Ungoliant = unbeatable?

[schlosrat]

This may be a dumb question, but what's up with Ungoliant? As a clvl 50 ranger with artifact bows and branded mithril and seaker arrows every one of my shots is "ignored". Every single one. I've got all sorts of branded ammo, but nothing even touches her. Not Slay Evil (which she certainly is), not Fire, not Frost, and, well, obviously not Venom. I wouldn't expect Slay Dragon or Slay Demon to be particularly useful, but seriously, what gives?

I may be able to take her if I can get her in an anti-summoning tunnel and am willing to burn through the supplies. I'm already at a point where ring wraiths are not a problem when I can take them that way. But Ungoliant and Ancalagon are two I just TO if I see them. I have no clue what to do with either, and Ancalagon will slaughter me if I let him get close and stay there. These two make me hesitant to consider taking on M.

[judias]

Well, you said, the best option for some monsters is just TO away. If @ is strong enough you could battle them burning through your resources, just to be sure they don´t appear again, anyway they are not so dangerous as they can be easily avoided. For me top one dangerous uniques is wiruin as it is not detected by telepathy and it loves to appear in the worst moment and breath the exact element...

[Selkie]

The big secret to wiriun (who I also hate) is it doesn't move. That makes it very easy to ball spell of you abuse line of sight.

You have to make a decision with all the tough uniques (and I'd put the tarrasque at the top of the pile). Do I want to face them as well as Morgorth? The answer is generally no. I quite like killing uniques because I'm methodical and I like the high level loot drops

[Thraalbee]

No need to kill Ungoliant but it is most certainly doable. She is not that lethal but pretty quick (speed 20) and most important, she has strong armour (AC 240) and 13 000 HP so it will be a long fight unless you are ridiculously op. Also, she is immune to acid and poison but slay evil and lightning and frost works. Finally she has a darkness aura that can be annoying.

[Thraalbee]

... only Morgoth has more HP than Ungoliant, and Ancalagon is #3 with 10 000 hp, so you certainly picked the tough ones

[Grotug]

... only Morgoth has more HP than Ungoliant, and Ancalagon is #3 with 10 000 hp, so you certainly picked the tough ones

You mean #4; Sauron has 10,500hp.

Ungoliant isn't too bad because her attacks aren't particularly dangerous. I usually remove Wruin from my games from the safety of hockey stick positioning.

@Schlosrat, what are the stats on your bow?

[Thraalbee]

I don't see that in the latest release.
I use this https://thraalbee.azurewebsites.net/monview/ but checked the lib/editfiles/monster file and it looks like 8000 to me

[Pete Mack]

Ungoliant has 13000 hp, so it will take a while. And yes she will ignore even branded ammo for quite a while. With verbose messages, you should also see "burn" and "freeze" messages (but no poisoning.)

[schlosrat]

I spoke too soon - she's dead now.

I think maybe it was the RNG playing tricks with me - Each time I'd face her I'd keep getting messages that she was ignoring my attacks as I flung arrows at her. Seeing her advance and bread really annoying blockers while her health bar stayed green and unaffected by my shots just rattled me so I learned to just TO her on sight. This last time she surprised me in a large room and I had a good stack of lightning arrows as well as some fire, so I finally noted my shots hitting. This time I TO'd her minions and just kept letting her have it. By the time it got to melee she was down to about 1/3 health. The whole fight sucked up fewer resources than I'd thought it would - I just needed to man up and face her.

I'm shooting with Belthronding (x3) (+20, +22) <+3 DEX, +1 stealth, +1 speed, +10 shooting speed>

i'm swinging the Great Hammer of Aule (18d1) [+5] <+4 WIS, +8 tunneling> - so it's got Slay Evil and is branded with acid making it less than optimal for this particular fight but great overall.

My STR and DEX are ***

Now the Terasque and Ancalagon I'm still running from - not sure how to take them on.

[ewert]

As ranger, the cheesiest way to kill non-tunnelers is a diagonal what I'd call archery practice tunnel. Basically you tunnel diagonally about 10, then one to the side, creating the hockeystick LoS abuse trick for the whole duration the mob is approaching you. Create it in a far away location, create the same hockey stick on the other side, phase door, rinse repeat ...

If you are careful and not surrounded, just a diamond tunneled (positions 2468 tunneled in a "numpad" pattern) and overspeeding (haste on you slow on them) will let you eventually whittle them to death as well, pillar dancing works with bows well as a single shot takes less energy if you have multi shots. However, with some breathers you will risk any arrows on the ground.

There is cheese tactics in the game that kinda tend to be needed to fight with some classes, unless you are willing to splurge on consumables.

[Sphara]

You have the best bow in the game and about 2nd or 3rd best weapon in the game. So damage-wise you're set if you really want to kill the Tarrasque and Ancalagon.

For Tarrasque you wanna have double-resistance for both fire and cold, or preferably both immunities. And definitely rDisen. Drop wands and staves somewhere safe if you're going to melee him and use ewert's tactic above. Tarrasque doesn't have rAcid so Aule-hammer will cut nicely. If you use Belthrondig, remember that he can destroy arrows on the floor if you let him breathe fire. And he likes to breathe, he does! Ranger has access to lots of arrows but definitely don't waste big Holy Might/Slay Evil ones for Tarrasque.

Aule has *slay* dragon -brand. So for Ancalagon, I'd speed up, rack up all the base resistance I got and pillar dance him with the hammer. Ancalagon has massive HP and AC and but it's not gonna take that long with big *slay* hits. You can boost +hit with prayer scrolls and heroism. Same arrow warning applies what I said above.

[PowerWyrm]

The Tarrasque is in fact much easier in the latest version, as it will breathe fire to create lava and then breathe cold and turn these lava tiles to rubble, breaking LOS, allowing to use shoot & hide tactics if you have a good shooter.

[Estie]

Those high uniques are pinatas when youre cruising in the lategame with great equipment; if you are struggling and just want to win asap, its best to leave them alone - might as well kill the big two with what little resources you have.

[Jay]

As a clvl 50 ranger with artifact bows and branded mithril and seaker arrows every one of my shots is "ignored".

That's how some of the big bads respond to damage — Ungoliant, Morgoth, et al "ignore" it when you hit them, even if you're doing damage, but you are still doing damage. It's just how their reaction to the damage is described. Morgoth in particular only acknowledges that he's being hurt right at the end of his life; for a long time, he "ignores" you and after that, all you get out of him is a sneer.

I don't know if it's still true in the latest version of the game but it used to be that one of the user interface options (accessible via the "=" key, then by choosing "a") is to show the damage your player deals to monsters. You might want to turn that on, if you can, so you can verify that you are hurting them even if they're such badasses that they're ignoring it.

[Nick]

Oh you icky things, don't you know you're driving your mamas and papas insane…

Best sig ever