So, I'm terrible at crawl...

[spillover]

I've been playing since .8, and I've noticed something: with every successive trunk update I seem to get worse instead of better. I'm not precisely sure what it is, I can typically get a dude to XL 7-ish before I either get careless or else brutally violated by the RNG. When I first started, I usually could clear lair or the mines, and I've gotten a handful of runes here and there. Now it's like I throw 100 guys at Crawl and one of them makes it to the Lair. I felt like I was making progress, but it feels like difficulty is getting ratcheted up faster than I can learn.

I've watched games online, but you guys are quick, blitzing through the dungeon like its nothing. I can't really follow people's train of thought when I can't see them stop and ponder their potions or scrolls momentarily before deciding on a wand which they angle so that it kills erolcha and nikola in one shot.

So, a few questions:

When should I ID my scrolls/potions?

Usually I'll train a "tentative" weapon class up to level 5 or so, then hold out for a good find (Eveningstar, randart, whatever). When is XP sunk into a weapon school too much to justify reskilling b/c OMFG LOOK THE SWORD OF JIHAD!

Also, I usually pick a ranged weapon school and stick with it. I'm always super indecisive though. Slings are widely available but lose punch. Needles seem situational. Besides ammo I can't see tons of difference between bows and crossbows. Help me decide!

I use manual skill training, is there a certain order I should be prioritizing skills in, like: stealth to 5 then weapons/magic then dodging/armor?

Thanks in advance.

Also, I hate bees, hydras, several uniques, and my own hubris.

That is all.

[Konebred]

I feel yah my brotha. My biggest problem is I just get at a loss what to do around lair, especially with a promising character. I usually memorize too many different types of spell levels or just get bored with melee and try and push myself too far.

[greepish]

I've started making guides-by-level at crawl wiki here: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... r_Building (mid and late game as well)

This should tell you how to skill.

[hxy]

Slings are actually quite good if you train it up. Enchant all the steel bullets you find and they should last a long time.

[tormodpwns]

When should I ID my scrolls/potions?

Quaff potions as soon as you find them. It sucks to die with unidentified potions of heal wounds in your inventory. Later on (as in much later on, around the Vaults), it may be worth using scrolls of identify on new potions so you know when you've found potions of strong poison, cure mutation, decay, and the like.

I usually wait until I have 5-7 types of scrolls before I start identifying them. This increases your chances of finding remove curse if you were to accidentally curse a vital equipment slot (most notably blunt weapons). Also, having more scrolls helps you identify !identify and !remove curse because those two are very common. Again, later on, it may be worth identifying new scrolls to conserve rare scrolls like EW III and holy word.

Usually I'll train a "tentative" weapon class up to level 5 or so, then hold out for a good find (Eveningstar, randart, whatever). When is XP sunk into a weapon school too much to justify reskilling b/c OMFG LOOK THE SWORD OF JIHAD!

I recommend just picking a weapon class at level 1 and just stick with it. By the time you find a really good weapon, it may already be the Lair and 5 skill isn't going to cut it. For low-level players I woulda recommend taking up axes (plentiful and easy to upgrade) or long blades (cross training with short blades). But regardless of which you choose, you should search for runed daggers and the like early on to find good brands likes venom and electrocution. Just dont train short blades, unless you're a Kobold looking to branch into long blades (and only in this situation!) Of course, if you find a really good weapon EARLY ON it might be worth switching weapon schools (quick blades, lajatangs, exec axes, double swords, etc.)

Also, I usually pick a ranged weapon school and stick with it. I'm always super indecisive though. Slings are widely available but lose punch. Needles seem situational. Besides ammo I can't see tons of difference between bows and crossbows. Help me decide!

I rarely use ranged weapons simply because of the experience investment. Throwing a few items early game is enough. If you're really interested, though, read this: Sling do NOT lose their punch later on. With a vorpal sling and enchanted steel sling bullets, you can take down Zot:5 foes. Needles are only worth using early on because to get the good effects (paralysis) later in the game, you need huge investments in Throwing skill. Pick up poisoned and curare needles early, and stop using them after Lair. Actually curare might be worth keeping but remember it's negated by rPois.

