DsAK and Weapon Selection

[Zazen]

I will freely admit I am hopeless at DCSS, at least in part due to my obsession with playing combinations that I find "interesting", have only ever managed to get one rune and probably read the wiki more than I should.

That all said, I've started playing with DsAK a lot recently (I just love the random mutations of Ds), and have some questions about weapon selection strategy for a DSAK.

In my naïve understanding it seems that going with Short Blades as a DS AK is not a bad choice given that one of the perks of being an AK is getting the distortion brand, and putting that on a fast weapon seems to be a good strategy. The SB strategy has the additional benefits of likely finding a branded example in the early D to use a filler weapon, and other than Qblades all SBlades can be found before Lair in my experience, so possibly you can have your end game weapon online pretty quickly.

For a long term strategy with Corrupt Weapon would you:

1. Corrupt the highest plus dagger you can find and maximize stabby goodness?
2. Save the corruption for a cutlass (unenchanted ones seem relatively common in early D) as the highest damage speed 5 weapon (but less stabby goodness)
3. Hold out for a quick blade (based on research in the forums this seems like a non starter)

Or alternately if I am not particularly planning on stabbiness (unless the RNG pushes it with things like Nightstalker or Invisibility spell/items) am I better off ignoring Short Blades and going for Polearms and waiting to pickup a Demon Trident?

[Jeremiah]

I've always thought it would be fun to put distortion on an axe and hit things in all directions with cleaving. Probably not that great an idea in terms of actually winning the game though…

[Psiweapon]

Highly enchanted QB of distortion sounds like real fun.

[zogre]

I consider Short Blades as a challenge start because by the time you have enough piety to make the distortion blade, you probably won't really need to make the distortion blade. Polearms are a safer bet in general, they give you more tactical options and powerful early weapons (halberds) are readily available from gnolls and orcs.

In the end though you should do what brings you joy. Lugonu gives you panic buttons; play thoughtfully, follow the first rule and use consumables when needed, and you'll do fine.

[Wahaha]

Distortion is not a good brand for characters that want to kill enemies with a melee weapon and a DsAk probably wants to do that. Blinking ranged enemies is really bad and teleporting enemies is bad as well. If you're not set on using distortion then you probably shouldn't. Short blades are bad for not-stabbing too. If you use invis and also preferably ensorcelled hibernation and/or confuse then making a stabby Ds with sb+distortion would work but is harder to do than other builds. It's easier to start with maces and not use distortion.

[Psiweapon]

Distortion is not a good brand for characters that want to kill enemies with a melee weapon and a DsAk probably wants to do that. Blinking ranged enemies is really bad and teleporting enemies is bad as well. If you're not set on using distortion then you probably shouldn't. Short blades are bad for not-stabbing too. If you use invis and also preferably ensorcelled hibernation and/or confuse then making a stabby Ds with sb+distortion would work but is harder to do than other builds. It's easier to start with maces and not use distortion.

Well, Lugonu waives disto unwield nastiness right? O_o

You can always have and use a good non-disto weapon for ranged attackers and blink frogs.

[and into]

DsAk is a lot of fun, I've been on a kick with HOAks and DsAks lately. (Lugonu is one of my favorite gods.)

Anyway I usually go M&F, because you have a ubiquitous fast weapon (whip) as well as a rare but very good fast weapon (dwhip) that are just as fast as a dagger at min_delay, which requires only slightly more training than short blades. Dire flails also make very good targets for distortion and are common (slightly slower but very good base damage and not too high an investment). And you also have a good heavy two handed option. Also, in the early game, branded whips/flails/maces are almost as common as short blades with an ego.

Quick blades are not worth expecting; you'll generally get one if you worship Trog from early game and focus on short blades, but that's about the only time you can expect one (and even then, it is definitely not guaranteed). Polearms are a better choice than s. blades, but they require more skill investment to get the same or less average damage, which is kind of a drag on a Ds with their middling apts. Admittedly reaching is somewhat less bad on a distortion weapon though.

Swinging around a battleax of distortion is worth doing at least once, IMO, but that's better tried on a HOAK. It is pretty fun, and this is coming from a guy who really doesn't like axes and will go for M&F on HO even though it isn't optimal or w/e.

