Nerf Pale Draconians


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Post Wednesday, 1st February 2017, 21:00

Nerf Pale Draconians

I dont know how, but I haven't gotten a Pale Dr in quite a while. I rarely ever want things to be remotely nerfed, but holy crap they are incredible. I really don't think they need the Fire/Air aptitudes. Steam breath is just insane.

EDIT: reason I suggest apt nerf and not steam breath nerf is because steam breath is what makes them interesting, aptitudes are somewhat arbitrary/flavor based given that we already have a Fire and an Air draconian.
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Post Wednesday, 1st February 2017, 22:53

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

If you tend to think dragon-sorts should generally have any leaning toward fire, knocking out any overlaps for the sake of it will reduce the chance of actually getting a mature type that has positive fire aptitude.

I do think fire and air sounds like a pretty strong potential combination... But while you might get lucky and get nice low-level books for each (pop up Mephitic Cloud+Ignite Poison etc.), it's not always simple to just sweep the table by actually combining the two schools.

Add to that it's only +1 of each and generally, early in the game it's arguable that training either fire or air alone leaves some obvious vulnerabilities. I've seen quite a few posts arguing that Air is rather difficult to pick up and run with, compared to other schools. Meanwhile some stuff will be immune to fire, it takes quite a bit of fire track to be really "good" imo (okay Sticky Flame is nice but has a long power gradient, and then shop for if you want ranged), and it doesn't have that many overlaps with other popular schools. There was a guide on Ogre fire mage that argued pretty much this.

Wikis have also noted that while steam blocks LOS, it isn't the highest damage cloud. Have you played Mottled or Yellow dracs much? I've only had them a little but their breath seemed to hit really hard. So relatively, I don't quite feel the inkling that steam is excessive for a drac.

I also kinda suspect that it's all too easy to decide a particular background is "incredible" based on just an occasional case turning out well with it. I've had lots of "incredible" characters flop for one bad tactical/keystroke move later in the game. And I've seen quite a few characters lack easy flow of drops/encounters despite backgrounds I was feeling sure were super strong up until then.
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dracos369, PleasingFungus

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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 00:48

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

Image

Taken from the end of http://colinmorris.github.io/blog/dcss_species.

Nerf grey draconians! Pale are actually on the lower end. This may have more to do with the ease of use - bonus AC is always helpful, steam breath has to be used properly to help you, etc etc.

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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 02:50

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

What strikes me as odd is that Black probably gives you the most leveled and indeed useful abilities (rElec is difficult to obtain, Flight makes terrain a non-issue and you don't have to mutate for it) while Grey is by far the most shallow of all of these (5AC isn't as much as it seems without GDR behind it, water walking is situational and unbreathing is only a bit more common than steam is).

What tasonir said was right, though I can't imagine why red doesn't surpass grey for its sheer strength. Could people be applying these abilities incorrectly? Do the breaths need to be described somewhere more explicitly for players? D-Do people read the manual? Ay, dios mios.
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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 04:34

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

By contrast, grey gives you the most uniformly useful ability (5ac) whereas black gives you a bunch of niche stuff that is never necessary and is rarely useful at all. I imagine most players know about the breath (it's the species gimmick) but remembering to occasionally use fire breath and fire clouding every monster that approaches you are not the same, and the first group of players are not taking full advantage of their draconian color's power.

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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 06:50

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

Elitist wrote:Black probably gives you the most leveled and indeed useful abilities (rElec is difficult to obtain, Flight makes terrain a non-issue and you don't have to mutate for it)


rElec is my lowest priority resist (used to be rCorr). In fact it's almost 0 priority assuming I can chug a resistance potion for the couple egolems you have to fight and if I end up running into Nikola.

Flight is totally lame. It makes Shoals less annoying but I've never felt unable to do Shoals because I lacked flight. I will admit that renewable flight is pretty important in Cocytus though.

5 AC is plenty good. Think about how many spells/projectiles/swings go against you in typical crawl fights (a ton) and also consider the fact that most deaths occur at barely <0 hp (e.g.,
<Sequell> 79522 games for * (dr-- xl>6 !win): avg(hp)=-1.86)

5 AC probably saves lots of lives!

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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 07:56

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

n1000 wrote:5 AC is plenty good. Think about how many spells/projectiles/swings go against you in typical crawl fights (a ton) and also consider the fact that most deaths occur at barely <0 hp (e.g.,
<Sequell> 79522 games for * (dr-- xl>6 !win): avg(hp)=-1.86)

5 AC probably saves lots of lives!


Well, another possible explanation is that most characters have relatively high AC and don't get much damage from a single attack. If a character is killed in 20 attacks without that extra AC, it would still die in 21-22 attacks with extra AC. Usually people have enough time to escape, it is just a player mistake when they die with -1 HP.
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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 09:46

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

n1000 wrote:5 AC is plenty good. Think about how many spells/projectiles/swings go against you in typical crawl fights (a ton) and also consider the fact that most deaths occur at barely <0 hp (e.g.,
<Sequell> 79522 games for * (dr-- xl>6 !win): avg(hp)=-1.86)
You should exclude games that ended to things other than damage. Quitting, leaving, starvation, old draining, drowning, old statdeath, lava death, wizmode, and old passwall death all killed at positive hp, skewing this average up.
  Code:
*Sequell* 75116 games for * (dr-- xl>6 hp<=0): avg(hp)=-4.95
Still not too far below 0, but a far cry from -1.86.

