how to not be devoured by 8headed hydra?

[sholvar]

Hi guys,

I f*ed myself badly and can't see a way out. In this attempt I was rather lucky, finding the requirements for a golden dragon armour on D:3 and D:4. After that I really didn't have a lot of problems with most monsters that normally are quite the pain in the ass. In my euphoria I ran directly in a Hydra and tried my battleaxe on it's heads (starting from 5, now 8).
Anybody an idea how to get out of that? I tried to disintegrate, to fire-arrow it and to paralyse it, all without success. And now my way to the stairs up are blocked by a snail (which isn't my main concern, because the Hydra seems to be faster anyway).

Well, pictures say more then 1000 words:

[pratamawirya]

How much damage can the hydra deal to you?

You can try:
1. Zapping yourself with the teleportation wand,
2. Putting on the teleportation ring.

But this is assuming the hydra won't kill you before you start running.

[Blade]

Yeah, you're dead, barring some extraordinary sequence of events (no matter what you do, you would have to spend at least two turns next to an eight-headed hydra at 14 hp). Start a new character and don't get cornered by a hydra next time.

[mageykun]

You're very close to being dead, but since he's doing no damage, you might make it. Read tele, quaff haste, and run away while waiting for the tele to kick in. Maybe throw in a heroism for more AC if you get a turn for it. You want to escape, not go for the kill. The hydra is a much better position for that than you.

Here's some things you could have done earlier, to prevent this from being quite so desperate:
(these tactics may also prove useful when you return later, healed up to try again. Assuming you don't die, or just decide to avoid the hydra).

• Stop and think about your options before you're this close to dead. A good deal of surviving situations like this is preventing them from happening in the first place.
• Axes are a bad idea against hydra. Anything with a sharp edge it going to cut off and regrow more heads. Use either blunt or piecing weapons (no effect on heads) or a flaming edged one (cuts off cauterizes heads).
• You have an identified, unused scroll of acquirement in inventory. This is silly. You should one of those as soon as you can after finding it, not hold on to it and risk it getting destroyed. Conceivably, you could have acquired something in advance that would have saved you here.
• Hydra have enough MR that trying to paralyze it is almost guaranteed to fail.
• You can fire arrow a hydra to death, but you need to be fast enough to outrun it and pillar dance to do so.
• You have a wand and scrolls of teleport. If you had used either of these earlier on, you could have escaped.
• You worship Oka, but you haven't turned on either god ability. Heroism would have increased your defenses slightly. Finesse would have give you more time to do things.
• Even better, you had two potions of speed. Outright haste is even better than finesse, and could have let you run away in time.
• I see doors on that map. Depending on where this fight started, you could have got behind one and shut it the hydra's face.
• You're wearing an unidentified ring. Unless you used use-ID shenanigans the game doesn't recognize (for example, you know it's rPois, it's just not marked) this is dumb.
• You're not wearing your amulet of rage, even though you didn't have another amulet. Berserk can sometimes allow you to overpower hydra- killing them faster than they can heal from regrown heads.
• You have rF. The hydra does not. You could have risked the immolation at some point.
• Depending on initial positioning, you might have been able to get the slug between you and the hydra, and used it as a shield. Then you could have retreated or waited for tele.
• You could have enchanted those minuses off your axe. Assuming you didn't have a better one laying on the floor somewhere.
• You have a wand of lightning, and some favorable terrain. You could have set up a multizap.
• You have lots of unidentified potions. Some of those could have been useful, if you knew what they were.

[XuaXua]

If you have not yet identified Scrolls of Blinking, since you aren't wearing an amulet of stasis (though we don't know what the ring is, but at least it isn't an artefact!) you can try the unidentified scrolls. Read from the 3-count stack.

Also, if doing what Mageykun suggests, quaff the potion of speed first because that'd speed up your reading of the teleport scroll (RIGHT? Correct me, please! Wait for a correction or confirmation before you do it!)

[sholvar]

last time I used Finesse I got the response that my magical abilities weren't good enough to use it. Does armour also hinder ability usage? Do I need more then 4 MP for it?

Increasing my speed and running away seems the most legit from what I read until now. Is it possible to estimate the chances of losing 14 HP or more with current AC, armour skill with 16 Hydra hits incoming? I wonder of the chance of success is greater then 25%. Otherwise the wand of paralysis might actually really be the better idea.

[One-Eyed Jack]

last time I used Finesse I got the response that my magical abilities weren't good enough to use it. Does armour also hinder ability usage? Do I need more then 4 MP for it?

Yes: finesse costs 5 MP. Also, its failure rate is high (I think more than 50% with 0 invo) and reduced by invocations skill (which also increases max MP). You really should train invocations until ~8-10 on an okawaru character at some point.

[mageykun]

"Make things ups?" mm, that's just hurtful. I mean, there's honest ignorance and misconception, and then there's maliciously leading people astray. :p I'll admit I'm not always right, but it's hardly deliberate, and I'm more than willing to cop to it when someone points out I've made a mistake.

