Looking for endgame suggestions

[debo]

I don't think grinding more is a good idea. If you have 15ish big healing potions, I would go in with the attitude that you are going to win that one fight or die trying. I wouldn't use anything less than a !healing in that battle, even if you're just trying to clear status. You can use !life when you need a big heal to also restore stats when they're drained.

You should also just accept that you are going to be double-moved. I try to keep HP above 750ish the whole time for that reason.

You can deal with summons by teleporting yourself away and then waiting for the J to appear (he'll seek you across the level.) Most of his summons can't keep up. If you ever teleport back over to where they are and the J is out of range, destruct them. ?genocide also works okay for Cyberdemon or dragon summons.

The first few stars can feel like they're taking forever to come off, but once you get over the early inertia things go rather well.

Generally I'll only flee the serpent fight if things are starting really badly and I haven't used any healing at all. Otherwise, I'm committing to winning or dying right there.

This isn't like fighting P in Vanilla, where you can generally stay 100% safe with careful play. You have to take risks or you'll never get anywhere, not even with a speed 50 character with 1000dmg/round.

[Pete Mack]

@debo--his damage really kind of sucks for a Pos Warrior, from a quick perusal of the ladder. The lowest warrior winner--and there are very few of them--did 730 damage/round. Others did closer to 1000. Just an ordinary BoC would do better. I'd say, go ahead and scum for a weapon. Worry less about speed, because above 40 (hasted), you need a LOT to have more than marginal effect.

[debo]

@debo--his damage really kind of sucks for a Pos Warrior, from a quick perusal of the ladder. The lowest warrior winner--and there are very few of them--did 730 damage/round. Others did closer to 1000. Just an ordinary BoC would do better. I'd say, go ahead and scum for a weapon. Worry less about speed, because above 40 (hasted), you need a LOT to have more than marginal effect.

There's probably a rekit available that could have him going shieldless. That can boost damage by a bunch all by itself.

[Ironshod Al]

Thank you for the great suggestions, debo and Pete Mack.

@Pete Mack: Soulcrusher is a BoC, the best I have, and it does less damage than my current weapon unless I'm fighting humans, demons or undead. Mostly because it lacks slay evil, so I'll be using base damage against the serpent. The slays on Soulcrusher all brings the damage above 1000. Something similar is the case with Stormbringer. It's also a BoC, but only slays good and humans.

@debo: I wasn't aware that not wielding a shield would boost damage. Thanks for that advice. I do vaguely recall that murphy hinted at this for one of my comp 206 characters, but I forgot about it until now. Although I did learn his lesson about wearing rings of combat on the correct hand.
And I guess I just got scared by the double turn bringing my character to 47 HP. If this is just about the worst that can happen if I stay above 800 HP, then it is ok. I would prefer to stay and fight instead of recalling.

Taking off my shield does boost damage to 910 with my ring of combat and base speed of 23. Removing the ring of combat drops damage back to ~750. I do lose stat sustains without the shield. There are options, but I'll wait a bit to see if it is managable eventually. Still need more !Healing to survive.

I'm grinding DL99 at the moment. Got +2 addtional speed by finding =Speed+11. Also found Nenya. It gives slightly less damage boost than my current ring of combat, dropping it from 910 to 895 when I ditch the shield. With the addtional +2 to speed I'm almost at the point where I can match turns with the serpent through !Speed and my other =Speed. This, however, drops damage back to ~770. And I can't wear the addtional =Speed when wearing Nenya, of course.

So, plenty of options to consider while I search for more consumables.

[Ironshod Al]

Without a shield I can finally wield Shiva's Avatar without losing a lot of speed, since I can ditch ring of combat / Nenya for =Speed+9. I can even compensate with the crown of Amber, and Shiva's Avatar sustains stats.

A quick test shows that I can get the following results by swapping around:
No shield+Shiva's Avatar+Crown of Amber+Boots of the Sprite: Speed+29 / +39 hasted, 876 vs evil, weak Po, no NxDi, 1xFear
No shield+Shiva's Avatar+Helm of Hammerhand+Boots of the Sprite: Speed+26 / +36 hasted, 912 vs evil, weak Po, no Di, 1xFear

I can get +2 addtional speed by ditching resistance to light and dark.
No shield+Shiva's Avatar+Crown of Amber+Boots of Speed: Speed+31 / +41 hasted, 876 vs evil, weak Po, no LiDkNxDi, 1xFear
No shield+Shiva's Avatar+Helm of Hammerhand+Boots of Speed: Speed+28 / +38 hasted, 912 vs evil, weak Po, no LiDkDi, 1xFear

That's the best combination of my earlier setups. I could even opt to swap between crown of amber / helm of hammerhand on DL100 to test which setup works best. Since I have to accept the serpents double turns, I might as well go for the better damage. That'll be average 45 turns to kill the serpent, disregarding regeneration and turns spent healing.
And the setup might get better as I still have to grind a bit for potions.

[wobbly]

I wouldn't risk lack of dark over 2 speed. If 2 matters you're probably under to start with. It's not even just about whether you can safely do it. A question: do you really want to be checking every single enemy in the final fight to see if it dark storms?

[Ironshod Al]

You're probably right. In the meantime that problem has solved itself as I found another =Speed+11. That replaces the additional +2 speed from the boots.

But I have run into a similar problem:
I've just found the glaive of pain. It's pretty good damage. 'Only' base damage, but better than defender of the crown even vs evil. On the other hand, I lose resistance to nether, which is absolutely not something I can afford.
So, I can get 980 damage at about 30 speed, but can't handle nether. Or I can lose 3 speed by swapping jewel of judgement with stone of death.

