The Tavern

While there's clearly a flavor reason (bandages are flammable!), it's not immediately obvious to me that mummies are less suited to be fire elementalists than any other pure caster (aside from necromancer).

In fact, a MuFE has the bonus advantage that the ring of fire corrects one of the mummy's weaknesses -- the ring of ice, on the other hand, would make a mummy's fire vulnerability problem even worse.

Fire is one of the weaker elements, and mummies already kind of suck. IE is somewhat less terrible, because if you get refrigeration at least you don't care about ruining your potions.

minmay wrote:Playing FE does not increase the chance of finding a ring of fire in any way.

Of course. But that has nothing to do with the fact that a MuFE can use a ring of fire much more safely than a MuIE can use a ring of ice, or that the resistance bonus of a staff of fire is much more useful than that of a staff of ice, making this a point in favor of FE that isn't seen by other races.

Or with the fact I hadn't seen any gameplay reason that FE should be disfavored (aside from esoteric things like an Inner Flame snafu being much deadlier).

Refrigeration (as njvack points out) is an interesting point. (as is "don't recommend two 'hard' things" suggestion)

Hurkyl wrote:
I hadn't seen any gameplay reason that FE should be disfavored (aside from esoteric things like an Inner Flame snafu being much deadlier).

It makes melee fireball a Bad Idea (I did that a lot last time I played FE), and also stops you from planting a flame behind you and then running through it to park enemies in it (in case you can't place it in front of you because a monster is there). Though this last probably is bad play, since you should have had plenty of time to conjure a flame...

As minmay pointed out, being rF- is bad for fire damage miscasts. And because you got mummy aptitudes you will stay in miscast range longer compared to elves or tengus or whatever. (And every once in a blue moon you may find yourself inflicting fire damage to yourself in other ways, like having to flee over a poorly played conjure flame.) Those considerations are much more important than the fact that certain items that are good for a specific type of way to develop FE in midgame might end up meshing with some of the intrinsic characteristics of your species. Backgrounds are recommended on the basis of what you get for starting that background, and this is a good thing.

That being said, I will be the first to admit that some of the recommendations are a bit... questionable in their logic.

Hurkyl wrote:In fact, a MuFE has the bonus advantage that the ring of fire corrects one of the mummy's weaknesses -- the ring of ice, on the other hand, would make a mummy's fire vulnerability problem even worse.

The second part of your statement is wrong. There is absolutely no difference between rF- and rF------ except the number of rF items you would need to counter it. If you have no source of rF anyway and no fire spells, there is no downside to wearing a ring of ice for a mummy.

Needing two rF+ items actually is worse than needing one.

If only there were some way to remove a ring of ice after putting one on...

BlackSheep wrote:If only there were some way to remove a ring of ice after putting one on...

You shouldn't have worshiped Ash then

and into wrote:As minmay pointed out, being rF- is bad for fire damage miscasts.

I'll have to take your word. I suppose I'm too conservative with my casting, as except for one instance, I don't recall ever having actually noticed a miscast effect other than contamination.

Those considerations are much more important than the fact that certain items that are good for a specific type of way to develop FE in midgame might end up meshing with some of the intrinsic characteristics of your species. Backgrounds are recommended on the basis of what you get for starting that background, and this is a good thing.

Again I'll have to take your word -- my limited experience has been that I've never wished I could retreat through a flame cloud or had to fireball something in melee range that I couldn't find a place to cast it that didn't blast me, but I have faced elemental vulnerability issues from enhancer rings.

I'm not sure if that means I need to be bolder, or that others are too reckless.

Hurkyl wrote:Again I'll have to take your word -- my limited experience has been that I've never wished I could retreat through a flame cloud or had to fireball something in melee range that I couldn't find a place to cast it that didn't blast me, but I have faced elemental vulnerability issues from enhancer rings.

I'm not sure if that means I need to be bolder, or that others are too reckless.

I think the main thing, though, is that backgrounds are recommended on the basis of what you start out with. You may not find a ring of fire or of ice at all, or (more commonly) may not find one until some point in the mid-game. It is fine to have an idea of what you'd like to get and how you want to build your character in the mid-game, but that shouldn't be your primary consideration when choosing a background. If you like the fire elementalist book a lot on Mummies, go with FE. If you get tired of that, try something else. I think there is some rationale for graying it out FE as "not recommended" for mummies, but of course that shouldn't stop anyone from rolling with the combination you like. Some cases are rather clear-cut challenge builds, but plenty of others work out fine but are still "not recommended." The white vs. gray text is not meant to be taken too strictly. It is just meant to make the character creation screen a bit less daunting for people who are still quite new to the game and maybe are thinking about trying some new combos.

EDIT: Obviously you never *want* to retreat through a flame cloud, Mummy or not. But some of the spells in book of flames (inner flame comes to mind) can be more likely to lead to self-damage than other spell sets in the starting books. Perhaps you never use that spell. I probably wouldn't on a Mummy, myself. But then that is one spell in your starting book that is especially dangerous for you to use, that is one option that is (further) removed from the table, or at least made more situational. So that is a consideration for Mummies due to the rF- that you definitely start with. Maybe you get lucky early on with some way to mitigate that (ring of fire or something else), maybe not; you are guaranteed to have the rF-, though.

Why isn't MuFE recommended?

The same reason MuAE and MuEE aren't recommended.

The question you should be asking is why MuIE is recommended.

Volteccer_Jack wrote:
Why isn't MuFE recommended?

The same reason MuAE and MuEE aren't recommended.

The question you should be asking is why MuIE is recommended.

They don't take damage in the fridge? Seems like a minor point, but it's something.

MoogleDan wrote: They don't take damage in the fridge? Seems like a minor point, but it's something.

