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Araganzar posted:Here are all the spells that are worth casting as a smashman in plate once you get fighting/dodging/armor to 12 or so.... I'd put Swiftness on the first list, as it's a lifesaving disengagement tool and is close to free if you're getting Repel Missiles anyway. Spectral Weapon shines a bit more on hybrid characters (especially polearms) as its damage/defenses scale with spellpower. Lesser beckoning/portal projectile might be more relevant to low-int builds.
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Jan 25, 2017 05:28
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How to play stealthy, shamelessly oversimplified Option 1: be an enchanter, supplement with summoning or conjurations in late game. Option 2: be an assassin, pick dithmenos and train evocations. Early for wands; late for spider sacks. Option 3: be an assassin, pick okawaru for needle gifts and swords. Use cross training to support sword and board as your plan b if you can't break past armor. Might and berserk for Zot. Option 4: be a vinestalker, worship loving Trog. Option 5: worship qazlal while using the singing sword and gong.
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Jan 25, 2017 07:38
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LordSloth posted:Option 5: worship qazlal while using the singing sword and gong. LordSloth posted:Option 5: worship qazlal while using the singing sword and gong. LordSloth posted:Option 5: worship qazlal while using the singing sword and gong. LordSloth posted:Option 5: worship qazlal while using the singing sword and gong. LordSloth posted:Option 5: worship qazlal while using the singing sword and gong. actually these are the five options
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Jan 25, 2017 09:36
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Ferrinus posted:That's why the weapon skills should be renamed to stuff like "lunging" "cleaving" and "riposting" and give you increasingly strong or reliable versions of the named powers as they're leveled up. This was from a while ago, but my internet was out. That change would make weapon choice effectively cosmetic. I like that the weapon categories in crawl all do different things, but I don't like the way the game handles weapons and weapon skills in general. Base damage is an obscure mechanic that confuses new players, min delay results in lots of weird magic numbers and enchant weapon scrolls are generally enough to reinforce specializing in a single weapon. If I were to ever go completely mad and write a fork of Crawl, here's what I would do with weapon skills: -Specific weapon skills are gone -- you get -1 attack delay in a weapon type of your choice at 12 fighting and another -1 at 24, either in the same weapon type or in a different one. The base delay of all weapons is adjusted to match. -Weapons now have a base accuracy and the effects of accuracy and evasion are greatly increased. Beating an opponent's evasion by a certain amount increases your damage depending on the amount by which you beat it. This is also a much needed nerf to heavy armor melee, since you'll be more vulnerable to highly accurate monsters. -In place of weapon skills, there are now two skills: Power and Grace. Power increases the damage of your weapon, modified by strength and Grace scales up its accuracy, modified by dex. Fighting gives a small bonus to both. These skills would be quite cheap. A typical hybrid can probably get a high score in one and a low score in the other and followers of okawaru, ash and trog can probably have high scores in both. -Unarmed remains its own skill that increases the base accuracy and damage of unarmed combat, but in order for it to be effective you need either grace or power to back it up. Unarmed still requires high investment, and still ends up the strongest in the end if you have a high score in all three skills. -Short blades remain the weakest weapon type, with slightly lower accuracy than other light weapons and lower base damage, but can stab. Or maybe they're just removed entirely and all light weapons can stab. -The number of weapons is reduced and weapon types are simplified. Each weapon category has a light, accurate weapon and a heavy, powerful weapon for both one-handers and two-handers. Rare weapon types, like triple swords and demon whips have high base accuracy and damage, meaning they are the choice for characters that can afford to invest heavily in each school. Edit: What you posted is a really good idea, though, if weapons did more than their special property and "damage" or "more damage". Heithinn Grasida fucked around with this message at 11:26 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 11:00
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Jan 25, 2017 16:59
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Heithinn Grasida posted:This was from a while ago, but my internet was out. That change would make weapon choice effectively cosmetic. I like that the weapon categories in crawl all do different things, but I don't like the way the game handles weapons and weapon skills in general. Base damage is an obscure mechanic that confuses new players, min delay results in lots of weird magic numbers and enchant weapon scrolls are generally enough to reinforce specializing in a single weapon. I figure that weapons could either keep their properties or get new orthogonal ones. Like if swords still riposte, then if you're holding a sword you get two chances to riposte each time you dodge, one flat and one skill-based. Orrr weapons go to a more damage type-y model where some are better at punching through armor, some are more accurate, some reward accuracy more, etc. In a really crazy world you could straight up start distinguishing between, I don't know, Piercing Slashing and Crushing damage and different enemies would be resistant against each so it'd behoove you to carry multiple weapons for the same reason a wizard doesn't want to exclusively train fire spells.
