r/dcss • u/happystrongdude • 2d ago
trying to learn
https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/testest/morgue-testest-20260830-150723.txtWhat's up DCSS gang!
https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/testest/morgue-testest-20260830-150723.txt
Pretty new to DCSS, so pretty horrible. Then at casting and spells, which naturally lets me gravitate to get all MiBe.
I still haven't had a W but having fun. I think with where I was at, I could have made a few more runs at more runes. I was snagging the Abyss rune, and then like 700 vortexes appeared, and I had no idea how to deal with it.
I was gonna go the shape shifting route but switched talents too late, and feel like I overtrained on some areas that I'm not really sure
Also, I had that gnarly loud shield but switched it out when I went in the Abyss.
Just looking for advice. Feel free to rip me apart. All critiques, good critique. Just trying to make the best berserker decisions I can. thanks gang!
EDIT
Thanks gang! First W! https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/testest/morgue-testest-20260902-024328.txt
I would have never survived with this one without yalls advice, twice into the abyss at low level. I had to fight every last urge to not go back at 27 and grab that rune for redemption but settled with a 4 rune and might have dipped my toe into zig lol.
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u/Trinitial-D 2d ago
ouch, I can tell that this death hurt. a very strong character. I like how you trained 16 throwing, that is always a great idea on minotaur imo.
first thing I see is that you died with scroll of summoning which probably wouldve helped in the lead-up to your death. also, it seems like you werent using haste potions because you had 13 of them, those are often a great idea to use particularly in abyss because usually every turn in abyss is significant, and they also let you be able to simply run away from some of the more BS situations you can find down there, or run and then teleport.
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u/Trinitial-D 2d ago
oh also I just noticed this, but that kite shield you were using was pretty weak. you had 7 enchant armor scrolls and a +7 tower shield wouldve been a pretty big increase to your defenses over that shield. even if it meant you were stuck at rC++ instead of rC+++, it is 100% worth it imo
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u/happystrongdude 1d ago
dude it hurt me putting that kite shield on. I was using the gong shield and that thing slapped (noise wise too) but I took it off after reading about wanting to be quieter in the abyss. I think in the end was probably a bad decision, or at least it was a good decision maybe but only if i instead enchanted my other tower shield like you were saying. with the gong i literally felt like i took near zero damage
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u/happystrongdude 1d ago
yeah i felt this one physically haha!
I am notoriously bad at using consumables so I need to really think about that. right now I have been using scrolls more so thats cool but still have a lot to learn on the wand and potion front. its just a little confusing i guess at the moment on knowing what to use when. like immolation on TRJ and almost blowing myself sky high in the process.
I do think though that I should have totally stopped and really looked at each tile when i was in the abyss, but getting one tile away from the rune just mudsucked me lol
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u/spudwalt Cheibriadite 2d ago
All the spatial vortices were coming from the spatial maelstroms -- they turn walls into spatial vortices. Can't remember whether created vortices count as summoned, but if they do, killing the maelstroms (javelins were probably the best way to reach them) would have gotten rid of all of them.
Going berserk there might not have been a great move. Losing access to most of your abilities for a while can be risky (especially in clusterfuck situations), and when you're fighting things with distortion-branded attacks, getting blinked around means you're not guaranteed to be able to keep attacking to keep your rage going.
Against that many spatial maelstroms and a bunch of tough enemies, it might have been a good time to use a scroll of teleportation to peace out (several turns in advance because Abyss). Frustrating if that was the rune vault, but better to live and try again than die and lose everything.
You had a bunch of consumables that you didn't use. A scroll of summoning, scrolls of immolation, potions of might, 13(!) potions of haste (maybe you were thinking of your potion fungus mutation, but you could have fixed that and your other bad mutations [that you'd been carrying around since Slime] with your 17(!!) potions of mutation, or leveraged it by surrounding yourself with allies before quaffing a bunch of potions), a phantom mirror, a lightning rod, enough piety to use Brothers in Arms at least once... Remember to use your consumables -- they do you no good if you die.
Skills look mostly okay, though training some Evocations would likely have been useful (it's the closest thing to magic that Trog will let you use).
Best way to learn how spells work is by doing. Run some spellcasting characters -- not only will that help you learn the magic system, but being a squishy character promotes better habits, like leveraging any and every tool you have to survive before you're in a crisis (at which point it's often too late).
