First Win Ever! (just took me 5 years)

[shakkara]

Whew, I never thought I'd make it!

I started playing crawl 5 years ago and I was quite hooked. I kept coming back to the game every once in a while, and I came very close to winning a few times. Only to die embarrassingly. Getting teleported into the rune chamber of the Snake Pit and instantly getting mauled by half a dozen hydras. Or just stepping around a corner and getting reduced to red paste in a single turn by a giant. Most of the times I died without getting any runes at all.

I think most of the deaths in promising runs is due to getting banished to the Abyss in the Elf levels. I have NEVER been able to escape from the Abyss. Even with stealth and bat form I just get mauled by the hordes of monsters, and if I fight anything I run out of mana before I kill anything. I never have enough magic resist to stop Elf banishment. Hydras probably come second (I hate them so much that I carve up any corpse I come across out of principle) and boulder-hurling giants are the third bane of my existence.

It took me a while to figure out which race and class would suit my playstyle, so I tried Demigod and Tengu first. But I always ran into food problems, so I continued on with Mummies but realized I really disliked the inability to drink and mutate, because I loved gambling on the mutations by drinking mutation potions or sparkling wells. So Vampire was the only option left. And I really loved the spellcasting system, so I eventually ended up as Vampire Wizard and really loved it. So I kept playing Vampire Wizard forever, and dying every time. I really liked conjurations, in particular fire magic, and unfortunately vampires just have really poor aptitudes for that. Still I'm a very stubborn person and I just kept trying this template every time, only to be horribly underlevelled in the midgame and unable to kill anything with the conjurations before I would run out of mana. So I started dabbling into summonings as well, but this never really worked either, especially not after the big nerf that put summoning caps on everything and removed the ability to pre-summon allies and take them down stairs. I tried melee but I always kept dying the moment I went toe to toe with anything so I stopped training melee skills alltogether, saving up valuable XP elsewhere.

Lately I stopped wasting all my XP on conjurations and went with summoning and air magic instead and this has finally resulted in my first win. This wasn't particularly successful earlier, but we recently got a few interesting spells that REALLY helped me out: Summon Lightning Spire, Spellforged Servitor, Summon Forest, Summon Mana Viper and Monstrous Menagerie. I finally started earning some runes and making my way to areas of the game I had never seen before! And one run I just managed to break through and got my summonings levelled up high enough to be able to Summon Horrible Things, and when I got there I just managed to clear almost everything in the game that same run. I was very very lucky and got a bunch of good mutations too as well as one of the best items I've seen:

ring of Panentheism {SustAb MR++ Int+6 Dex+3 Stlth-}

Just wow... Probably the main reason I didn't get banished to the Abyss this time. There were a few points where I came close to dying though. Vaults 5 is just insane. When I went down I had the stairs locked by a warden almost immediately. I managed to cast malign gateway, summoned lots of stuff and used a few fear scrolls, but was getting overwhelmed and ran out of mana very fast (even with using 2 mana pots). I used a teleport scroll and ended up in one of the rooms, near the rune, and just ran away into a corridor with a lot of enemies chasing me, while I was out of mana. Then I realized I had 2 scrolls scrolls of summoning and used them. Got a lot of overpowered creatures that managed to kill everything while I got mana for another cast of horrible stuff and that was it, I finally had a clear corridor!

The other times I nearly died were related to orbs of fire. Man these are nasty, and the game didn't generate ANY fire resisting gear except for a robe, so I only had 1 level of fire resist...

Anyway here is the morgue, have fun

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/Shakk ... 183159.txt

NB: I have one gripe with this game and that is that I just don't see how conjuration spells are supposed to work in this game. To me they always cost way too much mana for what they do. Battlesphere was a nice addition but even with that I still often can't kill stuff (Like those godawful hydras) before I run out of mana.

[wizzzargh]

It's an uphill struggle to get good conjuration damage with vampire aptitudes, and your mana problems get even worse if you have bad melee and can't finish off enemies safely without having to spend mana. You might be more impressed with the power of fire conjurations if you played a Hill Orc or something.

Still, congratulations on your first win being an unusual character and not a Minotaur Berserker... it may have taken you a long time, but it sounds like a fun run. Also, Tomb and Slime runes on a first win, wow. That's not something I'd ever expect to see!

