YASD - No luck with Half-orc Mages

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I'm having a terrible time keeping a half-orc mage alive. To begin with, I'm pathetic at playing mages - definitely my worst class. And these race combinations aren't helping! http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=18231&ok

Argh! Back to zero! Half-orc and Half-elf are the only classes I have left to get a win with every race/class combo. I think it may take awhile....

[Derakon]

Dreads are among the more dangerous enemies in the game -- fast, easy to wake up, move through walls, STR drain, nether bolts, and to top it all off they come in groups. Looks like you were heavily overburdened at the time of death, which doesn't help any.

I'd suggest using more wands instead of rods. There's numerous attack wands that can help out at those depths. The Recharging spell should be strictly better than scrolls of Recharging (so long as you don't need to cast it in a hurry, of course). Your potions of Heroism would probably be better-replaced by some CCW, since you shouldn't care much about being frightened anyway (i.e. why be in melee range?). That Ring of DEX should probably have been a Ring of STR for more carrying capacity or a Ring of INT for better spellcasting. And while Wrath is a fantastic melee weapon, it's also heavy (as I recall, isn't it 30 pounds?) and the only important passive it gives is See Invisible, which you should be able to find in a lighter form elsewhere.

Sucks you died; you had some nice stuff. Better luck next time, I guess.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Dreads are among the more dangerous enemies in the game -- fast, easy to wake up, move through walls, STR drain, nether bolts, and to top it all off they come in groups. Looks like you were heavily overburdened at the time of death, which doesn't help any.

I'd suggest using more wands instead of rods. There's numerous attack wands that can help out at those depths. The Recharging spell should be strictly better than scrolls of Recharging (so long as you don't need to cast it in a hurry, of course). Your potions of Heroism would probably be better-replaced by some CCW, since you shouldn't care much about being frightened anyway (i.e. why be in melee range?). That Ring of DEX should probably have been a Ring of STR for more carrying capacity or a Ring of INT for better spellcasting. And while Wrath is a fantastic melee weapon, it's also heavy (as I recall, isn't it 30 pounds?) and the only important passive it gives is See Invisible, which you should be able to find in a lighter form elsewhere.

Sucks you died; you had some nice stuff. Better luck next time, I guess.

Yeah, Dreads are ... dreadful.

Note @ was NOT overburdened. The recent change of having burden and overweight information in the Character screen (I assume in order to shorten the inventory information line) can be a little confusing until you get used to it. "Overweight -54.7 lb" means @ still has 54.7 lbs of room BEFORE being overburdened. I.e., once the number is positive, then @ is overburdened. C.f., speed is listed as "Normal".

I'll have to consider the wands advice. At this low CL, I think you may be right. ?Recharging was a find, might as well carry it and use it while I had it. Plus, aren't the scrolls better until the mage's failure rate with spells improves? I know wands can be better than spells for a time until the failure rate and level catches up and surpasses the wand. Isn't the same true for scrolls?

Already used up all the !CCW @ had. !Heroism were leftovers. Was wearing a =Strength in addition to the =Dexterity. You take what you can get, and the combination provided more damage than the =Damage in @'s home.

@ had Careth Asdriag at home, and while Wrath is heavier, since @ had the room for weight, damage amounts were almost equivalent, and Wrath did provide See Invisible, I opted for Wrath. Also, against Dreads it was a better weapon than Asdriag, not that it mattered. I didn't even want to fight the dreads. The double failure on the Teleportation staff did me in. @ was swarmed and couldn't escape.

Probably am diving too deeply for my pathetic playing ability with mages. Oh, how I long for playing a Half-troll Warrior. So much easier!

[Derakon]

Note @ was NOT overburdened. The recent change of having burden and overweight information in the Character screen (I assume in order to shorten the inventory information line) can be a little confusing until you get used to it. "Overweight -54.7 lb" means @ still has 54.7 lbs of room BEFORE being overburdened. I.e., once the number is positive, then @ is overburdened. C.f., speed is listed as "Normal".

Ahh, okay, that changes my advice then because I was trying to figure out ways you could reduce your load.

