Am I safe to dive?

[fyonn]

A question - I'm perplexed as to what the point of dispel evil and dispel undead are. Surely with dispel evil at least, OOD is always better - with double damage against evil monsters and burst effect it actually does more damage and hits more targets for less mana than Dispel Evil?

OoD is almost always better against single targets or small clusters, but when a high level cleric walks into an orc/troll pit and can destroy the entire contents in three spells, it's kinda satisfying...

with giant pits you really need to lure the titan out first, and with dragon pits you ought to pul any wyrms out first, but after that you can then blast the remainder of those pits with dispel evil too.

dispel undead works the same except that it's cheaper and only affects undead (obviously). fine for a cluster of ghouls, but as said, don't even try to take reavers with it. you'll just p*ss them eff

dave

[Timo Pietilä]

When you do target, hit 'o' to target off the monster (standard keyset). Then you can pick a piece of floor that is behind the mold leaving the mold itself "just" out of range, but hitting everything in the ball's range behind the mold.

That isn't always possible (for example corner of a dungeon right behind the bad guy), and it also means that I hit the monster with very small damage instead of full spell damage.

[Dawnmist]

For that exact reason I have sometimes hoped to get some "ball spell" that affects only center of the target, so that those escorts/summons would be into baddies way longer. Kind of like having death mold blocking the corridor and baddie behind it. Hit the baddie with whatever you have trying to keep that death mold alive as long as possible. Helps even against distance-attacks if you are in corner where you can duck to cover and heal while baddie is stuck behind that death mold.

When you do target, hit 'o' to target off the monster (standard keyset). Then you can pick a piece of floor that is behind the mold leaving the mold itself "just" out of range, but hitting everything in the ball's range behind the mold.

[Derakon]

What would you say to changing magic missile so it never beams, but is instead a radius-0 ball? Just to throw that thought out there.

[mattdp]

OoD: Orb of Draining, one of the few priest attack spells. It fires a ball effect that is unresistable and deals double damage to evil monsters. The damage also scales with your level, so it remains fairly effective for a goodly period of time.

OoD: Out of Depth, when a monster or item shows up before it's supposed to.

Which one is intended, you can generally glork from context.

Ah, but if you're monster scumming and using the spell to wipe out white worm masses on Dlvl 1, does that mean you're using OoD OoD?

[Timo Pietilä]

Yes, the huge tactical advantage of the ball spells is that they're indirect fire. When you have, say, a unique with escorts, and the escorts are no major threat, you can drop ball spells centered on the unique. The escorts often hamper his motion, so you can get a nice start on wearing him down while also taking out some of the escorts.

For that exact reason I have sometimes hoped to get some "ball spell" that affects only center of the target, so that those escorts/summons would be into baddies way longer. Kind of like having death mold blocking the corridor and baddie behind it. Hit the baddie with whatever you have trying to keep that death mold alive as long as possible. Helps even against distance-attacks if you are in corner where you can duck to cover and heal while baddie is stuck behind that death mold.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Yes, the huge tactical advantage of the ball spells is that they're indirect fire. When you have, say, a unique with escorts, and the escorts are no major threat, you can drop ball spells centered on the unique. The escorts often hamper his motion, so you can get a nice start on wearing him down while also taking out some of the escorts.

This also works with summoners. The monsters they summon, creates a shield...so start dropping the ball spells right on top of them, if what they summoned doesn't dictate some other immediate tactic.

[d_m]

Ah, thanks. I've been playing this game on and off for years, and it looks like I totally misunderstood the LoS rules the entire time. I assumed a monster blocked LoS to the square behind it, but your description suggests not. If that's the case, then the point of this spell becomes clear

Most of the beam spells (and archery) do work like you described, but most of the ball spells (e.g. OoD, stinking cloud, etc) allow you to place the ball wherever you want.

If you set the base delay setting to something non-zero you can actually see ascii animations of the beam/ball, which help figure out what happened.

