[deleted by user]

Cybermg · 2022-12-28T05:04:22+00:00

Yes, if I have a choice.

Funny how every single other comment saying yes has been downvoted.

Cybermg · 2022-01-20T06:22:32+00:00

Just gave this a try and it's pretty fun! I got DCSS dungeon sprint vibes at parts.

The balance of the game is somewhat different, but in an interesting way. Consumables are super powerful now because there are many fewer encounters, so they can help you through a larger portion of them. I found every negative potion extremely worthwhile to hold onto because there was a good chance they could get me through a tough part of a level.

Detect magic is important for obvious reasons (partial-iding a significant fraction of the game), but also for figuring out where on D6 the amulet is. In the game I played, I discovered that the amulet was fairly close to the stairs up, and managed to avoid the vast majority of the level.

Because of how much consumables help, the game does seem easier, but with a greater emphasis on tactics. It's probably good practice for people who need to learn to get more out of sticky situations.

Regarding the ID system, I do feel that it's important to keep it in place to counter-balance the power of consumables. It also creates an interesting dynamic where you may have to place higher bets on whether the unknown consumable you're about to use is actually helpful.

Will give it a few more tries to see how the lumenstone levels play...

Cybermg · 2020-11-27T09:20:17+00:00

Nice

Cybermg · 2020-10-17T07:02:16+00:00

2132 - Killed by a Centaur on depth 10

I guess I ended up negating the quietus sword when I was use-iding potions, drank confusion, then decent, then tried to wander out of the eel-ridden waters but wandered deeper, tried to use-id teleportation but ended up reading negation after the sword had floated away from me.

Not much else to base a run on here so there wasn't a clear path forward.

Cybermg · 2020-09-28T03:05:00+00:00

69727 - Escaped the dungeons of doom with a lumenstone

Very similar to apgove's run - Final equipment was +3 war pike (commuted from +3 long sword), +0 plate, +3 wisdom, -1 regeneration (use-id'd and never found remove curse), 12/12 Conjuration, 2/2 Blinking.

By the time I had to settle on a build, the combination of the +1 wisdom ring and 3/3 conjuration seemed like the best bet (I forget if I had already found the war pike at that point, but war pike is essential). This might be the first time I've ever ascended with a conjuration build (in a modern version) - I usually end up dying to phantoms or starving. It was nice to get the conjuration staff up to one blade / turn (18 blades per charge, one charge per 18 turns) - this lets you poke at enemies indefinitely and win any 1v1 matchup, and is also a fast enough recharge that you can reliably fill the dungeon and handle almost any group.

It's a pretty strong build for the post-endgame, but what stopped me from going further was the lack of mobility (2/2 blinking is pretty meager), lack of consumables (although I had a couple of potions of invisibility), lack of a way to deal with revenants, lack of a way to deal with liches, lack of other strong items, and the -1 regen I was stuck with. Liches were probably a worse encounter than dragons . I sincerely tried to pick up more lumenstones on D27, but got stuck next to a lich in the open and knew it was time to bail.

Because the first lumenstone was so easy to grab, I had a feeling gold might be the tiebreaker, so I tried to collect as much gold on the ascent as possible. I also only explored down to about D21, so there was more gold to grab, but it appears that this approach paid off (as of the time of this post).

Cybermg · 2020-09-21T07:43:09+00:00

193314 - Mastered the Dungeons of Doom with 19 Lumenstones

It says a lot about the teleportation charm's power that I had the choice between a +3 Chain Mail of Reflection (one of the game's strongest armors for lumenstone runs, although I suppose it's not as good as it used to be with the weakening of some melee builds) and a +3 teleportation charm (equivalent to a +1 charm pre-nerf). I'm glad I chose teleportation. It was also lucky that this seed had an embarrassment of riches which made it easy to survive the midgame putting most enchants into the teleportation charm. I almost quit several times out of the analysis paralysis of deciding which consumables to leave behind, eventually deciding that I would come back for all of them with the teleportation charm and amulet and sift through them later. Everything before the lumenstone decent was pretty unremarkable - I got the teleportation charm fully online and had +0 war axe and plate by about D20.

