The Hive is actually pretty tough


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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 01:51

The Hive is actually pretty tough

for us less-skilled players. My XL 10 MDFi with rPois just got taken to pieces. With no true choke points and the sudden appearance of a mass swarm of bees at the foot of a stairs, he had little choice but to burn all consumables and desperation-teleport until death.

Three bees attacking a melee character at once is dangerous; four or five is a death sentence. I implore the devs to consider the new and hamfisted players when deciding what to do about the Hive. We find it a challenge. I swear it's even been getting tougher as trunk progresses.

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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 01:57

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

I see now that he was "paralysed". Bees can paralyse you now. Brutal.
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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 03:07

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Unless someone went and mixed things up in trunk, bees can only poison you. You need to find a wasp to get paralyzed.

I think one of the biggest flaws in the hive's difficulty is the layout. Hive:1 uses ocr-like bubbles, which only serves to split the bees up for you. And then Hive:2 draws from a limited pool of fixed layout.

I think the level gen should be more random, and hive:2 should only have an endvault, not a whole fixed level. And we need vaults, preferably filled with nastier bugs, like wasps, spiders, etc, to litter around and increase the difficulty. The one fixed wasp loot-vault in one Hive:2 layout is insufficient.

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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 03:24

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Re-checked morgue and I was definitely paralysed, but I don't remember seeing any wasps. Odd.

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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 03:37

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Grimm wrote:My XL 10 MDFi
one of the biggest problems with Hive's difficulty is that it's optimal to be of a much greater XL than 10 before entering, when bees, and Hive as a whole, are trivial.
easy solution principle: either force entry at an early stage, up difficulty to make it meaningful at a later stage, or some compromise
(a concrete idea or implementation thereof may be difficult)
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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 05:16

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Put the spider branch portal in hive and put a different branch portal in Lair.

I haven't found the branch to Hive hidden within Lair in pretty much forever. Has that option been done away with or was the game wiki that I read a while back incorrect (or did I misread it?).
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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 12:26

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

MrMisterMonkey wrote:
Grimm wrote:My XL 10 MDFi
one of the biggest problems with Hive's difficulty is that it's optimal to be of a much greater XL than 10 before entering, when bees, and Hive as a whole, are trivial.
easy solution principle: either force entry at an early stage, up difficulty to make it meaningful at a later stage, or some compromise
(a concrete idea or implementation thereof may be difficult)


Not every branch should challenge high level characters. You need low level branches also. The problem with hive is not that it is too low level. The problem with hive is that it is too monotonous. Only 1 enemy with hundreds to fight in a mostly uniform arena. Adding different types of threats that require you to at least take notice if not change your tactics is what is needed. Throw in an occasional "robber" that is immune to poison. Maybe on occasional unique spellcaster named The Beekeeper, and his servants. Anything really that can break up the same thing over and over.

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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 14:34

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Grimm wrote:for us less-skilled players. My XL 10 MDFi with rPois just got taken to pieces. With no true choke points and the sudden appearance of a mass swarm of bees at the foot of a stairs, he had little choice but to burn all consumables and desperation-teleport until death.

Three bees attacking a melee character at once is dangerous; four or five is a death sentence. I implore the devs to consider the new and hamfisted players when deciding what to do about the Hive. We find it a challenge. I swear it's even been getting tougher as trunk progresses.


You must've run into something nasty there, IME it's wands, uniques, and wasps that paralyse. Level 10 is way low to be in Hive but you had rPoison, which would've blocked wasps. Odd, eh. Were you meleeing with the queen? Could be they added something to her, she could use it.

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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 17:24

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

minmay wrote:It's fine that the branch challenges novice players, but it's utterly nonthreatening to good players. No other branch is as bad in this regard.

Orc can be, if you know enough not to take it on first just because it's the first branch entrance you see (most games). If no high priests, sorcerers, or knights spawn, it's 4 levels of pure popcorn, even accounting for the occasional troll. If you can take out a typical orc band in the main dungeon, the Mines are just a lot more of the same.

