ARCHIVED Nabalzbhf's Merfolk Ice Elementalist Guide

The following article is a character guide. This article contains advice from other players, which may be subjective, outdated, inaccurate or ill-advised. Read at your own risk and alter to fit your play style as necessary!

Version 0.15: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

If you choose a Merfolk Ice Elementalist, you get to play with a lot of different options. You're already an excellent melee fighter with your Polearms/Dodging aptitudes, but you also have great buffs for defense, a summon for backup, and some Conjuration spells for dealing with enemies at a distance!

This guide is partially based on Vigrid's Hill Orc Fighter Guide, so if you're looking for something with less spellcasting and more smashing stuff with shiny weapons, definitely check that out.

Skills

These are the skills you should be considering, and some information as to why. Visit the skill page for information on those I didn't cover.

Attack

• Polearms: This is VERY important in the early game! Once you've reached minimum delay, you can temporarily disable it to focus on other skills for a while.
• Fighting: This increases your accuracy, and your HP. Good if you don't want to die from one hit.

Defense

• Dodging: Your most important defensive skill. Keep it high, and stay away from heavy armour.
• Shields: Extra protection at the cost of decreased damage. Read the "armour" section below for more information.
• Armour: You'll put XP into this at some point, especially if you end up wearing fire dragon armour. Just be careful that you don't invest in it at the expense of everything else.

Magic

• Spellcasting: This lets you learn more spells, and slightly affects casting chances.
• Charms: Used by everything from Ozocubu's Armour to Haste. Definitely keep an eye on this.
• Conjurations: This can help get spells like Throw Icicle castable, but it's not too important.
• Summoning: A few levels for summon ice beasts is fine, but don't invest in this much.
• Ice Magic: Obviously you should raise this, all of your starting spells use it.
• Transmutation: You have a +3 aptitude, but it's primarily for Unarmed Combat, so you can ignore it.

Other

• Evocations: An early ring of invisibility or amulet of rage can be absurdly useful. Level this as needed.
• Invocations: You'll want enough to bring your god abilities' failure rates into the single digits, and more if you're following a god like Makhleb.
• Stealth: Being able to run away before a fight even begins is always good. Invest a few levels in this.

Stats

You'll want Dexterity for increased dodging, and some Strength if you're wearing dragon armour (3 extra strength is good enough for fire dragon armour). Your starting Intelligence is more than enough, just don't assume you'll ever be casting something like Glaciate.

Spells

Starting Spells

Freeze will be your primary form of attack until you've raised your pole-arm skill. It ignores AC/EV, and slows cold-blooded enemies like adders, but the damage caps out fairly quick.

Ozocubu's Armour should be the second or third spell you learn. It offers AC, helping to offset your poor armour aptitude, and could last you well into the late game!

Throw Frost is good for taking out stuff at a range, grab it when you get the chance, either before or after Ozo's.

At this point, you have a few options. Pick up Condensation Shield for more defense, Throw Icicle for increased ranged damage, or Summon Ice Beast for allies that can help you fight and escape! All of these are good, so pick up whichever you want, whenever you need it.

Later Spells

Further ice spells you can learn include Bolt of Cold, Freezing Cloud and Ozocubu's Refrigeration. All of these are very effective against groups of enemies, but none of them are necessary, so I would advise being very choosy about which ones you memorize.

Meanwhile, charms are definitely recommended. Repel Missiles, Regeneration, Spectral Weapon, Control Teleport, Deflect Missiles, and Haste are all excellent buffs. Spells like Swiftness or Shroud of Golubria are also good, if you have the slots to spare.

Some cheap but useful spells from other schools include Animate Skeleton, Apportation, Blink, Cure Poison, and Summon Butterflies.

Equipment

Weapons

When you start, you'll have to use whatever is available. This means even if you plan on using a shield later, it's fine to use a good two-handed weapon early on. Just make sure to swing it a few times, to check its current delay, and refer to the wiki to see at what point you'll reach minimum delay.

