Is the Labyrinth worth a visit ?

[Herode2]

Gentlemen,

After a whole bunch of tries and failures (lets say 150+ characters lost in pain at XP <12, at least), I've managed to lead a SpEn alive to XP11 to D:11 and so on. All right, I understand you are not impressed at all but still, it's my very best move since I first played DCSS a few month ago. Moreover it has also been a lucky Spriggan who found some valuable artifacts thanks to 2 scrolls of acquirement.

Clochette.txt

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Now, I've thrown my character into the Labyrinth (gate at D:9) and I'm crawling into that awful maze. My question is : is the Labyrinth worth the time we spend searching for the exit door and the treasure/monster keeping it from foolish adventurers ? I mean, crawling in the Labyrinth is really slow, difficult and, to my opinion, absolutely boring. If the retribution or the probability of a good retribuition, a useful one for a SpEn of course, is low, I will consider the option of cheating and quitting this Lab.

So, what's your opinion on this vault ? Do you avoid it ? Or how do you play it ?

[KoboldLord]

Assuming you can take the minotaur at the end, the Labyrinth itself is quick and easy loot. The real challenge is getting to it in time, since you often cannot afford to safely navigate your way across the level to the portal in the span of time provided. Generally speaking, once you're inside you can just stick to the right- or left-hand wall and get to the center eventually. The walls do very occasionally shift, but this almost never actually affects a part of the maze that matters. The trick is knowing that the exit is always in the metal part, which is surrounded by a layer of stone, which in turn is surrounded by rock. On the moment of entry you can usually tell at a glance which direction the exit is in because the edge of constant features, like the map edge or a vault, deforms the maze in a predictable manner.

[mageykun]

Edit: ninja-ed! Eh, whatevs.

Unless you're weak enough that you're afraid of getting killed by the minotaur (a SpEn really shouldn't be- just stab him. Or hibernate, then stab if you fail the stealth check. You're only really in trouble if he sees you from far away and has a good wand) or if you're worried about doing the maze (fast metabolism, no food, or teleportisis) labyrinths are worth doing. There's a guaranteed pile of loot at the end (and sometimes some along the way) that's not too hard to get to. Some people really hate them and find them tedious though.

Strategy: It's a maze. Somewhere is the exit vault. The walls serve as a sort of hot-cold indicator- as you get closer to the exit the walls change (3 types, cold, warm, hot). Not this is based on strait line distance from the exit, not measured along the paths. You use these wall type patterns to get an idea which direction the exit is in, then try and find away around the dead ends, backtracking where necessary (you will sometimes have to backtrack to where the walls are cold to get around dead ends). If you see anything noticeably regular- large rectangles or squares, or anything with a border you can run around, there's a good chance that's the exit vault.

Walls do move and shift (you'll hear a noise when this happens) but don't wait around for a specific dead end you want to open up. It's almost always faster to just find the way around.

The minotaur will (almost always) be standing on the upstairs and the pile of loot (in a few very rare cases I think they're just nearby). It's usually a good idea to kill him fast in case there's a awesome weapon or wand in the pile for him to loot and smack you with after waking up.

Occasionally there are other things in the maze (a hungry ghost, or trapped minotaur zombie) but if you're prepared for the minotaur they're not a threat.

Occasionally there are alternate exits back to the dungeon, or the abyss, for you to bail out if you think there's no hope of finding the real exit. Really though, it's not that hard to navigate, and the abyss is almost certainly a bigger risk at the levels that labyrinths start to appear.

[nago]

I don't know if it's only my impression or a incredible (and almost unbreakable) streak of lucky finding, or there's really some check on the current character before generating the loot, but I usually find really useful gear in Lab that I can use the entire game, so I believe that it's always worth to make a visit inside.
And ok, the loot usually contains every kind of good (jewellery, armour, weapon, staff, wand, books) but most of time I've found amazing randart or most useful wand - so I can't believe there's nothing in the code about that!

[Deimos]

Yea, the Labyrinth is worth it. The Minotaur is a pushover; with a SpEn you probably will instakill him. You will probably find the exit with a single bread ration, and end up with some potentially great items. Every trip to the lab has been useful for me, and like others, I tend to find endgame gear there.

[TwilightPhoenix]

- so I can't believe there's nothing in the code about that!

Now I could be wrong since I haven't looked at the code (and can't read it anyway), but I think there's a few tiers of loot: junk, random, good, and acquirement and perhaps some steps in between. I suspect labyrinths contain some, if not all, good loot, which is usually decent stuff and frequently, but not always, stuff that's useful to your character.

