I really need advice

[zdzichorowerzysta]

Here's the situation: one monster drained my INT to -2 so I'm brainless. I've tried to quaff potion of brilliance, but I still have brainless status, so can't use scrolls at all. This red skeleton hits me so hard every turn. He is behind the black guys so I can't reach him. I can try using heroism or finesse, but trying so I will possibly loose one turn by failing with ability. My stats are 27 fighting, 27 maces & flails, 27 armour, 27 shields, 20 dodging.
This situation looks very bad. Any idea what can I do? I post screen below.

Oh and forgot to mention: I have ring +2 INT and can equip it, but it will make my INT 0 instead of -2, so I will be still brainless
Edit2: maybe potion of cancellation could disable the "Flay" status from red skeleton? That could give me alot of HP

[Sar]

The thing with brainlessness is that it doesn't go away immediately after you bring the stat up. You actually can read scrolls, the chance to failure is just 80%, which means yeah, you can't. What I'd probably do is either quaff !HW or haste myself (probably haste first). Then you have options. If you kill the flaying ghost you'll get some of your HP back, kill the priest and its summons go away (but you might get hit with a curse). Probably after you get hasted it should be some combination of keeping HP reasonable with HWs mixed with buffing up and killing those dudes. I would advise to run away but the problem is that statloss gives Slow (supposedly) and I am not sure how it interacts with Fast from haste.

Hm, I also think maybe treeform is an option? Will give you immunity to both Torment and flaying, but will tank your defences. Worth considering.

Oh, one thing: both of your weapons are unspeakably awful and I wouldn't consider using them past Lair, let alone in Tomb.

[radinms]

haste or teleport wand?

i'm surprised about using bad weapon
flail...

[Sar]

I don't see a teleport wand on that picture.

[duvessa]

You're probably just going to die here, sorry. Your weapon is absolutely awful so killing anything will be hard, brainless halves your speed (not like Slow, which is only -50% speed) and you aren't even hasted (why?), no wand of teleportation, no sack of spiders, and scroll reading has a 20% chance of success when brainless. Putting on int items won't help, the game only cares that your int is above 0, not how it got there, but it takes over 200 aut for brainless to go away after getting positive int.
Probably your best chance is to haste and try to read teleportation before you get smited/meleed to death. Cancellation does not remove any of your statuses except for brilliance so that isn't a very good idea. Lignification does not give immunity to flaying or corrosion, and would give you stasis, so that seems like one of the worst things you could possibly do.

[Sar]

What do you think about lignification, minmay?

[byrel]

And one more tip; you should have read that acquirement scroll when you picked it up. If these are the best weapons you have, you could acquire a weapon. You're missing the teleportation wand which is quite handy; maybe acquire that. Either way would leave you better prepared for this situation.
Edit: Actually, I'd probably read a scroll of summoning and back up into your summons. Then haste, etc.

[duvessa]

Lignification does not give immunity to flaying, or stop existing flay status, so that's a horrible idea.

[zdzichorowerzysta]

What is wrong with my weapon? it gives me rN++ and is overally pretty good, +6.
Okay anyway I did as Sar advised: quaffed haste, then treeform. Red skeleton died and gave me alot of HP, but then this damn mummy appeared -____-
No idea what now, almost ran out of heal wound potions.

[byrel]

You should have hasted for sure; any tricky situation it's good. Now I'd haste-> summon->summon.

The problem with your weapon is that flail is a very weak base weapon, and crush is a fairly weak brand (though OK). Here's a list of base maces.

Edit: Specifically, if you want to use shields, you should be using a +9 morningstar or demon whip or (preferably) an eveningstar. Eveningstars and demon whips are rare though. By now you've found enough ecnhant weapon scrolls to turn any branded one of those into your lategame weapon.

[Sar]

Lignification does not give immunity to flaying

Oh wow, I have no idea why I thought otherwise. Terrible advise on my part, sorry.

