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[tompliss]

Also, one thing :
You are slower than most monsters, but you have an advantage : you are stealthy.
TRaining some stealth (at least if you aren't weacing chain mail) will let you stay un-noticed when at the border of the line of sight of ennemies, and choose whether you want to engage the combat or not

[goblolo]

My DECj feels very good. I'm level 13 now, clearing lair and mastering my magic skills. I can cast haste reliably (3% or 4% fail), can throw icicle and I am thinking about learning bolt of cold (since it has only 1% fail now). I also have deflect missiles (but with 43% fail), battlesphere to aid me in combat and flight.
Loot are good too. Book of Ice. Now I wield staff of cold, wear robe with rC+ and some other minor bonuses like Dex+1, ratskin cloak, ring of power, ring of MR+, hat of MR+, all resulting in rC++, rN+, rPois+, MR++ and ~50MP.
I got swamp and spider this game and can imagine my way through it. But I got some questions:

1. Does staff of cold and ring of ice Cold magic enhancing stacks well? Or it is like staff of wiz and ring of wiz?
2. Do I really need LRD's ability to break down strong walls? I guess I will try to kill slime king so just Dig will be enough. And if it is enough, I can train Air magic to some point for better RplMsl, DMsl, Freezing clouds.
3. Is simulacrum a cool spell? I have it in my Book of Ice so I could learn. If I start to master Necro, I think I will reliably cast it after I finish lair. I think it may be cool to swarm someone like Mennas or Mara with 6-7 frozen swamp dragons or 10-12 icy death yaks.
4. I have trained hexes (since it is nearly free for DE) to 7 or 8 for better fulminant prism. I use it mostly in early game, and in the mid as a safe way to kill oklob plants. As I have a book with Tukima Dance now, I wonder how useful can it be compared to simulacrum? It seems to be more resilient and I can re-use weapons. But on the other hand it can be hard for a 9Str character to carry a lot of weapons while chunks can be found everwhere.

[lemon10]

1. Multiple enchancers stack pretty well AFAIK. You do got to watch out for them giving you a fire vulnerability though.
Also, staffs and rings of wizardry *do* stack pretty awesomely. I used a ring+staff to take by spell failure of fire storm down from 70->30 (or so). It might have been different at some point in the past, but now they stack pretty well.
2. LDR is indeed needed to break metal/stone (although shatter does it far better (at the obvious expense of being a level 9 spell)). That said, you don't really ever *need* to break into them. There are a few points where its rather nice, but its not worth it to train earth if you are planning on getting air later on. With high enough spellcasting (and a ring of wizardry or two) you should be able to cast it without more then a point or two in earth. Not with great reliability, but well enough. Also, assuming you are training cold/charms, the only spell you really need to train air for is tornado, all the others can be cast just fine otherwise.
3. Not quite sure really, although I have heard its crazy sick if you use it on a hydra. Personally I would just stick with animate dead if you got it, since it resurrects everything in sight (permanently), and is two levels lower. They aren't as strong as simulcra individually, but its a pretty sick instant reinforce button, as well as a awesome meatsheild.
4. Not quite sure to be honest.

Of note:
Get bolt of cold ASAP. Once you get more mana it will become your main damage spell until ice storm, and even now is your best high damage spell.
Ditch throw icicle. It's very slightly worse then mystic blast against ice-immune enemies, and bolt of cold is far better against everyone else.
Going to reiterate that you should get animate dead if possible. In my opinion it is perhaps the second best spell in the game (after haste), castable by pretty much every casters that gets the book (even in early game) and very useful at every point in the game that has corpses, especially for a ice mage (who can throw ice spells through and around them).

[goblolo]

Get bolt of cold ASAP.
You should get animate dead.

Yep, I think I will switch from my Icicle to bolt of cold soon. I am using icicle only because it is more than enough now (with battlesphere). An I will leave IMB for cold immunes.
Animate dead is in my Book of Unlife and I can learn it. But what does the phrase "attenpts to raise" means? Is it that I will get only 2 orc skeletons from a freshly-laid graveyard in the Orc1 with one cast? Or the raising rate is quoite good? I can assume it is better with more Necro skill and I will have to focus on it if I learn this spell.

[lemon10]

It will raise 99% of everything that leaves a body (the only exception being shapeshifters).

Spellpower is unimportant, it will always raise every single corpse in LOS. So, for instance if you are half through with a battle in the Elf:3 vault, you can cast it and turn every single elf that died and left a corpse (whether that's 1 or 20) into a friendly zombie, completely turning the tide of the battle. I would actually recommend getting animate skeleton as well, since that allows you to get the chunks if you are hungry and still get a minion, although you do have to stand over the body to do it (so it is rather lacking in battle).

So as long as you can cast it fairly reliably, you don't need to put any more points into necromancy.

[goblolo]

It will raise 99% of everything that leaves a body

Hah, that makes it a really cool spell. I'm gonna give it a try in the Orc.
Are these zombies/skeletons permanent? I've never tried a necromancer.

[lemon10]

Yes, they are permanent. They don't follow you between levels, but halfway through the level you usually end up with like twenty of them trailing you. Its really fun to have 10 giant/troll/dragon zombies following you and backing you up.

Keep in mind however that if they kill stuff for you you get half as much XP as you would have gotten if you killed it personally (assuming they haven't changed it of course).
E: Gah, so many grammar mistakes.

