Advice

[Nicodimas]

Hi all..

Looking for advice just came back from a break ..so been playing and got both my characters to about clev 27 and trying to move in dlevel 30 Plus to die the same way each time..

1st time blinded confused to a unique and a cluster of hounds. No escape granted
2nd time blinded confused to something of the deeps. No escaped granted

Since I have been playing again since friday any advice. I must be missing something as these effects prevent my escape and same problem . Any items that prevent these effects . I must be forgetting something important ,,, but can't remember what it is ..

I also seem a bit slow compared to most the mobs then all of a sudden. The guy of the deeps was hitting me six times in a row.playing black guard. Love seek battle

[Sky]

Which version are you playing?
The latest version 4.2 has had a major bump up in difficulty compared to the previous, 4.1.3

[Julian]

I can’t speak to blackguard-specific strategy, but to your general situations:

Pick your ground: fight in halls and around corners to avoid being overwhelmed.

Use consumables: potions/staves of speed and potions of cure critical would’ve helped no end in the situations you describe.

Be prepared to run away: Staves and scrolls of teleport. Rods and wands of teleport away.

Leave the level if things are too dangerous. Failure to bail on badly out-of-depth monsters summarizes my last two deaths.

[Nicodimas]

The newest version.

Yeah 1st death I exploring cause of lesser vault .. and TPd into that room running away from a unwinnable fight to have a worse fight (lol)
2nd death in a hallway and think I didn’t realize the difficulty to little to late./six hit you are blind/confused.

Yet to find anything (of speed). Had extra attacks on guy2 which might have invoked to much confidence. Just got it too. /sigh

Yeah I run away a lot/use stairs/corners often.
(Back at 25 and worst gear yet)

You should explore equal level until 25 and then 2x levels from that point ?

[Pete Mack]

The usual reasons for early death are:
1. Insufficient sources of healing. (CLW early, then CSW/CCW. Later still, you need to carry a few !heal--1/2 your total, and up to 4.)
2. No escape. Early this is phase+recall. Then staff of Teleport for quite a while. For a confused CL 27 character in a sticky situation, this is what you need. Use it as soon as you recognize you're in trouble. If I don't have resistance to confusion, I carry one of these for quite a while. You don't want to get confused by a Titan, or an Ethereal Dragon, or a nightmare. Or by any powerful monster with a water attack.

[Julian]

Originally Posted by Nicodimas

T
You should explore equal level until 25 and then 2x levels from that point ?

There’s no hard-and-fast rule. If you’re having an easy time with everything, drop fast. If you’re not, drop slow. Make sure you can handle the likely sources of being mobbed (orcs early, Z after orcs into stat gain)

[Pete Mack]

Never mind prepare for being mobbed. Avoid being mobbed by using room entrances wisely.

[archolewa]

Also, I would strongly encourage you avoid vaults of (almost) all shapes and sizes until the endgame if you're a Blackguard, unless you get *really* lucky and the guardians are unusually weak. Before the endgame, vaults are death traps unless you have very high stealth and lots of teleport other. Blackguards never have high stealth, and they don't usually get lots of teleport other until late into the midgame.

In my experience, Blackguards are better off killing lots of monsters, especially uniques, to get good gear rather than raiding vaults.

[will_asher]

What I do is this:
- Get most basic gear: 1st spellbook, (1st two spellbooks if you're a primary caster), some kind of ranged weapon (even throwing iron shots is much better than nothing, at the very beginning, I get a few flasks of oil and a few shots. Can't rely only on oil because oil can only be used once.), ?phase, ?recall, and several !C*W.
- Go down stairs as soon as you find them (unless you get a good feeling for that level) until about ~dL18-19. I stay around there until I have Free Action and a decent sling or bow.
- Then go down fast (again unless you get a real good level feeling like a 3-8, 8-8 probably isn't worth it.) until dL30-35 because that's where the stat potions start. I stay around there until I have good stats and at least a few decent egos (preferably with basic 4 resists).
- Then go down to ~dL45 or so and look for artifacts, rNexus, and rPois
- and by the time I get past that part, I'm usually dead. (I don't advice copying me in this detail...)

Originally Posted by archolewa

Also, I would strongly encourage you avoid vaults of (almost) all shapes and sizes until the endgame if you're a Blackguard, unless you get *really* lucky and the guardians are unusually weak. Before the endgame, vaults are death traps unless you have very high stealth and lots of teleport other. Blackguards never have high stealth, and they don't usually get lots of teleport other until late into the midgame.

In my experience, I've seen several early vaults that didn't have anything I couldn't handle without much trouble. Just make sure you have good detetction and you can see and handle what's there before you go in.

[Pete Mack]

@Will--
The trouble with that is that Blackguards are *different.* Yeah, as always you need spellbook, escape, and healing. But for quite a long time, you will have trouble keeping up with monsters in terms of damage. And even an excellent bow helps a lot less than you might expect, because BG has terrible archery, and his only buff spell doesn't improve it, and in any case you need to fight to maintain mana and even to heal. I haven't figured it out yet.