Late-game

[kineahora]

Rod of healing is useless when you have 5% fail on heal spell, ?phase, and !rMana. At that level paladin is essentially unkillable unless overwhelmed by summons.
I actually disagree that HA SoS is a good endgame weapon for a paladin. Yea, you get +25 damage from blessed weapon bonus. But +attacks and free dlay evil from spell is better.
Congrats on the win!

Haha!! I was worried with your points, but turns out he was right about the SOS HA--the character was just massively strong with choice of permanent 4.1 speed or permanent 3.7 speed with Vilya, PDSM, and I think the key was actually Gondor. Immune stunning is a rare and *super* helpful ability, to the point I prefer crowns of serenity over most artifacts. I find stunning to be a mini version of Confusion that really you want to avoid.

As for "unkillable" I had two max or near-max other paladins die on me by being foolish with various pits or summoners. Even this super-fast monster of a character who had the balls to single-combat Wiruin, nearly died a few times. Get caught offguard by a Greater Balrog breath or take too many mana storms by mistake and its curtains.

One YASD was deciding to take on a Maiar pit and one of them shape-shifted to quaker master of earth and gravity was involved...

Regarding greater undead and maiar pits: That is why Banishment was invented :-)

Back to weapons in standarts: dont sleep on the Lance of the Eorlingas--it's big. And also the character who had the unfortunate run-in with the maiar pit had Aglarang, which is especially good for paladins when you use Slay evil or Demon Bane spells. But one thing: since I find my paladins using Single combat and healing massively often which are very expensive on mana, its very nice to have a weapon that doesn't require slay evil... So this feeds into your point on extra blows: well yeah if i had found a MOD or SOS with +2 blows sure.. but I didn't have one of those...

[Egavactip]

Excellent. One of the main aims of the monster list revamp in 4.2 was to make sure the idea of "Angband is just Moria with 50 more levels tacked on" was properly dead and buried. I remember frequently seeing advice that the way to play was hang around in the 30s and 40s, max your stats, and then dive straight to DL70 and scum for speed rings.

Now the way to play is to hang around the 50s and 60s, get all sorts of powerful stuff, then dive down to the bottom levels as quickly as possible, minimizing your time there, to get to 99 and 100 for the final battles.

[fph]

Now the way to play is to hang around the 50s and 60s, get all sorts of powerful stuff, then dive down to the bottom levels as quickly as possible, minimizing your time there, to get to 99 and 100 for the final battles.

50-60 is the new 30-35.

[Egavactip]

So in Standarts:

What does everyone consider an "endgame weapon" for killing the final two on a melee character (I usu play paladins on melee).

I used to basically wait for a really big weapon, like Ringil or The Hammer of Aule, or Deathwreaker.

On my current level 50 paladin who has 2x Speed ring +15 and Vilya, with PDSM, Gondor and some very nice other stuff like +9 elven boots, belthronding, Arkenstone and cambeleg--I had been using the Lance of the Eorlingas which seems better now than in the past with 2d17 +21 damage, and I found a Holy Avenger Scythe of Slicing with +22 damage that's a bit better. I've got top level equipment and a pile of big consumables like potions of *healing* and Life, Restore mana, scrolls of banishment and mass banishment, 2 rods of restoring and a stack of rod of TO.

You think Scythe of Slicing HA with big damage is good enough? I feel like a bit of a wimp waiting for the über melee weapon.

If I am a warrior or other fighting class, I want a weapon that will do at least 500 damage against them. With the newest version of Angband it is not that difficult to get a weapon that will do 600-800 damage against them, but sometimes you are unlucky. For non-fighting type who nevertheless have to fight the final two, I want a weapon that will do at least 400 damage.

[kineahora]

If I am a warrior or other fighting class, I want a weapon that will do at least 500 damage against them. With the newest version of Angband it is not that difficult to get a weapon that will do 600-800 damage against them, but sometimes you are unlucky. For non-fighting type who nevertheless have to fight the final two, I want a weapon that will do at least 400 damage.

Thx but too late I already won :-) :-)

Turns out I had a 680 point weapon and didn't realize that was plenty haha especially with a character with massive speed.