Choosing Between Strong Weapons

[PowerScr3w]

So I get the basics of how in general weapons with better base damage are usually superior barring an early brand or situational factors, but I still have trouble differentiating between endgame weapons, especially when it comes to quickblades and speed brands. When I read the forums, I see people dismiss short blades as weak due to low base damage, but drool over nice quickblades, and I come across problems like this often.

For example, I have a KoBr with 14 Short Blades skill using
H - the +14 quick blade "Klaazxei" (weapon) {flame, Int+3}

Trog just dropped this in the Shoals
P - the +6 demon blade of Shrayr {speed, +Rage rC+ Dex-4 SInv}

Is it worth training up LB to use the Demon Blade because of the higher base damage? Does the stabbing bonus or flaming brand or high damage bonus offset the lower base damage of the quickblade? I have +8 slaying, how much does this swing things in the favor of the slightly faster quickblade?

I am looking to see the process of comparison more than just specifically this or that weapon is better. Any help showing me how an experienced crawler compares complicated weapons would be appreciated, thanks.

[Siegurt]

Quickblade maxes speed at .3AUT/swing, demon blade of speed at .33 aut/swing,

that's 3.33 swings/10aut for the quick blade and 3 swings/10 aut for the demon blade,

So the quick blade gets about 10% more swings

The quick blade's base damage is 5, and the enchantment is 14,

Demon blade's base damage is 13, enchantment is 6.

A good rule of thumb for one handed weapons is that 1 base damage is worth 1.5 enchantment.

So we can use that for an approximate comparison:
(5*1.5) +14+8 = 29.5 for the quick blade
(13*1.5)+6+8 = 33.5 for the demon blade

Flaming is another 25% so we can up the quick blade's damage to 36.88, (Presuming we are fighting non fire resistant things)

Then on top of that, the quick blade is 10% faster,

You come out with 122.8 per 10 aut for the quick blade, and 100.5 for the demon blade. (They're almost tied for fire resistant things)

So damage wise the quick blade is better in plain old melee, it also stabs for lots of damage.

[rchandra]

My thought process would be more like "+14, tab tab tab oh hey I died".

Why is the demon blade of speed 0.33 aut instead of 0.4 per swing? Speed brand is attacking 3/2 as often, so 2/3 the delay, and demon blade mindelay is 0.6.

[Siegurt]

My thought process would be more like "+14, tab tab tab oh hey I died".

Why is the demon blade of speed 0.33 aut instead of 0.4 per swing? Speed brand is attacking 3/2 as often, so 2/3 the delay, and demon blade mindelay is 0.6.

My bad, it's .4 per swing, for some reason I had min delay for demon blade at .5 in my head (I don't know where that came from)
(That means that the demon blade comes out looking slightly worse)

[PowerScr3w]

Thank you Siegurt. That is exactly what I needed. I guess I hadn't seen the 1.5 rule of thumb before, that really helps .

[Siegurt]

FWIW usually most people use 1.5 base damage per enchantment for one handed weapons, and 2.0 for two-handed weapons

(Really the actual number is between 1.0 and almost 4.0 depending on how much skill you have, but 1.5 and 2.0 reflect relatively typical play, and are really really close enough for all useful estimates)

[Bloax]

What is more important is that unlike base damage, the enchantment is a separate damage roll from the monstrosity that is the base/stat/skill damage roll.
But yes, high base damage gets very good at high skill levels - but also if your stats are high (and especially good when both are high).

I would definitely use the demon blade over the qblade though, if simply to not have to care about rC+ and SInv rings ever again.

[ajon]

This is pretty good stuff. Mind if I add on? How does slaying get involved? Is it the same as enchantment level? or added base damage? Strength I take is the least important or base damage/enchantment/slaying?

[MainiacJoe]

Slaying and enchantment are the bundled together, that is, enchantment IS slaying. The net effect in the damage calculation to add on average slaying/2 damage, this extra damage not being multiplied by the skill or fighting multipliers. This additive nature of slaying damage is why enchantment is less important on larger weapons and at higher skill levels.

[Siegurt]

What is more important is that unlike base damage, the enchantment is a separate damage roll from the monstrosity that is the base/stat/skill damage roll.
But yes, high base damage gets very good at high skill levels - but also if your stats are high (and especially good when both are high).

I would definitely use the demon blade over the qblade though, if simply to not have to care about rC+ and SInv rings ever again.

It's hard to speak to how valuable rC+ and sInv would be without a dump (They might be completely redundant, or you might not have a pip of either)

But in terms of two weapons which do fairly similar amounts of damage, I would always use the one I had XP invested into, over one that was untrained (even if that training wasn't very expensive)

In this case the quick blade actually does significantly more damage to everything, and does even more damage than that to things without rF and does stupid, ridiculous, one-shot-level damage if you can get a stab in, It'd take a lot of need for rC+ for me to want to switch weapons, personally.

[Bloax]

Slaying and enchantment are the bundled together, that is, enchantment IS slaying. The net effect in the damage calculation to add on average slaying/2 damage, this extra damage not being multiplied by the skill or fighting multipliers. This additive nature of slaying damage is why enchantment is less important on larger weapons and at higher skill levels.

The damage distribution of the melee damage formula makes slaying just as important for huge weapons as it is for small weapons, just in different ways.
For tiny weapons it's important to do actual damage, for large weapons it's important to actually do damage most of the time.

[MainiacJoe]

The damage distribution of the melee damage formula makes slaying just as important for huge weapons as it is for small weapons, just in different ways.

I understand this:

For tiny weapons it's important to do actual damage,

But I'm not following you here:

for large weapons it's important to actually do damage most of the time.

I don't think you're talking about accuracy or about overcoming high AC. Perhaps it's that the slaying bonus is a separate die roll add after the die roll has been made for base damage and its multipliers? Please forgive me, I'm relying on the wiki for how damage is done because I don't know how to source-dive Crawl.

[Bloax]

Slaying is indeed a different roll in
((((1d((BASEDAM * 39 + ((1d(STR-11)-1) * 2)) / 39)) * (2500 + 1d(SKILL*100))) / 2500) * (3000 + 1d(FIGHTING*100))) / 3000 + (1dSLAYING - 1)
And it is quite important for doing damage most of the time; you have a 51% chance to do 5 damage or less on a vault guard wearing plate with a +0 battleaxe @ 30 str/22 axes/18 fighting, but that rises to a 51% chance to do 11 damage or less with a +9 battleaxe.
Which basically means that in one out of four series of two hits you'll do 22 damage or less to such a vault guard instead of <=10, and that's quite a difference.

(spot the guy who has been bitching about how silly this is too hard)

[tasonir]

It's times like these that I remember how I used to ask for melee damage to do 3d(max damage/3) instead of 1d(max damage) because I actually thought current crawl did a simple 1d(max damage) for melee hits. Those were simpler times. Now I'd just be happy to get 1d(max damage).

[Bloax]

I'm not sure what the purpose of the current model is except to make it completely incomprehensible for all but the most determined while securing a large chance of failure even in completely ridiculous conditions.
Why sure, you do all of <=27 damage 33% of the time in that demonstration. "well where's the problem, that's a lot!" you may think, but you also do <=122 damage 75% of the time, and since rng fuckery exists that means that some stupid popcorn monster can and will tank multiple hits from an absolutely ridiculously strong attack. Which rather defeats the nice feel of smashing things to bits. But I know nobody cares about that around here.