POLL: OP spells?

[onget]

animate skeleton is a powerful it is possible to use a powerful ally in the investment of less XP.

lv1 summoning does not get a titan, but, animate skeleton gets a titan.

[Sprucery]

Spectral Weapon: good as it is, so that it's usable for many characters. It's only in one book IIRC so unless you're a Skald it's by no means guaranteed. And even though spell balance shouldn't probably be judged based on rarity, it's good that random characters that find the spell might actually be able to use it.

Animate Skeleton: I don't have experience on the new expiring skeletons. Previously it was horribly OP.

Apportation: should be higher. Because of traps it is optimal to apport items instead of walking to them. This is bad and should change. Maybe it should just give contamination, so that you couldn't spam it but it would still be situationally useful.

Haste: I have always advocated for raising it but I'm sure it won't happen. It used to be level 8 a long time ago (it was better then and no contamination existed though so maybe 7 would suffice).

Blade Hands: could be raised to 6 due to its power. Then again, I've yet to win a Tm so...

[tabstorm]

Apportation: should be higher. Because of traps it is optimal to apport items instead of walking to them. This is bad and should change. Maybe it should just give contamination, so that you couldn't spam it but it would still be situationally useful.

That's because detectable floor traps are bad in any roguelike, not due to apport being overpowered.

I seriously cannot understand how people think Haste is overpowered. You don't even get it castable until Depths most of the time, if you have light enough armor and high enough INT. It's good, but in heavier armor you're putting like 12-16 points into charms and several into spellcasting, when you likely have a wand of hasting and a decent stack of potions of haste.

[radinms]

I seriously cannot understand how people think Haste is overpowered. You don't even get it castable until Depths most of the time, if you have light enough armor and high enough INT. It's good, but in heavier armor you're putting like 12-16 points into charms and several into spellcasting, when you likely have a wand of hasting and a decent stack of potions of haste.

because characters without haste spell is almost inferior to worshiper of chei.
strangely many people at tavern hate chei, so they need haste spell because they want to say "chei is shit! because chei forbides haste!".

[Sandman25]

I seriously cannot understand how people think Haste is overpowered. You don't even get it castable until Depths most of the time, if you have light enough armor and high enough INT. It's good, but in heavier armor you're putting like 12-16 points into charms and several into spellcasting, when you likely have a wand of hasting and a decent stack of potions of haste.

There is a huge difference between limited resource and unlimited one. Here is my last character with Haste who was in extended.

  Code:

Haste             |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |    12 |   121 ||   133

As you can see I didn't cast it until late game but it didn't make the spell non-OP. It's almost impossible to die when you can cast the spell before every dangerous fight and even before entering every Pan level.

[Lasty]

Animate Skeleton is still completely bonkers, but to get the most out of it you have to play a little more aggressively than some players are comfortable with. If you're a "rest til everything is full after every encounter, spam highest level spells at each threat" sort of player, it's only as good as a mid-level summon spell (still pretty good). If you roll with your skeleton army, it does a pretty good job of sweeping floors for you.

The fundamental problem is that skeletons and zombies are a significant fraction of the power of, say, spectres, making the results of rolling with your army of animate skeleton / animate dead not all that much less effective than Death Channel. The primary difference is that with the level 6 spell you get your minions immediately; with the level 4 version you have to take a turn to get your monsters; with the level 1 version you mostly don't get the minions until the next fight. Overall that really only matters when you're fighting against a horde.

[Magipi]

I seriously cannot understand how people think Haste is overpowered. You don't even get it castable until Depths most of the time, if you have light enough armor and high enough INT. It's good, but in heavier armor you're putting like 12-16 points into charms and several into spellcasting, when you likely have a wand of hasting and a decent stack of potions of haste.

There is a huge difference between limited resource and unlimited one. Here is my last character with Haste who was in extended.

  Code:

Haste             |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |    12 |   121 ||   133

As you can see I didn't cast it until late game but it didn't make the spell non-OP. It's almost impossible to die when you can cast the spell before every dangerous fight and even before entering every Pan level.

And that 133 isn't even much. This is my last 15-runer:

  Code:

      Haste             |       |       |       |       |       |    29 |    43 |    50 |   159 ||   281

[Berder]

Animate Skeleton is still completely bonkers, but to get the most out of it you have to play a little more aggressively than some players are comfortable with. If you're a "rest til everything is full after every encounter, spam highest level spells at each threat" sort of player,

If you have to play more aggressively to make Animate Skeleton "OP", then it's not OP. Aggressive play is a huge handicap, far outweighing any imaginable benefit from Animate Skeleton! Aggressive play is what kills most players!

it's only as good as a mid-level summon spell (still pretty good).

