Advice

[Nicodimas]

Hi all..

Looking for advice just came back from a break ..so been playing and got both my characters to about clev 27 and trying to move in dlevel 30 Plus to die the same way each time..

1st time blinded confused to a unique and a cluster of hounds. No escape granted
2nd time blinded confused to something of the deeps. No escaped granted

Since I have been playing again since friday any advice. I must be missing something as these effects prevent my escape and same problem . Any items that prevent these effects . I must be forgetting something important ,,, but can't remember what it is ..

I also seem a bit slow compared to most the mobs then all of a sudden. The guy of the deeps was hitting me six times in a row.playing black guard. Love seek battle

[Sky]

Which version are you playing?
The latest version 4.2 has had a major bump up in difficulty compared to the previous, 4.1.3

[Julian]

I can’t speak to blackguard-specific strategy, but to your general situations:

Pick your ground: fight in halls and around corners to avoid being overwhelmed.

Use consumables: potions/staves of speed and potions of cure critical would’ve helped no end in the situations you describe.

Be prepared to run away: Staves and scrolls of teleport. Rods and wands of teleport away.

Leave the level if things are too dangerous. Failure to bail on badly out-of-depth monsters summarizes my last two deaths.

[Nicodimas]

The newest version.

Yeah 1st death I exploring cause of lesser vault .. and TPd into that room running away from a unwinnable fight to have a worse fight (lol)
2nd death in a hallway and think I didn’t realize the difficulty to little to late./six hit you are blind/confused.

Yet to find anything (of speed). Had extra attacks on guy2 which might have invoked to much confidence. Just got it too. /sigh

Yeah I run away a lot/use stairs/corners often.
(Back at 25 and worst gear yet)

You should explore equal level until 25 and then 2x levels from that point ?

[Pete Mack]

The usual reasons for early death are:
1. Insufficient sources of healing. (CLW early, then CSW/CCW. Later still, you need to carry a few !heal--1/2 your total, and up to 4.)
2. No escape. Early this is phase+recall. Then staff of Teleport for quite a while. For a confused CL 27 character in a sticky situation, this is what you need. Use it as soon as you recognize you're in trouble. If I don't have resistance to confusion, I carry one of these for quite a while. You don't want to get confused by a Titan, or an Ethereal Dragon, or a nightmare. Or by any powerful monster with a water attack.

[Julian]

T
You should explore equal level until 25 and then 2x levels from that point ?

There’s no hard-and-fast rule. If you’re having an easy time with everything, drop fast. If you’re not, drop slow. Make sure you can handle the likely sources of being mobbed (orcs early, Z after orcs into stat gain)

[Pete Mack]

Never mind prepare for being mobbed. Avoid being mobbed by using room entrances wisely.

[archolewa]

Also, I would strongly encourage you avoid vaults of (almost) all shapes and sizes until the endgame if you're a Blackguard, unless you get *really* lucky and the guardians are unusually weak. Before the endgame, vaults are death traps unless you have very high stealth and lots of teleport other. Blackguards never have high stealth, and they don't usually get lots of teleport other until late into the midgame.

In my experience, Blackguards are better off killing lots of monsters, especially uniques, to get good gear rather than raiding vaults.

[will_asher]

What I do is this:
- Get most basic gear: 1st spellbook, (1st two spellbooks if you're a primary caster), some kind of ranged weapon (even throwing iron shots is much better than nothing, at the very beginning, I get a few flasks of oil and a few shots. Can't rely only on oil because oil can only be used once.), ?phase, ?recall, and several !C*W.
- Go down stairs as soon as you find them (unless you get a good feeling for that level) until about ~dL18-19. I stay around there until I have Free Action and a decent sling or bow.
- Then go down fast (again unless you get a real good level feeling like a 3-8, 8-8 probably isn't worth it.) until dL30-35 because that's where the stat potions start. I stay around there until I have good stats and at least a few decent egos (preferably with basic 4 resists).
- Then go down to ~dL45 or so and look for artifacts, rNexus, and rPois
- and by the time I get past that part, I'm usually dead. (I don't advice copying me in this detail...)

Also, I would strongly encourage you avoid vaults of (almost) all shapes and sizes until the endgame if you're a Blackguard, unless you get *really* lucky and the guardians are unusually weak. Before the endgame, vaults are death traps unless you have very high stealth and lots of teleport other. Blackguards never have high stealth, and they don't usually get lots of teleport other until late into the midgame.