[mattdp]

If you enter a pit through the wall *opposite* the door, using stoneToMud, you can get in before any monsters go into the moat, and dispel evil will hit 90+ monsters.

Ah, thanks. I've been playing this game on and off for years, and it looks like I totally misunderstood the LoS rules the entire time. I assumed a monster blocked LoS to the square behind it, but your description suggests not. If that's the case, then the point of this spell becomes clear

[Timo Pietilä]

OoD: Orb of Draining, one of the few priest attack spells. It fires a ball effect that is unresistable and deals double damage to evil monsters. The damage also scales with your level, so it remains fairly effective for a goodly period of time.

It is effective enough that I have killed M several times using only it. At 7 mana and radius of 3 and nearly 200 point damage at center against evil at clvl 50 it is very effective against groups of monsters, wiping out weak summoners etc.. It also used to destroy cursed items making ID a bit easier for priests, but that is no longer the case.

With that radius it actually hits monsters that are beyond your LoS, which sometimes makes possible to kill creatures that are dangerous but "do not chase" you and/or have shorter detection range than your LoS by hitting them with splash-effect at safe distance. Takes forever against larger opponents, but is doable.

[Derakon]

OoD: Orb of Draining, one of the few priest attack spells. It fires a ball effect that is unresistable and deals double damage to evil monsters. The damage also scales with your level, so it remains fairly effective for a goodly period of time.

OoD: Out of Depth, when a monster or item shows up before it's supposed to.

Which one is intended, you can generally glork from context.

[ramier]

I'm new around here. What's OOD?

[PowerDiver]

A question - I'm perplexed as to what the point of dispel evil and dispel undead are. Surely with dispel evil at least, OOD is always better - with double damage against evil monsters and burst effect it actually does more damage and hits more targets for less mana than Dispel Evil?

If you enter a pit through the wall *opposite* the door, using stoneToMud, you can get in before any monsters go into the moat, and dispel evil will hit 90+ monsters.

Dispel undead is a horribly cursed spell that tempts you to try the same thing with a graveyard. Resist the temptation.

[mattdp]

Thanks for your advice. Both very useful and appropriate as my constant tossing out of OOD ran into trouble against my first Drolem.

Beat it as suggested by filling a corridor with glyphs and shooting at it with that monster bow.

I'm surprised melee is viable at this stage with just two attacks and a ceiling of four at best. But I'll give it a try and be careful. I'll feel a lot happier once I get access to the best healing spells.

A question - I'm perplexed as to what the point of dispel evil and dispel undead are. Surely with dispel evil at least, OOD is always better - with double damage against evil monsters and burst effect it actually does more damage and hits more targets for less mana than Dispel Evil?

[Timo Pietilä]

Actually, I just wanted to play with the neat character dump tool:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10319

This character is really new territory for me. Not in terms of depth but firstly because he's the first non-paladin I've had that's gotten to any kind of meaningful depth and secondly because he's been so absurdly lucky with high resists on Elvenkind items. I've not done stat gain and I've already got all the most important high resists covered: RPois, RConf and RDis if I need it, plus telepathy.

At 2000' I'm finding it idiotically easy to OOD everything in sight. So I decided to start diving rather than waiting for more stat potions which was become very dull. Am I safe (or indeed wise) to carry on diving without maxxed stats or am I asking for trouble here?

Yes and no. You need to know what you are facing. Avoid all faster-than-you monsters that look even remotely dangeous. With that in mind diving is better strategy than staying and waiting for stat-potions.

After you find good weapon I find it easier to just melee everything using defensive preparation spells and 0% failure healing when needed. Runes of protection are especially useful in melee against creatures that do not have extreme distance attacks. Prepare a corridor with those, lure monster in, melee until rune breaks, step back to another, continue melee.

Most feared melee-monster with your speed would be Grand Master Mystic. One round against that and you are dead. Several of the Dragon-family and few others can also kill you in single turn against your speed.

So be careful, but dive. High stealth helps a bit.