YAVP: 15-rune DjCj^Mak Robe of Folly?

https://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/Rallik/morgue-Rallik-20240815-043655.txt

My first full rune win in ages, PB score, and longest win streak(of… 2)! I picked up double regen pieces pretty early, and found Mak in the temple. Everything coasted right along until I found the Robe of Folly, in Orc1, and I hesitantly donned it. Permanent brilliance, some gear regen, and Mak let me chain cast any spell the rest of the run. Permafrost Eruption and Magnavolt were the midgame heroes, and then the game up and delivered with the best final 4 spells I’ve ever had on a Djinn: Dispersal, LCS, Chain Lightning, and Fire Storm.

With Dispersal for emergencies, LCS to kill anything tanky/immune, and CL/FS for room clearing, I was pretty much unstoppable after that. I hit 99% spell power on the L9 spells thanks to a nice Ring of the Mage turning up too. Chain casting L9 spells every turn and health never dropping was just amazing. I was really tempted to try a zig after grabbing last rune, but no willpower and relatively low defenses scared me off.

Scary moments included:

  • Getting chain confused by golden eyes while surrounded in Slime. I was trying to drink cures to clear it, but they immediately re-confused every turn with the 0 willpower. I realized I had to haste to move fast enough to get a break to kill it and break the cycle.
  • A bad petrify in Cocytus taking me to 10% hp. Just lucky it wasn’t a run-ending series of hits.
  • Coming face to face with Mennas in Pan abruptly after rounding a corner. I’d learned my lesson on a past run when I thought I was unstoppable, and immediately blinked before he dropped a silence on me. CL one-shot him after that.
  • Demonspawn Warmongers and the Sap debuff. I’d never seen that before, had waded into a pile of enemies feeling confident and then had to scramble away from a pan lord with no spells.
  • Tomb 3, just hovering at 30 hp getting chain tormented/cursed and dumping out Fire Storms on Royal Mummies was the most tense part of the run.
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Damn, that’s an amazing spellset. Grats on the win!

I guarantee I would have died with the golden eye situation. It is why I never will don the Robe of Folly. I just can’t think my way through issues like that.

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Likewise. I ain’t smart enough to be that foolish.

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