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All of my rangers fall apart in the mid game. Right as I'm getting ready for the Quest, I'm not quite there yet, and I lack a lot of the utility other characters have. Healer is kind of screwed late game because of lack of weapons. I've gotten decently far with a healer, but I think I died to some of the heavy hitters before I got my AC up.
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Oct 16, 2012 19:13
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I've ascended more arcs than any other class, but easy is definitely not a word I'd use to describe them. They're late-game powerhouses, sure, but they really struggle in the early game. Also, I wouldn't recommend a mattock - they might be the most powerful non-artifact weapon, but they're two-handed and very heavy - you can't rely on high starting strength. Plus arcs are somewhat reliant on their +2 whip to actually connect a blow very early on. I tend to grab a scimitar (or two) from an orc since they're so common and still do great damage. In fact a number of my arc ascensions have been #twoweaponing enchanted scimitars in the end-game. I play with pettype:none these days, but another useful tip is to level up your pet a bit then let it take out the minetown captain - you can apply your whip to disarm him, which will anger him but incur no penalties provided your pet kills him instead of you. There's a reasonable chance of a silver sabre, which is a fantastic weapon even without the x2 damage modifier Grayswandir adds.
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Oct 17, 2012 07:40
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..btt posted:you can apply your whip to disarm him, which will anger him but incur no penalties provided your pet kills him instead of you. Holy poo poo, I don't know why I never thought of that. I assume it angers all the guards, or do you end up pulling just the captain? Usually my pets end up dieing to the captain, unless I'm playing a Wizard/Healer and can reliably heal them (or I've managed to whistle them into a poly trap and end up with something deliciously high level). Simply disarming the Captain is a great idea, and I'm going to have to try that.
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Oct 17, 2012 20:37
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I'm 95% sure it only angers the captain, you might have to be out of sight of the other guards though.
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Oct 17, 2012 20:49
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For all my early game Arcs, I absolutely rely on my pet. You start with basic pick-ax and if you are careful you'll have pick-axes at skilled and you will have no problems connecting with the mattock. It's heavy, but that is fine, you don't have high starting str as an Arc, but you can get it high fast enough, also early-mid game you don't really have a lot of equipment anyway.
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Oct 17, 2012 20:58
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Hm, early Arc is all about missile play, for me. I'll chip a statue or break up a boulder, put little piles of rocks around and bean baddies with 'em on the move. It's also part of my "workout regimen", where I'll push boulders, open and shut doors, kick them and monsters, untrap stuff, search out hidden corridors and secret doors. Early Arc needs every raise-able stat exercised and needs points quickly. I'm about 50-50 on the mattock, it depends on how the game is going. It's always sort of a desperation move for me (can't find *anything* to fight with and my pickaxe isn't good enough any longer). I played Arcs exclusively for years and have killed tons of early Arcs. It's the only class I've ascended, but that's mostly due to careless play and my tendency to take risks for fun. I also feel dirty when I use Elbereth, so I tend not to use it unless the RNG is being particularly hard on me. I don't consider the Captain a reliable silver sabre source with a Lawful Arc. Too much danger in the early game, too much to lose mid-game, until the late game when I could pick it up but it's either a duplicate item or I've gone another path and the heck with Mine Town. e: you got me interested in the Ranger. I hadn't thought about it but it's always been a problematic class for me, too. bort fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 23:56
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bort posted:Hm, early Arc is all about missile play, for me. I'll chip a statue or break up a boulder, put little piles of rocks around and bean baddies with 'em on the move. It's also part of my "workout regimen", where I'll push boulders, open and shut doors, kick them and monsters, untrap stuff, search out hidden corridors and secret doors. Early Arc needs every raise-able stat exercised and needs points quickly. The only problem with ranger is the first floor of the quest is extremely boring and tedious. I would say it's worse the Gehennom and you know where you're going too. Any how, here's some Ranger tips that no one asked for: Rangers become infinitely more playable when Autopickup Exceptions is compiled in. Name your projectiles with something that won't appear on a randomly generated item. I like using a comma, and you won't have to worry too much about ammo. You should also collect 8-10 daggers from the mines. Throwing them will get you through most of the early game. I usually don't touch my stack of +0 arrows until I can enchant them and merge them with my stack of +2 arrows. In general try to avoid relying too much on arrows in the early game. If you build up some luck, bless and enchant them to at least +2 they'll very rarely break. Also poison them as soon as possible for a lot of quick kills. Always disarm arrow traps for more ammunition. At least until you have the Longbow of Diana
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Oct 18, 2012 00:48
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If you want Easy Mode, try getting a magic whistle and then polytrapping your pet into a lurker above/trapper. They're actually a lot better than purple worms, because purple worms will wander around and do something stupid while you're not paying attention. The t's stay put until you whistle them in. As long as you keep them clear of other t's and purple worms (and mind flayers, just to be safe) they wreck poo poo all game long. It's especially fun acquiring an army of them after the castle with some cursed genocide and Charm Monster. (Polytrapping is unreliable, of course, as it requires a lot of patience and you'll usually end up with a gray dragon before you get a t or purple w). Now if you're using some other kind of mega-pet such as an Archon or master mind flayer and you're relying on it to keep you alive, for the love of all gently caress genocide t as soon as possible. Rogue is awesome because Rogues can rock the early game with piles of poisoned darts and backstab damage.
