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[monk12]

Weapons of flaming are nice and all, but how should a felid deal with a hydra?

The same way a Felid deals with everything: run the hell away from it until/unless you have a spell or god power that can deal with it.

Also, RE: the Polymorph wand: it probably would have made something worse than a hydra. Like, dragons of various descriptions are quite likely, and say what you will about a hydra, at least it doesn't have a ranged attack. That's one of those situations where you should run away/skip the floor until you have a wand of fire or some other way to deal with it.

[Mr Space Cat]

On melee fighters fighting hydra, I have 3 words: "Maces and Flails." Hydra can't grow more heads when you're too busy smashing their existing heads to pulp with a blunt metal stick.

I dunno, but long blades really seem to be the least useful weapons branch. M&F have the same or better damage output without the hassle of lopping hydra heads, since both weapon groups are single target. Axes have cleave for passive crowd control chopping. Staves are staves, kinda a niche group for killing stuff but good for spellcasters. Polearms have reach. Unarmed Combat is GLORIOUS FISTFIGHTING, and has generally reliable damage output and speed without worrying about getting an executioner's axe or a demon whip or a triple sword. Short blades are for stabbing.

Long Blades just seem "meh" compared to the other weapons' utilities. If it's the only weapons you have an aptitude for, it makes sense to use them, but any other option seems a better choice if you have aptitude for it. Maybe I'm horribly wrong here.

[Cthulhu]

I'm generally not super fond of long blades either.  The hardest part of the game is pre-lair for the most part and good long blades are pretty sparse before that.  Conversely, branded whips are all over the place and if Pikel drops an Electric Whip that can get you a long way.  My only win so far was a MiGl with a +9/+9 Holy Wrath Great Mace.

I've had pretty good results with staff gladiators too, if you can get a good lajatang from Okawaru or Agnes you're pretty set. 

[Delta Foxtrot]

I agree that they're pretty boring currently. But consider that few versions ago polearms didn't have reaching and axes didn't cleave. I'm pretty sure that the devteam is working on differentiating the weapon classes more.

[monk12]

Longswords do have TSO in their corner with the whole Blessed Blade thing; a Blessed Triple Sword has the highest base damage of any weapon, iirc

[Cthulhu]

I'm playing a Gargoyle Earth Elementalist of Vehumet right now.  Going pretty good so far, almost nothing spellbook-wise but Vehumet just gifted me OOD and I've almost got it reliably castable.  I also found Devastator which is so awesome I have to remind myself that I have much safer ranged options.

[Mr Space Cat]

I'm a Gargoyle Fighter of Chei right now, I know, I know, "Chei? booo, no haste". Anyway, I got the Lair entrance with an Okob plant surrounded by other plants, and it's situated where I can't see the Okob without moving into range of acid spit. Almost killed me the first time when I found it, and there was a 7-headed hydra skeleton nearby. I survived though.

Pretty much cleared the floor--D:12, fyi-- but I don't know how I'm going to handle the Okob. It's a bit of a roadblock into Lair. Tips?

[TripJack]

have a polymorph wand?

[Rex_Nex]

I had the same issue with that vault beforehand, and I think I recall that it was suggested I drink an invis potion to get up close, then might myself up and hack them to pieces before I died. If I recall correctly, that didn't work at all and I died. It was advice from fairly good players, so I probably was doing it wrong(tm).

[lemon10]

Invisibility works pretty well assuming you can damage it at long range, since it messes up its targeting.

But if you get close to it, its slightly messed up targeting won't matter very much, and it will probably hit you anyways.

But yeah, polymorph might be your best bet (assuming that you do have a wand). It could turn into something nasty, but if that is the case you could just lure it away.

[monk12]

Invisibility also (presumably) gives you the option of just bypassing it, so you can come back when you're stronger/have resist corrosion/whatever. Not a great long-term solution since you'll presumably want to stash things in Lair, but if you don't have Polymorph yet you might find it in Lair.

[Cthulhu]

Invisibility might still be dicey seeing as it'll get like ten chances to hit you every step you take 

[debvon]

Wand of Fireball might be your best bet early on, you can stand right out of LoS of the plant and keep firing until you feel more experienced. I almost always have one or two by the time I'm running through lair. Anything would be better than charging through the acid in hopes of making it down, even if it means avoiding the lair altogether until you can get in safely

[Delta Foxtrot]

Pretty much cleared the floor--D:12, fyi-- but I don't know how I'm going to handle the Okob. It's a bit of a roadblock into Lair. Tips?

Use those consumables! With any luck you have a dozen wands by now that could work. Any source of invisibility might allow you to sneak past the Oklobs. Maybe a mix of !Speed (damn you Chei), ?Fog and ?Blink would allow you to get to the staircase with minimal acid burns.
You could of course still try to make it through a level or two of D, maybe even dip into Orc if you're hurting for supplies against Oklobs.

Definitely a tricky situation.

[Leafsnail]

Invis doesn't work well if a monster knows your location.  But if you sneak up on an oklob from out of LoS with invis you can usually kill it with no problems.

Alternatively you could abandon Chei, Chei wrath is less dangerous than Chei worship anyway.