The Lazy Person's Guide to a 15 Runer

[moop]

Gargoyle Berserker. Hit TAB. Engage soundtrack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnHmskwqCCQ.

[and into]

Elf 3 is unnecessary and really dangerous for a lvl 17 to 19 character, do it later if you want but not that early. rF+ doesn't help AT ALL with hellfire, it ignores rF and AC. Trog's Hand increases magic resistance this is really good I don't think you mentioned that aspect of the ability. Most dangerous late-game sources of damage are not mitigated by shields, unfortunately, so switching to a great mace at some point is probably wise, you have PLENTY of experience even in just a 3-rune game for a berserker, so pump into dodging to compensate if needed. Even if you do the switch to Shining One, keeping an anti-magic weapon of some kind from Trog handy is wise, go ahead and enchant it up etc. etc.

No advice on how/when to use Ga's special ability and how that synergizes with Trog's abilities? (This I'd be interested in hearing, in particular, as I haven't run any Garg berserkers yet!)

Longbows are really good and there's not a very compelling reason NOT to invest in one eventually with a berserker, unless you simply don't want to do ranged combat. Perhaps acceptable not to go into that, as your whole point was a character you can TAB TAB TAB through most of the game with, but you mentioned things like evocations, so it seems like an omission.

Sonja got some really bad MR by the way, running into her is a great time to use anything that can exploit that.

EDIT: Mutation roulette can really hamper your character, it is a losing gamble as none of the mutations you can get will single-handedly win the game for you, there's no "You can now create your own orb of Zot!" mutation, but there are certain ones (or combinations of them) that can make the character extremely difficult (or just unfun) to keep going with, advising this then saying "Just roll another if you get screwed" is dumb, sorry.

[XuaXua]

For the uneducated and to cover bases: You need a much earlier # entry that notes what armour to wear.

[savageorange]

5.) Once you get your first wand, STOP! Turn Evocations off

Hold on. You never said to turn Evocations -on-. In fact, just a few steps ago, you implied it should be -off- already.

EDIT: unless you are using auto-skilling mode and that is why you are expecting Evoc to end up enabled. If so, it's significant information, since most guides are based on the assumption you are using manual skilling mode.

Other than that, the guide seems solid WRT the area of the game I've done (i've only got a 3-rune win so far).

[moop]

Thanks for the feedback - I find that Elf isn't all that dangerous at all for those levels in that you almost always know what you're getting - a vault with a narrow opening (I guess there's the lava/water one and the green walled death spiral too). The major threat isn't so much death as getting Abyss'd and even then I'd say the odds are greatly in your favor for surviving. I'm starting to do Elf at earlier and earlier levels, usually the loot acquisition to risk ratio is worth it.

I've done Pan/Hell/Zot with antimagic and holy wrath... found holy wrath waaaaay easier on the major threats. Getting both is harder and involves more scrolling, and this is a lazy person's guide.

The debate for shields rages on and on, but for maces going with a great mace for just a few more damage and a heavier class of weapon vs ~60 shielding ... I'm sure shielding pays off there somewhere.

You are right about hellfire -- I guess I'm talking about all other means of firey explosions thrown at you, which sure seem the greatest threat to those chars in my experience.

In terms of armor - always plate as soon as you can. Delays really don't matter to the type of char (barring grossly premature GDA).

In terms of skills and weapons - longbows are too much effort, and I don't find them incrementally better to deal with things at that level than just corner dancing and TAB-ing. Evo gets trained up but is almost your last priority.

[moop]

Evo turns on automatically when you get a wand or evocable item so was reminding people to turn it off (I should mention this).

[savageorange]

^ I made an edit which guessed that you were using automatic skilling mode. Autoskilling is frequently regarded as crazy or just plain ineffective (though it's not clear that this is actually true), so you definitely need to indicate that this guide -is- based on autoskilling -- otherwise a lot of people will continue in manual mode as they are used to.

