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[Antioch]

I would also say that shatter isn't worth the huge amount of xp needed to cast it. As an EE you are far better of pumping conjuration after a while to get crystal spear castable  and supplement it with fire to cast firestorm.

[Mr Space Cat]

Playing a GarEE that actually made it down past DL:5 with minimal issues. I had a run in with that damn Sigmund that nearly killed me but I managed to escape. It seems my issue with spellcasters was my method training skills. Training a single skill at 100% at a time may be the most efficient for melee but with mages training several spellcasting skills at once helped more. Got stone arrow castable faster that way.

currently worshipping Sif and learned all but Passwall from my starting spellbook. I found a nifty randart dagger with (stab, int+3, str +2, SInv, an MR+) as well as a +2 helmet of SINv and a +2 ring mail of cold resistance. Also found a ring of fire if I decide to branch into fire for firestorm eventually. currently on DL:7 at XL:8 and training to get LRD and Petrify to better cast rates.

Fun fact, casters can wear ring mail with minimal casting penalty if you have enough int and spell skills in early game. W/O mail I have LRD and Petrify at 12% and 14% failrate respectively, w/ mail it jumps to 17% and 21%. Everything else stays at 1% or 2%. A heavily armored spellcaster of chei could be possible if you survive long enough after joining chei. Hypothetically.

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   Since no one has yet lets get the ball rolling on Tournament sign ups. I started the thread for the 0.13 release tournament here. Since the last tournament had 3 full teams we will start with 4 to try to drum up a few more people. Only six more and we fill the fourth and any above and beyond that means we get to have even more teams.

Edit: Oh and info on the Tournament here

[goblolo]

Stay a while and listen.
Lat time I tried to play as DeFE. It was about 3 or 4 failed games and then I got to know how to play cautiously and safely. Loot was perfect: I got staff of summoning (wielded for warding), Fly from cloak, my EV was abt 18 and AR 10. Also had a book with air spells - swiftness were good. I easily reached D8 or D9 and then went to the Lair and were slain by sorta spiked frog. The death was pretty stupid and avoidable.
I saw it first time (as a DeFE, a little time ago I played as CeHu and went too far to D22 where I was slain.) and tried the next tactics:
At first, I casted swiftness on me. Then started hitting frog with throw flame. I switched to flame tongue on approaching and it started to maul me for 1/2 of my HP. It had about 10% of HP left, but I didn't managed to kill it with 2 flame tongues due to miss and occasionally low damage on hit!
My fault was to drink poiton of curing on 2 HP left. I hoped to heal poison and some amount of hp to have a time to make another spell cast. But the frog mauled me for large amount of hp after I healed a bit. The best choise was to read scroll of blinking and kill it from the distance, but I was in rush because of dramatically reducing HP of my character.

HOW TO stop and think in tough situations? Will it come with experience or there are some secret roguelike technics?

[FluidDynamite]

Spiny frogs are the No.1 killer of squishy caster characters during and around lair, it's really easy to die to them if you're unprepared since they are capable of doing a surprising amount of damage, and are faster than you so getting out of melee is difficult once it's on top of you. I treat them like I treat hydrae when I'm playing squishy - If you can't blow them up before they get into melee, run away by any means necessary.

But I think the main question is did you have anything more powerful than Throw Flame at the time? I don't think 1st tier spells deal enough damage to carry you though lair, and in my experience you should be able to get your 2nd tier spells (fireball in the case of FE) online by the time you're entering lair. It should be even easier since Deep Elves get ridiculously good casting aptitudes. (I actually did lair with freezing cloud with a DEIE once... And starved to death from spell hunger, but that's a story for another day) If unable, I think reviewing your skilling order/strategy will help a lot.

As for learning to stop and think in tough situations, it'll just have to come by experience. Try learning which monsters and situations are dangerous to your current character. If you don't mind spoilers, I suggest looking up the monster in the knowledge bots whenever you see anything you don't recognize.

[Niveras]

If you're FE, park yourself in a 1 tile hallway and drop a conjure flame next to you, between you and the spiny frog. They have a high enough HD that they will move into the flame on their own (provided they have full health), and generally die within a few turns. Of course, that's still a pretty risky thing to do but if you can't get away or blow them up... You can try to supplement the wait time with sticky flame once they're on you.

Alternatively, you can hurt them a bit, retreat to a 1 tile hallway, drop a conjure flame, and it may prevent them from pursuing you. Also consider blink (although this is somewhat dangerous around clouds). Uncontrolled Blink is also pretty much a last-ditch panic spell - if you're out in the open and something dangerous is on (or coming for, if it's faster than) you, it may give you the bit of breathing room you need to get yourself in a more tactically advantageous position.

[vogonpoet]

GrEE are awesome pre-Lair - sad to say it, but sand blast really does rock, assuming you have the stones. Basically, you train Earth alone, certainly until Temple, then you just need your stash of stones to hold out until stone arrow is spammable. This should happen most games. Darts, tomahawks, slings and sling bullets will all help a lot pre-temple. Remember, sand blast has better range (3) when stone-boosted - as long as you meet your Ogre with some air between you and it, you should be fine - cast stone skin before it gets in range, then you have 4/5 mp left to stone him to death, no worries.

