Easiest caster for beginner

The Tavern Dungeon Crawling Advice
21

Oh, there’s nothing wrong with wearing Troll Leather on a caster (esp Dj). I’m just saying you don’t get much return on the Armor skill investment when you are wearing lighter armor. Armor’s biggest benefit is giving you free AC based on your base AC. Base AC of leather is puny. So a bonus % based on puny is still puny. With Plate, for example, the base AC is much bigger, so the % bonus from Armor when you wear plate is much bigger. So when I am running around in armor with puny base AC (like Troll Leather), I don’t pump that much XP into Armor. I pump that XP into something else, like Fighting for HP, Dodge, Shield, or main gun.

Armor also reduces encumbrance which helps with things like casting success %. But with Chei, you already have enough STR and INT to not care about modest body armor encumbrance, so you don’t need to pump Armor skill to wear heavier armor and still cast those fat spells.

Malign Gateway is good in places well before Zot 5. Any place with like, a 5x5 or bigger room is fine. The game will tell you if you can’t open a gate in the area you are currently in, so you don’t have to calculate it. And yes, the tentacle can kill you, but it shouldn’t if you back away. If you just stand next to it and blast away, then yea, you are gonna get eaten probably. But you shouldn’t be standing there blasting anyway… Test it vs easy stuff like an ogre or ettin or something, to get a feel for it.

22

Third rune: most of the time, it’ll be Vault or Slime or Abyss. All three have special gimmicks.

Vault 5 has you surrounded facing the possibility of being locked out from climbing back up and then a nearly endless stream of tough enemies (up to and including Ancient Liches) come out and try to eat your face.

Slime has mutations, paralysis, corrosion, engulf, trample, confusion, fast enemies, and a boss that spawns a bunch of jellies whenever you hurt it. I’ve seen a lot of folks die when they think they are safe because they got engulfed or knocked off the stairs at the wrong time.

Abyss has literally endless enemies that can mutate/prevent healing/paralyze you/smack you with irresistible damage/confuse/petrify/basically anything, random teleportation, and tricky rune vaults.

Personally, I find Slime the easiest, but that’s because I am used to the enemies and it tends to be the most predictable–beware, Slime is NOT forgiving of mistakes. I don’t like facing Vault 5 until I am overpowered (or as overpowered as I can be), but it is quite doable if you know when to run/teleport (hint: do it EARLY, teleporting at 10 hp isn’t going to end well). Abyss, well I hate Abyss so I usually skip it for a 3 rune run. Personal preference there.

23

I’m trying Crypt but I found it a little bit hard …
Happy thing: I found the haunt spell, what a wondeful thing :smiley:

24

Haunt does rock. Lucky you!!

How nasty Crypt is depends on which ending you get and how much rN you have. Some endings are much easier than others. And if you have rN+++, that’ll neutralize a lot of enemies. If you have no rN at all, well…

25

At the moment I’ve got rN++, what to you mean about “endings”?
And nothing: I died in the Crypts, damn … as usual I didn’t used anything I’ve got like invo, evo, pots … aaaaaaaaaaargh!

26

Every run is really different with a DjCj.

This one is with a ^Mak, the best thing is that I’ve got a Permafrost Eruption that is similar a cheat for me: I can literally blow things in my LOS :smiley:
I’m using a staff of cold and ring of ice and the damage is awesome!

Let we see where I’ll die this time :smiley:

27

By “endings” I mean what you find on Crypt 3. C3 has a pre-designed vault of some kind. Some of those vaults are much nastier than others.

28

Understood.

No problem: I died at C2 :smiley:

Now I’m at V4, I already did D15, L5, Shoal, Spider, Orc and Elves … I’m afraid to try V5, but I need that rune!

Fast Update: I entered V5 to be instalocked and insta confused. GGWP :frowning:

29

I usually clear depths and crypt before attempting the 3rd and 4th runes.

30

thanks, I’ll try this way too next time

31

I changed a bit my level completition and it’s going better.

A question: with Alchemist background, how’s your suggestions?

I see that sting is reliable, short range but it’s really strong.
Mercury vapors are a total question point, compared to the other 3 starter magic
Meph is really good due to the confusion, is there something else I can do with it? ignite it?
OTR: lel, I love this spell. I usually use it when I’ve got 2+ monster in LOS
Sticky Flame: for rP enemies

Suggestions?

