Pooling advice for making a guide

[Cynry]

Welcome to Crawl. You think the game is hard ? Try the forum...

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I think just like with chess, people underestimate the gulf between beginner and expert. In chess and Crawl there are endless ways you can do things, but the number of "sound" choices are often relatively few. The hallmark of the beginner is that they consider everything, whereas the expert quickly hones in on what the sound choices are, and then devotes his energy to finding the best one among them.

I think that's right, moocow. And I'd just add that relatively novice players should focus on learning reasonable courses of action for this or that situation, without worrying too much about which among them is exactly "optimal" or whatever.

Okay just to prove a point here would be my newbie friendly GrBe>mace strategy guide (the point is that almost all of it applies to *any* Be using maces):

1.) Use the M&F class weapon with the highest base damage that is available to you, then amongst those, choose the one with the best brand. Ultimately you are aiming to get a great mace with a good brand.* Exceptions: A whip of electrocution is an extremely good weapon that should only be replaced by a great mace that has a good brand. Demon whip of electrocution can easily be your endgame weapon.
2.) Don't be stingy with ?enchant weapon scrolls, any weapon you've kept longer than one floor is probably worth enchanting.
3.) Keep it in automatic skill training, just check your skill screen every now and then to make sure nothing weird is happening. Cut off M&F when it hits 20.
4.) For the most part just wear the armor that can give highest AC; a good brand like MR may be worth a couple of points fewer AC.
5.) Use ?enchant armor rather than hoard them. Enchant up your peripheral slots (gloves, boots, etc.) first.
6.) MR is the best resistance to look for, though by D:16 (pre-Vaults) you'll ideally have rF+ and rC+ available at least "on swap." (Remember that rings and amulets can be quickly swapped around if necessary.) rF+ is somewhat more important of those two.
7.) Do Dungeon to Lair/Orc --> Lair --> Orc --> Dungeon to 16 --> Easiest Lair branch --> More difficult Lair branch --> Vaults --> Depths --> Zot. If Orc or the Lair branch is particularly bad then you can skip to next step and come back later. Swamp and Spider tend to be easier, Shoals and Snake tend to be harder, but particularly nasty spawns on a bad floor can sway that.
8.) Don't forget that Trog's Hand gives a large MR boost in addition to regen, so use it liberally, whenever you are up against any stuff that hits you with hexes or debuffs.
9.) By the time you hit Zot you will ideally want at least rF++ available on swap.
10.) Don't put stat ups into intelligence. Strength and Dexterity are roughly equal in value to you.


*Strength of brands for great mace/dire flail/eveningstar on a GrBe in 3-rune game, from best to worst and in appropriate tiers:

Good:
Vampiric
Anti-magic**
Speed
Electrocution
Flaming/Freezing

Decent:
Crushing/Draining

Better than plain:
Protection
Holy Wrath***
Venom

In the unlikely event that you get a weapon with distortion and wield it, just roll with that and use it as best you can.
Don't ever use chaos brand.

** Trog will gift this brand a lot. It is incredibly good against stuff that uses magic. You can swap to one of the damage brands any time you are facing only non-magic enemies.
*** Holy wrath is better than speed against unholy enemies, but there aren't that many scary unholy enemies throughout a 3-rune game; you can keep it in your inventory to swap in against tough undead if you want to though.

[Laraso]

Bad:
Protection
Venom

I would rephrase that to "Worse than above but better than nothing", because "Bad" might cause a new player to think that it is a bad idea to use such weapons.

[duvessa]

Also I would rather have protection than holy wrath.

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Good points, edited post.

[Magipi]

I thought that in the post-endgame (Abyss - Pan - Hells - Tomb), holy wrath is the best.

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I thought that in the post-endgame (Abyss - Pan - Hells - Tomb), holy wrath is the best.

Holy wrath is very good in post-endgame but that was explicitly not covered in guide, and it isn't really something that people who have to look at a guide should worry about. I'd still say that holy wrath is not the best for a berserker in the endgame, anti-magic is still better. Holy Wrath is strictly better than Speed, on average, against targets vulnerable to it. Obviously vampiric is nearly worthless in the (nearly) unholy/unliving-only levels. And anti-magic is not good on anyone who is casting stuff because it nukes your MP.

So for post-endgame I'd say top brands in order are

Anti-Magic if you aren't casting
Holy Wrath
Speed

Distortion is tricky because on the right character it can easily be strongest brand, while on the completely wrong character it can be actively bad (i.e., worse than no ego).

* EDIT: Said some stuff that was wrong, thanks for the correction, stickyfingers.

[banei]

Bad:
Protection
Venom

I would rephrase that to "Worse than above but better than nothing", because "Bad" might cause a new player to think that it is a bad idea to use such weapons.

