Here's how I start gnome mages

[wobbly]

Mordakeen's

[brbrbr]

Make a long ASC with a bunch of Glyphs of Warding

Pro player deals with Saruman: http://lparchive.org/Angband/Update%2037/
He is using ASC with Glyphs of Warding while playing Elf Mage.

Do mages get Glyph of Warding? Which book? Do I miss something?
Or was it there in earlier version of Angband?

[Derakon]

Actually, a straight corridor may be a good option.
It is dangerous for other classes, but mage has Create Doors.
So if enemy summons a deadly breather - I can create door and run away.

Another question: does Rift teleport enemies far away, or slightly back, more like Phase door?

It's like Phase Door. They can conceivably end up closer. They can also get teleported back to where the rift hasn't hit yet, and thereby get hit twice by the same beam. That's rare though.

[brbrbr]

Actually, a straight corridor may be a good option.
It is dangerous for other classes, but mage has Create Doors.
So if enemy summons a deadly breather - I can create door and run away.

Another question: does Rift teleport enemies far away, or slightly back, more like Phase door?

[Monkey Face]

Make a long ASC with a bunch of Glyphs of Warding. Every time one is broken, take a step back to a new GoW. That keeps you from dealing with summons AND cuts down on melee damage.

[Bogatyr]

Drain life approaches 300 for high level gnome mages (the precise value I measured is in a post I made somewhere on this forum).

Yes my mages always fight from a distance unless I've found something like Deathwreaker which even for a mage is a pure pleasure against undead. With Kelek's you can quickly plunder major vaults on dlev 98 and find Slings of Buckland which give massive damage output even on plain shots (but of course with Tenser's you can brand all ammo!). If you want to get cheesy and have enough speed you can pillar dance (which was my go-to approach for mages for a long time). For slightly less cheese you can do hockey stick corridors (one step to the side of a 45-degree diagonal corridor (in the direction of slant) and you can fire spells at the monsters in the corridor but they can't see you) for (nearly) risk-free unique slaying. Another variant on the hockey stick is creating a ton of knight's move corners and hitting the unique as he steps on to the knight's move away square, then when it steps next to you, phase away. Otherwise, just TO until you get Chaos Strike. I also use Rift alot against uniques. In a long corridor a single rift will either kill or phase almost everything away.

[wobbly]

He resists all base elements except maybe acid? (I think he does have racid). Holiness won't do great damage but it still more than his melee weapon (if he even hits). Plus the heal and the protect evil aren't a lot but better than nothing. Pretty sure drain life is the same damage as holiness (could be wrong). Annihilation is better I guess.

Ok, he doesn't resist acid. Drain life is 150. Holiness is ?. For some reason holiness & dispel evil don't show damage in their item descriptions. It's 150 in poscheng but devices are usually stronger in that variant.

Searching the forum brings up 120 for holiness. I'd say it's additional perks make it better then drain life. Though that's situational.

[Derakon]

Saurman also hits for disenchant. If you're not going to blast him with spells you're probably better of using a shooter with slay evil arrows or emptying a staff of holiness on him and recharging then meleeing. I'd honesty wait til you can blast him with spells.

Have you tried separating him from his summons with TO?

Holiness doesn't do all that much damage; if you want to have a magic device-based offense, wands of Dragon's Flame, Drain Life, or Annihilation are a better bet. Er, assuming Saruman doesn't resist fire for that Dragon's Flame; I forget if he does.

[wobbly]

Saurman also hits for disenchant. If you're not going to blast him with spells you're probably better of using a shooter with slay evil arrows or emptying a staff of holiness on him and recharging then meleeing. I'd honesty wait til you can blast him with spells.

Have you tried separating him from his summons with TO?

[Werbaer]

Question: how mage should deals with summoners?
I am facing now Mouth of Sauron, Vampire messenger, Saruman...
If I make anti-summoning zig-zag corridor, I would need to go melee.

My mages never use melee.
I usually kill uniques in a looooong straight corridor to limit summoning options. Then i use Explosion / Meteor Swarm / Mana Storm to kill it. When damaged, i create doors, heal with cheap potions unitl the opponent opens the door, then phase away.
Since you're at dlev 75, i assume you're strong enough to kill Saruman this way; i avoid (teleport away) monsters with strong range attacks (for example the Mouth) until i have high hit points and hopefully the last book.

[Estie]

That is the tough part for mages: damage is hard to find at that point; ideally, you find Kelek´s and plunder vaults by means of banishment. To kill those uniques, you need either better melee or more experience to be able to cast the good spells, both are best come by from vaults (better items, stat potions, xp potions).

Lacking Kelek`s, its teleport other orgy.

[Timo Pietilä]

Avoid the battle! TO them and move on until @ is more powerful.

150 from Totila is far too little to melee any of those. Priest could perhaps out-last them by standing on rune and healing every time needed, but mage needs bigger guns to survive bigger battles.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

My Dunedan Mage goes very strong!!!
I am at dl75, and the game is fun and quick. I like it.

Question: how mage should deals with summoners?
I am facing now Mouth of Sauron, Vampire messenger, Saruman...
If I make anti-summoning zig-zag corridor, I would need to go melee.
Mage is not good at melee. Magic Shield gives +50 AC, but is it enough? Totila does about 150 damage... I anticipate I would need to use lot of healing potions if I melee, sounds like waste.

Avoid the battle! TO them and move on until @ is more powerful.

[brbrbr]

My Dunedan Mage goes very strong!!!
I am at dl75, and the game is fun and quick. I like it.

Question: how mage should deals with summoners?
I am facing now Mouth of Sauron, Vampire messenger, Saruman...
If I make anti-summoning zig-zag corridor, I would need to go melee.
Mage is not good at melee. Magic Shield gives +50 AC, but is it enough? Totila does about 150 damage... I anticipate I would need to use lot of healing potions if I melee, sounds like waste.

[brbrbr]

/\/\//\No- it was a dead-straight corridor.

I'm not sure- it was a dark corridor so I may not have actually seen it

Lighting corridor probably a good idea.

Been there, done that.
One of my characters was killed by awaken and teleported Barlog, who was at the other end of very, very, very, very long corridor.
I made it a point to always rest in "knight move"/"hockey stick" position. Never rest in corridors.

What else you could do? Maybe memorize every insta-killer you teleported. There is always a chance they will come back. And even higher chance that you will teleport yourself next to them.