equipment help

[Gockel]

Finally had the opportunity to continue a bit... and though things seem to run smoothly up until now, i'm a bit annoyed... simply because i didn't find ANY artifact apart from the (cursed) helm of gorlim... is this normal? could it be that i've found almost all artifacts that exist?
i guess i've cleared ~5 superb/excellent levels, killed uniques and lots of other stuff, but it seems like there is no chance of finding anything interesting anymore... could it be that i've disabled artifacts somehow?

anyway, considering how smooth things go at the moment, i guess i wouldn't REALLY need more artifacts, but the game simply seems to lack something when you don't find anything interesting...
apart from that, any suggestion about equipment changes?

thanks a lot!!

[Derakon]

Just give it time. Every once in awhile you'll get a character that gets unlucky for extended periods and doesn't find any new kit. It can be very frustrating, but eventually you'll get an upgrade somewhere, which will enable you to dive more, which will increase the odds of good gear showing up...

[Gockel]

Ok... thing is, i AM diving since then. maybe not the same kind of diving as you do, but i took all stairs down i could find, unless a level had a superb/excellent feeling... and, being on dlvl 87 (which means ~20 dlvls below my last artifact find) without feeling uncomfortable, i guess i'll continue all the way down.

anyway, i'll try to be patient... thanks!

[Derakon]

Ah, hadn't realized you were that deep. You should be deep enough to find endgame kit now (the last major milestone is dlvl 80, at which point rings of speed become in-depth for generating on the floor, though monsters from shallower depths still need to pass out-of-depth checks). In that case, just keep hitting up levels and things should drop eventually. Take heart that artifacts aren't required to win, in any case, though going without makes the game rather trickier.

[Gockel]

Oooh... that hurt.

i don't like dying on lvl 99...
somebody should have told me that it might be unhealthy to get overconfident...

what a stupid death. made it to lvl 99, and there i simply didn't watch my health. i was truly surprised when suddenly i saw a tombstone with my name on it...2 tiny mariliths together with a gelugon had obviously squeezed the last hp's out of my poor little hobbit.
arg... i guess that was unnecessary.

anyway, i got one question: do you all fight the nastier monsters with this technique:

always running hasted around one single piece of wall so the monster has no choice but to run after you. and whenever the genius is peeking around the corner to find you, you punch it into the head?

or is there another way? i used this, and actually i didn't like it so much. seems a bit like cheating to me, using the stupidity of the monsters against them. but i simply couldn't find another way of handling the bigger ones, especially summoners.

anyway, thanks again for the help... i guess it got me much further than i could've made it on my own!

[Derakon]

Trying to fight more than one monster at a time is suicidal. You absolutely do need to use the terrain to your advantage, because the game is balanced with one-on-one combats in mind. This isn't Diablo, where individual monsters are generally weak and have large windups before their dangerous attacks. When one monster can more than halve your health in a single turn, letting two monsters attack you at once is a bad idea.

Some people (e.g. Eddie/PowerDiver) consider anti-summoning corridors to be cheap tactics, but I don't think anyone considers making use of turns in the corridors to be cheap. It's simply necessary.

Edit: oh, are you pillardancing? Where you have a single freestanding piece of wall and you alternate between moving to have it be between you and the monster, and hitting the monster when it pokes its head out? Yeah, that is a pretty cheap tactic. It only works when you're faster than your opponent, of course.

[Gockel]

ah, ok...
good to know that there IS another way... because this spoiled the fun quite a bit, actually. found out about it on lvl 80 or so and i started feeling like it's really the only way to beat them. but the game actually started becoming a bit boring that way...

anyway, i'll leave the dancing crap for now and try to find out how to handle the big ones in a less embarrassing manner.
but still, can you seriously kill ANY monster in the game without pillardancing?

guess i have to try again!

[Derakon]

but still, can you seriously kill ANY monster in the game without pillardancing?

Well, there are some monsters I don't bother fighting as a general rule (Huan and the Tarrasque, for example), but that's more because I don't feel like burning the necessary consumables to take them out. Yes, you can kill any monster in a straight-up fight if you really have to. Certainly by the endgame you ought to be able to take out any non-unique monster without difficulty. If you can't, then either you aren't dealing enough damage quickly enough or you aren't adequately protected (including having a sufficient HP pool). Ideally endgame you should be dealing at least 500 damage/round if you're in melee and have, oh, at least 800HP, though more is always better.