32

OK, Dj Alchemist?

Sting: solid starting gun. If you poison something weak on the first shot, back up and let the poison do its work. Problem is that ti doesn’t work well vs undead. So see what the RNGs give you at xl 3 and 5. Maybe you’ll get a better gun.

Mercury Vapor: big advantage over Sting is that it is smite targetting–i.e., you can hit that Orc Wiz behind that row of mooks. Again, poison & run away. It can also weaken in a 3x3 area, but that isn’t such a big deal since (ideally) your Dj isn’t meleeing whatever you just Vapored. Note it can weaken you, if the target is right next to you.

Meph: amazing crowd control spell. Be very careful with the noise. That is, if you run into a group of enemies, don’t just fire Meph at them since the noise will attract whatever is behind them, out of LOS. Instead, lure them back to a safer spot and then Meph. If they are confused, you can stab them. Daggers are better for stabbing than other weapons. But unless your Short Blades and Stealth are petty good, stabbing isn’t going to be your main killing tool with Meph. Rather, you Meph, confuse em, poison some, and then run away. Rinse, repeat.

OTR: this will destroy Orc. But xv to make sure no main target is wearing some rP armor or something. Again, poison and run away. It isn’t quite as strong in Lair since a number of Lair enemies are rP. But by Lair, hopefully the RNGs gave you a gun to deal with rP enemies.

Sticky Flame: this does good non-poison damage (which you need), but it only works if you are next to an enemy. This is bad. I don’t like using it for that reason, but sometimes you don’t have a choice. Still, I’d look long and hard at what the RNGs give me for my first 3-4 spells. If you run into an invisible enemy, you can fire the napalm at the hex you think they are in using Z. That will allow you to see them for as long as they are on fire. You can also use it to make steam to break LOS in Shoals, but a Wand of Flame can do that better and at range.

Alchemists are strong vs some enemies (living, non-rP), but VERY weak vs others (undead, all the rP enemies). That’s why I prefer Conj over Alchemists. That said, you can have perfectly good runs with Alchemists, just look for something to cover your weakness. Do that early, don’t wait until it is too late.

2 Thanks
33

I love you guys, I found alot of info here, thank you to be so kind.

Sting: ok

Mercury: ok, so basically smite-poison 3x3 and run away, understanded

Meph: I don’t like the stab part, because it means that I need to go melee and with a Dj is not my favourite thing to do. Maybe I need to try an AL with some other stabbing species

OTR ok

Sticky ok

I’d prefer Cj too, solid start and a fantastic power in mid game:
Magic dart is good to kite and kill (very long range)
FP is a landmine, I love it
IMB a 24 cells damage with pushing ability: pure love

I’m quite unlucky with Dj RNG spells: I get alot of spells that I never use, like:
Fugue of the fallen
Jinxbite
Vhi’s electric
the piledrive one
Cigo’s putrefaction

…

34

sorry for the double post, but I’m too excited!

I’m in a DjCj^Chei run, and got these little spells:
Mercury vapours
Tukima’s Dance
Freezing Cloud
Permafrost eruption

I’m killing everything with ease but I know that I’ll become too confident and I’ll die in a stupid way: with the online, is it possible to continue after death, without achievement/zot counting?

35

It’s not possible to continue after you die, but if you enter explore mode with “+”, you can choose not to die if that does happen. This does disqualify your game from all scoring, though, even if you never need to revive.

36

Reached Z2 with my DjCj (spider shoal ad vault), “Vv” exploded me so badly :frowning:

1 Thank
37

That is rough. Vv is a very very tough nut to crack. I think I fear them most along with Pargit (super health regen, very highly armoured troll) and Mennes.

38

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.

Invok: Minor Destruction |       |       |     9 |   216 |   599 |   692 |   615 |   612 |  2382 ||  5125

… I did? (Gods aren’t “he”).

39

I’ve never seen Vv, next time I’ll be more cautious.

A question for you all: you clear completly all the floors or after reaching a stable build rush to Zot?

40

I clear all floor with some exceptions. If I go into slime I rush the royal jelly (no loot on other floors). And only one time ever, when I was tped into the lungs in Z5 I used some blink scrolls to grab the orb and run. Other than that I just want to see what loot shows up, get as much XP as possible for the next level, and generally scout what I have behind me and make it safe.

2 Thanks