[Lasty]

There are a couple ways to approach it, but the most important thing is not to defer power in the hopes that some day much later you'll be a bit more powerful. Starting with short blades is risky unless you specifically enjoy playing a short blades character so much that you're willing to force it; choosing this option means you're committing to short blades during the period of the game where you don't have any particular way to get stabs, and you aren't guaranteed to get a short blade with a good brand. Later, when you have the option to use things like quick blades, the 8 skill levels it takes are virtually free, especially if you start w/ long blades.

Distortion is a fairly strong brand, so I'd cash it in early unless you have a very good weapon available to you anyway, in which case it might make sense to hold out. I'd generally recommend starting w/ mace or falchion, though hand-axe and spear each have some appeal due their interactions with distortion.

[crate]

I've always thought it would be fun to put distortion on an axe and hit things in all directions with cleaving. Probably not that great an idea in terms of actually winning the game though…

I approve of disto axe and think it is good for winning the game.

Disto is also better than normal for polearms.

[stickyfingers]

Would you also recommend against SBl on KoAK, HaAK, DEAK, VpAK?

[and into]

On a Ko or Ha or Sp, yes I'd generally choose short sword for a starting weapon as AK. I would probably opt for long blades on Vp or DE though.

[radinms]

disto qblade is useful for any Lugonu worshipper.
any times you can swap main weapon and disto qblade.

[and into]

^ Of course. But choosing short blades as starting weapon class is not smart, since you don't start with a quick blade, but with a short sword, and are very unlikely to find a q. blade any time soon (if at all).

[Lasty]

Would you also recommend against SBl on KoAK, HaAK, DEAK, VpAK?

I'd recommend LBl for DEAK and VpAK -- they have decent apts and can use every type of sword. For KoAK and HaAK most everything but SBl and Staves loses some value because it's hard to find decent weapons in the other classes that they can wield. For Kobold I'd probably go short blades and keep an eye out for good crossbows; for halflings, M&F might be an okay choice, since size-compatible upgrades aren't hard to find.

[crate]

personally I wouldn't pick short blades for any AK but I don't like stabbing and if you're not stabbing short blades are awful

[damiac]

It sounds like you'd be better off going with long blades, and the cross training will get you enough skill with short blades to put distortion on one of those if you want.

So you'll have long blades for when you just want to do damage, and bust out the dagger or quickblade when you want distortion effects.

I don't understand why polearms would be better on this character than any other, they have a high XP cost compared to long blades or M&F. I only recommend Long blades because then you'll get short blades for free, which you seem to want.

[Sandman25]

Polearms are good with distortion as the target can often still be reachable after blinking.

[Rumbleguts]

On one HaAK I started with SBl and obtained my quickblade somewhat early (I think I either acquired it or else bought it in Orc:4). I found that it was an extreme pain to use on high-HP enemies. Snake:5 took a very long time to clear because of all the scattered Greater Nagas and Naga Warriors. It was necessary to find a demon blade for real damage; I'd just switch to the QB for emergency enemies since there was a decent chance they'd get teleported or banished with 10 aut.

In Zot I had a character who used Warp Weapon and javelins to fight Curse Toes and OoFs in Zot, to great effect.

[and into]

Polearms are good with distortion as the target can often still be reachable after blinking.

Putting aside what it can do on guys with lots of allies around all the time, reaching generally isn't that good, because getting at best one extra hit as an enemy approaches is usually not a huge deal. Aside from that they can let you kite things and do some cheap tactics, but if something is kite-able with reaching you can also just ignore it, or kite it with plenty of other things, and so outside of certain very specific cases polearms don't really let you do something that is actually worth the trouble doing.

However, when that one extra hit means an extra shot at teleporting or banishing a guy that you want to teleport or banish, then reaching is pretty good. Yes, if the dude blinks it is a bit less annoying also, cause it is easier to start hitting it again, but I'd consider that a minor benefit next to the extra chance to apply a good distortion effect on (almost) every enemy, as it approaches you.

