H's Minotaur Fighter Guide

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

So you want to win at Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup for the first time? This guide is for you, covering a great beginner combo: Minotaur Fighter (MiFi). Forget everything else written in the wiki (well, just forget everything that I tell you to), because isn't going to be trivial optimal. But I will aim to guide you through a simple combo with a simple and consistent path to success.

This guide was made during the tail end of 0.28 life cycle, aka July-August 2022. It covers everything up until the first rune branches. Note that 0.29 ("trunk" as of writing) introduces a massive gameplay change, and I'm sure that there'll be more differences as time goes out. See Differences Between Versions for more detail. I'll try to my best of my ability to make this guide relevant for 0.29, but I'm sorely out of experience there.

I'll assume that you know the very basics of the game. If not, view the Tutorial, whenever ingame or via the wiki. For a very brief description: Use lowercase i to view your items, you'll get a lot of them soon. Use the numpad or click around to move. Move into monsters to attack them, and hopefully you won't die. There's a lot of shortcuts and a lot of things that you may or may not use. Use ? then ? to view all commands. All commands in the game are case sensitive.

Main Menu

The absolute first thing you'll see is the character select screen. This is a Minotaur Fighter guide. So pick Minotaur, then click Fighter. Both should be just about the first options in the class selection screen. Then, pick the War Axe. Finally, if you're playing offline, you can choose your name. I'll cover these choices in the section below; feel free to skip it if you wanna head right in to the Dungeon. 

Specs

• Minotaur - Minotaurs are 7/10 on the "monstrousness" scale, an ancient classification that's only really surpassed by the Troll and the occasional Demonspawn. And it's true: Minotaurs are absolutely monstrous at physical combat and absolute dumbasses at magic. Don't let a suite of "+2"s and "+1"s fool you - Minotaurs are incredibly proficent at anything resembling a blunt stick, easily having the best skills in the entire game (Gnolls might have +8s, but because they split between every skill, their effective skill XP per skill is small). The same can be said about their 'measly' +10% HP, which only 3 other species can match.
  
  Minotaurs might be monstrous, but they aren't *that* special. They don't have the eight arms of an Octopode or undead properties of a Vampire. Their main sticking point is... their horns. So powerful are these horns, that you can go through the first three or so floors without ever swinging with your axe and still come out on top. More specifically, Minotaurs have a headbutt counterattack; while other species might randomly mutate horns, only Mi can retaliate with them. This chance starts at a bit over 20%, and rises as you get stronger. It might seem weak as you progress, but DCSS is a game where a raw +1d4 damage/accuracy buff is one of the most valued (if not powerful) rings available.
  
  Unfortunately, Horns prevent the use of certain forms of headgear. This was a massive contention point 10 years ago, where the unfortunate removal of Mountain Dwarf left the helmetless Minotaur in their stead. Minos can still wear Hats, which have a better enchantment pool, anyway. Just beware that if your horns ever grow larger (via mutation), then you won't even have that. You don't ever interact with these abilities; they are automatically activated, and Minotaur has no other quirks in the first place (other than their amazing stats).

• Fighter - Fighter is a very generic class, most similar to the Valkyire of NetHack (or a Knight in non-holy contexts, or a Warrior...), and similarly recommended as a beginner and general class alike. Fighters start with a 'good' weapon (we're picking war axe, more on that in a bit), scale mail for armor (easily the heaviest armor within starting kits, but becomes trash not even 10 floors in), and a buckler (actually quite good, but you'll want a heavier shield eventually).
  
  The main selling point really is the buckler. Like all shields, bucklers restrict two-handed weapons, and such a light shield only slightly decreases weapon speed. But SH secretly comprises a large amount of defense. I say secret, but the devs caught on, nerfing them twice in a row. Needless to say, shields still reign supreme. Being the heaviest pieces of equipment from any starting kit, Fighter serves to give you a headstart in combat potential, guaranteeing that you won't be stuck in a robe and handaxe for a hot second.
  
  Fighters also start with a potion of might, which gives an extra 1d10 damage for a decent but limited time. It's obviously useful against tough enemies. However, make sure you actually have the HP to fight before quaffing one.

• Axes - "I suggest an axe (axes are fun)" - Linley Herzell, quickstart.md. 
  
  Axes have the unique ability to cleave: every time you swing, you'll hit every adjacent enemy for 70% damage (and the main target for full damage). Why this has never been touched upon in cleaving's 8 year existence is simply unknown to me. Over the years, there has been a single nerf to a single axe that was reverted in the following update. Perhaps the main reason is that you shouldn't be fighting multiple enemies at once in the first place! A player with full control will fight enemies one at a time, Axe or not. But "control" is the keyword here. There's many times where the game will yoink you straight out of nowhere with a teleport or shaft trap, or a guardian serpent instantly teleports 8 allies right on top of you. Axes are insurance against these types of situations. In short, fighting 4 surrounding enemies at once isn't optimal, but Axes are great when you have to do so.
  
  Notes: Axes are useful against invisible opponents; you can attack with ctrl-direction and still attack pesky unseen horrors. Axes also cut hydra heads, a single enemy which this guide will plan for later.

All these traits make MiFi^Axes quite the meme throughout the DCSS community, only surpassed by MiBe (Minotaur Berserker). The reason we aren't playing MiBe? Because I said so. MiFi also opens up god choice for an easier (if not more powerful) deity to deal with the later potions of the game.

Dungeon:1

Alright, we're actually in the game! Or so you think. Before you even start moving, hit m to access the skill menu. Switch from automatic to manual (if it isn't so already). You can still win the game with automatic skilling, but we can do better. Plus, this won't take much micromanagment.

