Any reason not to use axes?

[shizmoo]

Axes may be weaker than other weapons. but only by a little. While its not ideal to face more than one enemy at once, its unavoidable and with cleave you can hit up to 7 at once. This is way better than the 1 or 2 points of damage lost compared to other weapons. I dont see any reason to use any other weapon.

[diviton]

Assuming my character has equal aptitudes in all weapons, I like starting with axes. Cleaving is just good.

[Sar]

Axes are weaker, good base type axes are extremely uncommon, and they require silly amounts of XP to be as effective.

Regarding cleaving, generally if a bunch of enemies are hitting you at once, there are two possibilities: they're so weak you don't care (so cleaving only saves turns) or they're actually strong (in this case you want to reposition, cleaving or not). It can be useful, I guess, but the disadvantages I listed above mean I rarely go axes, if ever.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

While its not ideal to face more than one enemy at once, its unavoidable

This is wrong pretty much all time. Even when it is not wrong, the advantage you gain from cleaving is incredibly minor for a variety of reasons.

1 or 2 damage is in fact much better than cleaving. More obviously, reaching is much better than cleaving, and also the demon trident easily outclasses every 1handed axe, and the 2handed polearms/axes have the same base stats, so really there's no reason to use axes at all.

[duvessa]

I like cleaving because you can ask someone what they think of it and from their response, immediately know exactly how good/bad they are at positioning.

[shizmoo]

While its not ideal to face more than one enemy at once, its unavoidable

This is wrong pretty much all time. Even when it is not wrong, the advantage you gain from cleaving is incredibly minor for a variety of reasons.

1 or 2 damage is in fact much better than cleaving. More obviously, reaching is much better than cleaving, and also the demon trident easily outclasses every 1handed axe, and the 2handed polearms/axes have the same base stats, so really there's no reason to use axes at all.

You do more than 1-2 points of damage to a second, third, seventh target compared to poking one with 1-2 points more damage when surrounded. Thats hardly minor.

[dck]

Regarding cleaving basically the only thing it does is annoying the crap out of you when you're dancing yaks around plants in lair and your god damn axe won't stop killing the plants.

@Sar: I can't really agree with good base type axes being extremely uncommon. Basically the one reason to use axes ever in more or less sane conditions is to be a HO or DD and knowing despite axes being generally arse your race is ridiculous enough that you can get battleaxes to swing really fast really soon (and chances are you will get one soon, since they are quite common), and battleaxes are pretty much the only good axe since broads and execs don't exist.

[Sar]

Oh sure, battleaxes aren't bad and are extremely common. I was thinking more about top tier axes but you don't need one to win.

[Sandman25]

Regarding cleaving, generally if a bunch of enemies are hitting you at once, there are two possibilities: they're so weak you don't care (so cleaving only saves turns) or they're actually strong (in this case you want to reposition, cleaving or not).

There are 2 exceptions to what you described - vampiric axes and worshipers of Makhleb. Too bad I have never had a vampiric axe with DD of Maklheb, it can be very unusual experience IMHO.

[and into]

I like that the thread title is "Any reason not to use axes?" and the last sentence in OP is "I don't see any reason to use any other weapon [than axes]."

Other folks covered it for the most part. Yeah if you are HO or DD it is your best weapon aptitude, that is something to consider. Even then I prefer M&F on all my HOAKs and the like. For gladiator or fighter, the quarterstaff is always a tempting option of course, or if you see one early on it makes you want to switch.

Of course when a really good axe spawns early then that's great and go for it.

The reason I almost always go M&F when quarterstaff is not an option is that M&F weapons are common and encompass options that can basically cover all your bases, from one-handed fast weapons with low skill investment to one-handed beefy weapons with considerable investment to good and fairly common two handed options, and even the giant (spiked) clubs for Ogres.