More generally: All weapon classes except staves and long blades have a 0.5 aut option that is commonly available and can be given distortion brand; you can't choose staves as an AK, and long blades cross-train with short blades, *all* of which have min-delay of 0.5 aut, or less. So really, you will have a good option for distortion by the time you have it available, regardless. So being AK shouldn't majorly alter what your normal choice for weapon would be. There are some AK-specific things to consider about the weapons that are available to you later on, since you will be tagging one with distortion, but in general that shouldn't greatly influence what you choose as your starting weapon.

It sounds like you'd be better off going with long blades, and the cross training will get you enough skill with short blades to put distortion on one of those if you want.

The reason I'd go with sblades on a Ha (for example) is because the reverse is also true. In addition, +3 aptitude is good, and short blades are fine until banish comes online, and then you are set until a scimitar or long sword drops, at which point you can train for that if you want to. (Might be necessary, might not be, depending on what has dropped and what your character has available.) Of course, starting with long blades isn't bad either.

[Sandman25]

Reaching generally isn't that good, because getting at best one extra hit as an enemy approaches is usually not a huge deal. Aside from that they can let you kite things, but if something is kite-able you can also just ignore it, or kill it with plenty of other things.

The better is weapon the more powerful reaching becomes, it is not that great with spear indeed. But few monsters require more than 5 hits of bardiche to die and that "free" hit can be treated as 20% damage increase in the worst case. But more importantly I love reaching for fights behind doors or corners, that pesky banisher, summoner or paralyzer always has one less turn (and can become almost harmless if you happen to use antimagic polearm).

[crate]

because getting at best one extra hit as an enemy approaches is usually not a huge deal

Halberd vs great sword: 13/7 vs 16/7 at min delay (dam/delay; I'm just using base damage here because the majority of modifiers are multiplicative so they won't change the math)
halberd does, therefore, 13 free damage that great sword does not get; it thus takes 5 hits before great sword starts being better
and halberd requires less skill to reach min delay and is a more common basetype, so this isn't even quite a fair comparison

Additionally since halberd is .7 delay sometimes you get 2 free attacks (against a speed 10 monster this should happen roughly 30% of the time) so the free attack is actually closer to 18 damage than 13, so that brings the number of attacks to break-even up to six (seven before great sword wins)

Looks like a pretty sizable benefit to me.

I think polearms are probably better than longblades/maces, but I don't like using them.

[damiac]

That's true only assuming you're fighting just 1 enemy at a time. In a more realistic scenario, say for example a 1 tile wide corridor, you'll probably only get the 'free hit' on the first guy in line. After that, they'll close the gap when you kill the guy in front of them anyway.

However, that's only melee enemies, I see the point that getting to hit a ranged threat 1 turn sooner is a good thing.

EDIT: You're also ignoring AC, which definitely skews your numbers on the halberd vs great sword front.

Assuming I haven't completely screwed up the math (I may have, read this at your own risk)

Spoiler: show

Using the stone giant metric, 12 ac will on average reduce 6 damage. I don't know the weapon damage calcs off the top of my head, but let's say a character fighting a stone giant with a melee weapon is probably skilled in that weapon, and at an appropriate XL, so we'll say he does 2x base damage.

So that means the 13dam weapon is doing 0-26, or 13 on average, reduced by 6 on average, for a final average damage of 7 per swing.
The 16 dam is 0 - 32, or 16 on average, reduced by 6 on average, with a final average damage of 10 per swing.
With those numbers, we get:
Turn 1 - 0, 7
turn 2 - 10, 14
turn 3 - 20, 21

So by these numbers, the great sword (almost) catches up on turn 3, getting better at turn 4 and beyond. This is also neglecting weapon brand, which helps the great sword even more. Challenging enemies in the 3 rune game are fairly likely to take 3 or more hits, so I don't think reaching is as valuable as people are saying. Of course, it really comes down to the specifics of each fight, low HP, high damage opponents are better to kill with the halberd, high ac, high hp opponents are better to kill with the great sword.

[Siegurt]

More generally: All weapon classes except staves and long blades have a 0.5 aut option that is commonly available and can be given distortion brand; you can't choose staves as an AK, and long blades cross-train with short blades, *all* of which have min-delay of 0.5 aut, or less.

Do we have 0.5 aut axes now?

