Damnation Crossbow

[stoneychips]

Okay, slightly silly perhaps but I picked up the Damnation Crossbow on Crypt:3... With a DeCj who already has Fire Storm, but still:

I'm not entirely clear how it works in combat. Can you just pick a square and lob it like a free AOE, even without Crossbows skill?

Searched forum. Saw some discussion of it here.

It seems like sometimes you can fire past a rank of enemies if you choose to aim behind them, but... Why does the Wiki say to use the weapon "with the appropriate skill"?

Damnation's base enchantment is decent, and those who have the appropriate skill may occasionally want this.

When I test fire in an empty room, the bolts always seem to land in the square I picked and they always appear to explode into 3x3. What do you need skill for? Can a target somehow remain unaffected within the blast if you don't hit it on the combat roll? They are talking about Crossbows skill, yes?

Also, is there any major downside to using this as a free backup AOE... I mean apart from the noise and some inventory use?

[Sar]

Well, it's probably quite slow with 0 skill.

[stoneychips]

Aha. That is a thought.

I guess they were also talking about skill to hit the main target for the bolt damage. The explosion is unavoidable though, yes?

[papilio]

You can press . to land the bolt to exact tile. The explosion is unavoidable.

[stoneychips]

Well, it's probably quite slow with 0 skill.

Ooh yeah. From the Arbalest wiki:

it takes nearly two normal-speed turns to fire them without training

On that note... Is there a page with graphs of delay for each weapon class by skill level anywhere? Is it usually a predictable speed gain for each point of training, or is the curve different for each weapon class?

I wish the in-game weapon screen would just tell you your current delay, while it's dangling that ideal minimum delay out there and being so nice as to track your current skill level...

(Or is there a command to find this out? Or does it show it?)

[NhorianScum]

Pull the trigger and look at the auts for last action.

[stoneychips]

There's also a thread here that includes claim that attack delay goes down by 0.1 per 2 levels of skill (posted 1 year ago)... If that is still valid.

I'm clueless about where to get the game to show all the technical data by turn, so more stuff to look up if I go that route...

Could memorize Portal Projectile and use the thing just for hitting evil caster sorts in the back ranks... But with Fire Storm (and Freezing Cloud) online, it's probably often redundant for a Conjurer. Tempting backup weapon, though! It would be more tempting if I didn't usually have my arms full with other augmenting weapons... But that seems to be the way conjurers keep playing out for me.

[VeryAngryFelid]

attack delay goes down by 0.1 per 2 levels of skill (posted 1 year ago)... If that is still valid.

Yes, this is how all weapons and launchners work.

[Siegurt]

attack delay goes down by 0.1 per 2 levels of skill (posted 1 year ago)... If that is still valid.

Yes, this is how all weapons and launchners work.

It also tells you in the weapon description how much skill you need to get to min delay

[stoneychips]

attack delay goes down by 0.1 per 2 levels of skill (posted 1 year ago)... If that is still valid.

Yes, this is how all weapons and launchners work.

It also tells you in the weapon description how much skill you need to get to min delay

Yeah, just sort of wished it would have done the math for current delay for those who don't know how to figure it out.

If it's going to track current skill actively in that window anyway, that would be more informative - if less mysterious/dramatic.

[neil]

Yeah, just sort of wished it would have done the math for current delay for those who don't know how to figure it out.

Over in the HUD area on the right, in parentheses next to the elapsed game time, it tells you how much time the last action took. So you can experiment if you're willing to spend a turn and a bolt on it.

Time: 28256.4 (1.4)

Means you have been playing for 282564 AUT, and your last action took 14, where a "standard" turn is 10 AUT.

It would be nice if @ actually displayed numbers, and not just "extremely slow", "below average", "choko fast".

[stoneychips]

Over in the HUD area on the right, in parentheses next to the elapsed game time, it tells you how much time the last action took. So you can experiment if you're willing to spend a turn and a bolt on it.

Ha. Things I never knew... Or maybe heard once among a whole bunch of info and totally forgot after. I knew of auts, but not where to find that. Cheers.

It would be nice if @ actually displayed numbers, and not just "extremely slow", "below average", "choko fast".

What is the @ all about, anyway?

[neil]

It would be nice if @ actually displayed numbers, and not just "extremely slow", "below average", "choko fast".

What is the @ all about, anyway?

It is a command shows some information about your character that doesn't fit anywhere else, like movement speed and attack speed. More and more information is being moved out of that command into other ones, though (especially %), so I suspect the @ command won't be around for too many more years.

[Rast]

Damnation is bad for actual crossbow users, because of how it eats ammo so quickly.

Think of it instead as an evokable with hundreds of charges (depending on how many bolts you've found), that needs to be wielded like a two-handed rod, and takes twice as long to use as other evokables, but you can throw a few skill points into Crossbows skill to speed it up a little.

It's mechanically pretty strong TBH, just an awful interface/design.

[stoneychips]

Damnation is bad for actual crossbow users, because of how it eats ammo so quickly.

Think of it instead as an evokable with hundreds of charges (depending on how many bolts you've found), that needs to be wielded like a two-handed rod, and takes twice as long to use as other evokables, but you can throw a few skill points into Crossbows skill to speed it up a little.

