Need advice for my chars

[sam_snowy]

Well, it's been quite a while I went on this forum. Good thing to know that it isn't dead yet and that derakon is still around (I only recognize from the profile picture)

Given that my last attempt was around a year ago, and then a few more attempts for years even before that I still never have a winner yet.

So I have two characters, fortunately both are still alive, even though I believe that both characters are skewed in loot RNG and taking what the other is needing.

I'm putting most of my attention on my mage :

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=16579

so if you dont have time to see both, just give an advice on this one.
As you can see, I have almost all resists (which never happened to my previous chars), but my speed is just too slow for some encounters.

I'm also wondering how I should be dealing dmg now that I'm in the 50+ dlvl depth, I found that branding arrows and then just firing them deals more dmg then my limited mp pool can do to late game monsters, not sure if this should be the case or should I use a specific spell instead.

the other one is a paladin :

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=14511

as you can see she took all the +speed items and found no resist items...

I also saw a few guides on beating the final boss, but I think it's a bit far and I'll come back with updates if I get close to it.

Thanks for the help.

[Malak Darkhunter]

Both characters actually look pretty good to me, just hang in there and eventually you will find what you want, RNG can be really stubborn sometimes.

At DL50 I feel pretty comfortable doing 150-200 dmg around, along with at least +10 speed and basic 4 resists covered keep an eye out for poison resistance and nether resistance as I feel like they are also important resists to have covered. I add more speed against uniques by using staves of speed and or potions, rods of speed which takes you up to +20 which is ususally faster than most uniques at that DL. One of the other important things to have is high CON and high hitpoints..they are vital.

I like finding and using Holhenneth more than any other helm because of the resistance to blindness,confusion,ability to see invisible things, and detection abilities...detection can really help your character to survive..also always have a means of escape, phase door,teleport, and rods of teleport other are a lifesaver sometimes.

[Derakon]

It's nice to be appreciated. I keep thinking that I'm not that high-profile of a poster but then again I have thousands of posts here...oh well.

For your mage, as you note more speed is welcome. You also want more CON; mages are horribly fragile and need all the CON they can get (at least up to 18/200, which is where you stop gaining bonus HP). But you have a pretty nice set of kit! I would suggest that if you have the option of gaining more stats at the cost of certain resistances, it's likely worthwhile. Those resists are nexus, nether, disenchantment, chaos, sound, and shards. All of these can be unpleasant, even potentially fatal, to get hit by, but they're rare enough that improving your stats, which help in every encounter, is IMO more important. You can carry swap gear for the resists that you seriously don't like getting hit by, just in case.

In particular, since your stats are maxed, you're at no risk from nexus stat swap, so all it can do to you is teleport you around. This is bad, sure, but if you find some Boots of Speed or Boots of Elvenkind they should go on right away. Heck, Wormtongue's boots are tailor-made for mages. Slap those puppies on your feet.

Also, see that Magic Device skill of 116? You get a bonus to device damage of (device skill - item level)%. So for example, if you used a Wand of Dragon's Flame (level 50, base 200 damage), then you'd get 332 damage per shot. Keep around all the Wands of Annihilation and Wands of Drain Life you find; they can make dealing with pesky resist-everything uniques a lot more pleasant. Wands of Annihilation also do good damage even against Morgoth, and beat out Mana Storm for average DPS so long as their charges hold out (Carry Tenser's and recharge them when not in LOS of enemies).

Speaking of Mana Storm, holy crap you have Kelek's already. Nice.

Good luck! You have a nice character here. Just watch out for instadeath attacks since you still only have 483 HP. Cast Resistance whenever dealing with base-element attacks, and keep your HP up as much as possible.

[sam_snowy]

Thanks for all the help, I only recently learned about the stacking resistance part with temporary spells or potions (I used to think that you can't stack them）. Most of the elemental breath uniques became a lot easier once I had the double resist on.

I also never knew about the magic device part, as I was thinking it only affect success rate, but now that I know I'll probably start hoarding on some high dmg wands. (which also explain that early on the rod of lightning bolt deals more dmg than my book one when they were the same 6d6)

For the constitution, as you can see i'm having both my rings occupied at the moment, but it'll soon change once the ring of speeds start pumping out.

I'll experiment around with wormtongue's boot once I get rid of the cursed status (hopefully it can be removed), as I would like to keep nexus shoes around just in case.

The kelek's was a godsend after I cleared a vault out, it was actually my first high level book and I only had it once before this character. Still almost died once trying to clear a vault of trolls using banishment. Also wondering about word of destruction, does it destroy artifacts too? Cause I had to use it once when I met a seriously out of dlvl Quylthulg unique during a mid size vault (I was probably at dlvl 40ish). Somehow i skimmed pass it when I did my detection check.

Well, let's hope that telepathy and the overall carefulness can keep me on my toes until i get enough hp and speed.

Also anywhere above dlvl 55 ish is unknown to me, so I guess i should be extra careful as everything can be a surprise from now on.

[Estie]

WoD doesnt destroy artifacts, but removes them from the level. They can appear again later, same as uniques.

