Demon hounds are annoying

[ololoev]

Howl breaks through MR and are smite targeted. If you don't have too much firepower to kill em in 2-3 turns you are sure to get Howl status. Then 3-5 more hounds are summoned and you have nothing to do but to quaff !cancel after you deal with them. The whole concept of the monster that only grow stronger if you didn't manage to kill it at first run seems to be broken.
I think the summons that Howl-summoned hounds should be temporaty, not durable. This way you can at least kill the original hound and deal with temporary ones - kill em or run away.

EDIT: Right now my FeFE is swarmed by demon houds, U5 and some of U4 are swarmed by it. I run out of !cancel and when I try to clear these levels with firestorm, I got Howled and have to run away (spreading the curse).
Okay, cleaned U4, but there are something around 20 hounds on U5. I trieid to kill em, but I nearly always get Howl status and are forced to teleport around not to get swarmed. Don't wand to use stair not to spread the curse. I used out ~15 tele scrolls, 3-4 scrolls of recharging to recharge my wand of tele, and something about 6 scrolls of fog.
Tried to clear U5 again and even when I have to take 2 turns to FStorm a hound to death, I get Howled and fleed to U4, infesting it too. Died 2 times, went back to U3, infested it too and ran to U2. I simply cannot get to Zot!

[Croases]

Another solution is that after Howl runs out, you should get a long duration in which you can't get that status again, like banishment (but not like paralysis where the grace period is very short). This way, you'll always have some time where no hounds may spawn and you're able to take out the existing ones, but resetting Demon Hound fights still have consequences.

[asdu]

Am I reading this right? Have spirit wolves (or whatver they were called) been recycled? Ok, I'm done here.

[WalkerBoh]

After watching someone try to deal with these things, I have to agree with the OP. I would suggest one of a few possible improvements:
1) The summons cannot howl.
2) The summons do not appear in LoS.
3) The summons disappear and the status is removed once the original hound is killed.

[dpeg]

I cannot comment on the monster itself but as far as I understand, it's supposed to only spawn in one hell branch (Dis?). So if you have trouble with it in Depths, then that could be an unfortunate placement/polymorph bug.

[rchandra]

They're in Tar - but when fleeing with Howl Depths can quickly be infested. The only solutions seem to be killhole or Tornado or something. A single hound on Tar:7 is worse than Ereshkigal if walls are undiggable. The low MR doesn't work because you miss once with your poly wand, then get howled, then can never catch up.

Never did I expect that polying an h into a hellephant or Hell Sentinel would be a massive improvement.

e: I'm not convinced that it's actually a good idea at all but it is at least unusual to have an enemy that teleport is useless against.

[WalkerBoh]

The player I watched tried to handle them on Tar:1. They got swarmed by literally two dozen of them pretty quickly, and exited out to Hell. The same thing happened pretty quick in Hell, so they exited out to Depths. That level of Depths was swarmed almost immediately too, despite repeated attempts at teleportation. By the time this guy worked out his strategy to handle them (build a kill hole, kill a dozen of them until the status wears off, then polymorph or paralyze anything else that pops up before it can howl again), he had at least 4-5 dozen doom hounds running around in Depths, Hell, and Tar. He had to repeat the strategy quite a few times just to get back into Tar.

The enemy is literally the most threatening creature in Tar, including Ereshkigal. When it comes on screen, you have one or two turns to handle it before it becomes an unmanageable situation, one which you cannot get rid of by teleporting or switching levels, or even killing the damn thing that started it. I cannot imagine stepping foot into Tar as long as this enemy is there, after watching what I did.

[bcadren]

I haven't found them particularly deadly; but the levels of summon-chaining in Tartarus are getting to the ridiculous. Shadow Demons are in the standard spawn list; so their Shadow Creatures spell can summon more Shadow Demons. Hell Hounds are in the standard spawn list so Shadow Creatures can spawn them too...Hell Hound (Summoned) uses Howl, which creates a bunch of Hell Hound (Durably Summoned). So damn many summons.

