Is UC worth anything for non-transmuters?

[Lavandula]

Case study:
GhWr^Chei. After beating all lair branches with this character, Wyrmbane was found and I tried to simulate wielding it with fsim. Scandalous development followed:
Unarmed damage (14 UC):

  Code:

AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:      6.1 |     46 |      83% |   5.1 |    85  |  1.18 |      6.0
Defending:      7.1 |     16 |      20% |   1.5 |   100  |  1.00 |      1.5

Wyrmbane (12 Pl):

  Code:

AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:     13.2 |     53 |      85% |  11.3 |    50  |  2.00 |     22.5
Defending:      6.3 |     16 |      20% |   1.3 |   100  |  1.00 |      1.3

Wyrmbane (No training):

  Code:

AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:     12.0 |     58 |      84% |  10.2 |   110  |  0.91 |      9.3
Defending:      5.9 |     16 |      21% |   1.2 |   100  |  1.00 |      1.2

Spear (No training):

  Code:

AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:      6.2 |     44 |      83% |   5.2 |    95  |  1.05 |      5.4
Defending:      6.8 |     16 |      21% |   1.5 |   100  |  1.00 |      1.5

Spear (12 Pl):

  Code:

AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:      7.0 |     42 |      84% |   5.9 |    50  |  2.00 |     11.8
Defending:      6.9 |     16 |      21% |   1.5 |   100  |  1.00 |      1.5

So, unarmed ghoul with 14 UC deals marginally more damage than ghoul with spear and no training. And if that character trained polearms all that time, it would have twice as much DPT with +0 spear than it has now with claws. Thanks, Cheibriados.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I suspect you did something wrong, AvTime cannot be 95 for Spear without training.
Try UC 27 to see why everyone thinks it's great.

Edit. You can use F instead of f to get a table with UC 0-27.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Found my old fsim in one of the threads.

  Code:

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.19.1
Attack: Human Monk vs. hill giant (4000 rounds) (2017/01/09/21:32:04)
Human Monk: XL 1   Str 11   Int 10   Dex 15
Unarmed, Skill: Unarmed Combat
hill giant: HD 11   AC 3   EV 4

Unarmed Co | AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
         0 |      0,7 |      4 |      84% |   0,6 |   100  |  1,00 |      0,6
         1 |      1,2 |      8 |      84% |   1,0 |    98  |  1,02 |      1,0
         2 |      1,7 |     10 |      84% |   1,4 |    96  |  1,04 |      1,5
         3 |      2,2 |     12 |      85% |   1,9 |    94  |  1,06 |      2,0
         4 |      2,9 |     13 |      84% |   2,4 |    93  |  1,08 |      2,6
         5 |      3,5 |     16 |      86% |   3,0 |    91  |  1,10 |      3,3
         6 |      4,2 |     18 |      86% |   3,6 |    89  |  1,12 |      4,1
         7 |      4,8 |     20 |      86% |   4,1 |    87  |  1,15 |      4,8
         8 |      5,4 |     21 |      86% |   4,6 |    85  |  1,17 |      5,5
         9 |      6,0 |     23 |      87% |   5,3 |    83  |  1,20 |      6,4
        10 |      6,6 |     24 |      86% |   5,8 |    82  |  1,23 |      7,0
        11 |      7,3 |     28 |      87% |   6,4 |    80  |  1,26 |      8,0
        12 |      8,2 |     29 |      87% |   7,1 |    78  |  1,28 |      9,1
        13 |      8,7 |     30 |      87% |   7,6 |    76  |  1,31 |     10,0
        14 |      9,3 |     34 |      86% |   8,1 |    74  |  1,35 |     10,9
        15 |     10,1 |     35 |      86% |   8,7 |    72  |  1,38 |     12,1
        16 |     10,8 |     36 |      87% |   9,5 |    70  |  1,42 |     13,5
        17 |     11,4 |     39 |      87% |   9,9 |    69  |  1,46 |     14,4
        18 |     12,4 |     41 |      86% |  10,8 |    67  |  1,50 |     16,1
        19 |     13,0 |     43 |      87% |  11,3 |    65  |  1,54 |     17,4
        20 |     13,7 |     46 |      87% |  12,0 |    63  |  1,59 |     19,1
        21 |     14,5 |     50 |      88% |  12,8 |    61  |  1,64 |     20,9
        22 |     15,3 |     50 |      87% |  13,4 |    59  |  1,69 |     22,7
        23 |     15,8 |     48 |      87% |  13,9 |    57  |  1,74 |     24,3
        24 |     16,8 |     55 |      87% |  14,7 |    56  |  1,80 |     26,2
        25 |     17,1 |     54 |      87% |  14,9 |    54  |  1,86 |     27,5
        26 |     17,7 |     59 |      88% |  15,7 |    52  |  1,93 |     30,3
        27 |     18,4 |     64 |      88% |  16,3 |    50  |  2,00 |     32,6
-----------------------------------

