u/Unhappy_Situation_40

I swear that some day I'll stop with my needy posts, but today is not that day. So I have (I think) a quite strong GrEE^Ash at XL27 with lots of good spells, including Polar Vortex, Ignition, and Shatter. I've cleared Zot 1-4. If I had even a single potion of brilliance, I'd think I could just blast in, take the orb, and get out. But alas I do not. I've already cleared Crypt, Vestibule, and Slime:1. So I'm wondering where my next best option or options would be for seeking extra potions (could use more haste as well, as I have only 2). Or should I just suck it up, and go for it?

I've never dipped into any other parts of the game other than what I've cleared here, so I'm not clear on the relative dangers or potential rewards of Slime, Pan, Abyss, a few floors of a Zig, or Hell branches.

https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/tramp1877/tramp1877.txt

Got my first melee win since starting in April. I've found melee actually harder than various spellcasting builds, which have given me my three wins to date, but then I'd mostly played MiBe^Trog. Went the MiFi^Oka route to do a personal test run of the recent discussion here about throwing (especially with Oka) being OP. I think can add my 2c: while it might not be overpowered, it's certainly morepowered (yeah, not a word, I know). I forgot to look where my damage stats were by the end, but it was something like around 50 with boomerangs and around 70 with javelins (or whatever would be the appropriate differential). I was one-shotting easy stuff, and two/three-shotting more difficult enemies, even an OOE at one point (tho' with silver, tbf).

As for the actual run itself, the RNG gods were smiling on me the whole time. I picked up 3 scrolls of acquirement and bought another, and there were tons of good randarts, including (as I posted separately) a ring in The One-of-Kind-Ring Shop with rMut! I also saw more training manuals in this run than in my other 200+ games put together. There were two Manuals of Axes, which allowed me to easily train axes high. To be ironic, the first manual I found was a Manual of Summoning (that's cute for an Oka worshipper). Big parts of the game were stupidly easy as well. E.g. Crypt was mostly zombies and draugurs. The orb was very lightly defended with only 1 Ancient Lich, 1 OOE, and one Killer Klown in the lung I entered, plus a few assorted draconians, the guardians, etc. The ascension was equally easy: no Pan lords and no other serious enemies. If this had been my first game I'd be saying: what do you mean this is so hard?!

Well, back to reality.

https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/tramp1877/morgue-tramp1877-20260906-224408.txt

So how rare is this ring?

Z - ring of Waugaom {rN+ Will+ rMut Int+6 Dex-5}

CrawlWiki says the rMut property is "(found only on Hat of the Alchemist and lajatang of Order)" and yet here we are. I'd have settled for the rN+ and Will+, but I'll take it. Got it in a shop in Depths. This is for a MiFi^Oka, so the INT is worthless and the DEX hit kinda sucks, but I've got Orbs of Entropy coming up if I get that far.

I've been doing this run as a personal test case of the recent discussion about throwing being OP since I've never leveled throwing all that high on my (to date) 0% winrate melee builds. It kinda proves it out. I'm at XL21 and my boomerang damage (49) is two more than my main weapon, a +10 broad axe with Protect and rF+ gifted from Oka (47). Javelins are at 57. Throwing is at 19; Fighting, 21; STR, 27.

Got win #3, but I feel like this is my first legit win. The first one was with a GnIE^Ash in v.33, so no tesseracts to contend with. The second was in trunk with a BaSu^Sif, but with a great seed I got then blew in a D:3 sewer, then started over. This one has no asterisks.

I decided to do some Djinni runs to check out spells I did not know. The first one of those was as a Hedge Wizard (so a bit challenging to start) and then the game gave me Freeze, Momentum Strike, Forge Blazeheart, and Alistair's Intoxication. Then I got shafted and then marked. That did not end well. RNG was much kinder this time, giving Airstrike, Crocodile, Gell's, and (yeah!) Haunt as early as possible. Then I picked up Manifold Assault and had some nice switchable weapons to use with it. And then I got Dragon's Call as the XL25 spell. So I figured at that point, the game was saying: it's up to you, buddy. I nearly blew it in Zot:5 AFTER taking down the tesseracts due to some very poor planning when trying to clear the rest. Had a scary moment or two on the way out but made it without getting too close to dying.