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Jan 25, 2017 23:46
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I mean this is incredibly game-design intensive and will require a huge amount of balancing and boring stuff but: Essentially, the issues I have are melee characters' play seems to involve less choices and less active decisions, and it seems like the choices don't matter. Additionally they have a ton of extra XP hanging around. Here's my dumb idea: Replace all of the weapon skills with "melee skills" or whatever. They would be things like "Crushing" for Maces and "Reaching" for polearms, "Dirty Fighting" for Short Blades, etc. Keep fighting and the defensive skills (maybe add one for Magic Resist, I dunno?), and maybe add one that just gives passive damage to any melee weapon like Weapon skills do now. The "magic point" of Weapon Skills is already seen as a problem. Each skill would give a passive "stance" (poise? Let's use that unused key) and gain some active maneuvers as they level up. You'd have to make the choice of what you want at any given moment, and maybe switching should be fairly quick. At a higher level, maybe you can have two active. The stance gives some passive bonuses and a base effect (IE, more damage on stabs, enabling Cleaves, enabling repostes). The manuevers are like spells for weapons. These can take mana or something (rename mana if grogs complain who cares). They can do things like a larger cleave for an attack, disarming, temporary distracting enemies for stabs, or etc. Just mine D&D feats and spells for more cool things you can do. Each Weapon "type" would be tagged with two different skills that they get the full effect of. Like Staves could some sort of mobility/re-positioning school and reaching, whips could be Cleaving and Dirty Fighting, etc. Weapon choice still matters, and you can have the same upgrades and choices between slow and fast in a category. It also lets you do something with the weirder weapons now, like Scythes being a choice if you want reaching and cleave. I'd still want (for example) Crushing to be primarily passives (and another) just so you can make a viable build that plays similar to now, with O-Tabbing and stuff. Just pick Maces or something. Each weapon would still be able to benefit in some ways from "minor" skills, maybe being able to use actives up to a certain skill level or something. So you can branch out if you really, really want a certain active skill. I have no idea what you'd do with unarmed/ranged but maybe something similar can happen. The downside is you're making The Dancing God more redundant but really that guy rocks and everyone having active play like that would be awesome. Carados fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 01:32
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Well I made it nicely far with the above advice, at least for me  Got my first rune and almost got my second but Trog got pissed at me and dropped mans on me twice in a row. Second set killed me as I was resting up from the first. In retrospect I should have just tele'd the hell out instead of trying to fight but I got cocky because I had like 55 AC and was crushing everything. That's how you learn I think.In other news, gargoyles just feel OP as hell compared to other races I have played. I feel like I'm immune to everything, and autofly owns hard.
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Jan 26, 2017 05:49
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Did you abandon Trog or accidentally read a book somehow?
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Jan 26, 2017 05:53
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Abandoned him because I didn't need weapon gifts anymore and already had an amulet of rage.
