Spider's Nest


Ask fellow adventurers how to stay alive in the deep, dark, dangerous dungeon below, or share your own accumulated wisdom.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 04:22

Re: Spider's Nest

people who think getting melee skill on every character is actually optimal rather than convenient have probably never tried using a launcher

Barkeep

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 05:17

Re: Spider's Nest

^ Yes. And with a decent weapon, 0 zero skill melee can still be pretty good. Still I think it is reasonable to pick up a bit of melee skill along with a decent weapon waaaaay before you do stuff like cast fire storm. I'm happy just speaking to what's reasonable most of the time. Optimal is a much stickier question, especially since in the very strictest definition you would end up doing really silly and unfun stuff to eke out teeny advantages.

Hurkyl: "Fighter" and "fighter-mage" don't really make much sense except maybe in the early game for certain species playing certain backgrounds. Beyond that, there actually is not an either/or choice between "hitting stuff" and "casting stuff at stuff." That's the whole point. It's not a bias against one or the other choice. It is a bias against false dichotomies that don't actually exist.

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Lasty

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 05:19

Re: Spider's Nest

Not in every (I mean, Trog exists, to start) but in quite a lot of cases I would consider not getting spells on a "melee character" to be "badly buil[ding]." Of course this does not so much mean conjurations, so is not exactly symmetrical to what we're talking about.

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duvessa

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 05:32

Re: Spider's Nest

The good news is that crawl is forgiving enough that even really "badly built" characters can win just fine. It turns out that positioning and making smart "fight or flight" decisions is more important than your skill training or preferred method of killing dudes.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 12:42

Re: Spider's Nest

Hurkyl wrote:You know, the bias that anything that doesn't lie between fighter and fighter-mage on the might vs magic scale is "badly built" is really annoying.


The terms you're throwing around are meaningless. Artificially restricting yourself to only melee combat or only conjurations or only anything is what I'm decrying, along with making glass cannons that can't survive things going slightly wrong.

You might as well be complaining that we're advocating using both odd AND even-leveled spells. PICK ONE GUYS. I'M SICK OF ALL THESE EVEN/ODD HYBRIDS.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 14:15

Re: Spider's Nest

and into wrote:Hurkyl: "Fighter" and "fighter-mage" don't really make much sense except maybe in the early game for certain species playing certain backgrounds. Beyond that, there actually is not an either/or choice between "hitting stuff" and "casting stuff at stuff." That's the whole point. It's not a bias against one or the other choice. It is a bias against false dichotomies that don't actually exist.

There is a true dichotomy, though, in that every turn you spend hitting stuff, you are not casting stuff at stuff. And every skill point that is spent on letting you better cast stuff at stuff is a skill point that is not spent on letting you better hit stuff, and vice versa.

And it is not hard to let "locked" into one or the other as an emergent effect of your gear, books, and training.

Find awesome heavy armor and shield and build your character around that? Sure, you can start training up your ability to cast stuff at stuff, but it would take so many skill points that it would be a terrible idea to start down that path until your ability to hit stuff and survive when hitting stuff is at sufficiently high levels that further improvement would be very expensive. This character is a fighter. It may eventually become a fighter-mage, but it would take a long time to do so.

Find a good spread of spells and mana regeneration and train up your blasting ability? Sure, you can train up your ability to hit stuff, but it would take a long time before it's ever preferable (barring tedium) to blasting stuff, and you're much better off going for the next spell or training up invocations or whatever defenses you need that aren't covered by your spell set until the costs become huge. This character is a mage. It too may eventually turn into a fighter-mage, but it won't be one for some time.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 14:49

Re: Spider's Nest

So what's the end result here?

Ghost moths are easily melee'd to death, 1v1, by decently built casters.
No wait
Ghost moths are possible to melee to death, 1v1, by decently built casters.
No wait
Ghost moths are possible to melee to death with some buffing and consumable use, 1v1, by decently built casters.
No wait
Ghost moths are possible to melee to death with by quaffing might, agility, and haste potions, 1v1, by decently built casters.

Decently built caster meaning: some weapon skill
No wait
Decently built caster meaning: min-delay with good weapon.

