Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup - The Soupening

Yeah, I do a Ctrl-F for terms like "artifact" or "brand" quite a bit. It's always interesting to see how much I just completely miss during the course of play.

What would YOU do: I have a Deep Dwarf of Yred who's making his way through Depths before going back to Vaults. Right now sporting some shiny GDA. Healing has been done mostly via Yred's Drain Life, which I can spam a bit more since I have an Amulet of Faith.

Right now my options are:

+7 broad axe of flaming
large shield of reflection

or

+1 vampiric battleaxe

I feel like the answer is go with the battleaxe.

https://pastebin.com/raw/xXzuaP6E

Michael wrote:

What would YOU do: I have a Deep Dwarf of Yred who's making his way through Depths before going back to Vaults. Right now sporting some shiny GDA. Healing has been done mostly via Yred's Drain Life, which I can spam a bit more since I have an Amulet of Faith.

Right now my options are:

+7 broad axe of flaming
large shield of reflection

or

+1 vampiric battleaxe

I feel like the answer is go with the battleaxe.

https://pastebin.com/raw/xXzuaP6E

Go with the 1h+shield. Max Invocations for the MP so you can rely on DD's ability when things get tight.

Math wrote:
Michael wrote:

What would YOU do: I have a Deep Dwarf of Yred who's making his way through Depths before going back to Vaults. Right now sporting some shiny GDA. Healing has been done mostly via Yred's Drain Life, which I can spam a bit more since I have an Amulet of Faith.

Right now my options are:

+7 broad axe of flaming
large shield of reflection

or

+1 vampiric battleaxe

I feel like the answer is go with the battleaxe.

https://pastebin.com/raw/xXzuaP6E

Go with the 1h+shield. Max Invocations for the MP so you can rely on DD's ability when things get tight.

I agree, the 1h+shield is a good defensive play. Train shields to 25, of course.

I have virtually the same quandary and so far I've gone with the +6 broad axe of freezing with lrg shield vs +2 vampiric battle axe (bearing in mind I have no idea what I'm doing). It's been treating me very well though! I hardly ever get hit by physical dmg and most everyone has been dying pretty quickly.

I used a +9 vampiric exucutioner's axe on my last run, and everything was fine until Zot 5. I had a heck of a time killing Orbs of Fire fast enough. I wondered if that was because of the vampiric brand? I didn't have much trouble staying alive, but before I could kill an Orb I'd pick up 2-3 malmutations every time.

The vamp brand doesn't deal any additional damage; it just restores HP to the wielder when regular damage is done. Against Orbs of Fire, which are highly resistant to most elements, a vorpal brand (chopping, piercing, crushing) should do more damage than any other brand, but of course you wouldn't get HP vamp as a side effect.

Also, malmutations are just a fact of life with Orbs of Fire.

merphle wrote:

The vamp brand doesn't deal any additional damage; it just restores HP to the wielder when regular damage is done. Against Orbs of Fire, which are highly resistant to most elements, a vorpal brand (chopping, piercing, crushing) should do more damage than any other brand, but of course you wouldn't get HP vamp as a side effect.

Also, malmutations are just a fact of life with Orbs of Fire.

Just as I wondered! That would match my experience then. Soo... I think vampiric brand is not a good choice against Orbs of Fire. In particular with Orbs of Fire, killing them as fast as possible equals less chance of getting malmutated. With vampire, which does a good job of keeping your character alive instead of doing damage to an enemy, battles are longer. That's not a problem against many enemies, but against Orbs of Fire it can mean more malmutations.

As an aside, I think Orbs of Fire are less resistant to cold than to the other elements, so freezing can be a decent choice against them as well as the ones you mention.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

As an aside, I think Orbs of Fire are less resistant to cold than to the other elements, so freezing can be a decent choice against them as well as the ones you mention.

You're right. They're merely "resistant" to frost, while immune to the others. That still means at least 50% of the bonus ice damage gets resisted. Frost is also good against draconians (can slow most of them), but I think it's useless against ancient lichs. All other things being equal, I think I'd prefer a vorpal weapon. Or just Trog it out and obliterate Orbs through sheer force of will.

The best possible brand to use against OoFs is antimagic. It's a solid choice against most other things in Zot (Liches, Draconians, etc) too.

Ah yeah, of course. I was thinking only of dealing damage, but antimagic is supreme.

That said, if you’re talking about branding a weapon via scroll, well, you’ll never get antimagic that way.

Ahhh, well. Didn't realize I was getting hit by a distortion mace which threw me all around Depths:3 which then caused my only escape route to be littered with crystal guardians which eventually wore me down to nothing. The first character I thought I could make something of, but alas, Hubris Maximus... I'm sure there was something else I could have done to get out of there, but I couldn't think of it.

