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

[blunk]

Hi.

I would be happy for some expert advice.

I've got a decent dwarf healeress going. (lvl 16)
I regen like crazy (trollbloodx2, troll corpse and healing 100).
Have found a lot of sweet stuff but as usual some areas are lacking.
No awesome armors or shields either but amw and tower mithril shield suffice for now (18-22 PV).
Str and good melee weapons are an issue, until just recently.
Despite eating a lot of ogres I'm only at 16 (26) str.
(Thundarr quests done incl graveyard+pyramid)

My next goal was supposed to be high king....
I can't hit air elementals (I can out run them), according to wiki high king have same DV as air eles.
I got:
Ad spear (+1,d8+9), skill 10
ad warhammer of slaughter (+3,3d5+9), skill 5
battle axe of devastation (+0, 5d6+8), skill 2
big punch , skill 1 (weight is an issue here)

What to do? keep to spear or practice other weapons?
go deeper to maybe water temple before high king? (I got djinn ring to get wish-->amu to save khelavaster)

Note: I'm far from an expert on this game and abuse wiki/guide a lot.
I generally do ok to this point with melee chars.

[yhal003]

You don't want to fight SK in melee, not if you can help it. This thing is prone to rage, and when it rages it is deadly, at least for mid-level chars. He is a lot stronger than both Rahep and undead dwarf. Blessed undead slaying ammo and good speed works best. Thrown potions of holy water also work - last time I needed 5 or 6 of them. But those are better used for something else. If you have no ammo (humanoid slaying also works) just leave him for later.

Also, if you read wiki and guides, you should know that there are few other problems on this level. Confusion resistance is a must and so is good standing with your deity (prayer can clear confusion).

[AlterAsc]

Big punch is your only decent weapon, start training with it. You can return to other weapons if you get one made of eternium. Or of less metal but with exceptional prefix. When you get maces' weapon skill to lvl6 or so, you can probably raid DF by berserking golems one on one and recovering in between fights. If there are no good weapons in DF then you can continue wielding BP.

Oh, and if your strength is 16 and potential is 26, then it's time to walk around Strained! - that will get str to 18.

[Arbot]

As far as weapon choice is concerned I would go with Big Punch, as long as you can handle the weight. if not be on the look out for a girdle of carrying. Also unless you are planning on an ultra (which I would suggest reconsidering if you are) saving Khel isn't worth a wish unless you don't have anything better to wish for. Red Dragon Scale Mail(s) or a Girdle of Giant Str would both be worthwhile wishes at this point. RDSM is more or less a set of eternium plate mail with Fire immunity for the tower. GoGS would solve your weight issues as well as increasing your melee power considerably

[Blasphemous]

If you're playing the version with ice queen realm then go get the quest to kill Haggar and spend some time hitting & eating frost giants in FGJC cave.
That should push your St to ~22, maybe more and with big punch and high regen, you should be fine against them.
You might also check out the greater vault there for a potentially nice artifact weapon or maybe bracers of war.
With 22+ strength and big punch, skele king shouldn't be a problem, assuming you have confusion resistance and decent willpower.
Also, gremlin cave is a nice place to quickly level up weapon marks to lvl ~7 or even 9, without running the risk of uber-gremlins.

[plllizzz9]

Also unless you are planning on an ultra (which I would suggest reconsidering if you are) saving Khel isn't worth a wish unless you don't have anything better to wish for.

please don't spread this horrible misinformation, 6 blessed potions of ultra healing, a blessed spellbook of teleportation and 6 blessed scrolls of chaos resistance [which can translate directly into big stat gains from eating guardian corpses] are very well worth a single wish.

[divij]

i think the long and short of it is you need to train your St by doing encumbrance training....goto the main map and enter any place, eat blessed stomaphilia and go strained! till you reach 18 St and then overburdened till you reach 20 (you will get Dx loss on overburdened). also you need to use big punch.. get it to lvl 7-8 and then go kill SK

[mjkittredge]

As far as weapon choice is concerned I would go with Big Punch, as long as you can handle the weight. if not be on the look out for a girdle of carrying. Also unless you are planning on an ultra (which I would suggest reconsidering if you are) saving Khel isn't worth a wish unless you don't have anything better to wish for. Red Dragon Scale Mail(s) or a Girdle of Giant Str would both be worthwhile wishes at this point. RDSM is more or less a set of eternium plate mail with Fire immunity for the tower. GoGS would solve your weight issues as well as increasing your melee power considerably

6 Scrolls of Chaos resistance isn't worth it???? He'll be wanting those later when he's got Poison Hands, Mana Battery, Babbling Mouth, Unholy Aura, ect ect ect.

