Nearly there but always die

[Derakon]

Fight in a destructed area -- I suggest going in with a Staff of Destruction (or the spell, if you have access to it), using it once, then stowing it in a corner somewhere (because Morgoth can drain charges with his attacks). The destruction will restrict enemy LOS without putting you in a corner. Because Morgoth is the fastest enemy in the game, you can get away from his summons by just using Phase Door and waiting for him to catch up -- his summons will fall behind and thus won't be (much of) an issue, especially since you're generally only one or two steps away from blocking LOS on everyone. If things start getting crowded because of repeated summons, teleport Morgoth away and then use another Destruction.

Banishment and Mass Banishment are rare, but scrolls of Destruction are reasonably common; if you hoard them for the endgame you should be able to collect 5-10 of them, which should be enough.

[Oramin]

If you aren't in a hurry ('cause, y'know, Morgoth ain't goin' anywhere), Banishment/Mass Banishment aren't that hard to find. I'm already stockpiling them in my home with my Paladin and he's on L48 or so. The Black Market sells them and if you have the ability to completely map out a level and see all items on it (such as provided by the Arkenstone or one of the Priest spells), you can locate the scrolls down on L97/L98 while prepping for the last two Uniques.

I'm not saying my way is the fastest or the best way, but each time I've fought Morgoth in 3.3.2, he's died fairly easily.

[Timo Pietilä]

I dont know. Morgoth´s melee isnt his most fearsome weapon. It looks like you attacked while too low on hp, instead of healing.

Actually, with double crush from earthquake that is the most damaging attack Morgoth can do. IIRC something like 700 points of damage if all hits land. Doesn't usually happen though because attack pattern is supposed to stop when earthquake displaces the player. Only way for it to continue is that there was no space for player to be displaced to.

[Estie]

Actually, with double crush from earthquake that is the most damaging attack Morgoth can do. IIRC something like 700 points of damage if all hits land. Doesn't usually happen though because attack pattern is supposed to stop when earthquake displaces the player. Only way for it to continue is that there was no space for player to be displaced to.

How much is the crush ? His damage is listed as 20d10 20d10 10d12, which is about 300 on average if all 3 hit. The theoretical maximum of 460 is not very interesting here since it is very unlikely to happen; you want to keep some ~600 hp at the very least though in case he uses manastorm, more depending on what else is around.

That being said, I have never tried fighting him in the corner.

[Derakon]

The relevant code is in spells2.c's earthquake() function.

* Each tile in the affected radius has a 15% chance to be "damaged". If the player is in one of these tiles, then...

* The game tries to find a safe (i.e. unoccupied) tile adjacent to the player that they can be moved to.

* If there are no safe tiles at all (i.e. the player was completely surrounded), then the player takes 300HP damage and remains in place.

* Otherwise, the player is moved to a random adjacent open tile. Additionally, 2/3rds of the time the player takes 10d4 damage and is stunned; the remaining 1/3rd of the time no damage is taken.

This is slightly complicated by the fact that the open tiles exclude tiles that were predetermined to be damaged by the earthquake. In other words, if you have one "free" adjacent tile, but that tile passed the 15% chance to be damaged, then it is no longer free. Odds of taking the "heavy crush" damage then are .15 ^ (number of adjacent tiles + 1):

Adj    crush rate
  0    15%
  1    2.25%
  2    .338%
  3    .05%
...

Note that for monsters, similar logic applies except that they have more limits on dodging (e.g. sessile monsters can't dodge; monsters that can move through or eat walls don't care; nothing can dodge onto a Glyph of Warding). Also, if they're completely surrounded, they just get removed from the level (as per Banishment or Destruction); otherwise they take 4d8 damage. Oh, and they wake up.

In any event, the worst case for Morgoth's attack on the player is if the player is completely surrounded:

* 2x 20d10 earthquake attacks each with 300 bonus damage for 500 damage apiece (1000 total)
* 1x 10d12 drain-stats attack.
* Total 1120

As long as you keep one open tile next to you (that is not itself damaged by the quake), instead your max would be:

* 2x 20d10 earthquake attacks each with 10d4 bonus damage for 240 apiece (480 total)
* 1x 10d12 drain-stats attack.
* Total 600

And of course the bonus damage can only ever happen 15% of the time per blow, or 10% if you have an open space (because of the 1/3rd dodge rate). And in the second case (where you dodge), since you get moved by the attack, Morgoth's attack ends, so he doesn't get to follow up with his other melee attacks.

[Timo Pietilä]

The relevant code is in spells2.c's earthquake() function.

* If there are no safe tiles at all (i.e. the player was completely surrounded), then the player takes 300HP damage and remains in place.

IE in this case as you can see from the messages crushing happened twice. That's 600 points on it's own, + 2*20d10 which gives average of 820.

This is the reason why fighting Morgoth inside tight spot in GV is not that good idea even that it does limit his capability to summon monsters considerably.

Using runes/glyphs makes melee easier.