Monks/unarmed combat

[kroki]

monk starts with a quarterstaff

pros:
+monk becomes fun and somewhat unique, i wouldnt mind if quarterstaff was taken away from gladiator in that case
+transmuter becomes THE unarmed combat background

cons:
-???

(Mod edit: moved from GDD)

[Sar]

pros:
+monk becomes fun

serving the Lord isn't supposed to be fun

[KoboldLord]

Quarterstaff is the best starting weapon. Why would it make sense to make the monk a clearly superior vanilla melee backgrounds than the other vanilla melee backgrounds?

[MrPlanck]

Monks with UC are pretty awesome. Not sure why people keep wanting to change them. Simplicity is a plus. At this point I can hardly tolerate the tedium required by offensive spellcasting, and enjoy a good solid UC monk game to relax. The ** piety boost is usually very strong, esp. with Chei or Oka. Please do not change monks. What did they do to you?

[Wahaha]

First you must explain what is broken.

[partial]

Play a TrMo and tell me unarmed doesn't rek.

[kroki]

Quarterstaff is the best starting weapon. Why would it make sense to make the monk a clearly superior vanilla melee backgrounds than the other vanilla melee backgrounds?

why would it make sense to make gladiator possibly start with a quarterstaff, helmet, leather armour AND throwing nets?

First you must explain what is broken.

uc without innate mutations or transmutations is shit

Play a TrMo and tell me unarmed doesn't rek.

play a HuMo and tell me it does

[partial]

Not all combos are supposed to be strong.

[WildSam]

Play a GrCK and tell me Xom doesn't rek.
My friend won it at first try and it was his 5th (fifth!) Crawl run.

First you must explain what is broken.

Part where best way to start UC-fighter is starting with weapon, I guess.

Actually I think Mo after unarmed option for other pure fighters became sort of obsolete and should fill pretty unique niche he already sorta forced in: religious universalist. Proposal: give some Invo skill, staff as strong starting weapon with some staves skill (less than stave fighters/gladiators) (without reducing his current skill levels, which is pretty ok given how to use Invo you got to get to altar first and staffs dont let you offhand punch or anything) and give message at start of the game with location of Temple. Maybe rename to Priest (I miss those sometimes...).

[partial]

Play a GrCK and tell me Xom doesn't rek.
My friend won it at first try and it was his 5th (fifth!) Crawl run.

I love Xom haha

TrCK^Xom is always fun

[tasonir]

If the problem with monks is that UC sucks and it's better to start with a weapon, then you don't propose "give them a weapon", you should propose "buff UC so it doesn't suck".

Now UC in general doesn't suck, but early on it does. So you could suggest something like "unarmed combat base damage becomes 4 (currently it's 3)" or "give monks an extra rank of unarmed combat skill at the start", etc.

I'm not entirely sure that it needs it (I think TM could stand to get another skill level somewhere, though), but turning monks into another fighter/gladiator doesn't help anything.

[sanka]

For me the problem is not that UC is weak altough it is, but that it has nothing to do with monk's unique feature, the extra piety. Many gods that would be somewhat interesting with a monk like vehumet or heavy invo gods do not work well together with UC.

[Sar]

Vehumeth? Isn't Mo Int kind of bad?

[bcadren]

As someone that ascended a DEMo, SpMo, and MuMo...ehh nah Mo are good.

[all before]

The design problem with current UC is that it can't be balanced around being both a melee weapon and a magic school (Tm). The way crawl currently solves that problem is just to make UC a terrible melee weapon, but the Mo background misleadingly suggests this isn't the case.

[Sar]

Uh, when people say "UC is bad" what they really mean is that "UC is bad in early game, which is also only relevant part of the game". At 15-ish UC is becomes pretty damn strong, and it only gets better.

[duvessa]

No, it's still bad. The only reason it isn't unambiguously worse than every weapon class is that short blades are a weapon class.

[Wahaha]

Uh, when people say "UC is bad" what they really mean is that "UC is bad in early game, which is also only relevant part of the game". At 15-ish UC is becomes pretty damn strong, and it only gets better.

I find that it becomes better than weapons at around 10 UC (13 base damage), and only gets better like you said. At that point a typical weapon either doesn't even have 10 base damage (flail, trident) or has more than 10 but the attack delay is longer than 0.8. I don't even find UC weak in the early game starting from D:3, for some reason it feels more reliable than weapons for me. But whatever, if we're talking about buffs and not nerfs then sure, buff it.

[Sprucery]

Good, bad, it doesn't matter. Every weapon class and UC are good enough to easily win the game with. Some weapons are just OP and others not.

[byrel]

No, it's still bad. The only reason it isn't unambiguously worse than every weapon class is that short blades are a weapon class.

Curious here; what makes it bad? I mean, theoretically it seems to have higher damage/aut than any other weapon class..

[njvack]

My guess would be: without investing a bunch of experience, UC does underwhelming damage. If you want to use forms, you get to spend more XP to get them online.

And after all that, you don't get the benefits of brands.

Even short blades have things like distortion and elec, and stabbing is pretty good if you like that sort of thing.

[duvessa]

No, it's still bad. The only reason it isn't unambiguously worse than every weapon class is that short blades are a weapon class.

Curious here; what makes it bad? I mean, theoretically it seems to have higher damage/aut than any other weapon class..

It does less damage/aut than any other weapon class except short blades.

