Easiest race/class to win with?

[aeneas]

I don't think I'm a very fast player - I'm not sure how long most of my wins took, but I'd estimate the average would be around 8 million turns. My first win was extremely slow, in fact I spent so long scumming 4950' for potions I found the One Ring and Deathwreaker.
I alternate between diving and stalling, and usually kill all the uniques by the

What you say about rangers having to choose their battles applies to all the classes - if you fight when you're not sure you can win, you probably won't.

Ah, I think I had you confused with someone else then... anyway what I'm saying about Rangers is that, at least in versions where the stores aren't guaranteed to stock arrows, you have to avoid a lot of fights you can win easily, just because you can't afford to use the ammo.

[Dragonboneman]

Obviously, that limitation is practically a non-issue by the time you find Tenser's. Even before then, you're likely finding enough enchanted ammo to see you through, at least once you get an ego launcher so archery becomes more efficient. The real pain is making it stack.
Ranger melee is pretty good too, so you can take out a lot of stuff while conserving ammo if necessary.

[aeneas]

Obviously, that limitation is practically a non-issue by the time you find Tenser's. Even before then, you're likely finding enough enchanted ammo to see you through, at least once you get an ego launcher so archery becomes more efficient. The real pain is making it stack.
Ranger melee is pretty good too, so you can take out a lot of stuff while conserving ammo if necessary.

Well, I think it depends a lot on play style (and also version- I haven't played the newer versions very much so what I'm saying may be a bit moot now anyway, as it applies to 3.0.6 and lower). But if you're playing fast it can be a real problem early on. If you get lucky at the beginning with enchant weapon damage scrolls you can go to 1500' in a very small number of trips, but there will be lots of stuff you can't really melee, even with 2 blows. If the stores don't stock arrows on one of those trips you can wind up having to get to 1500' on 150 or so arrows- maybe 200 if you find a couple stacks in the dungeon. And that means that while a warrior would just plow through a group of orcs between him and the stairs or an item, a ranger probably has to find another staircase or forgo the item. Anyway, I was just talking about getting off to a fast start. It's not a problem if you make a lot of trips to town as you can build up a stock of arrows at home.

And yeah, it's not much of an issue once you get blows up and a reasonable weapon, as you can then melee everything except the nasty stuff. Even just getting a nice bow helps a lot, as you can then kill a lot of things with just one shot.

[Psi]

Right now I'm playing a mage in FA and I couldn't imagine doing this without all the tricks I have available that may not be damage spells, like Dimension Door, recharging, Beguile, haste self, cure poison, and especially genocide (when I get it....).

Sorry to disappoint you, but mages don't get genocide in FA. That one is reserved for Necros.

[Zikke]

Sorry to disappoint you, but mages don't get genocide in FA. That one is reserved for Necros.

So I learned. With the mage damage output, it would have overpowered anyway, but it does make me have to deal with hounds which is the most annoying task a person could have to do... Unless I get fed up and just WoD everything