Questions about stabbing

[diviton]

I haven't played a stabber since Stabbing was its own skill, so I have some questions.

1. I know stabbing damage is based off your stealth, so does this mean only your stealth skill number, or does stabbing get a damage boost from all boosts to your stealth?

2. I know stabbing damage is ALSO based off your weapon skill. Normally I'd only train Short Blade to 10 for a Dagger, but does Stabbing continue to see damage increases from raising my short blades skill? If so, is the damage boost worthwhile, or should I just aim for min dagger delay?

3. I found a nice Cutlass in a shop, but I know Daggers get the biggest boost in stabbing damage, but if the crawlwiki is correct, it's possible to train your skills high enough that all short blades could get the same stabbing bonus as a dagger. Apparently the damage bonus is capped at 30, so does anyone know how high my skills/dex need to be for a Cutlass to reach that 30 cap?

[and into]

1.) You short blades skill and your stealth *skill* affect your stabbing damage. Boosts to stealth do not affect stabbing damage (but do help provide more opportunities to stab, obviously, since dudes don't notice you as well).

2.) Yes, you still get boosts to stabbing damage beyond 10 short blades, but stealth is a higher priority. 10 short blades and like 14 to 16 stealth or so is generally sufficient for stabbing damage at least for a long, long time, later in the game you can pump short blades up a bit just to get very good chances of one-shots against even the highest HP enemies if you want. However, see below:

3.) Assuming there is not an awesome artifact or ego dagger or short sword around, go with the cutlass and train short blades to 14, but no more (which gives min_delay of .5 for cutlass, which is special cased to have min_delay that is less than half of its base delay of 1.2—additionally, 14 short blades is more than sufficient for stabbing purposes assuming you have a good bit of stealth, as you should).

[diviton]

  Code:

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.14-a0-2019-gd9bc7f0 (tiles) character file.

Lorenzo the Unseen (Spriggan Enchanter)            Turns: 45494, Time: 03:23:59

HP  89/89        AC 11     Str  4      XL: 17   Next:  2%
MP  39/39        EV 29     Int 22      God: Dithmengos [******]
Gold 1147        SH  0     Dex 18      Spells: 10 memorised,  1 level left

rFire  . . .     SeeInvis +     a - +4,+3 dagger
rCold  . . .     Clarity  .     G - +0 robe {MR+}
rNeg   . . .     Conserve .     (shield restricted)
rPois  +         rCorr    .     z - +2 hat {MR+}
rElec  .         rRot     .     J - +2 cloak
SustAb . .       Spirit   .     (gloves unavailable)
rMut   +         Warding  .     (boots unavailable)
Saprov . . .     Stasis   .     s - amulet of resist mutation
MR     ++++.                    k - ring of poison resistance
                                d - +4 ring of protection

@: wreathed by umbra, very quick, incredibly resistant to hostile enchantments,
uncannily stealthy
A: unfitting armour, see invisible, herbivore 3, speed 3, mutation resistance 1,
slow metabolism 2
a: Shadow Step, Shadow Form, Renounce Religion


You are on level 3 of the Snake Pit.
You worship Dithmengos.
Dithmengos is exalted by your worship.
You are not hungry.

You have visited 6 branches of the dungeon, and seen 36 of its levels.
You have visited 1 bazaar.
You have also visited: Sewer.

You have collected 4387 gold pieces.
You have spent 3240 gold pieces at shops.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 a - a +4,+3 dagger (weapon)
Armour
 z - a +2 hat of magic resistance (worn)
 G - a +0 robe of magic resistance (worn)
 J - a +2 cloak (worn)
Magical devices
 b - a glowing bone wand
 h - a wand of lightning
 p - a wand of hasting (8)
 B - a wand of digging (12)
 N - a wand of disintegration (6)
Comestibles
 g - a pear
 w - 2 bread rations
Scrolls
 e - 5 scrolls of teleportation
 j - 2 scrolls of blinking
 x - 4 scrolls of identify
 y - 2 scrolls of fear
 D - 2 scrolls of fog
 H - 3 scrolls of remove curse
Jewellery
 c - a +3,+4 ring of slaying
 d - a +4 ring of protection (left hand)
 f - an uncursed ring of protection from cold
 k - a ring of poison resistance (right hand)
 n - an uncursed ring of sustain abilities
 q - an uncursed ring of protection from cold
 r - an uncursed amulet of resist corrosion
 s - an amulet of resist mutation (around neck)
 I - an uncursed ring of positive energy
 M - an uncursed ring of protection from fire
Potions
 i - 4 potions of heal wounds
 l - 2 potions of restore abilities
 o - 5 potions of curing
 t - 2 potions of agility
 v - a potion of speed
 A - a potion of resistance


   Skills:
 - Level 10.0 Fighting
 - Level 10.0 Short Blades
 - Level 1.1 Throwing
 - Level 0.1 Armour
 * Level 12.9 Dodging
 - Level 18.2 Stealth
 - Level 13.2 Spellcasting
 - Level 4.3 Conjurations
 - Level 13.0 Hexes
 - Level 13.1 Charms
 - Level 3.2 Translocations
 - Level 2.0 Ice Magic
 * Level 12.2 Earth Magic
 - Level 2.2 Evocations


You have one spell level left.
You know the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Mass Confusion        Hex            ######....   3%          6    #####..
b - Ensorcelled Hibernat  Hex/Ice        #####.       1%          2    None
c - Confuse               Hex            ######..     1%          3    None
d - Invisibility          Hex            ######..     3%          6    #####..
e - Blink                 Tloc           N/A          1%          2    None
f - Repel Missiles        Chrm/Air       #####.....   1%          2    None
g - Haste                 Chrm           ######..     3%          6    #####..
h - Dig                   Erth           ######..     1%          4    None
i - Iron Shot             Conj/Erth      ######....   24%         6    #####..
j - Control Teleport      Chrm/Tloc      ######....   1%          4    None


