Shoals Surfer
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Ask fellow adventurers how to stay alive in the deep, dark, dangerous dungeon below, or share your own accumulated wisdom.
Shoals Surfer
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Shoals Surfer
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Ziggurat Zagger
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skjarl wrote: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?
Shoals Surfer
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Sar wrote: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.
Shoals Surfer
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mopl wrote:I think that removing the penalty would make them overpowered...
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skjarl wrote:mopl wrote:I think that removing the penalty would make them overpowered...
Why do you think that exactly?
Shoals Surfer
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dck wrote: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.
Shoals Surfer
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mopl wrote:skjarl wrote:mopl wrote: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
Ziggurat Zagger
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Shoals Surfer
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Sar wrote:@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.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Shoals Surfer
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Ziggurat Zagger
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Shoals Surfer
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Sandman25 wrote: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.
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skjarl wrote:Sandman25 wrote: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?
Ziggurat Zagger
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- 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
Dungeon Master
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skjarl wrote:My current DESu
Sar wrote: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?
dck wrote: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.
Sar wrote:It's not very obvious for a new player, but all characters in Crawl want to be proficient in melee.
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Ziggurat Zagger
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dck wrote: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.
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Sandman25 wrote:+ Level 13.6 Spellcasting
Sandman25 wrote:- Level 3.0 Fighting
Sandman25 wrote:- Level 3.0(5.0) Stealth
Ziggurat Zagger
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dck wrote:Sandman25 wrote:+ Level 13.6 Spellcasting
This is a titanic waste of exp.Sandman25 wrote:- Level 3.0 Fighting
This should be getting into shape by the time you're nearing lair unless it's really shallow.Sandman25 wrote:- Level 3.0(5.0) Stealth
This could use being fed a couple more giant frogs.
And it has no weapon skill.
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Ziggurat Zagger
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dck wrote: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.
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dck wrote: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.
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BlackSheep wrote: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.
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Hurkyl wrote: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.
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Lasty wrote:@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.
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BlackSheep wrote: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.
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...
Ziggurat Zagger
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Ziggurat Zagger
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BlackSheep wrote:Know what might have saved your life? Nergalle not noticing you...
Ziggurat Zagger
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Ziggurat Zagger
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BlackSheep wrote: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.
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skjarl wrote:Sandman25 wrote: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?
Ziggurat Zagger
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and into wrote:skjarl wrote: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.
Ziggurat Zagger
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BlackSheep wrote: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.
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Ziggurat Zagger
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Igxfl wrote: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
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