[nago]

Lol what
wtf is this a thing again in crawl

[Tressol]

I haven't actually faced the hounds of hell yet, since I only play Stable/official releases (not trunk)... But I do have a question; does Silence prevent the Howl? I know most demonic powers aren't affected, but it seems like in this case it really should be. I would go so far as to say that the Silence status should block and cancel Howl status.

Also, can your Shadow Creatures hounds do the same thing? Because that sounds remarkably broken.

[MrPlanck]

Lol what
wtf is this a thing again in crawl

It's déjà vu, all over again.

[mibe420]

But I do have a question; does Silence prevent the Howl?

according to gretell (an irc bot) no it doesnt.

i just won a 15 rune game in trunk yesterday and i gotta say these guys are kinda lame. they have low MR so my tactic was to cast confuse (which was high-ish spellpower, it was like 85% to work).

what actually happened is they would enter LOS, and be behind some tartarus chaff like dragon zombies or whatever. then they would cast doom howl. once i even failed to confuse it when it entered LOS and it cast doom howl as first action.

they have two attacks, for 30 and 45, so they hit hard enough you cant ignore them. once you get doom howled you really have 2 options: 1)quaff cancellation 2)dig a killhole.

they are speed 13, so you cant really outrun them. doom howl is smite targeted, so you cant manage LOF, and it ignores MR so you cant resist it. so what am i supposed to do? the answer is just get howled and dig a killhole, i fail too see any other tactics that work. even though i used it once, cancellation seems too rare to rely on, i only had 3 at that point.

my char had nighstalker, and a large amount of stealth. i only had 3 or 4 encounters with them. i can only imagine what its like on another type of character.

my suggestion..have doom howl be smite targeted, or ignore MR, but probably not both.

[Rast]

does Silence prevent the Howl?

No, of course not. That would be too flavorful.

[Tiktacy]

The only place these guys exist as far as I know is in tartarus. They are extremely dangerous, probably the most deadly single enemy in the entire extended end game. I like them as enemies though, I actually like them a lot. They are very difficult to deal with and were the only point in the extended end game I ever felt like I was being challenged. I honestly believe we should have more enemies similar to this in extended, this is exactly what extended needs. Also, I think adding doom hounds to the orb run might actually turn the final stretch into something that resembles a challenge.

I find it ironic that people complain about the late game being a total breeze but the moment the devs add something that breaks the flow they get all uppity. I mean, give them a chance. They were bad in the old enchanted woods branch, but the branch itself was pretty flawed to begin with and spirit wolves were just fuel to the fire because of how difficult they were to deal with.

I don't think silence should prevent it. I was on board at first but then I realized all that would do was make it another trivial enemy that can be dealt with using a single spell which is exactly what I DON'T want to see happen to doom hounds.

[Sar]

You do realize that being silenced in a Hell branch is not a very good thing?

[Tiktacy]

You do realize that being silenced in a Hell branch is not a very good thing?

That wouldn't be the strategy, the strategy would be to lure them to the exit and use silence, then either kill them there if there are no monsters present or go up the portal into the vestibule then kill them. Nobody is going to go wonder around hell and throw up silence the moment they see a doom hound without having an effective escape plan. Also, in an emergency, I think !cancel can stop silence from your own spell or is that not true? I have yet to use silence since !Cancel was added to the game.

[Sar]

That wouldn't be the strategy, the strategy would be to lure them to the exit and use silence

This is not very different from luring them outside and digging a killhole.

!cancel can stop silence from your own spell or is that not true

That's a good question!

[asdu]

They are very difficult to deal with and were the only point in the extended end game I ever felt like I was being challenged. I honestly believe we should have more enemies similar to this in extended, this is exactly what extended needs. Also, I think adding doom hounds to the orb run might actually turn the final stretch into something that resembles a challenge.

