Questions about diving strategy

[fph]

I would argue for a little bit of food, 'cause I'd hate to interrupt exploring an X-7 or so level just because of hunger.

The trick is: always eat until full when you are in town, before recalling back. Yes, food is a silly minigame...

[Narry]

Character dump loaded in the ladder.

So far the story is this:
CL22 atm.
Exploring DLs 12 and 13 atm.
Haven't found a single artifact.
Have found very few ego items.
Been close to death a few times.
I'm getting frustrated as nothing seems to happen and I can barely survive.
I don't have courage to dive deeper 'cause death has been so close several times already.
And to coin a phrase, I only seem to be able to find "naught but cobwebs".

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22139

[Derakon]

Levels 12/13 aren't very deep, so it's no surprise you haven't found any cool loot. You are also way too shallow for your character level; a level-22 mage should be able to go a lot deeper. That suggests that something is wrong with your tactics. Figure out why you're taking damage, and find a way for that to not happen.

For example, instead of casting spells while in melee range, use Phase Door (preferably via scroll to preserve SP). Likewise phase instead of drinking curing potions in melee range, because you'll end up immediately taking more damage on the turn you drank the potion. Instead of waking up the entire horde of orcs all at once, try to pick them off one at a time, and retreat to a safe distance to rest and recover SP. Carry a collection of attack wands/rods to supplement your SP; Rods of Light in particular are useful against most orcs.

From your gear, I would ditch the cloak, shield, and helm; they're excess weight that you can't afford. Also consider getting rid of the Cutlass; are you using melee at all? pStun isn't that important right now.

You are carrying a lot of potions; try trimming that down to 15 Cure Critical Wounds potions. You're carrying both food and Satisfy Hunger scrolls; the latter is lighter so ditch the former. The Rod of Curing is pretty useless; when you have important status ailments to cure, you want to cure them with 100% reliability via CCW, not with a failure chance from the rod.

You're carrying a pretty good sling, but have no ammo; get some pebbles or shots and you'll be doing over 30 damage per hit with the sling at no SP cost. But really at your level I'd expect you to be carrying wands of Frost/Fire Bolt; they'll do better damage than your spells and at no immediate SP cost (you can recharge them when out of battle).

[Sky]

CL22 -> DL30 by a VERY conservative estimate. DL13 has only garbage in it.

[Narry]

Levels 12/13 aren't very deep, so it's no surprise you haven't found any cool loot. You are also way too shallow for your character level; a level-22 mage should be able to go a lot deeper. That suggests that something is wrong with your tactics. Figure out why you're taking damage, and find a way for that to not happen.

I would go deeper, but I'm already meeting gnome mages and dark elven mages who blind me. Haven't been able to find pBlnd yet. Panthers and tigers are quite dangerous to me... at the moment meeting one goes as follows: I see it, cast attack spell, cast attack spell, it bites me, it bites me, teleport self.

For example, instead of casting spells while in melee range, use Phase Door (preferably via scroll to preserve SP). Likewise phase instead of drinking curing potions in melee range, because you'll end up immediately taking more damage on the turn you drank the potion. Instead of waking up the entire horde of orcs all at once, try to pick them off one at a time, and retreat to a safe distance to rest and recover SP. Carry a collection of attack wands/rods to supplement your SP; Rods of Light in particular are useful against most orcs.

Good points, snagas I can take but black orcs are deadly. And yes, I try to fight them one at a time in a corridor, preferably with spells.

From your gear, I would ditch the cloak, shield, and helm; they're excess weight that you can't afford. Also consider getting rid of the Cutlass; are you using melee at all? pStun isn't that important right now.

But they improve my AC... I would get even more damage with them, wouldn't I? And the Cutlass... it's one of the few good items I have found. Besides, pStun will be handy soon, as umber hulks begin to appear at DL 15.

