CiP DsGl of Qazlal, claws or staff?

[Orgrimm]

I am back into the game after a longish pause and I just discovered that I love splatting Ds (especially of Yredelemnul, but this time I chose Qazlal for a change of pace)
Got the claws 1 mutation at xl 8, but I stumbled upon an interesting artifact staff (+7, drain brand, rElec, MR+) and a +0 unbranded lajatang so I can't decide if I should keep using staves or switch to unarmed which is better in the long run but requires higher investment. I'm at 8 skill level in staves and originally planned to play as skald (combat oriented, light armour with buffs and the occasional invocation for tough situations), should I reconsider and just go for unarmed + heavy armour? http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/58ecb3ce5f6fd/Haffredo.txt

[bel]

I would use the staff (and train more staves). The quarterstaff would be pretty good for a long time. Especially since you have spectral weapon, unarmed doesn't make much sense.

Btw, this is a pretty good name:

  Code:

+5 ring mail of This Worked Last Time {+Inv rElec rC+}

[Orgrimm]

Yeah it is the best named artifact I've ever found lol

[Siegurt]

Generally speaking, if you can get a decent offense with less xp that is that much more xp that can go elsewhere.

Staves are good offense for low xp, and you have one that will work for quite a while, plus one to invest scrolls into for a good high end weapon later.

I would stick with staves. Use the extra xp to get better defense and maybe some spells.

[tasonir]

I'd have a hard time passing up unarmed when you're going to get claws 3, but staves would only cost 14 skill. You might want to fsim it to be sure, but I think around 14 unarmed should do just as much damage with claws 3? You'd have 26 base damage, around 7.5 aut attacks, vs 16 * (1 + 14/25) and 7 aut attacks, which is 25 damage with the lajatang?

In other words, using unarmed might not actually be any more cost, since at skill 14 it's as good as the lajatang. It would probably take another 2-3 levels to equal a +7 lajatang, though.

[Orgrimm]

Oh this is good to know, I didn't do the math otherwise I could have chosen differently. I kept using the staff until vaults where I felt I didn't do enough damage. Thanks to sturdy frame 3 I could confidently cast while using gda but even with 42 ac I risked greatly in zot 5 when an orb gave me teleportitis and I didn't run immediately. A tzitzimitl reduced me down to 1hp during the orb run while I was climbing stairs, I would have probably destroyed my PC if I died like that.
Maybe I put too much points in invocations, it was fun casting disaster area every time I went downstairs but maybe I could have done without and trained more spellcasting and maybe conjurations?

Thanks everyone for the advice http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/58ee26cda0e85/morgue-Haffredo-20170412-143107.txt