Final descent

[Quirk]

Cuindor, the same character I asked advice for earlier has made it all the way to 950.

I'm standing above the final stairs down to Morgoth himself.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=18912

I've got quite a bit of experience banked. Not sure what to spend it on: Majesty and Elbereth? Archery? I've never fought Morgoth before. What do I need to prepare for?

[wobbly]

The most common way is slaying, sharpness, woven themes. Buff, herb of rage.

Edit: If you're not trying to kill Morgoth Elbereth/Sharpness should also work but you'd still have to fight a heap of big serpents. It'd be a harder path.

[taptap]

In the throne room take your free action greaves, buff up incl. rage, walk down singing song of slaying (put more than minimum points into song, it helps your maximum bonus get higher), leave floor lighting here and there and with slaying bonus you should rapidly defeat most attackers, injure Morgoth, grab a Sil and leave. (You should be able to get a Sil with e.g. Glend even without sharpness while buffed.)

If you want a stab at killing Morgoth, your best bet is probably Slaying + Sharpness, but both woven themes and song of sharpness got nerfed since 1.1. Even if you try to kill him, give yourself a limit when you will leave.

If you look for an additional ability momentum and/or rapid attack may be useful. You have enough strength to get full benefit from both when buffed (while using Galadriel). Crowd fighting is probably a good choice as well as you will be fighting surrounded by choice.

[Quirk]

Thanks. That did it. I had just enough experience to take Slaying, Sharpness and Woven Themes.

I forgot about the lamps in the end, which was a bit embarrassing. I couldn't seem to make enough of a dent in Morgoth to actually register on his health bar, so I ended up running away with a Sil I'd prised out with Glend. Then of course I didn't have any Staffs of Revelation so I ended up wandering about trying hopelessly to find stairs up with Morgoth chasing after me. Riposte made things amazingly easier than they would have been otherwise as I kept having to plow through crowds of enemies. Luckily I had many Potions of Quickness.

I tried to kill Carcharoth at the end but the poison was stacking up quite fast and I thought it best just to get out with my Sil.

[taptap]

I tried to kill Carcharoth at the end but the poison was stacking up quite fast and I thought it best just to get out with my Sil.

Why you tried with Glend instead of Galadriel (Galadriels higher evasion would have done the deed imo)?

[wobbly]

With melian's ring grabing focus & standing still with galadariel would probably be better damage output too. Still, a wins a win so Glend is fine.

[Quirk]

Why you tried with Glend instead of Galadriel (Galadriels higher evasion would have done the deed imo)?

I started with Galadriel. My attack was a bit below Carcharoth's defence (-4 with Galadriel, -5 with Glend), so getting to connect at all was a bit lucky, and connecting well enough to hit with Subtlety was far from guaranteed. I also had a horde of orcs pouring out behind Carcharoth who would have surrounded me and reduced my evasion even more if I'd taken too long.

So, I went to Glend because getting a guaranteed 3d10 seemed likely to do damage faster than relying on Subtlety at -4 against Carcharoth's evasion, and because taking too long to kill Carcharoth could have got me in trouble. It's possible that singing Slaying and eating a herb of rage once they got closer was correct, but as the poison started mounting I decided it wasn't worth being too fancy on my first run.