characters who are exceptionally stiff by design


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Pandemonium Purger

Posts: 1283

Joined: Thursday, 16th April 2015, 22:39

Post Thursday, 9th July 2015, 02:37

characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

If there's one stat most characters have a lot of, it's dexterity, because it's universally good and because the game usually gives you so much of it. You can much more easily find a character with abysmal str/int than with dex. Players often characters for whom str/int doesn't matter, but can you create a character for whom dex doesn't matter? And how well does this kind of character turn out? This must have changed somewhat after the evasion penalty of armor was smoothed:

Armour penalties to dodging have been smoothed; there is no longer a breakpoint at which Dodging goes from giving zero EV to the normal rate. Instead, armour decreases the rate at which Dodging gives you EV.


Here's a stiff character I made:

  Code:
 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.16.1-51-g6203257 (webtiles) character file.

PollenGolem the Axe Maniac (Hill Orc Wanderer) Turns: 141675, Time: 1, 01:15:17

HP:   244/244 (270) AC: 44    Str: 41    XL:     27
MP:   52/53         EV: 23    Int: 16    God:    the Shining One [******]
Gold: 15380         SH:  0    Dex:  3    Spells: 19 memorised, 4 levels left

rFire  + + +     SeeInvis +     a - +9 executioner's axe (holy)
rCold  + + +     Clarity  .     p - +12 gold dragon armour
rNeg   + + +     SustAb   .     (no shield)
rPois  +         Gourm    +     u - -2 hat of the Alchemist {rElec rPois rF+ rC+ rN+ MR+ rMut rCorr}
rElec  +         Spirit   .     s - +0 cloak of Starlight {rElec rC+ EV+4 Stlth-}
rCorr  +         Warding  .     i - +2 pair of gloves "Thaum Dio" {rC- MP+9 Str-3 Int+5 SInv}
rMut   +         Stasis   .     C - +0 pair of boots of Fortitude {rPois rCorr Int+2}
MR     +++++                    b - amulet of the Briny Deep {Gourm rF++ Stlth+}
Stlth  ..........               n - ring of Gozag's Envy {Ice rN+ MR+ Str+9 Dex-5}
                                S - ring of Shaolin {EV+8}

@: flying, glowing, almost entirely resistant to hostile enchantments, extremely
unstealthy
A: talons 1, fire resistance 1, magic resistance 1, strong 1
a: Divine Shield, Cleansing Flame, Summon Divine Warrior, Renounce Religion
}: 15/15 runes: barnacled, slimy, silver, golden, iron, obsidian, icy, bone,
abyssal, demonic, glowing, magical, fiery, dark, gossamer


You are in Pandemonium.
You worship the Shining One.
The Shining One is exalted by your worship.
You are not hungry.

You have visited 18 branches of the dungeon, and seen 97 of its levels.
You have visited Pandemonium 5 times, and seen 33 of its levels.
You have visited the Abyss 3 times.
You have visited 2 bazaars.
You have visited 3 ziggurats, and seen 55 of their levels (deepest: 22).
You have also visited: Labyrinth, Bailey and Volcano.

You have collected 19527 gold pieces.
You have spent 3014 gold pieces at shops.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 a - a +9 executioner's axe of holy wrath (weapon)
Missiles
 l - 12 throwing nets (quivered)
Armour
 i - the +2 pair of gloves "Thaum Dio" (worn) {rC- MP+9 Str-3 Int+5 SInv}
   (You acquired it on level 3 of the Depths)   
   
   It affects your strength (-3).
   It affects your intelligence (+5).
   It makes you vulnerable to cold.
   It affects your magic capacity (+9).
   It enhances your eyesight.
 p - a +12 gold dragon armour (worn)
 s - the +0 cloak of Starlight (worn) {rElec rC+ EV+4 Stlth-}
   (You bought it in a shop in a bazaar)   
   
   It affects your evasion (+4).
   It protects you from cold.
   It insulates you from electricity.
   It makes you less stealthy.
 u - the -2 hat of the Alchemist (worn) {rElec rPois rF+ rC+ rN+ MR+ rMut rCorr}
   (You found it on level 11 of a ziggurat)   
   