That being said, the loot has the potential to be very good (lots of chances to generate ego weapons/armour, including some you may actually want, and the gold doesn't hurt), much more so than Hive.
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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 17:40

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

I like the bee mini-vaults that show up every so often in the dungeon or the lair, and would prefer to have these exclusively instead of the Hive. When I have encountered them, it's generally been an oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit moment, unless I had Meph or Evap. Perhaps Bees should Berserk and gain rPois when they are confused, and the rest of the bees should come after you. Or make the entrances 2 tiles wide. Or both.

There would have to be other changes, since even a modified mini-Hive on D:27 would be boring; 10 or so Wasps with Poison Arrow sting, moderate HP and Haste or Berserk might work and would appropriately scary.

I also like Acvar's Beekeeper idea (perhaps a spell casting Bear?). Sounds like a good Wizlab to me.

[edit] I think something like 'The Beekeeper's Den' would fit the Wizlab theme to a T.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 17:49

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

This is an April Fools Day thread, right? I'm sure nobody's really asserting the Hive is difficult, even if you dive for it with a tenth-level character. Getting that far down without being able to easily deal with things much worse than bees is a feat in and of itself, and you can always stair-dance to keep their numbers to manageable levels.

Stormfox wrote:Orc can be, if you know enough not to take it on first just because it's the first branch entrance you see (most games). If no high priests, sorcerers, or knights spawn, it's 4 levels of pure popcorn, even accounting for the occasional troll. If you can take out a typical orc band in the main dungeon, the Mines are just a lot more of the same.

That being said, the loot has the potential to be very good (lots of chances to generate ego weapons/armour, including some you may actually want, and the gold doesn't hurt), much more so than Hive.


Orc 4 has a guaranteed WAAAAGH on the bottom now, so at the very least you're guaranteed to see some top-end orcs when you clear the Mines. I've seen multiple warlords, but it might have included one that spawned randomly. Basic orc wizards and priests are also more interesting to start with than the electric eels or yellow wasps in Hive, even if they aren't any harder than what you see in the rest of the Dungeon. I don't think it's feasible to do the same tweaking with Hive and expect adequate results.

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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 18:03

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

hive's lack of difficulty is kind of unrelated to its monotony
but it is indeed horribly monotonic

acvar, what I meant by challenging for high level characters was that usually only extended-endgame characters even need to think about the free extra bonus food, and often not even then; if Hive doesn't prove challenging at this point, provide enough benefit to low-level characters, or force players to deal with it at a low level (perhaps as a consequence of a stricter food minigame), it will remain optimal to wait until it is trivial.
not that I like the food minigame at all

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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 19:28

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

I understand, but that can be said for most branches. Why enter snake before you have rpois? You don't, and there is not enough good stuff there to tempt you to do so. Same goes for swamp, crypt, vaults, and mostly the hall of blades. The only things That I ever really consider doing when they are still questionable are orc, and elf. Orc gets the gold I need to buy that awsome piece of equipment in the shop on level 5, and elf gives me a buckler. There are of course exceptions to this like playing a spriggan who may need to dive into hive with or without rpois and a good bee killer, and nagas who have a chance at barding for entering snake early, but for the most part if you know what you are doing you don't enter any of the branches other then the lair when you first encounter them, but instead wait till they are mostly trivial.

The problem with hive is not its risk/reward. The problem with hive is its monotony.

P.S. The main reason I do hive is not the food, the loot, or the experience. The main reason I do the hive is for the piety.

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Post Friday, 1st April 2011, 22:06

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

I've always wondered why the queen bee is such a pushover. To even get that far, you need to be able to deal with probably 5-6 bees at once. The queen bee is equal to what, about 2 bees? There's never going to be a time when the queen bee provides extra challenge.