Whips of electrocution aren't to be expected but they are not terribly uncommon, you got a good shot at one early if Pikel generates, and Edmund often has a branded flail or dire flail. If you don't have a shield (and you probably don't) a dire flail is exactly as good as a demon sword, except that dire flails will actually generate pre-Lair in >90% of games.

[Sandman25]

Back to OP. Yes, there is one reason which makes me use M&F more often than Axes - Hydra.

[nago]

I like cleaving because it speeds up a lot the filling easy combat dcss still is full.
And a vamp battle /exec axe are so stupidly good that you can leeroy Jenkins whatever rng throws you and still win by large margin - well actually until alich or foo annihilator remember why they're freaking dangerous but still (edit: don't really try it if you plan to win but with AM big axes you can beat the shit out of multiples casters like oof too, because they won't be able to do almost do nothing. Stupidest and most baddass thing I've done in dcss probably)

Anyway as said before unless ho or dd (who can easily get to min deal a battle axe, which is a perfect win weapon and very common) just grab m&f or polearm

[zxc23]

I remember at least one year ago that people recommended axes exclusively for combos like MiBe. What changed?

I am interested in the differences between the weapon types. I've seen it said here that the differences are insignificant, but if that's true, shouldn't that be changed? Staves don't seem to have something special going for them like stabbing or cleaving, so perhaps taking a leaf out of Path of Exile's book and gaining some amount of SH would be interesting.

[Sar]

Any vamp weapon with decent base damage is stupidly good.

[Lasty]

There are four ways to think about the quality of a weapon class:

* Damage/speed - Axes as a group do less damage than other weapon types at each quality level.
* XP efficiency - Axes take as much or more experience to get working than comparable weapons in other classes.
* Availability of good members of the class - Battleaxes are easily available, but they are the only acceptable axe that is.
* Special abilities - Axes have a special ability that only works when you are positioned badly, either intentionally (boredom + cleaving), avoidably (bad tactics), or unavoidably. The first two categories can be totally eliminated by the player, and the last doesn't come up very often unless you worship Xom, and even then rarely in a way that advantage axes.

In every category except availability, axes rate quite badly, and even availability isn't much better than other weapon classes (great swords, which have +1 damage and require two less skill levels, and great maces, which have +2 to damage, are both readily available).

Unless I find an early exceptional weapon or am stabbing or have extreme aptitude disparities, I will go M&F every time, because I can guarantee that I will have strong one and two handed weapons available with a variety of brands, and spend no more than 20 skill levels.

[and into]

^ Obviously, sometimes you go unarmed too. But otherwise yes, if not unarmed or stabbing, and assuming aptitudes don't push you really hard in a different direction (looking at you Merfolk), I always plan to go M&F. Though of course really good early drops can totally change that.

I remember at least one year ago that people recommended axes exclusively for combos like MiBe. What changed?

Weapon availability, base stats, and types have changed quite a bit over the last 2 or 3 versions. All axes except hand axes got lower base damage in exchange for cleaving. Other weapon types received buffs in terms of availability or base stats, with some redundant things (like spiked flails) being removed.

These two things combined mean that axes are at a particularly low point compared to other weapon types, with cleaving being their only *potentially* redeeming quality. So it completely hinges on how much you value cleaving. But you have to value cleaving quite a bit for axes to start to become competitive again, because in all other considerations they lag noticeably behind other options.

[zardo]

Executioner's Axe used to have the highest base damage back in like .10. I think that's where people got the idea that a berserker type should always go axes. Related - if you follow Trog you don't have to care as much about whether the top-end weapons in your class are common, and can basically pick whatever. The other argument for maces - good value for xp - still applies but there are arguments for everything else too.

Also, obviously the best way to decide on a weapon class for many characters is by what's the best one you've found at the point you start training weapons.

[tasonir]

More obviously, reaching is much better than cleaving, and also the demon trident easily outclasses every 1handed axe, and the 2handed polearms/axes have the same base stats, so really there's no reason to use axes at all.