"mid level summon" = level 4 or 5 summon? The list is: ice beast, lightning spire, guardian golem, mana viper, summon demon, summon forest, shadow creatures. Aside from guardian golem those are all uniformly more powerful than skeletons, because they aren't slow and can be re-summoned in the middle of a fight.

With cautious play - I'm an authority on that - what Animate Skeleton typically means is about two slow skeletons left over from the previous fight, half the time. Other times you have no skeletons. Skeletons are slow, which means as you autoexplore they're often left behind (yeah yeah you can adjust your movement speed... then you have even fewer skeletons because the delay between fights is longer). Skeletons are slow, which means they're bad at running out in front of you to stop enemies from getting at you, and also bad at keeping up with you if you're charging a ranged enemy. Skeletons usually deal pretty lame damage output compared to the enemies you're fighting, and are primarily useful as blockers, until they die, which happens soon. All in all they are nothing like the level 4 or 5 summons (except guardian golem).

The fundamental problem is that skeletons and zombies are a significant fraction of the power of, say, spectres, making the results of rolling with your army of animate skeleton / animate dead not all that much less effective than Death Channel. The primary difference is that with the level 6 spell you get your minions immediately; with the level 4 version you have to take a turn to get your monsters; with the level 1 version you mostly don't get the minions until the next fight. Overall that really only matters when you're fighting against a horde.

There are more differences than that! Death Channel not only gives you allies immediately, it gives you far more allies than Animate Dead or Animate Skeleton does, because every enemy that could potentially leave a corpse leaves a spectral thing, regardless of whether they actually leave a corpse. With DChan you can roll around a level with a big army, even with cautious play. With new Animate Skeleton/Animate Dead, you cannot.

Also, spectral things are not slow, which is huge.

[Sandman25]

Berder,

I am not sure what you are trying to prove. That level 5 spells are usually better than level 1 spell? Yes, it is true, usually. My last character used both Animate Skeleton and Summon Hydra/Ice Beasts/Lightning Spire/Shadow Creatures and I cannot say that Animate Skeleton was worse. A skeleton of Elephant, Hydra, Death Yak for 1 MP is not OP, really?

[Berder]

Berder,

I am not sure what you are trying to prove. That level 5 spells are usually better than level 1 spell? Yes, it is true, usually.

Well, Lasty seemed to think it wasn't true, so...

My last character used both Animate Skeleton and Summon Hydra/Ice Beasts/Lightning Spire/Shadow Creatures and I cannot say that Animate Skeleton was worse. A skeleton of Elephant, Hydra, Death Yak for 1 MP is not OP, really?

It takes a lot more than 1 MP to make an Elephant/Hydra/Death Yak skeleton. First you have to actually kill the Elephant/Hydra/Death Yak, and you must be capable of doing this without the support of any undead, because often you won't have any. This alone means you don't need Animate Skeleton to finish killing the level - you are capable of killing the rest of the things in the level the same way you killed that Elephant/Hydra/Death Yak, i.e. without allies. So the skeletons are completely optional, and only make an already adequate character slightly more adequate, rather than giving an inadequate character the tools for victory.

Then maybe the Elephant/Hydra/Death Yak doesn't leave a corpse, so you have to kill another. What's the chances of one of those monsters leaving a corpse? 1/2? 1/3? So you have to kill 2 or 3 of them to get one skeleton.

Then there's the fact that there may be more elephants/death yaks or other monsters around, preventing you from safely walking to the corpse. So really you have to kill the entire elephant/death yak herd, and everything else nearby as well, before you can make that skeleton.

Then one fight after you make the skeleton, it's dead or timed out. It's even odds whether the skeleton actually does anything for you in that fight, because it's slow. If it doesn't manage to land a few hits or get in the way of enemies in that next fight then it had 0 value to you.

So the true cost of that one skeleton is much more than 1 MP. The cost is killing 2 or 3 elephant/hydra/death yaks, and killing everything else in the area, then walking out to the corpse before it rots - and the corpse might be several steps out from your position, and is therefore it's an additional risk to walk to it. Safer play after a fight is to immediately retreat rather than hanging around the battleground messing with the corpses.

