The Tavern

Hi all -

I've been lurking for a long time, but I'm finally aggravated enough to post . Running a MiBe, I got two runes and died in Vaults:5. (I know this is not unusual.) I've been learning a lot (thanks, UV4 videos!), and I thought I was playing pretty well, but obviously not well enough. I'm attaching my morgue file, in case anyone feels like giving me some tips.

Thanks in advance!

JR

https://pastebin.com/Qttyhaz9

For strategy:
broad axe mindelay is at 18 skill, not 16 skill
with a bruiser like this you would prefer a tower shield (even at 15 shield skill). having 10 skills worth of shield penalty is only really relevant for spellcasting.
The ring of Fytaent {rPois rC- rN+ Int+4} is questionable on this character. You're down to rC-, int doesn't matter, rN+ doesn't really matter after the 1st pip. I would prefer a ring of MR+ on this character, to get to MR+++. (if available)
Fire Dragon Scales aren't really good on this character; you'd prefer something heavier and rC- is more important than rF+ -> rF+++
The artefact broad axe is ok, but not great
Drop the wand of flame in favour of literally anything else.

In terms of tactics, you should probably have read Teleport as soon as you saw Mennas, though it's funny you weren't silenced. Seeing Mennas on V:$ would be enough to make me do Elf first before coming back, maybe even Slime, and to be super-careful with luring on V:$. If you berserk him 1:1 he should go down, but I wouldn't want to fight Mennas together with a pack.

Thanks for all of this. I think this was my second time encountering Mennas - learned my lesson!

I personally find that using berserk on mennas particularly is slightly higher risk than I'm comfortable with. He will go down a very high percentage of the time, but his shield can occasionally randomly roll well enough to keep him alive through the length of a berserk, and being slowed (or passed out) and silenced and injured in front of mennas is a tight spot to be in.

Usually I forego berserk in favor of other (consumable) buffs for Mennas particularly (because he can both infrequently negate (a portion of) berserk and because he can cut off some of the better escapes if you should fail to kill him) Other things of comparable difficulty either don't have a shield (and so can't randomly negate as much damage) and/or don't prevent you from escaping on the occasions when things go pear shaped.

Naturally if you don't have another way to handle him, then by all means go for it, but there's usually some other method available for dealing with him, even for berserkers.