Healers anyone?
Sarah At Work...
It seems to rely entirely on luck in getting a good weapon/armor at the
beginning?
The scapel seems to HAVE real problems esp against mimics and wererats
for some reason. (Werejackals I'm fine)
Chi
Healers are _hideously_ weak in combat. train up your dagger skill and
throw those instead of trying to go toe-to-toe with a scalpel.
Use your pet wisely - let it kill the mosters and grow into a larger
pet. Get another one or two if you can.
/oSleep and potions of healing/EH are your friends...
If you are feeling brave enough, you could always try the protection
racket... high-tail it to Minetown, trying not to gain levels and spend
the dosh on Protection.
Hope this helps,
Chris.
Sam Dennis
> "Sarah At Work..." <sa...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>>I need some tips on playing a healer, I think.
>>
>>It seems to rely entirely on luck in getting a good weapon/armor at the
>>beginning?
>>
>>The scapel seems to HAVE real problems esp against mimics and wererats
>>for some reason. (Werejackals I'm fine)
>
> Healers are _hideously_ weak in combat. train up your dagger skill and
> throw those instead of trying to go toe-to-toe with a scalpel.
But they are the only class (correct me if I'm wrong) to get expert in unicorn
horns, and I would think that a healer with a well enchanted unicorn horn and
good stats should be pretty powerful.
> Use your pet wisely - let it kill the mosters and grow into a larger
> pet. Get another one or two if you can.
This goes for every role. Even if you aren't weak, it's useful to be able to
get rid of peaceful monsters (including, of course, priests and shopkeepers)
sometimes.
> /oSleep and potions of healing/EH are your friends...
Sleep is nowhere near as useful as a good escape item such as teleport or
digging, and healers should really be casting spells before resorting to their
limited supply of potions.
> If you are feeling brave enough, you could always try the protection
> racket... high-tail it to Minetown, trying not to gain levels and spend
> the dosh on Protection.
This is an excellent way to kill off >99% of your characters without having to
engage your brain. It's definitely good for a pacifist, but not worth the
effort otherwise.
--
r@,,+2 'a,kd"
Intoxicated astral medic
Interesting, the really good healer that I had a few days ago was
utterly slaughtering everything with his (expert) +2 scalpel, with far
more ease than most valks that I have played, possibly because he
normally had 100% health :p (eventually killed by a fire ant and rope
golem in mine town)
His AC wasn't that good either which probably accounts for his demise
(the bones for that healer is floating around on hearse somewhere,
killed just outside the minstown temple)
Sir Nobody the mad berserker healer
Samu Tuomas Ronnberg
> But they are the only class (correct me if I'm wrong) to get expert in unicorn
> horns, and I would think that a healer with a well enchanted unicorn horn and
> good stats should be pretty powerful.
Nah. Get a crysknife instead - now that's what I call a knife!
(Besides, unicorn horns are two-handed weapons. And tools also -
OY! NO! A fork is for eating, horn is for healing! Not the other
way round!)
--
Hys! Nero miettii!
Chi
>Chi wrote:
[about healers]
>> Healers are _hideously_ weak in combat. train up your dagger skill and
>> throw those instead of trying to go toe-to-toe with a scalpel.
>
>But they are the only class (correct me if I'm wrong) to get expert in unicorn
>horns, and I would think that a healer with a well enchanted unicorn horn and
>good stats should be pretty powerful.
Yes, a Unicorn Horn is a nice weapon, and certainly worth considering
once you get one, but seeing as you won't generally get those till you
encounter unicorns, I still recommend getting yourself a dagger ASAP and
working with that to begin. Remember, daggers are also ranged, UH are
not...
Besides which, after the Quest I expect you will want to be using a
different two-handed weapon...
>> /oSleep and potions of healing/EH are your friends...
>
>Sleep is nowhere near as useful as a good escape item such as teleport or
>digging, and healers should really be casting spells before resorting to their
>limited supply of potions.
Indeed, but seeing as they *start* with a /oSleep, its a good idea to
make use of it...
>> If you are feeling brave enough, you could always try the protection
>> racket... high-tail it to Minetown, trying not to gain levels and spend
>> the dosh on Protection.
>
>This is an excellent way to kill off >99% of your characters without having to
>engage your brain. It's definitely good for a pacifist, but not worth the
>effort otherwise.
Note, I said _trying_ not to gain levels. A H with a large dog/cat
(another side effect of not actively trying or two at XL.2/3 should
have little problem making it to Minetown, assuming no G's are generated
with /oFire, )FH etc...
Regards,
Chris.
bri...@encompasserve.org
If you can't get 1/3 of your characters down to minetown without
gaining a level you're probably doing something wrong. I think a good
player can manage >50%.
Step 1:
Get the pet a level and find the stairs to the mines.
Step 2:
Enter the mines. Stand on the stairs using the E word and let the
pet clean out the nearby stuff. Climbing and descending doesn't
seem to scuff the word. So you can go upstairs to recover from
dagger wounds and to restore mana for pet heals (if a healer).
Step 3:
Search, search, search. Traps will kill you. I use 9 searches
per step. n9s step n9s step n9s step. More paranoid players might
use a digging tool and walk through the walls. This is the number
1 survival rule for the protection racket.
Notes:
The E word is your friend. Especially if you lose Fido in the dark.
Werecritters are, accordingly, your nemesis. Deal with them carefully
and harshly.
Check corpses for food and digging tools. If you lose your pet,
you can still dig down to minetown if properly equipped. And if
you've got rations to burn, you just might be able to get yourself
an additional (or replacement) pet.
Remember that you can afford to kill a few monsters yourself. So,
if the pet needs assistance or is not available, feel free to get
your licks in.