[Sandman25]

Let's not forget about snowball effect. It's possible to kill some Sheeps, animate their corpses, kill some Yaks (with help of those sheeps), animate their corpses, kill some Elephants, animate their corpses. 1 MP cost is trivial, I even animate green rats in Lair with some characters.
My last character was unable to kill Catoblepas without animate skeleton but it was easy after I animated some elephants and a hydra. Basically I disagree that the spell cannot change a weak character to a strong one, you can use some non-spammable ability like evocable or divine help to kill first monsters and then enjoy free army.

[Sandman25]

Analyzing poll results I see that Blade Hands is the most problematic spell, votes split almost in half (12 Yes, 15 No).

[ZipZipskins]

Huh people have strong and divided opinions about transmutation spells? I never would have guessed

[Berder]

Let's not forget about snowball effect. It's possible to kill some Sheeps, animate their corpses, kill some Yaks (with help of those sheeps), animate their corpses, kill some Elephants, animate their corpses.

In my experience this is unlikely.

Necromancer is not a particularly streak-worthy background. Take a look at viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15936. Ne breaks a lot of streaks. If skeletons and zombies were so strong then Ne would be strong. But it's not. Observe that most of those Ne streak results were from before Animate Skeleton/Animate Dead were gutted, so it would be even weaker now.

[Sandman25]

In my experience this is unlikely.

Necromancer is not a particularly streak-worthy background. Take a look at viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15936. Ne breaks a lot of streaks. If skeletons and zombies were so strong then Ne would be strong. But it's not. Observe that most of those Ne streak results were from before Animate Skeleton/Animate Dead were gutted, so it would be even weaker now.

In my experience it is possible. Probably we have different definition for OP, to me it does not mean that I cannot die if I have an OP spell.
Sorry, I don't care about other players much, I played one Ne online (Na, not exactly easy species, right?) and it resulted in a win. I suspect those players neglected to use animate skeleton on rats and alike.

[ZipZipskins]

I was just about to ask what species those streak breakers were, typically. I can't actually look at the graphic at work.

[mps]

re: haste, we've got a thread in YASD or w/e that shit is about an AK that died in large part because they got haste in the midgame. It's an endgame spell and I mean if people are saying, with some justice, that the game is over by the time you get to lair, why are we even thinking about what happens after you've got two lair runes? Unless you totally don't know what you're doing, 2 runes = gg in like 9 out of 10 games.

haste should be level 7? smdh...

[Sandman25]

I was just about to ask what species those streak breakers were, typically. I can't actually look at the graphic at work.

Losses:
6: DD
4: Ds, Vp
3: Hu
2: Mu, Op, Ha, Ko
1: Na, Dg, Og, HO

[duvessa]

Necromancer is not a particularly streak-worthy background. Take a look at viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15936. Ne breaks a lot of streaks. If skeletons and zombies were so strong then Ne would be strong. But it's not. Observe that most of those Ne streak results were from before Animate Skeleton/Animate Dead were gutted, so it would be even weaker now.

yes this conclusion definitely follows from that data

[Wahaha]

Analyzing poll results I see that Blade Hands is the most problematic spell, votes split almost in half (12 Yes, 15 No).

Spectral weapon is by far the most OP spell in that list so you shouldn't take the results seriously. Blade hands is my 2nd pick though. It does puzzle me why according to the poll spectral weapon is the least OP spell. I mean, a level 3 spell that increases melee damage by more than 70%? lol are you serious?

[gammafunk]

they need haste spell because they want to say "chei is shit! because chei forbides haste!".

No, they're not talking about the haste spell, they're talking about haste potions and the wand of hasting, because that's how most people use haste.

[Sandman25]

No, they're not talking about the haste spell, they're talking about haste potions and the wand of hasting, because that's how most people use haste.

I suspect most people play spell-less melee also. Or at least cast no 5+ level spells.

[Berder]

Necromancer is not a particularly streak-worthy background. Take a look at viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15936. Ne breaks a lot of streaks. If skeletons and zombies were so strong then Ne would be strong. But it's not. Observe that most of those Ne streak results were from before Animate Skeleton/Animate Dead were gutted, so it would be even weaker now.

yes this conclusion definitely follows from that data

never agreed more.

Unlike you and I, whose brotherly souls resonate with this shared truth, there may be some doubters who don't agree with you. To them I might mention that even if they deny the data directly implies the conclusion, the data is certainly supporting evidence for it, and where is their data?

