Looking for endgame suggestions

[Ironshod Al]

My current character, Al 17, has come about as far as I think is possible equipment-wise. I could continue grinding for consumables and better equipment and I could continue to kill uniques. Experience from the latest game sessions tells me that killing all remaining uniques isn't the way to go. There is still enemies that I can't fight without wasting a ton of charges / consumables or getting some genuine RNG luck. Unmakers, great wyrms of power and Pandemonium are examples of such monsters. I have recently killed the Tarrasque, but surviving mostly on what few charges it left undrained. It might have been easier if I had carried potions/scrolls.

Anyway, I think it is time to plan for the endgame. If I was playing Angband I would just dive to DL99, kill Sauron and then go kill Morgoth. I have sufficient consumables, speed and damage for this. However, I don't know what to expect from PosChengband. I know the Serpent summons a lot, but apart from that I don't know what kind of damage to expect. And I have absolutely no idea what Oberon is about. Are they just renamed clones of Sauron / Morgoth? I guess Oberon has the ability to give @ a blood curse like the rest of the amberites.

So, any suggestions before I dive to DL99 would be welcome. Preferably without too many spoilers

• Which resistances should I prioritize?
• What about fear? Is 2x (3x with !Heroism) enough?
• Are there any uniques I should attempt to kill before entering DL99 or DL100?
• My Angband characters won with base speed <30 and <600 damage. Is this reasonable for PosChengband?

Here's what my character currently is capable of:
Resistances and such are shown in the latest Character dump. I have covered everything except time (but have Ring of the Ages at home).
I have the choice between ring of speed +9 or ring of combat (+8,+20) {A: Heroic Speed}. Or I could get addtional resistance vs DkNt. Or resist Time.
Stone Skin and Resistance are available through item activation.

• =Combat gives base speed +21/+31 speed hasted. Damage 654, 756 vs evil, 857 vs demons.
• =Speed gives base speed +30/+40 speed hasted. Damage 514, 616 vs evil, 710 vs demons.
• =DkNt gives base speed +21/+31 speed hasted. Damage 514, 616 vs evil, 710 vs demons.
• =Ages gives base speed +21/+31 speed hasted. Damage 514, 616 vs evil, 710 vs demons.

Consumables:

247 !Speed (three inventory slots)
 40 !Heroism
 37 !Resistance
 27 !Healing
 22 !*Healing*
  1 !Augmentation (restore stats?)
  1 !*Enlightenment* (restore stats?)

  5 ,Restoring

 18 ?Phase Door (shops currently don't have new supplies of this scroll, but I can rest a couple of days to restock)
158 ?Teleport (two inventory slots)
 22 ?Destruction
 15 ?Genocide
  8 ?Mass Genocide
  4 ?Banishment
  7 ?Recharging (I have plenty of wands, rods and staves to bring along as recharge sources)

I have a bunch of _Speed, _Cure Wounds, _Curing and _Holiness, but a lot of monsters drains charges, so they may not be useful except to initally clear an area of DL99 and possible DL100.
I have 2x _Healing. 4+8 charges at 39%/85% with "[MSM or 2%/40% with "Md+3.

I have tried to gamble for potions and staves, but nothing useful came from that.
I have a vague idea what reforging is about, but don't really know what to expect when doing it. If it is useful I should have the money to do it. Asking about my fame I get "The bards doth sing of ye: Heroic ballads both far 'n wide!" from the innkeeper.

[wobbly]

Well the 1st thing I'd do is walk in to the beastmaster & pay for full monster lore on Oberon & the Serpent. Oberon is mostly just a bigger version of the amberites you've already fought. There's plenty of far worse uniques around. Also you can get a more exact number for your fame simply be walking in to the fighter's guild & seeing what the max. Power it gives for reforging. It'll directly correspond to the artifact value.

[Ironshod Al]

That was some eye opening advice. Thank you, wobbly.

I have never bothered with the Beastmaster before as I thought you had to bring a corpse to research the info. Don't know why I thought a corpse was necessary, but now I see its value. 1500 to probe any monster without encountering it and using _probing or my racial power. No real danger involved.
And it looks like I need more speed / damage to stand a chance against the serpent. Oberon might be possible to kill even with my current speed and damage. I think I'll give it a shot just to see how nasty he is to fight.
My current max reforge value is 115593. The broad spear of destiny I found recently has a value of 78k, so I could reforge something twice as good as that? I just need to figure out if I choose features myself or they are chosen at random.

