What am I doing wrong?

[Pete Mack]

Oh gosh, yes. Ranger attack spells use huge amounts of mana. If you want to use those spells, play mage. A good longbow in the hands of a dl 20+ ranger is a machine gun. Eventually you will get the branding spell, which makes it even more ridiculous.

Also:
make a keymap for shooting arrows from the first quiver slot at the current target. That makes archery a lot more convenient.

[Moving Pictures]

I stopped reading when you didn't 'Teleport Other' the death knight. Why didn't you 'Teleport Other' the death knight? ......
A good rule of thumb is: if you teleport away the same individual very dangerous monster twice leave the level.

Ah, that's a good guide. Yes, I am using TO more often, now. Actually, today was kinda a play day, as it was snowing outside and between tending the maple syrup evaporator, I could play a ton. I successfully TO-ed three nasty uniques out of a big vault full of twists (time/control elements in my favour) and managed to score three really solid items as a result, one of which was Kalek's book of built-nasty. So now I'm just about to go into my second dive loaded up with branded +10/+11 (ish) arrows. That combined with boots of +15 SPD and a +9 ring, means there's been a huge shift in the power output.

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've been doing that more, too.... but a query. What do you term "level not to your liking?" How do you define that?

[Derakon]

I've been doing that more, too.... but a query. What do you term "level not to your liking?" How do you define that?

Generally speaking, if there's a situation you don't want to deal with, leave the level. Maybe stay if you know there's something else on the level that you do want to deal with (like a juicy-looking vault), but err on the side of leaving. Stuff that can convince me to leave include awake enemies that I don't want to fight, sleeping enemies I don't want to fight that I can't get around, more than a certain minimum density of enemies I don't want to fight even if I can, for the moment, work my way around them, levels with graveyards, demon pits, or zoos (the latter mostly if the terrain is such that the animals are breaking out)...or even just if I've explored enough of the level to be pretty confident there's nothing of interest on it.

There's infinite levels (when playing without forced-descent), so you don't miss out on anything if you leave a level "early".

[Moving Pictures]

Update (gee, I'm a moron)

Couple things came into focus this week. One: I did not know levels capped at 50. Had I known that, I think I would have been less grind-intensive.

Second: now what? I piled on a deep descent and am finding 80-ish to be hit-and-miss. Some uniques I can handle, some I haven't the capacity for and fear I may never (Osse for one, along with pit fiends.)

I've done a better job of juggling my devices to obtain resistance on all fronts, but I find nexus and nether are driving me bonkers. The former for its random transports, the latter for the owthathurt.

I've banished time hounds when I can, but that's my next issue: no banishing power, apart from three scrolls. Pondering going up into the 60s and scumming for banishing tools. Thoughts?

[Derakon]

60s is not really any more safe than 80s. For the last ~third of the game, about all that changes is more nasty uniques show up and fewer low-level monsters do. That is, the non-unique enemies you face have about the same threat level, they're just more densely-placed. In particular, a vault at level 98 is pretty much identical in threat level to a vault at level 60. But the items in the vault can still be better than what you'd find on the floor at 98 (let alone 60). By the way, level 99 has Sauron on it, which is why I said 98. Usually you don't go to 99 until you feel ready to fight Sauron.

You're right that you're never going to be a statistical match for high-level enemies. Mostly what you need to survive deep down is careful play. You don't have to banish hounds as long as you can see them before they can get LOS on you, via ESP or monster detection. You should be able to just turn around and go somewhere else instead. Keep in mind that with high STR you can tunnel through solid granite in only a few turns, so if there isn't a tunnel going where you want to go, you can make one.

When you do go to fight nasty foes, you generally need three things: speed, damage, and healing. The more you have of the first two, the less you need of the third, but you should always assume you'll need some healing. Carry potions of Healing as soon as you start finding them, always buy more if you see them in the Black Market, and don't be afraid to use them. Osse is a pain not just because his nether breath hurts (even resisted, it can hit for up to 470), but because he has a lot of health and no slays or brands apply to him, so it can take awhile to wear him down -- but if you have enough healing, the fight's really just a matter of time.

