Hexes do not become useless late game.

[Reptisaurus]

Why does everyone keep saying this? If by some chance you don't find discord, invisibility or darkness, even your humble confuse spell is crazy useful in Zot.

[Midn8]

Because there are plenty of enemies that resist them. Just because you can kill something with them doesn't mean you can solve all of your problems with them.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Because there are plenty of enemies that resist them. Just because you can kill something with them doesn't mean you can solve all of your problems with them.

That's not useless, that's less useful than early game where it works at everyone except some uniques.. Nobody is saying that fireball becomes useless late game because you cannot kill orbs of fire with it.

[Odds]

Why does everyone keep saying this? If by some chance you don't find discord, invisibility or darkness, even your humble confuse spell is crazy useful in Zot.

People say this (I think) because Hexers have to change their playstyle by far the most late game. Every other character can basically just go on killing things as they do early game, but Hexers need to develop a second attack strong enough to take down Orbs of Fire. That's certainly why I used to think Hexes were weak late game (though now I think Hexes can take you easily far enough to branch out into other things).

There's also extended, where IIRC Hexes stop being useful against all the really scary things.

[Sprucery]

Note that you don't have to take down orbs of fire.

[ydeve]

Note that you don't have to take down orbs of fire.

... as long as you aren't afflicted by a senseless need to kill things.

Everything must die.

[Midn8]

That's not useless, that's less useful than early game where it works at everyone except some uniques.. Nobody is saying that fireball becomes useless late game because you cannot kill orbs of fire with it.

But you can continue training conjurations and fire and get fire storm, no? But you can't continue training hexes and discord an orb of fire. You need some other way of killing them like malign gateway or iron shot.

[CanOfWorms]

summon mana viper

[duvessa]

You don't need a way of killing orbs of fire or any other magic immune monster, and fire storm is a terrible investment unless you're like a DE of Veh, so I'm not sure what this comparison is supposed to demonstrate.

[lethediver]

In late game, "kill stuff from a safe distance" starts to become noticably better than "disable some enemies on screen then move in to kill the non immune ones at close range while avoiding all the others or trying to abuse discord and hope it doesn't backfire and kill me"

[Hurkyl]

Note that you don't have to take down orbs of fire.

I always found the advice to avoid them odd -- if you leave them wandering around, they are far more capable than most monsters of totally ruining your day by reappearing at an inopportune moment.

[Midn8]

You don't need a way of killing orbs of fire or any other magic immune monster, and fire storm is a terrible investment unless you're like a DE of Veh, so I'm not sure what this comparison is supposed to demonstrate.

Except leaving them wandering is considerably more dangerous.

And It is fairly easy to get fire storm up on a troll, much less something average like a human or vampire.

[Leszczynek]

Tormentors and hellions have fairly low MR (60), but Confuse is worth keeping in extended just for doom hounds in Tartarus.

[Sprucery]

Note that you don't have to take down orbs of fire.

I always found the advice to avoid them odd -- if you leave them wandering around, they are far more capable than most monsters of totally ruining your day by reappearing at an inopportune moment.

Sure, I pretty much always kill them myself, because I usually have some way to do it. Evokables, summons, potions of might with a decent weapon etc. But it is not required to kill them.

[Utis]

So, you have some monsters in Zot that you cannot immediately render harmless with hexes. Others you can. I don't see the difference to any other part of the game.

Basically, for the comparatively moderate cost of training a single spell school high, you get a swiss army knife that completely trivializes -- I don't know -- three quarters of what can possibly harm you. And against the rest you have high powered Spectral Weapon, Mana Vipers and all the consumables that you didn't need to use on the others. Hexes are awesome.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Also Hexes make Ancient Lich trivial despite it is magic-immune (Silence spell).

Edit. If you find no Silence/Invisibility, you shouldn't train Hexes after getting Confuse to 1%, it is really few levels, much less than 10 for all characters with decent Int (and if you don't have decent Int, don't train Hexes). Nothing is wasted then, similarly to Mephitic Cloud. If you train Hexes after Confuse at 1% just for spell power, then it is your mistake which has nothing to do with Hexes being "useless" late game. Personally I train Hexes for Silence also but some players dislike the spell and prefer to kill things with conjurations.

