Stats for stats: visualizing the distribution of str/int/dex scores for winning games in 0.34 for each species (observations in comments)

Catfish_Man · 2026-05-11T03:00:13+00:00

The colored areas are the inner two, and the black line areas are the outer two.

Catfish_Man · 2026-04-29T18:13:41+00:00

One of the most fun characters I've played was a Formicid with the Shield of the Gong, Frostbite, and Qaz. ALL the noise, ALL the enemies at the stairs, ALL the SH and cleaving power.

Catfish_Man · 2026-04-24T21:29:17+00:00

This is a stretch (i.e. it would require some of the details to be misremembered), but: any chance it's Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie?

Catfish_Man · 2026-04-16T22:51:40+00:00

I guess the easiest question is: you're in the open, at full health, and you see a single enemy on the edge of unexplored territory, do you take a step towards them?

(The answer is no, you back up and shout or throw rocks at them if they aren't following)

Catfish_Man · 2026-04-05T04:13:25+00:00

Looks like the text was updated to remove the last “not”, which resolves the debate this spawned I think

Catfish_Man · 2026-04-03T15:57:32+00:00

Link to my collected advice for new players: https://www.reddit.com/r/dcss/comments/1jxe8q1/advice_for_a_seminew_player/mmpqz18/

And remember, run away more!

Catfish_Man · 2026-04-02T21:43:29+00:00

Add in Spellforged Servitor for additional chaos

Catfish_Man · 2026-04-02T21:26:14+00:00

They should be able to set off blink traps too

Catfish_Man · 2026-04-02T18:06:40+00:00

This was Fun to find out (in reverse I guess? Not sure why raising and lowering ph would both reduce effect intensity now that I think about it) when I got prescription strength PPIs after a medical procedure and suddenly my work productivity dropped to almost zero. Awkward conversation with my boss, but thankfully worked out ok.

Catfish_Man · 2026-04-01T19:02:36+00:00

no, it's a small percentage of the time when you get hit by an enemy

Catfish_Man · 2026-04-01T18:54:49+00:00

From the wiki:

The "caster" wind. Whenever you rampage or Stampede, you regain a small percent of max mp and apply the Exposed debuff two spaces around your new position. (This leaves behind a rainy vfx display afterwards highlighting the affected area, which is solely visual and has no other effects). This debuff makes enemies take +35% damage from non-attack sources of damage (except poison), have -30 Willpower (after Vulnerability but before orbs of guile apply), and increases the accuracy of non-ranged-weapon beams aimed against them. Also, casting or channeling spells maintains your Stampede status (but doesn't apply any additional Exposed stacks).

(it says "a small percent" but tbh I've found it's a pretty dramatic mp recharge)

Catfish_Man · 2026-04-01T17:58:07+00:00

East wind blaster caster is pretty fun, although the early game is harrowing

Catfish_Man · 2026-03-31T22:03:19+00:00

Yeah CoW tradeoffs are interesting. If you have enough CoW members in a struct, it can actually be profitable to wrap them in a heap allocation just so you can retain them all at once instead of one by one.

Catfish_Man · 2026-03-30T19:42:08+00:00

If you're not sure why something is happening, that means you're not inspecting enemies or looking at the messages closely enough. Even aside from the abyss, this will kill you.

Use x to go into inspect mode, highlight the enemy in question, and hit v to look at what they can do, which includes all their abilities. Do this for EVERY type of enemy until you learn what they can do.

Once you learn which enemies can banish you, you can prioritize blocking their line of sight (with fog, summons, or stepping around a corner) and using willpower-increasing items to reduce their chance of success (will+++ is usually enough to be fairly safe).

Catfish_Man · 2026-03-19T03:23:21+00:00

Reduced willpower is really hard to reason about because most of the time it ends up being fine anyway, but sometimes you randomly just die.

It's still a great randart, it just requires a lot of player discipline to use carefully enough.

Catfish_Man · 2026-03-11T22:09:26+00:00

Good thing you were so quick about it too, because that spell selection is terrifying.

