SirTheta
12-07-2019, 03:09 AM
This is my first win since many versions of ADOM ago; I put in a little time to ADOM when the Ice Queen Domain was released, but I've been unfortunately inactive for about 5 years. Many, many thanks to Grond for updating me on some of the newer cheesy methods, particularly the info about the grizzled dwarven gladiator and merchant guild. Without his advice, I wouldn't have had nearly as good of a speedrun strategy. His real-time speedrun videos are quite informative and fun watches, I highly recommend them.
My goal was to get back in speedrunning form, and beat the 30,000 turn mark. (My previous personal best being 32,046 (https://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php/13030-Orc-Beastfighter-%E2%80%93-Schiano-Man-(p20-personal-best-32046-turns)).) Stretch goal was to come in under 25,000 turns which was imminently achievable but a few inefficiencies (I'm rusty!) and an undiggable D:50 locked me out that. The piety exchange bug (lose lots of piety with one good to gain lots of piety with the other two alignments) was not used on this run. (It's a little too game-breaking imo, especially with the free healing.) I'm not so good at remembering all the small details like I used to, but here's my write-up.
Roll was a Raven adult female Drakeling assassin (for the crowning gifts and skill synergy including alchemy), point buy: 14 St / 10 Le / 15 Wi / 15 Dx / 25 To / 10 Ch / 13 Ap / 5 Ma / 12 Pe. 2 talents, 0 points left. (Need 15 Wi for Immune to Pain and 15 Dx for Greased Lightning.) Point buy feels a little like crossing a line to me -- I'd've preferred jaakkos's autoroller, but it's a proper feature so it would be foolish not to use it. I went through quite a few iterations of Candle before settling on this, but +10 Sp is just too good. (Lost two of those to UD:8 ghost threat rooms :/) Starting talents Healthy (no time to grab Healing skill) and Hardy.
The early game is no different than most melee speedruns: SMC > UD, with the added bonus of a guaranteed eternium chain mail and eternium hand axe in HMV. I did add the goblin camp to the start of this to check for useful equipment and to get rocks for St training and (more importantly) to take out the grizzled dwarven gladiator. Wasn't smart enough to write down my turncounts, but this run was above 2,100 as I recall -- not great, as it can often be done in around 1,600. I got -Cold (and that's it) from an early pool.
With 20+ PV, next order of business is to complete Thrundarr quests 1-3 and get portal and arena quests. Quest #1 was troll, found two levels below DT while searching for AF/DT stairs. Completed quest #2 using Fungal Cave bug, grabbed some herbs while I was there. Completed Quest #3 in normal fashion for corpses, but got only 1 St from the whole cave.
After getting the arena quest from Thrundarr it was time to resurface and go to Terinyo to get the Keethrax quest for POCC and black torc. I also used the 3 important people bug to complete Thrundarr quest #4 (save on turns and chance of not being able to deal with cat). Once a POCC was obtained in exchange for Keethrax's corpse, Guth'Alak was killed so that I could later obtain the SORS without coming back to Terinyo. At this point, it was time to hit Griffyard for xl13. To save turns I did not clear the GY, only killed what was necessary to get to the steps. Nonnak seems crazy buff in recent versions, and I lost several promising speedruns to him. This time with the AF quest done, I wand of fireballed him to death, then knocked out Griff and bone golem in melee. Dug up grave with plans to sacrifice blessed map fragment for piety if necessary. Next was Pyramid, also done with wand of fireball. Grabbed pickaxe, AMW, and ankh -- and then got out. Probably one of my favorite places to knock out efficiently. Potion shop at Borderlands Settlement was available and I got some stuff. I also grabbed the phial of Caladriel somewhere in here because I had an amulet of light and it's a potent boss disabler.
At this point, I was able to take on steel golems in Darkforge with the eternium hand axe, albeit slowly, especially with a [+9, +0] tower mithril shield. This is when Grond educated me on how to get the merchant guild gold (the wiki was unclear to me so I thought I couldn't get it), so I went back there and grabbed 118k. I was fortunate to have a neutral altar on D:1, so I didn't have to risk converting the Borderlands Settlement altar to crown. Crowned with =Acid and jet-black dagger "Silence of the Dead", a fantastic fantastic crowning gift. Obviously the steel golems went down quite quickly after this. Grabbed SORS from Kherab, cleared DFG (complete crap in both rooms), and poolsipped for permanent invisibility and teleport control. Didn't attempt anything after getting both those intrinsics, though I probably should've since I had an altar so close by. I also gained -Fire, which was useful later. Most of my attempts got plenty of blink dogs in UD or COC, but this one found zero so I badly needed the +TCtrl from sipping.
