Summoners

[skjarl]

After all the nerfs to summoners recently, I'm having a seriously hard time getting one going. Anyone else tried to play one recently?

[mopl]

What species have you been trying ?

[dck]

I had a VpSu this tourney, I'd only used summoning twice before and it was a million years ago. Shocked me a bit that the nerfed version of summoners lets them get three grey rats in D: 1 and that it only gets stronger from there. Ice beasts must be completely ridiculous.

[skjarl]

I've tried with humans, octos, and deep elves. They don't seem to level fast enough to deal with the threat progression as you descend. Perhaps it would make sense to remove the xp penalty for having summons kill things?

[Sar]

  Code:

9888323 Sar the Bringer of Law (level 27, 215/215 (247) HPs)
             Began as a Merfolk Summoner on Oct 20, 2013.
             Was the Champion of Zin.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 15 runes on Oct 21, 2013!

On a more serious note, I think the idea is to fight alongside your summons. That's what I did in the early game, anyway.

[mopl]

I've tried with humans, octos, and deep elves. They don't seem to level fast enough to deal with the threat progression as you descend. Perhaps it would make sense to remove the xp penalty for having summons kill things?

I think that removing the penalty would make them overpowered...
Octopodes alone are already a self-challenge... I wouldn't recommend them

[skjarl]

On a more serious note, I think the idea is to fight alongside your summons. That's what I did in the early game, anyway.

I've had to resort to doing just that. It's hard to balance, though, since you have to stay squishy enough to cast for a long while. Also, the races that lend themselves best to summoning often perform poorly in melee.

[skjarl]

I think that removing the penalty would make them overpowered...

Why do you think that exactly?

[dck]

Tengu are one of the best summoner races and they can sure bring a world of pain in melee.
An yeah you're not supposed to just sit in the back row letting your summons sweep obviously.

[mopl]

I think that removing the penalty would make them overpowered...

Why do you think that exactly?

Because you could hide behind hordes of summon and earn all XP !

I think that Sar advice is wise : btw fighting alongside your summons allows you to have the final hit and not lose XP

[skjarl]

Tengu are one of the best summoner races and they can sure bring a world of pain in melee.
An yeah you're not supposed to just sit in the back row letting your summons sweep obviously.

Summoner is listed under the "Mage" column rather than the "Warrior-Mage" column in class selection, so you can see how such an expectation might be counter-intuitive. I wouldn't call it obvious at all.

[skjarl]

I think that removing the penalty would make them overpowered...

Why do you think that exactly?

Because you could hide behind hordes of summon and earn all XP !

I think that Sar advice is wise : btw fighting alongside your summons allows you to have the final hit and not lose XP

That's my point: you can't make hordes of summons anymore since they capped it. That means you're a great deal more exposed than before.

[Sar]

@mopl
Fighting alongside your summons also allows you to kill whatever you're fighting faster, also what else are you gonna do, press "skip turn"? That's boring.
I'm not sure how XP distribution works, isn't it based on amount of damage you/summons did to prevent tedious practices like trying to get that last hit?
@skjarl
It's not very obvious for a new player, but all characters in Crawl want to be proficient in melee.

[dck]

Hm, it is true that those category names might be misleading alright, I'd never noticed really them before.
Regardless, summoners work a lot better if you just take monsters one by one and beat the crap out of them with your friends.

[skjarl]

@mopl
Fighting alongside your summons also allows you to kill whatever you're fighting faster, also what else are you gonna do, press "skip turn"? That's boring.
I'm not sure how XP distribution works, isn't it based on amount of damage you/summons did to prevent tedious practices like trying to get that last hit?
@skjarl
It's not very obvious for a new player, but all characters in Crawl want to be proficient in melee.

I have a 3 rune and a 15 rune win, but both were with hardcore melee archetypes. I guess this is part of the learning curve for playing casters. Thanks for that heads up. How far would you push casting skills before starting to develop weapon/dodge/fighting/shield/whatever?

