't try to fight pan lords, unless I feel very powerful. Usually I don't, because I play odd characters. The first reaction upon seeing a pan lord is "where are the closest stairs/closest hatch I can use". Summons, fog, blink, haste, swiftness, digging etc. are all used if need be. Teleport delay is so big that if you can survive it, you might have made it to the stairs already. So I very rarely teleport. One of my favourite items also on the orb run is the sack of spiders. A couple of handfuls of spiders will keep the pan lord & co. busy while you head for the stairs/hatch.
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Post Thursday, 15th February 2018, 23:07

Re: Surviving orb run

just manage LOS with walls, fog, dig. Use blockers to keep them away in corridors. Use haste and swiftness to outrun them if they are not super fast. Use fan of gales when on the stairs and they are next to you. Teleport right away if none of the above is feasible.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 00:17

Re: Surviving orb run

You can also go *down* stairs and come back up on a
different stairs if needed.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 01:38

Re: Surviving orb run

Siegurt wrote:don't use autotravel to D:1.

Now that I think of it, I think you *should* use autotravel to D:0. This is because autotravel uses hatches when optimal*. Unless, of course, you marked the hatch connections yourself somehow (I hope you don't do that).

*assuming you used the hatch already, but of course you did, right?
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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 03:22

Re: Surviving orb run

Oh yeah, maybe I shouldn't have said "anything" with torment/summon etc. I meant more normal problems like demons and greater undead, which can whittle you down fast if given too much time at range, but can often be defeated in a couple/few turns.

Pan lords are a special category. Look closely at whether they sound like a spell caster or what kind. You don't get a lot of info, but sometimes there are some more obvious hints about which schools they might be if so. If they're a few spaces away, I generally try to get away. If they're looking liable to dump some nuke like torment or massive summons, then often it's worth trying a more drastic early exit plan (Blink if there's room, teleport scroll, dig around the world). But if they're very close, then at least consider whether they have an obvious weakness. Some of them have just a couple pips of AC or EV, or are vulnerable to an element you might be tossing around. Or they're not huge and you have a whole bundle of nets waiting for something to do. In these cases, it may be easier to take them out before they deploy some odd unknown ability that whops you. Especially if there's nowhere nice to run/blink away nearby anyway.
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Zot Zealot

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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 05:35

Re: Surviving orb run

There's no way to tell what sort of spells a pan lord has. Pan lords without spells have slightly better stats, but pan lord stats are so variable I wouldn't rely on this.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 06:29

Re: Surviving orb run

Sprucery wrote:
Siegurt wrote:don't use autotravel to D:1.

Now that I think of it, I think you *should* use autotravel to D:0. This is because autotravel uses hatches when optimal*. Unless, of course, you marked the hatch connections yourself somehow (I hope you don't do that).

*assuming you used the hatch already, but of course you did, right?

As I pointed out, autotravel will optimize for *shortest total path length* not *shortest path on each floor* nor can it optimize for paths not yet dug out with your wand of digging. Hatches make literally no difference at all as to whether you should use autotravel (You can take a hatch as easily as autotravel can)
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 06:42

Re: Surviving orb run

Siegurt wrote:As I pointed out, autotravel will optimize for *shortest total path length* not *shortest path on each floor*
Is it really so that if you spend 20 turns on two floors each you get less pan lords than if you spend 5 turns on one level and 25 on the other level?

nor can it optimize for paths not yet dug out with your wand of digging.
This is a valid point. But before you ascend to the next level, you don't know which staircase would be optimal wrt. digging (on the upper level) either.

Hatches make literally no difference at all as to whether you should use autotravel (You can take a hatch as easily as autotravel can)

But do you know beforehand if it is optimal to do so? Autotravel does.
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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 07:56

Re: Surviving orb run

Sprucery wrote:
Siegurt wrote:As I pointed out, autotravel will optimize for *shortest total path length* not *shortest path on each floor*
Is it really so that if you spend 20 turns on two floors each you get less pan lords than if you spend 5 turns on one level and 25 on the other level?

Well, not so much that less are generated, as that less encounter you at a range where you can't escape simply and easily. Look at it this way, if a pan lord generates, would you rather be 5 steps or 10 steps from the up staircase? It takes some number of turns for a pan lord to engage with you and kill you (And if they are going to kill you at range, they have a percentage chance of doing so every turn, so you want to minimize the number of turns that they can spend in your LOS), if you reduce the number of turns they have available, then they will kill you less often, minimizing the number of turns it takes to navigate a given floor minimizes the number of turns a pan lord has to kill you (on average)
Sprucery wrote:
nor can it optimize for paths not yet dug out with your wand of digging.
This is a valid point. But before you ascend to the next level, you don't know which staircase would be optimal wrt. digging (on the upper level) either.