[goblolo]

Keep in mind however that if they kill stuff for you you get half as much as you would have gotten as if you do it later (assuming they haven't changed it of course).

Thanks to my tries on summoners, I pay attention to it. In general, I prefer to deal with treats with my destructive magic (as a true Cj). I was thinking about animate/simulacra/tukima's dance as a help with extremely tough enemies (or large groups of extremely tough ones).

[Gamerlord]

Try straight nonelemental Caster. Not using any Ice, Air, Fire, Earth or Poison spells can make for a fun and difficult challenge.

[vogonpoet]

Hey Vehumet, you know I love you dearly, but what the hell? Why are you offering my DsIE firestorm, tornado and crystal spear? I know I only have 12.6 in ice magic and 7.6 in conjurations, but doesn't the 0 air, 0 earth and 0 fire skill thing give some clue as to my desired developmental direction? Yeah, 0 air, cos *someone* decided not to give me freezing cloud either.

Its okay though, we're still cool.
<cheers>vp

[aenri]

Started playing, always dying as starter MiBe or TrMo . I suck at this.

[tompliss]

Have you tried the Gargoyle or the Lava Orc (from Trunk) ?
The first one is even easier than a minotaur for a fighter, and the second is the most OP berserker you'll find

[debvon]

Started playing, always dying as starter MiBe or TrMo . I suck at this.

If you feel hopeless, a great beginner's strategy is to overemphasize the threat of everything you encounter. Even if it's just a rat. As soon as anything comes into your FOV, freeze in place and consider all of your options. Have an explored escape route at all times. If things go south you don't want to be fleeing into the unknown, you'll just run into unforeseen trouble. The early game is brutal for a lot of classes because of how little room you have to screw up. For example if a lone kobold gets some lucky strikes in on your sweet spot and you think you're going to die, run back down the hallway you came from and keep dancing around walls until you regenerate enough health, or distance yourself enough to go up/down stairs (pillar dancing, stair dancing).

Berserkers are quite powerful in short bursts but once they're winded, they're vulnerable. Plan ahead before you lose your shit in battle! Try to determine how many dudes you can tear through before you become exhausted. You don't want to be facing a venomous snake while exhausted and slowed, so needlessly going berserk on some poor kobolds before the snake gets to you is a bad (albeit entertaining) idea. Instead wait for the perfect moment to use that ability. Think of it as a safety net. But again, beginners who are struggling to survive will find themselves lasting longer if they over-analyze every battle. At least for a while, until you can get your bearings. It boils down to recognizing bad situations and avoiding those situations outright. Most deaths may seem unavoidable and/or unfair, but in truth, most deaths are completely avoidable. In any case a death will tell you a lot about what you did wrong and hopefully you won't die the same way next time. There's no end to the advice that one could give a beginner so if there are specific things you'd like insight on, ask away. This thread is being watched by some amazingly talented players that are full of good info.

Also, use this: http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/bots





Check this out.
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A rat and a kobold appear. The rat sees you but the kobold is sleeping. You could run up to the rat and start pounding on it.. but you'd wake up the kobold. Then you'd be facing two enemies instead of one. Instead, you could play it safe by taking a step back (so that the kobold was no longer in your FoV) and letting the rat come to you. Now, not only is it 1v1, but you can rest after the battle so that you're in good health to beat down the kobold.

One more:

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In situations like this, the safe move is to back up into the narrow hallway so that your enemies funnel in before you, single file. Letting enemies surround you is generally a terrible idea UNLESS you're trying to get them to bunch up into a ball for an AoE spell, or if you enjoy cleaving things with an axe. Unless you're a real man, being overly cautious in the early game is the best way to survive until you reach the temple. And don't be afraid to use those expendable resources. I like to start identifying my scrolls as soon as I have an unidentified piece of jewelry or as soon as I reach d-level 3, whichever comes first. I quaff ID potions as soon as I have two or more of a kind. ID wands immediately first by firing on yourself, then if that fails an enemy, and lastly, a wall. Your character's life is more precious than any item you find in the game, so don't go dying with potions of heal wounds in your bag. Better to expend all resources to survive a bad situation than to die because you wanted to save that teleport scroll.

[Leafsnail]

Another piece of basic strategy advice: when you meet an enemy you should generally try and lead them back into an area you've already explored instead of rushing at them.  This means that you won't bump into more enemies, and also means the noises you make while fighting are less likely to pull more monsters towards you.

Noise is actually a pretty important consideration, and it's a shame the game doesn't really make that clear.  It makes Electric Eels fairly dangerous even with rElec - their lightning is really loud and attracts a lot of enemies.

[aenri]

snip

Thanks! You are right, overconfidence and greed are my two worst enemies. But I found out some things by dying so much, like that you cant kill hydras with troll claws and that 0 int isnt that good for living - my most successful MiBe had only 4 int , he couldnt read a scroll to save his life.

What is good combo race/class/god for easy Majicks? I was thinking about SpEn of Kiku.
Also should I train some magic if I am MiFi? Obviously not if I am Trogging around, but if I go Oka for example. And when is good time for it?

Have you tried the Gargoyle or the Lava Orc (from Trunk) ?
The first one is even easier than a minotaur for a fighter, and the second is the most OP berserker you'll find

Oh yeah, I will try them out - I have 0.14.something version (that is trunk right?). And what about that new race - Formicids?