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Jan 26, 2017 06:15
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Kaedric posted:Well I made it nicely far with the above advice, at least for me I was going to write earlier since the way you describe your playing is exactly how I learned how to play the game. Some combos: - MiFi: Super aptitudes, super tough, can still wear hats. Go swords if one-handed, Axes if two - FoFi: Goodish aptitudes, can use two handers (suggest axes) with shields, can't teleport/haste. Most important for these guys is learn how to murderhole. Might be my favourite. - GaFi: OP as hell, poison immunity makes Lair/Spider/Snake a lot easier. Intrinsic flight makes Swamp/Shoals a lot easier. Suggest flails for eventual Eveningstar for shield users or Great Mace for not. - VSFi: Not immediately as tough as the above, but if you're willing to run away a lot in the beginning their high bite damage and regeneration means you'll either kill quick, or recover quick from things you can't originally kill. Anti-magic bite pays dividends even into extended against Pan lords and Hell lords. I've 15 runed all of the the above across several versions, several times without learning a single spell. Okawaru is the god of choice for these kinds of guys for me above Trog; I'm just addicted to the panic button of Heroism/Finesse at low invocation skill, plus the more diverse equipment gifting.
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Jan 26, 2017 06:29
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I don't think I've ever tried okawaru. I'll give it a whirl. I want to like formicid but not being able to tele terrifies me.
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Jan 26, 2017 06:45
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If you get bored of 'traditional' fighting races, try a halfling! I find HaFi and HaBe to be surprisingly powerful fighters as well. Being small is a big defensive advantage, and you're not as fragile as a Kobold. You can pour points into armour, shields, and dodging and become a mega-tank. My last win was a HaFi^Ash, who went relatively deep into evocations and stealth. After two runes, I used Ash to convert the skill investment to charms, then got Haste (rip) castable and switched to TSO. A halfling with a Eudemon Blade, a good shield, and foo-dragon armour is a force to be reckoned with. Or you can just be a HoMo
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Jan 26, 2017 06:50
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Kaedric posted:Abandoned him because I didn't need weapon gifts anymore and already had an amulet of rage. Just so you know, the other abilities Trog gives you (Trogs hand for extra magic resist, Brothers in arms for summoning friendly shitwreckers) are very powerful abilities for a 3 rune game and can easily win you the game.
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Jan 26, 2017 07:10
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Kaedric posted:Abandoned him because I didn't need weapon gifts anymore and already had an amulet of rage. Carcer posted:Just so you know, the other abilities Trog gives you (Trogs hand for extra magic resist, Brothers in arms for summoning friendly shitwreckers) are very powerful abilities for a 3 rune game and can easily win you the game.
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Jan 26, 2017 07:47
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God abandonment is one of my least favorite parts of the game, I wouldn't mind if they removed it entirely. At the very least, it should be rebalanced so that it isn't suicidal for new players who are just getting familiar with the religion system, while endgame players should still have serious consequences for abandonment. Maybe have wrath be miminal to nonexistent if you haven't spent much time worshipping a God, and have much more serious consequences if you abandon after a lot of time. Okawaru could take away your gifts and drain your combat skills, while Kiku could take away Necromancy skill or have you forget spells that he helped you learn.
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Jan 26, 2017 08:02
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Carados posted:I mean this is incredibly game-design intensive and will require a huge amount of balancing and boring stuff but: Don't trust me on this, it's 2 AM and my memories shoddy. But while passives and stances would be cool (IMO) making them more spell-like would be problematic (IDO). A good portion of crawl regulars (though I couldn't say whether it's a majority or not) are not fans of TOME, for instance, where everything is a spell and cooldown. On the other hand, from what I vaguely remember from devs and am maybe 75% accurate, they don't really want to add more a-abilities and additional keystrokes gumming up the play of your melee types - for instance, the removal of prayer. That's an oversimplification, of course, because I can't remember what they said about the other half - spells, gods, evocable items, etc. I think you'll get more promising feedback if you focus on passives or stances or something, and also keep in mind the whole issue gourmand/regen had where someone would be swapping stuff on and off all the time - that can get a little tedious to some if there isn't a purpose. Now I'm gonna go sleep and maybe, just maybe, actually figure out if this is written down clearly somewhere. I kinda feel it was?
