Healer melee advice (warning game spoliers included), please.

[Blasphemous]

No way to resist their drains in melee range but some methods of reduction exist: extremely high willpower, amulet of protection from undead.
Even with that, very experienced lich kings and emperors will drain the PC in melee and that is inevitable with prolonged close combat.
Best is to just slay them from a safe distance - my favorite tool is the rune covered trident since it's an undead slayer and returns when thrown.
It doesn't always return so it's best to separate lich royalty away from the bulk one by one and destroy them in a safer location where you can recover the trident without risk.
Typically missiles of undead slaying are used but some will be destroyed, others will be lost due to the crowd of summons and unless you're an archer, there aren't that many to be found around to begin with.
Sun's messenger is the most reliable method since it turns every arrow into an undead slayer but it's not exactly a guaranteed artifact.
Extremely high strength and powerful weapon (like aotme) allow for 1-2 hit slayings of even lich kings.
With 7LB and high speed, you can time your melee attacks to hit once and then retreat to a distance. Rinse and repeat, like a quickling.
You could hit twice, turn after turn but you run the risk of missing due to their high DV and then they might land a few drains in a single turn of their movement.
This is especially bad if they decide to fight to the death in blind rage (which they often do once severely wounded; a likely scenario after one very powerful hit).
Their movements will double and allow them to drain in excess of 10 points total.

[blunk]

No way to resist their drains in melee range but some methods of reduction exist: extremely high willpower, amulet of protection from undead.
Even with that, very experienced lich kings and emperors will drain the PC in melee and that is inevitable with prolonged close combat.
Best is to just slay them from a safe distance - my favorite tool is the rune covered trident since it's an undead slayer and returns when thrown.
It doesn't always return so it's best to separate lich royalty away from the bulk one by one and destroy them in a safer location where you can recover the trident without risk.
Typically missiles of undead slaying are used but some will be destroyed, others will be lost due to the crowd of summons and unless you're an archer, there aren't that many to be found around to begin with.
Sun's messenger is the most reliable method since it turns every arrow into an undead slayer but it's not exactly a guaranteed artifact.
Extremely high strength and powerful weapon (like aotme) allow for 1-2 hit slayings of even lich kings.
With 7LB and high speed, you can time your melee attacks to hit once and then retreat to a distance. Rinse and repeat, like a quickling.
You could hit twice, turn after turn but you run the risk of missing due to their high DV and then they might land a few drains in a single turn of their movement.
This is especially bad if they decide to fight to the death in blind rage (which they often do once severely wounded; a likely scenario after one very powerful hit).
Their movements will double and allow them to drain in excess of 10 points total.

Thanks for answer.

No rune covered trident, I'm only lvl 29.
No undead slaying ammo (hrm thought I had oh well).
No Sun's messenger.
Speed is above 100 but not extreme. Natural str only 27 (40 with fire orb).
Axe at lvl 12 so thats 700 energy according to wiki.
Seems blessed arrows/quarrels will have to do a good amount of work.

/blunk

PS. 75 blessed spenseweed DS.

[plllizzz9]

See those separated four Lich Kings? Just teleport exactly one tile below them - in this vault setup, they're all in enclosed rooms, standing exactly on the greatest spoils. At a pretty minor cost of few stats, you can grab the artifacts and heaps of gold guarded by them fairly easily.

[blunk]

Good thing I didnt trust plllizzz9.
The middle room was one big open space, I decided to try and fight it head on, sometimes backing up.
The amount of monsters these liches spawned was immense, I killed off a few masters and a king or two but some fled, I had to fight them in berserk.
Otherwise I generally used "very agressive"
When I finally grinded into the emperor and killed him in melee I knew the rest was just a matter of patience
I did use some firebolt and some fireball to clear out some of the spawners and with the help of summoned dragons we nuked some stuff on the ground but oh well, its just items.
Good thing I had courage since I realised I had to wade through monsters to get to the liches in the center area.
I think I lost 1 toughness, 1 perception and maybe one of some other stat like ap/cha. (Some stuff got cursed or uncursed from blessed by liches but I had almost 30 potions of holy water after the fight, and used maybe 10 of those).

Treasures:
Potions, scrolls, there wasnt much in terms of loot that I had use for.
The rest was like, dagger of devastation, adamantium , boots of speed, a few eternium items ...
Potion of gain attributes, potion of dex , some potential potions whos effects will never see the day (stats over 25).