[greedo]

Well, late game it makes a pretty good one handed weapon with shield, since those penalties are all gone now aside from the lack of offhand punch which is pretty worthless at that stage anyways. But I guess it's sort of going off topic, since monks do indeed suck as any species without some sort of mutation.

Fighters started with a potion of might to make up for their suckiness, I think monks could use a potion of agility.

[radinms]

Well, late game it makes a pretty good one handed weapon with shield, since those penalties are all gone now aside from the lack of offhand punch which is pretty worthless at that stage anyways.

false.

one-handed UC without form or Claws is inferior to +9 sacred scourge even at skill 27.

don't say "UC is pretty good at late game" unless you play Ds or undead races who can't use holy weapons(but still they can use antimagic weapons, so generally unarmed without form or Claws is quite bad compared to top-tier weapons whether or not you use shield).

[WingedEspeon]

play a HuMo and tell me it does

I don't know about HuMo, but I remember playing DgMo and wrecking everything.

[WingedEspeon]

Well, late game it makes a pretty good one handed weapon with shield, since those penalties are all gone now aside from the lack of offhand punch which is pretty worthless at that stage anyways.

false.

one-handed UC without form or Claws is inferior to +9 sacred scourge even at skill 27.

don't say "UC is pretty good at late game" unless you play Ds or undead races who can't use holy weapons(but still they can use antimagic weapons, so generally unarmed without form or Claws is quite bad compared to top-tier weapons whether or not you use shield).

This is for a human with 24 str and 24 dex in en 11 armour with 20 armour skill, 27 fighting, and 27 weapon skill:

with +9 sacred sourge VS a hell sentinel:

  Code:

       AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:     10.5 |     73 |      92% |   9.6 |    50  |  2.00 |     19.3


with UC with shield VS a hell sentinel:

  Code:

           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:     17.3 |     77 |      91% |  15.8 |    50  |  2.00 |     31.5


I think UC does better there.

[radinms]

Your fsim was wrong.

Right: "sacred scrouge of holy wrath"
holy wrath is needed.

[radinms]

19.3*1.75>31.5, so even at skill27, UC is bad compared to +9 sacred scourge.

My old fsim data(fighting 20)

shield UC

  Code:

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.17-a0-1384-gaabe8e5
Attack: Human Monk vs. Hell Sentinel (4000 rounds) (2015/07/06/17:04:14)
Human Monk: XL 10   Str 20   Int 12   Dex 20
Unarmed, Skill: Unarmed Combat
Hell Sentinel: HD 19   AC 25   EV 3

Unarmed Co | AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
         0 |      0.1 |      6 |      89% |   0.1 |   100  |  1.00 |      0.1
         1 |      0.3 |      8 |      89% |   0.2 |    98  |  1.02 |      0.2
         2 |      0.4 |      9 |      89% |   0.4 |    96  |  1.04 |      0.4
         3 |      0.6 |     11 |      90% |   0.6 |    94  |  1.06 |      0.6
         4 |      0.8 |     14 |      89% |   0.7 |    93  |  1.08 |      0.8
         5 |      1.1 |     18 |      89% |   1.0 |    91  |  1.10 |      1.1
         6 |      1.3 |     18 |      90% |   1.2 |    89  |  1.13 |      1.3
         7 |      1.7 |     21 |      90% |   1.6 |    87  |  1.15 |      1.8
         8 |      2.0 |     21 |      90% |   1.8 |    85  |  1.17 |      2.2
         9 |      2.3 |     26 |      90% |   2.1 |    83  |  1.20 |      2.5
        10 |      2.9 |     26 |      90% |   2.6 |    82  |  1.23 |      3.2
        11 |      3.1 |     28 |      90% |   2.8 |    80  |  1.26 |      3.5
        12 |      3.8 |     30 |      90% |   3.4 |    78  |  1.29 |      4.4
        13 |      4.1 |     30 |      91% |   3.7 |    76  |  1.32 |      4.9
        14 |      4.7 |     35 |      90% |   4.3 |    74  |  1.35 |      5.8
        15 |      5.5 |     37 |      90% |   5.0 |    72  |  1.38 |      6.9
        16 |      5.8 |     38 |      90% |   5.3 |    70  |  1.42 |      7.5
        17 |      6.7 |     39 |      91% |   6.1 |    68  |  1.46 |      9.0
        18 |      7.3 |     46 |      90% |   6.7 |    67  |  1.50 |      9.9
        19 |      7.8 |     46 |      90% |   7.0 |    65  |  1.54 |     10.8
        20 |      8.5 |     48 |      90% |   7.7 |    63  |  1.59 |     12.2
        21 |      9.3 |     48 |      91% |   8.5 |    61  |  1.64 |     14.0
        22 |      9.8 |     55 |      91% |   9.0 |    59  |  1.69 |     15.2
        23 |     10.6 |     52 |      91% |   9.7 |    58  |  1.74 |     16.6
        24 |     11.4 |     59 |      91% |  10.4 |    56  |  1.80 |     18.6
        25 |     11.9 |     60 |      91% |  10.9 |    54  |  1.86 |     20.3
        26 |     12.8 |     64 |      90% |  11.6 |    52  |  1.93 |     22.4
        27 |     13.1 |     63 |      90% |  11.9 |    50  |  2.00 |     23.8

no shield UC

  Code:

