Endgame (unique Advice)

[quarague]

Unfortunately it seems too late, but here are my 2 cents on fighting the big M as a mage. I killed most uniques before engaging him, so that when he casts 'summon uniques' he got all the remaining ones in one go. I then cast teleport self and found myself a big open room. As M is one of the fastest monsters, can tunnel and notice you over the entire level, he will find you very quickly. None of the other remaining uniques showed up during the fight. Then the fight is pretty straight forward:
never stand in melee range of M
if M summons, you banish/ mass banish
if M casts damage spells you drink a heal/ *heal / life depending on hitpoints
if M moves into melee range you phase door
in all other cases, you use your favorite damage spell on him, wand, mana storm, whatever

[werepacman]

The good rule is always calculate the worse scenario.

If your health is less than 555 (one manastorm of Morgoth) and you have wand with fail rate expect you fail to use the wand and Manastorm from Morgoth.

So use spell with 0% failure instead of wand.

If 3 summons and Morgoth can see you expect next round they cast their spells simultaneously.

[werepacman]

As you can see, mage damage per round is terrible compared to melee and ranged weapon damage, making for a relatively difficult Morgoth fight as well as a relatively difficult early game.

You can probably guess what my conclusion is...

A mage with crossbow?

[Derakon]

Don't rest to recover HP against Morgoth. Drink potions instead. You should have plenty, especially if you use Cure Critical Wounds when Morgoth isn't around. The big problem I have with resting is that you don't know how many turns you have until Morgoth will show up, and you want to be able to "see" him (via telepathy or detection) before he actually enters LOS. Resting, especially if you use the "rest until disturbed" command, can easily get you "surprised" when Morgoth shows up before you're ready or along an unexpected angle.

[Egavactip]

I killed M as a mage a couple of days ago. Basically, I launched a bunch of holy might arrows at him, then finished him off with wands of annihilation. It was one of the easiest morgoth fights I think I've had.

[Bill Peterson]

There are other options. My one mage winner, granted it was 3.0.9 so things might be much different now, mostly beat on Morgoth with a sword. Of course it was Ringil, and I finished with over 30 potions of *Healing* and 20 of Life and Mana so who knows how many I started with. Wish I had a save rather than just a dump so I could go back and look at the last messages and see how many uniques were left. I remember scumming 4850'/4900' so long that I probably got all of them.

[mushroom patch]

I don't understand that sequence of messages. You know you're supposed to teleport Morgoth away before dealing with other monsters if it gets bad, right? Also, don't be in a position where you can be surprised by offscreen monsters (to some extent, this is a UI failure of the game, but still).

Regarding mages having an easier Morgoth fight, I think this is evidence to the contrary. A melee character, reasonably played, can be ground to a stalemate with Morgoth, but I don't think you can really get killed if you know what you're doing.

[Derakon]

Regarding mages having an easier Morgoth fight, I think this is evidence to the contrary. A melee character, reasonably played, can be ground to a stalemate with Morgoth, but I don't think you can really get killed if you know what you're doing.

It's a question of resource expenditure, really. A warrior must bring all of their special abilities in consumable form, which means that they also must either be careful about their use (lest they run out before the fight is over) or spend extra time grinding. The hybrid classes have more leeway but generally don't get access to the most powerful abilities, plus they have failure rates to worry about and thus must keep consumables around anyway as a failsafe. Priests and mages get the most powerful abilities at 0% failure rates, and so are free to spam them.

This leads to situations where a warrior or hybrid class would keep around enemies even though they're dangerous, because the character wants to preserve their resources for a hypothetical future scenario that is worse. Mages and priests both have much greater ability to control the battlefield.

That said, rangers and paladins probably still have the easiest wins, thanks to massive damage output for the former and the combination of great durability and good melee for the latter. Even if you just play paladins as somewhat weak warriors who can cast a 300HP heal, they'd still be an amazing class. And very little can stand up to 3 shots/round each dealing 200+ damage even before you ignore the "time dilation" effect that multiple shots gives.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

As in life, I think the answer to which class has it over on Morgoth is, "It depends."

All other things being equal, perhaps the mage has it easier in the end-game, but things are rarely, if ever, "equal". Suppose you've got a warrior with maxed stats, +30 speed, plenty of !Healing, !*Healing*, ?Banishment, ?Mass Banishment, ?Destruction and ?Phase Door, AND wielding one of the big damage weapons like 'Deathwreaker'. Morgoth isn't going to last long with those 6 blows. Or a really good *Slay Evil* with 2 extra attacks (8 blows), it's almost a cake walk. Or a maxed out Ranger using Belthronding and a quiver full of Holy Might arrows? So, I say, "It depends."

[mushroom patch]

"Don't get access to the most powerful abilities?" Rangers have the most powerful ability: Extra shots with bows. Everyone has access to banishment, etc. The virtue of melee is that you can (and therefore should) fight in enclosed spaces where it's hard for summoning to get out of control, so that less banishment/teleport other is necessary.

If you play default options, getting the necessary consumables is straightforward. I can see the argument for mage if you're doing force down or something, since unlimited banishment means free vault loot. As far as melee weapons, a blade of chaos or mace of disruption with slay evil will kill endgame uniques easily with any class other than maybe priest and mage. Such weapons aren't that hard to find, especially with rogue class detection spells. And that's just if you want a no-brainer fight. Considerably worse weapons will do the job.

I can't say I've ever had to keep monsters around vs. Morgoth that I thought were dangerous. I've had D summons that I let hang around because most were out of LoS and the fight was almost over, but I didn't regard that as dangerous. The main thing is that with the hp of a melee character and *heals* not very much is actually dangerous.

Anyway, I think you guys are overcomplicating this. Mage is a challenge class (to the extent such things exist). They're definitely not stonger than other classes at any point of the game, except at things you don't really need to do, like clearing vaults.

[Nick]

"Don't get access to the most powerful abilities?" Rangers have the most powerful ability: Extra shots with bows. Everyone has access to banishment, etc.

Yeah, but they don't get the Door Creation/Rift combo.

[mushroom patch]

Seems like that falls under "don't really need to do," but sure mages can do some stuff that is impossible or resource intensive for other classes.

[Derakon]

I've had fights against Morgoth where I only had 3-5 each of Destruction and Mass Banishment. In such situations you'll be thinking really hard about whether it's time to bust out a "nuke" or if you should hold off for a few more turns.

And you'll note that I did say that rangers have one of the easiest wins simply because of their overwhelming ranged offense. Being able to kill things really fast while also taking no melee damage makes up for a lot.

[mushroom patch]

Yeah, the consumable collection aspect of melee characters is a consideration. It's not hard, but it does take time.

My feeling is that mages have to take it slower than other classes through most of the game, but maybe good wand drops early on can change that. The thing is that mages still need a lot of restore mana for the last fight, but that's easier to get than *heal*, banishment scrolls, and so on. I don't know if the difference in consumable collection times is relevant from a turn count perspective, but maybe.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Yeah, the consumable collection aspect of melee characters is a consideration. It's not hard, but it does take time.

My feeling is that mages have to take it slower than other classes through most of the game, but maybe good wand drops early on can change that. The thing is that mages still need a lot of restore mana for the last fight, but that's easier to get than *heal*, banishment scrolls, and so on. I don't know if the difference in consumable collection times is relevant from a turn count perspective, but maybe.

So far, my fastest has been a human warrior. I found that the speed with which they gain experience outweighs the time it takes to collect consumables along the way.