Viability of Pures: The Third Aspect

[chippings]

A little preface: I've played this game for a long time, hyper-casually offline as a no-internet/easy access timekiller. I don't know if I ever made it past dungeon 10 in all those years.

However, more recently I've been digging in and finally pulled out my first bare 3 rune Zot win - MiFi^Gozag. Yay, though very basic and a bit of a far cry from my original goal of a simple human fighter win which resulted in well over 100 horrible deaths.

I thought that would satisfy me and let me move on from my obsession of "beating" this cloud of defeat that's hung over me all this time, but it only made me crave and wonder more. Specifically, I want to know what the win conditions of other specializations are. Hence the title. Almost.

Right now my project is to pull out a DEWz win (again 3 rune, as it will be for at least a 3rd win after this - a bit more on 3s next). DEWz seems much more difficult than a stereotypical MiFi, though it's been more engaging and definitely satisfying to grow from magic darts and imps to a controlling, area-powerful, multi-elemental cloud wizard with a spectral weapon for the dirty stuff. Again this one worships Gozag, a deity I've found to be extremely powerful despite initial dislike and misunderstanding. So far, for the glory of gold, he's made it through Dungeon 15 and given me a decent indication that a pure wizard is a viable game winner.

So that's 2 variants down, one in practice, one in theory. 1, a big bad Minotaur with every point in STRENGTH! 2, a wise wizard Deep Elf with every point in INTELLIGENCE! But who is 3? Who is the Third Aspect? A hearty hooded Halfling? A gnarly nimble Spriggan? A clandestine coated Vampire? Someone to put every point in DEXTERITY!

Vampire or another advanced race choice would be ideal to complete the thematic 3s: 3 race categories, 3 attributes, 3 playstyles, 3 runes, 3 wins.

But what does a dexterity based character really look like? What is their main quality, where fighting and spellcasting are the others? Stealth right? But how does a stealthy character win? It's all fun and games to stab some goblins, orcs and ogres in their sleep in the first few dungeon levels. But how do you deal with the awake and aware, the strong and seeking, the mystical and magical? How do you raid a vault full of vigilant knights? How do you deal with an orb of fire, a Lord of Pandemonium?

Help me complete my quest to find the Third Aspect! To win with 3! To build a foundation upon which even greater victories may be earned!

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TL;DR: How many core specializations are there? Fighter, Wizard and Assassin, to mirror the primary stats: Strength, Intelligence and Dexterity? What is the win condition for each?

Fighter and Wizard are a little more obvious. I'm really looking to fill in the Third Aspect, whatever it may be.

useful__rpg__classes_chart_by_halgalaz-da8uwfv.jpeg (78.55 KiB) Viewed 5423 times

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[bel]

You are right to suspect that a pure "stealth" character is hard to play in Crawl. The normal way is to combine stealth with Hexes for stabbing. So the "third playstyle" you're looking for would correspond to something like SpEn or VpEn. You can put all your points in Dex if you want, though Int is also useful on these kinds of characters.

A "pure" character is not necessarily the most powerful or even the most fun to play. But you can do it if you feel it's fun.

[tasonir]

I'd normally consider the third type to be ranged weapon characters; which generally fall on the middle of the left side of your triangle, so it might not feel like a full "rogue". They also aren't really pure dexterity characters in crawl either; but there are no pure dexterity characters in crawl. You can see the stats for backgrounds on this page: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Stats

While there's backgrounds that get 0 int or 0 strength (and Wz/Be even gets -1 str/int respectively) and up to either 10 int or 9 strength, all backgrounds get a "medium" amount of dexterity as their second stat. The range is always between 3 and 7, with the max of 7 being the monk background (which is a melee background with a bonus to god piety).

That being said, ranged combat mechanics are at least a fully viable third combat method that's different from spells and melee. It isn't "dexterity" as a pure concept, but neither are stabbers (you're a warrior mage who uses magic to disable monsters for a stab). Dexterity is important for stealth, but it's also important for EV and accuracy; all characters use dexterity a fair amount.

