How to survive as a Deep Elf Conjuror?

[crate]

I guarantee you do not get to extended every time.

[Xoai]

I guarantee you do not get to extended every time.

that's of course true...

Edit: I should have said...

that strategy outlined above gets me to the extended game every time (barring deaths caused by gross carelesness or random mishaps).

I was speaking more to the viability of the strategy than to my crawl prowess. I just got my first win a week or two ago (thanks psieye). I certainly don't have any misgivings about my status in the dungeon

[SchwaWarrior]

I don't think there can technically be such a thing as "good advice" or "bad advice" if nobody is maliciously trying to get another player killed. We all play our own style. Recently Psieye has been running a HECj, my preferred build, and updating us on how his game has gone, and he plays it WAY different than I do. But we've both still won in the past sticking to what we're good at. I can't fault Xoai or anyone if they don't like Call Imp as much as others. I don't like it too much either, myself, though I will use it early on when I don't have a different type of summon, such as the Scorpions, Demons or Ugly Things.

[ebarrett]

I don't think there can technically be such a thing as "good advice" or "bad advice" if nobody is maliciously trying to get another player killed.

Wrong, that just means you can't tell the difference between good advice and bad advice.

[njvack]

No, there is definitely bad advice. There are many good strategies, but also many bad ones.

With something like a Deep Elf nuker, your spellcasting aptitudes are good enough that you can get big spells online fast, even if you're not training optimally, and outpace the dungeon's difficulty creep that way. When you switch to a background that doesn't let you do that, you'll have trouble.

"I think Call Imp is boring" is fine, but "Don't learn Call Imp" is bad advice if it's in your starting book.

[Psieye]

No, there is definitely bad advice. There are many good strategies, but also many bad ones.

"I think Call Imp is boring" is fine, but "Don't learn Call Imp" is bad advice if it's in your starting book.

This. There's a world of difference between "when I play as race X, species Y, I prefer to do/avoid Z given circumstance C" and "every newbie should do/avoid Z, with no regard for race, species or circumstance". Humans tend to lean on the side of omission rather than lay out essential details, because in most everyday social interactions, people are used to filling in the details (as there aren't many alternative interpretations in those situations).

[SchwaWarrior]

Humans tend to lean on the side of omission rather than lay out essential details, because in most everyday social interactions, people are used to filling in the details (as there aren't many alternative interpretations in those situations).

Unrelated to topic, but: as an Asperger, I struggle real bad with this truth. I prefer people laying everything out for me in black and white detail, which may be why I get along with people easier online, such as these very forums.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Not to continue being snarky, but technically every strategy will get you to extended every time excluding any deaths you have. Granted, it helps that extended is immediately accessible by the time you find it, Zigs aside, and sometimes can be found as early as Lair, whereas Zot requires three runes and is only on D27.

In more seriousness though, you don't have to play 100% optimally to win Crawl. I know there's decisions and choices I made in my first few wins I would not make now if I was playing seriously. For example, my second win, a SpEn, ignored a well enchanted electric quickblade Oka gifted me because I thought sabres were better. I want to go back in time and slap myself for that.

[Xoai]

With something like a Deep Elf nuker, your spellcasting aptitudes are good enough that you can get big spells online fast, even if you're not training optimally, and outpace the dungeon's difficulty creep that way. When you switch to a background that doesn't let you do that, you'll have trouble.

This post opened my eyes a great deal. I'm getting bored with DEWz, but can't seem to get any other casters past (or even up to) the lair (save my purple Drac, for obvious reasons). Does this mean I'll have to rely on call imp to get, say, a TeWz past the temple? I had decided that, rather than trying to improve melee, I would get non DE casters under my belt first, but found the other fragile races impossible for now. So, I moved to Dr and Ds to see how I fared. My secret reason for posting my psuedo guide before was so that people would chime in and correct me. Unfortunately, it became a discussion over call imp, which scares me, as I'm starting to think that is the way to go (bleh!).

