I think Dire Flail of Pain is good

[MainiacJoe]

I’ve been playing a lot of Kiku lately, DECj and now DrCj after getting frustrated with DE’s fragility. As I’m aiming for 5-rune wins, I am defaulting to planning from the get-go to pain brand a weapon at 6*. The more I think about this, the more skeptical I am that a dagger is a good weapon to pain brand. It has lower base damage than any other short blade, and of course quick blade is also faster.

Indeed it seems to me that dire flail is probably the best common weapon to pain brand, since even though it’s a speed 6 weapon its 13 base damage makes up for it. To wit: pain adds Nec/2 average damage: n/(n+1) chance to add 1d(n), this die roll averages (n+1)/2, and the (n+1)'s cancel. At speed 5, dagger thus adds n/10 per aut, and dire flail at speed 6 adds n/12. So the dagger gets an extra n/60 per aut, which doesn't make up for its 4 base damage vs. 13. Average base damage dealt before strength and Fighting modifiers, and letting enchantment offset enemy AC: Dagger at skill 10 is 1d4*(24+1d11)/25, dire flail at skill 14 is 1d13*(24+1d15)/25, for averages of 3.0 and 8.96, which become 0.60 and 1.49 average damage per aut. Necromancy can't get to skill level 60*(1.49 - 0.6)= 53.4, so dire flail of pain will always do more than dagger of pain--and when you do include strength and fighting it just helps dire flail more. Rapier does better, at 1d7*(24+1d15)/25 ~ 5.12 -> 1.02 / aut, but even at Nec 27 it's just a tad short of catching up. Demon whip (skill 12) at 1.46 / aut is better at any Nec greater than 2, so effectively always, but it's rare and dire flail is a normal frequency weapon. Of course if you have tons of +slay from other items, that makes a difference, but in general, I'm thinking that if you havne't found a quick blade or demon foo by the time you get to 6*, it's hard to go wrong with branding a dire flail.

I’ve not seen dire flail suggested anywhere though as a good pain weapon—so where am I thinking wrongly?

[VeryAngryFelid]

The trick is to have several weapons when you use 1-handed weapons with Kiku. Optimally it is a set of quickblade of pain, quickblade of electro, eudemon blade, vampiric demon blade, antimagic demon blade and vorpal demon blade... But realistically I usually have just 3 weapons: fast pain, fast electro and high base one.
Dagger is nice because it gives great stabbing with minor investment in stealth due to allies.

[MainiacJoe]

Dagger is nice because it gives great stabbing with minor investment in stealth due to allies.

Yes, I forgot about distraction stabs. Thank you.

[Siegurt]

That being said, dire flails are pretty good for pain branding, in the category of M&F i would prefer a demon whip or eveningstar, of course, but dire flail is a not too distant third choice.

Short blades are all fast, and do extra damage when you have allies around, so they are also not a bad choice.

Axes are appealing because you hit more than one thing per attack (obviously they are not fast, so bigger is better there)

And long swords are more interesting to pain brand now, because riposte gives you more pain than it used to (plus it can be a passive source of melee damage, nice if you want to use your turns casting spells instead of attacking.)

Overall, dire flails are not a bad choice, but neither is pretty much anything else you would want to kill things with.

[MainiacJoe]

Siegurt, I had the impression that pain-branding any speed 7 weapon is suboptimal, because pain is an additive brand. that is why I considered dire flail for M&F instead of great mace or eveningstar. You seem to be saying though that it's good on the very heavy weapons, as well as on the fast ones. Kinda like electrocution in that way, now I think about it.

[Lasty]

Pretty much any good base weapon makes a good weapon of pain. Fast attack speed is nice, of course, but if you choose a low base damage weapon and aren't stabbing, you're really leaving value on the table. I would discourage you from trying to get a ton of different weapons unless you have way more scrolls of enchant weapon than normally generate in a 3-rune game. Better to have one good weapon than a bunch of semi-enchanted weapons.

[Rast]

I think pain is one of the worst brands available. It's basically a bad version of elec that requires you to have spent points in a spellcasting skill and does nothing at all to a huge chunk of monsters, including most of the nastiest non-uniques.

[nago]

I think pain is one of the best brands available. It's basically a better version of elec that works with a spellcasting skill you're already trained and does punish almost every monster, including most of the nastiest non-uniques.

[Lasty]

The strongest Necro spells affect even the nastiest monsters: Borg, DDoor, and the products of all the minion spells. W/ Kiku's corpse delivery, Animate Dead can clear Z:5.

[Rast]

I think pain is one of the best brands available. It's basically a better version of elec that works with a spellcasting skill you're already trained and does punish almost every monster, including most of the nastiest non-uniques.