I'd personally recommend something like a CeHu who uses bows. You'll want a backup melee weapon to help conserve arrows, but you can use arrows for most fights without having to worry too much about running out, and it's an easy combo for newer players. Okawaru is the default god choice, although plenty of others are viable.

Some basics: You're faster than normal speed monsters, so running away is easy. Your AC/EV starts out quite low, but eventually you'll get a centaur barding (Okawaru is also likely to gift you one) and can start training armor skill to get high AC. Wear heavy armor (plate, heavier dragon items, CPA if you can find it). Your EV will never be that great, but some dodging skill later on will get you a few points. Mostly train bows, fighting, and armor (in that order). Get some skill in a melee weapon once you're reasonably skilled with bows and fighting. Okawaru needs only a little invocations skill for finesse, when you have the time.

[VeryAngryFelid]

There is also arcane marksman background which combines ranged combat with dirty tricks like slow and inner flame.
Probably the closest Dex-based character in crawl is SpEn who wins at XL 12 or so, it kills some monsters via stabbing and later avoids damage by stealth, EV, speed and Confusion spell.

[chippings]

I'm taking the comments to heart, and still mulling things over. Something that throws a wrench into the rule of 3s is the categorization of classes into five groups.

Warrior
Warrior-mage
Mage

Zealot
Adventurer

Nothing jumps out as DEXTERITY based on these categorizations, only strength, intelligence, both, or ambivalent. Everyone can make use of dexterity, but not as a priority.

There are only really two classes that can be linked to dexterity through the stabbing mechanic. Assassin, under warrior categorization, and Enchanter, under warrior-mage categorization.

It got me thinking why does dexterity even exist as a stat? I mean it's hardly even present. Hard to see why --

Hard... To see...

Maybe a connection is there. Hidden. And it's not just about the stealth and stabbing, no. It's about things that aren't apparent, things ignored or overlooked without paying close attention.

What is one left with when one uncovers the veil of the pure warrior, the pure mage? What is 5 without these 2? It is the last of the 3.

It is the wanderer, the zealot, the stabber, the artificer. It is the things betwixt: all the tools at one's disposal that didn't catch the eye before. It is those 58 wand charges. It is the god ability that went overlooked. It is the skills that are never trained. It is reaction. It is adaptability. It is DEXTERITY.

True, no one is without it entirely. Just as the warrior still read scrolls and evoked items. Just as the mage still incited his spectral weapon to melee combat. But some understand it more deeply: the power unseen.

I think it makes the most sense to build a stabber, since stabbing is what benefits most from Dexterity. But pureness is not single-mindedness. It is clarity of vision. Doing everything possible to specialize, focus, maximize the build.

I think in overcoming this final challenge, finishing the three aspects, I will have prepared as much as possible for the extended game.

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[damerell]

But what does a dexterity based character really look like?

Probably like they're playing in 0.14-or-whenever, when dexterity was better (relatively speaking; edited for clarity, thank you duvessa.)

Slightly more seriously; kitty? You'll end up with a lot of Dex even if you don't take Dex-ups, you'll do a lot of sneaky stabbing, and you will of necessity both cast spells and bash monsters.

[duvessa]

dexterity hasnt changed in any substantive way since 0.6

strength has been buffed obviously but that's all

[Sprucery]

Slightly more seriously; kitty? You'll end up with a lot of Dex even if you don't take Dex-ups, you'll do a lot of sneaky stabbing, and you will of necessity both cast spells and bash monsters.

Make it a FeBe so you won't feel bad about not raising Int for spellpower :) You can go Dex all the way (you won't need Str for armour, not getting Str for damage is a malus though I guess).

[VeryAngryFelid]

Am I the only one who feels like stat raising might be more interesting if damage of some weapons depended on Dex only? Heavy armour or higher damage for Ce with bows? Bows might be less similar to crossbows.
Some weapons might be buffed because they cannot be effectively used in heavy armour. Basically light/middle armour would be more viable even without spells.