Fighting, Axes, Armor, and Shields should be the skills trained right now. Turn everything else off.  Press the Axes button again to focus it (shows as * instead of +). Now press = in the skill menu in order to turn on skill target. Select Axes and put a target of 18. Don't touch any of these skills for the rest of the game, don't turn on any skill unless explicitly mentioned otherwise, and you should be golden. This is, again, not the truly optimal way to spread skill XP. But it works - Minotaur strength should easily compensate.

Dungeon:1 (for real)

Alright, you're actually in the game! You'll start in one of many carefully crafted entrance vaults. Which specific room you get is random, but they were all manually created by some person. Take note of any suspiciously structured structures: they might get dangerous later. If you're in 0.28 or earlier, you'll also want to look for a "pillar" - basically anything that you can run in circles around. Anywhere from a 1x1 block to the outside of an entire room. 

Then, you want to start exploring. But not in any ol' direction; explore a bit of land, then go back and explore tiles closer to your starting position (and/or pillar, if still in 0.28). You never want to go through unknown territory, because there could be monsters anywhere. When you're desperately running away, a monster could appear any moment, cut off your retreat path, and ending your Minotaurish dreams.

Take items. Potions and Scrolls are your main consumables, and almost always have some use. Conviently, these items will automatically be picked up if you walk on their tile (signified by the green border around them). Their names (dark blue potion...) are always randomized, but consistent per item type per game. We'll get to Identification in about two floors' worth of writing. Every other item will be covered in the Items and Gear section, about three floors from now.

And fight monsters. But before you do so, make sure to press x to enter examination mode, then press v on the monster in order to examine. If you're playing on Tiles, you can right click the monster, too. You'll want to make that a habit for any new monster you find, though this guide will point out the many especially scary threats. Once you're done, don't charge into monsters right away. 

You'll want to instead wait (with the s or . or numpad-5 keys) for the monster to go to you. This reveals less unexplored territory, and thus less monsters are likely to come in and ambush or surround you. If you are especially careful, you should retreat towards known areas, preferably in a hallway. For enemies with ranged attacks, you want to hide behind a corner or wall so that they have to approach you. You can use X and then e to create an exclusion zone; the exclusions cover every tile that can see the selected tile, so you can see where line of sight is. Use the same command twice or X then ctrl-e to clear exclusions afterwards. 

..@..
__.__
.|.|.
.|.|.
.|.|.

In a situation like this, where a hallway opens up into a room, the @ symbol (the player) needs to move 2 tiles left or right in order to not be seen. The "two tiles, aka 1 tile back from the diagonal route" is a rule that I completely made up but also works with most corners.

Notable Threats

• Gnolls are incredibly scary as a first monster, even for a Minotaur. They are also an important lesson on weapons! Gnolls only display that they can deal up to 6 damage, and that's true... with no weapon. However, we have NOT considered weapon damage, nor is it listed on the monster screen, which I find incredibly odd (NOTE: fixed in 0.29, which does display damage with weapon included. I suspect it had remained for so long due to bad code). In 0.28, you have to go out of the xv screen, hit ?, then hit / to search, search items, and search the weapon you want. For example, a gnoll with a +0 club has 6 damage at base and 4 damage from the club, resulting in 10 max damage - enough to 2-shot an XL 1 character. Monsters in this stage will easily deal 150% or even double damage with a weapon.
  
  Also keep in mind that monsters can use any special weapon properties that you can. Monsters with axes can cleave, but more importantly monsters with polearms (spears, tridents, halberds) reach, able to attack from two tiles away. A gnoll with a spear deals up to 6+5=11 damage and will get 1 'free' attack due to polearm reach, meaning that you can get two shot before you can even attack. Monsters are also unhindered by weapons, no longer how big they are. The infamous D:1 halberd gnoll deals up to 19 damage, which will one-shot. Thankfully, they can no longer spawn with halberds on D:1. But notice how I always say up to. Monster damage distribution is not uniform - it is actually favored towards low rolls. Plus, AC reduces damage, and you can also dodge attacks. While you may be willing to take the risk, taking a 1% risk 100 times should *not* end well for you. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, in true roguelike fashion, is a game centred about managing luck.
  
  Regardless, they are respectable fighters and easily able to take out non-Minotaur players.  If you fight them at XL1, don't be afraid to drink that potion of might after 1 nasty hit. If you're XL3, a lone gnoll should be a pushover. A note that gnolls on D:1 are using kiddie gloves! We'll get to that on the D:2 overview. And like a lot of threats on here, they are also quite the rare enemy for D:1; the chances of actually having to deal with one are quite low.

• Quokkas are another lesson - this time in monster speed. Quokkas are fast, meaning that they occasionally get 2 rounds for every 1 you have. This means that you can't run away, and repositioning pre-fight is limited. And because of the war axe + shield, you attack quite slow. This means that the quokka can deal up to 10 damage per turn, twice reduced by AC. While they are annoyingly evasive, outside of some pretty bad luck rolls, quokkas aren't especially strong monsters. Assuming you're at full health, they are complete pushovers at XL 3 and still very managable at XL 1. The little masperal is probably getting over hyped here, especially considering that we're a MiFi.
  
  A trick with fast enemies is that, when they are two spaces away from you (1 tile gap), start walking away. With normal enemies, you can just wait and they'll use their turn to move, meaning you get the first strike. Fast enemies can double turn, so they can hit you by just waiting. So by walking away, eventually they'll double turn in order to move twice, allowing you to get the first hit again.

• Jackals are fast (actually faster than quokkas, or more likely to double turn) and often come in packs. A mob of jackals isn't a pretty fight, even with your axe. Their speed also makes it harder to position so that you fight them one at a time. So if you see even one jackal, let it come to you, instead of you charging straight in. Jackals are incredibly scary for mage type characters, but lone jackals should not be scary even at XL 1. A pack is easily fought if you can back up into a hallway, so that 4 jackals aren't biting you per turn.

