The 'treasure hunter' talent sucks.

[Soirana]

So what are your starting talents of choice?

Hardy and log stride are long time favorites.

[JellySlayer]

Just a question for you guys.....for the sake of argument, if you could only choose alert/porter/quick as the 1st talent, and never again, which one would you choose? i would still choose alert for TH or MissileWM! also, TH is not just 1 talent, it is 3...including a blocking talent on lvl 1. however, i still think it is OP cause miser is good too and increased loot is always welcome! also, the post abv regarding the other talents being utterly useless! (except beast of burden perhaps)

These days, I'd almost certainly go for Quick. I usually play doomed and I find for that, you really need at least ~110 speed just to be able to function in the early game. So for non-Ravens, my first talents are often Quick, Very Quick, Greased Lightning/Long Stride. Quick also is needed for missile talent line, which is where I usually go next, so there's good synergy there. I like TH, but I can live without it; I can't live without speed.

Porter line is good, but Speed and Missile lines are more important, so I don't usually get those talents until after level 20 or so.

[divij]

hmmm...i quite like the idea of playing the game doomed....however how do you start off doomed? i would like to try it out as well. and what is the best month-race-class combo for winning? and are you allowed to get very high piety by wearing a ring of doom? as for missile talents, i dont like using missiles other than on an archer and other than if i find/get crowned with missiles / missile weapons..so i would rather go for TH

[Dlightfull]

These days, I'd almost certainly go for Quick. I usually play doomed and I find for that, you really need at least ~110 speed just to be able to function in the early game. So for non-Ravens, my first talents are often Quick, Very Quick, Greased Lightning/Long Stride. Quick also is needed for missile talent line, which is where I usually go next, so there's good synergy there. I like TH, but I can live without it; I can't live without speed.

Porter line is good, but Speed and Missile lines are more important, so I don't usually get those talents until after level 20 or so.

You're right about Quick shot and, eventually, lightning shot. I usually end up having both of them, if i qualify, i'd always pick Quick shot though, even without Archery.

I like things that have an impact till the end of the game and that you can't have from other sources. +to hit and + damage you can get from gear, lower energy consumption, on the other hand, is very powerful and unavailable from other sources.

And TH is just like that, it impacts the whole game, not just the early-game, as PV does.

[JellySlayer]

hmmm...i quite like the idea of playing the game doomed....however how do you start off doomed? i would like to try it out as well. and what is the best month-race-class combo for winning? and are you allowed to get very high piety by wearing a ring of doom? as for missile talents, i dont like using missiles other than on an archer and other than if i find/get crowned with missiles / missile weapons..so i would rather go for TH

I drop all of my gear and pray until doomed at the start of the game. I play low piety only--intrinsic dooming gives a stronger effect than doom from items. You can multiple doom yourself if you want, of course (Crown of Science or Celestrix being great reasons to do so). Piety isn't that useful anyway since prayers fail most of the time when you're doomed.

For class, a caster is probably easiest to start. The main thing that will kill you is monsters with paralysis (and sleep...), so you need a ranged attack early on to deal with ghuls, homunculus, carrion crawlers, etc. Archer is fine too as long as you can keep your missile supplies well-stocked. Non-casters are considerably harder. For race, I usually like to start with 20+ toughness, so that pretty much limits you to Dwarf, Drakeling, Orc, Hurthling or Troll. You might be able to get away with a weaker race with a caster, I guess, but I haven't had good luck with it.

[taickyto]

When I'm playing a Ratling, or a priest, I make sure I get TH ASAP, because having a load of ID items is more powerful than anything.
I've been playing a lot of dwarves recently, and I forgo TH to get to mithril skin as soon as I can

[Molach]

Heya.

I remember posting in this thread 7 years go, so what better way to celebrate a return to ADOM than to necrophile this old thread.
Molach has been hanging out at realms beyond site, playing Civ IV, fall from heaven and werewolf.

Anyway, it would seem I still rarely consider taking TH at startup. I recently started 3-4 ADOM 1.1.1 chars, neither of them got alert at level 1.
Then I noticed there is a newer version. Exciting. After 2 false starts I'm running a mist elf priest now. I like that stats respect maximum, previously all chars tended to end up very similar once I found some moss & morgia. Now my poor mist elf is level 23, still with 14 toughness and living dangerously with 106 HPs.

I don't really know if TH got improved, stayed the same, or is less value in new version. More artifacts - TH is better, higher chance to have them drop. Summoners don't drop at all - TH is worse than before. More guaranteed items - TH is worse, you'll end up using X anyway. (A typical example would be "elemental gauntlets" - they are good & guaranteed, useful all game long, so chance of TH affecting what I wear on my hands is miniscule.).

I do not take TH because
* I you want to maximize chance of any given character surviving. I hate it when the mourning wife and kids look up at me and ask "Was there nothing you could have done?" when I know that I didn't need 'alert' at level 1.
* I feel other talents than TH are best to advance faster in the game. I might have to scum for missing stuff, this will typically be if I attempt an Ultra, but for normal games I make do with what I have. Spellcasters go down rift to library. All chars can have great gloves and a good ring. All chars also find something useful in Darkforge (a miracle I survived my first visit there in 1.2... teleport...). I dig treasure graves. I get pre- and normally crowned. I get hetbs for healing/stats. Point is that I think I advance faster through the game so that I ultimately spend less time closing the gate with 3 power talents rather than TH++.

I should probably quantify this by running some otherwise-identical characters, but first need to figure out what is going on in this version.

And greetings to any I knew from before, and Hi to any newcomers here. Good this site is still actively active.

[Grey]

Hello again, old timer

TH is still the best. Keep the faith!

[grobblewobble]

Summoners don't drop at all - TH is worse than before. More guaranteed items - TH is worse, you'll end up using X anyway.

These sum it up. TH has always been bad and now it got nerfed.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

It has always been great and now it got buffed. With more areas (ice queen, new random dungeons, etc.) there are more monster kills and opportunities to find juicy TH-generated loot than ever.