[svendre]

Try using the god Ash with your stabby character. It won't make a dex based stabber run perfectly, but it goes a long ways towards facilitating that playstyle. Dex used to add damage for small weapons, but that was changed (with what seems to be little regard for game balance or understanding what purpose it served to begin with.) Strength weighting should have been amplified, not removed. There are a number of frustrating issues that players keep circling around to rediscover. You could try playing a much older version of crawl.

[stickyfingers]

Spriggan under Trog or Oka using needle stabs would be as close to a pure Dex character as is viable in this game. Needles are rare, so ammo-gifting god is preferred, but can be used to incapacitate almost every foe in the game except constructs and undead. These often can be stabbed with the help of nets or wands, so probably only orbs of fire have to be handled differently, like with Trog's Brothers In Arms or attack wands.

[Cornercat]

Crawl is weird in that theres no real pure Dexterity character, as others have said. Instead it kind of splits, so rather that a Triangle as show in your picture, we have a Trapezoid with two Dex based corners close together and the Str/ Int corners far apar, Something like this (forgive bad ascii art, idk how to make it work without dashes):
--------________________
-------/ Dex/Str-;-Int/Dex\
------/------------------------ \
-----/-------------------------- \
----/---------------------------- \
---/------------------------------ \
--/Str;-------Str / Int;-------Int\
-__________________________
The two main Dex character starts are Monk/ Assassin/ Enchanter and Archer/ Arcane Archer. Monks and Assassins that focus on stabbing mostly play the same, one gets early needles and the other bonus piety but both are almost always going to eventually go for Hexes if they are stabbers. Its just not viable not to imho. This makes them Dex/ Int hybrids if they go for Hexes, or Dex/ Str hybrids if they switch to Longswords to focus on melee.

For Archer/ Arcane Archer its largely the same. Going pure Dex doesn't make sense, Archers scale well with Str and honestly Archers need portal projectile. This makes them Dex/ Str/ Int hybrids leaning more towards Int and Str. Other character types just make passive use for Dex.

The closest "pure" Dex character in today's Crawl, is probably a Spriggan (or Felid if masochist) Monk of Dithmenos (I would still highly recommend Hexes). Basically, you rely on movement speed and bonuses to stealth to get stabs in more reliably.

The funnest take on a Dex character, is probably Halfling (or Demonspawn) Longsword wielding Monk of the Wu'Jian Council. Halflings are small so they get EV bonuses and thematically fit a "pure" Dex character better because of it. Demonspawn gets loads of aux attacks and can be funner because of random mutations, but get 1 less Dex if thats important to you. Wu'Jian because you attack while moving and can backflip from walls. Its also really fun to stab as Wu'Jian imho. Halflings get the added bonus of +2 Shortsword apt, so they can duo train in Shortswords and Longswords without much extra experience invested.

[duvessa]

Try using the god Ash with your stabby character. It won't make a dex based stabber run perfectly, but it goes a long ways towards facilitating that playstyle. Dex used to add damage for small weapons, but that was changed (with what seems to be little regard for game balance or understanding what purpose it served to begin with.)

Not this again.

In the absolute best case - quick blades - dexterity added ONE FOURTH the damage that strength does now. To increase a quick blade's effective mean base damage by 20% of its base value, you would need to increase your dexterity by 31.2. And that's the best case - every other weapon was more weighted towards strength. Not to mention that a quick blade's base damage is 5, so you're increasing your dexterity by more than 30 to get an equivalent benefit to ONE more point of base damage.
The most dex-weighted weapons that weren't short blades or whips (long sword, scimitar, katana, spear, lajatang) needed +44.6 dexterity to get the same +20%. It took "only" +22 strength to get the same benefit for those weapons.

Dexterity never contributed significantly to melee damage. Ever.

