How crazy and rare is this artefact sword?

[jazzadellic]

I've been playing this game for a few days and have at least a dozen gravestones. I started deep elf conjurer no. 3 earlier today and one of the first things I found on D3 was an artefact +9 falchion of venom with +3 dex. My jaw dropped, I mean I haven't played this game that long but after over a dozen games the best weapon I've ever seen at these low levels was like a +5 plain old rapier and as far as artefacts I've only found a few others and they were so-so. First two orcs I saw after weilding it went splat, even with my -1 skill. I got very excited and decided I would invest a little in longblades to take advantage of this amazing sword. Sure enough though, within a couple hundred moves I ran into a unique that demolished me. I was using searing ray on her and she was down to like 2% health, and so was I....I considered for a moment the possibility of taking a swing at her with my nice new sword but decided to let the last searing ray burst try to finish her....didn't work out.

I almost wanted to cry ;o( I'm thinking i'll never see another sword like that (at least not on D3). Only wish one of my many melee guys could have found something like that. Anyways, how rare is a sword like that on D3 or any level for that matter? And if you were playing a caster and found an incredible weapon like that, would you also change your plans and decide to go hybrid?

[duvessa]

A +9 falchion of venom isn't an incredible weapon. It isn't even a particularly good weapon. For example, a +5 scimitar or a +3 great sword is usually better.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

here's a thread for crazy artifacts: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=19

but would you use it in Spider though?

[Hellmonk]

It's good for D:3 but I wouldn't train for it. Weapon base damage matters more than enchantment once you have weapon skill, so falchions are bad. The conjurer book's spells are going to be much better at killing things with appropriate investment. I'm not sure about rarity, but I have found some pretty bonkers randarts and unrandarts before Lair over the course of ~100 online games so I would expect that you'll find some much better artifacts at some point.

Since you are quite new to the game, I would recommend picking a stronger start than deep elf conjurer. Deep elves are really fragile. If you like the conjurer playstyle, you could try a draconian.

[ximxim]

A +9 falchion of venom isn't an incredible weapon. It isn't even a particularly good weapon. For example, a +5 scimitar or a +3 great sword is usually better.

It's rather nice in the early game though, arguably better than your other examples due to better accuracy and monsters having low hp? Obviously not a weapon for mid-lategame though.

[jazzadellic]

A +9 falchion of venom isn't an incredible weapon. It isn't even a particularly good weapon. For example, a +5 scimitar or a +3 great sword is usually better.

Haha, ok, I kinda figured it wasn't as good as it seemed to a newbie ;o) Mmmmm...makes me remember the time I found an enchanted greatsword pretty early on with my minotaur fighter and wondered if it was worth switching to, but had to dump it because my inventory was full. Didn't get a chance to identify it so who knows if it was even good.

but would you use it in Spider though?

Hmmm....too new to the game to know what that is, but i'm guessing an entire area full of poison immune critters. Good to know.

[jazzadellic]

Since you are quite new to the game, I would recommend picking a stronger start than deep elf conjurer. Deep elves are really fragile. If you like the conjurer playstyle, you could try a draconian.

I just got bored of playing minotaur fighters (and still getting pwned) so I decided to try something different and actually got my first Deep Elf Conjurer from selecting random character ;o) Enjoyed him so much (despite his short life lol), I decided to make a few more. I'm very experienced with Roguelikes, just not this one ;o) So I'm no stranger to playing difficult builds, in unforgiving games. But thanks for the tips I'll try one of those draconians.

[duvessa]

Hmmm....too new to the game to know what that is, but i'm guessing an entire area full of poison immune critters.

Quite the opposite.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Spiders and many other incest creatures take extra damage from poison. It's weird (was pesticide the inspiration?) but well-established.

So would you use that falchion in Spider, duvessa/Hellmonk?

[Shard1697]

Spiders and many other incest creatures take extra damage from poison

duvessa and dowan don't have rPois-

sorry I had to

[duvessa]

So would you use that falchion in Spider, duvessa/Hellmonk?

