Rushing weapon skills

[fiftyfootphallus]

Hey. I was just wondering how you guys felt about focusing weapon skills.

Pretty much every game I've played with spectators or watched since moving to s-z people have been insisting to TURN OFF ALL SKILLS EXCEPT WEAPON IMMEDIATELY.

I understand how important it is to rush to mindelay, but I honestly disagree with this philosophy for one main reason: what if I encounter the (very likely) scenario that I find a better weapon in orc/lair and it isn't cross-trainable?

That XP would be pretty much wasted unless I then find an even better weapon of the previous type, while things like fighting/evocations and dodging/armor are almost always useful.

What do you think?

[byrel]

Well, the thing is that the XP to raise your weapon to 10ish is extremely valuable early-game, but only a minor inconvenience in Lair. Simultaniously, most melee characters will run into a killdudes problem before lair entrance if they don't focus weapon and get some fighting. So if you find a vamp triple sword on Lair 1, keep using your main weapon, stop training it, train defenses a lot to sustain you while you switch, then raise long blades. Switch to a great sword when you hit long blades 15 or so, then triple sword when it gets close to mindelay.

Part of it too, is that you are basically guaranteed endgame-compatible 2-handed weapons in most categories by end of lair+orc, so drops don't matter too much. Battleaxes, Glaives, Great swords, Great mace. The only exceptions are short blades (but the XP requirements are so low as to not matter by lategame) and staves (again, lajatangs are cheap to train up later.)

[le_nerd]

I nowadays do this on octopodes, but I have a terrible winrate. Just turn on fighting/dodging, and relay on constriction to kill stuff. This works out until your skills are about 10, eg. D:8 or so- after that, monsters get too much AC/HP and your own defenses dont scale up well enough. By that time a good weapon has dropped in like 80% of games.

Another thing you can do: dive to find early gozaq altars, and hope for weapon shop. You can get a weapon shop by 5-9 reliably, and 5 is definitely doable without weapon training. D:9 is not doable without weapon training if you dont have some other damage-dealer/aux attacks etc.

Third thing to do: play Ash. Ashs last ability is knowledge transfer, which allows you to shuffle XP around. Just put points into your starting weapon, change to that nice mace of protection, and if Maud in L:5 gives you a demon trident, change to that. Lots of fun, esp if you get any high-tier Vamp weapon.

Fourth: If you play a Mummy every single point of XP is valuable. If you play on a Minotaur you have soo much XP that you can pull off a 16 skill switch without trouble. Have you tried that? Minotaurs/other positive aptitude races like Hill Orc/deep dwarf are just ridicoulous.

[MainiacJoe]

Is there ever a situation where a early-game character does not want to be focused on weapon skills for a melee build or spell school skills for a caster build?

[le_nerd]

If I find a nice rod (clouds eg) on D:2 I will exclusively train evocations. Also, if you start as assassin you probably dont want to invest in short blades.

[jejorda2]

Sometimes as a troll or minotaur fighter I'll train only shields until that penalty is gone, then train weapons. But that's just because those races are strong enough in the early game that it almost doesn't matter what you train.

And of course, as a hunter, you can train ranged even if you are using melee on most fights. You need skills for hard fights, not necessarily for easy ones.

[Wahaha]

It's sometimes good to train dodging before Lair and before the weapon is at mindelay.

[byrel]

Is there ever a situation where a early-game character does not want to be focused on weapon skills for a melee build or spell school skills for a caster build?

Sure. I often train some stealth on felids early, and stabbers also tend to pick up a lot of early stealth. I'll consider a few points into evo on a mummy if I find a couple nice early wands and ID them. If you get your weapon to mindelay early (quite plausible on a Mf) then you'll obviously switch for a while. If I find an early buckler on a caster, I sometimes train up shields to eliminate penalty to my already crappy melee, and to my spell cast rates. If I find a nice sling or a pile of needles and a blowgun, I'll invest into the relevant skill a bit. Once had an earlygame carried by a +11 greatsling {flame, randomshit} drop. If I find a poison dagger, I'll often invest a few points in short blades if I don't have any great early-game weapons in more sustainable weapons.

I'm sure there are more cases, but those are the ones that spring to mind.

[Sar]

what if I encounter the (very likely) scenario that I find a better weapon in orc/lair and it isn't cross-trainable

this means you've gotten to Lair which is well done, good job, if the weapon is truly good you can retrain if you really want after your defences are good enough

[le_nerd]

Shield is a good point as well. If you are normal sized a buckler is 4 skill points, and probably cheaper than skill 10 on a weapon; and removes about the same mindelay. Ofcourse only if you are sure you want to go shields.

[MrPlanck]

What do you think?

I almost always focus weapon but keep dodge and armour on.

[BugHunter]

What about if your armour is heavy enough that it's causing you to miss? I quite often see this with early melee types who upgrade to scale or chain because it gives the best AC+EV. At some point, training armour will improve my damage output, but I don't know how to tell how much it really takes. For shields there are very clear targets for each size of shield, but how much armour skill does one need to have it stop causing misses?

[fiftyfootphallus]

What about if your armour is heavy enough that it's causing you to miss? I quite often see this with early melee types who upgrade to scale or chain because it gives the best AC+EV. At some point, training armour will improve my damage output, but I don't know how to tell how much it really takes. For shields there are very clear targets for each size of shield, but how much armour skill does one need to have it stop causing misses?

I'm actually very interested in this too! Also, thank you guys for your replies.

[emikaela]

Shield is a good point as well. If you are normal sized a buckler is 4 skill points, and probably cheaper than skill 10 on a weapon; and removes about the same mindelay. Ofcourse only if you are sure you want to go shields.

