Maxwell's patent armour

[Sandman25]

What do you think about Maxwell's patent armour?
My axes-wielding MuDK can purchase it in orcish shop but I am not sure, I used it just once and that character died being unable to teleport. Is it a trap like hat of pondering?

[Cheibrodos]

Considering it's fan nickname is Maxwell's Coffin, I'd say yes, it is a trap for anyone that is not a Formicid of Trog. I do not recommend wearing it.

[duvessa]

Maxwell's is really good if your spells aren't too important. In most situations after early game you don't want to teleport or blink anyway, and it gives you extremely good defenses. On DK the -Tele is even less of a problem than usual since if you do screw up and want to teleport, you can just recall 20 profane bone draghoul warrior cobs and kill everything that made you want to teleport. It is very rare for the -Tele to bother me more than the -Cast, unless I'm already with Trog. I often wouldn't wear it if I don't have a wand of hasting yet, especially on a mummy, but as early as Orc:4 I would just wear it anyway.
The other cautions I'd give are that you likely want to take it off for vaults:5 if you have bad MR (because mark without teleport means you die) and, obviously, to swagjack zot:5.

[Baldu3]

Maxwell's is so unique it's pretty fun to try to make it work. I normally wouldn't wear it unless I had running/lots of nets/haste_wand, and/or tele_wand (with -tele use it to teleport the bad guy when it's time to escape). In this case though like the previous poster said, you can casually walk away while recalling and you should be able to escape almost all situations if you don't waste your perma summons.

Just be careful with autoexplore so it doesnt throw you in the middle of a huge unexplored area if you wear it, do some manual exploration or shift-arrow exploration if you dont mind it.

edit: if you use nets to escape aim them behind the dude or he'll throw it right back at you if you miss!

[tabstorm]

In most situations after early game you don't want to teleport or blink anyway

Why is that? I use tele/blink in the midgame (I may just be bad). I suppose in theory you could get a bad tele so in some sense you are incurring more risk, but I don't think I've died to a bad tele. Certainly I think it's useful in vaults and depths where there are enemies that outspeed you that will be able to follow you upstairs(or you may get the stairs sealed), or against a bunch of ranged attackers that come into view around a corner, where if I walk to stairs, I may be gunned down first, whereas fog+tele may take only 3-4 turns.

[Sandman25]

<offtopic> I bought and used the Maxwell's but after finding a +3 rF+ plate armour in Orcs 4 I switched to the latter, rF- is too dangerous and I had no other sources of rF+.

  Code:

 24722 | Orc:2    | Bought the cursed +15 Maxwell's patent armour {rCorr, Cons, -Cast -Tele MR+} for 2387 gold pieces
...
 25004 | Orc:4    | =================== Autoexit: lost:36 current:54
 25005 | Orc:4    | =================== Autoexit: lost:23 current:31

I am sure I would die without Yred allies.

I have evokable Blink, perhaps I will use Maxwell's later with high evocations after finding alternative rF+ source.
</offtopic>.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Random teleport is a good last ditch "literally anything is better than this" move, but the potential for bad teles means you want to avoid using it if possible. Especially in Zot 5 I really hate being forced to tele, because you just know you're gonna spend the next fifty turns desperately fleeing and tele-ing hoping nothing lands a lucky damage roll during that time. In that sense I'm happy to give it up for Maxwell's because +15 plate makes it a lot easier to avoid those situations in the first place.

The reason I usually don't use it is just that it usually appears after I've got several level 5/6 spells running, so of course I'm not giving all that up.

[and into]

Yeah, the one time I got Maxwell's fairly early on a character not invested in casting, I liked it a lot and used it all game. For this character it is hard to say. +15 is huge and MR+ is really helpful—don't wanna get confused (the preservation ego is a nice bonus but not a major consideration here). But rF- is terrible and -Tele/-Cast is not a constraint to be sneezed at. But at least you can bank on the fact that one of these two could very easily and happily be your armor throughout the game, and so it is safe to dump ?enchant armor on the ego plate regardless, while you try to make up your mind.