[Sar]

Uhhh, it depends on character - what my aptitudes, spells, available weapons etc. are. Hard to give generic advice like this. I usually get my book spells and some defences in some order than think about melee skills. You still can melee things with 0 skill, some weapons are better for that obviously, and you don't want to melee really scary things.

[skjarl]

Fair enough. I'll trial and error it some more. My current DESu just found 3 awesome books that might help me live a bit longer. Sticky flame ftw! Thanks for the feedback.

[Sandman25]

Try SpSu, it is surprisingly strong despite -2 aptitude in Summoning. +2 Spellcasting helps to summon lots of monsters and you can always run away if something goes wrong.

[skjarl]

Try SpSu, it is surprisingly strong despite -2 aptitude in Summoning. +2 Spellcasting helps to summon lots of monsters and you can always run away if something goes wrong.

I'm always leery of playing any kind of Spriggan caster due to their severe dietary restrictions. You have to watch spell cost like a hawk or you'll starve to death quickly, right?

[mopl]

Try SpSu, it is surprisingly strong despite -2 aptitude in Summoning. +2 Spellcasting helps to summon lots of monsters and you can always run away if something goes wrong.

I'm always leery of playing any kind of Spriggan caster due to their severe dietary restrictions. You have to watch spell cost like a hawk or you'll starve to death quickly, right?

+2 Spellcasting helps reducing hunger cost
their slow metabolism helps too, and more generally speaking, permafood is not really rare in the dungeon, that should not be a huge issue

[Sandman25]

Yes, hunger is a problem, that's why SpSu of Ashenzari can have something like that at Lair entrance:

  Code:

- Level 3.0 Fighting
 - Level 11.5(13.5) Dodging
 - Level 3.0(5.0) Stealth
 + Level 13.6 Spellcasting
 - Level 3.0(6.0) Conjurations
 - Level 5.1(8.6) Summonings
 - Level 2.5(5.3) Fire Magic
 - Level 2.5(5.3) Ice Magic
 - Level 3.8(7.0) Earth Magic
 - Level 2.6(5.5) Poison Magic

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Summon Small Mammal   Summ           ####         1%          1    None
b - Call Imp              Summ           #####.....   1%          2    None
c - Call Canine Familiar  Summ           #####.....   1%          3    None
d - Bolt of Magma         Conj/Fire/Erth #####.....   4%          5    ###....
e - Summon Ice Beast      Ice/Summ       #####.....   1%          4    None
f - Dig                   Erth           #####...     1%          4    None
D - Summon Scorpions      Summ/Pois      #####.....   1%          4    None



Edit. That's actually with ring of wizardry but my point was lack of hunger for almost all spells. The spells are castable without ring of wizardry too.

[Lasty]

My current DESu

DEs are going to be challenging summoner builds unless you transform them into conjurers; a summoner needs to be able to do some fighting now and then.

I'm not sure how XP distribution works, isn't it based on amount of damage you/summons did to prevent tedious practices like trying to get that last hit?

I've been assured that XP distribution determined by damage ratio and not by last hits.

Shocked me a bit that the nerfed version of summoners lets them get three grey rats in D: 1 and that it only gets stronger from there. Ice beasts must be completely ridiculous.

You're right: Summon Canine Familiar and Summon Ice Beast are very good.

It's not very obvious for a new player, but all characters in Crawl want to be proficient in melee.

This. This is important in general, but particularly to a summoner.

When I did 15 runes with a DsSu (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8740&p=119102&hilit=dssu#p119102) I found that getting my opening summoning book to reliable levels and then picking up a great sword from a wight allowed me to handle every challenge with several different options, even when it took me an extremely long time to get any additional summoning spells. Being a summoner of a god other than Sif is going to mean mixing approaches and using your summons to supplement and reinforce your other damage-dealing strategies -- and to cover your escapes!

