Made it to dungeon level 94 with my Blackguard before doing something stupid (failed to zap rod of Healing instead of quaffing a potion). It was a good run, and I was using werewolf mode a lot more. I think I only had Sauron and Morgoth left to fight out of all the uniques.

Onto a different character, going to try priest again.

A case in point for not fighting all of the uniques.

It wasn't a unique I was fighting, it was a bunch of super undead from a graveyard pit. Could have left them alone.

So, your @ died in an avalanche. On Climbing Methods: Please read http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthr...826#post107826 Then go to guns on the Big Bosses. Good luck!

My winning conditions include killing all the uniques. I'll continue taking my chances and evaluating risk vs rewards. I've played long enough to realize when my @ isn't ready to take on uniques and monsters. I enjoy playing my long games and sometimes I do make mistakes.

I'm really finding double keypresses happening now while I'm typing this message. I suspect it is a MacOSX issue, and saw it with my numeric keypad while exploring the dungeon. Quite dangerous.

I hope you had fun!

Having played three or four Blackguards at this point (though I haven't won yet, or even gotten to the endgame), I do have some feedback for the early game. I don't know if this is criticism or analysis (i.e. I don't know if this is a bad thing or not):

Blackguard's early game suuuuuuucks. I's not just that the class is weak at early levels, it's that they're weak in a way that makes the early game incredibly tedious:

Their stealth is as bad as warriors or paladins, so they're going to be stumbling into battles all the time. However, their low blows means their damage output is far below what warriors and paladins can do, simply because it's so variable. So they fight a lot like priests, but they lack the early healing that gives priests their staying power.

Their detection is better than warriors and paladins, but the fact that you need to start a fight before you can use it makes it only *slightly* better in the early game. This plus their low stealth means they can't really pick their battles like a mage or rogue can.

All this means is that I find myself having to spend far more time on the early levels scrounging for gear, experience and consumables than I do for any other class I've played. I just don't have the damage that warriors and paladins do, the healing that priests do, nor the stealth and detection that mages do to support early diving.

In fact, I find myself having to play against type, which is rather lame. My top priority is to get a launcher, and spend the early game pretty much kiting like a ranger or rogue.

Their early game spells also don't do a whole lot to help. I touched on detect fear in the previous paragraph. Berserk is nice for making your damage more reliable, but it also imposes a -10 AC penalty at the only point in the game where 10 AC actually matters, so I often find it does more harm than good. They're not tough enough yet, nor hitting hard enough for Leap into Battle and Whirlwind to be useful.

Now things do get much better at level 20, once Leap into Battle gives you two blows. At that point, I find I can start playing a Blackguard like a Blackguard. Still pretty rough though, especially if the RNG doesn't give me a decent weapon.

Now, I don't have a problem with Blackguards having a weak early game. It's actually a nice change of pace from Paladin and Warrior. I just would like there to be some way to make it less of a slog.

I think the solution (assuming that the David and Nick agree it's a problem) is to tweak the Blackguard's early spells a bit to make up for their early weaknesses. For example, if their Berserk spell granted them a bonus to hit and damage, that could go a long way to giving them divable damage output. Less than 2 blows is a lot less painful if you can reliably one shot monsters.

Similarly if Leap into Battle and Whirlwind were either delayed until the Blackguard is tougher, or *starts* with two blows, they would be much more useful. Honestly though I'm not really a big fan of Leap into Blows and Whirlwind starting with two blows, because the level 20 spike in power is a lot of fun. I get really excited when I hit level 20, and I don't want to lose that. Especially since most classes in Angband don't really have power tiers tied to explicit levels.

Another option would be to include a low level spell that granted some flat damage reduction. Flat damage reduction is less important in the mid to late game when you start hitting breathers, and you have enough HP to absorb small hits, but in the early game it would make a BIG difference.

Read this and will mull it. I agree that Berserk Strength doesn't do much for damage output, but it does help a lot with hit percentage. This is a bit weird for something called "Berserk Strength" but I was reluctant to change it too much. Also, a plus to damage helps someone with many blows, so I don't think that's the right thing. +2 STR might work a lot better.

How much INT are you starting with? Less than 13 is a handicap for casting. I know a lot of players like to ignore the magic stat for half-casters at birth, but I don't think they should expect great spell casting ability in that case.

I usee the default point buy, and have mostly played Dunadan and High Elf. The spells themselves are pretty reliable, I just find they often don't do much at low levels to improve damage output.

+2 strength would be an effective early game buff to Berserk Strength. Another option is to give some amount if temporary HP. Would help make you a lot tougher in thr early game, but falls off mid and late game.

Another possibility would be to give Blackguards a spell that guarantees they hit, but eeduces the damage done based on hit chance. So if you have a 75% chance to hit, you only do 75% of your damage. Would allow you to smooth out the damage spikes a little. Would also be useful with spells like Maiming Strike. Dont know how easy this would be to code.

I doubt we'll move away from spikey damage.