Ash and Skill Transfer

[GrumpD]

Hey Crawlers.

First time using Ash, and I'm starting to use Transfer Knowledge. Just a quick question. I'm playing KoEn, so I have a +4 apt. for Stealth. Should I skill stealth, dump into something else, reskill Stealth, repeat? I see there's a 10% loss of skill, but I don't know how to weigh that penalty.

I usually play Chei and Mak, so it has been an adjustment, but the powers are awesome. Thanks in advance.

[duvessa]

You should use scrying instead because transfer knowledge is a terrible ability that is useless in virtually all cases. It transfers xp, not skill levels, if you do what you're describing then you will just lose a bunch of xp and piety.

Basically the only time you might use transfer knowledge is if you trained a bunch of a useless skill (why did you do that?) or are switching weapons, and don't care about losing a bunch of scrying uses.

[GrumpD]

That's a shame. Thanks for the info.

[Sandman25]

You should use scrying instead because transfer knowledge is a terrible ability that is useless in virtually all cases. It transfers xp, not skill levels, if you do what you're describing then you will just lose a bunch of xp and piety.

Basically the only time you might use transfer knowledge is if you trained a bunch of a useless skill (why did you do that?) or are switching weapons, and don't care about losing a bunch of scrying uses.

Transfer knowledge is not useless. I often train bunch of "useless" skills with Ash because they make my character stronger now and I know I can move the XP into another skill later almost for free. Examples of forgotten skills: ice for EH/Ozo Armour and later you switch to heavy armour and have max spell power for EH anyway, shield before finding a good weapon, weapon after finding a great 1h weapon, stealth after switching to heavy armour, poison in extended, switching from ice to fire after getting Red Draconian etc. I used the ability up to 8 times in a 3 rune game.

Edit. Also manuals.

[dpeg]

That's a shame. Thanks for the info.

Don't fall prey to classical duvessa misinformation. The information is cryptic and overly condensed, which is quite his norm.

It is true that there are many games where you're completely happy without any reskilling. However, as Sandman indicates, it has its uses: you may want to change skills due to weapon type change or spellbooks (not) found (e.g. as a VM without further poison spells, you can still skill Poison and later put it somewhere else). And all manuals are useful under Ash, as Sandman says.

It is harder to imagine scenarios where you want to transfer out of universally useful skills (Dodging, Stealth, Evocations etc.) but I guess it can still happen: if, for some reason, you have opportunity to go very light --> very heavy armour, you might do away with whatever Stealth you have, for example.

[bel]

The answer to OP's question is no, because it will just lose XP. If you want opinion of usefulness of transfer knowledge in general, it is very situational.

[duvessa]

Transfer knowledge is not useless. I often train bunch of "useless" skills with Ash because they make my character stronger now and I know I can move the XP into another skill later almost for free. Examples of forgotten skills: ice for EH/Ozo Armour and later you switch to heavy armour and have max spell power for EH anyway, shield before finding a good weapon, weapon after finding a great 1h weapon, stealth after switching to heavy armour, poison in extended, switching from ice to fire after getting Red Draconian etc. I used the ability up to 8 times in a 3 rune game.

These examples are all absurd except for the weapon switching one which I specifically mentioned. Why would you ever want to switch to heavy armour when you're casting the spell that's better than heavy armour, train shields before weapon skill, train significant stealth on a character that would conceivably ever switch to heavy armour, or switch from ice to fire on a red draconian? That morgue looks like a character that trained useless skills and also switched weapon classes to me, which are exactly the cases I mentioned.
Look, I'll accept that transfer knowledge could be useful for something else if it didn't cost piety, or if scrying didn't exist. But it costs crazy amounts of piety, and scrying does exist. In trying to squeeze out tiny strategic advantages from it, you just weaken your character because you get about 10 fewer uses of scrying.

And all manuals are useful under Ash, as Sandman says.

Does trading 75 piety for 2000 skill points sound like a good deal to you? Because it sure doesn't to me.

[Sandman25]

Does trading 75 piety for 2000 skill points sound like a good deal to you? Because it sure doesn't to me.

Ash piety is almost useless and is easy to earn. Scry is more useless/situational than knowledge transfer.