So yeah, you can run through the dungeon with a pretty much permanent ice beast and canine familiar companion, and then throw out imps and scorpions to supplement as needed, but if you summon too many of the same creature, their timers will get really short, and you'll just be wasting mana.

In terms of what to train up, I'd recommend training up Maces and Flails after getting the initial summoning book online. By then you will probably have a decent brand on a whip or flail, or maybe just a plain morning star / dire flail.

[dck]

Once you get over the initial irrational fear of hunger a spriggan who casts spells has exactly the same hunger problems any other spriggan has: none.
Also that's awful skilling.

[Sandman25]

Once you get over the initial irrational fear of hunger a spriggan who casts spells has exactly the same hunger problems any other spriggan has: none.
Also that's awful skilling.

Could you please be more specific? What would you train instead?

[dck]

+ Level 13.6 Spellcasting

This is a titanic waste of exp.

- Level 3.0 Fighting

This should be getting into shape by the time you're nearing lair unless it's really shallow.

- Level 3.0(5.0) Stealth

This could use being fed a couple more giant frogs.

And it has no weapon skill.

[Sandman25]

+ Level 13.6 Spellcasting

This is a titanic waste of exp.

- Level 3.0 Fighting

This should be getting into shape by the time you're nearing lair unless it's really shallow.

- Level 3.0(5.0) Stealth

This could use being fed a couple more giant frogs.

And it has no weapon skill.

That's complete dump. As you can see I have 50 HP. Every level in Fighting increases HP by about 2.2% (1 HP currently). How much Fighting (-2 aptitude) should I get at this time? Even Fighting 10 would give me only about 7 extra XP.
I think I did not need Stealth at this time, I had no means of stabbing (stealth stab are not effective at this stage), meat shield and high EV allowed me to run away from everything if needed.
I wielded a cursed spear, not found a better weapon yet. And I am not even sure it was a good idea to have non-spear for fragile (yes, again this word) summoner. When you have 33 MP (spellcasting really helps here), you don't need to melee dangerous monsters.

[BlackSheep]

Stealth has value outside of stabbing. Every character can benefit from picking and choosing their encounters. Meat shields will help you run from most things, until you run into something with bolt spells, ammo of penetration or smite targeting. High EV is a good defense, but it's not foolproof, and with low HP you can't survive very many hits.

[dck]

You forgot to mention you had a blowgun and even curare, that on a Sp (on anyone really, doubly so with curare) means you are practically guaranteed to win since it destroys the early game on its own. Th deserves getting say two levels early on to make the shots actually hit due to the importance of this, and I very much doubt you hadn't found a better weapon yet, sounds more like you had the idea only spears are good for Sp (they're mostly crap actually) and thus you ignored both pikel's whip and a +7 quarterstaff of venom.
It was not a good idea to ignore those, and you paid for it rather dearly.

You bring up frailty again, but I don't think it is correct to speak so broadly of it in a game like crawl. You really have to have extraordinarily awful luck to be really frail without any fault on your side, twice so as the strongest race in the game.
Almost no characters are "frail" by default, you choose to become frail by training yourself poorly and not using your options appropriately.

[Hurkyl]

An Orc Knight with a crossbow in the open at medium range is a pretty serious threat. I'm not sure how much being spectral affects that. (I didn't know Nergalle could summon such a horror!)


One thing to keep in mind is the effect of critical mass. Many strategies in many games -- e.g. relying heavily on spell slinging -- require being fairly focused on the strategy to succeed, but really do succeed if you do so.

Spell slinging, for example, usually depends on a large mana pool, good mana regeneration, and good reliable spells to use.

If your training is diluted -- e.g. you focus on getting physical skills -- to the point where you don't reach critical mass, then you find that you need to supplement spell slinging with other means (e.g. becoming proficient in melee). It is easy to get the mistaken impression that you have to do this to succeed. (This opinion often gets heavily reinforced by groupthink as well)

This discussion looks exactly like what I would expect from the sort of situation I describe above: one side that is stuck in the diluted case, emphasizing their experience that one needs the physical skills and play hybrid, and one side trying to work out the more focused strategy of getting magic to the point where it is enough on its own, and thus faces a fairly different set of challenges than the first side.

