Coglin Hunter Guide

Version 0.33: 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This article contains advice from other players, which may be subjective, outdated, inaccurate or ill-advised.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!

Coglins are unique in DCSS for being able to wield two weapons, greatly increasing their attack power. This guide for version 0.33.1 is for a ranged Coglin of Okawaru, aiming for a 3-rune success.

Introduction: The Squishy Coglin

Coglins have the major drawback of having no jewelry at all, and having slow weapon swapping, which makes them surprisingly fragile; a typical non-Coglin will quickly find a few rings in the early to mid game that they swap around depending on who they are fighting, getting temporary protection against the specific threat they are facing. Luckier and more experienced players will also keep multiple weapons, since weapons, like rings, can be swapped quickly as well, in order to change their brand (the most stereotypical would be switching to a lower-tier edged weapon with flaming for hydras, then switching back to your normal fighting weapon after), or to change the secondary properties of artefacts or magical staves in the weapon slot (the doctrine of the “third ring slot”).

Both ring-swapping and weapon-swapping, sadly, are unavailable to Coglins; Coglins cannot wear jewelry, and take 5.0 decaAut to change weapons. This makes Coglins less flexible and less able to adapt to specific threats, which translates to being more fragile due to being unable to change resistances on the fly during the early to mid game.

Further, it also translates to still lacking resistances in end game, as non-Coglins will usually have found multiple artefact jewelry by then, but the gizmo would be equivalent to just a single piece of mid-tier artefact jewelry that you can never swap or upgrade later.

The lack of ring-swapping and weapon-swapping, as well as the inability to get three slots (amulet and two rings) that would otherwise be filled with multiple artefacts with multiple modifiers each, means that Coglins will always be subtly weaker: the missing modifiers and resistances must be made up for with armour, where such modifiers are rarer, and possibly accepting weaker base armours with lower enchantments.

This guide will focus on ranged Coglins, wielding two slings, or a sling and a hand cannon, or two hand cannons. Going ranged is surprisingly powerful when dual-wielding, and this guide will how you just how to squeeze more power and survivability from your ranged Coglin.

This guide will be divided into two main parts: overall Strategy and detailed Tactics.

Strategy

Why Hunter?

Because it is the recommended ranged background for Coglins.

People have argued to me that Hexslinger is superior due to Jinxbite and starting with higher dexterity.

My personal experience is that regardless of Hexslinger or Hunter start, you get to o tab in D:1-2 (thus approximately 4 or 5 XLs “for free” with little risk or mental strain) and in later dungeon levels, you can generally clear anything as long as you encounter it at the edge of your vision (i.e. not on a stair welcoming committee or newly-opened door). That is, regardless of start, your offensive power is really high anyway, so the value of Jinxbite is, to my experience, more of a “win harder” thing. If you get surrounded, you are still in bad shape whether or not you have Jinxbite (so you need proper tactics to avoid getting surrounded in the first place!).

Hunter does get a higher strength start, which allows them to wear leather armour and troll leather armour comfortably, and pump Armour skill if they can get a nice ring mail, acid dragon scales, or swamp dragon scales. Hexslinger would need to divert the XL3 stat bonus to strength just to wear leather armour comfortably. In addition, Hunter starts with Ranged Weapons higher; since your first priority is to focus on Ranged Weapons and get it to 8.0 to achieve 1.0 decaAut attacks before training the defense skills (Fighting, Dodging, Stealth, even a little Armour if you get a good ring mail or heavier), that lets Hunter get better defenses earlier.

In short, I believe Hunter gets the sweeter spot, as they both have awesome offense anyway, but Hunter gets better defensive options earlier. Nonetheless, a Hexslinger can assuredly put +2 strength at XL3 to get some of the defense up earlier, while a Hunter very well might never find Jinxbite during the early game, when it is most powerful.

For the most part, this guide will apply to Coglin Hexslingers just as well, and you can choose either option according to your personal preferences and which one you are most able to bring to completion.

Why Ranged?

More important than the Hunter/Hexslinger choice is the choice to go for a ranged Coglin as opposed to a melee brute or blaster caster Coglin.

As I have noted in the introduction, Coglins are surprisingly squishy despite having normal HP and only relatively small negative apts (-1) for Dodging and Armour. They are the opposite of Vine Stalkers, whose lower HP and NoPotionHeal might give the impression of being squishy, but is surprisingly sturdier than human due to the combination of Spirit and MP-drainig magic-stopping bite.

Due to the surprisingly fragility of Coglins, we should go ranged, and do a ranged start.

What about spellcasting?

Coglins have great Forgecraft aptitude (+3), but nearly all Forgecraft summons require you to be stick very close to them to keep them running, making them not as ranged as we might want. Coglins have mildly bad aptitudes (-1) for elemental spell schools and Conjurations, and get -2 aptitude for Spellcasting itself, so while they can go for blaster caster, it’s not as good as a more magically-inclined species. (Though note that Coglins can wear two enhancer staves and randart enhancer staves can enhance multiple schools, and thus could potentially out-damage more traditional magically-inclined species; the issue is getting your failure rate down, as enhancer staves only improve spell power, not failure rate.)

An alternative is to use Ranged Weapons instead, and that is what this guide is about. And as it turns out, no matter if you select Hunter or Hexslinger, a ranged Coglin can o tab D:1 with impunity, and can usually o tab D:2 (insert standard D:2 Sigmund exception here), effectively starting their game at D:3 XL4/XL5, a good boost over most other starts.

Why Okawaru?

Okawaru, at ****** piety, gives the player one choice from four different possible weapon gifts. The weapon gift options are created using the acquirement system.

Now, for Coglins and Ranged Weapons specifically, Okawaru will offer, with high probability, at least one hand cannon amongst the weapon gift options:

• Acquirements for Coglins are strongly biased towards one-handed weapons. That means slings and hand cannons for Ranged Weapons. If you are from the future, on a version later than 0.33.1, and the devs gave in and put in an intermediate one-handed ranged weapon between slings and hand cannons, then this build gets massively nerfed.
• Weapon acquirements are biased towards the weapon skills you have trained. If all you are training is Ranged Weapons, then that biases towards slings and cannons.
• Acquirements are biased against items you have already seen. Since hand cannons are rare, but slings are distressingly common and Hunters and Hexslingers start with two slings, that means a bias against slings, leaving a strong bias towards hand cannons.
• Okawaru’s ****** weapon gift makes four weapon acquirements.

All of those mean that the ****** Okawaru weapon gift options for a Coglin that has trained only Ranged Weapons, and has seen at least one sling but not a single hand cannon, will very likely contain either 2 or 3 hand cannon options, and more rarely, 1 or all 4. I have never experienced getting 0 hand cannon options, though that remains a theoretical but very tiny possibility.

Hand cannons are a major damage dealer, on par with the two-handed longbow, but are one-handed. A longbow has 14 base at 1.7 decaAut maxdelay, approximately 8.235 damage per decaAut, while a hand cannon has 16 base damage at 1.9 decaAut maxdelay, approximately 8.421 damage per decaAut (the balance changes at mindelay and the longbow handily beats hand cannons then, but longbow requires Ranged Weapons 20.0 to reach mindelay but hand cannon requires only 18.0). And with Coglins, you can dual-wield two hand cannons in the lategame for MOAR DAKKA.

The Weapon Gift

Get the weapon gift as soon as you have finished whatever fight got you over ******; Okawaru has relatively fast piety drain, and if you delay, it could drop back down to *****., and Okawaru will withdraw the gift offer. However, do make sure to go to a cleared floor before wielding the shiny new hand cannon; remember that it takes 5.0 decaAut to change weapons. (in contrast, picking it up after Okawaru leaves it on the floor is just 1.0 decaAut)

Basically, trigger the weapon gift at ****** as soon as you clear the screen of enemies, pick up the item because Okawaru is rude and leaves things on the floor, then go to a cleared level to swap weapons; you don’t want a random monster coming up while you have removed the old weapon and not yet installed the new one, leaving you single-wielding and completely un-Revved.