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n1000, VeryAngryFelid

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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 14:58

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

I am pretty damn surprised by this. Spammable LoS breaking feels insanely good. I know that fire is better for hallway control and damage, but early game just using steam breath was enough to kill ogres/entire orc packs/centaurs, the latter two being pretty deadly early game threats if you cant break LoS fast enough.
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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 15:37

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

TeshiAlair wrote:I am pretty damn surprised by this. Spammable LoS breaking feels insanely good. I know that fire is better for hallway control and damage, but early game just using steam breath was enough to kill ogres/entire orc packs/centaurs, the latter two being pretty deadly early game threats if you cant break LoS fast enough.

That's fair, except that with Breath limitations I'm not sure if I'd call it "spammable" I feel like your arguments would be end up equivalent to a line that most draconians are OP, though. Acid, fire, or even lightning (on a good day) can pretty easily wipe out most of those targets, too. At which point, I'd probably step back and say yes, but this species does not get nice torso armor egos. I'm more doubtful that it's all about pales.
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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 15:40

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

Pale breath can recover 2 turns fater using it and even though you damage your enemies with it you can remain unnoticed. That said, the breath does not do a bunch of damage and engaging into this breath spamming behavior is incredibly tedious.

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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 19:44

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

Passive abilities are stronger than active abilities for the vast majority of players.

stoneychips wrote:I also kinda suspect that it's all too easy to decide a particular background is "incredible" based on just an occasional case turning out well with it.


Oh yeah I learned the other day that octopodes are incredible, or maybe I'm just really good at crawl. It definitely wasn't the +4 ring of slaying I found on turn 6.
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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 20:17

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

Rast wrote:Oh yeah I learned the other day that octopodes are incredible, or maybe I'm just really good at crawl. It definitely wasn't the +4 ring of slaying I found on turn 6.

Instigator. You are now officially blamed for me wanting to start another character like now, already. Just in hopes of getting some ridiculous early drops... :evil:

PS Early power item envy!
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Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 01:16

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

stoneychips wrote:Instigator. You are now officially blamed for me wanting to start another character like now, already.


Yeah octopodes were a really strong race that game.

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   (You bought it in a shop on level 10 of the Dungeon)

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Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 02:52

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

Oh hey, that's my bar graph!

Regarding the discussion on black draconians, I should point out that my data doesn't give very strong evidence for them actually being the weakest colour. I did a separate long-winded post just on the statistical significance of the differences between draconian colours, but the TL;DR is:

- Grey draconians are definitely good. Significantly better than every other colour.
- Black, Mottled, and Yellow are all kind of crummy. The differences between their win rates are definitely not significant.
- Green and Red are both probably pretty good (their goodness relative to other colours is right around the borderline for 95% confidence).

(Also, to be perfectly clear, I'm using "X better than Y" as shorthand for "a typical online player is more likely to win if they get colour X", which doesn't necessarily imply that X would win more with perfect play.)

Bonus fun fact: The most common colour among draconians who quit the game at level 7 is green. The fools! Don't they know the stats? (Yellow is a very close second)

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Barkeep

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Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 04:06

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

Pale dracs could breathe fog instead of steam, if kiting things through low-damage clouds that break LOS is bad.

I'd actually suggest that maybe steam and fog are not different enough that they both need to exist...
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Post Monday, 6th February 2017, 23:23

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

While I do appreciate the rigor you applied to the statistical significance of the different win rates, I do think that when you're talking about a game (and not something that is critically important to get right, like medicine), even the things which aren't significant due to limited data are more likely to be in going the right way than to be the opposite of the truth.

Even I wouldn't make any claim about mottled vs yellow draconians, but I'd be pretty comfortable saying that white are better than black. I realize there's a chance that it's a fluke, but like I said it's a game and not medicine, so I'll take that risk.

At least we can all agree that gray are the best, and that's something that I have definitely felt in my own games, even though I haven't played that many draconians. I usually wish for gray :)

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Post Monday, 6th February 2017, 23:26

Re: Nerf Pale Draconians

Rast wrote:Yeah octopodes were a really strong race that game.

It's been almost 3 years and I still think back to my "regenopode" which I greatly regret YASD'ing: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=12408

Regen probably isn't as good as that +6 slay, but I loved the idea of just stacking healing over and over.

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