A humble High Elf Ranger looking for advice

[Jesus of Gondor]

Hello guys! It's been a while i haven't posted, but anyway i´ll get straight to the point

I'm leaving my character dump so you guys can check my gear... so well which weapon is better for my character? Aglarang or anguirel?

My dilemma here is that i love Aglarang, it boosts my speed and my dexterity so well that i'm nearly untouchable but the downside about her is that it doesn't provides me the resistances and the other stat/slay boosts Anguirel gives me.

I get 6 blows with Aglarang but a little less damage (270.8 per blow) but with anguirel i deal much damage to creatures not resistant to poison and evil creatures but way poor damage to others.. and with anguirel i just have 5.7 blows, yeah there isn't much difference but i don't know. Besides i get more speed with aglarang and that's important but the other sword looks so hot! XD

Besides i would love if someone of you would give me an advice of what should i do now? which gear should i have all the time and what do i have to focus to look for, any tip i would appreciate it.

Thanks!

[Jesus of Gondor]

here's my dump at the ladder... sorry

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22068

[Pete Mack]

When you are at low speed, a +speed weapon has a huge payoff. At higher speed, the incremental damage boost is much less per game turn (which is the metric of use here.) Avavir is not a bad replacement, however. In any case, you don't actually need any more resists with Himring + Celegorm, and melee damage is very much a secondary issue for a ranger. So yes: Aglarang is your best choice.

[Jesus of Gondor]

When you are at low speed, a +speed weapon has a huge payoff. At higher speed, the incremental damage boost is much less per game turn (which is the metric of use here.) Avavir is not a bad replacement, however. In any case, you don't actually need any more resists with Himring + Celegorm, and melee damage is very much a secondary issue for a ranger. So yes: Aglarang is your best choice.

Thank you very much pal! so you think i should swap celegorm to anarion? it's just that celegorm is my only item that provides me resistance blindness but anarion sustains my stats... so i have to focus on finding more items that gives me speed like rings and looking potions of constitution? i have to say.. legendary dragons like smaug or Itangast gave me lot of trouble that i had to always escape.. what should i do right now? i never reached too far with a Ranger and a i don't want him to get murdered xD

[Pete Mack]

If you are regularly getting stat drained as a ranger, you are playing wrong.

[Jesus of Gondor]

If you are regularly getting stat drained as a ranger, you are playing wrong.

Ok, got it, thank you so much!

[Pete Mack]

This is not to say you should ignore sustains: S_STR is probably worth having as a swap at least. The others, not so much. DEX drain is rare (Liches and not much else.) CON drain is more common, bit less important. Anarion *might* be worth giving up rDark. But that is a pretty useful resistance.

[Derakon]

The main use case for Anarion is meleeing Morgoth, since he hits to drain all stats. But that's also an activity that most rangers will not participate in. If there's one thing that rangers are the best class at, it's killing Morgoth. With archery.

[Jesus of Gondor]

Thank you guys for clearing me out! so well i've reached lvl 40, i will try to survive and get all the loot i can, still stuck with Aglarang, but i've found the beaked axe of Hurin, Orcrist and Hithlomir... but i guess i'll stay with Himring ;3

Anyway... thank you very much... i'll post an update of Halion later so you guys can check it out!

Cheers!

[Pete Mack]

Ooh. Hurin is a fantastic, near-endgame weapon. I am about to use it to kill Sauron. (It is not good vs. Morgoth.) Aglarang may be better for now, as you have few sources of speed. But not for long.

A DL 40 ranger can kill pretty much any monster, assuming a decent bow. You will also need dungeon spellbooks: Resistances of Scarabtrices and Tenser's transformations are the most important, followed by Mordy's Escapes, and Kelek' Grimoire (for *Destructuon*.) Raal's is useless.

