Mid-Game Strategy

[Utis]

Though I have still much to learn, on the whole I'm feeling rather comfortable now with the early game. But somewhere during or after the lair, depending on build and item drops, I'm starting to feel insecure about skill development. I realize that it is not possible to give precise rules, because too much depends on circumstances, but maybe there are some general rules of thumb?

I'm playing mostly hybrids (and mostly with a focus in translocations).

The main reason why I start to feel insecure is that I think not only do I have to keep up with the challenges of the mid-game -- I think this I can do, despite many mistakes -- but I also have to prepare my built for the end game (targetting three runes), given that XP is a limited resource, and this feels like a huge unknown to me. Assuming that I can keep up with current threats, how much room is there to branch out into different skills?

1. Is it always necessary to focus on just a few skills?

a) My most successful character got two runes, even though he had his skills all over the place. The tactics involved using just about any means -- bows, melee, zombies with kiku, translocations, curare -- depending on what worked best in the circumstances. This worked rather well up to a point (he got killed, because I underestimated the danger of Mennas). However, he also had some luck with items, and I'm worried that this mixed strategy might run out of steam from a certain point on?

b) Casting: How much room is there for developing different spell schools? Up to the first half of Lair, one of my chief concerns is getting support spells online as quickly as feasible without comprimising my means of offence. For those belonging to different schools, I typically invest a little bit in air, poison etc.. However, I'm wondering whether already these few skill levels are too precious in the long run and I should tough it out instead and focus solely on translocations and charms?

The third school I always want to develop is necromancy. But is there really room to get three schools to decent levels for a hybrid?

c) Primarily melee: Testing in wizard mode, melee weapons continue to do more damage, the higher the relevant weapon skill his. But how important is this? Assuming I'm finding for my weapon skill only weapons that are ok-ish, but quite some from other weapon classes that are better (though not overwhelmingly so), do I have the future XP-ressources to develop another weapon? Or should I instead rather develop defense (armour, shields) and hope that something better comes up?

d) Primarily ranged: Again, testing in wizard mode, bows seem to benefit drastically from high bow skill. However, for a large part of the mid-game I'm constantly concerned about ammo -- the RNG always sends me only yaktaurs when I need centaurs. So, I'm always developing one melee weapon in order to deal with lesser threats. Also, I'm afraid of using a bow in areas like the Swamp for fear of losing ammunition, so by that time I want to have that melee skill developed a little bit more. (I have so far never been to the Shoals.) But given that I also have to develop bows to high levels, different spell schools and defence -- can I really afford this?

2) Preparing for specific dangers

One XL20 character of mine just got sent to the Abyss. My first time. I think he's doomed. Now I wish I had Flight and Swiftness. Should I have made learning Swiftness and Flight a priority, preparing for the Abyss already in Lair? If so, are there other dangers for which one should prepare so far in advance?


3) Well, thank you for reading my confused rambling so far.

[VictorG]

Others with more experience should answer your other questions, but I do think I can answer this one:

One XL20 character of mine just got sent to the Abyss. My first time. I think he's doomed. Now I wish I had Flight and Swiftness. Should I have made learning Swiftness and Flight a priority, preparing for the Abyss already in Lair? If so, are there other dangers for which one should prepare so far in advance?

Many of my characters have been sent to the abyss, and I don't think any have ever died there. This included characters who were XL10 or less. If you just run away from all threats -- there's no need to kill anything that is not directly in your way -- and have a couple of food items in your inventory, you'll probably survive. (Of course, you can always get unlucky.)

About weapon skills: cross-training a weapon skill often costs very little XP, since you get a +4 aptitude bonus, so it's not hard to branch out to a related category of weapons if you find an amazing item.

[rchandra]

Getting a few skill levels to support a multi-school spell costs very little, as high levels cost much more XP - I'd usually get 2-4, depending on the character, with 2 more likely. Getting a lot of levels is less easy. You usually want 1-2 main killing methods - if you train say Axes and Bows, both want high levels, you won't have room for much effective Conjurations. How much hybridization you can do how quickly depends on aptitudes and player skill.

Melee weapons should generally be trained to the point that they aren't getting faster. Unless you're with Trog, you probably will always have someting better to do than go further than that, for a long time.

