What am I doing wrong?

[Sideways]

A couple nitpicks. Going slow does not require you to clear levels, and you should not do so. A level clearer does not have a safe level to teleport into. If you rely on having a clear space to teleport into you will probably die, when something capable of moderate burst damage breathes on you after you teleported away from a vault with 130 hp.

I think you overestimate the risk (and monster generation rates on cleared levels) because level clearing isn't something you do. It's true the risk isn't zero, but it's really very close to zero; so close to zero as to be vanishingly unlikely to kill you even over the course of a long game. The risk may be higher in older versions or variants with different monster spawning, but in today's Angband teleports like that are essentially safe, unless Nick changed things since I last played Vanilla. (Also, it's not true that new monsters will spawn awake, at least not in 3.5.1 which Moving Pictures is playing. They spawn with their usual sleep status, which for most of them is asleep.)

That said, of course it's still not the ideal solution. But if a scroll of phase door is guaranteed to put you into a known space with no monsters (say, you're in a zigzagging anti-summoning corridor and there's just the one monster around and you were meleeing him), that's a perfectly safe escape.

[Philip]

You don't have to fight uniques, though in the first 40 levels or so, it's one of the few reliable ways of generating an object as good, which can be quite handy. Never fight Gorlim he is bad. The other uniques, I recommend not fighting, essentially. Some of the late-game ones you might want to fight to avoid them getting summoned in to the final fight, but there is no good reason ever to fight, like, Vargo or someone.

You don't really have to fight uniques to get stuff later on, and you don't have to fight most of them to keep them out of the final fight. They are a fun challenge, but if you would like to win, I recommend waiting until you serious out-level them. And don't fight Kavlax or Gorlim.

In your situation, I would focus on, say, ancient dragons, like you seem to have already done. They drop pretty well on average, give good xp, and they are relatively easy to take out, especially if you have temp speed and distance attacks. Less good for xp but pretty good for stuff are ordinary boring pack monsters, vrocks (don't fight them in melee though). Dunno about anything else at your dlvl, really. Mostly just avoid undead and things that can summon, because that stuff can get out of hand.

[Moving Pictures]

You don't have to fight uniques, though in the first 40 levels or so, it's one of the few reliable ways of generating an object as good, which can be quite handy. Never fight Gorlim he is bad. The other uniques, I recommend not fighting, essentially. Some of the late-game ones you might want to fight to avoid them getting summoned in to the final fight, but there is no good reason ever to fight, like, Vargo or someone.

Vargo. Fire elemental. Went down ea.... no, no, I would *never* do that.

And don't fight Kavlax or Gorlim.

Ran into Kavlax. On a 5-7 level, 37 or so. Made the error of "ooh, that's just a big multi-coloured dragon ..., failed to verify, and then had a near-death experience.


Here's a question: how come "slow monster" almost never works? I am seriously thinking about ditching the rods of slow I have, since anything they can/do slow, I can handle, and anything I really need them to slow, they don't.

[Philip]

Eh, everyone has to learn that the elemental uniques are useless wastes of time somehow. All the other uniques before them have at least one drop, so it makes sense to assume they will too.

I don't actually know how status effects work these days, I'm afraid.

[Madoka]

I'm a bit of a newbie myself, having never won the game.

Has the player been unlucky in his drops? He doesn't seem to have gotten a lot of good swag, especially weapons. I'm usually able to ditch the "thanc" daggers by the time I get to level 40. Is part of the problem that once he's forced to melee, he can't hit hard enough?

[ewert]

Lots of advice around, but I'll just throw in my generic two cents. I usually play a mix of dive and grind. And I have a bad streak of completionist in me in Angband somehow. Winning the game without killing all the uniques, max level, all resists + immunes feels inadequate.

Anyways, some generic outline hints from me:
Startup, flasks of oil, phase doors, grind levels 2-3 for a couple levels and some cash to get a shooter and basic gear. You better be near stairs or have enough flasks + phases when the dogs come for you.

