The Tavern

So I have a vinestalker of makhleb with a fully powered wyrmbane (4runes collected so far) but also a battleaxe and broad axe with the vampiric brand laying in my stash. I could enchant either one to +6 and will likely get more enchant weapon drops since they've been dropping like crazy in this game.(blew a few on my early weapon, and others opening treasure trove) My axes skill is something like 18. Assuming I can power either axe to +9 would it be worth switching weapons or should I just stick with wyrmbane?

Wyrmbane is supposed to be extremely good, and it gives you some resistances if you need em (which for me at least is also very, very good in late game). It's obviously quick against dragons, which is another point for having it at least in reserve regardless.

You already have about the skill to get minimum delay for the broad axe (at 18) and could get it for the battleaxe at skill level 20. I don't play with vampiric much myself -- so I don't have a great sense of how useful it is or not in late game. If you could get a brand on the battle axe like some elemental buff (and it's just a bigger base damage axe), you might be able to use it more often for crowd situations. I'm a multi weapons collector sort of nut, so I'd probably hang onto at least one axe for a while and see how often you actually use it at those levels. Others with more experience with late/extended may have other ideas.

I would use the vampiric axe, because at that point you could literally play blindfolded and still win, but if you're going for 15-runes I would go Wyrmbane + shield/large shield since you can't vampiric heal off of any common monsters in hell and pan branches and it's not everyday that you get to use cool unrands.

I want to meet these people who can literally play blindfolded and win.

Unless they were physically blind and specially equipped with tech to begin with -- then it wouldn't be quite so ridiculous an expression.

/language curmudgeon

It's very simple to literally play blindfolded and win: play a DD^Makhleb with a vampiric axe. The only 2 buttons required are o and tab, no sight necessary!

It's just excessive wording. There's nothing literal about it. It was a colorful enough picture just bringing in the blindfold, which was already over the top but one is sort of manageable. I know people say this shit all the time. But you'd be missing things like stairway locations, even getting any notice the level is cleared, smite/torment, and opponents firing missiles and stuff you can't resist.

All in all, such language just makes people seem a tad contemptuous to me -- I mean, of those of us who haven't won every background a zillion times over, axe or no axe...

Bots have won around 200 online games with several species, backgrounds, and gods. So people can literally win blindfolded if they're allowed to add enough stuff to their rcfile. How much is too much is debatable, though.

But I think it's more likely that Vajrapani is making an exaggeration for effect, rather than expressing contempt at everyone who can't literally play blindfolded and win.

There was a blind guy that won once I think, with some kind of assistance program for the blind. I don't remember whether they were only "legally" blind or actually "can't see shit, captain" blind.

If you already have 4 runes, it's quite likely that a vampiric weapon is literally useless. Like, literally. Use wyrmbane and a shield.