its amazing how people can give me newbie tips then drop lots of acronyms. I have no idea what the acronyms mean. 2nd guy mentioned bezerker,so I figure BE is a bezker. Mi I am guessing is a minotaur.
What god goes well with this race/class combo?
So if I use an axe like you describe above, I should train my weapons kill to 14 and stop? I looked in the wiki and don't recall any references to needing a certain skill level based on delay.
I dont know what this means:
"Your main goal is to hit minimum delay on your weapon - the value is out right told to you in the later trunks."
I get the delay part. but the second part about 'out right' in later trunks. Im using 14.1
Races and classes are summarized by initials smooshed together, with race first and class second. I'm too lazy to look up a master list, but "MiBe" is a Minotaur Berserker (and my personal recommendation due to their strength and aptitudes,) "Gr" is a Gargoyle (who have a ton of neat abilities including innate resist Poison but lower HP than other races,) and "HO" is a Hill Orc.
The strength of the Berserker class (and other classes in that column) is that you start play worshiping a God and two pips of Piety: for the Berserker, that means you worship Trog the Wrathful, god of rage, mindless slaughter, and illiteracy. Trog likes it when you sacrifice corpses to him (by (p)raying over them, whether you killed them or not,) and when you use your "Burn Spellbooks" (a)bility, which causes spellbooks in line of sight to burst into flame. Trog hates magic users and nerds like that; he forbids you from using magic yourself (he forbids only spells and spellcasting, not magic from wands, scrolls, equipment, etc,) and is extra pleased when you kill wizards or any monster who casts spells. Incidentally, this is why Minotaurs make excellent berserkers; they have good aptitudes for the physical combat skills, but bad magic, so you may as well lock yourself out of it entirely and get some sweet God abilities instead!
The first pip of piety with Trog gives you the power to go berserk whenever you want, and it's a powerful ability. Berserk greatly increases the speed of your actions and your strength (and thus your HP and attack damage,) but has a cost in hunger (so you can't use it if you're Very Hungry or lower) and a limited duration, after which you are Slow and Exhausted (which prevents you from Berserking again until you are no longer Exhausted.) Basically, any time a fight looks to be going bad (and it's important to recognize this
before you're almost dead) you can Berserk to slay your opponent and hopefully make it to safety. Note that while Trog does give you a chance to extend the length of a Berserk when you kill something, it's still not a great idea to use it against a huge swarm of monsters since if you run out of Berserk before you run out of monsters you'll probably be killed while Slow and weak.
The second pip of Trog piety gives you the ability Trog's Hand, which gives you increased magic resistance and Regeneration at the cost of hunger and a bit of Piety. This is a great ability if you're facing a big fight with weaker monsters, like orc swarms; the increased health Regeneration means that you can heal almost as fast as they can hurt you, which turns a dangerous attrition battle into a cakewalk. It's also handy to have up if you need to run away, since you'll keep regenerating if you run; that way, if you get boxed in or cut off you'll have the cushion of some extra HP to make your next move.
When Graven mentioned "Trogbros" he is referring to Trog's most powerful activated ability, Brothers in Arms, which you get at Piety ****. Brothers in Arms summons a friendly berserking monster to fight with you, usually some flavor of Troll or Ogre. There aren't many situations a friendly berserking Troll can't get you out of, assuming you remember to use it before you're in danger of being oneshot. It has a hunger cost and a significant Piety cost, so you can't really spam it, but it's hard to beat as far as panic buttons go.
When he mentioned "later trunks" he was referring to currently-being-tested development versions of the game, which you can play online. One of Crawl's design goals is transparency and not hiding important information behind meaningless flavor text and numbers. .14 is the latest stable release, and you still need to calculate delay manually.
To natter on about delay for a bit (I greatly misunderstood it when I started playing, which hurt me, I think) it's important to talk about what Weapon skill actually does for you. For one thing, it doesn't increase the damage you deal with your weapon, at least not directly; all it increases is the speed at which you attack. Actions in the game take time; if you look next to the Time counter, you'll see a number in parenthesis (e.g Time: 13093 (1.0)) The number in parenthesis is the amount of time your last action took. When it comes to weapons, you want to get it so that that number is at least 1 turn (so monsters aren't getting extra turns on you) and ideally you want it down to the weapon's minimum delay (so that you can get extra attacks on monsters!) You start at a given weapon's Base Delay, and every 2 ranks of the appropriate weapon skill reduce it by 0.1
For a MiBe specifically, I wouldn't worry about it too much because of the weapon you're looking for. One of Trog's benefits is that he will gift you with weapons and ammunition, meaning you can rely on him to get you something good. For a MiBe investing in Axes, that means an Executioner's Axe of some variety. You need 26 Axes skill to reach minimum delay with an Executioner's Axe; since 27 is the skill cap, you can see you don't have to worry about weapon delay or anything like that for quite a while; it's more important for other melee builds who use smaller weapons (and so don't need as much skill.)
also can minotaur bezerkers learn bows or crossbows? I dont know if those skills get added later.