For the weapon gift, the tier ranking of brands on hand cannons would be:

• RNGesus Loves You Tier.
  • The hand cannon “Mule”. Always choose this.
• Top Tier.
  • Speed. Randart only.
  • Penetration. Randart only.
• Mid Tier.
  • Freezing.
  • Flaming.
  • The greatsling “Punk”. It is not a hand cannon, but is a big enough boost to be roughly on par with a hand cannon of freezing or flaming. It effectively gets a speed bonus simply due to being a sling, and the -8 AC it applies is effectively a weaker Slay+8 (only increases damage, not to-hit) when it triggers, so even though the base damage is lower, it pierces AC just as well as a hand cannon and is faster.
    • In particular, the -8 AC it applies also benefits your other weapon.
    • Basically it is an honorary hand cannon.
• Low Tier.
  • Draining.
  • Electrocution.
• RNGesus Hates You Tier.
  • Chaos.
  • Heavy.

Brand quality is not the only part of the decision-making process, of course; enchantment level and being an artefact with additional resists or SInv are also considerations, and you might be willing to go with a lower-tier brand if it also gives a resist you are lacking, or if the enchantment level is big enough.

However, I would recommend strongly biasing against choosing chaos (which has a chance of speeding up or berserking enemies) or heavy (which, even with a sling and heavy hand cannon, will never achieve 1.0 decaAut attack speed, letting common normal-speed monsters get two turns).

Okawaru Piety

Even if Okawaru’s altar is in D:10, you should hold out for it.

Okawaru gets high piety growth in the early to mid game transition:

• Okawaru has this gimmick where it gives additional piety when fighting harder monsters (i.e. high monster HD versus player XL).
• At the start of the transition between early to mid game, XL growth slows down, while monster HD growth continues. This makes it more likely to get bonus piety.
• If you spot them from the edge of your sight limit, you can take down melee-only powerful out-of-depth monsters (which give bonus piety due to higher monster HD compared to your XL) using only ranged attacks without piety spending on Heroism.
  • Dungeons: ogres and two-headed ogres
  • Lair: hydras
  • Uniques in general.

Thus, even if Okawaru’s altar is at D:10, you can quickly grow piety and still get the ******, and the almost-assured hand cannon gift, before entering S-branches. Even with Okawaru’s altar at D:10, you can typically get to ****** before fully clearing Lair:5 (rarely, in Orc).

Note that you can always worship Elyvilon or The Shining One, or even Zin, if their altars appear before Okawaru’s. Some god support is always helpful (Elyvilon purification, The Shining One’s light aura, Zin’s recitation), and the good gods will not mind if you switch to Okawaru later. But you absolutely need Okawaru for the hand cannon gift.

Against Piety Overuse

It’s possible to get into a death spiral with Okawaru piety if you overuse god abilities before ******:

• You spend too much piety, delaying the hand cannon weapon gift.
• Your measly slings are not enough to take down enemies quickly enough, because you don’t have the hand cannon.
• You need to rely more and more on Heroism, Finesse, and Duel to survive.
• This delays the ****** and the hand cannon gift even more.
• Repeat.

Thus, avoid using Finesse or Duel, and try to minimize Heroism use, until reaching ****** piety. Heroism, especially early game, gives the best bang for your piety; in practice, it also speeds up your attack delay (by about 0.25 decaAuts), due to increasing Ranged Weapons skill, and thus would work as a “Finesse Lite” until Ranged Weapons reaches mindelay before Heroism.

Instead, spend your consumables. After getting the hand cannon, you get a massive power boost and can live without spending consumables for a while, and even when the difficulty curve goes up, you can now safely use Finesse and Duel to preserve rarer consumables.

Fortunately, for much of the early game, the two slings are quite powerful enough to handle anything; it’s only later, when enemy AC goes higher, that they fall off badly due to the low base damage. Early low-AC enemies quickly die to the two fast slings you are shooting; as mentioned, you can o tab D:1 and likely also D:2, which is already 20% of the early game.

The Armour Gift

On reaching ****** piety, Okawaru also offers an armour gift, which can be armour in any slot, including shields (which you don’t want, you are piloting a ranged Coglin for the dual-wielded pew pew).

However, you generally reach ****** piety and XL14 at roughly the same time, usually with the Okawaru capstone gifts coming a little earlier. XL14 is where Coglins get to create their gizmo, which lets them select among 3 different sets of modifiers.

Now, the almost-assured hand cannon gift is such a big boost in power that you can afford to wait before receiving the armour gift until you reach XL14.

By doing so, you can select the armour gift and the gizmo together, giving you a better overview of what items you can select together, and letting you plan better what resists and other properties you can get from both.

The Throwing Gifts

At *****. piety and higher, Okawaru will randomly give you various throwing weapons (and slow down your piety growth, Okawaru’s teasing you while you wait for the ****** peak).

As a Ranged Weapons specialist, most throwing items will be useless to you. You need to train a separate Throwing Weapons skill to get good attack delay, and it’s likely less raw ranged DPS than your actual dual-wielded weapons.

However, a few remain of value:

• disjunction-branded darts. These apply “unstable” if they hit at all, unlike atropa or datura, which require points in Throwing Weapons or Stealth to increase their chance of applying their debuff in addition to requiring to hit.
  • “unstable” buff will periodically blink the target and deal some small damage to them each time, and is excellent against meleedudes who are getting too near you.
  • It also helps against enemy ranged or mage attackers a little, as they might get blinked out of sight, preventing them from using their ranged attacks or spells, which could be dangerous if they are uniques or out of depths.
• curare-branded darts. Like disjunction, they always apply their debuff as long as they hit.
  • If there is a scary monster at the edge of sight, taking a turn to throw a curare dart can be a useful time investment to give you more time to blast them at range.
  • If there is a scary ranged monster anywhere, the curare can cut down the damage going your way.
• javelins and silver javelins. They have innate penetration.
  • Summoners, such as Jeremiah The Dreamer, may hide behind their summons, making it harder to hit them. The javelins can let you smack them; it’s likely less damage, but at least you won’t have to chew through the summons.
    • Nevertheless, your damage output may be high enough that you can chew through the summons; your Ranged Weapons is likely much higher than your Throwing. If you miss the minion in front of them, you still have a chance to hit the summoner behind them. Still keep the javelins in case you come upon a summoner that has high-AC, low-EV minions.
  • Smiters as well, though smite is rarely a threat past early game.
  • Having a penetration weapon would still be better and you can drop the javelins if you have a penetration weapon.
  • Dimensional Bullseye is better for anti-summoner tech, but still keep around the javelins in case you somehow run out of MP (mana viper, ghost moth, too much Okawaru use, Mephitic Cloud addiction, etc.).
• throwing nets (Okawaru does not give throwing nets, but since I’m discussing throwing items here, I might as well mention them). If they hit, they can prevent monsters from moving or taking any action other than attempt to escape the net.

Before using a throwing item, do check if the target has “reflection”.

Items To Throw Away

I didn’t know this when I started doing Coglin Hunters, but potions of berserk rage will disable ranged attacks and force you to bash monsters with your slings or cannons. Throw away berserk rage (and get rid of berserkitis ASAP if you get it) and disable picking them up.

Potions of attraction are also bad for you, as your biggest defense is distance. There is no situation in which attraction is even plausibly useable for you.

Early Scrolls of Enchant Weapon And Brand Weapon

In the early game (before receiving the hand cannon gift), focus all your enchant weapon scrolls on the positively-enchanted starting sling. Don’t bother saving any of them.

