petercordia wrote:Did I make any strategic errors?
Yes:
petercordia wrote:And I just went down the 3rd stair from P:1 to P:2
-There's no reason to go down an unknown staircase while visible. As it happens, if you were invisible, those black mambas and salamanders would do less damage to you on average. Invisibility is a massive buff and is free with that ring; you should abuse it.
-Also, why did you want to go down this staircase? Usually one is enough; almost always 2 is enough. Taking unknown staircases is a risky move (and alternatives should be carefully considered), because:
1. Except for your first discovery of the level, enemies get the first turn
2. Your evasion is lower while ascending/descending stairs (don't know how much lower, but it feels pretty huge, maybe halved?)
3. You're revealing a lot of tiles at once, so potentially seeing a lot of enemies at once
petercordia wrote:a - a +6 whip of electrocution (weapon)
Waste of a weapon slot. You probably already know that nothing in the game can compare to your javelins. Also important to know is that any weapon that kills popcorn will do - ending the game with 900 stones versus 700 stones doesn't make a difference. You should not use the best popcorn-killing weapon, but rather, a weapon that is useful in other ways (and you can keep the popcorn-killing weapon as a swap if you want, but really there are enough stones). A scimitar, for example, can riposte while you're throwing or doing other stuff. A randart with +STR (though you probably haven't found one yet) is what you're really hoping for. Speaking of STR...
petercordia wrote:Str: 9
Int: 16
Dex: 24
Where have you been putting your choosable stats? This character is all about javelins, so they should all be in STR. Already, with your current skills (Heroism off), when you're throwing javelins, 2 points of STR is slightly more damage than 1 point of slaying. And STR only gets better as you get more Throwing (via training and heroism).
petercordia wrote: + Level 11.5 Fighting
Level 0.2 Short Blades
- Level 7.0 Maces & Flails
+ Level 11.6 Throwing
+ Level 11.4 Dodging
+ Level 12.2 Stealth
+ Level 10.1 Shields
+ Level 5.4 Spellcasting
* Level 0.3 Charms
+ Level 9.8 Transmutations
* Level 0.4 Ice Magic
- Level 10.0 Invocations
+ Level 7.1 Evocations
-Throwing (and perhaps also Fighting) looks severely undertrained here; the scaling on Throwing is similar to UC (you gain a point of base damage for every skill level). Dodging and Shields should trail Throwing by at least 2 or 3 levels (the Shield attack speed penalty does not apply to thrown weapons for some reason).
-There is also way too much experience in Transmutations; Sticks to Snakes is a good spell but 5 levels would be enough for that. Or none at all; With Ozocubu's Armour and Summon Ice Beast available to you, Ice would be much more useful.
-I'm not going to say much about Stealth since it's a controversial topic, but some would say you have overtrained that as well.
Most of this may not sound super relevant to your current situation, but maybe if your character was more finely tuned, you wouldn't have needed the floor's third staircase.
petercordia wrote:To be fair, I wasted one turn trying to go back up stairs (and got stopped by constriction).
Yeah, this was probably an error. The payoff in escaping the situation was large, but the odds were not good. Naga Warriors are accurate hitters, and as I already mentioned, evasion is reduced when ascending/descending stairs. I don't know what the odds are of making it up the staircase, but I'm guessing that with just 1 naga warrior adjacent to you, it's under 50%, and obviously worse with 2.