Endgame (unique Advice)

[Freddo]

Well I am nearing the endgame.

I am at 4900'.
I've slain 79 out of 93 seen uniques.

1. How many of the uniques do you usually slay before trying Morgoth/Sauron?
2. Can someone explain how the final level works? I seem to recall you kill either Morgoth/Sauron at 99, and a set of stairs opens to get the other one. Can you recall to town at this point? or do you need to have your final gear load out for the last two fights?

[MattB]

Originally Posted by Freddo

Well I am nearing the endgame.

I am at 4900'.
I've slain 79 out of 93 seen uniques.

1. How many of the uniques do you usually slay before trying Morgoth/Sauron?
2. Can someone explain how the final level works? I seem to recall you kill either Morgoth/Sauron at 99, and a set of stairs opens to get the other one. Can you recall to town at this point? or do you need to have your final gear load out for the last two fights?

1. I try to knock off as many as possible of the last 25 as I feel confident doing so. The shallow uniques are actually a blessing because Morgoth will summon them instead of the tougher ones. But I'm not going to risk death fighting, say, The Terrasque if my build isn't up to it.

2. Yes, when you slay Sauron on dlvl99 a magic staircase will open and you can recall to town. Then when you recall back to the dungeon you will land on dlvl99 where there will be down stairs as normal and you can scum dlvl99 to your heart's content (unless you're playing force descent mode, in which case when you recall from town you'll land in dlvl100). Either way, once you arrive in dlvl100 Morgoth will immediately start to hunt you down...

3. Good luck, let us know how it goes down!

[werepacman]

Level with Morhoth works as usual - you can come back to town but everything restarts.
Stairs to Morgoth level appear at the place whe you kill Sauron.
One main difference with Morgoth level is that you can't teleport from it and rest because it chases you constantly and it breaks walls, so after teleport you can have only partial rest.

It summons live uniques so depending on class and equipment people choose what they prefer. Those who don't have enough Banishment like to leave weak uniques for final fight.

[Derakon]

I don't generally pay attention to what uniques are alive before starting the final fights. I mean, it does simplify things if everyone else is dead, but it's hardly a requirement. If uniques do get summoned, you have a few options. Teleport Morgoth away, then use Word of Destruction (or Scrolls of Destruction) and the uniques will be gone, but they can be re-summoned. Or you can teleport the uniques away (and leave Morgoth, or don't; if you teleport him away he comes back quickly anyway). Once a unique is on the level, it can't be summoned again, so you can just let Morgoth keep summoning uniques and teleporting them away until they're all on the level, at which point he can't summon any of them any more.

You should be fighting in an area that's been prepared by using Destruction on it. The broken-up line-of-sight will help you deal with summons, since you'll generally be either a step or a Phase Door away from being out of line-of-sight of everything.

[werepacman]

By the way, can you use scroll of deep descend on Morgoth level to go deeper?

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by werepacman

By the way, can you use scrool of deep descend on Morgoth level to go deeper?

Can't go below dlvl100 until Morgoth is dead.

[mushroom patch]

Killing uniques is totally unnecessary to kill Morgoth and frankly a potentially risky waste of time/resources (from the perspective of winning -- if hunting uniques is your way of enjoying the game, then by all means).

Teleport other works 100% of the time on uniques. Banishment works 100% of the time on large unique escorts. Between these two, you have everything you need to kill Morgoth in a closed space meleeing. If Morgoth summons a bad unique, first teleport him, then teleport the unique he summoned. If it's the escort that's bad and enough is in line of sight to be a threat, banish, then teleport Morgoth, etc. Since many uniques are just popcorn compared to Morgoth, it's better in some ways if you don't kill them, because they take up space where other summons could spawn. If you have strong ranged attacks, you can use LoS exploits so that Morgoth doesn't even see you in the fight (see "hockeysticks").

The point is, killing uniques shouldn't really be a consideration in the endgame. Mostly you want equipment out of vaults and high end consumables. Once you've got that, you're ready to go.

[edit: oh, sorry, should've read derakon's post more carefully. Yeah, destruction is a strong alternative to banishment in a lot of cases (which I forgot about -- haven't been playing much lately). Between teleport other, banishment, and destruction, you can completely control the Morgoth engagement using consumables. Personally, I like to dig tunnels to the edge of the level and find a nook in the permanent wall boundary to reduce surface area, but the key thing is limiting LoS and space for summons when meleeing Morgoth.]

[Freddo]

What spells are best against Morgoth as a mage?

I may need to retreat, he's kicking my arse at the moment.

[mushroom patch]

They say some of the high end wands/rods do better damage against morgoth than spells. Wands of annhilations in particular. I don't really do mages, personally.

[Derakon]

Wands of Annihilation are competitive with Mana Storm for damage-per-turn, and that's all that really matters. You should have plenty of Potions of Restore Mana handy so spell cost is not a concern. Just keep enough mana free to cast Word of Destruction if things go badly.