As a general reminder to all readers: You can switch between the two modes by pressing / in the skills screen.

[Volteccer_Jack]

"Worship Trog, train nothing but Maces/Fighting/Armour" is a simple, easy plan that will take you very far.

Every single other thing in this guide is either awful advice (doing Elf) or blatantly factually wrong (fire resistance has no effect whatsoever on hellfire).

Unarmed Combat Skill does literally nothing for a character wielding a one-handed weapon and a shield. You would have to be insane to think training it is a good idea.

This parody of a guide just goes to show how completely you can screw up every aspect of the game and still make progress just by worshipping Trog.

[and into]

"Worship Trog, train nothing but Maces/Fighting/Armour" is a simple, easy plan that will take you very far.

Every single other thing in this guide is either awful advice (doing Elf) or blatantly factually wrong (fire resistance has no effect whatsoever on hellfire).

Unarmed Combat Skill does literally nothing for a character wielding a one-handed weapon and a shield. You would have to be insane to think training it is a good idea.

This parody of a guide just goes to show how completely you can screw up every aspect of the game and still make progress just by worshipping Trog.

I skimmed the guide and missed the training UC thing, you are right that's very strange advice, if I'd noticed it earlier I'd have mentioned it in my post as another thing not to do, too.

In general I've found that length is often inversely proportional to quality when it comes to Crawl strategy guides. Yeah, there are a few tips and tricks for specific things, but a very simple game plan without worrying about meta-gamey stuff + making use of what the RNG gives you + a whole lot of caution when it comes to tactics, especially around unfamiliar enemies and especially uniques, will give you best chances of success.

[Sandman25]

GrBe is broken, it has too much AC/EV/MR/rPois/Flight. 3 out of 4 lair branches are joke with permanent flight and rPois. Trog's Hand has great synergy with high AC and low HP. I got bored so I didn't even try extended and didn't have a chance to see how useful partial torment immunity and rot immunity is.

[Amnesiac]

don't you know that unarmed doesn't help your aux attacks? Or did you mix it up with fighting or something?

[drywall]

The debate for shields rages on and on, but for maces going with a great mace for just a few more damage and a heavier class of weapon vs ~60 shielding ... I'm sure shielding pays off there somewhere.

For reference, "a few more damage" scales up a lot with weapon skill and turns out to have a pretty large effect on high AC enemies (like say, Hell Sentinels and demon lords who are happy to hellfire you point-blank)

GrBe is broken, it has too much AC/EV/MR/rPois/Flight. 3 out of 4 lair branches are joke with permanent flight and rPois. Trog's Hand has great synergy with high AC and low HP. I got bored so I didn't even try extended and didn't have a chance to see how useful partial torment immunity and rot immunity is.

GrBe isn't really as durable as it seems at first glance because a couple of bad rolls can put you in a bad place with your low HP - and this happens fairly often early on with -2 dodging and mediocre dex. I found Mi and HO to still be more sturdy overall, although Gr still has other advantages.

From the Gr I took into extended, partial torment immunity was useful but hellfire damage added up pretty quickly because of the same HP problem.

[and into]

don't you know that unarmed doesn't help your aux attacks? Or did you mix it up with fighting or something?

Yeah, and even if it *did* help, it would have to help A LOT for it to be worth training UC for that boost to *aux* attacks (lol) over other skills. Max out Weapon, Fighting, Armor, Dodging, Backup Ranged Weapon, Evocations, Invocations, etc. etc. before investing significantly into UC, unless of course you are using UC as your primary weapon.

Moop, not trying to be an ass here, but you say that things like getting a longbow online is "too much effort," when you have recommended training UC for no reason, slogging through Elf at lowish character levels quite possibly with multiple trips to the abyss, and doing mutation roulette then "just rolling another" if it goes south, as if all those things do not involve a great deal of effort. The difference is that a ranged weapon actually helps you while those other things are unnecessary and potentially game-ending gambles and/or a big waste of time.

