The Tavern

Weapons acquired after completing Lair 1-7, Dungeon 1-15 and Orc 1-4, as a Formicid Fighter:

the +6 scimitar of Flaming Death (weapon) {flame, rPois rF++ rC- MR+}
the +7 lajatang of Order {silver, rMut}
the +14 Sword of Power
the +10 sword of Jihad {holy, *Rage rN+ EV+3 Stlth-}

and for sale:
the +14 plutonium sword {Contam Stlth-} (2240 gold)
the +8 mithril axe "Arga" {speed, MR+ Str+2} (1238 gold)

The RNG is generous today for a change.

As "acquired" do you mean via scrolls of acquirement?

Flaming death purchased, the rest were generated on the floors. No acquirement scroll yet.

haha, how unlucky.

Too bad you were either playing Unarmed or Mace/Flail.

While there's always some risk to the sword of Jihad without a way to prevent random berserking, I found it reasonably safe to use all game long if you plan your fights to avoid being swarmed. I'd probably use it, although if you go staves, lajatang of order is great too. I'd probably go jihad because then you can eventually upgrade to plutonium, though.

A Formicid Fighter will have innate stasis, so no need to worry about *Rage.

I'd just use the plutonium sword, though, because it is an (even) better weapon than sword of jihad, assuming you haven't found rod of clouds or something with this character, in addition to all those good weapons.

Fair point about him not being able to ever berserk. Definitely use jihad then. I only didn't say plutonium right away because 1) it's in a shop and he probably doesn't have the 2k gold yet, and 2) it'll take a lot more weapon skill. But if you're training for jihad, you probably have enough weapon skill around the time you can afford to buy it. It should definitely be the endgame weapon

I haven't personally seen the polymorph effects in action, but I think you could take care of it since you're swinging a +14 claymore.

Yeah if he doesn't have the gold yet that's a problem, but as long as you don't have a compelling reason to switch between wielded items (such as a rod), I'd say plutonium sword is better than jihad against non-evil at any combination of skill. And for Fo you don't even have to give up a shield for it. Though I suppose without being able to teleport you do need to be somewhat more careful about the occasional bad polymorph.

I had a halfling of Ash that found the sword of Jihad, I couldn't curse it, but that was okay.