With that mage, I would go deeper, avoiding dangerous encounters and banishing/teleporting_other my way to deep vault loot; clearing a GV or 3 at lvl 90+ should quickly solve all speed problems. You wont get experience that way, but that can wait. Once equipped with a better kit, killing things becomes easier. Rift is my favourite spell for the purpose.
Getting down is straightforward with Mord´s; macro the create stairs spell to some key and just descend.

[Estie]

As for the paladin, I would want to wear the poison resist ring; the big thing to look out for is ESP. With paladins limited detection, life is dangerous without it and going deeper risky.

[Nick]

It's nice to be appreciated. I keep thinking that I'm not that high-profile of a poster but then again I have thousands of posts here...oh well.

Just in case there's any doubt ... that's a lead of nearly a thousand posts.

[sam_snowy]

I'm kind of scared to dive too deep into places where I'm unsure of, but I did got myself a +5 boots of speed after kiting a unique balrog to death.

I did not expect teleport other to have such a high success rate, it helped quite a bit against some of the unique that likes to summon nasty critters.

So i'll just carefully go down bit by bit, while magic consumption is proving to be annoying when dealing with multiple high level creatures, but at least I have a huge stack of arrows to gradually shoot the boss down.

[Malak Darkhunter]

I'm kind of scared to dive too deep into places where I'm unsure of, but I did got myself a +5 boots of speed after kiting a unique balrog to death.

I did not expect teleport other to have such a high success rate, it helped quite a bit against some of the unique that likes to summon nasty critters.

So i'll just carefully go down bit by bit, while magic consumption is proving to be annoying when dealing with multiple high level creatures, but at least I have a huge stack of arrows to gradually shoot the boss down.

Teleport other is a very useful tool to help you in a variety of situations, I use it to tele away nasty creatuers/undead that are not worth the risk of fighting. It is also very useful getting rid of summoned high powered monsters that come to the aid of the Unique you are trying to kill. The biggest benefit IMO is being able to teleport away unexpected uniques or monsters that are lurking in a vault you are trying to clear to get to that juicy looking equipment you know is lying there waiting on you....

[Estie]

I'm kind of scared to dive too deep into places where I'm unsure of, but I did got myself a +5 boots of speed after kiting a unique balrog to death.

I did not expect teleport other to have such a high success rate, it helped quite a bit against some of the unique that likes to summon nasty critters.

So i'll just carefully go down bit by bit, while magic consumption is proving to be annoying when dealing with multiple high level creatures, but at least I have a huge stack of arrows to gradually shoot the boss down.

The idea was to not kill many high hit point monsters while going deeper, but use the mana for the cheaper versions of making them go away. At 18/200 int mages reach 0% fail chance for (not too highlevel) spells, you should be already there with tele other.
There are tons of things deep down that can blast you away in 1 turn; the way to avoid such a fate is 1) only stay for a short time on any level to not wake up many monsters and 2) get rid of everything that is uncomfortable by the quickest means, i.e. typically not by starting a lengthy fight. Stealth is your friend.

[debo]

Just in case there's any doubt ... that's a lead of nearly a thousand posts.

I'm way too high up on that list for my liking I think that means I need to maintain something now

[sam_snowy]

These large vaults are actually extremely interesting (had to tunnel around to the other side of the vault so that I can see an opening. )

It had a huge hunch of artifacts but sadly now I have the choice of being extremely squishy and fast or swapping around items to get some sort of constitution without losing too much.

I updated the mage with recent results as there's quite a bit of changes in the items i got and lost during the way (Glaive of pain is an artifact? thought it's like a end game weapon)

How important or sustain stat for mages though, kinda want to swap the sustain shield for thorin.

I also wanted to swap the boots for wormtongue but I'm waiting for some opporunity to kill the curse off before that.

[Derakon]

You do not really need sustains. You absolutely do need HP. Wear Thorin.

As for Wormtongue, the way to remove curses is to use Enchant Armor scrolls on it; each one has a chance to break the curse even if the enchanting doesn't work.

You should also wear Hammerhand instead of the Serenity crown. Protection from confusion and stunning is very nice, but you really, really need more HP. Right now it's literally impossible for you to safely fight a wide range of late-game enemies because they can kill you in a single turn.

Between Thorin and Hammerhand you'd be up +7 CON, putting you at 18/160. If you found better Boots of Speed then you could swap out one of the rings for a CON ring and be in pretty good shape. As a mage you only really need +20 speed, since you can cast Haste Self to get to +30, which is all you really need (to avoid getting double-turned by Morgoth, who moves at +30). There's pretty sharp diminishing returns for speed past +27.

[Malak Darkhunter]

I'm way too high up on that list for my liking I think that means I need to maintain something now

I'm still amazed that I'm actually on the front page.

[sam_snowy]

Well I switched around things and I'm currently at +24 speed with most resists while boosting around 18/190 constitution. The only thing that may be annoying i the lack of Rconfusion and RStun, luckily i can still quaff away these symptons so unless I somehow get permastunned I should be ok. I dived down a bit and start wondering what's going to happen with all the low level uniques I missed and if they are ever going to show up again (I think i'm missing quite a few ringwraiths and uniques cause I wanted to dive down for better equips)

Are there ways to change the color of some monsters? Sometimes I cast a detection and I'm not able to find these wraiths or uniques that blend in the dark. I got hit by Tselakus twice before I realized she was there.
Thanks for all the help recently, I appreciate it a lot.