[svendre]

Try using the god Ash with your stabby character. It won't make a dex based stabber run perfectly, but it goes a long ways towards facilitating that playstyle. Dex used to add damage for small weapons, but that was changed (with what seems to be little regard for game balance or understanding what purpose it served to begin with.)

Not this again.

In the absolute best case - quick blades - dexterity added ONE FOURTH the damage that strength does now. To increase a quick blade's effective mean base damage by 20% of its base value, you would need to increase your dexterity by 31.2. And that's the best case - every other weapon was more weighted towards strength. Not to mention that a quick blade's base damage is 5, so you're increasing your dexterity by more than 30 to get an equivalent benefit to ONE more point of base damage.
The most dex-weighted weapons that weren't short blades or whips (long sword, scimitar, katana, spear, lajatang) needed +44.6 dexterity to get the same +20%. It took "only" +22 strength to get the same benefit for those weapons.

Dexterity never contributed significantly to melee damage. Ever.

I like how you truncated my posting right at: "Strength weighting should have been amplified, not removed."... and then proceeded to talk about how the effect wasn't enough.

[duvessa]

You were obviously trying to sell the removal of strength weighting as a significant nerf to dexterity / buff to strength. It wasn't.

And increasing the effect of strength weighting instead of removing it was a horrible idea then and is still a horrible idea now.

[Siegurt]

I like how you truncated my posting right at: "Strength weighting should have been amplified, not removed."... and then proceeded to talk about how the effect wasn't enough.

So a point that got skipped over here was that even in the *best case* (Quickblades) Dex was only ever *equal to* strength, in all non-quickblade cases, Dexterity had a smaller effect than strength on damage, so amplifying the old effect would have not improved the situation (it was not, and still would not be, ever useful to take dexterity for the bonus damage) No changing of any degree of effect could have possibly ever made dexterity meaningful under the old way the stat damage was calculated.

What you would probably want is some *new* effect that would be akin to the old effect (having some sort of per-weapon relationship to which stats were better for which types of stats) but which would be meaningful and could have an impact on stat selection.

[svendre]

I like how you truncated my posting right at: "Strength weighting should have been amplified, not removed."... and then proceeded to talk about how the effect wasn't enough.

So a point that got skipped over here was that even in the *best case* (Quickblades) Dex was only ever *equal to* strength, in all non-quickblade cases, Dexterity had a smaller effect than strength on damage, so amplifying the old effect would have not improved the situation (it was not, and still would not be, ever useful to take dexterity for the bonus damage) No changing of any degree of effect could have possibly ever made dexterity meaningful under the old way the stat damage was calculated.

What you would probably want is some *new* effect that would be akin to the old effect (having some sort of per-weapon relationship to which stats were better for which types of stats) but which would be meaningful and could have an impact on stat selection.

Yes, thank you. That definitely reflects the essence of the sentiment.

[Cornercat]

Didn't think of it before, but isn't there a 4th aspect win condition? Isn't game still winnable by pacifying everything via Elyvilon? So 4th aspect is piety. Just thought that the god choice was relevant to the "pures" chart of Crawl if someone ever decided to make one (I really want a 4d pures chart of Crawl now). Dex aspect is primarily stealth stabbing/ avoiding unneeded encounters (ninja the Runes maybe). Str aspect is killing things in melee. Int aspect is solving encounters with spells. Piety aspect is solving encounters with god powers. This wraps up aspect win conditions simply

For those that don't like the Evylion case: Nemelex Xobeh is another valid example of a piety pure (also of Evocations rather than Invocations) imho.

[damerell]

For those that don't like the Evylion case: Nemelex Xobeh is another valid example of a piety pure (also of Evocations rather than Invocations) imho.

Nemelex uses Invo now.

[Cornercat]

For those that don't like the Evylion case: Nemelex Xobeh is another valid example of a piety pure (also of Evocations rather than Invocations) imho.

Nemelex uses Invo now.

Thats honestly is probably for the best. Also explains why my last Formicid Artificer wasn't doing much damage with Nemelex.