Afaict the 0.5 options are:
All short blades (except quick blade which is even faster)
Spear
Whip/Demon whip

[and into]

Hm, I really don't enjoy using polearms either, and it seems that has prejudiced my evaluation of them. (And yes, there aren't any 0.5 aut min-delay axes.)

[damiac]

FR: broad axes are special cased to have 0.5 min delay.

[Sandman25]

FR: broad axes are special cased to have 0.5 min delay.

Arga?

[crate]

damiac: enchantment tends to more-or-less cancel monster AC for much of the game, and enchantment is additive just like AC is additive (subtractive), so it turns out to be convenient to just ignore enchantment and AC entirely when evaluating weapons, and again you didn't actually do the math for the free hit right (the free hit is 1.0/0.7 times as big as one attack). This isn't exactly correct (stone giants do of course have more AC than you will have enchantment) but the difference between including AC and ignoring AC is a lot smaller than your numbers suggest, since I'm also ignoring a countereffect of similar magnitude.

I think my numbers are closer; of course you could use fsim instead since that's going to be correct:

In fact, using 15/15/15 stats and all skills at 18(you want to give the halberd and great sword the same skill to make this as fair as possible) and a +6 halberd vs a +6 great sword, both against a stone giant, I get 8.6 dam/0.7turn for the halberd, and 10.6dam/0.7turn for the great sword. The free attack is worth 12.2 dam (same procedure as above), there's a difference of 2 dam/attack, so the break even is 6 attacks just like my back-of-the-envelope calculations suggested. Brands are post-AC multipliers (except for the additive ones; those ones I don't have good back-of-the-envelope evaluations for, unfortunately) so they won't change this.

[rchandra]

That's true only assuming you're fighting just 1 enemy at a time. In a more realistic scenario, say for example a 1 tile wide corridor, you'll probably only get the 'free hit' on the first guy in line. After that, they'll close the gap when you kill the guy in front of them anyway.

Even in the line situation you can get free hits on multiple enemies. Here's an example: (o is an orc, e is an orc wizard (trained with elves))

  Code:

@.oe

Here you get a free hit on the orc.

  Code:

@.e.

Now the orc is dead. You and the wizard can hit each other here.

  Code:

@e..

What's this? The wizard took a step in, this makes your previous attack free-ish. Had you used a normal weapon, the wizard would have meleed you with that move.

[Siegurt]

Except in practice that's not what happens, typically it works like this:

  Code:

@.oe

Here you get a free hit on the orc.

  Code:

@oe.

Here you and the orc are in normal combat (which with a polearm works just like any non-polearm.)

  Code:

@e.

Now the orc is dead. The elf moves up into the orc's position exactly the same way he would if you'd killed the orc with a non-polearm, you don't get a free attack (any more than you do when you kill any creature with any weapon) The elf uses the turn you spent killing the orc to move next to you.

[damiac]

Yeah, I wouldn't pick a weapon based on how well it kills enemies who are going to die in 1 hit anyway.

However, I guess I did underrate the reaching effect of polearms, and it's not like the final polearm offering is bad damagewise, it's just a hefty skill investment. Not that you always have to use the biggest weapon of a type anyway.

I had always sort of regarded polearms sort of like axes, they come with a cool but not always useful ability, and you pay for that ability with slightly reduced dam/acc, and a higher XP cost for min-delay. But it seems the polearm's ability is better than I gave it credit for.

[rchandra]

I wasn't talking about killing in 1 hit.

If the wizard is shooting you from 1 step away you will lose a turn walking in with a normal weapon. With the polearm you trade hits and eventually he wastes a turn stepping in instead.

[Wahaha]

You can always have and use a good non-disto weapon for ranged attackers and blink frogs.

In that case you can use that good non-distortion weapon to kill everything else as well and not be annoyed by things teleporting away at 10% hp and not lose exp because of banishment and not need to weapon swap. If you want to keep a fast weapon with distortion as a swap for the most dangerous enemies that you do want to banish then that's fine, although the most dangerous enemies are ranged.

[damiac]

I wasn't talking about killing in 1 hit.

If the wizard is shooting you from 1 step away you will lose a turn walking in with a normal weapon. With the polearm you trade hits and eventually he wastes a turn stepping in instead.

Ah, I see your point. That makes sense.