   It protects you from fire.
   It protects you from cold.
   It insulates you from electricity.
   It protects you from poison.
   It protects you from negative energy.
   It affects your resistance to hostile enchantments.
   It protects you from acid and corrosion.
   It protects you from mutation.
 C - the +0 pair of boots of Fortitude (worn) {rPois rCorr Int+2}
   (You found it on level 9 of a ziggurat)   
   
   It affects your intelligence (+2).
   It protects you from poison.
   It protects you from acid and corrosion.
Rods
 t - a +6 lightning rod (13/13)
   (You took it off Ilsuiw on level 5 of the Shoals)
Jewellery
 b - the amulet of the Briny Deep (around neck) {Gourm rF++ Stlth+}
   (You found it on level 15 of a ziggurat)   
   
   [amulet of the gourmand]
   
   It allows you to eat raw meat even when not hungry.
   It greatly protects you from fire.
   It makes you more stealthy.
 d - the amulet "Voggucs" {Ward +Fly rElec rN+ Str+6}
   (You found it on level 3 of the Crypt)   
   
   [amulet of warding]
   
   It may prevent the melee attacks of summoned creatures.
   It affects your strength (+6).
   It insulates you from electricity.
   It protects you from negative energy.
   It lets you fly.
 n - the ring of Gozag's Envy (right hand) {Ice rN+ MR+ Str+9 Dex-5}
   (You took it off a deep elf conjurer on level 3 of the Elven Halls)   
   
   [ring of ice]
   
   It enhances your ice magic, and weakens your fire magic.
   It affects your strength (+9).
   It affects your dexterity (-5).
   It makes you vulnerable to fire.
   It protects you from cold.
   It protects you from negative energy.
   It affects your resistance to hostile enchantments.
 S - the ring of Shaolin (left hand) {EV+8}
   (You found it on level 18 of a ziggurat)   
   
   [ring of evasion]
   
   It affects your evasion (+8).
Magical devices
 x - a wand of hasting (6)
 A - a wand of disintegration (6)
 B - a wand of heal wounds (7)
 T - a wand of enslavement
 Z - a wand of digging (4)
Scrolls
 g - 12 scrolls of recharging
 j - 9 scrolls of fear
 o - 3 scrolls of silence
 v - 23 scrolls of fog
 G - 2 scrolls of holy word
 H - 14 scrolls of blinking
 I - 8 scrolls of identify
 O - 12 scrolls of immolation
 Q - 5 scrolls of magic mapping
 U - a scroll of brand weapon
 V - 20 scrolls of remove curse
 Y - 26 scrolls of teleportation
Potions
 e - a potion of cure mutation
 m - 3 potions of magic
 z - 4 potions of cancellation
 E - 14 potions of curing
 F - 7 potions of restore abilities
 L - 4 potions of resistance
 N - 3 potions of agility
 P - 11 potions of might
Miscellaneous
 f - a phial of floods
 k - an ornate deck of defence {drawn: 2}
 q - a sack of spiders
 r - a fan of gales
 w - an ornate deck of wonders {Dowsing, drawn: 3}
 D - a legendary deck of wonders {Dowsing, drawn: 3}
 J - an ornate deck of destruction {Vitriol}
 K - 4 phantom mirrors
 R - a legendary deck of summoning {Water}
 W - a lamp of fire
Comestibles
 c - 10 meat rations


   Skills:
 - Level 26.3 Fighting
   Level 12.0 Long Blades
 O Level 27 Axes
 - Level 1.1(16.2) Maces & Flails
 - Level 15.3 Throwing
 - Level 26.2 Armour
 + Level 20.8 Dodging
 - Level 2.1 Unarmed Combat
 - Level 21.4 Spellcasting
 - Level 15.2 Charms
 - Level 16.3 Summonings
 - Level 15.6 Necromancy
 - Level 21.2 Translocations
 - Level 10.6 Transmutations
 - Level 17.2 Air Magic
 - Level 10.4 Earth Magic
 O Level 27 Invocations
 O Level 27 Evocations