[Amnesiac]

I personally like clearing elves with low level characters, but it's not optimal. My current character has been to abyss 4 times, 3 of them being banished from elf:3 (IIRC) and he hasn't even cleared shoals yet. Well, I did clear elves and I'm alive, so it's ok, right? And I have had a lot of exciting adventures, too.

[moop]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I will edit some stuff accordingly. Not sure why some others are so put off that I tried to put advice in the... um... advice column. Go-go supportive obscure game community! Keep that stuff in the family, right? Parodies of hard-up message board trolls for a roguelike aside (and I just feel sorry for the guy who keeps getting told that length isn't proportional to effectiveness (keep telling yourself that champ!))... it didn't seem like there was a simple step-by-step guide for a melee 15-runer with this class, so I gave it a whirl (the method has always worked for me... whether or not some people insist that Gr or Trog/TSO is overpowered because somehow firestorming things while Lichform'd isn't). To address some of the feedback:

1.) Elf 3 isn't bad for a Be in the teens, promise! I don't think it's a huge gamble at all. You can call Bros that will 2-hit everything, you can dig around passages, you can draw almost everything in a line. You will (almost always) survive an Abyss trip, or two, or three, and end up more buff because of it. The 5th level of the Lair branches, Vaults and lower dungeon levels are more dangerously variable.

2.) I say trust the shield for a Gargoyle because of the squishiness and it makes mid-game more TAB-able. Whoops, there's a pack of yaktaurs... not as bad with a shield. Great maces aren't all that "great" and I'm with you that 2-handers are better for almost every other melee class... having way higher HP.

3.) Almost everything in extended that takes more than a few hits is beaten down more quickly with holy wrath. It takes a lot more scrolls to get both, and you minimize switching... so be lazy and stick with holy. I've done extended with just antimagic and it didn't seem nearly as powerful.

4.) Live a little and quaff-ID potions. It's also not a huge gamble. It's a little gamble. There are only a few mutations that really bite you. You're less likely to get them than not (and even less likely to get them for long enough where they can kill you, unless they kill you ). It's more fun to have a chance to end up with something fun too.

5.) My bad about Unarmed. Read about the extra melee attacks with Gargoyles and thought you could train UC to buff them (with or without shield and mace). Since you're not putting exp into a ton of stuff and UC isn't a super high priority it never really hurt my games.

6.) Longbows and throwing crap seem way less efficient (and way less lazy) than beating things to death. Almost everything in extended that can kill you is way more of a threat at a distance - why keep it there? Also is there a prevailing thought on how the attacks of an enemy engaged in direct melee differ from not (I swear it does less nasty stuff)? I've run 15-run longbow based centaurs before and they were way more tedious. Stop chasing your projectiles and just club things.

7.) Firey crap from firey enemies is always getting thrown at you way more than other stuff. That priority chain of resistances has always worked for me with minimal switching.

[Amnesiac]

A common scenario for quaff-IDing is wasting a potion of cure mutation, then drinking a potion of mutation and getting something like berserkitis or slow movement... Also, Abyss is much easier than hells, do it after vaults.

[Turukano]

35 steps to win the game?
Did you know there's a - maybe incomplete - guide to win the game in 3 steps?

[Lasty]

I agree with Velociteer_Jack: this guide has a lot of bad ideas and misinformation, and the fact that it works is a testament to how good Berserkers (and Gargoyles?) are.

The philosophy of this guide is probably best expressed by the instruction to blindly quaff-ID and quit if you don't like the mutations you get.

[ontoclasm]

Also is there a prevailing thought on how the attacks of an enemy engaged in direct melee differ from not (I swear it does less nasty stuff)?

There's no difference whatsoever. An enemy in melee with you is exactly as likely to try casting as it would be if it were far away. People says it "wastes turns hitting you," but if it were at range it would have taken a step on those turns, not cast a spell.