[ololoev]

You don't need a way of killing orbs of fire or any other magic immune monster

Okay, you assume that letting 5-6 OOFs and 6-8 aliches stumble around orb chamber is a perfect decision?

Also you can fulmprism OOFs. At max spellpower you can get at most 123 unavoidable irresistible 5x5 splash damage from 1 prism and despite the fact that there is a 2-turn span from summoning prism, while you are in open space, it is possible to place 3 prisms that will damage enemy adjacent to you.

Spoiler: show

the fact is that fulm prism average damage is close to 37 at 200 power while attending such a power is too hard. Fighting in corridor you are limited to 1 prism every 3 turns. Thus you have to spend in average 20 turns adjacent to OOF to kill it, at 200 power.

[zackoid]

Hexes were great late game when mass confusion still existed. Still good, though Hepl might be better at it than you are.

I haven't used hexes much since that change went in, how is Alistair's these days? Ignoring that it requires training two skills to level 5 in schools that you probably have no other uses for.

[BabyRage]

Hexes don't become useless, you just can't use them as your main killing tool like in early game.

[WingedEspeon]

Because there are plenty of enemies that resist them. Just because you can kill something with them doesn't mean you can solve all of your problems with them.

That's not useless, that's less useful than early game where it works at everyone except some uniques.. Nobody is saying that fireball becomes useless late game because you cannot kill orbs of fire with it.

Fireball becomes useless late game because you can't kill orbs of fire with it.

[Rast]

  Code:

The bat hits you but does no damage. The bat barely misses you.
There is an open door here.
The bat hits you.
You die...


http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/minmay/morg ... 231403.txt

[tabstorm]

-late game melee
*holds down o and tab* nothing matters lol

-late game conjurer
Just cast fire storm, chain lightning, ball lightning, glaciate, etc. my man.

-late game hexes
The deep troll shouts! (x3)
The deep troll earth mage shouts!
The stone giant shouts!
Casting: Confuse (25%)
The stone giant resists.
Casting: Confuse (25%)
The stone giant resists.
...
You stab the stone giant with a rapier. You freeze the stone giant.
...
You kill the stone giant!
Why did I train these skills again?

[VeryAngryFelid]

  Code:

Nessos the Markscentaur comes into view.
Ashenzari warns you: He is carrying a longbow of flaming.
Evoke which item? (* to show all) (? for menu, Esc to quit)
Zapping: k - a wand of paralysis (10/24)
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f - Nessos
Aim: Nessos, wearing a centaur barding, quivering 82 arrows and carrying a longbow of flaming (hasn't noticed you, chance to defeat MR: 50%)
Nessos shouts!
Nessos resists with some effort. This wand has 9 charges left. Nessos blinks!
Nessos wields a longbow of flaming. It bursts into flame!
Nessos shoots an arrow. The arrow hits you! The arrow burns you.
Huge Dmg: -21%(-20hp) hp: 79%(75hp)
Evoke which item? (* to show all) (? for menu, Esc to quit)
Zapping: k - a wand of paralysis (9/24)
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - Nessos
Aim: Nessos, wielding a longbow of flaming, wearing a centaur barding and quivering 81 arrows (chance to defeat MR: 50%)
Nessos resists with some effort. This wand has 8 charges left.
Nessos casts a spell.
Nessos seems to speed up.
Unknown command.
Unknown command.
Evoke which item? (* to show all) (? for menu, Esc to quit)
Zapping: k - a wand of paralysis (8/24)
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - Nessos
Aim: Nessos, wielding a longbow of flaming, wearing a centaur barding and quivering 81 arrows (fast, chance to defeat MR: 50%)
Nessos resists with some effort. This wand has 7 charges left.
Nessos pounds the earth with his hooves.
Nessos shoots an arrow. The arrow completely misses you.
Nessos shoots an arrow. The arrow hits you!!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
Huge Dmg: -23%(-22hp) hp: 56%(53hp)
Unknown command.
Evoke which item? (* to show all) (? for menu, Esc to quit)
Zapping: k - a wand of paralysis (7/24)
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - Nessos
Aim: Nessos, wielding a longbow of flaming, wearing a centaur barding and quivering 79 arrows (fast, chance to defeat MR: 50%)
Nessos resists with some effort. This wand has 6 charges left.
Nessos shoots an arrow. The arrow misses you.
An orc high priest comes into view. It is wielding a glaive.
Unknown command.
Nessos shoots an arrow. The arrow barely misses you. Nessos shoots an arrow.
The arrow completely misses you.
You see here a +0 club.
Unknown command.
Evoke which item? (* to show all) (? for menu, Esc to quit)
Zapping: k - a wand of paralysis (6/24)
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - Nessos
Aim: Nessos, wielding a longbow of flaming, wearing a centaur barding and quivering 76 arrows (fast, chance to defeat MR: 50%)
Nessos resists with some effort. This wand has 5 charges left.
The orc high priest shouts!
Nessos shoots an arrow. The arrow hits you!!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The arrow burns you.
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
Nessos blinks!
Huge Dmg: -22%(-21hp) hp: 35%(33hp)
Unknown command.
Evoke which item? (* to show all) (? for menu, Esc to quit)
Zapping: k - a wand of paralysis (5/24)
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - Nessos
Aim: Nessos, wielding a longbow of flaming, wearing a centaur barding and quivering 75 arrows (fast, chance to defeat MR: 50%)
Nessos resists with some effort. This wand has 4 charges left. Nessos blinks!
Nessos shoots an arrow. The arrow closely misses you.
Unknown command.
Evoke which item? (* to show all) (? for menu, Esc to quit)
Zapping: k - a wand of paralysis (4/24)
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - Nessos
Aim: Nessos, wielding a longbow of flaming, wearing a centaur barding and quivering 74 arrows (fast, chance to defeat MR: 50%)
Nessos resists with some effort. This wand has 3 charges left.
Nessos shoots an arrow. The arrow hits you!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The arrow burns you.
You are poisoned.
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The orc high priest mumbles some strange prayers to Beogh against you.
Beogh smites you!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
Nessos shoots an arrow. The arrow barely misses you.
Huge Dmg: -21%(-20hp) hp: 15%(14hp)
Unknown command.
Really read t - 3 scrolls of teleportation {!r}?
As you read the scroll of teleportation {!r}, it crumbles to dust.
You feel strangely unstable.
You feel sick. Nessos shoots an arrow. The arrow hits you!
You die...


https://crawl.project357.org/morgue/San ... 214204.txt

[CanOfWorms]

You stab the stone giant with a rapier.

well, there's your problem

[Midn8]

Unless you have maxed out stabbing bonuses, in which case a rapier will be far better than a dagger.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Maybe it was rapier of speed.

[CanOfWorms]

Unless you have maxed out stabbing bonuses, in which case a rapier will be far better than a dagger.

you need a ridiculous amount of dex, short blades and stealth skill to actually hit the cap from stabbing bonuses for non-dagger short blades. until then, daggers have twice as much stabbing bonuses as other short blades

[Arrhythmia]

it doesn't matter because stabbing bonus is so huge you one shot them anyways

[VeryAngryFelid]

Rapier of speed is better than dagger late game because higher attack speed equals to more chances, especially when you one-shot things anyway.

[CanOfWorms]

confusion stab damage from short blades is not generally a "one-shot" on monsters like stone giants (also if you read the log I was quoting it was a rapier of freezing)

[Utis]

Stabbing sure is nice with hexes ... but confused monsters also die quickly if you hit them with a great mace.

EDIT: To elaborate: The reasoning seems to go like this: 1) If you do hexes, you should become a stabber. 2) Hexes aren't as useful anymore in late game. The thing is: (2) is a stabber problem, not a hexes problem and (1) is wrong IMO: You become a stabber, because you want to play a stabber, not because you want to use hexes.

One could argue that even if one goes the melee route, then by late game getting, like, 10 in Shortblades and 10 in stealth is comparatively cheap. (If that's enough for late game stabbing, I don't know.) But the only spell that could even tempt me to do this is invisibility; and even then all my past hexers had something better to do before ascending.

