*reaching out yet again* ^^

[SchwaWarrior]

Hey guys! Call me Schwa. I found out about DC:SS about a month ago, due to a casual reference from another forum user in another forum I go to, and I'm so hopelessly in love with it now that I can't stop playing. I decided it's about time I get an account here so I can join in the discussions! I only have two friends in RL and they both love this game too now that I showed them, but at the same time, I kinda want more people to chat casually with about something I love so much. So here I am!

I have a couple favorite character builds; in general my favorite species to play (in no order) are Human, Sludge Elf, Kenku and sometimes Draconian, though Draconians are kind of intense to play as, what with having to wait until Level 7 to know what to center my abilities on... ^^;; My favorite Classes are basically any of the ranged ones; I'm extremely fond of Human Warper or even Sludge Elf Warper, getting my hands on an awesome Bow as soon as I can and then using that with Blink to fight extremely dangerous foes like Trolls and Hill Giants and win. It makes Jellies a bit hard though, since you can't hurt them with arrows except on the deathblow due to their item-eating ability. I like how Sludge Elves pack a better punch with a Dagger Sneak Attack, so I try to get an elemental one as my melee weapon, or Pikel's elemental whip if I encounter him-- or Yiuf's TOTALLY AWESOME quarterstaff NO MATTER WHAT if I find him. I also love the Artificer because it's such a novelty, and want to learn to play better as one.

Depth 13 is the farthest I've ever gotten. Oh, also I made it as far as Lair 7 or 8 (I forget which) with a Human Warper once, 'cause I was rushing past everything (desperately hunting for Jivya's altar due to playing without a Deity for too long, trust me it wasn't intended that way, there was just nobody good), and what finally killed me was a Fire Drake, but I put up a hell of a fight, getting it to half health and trying to retreat before getting picked off with five or six super-powered fireballs. Turns out I had an unidentified Ice Ring equipped, doubling the damage I took.

My greatest accomplishments were escaping the Abyss fully intact one time with a low-level character (freakin' Orc Priests scare me sh#tless now), and clearing the Hive with a Hill Orc Fighter of Cheidybras another time. (What finally killed my Hill Orc was three Skeletal Knights on the next floor. Ran out of healing potions and teleport scrolls and Slouches and I was just not powerful enough to finish them off and escape.) I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined Cheidybras to be so amazing to play. Usually my favorite deities are Okawaru and Mahkeb for their straightforwardness, or on rare occasions Xom for sheer lulz factory. I don't like Trog so much, because I hate finding awesome spellbooks and then having to burn them (especially if they contain teleportation spells like Blink, which is probably my favorite magic school, right next to Summoning).

A little about myself in real life... My passions, in no order, are coffee, chess, bicycling, writing, gaming, and meeting new people. I'm socially awkward, so not many people want to be friends with me, yet I keep trying like a fool. My life motto is "love what is, don't hate what isn't". Some of my favorite games are Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog (up until Sonic Adventure 2 and after that they jumped one too many sharks for my liking... they shouldn't have brought back Shadow >.>), and Pokemon (and yes I am 23 and have no problems admitting this I wear my feelings on my sleeve, got nothing to hide). My all-time favorite video game is "The World Ends With You" for the DS, and I would recommend it to ANYONE HERE. I'm also a fan of anime in general (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann being my #1 favorite, as I use the lessons it taught me in life to this day), and of mythological creatures such as Succubi, Mermaids, Harpies, etc., and of mythology in general, especially Chinese, Japanese and Norse myths (I often follow Taoist mentalities in day-to-day living, believing that everything has beauty and ugliness put together and I personally wouldn't have it any other way ). If/when I ever go back to college, I'll definitely pursue classes in Theology and Philosophy, for no other reason than "'cause I feel like it", 'cause that's the best/only reason to do anything, ever.

Anyway that's me in a massive nutshell (oxymoron). Glad to meet all of you! Hope I can join in the discussions in the coming days.

Also this felt so good to write. ^_^ I've been stressed out today, and this was a fantastic way to unwind. *goes back to DC:SS for a while*

P.S: Oh, on the Wiki, "Crawler's Diary" was one of the greatest things I have ever seen, anywhere. I'm definitely interested in adding a couple of pages to that myself-- once I stop utterly sucking and actually get a character into Zot and back, hahaha...

[omndra]

Welcome Schwa!
I like your Blinking Archer Character build idea, but i've never really made a good ranger before.
That idea sounds like it would work better on a Halfling. Slings are just as good as bows, and Halflings are amazing with them and translocations.