[...]There's a world of difference between "when I play as race X, species Y, I prefer to do/avoid Z given circumstance C" and "every newbie should do/avoid Z, with no regard for race, species or circumstance". Humans tend to lean on the side of omission rather than lay out essential details, because in most everyday social interactions, people are used to filling in the details (as there aren't many alternative interpretations in those situations).

this is definitely the case. What I realy want is a good guide, or lets play on youtube, that is very specific and actually good. A lot of the youtube stuff for crawl makes me cringe, and all the good guides are SpEn or MuWz. Even the easy combo melee guides are way out of date now (MDFi???). Basically, I have a lot of trouble bringing lots of small vague advice together to form a strategy (usually better off just figuring it out as i go instead -- though better is a stretch), but I'm good at stealing other peoples -entire- strategies and melding them into my own. Like an apprentice, as opposed to a student... can't wait for cerebov'ssquire to post those vids. I guess I should just go over to ##crawl and ask someone to watch me play and yell at me when I do stupid things. Also, I still haven't shaken the 'must kill now' mentality. Lost a cool DsFi with pbd mut last night because I just couldn't leave the whip of elec weilding Pikel to his own devices. Actually, I trapped him a floor above and then dove past his slaves, but turned right around when I picked up an orcish war axe 2 minutes later... thought that would be enough to kill him before he 3 shotted me. lol

anyway, thanks everyone... this thread has helped me way more than searching the board for advice... and sorry link for hijacking!

[Psieye]

This post opened my eyes a great deal. I'm getting bored with DEWz, but can't seem to get any other casters past (or even up to) the lair (save my purple Drac, for obvious reasons).

Try a different caster class. Much as Wz is extremely versatile in the earlygame, it's worth exploring more specialised starting books for the other races. I suspect in your case, you are addicted to a huge MP pool very early in the game, which would suggest you favour blaster mages. Since minion overlord is not your style, try a transmuter to see how to make the most of less MP.

Humans tend to lean on the side of omission rather than lay out essential details, because in most everyday social interactions, people are used to filling in the details (as there aren't many alternative interpretations in those situations).

Unrelated to topic, but: as an Asperger, I struggle real bad with this truth. I prefer people laying everything out for me in black and white detail, which may be why I get along with people easier online, such as these very forums.

Look into Physics or Commercial Programming (which is subtly, but significantly, different from 'computer science'). Those are 2 fields where being able to communicate in clear detail is considered the norm. Heck, many people can't get into those fields because they're unable to leave the cocoon of "I'm sure everybody will be able to fill in the blanks I leave out".

[njvack]

Honestly, I'd try something completely different -- say, MiBe or HOGl/Oka. When you don't have a repeatable ranged attack of your own, you need to learn monster AI and using terrain much differently. Hill Orcs also are decent spellcasters -- so picking up support spells or some conjurations is much easier. But if you're a berserker, you don't care

Trolls are interesting in particular -- they chew through melee opponents SO HARD, but their lack of defenses forces you to deal with threats (especially ranged) carefully. They're also fun because you can just eat everything and don't need to rest much.

Another interesting exercise is to play something slow -- a Naga or Cheibriadovite, for example. When your positioning is sharply limited, you need to think a lot more about carefully exploring and picking fights on your terms.

tl;dr: Getting a character through Lair & Orc mainly by hitting things with your weapon will have a big impact on how you play the game and make your caster characters more successful.

[Lasty]

People are mentioning imps so much not because they're critical for each encounter, but rather because they're a key part of the Wizard's toolkit. The Wizard starting book has a way to solve just about any problem between the start of the game and the end of the lair, and while most problems can be solved without imps, there are a few problems where imps are a better solution -- or just help enhance another solution.

As an example, they make a great cover when you need to escape; they can swarm an opponent that isn't stupid enough to walk into fire, is poison resistant, and which has too much AC for Magic Dart; they can be used as a force multiplier against Meph Cloud victims who can't be led to stand in fire; they can buy time; they can raise the dead, if you have an awesome corpse around.

[crate]

People mention imps because call imp is the best level 2 spell in the game for killing things, and one of the best spells for its level in the game, period.

[njvack]

I'm about 95% sure, by the way, that summoned shadow imps won't cast Animate Dead in 0.12 -- having Call Imp do everything Animate Dead did (and more!) but be two spell levels cheaper than Animate Dead was silly.

