ACW energy-bolted a promising HE Wizard

[Aielyn]

From screenshot:
Aielyn St:18 Le:24 Wi:22 Dx:27 To:23 Ch:13 Ap:19 Ma:27 Pe:36 L+
DV/PV: 66/33 H: -27(192) P: 194(272) Exp: 21/1152241 TF: 4 Sp: 105
Invisible

Name: Aielyn Race: female High Elf Class: Wizard
Age: 231 (grown-up, 10 years of unnatural aging added in)
Star sign: Wolf Birthday: 27/Wolf (day 327 of the year)

Head : uncursed mithril cap (+1, +1) [+0, +5] [40s]
Neck : uncursed necklace of rapid healing [2s]
Body : uncursed red dragon scale mail (-1, -4) [-1, +13] [220s]
Girdle : uncursed mithril girdle [+0, +2] [20s]
Cloak : uncursed cloak of invisibility (-1, +0) [+1, +0] [30s]
Right Hand : blessed eternium spear (+2, 2d8+8) [25s]
Left Hand : uncursed medium obsidian shield "Protector" [+20, +4] {To+2}
Right Ring : blessed ring of ice [1s]
Left Ring : blessed ring of slaying (+6 melee damage, +6 missile damage)
Bracers : -
Gauntlets : uncursed elemental gauntlets (-1, +0) [+0, +3] [10s]
Boots : uncursed adamantium boots [+0, +4] [89s]
Missile weapon: -
Missiles : bundle of 4 uncursed mithril drakish scurgari (+4, 1d8+7)
Tool : uncursed pick axe (-1, 1d6+1) [75s]

blessed dwarven shield "Rolf's Saviour" (+2) [+9, +6] [120s]
uncursed pick axe (+0, 1d6+1) [75s]
uncursed adamantium spear (+1, 1d8+8) [36s]
uncursed adamantium halberd (+9, 2d7+6) [-2, +0] [70s]
blessed ring of the High Kings [+2, +3] [1s]
blessed wand of digging (1 charge) [3s]
heap of 11 blessed pepper petals [22s]

^^^ Removed stuff that doesn't matter, such a RNG fodder for ToEF item destruction (mostly to protect the necklace, the cloak, the pickaxes, and the wand), should it get through the blessed ring of ice.

Lots more stuff left on stairs in Ogre Cave for run, so there's no risk of destruction of them, or to save weight. This includes Eternium Plate Mail (-1, -2) [-1, +14], a pair of Seven League Boots, the Ankh and the Ancient Mummy Wrapping, 2 Drakish Scurgari of Death (was 4 originally, but two were destroyed by exploding runes), Bracers of Defense (had Bracers of Regeneration, also destroyed), a helm of water breathing and helm of mental stability, girdle of carrying (found a leather armour of carrying, but was too worried about it being destroyed), tower crystal shield, and ring of see invisible as the most notable items.


Melee weapon Lvl Hit Dam DV Level
--------------------- --- --- --- -- -------------
Pole arms 10 +10 +6 +12 excellent

Shields Lvl DV Level
--------------------- --- --- --------
Shields 7 +14 skilled

Skills:

Alchemy ..................100 (superb) [+2d4]
Backstabbing ............. 63 (good) [+1d3]
Bridge building .......... 44 (fair) [+3d3] (mr)
Climbing ................. 69 (good) [+1d3]
Concentration ............100 (superb) [+2d4]
Dodge .................... 52 (good) [+1d3]
First aid ................100 (superb) [+1d3]
Haggling ................. 26 (mediocre) [+3d5]
Healing ..................100 (superb) [+1d3]
Herbalism ................100 (superb) [+3d3]
Listening ................100 (superb) [+2d4]
Literacy .................100 (superb) [+2d4]
Stealth ..................100 (superb) [+1d3]
Tactics .................. 45 (fair) [+1d3]
Two weapon combat ........ 79 (great) [+1]
Ventriloquism ............ 37 (fair) [+3d5]