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u/happystrongdude 1d ago
dude this makes so much sense now lol. I was completely smitten by the rune that i went all in without inspecting the new characters around me ive never seen. at a certain point i was so out of my depth with no options (i felt atleast) that I just yolo'd and that was the very wrong move.
your comment definitely makes me think that the consumables i feel are not that good are in fact, the exact opposite of what i am thinking lol. I will reassess and start using the haste a lot more.
I thought i read mutations were a bit of a gamble (although i love the idea of rolling the dice and seeing what sick mut's i can get on a run), but what are your thoughts there? I guess i totally should have tried to roll off the bad ones instead of taking them as set in stone.
Super helpful advice though, definitely realizing a lot of aspects that led up to this splat that i think i could have really improved on. thanks a ton!
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u/spudwalt Cheibriadite 1d ago
Yeah, definitely take time to slow down and inspect new things so you learn what horrible ways they'll try to kill you. Do this even after you've beaten the game -- the devs keep updating things and adding new enemies (cognitogaunts are fairly new) or tweaking old ones (bone dragons used to be tougher and not have a breath attack).
Dungeon Crawl is a game where you have to learn when it's okay to turn your brain off (rune vaults are generally not one of those times for any character). Melee meathead characters like Minotaur Berserkers are bad at teaching that because they're strong enough to beat things without you having to think, right up until they're not and you get a painful learning experience. Squishy characters force you to think more and give you more practice at judging when to YOLO, when to approach/fight cautiously, and when to GTFO.
If you're still stuck on using Minotaurs, try picking a different background/god, or even try a more Dex-focused blade or ranged build. Not having Trog to fall back on forces you to play smarter, and if you're interested in going for more than 3 runes, Trog starts being more of a liability in the postgame when being able to smash things in melee stops being enough to carry you and even the meatiest melee meathead starts getting enough experience to think about picking up some spells. (Minotaurs are particularly bad at magic, but utility spells like Lesser Beckoning or Blink are something even they can pick up without too much difficulty.)
Haste is pretty much the best status effect in the game -- you get to do 50% more of everything. Part of why Berserk is such a big boost is because it has Haste built into it, and with regular Haste, you get to keep that speed without being stuck doing "hit things with stick" or the Slow after it wears off.
Potions of mutation can be a bit of a gamble, but when you have 17 tries at the lever, you can probably find some combination that's better than the all-downsides setup you had. Less HP is pretty bad, potion fungus encourages playing worse by making you reluctant to use things that give you an edge, and a second rank of lowered Intelligence (which you'd have been fairly likely to come by in the Abyss, one of the most mutagenic areas of the game -- there was even a wretched star right there when you died) would have dropped your Intelligence to 0, which is really bad.
Also note that wearing the Hat of the Alchemist (or other sources of rMut) makes mutation potions somewhat less of a gamble, as they help prevent new mutations from being applied.
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u/Fugu 2d ago edited 2d ago
You were probably strong enough to get a three rune win here so probably you just need to focus on taking the win. Abyss and especially slime tend to be harder than vaults for your average head clicking minotaur.
A minor note on skills: when you are just starting I would turn off everything but axes and fighting with axes on double until you get to 1.0 delay. Minotaur starts are pretty safe as it is, but that makes them even safer. EDIT: I also would have turned dodging and axes back on at some point.
In my opinion MiFi with oka is an easier win than MiBe, but YMMV. You get a better panic button, a nearly unlimited supply of throwing weapons, and slightly better starting gear.
As someone else said, a highly enchanted tower shield is always a good idea on a minotaur. You will most definitely notice that extra block per turn.
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u/happystrongdude 1d ago
i know for other characters it is way harder to over generalize because of the RNG of the game, but for something like a MiBe thats pretty straightforward without spells etc, is there a stat goal you would say is a general good idea to be at once you hit XL 27?
I try MiFi Oka all the time but dude i always splat. Maybe I am not using the god abilities correctly with oka? I build them armor and weapon wise the exact same so that can be the only real difference imo
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u/Fugu 1d ago
For MiBe all of your level ups should go to strength. You don't need to fuss about stats; you'll have more than enough.
My first win was MiFi Oka and MiBe was something like my eighth or ninth. I found MiBe surprisingly difficult by comparison.