After you get some basic shooter going for you, drop down to 10. Farm levels for basic resists, FA, SI, an okay melee and ranged weapon. Some game changers are rings of escape for priest/mage/ranger (ez mode... feels like cheating). Depending on how lucky, careful and skilled you are, you can slowly go down to 20 at the same time. Don't pass 20 without base 4 and SI/FA.

The mentioned detect stuff is important. Use hotkeys and @m1 inscriptions on your stuff by the way. And @z1, @q1, @a1 et cetera. So you inscribe your first magic book @m1, and you can cast spells with m1a instead of maa. If your inventory ever changes, you will still get the right spell off. Also MUCH faster, heh. I always have ^D (ctrl-d) as a detect spell, with ^F and ^G as well for detection (with priest currently detection + map level on ^D^F). I commonly use "x" for Cast-my-basic-dmg-spell-at-nearest-monster. The F-keys for spells without autotargeting. "h" is already game-default as "shoot my weakest missile at nearest monster". You can also use your ranged attack first, like "shoot orb of draining at unique behind small monsters", then use "n" to repeat same shot without having to worry about targeting again.

After you feel you can go past 20 (a couple lucky stat-swap potions for your spellcasting stat helps a ton!), start dropping down to mid 30s. This is usually the make or break time. You either die, or you win the game barring inattention and screwing up. In the low/mid 30s, you carefully pick your battles, loots stuff from ground, to get setup with good enough stats (for mage/priest very easy, just int or wis and con), whatever lucky drops you get, good shooter, nexus resist (time lost from having to redo stats is just too darn bad), base4+poison hopefully (you can live without poison but if you need these hints, you probably won't).

Full utility set of stuff! That is confusion/blindness safe stuff (staff of teleport, CCW potions), escapes (method of teleport, teleport level method, potions of speed can be used for escapes too), vault clearing (granite wall digging with wand or something else, teleport other), healing (phase+staves of CLW, lots of CCW, some !healing). Probing if you are still learning the game! When you see a monster that can throw mana storms, or breathe for 1600 damage, disenchant or drain charges with melee hits, et cetera, probing saves the day.

Getting some basic speed is incredibly useful. Depends on luck though. _Enough CON!_ Seriously. The closer you get to 18/200, the better. A +6 =Con is nothing to scoff at!

After that, I often just slowly descend picking my battles. By 50-60 you should have found speed items, if you haven't time to stop again. Slowly you should be maxed stats, getting some lucky finds, have a great weapon/ranged, et cetera. After that it is just not being stupid, not being careless, and continuing on. At some point, usually 60-70s, I reach a point where I just kinda go "alrighty lets roll", and depending on character I just pretty much drop down to 90+ clearing only opportunity targets. With priests, that's usually clearing what look like interesting vaults on the level (spell weaker version of enlightenment is so juicy). I often kill all but the most deadly uniques on the way... but that's me, definitely don't do that if you are new to the deep levels.

Sauron and Morgoth are usually just a tedious chore for me, but that's a whole other topic how to prepare for them.

[Pete Mack]

There is no conflict between vaults and avoiding fights, most of the time.
1. Use stealth. If the monster doesn't wake up, he is no risk
2. Use knight's move exploit to teleport it away. You get a free shot at a monster at the same speed as you, even if TO fails. If you have 0-fail, this is a no-brainer.
3. Take the occasional < 1% risk of dying (with low-fail mage teleport other.) If you take these risks in a controlled manner, the odds of gaining significant character power from a vault will outweigh a low % chance of instadeath.
4. You can sometimes afford to take a monster for a couple turns, but can't afford to actually fight it all the way.

[Moving Pictures]

Update

Alright. I've taken some of the advice here. Now plunged to 50+, at level 42. Picked up longbow "Beltronding" which is really an upgrade on the longbow of power; helping keep things at range. Also nabbed an amulet that gives +CON and law dragon armour.

AC: 167
HP: 622
SP: 261

Question: Lesser balrogs ... attack or avoid at this stage?