Spells:
Acid Bolt : 38, 13pp (Effectivity: +10)
Burning Hands : 24, 6pp (Effectivity: +17)
Calm Monster : 1021, 4pp (Effectivity: +14)
Cure Light Wounds: 843, 3pp (Effectivity: +0)
Darkness : 2087, 3pp (Effectivity: +1)
Destroy Undead : 840, 5pp (Effectivity: +0)
Fire Bolt : 1245, 6pp (Effectivity: +3)
Frost Bolt : 1040, 6pp (Effectivity: +10)
Identify : 277, 43pp (Effectivity: +10)
Knock : 1392, 7pp (Effectivity: +8)
Know Alignment : 1118, 6pp (Effectivity: +0)
Light : 2513, 1pp (Effectivity: +6)
Lightning Ball : 381, 17pp (Effectivity: +7)
Lightning Bolt : 550, 8pp (Effectivity: +0)
Magic Lock : 760, 5pp (Effectivity: +0)
Magic Map : 706, 23pp (Effectivity: +6)
Magic Missile : 592, 4pp (Effectivity: +10)
Scare Monster : 512, 8pp (Effectivity: +0)
Slow Monster : 1402, 5pp (Effectivity: +0)
Stun Ray : 1623, 5pp (Effectivity: +1)
Teleportation : 857, 11pp (Effectivity: +16)
Web : 609, 8pp (Effectivity: +0)

Her achievements during her adventures:

She scored 527867 points
Survived about 48.5 days
St mod by +8
Le mod by +4
Wi mod by +5
Dx mod by +6
To mod by +8
Ch mod by +3
Ap mod by +3
Ma mod by +11
Pe mod by +17 (thanks mostly to three carrot rooms)
Achievements (compressed): Arena, Puppy/Little Girl, Saved Khelavaster (AoLS generated in Waldendorf's shop)
4093 monsters perished under her attacks.
She possessed the following intrinsics (compressed):
She was fire/cold resistant (both enhanced through an item).
She was poison/acid resistant.
She was lucky.
Fate smiled upon her.
She was sleep/stun/shock/confusion resistant (each gained through an item).
She was able to control teleportation.
She was immune to fire attacks (gained through an item).
-----------

Got my cloak of invisibility only a short time earlier - before returning to the ToEF to take on the ACW (went once to see how far I'd get comfortably, wasn't feeling up to the ACW, yet), I went to the small cave and headed for the HMV (hadn't visited the small cave earlier, so I had to use teleportation a bit to survive in there, couldn't get the blanket before it was picked up) - found the cloak of invisibility on the first floor below the small cave.

Was getting frustrated at the lack of teleport control, but as I headed back to the surface from dwarftown (headed there and ogre cave after HMV to sort out equipment for ToEF run), a blink dog in the big room was killed by a greater mimic, and I didn't miss the chance to eat the corpse it left. And with that, the two major lacking elements were addressed - I had a source of invisibility, and I had teleport control.

Looking back earlier, it took a remarkably long time to get Frost Bolt - one spellbook was generated in Barnabas's shop, but the price was, as expected, rather exorbitant. Got Acid Bolt as the starting offensive spellbook, which is why it ended up with so few castings remaining.

Was also rather frustrated at lack of variety in ball spells (ice ball would have been nice, for the tower, and fireball would have made me willing to consider taking on the Bug-Infested Temple - only one ball spell leads to a nuisance when faced with something resistant to it, too). Also no farsight, no invisibility, no mystic shovel, no strength of atlas, and no remove curse, all of which would have made things significantly easier. Also, I suspect my first kill was a Big Dog, as I couldn't seem to kill enough of my first kill to satisfy the Old Barbarian.

But those probably all would have been addressed once I got past the wall of flames. The only locations I hadn't been that were of reasonable level and open to that point were the Gremlin Cave, Bug-Infested Temple, the Water Dragon's Lair (wanted a waterproof blanket, first), and the Infinite Dungeon - should be obvious why I didn't go to those, really (I don't ID stairhop, by the way).