Oh, and you should be fighting all uniques, and plenty of other monsters, from within what's called an "anti-summoning corridor". You dig a zigzag corridor through the rock (e.g. alternating between digging NE and digging NW), and lure the monster into the corridor. That way if they summon the summons will appear behind them. Obviously this works less well for monsters that can walk through walls, and is especially limited against enemies that can bore through walls, but the basic principle of limiting how many open tiles a) are next to you, and b) are in line of sight, still applies. The fewer monsters that can see you, the fewer that can hit you with damaging spells/breaths.

[Sideways]

Nether resistance is, maybe somewhat counterintuitively, not a resist you really need. That's because it's not actually very good at limiting the damage - big nether breathers will still hurt, badly - and the side effect of nether is more annoying than dangerous, especially now that you're level 50.

[Philip]

Nexus is rare enough that it shouldn't be causing teleportation very often at all. The only monsters I can think of that use it in any way are the hound (pretty rare deeper down), the vortex (same), the aether version of those two (has a lot of other breaths to choose from), Kavlax (maybe?), and Dracolisks (you shouldn't fight these ever they're horrible).
This is one of those extremely unintuitive things, but rNether is remarkably unhelpful for avoiding instakills, which is also the main reason you would want it in the first place. On average, it reduces nether damage by a fairly helpful amount, but the amount varies between 1/7 (?) and some other value of damage, so it only really reduces the cap from 550 to 470. It's still a nice resistance nice to have, especially for long fights with monsters who use nether a lot, where it perceptibly reduces the amount of healing you have to do, but it still reduces the value of the resistance a lot.

Banishing is nice for situations where you need access to a particular area but there are a lot of monsters of a specific type in the way, or for fights with summoners. The first should not happen that often, since there are usually multiple angles of approach and you can always just leave a level when there are time hounds. In the second case, banishment is nice to have, but you can always just teleport the summoner away and *destruct*. Banishment is a helpful tool, but it is entirely nonessential, and scumming for it (or for almost anything else) is a great way to get bored, do something foolish, and die. Which brings me to an important point - one of the most important parts of the game is fighting yourself, because if you play while intoxicated, tired, or bored, you will do something dumb and you will die. A crucial part of the game is avoiding this. This is part of why I advocate diving. It makes the game shorter, giving less time for mistakes, and it alleviates boredom and keeps me on my toes, making me less likely to make mistakes, at the cost of putting me in dangerous situations where I can easily make mistakes, which I find to be worth it.

[Moving Pictures]

You should be able to just turn around and go somewhere else instead. Keep in mind that with high STR you can tunnel through solid granite in only a few turns, so if there isn't a tunnel going where you want to go, you can make one.

Have stone to mud, too.

Oh, and you should be fighting all uniques, and plenty of other monsters, from within what's called an "anti-summoning corridor". You dig a zigzag corridor through the rock (e.g. alternating between digging NE and digging NW), and lure the monster into the corridor.

Ohho! I had not thought of that. I've been using a stack of TO rods to remove the summoned, but then that forces me to be aware of the summoned critters wandering about. What I've found is that save for a few, if I can orchestrate a 1-on-1, as long as there are arrows, the character has the speed and power to decimate anything that doesn't summon backups.

In regards to the other poster, saying nether resistance isn't much help, do me this, then:

option a: nether/confusion covered, speed 26
option b: nether/confusion NOT covered, speed 36.

I'm currently about to go with (a) because confusion sucks.

[Derakon]

In regards to the other poster, saying nether resistance isn't much help, do me this, then:

option a: nether/confusion covered, speed 26
option b: nether/confusion NOT covered, speed 36.

I'm currently about to go with (a) because confusion sucks.

All else being equal (which is rarely the case), I would tend to agree with your assessment. One of the weird little edge cases of the game is that past +27 speed, speed points stop being worth as much. That is, up to +27, each additional point of speed gives you an extra 10 percentage points over normal speed; above +27, you get fewer percentage points, and they tail off pretty quickly.

You want to achieve +30 speed to beat Morgoth, since he's that fast and you really don't want him to get a double-move on you, but you can get that with +20 base speed and a source of temporary speed. Otherwise, more speed is often not the best thing to do with your equipment slots.

