Ideas for Demigod - extended game

[svendre]

I've been cruising through the !next command from sequell in irc, doing mostly 15 rune games and it's been okay so far with a little speed bump and some bad luck on early starts as DeEn, but I got past that at last finally. Sequell decided to give me a Demigod Warper next.

I know I could do < 15 runes and it would be pretty straightforward in a dozen different ways, but I'd like to keep doing 15 rune games ideally. I believe I have accomplished it with demigod before, I'd have to look, I'm fairly sure I have.. but the thing is I think it's not all that easy. Losing the ability to worship a god as the drawback in extended seems a bit more harsh. I think one main reason is torment. I think it would be great if demigods had torment immunity or resistance (and it would be thematically matched but I digress).

I'm far from clueless, but I'm still looking for any ideas and suggestions other experienced players may have for the best way to deal with health replenishing /preservation without a god. So far I have the following ideas/techniques:

* Necromutation - neutralize torment and some mummy curses
* Regeneration - helpful but still need to dig tunnels and hide periodically, unfortunately doesn't work with necromutation
* Stealth - Try and slow down the game pace, but requires dex and shadow dragon armour to be effective/safe.. which may be somewhat limiting getting spells going
* Darkness - Again, slow down the game pace but not requiring dex and specialized or inferior armour
* Vampiric weapon - could be a total solution before extended, might help some in extended for pan at least
* Use as many regeneration artefacts as possible - hard to control what drops besides the amulet
* Hydra form - might be great early/mid game but not really needed then, and will drop AC to dangerous levels. Not sure how many extended foes will give health
* Consumables - healing/curing/ambrosia, pretty obvious thing, but difficult to keep stocked unless reserved fairly tightly
* Crap ass ton of luring - meh, tedious, hard to rely on always
* Super ridiculous high spell power nuker kill everything so fast on sight - A bit tough, but doable perhaps. No solution for mummy curses on it's own.
* Massive high level summoning like dragon calling, etc. to absorb a lot of attacks and create many distractions - I think it'd be okay for a lot of situations

Thanks!

[Siegurt]

As torment counterplay specifically, your missing lignification from your list.

[Airwolf]

Managing line of sight, e.g. use corners to decrease turns in LOS before you attack. Lesser Beckoning is good, too.

[Sorcerous]

From the list of methods you gave, the most consistent ways to minimise the threats involved would be necromutation and nukes. In my experience, the biggest problem with demigods isn't so much the lack of deific support as the worst XP rate in the game. I would add that abjuration and dispersal (only recently started using it, awesome spell btw) can both do a lot of damage control in extended.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Statue form + UC is really great too. Actually top score DgWr didn't even have statue form, just dragon form (though it was in 0.19 so unlimited haste as spell).

[TheMeInTeam]

Depends what the game gives you. Malmutate is extremely annoying too if you don't get a good amount of potions, you lack any hedge against that other than lich form or blocking with a spire. Some things that might help:

• Statue form reduces torment damage significantly
• Lich form blocks it entirely but takes a long time to get online. Maybe for tomb.
• Regeneration is a good spell to keep active, during and after combats. It's not nearly as good as TSO/Makhleb but if you have a tanky build you can heal more than popcorn does damage with it and prevent waiting around in hell effects for extended periods.
• Hexes: Tormentors, hellions, and doom hounds have bad MR. Enough that 10+ in hexes will have ~50% or better chance to confuse these.
• Similarly, a surprising number of enemies in extended have HD of 18 or less. Things like reapers and executioners can be confusing touched. Even a few of the hell/pan lords are low enough to have >50% chance on 3 swings to inflict confusion. Not all of them though. Ice fiends have 19 HD so will take too many to safely go for this, Tzitzimitl have 22 so would take a large amount time you don't have to confuse. Still, this is a situational resource that can be very helpful. Even greater mummies have 15 HD, which means you can get confuse on them pretty fast 1v1. Good luck with that in Tomb:3, but it might be relevant sometimes.
• Mana vipers: antimagic bite and distraction tier-4 stabs stay useful forever, even on non-stabbing characters.
• Movement: things like passage and controlled blink are very valuable to reposition after aggro from high tier demons or sudden appearance of monsters from hell effects. Dispersal/beckoning have some nice control uses too if you're using a fair amount of melee (dispersal should make passage easier to use sometimes too)
• When doing Tomb -tele could save your life on a ring or weapon, it's worth keeping an eye out for these.
• It's hard to guarantee most holy wrath sources w/o TSO, though sacred scourges and eudemon blades will be consistently available eventually off angels/daevas. If going with a shield build maybe go long blades (cross training short blades for some confuse stabbing) and pick up a eudemon blade eventually.
• Malmutate blows. Lightning spire + tons of junk summons like butterflies will keep it down, but you're still going to eat some unless you go necro/transmutation from early in the game and luck into lich form. It's hard to justify fast lich form though because in most cases it's not beneficial otherwise and it's a two-school level 8 spell.
• Using something like moon troll leather armor and +13 AC from Ozocubu's will let you get pretty nice AC/EV/SH, but it's extremely annoying. Spirit shield does help with torments in general though if you're not relying on blaster casting.