Re: ability use, you want to use heroism a lot, especially at low levels. Finesse is for big fights that don't require duel, and duel is your panic option (finesse + duel for extreme panic). In practice I try to avoid using too much of his abilities at low level in order to get the throwing weapons and the gift online as soon as possible. Faith is very helpful for this.
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u/Rocket_Goblin Bottom 1% Commenter 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yep, a little bit of overtraining there. I'll just focus my comment on that part.
You don't need to finish training Fighting & Armor like that while there are still other skills that can help you handle varied situations. A couple early points in Evocations and Throwing go a long way to help a melee brute.
You hit 20 Fighting when you trained your first level of Throwing, and you never threw any javelins even after hitting 16 Throwing. After your melee attack & defenses are starting to get online, putting even just 2-6 points into Throwing makes darts powerful. Then, when you reach 16 Throwing later, your javelins will be at min delay. They are likely to do more damage than your melee attacks, not to mention against multiple enemies.
You never trained any Evocations. Wands and evocable items are much more powerful with even a small investment. You could have probably trained something like 10 Evocations with 26 Armor instead of 0 Evocations with 26.7 Armor, losing maybe 1 point of AC in order to have a pretty solid secondary method of dealing with enemies. But like Throwing, just 2-6 points early on also does a lot to make the Evocation items more useful.
Once you're doing a bunch of melee damage at min delay and you have a high AC and HP pool, further marginal increases aren't nearly as helpful as bringing more capabilities online. It stops being a question of whether you're strong enough when you wade into melee and smash things and instead becomes a question of what you can do to avoid wading into melee to smash things when doing so would he too dangerous no matter how powerful you are in melee.
Broadly speaking, you don't really need to keep training those core skills past ~18-22 unless there's nothing else to do with the XP. Being able to deal with threats at longer range, and having some AoE to deal with groups before you get surrounded, would have gone a long way for this character.
But you also died with tons of consumables and escapes, so I'd MOSTLY chalk this death up to your still-developing understanding of the game's dangers, and your still-developing intuition about when to escape before you need to. 99% of this death is your newness to the game, <1% is your build.
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u/happystrongdude 1d ago
okay super interesting, definitely have a lot more to learn here then.
i was just reading yesterday on the fighting formula and looked and that makes a lot more sense for damage wise. i am almost embarrassed to say but i tend to always use boomerangs because i dont have to pick them up lol. pretty lame but being open kimono here haha
the evocations bit is really interesting, especially when you put it to the comparison of 1 AC trade off vs 10 evo.
I think also the sheer mass of enemies i would encounter later in the game made throwing just seem less valuable just because with axes i would be able to cleave but obviously that didnt result in a good outcome so my logic is for sure off there lol. I will have to better learn about the best wands and consumables for aoe then and reach for those first before engaging in some scary fights
I think knowing what to reach for will definitely help, and if i also knew that maelstrom would give birth to 400 vortex babies i would have nope'd out of there instead of yolo blinking beside the rune.
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u/spudwalt Cheibriadite 1d ago
Javelins let you attack multiple enemies like axes, but unlike axes, all those enemies are not guaranteed to have chances to attack you back. They're perfect for corridors. (Being ganged up on is a bad situation for any character -- being good with an axe just makes it less bad.)
Javelins are also stronger than boomerangs (which can make the difference between something dying on approach or getting close enough to hurt you), and autoexplore and autopickup are designed to pick them back up for you after the fight's over.
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u/Unhappy_Situation_40 2d ago
This might not be helpful at this point, but I'll say as one noob to another that casters are easier than melee. At least my three wins so far have all been as casters. I'm trying to do a melee character now, and I feel much more vulnerable. There are several good guides at crawl wiki. The mechanics are a bit harder to learn, but it's way easier to stand back and kill stuff from afar than always be in the face of whatever threat is coming.
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u/happystrongdude 1d ago
dude i hear this all the time and want this to be true so bad, but i splat so fast with GgEE and DjSu etc. I just feel like after casting if i try to run its too late and i can never get away or maybe dont know the right spells too? ATM I can consistently get through Lair and S branches on MiBe and lucky to get past D:6 with casters lol
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u/spudwalt Cheibriadite 1d ago edited 1d ago
Get used to deciding whether to fight or run before you start casting, and have a plan to make a break for it if the fight starts to turn south. Often, you'll need to break out the consumables to get away mid-fight (or at least switch to fighting full force). The early game before you have consumables identified (or at all) is one of the most dangerous parts for a reason.