It doesn't work on any of these:
http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Category:Ne ... resistance

Most characters are better off without training necromancy at all.

[Siegurt]

Siegurt, I had the impression that pain-branding any speed 7 weapon is suboptimal, because pain is an additive brand. that is why I considered dire flail for M&F instead of great mace or eveningstar. You seem to be saying though that it's good on the very heavy weapons, as well as on the fast ones. Kinda like electrocution in that way, now I think about it.

This is the wrong way to look at it, it's a common misperception that "flat brands are good on fast weapons, and percentage brands are good on heavy weapons"

What's true is that "good weapons are good, bad weapons are bad" and "fast weapons get more of a benefit from flat brands than heavier weapons" but a good weapon is still good, and a good brand is good, regardless of what weapon you put it on.

Elec for example, is better than fire, it's better on a slow high base damage weapon, it's better on a fast low base damage weapon, it's better *by a wider margin* on the faster weapon, but that doesn't really change anything decision wise.

If a weapon is better and does more damage than a different weapon, it's almost certain that it will do more damage than that weapon when both are pain branded.

Also selecting a good weapon has the additional benefit of not totally sucking if the monster's immune to pain.

[VeryAngryFelid]

If a weapon is better and does more damage than a different weapon, it's almost certain that it will do more damage than that weapon when both are pain branded.

Not really. Do you want to compare brandless quickblade and great sword vs high AC targets (preferably with great sword below not at min delay yet)? And then with pain brand?
It's almost certain that we need run fsim when we are not absolutely sure.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Vs Stone Giant, fighting 15, necromancy 15.

  Code:

j - a +9 great sword of pain (weapon)
Enter Wizard Command (? - help):
Enter monster name (or MONS spec):
           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:     20,5 |     58 |      94% |  19,4 |    70  |  1,43 |     27,7
Defending:     13,1 |     36 |      71% |   9,4 |   100  |  1,00 |      9,4
Wield which item (- for none, * to show all)? (? for menu, Esc to quit)
A searing pain shoots up your arm!
k - a +9 quick blade of pain (weapon)
Enter Wizard Command (? - help):
Enter monster name (or MONS spec):
           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:     11,3 |     32 |      93% |  10,6 |    30  |  3,33 |     35,3
Defending:     12,8 |     36 |      72% |   9,3 |   100  |  1,00 |      9,3
Wield which item (- for none, * to show all)? (? for menu, Esc to quit)
l - a +9 great sword (weapon)
Enter Wizard Command (? - help):
Enter monster name (or MONS spec):
           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:     13,7 |     46 |      94% |  12,9 |    70  |  1,43 |     18,4
Defending:     12,9 |     36 |      72% |   9,3 |   100  |  1,00 |      9,3
Wield which item (- for none, * to show all)? (? for menu, Esc to quit)
n - a +9 quick blade (weapon)
Enter Wizard Command (? - help):
Enter monster name (or MONS spec):
           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:      4,5 |     22 |      94% |   4,2 |    30  |  3,33 |     14,1
Defending:     12,5 |     36 |      70% |   8,8 |   100  |  1,00 |      8,8

[KoboldLord]

The best necromancy spells work on the nastiest monster in the game and on no other monster. That is, the player.

Just use whatever crap you have handy for your pain brand. If you have a quick blade, then yeah, use that, but waiting for the best hypothetical weapon is almost certainly worse than starting to use your guaranteed pain brand as soon as possible. If it was good enough for you to hit things with it before it was branded with pain, it's going to be good enough for you to hit things with it afterward.

[ZipZipskins]

Most characters are better off without training necromancy at all.

well that's a new one

[dracos369]

Pain-branded polearms, anyone? I mean, reaching over your undead minions and all....

[VeryAngryFelid]

The best necromancy spells work on the nastiest monster in the game and on no other monster. That is, the player.

It's amazing to see how people suggest getting level 8 spell (Born's Revivification) in 3 rune game without casting it ever or dual school level 8 spell (Death's Door) in 3 rune game while keep insisting that another dual school level 8 spell (Necromutation) is a trap in 15 rune game.
The best necromancy spells are Animate Foo and Death Channel, they don't work on player.

[KoboldLord]

The best necromancy spells work on the nastiest monster in the game and on no other monster. That is, the player.

It's amazing to see how people suggest getting level 8 spell (Born's Revivification) in 3 rune game without casting it ever or dual school level 8 spell (Death's Door) in 3 rune game while keep insisting that another dual school level 8 spell (Necromutation) is a trap in 15 rune game.
The best necromancy spells are Animate Foo and Death Channel, they don't work on player.

Sublimation of Blood. Regeneration.