See! If you continuously move the goalpost you'll always be right!

ghost moths in spider 5 are a big problem if they manage to demand you alter a build that would work in EVERY OTHER PART OF THE GAME just to deal with them, an enemy that doesn't even show up till zot in 50% of games. Ghost moths in spider remove interesting choices, and further make melee based characters a blatantly obvious 'no brainer', if you want to win.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 14:50

Re: Spider's Nest

Hurkyl wrote:There is a true dichotomy, though, in that every turn you spend hitting stuff, you are not casting stuff at stuff.

There is a true dichotomy, though in that every turn you spend walking, you are not casting at stuff. Are you a caster, or a walker? So many people want to make caster/walker hybrids, and I don't get it.

Hurkyl wrote:it is not hard to let "locked" into one or the other as an emergent effect of your gear, books, and training.

It isn't hard, but it is totally voluntary. It turns out you get to choose exactly how "locked" into something you are. If you choose to keep your armour light, you aren't locked into anything at all. If you choose to put on heavy armour, you're still not locked, as it happens. A lot of players casting Bolt of Foo are getting 16ish levels in <element> and Conjurations anyway, and if you do that and also wear a heavy piece of armour, you'll still have okay casting rates, provided you train some Armour skill (and you want to do that anyway) and either have decent Str or use Wizardry. Is it always the best choice? No. My whole point is that players should make the best use of all the tools they have, and that doesn't always mean plate armour + bolt of cold, and it sure as hell doesn't always mean robe + firestorm.

Training a variety of skills to moderate levels (10-15) is usually significantly better than training a couple skills to very high levels (20+), and those two options cost about the same.

Hurkyl wrote:Find a good spread of spells and mana regeneration and train up your blasting ability? Sure, you can train up your ability to hit stuff, but it would take a long time before it's ever preferable (barring tedium) to blasting stuff, and you're much better off going for the next spell or training up invocations or whatever defenses you need that aren't covered by your spell set until the costs become huge. This character is a mage.

Do you know how much XP it takes to reach min delay with an acceptable weapon? It's not that much. Applying that XP to your magic skills to raise spellpower might improve your spellpower by about 10%, but the gains from that are pretty minor as compared with having an infinite source of irresistible damage that you can apply to adjacent monsters even with 0 mana.

Not only that, but if unless you're building a glass cannon, you should already have defenses that make standing next to monsters for a moment not suicidal, meaning that you should be able to apply the powerful tab spell in a variety of situations.

You want to divide things into "fighter" and "mage", but the only real dichotomy is between "characters whose players are willing to train them to survive by whatever means necessary" and "characters whose players who are stuck in archetypes".

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 14:55

Re: Spider's Nest

damiac wrote:So what's the end result here?

Ghost moths are easily melee'd to death, 1v1, by decently built casters.
No wait
Ghost moths are possible to melee to death, 1v1, by decently built casters.
No wait
Ghost moths are possible to melee to death with some buffing and consumable use, 1v1, by decently built casters.
No wait
Ghost moths are possible to melee to death with by quaffing might, agility, and haste potions, 1v1, by decently built casters.

Decently built caster meaning: some weapon skill
No wait
Decently built caster meaning: min-delay with good weapon.

See! If you continuously move the goalpost you'll always be right!

ghost moths in spider 5 are a big problem if they manage to demand you alter a build that would work in EVERY OTHER PART OF THE GAME just to deal with them, an enemy that doesn't even show up till zot in 50% of games. Ghost moths in spider remove interesting choices, and further make melee based characters a blatantly obvious 'no brainer', if you want to win.

It's funny how implausible the arguments made by fictional people people inside your head are.

Here's what was actually shown: A caricature of a DE "caster" with no defenses or poison resistance can't beat a ghost moth by tabbing it with a +4 flail or a +5 demon whip of flaming. It can beat the ghost moth by drinking might and haste. A reasonably-built DE with a weapon on the crummy side of average can beat a ghost moth by tabbing and drinking HW, or beat it and hardly take damage by using haste, might, and agility, or beat it without significant damage by just shooting bolt/iron shot spells at it. The reasonably-built DE never even needed to use wands or evocables or any form of invisibility or any method of revealing invisible monsters.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 15:14

Re: Spider's Nest

Lasty wrote:Do you know how much XP it takes to reach min delay with an acceptable weapon?