[daggaz]

personally I wouldn't pick short blades for any AK but I don't like stabbing and if you're not stabbing short blades are awful

Nah. A fully enchanted, branded qblade (fairly easy to get at least a vanilla blade from trog/oka/acquire scroll) is sweet sauce, especially if you can stack some slaying on top of it. You get so many actions compared to the enemy, it almost makes haste pointless. Stabbing is just cake with your icecream.

But yeah, otherwise short blades are ass.

[duvessa]

a +9 quick blade is actually worse than a +9 dire flail against anything with ac, unless it has elec/distortion/pain/chaos, and is overwhelmingly worse than a demon weapon or large 2-hander unless it has elec/distortion/pain/chaos...and quick blades are the rarest weapon in the entire game
try it in fsim if you don't believe me
it's pretty much the worst possible weapon to plan on using, except maybe a club or scythe

[daggaz]

Regarding rarity, its not an issue as I have yet to play a shortblades character who didnt get one by the time I needed one. Yeah, you will almost never find one on the floor, but the floor isnt wear you find them in the first place.

And like I said, you need to get it branded (ice and fire are just fine, even poison is ok for a while) and (most) preferably have some slaying bonuses. This isnt difficult by any means once you are doing branch ends and the depths. Then you add in two more factors, neither of which are unsubstantial: stabbing and low skill investment. And finally, as I mentioned, the speed of attack is a source of incredible power, as you are basically hasted regarding melee, and if your melee attacks can one or two shot weaker mobs, you can thin a crowd or drop a caster or two before they get to react.

So yeah, a naked comparison of a quick blade to pretty much any other weapon makes it look like a bad investment. But in practice, they can be quite powerful. Elf3, for example, is often (almost always) regarded here on the forums as a pointless death trap. But I think it is quite easy on a character with a souped up qblade and a major skill investment in sneaking instead of a primary weapon. It is basically just free xp and a couple usually good treasure vaults.

[Sar]

I've had as much games where I didn't have any usable (meaning, not on a -5 robe or something like that) slaying as the ones where I did have some; probably more.

I dunno why would a qb make Elf easier. Elf threats are dangerous summoners (dig a hole, kill fast), banishment, hellfire, crystal spears and archers/blademasters. The last two don't see invisible so you can invistab them really well but I don't think that's what you meant.

[damiac]

Regarding rarity, its not an issue as I have yet to play a shortblades character who didnt get one by the time I needed one. Yeah, you will almost never find one on the floor, but the floor isnt wear you find them in the first place.

And like I said, you need to get it branded (ice and fire are just fine, even poison is ok for a while) and (most) preferably have some slaying bonuses. This isnt difficult by any means once you are doing branch ends and the depths. Then you add in two more factors, neither of which are unsubstantial: stabbing and low skill investment. And finally, as I mentioned, the speed of attack is a source of incredible power, as you are basically hasted regarding melee, and if your melee attacks can one or two shot weaker mobs, you can thin a crowd or drop a caster or two before they get to react.

So yeah, a naked comparison of a quick blade to pretty much any other weapon makes it look like a bad investment. But in practice, they can be quite powerful. Elf3, for example, is often (almost always) regarded here on the forums as a pointless death trap. But I think it is quite easy on a character with a souped up qblade and a major skill investment in sneaking instead of a primary weapon. It is basically just free xp and a couple usually good treasure vaults.

I think FSIM disagrees with you about what you're saying here. Although yeah, quickblades are great if you're getting a lot of stabs, or if they have the right brand (Certainly not fire or ice). Now, if you've got an electric, disto, or pain quickblade(and lots of necromancy skill), yeah, they're really good. But I think you're kinda overselling them, without the right brand, you're hitting for 0 damage a lot of times in a short period, which is not helpful.

[daggaz]

Actually we had a thread early where it was shown, with fsim, that ice is a perfectly good brand on a qblade (tho certainly not as OP as elec).

What I meant with elf is that they have pretty low AC and hps, so with a good sneak, its quite easy to pull just one or two and make such quick work of them that their spells are useless: summons poof before they can even get next to you or attack more than once, maybe they get a crystal spear off but generally if you are going shortblades, you have great EV and that almost always misses by this time. If it does land, they'll be dead before they cast another. And thats the vault elves, not the popcorn, for which you can easily walk into a crowd of five or six and wipe them out in relatively few attacks. Once again, with high sneak you will kill at least one with a ? in the middle of the room before they even know you are there.