This is because you are assured of getting a hand cannon from Okawaru later. You will have to replace one of your starting slings. Suppose you did the Hunter background, which starts with a +2 sling and a +0 sling.

If you found two enchant weapon scrolls, and upgraded the +0 sling to +2 sling so that you have a +2 sling and a +2 sling, then when the hand cannon arrives, you would have a +2 sling and the hand cannon.

On the other hand, if you instead focused the two enchant weapon scrolls on the +2 sling, you would have a +0 sling and a +4 sling, and after getting the hand cannon, obviously you should replace the +0 sling with the hand cannon, leaving you with a +4 sling and the hand cannon.

Similarly, if you get a brand weapon scroll, prioritize the higher-enchanted sling. If you get two, then brand the lower-enchanted sling too. If you get three, save it for later if you get a non-artefact hand cannon that is unbranded or has a RNGesus Hates You Tier brand.

Spending the enchant weapon and brand weapon scrolls greatly increases your survivability and ability to reach ****** piety and the hand cannon gift. The hand cannon option you end up choosing has a good chance of being an artefact of some sort, which you can’t modify with enchant weapon and brand weapon scrolls anyway, so you might as well spend them now.

After getting the hand cannon, you can save scrolls of enchant weapon if the sling is at +6 or higher already, and see if you can get a second, non-artefact hand cannon from the shops or kobold blastminers in Orc:1-2, or on the floor or equipped by soldiers in Vaults:1-4. If you can’t find a second hand cannon after clearing Vaults:1-4, then upgrade your sling to +9.

Brand tiers are slightly different for slings, but branded slings are about as rare as hand cannons, and the scroll of brand weapon gives a random brand anyway, so the brand tiers for slings are usually moot. In addition, the damage output of the sling becomes less relevant once you have a hand cannon (it’s mostly there to speed up your hand cannon until you can get to Ranged Weapons 18.0) and thus its brand is really not as important; any non-chaos brand is better than no brand. Just in case you do have multiple options for branded slings:

• RNGesus Loves You Tier
  • The greatsling “Punk”.
• High Tier
  • Speed. Randart only.
  • Penetration. Randart only.
  • Electrocution.
• Mid Tier
  • Freezing.
  • Flaming.
  • Draining.
• Low Tier
  • Heavy.
    • A heavy sling is basically a light hand cannon, and would serve as a “bridge” from slings to hand cannons.
    • This would be top of High Tier if you didn’t have assured first hand cannon from Okawaru, but this is an Okawaru guide.
• RNGesus Hates You Tier
  • Chaos.

Gizmo

At XL14, you get 3 gizmo options, which replaces all your missing jewelry slots, and cannot be changed once chosen.

As mentioned earlier, I strongly recommend holding off on the Okawaru armour gift so that you can decide both the armour gift and gizmo together.

Generally, your priorities are:

• Avoid Rampage Acrobat completely. If it comes up, the gizmo with it is completely dead to your ranged Coglin, even if it has rPois rCorr rF+. You do not want Rampage because you want to keep distance from enemies, and if there are any monsters on screen, you would rather shoot them than move or wait, so Acrobat also does nothing for you. So, Rampage Acrobat (which will always come together in the same gizmo if either comes up) is a combination of a bad (for this build) modifier with a useless one.
• As the gizmo and armour gift come just before the S-branches, get rPois as much as possible. At least one gizmo will have rPois rCorr, and most of the time you’ll get that one, but if Okawaru offers a good rPois armour or if you already have one, you have the flexibility to select a different gizmo. Of course, rPois may occur on the gizmo with Rampage Acrobat and the armour gifts might not have rPois.
• There’s a chance one of the gizmos will have Clar RMsl. Select it if you can already cover rPois or if you were lucky enough that it has rPois rCorr anyway.
  • Enemy ranged attackers are one of the few threats to you when you aren’t entering a new floor, and RMsl drastically reduces that threat.
  • Clar shuts down most Will-testing hexes; the only major Will-testing spell it doesn’t stop is Banishment. Willpower is difficult to get on Coglins due to the lack of jewelry and Will+ not appearing in gizmos, making Clar desirable.
  • A plain scarf of repulsion is better replaced with a mundane +0 cloak and the gizmo with Clar RMsl, as the +0 cloak gives 1 AC and the Clar on the gizmo protects against most Will-testing hexes. However, a randart scarf of repulsion might have other desirable modifiers, so you might be willing to turn down the Clar RMsl gizmo in that case.
  • Clar RMsl will never be in the same gizmo as the dreaded Rampage Acrobat.
• Otherwise, one of the gizmos will have rF+, and if it’s not Rampage Acrobat, take it. If you can get some amount of rF+ elsewhere, though, you might want to consider a different gizmo in favor of other modifiers.
  • Orbs of Fire.
• Otherwise, consider Slay+3, which at least one gizmo will have (but may be in the same gizmo as Rampage Acrobat).
  • The slay bonus applies to both weapons, making any amount of Slay+ desirable (and conversely, makes any amount of Slay- very negative).
• Otherwise, if it comes up, Gadgeteer helps with your evocable devices (and Gell’s Gravitambourine, the best active distancing tech, is an evocable device; wand of roots and wands of warping are also distancing tech that are covered by Gadgeteer). Regen+ RegenMP+ is also good for a bit more robustness.

“Rare” gizmo modifiers (other than RMsl Clar) are somewhat not that useful, and you should focus more on resists than on the rare modifiers unless it’s RMsl Clar:

• RevParry is solid: most of the time, you will be starting up your Rev from distance, and will be at full Rev* (and thus at full AC bonus from RevParry) once they are near enough to be a threat. Combine with Ozocubo’s Armour for even more staying power. Unfortunately, the disarm-enemies thing doesn’t seem to trigger with Ranged Weapons (or I’ve never managed to notice it happening). Still, the raw AC bonus is positive.
• SpellMotor is nice if you hybridize, but you will rarely cast spells while fighting at Rev*, since your hand cannon(s) will outdamage any spells you can viably train up, though I guess it lowers the cost of utility and distancing spells like Dimensional Bullseye, Blink, or Passage of Golubria. This may not be relevant unless you are facing a ghost moth or mana viper (they’re not exactly high-level spammable spells).
• AutoDazzle is not that useful; if enemies are swinging at you in melee often enough to reliably trigger it, you are already dead. It also triggers for enemy ranged attacks, but Clar RMsl is definitely superior protection against those if you can get it. The best you can say about it is that at least it is not Rampage Acrobat; it’s still useful, just a very small bonus for a ranged attacker.

Branch Order

The Standard Branch Order should work well:

• Dungeon:1-10 (or 11 if that is where Lair spawns).
• Lair:1-5
• Orc:1-2
• Dungeon:11-15
• S-branches
• Elf:1-2
• Vaults:1-4
• Depths:1-4
• Elf:3
• Crypt:1-3
• Ziggurat:1-6 (or 7 or 8 if desperate/reckless/stupid)
• 3rd rune (Slime:1-5, Abyss:1-3, Vaults:5)
• Zot:1-5

The hand cannon gift will occur in Lair or Orc (usually Lair). Orc has a tiny chance of a second (or more) hand cannon from kobold blastminers, Vaults:1-4 has a much bigger chance (from yaktaurs or soldiers, and the occassional vault that has a bunch of ranged weapons). But a second hand cannon is not assured.

If a second hand cannon does not come up after Vaults:4, assume you won’t get the second one and pump up your sling; it’s still a good enough 3-rune setup since the sling speeds up your sole hand cannon. It’s not the same as twice hand cannon damage from having two hand cannons, but it’s still about 18% more DPS from just the sped-up hand cannon, plus a little side damage from your sling.

Skilling

Early and mid game, skill point distribution is very important.

I assume you already know that automatic training is really a secret challenge mode on par with running FeBe.

