The Tavern

Taken from another thread because I think that it's worth discussing.

tasonir wrote:
n1000 wrote:Even though I disagree with almost everything you've proposed I think this is a discussion worth having in general. I'm curious whether others could point out which consumables they hate

Consumables I almost never use (note this doesn't mean I hate them or they aren't useful, just that I tend to never use them):

Scrolls
Fog
Fear
Holy Wrath
Vulnerability
Silence
immolation
enchant weapon (when doing my usual unarmed builds - obviously it's good if you have a weapon!)

This isn't counting the generally bad scrolls like noise, torment, random uselessness, even if those have positive edge cases.

Potions

Berserk rage
Flight (prefer the ring; may use this if I can't find the ring)
cancellation

I have a harder time adding things to this list than scrolls, because there's some rarely used potions, I still have once in a while saved my life with potions like lignification and ambrosia. It may only come up in <10% of games, but it comes up, so I'll just list those three. I'm sure I've used berserk rage a few times, but generally not (conflicting with chei is probably at fault here).

Wands

Magic dart
frost
flame
disintegration
confusion
paralysis
polymorph
slowing
random effects

Again, I'll grant that paralysis/confusion/disintegration etc have some good power, and should probably be used, but I generally don't bother, and usually it's because I have pretty low evocations as I'm trying to overcome how crappy unarmed is until it gets higher up. I'll use an unidentified zap or two of these wands before dropping them when I run out of inventory space; it's not like I've never zapped these, just that I don't consider them worth carrying once 52 slots becomes an issue. This overall list is intended to be subjective, although there's some in here which could be fairly objectively cut - flame/frost/magic darts are pretty weak and if not all cut, at least replaced with a single "minor destruction" type wand.

As for me, here are the consumables I use rarely (as in most characters end up never using it) or never.

Scrolls:
Amnesia - I'm usually very careful not to learn spells I'll want to forget and use the book if I need to. Still use them a couple times for about 1/3rd of my casters
Holy Word - I hoard them like they're too precious to be used, I rarely end up using them in the extended or against ancient liches.
Silence - same as above, they sometimes but rarely see use to clear Elf:3 or deal with Ancient Liches
Noise - almost always carry one through Shoals. Almost always deal with mesmerizing by murderizing the culprit.
Vulnerability - usually carry them to make my /paralysis more useful in a pinch, but in a pinch I usually don't have the time for a two step process

Potions:
Flight - I also prefer the ring, I'll use it if I don't have one or it's an emergency and I can't take the time to ring swap
Mutation - if I find an early stack of !cure mut I might play the mutation rouletter, but that's it)
Cancellation - I'm not too clear on what statuses it can clear that are worth using it on, I end up carrying them around all the time for nothing
Invisibility - my stabbers tend to hoard them until they find a renewable source, the rest usually forget about them
Lignification - saved my ass in the early game, but I usually make it through this part without finding one or a situation for using one, and later not being able to run is too harsh

Wands:
Magic Darts/Flame/Frost - too weak to be worth the turn past the very early game. I occasionally carry a /MD to deal with evasive buggers like wasps but never use it
Slowing - if I can beat MR, I'd rather paralyze them
Random Effects - if it's an easy fight I don't want to waste consumables, if it's not I don't want to haste the opponent and find myself unable to escape
Draining - if I need a bolt wand I use fire/cold rather than something so often resisted

And that's it for me. How about you? Or have you suggestion on how me (or other posters) should use some consumables more often?

Cancellation - use to get rid of petrifying, polymorph, lignification or after going crazy with buffs to remove yellow contam.

Random Effects - good when you're on stairs or escape hatch and either there are at least 3 tiles between you and the monster or it is slowed.
Draining - fire it through your undead or demonic allies at your enemies.

Pollen_Golem wrote:Draining - fire it through your undead or demonic allies at your enemies.

Oooh clever!

I mainly use cancellation to get rid of a Mark I can't handle comfortably. Sometimes for petrification too.

Fog: Unseen Horrors, and other times when you don't have SInv.
Silence: You really ought to use these on Ancient Liches.
Immolation: Vaults:5, if you can one-shot a vault guard before they mob you/rF+++

consumables I basically never use on purpose:
potion of degeneration
potion of poison
scroll of curse armour
scroll of curse jewellery
scroll of curse weapon
scroll of holy word (except in 15-rune games)
scroll of immolation (useless, people who use this on v:5 need to learn what noise is)
scroll of noise (there are much better ways to get noise when you want it)
scroll of random uselessness
scroll of silence (too likely to get a crappy radius and make the situation worse instead of better)
scroll of torment (useless if not undead, even when undead I never remember it exists)
scroll of vulnerability (i don't play hex characters)

If you happened to id on early, wouldn't holy word be good against unseen horrors?

ydeve wrote:If you happened to id on early, wouldn't holy word be good against unseen horrors?

