So, what does this guy need to kill Morgoth (S)

[NotMorgoth]

My latest character, a Sangband half-orc assassin has just killed Sauron, dump here.

So, I'm trying to decide what I need to be ready for the big one...

I probably have enough healing, but could do with more scrolls of Genocide/Mass Genocide (banishment for V players.)

I intend to spend enough experience on skills to get my power up to 100 to get as many hitpoints as possible.

What I'd really really like is a pair of Boots of Speed, but considering how rare speed items are in Sang, I'm not going to wait for one. (I spent ages on DLs 90-98 with only +6 speed hardly daring to fight anything, which is one reason for the high turncount.)

If I'm going to melee Morgoth, I need my stats sustained, so I would have to wear either the Robe of Permanence or the Shield of Anarion which Sauron dropped. Wearing the robe would still let me use Thorin, but I'd lose rPoison from Belegennon.

Dangerous uniques still alive are Cantoras, the Tarrasque and all the angels and Qs. I should probably make an effort to hunt down at least Cantoras before going after Morgoth.

[camlost]

My vote is to stock more potions of regular healing. Swap Belegennon for Thalketoth, and Doomcaller for Rilia. You'll lose confusion and shards, gain chaos and deal a huge ton of damage in melee. Losing confusion will mean you will want healing potions for status effect (CCW is marginal at best).

Carry your stored consumables, (mass) genocide, TO, _CMW

Doomblasts (with sufficient recharging) is an option, as is archery, or melee with the swaps above.

[NotMorgoth]

Yeah, if I'm going to melee, I'll definitely wield Doomcaller; I just wielded Rilia for rDisenchant against Sauron, but used mostly the crossbow as Rilia doesn't do that much damage.

I left most of the wands/staves at home because of Sauron's charge draining, but meant to carry the scrolls of Mass Genocide. I almost recalled when I realised I had forgotten them, but decided to go ahead and fight him anyway.

Blanket of Ethereal Sanctuary would also be nice...

[NotMorgoth]

Killed the Tarrasque and Cantoras.

T burned my staff of Cure Medium Wounds, Cantoras nearly killed me with mind blast that slowed + confused me, then nether storm while a summoned skull druj hit me with plasma bolt.


Makes me think I'm not ready for Morgoth, as I'm vulnerable to mind blasts from lesser monsters; maybe I should wear the Star for +10 saving throw instead of the Phial, but the Phial is nice for the remove fear activation.

I might also wear Cammithrim instead of the Gloves of Power for rLight vs Gabriel etc.

Cantoras dropped another Robe of Permanence, I don't know what the high resist is as i've run out of *ID* - nether would be nice.

I've been trying not to use the rubble exploit, but it doesn't really work against Morgoth anyway.

[Magnate]

Killed the Tarrasque and Cantoras.

T burned my staff of Cure Medium Wounds, Cantoras nearly killed me with mind blast that slowed + confused me, then nether storm while a summoned skull druj hit me with plasma bolt.


Makes me think I'm not ready for Morgoth, as I'm vulnerable to mind blasts from lesser monsters; maybe I should wear the Star for +10 saving throw instead of the Phial, but the Phial is nice for the remove fear activation.

I might also wear Cammithrim instead of the Gloves of Power for rLight vs Gabriel etc.

Cantoras dropped another Robe of Permanence, I don't know what the high resist is as i've run out of *ID* - nether would be nice.

I've been trying not to use the rubble exploit, but it doesn't really work against Morgoth anyway.

Nice to follow a Sang AAR - let us know how it turned out. I've never been below 4000' in Sang so can't offer any useful advice ...

[NotMorgoth]

Nice to follow a Sang AAR - let us know how it turned out. I've never been below 4000' in Sang so can't offer any useful advice ...

Hmm, maybe if there's some interest in an AAR, I'll start one from earlier on next time...

Trouble is, more than half of my characters die on DL3 attempting the first quest..

[Derakon]

Do potions of Heroism in S provide temporary fear resistance like they do in most (all?) other variants? Use the Star and carry those, if so. One-shot remove-fear effects never struck me as very useful given how easy it is for the monsters to just re-fear you.u

[NotMorgoth]

There are no Potions of Heroism, only Mushrooms of Heroism.

And they have a slightly odd effect, which may in fact be a bug;

If you eat a mushroom of heroism while afraid, it cancels the fear and makes you heroic, but the heroism effect does not in itself make you immune to fear, and a monster can re-fear you afterwards.

Eating additional mushrooms will not get rid of the fear multiple times, it seems to be only when the heroism effect starts that it cancels fear, so if you are still 'under the influence' of an earlier mushroom, eating another one will not work.

Mushrooms of Boldness (and other boldness effects, including the priest spell) do give resistance to fear. However, they only appear early in the dungeon and I haven't seen one for a while.


I'm not sure if this is a bug, you'd have to ask Leon Marick, or possibly Camlost about the intended effects of heroism.


