More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character


Ask fellow adventurers how to stay alive in the deep, dark, dangerous dungeon below, or share your own accumulated wisdom.

Snake Sneak

Posts: 101

Joined: Thursday, 27th March 2014, 02:17

Post Monday, 5th May 2014, 00:41

More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

Usually when Okawaru or I find a heavy armor that gives 4O/50+ AC I put it on but hover around 10 EV. Is it better to stick with my 28 AC and 22 EV for 15 runes? I get the feeling EV is more important since endgame monsters use more range spells.

Crypt Cleanser

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Joined: Friday, 6th January 2012, 12:30

Post Monday, 5th May 2014, 01:06

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

AC prevents damage from ranged spells. The best is a balance of AC and EV that gives the highest sum of AC+EV.

Barkeep

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Location: USA

Post Monday, 5th May 2014, 01:16

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

The vast majority of damage-dealing attacks, including the vast majority of magical or otherwise ranged attacks, check both EV and AC. Thanks to some recent changes, AC also helps prevent item destruction, which used to be one major disparity between EV and AC, but no longer is.

In a 15-runer, the most prevalent/dangerous AC-ignoring attacks also ignore EV (smite, torment, hellfire).

This is simplifying slightly, but generally you want the highest sum of AC + EV possible, assuming your AC is not too low—and 28 AC is not too low. (It is dangerous to rely too much on EV alone, without sufficient AC, as you will be more prone to getting big spikes in damage.)

The major thing to consider when determining how heavy your armor can be has to do with spell casting. If you aren't worshiping Trog and you really want to go for 15 runes, then you probably want spell casting. However, if you can cast all that you need to cast while wearing heavier armors that give you 40 to 50 AC, then that's perfectly fine.

In either case you want some resistances though, and be really careful around stuff that throws hellfire or smites your way, especially if something that can torment you is in LOS at the same time.

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 329

Joined: Tuesday, 7th May 2013, 17:09

Post Monday, 5th May 2014, 01:17

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

Neither AC nor EV will do anything against hellfire and torment, which are the chief threats in extended.

The sum of AC and EV heuristic seems fine, although I don't think there's really anything rigorous to it.
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Pandemonium Purger

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Location: Sydney, Australia

Post Monday, 5th May 2014, 01:43

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

If you're going for extended, you could always train dodging to 20+ in heavy armour, which starts giving good EV because you've passed the invisible breakpoint. (This is assuming you don't have better things to train, of course.)

Snake Sneak

Posts: 101

Joined: Thursday, 27th March 2014, 02:17

Post Monday, 5th May 2014, 01:48

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

Aight i'll go with whatever sum total is higher.

I got another question. For mutations I got +20% HP and rF+ which puts me at 310 hp, but I have blurry vision and teleportitis 1. Should I use Zin to knock out everything? I really want to keep the +20% HP because of smiting/torment bs, but teleportitis is really bad. Theres a pretty good ammy with -tele, but I also hate to give up the ability to teleport/blink.

Slime Squisher

Posts: 354

Joined: Tuesday, 14th January 2014, 23:33

Post Monday, 5th May 2014, 01:54

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

Teleportitis 1 is mostly just annoying. Blurry vision is much more likely to kill you. But 20% HP and rF+ is really hard to give up :/

Barkeep

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Location: USA

Post Monday, 5th May 2014, 01:59

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

Also, I know jewelry swapping is annoying, but it only take 0.5 turns to remove a ring or ammy, so it doesn't come close to blocking you completely from blinking or teleports. Plus (I think) -Tele property blocks hostile "blink other" effects, which are annoying and dangerous.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Monday, 5th May 2014, 02:14

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

Wahaha wrote:AC prevents damage from ranged spells.
so does EV unless the spell is fireball (admittedly it often is)

or IOOD but you don't get hit by that in the first place anyway

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Snake Sneak

Posts: 101

Joined: Thursday, 27th March 2014, 02:17

Post Monday, 5th May 2014, 23:38

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

TheDefiniteArticle wrote:Teleportitis 1 is mostly just annoying. Blurry vision is much more likely to kill you. But 20% HP and rF+ is really hard to give up :/


Ya I dont know what to do. Was thinking going jiyva and getting rid of of the bad mutations then abandon, but Ill probably get hit by his bad mutation penance before I hit 100% immunity with Zin defeating the whole purpose.

Welp removed negative mutations with jiyva and got 3 good ones and managed to max Zin before bad mutations. Went to TRJ and killed him then used an unidentified deck of cards. Lo and behold the freaking Helix which removed my +20% hp which was the whole reason why I went jiyva etc.. What a waste and loss of 40 hp lame
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Pandemonium Purger

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Location: Sydney, Australia

Post Tuesday, 6th May 2014, 02:00

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

And now you know not to blind-draw cards unless you're bored!

Snake Sneak

Posts: 101

Joined: Thursday, 27th March 2014, 02:17

Post Tuesday, 6th May 2014, 02:05

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

Patashu wrote:And now you know not to blind-draw cards unless you're bored!


I usually always blind draw cards out because of Feast and Genie that can come.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 11111

Joined: Friday, 8th February 2013, 12:00

Post Tuesday, 6th May 2014, 02:51

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

shizmoo wrote:
Patashu wrote:And now you know not to blind-draw cards unless you're bored!


I usually always blind draw cards out because of Feast and Genie that can come.


What do you mean? These cards are possible no matter if you blind draw or not. They can replace even stacked cards as far as I know.

I got a plain deck of wonders from bazaar today, guess which card was identified by scroll? Wild Magic of course :)

Snake Sneak

Posts: 101

Joined: Thursday, 27th March 2014, 02:17

Post Tuesday, 6th May 2014, 02:58

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

Sandman25 wrote:
shizmoo wrote:
Patashu wrote:And now you know not to blind-draw cards unless you're bored!


I usually always blind draw cards out because of Feast and Genie that can come.


What do you mean? These cards are possible no matter if you blind draw or not. They can replace even stacked cards as far as I know.

I got a plain deck of wonders from bazaar today, guess which card was identified by scroll? Wild Magic of course :)


Usually I dont have a lot of ID scrolls to blow, thats why I blind draw. Of course this game is the exception having 30 heh.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 11111

Joined: Friday, 8th February 2013, 12:00

Post Tuesday, 6th May 2014, 03:00

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

shizmoo wrote:Usually I dont have a lot of ID scrolls to blow, thats why I blind draw. Of course this game is the exception having 30 heh.


Right, this is why I ignore even legendary decks on the ground if I cannot id them. Though maybe it explains why I rarely have mercenaries.

Snake Sneak

Posts: 101

Joined: Thursday, 27th March 2014, 02:17

Post Tuesday, 6th May 2014, 07:17

Re: More AC, EV, or balance for 15 rune melee character

Andddd there goes another level 27 dead on level 25 zigg, got greedy.

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