If the pet falls down a hole, jump in after it.
Make sure to chat with your pet to check its hunger status. After
you enter the mines, this will not be an issue. Gnome snacks!
Make sure to use your stethoscope (if you're a healer) on the pet
and heal as neccessary.
Try to pick up and drop corpses before Fluffy eats them in order
to increase pet tameness.
If you have any way of increasing your max hit points, that will
help. I make sure to be at low hit points when praying for food.
In Slash'em, at least, that seems to be good for something like
rnd(4) on max hit points.
John Briggs
Ben Tracy
The only problem with either one of those ideas is that you have to be
able to kill a unicorn or a worm before you can get those weapons!
Healers can become hugely powerful if they can get a good weapon and
armor, but the problem I tend to have is that even if I find a good
weapon, their Dex sucks so bad that they can't even get to basic
skill.
Ben
Harold Hill
If you find an altar, camp. Kill anything that comes along and offer
it. When you get hungry, go Stone to Flesh a boulder. Mojo offers
great damage dealing that really helps a Healer get started, but
frankly an Neutral or Non-aligned artifact weapon will beat the
scalpel. (This said, the Healer I ascended used the scalpel till past
Sokoban due to lack of early altars).
Remember you start with apples. These can let you tame horses.
Yes, Healers require some luck. Or at least extra careful playing
style.
William Harris
@eskimo.com:
Are you quaffing all your healing potions when you start? That should bump
your healer up to 25+ hit points. Healers start with healing spells, so
keeping the healing potions around are not as useful as, say, with the
tourist class. In 3.1 and 3.2, I quaffed all of them but one (keeping that
as an emergency reserve), but that's not absolutely necessary in 3.3.
Daggers are good (what do healers get when sacrificing? Athames?)
The armor management can be tricky. You need something decent, but
something that won't hurt you when casting your spells. Pure luck finding
it here.
William Harris
Nigel Chapman
Step 3:
Search, search, search. Traps will kill you. I use 9 searches
per step. n9s step n9s step n9s step. More paranoid players might
use a digging tool and walk through the walls. This is the number
1 survival rule for the protection racket.
I'm hesitant to suggest differently, given my success rate on this
racket isn't anything like 50% (: though my fixation on Rogue characters
certainly hasn't helped that any :)
I have two strategies, one for lit levels and one for unlit. For lit
levels, I tend to prefer the 'find the down stairs as quickly as
possible' approach, and generally leave most of the level still alive.
In this scenario, I try to step on as few squares as possible (instead
of using all my food up with searching), and to stay unburdened (this is
critical!). For unlit levels, definitely stick around the up stairwell
as John suggests, at least until things calm down. You can do the mines
lampless, but it's a huge advantage to have some light -- you can use
daggers on incoming monsters.
The only other things I'd add: Pressing 'O' and setting 'showexp' can
help to keep you under 20 XP total, as well as showing you what each
monster is worth. Also, playing lawfuls to begin with means the dwarves
are not so aggro. There is no guaranteed solution though, because it
only takes one wand of striking to generate, and it's game over.
--
N i g e l C h a p m a n
_______________________________________________________________________
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nyra
>
> "Sarah At Work..." <sa...@eskimo.com> wrote in news:3C6C3244.7C4B3A16
> @eskimo.com:
>
> > I need some tips on playing a healer, I think.
> >
> > It seems to rely entirely on luck in getting a good weapon/armor at the
> > beginning?
>
> your healer up to 25+ hit points. Healers start with healing spells, so
> keeping the healing potions around are not as useful as, say, with the
> tourist class. In 3.1 and 3.2, I quaffed all of them but one (keeping that
> as an emergency reserve), but that's not absolutely necessary in 3.3.
Keeping a few potions can be worthwile if you get blinded;
afaik, the healing spells do not cure blindness. Drop your
spellbooks somewhere safe on the first level. They weigh you
down, and you don't want to get them torched by a pyrolisk.
>
> Daggers are good (what do healers get when sacrificing? Athames?)
My current healer got Giantslayer and Dragonbane. The athame is
a possibility, but there are so many artefacts available for
neutrals that you can't count on any of them. If you sacrifice a
lot you have a good chance of Magicbane or Mjollnir.
> The armor management can be tricky. You need something decent, but
> something that won't hurt you when casting your spells. Pure luck finding
> it here.
Your best bet is to let a powerful pet run amok in minetown: the
guard has tons of armour, including many leather items. Wearing
either a metal helmet _or_ metal boots doesn't hurt your spell
success rates too much, so if you find some +2 iron shoes, go
ahead and wear them. Of course, if you find really neat metal
armour (dwarven mithril, gauntlets of power and a shield of
reflection, e.g.) and also are reasonably armed, you can ignore
spells for a while and just play as a kind of weak fighter. It
isn't likely to happen, though.
Sarah At Work...
> Chi wrote:
> > Healers are _hideously_ weak in combat. train up your dagger skill and
> > throw those instead of trying to go toe-to-toe with a scalpel.
> But they are the only class (correct me if I'm wrong) to get expert in unicorn
> horns, and I would think that a healer with a well enchanted unicorn horn and
> good stats should be pretty powerful.
I completely intend to use an unicorn horn when I can get my hands on
one --
I have not yet been able to get a healer to the point of being able to
kill a unicorn though.
> > Use your pet wisely - let it kill the mosters and grow into a larger
> > pet. Get another one or two if you can.
> This goes for every role. Even if you aren't weak, it's useful to be able to
> get rid of peaceful monsters (including, of course, priests and shopkeepers)
> sometimes.
Most of the time I ditch my pet. Yes, with healers, I have learned to
rely on
him.
Healers also seem to pray an awful lot more!
Sarah Heacock