Is the wiki reliable?

[Kakaappi]

I'm not a very experienced player so I'm checking the wiki quite often. This time the shields page http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Shields.

There is a formula for blocking:

SH = Block × (1 + Shield skill/20 + Beogh bonus/30)
+ Enchantment bonus + Stat bonus
+ Divine shield bonus (this bonus also works without a shield)
+ min(0.76×Shield skill, 1.14 + 0.38×Shield skill) (added only if the sum of the previous terms is > 0)
+ Mutation bonus

and an example calculation:

For reference, a 15-Dex, 15-Str character wearing a buckler has an average blocking value of:
7 with a Shield Skill of 0
13 with a Shield Skill of 8
16 with a Shield skill of 15
23 with a Shield skill of 27

These numbers are wrong, with 0 shield skill you should get 8.7 SH, and 24.15 SH with 27 skill. The page also says "The resulting value is rounded to the nearest integer and displayed as the player's SH value." Yet when I equip a buckler on my 10 dex 0 skill cahracter it only says I have 3 SH (should have ~7)

Is the formula or the examples wrong? Can I rely on the wiki's information in general?

Also are shields useful for a low level character?

[Turukano]

Well, the CrawlWiki has been discussed here several times, you'll find here supporters as well as critics.

I'm not a very experienced player so I'm checking the wiki quite often.

I got some experience in the game and I'm checking the wiki quite often as well.

Can I rely on the wiki's information in general?

My personal thoughts:

• The wiki is quite reliable if you want some basic information like "how dangerous is unique X, what are his spells" or "which spells contains book Y and what do they do" etc. Note that there is no guarantee that the information is correct (which could be the case with shields, I didn't check it).
• The wiki is useful when giving advice like "deal with monster A by doing B" but it's good to have some experience on your own.
• The wiki contains some "player experience" which are unfortunately called "guides". Generally, I wouldn't recommend them.

From my personal experience the wiki team will often correct things if you tell them you have found a mistake.

Other sources of information are e.g. this forum, chatting in online games and the learnDB. Check learndb.html#shield if you like.

Also are shields useful for a low level character?

Questions about pro and contra shield show up quite often in this forum as well and players have different opinions about it. An argument for using a two-handed weapon is kill foes as quickly as possible and they won't bother you and this is my personal point of view as well.

[KoboldLord]

Check the amber warning bar at the top of the page. The page you are using is out of date.

In general, the wiki isn't completely terrible but it doesn't keep up with updates very well. Crawl is updated exceptionally frequently for a free roguelike, and by the time pages are updated a new version is usually out. Additionally, sections of the wiki devoted to character advice are usually a toxic stew of stupid because a good number of the contributors in wiki history aren't actually good at this game.

With respect to the value of shields, it depends on the character. A buckler is cheap defense if you're not using a two-handed weapon anyway, and it will have a noticeable effect. A common two-handed weapon is usually going to be better than a common one-handed weapon, however, if you intend to use that weapon to kill things that are difficult to kill.

[daggaz]

I like to roll with the player guides as a special kind of challenge...

[SaidTheAlligatorKingToHisSon]

Shields got reworked a while back so that you get less SH value but each point of SH does more. As for the question of whether to use a shield or not it depends on the character and what the dungeon has lying around. In general I'm more likely to use a shield if the character has trouble getting defenses (like trolls or octopodes, mummies also) and less likely if the character has a very high weapons aptitude (hill orcs, merfolk).

[mikee]

If your goal is either to become good at crawl or to understand it well, reading the wiki might be the single worst thing you can do. If there's some obviously objective information that you can get from the wiki, there's no reason not to get it from a source that has more rigor and peer review. I don't want to go into more detail right now, but I can recommend searching this forum for past threads about the wiki if you'd like more of an answer to your question.

[kroki]

i used wiki a lot (and still sometimes do) to look up monsters. for anything else you better ask on tavern or ##crawl. worst thing you can do is to follow the "guides" on wiki, they are really bad.

[and into]

In general, the wiki isn't completely terrible but it doesn't keep up with updates very well. Crawl is updated exceptionally frequently for a free roguelike, and by the time pages are updated a new version is usually out. Additionally, sections of the wiki devoted to character advice are usually a toxic stew of stupid because a good number of the contributors in wiki history aren't actually good at this game.

The problem is that the objective information, which may itself be out-of-date or incorrect, is often enmeshed with questionable advice choices. Or, sometimes, there are questionable priorities behind providing the information in the way it is given, considering that the wiki that is geared toward helping out (first and foremost) new players.