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.17-a0-1384-gaabe8e5
Attack: Human Monk vs. Hell Sentinel (4000 rounds) (2015/07/06/17:01:06)
Human Monk: XL 7   Str 20   Int 10   Dex 20
Unarmed, Skill: Unarmed Combat no shield
Hell Sentinel: HD 19   AC 25   EV 3

Unarmed Co | AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
         0 |      0.1 |      6 |      90% |   0.1 |   100  |  1.00 |      0.1
         1 |      0.3 |      7 |      89% |   0.2 |    98  |  1.02 |      0.2
         2 |      0.4 |     11 |      89% |   0.4 |    96  |  1.04 |      0.4
         3 |      0.6 |     13 |      90% |   0.6 |    95  |  1.06 |      0.6
         4 |      0.8 |     18 |      90% |   0.7 |    93  |  1.08 |      0.8
         5 |      1.2 |     16 |      90% |   1.0 |    91  |  1.10 |      1.1
         6 |      1.3 |     18 |      90% |   1.2 |    89  |  1.12 |      1.3
         7 |      1.8 |     20 |      90% |   1.6 |    87  |  1.15 |      1.9
         8 |      2.0 |     25 |      90% |   1.8 |    85  |  1.17 |      2.1
         9 |      2.5 |     26 |      90% |   2.3 |    83  |  1.20 |      2.7
        10 |      3.0 |     27 |      90% |   2.8 |    81  |  1.23 |      3.4
        11 |      3.5 |     29 |      90% |   3.1 |    80  |  1.26 |      3.9
        12 |      3.9 |     38 |      90% |   3.6 |    78  |  1.29 |      4.6
        13 |      4.4 |     35 |      90% |   4.0 |    76  |  1.32 |      5.2
        14 |      5.3 |     45 |      91% |   4.8 |    74  |  1.35 |      6.5
        15 |      5.8 |     39 |      91% |   5.3 |    72  |  1.39 |      7.3
        16 |      6.3 |     58 |      91% |   5.8 |    70  |  1.42 |      8.3
        17 |      7.3 |     47 |      91% |   6.7 |    69  |  1.46 |      9.7
        18 |      8.2 |     50 |      91% |   7.5 |    67  |  1.50 |     11.1
        19 |      8.7 |     55 |      91% |   8.0 |    65  |  1.54 |     12.3
        20 |      9.5 |     52 |      92% |   8.8 |    63  |  1.59 |     13.9
        21 |     10.1 |     57 |      90% |   9.2 |    61  |  1.64 |     15.0
        22 |     10.9 |     60 |      91% |  10.0 |    59  |  1.69 |     16.9
        23 |     11.8 |     61 |      91% |  10.9 |    58  |  1.74 |     18.7
        24 |     12.4 |     69 |      91% |  11.3 |    56  |  1.80 |     20.2
        25 |     13.2 |     74 |      91% |  12.0 |    54  |  1.86 |     22.3
        26 |     14.0 |     71 |      91% |  12.8 |    52  |  1.93 |     24.6
        27 |     14.8 |     74 |      91% |  13.5 |    50  |  2.00 |     26.9

+9 sacred scourge

  Code:

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.17-a0-1384-gaabe8e5
Attack: Human Monk vs. Hell Sentinel (4000 rounds) (2015/07/06/16:48:29)
Human Monk: XL 13   Str 20   Int 10   Dex 20
Wielding: +9 sacred scourge of holy wrath, Skill: Maces & Flails
Hell Sentinel: HD 19   AC 25   EV 3

Maces & Fl | AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
         0 |      8.6 |     73 |      91% |   7.9 |   110  |  0.91 |      7.2
         1 |      8.1 |     66 |      91% |   7.4 |   105  |  0.95 |      7.1
         2 |      8.1 |     71 |      92% |   7.5 |   100  |  1.00 |      7.5
         3 |      8.5 |     69 |      90% |   7.7 |    95  |  1.05 |      8.1
         4 |      8.4 |     76 |      90% |   7.6 |    90  |  1.11 |      8.4
         5 |      8.4 |     67 |      91% |   7.7 |    85  |  1.18 |      9.1
         6 |      9.4 |     72 |      91% |   8.6 |    80  |  1.25 |     10.7
         7 |      9.5 |     70 |      92% |   8.8 |    75  |  1.33 |     11.7
         8 |      9.3 |     77 |      91% |   8.5 |    70  |  1.43 |     12.1
         9 |      9.7 |     82 |      91% |   8.8 |    65  |  1.54 |     13.6
        10 |      9.8 |     75 |      91% |   8.9 |    60  |  1.67 |     14.9
        11 |     10.0 |     79 |      91% |   9.2 |    55  |  1.81 |     16.7
        12 |     10.9 |     81 |      91% |  10.0 |    50  |  2.00 |     20.0
        13 |     10.6 |     83 |      91% |   9.7 |    50  |  2.00 |     19.4
        14 |     11.2 |     92 |      91% |  10.3 |    50  |  2.00 |     20.6
        15 |     11.4 |     88 |      92% |  10.5 |    50  |  2.00 |     20.9
        16 |     11.8 |     87 |      91% |  10.8 |    50  |  2.00 |     21.6
        17 |     12.1 |     95 |      91% |  11.2 |    50  |  2.00 |     22.3
        18 |     11.9 |     98 |      92% |  11.0 |    50  |  2.00 |     22.0
        19 |     12.1 |     84 |      92% |  11.1 |    50  |  2.00 |     22.3
        20 |     12.7 |    100 |      91% |  11.7 |    50  |  2.00 |     23.4
        21 |     12.8 |     88 |      91% |  11.8 |    50  |  2.00 |     23.5
        22 |     13.4 |     97 |      92% |  12.4 |    50  |  2.00 |     24.8
        23 |     13.0 |    102 |      92% |  12.0 |    50  |  2.00 |     24.0
        24 |     14.0 |    122 |      92% |  12.9 |    50  |  2.00 |     25.8
        25 |     13.6 |    102 |      92% |  12.6 |    50  |  2.00 |     25.2
        26 |     14.1 |    112 |      92% |  13.1 |    50  |  2.00 |     26.1
        27 |     14.6 |     99 |      92% |  13.4 |    50  |  2.00 |     26.9

i again say, sadly, UC is inferior to +9 sacred scourge.