Anyways, please excuse my hyperbole. The point remains though that a wand paralysis really isn't a reliable option to take down a hydra in many cases. Burning out the entire wand to no effect as the hydra closes is a likely outcome. Not only does that not help you, it wastes charges that would have been useful in other situations. Sure, there may be times where it's all you've got to work with, but it's hardly the first or even second choice (which, from his initial post, it sounded like it was).

I'd expect the delay before a teleport kicking in to be a function of time units, not turns. Haste shouldn't help. Obviously the formula's more involved than that if haste actually slows down the tele, but it may be worth it if it buys you turns out of melee range or for healing or whatever as you wait it out in different situations.

Anyways, if you're going to be Gatling gunning paralysis, I see no reason not to haste first so you get more charges off faster. :p Hell, I'd read tele anyways, since he's already used the wand (several times?) and it's probably going to burn out soon.

[BlackSheep]

Given that 6 of its 8 attacks did no damage, you might get away with quaffing your cure wounds potion, then a speed potion, then making a run for it. When you reach the narrow corridor to the north you can shut the doors and rest up.

[pratamawirya]

Is it possible to estimate the chances of losing 14 HP or more with current AC, armour skill with 16 Hydra hits incoming?

I'd usually set a backup crawl folder to test such thing.

[XuaXua]

Your best (still very bad, obviously) chance here is to try to zap it with the wand of paralysis. Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up.

Also be aware that some people on this forum, such as minmay, are asses. I qualified what I wrote with a request for a confirmation before he goes ahead and attempts it.

Yeah, totally made up the idea that he might have an unidentified scroll of blinking on his person.

[Deimos]

How to not be devoured: use any one of your plethora of escape options BEFORE being attacked.

This char is probably dead, but you learned what not to do next time. That's more valuable then the life of this char, methinks.

Also note that your weapon sucks.

[sholvar]

btw. which potion of speed? where do u see the potion of speed? I have an agility one, which only increases DEX and EV, not more.

and the weapon is discussed quite often. I can see that -2 might be something bad, but I don't know what these numbers stand for. "+1,-2" what does that mean? Why have weapons 2 different kinds of enchantment levels?

[Deimos]

It goes: accuracy bonus, damage bonus. That means your weapon has a +1 bonus to accuracy and -2 malus to damage, which is bad. The damage bonus is by far the more important of the two, and its negative. By that time you should be toting around a decently enchanted, if not branded, axe.

[BlackSheep]

Sorry! I got confused by discussion about the differences between Finesse and Haste. I'd still quaff the potion of cure wounds first, then depending on how much HP you have left after that, either try to run or try reading some of your unidentified scrolls hoping for blink.

[Deimos]

Cure Wounds?

I wouldnt quaff the curing pot... 5 HP vs an entire turn next to a 8-headed hyrda...

[BlackSheep]

right, heal wounds...

[cerebovssquire]

Anyways, if you're going to be Gatling gunning paralysis, I see no reason not to haste first so you get more charges off faster. :p Hell, I'd read tele anyways, since he's already used the wand (several times?) and it's probably going to burn out soon.

Reason: quaffing speed takes a turn that will probably kill him off. Very very probably. Also he doesn't even have !speed.

Only zapping paralysis could prevent the hydra from taking his 8-attack action, killing the character off. His AC is good but anything but stellar, his EV is crap, and we are talking about 8d18 damage here. It is reduced by GDR, but the AC roll is only 1d23. Do some maths in regard to how probably it is that he will take less than 14 damage from that. What you plan on doing here is a certain ticket to death. What minmay suggested is nothing that will probably work, but it is the best suggestion because the probability of it working is a lot higher than the probability of all other bad suggestions in this thread. No other suggestion spares him from 8 bites coming his way.

"Make things ups?" mm, that's just hurtful. I mean, there's honest ignorance and misconception, and then there's maliciously leading people astray. :p I'll admit I'm not always right, but it's hardly deliberate, and I'm more than willing to cop to it when someone points out I've made a mistake.

"Making things up" and "making things up with a malicious intent" are two different things too (or rather, one can also just make stuff up when one doesn't know better).

[XuaXua]

No other suggestion spares him from 8 bites coming his way.

Well...

You have a wand of paralysis that hasn't been zapped, so we know it has charges.
He has 0 Evocations.
There's the chance the use won't work; I don't know the formula at all, but I assume it involves
1 - the chance it will miss plus
2 - the chance it will not affect due to evocations plus
3 - the chance the wand was generated with 0 charges (I think this is not possible, correct?)

He also carries 11 scrolls, 4 of which are unidentified, 7 of which are identified.
We don't yet know if blinking is identified or how many other scrolls he has identified.
There are 27 scrolls in the game (depending on the version he's playing).
That's a 4/(27-7) or 4/20 or 1/5 chance he has the scroll of blinking and a 1/4 chance he picks the right one of the group he's carrying.
That totals a 1/20, or 5% chance. We know the scroll usage will succeed because he doesn't have blurry vision.

Revise % if more scrolls are identified and just not carried (unlikely because no one carries around a stack that large of remove curse scrolls?)
You can check the count of scrolls you've identified by hitting the '\' key.

