More newbie questions - ~2000'

[Macavenger]

I've been playing Angband for a few months now, mostly HE Rangers. I enjoy the ranger archetype and figure it's probably best to learn on one of the "easier" race/class combos. I dabbled in save-scumming a bit at first but have since gotten away from it, and have now reached the point where I can pretty consistently reach stat-gain depth.

My problem so far is that I've been hitting a wall right around 1800-2200', with only my best kitted characters even making it to 2000, and none getting far past it. It feels like the biggest problem is that I'm not doing enough damage anymore at that depth. Most games I'm still using my original enchanted longbow by this depth and it starts to feel extremely weak around there. Basically any monster native to that depth is challenging to kill, and any of the summoning uniques (Lorgan, Ulfang etc.) are impossible, as there's no way I can chew through their summons and I'm not strong enough to go toe-to-toe with them in an anti-summoning corridor.

I had one character which did fairly well around that depth, which found Tenser's in a vault around 1000'. With branded ammo I was doing fairly well, which is part of what leads me to think damage is the problem. Unfortunately that attempt got smoked by a nether bolt from some unique I believe, which seems like another problem - rNether starts to feel needed around this depth to me, and I have yet to find it on anything, ever.

I've definitely made some silly mistakes contributing to a few of my deaths, and learned from them as evidenced by how much more consistently and quickly I've been reaching stat-gain recently, but it still just feels like I'm struggling to survive against anything at all beyond this depth because I'm not powerful enough. I've tried turning on the autoscummer for my last couple games, but it hasn't helped a ton.

I guess I'm somewhat wondering if I've been getting really unlucky so far, or if this is normal and I just don't yet understand how to handle this depth somehow. I've posted a dump of my most recent character here to hopefully get a little specific advice as I'm about at the depth I normally get myself killed at again. This is my best time in reaching this depth so far - used to take me 1M+ turns, but I've been gradually getting better.

• Lack of rPoison is probably my biggest concern right now, I'll likely be looking for that before I go any deeper than 2000'.
• The Gondolin axe has telepathy, so I feel like I should be using that despite several others clearly doing more damage. Any reason to keep Dethanc at this point? I kinda doubt it.
• Should I be using the heavy crossbow of extra might in my home over the bow, despite only getting 1 shot? Damage seems like it's pretty close between the two.
• Is it realistically possible to get rNether by this depth? I'd really like it before I start running into all the nasty wraiths and such soon.
• Should I be trying to enchant up stacks of arrows at this depth? I don't really find much in the way of branded/enchanted arrows in the dungeon so far. The acid arrows at home were a random lucky find much earlier, I've been saving them for roughly this point in the game.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Pete Mack]

You are doing very well, considering. Only 1/2million turns at dl 37 is moving pretty quickly for a 'newbie'.

1. With such a lousy longbow, you need better melee. Try using Nimloth and a Ring of Damage.
2. Save any branded ammo for valuable targets (uniques with big drops, and Wyrms/Demons with big drops.) Smaug, Scatha, and the like, often drop artifacts. And yes, an early copy of Tenser's is a HUGE find for a Ranger or Rogue.

3. Troll pits and elemental Ancient Dragons are good sources of stat potions. Your character isn't powerful enough to go much below 2000' anyway. You need better stats, badly. Keep ~25K GP available in case a good stat potion shows up in the Black Market.

[Macavenger]

You are doing very well, considering. Only 1/2million turns at dl 37 is moving pretty quickly for a 'newbie'.

Looking back at my previous attempts on the high score list, this looks like the first time I've gotten to stat gain in under ~800k turns. I guess I've just done the lower levels enough times that I'm more comfortable with them now.