The ally-generating necromancy spells are obviously overpowered, certainly, but there are many ways to generate allies and almost all of them are overpowered.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Sublimation of Blood. Regeneration.The ally-generating necromancy spells are obviously overpowered, certainly, but there are many ways to generate allies and almost all of them are overpowered.

Maybe I am bad with those spells but I rate them infinitely less useful than the spells I listed. There are multiple ways to regen MP/HP too.

[njvack]

The thing about necromut in a three-rune game is that there are vanishingly few tormentors, but plenty of things that can kill you in other ways, so borg's and ddoor are more likely to be useful. And borg's is single-school in a school you're probably already training a ton (especially if you're swinging pain), and ddoor is dual-school, but charms is more useful than tmut to most characters.

Not that I would work towards either spell in most 3-runers, tbh.

[VeryAngryFelid]

The thing about necromut in a three-rune game is that there are vanishingly few tormentors, but plenty of things that can kill you in other ways, so borg's and ddoor are more likely to be useful. And borg's is single-school in a school you're probably already training a ton (especially if you're swinging pain), and ddoor is dual-school, but charms is more useful than tmut to most characters.

Not that I would work towards either spell in most 3-runers, tbh.

Neither of the spells are good in 3 rune games IMHO. They don't kill monsters and you are better with something like tornado or dragoncall.
I wonder if anyone ever casted borg's in 3 rune game, it means you either got close to death despite having amazing Necro spells or you overtrained Necro just for pain brand and borg.

Edit. Maybe during orb run it might be useful. But then I would call it an overkill

[MainiacJoe]

... you overtrained Necro just for pain brand ...

So what are good target Necro skill levels for various parts of a 3-rune game, if pain brand is your main reason to be pushing it? By that I mean, you can cast your support spells just fine, but you train it beyond what you need for those for your brand. Pain surpasses electrocution in average damage per aut at Nec = 9.4, for instance.

[MainiacJoe]

Pain-branded polearms, anyone? I mean, reaching over your undead minions and all....

So how much of a problem is Mf's -2 Necro aptitude? I'm guessing, you can put up with it because you need to spend relatively little XP on Polearms.

[VeryAngryFelid]

So what are good target Necro skill levels for various parts of a 3-rune game, if pain brand is your main reason to be pushing it? By that I mean, you can cast your support spells just fine, but you train it beyond what you need for those for your brand. Pain surpasses electrocution in average damage per aut at Nec = 9.4, for instance.

If I have Animate Dead or Death Channel (or Kiku since Necro affects "receive corpses" power), I train Necro enough to make them castable and use pain brand.
If I don't have them but have electro weapon, I ignore pain brand.
If I don't have the spells nor electro, then I ask myself different questions: am I caster with bolt of draining? do I have a good shield? what are my XP constraints i.e. can I "waste" some XP in case I will never find good Necro spells? and act accordingly.
Basically I feel it's ok to go with great mace or dire flail and ignore pain-branded whip, I will save some XP this way (for dire flail) or will not be so dependent on monster rN+ (for great mace).

[Rast]

I went through all 33 of zzxc's streak games.

In three of them he went kiku and trained Necromancy to a high level and pain branded a dagger or laj. No argument with this, if you're doing the kiku thing, sure, go pain.

In six more games, after collecting at least his first rune he memorized one or two utility necro spells (regen, animate skeleton) and trained Necromancy to 4.0 or 8.0. He barely used his necro spells, and needless to say he didn't touch pain brand. Example:
https://crawl.project357.org/morgue/zzx ... 185958.txt
62315 | Depths:2 | Learned a level 3 spell: Regeneration
62483 | Depths:2 | Reached skill level 1 in Necromancy
63749 | Depths:4 | Reached skill level 4 in Necromancy
...and never cast the spell.

In the other 24 games, he didn't train Necromancy at all.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I went through all 33 of zzxc's streak games.

I am not sure what it proves. Do you want me to go through elliptic's games and show that he uses Necromancy a lot?

[dracos369]

Pain-branded polearms, anyone? I mean, reaching over your undead minions and all....

So how much of a problem is Mf's -2 Necro aptitude? I'm guessing, you can put up with it because you need to spend relatively little XP on Polearms.

Mf are hardly the only ones that can use polearms. My Kiku win was a DrIE, and I used a pain branded spear(it was already highly enchanted when I branded it) for the first 4 runes or so.

But yeah, with +4 polearms, +1 fighting and +3 dodging, for Mf, XP is hardly an issue.

[tabstorm]

the necronomicon is not a bad choice now that Infest is a feature. you can clear the whole game with infest and dchan and can start using it around xl14

[zxc23]

Pain is very good, but it's rare that I have a game where the opportunity cost of dropping everything I'm doing to switch to a pain weapon is worth the gain. With Kiku, using pain is a no-brainer.

