Priest Class - Strategy/Tactics Discussion

[Shany]

The text descriptions are pretty vague. The bottom of "Superb" is a lot less stealthy than the top is.

Found it in source code.

 0-1  = Bad
  2   = Poor
 3-4  = Fair
  5   = Good
  6   = Very Good
 7-8  = Excellent
 9-13 = Superb
14-17 = Heroic
18-...= Legendary

[Bogatyr]

The big problem with dispel spells is that they encourage you to be in LOS of as many monsters as possible. With orcs and trolls this generally isn't a huge deal, but it's suicidal against basically any group of mid- or late-game monsters.

That's the entire fun of it! Trying to wriggle into the sight of the full room without getting blasted. Yes, definitely best done against monsters without (troublesome) distance-based attacks.

[Bogatyr]

Dispel undead/evil are actually quite weak spells, at least the town book versions of them. I did some testing with pits and I could always clear those using less spells with OoD than with dispels. Dungeon book versions IIRC do 1d (4*clvl) where town book does 1d (3*clvl) (and Ingwe activation is 1d (5*clvl))

Yes but they're great fun and it makes things "dissolve" and disappear all at once And pits are also great fun, especially dragon pits, when you have immunity against that breath. Interesting, now that I think of it, I haven't seen a "D/d" pit in 3.5.1 for a really really long time, do they still exist? Lots of animal pits, graveyards, ants, demons, "p" pits but no "D" ones…hmm...

[Derakon]

The text descriptions are pretty vague. The bottom of "Superb" is a lot less stealthy than the top is.

[Shany]

Thank you, will save this boots then.

[Mondkalb]

You would need more points to reach the next "level" of the description. There is also "heroic" and "legendary".

[Shany]

I'm not a priest (high-elf mage, to be exact), but I have a question about stealth (maybe a noob's question). I have "superb" stealth (with two rings of mouse), and now I found boots of stealth +3, and when I wear it, stealth description doesn't change, it's still "superb". Does it mean I reached stealth maximum, and boots doesn't affect it?

[Derakon]

The big problem with dispel spells is that they encourage you to be in LOS of as many monsters as possible. With orcs and trolls this generally isn't a huge deal, but it's suicidal against basically any group of mid- or late-game monsters.

[Timo Pietilä]

And the Dispel Undead/Evil spells are great, great fun. I just dissolved Azog and Bolg's underlings, softened them up with some Orbs of Draining, then they too dissolved .

Dispel undead/evil are actually quite weak spells, at least the town book versions of them. I did some testing with pits and I could always clear those using less spells with OoD than with dispels. Dungeon book versions IIRC do 1d (4*clvl) where town book does 1d (3*clvl) (and Ingwe activation is 1d (5*clvl))

[Bogatyr]

know your prayers

I think an important point for priest class is to really become familiar with your arsenal of prayers, and to use them to your advantage. Earthquake is great for breaking up line of sight if you're caught out in the open by a pack of breathers (hounds especially), protection from evil can let you wade through a pack of lower level monsters without getting touched, and of course healing means you can stay in a fight for a long time and eventually wear down your opponent even if your damage output is not all that great.

And the Dispel Undead/Evil spells are great, great fun. I just dissolved Azog and Bolg's underlings, softened them up with some Orbs of Draining, then they too dissolved .

[Bogatyr]

The beating was, iirc, because you were using mouse ring over speed rings.
Now stealth is great, but speed is better. Going from speed 0 to +10 is, among other things, also having the effect of getting +3 stealth: you wake up only half the amount of monsters.

Typically, when speed rings enter the picture, the endgame has started and stealth loses its value; eventually, for the last 2 fights, having aggravation has no relevant effect.

I was using both: swapping in speed for fights, and staying stealthy all the rest of the time. I observed a *significant* difference in monster waking rates when wearing the speed rings vs. the mouse. I could even fully rest in a vault with the mouse rings on and nothing would wake up (not that that's a good thing to do, I'd usually rest outside and with ESP observe that nothing woke). Sure, speed becomes more important towards the end of the game, but if you play race/class combos (like I do) that have hit points in the insteadeath range for the majority of the game, keeping monsters asleep is of utmost importance.

Generally, though, I agree that speed is almost always the best choice.

[Timo Pietilä]

So far, I think I understand the importance of getting Orb of Draining as quickly as possible

Others have given you advices so I ignore those.

ASAP OoD: stop getting new spells at clvl 7 so that you have three spells to learn when you reach 9. That way it is guaranteed that you gain OoD at the earliest possible moment.

Use blessing. That has quite big impact on your survival at early levels. It makes you hit more and gives you +5 AC which has some meaning when you have close to nothing. Buy scrolls of phase door. Buy armor. Buy bow/xbow. blessing + bow is surprisingly efficient method of killing things.

That should get you thru very early game.

[Bogatyr]

The thing I have trouble with is gauging how much stealth is enough.

If you're going to "rely" on it, being on the border of Legendary I think is the place to be. Yes that means really focusing on it. Yes of course you don't know exactly when something will randomly wake up. But if you really pile on the stealth to the point where pretty much everything stays asleep the entire time you're walking around, and yet remain cautious, it's a huge benefit.

At times I like to swap in a "stealth" stack vs. a "speed/combat" stack. People call me stupid for doing that but it's how I like to play. It works well and is fun, and that's the point.

I've done well with a half-troll "fight everything" warrior, too, completely the opposite of stealthy: everything's awake all the time. It is refreshing to go that route from time to time.

[Estie]

I've taken a beating here before for being a big fan of stealth. There's nothing like walking through levels of monsters as if time has stopped, picking and choosing exactly which items you want to retrieve and which monsters you want to fight, without worrying about picking up crowds of dangerous followers. Heroic is good, and I love Legendary if I can manage.

That's the way I like to play, so there :P.

The beating was, iirc, because you were using mouse ring over speed rings.
Now stealth is great, but speed is better. Going from speed 0 to +10 is, among other things, also having the effect of getting +3 stealth: you wake up only half the amount of monsters.

Typically, when speed rings enter the picture, the endgame has started and stealth loses its value; eventually, for the last 2 fights, having aggravation has no relevant effect.

[AnonymousHero]

The thing I have trouble with is gauging how much stealth is enough. You really only need enough so that you have a decent assurance that monsters won't wake up until you're "done" in their part of the dungeon. That might mean sneaking through the vault they're in, it might mean murdering a group of trolls one at a time, it might mean just being able to avoid getting into a fight with a mystic. But all monsters have different alertness levels, how awake they are is completely opaque, it's also dependent on your speed (higher speed = stealthier, because you get more actions per unit time)...it's a mess.

I can only agree. I think the point was made on Roguelike Radio (can't remember which episode) that Stealth is really hard to do well unless you focus almost entirely on it. Sil actually manages really well at this aspect if you go with the appropriate Song skill (and focus almost entirely on it!)... This combined with the "fuzzy ESP" (Perception, I think the skill is called) was actually my most successful Sil character[1], but there were several aspects of the game I didn't like, so I haven't played further.

[1] Got almost to the bottom of the dungeon.