By Spider I would hope to have something better, like a +5 scimitar or a +3 great sword.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

but that's not better: if ench=base damage then the +9 falchion has the same damage as a +5 scimitar. You're foregoing the venom brand, better speed, and significantly better accuracy, just to turn 4 slaying into extra base damage. Even in Spider!

[duvessa]

good thing ench!=base damage, then

[Sar]

well, or a bad thing

but a thing nevertheless!

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Even if you somehow don't give the slightest crap about accuracy or brand, and even if base damage is twice as good as damage from slaying (which is not going to happen around Spider) the falchion still outdamages the scimitar by virtue of being faster.

[Siegurt]

Acually with 14 long sword and 13 fighting, you are doubling your base damage, which is very doable by the time you are starting your first lair branch, however you're correct about the damage being close enough that the brand and speed make the falchion the better (short term) weapon.

[jwoodward48ss]

How is ench different from base stats?

[duvessa]

Base damage gets a bonus from fighting skill, weapon skill, and strength. Enchantment does not. The only time enchantment and base damage are the same is when you have 0 fighting skill, 0 weapon skill, and 10 strength.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Acually with 14 long sword and 13 fighting, you are doubling your base damage

How do you figure? You'd need like 30 strength for that to happen.

[CypherZel]

A +9 falchion of venom isn't an incredible weapon. It isn't even a particularly good weapon. For example, a +5 scimitar or a +3 great sword is usually better.

I think you are not taking weapon skill as well as the fact that those weapons don't yet exist in his game, that +9 falchion is probably killing dudes very nicely on D3

[CypherZel]

Also OP do you mind posting the dump, if you are new people are more then likely to help you fix your mistakes

[and into]

+9 falchion of venom is very nice to find on D3, but to put it in perspective, almost any character will have a better weapon option than +9 falchion of venom by the end of Lair/Orc, so don't beat yourself up about it.

[Siegurt]

How do you figure? You'd need like 30 strength for that to happen.

Strength has no impact on what i was talking about, fighting/weapon skill increase your base damage by a percentage (yes including the bonus given by strength, but i treat it as a constant when talking about raising skills, since it doesnt change the percent bonus raised by skill)

Fighting increases base damage by 1/30 per point, weapon skill by 1/25th.
14/25 = 56%, 13/30ths is just shy of 44%,

56+44=100% increase in base damage, or roughly doubling it (it is actually slightly short, and 14/14 is slightly over exactly doubling)

[HardboiledGargoyle]

It raises base damage by up to that amount. Check it in wizmode fsim - max damage goes up by a lot, but the average damage increases by only about 40%.

And they multiply each other rather than add up, like it would be 156%*144%=224.64% with your percentages.

[MainiacJoe]

When I find a high-slaying, bad base-type artifact in the early dungeon, I don't train its weapon skill unless I was already planning to go that way but I will often train Fighting sooner than I would otherwise. I figure that the artifact is temporarily my best killdudes and more than sufficient for the current time, so I can train defenses with Fighting in a way that also leverages the loot find a bit. I'm going to train Fighting eventually for the HP if nothing else, and right now it does help my killdudes with the temporarily powerful weapon find while not wasting XP on a weapon skill. Is this smart or dumb?

[Sandman25]

First skill levels are extremely cheap so you can train 1-3 levels almost for free.

[Blomdor]

I attribute a good portion of the success of my most recent win to a +10 mace of flaming I found in Crazy Yiuf's house (and it had two randart maces in it, actually; the second just wasn't nearly as spiffy). The dungeon before Lair/Orc is probably the hardest part of a three rune game IMO, and a light weapon with low skill requirements and mindelay and such a high enchantment is a huge, huge boon at that stage. Venom is also very strong early on. Of course, by the time I was done with Lair it had lost its usefulness, but it pulled plenty of weight before then. I'd be pretty excited about that sword on D:3, but there's always next time and you can and will find crazier things early on. Don't worry about it.

Oh, and to mimic CypherZel, don't be afraid to make a topic here if you get a character going and have any doubts, questions, etc. People here have given me a lot of good advice and have certainly helped me improve. Good luck!