Grabbed \tp from VDDL using mouseover trick and pickaxe. I had +TCtrl but couldn't manage to choose the right square with the keyboard since I had mouse click disabled or something. Grabbed SOCR from HMV just in case. Immune to Pain / Steel Skin line was complete at this point and I also had Quick on board. (xl16 or so.)
Slowly explored TOEF with SORS, wasted a jillion turns (took about 3,000+) between a disgusting layout (had to explore two and one-half full levels on TF:1-3) and First Aid at 58 -- not sure what strategy is for efficiently maxing First Aid on Drakeling, but low First Aid blew and required me to exit a handful of times. Once I got everything explored, I used no inventory + pyramid pickaxe to dig into temple on ACW line. Since I was so fast, I waltzed in there, killed a drake, and waltzed out to lure out the ACW. He confused me a couple of times but nothing serious. Once I finally got him out, I was able to take him out with just one prayer (which was as much for the damage from being extremely dizzy as damage from him). Since I didn't need the POCC, I regretted wasting the turns on Keethrax and would probably skip that next time.
With the Chaos Orb of Fire in hand, the only thing left to do was revisit the potion shop and dive, dive, dive. I accidentally stole a bunch of stuff before the shopkeeper noticed me, which was funny and unintentional. Chatted with dwarven mystic (~17,100 turns) and got the SOCR set (thankful), talked to Thrundarr to get lever pulled (....you would not believe the number of games I have fucked this up on) and to grab arena quest rewards -- POEH never go awry. COC graveyard barely stirred as I waltzed down the corridor. Water Temple was obviously pushover -- walked in, killed a couple chaos servants, nailed SFB with potion of cure poison and walked out moments later. I did some minor exploration of Casino using look command (tedious as fuck) looking for useful potions, !free action, un-ID'd wands (\destruction), and eternium gear (price-ID). Found a nice medium eternium shield [+9, +3] to replace piece of crap tower mithril shield. Walked out with a bunch of good potions, two free action amulets, a wand of door creation (7 charges), and a wand of destruction (0 charges). The free action amulets immediately came in handy when I encountered an emperor lich who summoned stone oozes.
Air Temple was uneventful. d 1 then kill Yulgash. Didn't even need phial of Caladriel. On D:42 there was a lesser fire vault I cleared of a great red wyrm and ancient red dragons for xp. Gained +2 St from corpses. Had to use a few POEH from critical hits and such. The Earth Temple was on D:43, so it was obviously pretty easy because I was dizzy from the heat. I used (2) blessed ?charging and (2) blessed !booze on fireball wand and used that to take out the ASB with little fanfare. Chaos Orb of Water + blessed !boost willpower gave me a radius 2 fireball for a little bit but that quickly faded. Took about 20 charges of fireball wand in the end. To give an idea of speed, I entered D:44 on turn 22,044 still with Sp: 215.
Cleared part of a golem vault somewhere around here, and encountered a giant greater vault. Easy layout (last one on Ancardia Fandom wiki page), teleported to room, killed titan and a few fire giant kings, and grabbed potion belt (only artifact I saw). Hardest mob I dealt with in the lower COC was a quickling queen on UL:6, who was absolutely vicious as always. I actually almost killed her with a \lightning but of course that only meant she fled, healed up, and came back with twice as many attacks. Luckily she refused to end a turn next to me, and the downstairs were in sight when she came back, so it was all okay. Nuurgy was lured towards front of MT pretty fast. Didn't bother with corridor, I tossed phial of Caladriel at him while he was in the midst of mobs. He recovered before I got a solid shot, but I had re-equipped and tossed it again. And then I critically backstabbed him from full health to fucking dead, which was great retribution for the couple of characters I've quite stupidly killed there.
D:49 was done with diagonal pickaxe pattern + black torc once in straight part to downstairs. Might've been more efficient turn wise to go around? But I didn't do the calculation. D:50 was undiggable, which was just my luck. Still only took about 1,000-1,500 turns to get through outer portion then (a) block one lever with \monster creation + locked doors and (b) destruct other lever. Loot from fighting did come in handy, as I was super short on recharging by this point, and had (2) !booze help me get to the surface much faster. Luckily I remembered to mark Casino upstairs so I blessed and used a ?magic mapping on that level to reveal the DFG stairs I hadn't found.
This run clocked in at 26,674 turns in 6 hours and 56 minutes over a few days. Seems to me that the new crowning possibilities, etc. would allow a melee speedrun -- with a bit of luck -- to be done in around 21,000 - 22,000 turns without piety abuse. The key is still early game to TOEF completion as it only takes about 10,000 turns after TOEF to finish the game (https://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php/636-Quick-melee-wins?p=9896#post9896). (Link is legendary 18,755 turn barb speedrun that I doubt will ever be equaled, but post-TOEF turncount jives with what I did here and my memory.) Theoretically merchant guild + Borderland Settlement can let you crown on the surface (riskily) at turn 8,000 if you're the right level, so seems to me that TOEF can be completed by ~turn 10,000.