Ranged weapons: In swamp if you fire with the . key (so, f. to shoot) your arrow won't go past the target square. If you're with Okawaru or Trog you should have no shortage of ammo. For my ranged users I like using a staff as backup weapon since lajatang reaches decent damage with relatively low skill investment, and the common quarterstaff is good enough for a long time. Long blades are good too, especially if you use slings (can take a buckler).

I sometimes switch for nice weapons and sometimes not, it's much more likely if I have a crosstraining benefit and less likely if I'm with Trog since I assume I'll be getting good weapons in my main type anyway.

Swiftness and Flight are a good priority - not just for the Abyss! Swiftness moreso.

[snow]

After clearing lair and orc you're supposed to find vaults and clear crypt. Kiku makes crypt stupidly easy: just use dispel undead on everything.

Have you won yet? The easiest combinations are DDBe and SpEn of Kiku so you can try those if you're having trouble.

For DDBe: turn on axes, armor, and fighting... and just hold tab. They're literally invincible. It's kind of boring though.

For SpEn (from hyperbolic's database entry):

My 0.10 SpEn guide: SKILLS: Approximate goals are as follows: 1) 8 Stabbing. 2) Invisibility at 6% fail and 10 Dodging/Stealth. 3) 12 Stabbing, 15 Dodging/Stealth, 6 Fighting, and enough Short Blades for min delay. 4) 27 Stealth, 10 Fighting, and whatever spell skills you want.
STATS: Raise Str to 8, then raise Int. SPELLS: From the starting book: EH, Confuse, Invisibility (and Sure Blade to train Charms or if you want better melee). When you find them: other generally good spells like Haste, Repel Missiles, Regeneration, Dispel Undead, Apportation, Blink, Control Teleport, Phase Shift, Controlled Blink, etc.
GODS: Ash, Jiyva, Kiku, Lugonu, Makhleb, and Nemelex are all great choices. WEAPONS: Any short blade will work for stabbing, but switch to a dagger when possible. For regular melee, early on look for elec and venom weapons. Later look for a quick blade and/or pain brand a weapon with Kiku. Distortion is nice also. Oh, and get a buckler.

[crate]

I'm not sure that you're understanding the advice to train only one skill at a time. This does not mean that your skills end up super-focused; what it means is that you press "m" an awful lot and make sure that at any given time your xp is going toward the skill you want the most. In theory you might want to change your skill training after every kill (no one does this), though realistically you can still use whole numbers (or half-numbers for Spellcasting) as good places to turn skills off.

Generally you want your skills to be decently focused ... you should not spend xp on multiple different skills that do the same thing (a simple and usually-correct way to do this with weapons is to simply only train one weapon skill, regardless of what weapons you find. It is somewhat more complicated for magic because of multi-school spells).

As far as your specific question with swiftness goes, you should learn swiftness because unless you are a spriggan or worship Trog you should learn swiftness. There are really no exceptions to this, except maybe if you are in GDA or CPA (maybe). It is one of the best spells in the game. It just happens to be very good in the abyss like it is very good elsewhere.

edit: right also don't learn it under chei

[nago]

Chei frowns upon the use of swiftness, but no one cares of him anyway

[Utis]

I'm pressing 'm' a lot. What worries me is rather: in a normal 3-rune run, is there actually enough XP available to get so many different skills high enough that it remains competitive in the end game?

If I want Haste and Controlled Blink, I need at least -- what? 15-16? in both Charms and Translocations. And I need at least 20 in bows, if that's high enough. So far, in my midgame, there's a point where a melee weapon does more damage with the right brand (for instance, with warp weapon) than my bow, so I also want a melee skill at ~14 for a half decent melee weapon for close quarters fighting and as a fallback. And I need Dodging, at -- what? 14-15 is enough for where I've been, but will it suffice? And I need Fighting. And I'd like to have Necromancy for Sublimation, Regeneration, Animate Dead, Agony and Dispel Undead. IIRC I can get that working with Necromancy at 10-12. But in the end game, will any susceptible foe actually be impressed, if I try to cast Agony on him with Necro at 12? And I need Spellcasting at -- 15-16?, in order to memorize all these spells.

That's a lot of skills and I'm not even sure whether these are high enough. Some time ago, I posted a link to a char dump of mine in ##crawl. The reaction was along the lines of 'Whoa, you got your skills all over the place ...!". I was doing quite well in Swamp, Spider and early Vault, so this made me worried about the long run.

