Repeat after me - "I will never ever go to Minotaur Maze again"...

[kordi82]

Jeez... just attempted minotaur maze... Pure craziness. I went there with level 27 orcish merchant - semi spellcaster.
I had:
- 6 blessed scrolls of Magic Mapping
- 16 crystals of knowledge
- spellbook of TP and good book reader (meaning I could cast from the book).
- stun ray spell at my command
- tons of healing

After 2 hours of struggle I gave up... Jeez... is there any way right now to actually complete the damn thing? I am not that crazy to go with level 27 char to bug cave for more scrolls and the only solution I see is to go spam more crystals of knowledge... It's not a problem with 100 mining and 100 gemology but this just doesn't feel right. I scummed pretty hard before going in there and it feels to me that the only solution is to scum even harder.... This location needs a change, and some other change than extra rewards at the bottom!

BTW.
Someone can add to wiki that Calm Monster, Scare Monster and Slow Monster are very useful against monsters in the maze. Right now there is only a honorable mention about stun ray.

[TheCableGuy]

Best way I found to beat the Maze was to have MANY, MANY, MANY Blessed Scrolls of Mapping Plus readily available teleportation.

[adomer]

Persistence is the key. I have yet to try the maze in p16, but it was very doable in p14. Since the rewards have been ramped up a bit, it's still well worth it in my opinion.

[anon123]

BTW.
Someone can add to wiki that Calm Monster, Scare Monster and Slow Monster are very useful against monsters in the maze. Right now there is only a honorable mention about stun ray.

Well, you can add that yourself, without even having to make an account ;) That's the attractive of wikis.

As for the Maze, the last time I went there I just spammed Magic Map and teleported to the first staircase I saw. Got all of them right in the first try, but that was pure luck. In principle, it should be doable with a lot of blessed scrolls as TheCableGuy says, but I think 1.2.0 made them not work (don't remember if it was on every level or just the bottom one). The rewards do make this worth the trouble; you now get a random artifact and a bunch of PoGAs in addition to the usual stuff, the latter being doubly nice because of the changes to stat training.

[asdf]

After 2 hours of struggle I gave up... Jeez... is there any way right now to actually complete the damn thing?
Lots of food, detect traps at decent level / alertness 100 / teleportation + magic mapping, healing on demand (a lot of spensweed or cure light wounds or 1-2 regeneration items), atleast 10 slaying ammo, decent missile weapon, preferably of accuracy.

Character stats - atleast ~100 speed with long stride (120-130 is a lot better, but hard to achieve), ~50 DV, ~35 PV, ~40 damage or more (could be hard to achieve for weak characters, usually the biggest issue). Melee everything until Mages/Kings.

Dealing with Minotaur Mages, Minotaur Kings (you cant melee them) - 8-10 or more mastery in bows/crossbows (THIS IS IMPORTANT. THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. FARM SOME MASTERY BEFORE GOING INTO MAZE) and humanoid slaying ammo. Minotaur Emperor - slaying ammo + teleportation + whatever else you want.

Your best bet - beat minotaur mazelord at the entrance staying in the melee range. If you had problems dealing with him - do not attempt the maze, your character is too weak. If you still cant beat maze, but really want the rewards - kill some greater claw bugs in Bug Temple upper level, without disturbing killer bugs. They are a little bit easier then maze, and you could have 140 base speed without a lot of farming. Spend some time bringing back Wi to 25 with morgia and try again.

Rewards are amazing. Do it every game. When you know requirements and meet them - maze is relatively easy to beat.

[gym21]

I'll add 'teleportitis', 'stomafilla' and 'wand of fireballs' to the above suggestions. Minotaur emperor does not like fireballs one bit.

Maze is doable without any scrolls of magic mapping or on-demand TP. Just have to get lucky. If you're not feeling up to the luck thing, you'll probably need around 14 blessed scrolls of magic mapping to be entirely comfortable. Two hours in there is excessive unless something's changed in p16.