The first thing you do at the start of the game is to turn off everything other than Ranged Weapons, and set a target of 8.0 for Ranged Weapons. This target gets you 1.0 decaAut delay on slings.

At about 41% after XL7, a Hunter will reach the 8.0 target for Ranged Weapons and the game will force you back to the skill planning menu. Turn on and set these limits:

• Fighting 27.0
• Ranged Weapons 14.0
• Dodging 7.0
• Stealth 5.0

Fighting in particular boosts both defense (HP) and offense (to-hit and damage), and Coglins have 0 aptitude for it, compared to -1 aptitude for Ranged Weapons, Armour, Dodging, and Stealth, so always training it in the background at all times (after getting 1.0 decaAut delay on slings) is generally good.

Later on, you do want to boost up Stealth. Target about 6 in Lair, 8 by Vaults, possibly 10 or more past that. Stealth is extremely useful if you open a door and come upon some sleeping meleedudes; it gives you a chance to back away before engaging them. You will need to regulate this depending on finding Stlth+ or Stlth- modifiers.

If you got a nice armour that is heavier than leather (ring mail, acid dragon scales, swamp dragon scales), also enable Armour with a target of 7.0. You also might want to set Ranged Weapons to * to speed up its skilling too, to compensate for the 0.1 decaAut delay the heavier armour will add and get back down to 1.0 decaAut delay; you can put it back to + once it reaches Ranged Weapons 10.0, which should be enough to compensate for the 0.1 delay the heavier armour adds.

As soon as you get a non-charming wand, or any non-summoning evocable device, enable Evocations and set a target of 7.0. Later you want to raise this to 10.0, then 14.0 to 16.0 or more, but you might want to regulate this depending on how fast you spend wand charges versus how fast you can find new ones, or if you can find nice evocable devices, such as the awesome Gell’s gravitambourine. If you find a manual of Evocations, it’s quite plausible to pump it to more than 20.0, especially if your game rolls Gell’s gravitambourine.

After worshipping Okawaru, start training Invocations with a target of 5.0. On reaching ****.. piety, train it again with a target of 10.0. At Invocations 10.0, Duel (which arrives at *****. piety) will be at 14-16% fail rate, which is comfortable, and there is little need to boost Invocations beyond that. Before you first reach ******, as noted above, you don’t want to overuse Finesse or Duel (and want to keep Heroism usage low if you can), so high failure rates for Finesse and Duel are moot anyway; they are not a real options for you before getting the hand cannon gift. However, you should be able to get a reasonably high Invocations level by the time ****** comes around and you can use Finesse and Duel more freely.

Invocations only increases duration of Heroism and Finesse, and improves failure rate of Heroism, Finesse, and Duel; it does not increase the raw power of the abilities, so there is little need to increase Invocations beyond 10.0. 10 turns of Heroism (Invocations only increases the random part of the duration, it only reduces the chance of getting the minimum 10 turns) is generally long enough for most uses. Coglins get -2 aptitude for Invocations, so 10.0 is a good stopping point for it.

After you get the Okawaru weapon gift, set the Ranged Weapons target to 18.0 (and turn it on again if it’s off). If you find a second hand cannon, you should prioritize Ranged Weapons to * to reach mindelay of 1.0 decaAut, possibly turn off some of your other skills in the meantime (preferably turn off spell skills or Invocations, not the defensive skills) to reach mindelay faster. (While you are doing sling-cannon, the sling will be fast enough that your delay is likely 1.0 decaAut or faster, so it’s not as high priority to reach mindelay until after your second hand cannon.)

Due to wearing light armour, you definitely want to lean more on Dodging skill than Armour skill. Regulate Dodging early on. This balance can change if you get a really really really nice artefact quicksilver, fire, or ice dragon scales, or if you are desperate for rF+ or rC+ and want to switch to fire or ice dragon scales late game.

Once you have reached Ranged Weapons 18.0, turn on Dodging with a target of 27.0; you’ll be training it for the rest of the game, just like Fighting.

If you are wearing anything heavier than leather armour (greater than encumberance rating 4), and have found a second hand cannon, re-enable Armour training without a limit. Check your hand cannons until they say that your body armour “slows down slightly” instead of giving a number, then you can turn off Armour training.

Spellcasting Skills

Due to having to wear light armour anyway, you might want to hybridize with some lightweight spells. Do so opportunistically; look at what the run gives you.

Coglin’s best spellcasting aptitudes are Forgecraft (+2), Alchemy (+1), Summonings (0), Necromancy (0), and Translocations (0). Because of Okawaru, Summonings is not an option, as is most of Forgecraft and Necromancy. This leaves Alchemy and Translocations, which unfortunately do not have any shared spells.

However, Translocations’ Blink is very good for any ranged weapon user; even if a scary meleedude gets next to you, rolling the dice on a random blink is better than staying there tanking their damage, and Blink is a tiny skill and MP investment. Passage of Golubria can be used to set up distancing; do so as soon as you spot a monster at edge of vision, and target a spell power of 25%, which should give you 4 tiles range. Dimensional Bullseye is a good way to handle summoners, especially curse toes. Iskenderun’s Mystic Blast will push back nearby enemies and stun them for a tiny while (less than 1.0 decaAut), possibly letting you get some space to continue shooting them again, though it kinda does require some skill investment to give good distance.

Passage of Golubria really needs at least 25% spellpower to be really useful, as otherwise its range is too low. This generally means reaching somewhere between 14.0-16.0 Translocations, depending on any Int or Archmagi modifiers you get; once you have reached 25% spellpower, you can stop training Translocations. Don’t bother trying to get Dispersal, Gell’s Gavotte, or Disjunction castable; you are better of increasing your Fighting and Dodging for better defense, especially if you already have Passage of Golubria, which is much better for this playstyle (stand and shoot, then enter Passage once enemies close in) than either of Dispersal (better for dedicated caster with lots of MP for multiple Dispersals on panic) or Gell’s Gavotte (better for summoners or Hepliaklqana-worshippers who want to move enemies towards their allies).

Alchemy spells are almost all multi-school, so it’s usually difficult to hybridize into from Translocations. Mephitic Cloud still remains one of the best spells ever if you can get it castable.

If you did Hexslinger start, you want to get your other Hexes, particularly Dimensional Bullseye, online.

If you come upon a Manual of Ice Magic in an Ice Cave and a bunch of nice Ice Magic spells, then you might still want to try some small ice spells — Frozen Ramparts and Ozocubu’s Armour are pretty good, since you can generally just stand in one place shooting at things, though if you got Mule, that’s not really an option. Simiarly, you might want to get some other utility and defensive spells from various schools if you come upon manuals or if they are low level enough to train easily.

Swiftness is also a nice Air spell to have, as it is a distancing tech that lets you temporarily get boosted move speed now at the cost of slower move speed later. This is perfect as a Ranged Weapons specialist: get enough distance, then start shooting and kill them, so that even if you are at -Swift and walking slower, it doesn’t matter, they are already dead.

Damage spells are usually not really useful, as the good ones usually require significant skill investment (impeded by your -1 aptitudes to most spell schools, and -2 in Spellcasting), and will likely be outdamaged by two hand cannons until you can train them up.

Distancing Tech

The biggest defense of a ranged Coglin is distance from monsters, most of which are meleedudes. Even ranged monsters sometimes have a maximum range that is shorter than your 7-tile range.

As long as you can ensure that you can keep distance, you are generally safe and you can lean on your dual hand cannons for awesome damage.

