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Apparently he was better prepared than I expected, I just thought otherwise (being seriously hurt by Winged Horrors).
As I said in my post fighting Kavlax early is like Russian roulette, if it uses his worst attacks ASAP, then he is really deadly, if not then he is pushover. For someone that have met Kavlax before in "easy mode" and didn't learn its worst attacks it might be surprising next time.
(needed to check, Kavlax is indeed +10 speed monster, I was sure it moves at speed +20).Comment
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I wasn't so much hurt by them as I was scared of the prospect of losing multiple XP levels just to kill a flying snake
Anyhow, the game is starting to get a bit grindy now. I've never gotten a character this far before, so I'm being cautious, but I'm sort of at a loss as what to do next, other than dive deep looking for better artifacts, or maxing out stats.
Healing seems to be my biggest issue, now. Sometimes I go head-to-head with a unique that e.g. disenchants at melee range, but casts terribly damaging spells at firing range, so there's no really good option for engaging them. If they move at 10 speed or less, I can haste myself and dodge-shoot-dodge, but if they start pegging me with spells, I have to use a Healing potion or greater to make sure they won't one-shot me.
I guess maxing CON would help with this? I could tank a bunch of damage and then hide somewhere until I heal up.Glaurung, Father of the Dragons says, 'You cannot avoid the ballyhack.'Comment
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CON is valuable for staying alive, yes.
Vanilla's AI is not very complicated. Monsters won't cast/breathe more often just because they can't hit you; melee attacks basically just replace movement once they're in melee range. That's why every magical monster has a casting frequency in their monster memory: that's the odds of them choosing to cast a spell (or breathe, or fire arrows, etc.) each turn they get.
As far as disenchanters are concerned, you basically have three options: 1) fight them in melee and damage your gear, 2) fight them at range, 3) don't fight them. A lot of your success at Angband will come from learning when to take option 3.
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I've changed my kit to maximize CON and Speed. I currently swap between amulets of ESP and Trickery as needed, and between rings of constitution (or damage) and bodykeeping as needed.
HP went from mid-400s to 675ish, which is nice
Starting to find a lot of junk artifacts. Looking forward to some good stuff
Also, Lesser Titans are no joke. One of the few things I've fled from with no regrets at all.Glaurung, Father of the Dragons says, 'You cannot avoid the ballyhack.'Comment
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Oh yeah- Look forward to the greaters. and the grand master mystics.
Actually, dangerous at any level:
Greater Balrogs/pit Fiends (They like to summon tons of other baddies.)
Archlich (same as above)
greater titans, and grand master mystics (These're even meaner in NPP...)
I'm sure there's other that should be on there...
oh well, be careful!You should save my signature. It might be worth something someday.Comment
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Time hounds and gravity hounds. Horned Reapers. Black Reavers. Dracolichs.
There are plenty of monsters that are dangerous at any level, you can always kill everything with good enough equipment, but more than one Balance Dragons for example in LoS is too much to any character to survive long. Not fighting more than one at the time is the key to survive those kind of monsters.
I find Archlichs not that difficult, they are summoners, but not individually bad so they are like any group summoners, easy to deal with if you don't allow summons to surround you.Comment
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Thank me later
I don't know if anyone has told you this,but once you can cast it Create Doors is your new best friend : )Comment
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I guess It's unfortunate that I tend to run warriors then?
Guess I'm just a masochist.You should save my signature. It might be worth something someday.Comment
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Still grinding...
Stats are almost maxed now. I just want to top out WIS to get my saving throw as high as it can be.
The only juggling I'm really doing is with amulets... I wear ESP most of the time, switch to Trickery if I want a bit more DPS or +Nexus, or Sustenance if I want to sustain (duh).
I'm missing +Nether, but I could have it by taking a small CON penalty (~100HP worth by wearing Isildur) or by taking -5 speed penalty (swapping boots of speed for my artifact boots). Any opinions on that?
In terms of close calls -- I was fighting a unique when a Dracolich breathed frost on me from like, 1000 miles away. I didn't have temp cold resist up, so I immediately went from high HP to ~50. That's been my biggest scare so far, I guess.
Jabberwocks and drujs are freaking annoying! Haha
As Fendall indicated, Create Doors is indeed a great spell. Weird, but great.
I was pretty irritated to discover that Hold Life doesn't work 100% of the time. That means I still have to lug around that stack of Restore Life potions just in case. What a singularly annoying resistance mechanic :P I realize experience drain isn't really a "status effect", so there isn't 'protection' from it, but for some reason it seems to me like it should be.
Oh, and I have been banishing Time Hounds each and every time I see them. Talk about pesky.
Good game so far
Glaurung, Father of the Dragons says, 'You cannot avoid the ballyhack.'Comment
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If you have Hold Life, then when you miss the save against experience drain, you'll only lose 10% of the experience you normally would. That's trivially recovered from.
Restore Life Levels isn't worth carrying in general, but it's doubly not when a single big kill will get you your experience back.Comment
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Oh! Good to know, thanks. I'll dump those.
I just went head-to-head with Uriel, and actually brought him down to about 33% before having to teleport him away -- and I was on no mana + gorged at the time. I TO'ed him after my haste dropped.
One "technique" I've found to be effective -- If I have the slightest inkling that I'm playing irrationally, I quit the game. Doesn't matter if i'm in the middle of a group of monsters at 20HP, I just hit ctrl-q and come back later
Glaurung, Father of the Dragons says, 'You cannot avoid the ballyhack.'Comment
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It has been a bad day for angels as both Uriel and Azriel fell back-to-back. I had just picked up the Bastard Sword of Eowyn and was about to dump it, when I saw that it resists nether. I thought, "Oh well, I'll just keep this until I recall home, and then maybe leave it in storage."
About 2 mins later, I see Azriel sleeping peacefully in an empty room. It's like it was fated!
He went down easier than Uriel, I would say -- mostly because I've learned to cast Create Doors and Shield. I think it's kinda hilarious when I'm fighting something scary like the Angel of Death, and we spend half the fight opening and closing a door.
"Are you ready now?"
"Not yet!" *slam*
"How about now?"
"No, wait a minute!" *slam*
On the same floor as Azriel, I found a Greater Titan in a roomful of giants. That wasn't so bad, but the Titan took 400HP off of me in a single melee round somehow -- I need to start actually reading the dice rating of monster attacks when I probe them :/
Still on the same floor, I walked a bit north and found Saruman in the company of two Dracolichs, so I decided to take a break :/
Question -- If I use *Destruction*, that will destroy even artifacts, correct? (I assume I can get them later still, but it just means I'd rather not walk into a room full of monsters and Destruct them to save myself the trouble of actually fighting them.)Glaurung, Father of the Dragons says, 'You cannot avoid the ballyhack.'Comment
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Mine has no speed bonus
It's +4 Str, Cha, and +2 stealth.
It's pretty mediocre compared to my other artifact weapons (Til-i-arc and Gurthang), but it came in handy in this particular instance.Glaurung, Father of the Dragons says, 'You cannot avoid the ballyhack.'Comment
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That's comical.
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