gnolls are the best wizards


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Tomb Titivator

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Post Monday, 1st April 2019, 21:32

gnolls are the best wizards

they start with a ton of MP, can learn all the utility spells without sacrificing anything, and grab a great sword to wreck confused enemies with. is there a reason gnolls wizards aren't a suggested combination? they're far easier than deep elf wizards.

actually, i think gnoll wizards might be the BEST combination by a far margin, from what i've played so far.

Blades Runner

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Post Monday, 1st April 2019, 22:03

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

I'd take a gnoll hunter with a hand crossbow, or a gnoll necromancer over wizard, but yeah - you're right. Gnolls are extremely strong, especially in the hands of people that know how to take full advantage of all their skills. I don't understand the recommendations very well either. Another one that confuses me is that draconians are listed as an easy species. Maybe they were back when they could wear body armour, now they are just silly.
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Slime Squisher

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Post Monday, 1st April 2019, 22:23

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

snow wrote:they start with a ton of MP, can learn all the utility spells without sacrificing anything, and grab a great sword to wreck confused enemies with. is there a reason gnolls wizards aren't a suggested combination? they're far easier than deep elf wizards.


The only reason I can think of is the inability to focus skills. Great starters, but they slow down in the endgame.
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Post Monday, 1st April 2019, 23:45

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

Yeah, they're really good with ranged attacks, especially with oka.

As for slowing down in the end game, I don't think that's so. Skills at 27 eat up so many points, and instead having them at 16 across the board makes them incredible tank mages. I'm trying to figure out what's the best god for them... oka so far has been great (especially if you go with ranged). also with vehumet, you can go the conjuration route if you really want to.

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Post Tuesday, 2nd April 2019, 00:31

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

Species and background recommendations tend to reflect theme rather than actual power. Otherwise berserker would be recommended for every non-undead/formicid species, and centaur would be recommended for every background.
So right now only the non-Enchanter warrior-mage backgrounds (and Wanderer for some reason???) are recommended for gnolls, because those are the "hybrid" backgrounds and the theme of gnolls is doing everything at once. You can certainly make a good argument that Wz should be included in that, since Wz has a theme of using lots of different spell schools.

But as far as power goes, I actually think gnolls are the single species that is the most biased against mage backgrounds and towards warrior backgrounds. This is because they have a +8 Fighting aptitude, Fighting skill gives you max HP, and mage backgrounds start with no Fighting skill. GnWz has 13 HP, and GnFi has 23 HP; that's a huge difference. Even minotaurs favour the non-mage backgrounds less than gnolls do, imo.

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Halls Hopper

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Post Tuesday, 2nd April 2019, 12:31

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

snow wrote:Yeah, they're really good with ranged attacks, especially with oka.

As for slowing down in the end game, I don't think that's so. Skills at 27 eat up so many points, and instead having them at 16 across the board makes them incredible tank mages. I'm trying to figure out what's the best god for them... oka so far has been great (especially if you go with ranged). also with vehumet, you can go the conjuration route if you really want to.

When I did GnWz it was with Sif. Since you don’t have to divert XP to Invocations, you can get good value out of channel mana easily. Plus the other general benefits. It’s probably not the best best god, but having MP on demand is incredibly useful, and you can combo it with Guardian Spirit for excellent defenses.
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Post Tuesday, 2nd April 2019, 15:25

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

snow wrote:Yeah, they're really good with ranged attacks, especially with oka.

As for slowing down in the end game, I don't think that's so. Skills at 27 eat up so many points, and instead having them at 16 across the board makes them incredible tank mages. I'm trying to figure out what's the best god for them... oka so far has been great (especially if you go with ranged). also with vehumet, you can go the conjuration route if you really want to.


Gozag #1
Oka #2

The reason is that with Gozag I'd say you have the best chances of finding a great weapon or other artefact that you'd want to use as early as possible either through an existing shop or by summoning a shop. This is good for just about every character, but gnolls are especially great at taking advantage of it. Oka takes a bit longer before you get anything but ammo, and then it's very hit and miss if it'll even be a good item or not. I might have said Oka before it was nerfed to give gear later because of heroism. One shop gives you a lot of selections, and Gozag's confusion can be utilized by the gnoll stabbing without going out of your way to train stealth & shortblades while you aren't in super light armour.

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Post Friday, 5th April 2019, 11:06

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

I'm running a gnoll wizard of Gozag right now just because of this thread. :)

It's been a fun character to play. I like not having to think about what skills to train.
Also, everything is an option, I've been stabbing a lot lately because I have mephitic cloud and confusing touch.

