What am I doing wrong?

[Moving Pictures]

Congrtats! An hour and a half isn't that long. What was the damage difference bewteen Ringil and the MoD <+2>? What was your speed during the fight?

Toys gave a base of 34, IIRC, and I pushed it to 44 with a potion. Left the mace at home, as I wanted the +10 speed from Ringil.

[Moving Pictures]

Congrats! How about submitting a character dump and post up the link so we can take a look?

Might not happen. Started another character, but then moved to 4.1.2, which is despicably evil. Lost six yesterday.

[Ighalli]

Congrats! How about submitting a character dump and post up the link so we can take a look?

[Grotug]

Congrtats! An hour and a half isn't that long. What was the damage difference bewteen Ringil and the MoD <+2>? What was your speed during the fight?

[Derakon]

Congratulations!

[Moving Pictures]

It does that too, but I meant using Word of Destruction before the fight even starts, and then fighting in the rubble. You shouldn't have more than a few tiles of visibility in any direction, which means that generally the only monster that can hurt you on a turn is Morgoth himself. It's not perfect, though; look out for, and avoid, the occasional open area or long unobstructed "corridor". Still, a Phase Door is almost guaranteed to land you in safety, so long as you re-destruct the terrain periodically (or use Mass Banish) after having teleported Morgoth away, to clear away the chaff.

Took a staggeringly long period of real-world time - frig, almost an hour and a half - but chiselled away at the big guy with nothing more than ringil and OOD. There were two periods where all he did was dance around a rune of protection, which was key. Seemed like he was at half-bars all day long, though.

[Derakon]

Ah, I hadn't thought of that, but yes, it's kind of like a Banish sledgehammer, innit?

It does that too, but I meant using Word of Destruction before the fight even starts, and then fighting in the rubble. You shouldn't have more than a few tiles of visibility in any direction, which means that generally the only monster that can hurt you on a turn is Morgoth himself. It's not perfect, though; look out for, and avoid, the occasional open area or long unobstructed "corridor". Still, a Phase Door is almost guaranteed to land you in safety, so long as you re-destruct the terrain periodically (or use Mass Banish) after having teleported Morgoth away, to clear away the chaff.

[Moving Pictures]

1) The general recommendation for Morgoth specifically is to use Word of Destruction before he enters the arena.

Ah, I hadn't thought of that, but yes, it's kind of like a Banish sledgehammer, innit?

Priests also get access to Banish Evil, which is a great spell so long as everything in LOS is evil. Banish Evil teleports monsters instead of removing them from the level, which importantly means that they cannot be summoned again.

Yes, I figured that part out, and used it with only an inkling of guilt when a bunch of very nasty vault meanies stood between the front entrance and what turned to be Nenya.

Also discovered the whole "monsters can come back" downfall when fighting the Qwysywhatsit.

3) The Word of Destruction tactics I outlined in (1) deal with uniques as well as normal monsters. I never bother to kill all uniques before fighting Morgoth.

None left, now. An earthquake, glyph, and a pair of wands of anhilation (with mid-battle recharge!) took care of the Tarrasque, the last unique left.

The longer you spend in the dungeon, the more opportunities you give the game to kill you. Ordinary monsters can easily be just as dangerous as uniques.

Who thought of stacking the corner of a DL40 vault with damned white lice? I mean, I have no idea what you're talking about. None.

Oh, latest giggler. Picked up a MOD of +2 extra attacks scumming for banishing scrolls. Might be the only weapon that makes me ponder sheathing Ringil.

/

[Derakon]

Note that Banish Evil doesn't work well if you are meleeing Morgoth. Once LOS gets broken up, only a few monsters will be removed.

It can still be useful, but yeah, make certain that the monsters you're worried about will actually be hit by it. The Morgoth fight is one where it's definitely worth taking your time and carefully considering line-of-sight rules.

[Pete Mack]

Note that Banish Evil doesn't work well if you are meleeing Morgoth. Once LOS gets broken up, only a few monsters will be removed.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

...My issue now. I do not think the priest is even remotely able to take on Morgoth. I got over-confident after the relatively easy take-down with the ranger (brace of potions/tons of arrows)....

My plan is to lurk around the lower levels, scumming for something meatier that might give pStun, and also knock off a few remaining Uniques to make life easier in the final battle....

I also want to bring a briefcase of mass banishing scrolls, so will go looking for those.

So... scumming for scrolls/toys for a bit - does that seem a valid plan?

Please read http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthr...826#post107826

Then go to guns on the Big Boss. Good luck!

