Hellfire

[byrel]

How good is the crossbow hellfire? I got it gifted to me in orc, prior to training any auxiliary offenses from melee. Hellfire damage sounds good vs a lot of later game high AC/EV threats. Can you use . to fire the hellfire where you want it?

[Pollen_Golem]

It is good crossbow, you should try it. Sure you can "f." it. Remember that it mulches all the ammo you feed it. It can still miss though, so high EV threats will take seriously reduced damage even if you "f." them.

[njvack]

I found it and used it in one game, and my sense was that it was neat but not amazing. I expected to use it more. I think its hellfire damage is fairly low*. It is loud.

It would be excellent against low-HP, high-EV targets. Might be a good reason to train crossbows if you want ranged.

* Learndb says 2d5, maybe in addition to crossbow damage?

[Kate]

IIRC the 2d5 is the damage that regular exploding ammo deals, Hellfire used to also deal that much but has been increased since then: https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/68fde74e01af

[njvack]

... and this is in addition to regular crossbow bolt damage?

[Pollen_Golem]

the regular crossbow bolt damage ignores AC, ie is hellfire, then makes a 3x3 boom on top of that, which also ignores AC... right?

[daggaz]

How does it compare to Sniper? (+15 triple crossbow, vorpal + sInv) I just found that in the elf vaults (so glad they didnt use it against me) and am considering it but the xp requirement seems ...daunting.

[Pollen_Golem]

I suspect Sniper is no better than a +9 vorpal triple crossbow.
Hellfire is an arbalest so it needs only 20 skill to reach mindelay.

[tasonir]

well it's got about 6 more pluses, so it's about that much better*. But agreed that it isn't a huge difference. I'd use sniper if it was feasible, ie, if you already were using an arbalest, it isn't too bad to do the remaining crossbow training. Depends on your character and how many other things you were planning on training. Probably not the best idea to try to pick it up suddenly if you find one with no crossbow skill.

*edit: forgot it's also 3-4 auts slower, so yeah, that makes it a bit worse imho. Still, it's comparable to a normal vorpal triple crossbow. Probably better off just using a normal one if you have it.