Mega-Zig

Version 0.28: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

This article contains advice from other players, which may be subjective, outdated, inaccurate or ill-advised. Take advice as you see fit, and read at your own risk!

After completing floor 27 of a Ziggurat, the next ziggurat will be harder and packed with more monsters. By maybe the 4th or 5th ziggurat, most levels will be entirely stuffed with a monster on every square, with the difficulty eventually capping out at 13 floors. These ultra-hard Ziggurats are dubbed Mega-Zigs and require a fairly particular (and powerful) character build to complete.

Gozag

Gozag is the strongest god for megazigging. For one, your gold aura will practically always be at maximum effectiveness due to how much gold you will create. With that much gold, you can constantly petition for potion effects - practically permanent Haste, Brilliance, and on demand MP are all incredibly strong perks - and they work in lich form, too.

While Gozag is very strong, Makhleb, Vehumet, and Uskayaw still remain fair choices for doing multiple (if not dozens of) zigs. Makhleb and Vehumet provide very strong HP and MP regen, respectively, while Uskayaw's Solo Time and Pain Bond will constantly activate and crush foes in the ultra-hectic dance floors of a ziggurat.

Race

You have more freedom when choosing a race. Demonspawn remain the best race, so long as they get good mutations, specifically: Powered by Death, Mana Shield, and either Robust or Augmentation. Ghouls have torment immunity with potion access, but lack Intelligence. Djinn, again requiring some luck with a good spell set, enjoy the ability to freely rapid-fire spells. Nagas can be good because of their high HP and AC, and because their poison resistance and See Invisible give you more freedom when choosing equipment. Low HP races like Deep Elves are ill advised - Deep Elves have high aptitudes, but that doesn't matter in the long run once all skills are maxed out.

Background

It's best to use a spellcasting background such as Conjurer. You will need to rely mostly on level 8-9 spells in a mega-zig. While background largely does not matter in the endgame, spell casting backgrounds start with more Intelligence -- with Cj starting with the most.

Spells

Ignition, Polar Vortex, Shatter, and Necromutation are the essentials. Ignition is an MP efficient spell that explodes in a 3*3 area per monster. Polar Vortex is another MP efficient spell that spirals around you, clearing up anything left alive. Shatter is a full-LOS spell for everything immune to fire. Necromutation prevents the ever-nasty effects of torment and mutation from working on you.

Sublimation of Blood is a great way to get more MP when you aren't forced to be in lichform. Disjunction can help keep you from getting hit too much by enemies with chaos attacks, to reduce the risk of paralysis/berserk. Translocations are heavily recommended. The rest are optional - you might want Chain Lightning, Fire Storm, Ozocubu's Refrigeration, Borgnjor's Revivification, Death's Door, Discord, etc.

Armour and Jewelry

Wear a shield. Shield of the Gong is nice. Have as much AC as you can have, without hurting your spell success rates. 40 AC is enough. When possible, wear equipment that increases your spellpower. You want to have 40-50 Int. That's more than the minimum you need to cast your level 9 spells, but you'll spend a lot of time with your Int drained as much as 10 points, so it helps to have extra. Also, armour that increases your willpower is handy, since paralysis in a megazig is sometimes a death sentence. Wear jewelry that increases your Int or bolsters your resistances.

You want to cover every resistance, and the amount of loot (thus, artefacts) over many zigs means that you will eventually find amazing gear in every slot.

Weapons

Hitting things with a weapon is never preferable, even when silenced. Silver javelins are the preferred tool to stop silence. Nevertheless, you can equip the strongest axe you can find (typically Arga or a great randart). Non-weapons include various stat sticks: elemental staves or, preferably, the Elemental Staff.

Getting MP

Gozag and Vehumet provide MP regeneration in the form of potions and kills, respectively.

Demonspawn's Powered by Pain mutation gives them MP when they get hit (an inevitability).

Alternatively, you can use the staff of Wucad Mu in order to sustain MP for longer. To negate the risk of being confused while in lich form, wear the orange crystal plate armour or get Clarity via a mutation. The orb of energy is not recommended, as it uses the valuable shield slot.

On levels without too many enemies that cast torment, you can drop out of lichform and use Sublimation of Blood, which has the advantage of not draining your int. Don't try that on mummy levels.

Equipping for Silence

Silence is a very major threat and you need the tools to handle it. You have two essentials: silver javelins, and evocable blink. Javelins (requiring lenty of Throwing skill) allow you to take out silent spectres that are behind hordes of enemies. Evocable blink will help you quickly move out from your position and find silent spectres to kill, as well as letting you move at all while surrounded.

Staff of Dispater can be used in a pinch if you have evocations but not enough throwing for javelins. It deals great ranged damage while silenced, but can't be used if enemies are too close and can't hit silent spectres behind other enemies. Be very cautious around hellions if you have no other silent ranged option.

A broad axe is not really required, but it can be nice to have if you don't mind spending a lot of turns doing it. Distortion is good, and vorpal is good (for those times when you don't want to deal with the consequences of antimagic/distortion). Holy wrath is unusable in lichform.