And when you finally do make it into Zot BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL! I've made it into Zot:5 three times now and I have yet to see the orb.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

I myself never thought about combining short-ranged teleportation with shooting -- perhaps because I played UT where using Translocator for constantly teleporting around an enemy is quite hard. =)

[SchwaWarrior]

Thanks for the warm welcome! :)

Blink-ranging does have its risks. If you miss a lot, you can run out of MP to continue Blinking without killing the enemy, so you must either run away for a while or be prepared to fight it in melee (with Snakes, there is no running away, and they're one of the biggest early-game threats until you get better armor or if have the Artificer's starting Wand of Frost). And also there's the risk of Blinking right next to the enemy you're trying NOT to be right next to, which is more and more of a risk the more enemies there are, such as a horde of Orcs with two Priests backing them up. @_@ You kinda have to be good at everything, both melee and ranged, and that's very difficult early-game to get that set up, but if you do it right then later on it becomes awesome.

Summoning skills are good too, I think, since they distract the things trying to get close and hit you. My best Human Warper (with the Vorpal Bow) found a Book that taught Summon Elemental, and I couldn't learn it because I had no way to gain Summoning skill. I went back and bought a Book of Frost so I could build my way up to Summon Ice Beast and then finally up to Summon Elemental, but he died via Fire Drake before I could get to that point. ^^;; Ah well. Sometimes you get more lucky as far as loot goes, sometimes not. I probably would have done better without bothering with Summon Elemental at all, thinking back, since I already had an AMAZING Bow and the means to use it super effectively.

I'm slowly trying out different styles of play though. Anyone know any tricks to get good with Artificer? They seem to be very balanced, but their important skills such as combat and armor are too low early-on, and building them up is challenging.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Elementals are quite hard to control. It is always easier to start with something weaker. And you need just to cover yourself, not to summon a powerful force to fight your opponents, right?

[SchwaWarrior]

Elementals are quite hard to control. It is always easier to start with something weaker. And you need just to cover yourself, not to summon a powerful force to fight your opponents, right?

Yeah, but Elementals are so cooooool!

In every RPG, ever, they're one of my all-time favorite creatures. :D

EDIT: Sooo pretty... o///o

[AtT]

Elementals are quite hard to control. It is always easier to start with something weaker. And you need just to cover yourself, not to summon a powerful force to fight your opponents, right?

Yeah, but Elementals are so cooooool!

In every RPG, ever, they're one of my all-time favorite creatures.

EDIT: Sooo pretty... o///o

Elementals are bastards. They basically ALWAYS spawn hostile, even on a summoner. To use them reliably you'd have to put a ton of points into summoning AND whatever type of magic you wanted to use (earth and air are easiest, or fire if you have conjure flame or something) I'd go for haunt if you're going to invest so much in two schools. Maybe if you already had a lot of one school trained up it would be worth it.

Maybe they dominate, idk. I've never had one not try to kill me

[Burningled]

I've been trying out archer builds for a while, and though the blinking thing does work it's really unreliable for putting distance between you and whatever you're trying to kill -- You're pretty much the definition of glass cannon with slings/crossbows/whatever; oneshotting most early game things but getting absolutely fucked when you're rushed by the first few yaks. Slow and Inner Fire are definitely more useful for killing crowds and strong enemies (and yourself in the case of the latter sometimes ), blink has turned me into a corpse too many times by dropping me right next to the Ogre I was running from.

However, you might have something in Teleport Other; in a corridor that's probably going to put them away from you more reliably. Apportation is great for retrieving ammo, as well.

[AtT]

Summon Elemental's friendliness chance is [elemental skill]/[5 for earth, 10 for fire, 15 for ice (5 if merfolk), 15 for air], although I think this is capped at 96%. Fire and water elementals are too crappy to bother with, but earth elementals are nice because you can get them extremely early and LRD them, and air elementals are insanely strong if you have enough Air Magic to actually get friendly ones. I've cleared Tomb with them.

That can't be right can it? 27/5 max chance for earth friendliness etc?

[Happy Corner]

Those are fraction values.

So a 5/5 chance for Earth elementals would be 100% (or 96% if that's the cap) - anything over 5 (let alone 27!) skill is enough for them. Your friendly chance for other elementals caps at 10 Fire, 15 Ice (or 5 for merfolk), and 15 Air.