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Oct 18, 2012 02:50
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Argon_Sloth posted:You should also collect 8-10 daggers from the mines. Throwing them will get you through most of the early game. I usually don't touch my stack of +0 arrows until I can enchant them and merge them with my stack of +2 arrows. In general try to avoid relying too much on arrows in the early game. If you build up some luck, bless and enchant them to at least +2 they'll very rarely break. Also poison them as soon as possible for a lot of quick kills.
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Oct 18, 2012 18:20
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Daggers are probably the most under-rated weapon in the game. If you are a class that can get at least skilled in dagger, there is no reason not to use them. The one rogue I've ascended was wielding a stack of +7 silver daggers. Coincidentally without cheesing rings of increase damage, a stack of silver daggers does even more damage than #twoweaponing Greyswandir/Silver Saber. If you start cheesing with rings of increase damage the daggers quickly become even more stupid powerful compared to #twoweapon. With just a single ring of increase damage I was able to kill both the riders and the Wizard in one volley. I do like rogues, but their quest sucks, also their style of play is much different than any of the other typical "bruiser" characters.
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Oct 18, 2012 18:35
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Powercrazy posted:Daggers are probably the most under-rated weapon in the game. If you are a class that can get at least skilled in dagger, there is no reason not to use them. The one rogue I've ascended was wielding a stack of +7 silver daggers. Coincidentally without cheesing rings of increase damage, a stack of silver daggers does even more damage than #twoweaponing Greyswandir/Silver Saber. Do you find yourself coming across enough silver daggers to make a decent stack? Maybe I just usually ignore silver weapons because I usually play melee characters, but I never see too many. Especially silver arrows.
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Oct 19, 2012 01:55
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synertia posted:Do you find yourself coming across enough silver daggers to make a decent stack? Maybe I just usually ignore silver weapons because I usually play melee characters, but I never see too many. Especially silver arrows. You either have to get lucky and happen upon a stack of them somewhere, or polypile some. Zapping polymorph at a huge pile of crap in Ludios or the Castle will usually yield at least a couple silver daggers. You really only need 10 or so, especially if you're rocking increase damage. Pretty much nothing is going to be able to withstand more than two volleys. That's daggers. You can wish for up to 20 silver arrows. Presumably by the time you can spare a wish on such a frivolity, you can enchant them up to +6 or +7 too.
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Oct 19, 2012 11:05
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synertia posted:Do you find yourself coming across enough silver daggers to make a decent stack? Maybe I just usually ignore silver weapons because I usually play melee characters, but I never see too many. Especially silver arrows. You will rarely find silver daggers (extremely rarely), however by end game, a rogue has access to a lot of useful skills namely, Matter Spells (Cancellation/Polymorph) and Divination both at skilled. Eric the Mauve posted:That's daggers. You can wish for up to 20 silver arrows. Presumably by the time you can spare a wish on such a frivolity, you can enchant them up to +6 or +7 too. This is my goal for a ranger, but I've never gotten there. I want to be wielding the +7 long bow of Diana, shooting 4(5?) +7 Silver Arrows per round after having eaten 10 or so rings of increased damage. Actually, what does a ranger do if their longbow gets cursed? ate shit on live tv fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Oct 19, 2012 |
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Oct 19, 2012 15:59
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Powercrazy posted:This is my goal for a ranger, but I've never gotten there. I want to be wielding the +7 long bow of Diana, shooting 4(5?) +7 Silver Arrows per round after having eaten 10 or so rings of increased damage. If you aren't in gehennom, having a cursed two-handed weapon is considered a major trouble for prayer purposes, so you can usually deal with it that way. If you are in gehennom... well, your only option is really to keep a few remove curse scrolls/holy waters out in your inventory, and keep an eye on them to make sure THEY don't get cursed.