More precisely, it'll probably cast slightly more, since you're definitely in range of every spell at that point, and if it wants to cast a spell but isn't in range sometimes it'll take a step instead. There is a minor exception for AOE spells, since monsters try to avoid unnecessary friendly fire, so e.g. a deep elf mage in melee range will be less likely to cast fireball since it would involve blowing himself up.

[sanka]

Ranged attackers however tend to be way dangerous from afar. And not just centaurs and yactaurs, I always have the feeling that even Stone Giants' large rocks are more dangerous than their melee.

[moop]

I guess I should have included a step 0, which would have been to chill out or just never post advice in these forums. I know some of you guys are not that obtuse with knocking the "length" of the above (TL:DR dude!) - 35 steps isn't that bad to find 15 runes.

A lot of folks are really really touchy about the notion that you quaff-ID. Quaff ID-ing isn't a huge gamble and it's fun to do, and was in the spirit of the (supposed to be fun and fairly hassle-free) method of play described above. Quaffing a cure mut isn't that big of a deal, and less likely to happen than quaffing a mutation first.

Getting sent to the Abyss isn't the end of the world and also isn't a huge gamble (for that character). It's a huge misconception that Elf is that hard and scary, and if you think it is with Berserkers then you're doing it wrong. It's fun (and potentially very rewarding) to have access to that loot that early, which you should do if you can (and you can... every playthrough). Tomb is also very straightforward and prep-lite with a Gargoyle.

Also I think a lot of people on these boards confuse challenge with tedium (I used cloud then seven darts, then hibernation, then stabbed an orc wizard then ran away for 700 steps then repeated - OMG PRO STRATEGEEZ). People are really weird (just perpetually) about the "merits" of winning with a Berserker (or now Gargoyle has become the thing to cry about). Heck, a mummy fighter reaches the state where it's "overpowered," and casters are certainly "overpowered" by extended. Not sure what class/race combos the trolls authorize these days. Yes, winning Crawl with a sling-wielding human is tougher than winning with a Gargoyle Berserker. Thanks for playing.

[DracheReborn]

I think you mean well, but when you call your post a "guide", people here tend to expect it's a guide to winning games optimally. Well, it is a guide, it's a guide to the way you play, but it's not necessarily what's for everyone else.

FWIW, strategy guides on the chaosforge wiki read a lot like this one. You may find a more appreciative audience over there.

And in case you're interested, here's what I think is a good and detailed step-by-step guide, Psieye's How to MiBe. You could do a lot worse than patterning your guide after it, IMO.

[rebthor]

Ranged attackers however tend to be way dangerous from afar. And not just centaurs and yactaurs, I always have the feeling that even Stone Giants' large rocks are more dangerous than their melee.

That's mostly due to the lack of GDR getting applied on AC characters. One of the few cases where GDR actually matters.

[sanka]

I actually encountered the same thing with high EV - low AC characters. I suspect that somehow ranged attackers has higher chance to hit.

[Sandman25]

GrBe is broken, it has too much AC/EV/MR/rPois/Flight. 3 out of 4 lair branches are joke with permanent flight and rPois. Trog's Hand has great synergy with high AC and low HP. I got bored so I didn't even try extended and didn't have a chance to see how useful partial torment immunity and rot immunity is.

GrBe isn't really as durable as it seems at first glance because a couple of bad rolls can put you in a bad place with your low HP - and this happens fairly often early on with -2 dodging and mediocre dex. I found Mi and HO to still be more sturdy overall, although Gr still has other advantages.

From the Gr I took into extended, partial torment immunity was useful but hellfire damage added up pretty quickly because of the same HP problem.

I was talking from my personal experience. AC 59 EV 29 (I put all 9 points into Dex) without any AC/EV items is very powerful before extended while resistance to Torment and Rotting should really help in extended (I got tormented during ascension and surprisingly I lost very few HP). Hellfire is always a problem no matter how much HP you have unless you are undead/lich. Early game was not hard because of Trog.

