Base weapon vs. Enchantment level! Fo:Fi:Ok

[Pleroma]

So I am not as proficient in crawl-fu as I should be, so I have a mechanics question:

I'm a Formicid Fighter, with 17 in polearms. My main weapon this run has been a +8 vampiric scythe (it dropped early and I had the scrolls to buff it by +4).

I just completed the shoals, and came away with a +1 vampiric Demon Trident, and a +2 Antimagic Demon trident. And I honestly don't know if I should switch. The demon tridents are better base weapons, but the +8 on the scythe is a burly, burly thing.

Can someone educate me on this?

Edit: Also, forgot to mention, I got an excellent combi-necklace that has Gourmand, so weilding and unweilding vampire weapons hasn't been a problem so far.

[goodcoolguy]

Scythes are complete garbage items that exist solely to give monsters a reaching, branded weapon with okay damage that will be useless to the player. Min delay at 26 skill for a weapon with 14 base damage? No.

If I were you, I would search for glaives and bardiches with brands or good enchantment if you can rebrand one. They're probably already around. The demon tridents are okay, but there's no reason not to go for something with higher base damage when you're a formicid and you already have 19 polearms. The lesson here is not to invest in scythes.

[Pleroma]

Scythes are complete garbage items that exist solely to give monsters a reaching, branded weapon with okay damage that will be useless to the player. Min delay at 26 skill for a weapon with 14 base damage? No.

If I were you, I would search for glaives and bardiches with brands or good enchantment if you can rebrand one. They're probably already around. The demon tridents are okay, but there's no reason not to go for something with higher base damage when you're a formicid and you already have 19 polearms. The lesson here is not to invest in scythes.

Lesson learned, although there are no branded or enchanted glaives or bardiches that I've found on my current run. Lots of tridents though.
In the future I'll remember that though.
Edit: Nevermind, Scroll of acquirement just dropped a +2 bardiche of chopping at my feet. Don't love the brand, but it'll serve.

[stickyfingers]

Chopping is a good brand for a bardiche. It indeed does only 2/3 of flaming/freezing but nothing resists it, and with 18 base damage, high stats and skills it's no worse than elec or drain, and way better than venom, protection, chaos and holy outside of extended.

[njvack]

Keep the antimagic dtrident on-hand to poke dangerous casters in the face. Works on everything that casts spells, whether you can silence it or not. Watching that alich or oof do nothing instead of blasting you in the face is priceless.

[WingedEspeon]

Scythes are complete garbage items that exist solely to give monsters a reaching, branded weapon with okay damage that will be useless to the player. Min delay at 26 skill for a weapon with 14 base damage? No.

If I were you, I would search for glaives and bardiches with brands or good enchantment if you can rebrand one. They're probably already around. The demon tridents are okay, but there's no reason not to go for something with higher base damage when you're a formicid and you already have 19 polearms. The lesson here is not to invest in scythes.

You are forgetting that the weapon is already +8 but more importantly is Vampiric.


Personaly I would get polearms to 21 for the Min Delay with heroism and just use the Scyth. If you have enough enchant scrolls it might be worth carrying around a bardiche for vamp immune tough stuff but not a priority.

[ydeve]

No way vampiric makes up for a garbage base weapon, sorry. Especially when you have an endgame weapon with a good brand.

[CypherZel]

Scythes are complete garbage items that exist solely to give monsters a reaching, branded weapon with okay damage that will be useless to the player. Min delay at 26 skill for a weapon with 14 base damage? No.

If I were you, I would search for glaives and bardiches with brands or good enchantment if you can rebrand one. They're probably already around. The demon tridents are okay, but there's no reason not to go for something with higher base damage when you're a formicid and you already have 19 polearms. The lesson here is not to invest in scythes.

Lesson learned, although there are no branded or enchanted glaives or bardiches that I've found on my current run. Lots of tridents though.
In the future I'll remember that though.
Edit: Nevermind, Scroll of acquirement just dropped a +2 bardiche of chopping at my feet. Don't love the brand, but it'll serve.

I would take delay into account when using a bardiche, low min delay means enemies hit harder in between attack turns

[cerebovssquire]

You just need to be aware of that possibility though, and calculate the possible monster damage accordingly. A delay higher than 1 is hardly a disqualifying factor for a weapon if it's significantly better than your lower-delay weapons. People generally don't switch to slower weapons early enough, I think.

edit: sorry if you meant that, I wasn't sure

[Sar]

No way vampiric makes up for a garbage base weapon, sorry.

he has a vampiric demon trident

[WingedEspeon]

No way vampiric makes up for a garbage base weapon, sorry. Especially when you have an endgame weapon with a good brand.

Using the 1 damage is approximately 2 slaying you could think of a +9 vampiric Scythe as an artefact +7 vampiric glaive that you need 26 skill to use. With Oka I think that is a reasonable weapon.

The demon trident is a better weapon if you have the scrolls to get it to +9 though.

[Siegurt]

No way vampiric makes up for a garbage base weapon, sorry. Especially when you have an endgame weapon with a good brand.

Using the 1 damage is approximately 2 slaying you could think of a +9 vampiric Scythe as an artefact +7 vampiric glaive that you need 26 skill to use. With Oka I think that is a reasonable weapon.

The demon trident is a better weapon if you have the scrolls to get it to +9 though.

Also it is a better weapon if your skill is less than 26, and a vastly better weapon if your skill is less than 20 (it is probably better with no additional enchantment if your skill is under 16, that is a guess, i would have to fsim to be sure)

[duvessa]

ITT: people who need to learn to use fsim

[Pleroma]

ITT: people who need to learn to use fsim

Sure, what is fsim?

[arandomperson12]

Is there fair on webtiles?

[Psieye]

ITT: people who need to learn to use fsim

Sure, what is fsim?

A fight simulator in wizmode, accessible with &f and &F. See {!source fight_simulator.txt} for the fsim help.

In other words, "stop hand-wavy theorycrafting and just do the number crunching in crawl itself to see who is right".

[Rast]

Does fsim simulate the ridiculousness that is vampiric brand?

OP, my advice is to keep training polearms up to 26. Use the scthe on most monsters, switch to the bardiche vs oofs or ancient liches.

[jwoodward48ss]

Vampiric weapon vs vampiric weapon ≈ weapon vs weapon. That is, it factors out. Vampiric depends on damage done, so it's not like elec or disto.

[dowan]

ITT: people who need to learn to use fsim

Sure, what is fsim?

A fight simulator in wizmode, accessible with &f and &F. See {!source fight_simulator.txt} for the fsim help.

In other words, "stop hand-wavy theorycrafting and just do the number crunching in crawl itself to see who is right".

ITT: People who start a post with ITT can be safely ignored. See!