bodkin
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How do you kill slayers, and, as importantly, how do they move?

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Thread Contents:

Page 1
1) Full description of method for killing slayers without potions, platforms etc:– needs a wall with a single square outcrop in the corner.
2) Description of the wisp and the way it moves.
3) Reference to a practice room – Kill the slayer.hold – for method in 1)
4) Several methods for manoeuvering the slayer about: in 4x4 and 3x3 squares.
5) Killing slayers using a bomb (without fuse) to stop his normal move:– needs a bomb.
6) A practice room – The Duel.hold – with bomb, and a title demo to show how it's done.
7) Speculations about creating super-slayers who are invulnerable.
8) A practice hold – Slayer Kills.hold – three rooms so far: against the wall, against a choice of bomb patterns, hot tiles.

Page 2
9) speculation about changing the wisp, making it into an impassable chasm.
10) Mention of speed potion as an easy way of killling slayers.
11) Memory of a hold with twenty slayers and one speed potion. (What hold?)
12) Reference to a larger hold – Slayer Killing Hold.hold – with more methods.
13) Reference to a simple hold – Walking the Slayer – based on the method in 4)
14) Killing slayers using a force arrow and wall.
15) Method for killing slayers with an invisibility potion. See 12) for a use of it.
16) Practice room – "Invisibility and the Slayer.hold"
17) Larger hold – The Hunt – now in Architecture. Advanced slayer manoeuvres.
18) Method for killing slayers. Needs a two-by-one wall. (With demo.) And other ways with orthogonal squares and arrows.

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[Last edited by bodkin at 06-25-2007 08:56 PM]

Stephen4Louise
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Here's something I've been working on for submission to the site....

Due to the rise of Empire influence throughout the Eighth, it has been more and more common for architects to call into use the most deadly of the Empires weapons, The Slayer.

Most experienced delvers have stumbled across one of these foes at least once, and the usual response is to run away as quickly as possible.

The news is not all bad though, some of our highest ranked delvers have devoted considerable time to studying these ruthless killers. So I am now happy to present their findings on how to kill a slayer.


Mimics and Decoys
A well placed potion can work wonders against a slayer and catch him off guard. For maximum enjoyment, why not let the slayer get close to you before hitting him from behind with a decoy. Look him in the eyes!!

Bombs
This is another well known slayer weakness that allows you to use his wisp against him. If a slayer is stupid enough to come after you in a room with bombs, then he deserves to be blown up. The tried and tested way to do this is to stand next to a bomb and wait for his wisp to get within the blast radius of the bomb (5 tiles), then move towards the fuse. From here on it is a matter of timing. Try to measure how long the fuse is against the distance of the wisp from the blast radius. A word of warning though, always check for other bombs in the room, too many young delvers have been lost after blowing themselves up.

Tunnels
They said it couldn't be done, but our experts found a way to stab a slayer. As before, we will use his wisp against him. Where the wisp goes, the slayer is sure to follow, now if this means the slayer will walk past a tunnel unguarded, who are we to argue. Take advantage of this weakness by jumping into the connecting tunnel and striking him from behind when he least expects it.

One on One
Here it is, the ultimate slayer kill. Many of our toughest delvers were lost trying to bring this secret to the masses, but they have made it. The slayer has one more weakness that we should be willing to exploit. If conditions are just right in a room we can back the slayer into a wall and kill him face to face. Let me demonstrate....

Firstly, try to manouver the slayer next to a wall

     /  \    w
    b    s  ww
wwwwwwwwwwwwww

w - wall
b - Beethro
s - Slayer

The slayer is now at his most vulnerable. As you approach him he will flee towards the trap.

          \ 
           /sw
          b ww
wwwwwwwwwwwwww

And you have him!

Use this information wisely. The Empire is aware of our efforts and is always looking for ways to undo us.

Steve.

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[Last edited by Stephen4Louise at 05-01-2007 11:35 AM]

silver
Level: Smitemaster
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they start moving towards you if the wisp catches up to you - it seems like moving your sword makes them chase as an illusion - actually, reamaining still is what allows the wisp to catch up to you (you can turn your sword, wait, bump into a wall, or move backwards towards the wisp).

once the wisp has found you and caught up to you, the slayer starts moving towards you following the wisp. until or unless it gets within 3 or 4 squares of you - then it starts rotating its hook to face you.

note that it does this rotation even if the path to you "via the wisp" goes around some other way. usually, you can use this to your advantage to get the slayer to stop moving because the wisp doesn't grow while the slayer is rotating his hook.


for example:

   B@@@
WWWWWWW@
   S@@@

(W = wall, B = beethro, S = slayer, @ = wisp)

in that situation, the slayer will rotate towards beethro, which makes the wisp stop moving, so beethro can run away and get a couple turns ahead of the wisp.

---

most of the time, the answer to "how to kill a slayer" is "don't. run away!"