[nago]

I suspect the fsim of the OP is wrong too somewhat. And wtf are those images! Wanna more

[MainiacJoe]

You can use F instead of f to get a table with UC 0-27.

And Ctrl-f will give you an XY table of Fighting vs UC, 1-3-5-7 etc.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Unarmed without claws or forms strikes me as bad. Weapon brands and enchantment make a big difference to damage output. Yes, unarmed gets OK at high skill level, even without claws or forms, but at what cost?

As far as I'm concerned, two species should start with unarmed, if that is an option: Tr and Gh. (Fe don't get to choose.)

Some other species have decent aptitudes, compared to their other melee skills, and could make a reasonable job of it. Ce and VS come to mind.

My Gr just grab a flail and that's that.

[MainiacJoe]

It occurs to me that an early find of a good launcher might get one through the period where UC is not as good. Does this seem right?

[Siegurt]

Fsim defaults to simulation of throwing if you have nothing wielded and something in your quiver, to fsim unarmed you need to have no weapon wielded *and* have nothing quivered for throwing.

[MainiacJoe]

Fsim defaults to simulation of throwing if you have nothing wielded and something in your quiver, to fsim unarmed you need to have no weapon wielded *and* have nothing quivered for throwing.

inscribe =f on throwables, or drop them, and then shift-Q, hyphen

[Siegurt]

Fsim defaults to simulation of throwing if you have nothing wielded and something in your quiver, to fsim unarmed you need to have no weapon wielded *and* have nothing quivered for throwing.

inscribe =f on throwables, or drop them, and then shift-Q, hyphen

I usually just drop them, typically i am fsimming in a copy of my char that only had one stack of ammo duplicated, so inscribing, or quivering - (which is also a one step solution, but one that requires pressing shift more) seems harder than just dropping one stack of ammo, but ymmv.

[MainiacJoe]

Fsim defaults to simulation of throwing if you have nothing wielded and something in your quiver, to fsim unarmed you need to have no weapon wielded *and* have nothing quivered for throwing.

inscribe =f on throwables, or drop them, and then shift-Q, hyphen

I usually just drop them, typically i am fsimming in a copy of my char that only had one stack of ammo duplicated, so inscribing, or quivering - (which is also a one step solution, but one that requires pressing shift more) seems harder than just dropping one stack of ammo, but ymmv.

Yeah I realized that after I posted. The above is typically what I do with throwing nets when starting Gl.

[tabstorm]

it's usually not that good, I would make an exception for:

1. Trolls: You have Claws 3
2. Ghouls: You have Claws and a good apt compared to everything else, but you can't transmute anyway. Ghouls are kind of mediocre.
3: Vine Stalker: You can get into really low attack delay and do a ton of damage with the bite aux.

If you use UC there's no reason to not use blade hands or statue form. It also synergizes well with Oka since 5 extra levels of UC does a lot, and you can get into really low attack delays with finesse. this applies even more so to VS.

[Airwolf]

This ghoul slander will not stand!

(Yeah, they're borderline good/mediocre—I'd argue that poison & negative-energy immunity, rC+ and chunk regen push them to good—in the early & mid game, but they're very good in extended.)