You are carrying a lot of potions; try trimming that down to 15 Cure Critical Wounds potions. You're carrying both food and Satisfy Hunger scrolls; the latter is lighter so ditch the former. The Rod of Curing is pretty useless; when you have important status ailments to cure, you want to cure them with 100% reliability via CCW, not with a failure chance from the rod.

Thanks. I've been told to use them potions quite liberally, so that's why I try to carry a lot of them. Concerning food... that's how I roll... backups and backups of backups. Murphy's Law...

You're carrying a pretty good sling, but have no ammo; get some pebbles or shots and you'll be doing over 30 damage per hit with the sling at no SP cost. But really at your level I'd expect you to be carrying wands of Frost/Fire Bolt; they'll do better damage than your spells and at no immediate SP cost (you can recharge them when out of battle).

Again very good points, thank you. Double-edged sword though. Ammo is yet another way to increase burden and my STR is only 13...

[Derakon]

I would go deeper, but I'm already meeting gnome mages and dark elven mages who blind me. Haven't been able to find pBlnd yet. Panthers and tigers are quite dangerous to me... at the moment meeting one goes as follows: I see it, cast attack spell, cast attack spell, it bites me, it bites me, teleport self.

You are not going to find protections before you fight enemies that use status effects on you. If you get blinded, drink a curing potion. Gnome and Dark Elf Mages both have pathetic HP, so just kill them.

For panthers, use Phase Door. Sure they're fast, but again they don't have much HP. You should also be able to see them coming by casting Detect Monsters frequently, so set things up so they have to charge through a long straightaway while you pelt them with spells/wands.

But they improve my AC... I would get even more damage with them, wouldn't I? And the Cutlass... it's one of the few good items I have found. Besides, pStun will be handy soon, as umber hulks begin to appear at DL 15.

AC is irrelevant if you are not getting hit in melee. You're a mage, why would you ever stand next to something to let it hit you?

pStun does not protect against confusion, only stunning. Stunning is extremely rare, and while it can be quite dangerous, its rarity makes it completely optional.

I understand the reluctance to part with a magical item, but you should seriously consider how much utility it's actually providing.

Thanks. I've been told to use them potions quite liberally, so that's why I try to carry a lot of them. Concerning food... that's how I roll... backups and backups of backups. Murphy's Law...

The problem with your backups is that they're costing you weight, which you can ill-afford. Running around at low speed increases the chances that a monster will get two actions in between your turns, which is an easy way to die.

Plus, you're backing up the wrong things. Extra books and Word of Recall scrolls are far more vital than food. If you get low on potions, escape your current fight, recall, and restock.

Mages are the hardest class to play as, especially for a beginner, because the margins of error are so small. You have few HP and little inventory space to spare for countermeasures, so you have to make sure you're stocking the right things and not getting hurt. And that still won't save you when you encounter an enemy you've never seen before and it pulls out an attack you didn't know it had that one-shots you (or does massive damage and a punishing status effect, etc.).

There's a reason why I recommend that people play half-troll warriors when they're learning the game, in other words. Lots of HP and they're very fast to play right out of the gate. For comparison, Grotug has half-troll warriors that have beaten the game in less than half the amount of turns your character has taken...

[Narry]

Thank you again for your advice. And my bad about mixing rStun and pConf... guess I had a blonde duh moment.

I'm by no means a n00b though. I have won 4.1.x twice - once with a High Elven Paladin and once with a Hobbit Warrior. Both with massive grinding though. It's just this diving strategy, especially on early levels, which bugs me.

[Sideways]

Thank you again for your advice. And my bad about mixing rStun and pConf... guess I had a blonde duh moment.

I'm by no means a n00b though. I have won 4.1.x twice - once with a High Elven Paladin and once with a Hobbit Warrior. Both with massive grinding though. It's just this diving strategy, especially on early levels, which bugs me.