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specific hold help:

in Journey to Rooted Hold, whenever the slayer turned up, the goal was typically to just run away and stay away. the puzzles were to try and kill things without getting killed by running away from the slayer as much as possible. sometimes, the puzzle was to get the slayer to flip a switch for you, or kill something for you....

in The City Beneath, the slayer is introduced without any explanation or tutorial or (much) reference to the original slayer puzzles. This can be frustrating to new players :/, however, the slayer in The City Beneath always shows up in rooms where some new aspect of the game can be used to kill it.

(for example, it's trivial to kill the slayer with a mimic potion. so in JtRH, the slayer never showed up in a room with a mimic. in TCB, however, the slayer will show up in situations where you can trivially kill it).

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if you're stuck on a specific slayer room and have a caravelnet account, you can use the 'get help for a room' button under the 'hints and solutions' forum. if you don't have a caravelnet account and need specific room help, just reply to this thread and we'll point you at an existing thread or make a new one for you.


____________________________

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[Last edited by silver at 05-01-2007 11:40 AM]

Maurog
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The best way to kill a Slayer is to abuse the elements it is vulnerable to. That includes bombs, platforms, mimics, decoys, clones, tunnels, hot tiles, bridges, speed potions, fegundos, adders and probably some other stuff I can't remember.

As for movement, if the Slayer is far away (more than 5 tiles or so), he follows the wisp blindly as long as there is a continous wisp path connecting him to Beethro. Once he is close enough, he will turn the sword as to face Beethro. This may break the wisp sequence, because when turning, the wisp doesn't advance. If he's close enough and the sword is already right, he will advance and try to kill you, and won't take any chances - he will move away or block with the hook any moves that can result in stabbing him.

Hmm, what else? If blocked by a door, he will find the nearest orb that opens it and hit it, much like Halph.

____________________________
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Paint the sky in crimson red!

Dex Stewart
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silver wrote:
(for example, it's trivial to kill the slayer with a mimic potion. so in JtRH, the slayer never showed up in a room with a mimic. in TCB, however, the slayer will show up in situations where you can trivially kill it).

You sure 'bout that? Check level 23 again...

On-topic: It's also possible to kill the sucker with an invisibility potion.

RoboBob3000
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Stephen4Louise wrote:
Mimics and Decoys
A well placed potion can work wonders against a slayer and catch him off guard. For maximum enjoyment, why not let the slayer get close to you before hitting him from behind with a decoy. Look him in the eyes!!

How do you propose looking him in the eyes as well as killing him with the decoy?

____________________________
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Ezlo
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Look at him out of the corner of your eyes?

____________________________
Call me Citrus.

vittro
Level: Smiter

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You're forgetting this :

(spoilers on my secret project)



Well, that's it.


____________________________
http://vittorioromeo.info

calamarain
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 933
Registered: 03-25-2007
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Stephen4Louise wrote:

One on One
Here it is, the ultimate slayer kill. Many of our toughest delvers were lost trying to bring this secret to the masses, but they have made it. The slayer has one more weakness that we should be willing to exploit. If conditions are just right in a room we can back the slayer into a wall and kill him face to face. Let me demonstrate....

Firstly, try to manouver the slayer next to a wall

     /  \    w
    b    s  ww
wwwwwwwwwwwwww

w - wall
b - Beethro
s - Slayer

The slayer is now at his most vulnerable. As you approach him he will flee towards the trap.

          \ 
           /sw
          b ww
wwwwwwwwwwwwww

And you have him!

Use this information wisely. The Empire is aware of our efforts and is always looking for ways to undo us.

Steve.

I'd greatly appreciate a demo of this being done. I've tried it, but I just cannot get it to work!

____________________________
My Holds

Bobpie
Level: Delver
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I always just used the elements, nothing beats a slayer droping from a platform.
That always make me smile

Kevin_P86
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calamarain wrote:
I'd greatly appreciate a demo of this being done. I've tried it, but I just cannot get it to work!

Try this.

____________________________
+++++[>+++++<-]>[>+++>++++>+++++<<<-]>.>+.>-------.<++++.+++++.

Stephen4Louise
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RoboBob3000 wrote:

Stephen4Louise wrote:
Mimics and Decoys
A well placed potion can work wonders against a slayer and catch him off guard. For maximum enjoyment, why not let the slayer get close to you before hitting him from behind with a decoy. Look him in the eyes!!

How do you propose looking him in the eyes as well as killing him with the decoy?

Surely you know that every good delver has eyes in the back of his head. It is a little known fact that Beethro uses the reflection in his Really Big Sword to see behind himself.

Steve.

bodkin
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 26
Registered: 03-19-2007
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I've found an old thread: "Another Slayer killed" 9-16-2005
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=7656&page=0

On it Stefan has posted a practice room for killing slayers, "Kill the slayer.hold" using the same method as Stephen4Louise describes. It works!

--

Edit – More on pushing slayers around.

