hoverdog said:
Can someone tell, how the fuck to play with a transmuter? I've read they are one of the best classes (especially with sludge elf), but mine tend to die horribly. Never took one further than the first few levels of Lair. Very early game is especially terrible. Damned goblins can easily kill me on level 1, when I get to cast evaporation I have no answer to imps, and of course standard orc priest fare.
WHAT DO
Oh, I can answer that. Because I'm awesome. Actually it's because I've played transmuters a fuckton and died a fuckton and learned shit somehow.
First, you're disabling spellcasting and fighting for a while. Early on, leave only Unarmed Combat, Dodging and Transmutations up. Remember to disable Fire Magic and Poison Magic as soon as you can, so they don't drain XP.
After 2 or 3 levels in unarmed combat and dodging, get spellcasting and fighting training again.
Second, you're memorizing fullsome distilation and making potions of every mosnter that leaves contaminated chunks and poisonous chunks. You want a fuckton of those. You're also picking up arrows from the ground, runed ones are better, you should have at least around 50 arrows on you all the time, the more the merrier.
You see a Snake, a jelly, an Imp or a Phantom, you (w)ield those arrows and spend your whole mana in sticks to snakes. If it starts dying, you help your minions. If it doesn't your minions will protect you by being in the way while you flee. With the exception of the Snake, all of those are immune to confusion, so, that's how you kill those. Ice beasts might be too though for your snakes. We'll deal with that later.
After a while, you'll be able to memorize Spider Form. This one is your bread and butter for a while, you hit HARDER THEN YOUR NORMAL FORM while in spider form, you have a fuckton of evasion, and you poison shit 75% of the time you hit. On top of that, you also move faster, so you can (and should) use it to flee if necessary.
So, hard enemies (orc warriors, orc priests, whatever you have trouble killing normally) are dealt like this, you evaporate a confusion potion, go in spider form, and hit them a few times until they die, or at least are very poisoned.
Beware, in Spider Form, you're harder to hit, but you have no AC. If something hits you, it's gonna hurt like a motherfucker. If you get hit ONCE, you might as well flee, because the second hit can kill you.
You use Spider Form to kill Ice beasts, they're immune to poison, but your hit is harder and evasion higher in spider form, so you should be able to kill those.
Finally, at some point you'll want to train Transmutations to level 10, to be able to cast Blade Hands. This spell gives you a LOT of damage. It's strong enough to last you the whole game, because it scales with dex, str and unarmed combat skill.
Hydras are going to be a problem for you. You have three options, Ice form, which gives you poison immunity and a stronger attack, a High powered wand, or fleeing.
I recommend the later two, in my experience Ice form just doesn't cut it early on, the damage boost ain't enough, and hydras hit hard.
Anything else, post here.
