YASD - Shadow Weapons, why you no help?

[Silk]

After a few weeks of horrible play and no snatched runes, I finally got myself a character well into the middlegame again - the more painful it is that he died a stupid death that I failed to figure entirely yet...

Started off as DEFE with pretty much what I consider the default options. Following Vehumet, branching into Air Magic, Charms and Summoning. Maybe a few XP too many went into Armor/Shields due to blatant oversight but with ring of fire + staf of fire, I had enough augmentation of the offensive skills to make up for it. The earlygame went very convenient, with Snake Pit and Swamp being generated with the easiest endings and the Orcish Mines almost suspiciously devoid of their most dangerous inhabitants. The one time, I was in mortal danger was due to recklessness rather than strong opponents.

Then came the Hall of Blades. I walk down the stairs to see Frederick within four squares from me. I create a buffer with Conjure Flame and start casting Shadow Creatures, congratulating myself for the choice since it is the Hall of Blades and no weakling monsters spawn here. To my horror, the weapons just stand around idly, though and don't attack the guy that proceeds to stab me from afar with a demon trident. So I put plan B into action - running away immediately. Unfortunately, the battle is currently being conducted right at the stairs so I can't bring any distance between Frederick and me before walking up. I try my luck nonetheless...and get killed by an Iron Shot.

What have I done wrong? Haste and Ring of Flames certainly would have helped my situation and were available in spellbooks - and a number of spells in my memory were already obsolete... Conjure Flames, Mephitic Cloud, probably Teleport Other as well. But what still baffles me - why didn't the Shadow Creature weapons attack Frederick. Is this a known bug or is there a reason?

[A spy]

Frederick was likely invisible (he does that). Now, while you could see invisible, dancing weapons cannot ; that's why they did not attack.

EDIT : also you could have summonned butterflies before going up the stairs, it would have protected you from 2/3 of his offensive spells. Bolt of cold would still have been able to get you, though ; it's generally a bad idea to run around with any elemental vulnerability.

[Silk]

OK, that explains it...

Summon Butterflies would not have helped, though. The problem was that Frederick got two shots in. One destroyed my Flame Cloud buffer, the second one hit me.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

For the future battles: there is a hex called Corona that throws forth a "gust" of magic dust which renders invisibility useless for a period of time. Every book of Maledictions has it.

Among summons, only Horrible Things see invisible. Perhaps you would want a help of a few dogs if that Summoning chant is not available: dogs sense invisible, at least.

[cerebovssquire]

Both statements in the above post are weird. First of all, Corona can be resisted and is useless against any target with decently high MR (Frederick has more than just that). Second, there is a wide range of summons that sInv, including some Shadow Creature summons, many Summon Demon summons, shadow imps, some dragons, some Horrible Things summons, eldritch tentacles, some Haunt summons, etc.
If you don't have sInv (it really is only important against enemies that blink, or as a summoner): Sticky Flame can't be resisted (only the damage can), but doesn't work on insubstantials, but you can see burning enemies.

[crate]

What you did wrong was entering the hall of blades and then not leaving immediately afterward. It is almost always a bad idea to actually clear it.

[mindlar]

The Hall of Blades is only worthwhile to enter if you have somehow managed to make it through the Crypt without getting a good branded weapon. As crate said, Hall of Blades is rarely worth entering and never worth it for a spellcaster of any sort.

[XuaXua]

The Hall of Blades is only worthwhile to enter if you have somehow managed to make it through the Crypt without getting a good branded weapon. As crate said, Hall of Blades is rarely worth entering and never worth it for a spellcaster of any sort.

If you really need the XP and have a good way to gatling gun some conjurations, the weapons fall pretty easily.

[KoboldLord]

If you really need the XP and have a good way to gatling gun some conjurations, the weapons fall pretty easily.