4 points are nothing come midgame and are well worth it if they help with getting there. try to be less afraid of wasting exp, there is a lot of it.

[tabstorm]

You're more likely to splat early on with 0 weapon skill, once you are farther in you have enough XP to get away with weapon class switching or will find an acquirement to get you a good weapon.

[byrel]

Shield is a good point as well. If you are normal sized a buckler is 4 skill points, and probably cheaper than skill 10 on a weapon; and removes about the same mindelay. Ofcourse only if you are sure you want to go shields.

4 points are nothing come midgame and are well worth it if they help with getting there. try to be less afraid of wasting exp, there is a lot of it.

Actually, there's a big shortage of XP some places. Early game is one. The lair rune branches are another. You just don't gain that much there compared to the increase in difficulty. OTOH, Vaults is an XP freakin' pinata.

[Sharkman1231]

I like a 1/4 fighting, 1/2 weapon skill, 1/4 dodging. I usually keep it like that until I get to around lair. I may train invocations if it's necessary.

[rchandra]

but how much armour skill does one need to have it stop causing misses?

45.

Since you can't get 45, you live with the penalties from armour. Training armour skill will help with them, it will also give AC. You'll deal with the accuracy penalties between that, getting more fighting/weapon skill, or sources of light, or stab assistance.

If your greatest concern right now is your accuracy and only your accuracy in armour, train more fighting/weapon and get more strength.

[greedo]

A weapon skill of 0->6 will get you like double your damage counting for acc and dam. Dodging of 0->6 is like 2 EV and 0->6 fighting is like 1 hp in the beginning of the game. Not much of a choice really is it?

However, since lack of defense while teleporting or whatever is usually what kills you, defensive skills win out later on. But when you don't even have teleport scrolls and have to actually kill that god forsaken adder, weapons is the way to go. Evocations is way better if you find a wand, though, as someone above said.

As for wasting weapon skill, as others have said, far more important is getting to lair. If you actually found an ungodly powerful weapon worth switching to, it'll be good at 0 skill, and exceptional at ~4 which is practically no experience. I've switched weapons once three times and completely wasted 6 and 8 skill levels in weapons, didn't look back. Won of course

[hannobal]

WIth melee char i rush to 1.0 delay, after that i keep fighting at about 40-50% of weapon skill, and little bit of fighting/dodging (first 1-2 levels are almost free anyways).
After min delay more defense and/or invo/evo/spells.

[emikaela]

Shield is a good point as well. If you are normal sized a buckler is 4 skill points, and probably cheaper than skill 10 on a weapon; and removes about the same mindelay. Ofcourse only if you are sure you want to go shields.

4 points are nothing come midgame and are well worth it if they help with getting there. try to be less afraid of wasting exp, there is a lot of it.

Actually, there's a big shortage of XP some places. Early game is one. The lair rune branches are another. You just don't gain that much there compared to the increase in difficulty. OTOH, Vaults is an XP freakin' pinata.

i'm not saying train shields to 15, that would be more of a concern. by the time you find a good 2-hander, 4 wasted points rarely matter. certainly not when you get to rune branches. assuming that 4 shields helped you get there, it's often a good investment even if you abandon it later. of course, it all depends on species, background and item drops, i'm just trying to argue against the idea that you should never invest exp in skills you won't use by endgame.

[byrel]

4 points are nothing come midgame and are well worth it if they help with getting there. try to be less afraid of wasting exp, there is a lot of it.

Actually, there's a big shortage of XP some places. Early game is one. The lair rune branches are another. You just don't gain that much there compared to the increase in difficulty. OTOH, Vaults is an XP freakin' pinata.

i'm not saying train shields to 15, that would be more of a concern. by the time you find a good 2-hander, 4 wasted points rarely matter. certainly not when you get to rune branches. assuming that 4 shields helped you get there, it's often a good investment even if you abandon it later. of course, it all depends on species, background and item drops, i'm just trying to argue against the idea that you should never invest exp in skills you won't use by endgame.

I entirely agree that it won't matter in the long run (you won't even be able to tell by the end of Orc and Lair.) But there is a real shortage of XP compared to difficulty increase pre-lair. That 4 points of shields could instead have got your weapon skill from 4-6, and often that's the better investment for the short term. Long term, sure. I'll happily train up a buckler once I'm happy with weapon damage + delay if I'm still using a one-hander and have a buckler. Even if I definitely want to go two-handed eventually. I just think that a D:1 buckler drop shouldn't make me train shields immediately, except maybe on a troll, octopode or minotaur who just won't need the XP early.

[archaeo]

In the general case, byrel, I think it's untrue to say that there's every really an "XP shortage" anywhere in the game. Obviously, the early game skill training requires more care, but even a Mu has access to enough XP from D:1 -> Lair:1 to be able to handle things. I completely disagree w/r/t the idea there's an XP deficit in the midgame; if you've completely D, Lair, and Orc and haven't completely botched your skills, you can take on the Lair branches with just moderately good play as long as you're not some awful combo.

For what it's worth, I like to turn on my defenses when a) my weapon skill is high enough that I'm swinging faster than 1.0 or b) I've got level 3 spells online and I'm strong enough to handle most threats. Of course, I usually (suboptimally) train 3-4 skills at once, so I'm likely to just train my weapon skill/spell school until it hits mindelay/the highest level spell I have or want.

[byrel]

My point wasn't that there's a net XP shortage; it's that certain branches are much shorter in XP compared to their difficulty than others, so you have to be ready for them upfront. The lair rune branches tend to have small amounts of XP in them in my experience.