Edit: Here it is.

[rebthor]

I'm about 95% sure, by the way, that summoned shadow imps won't cast Animate Dead in 0.12 -- having Call Imp do everything Animate Dead did (and more!) but be two spell levels cheaper than Animate Dead was silly.

Edit: Here it is.

That's a pretty big nerf to summon imp, although I can definitely understand the reasoning.

[crate]

yeah what a shame it went from being the best level 2 spell for killing things to still being the best level 2 spell for killing things

[rebthor]

yeah what a shame it went from being the best level 2 spell for killing things to still being the best level 2 spell for killing things

Evap -- oh -- right. :p

In all seriousness, what about sticks to snakes? Yes, you need raw material as opposed to imps, but I'd rather have an anaconda than any of the imps and it's not like clubs are that rare.

[njvack]

Carrying non-stackable sticks suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. And a cursed club maybe generating a hostile anaconda is not super fun (though it's not like ?RC is rare).

It does bug me that s2s is a really powerful spell held in check partly by inventory management issues.

But: at good power, it is an extremely good level 2 spell for killing things.

[ebarrett]

imo remove sticks to snakes (or at least reconsider how/with what it works), it suffers from being stupid in a similar way to evaporate.

[BlackSheep]

Wasn't S2S Transumations/Poison before? If not, maybe it ought to be a two school spell?

[crate]

Sticks to snakes at low power (which is what you'll have when you're comparing it to call imp) is underwhelming. You will get almost exclusively ball pythons from non-poison arrows; you have to use clubs if you want good snakes and then you're dealing with a spell that takes up a ton of inventory slots and takes 50% longer to cast than most spells.

There is no way you can get an anaconda from sticks to snakes if you're at a time when you're comparing it to call imp and not to summon scorpions (or to war dogs from canine familiar).

[rebthor]

I'm more thinking of the pain that I had in lair with a MuWz who had not found any good summoning or blasting spells and suffered along with the wizard starting book until near L:8 when I finally got IMB. Other than the inventory management pain, I think I would have rather had anacondas as killing hydra with imps, wands, magic dart and blink was tedious.

[KoboldLord]

Why not kill those hydrae with Conjure Flame instead? Make a line of flames right in front of them, and they'll plow straight through and die even though they could avoid all damage by taking one step on a diagonal. Hydrae are dumb.

[rebthor]

Why not kill those hydrae with Conjure Flame instead? Make a line of flames right in front of them, and they'll plow straight through and die even though they could avoid all damage by taking one step on a diagonal. Hydrae are dumb.

That's what I'd do now. I severely underestimated the utility of it when I played that character. Looking at my morgue, I didn't even bother to learn it until Lair:7.

[Stormfox]

General rule of thumb for Conjure Flame, for the parts of the game where it's most useful:

You probably have other, faster/more efficient ways of killing anything that stays out of it.

It is probably your best way of dealing with anything that walks into it.

[Psieye]

You probably have other, faster/more efficient ways of killing anything that stays out of it.

Meph cloud to trick the AI into walking into conjure flame when it would otherwise not step into it. No the monster doesn't actually need to be confused, just realise that it's now standing in a dangerous tile so it "won't make a difference" if it takes another step.

[SchwaWarrior]

I've found that, playing Wizard of Vehumet, if I didn't run away from very many battles, right around Lair:8 is when I hit max piety and start getting my god-gift spellbooks. This means even if I didn't find ANY spellbooks in the whole game yet, then by D:12 or 13 or so, post-Lair, is when I get the Book of Power. Since the Lair can be cleared just fine with nothing but the Book of Minor Magic, using Conjure Flame, Mephitic Cloud, Repel Missiles, Call Imp and Magic Dart strategically and aggressively, I get the spells Lightning Bolt and Mystic Blast right when I really start to need them (against Hill Giants and Cyclops and Centaur Warriors), as well as Fireball or Freezing Cloud if I want to choose between Fire or Ice magic, and also Poisonous Cloud if I want it and some other awesome tidbits. There's a fair amount of variety in just the books of Minor Magic, Conjurations and Power. It's really sweet.