Yeah RDSM and GoGS are very nice and will help more in the short term, but he can wish for those later too. Once Khele is gone he's gone.

[Soirana]

Hi.

I would be happy for some expert advice.

I generally do ok to this point with melee chars.
Not sure how it is after rewamps but healers used to be more of spellcasters with problem to find books.

On current situation: use Big Punch, get water orb [in general easier than high kings provides extra healing if needed especially with Khelly's scrolls zand elemental gauntlets], look for options to loot darkforge [about time of getting water orb most chars have some construct slaying ammo].
As a healer I used consider library to be high priority as healers don't really make cut as mellee fighters in mid-game.

Assuming healers reading abilities have not been nerfed to ground saving Khelly is worth for TP book alone [as healer].

[Mansku]

About GOGS, is it just me or do they end up destroyed in the next few minutes after you get them?

[Blasphemous]

RNG loves eating GoGS. Almost as much as it loves crunching ALL carried and/or worn amulets of light, just 5 levels before mana temple.
Also, saying that saving Khelly isn't worth a wish is a blasphemy! (yes I finally said this, after waiting so long for the right moment =D)
The scrolls alone are equivalent to two wishes and there's more stuff from him on top of that.

[blunk]

Thanks for advice. (I use R23 the free downloadable version.)

I'll go with BP and save wish for Khel.
I have (and use) a blessed girdle of carrying. I do carry a lot of stuff (well dont we all ...? ).

Dunno about library, never been there, isnt there a climbing issue (climb 34)?
Using amulet of order trying to get l+ so I can crown (would have been able earlier but l+ is slow). Whip doesnt work (5 pv naked, trough skin, ironskin).

On the note of spells, I chose power from druid quest blessed the book, ate oracle (yes I got rid of curse/doom) so I have a nice amount of castings (234) from one read. (I did wield nonnak and wore amu wis+3 to get extra castings). Ie water bridge solved, I also have ring of clear mind.
So learning 19(19), will 24 (27). Conc 99, lit 79.

[mjkittredge]

About GOGS, is it just me or do they end up destroyed in the next few minutes after you get them?

Same as that "Of Devastation" weapon, after you equip it next door you open is explosive runes and it's ruined.

[mjkittredge]

Don't swim with the fishes. They bite

[blunk]

Well look at that, 2 below enchanted forest I find executor.
How bad is the bad luck it brings?

edit:typo

[gr3ybird]

Well look at that, 2 below enchanted forest I find executor.
How bad is the bad luck it brings?

edit:typo

Do you really want the RNG to kill a cute dog?

[divij]

Executor is the best non-guaranteed weapon in the game (next to purifier on paladin)....it has more damage output than Vanq, and is one handed...enuf said! Also this is doubly true for healers cause all the damage that they take in a batttle is trivial as long as they win it cause of their regen...As far as bad luck is concerned.....the decision has already been made cause of what i said in the 1st sentence so its all abt mitigation...so just worry abt mimics, gorgons and traps (for inventory) etc....as long as you have fate smiles, its as good as nothing

[Arbot]

My point is we aren't talking about someone who has beaten the game, we are talking about someone who is still learning and would be best served by having something to help them now instead of in the future. SoCR don't really matter until you start diving since corruption got turned down a little if you know where you look you should have a couple of sources of corruption removal.

All of these things are useful and worth it to someone who knows what they are doing but they aren't going to improve a right away. So while I agree that AoLS is worth a wish pre-khel I don't think a newbie should burn a wish on it when they are in need of major upgrade somewhere else.