[tasonir]

It isn't going to be a flawless, direct cause and effect, but it certainly does suggest that that's the case. There are still people like me who play necromancers incorrectly and don't care, for example: http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/tasonir/mor ... 041904.txt Never cast animate skeleton once; learned regeneration as soon as I hit level 3 (on d:1). Didn't actually cast it until the level 7-9 bucket on the action table, which is about when I also started casting animate dead, which I did use throughout the game. This was the third game in a four game streak, so it would be part of the streak statistics too (it was also during the double damage bug, however).

Still the fact that necromancers are weak for streaking shows the general case of hybrid classes being more difficult imho, and animate skeleton doesn't overcome that. I can see the point of complaints that near end game you get a pretty powerful minion for 1 mana, but I don't really see that being more practical than just using animate dead. The 3 mana difference isn't much to pay at that point and it's much more usable in combat situations. Basically I have a hard time seeing how animate skeleton is optimal in late game (say in the depths) when you could use animate dead instead.

[tabstorm]

Ne is like the 4th best class in the game. You just aren't playing optimally enough!

Not that anyone should fault you for that. Given the choice between attempts at optimal play and not playing I think almost anyone would choose the latter.

[ZipZipskins]

I looked at 2 of the DDNes, one was crate quitting on d:6 (probably because it was a DDNe), one was a DDNe with neither animate skeleton or animate dead

There's a DsNe that blew themselves up with an inner flamed zombie, a VpNe who died in Snake, a VpNe with only 5 casts of animate dead

I mean this is just five I pulled at random but the individual morgues are much more telling than a nebulous mass of data and none of these morgues tells the story of a useless animate skeleton. any necromancer in a streak that makes it through lair tells the opposite story.

[duvessa]

To them I might mention that even if they deny the data directly implies the conclusion, the data is certainly supporting evidence for it, and where is their data?

Still the fact that necromancers are weak for streaking

Sometimes I wonder if you two are having some kind of secret competition to make the most incorrect statements possible about crawl and statistics.

[CanOfWorms]

a VpNe who died in Snake

That was me! To be honest I suicided that one because I took Sif and spread XP too thinly.

[Baldu3]

How to properly abuse spectral weapon:
1- use polearms
2- find enemies
3- bring enemies to corridor
4- when contact is made on one side with enemies cast spectral weapon (weapon will thus appear behind you)
5- tab whole fight at average 150% damage for 3 mana and no glow

I wouldn't call spectral weapon OP with any other weapon because it's so annoying and time consuming to use well that i end up not using it.

edit: for haste, i find the consumables just fine, but the spell not so fine. Using spell haste on all meaningful fights or on summons/allies is so good, it's a bit much.

[Berder]

I looked at 2 of the DDNes, one was crate quitting on d:6 (probably because it was a DDNe),

That's more likely because it is Crate. Crate is known for reaching lair and then quitting. He quit on d:10 not d:6.

one was a DDNe with neither animate skeleton or animate dead

The next DDNe on the list did use both spells a few times, before dying in elf. It's telling that a player trying to continue a 4 streak didn't find either spell that useful.

There's a DsNe that blew themselves up with an inner flamed zombie,

What else does that tell you? It tells you that the zombies and skeletons alone weren't enough to kill the stuff, so he resorted to a scroll of immo instead. In fact it looks like he was using the zombies to help improve immo damage. A stronger character wouldn't have needed to use immo and therefore would have survived.

a VpNe who died in Snake,

Would you deny the significance?

a VpNe with only 5 casts of animate dead

I don't know what VpNe you're looking at. The next VpNe on the list (herbaltea) had 71 casts of Animate Dead, and yet died to an orc warlord with a wand of fire. Zombies don't protect you against bolts very well. The next losing VpNe after that died on D:4 to an ogre, neglecting to use either spell (see above), and the next VpNe after that used animate skeleton 33 times before dying to a hill giant.

[Sandman25]

I wouldn't call spectral weapon OP with any other weapon because it's so annoying and time consuming to use well that i end up not using it.

What do you mean? With any other weapon you just don't fight in corridor. It is excellent with any weapon vs a single enemy (unless the enemy uses axe and even then it can be beneficial provided you get first attack or your weapon is good enough to deal more damage to enemy than to you).

[Sandman25]

I am not sure what games you are talking about but it looks weird to me. If a player does not use Animate foo when it is castable, then the player is not playing optimal, there is no other explanation (unless it is with good god of course). I am sure there are players who don't play optimal even when trying to continue 4 games streak.
Comment about zombies protecting badly vs wand of fire is hilarious to me because having lots of allies with low EV (and zombies have the worst EV possible among all allies) is the best defense vs such wands. Do you know other backgrounds who provide a better defense?