edit. if you are undead, you can say "UC without form or claws is still strong."

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

Formless or clawless UC is quite bad in the beginning, but quite quickly does comparable damage to a good weapon. Out of curiosity I fsimmed some fights vs a death yak at various skill levels:

  Code:

  Str/Dex 15/15, Fighting 10, AvEffDam vs death yak:

  | Weapon                     | Skl | ~AED |   BH |
  |----------------------------+-----+------+------|
  | UC                         |  14 |  8.5 | 19.5 |
  | UC                         |  18 | 12.0 | 24.5 |
  | UC                         |  24 | 20.5 | 36.5 |
  | UC                         |  27 | 27.0 | 44.0 |
  | +0 long sword              |  14 |  5.0 |      |
  | +9 long sword              |  14 |  9.5 |      |
  | +0 great sword             |  18 | 10.0 |      |
  | +9 great sword             |  18 | 15.0 |      |
  | +0 triple sword            |  24 | 14.5 |      |
  | +9 triple sword            |  24 | 20.0 |      |
  | +0 triple sword of slicing |  24 | 17.5 |      |
  | +9 triple sword of slicing |  24 | 24.0 |      |


I added a column for Blade Hands, as I presume most UC fighters will memorize it given a chance, as BH is the UC equivalent of finding a great weapon with a good brand.

I'd say UC is certainly not "bad" and does respectable damage on its own and it's quite enough in a 3-rune game.

And comparing plain UC to the most powerful weapons with holy wrath brand is a bit unfair, as most UC chars will want to learn BH and Statform for extended, and in my experience, it's more common to find those spells than it is to find a great holy wrath weapon randomly, with the exception of great mace of holy wrath which I've often found in Vaults. Sure, one can always switch to TSO, but with UC+forms one doesn't need to.

[MainiacJoe]

If the damage from UC is d(base+UCskill), then this quickly outstrips the base damage of even two-handed heavy weapons, and then you have the greater speed:

  Code:

Skl   Dmg   Delay
 0     3    10.0
 3     6    9.4
 6     9    8.9
 9    12    8.3
12    15    7.8
15    18    7.2
18    21    6.7
21    24    6.1
24    27    5.6
27    30    5.0

So at UC 15 you are pretty much the same as a min-delay triple sword or bardiche, and you can only get better from there. IMO the only thing that rescues this situation is that d(EVP) is added to your delay in 0.16, making the big weapons competitive by dmg/aut unless the UC is wearing robes or invests in STR an Armour skills. If this delay penalty is going away in 0.17, then UC is going to be so totally OP I can only conclude that I've evaluated the situation wrongly. The devs cannot have switched to something that broken, can they?

[Siegurt]

19.3*1.75>31.5, so even at skill27, UC is bad compared to +9 sacred scourge.

My old fsim data(fighting 20)

shield UC

  Code:

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.17-a0-1384-gaabe8e5
Attack: Human Monk vs. Hell Sentinel (4000 rounds) (2015/07/06/17:04:14)
Human Monk: XL 10   Str 20   Int 12   Dex 20
Unarmed, Skill: Unarmed Combat
Hell Sentinel: HD 19   AC 25   EV 3

Unarmed Co | AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
         0 |      0.1 |      6 |      89% |   0.1 |   100  |  1.00 |      0.1
         1 |      0.3 |      8 |      89% |   0.2 |    98  |  1.02 |      0.2
         2 |      0.4 |      9 |      89% |   0.4 |    96  |  1.04 |      0.4
         3 |      0.6 |     11 |      90% |   0.6 |    94  |  1.06 |      0.6
         4 |      0.8 |     14 |      89% |   0.7 |    93  |  1.08 |      0.8
         5 |      1.1 |     18 |      89% |   1.0 |    91  |  1.10 |      1.1
         6 |      1.3 |     18 |      90% |   1.2 |    89  |  1.13 |      1.3
         7 |      1.7 |     21 |      90% |   1.6 |    87  |  1.15 |      1.8
         8 |      2.0 |     21 |      90% |   1.8 |    85  |  1.17 |      2.2
         9 |      2.3 |     26 |      90% |   2.1 |    83  |  1.20 |      2.5
        10 |      2.9 |     26 |      90% |   2.6 |    82  |  1.23 |      3.2
        11 |      3.1 |     28 |      90% |   2.8 |    80  |  1.26 |      3.5
        12 |      3.8 |     30 |      90% |   3.4 |    78  |  1.29 |      4.4
        13 |      4.1 |     30 |      91% |   3.7 |    76  |  1.32 |      4.9
        14 |      4.7 |     35 |      90% |   4.3 |    74  |  1.35 |      5.8
        15 |      5.5 |     37 |      90% |   5.0 |    72  |  1.38 |      6.9
        16 |      5.8 |     38 |      90% |   5.3 |    70  |  1.42 |      7.5
        17 |      6.7 |     39 |      91% |   6.1 |    68  |  1.46 |      9.0
        18 |      7.3 |     46 |      90% |   6.7 |    67  |  1.50 |      9.9
        19 |      7.8 |     46 |      90% |   7.0 |    65  |  1.54 |     10.8
        20 |      8.5 |     48 |      90% |   7.7 |    63  |  1.59 |     12.2
        21 |      9.3 |     48 |      91% |   8.5 |    61  |  1.64 |     14.0
        22 |      9.8 |     55 |      91% |   9.0 |    59  |  1.69 |     15.2
        23 |     10.6 |     52 |      91% |   9.7 |    58  |  1.74 |     16.6
        24 |     11.4 |     59 |      91% |  10.4 |    56  |  1.80 |     18.6
        25 |     11.9 |     60 |      91% |  10.9 |    54  |  1.86 |     20.3
        26 |     12.8 |     64 |      90% |  11.6 |    52  |  1.93 |     22.4
        27 |     13.1 |     63 |      90% |  11.9 |    50  |  2.00 |     23.8