You have 4 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Animate Skeleton      Necr           N/A          0%          1    None
b - Apportation           Tloc           ######....   0%          1    None
c - Summon Butterflies    Summ           ######..     0%          1    None
d - Summon Small Mammal   Summ           ####         0%          1    None
e - Regeneration          Chrm/Necr      ######....   1%          3    None
f - Animate Dead          Necr           N/A          1%          4    None
g - Blink                 Tloc           N/A          0%          2    None
h - Passwall              Trmt/Erth      ######....   1%          3    None
i - Abjuration            Summ           ######....   1%          3    None
j - Stoneskin             Trmt/Erth      ######..     1%          2    None
k - Phase Shift           Tloc           ######....   1%          5    ##.....
l - Passage of Golubria   Tloc           N/A          1%          4    None
m - Control Teleport      Chrm/Tloc      ######....   1%          4    None
n - Flight                Chrm/Air       ######....   1%          3    None
o - Warp Weapon           Chrm/Tloc      ######....   1%          5    ##.....
p - Spectral Weapon       Hex/Chrm       #####...     1%          3    None
q - Controlled Blink      Tloc           N/A          1%          7    ######.
r - Dispersal             Tloc           ######....   1%          6    #####..
s - Aura of Abjuration    Summ           ######....   1%          6    #####..

Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (15/15)            Temple (1/1) D:6            Lair (8/8) D:10
 Shoals (5/5) Lair:3       Spider (5/5) Lair:6        Slime (6/6) Lair:6
    Orc (4/4) D:12            Elf (3/3) Orc:4        Vaults (5/5) D:13
  Crypt (3/3) Vaults:3       Tomb (3/3) Crypt:3      Depths (5/5) D:15
   Hell (1/1)                 Dis (7/7) Hell            Geh (7/7) Hell
    Coc (7/7) Hell            Tar (7/7) Hell            Zot (5/5) Depths:5

Altars:
Ashenzari
Cheibriados
Dithmenos
Elyvilon
Fedhas
Gozag
Kikubaaqudgha
Makhleb
Nemelex Xobeh
Okawaru
Qazlal
Ru
Sif Muna
Trog
Vehumet
Xom
Yredelemnul
Zin
The Shining One

Shops:
D:12 ?   D:13 [   Orc:3 (   Orc:4 =*[((   Shoals:2 [

Portals:
Hell: Depths:1 Depths:2 Depths:3 Depths:4 Depths:5
Abyss: Depths:1 Depths:4 Depths:5
Pandemonium: Depths:3

Annotations:
D:4 urcus' ghost, average MiFi
D:5 Edmund
Vaults:2 2 exclusions
Tomb:3 1 exclusion


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You have sharp toenails.
Your flesh is heat resistant.
You are resistant to hostile enchantments.
Your muscles are strong. (Str +2)

Blades Runner

Posts: 616

Joined: Thursday, 25th October 2012, 03:19

Post Thursday, 9th July 2015, 06:00

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

Hey Pollen, I just couldn't resist... I got a chuckle from your post because:

I've found, for me, Dex is normally *the most* useless of all the stats. I would go so far as to say, on many occasions, I've experienced the feeling that if I were more stealthy to within close range of monsters, the game would be more and not less dangerous. Having creatures come to your defensive position when you are ready and expecting them can be so much easier than wading into dangerous territory where if something goes wrong you are possibly trapped/surrounded. More often than not, I find myself tactically wanting to make a bunch of noise when I'm tactically positioned instead of the other way around.

For a beater: I dump everything into Str ignoring Int/Dex and use a heavily str weighted weapon, wear the heaviest armor I can find
For a caster: I dump most into Int and secondly Str so if the character can wear armor so it has at least some durability (ring, mottled and up etc.)
For a hybrid, I split between Str and Int (shoot at range sometimes, slash melee sometimes) - and they wear something heavier, maybe ring, scale, dragon and so forth

The loss of accuracy from not pumping Dex, I typically work to offset by pushing Fighting skill high earlier on, rather than focusing on a particular weapon skill. This allows you to wait and see what artifact weapons or rare weapons drop along the way before making the investment. In the case of the caster, a simple poison dagger will suffice and in the case of the hybrid, they are doing damage in other ways as well... and it's the Int which is affecting the accuracy of their spells, which are used to fight the more dangerous monsters while melee for popcorn conserves your mana... so once again you still want Int over Dex.