My goal was to get back in speedrunning form, and beat the 30,000 turn mark. (My previous personal best being 32,046 (https://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php/13030-Orc-Beastfighter-%E2%80%93-Schiano-Man-(p20-personal-best-32046-turns)).) Stretch goal was to come in under 25,000 turns which was imminently achievable but a few inefficiencies (I'm rusty!) and an undiggable D:50 locked me out that. The piety exchange bug (lose lots of piety with one good to gain lots of piety with the other two alignments) was not used on this run. (It's a little too game-breaking imo, especially with the free healing.) I'm not so good at remembering all the small details like I used to, but here's my write-up.
Roll was a Raven adult female Drakeling assassin (for the crowning gifts and skill synergy including alchemy), point buy: 14 St / 10 Le / 15 Wi / 15 Dx / 25 To / 10 Ch / 13 Ap / 5 Ma / 12 Pe. 2 talents, 0 points left. (Need 15 Wi for Immune to Pain and 15 Dx for Greased Lightning.) Point buy feels a little like crossing a line to me -- I'd've preferred jaakkos's autoroller, but it's a proper feature so it would be foolish not to use it. I went through quite a few iterations of Candle before settling on this, but +10 Sp is just too good. (Lost two of those to UD:8 ghost threat rooms :/) Starting talents Healthy (no time to grab Healing skill) and Hardy.
The early game is no different than most melee speedruns: SMC > UD, with the added bonus of a guaranteed eternium chain mail and eternium hand axe in HMV. I did add the goblin camp to the start of this to check for useful equipment and to get rocks for St training and (more importantly) to take out the grizzled dwarven gladiator. Wasn't smart enough to write down my turncounts, but this run was above 2,100 as I recall -- not great, as it can often be done in around 1,600. I got -Cold (and that's it) from an early pool.
With 20+ PV, next order of business is to complete Thrundarr quests 1-3 and get portal and arena quests. Quest #1 was troll, found two levels below DT while searching for AF/DT stairs. Completed quest #2 using Fungal Cave bug, grabbed some herbs while I was there. Completed Quest #3 in normal fashion for corpses, but got only 1 St from the whole cave.
After getting the arena quest from Thrundarr it was time to resurface and go to Terinyo to get the Keethrax quest for POCC and black torc. I also used the 3 important people bug to complete Thrundarr quest #4 (save on turns and chance of not being able to deal with cat). Once a POCC was obtained in exchange for Keethrax's corpse, Guth'Alak was killed so that I could later obtain the SORS without coming back to Terinyo. At this point, it was time to hit Griffyard for xl13. To save turns I did not clear the GY, only killed what was necessary to get to the steps. Nonnak seems crazy buff in recent versions, and I lost several promising speedruns to him. This time with the AF quest done, I wand of fireballed him to death, then knocked out Griff and bone golem in melee. Dug up grave with plans to sacrifice blessed map fragment for piety if necessary. Next was Pyramid, also done with wand of fireball. Grabbed pickaxe, AMW, and ankh -- and then got out. Probably one of my favorite places to knock out efficiently. Potion shop at Borderlands Settlement was available and I got some stuff. I also grabbed the phial of Caladriel somewhere in here because I had an amulet of light and it's a potent boss disabler.
At this point, I was able to take on steel golems in Darkforge with the eternium hand axe, albeit slowly, especially with a [+9, +0] tower mithril shield. This is when Grond educated me on how to get the merchant guild gold (the wiki was unclear to me so I thought I couldn't get it), so I went back there and grabbed 118k. I was fortunate to have a neutral altar on D:1, so I didn't have to risk converting the Borderlands Settlement altar to crown. Crowned with =Acid and jet-black dagger "Silence of the Dead", a fantastic fantastic crowning gift. Obviously the steel golems went down quite quickly after this. Grabbed SORS from Kherab, cleared DFG (complete crap in both rooms), and poolsipped for permanent invisibility and teleport control. Didn't attempt anything after getting both those intrinsics, though I probably should've since I had an altar so close by. I also gained -Fire, which was useful later. Most of my attempts got plenty of blink dogs in UD or COC, but this one found zero so I badly needed the +TCtrl from sipping.
Grabbed \tp from VDDL using mouseover trick and pickaxe. I had +TCtrl but couldn't manage to choose the right square with the keyboard since I had mouse click disabled or something. Grabbed SOCR from HMV just in case. Immune to Pain / Steel Skin line was complete at this point and I also had Quick on board. (xl16 or so.)