no shield UC

  Code:

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.17-a0-1384-gaabe8e5
Attack: Human Monk vs. Hell Sentinel (4000 rounds) (2015/07/06/17:01:06)
Human Monk: XL 7   Str 20   Int 10   Dex 20
Unarmed, Skill: Unarmed Combat no shield
Hell Sentinel: HD 19   AC 25   EV 3

Unarmed Co | AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
         0 |      0.1 |      6 |      90% |   0.1 |   100  |  1.00 |      0.1
         1 |      0.3 |      7 |      89% |   0.2 |    98  |  1.02 |      0.2
         2 |      0.4 |     11 |      89% |   0.4 |    96  |  1.04 |      0.4
         3 |      0.6 |     13 |      90% |   0.6 |    95  |  1.06 |      0.6
         4 |      0.8 |     18 |      90% |   0.7 |    93  |  1.08 |      0.8
         5 |      1.2 |     16 |      90% |   1.0 |    91  |  1.10 |      1.1
         6 |      1.3 |     18 |      90% |   1.2 |    89  |  1.12 |      1.3
         7 |      1.8 |     20 |      90% |   1.6 |    87  |  1.15 |      1.9
         8 |      2.0 |     25 |      90% |   1.8 |    85  |  1.17 |      2.1
         9 |      2.5 |     26 |      90% |   2.3 |    83  |  1.20 |      2.7
        10 |      3.0 |     27 |      90% |   2.8 |    81  |  1.23 |      3.4
        11 |      3.5 |     29 |      90% |   3.1 |    80  |  1.26 |      3.9
        12 |      3.9 |     38 |      90% |   3.6 |    78  |  1.29 |      4.6
        13 |      4.4 |     35 |      90% |   4.0 |    76  |  1.32 |      5.2
        14 |      5.3 |     45 |      91% |   4.8 |    74  |  1.35 |      6.5
        15 |      5.8 |     39 |      91% |   5.3 |    72  |  1.39 |      7.3
        16 |      6.3 |     58 |      91% |   5.8 |    70  |  1.42 |      8.3
        17 |      7.3 |     47 |      91% |   6.7 |    69  |  1.46 |      9.7
        18 |      8.2 |     50 |      91% |   7.5 |    67  |  1.50 |     11.1
        19 |      8.7 |     55 |      91% |   8.0 |    65  |  1.54 |     12.3
        20 |      9.5 |     52 |      92% |   8.8 |    63  |  1.59 |     13.9
        21 |     10.1 |     57 |      90% |   9.2 |    61  |  1.64 |     15.0
        22 |     10.9 |     60 |      91% |  10.0 |    59  |  1.69 |     16.9
        23 |     11.8 |     61 |      91% |  10.9 |    58  |  1.74 |     18.7
        24 |     12.4 |     69 |      91% |  11.3 |    56  |  1.80 |     20.2
        25 |     13.2 |     74 |      91% |  12.0 |    54  |  1.86 |     22.3
        26 |     14.0 |     71 |      91% |  12.8 |    52  |  1.93 |     24.6
        27 |     14.8 |     74 |      91% |  13.5 |    50  |  2.00 |     26.9

+9 sacred scourge

  Code:

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.17-a0-1384-gaabe8e5
Attack: Human Monk vs. Hell Sentinel (4000 rounds) (2015/07/06/16:48:29)
Human Monk: XL 13   Str 20   Int 10   Dex 20
Wielding: +9 sacred scourge of holy wrath, Skill: Maces & Flails
Hell Sentinel: HD 19   AC 25   EV 3

