CiP: DsBe weapon / skill advice please?

[srwaddict]

Hello there, long time lurker, not much posting, and I've got a run where I am honestly kind of stumped as to which weapon I should be going for. I've got two weapons that I feel like either one could carry me through the game, but I'm curious as to what some of y'all would choose. General advice / critique would be most welcome, I feel like my skills are sortof a mishmash, but I'm not sure what really to even do with them at this point, I just hit shields 15 to use that shield of reflection well, seems good, but how are my skilsl generally? any terrible deficiencies I'm overlooking here?

On the one hand, with a ring of slaying and a damage bonus on my armor, high attack speed from the demon trident seems pretty great, as well as the nifty shield of reflection (thanks Donald!) I've got some other brands of demon trident, venom and freezing stashed away, but I felt like anti-magic was ;ikely the best one, was that a good move?

On the other hand, holy crap that vampiric bardiche seems like it would be an amazing thing for my current fighting tactic of basically regen tanking from corpses/trog's hand, which has worked really well for me so far, with judicious use of consumables/BiA, especially if I can find any heavier armor that could even come close to the stuff on this ring mail. The only branded plate so far out of the entirety of the dungeon and orc was a +2 of pos energy. :/

Should I just maintain my current one hander build, or invest skill points into polearms basically hoping to get some good heavier armor? It seems like surely there'd be some decent plate or something SOMEWHERE in this damned dungeon, but there might not be as far as I can tell.

Treasure trove wanted my wand of hasting, and I may have made a mistake in giving it up, got a pile of useful scrolls, a glaive of +8+9 elec and stuff, and that really nifty artefact ring, as well as a scroll of acquirement. acquirement gave me a terrible jank cloak. >_< I'm really digging that ring though. Fair trade? what do y'all think?

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.14.0 (tiles) character file.

rendai the Impaler (Demonspawn Berserker)          Turns: 39573, Time: 03:23:06

HP 139/139       AC 28     Str 29      XL: 18   Next: 82%
MP   9/9         EV 11     Int  9      God: Trog [******]
Gold 2156        SH 34     Dex 22      Spells:  0 memorised, 17 levels left

rFire  + + .     SeeInvis +     d - +3,+6 demon trident (antimagic)
rCold  . . .     Clarity  .     w - +5 ring mail "Kairphiuv" {rPois rF++ Dex+3 Dam+5 SInv}
rNeg   + . .     Conserve .     E - +2 shield {reflect}
rPois  +         rCorr    .     (helmet unavailable)
rElec  +         rRot     .     e - +2 cloak
SustAb . .       Spirit   +     J - +2 pair of gloves
rMut   .         Warding  .     q - +2 pair of boots
Saprov . . .     Stasis   .     L - amulet of the Townfolk {+Rage Str+3 Int+3}
MR     +....                    h - +4,+5 ring of slaying
                                u - ring of Tuikke {+Blink +Inv rN+ Str+6 Int-2 Acc-1}

@: somewhat resistant to hostile enchantments, unstealthy
A: horns 3, thin metallic scales 3, conserve scrolls, poison resistance, powered
by death 2, magic shield
a: Burn Spellbooks, Berserk, Trog's Hand, Brothers in Arms, Renounce Religion,
Evoke Blink, Evoke Berserk Rage, Evoke Invisibility
}: 2/15 runes: decaying, serpentine


You are on level 2 of the Depths.
You worship Trog.
Trog is exalted by your worship.
You are not hungry.

You have visited 6 branches of the dungeon, and seen 40 of its levels.
You have visited 1 bazaar.
You have also visited: Trove.

You have collected 4205 gold pieces.
You have spent 2049 gold pieces at shops.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 d - a +3,+6 anti-magic demon trident (weapon)
 K - a +4,+7 vampiric bardiche
 X - a +3,+0 demon trident of piercing
Missiles
 N - 8 javelins of returning (quivered)
 Z - 4 poisoned javelins
Armour
 e - a +2 cloak (worn)
 q - a +2 pair of boots (worn)
 w - the +5 ring mail "Kairphiuv" (worn) {rPois rF++ Dex+3 Dam+5 SInv}
   (You bought it in a shop on level 4 of the Orcish Mines)   
   