I have an account at the wiki that is still active and I have tried to improve it, and I sometimes (for certain values of "sometimes") continue to do so. But one big hurdle is that even the "objective" info is presented in ways that I would consider questionable. I'm not sure it is good that, for instance, the page for Elyvilon has several tables with specific information about pacify rates given an enemy characteristic that isn't visible to the player, even if those tables and charts and graphs are technically accurate. There are "pedagogical" issues with the organization of the site, not just the player guides, and it extends even to objective information that is also correctly reported for current trunk. (Of course the Ely issue is possibly void, given that there may be a switch to HD-based pacify resistance, but I was just using it as an example. It was the first thing that came to mind.)

[eharper256]

I find it a good source if you read between the lines and form your own opinions; since the knowledge bot tends to either be too damn cynical or provides no objective opinion and analysis.

Whilst the guides might not help you win and are indeed stupid in many instances, one does have to remember that winning is not the reason some people play. One of my friends that I introduced to crawl used to have no regard for personal safety and rarely got past D:5. But he was happy playing reckless Berserkers, crazy Chaos Knights, and moronic Stalkers because he thought losing was fun.

[JFunk]

On IRC and forums you can expect to hear people treat the wiki like a joke, as if it's a bunch of nonsense written by morons. This seems to be just a running meme at this point, and bears little connection to reality. The same people will then point you to the LearnDB as a better source, which is a giant unsorted list that is absolutely chock-full of years-out-of-date information, one-liners, misleading inside jokes, and general drivel. (Not that there aren't great tidbits to be found.)

The wiki is fine. It's not hard to tell what is an opinion, and you can take those opinions for what they are. The version info on each page means you can determine some level of confidence in the factual information. My first win was a 15-runer, and I relied entirely on the wiki for my research on branches and monsters to devise my strategy.

[crate]

imo best resource is the in-game help

[duvessa]

nobody will tell you learndb is a good resource lol

[comebackshane]

The wiki lied to me countless times. It told me to kill Dowan first. I'm still emotianally scared by the result.

On a more serious note, neither wiki or learndb are 100% reliable, but perfectly fine if you need some quick info on a monster or something. learndb is a little more up to date, but essentially an endless series of in-jokes with some useful tidbits of information in between. Wiki is unfortunately rather outdated. I must say trial and error and watching pros play online is the best source of information, or digging deep into the game's code... documentation is rather lacking atm.

[Siegurt]

My first preference for the twins is to spam both of them with a ton of poison needles and walk away, one will die the other will get pissed, but die anyway, often without firing a shot..

If blowgun/needles aren't available and I still want to kill the pair for whatever reason, I always try to get both of them low on hps before killing one, depending on how you're set up either one can hit quite hard and be annoying/nasty

[Sar]

You can also kill Dowan first and tele out/go upstairs if available. Duvessa only zerks twice, Dowan's spell set change is permanent.

[nago]

I believe Duvessa can zerk only one time. If you get the timing right you have also the bonus to fight her slowed!

[Sar]

Fun fact: I have no idea why I wrote "twice".

[Giant Orange Brainbow Dash]

You've been following Tavern long enough to know Duvessa berserks as often as Duvessa wants.

[xentronium]

You've been following Tavern long enough to know Duvessa berserks as often as Duvessa wants.

So what happened to tavern Dowan?

[tasonir]

nobody will tell you learndb is a good resource lol

This is heavily implied by it remaining on the main page while the wiki was removed for being of low quality. Imho, the wiki is pretty good, especially since they started version tagging pages. Now it's still out of date, but it tells you upfront that it is out of date, and by how much.

[Giant Orange Brainbow Dash]

How many of you guys actually update the wiki? I mean, it's open to modification by the public after all...

[XuaXua]

You've been following Tavern long enough to know Duvessa berserks as often as Duvessa wants.

So what happened to tavern Dowan?

His first account hasn't been corrupted yet.

[tasonir]

How many of you guys actually update the wiki? I mean, it's open to modification by the public after all...

I update it from time to time, but usually when people point out errors in it, I'll fix them. I'm not going through pages and reviewing/updating the content myself.

While I believe my Melee Naga of Chei guide (linked in my signature) is still accurate for .16, I haven't changed the version tag since .14 when I did the last major edit of it. About the only issue I have with it now is deciding how general to make it. It's basically a melee chei guide, but it started out aimed at nagas, so I'm not sure if I should rename it to just melee chei, do I need to generalize more things then, as not all races are going to want to do the same kind of armor, etc.

For now I'm leaving it melee Naga, but with very few changes it works on most any race, really. Some are harder than others. Having a decent (0 or +1) unarmed aptitude helps a lot early game, but even the -2 UC races will become powerful if you can manage to deal with really low attack pre/early lair. This does make the early part a lot harder, and it's already the hard part, of course.

Some races I've done similiar builds with: Naga, felid, octopode, ogre, troll, human, demonspawn, gargoyle, vine stalker, draconian, sludge elf (basically merfolk). Maybe I should personally try it on a -2 UC aptitude race, but it won't be very fun