Ranged -vs- melee (was: Remove steel ammunition)

[Piginabag]

... Launchers are better than melee ...

I've seen this sentiment numerous times in various places on the forum - is this a running gag?

[njvack]

Mod note: This was getting off-track enough; I've moved the strict "why is ranged good?" question to Advice.

[lethediver]

Conjurations/high level dmg spells > launchers > melee imo.

Mostly because with melee, you have to close the distance vs smiters/tormentors/mutators/Lom Lobon.

I also feel the ability to hit 36+ enemies at the same time (often with Mak/Veh/TSO giving free HP and MP for doing so), placing DoT clouds, and summoning blockers (w firestorm), keeping enemies off you (tornado), or freezing them (glaciate) is pretty good. Killing monsters from outside their LoS, by shooting AoE around a corner - also pretty good.

[njvack]

In general, ranged is good because you can hurt lots of monsters (most of them, really) when they can't do anything to you.

Missiles are especially good because they're full LoS range, do lots of damage, aren't resisted, you basically never run out of ammo, and you train a single skill to improve them. Also, they're more widely available than most spells -- you're going to find a ton of good crossbows once you start meeting yaktaurs, a bunch of tomahawks in Orc, a ton of large rocks once you start seeing cyclopses and stone giants, and so on. But Bolt of Fire exists in two books; if they don't spawn (or you haven't taken Vehumet who also may not offer it), sorry.

Yeah, conjurations can be great for crowd control but you can usually decide not to fight crowds in Crawl.

[ydeve]

When tavern posters talk about something being "good" or "bad," we are not referring to Zot or extended (or even pre-Zot). By that time, you've got tons of xp and your character can do anything it wants. The trick is getting to that point.

If something is "good," then it gives an advantage early. In early to mid game, launchers have tons of ammo, do a bunch of damage without getting hit, and take training a single skill to use. Contrast that to conjurations which have limited ammo per encounter, make a ton of noise, and take training two to three skills to use. Launchers are clearly superior.

Edit: This is, ofc, as long as you're being smart with your ammo. You shouldn't kill popcorn with ammo early on, just like casters shouldn't be killing popcorn with spells.

[lethediver]

Thanks for the clarifications - still a little new around these parts. I'd have to agree that launchers trump conjurations until you get a cloud spell online.

Not sure they trump melee as solidly as you guys claim, though. You can't berserk with ranged weapons nor do you get any bonus from statue form. There's also no stabbing bonus. Berserking is... really good early game. UC + statue is even better and it's possible to get it up midgame. I guess short blades suck other than stabbing, but hey, stabbing is really nice too.

[Siegurt]

There's also no stabbing bonus.

Needles get a stabbing bonus.

[lethediver]

There's also no stabbing bonus.

Needles get a stabbing bonus.

Wow, where did you figure that out from? I dont see it in the wiki for blowguns or needles.

[Siegurt]

There's also no stabbing bonus.

Needles get a stabbing bonus.

Wow, where did you figure that out from? I dont see it in the wiki for blowguns or needles.

The wiki is notoriously incomplete and occasionally out of date, personally, I figured it out when ranged was revised in (.13?) by looking at the source, I'm not sure where it is (if it is) in the documentation.

When playing the game it does give you a message about it (Similar to how you get a message when you stab something with a melee weapon)

[asdu]

When playing the game it does give you a message about it (Similar to how you get a message when you stab something with a melee weapon)

"The needle hits a vulnerable spot" or something like that.

[tabstorm]

Traditionally, on the Tavern, all balance measurements are done in the context of hypothetical optimal play that bears little resemblance to actual human play. This is because no one would play DCSS if they had to play anywhere close to optimally.

[ZipZipskins]

Thanks for the clarifications - still a little new around these parts. I'd have to agree that launchers trump conjurations until you get a cloud spell online.

Not sure they trump melee as solidly as you guys claim, though. You can't berserk with ranged weapons nor do you get any bonus from statue form. There's also no stabbing bonus. Berserking is... really good early game. UC + statue is even better and it's possible to get it up midgame. I guess short blades suck other than stabbing, but hey, stabbing is really nice too.

They do trump melee. They don't trump berserking.

