I'm disappointed with the Priest class, what's so great with Priests??

[Nemesis]

All Angband players seem to love the Dwarf Priest combo, so I decided to find out what the fuss was all about. I decided to go with the Dunadan race instead of the Dwarven, but I guess that shouldn't change gameplay in any way worth mentioning.

I've reached clvl 24, but I'm very disappointed. The Orb of Draining spell is very nice, but except for that I have yet to find any advantages over versatile classes like Ranger and Paladin. As I said I'm clvl 24 and I also have 18/98 in Wisdom and still I can't cast any spell with 0% fail rate, not even Cure Light Wounds! I thought pure caster classes got 0% fail in cases where fighter/casters had 5% risk of failing!

I feel a bit cheated when I compare Ranger magic to Priest magic. Rangers get Word of Destruction before Priests, Rangers get Stone to Mud, Rangers get Detect Monsters rights from the start (and can thus avoid hounds, drolems and the like), Rangers get Haste Self and Rangers get a much better Elemental Brand spell!

And what do Priests get that Rangers don't?! Ord of Draining is nice, but Rangers are probably more deadly when it comes to attacks from afar (not to mention close combat!). Healing? Sure, that's conveniant but not necessary. Rangers can kill most regular enemies without needing to heal if they resist their attacks and use terrain to their advantage, and they'll find enough healing potions to take on the uniques. Clairvoyance and Detection are neat though, but as you can't see artifacts based on their armour rating and hit dice anymore in the latest version of Angband, those two spells have lost a bit of their charm.

Rangers shoot better, fight better and cast better spells. What do you think? Are Priests overrated?

[Pete Mack]

At cl 24 (25?) You also get a 300 point healing spell that lets you fight indefinitely.
As for 0% fail, you need 18/200 total WIS, including from equipment.
I agree that priest starts out fairly weak, but he becomes unstoppable later in the game.

[Zikke]

My priest wins were the easiest wins second only to my mage.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=9866

Unlimited cheap heals. Unlimited glyphs. Restoration and Rememberance spells help. Alter Reality and Clairvoyance makes finding the perfect gear really easy.

I love priests. Try a Half-Troll priest if you want more durability and melee power; they can still get 0% fail and really aren't fair.

[Derakon]

You're comparing priests to rangers, which are by far the most broken class currently. So yes, a priest is going to be weaker than a ranger.

[Sirridan]

Not to mention a 0% 1000 hp heal too.

Also clearing monster pits in seconds with dispel evil. (m4d n n )

[fyonn]

yes, 300hp and 1000hp heals, which you can get to 0% rocks.

dispel evil is great for taking out troll pits and rooms of orcs.

enchanting missiles to +9,+9.

restoration and remembrance stop you hauling pots of restore stats and lifelevels around. you can beat some of the nasty undeads down to one star, cast remembrance and get all the XP.

ethereal openings has lots of nice options for escape. I've tried to take on gabriel and azriel a couple of times each recently and had to use teleport level to escape properly (until the next time).

For me, priests allow me to take on nasty monsters by digging a decent length ASC, fill it with glyphs (except for a couple at the monster end), prot-evil, prayer, haste, dig the last square, back up a couple of spots to the first glyph and invite the nasty in to play. with extremely limited line of sight, it makes it much harder for uniques to get me out and I can wail on them until they break the glyph, and then I just step back and start again.

I recently took thurinwethil down like this and she only hit me about 8 times. I even took out the AMHD behind her without pausing to rest.

Also as the baddie is right next to you, they're much less likely to breathe at you but if and when they do you've then got a variety of options to heal. typically CMW, heal or healing depending on the urgency. you want to keep your HP above the damage cap's of your opponents.

dave

[Derakon]

Also as the baddie is right next to you, they're much less likely to breathe at you...

False! Each time a monster gets a turn, it chooses between casting a spell (which includes breath attacks) or moving towards you. If it tries to move onto your space, then it does a melee attack instead. Standing next to enemies doesn't cut down on their breath attacks (or spells) in the slightest.

[Nemesis]

In my other game, where I'm an High Elf Ranger, I tried to take out a pit full of greater demons with a staff of Dispel Evil, but it just didn't do enough damage. Is Dispel Evil more powerful when cast by a Priest (maybe it gets deadlier each time you level up)? Or is Dispel Evil designed for killing mid-level monster only? If so, are there other damaging spells that Priests can kill monsters with later on?

Also, I guess you're right that I just find the Priest weak because I'm used to playing Ranger. Compared to Warriors, Priest probably have a much easier endgame. I also believe it might take some time to get used to the different playing style of the Priest. Rangers are stealthy and quick to do massive damage, while Priests probably are much more defensive.

By the way, are Priests more fit for aggrevating equpment than Rangers? Troll and Dwarf Priests aren't very stealthy to begin with and I guess Priests are better at making strong stands that can take on hordes of enemies, while Rangers seem better at quickly dispatching (or just avoiding) them.

EDIT: Fixed some bad grammar

[PowerDiver]

You should go argue with those folks who think priests are so overpowered they want to nerf orb of draining.

Regarding dispel evil, demon pits are too tough. Heck, balrogs should be uniques only, not a dozen in a pit. I use it to mostly clear orc, troll, giant, and dragon pits, but not graveyards or demon pits. The spell in PB9 is stronger than the one in PB4, but I was never tempted to try it on a demon pit at the depth you find PB9.

[fyonn]

False! Each time a monster gets a turn, it chooses between casting a spell (which includes breath attacks) or moving towards you. If it tries to move onto your space, then it does a melee attack instead. Standing next to enemies doesn't cut down on their breath attacks (or spells) in the slightest.

hmm.. I thought that it was trying to melee you but being stopped by the glyph? how then does it break the glyph but by trying to melee you?

maybe I've been relatively lucky not being breathed upon too often in that situation?

dave

[Zikke]

Each time the monsters attempts to move into your space (i.e. melee you) it rolls to see if it breaks the glyph (which is affected by its level, but I don't know if it's affected by the number of physical attacks it has or its speed).

It can decide to breathe on you from an adjacent space; you must have been getting lucky.

[Derakon]

Chance to break glyphs is simply mlvl in 550. So Morgoth has a 1 in ~18 (WRONG; see below) chance of breaking a glyph every time he tries to move onto it (that seems kinda low to me...). The logic for this is in monster/melee2.c and the odds are given by BREAK_GLYPH in defines.h.

[Zikke]

In my experience, M breaks glyphs about 1 time in 3 or 4. Far more than anybody else

[Derakon]

...how did I get 1 in 18 from mlvl in 550? Apparently because I divided 100 by 5.5. Whoops. I blame allergies and being sleepy. Anyway, the actual odds for Morgoth are 100 in 550, or 1 in 5.5, meaning that Morgoth breaks glyphs about 18 percent of the time. He's only slightly better at it than Sauron (monster level 100 vs. 99) but most monsters are level 50-80 or so, giving them break rates of 9-14%. A Snaga (monster level 6) would only break glyphs 1% of the time.