D:50

[RedBamboo]

I'm pretty curious how people normally take on the last level of the CoC.

I've died twice trying, and I'm not sure if I should brute force it or get in and get out.

I'm also questioning the power of bolt spells on D:50, as it seems as if they are the easy solution to the masses of chaotic monsters.
Anywho, how do YOU personally go about it?

[JellySlayer]

I normally do the digging route. Dig to the top chamber, clear, use a locked door to block the chaos servants from getting in. Do same with bottom side. Then throw levers and either use WoD, other cheesy method, or kill balors one-by-one when they come to hit the levers. Probably 80% of the monsters can be avoided. I usually only bother to clear everything if I'm an ultra who needs some extra corruptions before entering the gate. A scroll of familiar summoning or two won't go amiss if you need some extra firepower (one or two greater earth elementals can pretty much clear the level on their own, including the balors if they get enough experience killing the weaker monsters). Especially helpful for drakelings waiting to recover their speed.

A humanoid slaying weapon like Kinslayer, Executor, etc. really helps, as does a pile of slaying ammo. Daemon slayers like rune-covered trident are good for the balors, but not for slogging through everything else.

[Masque]

My only successful time was with archer and slaying ammo + constantly teleporting to stairs for balors came for levers and back to them till they all die.

[magpie]

As I recently discovered, having 100 Stealth really shines in the late game, including D:50 - it lets you fight 1 or 2 at a time, rather than alerting entire rooms. Stand as far away as you can, shoot off a crappy arrow or bolt to 'aggro' a couple, then let them come to you for killing.

Blocking off as many rooms as you can with doors is also a good tactic - it means you won't be surrounded. You can block off the main chamber, and the two chambers leading off the main corridor.

You do need strong offence, even being careful - some of the monsters have many, many hit points.

My only successful time was with archer and slaying ammo + constantly teleporting to stairs for balors came for levers and back to them till they all die.

It's a good tactic. You really don't want to be surrounded by balors and Fistinarius; they all hit very, very hard.

[Blasphemous]

Typically I build up a powerful character and don't normally have problems on D:50.
I try to minimize corruption and damage to myself however.
I clear the jellies first. If done right with stealth, you can skip both chaos mutant rooms and never look behind, I've done it a couple of times with different classes.
As long as you're hitting WMoPCs when no chaos mutants are in the sight radius, they shouldn't be alerted.
Once the "entry hall" is cleared, I tackle the northern and southern rooms.
Greater chaos servants are vulnerable to death rays and they are single file.
With 4 charges on the wand, you can clear them and more with ease instead of having to melee them.

At this point, high perception really pays off - as long as you kill monsters without chaos wizards seeing you (or you seeing them, the view range system works in strange ways), the wizards will remain neutral and not summon.
If you step right, you can only let them see you one at a time and pick them off with missiles of humanoid slaying or GTB.
Essentially you can do the pussified version of gate closing this way with minimum resources - you don't have to attack the main room at all, just monster creation + door creation and voila.
Personally, I never do that. I think it's cheap and I always like the challenge of D:50 when I have a truly powerful char.
So, I use the same method for the main chamber - only alert monsters 1, 2 or 3 at a time to your presence by operating the line of sight, both theirs and yours.
At this stage of the game, perception in the 30-35 range should be possible and it's enough to always have larger view range than any other D:50 monster.
You can lure balors out one by one with missiles. Chaos warriors and ghost lords are vulnerable to humanoid and undead slayers, both of which are near-guaranteed.
Chaos wizards are typically problematic because of the summons but if you did not open the northern and southern rooms' secret passages to the main chamber, you can use the entrance choke point to take them one at a time.
At least as long as balors are not alerted; them teleporting behind you and in front of you is the worst case scenario but D:50 guarantees plenty of corridors to limit them to two at a time.
Balors drop rather quickly to thrown rune-covered trident and this lets you remain safely outside of their melee range.

[Arbot]

Each of my victories I fought though the whole level and made sure there wasn't a single monster left, the only one of the five that had any trouble was my healer, a some bad luck with corruptions made clearing the level a major pain. Acid blood to stun Fisty plus him teleporting away/running away plus vomiting darkness which used up my few light sources on top of a character without an overwhelming melee attack (pretty sure I was using big punch.) I ended up Praying to remove darkness several times and eventually managed to take him down although it took far too long

[LexyBoy]

I've only reached D:50 twice, both times come out victorious.

First, DE mindcrafter, was quite scared of corruption as had little removal and it was around 200 days in, so dug to the levers, closed them and locked them using wands of door and monster creation, then teleported into the main chamber and woke up the balors with some lightning bolts, then teleported out and took them out one-to-one or two, then cleared the rest.

Second, Gnomish assassin, knew better what to expect and wanted to do it "properly". Had a couple of SoCR and a wish to hand so wasn't worried about corruption. Went straight to the jellies, cleared them and the chaos mutants, then did the tunnels to the lever rooms, killed everything there and closed the levers, opened the wall to the main chamber, killed everything there. Of course, this guy had the twins, poison hands and 150 speed which makes things a bit easier.

[Tyrnyx]

I like to clear the whole thing but I tend to do it the semi-scummy way. I never dig or explode the levers or similar. I go straight in and clear the warrior's and jellies, then clear the side rooms, dragging out a single balor at a time by walking between the levers. Recently I've had teleportis on almost all my characters so that helps speed things up. Then when they're dead open the main room and wade for a while. Invisibility helps deal with the ghosts if your a short lived race.

I once accidentally triggered all the balors with a duelist once but managed to get to the left side of the level and dance around to clear them so it's not a definite death sentence - A wand of teleport is everyone's friend.

I'd say the biggest fear is corruption (I'm playing p20) as you will get hit despite a very high DV and you will get a fair number of corruptions. Punching everything is a recipe to end up as a purple blob.

As such, missiles are pretty much a requirement. For instance once I had zero missile marks, something dropped a potion of uselessness, used it and got whirlwind which is pretty bad as far a artifact missile items are concerned but without it I would have gotten a ton more corruptions. Without it I probably would have lost! That said, you don't have to shoot everything. Just soften 'em up.

And, unsurprisingly: The harder you punch the better. Health again not being the issue but rather corruptions. Best defense is a good offence is especially true here.

[mewmew]

i won twice in pre20, both time i dug to lever rooms, first time as dark elven archer, cleared the whole (or almost the whole) level (with the runed trident (throwing) and thunderstroke), i summoned balrugs one by one at first, then got annoyed and dug to the main chamber to speed up the process. the trident slays demons so balrugs weren't a threat, the most annoying enemies were chaos warriors and wizards, i don't remember if i bothered to kill all chaos jellies. background corruption was the problem since it was past 90 days and i was neutral but i saved khelly and had scrolls to remove corruptions, second time as a gnome bard, i used the same trident (got it on d:50), bow and some melee with a mediocre spear, i could probably clear the whole floor despite it was somehow harder than with archer, but decided to try faster variant with creating monsters on levers and surrounding them with doors, corruption was the problem again but i had scrolls either

[magpie]

Making the chaos wizards capable of flipping the levers would make D:50 much more of a challenge, I think.