When you are fighting a monster in melee (say in the open for this thought experiment) there are 8 squares you can stand on to perforate that monster. (Obviously polearms have more flexibility here)

When you are fighting a monster at range you have, idk, WAY more than 8 to choose from based on your surroundings, and a lot of things you're dunking can't return the AAAIIIRRRR JORRRRDANNNNNN

Nobody is saying ranged combat is better than Trog but otherwise there will be many times you'll need or want to kill stuff without redfilming and for those times ranged is better than melee

[le_nerd]

Fun thing to do with curare needles, high stealth/throwing: oneshot curare orb guardians.

[MainiacJoe]

Fun thing to do with curare needles, high stealth/throwing: oneshot curare orb guardians.

That was so FUN the first time I discovered by accident I could do that!

[ydeve]

Thanks for the clarifications - still a little new around these parts. I'd have to agree that launchers trump conjurations until you get a cloud spell online.

Not sure they trump melee as solidly as you guys claim, though. You can't berserk with ranged weapons nor do you get any bonus from statue form. There's also no stabbing bonus. Berserking is... really good early game. UC + statue is even better and it's possible to get it up midgame. I guess short blades suck other than stabbing, but hey, stabbing is really nice too.

They do trump melee. They don't trump berserking.

When you are fighting a monster in melee (say in the open for this thought experiment) there are 8 squares you can stand on to perforate that monster. (Obviously polearms have more flexibility here)

When you are fighting a monster at range you have, idk, WAY more than 8 to choose from based on your surroundings, and a lot of things you're dunking can't return the AAAIIIRRRR JORRRRDANNNNNN

Nobody is saying ranged combat is better than Trog but otherwise there will be many times you'll need or want to kill stuff without redfilming and for those times ranged is better than melee

You have to be judicious about how you use zerking; there are a lot of situations where berserking gets you into bigger trouble.
Trog wouldn't be as good if he didn't gift ammo.

[MrPlanck]

Melee is best because you don't have to pick up ammo or devote extra inv to it, and don't have to worry about running out of magic during a fight.

[dowan]

... Launchers are better than melee ...

I've seen this sentiment numerous times in various places on the forum - is this a running gag?

The sentiment may or may not be correct. The running gag is that you had to create a separate thread because of a certain poster who can't be bothered to back up his assertions in any way. Another running gag is this: Try creating a thread where you explore whether ranged is better than melee and see how long it takes to get spammed into oblivion with similar unexplained assertions. And then the final running gag is when a dev posts a final scathing comment and locks the thread.

The tavern is a funny place

[duvessa]

You see the sentiment "missiles are better than melee" a lot without explanation because to people who are familiar with crawl, it's as obvious as "water is wet". It gives you all the upsides of melee weapons with no additional downsides in practice, and with the additional upside of working against many, many more squares. As far as I'm aware, developers have universally acknowledged that ranged combat is overpowered for years - there is no point in explaining when everyone relevant already knows the explanation. You haven't looked into ranged combat, and that's fine - but if everyone started from square zero every time and re-explained everything every day in case somebody came in late, it'd be really hard to get anything done. Seminars for medical doctors rarely begin by explaining the germ theory of disease, because everyone there knows about it already, and they have other things they need to do with their finite time.

[Sprucery]

Love the analogy: Tavern <---> Seminar for medical doctors :)

[duvessa]

Love the analogy: Tavern <---> Seminar for medical doctors

Well, an analogy has to be more extreme than the thing you're analogizing for - otherwise, the analogy doesn't really help.

[Siegurt]

Well, Duvessa does have Ph.d of crawling, first years need not apply (anything duvessa says in the Tavern to their understanding of Crawl)

[duvessa]

Well, well, well

[Siegurt]

Well, well, well

Fwiw I intended that as good natured ribbing, you are mostly always correct about most things, but I interpret your characterstic terseness as the attitude of someone who has little patience for rubes or novices. It occurs to me that it is especially easy to misinterpret tone on the Internet so I thought I might clarify.

[duvessa]

Actually I just wanted to see how many consecutive posts we could start with "Well,"

[Siegurt]

Actually, I should've noticed that, damn, sorry for spoiling the fun