I'm not sure if making the queen bee SUPER hard helps things a whole lot though, because it'd just encourage doing hive later and more backtracking. However, it'd at least be nice if she put up a good fight. I imagine an ability that summons larva (which displace wax and walls to avoid a tunneling strategy), which grow up into bees within a few turns if you don't kill them off. Unfortunately, this rewards the same AOE style of gameplay that also easily beats the rest of Hive. It'd be nice if the fight required a different strategy.
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Post Saturday, 2nd April 2011, 06:20

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

I read somewhere that the larvae eat the royal jelly and transform into bees. Is that true because that would suck.

The true goal of the hive is the food.
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Post Saturday, 2nd April 2011, 06:31

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Hive makes it so you can just live off honeycombs/rations for a good long while with no risk. It's tedious having to cut things into chunks.

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Post Saturday, 2nd April 2011, 08:53

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

KoboldLord wrote:This is an April Fools Day thread, right? I'm sure nobody's really asserting the Hive is difficult, even if you dive for it with a tenth-level character. Getting that far down without being able to easily deal with things much worse than bees is
a feat in and of itself, and you can always stair-dance to keep their numbers to manageable levels.


Call me Worst Crawler of the Year but I really do find myself having hard times in Hive these days. I used to be able to walk through it without breathing hard but lately it's been a stress factory.

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Post Saturday, 2nd April 2011, 12:05

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

a few more teleport traps in hive will make things interesting... :twisted:

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Post Saturday, 2nd April 2011, 22:47

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

How about "bee traps" in trees that go off when you walk by them?

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Post Saturday, 2nd April 2011, 23:28

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

"You step on a bee trap. You are surrounded by Bees!" :lol:
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Post Sunday, 3rd April 2011, 20:16

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Here's a thought:
After some % of the Bees, or the Queen Bee dies a bunch of bears come to eat all of the honeycombs and royal jellies. (The Bees kept them away.) So, after you get the bee situation under control you have an invasion of hungry bears and a race to kill them / save the food.

Yeah, I know it's goofy.

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Post Monday, 4th April 2011, 02:51

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

How about dogs that shoot bees from their mouths.

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Post Monday, 4th April 2011, 03:09

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Grimm wrote:How about dogs that shoot bees from their mouths.


Yikes.

Reading the developer Wiki, I know there's some desire to change the hive. The last game of Crawl I played I did hive, got the honey bear end of Lair, and got one "Ohh, bees" vault. I think I had the better part of 70 honeycombs, and a big pile of royal jellies, and enough other food that I was off the food clock for good... (I died as a Lv. 20 in a Vault.) This isn't exactly a rare event in my Crawling. While my 'attack of the bears' is goofy, I really think the hive would benefit from some sort of time vs. food found pressure.

With a couple of lucky breaks the current hive removes the food clock as a play factor. I think having a hive that is doable for lots of food for a 15 runer or for a player that has bad food generation luck is a good thing. I think that the hive pretty much guaranteeing the end of the food clock for every 3 runer is probably 'less good'. Optimum play for the hive should be shaped by the need for it's primary resource (food).
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Post Monday, 4th April 2011, 23:05

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

I have stepped on a zot trap in hive before. That is a good way to get paralyzed without noticing the zot trap message. What with all the bees stinging you to death.

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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 14:18

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Grimm, I'm sort of with you. It's less a stress with a melee character and/or rPois, but any near-pure caster is going to have a hard time in Hive. I've spent an hour just clearing out the bees-- Get close to the hive, shout, blink back to the stairs and ping as many to death as possible before Throw Icicle (the only reliable one-hit KO) drains all of my MP. It's not hard per se, but stressful and tedious.

About half of my caster deaths are due to bees and not having a teleport spell (also being ambitious). Any low-AC character, even with high evasion, is going to have a hell of a time if they don't have an oh-shit button.
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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 14:25

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

ieattime20 wrote:Grimm, I'm sort of with you. It's less a stress with a melee character and/or rPois, but any near-pure caster is going to have a hard time in Hive. I've spent an hour just clearing out the bees-- Get close to the hive, shout, blink back to the stairs and ping as many to death as possible before Throw Icicle (the only reliable one-hit KO) drains all of my MP. It's not hard per se, but stressful and tedious.