+1 for polearms master race. If I'm not going unarmed, I'm probably going polearms. But I wouldn't say that the people who pick M&F are wrong, either, it's a solid weapon type. I just really like reaching.

[Klown]

Claymore and Bastard Sword(with shield) are my favorites.

[Sar]

When I play a ~hybrid~, I usually get spells and defences first (doesn't stop me from hitting things with something heavy), and then look at weapons I have and decide on my skill. And if I play a Berserker I pick whatever because I know Trog will provide me with quality weapons regardless of type.

[tabstorm]

Mediocre base damage relative to XP investment and cleaving isn't that strong tactically for the following reason:

Against a non-dangerous mob you can just hit tab a few more times and still be fine. Against a dangerous one, you ideally don't want to be in a position such that multiple dangerous enemies are hitting you.

Also, if you are doing a speed run, cleaving will save you turns fighting enemies.

I still use axes anyway because of laziness.

[dck]

Polearms are also about as generally bad as axes and even if you are an amoral being who does not oppose all they stand for, they're still in that same tier of "inferior to everything else" axes are.

I think this sort of problem comes from the fact there really aren't seven weapon types in crawl. There are short blades, UC, M&F, staves and then "M&F but worse".
I don't particularly mind the current situation since the actual different types of weapons are enough to provide good variety and the situation could be a lot worse; I may even pick "M&F but worse" every now and then and mind you, not only because I'm screwing around but because they do have some extremely good weapons like demon blades, great swords and the like that do show up sometimes. And there of course exist punctual examples of excellent items that may be axes or polearms and they'll be very worth using regardless.
All of this offers some interesting and non-trivial decisions on how to develop a character that can be quite fun to work with, so I don't automatically hate Axes and Polearms, but I do think they're not choices to be taken seriously in the overwhelming majority of characters and in fact that theory is sustained by the fact there are races where not using them is silly (which is part of which makes said races not very fun, but that's another topic).

But frankly, there is one more problem as to why I think Axes and Polearms aren't a serious choice people are expected to use on say, five characters in a row. They just play horribly.
Axes hit everything around you whether you want to or not and slow down the real time fights near vegetation or popcorn take significantly, all of this while creating a ton of message spam. I was not kidding when I mentioned the yaks and plants, Axes penalize you if you position yourself using plants against say herd animals to fight them one on one and will in fact sometimes destroy said plants completely and thus outright punish you for daring to not charge straight into the pack. Now this could be discarded as a "gameplay change" from choosing X weapon type, and well it obviously is, but I don't think in a game that revolves around positioning as heavily as crawl this sort of "gameplay change" where you punish the player for using his surroundings makes any sense.

Polearms are perhaps even worse because first you have you aim them to do a normal attack very very often and second if you have aux attacks or are fighting ranged attackers they break autofight all the time. Also as someone who uses ctrl+direction all the time it is particularly annoying that if I'm fighting a pack of moderately dangerous melee things and the immediately adjacent one to me dies but the next one doesn't step in immediately I have to stop and aim at him or tab. Maybe one thing even more annoying than that is the fact I can try to hit the enemy standing behind the adjacent one and the adjacent one may not intercept the hit. It would of course be worse if I could just reach successfully every time because then I'd just evoke it over a rat to hit the ettin every attack and then go find myself some vodka to make the pain go away, but the status quo where I can attempt to do such a despicable thing is still not something I particularly like.
And this would be less bad than what Axes do if Polearms did not physically slow the game down, but they do. Tabbing with a polearm means the game autoevoking said polearm over and over and that is very much slower than just hitting things with a huge mace or ripping and tearing someone's huge guts.

Now, as I said I don't hate either of these weapons from the perspective of them not actually been intended to be used constantly. They're still bad, quite bad in fact, but the exposure a player has to them is completely controllable by the player himself (and this is a part where I think the weapons themselves being absurdly weaker than their "real" counterparts is a positive) and there are few situations in which it would be optimal to use these; so there realistically are no situations where a player wanting to save himself the irl pain from using these weapons is penalized by it.
So while I don't think these two weapons are very well designed (they're actually quite atrocious imo) or that they play fantastically I like a lot that you can pretend they don't exist for 99% of characters and be still perfectly fine.

