I'm rubbish at the game, any tips?

[sudaj]

Debo said: "
There are few invisible monsters in the game. The only ones you need to worry about are sulrauko (500'ish), cat assassins (800'ish), and hithrauko (950'ish). "

Are the horrors invisible too?
Recent @'s that have made it 550'ish tended to get softened up by the one with armour reducing attack and then get polished off by a werewolf/giant b/c reduced ev.

[taptap]

@archers:
It is fear + position. They will almost always flee to the stairs when you intimidate them with the stairs in their rear.

Another neat trick is catching them in the entrance of a room (you need less moves to do so than in the corners of corridors and eat less hits by them if you have low protection).

@horrors:
A few horrors have darkness afaik and are invisible because of a lack of light. Some can be avoided, because they are slow.

@werewolves:
I don't have a recipe. But being strong in general, any spear of Doriath or the spear of Boldog or poison resistance should make them quite doable. Don't let them surround you.

@giants:
Try archery or spear throwing or a subtle shortsword. While you can't do archery or subtle shortsword with every build, you can throw spears with every melee type. Giants have low protection and low evasion and your spears will do horrible damage to them - with sufficient melee (or throwing mastery) even unique giants fall swiftly to a handful of javelins.

@winning:
Ok, I am not a top player. Still, I believe I could win regularly with tested, working builds and taking my time, but regularly would probably still be more like 20-25% or so (better for Doriath singers). The way I play, trying new whacky ideas all the time, I have plenty of dead chars in the ladder and a pile of corpses for each of those on the ladder.

[debo]

Debo said: "
There are few invisible monsters in the game. The only ones you need to worry about are sulrauko (500'ish), cat assassins (800'ish), and hithrauko (950'ish). "

Are the horrors invisible too?
Recent @'s that have made it 550'ish tended to get softened up by the one with armour reducing attack and then get polished off by a werewolf/giant b/c reduced ev.

Some horrors give off darkness (lurking H, creeping H) but are not invisible. You need more ilght to see them, not see invis.

It's generally not a bad idea to just run away from horrors -- especially creeping horrors since they're slow -- rather than waiting for them to entrance you or trash your equipment.

The one you're mentioning in your post is a creeping horror, which moves slowly, I think shouts to cause fear, and has an acid-brand attack. It also moves slowly.

[debo]

@werewolves:
I don't have a recipe. But being strong in general, any spear of Doriath or the spear of Boldog or poison resistance should make them quite doable. Don't let them surround you.

If you have low melee (15ish) when you first start seeing these, things like ZoC and Opportunist can help a lot since you get a lot of extra attacks on fast, erratic things. (Works well on cats too.) Flanking can also help you attack while not being attacked as much...

@giants:
Try archery or spear throwing or a subtle shortsword. While you can't do archery or subtle shortsword with every build, you can throw spears with every melee type. Giants have low protection and low evasion and your spears will do horrible damage to them - with sufficient melee (or throwing mastery) even unique giants fall swiftly to a handful of javelins.

This is tricky because they flee, generally with 2-3 hits of HP left. Nothing worse than losing Glend because you couldn't catch Nan before the stairs

Also, these dudes throw boulders at range. They have a very low chance to hit, but they _hurt_.

[BlueFish]

Also what % of times can the top players win the game? Is it rare or quite regular when you know how?

I'm guessing "top players" who were motivated to play the most powerful character they could and try to win with them could win more than 50% of the time. I doubt anybody actually plays that way though. Personally, I'm a mediocre player but the way I play, I more or less intentionally fail to win. Every time I've won, the next character I play is different and weaker. I find winning to be compelling and exciting and rare -- and demotivating to play the game afterwards. There is a small part of me that likes it when I get close to winning, and die. I know winning will rob me of my interest in playing, for a while after.

[Patashu]

Only 50%? Judging by longest consecutive win streaks, top players in Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup and Nethack can win at least 95% of the time when trying to.

[TJS]

Some great replies here, thanks for all the advice. Starting to get a bit better and getting to 500ft most games now. It's weird because I don't feel any better at the game, but I'm obviously learning stuff without realising it.

Dodging + flanking works very well. Here's my current game, I'm wondering what I should look to do next:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=15144

Does whirlwind attack work well with dodging and flanking? Or does it only work if you specifically target an enemy?

Also I imagine Knock Back might help stop you getting surrounded in the open too? I don't want to take these skills unless they work well with what I've already got.