About half of my caster deaths are due to bees and not having a teleport spell (also being ambitious). Any low-AC character, even with high evasion, is going to have a hell of a time if they don't have an oh-shit button.


Spells that are great for bees:

Olgreb's(sp?) Toxic Radiance (Poisons everything in sight).
Refrigeration
And less effective, because of their speed: Fireball

Yea, not always easy to have those spells ready to go before the Hive though.
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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 14:30

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

smock wrote:How about "bee traps" in trees that go off when you walk by them?


Or perhaps a beehive tree - every time you damage it, it creates some adjacent bees, and if you destroy the tree, it drops honeycombs/royal jelly.

I'd like to see the queen bee toughened up and carrying royal jelly, which she drops.
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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 18:57

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

ieattime20 wrote:Grimm, I'm sort of with you. It's less a stress with a melee character and/or rPois, but any near-pure caster is going to have a hard time in Hive. I've spent an hour just clearing out the bees-- Get close to the hive, shout, blink back to the stairs and ping as many to death as possible before Throw Icicle (the only reliable one-hit KO) drains all of my MP. It's not hard per se, but stressful and tedious.

About half of my caster deaths are due to bees and not having a teleport spell (also being ambitious). Any low-AC character, even with high evasion, is going to have a hell of a time if they don't have an oh-shit button.


How did you get a character with Throw Icicle that doesn't also have Freezing Cloud? Perhaps you've never tried using it, but it makes nine tiles of INSTANT FREEZING DEATH centered on any floor tile you can see. Bees can't dodge it and will die as fast as you can cast it. Just try not to hit yourself. The only reason you might need rPois with that particular spell available is so you can eat the corpses.

Every cloud spell in the game will trivialize bees, so almost every caster background will do fine. Earth and fire elementalists have it a little rougher, but they do have Rapid Deconstruction and Fireball to work with.

Why are you bothering to clear the Hive anyway? You should have plenty of time to mess around in branches that actually have decent loot before you need to collect the food from Hive. You're not going to find anything here that will help you in Lair or Orc.
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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 19:02

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

KoboldLord wrote:
ieattime20 wrote:You should have plenty of time to mess around in branches that actually have decent loot before you need to collect the food from Hive. You're not going to find anything here that will help you in Lair or Orc.


That's the thing. I mostly play casters and I don't thing I've ever died in hive even once. Unless you're starving there's never a reason to do it before you can cast cloudy and blasting death. If you are starving by the time you get to hive you're probably doing something else wrong.
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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 19:41

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

KoboldLord wrote:How did you get a character with Throw Icicle that doesn't also have Freezing Cloud? Perhaps you've never tried using it, but it makes nine tiles of INSTANT FREEZING DEATH centered on any floor tile you can see. Bees can't dodge it and will die as fast as you can cast it. Just try not to hit yourself. The only reason you might need rPois with that particular spell available is so you can eat the corpses.


It's really tough to have freezing cloud workable by the Hive on anything other than a Deep Elf who never touched a weapon. If you get lucky and get the refrigeration spell, however, you can easily cast that. To me it is worth it to use refrigeration, even without more than 1 pip of rC, as you typically clear the room before you kill yourself anyway. Only downside is popping all your precious potions.

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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 20:01

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

KoboldLord wrote:How did you get a character with Throw Icicle that doesn't also have Freezing Cloud?


I have FC in the book, the problem is that I don't always have A. rC+(+) to survive casting it in the honeycombs without freezing the very healing potions I have to keep me from dying of poison, and B. it castable to the point where I don't have to scarf the very food I lack and went to the Hive to get. If I get lucky (some rC, some extra XP, don't find any spells with more lasting benefit than FCloud), then I will use it. I admit the hunger benefit is probably specious with the slow rate Icicle and waiting has of clearing it, but the added advantage is that it's quite a bit safer.