Earth Elementalist and Summoner are two backgrounds that start you with renewable escape tools -- Passwall lets you walk through walls to get away (exceedingly few enemies can follow you), and every summoned ally is something you can use to body block while you disengage and run.
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u/Connect_Engineer_123 1d ago
Thought 1: any time you step into unexplored territory, you could be revealing a big scary monster. So if you think you might be going into a bad spot, consider throwing a boomerang or even a poison dart and baiting them into space you know. It's not about trying to stack early damage on, it's about managing the encounter, limiting the scope of the engagement. Most characters can win a 1v1, but maintaining it being a 1v1 or something near that is tricky.
Thought 2: because you can survive getting in over your head a lot and you have some good panic buttons I'd actually argue you're stunting your danger-assessment skills. The next time you play, any time a monster appears that:
you don't recognize
You haven't seen much,
You see in red or yellow text
Take a moment and acknowledge that it could end your run. Look at what it wants to try to do to you and figure out how to not let it do that.
Thought 3: The game is designed so just about anything can win a three rune game and if you haven't won a three rune game you should follow through and do that.
Thought 4: If you end up in a bad spot, remember: the real goal is not to collect 15 runes and win. It's not even to collect 3 runes and win. It's to spend all your consumables appropriately and be able to post a morgue where you died because you ran out. (I'm joking, but the goal is viewpoint shift, so an extreme tweak to how you look at things will eventually adjust into sane consumable use, but trying to gently nudge up into sane consumable use won't get you there)
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u/Reasonable_Sort353 1d ago
Skills look totally fine, those numbers are a bit overkill but that's the advantage of being a MiBe. Some evocations ranks would be nice though, especially with your reusable things like sack of spiders, phantom mirror, gravitambourine.
To get this far your melee tactics must be fairly solid too. Reading enemy descriptions helps but we're all guilty of skipping that one at times.
To me it seems clear that the next thing to work on is using consumables. Like make a rule that anytime you see 6 enemies on your screen, you get 1 step to break line of sight and get that number below 6 and if you can't then you use a consumable.
For example:
Tele scroll in the abyss is super important, it basically lets you reset the whole floor as long as you can survive 3-5 more turns
potion of haste plus potion of might is better than berserk. It doesn't slow you when it runs out, you can use it again immediately when it ends, and it doesn't limit your options to just moving or attacking. Only downsides are that it takes 2 actions to set up and doesn't buff your HP.
scroll of summoning is very strong. Let's say you're a pretty strong melee character, you have 200 HP and 50 damage. If you read scroll of summoning and use brothers in arms, your team collectively now has like 900 hp and 250 damage.
potion of cancelation would take off the slowed effect that gives the enemies extra turns to hit you in between each action you take.
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u/tantaemolis 8h ago
For sure train Evocations. Wands are good. Ice Blast, for example, is a nice AOE on a character like that. And these scale on Evocations, too:
Miscellaneous h - a +2 sack of spiders (inert) g - a +1 phantom mirror i - a +0 Gell's gravitambourine (2/2) j - a +0 lightning rod (4/4) k - a +0 condenser vane
All super good and fun in their own ways.
And train some Invocations, too, for your god abilities. And on that note, it looks like you only used Brothers in Arms 12 times. Not the worst thing, but it CAN be a good help and a very good escape tool. Summon your guy and learn how monsters react and how to use your buddy to gain the space or two needed to run away.
Evo and Invo will help show you the kinds of stuff magic can do, so when you want to try a caster you've already got some knowledge in the bank. Plus, they both help brutes a lot.
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u/SiloPeon 2d ago
My advice for a new player with 0 wins would be not to go for too many runes and just bank a win with 3. Vaults is a pretty doable third rune (I see you even got the Slime one on that run, props!), so I'd recommend just going for Zot at 3. There's stuff to minmax in your skills and gameplan, I'm sure, but I think if you play it safe, you'll take this MiBe home. Save some javelins for the scary orbs, use whatever consumables you have for the tesseracts, and don't panic. Good luck!