• Stealth lets you open a door, spot some sleeping monsters, and quietly back off to gain distance and even buff up before engaging, without consuming any resources. The drawback is that it is a chance-based thing, so you do need to sometimes lean into other distancing tech.
• Gell’s Gravitambourine is best active distancing tech: replenishable by XP gain, works even better against speedy opponents, area of effect, completely unavoidable (no EV, Will, HD, or resistance checks).
• Darts of Disjunction cause enemies you hit to uncontrollably blink a few times, usually away from you. It’s completely unavoidable if it hits (no Will, HD, or resistance checks; no Throwing Weapons + Stealth skill checks to apply debuff if it hits).
• Scrolls of Blinking are classic escape items that are useful on all characters. They are effectively “area of effect” and “unavoidable” as you can move away from multiple nearby monsters at once and it affects yourself, not enemies. They are nicknamed “scrolls of life saving” for a reason.
• Duel is an Okawaru-given ability, available at *****. piety, that temporarily heals half of your missing HP and MP, and puts you and a nearby “high” or “lethal” threat in a 1v1 arena, with the monster positioned 2-4 tiles away from you. As noted, it costs a lot of piety and you should avoid using it until you get the hand cannon gift at least. Invocations only improves its failure rate, but otherwise has no effect on it.
• Passage of Golubria can be used to set up distancing. Drawback is that it requires some investment in Translocations (>16.0, depends on any Int+ or Int- you get) as otherwise the targetable range is low. Target a minimum of 25% spell power.
• Wand of Paralysis stops monsters completely. It usually lasts long enough that you can kill them outright once the paralysis sticks, and they will still work even if the monster is right next to you already (and you don’t even need to walk away from them, since they’re paralyzed and can’t do anything). Checks against willpower.
• Mephitic Cloud is best spell. Not traditionally considered a distancing tech, but inducing confusion greatly impedes monsters’ ability to pursue you. Falls off once rPois gets common, but consider that non-green draconians and orb guardians in Zot remain vulnerable.
• Potions of Haste let you run away, and also work even if the monster is right next to you already, though you will assuredly tank at least one hit while quaffing it, and you might not get distance immediately.
• Swiftness provides you temporarily with high movespeed, at the cost of giving you low movespeed later. This is a good tradeoff, as you can gain distance, then stop, shoot, and kill pursuers once -Swift kicks in. Note that only movement speed is changed by this spell. It’s low level, though the major drawback is that Air school otherwise has nothing to offer to a ranged Coglin of Okawaru (other than Mephitiic Cloud, but that has 3 schools anyway).
• Potions of Invisibility and +Invis make you invisible; unless the meleedude is right next to you, there’s a chance they lose track of where you are completely, though shooting at them does give them strong hints of where you are. You need to be more proactive in triggering this (i.e. quaffing while in melee range does not give distance, they will still track you). Checks for SInv.
• Darts of Curare slow down enemies if you can hit them, letting you maintain distance. Against a tough meleedude at edge of sight, it’s usually a good turn investment to at least toss one at them for the chance to extend the time you have to kill them. They do not work on monsters with rPois.
• Wand of Warping gives a chance to move nearby monsters away from you, and also damages them in the meantime. It’s also assured hit, thus gets past EV and repel missile. Even if the monster is beside you and you are in the area of effect of this wand, the damage is relatively small and you also get a chance to be blinked away.
• Wand of Roots constricts enemies, giving you an extra turn or two to shoot them. Afflicted enemies can still blink.
• Blink spell and +Blink give you an uncontrolled blink; it might not actually get you distance, but the chance of getting distance is better than assuredly tanking a meleedude in the face, and it’s a small 2 MP spell that is easy to bring online (or even free if it’s from an evocable +Blink randart). If you still have some HP, it’s a way to roll the dice and save a blink scroll.
• Iskenderun’s Mystic Blast is a mid-level two-school spell that pushes back nearby enemies. It only works against nearby enemies, and really requires significant investment to strongly push back to 4 tiles, so it is not particularly desirable.
• Grave Claw is a low-level Necromancy spell that holds monsters in place, like a budget Borgnjor’s Vile Clutch. It requires “charges”, which you get by killing enough non-undead enemies, of which it can hold up to 3 (when initially memorized, it gets 1 charge).

And some spells that in theory could be distancing tech, but are too unreliable or too high-level:

• Borgnjor’s Vile Clutch is the hieh-end Grave Claw, affecting all monsters along a line, and only requiring MP. It is a somewhaat high-level dual-school Earth/Necromancy spell. The problem is that Necromancy generally gives you allies, which are not allowed by Okawaru, and level 5 is just about high enough to require a fair chunk of XP investment (Grave Claw is better for hybridization as it is easier to get castable, especially since it is single school, and many Necromancy spells are disallowed by Okawaru).
• Splinterfrost Shell is a high-level dual-school Ice/Forgecraft spell that is an excellent panic button — if you can get it castable. It creates 4 icy shell objects on contiguous tiles adjacent to you, and placing them will push away monsters in the same spot. The icy shells block non-penetrating ranged attacks and hexes (and obviously melee monsters). You can then get distance by simply walking away. Monsters destroying the icy shells, even using ranged attacks or spells, will take cold damage, but you (or your allies, except you are worshipping Okawaru) destroying the same will take no damage. The major drawback is that it is dual-school and high-level, and Forgecraft gives you few support spells you can use under Okawaru (though Ice’s Frozen Ramparts and Ozocubo’s Armour work well with a ranged weapons specialist standing still and shooting).
• Dispersal and Disjunction are high-level Translocation spells that move nearby monsters away. Dispersal is somewhat lower level than Disjunction. Dispersal is a single cast that blinks or teleports all monsters within polearm distance of you, while Disjunction creates a buff that will continuously have a chance to blink or teleport monsters within polearm distance. Their high level is the problem. Disjunction is fun during the orb run.
  • Dispersal may be feasible, especially if you have Passage of Golubria; the Translocations skill needed to get Passage of Golubria to 25% spellpower makes Dispersal just out of reach. Nevertheless I would still recommend not taking Dispersal and instead pump defensive skills.
• Gell’s Gavotte is a high-level Translocation spell that moves everyone, including you, a few tiles in a selected direction. You may need to think for a while to figure out what direction gives the most distance, or if it will even get you distance at all (since you yourself will also get affected). It’s also high level, requiring large investment just to be castable. Dispersal is easier to use, but Gell’s Gavotte potentially gives you greater distance and an escape route.
  • Both Dispersal and Gell’s Gavotte are the same level, so if you have Passage of Golubria at 25% spellpower, this is also just barely out of reach.
• Sigil of Binding is a spell that creates two traps which temporarily holds monsters for a few turns. Like wand of roots it usually has a duration too low in practice, and worse, it does not reduce EV and it speeds up the monster once they break out of the sigil, meaning you have to prioritize killing the trapped monsters.
• Teleport Other is a low-level spell that moves a monster out of line-of-sight…. after a delay, and if it passes a willpower check. This makes it very unreliable and definitely not a panic button, you need to use it to get rid of a low-willpower but scary monsters at edge of line of sight that you do not want to handle right now (in practice you can probably kill it from afar if you spotted it at edge of vision).

Difficulty Curve

D:1 and D:2 are trivial and you can brainlessly o tab there (except for D:2 Sigmund or similar), effectively giving you a two-floor head start over other possible race-background combinations.

You remain powerful in the early Dungeon, but be very wary of early uniques or out-of-depths, and remember your starting consumable (scroll of butterflies for Hunter, scroll of poison for Hexslinger). While your damage output will be amazingly high for your level, you are also very squishy and will die if at least 2 monsters are within polearm range of you.

Unlike most other starts, you can take on gnoll packs in D:2 or D:3, provided they started at or near the edge of vision.

Your squishiness never really improves over the rest of the game: always check if there are 2 monsters within polearm range of you, unless you’re in a corridor and one monster is behind the other and has no polearm. If you are at risk as defined above, then look at your inventory and familiarize yourself with your various options to distance, escape, or empower yourself. All it takes is a few bad to-hit rolls to be unable to kill that melee monster and take a mace-in-the-face that will take off a third of your HP bar.