EDIT: Ok, I believe I understand the reforging feature now. You transfer most of the artifact value from an existing artifact to a non-ego item. The new item has a slightly lower score than the source, but may be better in terms of what features it get (and you can transfer from one item type to another turning helmets into rings and such). This explains the many annoying 'ring {average}' and 'amulet {average}' I have found throughout my games. The max reforge score / fame is the upper limit for the artifact you want to reforge.
Cool It's a better gamble than the staff/potion/scroll shop. At least for a warrior. But still a gamble.

[Thraalbee]

I had my first Poschengband win in the recent compo. Years ago I made an attempt that ended in a few rounds. The surprise to me was being attacked in so many ways in parallel -- drain food -- drain charges -- ranged attacks -- melee attacks -- summoning. With low speed you risk spending most turns eating, healing or dealing with summons.

I guess the key factor I had this time except much more speed (~45 base speed) was the anti summoning charm. With that I only had to take care of the Serpent as well as a smaller number of Cyberdemons (that I mostly ignored). As a bonus, that charm also had [M and Magical resistance which also helped ( played a berserker). Note that this time I was overprepared, the entire fight went very quickly since I was dealing out some 1500+ damage per round

[Ironshod Al]

Your description sounds like most of my game past DL60. I didn't get past 14 base speed until DL96. My character have lived most of his late life in an ASC, healing from damage and only occasionally being able to kill stuff. Usually draining all charges just to kill a single unique.
And now you tell me that it gets even worse when I confront the serpent. Hooray!
Sure, anti-summoning helps a lot, but breaking LOS is still necessary in many cases. There is an awful lot of spells and breaths that eats 30%-50% of my characters HP per attack.

Well, I think I can deal with Oberon using my current setup. I need to switch away from staves and use potions and scrolls, but otherwise he is killable. I got a decent result from my first confrontation.

Afterwards I have to search for more speed and more damage before I can deal with DL100. And I probably also need to restock consumables.
1500+ damage ... not sure if I'm going to get that much, but Soulcrusher and At+1 was about 1000 vs demons, so it might not be impossible.

Thanks for the detailed description. I did see your character dump for comp 206, but these extra details are helpful when I have to figure out when I'm ready to deal with the serpent.

[debo]

If you have 10-15 *healing* / Life potions, this character can win just fine now. Make sure to destruct the heck out of DL100 before fighting the serpent, it makes it easier to stay out of LOS after teleport escapes. +30 base speed is more than enough.

If I were you I'd try hard to work Shiva's Avatar into your kit, +1 blow can really make a big difference damage-wise. I'm usually okay to be missing some resists in the final fight (sound, nexus I don't find particularly concerning.)

The only devices you really need are _destruct (for terraforming at the beginning of the fight) and maybe -stonetomud. Bring !speed to stay hasted and scrolls of genocide and destruction for when you need to deal with summons. You have an antisummoning amulet, so this shouldn't be a problem. Use normal !healing as much as you can to stay above 800hp, save the big heals for when you get knocked into the red.

You can stuff your inventory with other utility devices to prevent starvation -- as long as J has something to chargedrain in your inventory, you won't be hit with hunger by his melee attacks. He only starts to drain food once you're out of charges for him to munch. (This is useful to know if you get potion-gorged during the fight.)

You don't have much AC, but on the other hand you have a ton of hitpoints so it sort of evens out I guess. Antisummoning is a gamechanger in the final fight, with that you should really be fine.

[Ironshod Al]

Thank you for the suggetions, debo.

Let's see how many potions I have left when Oberon is done. I don't think I need all that many to deal with him. My main plan is similar to your suggestion against the serpent: destruct enough of the dungeon to get a place to hide and heal up. My first attempt was in a destructed zone (accidental as I had to get rid of a couple of other uniques) and that went pretty well.

Shiva's Avatar is a bit hard to get back into the mix, but I do notice the benefit of the extra blow/round. ~1100 vs demons with Soulcrusher at +20 speed (using my ring of combat). ~1000 wielding the spear of destiny.
I will attempt another shuffle and see if it is possible to solve the puzzle. I lose 4 speed by just donning the armor and lose all resistance to light, dark, disenchantment. That's not great, but there are several options available.

I have plenty of junk wands, rods and staves to bring along to feed the serpent, so I'll try to remember bringing them along.