[moocowmoocow]

Weapon availability, base stats, and types have changed quite a bit over the last 2 or 3 versions. All axes except hand axes got lower base damage in exchange for cleaving. Other weapon types received buffs in terms of availability or base stats, with some redundant things (like spiked flails) being removed.

It's a shame that they received a considerable nerf and got something relatively useless in exchange. They could at least do something somewhat useful like inflict bleeding or something. Or instead of cleaving hitting squares adjacent to you, have your damage go out in a "shockwave" to hit things in a one direction, 2 tile "beam". It wouldn't be that wonderful, but at least would have some effect since fighting in hallway is so common, whereas fighting in the open is suicide if not munching popcorn.

[zardo]

But frankly, there is one more problem as to why I think Axes and Polearms aren't a serious choice people are expected to use on say, five characters in a row. They just play horribly.

I actually really like using polearms! Particularly because they make it less of a pain to fight monsters that use polearms. Not gonna get a defense of axes from me though.

[Klown]

Damage
Claymore: 19
Exectioner's Axe: 18
Bardiche: 18
Great Mace: 17
Lajatang: 16

Accuracy
Lajatang: -3
Claymore: -4
Great Mace: -4
Bardiche: -6
Executioner's Axe: -6

Skill needed for min delay
Lajatang: 14
Great Mace: 20
Claymore: 24
Executioner's Axe: 26
Bardiche: 26

If I'm using Fedhas, I like Bardiche(won't find one but whatever). If I go Trogawaru and know I'm getting a sexy big weapon, Claymore <3
Lajatang for hybrids. Cleaving isn't good enough for a weapon worse in every way than Claymore, and haven't touched Great Mace since it got nerfed.

[duvessa]

imo long blades are generally somewhat better than M&F now (great sword is as good as or better than great mace, more common, and even gets better brands) but im assuming they will just get nerfed anyway

[Hopeless]

FWITW I loved using axes on my LOs most of the time despite their "inferiority" because I saw cleaving as a way to survive situations I didn't otherwise have a chance in. How I got into those situations (as a newish player) was irrelevant to me (at the time.) Not that I was opposed to learning more of the tactical side of the game but it seemed like nitpicking about position when a summoner could surround you instantly. There is a lot of conflicting advice between those who frequent the forums and those who play webtiles about weapon strengths.

Shortblades is another example. Some players have said they are the worst weapon class available. And then there are the quickblade devotees who worship at the altar of stabbing. The problem is utility.

If you choose your weapon solely based on damage output shortblades suck badly. As have said a few people. Axes suck somewhat. Maces & Flails vary but there are some top notch ones, and apparently Lajatangs are best thing since sliced butter. But staves aren't that great in general and Lajatangs are rarish. (I only ever find them when I am not playing a staff user...)

Polearms do suck in general but Demon Tridents with a good brand (electrocution) are great. And I guess Reach is so good that the devs felt comfortable in making the base damage for polearms suck that much in pay off.

I can see how all of this might be confusing advice to new players. (In fact it has been confusing to me and forced me to be less unspoiled as a result in order to clear up some misconceptions.) So when we discuss whether x weapon is good or y weapon class is the correct choice if we aren't careful, people reading our thread will get all kinds of contradictory information even though we think we are being absolutely clear about what is good (but not necessarily about why.)