Dungeon:2

Dungeon 2 is infintely safer than D:1 for one reason: it has upstairs. Three, in fact! The vast majority of floors in DCSS have 3 up- and down- stairs, obviously excluding branch entrances. Anyways, going upstairs into an already clear floor is fairly safe. While it takes 2.5 turns to do, only monsters that are directly adjacent to you can follow you up the stairs. And as descending down into a floor you've never been into before is fast, you have a one time out against bad spawn RNG.

As an extension of the previous floor's advice, try to explore near staircases; always have a fully explored route to them, visit each 'side' of every unexplored split. It'd be optimal if you could explore in a circle around each staircase, so don't be afraid to turn around and explore another direction completely.  This assumes that you haven't found any monsters yet. Visiting all three staircases to optimize staircase tile distance is certainly possible, but puts you at risk of encountering some incredibly dangerous monsters, and is also just unnecessary (except for really bad layouts).

If you see (or are fighting) a monster, then see more coming in, you can come back *to* the stair and go up, intentionally bringing (only) adjacent monsters into a cleared floor. If you're close enough, you might as well go back to the stair first. In 0.29, do NOT try and drag monsters into a staircase mid-fight. Monsters next to you will have a chance to get a free attack on every movement. Instead, drag enemies into staircases before they are adjacent to you. This applies to all ranged monsters in (except the slow dart slug) in any version.

Also, the rise of staircases now 'allow' us to start the identification minigame! That will be covered in the Identification section below. But first, the notable threats:

Notable Threats

• Adders are beefed up Quokkas, with faster speed, better defenses, a stronger bite, but most notably, the abiltiy to poison you. Poison stacks up really really quickly in this game, and weaker characters soon find themselves taking half their health purely from poison. A reminder that adders are fast: once they are right next to you, there is no option but to fight. If you see one right as you descend into D:2 for the first time, don't bother, just go back up. In truth, an XL3 or even XL2 Minotaur can probably take one down, but you never want to take a probably in a game like Crawl. And this is because Minotaurs are overpowered and have overpowered horns, not because adders are easy.
  
  If you are forced to fight one of these dudes at a low level, you'll probably want to drink that potion of might very early into the fight. I'm talking when you are poisoned to be below 70% HP (shown as yellow damage in the health bar, use % to check exact poison amount). If you still happen to be fighting an adder and are at critical health (<50% HP, not including poison), you should start blindly drinking potions. The most common potion is Curing, followed by Heal Wounds, so drink larger potion stacks first. But by the end of D:2 (XL5), adders should be no threat barring extreme bouts of luck (We sometimes have to take the tiny chance. If we compensated for those, then we'd have no consumables to use).

• Gnolls unsheath their swords(? clubs? halberds?) from this floor onwards. While you can most likely handle one Gnoll at this point, four polearm wielding gnolls striking you at once (most likely, you won't be able to cleave!) is not a fun time. Fight them one at a time, and if they have polearms, it'll take more than a simple hallway to deal with them.
  
  What worse is that they (on this floor onwards) can spawn with the incredibly fearsome Throwing Net. I'm not joking. Nets pin you in place, preventing you from moving or melee attacking, and reduce your EV to near zero until you break or teleport out. You simply can't run away when one is on screen. You can xv to check if nets are quivered. Even if you can fight a gnoll pack (again, possible by end of D:2 assuming no Shaman), you will not want to face a big meaty ogre while trapped in a net.

• Run away. They aren't supposed to spawn here. You aren't ready. Regular orcs are fine enough, but multiple orcs might be a signal that a priest is nearby. Go down into D:3 if you have to. You aren't ready. They'll be covered in the next floor's threat list. If you happen to be next to one unscathed, they aren't that bad though? Might and swing away. Good luck getting past the orc horde first.

• Sigmund is one of the first possible Uniques you can encounter (unique monsters, named monsters, guys-with-a-humany-name). While most of the other D:2 uniques (Jessica, Terrence, Robin) are alright as a MiFi, Sigmund's 2 damage hit (+14 from scythe, a polearm) really adds up. What's worse is the funny, which is Confusing you over and over so that you get pelted by Throw Flames while unable to do anything meaningful until you die. Do everything I said in the Orc Priest section and more: Sigmund intentionally spawns this early. Thankfully, if you are already the full 7 spaces away, then you should be able to run safely - Sigmund is a normal speed enemy.

Stat Points

On XP level 3 (XL3) and every 6 levels afterwards, you have a choice of stat points. Pick strength. Damage is good, and it helps with armour. There is a lategame risk of intelligence reaching 0 and hitting stat zero effects, so start investing into INT at around XL 21, or if you find a -INT item you really want to use.

Identification

Identification is one of the core gameplay elements of NetHack, but here in Stone Soup territory, it is greatly simplified. Recent versions will automatically ID all equipment that you can wear (weapons, armour, rings), meaning the only things you actually need to find are potions and scrolls.

The main way to identify items is to just use them. Both consumables are identified on use. It doesn't matter if the item actually did anything. They will also be identified if you see a monster use 'em, though enemies will only use certain specific potions (you wouldn't want a goblin using ligma and becoming a goblin tree), and it'd still be consumed. The other way is to use a scroll of identification, but the scroll of identify is not itself identified, meaning blind consumption is required. Finally, certain pre-generated locations may come with pre-identified items; potions of degeneration for an Ossuary, as an example. This isn't reliable in the slightest.

