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.
Great advice! I appreciated this even as someone who has beat him several times.
Regarding weapons and armor, beyond the first upgrade, I don't upgrade anything anymore until I find t5 stuff. If you get the armor from the ghost then that's usually upgraded and should carry you long enough to get a plate armor or t5 weapon. Then dump all of your upgrade scrolls into whichever you need most until you can equip it. Remember to identify it beforehand. Picking a cursed armor or weapon at this point will cost you the game if you don't have a remove curse scroll. Any time I've tried to make due with a t4 item, it ended in a loss somewhere in the demon halls, or even just before beating the main boss. So I'd rather just die earlier than get so close and then die.
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.
Ha! I have the ring of wealth this run and I just tossed like 5 scale armors down to the next level. I would never have thought to do that on my own, or at least not for awhile.
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.
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.
That's great to know. Dude! I'm having such a great warrior run right now. I have plate armor that came with a +2 and I found a glaive early. I just happened to get the brimstone enchantment along with the blazing enchantment and the two together have amazing synergy, especially with the blooming wand I found. Both weapon and armor are +6 at floor 17. Oh, and I have the sandals of nature at +7, which also has great synergy with the wand. The wand doubles as a way to stop the stupid warlocks and geomancers from nuking me when I get caught out in the open, and let's me close the distance without them getting line of sight on me. Idk if I'll win this run, but I'm pretty close! I have 5 healing potions and a lot of shielding, so I'm hopeful.