What would you do?

[JellySlayer]

melt the moloch armor next

Uh, can't you only melt armor if you're a blacksmith? I think everybody else is stuck with mining ingots.

[edit]Oh, Phoobnahr, please remove your ring of +1 Wi and equip that awesome ring of slaying that's sitting in your inventory. You should also bless/use your potion of gain attributes.

Honestly, at this point, I'm not sure wishing for xps is worth it anymore. There are a couple of huge kills coming up that will give a tonne of experience, plus any greater vaults that you can clear could easily give you 10 levels. The main reason to wish for xps is to give you a leg-up on the Tower/early game.

[gut]

That is actually not the first time I have advised non-weaponsmith PC's to melt stuff

Anyway, the roulette isn't bad if you dip things like rings of fire, as they have a crazy
low probability of being generated with a dip. On the other hand, never dip wands of
door creation or such.

[Phoobnahr]

Jelly

Just saw that ring of slaying when I posted the character file, I'd just used a blessed ID before taking the log so there wouldn't be any mystery. Was very pleased when i saw the ring of slaying. Also planned to down the potion of gain attributes as well as the potential toughness or whatever it was... feeling lots better about my stats since I got rid of some corruptions and ran across a few fortunate corpses. gonna read up on the eternal guardian before moving forward... probably just keep my wish around to get me out of a jam.

[Phoobnahr]

So I'm in the casino and still no wand of cold or book of frost bolt to be found... I angered and teleported past the eternal guardian, so now there's a hostile eternal guardian on the level above me... What are my chances of meleeing him? I'm extremely fast and have 7 League Boots, so I might be able to hit and run him like a moloch, but I've never tangled with him before, so I'm naturally nervous about it.
I can now generate enough funds in the casino to finally get crowned, but will have to go up to just above where the wall of flames was to use an altar, which means passing the Eternal Guardian, and i guess hostiling another one on the way down.
I've only made it this far once before, and am a little uncertain how to proceed, my last character was beaten to death by an ogre emperor just a level or two below the casino, and I'd like to avoid the same grim fate for this one.

Hostile eternal guardians, no means of frost bolt yet obtained, life in the CoC below the casino...
what would you do?

[Silfir]

The real prize of the casino is the casino shop stock. There's an excellent change there's a wand of cold somewhere in there. If not, you can buy out the store, wait for it to restock, and check again.

As for the eternal guardian, you don't have to fight him in melee, right? You've got missiles and you're fast enough to use them indefinitely by constantly retreating. You can also use the endless stack of offensive wands from the casino shop. I don't actually know just how dangerous the eternal guardian is in melee since I've always gotten the ring first every time, but again, no reason to risk it.

If you have gotten a wand of cold from the casino, just go to the Tomb of the High Kings and get that ring; that way you get the shortcut back and everything is peaches. If you don't, still no matter; get a couple million gold pieces, sac them, get crowned, and slip past the guardians again. Chances are good you won't have to worry about them until you beat the game. You're not trying an ultra, right?

[_Ln_]

Eternal guardians are a pretty good source of xp. The idea is simple:

1) create alarm trap.
2) anger 1 EG
3) anger another EG
4) make 1 EG step on alarm trap so that a message 'something beneath EG clicks'
5) get two EGs close to each other
6) watch the carnage from distance
7) after the fight the winning EG will be critically injured
8) use missiles/spells/wands(/melee with caution) to finish off EG.
9) receive ~1mln xp. cast Invis/throw invis potion at EG before killing to double xp gains.

Repeat while it's still funny.
EG hits pretty hard with around 4-5 attacks which bypass PV. However, taking out 300hp in 1 turn with Fate Smiles + Lucky with ~80DV on Coward is pretty much impossible. Still meleeing him is not advised - have some humanoid slayers? You'll get in casino almost 100%. 3 or 4 should be enough with moderate (x)bow+(x)bow skill.

Bear in mind that killing him in melee will net you alignment drop, so another point in not killing him in melee.

[Phoobnahr]

no wand of cold in the casino gift shop (though i did pick up a wand of earthquakes which I'll probably never have the guts to use)

Also didn't see any humanoid slaying ammo, but that could stand another look.

I mistakenly took the shortcut to the surface, so I'm faced with generating another hostile guardian or finding some means of getting the ring... I'm currently in Dwarftown with about a million gold, so I am waiting for my blessed amulet of order to bring me back to N= (shooting the guardian dropped me down to N-), after which I'll promptly get crowned.
I have a hatchet, and the bridge building skill, so I'm considering going and trying to build a bridge to the king's tomb... I tried it before, i think I lugged 10 or 12 logs down there and only got one bridge section built, but if I pack light I may be able to make it down there with enough to build two more sections, then I'm home free...
Last time I was in there, the cavernous levels were getting extremely crowded, generating monsters faster than I can kill them, so this will probably be my last trip there.

checking my stash, I'm dismayed to find I dont have a wand of trap creation, so I'd very much like to avoid generating a second hostile eternal guardian. Hopefully I can build a bridge over the chaos pihranas without having to go up and down for more logs a dozen times...