I'll have to consider the wands advice. At this low CL, I think you may be right. ?Recharging was a find, might as well carry it and use it while I had it. Plus, aren't the scrolls better until the mage's failure rate with spells improves? I know wands can be better than spells for a time until the failure rate and level catches up and surpasses the wand. Isn't the same true for scrolls?

Recharging has two kinds of failure. The first is simply failure to cast the spell, like you can fail to cast Magic Missile -- you get charged SP but nothing happens. Of course scrolls avoid that kind of failure. The second is blowing up the device instead of recharging it. I haven't checked the actual rates for the latter but I'm pretty sure that a mage casting Recharging will always do at least as well as the scroll does.

Probably am diving too deeply for my pathetic playing ability with mages. Oh, how I long for playing a Half-troll Warrior. So much easier!

Heh. The other thing you could be doing, of course, is leaning really heavily on archery. You had a nice heavy crossbow there; that plus casting Phase Door a bunch should be able to kill lots of enemies. Really you died here because (I assume) you weren't aware of the Dreads before they were on top of you; that's a detection failure, not really a tactics failure.

What I wouldn't be doing is relying on melee to kill anything remotely threatening. Mopping up chumps is one thing, but when playing as a fragile character, melee is to be avoided at all costs.

[krazyhades]

(IIRC, and maybe you already know this) worth noting that since the mage bonus to device damage is based on how much higher your clvl is relative to the device's native depth, the wands get more bonus damage earlier than their rod versions, which combined with no-cooldown gives the real push to the mage wand game.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Really you died here because (I assume) you weren't aware of the Dreads before they were on top of you; that's a detection failure, not really a tactics failure.

What I wouldn't be doing is relying on melee to kill anything remotely threatening. Mopping up chumps is one thing, but when playing as a fragile character, melee is to be avoided at all costs.

Yep. Didn't know the Dreads were there until it was too late. Well, too late with double failure on teleporting out of there. You dive fast, you take your chances.

I do probably melee too much, although I do try to keep my distance when playing mages. Unless and until they get super-powerful and if they have some fortunate equipment combos. Then mages become a favorite - a Battle Mage!

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Nach IV, Half-orc Mage http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=18233

Fourth attempt with a half-orc/mage. (Well, actually more than that, but I didn't bother recording the ones that didn't make it very far.)

CL33, DL40, ST 60463. Just took out the unpronouncable "Q" in a small vault on DL40. He was 46 levels out of depth! Didn't drop much useful though. Took him out by spamming Magic Missiles. Had to rest thoroughly once to restore SP, then spammed him again.

CL41, DL98, ST 87514. Had a problem with Meteor Swarm apparently not causing fire damage to an Elder Vampire. No worries though... took him out with Fire Balls. Found Narya a couple levels ago, and this level has been fantastic. Found Kelek's AND Deathwreaker! Things just got interesting! With no intention of jinxing it... this time the half-orc mage might make it!

CL43, DL98, ST 91461. Have been hanging around on DL98 and DL97 trying to get experience and hit points up. Found Sting a little while ago and have been swapping it with Deathwreaker, playing the Aggravation game. BUT - just quaffed !Enlightenment on a "Superb" treasure feeling... The One Ring is here! If I can get it this @ definitely has good odds! I think I'll basically banish everything in sight until "Precious" is weilded!

[Ingwe Ingweron]

CL44, DL99, ST 93444. Sauron falls! Morgoth, here I come!

CL44, DL100, ST 93775. Deathwreaker and The One Ring made for an unbeatable combo. Morgoth summoned a lot, but being a Mage that wasn't a problem. Destructed an area and then fought him standing on a rune of protection. Used up Holy Might bolts first, as they did the most damage, then bludgeoned him with Deathwreaker. A true Battle Mage! In the end, @ had just phased away from a broken RoP to heal up (and quaff a !restore life levels to get the full experience for killing the Big Boss). Morgoth came around the bend with only one "*" left. Battle Mage Nach IV may have become, but being a mage, he cast Mana Storm and Morgoth was toast!