[dck]

Nergalle can also chuck 3d18 bdraining which could oneshot his spriggan and summon warlords which she then hastes.
Yes, the focused side faces worse challenges and dies more often because they are bad.

[Sandman25]

You forgot to mention you had a blowgun and even curare, that on a Sp (on anyone really, doubly so with curare) means you are practically guaranteed to win since it destroys the early game on its own. Th deserves getting say two levels early on to make the shots actually hit due to the importance of this, and I very much doubt you hadn't found a better weapon yet, sounds more like you had the idea only spears are good for Sp (they're mostly crap actually) and thus you ignored both pikel's whip and a +7 quarterstaff of venom.
It was not a good idea to ignore those, and you paid for it rather dearly.

You bring up frailty again, but I don't think it is correct to speak so broadly of it in a game like crawl. You really have to have extraordinarily awful luck to be really frail without any fault on your side, twice so as the strongest race in the game.
Almost no characters are "frail" by default, you choose to become frail by training yourself poorly and not using your options appropriately.

Sorry, I am not sure what you mean. I have never been in danger to melee monster, it is very easy with Sp and I don't see how curare helps when I am always surrounded by 3 Ice Beasts and 3 Canine Familiars (I have "runrest_stop_message += disappears" in my init.txt).

[Sandman25]

Nergalle can also chuck 3d18 bdraining which could oneshot his spriggan and summon warlords which she then hastes.
Yes, the focused side faces worse challenges and dies more often because they are bad.

Actually that character died on a cleared level. I had exclusion on Nergalle and moved to downstairs after "Done exploring" message so I felt lazy to replace my summons and had just only a couple in range. Unfortunately a monster got generated and waked up Nergalle. If you look carefully into the dump, you will see I died at -5 HP. Do you suggest to train Fighting up to 8 on XL11 Sp? What would you suggest if I died at -10HP? Train Fighting to 13? Some combos ARE fragile, don't try to pretend there is a strategy to change that.

[Sandman25]

Stealth has value outside of stabbing. Every character can benefit from picking and choosing their encounters. Meat shields will help you run from most things, until you run into something with bolt spells, ammo of penetration or smite targeting. High EV is a good defense, but it's not foolproof, and with low HP you can't survive very many hits.

Yes, I know it. Stealth does not help much after early game (for non-stabber), you still have to kill those footaurs etc.

[BlackSheep]

Saying Stealth doesn't help much is like saying Dodging doesn't help much since neither helps you kill things. It's a defense, it's not supposed to help you kill things, it helps keep you alive.

[Lasty]

If your training is diluted -- e.g. you focus on getting physical skills -- to the point where you don't reach critical mass, then you find that you need to supplement spell slinging with other means (e.g. becoming proficient in melee). It is easy to get the mistaken impression that you have to do this to succeed. (This opinion often gets heavily reinforced by groupthink as well)

This discussion looks exactly like what I would expect from the sort of situation I describe above: one side that is stuck in the diluted case, emphasizing their experience that one needs the physical skills and play hybrid, and one side trying to work out the more focused strategy of getting magic to the point where it is enough on its own, and thus faces a fairly different set of challenges than the first side.

I think I'm being lumped in with one "side" of this debate -- the side "stuck" playing hybrids. I've played a lot of winning characters at this point, and I mostly won by sticking to a single main killing tool: spells, ranged, melee, etc. But most recently I've tried diversifying more, and I've found that my characters who do diversify do way, way better than the ones that stick to a single, linear plan. Diversification, at least when done well, means that you will have a larger toolbox of solutions, and while each one individually may be weaker than it would be in the hands of character who did nothing else, together they have the ability to resolve a much greater suite of difficulties safely. It also means that you take advantage of what is provided to you instead of getting frustrated when you find a battleaxe instead of the spellbook you wanted.

