Sandman25 wrote:1) Most characters die surrounded or to ranged attacks. It implies that you should not melee a monster if it can kill you in 1 vs 1 fight.
Using an axe means that there are more monsters that can kill you 1 vs 1 in a fight. The number of times you die to being surrounded where having an axe would save you should be very, very small -- if it isn't, there are better remedies than wielding an axe, such as worshipping Zin, learning blink, or concentrating on tactical movement and exploration.
Sandman25 wrote:2) A ring of protection (or MR or rF+/rC+ for first pip or EV) are better than slaying because misses do happen and see point above.
If this logic were true, the best weapon brand is protection, and the best artifact weapons would be ones with MR/rF+/rC+/EV rather than the ones with good base types, enchantments and brands. I believe you know that those things are not true, which makes me think that you should be able to see that the logic itself is mistaken.
It is sometimes true that defensive rings are better than slaying, but it's also often the case that slaying (particularly large amounts of slaying) is the best choice.
Sandman25 wrote:3) Point #2 would not be so true with 100% accuracy because then you would not care about your defense that much (similar to extended but for different reason) because you would kill everything much faster with slaying.
Accuracy is besides the point for two reasons: first, whether you hit 1% or 100% of the time, slaying adds the same amount per hit, and if you're going to kill a creature by attacking it in melee then it helps to have each hit do more damage. This argument would only make sense if you rolled a separate attack roll for slaying and that roll was likely to fail. If you really think accuracy on melee is too low, then the solution is to never melee, not to avoid slaying. Second, slaying rings often come with an accuracy bonus, so if you're concerned about low accuracy, slaying rings will help address your issue somewhat.
Sandman25 wrote:4) It means cleaving is good because it helps you in situations where it counts, i.e. you are not comfortably fighting an easy monster 1 vs 1.
But it only helps when you're fighting 7 easy monsters 1 vs 1. If you're fighting a bunch of strong monsters, you need to reconsider. If you're fighting one strong monster and a bunch of weak monsters, then you need to kill the strong monster ASAP. In general, you should very rarely be fighting multiple monsters, and when you are, you should consider using consumables/spells/god abilities that tip the odds in your favor. I mean, people have already said all of those things, and no one has yet managed to come up with a good counter argument aside from inventing very specific and very rare situations that completely ignore the role the player's positioning plays in determining whether those situations happen in the first place.
Friday, 25th April 2014, 21:55 
