dowan wrote:The main reason I can think of is that it does a fantastic job of killing the theoretical unspoiled player who walks into zot and sees his first OOF.
"Well, rF+ has been fine for the entire rest of the game, I'm sure it's fine here too", "Oops, I didn't build for and memorize one of the spells that can actually hurt this thing".
Right. And I really think this could be simply solved by clearly theming Zot5 (or at least the orb chamber) as firey, resisty, choasy stuff. Have golems spawn. Have lava pits. Have vaults with chaos clouds and nexoqecs. I don't mind the challenge of OoFs. I don't mind them requiring resistances; that's a common theme that players are used to by now. I mind them being just one monster on one level who surprises new players by adding a requirement to winning.
Cerebov's rF piercing isn't shocking to a new player. You fight through this unrand fire-themed castle and challenge it's fire god... Yeah, a couple extra pips of rF couldn't hurt. And while it's certainly true that OoF don't pierce rF, they deal a ridiculous amount more damage than nearly all fire-based casters to date. (Ancient liches CAN get close... but the closest fire-themed nonunique is golden dragons, with max damage of 81 on BoF, vs OoF with max damage of 120.)
Remember that the difference between rF+ and rF++ is 50% vs 33% damage. An OoF max damage with rF++ is the same as a Golden Dragon with rF+. The same proportions are going to hold roughly true if looking at average damage (which is less, but still somewhat relevant.) Orbs of fire essentially HAVE rF piercing through bunches-of-HD. The same sort of telegraphing that applies to Cerebov is probably equally desirable and effective for OoFs.
To amplify this with an anecdote... my first character to Zot:5 was an unstoppable MiBe, who had tabbed through multiple pan levels, the vaults, etc. I think I only had like 4 runes, and I decided to go for clearing the orb chamber before exploring extended. I died to a pair of OoFs because I had no clue how deadly they would be. Also because I didn't realize how good the AM brand is, and had abandoned it for a vorbal brand sucky randart, and because I was bold and decided to tab through two instead of separating them, and because I didn't buff up first, and being unable to cure stasis mutation because I'd spent my cure mutation potions playing roulette... yeah, totally avoidable death. But also a totally unexpected death, as the game cues gave me no clue I needed a ton of rF for this level, etc.
Edit: *buff up beyond berserk and a BiA cast or two. I was a Be after all. I KNOW how you deal with new tough looking monsters.