Slowly explored TOEF with SORS, wasted a jillion turns (took about 3,000+) between a disgusting layout (had to explore two and one-half full levels on TF:1-3) and First Aid at 58 -- not sure what strategy is for efficiently maxing First Aid on Drakeling, but low First Aid blew and required me to exit a handful of times. Once I got everything explored, I used no inventory + pyramid pickaxe to dig into temple on ACW line. Since I was so fast, I waltzed in there, killed a drake, and waltzed out to lure out the ACW. He confused me a couple of times but nothing serious. Once I finally got him out, I was able to take him out with just one prayer (which was as much for the damage from being extremely dizzy as damage from him). Since I didn't need the POCC, I regretted wasting the turns on Keethrax and would probably skip that next time.
With the Chaos Orb of Fire in hand, the only thing left to do was revisit the potion shop and dive, dive, dive. I accidentally stole a bunch of stuff before the shopkeeper noticed me, which was funny and unintentional. Chatted with dwarven mystic (~17,100 turns) and got the SOCR set (thankful), talked to Thrundarr to get lever pulled (....you would not believe the number of games I have fucked this up on) and to grab arena quest rewards -- POEH never go awry. COC graveyard barely stirred as I waltzed down the corridor. Water Temple was obviously pushover -- walked in, killed a couple chaos servants, nailed SFB with potion of cure poison and walked out moments later. I did some minor exploration of Casino using look command (tedious as fuck) looking for useful potions, !free action, un-ID'd wands (\destruction), and eternium gear (price-ID). Found a nice medium eternium shield [+9, +3] to replace piece of crap tower mithril shield. Walked out with a bunch of good potions, two free action amulets, a wand of door creation (7 charges), and a wand of destruction (0 charges). The free action amulets immediately came in handy when I encountered an emperor lich who summoned stone oozes.
Air Temple was uneventful. d 1 then kill Yulgash. Didn't even need phial of Caladriel. On D:42 there was a lesser fire vault I cleared of a great red wyrm and ancient red dragons for xp. Gained +2 St from corpses. Had to use a few POEH from critical hits and such. The Earth Temple was on D:43, so it was obviously pretty easy because I was dizzy from the heat. I used (2) blessed ?charging and (2) blessed !booze on fireball wand and used that to take out the ASB with little fanfare. Chaos Orb of Water + blessed !boost willpower gave me a radius 2 fireball for a little bit but that quickly faded. Took about 20 charges of fireball wand in the end. To give an idea of speed, I entered D:44 on turn 22,044 still with Sp: 215.
Cleared part of a golem vault somewhere around here, and encountered a giant greater vault. Easy layout (last one on Ancardia Fandom wiki page), teleported to room, killed titan and a few fire giant kings, and grabbed potion belt (only artifact I saw). Hardest mob I dealt with in the lower COC was a quickling queen on UL:6, who was absolutely vicious as always. I actually almost killed her with a \lightning but of course that only meant she fled, healed up, and came back with twice as many attacks. Luckily she refused to end a turn next to me, and the downstairs were in sight when she came back, so it was all okay. Nuurgy was lured towards front of MT pretty fast. Didn't bother with corridor, I tossed phial of Caladriel at him while he was in the midst of mobs. He recovered before I got a solid shot, but I had re-equipped and tossed it again. And then I critically backstabbed him from full health to fucking dead, which was great retribution for the couple of characters I've quite stupidly killed there.
D:49 was done with diagonal pickaxe pattern + black torc once in straight part to downstairs. Might've been more efficient turn wise to go around? But I didn't do the calculation. D:50 was undiggable, which was just my luck. Still only took about 1,000-1,500 turns to get through outer portion then (a) block one lever with \monster creation + locked doors and (b) destruct other lever. Loot from fighting did come in handy, as I was super short on recharging by this point, and had (2) !booze help me get to the surface much faster. Luckily I remembered to mark Casino upstairs so I blessed and used a ?magic mapping on that level to reveal the DFG stairs I hadn't found.
This run clocked in at 26,674 turns in 6 hours and 56 minutes over a few days. Seems to me that the new crowning possibilities, etc. would allow a melee speedrun -- with a bit of luck -- to be done in around 21,000 - 22,000 turns without piety abuse. The key is still early game to TOEF completion as it only takes about 10,000 turns after TOEF to finish the game (https://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php/636-Quick-melee-wins?p=9896#post9896). (Link is legendary 18,755 turn barb speedrun that I doubt will ever be equaled, but post-TOEF turncount jives with what I did here and my memory.) Theoretically merchant guild + Borderland Settlement can let you crown on the surface (riskily) at turn 8,000 if you're the right level, so seems to me that TOEF can be completed by ~turn 10,000.