So I managed to get a Dwarven Priest ("Hippy") to DL99 - not cleanly, mind, the game was heavily save-scummed. But anyway...
Things were interesting for a while. I was diving rather ridiculously fast, dungeon level 70-something when Hippy was in the mid-30ish character levels.
I eventually quit (for good) after a dozen or so bouts with Sauron. Basically he had too many HP, I was not doing enough damage, it got into lengthy battles of attrition for which I lacked the resources. Mostly this involved repeatedly hitting macro keys, and teleporting away a minute later after running out of consumables. Things like Glyphs of Warding, and anti-summoning corridors, seemed to make little difference; you just need looooots of consumables for Sauron, and probably even more for Morgoth.
Interestingly, while Sauron was mostly just annoying to fight, two uniques were actually really dangerous. The first being Cantoras, the second being the Tarrasque.
Once I realized the Tarrasque could breath disenchantment on me for instakill damage, I just teleported it away whenever it showed up. Cantoras, OTOH, I went out of my way to avoid. Something about his spell flags makes him prone to spamming whirlpools, which at +30 speed is quite dangerous.
Vecna OTOH was more in the category of Sauron - a blasted nuisance with a lot of hitpoints...
Anyway my main thought on the final fights is: they need fewer HP, and a more dangerous assortment of spells. Morgoth I didn't get to, but Sauron should be thrilling, not boring.
...
Over the game I noticed some other stuff too:
- Artifact weapons are mostly not very good, as far as Priests are concerned. Too heavy, not enough damage or hit chance. Heavy ego weapons seem to be better, but unfortunately I had been squelching them for some time...
- Related: does the edged weapon penalty actually do anything at high levels? I was wielding Durin's axe for a while (until to got disenchanted), and never noticed anything serious.
- Disenchantment attacks are nasty! I hadn't realized artifacts could be completely disenchanted in V, and that so many monsters hit to disenchant. It'd be nice if the Alchemist stocked enchantment scrolls like in ToME 2, for restoring disenchanted weapons.
- Speaking of which: the Bow of Amras was cool, until it got disenchanted. Bows do a heck of a lot of damage.
- Likewise, for a while (mid-levels) I was keeping offensive rods around. In ToME they're useless due to hitpoint inflation, but most of them are pretty good in V. Especially Lightning and Acid Ball rods.
- I was rather anxious to find a copy of Wrath of God, but it turned out to be pretty useless aside from the *Destruction* spell. In particular, Annihilation is awful - barely more damage than Orb of Draining, only one target, almost ten times the cost, and doesn't work on most monsters. I'd rather have Orb of Draining duplicated in the book as the first spell.
- Priestly healing, OTOH, is amazing. You can just wade into herds of Ds and Us, tossing Orbs about and whacking things and occasionally healing.
- Then again, there's not much reason to tackle super-powerful monsters. Deep in the dungeon, drops from weak monsters - trolls, giants, less powerful dragons, and whatnot - are almost as good, and much less risky.
...
Overall: I'm kind of torn on the grindy nature of the game.
On the one hand, it's kind of cool to wander about taking on pits and whatnot, wondering what will turn up next.
On the other, it's not so cool to need to keep doing that, on and on, because you don't have good enough items for the final fights.
Personally I feel like the game should allow grinding, but not encourage it, and definitely not require it.
Maybe I'll try Sil next...
Things were interesting for a while. I was diving rather ridiculously fast, dungeon level 70-something when Hippy was in the mid-30ish character levels.
I eventually quit (for good) after a dozen or so bouts with Sauron. Basically he had too many HP, I was not doing enough damage, it got into lengthy battles of attrition for which I lacked the resources. Mostly this involved repeatedly hitting macro keys, and teleporting away a minute later after running out of consumables. Things like Glyphs of Warding, and anti-summoning corridors, seemed to make little difference; you just need looooots of consumables for Sauron, and probably even more for Morgoth.
Interestingly, while Sauron was mostly just annoying to fight, two uniques were actually really dangerous. The first being Cantoras, the second being the Tarrasque.
Once I realized the Tarrasque could breath disenchantment on me for instakill damage, I just teleported it away whenever it showed up. Cantoras, OTOH, I went out of my way to avoid. Something about his spell flags makes him prone to spamming whirlpools, which at +30 speed is quite dangerous.
Vecna OTOH was more in the category of Sauron - a blasted nuisance with a lot of hitpoints...
Anyway my main thought on the final fights is: they need fewer HP, and a more dangerous assortment of spells. Morgoth I didn't get to, but Sauron should be thrilling, not boring.
...
Over the game I noticed some other stuff too:
- Artifact weapons are mostly not very good, as far as Priests are concerned. Too heavy, not enough damage or hit chance. Heavy ego weapons seem to be better, but unfortunately I had been squelching them for some time...
- Related: does the edged weapon penalty actually do anything at high levels? I was wielding Durin's axe for a while (until to got disenchanted), and never noticed anything serious.
- Disenchantment attacks are nasty! I hadn't realized artifacts could be completely disenchanted in V, and that so many monsters hit to disenchant. It'd be nice if the Alchemist stocked enchantment scrolls like in ToME 2, for restoring disenchanted weapons.
- Speaking of which: the Bow of Amras was cool, until it got disenchanted. Bows do a heck of a lot of damage.
- Likewise, for a while (mid-levels) I was keeping offensive rods around. In ToME they're useless due to hitpoint inflation, but most of them are pretty good in V. Especially Lightning and Acid Ball rods.
- I was rather anxious to find a copy of Wrath of God, but it turned out to be pretty useless aside from the *Destruction* spell. In particular, Annihilation is awful - barely more damage than Orb of Draining, only one target, almost ten times the cost, and doesn't work on most monsters. I'd rather have Orb of Draining duplicated in the book as the first spell.
- Priestly healing, OTOH, is amazing. You can just wade into herds of Ds and Us, tossing Orbs about and whacking things and occasionally healing.
- Then again, there's not much reason to tackle super-powerful monsters. Deep in the dungeon, drops from weak monsters - trolls, giants, less powerful dragons, and whatnot - are almost as good, and much less risky.
...
Overall: I'm kind of torn on the grindy nature of the game.
On the one hand, it's kind of cool to wander about taking on pits and whatnot, wondering what will turn up next.
On the other, it's not so cool to need to keep doing that, on and on, because you don't have good enough items for the final fights.
Personally I feel like the game should allow grinding, but not encourage it, and definitely not require it.
Maybe I'll try Sil next...
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