[Coco] Re: Re: Re: Left/Right handed DoD playing...

[William Astle]

Frederick D Provoncha wrote:
> I've never tried the strategy you suggest, but there is another strategy
> that works. What I always did to breeze through the first 3 levels is to
> find a secluded spot in the maze, preferrably the end of a dead-end
> corridor, and drop all of the items in my backpack onto the floor. Almost
> all of the creatures in the game with the exception of the scorpions, the
> wraiths, and the Wizard's Image and the Wizard himself will stop and pick
> up all of the objects on the floor one at a time before they will attack
> you. This gives you plenty of time in most cases to hack away at the
> creature until you kill it. Once you kill it any objects it was carrying
> will drop again to the floor. Since most creatures are carrying an object
> already with them when they show up, the pile of objects will gradually
> grow larger, making it even easier to kill later creatures. This is
> especially effective on Level 2, where you have plenty of objects, no
> scorpions, wraiths, or Wizard's Image to worry about, and where the
> creatures are not that hard (relatively speaking) to kill. I spend almost
> the entire time on Level 2 camped out the whole time in one spot with
> tons of objects at my feet. The creatures can't kill me because it takes
> them so long to pick up all the objects I've accumulated.

Yeah, I usually use that technique on the first level. It's an easy way 
to collect the objects there once the critters line up. I have found 
that on the first three levels, a hybrid between the "hang out with a 
spider" and the "pile of junk" strategies is quite effective.

> When the Wizard's Image approaches, quickly put the rings in your hands
> and light your best torch. When you kill the Wizard's Image you'll be
> transported to the 4th Level with nothing but your rings and your torch,
> so you have to use a different strategy for the 4th level: hack & run,
> hack & run. It usually doesn't work. But if you manage to survive the 4th
> Level, the 5th Level is pretty easy. It's then that I use a similar
> strategy to what you outlined, William: Find a spider (they can't hurt
> you because by now you're way too strong for them) and hide behind him
> and let all the creatures line up. Then play hit and hide behind the
> spider as you suggest.

It turns out that you need pretty much as much strength as you can 
accumulate reasonably before going on to level 4 so that you can survive 
the hit and run fight technique because you have not got enough objects 
for a pile and there are pretty much no critters to hide behind.

It seems to me that one should load a fresh solar torch before heading 
down to level 4. Also, I like to have an iron sword in one hand and the 
ring whose final hit killed the image in the other hand. (Attacking with 
a sword is easier on your heart rate.) I usually end up with a ring with 
one or two charges left when I kill the image. Even so, I usually end up 
getting clobbered farily quickly on level 4. I think my record is 
lasting 20 minutes and that was after killing some extra big critters on 
a replay of level 1.

It's kind of nice when you can do the "hide behind a creature and let 
them line up" because then you can put out your torch and go and have 
coffee, watch the game, or what have you, then come back for another 
round of bashing on critters. :)

William Astle