What species do you play most?


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Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 00:37

What species do you play most?

As a parallel to the other thread.

What I play most:

Deep dwarves: I like the damage shaving and the sense surroundings ability. I actually also kind of like the non-healing aspect. DDNe Makhleb is currently my favourite, but I want to try a healer and switching to TSO in the end game.

Deep Elves: make magic easy!

Spriggans: fast and evasive as heck. pretty cool as enchanters. Stealthy / stabby fun!

High elves: I like the overall aptitudes though I'm not sure what background is best.

Merfolk: Great aptitudes for hybrid melee spellcasting play. MfCK is currently my favourite class overall I think.

Kobolds: great aptitudes and the ability to eat anything anytime.

Minotaurs: good if I want to play a straight melee game, although I havent' done that in a while.

Mountain Dwarves were my favourite until the armour nerf, I'll have to check those out again now that armour has been re-buffed somewhat.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 06:19

Re: What species do you play most?

Excerpt from my init.txt:
[...]
weapon = random
book = random
wand = random
chaos_knight = random
priest = random
species = random
job = random
random_pick = true
good_random = false
[...]

Dungeon Master

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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 10:51

Re: What species do you play most?

When I'm playing offline, I'll often just pick a random species and see how it goes from there. When I'm online though, I'm usually trying to win, so I'll often be playing merfolks or spriggans, or whatever other flavour of the month is currently the most powerful (in 0.5 and earlier, I played a lot of mountain dwarfs). I also play a lot of high elves, part because they are powerful, and part because they are my favourite species: they are basically good at everything, with the only serious drawback being a slow rate of leveling (low HP too, fighting skill offsets that).

I think my current HE will be my last one in a while though.
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Zot Zealot

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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 11:13

Re: What species do you play most?

Sludge Elves! Playwise, I like the things they're good at - transmutation, oddball fighting (throwing, unarmed), and a little bit of necromancy here and there.

I'm having good results with Transmuters, getting better with Earth Elementalists, and sometimes other things.

Spriggans (of many and various backgrounds) are also great, great fun.
I am sure I played flawflessly. This was an utmost unfair death. -- gorbeh
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 12:49

Re: What species do you play most?

Deep Elves (I love Magic), Human (make me feel "you gotta survive no matter what" the most), Deep Dwarves (interesting), Merfolk, Demonspawn.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 14:13

Re: What species do you play most?

Merfolk -- I racked up a ton of games going for the Free Will banner in the last tourney with MfFE. I also like Cr, Tm, and the obvious IE, and CK is growing on me.

Spriggan -- sorry about all the nasty SpEn ghosts in the mid-levels on CAO...

Deep Elf -- until 0.8 gets finalized, I just don't do well right now with melee characters, so I go to the other extreme.

DD -- after a few of these, I forget that other races do heal naturally.

Sludge Elf -- having fun with Tm and EE.
You fall off the wall. You have a feeling of ineptitude.
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 02:00

Re: What species do you play most?

My favorite is probably merfolk, not necessarily because of their abilities or aptitudes but because I've always been a lover of all things oceanic. I've really enjoyed my merfolk ice elementalists. Seeing how many people play them (merfolk, not ice elementalists) is turning me off to them, though. I'm one of those people who likes to play out of the norm.

My first several characters were spriggan stalkers. The speed is great, but I always end up feeling like I'm cheating somehow.

I'm also a big fan of hobbits/halflings in general, so I play a fair few of them. Usually hunters, and the occasional stalker.

Lastly, I enjoy kobolds and ghouls. It's fun to devour everything you kill and not have to worry so much about food. I usually play kobolds as hunters or stalkers and ghouls as monks or fighters (actually wearing armor heavier than leather is such a novelty!).

I've had a hankering to try out naga for a while, so I think I'll do that since my latest merfolk just got devoured by a hyrda (again!). Maybe a naga dedicated to that god of slowness. Naga are a bit slower than other races, aren't they?
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 04:03

Re: What species do you play most?

spriggans -> Venom Mage that can kite with no buffs is a roflstomp. You can use the starter poison spell and a backup like magic dart for half the game. 5 wins with it 8-) .
Arsenal FC...I'm a gooner.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 14:08

Re: What species do you play most?

colma wrote:spriggans -> Venom Mage that can kite with no buffs is a roflstomp. You can use the starter poison spell and a backup like magic dart for half the game. 5 wins with it 8-) .


Everyone here seems to like Spriggans. Are they one of the easiest to win with in version 7?

Lair Larrikin

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Post Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 15:03

Re: What species do you play most?