That said, I used to play Conjurer a ton, but now I've been sorta spoiled on Wizard by playing it in this order. The only two spells I ever used as Conjurer anyway were Magic Dart and Mephitic Cloud, I didn't like Lightning Bolt so much because I felt it was inaccurate and Freezing Cloud took too long to get castable... I like the low level spells the best because they're easy to juggle and more versatile, and Repel Missiles is much better than Deflect Missiles IMO because it lasts so much longer and you can drag out a massive skirmish without being so stressed to watch which buffs are wearing out. A couple times in Vaults:8 I was in battle for several hundred turns straight, surrounded on all sides, while Invisible, with Repel Missiles up, summoning stuff, dropping clouds left and right, wearing a Shield of the Gong for extra juicy great justice and it freaking ruled. When you're in a gambit like that you'll be glad if you're not having to eat up MP the way a Hummer guzzles gasoline and can rely on the basic, solid spells to win you the freaking battle of Mordor instead of a one-hit-wonder strategy that lacks so much of the poetic fluidity a hybrid strategy can offer you. Hooo-weeee. *sips coffee*

[Lasty]

I've been playing AE characters recently, and let me just say that Lightning Bolt is totally worth it. It's a bit random -- it can miss or roll very low on damage -- but it's also capable of doing absurdly large damage. Few uniques resist lightning, and most of those uniques will go down in 1-3 double-bounce casts of Lightning Bolt.

Freezing Cloud is also totally worth it -- it's a spell that makes most monsters or even groups of monsters you encounter during the game trivial. The damage it does per mana spent is very, very hard to beat.

[Link]

Damn, thanks for the full fledged thread guys, getting better Don't die till mid lair, usually something stupid.

[BlackSheep]

My biggest problem with Lightning Bolt is the noise. You can take things out with multizaps, but be prepared to move afterward.

[Link]

Hmm, multizap seems really useful.

[Psieye]

Oh agreed, you do not learn call imp as soon as you hit XL2. But that doesn't mean "never learn it ever".

"Never train spellcasting if you don't need more spelllevels" isn't quite true, it should be "spellcasting is a lower priority in that situation". Spell success is far more dictated by the relevant magic skill and more importantly, spell power is too. Max MP doesn't keep going up just because you have more spellcasting - note that DE have a flat boost to their MP regardless of what their spellcasting level is. Some spellcasting certainly helps with max mp but chances are if you're a mage you've got enough levels in it to get the maximum mp bonus for your XL. Spell hunger? Eat more permafood, eat more chunks. Spell hunger becomes more of a problem later in the game but while getting to that point, don't worry about spell hunger.

[crate]

I'm pretty sure Wz should learn call imp as soon as you hit xl2.

[Zicher]

Spell hunger? Eat more permafood, eat more chunks. Spell hunger becomes more of a problem later in the game but while getting to that point, don't worry about spell hunger.

... unless you're a spriggan. IMHO, for them spell hunger is more of a problem in early game, when lack of permafood may be a serious issue.

[Psieye]

Spell hunger? Eat more permafood, eat more chunks. Spell hunger becomes more of a problem later in the game but while getting to that point, don't worry about spell hunger.

... unless you're a spriggan. IMHO, for them spell hunger is more of a problem in early game, when lack of permafood may be a serious issue.

Well yes, but I could just as well say "you only need magic dart (or ensorcelled hiberation) at hungerless in the earlygame. Everything else can be used sparringly as you can just outrun everything".

[Zicher]

Spell hunger? Eat more permafood, eat more chunks. Spell hunger becomes more of a problem later in the game but while getting to that point, don't worry about spell hunger.

... unless you're a spriggan. IMHO, for them spell hunger is more of a problem in early game, when lack of permafood may be a serious issue.

Well yes, but I could just as well say "you only need magic dart (or ensorcelled hiberation) at hungerless in the earlygame. Everything else can be used sparringly as you can just outrun everything".

This really depends on your playstyle. I mostly play SpVMs, so in my book Meph is the second most important early game spells, and getting this one hungerless already takes quite some time (~9 Spellcasting). So again, it's about different playstyles.

