Naga Strategy!

[cursednobleman]

Hiya, I'm gonna try playing nagas soon and I'm wondering what the general advice on them is.

Backgrounds/Weapons: Should I go for something with a spellbook and whatever weapon?

Gods: Do I have to follow chei or can I do Okawaru or someone else?

Defensive Skills: Should I focus on shields and dodging while wearing robes? The deformed body penalty bothers me.

[pratamawirya]

Chei sucks, so no, you don't have to follow him.

[Tiber]

Background/weapon: Up to you. Naga have no special aptitudes for weapons or magic, except a slight bonus to poison.

Gods: Why would you have to follow Chei? The only reason people go with Chei for Nagas is because they're already slower than most things, so the main drawback of using Chei isn't as important. All the other gods are still just as good for Nagas as they are for other races.

Defensive Skills: Deformed body isn't really all that big a deal. High AC Nagas are still pretty viable, especially with their innate AC and the fact that barding is better than boots (though they have no way to get running except for a fixedart). Shields are good for Nagas because they can use larger shields without penalty sooner. But as for Armor vs. Dodging, they're equally good really.

[crate]

The main drawback of chei is in fact probably worse for nagas than other races. 2.8 move delay is really super bad, you pretty much cannot move around in combat at all. 2.0 is much more manageable.

Backgrounds with a spellbook are generally better for nagas, just like they are for almost every other race. The good spellbookless backgrounds are still good for nagas.

In general most nagas who aren't worshipping Trog should wear a robe. Dragon armours are acceptable if you have enough enchant armour scrolls.

[Bloax]

In general most nagas who aren't worshipping Trog should wear a robe. Dragon armours are acceptable if you have enough enchant armour scrolls.

Is 9 armour for mottled really that hard to invest in?

[crate]

Last I checked, mottled dragon armour was in fact dragon armour.

Also the reason you wear a robe is because robes generally have the best stats for nagas, not because of armour skill.

[smock]

The main drawback of chei is in fact probably worse for nagas than other races. 2.8 move delay is really super bad, you pretty much cannot move around in combat at all. 2.0 is much more manageable.

In general most nagas who aren't worshipping Trog should wear a robe. Dragon armours are acceptable if you have enough enchant armour scrolls.

Moving from a move delay of 1 to 1.X -- the difference between most other races and nagas -- is really bad, too. Once you can't run away from speed 1 monsters, the game gets much harder.

To deal with combat positioning, it's important for nagas to develop ranged damaging and disabling attacks. Conjure flame, meph, evap, missiles help a lot until (semi) controlled blinks come online.

I assume you mean fire and ice dragon armour -- of course, mottled and steam are usually stronger than robes. Or am I missing something?

[crate]

A robe of MR or a robe of resistance is very often better than mottled dragon armour, especially if you actually do not have infinity scrolls of enchant armour.

Mottled takes seven scrolls of enchant armour to get to +6. This should come after the up-to-ten scrolls you need to use to fully-enchant your auxiliary armour slots (since your aux slots can help you whether you are wearing a robe or mda). I don't know about you but it is pretty rare for me to find sixteen scrolls of enchant armour in an entire game, so a lot of the time it is not a choice between a robe and a +6 mda--it is a choice between a robe (often +1 or +2 when you find it, and almost always with an ego) and a +0 mda. Now which one looks better?

---

As far as movement goes all I can say is you should actually play a naga of chei and compare how terribly painful moving around is to a not-naga of chei. It is awful. And in combat moving around is actually not just for fighting ranged attackers!! In fact I move around mid-fight dramatically more often against melee things than I do against ranged things, since against melee things the best place to be is much more likely to change than it is against ranged things--melee things move around more. Going from 1.0 (good) -> 2.0 (very bad but at least you only take one extra hit per move) is bad, but in my experience going from 1.4 (manageable) -> 2.8 (horrific, about twice as bad as 2.0 delay) is worse.

If you don't move around when meleeing things this drawback obviously seems not as bad because you don't notice it, but moving around while fighting things is very good when you have 1.0 or better move delay so I recommend you try it sometime.

[One-Eyed Jack]

Wizard is my favorite naga background (although this is true for virtually all races, so whatever)

Transmuter is nice because spider form lets you run from things

[XuaXua]

Polearms.

[smock]

moving around while fighting things is very good when you have 1.0 or better move delay so I recommend you try it sometime.

Is this why people like spriggans, centaurs and boots of running? I just meant to point out that the inability to run away from normal speed monsters is pretty serious and that combat movement is less important when you have ranged damaging and disabling attacks. While "can't move in combat" is bad, I just think that "can't run away" is worse.

(And I dunno, maybe I've been lucky with enchant armour scrolls. I've also taken to dropping them immediately on a cleared level so they don't get burned. This is a new-to-me trick that may have helped, but I suppose you're familiar with it all ready.)

[pratamawirya]

Yeah, moving around is still good for a normal-speed race following Chei (later on you might need Controlled Blink to keep yourself safe). You can use Temp Distortion to make enemies go away (use it several times consecutively, they'll disappear from the screen and for some reason they won't chase you when you move to a safer spot), but if you move so slowly (2.8 movement delay or something) it might still be hard afterwards to re-position yourself.

EDIT: Using three or four consecutive temp distort eats up about as much piety as using a single Step From Time, actually. So I don't know which one is better to make your opponents disappear.

[varsovie]

So I don't know which one is better to make your opponents disappear.

Drink Slow, hast the foo and cast sloush.

NaMo of Chei if you can find a amulet of faith is such a unique Crawl experience. And for the first couple of levels, use your breath as often you can if you don't have proper ranged.

[zrn]

So I don't know which one is better to make your opponents disappear.

Drink Slow, hast the foo and cast sloush.

I find it amusing how often players give this as legitimate advice even though they've never tried it. If you haste anything while worshiping chei, including enemies, you are put under penance.

[cursednobleman]

It's actually a smart idea to raise their stealth to 5 or 6 so you can choose to evade battles. It doesn't take a heavy exp investment and improves survivability and reduces escape item use quite a bit.

[zedzed]

My only win so far was a NaMo of Chei. I took stealth way up which allowed me to (mostly) pick and chose my fights. Use Slouch if things get scary. Having teleport option at all times is mandatory! "Step from time" is the "last chance saloon" option when you think you've really ran out of escape options!

Edit: from memory I think I found a shield of reflection too ... which was very useful when ranged mobs did notice me. They'd usually killed themselves by the time I'd ambled my way into melee range!

[omegasean]

wizard is a great background for Naga, magic dart and mephitic cloud (Intrinsic poison resistance) make the early game pretty easy. summon imp for tough early game uniques. And they have nice HP and constrict which helps early game survivability. For a god i would pick oka or veh.

[Dustbin]

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