TL;DR: I used to think focused characters were the strongest, but then learned that being willing to diversify is stronger. Claiming that I'm dogmatically representing this position makes no sense, since it's derived from experience of trying both methods.

@Sandman25, I have noticed that you seem to enjoy a min/maxed but inflexible approach to play, and you seem reluctant to try out something like Stealth on a caster. It's fine to prefer one play style to another, but it's also worth paying attention when someone brings up options that work better if you're willing to adjust your play style. Maybe you won't want to switch over yourself, but at least it will allow you to acknowledge that the advice might be good for others who are interested in changing their play styles to take advantage.

[BlackSheep]

There's also the fun factor. I'd quit before playing a character that stops to recast a summon every time a summon disappears just because that would be absurdly frustrating.

[Igxfl]

The whole caster vs. hybrid choice seems to be mostly a false dilemma. Keeping in mind that skills cost vastly more XP as they increase in levels, the mediocre M&F you need to get Pikel's whip online is nothing compared to all the XP you've dumped into your casting stats. Same if you're in midgame and still haven't trained Stealth -- your core skills cost so much by that point that those early levels are basically free.

Check out the numbers:
http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Experience#Experience_Required

[Sandman25]

@Sandman25, I have noticed that you seem to enjoy a min/maxed but inflexible approach to play, and you seem reluctant to try out something like Stealth on a caster. It's fine to prefer one play style to another, but it's also worth paying attention when someone brings up options that work better if you're willing to adjust your play style. Maybe you won't want to switch over yourself, but at least it will allow you to acknowledge that the advice might be good for others who are interested in changing their play styles to take advantage.

Did you miss Bolt of Magma on my character? I didn't have any other books or decent weapon. For the record I have 15 runer SpEn/MfIE/HEAE among other things so I believe I know how to play hybrids

[Sandman25]

Saying Stealth doesn't help much is like saying Dodging doesn't help much since neither helps you kill things. It's a defense, it's not supposed to help you kill things, it helps keep you alive.

Dodging helps to kill things. I should be in LoS for my summons to kill things and I used spear 668 times before I died. Stealth is completely useless in a fight.

Edit. The funniest thing is that I am told to train weapon/fighting/stealth and use curare when I was two-shoted by Spectral Orc Knight with crossbow despite EV 29 and putting exclusion on Nergalle.

  Code:

The spectral orc knight shoots a bolt. The bolt hits you!
The bolt disappears in a puff of smoke! Your ice beast barely misses Nergalle.
Your ice beast misses Nergalle.
Nergalle gestures at you while chanting.
The bolt of negative energy misses you. Your jackal closely misses Nergalle.
Huge Dmg: -48%(-24hp) hp: 52%(26hp)
Your ice beast closely misses Nergalle.
Your jackal bites Nergalle but does no damage.
Nergalle casts a spell at the spectral orc.
The spectral orc seems to speed up. Your ice beast closely misses Nergalle.
Your ice beast barely misses Nergalle.
There is a staircase back to the Dungeon here.
Your jackal barely misses Nergalle.
Your ice beast hits Nergalle but does no damage.
The spectral orc knight shoots a bolt. The bolt hits you!
Ouch! That really hurt!
You die...


[BlackSheep]

Know what might have saved your life? Nergalle not noticing you...

[Sandman25]

Know what might have saved your life? Nergalle not noticing you...

I had an exclusion on her because she did not notice me when I noticed her. Also don't forget I was with Ash who really helps to detect extremely dangerous monsters. I should have been more careful and should have avoided being closer to her than necessary. I underestimated her because I had never seen her summon monsters with ranged attack. Another reason was my laziness to summon monsters while traveling.

[BlackSheep]

Even once a monster wakes up, if you have good stealth you have a good chance of it not noticing you immediately when it comes into LOS.