I just went back to my character, did a couple of the recommended swaps in town, and recalled back to the dungeon. Superb feeling. Detect monsters reveals a nice fat checkerboard vault on my screen. This is my first checkerboard and second greater vault of any type ever. Fun stuff I've never seen before includes:

• Ungoliant
• Saruman
• Quaker, Master of Earth
• Ar-pharazon
• Hoarmurath
• Smaug

• Archlich
• Black Reaver
• Greater Titan
• Dracolich
• Chaos Vortex
• Chaos Hound
• Great Wyrm of Thunder
• Grand Master Mystic (x2)
• Dreadmaster
• Draconic quylthulg

Have a decent amount of TO with me, so hopefully I can get something out of it and not get toasted in one breath by something huge. Don't have any object detection with me, which is probably good as I'll be less tempted to push my luck going for a dark red ? or something. One corner had a nice collection of low level monsters, so I'm opening that up - Lotharang in the first cell. Meh.

Also, Pete, you mentioned saving cash to buy stat potions from the Black Market, is that generally a good idea? I've generally left them there on past games, since I know I can get those in the dungeon, tried to save in case a good bow or speed item shows up. Also, at what point is it a good idea to start enchanting stacks of arrows, just whenever I start to have excess money?

[Pete Mack]

Also, Pete, you mentioned saving cash to buy stat potions from the Black Market, is that generally a good idea? I've generally left them there on past games, since I know I can get those in the dungeon, tried to save in case a good bow or speed item shows up. Also, at what point is it a good idea to start enchanting stacks of arrows, just whenever I start to have excess money?

Yes. Your chances of finding +Speed items is slim to none, and they generally cost upward of 1M gold anyway. As a Ranger, don't bother with !WIS, but !DEX, !CON, and !STR are worthwhile until you hit 18/90 base; !INT may be worthwhile if you have extra cash. !CHR is also worthwhile because it is cheap.

Those GCV vaults are EXTREMELY good--ego item or artifact in every cell. If you can survive it, you are likely to come out with near endgame equipment.

Some of those guys are not very dangerous, if you use Stone-to-mud(!) instead of digging. You can teleport them or even fight them, with sufficient gear.


Some of them are insanely dangerous, and are liable to kill you in a single turn without appropriate resists and/or haste self. If you had more HP, enough speed, and Resistance spells, you could go through the whole thing. You might want to check the spoilers to see which are too dangerous.

[Macavenger]

Yep, I'm proceeding very carefully through it right now, strategically using StM from a distance on things that look particularly dangerous. Saruman and the Great Wyrm of Thunder have been successfully TO'd, but a lot of the other really dangerous looking stuff is still there.

Goodies so far:

• Lotharang
• Nimthanc
• Aeglin
• Totila
• Ethereal Openings
• Raal's
• Elvagil
• Isildur
• Holhenneth
• Purification's and Healing

Couple weapons and the Priest books are still on the floor. Isildur and Holhenneth are nice upgrades so far. I've also found a mild assortment of stat potions (mostly !Con, yay!), and a stack of arrows of slay dragon that I've knocked down a couple ancient dragons with. Hoping to find a better bow and maybe another book before I have to give up.

Interestingly, Quaker has eaten most of the top row of the vault except for a couple of other big nasties, and they're all sitting together in a nice lump across the permanent rock from me. If I'm careful opening that up, I may be able to TO him, Ungoliant, and the Black Reaver all at once with minimal risk, then play collect the row of artifacts.

[Macavenger]

Little over halfway through, a Longbow of Lothlorien (+18,+13) (+1)! Finally something resembling a real weapon, yay!

[Pete Mack]

Little over halfway through, a Longbow of Lothlorien (+18,+13) (+1)! Finally something resembling a real weapon, yay!

That will help a lot--it's almost endgame quality. Along with the Slay Dragon arrows, Smaug will go down easily.

As for that last row of monsters. Quaker will destroy everything on the floor except artifacts.

Ungoliant can breathe poison for 800 damage and darkness for 450 damage, and darkness storm for a 420 damage. She moves at speed +20. Her other spells aren't dangerous.


Black Reaver can hit you for a 420 damage mana ball, and ~380. It moves at speed +20.