Unseen horrors are natural holiness. The name is misleading.

Since I mostly play demigod wanderers and those usually have really bad starts, in the early game I usually use all the wands I find to the last charge.

For the rest same list as duvessa except i'll bring noise if i go to shoals, i find immolation fun so i'll use even though it's usually a bad idea, silence i'll use if i'm playing a fighter and find a unique with problem spells, and i'll use vulnerability to cheese hard enemies with paralyze wands.

duvessa wrote:scroll of immolation (useless, people who use this on v:5 need to learn what noise is)

I cleared an Ice Cave end vault (frost giant, polar bears etc.) once with ?immolation. Highly satisfying. In a typical game I never use one, though (and I agree about V:5).

scroll of vulnerability (i don't play hex characters)

I tend to carry one around if I have a wand of paralysis/enslavement, but again, in a typical game I won't use the scroll even once.

Pollen_Golem wrote:Random Effects - good when you're on stairs or escape hatch and either there are at least 3 tiles between you and the monster or it is slowed.

That's way too situational.

Pollen_Golem wrote:Draining - fire it through your undead or demonic allies at your enemies.

I do that too, but most characters don't have either of those so it goes in the "never used" category most of the time.

Sprucery wrote:I mainly use cancellation to get rid of a Mark I can't handle comfortably. Sometimes for petrification too.

Oh, clever! I'll have to remember this one. The mark removal, I mean, I'm rarely bothered by petrification status.

Random Effect is good anytime you can reset a fight, it gives you all the strong effects. The only danger is that you have to be prepared to run if you get a bad effect (like hasting an enemy.) Draining is good because it's a bolt wand, I can use it on any character with evocations training. Most things also don't resist draining unless you're doing the extended game...

Certain Orc endings can be utterly destroyed with Immolation and (optionally, if you want to make it real safe) a source of invisibility, like the ogre swarm and the dreaded ranged vault.

Wands of Draining are the best attack wands along with Fireball. Fireball can't miss, which is fantastic, and Draining weakens enemies with its effect, making it way more effective than other attack wands even with little to no evocations skill.

Holy Word: I just used on one a player ghost

Aethrus wrote:Wands of Draining are the best attack wands along with Fireball. Fireball can't miss, which is fantastic, and Draining weakens enemies with its effect, making it way more effective than other attack wands even with little to no evocations skill.

Draining also makes less noise than other bolt spells (I am not sure if this applies to wands though)

Siegurt wrote:Draining also makes less noise than other bolt spells (I am not sure if this applies to wands though)

That reminds me that spell noise is no longer shown on the spell list. That's too bad because that's a moderately important balance factor for spells. Especially for the really noisy ones like Meph cloud. Speaking of which, I don't think there's a way to check wand noise. I've always assumed that they made as much noise as the related spell, but that doesn't say anything about things like Polymorph (I'm guessing it's mostly silent).

!mut is not cool because I usually eat mutagenic chunks one by one and stop if something great happens. When I quaff !mut I can easily get 2 awesome mutations and then, say, teleportitis.
!cancel is a good potion. I can wear-Id all the artifacts I can treat as possible-useful without worrying of *Contam.
!lignification is frequently used early in the game or somewhere in postend. Early on it gives tremendous AC and HP while late it is just a torment immunity. I always carry some while I'm somewhere in D8 or above and then gather it again when I'm going to do zig without Necromutation ready.
Almost every consumable have it's purpose. But while situation where I need consumable A can occur dozens of times, a situation where I need consumable B can happen twice or thrice during the 15-rune game. It doesn't make consuable B useless.
Btw, in my last games I almost entirely ceased using !cureMut. It doesnt make this potion being useless!

Immolation is incredibly powerful, but it's also one of the most situational effects. I generally carry it with me until I start getting heavy inventory pressure unless I have strong ranged combat, in which case I generally keep it until an inner flame explosion stops doing impressive levels of damage. There are a fair number of vaults that are easier w/ immolation.

Random effects is useful when you haven't found digging or disintegration yet and want to get into a sealed rock vault. Watch out for reflections from lightning though.

The Tavern

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