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Oct 19, 2012 16:38
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The Cheshire Cat posted:If you aren't in gehennom, having a cursed two-handed weapon is considered a major trouble for prayer purposes, so you can usually deal with it that way. If you are in gehennom... well, your only option is really to keep a few remove curse scrolls/holy waters out in your inventory, and keep an eye on them to make sure THEY don't get cursed. This is going to make the end game super tedious and it doesn't sound fun at all 
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Oct 19, 2012 17:04
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The Cheshire Cat posted:If you aren't in gehennom, having a cursed two-handed weapon is considered a major trouble for prayer purposes, so you can usually deal with it that way. If you are in gehennom... well, your only option is really to keep a few remove curse scrolls/holy waters out in your inventory, and keep an eye on them to make sure THEY don't get cursed. That's not going to work for very long in Gehennom, the fire traps will destroy any potions or scrolls you're openly carrying in short order. If you absolutely must wield a two-handed weapon, always keep it blessed, and every single time you get a malignant aura stop what you're doing and re-bless it if it gets unblessed. Rogues, however, should always be wielding Magicbane if they can spare a wish for it, period.
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Oct 19, 2012 17:04
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I never worry about my weapon getting cursed if it is a one-hand. Like honestly if my +7 Greyswandir happens to be cursed what do I care? I can still open my bag of holding, I can still eat. I can't change my gloves (so?) but otherwise I can do everything I need. The slightly lower chance to hit really only matters vs Demon Princes and the Wizard, but I'm such a wrecking ball by then It's not really that big a deal. e: Getting your daggers cursed kind of sucks, but meh, just put them in your quiver.
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Oct 19, 2012 17:07
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Powercrazy posted:This is going to make the end game super tedious and it doesn't sound fun at all That's the end game.
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Oct 19, 2012 18:05
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People really overestimate the effect of a Blessed Weapon turning Cursed in an instant. Unless you're swarmed by liches and other nasties a blessed weapon, especially a blessed artifact, with resist most curses that come upon it. Scrolls are also so common in Gehnnom that you shouldn't be hurting for them even if you lose all of yours to a freak firesprout/water bath.
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Oct 19, 2012 18:26
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sfwarlock posted:That's the end game. I don't actually mind the end game with any of the "meat grinder" classes. It's really just a victory walk as I cleave the demon prince's in twain. Even when I had an almost ascended priestess (died to the high priest of moloch) I didn't have too much trouble because of how tanky I was along with wielding Mjollnir, not too mention being a passable spellcaster. By the way, the high priest of moloch hits HARD, I think it is the hardest hitting enemy in the game.
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Oct 19, 2012 18:46
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Powercrazy posted:By the way, the high priest of moloch hits HARD, I think it is the hardest hitting enemy in the game. That would be Master Kaen. Oh god, Master Kaen.
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Oct 19, 2012 19:26
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Doesn't everyone keep their holy water/remove curse scrolls in a blessed BoH that is inside a normal sack? If the sack gets cursed, it's not a Thing.
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Oct 19, 2012 19:40
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Eric the Mauve posted:That would be Master Kaen. Oh god, Master Kaen. Master Kaen is a monster. You can't even wand of death him because the artifact gives magic resistance!  The only time I've ever ascended a monk, I figured out I could beat him by polymorphing into a Black Dragon and disintegrating him. Even then it was a bit touch and go because he dodged the first couple of breath attacks thanks to his ridiculous AC. Gomi posted:Doesn't everyone keep their holy water/remove curse scrolls in a blessed BoH that is inside a normal sack? If the sack gets cursed, it's not a Thing. If you're wielding a 2-handed weapon that gets cursed, you can't take things out of bags.