All of it for nothing, because, at the moment of worst luck possible, the ACW managed to send off two energy bolts while I tried to use a blessed pepper petal to heal the damage he'd already done with those bolts. Its bolts were doing somewhere around 60 HP damage per bolt, and seemed to be perfect accuracy and ignoring PV (don't know, maybe that's normal for energy bolts). It may be relevant that the ACW had started to "fight to death in a blind rage" after I'd shot a reasonable number of frost bolts at it and the various fire creatures around it. (Thinking about it, I should have just prayed - I hadn't even prayed once yet in this run)


One other comment I figured I'd make - I generally play as a high elf wizard (admittedly, having yet to even get a normal ending, I suppose I'm not quite willing to experiment so much), but I make it a point to have my PC learn a decent weapon, and use it moreso than magic for normal fighting, with magic used when there's greater risk from melee, or when many foes must be taken out. Typically, I prioritise staves, mostly in the hope for a Staff of the Magi or (artifact) Archmagi. In this run, I happened to find a good polearm (the eternium spear I used right to the end) very early, and I knew that the Rune-covered Trident would be a good weapon later in the game; it also meant I could use a shield with it, which became wonderful when I happened upon Protector (on the same level as the Scorched Spear, as it happened).

[JellySlayer]

My memory is that ACW energy bolts can do up to around 150 damage. PV is useless against them, as is DV IIRC. Dodging bolts is handled almost exclusively by the alertness skill (~90% resistance at max), and very high speed. Being very lucky probably helps a little bit as well. Drakelings and dark elves start with the alertness skill (and drakelings can easily end up with 300+ speed while doing the tower).

Here's a few general tips I can give:

-Bolts only travel in straight lines. If you're using missiles or ball spells, you can stand at off-diagonals and avoid being hit. Alternately, you can use a meat shield like an elemental or something to stand between you and the Wyrm. This is actually a nice way to do it in your case, lacking frost bolt, since the ACW isn't weak against frost anyway. It helps to dig your tunnel two rows wide when you do this.
-The ACW can't shot bolts while he's confused, blinded, stunned, or paralysed. Thrown potions are great for this. All those useless potions of invisibility? Dip them in unholy water for some major boss-killers (blindness). Potions of wonder (any status) will do confusion. You can use pots of blindness/confusion too, of course, but these are a bit rarer. If you've got killer proficiency on stun ray and high Wi/Ma, that will sometimes work too.
-Pepper petals suck. You would have been better off with spenseweed, but in this case, even that would have been insufficient. You should have been using blessed pots of extra healing (you should have found ~10 by this point if you'd done all the dwarf quests), or the water orb (unlimited full health healing--wear the elemental gauntlets and the corruption won't be that bad). Wearing the water orb would have given you +10 Wi, which would have meant better protections against confusion too. With 32 Wi, you could have easily blasted him to death with your lightning balls (especially if he were blinded/confused). Lightning ball and ice ball aren't all the much different in damage, AFAIK. Given the choice, I would normally just use acid ball all the time.
-Your To is a little low. You can bump it up to 25+ with morgia roots, which would have given you a ~25% increase in your health.
-There's one location that you forgot to mention: you didn't visit the library. If you were desperate for books, that should be your first stop. If you've done the thief guild quest, you can pay to upgrade your modifiers all the way to +4d5 so you should be able to get enough skill to get in pretty quickly. With invis and teleport, you can mostly avoid the nasty things that you might come across here.

[Aielyn]

My memory is that ACW energy bolts can do up to around 150 damage. PV is useless against them, as is DV IIRC. Dodging bolts is handled almost exclusively by the alertness skill (~90% resistance at max), and very high speed. Being very lucky probably helps a little bit as well. Drakelings and dark elves start with the alertness skill (and drakelings can easily end up with 300+ speed while doing the tower).

Thanks, I'll try to remember that. Too bad that High Elven Wizards don't get it normally. I don't think I'm willing to try Drakelings, yet, given their complexities, and dark elves seem like they'd be quite difficult, too. But maybe I'll try a Healer rather than a Wizard, since they still get some reasonable magical ability, and they can get Alertness.

Here's a few general tips I can give:

-Bolts only travel in straight lines. If you're using missiles or ball spells, you can stand at off-diagonals and avoid being hit. Alternately, you can use a meat shield like an elemental or something to stand between you and the Wyrm. This is actually a nice way to do it in your case, lacking frost bolt, since the ACW isn't weak against frost anyway. It helps to dig your tunnel two rows wide when you do this.

I'll try to remember that two-row tunnel idea for the future. Not sure how I could manage a meat shield at that point with a wizard, but I wore the ACW down a fair bit (to the "blind rage" point) using bolts while other foes were between the PC and ACW. As for missiles and ball spells, missiles wouldn't have helped much, since I'd pretty much been using those scurgari of death, and they'd only have worked for two throws, and the ACW wasn't close enough for ball spells when he bolted me to death.

