What to do next...

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As a quick follow-up, I just found medusa, finished her off with little
difficulty. The perseus statue had a shield of reflection so I blessed
it and enchanted it up to +5, so I am now using that and have an AC of
-29. I think I'm going to head back up to an altar and make myself a bit
more holy water and then head to the castle. Also, any tips on what to
use the /oW for I will find at the castle?

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005, Paul Giampaolo wrote:

> Now, my questions are as follows:
>
> 1. What should I do to prepare for medusa, and how can I best go about
> dispatching her?

So, this has been done.

> 2. Should I start two-weaponing with the silver saber or continue to use
> a shield?

Twoweaponing is really good. Twoweaponing a silver saber is *really* good
in Gehennom. I would advice to try it. But keep your shield if you have no
other mean of reflection.

> 3. I need reflection, should i get a shield or amulet, given the choice
> (related to previous question)?

Amulet, imho. Or find (reverse genocide) some silver dragon and switch to
SDSM + cloak of MR (or Castle whishes) (allow AoLS, more a confort than a
real necessity, you can perfectly ascend without dying).

> 4. Any other suggestions/comments/tips as I have not yet progressed this
> far in the game?

Genocide mind flayers and MMF (beware, no blessed geno since you're a
dwarf !)
Blessed geno L before going to hell.
You may want to blessed geno V, but that's not really necessary.
Get shock resistance before you start throwing Mojo everywhere.
Get more HPs (alchemy or nurse dancing, you choose (or both)). 300 HPs
should be more confortable and not too hard to achieve.
Make a lot of holy water, bless all that you use frequently.
Keep a separate bag (not holding) with blessed scroll of remove curse and
2 holy water (in case BoH become cursed).
Dig out stair-tostair path in each diggable level, fill path in Medusa.
You''l hopefully need to go up as fast as possible. The sofisticated
option is to dig pits on both sides of your path, in order to have
monsters surrounding you trapped.
In the same order of idea, I often dig out every square surrounding stairs
in order to allow easy pet transport with magic whistle (if there are 8
square surrounding you, you can easily walk with 4 or 5 pets).
Get speed boots.
Enchant your gear to +4/+5.
Switch your orcish helm to helm of telepathy or eleven leather helm
(better AC).

> As a quick follow-up, I just found medusa, finished her off with little
> difficulty. The perseus statue had a shield of reflection so I blessed
> it and enchanted it up to +5, so I am now using that and have an AC of
> -29. I think I'm going to head back up to an altar and make myself a bit
> more holy water and then head to the castle. Also, any tips on what to
> use the /oW for I will find at the castle?

First, look for what there is in the armory.
Then, I would go for scrolls of charging (if you don't already know it,
else magic marker), speed boots and enough magic marker to have all your
stuff top-enchanted and foo-proofed.
Then, a blessed figurine of an Archon may be funny but can be dangerous.
Then, keep wishes for later (HoOA on astral, replacement or a
destroyed/lost item,...)
(if you do not manage to get Orcus's wand (eg, because of Mojo), spending
a wish for a wand of death may be usefull to kill Rodney)

By the way, as you'll soon discover in Gehennom, having a permanent light
source is very usefull and worth more than a wish, I would not have
recommended to rub your magic lamp (but I would have done the same in your
situation, only after having cross Gehennom with both a monk+theEyes and a
Valk with oil lamps (sometimes) do I value magic lamp above wish...)

Hypocoristiquement,
Jym.

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Paul Giampaolo <prg8@pitt.edu> writes:

> Decided to do sokoban first, and got an early wish from a throne on the
> way there, used it on gray dragon scale mail, unfortunately only got a
> +0 one, but still rather nice. I got a BoH in sokoban, then went back to
> clear out the mines. I finally found an altar at about Dlvl 12 which i
> converted, got mojo, and made some holy water. Next level down I cleared
> out another throne room and got another wish. I debated between
> reflection and gauntlets of power. Since i had mojo and i know how
> useful it can be throwing, i went with the GoP. Just a little bit later
> I found a magic lamp. I wished for a blessed magic marker.

Here I definitively would have gone for reflection.

> 1. What should I do to prepare for medusa, and how can I best go about
> dispatching her?

Medusa's not a real problem; first you can just dig through the
level, second you can kill her in melee while blind.

> 2. Should I start two-weaponing with the silver saber or continue to use
> a shield?

Well, I think it's good to start practicing #twoweaponing,
but be prepared that the results will be worse than now
at the beginning.

> 3. I need reflection, should i get a shield or amulet, given the choice
> (related to previous question)?

I'd say amulet. But I'm a #twoweapon-junkie.

Best,
Jakob

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Paul Giampaolo <prg8@pitt.edu> writes:

> As a quick follow-up, I just found medusa, finished her off with little
> difficulty. The perseus statue had a shield of reflection so I blessed
> it and enchanted it up to +5, so I am now using that and have an AC of
> -29. I think I'm going to head back up to an altar and make myself a bit
> more holy water and then head to the castle. Also, any tips on what to
> use the /oW for I will find at the castle?

First wish goes for scrolls of charging if you don't have one
already. Boots of speed are crucial. I like a helm of
telepathy, but usually don't waste wishes for that. Magic
markers are always good since they're flexible (reverse-genocide,
enchant, id, spellbooks).

Best,
Jakob