Pumpernickel
09-24-2009, 09:38 AM
Nuurag-Vaarn picked up a bunch of shields from chaos warriors i had offed, equipped them and thus boosted his DV to 80, effectively unhittable for my +62 missile attack. My ~20 arrows of humanoid slaying didn't score one single hit, desperately shooting all other missiles didn't dent him, and so i was forced into melee. After draining ~50 points of misc. attributes, Nuuri finished off with an energy bolt. I could have unequipped Ironfists for killstealing - should have given 'crushed by luggage'.
Lessons learnt: don't foray far into the Mana Temple to lure a reluctant Nuurag-Vaarn out; this turned into a massive 'sea of monsters' desaster, and those chaos warriors mightn't have been generated if i had waited for him.
If your attack on Nuurag-Vaarn hinges on hitting him with arrows or quarrels, you must scum for weapon marks even more - level 9 in bows still wasn't enough.
If you ever again play a weapon-wielding Beastfighter, try an orc, not a troll. You'll start without a weapon and probably lower strength, but a lucky orc or dwarf can get better strength than an unlucky troll, and orcs have two advantages - they get Find Weakness, _and_ they actually gain levels at a barely tolerable speed, which helps missile to-hit (via levels and talents) and should allow acquiring the 'switch position' power early enough that you can use it to win.
As expected, a weapon-wielding beastfighter needs a lot of patience and enough flexibility to not restrict themselves to pure melee - you'll want missiles to nail stat-drainers and various major uglies, and you'll need magic attacks for stuff with excessive DV and regeneration - (Nonnak in the early game, ACW in the midgame). The best weapon you can hope for is an eternium two-handed sword, for its built-in to-hit bonus of +18, which with a lot of skill and godly attributes can sum up to a +20 to-hit total around the Mana Temple. Interestingly, the 'affinity with weapon' talents seem to grant their full bonus even to weapon-using beastfighters, while most other boni are apparently quartered.
Lessons learnt: don't foray far into the Mana Temple to lure a reluctant Nuurag-Vaarn out; this turned into a massive 'sea of monsters' desaster, and those chaos warriors mightn't have been generated if i had waited for him.
If your attack on Nuurag-Vaarn hinges on hitting him with arrows or quarrels, you must scum for weapon marks even more - level 9 in bows still wasn't enough.
If you ever again play a weapon-wielding Beastfighter, try an orc, not a troll. You'll start without a weapon and probably lower strength, but a lucky orc or dwarf can get better strength than an unlucky troll, and orcs have two advantages - they get Find Weakness, _and_ they actually gain levels at a barely tolerable speed, which helps missile to-hit (via levels and talents) and should allow acquiring the 'switch position' power early enough that you can use it to win.
As expected, a weapon-wielding beastfighter needs a lot of patience and enough flexibility to not restrict themselves to pure melee - you'll want missiles to nail stat-drainers and various major uglies, and you'll need magic attacks for stuff with excessive DV and regeneration - (Nonnak in the early game, ACW in the midgame). The best weapon you can hope for is an eternium two-handed sword, for its built-in to-hit bonus of +18, which with a lot of skill and godly attributes can sum up to a +20 to-hit total around the Mana Temple. Interestingly, the 'affinity with weapon' talents seem to grant their full bonus even to weapon-using beastfighters, while most other boni are apparently quartered.