Gozag hasn't been that great though. He's given me 2 pretty rubbish shops so far.
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Post Saturday, 6th April 2019, 07:24

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

I wouldn't recommend Oka for GnWz. If you want Oka with gnoll then take some other background, like Sklad.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Sunday, 7th April 2019, 14:42

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

I wouldn't recommend Gozag for a GnWz. I starved to death, even though I mostly stuck to hungerless spells.
There's only so many times you can summon a food shop before the price becomes prohibitive.

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Post Sunday, 7th April 2019, 16:25

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

MrDizzy wrote:I wouldn't recommend Gozag for a GnWz. I starved to death, even though I mostly stuck to hungerless spells.
There's only so many times you can summon a food shop before the price becomes prohibitive.


I'm surprised you starved. I know that with Gozag food is somewhat of a consideration, but it's been a long time since I actually starved to death. Maybe if you were only using spells to kill everything, then resting to full health/mana in-between every single fight I could see having trouble. The thing with gnolls though is that you have ranged ability, melee ability, stabbing ability.... so many choices, that you shouldn't need to rely on magic all that much.

Oftentimes on characters that start as dedicated spell casters, besides the first few dungeon levels, I find that it is still easier to take the handicap of low str, start wearing heavier armour, pumping str, and ignoring spell casting in favor of melee/armour and juicing ranged weaponry until at least mid-game or further before worrying about being able to cast any spells. Even then, I start with low level ones < level 6 with the maximum bang for the buck (blink for example.) It's just yet another advantage that non-spell casters have that they don't trip up much in armour too heavy for them, and they don't consume much food at all.

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Post Monday, 8th April 2019, 01:31

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

I do rest up to full HP/MP after every fight. I thought everyone did. It seems the prudent thing to do. If you don't do that, what do you do? Only rest up to 80% or something? Not rest at all?

BTW, I also struggle for food when playing spriggan due to the inability to eat chunks.

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Post Monday, 8th April 2019, 23:24

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

MrDizzy wrote:I do rest up to full HP/MP after every fight. I thought everyone did. It seems the prudent thing to do. If you don't do that, what do you do? Only rest up to 80% or something? Not rest at all?

BTW, I also struggle for food when playing spriggan due to the inability to eat chunks.


Besides the first few levels, I very rarely rest to full unless there is a specific reason why. It is pretty difficult to give you an exact when, where, and why breakdown because it just comes with practice. The gist is that you evaluate factors such as what % of life you are currently at against what % of the current level you have already cleared, against how strong is your character (based on luck with gear, etc.) against the level of difficulty of the level or branch you're in.

Gnolls are often fairly stealthy since they don't go out of their way to pay for armour skill and stealth (or anything). This affords you a bit more leeway because if you do encounter something too tough to handle before your health has regenerated enough, you can often decide to take one step back and rest before proceeding to the encounter.

One more nice thing about gnolls, in particular, is that they can use necromancy spells such as regeneration for the non-extended portion of the game, and then switch to Zin or TSO for the extended half without having "wasted" experience points. Regeneration isn't a spell you need to cast and then rest, but just cast it and go autoexplore.

Finally, I want to point out that high AC is very good in saving food because you don't need to rest as much if you take less damage. Regeneration items pair well with high AC. For a melee character, a regeneration amulet can work almost like a gourmand to conserve on food because once again, it cuts down the amount of time to bounce back to full health. Regeneration items are very, very good.

If you're resting to full mana in addition to full health, I'd say you should reduce the amount of spell casting you are doing. More ideal is to balance your health and mana such that if you spent some mana, but you're at full health, use melee and take some damage to conserve mana. Conversely, if your health is trashed, but mana is full, then burn mana more quickly to conserve health. You're more efficient if you're replenishing both at once, and if you can time it so that they both recharge to full at the same time roughly.

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Post Thursday, 11th April 2019, 17:01

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

Best god for a gnolls is usually the first one you see that confers benefits that will help you through next few levels, lair, and orc. Oka is great, but I'd rather have a D:2 nemelex, hep, kiku, makhleb, yred, trog etc than a D:6 temple oka if I'm not doing a cosplay/variant run.

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Post Tuesday, 16th April 2019, 10:58

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

MrDizzy wrote:I wouldn't recommend Gozag for a GnWz. I starved to death, even though I mostly stuck to hungerless spells.
There's only so many times you can summon a food shop before the price becomes prohibitive.

I'm not saying that this is impossible (it happened, after all) but it is really-really weird. The only rational explanation I can think of is that "I mostly stuck to hungerless spells" is false.

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Post Tuesday, 16th April 2019, 11:01

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

svendre wrote:Besides the first few levels, I very rarely rest to full unless there is a specific reason why.