I'm still lacking potions, so there is a chance I can solve the new problem in a different way eventually.

[wobbly]

Also if you're dropping the shield for extra damage it may be worth double checking what you get with an orcish or dwarven shield

[Ironshod Al]

Also if you're dropping the shield for extra damage it may be worth double checking what you get with an orcish or dwarven shield

Is there a difference between carrying a 'normal' shield and one of those? Again something I wasn't aware off. All these amazing little details.
Thanks. I'll be sure to check them out. Unfortunately, I have usually left them behind, but there might a few on future dungeon levels. I saw an orcish shield last time I visited DL99.

[wobbly]

Not a difference so much, just that they come with a damage boost. It's unlikely to be better than 2-handed unless the str bonus & resists let you swap in extra damage or speed somewhere else

[Ironshod Al]

Good to know that they don't have any secret special effects that I missed. I'll remember to check anyway. Didn't find either shield type this time around. But the dark/light problem just returned with additional difficulty. Boots of Speed+7 vs Boots of the Sprite +3 {LiDk} makes it harder to ignore the speed. LiDk is only a problem because I swap armor of rituals with shiva's avatar, so until I decide on the final setup, I'll use the extra speed.

Despite not wanting to experience another rocket hit, I was just hit by two rockets from Dor (because I forgot to use -Detection). This is the main problem with grinding so late in the game: it increases the chance of getting killed before reaching the main goal. My character survived with ~250 HP, but I'm not really proud of the feat.

[Ironshod Al]

Another thank you to everyone for helping me out with the various gotchas.
My character is almost ready. Still in need of !Healing, but things are looking much much better:

932 vs evil and speed+29 / 39 hasted. All resistances covered. I'll probably need !Resistance to add a bit to rBase. I've only got 40% poison resistance. !Heroism slightly upgrades to-hit (+2%), but not damage. My AC is pathetic - 120 (125 with ?Holy Chant), but I'll bring ?Protection from Evil to counter that a bit.
Average 43 turns of hitting the serpent (ignoring regeneration) and it gets about 18 turns for casting spells and such.

I'll take this setup for a test run when I grind for consumables next time.


EDIT: Test run over. In fact the whole run is over. Sad, but still worth it.
I'll restore an old save file as I want to test a thing I didn't want to try in the actual game. Bought Scroll of Madness for 200,000 gold in the Black Market that I want to know more about.

[debo]

Glad you learned a lot on this run. In my opinion, you were grinding entirely too much on a character that looked eminently winnable with some perseverance. 22 *healing* means you can exclusively use those in the final fight and still easily win.

If you're planning on sticking with Warrior until you win, I might try a faster-levelling class next time. Lucky personality is also great for the treasure and device-skill boosts, and usually equipment will more than cover the stat penalties by the late game.

I always carry a staff of destruction in my lategame kit so that I can blast awkward monsters like Nodens who can show up when I'm unprepared. Follow-teleport monsters are really bad _Destruction is also great at CL50 for nuking monsters that don't drop anything -- like hounds. So many hounds.

[wobbly]

Something I notice looking at the dump (besides the tele-level scrolls ), the only healing you have is that 43% fail staff, right? I'd learn to live with the fact that sometimes healing Potions get used or smashed. That late I'd be carrying a few on a priest with a pack full of healing devices. They're there to protect the player. It's not the other way round.

[Ironshod Al]

In my opinion, you were grinding entirely too much on a character that looked eminently winnable with some perseverance. 22 *healing* means you can exclusively use those in the final fight and still easily win.

I had a bit of the same thought after I lost. It would have been more fun to just see where my resources could have taken me. At least when I got the better equipment and thus shorter time needed to fight the serpent.

If you're planning on sticking with Warrior until you win, I might try a faster-levelling class next time. Lucky personality is also great for the treasure and device-skill boosts, and usually equipment will more than cover the stat penalties by the late game.

I have a CL26 Skillmaster on the online server, that I will return to. It's set with Ordinary personality, but might go better now that I'm aware of some of the hassles of the late part of the game. For one, I don't think it's worth going after all the uniques I did. There is always more of them, so focus should be on gathering equipment and consumables quicker and just hit DL99 and DL100. I don't know if I have made the right choices for my skillmaster, but at least it will have the benefit of a more experienced player.

I always carry a staff of destruction in my lategame kit so that I can blast awkward monsters like Nodens who can show up when I'm unprepared. Follow-teleport monsters are really bad _Destruction is also great at CL50 for nuking monsters that don't drop anything -- like hounds. So many hounds.

I used to carry one, but ended up thinking it wasn't necessary as most visits to DL99 worked well. Even when uniques were dangerous (like Star Blade, Sekhmet and Unmagic). Hounds are annoying, but apart from a few kennels they usually weren't too hard to deal with. Their AI doesn't fear ASCs unlike many uniques and all but chaos hounds dies in one hit.
The monsters I usually were looking for were ultra paladins, the fightable wyrms and trolls. Trolls don't drop too great stuff, but usually appears in large groups and they do drop consumables.

Something I notice looking at the dump (besides the tele-level scrolls ), the only healing you have is that 43% fail staff, right? I'd learn to live with the fact that sometimes healing Potions get used or smashed. That late I'd be carrying a few on a priest with a pack full of healing devices. They're there to protect the player. It's not the other way round.

True. A lot of easy visits to DL99 made me forget that the character wasn't invincible. I left too many useful items at home, wanting to save them, instead of saving the character.

I had already used ?Teleport Level once and ended up on DL100, which was where I activated ?Recall. All I tried to do was to survive, so yeah I might have tried ?Teleport Level again. At least after the first failed attempt at escaping Nodens.