What should I throw away?

[Nivra]

Anything I should swap from home into my kit? Any other thoughts?

Oh, and how useful is the magebook of resistances at this stage? Does shield really add much of a boost?

I would consider carrying around the chaos DSM. Chaos breathers can do quite a bit of damage near the bottom of the dungeon. In fact, I think it's more important the pConf as you can always quaff a potion or even eat a mushroom of Clear Mind for resist. Either check monster spoiler help files or use a rod of probing to figure out who can melee to confuse and wear Rohorrim for those creatures.

I would also second diving to dlvl 98. Might as well. Do a detect on the entrance to each level and stop whenever you see an interesting vault/pit/unique. By the time you get to 98, you'll have much more loot and levels, probably.

Kelek's is a PITA. I have a mage ready for Morgy but he doesn't have Kelek's and I'm debating whether to try Morgy without Kelek's. He plays very much like a rogue/warrior with utility spells. I cast ProtEvil/Shield/Resists, and jump into melee, casting a Rune every once in awhile if I feel like there are particular hard-hitters around. He's melee'd to death most of the late-game unique's with Ulmo. Meteor Swarm just doesn't compare to Ulmo or his Scythe of Slicing(HA). It does help that he's immune fire/acid. He needs to scum for more consumables, though. I didn't bother collecting Banish/Destruct because I was counting on Kelek's.

Has anyone killed Morgy without Kelek's? And how tough is it?

[Bogatyr]

Bogatyr, I'm a diver too and have done so with the last bunch of mages I've played and died horrible deaths because I didn't play cautious enough. With your encouragement, I'm headed to 98 soon, especially if I find Kelek's soonish.

MattB, is that a promise? With my lowish health, I don't want to get fried by Phoenix or one of the fire-dragons.

One of the reasons to hit 98 sooner is to get Kelek's sooner. You have to still use judgement -- if your HP are below 250 or so there are many monsters with spell attacks that can instadeath you. Avoid the feeling that you're invulnerable, and cast reveal every few steps, and you should be OK, especially if you have telepathy. I definitely like to hang around stat gain until I find equip or enough CON potions to get above about 300 HP, but sometimes I just get bored and dive dive dive. High stealth can help out as well.

[Derakon]

Has anyone killed Morgy without Kelek's? And how tough is it?

Stock up on Destruction and Wands of Annihilation, bring Tenser's with you, and you won't even miss Kelek's. It has great spells, don't get me wrong, but they're far from essential.

[Nivra]

Stock up on Destruction and Wands of Annihilation, bring Tenser's with you, and you won't even miss Kelek's. It has great spells, don't get me wrong, but they're far from essential.

So I did the math and Wands of Annihilation are very comparable to Mana Storm. Actually more for a single cast.

Mana Storm is 400 damage at 86% success, or 344 avg. damage.

-Annihilation is 250 damage * 1.76 device skill increase = 440 damage.
440 * 96.2% activation chance = 423 avg. damage.

You do lose a turn every 3-4 turns in order to recharge after your initial stack of charges is used up. Let's call that 4 turns since you start with an initial stack of 20+ charges. So that's 80% of the time you can deal damage, or 423 * .80 = 339 damage. Almost as much as Mana Storm.

Over 5 turns, Mana Storm costs 80 mana, whereas Greater Recharging only costs 30 mana, so you spend less time refilling your mana pool, too. I guess you also have to factor in fails of Greater Recharging, so it's probably closer to 300 avg. damage, taking 40+ mana every 5 turns.

For my mage, I ended up finding Kelek's as i descended to kill Sauron, but I already had a lot of Wands stored up, so I used them all up, then recharged when I had a breather while waiting for Morgoth and used them again. So they spiked much more damage than Mana Storm as the recharges didn't take up DPS opportunities. Mana Storm also has side benefits, being able to hit Morgoth while he's not yet in LOS, and being able to hit his summons, however.

Details of Ferb, the High-Elf Mage's battle are in the AAR:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=7469

[Update: More Math. For 20k HP, you would need 46 successful charges in order to kill Morgoth. So you could scum for 10-15 wands and that would obviate the need for lots of recharging, bringing the effective DPS higher than Mana Storm].

[StMicah]

Nivra, Yep, detect for interesting vaults was my strategy from 75 to 95. A little bit ago I got to 98 and found Kelek's after clearing out a vault. Now I'm looking for some better equipment before heading down to the bigbaddies.

Thanks everyone else for your feedback. Assuming I don't make a dumb mistake, I hope to have my first win with a mage.

[StMicah]

I did it! First mage win...just manastormed Morgy. Got some help from the one ring.

I took down the bigbaddies pretty solidly. Not the most exciting end fights, so I don't know if the manastorming was boring or that I've lost the edge of my seat feeling at the last fights.

Don't know if I'd play a mage through again. Can't pinpoint a reason, though.

[Bogatyr]

I did it!

Congrats!

Don't know if I'd play a mage through again. Can't pinpoint a reason, though.

I keep starting other class/race combos, but I seem to keep putting them on the shelf around clev 20 and go run another gnome mage game. Ah, so great to have my spells again! And re-discovering each new dungeon spellbook is an electric thrill .