Chaos Knights

[snow]

I'm having extreme difficulty winning one.

If I play carefully with Xom, he kills me.
If I ditch Xom, he kills me.

I've tried various Chaos Knights, including Trolls, Spriggans, Mummies, and most of the time I don't even make it to the Lair. How are you supposed to win one of these?

[ackack]

Xom effects can certainly be annoying, but CK being hard seems like it's more about having a pretty crappy start. Once you get rolling, the Xom effects are usually mostly minor in my experience. You should plan for some of them, though:

- Carrying a spare weapon in case yours gets animated or switched with an opponent is a good idea.

- If you get confused in a situation that is only mildly dangerous, try riding it out without curing for a while --- I ran into a midgame shortage of curing potions, and you really need to have some on tap for when Xom confuses you and you don't have time to mess around.

- Edit your rc to force more on "Xom turns up the heat." Eventually inner flame becomes more or less ignorable but for a long time it will be one of Xom's better ways to kill you.

- Between the occasional hostile summons and the triple drain effect, amulets of warding are a lot better than I usually think of them (which is basically trash.) It happened to be the only useful amulet I had for a lot of my CK game, but I ended up being thankful I was wearing it.

[absolutego]

including Trolls, Spriggans, Mummies

well maybe you shouldn't be playing mucks? i don't think xom's so bad now (unless you're playing a muck). i find heavy armour, decent-hp builds more reliable, so you may want to try a mick or a hock, or even ceck or something like that.

ackack's mostly solid advice, although i've never bothered with warding (that seems rather marginal), and hostile weapon animation was thank god removed. you still get swaps though, so you want a backup.

there's also the issue of starting with a chaos weapon. i use it anyway, but you have to accept you'll die to your first hobgoblin sometime (i've beaten the game with chaos weapons a couple times though, they're decent later on).

[Amnesiac]

A short blade of chaos if fun for stabbing, because a lot of it's effects allow stabbing. Though you can roll something like invisibility, berserk, haste of polymorph yourself into a tree or a pig.

[absolutego]

iirc most brands are applied after the hit, which if you're stabbing just kills the dude, so not really?
chaos brand self-poly is one of the dumbest things in the game, but i think you can cancel it on the abilities menu now? that's my recollection from the last time it happened to me.

[Amnesiac]

I mean that it has a lot of effects that allow stabbing... Like petrification, paralisys, confusion.

[absolutego]

so you're actually fighting dudes with a dagger? nice

[Amnesiac]

A dagger is good, but you can only start a CK with a short blade. But Psyche is an early unique, fortunately(does she sometimes have distortion?).

[Tiber]

If you find an early ring of teleportation, get enough evocation to make it reliable. That way, when you get a mass summon, you can teleport away without fear. Blink is great too.
Carry a spare weapon as said, though note that Xom no longer animates your weapon against you.
Start by pumping up your weapon skill, but hope for a good spellbook or other good item.
Kiting is a risky strategy. If Xom's in a good mood you can hope for a buff or an ally, but the longer you drag it out the more likely he'll do something that makes things worse.
Get a ranged weapon or a polearm for inner flamed enemies. Used wisely, the inner flame effect can become a screen-clearer.

I consider Draconians a good class for Chaos Knights. They have a fairly easy start, and the right color can work work pretty well. Plus both draconians and chaos knights are both about adaptation, because your starting skill set doesn't really give you a clear direction.

[SchwaWarrior]

Another trick: Demonspawn Chaos Knight has good synergy with demonic heritage mutations kicking in that "highly amuse" Xom. So there is that.

[siprus]

I always get destroyed as melee xom follower when he gives inner fire buff to a adder i'm about to kill, (or at least forces me out of potions of curing, living me vulnerable to poision and confusion later in the game) If orc mage or priest gets inner fire there is very little i can do. I try to use chaos weapons when ever i find them, but i guess it's not enough to keep xom amused (or maybe xom uses inner fire even if he is amuses... )

[Klown]

He gave me 2 early potions of experience on my SpCK. Every other try was full of negative trolling which made me wonder why I was playing a CK.

[Volteccer_Jack]

xom

[savageorange]

If I play carefully with Xom, he kills me.

Yes. You have to play in a calculatedly reckless way for Xom to be nice. It helps to understand tension -- playing some LOCK's should give you a good idea of when tension will be high or not.
For example, being next to a popcorn enemy followed by two dangerous enemies in a corridor is somewhat safe while the fact you can see those enemies raises tension. Being in the middle of a crowd of enemies wailing on you is safer under Xom, because he tends to quite effectively bail you out when things get tough. Spending 100 turns resting to restore HP is unsafe.

It's basically the opposite of normal sane Crawl play. Instead of avoiding dangerous situations you have to rush in whenever you possibly can.

Personally I find Xom quite a helpful god for early -> mid game. But you do have to play like at least half of Crazy Yiuf.

[Sar]

TrCKs are really pretty easy IMO. I usually play them like I would play a melee troll - UC, a shield if I find one and don't think much about amusing Xom (well, I keep random effect wands on me and occasionally zap them in combat). Trolls are so strong, you can plow through early game and later you have options (like teleporting the hell away if Xom does something silly). Zot:5 is pretty tense with Xom though because of teleports. What effects do you die to most often?

[ackack]

If I play carefully with Xom, he kills me.

Yes. You have to play in a calculatedly reckless way for Xom to be nice. . . . It's basically the opposite of normal sane Crawl play. Instead of avoiding dangerous situations you have to rush in whenever you possibly can.

I disagree. Many of the Xom effects --- confusion, inner flame, sudden mutation with torment level damage --- are undoubtedly worse with monsters around. You might run into the occasional shadow creatures or teleport ride if you're sitting around resting, but of course you could just as well run into those things running between fights at 40% hp because you think that resting is more dangerous than fighting.

[absolutego]

It's basically the opposite of normal sane Crawl play. Instead of avoiding dangerous situations you have to rush in whenever you possibly can.

what the
no don't do this

[savageorange]

Yeah that's open to misinterpretation, mainly 'whenever you possibly can' -- I meant 'if you can reasonably risk it, get yourself in some degree of trouble.' You really can't sit around healing up that long, or anything -- Xom is likely to do something unpleasant when you do (doesn't matter so much by endgame, but by then you've probably switched to another god). OTOH when you are in danger, he's likely to do something pleasant (in particular, I'm looking at 'good mutations' here as something that improves your survival chances and allows you to continue calculatedly endangering yourself).

So I guess I'm saying that danger is less dangerous than Xom, in the early game and midgame.

Many of the Xom effects --- confusion, inner flame, sudden mutation with torment level damage --- are undoubtedly worse with monsters around.

That's true.

running between fights at 40% hp

That is not playing, that is suiciding. I'm talking about running between fights at 75% HP. If your HP at the end of a typical fight is 40%, I also call that a suicidal playstyle.

[snow]

Thanks for all the advice. I've found that lava orcs make the best chaos knights so I've been sticking with them. Also felids are decent because they can just abandon xom and wait out the wrath (since they have slow hunger and can eat until engorged).

[Sar]

You don't even need to wait out wrath, it's not very scary. On my FeCK run Xom abyssed me as I entered Lair, so I joined Lugonu (Xom was extra annoying on that run anyway). I don't remember Xom doing anything bad to me during his "wrath" - he even gave me some nice mutations!
I think doing something like TrCK and joining Trog/Oka/Makh as soon as you find an altar would be even easier if you just want a CK win.