(DCSS = Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup)
Morgue for those who can read it
My usual experience with meld-all shapeshifters in midgame is as follows: find the dragon-coil talisman in Lair, upgrade to it by S branches and effortlessly destroy them, enter Vaults and almost die to the first group of monsters, rush shapeshifting for the storm talisman in panic and forever abandon the scaly monster I was never meant to be.
NOT THIS TIME!
I started this run with a clear goal: experience the draconian’s dragon form glory. That means, no storm form, no sphinx form, definitely no statue form.
The plan started to feel grim from the get go: protean talisman transformed into medusa. And… I mean, medusa isn’t necessarily bad. It’s good when you are a gladiator with a nice trident! But when you are an unarmed shapeshifter who rushed Shapeshifting skill to 6, it SUCKS! All other forms can handle most threats effortlessly with no UC skill. Medusa can’t, you must rush some UC or switch to weapons…
Then I found the spider talisman. I never played with it before, it just tends to appear in Elf 3’s end vault or some other absurdly late place. And, from my first experience, I must say it’s good! You are squishy as hell of course but you get so much EV from it (much more than wellspring!) that it’s not that big of a deal. Rampage is nice, hop is basically a free blink and you ensnare your foes on hit too. I wouldn’t do Spider Nest with it of course but Shoals and Swamp seem doable to me.
Trog helped with survivability a bit too. Berserk was nice early on, and then Trog’s Hand and occasional Brother in Arm can help in bad situations (though it helped me the most during the orb run). The only problem I had with them was…
Read the room, man!
Now, finally, dragon form. It is a glass cannon kind of talisman. Like scarab, like spider. It gives a lot of health, some AC and resistances but… in the end it’s still extremely squishy. Yet I feel like the form is at its worst at lower shapeshifting. As I went from 17 (the minimal for it) to 20 and beyond, I felt like low health syndrome wasn’t as prevalent. Not to say I turned into a tank but I think my struggle was over after early Vaults floors.
Well, I am a draconian so the dragon form is stronger than on other species. Bonus AC, faster recharging breath attack, tailslap. But, at least on one species, dragon form can handle Zot without much struggle. Even with these orbs…
Orbs of Entropy. It was my first time dealing with them. They corrode, they drain, they doom. I actually got a bane of paradox thanks to one of them. The orb run was fun… OoE is the scariest variety of orbs for me.
About the orb run. Usually it’s easy, with some orb guardians and other pests. Maybe a panlord or an executioner will appear but you’ll escape easily. Not this time. Panlords and pan-level demons at nearly every Zot and Depths floor. An orb guardian with Manifold Assault (thanks OoE…). Doesn’t help that this seed was particularly low on ?blink and !haste. Got the win through sheer Will… thanks Trog’s Hand for the Will btw :P