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#1 |
Scout
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 40
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Need character advice
Hi guys,
I have finally gotten a character past 400 ft: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=21257. I think I badly need advice. I feel I may have been doing it all wrong. I have chosen song of slaying but I haven't actually been using it. No good weapons, have been using the great guide about IDing stuff but besides that I am somewhat lost. Any advice on how to proceed, how to do things differently if this one dies is appreciated. Are there any guides around? |
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#2 | |
Adept
Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 139
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Quote:
In terms of other general advice - you haven't taken your free Archery skill, and you've bought quite a lot of skills for the depth you're at when it's often better to just keep pumping points into Melee and Evasion. Because Archery halves evasion, even quite small Archery investments remain relevant later into the game. I tend to pick up the free skills within the first few levels. Your stats also are quite Grace-heavy and you're not using songs or smithing all that much; I feel you'd be much better served with more Strength or Dexterity. Your weapons don't look too bad - the defender bastard sword particularly is pretty reasonable though your strength is maybe on the low side to get the best out of it - but a Nargothrond weapon would definitely help as you run into more Rauko, and you'll likely get something more powerful as you keep going down. Song of Slaying is relevant for the throne room, you'll need it eventually. This thread http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=8680 has a bunch of advice you may find useful. |
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#3 | ||
Scout
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 40
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Quote:
Quote:
So, invest more in Melee and Evasion. Go for more Str and Dex. I'll reread this post. Thanks! Last edited by Talharim; November 20, 2017 at 14:11. |
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#4 | |
Adept
Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 139
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Quote:
Not putting so many points in Melee and Evasion will also typically make fights harder and longer lasting, so this is an issue also, but in general it's secondary to picking your fights. Bear in mind that a battle with one tough enemy whom you can retreat from is greatly preferable to being surrounded by many weak enemies. If you pick your fights so as to avoid being surrounded you will be able to survive at lower depths than you currently think possible. Archery skill wise, Careful Shot is indeed kind of meh. Precision is better. Since you're halving enemy evasion when you shoot them instead of hitting them, multiple crits are very possible. |
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#5 |
Scout
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 40
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I never took archery but a little goes indeed a long way. I have 3 right now and precision and it has been almost game changing. For a pure melee how much should I use and when?
When should I be choosing abilities? |
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#6 | |
Adept
Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 139
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Quote:
It's possible and even relatively easy to descend to 400' without investing in more than the free abilities, though there are a number of abilities worth taking early - e.g. Keen Senses helps you pick your fights better, Hardiness buffs your armour, Power helps you hit harder, and so on. Some builds will almost require taking abilities early - Stealth builds gain a lot from Disguise, Song of Silence, etc. However, other abilities are better saved until you have equipment that suits them. Subtlety is of little use if your best weapons are two-handed, Channeling is useless without horns and staves. It's probably worth doing a few runs where you don't invest in non-free skills at all until you're below 300', so you get more of a feel for the impact of additional Melee and Evasion and understand better what you're giving up to take skills. Your initial post shows you spending 6000 XP on skills by the time you've reached 550'; this would buy you another 4 points of evasion, which is quite a lot; another 4 on top of that would get you to throne room calibre evasion. |
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#7 |
Knight
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 710
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Combat skills and other skills scale differently. Combat rolls are 1d20 (20 sided die), other skill rolls 1d10. Remembering this makes it more intuitive to "run ahead" with investment combat skills.
Fwiw, you can play the game without any abilities (as a challenge). When doing so I was surprised that at least the start felt easier than normal. Just try for a few attempts to take nothing initially (and spend the savings in evasion / melee or archery) and specialize later on. In your current situation you may have trouble to damage opponents not covered by your slaying weapons, but judicious use of Song of Slaying may help (or doom you by attracting the whole floor). For the next melee oriented Fingolfin, I would take 3 3 5 3 as stats. |
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#8 |
Veteran
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Posts: 1,168
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Furthering what taptap is saying you're entering a depth where you're going to have trouble damaging a lot of things. Trouble is your setup is good at a lot of things but it's not great at anything. Too little protection to tank things. Too little damage to punch through things. Too little evasion to dodge everything. It's medium at a lot of things & too noisy to just avoid fights & that struggles without a lot of tricks. On the plus side dodging/ZOC/flanking is great if you never get caught unable to maneuver.
I'd maybe pickup sprinting which might give you some ability to get out of fights you can't win, possibly with trees to give the light to react. Trees is a real boon for high grace warriors, at the minimum 5 song you'd have an extra 2 light radius. That'll count for +2 melee/evasion & will against anything light sensity. Trolls/wraiths/vampires. You've already invested the 2 song for slaying. At 2 it'll do nothing but a small boost & a lot of noise. You've got the grace for a more singy build might as well. A good trick for the future with skills is to do a warrior that is straight melee/evasion & learn to calculate costs in pts of melee/evasion. How much melee/evasion is this putting me behind the curve? (In a certain sense this should be accumulative for the total pts spent on skills *all game*, but I rarely calculate it that way) From where you are trees is song(3+4+5)+1000xp=2200. So less then the cost of 1 more melee/evasion for 2 light & +2 on *all rolls vs light sensitive. Edit: Also next run try something more focused in melee/evasion like Taptap & Quirk are saying. It is a lot easier & gives a good guide to how much you should spend on skills. Just grab at most 1 skill from the tree & don't buy anything else till it's less cost then getting an extra melee or evasion. Last edited by wobbly; November 21, 2017 at 17:04. |
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