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Getting back to NetHack for a second...
I've got a character in pretty good shape who's made it all the way through Gehennom, but I'm wondering what I need to beef up (if anything) before I take on Rodney and start my ascension. It's a level 30 Valkyrie w/ 417 HP and AC -10. I have gray dragon scale mail, Excalibur, Mjollnir, an amulet of reflection, gauntlets of Power, speed boots, ring of conflict, ring of levitation, 3 wands of death (but some or all may be largely used up), one partially used magic marker and two wishes left on a wand of wishing - among other things. Some questions:
* Do I need a much lower AC (given that I have 417 HP)?
* Do I need a lot of scrolls of remove curse and/or holy water to deal with Rodney cursing my belongings?
* I'm planning to use one wish on a bag of holding. What to do with the last wish?
* Anything else I absolutely need, or that is strongly recommended?
I've read an "ascension kit" spoiler but my sense is it recommends more things than are strictly needed.
For my two cents:
Making it that far with only -10 AC is pretty good, but you definitely want to make it a bit higher. I believe -25 is considered a reasonable standard for an ascension run, and I did it was -43 as a wizard, -32 as a valkyrie (cleverly threw away -10 of divine protection by angering my god...) and -39 as samurai.
If you don't have holy water, I'd definitely get some and use your magic marker to write some blessed scrolls of enchant weapon/enchant armour. What's your excalibur/mjollnir at, and have you trained those skills to maximum?
The problem with having an amulet of reflection is that you can't wear an amulet of life saving at the same time, and (perhaps being a nethack nit) I like to have 2 or more of those before I try to ascend.
In my view, the essentials for ascension:
+6/+7 weapon
-25AC or better
Levitation (ABSOLUTELY vital on the plane of air, very useful on the plane of air and very very useful on the plane of water if you haven't genocided sea monsters)
Obviously reflection and MR...
Wands of death are handy for dealing with the dealing air elementals (who will DESTROY you on the plane of air if you have only -10AC, they nearly killed me on my valkyrie run) and rodney/famine/pestilence
Amulets of life saving. If you don't have one (there's one guaranteed in vlad's tower, at least), wish for one.
Wishes: I'd suggest using your last two wishes on amulet of life saving if you don't have one/aren't burdened, and another magic marker. Your AC really needs to be higher to deal with the ridiculously powerful air elementals on the plane of air...
One or two other pre-ascension notes:
Do you have a way to blind yourself so you can use telepathy? When you reach the Astral plane, it's a good idea to do so and see which altar is guarded by the weakest Rider (probably famine) to go after that one first. You really don't want to have to deal with Death unless you have to.
More AC is needed!
If you already have an AoLS and have enough charges in your marker to raise your AC to ~25, you might want to consider leaving one wish to wish for a cockatrice corpse on the astral plane...
When you get the Amulet of Yendor, be sure to name it REAL or something to ensure you don't get it mixed up with a fake one later.
CONCLUSION:
If burdened, wish for a BoH or drop stuff you don't need.
If not, AoLS + magic marker are probably best.
RAISE AC!!!
Let us know how it goes!
EDIT: as eviltwin said, be sure you have resistances to everything, though you probably do by now.
Last edited by Raygun Gothic; 05-11-2009 at 09:02 AM.
Reason: resistances are cool