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[Leafsnail]

Don't retreat into unexplored territory, make sure you always have an explored line of escape to a staircase?

[tompliss]

While I do try to avoid Mara, in the event that I do have to fight, any advice for not getting horribly, horribly murdered?

There is none, really.
He's one who can kill nearly everyone (exception being stealthy characters who are lucky enough not to wake him and one-shot him).
He'll summon illusions, preventing melee character from getting to him and ranged ones from having line of sight. Illusions of you are specially hard to fight, as they'll have no fail chance on your spells (the ones which are already at less than 50% fail for you) and simply hit harder and resist more than usual monsters. Illusions of Mara himself will prevent you from hitting the good one, and hit as hard as himself. And finally, you don't want to fight him, because his bolt of fire will kill anybody, especially once he has cast some clones.

[Retropunch]

Mara is most easily dispatched with haste+area of effect spells, anything else is tricky. He is demonic so holy weapons will do extra damage, and if you're TSO you can summon an angel or two for the fight. Aura of abjuration makes it a lot easier too.

I'm guessing a scroll of silence should work well too.

[tompliss]

I'm guessing a scroll of silence should work well too.

You told it, he's a demon. Demons don't cast spells with their mouths. He doesn't care about Silence.
You should not cast/read silence : it will only mostly prevent you from reading a scroll of blinking/teleport to go away (and may silence caster illusions, but I'm not even sure about that).

[Retropunch]

I'm guessing a scroll of silence should work well too.

You told it, he's a demon. Demons don't cast spells with their mouths. He doesn't care about Silence.
You should not cast/read silence : it will only mostly prevent you from reading a scroll of blinking/teleport to go away (and may silence caster illusions, but I'm not even sure about that).

Eek, forgot about that. That's why I never used it I'm guessing.

rF++ is a good defense, but it's mainly about hammering him fast before he can get a ghost illusion up.

[monk12]

I'm guessing a scroll of silence should work well too.

You told it, he's a demon. Demons don't cast spells with their mouths. He doesn't care about Silence.
You should not cast/read silence : it will only mostly prevent you from reading a scroll of blinking/teleport to go away (and may silence caster illusions, but I'm not even sure about that).

Eek, forgot about that. That's why I never used it I'm guessing.

rF++ is a good defense, but it's mainly about hammering him fast before he can get a ghost illusion up.

Yeah, basically. As a melee character, if I absolutely MUST fight him I look for narrow confines where he can't blink away, ideally hiding behind a corner and buffing myself to the gills before he enters LoS. If he blinks away, that's your cue to flee as best you can and try it again later, since running toward him will just give him opportunities to bolt you or worse, put up illusions of himself or your character.

But yeah, given the opportunity he's one I skip as melee with poor range control, much like my casters skip Mennas.

[DJ]

Hm, what would maxed out recitation do to Mara?

[Xgamer4]

Reading through the .15 changelogs...

- Inventory item weight and player burden states are no more.
 - Item destruction is no more.
 - All types of fruit have been merged together into one gooey, messy item type.

Oh thank god.
 
Also, the new god sounds really cool, not gonna argue with the new changes, and not having to micromanage item drops for allies when worshipping Beogh is going to be really nice.


EDIT:
Bay12 does not use reddit-style post syntax. Oops.

[Elephant Parade]

The new changes seem pretty nifty. If it was a different game, I might be irritated, but it fits perfectly with Crawl's design philosophy.

[Parsely]

Just started playing today with SSG as my support. First try ended with about 1600 points, burnt through dozens of characters after that most not even clearing D:3. :p Early on had a great Minotaur character who ran into a bajillion uniques all on the same floor.

Killed Sigmund first.

Spoiler: Sigmund's D:5 Scythe (click to show/hide)

Then I took down that brother and sister whatever they're called. Got the brother first before he could do much casting and cut down the sister straightaway.

Immediately after that: "oh shit who's this guy."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh geez what do I do. Rem makes a suggestion. Result:

Spoiler: WARNING Large Image (click to show/hide)

The repeated image is my desktop wallpaper but just take a peek at the chat to know what's going on. :p Right after I confused him with the wand I nailed him twice and he died as well.

Then came Eustachio. EUSTACHIOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! He spawned a bamillion dudes who my minotaur killed the shit out of. Managed to back into a corridor. Eustachio summons guys behind me so I can't escape. He finally walks/blinks in front of me, I'm hurting him just as much as he's hurting me and-!

W-where the heck am I?!
He teleported me to the Abyss.
Cue getting swarmed by demons.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[miauw62]

Ow, getting banished sucks. Didn't even know Eustachio could do that.

[Rex_Nex]

He can't. His cutlass can be branded, though. You probably got banished by distortion.

[Kagus]

Eustachio is a dick among dicks, floppy be his name.

Y'know who else is a dick?  That kobold on D:1 with the +2,+1 dagger of electrocution that nails you for your max health in one prick.

Hm, what would maxed out recitation do to Mara?

What it usually does, which is to say absolutely fuckall.  A level 27 character with 27 in invocations and 200 piety with Zin managed to inflict the following effects:

1: Nothing (about 40% of the time)
2: Corona (about half the time)
3: Smite for almost no damage (happened twice)
4: Confuse (happened twice)

I was reciting away at him for quite some time, too.  Even cast sanctuary at him a couple times, which does make him run away but does about as much damage as sneezing at him would.  Zin sucks, unless you really really hate mutations forever.  Don't expect to turn anything bigger than imps or orc zombies into pillars of salt, and even then it only happens some of the time.  Recitation /can/ be great fun when you shout out in the middle of a big orc group, but its effectiveness is still somewhat lackluster...

[Retropunch]

Eustachio is a dick among dicks, floppy be his name.

Y'know who else is a dick?  That kobold on D:1 with the +2,+1 dagger of electrocution that nails you for your max health in one prick.

Hm, what would maxed out recitation do to Mara?

What it usually does, which is to say absolutely fuckall.  A level 27 character with 27 in invocations and 200 piety with Zin managed to inflict the following effects:

1: Nothing (about 40% of the time)
2: Corona (about half the time)
3: Smite for almost no damage (happened twice)
4: Confuse (happened twice)

I was reciting away at him for quite some time, too.  Even cast sanctuary at him a couple times, which does make him run away but does about as much damage as sneezing at him would.  Zin sucks, unless you really really hate mutations forever.  Don't expect to turn anything bigger than imps or orc zombies into pillars of salt, and even then it only happens some of the time.  Recitation /can/ be great fun when you shout out in the middle of a big orc group, but its effectiveness is still somewhat lackluster...

I loved Zin when you could actually choose what to recite and when it used to be marginally more effective. He was basically an undead/demon crowd control and support god with a great escape option which allowed you to take the edge of most battles.

Now he does seem a lot worse somehow. I'm not sure what has happened, but he now just seems completely ineffective, especially late game when it just seems to give you the most minor of effects when you can't really waste the turns to recite.

[Kagus]

Are you talking 0.14 or 0.15?  As 0.15 is still being a coy little minx who won't be found outside of Akrasiac, I haven't had the time or ability to plumb the depths of its altered mechanics yet.

...which pisses me off, because I want to see just how ridiculous Qazlal actually is.  EDIT: And perhaps more than that, do another Orc Jesus run with the improved item management of the followers.