Edit: Doomcaller gives resist fear, so while wielding that I'm not concerned about regular fear attacks, it's getting terrified by mind blasting, which can't be resisted by this, that I am more worried about.

[Timo Pietilä]

Edit: Doomcaller gives resist fear, so while wielding that I'm not concerned about regular fear attacks, it's getting terrified by mind blasting, which can't be resisted by this, that I am more worried about.

I'm not sure, but you might have resistance against mind blast. You have 100% spell resistance and Heroic saving throw. In older vanilla Heroic saving throw could mean 100% saving throw which protects against mind blast. Legendary is over 100%. Try to get your WIS a bit higher and see if it makes any difference.

[NotMorgoth]

Winner!

Updated dump here.

Decided to wear the Robe of Permanence with rConfusion, and rely on Potions of Resistance for rPoison.

He summoned uniques, which meant both angels and both Qs - I teleported him away then *destructed*

When he came back, he summoned a Tyrant of Hell, who hasted him... nasty, so I used _banish evil.

When he returned, he was still hasted, so I teleported him away.

He summoned greater demons + greater undead a few times, and successfully mindblasted me twice, causing confusion, but no mana storms or other big damage spells.

in between all this, I was hitting him with doomblasts, annihilate and crossbow bolts, then eventually finished him off in melee.

[camlost]

I'm not sure, but you might have resistance against mind blast. You have 100% spell resistance and Heroic saving throw. In older vanilla Heroic saving throw could mean 100% saving throw which protects against mind blast. Legendary is over 100%. Try to get your WIS a bit higher and see if it makes any difference.

There is no perfect save in S, *and* Mindblasting punches through some of the appropriate resistances. I'm pretty sure heroism doesn't work, and you can be slowed with FA. Confusion and blindness resistance do work, I think.

I'm impressed by the lack of poison resistance. That can be instakill in S.

[NotMorgoth]

I'm impressed by the lack of poison resistance. That can be instakill in S.

I was hoping that the poison opposition from the Potion of Resistance would be enough. I know a single poison resistance isn't always enough, as really strong poison attacks can 'overcome your resistance' and cause nasty effects like paralysis, but the damage alone cannot instakill, and that's never happened to me vs Morgoth. Maybe I've just got lucky...


Edit: Just cheated and looked at the edit files; turns out Morgoth doesn't actually have a poison attack, so the greatest risk was a summoned Great Wyrm of Venom/Many Colors breath, but I've survived quite a lot of their breaths with only a single poison resist.

What might have been a bigger threat was an unresisted nether storm, I don't know what the maximum damage is from them, but it was nasty when Cantoras hit me with one, and Morgoth's 'Morgul Magic' could make it have nasty extra effects I don't know about yet.

[Magnate]

Winner!

Congrats - under 1.5M turns is quick for S. Very impressive. Out of interest, did you make much use of actual burglary skills and talents? I mean things like stealing, setting traps and nabbing objects, not perception/dodging etc.

[NotMorgoth]

Congrats - under 1.5M turns is quick for S. Very impressive. Out of interest, did you make much use of actual burglary skills and talents? I mean things like stealing, setting traps and nabbing objects, not perception/dodging etc.

This is the first time I've got very far with a burglar, so I was experimenting with the talents as I went along. What I thought of them was this:

Stealing: I did occasionally steal some potentially useful things, but overall it was too risky, as it generally either angered (hasted) the monster or woke up nearby monsters.

Trap Setting: This was at times quite good, especially in the midgame, against things like troll pits. I could put a line of traps in a corridor, then wait around corners, and let the monsters walk over the traps. It's also especially useful against hounds, even into the late game, as it allows you to do significant damage to them, and often kill a few, without them being in LOS.

However, it requires ESP to be really useful, as you need to know where the monsters are, it can be annoying to carry around extra weapons etc to use in traps, and take the time to set them up.

Also, it became less useful later in the game, when the amount of damage was generally insignificant compared to the number of hitpoints monsters had, particularly uniques.

Detect Objects: Didn't use, as I had _Detection.

Nab Objects: Used a lot when my speed was too low to fight many monsters, but cannot nab artifacts, and chests are too heavy.

Hit & Run: quite a useful ability, as there were many monsters I did not want to melee, but benefited from one round of free attacks before phasing away and shooting at them.

Poison ammo: not that useful as it doesn't seem to add that much damage, and many monsters resist poison

Darkness etc: did use this a bit, as the ability to do extra criticals etc in darkness was sometimes nice, but a lot of the time it was too risky because scrolls can't be read in the dark.

I did not find the extra bonuses with light weapons/penalties with heavy weapons useful because there weren't really any good enough light weapons. I found Gurthang fairly early (about DL 50) and it was my main weapon for most of the game.

[camlost]

Thanks for the thoughts on burglary. I've never played to any great depth with a burglar, so this is useful insight.