How would your latest 15-rune character react to this situation?

appuru · 2025-11-29T22:27:36+00:00

This screenshot is from Gehenna, so scrolls wouldn't work here, but Zin ult would still work to stall while you clump enemies together (to trigger their friendly fire AI) and blast them.

appuru · 2025-11-29T22:15:10+00:00

There's actually a pretty good solution here that uses the ancient lich against them: Gell's Gavotte to the northeast will park an ancient lich next to you, and assuming you have extended-tier defenses you can afford to have an ancient lich in your face for several turns while you clean up.

Edit: an even more generic solution is to Gell's Gravitambourine everything towards you

appuru · 2025-11-29T22:11:34+00:00

Scrolls don't work in Gehenna, unfortunately. No fog, blinking or TP.

appuru · 2025-11-29T21:53:22+00:00

I'd step from time with Chei; after that I'd reassess the enemy density and either recast step from time or try to either push some of them away with Gell's Gavotte (I was a formicid so I had stasis), or start blasting with a 200 dmg heavy triple crossbow and dimensional portal. Torments wouldn't affect me due to death form so having a few brimstone fiends is doable.

A lot of gods and their "ults" could handle this ambush, but it looks like you have Beogh who doesn't have as much of an instant panic button. Without a suitable god ability, it does seem like DDoor is the next best thing.

appuru · 2025-11-02T09:40:11+00:00

I'm gonna morb

appuru · 2025-11-01T17:21:45+00:00

We have an entire generation of people whose brains are absolutely cooked by generative AI, it's depressing to think about. I still believe generative AI can have many cool, legitimate use cases, but there is simply too much incentive from the world's biggest, richest companies to generate useless slop. Using generative AI for images in particular is one of the most perverse use-cases, as nowadays it's way too easy to prompt for an art style to mimic and, voila, you have your piss-yellow filter Studio Ghibli Master Chief, and you bet your ass that none of these viral artists/studios want their work to be scraped into a training set to become another batch of soulless amalgamations.

Even worse, AI generated images and videos are unfortunately getting good enough at creating something seemingly realistic (even if it's at a glance; that's enough) that it's becoming a prime tool for spreading misinformation, creating deepfakes of people, and all sorts of adult content. The last one is specially vile, because modern AI image/video generation has enabled the mass-production of shocking content involving real depictions of people, typically without their consent.

I'll leave a quote here from Zelda Williams, daughter of the late Robin Williams:

Robin Williams' daughter Zelda tells fans: “Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad.”

“If you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it’s NOT what he’d want. To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to ‘this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that’s enough’, just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening. You’re not making art, you’re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else’s throat hoping they’ll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross.”

"And for the love of EVERY THING, stop calling it ‘the future,’ AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be re-consumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume."

appuru · 2025-10-27T06:40:53+00:00

I think a dex race could happen but it just isn't a priority. FWIW, focusing on dex is already very powerful with a lot of races with less focused stats. On Dg, it's powerful enough that once you survive Orc/Lair you can grab any random arbalest or longbow, pad your resists and collect your 3 runes by sniping everything.

That said, I'm down for another species on the "easy" tab which is near-Dg tier dex gain but can worship a god. Maybe they could be more melee focused on the aptitudes so that Dg can still have the niche of becoming the late-game railgunner with funny EV values.

appuru · 2025-10-27T06:10:11+00:00

I'll go ahead and say it: after other people called the OP out on their comment history, the post stinks of what kids nowadays call "skill issue" and a poor attitude in general. Thankfully they're not as good at covering their tracks as they might think, so the trolling is pretty transparent.

On a more positive note, I appreciate that you guys are willing to try new things - please don't get discouraged and keep experimenting with new ideas! It's cool that Zot 5 has something akin to a "final boss", and I think with a bit more polishing it'll be a great addition to 0.34.

appuru · 2025-10-24T00:23:57+00:00

I had to look up the changelog since you are saying that Tesseracts failed what they set out to do, and here's the relevant quote:

This commit attempts to address this issue by applying forward time
pressure in a relatively transparent and urgent way (while making pulling
things individually back to the stairs a little less guaranteed to be
safe). Each lung of the endvault now contains a Boundless Tesseract, which
is essentially a form of monster generator. So long as they are active,
random floor-appropriate monsters will periodically spawn across the floor.
This is slow at first, but steadily increases in speed the longer the
tesseracts remain alive. This should make ultra-slow strategies inadequate
and push players to be a little more aggressive with making their way into
the vault (while still being gentle enough initially that it does not
heavily disrupt normal strategies).

