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[Leafsnail]

Wow... an ossuary with no fewer than 10 mummies.  Dropped all my potions, and now ALL my stuff's cursed.

Of course, the tomb keepers may have shot themselves in the foot slightly by leaving Remove Curse scrolls in here...

[Mr.Person]

3d28 is a LOT more damage than 2d30. Even when you factor in the 30% resistable portion of Throw Icicle, I'm pretty sure the damage is about the same as Mystic Blast. The thing is, Throw Icicle does even more damage to non-ice resistant damage and costs one mana less. I think Mystic Blast is more accurate, it's just a general spell that everybody can cast... so it has no special advantages or weaknesses.

Personally I'd be very comfortable with just Ice Storm and either Mystic Blast or Throw Icicle along with a fairly normal distribution of other spells (Haste, Blink, Swiftness, ect.). That gives you a high damage nuke to blow up uniques, Pand lords, big groups, and anything else particular nasty and a regular damage spell to kill regular enemies.

The crosstraining penalty in 0.7 is just slower training (ie, all the Exp goes in just fine, it just takes longer since you have to victory dance more than you would otherwise). In the current 0.8 trunk, it actually takes more exp to crosstrain skills.

[Niveras]

3d28 is a LOT more damage than 2d30.

Except it's 2d28 (56 max) and 3d20 (60 max), not 3d28 and 2d30 (in which case the choice would be way more obvious). Again, assuming the wiki/learndb can be believed. Also, they're both level 4 spells.

[Leafsnail]

Hmm... 3d20 does have a slightly higher average hit, and a bit less variance.  Although I don't think they're very different, so go with other factors.

[Frumple]

Mmm... tasty. Zot Defense is now bundled into the latest windows binaries.

Just had my first semi-decent (not really) run with a Kenku Monk of Jiyva. Made it up to altars, obviously, when something wrecked the oklob sap I had sitting on the orb and I missed the open turn window between sapling dying and something stepping on the orb. I didn't managed to kill the critter (spiked toad, I think) before all my HP poofed.

That being said, Jiyva's apparently a pretty good god for ZotDef. The jellies eating everything feeds you, and you've got plenty of corpses and junk items laying around from killing everything to make Jigglygod happy. Gonna' have to try this again

Though probably with a ghoul, at least after another few kenku runs. Ghouls are basically the ultimate zot-def race, since they can restore rotting damage so easily.

EDIT: Ohshi- Blink darts! Craaaap.

[Dr.Feelgood]

Zot Defense is brutal. I did well with a Troll priest of Yred. I made it to level 15, but my massive undead army and ice statues were crushed by an invisible boggart (sp?) who summoned ancient liches (who summoned greater demons).

[Robsoie]

I noticed the "Zot Defense" mention when playing the online version, but as i was busy on the tournament i didn't explored that gametype and forgot totally about this after the tournament concluded.
Interesting to see this added now.

I tried and got a bit puzzled.
Started as a troll berzeker, not knowing how this thing played, i noticed in my abilities i could build "Dart traps"

So i did, took me a while to understand it was working, as i was clicking and could see nothing, in fact you can't see the traps you build unless you walk on them (trigger them) or your trap detection skill kick in.

I explored a bit and noticed the 2 monsters entrances and their paths were very separated from each other, meaning that i couldn't do anything other than sitting on the orb, as it would be impossible to stop both sides in the same time.
And once a monster start sitting on the Orb, your health goes down very fast.

Where the fun begins is when you gain levels, you can build more traps (their costs is on your experience pool), and of more different type.
At level 2 i could build Oklob sapling, but it eat 60 experience pool for one (dart trap eat only , difficult as you lose experience pool during the fights as in normal crawl so building an Oklob sapling may be difficult at low level fortunately (or unfortunately due to their danger) you have uniques appearing that are worth a lot of experience pool at low level.
 In level 3 i could build arrow traps etc..., etc...