   It affects your dexterity (+3).
   It affects your damage with ranged weapons and melee attacks (+5).
   It greatly protects you from fire.
   It protects you from poison.
   It enhances your eyesight.
 E - a +2 shield of reflection (worn)
 J - a +2 pair of gloves (worn)
Magical devices
 b - a wand of lightning (10)
 i - a wand of fire
 z - a wand of fire (4)
 F - a wand of digging (10)
 G - a wand of heal wounds (5)
 R - a wand of draining (5)
 W - a wand of teleportation (6)
Comestibles
 c - 3 bread rations
 k - a cheese
 p - a choko
 C - 2 pears
 M - 9 apricots
 Y - 6 meat rations
Scrolls
 f - a scroll of enchant armour
 l - 2 scrolls of immolation
 m - 7 scrolls of identify
 n - 8 scrolls of fear
 t - 3 scrolls of blinking
 x - 3 scrolls of remove curse
 y - 2 scrolls of magic mapping
 I - 8 scrolls of fog
 O - 4 scrolls of recharging
 S - 14 scrolls of teleportation
Jewellery
 g - an uncursed ring of sustenance
 h - a +4,+5 ring of slaying (right hand)
 s - an uncursed amulet of warding
 u - the ring of Tuikke (left hand) {+Blink +Inv rN+ Str+6 Int-2 Acc-1}
   (You found it in a treasure trove)   
   
   [ring of strength]
   It affects your strength (+6).
   It affects your intelligence (-2).
   It affects your accuracy with ranged weapons and melee attacks (-1).
   It protects you from negative energy.
   It lets you turn invisible.
   It lets you blink.
 H - an uncursed amulet of clarity
 L - the amulet of the Townfolk (around neck) {+Rage Str+3 Int+3}
   (You found it on level 4 of the Snake Pit)   
   
   [amulet of rage]
   It affects your strength (+3).
   It affects your intelligence (+3).
 T - an uncursed ring of teleport control
 U - an uncursed ring of protection from cold
Potions
 o - 2 potions of haste
 r - 6 potions of resistance
 A - a potion of restore abilities
 D - 7 potions of heal wounds
 P - 7 potions of curing
Miscellaneous
 a - a phial of floods
 v - a phial of floods
 B - a fan of gales
Rods
 V - a +5 rod of the swarm (12/12)
   (You took it off a hill giant on level 15 of the Dungeon)


   Skills:
 + Level 11.6 Fighting
   Level 5.0 Short Blades
 + Level 19.4 Polearms
 - Level 14.1 Armour
 - Level 1.7 Dodging
 - Level 15.0 Shields
 - Level 9.1 Evocations

Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (16/16)            Temple (0/1) D:4             Orc (4/4) D:12
    Elf (0/3) Orc:4          Lair (8/8) D:10          Swamp (5/5) Lair:3
  Snake (5/5) Lair:5        Slime (0/6) Lair:8       Vaults (0/5) D:14
 Depths (2/6) D:16       

Portals:
Hell: Depths:1

Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You have a pair of large horns on your head.
You are completely covered in thin metallic scales (AC +4, rElec).
You are very good at protecting items from fire.
You can steal the life force of defeated enemies.
When hurt, damage is shared between your health and your magic reserves.
Your system is resistant to poisons.


[and into]

Welcome! Since this was a character in progress (CiP) I moved your post to this forum. Don't worry, you'll still get advice here; dungeon crawling advice is reserved for more general (and often times more abstract) discussions about backgrounds and more general stuff, how to approach Vaults 5, etc.

As for advice:

Your skills are pretty reasonable, except that pole arms is high if you are just using the demon trident, which has a min delay of 0.6 and a base delay of 1.3; outside of some really niche cases you don't want to train a weapon skill past min delay for the weapon you are primarily using. Every two levels in a weapon skill translates to a 0.1 reduction in delay, so you hit min delay with the demon trident at 14 polearms skill.

However.... that vampiric bardiche is absolutely amazing. Now, you've already invested in shields, but you've also overtrained polearms a bit for that trident. The bardiche doesn't hit min delay until level 26 in polearms, so you'll get more out of your pole arms investment if you switch to that. My overall advice would be: Switch to vamp bardiche, lose the shield. (Note that your magic shield mutation will also thank you for losing the anti-magic demon trident, which lowers your MP. Usually anti-magic is great for a berserker, but in this case it clashes with your mutation.)

You may want to go heavier armor if some good plate is around, but with 22 dex you can get excellent EV very quickly in your current armor (it isn't *that* heavy). Just train up dodging. Since it is at low skill currently you will put on the levels quick, there.

That amulet is not helping very much, I'd just leave clarity on for now. You can swap in warding if needed for rN+.

I was going to say put those strategic scrolls (like enchant armor) some place safe, but you got conserve scrolls mutation. Might still want to stash them in a safe place, like Lair 2, but with that mutation it isn't so risky to carry around that many scrolls.

So personally: I'd switch to that bardiche now, lose the shield, turn off everything but dodging until my EV hits 20 or so, then train fighting up to ~16, maybe bit more. Then get some more pole arms. (A +8/+9 glaive of elec is an insanely good weapon too and is only overshadowed by the craziness of something like a +4/+7 vampiric bardiche.)

