Shuri II - Half-Troll Druid - RIP
This was a foolish death. I was fighting a Maia of Mandos in Pukel-form, and just held down the forward button and punched it. I wasn't aware that Maiar could shapeshift, and had about a second and a half to process that a) the Maia was now a Time Vortex, b) they can breathe Time not just to reduce your XP and stats, but to do serious damage, and c) Shuri II was in serious danger of
> You thump the time vortex.
> You strike the time vortex.
> The time vortex breathes time.
> You die.
It's always the breath weapons that get me. Hounds, Hydra, Drakes, and now Vortices. None of my high-level characters have just been stabbed to death.
Shuri slides neatly into... third? Third place on my chart, dying on DL 44: two levels above Lupa, and miles above Waterlily. Despite that, I think she might actually be my favourite so far: the Druid gets Haste, Slow, and a weak Teleport Other spell, plus the all-encompassing Pukel-Form. With the truly ridiculous speed bonuses she'd pulled in (she was natively at +9, which could have been +12 if I'd kept my old armour instead of swapping this one in for the resistances, and then she could cast Haste for another +10), she was well set to stomp her way down into the second half of the dungeon.
I'm probably taking a break from Angband for a while now - the constant deaths do take a toll - but for the future, remaining races are:
- Human (my first character, Haleth, was human, but no version hit DL30).
- Half-elf (human optimised for shooting)
- Elf (the quintessential Ranger)
- Gnome (innate device user who can't be paralysed; shares Elf stat bonuses, so plausibly a Noldo)
Classes yet to be played are:
- Priest (the magic half of Waterlily; gets bonuses from Blessed weapons, which show up a fair bit; the Spear of Orome is one, actually)
- Rogue (casts some Mage spells and knows Pickpocketing, which... steals... stuff? I don't know, but it sounds like it would go well with high Stealth, perhaps by way of the Bat or Fox forms)
No idea where I'm likely to go with that!
hS