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[Tinker Thinker]

I use diagonal movement just fine thank you, that's never stopped anyone who's the same speed from being able to keep up.

And yeah, Sandblast is a weird spell, but it's basically useless without turning it into Stoneblast. I've confirmed this using a Demonspawn Earth Elementalist, who got to be quite powerful (I found a use for the semi-random magic mapping mutation - Passwall testing), before being taken out by THAT DAMN SIGMUND (incidentally, while being chased by an Iguana). I couldn't kill anything with Sandblast if it wasn't possible for me kill it /without/ Sandblast. That is, the only ones my mage could kill using Sandblast instead of Stoneblast were the type of guys who'd fall against an unenchanted knife wielded by a mage.

And, the reason I end up killing everything:
Meet Ijyb on dlevel 2 - Orcs are, what, dlevel 3? If I can't take Ijyb, I have no chance of taking a squadron of 5 orcs backed by an orc priest and a pair of orc wizards. I have never had an experience where skipping a level to avoid a powerful enemy has paid off. Of course, I haven't gotten deep enough in the dungeon that the power differential between floors is negligible.

[ShadeJS]

I have never had an experience where skipping a level to avoid a powerful enemy has paid off. Of course, I haven't gotten deep enough in the dungeon that the power differential between floors is negligible.

In many ways the power differential between floors is never negligible, until you're so strong that it just doesn't matter. (With the exception of branch ends and post endgame stuff, which is often just plain hard.) Many people suggest skipping a level by going down, I often prefer to go back up, then back down a different staircase. Usually that will break up whatever nasty cluster of critters you were having a problem with. IMHO, you should always do what it takes to stay alive, but unless you're sure that you're dealing with something really OOD you should consider going back up, and down a different staircase, as opposed to going down and forgoing XP and missing vaults because of timers.

[Leafsnail]

Or if it's something you just can't kill (Imp, my Fire Elementalists are looking at you) you can lure the monster up one floor and then go down without it.

[G-Flex]

How does diagonal movement work at the moment?  I heard they might've changed it in some strange way.

Crawl uses chebyshev geometry, meaning that diagonal movement and orthogonal movement are identical. In other words, it takes just as much time to move a given diagonal distance as it would to move either horizontal or vertical component of that distance.

This is why a square LoS makes sense. It seems counter-intuitive, but in reality a circular LoS is falsely intuitive, as it looks "right" but isn't actually consistent with the game world, leading to even more counterintuitive things, like diagonal approaches being significantly different from orthogonal approaches.

And yeah, Sandblast is a weird spell, but it's basically useless without turning it into Stoneblast.

For what it's worth, Sandblast (and I think Stone Arrow) got a boost in 0.8 trunk. I'm not sure what that entails, but I think it does more damage now.

Meet Ijyb on dlevel 2 - Orcs are, what, dlevel 3? If I can't take Ijyb, I have no chance of taking a squadron of 5 orcs backed by an orc priest and a pair of orc wizards. I have never had an experience where skipping a level to avoid a powerful enemy has paid off. Of course, I haven't gotten deep enough in the dungeon that the power differential between floors is negligible.

Who cares if you couldn't take the orcs on D:3? If you know you can't take an enemy you're actually facing, then escaping to an unknown situation with enemies you might not be able to face is certainly a good idea.

[Tinker Thinker]

And I was doing so damned well too. Was up to my ears in gear, but got one-shot by a hill giant. - How did that happen? Was stoneblasting a squadron of orcs, and didn't think the burly looking fellow was going to be able to do that much more damage. Meh. I suppose my demonspawn's mutations sucked anyway (I had claws and ice resistance. Woo.).

Edit to Add:
Lost an Air one to Sigmund.

[ShadeJS]

Or if it's something you just can't kill (Imp, my Fire Elementalists are looking at you) you can lure the monster up one floor and then go down without it.

Imps and Ice Beasts appear about the same time-- The Fire caster has an easier time of it as the Imp will conveniently blink away after you park him. The Ice caster either has to find an early game pure Conj spell (magic dart if all else fails) or a source of fire, or learn to run.

[Leafsnail]

And I was doing so damned well too. Was up to my ears in gear, but got one-shot by a hill giant. - How did that happen?

Hill Giants are like Ogres, but later.  If you're fragile, don't let em hit you.

[Mr.Person]

Or if it's something you just can't kill (Imp, my Fire Elementalists are looking at you) you can lure the monster up one floor and then go down without it.