You certainly can, and it's a pretty good idea. The reason you don't see those skills on your menu is because you haven't picked up a bow or crossbow yet, and you can't train the skill until you do. I frequently train crossbows with Minotaurs when I get the chance, since they're big, powerful, and have plentiful ammunition (later in the dungeon, at least; Crossbows are difficult to find early on.)
General newbie tips:
My golden rule: Cowards Win Crawl, or as my friend says, "100% fights." As in, if you aren't 100% sure you can kill a thing, try to find a safer way to deal with it, which may involve kiting it somewhere you can kill it in private, running away to buff up before taking it on, or just trying to avoid it entirely and skipping to the next floor (a good idea with Sigmund or Grinder.)
Identify your items! If you don't know what your options
are, it's hard to choose the one that will save your life. Wands ID when you zap them, so there's no reason not to zap them right away. Scrolls are pretty safe to ID just by reading them; make sure to do it on a cleared floor. Scrolls of Identify are the most common scroll in the game, so by the time you get to D:4 you'll probably notice you have more of one scroll than any other; that scroll is probably Identify (or maybe Remove Curse or Teleport, both of which are pretty common and useful.) You'll probably also notice you have more of one potion than any other; that potion is probably Curing. Don't ID potions by quaffing them, since there are some unfortunate ones that can kill/cripple you, most notably Mutation. IDing weapons and armor by using them can be somewhat dangerous, particularly artifacts, so may want to use a scroll of ID on them when you find them.
Berserkers start with terrible terrible armor. The hierarchy goes Animal Skin < Robe < Leather Armour < Ring Mail < Scale Mail < Chain Mail < Plate, assuming you're just looking for the biggest toughest set you can find. This is in fact what I'd try to do as a MiBe, so just keep looking for armor with a higher AC bonus (your Dodging will take a hit, but I usually have Dodging off anyhow.)
You want to go through the game in a certain order, which isn't always obvious. In general, you want to clear the main Dungeon until you find the Lair of Beasts, then clear that to the bottom. Clearing Lair is a big milestone for a character, so good on you if you get that far! After Lair is done, you have the option to continue clearing the Dungeon (15 floors deep in total,) to clear the Orcish Mines (4 levels deep, and Orc:4 can be pretty hairy,) or to clear some of the side branches in Lair (Swamp or Shoals, and Snake or Spider, all of which are five levels deep have a rune at the bottom.) I typically start with Orc, then work through the first four floors of the Lair branches, then finish up Dungeon, then go for one or both Lair runes. Because you have options on which way to go at this point, it's a good idea to bounce to another branch if the floor you're working on is particularly spicy (hitting a tough unique is a good reason to go somewhere else for a while, for example.)
If you get through all that, you can check out the Vaults (which requires one rune to enter, but has lots of loot and a particularly brutal bottom floor) or the Depths (which is just gnarly in general, so tread carefully.) Vaults: 5 features a really tough ambush, but if you survive and get the rune you'll have the privilege of going to the Realm of Zot, which is also 5 levels deep and holds the Orb of Zot. Then all you have to do is fight to it, grab it, and run like hell back out of the dungeon!
The reason Graven dropped those links is because the Wiki is... less than good. It has inaccuracies, and the advice is rather hit or miss. If you can't find something on those links, ask in here.
For a MiBe approaching Lair, it's not a bad idea to turn off all your skills and get some points in Evocations, probably about 10. The reason is Hydras; they are tough monsters who regenerate and get tougher every time you attack them with a slashing weapon, like your axe. Unless you luck out and get a flaming axe, they'll be the first monster you can't reliably Berserk to death in melee. Evocations skill increases the power of the wands you have, and you'll probably have some wands of Fire or Cold or Draining or something you can save to deal with the Hydras you encounter. Evocations skill is handy in general, since the versatility casters get from magic is something you have to compensate for with Evokeable items you find on the floor.
Last but not least, have fun! It's the journey, not the destination; my career win rate is 1.05% across 287 games. Just remember that every time you die, there was probably something you could have done to either rescue yourself from the situation or, more commonly, avoid getting in that situation in the first place. If you're getting frustrated with a combo, try something else, even if it's really wacky and off the wall. Try to learn how to play a caster (Deep Elf Fire Elementalists (DEFE) are fun,) or play a Hill Orc Fighter and convert to Beogh when the opportunity presents itself (you can recruit Orcs you meet and basically become Orc Jesus,) or a Demonspawn Chaos Knight (you'll definitely die, but it'll probably be an amusing death thanks to Xom,) or a Felid anything (again, you'll definitely die, but you're a freaking housecat, what'd you expect?)
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Topic: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND. (Read 1667802 times)