[blunk]

Computer broke down so this is the last update for 10 days+.
I wished for aols and saved khel got crowned and got fire immune and robe 13pv+5 toughness. Did water temple and down to wall. Stupid picked up moonsickle to sacrify, got 2 corruptions one was poison hands. Used a scroll after getting rid of ms. Back in dwarf town ready to kick some high king butt.

[Joe]

Moonsickle doesn't corrupt you by running around with it (unless you use it I think). Make sure to chop everything to pieces with Executor + shield and you'll be fine if you got the right resistances as a healer. So basically don't get paralyzed and watch your hp while meleeing all but one-or-two monsters to death.
Don't melee the cat lord or the minotaur emperor (if you encounter them) and be careful against stuff like molochs, titans and emperor liches.

[Joe]

I beat the skeleton king yesterday without any useful weapon (mithril spear) and being confused alot but it seems that if you try some wands the damage is pretty good once one connects. Undead slaying ammo also works nicely but he has pretty good DV it seems nowadays. Anyway, Executor will make short work of him =)

[mjkittredge]

Have an amulet of free action and ring of mental stability ready to put on. Paralyzation from mimics is how I predict you will die. You walk up to some funny colored item and boom, chain paralyzed and dead before you can move again. 2nd most likely is being aged to death while surrounded by undead as a lich king/emperor/master summons faster than you can kill them and you're stumbling around confused.

[blunk]

Whoo progress galore!:)

Went to wilderness to read some books, most worked well but lost 1 point of T (down to 25+5) from book I didn't need to read :/

Tomb of the High Kings
With frost bolt, ring of mental stability and ring of the clear mind I had no trouble beating the king to a pulp, I even forgot to wear cloak of invis :p
No threats anywhere.

ToEF
I went to Coc, blessed my second ring of ice, dumped some stuff at stairs then proceeded to Tower of Eternal Flames with 2xblessed ring of ice equipped. (fire immune from crowning, fire blankets in inventory)
Mostly a breeze until I dug (with wand), elementals were tough but I used some frost bolt, ate some pepper petals (can i "U" use spenseweed from inventory?) and gave them a good spanking.
I got crit by a demon 2xsame round and corrupted (no corruptions).
Ancient chaos wurm was up next, I used dragon and demon slaying ammo, used a prayer once (maybe should have used potions?) when invisible breath hurt a lot.
Anyway, killed him and thought "what the hell, lets eat corpse, nice stat boosts to have, I got 5 cure corruption scrolls and a potion".
Gained 10 extra eyes (-ap +pe) and tough scales (-dex +8pv), GRRRRREAT!
Swapped to fire orb.

Water Dragon Cave
Went over towards Terinyo, hopped into water, insta found cave (10 eyes maybe?).
(had teleport control from eating a corpse early in game)
Jumped in and derped some, cast teleport at wrong target, went up, blessed ring of fish, wore it and re blessed doh!
Wore cloak of invis, cast teleport on me! chat with mother and teleported back (should in hindsight maybe looked for loot and stolen).
Popped over to Terinyo and chatted with blup.

COC
Back down to dwarf town, sold what I don't need, tried to sacc for post crown didn't get there so gold wasted oh well :(
Drank some potions.
There is a LOT of encounters in wilderness now, I've been dillydalling a lot.

Main strenghts
PV: 58 (56 if I somehow need girdle of carry again).
112 speed in coward mode w/o quick talent. (quickling corpses and bracers of speed).
Spells with 200+ castings: burning hands, firebolt, fireball, frostbolt, identify, light, slow monster, teleportation. (still possess the frostbolt and identify books, will read out them).
Intrinsics: acid resist, poison resist, teleport control, Para resist, Fire immune

Questions
Got 2 potions of willpower, bless and drink or wait until I get my 25 --> 27?
Got 2 potions of gain attributes, bless and drink or wait until more stats are maxed out?
Will also visit hidden place in dwarf town for extra potion of gain attribute right now....
I guess then it's just down we go....

Talents:
Got treasure hunter, mithril skin and long stride.
Next will be quick-> very quick or immune to pain.

[blunk]

Berserker vault, one prince did crit and actually did damage (less than 10).
Got down to casino (now that money would have been useful ....).
So as I understand it if I rob casino I will get doomed and cursed right?
Will curse matter (i already have ank+executor wich is luck+curse) ?
I can post a list later of interesting items ....