Maces & Fl | AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
         0 |      8.6 |     73 |      91% |   7.9 |   110  |  0.91 |      7.2
         1 |      8.1 |     66 |      91% |   7.4 |   105  |  0.95 |      7.1
         2 |      8.1 |     71 |      92% |   7.5 |   100  |  1.00 |      7.5
         3 |      8.5 |     69 |      90% |   7.7 |    95  |  1.05 |      8.1
         4 |      8.4 |     76 |      90% |   7.6 |    90  |  1.11 |      8.4
         5 |      8.4 |     67 |      91% |   7.7 |    85  |  1.18 |      9.1
         6 |      9.4 |     72 |      91% |   8.6 |    80  |  1.25 |     10.7
         7 |      9.5 |     70 |      92% |   8.8 |    75  |  1.33 |     11.7
         8 |      9.3 |     77 |      91% |   8.5 |    70  |  1.43 |     12.1
         9 |      9.7 |     82 |      91% |   8.8 |    65  |  1.54 |     13.6
        10 |      9.8 |     75 |      91% |   8.9 |    60  |  1.67 |     14.9
        11 |     10.0 |     79 |      91% |   9.2 |    55  |  1.81 |     16.7
        12 |     10.9 |     81 |      91% |  10.0 |    50  |  2.00 |     20.0
        13 |     10.6 |     83 |      91% |   9.7 |    50  |  2.00 |     19.4
        14 |     11.2 |     92 |      91% |  10.3 |    50  |  2.00 |     20.6
        15 |     11.4 |     88 |      92% |  10.5 |    50  |  2.00 |     20.9
        16 |     11.8 |     87 |      91% |  10.8 |    50  |  2.00 |     21.6
        17 |     12.1 |     95 |      91% |  11.2 |    50  |  2.00 |     22.3
        18 |     11.9 |     98 |      92% |  11.0 |    50  |  2.00 |     22.0
        19 |     12.1 |     84 |      92% |  11.1 |    50  |  2.00 |     22.3
        20 |     12.7 |    100 |      91% |  11.7 |    50  |  2.00 |     23.4
        21 |     12.8 |     88 |      91% |  11.8 |    50  |  2.00 |     23.5
        22 |     13.4 |     97 |      92% |  12.4 |    50  |  2.00 |     24.8
        23 |     13.0 |    102 |      92% |  12.0 |    50  |  2.00 |     24.0
        24 |     14.0 |    122 |      92% |  12.9 |    50  |  2.00 |     25.8
        25 |     13.6 |    102 |      92% |  12.6 |    50  |  2.00 |     25.2
        26 |     14.1 |    112 |      92% |  13.1 |    50  |  2.00 |     26.1
        27 |     14.6 |     99 |      92% |  13.4 |    50  |  2.00 |     26.9

i again say, sadly, UC is inferior to +9 sacred scourge.

edit. if you are undead, you can say "UC without form or claws is still strong."

Note that in your fsims you posted here, uc with no shield at 27 skill does exactly the same damage as the +9 sacred scourge does at 27 skill.

I am not sure how this supports your argument that uc is worse than a +9 sacred scourge at 27 skill.

In any case, there are arguments that can be made which go either way, for example:

Uc is always available, you do not have to rely on the rng at all or make do with a worse weapon until you get a good one. (Point in favor of uc)

Scourge requires a lot less xp to be effective (point in favor of the scourge, although by the time you actually have one this may be irrelevant)

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

Quarterstaff is the best starting weapon. Why would it make sense to make the monk a clearly superior vanilla melee backgrounds than the other vanilla melee backgrounds?

For variety? I think there's room for a melee background that starts with a good weapon and a robe. There could also be a choice in between the quarterstaff and UC for species that'd rather go for UC.

[tasonir]

IMO the only thing that rescues this situation is that d(EVP) is added to your delay in 0.16, making the big weapons competitive by dmg/aut unless the UC is wearing robes or invests in STR an Armour skills. If this delay penalty is going away in 0.17, then UC is going to be so totally OP I can only conclude that I've evaluated the situation wrongly. The devs cannot have switched to something that broken, can they?

The penalty was quite a bit smaller than that - it was AEVP - 3 (not EVP). So basically you could wear up to FDA with 0 armor skill and have no penalty at all (assuming you have something reasonable like ~13 strength). If you wanted to wear plate you'd probably need something like 18 str and ~10 armor skill, and then again you had no penalty. I've worn CPA with zero penalties on monks, but I was mostly able to pull that off because I was with Chei and had 30+ strength; most unarmed characters in CPA would have a slight penalty.

Unless you did something like wear plate with 13 strength and no armor skill, you'll probably never notice this change. Monks can now wear D:1 plate if they want to, whereas before that was almost always a mistake. You still suffer the same accuracy and EV penalties as before, so d:1 plate may not be good, but now it's possible that it's good.

[duvessa]

If the damage from UC is d(base+UCskill), then this quickly outstrips the base damage of even two-handed heavy weapons, and then you have the greater speed:

  Code:

Skl   Dmg   Delay
 0     3    10.0
 3     6    9.4
 6     9    8.9
 9    12    8.3
12    15    7.8
15    18    7.2
18    21    6.7
21    24    6.1
24    27    5.6
27    30    5.0

So at UC 15 you are pretty much the same as a min-delay triple sword or bardiche, and you can only get better from there.

...Of course UC is going to look better than weapons if you ignore the effect of weapon skill on damage. What are you even trying to prove here? Nobody ever said "UC at 15 skill is worse than a bardiche at 0 polearms skill."

Note that in your fsims you posted here, uc with no shield at 27 skill does exactly the same damage as the +9 sacred scourge does at 27 skill.

I am not sure how this supports your argument that uc is worse than a +9 sacred scourge at 27 skill.

Why are you comparing shieldless UC damage to one-hander damage? Unless you are playing an octopode, you should compare it to two-hander damage, and compare one-handed UC to one-hander damage. And preferably use a weapon with a brand that actually has an effect.

