YAVP GnWr of Kiku

[sunspire]

It has been years since I posted on here.
My first win with a Gnoll. I probably could have gotten more runes if I grinded in Hell/Pan/Abyss more, but I lost patience with how slowly skills progress with this class.

Some important observations: Freezing Cloud does not suck for the simple reason that your undead minions and/or summons will not aggro even if you cast it directly on them. However, I sadly and regrettably replaced it with Ozocubu's Refrigeration which, I discovered with horror, my summons do not tolerate and instead want to kill me when cast. So, I didn't use this spell often.

I ended up using the staff of death and casting Necromutation and Haunt to good effect mostly, except Greater Mummies seem to like to cast Abjuration on my summons so I didn't try to delve into Tomb 2.

What almost got me killed however is when using the crystal ball it made me confused for like 10 turns while Necromutated, because as a Necro you can't quaff potions, and being confused you can't cast spells or read scrolls. So I had to use every box of beasts and bag of spiders just to stay alive in the Iron City of Dis level 7 or 8 I forget.

Overall Gnoll is fun in that you can use any weapon or spell book, but being a jack of all trades, makes you a master of none. Which means unless you want to spend countless hours grinding, you will never max out your skills. I decided not to grind and limped out of the dungeon with a 4 rune win.

Morgue file: http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/sunspire/morgue-sunspire-20191029-092838.txt

P.S. The only time I ended up using Apportation was on what I thought was the Abyss Rune, but turned out to be a Mimic. I had bad luck searching for the rune there after many many turns and dealing with the nastiest bad luck creature combinations. I hate those Starspawn Masses or whatever they are called.. Ozucubu's Refrigeration does take care of them though, one of the good uses of it.

P.P.S. The stealthy boots and ring of this build gave me maximum stealth this game, which does help quite a bit. Allowing one shot kills of sleeping foes even in the depths of hell. However, once Necromutation or Haunt is cast, that pretty much wakes them up.

[stormdragon]

Some important observations: Freezing Cloud does not suck for the simple reason that your undead minions and/or summons will not aggro even if you cast it directly on them. However, I sadly and regrettably replaced it with Ozocubu's Refrigeration which, I discovered with horror, my summons do not tolerate and instead want to kill me when cast. So, I didn't use this spell often.

I think this is becuase with Ozocubu's Refrigeration counts you as the damage source, whereas the freezing clouds are environmental.

My first win with a Gnoll. I probably could have gotten more runes if I grinded in Hell/Pan/Abyss more, but I lost patience with how slowly skills progress with this class.

That is not at all necessary, and probably not even advisable (these places are a bit risky to be in, so grinding may be a net negative to your chances of winning), for 15-runing. Your character was a terror in melee with a demon blade at minimum delay and Haunt + Shadow Creatures to fight beside you. Even better than melee, you had a big stack of javelins, and you could have memorized portal projectile. I don't see much need for MP, so I am kind of curious why you would be carrying a crystal ball...Haunt spam? At any rate, this looks like a 15-rune-capable character (Controlled Blink nearly seals the deal on its own).

I don't mean to come off as negative, you have a cool win; I just disagree that gnolls need to (or even benefit from) grind in extended.

[Siegurt]

I think this is becuase with Ozocubu's Refrigeration counts you as the damage source, whereas the freezing clouds are environmental.

This is close, but not exactly the case, "you" are still the source of damage for clouds (that's why you earn XP when you kill things with them) but "being in a cloud" doesn't count as a *hostile action* by you.

It's not even about 'voluntary' and 'involutary' damage, or "passive" and "active" (although the two examples mentioned might fall into that category)


Some examples:
Being damaged by the *explosion* of inner flame makes things aggressive, but being damaged by the *clouds resulting from* inner flame do not.
Being damaged by fulminent prism's explosion makes things aggressive.
Being damaged by poison sticky flame inflicted before something became an ally does *not* cause them to become aggressive.
Being hit by sticky flame's initial cast *does* make things aggressive.
And of course if it's immune (not just resistant and take zero damage, but actually immune) to it, it doesn't cause aggression (So bolt of draining doesn't make undead mad, nor does lightning bolt make lightning spires mad)

Also hexes have weird rules for aggression-causing.

[sunspire]

My first win with a Gnoll. I probably could have gotten more runes if I grinded in Hell/Pan/Abyss more, but I lost patience with how slowly skills progress with this class.

That is not at all necessary, and probably not even advisable (these places are a bit risky to be in, so grinding may be a net negative to your chances of winning), for 15-runing. Your character was a terror in melee with a demon blade at minimum delay and Haunt + Shadow Creatures to fight beside you. Even better than melee, you had a big stack of javelins, and you could have memorized portal projectile. I don't see much need for MP, so I am kind of curious why you would be carrying a crystal ball...Haunt spam? At any rate, this looks like a 15-rune-capable character (Controlled Blink nearly seals the deal on its own).

I don't mean to come off as negative, you have a cool win; I just disagree that gnolls need to (or even benefit from) grind in extended.

Thanks for the reply. You are probably right. Portal projectile would have helped. Yes, I had the crystal ball to spam haunt, but it probably was not the wisest choice to do that as that random confused side effect is deadly. Maybe you are right about a possible 15 rune win with this character, I guess since it was my first Gnoll, I wasn't confident without the maxed-out skill levels you get with other races. Maybe it was a psychological thing, lol.

[TheMeInTeam]

Not sure why you don't have death's door + revivification memorized in general, but these + cblink mean you have to really screw up badly to die anywhere outside of Zot. This character could definitely do extended if desired. IMO gnolls are one of the better choices. Only real downside is that you're not running around with a 27 invo cleansing flame, but there are other ways to handle extended and top tier magic is one of those ways.