I most enjoy playing a random race. For specific ones that I find the most fun, these are typically races that are well-balanced and have some unusual mechanisms. This means that I do not necessarily enjoy playing the most powerful combinations like Mountain Dwarf berserkers or Deep Elf Conjurers. Ghouls are great fun, as are Kenkus, Trolls, and Vampires. And Centaurs, which according to the stats at akrasiac are the best scorers.
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 15:14

Re: What species do you play most?

It seems like it to me. The current state of the game really caters to their aptitudes and abilities. Any way of kiting (be it racial ability or from a spell like swiftness) will get you out of a bad situation 95% of the time, and spriggans do it for nothing. Win.

Ive made tons of deep elf casters and despite their better abilities with spells, they have nothing on a spriggan of the same background. Its basically a must for a deep elf to have a spell that stuns/holds/sleeps strong or quick monsters to stay alive later on.
Arsenal FC...I'm a gooner.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 22:28

Re: What species do you play most?

colma wrote:spriggans -> Venom Mage that can kite with no buffs is a roflstomp. You can use the starter poison spell and a backup like magic dart for half the game. 5 wins with it 8-) .


Which God did you go with?
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 23:07

Re: What species do you play most?

tromboneandrew wrote:I most enjoy playing a random race.


Likewise; I tend to let the game select the race, and then pick a job that sounds suitable. Or, depending what mood I'm in, sounds amusing.

The 'amusing' aspect is probably why I don't get far with the game so far. I've never seen a rune, but I've been on the same level as one several times. At least I know their zipcode.
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 03:30

Re: What species do you play most?

danr wrote:
colma wrote:spriggans -> Venom Mage that can kite with no buffs is a roflstomp. You can use the starter poison spell and a backup like magic dart for half the game. 5 wins with it 8-) .


Which God did you go with?



uhhh (looks up names on wiki)...

Vehumet for a couple.
Sif Muna on one win. That one was OK, but Vehumet was better.
And one with Nemelex Xobeh-the deck of cards guy. I read a little about him on the wiki, didn't understand much of anything it told me and picked him anyway. A lot of "wtf am I doing right now" going on :lol:. Not a choice I think I'll make again.
Arsenal FC...I'm a gooner.

Snake Sneak

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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 09:33

Re: What species do you play most?

I used to play craploads of Merfolks, and now I'm a bit fed of them. They're a bit too perfect for me right now.

Atm I'm playing lots of Mummies and Ghouls, mostly because I want to get as far as possible with some unwon combo.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 12:16

Re: What species do you play most?

Gotta love the damage shaving on Deep Dwarves, and the lack of natural healing makes for a very different experience. I used to play them as vamp-draining Necromancers, but the 0.8 heavy armour combined with their natural toughness is too good to pass on. CK's of Makhleb aren't doing splendidly well for me, but you should see the hurt they can soak up.
Kobolds are fantastic. I should confess this is mostly just fluff. I want to have a frenzied, stabbing little lizard-dog hacking things to bits. And I got my first win with a KoBe.
I really want to like Nagas, but I can't seem to keep one going.
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This raw flesh tastes great!

Lair Larrikin

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Post Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 11:40

Re: What species do you play most?

Most of my Crawl games are played with :

Kobold : nice for his ability to eat anytime he wants when you wants to play it as a caster so it can fight spell hunger at anytime, and always fun to throw poisonned things (and use blowguns) with it.

Spriggan : very fun to play as a sleep caster/i stab you in your sleep character as an enchanter (especially when you have good level and can one shot all those very annoying , the running is really great to escape impossible situations. And as long as you find a few edible food for the Spriggan for it to last until Hive, you're good to go.

Troll : always fun as a berserker or anything that 's not spell focused , as it really hit hard. Unfortunate that after mid game it becomes extremely difficult to survive if you choose to play as a pure non-spell caster character, but thanks to the ability to eat at anytime you can fight berzerk and battle inducing hunger.

Mummy : using the mummy as a chaos knight is always fun, especially for Maklheb in which you can get very good early at killing things at a distance thanks to all those power that can't impact hunger as a mummy has none.

Vampire : good for me to play as a necromancer, i like the abilities of it. My only cons is that bottled blood does not give enough nutrition for my taste, and for some bizarre reason an Ogre can only give you 1 blood potion.

I like some other races, but those are really the ones i play the most with.
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Shoals Surfer

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Post Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 16:45

Re: What species do you play most?

I play a lot of spriggans and deep dwarves for easy wins. My favorite species are felids and halflings.

