YASD: Gargoyle Fighter^Ely, using slightly too much piety

https://underhound.eu/crawl/morgue/petercordia/petercordia.txt

I’m using this character to try to get a win in during the tournament. So far I’ve not had much success. The opportunity attacks make retreating somewhat brutal.

I’ve got a very good helmet: +5 helmet of Indemnity {rF- Regen+ rCorr} but the problem is I don’t have any sources of rF+, which sometimes puts me in dangerous situations. I’ve been pacifying quite a lot of monsters with fire damage.

The Lernaean hydra is making Swamp unsafe, Louise looks very nasty in D:14, and I’m now having trouble with demonic crawlers in Spider. My damage isn’t good enough to overcome their regen. I could pacify them, but I only recently got back up to ****… piety. Usually I’m comfortably in ****** piety in this stage of the game.

Hi! I understand your reliance on Ely, pacify is so good. Too bad you haven’t found an amulet of faith; with that equipped you’d be able to spam pacify without worrying about piety as much. It does seem like a good idea to hold off on using God abilities in your current situation and build that piety back. Although it’s better to survive the current situation than save resources for “later”.

Looks like you haven’t had great weapon drops, but if I were you I’d be using a morningstar instead of a flail. Eventually you’re hoping for an eveningstar or demon whip, but a well-enchanted morningstar is good enough to win with.

Your skilling is fine, except 14 shields is a lot more than you need for a buckler. Great to have as soon as you find a kite shield though!

If I were you I would rush Evo training (like 66% or 100% until you get >8 Evo), that could help you fill in your power gaps. Roots, Paralysis, and Light are all super good wands, and you have enough Para charges to waste them on ~33% odds for monsters you’re struggling to beat in a fair fight.

Keep clearing Spider slowly but surely! Once you’ve cleared the first floor you should be able to stairdance to victory. Also, don’t be too afraid of Louise; just put on Will+ gear, quaff Enlightenment, and buff yourself (might, haste, even Lig+Attr if you want etc) early in the fight

aaand… I died to sticky flame. I thought I understood how much damage to expect, but ended up at -1 hp.

https://underhound.eu/crawl/morgue/petercordia/morgue-petercordia-20240127-083739.txt

I should have gone after Louise. She had some good equipment I wanted to steal.