Mega-Zig
In 0.16, a new and more difficult mega-ziggurat was added. After completing floor 27 of a ziggurat, the next ziggurat will be harder, packed with more monsters. After completing floor 27 of that second one, the next will be even harder. And so on until the 13th ziggurat completed, at which point the difficulty maxes out.
By maybe the 4th or 5th ziggurat, most levels will be entirely packed with a monster on every square.
The mega-zig requires a fairly particular character to succeed.
Contents
Gozag
Gozag is the strongest god for megazigging. For one, your gold aura will be incredibly strong 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. Once you get to the highest level of Megazig, you want to stop collecting all the gold / loot, in order to maintain a powerful gold aura.
Gozag's gold aura will be capped in 0.28. While Gozag is still very strong (and debatably, if not easily, the best), Vehumet, Uskayaw, and Makhleb still remain fair choices for doing multiple (if not dozens) of zigs.
Race
You have more freedom when choosing a race. Demonspawn remain the best race, so long as they get good mutations, specifically Powered by Pain and either Robust or Augmentation. Ghouls have torment immunity plus potions, but lack Int. Djinn, again, with a good spell set, enjoy rapid-fire casting. 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 9 spells in a mega-zig. While background largely does not matter in the endgame, spell casting backgrounds start with bonus Intelligence.
Spells
Polar Vortex, Ignition, 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 for clearing up anything left alive. Shatter is a room-range spell for everything immune to fire. Necromutation prevents the ever-nasty torment 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 Fire Storm, Borgnjor's Revivification, Discord, Ozocubu's Refrigeration, Lehudib's Crystal Spear, 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 Int. 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) 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 essential for 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.
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 it 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 really must kill an enemy that has rElec and don't mind spending a lot of turns doing it. Distortion is good, and chopping 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 willl want to buff up, too.
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 of penetration. After killing them you can retreat back to the area that's no longer silenced.
Staying hasted (with Gozag) 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, because these clouds can paralyze or berserk 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 every turn 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 tornado and necromutation, and maybe darkness. You can use disc of storms in between tornado/necromut. 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 by quaffing 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. Also, you get hardly any potions of cancellation in zigs so this tactic can't be used too many times.
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. Potions of restore abilities are actually in somewhat short supply in zigs. 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.
History
Various removed options were once deemed essential for ziggurats:
- In 0.26, Controlled Blink was removed, leaving the scroll of blinking for escapes. Evocable MP channeling via crystal ball of energy and staff of energy were also removed.
- In 0.25, Absolute Zero was introduced; a great spell to kill troublesome single foes.
- Prior to 0.24, javelins had to have the penetration brand (instead of getting it intrinsically).
- In 0.20, the powerful Disc of Storms was removed; 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.
