[Z] Anyone ever beat the nightmare or ironman modes?

[quaxocal]

I'm just curious about it, cause both seem like they'd be a really really big challenge.

I got a bit bored with my Hobbit Ranger, so decided to give Nightmare mode a go.

After about 25 attempts at getting a character to survive past level 2 or 3, I finally have a decent mage going (high-elf, life/death) who is now level 9, and on dungeon level 8.


High-Elf cause my half-titans kept dying to invisible clear icky things (I wanted high hit-dice).

I picked life for globe of invulnerability and the glyphs of warding, not to mention the healing spells (especially for earlier levels).

I picked death for genocide, mass genocide, and omnicide (hellfire will come in handy too).

I thought of pretty much every other possible combination, and with the severe handicaps of nightmare mode, none seemed like they would work (death/sorcery was the next choice but I'm not too keen on sorcery). I feel that the globe and the genocide spells are going to be a MUST at the lower levels to survive.

Any other thoughts?

[quaxocal]

And having that curse every midnight sucks....like really sucks.

The other thing I dislike is the perma stat drain caused even by worms.

[AR_chie]

long time ago I was try nightmare several times, but it is not for me, I love wandering and making laugh when a pity monsters try to kill me. The heavier one at least comes at proper time (RNG is a cheater).

Some hardcore mode I do it yourself, playing in Z 2.7.2 I chose only one town, and for warriors and chaos warriors didn't visit any shops (there are a few items that they needed) - only items from dungeon.

I have favourite class/race for challange also - a spectre/high mage/black - with strength 3-5 and high int - sometimes he had more SP than HP

[quaxocal]

Well nightmare is teaching me alot about strategy.

Phase Door has saved me several times (scrolls), while my Ranger only has been relying on Teleport Self (chaos).


I was thinking a Paladin might work best for the true Ironman mode. Cause the two things which are essential are Light and Food. With some kind of Healing coming in next. Though now I just realized that you also need teleporting, which Life magic lacks. Well, my next choice would have been a Warrior-Mage (Arcane has all the essentials), not sure on the second realm.


Spectre High Mage Death? Seems pretty powerful once leveled up. I would think a challenge would be to pick a stupid race (Zombie, Golem) and pull off that Mage.

[camlost]

I think someone has beaten nightmare mode. The curse at midnight can be mitigated by staying in an inn. You'll have to travel down the stairs each time, because you can be recalled to dlevel*2, which is probably instadeath. Thus, you probably want to play a really high xp penalty spellcaster, and just be really patient. Once you get a source of some serious speed, the game becomes a lot easier, though it's still a PITA.

For a good time, try interesting rooms on. It's... interesting. Of course, you might have to go to an older version.

[AR_chie]

Well nightmare is teaching me alot about strategy.
Spectre High Mage Death? Seems pretty powerful once leveled up. I would think a challenge would be to pick a stupid race (Zombie, Golem) and pull off that Mage.

yeah, imagine 30plev with only 200HP - as mage he is so powerful and I like him, but his body is too weak and breath of dragons or even hounds are really danger for him (resistance don't fit it)... my highest mage spectre was killed by drolem breathing poison (I have a poison res and full HP).

[quaxocal]

Staying at the Inn does NOT get around the curse, instead you have dreams and other side effects (I tested it on a dummy character to see what those effects would be, and I had a large amount of stats drained).


Word of Recall so far as not backfired on my character. It seems again that the documentation on zangband.org is outdated for Nightmare mode, or I've just been very very lucky.


Reading through the comments on the ladder for all the winners, I didn't see anyone who claimed to win in Nightmare mode.


Ar_chie, did you consider using temporary resistances in addition to perma ones? Maximum poison damage (going off Angband, I assume its same for Zangband) is 800, which can be reduced by 8/9 (which puts it a little under a 100). Might be something I'll have to try.

[camlost]

Sorry, it gets around the really bad part of the curse. Stat drain at the very least was not very expensive to restore in, say, 2.2.8 (restoration store service for under 1K). Anywhichway, it's probably significantly better than your average curse of Topi Ylinen.

The win that I might have heard about was word-of-mouth, not on the ladder. Of course, my quick google search doesn't reveal anyone claiming that particular distinction, either.

[quaxocal]

Ok, it was mostly PERMA stat drain. If you're a low level character, that's impossible to repair. That is what is making Nightmare a real challenge, until you get down into the 30's, you risk having your stats reduced to as low as they can go (potentially). Since they can be drained from Topi Yilnen, the Inn, and by any monster which has temp stat drain (which is perma with Nightmare).

If it was only temporary stat drain, then no big deal, restore potion of (pick a stat) only costs like 300-400 or so (depends on merchant and cha).


Still would be nice though if someone could win on Nightmare. (or even get far into the dungeon)