A whip of Venom is excellent for the first 5 or 6 levels. Here, "Bad" can be rephrased to "Not a good long term investment".

[and into]

Bad:
Protection
Venom

I would rephrase that to "Worse than above but better than nothing", because "Bad" might cause a new player to think that it is a bad idea to use such weapons.

A whip of Venom is excellent for the first 5 or 6 levels. Here, "Bad" can be rephrased to "Not a good long term investment".

Excellent is stretching it, I think. I'd take a plain dire flail or morning star over whip of venom at any point in game, and I'd probably also take a whip/flail of protection in the very early game over venom since the +5 AC will actually really help out at that point. I'd also take whip of freezing/flaming/draining over whip of venom at any point in the game.

The problem is that venom very rarely lets you take stuff out that much quicker; if something is non-threatening enough that you can poison it a lot then walk away while it dies, it probably wasn't a threat to you to begin with and could have either been escaped from via walking, or else taken out in a less obnoxious manner. Plus you generally find a blowgun + needles before or around Temple depth, which basically renders weapons of venom superfluous anyway.

[Laraso]

The problem is that venom very rarely lets you take stuff out that much quicker; if something is non-threatening enough that you can poison it a lot then walk away while it dies, it probably wasn't a threat to you to begin with and could have either been escaped from via walking, or else taken out in a less obnoxious manner. Plus you generally find a blowgun + needles before or around Temple depth, which basically renders weapons of venom superfluous anyway.

With the changes to poison making it stronger but shorter, I generally find that most enemies on the first few levels will die if they get poisoned. That often means only having to hit them once and then walking way, which is nice when you turn a corner and bump faces with an early gnoll and whatnot. It also makes uniques like Terence and Edmund a breeze to take care of for characters who might otherwise have a hard time taking them on in melee.

But yes, if I have a blowgun I don't usually find myself bothering to using venomous weapons

[stickyfingers]

I thought that in the post-endgame (Abyss - Pan - Hells - Tomb), holy wrath is the best.

Holy wrath is very good in post-endgame but that was explicitly not covered in guide, and it isn't really something that people who have to look at a guide should worry about. I'd still say that holy wrath is not the best for a berserker in the endgame, it basically ties with (probably slightly worse in practice than) speed, but I'd say anti-magic is still better than either. Obviously vampiric is nearly worthless in the (nearly) unholy/unliving-only levels. Of course anti-magic is not good on anyone who is casting stuff because it nukes your MP.

So for post-endgame I'd say top brands in order are

Anti-Magic if you aren't casting
Speed
Holy Wrath

Distortion is tricky because on the right character it can easily be strongest brand, while on the completely wrong character it can be actively bad (i.e., worse than no ego).

Actually, holy wrath is better than speed in extended, since it does roughly +d150% (average +75%) damage, while speed always gives +50%. Obviously does not apply to slime and most zig floors.

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Actually, holy wrath is better than speed in extended, since it does roughly +d150% (average +75%) damage, while speed always gives +50%. Obviously does not apply to slime and most zig floors.

Speed doesn't always give +50% but I looked it up on learndb and due to mindelay rounding it does usually give less than 75% damage, at most on certain weapons it will give +80% damage always. Of course any slaying or particularly high enchantment will benefit more from speed, and by the time you get to extended it is not unlikely to have at least one source of decent +dam. Nonetheless I will edit my post as speed is only better than holy wrath for certain weapons and/or with lots of slaying.

[stickyfingers]

Actually, holy wrath is better than speed in extended, since it does roughly +d150% (average +75%) damage, while speed always gives +50%. Obviously does not apply to slime and most zig floors.

Speed doesn't always give +50% but I looked it up on learndb and due to mindelay rounding it does usually give less than 75% damage, at most on certain weapons it will give +80% damage always. Of course any slaying or particularly high enchantment will benefit more from speed, and by the time you get to extended it is not unlikely to have at least one source of decent +dam. Nonetheless I will edit my post as speed is only better than holy wrath for certain weapons and/or with lots of slaying.

holy wrath:

  Code:

if (defender->undead_or_demonic())
    special_damage = 1 + (random2(damage_done * 15) / 10);

speed:

  Code:

if (damage_brand == SPWPN_SPEED)
    delay = random ? div_rand_round(2 * delay, 3) : (2 * delay)/3;

(that "random" equals true, so it's only div_rand_round(2 * delay, 3) where it matters)

Speed now always does +50%, because it reduces delay by 1/3, delay halving with rounding up and 10% of damage reduction is no more.
Slaying is unimportant for comparison, since both brands multiply damage after +dam modifier (lines 580 and 642 in melee_attack.cc).

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Huh. Noted—thanks!