Big D only spawns once you take a couple steps towards any “pillar” in the corner.
Scout the level and note wherever has lots of water (which will soon be electrified).
As you should know by now, it becomes invulnerable during the fight.
The pillar making it invulnerable is telegraphed by the direction towards which the sparks will fly.
If you have one or more honeypots:
Starting with the most annoying corner to get to, step in towards the corner as little as you can and throw a honeypot at the pillar. If you don’t go too far in, DM won’t spawn yet and you can repeat for other pillars if you have the honeypots.
This won’t do anything for now, but once the bot is invulnerable, the bee will kill the pillar, canceling the invulnerability without you having to walk there.
Now, you likely won’t have 3-4 honeypots on most runs, but even if you only have a 1-2, that’s still less running around.
If you’re lucky or have enough honeypots, you don’t even need to chase the pillar at all.
If you do need to destroy a pillar manually, cutting through the middle area (DM will have more trouble following you there) could buy you some time.
Other useful things to get to a pillar faster:
yellow seed
haste potion
teleport rune stone
The lightning bolts revolve around the pillar, try and time it so you don’t get zapped too much.
When done, I usually go out the other side because the way I came in is likely full of poison gas by now.
Mitigating damage:
avoid electrified areas
you take damage from it (bad)
it gains shield from it (bad)
when it tries to drop the ceiling on you, move to a non red square to avoid being pummeled while paralysed
in melee, an earth root (brown seed) can help you tank some (Beware that it’s canceled by moving)
if you’re taking too much poison damage, maybe use a purity potion, if you’re still in earth root, you’re probably better off trading hits than moving
kiting it can avoid a little poison damage too, that is, if you’re not currently using the earth root to mitigate the physical damage (move away, attack, move away, attack, etc).
if the only damage you’re taking is the poison, you’re fine
Other random things of various use that you may or may not have…
Liquid flame can provide you with a bit of damage over time (it’s immune to poison gas, but not to fire)
Wand of Regrowth can root it in place (or give you more turns of fire damage)
Similarly, a potion or a wand of corrosion could provide damage, but it usually moves too much to be effective unless you can also root it, or vertigo it (by throwing a levitation potion at it or throwing a stormvinein its path) Do NOT get caught in your vertigo or corrosion.
PS: lower tier weapons and armor don’t really keep up at higher levels. Consider holding off your first few upgrades (making the first levels harder) to upgrade better tier stuff (making higher levels easier, somewhat)
It’s… a balance. Holding off too much isn’t always better either as you then have to burn through your other resources to survive.
Yea I sometimes start using scrolls in demon halls, but that’s a bit late sometimes.
If you got off too long, it might mean burning through your other resources faster until you do.
Something that I also do sometimes is throw extra items down pits so I can pick them back up on the next level or maybe eventually sell them.
Everything from level 1 to the Imp’s store is usually picked clean. Although, once you commit to upgrading an item it becomes less useful to haul things.
A neat trick I got from someone else here is to pile a bunch of your unidentified stuff and throw a bomb at it. Upgraded items will be OK, but lvl 0 items will be destroyed.
Now it may or may not be cursed, but now you know they’re at least +1, which has been more helpful than I initially thought it would be.
Kinda saves on id and remove curse scrolls in a roundabout way, because you only bother with the better gear.
Some curses are gagne breaking, others aren’t as bad, and if it’s an item you’re going to dump upgrade scrolls into anyway there’s no need to uncurse them, the upgrades will eventually wipe the curse.
You can also use a scroll of upgrade to weaken weapon and armor curses, allowing them to be unequipped but keeping the curse enchantment. It can also completely remove curses from any cursed upgradable item with a 1∕3 chance.
(Shattered Pixel Dungeon)
If you’re gonna dump a bunch of scrolls in it, you’re pretty much guaranteed to uncurse.
Also… if your start tossing stuff down… make sure you at least pick it back up once, even if you don’t want it anymore.
Tossed items can land atop other items and kinda hide them. Sucks to miss a key, upgrade, potion, etc because it’s underneath some junk you tossed.
If you tossed it and don’t want it anymore, at least pick it back up momentarily to confirm there’s nothing underneath.
Big D only spawns once you take a couple steps towards any “pillar” in the corner.
Scout the level and note wherever has lots of water (which will soon be electrified).
As you should know by now, it becomes invulnerable during the fight.
The pillar making it invulnerable is telegraphed by the direction towards which the sparks will fly.
If you have one or more honeypots:
Starting with the most annoying corner to get to, step in towards the corner as little as you can and throw a honeypot at the pillar. If you don’t go too far in, DM won’t spawn yet and you can repeat for other pillars if you have the honeypots.
This won’t do anything for now, but once the bot is invulnerable, the bee will kill the pillar, canceling the invulnerability without you having to walk there.
Now, you likely won’t have 3-4 honeypots on most runs, but even if you only have a 1-2, that’s still less running around.
If you’re lucky or have enough honeypots, you don’t even need to chase the pillar at all.
If you do need to destroy a pillar manually, cutting through the middle area (DM will have more trouble following you there) could buy you some time.
Other useful things to get to a pillar faster:
The lightning bolts revolve around the pillar, try and time it so you don’t get zapped too much.
When done, I usually go out the other side because the way I came in is likely full of poison gas by now.
Mitigating damage:
Other random things of various use that you may or may not have…
PS: lower tier weapons and armor don’t really keep up at higher levels. Consider holding off your first few upgrades (making the first levels harder) to upgrade better tier stuff (making higher levels easier, somewhat)
It’s… a balance. Holding off too much isn’t always better either as you then have to burn through your other resources to survive.
Good luck
holy shit what a great run down. even if i dont have trouble with The Big D this will still save me a lot of health
holy shit what a great run down. even if i dont have trouble with The Big D this will still save me a lot of health
Removed by mod
Yea I sometimes start using scrolls in demon halls, but that’s a bit late sometimes.
If you got off too long, it might mean burning through your other resources faster until you do.
Something that I also do sometimes is throw extra items down pits so I can pick them back up on the next level or maybe eventually sell them.
Everything from level 1 to the Imp’s store is usually picked clean. Although, once you commit to upgrading an item it becomes less useful to haul things.
A neat trick I got from someone else here is to pile a bunch of your unidentified stuff and throw a bomb at it. Upgraded items will be OK, but lvl 0 items will be destroyed.
Now it may or may not be cursed, but now you know they’re at least +1, which has been more helpful than I initially thought it would be.
Kinda saves on id and remove curse scrolls in a roundabout way, because you only bother with the better gear.
Some curses are gagne breaking, others aren’t as bad, and if it’s an item you’re going to dump upgrade scrolls into anyway there’s no need to uncurse them, the upgrades will eventually wipe the curse.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
(Shattered Pixel Dungeon)
If you’re gonna dump a bunch of scrolls in it, you’re pretty much guaranteed to uncurse.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Also… if your start tossing stuff down… make sure you at least pick it back up once, even if you don’t want it anymore.
Tossed items can land atop other items and kinda hide them. Sucks to miss a key, upgrade, potion, etc because it’s underneath some junk you tossed.
If you tossed it and don’t want it anymore, at least pick it back up momentarily to confirm there’s nothing underneath.
Removed by mod