These examples are all absurd except for the weapon switching one which I specifically mentioned. Why would you ever want to switch to heavy armour when you're casting the spell that's better than heavy armour

Because some armours are not found on D1

train shields before weapon skill

Because weapon is already at min delay

train significant stealth on a character that would conceivably ever switch to heavy armour

Because stealth was useful early and then you find a good heavy armour.

or switch from ice to fire on a red draconian?

That was the only theoretical example. I think I would go for Fire Storm/Bolt of Fire instead of Glaciate/Bolt of Cold with DrWz/Cj.

That morgue looks like a character that trained useless skills and also switched weapon classes to me, which are exactly the cases I mentioned.

That character forgot shields. (edit. Oops, I confused it with another my character. I don't remember how I used transfer in that game except I am sure I used several manuals).

Look, I'll accept that transfer knowledge could be useful for something else if it didn't cost piety, or if scrying didn't exist.

Why do you care about piety or scrying so much? Isn't passive detection of red monsters not enough in most cases? I remember Ash games where I used scrying just a couple of times.

But it costs crazy amounts of piety, and scrying does exist. In trying to squeeze out tiny strategic advantages from it, you just weaken your character because you get about 10 fewer uses of scrying.

Why do you need scrying so much? How many times do you usually use it (sorry, I failed to find your online games).

[KoboldLord]

Transfer Knowledge is a relic carried over from a previous xp-training system wherein it was functionally impossible to deliberately train a whole bunch of important skills, at least without keeping a rat handy so you can later have it attack you for hundreds of turns after every fight. It was very nice at that time, because you could use it to train tons of dodging (for example) getting you extra EV that other characters simply couldn't match.

It has virtually no value in the current system, where you can train dodging by picking dodging in the skill menu. The only way you can profitably retrain is to use the manual exploit, which really probably should be fixed because it doesn't work for any other form of aptitude modifier so there's no way an unspoiled player could reasonable find out about it. That leaves recouping the investment of a no-longer-desired skill as the only remaining possible use, and that situation really doesn't come up as often as you'd think. Weapon switching is really the only circumstance where it's worth dumping heavy investment in favor of a random drop that could not have been predicted in advance. If the pre-existing investment that you're trying to recoup isn't extremely heavy, you're likely to find that the amount of xp you get back is insultingly small, since high levels of skill cost so much more than low levels.

Honestly at this point Transfer Knowledge is better off replaced by a blank spot on the ability menu, since its applications that are actually potentially useful are bad for gameplay and all its other applications are newbie traps that sound good but mostly hurt the player in practice.

Scrying is spectacular, and you should use that instead.

[Sandman25]

Scrying is spectacular, and you should use that instead.

How do you use it?
1) To see rune location
2) To choose the easiest lung on Zot5
3) To see what monsters are behind a door/corner
Anything else?

[Sar]

tbh I almost never use Scrying because I have no idea when to use it

I don't really use Skill Transfer either for reasons listed. just enjoy the skill boosts

[Sandman25]

tbh I almost never use Scrying because I have no idea when to use it

I don't really use Skill Transfer either for reasons listed. just enjoy the skill boosts

The same here. When I have no reason to use skill transfer but I am sure I am at max piety, I use scrying just for fun/out of curiosity.

[bel]

Scrying is spectacular, and you should use that instead.

How do you use it?
1) To see rune location
2) To choose the easiest lung on Zot5
3) To see what monsters are behind a door/corner
Anything else?

That's not enough?

Apart from general uses, I will give two examples of special uses of scry from my own games.

One was when I was in Abyss. I sensed a nasty monster by passive mapping. I scried, and it was a bone dragon, guarding a rune, with rock walls. I zapped a wand of digging, apported the rune and teleported.

Second example is the "hard" version of ice cave with an ice fiend boss. I scried, and noticed that there was a separate way into the loot chamber, through deep water. I cast flight, went around the chamber, used scry, checked where the loot was, zapped a wand of digging, and apported the loot with nobody noticing.

[Sandman25]

Scrying is spectacular, and you should use that instead.

How do you use it?
1) To see rune location
2) To choose the easiest lung on Zot5
3) To see what monsters are behind a door/corner
Anything else?

That's not enough?

Apart from general uses, I will give two examples of special uses of scry from my own games.

One was when I was in Abyss. I sensed a nasty monster by passive mapping. I scried, and it was a bone dragon, guarding a rune, with rock walls. I zapped a wand of digging, apported the rune and teleported.