Giving up the wand of hasting was a bad move though, unless you found that bardiche in the trove. The ring has lots of bells and whistles but isn't as good as it looks; your ring of slaying is better for this character overall in fact. But still, no use regretting it. You are doing really well overall.

[Brannock]

Invest in Dodging as soon as possible, especially if you decide to give up the shield and go with the bardiche. You'll be able to get it up from 1.7 to 7-8 very quickly and you'll see a big jump in your EV thanks to it. Keep in mind that higher skill levels are much, much more expensive to progress than low skill levels.

Why are you wearing the {+Rage Str+3 Int+3} amulet over clarity? You don't benefit from the +Rage or Int+3, and I would value Clarity over slightly higher Strength. Getting confused during a berserk can be a death sentence for you.

[srwaddict]

thank you very much for the replies!

Good call on the amulet, Clarity is very good, and evocable rage is worthless, i honestly kinda forgot about that item slot from worrying so much over what i was doing elsewhere.

I do have a stash on L:2, got 2 enchant armors(I've been using some on my other gear pieces for the AC, 2 EW1, 1EW2, cure mutations, and 1-6 of everything from haste to curing, blink, tele, fog, etc. I've also got amulets of R corr, and R mut stashed. I was somewhat foolish and used EW scrolls on both the trident and the Bardiche, some EW2 for the trident and a couple EW1 on the bardiche, with the aim of using it eventually, but then I got the shield of reflection and started waffling, paralyzed with indecision.

I can almost always make it past lair, get some runes and whatnot, I've had about 5 or 6 wins so far, one of which was a 7 rune (firestorm all the things!)I tend to falter in the late game, usually from being overconfident / forgetting to use appropriate consumables, etc. >_<

So, is that bardiche really worth not having the shield of reflection? If so, while I wait to hit polearms 20 for even 1.0 attack delay, should I use the +9+8 elec glaive? (i loaded my save and checked my stash - it's randart with 9/8 +1 dex -2 int. I was somewhat worried about Int drain from using it / I thought glaives weren't that great base damage wise.)

Thank you very much for the advice, I completely overlooked my amulet slot. Is my armor really good enough for the end game though? I've never won without either a robe wearing Deep Elf, or a CPA + 8 minotaur. Dex characters / strats / armors are something I am a bit unfamiliar with. Also, dodging being useful, derp.

Much appreciated that you took the time to help me out here. Been playing Crawl for years now, but sometimes I make the dumbest mistakes still.

[and into]

No problem, srwaddict.

Don't worry—you didn't "waste" any scrolls of enchant weapon. At least not in any meaningful sense. My rule of thumb is that if I have been using a weapon for more than a floor or two, it is worth enchanting at least up to +3 or +4, assuming I have the scrolls. In your case you literally have three or four endgame-worthy weapons here, so you never need to enchant another weapon. (Unless you want to branch into longbows/crossbows or whatever. That is not needed however and certainly you have more pressing priorities before doing that.)

Glaive is not the greatest weapon, sure, and base damage is more important than enchantment. But really big +dam (+9 in this case) plus electrocution brand easily makes that a great weapon. The vamp bardiche is better, but I'd happily take a +8/+9 glaive of electrocution as my "final" weapon for a character.

Some people aren't comfortable swinging a weapon at more than 1.0 delay—if so, take pole arms up to 20 before using the bardiche. I'd probably use the glaive until then, yes. I will say that In my experience, so long as you aren't doing something like swinging a GSC or bardiche or exec axe at very low skill levels, the "longer than 1.0 delay" is more than made up for by the base damage. Sometimes even at skill 0 a big burly weapon is superior. Except for scythes, which are just bad weapons in just about every sense. If you are not comfortable with that, however, the glaive of elec is great and will easily see you through to when you are comfortable using the vamp bardiche.

Assuming you stick with that armor, a good endgame goal in my opinion would be ~30 AC, EV solidly in the mid-20s, and at least 200 HP. Obviously the more the better, but that should give more than sufficient damage mitigation and HP. Your resists are good, just find and keep an rC+ ring in your inventory just in case. Remember that Trog's Hand doesn't just give HP regen, but also a nice big boost to MR. That's critical for dealing with stuff that hits you with nasty hexes, like vault sentinel's mark.

For where you are though 28 AC/11 EV is pretty good, but yeah work on that dodging. Between powered by death, vamp bardiche, Trog's Hand, and magic shield, you will be very durable. In my opinion that would be the way to maximize your chances to win for this character, based on what I've seen.

Usual caveats: Play carefully, don't get overconfident, use your consumables, use your god abilities.