New memorable randarts

[Grotug]

Yes, as a warrior, just read scrolls as you come by them if you happen to wield a lowly enchanted weapon; but other classes get the spell, and if high enough level, its a matter of macroing the cast to get to +15 in no time. Not something you want to do when in a competition for low turncount, but otherwise hardly an effort.

On that note, with enchant scrolls gone from the alchemist, I think it would be better if they just gave a plain +1, without any chance of failure, up to the +15 cap. To to-hit, to-dam, or both, depending on scroll type.

As for Calris, I used to collect scrolls when I found it and love it. In hindsight, I agree its not good enough a weapon to bother, but Calris is my all time favourite cursed artifact. It is the thing I measure all curse mechanics against.

Indeed, with 305SP this will be a jiff on this scythe tailor made for Sauron and Tensers (which I have ). Scythe of Nedhrieno (9d4) (+10, +6) 463 vs non rAcid, 202 vs others. Activates for TO; 270-330 turns at +20 speed, 98.1% success rate, sorta useless recharge time but good to save it for really scary things (not really any anymore with legendary stealth and 685HP, tho).

Ninja edit: just after I posted this (from killing Ji Indur Dawndeath summoned by greater rot Q) I carelessly forgot about the Q (and that I don't have SI) and then blasted (with Buckland and Tensers) a Demi Lich it summoned and it just dropped this:

The Unholy Trinity Bastard sword of Naras (8d4) (+8, +25) <+1> INT

*Slays* Dragons, Demons, Undead (powerfully) 723.5 and 203 to others. Provides Immunity to Fire. (I already have acid and cold immunities). Provides rChaos (as does the newly acquired Sauron swap). Greetings, dungeon. May your deaths be swift and unresisted. Now a swap of my current shield of preservation with the one at home means I'll have all resistances covered except for pStun and 3 immunities since my current shield provides rChaos..

[Sky]

yes and no;

no, because you are not likely to find any artifact before DL30. finding a Dethanc in the standart set means you are ok for weapons until midgame, and don't have to worry about not being able to do enough damage to mobs you should otherwise be easily destroying.

yes, because things like Rings Of Power become a daily occurrence.



randarts are almost always more powerful than standarts; the standart set is pretty much balanced, there's a couple of very strong weapons, but that's about it. in a randart set, you will find lots of garbage, but then you get stuff like this Ring Of Slaying here:

the Band of Naroth (+12,+8) [+10] <+2, +3>
------------------------------------------
+2 wisdom.
+3 dexterity.
+3 constitution.
+2 attack speed.
Provides immunity to cold.
Provides resistance to acid, fire, light, dark, shards, nexus, chaos.
Provides protection from blindness.
Cannot be harmed by lightning.
Slows your metabolism. Prevents paralysis.

When activated, it creates a large frost ball with damage 200.
Takes 106 to 130 turns to recharge.
Your chance of success is 86.8%


Min Level 91, Max Level 127, Generation chance 5, Power 631, 0.2 lbs
Random ring of power 631.

i'm currently doing 1898.4 vs demons

[Thraalbee]

I believe the biggest advantage with randarts is min level tends to be favorable compared to std arts for strong items. Not a huge skew but adding 10 levels would be reasonable.

[Sky]

this randart set i'm playing now is inundating me with pConf, i have like, 8 items with it. I also found an endgame weapon on DL20, and i haven't used anything else since:
the Beaked Axe of Curion (4d6) (+13,+24) [+21] <+3>
---------------------------------------------------
+3 intelligence.
+3 dexterity.
Slays dragons (powerfully), demons (powerfully), undead, giants, trolls.
Branded with weak lightning.
Provides resistance to lightning, shards.
Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
Sustains wisdom, dexterity.
Speeds regeneration.

When activated, it heals 5000 hit points, restores experience and stats, heals
cut damage, and cures stunning, poison, blindness, and confusion.
Takes 172 to 252 turns to recharge.
Your chance of success is 88.9%


Min Level 46, Max Level 127, Generation chance 21, Power 276, 18.0 lbs
Random polearm of power 276.

note the !Life activation every 250 turns.

i'm just carrying around this other thing should i ever run into Ungoliant:

the Flail of Athis (10d6) (+18,+10) <+4>
----------------------------------------
+4 strength.
Slays demons (powerfully).
Provides resistance to cold.
Provides protection from fear.
Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
Grants the ability to see invisible things. Sustains your life force. Blessed
by the gods.


