Switch spell levels between Dragon and Statue Form

[dynast]

A hasted dragon is weaker than a Slowed statue.

[Sandman25]

Statue Form is dual school spell.

[dynast]

So what? i can get statue form on a tengu and its worth it, dragon form now... it just sucks and its a lvl 7 spell for some reason, try a game where you find a book of transfig and see which one you can master first, then see which one you will use more.

Statue form could be a lvl 8 spell as far as i am concerned and i would still learn it, then dragon form becomes a milestone.

[Sandman25]

I meant that it takes less XP to get Dragon Form than Statue Form.

[dynast]

  Code:

spellFailure = 60
              - [6 * spell skills]
              - [2 * Intelligence]
              + Spell difficulty
              + Armour/shield penalty

spellDifficulty =   3 (level 1)
                    15 (level 2)   (+12)
                    35 (level 3)   (+20)
                    70 (level 4)   (+35)
                   100 (level 5)   (+30)
                   150 (level 6)   (+50)
                   200 (level 7)   (+50)
                   260 (level 8)   (+60)
                   330 (level 9)   (+70)

Only assuming you never trained earth, which means that the only species that can master dragon form easier than statue form is merfolk.

[Sandman25]

I am not sure how you know it. I would expect to see a HuTm of XL 15-18 with corresponding Int and XP comparison: how many levels in Transmut. it takes to get Dragon Form to 4%, how many levels in Transmut./Earth it takes to get Statue Form to 4% and how much XP it really is.

[duvessa]

this is a troll thread, nobody is actually crazy enough to think level 6 statue form is a better spell than level 7 dragon form. stop feeding it

[Magipi]

nobody is actually crazy enough to think level 6 statue form is a better spell than level 7 dragon form.

Well, lvl 5 Blade hands is much better then either one.

[tasonir]

I really love statue form and I'd probably argue for statue form over dragon form, sure, but even I would have a really hard time justifying use of a level 8 trans/earth statue form. You'd have to be very well off to be able to dump that kind of experience into a transmutation and not die on the way there...This is already the main problem with statue form, making it take twice as long to get there would be insane.

[dynast]

this is a troll thread, nobody is actually crazy enough to think level 6 statue form is a better spell than level 7 dragon form. stop feeding it

Come at me with the reasons why you think dragon form is better than statue form otherwise i will just assume you are the troll here, since i am not, let me start:

If you are naked human.

Dragon form: You get a bonus to AC, HP, a penalty to EV due to size, constriction immunity against normal size monsters, claws, rf++, rc-, rpois, str+10(or something), cold blood, fire breath and flight.
Melds all equipment except jewelry.

Statue form: You get a bonus to AC, HP, pois immunity, relec, rtorment, rn+, stone fists, slow movement.
Meld boots, armour and gloves.

If you are a mottled, pale, yellow, purple, grey, black or green draconian.

Dragon form: You get a bonus to AC, HP, a penalty to EV due to size, constriction immunity against normal size monsters, claws, rpois, str+10 and flight.

Statue form: You get a bonus to AC, HP, pois immunity, relec, rtorment, rn+, stone fists, slow movement.

What makes you consider dragon form better than statue form? Overall and not specific situations.

I prefer statue form because its not as detrimental as dragon form, its easier to learn, costs less magic to cast and offers core resistances for the extended part of the game.

[Sar]

blade hands: melds gloves, doesn't give any resistances, hinders spellcasting and item usage

why would anybody use this spell? fr: make blade hands a level 3 spell

[radinms]

Because torment is terrible news.

[dynast]

blade hands: melds gloves, doesn't give any resistances, hinders spellcasting and item usage

why would anybody use this spell? fr: make blade hands a level 3 spell

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=156&hilit=i+love+it+when&start=1050#p231046

You forgot to say it melds your shield.

[KoboldLord]

this is a troll thread, nobody is actually crazy enough to think level 6 statue form is a better spell than level 7 dragon form. stop feeding it

Come at me with the reasons why you think dragon form is better than statue form otherwise i will just assume you are the troll here, since i am not, let me start:

Dragon Form unarmed combat kills things really fast.

Statue Form combat applies an across-the-board -33% penalty to all forms of your damage output (with compensation only applied to your melee) and lets the vast majority of monsters get frequent (or more frequent) double-turns on you.

[Sar]

@dynast: the joke was that your expert analysis of DF and SF mentioned every little detail (I had no idea DF prevents constriction) but failed to mention, you know, the most important thing, namely damage. Dragon Form melee is probably the strongest single target attack in Crawl, which is why people sometimes use it. Not because it stops constriction or gives you a breath attack.