Hatches make literally no difference at all as to whether you should use autotravel (You can take a hatch as easily as autotravel can)

But do you know beforehand if it is optimal to do so? Autotravel does.

If you've explored a hatch or staircase, you can see where the endpoint of that staircase is by highlighting it in map view and changing levels with [ (or ] to move down), autotravel is privy to no more information than you have available (unless of course you don't know how to peek at the destination of the staircase, in which case you might think autotravel is magic or something)
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 10:58

Re: Surviving orb run

Siegurt wrote: if you reduce the number of turns they have available, then they will kill you less often, minimizing the number of turns it takes to navigate a given floor minimizes the number of turns a pan lord has to kill you (on average)
But your approach makes you spend more time on some levels than autotravel would. Maybe the pan lord appears on one of those. I really am not convinced at all. I would much rather choose an orbrun which takes 1000 turns total than orbrun which takes 1100 turns total.

Siegurt wrote:If you've explored a hatch or staircase, you can see where the endpoint of that staircase is by highlighting it in map view and changing levels with [ (or ] to move down), autotravel is privy to no more information than you have available (unless of course you don't know how to peek at the destination of the staircase, in which case you might think autotravel is magic or something)
So are you going to manually check the whole route from Z:5 to D:0 and choose your path accordingly? What if you check the landing site of a hatch and it appears to be close to some stairs. Then you take the hatch and check the stairs and notice that it is a bad staircase, which takes you to a bad spot on the next level. What do you do now? Autotravel knows the whole route and is clearly superior.

Again, digging is the only thing "against autotravel". But if you want to be optimal, you dig routes beforehand between all stairs and hatch landings *and then use autotravel to select the optimal route*. (I hope nobody does that.)
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 11:22

Re: Surviving orb run

Sprucery wrote:Again, digging is the only thing "against autotravel". But if you want to be optimal, you dig routes beforehand between all stairs and hatch landings *and then use autotravel to select the optimal route*. (I hope nobody does that.)

No. Passwall is another thing against autotravel, as is a teleport when you find your entry-point to a level far away from all up-stairs.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 12:36

Re: Surviving orb run

Majang wrote: Passwall is another thing against autotravel

True. Shows how seldom I've used the spell that I forgot all about it. Teleporting, however, I wouldn't count generally because 1) the delay is long and 2) you are not guarenteed to land anywhere better. Autotravel might have selected a route which is not far away from all upstairs.

On the other hand, U:5 and D:15 are special cases because the entry vaults to Zot and Depths might be behind long stretches of corridors. So it might be better to teleport first and then use autotravel from the landing spot. But teleporting is always a gamble.

So maybe first autotravel to U:5, then check if teleporting is needed, then autotravel to D:15 and check if teleporting is needed, then autotravel to D:0.

Nothing stops you from using Passwall (or digging) also with autotravel, when autotravel is interrupted.
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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 13:52

Re: Surviving orb run

I guess at low power passwall is not that interesting, as your options will often be limited. I play EE a lot, and then passwall allows you to travel through walls four or even five tiles thick. It looks very friendly then.

At each ascension I find at least three or four situations where teleport is a gamble worth taking. When I am in the SW and the next exit is in the NE of the map, there is really nothing I lose from reading a scroll of which by that time I own dozens. If the destination is still bad, I read another one. I will almost certainly get upstairs faster than if I walk all the way, autotravel or not. Often these situations are in Z or U, but not always. There are some very open D layouts where the downstairs are all in one corner, and the upstairs in another.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 14:03

Re: Surviving orb run

Have you ever used autotravel to D:0? I heartily recommend anyone who hasn't done so to try it. It makes the ascencion a breeze. (But also take the habit of using all hatches upwards when you find them so autotravel can use them.)
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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 19:03

Re: Surviving orb run

All this said: deciding whether to autotravel or not is probably not the thing that's going to make or break your orbrun. The points about not fighting stuff, spending resources in order to not fight stuff, and spending resources to kill stuff quickly if you do need to fight will get you out of the dungeon too. Some pan lords are really awful, but you can usually walk away from them like just about everything else in the game. If you can't, that's why you have escape items.

