Saturday, 21st May 2011, 17:54 by Galefury
Learn RMsl, Mephitic Cloud, Distill/Evap or Butterflies. They are easy enough to cast and help quite a lot. Semicontrolled blinks are also helpful for quickly closing with ranged enemies (or for running away). Of course you cant do that as a berserker, but it should help with your DrTm trouble and non-Trog 2h chars. Casting in dragon armor works fairly well with some investment. Generally you will have to focus more on your other physical defenses (AC, EV, HP, buffs) or crowd control when not using a shield, especially if you are playing a melee char. Being a bit more careful cant hurt either. Also consuming some consumables usually helps in tough situations. Got a Wand of Haste and some recharge scrolls? Use that to kill all those yaktaurs! Maybe pick up that stack of fog scrolls you never used, those should let you close with them without massive pain. Etc.
There aren't that many places with many blockable ranged attacks (mostly just vaults, vestibule, elf, some baileys and at least one Orc ending), so you have to prepare well, use consumables and tough it out, skip or postpone these areas, or be really careful. Same for some caster uniques (Boris and Frederick come to mind). Giants are everywhere, but usually not in groups, so just killing them quickly but carefully should be enough.
IronJelly: he's not having trouble with regular casters, it's just that Draconians cant equip a buckler for some reason, so training shield skill to reduce the casting penalty is hard for them. Also their shield apt really sucks IIRC.