SETm found big rings of slaying and intelligence: which God?

[italo_calvino]

How would you guys proceed here?:

<going to paste my character details once someone tells me how to retrieve a character dump from online Tiles at crawl.develz.org>
<Basically a standard SETm, level 8, standard skills outlay*, who hasn't found Chei shrine yet, except that I also found a +6 ring of intelligence and a frigging +6/+5 ring of slaying and amulet of the gourmand sitting around ... so I can only assume I will be killed horribly very soon, and I'm very concerned about my next choices since I want to stave off the reckoning as long as possible.>

*currently manual for Fighting, Unarmed, Dodging, Transmutation, Spellcasting after having focused it on some things early on to build them up fast.

I usually have picked Cheibriados lately, but ... I know that most expert players consider him a pretty ehh choice (stats are awesome ... but being slow is just so tragic.) Although I tend to deal with it OK. And I was thinking ... since I was incredibly lucky and found the two rings I'm wearing, maybe those will basically take the place of the Chei stat boosts, and I should pick Sif Muna or Kiku?

Just looking for some thoughts either way.

[cerebovssquire]

The two gods I consider to be best for SETm are Okawaru and Makhleb; Okawaru, with Heroism being so great with unarmed combat, gives a better return at low piety levels, while Makhleb seems to be better at high piety levels to me, with his high healing for kills (then again, Finesse...). Either way, you can't go wrong.

I wrote a guide on this, maybe you find it useful. It explains my god choices a bit. I think it has one weakness, and that is that it doesn't really do justice to Ice Form's damage potential, probably I'll edit that. http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... uter_Guide

You may be able to deal with slowness, but the main problem is the lack of Haste. And that can't really be offset.

[One-Eyed Jack]

Okawaru is best. Makhleb is good too. Sif is more of a caster god than a Tm god, and Kiku's strongest power is useful only on weapons (although agony etc are still very nice)

Also, "standard" skill for a Tm is poison/tmut until spider form is at lowish fail then uc exclusively until like 15, then blade hands

[crate]

Good gods for setm in no particular order:

Makhleb, okawaru, fedhas, nemelex, yred, ely, jiyva

You can make others work but those would be my choices and which is best depends on what you want from your god.

I don't like elynae's skill order for setm either. I won't give numbers but in general you should train mostly UC for a while (get enough poison/tmut to cast spider form at ~30% or better fail once you are xl3) and also get some dodging/fighting. One big mistake a lot of players make is going for blade hands too early ... spider form is extremely good for a long time, and ice form is also good.

(also the slow movement speed is a bigger deal for tm of chei than the lack of +50% action speed imo ... the biggest thing haste does is improve your movement speed, after all)

[italo_calvino]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate these thoughts.

How do I clipboard character data from crawl.develz tiles so I can paste it to here, btw?

Yeah, Chei usually got me killed one way or another. You tend to run out of resources that you use up much more quickly in bad situations since you can't run too well. I'm going to miss the carrying capacity though.

I haven't found the Okawaru shrine. I do love Makhleb from using him with deep dwarves.

I found myself using Ice Form (which definitely is awesome in its own right) quite a bit with older SeTMs, which means some of the slots Okawaru fills might not get used when I'm in form, but blade hands is the long-term strategy, I know. Especially with the ring of intelligence I should be able to mostly overcome the casting penalty, at least in terms of the critical spells.

Hmm.

I'll update you guys when I pick something. (or die, you know) Found a Book of Power. Which will be useless for a little while.

[cerebovssquire]

the biggest thing haste does is improve your movement speed

It is a 50% damage multiplier on every single damage source you have, this is a lot more significant than movement - especially since there are generally many corners to reduce the need of running towards things, and because having a 50% damage multiplier reduces the need of running away from things. In addition, Chei caters pretty well for a lack of movement speed (Step from Time is like running away (to an extent) and Temporal Distortion is like running towards things), which are a better replacement for a lack of movement speed than Bend Time is for Haste in my opinion. It's also not like repositioning yourself is impossible. Funnily enough the three abilities together seem to be a poor man's Haste, in a way, since they can do the running towards/having an edge damage-wise/running away things too.

I realise that this doesn't apply to SpEn or stuff, but I think a SETm is more interested in damage. They have Spider Form anyway.

I guess training UC until spider form is actually available sounds like a viable strategy too, but definitely get it up at XL 3. This isn't the first time someone has suggested this and I see the point, so I'll edit that.
EDIT: Guide improved.

