On Lair, i got the exact same branches as with my successful Deep Elf Wizard, Spider Nest and Shoals. I hoped to play something else, but it would be a good test to see the difference in gameplay
And oh boy, where i heavily suffered with my Deep Elf, my Minotaur destroyed absolutely everything, he took each emperor scorpion on 1vs1 without losing more than 1/4 of health.
That's the 1st time i ever got such an easy Spider Nest, but in the same time, i had found incredible loot so far, a lot of luck i should have not wasted on a videogame but on the lottery instead
Then it was just a matter of time i found without problem the rune
Then Shoals, Shoals was a bit more difficult than with my Deep Elf, because i didn't have the excellent poisonous clouds to get rid of enemies at long range, my minotaur had to endure the flow of powerful javelin coming his way.
and at some point it was very tough, at some point i found it was leading into a YASD so i teleported away with only 25 health ... only to land on an island surrounded by many merfolks with tridents, wasted all my potion of cure wounds to just barely keep up with the lost health.
But what made me won this impossible battle situation is this :
- high Evocation skill
- Ashenzari boosting my Evocation skill
- Wand of Enslavement
I never considered Wand of Enslavement very seriously, but there it gained all my respect.
I enslaved half of the attackers and they killed each other, with how strong hitter my minotaur was, once the enslavement disappeared, i one shot-ed each of the merfolks that were left with few health.
But it was the thoughest spot of my whole character run so far.
Thanks to the great loot not a single mermaid managed to mesmerize my character due to very high magic resistance, and honestly my guy really didn't liked the songs :
Then on the rune level, i ran into Ilsuiw again, used my wands to take care of her before she could drown me
Then after exploring all the mini-houses of the map
I finally found the one with the rune, problem was in the water :
A kraken right in my way to the Shoal rune.
Looking at my minotaur, i thought i had a chance, and i could still blink away in case it's impossible, so i charged right to the head of that beast , activated the berserk of my amulet and
It really surprised me because the kraken went down really fast.
But i will not complain, i was happy enough to survive Shoals and get the rune
Then i decided to move to Elven Halls before going to Vaults.
To my surprise, Elven Halls didn't put much resistance, but in the same time i didn't charged mindlessly in the final vault, i used the corridor to control the fight, and on 1 vs 1 , the poor elves, even the blademasters just stood absolutely no chance (and thanks to the good MR i had, i resisted banishment
)
Unfortunately the loot was not good for my character, but on the corpse of one of the elves i found something rather amazing :
It's amazing, not only because it moved me to max MR but the cleaving with such speed + damage and the +8 ... some lovely argument for peace
So it was Vault's turn to explore and test the ever increasing might of that character.
I ran into Mennas again, i decided to make a stand and see what happens with how extremely well equiped my Minotaur was, maybe Mennas would have a challenge instead of me having to teleport/haste away
Poor Mennas, nearly all of his attacks didn't landed, while mine were devasting his health bar.
It was impressive how fast he went down, i guess Ashenzari skill boosting is really as great as it sounded, and when berzerk , well it wasn't the best of the days for Mennas.
Time for the bottom of Vault and i must say my minotaur really was beyond my expectations
That is the last Vault level, the first time since i play Crawl in which i go there the following happens : my character just stood and killed every single vault guard without any need to move to the upstairs or try to move to better position.
It was just incredible, my guy was blocking nearly every attack and the axe, of that awesome axe, i can't believe how the thing killed all of them so incredibly fast (the cleaving helped too).
Additionally, the Guardian Spirit effect must help a lot with the AC.
Then after exploring some of the big vaults, i ran into
Frederick and Wiglaf !
Now let me say, with other character i would have done a teleport, but considering how i took on Mennas, i decided to foolishly try to take them both.
What i didn't expected is that a titan and several giants were going to move and throw rocks at me during the fight, but again to my surprise
I destroyed them all ?
That character is really stronger than any of my previous fighters, and Ashenzari that i never tried really give a big boost to the survivability there, as not only you have increased skills (that makes a real difference), but having permanent detection of enemies and their power potential is really a big advantage to prepare yourself.
And it wasn't all, do you know who i encountered in that last Vault level ?
Yes, that guy, Mara, bane of nearly every character i played that tried to attack him.
Now again, with any other character, i would have read a teleport scroll right now.
But my minotaur really seemed strong, maybe he would have a chance to avenge all the fallen adventurers.
And so he did.
"What good are steel and magic against my illusions?"
I guess now Mara has the answer, he probably didn't expected i would use blinking scrolls to follow him in his own attempt at blinking away. It was a good idea to keep a holy weapon in my inventory .
That minotaur is really a terminator, so fun to play with
Later found the rune
And that mysterious fur robe , that once looking at it nearly made me laugh
I guess some people may want more challenge and try to play with it