Victory after only 15 years & 13M turns

[o-o]

I would love to see an updated version of these recommendations for the new V version.

So would I!

Note also: they are probably best viewed as "What to be extremely watchful for," not "What you need."

Perhaps with the exceptions of blindness, confusion, poison and free-action.

[o-o]

Priests are much less effective at attacking.

Is this the same throughout the game? Or do priests become more dangerous in the end-game?

The interesting thing about priests is that you should stick to killing evil predominantly once Orb is reliable. The risk/cost/reward for non-evil is typically not worth it. I'm not saying that you can't clear levels, but you shouldn't.

Is Orb more effective against evil? If that's the case, I had no idea.

I found that even my paladin was much more effective against evil. Protection from Evil seemed surprisingly effective, and Detect Evil seemed to be basically free to cast. Dispel Evil/Undead just made things easier, reducing my risk of RSI when deal with hordes of s/z/d/o/T/Gs later in the game.

[PowerDiver]

Is this the same throughout the game? Or do priests become more dangerous in the end-game?


Is Orb more effective against evil? If that's the case, I had no idea.

I found that even my paladin was much more effective against evil. Protection from Evil seemed surprisingly effective, and Detect Evil seemed to be basically free to cast. Dispel Evil/Undead just made things easier, reducing my risk of RSI when deal with hordes of s/z/d/o/T/Gs later in the game.

Less effective does not mean ineffective. The hit rolls go up, but not as fast as for the mixed classes.

Orb does double damage against evil, and you tend to want to wield a holy avenger, and you detect evil, etc.

[Sirridan]

Is this the same throughout the game? Or do priests become more dangerous in the end-game?


Is Orb more effective against evil? If that's the case, I had no idea.

I found that even my paladin was much more effective against evil. Protection from Evil seemed surprisingly effective, and Detect Evil seemed to be basically free to cast. Dispel Evil/Undead just made things easier, reducing my risk of RSI when deal with hordes of s/z/d/o/T/Gs later in the game.

My priest was Immortal 1 on 1 in the end game, as long as I was paying attention. The 2000hp heal at 0% fail just feels horrendously overpowered, and I loved every second, heh. When I stopped paying attention, I was dead.

Orb is great for killing everything except maybe the highest of the high-end uniques, especially the non-evil ones. But Great Wyrms, Greater Undead/Demons, Non Witch-King Ringwraiths all fell to the mighty orb in a rather quick fashion.

It would take a while, but orb can be used to off Sauron and Morgoth too, just bring !rMana and extra ?phase.

[Pete Mack]

You don't lose any HP. You lose a tiny bit of offensive power (-2 to_dam, -5 to_hit) but the extra damage that comes from a wider selection of weapons more than makes up for it.
The big problem is the -25% to base fail rate. You can still get 0% fail, but it takes an extra 25/3 = 8 character levels for any given spell. This is why Eddie (aka Powerdiver) recommends weapon swaps for priests, until late in the game.

[o-o]

I was thinking through my Greater Vault story today, and feel like it may have been further down, and I was probably a higher level. I don't think there was a Black Reaver, looking back now, but I'm pretty sure about the rest.

[fizzix]

My priest was Immortal 1 on 1 in the end game, as long as I was paying attention. The 2000hp heal at 0% fail just feels horrendously overpowered, and I loved every second, heh. When I stopped paying attention, I was dead.

Orb is great for killing everything except maybe the highest of the high-end uniques, especially the non-evil ones. But Great Wyrms, Greater Undead/Demons, Non Witch-King Ringwraiths all fell to the mighty orb in a rather quick fashion.

It would take a while, but orb can be used to off Sauron and Morgoth too, just bring !rMana and extra ?phase.

I've killed both Sauron and Morgoth pretty much solely with orbs in a game where I never found a good attack weapon or a good launcher. It's pretty tedious, but it can be done.

Regarding the resistance requirements. These are only useful if you don't know the monster list well. The idea behind them is that, at this level, monsters start appearing that have this attack. If you know what these monsters are and are comfortable with avoiding them, you can ignore those guidelines entirely. (SI is the hard one, if you don't have that you need staves or spells of detect evil. It's pretty scary going without SI deep in the dungeon.)

I've been at dlevel 50 without FA and dlevel 99 without one of rbase. I've had nether resistance in less games than I've gone without it. Same with rshards. My guideline is, if I'm starting to feel bored, I drop deeper. The more I play, the more quickly I get antsy, so I descend faster.

[PowerDiver]

SI is the hard one, if you don't have that you need staves or spells of detect evil. It's pretty scary going without SI deep in the dungeon.

Lack of SI gets scary at DL40 and keeps getting worse. I've never made it to DL70 lacking SI and ESP even with priests who have the SI spell. It is not enough to cast SI after you detect. You need it all the time. There are so many invisible passwall monsters that can hurt you badly in one round in the 60s. Also, detect evil does not reveal deep Q's who will summon your doom as you blithely walk across a big room toward them.

[Sirridan]

Lack of SI gets scary at DL40 and keeps getting worse. I've never made it to DL70 lacking SI and ESP even with priests who have the SI spell. It is not enough to cast SI after you detect. You need it all the time. There are so many invisible passwall monsters that can hurt you badly in one round in the 60s. Also, detect evil does not reveal deep Q's who will summon your doom as you blithely walk across a big room toward them.

Yeah... gotta love it when invisible dreads drop your str from 18/120 to 8 and put your speed to -5 at base...