I've not got a decent weapon yet, my stealth, archery skills are low and my song skills are non-existent. Perhaps I should hang around looking for a better weapon. Is there a song that I should be looking to take?

Running into Easterlings -> Power/Finesse. Werewolves -> Resist Poison. Shadow Spiders -> Inner Light. Sulrauko -> Keen Senses. Giants -> Precise Shot Cats -> Critical Resistance.

So I should take Inner Light soon I guess? My unidentified ring is rPoison.

[half]

Does whirlwind attack work well with dodging and flanking? Or does it only work if you specifically target an enemy?

It triggers on any of the 'main attacks' so a normal bump to attack, a flanking attack, and a controlled retreat attack.

It is at its best with Flanking or with Controlled Retreat. Otherwise it helps if you get surrounded, but is still one of your attacks for each one of the opponent attacks (like in a corridor) and with a penalty for being surrounded. With Flanking, you do the whirlwind around the location you moved from, which means you might be out of reach of many of those enemies when their turn comes round. I'd strongly encourage you to try it.

[debo]

Just remember to stay away from walls -- I'm bad at reading comprehension, and didn't realize the first few times that whirlwind attack is different than rage. Your sweep will "cancel" if it rotates through a wall. (You generally want to stay away from walls anyways while flanking)

[BlueFish]

Only 50%? Judging by longest consecutive win streaks, top players in Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup and Nethack can win at least 95% of the time when trying to.

Don't take my word for it. I have no idea.

[taptap]

@tjs:

I would use another weapon. 3d5 with a bastard sword is really awkward, better take a longsword instead. I like flanking with subtlety and shortsword, it works with everything however. With heavy hitters you may want to try to combine with charge and knockback. Another cool interaction is with sprinting.

[locus]

Only 50%? Judging by longest consecutive win streaks, top players in Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup and Nethack can win at least 95% of the time when trying to.

Sil is harder than those games because of the lack of escapes and the time limit.

[TJS]

Trying a few games by putting all starting skill experience into stealth and taking Disguise and Keen Senses straight away, creeping around is great fun and becomes a lot easier when you get Listen.

Any tips on what to do in my current game? I've got to 750ft which is the best I've done so far. Should I start to build up melee or keep buffing evasion and stealth? Any skills that would be useful?

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=15151

[taptap]

Trying a few games by putting all starting skill experience into stealth and taking Disguise and Keen Senses straight away, creeping around is great fun and becomes a lot easier when you get Listen.

Any tips on what to do in my current game? I've got to 750ft which is the best I've done so far. Should I start to build up melee or keep buffing evasion and stealth? Any skills that would be useful?

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=15151

I don't understand your high evasion. I would go for more stealth (dropping the gauntlets might help already) + vanish, more perception and most importantly song of Lorien. Maybe a little archery to handle bugs (but you are probably past them right now already). I would try to identify the staffs - sanctity would have saved you the curse breaking. I believe Silence -> Lorien -> Mastery is a nice song progression if you want to play stealthy but not exactly pacifist.

I found singers diversify well with archery, for assassins I would actually start the other way round with a balanced melee character that takes up stealth later (because it needs so much experience in every field to get a strong assassin).

[TJS]

I don't understand your high evasion.

No idea really, I was tired when playing so was just putting points into that to avoid being one-shotted if a monster sees me.

I would go for more stealth (dropping the gauntlets might help already) + vanish, more perception and most importantly song of Lorien. Maybe a little archery to handle bugs (but you are probably past them right now already).

I ditched the gauntlets as they were pretty much pointless. I rarely if ever have monsters detect me, do they get smarter as you go deeper?

I thought my perception was quite high, what do I need it higher for? I have see invisible and keen senses.

I would try to identify the staffs - sanctity would have saved you the curse breaking.

I had a cursed axe of fury and a load of dangerous monsters were homing in on me so I took it off as quickly as possible. I don't think I had the staffs at that point.

I found singers diversify well with archery, for assassins I would actually start the other way round with a balanced melee character that takes up stealth later (because it needs so much experience in every field to get a strong assassin).

I find it much easier to start with all the points in stealth and perception as no monsters see you. I can get to 500ft most games with that build. Also it was really designed to learn the stealth side of the game.

I had an idea that I could take Assasin, increase melee and then take finesse and subtlety and perhaps take focus and try and one-shot unwary monsters and run with sprinting if it fails. Maybe cruel blow would help with the running part. I guess it would work best with monsters with high armour but low health. Or is this a stupid idea?