Yep. More XP than training up invocations to improve channeling. More than training up Fire from 0 to get Sticky Flame castable. Or a couple levels of Spellcasting to get more spell levels. Roughly in the ballpark of the XP it takes to train up Charms from 0 to get Haste. Or Translocations up from 0 to get Controlled Blink. Or training conjurations up from 10 to get OOD. And after that, maybe a little less than training Air up from 10 to get Chain Lightning....

It's not that much. Applying that XP to your magic skills to raise spellpower might improve your spellpower by about 10%, but the gains from that are pretty minor as compared with having an infinite source of irresistible damage that you can apply to adjacent monsters even with 0 mana.

An infinite source of irresistible damage that you can apply to adjacent monsters even with zero mana but is less than what you can do with spells is exactly worthless if you don't find yourself in situations where you want to kill things that you don't mind standing next to for a while but don't have enough mana to manage it.

Yes, it's a very useful thing on characters that find it useful. But I've found that, more often than not, my blasty-type characters regret training up a weapon skill before late game.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 15:39

Re: Spider's Nest

You must train your primary killdudes to be able to killdudes properly.
Trying to train up two killdudes at once is likely to leave you unable to properly killdudes.
Not training a melee killdudes is wrong.

This is what I'm seeing. So what it seems to boil down to is that if you've decided conjurations will be your primary killdudes, you've already messed up. But this is only true because of ghost moths. Some spider endings require you to deal with 4 or 5 ghost moths. Why should 1 enemy in one spot in the game have so much bearing on how I build my character?

And Lasty, the DE in question was NOT able to win with just might and haste. And the example was by no means a 'pure caster'. It was a fairly well rounded character, who relies primarily on conjurations. The problem is that this one particular monster shuts off conjurations if you don't notice it in time. The fact that this particular monster is also speed 12 means running away isn't an option.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 16:11

Re: Spider's Nest

Ghost moths are easily killed by using wands of Fire, Cold or Draining.
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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 16:18

Re: Spider's Nest

OK damiac, sometimes I really feel like you're trying to argue with people just for the sake of arguing and nothing more. Nobody, absolutely nobody said that you need to train melee on conjurers just to kill ghost moths. Yes, you need to specialize in the early game or you will spread your xp too thin and probably end up dying, however if you're in Spider:5 I think it's safe to assume that you're probably well into midgame, at which point your "primary killdudes" should already be more than adequate, meaning it is a smart idea to generalize. I've never ever heard anyone say "conjurers should never train melee", nobody ever said "conjurers should train melee to kill ghost moths", and I really have to wonder if you would even bother arguing about this if this was any other thread.

(And it probably doesn't mean anything to you, but in my own personal experience many of the conjurers that I get to spider are capable of taking out a ghost moth using nothing but magic, and the rest that aren't are totally capable of finishing it off in melee because I don't try to continue training spellcasting and conjuration up to 27 (or whatever it is that "pure casters" do) and instead started focusing on a weapon skill after my primary offensive magics are already good enough.)
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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 16:29

Re: Spider's Nest

damiac wrote:You must train your primary killdudes to be able to killdudes properly.
Trying to train up two killdudes at once is likely to leave you unable to properly killdudes.
Not training a melee killdudes is wrong.

This is what I'm seeing. So what it seems to boil down to is that if you've decided conjurations will be your primary killdudes, you've already messed up. But this is only true because of ghost moths. Some spider endings require you to deal with 4 or 5 ghost moths. Why should 1 enemy in one spot in the game have so much bearing on how I build my character?

And Lasty, the DE in question was NOT able to win with just might and haste. And the example was by no means a 'pure caster'. It was a fairly well rounded character, who relies primarily on conjurations. The problem is that this one particular monster shuts off conjurations if you don't notice it in time. The fact that this particular monster is also speed 12 means running away isn't an option.


