[YAVP] First win, MiFi^Gozag
Morgue: https://pastebin.com/DtM7v5L7
I used to play Dungeon Crawl years ago, but never ascended. Recently, I came back, and after quite a few attempts (ranging from early deaths by orc packs on D: 3 to several deaths in Zot) managed to get my first ascension.
I originally planned to worship Okawaru, but after getting to D:8 with no Oka altar in sight, I've decided to follow Gozag. Found an eveningstar early on and switched skill training from Axes to Maces & Flails - but eventually switched back after getting the mithril axe. Since Axes and Maces cross-train, I figured I might as well switch skill training, since I already had skill points and both weapons seemed better than my current equipment at that time.
I ended up having extreme luck with Gozag shops - both Four Winds and Dragon King's scales were acquired through Call Merchant. Scrolls of acquirement, on other hand, were not that impressive.
After getting min delay on Arga and maxing my combat skills, I switched to Evocations and ended up leveling it to 23, but still was mainly relying on melee at that point. Wands and lightning rod were handy during pre-endgame phase, though.
My closest call was at Crypt, where I ran into flayed ghosts while luring an undead pack and they dropped my HP into red, and I barely managed to kill them quickly enough to get my HP back.
On Zot: 5 I tried to use Gozag bribe tactic, but my gold was running low from funding shops and purchasing Dragon King, so apparently I couldn't effectively shut down the opposition. I got past the entry room, but then I was jumped by several hostile monsters, so I read a teleport scroll and held them back until it kicked in.
Now that I look back on my character dump, one of my glaring mistakes was leaving hat of Pondering on after maxing out MR. I bought Four Winds while preparing for Zot, and I've completely forgotten about the major drawback of my hat by that point.
Posted Oct 20, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC
Congrats! Gozag is solid on so many builds. Scrolls of acquirement with Gozag are handy for requesting even more gold. :-). High odds to get yourself 2-3 Potion Petitions at worst, and at best, a nice pool of cash for a shop opening or a Bribe Branch.
Zot:5 in current version is particularly nasty with the traps design, Bribe Branch takes some of the cruelty out of it. Friendly Orbs of Fire are legit!
Whatcha gonna shoot for next?
Trying to get a caster going right now. Best attempt was a Gargoyle Earth Elementalist that got killed by fire crab on Lair: 5. Might end up going with another fighter type, I remember reading Yred being a solid choice for hybrid builds where you fight along with your undead army.
Yred is one of my favorite gods. Very very solid through the first three runes, but for Zot, I tend to start investing in more forms of crowd control by then. The Yred minions get pretty shredded up and thinned out the deeper you get in Zot, so have a backup plan for when all your undead “blockers” are gone.