Pools, risk and reward

[Booster]

A bit surprised to see how many prefer not to sip pools. I always keep track of where there are pools, and begin my sipping activities around mid-game. If I haven't found a wish by the time I reach Khelly I always sip to try and find one, although even then I'll first try clear the Frost Caves, High King cave, and the mid level dungeons in hope of finding a wish or AoLS. I find the value in pools to be the intrinsics you can gain, and that is usually what I strive for, with a wish being a bonus. I usually strive for ~2-4 useful intrinsics at which point I stop, depending on how many pools are left. Adverse affects are usually easily handled (sickness, stat abuse,aging), but the way I see it, if I can walk away with -deth, -invis, -para, -petr, -seeinvis it frees up equipment slots for better gear, and leaves less room for error (gorgons).

For when I start sipping, I always make sure I have a form of teleport control (backup corpse stashed, if no ring), high piety to clear dooming, and a way to cure disease. Even when I don't need a wish, I always go back to pray to remove doom in case I get a lucky wish.

Of course, this can be risky - last game I gained and lost many intrinsics from drinking DF empty and ended up with teleportitis and nothing else... you just need to know when to cash out your winnings and not fall for the "one more sip to try and get -para/-petr/-deth".

[Kyreles]

If I find a pool in the UD (having gone straight there) I will drink it. There is too much to gain, and too little to lose to stop me. Later in the game (when I have a ton of intrinsics that I could lose) I tend to avoid unless I'm wish hunting. The risk of losing a character after only 500 turns (or whatever) doesn't outweigh the possibility of getting -Death/-Fire/-Cold/-Para/-Invis etc.

The exception is if I have a particularly strong character or a particularly strong set of gear or items. Then I don't want to risk it unless I'm able to deal with the consequences (poison, dooming, etc)

[Shinae]

I went and tried midgame pool fun in darkforge. I usually skip it. I didn't have anything good like teleport control or anything from corpses. Pools didn't really get me anything. I got doomed twice, had to make a trip to get it off. Curse I got once, but had scroll of luck with me. I didn't get any wish from pools and all the useful resistances I got I lost few sips later.

It wasn't that bad experience. Felt like pool sipping is actually pretty safe if you have good relations with your deity and pool isn't too far from an altar. I might actually start sipping from pools more often later in game. Probably not in high danger areas or deep in dungeons.

[zliplus]

So after I did the FGJC vault, minotaur maze, and drank all my PoGAs, I was feeling super powerful and bored and decided to go pool-sipping after all. I cleared out a few incidental pools in CoC and random dungeons but got nothing, so I did darkforge and boom - got 2 wishes in a row with a third soon after. I couldn't decide what to get so went with acid balls, scrolls of education, and RDSMs, though I don't think I really need any of that. I did manage to lose invis twice but gained it back again (probably should have taken a break to go do the arena...oops). I also gained petrify resist and the main reason I went sipping: removed teleportitis.

[zliplus]

Reporting back in on the visibility in arena front: It also took me exactly 2 potions to complete, as a wizard with farsight and a necklace of the eye. I was pretty high level at the time though (high 30s?) so it took me 2-3 spells to kill each enemy.