Mages & Heal

[z118]

After getting my first clean win with a dwarf priest, I opted to start over as something different - a high elf mage. I ws doing alright and seemingly adjusting nicely, but I'm at exp level 36, dungeon level 46 and having a heck of a time. If I were a priest I would be sitting pretty because I would have that nice 300hp heal prayer. But my mage doesn't seem to have anything comparable, so I'm stuck carrying around potions of heal which are hard to come by. What do mages usually do for healing? Is there a decent heal spell to be had?

[Marble Dice]

You can use Cure Light Wounds in book 1 for fairly efficient healing. You should also be carrying a fat stack of Potions of Cure Critical Wounds. Both options probably require you to phase away and spend a couple turns regaining HP. Deeper in the dungeon, look out for staves or rods of healing.

[Nick]

What do mages usually do for healing? Is there a decen heal spell to be had?

Instructions.

[z118]

You can use Cure Light Wounds in book 1 for fairly efficient healing. You should also be carrying a fat stack of Potions of Cure Critical Wounds. Both options probably require you to phase away and spend a couple turns regaining HP. Deeper in the dungeon, look out for staves or rods of healing.

Cure light wounds or cure critical wounds don't heal more hp than most deep creatures can do in a turn. So even though I can cast of quaff all day long I'm not gaining enough HP in a turn to get me back to a safe level. Phasing away seems risky too as I could wind up across a room or down a hall and still be open to a breath attack.

I miss being a priest.

Is dwarf priest the easiest character to win with or what?

[fizzix]

Cure light wounds or cure critical wounds don't heal more hp than most deep creatures can do in a turn. So even though I can cast of quaff all day long I'm not gaining enough HP in a turn to get me back to a safe level. Phasing away seems risky too as I could wind up across a room or down a hall and still be open to a breath attack.

I miss being a priest.

Is dwarf priest the easiest character to win with or what?

You have to phase or duck away around a corner first. Cast phase to get out of line of sight, heal, reenter line of sight and continue slugging away. Phase is great in destruction zones or twisty corridors, but useless in rooms, so pick your battleground carefully.

You should be doing most of your damage by missiles or spells unless you've found an awesome weapon. So fighting in corners where you can duck or phase away when something gets close to you should work.

[awldune]

Teleport Other is your friend. Get rid of what you were fighting, then heal via CLW spell or CCW potions. Then go resume the fight wherever your opponent ended up.

Always have a scroll of Destruction or Teleport Level for when you are really in trouble.

[Zikke]

Rods and Staffs of Healing are what you're looking for. In the end-game when things can drain charges, the rods will shine. And you can also use Greater Recharging to bring up a stack of Staffs (almost 0% fail with multiple staffs in the stack).

If you find yourself outside of LoS for a few turns, spamming Cure Light Wounds will get you up for cheap mana. I used both of these techniques recently in killing Morgoth using no consumables. Effectively endless heals.

Also there are several artifacts that activate for Healing or various levels.

[Nightmarjoo]

Do you have the resistance book yet? Constant resistance/shield means you don't have to heal for the most part. And just avoid things that could damage you anyway. I had a hobbit mage at 4900' with 173 hp or something, just relying on those two spells (along with tself, tother, haste, etc) and it won.

[buzzkill]

Does anyone else think that it's odd that mages get CLW, and worse yet in spell book #1.

EDIT: I'm not saying they don't need it (or that they do), it just seems wrong to me. Priests suck with bows, why not give them magic missile?

[Zikke]

Does anyone else think that it's odd that mages get CLW, and worse yet in spell book #1.

Until they find items of healing, it's all they have. At least warriors have lots of hp... I think mages have the hardest low level survival of any class.

[PowerDiver]

Until they find items of healing, it's all they have. At least warriors have lots of hp... I think mages have the hardest low level survival of any class.

They can always buy !CLW if they want it.

Mages should not get any healing spell, ever. A mage with 0% fail is better at healing than a paladin.

[o-o]

Is dwarf priest the easiest character to win with or what?

I found Dwarf Paladin pretty amenable, but a Dunedain Priest/Paladin seems like it might be even easier.

[Atarlost]

That may not be a terrible idea. It'd be nice to be able to be able to kill floating eyes and molds by a method other than throwing stuff. The DPM on magic missile is too high though. Maybe instead a spell that actually provides a temporary boost to ranged to-hit. Or maybe the ability to bless oil for increased damage and accuracy.

[Derakon]

Magic Missile's damage efficiency is high because it needs to be to allow the mage to kill things with magic right out of the door. If you don't want that to be the case, then sure, replace it with something else, but personally, I don't want to have a mage that has to rely on missile weapons (or, heaven forfend, melee) in the early levels. It's un-magey.

[Atarlost]

Until ranged weapons get fixed the priest's inability to use them effectively is a bigger weakness than a mage's lower hitpoints. That goes away with Orb of Draining, but a first book ranged spell would make certain annoying things less annoying. For them simply porting over magic missile is too good. It would give them all game plinking capability against non-evil targets.