Low-slaying Speed or high-slaying Fire?

[TheArcanist]

I've gotten a Centaur Hunter of Trog to just past Orc and Trog gifted me an artefact longbow of speed. The catch? Its slaying value is at a pitiful -1. I've been using a +6 longbow of fire for most of the game. I have plenty of branded ammuntion to use with a speed-branded longbow, so my question is simple - is it really worth it to tank a huge slaying penalty for a speed brand? Is the brand really *that* good?

[duvessa]

Speed is +50% damage. Flaming is +25% damage on average. (Of course the difference in attack delay is sometimes relevant because of overkill).

[TheArcanist]

Speed is +50% damage. Flaming is +25% damage on average. (Of course the difference in attack delay is sometimes relevant because of overkill).

I'm well aware that speed is a better brand than fire; hell, I even mention that I have branded ammunition to make that difference kind of moot. What I was wondering was if taking an effective slaying penalty of 7(one that will only get higher as I find more enchanting scrolls) was worth it.

[Sandman25]

I would use fsim to know which is better.

[njvack]

... and if you don't want to use fsim, shoot some dudes with each bow and see which seems to work better.

[TheArcanist]

Well, the question is now completely moot, because Trog ended up gifting me a +10 longbow of speed not too long after.

I should probably figure out how to work fsim, though. It sounds handy.

[Hurkyl]

... and if you don't want to use fsim, shoot some dudes with each bow and see which seems to work better.

Except this doesn't really work well unless one bow is doing like double the damage of the other.

[Bloax]

... and if you don't want to use fsim, shoot some dudes with each bow and see which seems to work better.

Except this doesn't really work well unless one bow is doing like double the damage of the other.

Yes, not only because humans are generally awful at noticing small differences - but also because crawl combat is so volatile that even fsim often prints differing results.

Which long story short means that your chances of working out what two items close in power are the actual better one are just about zero.

[ldf]

Which long story short means that your chances of working out what two items close in power are the actual better one are just about zero.

Why would you care then?

[Lasty]

If you can't tell whether one weapon is more effective than another via in-game trial, the odds of the difference mattering in actual gameplay are trivial. Taking the time to fsim the situation is remarkably unlikely to improve your odds of winning. Putting the time it takes to fsim it into increased care and attention while playing probably will slightly increase your odds of winning.

[Hurkyl]

Which long story short means that your chances of working out what two items close in power are the actual better one are just about zero.

Why would you care then?

You wouldn't. But the point still applies to items that are not close in power, and you do care about that.

... although "close in power" is a bit surjective, and people in this forum often make big deals over things I would call "close in power". (e.g. in the late game, refusing to take off a ring of slaying +6 for any reason)