Diving strategy?

[Chud]

I don't usually play fast diving games, but thought I might give it a try. How do you usually approach this? Stealth, avoid most creatures, carry as many escapes as you can hold, and hope to find good stuff on the floor? Other tips?

[Pete Mack]

Don't die. Yes stealth is important--for non-fighting classes, Defender weapons, and rings of Mouse (yes, sometimes 2!) are common, early--and not so early. Mostly, detect often, and avoid as much as you can. I strongly recommend Rogue or Mage for it. High Elf mage is particularly fun. I once found an Erinyes at DL 33, CL 18, and jumped to CL 25. Acid Bolt and Wand of cold bolt did for it. That is the way to do it: hunt for high-value targets, and avoid just about everything else. If you don't find a target quickly, take the stairs down.
I have also killed Bullroarer at CL 1 more than once. But in general, you won't get so lucky. Kill some wolves. Then kill some low level hounds. Then young dragons. Until CL 25 or so, you only have to kill ~10 enemies for each CL. (Most will simply be in the way, with the occasional high value target.)

[vic13]

Hi, I know I didn't ask the question but I also wanted to know a little more.

[Chud]

Rogue seems like the standard class for it. I'm trying it with a Hobbit Druid. Great stealth! We'll see how it goes.

[Philip]

The most important thing to know when diving, with respect to the "don't die" thing, is that you will need to use escapes often to avoid death, and you need to use them as little as possible (because most escapes are either unreliable or finite, and using unreliable escapes gets you killed and using finite escapes forces you to use unreliable ones). This means predicting situations that could force you to escape, and avoiding them (use detection for this, which is part of why mages are so good for diving, they have the most powerful detection, and have far better SP and reliability than rogues). Another reason mages are very good is that they come with unreliable escapes built in, and are one of few classes that eventually have reliable renewable escapes. Stealth is useful, if you have enough of it you effectively neutralize the majority of enemies, and if you don't, you earn yourself a lot of time and safe-ish paths. Still, detection is more important.

Lastly, the best way to learn to dive is by diving. And by diving I mean "take the first down stair you find on each level unless there is an interesting object literally in your field of view. Don't fight anything unless you know you can kill it easily *and* it provides either enough xp to level up, or a worthwhile object, or you can't afford to run away. Do this until you die. Figure out what killed you and why (the answer is likely "poor monster memory and/or insufficient detection", but often it will just be "a perfectly reasonable risk goes bad", like sneaking past a monster with high stealth, but it wakes up anyway). If you are a mage, there should never be an actual reason for you to stop diving before dlvl 99, since full detection is just that powerful. Other classes have points where they want stuff like detection or escapes before going further (note that not having them doesn't mean you can't go deeper, it just means it becomes more dangerous than sticking around).

[Pete Mack]

Druid isn't a good choice. You want a class with proper detection. I also recommend against the new classes. Original mage and rogue have a lot more options. Resistances in particular is a huge power jump, amd carrying potions instead is just tedious. (You have to do it nonetheless, or you won't be able to kill anything after DL 45)

[wobbly]

I've dived with a druid before, they have detect life and can pick up detect evil for the holes which mostly leaves drolems & a few others. Some of the forms have +move speed which isn't marked. Get a shooter & kite things. You can also save time (gaining you stealth) using mapping & dig.

[dos350]

get to the stairs at all costs , only explore if u detected something worthwile on dlvl 35+ before that its get to the chopper

[Thraalbee]

Speed is essential. Two =escaping while running is a great way to minimize turncount. Spells/missile are doable with them on