Advice wanted: Priest vs. Gabriel/Azriel

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Gabriel is a PITA for most classes, to be sure. Priest is hell on wheels against the evil uniques, but the old reliable, OoD, is realllly slow against him. Then he just pops his summoning, and you've got more and more problems. When I took him down with my mage, it was using Mass Banishment to strip off the buddies, and the spells from Raal's to keep him at least a little off balance and/or in poor position.

Azriel is usually similar, but he doesn't summon quite as much; he seems to like his nether and mana bolts more. Fine, that doesn't worry me; priests are great for taking care of damage.

So general suggestions would be welcome.

[dhegler]

I think I just took him down with my priest... I made some anti summoning corridors, would beat him up with my randart bow +3 shooting speed, some OoD, some melee. I would heal when I needed to via Heal spell, and use Teleport other on some of his summonings if needed. It definitely took a bit of time, but it wasn't that bad... Potions/staves of speed were used too...

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I have a personal, philosophical dislike of randarts, so I can't do that...but an anti-summoning region would do it. I do more mages than priests.

Thanks.

[Derakon]

Anyone with +3 shooting speed should have their class changed to "machinegun", since it doesn't really matter what other things they can do at that point.

[awldune]

I put off killing them until I get ready to fight Sauron/M. By that time you should have a very good shooter and plenty of +15 ammo. Might also be worthwhile to save up wands of Drain Life / Annihilation.

Meanwhile, just keep teleporting them away! They don't tunnel or pass through walls, so it shouldn't be too big a problem.

[Hariolor]

If you have speed at least +20 or so, and endgame-quality damage (>150/blow) from either or both of your melee and ranged weapons, you should be fine. Part of it is also luck, of course. If you can land a full round of blows while he's sleeping, and then another round or two before he decides to summon, that can be enough to get him very very low, or even kill him off completely.

I've found there is a threshold at which the Angels seem to go from really difficult to rather easy. Probably because they start showing up way sooner than I'd usually like to fight them...

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Definitely don't have 150/blow damage in melee. Shooting...I'm using Bard, which I love cuz dragons are still my #1 nastiest foes. But no exceptional arrows. And, yes, I met up with him this morning on L57...way earlier than I would prefer.

I didn't teleport him away, I just teleported myself away. The level feeling was pretty low, so I was debating whether to just drop down to the next level or not, and saw Eol in another room. Unfortunately, the route to that point was convoluted enough, and had enough obstacles, that Gabriel was able to track me back down before I could finish him off. After trading a few not-so-friendly insults at each other, I just said, forget this noise...the NE corner where I tried to fight him the first time, has like 5 archangels, and the SE corner where Eol was, had Gabriel and several more summoned buddies. My teleport didn't get me anywhere near any stairs...the level didn't have many at all...so fine, I'll Teleport Level. Better a live hyena than a dead lion.

[Pete Mack]

You can't use OoD on Angels. Use either melee (with Glaive of Pain or other big-dice weapon) or archery. You don't need an ASC for them, since the only really dangerous non-unique angel is the Archon. A limited LOS hallway is plenty for angel uniques.

In any case, I often leave these two guys alive, and just hope M doesn't summon them.

[Zikke]

If M summons them, can't you just teleport M away and WoD or ?*Destruction* and they're gone forever on that level? Leaving a few uniques alive before M isn't a big deal generally.

[fizzix]

If M summons them, can't you just teleport M away and WoD or ?*Destruction* and they're gone forever on that level? Leaving a few uniques alive before M isn't a big deal generally.

no dice

if you destruct them, they can be resummoned.

[Zikke]

In my experience, M casts "Summon Unique Monsters" rarely. Most of the time it's dragons and demons. Maybe that's just my RNG

[Pete Mack]

The trouble isn't how often he summons uniques; it's that he does it at all.
Once the level is heavily populated with summoned monsters whom you have previously teleported away, it just takes one unique summons to leave you with the choice of
* Phase door
* Teleport self
* Teleport Level/*Destruction*, and start from scratch
* (Mass) Banishment, and hope the uniques don't kill you
* Banish evil, and hope Gabriel's entourage doesn't kill you

This usually comes down to the first two options, and in either case you have a significant (~10%) chance of dying.