KoboldLord wrote:Why are you bothering to clear the Hive anyway?


I'll admit I am a noob, and I've asked before if I have just done skills wrong, but I'm doing Hive *after* Orc3 and Lair8. If there's some glaring errors I'm not catching, lemme know.
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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 20:14

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

ieattime20 wrote:I'll admit I am a noob, and I've asked before if I have just done skills wrong, but I'm doing Hive *after* Orc3 and Lair8. If there's some glaring errors I'm not catching, lemme know.


That's pretty standard. I sometimes find Hive before Lair and will do it first if I have rPois, but nearly all of my characters can use weapons, which makes it easier. I've only cleared Hive a couple times without rPois and it was obnoxious, but not nearly as bad as clearing Snake Pit with no rPois.

The main dungeon is your friend on pure casters. You could go beef up there and come back to steamroll Hive later.

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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 20:21

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Katak wrote:It's really tough to have freezing cloud workable by the Hive on anything other than a Deep Elf who never touched a weapon.


Try leaving conjurations and ice magic skills on. Throw Icicle won't be hitting the damage cap with the minimum possible skill investment anyway, so it isn't like the xp invested is wasted. Later on, Ice Storm will be much more accessible if you've already got Freezing Cloud running.

As near as I can tell, fiddly recommendations on exactly when to turn skills on and off are almost always bunk. If there isn't a spell you want to victory dance RIGHT NOW, there's no harm in letting your xp rack up those diminishing returns in your main damage skills. If you save it in your pool, you'll just lose it to a drain attack.

ieattime20 wrote:I have FC in the book, the problem is that I don't always have A. rC+(+) to survive casting it in the honeycombs without freezing the very healing potions I have to keep me from dying of poison, and B. it castable to the point where I don't have to scarf the very food I lack and went to the Hive to get.


Don't cast it where it will catch you in its area. Stick to the middle of large rooms, and be careful about casting it near walls. Or cast it close enough to the edge of your line-of-sight so it still doesn't envelop you. Use the shout command to get the bees to come out of the narrow passages around the queen.

ieattime20 wrote:If I get lucky (some rC, some extra XP, don't find any spells with more lasting benefit than FCloud), then I will use it. I admit the hunger benefit is probably specious with the slow rate Icicle and waiting has of clearing it, but the added advantage is that it's quite a bit safer.


Not taking a caster deity, then? Vehumet guarantees several perfect anti-bee spells, and while Sif Muna is more random there are so many ways to trivialize bees you have to have gotten some by this point.

It's fairly unusual to get to Hive after clearing Lair and Orc without having found a single useful spellbook. Unusual games require unusual choices.

ieattime20 wrote:I'll admit I am a noob, and I've asked before if I have just done skills wrong, but I'm doing Hive *after* Orc3 and Lair8. If there's some glaring errors I'm not catching, lemme know.


What race are you playing that's having hunger problems so early on, anyway? Spriggan or something?

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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 20:36

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

KoboldLord wrote:Vehumet guarantees several perfect anti-bee spells


Usually I take Sif Muna, but what I meant is that I am frequently up against a spell slot grind (a few small buffs, a couple of blast spells for a variety of enemies, a bolt or so to take on the occasional yaks or 'phants in Lair) which doesn't make FCloud an obvious choice. PCloud is better for Elf, and after that FCloud gets overtaken by other killosity spells like Poison Arrow. That is, FCloud is always sort of useful, but *only* trivializes Hive. It's not that I lack better spells, the point is I have too many of them.

KoboldLord wrote:What race are you playing that's having hunger problems so early on, anyway?


Elves mostly. And I wouldn't say hunger problems, but I refuse to get under two rations each on something like Hive. I have had more than one game where I've made it to Temple with only one of each and no other food. I play Crawl as risk-free as possible, and not having a permafood buffer before Hive worries me.