[Berder]

I am not sure what games you are talking about but it looks weird to me. If a player does not use Animate foo when it is castable, then the player is not playing optimal, there is no other explanation (unless it is with good god of course). I am sure there are players who don't play optimal even when trying to continue 4 games streak.

Yes, maybe... but I see the longest streak that was broken by a Ne was hyperelliptic's 13-streak, broken by an OpNe that didn't use either spell (and died to a minotaur in lab, where neither spell could have helped). hyperelliptic is probably the single best Crawl player.

Commend about zombies protecting bad vs wand of fire is hilarious to me because having lots of allies with low EV (and zombies have the worse EV possible) is the best defense vs such wands. Do you know other backgrounds who provide a better defense?

You know that wand of fire penetrates and has LOS range, don't you? So if the orc warlord is 2 squares from edge of LOS, the bolt of fire can hit a zombie and still hit you. A better defense would be a background that can kill the orc warlord quickly, such as FE or Be.

[Sandman25]

I can't see the elliptic's game at http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/elliptic, are you sure it ended 13-games streak? If elliptic didn't use the spell, he was not playing optimally.

Wand of fire fires bolt of fire and bolt of fire becomes 1 tile shorter every time it hits something. Let me test it in wizmode though to be sure that the wand works exactly the same way as Bolt of Fire casted by player.

Edit. Using the wand vs 7 goblins in corridor:

  Code:

Evoke which item? (* to show all) (? for menu, Esc to quit)
Zapping: m - a wand of fire (24)
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f - goblin
Aim: a goblin
The bolt of fire hits the goblin.(damage 17)
You kill the goblin!
The bolt of fire misses the goblin.
The bolt of fire hits the goblin.(damage 18)
You kill the goblin!
The bolt of fire hits the goblin.(damage 16)
You kill the goblin!
This wand has 23 charges left.

So yes, I was right, the bolt had range 4 instead of 7 because it hit 3 goblins.

[Baldu3]

I wouldn't call spectral weapon OP with any other weapon because it's so annoying and time consuming to use well that i end up not using it.

What do you mean? With any other weapon you just don't fight in corridor. It is excellent with any weapon vs a single enemy (unless the enemy uses axe and even then it can be beneficial provided you get first attack or your weapon is good enough to deal more damage to enemy than to you).

You're right, vs single dangerous enemies spectral weapon is frequently worth using outside a corridor, except if the enemy can cause group damage or one shot the weapon. Against dangerous groups though it's not a fun puzzle to solve when i could just walk back to the nearest corridor. As for non dangerous singles/groups well it helps clear a bit quicker but whatever i guess.

Just saying I find it OP with polearms because it's almost always possible then to use it for big increase of damage for very little cost and effort, while with other weapons it isn't almost always possible or desirable unless I spend wayyy too much time thinking about where i shoudl move to make it appear at a good spot and stay at a good spot further into the fight, and doing that makes the game not fun to me, so I don't do it.

[archaeo]

Just saying I find it OP with polearms because it's almost always possible then to use it for big increase of damage for very little cost and effort, while with other weapons it isn't almost always possible or desirable unless I spend wayyy too much time thinking about where i shoudl move to make it appear at a good spot and stay at a good spot further into the fight, and doing that makes the game not fun to me, so I don't do it.

I mean, that's why I find Spectral Weapon (and, to some extent, Animate Skeleton) interesting: unlike the other buffs being discussed in this thread, it changes how you actually play instead of just making the way you're already playing better.

It's possible it's too cheap at level 3 (current skeletons strike me as fine at level 1, tbh), but at least these spells take up space and feel consequential as opposed to spells like BH or Haste, which mostly just shift numbers around to be in your favor. Magic should feel magical, you know what I'm saying?

[Sandman25]

Apportation, Blade Hands, Animate Skeleton and Haste change the way I play too. Actually I find Spectral Weapon the least interesting here, it is "just making the way you're already playing better".

[Berder]

So yes, I was right, the bolt had range 4 instead of 7 because it hit 3 goblins.

Yes, lightning bolt is the only bolt that doesn't reduce range when it hits an enemy (or ally). The point is that zombie blockers are ineffective against bolts. You're unlikely to have 3 zombie blockers directly along the line of fire, and the enemy can just get closer to you, and he doesn't have to be very close. Even with 2 blockers he can stand 2 squares from edge of LOS and hit you.