The biggest draw for Dex to me, which I don't see mentioned much I believe is for increasing your ability to use shields but that's not enough for me. EV for me, is always an afterthought. All it ever seems to do for me is lure me into a false sense of security. I can tank, I can tank, I can tank, *SPLAT* or I'm going to get the stab... stab.. stab.... uh-oh, *SPLAT*. Rather having the time to assess and react to incoming damage (from AC) is so much more valuable. If you're sitting at 30-40 AC, and your EV is 6... maybe for an extremely easy investment in dodging you might grab a point or two more of EV for cheap, but then do you really care when you already have that much AC if you occasionally dodge one more time. As long as you can live to fight another day, you can grind the dungeon down. It's the spikes in damage you receive that kill you. On all characters you need MR and resists, but these come from items and not skills. I do think there is somewhat of a flaw in game design that I think STR should help lower physical damage you take and that INT should help you resist magic like MR, and perhaps Dex should help lower damage taken from other brands and not just be all about EV. So Dex really is something more like Dex+Agility.... you take less damage from a fireball for example because you're nimble on your feet. But, this is a whole other topic.

On a hunter, I probably would use more Dex, so that I can get more stealth-shots in and try to improve the accuracy.

Even for a pure stabber, I keep finding that an enchanter is better at the job... and so then I start prioritizing Int over Dex. You don't need a ton of Dex to get the job done stabbing a sleeping confused monster, but if your spellpower falls behind the curve too much you'll feel it.

I've had plenty of games where I had amazing Dex pumped stealth stabbers without magic or tank, and they seemed like they were overpowered and destroy the dungeon, until the moment the strategy fails, and then they often die an annoying death.

mps

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Post Thursday, 9th July 2015, 06:59

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

svendre wrote:The biggest draw for Dex to me, which I don't see mentioned much I believe is for increasing your ability to use shields but that's not enough for me. EV for me, is always an afterthought.


/facepalm
Dungeon Crawling Advice tl;dr: Protect ya neck.

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Post Thursday, 9th July 2015, 08:04

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

svendre wrote:I've had plenty of games where I had amazing Dex pumped stealth stabbers without magic or tank, and they seemed like they were overpowered and destroy the dungeon, until the moment the strategy fails, and then they often die an annoying death.

Ah, fond memories of those times where my injured spriggans spend dozens of turns dancing around a reaper while trying to deal with other stuff, and then the reaper finally reminds me it can do 50 damage melee attacks.
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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Thursday, 9th July 2015, 08:36

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

Maybe gargoyles don't need Dex because they have a ton of AC.

Blades Runner

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Joined: Thursday, 12th January 2012, 21:03

Post Thursday, 9th July 2015, 08:45

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

I played a great MuFi once -- the character was an exceptional stiff.
Wins: DsWz(6), DDNe(4), HuIE(5), HuFE(4), MiBe(3)

Ziggurat Zagger

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Joined: Friday, 8th February 2013, 12:00

Post Thursday, 9th July 2015, 09:38

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

TrFE. I had Dex 5 while wearing gear with Dex -5 most of the game, also I had a chance to have Dex 1 (but decided to play it safe in case I get -Dex mutation). SH 27 (+8 large shield with 15 levels in Shields), Fire Storm and being a Troll mean you don't need EV/AC that much.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 9th July 2015, 17:26

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

The main reason you never see 3 dex, aside from above is that there is no background with 0 dex. All backgrounds give at least 4 dex except Wiz which is 3, whereas there's several 0 str and 0 int backgrounds, and even one each of -1. So to end up with 3 dex above you needed a -5 dex ring on a low dex race, who presumably got low dex from wanderer rolls.
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Pandemonium Purger

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Post Thursday, 9th July 2015, 17:55

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

Yeah, 3 dex is extreme, but on most winning characters you see 20+ dexterity, and it's usually called a good idea. Even 10 dexterity is quite stiff.

