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[George_Chickens]

The last time I regularly played was when orc priests reigned supreme and the full wrath of Beogh was felt to the infidels by the seventh dungeon. Nowadays, I'm finding it rather difficult to find a comfortable way to play.

I find if I play as a fighter, I get absolutely destroyed in the late-midgame because I have few ways to do ranged combat, even less now that Nemelex is no longer generous. If I play as a hybrid, I wind up getting annihilated for similar reasons, but usually in the midgame instead. If I play as a straight up caster, I spend the entire game kiting, which isn't really fun to me.

Could anyone suggest a few good race/profession combos and strategies?

[EnigmaticHat]

Dark Elf Conjurer (or Draconian, or High Elf, or a few other races) can wreck face pretty hard.  You want to treat conjuration (and maybe one or two elemental skills) as your weapon skill.  Normally increasing your magic past the point of 5% cast chance is not very efficient, but with damaging skills more int and more skill will keep adding and adding damage until you hit the spell's max power and you have to move on to a better spell.  Personally I like going Vehumet for those spell gifts and mana regen but I'm sure there are other viable gods.

Troll Hunter of Nemelex Xobeh got me my first win.  Pretty easily too aside from Vaults: 5.  Nemelex Xobeh is like being a mediocre mage almost for free; for purposes of a 3 rune that's a better mage than any troll could otherwise hope to be.  Be smart about using your decks and your large rocks and everything should be ok.  One thing that might not be clear is that Nemelex has the best escapes of any god.  A marked deck with Tomb or Shaft is a great way to not die.  As is dealing 4 from legendary decks of war multiple turns a row.  Don't waste his decks but don't value them particularly highly either, once you build up max piety (which shouldn't take that long) you'll be swimming in them.  And be sure to grab some evocable items on your way down.

Beyond that I don't have much that doesn't have the kiting problem.  Centaur ranged characters are super powerful but you gotta run away a lot.  Crawl in general has an issue where the optimal way to play can get pretty tedious.  Its the downside of the way the game encourages running away.  Also stairdancing and baiting enemies back so you can fight them one at a time.

[Sarrak]

From my own experience, best brands are, from early to endgame:
Venom -> Elec  -> Holy/Freeze/Flame

Speed, Vamp and Vorpal are not so good, but could be used in some cases. Distortion and Chaos - outright suicidal, yet fun to use. Drain/Prot/Antimagic are generally not needed.

The last time I regularly played was when orc priests reigned supreme and the full wrath of Beogh was felt to the infidels by the seventh dungeon. Nowadays, I'm finding it rather difficult to find a comfortable way to play.

I find if I play as a fighter, I get absolutely destroyed in the late-midgame because I have few ways to do ranged combat, even less now that Nemelex is no longer generous. If I play as a hybrid, I wind up getting annihilated for similar reasons, but usually in the midgame instead. If I play as a straight up caster, I spend the entire game kiting, which isn't really fun to me.

Could anyone suggest a few good race/profession combos and strategies?

I assume you meant early-midgame? I find it really surprising you have so much difficulties as a straight fighter there. The only ranged things that could destroy you early on are damned eels and orc priests (+hordes of orc warriors with arbalests in Orc:2). Stone giants get six shots at max, which is survivable, and merfolk javeliners are nightmare for almost every character. Amulets of reflection are your friend, as well as large shields and good armor.

Try HOFi of Beogh. Gather the orcs under your banner and let them eradicate all heretics for you with extreme violence. You'd only need to train four (ideally six) skills in the entirety of the game.

[EnigmaticHat]

Edit: I think late-midgame means the end of the midgame, so like Shoals, Depths, maybe Vault?

[George_Chickens]

Edit: I think late-midgame means the end of the midgame, so like Shoals, Depths, maybe Vault?

Yeah, around that part, especially if I go and try to deal with anything demonic. Even earlier if I go to any place with a high amount of spellcasters.

From my own experience, best brands are, from early to endgame:
Venom -> Elec  -> Holy/Freeze/Flame

Speed, Vamp and Vorpal are not so good, but could be used in some cases. Distortion and Chaos - outright suicidal, yet fun to use. Drain/Prot/Antimagic are generally not needed.

The last time I regularly played was when orc priests reigned supreme and the full wrath of Beogh was felt to the infidels by the seventh dungeon. Nowadays, I'm finding it rather difficult to find a comfortable way to play.

I find if I play as a fighter, I get absolutely destroyed in the late-midgame because I have few ways to do ranged combat, even less now that Nemelex is no longer generous. If I play as a hybrid, I wind up getting annihilated for similar reasons, but usually in the midgame instead. If I play as a straight up caster, I spend the entire game kiting, which isn't really fun to me.

Could anyone suggest a few good race/profession combos and strategies?

I assume you meant early-midgame? I find it really surprising you have so much difficulties as a straight fighter there. The only ranged things that could destroy you early on are damned eels and orc priests (+hordes of orc warriors with arbalests in Orc:2). Stone giants get six shots at max, which is survivable, and merfolk javeliners are nightmare for almost every character. Amulets of reflection are your friend, as well as large shields and good armor.