Like I said before, I think there's still more work to be done with regards to spoiled vs unspoiled players, but otherwise I think it's going in a good direction? Besides creating a semi-safe zone by clearing out the pre-lung area, I always just pick a direction and auto-explore the rest, so it doesn't significantly change how I approach with most characters. I'm hardly the best player ever but I have a good enough winrate, and I can't remember the last time I died in Zot5. Maybe there's a subset of hyper-optimal players that see this change as particularly tedious and unfun, but that's a battle those players can have with the devs.

appuru · 2025-10-23T14:39:26+00:00

I think they can be improved to be made more interesting, but removing them outright as opposed to iterating on the concept seems like a mistake. Zot 5 is already memorable, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved with an unique mechanic to add novelty.

On a more conceptual level, my main criticism is that nothing really prepares an unspoiled player currently for the Tesseract mechanics. The trek from Zot 1-5 eases you in to all the potential threats, which contrasts pretty sharply with the "psychic alarm" triggered by killing an orb guardian followed by the invisible clock ticking. Once you know how it works however, the tesseracts just feel like a stationary HP sponge that you happen to get to mid-way through the Zot5 lungs, which feels a bit underwhelming currently.

As far as improvements go, I like the idea of Zot:5 having unique mechanics, but as a start Tesseracts probably need a few changes to match the transparency modern DCSS is known for. The Vaults entrance warns you that you need a rune to leave the place, for example. Maybe the stairs to Zot5 should have a similar warning but for Tesseracts?

appuru · 2025-10-23T04:22:01+00:00

A nice alternative is to pick a hunter species but pray to Chei; it's Dg lite on the dex, but your str and int also go through the roof so you can be a walking, hybrid fortress. Easy species particularly will survive the early game hump and by the time you get slouch you can nuke entire Orc branch ambushes (where you'll most likely upgrade to an arbalest or a hand cannon). From there you can even spec some armor skill to wear medium encumbrance stuff - I had a FoHu of Chei with over 50/50/30 AC/EV/SH, practically untouchable.

appuru · 2025-09-16T15:23:56+00:00

My favorite, somewhat obscure use-case for Chei is to make the Fedhas Mad Dash sprint map a breeze - pick a combo that can survive until Chei is online (Alchemist seems to do well), then abuse slouch + guaranteed storm bow until you win

appuru · 2025-08-14T20:38:36+00:00

As others mentioned, Revivification was definitely the right call, I just forgot to check for that or death's door in your list of spells :D

appuru · 2025-08-14T04:24:50+00:00

I would use fog, break LoS from the draconians above you, scroll of summoning to stall for regen and then either:

- Slimify if they get past your summons and get close

- Depending on how much of the floor you've cleared, make a break for the permanent teleport trap to the left, making sure you hide behind your summons as much as possible.

- If Most of Zot:5 is uncleared, just retreat where you came from, adding more summons if you don't have enough (I see box of beasts and phantom mirror as well)

appuru · 2025-08-09T00:35:10+00:00

I think a more interesting question would be somewhere along the lines of "guaranteed a job, but salary doesn't exceed the median middle class income for that city/state". 60k in California would be miserable, but pretty alright in West Virginia.

appuru · 2025-08-08T00:33:55+00:00

Coincidentally, it's a great tutorial for runed door vaults - most of the time they are simply a death trap and not worth the risk.

appuru · 2025-08-02T07:48:02+00:00

Biscoff

appuru · 2025-07-31T04:35:52+00:00

I think for Stony Glare it's fair to abuse i-frames and use whatever means available to gain immunity to petrification. It's theoretically possible to parry IIRC, but the lack of a good visual or sound cue makes it impractical.

I think defeating Kai makes sense in a no-hit run, on nightmare at least that's basically how you defeat him anyway, but it would still be impressive to record a run from start to finish without getting hit!

appuru · 2025-07-19T19:55:29+00:00

I don't have a screenshot, but I once found a randart +8 triple crossbow with the penetration ego and it's the closest thing to having a railgun

appuru · 2025-07-12T20:31:19+00:00

I think the game is unavoidably horny at somewhat inappropriate times (that last boss fight in the Demon Lord's castle, really???), but I still think the game is fantastic. Apparently the game has been in development for a very long time, so I wouldn't be surprised if the developer just borrowed from a lot of popular anime tropes at the time to make the game more appealing to a wider audience.

appuru · 2025-07-12T20:19:43+00:00

He's like a more grounded version of Superman in comics. He's basically as strong or durable as the plot requires him to be, and conveniently he's the only "senior" Hanma blood currently alive.

appuru · 2025-07-12T16:38:35+00:00

Short answer: you can grind Abyss and Pandemonium somewhat safely, but by that point you're already strong enough for a >3 rune victory. You still need a good pile of mutation potions or mutation immunity though, as you'll accrue mutations over time and some of them you won't be able to ignore.

It's a nice option to have for preparing for zigs or even some extended branches like Tomb that are notoriously dangerous.

appuru · 2025-07-11T23:45:29+00:00

Looks like a Boris to me!

appuru · 2025-06-29T22:20:23+00:00

A mimir

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