Having FCloud at 'Honeycomb' makes it not such a good spell to kill just 3 bees with, even though 3 bees can kill you. For twice the MP (and a little extra time), you can do it for no hunger at all.

I'm not saying Hive is impossible or even entirely too hard. But it's stressful.

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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 20:58

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

ieattime20 wrote:For twice the MP (and a little extra time), you can do it for no hunger at all.


You do realize that time spent regenerating that MP = hunger, right? (unless you're a vampire/mummy/lich)
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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 21:49

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

OK, you guys are actually discussing strategy, I'm moving the thread to advice. There hasn't really been any design discussion about hive anyway.
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Post Tuesday, 5th April 2011, 23:31

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

ieattime20 wrote:Usually I take Sif Muna, but what I meant is that I am frequently up against a spell slot grind (a few small buffs, a couple of blast spells for a variety of enemies, a bolt or so to take on the occasional yaks or 'phants in Lair) which doesn't make FCloud an obvious choice. PCloud is better for Elf, and after that FCloud gets overtaken by other killosity spells like Poison Arrow. That is, FCloud is always sort of useful, but *only* trivializes Hive. It's not that I lack better spells, the point is I have too many of them.


I think you underestimate Freezing Cloud. I usually go Poisonous Cloud given the choice, but even so Freezing Cloud is basically a pre-nerf Sticky Flame that hits everything in a small room at once with a single casting. Even in a large room, it will usually affect most of an entire pack. It's a kiting spell.

Sif Muna should have given you several useful spellbooks by this time. You don't need to one-shot every bee at once; Mephitic Cloud will do the job fine and it's in something like a dozen books. Freeze or Throw Frost will clean up; it doesn't matter if one gets away because it will be trivial when it comes back, too.

ieattime20 wrote:Elves mostly. And I wouldn't say hunger problems, but I refuse to get under two rations each on something like Hive. I have had more than one game where I've made it to Temple with only one of each and no other food. I play Crawl as risk-free as possible, and not having a permafood buffer before Hive worries me.

Having FCloud at 'Honeycomb' makes it not such a good spell to kill just 3 bees with, even though 3 bees can kill you. For twice the MP (and a little extra time), you can do it for no hunger at all.


Under the frankly preposterous assumption that you are casting Freezing Cloud with 0 intelligence and 0 spellcasting skill so you get no hunger reduction at all, it costs 550 nutrition to cast. Mashing 5 once to rest will time out after 100 turns, and in that span of time you burn 300 nutrition just standing around.

Under more realistic intelligence and spellcasting skill assumptions, you're almost certainly burning more nutrition resting than casting.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Wednesday, 6th April 2011, 12:36

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Let me just say that I do appreciate the advice, especially Mephitic Cloud, which I just hadn't thought about. I just think you might be wrong on the spell hunger math.

Looking over some morgue files, it looks like my Int is around 26-27 by the time I get to Hive (that's pumping all my bonus stats into Int, if I put the first three into Str as others recommend, it's a bit lower). Spellcasting is at around 12-15. That means I burn about 200 nutrition with a single cast of Freezing Cloud.

Bear in mind that resting with '5' will also time out once your mana gets back up to full, which usually takes quite a bit less than 100 turns at that level (casting Icicle maybe 5 times, less with a couple casts of Freezing Cloud). But, in my experience, at that point in the game (even having dumped most of my XP into Spellcasting and used all my stat-ups for Int), the nutrition cost is substantial enough to be worrisome. Unless, of course, I have rPois, in which case I just eat all the tasty bees.

Thanks again for the advice though.
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Snake Sneak

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Post Wednesday, 6th April 2011, 13:40

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

I usually clear the hive with my IE without much throw icicle at all. Then again I usually do the hive before I need to to mix things up sometimes. I like killing bees what can I say. If you are careful you can avoid getting massively swarmed by leading 2-6 bees after you at a time. Throw frost will soften them up, and most importantly freeze never misses those high EV bees. Freeze will usually kill a bee in 2 castings (3 if unlucky).