The basic 4x4 move: (only secret because of space)

Changing direction safely to turn north (and getting the the slayer to turn towards you):


The 4x1 rectangle:

Turning south (from moving west):


More moves in 4xX rectangles:

3x3 squares


Every now and then you come across another stable position, sometimes depending on the wisp. Walls change things as well. If there are any more standard moves, I hope other people will add them to the list.

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[Last edited by bodkin at 05-16-2007 05:31 PM]

Doom
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File: The Duel.hold (1.3 KB)
Downloaded 394 times.
License: Public Domain

Here's another Slayer kill I've not seen anyone talk about before. Actually, I only learned it after playing a certain post-mastery room in TCB when I did it completely by pure luck. But now that I went through my demos again, it became very simple and logical.

The only requirement is a bomb at a relatively open position. Get the Slayer next to it and set the sword orientations correctly. The bomb will prevent the Slayer from making a critical defensive move, and you can get to his side, at which point it's too late to turn...

Attached an example hold showing a small example of this. There's a demo in the title screen.

Going through JtRH someday and finding all possible Slayer kills sounds like a fun little time-waster They don't seem so tricky anymore, that's for sure.

[edit:] Just did the last room of JtRH. That was surprisingly *very* easy now. Seems like a lot of Slayer rooms are trivial with the correct knowledge, and designing around them will be much harder than originally when it's often easy to just kill them... A pity it's too late to change the rules.

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[Last edited by Doom at 05-02-2007 03:52 PM]

calamarain
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Doom wrote:
Just did the last room of JtRH. That was surprisingly *very* easy now. Seems like a lot of Slayer rooms are trivial with the correct knowledge, and designing around them will be much harder than originally when it's often easy to just kill them... A pity it's too late to change the rules.

I had a thought regarding that. One could script a Slayer with a difference... the Invulnerability flag set. It would take quite a bit of scripting, but you'd then have a scarier opponent, one who genuinely could not be killed. You'd have to have a story reason for this of course, and then take his invincibility away on a later level.

____________________________
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Ezlo
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Scripting a actual slayer who moves the same as the real one would be an INSANE amount of work. I would mod up a person who managed it by at least ten.

____________________________
Call me Citrus.

Insane
Level: Master Delver

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Ezlo wrote:
Scripting a actual slayer who moves the same as the real one would be an INSANE amount of work. I would mod up a person who managed it by at least ten.

I'm on it.
No really, I have too much time since I can't work on DROD: The RPG.

-Insane

Banjooie
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Doom wrote:
Here's another Slayer kill I've not seen anyone talk about before. Actually, I only learned it after playing a certain post-mastery room in TCB when I did it completely by pure luck. But now that I went through my demos again, it became very simple and logical.

Yeah, I know. That post-mastery room was awesome, I feel like slayers are, like, NOTHING, now.

Albert
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Ezlo wrote:
Scripting a actual slayer who moves the same as the real one would be an INSANE amount of work. I would mod up a person who managed it by at least ten.

Are we allowed to use 'Turn into monster'?

Ezlo
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That would make it vulnerable.

____________________________
Call me Citrus.

Albert
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..True.
Still, if we're getting all technical, an "invulnerable" slayer could still get eaten by briars.

Dex Stewart
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Yes, but he might be smart enough as to always think ahead and keep enough room for himsef as to have room to move to be further away from the briar than the player is (:.

Insane
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And how do you propose doing the wisp?
We can't even have animated graphics.

-Insane

vittro
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Face direction? The wisp is also really hard to do, because you must have a single npc for each wisp cell.

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Albert
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It is even possible to script NPCs that can be stepped on?

Insane
Level: Master Delver

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Exactly, Albert.
As to vittro's idea:
I thought of that, but it wouldn't work because the wisp would only change on complete steps, while the normal wisp always twirls.

-Insane

Insane
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File: Slayer Kills.hold (2.2 KB)
Downloaded 95 times.
License: Public Domain

Sorry for the double post, but there's another thing that shouldn't go by unnoticed.
I'm working on a Hold designed around slayer kills, sort of like the one that already exists, but with demos included, nonlinearity assured, and perhaps even some instructions added.

-Insane

Yellow_Mage
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Albert wrote:
It is even possible to script NPCs that can be stepped on?

My mind just exploded of the thought of a Slayer that has a wisp you can't step on. OMG.

____________________________
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calamarain
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Yellow_Mage wrote:

Albert wrote:
It is even possible to script NPCs that can be stepped on?

My mind just exploded of the thought of a Slayer that has a wisp you can't step on. OMG.

That gives me a thought too Not necessarily a slayer but a "Chasm Maker". Monster that stays still, and sends out a wisp towards you. When it 'hits', all squares covered by the wisp become temporarily impassable, some kind of chasm or something. These become passable again as it goes over them.

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Briareos
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Yellow_Mage wrote:
My mind just exploded of the thought of a Slayer that has a wisp you can't step on.

So what happens when the wisp steps on you, as the normal wisp does?

*splat*?

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