Hi folks,
I just managed to take a mist elf elementalist to L50, and he died in battle with Andor Drakon b/c I didn't have a source of paralyzation resistance. :-(
However, I did give the burrowing thing a try, and moving through wall segments destroyed them. Is this expected behavior, or should I log a bug?
Other lessons learned:
MEs are very nice once you get to the mid game. You can still train up your To potential with Garth, so don't neglect herbalism! This character had about 350HP at the end, and it was plenty--the really heavy blows (e.g., titans, greater molochs, diamond golems) are halved so I actually felt safer with the mist elf than I have with other classes having 600-800 HP. Maybe that's an illusion. The metal limitation was a pain, because there were lots of amulets and rings I would have liked to wear that I just couldn't. A regular character would have been wearing the amulet of free action and not the ankh.
Necromancy never gives anything but a homonculus for non-necros, but those servants can come in handy and are well worth the 2 Mana. Mist elves have plenty of mana to spare, and both points do come back eventually. They can last a few rounds in combat after they "adjust to your level", they can put cats to sleep, they can fight poisonous monsters for you (even if you need more than one), and you can make them walk ahead of you in trappy areas. I just wish I could teach one to open doors for me...
The XP penalty doesn't put an ultra out of reach. I reached L45 after killing all the big-ticket monsters available, and clearing the two GV generated. I didn't even have to kill the Ancient Karmic Wyrm, which is good because I didn't have any dragon slaying ammo left, and only ~30 castings of magic missile from the library.
The really annoying thing about this game was that I never found a single girdle of carrying, nor the Strength of Atlas spell. Humph! The nicest finds were Nature's Companion (pre-crown) and Sun's Messenger (greater giant vault).