[Announce] FrogComposband 7.1.toffee released

[Sideways]

Yes, Sharpness stacks together with everything (though it doesn't make insta-killing attacks insta-kill any harder...)

[Gwarl]

Yes, Sharpness stacks together with everything (though it doesn't make insta-killing attacks insta-kill any harder...)

This needed clarifying because sharpness can also trigger insta-kills

[Bostock]

(Note for people not following the dev version: Karrot is a patron for a dev-version-only class.)

Tonight during a Karrot quest to kill 5 AMHDs in Lonely:39, with only 1 AMHD left to kill, I used a staff of Summon Monsters, producing an AMHD pet, and… suddenly I'd won the quest! That's probably not intended behavior. :-)

[Sideways]

Well done, that's a nice bug

[clouded]

Do you know why the "CM" melee screen was removed for possessors not wielding a weapon, and can you restore it? I assume that using rings of combat and Wm still work, but there's no way to know

[Sideways]

Chris radically changed how monster melee works, and also changed how possessor melee works. Weaponless possessor melee used to be based on innate attacks (the norm for player-monsters); but it was replaced with new code that (mostly) doesn't use innate attacks, probably because reproducing new-style melee through innate attacks would have required an even more radical code overhaul.

Basically what this means is that I can't bring the old code back, because it relied on possessor melee using innate attacks. Writing new code completely from scratch, specifically for possessors, is probably doable; but I have so many other things on my to-do list that it will likely be a while before I get around to that.

Rings of Combat and Weaponmastery do work on possessors, but they only get applied to the first effect of a blow, not to any subsequent effects. (So if a blow is displayed as "Hurt (6d6), Cut (6d6)", the Hurt gets boosted by them but the Cut doesn't.)

[Blinkhog]

Hi, I've recently discovered Frogcomposband, I decided to play when I read about the coffeebreak mode on Reddit and I've been playing that mode exclusively. I've been having a great time.

I decided to play a warrior as it's nice and basic while I learnt the game. I've managed to get a warrior character up to the serpent, but my character is not able to beat it - just ran out of healing and I'm going to have to fight until I die or bail out. I managed to clear almost every unique I ran into before getting to dungeon lvl 100.

Here is a dump from before I attempted the fight

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22461

My damage output and sources of *healing* are inadequate, I can't out-DPS the serpent and I can't heal enough to stay in the fight.

I'm wondering, is it just that I have picked an underpowered race/class combo for the final fight, is it that winning coffeebreak mode is very difficult, or is it that I have made some play error?

ps. I LOVE the Mogaminator.

[wobbly]

Klacon is one of the better races. Your damage output looks enough, another level of shard and disenchant resist would have been good if you had the choice.

[clouded]

Your character equipment seems fine - I think your problem was using so many healing potions throughout the game and getting many of them destroyed. 28 !healing and 3 !*healing* destroyed is too many, note that destruction is based on how many of something you carry so if you are carrying 20 potions of healing they are more likely to be destroyed. Personally I only carry 1-2 potions between levels CL30-40 and then between 5-10 once I have tons stored, I never carry *healing* before the Serpent. A large part of character selection to me is device skill, being able to use a staves of healing is important to not burn through healing potions (but I also often end with 80+ unused, so my habits might be too stingy these days).

But note: I haven't played coffee mode and don't know the mechanics of it. By the way if you come and chat on http://angband.live you can ask for advice while playing.

[Blinkhog]

Klacon is one of the better races. Your damage output looks enough, another level of shard and disenchant resist would have been good if you had the choice.

Yeah, I also had some boots of speed +10 in my house I could have used, I was wearing boots for device skill, but my devices were useless vs. the serpent.

Your character equipment seems fine - I think your problem was using so many healing potions throughout the game and getting many of them destroyed. 28 !healing and 3 !*healing* destroyed is too many, note that destruction is based on how many of something you carry so if you are carrying 20 potions of healing they are more likely to be destroyed. Personally I only carry 1-2 potions between levels CL30-40 and then between 5-10 once I have tons stored, I never carry *healing* before the Serpent. A large part of character selection to me is device skill, being able to use a staves of healing is important to not burn through healing potions (but I also often end with 80+ unused, so my habits might be too stingy these days).