Having gone through a number of late game situations now I can see why cleaving is bad but I can also see why people think it is good. There are definitely times when you should not even think about moving into a wide open room. Or should immediately seek egress if you do. Monsters are far more dangerous in packs than one v one. Cleaving makes you feel comfortable mowing down rows which is a mistake because some monsters will resist being mowed down and do nasty things to you. The question isn't whether you killed big bads but whether you will survive to rescue the Orb. And the answer to that is probably no if you feel you must hunt down all the big bads and make them pay. Crawl has all the time in the world to kill your character. It has infinite monsters. It has infinite resources. You also have infinite time (in theory anyway) but you don't have infinite hit points or resources. That is a tough lesson to learn and why Cleaving sucks while Reach does not.

[dck]

Idk, great swords sure are at least equal to gmaces but when M&F lost its really common gmaces it got really common dflails instead, so I'd still put M&F over Lbl even if not for a lot.

[crate]

really crawl only has two weapon types: shortblades and "everything else"

axes are fine imo
polearms have much bigger problems

[Hopeless]

really crawl only has two weapon types: shortblades and "everything else"

axes are fine imo
polearms have much bigger problems

Could you elaborate on this?

[crate]

read the rest of the thread, it's been explained

the difference in power between different types of non-shortblade melee weapons is small enough that in practice it never matters

[Hopeless]

read the rest of the thread, it's been explained

the difference in power between different types of non-shortblade melee weapons is small enough that in practice it never matters

You said very specifically that polearms have more problems. Which implies that they are not good compared to axes. And this seems counter-intuitive to me and isn't covered by the rest of the thread. Hence I was hoping you'd elaborate on why you felt the need to say that.

[crate]

the problems polearms have has nothing to do with how powerful they are and everything to do with the fact that reaching is a horrendous interface mess at best

edit: to be fair I should probably point out that 7-direction cleave is bad compared to 8-direction cleave from an interface standpoint too but this is a bit less bad than polearms' problems.

[XuaXua]

You probably should not go axes if you have a -3 aptitude or less.

[Igxfl]

Can axes just have omnidirectional full-damage cleave uninterrupted by neighboring walls?
They'd still lag behind M&F, but their special would be kind of useful sometimes.

[Sar]

One thing not mentioned here is that cleave does only 75% damage to all the enemies except the one you target, while they still do 100% of damage to you.

[Klown]

*proposes 100% damage 'hit everything' cleave*

[dpeg]

The cleaving restrictions (only 7 out of 8 targets, 25% damage cut) were implemented because some developers have been worried about cleaving being overpowered. (That's also the reason for the axe base damage nerfs.) These are numbers, so they can be changed.

Reaching and cleaving were added as attempts for weapon type differentiation. I don't think it is possible to achieve meaningful differentiation using only numbers. If the "weapon moves" are not good enough, it will be best to remove weapon types instead. (But see below.) There is another, more longterm and far-reaching approach: generate more levels without chokepoints, make escape tools consumable, make buffs consumable. (On the last one: Berserk or Might is more efficient with cleaving, because you get more out of the effect. This is absolutely non-relevant for effects with unlimited access, like Haste.)

Finally, I don't think that reaching and cleaving are full failures: they matter in the hands of enemies (reaching more than cleaving). I know and dislike that reaching is so annoying to use -- Tab is its saving grace, and not more than a bandaid.

[crate]

I don't mind the lower damage to non-targets for cleaving, in fact I would agree that that should be a thing. Otherwise it decreases greatly the impact of choosing what target to attack.

The problem with 7-direction instead of 8-direction cleave is that it creates some situations where you purposely attack at air to hit the highest number of enemies, which is weird (why does crawl encourage attacking nothing?) and hurts the interface (it shuts down tab, and it requires ctrl-dir).

Basically if you have this:

  Code:

ooo
.@.
ooo

where the @ is the player and the o are all enemies

then the only way to hit all six o's at once is to swing at either of the two empty spaces. 6*.75 is more than 4*.75+1 so you get more total damage by hitting air in this (and similar) situations.