[Sandman25]

MR is not a factor in my game, my first 2 rings were rings of protection from magic and currently I have max MR with Maxwell and MR++++ without.

  Code:

rPois  +         rCorr    +     P - +2 hat {MR+}
rElec  .         rRot     +     o - +1 cloak
SustAb . .       Spirit   .     k - +1 pair of gloves
rMut   .         Warding  .     T - +0 pair of boots "Icaobben" {+Blink Dex+3}
Saprov . . .     NoTele   +     p - amulet of faith
MR     +++++     NoCast   +     L - ring "Chadyc" {Hunger- rC+ MR++ Int+3}
                                r - ring of regeneration

[NessOnett]

How is the hat of Pondering a trap? It provides such strong benefits, and when you have access to the things a caster does like haste and CB, you have a lot of options to play around the movement penalty. Also it's a hat, not armor, so you can take it off quickly if you foresee yourself needing to run but still have a bit of distance on what will be chasing you.

[and into]

Int +5, MP +10, and MR+ is nice, sure, but ponderousness ranges from bad to terrible depending on the character and circumstances. Taking off your hat takes up two full "turns" (20 aut). Taking 20 auts and lowering your AC by three in order to return to normal movement speed is not usually something you want to do when it is important that you get as much as distance as possible between yourself and something you want to run away from.

So, all told, I'm usually much happier if I win a hat of MR+ or +3 Int or even SInv for beating Gasty.

[NessOnett]

Int +5, MP +10, and MR+ is nice, sure, but ponderousness ranges from bad to terrible depending on the character and circumstances. Taking off your hat takes up two full "turns" (20 aut). Taking 20 auts and lowering your AC by three in order to return to normal movement speed is not usually something you want to do when it is important that you get as much as distance as possible between yourself and something you want to run away from.

So, all told, I'm usually much happier if I win a hat of MR+ or +3 Int or even SInv for beating Gasty.

That's a preference. Maybe I'm too biased from playing Naga so much, and therefore don't like to run from fights in the traditional sense, and will use blinks and teleports to create distance. But I think calling it a trap is a little excessive. It's not perfect, but it has its place imo. If you build a character to take advantage of the strengths and cover the weaknesses, it does a lot of work.

[Sar]

When I play Nagas I still run away from fights. I don't think I would ever wear slowhat on a Naga.

[Sandman25]

That's a preference. Maybe I'm too biased from playing Naga so much, and therefore don't like to run from fights in the traditional sense, and will use blinks and teleports to create distance. But I think calling it a trap is a little excessive. It's not perfect, but it has its place imo. If you build a character to take advantage of the strengths and cover the weaknesses, it does a lot of work.

This is what I was thinking before almost dying to a pack of Elephants in Lair. Without the hat I would just run to stairs keeping distance 1 tile all the time. I am not sure how to cover weakness here, Blink spell is not reliable, cBlink is unavailable and I'd rather have an extra scroll of Blinking in inventory than +10 MP. So yes, it is a trap IMHO.

[cerebovssquire]

Int +5, MP +10, and MR+ is nice, sure, but ponderousness ranges from bad to terrible depending on the character and circumstances. Taking off your hat takes up two full "turns" (20 aut). Taking 20 auts and lowering your AC by three in order to return to normal movement speed is not usually something you want to do when it is important that you get as much as distance as possible between yourself and something you want to run away from.

So, all told, I'm usually much happier if I win a hat of MR+ or +3 Int or even SInv for beating Gasty.

That's a preference. Maybe I'm too biased from playing Naga so much, and therefore don't like to run from fights in the traditional sense, and will use blinks and teleports to create distance. But I think calling it a trap is a little excessive. It's not perfect, but it has its place imo. If you build a character to take advantage of the strengths and cover the weaknesses, it does a lot of work.

As long as we agree that our goal is to maximise the chance of winning a given game, there is no such thing as a "preference" in the sense that different methods are equally good and you should pick whatever you like (unless, of course, they affect the probability of winning the game in the exact same way, which isn't the case here). Everything you do has some kind of impact on the probability of winning the game, and this impact could, in theory, be calculated exactly.