Second example is the "hard" version of ice cave with an ice fiend boss. I scried, and noticed that there was a separate way into the loot chamber, through deep water. I cast flight, went around the chamber, used scry, checked where the loot was, zapped a wand of digging, and apported the loot with nobody noticing.

Of course it's not enough. There are only 15 runes in the game so 1) is not a big deal, 2) happens once in a game and 3) was a trap, it's optimal to run and never look back when you see a red monster (either you are powerful and you don't care or you are weak and you still don't care which monster it was).
In your examples I wouldn't spend piety to see that bone dragon (Abyss is already very easy with Ash without any active abilities) and ice caves are fixed maps, after playing some time you can recognize those maps easily.

[bel]

That's quite absurd reasoning. You want to deliberately make your life harder because you don't want to use scry?

For (1), say I'm in Shoals end, and instead of going around each hut and checking where the rune is, I just scry, and do that one. The fact that there are only 15 runes in the game is irrelevant. The runes are the most important part of the game (after Orb of Zot); anything that makes them easier is good.

As to your (3), scry also shows the items, not just the monsters. So I might decide to risk it based on the reward. Or, for example, if it is a "nasty" monster which can't see invis, I can use invis to kill it, then go on my way.

I can imagine plenty of other situations where scry is great.

[KoboldLord]

It's often useful to know exactly what kind of pack you're facing, as well as knowing the precise locations of each of the different types of monsters in a mixed pack. If there are monsters on the other side of the door, you want to open that door from a different tile depending on whether the monsters on the other side are yaktaurs, deep trolls w/ caster accompaniment, or whatever. Or maybe you'll want to just walk away if it turns out that one of the pack monsters is actually an unrelated unique that you don't want to fight, say Louise or Frederick. Frequently you can start the fight with line of effect broken between you and the most dangerous spellcasting monster, but only if you know which is the offending spellcaster from the start. There are only a few tiers of monster threat detected by passive detection, and while that is very useful there are often monsters that are much easier or much harder for your specific current build, and no threat detection algorithm could reasonably be expected to handle that.

Why not give it a try sometime? Use Scrying obsessively, even in situations where you think you'll be fine without it. I think you'll be surprised at how often the extra information comes in handy.

[Zwobot]

One was when I was in Abyss. I sensed a nasty monster by passive mapping. I scried, and it was a bone dragon, guarding a rune, with rock walls. I zapped a wand of digging, apported the rune and teleported.

Oh hey, I just got that exact same vault! I scryed - but had no wand of digging/disint so further information gathering (using Scry) revealed it guarded by a bunch of abyssal monsters and a hellion. I decided to risk it.

Yeah knowledge is power~

(And Transfer Knowledge is a trap, that pretends to be more useful than it is)

[Sandman25]

That's quite absurd reasoning. You want to deliberately make your life harder because you don't want to use scry?

For (1), say I'm in Shoals end, and instead of going around each hut and checking where the rune is, I just scry, and do that one. The fact that there are only 15 runes in the game is irrelevant. The runes are the most important part of the game (after Orb of Zot); anything that makes them easier is good.

As to your (3), scry also shows the items, not just the monsters. So I might decide to risk it based on the reward. Or, for example, if it is a "nasty" monster which can't see invis, I can use invis to kill it, then go on my way.

I can imagine plenty of other situations where scry is great.

That's quite absurd reasoning indeed. I am not a speedrunner, I am closer to "optimal" player so I clear shoals 5 (or don't enter the level at all), it has lots of XP and good items. Why should I spend piety to lose XP and items?

Invisibility is somewhat useful for characters with low stealth, this is what I call "situational" use. If I am a stabber and I have unlimited invis, I will become invisible without using scry (even as SpEn). Also I am not sure invisibility helps that much when you cannot stab, my last Tr died to minotaur despite I was invisible (please don't laugh, the minotaur had triple HP).

[Sandman25]

Why not give it a try sometime? Use Scrying obsessively, even in situations where you think you'll be fine without it. I think you'll be surprised at how often the extra information comes in handy.

This is what I wrote. I use it when I don't need it, just because I have it and I am at maxed piety. It is not that great, I mean, I just have nothing to spend piety on anyway.