8-direction cleave solves this problem, and I would suggest the interface improvement alone is worth the change.

edit: I agree that axes and polearms feel different from other weapons but as far as power level goes they are basically identical so weapon choice does not matter. It is much like saying choosing between, say, fire and earth does not matter. This is a true statement (there is more difference between earth magic and fire magic than between weapons, but let's ignore that for a moment), but it does not say that one of (earth|fire) should be removed. Since I do not know player preferences (personally I strongly dislike using polearms, so I do not use them unless I am a merfolk) I just say that weapon choice does not matter and leave it up to the player.

[Lasty]

I agree with what duvessa and dck are saying about long blades -- great swords are both common and very good -- basically a more expensive lajatang that you can actually find. That said, I still think you get slightly more good options w/ M&F overall, partly due to amazing availability of dire flails right now -- the good long blades are basically just scimitar/demon blade/great sword, so you usually have crap until you get the first great sword. That said, I often do Long Blades if I find an early great sword or have significantly better Long Blades aptitudes than M&F aptitudes.

Hopeless, aside from stabbing, short blades are only good in rare circumstances that you can't plan for. The elec brand is good on them, but aside from quick blades it's equally good on a bunch of other weapons. Slaying is very good with them, but also not much moreso than other weapon groups unless you have a quick blade. Once you have a quick blade, things like elec brand and slaying count for way more than other weapons, potentially making them the best choice, but you just can't plan to have an electric quick blade or a quick blade with a lot of slaying, so it's a bad choice to invest in short blades unless you either already have met the conditions that make them good or plan to stab and so care little about their quality in melee combat.

Klown, your list is only talking about the top-end two-handed weapons for each class. The most relevant weapons for each class are:
Long blades: Scimitar -> demon blade, great sword
M&F: Flail -> morningstar -> Demon Whip/Eveningstar, dire flail, and great mace
Axe: broad axe, battleaxe
Polearms: demon trident, glaive
Staves: all staves, because they're all pretty rare and mostly pretty good under the right circumstances.

The reason these are the relevant weapons in each class is that they're the weapons with good speed/damage/xp cost ratios that can generally be found sooner or later. Claymores, bardiches, and executioner's axes can be nice for characters that can afford the XP they require, but often don't exist.

[nago]

Well, from my experience I find bardiche quite common (in 0.14 I'd say almost as much great mace), because a lot of common enemies can spawn with one (e. G. orc knights and especially vault guards).
The biggest drawback over gm is the huge experience cost they have, so I tend to use them only with merfolk.

[damiac]

I'd like to know what people are doing in places like vault 5 and abyss and such to guarantee a corridor to fight in all the time. It is simply not possible to guarantee every fight will be 1 on 1, and that only matters when the fights are actually dangerous. Clearing out the cannon fodder while you're fighting your real enemy is a nice side benefit.

Yes, in theorycraft mode, where there's always a corridor to fight in, cleaving is worthless. But that's not the real game. And if you only play to lair then suicide because "if you can get to lair you already won" maybe you forget that it's not all corridors and doorways.

None of that is intended to say axes are superior, just that cleaving is worth more than 0. Although you may be right to say sometimes in lair it is worth less than 0, due to the plant killing, but lair is easy anyway.

Axes are generally NOT worth taking because of the incredible rarity of exec axes, and because of the enormous skill investment required. But if you've got good apts for it, or if you're going to follow trog, axes are a pretty good choice. Vampiric axes break the 3 rune game wide open even more than most vampiric weapons, but that's a seperate issue, one shouldn't take axes hoping to find a vampiric exec axe or something.

[moocowmoocow]

I'd like to know what people are doing in places like vault 5 and abyss and such to guarantee a corridor to fight in all the time. It is simply not possible to guarantee every fight will be 1 on 1, and that only matters when the fights are actually dangerous. Clearing out the cannon fodder while you're fighting your real enemy is a nice side benefit.

Yes, in theorycraft mode, where there's always a corridor to fight in, cleaving is worthless. But that's not the real game. And if you only play to lair then suicide because "if you can get to lair you already won" maybe you forget that it's not all corridors and doorways.

