YACD - What to sell, dwarf warrior

[perdaniel]

First of all: A big hello to everyone on the forum.

I have started my first character in years. This is my first character on 3.2.0. Being careful after a long hiatus I have dived slowly. On my last trip I found a vault-like formation at 1600' that I have not seen before. It was full of traps and out-of-level monsters, but it also had many good items and two artifacts: The Cloak of Thingol and The Short Bow of Amrod. My home is already full of stuff and need some advice on what I should use, what I should keep, and what I should sell.

Silly me, forgot the link to the ladder!

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=11527

[Derakon]

Welcome back!

We aren't going to be able to give much advice without a character dump. Either post it here inside of [ code ] tags (so it uses a fixed-width font), or post the dump to the ladder so we can take a look.

Somewhere around version 3 a lot of vaults got added. The game used to have only about 10 lesser vaults and 4 greater vaults, and now there's more like 70.

[Raxmei]

Surprised that you're still using the sling as your shooter. Even stranger that you have tons of random ammo in your house. Hoarding fast recovery mushrooms is pretty strange. You are never ever going to wear the ring of accuracy. Any reason why you're using the Elvenkind shield instead of Celegorm? You're keeping around two different resistance armors when you also have Arvedui. Pretty much any of your artifact weapons will beat your tulwar for damage, and Osondir or Barukkheled will let you keep see invisible.

[Derakon]

Celegorm gives rDark / pBlind; the Elvenkind shield gives +2 stealth. The darkness resistance is irrelevant at this stage, and protection from blindness isn't that awesome, while stealth is pretty handy. Though his stealth still stinks.

Punch in Amrod as your shooter. If nothing else, the STR/CON boost and regen are worth it. It also will have better range than your sling.

Gotta agree with Raxmei about your weapon. Westernesse gives nice abilities, but its damage is poor -- 280 vs. most enemies. Osondir is almost strictly better than it. You lose some CON but you'll be doing 430 damage against most enemies at your depth, and 310 to those that resist fire. Actually, use Theoden as your base weapon, and swap in Osondir when you need to deal with invisible monsters. Theoden's ESP will save your bacon, since as a warrior you have no other useful monster detection.

Otherwise, looking good!

[Raxmei]

Yeah, the list of things that are invisible and undetectable by either telepathy or infravision is pretty short. ESP takes care of the ghosts who are the main invisible threat. Back when I was in a similar situation the biggest nuisance from having ESP and not see invisible came from not being able to see quylthulgs from a distance, followed by sporadic encounters with clear mushroom patches.

[Pete Mack]

Yeah, ESP is a huge win. You really should be using a swap weapon for melee and Theoden for walking around. It's a totally different game; you will feel comfortable down to 2000' easily. (Just stay away from Kavlax, AMHD, and Drolems.)

[dos350]

@raxmei, lol nn2accuse of being strange rofl

[Remuz]

You forgot to mention that drolems cannot be detected by telepathy. (unless this changed recently). Still, ESP is a huge life-saver, but it is important to remember to be careful even if nothing shows up in your radar.

Also, I am surprised that no one mentionned consumables. 69 potions of !CCW is a lot, a stack of 10 is enough, imho. Also, you basically have no mean to escape a threat. Since you have no confusion resistance, you might prefer a staff of teleport over scrolls, which can be used when confused, the downside being that you will not have 0% failure rate on it (scrolls never fail). I would take
- 10 !CCW
- 1 -tele
- 10 ?teleport, for when I am not confused
- a few ?teleport level or ?deep descent
- if I have room for it, 10 ?phase door, those are useful when you are not in real danger but want to get away in an adjacent corridor (think gelatinous cube)


Also, others might disagree, but I would take those !healing and !speed with me. Sure, those might be more useful later on, but you will be very sorry if you die with those at home. Better make use of what the game throws at you now, than make long term plans that might be moot anyway.

Take my advice with a grain of salt, still trying to get a win.

[perdaniel]

Surprised that you're still using the sling as your shooter.

I haven't been using ranged weapons much, and have just kept using slings because the ammo for them was so plentiful. I have now changed to Amrod, and even with (+0,+0) arrows it killed monsters much faster.

Even stranger that you have tons of random ammo in your house. Hoarding fast recovery mushrooms is pretty strange. You are never ever going to wear the ring of accuracy.