Hall of Blades weapons include distortion, anti-magic, and draining, and they are fast, have high evasion, and resist everything that can be resisted. Going in is taking the risk that a distortion weapon will forcibly teleport you to the deepest part of the vault, where you'll find yourself suddenly in melee with eight more dancing weapons. Leaving aside direct damage in melee, you can also find yourself banished and ambushed by neqoxecs or perhaps drained for more xp than you're getting. If you really needed branded weapons at this point, you wouldn't have made it to mid-Vaults to get it.

The vast majority of builds won't find Blade worth entering. By the time the xp is worth the risk, you can also enter Pan more safely, which has infinite xp and loot that can actually be useful.

[cerebovssquire]

I like doing the Hall of Blades on SpEn or the like. If you are careful enough the risk is basically zero, and the experience you gain is pretty good. I wouldn't recommend doing it on any character that doesn't do Invisibility stabbing with a decent duration on said spell, though, for reasons pointed out above.

Rarely will you ever need a branded weapon from there. There are decent two-handers in nearly all classes (battleaxe, glaive, great sword, great mace) that are very common, and usually you can also find a one-hander if you want one for some reason (Erica's and Azrael's scimitars of flaming are pretty good, you don't want one-handed axes anyway, and tridents are sort of OK I guess). However, getting a one-handed mace is always hard, but the Hall of Blades is unlikely to have a good one. Luckily, great maces are like battleaxes but have 1 more base damage, so they are actually really good.

[BlackSheep]

Can't you also occasionally find a quickblade in the Hall? I always thought of the hall as a source of last resort for a particular type of high end weapon.

[cerebovssquire]

The "boss weapon" is an eveningstar, bardiche, exec axe, quick blade, double sword, lajatang. So 16,66% is the chance of a quick blade spawning. You have to be pretty desperate as a non-Invisibilty-stabber or any other character to go in their just for the boss weapon.

[rebthor]

Can't you also occasionally find a quickblade in the Hall? I always thought of the hall as a source of last resort for a particular type of high end weapon.

I think you're right, but I've never needed to go into the hall myself.

In 0.8 there's also a single rare weapon (quick blade/double sword/exec axe/eveningstar/bardiche/lajatang) with a brand (vorpal/flaming/freezing/elec/vamp/drain/venom).

So, I'm not sure it's still in .10 or .11 and apropos of this thread

<rwbarton> the real experience you gain is "don't do blade"

[Silk]

I like doing the Hall of Blades on SpEn or the like. If you are careful enough the risk is basically zero, and the experience you gain is pretty good. I wouldn't recommend doing it on any character that doesn't do Invisibility stabbing with a decent duration on said spell, though, for reasons pointed out above.

Shadow Creatures + Blink + Control Teleport was my plan and I still don't doubt its plausibility. Not running from Frederick immediately was the stupid decision.

[Stormfox]

Airstrike also does quite respectable damage on dancing weapons. If you get something big and close, though, it may not kill it in time. Especially those polearms.

[XuaXua]

I just hang back and snipe 'em out of the air with a longbow when they come into view; serpentine pattern the vault.

[Fungus]

Staying close to the exit with cTele/Tele for emergencies and lots of OODs seems to work for me.

[Blade]

Not entering seems to work for me.

[Jabberwocky]

Not entering seems to work for me.

Works for me too. The risk just isn't worth the reward.

[Sojiro]

A wand of invisibility in case I need some breathing room, and CTele with Blink/tele in case I really need to haul ass, and Blade has never been very threatening.
Then to actually take care of the weapons, IOoD and Airstrike both works pretty well. With those the weapons very rarely manages to get close enough to make me consider using one of the options above, let alone melee range.

I have to admit that the last time I had a conjurer clean it with IOoD, I met Donald with a Shield of Reflection. The first orb he bounced back at me was ... surprising! Thankfully, his shield was of little use against more generic spells (and he had no resistance against those, unlike the weapons). I did have to make a run for it because of all the attention I had attracted, but as I said, invisibility makes that easy.