how to face sauron...

[Gockel]

Hey there.

I finally got a char to lvl99, had a look at sauron, and ran away.
now i think i might almost be ready again, but i don't feel like i deal enough damage... can't find a way to increase damage output without losing too much con, so i'm wondering if i should simply wait for an even better weapon..

if anyone could give me some equipment advice i'd be happy once more
thanks again!!

character dump:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=11169

(by accident i overwrote an earlier char dump, so some of the comments aren't current, they belong to the old dump)

[Derakon]

No matter what you do, priests aren't going to have amazing melee damage. That 4 blows per round limit really hurts them there. You'll do better if you can get that ring of acid on, since Sauron is still vulnerable to that element, but I suspect you'll be better off relying on your bow and arrows and/or Orb of Draining. A bit slow, but reliable damage, and you can fight him at range instead of in melee (using Banish Evil to remove summons).

[Estie]

Youre not ready yet. Even though it is not entirely unthinkable to face M with your poor item set - priests are hard to kill - the easiest way to win that fight is to get better items first. Are any nasty uniques alive still ? Kill them and see what upgrades you find in the process.

[Max Stats]

Melee is a bad idea vs. Sauron, mostly due to his ability to drain charges from wands/staffs. You can use glyphs of warding, but he will most likely break at least one of them. Your best bet is to get as much speed as possible, meet him in a corridor with several glyphs in a row laid down, and orb him from a distance. Since you will be healing as well, you might burn a potion or two of your stock of restore mana, or you can try teleporting him away and resting up. Always have enough mana to cast Healing (teleport him or restore your mana when you start to get low).

If you had more arrows of acid, they could be a viable attack to save you some mana. Since you have two shots per round, the nice thing is that you will only use half a round per shot; unlike with multiple melee blows, it doesn't use up an entire round's worth of attacks all at once. This will make it feel like your character is hasted again. Acid is the only element Sauron is vulnerable to; you will probably want to save your Slay Evil ammo for Morgoth.

Also, you don't need more than one copy of your higher level spellbooks. If you want to keep the extra copies around to sell, drop them off in a corner somewhere. Otherwise, drop all but one, inscribe them !d!d so you don't accidentally drop them, and squelch them (as long as you have a !d on them you won't drop them even when squelched). This will keep you from accidentally picking up unnecessary copies and becoming burdened.

While you might possibly beat Sauron at your current speed level, I think you will want more before you try out Morgoth. If you haste yourself, you will be at +30. I'm not sure this is fast enough to keep you from being double-moved by him, and if he casts two mana storms in a row, you will be history even if you are at full HPs to begin with.

Good luck if you try. He will be quite challenging at the moment.

[Derakon]

Morgoth in fact has exactly +30 speed, so if you have +30 speed you will not be double-moved by him. Just don't slow down!

[Timo Pietilä]

Morgoth in fact has exactly +30 speed, so if you have +30 speed you will not be double-moved by him. Just don't slow down!

Perfect saving works like FA in that matter, you get slowed only by gravity and inertia after getting 100% saving throw.

[Derakon]

Or by picking stuff up. Or gorging.

[Timo Pietilä]

Hey there.

I finally got a char to lvl99, had a look at sauron, and ran away.
now i think i might almost be ready again, but i don't feel like i deal enough damage... can't find a way to increase damage output without losing too much con, so i'm wondering if i should simply wait for an even better weapon..

You have enough to kill Sauron already. Just wear Nenya instead of Narya (keep it as swap) and bring those potions with you into dungeon.

Wear Hammerhand, Caspanion, BoS +10, Nenya and Haradrim. Fight in small place like in corner of a dungeon. Stand on rune and hit him into head until he is dead. Heal when needed. Replace rune when it is gone. Drink potion of restore mana when low on mana. With that many restore mana and those stats you could fight him with unenchanted shovel and still win (except that +4 to stats and few resists comes from your weapon).

Repeat with Morgoth, but be sure you are hasted to +30 or more entire fight. Banish evil should be at 0% failure? If it is you are pretty safe.

[Timo Pietilä]

Or by picking stuff up. Or gorging.