An observation and a question ...

Observation: I've read that Djinni are a great learning tool, and I'd have to agree. You've got to figure out how to use the limited resources you've got, not just fall into the same patterns. OK, well, I cast Haunt 1533 times in this game, so maybe a bit of a pattern.

Question: How can I play smart but faster? I managed to get my turn count down to around 88,000 this time, which is better, but this still took me almost 24 hours of real time. Part, maybe even much, of that is with the game open while I look up stuff, but it baffles me how people can get wins in 3-5 hours of real time.

Could folks give me some tips on using Discord safely but effectively? I've been running some Djinni characters to force myself to learn new spells. I got Discord as my XL23 spell. I don't have Dispersal, sadly. I've mostly been leaning on Haunt, Manifold Assault, Gell's, and IMB, but having another spell I could use would be great. I'm still hoping for something good out of 25 and 27, presuming I get that far. Specific question: does the effect of Discord stay active when you go back up a stairs? Like, does it work for Vaults:5?

Another question related to my situation: does Manifold Assault apply a weapon's brand or egos? I'm guess not from the game info, but I can't tell for sure. I ask because the weapon I'm currently using with it has the holy brand, which would good because I'm in Crypt, but also the Rage ego, which would be bad. The latter has not triggered, so I'm guessing it's just the base damage. Also, I'm guessing it's worth training the applicable weapon skill to a delay of 1.0, but probably not to mindelay. Is that correct?

https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/tramp1877/tramp1877.txt

Just logged win #2, with a mild asterisk in that it was a game I started over with a seed I got that produced 4 acquirement scrolls by D:2 but ended quickly in a stupid death to a kobold brigand in a sewer. Anyway, I wanted to make some observations about things that helped in this game that others might find useful. First, I now definitely agree that summoner is a strong background/style of play. I was in danger only a few times because I had a cloud of summons. Second, Haunt is a great spell even against OOFs. Third, the Barachi hop ability is amazing. It saved my bacon many times in this run. Finally, Sif should get more love. Channel Magic is incredibly powerful, especially in Zot. https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/tramp1877/morgue-tramp1877-20260821-120940.txt For some reason, DCSS-Stats won't find this morgue. Not sure why, but I can pull it from the server.

Looking for some advice on this character. Generally, it's been quite strong (I think), but here I am at the stairs to Zot:5. I won a game in v.33 with similarly strong character, but I got two this far in v.34 and lost (current one is in trunk). One was a strong melee character so I tried rushing in, which failed miserably. The other was a GnIE^Ash, which I tried clearing everything out, but I just ended up fighting the spawns FOREVER until the timer was running out, so then I tried rushing and massive fail.

Are there any common tricks for going in with summons? And is killing a tesseract just like killing any other monster? Will your summons take it out? Would Ignition see it as an enemy? Or is it better to have a more direct damage spell?

I have Dragon's Call, Sphinx Sisters, XXX, and Haunt (and others if I want them). Also have MCC, tho' this is my first run taking it and so I don't really know how to use it effectively. Unfortunately, I have no blink scrolls, having spent all 3 I had (stupidly) to survive an unfortunate encounter with an OOF and some berserk dragons in Zot:2 (didn't see that moth of wrath in time). I do have evocable Blink.

I'm assuming my best bet is clear as much as possible. Then go in with Haste, Brilliance, Channel Magic, Dragon's Call, and a cloud of other summons. Fortunately, I have 7 Brilliance and 9 Haste. Though I guess Haste might be kind useless as I'd outrun my summons.

Anyway, advice appreciated.

Doing a GrEE run and came to Sif first, so went that way. Question: what does "failure" mean in the god screen? I thought the whole thing with divine exegesis is that it casts without fail. Presumably that means the first use. If I open a particular spell on that screen, it does show 0. Is the failure rate for the subsequent reduced cost casts? Is it showing the failure rate for your highest-level spell (e.g. Ignition in this case)?