Below is safe even if there are 3 monsters within polearm range, if none of the two monsters behind the monster near you has polearms:

 ####M
 ..@M.
 ####M

Without the walls, however, the below is already potentially unsafe and you should start looking at your inventory and consider your options if you happen to miss too often:

 ....M
 ..@M.
 .....

Do note that against many uniques or out-of-depths, if you come upon them at or near the maximum range of vision, you can usually have enough damage output to kill them. This is particularly helpful with Okawaru piety and is one reason why even D:10 Okawaru usually still is able to reach ****** before finishing Lair:5.

As you progress, your slings eventually become less overpowered compared to the monsters you are facing, and you’ll need to become more and more cautious as you approach ****** piety, which is usually reachable in Lair, rarely Orc. Do not breath a sigh of relief on entering Lair, because this is where the difficulty curve compared to your power starts to rise on this build.

Fortunately, you should have gathered several consumables that will give you additional options to handle tough situations, and you should be able to still keep up without spending too much piety and delaying the hand cannon gift.

As suggested, use consumables as you approach the ****** rather than piety, as you want to get the gift ASAP. Limit yourself to only Heroism, and use it only rarely (twice or thrice before ****** is fine, more is probably no longer fine). Yes, you’ll be running very low on consumables. Just keep the faith until the ****** piety level.

Once you reach ****** piety, you can rest more easily. Grab the hand cannon gift (or Punk if that’s the best option offered, see above for tier list), and once you have it installed in your exoskeleton, you’ll be back at the o tab difficulty of the game start, probably to at least Orc:1. The hand cannon is likely capable of doing more than twice the damage of your higher-enchanted sling.

The hand cannon gift is such a major bonus that it overshadows the armour gift and gizmo. As noted, you can afford to defer them until you can choose them both together, which lets you plan a little better what to get. As noted, you need rPois somewhere, and you want to cover as many resists as you can with the combined armour gift and gizmo. Make sure to also check for what armours the floor god has gifted, which may be able to cover some more resistances if you are willing to sacrifice encumberance or AC points.

With the hand cannon making the game easy again, you can build up your supply of consumables. With the hand cannon now given you can spend piety freely — it’s not unusual to do the Orb run with ****.. piety.

The difficulty will once again start building up over time. Even if you get a second hand cannon in Orc or Vaults, it’s not as big a bonus as the first hand cannon (and you shouldn’t fret if you end up without a second hand cannon; the big bonus is getting just one). The difficulty increase will be a little slower than with the pre-hand-cannon phase of the game, but Zot will still be difficult and you need to be careful (and you will once again start running low on consumables, because even your piety will start dropping off).

Again, remember that you are very squishy once you are approached by monsters. Yes, you can probably kill that unique if you spotted it at the edge of vision and start shooting at it non-stop. But if it manages to get near you because of a few bad to-hit rolls, or if it lets a small group of popcorn approach you, you are much more likely to die. Consider yourself as walking a tightrope, and be very ready for tables to turn very quickly.

By the time you get the third rune, you’ll be spending both piety and consumables very freely. Fortunately this is pretty close to the end of the game and you can afford to spend those resources. Carefully traverse Zot (yes, you will run low on consumables and piety), enter the lungs, grab the Orb, rush out, spend everything to keep running, and win!

Tactics

A fair amount of tactical lore in DCSS is focused on the meleedude, which are obviously not as relevant to Ranged Weapons specialists.

There’s also some tactical lore for blaster casters, but those tend to focus more on how best to position yourself or your spell’s targeting to maximize damage output from specific area-of-effect spells, and thus are also not applicable to single-target, bullet-shooting, Ranged Weapons.

Thus, in this section, I share some tactics that are focused on Ranged Weapons specialists.

Ranged Weapons Targeting

Suppose, as a ranged Coglin, you have a situation like the below (# are walls, . is floor, A and Bare monsters, and @ is you):

...##
####B
..@A.
####.
.....

Suppose you sensibly target monster A or use tab (which by default would target A in this situation, as it is the closest monster).

What happens if you miss?

In that case, the bullet will simply fly off to the right, hitting nothing and doing nothing more after missing.

Now, suppose instead you used v and targeted the monster B instead. What would happen?

In that case, the path of the bullet would first go through monster A and do a to-hit roll for that monster. If it misses, then the bullet goes on to monster B, for another to-hit roll.

This is the major advantage of Ranged Weapons: if it misses, it potentially can try again on a different monster. Thus, you should make an effort to target opponents as if your weapon has penetration, even if your ranged weapon has no penetration.

This goes even more for dual-weapon Coglin!

What if you are Coglin with two hand cannons, and hit monster A and kill it on your first shot?

If you had just naively used tab or targeted monster A, then your Coglin will still feel obligated to shoot the second shot, still pointed straight rightward, and shoot your second shot out into empty space, wasting your damage potential.

If instead you had targeted monster B, then if your first shot hits and kills monster A, your second shot will be aimed at monster B, and you get to keep your awesome dual-wielding DPS.

Now, because you want to aim as if your ranged weapons have penetration, you want monsters to mostly “line up” behind each other, i.e. you want monsters to come from one direction from you, so that you can shoot a line and potentially hit multiple targets in case multiple monsters are able to evade your bullets.

Thus, if you notice that monsters would come from multiple sides of you, try to reposition rather than staying where you are and shooting. This enables more opportunities to aim as if your weapons have penetration.

Terrain: Doors And Corners

Doors are bad news for ranged Coglins.

95% of the time, doors will open into an empty room, or with monsters at the edge of vision and ripe for picking off with your dual cannons.

The rest of the time, it’ll open to a bunch of meleedudes within polearm distance, ready to beat your dual-weapon exoskeleton into multiple tiny pieces.

Thus, you should prefer to not open doors, especially if the door is wider than normal, or is attached to what looks like a vault, as those are more likely to have a bunch of scary meleedudes. Try to clear as much of the level as possible without opening doors.

Once you decide you have to open doors, prioritize those that are near to the stairs you entered from, so that you know you can retreat and strairdance if necessary.

When you do open a door, be prepared to have to spend a consumable just to escape. Most of the time it’s completely safe, but carefully assess the situation as soon as it opens.

Corners are a risk similar to doors. Most of the time, turning a corner has absolutely no bad consequence. Very rarely, it will expose some nasty meleedude or band of nasty meleedudes. Like doors, try to explore other areas and ensure a safe place to retreat to before turning a corner, and prioritize corners near the stairs you came in from.

The risk of doors and corners is greatly mitigated by Stealth, so make sure to occassionally train Stealth up, depending on any Stlth+/Stlth- modifiers you get.

Terrain: Stairs

Except for branch entrances, there are three stairs between levels.

The typical recommendation for exploring when piloting a meleedude is that, once you’ve cleared a small area around one stair, go back up those stairs and then go down a different stairs and clear the area near it again, until you have cleared the three upstairs.

However, for a Ranged Weapons specialist, you should treat stairs a little differently:

• If there are a bunch of meleedudes near one stair, consider if you should just go up and try another stair.
  • If it looks kinda safe-ish, use stair dancing there and then. Do be prepared to give up and try some other stairs if it gets too hot. Be extra careful of things that can ruin your stairdance: constrictors, tramplers, harpooners, etc.
• Otherwise if the area near your chosen stair is empty or just has a few trivial pieces of popcorn, keep exploring the rest of the level from there. Don’t bother going up again, though do still roughly circle around the stair you came down on and any new upstairs you come upon.

