knowhow to choose weapon?

[sau]

Usually in early phase of the game, we can find many weapons.

However we can learn only one weapon skill.

So many times, I have difficulty on deciding which weapon to use.

It's like 'Should I use high enchanted weapon with no weapon skill or less enchanted weapon with weapon skill(10 or more)?'

As I couldn't find latest weapon spreadsheet and damage formula, deciding the weapon is too hard.

What's your technique of these kind of choice?

[headcrab0803]

I train a weaon skill according to the first decent weapon(mace,war axe/trident,branded weapon,notshortblade) that I find
although its kinda hard to just randomly find a greatweapon from floor drops, If i find one, I train that skill unless its really hard to make it to mindelay(heavy twohanders for example)

[Magipi]

I usually pick a weapon at the beginning of the game: the type I have the best aptitude for, or if other things are equal, maces. And I stick to it. I never switch unless something shocking happens. The only time I remember switching weapons was when my deep dwarf found a vampiric weapon.

[sau]

It was not the answer exactly I wanted. But that tip is also great!

I was wondering how to judge which weapon gives best damage according to +/+, enchantment, weapon tier, weapon skill.

It seems my question was little bit strange.

[Thalfon]

If you're asking whether you should sometimes use a better weapon untrained than a worse weapon which you have training for, I'd say the answer is usually no. They're generally (except for short blades) going to have a delay of more than 1.0 turns, and since most enemies have 1.0 as their attack delay, enemies can hit you twice between your swings. In general I'd avoid using any weapon that you have much more than a 1.0 delay with.

Most of the time I'd say it's easiest to just pretend weapons you're not trained in don't exist. To find out if a weapon you're not trained in is any good you have to wield it, and the last thing you want is to wield a disto axe on a mace user or something. It's probably not quite optimal to play like that, but I think wielding off-type weapons is going to give you problems much more often than it gives you noticeable benefits.

The only thing I'm not sure of is how the new trunk twist on crosstraining might affect things, since I haven't played with it much. Since you actually get levels in other skills now, there might be off-type weapons with lower delay. But by the time that bonus is significant enough to matter, I'd have to imagine that your own weapon skill is high enough to far outweigh that, plus you should have picked up a good weapon of your type by then. So I'd hazard a guess that it doesn't change much.

[sau]

Oh! I never think of the delay. Thanks for Good explanation.

[sau]

Can you also tell me the choice between high enchanted&low tier weapon and low enchanted&high tier weapon?

Supposing that two weapon is same sort.(ex +5/+5 hand axe vs +1/+1 battle axe)

[Thalfon]

Skills multiply base damage, but don't multiply enchantments or slaying bonus. Therefore, base damage is more important than enchantment level. This usually means you should switch to the higher tier weapon as soon as you have it and have enough skill to use it at a reasonable delay. The only time you'd take the lower tier weapon is if it's a significant difference (branded vs unbranded, or a large difference in enchantment levels) and the weapons are very close in quality (a hand axe is nowhere close to a battleaxe, but a +6 war axe probably outdoes a +0 broad axe, if only slightly).

By the way, do you know about fsim? If you create a character and put them in wizard mode (don't accidentally put your real character in wizard mode of course!), give them the weapon you're trying to test and create an appropriate monster (pick something tough that's appropriate to your current character's level/location), there's a wizard mode command to test how your weapon does. See here, no spreadsheets required. (If you play online, I'd say just download a copy of Crawl to use wizmode in.)

[tedric]

My strategy depends on the character, but the rule of thumb is that you want to do the most damage as quickly as possible. That means weighing the relative value of each specific weapon's combination of delay, brand, base damage, and enchantment (roughly in that order).

For melee, I pick a starting weapon class and stick to it pretty much exclusively -- I don't even try out weapons of other classes. The one possible exception is if I find an exceptionally good weapon of a type that cross-trains with my starting skill rather early in the game, then I might switch. I upgrade base types as soon as possible (unless I'm lacking the skill to make the delay acceptable) and sometimes downgrade base types for a useful brand.