I haven't learned Swiftness, yet, since Passage of Golubria or cTele+Blink, if need be with butterflies, have been so reliable for me early on that escape didn't seem like a problem, unless I got surprised. The Abyss is the first -cTele level that I couldn't avoid. I had been planning to go into Elf:3 only after I had Controlled Blink. I will make Swiftness a priority now.

Thanks, rchandra, your answer does a lot to ease my mind!

[Utis]

Many of my characters have been sent to the abyss, and I don't think any have ever died there. This included characters who were XL10 or less. If you just run away from all threats -- there's no need to kill anything that is not directly in your way -- and have a couple of food items in your inventory, you'll probably survive. (Of course, you can always get unlucky.)

Then I'm doing something wrong. I can maybe avoid the higher demons, but only when I run into a swarm of lesser ones. At one point, what seemed like a clear way will turn into a dead end. So far I could fight my way out in such a case, but my resources are depleting. Do you, or does anybody else have a ttyrecord of a (low level) character (without Swiftness or Haste), so that I can learn how to move correctly?

[rchandra]

I'm pressing 'm' a lot. What worries me is rather: in a normal 3-rune run, is there actually enough XP available to get so many different skills high enough that it remains competitive in the end game?

If I want Haste and Controlled Blink, I need at least -- what? 15-16? in both Charms and Translocations. And I need at least 20 in bows, if that's high enough. So far, in my midgame, there's a point where a melee weapon does more damage with the right brand (for instance, with warp weapon) than my bow, so I also want a melee skill at ~14 for a half decent melee weapon for close quarters fighting and as a fallback. And I need Dodging, at -- what? 14-15 is enough for where I've been, but will it suffice? And I need Fighting. And I'd like to have Necromancy for Sublimation, Regeneration, Animate Dead, Agony and Dispel Undead. IIRC I can get that working with Necromancy at 10-12. But in the end game, will any susceptible foe actually be impressed, if I try to cast Agony on him with Necro at 12? And I need Spellcasting at -- 15-16?, in order to memorize all these spells.

That's a lot of skills and I'm not even sure whether these are high enough. Some time ago, I posted a link to a char dump of mine in ##crawl. The reaction was along the lines of 'Whoa, you got your skills all over the place ...!". I was doing quite well in Swamp, Spider and early Vault, so this made me worried about the long run.

The issue with having your skills all over is not usually that you won't be able to finish them all - it's that on the way to finishing them all, you'll be stronger if you get them one at a time. Until you have more idea of what total goals are feasible on a given character (you can look at dumps here or on irc, https://raw.github.com/greensnark/dcss_ ... stgame.txt) you should just go "what do I want next?" rather than "I want a, b, and c by Zot".

[cursednobleman]

In my experience, crawl is about knowing what you can kill, and killing them before they can kill you. I'm no fan of true hybrids (fighters with fireball or archer mages), but haste/finesse can turn a well trained fighter into a chainsaw/machinegun. Enough focus in weapon skills and charms and you can neutralize most threats before they maim you. Silence is another spell that neutralizes the worst mid-lategame threats (deep elves and liches). In the end I would consider conjurations a separate branch from ranged or melee combat where charms is much more useful.

While haste is generally considered indispensable, controlled blink is more of a luxury. A cTele blink or passage of golubria can get the job done reasonably well and doesn't require half as much as a skill investment. Chances are, if you're in serious danger, you'll wanna teleport away rather than multiple controlled blinks, and translocations is a spell school bad at killing things (Malign Gateway being a possible exception though rare.)

Overall, my nonspecialized characters tend to die in the midgame, it takes a degree of finesse to kill or escape things with a bag of skills rather than a specialty. Finesse which I lack.

[VictorG]

Then I'm doing something wrong. I can maybe avoid the higher demons, but only when I run into a swarm of lesser ones. At one point, what seemed like a clear way will turn into a dead end. So far I could fight my way out in such a case, but my resources are depleting. Do you, or does anybody else have a ttyrecord of a (low level) character (without Swiftness or Haste), so that I can learn how to move correctly?

