Forum:Winning impossible with Wiz-Hum-Mal-Neu

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Seriously. I've been playing this off and on since 1996, and with focus over the last few months. I'm trying to learn a single character: Wizard. I've read the strategy on this wiki for Wizard, and I'm immediately stopped at step one:

   early game wizards should try on each and every
   non-cursed piece of armor they find in order 
   reduce armor class as quickly as possible

Sure, fine. You need an alter to determine BUC status. In 100 games, I've only TWICE lucked into finding altars in the first 4 levels of the game. Beyond those levels, I die almost instantly because I have no armor.

Secondly, all this searching takes massive amounts of energy, and I die of starvation EVERY TIME. The only times I've managed to survive more than 30 minutes is when I'm lucky enough to be generated with the Ring of slow digestion (which has also happened twice in about 100 games).

Since my success still depends 100% on luck of the items I'm generated with, and the map of levels 1 and 2, it makes me think I'm still missing something fundamental about the game. My "record breaking" run over the last hour is attached here: 2010_12_26_231115.ttyrec

Davek 06:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Use your pet to curse-test the armor. Also, you do know you can eat fresh corpses, right? Not all of them are safe to eat (especially before you have poison resistance), but you'll learn which ones are OK (or just look them up here). If you're weak or fainting from hunger, you can also #pray for food from your god. (Just don't do it too frequently.)

Also, if you're dying of starvation, you might want to search the upper levels less thoroughly and just head down to Sokoban; there's usually plenty of food there. Of course, you'll also encounter tougher monsters that way, and wizards can be fragile, so let your pet do the fighting for you, use your spells and any missile weapons you find to help, and use the E-word a lot (preferably before the monsters are next to you). Running away can also be good strategy, at least if you're faster than the monsters you're facing (so don't be burdened; leave your spellbooks on dlvl 1).

Sometimes curses may not even matter; an early mithril-coat (or DSM from bones) may be worth wearing even if it's cursed, especially if you're planning to do Soko before the Mines (where mithril is more plentiful). You can always get it uncursed later, once you find an altar or a scroll of remove curse. --Ilmari Karonen 08:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Watching expert players is perhaps the quickest way to learn the right priorities of the various activities. On NAO, you can either use dgamelaunch mail or ask them on Freenode why they did things as they did. If all else fails, you can watch ttyrec recordings. Use Rodney's !lg command to find good ones. --Tjr 12:29, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Wizards are diffcult roles in the beginning. There are three main reasons this is the case, most of the time: the first is a disregard for engraving the sacred E-word and respecting your deity; the second is that strategies fail to emphasize haste properly; and the third is that, realistically, most wizard strategies appear counter-intuitive to surviving early game squishiness. Ducking into the Gnomish mines for throwing daggers, dancing around monsters so that your pet kitten becomes a housecat or a large cat, and in the process it eating all the corpses do not help with issues of nutrition. The first one, additionally, risks killing you easily if the gnomes or dwarves get lucky more often than you do. Putting on metallic armor for its AC is fine but, if you do, you probably have committed yourself to finding reliable throwing weapons, e.g., the dagger route, or other non-melee attacking methods. Swapping armor and cloaks every time you run into a squad of mordor orcs so you can take advantage of Force bolt while they're at a distance is not a viable option and your Blessed +1 Quarterstaff won't give you an edge in melee.

Minetown is probably going to be out of your reach for some time. Rushing to Sokoban is still the best method of survival you have; don't waste much time exploring, not only because of nutrition but also because of monster spawning. Food, a strength-building puzzle, and a powerful (though not always immediately helpful) item await you. Remember you don't absolutely have to get the item now, especially if you think the Treasure zoo will be too much for your squishiness. I usually get to Sokoban by character level 6 earliest, with my pet a housecat or better, and get to the door of the zoo by level 7-9. I'm not saying those are ideal levels, especially for the zoo. Train your spells as much as you can and, even if you find metallic armor, remember to let your pet do only as much of the work you aren't prepared to do yourself - don't let it fight to the death. --FJH 21:57, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Winning with Wizard

I thank you all for the help. I've tried before to fight down to Sokoban, and I have yet to succeed. I will try harder. Still, just about every time I hit this problem in the first few levels:

• I accidentally get into a fight because I can only see one square ahead of myself
• I win, but have only a few hit points left, so I run up a level
• I wait for my HP to recover, because I don't start with any healing scrolls or magic
• I then die of hunger while waiting to heal.

Very frustrating. --Davek 00:59, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

"I accidentally get into a fight because I can only see one square ahead of myself" is an occupational hazard of playing humans; many players prefer other races instead for that reason (perhaps a gnome to keep your character combination otherwise the same). You may also want to use Elbereth extensively in order to avoid taking damage, although it has problems of its own. Ais523 01:03, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

You may want to try some movement tactics that use the speed system to avoid taking damage as much as possible...for instance, let monsters move next to you on their own initiative, allowing you to get the first hit. Also, you don't always need to recover all your HP before you keep moving. And as ais523 said, make liberal use of Elbereth. Personally, I actually go to the Gnomish Mines first, and rarely die because of it, but that's just personal preference. Scorchgeek 03:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I should also add that you should kill and eat a floating eye (though not using melee!) as soon as you can--once you have that and a blindfold/towel and start doing telepathy checks regularly, monsters won't be able to sneak up on you anymore. Scorchgeek 03:46, 6 January 2011 (UTC)