For what it's worth, I generally autotravel to the nearest upstair and that's always worked fine. I've never bothered exploring up hatches, but now I will I guess.
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Post Saturday, 17th February 2018, 01:56

Re: Surviving orb run

Get like 10 evo and use the consumable ally evocables that have spawned in your game.

Sometimes you need to kill a pan lord. You know what's good at doing that? A copy of the pan lord plus 3 chimera beasts plus whatever form of offense you've been training all game.

More often, you want to reach the upstairs without risking combat with the panlord + alich that have spawned in the way. You know what's good at occupying all of their turns so that you can retreat and break los? A fucking million spiders plus a copy of the lich for good measure.

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Post Saturday, 17th February 2018, 13:41

Re: Surviving orb run

amaril wrote:Get like 10 evo and use the consumable ally evocables that have spawned in your game.

Sometimes you need to kill a pan lord. You know what's good at doing that? A copy of the pan lord plus 3 chimera beasts plus whatever form of offense you've been training all game.

More often, you want to reach the upstairs without risking combat with the panlord + alich that have spawned in the way. You know what's good at occupying all of their turns so that you can retreat and break los? A fucking million spiders plus a copy of the lich for good measure.
I had some trouble with my last game : two very fast Pan Lords with Abjuration, so the summons wouldn't last long and they would immediately catch up with me, I had to use up all my summoning consumables.
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Post Saturday, 17th February 2018, 17:28

Re: Surviving orb run

Fingolfin wrote:I had some trouble with my last game : two very fast Pan Lords with Abjuration, so the summons wouldn't last long and they would immediately catch up with me, I had to use up all my summoning consumables.
In cases like these i recommend judicious use of fog and blink while you wait for your tele to go off - the kinds of strategies outlined elsewhere in this thread. Allies don't beat everything but they are pretty damn versatile and make all of your other escape strats more likely to succeed.
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Post Friday, 23rd February 2018, 06:16

Re: Surviving orb run

chequers wrote:There's no way to tell what sort of spells a pan lord has. Pan lords without spells have slightly better stats, but pan lord stats are so variable I wouldn't rely on this.

Just to follow up on this... Is there no relationship between their appearance and spells/powers at all? It seemed to me that some that had appeared less brawny and more exotic, ended up having more enchantment or summoner like powers. But it could have just been coincidence.

I'd still say it makes sense to at least observe the AC and EV (and perhaps even try to consider how many different sorts of elemental/magical attack you "could" weather relatively better, for strong characters) when deciding whether/where to engage, but that's different too.
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Post Friday, 23rd February 2018, 08:07

Re: Surviving orb run

Fog + Blink have been mentioned a few times here, but I don't think they've been fully explained. In case anyone reads this who doesn't get it right away, blink scrolls (which are non-controlled with the orb) and effects will only blink you to tiles you can see. Fog scrolls can be used to limit what you can see, so that you only can blink in (roughly) one direction. Read fog, step so that you can see the direction you want to blink in, then blink.

Doors and wands of digging can situationally also be used to this effect. (Close door -> blink, or dig a V-shape -> step around corner -> blink) but fog is usually simplest, requires no specific dungeon structures existing, and is immune to something opening the door behind you, as well as more quickly killing enemy LOS to you.

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Post Friday, 23rd February 2018, 20:16

Re: Surviving orb run

stoneychips wrote:
chequers wrote:There's no way to tell what sort of spells a pan lord has. Pan lords without spells have slightly better stats, but pan lord stats are so variable I wouldn't rely on this.

Just to follow up on this... Is there no relationship between their appearance and spells/powers at all?
There is no relationship between their appearance and spells/powers at all.

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stoneychips

Snake Sneak

Posts: 124

Joined: Tuesday, 27th January 2015, 17:12

Post Saturday, 24th February 2018, 20:14

Re: Surviving orb run

This one is such a no-brainer, but it's killed me before, so it bears mentioning:

If you stacked up rF+ for Zot:5 in a way that reduces rC+, take a moment before grabbing the orb to balance out your resistances. I died the other day to an Ice Fiend on the ascent with the orb, wearing fire dragon scales and still rolling with that Zot: 5 "rF++ is king" mentality. The orb run can be so RNG-dependent, it's better to round out the resistances than stick with overstacked fire resistance at the cost of rC+.

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VeryAngryFelid, Zhorgal

Lair Larrikin

Posts: 19

Joined: Saturday, 6th August 2016, 21:55

Post Tuesday, 13th March 2018, 11:54

Re: Surviving orb run

Try to remember that it's called the "orb run", not the "orb fight".

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