In my experience, I've seen several early vaults that didn't have anything I couldn't handle without much trouble. Just make sure you have good detetction and you can see and handle what's there before you go in.

[Pete Mack]

@Will--
The trouble with that is that Blackguards are *different.* Yeah, as always you need spellbook, escape, and healing. But for quite a long time, you will have trouble keeping up with monsters in terms of damage. And even an excellent bow helps a lot less than you might expect, because BG has terrible archery, and his only buff spell doesn't improve it, and in any case you need to fight to maintain mana and even to heal. I haven't figured it out yet.

[will_asher]

oh yeah. I've barely tried blackguard.

[Nicodimas]

Its coming back to me made it all the out to Clevel 33 and dlev 37 and things just ramped up quickly again.

Ran into a sorcerer who summoned.. blinks summon blink summon.. ok well I am outta here /run

Ran into a mummified chieftain next time. Don’t remember this guy. Red con.. doesnt sound too bad at 37 and he hit me for 300! Wait mobs hit that hard already??/ teleportlevel.

Then found a nice 6-6 just to see kavalax. Then decided to call it a night. Might go up and few levels to come back to 37. If I remember kavalax is one of the surprisingly hard baddies that I pretty sure used to kill me back when I played this a lot.
What are usually the levels that ramp up in difficultly now and is it monsters can show +10 levels early now ? Just trying to remember whats actually hard hard now.

I did find a rod of probing.. Nm figured this out.

[archolewa]

@Will--
The trouble with that is that Blackguards are *different.* Yeah, as always you need spellbook, escape, and healing. But for quite a long time, you will have trouble keeping up with monsters in terms of damage. And even an excellent bow helps a lot less than you might expect, because BG has terrible archery, and his only buff spell doesn't improve it, and in any case you need to fight to maintain mana and even to heal. I haven't figured it out yet.

I think the key thing to remember is that Blackguards (especially low level ones) are *bullies*. Meaning, they do best when they're picking on the little guy. So aggressive diving to a key cut off floor and then hanging around there doesn't generally go well for them. Also, unlike the other melee classes, Blackguards are *very* level dependent early on. An underleveled and overgeared Blackguard is nowhere near as powerful as an underleveled and overgeared Warrior.

I think Blackguard is my most common winning class (maybe competing with warrior), and this is what I do:

Dive pretty aggressively until about floor 10 or so, stopping only to slaughter anything nearby that looks slaughterable.

From here, pretty thoroughly explore each level. You don't need to clear each level, but I like to explore at least 2/3's of the map. Avoid most uniques (except Bullroarer and maybe his orc buddies) until you can use Maim Foe. Once you get Maim Foe, murder all of the orc uniques with extreme prejudice (except maybe Azog and his son unless you have !Speed). You can of course take them on earlier if you find a good weapon (Maul of Lightning, *drool*). Early on, you're on the lookout for a Ring of Open Wounds. Staves of Cure Light Wounds can also be nice for using right after a fight. Once Whirlwind Attack is reliable, rely on that for most of your attacks, unless you're at 1.6+ blows a round. The extra healing you get from casting it is wonderful. Once you get 2 blows, it's your bread and butter. Especially if you can find a nice, heavy weapon with a good brand (Maul of Lightning, *drool*).

By the time you hit the DL 30s, you should have a good stock of C*W potions, decent gear, and Whirlwind Attack should be at or almost at 2 blows, but I honestly wouldn't change my strategy much. You're still going to be slaughtering things, and not rushing floors, you just need to be a bit more choosy about who you kill. You might need to back up once you hit DL50, and redo the 40's a bit depending on how you're looking. I don't generally like to go below DL50 without Werewolf Form unless I'm doing *really* well.

Once you get Werewolf Form, the game changes, and you can start diving more aggressively. Reckless Taunt is also your friend, and you want to make sure that's up before you go up against any big spellcasters or breathers, because it makes it more likely they'll melee you instead.

[Nicodimas]

Got greedy. Got to level dl41..Think I finally found a speed ring and a death mold
Was in the way. Got him down to one bar then his turn..feeling 8 too.

I was far too slow with this character and hadn’t had luck with anything of speed , this still exists right??

[Pete Mack]

@Nico--
Tele other death molds, or use archery if you must. They are "everything that is evil in a mold", but "fortunately, they can't move" for a reason.