A Total Newbie Guide by an Almost Total Newbie

[wobbly]

One thing about priest: Holy Orb is a fine spell up to around CL 30 or a bit later. Once you've got good melee damage and low-fail (5% or less) on healing spell, melee is probably cheaper than Orb in terms of risk and mana cost for most monsters. Orb is particularly terrible against non-evil monsters. Use devices or archery if your melee is bad and you're not doing well with Orb. Yes, it's better than most mage spells. But it's still not all that great at a high level.

A bit old but my own experience was this is not exactly true. I mean yes it is true that OOD does a poor job of damaging non-evil but Tele-Othering takes care of any non-evil big hp sacks. (Use the wands & recharge if you don't have the spell). On the other hand greater undead are mopped up pretty easily by OOD & worth a ton of xp. Enough that you won't miss the xp loss from not fighting a bunch of other stuff. A pit of them is worth a heap & if you're careful enough to look for & tele-other the black reavers away you can level quite fast this way.

I also Orbed both Sauron & Morgoth (backed up by anhiliation wands). It is slow, very slow but pretty safe (Note: I destructed the whole level with staves 1st which gives added safety to phase & teleport). So while melee-ing Morgoth is quicker than OOD I'm not convinced that finding an endgame melee priest weapon/setup is quicker than just decending & Orbing him.

[Sideways]

Priests can't do it, but the issue is not damage, it's lack of stone to mud. If you skip the forced descent and do levels multiple times, a priest could be successful in the approach, too, but it would be miserably slow.

See under: any of my priest winners. It's not that difficult to completely clear every level with a priest - even without using any line-of-sight tricks - if you take your time and don't dive too fast.

There isn't any one right way to play Angband. Do it your way and have fun.

[Mondkalb]

O, that's very interesting.

What's OoD?

Orb of Draining - THE priest spell (together with healing spells of course)

[CivBesch]

O, that's very interesting.

What's OoD?

[PowerWyrm]

In that context, while going deeper, is there a chance that priests can gain strength in any way?
- temporarily?
- sustained strength?

As a priest, you don't care about strength. What you want is wisdom, and quickly, so you can build your mana pool and spam OoD. You will care about strength only for the end game, and at that point it will be probably maxed out naturally.

[CivBesch]

thanks for that information.

[Mondkalb]

In that context, while going deeper, is there a chance that priests can gain strength in any way?
- temporarily?
- sustained strength?

There are rings (and amulets and some other equipment as well, e. g. weapons and dwarven armor) to improve various stats, and potions that increase stats permanently, but they show up deeper.
You also will find potions that increase one stat at the cost of decreasing a random other stat, these show up earlier. In case of strength this is the "potion of brawn".

[CivBesch]

In that context, while going deeper, is there a chance that priests can gain strength in any way?
- temporarily?
- sustained strength?

[PowerWyrm]

Yes, I noticed that the priest is not very efficient in melee, so it forces me to find other ways to eliminate the monsters. It's a bit like chess playing.

But I am now wondering. If a priest is that weak for the lower DL's. Does that mean that you cannot win the game by killing Morgoth as the priest is too weak? or is it only possible with a priest if you are very lucky?

Priest is probably the easiest class to win the game with. At higher level, you'll find stuff like mace of disruption of slay evil/holy avenger/extra attacks to deal with you melee ineffectiveness, and you can simply stay forever with unlimited healing, glyphs and evil banishing. All you need for the endgame is your spellbooks, a few CCWs if you lack pStun and a good supply of restore mana potions.

[CivBesch]

Yes, I noticed that the priest is not very efficient in melee, so it forces me to find other ways to eliminate the monsters. It's a bit like chess playing.

But I am now wondering. If a priest is that weak for the lower DL's. Does that mean that you cannot win the game by killing Morgoth as the priest is too weak? or is it only possible with a priest if you are very lucky?

[mrfy]

Another point of view: I'm a level clearer and I don't consider I've won until I've killed all of the uniques. Yes, it's not necessary, but that's my play style, and I've won a number of times mostly playing mages and rangers.

[kandrc]

One last thing: Clearing levels as a priest (or mage) is particularly difficult. They have lousy melee, so you can't just blow through enemies the way you can as a warrior (or paladin, or even rogue.)

Just so you know, it's also fun to see how few enemies you can kill.

Not to be contrary, but it's not so hard for a mage. I recently (a year or so ago), for shits and giggles, played a forced-descent, level-clearing mage. I use stone to mud to make 20-long hockey sticks and abuse non-reciprocal line of sight, but in so doing made it to somewhere in the mid-40s. Killed lots of Ds. Killed Kavlax, Lorgan, and a handful of others that I would ordinarily run from until much, much deeper. Pretty sure it was an AMHD that got me, which, frankly, was exactly what I expected to kill me.

Priests can't do it, but the issue is not damage, it's lack of stone to mud. If you skip the forced descent and do levels multiple times, a priest could be successful in the approach, too, but it would be miserably slow. Mage, on the other hand, was actually kind of fun. Of course, I entered into it knowing I would die. If I had any illusion of winning, I'd have been setting myself up for disappointment.

[Pete Mack]

One last thing: Clearing levels as a priest (or mage) is particularly difficult. They have lousy melee, so you can't just blow through enemies the way you can as a warrior (or paladin, or even rogue.)

Just so you know, it's also fun to see how few enemies you can kill.

[CivBesch]

thanks for the hints.

I am now at DL8 clearing the level, not getting bored at the moment.

[Pete Mack]

It's great that you're having fun now.
Just beware: the odds of getting bored (or making a careless error, or simply getting unlucky) go up with time of play. And if you want to win, eventually you'll need to get past DL 40. *Many* players agree that this is an inflection point, and that play below this level quickly becomes different from play above it.