Saturday, 21st July 2012, 17:01 by FalconNL
Another DEWz fan here. I'm not what you'd call a very experienced player: I've won once (a DEWz 4-runer) and have a DEWz 15-runer in progress (currently at 5 runes). Here's what I typically go for:
Blink (2). To put some distance between me and something that somehow managed to get into melee range.
Swiftness (2). Very useful for running away from enemies.
Mephitic Cloud (3). The main problem of wizards in the early game is that barring finding books there's no decent damage spell between magic dart and mystic blast. Mephitic Cloud solves this problem by making your opponents wander around like idiots while you ping them to death. Fantastically useful until you get fire storm online. At that point it can safely be forgotten, as enemies will become more resistant to it.
Flight (3). Highly useful in the Abyss. Possibly useful in the Hell branches (haven't been there yet). Saves having to carry around a levitation source and removes the need for controlled flight.
Fireball (5). Never misses, area damage, and I already know the skill due to fire storm. Used against (small groups of) non-fire resistant easy enemies.
Haste (6). Use it before going down stairs. Use it against tough uniques. Quite possibly the best spell save for fire storm.
Demonic Horde (6). Similar to summon butterflies, except they don't run off, which means they protect you for longer, they have some attack power and occasionally they'll even raise some zombies for you.
Controlled Blink (7). Brilliant for escaping and getting past things such as grates and foul fountains.
Lehudib's Crystal Spear (8). Useful if you need to kill something next to you or something that's resistant to fire. Also, it's quieter than fireball and fire storm, which could be useful in Tomb where stealth is advisable (haven't been there yet to test this, though).
Summon Horrible Things (8). A sturdier meat shield than Demonic Horde. Also useful against those massively annoying Silent Spectres. The INT abuse is annoying, though.
Fire Storm (9). Easily my favourite spell in the game. High damage output, smite-targeted so it works well with summons and it even creates vortices to distract your enemies. This spell alone would be a good reason to always go with Vehumet.
Situational:
Control Teleport (4). Mainly useful if you don't have the ring yet, and if you need to make a desperate escape. Still, this shouldn't come up very often.
Ring of Flames (7). Not a big fan of this myself. It costs quite a few MP, which I'd rather use to cast another Fire Storm. It also combines poorly with summoning spells. Still, some extra damage can be useful. This could be more useful in Gehenna and Coctys (haven't been there yet).
Stuff I used to auto-include, but which no longer seems very useful:
Dig (4). I used to think it was necessary for Slime, but I've since learned that there's a guaranteed path to the bottom. Most of the stuff you'd want to tunnel into are vaults, which usually feature harder walls. For future runs I'd just carry around a wand.
Mass Abjuration (6). I think I've cast this spell once in my entire current run. If a summoner enters LOS he's going to get a face full of fire storm anyway, so he's not going to live long enough to summon much.
Deflect Missiles (6). When something with a ranged attack comes into view, I don't want to waste a turn casting this in which he can shoot me. I cast fire storm, which either kills the threat or puts some vortices between me and it so I don't get hit.
Stuff I haven't tried, but which seems useful:
Apportation (1). For ninjaing runes in Pan.
Sublimation of Blood (2). Emergency mana recovery if crystal ball drains it away.
Death's Door (8). Haven't found a Necronomicon yet in my current game, but I want to test it.
Necromutation (8). See above re: necronomicon. Seems massively useful, though.
Shatter (9). A multi-targetting LCS. Need to train earth before I can cast it reliably.
Summon Dragon (9). Summoning without the downsides of Haunt/Horrible Things.
Stuff you mentioned that I don't see much use for:
Stoneskin. If something is attacking you, kill it and/or blink away.
Bolt of Fire. I like Fireball better, as open spaces seem more common than hallways, and it's cheaper, so it still has a use after getting fire storm.
Invisibility: For a 3-rune game, stealth is useless. When fire storm is your main attack everything on the level is going to come look at the fireworks anyway, and you should have no trouble killing them all. It becomes more important in places like the abyss, where there's an infinite amount of enemies and quickly popping upstairs to regain MP isn't an option. Even then, a bit of Stealth training should quickly get you to extremely stealthy, reducing the need for more.
Delayed Fireball: I know it's only two extra levels, but I've never found myself wishing I had it. Either the opponent is tough enough that a fireball isn't going to do much good, or I can just kill it with the regular version, which is only 4 MP.
Orb of Destruction: Takes too much time to hit stuff and can hit the wrong target. Just use fire storm.
If anyone has any other good spell suggestions, I'd love to hear them as well.
Last edited by
FalconNL on Saturday, 21st July 2012, 20:12, edited 3 times in total.
Wins: DEWz^Veh (4 runes), DEWz^Veh (15 runes), DEWz^Sif (3 runes), HOBe^Trog (3 runes), MiDK^Yred (3 runes), DECj^Sif (4 runes), GrBe^Trog (3 runes), DECj^Vehu (3 runes), MiFi^Wu Jian (3 runes), DEFE^Veh (3 runes), DEFE^Veh (15 runes)
- For this message the author FalconNL has received thanks:
- some12fat2move