[BlackSheep]

I always go for labyrinths. You stand a very good chance of finding something useful, and your risk is pretty minimal. The biggest cost is real time. If you randomly pick the wrong direction at the start it could take a while to get out.

[Patashu]

I find labyrinths very easy to navigate - once I can see the roundness of the second type of wall, I know exactly where on the map it is and I just have to circle the perimeter looking for paths that could feasibly get into it. The minotaur himself hits quite hard - but this only a problem if you're a combat wombat and don't have any resources other than that. So, just make sure you have a bunch of nets or a wands or something like that.

[Southpaw]

I've never been challenged by the minotard as a melee fighter. Usually just hold in tab and then pick up the free loot.

Ranged people have it fairly easy against him as well as long as they're paying attention as it is pretty simple to just get away from him and deal with him at range

[tormodpwns]

I've found Labyrinths to have become significantly harder recently.

The Minotaur hits hard - much harder than an Orc Warlord, although not quite as sturdy. I've had experiences where the Minotaur 2HKO'd an otherwise extremely powerful character who can tab through the dungeon. Once, the Minotaur picked up some simple steel darts from the loot pile and threw them at me for 10+ damage each hit.

I've found loot to range widely - it's not always good. In fact, I often leave the labyrinth having only picked up one or two items, usually unidentified vanilla jewellery and wands and such. Also, you can't always use all the loot either because there's no code against unwearable armour. You can't wear that randart ring mail as a Troll.

My tips:

-If you have a wand of digging, then prepare to have some fun. If you know in which direction the exit is but you're lost in the rock walls, just dig a new path in the exit direction and chances are high that you will have bypassed a big portion of the maze. This works especially well when you find translucent rock because you can then see exactly where you want to dig. Similarly, you can use LRD to blast your way through stone and metal, although this does take high spell power and (probably) nutrition. If you can pull it off, however, then you have yourself a very nice cheating method.

-If you know you're near the exit but you just can't find it, press "t" + "t" to shout. The Minotaur may shout back ("You hear a bellow!") and seek out your voice, thus revealing the exit.

-If the exit is in some sort of vault, be very careful as you approach. It will be trapped, which DOES include teleportation traps!

[hxy]

I don't want the minotaur to wake up before I reach him and start rummaging through my loot

[Confidence Interval]

I don't know if it's only my impression or a incredible (and almost unbreakable) streak of lucky finding, or there's really some check on the current character before generating the loot, but I usually find really useful gear in Lab that I can use the entire game

I think it must be an impression. I've been in with a heavy armour melee character and found a leather armour, a couple of crappy rings, and lots of staffs and books. I've also gone in as an SpEn and found lots of weapons and armour but nothing I can use.

My impression is that what you find may or may not be useful, and that sometimes there's great stuff that you can't make any use of at all. Like most of Crawl, it's down to the RNG.

In relation to the OP: I've lost decent SpEns to the minotaur. Part of the difficulty is that if you don't get a stab in before it awakes, kiting or running are difficult because sometimes the corridor you came in on has started to disappear and it's possible to back yourself into a corner. If you've a hard-hitting wand and a good LoS then it's not so bad - but the minotaur can kill you quickly in melee (or, as noted above, if s/he picks up something good off the pile of goodies) so beware.

[KoboldLord]

The loot in the minotaur's pile is generated to be more favorable than completely random floor trash, but it is not guaranteed to be useful or even usable. It's better to have a chance of good stuff than no chance of good stuff, but it still isn't guaranteed that you'll get anything of value. Slot-restricted species or character backgrounds that are disinterested in wide classes of items are more likely to be turned away empty-handed, so if you come in with a felid berserker you shouldn't really complain when you don't find anything.

[Herode2]

Very interesting insights, thanks for your many answers gentlemen.

So, you convinced me to go on and keep crawling a while in the Lab - I just hope I'll find the exit before spending another hour IRL or so into that maze

After your contributions, it also looks like that one should enter the Labyrinth with very few items (thus keeping some place to grab and hold the loot he will - hopefully and eventually - find).An I wrong ? Maybe one or two scrolls of ID and the minimum stuff required to process the Minotaur... (I don't know, let say a few healing potions and one of two boosters just in case)
Or do you go there with some other stuff - considering that other things than the Minotaur may haunt the Maze ?

[KoboldLord]

Generally speaking, you should have some open item slots already. If you were already at 52/52 items in your inventory, you shouldn't have entered the level that spawned the labyrinth in the first place without first correcting your inventory problems, whether that means throwing some stuff on the stairwell down or running back to your stash. Inventory weight isn't really a problem, because the loot is literally sitting on the escape hatch that exits the labyrinth, and you can just dump anything heavy immediately on re-entry. Since the minotaur doesn't normally have inventory-destroying attacks, there is negligible chance that anything will happen to your stuff, regardless of whether you drop it before entering or carry it with you.