Here are some of the brands you should keep in mind:

• Draining deals extra damage to susceptible enemies, and applies a debuff.
• Electrocution is a great brand that works best on quick weapons.
• Holy wrath deals extra damage to demon and undead, which is perfected for the extended game.
• Flaming weapons are invaluable for hydrae, since all two-handed pole-arms deal chopping damage.
• Freezing weapons are great, particularly against cold-blooded enemies, which are slowed by this brand.
• Speed is possibly THE best brand in the game, generally speaking.
• Vampiric weapons are some of the best throughout most of the game.
• Venom is good for kiting and pillar dancing.

Antimagic, Chaos, and Distortion are all extremely useful, but have downsides you should carefully consider. Vorpal and Protection are both useful, but generally inferior to other brands. Pain is practically worthless for you.

The best one-handed polearm you're likely to find is a demon trident, with an electrocution, speed, or vampiric brand. There are also Trishulas, purified demon tridents which carry the holy brand, but you'll likely only acquire one of these from The Shining One himself.

As for two-handed polearms, you'll want a good glaive or bardiche, preferably with a frost, holy, speed, or vampiric brand.

Armour

You'll generally want to stick to robes and leather armour, since Ozocubu's Armour requires armour with an encumbrance rating of 4 or lower. If you absolutely need a particular resistance (such as poison resistance for Swamp), it might be worth wearing ring mail to get it, but that's only if you have no other option.

Eventually you will probably upgrade to a heavier armour. Dragon armour is popular in the late game, especially fire dragon armour for Zot. Anything heavier than that is not recommended, as it will impede your evasion.

Shields are popular for their extra defense, at the cost of a lower damage output. Playing with and without a shield is acceptable, so often it's best to decide based on what spawns in your game. If you run across a "shield of resistance" early on, definitely consider using shields. If you run across a vampiric glaive, use that instead!

Gods

• Okawaru: The invocations Heroism and Finesse are both simple yet powerful additions to your toolbox, and he will give you weapons and armour of variable usefulness as you progress through the dungeon. While you can easily complete the game with Oka, if you want to collect all 15 runes, swapping to another god before the Hells and Pandemonium is recommended (The Shining One is a popular choice).

• Makhleb: Health on kills, piety-powered destructive blasts and the ability to summon demons. His summons are much more powerful than ice-beasts, and HP is always useful, so Makhleb is always a good choice. The one catch is you absolutely have to level invocations, or risk summoning hostile demons.

• Yredelemnul: The allies he provides are all useful, and once you can cast haste on them they become even more powerful. Pain Mirror and Drain Life are also great panic buttons.

• The Shining One: A poor choice for the early game, but one of the absolute strongest gods for the later game. He has so many useful abilities, it's probably best if you just read his page. The classic Okawaru to TSO swap is always strong, and being able to turn a demon trident into a trishula at high piety makes him particularly appealing to characters using shields.

Strategy Overview

• Remember your buffs. Casting Ozocubu's Armour and Condensation Shield before a tough fight can be the difference between life and death.
• Soften up hard targets. Trolls, giants, and any other highly-competent melee combatant should get some ice to the face before they get too close. Never engage them in straight melee.
• Know thy enemy. Examine every foe you encounter. If they look dangerous, they probably are, and you shouldn't wade into an entire horde of them. Anything the game doesn't tell you, the wiki is more than happy to divulge.
• Blink is your friend. Getting scrolls of blink or teleport control is a very, very good thing. The ability to make a controlled blink is invaluable. Try your best to not waste any scrolls, and if you're going to get any Translocations, get Blink.
• Better them than you. If you have allies, such as ice beasts or Yredelemnul's gifts, generally you want them to take hits for you, or at the very least, distract the weaker enemies while you mop up the rest. The game will continue if they're dead. It'll stop if you're dead.
• Items are your friend. If you have less than 5 varieties of scroll, wand, ring, amulet and potion on your person, chances are you're woefully under-prepared for the challenges ahead.

Additional Reading

Other than these points, stick to the walkthrough and strategy guides. Both of these will take you far, but in the end, only a good deal of skill and a little luck will get you to the end of the game.