Second Win Doldrums

[Silfir]

Casting Wish might be the least stressful way of getting a missing ultra ending item such as a scroll of danger with a high level wizard.

[Phoobnahr]

Well Mono's reborn, and better than ever. No wish this time though.

I'll try to post a character log as soon as possible (I'm moving and don't have internet at home), but this is the third wizard in a row to have an incredible melee weapon. Mono I had an eternium scimitar of devastation, Sally, the salamander born wizard had Executor, and Mono II has an adamantium broadsword of devastation.
As I said before, I almost feel like having such a good melee weapon is a liability, because it gives me the feeling I can just melee enemies when I'm a goddamn wizard. Sally started with such low learning and had pretty bad luck finding offensive spellbooks, so she didn't have much choice other than to melee a lot, but Mono II has had no such problems. His learning was pretty high to start with, plus I've got a book shop in level 2 of the puppy cave, which I've bought out and read through at least three times, so plenty of offensive castings shouldn't be a problem.
Amongst his other assets are: Robes of Resistance (Hooray for my one pre-crown!), 6 SoCR, Invisibility, Teleport (with control), Fireball and Lightning Ball, as well as some really good intrinsics gained from draining pools.
Didn't manage to save Khelavaster, I drained a couple pools in the DD and UD, but wasn't willing to risk drinking darkforge dry, so I let the old man expire.

Does anybody have suggestions for better ways to go about getting a wish than taking my life in my hands draining pools? The UD has ring and scoll shops on levels 7 and 8 respectively. I tried cleaning out the ring shop in hopes of getting a ring of Djinni Summoning, but no luck. I even bought a scroll of Danger from the scroll shop and amped up the DL in the ring level, but still nothing. (BTW, does danger level effect the goods in a shop?)

Anywhat, Mono's back, and apart from having killed Khelly, better than ever.

Any tips that I can get about obtaining wishes and DL effects on shops would be much appreciated.
Thanks

[anon123]

Does anybody have suggestions for better ways to go about getting a wish than taking my life in my hands draining pools? The UD has ring and scoll shops on levels 7 and 8 respectively. I tried cleaning out the ring shop in hopes of getting a ring of Djinni Summoning, but no luck. I even bought a scroll of Danger from the scroll shop and amped up the DL in the ring level, but still nothing. (BTW, does danger level effect the goods in a shop?)

Anywhat, Mono's back, and apart from having killed Khelly, better than ever.

Any tips that I can get about obtaining wishes and DL effects on shops would be much appreciated.
Thanks

Do you have any potions of exchange? If so, bless them, then go to that ring shop and dip the biggest stacks in those (note you can dip unpaid items without angering the shopkeeper and the new item is no longer unpaid - probably a bug). The danger level of the deep UD, where your shops are, is enough to generate a RoDS, and potions of exchange do not respect rarity, but have an equal chance of turning the item into any other of its class that could spawn at this DL. It was something like ~5%. Every dipping attempt uses one potion from your finite supply, obviously. If you're successful, don't forget to ensure your new rings are blessed before 'U'sing them

Shop items are generated according danger level just like regular items, so shops in deep locations will have more nice stuff, although you can always get brass rings or scrolls of identify (for example), because those are DL 1. However, I remember reading that items that increase stats, grant wishes or remove corruption are much less likely to be generated. Higher danger levels do not generate rarer spellbooks as some people seem to believe - I've seen books of Wish, Greater Identify and Create Item in DL1 areas.

[JellySlayer]

Didn't manage to save Khelavaster, I drained a couple pools in the DD and UD, but wasn't willing to risk drinking darkforge dry, so I let the old man expire.

With 6 SoCR in your pack and a teleport book already, I see nothing wrong with using Khelly for improved fireball target practice. Unless you really want an ultra, I wouldn't worry about saving in him in this situation, unless a wish happens to fall in your lap. Although even if a wish did fall in your lap (and wasn't from a pool), you'd be way better off wishing for an ancient karmic wyrm to propel yourself to level 30+ and put yourself on easy street for the rest of the game.

A ring shop on UD:8 can produce RoDS, I believe, although you might have to clean it out a bazillion times to get the ring to show up. The ring dipping option is a good one too if you've got blessed potions of exchange kicking around. I wouldn't worry about it too much though. Saving Khelly falls into the list of things that I consider to be mostly extraneous to your goal of winning the game, so I wouldn't put yourself at any unnecessary risk to do it.

[Phoobnahr]

I had let the old man die by the time I made my last post... As Jellyslayer mentioned, since I already have 6 SoCR without him, I wasn't too worried about it. I've never gone for an ultra so I would have liked to keep the option open, but if its not happening I'm not going to force it.

By now I've cleared the tower and made it down to the shortcut to the surface. I've been mostly wielding the sword of Nonnak, instead of my adamantium broadsword of devastation in order to curb my tendancy to ever use melee. Between my Puppy Cave book shop and the Casino Gift shop, I should have ample castings of every offensive spell, including all the ball spells (except improved fireball, haven't seen it yet).

In short, since I've left any ultra-aspirations by the wayside, as long as I stay careful and don't fall victim to late-game overconfidence, I should be seeing an end to my second-win doldrums.

Thanks for the tips