I don't know if this is useful to you, but my minotaur death knight gets kicked into the Abyss here, about 3/4 of the way through. (The recording looks buggy on my PC, but that may be a problem with the tty-player I just downloaded. I never used this stuff before.)

[BlackSheep]

If I want Haste and Controlled Blink, I need at least -- what? 15-16? in both Charms and Translocations. And I need at least 20 in bows, if that's high enough. So far, in my midgame, there's a point where a melee weapon does more damage with the right brand (for instance, with warp weapon) than my bow, so I also want a melee skill at ~14 for a half decent melee weapon for close quarters fighting and as a fallback. And I need Dodging, at -- what? 14-15 is enough for where I've been, but will it suffice? And I need Fighting. And I'd like to have Necromancy for Sublimation, Regeneration, Animate Dead, Agony and Dispel Undead. IIRC I can get that working with Necromancy at 10-12. But in the end game, will any susceptible foe actually be impressed, if I try to cast Agony on him with Necro at 12? And I need Spellcasting at -- 15-16?, in order to memorize all these spells.

You were playing an archer, yes? Agony and Dispel Undead are strong ways to kill things. You know what else kills things? Arrows. You don't need 5th level Necromancy spells to kill things when your high level Bows skill already does that. Sublimation is good for recharging your MP bar after spamming a bunch of spells, but arrows don't cost MP. Regeneration is handy, but as it's Charms/Necromancy and you also want other Charms spells, you don't need to invest much in Necromancy at all.

Haste is pretty awesome, but does not require 15 charms to cast unless you're wearing heavy armor. Controlled Blink is an end game spell unless you've been training Translocations for other reasons all along. Worry about that after you've gotten your offense and defense high enough that you feel you don't need to train them anymore.

Melee weapons should not be stronger than your bow if you've been pumping Bows all along, in the same way that a longbow should not be stronger than your melee weapon of choice if you've been pumping that melee skill. As an archer, I would use a melee weapon just to conserve arrows, and shoot anything remotely threatening. Warp Weapon is not a small investment, if you're going to make that investment, maybe Bows isn't the way to go?

[Utis]

In my experience, crawl is about knowing what you can kill, and killing them before they can kill you. I'm no fan of true hybrids (fighters with fireball or archer mages), but haste/finesse can turn a well trained fighter into a chainsaw/machinegun. Enough focus in weapon skills and charms and you can neutralize most threats before they maim you. Silence is another spell that neutralizes the worst mid-lategame threats (deep elves and liches). In the end I would consider conjurations a separate branch from ranged or melee combat where charms is much more useful.

While haste is generally considered indispensable, controlled blink is more of a luxury. A cTele blink or passage of golubria can get the job done reasonably well and doesn't require half as much as a skill investment. Chances are, if you're in serious danger, you'll wanna teleport away rather than multiple controlled blinks, and translocations is a spell school bad at killing things (Malign Gateway being a possible exception though rare.)

Overall, my nonspecialized characters tend to die in the midgame, it takes a degree of finesse to kill or escape things with a bag of skills rather than a specialty. Finesse which I lack.

For me, personally, the desire to win per se is not what keeps me addicted to crawl; it is rather the desire to master the strategical and tactical depths of the game. Comparing it to chess would be an exaggeration, but I truly admire and keep being fascinated by the complexities and intricacies of the game. Of course, the only way to measure one's progress in that is winning, so this remains for all practical purposes the main goal. But I personally don't have much fun with more straight forward approaches. I keep trying them out, but chiefly for getting a feel of how they play and what potential they have. I tend to loose interest in them, once they're off the ground. A hybrid style with many different tools, trying to find synergies between those tools, experimenting with different tactics, suits me best. It will be a long time until I manage to win, but that doesn't bother me in the least, as long as I feel that I'm making progress, since the fun for me is learning about strategy and tactics, not in achievement per se. I made the OP because I was starting to get very worried about running into a dead end. But "what do I want next?", as rchandra wrote, I'm comfortable with this.

With regard to the offensive potential of translocations, I beg to differ: together with a ranged weapon Passage of Golubria becomes an offensive spell, quite wonderful against opponents like Hill Giants or Hydrae, and Portal Projectile from behind a wall of summons or zombies (preferrably those of the enemy) is great fun. Controlled Blink was high on my list because I was very worried about -cTele levels. Thanks for setting me straight about this! I will make Swiftness a higher and CBlink a lower priority.