[rebthor]

Well that's because they do.

I couldn't remember if ranged mosnter being more accurate was true or not, had it in my post and then removed it so as to not conflate something I knew to be true with something I didn't.
Thanks.

[Sandman25]

Ranged attackers however tend to be way dangerous from afar. And not just centaurs and yactaurs, I always have the feeling that even Stone Giants' large rocks are more dangerous than their melee.

Maybe because of "useless to know" GDR? Monster in melee range cannot treat your AC as 0 with (un)lucky attacks.

[Mankeli]

Hellfire is always a problem no matter how much HP you have unless you are undead/lich. Early game was not hard because of Trog.

How is hellfire not a problem for undeads? How does having more health against an unresistable attack that, unlike torment, can directly kill you is irrelevant? Also have you tried MiBe? Also, other people have won gargoyles as well.

@ moop. Look, you're post was really funnily written and all that and hope you'll take no offense in me saying that it simply doesn't deliver as a "guide". I mean, there are many people here with 52 wins or more like myself. Then there are people with thrice (or more!) the amount. So defending the guide by relying on "personal experience" is bad when people are telling you that your guide has a lot of misinformation in it. Believe me, there is an enourmous amount of crawl-talent in these forums.

Even more importantly, bad guides are even worse for noob players because then they learn something that they think is true and don't know of anything better. That's why writing guides is a bit touchy subject in these forums: the average guide is, at its best, useless and blatantly harmful otherwise.

[Sandman25]

Hellfire is always a problem no matter how much HP you have unless you are undead/lich. Early game was not hard because of Trog.

How is hellfire not a problem for undeads? How does having more health against an unresistable attack that, unlike torment, can directly kill you is irrelevant? Also have you tried MiBe? Also, other people have won gargoyles as well.

Hellfire is not a problem for undead because a single hellfire cannot kill you. Compare with non-undead where 300HP is decreased to 37HP after 3 torments. Gr has about 200HP, Mi has about 300HP. I would choose Gr for extended.

[rebthor]

Hellfire is always a problem no matter how much HP you have unless you are undead/lich. Early game was not hard because of Trog.

How is hellfire not a problem for undeads? How does having more health against an unresistable attack that, unlike torment, can directly kill you is irrelevant? Also have you tried MiBe? Also, other people have won gargoyles as well.

Hellfire is not a problem for undead because a single hellfire cannot kill you. Compare with non-undead where 300HP is decreased to 37HP after 3 torments. Gr has about 200HP, Mi has about 300HP. I would choose Gr for extended.

Welcome to hellion island. Please enjoy your eternal stay.

What's so wrong about your post is that you can get hit by 100 torments and not die, but the same can't be said for hellfire (except for Dj).

[Mankeli]

Hellfire is always a problem no matter how much HP you have unless you are undead/lich. Early game was not hard because of Trog.

How is hellfire not a problem for undeads? How does having more health against an unresistable attack that, unlike torment, can directly kill you is irrelevant? Also have you tried MiBe? Also, other people have won gargoyles as well.

Hellfire is not a problem for undead because a single hellfire cannot kill you.

Edit. Nevermind rebthor pretty much nailed this already.

[moop]

@ Mankeli - point taken, and thanks (I think?)... but since my first post was already too long (apparently), calling it the "way I've done things a bunch of times that has worked and it could work for you too" seemed a little too cumbersome. Not sure I've found the guide that totally prevents you from dying either, or a more appropriate description. And I think it's always helpful to see what order people actually do things in the game.

Also I by no means profess to have a bigger crawl... eldritch tentacle... than the lot here. But I've won lots of times, with lots of different combos, so I do have a bank of experience that I think is somewhat viable.