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Jan 26, 2017 08:06
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Also aren't you less likey to pass out from berserking under trog or did I just imagine that?
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Jan 26, 2017 08:11
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Ferrinus posted:I figure that weapons could either keep their properties or get new orthogonal ones. Like if swords still riposte, then if you're holding a sword you get two chances to riposte each time you dodge, one flat and one skill-based. Orrr weapons go to a more damage type-y model where some are better at punching through armor, some are more accurate, some reward accuracy more, etc. Would all weapons scale in damage, accuracy and delay with the highest of your weapon skills? I'm still not sure how you could effectively distinguish weapon types that way. Double riposte is workable, if maybe a little weird, but double cleaving and double reaching don't make much sense. I'm not really sure there's design space for many new weapon abilities: look at how long it took for riposte to be implemented. Damage types under a system where you have access to all weapons just seems annoying. It's interesting to play around with one monster in Crawl, but constant weapon switching would get old. Differentiating weapons through accuracy and AC piercing might work, but I don't think it fits very well with Crawl's stat system. If damage and accuracy for all weapons are both coming from one skill then that only leaves stats and a handful of special cases to modify accuracy and base damage. But strength and dex are not very strongly differentiated on most characters, and even when they are, it's very possible to gain a huge bonus to one or the other from gear. That means you're not really building towards any weapon type and don't have much sense of agency or control in your choice of weapon. That's why I want two weapon skills, one for accuracy and one for base damage with accuracy playing a far more important role in the game than it does now. This differentiates weapons based on their weight towards accuracy or damage while allowing more interesting choices of weapon and build. It also keeps stats in place as important, but secondary determinants of damage output. With a greatly stripped down weapon system, attaching weapon passives to skills would also make sense, but it would be quite hard to do it while keeping weapon types distinct without both drastically reducing the number of weapons and having more than one damage determining skill to allow the player to build towards certain weapons. Carados posted:I mean this is incredibly game-design intensive and will require a huge amount of balancing and boring stuff but: I think Lord Sloth already expressed this clearly, but I think it's explicitly part of Crawl's design that melee combat remain as simple as possible. Even quite a few people don't like evoking polearms to perform reaching attacks. I don't think a more elaborate system involving stances and abilities would be bad, but it would have to belong to a different game. But Crawl's melee system is by no means perfect. Sil's is much better: it gives interesting, but very simple skills that change the nature of combat a lot (flanking, tactical retreat, zone of control, etc.). There are no extra button presses and combat is a lot more dynamic with more tactics and choices. Crawl has the advantage of not being maddeningly frustrating to play, however. The experimental Council god (unless that's what you mean rather than Uskayaw) gives movement based skills, one of which is identical to Sil's flanking+whirlwind. I think adding those abilities to a god really fits Crawl well, though, and I really hope the council god makes it in. I'm not sure they're appropriate for every character, however. But, I completely agree that the relationship with weapon skills and weapons is very boring. Pay more XP to use a bigger weapon is serviceable, but doesn't offer many interesting choices.
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Jan 26, 2017 08:33
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someone awful. posted:Also aren't you less likey to pass out from berserking under trog or did I just imagine that? Also less likely to get pasted by stone giants summoned by the wrath of trog
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Jan 26, 2017 18:31
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bot posted:When non-xom-effect berserk ends, there is a 1 in 10 + (rage_mutation_level * 25) chance of passing out (1d4 paralysis). Trog gives an extra piety/160 chance of avoiding passing out (so guaranteed protection at ******).