The reason for the slight difference is:

• As a meleedude, your “Cast Iron” spell only works at range 1 (or 2 if you have a polearm).
  • A stairs is an opportunity to get very close to monsters, so you want to maximize those opportunities by not exploring too far away from any upstairs, then going back up to the previous level and taking a different downstairs and roll another opportunity to be near to monsters you can use “Cast Iron” at.
  • If you are forced to use a teleport scroll, knowing where all the upstairs are is much safer than not knowing.
• As a Ranged Weapons specialist, you do not want to be near monsters.
  • If you go down a stairs, it is a chance there are a bunch of scary meleedudes surrounding it ready to use the special monster-only spell “Mace To The Face”.
  • If you go down a stairs and the area around it is empty, it’s better to just wander around from there, since it’s much more likely for you to encounter new monsters at the edge of your vision, at or near your maximum sight range, which maximizes your ability to kill them before they can get near.
  • You don’t need a teleport scroll because all the enemies are dead before they can approach you.

This is problematic, of course, if you are entering a new branch, which only has one stairs. If it’s surrounded by scary meleedudes, the only thing you can do is just take them on, because there is no other choice to enter that level.

Thus, when entering a new branch that isn’t Lair or Orc, I recommend pre-buffing with Heroism at least before heading down, and if there are melee monsters near the entrance, be prepared to use Finesse and potions of might or haste to give you the necessary edge, and spend other consumables like Gell’s gravitambourine in order to establish a toehold into the level. For Lair, you want to preserve piety for the upcoming ****** hand cannon gift, and it’s usually not too bad if you stairdance them back into the Dungeons (monsters that can ruin a stairdance, like elephants, are rare in Lair:1 at least). For Orcish Mines, you probably just had the hand cannon gift and are currently overpowered for the difficulty curve, so even if it’s surrounded by meleedudes and uniques, you can still take them on.

In particular, the S-branches commonly have monsters that can prevent you from stairdancing on their entrance:

• Shoal sirens and avatars can mesmerize you, nymphs can cover the stairs, manticores can apply barbs.
• Swamp worms can harpoon shot you away from stairs.
• Snake pit anacondas and nagas can constrict you.
• Spider’s nest steelbarb worms can apply barbs.

Not all entrances into S-branches will be surrounded by such monsters, but pre-buffing Heroism is relatively cheap insurance against a bad entry into the S-branches (and later branches as well).

If you need to choose between taking a different stairs or opening a possibly-risky door, choose the door. Stairs welcoming committees are far scarier than most doors.

Terrain: Open Spaces And Corridors

Meleedudes love corridors and hate open spaces. As a single-target Ranged Weapons specialist, your relationship with these different terrain is a little more complicated.

Wide open spaces make it much more likely that you encounter a new monster at the edge of vision, and can thus maximize your safety while shooting them down.

However, if the monster is not alone, wide open spaces mean you are that much more easily surroundable.

If it turns out to be a group of monsters, pay attention to how fast you are killing the monster and its friends, and if they are starting to swarm at the edge of vision, or their nearer edge of surviving monsters is approaching you, look at the map and start searching for nearby pre-explored corridors to limit the number of meleedudes that can possibly surround you.

Note that you don’t need to go deep into a corridor to benefit; this is good if the monsters are the same speed or faster than you and you take a risk of attacks of opportunity at each step, you just need to minimize the number of meleedudes that can get adjacent to you, ideally just one.

When exploring, do explore a little into corridors just to be able to check that deeper in is somewhat safe, but still prioritize exploring into open spaces for the first-strike capability it gives you.

If you’re lucky, you’d be just at the end of a corridor opening into an open area, and spot a new monster. That often lets you start shooting at them from your maximum range, while having some insurance that, in case that monster is actually part of a larger band that wakes up once you start shooting, or you get a few bad to-hit rolls, you are still in a corridor that can protect you from being swarmed.

Corridors and not-so-open areas are good since it is more likely that you will be able to aim in such a way that you can possibly hit multiple monsters as if your weapon were penetrating; even if your weapon is not penetrating, as pointed out earlier, if you miss or kill the monster in front, your awesome damage output can then proceed to the next monster along the line of fire, increasing your effective actual DPS.

Thus, the complicated relationship you have with corridors vs open areas:

• Open areas reduce the risk of surprises where you turn a corner only to find scary enemy meleedudes a tile or two away. They are also much more likely to let you spot enemies at maximum range, letting you take the most advantage of your ranged weapons.
• Corridors and tighter areas let you “funnel” monsters so as to maximize the ability to aim as if your weapons have penetration, and also reduce the risk of getting swarmed by enemy meleedudes.

Distancing Tech: Walk Away

Let’s say you round a corner or open a door, only to find a bunch of sleeping or wandering, hasn’t noticed you meleedudes.

The thing to do is to back off to the furthest you can get while still having a line of fire with them, before you start shooting. This maximizes the distance you have to kill them, greatly increasing your safety. This is the best distancing tech since it spends 0 consumables.

Now, while a meleedude is approaching you, you want to be shooting every turn, in the hope that they will die before even becoming a threat. However, sometimes terrain will obstruct your line of fire. In that case, instead of waiting with . for the monster approach you like what you would do if your character was a meleedude, step back.

If you were to wait with ., that is one turn that you are not shooting, and one less tile of distance of safety as the enemy monster walks closer to you. If instead you were to step back until the monster comes into line-of-fire again, you maintain the distance you have with it, retaining your margin of safety.

Again, merely walking away is best distancing tech, because it consumes nothing.

(This wouldn’t work as well with Cheibriados, but this is an Okawaru guide.)

Distancing Tech: Passage Of Golubria

Passage of Golubria is an excellent distancing tech, and if given a choice to get it, you should generally take it.

The rules of Passage of Golubria are:

• Each casting open 2 portals:
  • One within two tiles of your location, possibly on your location.
  • The other within two tiles of your targeted location, possibly on the targeted location. Increasing your spellpower increases the range.
  • After casting once, you can have 3 or more portals open.
• Portals can only be opened if there is no trap or other dungeon feature, and only within your line-of-sight.
  • You need some amount of open space to target some location, if it’s too tight, then you simply cannot cast the spell in the first place.
• Monsters and you can enter portals, if not already on them, by moving from an adjacent tile into the tile with the portal.
  • If you are on a tile with a portal already, you can use > to enter it. Monsters will not use portals they are already standing on.
  • If there is at least one other Passage of Golubria portal that is empty of monsters/ you, then the first entity that enters the portal will teleport to one of the open portals (randomly selected if there are multiple possible ones!), and the portal that was entered into will close silently.
    • This means that, unlike stairs, if you step into a portal while a monster is adjacent or with a monster adjacent in the portal, only you will be teleported and the monster will not follow you.
    • If there are no valid destination portals, then the portal that would have been entered remains open and the entity that entered it just stands on top of that portal.
  • Whover is teleported (you, a monster) ends up on the tile with the destination portal, on top of that portal, which remains open.
• If you cast Passage of Golubria while a monster is near you or to the destination location, then a portal can open, only for the monster to step into it while you are waiting for your next turn, and then the portal gets closed and the monster teleports (seemingly immediately from your point of view).
• Portals have a timeout that is slightly random, and will dissipate faster if not in your line of sight.
  • If they dissipate without being entered by you or a monster, they will close with a “snap”, making a small amount of noise.
  • Portals will only close noiselessly if they were entered into.

When you spot a monster at edge of vision, cast Passage of Golubria, aiming for an area away from the monster and into pre-explored, safe space (if there is no pre-explored safe space, don’t bother using it).

If the portal that opens near you is not on your tile or adjacent to your current location, then take one step towards it.

While on a portal or next to one, start shooting at monsters. Once the monster is too near to you, or is adjacent to the portal you intend to enter, enter the portal, which will teleport you away (and more importantly, does not risk the monster entering the portal by accident and closing it behind them).

You will now end up standing on the destination portal. At this point, consider if you will continue fighting, or if you should (or can!) retreat to a narrower location or to a stair.

