So, with vampiric weapons...

[LJFCAT]

Do you ever use Enchant Weapon weapons on them? If so, how late in the game are they no longer worth them? I suppose with scrolls of brand weapon such an investment could be rerouted appropriately, but that is random, after all.

EDIT - changed basically the whole post since I thought the original kind of lame after some thought.

[KoboldLord]

A vampiric battleaxe or whatever will probably be the best thing available until you've cleared everything up to the end of Zot, plus both of Vaults 5 and Slime. That's almost the entire game, and even if you swap to something else then you'd probably have found all the enchant weapon scrolls you need to make a new weapon from scratch anyway.

[and into]

Well vampiric is in many cases the best brand, so if it is on a weapon that is good and makes sense for my character then yeah, I'd gladly take it all the way to +9.

Just as a general point, you really should not hoard stuff like enchant foo, beneficial mutation, etc.

[Bloax]

If you find a beneficial mutation potion while possessing a glorious amount of bad mutations then it might be an idea to only drink it after you cure some of them though.

[LJFCAT]

Okay, useful answers, all... thank you! A follow up question - I am aware that vampiric weapons are ideal on larger, more powerful weapons (unless I am sorely mistaken), but given the brand's general usefulness, is it decent at all on short blades, as compared to other brands? And whatever your opinion of it, does playing as a vampire change or reinforce this opinion in any way, or is that unimportant?

This question occurred to me today as I am playing a VpEn and found (in order of finding) a +0 dagger of electrocution (main weapon obviously), a +0 Dagger of venom, and a +0 dagger of vampirism. I have yet to ID ?enchant weapon, as I only read ID when I have at least two of the same scroll, though I sometimes slow down if I've already found all the major 'escape' based scrolls (teleport, blink, fog, fear, forgetting one maybe?).

Thanks again for the advice, everyone. Even as a long time crawler and lurker, I am learning a lot by finally taking part and asking questions from the fine community that exists here.

[Bloax]

A dagger of electrocution is a quite alright weapon while a dagger of venom/vamp is much less devastating.

Whether or not you're a vampire plays no role in this.

[LJFCAT]

A dagger of electrocution is a quite alright weapon while a dagger of venom/vamp is much less devastating.

Whether or not you're a vampire plays no role in this.

Of course I get understand that a dagger of electrocution is a good weapon, especially early on. I was so happy when I found it within the first few levels. However, I am not too experienced with stabbers or vampires, at least compared to many other species/styles, so any nuances would be missed by me. I guess in this case it's fairly straightforward, though I do wonder if I wouldn't be better off stabbing with the vampiric dagger (or otherwise). The electrocution adds little relative damage to a stab, and is loud (or is that just flavoring?). I guess another reason for my asking is I read in another, albeit much older thread, that vampiric daggers were great for stabbing. Perhaps that's if you are flirting with a no blood situation, or staying there most of the time.

Thanks.

[Bloax]

At bloodless they may be useful to recover some health, yes - except vampirism usually only works on things you could drink the blood from in the first place.

[Sprucery]

Electrocution brand makes no additional noise.

[dck]

Vampiric brands heal you a great deal more if you're a Vp and are doing decent damage against things that normally can bleed.
It is unlikely you're doing decent damage with a vampiric +0 dagger however, so the elec one is the better choice.

[ackack]

VpEn is the best possible use case for a vampiric dagger. The key is that as Vp you can swap it in freely. This means that you can use it for stabs; the healing you get from a vampiric dagger stab is pretty outstanding. This continues to be useful for a surprisingly long time, even swapping it in in the middle of fights sometime to land an EH and then stab. The elec dagger is unquestionably a better purpose melee weapon.

[wheals]

Electrocution brand makes no additional noise.

I'm not sure whether this has ever been true, but if it was then it last was before UCC (0.10).

[Lasty]

http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a=commit;h=0496ee7bb692ec127bb5aba545bf8a1f00149850
Edit: Thanks to minmay for correcting my lazy-look. This commit does remove the code that attempted to set noise for flaming and electric weapons but which was always overridden before being applied. So, this doesn't actually change the status quo of electric weapons not making noise, it just removes the buggy code.