I'm not an expert on bows/crossbows, but here is what I can say: bolts come in silver and steel flavours, which is awesome in the late game. Arrows dsont have this. I think a longbow does more damage though and has faster attack speed. But I'm no expert at bows so don't trust me on this.

I use manual skill training, is there a certain order I should be prioritizing skills in, like: stealth to 5 then weapons/magic then dodging/armor?

For melee, I would turn off all skills except weapon school, and train that to 90-100% delay. Then, train Dodging/Armour to 5-6, then get Fighting to 5-6. Then, get your delay to minimum and then do whatever the game leads you to. Of course, pick up spells along the way and get your spells to a maximum failure of 30%.

For spellcasters, I usually get Spellcasting to 3 for the extra mana (unless I'm playing a wizard). Then, get up your weapon schools until your strong damage spell is reliable (sticky flame, icicle, LRD, lightning bolt). Then get some Dodging.

It's trickier for hybrids, but I recommend focusing more on melee skills first with spellcasting at a minimum, because hybrids (warper, skald, etc.) rely on melee for damage.

Whatever your character is, get T&D to 5 by mid-Lair (unless you're an Ashenzari worshipper) and enough Invocations to get important abilities to a reasonable failure rate.

[dk]

I usually clear the first 3 or 4 dungeon levels, then I try all 'blue' weapons/armour to find a good one to stick with some time. If I hit some cursed weapon, I start trying armour, then rings etc.

Then I start IDing scrolls. By the time, you should have some remove curse/enchant weapon/enchant armour to get rid of cursed stuff.

Then quaff all types of potions. !Mutation/!Cure Mutation should be rare. Later on, I always check which potions are already identified (hit '\', it's super usefull) before drinking a unidentified one, but I usually use a ?ID (some goes for scrolls).

[srulz]

In my experiences, you should only quaff-ID potions with quantities of 3 or more (potions of mutation do exist in stacks of 2), and the rest would be safe to quaff-ID (preferably just near a stair going down) if you have ID'ed the potion of mutation. Otherwise, just scroll-ID them all.

[Jeremiah]

I was going to post that these days scrolls of amnesia seem rare enough that you might not want to risk wasting them by use-ID. Then I found a stack of 3 on Lair:1 (which is more than I found in the whole of my previous 12-rune game,) so it looks like it was just coincidence...

[banei]

After I find healing and heal wounds (usually when I have four or five vs 1 or two of the others), I wait before id'ing the others. Each time I find jewlery, I ID it, and if I have extra identifying choices, I use them on my potions. Also, purchasing known (and unknown!) potions is great. When I hit 5+ identify scrolls, I start IDing potions. Every potion of agility, berserk, invisibility, resistance, and speed are real lifesavers. And cure mutation is rare as hell.

[njvack]

When I hit 5+ identify scrolls, I start IDing potions. Every potion of agility, berserk, invisibility, resistance, and speed are real lifesavers.

Why wait until you have 5 identify scrolls? I'll usually keep one in reserve for jewelry, but knowing !Speed now is better than knowing it later. You might meet Grinder before later happens.

[tormodpwns]

When should I ID my scrolls/potions?

Quaff potions as soon as you find them.

This is extremely bad advice, and it sticks out very strangely in an otherwise good post. Potion of mutation exist; blurry vision, berserkitis, etc are just as crippling in the early game as they are later. Furthermore, you'll be wasting your good potions - not just cure mutation, but if you quaff that speed potion to identify it you won't have it to use in combat.

Scrolls are much more disposable, in general. Unlike potions none of them have particularly bad effects when read, and the only especially valuable one is blinking. You should generally read-ID your scrolls quite early, maybe as soon as you find them. When you get identify scrolls, use them on potions in preference to other scrolls.

(Note: this is not just a personal opinion. All the "top" players follow this pretty closely.)

Wow I really didn't know that! I thought quaff-ID'ing immediately was what everyone did, but I guess not...