All in all, this game mode can be very fun, too bad the traps are invisible to you when you build them, but it's fun for once to see monster running on your own traps instead of the opposite

edit :
Died at level 8 during an enormous Gnoll invasion, i couldn't see the end of that wave of them, my Oklob sapplings and later plants did some big ravaging, but my troll was hit by so many items thrown by the Gnolls that it couldn't resist for very long.

[Frumple]

Biggest trick you can learn for kicking off getting anywhere in ZotDef is that you can drop a sapling (any createable unit, really) on top of the orb and move around reaping the foe's forces. The enemy generally won't attack you unless you specifically get between them and the orb, so if you've got an oklob or plain plant sitting on the orb taking hits, you can move around and freely wreck havoc elsewhere, without quite so much risk of being rotted to death.

Ghouls are probably the best race for getting used to ZotD. They've got a steady supply of food and plenty of quick-healing from the same source and good melee capability, while not being too flimsy. After you get used to things, branching out to other races isn't nearly as brutal... though it's still very, very brutal. The current version has a considerably larger and more consistent number of critters coming down the pipe. It's pretty epic, but also quite vicious.

Last points: If you've got any interest at all of supporting your towers plants and such via spellcasting, make sure to start with the skill. It's going to be a loooong time getting, otherwise. Oh, and grenades can actually do a helluva'lot of damage... but they're pretty dangerous to use. Still, pretty nice thing to drop on a major incoming hoard, providing you can get out of the blast radius.

[Robsoie]

It's going to be a loooong time getting, otherwise. Oh, and grenades can actually do a helluva'lot of damage... but they're pretty dangerous to use. Still, pretty nice thing to drop on a major incoming hoard, providing you can get out of the blast radius.

Took out 2 of my own expensive Oklob after summoning 2 times those "grenades"

Thanks for the hints, didn't thought about putting something on the Orb instead of myself.

[Soadreqm]

Yeah, the thing to do is to turn off all skill training until you hit level two and get the oklob saplings, and then grow one on the orb. And place some dart traps on bottlenecks to soften those mobs up. I just discovered it on CDO today. I'd played it on CAO before, but only the old version ages ago. Been trying to get a vampire ice elementalist off the ground. Some had slight success.

I usually go with Sif in Zot, for the spellbook gifts. It feels that Jiyva should be a pretty solid choice too.

[Frumple]

Jiyva is pretty awesome. By the time you can actually spawn altars, there's corpses and misc. items just laying around everywhere in pretty huge amounts. That first jelly quickly becomes a good 20-30 jellies, your piety hits 2-3 stars, and your belly becomes full. Then the monsters spend the next half-dozen or so waves trying to cut through the massive jelly pile that builds up in your orb chamber. Only problem I've been seeing with 'im is piety gain after that initial glut, and equipment for anyone that's dependent on it -- all those jellies in a confined space means that they will get to the loot before you do. That, and they can get in the way of plant/statue placement, which can occasionally be dangerous.

[Soadreqm]

Well, I was just swamped by 25 jellies who I'm pretty sure started as a single jelly, so I guess having Jiyva's dungeon-cleaning abilities on MY side might be a nice change.

[Dr.Feelgood]

I prefer Yred over Jiyva for ZotDef. Zombies follow your commands, you get pets as gifts, and they don't destroy your plants. 

Tips:

- Save your xp and place a sapling on top of the Orb asap.
- When you reach to level 10 turn on your skills.
- Burning bushes are great for defending the Orb, since they have the see invisible intrinsic.
- Do not place ice statues in the Orb Chamber, as they don't care if an ally is in the way.
- Use the grenades outside of the chamber to weaken tough enemies.
- For Jiyva worshipers, dump some items on the Orb before placing a sapling/bush on top of it. This will make the slimes surround the Orb.

[Leafsnail]

Well, I now have a named Eye of Draining, Psarotin neutral on Zot Defence.  This could be... interesting.

[x2yzh9]

I love playing a demonspawn Chaos Knight of Land-whatever the forgotten. Really..Effective