Hello everyone,
I’m reading alot of reddit post about the casters but everything is really old and some post aren’t true anymore: in your opinion what’s the easiest race/background caster?
I read about EE (due to the damage) or Alchemist … any advice?
Djinni Conjurer is awesome. You get to cast a lot of spells without having to worry about going OOM, and you get to see a bunch of spellcasting variety while doing it.
Rough guide:
Solely train spells until prism/mystic blast are under 5% fail, then can add fighting for some more hp and dodge/shields for defensives. HP regen items are huge, so pray for an early regen amulet or a troll armor. For gods, I like playing either Makhleb for the HP regen or Cheibriados so you can be better at everything and wear heavy armor. The initial 4 conjuring spells are really all you need until like L8-L9 spells. Kiting with prisms and mystic blasting anything that gets into melee range can deal with practically any threat until late game spells come online.
DjCo is really good, about Mak which mark will you choose?
I like DjCj too. DjCjGoz is my favorite caster combo. Just keep in mind that DjCj doesn’t teach you some playing skills you’ll need for other, more “normal” casters–for example, MP management, spell slot allocation, school choices, etc. (Also, you don’t get to play with a specific spell outside your starting set unless the RNGs like you. That randomness is one of the things I love about Dj, but it can create more puzzles mid-late game.)
Draconian Conj is a pretty safe start. They’re beefy, don’t need armor, have starting tools that can get your through at least Elf (with 2 runes), and give you a free gimmick later.
Gargoyles are OK too, with all those free defenses, but personally, I don’t like the lower HP. It cuts down my margin of safety too much. That said, the lower HP can be a good tool to teach newer players early threat detection and early consumable usage–at the price of a couple of splats…
I’ve never been a huge fan of Dj since you get locked into a spell set.
Give MfAl^Ash a try. The alchemist starting book can see you through s-branches and you can actually use all the other spells you pick up along the way. Get a couple levels of stealth, push spell schools until Meph is online, then about 6 points into fighting/dodge/armour, and then get OTR/Sticky online. Don’t over invest in armour though since granite is better and the -3 apt blows darts.
Pick up the first dagger or short sword you can find. Once you have mesh you’ll be stabbing stuff regularly for a while, so 2 or 3 points plus the couple you invested in stealth go a long way here.
Ash makes your skill points stretch, with sinv and clarity icing on the cake. You’ll have a solid hybrid caster by Vault, and once you find a granite talisman you’ve pretty much got the 4-rune game locked down. It’s almost a guaranteed drop around the time you’re doing your runes because Roxanne lives down that way.
By the time you’re getting your 3rd and 4th rune you’ll probably feel pretty OP. Still risky in Zot as always, but MfAl^Ash is a solid, easy caster build.
imo, celebrant or haemoclasm are the best rolls, then fanatic if you actually use Mak’s abilities, and carnage is ok with low invo investment. If I don’t roll any of these, I’ll usually not take a mark, and if I roll Shoals, I try not to take a mark until after I kill all the enemies throwing piercing, unlockable, silver projectiles.
Also, I just worship Mak for the lifesteal, and I never use his abilities.
You really should use his abilities a bit more, 0.32 really made Makhleb viable, before that, everyone just used him like you, for life steal and nothing else.
Thanks for the replies. At the moment I reached 1 rune only with a DjCj but every run that I lost with this combo is due to my sensation to be immortal 
I need more details about your answers:
I’m really happy about caster runs, ok: I never went too far, but the strategic playing is really fun (instead of the MiFi “wreck everything on your corridor” runs )
Gargoyle is an easy S-tier species, poison immunity is big (although Djinni also gets that), and permanent rElec, rTorm, and rN+ is excellent. The AC boosts more than compensate for the reduced HP, they have good earth magic, which is one of my favorite schools, can go Vehumet, unlike djinni, immunity to petrification and sleep is situationally helpful, and the perma-flight at XL 14 is a cherry on top.
Why Goz:
It’s entirely a matter of personal choice.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with going Mak. I just find Mak redundant when I am piloting a DjCj.
Mak offers me (1) a backup gun, (2) solid summons, and (3) heal on kills.
When I am running a Cj, I’ve already got good enough guns in the form of Prism and IMB. Heal on kills only help me, well, when I kill. So in 1-on-1 fights, it doesn’t matter until the fight is over. With mob-on-1 fights, I’m either (or should be) running away/resetting if the mob is risky, or Troll Leather/Amulet (or Goz pot/distract) is enough if the mob is easy.
Don’t get me wrong, heal on kill is pretty sweet as are the demon pets and rando gun, but I’m okay trading those for Goz’s (1) guarantee that I’ll be able to buy whatever I find, (2) distraction on kill, (3) increased access to healing/haste/resist/inviso, and (4) massive life insurance when I go for Zot or V5 (bribe, baby, bribe!).
In other words, given my personal play preferences, Goz gives better return on the god slot than Mak. I often go non-Goz just to see what other gods are like (esp when they change em up, like in 0.32). But if I really want a win? It’s Goz for me.
Meph:
It confuses a LOT of stuff, even late into the game. Including you, if you aren’t rP. But if you are Gr or Dj, you are rP, heh. So Meph point blank and go nuts whacking those now helpless enemies or run away. Be sure to xv check the targets first, just to make sure you can Meph em.