In my opinion, identifying potions is nice but there aren't enough ID scrolls early on to ID all your potions. It's easy enough to determine curing, but that's about it. True, if I quaff a potion of speed then I won't have it for later. But if you're fighting an Ogre and you see 2 fizzy red potions and 2 blue potions in your inventory, which one are you going to quaff? One might be speed but the other might be paralysis. That's literally life and death, but if you had quaff-ID's speed earlier you would know that your 1 remaining blue potion is speed.

It is true that rare stuff like cure mutation can pop up in the early game. But is it really worth burning ID scrolls for that low chance? You'll end up identifying degeneration and agility instead, which are nice to know but you could have saved a scroll by just quaff-ID'ing it. There should be enough curing and heal wounds to get you through early-game threats.

I agree that mutation sucks, but if I get something REALLY crippling (like berserkitis, teleportitis, etc.) I'll just leave the dungeon (not much time wasted), or spam mutations (via potion or mutagenic chunks) to try and remove it.

[TwilightPhoenix]

By the time the Ogres show up, you should have some way to deal with them. And if you don't, then you run. If you need a potion you haven't IDed yet to beat an Ogre and have no other alternatives, then trying to fight it anyway is asking for a YASD.

Also, if you're a low HP race, it's possible to die outright from quaff IDing Decay at very low levels and Poison and Strong Poison can kill tougher characters. Happened to me on a Felid once when I was checking a stack of seven what I thought were healing. Plus for the crippling mutations, as Minmay would say, there's players who try to win every time they play. Not to mention having to leave the dungeon because you got a bad mutation is as annoying as an early death.

And yes, it's worth burning ID scrolls for that low chance because it's rare for more than two or three Cure Mut potions to spawn during a regular 3-rune run and not many more beyond that without scumming Pan or Abyss.

[spillover]

Thanks for all the input everybody. No sooner had I completed this kinda maudlin -styled post, than I managed to get my current XL-7 MiBe really rolling. I finally got 3 runes and succesfully escaped the Abyss (without the rune, unfortunately). I've never had a character capable of so utterly curbstomping a pack of ettins, and honestly it's a bit . I'm parked outside of Zot, and without getting too CIP (as there's another part of the forum for that) what should I expect/how do I not die?

Also Mara is on d:26, I ran away. I did hulk out & kill my clone though. Is it worth murdering Mara now so that I don't have to potentially deal with him on the way back with the orb?

Is Zot "one way" in that my runes are consumed when I go in, that is to say is it possible to lock myself out?

I really am surprised more than anything else. I've splatted stabber after wizard after transmuter, and yet as soon as I open my mouth to complain about it I'm farther than ever and suddenly poised to win. That's some WTF Zen stuff right there.

Also, I'm still not really sure how I should be picking a ranged weapon. Aptitudes? An early ammo windfall? A good randart? Usually unless I'm packing serious magic I'll unload on the enemy with ranged while he approaches, then finish him off in melee. Advice seems to be to focus more on Melee b/c ranged is an unnecessary XP sink once you've got a demon whip or something, but honestly this seems a bit counterintuitive.

Anyway thanks again, I really do appreciate the input!

OH, one more thing, I've got a trove that wants a +5+6 demonblade, and I've got a +3+4 one I'm not gonna use. Trog's been throwing awesome swords at me. Is it worth burning all my enchant scrolls to get into the trove or do I use them instead on the holy-branded double sword I'm using?

[hxy]

You can go between Zot & Dungeon easily once you've unlocked it with 3 runes, no restrictions on travel.

I'd spend the enchant scrolls to enter the trove. You won't always find things that you need, but more choice is always better than less.

As for Mara... you can always berserk and run right?
By the time you can clear V:8 he's usually not a problem...

[Herode2]

When should I ID my scrolls/potions?

Quaff potions as soon as you find them.

This is extremely bad advice, and it sticks out very strangely in an otherwise good post. Potion of mutation exist; blurry vision, berserkitis, etc are just as crippling in the early game as they are later. Furthermore, you'll be wasting your good potions - not just cure mutation, but if you quaff that speed potion to identify it you won't have it to use in combat.

+1.

