Playing Smart - Mennas

[BountyHunterSAx]

So I've reached the part of the game where I'm super-powerful, right? I'm XL:20, on D:20, with 3 runes - ready to push my way into Zot soon and just traveling down. I'm playing a VpWz, and have comfortable Lv8 Summon spells (spec'd out as a summoner) with Sif Muna. I'm feeling good- still playing cautious though- descend a staircase with a few abominations around me

Mennas is staring at me.

Well, I've learned a thing or two about Crawl in my months of playing -- one of those things is to NEVER think you can take out Mennas without a very good reason to do so. Narrow corridors, next to a staircase, on a mostly unknown floor? Nope, let's try another staircase. SO I re-ascend and try another staircase...

Mennas is staring at me.

Seriously! The two up-staircases are right next to each other, just like 6 spaces apart or so, but with hallways blocking my vision. At the very least, the orc-high priest I'd seen earlier is dead now (likely due to my summons that i left behind). But dat Mennas; in these halls? Never gonna happen. Okay, there's a third staircase, right? Let's try for that. Go upstairs, try to find the third staircase...

There isn't. And I don't just mean like there's 2-separate areas or something. No, I check all the down-staircases two floors up, FIND the two separate areas, and there's just no third-down staircase. I decide to try a scroll of magic mapping... and there isn't one. Seroiusly - not one left in the entire dungeon. I'd only used one thusfar; but apparently I only had one...bummer. So I guess I have to go back downstairs.


And *THIS* is why I am no longer a newbie.

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I researched the spell Dig, and *systematically* dug out the ENTIRE bloody D:19 floor. First for the large black-spaces. Then for the smaller ones. Then for anything which had a 3-tile long space.

Turns out there was a *literally* two-space isolated segment with a down staircase. So I take it...


And Mennas's corona-aura is on the edge of my vision. We're just a few squares further away. I briefly considered going elsewhere; but NO... that just wouldn't work now would it? So what's the new plan?

Simple: stay on the stairs, dance around him with a cloud of abominations, and dig away these tunnels! Careful "kiting" allowed me to get aorund him till I had at least a 5x5 hall to fight him in.

Twenty abomination-swarm later, we mass- bum rushed him with me standing on the stairs. He died. I could escape at any time if the fight went awry. And I had mutliple pots of healing in case of confusion.

End result? I win. Now *that's* how you deal with Mennas blocking your way.

-AHMAD

[Rast]

Why not teleport away from him and come back at XL:27?

[sir_laser]

That was a bloody good story - but probably not the most efficient way to deal with Mennas. Reading that ?MagicMap on D:20 for a down stair and skipping that level would probably have been the most efficient solution.

[mageykun]

Wow. Just wow. That's not so much how to kill Mennas as it is stubborn determination not to be caught in a disadvantaged situation. Bravo.

In future emergencies where all three downstairs are blockaded by one nasty? That's when risking a down-hatch starts to become a good idea. Or reading a scroll of tele first, then ducking down.

Real secret to killing Menas though? Play a dextrous heavy armour shields and demon trident Mino of Oka with a rod of ice. At least, that's been my experience. XD

[BountyHunterSAx]

So - the problem is: I didn't have a magic map...it was already used up. I'd only found one in the process of doing the whole dungeon, and it was for safe-clearing of Vault:8 with my CtrlTeleport.

The reason I didn't skip the floor is because there's a damn good chance I'd end up getting screwed over on my ascension with the Orb. As this game is coming hot on the heels of my first win and I'm not eager to try post-game content yet (rather than get a 2nd win not-quite-in-a-row), I don't think leveling up to Lvl27 would be viable. In Swamp:5, I used blink scrolls and teleport to dodge around the Lernaen Hydra, snag the rune and get out much -- its not like skipping is a strategy I never employ. The other thing is, given my intended build, I'm not likely to become much more powerful than I am now; so coming back later would likely mean facing the exact same situation with slightly more hp.

I had a stable situation now --- so if I could win the fight, now was the time to do it.

-AHMAD

[Blade]

There is absolutely no situation in which digging out an entire floor can be considered "playing smart."

Cool story, though.

[BountyHunterSAx]

Digging out the entire floor wasn't the part that was smart, but insisting on finding the third way down rather than taking the risk of random-warping a bloodless vampire on an unknown floor was. That moment where I pulled back and decided that it was worth taking my dear-sweet time to think of a proper plan rather than rush in half-assed, and the time I dedicated rather than rushing in was what qualifies as playing smart.

-AHMAD

[Deimos]

There is absolutely no situation in which digging out an entire floor can be considered "playing smart."

Cool story, though.

Not really "playing dumb" either, because you really have nothing to lose other then triggering the timer.

[tormodpwns]

Playing dumb is using Slimify on an OgAs and dying in 3 hits before realizing that Mennas is neither living nor undead.