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (16/16)            Temple (1/1) D:7             Orc (4/4) D:12
    Elf (0/3) Orc:4          Lair (8/8) D:9          Shoals (4/5) Lair:4
  Snake (3/5) Lair:3        Slime (0/6) Lair:8       Vaults (0/5) D:14
 Depths (0/6) D:16       

Altars:
Ashenzari
Cheibriados
Dithmengos
Elyvilon
Fedhas
Kikubaaqudgha
Makhleb
Nemelex Xobeh
Okawaru
Sif Muna
Trog
Vehumet
Xom
Yredelemnul
Zin
the Shining One
Beogh

Shops:
D:9 (:/(*   D:14 %   D:15 !   Orc:4 %:}!!   Shoals:3 %*[   Snake:2 (

Portals:
Trove: D:12 (show horn of Geryon)

Annotations:
Lair:6 Lorenzo's ghost, powerful SpEn
Snake:2 Kirke


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You are tiny and cannot use many weapons and most armour.
You have supernaturally acute eyesight.
You are a herbivore.
You cover ground extremely quickly.
You need consume almost no food.
You are somewhat resistant to further mutation.



Here's my dump for reference. My stealth skill is fairly high for this point in the game, but when it was at 17, it wasn't quite enough to kill Wiglaf. Fortunately when he came too, I was Invisible and got a lower tier stab to finish him. Still, that's part of the reason I asked.

I have another question that I forgot.

4. Is slaying factored into stabbing damage?

[HenryFlower]

1. I know stabbing damage is based off your stealth, so does this mean only your stealth skill number, or does stabbing get a damage boost from all boosts to your stealth?

Only stealth skill.

2. I know stabbing damage is ALSO based off your weapon skill. Normally I'd only train Short Blade to 10 for a Dagger, but does Stabbing continue to see damage increases from raising my short blades skill? If so, is the damage boost worthwhile, or should I just aim for min dagger delay?

Just min delay. Raising Stealth is going to be a better investment.

3. I found a nice Cutlass in a shop, but I know Daggers get the biggest boost in stabbing damage, but if the crawlwiki is correct, it's possible to train your skills high enough that all short blades could get the same stabbing bonus as a dagger. Apparently the damage bonus is capped at 30, so does anyone know how high my skills/dex need to be for a Cutlass to reach that 30 cap?

The relevant bits in melee_attack.c are:

  Code:

        int bonus = (you.dex() * (stab_skill + 100)) / 500;

        // We might be unarmed if we're using the boots of the Assassin.
        if (!weapon || weapon->sub_type != WPN_DAGGER)
            bonus /= 2;

        bonus   = stepdown_value(bonus, 10, 10, 30, 30);
        damage += bonus;


But I got lost in lots of twisty bits involving log2 and randomized rounding, and such.

In practice, I've personally never failed to stabkill something with a cutlass. Also, unless the cutlass is distortion branded, it's easy to switch to a dagger for the maximal stabbing bonus.

[crate]

You don't actually care about the stabbing damage cap, because other than a few uniques you will be oneshotting everything well before you hit it.

[Siegurt]

When stabbing was removed, all the places it was in the code it was effectively replaced with ((Weaponskill+stealth)/2) in other words your "stabbing" skill is now the average of your stealth and weapon skill (Every point in short blades or stealth is half a point of "stabbing")

To get to the 30 point mark, your Dex times your stabbing+1 needs to exceed 350 for a dagger, and 700 for any other short blade

So with a 25 dex, you need 13 stabbing with a dagger, and 27 stabbing for any other short blade,
With 30 dex, you need 10.6 stabbing with a dagger, and 22.3 with another short blade,
With 35 dex, you need 9 stabbing with a dagger, 19 with another short blade.

Note that other short blades have a higher base damage so you don't *quite* need to get your stabbing bonus up to a full 30 to exceed the stabbing damage of a dagger, and you don't actually need to max stabbing damage for it to be an effective way to kill things. I find that even with stabbing damage slightly lower on non-dagger short blades, I still prefer to keep them wielded because then I don't have to worry about switching weapons and I can stab just about anything to death anyway.

[Lasty]

On my last stabbing-heavy character, I spent the latter half of the game wielding a quickblade for my stabs. I one-shot stabbed everything, including late game uniques, with a +6 vorpal quick blade, 18 dex, 10 short blades skill, +6 slaying, and between 20 and 27 stealth. So my effective stabbing skill was between 15 and 18.5. As you can see, that's well below the limits that Siegurt set down, and the quickblade has a low base damage, but it was still enough to one-shot everything it was used on.

[Siegurt]

Oh and

4. Is slaying factored into stabbing damage?

Yes.

The way it works is all the normal damage stuff is done for a melee hit, including slaying, then, if it's a short blade the short blade "bonus points" are added, then a multiplier multiplies the result (For some weapons; short and long blades, "poking" polearms, felid claws; a second multiplier is used in addition to the one that every weapon gets) the multiplier(s) are based on your skill and the type of stabbing being done (are they sleeping/netted/confused/unable to see you? etc.)

The base bonus (if applicable) plus the multiplier is your total bonus to stab damage.

Then the brand damage is applied after the fact (multiplicative brands like fire/frost use the modified stabbing damage to figure their damage, flat damage brands just add their flat damage)