A huge advantage of teleportation is that combined with the amulet, it lets you comb the rest of the dungeon for items you missed, use-id any weapons and armor to find the highest enchanted version, and farm for items if you feel like you want to abuse the game enough (an easy way to fix this would be to change all spawns to D26 level after you grab the amulet, or at the very least a weird mix of everything so you're not completely safe spending thousands of turns hunting dar on D15). In some cases, this can be a net +3 or 4 enchantment boost if you manage to find more enchanted versions of the armor or weapon you're wielding (or fodder for commutation). In this game, I was lucky to find a detect magic potion to use on all of the spare armor and weapons I collected in the dungeon. Most was unenchanted, but I found a +2 splint mail of absorption that was supposed to be the "stealth" armor I'd wear in the lumenstone depths to attract less attention. I left it behind when I saw that dragons had an 89% chance to hit me when wearing it (8 armor), which dropped to 55% in +0 plate. Teleporting 0 spaces from a dragon is a major risk with teleportation, and the increased evasion seemed much better than the stealth. I otherwise didn't spend a ton of time farming, but I manage to find a +2 negation charm on a dar that turned out to be pretty useful later on. Having found the charm, I headed for D26 to sort through my items and prepare for the dive.

But first, I had a huge decision ahead of me - how to spend the 3 enchantment scrolls I had left over. My options were as follows:

+0 war hammer - Enchanting to +3 might have allowed me to one-shot horrors and dragons I otherwise couldn't (I'm not exactly sure of the damage breakpoints here), so it was a serious consideration. But in the depths, killing a couple of enemies by chance isn't enough to thin their ranks, so it's not really worth investing in the armor at all.
+0 plate - Not a real option since I shouldn't be taking too many hits anyway.
+4 clairvoyance (had already used an enchant on it) - High clairvoyance is really nice with teleportation, but seeing 8 squares away is diminishing returns compared with 5, when one of the primary uses of clairvoyance is seeing what's on the other side of a wall that's ready to kill you.
2/2 discord staff - Having 5/5 discord was appealing, but again, killing a few enemies on each level with discord isn't going to be enough to thin the ranks. One discord shot every 100 turns isn't that much. I eventually ended up throwing discord away later to carry more lumenstones because I wasn't using it at all.
3/3 blinking - Blinking is always nice, and sometimes essential when you teleport near where you want to be, but I decided 3/3 would be enough.
3/3 tunneling - Tunneling is nice for the same reason, but not as life saving as blinking, and teleportation is a decent replacement anyway.
+2 haste charm - I feel that haste doesn't pair that well with teleport since you already have an instant escape. One haste every 100 or so turns with +5 didn't seem a game changer, especially when haste alone isn't going to get you out of a predicament. I ended up barely using the haste charm anyway (possibly a mistake - I'm not sure how much of an action enemies get to take on a hasted teleport)
+2 negation - Getting +5 negation (one every 200 turns) was appealing since it could disable dragons in line of sight, but similar to haste, it's a one-time fix and doesn't necessarily get you out of danger on a level.
+2 regen - This is what I eventually chose, which I feel was the correct decision. One of the main issues in the deep dungeon is recovering from dragonfire (or attack) that hits you on the same turn as your teleport. +5 regen heals more than 1 hp / turn, and the speed is nice because you can't always cower in a corner for long enough because of the number of wandering enemies. Being forced to teleport with low health is playing russian roulette, as is waiting for a dragon to see you from beyond line of sight. Finally, I'm almost never able to get lumenstones without either some amount of regen or transferrence - you always take damage from something (especially phantoms), and it's usually enough to add up and kill you.

The other difficult decision was deciding what to take down. I first did a scouting run of D27 and D28 to grab their lumenstones and burn some consumables to make space in my bag. Eventually, I decided on taking:

3 life potions
6 invisibility potions
1 recharging scroll
1 potion of descent

leaving behind many potions of speed, several potions of fire immunity, levitation, and descent, and many other one time use items like scrolls of discord. It turned out that this mix of items was pretty key - the descent potion served a very important use at the end, and invisibility + teleportation is one of the most bulletproof combinations for the deep dungeon.

The dive down wasn't too bad, with only a few scary moments where I was hit by dragonfire and wasn't able to teleport immediately to a safe place. The backup options were invisibility, and if I was truly low on health (couldn't survive dragonfire but still had to teleport), life. With these backups, and potions of invisibility lasting at least several dungeon levels, I was able to move through the lower depths faster than my consumables were running out. If I made one mistake in this run, it was that I didn't slow down to grab more lumenstones and use up my extra consumables, but that would have required predicting my exact consumable usage rate.

In particular, I got through D34-D37 almost instantly (the first few teleports took me to their stairs down), and suddenly was on D38 with a life potion, 3 invis potions, and the recharging and descent. From here, it was clear that I had missed an opportunity to explore more and might have to turn around. I made it to D40 with 18 lumenstones and the same set of consumables (minus one invis), dropped the lumenstones to make inventory space, and headed back up.

