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This has been a LONG time in coming.
I've been playing Heng/Entro in Vanilla Town mode for at least two years, and I've never been able to beat it until now. It's a brutal, brutal variant. There were a lot of nasty moments, including getting double-manastormed by Morgoth while at +53 speed --- and there were a lot of times when I was about ready to give up.
The Human Warrior is a difficult class to win with, and there's an incredibly steep difficulty curve around depth 30-50, which is where the monster list is balanced to challenge a character who's completed a whole slew of quests and been rewarded sexily with the boots of Shiva's Avatar and a boatload of other artifacts and trinkets, NOT a character whose stats are rather pathetic and who's still struggling to cover his basic resists and poison at the same time.
Things began looking up when I got polymorphed by chaos into a Klackon (somewhere between experience levels 35 and 40), whose better stats, innate speed, and confusion resistance all came in handy. At about the same time, I cracked a couple of greater vaults and came away with some very nice items --- notably Hurin's Axe of +3 to ass-kicking and the shield of Anarion.
Things went speedily from depths 40 to 80 --- with Hurin's axe I massacred everything within reach. The quest levels were easy then --- I only failed one because I didn't even notice I was on a quest level (I think I recalled away, laden with artifacts).
I hovered at depth 80 for a while, then realized that I'd be running into the same monsters at level 98, and getting better treasure. I think it might have been around level 90 that I found Spec, dropped by some unique. Anabasis came once I was at depth 98. I killed Sauron with ease, and, figuring that Oberon wouldn't be much more difficult, dropped to 99 and offed him too. (Stormbringer slays humans, so it was no sweat.) Encouraged by this, I decided to pit my strength against that of the Serpent.
It didn't go well. He summoned Morgoth, Nodens, the Destroyer, and the Unicorn of Order. The level was really small and I was beginning to worry I'd die before recall even kicked in. I didn't, but I knew I had to thin out the uniques list before proceeding further. Having spent 43 hours on this character already (much of that alt+tabbing between House M.D. and Entro), I decided to take a break from the game.
I came back last night. The Destroyer went down. The next level had the Unicorn, Nodens, and Morgoth. Nodens hits hard with those mana storms but has fewer hit points than I expected. Morgoth was just plain scary (the double mana storm was an eye-opener), but I had more than enough potions to heal up and finish him off. The Unicorn --- well, I gave up on that one. The combination of blinking out of reach, mass summoning, and disintegration breath is just hell on a poor little warrior. I bailed.
It was time to fight the Serpent! Oddly, he barely summoned uniques at all. I was afraid I'd have to *destruct* the Unicorn over and over again, but I only had to once, and I caught the Chemist in the blast and avoided hitting the Serpent. At first it was slow going, but once the Serpent was at six stars (after I'd used ~20 teleports, ~50 CCW, ~10 Heal), I realized I had enough Scrolls of Genocide and Potions of *Healing* and of Life to end it quicker. And to top it all off, when I killed him, he dropped Ringil, one my favorite weapons ever!
Well, here's the dump:
And the short version, my final equipment and inventory:
This win took a lot of time. I'll be taking a break from the world of *band. You can't stay away forever, it's true. Some shiny variant may draw me back in --- heck, maybe Vanilla will draw me back in, at the rate things are going. For now though, I bid you all a fond farewell!
~Djabanete
I've been playing Heng/Entro in Vanilla Town mode for at least two years, and I've never been able to beat it until now. It's a brutal, brutal variant. There were a lot of nasty moments, including getting double-manastormed by Morgoth while at +53 speed --- and there were a lot of times when I was about ready to give up.
The Human Warrior is a difficult class to win with, and there's an incredibly steep difficulty curve around depth 30-50, which is where the monster list is balanced to challenge a character who's completed a whole slew of quests and been rewarded sexily with the boots of Shiva's Avatar and a boatload of other artifacts and trinkets, NOT a character whose stats are rather pathetic and who's still struggling to cover his basic resists and poison at the same time.
Things began looking up when I got polymorphed by chaos into a Klackon (somewhere between experience levels 35 and 40), whose better stats, innate speed, and confusion resistance all came in handy. At about the same time, I cracked a couple of greater vaults and came away with some very nice items --- notably Hurin's Axe of +3 to ass-kicking and the shield of Anarion.
Things went speedily from depths 40 to 80 --- with Hurin's axe I massacred everything within reach. The quest levels were easy then --- I only failed one because I didn't even notice I was on a quest level (I think I recalled away, laden with artifacts).
