Something a little more... interesting.

[FailBot]

So I decided that "easy" combos aren't really easy for me. Crawl seems to be at its heart a game of attention, and as I become more powerful and the game gets easier, I get inattentive, and die from it. The game becomes simply a matter of focus, and hanging on to the end. Harder combos have been forcing me to PLAY harder, and focus more, thus improving my performance even though its more difficult. Last night I ran a TrTm, all of my skills had negative training attributes, but somehow I cleared lair/orc/swamp to the undead vault that was insanity, and died dungeon diving due to not being careful again. I'll post the morgue, but this character got EXTREMELY luck with item drops, 2 rings of slaying and pearl dragon armor as well as robes of MR and a cloak of preservation, and 5 minutes after going Kiku for Necromutation I found a necronomicon. I went Kiku, but it was a really bad choice as it didn't add anything to the game what so ever.

I'm debating on which god to choose. I'm thinking Chei, Malhkeb, or Nemelex. Chei would add stats making spell casting MUCH easier for a troll with sub par intelligence not to mention increased melee damage(Chei seems like a good hybrid god IMO), Mahlkeb would give escape buttons/healing, and Nemelex gives massive utility. Okawaru is another option for Heroism and armor gifts although as an unarmed troll these gifts would be nearly useless. A late game shift to Sif Muna/Kiku may be in order if I'm contemplating extended content for spells, depending on what I have found. There have only been 3 wins with this combo, hyperbolic did it with Evylion which I never even considered, and the other two were with Okawaru.

Skills are another problem entirely. NOTHING I train has even a neutral aptitude, so experience is incredibly tight and has to be managed properly. My general order of skills, one at a time to get them to competent as quickly as possible is TM(to 10-12) ->UC/Fighting(for the rest of the game) -> Spellcasting(only when I feel I NEED slots/MP). Should I train dodging? Shields seems pointless because of forms. I trained necromancy with the intention of getting Necromutation but never used a single necromancy spell, so I can free up some extra XP, are there any other skills I should pick up? Charms or Ice might have been useful as I could cast Deflect Missels or Summon Ice Beast/Ozocubu's Armor.

Questions:
What god/why?
Skill order?
Does Condensation shield stack with Forms?
Should I be focusing on other forms except Blade Hands? Statue Form? Dragon Form?
How viable is poison kiting with Spider form?

Off to play test! Morgue below:
http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/0.9/FailBot/morgue-FailBot-20110912-180527.txt

[thevogonpoet]

Well my best TrTm didn't get quite as far as yours, so feel free to ignore this, but I don't understand why you want so much Transmut skill, and so little unarmed combat. I have been going unarmed first, then more unarmed until skill level 10ish, then empasising unarmed whilst switching on Transmut and Spellcasting - the only spells I was using for ages were Distillation and Evap.

My only dilemma (until I got teleported into the middle of a vault literally full of orcs and orc warriors with reaching weapons which killed me before my escape teleport kicked in, honestly, one square was empty of orcs, and thats where I got teled to)) has been how to deal with Hydras.

As for the Gods, I had no idea, so I went Okie, and got given a lovely little +2 cap to wear

[RFHolloway]

I think my mistake with this is leaving fighting , unarmed, spell casting and trans all on from the start - I struggle to get blade hands castable. Would going Ash help with the training?

I quite like Yred - if thats the one that allows making zombies - you can carry everything you can't eat down to the next level and animate it there.

[bobross419]

Oki is actually a pretty decent god for unarmed Trolls. Hero and Finesse greatly improve your damage potential and you have even better chances of getting armor with good bonuses (I was rocking +11 slay for a while), not to mention that he will eventually gift you a strong non-slashing weapon to be used against Hydra

Is Tm really worthwhile for a Troll? It seems that the damage bonus from Blade Hands isn't all that much more than just claws alone... is it worth the skill points invested in Tm? I would think that pumping Charms for Haste would be more beneficial.

[FailBot]

The rush is to evaporate and then blade hands as quickly as possible, and then UC to get your damage up, and hopefully a little more TM to get to ice form for hyrdas and such by the time you get to lair. This isn't a matter of "most effective" this is a matter of intentionally selling yourself short in order to force you to analyze your choices, and optimize the sub-optimal.

[hayenne]

Is Tm really worthwhile for a Troll? It seems that the damage bonus from Blade Hands isn't all that much more than just claws alone... is it worth the skill points invested in Tm?

I've seen Statue Form troll performance. The melee damage that beast was delivering was the highest I EVER saw during my 2.5 years of Crawl experience. Pan lords went down in a couple of hits.

[fspades]

Is Tm really worthwhile for a Troll? It seems that the damage bonus from Blade Hands isn't all that much more than just claws alone... is it worth the skill points invested in Tm?

I've seen Statue Form troll performance. The melee damage that beast was delivering was the highest I EVER saw during my 2.5 years of Crawl experience. Pan lords went down in a couple of hits.

Which brings us the question: Wouldn't a TrEE be better for that?

[KoboldLord]

Which brings us the question: Wouldn't a TrEE be better for that?

Not really. Statue Form isn't in either starting book, so you have to find it, and the earth elementalist starting book is mostly direct damage. Trolls don't really have the aptitudes in any kind of magic to keep up in the direct damage race, so you're mostly going to play a melee type that occasionally casts a spell to kill runners. In contrast, Evaporate runs just fine off minimal skill investment, and it shuts down exactly the kinds of tricksy opponents that give melee trolls fits. A troll stalker would do just as well.

[cerebovssquire]

On the other hand, the TrEE book has spells like Lee's Rapid Deconstruction or Stone Arrow that provide you with more than the abilities to smash people's faces in at melee, plus an escape spell: Passwall, which can really be used quite decently, and a self-buff with Stoneskin. You will probably want about 13 Earth for Statue Form so these will be castable, plus the apt is quite decent at -1. I'd not say it's really worse.
Consider that these spells will be much easier to spam than, say, MDEE because despite abysmal spellcasting, you can just eat to your heart's delight.
Plus, it gives you opportunities to train both Earth and Transmutations.
TrTm is of course still a great choice for a troll like this... Evaporate is just so overpowered.