ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hi, Wark the Dwarf Fighter has progressed past the Sandworm Lair and Dreadfall, and is currently in a Farportal.

I'm fighting the boss, a hard-as-nails Maulatour. My main problem is simply that I'm not able to do much damage to him as his armour is so high, plus with high defense he's tricky to hit.
I can typically get him down to as low as 94% health (managed 86% once) before running away (I'm stair fighting him, I regard this a cheesy, but legitimate tactic in roguelikes with persistant levels). He does have a heal skill which negates this though, and he has even had 107% health when I've renentered the level once. (which naturally I can't now reproduce!).

Can anyone offer some advice on how I might beat him down?

Fun fun, I love seeing a good fight . I need to ask a couple of questions first. Do you have any class, generic, category, or stat points left? It would be a great help if you did. Which is worse, its defense or armour? How often do you hit it? How much damage do you do when you do hit it? How many turns can you fight it before you need to run away (or go up the stairs)?

Okay, now a few suggestions. When you think you have a workable strategy--but not before!--I would use your speed rune whenever possible. Also, I would use Daneth's Neckguard as your amulet when it's not invisible. The enemy apparently has a rune of invisibility, which will eventually run out of charges. Don't seriously fight it until it no longer becomes invisible. To increase your damage output, I might replace Nightsong with your other gladiator's stralite ring. It might be worth trying to fight it with your slime-covered stralite waraxe of ruin. The slime will slow it down whenever you hit him. You could also try fighting with your quick stralite waraxe of ruin--the extra accuracy could be a big help. And, finally, I would suggest you use the "Precise Strikes" talent--the extra accuracy here should be worth the loss of speed.

Good luck!

Thanks some good advice there,
Yes I do have 1 unused category point, I had considered putting this in Technique/Combat Training. Or I should use it for an extra rune slot for the speed rune?

I hit him rarely, and do 3 points of physical damage with Malediction and 0 phys with the slime covered waraxe (which I was using for slow for some time, but Malediction did a bit more physical dmaage, plus 15 blight and 10 dark). I'll have another look tomorrow and post some more accurate info on this. I have been using Precise Strikes, but hadn't thought about ignoring him while he is invisible.

Enemy runes have charges?

If you don't mind being extremely cheap, do this:

go up stairs, heal fully
use perfect strikes, and any other timed effects
Go down, hit with stunning and any other effects you can
repeat.

It might be enough to bring your damage over his healing, if he is always stunned, he can't heal as well.

Haha! Thank-you tiger_eye, your equipment changes made the difference. The Neckguard, the second gladiator ring and the quick waraxe of ruin were all I changed.
I was hittng more often and doing more physical damage on some individual blows (plus 4 cold per blow and 11 blight per round). And I got 1 Assault to hit that gave a far more useful 600+ damage!
Got him without needing to use the stairs that time. Thanks again! Would have been nastier if he had more damaging talents, or a really big heal (didn't seem to heal at all in that final attempt)

Thanks again (all I got was a lousy sling though!)

fearoffours wrote:Thanks again (all I got was a lousy sling though!)

Sounds like one of those T-shirt souvenirs you see...

Went to London... All I got was

Thanks again, I should also say this same farportal was overrun with Wretchlings, and summoning traps.
I've since done another farportal, and the Spider lair, plus a couple of Orc patrols.

I'm now clvl 35 and I STILL have that spare category point. Is it worth saving, or can someone advise what to spend it on?

Your welcome, fearoffours! I learned the hard way that the player's character should be versatile when fighting many farportal uniques, because you may find a unique that is just wrong for your character. I had an tank-ish dwarf sun paladin that was too defensive, and he reached a standstill when fighting this unique.

fearoffours wrote:I'm now clvl 35 and I STILL have that spare category point. Is it worth saving, or can someone advise what to spend it on?

I would use it for an extra inscription slot. You could have another shielding rune or another regeneration infusion, but I would probably use a movement infusion (or maybe a wild infusion). Other runes and infusions are nice too, so it just depends what your character needs at that particular time (and is why I always carry a bunch of them!).