Willy Elektrix wrote:Everyone here seems to like Spriggans. Are they one of the easiest to win with in version 7?


http://crawl.akrasiac.org/tourney10/scoreboard.html
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Tuesday, 4th January 2011, 04:07

Re: What species do you play most?

I like the SpEN, but I start to struggle when EH and Confuse become less reliable. How do you get by when stabbing is your only major offence and your means of stabbing become less reliable?

It seems to me that by the time I can cast Invis with okay hunger cost, most things will probably have SInv anyway.

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Tuesday, 4th January 2011, 04:22

Re: What species do you play most?

On the first bit: you have two options; either pick up a new major offence (e.g. pain weapon or might or other spells) or avoid killing; distortion weapons combine these two nicely.

On the second bit: it's still worth it, but a bunch of dangerous things will indeed see invis, so find another thing with which to kill them, if you desire to kill them at all. Furthermore, it's okay to be a little liberal with spell hunger, particularly on a 3-runer; there's more than enough food in Hive to sustain you, as long as you don't spam it like crazy.

Swamp Slogger

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Post Saturday, 8th January 2011, 03:26

Re: What species do you play most?

The majority of my games are played as either Merfolk or Sludge Elves. Between them they make good specialist mages of a wide variety of flavors (which covers most of my favorite classes), and they aren't prone to sudden death like Deep Elves or prolonged starvation like Spriggans. I also play Demonspawn sometimes; Demonspawn Chaos Knights are the only non-caster background I can tolerate.

Occasionally I also like to pretend I'm not horrible with Naga. I don't know why I bother; I've had maybe two Naga Transmuters ever that actually made anything of themselves (it's rare for me to make it with the temple with a Naga anything, and a veritable miracle if I actually reach one star of piety with the god I choose), but I've always liked the idea of Naga-type races.
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Slime Squisher

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Post Saturday, 8th January 2011, 03:51

Re: What species do you play most?

Demigods.
Mangled by Mennas

Dungeon Dilettante

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Post Thursday, 13th January 2011, 02:43

Re: What species do you play most?

I've only started playing and have used both Trolls and High Elfs. The later being my favorite so far :)
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Thursday, 13th January 2011, 16:22

Re: What species do you play most?

Now I'm really loving my halflings, esp. w/ slings and shields. Hunter is excellent, but I want to make Arcane Marksmen work.

Their shields and natural dodging make them very survivable, and slings can be amazingly effective even against some of the toughest opponents in the game. I took out Mennas with a sling. Ammunition is plentiful, and being able to soften things up at range more than makes up for them having a bit less HP than some other races.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Tuesday, 18th January 2011, 15:56

Re: What species do you play most?

My Favs:

#1) High Elf: Any Ice Caster, then Any Fire Caster, usually branching in Enchantments (pre split), often with some shields and long blades thrown in.
#2) Sludge Elf: Transmuter (Maybe branching into Nec), Venom Mage (Branching into Nec or Trans).
#3) Kobold: Something stabby and throwy, with some low level helper spells in a school or two, and a full belly.
#4) Vampire: Necromancer, often with some stabby stabby and Enchantments (pre split) thrown in.
#5) Deep Elves, pretty much any non-summoning caster (I find summons tedious), but I dislike the splat factor on DEs.
#6) Random (Viable).

For a sense of scale, I play High Elves less than a majority of the time, and I play Random probably in a low single digit % of the time.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Tuesday, 18th January 2011, 16:41

Re: What species do you play most?

My favorites are (in no particular order) mummy casters (hunger free casting, hunger free channeling from Sif), demonspawn anything (I like mutation roulette), stabby spriggans (one-shotting hydras and certain uniques is SO satisfying), and DDNe of Makhleb.

Dungeon Dilettante

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Post Thursday, 20th January 2011, 02:39

Re: What species do you play most?

I'm pretty new and haven't come close to winning a game yet but my favorites to play are probably:
Kenku - because I tend to like all-around high offense characters in games.
Deep Dwarves - because the natural defense seems to help alot, and I don't mind the non-healing aspect since I usually play them as a necromancer or chaos knight.
Demonspawn and Draconians - I like the randomized growth aspect of playing as either one of those.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Thursday, 20th January 2011, 14:37

Re: What species do you play most?

For some reason I shunned Halflings when I started to play but now they are one of my favs with their high EV and stealth; I prefer even than SE.
I also play Humans for their lack of gimmicks or specialization, and M Dwarfs when I want to play melee characters. Ghouls are funny too for they need to eat just to not rot away :mrgreen:
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