[Moeba]

Will curse matter (i already have ank+executor wich is luck+curse) ?

Ankh is fate smiles and lucky, executor is cursed. Cursed is OK, doomed can be nasty even at this stage. Maybe especially at this stage, with monsters able to crit 200+ damage. When you're doomed, it is costumary that such crits come in threes, especially when your enemies have 2 turns in a row.
Although fate smiles will compensate, being doomed has a larger effect.

edit: but if there's an altar nearby, you can easily remove the effect by sacrificing 1 gold.

[Joe]

If the Casino doesn't have much great stuff it's generally easier to just buy it by some gambling at the cost of 1-2 corruptions rather than robbing it.
If you're feeling unsafe due to low hp or dangerous crits, I'd start drinking blessed PoGAs (gain attributes). If you have the right herbs to increase it and it's not at max potentials yet I'd try to delay to gain more. But in the case you don't have the herbs at hand I'd advise against hoping to find some and delaying the stat increases.


There is a LOT of encounters in wilderness now, I've been dillydalling a lot.

Be careful about this: it often means that you're doomed. You can find out by drinking a Potion of Insight or just sacrificing enough on an appropriate altar.

[Mobius]

Being doomed is very dangerous in the dark.

[blunk]

If the Casino doesn't have much great stuff it's generally easier to just buy it by some gambling at the cost of 1-2 corruptions rather than robbing it.
If you're feeling unsafe due to low hp or dangerous crits, I'd start drinking blessed PoGAs (gain attributes). If you have the right herbs to increase it and it's not at max potentials yet I'd try to delay to gain more. But in the case you don't have the herbs at hand I'd advise against hoping to find some and delaying the stat increases.



Be careful about this: it often means that you're doomed. You can find out by drinking a Potion of Insight or just sacrificing enough on an appropriate altar.

I did rob casino went up to surface and looted most of darkforge on my way.
Items of note robbed:
Ring of slaying +6+6
Bracers of protection +0+6
Bracers of regen + crown of regen
Tower Eternium shield +13 +7
a decent amount of slaying ammo
potions and scrolls (This was nice so I could up my dex a bit more with moss)

Sacrified and got rid of doom, seems I wasn't cursed.
Also sacrified crown of science.

Went back down and got a vault area on D33.
Meleed small room with ancient reds, 62PV with girdle of carry helps.
Now to see what the vault will bring.

[blunk]

I dropped all non fodder on lvl above and went back down.
big vault was black dragons, wow healer is nice ....
:k (display killed monsters)
1 ancient blue dragon
18 ancient black dragons
26 baby black dragons

All meleed (with a little help of found rocks).

I think next lvl is battle bunnys, need to read up on that.

[blunk]

Was a decent number of views on the thread so I'll keep updating if that's ok.
D34: I followed the advice to dig straight south to kill battle bunny, no sweat.
D35: ringshop maybe here is where I bought the slaying ring +9+6.

D36: (cat lord) Scumbag cheater me, yeah I won't pretend, I wasnt sure about messages and kills so I tested first if cat lord was aggro. (in 1.2 messages doesnt always trigger when cats are killed but I think it still enrages the pussymaster).
When I reloaded it was still very close, however, luck with arrow of darkness and L+ shrine saved me. Yeah feel the wrath of god!
If more experienced I should have used scroll of magic mappng and tele to exit but this was better since I got access to shrine also :)
I've seen some nice tricks recently from Gordon Overkill so next time maybe I'll get the ring ...

D37: This was a messy level, a room with a lot of black unicorns!
I managed to get a decent position and then the grinding begun.
Ate some pepper petals here and there that I still have left but regen and very agressive finally did most of the hard work. 26 black Unicorns was a Ton of exp and several levels.

D38: Air Temple, I read up and left most non arti on level above. Got corrupted by demon or something twice (no forth corruption yet) summoner went down in 2 hits (executor is human slaying).
He managed to summon twice tho, the ancient blues were a bit annoying and they fried a spellbook of teleport on the ground :(
Lost some fodder from background and dragons, no biggie.
Went back to check status, ID and pick up stuff from above, notable was an eternium girdle +0+9!