I find it ironic that people complain about the late game being a total breeze but the moment the devs add something that breaks the flow they get all uppity.

I can only talk for myself here, but however extreme my point of view may seem, I would be surprised if it wasn't shared by many here: when I go into extended, I'm not looking to have fun, be challenged or anything of the sort, I'm just there for higher score and I'd love to get it over with as quickly and with as little bullshit as possible. I stopped having consistent fun probably somewhere between my first and second rune, and while fun isn't impossible past that point, it typically comes in concentrated form (rune vaults and such).
I resent having to go through a riculously long stretch of game shoving aside mountains of popcorn which the game generates in the hope that somewhere in there is a combination of monsters, terrain, loot, etc that creates an interesting gameplay situation. Yes, these situations do happen, but you have to endure so much pointless tedium for them that when they do happen I still end up not giving a damn and try to avoid them (and even that would be an half-assed attempt, because half-assed is all I can manage at that point).
So, yeah, until the late/extended game is drastically shortened (to about a third, I'd say, to keep myself on the conservative side) I'll probably never welcome anything that makes the late game harder, or, more specifically, anything that increases the amount of attention I have to pay to succeed.
I know this sounds like an impossibly lame attitude to have towards a game (also unhealthy), but I'm being completely honest.

Also note that this was just in response to your general point and has nothing to do with demon hounds specifically. I haven't met them but I hated spirit wolves so much that I can't imagine anything good coming from the same concept, no matter where you put them.

[tabstorm]

The only place these guys exist as far as I know is in tartarus. They are extremely dangerous, probably the most deadly single enemy in the entire extended end game. I like them as enemies though, I actually like them a lot. They are very difficult to deal with and were the only point in the extended end game I ever felt like I was being challenged. I honestly believe we should have more enemies similar to this in extended, this is exactly what extended needs. Also, I think adding doom hounds to the orb run might actually turn the final stretch into something that resembles a challenge.

I find it ironic that people complain about the late game being a total breeze but the moment the devs add something that breaks the flow they get all uppity. I mean, give them a chance. They were bad in the old enchanted woods branch, but the branch itself was pretty flawed to begin with and spirit wolves were just fuel to the fire because of how difficult they were to deal with.

I don't think silence should prevent it. I was on board at first but then I realized all that would do was make it another trivial enemy that can be dealt with using a single spell which is exactly what I DON'T want to see happen to doom hounds.

No one likes wading through waves of enemies that are durably summoned and give no experience, especially when you can't really teleport away from them. Spirit Howl was one of the most hated mechanics in Crawl for a reason.

[Tressol]

Silence is a tactical choice and requires some investment to make reliable/less bad. And that's investment in things you can't use while silenced... Furthermore, there may be other foes around, hell effects messing up your retreat, and also doom hounds are faster than the PC, generally. All of this makes a silent retreat a less than great option. If Tar floods with doom hounds, you still have a Tar floor full of doom hounds.

Also, some semblance of logic. Silence should stop sounds.

[milski]

So if the idea is to make these enemies dangerous and resistant to attempts to teleport away, why not do this:

Hellhounds now travel in large packs and/or spawn in very high numbers.

When they howl you, you receive a long-ish duration (~mark duration) status effect that teleport-closes 1-3 hellhounds from the level every dozen or so auts.

After the status effect ends, you can't be affected by it for ~20 turns.

This would make them uniquely powerful against instantly teleporting away from danger, but still not super threatening if you can burn repeated teleports or if you're capable of killing them quickly. It would persist through staircases, so they would still be a threat to divers because the next floors hellhounds would instantly begin appearing on location.

Or just remove the mechanic entirely because it's dumb, either way.