Or of course you can just come back when your throw icicle is higher power (more accurate) and uses less hunger like most the people in this thread recommend. There really is no reason not to.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Wednesday, 6th April 2011, 17:17

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

ieattime20 wrote:Let me just say that I do appreciate the advice, especially Mephitic Cloud, which I just hadn't thought about. I just think you might be wrong on the spell hunger math.

Looking over some morgue files, it looks like my Int is around 26-27 by the time I get to Hive (that's pumping all my bonus stats into Int, if I put the first three into Str as others recommend, it's a bit lower). Spellcasting is at around 12-15. That means I burn about 200 nutrition with a single cast of Freezing Cloud.

Bear in mind that resting with '5' will also time out once your mana gets back up to full, which usually takes quite a bit less than 100 turns at that level (casting Icicle maybe 5 times, less with a couple casts of Freezing Cloud). But, in my experience, at that point in the game (even having dumped most of my XP into Spellcasting and used all my stat-ups for Int), the nutrition cost is substantial enough to be worrisome. Unless, of course, I have rPois, in which case I just eat all the tasty bees.

Thanks again for the advice though.


The other thing Freezing Cloud has going for it, with rPois, is that you get to eat those tasty dead bees. Even if your cloud only gets 1-3 bees, rPois means you never go hungry. Once you get rPois it's actually better to eat poisoned meat as there is no chance of Sick or Mut. It's just like clean meat.

Pretty much any cloud spell with an accurate finishing spell will let you do the same. Bonus points for rPois and Gourmand. Mmm... I'm full of bees.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 7th April 2011, 00:19

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

ieattime20 wrote:Bear in mind that resting with '5' will also time out once your mana gets back up to full, which usually takes quite a bit less than 100 turns at that level


Actually, your mana regeneration (and hit point regeneration) is relative to your maximum mp, so if you drain your mana bar you'll need to rest the same regardless of what point in the game you've reached. It only feels shorter because it takes very little real time.

Try it! Start a new caster on D1, and watch that turn count shoot way up whenever you stop to recover trivial amounts of mp.

Blades Runner

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Post Thursday, 7th April 2011, 01:37

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

Other advice:

Instead of yelling, use a blowgun. It'll wake up only one bee. Magic dart's better than yelling, too. Or even another thrown or ranged weapon. Yelling is a good way to attract the attention of many bees.

Train spellcasting by turning off other skills. Then you'll have more spell slots and less spell hunger. If you find you're needing hive regularly, then it's likely that you could play differently earlier so that it's not an issue.

Likewise, keep stealth on. It'll have your like over and over by allowing you to pick your fights. If only one bee sees you, it'll be easier to manage.

Invisibility works well against bees. (Devs: bees are good at smelling things. Like flowers and stinky wizards. Killer bees might be more interesting for stabbers if invisibility was not an uber-threat!)

Halls Hopper

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Joined: Thursday, 17th March 2011, 23:31

Post Thursday, 7th April 2011, 04:32

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

I don't die in the hive for some reason.

Usually if my character makes it to the hive I survive. It might be my general builds, but I flat out avoid the hive if I don't have PoR, or if my character does not have the SH/EV/AC to to minimize damage.

From what I have seen wasps can be in the hive, but not in all layouts. Correct me if i am wrong, but there is occasionally a side vault protected by water that the wasps hang around, though they sometimes fly out.

Wasp is some nasty stuff, whole different level than be, but your more likely to find 50+ Bee's than a wasp.

Mines Malingerer

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Joined: Friday, 1st April 2011, 19:48

Post Thursday, 7th April 2011, 04:39

Re: The Hive is actually pretty tough

KoboldLord wrote:Actually, your mana regeneration (and hit point regeneration) is relative to your maximum mp


I know. However, it does not take 100 turns to regenerate your mana. Much less than that. Like 40-50 turns. That's why I said the hunger cost is still greater with FCloud.

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