Oh well. On to the next one!

I wrapped up that Deep Dwarf. I'd like to get a caster win but I don't know if I'll have time for it by the end of the week.

That's my third win with Yred, who honestly feels OP. Having two Profane Servitors and a few vampires around makes everything pretty dead. Drain Life works well with Deep Dwarf, the only issue I ran into was late game when I had used the DD heal ability enough times that I was down to only 9 MP. With Drain Life costing 6, it made for some interesting decisions. I had built up a good stash of potions by that time, though.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/Mi...

Excellent win, Michael. Congrats!

Congrats to all the winners!

Hubris Maximus has eaten me up this tourney and spat me back out.

Congrats, Michael! Nice work!

Thanks! Halfway to greatplayer.

I just went down the stairs to D:13 and it says "There is a gateway to a gauntlet on this level." like the way it does for the sand place and the volcano, and ice place.

Coincidentally, there was a map scroll 4 squares away from the stairs I came down. So, I can reveal the map and head to this gauntlet thing or just ignore it.

The word "gauntlet" makes me think a bunch of monsters between my zone in and the zone out and if I can't get there, I'm gonna die. I'd rather skip it if it's a real high-risk place.

So, what's the deal with the gauntlet? Game saved for now.

-BEP

High risk, high reward. Similar to the ice cave, volcano, etc... except once you go in, you have to traverse the gauntlet in order to reach the exit.

Entering the gauntlet is 100% safe. Everything inside is locked up in rooms, behind transporter tiles. There will be something like 2 to 8 different paths that can be taken through the rooms, and each room will have different types of enemies and different loot available, so you can kind of pick and choose which path of risk you want to take, to get that set of rewards. There's usually some pretty decent things in there; artifact rings, enchanted armors, etc. At the end of every path, however, there is a Minotaur guarding the exit (and a few additional pieces of loot). The Minotaur carries javelins, and is pretty deadly with them at range... and in melee. So, if you choose to explore the gauntlet, be sure to buff up before you get into the Minotaur's sights, and/or try to lure him out around a corner to you. Or blink past him, grab whatever loot you can quickly snag, and hit the exit portal.

I've traversed the gauntlet probably a half dozen times so far, and only died once (the first), because I didn't respect the Minotaur.

Finally got a DDFi^Mak to stick. Splatted so many... Morgue

2079917 math the Champion of Chaos (level 27, 179/298 HPs)
Began as a Deep Dwarf Fighter on Feb 18, 2019.
Was the Champion of Makhleb.
Escaped with the Orb
... and 3 runes!

The game lasted 02:21:57 (48678 turns).

Highlights: Best axe ever?

35124 | Vaults:5 | Identified the +5 broad axe of Kehy {speed, rElec rPois
| Int+5 Stlth+} (You found it on level 5 of the Vaults)

This is why haste+might+agi+DD damage res is overpowered. I was just tabbing while Marked in Zot:5.

47432 | Zot:5 | Noticed an orb of fire
47435 | Zot:5 | Noticed an orb of fire
47443 | Zot:5 | Noticed an orb of fire
47450 | Zot:5 | Gained mutation: Potions are poor at restoring your health.
| [an orb of fire]
47451 | Zot:5 | Noticed an orb of fire
47451 | Zot:5 | Gained mutation: Scrolls take you a little longer to read.
| [an orb of fire]
47456 | Zot:5 | Lost mutation: You are robust. (+10% HP) [an orb of fire]
47457 | Zot:5 | Killed an orb of fire
47460 | Zot:5 | Killed an orb of fire
47463 | Zot:5 | Killed an orb of fire
47473 | Zot:5 | Gained mutation: Armour fits poorly on your strangely
| shaped body. [an orb of fire]
47484 | Zot:5 | Gained mutation: Your spells are a little harder to cast,
| but a little more powerful. [an orb of fire]
47487 | Zot:5 | Killed an orb of fire
47488 | Zot:5 | Noticed an orb of fire
47519 | Zot:5 | Killed an orb of fire
47521 | Zot:5 | Noticed an orb of fire
47531 | Zot:5 | Killed an orb of fire
47546 | Zot:5 | Noticed an orb of fire
47553 | Zot:5 | Noticed an orb of fire
47554 | Zot:5 | Noticed an ancient lich
47556 | Zot:5 | Noticed an ancient lich

Nice! Is that your fastest run too? And yeah, nice axe! Congrats!

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Nice! Is that your fastest run too? And yeah, nice axe! Congrats!