[Tiktacy]

The only place these guys exist as far as I know is in tartarus. They are extremely dangerous, probably the most deadly single enemy in the entire extended end game. I like them as enemies though, I actually like them a lot. They are very difficult to deal with and were the only point in the extended end game I ever felt like I was being challenged. I honestly believe we should have more enemies similar to this in extended, this is exactly what extended needs. Also, I think adding doom hounds to the orb run might actually turn the final stretch into something that resembles a challenge.

I find it ironic that people complain about the late game being a total breeze but the moment the devs add something that breaks the flow they get all uppity. I mean, give them a chance. They were bad in the old enchanted woods branch, but the branch itself was pretty flawed to begin with and spirit wolves were just fuel to the fire because of how difficult they were to deal with.

I don't think silence should prevent it. I was on board at first but then I realized all that would do was make it another trivial enemy that can be dealt with using a single spell which is exactly what I DON'T want to see happen to doom hounds.

No one likes wading through waves of enemies that are durably summoned and give no experience, especially when you can't really teleport away from them. Spirit Howl was one of the most hated mechanics in Crawl for a reason.

Well, the thing is, usually at this point I'm struggling just to find things to invest experience in. By the time I reach tartarus(usually one of the last places I go) I already have just about everything I could ever need trained to a high enough level. Maybe the point is that you aren't getting a reward for your time invested, but getting swarmed by hounds isn't meant to be a rewarding process its meant to punish the player for not coming prepared. Purhaps there are people who don't like this sort of attitude towards gameplay, but planning ahead for extended was something I've always enjoyed.

I hated spirit wolves when they were in enchanted woods. I REALLY hated them, trust me I totally understand what you are feeling. However, if you plan out your game accordingly and come prepared then you won't have any issue dealing with spirit howl in Tartarus. The difference is that by the time you reach that branch of hell you are suppose to be prepared for literally anything, but in enchanted woods spirit wolves were not something you could plan for easily since they were so much earlier on in the game.

Basically, my point is that yes, nobody likes doing that. But being swarmed by doom hounds is a punishment for not making the needed preparations for extended. Nobody likes getting drained to deep red by death elves in elven halls, but that doesn't mean the devs should remove them just because you didn't bring a ring of positive energy. Doom hounds are just a more powerful example of this concept, if you come unprepared then you will be punished for it accordingly.

Although, perhaps there should be a limit on how many can spawn on a single floor, because I can see the major issue you are trying to get at and I agree that being punished in a way that requires you to painstakingly kill hordes of enemies just to have them re-spawn just as fast is not really fair to the player.

Or just remove the mechanic entirely because it's dumb, either way.

The ad homonym really isn't necessary.

Your suggestion also felt lacking, it just turns them into another boring popcorn enemy instead of something to be feared. Although, perhaps that is what you were going for, I imagine a lot of people would prefer them being boring popcorn over what they are now.

[Tressol]

Also, can your Shadow Creatures hounds do the same thing? Because that sounds remarkably broken.

Seriously, though. Because if Howl status can be on an enemy, clearing Vestibule and having Shadow Creatures memorized means you crush the rest of the game, as far as I can see, in an almost unbelievably tedious/scummy fashion (get some howled enemy to follow you back to Vestibule, repeat to Depths, repeat repeat repeat).

Edit: Wizmode tests seem to show that only the player is a legitimate target for Howl status... Which seems pretty dumb, really. As pointed out, the alternative is super broken, but I see no "fair" reason that it should only work on the player. Of course, this leads to an another potential solution to the hounds; kill them with undead minions while you are out of LoS, or just summon tons of stuff and let the hounds remain distracted while they try to face off against your - what at this point of extended, dragons? Horrible Things? Enemy still seems pretty dumb, and a status that can only apply to the player makes it seem like artificial difficulty.

(Yes, there are a bunch of forms that only apply to the player, but that's largely because Polymorph works *differently* on enemies - not because enemies are immune to/cannot be targeted by Polymorph. And I guess magic contamination is a thing only affecting the PC, but that's something the player has control over, for the most part.)