After you train your primary killdudes to a certain point it is entirely reasonable to train a secondary killdudes. If you have a few level 5-7 conjurations up and running you don't actually need *new* magic killdudes to win, and you can probably wait on bumping the spellpower up. So in the midgame when you're getting utility spells it's very often a good idea to get a utility weapon, too.

Plus with sInv available somewhere (or even not) you should be able to take ghost moths one-on-one with magic. Even if there are several on the level this should be something you can arrange. If you miss the signal and get drained on your first encounter then it's time to read tele or quaff haste and try again.

Plus there's a consumable (invisibility) that defeats them nearly single-handedly.

All of these things people are telling you already.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 17:09

Re: Spider's Nest

and into wrote:"Pretend"? I seriously cannot recall any character I've played who started with a book and did lots of casting that wouldn't be able to take a ghost moth 1 vs. 1 in melee by about level 15 or 16. Some of them would have needed to use a consumable or two to make the fight completely safe, sure, but that's reasonable for one of the toughest monsters that appears in Spider, and is only likely to show up in the level 5 rune vault.


This is what the whole argument has been about.

Now, it's fairly common for typical players to get their MP drained down by a ghost moth while they're fighting something else. In that situation, you can't cast your spells. So here, the ghost moth presents a very unusual challenge, that only applies to characters who are primarily killing stuff with conjurations. Just melee it is the typical advice, which is what this whole damn thread has been about. But a typical caster is unlikely to be in a good position to do that, assuming they're coming to spider 5 for their first rune.

A character built in that fashion isn't going to have similar issues anywhere else in the normal game, all the way up until zot. The only similar enemy they will face is eyes of draining, which are slow, and not permainvis.

Now, if one could reasonably melee down a ghost moth with melee skill that's only been trained enough for dealing with popcorn, that wouldn't be an issue. However, that's not the case(Which I think was what Sandman was trying to prove). So why should this one enemy demand that I train my melee up to the point where I can beat somewhat challenging foes, when literally no other part of the normal game would make that necessary?

Now, you may say it was never intended that a character should be able to win without training a melee skill enough to kill challenging enemies, but I would disagree, and I think plenty of people have ascended such characters. The fact is, this one enemy, by itself, totally messes up that 'pure conjurer' play style. And even that's only if you don't find Sinv.

I personally don't play characters like that anymore, so in my typical games ghost moths are usually just a somewhat powerful annoyance. But just because I get bored using spells all the time doesn't mean I don't think anyone else should be able to, and I feel this one enemy is the biggest hindrance to that playstyle.

In the end, I propose the same thing that was proposed last time this discussion came up. Put a weaker version of the ghost moth in spider 5. I would prefer the same monster, with less MP draining, or better yet, just replace them with eyes of draining.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 17:16

Re: Spider's Nest

or ... you could use some consumables and tactics to take care of the ghost moth

you don't even really need melee to deal with them, it just happens to be the simplest method

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 17:27

Re: Spider's Nest

crate wrote:or ... you could use some consumables and tactics to take care of the ghost moth

you don't even really need melee to deal with them, it just happens to be the simplest method


I really don't get this, what do you mean?

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 17:35

Re: Spider's Nest

damiac wrote:Now, it's fairly common for typical players to get their MP drained down by a ghost moth while they're fighting something else.

You can fix this by changing your rcfile or by reading your message log.

damiac wrote:In that situation, you can't cast your spells. So here, the ghost moth presents a very unusual challenge, that only applies to characters who are primarily killing stuff with conjurations. Just melee it is the typical advice, which is what this whole damn thread has been about. But a typical caster is unlikely to be in a good position to do that, assuming they're coming to spider 5 for their first rune.

People have listed several different ways to handle this situation in this thread. Even Sandman25 admitted that using a +4 dagger w/ no skill works.

damiac wrote:A character built in that fashion isn't going to have similar issues anywhere else in the normal game, all the way up until zot. The only similar enemy they will face is eyes of draining, which are slow, and not permainvis.

