Pushing skills past "optimal"

[XuaXua]

I'm working a character with staves skill, and reached maximal lajatang speed (14, I believe).

Is there incentive to push it past max speed? I assume I should be able to eke out additional damage from the weapon at higher ranks of skill, even if I can't hit any faster.

[Lasty]

You do get incrementally increased damage and accuracy, and you get a certain amount of drain-proofing. It's not a terrible idea to get some extra levels of weapon skill if you have the XP to spare, particularly on a cheap mindelay weapon like a lajatang.

[tasonir]

yes, more skill helps, it's just that it's roughly 20% as effective as pre-min delay skill, so that's usually not that big of a help. People generally shift into defense skills/magic at that point. You can always go back and train your weapon higher in the late game, and it'll probably be helpful, but there's lots of things that are helpful in crawl.

[daggaz]

drain proofing? Edit: oh nm i get it.

[Baldu3]

Once my main weapon is at minimum delay I prefer putting my xp in fighting since I think it gives the same accuracy and damage to my main weapon, also gives hp, and also gives some accuracy and damage to any secondary weapons (I would like to expect that fighting gives same bonuses to ranged combat as melee combat but am not certain).

[XuaXua]

drain proofing? Edit: oh nm i get it.

I looked at that twice myself, but totally makes sense.

[cerealjynx]

Cooler titles!