[MainiacJoe]

If the damage from UC is d(base+UCskill), then this quickly outstrips the base damage of even two-handed heavy weapons, and then you have the greater speed:

  Code:

Skl   Dmg   Delay
 0     3    10.0
 3     6    9.4
 6     9    8.9
 9    12    8.3
12    15    7.8
15    18    7.2
18    21    6.7
21    24    6.1
24    27    5.6
27    30    5.0

So at UC 15 you are pretty much the same as a min-delay triple sword or bardiche, and you can only get better from there.

...Of course UC is going to look better than weapons if you ignore the effect of weapon skill on damage. What are you even trying to prove here? Nobody ever said "UC at 15 skill is worse than a bardiche at 0 polearms skill."

Okay. The effect of weapon skill at min delay for a bardiche is (1+d26/25). So the min delay bardiche averages 19/2 * (1 + 14/25) = 14.8 before slaying, enchantment and brand at a delay of 7, or 2.1 dmg/aut. And the UC at 15 is d18 before slaying and that's 9.5 average damage at a delay of 7.2 for 1.3 dmg/aut. UC at skill 26 like the bardiche is 15 before slaying at delay 5.2 or 2.9 dmg/aut. So you were right: I was ignoring the effect of weapon skill on the damage because I hadn't realized how significant it was. And so I was right, too: the devs didn't screw up, I was the one that had it wrong. So thank you for helping me figure it out.

[Siegurt]

Note that in your fsims you posted here, uc with no shield at 27 skill does exactly the same damage as the +9 sacred scourge does at 27 skill.

I am not sure how this supports your argument that uc is worse than a +9 sacred scourge at 27 skill.

Why are you comparing shieldless UC damage to one-hander damage? Unless you are playing an octopode, you should compare it to two-hander damage, and compare one-handed UC to one-hander damage. And preferably use a weapon with a brand that actually has an effect.

I didn't choose the fsims in question, I was just pointing out that they were a strange choice to support the argument made.

A more realistic choice would indeed be a two handed weapon with a useful brand, and depending on whether you intended to simulate a 3 rune or a longer game a more realistic choice might be a rare or common two hander to compare against, and the choice of brands might be more or less common as well.

You can also fiddle with values like stats, aux attacks and slaying to skew the numbers one way or the other.

[duvessa]

I didn't choose the fsims in question, I was just pointing out that they were a strange choice to support the argument made.

radinms posted fsim output for UC both with and without a shield. Presumably they posted both because if they didn't someone would just ask "yeah but what about without a shield?"

[radinms]

My point is:
UC is suck at early and mid game
Even at late game, it's inferior to top-tier (holy) weapon without form or claws
Do you want to play HuMo still?
(I play GhMo, because Gh can't use holy weapons instead of innate Necromutation)

And duvessa pointed, comparing 2-handed UC with one-handed weapon is not good.
And comparing UC 15 with Bardiche 15 is not good...you should compare it with demon trident.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

I see many compare UC to a top-tier rare weapon of holy wrath, so I assume they are talking about the extended game, as holy wrath is not a great overall brand in a 3-rune game. But if we talk about the extended game, finding both statform and Blade Hands is much more common than finding a superb holy wrath weapon.

A more realistic comparison would be to UC+Statform, which is excellent in extended. Super damage output, good AC, and 50% torment resistance make many threats much easier to handle than with a holy weapon wielder without torment resistance.

[archaeo]

But if we talk about the extended game, finding both statform and Blade Hands is much more common than finding a superb holy wrath weapon.

It is? Excellent holy wrath weapons are trivially available to any character that wants them, as long as you're willing to spend some time looking for Holy Pan.

That said, can somebody explain to me how the differences in numbers here are significant? I've seen players trounce the game, 3-rune and 15-rune alike, with literally every category of weapon. I'd be curious to know if there's any solid evidence that worrying over fairly modest differences in average damage ends up mattering much.

[MainiacJoe]

That said, can somebody explain to me how the differences in numbers here are significant? I've seen players trounce the game, 3-rune and 15-rune alike, with literally every category of weapon. I'd be curious to know if there's any solid evidence that worrying over fairly modest differences in average damage ends up mattering much.

There are some people for whom min-maxing genuinely is a large portion of the fun of a game. I'm one of them. I do get a thrill out of analyzing game mechanics and trying to apply those lessons to my play of the game. It is quite true that in-game tactics contribute much more to in-game success, but the min-maxing can contribute a great deal to whole-game enjoyment.

[tasonir]

I'd be curious to know if there's any solid evidence that worrying over fairly modest differences in average damage ends up mattering much.

I'd argue that while minor differences may not matter much, there is definitely a strong correlation between higher melee damage and winrates, proven by the double damage bug. So significant increases in damage increase win rate, it's just a question of how big of a difference do you need to see higher survival. Having recently played a bunch of DEMo's with -2 unarmed aptitude, I can say having ~30-50% lower unarmed damage than normal most certainly tanks your win rates (I didn't win any of them).

Is +10% damage large enough to matter? I'd say probably. It's harder to prove than +100% damage, of course. I'd argue that if you took some 0 or +1 unarmed race and bumped them up to +2, you'd see that race's winrate for monks go up considerably.

[WingedEspeon]

It might be helpful to put somewhere where people are asking about the mechanics of UC that UC damage formula doesn't include the percentage boost to weapon damage based on weapon skill, only the base damage benefits from UC skill. UC would be a lot better if it acted as a standard +0 weapon with 50% strength weight and a base damage of (3+UC). (this might require nerfing some transmutations.)

