Spriggan Enchanter skills

[smock]

I'm trying to figure out the training advice on the wiki:

1) When you hit level 2, learn Ensorcelled Hibernation. Turn off everything except Stabbing and work on training that by sleeping monsters and stabbing them.
2) When Stabbing reaches 6, turn off Stabbing and turn on Stealth, Dodging, Spellcasting, Enchantments.
3) Turn off Enchantments when Invisibility is at Very Good. This should happen around skill level 12, with no enhancements like a ring of wizardry.
4) Leave Fighting on when you get it and train other spell skills as you need them.


(From http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... ide#Skills)

Steps (1) and (2) work well and made sense. And Fighting seems really important -- I often try to focus getting it after stabbing by turning off other skills and boxing plants. I don't quite understand (3), and have some other questions in general.

(1) Why turn off Enchantments? Doesn't spell power increase with high enchantments skill, meaning you'll be more likely to ensorcell or confuse a stone giant with a higher enchantments skill? Am I wrong here, or is it just that the other skills are more important?
(2) Also, stabbing success on distracted opponents is determined by the stabbing skill and dexterity, right? How high should stabbing be trained? Is 15 enough for the whole game? I can certainly kill sleeping golden dragons at 15. Is it worth training higher for a more distracto-stabbing success?
(3) If I find Ozocubo's Armour I would think it'd be worth training ice magic. This is especially true if more Ice skill increased ensorcllled's spell power. Does this make sense?
(4) Should spellcasting really be left on a the whole time? After spell hunger gets low enough, can it be turned off? Ten or so levels seem sufficient for this.
(5) Someone suggested turning off Dodging (for another build) at 20 or so unless going for an 15-rune win. Would a 3-rune Spriggan want to turn Dodging off as well?
(6) Short blades at 12 reduces sabre attack speed to the minimum. Seems like there's no reason to train beyond 12 (or 10 with a dagger).
(7) BTW, I'm also wondering what the stabbing damage bonus to daggers is. Do quick blades and short sword have a stabbing bonus, too? Is this worth considering for a character with high stabbing? (Would stabber with 15 stabbing I want a +1 dagger over a +5 sabre?)


Thanks for the advice!

[Kate]

1) Once you have Invisibility (and so also Haste, when you find it) reliably castable, you don't need any more Ench skill. EH and Confuse will probably have hit the power cap so you won't get any further benefit, the only reason to keep training it would be to use Metabolic Englaciation (probably not worth it) or Death's Door (pretty fun if you can manage it).

2) I ususally just focus on sleep/invis stabs later on as SpEn; 15 stabbing is probably plenty assuming that's your primary way of killing things. Distraction stabs aren't so great in comparison.

3) Again, getting a bunch of Ice skill won't help your EH power much because it's capped at 50. Ozo's armour is nice if you're going Oka and actually staying in melee combat with things rather than just stabbing though, probably.

4) Yeah, what minmay said.

5) I never bother turning dodging off, more EV can never hurt.

6) Keep short blades turned off all game, it'll reach increase quickly enough anyway and yes, you're correct in saying there's no reason to train it any further than 12.

7) All short blades have a stabbing bonus, but daggers have a bigger one. I believe the way it works out is that at sufficiently high stabbing skill, all short blades are equal, but daggers will reach the bonus damage cap faster. From the learndb: "To get the maximum bonus you need to have dex*(1 + stabbing skill) >= 300 (with a dagger) or 600 (any other short blade)."

This is another nice, simple SpEn guide by elliptic, incidentally: http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=hyperbolic

[danr]

I'm trying to figure out the training advice on the wiki:
(7) BTW, I'm also wondering what the stabbing damage bonus to daggers is. Do quick blades and short sword have a stabbing bonus, too? Is this worth considering for a character with high stabbing? (Would stabber with 15 stabbing I want a +1 dagger over a +5 sabre?)

Have you read the stabbing spoiler at CrawlWiki?

[lucy_ferre]

This is another nice, simple SpEn guide by elliptic, incidentally: http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=hyperbolic

It's the same guide the OP posted.

[asdu]

(1) If you're playing a pre 0.8 version, you'll find enchantments trains pretty fast even if you keep if off. If you keep it on, with the spriggan's awesome aptitude you'll probably max it halfway through the dungeon, which obviously is no bad thing, except it'll monopolize your XP. In 0.8 on the other hand, turning off a skill keeps it from training almost completely, so a bit of micromanagement is needed.

(2) I wish I knew

(3) I don't have much experience with Ozocubu's Armour, but with the amount of ensorcelled hibernation spam you certainly have done I'm sure you'll get something out of it even if you don't go out of your way to train ice magic.

(4) Absolutely (what minmay said)

(5) Having more EV is always nice for sure, so having a hard rule about how much is enough doesn't make much sense to me, but of course you could do some micromanagement to direct your XP where it's needed the most.

(6) weapon skill still gives to-hit and more importantly damage bonuses (according to this damage is multipled by (1 + (1/50) * Corresponding_Weapon_Skill) on average, but that spoiler is for pre-Stone Soup Crawl, so I don't know if it still applies). Still, pre-0.8, weapon skills train quite nicely even when left off, so it's not like you can actually keep it from training past 12 unless you go pacifist

(7) I have never seen the numbers for stabbing multipliers, but my understanding is that daggers are by far the best choice for it (altough maybe quick blades could be better to get the most stabbing attempts on confused enemies? Not sure). Also by the time you have a +5 sabre, you'll hopefully also have a better dagger than a plain +1.

edit: heh, I walked away from the computer while typing this and some more informed replies than mine were posted . Thanks for that link to the stabbing spolier especially, for some reason I had never seen that before.

[Kroet]

Should spriggan enchanter train some sort of ranged combat or are those experience points wasted?

[MrMisterMonkey]

Don't bother with ranged combat unless it comes naturally with other training; e.g. free Agony castability from high necromancy (desirable for Death's Door castability, which is nice for doing crazy things on fragile characters, and pain weapon damage, which helps with combat outside of stabbing).

[Stormfox]

I've found that a few levels of Throwing (no more than 4-5) helps a lot, particularly in the mid game where you may find yourself wishing you could deliver some curare reliably. But it's nothing that you need to focus on.

[smock]

Wow, this is great. Thanks for all the advice and resources!

Spriggan aptitudes are so good in spellcasting, stealth and dodging (with fighting being the only other skill that I'd want very high) that I can imagine trying to raise another skill. Kneeling to Kiku and investing in necromancy for death's door or a dagger or quick blade of pain sounds fund to me.