[Aule]

So I kept playing Vampire Wizard forever, and dying every time. I really liked conjurations, in particular fire magic, and unfortunately vampires just have really poor aptitudes for that. Still I'm a very stubborn person and I just kept trying this template every time, only to be horribly underlevelled in the midgame and unable to kill anything with the conjurations before I would run out of mana.

Major grats! You should have stuck with DEWz. It took me over 150 games with that to get my first win, but it was a very fun ride.

Also, Tomb and Slime runes on a first win, wow. That's not something I'd ever expect to see!

We stubborn Wz types have a way with these things. My first win has them, too.

[greedo]

I'm more surprised that his first win is a vampire that wasn't kiku. I always have blood problems with vamps -.-

[Sprucery]

Congrats, impressive first win!

I think most of the deaths in promising runs is due to getting banished to the Abyss in the Elf levels.

There's something that works even better than MR against getting banished in Elf. It is not going to Elf. Elf is totally optional.

But I always ran into food problems, so I continued on with Mummies but realized I really disliked the inability to drink and mutate, because I loved gambling on the mutations by drinking mutation potions or sparkling wells.

It's good that you stopped playing mummies (they are difficult), but you shouldn't do mutation roulette anyway. Also, as of 0.15, fountains do nothing.

Of course, you can do what you want in your game like go to Elf unprepared or get voluntarily mutated, but if your first priority was winning, it would have been better not to.

[shakkara]

Thanks all!

Tomb was not super hard, what I did was scum at vaults 2 (had relatively open layout at the center) or orc or lair for blood and hopefully pack one or two extra blood potions. Then wait for blood to run out and go in for the torment resistance. With stealth, I could usually sneak up close (2-3 tiles range) to the greater mummies and then spawn summon horrible things twice in their face before they could cast their summon emperor scorpions. All 3 tiles in my direction would then be full with my own summons and if there would be any space for his summons they'd be at the back. Meanwhile my monsters would be mauling him fast enough. Once HP got under 75% from the smites I'd retreat to some stairs, quaff the blood potion and heal up, then wait to become bloodless again. Next time I'd scum some more for blood.

At Tomb 3 and Zot 5 I made a lot of use of the malign gateway tentacle which interestingly enough persists even if you leave the level. Then dance the stairs. In tomb 3 the stair to tomb 2 was in a nice small room with not too many traps. I'd lure up to 3 guys up the stairs while hasted, then cast summon horrible things and then blink away. That always put at least one monster or empty tile between me and them, and then just keep casting horrible things to fill the whole room. Meanwhile everytime I went down the tentacle would kill a few things.

It was hard, but not so hard as Vault 5. Jeez, I'm still surprised I survived that welcome party...

I feel Elf is not so optional if you'd play Vampire Wizard, because if you don't go down there the lack of XP will kill you elsewhere.

[Sprucery]

Did you know what was waiting for you on V:5 or was it a surprise?

[shakkara]

Did you know what was waiting for you on V:5 or was it a surprise?

Yes but I didn't imagine those melee guys would be that close and there would be so many reinforcements so quickly. I don't understand why this is listed as recommended branch for the third rune. Tomb and Slime was far, far less risky than this.

[greedo]

Vault is just kind of the "default" for 3rd rune. Tomb might have been easier for you since you can go bloodless as needed for torment resistance, and slime basically requires a certain set of amulets and/or missile defense. rCorr isn't as common on an amulet as you'd hope. Also, most people just teleport out of the entrance, or if they have cblink, just woosh away in the corridors which are somewhat empty.

Also, vault used to be a lot easier when you could stairdance the entrance, but wardens made that a lot harder and sentinals made teleporting out a lot harder. Might be a bit of outdated advice.

[Siegurt]

Personally, I use fear+haste or blink to get out of the circle and just high tail it to one of the edges, teleport seems too risky for me (really you just need to not get hemmed in teleport will do that, but may also sick you into an awful situation) if you run into one of the side passages along the edge, you will have to fight 2-3 at a time instead of 8, if you use haste you will have a buffer of a few turns to set up your farm (just be aware that your noise will bring thing in from the other direction)