Just for the record, I completely disagree with everything you wrote above. This particular bit is really bad advice. Not resting because you want to preserve food is just insane.

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Post Tuesday, 16th April 2019, 14:51

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

Sorcerous wrote:
snow wrote:they start with a ton of MP, can learn all the utility spells without sacrificing anything, and grab a great sword to wreck confused enemies with. is there a reason gnolls wizards aren't a suggested combination? they're far easier than deep elf wizards.


The only reason I can think of is the inability to focus skills. Great starters, but they slow down in the endgame.


https://crawl.kelbi.org/crawl/morgue/Th ... 072124.txt

The notion that they "slow down" is a bit silly. There aren't many species that have such an easy time casting level 6/7 spells while in plate armor w/o wizardry items or a magic god.

A deep elf or tengu pushing intelligence and training specific schools can get particular spells online faster, but these don't have the durability from armor/fighting/evasion aptitudes that Gnolls get, nor do they get to slap on a medium shield for basically free late game.

Gnolls fall off slightly in extended, in that they can't trivially get level 9 spells going w/o god support or a ton of grinding. However, being able to cast any spell level 7 or less easily while swinging 20 skill weapons at min delay with full equipment draw and good HP suggests to me that they're still in the top 1/4 of species options even in extended. On average they have better weapons than nearly anybody else too since they can freely switch.

Magipi wrote:
MrDizzy wrote:I wouldn't recommend Gozag for a GnWz. I starved to death, even though I mostly stuck to hungerless spells.
There's only so many times you can summon a food shop before the price becomes prohibitive.

I'm not saying that this is impossible (it happened, after all) but it is really-really weird. The only rational explanation I can think of is that "I mostly stuck to hungerless spells" is false.


It's not quite that simple. There are practices that have hidden food costs, for example if someone takes way more damage than necessary and thus expends more food + fight consistently across a large portion of the game. Also from game to game sometimes you get 2-3 food shops by default and sometimes none. Still barring awkward scenarios like trolls following Gozag food doesn't seem like a big issue for most normal games.
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Post Tuesday, 7th May 2019, 14:28

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

I'm surprised to see that some consider that gnolls slow down late game. IMHO they're rather weak mid game : Jack of all trades, master of none...
I feel like the Lair runes are the hardest to get, when you lack both level-5 spells, good min delay weapon or reliable stab...
Then you're just good at everything !
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Post Tuesday, 7th May 2019, 16:31

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

Gnolls are strong all game.

By S branches gnoll spellcasting is ~11, most skills are ~10, and spell schools are between 8 and 9. Unless you're in heavy armor level 4-5 spells are in play. Even if you are you can probably strap on a nice branded dagger and cast confuse/confusing touch/mephitic.

If you have spells like passage of golubria they're online. If you have a good sling it's near mindelay, as are all shortblades. Weapons like dire flail & lajatang mindelay at 14 skill, so you're swinging these well below 1.0 already. Evocations at > 10 also means any wands/recharging evoke items you have are strong.

These abilities are already a nice baseline, when you add a god it's crazy. Oka's heroism can take basically anything to mindelay. Vehumet makes you a valid blaster. Most god abilities are decent at 11 invocations, it's plenty for stuff like lesser servant of Mak, Hep idealize, pacifying any "animal" you'd encounter in that timeframe with Ely, or blowing things up with Nemelex. With Kiku you already have raise corpse + animate dead. Ash can push weapons or magic further too.

I'm not seeing the weak point. You're capable in melee, can cast most any utility magic you've seen, and have more HP than many species.

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Post Tuesday, 7th May 2019, 18:04

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

duvessa wrote: centaur would be recommended for every background.


That's not how you spell Deep Dwarf.

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Post Tuesday, 7th May 2019, 19:40

Re: gnolls are the best wizards

MalcolmRose wrote:
duvessa wrote: centaur would be recommended for every background.


That's not how you spell Deep Dwarf.


I like centaurs early, but Deep Dwarves are one of only a few species that gets MR +6 per level (only spriggans have better natural MR gain). This is nice because you can have no MR gear for a long time in crawl, and enemies with paralyze can 100 --> 0 on that. Damage shaving is also very relevant early and stays so all game.

Overall, I'm inclined so say you're right because DD has the highest winrate in crawl by a comfortable margin IIRC.

Also, neither of these species are too frail regardless of background which is nice. One of my recent deaths was just awful:

https://crawl.kelbi.org/crawl/morgue/Th ... 223309.txt

After experiencing that I reject that felids are actually in the top half of species :p. I seriously lost 1v1 to a bat, and you can't run from those.

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