Basically, you're gonna have to 'waste' items sooner or later. In order for your blind-use ID to actually be useful at the moment, try to read/quaff items that you have at least 2 of. This isn't required, but very helpful. It is also convienent, as the two most common potions (curing, heal wounds) and scrolls (identify, teleportation) are very useful items to have. Of these, read scrolls first. But don't do it immediately!

Read scrolls (that you have 2+ of) on the upstairs leading to a cleared floor, when you can't see any enemies, preferably on an unexplored floor.

The upstairs part is essential because of the teleport scroll; it teleports you just about anywhere on the floor, which could end up with you in dangerous situation without the safety of an upstairs. It's also helpful to have a retreat upward for the scroll of noise, which might attract enemies. It is necessary for the above floor to be cleared, as teleporting next to the thing you've skipped an entire floor on isn't fun. The unexplored floor is not super necessary, but gets the most benefit out of the scroll of magic mapping, which becomes more useful from D:4 on. Basically you don't super need an unexplored floor until you get to D:4.

In general, reading scrolls over potions is preferred. Many of them grant permanent or lasting boosts (brand weapon, enchant armour...), none of them grant permanent harm, and the sheer fact that identify is in fact a scroll makes blind reading required. This is in contrast with potions, where only the rare potion of experience gives a boost, the potion of mutation can give permanent changes either way*, and the potion of degeneration requires XP in order to cure. Some players like to never blind quaff potions, but I will personally tell you to also drink potions that you have >=2 of. There's no stair requirement - just make sure that you are safe before doing so. If you are in a desperate situation, you don't even need that. Potions lean towards powerful temporary effects, and should be blind quaffed in dire need.

Once you have scrolls of identify available to use, use them to identify potions. This is for the same reasons said above; they are more likely to give powerful-but-temporary effects. The scroll of blinking is the only scroll really designed around emergencies that you won't have a ton of (like teleport or fog), so identifying other scrolls isn't as valuable. 

It's also worth noting that some players like save their scrolls to read (either with the above identifying process, or reading every single scroll) on D:4 in hopes of getting magic mapping and finding the Temple fast. The Temple is very likely an imporant branch because it houses the many gods. But I'm putting this advice as a footnote for a reason.

*The potion of mutation can give potentially game-ending terrible terrible mutations (teleportitis, berserkitis, no unsafe scrolls). These three mutations far outweigh any possible good mutations you might get, which can actually be good (rElec, Will+, Regen+....), even though the potion leans towards good mutations in the first place. Thankfully, the likelyhood of recieving one of those three mutations on a blind quaff, then the 2nd potion not removing one, is actually kinda low. If you still have one, you might as well restart the game**. Potions of mutation are our only source of curing mutations, so you really shouldn't gamble.

**Note that the game's still fairly playable, or at least that's what the devs think.

Dungeon:3

Dungeon:3 is a lot like Dungeon:2 in that you have stairs, the dungeon itself is generated similarly, and that there's a bunch of monsters. The same strategies above don't suddenly get worse. Instead, I'll use this space to talk about the big difference between 0.28 and 0.29, before talking about threats or gear.

Differences Between Versions

In 0.28 (and below), monsters at normal speed, 10-speed, move at normal speed. They might get random energy, or an extra 0.1 turn plus or minus; enough changes lead to them losing or gaining a turn, though a monster that's gained a turn is likely to lose it (and vice versa). What this means is that you can circle around a  wall with a same speed monster nearly infintely. While both you and the monster both regenerate, you can retreat from monsters but the monster won't ever retreat from you (leading to near infinite chances to try and kill melees). This technique is known as pillar dancing. This would traditionally be called "overpowered", but let me tell you that overpowered *is* what's needed to cushion against extremely bad luck rolls. There's geniune reasons for its removal (it takes forever, namely) and geniune risks (a monster coming in mid-dance), but I heavily prefer pre-0.29 versions for this reason. I'm going to be biased here, but who isn't?

In 0.29, adjacent monsters will roll for attacks of opportunity every time you move. As a benefit, random energy is removed. But not only is pillar dancing for melees removed, but it is absolutely imperative that you lure enemies into a stair or hallway before they get right next to you. You do NOT want an overwhelming enemy to appear when fighting an already dangerous monster. For comparison, an adder in 0.28 is less likely to hit you on-retreat than a 10-speed monster in 0.29, and it's not like faster monsters can't get opportunity attacks. You know how much I stress about adders. If you can get that extra tile of space (polearm users will always stay 2 spaces if possible), then you can pillar dance just fine.

At least in compensation, players were buffed. More consumables spawn, all backgrounds start with a consumable item (though fighter already had the potion of might), many early game threats were nerfed, monster wand damage reduced... I think you could describe it as "making melee as hard as magic", with the mage folk getting continous buffs over the last two years. But if I seem like I'm stressing to play on < 0.28, I am, though you shouldn't be ashamed to play on later versions. There's a bunch of cool other changes, and I'll be sure that there's more.

Notable Threats

• Orc priests are still really scary. This is thanks to their AC-ignoring, never missing, 7-17 Smiting attack from anywhere from the screen. Many monsters, like their fellow orc wizard, require a direct line of fire in order to hit you. Priests just need line of sight. While the Smiting attack won't happen every turn, and defintely won't max roll every turn, there's no explicit cooldown for it. You could get smitten multiple times if you try to charge in, or get smitten in the middle of an orc fight. Speaking of orcs: priests tend to spawn with a pack of other orcs. If you see other orcs, start backing up immediately and lure the minions away.

• Orc wizards have the same spellset as Sigmund. However, without the scythe, power, or durability, they are much easier to manage. It's best if you have a potion of curing on hand and identified before fighting one. It's kinda risky to fight hand to hand, but it's riskier to run away unless you are already 7 tiles away. Like priests, they are also often found with other orcs.