My prime concern now is that Narthanc (upped two points with scrolls) remains the melee weapon. Every item found so far, even the specials, don't give me anywhere near the same damage output. (Caithris excluded: ain't gonna touch that baby.)

I'm not getting level drained as much (save for a single all-stat loss caused by a time vortex mugging).

Essentially, I'm stalking dragons at the moment. Keep running into Kevlax, and I figure at some point, I'm going to crack and go after the blighter.

PS: what sadistic mind creates an open vault of vampires? Had a TP level drop me a few spaces down from an open-door vaultish thing of pretty much every flavour of Vlad imaginable. I took advice and bounced out of that level pronto, but ... yeesh!

[Philip]

Definitely don't fight lesser balrogs, they're generally relatively easy to avoid, difficult to fight, and their drops are pretty worthless.

Pits are fun, yes.

If necessary, don't feel too bad about swapping Narthanc out for a stat-stick of some sort, melee shouldn't be too important, especially for a Ranger with Belthronding.

You have enough hp to fight Kavlax probably, it's just still not really going to be worth the expense.

Otherwise you seem to be doing quite fine.

[Moving Pictures]

Ah-hah moment

Figured out another factor to "being mugged" frequently: not centering the character, so that I couldn't see things more than four-six squares if moving to the edge of a screen.

[Grotug]

Alright. So I did as you said: loaded up on the sneaky/stealthy stuff.

Zapped into a level. Got mugged by a nether wraith; managed to hold it off so it didn’t touch. Got mugged by a death knight, teleported it. Disposed of a hydra. That cleared the room ....

Detected doors/traps/stairs.

it’s a 4-5 level.

Snoop about. Murder a baby gold dragon in its slumber, same with a snake. Pick up a hydra .. prepare to line it up at 10 squares, and....

right around the corner is a shadow. ESP didn’t get it, so now I’m toe-to-toe with another level drainer. Marvy – but it didn’t notice, so I murder it.

So now I have a four-head hydra, death knight and a young white dragon in LOS. Knight is my worry, dragons I can handle.

Run away? I step back, but the Death knight whacks me with a spell while I’m retreating, a spell that’s resisted. (confusion, no doubt). I could flee, but it goes fast. Death knight resists cold, so I go with ring of ... acid, which I took off for that CON bonus. Right. I’m not hurt.

[snip]

I stopped reading when you didn't 'Teleport Other' the death knight. Why didn't you 'Teleport Other' the death knight? I would have 'Teleport Other' the death knight. Next time 'Teleport Other' the death knight. Did I mention you should have teleported the death knight away?

It might seem rude of me to hammer the point excessively about teleporting the death knight away, but repetition works well when trying to learn new concepts. When I was losing a lot at Angband it was hard for me to listen to the advice of others and change my tactics. Either I didn't understand how to employ the tactic and so stopped trying it when it didn't work, or it was too foreign an idea to me to even want to try it. One thing I used to not understand about 'Teleport Other' was that the monster is still on the level and I will run into it again, so I saw it as a temporary band aid solution to a problem. Which raises the point others have made many times now. Don't clear the level. When I employed these two tactics together my game changed immensely.

I play with forced descent on. It means every time I recall, the next time I go down the stairs I will be one level deeper. I can never play the same depth twice and I can never play a higher level than the one I'm on. I have a limited number of levels before I am forced to fight the bosses. Even playing in this dangerous way, not clearing the level is still the smartest move. When you know there is danger you can't deal with on a level, then leave the level. If there is a vault, go to the vault, TO the deadly baddies and the ones that can summon if you can't kill them quickly, and never leave the vault for the remainder of the level (of course pink Qs often put a wrench in this plan). For you, where you have infinite levels at your disposal, maybe a good exercise would be to just hit the stairs a lot. Every time you see stairs, just take them, unless there is something *really* promising to keep you on the level.