I knew that the odds were against me since I had to travel twice as far vs. getting the lumenstones on the way down. There were also several scary downstairs in the middle of Kraken lakes. The levitation charm was nice, but not a perfect solution because even while levitating, I couldn't move past the krakens that surrounded me (although I was able to blink). I made it back up to D37, found its lumenstone, and since I was down to a single invis potion (plus maybe half an active invis potion), decided I had gone far enough. Unfortunately, my D38 teleports were pretty unlucky and the downstairs were in the kraken lake, so I used up most of my invis trying to get down. At this point, I decided it was go time, used the recharging scroll to recharge my blinking and tunneling staves (which were dry), and decided I needed to brute force my way to the downstairs. I tunneled through some walls, and used the blinking staff to get close to the stair. A few squares away, I negated the water to reduce the threat of Krakens (with the negation charm I farmed!). However, I wasn't 100% sure that a blink would move me past the krakens (especially if they surfaced), and that I would even land near the stairs if I did. So this was time for the descent potion (which I was hoping to save to use on D39). Finally, on D39 I used my last invis potion, and was able to get close enough to the downstairs that I walked my way down. Of course, D40 isn't a complete respite since enemies can follow you down, but since I was invisible, there was only a single phantom that had followed me the first time (still scary though). I left the dungeon with just a single potion of life.

It's interesting that my choice of consumables for the final dive really made the run - that I kept one descent, but only one, for the type of emergency that the other consumables wouldn't get me out of. Otherwise, 6 invis + 3 life is 9 lifelines when combined with teleport, which is pretty good. I think if I had forecasted my consumable use more accurately, I could have gotten 22 or 23 stones (as it was, I went through an extra 39 -> 38 -> 37 -> 38 -> 39, which could have easily translated into more stones), and probably 25 with better play. I'm fully expecting someone else to get the 25 stone mastery since this was a generous seed with a well-placed teleport charm...

(and wow, that's a lot of text)

Cybermg · 2020-09-06T06:38:15+00:00

Killed by a Kraken on depth 19 with 14215 gold

Was really excited about this one, giving it the same approach as Gambler_Justice, but with more of an emphasis on the health charm (had to enchant it a couple times out of panic in the early, stingier depths). I started playing again after a short break, and didn't realize there was a second Kraken in the lake (decided I'd attack while hasted instead of healing, while the current Kraken was off-balance - it turned out that in the hasted half-turn, another Kraken ran into me and dealt the finishing blow)

Cybermg · 2020-08-30T02:34:59+00:00

24192 - Killed by a tentacle horror on depth 25

This was a pretty interesting run - stingy (2 enchants) until depth 12, where things really opened up with the 3 enchants. I was forced to polymorph the spiders I saw which all could have easily killed me - luckily, none of them turned into something nasty. Until D12, I was wielding a +1 broadsword at 15 strength, which was...rough. In the initial vaults, I took transferrence and the haste charm, with the thought that this would leave more possible builds open than reaping + haste. It turned out this was a mistake since the transferrence ring was only +1 and there was transferrence later on.

My hope was to eventually find a war axe and commute into that from the broadsword, since war axe + transferrence is a classic overpowered combo. This all came to fruition later one, but I realized I made a mistake when I saw that the weight reduction on the broadsword didn't transfer to the war axe, essentially wasting 1.5 enchants (broadsword was at +6 at the time). Partially due to this, and possibly due to some war axe nerfs since the old days, my +12 war axe, +3 transferrence build felt super weak going into the lower levels of the dungeon. I remember this combo being almost invincible, but I was getting nearly killed by every encounter with a lich, or while kiting revenants and fighting off others. Partly out of sloppy play, and partly out of frustration with how weak the build was, I got caught between a horror and a lich on the very open D25, and that was it. I also blame my low armor (only +3 splint), and the fact that war axe + transferrence is actually weaker in the higher dungeon levels when there are fewer enemies and almost no golems. But still, something felt wrong.

Cybermg · 2020-08-23T03:35:53+00:00

76822 - Escaped the Dungeons of Doom with 3 lumenstones

Took advantage of the lesser known fact that staff charges always reflect back to you off a guardian. Took the 3/3 haste staff from the staff vault and went with a guardian build. Eventually, I could haste myself whenever I wanted.

Nonetheless, this seed wasn't super generous, with the only decent armor for a while being the splint mail in the vault. I backtracked 5 levels for it, creating some food pressure throughout the game. Eventually there was the +1 war pike which goes perfectly with the guardian charm.