Gorging is actually a problem. Don't go fighting Morgoth after just casting satisfy hunger. My last fight I needed to do phase, heal, satisfy hunger to cure gorging. I would have actually paid for salt water at that point.

[Timo Pietilä]

No matter what you do, priests aren't going to have amazing melee damage. That 4 blows per round limit really hurts them there. You'll do better if you can get that ring of acid on, since Sauron is still vulnerable to that element, but I suspect you'll be better off relying on your bow and arrows and/or Orb of Draining. A bit slow, but reliable damage, and you can fight him at range instead of in melee (using Banish Evil to remove summons).

Banish evil removes Sauron as well, and unlike Morgoth he will not come back. You need to hunt him down, and if dungeon is inhabited with summons it can become too tedious/slow to be worth it (Sauron regenerates quickly, so he will have quite a bit his HP recovered by you find him again). Even if you use the bow it is better to restrict summons to minimum, which means point blank shooting.

[JohnCW9]

Hey there.

I finally got a char to lvl99, had a look at sauron, and ran away.
now i think i might almost be ready again, but i don't feel like i deal enough damage... can't find a way to increase damage output without losing too much con, so i'm wondering if i should simply wait for an even better weapon..

if anyone could give me some equipment advice i'd be happy once more
thanks again!!

(by accident i overwrote an earlier char dump, so some of the comments aren't current, they belong to the old dump)

I noticed two things one your thiefproff and fireproff so get rid of all but 1 copy of each of the prayer books, and get rid of some of that excess weight.

John

[Gockel]

Uh, thanks for all the advice!

the suggestion concerning the unenchanted shovel sounds tempting, but maybe i should show him some respect on our first date... i'm hoping for a warm welcome after all

i might try the hit-in-the-head-strategy, but i'm a bit worried... can't he actually stun me?
i was already considering getting rid of several scrolls/healing potions, but discarded the thought because of the pretty high fail rate when stunned...
is there actually a way of preventing it from happening? or do i need to carry all that stuff anyway??

[Timo Pietilä]

Uh, thanks for all the advice!

the suggestion concerning the unenchanted shovel sounds tempting, but maybe i should show him some respect on our first date... i'm hoping for a warm welcome after all

i might try the hit-in-the-head-strategy, but i'm a bit worried... can't he actually stun me?
i was already considering getting rid of several scrolls/healing potions, but discarded the thought because of the pretty high fail rate when stunned...
is there actually a way of preventing it from happening? or do i need to carry all that stuff anyway??

There is no way to prevent melee stunning. Sauron doesn't stun (at least not much), but Morgoths earthquake-attack will. That is why you should get also potions of CCW. Those cure stunning. Drink one if you didn't get too low on HP. If you did then drink healing.

With standing on a rune you will not get stunned often.

[Max Stats]

You have enough to kill Sauron already. Just wear Nenya instead of Narya (keep it as swap) and bring those potions with you into dungeon.

Wear Hammerhand, Caspanion, BoS +10, Nenya and Haradrim. Fight in small place like in corner of a dungeon. Stand on rune and hit him into head until he is dead. Heal when needed. Replace rune when it is gone. Drink potion of restore mana when low on mana. With that many restore mana and those stats you could fight him with unenchanted shovel and still win (except that +4 to stats and few resists comes from your weapon).

Repeat with Morgoth, but be sure you are hasted to +30 or more entire fight. Banish evil should be at 0% failure? If it is you are pretty safe.

If you go the rune/melee route, I might suggest that you drop all wands/staffs with charges (or leave them at home) to avoid having them drained. Draining charges heals the enemy, although it seems that the amount has been toned down quite a bit. If you drop them in the dungeon, drop them a safe distance from wherever you will be fighting, or you risk having them destroyed by mana storms.

[Timo Pietilä]

If you go the rune/melee route, I might suggest that you drop all wands/staffs with charges
...
If you drop them in the dungeon, drop them a safe distance from wherever you will be fighting, or you risk having them destroyed by mana storms.

...or earthquakes. I just recently lost my stack of banishment staves fighting some charge drainer I can't remember and one of the giant uniques at the same time. Didn't drop them far enough and they got destroyed by earthquake. Got so pissed off by that that I wished to be able to resurrect that Giant just to be able to kill it again. With dull scissors preferably.