-The ACW can't shot bolts while he's confused, blinded, stunned, or paralysed. Thrown potions are great for this. All those useless potions of invisibility? Dip them in unholy water for some major boss-killers (blindness). Potions of wonder (any status) will do confusion. You can use pots of blindness/confusion too, of course, but these are a bit rarer. If you've got killer proficiency on stun ray and high Wi/Ma, that will sometimes work too.

Well, the potions of invisibility hadn't been useless for most of the run, as I'd only just recently found that cloak of invisibility. So I only had one such potion left. To make things worse, I only had a couple of potions of water left, so using one up to curse just one potion of invisibility would have been rather wasteful. Don't think I'd found a potion of wonder, yet, not sure about blindness/confusion. And I didn't have high proficiency with stun ray.

But worst is, I doubt any but the stun ray would have reached the ACW, since it was probably 5-6 steps away when it started bolting me (Stun ray had a range of 7, I think).

-Pepper petals suck. You would have been better off with spenseweed, but in this case, even that would have been insufficient. You should have been using blessed pots of extra healing (you should have found ~10 by this point if you'd done all the dwarf quests), or the water orb (unlimited full health healing--wear the elemental gauntlets and the corruption won't be that bad). Wearing the water orb would have given you +10 Wi, which would have meant better protections against confusion too. With 32 Wi, you could have easily blasted him to death with your lightning balls (especially if he were blinded/confused). Lightning ball and ice ball aren't all the much different in damage, AFAIK. Given the choice, I would normally just use acid ball all the time.

I used pepper petals because it's what I had with me. My potions of <various> healing were all left behind because I was worried they'd be destroyed in the tower. Probably a big mistake... but then, as I pointed out, I hadn't even prayed yet in that run, and was fairly high in piety (lucky and fate smiles through sacrifices). So in this regard, it was stupidity on my part. I did also leave the water orb behind - didn't even consider that, I'll remember it for next time. Having said this, I thought Protector's Confusion resistance plus a decent willpower would be plenty, and it seemed to be - I was confused once, right at the start, but it didn't last long at all. And again, using ball spells would have been nice, but I wasn't close enough to the ACW at the time to make a difference.

-Your To is a little low. You can bump it up to 25+ with morgia roots, which would have given you a ~25% increase in your health.

I'd already gotten it up a fair way through morgia roots (+8), but the big room had become too difficult to farm on, partly due to summoners (especially those damn dark elven summoners and their damn spiders), and I hadn't found any other morgia roots on any of the other herb levels.

-There's one location that you forgot to mention: you didn't visit the library. If you were desperate for books, that should be your first stop. If you've done the thief guild quest, you can pay to upgrade your modifiers all the way to +4d5 so you should be able to get enough skill to get in pretty quickly. With invis and teleport, you can mostly avoid the nasty things that you might come across here.

I couldn't visit the library, yet - my climbing skill was still only 69. And I tend to play lawfully, so I didn't do the thief guild quest. Believe me, I'd considered the library, but wasn't sure how I could get my climbing skill up.


The other thing I'd considered was trying to get crowned (pre-crowning wasn't going to happen by the time I could get enough piety up to even consider it; by the end of the game, I had si, crown of science (uncollected), big punch, Protector, Rolf's Savior, RotHK, AMW, Ankh, Elemental Gauntlets, Moon Sickle (I accidentally have been confusing it with the scorched spear), the golden gladius, and the water orb. Pretty sure that pre-crowning wasn't going to happen, so it was a crowning I'd have needed to go for. Problem being, the possible crowning gifts wouldn't have been all that useful, compared with what I already had (except maybe the Ring of immunity, which would have given me a small boost to DV and PV, and allowed me to wear my Eternium Plate Mail, which was slightly better than the red dragon scale mail - downside being that I'd have to lose the ring of slaying's benefits).


EDIT: Please don't misunderstand my post. I'm pleased that you provided those tips. A few of them are good for me to hear (some I already knew). I just felt I should comment on their usefulness in the situation I specifically found myself in. They'll be much more useful in future runs, where I can put them into use.