advice for HT warrior

[quarague]

I've been playing a halftroll warrior, who just hit level 30. As expected, the beginning was easy and things are getting harder and harder. I put him on the ladder, at http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=17159
I recalled from dlevel 41. I feel my equipment is utter rubbish. Even if I were to find a RoS+10 my survivability would greatly improve but overall I would still be vulnerable to tons of random things. All the minor status effect like fear/blindness/confuse can be pretty dangerous because the my saving throw is so horrible so I essentially fall for it every time. Of course the billions of hit points make a lot of things survivable (I killed an ancient green dragon with no poison resist). Overall I feel like I'm running out of good targets, the casters usually have a combination of damage spells which I can soak and status effects which are problematic (with most characters it's the other way round), the melee monsters are fast, appear in groups and/or do so much damage that I don't really get any decent xp from them either. So essentially, how do you play a higher level warrior?

[Derakon]

Some ad-hoc advice:

1) Get a decent launcher. That unenchanted shortbow is doing you no favors. Being able to soften big enemies up from a distance is a huge help. Warriors have STR to spare, so you can afford to carry a heavy crossbow and a couple of stacks of bolts.

2) Your ring slots should be used on things that help you kill better. Damage, STR, and DEX are all good rings. I know you need the free action ring right now, but try to find FA on a different slot -- boots, for example. Your gloves of FA (at home), combined with a Ring of Damage, are better than a Ring of FA and Gloves of Slaying.

That Ring of Flames is way past its sell-by date; ditch it at the first opportunity.

3) The amulet's not doing you many favors -- you'll dig through solid granite faster than you find secret doors even with it on, I expect. An Amulet of Wisdom might make a couple of percentage points difference in your saving throw, but honestly I'd go for an Amulet of Infravision right now -- being able to see further in darkness is surprisingly helpful.

4) Try to get a Lantern of True Sight for the SI/pBlind combination. True Sight is good enough that it often ends up outclassing all other light sources for me, including artifacts.

5) You need more consumables. I try not to go into the dungeon without at least 15 Phase Door scrolls and 10 (preferably more) Cure [Serious/Critical] Wounds potions. The latter will be a big help for clearing status ailments.

6) Lose the Ring of Ice and the Rings of Escaping. Realistically they aren't going to help you. If you want rechargable attack items, get some attack rods, but really for ranged damage you should be using a good missile launcher.

7) What is that scroll of Trap Creation for?

8) Carry a Staff of Detect Evil. It's not perfect, but between it and the telepathy on your spear you can spot most threats before wandering into them.

I hope this helps!

[quarague]

Thanks a lot. While writing my post I thought cleaning out a minor vault or even killing a room full of orcs or some similar that just gives a whole bunch of random dlevel 40 items. It's more that I want to replace several shitty items by mediocre ones.

Some ad-hoc advice:

1) Get a decent launcher. That unenchanted shortbow is doing you no favors. Being able to soften big enemies up from a distance is a huge help. Warriors have STR to spare, so you can afford to carry a heavy crossbow and a couple of stacks of bolts.

I had magic heavy crossbows but ditched them, I will find a new one.

2) Your ring slots should be used on things that help you kill better. Damage, STR, and DEX are all good rings. I know you need the free action ring right now, but try to find FA on a different slot -- boots, for example. Your gloves of FA (at home), combined with a Ring of Damage, are better than a Ring of FA and Gloves of Slaying.
That Ring of Flames is way past its sell-by date; ditch it at the first opportunity.

Strength rings don't do much, I already get max blows with my current strength, don't think I've seen a dex ring, damage ring would be a nice find, I like the 75 or so ranged damage from the ring but a decent xbow could replace that

3) The amulet's not doing you many favors -- you'll dig through solid granite faster than you find secret doors even with it on, I expect. An Amulet of Wisdom might make a couple of percentage points difference in your saving throw, but honestly I'd go for an Amulet of Infravision right now -- being able to see further in darkness is surprisingly helpful.

I had hoped a wisdom amulet would give me more saving throw but it didn't do anything. Infravision might be good, to supplement the telepathy.

4) Try to get a Lantern of True Sight for the SI/pBlind combination. True Sight is good enough that it often ends up outclassing all other light sources for me, including artifacts.

I will take whatever upgrade I can find

5) You need more consumables. I try not to go into the dungeon without at least 15 Phase Door scrolls and 10 (preferably more) Cure [Serious/Critical] Wounds potions. The latter will be a big help for clearing status ailments.

I will stock up on these, store isn't particularly generous with potions

6) Lose the Ring of Ice and the Rings of Escaping. Realistically they aren't going to help you. If you want rechargable attack items, get some attack rods, but really for ranged damage you should be using a good missile launcher.

True enough, haven't actually used them.

7) What is that scroll of Trap Creation for?

Lousy inventory management

8) Carry a Staff of Detect Evil. It's not perfect, but between it and the telepathy on your spear you can spot most threats before wandering into them.

I hope this helps!

I used to carry one but never used it, because I relied on the telepathy for my detection. Staffs are annoying for detection because they run out of charges so quickly. I probably should be more paranoid.

[quarague]

died :-(
I'm playing with disconnected stairs, makes the game significantly harder. Entered a level with 'Omens of death', found a stair fairly quickly but didn't see the vault so decided to explore a little further. Suddenly Anaphiel the Quiet (is that how you spell it?) stands right next to me, wall passing is annoying. I teleport and than read a recall because no stairs are anywhere close by. Anaphiel catches up with me fairly quickly, I start running away from her, she does a lot of things but nothing does lots of damage. Down to 200 out of 400 hitpoints, still waiting for the WoR to kick in, Kavlax the manyheaded comes at me from the other direction and uses his first turn inside telepathy radius to breath gravity for 210 damage, I have -9 hitpoints, Anaphiel shrugs off the gravity breath :-(

[mushroom patch]

Probably could've taken the W, dude.

[quarague]

I thought that Anaphiel didn't look that tough, but I think for the char she was still a little too much.
Started another HT warrior who just hit level 30, dump after recall from a mini vault http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=17175
He just feels so much more powerful, 2-3 times as much dps, tons of artifacts, including a few useful ones, lots of other nice stuff. Just have to be careful about the almost complete lack of resists.

[AnonymousHero]

I thought that Anaphiel didn't look that tough, but I think for the char she was still a little too much.
Started another HT warrior who just hit level 30, dump after recall from a mini vault http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=17175
He just feels so much more powerful, 2-3 times as much dps, tons of artifacts, including a few useful ones, lots of other nice stuff. Just have to be careful about the almost complete lack of resists.

Kavlax doesn't care about your puny resists! Seriously, steer clear of Kavlax until you're way-overleveled and can kill him with impuntiy.

(Btw, it's "Adunaphel", though it's hardly canon, so...)