[Berder]

Transfer Knowledge is a relic carried over from a previous xp-training system wherein it was functionally impossible to deliberately train a whole bunch of important skills, at least without keeping a rat handy so you can later have it attack you for hundreds of turns after every fight. It was very nice at that time, because you could use it to train tons of dodging (for example) getting you extra EV that other characters simply couldn't match.

It has virtually no value in the current system, where you can train dodging by picking dodging in the skill menu. The only way you can profitably retrain is to use the manual exploit, which really probably should be fixed because it doesn't work for any other form of aptitude modifier so there's no way an unspoiled player could reasonable find out about it. That leaves recouping the investment of a no-longer-desired skill as the only remaining possible use, and that situation really doesn't come up as often as you'd think. Weapon switching is really the only circumstance where it's worth dumping heavy investment in favor of a random drop that could not have been predicted in advance. If the pre-existing investment that you're trying to recoup isn't extremely heavy, you're likely to find that the amount of xp you get back is insultingly small, since high levels of skill cost so much more than low levels.

Honestly at this point Transfer Knowledge is better off replaced by a blank spot on the ability menu, since its applications that are actually potentially useful are bad for gameplay and all its other applications are newbie traps that sound good but mostly hurt the player in practice.

Scrying is spectacular, and you should use that instead.

If all this is true, then it sounds like Ash used to be more powerful relative to other gods than he is now. So why not buff Transfer Knowledge so that it works instantly and transfers all of the XP from the source skill to the target skill? Then it would be useful again.

[Sandman25]

If all this is true, then it sounds like Ash used to be more powerful relative to other gods than he is now. So why not buff Transfer Knowledge so that it works instantly and transfers all of the XP from the source skill to the target skill? Then it would be useful again.

It would be OP probably.

[and into]

I used the ability up to 8 times in a 3 rune game.

This looks like a fun game, but you basically used Lacertillian's ability to easily swap gods plus transfer knowledge to start as a berserker and then switch to doing a bunch of spell casting later on. That's a very niche case involving a (currently) Trunk-only species.

I don't think instant or near-instant transfer of experience would be OP at all, but I also don't think it would make the ability all that useful for most players in most games, either. For such a piety thirsty ability I've always found it very situational in terms of utility. OTOH it does make it easier to do some silly things that, while perhaps not being good moves for winning the game, are nonetheless fun. I have swapped around skills in a couple of games to use this or that unrandart weapon, for instance. Also makes it easy to try out new spells you haven't yet had the chance to play with.

[Sandman25]

Berder was talking about instant transfer of all XP from a source skill. Making Tornado castable in several turns after finding it could be OP

Edit. Here is 4 uses of transfer knowledge with stable species (scrying was used 6 times).

[mps]

minmay classical misinformation alert: Ozo's armour is not actually better than heavy armour.

[Sar]

well in many cases it actually is

[bel]

I do not agree with Berder's suggestion. By the time transfer knowledge comes online, Ash is already one of the best gods. Ash's weakness is in the early game where it does relatively little (scry was moved earlier in the piety level to compensate). Later-game Ash definitely does not need a buff.

[mps]

I do not agree with Berder's suggestion. By the time transfer knowledge comes online, Ash is already one of the best gods. Ash's weakness is in the early game where it does relatively little (scry was moved earlier in the piety level to compensate). Later-game Ash definitely does not need a buff.

counterpoint: Ash sucks unless you're casting a lot of magic, which also sucks. Ash would be moderately useful on melee characters if the downside of "reskilling" were merely losing xp as opposed to losing xp and a huge chunk of piety (similar to being drained in many cases). Still considerably worse than Oka.

Ash should have a final ability that's actually good. I would suggest a once-per-game crosstraining ability where you select two skills and from that point forward, you get a crosstraining bonus on one skill based on the other.

[Sandman25]

counterpoint: Ash sucks unless you're casting a lot of magic, which also sucks.

It's like saying "Kiku sucks unless you train Necromancy and get a pain weapon, which also sucks".

[bel]

I do not agree with Berder's suggestion. By the time transfer knowledge comes online, Ash is already one of the best gods. Ash's weakness is in the early game where it does relatively little (scry was moved earlier in the piety level to compensate). Later-game Ash definitely does not need a buff.

counterpoint: Ash sucks unless you're casting a lot of magic, which also sucks. Ash would be moderately useful on melee characters if the downside of "reskilling" were merely losing xp as opposed to losing xp and a huge chunk of piety (similar to being drained in many cases). Still considerably worse than Oka.

