Well, I'll try to keep this brief - once again I really didn't think this character out before I started him. Just wanted your basic evil healer to explore and with the kind of lacking "evil" options, I picked Zulghinlour....with a non-Imperial non-chaotic evil healer with one of the busiest and supposedly hardest Immortals to get empowerment from (from what people tell me). Not a bright move - I thought I had a pretty cool role idea (read HELP MINDFLAYER), but it just never really panned out. After 127 hours of not having full empowerment, a trail of bad communication with Zulghinlour of either silence or "don't like you"...just kind of lost heart near the end.

Healers in general are pretty lame when it comes to actual healing, especially non-Imperial evil healers without dark pact, but even in comparison to bards it's pretty bad. I had 1800 mana, +40% mana regeneration in items and permanent slow with maxed trance/meditation and I didn't come anywhere *close* to the healing of Lauriel or other bards....especially in just pure lasting ability. I'd run out a LOT faster, which is pretty sad. Not sure if evil bards are affected by the evil-heal-nerf either. They are useful for the cures and obviously sanctuary, but even if I had mass heal I wouldn't get anywhere near their ability to just heal damage (maybe directed heals with rejuv/dark-pact but I'd run out a lot faster still and most explore places need mass heals). Not to mention bards are not completely boring/useless alone and have a lot of nice buffs. Healer edges are kind of boring as well, looking over the list in general I could only see two-three total really worth it for exploring - there's not even an edge on rejuvenate/sanctuary. Not really trying to bash the class, but I wouldn't recommend it - especially with empowerment involved. It'd be really nice if healers could remove fear as well, considering the only things against it are one rare race, a few very rare items, and a shaman power (and it's all over Hell).

The Hell trips were fun, got to learn a lot I've never done before - I tried to make it so every trip just wasn't a race and I'd "stop to smell the roses" - also took a few non-optimal groups, but still had fun and hopefully I made a positive impact on others. Killed two archdevils, fought two more (and learned what to bring against them) and got to learn quite a bit......all with sanctuary and 30hp heals, which is a short miracle in itself (although anything of worth required a bard). Hope all those that attended enjoyed them...btw, sorry Maxwell about the last one.

So I learned my lessons around empowerment, needing to think characters out, what I'm capable of, etc. I learned not to send heroes to get gear for you at young levels (hence my post in the Ask an Imm forums) for stuff you clearly don't know, learned that empowerment patience probably isn't for me (least with how busy/hard Zulg is and my badly thought out idea), and that I truly hate people like Llorenz Lowest of lows, man....

Cheers,
Torak