Barkeep
Posts: 3890
Joined: Wednesday, 14th August 2013, 23:25
Location: USA
One page worth of advice to give... What would it be?
If you could give one standard looseleaf page, front and back, filled with DCSS advice to a new player, what would you say? (Assume reasonable writing size, not cramming three pages' into the margins in tiny script.)
You can think of this also as, "If you could send one page worth of advice back in time to when you first started playing Crawl, what advice would you give?"
You don't have to write out exactly what you'd say, just summarize.
What I'd try to fit in as succinctly as possible:
Tactics
1.) A statement and brief explanation of crate's law ("You should almost never move toward enemies upon first seeing them")
2.) An explanation of why moving is often the most tactically strong play you can make, because it affects how enemies will position themselves in highly predictable ways and lets you maintain control over LOS, and thus over the encounter in general
3.) Use consumables to survive, hoarding is false economy
4.) An explanation of how noise works and how things are happening around you in the dungeon even outside of LOS, and how you should try to anticipate/take these into account (Playing as Ash and getting to high piety is a great way to see this in action; alternatively wizmode)
5.) For each new encounter, decide to flee or fight and pursue that tactic conscientiously. Although if the fight starts going bad, switch to fleeing. You should usually consider the fight to be going badly if other, tougher enemies begin showing up, or if you are at less than 75% of your health.
6.) Although it is difficult to measure precisely, control is the most important thing to have/maintain in any situation in Crawl. Bad positioning means bad control and can mean that death is likely, even if you are at 90% or full health.
7.) The game waits indefinitely for you to take your turn. In tough situations the most important thing is to calm down and carefully consider/weigh your options. Check inventory to make sure you haven't forgotten some asset that you have.
Strategy
1.) Your goal is to get three runes then get the orb then ascend. Not to kill everything, not to get any particular spell castable, not to get the "perfect" set of equipment or anything else. Get good at getting three runes and winning before you impose more challenges or restrictions or variant play conditions on yourself.
2.) Very brief primer on min-delay with formula. damage > accuracy, base damage > +dam, best brands are vampiric, antimagic if you don't need MP yourself. Pain/electrocution is amazing on a fast weapon but still very good on any weapon (assuming necro training with pain). Otherwise, freezing/flaming, then vorpal/draining. Distortion can be extremely good but really varies depending on character/situation. Skill investment, base damage, and availability are most important considerations for what weapon you want to be using long term.
3.) Cost of skill levels increase exponentially, but don't branch out too early. Backgrounds are starting points, but in most cases you don't want to deviate too much from the path they provide for you until Lair, at the earliest. However eventually branching out is good.
4.) First train your immediate offensive options, then once those are good you need to get defenses.
5.) "Pure" anything is usually not optimal in the long term. "Casters" are only squishy if you train them to be that way, "fighters" are only unflexible/one-dimensional if you train them to be that way.
6.) Bonus AC from training armor = (Base AC) * (armor skill/22)
7.) Provided you have decent AC, then each point of AC is roughly equivalent to one point of EV for survival purposes. However everyone wants to get decent AC as soon as they can to minimize chance of large damage spikes. All characters should strive for decent melee capability eventually, and HP is always good, so everyone should pick up a weapon, eventually get some skill in it, and also get some skill in fighting.
8.) Resistances are nice, but the most important thing your armor gives you is AC, the most important thing your weapon gives you is more damage output. MR+ is most important resistance, however rF+ - rC+ - rN+ (somewhat in that order) becomes valuable by the Vaults though it is far from required. More than one pip of any resistance is not needed until Zot, at which point rF++ is very nice for orbs of fire. rPois is very nice for Snake but not strictly necessary, and outside of Snake not even a high priority most of the time. Walking around with a vulnerability however is basically asking the RNG to one- or two-shot you. Remember that you can swap jewelry in 1 turn. Remember that potions of resistance exist and provide insulation (rElec).
9.) If you are short on gold and have some great stuff available to buy in shops, acquire gold. Otherwise just acquire wands. If you have wand of heal wounds and hasting and plenty of ways to teleport, then acquire whatever. Don't hoard scrolls of acquirement.
10.) ID priority: !curing, ?teleportation, ?blinking, !heal wounds, !speed (top tier). ?fear, ?fog (mid-tier). Relevant boost potions are good but not highest priority to ID. Rest of the stuff is helpful but much more situational so don't sweat it if you haven't IDed them even by mid-game. Don't quaff !mutation. Limit how much you use-ID because it is a waste, however if you are beyond D4 and haven't IDed your top priority stuff and have 3 or more of a single unknown scroll/potion, then use-IDing those stacks becomes a reasonable play.
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