I also ran into some pretty tricky business below the casino, a mixed tension room with a quickling queen in it, and a shadow Wyrm who gave me some trouble... not sure how far below the casino I should dive right now, level 19 currently...

Just found 3 scurgari of returning and 6 scurgari of death (6d8+6)(!)
is it worth training scurgari skills at this point?
suggested tactics in the mid to lower caverns of chaos?
I'm bringing a rabbit knife and a couple wands of digging to deal with the battle bunnies, as well as my trusty wand of paralyzation for the cat lord (quite worried about this battle, as I've never faced him before and I've been helpless to prevent the slaying of several cats...)

any advice is greatly appreciated...

edit: Just got crowned, and received acid immunity, boots of the divine messenger, and a grey amulet. Since I'm a monk with good bonuses to movement and i'm quite fast, I'll probably use the boots to replace my blessed seven league boots (i can use the dex boost), not sure about the grey amulet... nothing in the guidebook about non-artifact gifts...

[Silfir]

I don't think scurgari are worth it at this point. You should do well enough with missiles. You need just one wand of digging for the battle bunny level, really - dig down, kill Bugs, advance, don't bother exploring. I would be remiss not to mention wands of webbing regarding to the cat lord. Detect him with monster detection and preemptively web hallways so he won't even get near you, or lure him one level higher so you can completely dominate him with teleport.

[anon123]

The real prize of the casino is the casino shop stock.

When I get to the casino, I can't resist the temptation of teleporting Hugo, zapping a wand of destruction near the top left corner, and kick-robbing everything but potions, which are bought with dragon-doubled gold.

It's going to be a bit tougher for me to get the gold in 1.2.0, though. Maybe I'll finally have to resort to the "heavy object on Spacebar" method (unless Jochen fixes that too ).

no wand of cold in the casino gift shop (though i did pick up a wand of earthquakes which I'll probably never have the guts to use)

Also didn't see any humanoid slaying ammo, but that could stand another look.

Pick everything up (defining Auto_Pickup and enabling it will save you from breaking the comma key), and drop it in a corner. That will force the shopkeeper to restock by making arcane gestures and having items materialize(?).

Last time I was in there, the cavernous levels were getting extremely crowded, generating monsters faster than I can kill them, so this will probably be my last trip there.

Invisibility (to prevent mooks from seeing you) and controlled teleportation can help here. I don't know if it's been mentioned already, but there's a guaranteed wand of teleportation in the VDDL (+TCtr is essential here), and two non-cursed potions of invisibility should be enough to pass through the TotHK if you're fast.

I'm bringing a rabbit knife and a couple wands of digging to deal with the battle bunnies, as well as my trusty wand of paralyzation for the cat lord (quite worried about this battle, as I've never faced him before and I've been helpless to prevent the slaying of several cats...)

I've only faced a hostile cat lord once. Web + Stun Ray + Magic Missile made easy work of him. That was with a Wizard, though.

edit: Just got crowned, and received acid immunity, boots of the divine messenger, and a grey amulet. Since I'm a monk with good bonuses to movement and i'm quite fast, I'll probably use the boots to replace my blessed seven league boots (i can use the dex boost), not sure about the grey amulet... nothing in the guidebook about non-artifact gifts...

Being crowned as a champion of -alignment- yields a blessed amulet of -alignment- in addition to the immunity and artifact gifts. In this case, it's an amulet of balance.

[Phoobnahr]

Well I've made it to the Air Temple...
Killed an eternal guardian through use of an alarm trap and humanoid slaying ammo (thanks for that), bypassed the cat lord, but am gearing up to go back up and web/shoot him to death (i lured him up a level and now have lots of humanoid slaying ammo). unfortunately my wand of paralysis was destroyed by an acid bolt from a named black wyrm, but I can always teleport to safety if he gives me too much trouble...
Info on strategy in the guidebook is pretty sparse, so any detailed tips for dealing with the Air and Earth temples would be great... I've got lots of slaying ammo of all kinds, plus I'm now using two rings of slaying, so my missile attacks get +12 damage, and my melee gets +15. I'm only level 22, which feels a bit low for level 40 of the CoC, there was a cavernous level around level 38, I could conceivably camp out there for awhile to gain experience, but that feels risky as hell.

Any tips on late game strategy would be much appreciated. Should I even consider the minotaur maze? I've heard its all kinds of not-worth-it. What about the rift? even with my literacy at 100 most books just tend to explode on me, and I already have like 9 or 10 scrolls of chaos resistance, so the minstrel's scrolls probably arent necessary.