I'll gladly do elf even without a slaying bonus, just be a tad more cautious.

[and into]

  Code:

Level 12 HuGl, 12 fighting, 8 short blades, and 14 M&F. Stats: 16/8/15
(AED = Average effective damage)

____________________________________________


+9 qblade. AED, against Yak.  No slay  |  +5 slay  |  +10 slay

No brand:   15.6  |  22.7  |  30.6
Freezing:   20.5  |  28.7  |  38.7
Electroc:   27.7  |  36.4  |  43.2


+9 dire flail. AED, against Yak.  No slay  |  +5 slay  |  +10 slay. 

No brand:   16.5  |  20.2  |  24.2
Freezing:   21.6  |  26.5  |  31.4
Electroc:   23.2  |  27.4  |  30.9

____________________________________________


+9 qblade. AED, against stone giant.  No slay  |  +5 slay  |  +10 slay

No brand:   9.2   |  14.9  |  22.9
Freezing:   12.4  |  20.0  |  29.5
Electroc:   23.6  |  29.9  |  37.8


+9 dire flail. AED, against Stone giant.  No slay  |  +5 slay  |  +10 slay

No brand:   13.6  |   17.2  |  21.3
Freezing:   18.1  |   22.3  |  27.2
Electroc:   21.4  |   25.2  |  28.5


Analysis:

For non-additive brands, compared to dire flail, the qblade will in general pull ahead if its total [slaying + enchantment] is between 2 and 10 higher than that of the dire flail, assuming sufficient skill for min_delay in both weapons. The amount of slaying needed to pull ahead will depend on the AC of the enemy in question. Very high AC targets will require even more than +10 [slaying + enchantment] over the dire flail, presumably, but that range should hold for the most part.

For additive brands, yeah, qblade is really good (unsurprisingly).

Qblades allow use of shield, and also require less investment. However, dropping 14 skill levels in a weapon skill by end game is really not a large investment, anyway. And qblades are extremely rare. (And as duvessa points out it is also a very bad idea to stick with short blades and only train s blades to 8, unless you already have a quick blade.)

Also note that this comparison favors the faster weapon (qblade) inherently, since it was conducted at +9 weapon enchantment, which isn't easy to get to (especially with a rare weapon like qblade). My point in posting these results, however, was to show just how much +dam you have to stack onto a qblade to make it work against enemies with different AC levels. It is possible, obviously, but it takes quite a lot of luck and more than a little effort.

[duvessa]

For non-additive brands, compared to dire flail, the qblade will pull ahead at somewhere between +2 and +10 higher total [slaying + enchantment], assuming sufficient skill for min_delay in both weapons.

The results you just posted show that it doesn't pull ahead at +9 against a yak.

Qblades allow use of shield, and also require less investment.

I'm not convinced that using a shitty cutlass with too little skill for min delay until you find (probably multiple) acquirement is less investment than picking up a dire flail in early D and training maces to 14.

[and into]

For non-additive brands, compared to dire flail, the qblade will pull ahead at somewhere between +2 and +10 higher total [slaying + enchantment], assuming sufficient skill for min_delay in both weapons.

The results you just posted show that it doesn't pull ahead at +9 against a yak.

I reworded it so that the meaning is clearer. A +11 qblade will beat a +9 dire flail (difference of 2) against a Yak. A +19 qblade will beat a +9 dire flail (difference of 10) against a stone giant. On targets with even higher AC, you'd need an even greater amount of slaying in order for the qblade to keep up. The only exception to this trend is with brands that deal additive damage/effects.

Anyway, I agree with the other point, which is that the (on paper) "lower" investment of the qblade very seldom matters in practice.

Another thing worth noting is that the damage on the qblade is going to be *really* bad if it doesn't even have a good enchantment level on it. So the fsim results I posted are actually slanted toward the qblade, since it benefits more from a comparison at +9. (Also it is on average harder to get high enchantment on a weapon that is very rare, since it means either 1.) getting rare weapon very early, or 2.) being absolutely swamped in enchant weapon scrolls. Or hoarding your ?ew just in case a qblade drops, I guess, but then that is bad play.)

