Al-Khwarizmi
08-17-2009, 10:42 PM
So, after years of playing this game, here is my first win!
It was a normal, gate closing ending. No scummy techniques or cheating were using. No savescumming, piety abuse, dragon gold doubling, gremlin bombing, pickpocket scumming, wish engines, ID stairhopping, starvation training or extensive herb farming were used. The only scummy technique that I used was getting gold from the Casino, but I think this is almost mandatory to an extent (the shop and machines are clearly designed for that). I only got enough to buy some items and didn't force restocks though. The game was played on the server.
Zussynias was quite lucky with the RNG in the early game. I got him started as always, by doing a blanket run in the SMC, exiting through the downstairs to the UD, and not without the blanket. At some point in the UD he found a pair of seven league boots that, surprisingly, he was able to keep for the entire game, and was still wearing when he exited the Chain! Apart from this, he also found an AoLS that was stashed for Kelly. He could go for an ultra, but I didn't dare, since I hadn't ever won the game yet. I preferred to go for a normal win.
The rest of the early game was more or less unremarkable. After the UD, it is always quite a breeze, and it was even more so with the 7LB's. Zussynias went from the HMV to the CoC, did the upper CoC, the dwarven quests, the druid dungeon, Pyramid and Griffyard (the two latter at level 14 or so). He found morgia to get Wi and To to 25, but never found moss of mareillon (he would find it later at about D:45 surrounded by uberbees, and he didn't get too much of it). At the griffyard he found a crown of regeneration but it soon got destroyed by a trap. As soon as he got teleport, he went to the dwarven mystic and was lucky enough to receive SoCR's, and then completed the arena. Then he raided Darkforge, killing the golems with web+bolts+some balls, which netted good exp points, and he found a suit of red dragon scale mail, which was very useful. During all the late game he was changing between RDSM, BDSM and the ever useful AMW. He made TotHK, and then water temple (IIRC). In one of these places he found a RoDS, and he also found a second crown of regeneration that would last for the rest of the game. Then he went to see Blup's mom and made the puppy quest, getting the RCT in the process (as he was Raven-born).
At this point Zussynias was level 19 and it was time to do the ToEF. He equipped the red dragon scale mail and had the RotHK, ring of fire resistance, intrinsic resistance and elemental gauntlets. He didn't have rings of ice though, and as he wanted to wear the crown of regen, he wished for some with the RoDS. The ToEF was a military parade, to tell the truth. I think the tower is overrated, everyone says it's the hardest part of the game but I don't agree, at least for a wizard. I found the blue dragon caves, the mana temple and D:50 quite more difficult (also the SMC+UD run is difficult, but that's my fault for doing it). The fight with the cat lord was quite tough as well.
During the first levels of the ToEF I just bolted everything to death and I didn't even have to worry about the damage taken by drakelings, because the crown of regeneration was countering it fast enough. In the last level, I had to use some spenseweed... something like 3 or 4 of it. The ACW easily fell to a potion of blindness, following by a wand of paralyzation and then was bashed with the RCT. It didn't hit me a single time. I spent some more time at the level killing everything to get some exp.
At this point (or sometimes before) all my wizard characters usually do the Rift, but it happened that I hadn't managed to get Climbing to 100, and I didn't feel like going to Yergius and then kill time in some dungeon to get it there, so I just dove the CoC. When Zussynias went to the big room, he was unlucky enough to bolt a cat out of LoS. I'm always really paranoid about that, in fact he was wearing a blessed necklace of the eye rather than the ankh, precisely for that reason. But he didn't have Farsight and the necklace was not enough to see the cat. So bye bye RotMC.
I got quite scared with the Eternal Guardian because I accidentally ice balled him (I just saw a black @ amongo other monsters, and didn't realise it was him) and of course he went hostile. But I found out that if you kill his copies (incarnations of his fury, he says) and then show the RotHK to the nonhostile copy that remains on the stairs, everything is OK. I had to kill two copies. But actually, this ended up benefitting me, because although the EG's were quite scary hitting me for 100 HP's, they were easy to kill with range 2 balls plus 7LB's. It was just step, ball, step, ball. And they gave me 5 experience levels, from 20 to 25. At some point around here Zussynias got crowned with acid immunity and the useless staff of the wanderer.
I bought some items at the casino, but nothing really spectacular. Useful potions, wands, maybe a book or two, etc. Then I went for the lower CoC. Air and earth temples didn't give much problems (although the earth temple was quite annoying due to grues coming from the walls behind me and surrounding me). I found lesser vaults of white dragons (bolted all to death, I had some speed problems being a drakeling but nothing stopping me from killing all the buggers) and golems (diamond and eternium golems easily fell to construct slaying ammo). Sadly I didn't get any greater vault.