Ghoul wizards start with dexterity 7 and never automatically get dexterity on level-up. That's plenty stiff.

You can also have an abysmally low str/int in the beginning that you shuffle into your dex, using Jiyva.

And don't forget focus cards! On average, a deck of wonders has at least 1 focus card, whatever its ornateness is.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 9th July 2015, 18:52

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

In my experience with jiyva you will not be able to get jiyva to shuffle away your dex - it's something of the default stat, and you can only get things into int by having a ton of magic, and str maybe with high armor skill and a heavy armor, although I've seen that jiyva puts less str into those sorts of characters than I'd recommend (a 15 ER armor character gets 12 str, for example). I haven't found jiyva on a CPA character who memorized level 9 spells and had 0 dodging skill, but I think it'd be pretty hard to build that sort of character. I suspect that you'd still have pretty decent dex, 10 or more.

My recent jiyva troll got shuffled almost immediately to 10s/10i/30d, which made him really dodgy even with only ~10 dodging. As I finally started learning more magic it went towards 10/20/20 instead, dex never really gets that low.

TLDR: Jiyva won't make you exceptionally stiff.

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Pandemonium Purger

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Post Thursday, 9th July 2015, 22:33

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

mps wrote:
svendre wrote:The biggest draw for Dex to me, which I don't see mentioned much I believe is for increasing your ability to use shields but that's not enough for me. EV for me, is always an afterthought.


/facepalm


The wiki says dexterity is better than strength in improving your SH value only if you're using a buckler:

Stat bonus is 0.38×DEX for bucklers (you get +1SH for every 2.6 points of DEX) , 0.19×STR + 0.19×DEX for shields (you get +1SH for every 5.3 points of DEX or STR), and 0.26×STR + 0.12×DEX for large shields (you get +1SH for every 3.9 points of STR or 8.3 points of DEX).


Is it fair for me to say, "If you like SH, you'll love EV!"?
You can't dodge Orbs of Destruction, but you also can't block bolts, and bolts are more common than OoD's.

mps

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 02:09

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

AC > EV >> SH.

You're not really supposed to get hit by OoDs except at point blank range. Shields can block lcs, so that's something, but you'll get hit with fewer lcs's if you kill things that cast them faster.
Dungeon Crawling Advice tl;dr: Protect ya neck.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 02:15

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

mps wrote:AC > EV >> SH.

Why hate on SH? Average damage reduction when getting hit by one monster is ~= to EV, and much better vs 'warrior' flag monsters (like Orb guardians, etc.) It doesn't block some spells that EV dodges, but then Repel/Deflect missiles takes care of a lot of that already on most characters late-midgame.
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mps

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 02:18

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

SH from god abilities or to a lesser extent spells is okay. Getting SH from shields is not okay.
Dungeon Crawling Advice tl;dr: Protect ya neck.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 02:20

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

byrel wrote:Why hate on SH?

mps wrote:SH from god abilities or to a lesser extent spells is okay. Getting SH from shields is not okay.

I actually appreciate you clarifying your position, but I really don't see how you answered the 'Why?' question I asked you...
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Pandemonium Purger

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 02:26

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

byrel wrote:SH doesn't block some spells that EV dodges, but then Repel/Deflect missiles takes care of a lot of that already

From what I understand, Repel/Deflect missiles needs you to have some EV to be effective, because it simply lowers the to-hit of ranged attacks, which check against your EV. So, for example, if you have an artificially low EV of 1, missiles will simply hit you despite R/Dmsl.

