Strategy:Gift dropping

(v 0.9.9.4) Giftdropping is the tactic of dropping 'gifts' in line of sight of certain monsters, and then moving out of their line of fire. Because of how the AI works, those monsters will move towards the 'gift' as long as they cannot fire at the player. This behavior can be exploited to ambush those monsters, and is of particular use to characters that lack a ranged attack.

The following monsters pursue 'gifts':

• any monster with "former" in its name (all h)
• hell knight
• baron of hell

The following items qualify as 'gifts':

• small med-pack
• large med-pack
• phase device
• homing phase device
• any armor, if the monster is not already wearing armor.

One can still take damage while giftdropping when moving into line of sight of an enemy to drop the gift. One solution is to move one tile adjacent to where you would like to drop the gift. Then, drop any item. Finally, drop the actual gift. Because two items cannot occupy the same tile, the second item will be randomly moved to a valid adjacent tile. After a few tries, the gift will go where you want it. Be careful with fluids, tough, since items may as well fall into acid/lava squares if you are adjacent to.

mikee 23:41, 2 November 2011 (EST)