Ash should have a final ability that's actually good. I would suggest a once-per-game crosstraining ability where you select two skills and from that point forward, you get a crosstraining bonus on one skill based on the other.

To clarify, I was not talking about the usefulness of transfer knowledge. If transfer knowledge was simply removed, Ash would still be good, later game. I like the idea of a once-per-game crosstraining ability (or perhaps a once-per-game reskilling, however you want, at max *), similar to other gods who have something special at max *.

[Sar]

would the ability to instantly shift your XP from skill A to skill B be OP though?

I mean the XP doesn't come from nowhere, you lose skill A, which presumably did matter to you at some point

[GrumpD]

It's interesting to see the discussion taking place from my initial inquiry. I was using the power to pull from Evo into Armor on a KoEn after finding an enticing randart ring mail, as I didn't rely on wands and other evocables as much as I anticipated. After having done so, I thought "Stealth has a +4, why not pump and dump from it into other skills?"

It's nice seeing this much discussion, as it spells out the initial recommendation more clearly, with consensus seeming to be "this power may prove useful under limited circumstances that likely deviate from optimal play." While optimal behavior doesn't really entice me (I'm a grownup who spends all day involved in optimal behavior), it's very helpful all the same to understand that the power isn't really the best use of Ash piety in most cases.

The character in question is long-ago splatted, but I've continued running Ash for KoEN, and having no prior experience with this god or stabbers, I have to say I enjoy the combination a lot. I'm sure other gods are arguably better, but using scry to see what monsters are on the other side of a wall, then casting passwall to stab them is fun, and it's just cool to walk the dungeon knowing what everything on the floor is. I went into labyrinth, and the announcement was basically "Ash stops all the monkey business in here," which was also fun.

[mps]

counterpoint: Ash sucks unless you're casting a lot of magic, which also sucks.

It's like saying "Kiku sucks unless you train Necromancy and get a pain weapon, which also sucks".

No, because necromancy and pain weapons don't suck and Kiku gives you abilities that make necromancy good even if you're otherwise terrible at casting spells. It's good to be bad at casting spells because it means you have some combination of bad int and heavy armor, both of which are good things unless the bad int is from shitarts or sth.

[duvessa]

Can we not troll threads from people who actually need advice? thanks

[ldf]

Ash's weakness is in the early game where it does relatively little (scry was moved earlier in the piety level to compensate).

I'm not sure that moving scry earlier is a buff to early Ash. For me it's a nerf because you have to wait more to get skill bonus.

[dowan]

Deleted

[bel]

Ash's weakness is in the early game where it does relatively little (scry was moved earlier in the piety level to compensate).

I'm not sure that moving scry earlier is a buff to early Ash. For me it's a nerf because you have to wait more to get skill bonus.

How is it a nerf? If you never use scry till 4*, it is exactly the same as earlier situation.

[mps]

Can we not troll threads from people who actually need advice? thanks

Oh, sorry, I was probably being too cryptic in my advice.

Let me give it to you straight, OP: Ash is shit. Ash abilities suck. You get skills you don't need way past the stage in the game where the help is actually helpful. If you build your character correctly, it doesn't matter what's behind walls in a 3 rune game. You should go Kiku on your KoEn or better Trog. You should use your starting book to get through about 6 levels of dungeon then start planning for a heavy armor melee build. Unless you go Trog, in which case just burn it.

[dowan]

To summarize:

Skill transfer only transfers 90%. It's always better to just train the skill you want rather than trying to train something you don't want, only to transfer it.

There's no trick using your character's aptitudes to get extra skill points using transfer, the way it's coded that can't work.

Manuals work differently, so for a hefty piety price, you could basically get some extra skill points by training a skill you don't intend to use just to transfer it into a skill you might actually want to use. But remember, it's a hefty price that might be better spent on scrying, as seeing through walls can be very helpful.

If, due to normal play and RNG, you end up with a skill that you've trained becoming no longer useful to you, it might be a decent idea to transfer that experience to another skill that is useful to you, but of course, you're still paying a hefty piety price.