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Oct 19, 2012 19:42
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Eric the Mauve posted:That would be Master Kaen. Oh god, Master Kaen. Ah yes, except for him. I've lost many a monk to him (as many people have).
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Oct 19, 2012 19:55
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Fireproof levitation boots and chucking things at him (and then repositioning from the recoil) has been the only reasonably safe way of dealing with Kaen that I've come up with to date.
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Oct 19, 2012 20:09
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Gomi posted:Fireproof levitation boots and chucking things at him (and then repositioning from the recoil) has been the only reasonably safe way of dealing with Kaen that I've come up with to date. I think a boulder fort and ranged attacks is the semi-standard way of handling him, but yeah, fireproof lev boots definitely works too. The important thing to remember is I don't care how high your AC is, never ever let that motherfucker get close enough to melee you.
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Oct 19, 2012 20:46
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The Cheshire Cat posted:If you're wielding a 2-handed weapon that gets cursed, you can't take things out of bags. Yet you can somehow still change out of your armor while grasping it with both hands. For a game that adds damage to demons if you're wearing a silver ring while fighting them unarmed (as long as you're not wearing gloves), this always seems to me like an omission. After all, it's not like being unable to use bags isn't already a big gently caress-you to 2H wielding anyhow.
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Oct 19, 2012 20:56
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Powercrazy posted:You will rarely find silver daggers (extremely rarely), however by end game, a rogue has access to a lot of useful skills namely, Matter Spells (Cancellation/Polymorph) and Divination both at skilled. The important thing is not to worry about it. Longbows are considered one handed weapons. As in one hand holds the bow, the other hand holds ammunition. If the longbow gets cursed, you just grab another holy water from your BoH. If both your bow and arrows get cursed, you grab a ?oRC. Because the only effect cursed arrows have is that they might be fired in the wrong direction. I could be wrong about this, and can't be bothered to look it up, but cursed arrows probably have a negative To Hit modifier.
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Oct 20, 2012 07:50
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Argon_Sloth posted:The important thing is not to worry about it. Longbows are considered one handed weapons. As in one hand holds the bow, the other hand holds ammunition. If the longbow gets cursed, you just grab another holy water from your BoH. If both your bow and arrows get cursed, you grab a ?oRC. Because the only effect cursed arrows have is that they might be fired in the wrong direction. As far as I know the only problem with cursed arrows is that they sometimes slip when you're firing. Doesn't make them fire in the wrong direction; they just drop at your feet. Blessed arrows are less likely to break than uncursed, but just from reading the wiki article about it, cursed arrows don't break any more often than uncursed.
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Oct 20, 2012 14:43
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Argon_Sloth posted:The important thing is not to worry about it. Longbows are considered one handed weapons. As in one hand holds the bow, the other hand holds ammunition. If the longbow gets cursed, you just grab another holy water from your BoH. If both your bow and arrows get cursed, you grab a ?oRC. Because the only effect cursed arrows have is that they might be fired in the wrong direction. Oh? In that case, I'm going to start up another ranger right now. Bryan the Male Chaotic Orcish Ranger (bad character rolls, oh well)
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Oct 22, 2012 02:29
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Been playing for a few weeks now and finally got past mine town with a Barbarian- I currently had: Blessed Unicorn Horn Blessed BoH Blessed Cleaver Blessed luckstone Blessed/Greased +2 silver dragon mail Loads of blessed water Plenty of wands of digging/striking/1 death- after around 12,000 turns preparing. Then a horrible thing happened, after a terrible first ever run through sokoban ( I never heard of it before, did not even look it up ), I tried praying back at mine town and my god was displeased with me. Two seconds later, I saw that by BoH with most of my stuff in it has disappeared with no one or nothing around me... After that, I fought a iguana and ate the corpse without thinking- it was a chameleon which changed me into a silver dragon and now im just walking around with no candles, no wands and I have no where to go. I am tempted to just try and kill myself, sigh. This game is so unforgiving!
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Oct 26, 2012 19:28
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Samael posted:After that, I fought a iguana and ate the corpse without thinking- it was a chameleon which changed me into a silver dragon and now im just walking around with no candles, no wands and I have no where to go. I am tempted to just try and kill myself, sigh. This game is so unforgiving! A silver dragon's not a terrible thing to be, and polymorph wears off after a while as long as you're not wearing an amulet of unchanging. And if your HP goes to 0, you don't die, you just revert to your original form (though you'll be unarmed and unarmored and whatever brought your HP to 0 as a dragon will pretty quickly kill you if you don't escape).