So, yeah. Anything that might be needed to deal with the minotaur should be carried in with you, and anything that is not at all useful against the minotaur doesn't matter either way.

[BlackSheep]

Just don't dump all your food.

[Herode2]

All right then ! I changed my method for pathfinding (a paper and a pencil can also be magically efficient ^^) and eventually managed to find the door. The sleeping Mino has been stabbed to death by my invisible SpEn so yes, easy match. Loot : 2 wands of digging, a glowing staff and a crystal ball of energy. I guess the crystal ball will be useful although it's very heavy for a Spriggan. Maybe I'll ask for Str+1 when she reaches XP12

[Southpaw]

The Crystal Ball of Energy isn't really that useful IIRC, you should have more reliable methods for channeling energy than it.

See: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... _of_energy and http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php? ... f%20energy

[Blade]

you're right, if by "not all that useful" you mean "arguably the best item in the game"

[crate]

you're right, if by "not all that useful" you mean "arguably the best item in the game"

Pretty sure wucad mu is better for almost anyone, but yes cboe is still good.

[Blade]

well, yes, but wucad mu is far less common. I was talking regular items.

[rebthor]

The Crystal Ball of Energy isn't really that useful IIRC, you should have more reliable methods for channeling energy than it.

See: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... _of_energy and http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php? ... f%20energy

The problem is that people see the cboe as an "emergency button" for when they have no or low mana which is extra bad because of the increased chance of bad effects.

Instead it's safer and more useful to use it as a I just cast a bunch of buffs and now can go wreak havoc with a full mana bar / cast 2 firestorms to killdudes and now I'm back at full mana and don't have to wait around in hell.

The bad effects can all be avoided with waiting, potions (curing/mana) and/or clarity.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Indeed. It's best to use the crystal ball before you get below half of your MP. With decent to good evo, you'll instantly refill your mana almost every time. For the occasions it backfires, that's why you carry a Staff of Channeling or worship Sif, ideally the former since you're already investing in evo for the ball.

[ddubois]

I tried the crystal ball and hated it. So much more reliable to go upstairs and hit 5. But then, I do play Spriggans, and I haven't gone into Pandamonium or Hell or Abyss yet, so my perspective is probably skewed.

[Patashu]

I tried the crystal ball and hated it. So much more reliable to go upstairs and hit 5. But then, I do play Spriggans, and I haven't gone into Pandamonium or Hell or Abyss yet, so my perspective is probably skewed.

You can't 'go upstairs and hit 5' in pandemonium, hell or the abyss. So, you've picked good places to not have gone to

[mageykun]

Eh, the last time I took a caster spriggan without sif or veh into the endgame, I would just clasp my hands against chest and double over in sublime pain at the sublimation of my own still beating blood through the fragile living barrier of flesh into my mind's mental reservoir. And I would hold hand on heart, pouring life's blood from its deep, beating well until the chalice of my mind did overflow.

It stings, for sure, but it does no permanent harm and any temporary injury is soon assuaged when you pour life once more from your cup of consciousness back through those same cruel hands and warm your chest with the reassuring spreading tingle of necromantic regeneration. And so dose your very well of life and the dark power of death fuel one another, a boundless fount of mana wrought from life and death.

No clumsy crystal necessary.

[Stormfox]

More to the point, Sublimation is a level 2 spell, and no possible miscast effect is as bad as what can happen if you blow your Evocations roll on the ball of energy.

Balls of energy have their place, sure, and if you know how to handle them, they're much more powerful than Sublimation or any other sources of channeling. That power is a calculated risk, though.

[tasonir]

I'm not very good with casters, but it seems to me that a crystal ball of energy is basically like saying "I'm willing to wear an amulet of clarity and a sustain abilities ring in return for infinite mana". It's a pretty interesting choice in that regard, and you could go without the sustain abilities if you were willing to lose one or two points of int, since that won't really do any immediate harm, assuming you have enough int to spare...

So it's great for anyone who doesn't need a neck slot (I consider res mutation pretty much mandatory late game, but then there are undead races and necromutation) and the ring is a fairly easy thing to find...

[crate]

You don't need sustab to use cboe unless you somehow run out of restore abilities. I've used it about 800 or so times on my current HOEE and I still have restab potions left.

[Blade]

no, you can get along without clarity and sustab. You just need to prepare for the negative results (always carry curing, mainly).