I think the hate is mostly because wearing a shield doesn't let you use 2-handed weapons.

mps

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 02:47

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

SH from shields compromises your offense unnecessarily (no 2-handed weapon) and requires skilling a bad skill to be effective. There are some exceptions: Shields are good on formicids and trolls and bucklers are okay if you have you have no real weapons available, as is sometimes the case with small species. They probably make sense on octopodes without statue form too. Shields are absolutely terrible on normal sized species that use melee or ranged weapons as primary offense. I don't have a strong opinion about shields on primary casters, except that I think primary casting is suboptimal for most species.

e: also, if you're building for good AC and EV, adding SH to the mix puts you in the realm of diminishing returns on additional defenses pretty quickly, but takes a large toll on offense and to a lesser extent other utility skills, e.g. charms, tlocs, necro, and summons.
Dungeon Crawling Advice tl;dr: Protect ya neck.
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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 05:21

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

i hate two-handed weapons because they are terrbile weak and diable shield.
sorry, giant spiked club <<< Blade Hands. there is no reason to wield terrbile weak weapon(like glaive, bardiche,triple sword,giant spiked club etc).
i don't use two-handed weapon (but sometimes use two-handed weapon when i am bored at easy game) unless transmutation are removed.

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mps

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 06:33

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

@radinms: I was comborobining on lld last weekend and onget convinced me to go shields on a DgWn after finding an eveningstar of pain in elf. It was absolutely terrible, I couldn't believe it. Here's the dump:

http://lazy-life.ddo.jp:8080/morgue/com ... 203116.txt

On v:5 I had something like 35/28/20 defenses and a +9 eveningstar of pain but it still felt weak compared to characters I've run recently with 2-handed weapons. I picked up great artifacts, though, including thief cloak, spellbinder, and two nice rings of wizardry. Shields turned that char from a killing machine to a weakling. It was sad.
Dungeon Crawling Advice tl;dr: Protect ya neck.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 06:36

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

Eveningstar has base damage 15, great mace has base damage 17. Are you sure you feel 13% difference? Most players missed 100% difference during last tournament.

Edit. Killing machine is bad in terms of efficiency (unless you are speedrunning of course). Being unkillable is more useful (real question is "how much HP do you have after killing a monster with great mace and with eveningstar+shield"). Also V5 is the worst level for shields.
Last edited by Sandman25 on Friday, 10th July 2015, 06:40, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 06:39

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

i doubt we are talking about same game.
weak and terrible two-handed weapon killed too many my characters. that's why i prefer shield and one-handed weapon.
reasons that i don't use shield are
  • i was bored at easy game and want thrill
  • using blade hands
  • due to chei boost, it is easy to get both good AC and EV ( I am belong to the group that thinks chei is the best god in DCSS)

i can't believe two-handed weapon is optimal in normal 3rune games except few species that have a great weapon aptitude.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 07:16

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

Shields take xp that would be better spent on phase shift, shadow creatures, or haste. Heavy armor and dodging + phase shift is all the defense you need. Shields get well into the land of diminishing returns and cut into your offense. The difference is more than 13%. e: but thanked for double damage reference.
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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 07:18

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

But shield + 1h weapon can take less XP than 2h weapon. Also it is not rare for me to use 1h weapon with buckler or without any shield. 2h weapons are overestimated, there are many excellent 1h weapons.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 07:21

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

i always think wear shield + cast haste + phase shift.
mps, actually your DgWn dump showed you wered shield and casted haste.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 07:29

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

Right, but I did branches I would've rather skipped to get the xp. Also, double wizardry.
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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 07:46

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

radinms wrote:mps, actually your DgWn dump showed you wered shield and casted haste.
it would be nice if people were allowed to play the game online and have fun, instead of policing all their games to ensure they play optimally 100% of the time just so that tavern users can't be dickheads and say "nuh-uh you did this thing in this game of yours" every time they try to give advice or say anything about balance
just a thought

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 11:17

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

radnims wrote:giant spiked club <<< Blade Hands

blade hands is strictly a two-handed "weapon"

(also GSC is probably better than BH because you can reasonably expect it to exist by D:2-5 or so and use it without compromising your skilling)

Edit: also I don't mind shields that much really, the thing is with shields you need to find a good onehander (and these are rare). I wouldn't mind an eveningstar of pain but I guess I don't really care about turncounts and such so trading a bit of offence for a lot of (bad) defence is fine by me. Also I played a lot of Nagas and shields are good for Nagas, in my experience anyway.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 11:23

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

blade hands is strictly a two-handed "weapon"


i mean two-handed weapon except blade hands and dragon form is not worth to use.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 14:18

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

mps wrote:Shields take xp that would be better spent on phase shift, shadow creatures, or haste. Heavy armor and dodging + phase shift is all the defense you need. Shields get well into the land of diminishing returns and cut into your offense. The difference is more than 13%. e: but thanked for double damage reference.