[MainiacJoe]

It might be helpful to put somewhere where people are asking about the mechanics of UC that UC damage formula doesn't include the percentage boost to weapon damage based on weapon skill

Arguably UC does include a percentage skill adjustment, it's just a different one than the percentage adjustment for melee and ranged weapons.

  Code:

Let b = base damage and s = skill level. 

For physical weapons you have d(b) * (1 + d(s)/25). 
The average damage is [(b+1)/2] * [1 + (s+1)/50].

For UC and throwing, you have d(b+s).  The average damage is [(b+s+1)/2]. 
This equals [(b+1)/2] + [s/2]. 
Multiply the right by one: [(b+1)/2] + [s/2][(b+1)/2][2/(b+1)].
This factors out as [(b+1)/2] * [1 + s/(b+1)].


So in both cases, you have average damage that can be expressed as (average base damage) multiplied by a (1 + some fraction) term.

[duvessa]

But if we talk about the extended game, finding both statform and Blade Hands is much more common than finding a superb holy wrath weapon.

It is? Excellent holy wrath weapons are trivially available to any character that wants them, as long as you're willing to spend some time looking for Holy Pan.

That said, can somebody explain to me how the differences in numbers here are significant? I've seen players trounce the game, 3-rune and 15-rune alike, with literally every category of weapon. I'd be curious to know if there's any solid evidence that worrying over fairly modest differences in average damage ends up mattering much.

Can somebody explain to me why whenever someone makes an advice thread, someone like you posts "it doesn't matter, crawl is easy anyway"? Can somebody explain to me what you think you could possibly be contributing by saying that?

[archaeo]

I'm not totally sure how you got "it doesn't matter, crawl is easy anyway" from what I said, duvessa. I was sincerely asking a question and got some good answers back, even if I disagree in part. I also totally thought this was a CYC thread.

But let's not get off topic discussing what a terrible poster I am! Feel free to take it to PM, duvessa, if you have further criticism.

[greedo]

Well, if we're talking 3 runer which honestly I think is all that should be considered since in 15 rune you can do whatever you want, the brand to compare isn't holy wrath, it's electrocution, vorpal, or freezing more likely, in which case we're not comparing +75% but +16-25%. So for races that have that a beginning unarmed mutation, unarmed should give comparable 1-armed damage throughout the game.

[Bart]

Some questions everybody might want to ask themselves are: How often do I enter lair with poor base type weapon? How often was it enchanted beyond +2? How often have I been swinging +0 great axe at 18 skill? From my experience, it is unlikely that at the point of reaching min delay a character has already a +9 branded weapon (of decent type) at disposal. On the other hand, unarmed combat is always as efficient as far it was trained.

Looking at the results presented by ThreeInvisibleDucks, unarmed combat is usually better than +0 LBL, but worse than +9 LBL at skill level that grants min-delay to the weapon. Remember that LBLs have the best BaseDamage-to-delay ratio, so other types of weapons would look worse in this comparison (in terms of pure damage).

The point is, going unarmed saves from randomness without actually hindering a character and lets you start training immediately. You don't have to find a decent weapon; you don't have to worry that you've found a decent weapon of a type you're not skilled at; you don't have to think whether to enchant suboptimal weapon or not.
(You won't make any use of a godly +12 exec axe rF++ either, but there's a whole topic about transmutations...)

[sanka]

I also contribute with my example FSIMs, because I think it represent better the games I play than a holy scourge or UC 27.

Fighting: 15, weapon skill/UC : 20, Str: 20, Dex: 16

+9 great mace of flaming VS yak

  Code:

            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:     24.2 |     86 |      82% |  20.0 |    70  |  1.43 |     28.5


UC (20 skill) VS yak (no shield, no form)

  Code:

            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:     16.4 |     57 |      80% |  13.2 |    63  |  1.59 |     21.0


It's about +35% damage.

In the middle game in my experience weapons are almost always better, but UC is more reliable - rarely you do not find any good weapon.

+4 dire flail of flaming, mace skill = 14, fighting = 10, str = 20, dex = 14

  Code:

b - a +4 dire flail of flaming (weapon)
 That skill doesn't seem to exist.
            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:     13.5 |     47 |      79% |  10.7 |    60  |  1.67 |     17.9


UC, skill = 14, fighting = 10, str = 20, dex = 14

  Code:

_You are now empty-handed.
            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:     10.3 |     39 |      78% |   8.1 |    74  |  1.35 |     10.9


This is a pretty big difference, altough you may not find any good branded/enchanted weapon:

The same with a plain +0 dire flail:

  Code:

AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:      8.7 |     32 |      75% |   6.5 |    60  |  1.67 |     10.9


I think that formless UC in the middle game is roughly corresponds to an unbranded weapon.

[sanka]

Looking at the results presented by ThreeInvisibleDucks, unarmed combat is usually better than +0 LBL, but worse than +9 LBL at skill level that grants min-delay to the weapon. Remember that LBLs have the best BaseDamage-to-delay ratio, so other types of weapons would look worse in this comparison (in terms of pure damage).

Unarmed is roughly equivalent of a +0 unbranded weapon. I find it rare to fight with such a weapon in lair - usualy I find a branded one with some enchantment. Sometimes I do not, and then I am at the same place as UC. This does not sound good for UC.