• Most uniques are extra scary. There is way too many to list, and most of them are designed to be challenging for your level. But you could always right click or x v to see what you do. Grinder is easily the scariest due to the Paralyse spell, which reduces EV and SH to zero  and makes you unable to do anything. This lasts for up to 7 turns (5 in 0.29). Most uniques from this point forward are going to be omitted for brevity's sake.

Items & Gear

We (you) are a Minotaur Fighter, an axe wielding, shield using, heavy armor dude. There's really no need to stray away from that. Wyrmbane? Garbage. The big ass Frostbite axe? It's probably viable, but keep your shield on. Arga? That's the best one-handed axe in the entire game. All these items are really good (and really unlikely to be generated), but they are not necessary. In order to optimize winrate, it is actually better to switch to Wyrmbane, but describing so many cases would be too long for me to cov, let alone arbitrary. The only objective thing is that a luckless Minotaur can win with the same build, so just stick to the above.

Equipment

The broad axe is the only one-handed axe type better than your starting waraxe. All brands (enchantments: vorpal, freezing...) except distortion are better than none. Brands are better than an unbranded-but-enchanted weapon. Pick up any flaming axes you find; flaming 2-handers are the one exception to the "wear a shield!" rule. Of hand axes, electrocution is the only non-flaming brand worth using over a plain war axe, though a really, really high enchanted one (+6 and a brand) works as well. It's safe to swap to broad axe when you have at least 10 Axes skill. Do not use enchant weapon/brand weapon scrolls on a war axe unless you are forced to (blind reading these scrolls forces you to, so you might as well). You shouldn't need it.

Wear the heaviest piece of armour you can. Minotaurs have enough Strength to wear anything comfortably. Plate armour is the heaviest of the "common" armours and are sometimes worn by monsters. Higher AC is better (you can check the inventory for AC change), though avoid the ponderousness brand. Slow movement is not worth it, even in 0.29. Every piece of armour that is not body armour has absolutely no cost to wearing them: hats, gloves, cloaks, and boots are free AC. If you happen to get enchant armour scrolls, I would enchant in the order of boots -> gloves -> hats -> cloaks -> body, which is also the order of least-likely-to-be-replaced. Hats of willpower and cloaks of any resistance are pretty much best in slot, so don't be afraid to enchant those first. Shields are more arbitrary. I like to upgrade to kite shield as soon as I see one, and swap to tower shield at 15+ skill.

Please note that curses, i.e. items that stick to you, have been removed. Equip items as much as you want, the game will warn you about the few things that are punishing to take off.

Usables

But there's more items than equipment slots! Let's go over a couple of great items that you can encounter. If you've missed an item anywhere in the dungeon, you can use ctrl-f to search for them.

• Throwable items (stones, boomerangs, javelins, in order of strength) are easily obtainable ranged attacks. We're going to invest in throwing later (not yet!), but throwing stones at 0 skill is still better than nothing. Boomerangs and onwards are quite powerful items. Though keep in mind that throwing the two larger weapons unskilled takes over a single turn to fire, so don't throw if an enemy is 1 tile away. Pick up all throwables you might find. All throwables persist, but have a chance to mulch (disappear) when thrown.

• Poison darts are fairly powerful, assuming the enemy is not poison resistant. It took until this version (0.28) for their spawnrate to properly be nerfed. Being accurate and stronger than a stone, you might as well drop stones if you have a fair supply of darts. Poison darts remain useful up until Lair, and still useful against poison vulnerable enemies (like bees and spiders).

• Curare darts are an order of magnitude stronger. That's because of the Slow, reducing all action speed by 33%. That's a 33% damage reduction, and you can run away from slowed enemies. The dart actually needs to hit, but does not have a willpower or HD roll. Curare also deals fairly significant damage for this stage in the game. Like normal poison darts, poison resistant enemies are immune to all effects (make sure to check monster's armour!). Poison resistance starts being incredibly common later on (and common through Lair), though it is still effective against a large amount of uniques.

• Gnolls had them, but now you can use the power of throwing nets to your advantage. A netted enemy can't move from their tile, will often use their turn to break the next, have reduced EV, and are vulnerable to stabs (slightly more damage for you). They are actually quite rare, but very powerful and quite accurate. Keep at least 1-2 nets for emergencies and for a specific strategy much later in the game.

All of the above items are still throwables. But there's defintely other items available:

• Wands are quite strong with quite a few charges. For my non MiFis I like to train a small amount of Evocations for them. But for the purposes of this guide, just don't train Evo. Wands are fairly powerful even at 0 skill. Of these: wands of flame are useful against electric eels, iceblast will always hit, status inflicting wands will solve any situation this early (if their willpower check succeeds), and acid wands (or quicksilver or light in 0.29) both have raw power and inflict a strong debuff.

• Amulets are all pretty much beneficial, universally. The order for me is: regeneration > reflection > faith > guardian spirit > acrobat. Regeneration and Reflection are both great combat amulets. Faith punishes you if you take if off but increases godly favor while its on. Guardian spirit, acrobat, and magic regen are all minor buffs for our build but you might as well wear them.

• Rings are also beneficial, except for the ring of fire and ice, which provide vulnerability to the other element. As rings are quick to swap, you can change them when you find a relevant enemy or enter a relevant branch. Rings of willpower, slaying, protection, and evasion are always useful and should be worn in that order, should you find more than two.

Note that artefacts may have negative properties.

Dungeon:4 (& the Temple)

Dungeon:4 is the same as Dungeon:3. The same stairs, a similar floor layout, and the same bunches of monsters. The one difference is the possibility for the Temple to spawn.