OTR/Ignite P:
Try it in Wiz mode. OTR stacks P on the targets. Then Ignite, and it’ll do some serious dmg. Rinse, repeat, profit.
Ignite also makes Meph usable vs rP enemies. Meph + Ignite is one of the best ways to get renewable death clouds. Just don’t stand it the Meph when you set it off…
(Ignite also combos with Bog later, if you happen to roll those with a Dj.)
Thanks for the replies.
Atm I’m a bit disappointed because I fucked up my run: was on L5, ready to easy run everything thanks to IMB, Prism and boulder (wonderfull comb with Prism), 11 armor, 11 evasion, 11 shield 15ish fight … in short: ready to kill everything.
Then I found a dragon (a big one) tried to killed it and misplaced the finish prism: I blow myself up 
Condolences. FWIW, you’re not the only one who’s done that. And now you know! Now go back in there and kill!
I’m trying a DjCj^Goz run, I not full understanded the ultimate ability, but I’ll see it somewhere in V5 
Bribe works like this: stand on the entrance to the area you want to bribe. For example, if you want to bribe Zot 1-5, stand on the entrance to Zot from Depth. If you want to bribe Vault 5, stand on the set of stairs on V4 that will lead you down to V5. Then bribe. Goz takes a bunch of your cash and sets it aside.
Now, as you encounter enemies, the game does a check to see if they’ll be bribed. If they are bribed, they can become either neutral (leaves you alone unless you hurt them), or friendly (they’ll follow you around and fight on your behalf). Then some cash is taken out of the funds that got set aside. You can check how much money is left using the ^ command and scrolling to (I think) the 3rd menu. If you run low, you can fund again by reusing that ability.
You can bribe a floor/branch you’re already in, but really, if the place is dangerous enough to warrant bribing, you want to do that before even dipping a toe in there–it’s that whole “use your consumables early” idea. Once an enemy sees you, there’s no bribe check. So you it’s too late to try to bribe that Titan after he starts beating on your head.
Bribe uses up a lot of money, but it can do things like turn an Orb of Fire or a Dread Lich into your ally. It’s saved my bacon a few times when a trap teleported me into a fully stocked Zot lung just as I entered Z5.
If I have cash left after grabbing the orb, I bribe my way back up, cause what else am I gonna do with that money?
My Goz run brutally ended due to miscalculations
Now I’m in this run: https://underhound.eu/crawl/morgue/Yukuai/Yukuai.txt
Level 17, going for the 1st rune in spider, I encountered Bai Suzhen and did it relatively easy 
I don’t wanna die
About Bribe: WTF, sounds useful! I need to retry it
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand after 1 minute I died by an orb spider that I didn’t managed.
I need a break.
Hello everyone,
I’m in a run with a DjCj^Chei, XL19, 2 runes, did only D10 L5 Shoal and Snake.
What I can do now?
Atm I’m at O1 aiming to do O and Elvish, I’ve got an entrance of Slime Pit but I don’t know what to do after O, if anyone can suggest me it would be great!
Char dump:
https://underhound.eu/crawl/morgue/Yukuai/Yukuai.txt
Typically, I explore like this:
D → Lair
Do all of Lair
D → 11 or 12, depending on what I run into
Do all of Orc
D → 15 / S branches, order depending on what I run into
Do all of Elf
Do Vault 1-4
Crypt / Depths, order depending on what I run into
Do all of Slime (carefully!)
Do V5
Do Zot
Extended (Pan, Abyss, Hell, Tomb) if I felt like it
Slime is really nasty. Way worse than the other two Lair branches. Don’t go in there without a plan to deal with the Royal Jelly.
The biggest power boosts usually come from Orc 2 shops, Elf 3 vault, Crypt 3 vault, Slime 5 vault, Vault 5. Those places tend to have the most loot. The timed vaults, e.g., Labyrinth, Ice Cave, Wizard Lab, etc., tend to give good returns, but those can also be VERY deadly. Don’t kill yourself trying to find them and don’t be afraid to run back out if the situation looks too risky.
Also, looking through your dump file, I noticed the following:
I wouldn’t bother to train Armor much higher for just Troll Leather. With Chei, you can’t find anything heavier?
I see you haven’t used Malign Gateway or Enfeeble. Those are good spells. For Gateway, lure the opponent into an open room with another exit, cast Gateway, run towards the other exit. The tentacle that comes out of the gate will trash pretty much anything. But it might whack you too, that’s why you back up. Cast Enfeeble on anything tough, esp spellcasters (like the high level Dark Elves). It weakens and gives a % to disrupt their magic. If they fail a will check, it does other things too, but the biggies are the weaken/antimagic. Play around with both vs easy enemies to get a feel for em before you use either vs a real opponent.
Thanks for the reply, I try to explain:
1- I’ve got Troll for the regen, I searching for a good armor but I really feel that regen is a must have for a Dj.
2- Malign Gateway make me scared 
, I feel that when I’ll use it I’ll die for the tentacles :-D. Is it good to be used on Zot Lungs? Enfeeble is good, yep, I did Elven Halls without casting it because I forget to have it
Now I’ll go for D15 and afeter that V1-4.
I need the third run to try a Zot run