[Lasty]

I'm pretty sure Wz should learn call imp as soon as you hit xl2.

Agreed. Call Imp can help you win or escape almost any situation you run into between L2 and L10, and the opportunity cost of getting it is what? Getting Repel Missiles, which is way more situational and harder to cast? Skipping all level 2s so you can double up on conjure flame/mephitic cloud at l3? Neither one sounds like a better plan to me.

[Psieye]

Well yes, but I could just as well say "you only need magic dart (or ensorcelled hiberation) at hungerless in the earlygame. Everything else can be used sparringly as you can just outrun everything".

This really depends on your playstyle. I mostly play SpVMs, so in my book Meph is the second most important early game spells, and getting this one hungerless already takes quite some time (~9 Spellcasting). So again, it's about different playstyles.

Mephitic HARDLY needs to be at hungerless. 3# hunger is good enough in the earlygame for a spell you're not literally spamming at every single enemy.

[crate]

You could also just put xp into useful places so you don't need to be using meph....

[Link]

How should I branch into earth now? I have Corona, Mep Cloud and Magic Dart. I want to start being able to get ledilubs crystal spear.

stats are: 10 conjurations, 9 spellcasting, 5 in each air and posion. Nothing else.

[Psieye]

Uh... at that early point in the game? Don't even think about Crystal Spear (even if you didn't have 5 levels in air getting in the way). Way later on you can cast it mostly with spellcasting, very high Int and conjurations alone so learning Earth isn't striclty necessary. That would be around the time you're getting ready for extended. Until then, use poison arrow. There's nothing 'wrong' with going a little air first and earth later, provided that's MUCH later.

[Link]

Hmm, okay then, what book is posion arrow in? Nevermind, found it in annihilations.

[Zicher]

You could also just put xp into useful places so you don't need to be using meph....

Again, it's my SpVM point of view. Meet three groups of orcs in a row, each with a priest, and you'll be really happy meph-spamming them, instead of getting several smites in the face.

[Psieye]

You could also just put xp into useful places so you don't need to be using meph....

Again, it's my SpVM point of view. Meet three groups of orcs in a row, each with a priest, and you'll be really happy meph-spamming them, instead of getting several smites in the face.

That doesn't count as spam in my view - you cast it 1~2 times per dangerous group. Magic dart you cast 20+ times per dangerous group. You could be casting IMB 10+ times per dangerous group at around Lair if you went conj. That's spam - 1~2 times isn't.

[njvack]

I think crate was implying that meph might not be the best XP investment for SpVM to learn at all -- or at least, not worth rushing for.

[crate]

If I met three groups of orcs in a row with spvm I can tell you I almost certainly wouldn't be using meph on them. You have move delay 6, put it to use.

[Zicher]

If I met three groups of orcs in a row with spvm I can tell you I almost certainly wouldn't be using meph on them. You have move delay 6, put it to use.

Oh, that's what I do . The help of meph simply grants me a much better chance of actually killing those dudes, instead of just running from them, or, if things look really dire, grants me a better chance of having enough time to run away (IMHO it's better to cast meph and confuse two out of three orc priests and _then_ run away).
I hope I don't cause much confusion here. My SpVM playstyle really is a Poison Arrow Gatling Gun, highly aggresive, attacking everything I can kill and running only from threats I can't (early ghosts, ice beasts or jellies, for example). Sure, it may not be ideal - but for me it works just well.

[BlackSheep]

Venom mages specialize in poisoning enemies and then running away while the poison does its work. Spriggans have a very easy time doing that.

[Zicher]

Venom mages specialize in poisoning enemies and then running away while the poison does its work. Spriggans have a very easy time doing that.

This.
Plus, spriggans have the advantage in their stealth, giving them good chances just to walk away before the unbeatable enemy you just noticed wakes up. SpVMs are generally an extremely good combo if you know to pick your fights. And your options improve _a lot_ with your advancement in skills, spells and levels.

[crate]

The problem with using meph against orcs as spvm is you actually have to get closer to use it than to use sting, so you're actually putting yourself in more danger by using it than by not using it.