The Temple is a completely safe branch (unless you drag monsters into it) that is incredibly likely to spawn Temple Gods. Temple Gods are guaranteed to spawn once and only once either in the Temple, or between D:3 and D:10. It can hold all the gods, or in 0.29, none. The point remains: the god that we want is likely to spawn there. The Temple itself can spawn in between D:4 and D:7, so some players like to read scrolls when entering here.

Notable Threats

• Ogres wield giant club. That's up to 37 damage per turm, or 39 if it's spiked. Fortunately, they swing slowly; they'll only get at most 1 free attack off you (in both 0.28 and 0.29). They are also 10 speed enemies, however trying to pillar dance an enemy that 2KOs is kinda dicey. A trick in 0.28 is to attack, back up, attack, back up in order to reduce hits inflicted. Take off or put on your weapon or a ring in order to wait for the ogre to come (these actions take 0.5 turn to do).

• Phantoms have a load of resistances... resistance to weapon isn't one of them. But they are the sole monsters with the blink with attack flavour, which causes you and the phantom to teleport to a random, nearby spot. Continous reckless fighting could lead to you being surrounded by enemies! They are also fairly tough for this stage in the game, but have normal speed. They are fairly safe to deal with if you stair dance them up - assuming that you don't blink while going up.

Temple, Gods, and Okawaru

The god we will be picking is Okawaru. No other options here. Forget "pick gods that appear early", Minotaurs are technically strong enough to not need any help until D:10. It could be more optimal to pick an earlier god, but for the sake of the guide and consistency I will have to recommend Okawaru. Don't worry; Oka is a very simple, very powerful, and very synergestic god.

Okawaru is the god of honorable, physical combat. It rewards you for killing enemies of high HD (monster level). This quirk makes Oka piety rise noticably faster than other "kill things for piety" gods, though easy monsters will scarcely provide any. So fast in fact that you can expect 1* piety, or the first ability, within 2 floors. It's also convenient because tough enemies that you'd want to use abilities (which cost piety) for, will likely just give you the piety back.

Okawaru might demand honor, but has no grievance against stabbing, poison, or any evil robo-tricks. Oka instead demands that you fight without any allies. All summoning spells, some Necromancy, and certain items simply won't function. The worst losses are the phantom mirror (creates a slightly weaker copy of a monster), scroll of summoning (creates many allies suitable to the area), and in 0.29, scroll of butterflies (many butterflies which block attacks and enemy movement). In exchange, it will grant some powerful abilities, and gifts (throwing ammo. and later weapons and armour).

For now, all Okawaru does is limit your options. You can't even abandon it, as most gods are jealous and godly wrath is way too deadly to consider. Abilities will be covered as I unlock them, in the sections below. I obviously can't control for when you get enough piety, so scroll down or check Okawaru's page for more details. Click for the next ability.

Dungeon:5 - Dungeon:7

Alright, you get the drill.

Notable Threats

Note that depths are estimates (as usual) using their base depth, and can appear earlier or later

• Centaurs [D:5] are fast and shoot arrows from a distance. Fortunately, most monsters will not use a ranged weapon in melee, and centaurs don't usually have melee weapons. Hide behind a corner, charge the centaur, or use a scroll of fog (or scroll of butterflies) to close the gap.

•  Water moccasins [D:5] are beefier and slightly faster adders. You should hopefully have a potion of curing. And even without, a lone snake should not be a threat as a Minotaur, at the very least by D:6.

• Steam dragons [D:6] are the first dragons you'll come across. Their steam breath actually does decent damage from a distance, assuming you don't have fire resistance. Thankfully, all dragons must catch their breath (-Breath) afterwards. While it may not look it, steam clouds can and will hurt you (unless, again, you have fire resistance). Also include acid dragons here because they are the same.

• Hornets [D:7] are actually really scary fast, poisonous monsters. Scary in pure combat, even. What's super scary is that they can paralyse - it does not matter if you have poison resistance. Only poison immunity makes you immune to para, meaning that they are really nuts. They thankfully don't spawn up here very often...

• Killer bees [D:7?] really make me regret using all my super scary warning points on adders and quokkas. Killer bees move twice as fast as the player, come in large packs (not this early??), and are relentless in their poison. Teleport away, drink a potion of lignification, or get into a hallway and buff up because these guys (especially packs) shouldn't really spawn here.

Heroism

From my experience, you'll get Heroism 1-2 floors after gaining Okawaru.

Heroism is Okawaru's 1* ability. Using it gives +5 to all physical skills. Considering that you're likely at the 10's at this point, that's a 50% skill increase. Now, damage doensn't work like that, but Heroism is still ridicously strong. Your skills will be 4-5 levels ahead, which shoud let you take on out of depth enemies 4-5 levels ahead of you.

Here's the kicker. Heroism costs 0-1 piety to use. A good chunk of the time, you'll use Heroism for free. When considering that Oka rewards killing "dangerous" monsters, you will often get more piety than you used. These two facts lead to one single conclusion: use abilities early and often. This is quite a difficult lesson to learn, but you need need need to respect it.

Skill Training

When you get to 1* of piety, start training Invocations and set a skill target of 5. Heroism doesn't really require Invo training for a reasonable failure rate (~ 7% failure at 1* and 0 Invo), but it's very convenient because the next ability does warrant training. The skill also increases Heroism's duration to a more comfortable level.

After you get Invo to 5, start training Throwing and set a skill target of 5. Important later and its just good timing for the 3* Throwing gifts.