[asdf]

Maze is doable without any scrolls of magic mapping or on-demand TP.
Minotaur Emperor is "a little bit" faster then normal character (he's almost as fast as killer bug), and he will kill most characters in 2-3 melee rounds. Or 4-5 on coward.

You still insisting that Maze is doable without any on-demand TP? Maybe. I'd better not risk "kill him first" type of challenge.


Minotaur emperor does not like fireballs one bit.
Characters does not like to melee Minotaur Emperor one bit.

[grobblewobble]

So far I always took the emperor out with wand of paralyzation + melee.

[GordonOverkill]

e: Sorry, posted in the wrong thread.

[Blasphemous]

Last time I did it with lvl 24 mist elven wizard in pre14.
It's definitely worth it, I got 6 PoGA, 3 potions of strength and wyrmlance (aside from AotME and a few other minor random things), at the cost of ~8 scrolls of MM and some PP for teleportation. Acid-balled him to death.
Maze is not particularly difficult, if somewhat tedious; magic mapping works everywhere except the bottom level, where wand of monster detection works just fine and gives the same outcome - minotaur emperor's location.

[kordi82]

Last time I did it with lvl 24 mist elven wizard in pre14.
It's definitely worth it, I got 6 PoGA, 3 potions of strength and wyrmlance (aside from AotME and a few other minor random things), at the cost of ~8 scrolls of MM and some PP for teleportation. Acid-balled him to death.
Maze is not particularly difficult, if somewhat tedious; magic mapping works everywhere except the bottom level, where wand of monster detection works just fine and gives the same outcome - minotaur emperor's location.


Ok. You convinced me. 6 POGA wouldn't convince me in ADOM 1.1.1 but their value in ADOM 1.2 is much greater. I will come back there. Since I have already discovered probably 15 our of 20 levels I should manage to finish this.

However, still I believe there should be done something about this location to make it more fun - this is a computer game for god's sake! it shouldn't feel like hard work!
I went very well prepared into this location and still this was a very painful experience.

Edit:
I will just paint you a picture of my char:
- 300 HP
- 8d5 + 30 DMG
- 38 PV
- quite large spell arsenal at my disposal - as mentioned I can book cast Teleportation, and I have concentration to regenerate PP, I also have lot's of crystals of power for the same puurpose.
- I can can be increase WP above 32 with amulet and orb
- I have cold blood corruption so with herbal alchemy I can easily raise my speed above 200
- no slaying ammo, no wand of paralyzation

AND STILL A PAIN IN THE....

[_Ln_]

I'd suggest lighting a torch + equpping necklace of the eye + casting Farsight if you have necessary resources. It helps a lot.

[kordi82]

OK. So I am going back!

This time I scummed even harder. Went to CoC and on the level with wand shop I had herbs. I accomplished three things at the same time
- got wand of paralyzation
- got some spensweed
- got some crystals of knowledge

Later on I moved to level with bookshop. I pacified it with scrolls of peace to remove corruption... and scummed for more gems. As a result I got:
- some more crystals of knowledge ... duh
- book of MAGIC MAP
- book of heal :D

In other words. Even if I don't go to beat emperor minotaur the effort was worth it. Spellbook of heal and wand of paralyzation basically set me till the end of the game ;). Now let's see what emperor has to offer...

[GordonOverkill]

Fingers are crossed for your char! ;-)

[SirTheta]

I've always maintained that the fake levels need to be jettisoned and no adjustment in the rewards was ever necessary. The fake levels make it one of the most tedious experiences in the game; add in the increased dangerous monster count and it's almost never worth your time.

Also, fwiw, having done it a few times with mostly melee characters, the only things you can't melee are Mages and the Emperor; everything else is very melee-able if you aren't squishy. Mages/Emperor are best dealt with by disabling first, of course...

[Stingray1]

I have only ever completed that place once in my career and that was years back. They can put all the artifacts and 98 blessed PoGA in there, I'll still not do it again. FtS.