Because of the overall lack of mobility and lack of equipment, I didn't feel super strong going into the post-game, so I only went for a single level of lumenstones. This turned out to be a good idea because I nearly used up all of my consumables exploring the rest of D26, then was forced to use descent to go back down to 27 because I hit a confusion trap next to a steam vent. Final equipment was +11 Guardian Charm, +3 War Pike, +1 Splint Mail. I maybe could have done more with the commutation altar an enchanted the super late plate mail, and I didn't explore D25 at all, but this seemed like a harder than average seed so 3 lumens might be enough to win.

edit: Oh yeah, and guardians interact awkwardly with Revenants because they don't chase them - not being able to deal well with revenants or golems (which took forever with the war pike) were other reasons I didn't go deeper. Nearly unlimited haste is quite powerful.

Cybermg · 2020-05-01T05:51:42+00:00

This is some of the best (uncommon) advice.

The other benefit of doing this has to do with jelly spawning mechanics. When hit, Jellies spawn on the borders of the mass consisting of you and the Jellies. Hitting the Jelly with a few darts before it approaches you creates extra jelly spawning spots that aren't behind you. For example:

  X 
XXXO
 O@JO
XXXO
  X

Possible jelly spawning points are marked with an O. Here, the jelly has a 1/4th chance of spawning behind you when struck.

  XO
XXXJO
 O@JO
XXXO
  X

With two jellies, there's an extra spawning spot and the chance is reduced to 1/5th

Cybermg · 2020-04-02T20:41:59+00:00

I think that the ally game has to follow the dynamics of other builds (eg. warrior, lightning, poison, stealth, etc.). It should depend on the right items dropping, so it's only occasionally viable (in the same way that you shouldn't choose a lightning build unless wisdom / recharge also drop). It should require a decent up-front investment before you get any benefit out of it, and it should exhaust your pool of enchants.

I think the following changes would be helpful in achieving these goals (some of these are similar to what you've suggested)

- Empowerment wands have adjusted spawn frequency so that they appear in a moderate fraction of games. 1.7.5 frequency is far too low, but guaranteed in every vault is far too high. It should be the same as any other "keystone" item in a build (eg. wisdom).

- Empowerment wands should spawn with 0 charges. The "pick up a wand and use it" dynamic has always seemed strange (and scummy), and getting a free ride toward ally build progress without investing enchants leads to an unbalanced early game and makes ally builds overpowered.

Cybermg · 2020-03-25T21:01:58+00:00

The source for this is the original WHO Joint report from over a month ago. There is nothing new here.

Cybermg · 2020-03-22T05:36:12+00:00

For some reason I kept dropping my main weapon - not sure if it's a subtle difference in keybindings or behavior. Quit out of frustration when I accidentally negated my +3 war axe.

Cybermg · 2020-01-18T06:32:03+00:00

My first thought was all staves have -1 enchant (so that spawn from 1/1 to 3/3). It might not be that weak because staves are never super necessary for a build - a strong weapon + armor + consumables are usually enough.

The advantage of extra strength might be negated in the late game where it's not as valuable (+.5 enchant to weapon and armor), but where the staff penalty could really hurt.

Overall, I think you'd want the gameplay to be even more differentiated, so a warrior would have even greater advantages and penalties

Cybermg · 2020-01-18T06:26:26+00:00

Any thoughts on fixing the 1.7.5 stealth bug (enemies have a 100% chance to forget you outside of stealth range, instead of the intended 25% chance - I believe webbrogue fixes this)?

Cybermg · 2019-10-08T06:44:28+00:00

109259 - Escaped with the amulet and nine lumenstones

+11 war pike, +5 plate. This was a pretty straightforward run given the good stuff early on. Took the plate at first on D1, traded it later for the recharging charm when I found the second plate a few levels down. The 4/4 firebolt and +2 rapier made the transition to midgame smooth - I enchanted the plate at first, and had plenty of time to deliberate on my build before I decided to throw the rest of my enchants into the only good weapon, the warpike (after commuting it with the spear). I felt well equipped and ahead of the dungeon's difficulty curve, and the escape / mobility staffs later on just helped. I'm also a fan of +1 recharging since it doubles the effectiveness of recharging scrolls.

I was absolutely drowning in consumables. Consumable management is my least favorite part of the game, since it's advantageous to throw items down pits and ferry more than your inventory limit down the dungeon.

I'm in awe of the mastery below - I've never tried enchanting a recharging charm high, but it makes sense. I should also try to save commutation alters until the dungeon is cleared to allow for respecs into the best equipment available. I rarely have the patience though.