[dynast]

Theres this new spell called hydra form if you actually care about damage, which is pretty much dragon form with cleaving and heal on kills... its only level 6 for some reason...

[bel]

I find that Statue Form is mostly psychologically good because it allows you to tab through a large part of the game: many monsters can't get through the huge AC and high GDR. It doesn't matter if you get hit more if the hits do 0 damage. With stoneskin + SF, I tabbed through almost all of Depths and Zot on an OpTm.

However, in many situations Dragon Form is often better because of huge damage, huge HP (the best defensive stat) and normal speed.

[Sprucery]

Dragon Form melee is probably the strongest single target attack in Crawl

Hmm, I would have thought that you could get a more damaging stab in the right circumstances.

[Sandman25]

Fe of Chei, maxed skills.

You pounce on the unaware helpless Cerebov!
You eviscerate Cerebov!!!!!!!(damage 823)
You kill Cerebov!

The same character, dragon form.
You pounce on the unaware helpless Cerebov!
You maul Cerebov!!!!(damage 126)
Cerebov is lightly wounded.

[Sar]

Hm, I did forget about stabbing. Shows how much I play this type of characters!

[Siegurt]

You used to be able to stab with dragon claws as a felid....

[tabstorm]

I think statue form should be level 5 and in the starting book. Just get rid of Ice form, it's bad anyway imo

[radinms]

To get statue form is easy because many books include it.
But, Blade Hands, not.

I think Statue Form should be nerfed.
Chei+Statue Form/Haste+Statue Form...no brainer to get all runes. really "tabstorm"

At least, EV should become 0 under statue form.
Evasive Statue, should be removed.

[tabstorm]

But statue form is bad though :^)
Clearly the cost should be reduced to make it more appealing.

(I am being sarcastic here I think it's fairly decent, especially for armour-impaired races and chei users. For me, Chei + statue form is comically easy, how can you die with defenses that high? I admit I died on Geh:7 once but that's the main place to not use it...)

But usually on here the goodness and badness of strategies are evaluated in the context of hypothetical optimal play that almost no one actually does because it would be unfun. So basically we just argue about imaginary games in the imagination of the imaginer. Anyway I think statue is decent because the defense bonuses will make your character a lot more resistant to errors which is what I find more useful when I play.

[radinms]

I usually use statue form at Geh:7 if my char is UC fighter.
Torment is bad news.

[tabstorm]

The Serpent of Hell / Asmodeus got me with a bunch of hellfire due to slow move/actions so I decided to not use it there again.

[Berder]

Dragon form has mediocre/bad defenses and no protection against torment. Yeah its damage is high, but not sufficiently to compensate for the worse defenses. Statue form is like 40/40 defenses with +30% hp and useful resists, dragon form is like 20/20 with +50% hp and better damage.

Also, statue form doesn't require UC. It can work with any weapon.

I wouldn't want Statue Form to raise its level though. It's in a good spot where it is. A dual-school level 7 spell would be just too hard to get on a non-Chei melee character.

If any change is required I think Dragon Form should be buffed. The most obvious buff is to increase the amount of HP it gives. +50%? Bah! Let's try it with +100% or even +200%. You're a giant dragon after all, and it would compensate for the crappy defenses.

Note: if statue form gives +40 ac+ev compared to dragon form, as my experience suggests, that's the equivalent of like 4x improved ability to take punishment (if the punishment is reducible by ac/ev). So +200% hp on dragon form would just be keeping pace.

[bcadren]

Dragon Form's +50% HP is actually better defenses around hellfire IMHO. rF++ HP+50% is great in Gehenna...

[radinms]

You shouldn't forget torment.

[gammafunk]

Statue form in no way gives "+40 ac+ev" compared to dragon form, which is a pretty hilariously inaccurate claim, unless you've chosen stats and skills incredibly poorly with dragon form. When I have ozo and phase shift with dragon form, I usually have defenses near close to 30 in both AC and EV well before the end of the game, which makes it very easy to win given damage and HP. Statue might have 15-20 higher AC+EV in comparison with the equivalent buffs of stoneskin and phase, but then you get 50% slower actions, so...

[Berder]

+40 ac+ev may be too high an estimate. 15-20 I think is significantly too low.

Octopodes benefit most from statue form, and don't meld much with dragon form either. My own experience with octopodes is mostly where I'm getting my estimates in the previous post from. Let's take a look at the average ac+ev of winning 3-rune octopodes.