I hovered at depth 80 for a while, then realized that I'd be running into the same monsters at level 98, and getting better treasure. I think it might have been around level 90 that I found Spec, dropped by some unique. Anabasis came once I was at depth 98. I killed Sauron with ease, and, figuring that Oberon wouldn't be much more difficult, dropped to 99 and offed him too. (Stormbringer slays humans, so it was no sweat.) Encouraged by this, I decided to pit my strength against that of the Serpent.
It didn't go well. He summoned Morgoth, Nodens, the Destroyer, and the Unicorn of Order. The level was really small and I was beginning to worry I'd die before recall even kicked in. I didn't, but I knew I had to thin out the uniques list before proceeding further. Having spent 43 hours on this character already (much of that alt+tabbing between House M.D. and Entro), I decided to take a break from the game.
I came back last night. The Destroyer went down. The next level had the Unicorn, Nodens, and Morgoth. Nodens hits hard with those mana storms but has fewer hit points than I expected. Morgoth was just plain scary (the double mana storm was an eye-opener), but I had more than enough potions to heal up and finish him off. The Unicorn --- well, I gave up on that one. The combination of blinking out of reach, mass summoning, and disintegration breath is just hell on a poor little warrior. I bailed.
It was time to fight the Serpent! Oddly, he barely summoned uniques at all. I was afraid I'd have to *destruct* the Unicorn over and over again, but I only had to once, and I caught the Chemist in the blast and avoided hitting the Serpent. At first it was slow going, but once the Serpent was at six stars (after I'd used ~20 teleports, ~50 CCW, ~10 Heal), I realized I had enough Scrolls of Genocide and Potions of *Healing* and of Life to end it quicker. And to top it all off, when I killed him, he dropped Ringil, one my favorite weapons ever!
Well, here's the dump:
And the short version, my final equipment and inventory:
Code:
a) The Blade of Chaos 'Stormbringer' (6d6) (+16,+16) (+2) {cursed}
b) The Small Metal Shield of Anabasis (+10,+10) [5,+25] (+2)
c) The Gun 'Crimson' (x0) (+20,+20) (+4 to speed) {Di;Rg}
d) a Ring of Speed (+16)
e) a Ring of Speed (+15)
f) The Collar Harness of the Hell (+15,+15) [-5] (-2)
g) The Jewel of Judgement (+3 to speed)
h) The Adamantite Plate Mail 'Soulkeeper' (-4) [40,+20] (+2) (charging)
i) The Cloak of Jack of Shadows [1,+19] (+7 to stealth)
j) The Iron Helm 'Terror Mask' (+18,+18) [5,+11] (-1) {Nt;Hl, .}
k) The Set of Gauntlets of Spec (+24,+16) [2,+32] (+2 to speed) {cursed}
l) The Pair of Soft Leather Boots 'fimhen' [2,+19] (+2 to speed)
{SpCnCh;ShBl(WiCn}
Code:
a) 11 Pieces of Elvish Waybread {50% off}
b) 71 Potions of Cure Critical Wounds {25% off}
c) 11 Potions of *Healing* {!k}
d) 3 Potions of Life {!k!q}
e) 13 Potions of Resistance {!k}
f) 58 Scrolls of Phase Door {25% off}
g) 74 Scrolls of Teleportation {50% off}
h) 5 Scrolls of *Identify* {25% off}
i) 2 Rods of Perception
j) 11 Rods of Recall (1 charging)
k) 7 Rods of Illumination {@z4}
l) 7 Rods of Enlightenment (2 charging) {@z3}
m) 9 Rods of Detection (2 charging) {@z2}
n) 2 Rods of Healing
o) 3 Rods of Speed (2 charging)
p) 17 Rods of Teleport Other
q) 17 Rods of Stone to Mud (1 charging) {@z5}
r) The Massive Iron Crown of Chaos [0,+0] (+125) {cursed}
s) The Long Sword 'Ringil' (4d5) (+22,+25) (+10 to speed)
t) The Trident of Arryu-Chien-Kun (2d8) (+12,+16) (+2)
u) The Scythe of Slicing 'Bloody Moon' (8d4) (+8,+8) [+8] (+2)
v) The Mighty Hammer 'Grond' (9d9) (+5,+25) [+10]
w) The Heavy Crossbow 'Advent' (x4) (+18,+19) (+4) {WiDx;Ac;LvXsBs}
~Djabanete
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