Other than the UC snafu (which again, was great to have pointed out) - I'm not sure there's "blatant misinformation" though. You don't need ranged for a pure melee win (I'd argue it's against the spirit, and I've never once thrown or launched anything at the real threats in extended with a melee char). Having some ranged emergency valves in the form of wands/rods I would think is standard if you're that far in the game. Also, I've never once wanted a Pan Lord/Hell Boss to be in-sight but farther away - either next to it or around a corner is the place to have it (or far, far away). I wouldn't say using a shield for Gr is a bad move or misinformation either. I guess you could say the order of things can be different if you're more risk averse (I can't say it's this *giant gamble* to do Halls that early though... it's just not). Is there an authoritative resistance prioritization tree? I'll stick by the notion that you can't go wrong with rF+++ for a melee char with lower HP (especially if you're moving a bit quickly and TAB-ing around)... every time I wander into Hells/Pan with less I seem to get blasted way harder. Are there more fire attacks/more fire attacking enemies (non-hellfire)? I'm open to the hard facts if people have them. In trying to come up with "set it and forget it" strategy though (kind of the fun point of the primer) rF+++ seems to be universally more helpful than the other resistances (granted you have the rN+++ from TSO).

[Sandman25]

Welcome to hellion island. Please enjoy your eternal stay.

What's so wrong about your post is that you can get hit by 100 torments and not die, but the same can't be said for hellfire (except for Dj).

I usually die to either Torment or a combination of Hellfire and Torment. Never died in Hellion island yet. I know I have tormentophobia and that makes me biased.

[Sandman25]

rF+++ or rF++ is applied before AC reduction. So if you get 100 damage and have 50 AC (not too high for Gr), you are expected to receive 8 damage with rF++ (100/3-50/2) and 0 damage with rF+++ (100/5-50/2). For initial 75 damage you get 0 damage with both rF++ (75/3-50/2=0) and rF+++. How often do you get 75+ fire damage?

[Mankeli]

@ Mankeli - point taken, and thanks (I think?)... but since my first post was already too long (apparently), calling it the "way I've done things a bunch of times that has worked and it could work for you too" seemed a little too cumbersome. Not sure I've found the guide that totally prevents you from dying either, or a more appropriate description. And I think it's always helpful to see what order people actually do things in the game.

Ok, are willing to learn, that's very good. Here are just a couple of very quick points before I go to sleep (not a comprehensive list). I'm far from the greatest players but this is something I tend to do (not that I'd write a guide about that).

Attributes: I'm not sure I've ever picked just str for any character on level ups. At least it's rare. Int is nice for spells (if you are not using spells in a 15-rune game it is suboptimal if not with Trog) and dex is nice for dodging which you will be doing too if going for 15-runes. I'm not sure what's the verdict after the strenght and armour EVP changes but probably still not worth it.

Quaff-ID and drink mutation potions: Don't. You failed to mention blurry vision, which is horrible in the early game and random teleportation which isn't fun either (annoying and dangerous). Quaff-IDing and randomly drinking mut pots is bad. You don't want to waste those speed pots (and many others as well).

Skill training: Why to use auto-training? Or are you using it? It is sub-optimal if you know what you are doing.

Branch order: At level 17 you are still on the verge of being one-shotted by deep elf annihilator (depending on fighting skill and with an unlucky roll). There is easier exp to be had elsewhere. It is not a question of "can you usually do it", it is the question of "which place has the easiest exp (and loot)". Also don't farm TSO piety in Hell. Do it in Abyss if you didn't get Crypt. Apart from vestibule, the Hells are the most dangerous places in the game excluding some zig floors and maybe zot:5 depending on character etc. Think of paralysation hell effect + couple of hellions/fiends. The risk-reward ratio is once again better in Abyss. Also I'd rather complete at least the easier lair branches before slime. I pretty much always do vaults and zot 1-4 before slime too altough I feel vaults:5 is not necessarily easier than slime:6 especially nowdays. I certainly wouldn't go into slime without rCorr, half naked and at exp level 22 with a melee character!