And you forgot potions of degeneration, which ones wasted 2 of my characters when I was using this 'quaff and die' policy. Degeneration is really a pain in the ash, btw, and I remember the first time I struck one : I had 3-4 of those in my inventory and I thought :

many potions of the same type at early levels means healing potions, that's what the Divine Wiki says.

So quaff.

And degenerate.

Happened twice.

Since then, I always always always ID potions. Exception : my character is about to die, then I try random potions : if I'm lucky, all the best, if not, doesn't matter so much...

NB : nevertheless, as many of my fellow brothers here do, I suck at DCSS and most often than not die between XL4 and XL7-8.
Never saw any foocking rune.
But I don't care. I'm atheist, I'm sure they don't exist.

[chessplaya]

I always thought that quaff-id potions was the best method also (I never thought about playing any other way), but it makes sense that it is not, especially since a use-id of heal wounds is often the difference between life and death for me in the early game.

I always use-id scrolls with some (preferably weak) monster in my sight until "scroll of fear" is identified. I guess this is sort of a beginner question, but does amnesia identify on use-id for a player with no spells memorized?

I've started making guides-by-level at crawl wiki here: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... r_Building (mid and late game as well)

Crawl wiki says "Stalkers and Transmuters should get evaporate to excellent and pour the rest into their weapon skill, eventually picking up the rest of their forms if they choose to go that route." I have never played a transmuter like this--in several games as a sludge elf transmuter (and I imagine other transmuters could play similarly) I found the only strategy that lets me reach mid-game is to level the initial 2.5 skills to 3 and then pour everything into transmutation (focused) + spellcasting (unfocused) until blade hands is at least very good (but start using it at fair and use snakes if evaporate or direct combat can't handle something earlier); then switch to unarmed combat (I never use a traditional weapon skill) to improve its effectiveness. This strategy seems to make it absurdly easy to reach midgame with any god, which I'm guessing is part of the reason for removing evaporate for transmuters in 0.10. Any thoughts?

[KoboldLord]

The wiki guides are oversimplified at best and tend towards total insanity when they're not oversimplified, but you should definitely train your weapon skills with transmuters and stalkers. At one point you could get by without intentionally training weapon skills, since they'd still train at a respectable rate even while deactivated, but now that victory dancing is gone you have to put xp there on purpose. Even with the boost of Spider Form and Ice Form, your starting unarmed attacks at low skill are going to be terribly weak.

Yes, you could reach the midgame without training unarmed combat, but that's because Evaporate is insane and can carry the early and middle parts of the game all by itself. Transmuters have lost Evaporate and I wouldn't expect stalkers to keep it any longer than the moment somebody figures out what to do with them once they've lost it. Evaporate is pretty much the whole of the stalker background.

Blade Hands is good, but it's also pretty expensive. Raising unarmed combat 5 skill levels is cheaper in xp, does nearly as much damage per hit, and improves your attack delay. It also doesn't suck up half a corpse chunk worth of nutrition every time you use it, and it doesn't spontaneously cut out on you in the middle of a fight.

[rebthor]

For a Tm, that used to be what I did -> rush to blade hands. Truth be told, if you ignore the other forms, you're definitely missing out though. It's good to get UA to 5 to get the delay down a bit and some more damage.

** Now I see that KoboldLord has posted similar things, so I guess I'm on the right track now with them

[Stormfox]

Ice Form is free poison resistance if you need to munch on some tasty kobold or green rat. And it floats if you need to make an escape across deep water without a wall to cling to.

[Galefury]

I tend to play transmuters as monks with a bit of magic for extra oomph, mostly using spider form, because it is incredibly good while your equipment still sucks (a little less awesome with poison susceptibility, but still incredible). Spider form also lets you run away from most early melee threats if things go bad. Training unarmed is a huge priority early on, because killing stuff gets so much easier if you actually do damage. Once the basic killing proficiency is taken care of I can go towards stronger spells like blade hands, depending on what books I found.

Anyway, the most important thing to learn if you want to get better at crawl is not to fight if you aren't sure you can win or escape. If you try to kill everything all the time, you are going to die as soon as you meet something that is stronger than you and roll some bad numbers. If you are fighting a strong enemy, always have an escape plan. If you don't, don't initiate combat, but run while you still can.