[debo]

You can probably get away with mostly using healing devices on Oberon, even with the chargedrain. He doesn't really have all that many hitpoints. I rarely use potions in that fight.

Good luck!

[Ironshod Al]

Thank you everyone. Your help has worked great for me this far.

Oberon is down along with Sauron and I have had my very first glimpse of the serpent. Didn't attempt to fight it. Just wanted recall to point to DL100. I also managed to get hit by rockets for the first (and second) time ever. *ouch*

I'll be shuffling equipment tomorrow. Don't know if I get time to actually play. We'll see.

[debo]

If you stick with your current weapon, you might as well spend the money to enchant its to-hit all the way up. You have a ton of cash, even if you're planning on an epic reforge.

Recalling straight to DL100 is sort of annoying because you can't stairscum for a better floor if you end up with e.g. omens of death. I prefer to keep recall point at DL99 after Oberon is down.

[Pete Mack]

@Al-
When in doubt about resistances, pick shards...

[wobbly]

@pete - poscheng. So stacking resists etc. etc.

Just a note the serpent can summon dungeon guardians so the Cthulu critter from the bottom of Ryleh is a possibility, as well as say Vecna.

[Ironshod Al]

If you stick with your current weapon, you might as well spend the money to enchant its to-hit all the way up. You have a ton of cash, even if you're planning on an epic reforge.

I'll see what I end up with. When I know my final gear, I might reforge some high level artifacts to see if I can improve that way, but maybe it is a good idea to enchant to-hit on my current best weapon before I spend gold elsewhere, just in case.

Recalling straight to DL100 is sort of annoying because you can't stairscum for a better floor if you end up with e.g. omens of death. I prefer to keep recall point at DL99 after Oberon is down.

I intended to bring ?Teleport Level. That shold bring me back to DL99 if things go awfully wrong. I have 37 scrolls, so it should be possible to stick with them instead of stair scumming. Of course I'll add additional game turns by waiting for recall, but I'm long past the point where final turncount is interesting.

Just a note the serpent can summon dungeon guardians so the Cthulu critter from the bottom of Ryleh is a possibility, as well as say Vecna.

My initial idea is to hope for good RNG. Probably not going to last, considering the amount of HP I have to chew through. Still, I made five attempts to kill Oberon and left mostly whenever he managed to summon something annoying or because nasty uniques spawned on the level when I entered it. Lucifer showed up on one occasion and _Destruction didn't manage to send him away, so I decided to restart with a new level. The final fight was won mostly because Oberon decided to only summon a couple of cyberdemons and the rest of the level was free of dangerous enemies.
Unless Cthulhu or Vecna can oneshot my character and/or negate level teleport, this should have a chance of working out.

When in doubt about resistances, pick shards...

poscheng. So stacking resists etc. etc.

This was one of the earliest gotchas when I started playing PosChengband. Starting out with an Angband mindset and not realizing that there is a bunch of small, but very significant differences between Angband and PosChengband. And now, with Angband 4.1.0 I need a slightly different mindset for Angband as well.

[Ironshod Al]

Looking through my stashed items there is two questions that pop up:

• Duration for potions, scrolls and activations are counted for the player/character time frame, that is, it is not affected by speed, right?
  So !Invulnerability has a duration for 5-8 turns regardless of character speed?
• Is weapon enchantment in shops guaranteed to work or can it fail?

EDIT: Nevermind the last question. The price was 22k gold, so I just went ahead and tried it out. Even Soulcrusher doesn't match Defender of the Crown when it comes to base damage / damage vs evil.

[Ironshod Al]

I have now fought the serpent a couple of times and made some observations.

• More speed is needed. My character nearly died to a double turn: rocket + nether breath. It may not happen often, but it would be better if it never happened.
• I need more consumables. I tried to handle healing using !CCW, but I get gorged pretty fast, and _Curing doesn't clear that status.
• More damage would be nice. Just to reduce the number of turns needed for the fight. With the current damage output I expect a full fight to last at least 70 turns. Summons are more common than I would have expected. It's fine with normal monsters, but uniques get in the way if they are immune to -TO.

My latest fight only removed a single *. The first fight was ended quickly as I realized that I needed ?Phase Door and not only ?Teleport.
I tried to reforge a couple of items. My weakest items were the crossbow and the boots. None of the reforges gave anything better, so I just wasted a ton of gold.