So is the chance of that wand of paralysis working more than 5%? (EDIT: yes it is according to minmay; I didn't read much past minmay's directed insult before replying because ---- that guy. ) If so, use it, otherwise go fish for blinking.

Caveat: as minmay states and cerebov confirms, I'm obviously giving you completely bad information. If you try it, try the 3 stack or we can play the "rarity of blinking scroll probability game" first. If you've id'd blinking already, then use the paralysis wand. Note that I have 2 wins to my credit and cerebov has 72.

If you die, I request you reveal the ids of all scrolls.

[mageykun]

"Making things up" and "making things up with a malicious intent" are two different things too (or rather, one can also just make stuff up when one doesn't know better).

Aw hush. I don't need you pointing out my inaccuracies in my bemoaning mm cruelly slandering my inaccuracies. That's just getting silly now.

Also he doesn't even have !speed

First pic, inventory column 1 row 2. It gets cut off of his inventory screen in the 2nd pic. I have no idea why tiles chooses to cut off in the 2/3rds down the 2nd column instead of going all the way down, but it does. Dumps are clearer and easier to read anyways.

[sholvar]

Well, after considering quaffing (which I also tried before, leaving me in nearly the same state (+/- 1HP)) I decided to just simply to a step aside. After that one step aside our speeds are equal and I won't get attacks (not 100%, but quite a lot). But it doesn't matter, 3 heads failed to hit me and the next 2 where the last I needed. Well, survived 50% of them. ^^

If you die, I request you reveal the ids of all scrolls.

Yes, I took a close look and there was nothing of importance. No other potions that might help and also no scroll of blinking.

Well I learned a lot from this run and in this discussion here. Thanks everybody! I'll be more careful with the second Hydra that I'll meet.

[cerebovssquire]

First pic, inventory column 1 row 2. It gets cut off of his inventory screen in the 2nd pic. I have no idea why tiles chooses to cut off in the 2/3rds down the 2nd column instead of going all the way down, but it does. Dumps are clearer and easier to read anyways.

Oh, I can't read tiles, sorry

I decided to just simply to a step aside.

why

[ebarrett]

I decided to just simply to a step aside.

why

Tavern: where advice goes to die.

[XuaXua]

I decided to just simply to a step aside.

why

Tavern: where advice goes to die.

That... wow. A+

[sholvar]

why

Hint: Maybe because it was the best choice in my eyes, given the information I had.

First pic, inventory column 1 row 2. It gets cut off of his inventory screen in the 2nd pic. I have no idea why tiles chooses to cut off in the 2/3rds down the 2nd column instead of going all the way down, but it does. Dumps are clearer and easier to read anyways.

So there was the potion but it wasn't shown in the inventory screen? Oh well, I wasn't prepared for that.

[mageykun]

why

Hint: Maybe because it was the best choice in my eyes, given the information I had.

You mean you didn't read our big mess of options? For shame!

But yeah. Hydra are fast enough that moving away at normal speed doesn't get you anything. You basically let him attack you for free. :p

So there was the potion but it wasn't shown in the inventory screen? Oh well, I wasn't prepared for that.

The "i" menu doesn't display your entire inventory at once. You can scroll up and down.

[cerebovssquire]

Hint: Maybe because it was the best choice in my eyes, given the information I had.

the information you had: a good player's opinion and another relatively good player backing up that opinion, and both of these giving reasons
the information you used: zero

[Deimos]

Its more then just "a good player's opinion and another relatively good player", its the opinions of everybody that gave advice as to what to do. Not one person said "just walk away lol"

[sardonica]

next time the best dcss player in the world (cerebovs') gives you advice, you should take it.

[pratamawirya]

This thread is weirder than I thought.

[mikee]

Hydras can seem terrifying when you're still new, but once you learn to manage your turns efficiently, they're actually among the easiest 'tough' enemies in the game. I actually had a similar problem as you in a recent game of mine, but I had quaffed agility *before* the hydra got close to me and was able to finish it off in time. And this character went on to win with 14 runes, so I believe with some patience you can do this too.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/evilm ... 140539.txt

[Rast]

Each head attack has to roll separately vs EV/SH/AC, right? So boosting defenses (which you want to anyway) should help a lot.

[cerebovssquire]

Each head attack has to roll separately vs EV/SH/AC, right? So boosting defenses (which you want to anyway) should help a lot.

I don't see why boosting defences would help less if each head didn't roll seperately. Specifically, AC helps against a lot of rather weak attacks (hydrae, execs, etc.) and EV against few strong attacks (most C, many bolts, Iron Shot etc.)

[KoboldLord]

Boosting EV with an agility potion helps even less when the enemy has multiple weak attacks, considering the OP decided to wait until the character was already at a sliver of health before stopping to ask for advice. The hydra would basically have to fumble its attack roll eight times in a row without the player's character missing even one defense roll. Against an attacking hill giant you can at least hope to get lucky once, but that's not going to happen eight or sixteen times in a row.