Dungeon:8 - Dungeon:11

With Heroism (hopefully) in-tow, you've offically reached the midgame! With a fair supply of identified consumables, you growing stronger in a relative level, a godly ability, and the choice between Dungeon, Lair, and Orc, and you should be a lot more comfortable from this point forward. The famous quote is, "Once you've entered Lair, you've won the game", or something like that. Simply put, there's a lot more options to prevent bullshit from happening.

Notable Threats

• All the advice for these guys still applies, being perhaps more relevant here, where they are realistic to try and fight. Also killer bee packs.

• If you are attacked by an invisible monster out of nowhere (they usually have to cast the Invisibility spell first), it is most likely an unseen horror. They are incredibly fast (3 turns for your 1) but are batty, meaning they retreat after going in. Best to get in a hallway if you're fighting, and swing in place with ctrl-direction. They can't open doors and their battyness will cause them to retreat from stair-adjacency if you wait a turn or so.

• Two-headed ogres [D:10] are ogres but double. They have two giant clubs and hit twice as hard. You can get two rounded. Otherwise, they are 10-speed monsters with no special abilities or resistances.

Finesse

Okawaru's second ability, unlocked at 4*, is Finesse. It doubles your attack speed. The only caveat is that it doesn't stack with haste. It is aboslutely nuts but also not stupid cheap like Heroism. There isn't too much to say; use this on dangerous monsters!

Once you've done training Throwing, train Invocations and set a skill target to 8.

Why You Go to The Lair

Or why to skip the late Dungeon! Or threat list (D:12 - D:13).

The Lair's entrance spawns from D:8 to D:11. While the hydras and cane toads aren't that fun, it is still the safer option of the three (Lair, Orc, Dungeon). There are a few very dangerous monsters that will absolutely want you ignore D:12 and even D:11 (if possible) until completing the Lair. It's still recommended that you clear up to D:10 first.

• Wizards know the Banish spell, which sends you to the deep dark Abyss with continously spawning monsters way out of your league with no time to regen. You can use all your consumables there and still die. They are quite frail (as to be expected), but you never want to take this risk until you have to. Preferably you find Willpower+++ before fighting one and throw your way to victory.

• Ugly things are not that easy to face, unless you have silver javelins already. It is the combination of damage and their slightly faster movement speed that makes them dangerous. If found in a pack, note that they'll continously waste turns mutating into different colours (though that does mean that there's a pack of ugly things you could deal with in an unfortunate situation).

• Death knights come with freezing wraiths and wraiths (which Slow you), and the former actually hits really hard if you are not resistant to cold. They also have Agony to halve HP. They also come with phantasmal warriors which make you more vulnerable to Agony in the first place (and hit hard).

• Skeletal warriors are just stat sticks, melee only 10-speed tough guys. They still aren't pretty to fight even with Heroism. Though, they become pushovers if you one or two of the other branches first.

Lair of Beasts

The Lair is a pretty homely place. Branch overviews are going to get a lot shorter, as branches themselves are shorter than the Dungeon proper, and you can fight the "hardest" enemies on the first level. You are getting more and more powerful compared to the game (both due to being a MiFi and the general level curve). It's 6 levels in 0.28, and 5 in 0.29. Don't go into any of the Lair's sub-branches right now.

The Lair itself is much more open, with few of the distinctive hallways of the Dungeon. There are plenty of walls, though, and they are quite jagged. You can take advantage of diagonals in order to create faux hallways, and the animals are often too dumb to go around.

Lair will has 3 sub-branches. There will be a poison-themed branch (Spider's Nest or Snake) and a water-themed branch (Shoals or Swamp), along with Slime. Don't go to any of these yet, but keep note of where they are. Once you find them, you can autotravel with G.

Recommended: Poison resistance is helpful. Willpower, too.

Notable Threats

• Hydras are the big bad of any Axe playthrough, if a bit overhyped. Axes cleave, which also cleave hydra heads, which causes the hydra to grow two more in its place. They are actually pretty scary as any melee player, but with some luck you'll have a few tools for them:
  • Run away: Unless they are camping a staircase, hydras are 10 speed enemies while on land.
  • Throwing: Even with 0 natural Throwing skill, Heroism boomerangs can take half or more of a Hydra's HP. Javelins hit 1.0 delay at 10 skill, so 5 before Heroism. With 10 skill, even boomerangs wil severely weaken hydras before they get to you. You can still throw at melee range, but if the hydra's not at red HP then just don't take that risk. Make sure to always always have an escape route planned early!! Reminder to train Throwing to 5.0.
  • Flaming weapon: Flaming cauterizes the wounds, meaning hydra won't grow heads. Hydras with 6+ heads are still scary to fight so... I wouldn't, not until you've done a few floors of Lair. Reminder to use Heroism.
  • Potion of lignification: Drink the potion, take off your weapon, and fight. This potion prevents you from moving or even teleporting, but with just Heroism, tree form can take out a lone hydra. Be extra careful of other monsters coming in!

• Basilisks will Petrify you, which will lower EV and SH to zero and leave you helpless to monsters attacks, even if you have extra durability. It takes a hot second to actually petrify, but you're slow for the process. Not too scary on their own, though imagine for a second, being helpless next to a hydra. A potion of cancellation will end Petrifying.

• Dream sheep and torpor snails both have irresistable debuffs. Dream sheep put you to sleep, which gives monsters a free turn on you. Torpor snails slow you.
  • Dream Sheep have more chances to sleep you the more of them are in sight, and they are pack animals. Use a scroll of fog and walls to make absolutely sure to avoid sleep, and keep to the hallways so that you don't take too many hits.
  • In 0.29, you can Enslave (Charm) torpor snails to slow enemies, though their will is increased to compensate. In 0.28 both charm and polymorph will prevent you from being slowed.