  Code:

<halberd> !lg * status~~dragon ac>0 ev>0 x=avg(ac+ev) op won urune=3
<Sequell> 8 games for * (status~~dragon ac>0 ev>0 op won urune=3): avg(ac+ev)=42.62
<halberd> !lg * status~~statue ac>0 ev>0 x=avg(ac+ev) op won urune=3
<Sequell> 33 games for * (status~~statue ac>0 ev>0 op won urune=3): avg(ac+ev)=77.18


So that's about +35 ac+ev for statue form compared to dragon form, for octopodes, with 3 runes.

Let's look at 15 runes for octopodes:

  Code:

<halberd> !lg * status~~dragon ac>0 ev>0 x=avg(ac+ev) op won urune=15
<Sequell> 10 games for * (status~~dragon ac>0 ev>0 op won urune=15): avg(ac+ev)=54
<halberd> !lg * status~~statue ac>0 ev>0 x=avg(ac+ev) op won urune=15
<Sequell> 55 games for * (status~~statue ac>0 ev>0 op won urune=15): avg(ac+ev)=91.31


+46 for statue form.

For 3 runes, across all races:

  Code:

<halberd> !lg * status~~dragon ac>0 ev>0 x=avg(ac+ev) won urune=3
<Sequell> 92 games for * (status~~dragon ac>0 ev>0 won urune=3): avg(ac+ev)=45.15
<halberd> !lg * status~~statue ac>0 ev>0 x=avg(ac+ev) won urune=3
<Sequell> 100 games for * (status~~statue ac>0 ev>0 won urune=3): avg(ac+ev)=73.24


+28 ac+ev.

For 15 runes, across all races:

  Code:

<halberd> !lg * status~~dragon ac>0 ev>0 x=avg(ac+ev) won urune=15
<Sequell> 67 games for * (status~~dragon ac>0 ev>0 won urune=15): avg(ac+ev)=53.34
<halberd> !lg * status~~statue ac>0 ev>0 x=avg(ac+ev) won urune=15
<Sequell> 162 games for * (status~~statue ac>0 ev>0 won urune=15): avg(ac+ev)=82.44


+29 ac+ev.

Of course, as I'm sure you'll be quick to point out, these queries may hide certain confounding variables which could skew the results one way or another. If you have a better query that corrects for some of the confounding variables and still maintains an adequate sample size, I'd be happy to hear it, but please don't construe your correction as evidence against the very concept of looking at the data.

With an ac+ev advantage of 28-46, statue form can survive around 3-4x more damage than dragon form. That depends on which enemy you're fighting and assumes their attacks can be reduced by ac and ev. In that estimate I'm not accounting for statue form's greater GDR, which could be substantial if you're mostly taking melee damage. Nor am I accounting for RMSL/DMSL, which would amplify statue form's evasion advantage against ranged attacks.

[gammafunk]

Sequell data is terrible for this question, since the data you should be looking at is simply the stats you get with the appropriate spells, stats, and skills trained in Wizard mode. Sequell is additionally contaminated by things like quaffing agility, some people having/not-having their buffs or not having their buffs, etc when you only have 8 results in some queries. Not to mention that the extra bonus from stoneskin was removed in trunk.

[Berder]

So wizmode it then instead of just griping.

[Sar]

For me, Chei + statue form is comically easy

I can't even imagine going into postend with Chei, how the hell do you people do that?

[archaeo]

I've always liked tabstorm's idea of replacing ice form with statue form in the starting book. But switching dform and statue form doesn't really make a ton of sense.

I can't even imagine going into postend with Chei, how the hell do you people do that?

I mean, Chei has a usable panic button, and with cheistats and 5 runes of XP you can be very buff. Slow movement just means you take it easy and think about what can happen during your move. You also probably don't use statue form when you can get hellfire'd to death, like tabstorm did, and I'll shut up I know this isn't a thread about Chei.

[dynast]

You cant get ac up to 40 without the help of gear or max spellpower statue form + stoneskin, but you can get ev to 40 based on your species, where dragon form can get over 40 ac with ozo's armour but nowhere near 40 ev unless you have shaolin and phase shift, but then again, you would have 60 ev on statue form in that case.

Statue form can also use cloak, hat, shield and a branded weapon.

If you think that transmutations are all about doing damage then it just shows how little you understand about transmutations.

I can't even imagine going into postend with Chei, how the hell do you people do that?

Controlled blink?

[Sar]

In one of my two Chei wins I never found the spell.

[radinms]

CBlink is not needed even if chei-15runes.

My chei 15runes were statue form or ghoul or eternal torment crown user.

