blink dog screw up

[blunk]

I got my blink dog when I needed but I screwed up and forgot to remove weapon and one shot it, with no food preservation skill I did not get a corpse.
Come to think of it I've rarely had any blink dog troubles in my last couple of games and atleast that part have been smooth.

Can blink dogs spawn anywhere?
Any areas have high chance for blink dog spawn?
Is perhaps ID worth using for fishing bd's, if so what lvl?

I guess that's what I get for an early aols....

[blunk]

Bah I even suck at google....

"Another useful area to stairhop is between I3 and I4, as these floors will produce blink dogs."

sry for useless thread.

[blunk]

...or maybe not.
Did grind maybe 8-10 id3-4 noluck and gave up.
Did pyramid ogres and now arena.
I guess I should just continue and hope for wish ring, or telecontrol ring, pool sipping is soo risky.
Biggest ring stack is 3 so not a great chance for that potion of exchange.

I suppose the crowning restrictions regarding #artifacts only apply to pre/post-crowning, while it is nice to be crowned early it's not the end of the world if its a bit late.

[Blasphemous]

For blink dogs, I4-5 always works for me so I guess you were just unlucky.
What I do is I descend, w5 once, if it doesn't show up - I ascend, w5 once, if it doesn't show up, I descend... you get the idea.

As for crowning, I prefer late for many reasons.
It gives you flexibility in case you decide on ultra.
Gives you time to get to L+ (I don't ever crown as N= or C- because N is very annoying due to lots of monsters being neutral and C is dangerous in case of misstep).
It creates more opportunities to generate sucky artifacts that would otherwise be in the crowning pool, thus eliminating them from mentioned pool and giving you a better chance at something useful.
Finally, crowning late usually means you can chose what immunity to get.
PC's will usually have AMW at that point and probably also one dragon scale mail, or missiles of hunting to get that slug corpse.
That way you cover areas that would otherwise be quite difficult to cover without exposing something else (like shock immunity, which is granted by few enough items that occupy otherwise useful inventory slots).

[blunk]

For blink dogs, I4-5 always works for me so I guess you were just unlucky.
What I do is I descend, w5 once, if it doesn't show up - I ascend, w5 once, if it doesn't show up, I descend... you get the idea.

As for crowning, I prefer late for many reasons.
It gives you flexibility in case you decide on ultra.
Gives you time to get to L+ (I don't ever crown as N= or C- because N is very annoying due to lots of monsters being neutral and C is dangerous in case of misstep).
It creates more opportunities to generate sucky artifacts that would otherwise be in the crowning pool, thus eliminating them from mentioned pool and giving you a better chance at something useful.
Finally, crowning late usually means you can chose what immunity to get.
PC's will usually have AMW at that point and probably also one dragon scale mail, or missiles of hunting to get that slug corpse.
That way you cover areas that would otherwise be quite difficult to cover without exposing something else (like shock immunity, which is granted by few enough items that occupy otherwise useful inventory slots).

Do you mean you don't even scout the levels but just ascend/descend stairs between 4 and 5?

I've atleast covered ring of ice, that insane 2hander (in other thread) was useful for lich sniping in dwarven graveyard, a bit risky but stats are moss/morgia reparable and ghosts as elf ...
So I can try again for blink dog and with ring of ice its less risky for eq to check darkforge for armours.
Got rolfs shield from Thrundar while combo with axe is somewhat ok I think I'd still prefer mystics other rewards ...

Tried to read netherbolt book with concentration 100 lit 80, lost 1to and then book went up in smoke, thats pretty harsh for an elf paladin imo.

Bah got on in id that died to bare hands normal tactics

[anon123]

Just keep playing, you'll generate another blink dog eventually. But you can keep grinding in the Big Room, PC:5 (if present in your game) or that new random dungeon with several cavernous levels if you really want intrinsic teleport control; those would be less boring than the ID.

It creates more opportunities to generate sucky artifacts that would otherwise be in the crowning pool, thus eliminating them from mentioned pool and giving you a better chance at something useful.

Isn't the crowning gift determined upon character creation?

[JellySlayer]

One thing to keep in mind is that under the new monster generation rules, you are much less likely to see a blink dog at higher DL areas. The odds of seeing one below Dwarftown, for example, are probably pretty slim.

Assuming you aren't going for ultra, when to get crowned depends a lot on class, IMHO. If you're playing something where the options for crowning gifts are pretty good (beastfighter or paladin for example), then it's probably worth trying to get it as soon as you can. If you're playing like a ranger or something, you may as well hold off to try to ensure you at least get a decent immunity.

[edit]Yes, crowning gift is determined at creation.

[Blasphemous]

Do you mean you don't even scout the levels but just ascend/descend stairs between 4 and 5?

Yes, that's what I meant, I don't scout the levels.
Blink dogs always teleport close to the PC when given enough time and w5 is just the right amount of time.

Isn't the crowning gift determined upon character creation?

Yes you're right of course, I forgot about this.

Additionally, what JellySlayer said about crowning depending on class, that's very true.
I'm currently playing an assassin where I crowned early (because randomly generated glaive screwed up my precrown plans) and got serpent's bite, which is a pretty awesome crowning gift, especially for assassins.
Now daggers & knives are at lvl 14 and I'm perma-invisible, stealth at 100, stealthy talent, FW 100%, backstabbing 100% and everything just dies.
Just yesterday I stabbed sharaad and got him to severely wounded in one go.
Some classes should crown sooner rather than later because of their amazing crowning gifts.

[Rick]

Isn't the crowning gift determined upon character creation?

I made some test about, with a save file of an old cha I keep just for this, to see exactly when is decided the gift. Haven't try the crowning gift (but now I know from you guys), because in the save file char is still crowned, so I test post-crowning. Naturally I can't say for 100%, but results of many test are these:
after received the message "absolutely close to you" it seems that the gift is decided, never change on reloading and then pray. If the message is still "favors you greatly" or less, until the last sacrifice before change, on reloading the gift changes (or not, it's random so can be the same), so impression was that (at least for post-crown) gifts are decided at this point.

[blunk]

I finally had success but more important I've learned what/how stair hopping works and I've learned to value blink dogs in early coc even more.