[svendre]

Thanks for all the ideas. In my first attempt, I cleared all the non extended areas to level 27, with good gear. My defenses were solid, but even with ample intelligence, there just wasn't enough XP to get beyond about level 6 spells. I never found necromutation, even after opening a trove. Not being being able to worship Kiku, there just was no way to get it.

I cleared Zot5, and in the process, noted that torment was putting me a risk of death (down below 50-80hp all the way from 237) all too often, even with rN+++. A couple more times on the way out, a single fiend was able to reduce me to near death from full health before I could do much to it. Nothing else seriously hurt me by comparison.

So my conclusion is basically, that to progress, necromutation would have been the best overall strategy to proceed, but it is also extremely difficult to get working by the time you need it without sacrificing a lot of defenses (at least with Dg). Statue form probably would have sufficed as a good alternative, but I had not trained earth at all by the time I had found it, and I was heavily invested in armour. Unarmed combat is looking attractive for a future run, since confusing touch seems like a pretty solid addition for even late game.

I won this game with 3 runes, not wanting to risk it further since it was in my !next series. I probably could have done 5 runes without too much trouble, but the mutations were already bad just from Zot5, I guess I just didn't want to bother this game. Maybe I'll try for 15 runes on Dg again later when it pops up again and i find a necronomicon.

It would be nice if Dg got some torment resistance or immunity.

[Siegurt]

Unarmed combat is looking attractive for a future run, since confusing touch seems like a pretty solid addition for even late game.

Note that in the current version, confusing touch doesn't require you use an unarmed attack (It will effect your next melee attack with whatever you're wielding or not wielding)

[Octopode-monk-of-XOM]

statue + regen + infestation + borg revivic + borg vile clutch / done

if you don't find necronomicon usually go for cblink/malign gateway instead

relevant morgues (failed speedruns)

https://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/p ... 195613.txt

https://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/p ... 190002.txt

[TheMeInTeam]

As part of the cosplay challenge series one of the recent ones required you to get the iron rune w/o killing dispater. However we had to worship Xom, wear ER < 5, and we could use only short blades or other weapons with a chaos brand.

Even with that getting the rune is relatively safe if you play it slowly and carefully (excepting usual Xom shenanigans). Vs fiends I just aggro'd and then summoned mana vipers while out of LoS and jumped them. Antimagic is the only thing that disrupts demon abilities besides killing them. Everything else can be handled by some combination of confuse/confusing touch or tabbing, even with a short blade.

I don't see why a demigod who *doesn't* have to deal with Xom's teleportation rides should fare worse. That said, when I last tried extended with Dg I quit after 7 runes and just won the game because I got malmuted really badly http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/ ... 094427.txt . Teleportitis basically signals game over you don't have -tele. Since I'd cleared Zot:5 in advance just in case of this I just left.

While torment is annoying you can at least play around it in extended. With mutations that's a "nope". Some games you will get 15 mut pots due to some shop selling them. Other games you get < 5, and lose 3 just trying to get rid of one instance of teleportitis, berserkitis, or blurry vision. To me this is the bigger killjoy for Dg in extended, but it's also just a bad place for the design of muts in general.

[CanOfWorms]

I never found necromutation, even after opening a trove. Not being being able to worship Kiku, there just was no way to get it.

  Code:

Your spell library contained the following spells:

 Spells                   Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
...
 Lehudib's Crystal Spear  Conj/Erth      #####.....   100%        8    #######
 Necromutation            Tmut/Necr      #####.....   100%        8    #######
 Dragon's Call            Summ           ###.......   100%        9    #######

????????

[Shtopit]

And the moral is, the Necromutation was inside you all along!

[svendre]

Wow, damn - totally missed that! I wonder when I picked it up.. it must have been towards the end of the game because I know I was looking for it for a good part of the game.