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Jan 26, 2017 19:03
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Personally, I like weapons the way they are. But if I had to theorize on a different way of doing things, like what you propose, I would make each class of weapon keep its original ability. So all polearms would always reach, and all axes always cleave. Then, when you've trained the "Reaching" or "Cleaving" skill to the proper level, you'd be able to reach and cleave with other weapons. You could include Speed and Damage as skills, also. Though, it would probably be wise to keep stabbing separate, as the Boots of the Assassin repeatedly demonstrate. Since you don't want these abilities to only trigger sometimes (IE a percentage of attacks), you would need to base the necessary skill level off of the weapon tier, so it'd be low-investment to get a reaching, cleaving, riposte-ing Whip or Falchion, but quite hard to get a Great Mace or Triple Sword to the same level of versatility. Hilariously, this thought experiment increases the number of hard breakpoints for weapon users.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:24
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Kaedric posted:I don't think I've ever tried okawaru. I'll give it a whirl. I want to like formicid but not being able to tele terrifies me. What I found, especially early on is that I'd forget to use tele in the heat of battle or fall into the "can't use consumables what if???" trap so going formicid simplified that for me.
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Jan 26, 2017 22:09
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Scaramouche posted:What I found, especially early on is that I'd forget to use tele in the heat of battle or fall into the "can't use consumables what if???" trap so going formicid simplified that for me. Naga was like this for me. You learn to always be cautious because there's no way you're outrunning anything dangerous.
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Jan 26, 2017 22:15
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someone awful. posted:Also aren't you less likey to pass out from berserking under trog or did I just imagine that? Yes, and with high enough piety the chance to prevent it reaches 100%. He also grants you longer berserking in general (killing an enemy while berserk makes him add more turns to the duration). Even if you have another source of going berserk, sticking with Trog will make you better at it.
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Jan 26, 2017 23:07
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Hey returning to the after a game long time, what happened to Sludge Elf? What would I play now if I want to play Sludge Elf Enchanter, actually could someone really quickly summarise the current hot builds or link me them? TIA
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Jan 26, 2017 23:07
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What's Slime like these days with the changes to Corrode/rMut? I'm running a HECj with Firestorm hungerless and have the 3 basic runes (Shoals, Snake, Vault). I was thinking of trying to go for Slime and potentially Abyss before deciding on Pan/Hell, but before I splat my character to some crazy new threat in Slime, I wanted to see if there was anything I needed to know.
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Jan 26, 2017 23:52
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I just did Slime on a DEFE with Firestorm and burned down the royal jelly with about 5 casts of it. It's really easy for a strong caster imo. Avoid the walls. It's easier just to dive it.
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Jan 26, 2017 23:58
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I find that even with a melee character, might, haste, burn TRJ, tele away from the spawns is pretty consistent. You gotta wear rCorr though. You also need a ranged option for shining eyes (which really should be just straight up replaced with wretched stars imo)and possibly a cmut potion if you get unlucky, but the ranged option is something you should already have before you even have your first rune. Cmut access can be one of the deciding factors in whether you do slime or vaults for your third rune though for sure (and you should really stop at 3 unless you have a few stocked up).
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Jan 27, 2017 00:06
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rCorr is more of a suggestion than a guideline for blaster mages, however. Making things disappear in a blaze of magic in a couple turns mean they have no chance to melt you! Also no, I'm far more happy seeing a shining eye than a wretched star. However if we're talking taking its gaze and converting it to temp muts then yes, I'll agree to that change.
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Jan 27, 2017 00:19
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If you don't have some kind of piercing ranged attack or at the very least good AoE (immolation or cleaving at minimum) TRJ can end up being a huge pain, because it spits out a bunch of jellies then retreats behind them, and now you have an increasing corrosion stack, a wall of acid blobs and azure jellies, and TRJ is regenerating its health. Unless you have a lot of damage and can kill it immediately you can quickly end up in a downward spiral of corrosion. You'll end up being forced to bail to reset corrosion stack and the fight, only now there are even more wandering slimes on the floor. Of course, a firestorm caster doesn't care about corrosion or meat shields so they have no issues there.