MfTm^Chei 15runes (Statue Form)
http://lazy-life.ddo.jp:8080/morgue/rad ... 084543.txt

GhMo^Chei 15runes
http://lazy-life.ddo.jp:8080/morgue/rad ... 044925.txt

MiTm^Chei 15runes (crown)
http://lazy-life.ddo.jp:8080/morgue/rad ... 142110.txt

[Sandman25]

MiTm^Chei 15runes (crown)
http://lazy-life.ddo.jp:8080/morgue/rad ... 142110.txt

Strange that they removed the crown. The character proves that the item was making sense.

[radinms]

yeah, that crown is absurdly powerful item.

but that MiTm got statue form, so without that crown, easy to get 15runes.

[Sandman25]

radinms
I like this http://lazy-life.ddo.jp:8080/morgue/rad ... 151605.txt your character the most, DD of Chei with Vampiric Draining in GDA

[radinms]

IMO DD^Chei is most optimal DD at nomal 3runes game.

but strangely many people disagree it. strange

[tabstorm]

For me, Chei + statue form is comically easy

I can't even imagine going into postend with Chei, how the hell do you people do that?

Same as the rest of the game. Use statue form around tormenters. Good use of his abilities (especially the 2nd one, I forget its name) is important. Being undead helps, Gh is Chei is extremely easy in post-end, even though you can't use statue form. Hardly anything will damage you except Hellfire, Torment (if not undead), or Archdemons since you have like 40/30. It's good also to have Passage so you can reposition without a ton of walking. This is true of other gods but especially with Chei, since the main way you can get in trouble is having to reposition due to ranged attackers.

I really don't think movespeed is that important past early floors where every other enemy can kill you, if you are a meleer. There are almost no relevant speed > 10 melee-only monsters past early game. Hydras, maybe, when you are in Lair. Much better to have high defense and attack power. For instance, I will wear the Hat of Pondering every time if i want Int. I don't care about .1 move, nothing important will outrun me.

[Sar]

Hardly anything will damage you except Hellfire, Torment (if not undead), or Archdemons since you have like 40/30

That's already true for most of the postend characters I've played and those moved at 1.0 (or 1.4) turns and could use haste.

[Sandman25]

IMO DD^Chei is most optimal DD at nomal 3runes game.

but strangely many people disagree it. strange

Maybe it's because only one background starts with Vampriric Draining and no backgrounds start with vampiric weapon?

[tabstorm]

I mean, you also get rTorm. Much easier to not get into trouble when your HP isn't being halved constantly. I found it safer than the guys I played with Makhleb (but they were a little underleved compared to my Chei characters).

[Sandman25]

Just get rid of Ice form, it's bad anyway imo

Why? I am playing DrTm at the moment and I was shocked to kill 2 Ice Dragons in Ice Cave at XL 11 without any problems (I felt sorry about quaffing !haste before the fight).
It makes Lair a breeze: +9 base damage and cold brand.

[dynast]

http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/Dynast/morg ... 203234.txt

I consider chei good for its status boost, since you can easily learn spells like tornado and dragon's call, which doesnt rely on how fast you are.

56936 | Zot:5 | Noticed an orb of fire
56936 | Zot:5 | Killed an orb of fire

And you can also "explore" things to death.

[gammafunk]

You cant get ac up to 40 without the help of gear or max spellpower statue form + stoneskin, but you can get ev to 40 based on your species, where dragon form can get over 40 ac with ozo's armour but nowhere near 40 ev unless you have shaolin and phase shift, but then again, you would have 60 ev on statue form in that case.

You'll have 39 ev with dragon form + phase if you level dex (25 dex in this case) and have very high dodging, and over 40 if you find some +Dex jewelry. You've got about 44 ev in statue with phase and the same stats/skills compared to dform's 39. That's a lot of XP to sink into dodging, but it certainly doesn't take a crazy rare EV ring to get there nor is it 40 ev versus 60 ev. The hat and cloak are nice, but I don't think the advanced forms are good except for Fe and Op, so Op gets a 3 AC from a hat.

No one ever said transmutations are all about doing damage (there's a lot of mention of the HP differences and action speed, if you pay attention), but the numbers some people throw out don't have much basis in reality.

[dynast]

but failed to mention, you know, the most important thing, namely damage.

Someone did.

Whatever ev you get on dragon form you will have more or the same on statue form, and statue form gets more ac than dragon form, i dont even know why i bothered to try and use numbers since they dont matter in this case.

My whole point is that players who think dragon form is overall better than statue form havent played enough transmuters, or are handcapping themselves for the sake of roleplaying as a fearsome dragon by training more than a spell is worth and worse than another spell that can share the same book. I also believe that statue form is way more useful than just for punching that dragon form is. Because of that i think their spell levels should be switched.

The only scenario i can see dragon form being more useful than statue form is when dealing with fire sources or spellcasters with LRD.