How bad is the slow ego? I could buy this ring for 904 gold. It's attractive, given that I've rolled orbs of entropy in this run. I'm carrying a weapon with corrode, and I've never found that to be a big deal. Obviously, slow is worse, but how much worse? FWIW, I'm already rElec as a Black Draconian. The only other source of rN I've found so far is a demon blade that's, helpfully, carrying ^Drain and Harm.

https://preview.redd.it/khca58xjlfih1.png?width=987&format=png&auto=webp&s=be53c56f0374a76fbf3b2f69d7d159d730db26b7

After a "mere" 177 tries (mostly in v.34), I finally got a win ... in v.33. It really is a different game with no tesseracts, or least it seems so to me. Now, I have to learn how to beat them!

https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/tramp1877/morgue-tramp1877-20260801-192401.txt

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice. In the end, Zot/Zot:5 was not that difficult (only 2 OOFs). In the later game, I mostly relied on Sphinx Sisters, HFM, and Servitor(Bombard). I got MG for Zot:5, and it was somewhat helpful, tho' yeah, pretty fiddly. Probably the most difficult part of this run was the fact that the rune in Swamp was guarded by two powerful uniques, Mlioglotl and Bai Suzhen. That took some thinking and multiple tries. Luckily, there was an upstairs close.

This run took 23+ hours of real time, but I think I learned quite a bit. Maybe things will go a little quicker in the future!

So another set of picky, newbie questions ... I'm trying to decide a final level 7/8/9 spell choice before tackling Zot (currently doing Crypt, which is going mostly fine). I have 3 levels and two amnesia scrolls.

Candidates for adoption: Spellspark (with Bombard) (1%); Summon Horrible Things (via a shop, 13%); LCS (8%); MCC (via a shop, 4%); or hold out for Polar Vortex (45%).

Candidates for forgetting: Ice Beast; Grave Claw; Freezing Cloud; and maybe Plasma Beam. The latter two only because they are more slots for 1 scroll. Bombard if going LCS, I suppose.

Also, if I took Spellspark, I might still try to pick up Blink, but I do have Gell's online. I have yet to trust Blink. Seems like I often get blinked to a worse situation, which seems even worse in Zot because of the fuzziness.

Again, this is a run in v.33, not 34 or trunk.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Dump: https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/tramp1877/tramp1877.txt

Well, great, in an otherwise promising run, I've now got "devolution," the "you have hidden genetic defects" level 1. I've already gotten "inability to read after injury," level 1, which is bad, I'd assume (e.g. no teleport if hurt). How much worse is this going to get? And do I try to use mutation potions now, or wait out the results?

I acquired this in Slime, btw, trying to squeeze out a few more xp to lower my failure rate on Ignition (from 22%) before trying Vaults:5, which was dumb, because when I bailed on Slime and went to Vaults:5, Ignition worked without fail to clear the stairs.

Background: I've been playing for about 4 months now, with an 0/177 record. Got to the orb chamber twice, once with MiBe^Trog, once with GnIE^Ash in v.34. Died to gobs of spawns from the Tesseracts both times. So I've punted to v.33 to see if I can win that way. Still playing lots of Gnoll builds, mostly IE^Ash. The current one is going pretty well: https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/tramp1877/tramp1877.txt .

BUT ... I don't really understand the strategy for using Ash once you get 4 pips. My current, specific dilemma is this: should I ditch the amulet of magic regeneration in favor of the very nice artefact amulet that does all sorts of stuff (regen; reflect; rN+, SH+5), but doing so would lose me one of my self curses? I'm presuming that would mean I'd lose the boosts to fighting/spellcasting when I do that, and hence lose some HP, and see my failure rate go up and power go down. Is that correct? AND, should I even be thinking about giving up magic regen in the first place? On a more general level, how much should I be thinking about switching out gear at all with Ash, or should I just stick with what I've got cursed already (realizing that's probably unanswerable!)?

And, if anyone is willing to look at the character dump ... I'm wondering what spells to think about for the rest of the game. I've had Spellspark Servitor with Bombard before, and that's pretty nice. I'm hoping to get Ignition online, because my one past experience with that was Vaults5=solved.

Generally speaking, I just kinda stumbled onto DCSS looking for free browser games that didn't want to make me murder the devs. It's pretty great, and I'm surprised I've not heard of it before.