[njvack]

I am not a speedrunner, I am closer to "optimal" player so I clear shoals 5 (or don't enter the level at all), it has lots of XP and good items. Why should I spend piety to lose XP and items?

Ugh. I'm not a super awesome player, but I just cleared Shoals:5 and would have been very very happy to find the rune in the first hut as opposed to the last hut. There's much easier XP and loot than Ilsuiw and a bunch of impalers and javelineers.

I'll agree that Scrying isn't as good if you're just planning to Kill All The Dudes, but I think Crawl is easier if you leave some dudes unkilled*. And I know it's easier if you kill the dudes in the order of your choosing.

*Not that I am very good at following that advice

[dowan]

I also fall into the camp that barely, if ever, uses scry. So to me ash piety is ripe for the wasting, and if I can get an extra 0.5 dodging skill, all the better. I'm in it for the passive bonuses! (See also, worshipping mahk with 0 invo skill, or oka with just 1 invo skill). Also, I'm of the firm belief that all the dudes need killing, so what do I care who the dude is?

These are both obviously very sub-optimal attitudes, but they're more optimal than not playing, which is what I would do if I had to play 'optimally'.

However, with that said, shoals 5 is sometimes an exception, and in the future I may just use scry to avoid having to open any more huts than necessary. That stupid place has killed more of my characters than I care to admit...

[Zwobot]

... I honestly sort of start spacing out once 'optimal play' comes up in the discussion. What does that even mean?!?

Also, uh, on topic: I'd still seriously consider Ash if she only granted passive divination and Scry.

[bel]

... I honestly sort of start spacing out once 'optimal play' comes up in the discussion. What does that even mean?!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

[dowan]

... I honestly sort of start spacing out once 'optimal play' comes up in the discussion. What does that even mean?!?

Also, uh, on topic: I'd still seriously consider Ash if she only granted passive divination and Scry.

Optimal play is the theoretical best way to play the game. For example, luring enemies (even seemingly easy ones) away from unexplored territory so you are always fighting the easiest possible fights. Another example would be to mark sleeping uniques with an exception, rather than trying to fight them. It's actually more important to discussions about crawl than most games, because on of the development goals is that playing optimally shouldn't be a tedious, soul crushing exercise (Like how in older versions of Cataclysm DDA you could become an archery expert by shooting at a wall all day long).

[Rast]

Another example would be to mark sleeping uniques with an exception, rather than trying to fight them.

That's basic common sense.

Optimal play would be to sourcedive so you know how far sound carries, then apply that information to the current map and exclude all spaces where fighting could wake the monster.

[Sprucery]

I have more than once (e.g. in my current game) first taken the rune from Shoals:5 and escaped but then come back later and much stronger to kill everything and grab the loot. I hate to leave exp and loot untaken.

[Zwobot]

Thanks, guys. Well, I got a signature now.

[Sandman25]

Ugh. I'm not a super awesome player, but I just cleared Shoals:5 and would have been very very happy to find the rune in the first hut as opposed to the last hut. There's much easier XP and loot than Ilsuiw and a bunch of impalers and javelineers.

I'll agree that Scrying isn't as good if you're just planning to Kill All The Dudes, but I think Crawl is easier if you leave some dudes unkilled*. And I know it's easier if you kill the dudes in the order of your choosing.

*Not that I am very good at following that advice

Ilsuiw is not related to rune, you can see her presence with passive mapping. There is nothing wrong in avoiding red monsters, I do it all the time.

[ldf]

Ash's weakness is in the early game where it does relatively little (scry was moved earlier in the piety level to compensate).

I'm not sure that moving scry earlier is a buff to early Ash. For me it's a nerf because you have to wait more to get skill bonus.

How is it a nerf? If you never use scry till 4*, it is exactly the same as earlier situation.

No, it's not the same. Before this commit skill boost was on 2* and scrying on 4*. Now you have to wait until 3* to get skill boost.

[bel]

Ah, I didn't read the commit carefully. I just went by the dev blog, which only mentioned the scry part, but not the other part.

[Wahaha]

No, it's not the same. Before this commit skill boost was on 2* and scrying on 4*. Now you have to wait until 3* to get skill boost.

Wow that makes Ash even worse. Scrying is practically unusable in the early game if it costs even 1 piety, because it delays the first useful ability. It's not going to make early Ash better.