One thing veteran players learn how to do is to know when a level is no longer interesting. This often happens very quickly on a level. There's no point in spending any more time on a level than is absolutely necessary when there is a whole other level with sleeping monsters on it to explore. The longer you are on a level, the more monsters are waking up. And if you start on a level with dangerous breathers near by, THIS is the best time to teleport yourself. At the start of a level, teleport self is relatively safe, especially if you are immediately in danger upon arriving on a level. But if you have no fail on Teleport level, then yeah. DO THAT.

Anyway, to reinforce how powerful teleport other is. During my games, if I haven't found teleport other by a certain depth, I start to view the game as a matter of time: if I don't find teleport other soon, I will die. If I find it, I won't. That said, I still prefer the half troll warrior to say Half Troll Rogue as the damage output and hitpoints of HT Warrior is so powerful, and the unknown about when I'll get teleport other is part of the fun.

A good rule of thumb is: if you teleport away the same individual very dangerous monster twice leave the level.

Something to consider about randomness in Angband. I used to have this idea that random meant you'd get something different each time, but you didn't know what you'd get. I've finally learned that what random really means is that you will get anything and it often doesn't feel random at all. For example, sometimes I get very discouraged when I'm in the DL40s because I get one horrible level after another; each one is filled with undead, Liches, Dreadmasters, etc. etc. and it just feels like all the DL40 levels are going to be like this for eternity. But randomness tends to put things in streaks. I often have lucky streaks, where all my ?phases land ideally, then none of them do. Or all the levels I go to are calm and quiet with good loot, and then all of them are lousy. This concept reinforces the idea to change levels if the level is not to your liking. You may have to change levels 10 times in quick succession. But you will eventually get a favorable level.

I am doing a thread that gives a detail report of my in game adventures. Maybe reading it would be helpful? It's for a half troll warrior, so might be helpful for your playstyle (which seems to be kill stuff). My playstyle is I want to kill everything, so I find Half Troll Warrior best for this way of playing. Regardless of your class/combo preference, I think it gives good advice and insight into tactics and staying alive. Follow my adventures here.

[Pete Mack]

Oh yeah. A death knight at CL 26 is plenty dangerous, especially with a low-HP character like a half-elf ranger. (Also: half-elf is seriously weak.) They have a ferocious nether bolt spell. Also: fighting invisible monsters without SI is a huge waste of resources. And unlimited use of _TS is pretty much a guarantee of death.

There will be other vaults--and much better than the puny things you found.

As for what you are doing wrong: you are fighting too many monsters. Detect often, avoid often, and keep your powder dry for worthwhile foes. And you are not going deep enough. DL 29 is the very worst level you could spend time on, unless the object level feeling is very high: DL 30 is where most stat potions are native, so they are much more common even just one level deeper.

[Derakon]

And unlimited use of _TS is pretty much a guarantee of death.

At the level of skill that Moving Pictures is at, teleporting yourself is generally a safer bet than not teleporting yourself. Teleporting the enemy is safer still, of course.

[Pete Mack]

Sure. But simply avoiding them (and not letting them wake up) is safest of all.

At the level of skill that Moving Pictures is at, teleporting yourself is generally a safer bet than not teleporting yourself. Teleporting the enemy is safer still, of course.

[Werbaer]

Now I ponder my offence:
acid ball; 79 damage, 24 mana, 7% failure rate.
Fire ball: 94 damage, 28 mana and a not-so-friendly 29% failure rate.
Now, wtf, acid ball. Best offensive tool I have, I think.

You forgot you Bow.
Even with plain arrows and that Extra Might bow, you do 150 damage/round (two shots per round at 75 damage each).

Take 80+ arrows with you. Take 10+ scrolls of Phase Door with you; unlike the spell, they always work. Try to drag monsters into long straight corridors (you see them from afar with ESP, move into that corridor before they have line of sight). Shoot them from range, and phase once they reach melee range.

These Rods of Fire and Frost Bolt? If you have good arrows, you do more damage even against vulnerable monsters. Carry more arrows instead.