For casters, I don't train any weapon skill until I've got plenty of magic and defensive skills. Along the way I look for low-base-delay weapons with brands like elec, pois, draining (or pain if I'm training necro). Whip or short blade of elec is usually my top choice. If I run across any higher-tier weapons that could have potential if I choose to train their skill later (a glowing great mace if I've already got a whip, a good artefact of any type I'd be willing to train, etc), I collect them. I'm usually ready to make a decision and start weapon training around Lair time, but sometimes even later.

In general I'd say delay is the first concern: ideally your delay is always 1.0 or less so as not to give enemies extra attacks (but that doesn't stop me from using a 1.1 base delay whip of elec with 0 skill). Brand also matters quite a bit: additive brands like elec are better on fast weapons, which tend to have lower base damage; multiplicative brands like flaming/freezing are better on high-base damage weapons, which tend to be slower. As Thalfon said, base damage matters more than enchantment -- so all else being equal, a base type upgrade is usually worth losing a few points of enchantment.

Of course, all else is usually not equal, so to resolve this issue you need to choose whether you want to treat weapon selection as an art form or as a science. If you pick science, there are formulae and spreadsheets and wizmode and fsim to help you get a mathematically precise answer, at the cost of time and potentially fun. If you choose art, you'll listen to various players' thought processes, experiment in-game, and develop your own intuitive method. The cost here is that intuition can lead you astray -- it may seem like a good idea to use a slow weapon that is likely to one-shot most enemies if/when the blow lands, even though you might allow a couple free hits as you're swinging it; this may work for a while, but is likely to get you killed the very first time you underestimate an enemy even slightly. An extreme example is the artefact Dark Maul, which delivers tremendous damage but can never be brought down to a "reasonable" delay even at max skill: its damage output is tempting, but pretty much nobody takes it seriously as a primary weapon (it is fun to play with, though).

My strategies above are based on a combination of art and science approaches: knowing some of the formulae and mathematical principles improves my intuition, though I tend not to crunch numbers in the midst of play.

[and into]

Basically damage output should be your main concern. If you are at a point where your character wants to train a weapon skill, then damage output is main concern but skill investment to hit min_delay is also an important factor.

I will happily pick up and use great swords and the like with "casters" who aren't yet ready to train weapons (cause it is early in game and I'm still working on getting summon ice beast castable or whatever), and it usually works pretty well. It is okay to use things with higher than 1.0 or 1.2 delay, provided their base damage makes up for the slow swing. Of course a short sword or whip of electrocution is an excellent early find and would take precedence.

[sau]

It is also great tip! I had no idea about wizard mod. I'll use it as soon as possible

[Lasty]

I would encourage you to avoid using wizard mode to compare weapons unless it makes you happier than playing the game does. Any difference between two weapons that matters can be quickly seen after using them in combat; any difference that can't be quickly seen after using the weapons in combat doesn't matter.

Overall, if you're training weapon skill, I'd recommend that you stick with weapons of that class unless an outstanding weapon of another class drops before you've invested too much skill in the first weapon class. When choosing between weapons within the class, each point of base damage is worth more than each point of slaying, but how much more depends on how much training you've put into your weapon skill and Fighting. A rule-of-thumb approach is that if your weapon skill is closer to 10 than to 20, one base damage is worth about 1.5 slaying; if your weapon skill is closer to 20 than 10, one base damage is worth about 2 slaying. That's not super-precise, but it's close enough.

The electric brand of a weapon is worth about 9 slaying, and the pain brand is about the same as adding your Necromancy skill to your slaying. Freezing and frost add about 25% to your total damage, vorpal adds about 16% to your total damage.

On characters with no weapon skill, generally the weapon with the best brand is the one to use, but absent that, any weapon with a good ratio of damage to speed will work. Generally the heavier weapons have a better ratio, but heavily-enchanted light weapons can be good as well.

It's absolutely fine to use weapons with delay > 1.0. Doing so will often increase the amount of damage you do per time unit. You just need to keep in mind that your swings take longer and not swing when doing so would expose you to the possibility of a deadly foe taking two turns of attacks at you in a row.