dayum, a streak of luck

[Sky]

luck so stronk i need to report it.

1) i found a wand of drain life on DL1 (feeling 3-7)

2) i found a ring of damage +10 on DL9

3) longbow of power (i'm a ranger) +17 dmg on DL10

4) want of TO, and pike of westernesse on DL22, after an unfortunate identify-by-reading Deep Descent.
Also by unfortunate identify-by-reading i quaffed a *healing* while in town. meh.

all legit. no save scumming.

[chknflyrice]

Get some TS and a ton of PD and dive!

[Sky]

ok, DL 23 or 24, not sure, were generous enough to give me FOUR potions of brawn. following derakon's advice, i quaffed all four, and now i have DEX 17, STR 18/70 and CON (still) 16.

i'm on DL25 and it's a 8-5 feeling. i've covered most of the level already but i can't find the 8.

[Sky]

well, damn.

i learned the rune of "rune of protection".

thank you, scroll randomly dropped by a troll on DL25. very useful.

[gglibertine]

Just fired up a long-deceased dwarf priest after a long time away from the game. On DL1 I get LF 1-8.

Please don't fall through a trap door.
Please don't fall through a trap door.
Please don't fall through a trap door.

[gglibertine]

Found a splendid weapon that gave me +2 DEX. Went downstairs until my backpack was full and I had enough gold to ID everything I'd picked up. Got back to town and the magic shop has no staves of ID and there was only one scroll of ID to be had. It's a Morning Star of *Slay Orc* (2d6) [+5, +8] <+2>. Which is very nice, but I'm not sure if it covers the 8, so now I'm afraid to sell-ID the potions and scrolls...

[Sky]

This ranger died long ago. I was absent-mindedly cleaning a golem pit and forgot they have a colossus/titans in the middle.
Im now a CL40 HE mage with redonkolous gear, but cant find a combination that gives me rNether and CON200.

[gglibertine]

There's always that one resist you can't quite find, isn't there?

On DL11, Orfax just dropped The Pair of Leather Boots of Mondir (2, +10) <+4>, giving me +4 DEX, +4 Tunneling, and +4 Speed, plus free action, sustained DEX, and resist acid. God, how I love randarts. I guess the streak of good luck is running in my direction today!

[Sky]

so, i spent an hour trying to make a build, but nada.

yes, i am a mage so i should just mage. but i also found a great axe 11d4 , +16, +2 attacks, and TWO cloaks with brands, one lightning and one weak fire.

so i can pimp myself and do 900 dmg melee (550 vs non-lightning), but no nexus / nether resist.

or i can get ALL resists + fire immunity, AND the big axe (470 dmg vs all) but only CON110, which is about 400 hp instead of 700.

or i can just sweg with max con, max dex, max int, STR110 and a sweet dagger +8 spd, all resists ... but 190 dmg melee. oh, and no rBlind.

i know .. i'm a mage. i should mage.

EDIT: before even posting this, i found a sweg short bow that basically seems to have been built for me. rNether, rNexus, +5 INT, +3 CON. huehueheu.

[Pete Mack]

Resistances are not really required, and with standard artifacts you rarely will get full coverage. Nether damage in particular is a luxury: it is uncommon, and max damage nether damage is extremely rare. High damage is limited to Osse (550), Carcharoth (550), and Dracolich (504). The next nearest is Nightcrawler (406), then the various nether ball attacks, limited to 250 damage for Morgoth. Hold life is really enough.
A hold life necklace swap is enough; I prefer Sustenance, but Evenstar is arguably better.

I like a sustenance swap as a mage, because I like clearing undead pits. You can banish the Black Reavers (and other liches), and melee all the passwalls as they arrive.

[Sky]

yeah, so, we were talking earlier about Xp penalty ...

i cleared 3 DL and went from CL40 to CL41 ... including two pots of XP and two uniques (witch-king and hoarmurath). still have spell failure on mana strike .. incidentally .. i found kelek's, FINALLY, considering i found 4-5 wrath of god.

[Pete Mack]

Mana storm is overrated. It becomes useful ridiculously late, and is suitable only for the bosses, and only if you reach cl 48 or so. Find a way to use chaos strike and rend soul.
Use Ice Storm or Shock Wave to stun foes. Use meteor storm and rift against undead--they don't have a lot of HP. And keep every wand of Drain Life and Annihilation that you find. Those are the absolute key to killing big targets.

Stay away from big non-unique demons, unless you have a top notch shooter and suitable branded ammo. There's nothing more miserable than trying to bring down a Pit Fiend with Meteor Storm.

Of course, if you find a Mod of Gondolin, and your CON is high enough from off weapon bonuses, everything changes. (Or you find Thunderfist or Deathwreaker.)In that case, everything changes: hunt down vulnerable deep monsters and use Rune of protection and melée.

[Sky]

rune of protection has this thing where, i melee the mob, the mob moves, and my previous keypress moves me off the glyph ... like, *every* time.

[Pete Mack]

OK, I spoke too soon about Mana Storm. IF you have INT 220, it becomes useful at cl 44, where it takes over as the most efficient damage spell (Chaos Strike still is marginally better through CL 45, but is limited to uniques.)

But still, my character is at CL45, and is easily ready to kill Sauron and Morgoth.

As I mentioned in a different thread, try stunning instead of Rune. Further experimentation showed the limit of usefulness is around a horned reaper: it did 500HP in damage in straight melee, with me just scratching it to death. Even a greater titan did essentially no damage.

[Sky]

well, first things first: i just found The One Ring, in a mini-vault on DL97.

i tried to kill the tarrasque earlier, i had him in one of those vaults where it's just one line of solid walls that zigzags around. i lined up a whole bunch of glyphs, threw 700 mana and a huge stack of arrows at him, but could not get him down past half hp, and i used up 6 !heal and 1 *heal.

now he's chasing me around. there's still a whole bunch of uniques left, Arien, Osse, Glaurung, Ancalong and Kronos are alive. The Phoenix and a couple low level uniques are also still out, but it's just a matter of finding them.

Then there's the Tarrasque, Huan, Carcharoth, which honestly, i was planning to simply ignore / teleport away... forever.

And finally i got Feagwath, Vecna and Gothmog, all of which i tried fighting several times, but had to bail out because they like to summon a ton of stuff that gets in the way of my spells / arrows.

I say arrows because i carry circa 160~200 around, but my launcher does sub-300 dmg. I do find them useful however for clearing rooms full of smaller mobs, and for some reasons they have been more effective against Ringwraiths than my spells.


I'm thinking of going back to DL80, grinding until CL50, and then wearing The One and whopping ass.