[duvessa]

Here is the function you are trying to cite:

  Code:

void melee_attack::adjust_noise()
{
    if (attacker->is_player() && weapon != NULL)
    {
        switch (single_damage_type(*weapon))
        {
        case DAM_BLUDGEON:
        case DAM_WHIP:
            noise_factor = 125;
            break;
        case DAM_SLICE:
            noise_factor = 100;
            break;
        case DAM_PIERCE:
            noise_factor = 75;
            break;
        }
    }
    else if (attacker->is_monster() && weapon == NULL)
    {
        switch (attk_type)
        {
        case AT_HEADBUTT:
        case AT_TENTACLE_SLAP:
        case AT_TAIL_SLAP:
        case AT_TRAMPLE:
        case AT_TRUNK_SLAP:
            noise_factor = 150;
            break;

        case AT_HIT:
        case AT_PUNCH:
        case AT_KICK:
        case AT_CLAW:
        case AT_GORE:
#if TAG_MAJOR_VERSION == 34
        case AT_SNAP:
        case AT_SPLASH:
#endif
        case AT_CHERUB:
            noise_factor = 125;
            break;

        case AT_BITE:
        case AT_PECK:
        case AT_CONSTRICT:
        case AT_POUNCE:
            noise_factor = 100;
            break;

        case AT_STING:
        case AT_SPORE:
        case AT_ENGULF:
        case AT_REACH_STING:
            noise_factor = 75;
            break;

        case AT_TOUCH:
            noise_factor = 0;
            break;

        case AT_WEAP_ONLY:
            break;

        // To prevent compiler warnings.
        case AT_NONE:
        case AT_RANDOM:
#if TAG_MAJOR_VERSION == 34
        case AT_SHOOT:
#endif
            die("Invalid attack type for noise_factor");
            break;

        default:
            die("%d Unhandled attack type for noise_factor", attk_type);
            break;
        }

        if (attk_flavour == AF_ELEC)
            noise_factor += 100;
    }
    else if (weapon == NULL)
        noise_factor = 150;
}

AF_ELEC is an attack flavour. It's what electric golems and sky beasts have. Players can't get it; players can't even get inside the block that you're looking at, because they're not monsters! The weapon brand is SPWPN_ELECTROCUTION, and I cannot find anything that increases its noise.

[LJFCAT]

VpEn is the best possible use case for a vampiric dagger. The key is that as Vp you can swap it in freely. This means that you can use it for stabs; the healing you get from a vampiric dagger stab is pretty outstanding. This continues to be useful for a surprisingly long time, even swapping it in in the middle of fights sometime to land an EH and then stab. The elec dagger is unquestionably a better purpose melee weapon.

Well, this is my first time checking out the thread since my last post, and now I can definitely say from first hand experience you are correct.

I was able to wander into groups of enemies, and EH + stab them with my +0 vampiric dagger efficiently and quickly (which killed everything in one hit that I encountered, unless I'm forgetting something, until I died in Vaults:4). Before my health was ever significantly deteriorated, it was replenished. Confuse usually worked on what I couldn't EH, and I also had Invisibility to make some areas, like Swamp:5, into a joke. A confused or not able to see you Hydra may still catch you for a few hits from time to time, but every time I hit him he basically filled my health back, usually completely (Confuse stabs took more than one hit for strong monsters, naturally)...

I did train long blades for when I had to melee, but by that time I had haste up and running and a decent +2 Scimitar of Elec to work with.

Sorry, I got off topic. I just never had a stabber be so fun and go so well until hubris, tiredness, and greed got me killed pathetically.

Point being, the Vamp dagger was the star of the party for the most part, and I can't imagine things would've gone so smoothly without it. I am curious if what someone else said on the forums is true, and percentage based brands like Freezing and Flaming factor into stab multipliers, because I could swear I've heard the opposite before as well. If that were true, perhaps the vampiric dagger could have/would have taken a backseat more often, but it still would've been extremely useful.

Thanks for all the aid, once again.