[damiac]

Am I just being stupid, or doesn't that chart show that the quickblade is better than the dire flail when both are at +9? Or is it saying the +19 quickblade is better than the +19 dire flail?

Of course, the best part about M&F is that you don't have to stop at dire flails, unlike short blades and quick blades.

[duvessa]

The chart shows the quick blade is worse* when both are at +9, unless it has elec. A +19 quick blade does beat a +19 dire flail unless the monster has ridiculous AC, but if you're finding that much slaying you can probably just kill monsters by throwing your toenail clippings at them.

*with the stats/skills and into used, the quick blade is actually slightly better against monsters with 0 or 1 AC, but only very slightly, obviously, and dangerous monsters after the first few D levels tend to have more than 1 AC.

[Psiweapon]

Also note that this comparison favors the faster weapon (qblade) inherently, since it was conducted at +9 weapon enchantment, which isn't easy to get to

Very specific point here.

It *is* easy to get to now.

[rchandra]

and into explained why +9 qbl isn't realistically easy to get, look at his last parenthetical.

[duvessa]

Also note that this comparison favors the faster weapon (qblade) inherently, since it was conducted at +9 weapon enchantment, which isn't easy to get to

Very specific point here.

It *is* easy to get to now.

[citation needed]

[Siegurt]

Also don't forget that aux attacks are effectively flat damage brands, and are multiplicative with slaying.

  Code:

CeGl, Level 12, 8 short blades, 14 M&F: Stats 17,7,9

Vs Yak:
+9 qblade. AED, against Yak.  No slay  |  +5 slay  |  +10 slay

No brand:   16.6  |  27.3  |  38.0
Freezing:   21.9  |  34.1  |  45.9
Electroc:   29.6  |  39.9  |  51.0

Vs Stone Giant:
+9 qblade. AED, against Yak.  No slay  |  +5 slay  |  +10 slay

No brand:   10.5  |  20.3  |  30.7
Freezing:   13.9  |  24.9  |  38.0
Electroc:   25.1  |  34.7  |  45.8



[duvessa]

Also note that this comparison favors the faster weapon (qblade) inherently, since it was conducted at +9 weapon enchantment, which isn't easy to get to

Very specific point here.

It *is* easy to get to now.

Okay, I ran objstat for a normal game (D, Lair, Depths, Snake, Shoals, Vaults, Zot, Orc) and the average number of enchant weapon scrolls generated was 10.19. This together with my own experience suggests that it is in fact extremely hard to get a weapon to +9 if you are playing effectively, and even if you are playing horribly ineffectively by hoarding every enchant weapon scroll for the whole game, getting a +0 weapon to +9 would take most of the game. It also looks like due to the comparatively large number of monsters with quick blades, they aren't the least common weapon nowadays (0.83 per game, 0.64 of which are from a monster) - eveningstars (0.39), executioner's axes (0.21), double swords (0.28), triple swords (0.30), and triple crossbows (0.31) are less common.
Of course all of those weapons 1. do more damage in reasonable circumstances, 2. have non-terrible common weapons in their class (morningstar/dire flail/great mace, broad axe/battleaxe, scimitar/great sword, arbalest), which cannot be said of short blades. And if you hate training weapon skill and consistently winning, guess what, all three demon weapons are way more common than quick blades (whip 2.57, blade 1.24, trident 2.83) and are way better weapons unless you have ridiculous slaying.

I'm just going to stop mentioning elec because quick blades shouldn't get generated with brands at all unless they're in a vault or held by the Enchantress, the latter only results in distortion, and the former only results in electrocution in one vault, wizlab_cloud, and is only a 1/5 chance there. So you need to hit the incredibly tiny chance of getting it from brand weapon or as a randart brand, and if the latter, it's a randart so it likely has bad enchantment.

[Psiweapon]

I wasn't talking specifically about qblades, but let me be even more specific:

It is not hard currently in trunk to have a single +9 weapon before depths, sometimes before grabbing a first rune.

You just need to find a decent weapon that has a bit of enchantment and then burn all the EW on it.

I didn't say guaranteed or ubiquitous, I said *not hard*