Hornet

Useful Info

Hornets are a dangerous flying insect. In addition to poison, their stings will slow (always) and paralyse (1/6 chance) you for 1-3 turns. Poison resistance only has a 66% chance to prevent the slow and paralysis; you need poison immunity to be safe.

They are often found in the Dungeon, and can spawn via vault placement in Spider's Nest. They can also be created when a shambling mangrove or spriggan rider is damaged sufficiently.

Tips & Tricks

• Paralysis is always an extremely dangerous effect. If you are paralysed for 3 turns, hornets can attack you up to 5 times in a row, which can easily kill you (5 * 18 = 80, not including poison itself). If you aren't immune to poison, you should take extreme caution with hornets. This isn't even mentioning the slow, which is a dangerous effect on its own.
• Hornets are poison vulnerable, so most poison effects work well. Curare darts deal significant damage and slow the hornet to average speed. Poisonous Vapours or Mephitic Cloud are reliable ways to kill/disable a hornet, respectively. A scroll of poison will prevent a hornet from charging at you, allowing you to hit it with ranged attacks.
• Wands and other evocables are also effective. Their willpower isn't great, so paraysis and polymorph can help deal with them. They aren't especially durable, so iceblast and other attack wands might kill it.
• A potion of lignification will give you poison resistance and high AC. It'll make death to a lone hornet extremely unlikely. Just watch out for other monsters in the vicinity.
• Never fight them in an area that allows you to be surrounded. Paralysis is bad enough when you only have to worry about one hornet.

History

• In 0.19, hornets replaced wasps and became more common. Also, they were slightly nerfed.
• Prior to 0.16, this monster was known as red wasp.
• Prior to 0.8, their paralysis effect could stack. They were near-certain death to anyone stung without the proper defenses.