I don't know if this is useful to you, but my minotaur death knight gets kicked into the Abyss here, about 3/4 of the way through. (The recording looks buggy on my PC, but that may be a problem with the tty-player I just downloaded. I never used this stuff before.)

It replays fine with ttyplay on GNU/Linux. Thanks a bundle! This is indeed very helpful. Though, I don't think that my character will make it, as he is running out of food and ammo. Next time, I'll make sure to carry a decent amount of permafood. And a wand of digging.

[Jk]

I recently rewrote the wiki page on movement; reading it might help you surviving/escaping enemies in the Abyss (and why swiftness is so good). Also note: swiftness + flight doesn't make you any faster than swiftness alone anymore, assuming you're playing a recent version.

[Utis]

You were playing an archer, yes? Agony and Dispel Undead are strong ways to kill things. You know what else kills things? Arrows. You don't need 5th level Necromancy spells to kill things when your high level Bows skill already does that. Sublimation is good for recharging your MP bar after spamming a bunch of spells, but arrows don't cost MP. Regeneration is handy, but as it's Charms/Necromancy and you also want other Charms spells, you don't need to invest much in Necromancy at all.

I see your point. Well, I raised the question, precisely because I was wondering whether just a few levels in Necromancy are worth it (when I'm not going with Kiku). I suppose Agony isn't, because for everything that's worth it I need more than one casting attempt. I might have indeed spent those turns on arrows. But Dispel? When I was in Crypt, I rarely used it, for I wanted to preserve the MP. But then, I never encountered anything really threatening (like Liches?). How much Necromancy would be needed to have Dispel Undead do really good damage when the need arises?

In halfway challenging battles I tend to use up about half to two thirds of my MP for buffs, blinks/passages and, especially, Portal Projectile. So, Sublimation is highly welcome. Would it be worthwile already at, say, 5 Necromancy?

Warp Weapon is not a small investment, if you're going to make that investment, maybe Bows isn't the way to go?

About half of the characters that I start, and so far 5/6 of those who make it post-Lair, are Warpers. At the point when the question comes up, I can already cast lvl 4 spells in translocations and I'm in the process of investing in Charms. I want Phase Shift anyways, so the investment is only in spell slots. -- I tried a Hunter of Makhleb once, and a heavy armoured one for good measure. I didn't like it much. It was just Tab, Tab, Tab, Tab, o, o, Tab, o, o etc. until somewhere in Orc I ran into a situation where just a little tactical retreat just for once would have been better, but I could not have been expected to pay much attention with this build.

[cursednobleman]

I suppose if you wanna be clever, you can try a HEWr of Yredremnul. You'll have a nice army of undead and later bone dragons and stuff to escort you, then you can branch into smite target spells or whatever later. Your starting book will have portal projectile, so if you can kill a centaur and take his bow and arrows you can play with that.

What sorta gods, species, or backgrounds do you use? Unconventional tactics demand unconventional gods and equipment.

[crate]

If you are already training both a ranged weapon and a melee weapon you do not need nor really want DU ... you already have a great way to kill undead, and it even works at range (press tab). DU gives you nothing new and is a sizable investment (unless you have Borg or something), so don't learn it. You also don't really need sublimation because you don't need MP mid-battle and you can do fine without spending a lot of MP, though learning the spell but not putting much xp into necro is okay if you have the spell slots anyway. It works fine on chunks at low spellpower.

If you do run out of MP, you can almost always escape fights to regen (if you need to) with some combination of haste/swiftness/semi-controlled blink, all of which are pretty cheap.

[Utis]

Great! I'm going to take the advice and forgo Necromancy, except maybe for low levels, on which I will decide situationally. This is a great relief. Thank you all very much, this thread is helping me a lot!

What sorta gods, species, or backgrounds do you use?

Mostly Human Warpers. For gods, I have tried Oka, Kiku and Makhleb. Lately, I have tended to prefer Makhleb, since I feel that his invocations, especially the summons, fill a situational weakness in my warper builds. Yred seems like a very interesting alternative, though! Thanks! I think, Makhleb's heal-on-kill is nice, but since a warper really doesn't have to tank it out, and actually shouldn't, it probably doesn't matter much.