It's mechanically pretty strong TBH, just an awful interface/design.

Yeah, I tried it a little bit untrained in V:5 and wasn't taken with it there. Even when I aimed behind the front line, I was hitting people in the way without meaning to. And it's feeling very slow when anything substantial is coming toward you.

Maybe it could be useful for sniping into some vault where stuff just hangs out on the edge of sight/behind some obstruction corner and is otherwise hard to keep hitting at range.

I thought it might be cool to attract some trash and then Firestorm them, but it's generally safer to Firestorm big stuff on sight before any approach... And it's getting rarer to encounter only trash without serious threats around them already. I'm tempted by it and carrying it just in case, but still want more spell schools and maybe a bit more Fighting (have 16).

[Rast]

Yeah, I tried it a little bit untrained in V:5

I would not even have bothered at that point. Ironic, Vaults are a great place to find Damnation and tons of bolts.

I found it once on d:6 or so and it was pretty sweet, though I had started to go crossbows before and had to switch away from them. Still worth it, the DPS were ridiculous and it let me win fights that should have been impossible or required heavy consumable use.

[duvessa]

The current incarnation of Damnation acts like an unbranded arbalest, except that the bolt creates a 3d12 damnation explosion wherever it hits. The bolt itself remains physical, so it still checks AC and still doesn't check rDamnation, despite the ridiculous "the damnation bolt damns the hellion" message.

So it's really good even with no crossbow skill because of the constant explosion damage. It's not useful for a character that already has fire storm though.

[MainiacJoe]

Sounds like the "oooh shiny!' trap/annoyance. I hate it when I get an artifact I've always wanted to try, on a character for which it's useless.

[stoneychips]

Yes generally feels redundant with Firestorm.

I have used it a couple times in Zot, though:

Once with Portal Projectile to shoot at a target in a corridor behind a line of animated skeletons. Uses less MP and blasts less surrounding stuff in close quarters than big bomb spells. Still good when the target turns invisible. Though not ultimately so great when the target is a ghost moth (MP to power Portal Projectile eventually run out).

Finishing off a softish target (ancient lich) at substantial range after ran out of MP tossing big fire spells. This worked out well mainly because there was a corner to duck around to equip the crossbow and still time to peek back far from melee range - all after the target was officially "almost dead". Evocables would probably work sooner or later in that situation, but the unavoidable explosion reduces worries that the lich might get more turns by chance misses/resists.

[MainiacJoe]

Yes generally feels redundant with Firestorm.

I have used it a couple times in Zot, though:

Once with Portal Projectile to shoot at a target in a corridor behind a line of animated skeletons. Uses less MP and blasts less surrounding stuff in close quarters than big bomb spells. Still good when the target turns invisible. Though not ultimately so great when the target is a ghost moth (MP to power Portal Projectile eventually run out).

Finishing off a softish target (ancient lich) at substantial range after ran out of MP tossing big fire spells. This worked out well mainly because there was a corner to duck around to equip the crossbow and still time to peek back far from melee range - all after the target was officially "almost dead". Evocables would probably work sooner or later in that situation, but the unavoidable explosion reduces worries that the lich might get more turns by chance misses/resists.

Hmm. With Portal Projectile, I can see how it turns into essentially a two-handed rod of smite-targeted damnation, with charges equal to the number of bolts you've found in Vaults. Not bad at all, if you keep the slower speed in mind.

[stoneychips]

Yeah, I had tons of bolts by the time it showed up. Portal Projectile does use some MP for cast plus each shot, though. So actually I'd be limited by that first. At least as far as the safer toss over intervening mobs/smiting goes.

The problem for me was finding situations where I had plenty of time. It's better for long distance fights where you have cover to back away (unless the opposition isn't mounting any good ranged capacity). It might be better for summoners with lots of expendable trash in the front line.

[kuniqs]

Mmm... Rod of Hellfire, I'd like to see that in Crawl sometime.

[njvack]

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Staff_of_Dispater

[kuniqs]

I'm talking about a random, findable item, not something that is obtained precisely at the point when it's not needed for anything.

[njvack]

I dunno. Dispater's staff is probably the only item that might drive my decisions about extended. If I had a char with lots of evo and HP and was confident that I could take him out, it'd be useful through the rest of extended. rDamnation is uncommon even among demons and the staff can do a lot of damage to anything without it.

I rather wish all the extended bosses had something that was actually useful in some circumstances. Still don't get why Cerebov doesn't just get a triple sword.

[kuniqs]

Staff of Dispater might as well shoot lasers, dunno. If I can kill Dispater, I'm done with the game already.

[stoneychips]

Another game, much later.

Damnation showed up on a treasure island in Lair: 6.

Playing an orc fighter already using a hand crossbow. Came to a choice between horrid open layout D:15 or Snake/Shoals with no rPois and weakish/mediocre general defenses yet.

Learned: Damnation is really awesome in Elf, especially versus elementals, flying weapons, Elf:2 (Hall of Blades even) and against the vault on Elf:3. Again, best if you can find a nice place to snipe at those casters coming out of the bottleneck corridor where you're not too exposed yourself to occasional sneaky blinking folks and elementals creeping up closer. Makes quick, 1-3 shot work of casters that were otherwise sometimes dodging even my +10 arbalest bolts.