There are two factors which reduce the importance of this if we are talking about actual games and not theorycrafting:
-a lot of times, the probability of you winning is changed, but not significantly, so optimal play isn't important (example: do I use bolt of fire or iron shot to kill a speed 10 melee monster that isn't particularily threatening to me, do I exit the Ecunemical Temple on a route that takes 10 turns or a route that takes 9 turns)
-of course, your personal experience might change your chance of winning a particular game. If a player has won 10 DEWz but has never played a berserker or DD, the probability of him winning another DEWz might be higher than the probability of him winning a DDBe. (Of course DDBe is so absurdly good that this might not be the best of examples.) This does not change the fact that DDBe is a better combo. This is much like your attitude towards running away after playing a lot of Na.

[and into]

Also movement is valuable, beyond just running away.

Just think of every meaningful time you decided to move a tile in a game of Crawl. (Obviously we can ignore autotravel and the like, where movement speed doesn't really matter.) For most characters, ponderousness gives a -10% penalty to every single one of those tactically meaningful movements. Even for those kinds of characters that usually can get away with less precise and careful positioning, that's a very significant malus.

True, once you have CBlink and a bunch of other very powerful effects, you can render the downside of ponderousness mostly moot, though even then you will have to play more carefully in certain situations. But once your character has CBlink and an array of powerful ranged damage options and good defenses, etc., then there are lots of things you can do with your character without seriously harming your chances to win. So one has to be very careful about using well established, already powerful characters as a yardstick for how useful something is in Crawl.

[Sar]

Actually I thought about it a bit more and slowhat is even more awful for a Naga since it means you will be slower-than-average even hasted. But this thread wasn't about Nagas and slowhats, so sorry for offtopic.

[duvessa]

In most situations after early game you don't want to teleport or blink anyway

Why is that? I use tele/blink in the midgame (I may just be bad). I suppose in theory you could get a bad tele so in some sense you are incurring more risk, but I don't think I've died to a bad tele. Certainly I think it's useful in vaults and depths where there are enemies that outspeed you that will be able to follow you upstairs(or you may get the stairs sealed), or against a bunch of ranged attackers that come into view around a corner, where if I walk to stairs, I may be gunned down first, whereas fog+tele may take only 3-4 turns.

Generally I would sooner haste and run away than teleport (this is why I mention waiting for a wand of hasting). Combining that with (semi)controlled blinking does make it better, but is rarely necessary unless you have a habit of getting yourself surrounded - in which case your #1 priority should be fixing that habit, maxwell's or not. And the number of emergencies in your game decreases a lot when you have a bunch more AC than usual.
And again there are many characters where Maxwell's is bad. If you have a lot of spells, for example, then regular plate is often better. But people really overestimate how bad it is.

Hat of pondering is bad for nearly everyone because hat of pondering gives very small benefits (maybe 1 AC and like 3% more conjuration damage, woohoo) and a pretty bad drawback (I just said my favourite escape option was moving away so hopefully you can see why I don't like an item that screws with my movement). Maxwell's has major drawbacks but it also actually has a very big benefit for using it (exceptionally high AC).

[Sar]

When I find the slowhat I usually think "Dang, I could use that MR" because MR is pretty nice.

[NessOnett]

As long as we agree that our goal is to maximise the chance of winning a given game, there is no such thing as a "preference" in the sense that different methods are equally good and you should pick whatever you like (unless, of course, they affect the probability of winning the game in the exact same way, which isn't the case here). Everything you do has some kind of impact on the probability of winning the game, and this impact could, in theory, be calculated exactly.

Well, firstly, if one were to base every decision in the game on merely maximizing their chances of winning, everyone would be going for 3-rune wins with MiBe or something of a similar nature. But seeing as how YAVP isn't an endless stream of those, it stands to reason that most players put more value on choice over victory. And to that end, I don't see how one could argue that there's no such thing as preference.