D39: Very dull.
D40: You fell very excited, I used my scroll of monster detection, see picture (will try link someway)2560
This undead vault looks very scary, the ghosts arent any trouble (I've drunk several longvitey and I got a pot of youth) but thats a lot of high level liches.
However, I enjoy grinding so I will probably adjust some items and give it a go.
Advice needed: is there a way to protect from king/emperor item cursing and stat draining or is ranged combat the only way to be safe?

75 PV! with 7 league boots but something needs to be swapped for death ray resistance.

[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 :p 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 :D
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:
2564
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.

[blunk]

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.

Don't think I found any.
Are those vaults supposed to garantuee artifacts?

The smaller red dragon vault on D47 gave me staff of archmagi (my what crap), got a staff of smiting (far cooler altho nonarti) and some other not so interesting stuff.
And another gain attributes, time now for the UL dungeons, I'm not sure I want to deal with blue dragon wurms, maybe will try a few, xbow getting better.

Is thunderstroke better than dragon slaying quarrels?

[blunk]

I think I've found the answer myself, "dragon slaying often seems better than Thunderstroke".
I've one-shot my first ancient (white I think it was).

Now at UL4 and considering caves, but with regard of item destruction I don't think it's worth it.
I read that "The amount of item destruction has been toned down a bit" but I dunno, had too many bad experiences from lightning lizards.
Sure exp is fine and there are artifacts I could use (bracers, helm,cloak) but what's the chance ...

(One good thing is my 600 castings of far sight, really improves the power of ranged attacks.)

Any advice?

[Dlightfull]

From my experience as an Archer, slaying ammo is a lot better than Thunderstroke.

I avoided dragon caves on my Archer. If you have plenty of ammo of dragon slaying, you might as well try them.

[Mobius]

From my experience as an Archer, slaying ammo is a lot better than Thunderstroke.

I avoided dragon caves on my Archer. If you have plenty of ammo of dragon slaying, you might as well try them.

I once did the emperor moloch cave with both demon slaying and Thunderstroke. Thunderstroke did better for me, it seemed. I think having 'find weakness' skill helped the critical hits more than the auto-crit power from Slaying.

[Blasphemous]

Yes, at least one artifact is guaranteed in a greater vault.
There could be as many as 4 but that's rare. Minimum is one.
Perhaps the vault you have cleared is the kind where you have to search for 4 hidden doors to access the lich kings guarding artifact rooms?

[Cactus]

Apparently, you were already told where to find the artifacts here after posting a screenshot:


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.

but then decided to


Good thing I didnt trust plllizzz9.
...

for some reason and cleared everything BUT the artifact chambers. :confused:

So just head back there and search for the secret doors, it would be a pity to leave the rewards after such an effort! :)

[blunk]

Apparently, you were already told where to find the artifacts here after posting a screenshot:

but then decided to

for some reason and cleared everything BUT the artifact chambers. :confused:

So just head back there and search for the secret doors, it would be a pity to leave the rewards after such an effort! :)

Nothing in the manual states that there is such a thing, but thanks for clarifying it for me.
I thought I was getting trolled to teleport in the middle of all the monsters.

I went back there however, found "preserver" amulet and "lust for glory"-shield.

Mana temple:
First area had a mixed tension room!
2 greater molochs among some other rubble.
The temple was difficult, good thing I kept lugging all those wands with me.
(Since I've never done it before, I did save scum cheat in the sense of a test run first to learn how the temple worked.)

[StViers]

Good thing you went back--preserver is a pretty top tier artifact!

[blunk]

Good thing you went back--preserver is a pretty top tier artifact!

Yeah it looked nice, but it so late in the game that it hardly matters.
More important that I learned something new about adom.

[blunk]

So finally after playing this game for the first time in mid-late nineties I've managed to succeed, thanks everyone who came with advice :D
(see YAVP when I've managed to make a post)

The most difficult thing to learn with this game have probably been how to avoid ruin my characters through item destructive elements, aging and corruption.
Getting through the part until Khelavaster is also a huge part in understanding the game.