Resists rF+++ is really not needed in all Hells probably not even in Gehenna. It doesn't hurt but you are probably giving up on wearing something better than rF items. Hell effects and monsters depend on the hell branch you are clearing.

Other Waiting on about choosing armour for as long as hitting zot:1 is considered bad. I guess with gargoyle's innate AC it's not that big of a deal compared to some other characters but it's still bad. Those EA scrolls would have helped your character survive earlier. Also GDA is really not the holy grail of armour. Amulet of warding is bad and the "warding" part of it is practically useless unless something has changed recently. Constantly berserking is really risky in the early game too. Shields are usually worse than 2-handers but not always.

[crate]

rF+++ or rF++ is applied before AC reduction.

this is wrong
it's reasonably easy to see that it's wrong; you can actually still take damage from orbs of fire even if you have rF+++ and good AC.

[Sandman25]

rF+++ or rF++ is applied before AC reduction.

this is wrong
it's reasonably easy to see that it's wrong; you can actually still take damage from orbs of fire even if you have rF+++ and good AC.

Yes, you are right.

  Code:

       postac = max(0, postac);
4069.        // Don't do side effects (beam might miss or be a tracer).
4070.        final = mons_adjust_flavoured(mon, *this, postac, false);


[Hurkyl]

rF+++ or rF++ is applied before AC reduction. So if you get 100 damage and have 50 AC (not too high for Gr), you are expected to receive 8 damage with rF++ (100/3-50/2) and 0 damage with rF+++ (100/5-50/2). For initial 75 damage you get 0 damage with both rF++ (75/3-50/2=0) and rF+++. How often do you get 75+ fire damage?

As an aside, the actual values for the expectations of the calculation you suggest are 11.1, 4, 6.25, and 2.25 respectively. (you have to convert negative to zero before taking expectation rather than after)

[variouselite]

Well I for one thought that his guide(or ideas or w/e) was at least partially interesting and informative, I dont take anything at face value and I never take for granted that any one person is right about everything that they say but it still seemed like there was some valuable info in the original post as long as you fact check it against other sources of info/opinions/ideas/etc. I had never played a GaBe before I read the post and because of reading it I decided to try one. I had a pretty good run and I think I wouldve had to splat a good couple first if not for reading his post. Granted some of the info was wrong(UC) and some has been determined to be suboptimal at best it still as a general primer to a very specific playstyle led to me having a fairly good run(on my first try of a new combo). Not saying I think it is a great optimization guide(he never claimed it was). Not trying to refuel the fire here. Just my 2cents.

[Galefury]

It wasn't so bad, and certainly had some interesting and useful information. But it shouldn't be styled as a guide IMO, because there was a lot of bad advice in it.

[Lasty]

I didn't mean to offend the OP. Calling this post a "guide" is a claim to expertise, even when tempered by the poster titling it a "lazy person's" guide. The contents of the guide are, at best, a description of what one person does that sometimes works. Had it been posted as such, I think the poster would have seen more positive feedback along with the constructive criticism.

@OP, the reason I seized on your advice to drink all your potions and then just quit if you don't like the outcome is that a) it's a waste of time to intentionally do something that may effectively kill your character, b) it qualifies as startscumming, which is frowned on, and c) it encourages anyone following your advice (and presumably also you) to think of each character as disposable. The latter attitude is a great way to prevent yourself from getting better at the game, or fact-checking your assumptions about mechanics. I see what you offer as a guide as being largely informed by that attitude that you should (essentially) just do whatever, hope it works, and let your character die/quit if it doesn't go how you want.

This isn't about who wins the most or who's the best player or any other form of competition. This is about people coming to this forum looking for advice, and potentially being fooled into thinking that your guide is effective or accurate advice. A wide variety of forum members attempting to prevent that from happening, with varying degrees of brusqueness.