Well I would rather something have an effect when fights "matter" (are dangerous). The "side benefit" of clearing out non threatening enemies faster is more like the only benefit. Even if surrounded by enemies, I would much rather do more damage to the most dangerous enemy, than spread damage to trivial enemies to save time pressing tab after the main threat is killed. Guess what I'm trying to say is, even when you're not fighting 1v1, it's still better to do high damage to one target than have weak, indiscriminate cleave damage. Even in vaults 5 for example, I would rather kill select guards to clear a path (which could save my life) than do damage to all surrounding just to save a little time and look cool.

[zardo]

I'd like to know what people are doing in places like vault 5 and abyss and such to guarantee a corridor to fight in all the time. It is simply not possible to guarantee every fight will be 1 on 1, and that only matters when the fights are actually dangerous. Clearing out the cannon fodder while you're fighting your real enemy is a nice side benefit.

Yes, in theorycraft mode, where there's always a corridor to fight in, cleaving is worthless. But that's not the real game. And if you only play to lair then suicide because "if you can get to lair you already won" maybe you forget that it's not all corridors and doorways.

None of that is intended to say axes are superior, just that cleaving is worth more than 0. Although you may be right to say sometimes in lair it is worth less than 0, due to the plant killing, but lair is easy anyway.

Axes are generally NOT worth taking because of the incredible rarity of exec axes, and because of the enormous skill investment required. But if you've got good apts for it, or if you're going to follow trog, axes are a pretty good choice. Vampiric axes break the 3 rune game wide open even more than most vampiric weapons, but that's a seperate issue, one shouldn't take axes hoping to find a vampiric exec axe or something.

I don't think cleaving is literally worthless but you don't need "a corridor" to limit the number of opponents you fight. I mean even for a *true* chokepoint you only need the right kind of diagonal and lots of terrain formations, combined with care in pulling monsters, will slow their advance such that you can kill or almost kill one before the next gets to you. If you have haste of course (this admittedly colors my view because I almost always get haste) you can do this *really well*. And your examples - Lair is all about luring packs to the best kill spot on the level, or one or two up the stairs. Abyss generates tons of good terrain and avoiding the open is key in general.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Yes, in theorycraft mode, where there's always a corridor to fight in, cleaving is worthless. But that's not the real game.

In the real game, when you are dealing with a group of monsters, there are two possibilities:
A) They are not dangerous, so cleaving doesn't matter
B) They are dangerous, so being surrounded is the worst possible place to be

I get that you think positioning is impossible and the second half of the game consists of getting surrounded in every fight, but really you just need to learn to play the game better.

just that cleaving is worth more than 0.

Nobody is saying cleaving is worth nothing. Just significantly less than 1 base damage. 1 base damage is really good!

Axes are generally NOT worth taking because of the incredible rarity of exec axes, and because of the enormous skill investment required.

Exec axes don't even matter. Axes are not worth taking because great swords/glaives/great maces/lajatangs all poop all over battleaxes, and the reason they do this is because battleaxes lost base damage when cleaving was introduced.

[Sandman25]

just that cleaving is worth more than 0.

Nobody is saying cleaving is worth nothing. Just significantly less than 1 base damage. 1 base damage is really good!

This is what I don't understand. Has anyone tried to run a series of tests to see if it is important?
I see insignificant difference between 15 and 17 base damage (battleaxe, great sword, lajatang, great mace, glaive). You will deal extra 2-4 damage per average hit but does it really matter that much?

[damiac]

I get that you think positioning is impossible and the second half of the game consists of getting surrounded in every fight, but really you just need to learn to play the game better.

Thanks for the condescending attitude and strawmanning of what I was saying, but no, that's not what I meant.

