ARCHIVED Kuniqs mibe guide

Version 0.18: 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This article contains advice from other players, which may be subjective, outdated, inaccurate or ill-advised.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!

kuniqs' MiBe 0.18 guide for dummies

Q: Why Minotaur?

A: Great beginner aptitudes. Bonus hp. Horns kill things quickly.

Q: Why Berserker?

A: Berserk, duh. Under berserk, you can kill pretty much everything early game.

Q: What should I train?

A: Fighting (for bonus melee accuracy, damage & (most important) maxHP), Axes (they synergize with berserk), Armour (more AC), Dodging (more EV, even in heavy armour).

Q: What should I train later?

A: Nothing. You can forget about the skill training thing now.

Q: What attribute I should choose every 3 levels?

A: From my experience, raising Str every time is the most optimal way

Q: Why not Dexterity?

A: Because more strength is better for heavy armour than dexterity. You will not get much bonus EV if your Dodging skill is not high anyway.

Q: What are 'optimal' stats for MiBe?

A: 26 strength AT LEAST (in gold dragon/crystal armour), at least 10 dexterity, >3 intelligence.

Q: What should I wear/use?

A: Wear the heaviest body armour you find. Early game wear plate armour. Wear every cloak, gloves and boots you find. Wield the most damaging axe you find. The most common is a battleaxe.

Q: This hand axe has electrocution! Should I use it?

A: Before Trog gives you something, it ought to be good.

Q: This guy is killing me! How do I defeat him?

A: Go berserk. If he's still killing you, use Brothers in Arms before you go berserk next time you see him.

Q: This guy is confusing/paralyzing/banishing me to the abyss! How do I avoid that?

A: Use Trog's Hand. It makes you more resistant to those things.

Q: Brothers in Arms? Trog's Hand?

A: Press 'a', then '?'. Trog's Hand increases your magic resistance and regenerates your HP. Brothers in Arms summons a temporary, but very powerfull ally to fight for you. Both very useful.

Q: What do I do?

A: You autoexplore the level and once you (almost) fully explored it, go down. Your goal early is to find the Lair and Orcish Mines. Don't go below level 10, unless you STILL had not found any of the two.

Q: What about the Mines?

A: There are 3 things to do there: find a nice armour, a nice battleaxe, and the shops on second level. Buy whatever you want. Your priorities in shopping are: amulet of regeneration, rings of slaying, rings of evasion, rings of protection from fire/cold. If you find an random artifact with some cool resists stacked on, consider buying it.

Q: Lair?

A: This is the 'easy' part of the game. 8 levels of easy to kill monsters. Except hydras.

Q: Hydras are impossible!

A: Find an axe of flaming. Or a scimitar of flaming. Or a great mace. Equip, go berserk, hack/bash it to death. Ev. zap it from afar with wands. Lightning wands are good.

Q: Death yaks kick my ass!

A: Find a cozy corridor and fight them 1 at a time.

Q: What should I look out after in Lair?

A: Hydras, Death yaks, Drakes (slowing cold breath), Dragons (even worse fire/ice breath), Catoblepas (don't stand in their clouds...), Blink frogs (don't berserk fighting them if you don't have to), Komodo dragons (they hit very hard).

Q: Anything cool in the Lair?

A: Vault on the bottom, 8th floor. There's usually some neat treasure there, along with lots of dangerous monsters. I suggest skip it, it's not necessary, treasure is not game-breaking and it's easy to die there if you're winded after 'zerking, for example.

Q: Anything scary in the Mines?

A: Orc knights (tough & strong), Orc warlords (super knights), Orc sorcerors (paralyze, painful magic & summons nasty demons), Orc priest (he can always kill you if you're low on hp), Orc high priest (same, but summons those horrifying demons on top of that).

Q: Strategy for dealing with the Mines vault?

A: Take it easy. You can dig a killhole if you have the disintegration wand. Orc knights, warriors & warlords have very low MR, so use your enslaving, confusing, paralyzing and polymorphing wands here. If you see lots of demons, run upstairs and wait them out for 100 turns or so.

Q: Killhole?

A: Cheating. You have a disintegration wand. Digging wand works too. You stand near a wall, with orcs biting your heels:

########
########
########
########
...@oooo
.....ooo

You shape the wall like this:

########
##.#####
###.####
##.#####
...@oooo
.....ooo

Now, you can stand here:

########
##@#####
###o####
##o#####
.oooo....
..o.....

