I would definitely suggest that this behavior be reverted for the non-uniques on the temple level....seriously, the Earth Temple is hard. Making melee not a viable option for an entire level is just no fun. Beefing up the ASB was definitely the way to go [noticed he actually hits you now, but didn't do much further testing], not making getting surrounded by earth elementals & stone grues inevitable.

Agreed with SirTheta.

I also agree with SirTheta, because I was never for that change in the first place. I think only people with heavily-scummed stats could think that the stone temple was too easy for melee chars.

The point was to make the Earth Temple harder as some people was finding it too easy. I also found that fighting 3 grues/elementals at a time was damaging in melee.
With stairhopping you fight mostly 2 at a time.
Ever for a stat scummed PC. Plenty of spenseweed was needed. But it was still easy.

I've always obtained the orb. Has anyone with Courage at 100 been there in pre7. I see Bieks had it, (duel wielding shields on coward) maybe, maybe not, he can comment in that regard.

JellySlayer says it is tough and he used the upstairs, so I don't know.

Melee characters are also able to cast ball spells, but personally I haven't tried this in the Earth Temple. And it's not like you are going to be surrounded all the time.

All I'm basically saying is let's test it before we discard something that hasn't been tested a bit. I'll try my best to get my RatMonk there. Although I couldn't even kill the ACW with a lvl 16 Troll Beasty that had the frost bolt spell.

I stairhopped to the level above. Despite being a wizard, I just used a spear of penetration. I believe I got courage off a potion of education at the casino, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't higher than 20-30 at this point. I do remember having to use a fair few healing potions because I was struggling to get a few more in the late game. I was conserving acid ball charges for when I really needed them, but they died pretty easily to the few that I did cast. Having to take them all on at once would've forced me to cowardcast the remainder of the acid balls (circa 100 castings left at this point). I would have balled them all to death (no homo) if I had more ballbooks generated. Suppose I went to the library a bit too late.

Monsters don't follow the PC upwards into the temples. <--Made this clearer, as the bug report is turning into a difficulty discussion.

Edit - Ok, I'll also give an update. The Earth temple is still easy without abusing the stairs with melee characters. My last 3 characters didn't use the stairs.

I have done the Earth Temple three (probably more, I forget) times now with melee characters. None of the times have I scummed stats (in two of them I didn't use herbs) but I did not find it difficult in the least. One thing that has made the Earth Temple extremely easy is playing characters with high speed and low energy costs for attacking like duelists and monks. One of them was an assassin. Having 7LB definitely helps. It's also possible to pre-prepare any area to kite the monsters into (I didn't do this, but it would make things even easier). Using construct slaying ammunition was helpful. When I got really surrounded I threw out a few charges of wand of fireballs. Overall I don't see any problem with the difficulty level for melee. Using arrows and wands wasn't really necessary, and I didn't use them every time. IMO if you're just careful, don't draw too many monsters at a time, and play with a quick character, you should be fine. I still think the Earth Temple is way, way easier than the Mana temple.

If people INSIST on a nerf (which I really don't think is necessary) just lower the speed of the monsters there by 5 points or something, don't let people bypass the difficulty of the level by going up and down the stairs.

I would also say that we should consider reversing the upgrade to the ASB's PV. It was already high enough at 60.

Well, with 60 PV, he's still a pushover. Most characters can easily do enough damage by this point to overcome that even without a penetrating weapon--you can kill him just fine with a blessed Big Punch.

I've never heard of a character dying to the ASB before (dying in the Earth Temple is rare, but it happens, and is usually due to swarming of elementals and grues) and still haven't even with the upgrade. Deaths to the Master Summoner are similarly rare--he's completely harmless except for the 1/100 characters that gets a big summon of emperor liches or doppelganger kings.

Death to the ASB maybe not, but getting a significant number of corruptions due to the long and laborious fight with the ASB, and therefore increasing your chance of dying later, is probably common.

I agree that 60 PV was definitely enough.

You can clear everything in the Earth Temple except ASB with ease with a single wand of fireballs. Don't tell me you can't find one by the Casino time.

That added rock-throwing upgrade for ASB is absolutely useless at this point of the game.

I'd say increase PV more and add armor-piercing attacks.

On a related thought, has anyone encountered any problems with "more difficult" Air Temple?

Well, if the ASB's rocks hit like a greater titan, then it might be interesting ;)

I haven't found any difference in the Air Temple, myself. I strongly suspect that the Summoner still can't teleport.

Don't think the Summoner can teleport.

I think the earth, air, and ToEF are all about equal difficulty at this point to be honest. It's not like anyone experienced ever dies in the ToEF anyway. IMO at this point Mana Temple is far and away the winner for hardest elemental temple.

ToEF is still far more likely to kill my characters than Mana, but to each his own. I don't agree at all that ToEF is as easy as Air or Earth (or that those two are comparable). I would say difficulty is Air/Water < Earth < Mana < Fire, which is pretty much the way it's always been.

Fixed. Monsters in all temples now ignore stairs.

The code definitely states that no monster from the temple levels will follow you - either upward or downward. Please submit a new ticket if you find examples of that still happening after the next release (2.3.0).