But what I did mean is that positioning doesn't always guarantee a 1 on 1, and in some portions of the late game, this becomes more true. Vault 5 is a great example of a place where you're pretty unlikely to be able to get everything into a 1 tile wide hallway. Hitting that convoker AND every other enemy around him is worth more than 1 base damage to just the convoker (unless that 1 damage just so happens to be the difference between 2 shotting and 3 shotting, but that's unlikely). In fact, 1 more base damage is very rarely going to make a damn bit of difference to the number of turns taken to kill a monster, which matters way more than how much overall damage you do(It's actually the only thing that matters).

Now if you can demonstrate to me how one guarantees all fights in V5, abyss, and zot lungs are 1 on 1s I'll change my point of view, but I don't think it actually is possible.

Remember, I didn't say "Axes are the best because you're always surrounded". In fact I recommended against axes for most characters. But cleave is actually situationally useful, and with the right apts and/or trog, axes are a good choice, and cleaving is the reason why.

Also, you only get 1 more base damage if you're using claymores. Which seem (last time I was looking for one at least) to be close to the rarity of exec axes. The skill required is the big downfall of axes.

[and into]

I don't think fsim tests and the like are really going to help one understand this. Axes *obviously* have the capacity to do more damage per swing, and no is actually disputing this. But as others have pointed out, there are times when cleaving is actually bad and counterproductive. And the situations in which it would be the most helpful are those in which you almost certainly should be doing things other than swinging your weapon.

Ignoring aptitudes for the moment, Axes have worse damage/investment ratios than other options. Lajatangs will do noticeably more damage against a single target at level 20 staves compared to a battleaxe at level 20 (min_delay for the latter). But they will do a hell of a lot more damage than battleaxes when you compare the two at skill level 14, which is min_delay for lajatangs.

Except maybe for berserkers with really good weapon aptitudes in axes, I'd *much* rather have a dude with great melee capabilities from 14 levels in weapon skill than a dude with similar melee at 20 levels, even with the option to maybe have great melee capabilities at 26 levels.

To take a less extreme example: I bet a dire flail does better damage against a single target at 14 skill in M&F than a battleaxe does at 14 skill. Great maces and battleaxes both hit min_delay at 20, and great maces have 2 more base damage, which is noticeable and not trivial.

Now, all that being said, I do agree with crate that these differences are not *that* huge and so if you like axes and cleaving you are not meaningfully gimping your character by choosing axes, unless your species has a terrible aptitude in them. However, if one does want to delve into the nitty gritty, then axes probably come out worse than other options, most of the time. If you highly value cleaving then maybe that is different for you.

[ElderVIII]

I like cleaving. It adds a nice weapon flavor and differentiation, much like reach.

However, after much time playing as an axe wielder, I've come to the conclusion that cleaving promotes bad play. With melee in general, you learn to not get surrounded regardless of your armour situation. Cleaving flies in the face of that notion, almost insisting you get in a 1 v 8 fight to maximize potential. Yes, it's nice to have, but ultimately it's a situational ability.

While something like reach does have problems, the fact that you can get one or two hits in before most enemies get in melee range makes it, IMO, a better ability than cleave. That said, if I'm wanting more a raw damage-type warrior or planning on going TSO I'll play LB or M&F. Axes generally take too much time to be effective. By the time they do cleave becomes irrelevant to long-term success.

Now if you can demonstrate to me how one guarantees all fights in V5, abyss, and zot lungs are 1 on 1s I'll change my point of view, but I don't think it actually is possible.

The bigger point is to minimize the number of creatures you engage at a time. Axes can cause a player to use less caution when fighting because they go in with the mindset they can attack everything around them. In scenarios where all escape routes are cut off, axes can help. Otherwise, you are putting yourself in a position where you will be taking more hits than are necessary. The rule of melee is the same: Always engage as few as possible. With that thought, you want weapons that maximize your damage in most situations. Axes, in that regard, come off as lesser options. That they are great in engaging multiple enemies doesn't change the fact that those situations should be kept to a minimum.

[dck]

Hi I would like to mention fighting things 1v1 does not in any way require the presence of a corridor.