I have no idea why MuIE is recommended, but I really hope this is not the reason. It is like the ring of fire point, only worse. It is really silly to base a recommendation for your background, which is just the starting point of a character, off of some species synergy with a lvl 6 spell (that also happens to be among the rarest spells in the game!).

If you really sit down and analyze the recommendations, you find quite a few rather arbitrary selections, a few of which are just downright misleading.

In part it seems there are different kinds of rationales operating at the same time, without anything distinguishing them.

If I were dead-set on playing a mummy, then I suppose mummy wizard (for instance) is a solid choice. If on the other hand I really want to play a wizard, and I'm considering my species choice, mummy is not really a great option (simply from a "maximize chances to survive" standpoint). But combos are simply recommended or not, so they don't always give a good read on the situation.

What I mean is, if you select "Mummy" as species first, and then see that Ice elementalist is a recommended background, this is not too misleading (though one could reasonably question why, say, air elementalist isn't recommended in this case). However, if you select ice elementalist first, having mummy recommended alongside Merfolk, High Elves, Deep Elves, Humans, Demonspawn, etc., *is* actually very misleading, at least for new players. Who are, I assume, the target for this information in the first place.

You people are putting way more thought into this than the people who actually made the recommendations. They're just rough guidelines on what might or might not be easy to play. Mufe sounds like ass so either elliptic or marvinpa declined to recommend it. There was no actual deliberation over what miscasts do or whether or not it will wear some rings or whatever. =P

minmay wrote:If that's a concern then it would be pretty trivial to solve by only showing recommendations if you've selected a species. (Although I think the only person who chooses background first is MarvinPA anyway.)

I choose background first occasionally, as well, which may be why I notice / pay more attention to the default recommendations than others.

mikee wrote:You people are putting way more thought into this than the people who actually made the recommendations. They're just rough guidelines on what might or might not be easy to play. Mufe sounds like ass so either elliptic or marvinpa declined to recommend it. There was no actual deliberation over what miscasts do or whether or not it will wear some rings or whatever. =P

It wouldn't surprise me if we were! Inevitably, some design decisions in Crawl that were made very conscientiously and agonized over, end up being overlooked, while other semi-arbitrary things that were added, almost as an afterthought, end up being over-analyzed and taken more seriously than intended.

and into wrote: If you really sit down and analyze the recommendations, you find quite a few rather arbitrary selections, a few of which are just downright misleading.

In part it seems there are different kinds of rationales operating at the same time, without anything distinguishing them.

To be perfectly logical you would pretty much have to gray out all the choices for mummies because they are kind of very bad (in terms of power not in terms of funness)

. Partly because the species are so different in difficulty, I don't think it it's even possible to have some kind of "scientific method" to decide which backgrounds are recommended if one wants that there are actually some choices left for some species like mummies.

I think that mummies should just be grayed out on the species screen and then we don't have to worry about the rest of this discussion. They are clearly a sub-optimal choice until we get MuHe back.

I agree, but i rather see Healers ditched and some races, exactly like Mummies, improved.
I can´t help but wonder if Healers were made specifically to frustrate the devs. :shock:

graffen69 wrote:I can´t help but wonder if Healers were made specifically to frustrate the devs.

I think they were made to create an alternate way to play the game, which is the intent of some of the deities.

graffen69 wrote:I agree, but i rather see Healers ditched and some races, exactly like Mummies, improved.
I can´t help but wonder if Healers were made specifically to frustrate the devs.

Well, there are different registers here. I would not recommend mummies to someone asking for general advice, unless the advice was, "I really want to play a mummy, I haven't yet, what's a good way to branch into them?" I don't play mummies myself, after having won a couple of them, largely thanks to kind of gimmicky things you can do with them.

On the other hand, I love that they are in the game and would not want to see them majorly changed, including for improvements, at all.

I don't particularly like playing healers but I think they are an extremely interesting play style, from a design perspective. So likewise I'm very happy they are in the game even if I don't find myself playing them all that often.

I for one, consider MuIE to be one of the 3 best pure casters in the game(NaVM, VpIE, MuIE). They might not be very versatile in aptitudes(or at all for that matter), but a Mummy of Nemelex is so broken that I feel like I'm cheating.

(although, I only do 15 rune runs, and thats something to consider)

Tiktacy wrote:I for one, consider MuIE to be one of the 3 best pure casters in the game

Respectfully, you are probably the only one who does.

Lots of mummy casters can suddenly become really powerful when you get first piety star with Sif, but you are even more vulnerable than other characters up until that point, and the bad apts are still a drag even after. Kobolds can go in for the same early channeling abuse if you really want to, but with better apts and EV and... well, just better all around, to be honest.

Tiktacy wrote: a Mummy of Nemelex is so broken that I feel like I'm cheating.

Have you tried lots of other species with Nemelex? I'm having a hard time figuring out what about mummies make them pair really well with Nem...?

god 10$ it's something like saccing permafood to get wonders and exp.

This thread inspired me to try MuIE of Sif out, and that's the first ice mage i'm enjoying. Being able to channel mana, stand in freezing clouds and cast refrigeration freely is a pretty unique experience, and i found having terrible aptitudes to be a fair price for it. Freezing Cloud is just too good at whatever power, and it blocks lethal bolts of fire. And also, mummies are pretty good at necromancy, a school which has a good synergy with ice magic.
However, everything i listed is related to mid-game or at least post-Temple period, and getting there is quite a challenge. As it was mentioned before, combo recommendations and certified good players do care only about how the starting kit helps players in the early game, so... That cat who listed MuIE as a recommended combo might be wrong from this standpoint, but i want to thank it anyway.

The Tavern

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