• Cane toads are another fast, poisonous enemy. If you fight them right on hitting Lair:1, I would Heroism to make sure that you can actually fight one on one. Otherwise they aren't so much of a threat on their own. Same with black mambas, though you fight them a bit later.

• Death yaks are mostly a humbleness check to people mindlessly tabbing. They are standard melee threats, though with high willpower. Weak to curare and/or throwing blunt weapons, and please don't fight more than one at a time (use the stairs!).

On a final note, you might want to skip the last floor of the Lair. Every branch has a "vault" on the final floor which is usually more difficult than the proceeding floors.

Midgame Lull

Once you have completed Lair, the game starts taking a turn for the easy. It's somewhat reasonable to complete any of D:15, Orc, and Lair first and not face too many issues. Because of this, the other two branches are going to feel very easy. You'll likely have 5* or even 6* of piety with Okawaru, which means you can spam HeroFinesse often, which means you are going to stock up on non-renewable consumables, in addition to Minotaur growths and potential equipment gifts. You can do Dungeon or Orc in either order without it mattering too much. I'll actually list Dungeon first, simply because a wizard's Banish is actually less scary than an orc sorcerer's Paralyse at this point. (Note that Orc also has more loot)

Recent updates were aimed at stopping the "entire-lategame-until-Zot-lull", which at least existed for experienced players. Basically, don't get too comfortable with the ease of the next few branches. The rune containing S-branches won't be as easy.

Late Dungeon

Beware of wizards!

Recommended: Willpower+++, various resistance swapouts

Notable Threats

See Why You Go to The Lair first. Other than that...

• Slime creatures aren't very scary on their own, if you've completed Lair. However, they are unique in that they merge in closed spaces, such as a hallway. A fully merged slime can deal over a hundred damage per hit. As Axes cleave, just get them in an open area, and maybe stair dance them up.

• On D:13-D:14, you'll find the entrance to the Vaults. There's normally a bunch of scarier-than-normal enemies there, which are mostly deadly because they're so concentrated. With proper luring and awareness of escape routes/options, it shouldn't be too difficult.

• On D:15, you'll find the entrance to the Depths. There's one or multiple scary enemies, like a fire giant. No need to clear if its too scary.

Orcish Mines

Orc spawns from D:9 to D:12. Even though there'll be a lot of plain orcs, very easy at this point, you'll want to do Lair first. Many of the threats (in the usual place, below) are tougher than what the Lair has in store, and also have ranged attacks.

Orc is incredibly open (less walls than Lair), leaving you vulnerable to the orc priests and other ranged attacks in stow. If you haven't found/recieved a broad axe yet, orcs are likely to be holding one.

The Mines also house a ton of gold and four seperate shops to spend it on.

Recommended: Willpower+++

Notable Threats

• Orc sorcerers are the main reason you do not want to do Orc first. Orc Sorcs inflict Paralyze, much worse than Petrify (being instant and not giving damage reduction). Also their magic hurts! At least if you don't have resistances to both Fire and Negative Energy. Remember to throw javelins, if you got them, though you can get away without Heroism.

• These are the "out of depth" spawns for Orc, and they are the other reason why to do Lair first. Stone giants hit really hard and large rocks from afar hurt really hard. Ettins are suped up two-headed ogres that can deal 90 damage per round before weapons, i.e 130 per round after.

• Orc high priests still have smiting but also summon demons. This includes the Neqoxec, which can inflict permanent Malmutates on you, along with other physically tough monsters. Smiting alone sucks when you are getting swamped by orcs/demons. The ultra-fast Sixfirhy and the fact that the priest needs to spawn demons in the first place means that you should take them on as quickly as possible, instead of running away.

Also, I would be careful of being pelted by a bunch of ranged enemies all at once, especially with an orc knight or orc warlord in play.

Shopping Trip (Rune Branch Prep)

With the 2nd floor of Orc completed, you'll have free reign over its four shops. You might want to use ctrl-F on everything: plate armour, dragon scales, axes, scroll, potion, gold... Who knows, you might've missed a ghost vault or a pile of items lying from your orcish massacre.

Hopefully, there's things that you can buy/ctrl-f:

• Emergency items: Includes Scrolls of blinking, scroll of teleport, potion of haste, potion of heal wounds, potion of cancellation. These should be your first priority, never a bad idea. You want potions of curing for Spider.
• Equipment: If you haven't found one already, broad axe, kite shield, jewellery (see Items & Gear for what to prioritize).
• Poison resistance: This is most often found on the ring of poison resistance; don't take any body armour lighter than swamp dragon scales. rPois is useful in Spider and Snake, and useful against swamp dragons in Swamp.
• Flight: A permanent source of it, namely the ring of flight. Useful in the watery Swamp and Shoals; while you still can't outrun most aquatic creatures, at least you'll be avoiding the attack penalty.
• Electricity resistance: Quite the rare resistance, without a ring dedicated to it. Take artefacts without too much bad qualities on them (no handaxes or rF--) or the not-common storm dragon scales. There are a few dangerous elec enemies throughout the game and you'll want a source of it.
• Other resistances: rCold is good for Spider. rFire decent for Snake and Swamp, rCorrosion useful for Spider and Swamp. A scarf of repel missiles is good for Shoals.
• Strategic items: scrolls of enchant armour / weapon and a scroll of brand weapon.
• Overpriced garbage: Scrolls of acquirement are pretty much gambling; the worst you can get is a smaller pile of gold than you started with, though there are very good items too. Manuals are often too expensive even with Orcish gold under your belt. XP-based evocables (box of beasts, lightning rod...) are also very expensive and you can get them later.

Conclusion

So that's it, for now. It's clearly not done but I'm done procrastinating and 0.29 is coming out soon.