@zdzichorowerzysta: you should've cancelled treeform with a potion of cancellation and tried to walk away as soon as priest was dead, but now I don't even know. Wait, you aren't brainless anymore, you can read scrolls. Try reading holy word ones. I think in your version it stuns monsters in addition to damaging them. So probably holy word, haste, then depending on situation.

[byrel]

Actually, I'd teleport I think. You'll almost certainly end up in a cleared section. Then go and try to get a better weapon before taking this on. Generally speaking, artifact weapons that are of poor base classes or are less than +7 are not worth using. There are always exceptions, but that's not one of them.

Edit: I need to think things through a bit better... haste->summon->cancellation->tele->staying alive would probably be my advice

[duvessa]

Here is the rule on randart weapons. Step one, ignore all of the randart properties and only look at the weapon part. There is no step two.
Does it do more damage than your other weapons? If it doesn't, then don't use it as your weapon.

[ajon]

You're probably done for. Not to be a negative nancy. Id probably quaff those two healing potions first. Try to get some HP. After that well you're a tree. You have haste wand, not sure if it works in tree form but I assume so. You have berserk, which is basically committing to all or nothing and hoping the greater mummy comes closer and doesn't just smite you to death. If you get healed, you could also try gambling on just reciting those summon scrolls. Brainless is gone, so you should be able to read. Also Holy Word might work especially if it kills the flayed ghost.


Id haste, heal, summon with scrolls, cancellation potion to remove lignification, and try to teleport. Throw off some holy words while waiting to telelport.

[zdzichorowerzysta]

Oh my god!! I did just as @byrel advised, quaffed haste, used summon scroll, quaffed cancellation, used teleport, quaffed heal wounds, and 2-3 turns later I was teleported out of combat!
Ok, I will collect all unique weapons that I left, and then ask your advice what weapon should I use, if my flail sucks. Since I have all my skills on 27, I can train long blades or something

EDIT:

I was planning to keep acquirement scroll for treasure trove if it asks for it, but since I haven't found treasure trove anywhere, I have used it and gained this eveningstar:

[Sar]

Don't collect unique weapons, just grab something like a demon whip of elec and enchant it.

I would also consider dropping the shield in favour of a great mace. Do you have any good great maces?

[ajon]

use the eveningstar unless a demon whip of electrocution pops up with a high enchantment level or you have EW scrolls to use on it. Even then, eveningstar is nice.

Sar. Why great mace over eveningstar? if he already has a shield and the eveningstar?

[Sar]

Bigger is better! But yeah, I guess shield can be worth keeping, I mean the XP is already spent.

[bel]

That eveningstar is very good. You could also consider going 2-handed, a great mace or something.

[zdzichorowerzysta]

Those are all unique weapons that I've found and can get them:



There are also gloves of brilliance +2 (+7 INT -4 STR), could prevent brainless in future, BUT now I have +3 gauntlets of war (Slay +5) and they are amazing...
However I can also buy ring that will give me +7 INT. +3 STR and rElec

[duvessa]

You should use the +8 eveningstar for the rest of the game.

I think you may be confused about artefacts in crawl. Being unique means the item cannot be enchanted further, and nothing else. It does NOT make weapons do more damage or anything else of the sort. It is a strictly bad property. You should not be looking for unique weapons, you should be looking for the weapon that does the most damage. Which is either the +8 eveningstar, or a similarly enchanted great mace.

[zdzichorowerzysta]

Oh my god, wait! I also have few other whips, and one that is still named as {god gift}, I totally haven't noticed it! gotta get it and idendify

[ajon]

Sometimes non-artifacts are better than artifacts. You currently have artifact platemail, whats on it? Why consider dropping to ringmail? +3 str wont make much difference to you now. The int is useless if you aren't casting and rElec is situational at best. Its nice if you get it but I wouldn't sacrifice platmail to grab ring mail for it.