[pedritolo]

Before they removed enslavement, you could just cast invis for the stone giant, then enslave a couple of trolls. But enslavement got removed, probably because it didn't contribute to the optimal strategy or some such inane reason.

[tabstorm]

You missed the whole point, which was after several confuse failures the player character just gave up on hexing and fought the stone giant with his rapier and killed it, very slowly.

[Arrhythmia]

confusion stab damage from short blades is not generally a "one-shot" on monsters like stone giants (also if you read the log I was quoting it was a rapier of freezing)

didn't realize we were talking about confuse stabs, mea culpa

[VeryAngryFelid]

You missed the whole point, which was after several confuse failures the player character just gave up on hexing and fought the stone giant with his rapier and killed it, very slowly.

The message log did say you stabbed the giant. Note that stone giant is quite easy for Hex character assuming you got Invisibility. And if you didn't, you shouldn't train Hexes higher than what is necessary for Confuse at 1%.

[dowan]

Hexes don't become useless, neither do daggers. Still, there's much better ways of winning then the least reliable tool you could find.

Of course, nobody forces you to just train hexes. But in zot you would have been better off training something useful. However, maybe hexes are the reason you were able to get to zot.

if you can win with a hexer by not killing OOFs and not killing aliches, you could also not kill oofs and not kill aliches with any number of other tools.

I think tabstorm put it best...

-late game melee
*holds down o and tab* nothing matters lol

-late game conjurer
Just cast fire storm, chain lightning, ball lightning, glaciate, etc. my man.

-late game hexes
The deep troll shouts! (x3)
The deep troll earth mage shouts!
The stone giant shouts!
Casting: Confuse (25%)
The stone giant resists.
Casting: Confuse (25%)
The stone giant resists.
...
You stab the stone giant with a rapier. You freeze the stone giant.
...
You kill the stone giant!
Why did I train these skills again?

The problem is, hexes costs the same amount of XP as those better skills. Maybe if hexes is intended to only be 75% useful it should cost 75% of the normal XP cost?

[VeryAngryFelid]

The problem is, hexes costs the same amount of XP as those better skills. Maybe if hexes is intended to only be 75% useful it should cost 75% of the normal XP cost?

I believe Hexes are OP for their cost so they should not be buffed. I remember I got Ens. Hibernation before Lair with some non-En Felid and it made things like Black Mamba hilariously easy with a minimal investment.

[Lasty]

Confuse allows you to disable the majority of the game's dangerous monsters for a few mp from full screen range. It's powerful because it's a safe and generally fairly reliable way to get kills on many dangerous monsters for a tiny investment. There's nothing to prevent you from using it with non short blades.

[dowan]

Is it worth the XP to get confuse powerful enough to disable monsters instead of training something that would make them not dangerous enough to need disabling?

I'm sure there's a breakpoint, being able to disable an orc wizard or priest at range early on is so amazingly helpful, and not that expensive XP wise. Being able to disable a stone giant takes a lot more investment in hexes that isn't going toward killdudes or defenses.

The thing is, evocations is always a good investment, and includes ways of dealing with high mr and even magic immune monsters. I always end up with more confuse wands than I can use, not to mention paralyze and enslavement (is enslavement still a wand?)

[VeryAngryFelid]

The thing is, evocations is always a good investment, and includes ways of dealing with high mr and even magic immune monsters.

This is not true. You can see above that morgue where I used wand of paralysis 7 times in a row on Nessos with 50% chance and still died to it. 50% is twice greater than 25% chance from that stone giant fight. I would say that Evo becomes more useless late game than Hexes especially if you overtrain Evo the same way people seem to overtrain Hexes.

[Sar]

Except Evo has OP items like boxes of beasts, sacks of spiders (irresistible confusion and ranged antimagic), disc of storms...

[BabyRage]

The thing is, evocations is always a good investment, and includes ways of dealing with high mr and even magic immune monsters.

