Few Newb Questions

[AngelicPenguin]

The only spell I use from MB6 is Meteor Storm. It does unresistable damage with AoE much faster than the earlier bolt spells without hitting you too hard with respect to damage per SP. Avoid actually killing with it, as it will destroy drops. Take your target down as low as possible and finish with something else. This one spell is reason enough to carry MB6. Oh, the gravity beam is in there, too. Use it against tough uniques instead of TO. Hit them with meteors, mama storms, Annihilation, whatever, until they are 2-3 cells away, then gravity to move them away; rinse and repeat.

MB7 is useful for recall, stairs, doors and teleport level. I go straight to DL98 (if I'm not already there) as soon as I find it and have high enough level. I think rune is in there, too?

MB9 is for mana storm. Banishment, mass banishment, and WoD are in here, too.

Good info! I'm playing a Ranger, though, so I don't get all those spells. Does that change anything?

[AngelicPenguin]

Raal's provides superior ranged attack spells. Try them out.

Dtair creation is great for powerdiving. Teleport level is often safer than teleport. Door creation lets you manage LoS

I'd probably leave Kelek at home as a nong-mage though. At least until the big P

I guess I figured as a Ranger, my ranged attack would be my arrows. Granted it's AOE. Maybe I just haven't run into the situations where I would like to have good AOE other than just convenience. I might be playing too shallow (level 37 at 2500')

How does Door Creation help with LoS? You just close a made door if you need to back out of an area so they can't hit you at range? Like in a tunnel?

[Pondlife]

Door creation is incredibly useful. I generaly play a mage, and when I'm down deep, it's the first spell I cast when entering a new level. Followed by detect.

It prevents any LOS attacks, so any monster needs to walk up to the door and bash/open it before they can attack you.

[AngelicPenguin]

Door creation is incredibly useful. I generaly play a mage, and when I'm down deep, it's the first spell I cast when entering a new level. Followed by detect.

It prevents any LOS attacks, so any monster needs to walk up to the door and bash/open it before they can attack you.

This will probably sound incredibly stupid, but why can't they just walk around the door?

Edit: n/m I learned the spell and see how it works. Wow!

[Derakon]

Word of Destruction is worth a book slot on its own. Being able to destroy everything within 20 tiles of you is surprisingly useful. Graveyard near the vault you want to plunder? Nuke the graveyard! One turn away from something you really, really don't want to deal with? Instead of teleporting, healing, etc. you can just destruct the problem away. And of course, in the final fight you can use it to get rid of Morgoth's summons, after having teleported Morgoth away.

With a 5% failure rate it's obviously not a perfect tool, but it's still one of the biggest utility spells in the game, especially considering the only other sources are in such limited supply.

[Egavactip]

There's also a rod of healing. If I have inventory space when I find one, I'll hold on to it for a while, but they're rare enough that you never get a decent stack, and they have a very long refresh, especially when you're fast, so I usually consider them junk.

Au contraire. If you are lucky you can build a huge stack of them. In some dungeons they seem very rare, in others they are much more common. Nothing like 4-6 rods of healing to give you an extra security blanket.

[Egavactip]

I found a couple items that I'm not sure the value of -
Wand of Disarming
Staff of Earthquakes

From reading the spell descriptions I can't really figure out if these items are useful. I dropped them in my house in case they turned out to be something valuable.

I basically squelch those immediately. A Staff of Earthquakes is more likely to destroy magic items you want than to do something to help you, though in one case I used it to create a barrier between me and some chasing nasty thingie that otherwise would certainly have killed me.

I've tried carrying around a Wand of Disarming or something similar when playing a priest, but the slot is just too valuable.

[Egavactip]

Raal's provides superior ranged attack spells. Try them out.

Dtair creation is great for powerdiving. Teleport level is often safer than teleport. Door creation lets you manage LoS

I'd probably leave Kelek at home as a nong-mage though. At least until the big P

Leave it at home? When it has Destruction????

[Egavactip]

This will probably sound incredibly stupid, but why can't they just walk around the door?

Edit: n/m I learned the spell and see how it works. Wow!

It blocks line of sight. Like an impenetrable shield that will stop ray guns but that a physical touch will bring down.

[AngelicPenguin]

Word of Destruction is worth a book slot on its own. Being able to destroy everything within 20 tiles of you is surprisingly useful. Graveyard near the vault you want to plunder? Nuke the graveyard! One turn away from something you really, really don't want to deal with? Instead of teleporting, healing, etc. you can just destruct the problem away. And of course, in the final fight you can use it to get rid of Morgoth's summons, after having teleported Morgoth away.

With a 5% failure rate it's obviously not a perfect tool, but it's still one of the biggest utility spells in the game, especially considering the only other sources are in such limited supply.

I see - the failure rate on that is 50% at the moment, should I wait it's quite a bit lower to carry the book around?

I looked up the description and it said "within 15 square tiles" (I can't figure out how to see the spell description in game) - is that 15 tiles on each side that gets nuked? I'm guessing you have to make sure no items are there.

[AngelicPenguin]

I basically squelch those immediately. A Staff of Earthquakes is more likely to destroy magic items you want than to do something to help you, though in one case I used it to create a barrier between me and some chasing nasty thingie that otherwise would certainly have killed me.

I've tried carrying around a Wand of Disarming or something similar when playing a priest, but the slot is just too valuable.

Good to know - thanks!

[Derakon]

I see - the failure rate on that is 50% at the moment, should I wait it's quite a bit lower to carry the book around?

I looked up the description and it said "within 15 square tiles" (I can't figure out how to see the spell description in game) - is that 15 tiles on each side that gets nuked? I'm guessing you have to make sure no items are there.

Even at 50% it may be worth using, e.g. for the "graveyard near a vault" scenario. The bigger question is how its cost compares to your SP supply; if you can (try to) cast it at least twice before resting, then I'd say it's worth carrying.

And yeah, it's a circular radius around you. Anything besides you in that radius will be destroyed. But it's precise, so you can use tile counting if you need to, to hit certain tiles but not others.

[AngelicPenguin]

I have two practically identical shields - one resists shards, one resists disenchant. Is one more important than the other?

[AngelicPenguin]

Even at 50% it may be worth using, e.g. for the "graveyard near a vault" scenario. The bigger question is how its cost compares to your SP supply; if you can (try to) cast it at least twice before resting, then I'd say it's worth carrying.

And yeah, it's a circular radius around you. Anything besides you in that radius will be destroyed. But it's precise, so you can use tile counting if you need to, to hit certain tiles but not others.

It only costs 30 SP of my 257. I'll bring it down then!

[Mondkalb]

I have two practically identical shields - one resists shards, one resists disenchant. Is one more important than the other?

That depends. Some shard attacks can do a consideralble amount of damage.
There are also disenchentmant attacks which can partly disenchant your gear (even artifacts). Early disenchanters are Mim and his sons.
With your ranger you want to use your bow and attack from a distance, resist shards may be more useful most of the time, because most of the disenchant attacks happen in melee. (There are some dangerous breathers though.)

However, the damage reduction for both attacks is quite low. If it wasn't change in 4.1 it should follow this formula:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=6744

In general, resistance to disenchantment is more useful, imho.