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My second win in 4.2.1. I'll puy my thoughts on the new paladin and spells in the Vanilla forum later. The game started very slowly, after a few easy level-ups having decent HPs and two blows with a light weapon, the journey to level 20 felt tough. I relied a lot on a crossbow and some bolts, and a Ring of Lightning for extra firepower. Around level 20, protection from evil started to be useful, and I found a Ring of Speed <+4> which tipped the balance. Being unable to detect Zs and vs and having to pick them off with a crossbow was frustrating though. Then some +5 boots of speed at 1350' and Til-i-Arc at 1400' put me at base speed +11 and the game started to zoom. Amras and a +3 WDSM of Speed (I don't think I've ever actually worn DSM before, always finding a better artifact armour before I find a decent DSM) took speed to +15.
A vault at 1950' gave me the Lance of Eorlingas which is a much better weapon than I'd ever realised. Around then I was able to quaff a bunch of contemplation and wisdom potions and get my SP from 70 to 257, at which point I could finally use those expensive spells. I didn't find any source of teleport other until I found a rod at 2450' and I was playing very nervously with only 355 HP (at level 36), had some close calls with my staff of teleportation.
Shortly after that Eol dropped Thorin which helped quite a bit and I finally had to buy a helm of telepathy from the shop as nothing with telepathy was appearing. After that everything was smooth diving, really; I found a better Ring of Speed <+12> in a vault at 3100'. Since I had decided I was going to try to kill Morgoth with Single Combat I didn't need to save Mass Banishment scrolls so I actually used some in the dungeon, which made some encounters much easier. Having spent the entire game up to that point with Bad stealth I decided to wear an Amulet of Trickery and I found some <+3,+8> Boots of Elvenkind which were faster than my existing BoS so I suddenly turned the corner to being stealthy enough not to wake most things. At 3750' I found a cloak of the Magi with ESP so I had the option to swap if I ever found a better helmet. At 4550' I killed Maeglin easily and at that point this felt like a winning character - especially since Maeglin dropped Vilya!! Glaurung dropped Doomcaller but it did less damage than Eorlingas vs evil so it was not tempting.
At 4650' I found my first GCV of 4.2.1 and it had an unidentified ring deep in the heart of it, and another Ring of Speed as well. Unfortunately the ring was Tulkas which was not worth replacing Vilya or a +12 RoS for and the other RoS was destroyed by a plasma vortex so I never found out. The vault also contained the Haradrim shield, Thalkettoth and Aglarang.
With Haradrim on and all the combat spells on, Eorlingas still does slightly more damage to evil than Aglarang or Doomcaller, and way more than Fundin or Anduril, so it was Eorlingas all the way.
After the GCV I just dived to 4950' and went for it. I didn't have Resist Nether and Sauron annoyingly kept nether storming, I went down to 90 HPs once, but it was still fine. I went for Morgoth with almost the same kit - swapped for +10 speed boots since stealth didn't matter any more (taking me to base speed +30 even with heavy potions) and I intended to swap in the Haradrim shield but I forgot. I also forgot to cast Bless or Heroism for the final fight. Single Combat is interesting - I'm not sure if it really does make the final fight easier. It makes it a bit more controlle I supposed but it felt like deprived of the opportunity to summon, and seldom having to move close to me, Morgoth did a *lot* of nether storms (still no resistance) and mana storms. It's much harder to get out of LoS to safely cast Heal; and fighting Morgoth the conventional way lets you phase door to gain a turn or two or teleport him away occasionally to regen a bit and cast spells in peace. I had to use 5 potions of *Healing* and 20 potions of Healing, although only one potion of Restore Mana and only one of Speed. I used one Mushroom of Vigor to restore stats (this game I didn't have any potions of Life, only ever found the one I quaffed to identity if). There were several points in this fight where I had to quaff a potion every action just to stay in the fight.
I never found a Rod of Speed nor a Rod of Healing (despite religiously hunting down every unidentified rod on a level). Never found a better helm or a better cloak. And this is the first game in 4.2.1 that I haven't found either Cambeleg or Cammithrim - I actually had several eq slots which could obviously be improved, but it didn't matter.
That's two low stealth, high-HP winners. Now for something different...
A vault at 1950' gave me the Lance of Eorlingas which is a much better weapon than I'd ever realised. Around then I was able to quaff a bunch of contemplation and wisdom potions and get my SP from 70 to 257, at which point I could finally use those expensive spells. I didn't find any source of teleport other until I found a rod at 2450' and I was playing very nervously with only 355 HP (at level 36), had some close calls with my staff of teleportation.
Shortly after that Eol dropped Thorin which helped quite a bit and I finally had to buy a helm of telepathy from the shop as nothing with telepathy was appearing. After that everything was smooth diving, really; I found a better Ring of Speed <+12> in a vault at 3100'. Since I had decided I was going to try to kill Morgoth with Single Combat I didn't need to save Mass Banishment scrolls so I actually used some in the dungeon, which made some encounters much easier. Having spent the entire game up to that point with Bad stealth I decided to wear an Amulet of Trickery and I found some <+3,+8> Boots of Elvenkind which were faster than my existing BoS so I suddenly turned the corner to being stealthy enough not to wake most things. At 3750' I found a cloak of the Magi with ESP so I had the option to swap if I ever found a better helmet. At 4550' I killed Maeglin easily and at that point this felt like a winning character - especially since Maeglin dropped Vilya!! Glaurung dropped Doomcaller but it did less damage than Eorlingas vs evil so it was not tempting.
At 4650' I found my first GCV of 4.2.1 and it had an unidentified ring deep in the heart of it, and another Ring of Speed as well. Unfortunately the ring was Tulkas which was not worth replacing Vilya or a +12 RoS for and the other RoS was destroyed by a plasma vortex so I never found out. The vault also contained the Haradrim shield, Thalkettoth and Aglarang.
With Haradrim on and all the combat spells on, Eorlingas still does slightly more damage to evil than Aglarang or Doomcaller, and way more than Fundin or Anduril, so it was Eorlingas all the way.
After the GCV I just dived to 4950' and went for it. I didn't have Resist Nether and Sauron annoyingly kept nether storming, I went down to 90 HPs once, but it was still fine. I went for Morgoth with almost the same kit - swapped for +10 speed boots since stealth didn't matter any more (taking me to base speed +30 even with heavy potions) and I intended to swap in the Haradrim shield but I forgot. I also forgot to cast Bless or Heroism for the final fight. Single Combat is interesting - I'm not sure if it really does make the final fight easier. It makes it a bit more controlle I supposed but it felt like deprived of the opportunity to summon, and seldom having to move close to me, Morgoth did a *lot* of nether storms (still no resistance) and mana storms. It's much harder to get out of LoS to safely cast Heal; and fighting Morgoth the conventional way lets you phase door to gain a turn or two or teleport him away occasionally to regen a bit and cast spells in peace. I had to use 5 potions of *Healing* and 20 potions of Healing, although only one potion of Restore Mana and only one of Speed. I used one Mushroom of Vigor to restore stats (this game I didn't have any potions of Life, only ever found the one I quaffed to identity if). There were several points in this fight where I had to quaff a potion every action just to stay in the fight.
I never found a Rod of Speed nor a Rod of Healing (despite religiously hunting down every unidentified rod on a level). Never found a better helm or a better cloak. And this is the first game in 4.2.1 that I haven't found either Cambeleg or Cammithrim - I actually had several eq slots which could obviously be improved, but it didn't matter.
That's two low stealth, high-HP winners. Now for something different...