But note: I haven't played coffee mode and don't know the mechanics of it. By the way if you come and chat on http://angband.live you can ask for advice while playing.

I didn't know that re: inventory destruction.
Still I think it may be that *healing* is too rare in coffeebreak mode. I only found 10 potions of *healing* all game and they don't spawn in the black market. If I'd found say, 30 I might have had a shot.

I like the device skill mechanic in Frog.

Are there builds in this game that can get 1000+ damage per turn?

[clouded]

Are there builds in this game that can get 1000+ damage per turn?

Yeah there are a few ways to get such high damage, for example tonberries with extra attack weapons, mana brand multiplying slaying brands, maulers with heavy weapons, riding with a good heavy lance. You can achieve it on a lot of classes if you get good luck with equipment (often including rings of power).

[HugoVirtuoso]

Yes, Tonberries are totally the way the go mega-melee-wise if you can overcome their caveats of Confusion vulnerability, and becoming slower and losing melee blows at higher clvls. I play them almost exclusively just for the damage output and resulting rapid EXP gain.

[Sideways]

Your damage output is pretty good, combined with the decent resists (though like wobbly said, 2x rShards would be nice) and high AC I would expect something like 30-40 normal !healing and 4-5 !*healing* to be enough for J, a bit more if you got exceptionally unlucky with the summons.

In other words, you've found more than enough !healing and !*healing*, the problem is that you've used too many of them before J (and that, like clouded said, too many of them got destroyed). This might be a sign that you've picked the wrong fights or made tactical errors in the fights you did pick, but I suspect it's mostly that you've underused staff-healing. Doom Quest II gives a healing staff as a reward, so if you underused staff-healing simply because you didn't have a staff of healing to use, you can do that quest earlier next time.

Warrior is a bit odd in that it's strong in the early game, then a bit awkward in the late game because of the device problems, then strong again against J because J drains the charges out of melee characters' devices anyway.

--

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=21997 was one of my coffee-break winners; while not a warrior, he relied on melee for damage and had the same device fail-rate problems warriors have. If you look at the statistics you'll notice he used less potion-healing than your guy, and the vast majority of the potion-healing he did use was in the J fight; he barely used !healing and !*healing* at all before the end fights. But he used staff-healing a lot more than your guy.

[Blinkhog]

Thx for input everyone.

...
In other words, you've found more than enough !healing and !*healing*, the problem is that you've used too many of them before J (and that, like clouded said, too many of them got destroyed). This might be a sign that you've picked the wrong fights or made tactical errors in the fights you did pick, but I suspect it's mostly that you've underused staff-healing. Doom Quest II gives a healing staff as a reward, so if you underused staff-healing simply because you didn't have a staff of healing to use, you can do that quest earlier next time.
...

That's it, I burnt through potions too recklessly, not knowing how many I'd need to stockpile. I took pretty much every fight I thought I could win no matter how many consumables I needed to use. Using the old school "clear all the uniques" style but there are so many uniques in Frog there's no way to clear them in coffeebreak mode.

If I was to redo it that would be the ticket I think, just playing less aggro and making sure to stockpile at least 50 heal and 10 uber heal.

I did have a staff of healing from about DL50 or 60 I think but I couldn't use it reliably enough. Apart from innate skill, INT and device skill bonuses from equip, what else effects device skill?

[Bostock]

Very little. All I can think of offhand is the Simplicity ego on devices (doesn't affect device skill per se but affects it for the given device) and stunning (reduces device skill).

Regarding strategy, yes, definitely pick and choose a bit more on the unique kills, especially once you're CL 50 (or you know you'll be reaching CL 50 early). If you're playing with Easy Lore on, or have Probing, or you've just fought the given unique a lot, you can see their drops in the monster memory. No drops or few drops / non-good/exceptional drops = not worth fighting. (Unless you're really into reforging (which you probably aren't) and thus want the fame from the kill.)