You fight and see only 1 orc at a time. Other orcs can not smite you, summon anything nasty, surround you, attack you from afar with spears and all that. You can also rest safely in a killhole because there's very small chance any wandering monster stumbles inside and notices you.

Master this ancient chineese secret, and use it well.

Q: People on Tavern say GDR (guaranteed damage reduction) does not matter...

A: It does. GDR is tied to heavy armours, and heavy armours have lots of AC naturally. GDR is most useful when your AC is high. GDR DOES matter and there's a big difference between 30 AC | 0% GDR and 30 AC | 39% GDR. You stay alive much longer.

Q: What about Shields?

A: I think it's better to train Axes up to 26 (for executioner's axes) than to train Shields to 25 and use some piddly broad axe. Trog is going to give you 2h axes most of the time anyway.

Q: I starve in Labyrinths!

A: Don't panic! First, you should gravitate towards 'higher quality' walls. Minotaur hangs out around metal walls. Keep in mind you can dig through the weakest rock walls. If you're totally stumped, teleport - it will land you in a random spot, usually in a good place.

Q: Volcanoes/Ice caves are impossible!

A: Never go there without at least rF+/rC++. rF++/rC++ is recommended. Not going there at all is prudent, as the risk/reward ration of these places is unfavourable for you most of the time.

THE DUNGEON AND YOU - MONSTER COMPENDIUM

Gnolls - often armed with halberds, which means they pack a lot of punch. Be very careful around them before xl6 or so.

Orc wizard - can hex you (slow, confuse etc.) so you might consider using Trog's Hand just in case.

Orc priests - the best tactic for dealing with them is to hide behind a corner and wait for them to close the distance. Their special attack directly damages your hp ignoring any possible defenses, so the faster you kill them, the better.

Ogre - you ought to kill them without problems under rage 95% of the time.

Centaur - your armour should whitstand their arrows. Keep in mind they don't shoot you in melee, so hide behind a corner and wait for him to close the distance.

Unseen horrors - you can be sure they'll appear on level 10 and below. MiBe has a very easy way with them - they can't hurt you too much because of your armour, and you can simply stand in place and swing your axe, sooner or later you'll kill it.

D:15 - Very often, there are wizards here who can potentially banish you. I suggest skipping this place until later. Just remember to have Trog's Hand active.

THE FRIENDLY LENDING COMPANY OF ORCISH MINES Recommended - fire resistance

Orc warriors, knights, warlords - all of them are tough and strong. All of them also have lousy MR, so any hexing wand is capable of disabling them.

Orc sorcerer - he can paralyze you, and summon nasty demons so be wary that the battle can go ugly very fast with them in sight.

Orc high priest - just like regular priest, but can also summon those stupid demons. Killing the summoner automatically 'vanishes' his summoned help btw.

Saint Roka - he MIGHT appear in the Mines. He's a smiter, and he smites very often, and he hits like a truck. Summon 2 zerking brothers agains him.

LAIR OF THE BEASTS Recommended - cold resistance

Blink Frogs - they deal waaay more damage than you'd expect. DON'T berserk against them, as they'll blink away and you'll wind out.

Komodo Dragon - deals tons of damage on a lucky roll. Better berserk and be safe than sorry.

Spiny Frog - not that hard, but can stack lot of poison on you if you're unlucky.

Basilisk - better have Trog's Hand active, or they'll petrify you. Not dangerous otherwise.

Yaks - you probably remember them from the Dungeon. They're cannon fodder at this point.

Death Yaks - those are not. Be very careful, as each is stronger than a Komodo Dragon, and they come in packs. Good idea to summon something.

Elephants - come in packs. Like yaks, but tougher and push you around which can be annoying. Nowhere near as bad as Death Yaks though.

Dire Elephants - appear inside the Anaconda vault on 8th level. Don't appear randomly.

Rime Drake - shoots a nasty bolt which slows you. Fragile.

Black Mamba - great target for hexing wands. Stacks lots of poison in short time so kill with prejudice.

Porcupine - one notable thing about those bastards is that their spines deal retaliatory damage whenever you attack them. Don't try to melee porcupines when heavily wounded.