[Pete Mack]

Be careful using banishment scrolls, especially mass banishment. Unless you're playing a Mage, you *will* need some vs. Morgoth.

[Moving Pictures]

Be careful using banishment scrolls, especially mass banishment. Unless you're playing a Mage, you *will* need some vs. Morgoth.

That's why I am trying to collect the blasted things. My morning coffee-and--angband experience was on L88 where I managed to lure the Tarrasque into a hallway and did the old back-up-while-firing-a-crapload-of-arrows technique to kill it. Disappointing drop. Then a greater balrog dropped in, and after I had chiseled it down to a few asterisks with the help of a lot of arrows and three *healing* potions, it started summoning all sorts of nasties, including a few uniques. I TOed its friends ( I guess the balrog uses demons as ablative armour, much the same way spellbooks serve the same purpose on the ranger, right) and finally offed the bugger. Also a lousy drop. Oh, and the two banishment scrolls I had picked up were turned to ash in the battle.

Here's my concern. If I cant handle a greater balrog or a pit fiend is there any hope in being ready for the big boys? I think not.

I know this may sound daft but I *only* this week discovered the secondary menu in the character display that shows what resistances are offered. I don''t understand the sliding scale and how it works, but I intuit that the further to the right I go, the better. At this moment, the only things left vacant are pShard and pStun. I have multi-hued dragon mail; could switch out for one that will give me pShard, but then I'd lose poison.

[Grotug]

The other thing that can't be said enough is that there are a lot of monsters you should never, ever fight in the game. Unless you have at least Fire immunity and are doing an insane amount of damage to Demons, never fight greater balrogs. There is a very long list of things you should never fight; and it takes a lot of playing for it to really sink it. But Greater Balrogs are high on that list.

Morgoth won't do any fire during his fight, so you won't lose scrolls to him. He's more a deal insane amounts of pure damage kinda guy, than an inventory destroyer the way a lot of monsters are.

[Sideways]

If for some reason you do want to fight big inventory-destroyers, you can always create a gratuitous anti-summoning corridor someplace remote and temporarily dump things like banishment scrolls or potions of life (or even books) at the far end, out of the fight's way. If you need to leave the level in a hurry and leave that stuff behind, too bad - I wouldn't recommend this approach to a character who tele-levels regularly. But having done so much grinding, you should be so strong you won't have to tele-level regularly.

[Moving Pictures]

The other thing that can't be said enough is that there are a lot of monsters you should never, ever fight in the game. Unless you have at least Fire immunity and are doing an insane amount of damage to Demons, never fight greater balrogs. There is a very long list of things you should never fight; and it takes a lot of playing for it to really sink it. But Greater Balrogs are high on that list.

At the moment, with the right arrows at range, the damage potential is 900+ points/round. It's at the point now that - following the suggestion on ditching rods of frost/fire bolts, I am pondering dropping the cluster of cold/fire balls for 80 more arrows, just because of the ranged damage. The only merit to the cold/lightning balls is that their range is greater, and they do tickle more than one target at once.

Right now, the pure immunities are to acid and cold.

I'm having some challenge doing as you suggest, generating the list of what can and can't be faced. Some of the 5000 point things are, if you get 'em at range, easy pickings. Others, not so much. And sometimes, it's context.

I have learned that one-on-one is desirable, any other option is a no-go.

There are 10 rods of TO in the arsenal, now, and with a stack of those, it's easier to chisel away at the banished buddies and get at a unique. Still feel there's toys out there I could collect, though.

[Derakon]

I know this may sound daft but I *only* this week discovered the secondary menu in the character display that shows what resistances are offered. I don''t understand the sliding scale and how it works, but I intuit that the further to the right I go, the better. At this moment, the only things left vacant are pShard and pStun. I have multi-hued dragon mail; could switch out for one that will give me pShard, but then I'd lose poison.

There's no sliding scale. Each column corresponds to one equipment slot, with @ corresponding to innate traits. All traits that aren't explicitly "+1 to whatever" are binary -- you either have them or you don't. The only ones that stack are that you can combine a permanent source of resistance with a temporary source of resistance to take 1/9th normal damage (instead of the usual 1/3rd for single-resist). Permanent does not stack with permanent.