What you've used with this character is the massive grinding approach. It can work, as you know from those two wins (and it's even worked here already, in that you're alive and have really good equipment for the depth); but diving it's not

[Narry]

I admit that it isn't anymore. But it was at first. I even read a ?Deep Descend and jumped from DL2 to DL7. After that it has been survival... a stalemate, I'd say. Several "that was close" situations (I even went to 0 HP), very slow character progress, and no luck to find basically anything that would encourage me to go deeper.

*sigh*

I guess I'll always be a grinder.

[Derakon]

Yeah, let's put it this way: your problem is that you don't know what you're doing wrong, because you're playing so cautiously that your mistakes aren't lethal and thus aren't obviously mistakes to you. Fixing this requires you to pay attention to your mistakes, either by paying better attention or by making them more likely to be lethal.

Start a new character, and take every single down staircase you see ASAP, until you're at least at dungeon level 20. If you make it, congrats, that's a successful crash-dive to the border between early- and mid-game. If you die, then you've made a mistake, so try to figure out what that mistake was and do better next time (without sacrificing diving velocity). Either way, you should have invested no more than half an hour into the character, and they shouldn't be more than character level 15 or so, with crappy equipment.

[Werbaer]

CL22 atm.
Exploring DLs 12 and 13 atm.
Haven't found a single artifact.
Have found very few ego items.

You have been very lucky with your finds so far.
Free Action is what you need at DL 22+, unless you are very carefull.
A light Resistance armour is a very lucky find for a mage.
Your sling is a very good backup weapon (although i personally don't use rangestriking or melee with my mages).

Regarding artifacts, on average i find one before DL 30. Up to five more until DL 40, another five until LD 50.

[Monkey Face]

At this level you shouldn't need any food or satisfy hunger scrolls since you can just use the satisfy hunger spell anytime.

[Sky]

Ive had a look at his char and what i would do is focus on getting 2x rings of INT and a helmet of pBlind, regen or INT.
Those extra 4~6 points of intelligence would increase the manapool to a level where he can take a bunch of orcs.

[Tibarius]

Power Diving as Mage

I can just post about power diving as mage, even tho some things are true for other classes as well.

Power Diving in general is the way of playing the game by picking your fights carefully. You don't rush through the levels killing all that moves, but right the opposite, you choice big XP targets and focus on them.

What do you need?
- Detection spells for stairs, else you must always explore a level till you find a stair going down
- you need light
- you need food (as mage that means CL 9 & Book #3)
- connected stairs option enabled
- 2x scroll of recal (to fetch new food/torch/healing supply the first power dive ended, or you need special items, or must just sell off loot to get new carry capacity)

A mage starts weak, with 2/3 SPs. And the magic missile spell lacks true combat power, even tho it's damage increases somewhat with increasing CL.
So you need most of the time CL 3 as mage. That is when you get detect stairs. So i usually run around DL 1 killing weak stuff, always resting to full SPs after a fight (at the stairs if possible).

From level 3 on you do the following:
(1) enter dungeon / go down a stair
(2) cast detect stairs
(3) cast detect monsters
(4) are the next stairs down close (just a few steps) or is there a big XP monster in the level?
(A) NO: => stairs up and back to (1)
(B) YES: => go for the kill and/or rush to the stairs, then back to (1)

At DL20 first invis monsters show up, so it is almost a must have to have SeeInvis from DL 20 on. For all classes that do melee combat, you should also have FreeAction from that DL on.

At around DL 30 it is fine to have the four base element resistances.

The next point is at DL40, from there are stat raising potions available.

At DL 60 it gets nasty and there are common monsters which can kill a hero with one-shot attacks (mostly breathes).

Once you are down to DL90+ the drop rate is much better, sometimes you even find superb things just lying around.

That is basically the essence of power diving.

[Pete Mack]

The bit about CL3 is simply wrong. There are flasks of oil and buffing potions. And there are wands of magic missile. If you can survive until DL 5, in principle you can get Bullroarer at CL 1, with either of those options, plus some scrolls of phase door. Yes, you would have to be lucky. But the main point stands: if you don't rely on lousy spell damage, you can advance to CL 5 much, much faster.