Necromancy spells are decent utility, but I tend not to go very heavy on utility. Regen is mostly extra keypresses for little gain unless turn-count speedrunning. Animate skeleton is tedious to use, but sometimes I learn it anyway. Sublimation of blood is nice for Vehumet chars and otherwise not really a priority.

I actually used Elliptic's games as a rough guide for how to build my Kiku chars, so I don't think you'll find many differences there.

I try to pain brand a quickblade ideally, but they never turn up and neither do acquirement scrolls. So, I will settle for a speed 0.5 weapon that is available around orc mines, such as dagger, spear. Good 2h weapons are also good to pain brand, but the problem is that you are usually starting to train such a skill from scratch, and you could get a roughly similar benefit from using a cheapo weapon that you're already skilled in and spend all that XP on something else. Most of my Kiku chars use short blades and sometimes are stabbers, because Kiku is one of the only ways to make short blades any good.

[Rast]

With Kiku, using pain is a no-brainer.

Do you think it's better than vamp, assuming a decent base damage weapon?

[njvack]

Why am I so goddamned bad at using vamp? I want it to be as good as everyone says it is but almost always have better luck when I just do more damage. Is it just that doing damage and hitting fewer keys feels good?

[VeryAngryFelid]

Vamp is not that great with bad defense and low HP.

[zxc23]

With Kiku, using pain is a no-brainer.

Do you think it's better than vamp, assuming a decent base damage weapon?

This seems to be a purely hypothetical question, as I can't imagine facing a choice between pain or vamp with the same base type and enchant. But the better the base type (and slaying/enchant), the more I'd lean towards vamp. You're kind of winning either way. Axes also favour vamp, and faster bases pain.

[Rast]

This seems to be a purely hypothetical question, as I can't imagine facing a choice between pain or vamp with the same base type and enchant

If you find a decent vamp weapon before getting to six stars with Kiku, are you going to brand it over to pain?

[Rast]

Vamp is not that great with bad defense and low HP.

Neither is pain.

Here's why I dislike the Pain brand: It encourages players to spend xp on Necromancy, instead of [Fighting/Weapon/Armour]. This encourages them to learn Necromancy spells. This encourages them to wear light armor, instead of chain or better, and encourages them to spend more xp on Spellcasting and related skills. Pretty soon they are walking into Snake with Fighting 5.0, Armour 0.0, a weapon that doesn't scratch rN+ enemies and isn't even at min delay, and they splat even before running out of mana.

edit: This thread started with OP determined to win a DrCj^Kiku after getting tired of splatting DE^Kiku. So yes, Pain brand is likely going to be a part of that, as that's pretty much the best case scenario for Pain brand. However, I standby my contention that it's a bad brand overall.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Vamp is not that great with bad defense and low HP.

Neither is pain.

Consider fighting a monster with HP equal to your HP. If you receive more damage than you deal, vamp is bad because the monster is going to win. Pain can reverse situation and make you deal more damage than you receive thus making you the winner.
See my example in the thread above, pain changed damage from 14 to 35 per turn.

[ZipZipskins]

Vamp is not that great with bad defense and low HP.

Neither is pain.

Here's why I dislike the Pain brand: It encourages players to spend xp on Necromancy, instead of [Fighting/Weapon/Armour]. This encourages them to learn Necromancy spells. This encourages them to wear light armor, instead of chain or better, and encourages them to spend more xp on Spellcasting and related skills. Pretty soon they are walking into Snake with Fighting 5.0, Armour 0.0, a weapon that doesn't scratch rN+ enemies and isn't even at min delay, and they splat even before running out of mana.

If this situation happens, the hypothetical player you described put way too much xp into necromancy.

[Rast]

make you deal more damage than you receive thus making you the winner.

That doesn't automatically make you the winner...

[VeryAngryFelid]

That doesn't automatically make you the winner...

Come on, I am sure you know what I meant

[Lasty]

Here's why I dislike the Pain brand: It encourages players to spend xp on Necromancy, instead of [Fighting/Weapon/Armour]. This encourages them to learn Necromancy spells. This encourages them to wear light armor, instead of chain or better, and encourages them to spend more xp on Spellcasting and related skills. Pretty soon they are walking into Snake with Fighting 5.0, Armour 0.0, a weapon that doesn't scratch rN+ enemies and isn't even at min delay, and they splat even before running out of mana.

Man, that has never happened to me. Never even close. Has it happened to you? It seems like this is describing insanely myopic skilling, like choosing Zin and then only training Invo to 27, or finding Book of the Warp and only training Translocations to 27. But even in that wild scenario where you sink all your XP into a single skill, necromancy + pain brand probably puts you ahead of most other put-all-skill-points-in-a-single-skill strategies.