Descending Stairs

Always cast Necromutation before descending stairs. If the next floor is Crypt-themed and you're silenced on entry with Tormentors / Curse toes / Curse skulls / Tzitzimimeh nearby, you'll be glad you did. Gozag worshipers will want to buff up, too. Use Potion Petitions until you get Haste, Invisibility, and Brilliance.

Tactics in Silent Levels

For the first couple mega-zigs, silent levels might not be too dangerous. You might not be silenced on entry. Enemies might be asleep, allowing you to pick them off at your leisure with staff of Dispater. However, stay in lichform at all times, because there are enemies can cast torment.

Eventually, though, you're going to run into a crypt level where you are silenced on entry and the screen is packed with enemies. Your priority here should be to kill enough silent spectres to get a patch where silence doesn't reach, so that you can recast lichform (and also blast away with spells). The thing to fear is your lichform running out while you are still silenced, which will result in getting badly tormented. If you have killed all silent spectres in LOS and you are still silenced, you need to go on the attack, either using evocable blink or just walking forward, until you find more spectres to kill. Use javelins.Staying hasted is a good idea because it helps you accomplish more before lichform expires.

Only hit things with an axe if they are right next to you and they really need to die (e.g. curse toes). You can waste a lot of time hitting things with axes while your lichform runs out.

Tactics in Chaos Levels

A chaos level can be identified by the presence of many pandemonium lords. It will also have apocalypse crabs and killer klowns. The priority here is to avoid getting hit by chaos attacks, and avoid standing in clouds of chaos, since they can paralyze or petrify you, leaving you temporarily helpless. So, use Disjunction liberally to keep enemies away. Disjunction both prevents getting hit by killer klowns and gives you a free space to walk into in case your square gets hit with a cloud of chaos. Check regularly to make sure you aren't standing in a cloud of chaos.

Sometimes a panlord will cast silence, and you'll need to take them out with javelins.

Tactics in Pan Levels

A pandemonium level can be identified by the presence of demonspawn, with plenty of fiends and other pandemonium denizens. The main danger here is that demonspawn warmongers will sap your magic, leaving your attack capacity greatly diminished. To prevent this, identify and kill warmongers ASAP. Also note that Sap Magic requires an open line of fire, so you're temporarily ok as long as other enemies are in the way.

If you do get sapped, you'll only be able to cast a few spells before the -Wiz becomes excessive. Save it for the most important stuff, like recasting Polar Vortex and Necromutation. Your goal is to survive until the Sap wears off. Fog can help, and so can retreating to a safer area, if possible.

If all else fails, you can drop out of lichform and quaff cancellation, which will remove the Sap and -Wiz. However, given the number of enemies that cast torment in Pan levels, this might be a mistake.

Ghost Moths

Be invisible, or just brute force the floor with Ignition and javelins.

Holy Zig

A holy zig level is full of smiting. Just power through it while hasted (and not in lichform). It's worth a mention because the sheer amount of smiting can be somewhat threatening, even with Makhleb. Fog might be necessary if you make it to a high megazig.

Mummies

Annoying! As long as you stay in lichform, they aren't going to kill you directly, but you are going to lose a lot of stats. After you've cleared a bunch of them, you might want to just teleport to the other end of the level and exit, because the more of them you kill the more statdrain you will suffer. Also, stay hasted because they will slow you.

Fire Levels

Fire levels packed with orbs of fire can sometimes be a challenge if you don't yet have rF+++. Even if you have 300 hp, you can die pretty fast if you lack fire resistance. As they are immune to Ignition and fairly resistant to Shatter, other attack spells will be helpful.

History

Various removed options were once deemed essential for Ziggurats, but some new ones came:

• In 0.28, Gozag's gold aura was simplified and capped. The lifesaving dreamshard necklace was also introduced.
• In 0.27, Absolute Zero was removed, and the MP-efficient Tornado became the cold themed Polar Vortex. Wucad Mu's channeling was replaced with a passive MP refund. Chain Lightning became the most efficient spell for killing nearby monsters.
• In 0.26, Controlled Blink was removed, leaving the scroll of blinking for escapes. Evocable MP channeling via staff of energy was also removed. Nightstalker, of some noteworthiness, was also made unavailable to demonspawn.
• In 0.25, Absolute Zero was introduced; a great spell to kill troublesome single foes, but the crystal ball of energy, for slotless MP channeling, was removed.
• Prior to 0.24, javelins had to have the penetration brand, instead of getting it intrinsically. The silver, steel, and penetration brands all merged into silver javelins.
• In 0.20, the powerful Disc of Storms was removed; which was very useful when silenced. However, Ignition was introduced, the perfect crowd control spell that could surpass even Fire Storm.
• In 0.19, wands of healing, hasting, and teleportation were removed; strong ways of getting those three abilities (especially when silenced). The Haste spell was also removed.

For a guide based on 0.16, see [this] revision.