Min Level 40, Max Level 127, Generation chance 17, Power 228, 15.0 lbs
Random hafted of power 228.

1300 vs demons.

[Pete Mack]

Yeah, that is a hell of a weapon--roughly 60 damage just from the weapon alone. It's worth noting that the standard artifact set has no off-weapon brands/attacks either, so it's roughly comparable to everything except Deathwreaker, at least in killing power.

[Derakon]

An 8d10 +12 weapon doesn't need slays or brands to be ruinously effective.

[Sky]

this ...

the Trident of Lienni (8d10) (+6,+12)
-------------------------------------
Slays animals.
Provides resistance to shards.
Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
Slows your metabolism.


Min Level 17, Max Level 109, Generation chance 5, Power 183, 7.0 lbs
Random polearm of power 183.

and NO off-weapon brands or slays in the entire set.

[Grotug]

Lately been finding lots of staves of speed in my games so I tend to take advantage of what the dungeon gives me. While it is a strain on precious equipment slots, it allows me to save speed potions, which in my general experience are rare enough that it's hard to stockpile a lot for the final fight.

I spoke of my fights with Sauron and Morgoth interchangeably because they were similar fights, but of course I fought them separately. I didn't fight MoS with Morgoth.

My experience has been a few times that Sauron and even M are more dangerous Uniques as compare to the top Uniques, but not in a whole nother category by themselves, but that's how it was in that last game. For comparison, I had started whacking away on a small s that I thought was an unusually tough skeleton ettin or something, when I realized it was Catoras I just kept going. He died without a fuss and I didn't even need to heal; which was the case with lots of tough uniques: I marginalized them, so going into the final two fights I thought I was gonna walk over the two final bosses, but instead got a whole lot of trouble from them right off the bat that was really quite a shock. That's a good thing, though. Nothing should ever be certain when fighting those two.

But, yeah, M really surprised me. At 1199HP I was really expecting to get in a lot of rounds before I'd need to heal or ?phase, but I'd hardly get in two or three, sometimes only one. It was nuts. Grond was doing work.

[Derakon]

Speed potions aren't abundant for many players, and since they're immune to charges drain, players that can't cast Haste Self will tend to hoard them for the final fights, and rely on rechargeable staves of speed as much as possible otherwise.

[Sky]

well thats useful to know. i generally do not carry staves of speed (but rather speed potions if i cannot cast speed) because of how much staves weight, because potions are more abundant, and because i rarely have an extra empty slot for them. but now that i know i can stack the speed effect, i'll drain them when i find them. 8 charges should be 20+ 1d20 + (5x7=35) turns, at base +20 that's a fair bit of exploration.

[PowerWyrm]

You just stack the duration, although it's pretty much pointless as you only get 5 extra turns each time you stack haste. But yes, since Morgoth drains charges, you'd better empty a staff of speed and drop it before the fight than letting him heal from the remaining charges.

Concerning Morgoth + Sauron, I bet it was the "mouth" of Sauron, not the actual guy.

[Estie]

did you somehow manage to fight sauron AND morgoth at the same time ??

waait WHAT ???? did i read that right, does haste from staves STACK ??

At the same time would be impossible of course.

There was discussion about letting haste duration stack, but if I am not mistaken it wasnt implemented. He simply used all hastes to get his staff empty.

[Sky]

did you somehow manage to fight sauron AND morgoth at the same time ??

waait WHAT ???? did i read that right, does haste from staves STACK ??

[Grotug]

Oh man, I wondered once if you could get dam on armor. My understanding it wasn't possible. How about damage, speed, telepathy, pBlind, pConf, DexSustain, *CON* and a whole bunch of resistances? Yes please! And let's give it heal (500) activation while we're at it.

Blue Dragon Scale Mail of Rodos (+1, +7) [12, +29] <+6> <+5> <+1>
resists: fire, acid, elec, cold, light, dark, chaos. pBlind, pConf, Telepathy, FrAct and sustains DEX, which means I can juggle around my gear for even more damage by putting a shield of speed in place of Preservation and donning "Weaponmastery in place of my current amulet of pConf. Ohhhh yeahhhhhhh.. Will have to post a char dump once I get all the gear ready for Sauron.