I got 5 levels of exp!
I now have full mithril skin+immune to pain, also chose affinity with axes.
I got 3300 marks in axe! (still lvl 12) and 2 lvls in xbow.

I sacced 200k gold but didnt get to postcrowning status, how much does it take? I only have normal crowning before.

A couple of dragons, a Titan, Emperor lich and a few Molochs were probably the monsters of note.
Monsters killed in the "clear the vault" sessions (I made comparison between logs in spread sheet):

air demons	1
air grues	1
ancient black dragons	2
ancient karmic dragons	1
ancient minotaurs	2
ancient red dragons	2
balor	1
berserkers	3
berserker emperors	3
berserker lords	1
berserker princes	2
big dogs	1
black baby dragons	1
black dragons	1
bugbears	1
cave bears	2
cave lizards	4
cavemen	2
chaos eyes	3
chaos mutants	3
chaos rats	1
chaos servants	2
chaos spiders	1
chaos warlords	4
claw bugs	1
crystal statues	1
cyclopes	1
dark elven priestesses	1
dark orcs	2
death oozes	2
dire wolves	5
doppelgangers	1
Dorn Beasts	1
emperor lich	1
fire beetles	7
fire giants	4
fire giant kings	1
fire lizards	1
frost giants	3
frost giant jarls	5
gelatinous cubes	1
ghosts	165
ghost bats	2
ghost lords	77
ghuls	4
giant lizards	4
giant rats	1
giant spiders	1
goblins	1
goblin berserkers	1
goblin rockthrowers	3
goblin slavemasters	3
great karmic wyrms	3
greater chaos servants	4
greater daemons	1
greater fire elemental	1
greater water elementals	1
green hags	5
green worms	126
grizzly bears	1
harpies	2
hell hounds	1
hill giants	2
hill orcs	2
hobgoblins	1
huge bats	3
ice lizards	1
invisible stalkers	1
karmic dragon	1
karmic lizards	1
kobolds	1
kobold chieftains	1
large bats	1
large kobolds	5
large rust monsters	2
lich kings	6
magedoom eyes	1
master liches	22
master swordsmen	1
minotaur lords	1
molochs	2
mummies	2
necromancers	1
ochre jellies	37
ogre kings	3
ogre magi	1
orc chieftains	1
outlaw leaders	3
pit vipers	7
quickling lords	2
ratling duelists	1
ratling thieves	1
shadow lords	1
shadow trolls	1
silver wolves	1
skeletal kings	2
skeletal warriors	17
spectres	180
stone giants	10
stone giant lords	2
stone golems	1
stone statues	2
swamp hydras	2
swordsmen	1
tarantulas	1
titan	1
trolls	4
troll berserkers	4
troll chiefs	2
troll kings	1
vampires	55
water elementals	1
werewolves	4
werewolf lords	1
white baby dragons	1
wights	147
wolves	12
wraiths	121
writhing masses of primal chaos	1

[blunk]

Btw how can I see if I've got unnatural age? (nothing shows on alt-q page)

[blunk]

Earth Temple was a joke compared to undead vault, I sneezed through it, killing beast with 4-5 slaying quarrels.
Got a frost giant vault, a shame I was at max potential str.
And on D46 I get this beauty:
d46vault.JPG
I've got fire immune from crowning so I'll just unequip what burns (or go ring of ice) and prepare to melee all the way through.

[StViers]

By the time you're hitting GUVs you prolly have too many artifacts to precrown. What artifacts did you get from the vault btw?

[wheals]

You should be able to check for unnatural aging on the 'B' screen.

[blunk]

You should be able to check for unnatural aging on the 'B' screen.

Ahh then I've been lucky considering all the ghosts.
And that dragon vault ....
Just before the vault is a chaotic altar that I convert first to N and then to L.
And oh my that was a good choice.
Ancient reds crit pretty hard but its sorta doable, but there was a hole bunch those named special super Ancients, I did try to melee, I tried some range, only thing that did good damage was frost bolt but as a semi-caster I havent got the mana for it so I sacced them all and some of the ancient reds as well.
Even with full defensive (with rings of ice) they crit too hard.
I found Thunderstroke, but that only scratched those mega dragons.
Seems I got exp from sacrifying them tho (but not loot except for thunderstroke).

Also found some cool boots of speed +4+3 8speed, still 7 league are probably better.
Went down on D47 to find another smaller red dragon vault, guess I should be happy that they are red.

[Blasphemous]

What artifacts did you get in that undead vault?
All those liches and their summons mentioned, you listed some items but no artifacts, unless I missed that.