This reasoning doesn't work out for most characters, because good 2H weapons (edit: excl lajatang) require way more xp to get to mindelay (training isn't linear). At aptitude 0 [going by wiki which may be out of date in the precise numbers], a demon sword + a regular shield takes 6000 + 7050=13050 'skill points' to get to mindelay / no penalty, and a triple sword takes 22,050 skill points. Adding in say level 12 for each of charms and translocation still brings the total skill points for the 1H setup up to 21450, while the 2H setup still isn't even at mindelay. The situation is quite similar for most other weapon schools that have a two-handed weapon. (Things are more complicated because skill points don't correspond linearly to xp, but depend on the total amount of xp you've received, but as I understand it this can roughly be ignored for this sort of discussions.) If my estimate is right, this effect balances out somewhere around +3 weapon aptitude. But on something like a Dg or Mu where aptitude is even worse than 0 across the board it is much easier to get a 1H+shield setup leveled up in combination with good spells, than a 2-handed setup, because it is just so much more XP to get a skill into the mid-high 20s than to get it into the teens. Give it a shot.
Last edited by advil on Friday, 10th July 2015, 14:40, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 14:26

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

duvessa wrote:
radinms wrote:mps, actually your DgWn dump showed you wered shield and casted haste.
it would be nice if people were allowed to play the game online and have fun, instead of policing all their games to ensure they play optimally 100% of the time just so that tavern users can't be dickheads and say "nuh-uh you did this thing in this game of yours" every time they try to give advice or say anything about balance
just a thought


(Also, as much as I'm pro-shield, if I'm reading this backstory right it's a comborobin character and it doesn't even make sense to assume that a single person made the strategic decisions for the char?)

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 14:34

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

advil, people who like 2-handed weapons tend to call not-toptier-2handed weapons(great sword,glaive etc) good weapons.

yes, demon blade+shield takes 13050 exp, but great sword+no shield takes only 10800exp.
i always think these not-toptier-2handed weapons are bad weapons except battleaxe, but maybe many players in this forum like it.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 14:54

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

radinms wrote:advil, people who like 2-handed weapons tend to call not-toptier-2handed weapons(great sword,glaive etc) good weapons.

yes, demon blade+shield takes 13050 exp, but great sword+no shield takes only 10800exp.
i always think these not-toptier-2handed weapons are bad weapons except battleaxe, but maybe many players in this forum like it.


Ok, fair enough. I don't really think dire flail/great mace/great sword/glaive are exciting weapons personally and when I go 2H I'm always planning on using top tier weapons when I find one and I can wield it, but to each their own. Battleaxe/glaive/great mace (in terms of skill points) are all a bit more than great sword, mindelay 20 so 13950 skill points, basically equivalent to 1H+shield. (Also, in axes, broad axe is a bit closer to battleaxe in terms of training, which makes the 1H-2H difference weaker there. And lajatang is entirely exceptional, with 2H base damage + 1H training.)

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 14:56

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

radinms wrote:i always think these not-toptier-2handed weapons are bad weapons except battleaxe,

Battleaxe is probably the worst out of them, though?

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 15:02

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

i prefer cleaving to a bit more direct damage.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 15:11

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

I prefer not to get surrounded (again, I'm not a speedrunner).

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 16:14

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

radinms wrote:yes, demon blade+shield takes 13050 exp, but great sword+no shield takes only 10800exp.


More to the point, demon blade + shield requires a demon blade.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 16:30

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

shields aren't exactly the most common item either
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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 17:36

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

tasonir wrote:The main reason you never see 3 dex, aside from above is that there is no background with 0 dex. All backgrounds give at least 4 dex except Wiz which is 3, whereas there's several 0 str and 0 int backgrounds, and even one each of -1. So to end up with 3 dex above you needed a -5 dex ring on a low dex race, who presumably got low dex from wanderer rolls.
Yea there are extreme backgrounds for STR and INT:

Wizard: -1 STR +10 INT +3 DEX

Berserker: +9 STR -1 INT +4 DEX

But the only extreme one for DEX (which was +9, not -1) was removed in 0.7.

