Greed is a killer...

[Fendell Orcbane]

What about Gothmog? I just killed him pretty quickly no fuss no muss. But I realize that with Morgoth you can't do as much with Runes of Protection.

[Timo Pietilä]

What about Gothmog? I just killed him pretty quickly no fuss no muss. But I realize that with Morgoth you can't do as much with Runes of Protection.

Morgoth hits hard. In fact he used to be capable to do more damage in melee than with manastorm. Now it is a bit less (no two earthquake crushes in one turn anymore). That's why Greater Titan is a good practice opponent. Not too difficult to kill, but gives you an idea how well you can handle bad melee-damage.

Obviously they are wimps compared to Morgoth HP and summoning, but with melee they can do more damage than M unless you get crushed by earthquake.

I think Greater Titans hit harder than any other creature in the game including uniques (hits for confusion are not dampened by AC, if hit lands all damage goes thru). If they are just tiny speed-bumps in your way then melee is not your problem. You can then concentrate on how to deal with summons and unresistable spells.

[Pete Mack]

What about Gothmog? I just killed him pretty quickly no fuss no muss. But I realize that with Morgoth you can't do as much with Runes of Protection.

With Rune, you can reduce his melee attacks to (almost) zero. This is a big, big deal. So big a deal that I never use it...

[Fendell Orcbane]

Morgoth hits hard. In fact he used to be capable to do more damage in melee than with manastorm. Now it is a bit less (no two earthquake crushes in one turn anymore). That's why Greater Titan is a good practice opponent. Not too difficult to kill, but gives you an idea how well you can handle bad melee-damage.

Obviously they are wimps compared to Morgoth HP and summoning, but with melee they can do more damage than M unless you get crushed by earthquake.

I think Greater Titans hit harder than any other creature in the game including uniques (hits for confusion are not dampened by AC, if hit lands all damage goes thru). If they are just tiny speed-bumps in your way then melee is not your problem. You can then concentrate on how to deal with summons and unresistable spells.

Hmm, I have taken out some Greater Titans but mostly with arrows. Having said that the last time I got a character up to Greater Titan level, the GT was hitting really, really hard. So hard that I had to bail. However with my speed I should be able to dish out a lot of damage before it can even get started. However playing dumb( like letting a GT get in close combat range) isn't my style. Back then I was playing 3.0.9 and had no quiver so ranged attacks were not as good as they are in 3.1.2 so I actually used hand to hand for a lot of enemies with arrows softening them up.

[Derakon]

Greater titans have 4 12d12 melee hits to confuse, at an average damage of 312 damage if all hit. Apparently confusion hits aren't mitigated by armor damage reduction? I don't feel like looking that up right now. Morgoth has two shattering hits at 20d10, a drain-all-stats hit at 10d12, and a drain-charges touch that does no damage, for an average damage of 285 if the first three hits land (and if you're silly enough to be carrying charged items in your inventory, his last attack will heal himself). So greater titans actually have a stronger melee than Morgoth does, unless you get crushed by falling rock from his shatter attacks (10d4 damage + stun if you do get hit, at 66% odds if the game tries to create a wall on you).

[Timo Pietilä]

unless you get crushed by falling rock from his shatter attacks (10d4 damage + stun if you do get hit, at 66% odds if the game tries to create a wall on you).

I think the damage from actual crush is something like 300 points of damage. Much more than 10d4. That 10d4 is some other earthquake side-effect.

...looking source...found:

		/* Hurt the player a lot */
		if (!sn)
		{
			/* Message and damage */
			msg_print("You are severely crushed!");
			damage = 300;
		}

(I assume that this "!sn" means there are no safe grids where player can dodge the blast, IE earthquake tries to create wall all around the player, not including Morgoth grid)

Earthquake crush interrupts Morgoths remaining attacks. It used to be that all attacks are counted first and then that earthquake damage took place which did mean that, if unlucky, Morgoth could do about 800 points of damage in single round of combat. That is no longer possible.

I think the trick to drop some artifact at your feet still prevents this to happen. Earthquake can't destroy artifacts, so no granite in grid where artifact is.