Thoughts from playing through a priest

[jevansau]

Played through a Dunadan priest with randarts. Went slowly.

Artifacts were scarce - 1 ring, 1 amulet, all books, 9 swords, 9 polearms, 4 hafted, 2 bows, 2 shields, 1 crown (Morgoth), 2 helms, 1 glove, 1 boot, 1 cloak, 4 hard armour, 6 soft armour, 3 diggers.

Early game was hard - several near deaths, not much damage dealing potential. Mid game (once had OOD and some stat gain) was reasonable - could kill a reasonable proportion of monsters, but certainly not all. Later game found a series of very powerful weapons - made it very easy. Played like a paladin with 0% fail spells.

Used missiles (sling) early on, then rods, then missiles again until OOD became plentiful.

Artifacts were good for resistances and abilities, but never for damage dealing. Ego's, missile or melee, were always more damaging.
The branding/slaying values on artifacts were lower than for ego's.

Down deep, heavy high damage weapons were too common, and too good. Hard to see any class not being better off playing as an augmented warrior.

For Morgoth was resist all, sustain all, max all except INT and DEX and ~960 per round melee damage vs all. Used an unblessed weapon as that left all needed spells at 0% and had higher damage.

Traps seemed pretty good - they were annoying, and sometimes forced changes in tactics.

The mostly fuzzy detection is also good. Until the end, ! enlightenment are scarce enough that you have to really think about when you want to use them.

Played no selling, and most prices seemed reasonable.

V4 is looking promising - fun even if still somewhat unbalanced.

Regards,
Jonathan