Try HOFi of Beogh. Gather the orcs under your banner and let them eradicate all heretics for you with extreme violence. You'd only need to train four (ideally six) skills in the entirety of the game.

Oh yeah, I used to do this all the time. The issue is, whenever I got to later areas, I'd find that my orcs would be torn up drastically faster than I could replace them. I'll try it out again, thanks!

*walloftextsnip*

Thanks for the advice! I used to love playing as trolls of Nemelex, but well, it seems as though card drop rate has been toned down extremely, so I'm not sure how viable a win with Nemelex is nowadays. I'll try it out some time, though.

[EnigmaticHat]

There's no longer any real penalty for stacking dozens of large rocks in your inventory.  Its not a buff to Nemelex but its a *huge* buff to trolls.

[Graven]

I think you overvalue Chaos heavily, undervalue Antimagic, and undervalue Venom early, plus not treating Flaming/Freezing as the same, or having Flaming slightly higher because of hydras is odd.

The list is based on how happy I am to see each brand, and I actually am really happy to see Chaos, I just absolutely never use it.  It can clone enemies, however, so Best Brand Ever TM

Antimagic is pretty decent in Zot, as it works on Orbs of Fire and liches, and is (IMO) the second best brand for extended, but early game weapons seem to do too little damage to successfully lock down a caster, unless you're going Trog/Oka to get better chance at high-damage weapon gifts.

Freezing I find a lot better than Flaming, as it slows down cold-blooded enemies (useful in Lair, Snake and oddly enough Zot, as it works on Draconians), also I think less demons resist Cold than Fire, but for the life of me I can't find a list. Flaming is good against Hydras, but so are wands, evocables, god powers, all non-bladed weapons and ranged.

Reallistically for extended you would want either Holy or Antimagic, unless you're a caster wielding something for the resists. Vorpal is better than nothing, but almost everything is better than nothing (ahem Distortion ahem). Speed would work in the very niche case where you find an Executioner axe of Speed or some such, and can stop training the weapon skill a lot earlier to focus on other areas, but that has happened like, once, to me. Venom is amazing pre-lair and that's it. Electrocution is a reliable brand all the way to Zot, but Holy and Antimagic swiftly overpower it. I hear Pain is good with necromancy pre-extended, too.

This is all my personal experience, as I haven't really sat down to crunch the numbers with facts, so if anyone has data I'd love to see it and adjust my play accordingly.

[Arcvasti]

From what I remember, Vorpal/Drain/Holy/Flame/Freeze[And Venom too?] deal a perccentage of your weapon damage. Which means that they're generally my preferred brands on dedicated meleers. Antimagic is good as a swap for nasty casters[Which is a LOT of enemies]. Vampiric weapons are neat, in the time window where they're actually useful. I still generally prefer damaging brands, but I'll settle for Vampiric. Chaos is actually quite nice, because of its shifting effects and general damage output. Its main drawback is that I can never find an endgame Chaos weapon like an eveningstar or double sword. Same with Speed, really. Pain/Elec/Distortion are all flat damage, which I prefer on stabbers/casters because they'll be using less damaging weapons. Pain is really really good against certain enemies if you train Necromancy. I once got myself a +9 Quickblade of Pain with a Necromancer. I shredded everything until I got cornered by demons in Depths and died. Electrocution is all-round decent, at least until Extended. Distortion's drawbacks far outweigh its advantages. Protection is something I mainly use with Octopodes, but I'll often use it for casters if I have no better resists able to be mounted on my weapon slot.

[Graven]

Protection is horrible if you're an Ogre in the sense of "oh god I want to swap away from this +2 mace of Protection but my armour keeps dropping by 75%"

[lemon10]

The drain brand deals a flat amount of damage.
Vemon deals a percentage though.

I find speed to be the best brand however, it increases effective damage by a huge amount. It *is* less effective against chaotic enemies then holy, but the fact that it works against everything makes it better.

[Antioch]

Heeey guys I need your help:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

How stupid it was to come near to a gold dragon when it noticed me.

damn, that's a bad case of waiting too long.

Anyway. The only thing I see remotely working in this scenario is:

Fog then Teleport then ambrosia

[lemon10]

He already died, but that wouldn't have worked. He has red poison, which means that he would die if he didn't do something about the very first turn.

Someone did point out that shadow form is immune to poison, so if he used it, then used his summoning scroll he *might* have been able to survive.

[Tiruin]

Heeey guys I need your help:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

How stupid it was to come near to a gold dragon when it noticed me.

Chug that invisibility potion then run ALL THE WAY to that staircase at the lower left
Or that haste potion, whichever you believe can help you more. I'm more for the haste potion though.

[Scoops Novel]

Sanity checked gifs of my run so far. Feedback wanted!

Those of you seeing this again, I've updated it to actually make sense.

Chronicles of Ted the Dead, ogre summoner -

Levels 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Meet Finton the Smitten. Level 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Just a dash of Howitzer the Crowd Pleaser; Level 9, 10, 11

and finally Glorious Calvin the Downtrodden

[RoguelikeRazuka]

It's going to get me!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What do I do? It seems that this creature is too much tough for my spells, but I'm unsure about how to escape this thing, let alone with destroying it.