Is Teleport Other a good spell?

[danr]

My current HaHu is having a great romp, I've cleared Lair, Orc and Snake. Up next are Elf and Shoals, I think.

I've got three spell slots left and I think these are my choices:

- Mephitic Cloud - I know it's great, but it runs out of juice later on, and having already cleared three branches I wonder how much life is left in it. Also, I can only cast it at "Very Good" right now.
- Teleport Other - this is castable at excellent. I just don't know if it's worthwhile - will anything I actually want to use it on be able to resist it?
- Ensorcelled Hibernation (@ Great)?

Spells I have already:
- Apportation
- Blink (+ cTele ring!)
- Swift
- Levitation (+cFly Stlth++ randart amulet)
- RMsl
- Regen
- Sure Blade
- Corona
- Slow
- Conjure Flame
- Shock (mostly used this to train up Conj for Conj Flame)
- Vamp Draining
- Confuse

Also - any advice on spells to ditch? Corona and Slow seem pretty ineffective. Is Shock worthwhile? Is Confuse effective on high HD / high MR monsters?
Conj flame was brilliant in Snake Pit - all the baddest dudes would happily walk right into it and take massive fire damage while I put steel bullets in their faces.

My best offence right now is a +0,+3 sling with 50 +4 steel bullets, but for stabbing I have the +4,+10 Spriggan's Knife (MR EV+4 Dex+4 Stlth++).

For melee I have a +2 sabre of speed (rElec). Okawaru has given me pretty much exclusively sling bullets.

Also - with Int 16, how many levels Spc do I need for L3 spells to be hungerless?

[danr]

Answering that last question myself:

Henzell says...
Casting a spell lowers your nutrition by an amount varying with the spell's level: (1) 50, (2) 95, (3) 160, (4) 250, (5) 350, (6) 550, (7) 700, (8) 860, (9) 1000. This amount is lowered by the product of your Intelligence and Spellcasting. (For rods, your Evocation skill * 10, with a minimum of 5.)
Display messages in 0.6: Sultana is >= 1. Strawberry is >= 15, Choko is >= 41, Honeycomb is >= 121, Ration is >= 401.

With Spc 7, Int 16, I am reducing spell hunger by 112. So Spc 10 * 16 would totally eliminate the cost of an L3 spell. Unfortunately I picked up Deterioration 1 so my Int is often at 15 or 14

[mageykun]

Meph is awesome in that it turns all mele into a stabbing fest, at least if they lack rPois. Sure, it's a little late in the game to start using it, but it'll still work in elf, and on draconians too! Personally, I think you're already past the point where ensorcelled hibernation is useful. It's easily stopped by rC, or a little MR. Also, you only get one chance of working per cast. If you drop a meph on something, it rolls a chance to work every turn they're in the cloud. Though you might not want to get all stab happy. Fighting doesn't train well when you do that.

I've never found 'port other to be particularly useful.

Shock's a cool spell, but you don't really need it with your build. If something's at range you're probably better pelting it with your steel slinging, instead of trying for shock multizaps. Slow can be useful with early snakes and a few things, but you're probably getting to the point where everything has to much MR for it to work.

[tormodpwns]

Only use Mephitic Cloud if you have rPois or Clarity yourself. It will still work in the late game, though expect the enemies to resist confusion for a few turns or even entirely.

Shock is pretty much useless after Orc; it just deals too little damage to kill anything.

You can definitely ditch Corona, Slow, and Confuse. MR becomes a pain in the ass lategame.

I would highly recommend using a better sling, Okawaru must have gifted you at least ONE branded sling by now. He usually gifts me slings even when I'm playing an axe-exclusive character. If not, then get your hands on a Scroll of Vorpalisation or a branding spell (Freezing Aura, Flame Brand). But don't fix the brand permanently with the scroll because in the end, a vorpal sling is most effective against the tough enemies that resist basically everything.

[Jenx]

Stop saying "HaHu", it just sounds stupid. XD

As for teleport Other - never found myself in a situation where I'd prefer to teleport a monster and not myself. So I never bother with it.

[danr]

Believe it or not, that sling is the best I've got. It is a sling of flame but the brand doesn't apply to steel bullets (just as well).

I think that, apart from the Spriggan's Knife, I haven't gotten anything other than sling bullets from Oka. The sabre was a floor find.

Unless I find a better melee weapon, my fighting skill is not going up much more...

Also - I wonder about ditching swiftness. Semi-controlled blink is WAY faster.

Sadly I have no amnesia scrolls so I may not be able to forget all those spells without destroying access to other spells that may be good later.

Teleport other - I was imagining that if there's something tough guarding a vault or staircase that you really want to get to, that's when you'd want to get it out of the way instead of yourself.

[Lantier]

I would ditch Slow and Corona before ditching Swiftness. I always found Swfitness + Flight to be an awesome combo. Besides, I think one can never have too many ways to run away in Crawl.

I wouldn't mess with Teleport Other. I'd rather save those slots until I found something better. Like Haste or Deflect. (You should get plenty more slots as you train up Spellcasting.) Seems like have have a decent set of defenses as is. Besides, you never know where the RNGs will put that enemy you just teleported...

If you really wanted to use those 3 slots up, I'd go with Mephitic. Should be handy in Elf and Shoals. May even work out nicely in Vault and down to D27. Just don't rely on it to take out Nikola...

Edit: forgot to mention, do you have a ring of sustain abilities? That'll help with that nasty Mut you have.

[danr]

What about Silence? Is that a good goal?

I'd kind of like to stick to L3 or lower spells though and start pouring more XP into fighting.

[KoboldLord]

Teleport Other is very poor in my opinion; if you can overcome something's MR, do it with something that will let you actually kill it, such as Confuse.

Divide and conquer. If you Teleport Other three elephants in that pack, you can kill the last one without Confuse and then recover your mp before the other three find you again. If you try to Confuse all four, the first two will shake it off while you're still trying to make it stick on the third, and if you ever get all four confused you'll be out of mp.

[Zicher]

Teleport Other is very poor in my opinion; if you can overcome something's MR, do it with something that will let you actually kill it, such as Confuse.

Divide and conquer. If you Teleport Other three elephants in that pack, you can kill the last one without Confuse and then recover your mp before the other three find you again. If you try to Confuse all four, the first two will shake it off while you're still trying to make it stick on the third, and if you ever get all four confused you'll be out of mp.

This is one of the nice examples of "use your resources in a creative way".
It's this kind of thinking that makes Crawl actually winnable .

[joellercoaster]

There's definitely a place for a 'pause button' spell in your roster, whether it be Teleport Other, Petrify, Ensorcelled Hibernation or whatever - something to make one or more enemies come back into play a bit later. They're not tier-1 use-all-the-time spells, but they certainly come in handy.

It's a bit like being a lion... you can't take all the wildebeest^Wyaks at once, so you have to split one or two off from the herd and pick them off piecemeal.

[gb]

As for teleport Other - never found myself in a situation where I'd prefer to teleport a monster and not myself. So I never bother with it.

the point of teleport other is that it's easier to cast than teleport self. if you are playing a caster build where you're trying to ramp up tloc it's a decent stepping stone. probably wouldn't recommend it here as you'll eventually want to get rid of it and you already have stuff you want to forget using scrolls of amnesia.