I had a DDFi^Mak last year at 1:59 (still sub 2hr!)

Nice run!

Holy Moly nice (FAST) run and what a sweeeeet-ass Axe. I'm in Spider 1 and switching between a +4 hand axe (elec) and a +1 battleaxe (freeze), wishing I had better.

I jumped into the Gauntlet after reading merphle's post (thanks!) and it was cake. I didn't realize at first that I was stuck to a path through when I started porting around so I did the place sub-optimally. I'm also worshiping Mak and when I got to the Mino, I summoned a greater servant (Balrog?). I never got to hit the Mino. I think he tossed 4 javelins at me, all missing, and the Balrog killed him quickly. I was kind of sad I didn't get to help.

I saw my first ever Potion of Experience. That was kind of cool. I also got a Scroll of Acquirement that gave me a +1 boots and now I have another one I haven't used, yet.

I just checked all of my equipment and none of it came from the gauntlet.

Damn. Just looked at the Axe you had again and started drooling.

-BEP

Don’t underestimate battleaxes, they’re probably the best axe class. The freezing axe you have is a solid choice. Executioners axes do more damage but take a huge amount of XP to get to mindelay and are rare.

I should get a +5 Mouse of browser closing. Instead of rewriting everything I just wrote, I'll summarize...

I think I'm now carrying that Executioner's Axe and 2 or 3 Battle Axes. I got a nice shield to go with the handaxe, but I haven't trained Shields at all, so I think I dropped the handaxe and shield outside the treasure trove mentioned below.

On a previous page, someone showed me how to get to my "tournament page". Is there a way someone can look at someone else's current game stats/equipment/build, etc? I saw a way in game that I could export the current state to a text file, but that seemed static and tied to the point-in-time of the export.

Right before logging off, I entered a treasure trove for the first time. I picked up several armors, including a crystal armor. I think it was just +1 crystal with no special stuff.

I'm heading to Depths so need to figure out what my best armor set is. I ended up deciding to carry a bunch of crap with me so I can swap out as needed for resists, etc.

I almost bit the dust quite a few times in Shoals 4. I used so many heal potions, teleport scrolls, blink scrolls, etc. while I was in there. I shouldn't have survived with some of my poor decisions. I'll take it, though.

Depths, Slime, then Zot to go. Or try Abyss/Vaults 5 for the last rune if I make it through Depths. I haven't been to Abyss or Vaults 5, yet, except for a mistaken step into Vaults 5 that I rectified quickly by running away.

I'm playing MiFi^Mak -- Do you think if I buff up, go into V:5, and immediately summon 3 greater servants I could survive? Or, I think I have enough rF in my inventory somewhere I could try the immolate trick.

-BEP

bepnewt wrote:

On a previous page, someone showed me how to get to my "tournament page". Is there a way someone can look at someone else's current game stats/equipment/build, etc? I saw a way in game that I could export the current state to a text file, but that seemed static and tied to the point-in-time of the export.
-BEP

The usual method is to copypaste it to pastebin or similar.

bepnewt wrote:

Is there a way someone can look at someone else's current game stats/equipment/build, etc? I saw a way in game that I could export the current state to a text file, but that seemed static and tied to the point-in-time of the export.

http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morg...

This is the URL for your "current character" on CBRO. It updates every time you save the game. This is both good and bad. It's good in that you can just bookmark it for a quick reference of your character sheet when you can't log into the game. It's bad because if someone years later wanted to look at the exact character you were talking about today, this URL would be useless. That's why Math suggested copy/pasting the contents of that sheet into pastebin, and give that pastebin URL out to people instead.

bepnewt wrote:

I'm playing MiFi^Mak -- Do you think if I buff up, go into V:5, and immediately summon 3 greater servants I could survive? Or, I think I have enough rF in my inventory somewhere I could try the immolate trick.
-BEP

Honestly, you probably don't need to do either. With Mak you can just sit there and tab like hell for longer than you'd think. When things start to get hairy, just pop a teleport scroll and reposition.

On the other hand, nothing is quite as satisfying as the immolation explosions the first time you do it.

bepnewt wrote:

I almost bit the dust quite a few times in Shoals 4. I used so many heal potions, teleport scrolls, blink scrolls, etc. while I was in there. I shouldn't have survived with some of my poor decisions. I'll take it, though.

For future reference, and the thing I forget about all too often while in the heat of the moment: A lot of the things in Shoals can't see invisibility. Sometimes that's enough to escape/survive/retaliate. Do make sure to examine everything in sight to confirm before deciding to rely on this tactic, and also make sure to either be standing on dry land, or flying, otherwise your footprints in the water will give you away.