This is not true. You can see above that morgue where I used wand of paralysis 7 times in a row on Nessos with 50% chance and still died to it. 50% is twice greater than 25% chance from that stone giant fight. I would say that Evo becomes more useless late game than Hexes especially if you overtrain Evo the same way people seem to overtrain Hexes.

Sack of spiders with max evo can kill pan lords by itself in couple of uses.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Did you miss "always a good investment" part? It's like "let's train polearms to 20, I am sure I will find vampiric glaive around next corner".
Both boxes of beasts and sack of spiders are ok at low Evo too though I may be wrong about it because I don't use boxes of beasts and sack of spiders for the same reason I didn't use lantern of shadows.
I don't think disc of storms is that useful unless you have 20+ evo which is awful investment unless you are in extended already.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

what is the reason you don't use box/sack/lantern

[VeryAngryFelid]

I treat them as cheating.

[Reptisaurus]

if you can win with a hexer by not killing OOFs and not killing aliches, you could also not kill oofs and not kill aliches with any number of other tools.

Gosh, if only there was a hex spell that trivialized Ancient Liches by preventing them from casting spells, or one that drained their magic points while doing damage and setting them up for stabs or - hell - one that increased your weapon damage output enough to kill them in a handful of turns.

Agreed hexes aren't great against orbs of fire, but they're pretty good against everything in the first 40 levels you normally play.

Sadly, on the 41st and final level of a three rune game there is one monster that you generally have to find another way to kill. (Unless you want to get really fiddly with ful. prism or discord.)

This does not, in my mind, translate to hexes being a bad investment. Ever.

[dowan]

Well there are generally enough scrolls of silence for liches, and like I said, evo can trivialize the same enemies that hexes can. You've also got iron trolls, golden dragons, juggernauts, various uniques, etc... There are a lot of enemies hexes aren't well suited for, generally due to super high MR or outright immunity.

Hexes are great in the places they work, and the school does have some non mr checking stuff, although a lot of the spells you listed are dual school. If mana viper is so great, summoning can be trained. If prism is good, any number of other conjurations are available.

It's certainly true they don't become useless, they just become more and more situational. So I think it's a worthwhile question of whether it's worth the XP costs considering that XP could be spent elsewhere. As I said before, the level it's worth it to train hexes to is probably not 0 for all characters. But if you're ignoring better options just because hexes has a roundabout way of dealing with something you're making yourself weaker.

I agree evo is a bad investment if you've decided to impose a conduct on yourself not to use it, but that's irrelevant.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I agree evo is a bad investment if you've decided to impose a conduct on yourself not to use it, but that's irrelevant.

It is a bad investment if all you got is a pack of wands (a couple of levels is ok similarly to how a couple of levels in hexes is ok too). By the way I wouldn't object if people complained "wands become useless late game".
"Slings become useless late game", "Necromancy becomes useless late game", "Cloud spells become useless late game", "Lightning spells become useless late game", "Poison spells become useless late game", "EV becomes useless late game" etc. You cannot kill Orb of fire with those, right?

[dowan]

It's about more than oofs, although they are relevant. There are a lot of high MR enemies.

They don't become useless, but they do become less useful. EV isn't entirely useless against OOFs, dodging that bolt of fire is good.

Poison spells suck almost all game, not just at endgame.

Getting confuse to 1% fail might be a good point to stop training hexes, like you said. But then why are people talking about discord and silence? That's a lot of XP spent.

[VeryAngryFelid]

It's about more than oofs, although they are relevant. There are a lot of high MR enemies.

Hexes work on about 100% monsters on D2, 90% on Lair 1, 60% on Vaults 1, 90% on Zot 1 and 80% on Zot 5. That's very far from useless.

They don't become useless, but they do become less useful. EV isn't entirely useless against OOFs, dodging that bolt of fire is good.

As other people mentioned, you can use mana vipers vs orb of fire.

Poison spells suck almost all game, not just at endgame.

Not really. Poison spells are similar to late game hexes as you need to combine them with other tools.

But then why are people talking about discord and silence? That's a lot of XP spent.

Silence does not take that much XP provided you can switch to wiz item and cast it just once in every fight where it is useful. It is one of the best spells for potion of brilliance also.