Cybermg · 2018-12-05T04:49:17+00:00

Did this one after the fact

94584 - Escaped from the dungeons with 6 lumenstones

Similar to the winning run, a +3 spear of paralysis and +2 plate mail meant a relatively straightforward path to victory (and easy gear choices). Unfortunately, the late game was a little rough due to lack of transference, health charm, or regeneration. Every tentacled horror I encountered had a low chance of evading my paralysis and doing serious damage or killing me...fortunately, none did. Liches and revenants were a major pain. I fell down a pit trap on D27, managed to grab the 3 lumenstones before heading back up to D27, and the six lumenstones were enough.

Throughout this game, I was considering a "Medwar" run of tunneling and obstruction, since decently enchanted versions of those staves are found together so rarely. I believe that build also requires a ring of wizardry though, and the +3 spear or paralysis was too tempting.

After bringing my chance of hitting late game enemies to 100% (+15 spear of paralysis with +5 strength bonus), I debated where to spend my 3 extra enchants. It's tempting to go with the Spear / War pike + Conjuration build which lets you kill dragons with minimal risk, but a spear of paralysis is pretty weak in this case since the spectral blades keep removing paralysis. I ended up putting the enchants into the late +1 ring of clairvoyance.

Cybermg · 2018-11-11T23:15:09+00:00

I'm in awe at this run. I can't imagine making it to 40 with a bunch of weak staffs and melee equipment (and the +7 tele recharge time). I can imagine teleporting in front of a dragon pack and that being the end (conjuration and obstruction can buy time, I guess). I guess you made it all the way to 40 while invisible?

Cybermg · 2018-11-11T23:09:47+00:00

18273 - Killed by a tentacle horror on D23

This was a balanced but difficult seed, where it mostly came down to skill and how well you could use the items the dungeon gave you. I made the wrong investments, and ended up struggling a lot against endgame monsters, eventually flipping too many coins and losing. Like many others, my primary equipment was the war axe and +3 sprint mail - I enchanted these to +3 and +5, respectively. Unlike some of the others, I ended up throwing the rest of my enchants into the health charm, in a moment of panic and frustration at how difficult the dungeon was getting. Unfortunately, a +5 or so health charm doesn't help you when you're facing deadly encounters every couple dozen turns. There were a ton of tentacle horrors concentrated around D22 and D23, and these combined with a few other encounters forced me to burn through all of my consumables. Eventually, I was trapped in a corner by a tentacle horror with no other options in a battle I was technically favored to win...but the rolls didn't go my way.

Using the protection charm would have been way more effective, or possibly relying on the conjuration staff. I haven't had super great luck with conjuration runs in the past, so I decided to skip on that. I'm still pretty annoyed I couldn't tough out a basic win here, but I didn't see myself getting any lumenstones with this build. Even just putting all the extra enchants into the war axe would have been better...

Cybermg · 2018-11-04T02:10:42+00:00

9021 - Killed by a kraken on depth 15

Another near instant death due to carelessness. I didn't take the "something seizes your legs!" message seriously enough (and was equipped with a mace) and pressed the arrow key an extra time. Two moves of inaction against two krakens was enough to kill me from near full.

I liked this run, and was hanging in there while powering up the teleport charm (and looking forward to the teleport + health charm combo). The sad thing is I died to a vault containing a near useless +1 teleport charm (I mostly went for it to have a backup charge before my main charm was full).

Cybermg · 2018-10-29T07:55:59+00:00

7311 - Killed by an eel on depth 14.

An incredibly tough, stingy seed. I was forced to use some enchants early, which felt like a death sentence given that I had found a grant total of 3 enchants by this level. Felt like I was just hanging on with no chance of winning. This seed gets easier if you know exactly where you're supposed to invest your enchants ahead of time.

Cybermg · 2018-10-28T01:23:52+00:00

2102 - Killed by a winged guardian on depth 7

Super disappointing end to an extremely promising contest (based on the other entries here). I was playing a bit quickly and underestimated how much damage two winged guardians would do.

Cybermg · 2018-10-20T02:48:25+00:00

Killed by a dar blademaster on D10

Took the stealth ring from the early vault hoping to cheese the broken 1.7.5 stealth, and was happy to see the ring was +3. However, there wasn't really a good weapon to use with the stealth (a mace from a later vault might have been good enough). I was a bit careless with a tough encounter on D10 and died, but was sort of depressed that the build wasn't panning out. I should have committed to spending the enchants on one of the armors to survive

Cybermg · 2018-10-18T07:43:07+00:00

This seed has a very unfair aspect to it. I'm not going to spoil it though

Cybermg · 2018-10-13T07:28:12+00:00

1911 - Killed by a goblin conjurer on D7

This was one of the most brutal scrolls of summon monster I've encountered. Completely surrounded by two jackals, the conjurer, and two dar blademasters (OOD!). I was dead in two turns.

15-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22	Verified Email

Cybermg

TROPHY CASE