[Derakon]

]My concerns:
1) The anti-summoning alley won't work worth a hoot, given Morgoth's tunnelling.
2) I have most of the resists covered (at the cost of AC) but lack pStun.
3) there are too many nasty uniques out there, including Tarrasque and Osse, who might well show up at the final stand.

1) The general recommendation for Morgoth specifically is to use Word of Destruction before he enters the arena. Don't use it while he's nearby, because he'll get blasted off the level and you'll have to come back to a fully-healed Morgy. But Word of Destruction does nearly as good a job of breaking up LOS as an antisummoning corridor does. If Morgoth summons, you can Phase Door to break LOS, then run away a bit, and because Morgoth is the fastest monster in the game, he'll catch up before any of his summons do. If things start getting crowded, you can teleport Morgoth away, then use Word of Destruction, or Banish/Mass Banish.

Priests also get access to Banish Evil, which is a great spell so long as everything in LOS is evil. Banish Evil teleports monsters instead of removing them from the level, which importantly means that they cannot be summoned again.

2) Resists are not a big deal against Morgoth, because his biggest attacks are unresistable. They only matter if you expose yourself to attacks from his summons, which you should be avoiding doing as much as possible. Your rogue died because you were trying to fight Morgoth and a balrog at the same time, for example.

pStun is useful, so if you can get it without losing other important abilities, it's worth doing. But you can also just chug a healing potion as soon as you get stunned. As a priest, you shouldn't expect to need to drink many healing potions for actual HP restoration, since you can cast high-HP heals with a 0% failure rate so long as you aren't stunned. So drinking big heals just to clear a status effect is not a big deal for you.

3) The Word of Destruction tactics I outlined in (1) deal with uniques as well as normal monsters. I never bother to kill all uniques before fighting Morgoth. That said, some players do try to make it so Morgoth has only generics to summon when they fight him. Just be aware that the longer you spend in the dungeon, the more opportunities you give the game to kill you. Ordinary monsters can easily be just as dangerous as uniques.

[Philip]

The handy thing about priests is that there is literally nothing they can't do, at least under the old class system. They have 0% fail on all the important teleportation, a decent-ish spell offence (if you happen to have some easy way to regenerate mana, it is quite possible to kill Morgoth with just Orb of Draining), Banish Evil (like TO but works on all evil monsters in line of sight, including ones you can't see (same targetting rules as Dispel Evil), and of course, 0% fail cheap healing.

One of the ways a Morgoth fight can easily go down is that every time Morgoth summons something scary but not immediately life-threatening, you teleport Morgoth away, use Word of Destruction, and wait for him to come back. When Morgoth summons something weak, uses a weak spell, or moves towards you, you use Orb/shoot an arrow/melee as appropriate, and when he deals a lot of direct damage, you Heal. With a small stockpile of Restore Mana you should be able to win rather easily. When Morgoth summons something very scary, you either Banish Evil, to get rid of it, or you Teleport, to get away. Then you wait for Morgoth, and repeat.

Scumming for anything else should be quite unnecessary.

[Moving Pictures]

UPDATE #2 - the good, the bad, the ugly

Alright, got a priest down to L99, and offed Sauron. Impressive, too, given that I do not have pStun.

Previously, I managed to get a kobold rogue that far, but it died a spectacularly messy death at the hands of Morgoth. Burned through a dozen mass banishing scrolls, a crate of *healling* and *iife* potions before many bad things happened in one round, not the least of which was a balrog draining all the charges out of the Staff of Teleportmybuttouttahere.

My issue now. I do not think the priest is even remotely able to take on Morgoth. I got over-confident after the relatively easy take-down with the ranger (brace of potions/tons of arrows).

With the priest, speed is not an issue. Ringil+Nenya+ROS12+Boots(5) mean I don't really need to think about more speed (though if a potion gives me an extra move over dozen turns, what the heck.
My concerns:
1) The anti-summoning alley won't work worth a hoot, given Morgoth's tunnelling.
2) I have most of the resists covered (at the cost of AC) but lack pStun.
3) there are too many nasty uniques out there, including Tarrasque and Osse, who might well show up at the final stand.

My plan is to lurk around the lower levels, scumming for something meatier that might give pStun, and also knock off a few remaining Uniques to make life easier in the final battle. I have more rods of TO than I know what to do with (didn't use a one in the battle with Sauron - took him out with Orbs of Draining/Wand of Anhilation/Arrows).

I also want to bring a briefcase of mass banishing scrolls, so will go looking for those.

So... scumming for scrolls/toys for a bit - does that seem a valid plan?

[Moving Pictures]

* I'd pick Elvenkind shield over Celegorm, given the choice, but it's a great find at DL 6 in any case.

My error, I meant "Collanon" as in the teleporty cloak.