Gloves wise, keep the gauntlets of war. They are awesome. If you do find a good demon whip, they will do more for it than for the eveningstar because it attacks faster and the +5 is rolled on every attack.

Can you post a screen shot of the % menu.

Edit - I should add, a demon whip will only beat that eveningstar if it is enchanted, a +0 one with elec brand probably wont.

[Sar]

I missed the +8 eveningstar, sorry. Yeah, it could work. You could check that randart dwhip, it might be amazing! Probably isn't, though.

[zdzichorowerzysta]

The god whip looks decent to me, low attack delay and INT +5 could fix brainless, however eveningstar have bigger damage, not sure which one is better




Oh and here's current % menu:

[Sar]

I would probably replace the AC ring with something else (maybe +Int?) and use the eveningstar.

[zdzichorowerzysta]

Hmm ok I've replaced the ring with "Feasabeg" ring(the cursed one) it gives me +2 INT and few resists, takes down my MR tho.
Btw. I have no idea why I have 4 magic resist? Items give me 3 MR and I have no mutation that could give me MR. When I'm completely naked I have 2 magic resist

[ajon]

Id probably just use the eveningstar over that one. Its hard without actually simulating it but flaming and freezing both use a multiplier for brand damage. Eveningstar has a higher base damage so is more likely on average to produce higher brand damage. It also has +3 over the demon whip. On the other hand, demon whip attacks faster so +5 from the enchantment and slaying each will be applied more often. Overall, the damage will likely be fairly similar but Id take the eveningstar as it will be better vs high AC enemies.

It might be useful to switch out to the whip vs OoF?
Then again, OoF has decently high AC, so the freezing might not make up for the higher raw damage of the eveningstar. Maybe someone with more experience would know better on that one.

[ajon]

You gain some minimal MR on leveling up as well

[Sar]

MR++++ is enough.

[byrel]

The eveningstar is a great weapon; you probably won't do better than that. You have plenty of MR, as you also get some on levelups. The MR- is fine. A really nice set of resistances.

Edit: Oh, and never save a scroll of acquirement for a trove. While they do OCCAISIONALLY spawn asking for a scroll of acquirement, it's quite rare. <10% of games. And late game, you often can go through an entire trove and get nothing useful. Way better off spending the acquirement for something immediately useful.

If you post a char dump, we might also be able to give advice on other stuff; it provides a lot of info.

[dowan]

Another thing I'd do it replace that -1 hat, and change out that artifact ring that gives MR- to a regular rpois ring or something.

Congrats on getting out of such a bad situation by the way.

[byrel]

He has MR++++ with that MR- ring on; it's fine. It gives him a second point in rC and rN which is nice, and rElec. All told, it's a sweet ring given all the MR+ stuff he has.

Edit: to clarify, you're choosing between 4 dex, 3AC and rC++, rN++, rElec, Int+2. I'd choose the second on this character. It only drops SH by 1, and doesn't affect EV.

[dowan]

Well, I recommended that because I also recommended he remove the hat, which gives MR+, but -4 dex and -1 ac. +fly and rcorr aren't going to be any help at all in tomb.
MR+++ might be enough, but it's a little low. rElec is also useless in tomb, although yeah the second pip of rN is nice.

If he's got a different hat with MR on it then there's no need to remove the ring at all. But you're right, it is a bit of a toss up. I guess I just like to stack AC as high as possible.

[zdzichorowerzysta]

Edit: Oh, and never save a scroll of acquirement for a trove. While they do OCCAISIONALLY spawn asking for a scroll of acquirement, it's quite rare. <10% of games.

Actually, my first Treasure Trove that I've found asked me for scrolls of acquirement, so now I have an PTSD that trove always asks for scrolls of acquirement

[ajon]

Its random every time

[zdzichorowerzysta]

Guyyys I made it! without your help I would have just died in this tomb, thanks again! Also its my first time when I've got some runes from pandemonium