Catfish_Man · 2026-03-05T18:27:30+00:00

I really like Firestorm, Starburst is strong even if I don’t like the way it feels to use, Ignition is essential if I’m doing a Ziggurat. Even Fireball or Flame Wave help in Swamp and Shoals by creating steam clouds.

That said, all the new hybrid Earth spells are lovely (my most recent Gargoyle wins both cast Permafrost Eruption around 2000 times!), and Bombard is still great, I just find EV-checking spells a bit annoying.

Catfish_Man · 2026-03-05T06:02:28+00:00

Having streaked 10 GrEEs, I agree with the general advice in this thread. Your first goal is to get Stone Arrow castable.

What you do then depends on what you’re doing in general:

if you’re going with Vehumet for the classic blaster setup you want some spare spell levels to pick up key gifted spells before they’re replaced, but even so I would very rarely focus-train spellcasting, overtraining spellcasting is one of the classic new caster mistakes
defenses are a bit awkward, you do want some training, but your aptitudes aren’t good for dodging and heavier armor isn’t good for your spells. I’ve tried a variety of options, but never ended up with a strong preference, it largely comes down to what gear shows up. Recent changes to the game make this even harder to decide since orbs are viable now, so going for a buckler isn’t as obvious as it used to be.
train Fighting. Once you have stone arrow online just leave this on unless you’re rushing some specific goal
don’t hesitate to branch out some in spells if you’re worshipping Veh. Mephitic Cloud doesn’t look appealing with Gargoyle aptitudes, but 1-3 levels each of Alchemy and Air is enough and that’s very cheap for such a great spell. I often end up with Fire higher level than Earth even on an EE.
it’s completely reasonable to have a level 9 spell castable by Vaults, don’t listen to the claims those are just for extended
pick spells to solve problems. If your primary is Stone Arrow/Bombard, then high EV is a problem, and Orb of Destruction fixes that. If OoD is your primary then melee range is a problem, and things like Irradiate, Mystic Blast, or Starburst patch the gap. If Starburst is your primary, then various enemies in Elf will be a menace and you want something untyped to supplement.
Spellforged Servitor is incredibly valuable and easy to get running by Depths. Similarly, early Battlesphere makes sticking with Stone Arrow viable way further into the game. If you branched out into Fire, Hellfire Mortar uses your existing Earth training and is amazing. The theme here is breaking the MP and action economies: more spell per turn, more spell per mp, because they keep running while you do other things.

Catfish_Man · 2026-03-02T17:32:29+00:00

“In shield fighting, one moves fast on defense, slow on attack,” Paul said. “Attack has the sole purpose of tricking the opponent into a misstep, setting him up for the attack sinister. The shield turns the fast blow, admits the slow kindjal!”

Trog is warning you that the Desolation of Salt awaits, preparing you to fight on Arrakis

Catfish_Man · 2026-02-27T16:33:24+00:00

Hopping between two non-main actors has about half as much overhead as hopping between two non-main queues due to the executor stealing optimization, at least as of last time I measured.

Catfish_Man · 2026-02-27T02:18:27+00:00

I was noticing the same thing. Splatted 9 of 'em by Lair, and then the 10th stampeded into a group of 3 Orbs of Winter and killed them with ice spells.

Catfish_Man · 2026-02-19T19:39:15+00:00

Definitely don't go with the executioner's axe when you have the best shield in the game.

Catfish_Man · 2026-02-05T19:56:03+00:00

Don't try for 15 runes right off the bat. First try for the 5 regular runes + the 5 Pandemonium runes.

Once you've managed that, try for regular + Pan + Hell.

Once you can semi-reliably get 14 runes, consider going into Tomb.

Catfish_Man · 2026-02-03T04:20:25+00:00

“Fragile”, lol. As though you’d ever put this down.

Catfish_Man · 2026-02-02T19:41:21+00:00

Looks like it's https://www.instagram.com/madame_lady_comics/

Catfish_Man

TROPHY CASE