+6 CON
+5 Speed
+1 Light

the (+1, +7) makes up for all my gloves of thievery lately (+7, +1)

Been finding great stuff in chests in last several games; and this one was on DL96, so I was pretty excited to open it. Though I have all those resistances already covered and my current +5 speed armor has better AC, but this one is lightweight, so +1 effective speed right there and the Heal is good, too.

I'm doing a cool 1100 to Undead, Demons, Dragons and 625 to evil with a swap, but my Undead/Demon/Dragon is only 25 shy of that at 600 to evil, and its dam is at 8! I've boosted it form 5, but it'd be nice to get it to 12. And I haven't even finished optimizing my equipment for damage. All resists, except pStun and Shards. All this with a base speed of 33. Could theoretically swap out a ring of speed <+14> for a ring of dam (+12) but probably not worth it.

EDIT: I died fighting Morgoth. Both Sauron and Morgy rapidly summoning all hell and quickly I I was overrun. Against Sauron I ended up phasing around an oval room so had to teleport away. It didn't seem to make sense to destruct (not that I could get Sauron or Morgy in LOS for TO) as they both summoned so many so quickly it just felt like it'd happen again. I thought I was safe from LOS against morgoth and was trying to maximize my heals so I healed up to 620 with a !CCW but Vecna mana stormed me after Morgy bashed my head in a few rounds. Last two battles against both bosses have been quite a bit harder than other games in the past. Just when I was beginning to think I was getting the hang of fighting Morgoth. It's sort of frustrating as I had 1199 max HP, and yet he was crushing me down to 600 in like three rounds, while summoning the worst of Angband. The friendliest foe he summoned was a Vampire Lord. I did forget to deconstruct the start area, not that I ever do that. I usually just let M do the deconstructing. Oh well, it's boring if I win all the time. I ended up wearing two rings of damage in the end. Was doing 769 vs evil before multiple buffs bringing me up to 782. Pretty sure it's the most damage I've done to M but his summons sure were giving me hell. Before I hit the stairs I hastened myself with 3 staves of speed (15 charges) when they emptied I recharged them 9 times (only one blew up). So I hasted myself like 30+ times before I hit the stairs to fight him. I was at 32 speed the whole fight.

[Sky]

as requested:
Evaluating artifact attempt ********
Artifact index is 99
the Rapier 'Margol' (+9,+20) [+17] <+3, +6, +2>
Slay and brands: firex2 lightningx2 acidx3 undeadx5 dragonsx5 demonsx5 giantsx3 trollsx3 orcsx3 animalsx2 evil creaturesx2
best power is : 200
to damage power is 50, power is 50
dice power is 8, power is 58
extra blows multiplier is 232, power is 290
extra blows divisor is -232, power is 58
slay power is 8, power is 66
slay slay bonus is 8, power is 74
brand brand bonus is 5, power is 79
slay brand bonus is 4, power is 83
kill kill bonus is 8, power is 91
all kills bonus is 20, power is 111
to hit power is 13, power is 124
to armor power is 17, power is 141
15 for intelligence, power is 156
30 for wisdom, power is 186
24 for constitution, power is 210
total modifier bonus is 9, power is 219
7 for sustain dexterity, power is 226
6 for protection from fear, power is 232
6 for see invisible, power is 238
8 for free action, power is 246
1 for blessed melee, power is 247
multiple misc ability bonus is 4, power is 251
3 for ignore acid, power is 254
1 for ignore electricity, power is 255
3 for ignore fire, power is 258
1 for ignore cold, power is 259
5 for acid resistance, power is 264
6 for electricity resistance, power is 270
6 for fire resistance, power is 276
6 for cold resistance, power is 282
28 for poison resistance, power is 310
6 for light resistance, power is 316
multiple base resists bonus is 16, power is 332
all base resists bonus is 10, power is 342
multiple high resists bonus is 8, power is 350
effect power is 7, power is 357
FINAL POWER IS 357
New depths are min 56, max 127
Power-based alloc_prob is 15
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ARTIFACT COMPLETED
Number of tries for artifact 99 was: 37