[kordi82]

OK. So I did the damn place... Still was walking around aimlessly until I found proper stairs, but the emperor himself was no match for my Merchant.
As mentioned I had "cold blood" corruption. I used my herbs to detonate on myself and raised my speed to 190. Magi and Minotaur I took down with Magic Missles. He died in like 10 shots maybe. He does not shrug it off at all.

Got 6 Poga, 1 potion of strength and 4 potions of Cure Corruption (hurray!) and justifier (not very useful - I will not train swords specially for it... and demons and unded prefer to take down with magic).

Now question to you guys is. He corrupts when eaten. How many corruptions he grants. I consider eating his corpse. +3 ST and Toughness sounds nice and Wi I can retrain with herbs. Perception will be nice too... My char has 10 Pe. (I've got unlimited farsight though ;) )

BTW.
I know there was a RFE for druid to accept its corpse. Is it solved?

EDIT:
Nevermind, found it in Wiki. Corrupts 2-3 effect. Will have to think about it. It's already day 140 for me in the game and 180 is near.... Maybe I will stash him and eat before unicorn clensing.

[asdf]

Now question to you guys is. He corrupts when eaten. How many corruptions he grants. I consider eating his corpse. +3 ST and Toughness sounds nice and Wi I can retrain with herbs. Perception will be nice too... My char has 10 Pe. (I've got unlimited farsight though ;) )
~1100 CP (a little bit more then one corruption), +6 St, +6 To, +6 Pe, -8 Wi

CONSUME IT ASAP!

[kNightCrawler]

EDIT:
Nevermind, found it in Wiki. Corrupts 2-3 effect.

Oops, that appears to my mistake ={ No idea where I even got that amount from... the GB and other parts of the wiki don't actually specify how much corruption, and the IGB says 20d200 points (an average of one corruption, like asdf says).

Regarding the maze, I've always found dealing with the minotaur mages more annoying than actually navigating the maze >={ I managed to complete it a couple of times, both with monks spamming bolt spells against the emperor. The new rewards do kind of make it worthwhile.
IMO, one of the more frustrating/tedious things to do (which one of those chars that succeeded in clearing the maze attempted) is trying to clear a greater undead vault. It often results in
endless confusion, stat drains, obstructive monster summons and self-healings by the lich kings and emperors... =[

[kordi82]

~1100 CP (a little bit more then one corruption), +6 St, +6 To, +6 Pe, -8 Wi

CONSUME IT ASAP!


+6 str and +6 TO? Are you sure. Wiki says it is +3 not +6.

[gosos]

to generate the bug cave do i need 100 characters with 1 pre-release version or can it be across all prerelease versions?

[Stingray1]

to generate the bug cave do i need 100 characters with 1 pre-release version or can it be across all prerelease versions?

I think it has been reduced to 5 for the prereleases across 1 prerelease.

[SirTheta]

Before the change to how stats work, the minotaur corpse was one of the best reasons to visit the Minotaur Maze. As I recall, last time I consume him (p7, maybe?), he did not give guaranteed stat increases...it was capped by potential. That should really be fixed, it's been reported a few times....

[anon123]

At the very least, all corrupting corpses should give their full stat increases. Perhaps the oracle too, since she cursedooms you, and that's difficult to remove at the point in the game where you first meet her and the +6 Le comes extremely great.

The way this works right now, there's no point in having corpses which can "potentially" give a big boost to several stats, if by the time you can obtain them, your attribute scores and potentials will barely let you get +1.

[gut]

gut's advice for mino maze:

Handle the 1-4 levels differently than the 5-6 levels (there are several of each except for 1).
On 1-4, drop your gear on the stairs, descend, then just explore manually, using no tp or MM. These levels aren't too dangerous or corrupting, and they
have no false walls. When you find the >, then tp back to the <, ascend, collect your gear, then go back to the > you found. I know it seems complicated,
but it is easy really and save precious MM resources for 5-6 where you really need them (to avoid mino mages, kings, hidden door walls, etc...).
Also, webs work wonders on all minos.