Any tips for a newbie?

[Pete Mack]

For pure damage, sling of Buckland (x4) <+2>, or good Haradrim with Holy Might ammo. Nothing else is close, unless you are playing a Ranger, where Bard or an x5 Lothlorien bow are even better.

[Derakon]

Just found Bard's longbow but it's not as good as my Sling of Buckland, what's the best launcher on the game?

Depends on what you need; the launchers actually do a pretty good job of being sidegrades of each other. Cubragol is probably the best "stat stick" launcher. Belthrondig and Bard are great for rangers (and Belthrondig is also a good stat stick for people who hate disenchantment). Umbar is pretty impressive if you're going crossbows and don't mind the aggravation.

But for raw damage as a non-ranger, Sling of Buckland with +2 shots is really hard to beat.

[robbiodobbio]

Just found Bard's longbow but it's not as good as my Sling of Buckland, what's the best launcher on the game?

[Pete Mack]

Higher resists work at only 6/(6+1d6) reduction factor, so a resisted nexus breath can do up to 342 damage. I believe light and dark resist are somewhat better.

[A Magical Lamp]

Yeah backing up the suggestion to heal immediately against Morgoth, if you give him half a chance he'll put you in very uncomfortable positions. Just going to borrow the newbie-tips thread to ask my own question too - I just had a mage get one-hit-killed by a resisted nexus breath for over 200 damage, I thought the damage cap on that was something like 400 so resisted should've been 133 damage. What happened?

[Pete Mack]

A. Don't. He is not killed, simply removed from the level. To kill him you would have to start from scratch after returning to the level or waiting for him to regenerate.
B. Yes
C M's mana storm can do up to 600 hp, though it usually does less. Usually I just heal if I am 300HP less than MAX, because that is as much as the potion can do.

[robbiodobbio]

What happens if I use *destruction* against him? Does it just kill his summoned monsters? Does it damage him?

Do wands of annihilation work on him?

What's the lowest I can let my HP fall to?

[Severian]

I've been playing a lot of Dota lately, and playing carry in Dota is a bit like playing Angband- the first commandment is "don't die." How do you avoid dying? Well, don't put yourself in a position where you might die. It kind of is that simple.

[Pete Mack]

Angel pits and dragon pits. Even undead pits, especially with a MoD +2 attacks, rNether, and full sustains. Not demon pits. They have too many HP

[robbiodobbio]

Sauron is down. Epic battle but not too hard in the end. He summoned a s**tload of uniques though so it got pretty interesting.

The hardest part was trying to get back to the spot where I killed him afterwards to grab the loot. Had to travel through a unique infested mess only to find that he didn't drop any decent stuff!

Morgoth next, need to do a bit of stock-piling first, any tips?

[Pete Mack]

If you have room keep them. They save about. 3 rounds combat each w Morgoth. Holy Might ammo (or Wounding/slay evil shot for sling) is likely more valuable.

[robbiodobbio]

How useful are rune of protection scrolls? Should I be collecting them? Potion stockpiling is coming along nicely. Might have enough for a shot at Sauron soon.

[robbiodobbio]

Sling of Buckland is ridiculous! No one even gets near me.

[robbiodobbio]

Just found a sling of Buckland!!! 3 shots a round!

Also found Isildur's platemail but Rohirrim still gives me better resistances.

[Severian]

They used to be easier, since it was easy to enchant the starting bow to (+7,+7). But it really isn't hard to get to Cl 20 as any half-casting class. At that point all it takes is a longbow of Power or the like.

Yeah, I've noticed that Enchant Weapon no longer appears in the store. That actually seems like a pretty big nerf to Ranger's early game. I don't scum in other ways, but when I was playing for turns I would save some gold from point allocation and restart if the starting shop didn't have them.

With a +4 or +5 Long Bow (I'll object to +7 if you mean before descending at all, but I'm guessing you don't) a Ranger could dive to long bow depth, maybe encounter and kill Wormtongue, and hope for an ego bow, on the first trip. My fastest starts ever in Angband were done that way, and a couple of them (out of hundreds of games) were fast indeed.

Failing a decent bow from Wormtongue, a quick +8 bow from shop scrolls would take you a ways as Ranger even if you had bad bow luck otherwise.