Your odds of dying if you try to teleport both of them are somewhere around 50%.

I leave it to you to decide if it's worth risking.

[Macavenger]

I have Caspanion for rPoison now, and a selection of things with rDark, which would make Ungoliant marginally less deadly - along with ~400 hp now thanks to the 4 or 5 !Con in this vault. I probably still won't bother though, since I've scouted out the remainder of the vault with Holhenneth's Detection, and all they're sitting on is a Bronze DSM (already dropped one) and a Jewel Encrusted Crown.

Smaug already got teleported, and I used up most of the slay dragon arrows on other stuff. Have a couple sets of arrows of wounding around ~+15 though, which will be nice later on.

Interestingly, this vault has every Priest book except Holy Infusions in it, more than one copy of most of them. For Mage books all it had was Mordenkainen's (which I already had) and 2x Raal's. Stupid RNG.

[Pete Mack]

I have Caspanion for rPoison now, and a selection of things with rDark, which would make Ungoliant marginally less deadly - along with ~400 hp now thanks to the 4 or 5 !Con in this vault. I probably still won't bother though, since I've scouted out the remainder of the vault with Holhenneth's Detection, and all they're sitting on is a Bronze DSM (already dropped one) and a Jewel Encrusted Crown.

If the jewel encrusted crown has been stomped on by Quaker, you probably want it. Hollheneth is nice, but the Crown of Numenor is better for almost all purposes. (You will soon get other sources of Detection.)

If Ungoliant can only do ~380 damage max, and you are hasted to +19 speed, your odds of dying are much, much lower. With Caspanion for +3 CON, your HP should be high enough to take any hit from Ungoliant, along with almost any hit from the Black Reaper.

[Macavenger]

If the jewel encrusted crown has been stomped on by Quaker, you probably want it. Hollheneth is nice, but the Crown of Numenor is better for almost all purposes. (You will soon get other sources of Detection.)

If Ungoliant can only do ~380 damage max, and you are hasted to +19 speed, your odds of dying are much, much lower. With Caspanion for +3 CON, your HP should be high enough to take any hit from Ungoliant, along with almost any hit from the Black Reaper.

The crown was sitting under Ungoliant, who never moved. Quaker couldn't touch it.

I ended up chickening out of opening that area - seemed more fun to be totally certain of escaping alive with the best kit I've ever had. I also couldn't haste up past +8 - Black Market hasn't had !speed all game and I'm not quite high enough level to learn it from the book.

I updated my dump. Fairly happy with the arrangement I came up with. 5 Blows with Anduril pretty much smokes any other weapon I have for damage, and it covers rFear and rDisenchant. I assume rDisenchant makes my gear completely immune to damage from disenchanters? I've never had it before. Using a crown of Night/Day over Holhenneth - I have rConfuse elsewhere, so rDark + pLite > detection activation and 2 int, I would think. With this setup I have all resists covered except sound, chaos, and nether. Have some swaps I could do to get sound, but rPoison and rBlind/Dark seem more important at this depth.

Biggest question would be rings - I'm using both =Speed for now, since those are my only speed boosts (other than Nimloth, but I'm very convinced Anduril is better for now). Should I be using =Con+3 over =Speed+4? I'm pretty convinced the =Accuracy loses, especially with my bow having +18 to-Hit.

Going to try diving past 2000' now, and watch out for anything that looks like it might nether bolt me.

[pav]

Accuracy ring is worthless, so free up that home lot. +4 speed ring is not much either, I'd replace it in an eye wink if any cooler ring comes by. Maybe even with that +3 CON you have, dunno how much HP that will net ya.

BTW cool report, enjoyed reading it.

[roustk]

Accuracy ring is worthless, so free up that home lot. +4 speed ring is not much either, I'd replace it in an eye wink if any cooler ring comes by. Maybe even with that +3 CON you have, dunno how much HP that will net ya.

If memory serves, HP bonuses from CON amount to:
* 1/4 HP/level at CON 14.
* 1/4 HP/level per point for each of the 10 points from 15 to 18/60.
* 1/2 HP/level per point for each of the 10 points from 18/70 to 18/160.
* 1 HP/level per point for 18/170, 18/180, 18/190.
* 1.5 HP/level for 18/200.

So, for the character here, level 30 with about 18/130 CON, the +3 CON ring will net only 45 HP. A +5 ring would make single-resist element breaths survivable (with 543 HP). Even a +4 ring would get 75 HP.

A couple of levels (1d14 + 6.5 points each, for HighElf Ranger at 18/130) and a few CON potions will put this character over 550 HP easily.

BTW cool report, enjoyed reading it.

Agreed.

Kevin

[Macavenger]

Got down to 2150' in one dive last night, which is pretty good progress for me, especially around this level - I rarely go more than a level or two without popping back up to town. Killed Medusa, Gorlim, and maybe another unique or two that I forget. Picked up a couple things that went native at 2000' that are making things a bit more interesting now.

Resistances of Scarabtarices showed up on the floor at 2000', which is making AMHD and the like much less scary. First time I can recall not finding it before it came into depth.

The really interesting items though are an =rPoison, and a cloak of Aman with Chaos resistance. Using the =Poison and swapping my cloak and chest piece around a bit, I can now cover any 2 of rChaos, rShards, and rSound, along with every other resist except rNether. However, doing that gets me only ~475 hp. If I instead stick with Caspanion for rPoison, freeing up the ring slot for my =Con+3, I can get up to ~575 hp while covering everything except Sound, Nether, and shards/chaos (depending on which cloak I use). I've got this setup posted in my updated dump.

I'm guessing the 100 extra hp is probably well worth giving up rSound for, despite it being useful against the gravity and vibration hounds and such I run into a lot at these depths?

Also, as far as the three resistances I'm choosing between here, am I correct in thinking that for around 2200', all else being equal, rSound > rShards > rChaos? I know rChaos is supposed to become quite important at later depths, but I haven't seen any real need for it thus far.

Should I be using my Amulet of the Magi? I've got all its resistances and such covered on other gear which I'm wearing for multiple reasons, so it basically comes down to Regeneration against 3 int. All my critical escape spells and such are 5% fail either way, so it's basically giving me 9% lower fail on things like haste and resistance, against Regeneration, which I'm quite liking so far.

Is it worth sinking a bunch of scrolls into Calris to break the curse and make it usable? I've read that it's a good endgame weapon in many cases, but it seems like the main reasons would be rDisenchant and the *slay* Dragon, where I already have rDisenchant on Anduril and would rather be shooting dragons most of the time.

[will_asher]

I'm not experienced enough at those depths to give advice on the other stuff, but definetly keep regeneration.

[Pete Mack]

AoMagi vs AoRegen is a matter of taste. It depends on how reliably you can cast your buffing spells without running out of mana.

If you can reliably cast Resistance, Haste Self, and Shield (in melee), that's really all you need. After you find Tenser's, you will want Heroism and Berserk spells as well. In any case, hang on to Magi for rConf. It is occasionally useful. And congrats for moving so fast. At the rate you are going, you should have the game beat in little time. (The hardest part usually is getting to Speed Ring depth.)

As for importance of other resistances, I rate RSound as a bit higher than RChaos, then RNether, then RShards. At the depth you are, RShards is more important.

Maximum breath damage damage:
Fire, Cold, Lightning = 1600 (w/ resist, 433; w double resist, 144)
Acid = 1600 (w/o armor in all slots: see Fire, Cold, Lightning. w/armor: see Poison)
Poison = 800 (w/ resist, 266; w/ double resist: 88)
Nether = 550
Sound, Chaos, Disenchant, Shards = 500
Light, Dark, Confusion, Nexus = 400 (I thought Light, Dark, Conf were 450???)

All else: 150 or 200