[crossfire] Advice for late-game gear: getting constantly one-shotted

[Siegfried Eureca]

Pardon: re-sending with a subject line this time.

Hi there,

I've been gradually getting back into Crossfire, having played it
on-and-off over the years. One thing that has always frustrated me, is
seeing the Scorn Sale Shop littered with gear from Zorn's castle, and I
can't even beat Zacharus Zorn at the entrance to the Zorn quests. I have
decent gear, IMHO, but he just rams into me and kills me in half a second,
leaving me no time to react or heal (i.e. "I hope this guy isn't another
instant-kill enemy; time to flip a coin and charge him").

Is there some trick or late-game armor (i.e. with high AC or bonuses) that
I'm not aware of that players use to beat these monsters. I'm looking at an
old "abusive artifacts" thread (
http://archives.real-time.com/rte-crossfire/Attic/msg00411.html), and it
would seem my gear is significantly better (listed below). Also, I'm
looking at another thread that notes Zorn castle is an easy way to grind to
level 100 (
http://mailman.metalforge.org/pipermail/crossfire/2007-June/011546.html).

However, everything has obscene stats (i.e. AC, WC, attack types, attack
speed). I could always cheese my way through using "invoke charm monsters;
killpets" abuse, but I actually want to do a legit playthrough of this
game, without cheesing through the hard battles or using glitches. Is there
some play balance issue I'm overlooking, or did some code change years back
suddenly make a level 40 dungeon into an impossible level 110+ dungeon?
i.e. the first character I need to kill just to get into this dungeon is:

>> merchant "Irritable Zorn"
>> ac => -120
>> attacktype => 65921
>> can_see_in_dark => 1
>> con => 85
>> dam => 85
>> exp => 20000
>> hitback => 1
>> hp => 10000
>> level => 200
>> maxhp => 10000
>> maxsp => 500

I'm using:
- Valriel's Plate Mail (maybe just use chain mail of winter for the obscene
AC boost? I've seen someone with WDSM fly through it, but I don't know the
rest of their gear).
- Gorokh's cloak, etc (i.e. I beat the heaven and hell quests, but the
final monsters there also like to instant-kill a level 80 character too; so
I had to cheese them with Red Death from Devourers).
- Belzebub's Sword of devourers (multiple attack types, prevents confusion).
- Valriel's girdle (better than fire god's girdle; best girdle even?).
- Ancient bracers of dexterity (acid resistance).
- Ring of halvor (prevent paralysis).
- Ring of the elements (sometimes switch to ring of combat).
- Wizard hat.

The best AC I can pull off around now is about -14, hence why I was
attracted to the Zorn quests (i.e. chaos crowns and other stuff to boost AC
a lot). i.e.
http://maps.deliantra.net/brest/zorn/castle.upper.floor.one.xhtml

Any advice on better gear I should farm? I genuinely want to play through
all of the dungeons (in the little downtime I have) over the coming months,
rather than just re-playing heaven, hell, Warrior's Tower, Snake Pit and
Wizard's tower, etc; but if I'm getting clobbered by an instant-kill
monster I'm prepared for, no point in going into random dungeons that like
to teleport you into a room of one-hitters. I've even pulled off getting to
the WDSM a few times in Ancient Pupland (but, unfortunately, just got the
Zonk instead, so I'm not lazy.
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