[Sandman25]

Even once a monster wakes up, if you have good stealth you have a good chance of it not noticing you immediately when it comes into LOS.

Yes, I know. My point was that I had several better ways to avoid the death and initially Stealth had already helped me so I didn't feel like I died because of low stealth and I am not going to train Stealth that early next time I will play SpSu of Ash (unless I find some way to stab)

[and into]

Try SpSu, it is surprisingly strong despite -2 aptitude in Summoning. +2 Spellcasting helps to summon lots of monsters and you can always run away if something goes wrong.

I'm always leery of playing any kind of Spriggan caster due to their severe dietary restrictions. You have to watch spell cost like a hawk or you'll starve to death quickly, right?

No. You have to be slightly more wary about spamming spells with moderate or higher hunger costs, and in the exceedingly rare case that the rng screws you over with food drops you may need to be careful about spell hunger. In general though starving in game even with spriggans should worry you only a bit more than starving to death IRL.

[Sandman25]

I'm always leery of playing any kind of Spriggan caster due to their severe dietary restrictions. You have to watch spell cost like a hawk or you'll starve to death quickly, right?

No. You have to be slightly more wary about spamming spells with moderate or higher hunger costs, and in the exceedingly rare case that the rng screws you over with food drops you may need to be careful about spell hunger. In general though starving in game even with spriggans should worry you only a bit more than starving to death IRL.

I feel like you said "No" and then explained how you carefully play Sp because the answer is really "Yes"

[BlackSheep]

The difference between "You have to watch spell cost like a hawk or you'll starve to death quickly" and "You have to be slightly more wary about spamming spells with moderate or higher hunger costs" is not a short hop, but a yawning chasm.

[Sandman25]

The difference between "You have to watch spell cost like a hawk or you'll starve to death quickly" and "You have to be slightly more wary about spamming spells with moderate or higher hunger costs" is not a short hop, but a yawning chasm.

Maybe so. I should try SpFE to see it myself, I guess.

[and into]

Well (as Blacksheep said) what I suggest is a far cry from "watching your hunger like a hawk." There's no reason to do that. Unless you've hit some crazy bad luck with food spawns,* there are much more important things to worry about, like, "Is there an orc priest around this corner?" and "What should I do if a centaur comes onto screen right now?"

*I had this happen to me precisely once with a spriggan back in 0.5, it (basically) died of starvation, but this was literally a one-time occurrence out of *hundreds* of games. (Also note that this was back before there was a guaranteed food vault spawn in early dungeon.) Even then I technically didn't die of starvation—I died from enemies because I was frantically searching and running and diving at "near starving" and still finding no usable food. It was actually a lot of fun—certainly, it was a very intense and unusual experience. I could see a "starvation sprint" map replicating this game experience being very enjoyable, in fact.

[Sandman25]

I spectated some player having similar experience as Og, it is very unusual indeed. I have been playing with no pickup conduct for a while, it is fun too especially diving on zombie levels or dealing with zombie Orc entrance vault.

[Hurkyl]

The whole caster vs. hybrid choice seems to be mostly a false dilemma. Keeping in mind that skills cost vastly more XP as they increase in levels, the mediocre M&F you need to get Pikel's whip online is nothing compared to all the XP you've dumped into your casting stats. Same if you're in midgame and still haven't trained Stealth -- your core skills cost so much by that point that those early levels are basically free.

Check out the numbers:
http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Experience#Experience_Required

Wrong chart: you want the one for skills, not the one for experience level.

Going from 12 to 13 skill, for example, is merely equivalent to going from 0 to 5 skill, not going from 0 to 8.3 skill... and even that assumes the same aptitude for both skills. For a Spriggan, going from 12 to 13 spellcasting takes the same amount of skill points as it does to go from 0 to 3 M&F.

And even if M&F were "basically free", it's still wasted experience if it doesn't actually help you -- e.g. if every situation where you would consider hitting something with a whip of flaming would be better approached by letting your three ice beasts do the job for you.