was rhis avoidable?

[Deadguy]

So there I am rolling along with my HT warrior, when I detect a gang of ogres and cave ogres ahead. Im at 750' and havent found much in the way of gear yet but I decide to give it a shot..after all Ive got a stack of !CCW, and several ?PD and ?TP. So I start hammering away, doing fine, when this SOB umber hulk burrows in behind me. Every single time he looks crosseyed at me, I get re-confused despite drinkin my potions to clear itt. Of course none of my escapes work, I cant get past him or the ogres, tombstone before ya know it.

What should I have done here? Should I have had a staff instead of scrolls of TP? Being a HT War I was divin pretty fast and playing No-sell (which rocks btw) and hadnt used my initial !WoR yet.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

[Thraalbee]

Staff of teleport works even when confused. Probably not 100% so zap before near dead. Potions/Wand of speed and then !ccw can work too if just one enemy confusing you.

[MattB]

Should I have had a staff instead of scrolls of TP?

No. You should have had BOTH!
Staves for when blind or confused, scrolls for the 0% fail rate for when you *really* need to get out of dodge.

[Deadguy]

So speed mightve made the difference? Everytime I took a turn drinking, he immediately reconfused me. Ty for reply.

[Deadguy]

No. You should have had BOTH!
Staves for when blind or confused, scrolls for the 0% fail rate for when you *really* need to get out of dodge.

Thank you, good point. It strikes me that Angband is all about being prepared for eventualities, good thing I was a Boy Scout once.

[Thraalbee]

Seed definitely helps, even with e.g. several light/dark hounds that blind you you may end up with a turn where you get one more action after the !ccw before being blinded. That's when you ?teleport.

[Deadguy]

I was carrying several !speeds too, sigh. Revenge!

[Zyphyr]

So speed mightve made the difference? Everytime I took a turn drinking, he immediately reconfused me. Ty for reply.

Another option, especially for a melee oriented character, is to not worry about the confusion. Just try to attack the Umber Hulk. It will work often enough that you can eventually kill it. Use the CCWs for their primary healing function instead.

[Deadguy]

Trouble was, I had the ogre situation going on the other direction.

[Derakon]

Umber Hulks are quite fragile, so yes, just trying to attack would eventually have worked. Assuming you were fighting in a corridor, only one ogre would've been able to attack you at a time; you should have had enough HP to be able to tank several hits (and, as you said, you had a stack of CCW, each of which ought to have cleared out a few rounds' worth of ogre attacks).

But yes, speed would have saved you. Umber Hulks are only at normal speed, so by hasting up, you can drink CCW and then phase/teleport (or just attack the Hulk) before it can get a chance to re-confuse you.

[Deadguy]

Ok, thanks guys, this game never ceases to interest me tactically.

[MattB]

And when you can find them, mushrooms of clear mind are life savers - they cure confusion and give you resistance to it for a while.
My current character(H-Troll warrior) is at dlvl79 with no resistance to confusion and it's a real headache (the joy of randarts!). Now, if only I could find a mushroom of clear mind...

EDIT: So much for that character. Just fell asleep with my finger on the up arrow. Woke up half a minute later to find a tombstone. Checked the messages and found that I'd had an epic 6 page battle with a nightcrawler. Ho hum, them's the brakes. Rather than needing pconf, turns out rWhisky would have been more useful...

[Deadguy]

So Peppers IV is now at dl22 and rolling, the exact same situation crops up...hammering a friggin regiment of forest trolls and Mr. Beige X comes up behind...I also was under the influence of a !bourbon, but gobbled a clear mind shroom and had sweet revenge. Treading very carefully as Ive not seen a single source of FA, and this is where paralyzers start showing up. For the record, please neuter your zephyr hounds, for their own sake. Update shortly.

[krazyhades]

Ahh man, it always sucks to die with unused money / consumables that you totally could have spent but instead hoarded. But it happens on almost every death.

[Malak Darkhunter]

Umber Hulks are quite fragile, so yes, just trying to attack would eventually have worked. Assuming you were fighting in a corridor, only one ogre would've been able to attack you at a time; you should have had enough HP to be able to tank several hits (and, as you said, you had a stack of CCW, each of which ought to have cleared out a few rounds' worth of ogre attacks).

But yes, speed would have saved you. Umber Hulks are only at normal speed, so by hasting up, you can drink CCW and then phase/teleport (or just attack the Hulk) before it can get a chance to re-confuse you.

yup, I've used this same tactic many times, retreat to corridor then engage, once the umber hulk sneaks up on you, you might get lucky enough to land a few hits even while confused scaring him off, drink CCW and clear confusion then beat the crap out of the ogres or phase door or teleport and heal up.