Are you trying to argue that it's a bad idea to make distinctive monsters that offer a unique threat, or are you proposing that we put more invisible, mana-draining monsters throughout the game?

damiac wrote:Now, if one could reasonably melee down a ghost moth with melee skill that's only been trained enough for dealing with popcorn, that wouldn't be an issue.
Great, because you can.

damiac wrote:However, that's not the case(Which I think was what Sandman was trying to prove).
But he failed to do so.

damiac wrote:So why should this one enemy demand that I train my melee up to the point where I can beat somewhat challenging foes, when literally no other part of the normal game would make that necessary?
It doesn't.

damiac wrote:Now, you may say it was never intended that a character should be able to win without training a melee skill enough to kill challenging enemies, but I would disagree, and I think plenty of people have ascended such characters.
No one is saying that, and most such characters have no trouble with ghost moths.

damiac wrote:The fact is, this one enemy, by itself, totally messes up that 'pure conjurer' play style. And even that's only if you don't find Sinv.
No, it doesn't. c.f. the entire rest of this thread.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 18:29

Re: Spider's Nest

Hurkyl wrote:Find awesome heavy armor and shield and build your character around that? Sure, you can start training up your ability to cast stuff at stuff, but it would take so many skill points that it would be a terrible idea to start down that path until your ability to hit stuff and survive when hitting stuff is at sufficiently high levels that further improvement would be very expensive. This character is a fighter. It may eventually become a fighter-mage, but it would take a long time to do so.


I said "hitting stuff," not "wearing heavy armour and/or shields." Yes if you are going for heavy armor that will at the very least delay spell casting, and may well render spell casting non-viable. I never said or even implied otherwise.

Unlike armor, there's no casting penalty for wielding a weapon, or for hitting stuff in melee. Granted, you can't (e.g.) wield a staff of conjuration and a good melee weapon at the same time, but switching weapons takes less than one turn and is well supported by Crawl's interface, so it isn't much of a hassle.

Yes it costs skill points to get good at melee, but because of how experience costs ramp up exponentially, it often makes sense to get fighting and some weapon skill *eventually.* Exactly when, what, and how will vary of course.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 18:38

Re: Spider's Nest

Lasty wrote:
damiac wrote:In that situation, you can't cast your spells. So here, the ghost moth presents a very unusual challenge, that only applies to characters who are primarily killing stuff with conjurations. Just melee it is the typical advice, which is what this whole damn thread has been about. But a typical caster is unlikely to be in a good position to do that, assuming they're coming to spider 5 for their first rune.

People have listed several different ways to handle this situation in this thread. Even Sandman25 admitted that using a +4 dagger w/ no skill works.


Let me describe how I see it. +4 dagger kills GM with Haste/Might/Agility/Berserk and 0 weapon skill , +5 Demon Whip of Flaming doesn't kill GM with 12 weapon skill and Haste/Might. I believe it proves that Agility/Berserk are game changing items for meleeing GM.
If you have Agility - you win. If you don't have Agility - you can die no matter what are your Fighting/Dodging/Weapon.
Basically it means you can continue having 0 weapon skill if you were lucky to find conservation. I am not saying it's optimal, just possible.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 19:01

Re: Spider's Nest

WalkerBoh wrote:Clearly we need a "Caster" background, just to confuse everything even more.

They start with the Book of Casting:
- Stoneskin
- Statue-form
- Summon statue
- Conjure gargoyle

I would play the hell out of octopode casters. ALL DAY LONG.
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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 19:13

Re: Spider's Nest

Magipi wrote:
crate wrote:or ... you could use some consumables and tactics to take care of the ghost moth

you don't even really need melee to deal with them, it just happens to be the simplest method


I really don't get this, what do you mean?


He means to say that hitting them directly with an object is easier than hunting down a wand of fire.
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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 19:22

Re: Spider's Nest

damiac wrote:You must train your primary killdudes to be able to killdudes properly.
Trying to train up two killdudes at once is likely to leave you unable to properly killdudes.
Not training a melee killdudes is wrong.

I'll take a stab at rewording this:

At first train one thing to kill dudes.
Eventually you can train a second thing to killdudes once you're a buffdude yourself, if you like.
If your killdudes method takes mana/ammo, have a plan for not having mana/ammo.

