Robe of Vines any good?

[ajon]

How useful is the robe of vines for a SpEn.

Would you use that over +4 troll leather {+blink rElec Regen+ Str-3}?

[duvessa]

It's probably worse than a plain +2 robe unless you are already a vine stalker (or a mummy that hasn't found a wand of heal wounds).

Adding no device heal to it was a "what were they thinking" moment for me, frankly. It was already just a robe, you get a similar effect to +2.4 hp/turn by just wearing armour that gives you better AC - there is very little difference between regenerating and just taking less damage in the first place, it's the same reason AC/EV is preferable to wearing troll leather or whatever. Now it is actually worse than wearing nothing in your most dangerous encounters, which is Pretty Bad.

[crate]

It's questionable for most characters, but is convenient (until you die, I guess).

For spen in particular robe of vines is very bad, since spen wants device healing more than most characters and regeneration less than pretty much any other character in the game.

[ajon]

Hmm. So would a specific dragon armor be a decent choice for a spen? I'm tend to put all my points into int for them. As a result, strength is usually low unless I find a few decent artifacts.

[nago]

Certainly light armor are the best for SpEn. I'd say steam, mottled or archmagi are the best choices.
Swamp dragon may be decent under certain circumstances and I'd avoid anything heavier in pretty much any case

[duvessa]

My step by step guide to choosing armour on spriggans:
1. Just wear a robe or steam dragon armour
2. (but not robe of vines)

Mottled is ok in some situations and I guess maybe SpBe would have reason to wear something heavier, but really, just wear a robe.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

but device healing is not free, it is a finite resource. You may be low on HW, or you may have used it all up (otherwise having a single HW would be worthless but of course it isn't). Besides, HW is only one of a few ways to recover from getting into trouble. So if you have a choice between several consumables, and you're wearing robe of Vines, then you'll just use the ones that aren't HW, such as blinking, right? The robe doesn't seem to block Ely either.

e: Also, what about its ability to let you win encounters by simply over-regenerating, as you alternate between fighting and stalling? Think: ghosts, pillar dancing.

[KoboldLord]

but device healing is not free, it is a finite resource. You may be low on HW, or you may have used it all up (otherwise having a single HW would be worthless but of course it isn't). Besides, HW is only one of a few ways to recover from getting into trouble. So if you have a choice between several consumables, and you're wearing robe of Vines, then you'll just use the ones that aren't HW, such as blinking, right? The robe doesn't seem to block Ely either.

Another existing artefact property that disables a couple emergency consumables but leaves the rest alone is -Tele. Would you choose to equip a +2 robe that had -Tele and Regen on it? Existing -Tele fixedarts tend to have enormous benefits, because giving up an entire class of emergency consumable is actually a very steep cost. Even if No Device Heal is not as steep a cost as -Tele, it is surely severe enough that 4AC and Regen don't outweigh it.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

I see your point. Though, robe of vines gives you the equivalent of Heal Wounds every 10 turns, spread evenly. That's a bit like Maxwell's letting you evoke Passage of Golubria. The other unrands with -Tele are Eos (swappable), Cekugob (swappable), and Misfortune (lol). Having the edge in regen lets you routinely defeat monsters that actually outdamage you, and isn't that worth something?

[duvessa]

Last time I checked robe of vines wasn't +15.

[Badtown]

I've had great results with this item on casters for getting through places like Hell where the clock is always ticking. It pairs nicely with Sublimate Blood. Alternately if you're a Mummy caster, it's one of the better chests you can wear I think. Gozag's potion heals aren't negated by the No Device Heal for whatever reason.

Don't forget that Statue Forming removes the armor temporarily if you need to wand up/chug potions.

[duvessa]

Spider form would be a much better option for that, since statue form slows you and also makes the healing 33% less effective (since your hp decreases by 33% when you untransform).

[andreas]

Statue form is also harder to get online and needs more spell slots than spider form.

Another consideration: usually when I want to use a device to heal, I do not want to take three turns to do it (into spider form, heal, out of spider form).