[italo_calvino]

  Code:

jamesjoyce the Martial Artist (SETm)               Turns: 10368, Time: 01:08:24
HP  62/63        AC  8     Str 10      XL: 10   Next:  9%
MP  24/24        EV 15     Int 24      God:
Gold 644         SH  0     Dex 15      Spells:  5 memorised,  8 levels left
 
Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : .      - Unarmed
Res.Cold  : . . .   Warding    : . .  c - +1 elf robe
Life Prot.: . . .   Conserve   : .    (shield currently unavailable)
Res.Acid. : . . .   Res.Corr.  : .    I - +0 visored helmet
Res.Poison: .       Clarity    : .    o - +2 cloak {darkness}
Res.Elec. : .       Spirit.Shd : .    (gloves currently unavailable)
Sust.Abil.: . .     Stasis     : .    H - +0 pair of boots
Res.Mut.  : .       Ctrl.Telep.: .    G - amulet of the gourmand
Res.Rott. : .       Levitation : .    S - +6,+5 ring of slaying
Gourmand  : +       Ctrl.Flight: .    v - +6 ring of intelligence
 
@: blade hands (expires), somewhat resistant to hostile enchantments, fairly
stealthy
A: no striking features
a: End Transformation, Evoke Invisibility

Skill            Level Train  Apt       Skill            Level Train  Apt
 a - Fighting          4,0         +1    i - Stabbing          2,0          0
 b - Axes              0,0         -2    j - Traps & Doors     1,1          0
 c - Polearms          0,0         -2
 d - Staves            0,0          0    k - Spellcasting      7,0         +2
 e + Unarmed Combat    9,9   50%   +1    l + Transmutations    8,4   50%   +3
                                         m - Ice Magic         1,1         +1
 f - Throwing          1,0         +2    n - Poison Magic      1,1         +1

 g - Dodging           6,1         +2    o - Evocations        0,0          0
 h - Stealth           1,4         +1

Hand Weapons
 f - an uncursed scythe of protection
 j - an uncursed quarterstaff of chaos
 n - an uncursed runed orcish hand axe (quivered)
 B - an uncursed glowing glaive
 C - a flail of draining
Missiles
 e - 28 arrows
 P - 2 javelins
Armour
 c - a +1 elven robe (worn)
 o - a +2 cloak of darkness (worn)
 H - a +0 pair of boots (worn)
 I - a +0 visored helmet (worn)
Wands
 i - a wand of invisibility {zapped: 4}
 k - a bronze wand
 m - a wand of random effects {zapped: 2}
 A - a wand of flame (12)
 U - a wand of random effects (12)
 X - a bone wand
Comestibles
 a - 2 bread rations
 l - 2 meat rations
Scrolls
 b - 2 scrolls labeled WIMATYA GHETA
 g - a scroll labeled SMUPADGH GROPRI
 h - a scroll labeled AGAUBL OCHISM
 r - 2 scrolls of teleportation
 x - 2 scrolls of magic mapping
 y - a scroll labeled CEBLEM ONE
 F - a scroll labeled SHRASYI SHRICYA
 J - a scroll of remove curse
 L - a scroll of detect curse
Jewellery
 v - a +6 ring of intelligence (left scythe-like blade)
 G - an amulet of the gourmand (around neck)
 S - a +6,+5 ring of slaying (right scythe-like blade)
 d - an uncursed jade ring {tried}
 E - an uncursed steel ring {tried}
 K - an uncursed amulet of guardian spirit
 M - an uncursed knobbly jade ring {tried}
 N - an uncursed ring of see invisible
Potions
 p - a sedimented orange potion
 q - a purple potion
 t - a green potion
 u - a bubbling yellow potion
 w - 3 potions of heal wounds
 z - 4 potions of curing
 D - 2 orange potions
 Q - 2 yellow potions
 R - 3 potions of resistance
Books
 s - a book of Power


 Your Spells                       Type                          Failure   Level
 a - Beastly Appendage             Transmutation                 10%         1
 b - Sticks to Snakes              Transmutation                 12%         2
 c - Spider Form                   Transmutation/Poison          24%         3
 d - Ice Form                      Ice/Transmutation             50%         4
 e + Blade Hands                   Transmutation                 41%         5
Press '!' or 'I' to toggle spell view.

Those spell failure rates are with Blade Hands on deck obviously. They're looking much better without it.

[cerebovssquire]

You should put that in

  Code:

[code][/code]

tags for readability.

[nago]

You can put [code][/code] to make things easier to read

edit: Ninja'ed by Cerebosquire, nevermind - and I've improperly thanked a message, but well..nevermind I should go to sleep

It's nice to have another italian on the forum, btw

[italo_calvino]

It's nice to have another italian on the forum, btw

Aww, sorry to fall short here, but I'm just a fan of the great Italian writer Italo Calvino. Anyone who likes Crawl will probably love his novel Le città invisibili or Invisible Cities by the way.

I read him in translation but I definitely am going to learn your awesome language after I have finished with Spanish and German.

Now where is that stupid Okawaru shrine ...

[nago]

Oh, well... it's nice to just have a fan of Calvino here too

[italo_calvino]

dude, hell to the yeah

edit: I've always wanted to design some vaults based upon some of the Invisible Cities. That's what I'd do if I knew how to design vaults, anyway.

updates for anyone interested: lair entrance level has a hill giant and big draconian transmuter ghost running around ... it was not a good idea to try and fight them and I used up ALL my healing and they're still alive and I'm surprised I survived. dudes seem to want my blood and now I need to figure out my next move, ugh.