Imps and Ice Beasts appear about the same time-- The Fire caster has an easier time of it as the Imp will conveniently blink away after you park him. The Ice caster either has to find an early game pure Conj spell (magic dart if all else fails) or a source of fire, or learn to run.

Throw Icicle will easily take care of ice beasts. Sticky Flame does no damage to imps. Ice has it better than fire, I'd say.

[Leafsnail]

It's not too bad as long as you don't get one of those imp based levels with like 6 of them.

[Virroken]

Or if it's something you just can't kill (Imp, my Fire Elementalists are looking at you) you can lure the monster up one floor and then go down without it.

Imps and Ice Beasts appear about the same time-- The Fire caster has an easier time of it as the Imp will conveniently blink away after you park him. The Ice caster either has to find an early game pure Conj spell (magic dart if all else fails) or a source of fire, or learn to run.

Really? I always felt that ice beasts were way scarier and higher level.

[Tinker Thinker]

Yeah, I've NEVER had problems with imps but Ice Beasts are fucking terrifying (sadly, never gotten a summoner strong enough to summon their own).

@Leafsnail: Yeah, I guess that's likely, but it's a serious problem as an earth elementalist, as the primary spell is anywhere from 1-3 squares, depending on luck (3 squares is with high vehumet piety and Stoneblast), and the nearest Long Range spell is Stone Bolt or whatever it's called, which is really short range for a long range spell, and I haven't found it terribly useful in my runs. I'm not sure what all to do about it.

I have at least learnt the lesson of roguelikes: stat boosts can actually accomplish something (as opposed to RPGs where they're a laughingstock). I don't think half my Earths would last anywhere near as long as they do without Stoneskin.

I did have one of them get up to like 17 AC with all of its gear. Still died, though. Think a yak got that one?

Edit to Add:
THAT DAMN SIGMUND

I would also like to note that I am somewhat annoyed with the loss of an easily purged morgue. I've got so many ghosts wandering around the early levels who do pretty extreme damage -.-

[Majestic7]

Yeah, crawl ghosts are very annoying. At least in many other roguelikes you get to find your earlier corpse and ye olden equipment (cursed) after dealing with the ghost. Crawl offers no benefits like that. A shame, it would be fun to play necromancer and raise corpses of old selves in servitude.

[Leafsnail]

@Leafsnail: Yeah, I guess that's likely, but it's a serious problem as an earth elementalist, as the primary spell is anywhere from 1-3 squares, depending on luck (3 squares is with high vehumet piety and Stoneblast), and the nearest Long Range spell is Stone Bolt or whatever it's called, which is really short range for a long range spell, and I haven't found it terribly useful in my runs. I'm not sure what all to do about it.

I have at least learnt the lesson of roguelikes: stat boosts can actually accomplish something (as opposed to RPGs where they're a laughingstock). I don't think half my Earths would last anywhere near as long as they do without Stoneskin.

Well, considering that Earth Elemetalist is probably the weakest magic class... not surprised.

Try something else.  Earth Elementalists are kindof weak and have no escape spells.  Not to mention you're stopping yourself from getting Tornado, aka the game breaker.

Incidentally, it's odd, but I almost never have problems with ghosts.  They're usually just free xp for me (or I can run away easily enough that it doesn't matter).

Also, glad to see MDFis have got a boost.  I got one with an amulet of berserk rage, and it's going great.  Although I've just found a spellbook with "Hexes" in... huh... did they split Enchantments in two?

[Niveras]

Yeah, I've NEVER had problems with imps but Ice Beasts are fucking terrifying (sadly, never gotten a summoner strong enough to summon their own).

The danger of ice beasts (as compared to imps) probably has more to do with imps being just a nuisance unless you're surrounded, or they managed to pick up a dangerous weapon (like a dagger of chaos after you killed the unique). Ice beasts don't randomly leave you alone (since they don't teleport away) but actually deal extra damage because they can freeze your potions - or at least I think they can.

I would also like to note that I am somewhat annoyed with the loss of an easily purged morgue. I've got so many ghosts wandering around the early levels who do pretty extreme damage -.-

You can delete all the bones files in your saves directory to get rid of ghosts, but that might fall under cheating. But you may have already known that, and that "easily purged" was referring to some method in the game itself to purge the morgue.

[Leafsnail]

You can delete all the bones files in your saves directory to get rid of ghosts, but that might fall under cheating. But you may have already known that, and that "easily purged" was referring to some method in the game itself to purge the morgue.

DDNe, yeah.