I then did the Blue Dragon Caves. And I must say, they are quite hard. Much harder than the ToEF. There was an area full of titans in the first level, I had to leave them be... I could kill them in darkness (and killed some of them) but if I didn't pay attention they would hit me for 100 HP and it just wasn't worth it. Then in the lower levels there were a crapload of dragons and I was out of PP, I didn't want to cast out of PP yet or pray much, so I kept returning to upper levels to regen, but the monster generation was so high that it wasn't easy to do that. So at the end I ended up killing the wyrm with acid balls cast out of PP, and by the way he also damaged me quite a bit (brought me down from 500 to 150 HP or so). Anyway, the mission was worth it because I found two RoDS in the caves. With one I wished for spellbooks of acid ball (I had only found one and didn't have too many castings), and the other I stored for a necessity. At the end Zussynias didn't need it, so he just took him back home upon exiting the Chain, and subsequently used it to wish for pretty blondes. I also got several experience levels there.
After the Blue Dragon Caves came the Mana Temple, which was tough but not as tough as the caves if you ask me. I took all the usual precautions, entered the temple and acid balled the archmage to death out of HP's. The lowest they got me was to perhaps 300 HP.
In D:49, the uselessness gift was Nature's Companion, the only actually useful nonguaranteed artifact generated in the game. The rest of them were all crap, that always happens to me. I then went down to D:50. Zussynias had wands of destruction but I don't consider that to be much of an honourable ending, so I didn't use them. Instead, I started bolting everything to death. At the beginning, I bolted lots of WMoPC and chaos stuff with my speed being really low from D:49, but I couldn't do much about it (only had a wand of fire with 1 charge, and decided to use only one booze and save the rest for later, although to tell the truth I could perfectly have used it). I had some bad moments when balors surrounded me and I realised they had a powerful corruption attack, they made me gain two corruptions in a couple of turns. I was more careful after that and used teleportation to engage them one by one. So, summarising, I just used lots of magic missiles and acid ball and killed most of the monsters in the level, including the balors. These gave me a lot of exp that pumped me to level 50.
When I closed the gate, I still had 4 SoCR's and 2 PoCC's, and had 3 corruptions. I guess I could have a corruption-free ending without the unicorn quest, but I did it anyway. That way Zussynias was able to greet Kelly. After killing the black unicorn with acid balls, he happily leaved the chain to live the rest of his life as a hero.
It was a normal, gate closing ending. No scummy techniques or cheating were using. No savescumming, piety abuse, dragon gold doubling, gremlin bombing, pickpocket scumming, wish engines, ID stairhopping, starvation training or extensive herb farming were used. The only scummy technique that I used was getting gold from the Casino, but I think this is almost mandatory to an extent (the shop and machines are clearly designed for that). I only got enough to buy some items and didn't force restocks though. The game was played on the server.
Zussynias was quite lucky with the RNG in the early game. I got him started as always, by doing a blanket run in the SMC, exiting through the downstairs to the UD, and not without the blanket. At some point in the UD he found a pair of seven league boots that, surprisingly, he was able to keep for the entire game, and was still wearing when he exited the Chain! Apart from this, he also found an AoLS that was stashed for Kelly. He could go for an ultra, but I didn't dare, since I hadn't ever won the game yet. I preferred to go for a normal win.
The rest of the early game was more or less unremarkable. After the UD, it is always quite a breeze, and it was even more so with the 7LB's. Zussynias went from the HMV to the CoC, did the upper CoC, the dwarven quests, the druid dungeon, Pyramid and Griffyard (the two latter at level 14 or so). He found morgia to get Wi and To to 25, but never found moss of mareillon (he would find it later at about D:45 surrounded by uberbees, and he didn't get too much of it). At the griffyard he found a crown of regeneration but it soon got destroyed by a trap. As soon as he got teleport, he went to the dwarven mystic and was lucky enough to receive SoCR's, and then completed the arena. Then he raided Darkforge, killing the golems with web+bolts+some balls, which netted good exp points, and he found a suit of red dragon scale mail, which was very useful. During all the late game he was changing between RDSM, BDSM and the ever useful AMW. He made TotHK, and then water temple (IIRC). In one of these places he found a RoDS, and he also found a second crown of regeneration that would last for the rest of the game. Then he went to see Blup's mom and made the puppy quest, getting the RCT in the process (as he was Raven-born).
At this point Zussynias was level 19 and it was time to do the ToEF. He equipped the red dragon scale mail and had the RotHK, ring of fire resistance, intrinsic resistance and elemental gauntlets. He didn't have rings of ice though, and as he wanted to wear the crown of regen, he wished for some with the RoDS. The ToEF was a military parade, to tell the truth. I think the tower is overrated, everyone says it's the hardest part of the game but I don't agree, at least for a wizard. I found the blue dragon caves, the mana temple and D:50 quite more difficult (also the SMC+UD run is difficult, but that's my fault for doing it). The fight with the cat lord was quite tough as well.
