CIP: SpCK of Xom, cleared Lair and Orc and have interesting choices!

The Tavern YASD! YAVP! CIP!
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Way to early to have any confidence, but I’ve got an interesting Spriggan Chaos Knight of Xom going.

Morgue link here

Good luck so far:

Got a troll leather armor fairly early:

8509 | D:9 | Noticed a troll
8550 | D:9 | Noticed a two-headed ogre
8571 | D:9 | Killed a troll

Got a nice hand cannon in Lair…(had been getting by with a +0 sling, then a +1 orc bow):

15530 | Lair:3 | Identified a scroll of acquirement
15530 | Lair:3 | Acquired a +0 hand cannon of electrocution

Then this thing showed up (I haven’t used it yet):

21195 | D:12 | Found the +8 lance “Wyrmbane” {slay drac, rPois rF+ rC+
| AC+3}

And this interesting piece of armor:

22970 | Orc:2 | Bought a smouldering robe for 188 gold pieces
22970 | Orc:2 | Identified the +2 robe of Repulsion {-Tele rPois Regen+
| Str+2} (You bought it in a shop on level 2 of the Orcish
| Mines)

I plan to stay primarily as a ranged hunter, but I’m almost at min delay for the hand cannon now. I’ve been getting by with various branded short blades for when enemies close in on me, but I wonder…should I skill into that Wyrmbane for that purpose going forward? At -3 aptitude it’d be a touch expensive, but I only need 12 to reach min delay, and I might not need need min delay. My hand cannon is my best weapon now, but Xom has berzerked me once already, and there are moths of wrath, it’d be nice to have a great melee weapon for that.

The Robe of Repulsion {-Tele rPois Regen+ Str+2} has nothing to do with “repulsion,” ironically, but the -Tele might save me from the worst of Xom’s teleportation tricks, which could be especially nice going forward as a squishy Spriggan. Maybe? As I splat each CK often it is those teleports that lead to death, and with a Spriggan especially, managing safe retreat routes is quite important. Maybe I wear this robe when I have poor Xom piety, and the troll leather when I have good piety?

Any other thoughts or tips appreciated!

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My understanding is that Wyrmbane is particularly OP if you can get it to +18 (or even higher) by slaying dragons with it.

My understanding is also that handcannons are particularly good because you can wield them with a shield, but I wouldn’t expect 1/4 of your EV as SH to be particularly valuable?

-Tele is certainly worth using in the neighbourhood of dispersal traps, if you run out of ?Blink, and probably in all of Zot. I don’t know outside of that, I’d personally want to have ?Blink available, but that’s because I’m a sloppy player.

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Seems I’ve leveled Shields enough that I lose only 1 EV when equipping the buckler.

Since reaching level 19 I’ve dodged 272 things, blocked 96, and taken hits 80 times. So, over half of the stuff I don’t dodge I block. Seems worth it!

Yeah. From my experience, it is pretty easy to level it up pretty fast once you enter Depths. Since this post I’ve gotten Dispersal castable, so I’ve become much less afraid of things in melee range. I’d still like a good melee option, though, but I’ve stopped leveling Polearms for now.

Yes, I read some stuff on Reddit where people advised against -Tele on Armour since you can’t swap it quickly, and lack of Tele/Blink could end up killing you. It is great on a ring or weapon, though, if only to step over those annoying traps in the Zot lung.

I dunno, I’m a “usually careful” player and I still screw up often. With Xom’s antics I want blink/tele/etc. available regardless!

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Ended up winning this one (3 runes): https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/ForkInBrain/morgue-ForkInBrain-20240319-203845.txt

Probably should have ignored the Wyrmbane entirely. I used it for “fun” against dragons but past a certain point hand cannons were taking them down faster.

I wore the artifact robe with -Tele (and Regen) in Zot:5. I got marked three or four times there, but never while I was too far away from stairs. “Routine.”

First time I have used Disjunction. Pretty cool. Probably saved me multiple teleport and blink scrolls. Pretty funny to have a hasted Dread lich charging you and repeatedly blinking away.

Xom, well, probably never again. Did it to check it off the list. I’m happier with less RNG.

Funniest antic was Xom summoning two Ufetubi in a calm monent in Zot:3 and saying “Fight for your life!”

I will say that Xom seemed to be nicer to me as a Spriggan than with the Troll Chaos Knights I was splatting. Maybe with the faster movement speed Xom got less bored?

2 Thanks