[Sandman25]

I don't need 3 blockers. When I see a monster near edge of the LoS, I retreat behind summons and I am safe. Skeletons help vs banishment, confusion, slow too, I really think Ne is one of the best backgrounds, especially with Kiku when you are guaranteed to get an excellent weapon and lots of corpses on new levels.

[ZipZipskins]

a VpNe who died in Snake,

Would you deny the significance?

I sure would, because as is true with most of these deaths, a death in Snake tells you fuck all about the strength of someone's starting package or two given spells.

[Berder]

Would you deny the significance?

I sure would, because as is true with most of these deaths, a death in Snake tells you fuck all about the strength of someone's starting package or two given spells.

The premise of those who believe Animate Skeleton/Animate Dead are powerful, is that it's powerful all game, not just in the early game.

I don't need 3 blockers. When I see a monster near edge of the LoS, I retreat behind summons and I am safe.

Ridiculous. That's the same kind of logic as "I always fight enemies one on one so axes are useless." It applies only to an idealized version of crawl that does not exist. I attribute it to optimism bias, where people tend to remember situations where things went the way they want and forget other situations. In crawl, you need a pessimism bias, because the worst possible scenarios are the ones that kill you.

You wouldn't even know the orc warlord had a wand of fire until he zaps it, at which point he's likely to be quite closer than edge of LOS. If he's a square or two in from the edge of LOS, your skeletons/zombies won't do shit for blocking the beam. Even if you do run away when he's at edge of LOS, you're just going to encounter him later around a corner when he's closer to you.

[Sar]

what usually kills me in Crawl is my own stupidity though

the only way axes could help here if I applied one directly to the forehead

[Siegurt]

what usually kills me in Crawl is my own stupidity though

the only way axes could help here if I applied one directly to the forehead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_SwD7RveNE

I think there needs to be a unique axe named 'headon'

[Berder]

Yred injury mirror pro strat

[Sandman25]

Ridiculous. That's the same kind of logic as "I always fight enemies one on one so axes are useless." It applies only to an idealized version of crawl that does not exist. I attribute it to optimism bias, where people tend to remember situations where things went the way they want and forget other situations. In crawl, you need a pessimism bias, because the worst possible scenarios are the ones that kill you.

You wouldn't even know the orc warlord had a wand of fire until he zaps it, at which point he's likely to be quite closer than edge of LOS. If he's a square or two in from the edge of LOS, your skeletons/zombies won't do shit for blocking the beam. Even if you do run away when he's at edge of LOS, you're just going to encounter him later around a corner when he's closer to you.

When I am saying "I do foo and I am safe vs bar" it does not mean that I can NEVER be affected by bar, it means that there are SOME situations when foo makes me immune to bar and it would not happen without foo.
The same with animate skeleton by the way, when people are saying that animate skeelton is an OP spell, it does not mean that they cannot die or that animate skeleton makes it easier to kill Cerebov, they are saying that the spell is too powerful for level 1. Compare it to the rest of level 1 spells, not to Death's Door

Edit. Sorry, removed insult.

[archaeo]

It's ridiculous how you are reading arguments.

I'm pretty sure aggressively misreading arguments is the whole reason we're here dude, let's not rock the boat.

[Sandman25]

Consider banishment - I see Erolcha and there is a skeleton right behind me. I swap positions and now I am 100% safe vs banishment.
Of course it does not mean that Erolcha cannot banish the skeleton and then me or that Erolcha cannot get first action and banish me immediately. Saying that the skeleton is not helpful because it does not guarantee my safety is what I would call ridiculous.

[Sprucery]

I'm pretty sure aggressively misreading arguments is the whole reason we're here dude

How dare you claim that that is the only reason for our existence in this universe!

[Sandman25]

It got me thinking. When someone says something and there is no qualifier like "usually, always", what is the default? It looks like the default varies, it depends on context.
"Huge AC is better than huge EV" - usually.
"TSO does not allow to stab orcs" - always.

[byrel]

It got me thinking. When someone says something and there is no qualifier like "usually, always", what is the default? It looks like the default varies, it depends on context.
"Huge AC is better than huge EV" - usually.
"TSO does not allow to stab orcs" - always.

In the US at least this is highly culturally variable. I tend to mean always (or practically always), while my wife usually means usually by default. And we grew up <100 miles apart.

It's not one way...