[Mr Space Cat]

Ded.

I was on DL:9 or so and the coast was clear when suddenly there's a mother-effing draconian. ON DUNGEON LEVEL 9. I thought you only saw those on Zot. Then suddenly a swarm of killer bees show up too. Then a couple orcs and an orc warrior wander out of nowhere and start chasing me too. This all happened in about 3 turns. It had escalated very quickly.

I was out in the open and had to make a hasty retreat to a corridor after my single teleport scroll so kindly dumped me 5 tiles away from the mob of mobs I was trying to escape. I probably should've started channeling and spam petrify on the weaker enemies before nuking them all with LRD. Instead I completely forgot I had those spells and instead used sand blast with stones on each enemy one by one, since the mob of mobs was already up in my face.

I killed everything but the draconian when I ran out of mana, started channeling late, and attempted zapping a wand of lightning. Didn't do crap. The draconian gears himself with what the orc warrior dropped and stabs me to death with an orcish trident. Blugh. No excuse for the death, I had plenty of options.

Lesson learned, use channel BEFORE you're out of mana and make sure you remember what spells you have and what you could do with them in a horrifying situation.

[guessingo]

you cant grind in this game cause of the respawn rate. i always seem to do ok at first and then stuff is too hard. what do you guys do?

[Leafsnail]

You are not required nor expected to grind in DC:SS.  Just go down the stairs when you've finished exploring.

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   Update on teams for the tournament. We almost have the team Bay12 Blacksmiths filled needing only two more people who are decently skilled and have gotten runes. The Champions and Soapers are completely empty and I am all by my lonesome in the Miners. Don't worry if your not that good, its fun to compete and honestly the last time I played (2010) when we had a lot of people all of the teams did relatively well.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

9     4816   Bay12 Champions   Demos (captain), Blyxx, CPTAntioch, Porter, Vactor, tinymouse
14   2902   Bay12 Blacksmiths   LASD (captain), Empty, Person, Sildraith, Soadreqm, thack
17   2043   Bay12 Miners   Robsoie (captain), Akhier, Frumple3, Skid, christhawk, frankhovis
22   1500   Bay12 Immigrants   HBeing (captain), FreeHugs, Naxza, Pseudonym, VonKrieger, Xorborg
37   421     Bay12 Soapers   quinn (captain), Bulborbish, Hfaweon, Humaan, Thornet, ZChris13
42   281     Bay12 Haulers   WillAlvein (captain), Meanmelter, Thndr

   I would really like it if we could get a team up into the top ten again which it looks like we have been close to but not quite managed since. Even the last minute Haulers managed to place above a good number of teams and they did not have a full team. Whether you have skills and can win a good percentage or your just starting come on by the thread and join a team. It isn't difficult as unless your a captain you just have to add # TEAMCAPTAIN nameofcaptain as the first line of your 0.13 option file and the captain is only a little more with a second line and having to have all the team members names.
   As it is there are a couple people in the Blacksmiths that if it fills we can move up to Champions so don't worry about the team filling up if that is your level of skill. Also the whole level of skill is just so we can stack the decks in favor of getting a team up in the rankings. If you don't feel like joining the Champions or Blacksmiths feel free to come hang in the Miners with me or even join the Soapers if you don't plan on playing that much at all. We don't need you playing 24/7, as long as you join a team any games you do on the online with the account which is namd its all good. Every game counts and every bit matters.

Edit: oh and since I didn't specifically say what the skill levels are here -
Expert (Bay12 Champions): Win or multiple runes.
Advanced (Bay12 Blacksmiths): A rune or close to one.
Intermediate (Bay12 Miners): Reached the Lair
Beginner (Bay12 Soapers): Wants to join the Tournament

[UristMcDwarf]

Hey now, you're not all alone in Miners, I signed up for it. 

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   Another update, the Blacksmith team is filled now though if your at that level of skill say so because there is a couple of people that could be moved down to Miners. Also we have yet to get any Champions and it would be nice to have a team of them. The skill to be that isn't winning all the time but rather having won in the past. I could technically be a part of the Blacksmith team for instance because I have gotten the serpent rune but I choose to be at a lower level. If anyone decides to join Champions once we get more people at Blacksmith there will be people there that will be moved up so don't be afraid of being alone. In the end I will try to make as many full teams so even if your all alone in the Champions team I would probably shuffle people around to get you into Blacksmith, especially if I need more people in Miners.

So don't drag your feet and come join in the fun!

[Graven]

Well to be fair I believe everyone who was on our team last tournament [the bay12procrastinators, was it?] won - me included, so if it comes to that we could be bumped to Champions.

I believe I'll be able to do a bit better, since last time was my first ever online play, and I've gotten a better idea of what combos are easier for me and what I can push to 5+ runes. However my performance tends to swing a lot, so I chose the Blacksmiths.

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   We now have 2 people who have joined the Champions team and the Miners only need 2 more people to be full. It looks like we will be able to field a good number of teams this tournament but every person counts so join a team and see how you do.

The Tournament thread is here

Edit: Another person joined the Blacksmiths so I bumped one of the people who probably should have been in Champions up to it so we now only need 3 more Champs to have a full team. Also Miners still looking for a couple of players to fill it out.