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Jan 27, 2017 00:25
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IMO as someone who plays near-exclusively dumb melee characters, slime is almost always easier to clear than V5.
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Jan 27, 2017 00:39
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Yeah, decided to go for it and it was a breeze. Royal Jelly was a total chump
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Jan 27, 2017 00:44
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Brendan Rodgers posted:Hey returning to the after a game long time, what happened to Sludge Elf? What would I play now if I want to play Sludge Elf Enchanter, actually could someone really quickly summarise the current hot builds or link me them? TIA not sure what was particularly attractive about sludge elf enchanter; +0 hexes is not really amazing. spriggans & vampires are popular for enchanters generally, though most races will work, since it's a pretty strong background. re hot builds, are there any playstyles you're interested in?
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Jan 27, 2017 01:33
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Well this seems decent: Z - the +8 quick blade of the Unseen Realm (weapon) {pierce, +Blink rPois MR+ Int+3}. Wonder if I should stop training slings :x
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Jan 27, 2017 01:34
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I really like vampires, but I think their hunger minigame is tedious. I wish their metabolism was halved or something.
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Jan 27, 2017 02:07
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PleasingFungus posted:not sure what was particularly attractive about sludge elf enchanter; +0 hexes is not really amazing. spriggans & vampires are popular for enchanters generally, though most races will work, since it's a pretty strong background. Not sure what you're talking about buddy. Enchanters are good at enchantments.
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Jan 27, 2017 02:26
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Heithinn Grasida posted:Would all weapons scale in damage, accuracy and delay with the highest of your weapon skills? I'm still not sure how you could effectively distinguish weapon types that way. Double riposte is workable, if maybe a little weird, but double cleaving and double reaching don't make much sense. I'm not really sure there's design space for many new weapon abilities: look at how long it took for riposte to be implemented. Damage types under a system where you have access to all weapons just seems annoying. It's interesting to play around with one monster in Crawl, but constant weapon switching would get old. Differentiating weapons through accuracy and AC piercing might work, but I don't think it fits very well with Crawl's stat system. If damage and accuracy for all weapons are both coming from one skill then that only leaves stats and a handful of special cases to modify accuracy and base damage. But strength and dex are not very strongly differentiated on most characters, and even when they are, it's very possible to gain a huge bonus to one or the other from gear. That means you're not really building towards any weapon type and don't have much sense of agency or control in your choice of weapon. A riposting skill could add to your chance of riposte, a cleaving skill could add to cleave damage, etc. Possibly different weapons would even have thresholds for when certain passive combat skills 'turn on' for them - like, you'd need huge Cleaving to be able to cleave with a dagger. I'd probably base your core acc/damage/delay off either Fighting alone or Fighting and some combination of the "extra passive attack effects" skills, and different weapons would look at different skills to determine their damage. Probably more advanced and powerful weapons want multiple skills, so a triple sword wants (but also rewards) riposting, cleaving, and lunging.
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Jan 27, 2017 02:31
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Getting a bit nervous with my HECj of Veh. Just killed Anteus and got the Icy rune for the first time ever in my crawl career. My previous best was a 5 rune win (3 + Abyss and Slime). He's a Firestorm Caster which made Cocytus easier (actually it was way easier than I expected), but I'm not sure where to go next. I should probably head to the Abyss as it's considered an easier rune than Hell, but man I hate those mutation stars with a passion. Maybe I should hit up Tartarus or start trawling through Pan. Any suggestions on which is the next easiest place to go?
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Jan 27, 2017 02:48
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Fitzy Fitz posted:I really like vampires, but I think their hunger minigame is tedious. I wish their metabolism was halved or something. I'm playing a vampire now and I just completely ignore it. I drink all the blood and I never dip below very full unless I'm not paying attention. Going to try Crypt now and see how that changes things. I agree that I basically hate the mechanic, though. The game encourages manipulating hunger levels, but actually doing so is awful.
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Jan 27, 2017 03:48
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