[Jesus of Gondor]

Wow! so it's a good idea to bring it to the Fight with Sauron just in case? (even if i'm a ranger?) i'm about to enter a HUUUUUUUGE vault with very nasty uniques inside xd here they are:

-Durin's Bane or the Balrog of Moria
-Lungorthin the white flame
-Glaurung father of dragons
-Itangast the fire drake
-Carcharoth the jaws of thirst

Itangast is a pushover i know... he's on my death list. but i don't like the presence of the other guys... Glaurung and the two Balrogs are very annoying because of their summons. And carcharoth.. geez. never fought him before but i don't like him either 'cause of his breaths.

besides there is an archlich, beholder hive mother and lots of mayor demons in the vicinity u.u (Halion is a very brave Noldo, but this sure is a challenge)

And... for making things worst.. i just have only 1 scroll of mass banishment xdxdxdd.

Anyway.. i guess i'll wait of your wise words before entering that one big dangerous vault but with lots.. and i mean LOTS! of treasure. (i'm hoping to find Ringil or something that boosts my speed). Here's my dump http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22068

Thank you!

[Grotug]

So, with vaults, the object is to get the treasure, not to risk life and limb trying to see how many dangerous uniques you can kill. Given that you have 305SP and three rods of TO I would TO all the really dangerous monsters with the TO method that has the least amount of fail rate (which would probably be from the book). Also, you will want to haste yourself before you TO the dangerous monsters, so that in the event of TO failure, the chance something horrible (like death) occurs is mitigated significantly.

EDIT: one thing to remember is that as soon as you have TO'd a dangerous monster, you've basically removed self teleportation as a safe method of escape. The more dangerous monsters you TO, the greater the danger of self Teleport is because it more often than not teleports you into the same room as the TO'd monsters, which are now awake and angry at you for being a coward. So after you've TO'd 7 dangers monsters; you gonna die when you TS away from a pack of plasma hounds in the vault.

A screenshot of the vault would be helpful, but my guess is it's a cubby vault (the best kind). But, yeah, describe the vault or take a screenshot and upload it here.

If you use the mass banishment, just makes sure you have a lot of health when you do it (like at least 400 or so). I finally had my first death from reading a scroll of banishment a little while ago. Personally, unless there are tons of Aether hounds or Time or plasma hounds, or lots of object destroyers in the vault, I don't banish because I often get good drops from all the monsters in the vault.

[Pete Mack]

Yep. Note that as well as haste self, you shoild cast Resistance before you TO everything. The density of monsters means that you are at a disadvantage fighting them, unless they are all locked in different rooms.

[Jesus of Gondor]

So, with vaults, the object is to get the treasure, not to risk life and limb trying to see how many dangerous uniques you can kill. Given that you have 305SP and three rods of TO I would TO all the really dangerous monsters with the TO method that has the least amount of fail rate (which would probably be from the book). Also, you will want to haste yourself before you TO the dangerous monsters, so that in the event of TO failure, the chance something horrible (like death) occurs is mitigated significantly.

EDIT: one thing to remember is that as soon as you have TO'd a dangerous monster, you've basically removed self teleportation as a safe method of escape. The more dangerous monsters you TO, the greater the danger of self Teleport is because it more often than not teleports you into the same room as the TO'd monsters, which are now awake and angry at you for being a coward. So after you've TO'd 7 dangers monsters; you gonna die when you TS away from a pack of plasma hounds in the vault.

A screenshot of the vault would be helpful, but my guess is it's a cubby vault (the best kind). But, yeah, describe the vault or take a screenshot and upload it here.

If you use the mass banishment, just makes sure you have a lot of health when you do it (like at least 400 or so). I finally had my first death from reading a scroll of banishment a little while ago. Personally, unless there are tons of Aether hounds or Time or plasma hounds, or lots of object destroyers in the vault, I don't banish because I often get good drops from all the monsters in the vault.

Okay pal, here are your screenshots Thank you very much for your support!

[Jesus of Gondor]

Yep. Note that as well as haste self, you shoild cast Resistance before you TO everything. The density of monsters means that you are at a disadvantage fighting them, unless they are all locked in different rooms.

Yeah... there's a whole bunch of em... it looks like hell. But shit we are in ANGBAND! XDDD check the screenshots so you can appreciate what i see