The last line is what pushes people into melee most of the time, but it isn't really required.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 20:08

Re: Spider's Nest

My point is that the plan for having no mana/ammo is usually to back off, and also, you know you're running out before you actually run out.
Contrast that with a ghost moth's "Hey, where did my mana go?" effect, along with its invisible+faster than you effect, and you can see the uniqueness of the challenge presented.

Now, I personally just won't do spider 5 with a primarily caster character until I have a source of Sinv, or I'm powerful enough that GMs aren't a threat anymore. Even with Sinv, it's not exactly impossible to aggro more than just one creature, and GM + anything else means now my shitty melee skill needs to take down multiple faster than me threats.

Essentially, I feel such a powerful MP draining monster is grossly overpowered at that point in the game, but only if you're playing a character who depends on MP to kill stuff.

Yeah, sure, you can beat it without your MP, if you quaff the right potions, or whatever, and you can beat zot with a regular spear, but why should there be this one thing that's extra difficult for a small subset of characters?

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 20:18

Re: Spider's Nest

ghost moths drain your MP by 10, not 100
you can kill them with MP just like you kill everything else with MP, unless you only have 10 max MP, in which case you probably aren't killing everything else with MP in the first place

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 20:22

Re: Spider's Nest

tbh a primarily caster guy who is having trouble dealing with a gmoth is probably having trouble with a lot of other things that live in spider

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 21:40

Re: Spider's Nest

TheDefiniteArticle wrote:it's an invisible orc knight if you can't fight that you shouldn't be in spider anyway

10 weapon skill and any good weapon kills them lol

keep on iron shotting rats though

So you're saying as a caster-heavy character, my weapon skill should be my highest skill? That makes perfect sense T_T

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 21:43

Re: Spider's Nest

^ Mo' mummy, mo' problems, man. That's just how it goes.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 21:43

Re: Spider's Nest

if your highest skill in Spider is 10 I have no idea what

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 21:54

Re: Spider's Nest

playing a jack of all trades clearly
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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 21:56

Re: Spider's Nest

My take away from this thread is:

1. Ghost Moths really really irk some players. They don't feel the irksomeness is because of a bad strategy or bad play but because Ghost Moths are outside the norm and wreck their plans without warning.

2. GMs are not hard to kill if you expect them and have anticipated the need for a)sInv, b) melee skill + the proper consumables.

One thing I haven't seen much of in this thread is the use of Teleport and the like to just get the heck away. That would be my approach first before trying to kill them, if I felt I lacked the ability to do so. I have killed a vault full of Gms without sInv but I wouldn't recommend that. It seems easier (to me) to go somewhere else and find an sInv item or something else that helps (fog?) before returning.

To the first point I do sympathize. There are definitely some irksome encounters (uniques aside which are as far as I can tell designed to be irksome) that I could do without. But I don't think the problem with them lies with the game but with my skill/lack there of. I think what really may be irksome the most about these guys in Spider Nest 5 is that the rest of the level is relatively easy for a well made character. Even Emperor Scorpions aren't too bad (though they are damned tough.) So there is this one type of monster that annihilates the unprepared/unspoiled without warning. And particularly does so against certain otherwise "good"/popular builds. But I think any given player would likely only run into that problem once before adapting their strategies. If not then perhaps they like knocking their head against walls. There are certainly plenty of experiences like THAT to enjoy in crawl if one wants to be stubborn.

Swamp Slogger

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 21:59

Re: Spider's Nest

Sar wrote:if your highest skill in Spider is 10 I have no idea what

Fire, Conj, and Spellcasting at 10. Charms at 8. Fighting and Dodging at ~5. And that's it. Mummies don't get a lot of experience.

People focus on the lack of potions as the big problem with mummies(and it is clearly their biggest downside), and always seem to ignore the fact that they are bad at (almost) everything in terms of skills.

Sar

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 22:20

Re: Spider's Nest

That's not a Spider mummy. That's a Lair mummy at best. Unless my memory is failing me, I don't remember any of my mummies being that bad by Spider.