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Oct 26, 2012 19:51
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I'm pretty sure the scales will de-merge when you un-polymorph, so you wouldn't be unarmoured. You still have some decent kit, and if you've not yet reached the castle losing a BoH is not too terrible - most of the stuff you mention should not live in a bag anyway, so you probably didn't lose anything of consequence. If you're anything like me you probably accidentally blew it up with a wand of cancellation without even noticing. Also, it seems you're fairly inexperienced so a little advice - find another weapon. Cleaver is two-handed and so incredibly dangerous in the end-game.
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Oct 26, 2012 21:12
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I'm currently playing a Valkyrie and, while I'm inexperienced enough that it's quite possible it won't survive long enough for this to matter, I was hoping a few vets could weigh in on the Excalibur vs. Mjollnir decision. I happen to have both and can't figure out which would be better to use for the time being.
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Oct 28, 2012 02:18
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Samael posted:Been playing for a few weeks now and finally got past mine town with a Barbarian- I currently had:
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Oct 28, 2012 02:24
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Dis posted:I'm currently playing a Valkyrie and, while I'm inexperienced enough that it's quite possible it won't survive long enough for this to matter, I was hoping a few vets could weigh in on the Excalibur vs. Mjollnir decision. I happen to have both and can't figure out which would be better to use for the time being. Early on mjollnir is significantly better than excalibur. Mjollnir does something like d24 lightning damage which is enormous against the starting monsters. After the castle it starts to switch around and excalibur becomes more useful because you start to encounter more and more lightning resistant monsters, and against those mjollnir only does standard warhammer damage (d4 or so? whatever it is it's awful). I tend to use excalibur all the way because it's consistently good throughout the game and the autosearch it provides is pretty helpful. Contra Duck fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Oct 28, 2012 |
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Oct 28, 2012 04:26
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Contra Duck posted:Early on mjollnir is significantly better than excalibur. Mjollnir does something like d24 lightning damage which is enormous against the starting monsters. After the castle it starts to switch around and excalibur becomes more useful because you start to encounter more and more lightning resistant monsters, and against those mjollnir only does standard warhammer damage (d4 or so? whatever it is it's awful). I tend to use excalibur all the way because it's consistently good throughout the game and the autosearch it provides is pretty helpful. Depending on how rings are rolled the lightning damage can also destroy valuable jewelry and wands, although this is a small concern, I guess.
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Oct 28, 2012 05:12
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synertia posted:Depending on how rings are rolled the lightning damage can also destroy valuable jewelry and wands, although this is a small concern, I guess. I don't think I've ever actually had mjollnir explode an enemy wand/ring and I use it all the time. For rings I don't think monsters even wear them, or at least those that can never spawn with them. Wands are a bit more dangerous but even then, assuming the monster themselves doesn't just blow all the charges (thus making the wand do nothing if it gets destroyed), it's still only a CHANCE to destroy it. The whole "lightning destroys stuff!" aspect of mjollnir is a really minor downside. It tends to be pretty useful through the whole game - you'll start running into more lightning resistant enemies in Gehennom, so it's good to have a backup weapon available, but it should be easy to get one by that point and you can just switch to whichever is more effective in a given situation (grayswandir is probably going to be more useful against demons, even ones that aren't lightning resistant, so it makes a great weapon to swap with mjollnir).
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Oct 28, 2012 08:22
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Yeah, if you're going to go for Mjollnir you want some sort of backup weapon for the places where it isn't useful. The worst place for it is the astral plane. Priests, angels and the riders all resist shock so you'd do just as well wielding a rubber hose there as mjollnir.
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Oct 28, 2012 09:00
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| # ? May 14, 2024 04:46 |
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Greyswandir is objectively the best, but it is closely followed by Excalibur, Mjollnir, Frostbrand and firebrand. Basically, any of the "main" artifact weapons are worth using in the endgame. Greyswandir, Mjollnir, and Frostbrand are considered the best, but Excalibur and friebrand are perfectly fine as well.
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Oct 28, 2012 09:59
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