As for defending my hat, I have one very simple argument. It has already been established that the upsides of the hat are very strong indeed, even by those who dislike it, correct? What of Cheibriados? Widely considered a very strong God if used properly(or so I've heard). He provides massive benefits; at the cost of slowing down, to a considerably greater degree, not just movement, but everything. And at every mention of his name, there are cautions to play very carefully, develop alternative strategies to cover the weaknesses, and build your character with him in mind. But when one does those things, they minimize the backlash of the weaknesses(which are far more severe than the hat), and get to reap the benefits of his benevolent strength.

I concede that for an 'average' character, the hat is very bad. And often suicidally detrimental. But I don't think it deserves the moniker of 'trap' as that implies it never has a place and is always a hindrance. Because despite how small its niche may be, it very much has a niche if you're willing and able to commit to it.

[Sar]

It has already been established that the upsides of the hat are very strong indeed

It has nice MR and that's that.

[Sandman25]

I meant the hat a trap for new players only, I am fine with hat for experienced players who do not use it early, also it is very good for spellcaster of Chei. IMHO trap does not mean "always bad", it means "can be misleading", the player becomes very powerful but then suddenly dies, at least this is my experience with both pondering and Maxwell.

[cerebovssquire]

As long as we agree that our goal is to maximise the chance of winning a given game, there is no such thing as a "preference" in the sense that different methods are equally good and you should pick whatever you like (unless, of course, they affect the probability of winning the game in the exact same way, which isn't the case here). Everything you do has some kind of impact on the probability of winning the game, and this impact could, in theory, be calculated exactly.

Well, firstly, if one were to base every decision in the game on merely maximizing their chances of winning, everyone would be going for 3-rune wins with MiBe or something of a similar nature. But seeing as how YAVP isn't an endless stream of those, it stands to reason that most players put more value on choice over victory. And to that end, I don't see how one could argue that there's no such thing as preference.


As for defending my hat, I have one very simple argument. It has already been established that the upsides of the hat are very strong indeed, even by those who dislike it, correct? What of Cheibriados? Widely considered a very strong God if used properly(or so I've heard). He provides massive benefits; at the cost of slowing down, to a considerably greater degree, not just movement, but everything. And at every mention of his name, there are cautions to play very carefully, develop alternative strategies to cover the weaknesses, and build your character with him in mind. But when one does those things, they minimize the backlash of the weaknesses(which are far more severe than the hat), and get to reap the benefits of his benevolent strength.

I concede that for an 'average' character, the hat is very bad. And often suicidally detrimental. But I don't think it deserves the moniker of 'trap' as that implies it never has a place and is always a hindrance. Because despite how small its niche may be, it very much has a niche if you're willing and able to commit to it.

If we don't agree on a common goal then every discussion here is subjective. Though it is relevant that the difference here isn't between 3-runing and 15-runing but between wearing a good hat and a cool hat.

I (and a lot of the best players there are) don't think Chei is "very strong". I would say he is actually detrimental for a lot of characters. The fact that you can still haste with the hat of pondering, but its upsides are much smaller as well, also means that this isn't a very telling example.

edit: There are a lot of threads on chei you can look up here if you want some reasons, this has been discussed to death and I don't want to turn this thread into chei discussion no. 500.

[Magipi]

What of Cheibriados? Widely considered a very strong God if used properly(or so I've heard).

I don't know what you've heard, but Chei is widely considered to be either the worst god or the second worst (the other one is of course Xom.) A lot of good players rate these two gods to have a negative value (meaning that no god is stronger).

Chei has a fanbase, sure, but that is a small minority.

[Nemora]

I used Maxwell's patent armor for a little while in my last win, an Okawaru-worshipping MiHu 6-runer. I only stopped using it because I found Armor of the Dragon King. In that game, with the armor I didn't end up in situations where I regretted not being able to teleport. Partly because it offered me fantastic defenses. But also because, judicious usages of haste, fog, and other such escape tools were more than enough. That did require, however, an awareness of which situations my character would be able to survive and which it wouldn't- much sooner than a character that had tele abilities. As a semi-decent player, it helped make me hyper aware of potential risks.