Thief: +4 STR -1 INT +9 DEX

Paladin or something might have been -DEX actually; need someone to search old source...
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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 20:36

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

The most common threat of 3 rune game is melee. Therefore, shield is more useful.
The most common threat of the extend game is unblockable attack(hellfire,torment,smite,storm). Therefore, 2-handed weapon is more useful.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 23:40

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

I've been running alot of trolls recently, and 1) dex is next to useless for them, 2) shields are awesome for them.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 23:41

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

Sar wrote:I prefer not to get surrounded (again, I'm not a speedrunner).

IMO now dcss has a lot of open spaces.
multiple target attacks are awesome.

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Post Friday, 10th July 2015, 23:43

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

edgefigaro wrote:I've been running alot of trolls recently, and 1) dex is next to useless for them

Why? I find Dex to be welcome on the ones I've played. I mean, you get a ton of free Str anyway.

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Post Saturday, 11th July 2015, 00:37

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

Dex is great on a troll, assuming you aren't going to cast. If you do want to cast (I happen to think trolls should go statue form in a lot of cases) then you want the int instead, and will probably want to have some additional support (wizardry, +int items, picking a god with magic support like chei, etc).

But for pure fighters, ending up with 30 str 20 dex is better than 40 str 10 dex. 20 dex is enough to get respectable EV, even as a troll. Not great, but respectable.

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Post Saturday, 11th July 2015, 00:43

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

duvessa wrote:
radinms wrote:mps, actually your DgWn dump showed you wered shield and casted haste.
it would be nice if people were allowed to play the game online and have fun, instead of policing all their games to ensure they play optimally 100% of the time just so that tavern users can't be dickheads and say "nuh-uh you did this thing in this game of yours" every time they try to give advice or say anything about balance
just a thought

I'm still looking forward to the day my DDNe^Chei is held up as the optimal way to play DD, or for anyone to copy my troll^Fedhas -> Jiyva -> Makhleb game. Also staff of earth > randart lajatang! Come on people, get on it ;)

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Post Saturday, 11th July 2015, 00:55

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

Even if your plan is to eventually get statue form for whatever reason, by raising Dex and training some Dodging you will likely be able to achieve something like 15-16 EV mid-Lair, which is probably better than 10 EV, considering you can't wear plate. This is probably better than being able to get said statue form a bit easier way later when you find the book with it.

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Post Saturday, 11th July 2015, 08:48

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

advil wrote:
duvessa wrote:
radinms wrote:mps, actually your DgWn dump showed you wered shield and casted haste.
it would be nice if people were allowed to play the game online and have fun, instead of policing all their games to ensure they play optimally 100% of the time just so that tavern users can't be dickheads and say "nuh-uh you did this thing in this game of yours" every time they try to give advice or say anything about balance
just a thought


(Also, as much as I'm pro-shield, if I'm reading this backstory right it's a comborobin character and it doesn't even make sense to assume that a single person made the strategic decisions for the char?)


I seem to be one of like two comborobiners in Asia. All comborobin wins on lld and cwz except the GrFi win on cwz were played entirely by me.
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Post Saturday, 11th July 2015, 21:52

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

comborobin?

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Post Sunday, 12th July 2015, 09:53

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

mps wrote:I seem to be one of like two comborobiners in Asia. All comborobin wins on lld and cwz except the GrFi win on cwz were played entirely by me.


You probably are the only one. I won the GrFi, I'm Spanish. I had to play it in the Korean server because the other ones were occupied.

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Post Tuesday, 14th July 2015, 17:25

Re: characters who are exceptionally stiff by design

ajon wrote:comborobin?


viewtopic.php?f=23&t=16257

Basically a robin is an account that is open for anyone to play on - the password is robin. The goal of this one in particular is that they want to win one game of every currently available combo - which is ~600 games, hence why you would want a lot of players to pull it off ;) It's going at a pretty fast rate imho.

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