If you decide to continue fighting, cast Passage of Golubria again, which opens two more portals, then continue shooting the monster until it is too near to you, or to one of the portals that opened, then re-enter the portal using >.

There is a chance that the portal you are standing on will close while you are fighting on top of it — pay attention, and check what portals nearby are still open and useable.

If there are 3 or more portals open, there is a chance that entering one will send you to a portal near to a monster, in which case, just repeat > again until you get teleported away from the monster (and consider whether to escape or continue fighting) or you are on the only portal left (and cast Passage of Golubria again to keep your movement options).

Distancing Tech: Gell’s Gravitambourine

Gell’s gravitambourine pulls in monsters within some radius of some aimed tile, then pins them into place for a duration.

The mechanics of Gell’s gravitambourine are:

• The radius depends on your Evocations skill:
  • < 9.5 skill: 2
  • 9.5 to 23.2 skill: 3
  • > 23.2 skill: 4
  • Generally you want to have Evocations of 10.0 or more anyway, especially if you have Gell’s gravitambourine, as that also speeds up the recharge rate.
• Monsters within the area of effect are pulled towards the center you aimed at. The center must be visible to you and should be a non-wall tile.
• Affected monsters are slightly damaged. If there are multiple, they also get additional collision damage.
• The monsters are pinned down and cannot move for some duration.

The item is most effective on melee monsters with fast movespeed: their threat is precisely their speed of movement, and while pinned down by Gell’s gravitambourine, that speed becomes 0, completely disabling their threat.

It’s best used when one or more monsters are within striking distance of you, but not if you are surrounded from multiple sides. In general, because of the recommendation to “aim as if your ranged weapons have penetration”, you want to position yourself so that monsters are approaching from only one side, so you should be working to the advantage of Gell’s gravitambourine already.

The effect is immediate as soon as you trigger it, and you can resume shooting at enemy monsters right then. Since the gravitambourine holds up to 2 charges, it is reasonable to take the risk of trying to kill off the affected monsters there and then, and reserve the second charge in case they still survive and threaten you again (obviously, you want to run away at that point).

Distancing Tech: Duel

Duel is an excellent reason to stay with Okawaru even after getting the capstone gifts.

The rules for Duel, as of 0.33.1, are:

• You can cast Duel with *****. or ****** piety.
• You target a single non-summoned, non-clone monster whose threat level is either High or Lethal.
• Both you and the target monster are teleported to the Arena.
  • You will be put at a distance of between 2 to 4 tiles away from each other.
  • The size and shape of the Arena varies. Some Arenas have statues or posts.
• Your current HP and MP are memorized. On entering the Arena, half of your missing HP and half of your missing MP is given to you.
• Any summons they have will be left behind (and dismissed when the target dies), but summoners can create new summons inside the Arena.
• You cannot be banished while in the Arena.
• If you are already on the Orb Run, monsters will not spawn inside the Arena.
• Time still passes as normal while fighting in the Arena. This means that monsters that were left behind in the “normal” dungeon level may get bored and wander off (and will also regenerate their health normally).
• Once you kill the targeted monster, you are immediately removed from the Arena and returned to the normal dungeon level at the location you were in.
  • Your HP and MP is set to the same as what was memorized before entering the Arena.
  • Any buffs or statuses you get in the Arena remain.
  • Any items on the floor of the Arena (including death drops from the monster you dueled) will be put on that tile.
    • If the tile is deep water or lava or similar, an Okawaru altar is placed there and the items will be placed on top.

There are two major things that are most relevant to you here:

• You are placed 2-4 tiles apart from the target.
• You are temporarily healed of HP and MP.

Thus, Duel is best used on an adjacent threatening monster, when your HP and MP are below half. However, note that most “popcorn” will not have High or Lethal threat, and a group of popcorn swarming you is just as bad as a single unique.

You should really consider HP to be a renewable resource; the only hit point that matters is the last hit point. In essence, it is not that different from MP, another renewable resource. When you are fighting against a monster in melee range, you are actually spending your hit point resources to slowly destroy that monster.

Duel effectively “lends” you some extra hit points by healing you up when you trigger it. Yes, you have to return the extra hit points — but Okawaru is very kind and doesn’t actually care if you return far fewer hit points at the end of the duel, or even negative (i.e. if you ended the duel with even less hit points than when you came in). This is why Duel is so powerful: you borrow some hit points and never have to actually pay them back in full at the end of the Duel.

Tactically, if your troubles are because of a group of low-threat monsters, you can try to duel any high-threat monsters, buff up, then just kinda fool around in the Arena without immediately defeating your duel partner. As noted, time still passes “as normal” while in the Arena, and if you take your sweet time defeating the chosen target like some Cheibriados-worshipper, then the crowd of low-threat monsters may disperse by the time you are returned, also giving your distance from them. If you have Passage of Golubria, you can use that to extend your kite inside the Arena and waste time to better your chances that the monsters in normal space have wandered off.

Finally, if during the Orb run there is some really fast and sticky Pandemonium lord that you just can’t shake and you’re out of other distancing resources, just Duel them in the Arena, where you are safe from having anotther Pandemonium Lord or other nasty show up (unless it has summoning of some kind). Yes, you’re not supposed to fight during the Orb run, but Okawaru gives you the option of doing so if necessary.

Distancing / Damaging Tech: Wand of Warping, Roots, Iceblast

Your game will always have one of warping, roots, or iceblast.

Wands of warping and roots give some distancing and some damaging, while Wands of iceblast are just pure damaging. The rules are:

• Your game will select one of those types, and only that type can be found in your game.
• They are beam-targeted, meaning monsters will limit where you can aim them at.
  • In particular, invisible monsters will not affect your targeting, and can lead to the actual effect tile being different from one you targeted if the beam hits the invisible monster.
• They will always have a 3x3 area of effect on their target or the first monster they hit.
• Their effect is assured to hit and ignore monster evasion.
• Depending on type:
  • Wand of warping deals less damage, but the damage is irresistable. Each being in the area of effect has a chance, increased by Evocations, of being blinked nearby. The chance is at least 50% at 0 Evocations, and maxes out at 90%. The warping can affect you and allies (this is not necessarily a bad thing, as getting blinked yourself is another chance to gain distance, just be aware that it deals some damage to yourself as well).
  • Wand of roots does not immediately deal damage, but deals damage over time while constricting any enemies. Monsters cannot move from their tile while constricted, but can attack in melee or ranged, and can cast spells. The monster, if not in melee range, can struggle to escape constriction, and monsters with blink ability (or without if they are blinked by other means) will escape when they blink. Constricted monsters have an EV malus.
  • Wand of iceblast simply deals a lot of cold damage, which can be resisted or completely avoided by rC on the monster, and conversely, can be increased if the monster has rC-.

Genearlly, for distancing, wand of warping is best, while for damaging, iceblast is best. Make sure to consider this in your risk assessment; a game where you get phial of floods instead of Gell’s gravitambourine, and wand of iceblast instead of warping or roots, is that much riskier due to having fewer distancing techs available.

Warping is a good distancing tech as it immediately gets distance, making it better as a panic button than roots. Roots requires more proactiveness. Further, my experience is that at later game stages, monsters escape the roots in 2-3 turns, sometimes just 1 turn, making it far less reliable for distancing than warping.

Even beyond just distancing, all three wands work great against high-EV enemies — warping and iceblast will deal damage that cannot be avoided by EV, and roots is also unavoidable and also reduces monster EV while they are constricted, letting your normal attacks also have improved chance to hit. Their area of effect also helps against groups of enemies. Nevertheless, you should try to keep at least warping as a distancing tech for emergencies, though feel free to spend iceblast on groups of popcorn that get too close to you.

When using roots, do not also use darts of disjunction, as they will free the monster from constriction.