Ode to my Shield of Reflection

[starhawk]

After getting so many casters and stabbers killed, I decided I wanted a second win at this game and started a MiFi. Stumbled onto a large shield of reflection on D14 and WOW - it has made the mid-game so damn easy.

Centaurs and yaktaurs just melt away, impaled by their own missiles, before I even have to worry about them.

Boulder beetles bounce away and roll merrily into other parts of Lair.

All those merfolk javelineers in Shoals? AHAHAHAHAHAHA

All those pesky elves in the Halls? TEEHEEHEEHEE

And let us chortle together as cyclopes instakill themselves with large rocks, reflected with a double crit.

But the thing that made me just giddy was what just happened in Vaults:

Boris conjures an orb of pure magic.
Your +4 large shield of reflection reflects the orb of destruction!
The wavering orb of destruction hits Boris.
You blow up Boris!
Makhleb accepts your kill.

I think I will stick with 1H weapons gladly as I get to ignore so many formerly annoying bad guys...

[XuaXua]

I love reflection, but be careful. Missiles bypassing allies to hit you might get reflected into any summoned allies.

Okawaru (with allies), TSO and Beogh are really bad combinations with reflection, as they tend to penalize (yes, I've had TSO penalize for some discretion I accidentally reflected into a target that wasn't paying attention).

[tasonir]

Note there's no such thing as double crits, or crits at all, in crawl. You probably just saw "!!" damage, which is just a way of saying "fairly high damage". There's a damage scale from ., !, !!, etc up to around 5!'s, although I imagine it might be possible to get to 6!'s if you did some really good stab. Each additional ! doubles the damage from the previous one.

[Sandman25]

Each additional ! doubles the damage from the previous one.

... and makes no sense to display IMHO. You still don't know even approximately how much damage it was and it's weird to expect player count those !!!! for weapons comparison provided it is a completely random number from an unknown range.

[tasonir]

It's nice to have a general indication of how hard you're hitting, and I always like my transmuters hitting things for !!!!! damage, but yes, it could be clearer. I'd love to just have an option to see actual damage done, of course, but that seems like it violate some rule against making players happy

[rockygargoyle]

Try combining shields of reflection and Ru!

[xentronium]

Xom is entertained by reflecting enemy spells back at them.

[Psiweapon]

Reflection is DEVASTATING, for some odd reason people insist it's a junk brand.

[Sar]

Other brands are more consistently useful.

Edit: though resistances are actually less consistently useful but you can use a shield of resist to get that + in rF/rC and don't have to worry about ring swaps etc. - some monsters do require or at least heavily incentivize having rF/rC, no enemy really requires reflect.

AC is the one brand that is consistently more useful, I suppose. Oh, and guardian spirit.

[Psiweapon]

Other brands don't make ranged attackers die spontaneously.

[Sandman25]

Reflection is not junk. If you already have rF+, reflection is better than fire resistance. If you already have rC+, reflection is better than cold resistance. If you have high AC, reflection is better than protection. If you have rF+/rC+, reflection is better than resistance. If you use spells, reflection is better than guardian spirit.

Edit. Extra attack is better than extra defense, isn't it?

[Psiweapon]

You can get rC, rF and AC in any conceivable slot, you can get spirit shield on amulets and hats, reflection only appears on shields.

[Sar]

You can get rC, rF and AC in any conceivable slot

Yes, but IME you will often have better option (rings, in particular - EV, MR, AC, Dex rings, slaying if you are lucky). Of course, branded shields are rare too (bucklers are somewhat more common but I think we can agree that reflection is not great on a buckler).

[Sandman25]

Yes, but IME you will often have better option (rings, in particular - EV, MR, AC, Dex rings, slaying if you are lucky). Of course, branded shields are rare too (bucklers are somewhat more common but I think we can agree that reflection is not great on a buckler).

I use the following algorithm:
1) If I don't have MR+++, I wear MR ring.
2) If I have a ring of slaying, I wear it.
3) I look at my resistances and decide whether I may afford to wear shield of reflection. For example, if I have no ring slots because of points 1-2 and have no rF+/rC+ from armour, I will use shield of corresponding resistance.

EV and AC rings have low priority for me unless it is a very good ring or I am in a branch where there are no elemental attacks. Attack is better than defense, right? And even for defense it's better to have a guaranteed 50% reduction from Fire Drake attack than an average damage reduction of 3 (for AC+6 ring). I remember many games where I used ring of slaying, protection from magic and elemental resistance instead of robustness or EV+6 (I rarely find shaolin)

[Sar]

I just wear whatever makes sense to me at the moment.

[Sandman25]

I just wear whatever makes sense to me at the moment.

It does not work well with armour unfortunately. But yes, extra elemental resistance from shield can help more than reflection does. So if player is lazy to switch rings (I feel this way too sometimes), reflection loses much of its appeal.

[Lasty]

I remember many games where I used ring of slaying, protection from magic and elemental resistance instead of robustness or EV+6

This is probably a bad choice. At the very least, if the monsters around you aren't checking a resist, you should be wearing +AC/+EV instead. The Ring of Robustness in particular significantly reduces damage from almost every source; it's pretty rare that using it is not your best option, particularly when you consider that if you're wearing a resistance over it, you can probably switch to an armour with that resistance and still have better AC/EV overall.

That's not to say that it's impossible to imagine a situation where Robustness is not the right choice most of the time, but it's definitely rare.

[Sandman25]

This is probably a bad choice. At the very least, if the monsters around you aren't checking a resist, you should be wearing +AC/+EV instead. The Ring of Robustness in particular significantly reduces damage from almost every source; it's pretty rare that using it is not your best option, particularly when you consider that if you're wearing a resistance over it, you can probably switch to an armour with that resistance and still have better AC/EV overall.

That's not to say that it's impossible to imagine a situation where Robustness is not the right choice most of the time, but it's definitely rare.

MR allows to survive paralysis/banishment, slaying allows to kill extremely dangerous monsters earlier, elemental resistance reduces damage by more than 4 points. I don't care about +8 AC while autoexploring since it is unlikely to be the difference between death and life and there is no GDR for ranged attacks, also it's rarely a good idea to spend 1.0 turn for ring swap when you can use a ranged attack instead. I honestly kept Robustness in my inventory for a long time and even used it sometimes but eventually I noticed that I stopped using it completely and threw it away.
Of course I use Robustness instead of MR/elemental vs a pack of Death Yaks or when retreating from an Yaktaur behind a corner (ring swap is not a time waste when you press 5 or attack air) but it does not happen often late game.

[Sprucery]

My HaBe 5-runer stabber ditched both rings of Shaolin and Robustness without ever wearing them. I wore the ring of Shadows and a +7 slaying ring and switched to Vitality as needed.