Pools? To drink or not to drink?

[Captain Platypus]

Yeah, intrinsic invisibility, see invisibility, and death ray resistance are my favorite pool effects - far more valuable than wishes, IMHO, unless you seriously need one for Khelly or something. And even then, you can always gremlin-pickpocket bomb if you're desperate for that ultra. Petrification, paralysis, and confusion are also fun.

[Dudley]

i'll reformulate that. Invisibility AFTER having done the arena quest = good

[DumbleDoor]

What...?
Perma invisibility I like (no extra food!). However, I think a wish is better than anything. My favorites are perma invis and fire resist.

[Dudley]

You can't enter the arena if you're invisible.
Another disadvantage of perma invisibility is the fact that you're going to have a shitload of pain to get crowned.

[Captain Platypus]

You can't enter the arena if you're invisible.
Another disadvantage of perma invisibility is the fact that you're going to have a shitload of pain to get crowned.

The former is one of the many reasons I don't poolsip until the dwarven quests are over. The second is completely untrue, as far as I can tell - the only method of crowning that perma-invis would affect at all is livesaccing, which is ALREADY a shitload of pain. I'll take stoma-crowning any day.

DumbleDoor, I don't think I've ever made it to the portion of the game where I'm willing to pool-sip without getting fire resistance from one corpse or another - I actually prefer to have a second stashed in case I lose the intrinsic sipping. As for wishes being better than anything, I see your point, but I don't think I've ever gotten a wish in a situation where I didn't use it on either an AoLS, rings of ice, the emperor moloch, or a luxury item (like a girdle of giant strength, red dragon scale mails, et cetera). I'll freely admit that a wish for one of the first two, if you don't have them, is better than nearly all intrinsics. A wish for the emperor moloch is probably better than most intrinsics too, if you're prepared to handle it, especially for weaponsmiths - every moloch armor is a hundred eternium ingots, plus the obvious experience benefits.

But if you aren't in a situation where one of those is necessary, I'd rather get intrinsic invisibility, death ray resistance, see invisibility, water breathing, or petrification resistance than a wish. Yeah, you'll probably have items for each of those, but barring the ring of the master cat, you'll almost certainly have better items for the slot in question. More importantly, each of those is one less thing to worry about - if I have invisibility and death ray/petrification resistance, I'm reasonably comfortable even if I'm on D:48 confused, blind, and paralyzed, because I know there's pretty much nothing that can kill me anyway. Wishes are nice, but they don't grant that kind of peace of mind.

[Silfir]

Paralyzation resistance or death ray resistance, I see your point (sort of). Petrification resistance? As if you needed Preserver to kill a gorgon? I'll agree it's a nice resistance to have just to avoid the scares when you see the damned things, but wish-worthy it is not.

I notice that paralyzation resistance has been absent in your reasoning, even going as far as to say you consider yourself safe on D:48 "blind, confused and paralyzed". How? Do you usually have this mad PV and HP (considering your comment about weaponsmith wishes you probably smith a lot, that would explain it some)? Being paralyzed makes death ray resistance worthless to boot - death rays will deal 150-200 HP or something resisted, and if you're paralyzed you can't heal inbetween rays. And then there's PV ignoring monsters which will slice you up while you're paralyzed regardless of whether you pumped your eternium gear using emperor wished for moloch armor. (While you're paralyzed, greater molochs can catch you.)

If this is about "peace of mind", you've hit the number one reason why I don't drain pools unless I have to for a wish: I don't want to bother will the negative effects. That's my peace of mind

[Twinge]

You cannot obtain Water Breathing from a pool - only from items or eating a Water Dragon corpse. (And probably some class power of Elementalist or something, I forget.)

[Dudley]

How much stomafillia do you need to get to crowned?

[JellySlayer]

How much stomafillia do you need to get to crowned?

From just hitting very close, ~100 uncursed is plenty for (pre)crown. From scratch... maybe 25-50 more? Second precrown takes ~400 more, third is ~700 more. Knock off ~25% if blessed.

[Captain Platypus]

Paralyzation resistance or death ray resistance, I see your point (sort of). Petrification resistance? As if you needed Preserver to kill a gorgon? I'll agree it's a nice resistance to have just to avoid the scares when you see the damned things, but wish-worthy it is not.

I notice that paralyzation resistance has been absent in your reasoning, even going as far as to say you consider yourself safe on D:48 "blind, confused and paralyzed". How? Do you usually have this mad PV and HP (considering your comment about weaponsmith wishes you probably smith a lot, that would explain it some)? Being paralyzed makes death ray resistance worthless to boot - death rays will deal 150-200 HP or something resisted, and if you're paralyzed you can't heal inbetween rays. And then there's PV ignoring monsters which will slice you up while you're paralyzed regardless of whether you pumped your eternium gear using emperor wished for moloch armor. (While you're paralyzed, greater molochs can catch you.)

If this is about "peace of mind", you've hit the number one reason why I don't drain pools unless I have to for a wish: I don't want to bother will the negative effects. That's my peace of mind

Oh, the "on D:48 blind confused and paralyzed" was a huge exaggeration - I have an INCREDIBLY wussy playstyle. You are indeed right about petrification resistance - that one isn't so I can wear my good gear while I fight gorgons, it's because I never remember to equip the right amulet when I see them.

But yeah, intrinsic death ray and paralyzation resistance are in my opinion better than the potential power of a wish for most characters in the lategame, simply because it's the equivalent of an extra item slot or two when going up against, for example, the Mana temple. Of course, your mileage may vary - I can totally see someone having a character where a GoGS or a few pairs of 7LB or a few eternium two-handers (hell, maybe you'll get one of penetration) or some spellbooks of acid ball would make more of a difference. But if I'm at the point where when I find a RoDS I have to rack my brain for things to spend it on, I'd much rather get one of those intrinsics than anything else.

Of course, when I'm at that point, there's no way in hell I'm going to go pool-sipping anyway.