I actually won a MuFE (clickable), but I did Swamp before Spider on that character. Here are some skill levels I reached by doing end of Lair (it was D:8 Lair but I entered it after doing D:10):

  Code:
35898 | Lair:8   | Entered Level 8 of the Lair of Beasts
35906 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 9 in Dodging
37889 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 10 in Dodging
38171 | Lair:7   | Reached XP level 14. HP: 88/100 MP: 18/30
39141 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 1 in Invocations
39153 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 2 in Invocations
39526 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 3 in Invocations
39978 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 4 in Invocations
40503 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 5 in Invocations
41056 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 6 in Invocations
41444 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 7 in Invocations


And what spells did I have?

  Code:
1215 | D:1      | Learned a level 2 spell: Throw Flame
2589 | D:2      | Learned a level 3 spell: Conjure Flame
7702 | D:5      | Learned a level 4 spell: Sticky Flame
8110 | D:4      | Learned a level 3 spell: Stone Arrow
17333 | D:9      | Learned a level 1 spell: Apportation
17335 | D:9      | Learned a level 1 spell: Summon Butterflies
17338 | D:9      | Learned a level 2 spell: Blink
19514 | D:10     | Learned a level 3 spell: Flight
23197 | D:10     | Learned a level 5 spell: Fireball


I also had some high-enchantment flails that I used to skill 0 melee a lot of things.

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Post Tuesday, 13th May 2014, 22:39

Re: Spider's Nest

MuCj.

  Code:
18084 | Volcano  | Reached skill level 11 in Conjurations
 28763 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 13 in Charms
 30914 | D:10     | Reached skill level 1 in Air Magic
 31321 | D:10     | Reached skill level 10 in Spellcasting
 33416 | D:12     | Reached skill level 1 in Poison Magic
 41414 | Snake:4  | Reached skill level 10 in Fighting
 41908 | Snake:5  | Reached skill level 5 in Armour
 42659 | Snake:5  | Reached skill level 5 in Invocations
 42662 | Snake:5  | Reached skill level 10 in Necromancy


Right, no Dodging.

86826 | Vaults:5 | Reached skill level 5 in Dodging

Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 14th May 2014, 00:31

Re: Spider's Nest

damiac wrote:This is what I'm seeing. So what it seems to boil down to is that if you've decided conjurations will be your primary killdudes, you've already messed up. But this is only true because of ghost moths. Some spider endings require you to deal with 4 or 5 ghost moths. Why should 1 enemy in one spot in the game have so much bearing on how I build my character?\

I think the original gripe was less whining about how this enemy has "so much bearing", and more complaining how "melee it to death" has been offered as a solution in the past as if it were a trivial thing to do.

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Sandman25

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Post Wednesday, 14th May 2014, 01:17

Re: Spider's Nest

Unless you count Sandman25 lying about what people said in an unspecified thread (what a surprise coming from him), the closest thing offered was:
TheDefiniteArticle wrote:10 weapon skill and any good weapon kills them lol

which doesn't explicitly specify that your character should also have better HP/defenses/tactics than a Styrofoam cup filled with used bong water, but I think it does a good enough job of implying it.

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Abominae

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Post Wednesday, 14th May 2014, 01:27

Re: Spider's Nest

NessOnett wrote:Fire, Conj, and Spellcasting at 10. Charms at 8. Fighting and Dodging at ~5. And that's it. Mummies don't get a lot of experience.

Try something like this:
Fire/Conj: 8; Spellcasting: 6; Charms: 0; Fighting: 6; Dodging: 12.

Even if you choose not to train a weapon by lair, this should cost less xp than the original line and be more effective.
mikee_ has won 166 times in 396 games (41.92%): 4xDSFi 4xMDFi 3xDDCK 3xDDEE 3xHOPr 2xDDHe 2xDDNe 2xDSBe 2xKeAE 2xMfCr 2xMfSt 2xMiAr 2xMiBe 2xNaTm 1xCeAr 1xCeAs 1xCeBe 1xCeEn 1xCeFE 1xCePa 1xCeTm 1xCeWz 1xDDAs 1xDDCr 1xDDHu 1xDDTm 1xDENe 1xDEWz

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 14th May 2014, 01:29

Re: Spider's Nest

Poor duvessa, he used to have such a good memory before. I realize it's normal to forget a thread from almost a year ago, but forgetting posts from previous pages of this thread...

Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 14th May 2014, 02:28

Re: Spider's Nest

mikee wrote:
NessOnett wrote:Fire, Conj, and Spellcasting at 10. Charms at 8. Fighting and Dodging at ~5. And that's it. Mummies don't get a lot of experience.

Try something like this:
Fire/Conj: 8; Spellcasting: 6; Charms: 0; Fighting: 6; Dodging: 12.

Even if you choose not to train a weapon by lair, this should cost less xp than the original line and be more effective.

We're talking about a FE? I imagine you'd want to be able to cast fireball by the time you get to Spider:5; those skills put the miscast rate at 17% and pink.

High Sif Piety would keep you from blowing yourself up, I suppose, but 17% is still a pretty high fizzle rate, and maybe you want to be able to cast Fireball before high piety anyways. But the lack of invocations suggests this isn't a Sif mummy, so this comment doesn't apply.

If this is a Vehumet mummy, your skills are probably fine: the miscast rate would be 4%. But if this character had Bolt of Fire, the same objections can be raised about that.

(also note that the lack of hunger costs for casting makes getting high level blasts early more attractive for Mu than for other species. Doubly so with Sif or another source of channeling)

Judging by the Charms skill, this character has gotten at least one useful book by now; it may very well have trained spellcasting because it wanted the spell levels. We don't actually know for sure just from the skills.

That's not a Spider mummy. That's a Lair mummy at best.

Those skills look like a character around level 14-15 ish. Maybe a little less.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 14th May 2014, 03:39

Re: Spider's Nest

If fire/conj 8 isn't enough to cast fireball, then charms 8 isn't enough to cast haste, so I don't know why you'd have it.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Wednesday, 14th May 2014, 04:16

Re: Spider's Nest

Well those are lair skills. Even as a mummy, your skills in spider will be much higher, unless I guess you jump into spider as soon as you find it or something.
mikee_ has won 166 times in 396 games (41.92%): 4xDSFi 4xMDFi 3xDDCK 3xDDEE 3xHOPr 2xDDHe 2xDDNe 2xDSBe 2xKeAE 2xMfCr 2xMfSt 2xMiAr 2xMiBe 2xNaTm 1xCeAr 1xCeAs 1xCeBe 1xCeEn 1xCeFE 1xCePa 1xCeTm 1xCeWz 1xDDAs 1xDDCr 1xDDHu 1xDDTm 1xDENe 1xDEWz

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Post Wednesday, 14th May 2014, 04:44

Re: Spider's Nest

Here's what actual XL14-15 mummy skills look like (available experience at this point has not changed much since 0.10).
  Code:
 - Level 11.0 Fighting
 - Level 8.3 Maces & Flails
 - Level 1.5 Armour
 - Level 6.0 Dodging
 + Level 8.4 Spellcasting
 - Level 10.0 Conjurations
 - Level 10.3 Charms
 - Level 4.0 Necromancy
 - Level 13.2 Evocations

This is nearly twice the skill points in mikee's example (24593 versus 13327), which corresponds to more than twice the experience*, and by the time you're on Spider:5 you have a lot more.

*or possibly very nearly, too lazy to look

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Lasty, Sar

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Post Wednesday, 14th May 2014, 07:31

Re: Spider's Nest

Hurkyl wrote:I think the original gripe was less whining about how this enemy has "so much bearing", and more complaining how "melee it to death" has been offered as a solution in the past as if it were a trivial thing to do.

If it's not "trivial" you shouldn't be in Spider (and I said this already but Sandman conveniently ignored it because being reasonable would have interfered with his ridiculous strawman attack). A character who loses to a single ghost moth will get torn apart by the swarms of monsters that fill the branch. That joke of an example is one mistake away from death in pretty much every situation in Spider. But he apparently considers unbranded flails "good weapons" so I assume all his characters are one mistake away from death in all situations.

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dck, duvessa

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Post Wednesday, 14th May 2014, 08:49

Re: Spider's Nest

I think this thread is pretty much just going around in circles at this point.
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