Equipment Question

[DavidMedley]

If I run away from or use *destruction* on everything, how can I get better artifacts?

You can lure the monsters away from the loot and then use destruction

[archolewa]

If I run away from or use *destruction* on everything, how can I get better artifacts?

Destruction is at its best when there's a big pile of loot guarded by a host of dangerous monsters (think Vaults and Pits, especially Graveyards).

When I'm playing a priest (and thus have access to renewable Destruction), this is how I tackle Graveyards:

1. Get close to the graveyard, but not too close. You want the Graveyard to be just outside your blast radius (which I *think* is range 12, but it might be 15).

2. Cast Destruction. This will shatter the area around you, creating a highly jagged region with very little LOS. Not strictly necessary, but makes it easier to lure more undead into the blast radius.

3. Creep close to the graveyard, close enough to start luring undead out.

4. Back up towards the center of your destruct radius. Wait for a bunch of them to get close (typically I want until the first Undead that I don't want to fight is just outside of LOS.

5. Cast Destruct to wipe out the ones you've lured away.

6. Lather rinse and repeat until there's nothing but drudges in there. Then I'll go into the graveyard and cast Banish Evil to TO the drudges away.

Similarly with vaults, if there's a corner of the vaults that you just can't safely access because of an unfortunate distribution of uniques who've all woken up, you can Destruct just that corner. Sure, you'll lose some of the loot, but losing some loot is better than losing all the loot (by bypassing the vault) or dying (by getting in range of too many awake nasties).

[DavidMedley]

Nice guide!

[Driftwood]

What exactly is a graveyard and what does it look like?

[Hounded]

Undead Pit. One of the rectangles or squares with corridor around it filled with an unpleasant assortment of undead determined by your depth.

(below is not precise but you get the idea)

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(also it's not displaying properly so my apologies there as well)

[Driftwood]

I think I get it.

Argolas has now died however. Next character will do better.

[archolewa]

What exactly is a graveyard and what does it look like?

Here's a picture from someone's lets play (at least the ASCII version):

https://lparchive.org/Angband/Update%2030/6-angband-30-6.png

That nice little square of W's and z's is a graveyard.

Graveyards tend to be full of loot, as well as being full of undead because undead are *nasty*, and the developrs want you to at least consider trying to tackle it.

Some pits, like the Ainur or rogue pits (thing similar except filled with A's or p's) don't have any loot in them, though with so many enemies there's a pretty good chance that one of them will drop something good (even if it's just a few precious consumables).

That being said, pits usually aren't worth going after. Unless you either have a trick for raiding the ones full of loot without actually fighting anything ((i.e. my Destructing graveyards strategy), or you're overpowered and should probably dive.

[Driftwood]

By the end of this last run, I always went after Troll pits and sometimes Dragon pits, depending on the type of dragon. I avoided the jelly/mold pits though.

Also, by the end of this run, I totally would have taken the graveyard in the picture unless one of those Ws is the Witch King. Undead were nothing for Argolas except for the Witch King.

[archolewa]

By the end of this last run, I always went after Troll pits and sometimes Dragon pits, depending on the type of dragon. I avoided the jelly/mold pits though.

Also, by the end of this run, I totally would have taken the graveyard in the picture unless one of those Ws is the Witch King. Undead were nothing for Argolas except for the Witch King.

Yeah, that graveyard isn't too bad, the early ones tend to be worth going after. However, I've seen plenty of endgame graveyards full of druges, Liches of varying stripes, Dreadmasters and Horned Reavers. Horned Reavers tear through walls, so you can't bottleneck them. Liches and druges throw out dangerous spells like they're going out of style. Liches can drain charges. Dreadmasters can summon more monsters (including other Dreadmasters!), and go through walls so you can't bottleneck them. And just about every endgame undead can drain experience or some stats. Many of them also like to throw out Nether-based attacks, which is an element that I sometimes have difficulty covering.

Even if I can take them, the cost in consumables and stats usually isn't worth it.

[mrfy]

If you're interested in loot, then Destruction isn't best, even by luring them out. Some of them will pick up the treasure in the room and then when you Destruction them, the treasure is gone. Best is to banish/mass banish if that is available. Otherwise I lure them out a few at a time and deal with them solo or in small groups. This works for most pits with a character of sufficient level, abilities, armor and weapon(s).

I almost never use Destruction, even against Morgoth.

With the 3.2 monster changes, I've been much more careful around deep undead pits, 'A' pits, 'M' and 'n' pits if they have gorgons, etc.

[mrfy]

Even if I can take them, the cost in consumables and stats usually isn't worth it.

Disagree, but it's always a gamble. As long as I have a good escape, I'll take on most pits, just to get the treasure that's in there, their drops when they die, or experience or $$ from 'M's.

[archolewa]

Disagree, but it's always a gamble. As long as I have a good escape, I'll take on most pits, just to get the treasure that's in there, their drops when they die, or experience or $$ from 'M's.

I can understand that. My general attitude is "There will always be more treasure, and death means I have to redo the first 20 floors." So if there's a high chance of things going sideways, I avoid the situation entirely.

[Sphara]

@archolewa
If you wanna get the loot from the graveyard by better certainty, then I'd adjust your good tactic there by:

Try not to destruct dracoliches and all the G's. Those are the ones that pick up items in there. If you're getting a chance destructing approaching L's without harming those loot pickers, then definitely do so. Or teleport the first waves of archliches and black reavers out. <-- This ofc is risky, if you happen to walk into the sight of a druj there later. Hand drujs are especially keen on teleporting you away.

[fph]

If you're interested in loot, then Destruction isn't best, even by luring them out. Some of them will pick up the treasure in the room and then when you Destruction them, the treasure is gone. Best is to banish/mass banish if that is available.

Wait, aren't items they pick up lost even if you banish them?
(Currently wondering what the plural of "druj" is... ) [EDIT: this random book https://books.google.it/books?id=Zjp...0-drum&f=false claims it's "drujes", from Persian.]

[archolewa]

@archolewa
If you wanna get the loot from the graveyard by better certainty, then I'd adjust your good tactic there by:

Try not to destruct dracoliches and all the G's. Those are the ones that pick up items in there. If you're getting a chance destructing approaching L's without harming those loot pickers, then definitely do so. Or teleport the first waves of archliches and black reavers out. <-- This ofc is risky, if you happen to walk into the sight of a druj there later. Hand drujs are especially keen on teleporting you away.

I always forget about loot pickers. Destructing the L's and reavers without hurting the dreads and dracoliches is a good thing to try though, if you can do it safely. Certainly not going to TO a horde of archliches and black reavers when there are druj's neaby. Way too risky for my blood.

When I'm deciding whether to go after a well-guarded pile of loot, I'm always comparing my strategy to bypassing the pile completely (in which case I get nothing). So I have zero problem only getting one or two items because the loot pickers stole them. I find 1-2 items at very little risk (since the drujs could technically TO me next to the Tarrasque or something before I can TO them) to be infinitely better than 3-4 items at some risk, unless I'm really hurting for gear.

That being said, different people have different risk tolerances, so I think your approach is viable as well.