Take, for example, the minotaur berserker, one of my favorite combos. Although the minotaur begins with a proficiency in axes, it has an excellent aptitude for all weapon classes, an attribute only shared by the kenku, a weaker species. In the beginning, you should take advantage of this flexibility and be open to changing to a different weapon class. Trog rains down excellent weapons upon his favored berserker, and you can sort through them at your leisure until you find The One.
For me, The One was a +7, +9 short sword of Trog's Righteous Anger (slice, rF+, rC++). The resistances alone are reason enough to use the weapon, but the high level of enchantment seals the deal. Short swords tend to be overlooked by beginners, who favor weapons that inflict higher damage. My short sword has the potential to attack two times per turn for each swing of a cumbersome polearm or other large weapon. Each attack carries the high damage bonus and high accuracy bonus.
Until you find an excellent weapon, your minotaur should remain weaponless, using its horns. Minotaurs have a superb aptitude for unarmed combat and should attain level 12 in UC, at a minimum, before switching to a weapon. Although you cannot wear a helmet due to the horns on your head, UC in the form of head-butts increases the ferocity of your attacks. There is a chance of getting in an unarmed combat attack every time you use your primary weapon.
Here is a look at the inventory of my 24th level minotaur berserker (click to enlarge):
Note the excellent swamp dragon armour, which has stats of +7 AC, -2 EV, but gives back 2 EV, lets me teleport, gives resistance to electricity and also to poison (unstated in the inventory menu). I can't think of a better armour, especially with no tax on my evasion score. Some will swear by gold dragon armour, but it is far heavier, which would mean I'd have to jettison magic items, and it has a large EV penalty (-9) as well. True, a high armour ability can mitigate the EV penalty. Although minotaurs are superb at both dodging and armour, in practice I find that these skills are never quite mastered, because so much XP gets diverted into the primary weapon skill, fighting, and unarmed combat.
The Ring of the Nightingale was irresistible, although some powers were redundant, such as teleport. However, the Ring of the Nightingale supplies sustenance, answering the minotaur's higher rate of hunger compared to other races. An added bonus is +4 to AC and to a lesser extent, resistance to cold.
Cold is encountered in Cocytus and from frost giants and white dragons. Occasionally a monster may employ a wand of cold or bow of frost. The best resistances are, in order of value, fire, poison, electricity, cold, and negative energy, though in the Realm of Zot, electricity moves to second place due to the appearance of the dangerous electric golem. In fact, without strong resistance to both fire and electricity, you might want to delay your descent into Zot. Pillage the Hells instead and gather up any rings and armours that convey resistances.
Note the amulet I am wearing. Resist slowing. There is nothing better if you are a berserker.
My wands of healing, teleportation, and hasting are all fully charged by design, because these are the most useful wands in a sticky situation.
I employed the excellent longbow with great profit until late in the game, when I acquired a large shield so fine that I ceded the use of the bow in order to use it. A large shield slows down a longbow to such an extent that I decided to use it only to mow down fleeing monsters. The chief benefit of my large shield is blinking, which will save my bacon in a hot spot, such as I found myself here after stumbling into a teleport trap (click to enlarge):
This points to one of the few weaknesses of minotaurs--they aren't very gifted at traps and doors (T&D), although you can train them with persistence. If I had not spent so much experience on mastering the bow, I might have used it deactivating traps, an effective method of training at T&D. This helps most of all in the Realm of Zot, which is littered with potent Zot traps that can result in great harm to your character.
In the above situation, my hit points were halved, and I was surrounded by the most powerful monsters found in the game save for named devils like Asmodeus and the female devil whose name begins with an E, but quite escapes me (often in the literal sense as well).
I chose retreat, a humiliating prospect for such a powerful character, but better to live and fight another day, as the proverb goes. Running away was a viable option, particularly with my boots of running and hastened state, but judging by the map, the two adjoining rooms did not offer much in the way of cover and no stairways at all. In all likelihood, more baddies would greet me, resulting in death.
I judged that a blink would not quite cut it, because the monsters were spread all over the screen in every direction. Also, I was in the final level of the Realm of Zot, where blinks cannot be controlled. A random blink might have resulted in a worse position, not a better one. Therefore, I teleported.
I'm not sure, but I suspect that teleports are also limited in range on this level, besides being uncontrollable even by those skilled in translocations. My teleport put me in the adjoining chamber, where I found myself surrounded by another bevy of powerful opponents. I tried to teleport again, but before the teleport took effect, I was killed by a team of Orb Guardians.
Was this the end? Did my long career come to a screeching halt because I stumbled into a Zot trap? Not quite. Let us not forget my handy-dandy batch file that I use every time to cheat in Crawl. Under the circumstances, I felt justified, although I would have cheated whether justified or not. If you want to get your paws on my batch file, which works wonders, read on, It is not far away in the Dungeon Crawl branch of my blog.
With perseverance and a bit of assistance from regen.bat, a Minotaur Berserker prevails in the end, as shown below:
