Top 5 deadliest uniques

[Scraper]

I was watching Fizzix comp. 138 winner on youtube and he didn't fight all that many uniques and actually stated outright that he was not going to even bother fighting the Tarrasque,
so.....
Who do you think are the top five deadliest uniques and why?

[Derakon]

Hm. Kavlax is definitely at the top of the list, since he's so deceptively powerful. Players are likely to try to fight them before it's actually safe to do so.

After that it gets murkier -- does a unique count as dangerous if you only fight it because you decide to? Then certainly the Tarrasque, Huan, etc. are up there. But you can readily avoid fighting every late-game unique if you choose to. That reduces the list down to early-game and mid-game uniques, where you may be blindsided by them before you quite realize what's going on. Adunaphel makes the list, then, as do Mim and his sons. Nar can actually be fairly surprising with his brain-smash attack; if you don't have CSW potions or better then that could easily kill you.

[Scraper]

Hm. Kavlax is definitely at the top of the list, since he's so deceptively powerful. Players are likely to try to fight them before it's actually safe to do so.

After that it gets murkier -- does a unique count as dangerous if you only fight it because you decide to? Then certainly the Tarrasque, Huan, etc. are up there. But you can readily avoid fighting every late-game unique if you choose to. That reduces the list down to early-game and mid-game uniques, where you may be blindsided by them before you quite realize what's going on. Adunaphel makes the list, then, as do Mim and his sons. Nar can actually be fairly surprising with his brain-smash attack; if you don't have CSW potions or better then that could easily kill you.

Ok, I guess your point about choosing not to fight the deeper uniques is a valid one and probably one of the reasons I haven't won more than once - I like to kill them ALL. And I know the argument about winning the game is about killing Morgoth, but I enjoy the challenge of fighting them all because they represent Tolkien Lore so much... anyway..

Perhaps a different question could be worded...

Which uniques do you always avoid?

[Timo Pietilä]

Hm. Kavlax is definitely at the top of the list, since he's so deceptively powerful. Players are likely to try to fight them before it's actually safe to do so.

To me Gorlim seems to be the one filling Kavlax role. I always get surprised how much damage those water bolts do, and I rarely have conf resist when fighting him and he uses them a lot. He usually doesn't kill me, but I seem to try to kill him too early in every single game.

[Timo Pietilä]

Which uniques do you always avoid?

Annoying ones, like Omarax. I usually end up killing them all before facing Morgoth, but I do it only because I like doing it, not because I have to.

[Therem Harth]

Gorlim has killed a couple of my characters. The typical pattern is that I've forgotten his schtick, stumble across him in a vault, and think "Oh ho hum, a mid level unique, XP ahoy!" at which point he promptly wakes up and blasts my character dead.

Other relatively frequent ones include
- Elemental uniques, particularly Ariel and her confusion attacks
- Mid-level dragon uniques (usually Itangist or Scatha) who can breath for oodles of damage

I notice this is a very different pattern from most *banders. Probably due to the combination of Ironman rooms and my suicidally fast diving.

[debo]

I don't know about dangerous, but I have never even tried to fight the unique Qulthyiuhsduhfsguhg thing. It is probably the single most annoying opponent I have ever encountered in a videogame.

[PowerWyrm]

I don't know about dangerous, but I have never even tried to fight the unique Qulthyiuhsduhfsguhg thing. It is probably the single most annoying opponent I have ever encountered in a videogame.

Depends on his placement in the dungeon. If you find him next to a wall, it's the easiest guy to kill...

[PowerWyrm]

My top list:
- Tarrasque: a breathing machinegun, dangerous even with both immunities to fire/cold due to him switching to disenchant breath for massive damage
- Maeglin: kill_wall + summon = mini-Morgoth
- Kavlax: devastating breaths at a point where you don't have the hps to survive most of them
- Maggot's dogs: because they're tough for level 1 chars...

[HallucinationMushroom]

Azriel, Tarrasque, the last titan one... Kronos? I would put Kavlax on the list too, but because he masks as a little 'd' and I play in oblivious-mode. Now that you can make uniques all purple, or, at least now that it is an easy thing to do, I'm not too worried about him, even though he is strong.

[fizzix]

I think the most dangerous ones are the ones that have big breath attacks of things you might have resistance holes on (or might not be able to cover.) That means, I'd put the dangerous uniques as.

Kavlax (gravity breath)

Osse (nee Azriel, nether breath, was *much* worse as Azriel)

Huan (shards)

Carcharoth (nether)

Kronos (sound, shards)

Vecna, Feagwath (mana storm)

And of course Tarrasque (disenchantment)

[donalde]

For me, list (in no order) is
- kavlax "oh, low level dragon,. easy xp...."
- unpronounced Qsomething, pain to get rid of for melee char, usually blocking way to vault
- Maeglin "uh oh, I am in middle of fight and this one tunneling trough wall"
- Ungoliat - she got my level 28 hT ranger
- Huan - nasty piece of work

[Magnate]

To me Gorlim seems to be the one filling Kavlax role. I always get surprised how much damage those water bolts do, and I rarely have conf resist when fighting him and he uses them a lot. He usually doesn't kill me, but I seem to try to kill him too early in every single game.

Gorlim + Kavlax for me too. I guess this exercise rather depends on how often you get deep - I personally often find Lorgan troubling, because (IIRC) he's the first summoning unique. I couldn't call him among the deadliest though. It also depends on how well prepared you are - the Tarrasque is tough and deadly, but I've only ever fought her when I've been very well prepared. For some reason I have real problems with the hounds (Carcharoth and Huan) at depth. The Phoenix is also very tough without immunity.

[debo]

Osse (nee Azriel, nether breath, was *much* worse as Azriel)

Whoa, I didn't realize Azriel had undergone a name change.

[Derakon]

All of the angels have been replaced by maiar and ainu; in some cases this has meant a revamp of their abilities.