What can I say, I am a hoarder. I have sold the mushrooms, the ring and all ammo for slings and crossbows.

Any reason why you're using the Elvenkind shield instead of Celegorm?

Do you mean besides being clueless? ;-)

You're keeping around two different resistance armors when you also have Arvedui.

Should I be using Arvedui rather than Thalkettoth? Or keep it for a time that I might need it?

Pretty much any of your artifact weapons will beat your tulwar for damage, and Osondir or Barukkheled will let you keep see invisible.

Ok, I'm using Theoden and carrying Osondir. Thanks for all the help.

[Derakon]

Use Thalkettoth -- the +3 speed is very useful, you have the base resists on your shield, and nexus is covered by your boots. However, it's worth keeping Arvedui in case you find a shield that doesn't cover your base resists, like, say, Thorin.

As I noted, Celegorm vs. Elvenkind isn't a no-brainer. That +2 stealth makes you about 50-70% more stealthy. Of course you're not very stealthy right now, period, but slowing down the rate at which monsters wake up is usually a good thing. It mostly comes down to how strongly you dislike being blinded. Remember you can clear up blindness by drinking a Cure Critical Wounds potion, and as Remuz said, you should really be carrying a lot of consumables. I usually go for 15 each of CCW and Phase Door, in addition to a staff of teleport, wand/rod of teleport other, and scrolls of teleport level.

Also, no need to worry about hoarding until you run out of space in your home.

[Raxmei]

He doesn't need the resist blindness anyway because he's playing a dwarf. I just don't normally think about stealth. Agreed about staying with Thalkettoth and just keeping Arvedui around. Its most important feature is the basic four and those are all already covered at least twice over by the character's other equipment. Switching now wouldn't gain him any resists and his strength is already maxed. Finding Thorin or perhaps Haradrim was the case I was thinking of.

[perdaniel]

Found Thorin

He doesn't need the resist blindness anyway because he's playing a dwarf. I just don't normally think about stealth. Agreed about staying with Thalkettoth and just keeping Arvedui around. Its most important feature is the basic four and those are all already covered at least twice over by the character's other equipment. Switching now wouldn't gain him any resists and his strength is already maxed. Finding Thorin or perhaps Haradrim was the case I was thinking of.

I have been down to 2000' thanks to all the good advice from you and the others here I Found a large (21x37 I think) vault on 1950', but I survived, and killed several AMHD and various uniques in the process. I found 8 artifacts, and had to leave over 50 ego items in the dungeon on that trip. I just found Thorin at 2000', and wondered what you meant about Arvedui and Thorin in the qoute above. Here is a link to the ladder:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=11527

[Derakon]

Thorin is an awesome shield, giving excellent stat boosts and several useful abilities. However, you're currently getting all your base resists from your shield. Arvedui covers your base resists, so if you want to use Thorin, Arvedui makes more sense to use than Thalkettoth, unless you manage to cover those resists with a third slot -- like, from your bow, as you are now.

You look to be in very good shape now. The lack of poison resistance is a bit of a bummer, but you have enough hitpoints to survive a surprise blast unresisted. Just don't go exploring at less than full HP, and tread carefully if there's big poison breathers around.

[perdaniel]

The lack of poison resistance is a bit of a bummer, but you have enough hitpoints to survive a surprise blast unresisted. Just don't go exploring at less than full HP, and tread carefully if there's big poison breathers around.

Thanks for the advice. I guess I will just hang around at 2000' and look for something with poison resistance, maybe a ring of resist poison?

I just checked what my strenght would be if I took off my ring of strength +4, and to my surprise it was still 18/***, so I sold it. So now I have a finger to place a ring of resist poison on.

[Derakon]

Don't hang around at 2000'! That's boring, and boredom gets you killed. Just be careful when you dive.

Drolems don't show up on ESP, but they're also very rare (your average winner sees, what, four of them?) and not particularly alert. And you're faster than them. AMHDs don't come near the damage cap on poison breath, and I think the only other potential threats are Shelob, Ungoliant, and great swamp wyrms -- all of which show up on ESP and aren't particularly alert.

For reference, I don't bother grinding any depth for defensive gear. The most dangerous ability to do this with is free action; pretty much everything else you should be able to deal with until you "naturally" find gear that covers it, through greater or lesser feats of paranoia.