During the first levels of the ToEF I just bolted everything to death and I didn't even have to worry about the damage taken by drakelings, because the crown of regeneration was countering it fast enough. In the last level, I had to use some spenseweed... something like 3 or 4 of it. The ACW easily fell to a potion of blindness, following by a wand of paralyzation and then was bashed with the RCT. It didn't hit me a single time. I spent some more time at the level killing everything to get some exp.
At this point (or sometimes before) all my wizard characters usually do the Rift, but it happened that I hadn't managed to get Climbing to 100, and I didn't feel like going to Yergius and then kill time in some dungeon to get it there, so I just dove the CoC. When Zussynias went to the big room, he was unlucky enough to bolt a cat out of LoS. I'm always really paranoid about that, in fact he was wearing a blessed necklace of the eye rather than the ankh, precisely for that reason. But he didn't have Farsight and the necklace was not enough to see the cat. So bye bye RotMC.
I got quite scared with the Eternal Guardian because I accidentally ice balled him (I just saw a black @ amongo other monsters, and didn't realise it was him) and of course he went hostile. But I found out that if you kill his copies (incarnations of his fury, he says) and then show the RotHK to the nonhostile copy that remains on the stairs, everything is OK. I had to kill two copies. But actually, this ended up benefitting me, because although the EG's were quite scary hitting me for 100 HP's, they were easy to kill with range 2 balls plus 7LB's. It was just step, ball, step, ball. And they gave me 5 experience levels, from 20 to 25. At some point around here Zussynias got crowned with acid immunity and the useless staff of the wanderer.
I bought some items at the casino, but nothing really spectacular. Useful potions, wands, maybe a book or two, etc. Then I went for the lower CoC. Air and earth temples didn't give much problems (although the earth temple was quite annoying due to grues coming from the walls behind me and surrounding me). I found lesser vaults of white dragons (bolted all to death, I had some speed problems being a drakeling but nothing stopping me from killing all the buggers) and golems (diamond and eternium golems easily fell to construct slaying ammo). Sadly I didn't get any greater vault.
I then did the Blue Dragon Caves. And I must say, they are quite hard. Much harder than the ToEF. There was an area full of titans in the first level, I had to leave them be... I could kill them in darkness (and killed some of them) but if I didn't pay attention they would hit me for 100 HP and it just wasn't worth it. Then in the lower levels there were a crapload of dragons and I was out of PP, I didn't want to cast out of PP yet or pray much, so I kept returning to upper levels to regen, but the monster generation was so high that it wasn't easy to do that. So at the end I ended up killing the wyrm with acid balls cast out of PP, and by the way he also damaged me quite a bit (brought me down from 500 to 150 HP or so). Anyway, the mission was worth it because I found two RoDS in the caves. With one I wished for spellbooks of acid ball (I had only found one and didn't have too many castings), and the other I stored for a necessity. At the end Zussynias didn't need it, so he just took him back home upon exiting the Chain, and subsequently used it to wish for pretty blondes. I also got several experience levels there.
After the Blue Dragon Caves came the Mana Temple, which was tough but not as tough as the caves if you ask me. I took all the usual precautions, entered the temple and acid balled the archmage to death out of HP's. The lowest they got me was to perhaps 300 HP.
In D:49, the uselessness gift was Nature's Companion, the only actually useful nonguaranteed artifact generated in the game. The rest of them were all crap, that always happens to me. I then went down to D:50. Zussynias had wands of destruction but I don't consider that to be much of an honourable ending, so I didn't use them. Instead, I started bolting everything to death. At the beginning, I bolted lots of WMoPC and chaos stuff with my speed being really low from D:49, but I couldn't do much about it (only had a wand of fire with 1 charge, and decided to use only one booze and save the rest for later, although to tell the truth I could perfectly have used it). I had some bad moments when balors surrounded me and I realised they had a powerful corruption attack, they made me gain two corruptions in a couple of turns. I was more careful after that and used teleportation to engage them one by one. So, summarising, I just used lots of magic missiles and acid ball and killed most of the monsters in the level, including the balors. These gave me a lot of exp that pumped me to level 50.
When I closed the gate, I still had 4 SoCR's and 2 PoCC's, and had 3 corruptions. I guess I could have a corruption-free ending without the unicorn quest, but I did it anyway. That way Zussynias was able to greet Kelly. After killing the black unicorn with acid balls, he happily leaved the chain to live the rest of his life as a hero.