Which Weapon Type is Best?

[Sharkman1231]

I had a stabber with a chaos quick blade, I was fighting a harpy. The harpy got healed, then berserked, then duplicated. It was not fun.

[Turukano]

After some thoughts about chaos weapons I suggest returning to the weapon type discussion.

I object to the poll on the basis of no unarmed option

Yes, adding unarmed to the selection would have been interesting.

Actually the result of the topic is like this:

• 1. M&F, 15 votes
• 2. polearms, 9 votes
  [...]
• last: axes, long blades, 5 votes

The result surprises me. I thought long blades are the best weapons from an objective point of view - although I don't like them. My personal favourites are polearms and M&F.

Long blades (triple swords) have the highest base damage of all normal weapons but it looks like they are not very popular. I wonder why. Maybe because of the hydra issue? (Yes, you can kill them with other means but it's annyoing if you happen to find swamp in your game and don't have flaming brand.)

[Bloax]

I wasn't actually kidding when I posted my post.

[daggaz]

Long blades (triple swords) have the highest base damage of all normal weapons but it looks like they are not very popular. I wonder why. Maybe because of the hydra issue? (Yes, you can kill them with other means but it's annyoing if you happen to find swamp in your game and don't have flaming brand.)

Hydra arent the issue, there are plenty of other means to kill them, you have a good chance of finding a flaming scimitar/longsword before too long, a flaming shortblade can be used easily thanks to crosstraining, and if you are wielding a high damage triple sword, you can just kill a hydra outright before it has the chance to grow more than a couple more heads.

Its probably more to do with the huge XP cost, and that maces and flails contains more varied useful weapon types.

[Magipi]

Long blades (triple swords) have the highest base damage of all normal weapons but it looks like they are not very popular. I wonder why.

Its probably more to do with the huge XP cost

Yes, I think this is relevant. The cost of raising a skill from 20 to 26 is huge, you can practically learn Haste in some light dragon armour for that cost. And at skill 20, a great mace has much more damage than a triple sword: the GM attacks 10 times in 7 turns, the TS attacks 7 times.

Another thing is availability. Unless you are with Trog, you probably won't find a TS in the entire game. They are insanely rare.

[Turukano]

The cost of raising a skill from 20 to 26 is huge

Triple swords have min delay of 24.

But yes, the XP cost compared to a great mace and the probability of getting your weapon are important points.

[Sar]

Great swords are pretty good and common.

[daggaz]

Top tier weapons of all classes are not nearly as rare as people often say. Yeah it might take a while to find one, and you will see dozens and dozens of lower tier types first, but I pretty much always find at least 4 or 5 in the course of 5 runer.. Especially if you choose "a" with ?acquire.

Eveningstars, on the other hand...

[duvessa]

great sword is basically the same as great mace but with better brands

[dowan]

And better availability! Plus they crosstrain a somewhat useful skill, rather than an almost totally useless skill. I could a long blade user using a short blade to stab occasionally, I cannot imagine a great mace user occasionally using a war axe.

[Lasty]

I prefer to think of great sword as a lajatang that you find dozens of every game.

[bcadren]

I prefer to think of great sword as a lajatang that you find dozens of every game.

(long blades; -3 acc / 16 dam / 1.6 base delay / 0.7 min delay; two handed) vs. (staves; -3 acc / 16 dam / 1.4 base delay / 0.7 min delay; two handed)

Huh. Great Sword is slightly worse (more skill until min delay); but you aren't wrong. middle-ground long blade is pretty comparable to top-tier, very rare staff. [Except the Staff can be Speed Branded; so it has that going for it, which is nice.]

[Pereza0]

Good thing the staff kills the monster the next hit. I have yet to die to a beserk monster from this staff. With other chaos weapons yes but for this high enchanted qstaff your more than likely to kill the monster the next hit given the weapon's accuracy, damage, and slaying. If your fighting undead or other non beserkable monster the weapon is a no-brainer. Besides if your seriously concerned hopefully you will have found a plain qstaff by then to switch to for the dangerous monster.

I would love to hear people that have actually died because of Yuif's chaos qstaff. I have yet to see a true example

I have died because of it.

Problem with it is that you generally want to avoid using it on anything that will kill you if it gets berserk/hastened/invisible. So you can either use it to kill stuff you could have killed anyway or using it on stuff that might kill you if it goes wrong. I often still pick it up when I have the chance though, hope for an early scroll of brand weapon to use on it.

And no, if you Berserk a moderately (or actually) threatening monster the first hit you probably won't kill it the second. It might even make matters worse. And due to the increased speed running away is not a real option either

[Eyesburn]

The best weapon, dagger of venom on D:1

[WingedEspeon]

I would say with bad apts like Mu I would go M&F or long blades and one handed. With good apt like Mi I would go Polearms/axes and two handed

[daggaz]

The best weapon type is the one you have the most skill points in.

[Berder]

The single best weapon you can possibly get, regardless of skill investment and rarity: a triple crossbow of penetration. It's basically a giant spiked club that is a bit slower, but hits everything in the corridor at once.

[BTA]

I like chaos brand because of all the possibilities - Completely heal or clone one turn then put them to sleep the next turn?! Chaos brand is a roller coaster brand. I like the biggest axe my melee character can use with a shield. Troll (regenerate) or Formian (4 arms)? Decisions, decisions. I like training short blade for my stabbers and casters because I might find a quick blade. Great swords have been the most common melee top tier and executioner axe least common, long bows are most common and triple crossbow least common for me. I have not tried mace, staff, long sword or polearms.

I notice the things I want to find when I make a new character... those are rare. I wanted some kind of crossbow, I got a +8 artifact sling. My Octopode saw more enhanced armor than any other character character so far.