Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?


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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 15:25

Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

I made this table for unarmed combat, no forms or mutations. Is this a legitimate way to think about it, or will this table lead me astray? It suggests to me that UC 10 is a breakpoint where its investment starts to really pay off,
and that at high skill levels it's like a very heavy weapon with a speed brand that only requires one hand.
UCEquivalents.jpg
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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 15:28

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

Very useful table IMHO!
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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 15:46

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

I can't check the numbers now, but it seems that you assume +0 weapons without brands. While it makes the comparison easier as UC generally does not have bonus or brand as well, it makes the table a little bit misleading IMHO, because most of the time your best weapon is not +0 and without a brand (especially after the early game, where UC is especially weak anyway).

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 15:49

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

sanka wrote:I can't check the numbers now, but it seems that you assume +0 weapons without brands. While it makes the comparison easier as UC generally does not have bonus or brand as well, it makes the table a little bit misleading IMHO, because most of the time your best weapon is not +0 and without a brand (especially after the early game, where UC is especially weak anyway).
Yes, that is true.
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bel

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 16:21

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

As mentioned above, the above table is misleading because it doesn't take into account brands/enchantment. Exact values can be found out using fsim, but they're not really necessary, imo.

The way I think about UC is that it sucks without forms and it's fine with forms (at the expense of some defences because of lighter/no armour). Don't really need to know much beyond that.

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nago

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 18:04

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

It is also good with claws 3 mutation. And it is somewhat ok with Okawaru.

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 19:51

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

Note that since you can use a shield with unarmed, a more accurate comparison might use one-handed weapons (Although that does get weird, since shields impose a small delay to UC)
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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 20:02

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

Also another fairly minor point, since UC is faster than most weapons, it benefits slightly more from aux attacks.
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Post Thursday, 25th January 2018, 07:34

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

Come on, people, let's talk about Str bonus, weapon skill bonus, slaying, aux attacks, fighting bonus etc. Don't you realize that it is a table for rough estimation? For serious analysis just use fsim.

The table is very useful for Gn who has access to UC and multiple +0 weapons without brands.
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Post Thursday, 25th January 2018, 07:43

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

VeryAngryFelid wrote:Come on, people, let's talk about Str bonus, weapon skill bonus, slaying, aux attacks, fighting bonus etc. Don't you realize that it is a table for rough estimation? For serious analysis just use fsim.

The table is very useful for Gn who has access to UC and multiple +0 weapons without brands.

I would say that comparing UC to one-handed weapons would be slightly more useful for Gnolls.
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Post Thursday, 25th January 2018, 07:55

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

Siegurt wrote:I would say that comparing UC to one-handed weapons would be slightly more useful for Gnolls.


Why? Buckler is a rare item and regular shield is not that useful at low skill, at least for book backgrounds. If Gn starts with a weapon, corresponding Weapon skill is higher and UC is irrelevant for quite some time. I would use the table for GnWz and alike.
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Post Thursday, 25th January 2018, 08:32

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
Siegurt wrote:I would say that comparing UC to one-handed weapons would be slightly more useful for Gnolls.


Why? Buckler is a rare item and regular shield is not that useful at low skill, at least for book backgrounds. If Gn starts with a weapon, corresponding Weapon skill is higher and UC is irrelevant for quite some time. I would use the table for GnWz and alike.

Well, the table *already* uses one-handed weapons for low skill levels (because those are the closest equivalents) so the things that would be changed if it was made all one-handed would be the higher skill levels, where you are likely to have a buckler, and a shield, and if you're a gnoll, the skill to use it.

A gnoll with sufficient skill to use a shield, will probably have no reason *not* to use one (with or without UC) so the only question is "is the best one handed weapon available better or worse than my UC damage".
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Post Thursday, 25th January 2018, 09:08

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

Sorry for confusion. I forgot to write that late rows are not that useful because you will have lots of non-zero weapons at this point so fsim should be used. For instance, I spectated top player used +12 spear when all weapon skills were about 16.
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Post Thursday, 25th January 2018, 21:06

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

For myself I'm satisfied with sanka's response. Of course later characters will have better than +0, unbranded weapons. That was why I posted: it din't feel right, but I couldn't figure out how. And it was obvious in hindsight.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 25th January 2018, 22:13

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

Isn't this also ignoring the weapon skill multiplier for weapons? Let's look at one row: Level 11, equal to a double sword at LB 14.

Unarmed at this level is 3 base damage + 11 (1 damage per skill level) for 14 base. Then it's multiplied by fighting - I believe it's fighting/25, although I can never remember if it's /20 or /30. Something like that. Let's pretend you have 10 fighting, you get 14 + (14 * 10/25) = 19.6 damage. Then go on to apply strength, slaying, etc etc.

The double sword is base 14, but then gets the same fighting/25 as well as getting LB/25. Again I think one of these is actually a /20 or something but I'm in the right ballpark. With 10 fighting, you're at 14 + (14 * 10/25) + (14 * 14/25) = 27.44 damage. And then go ahead and add strength, slaying, brands, etc.

Am I doing this horribly wrong and/or has this changed since I last heard about it?

Regardless, I generally assume UC is weaker until around level 8 or 10, when it starts to gain parity with weapons. Stays about weapon quality up through 15 (during this time weapon based characters are generally improving their weapon/finding brands etc which keeps them on par with UC's growing strength), and then is better than any weapon at around 20 skill.

Edit: Tried running this in fsim but some reason unarmed is returning 0 damage, and I'm not sure what's wrong. Did something in fsim break recently? I'm using the .21 release. I tried with both 11 skill and 20 skill, there's no way it's actually failing to hit for > 0 damage.
Last edited by tasonir on Thursday, 25th January 2018, 23:06, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Thursday, 25th January 2018, 22:45

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

Somebody sooner or later may actually run fsim, but the last time I checked it UC at 20 skill (all stats 15) was still weaker than a +9 great mace of freezing with 20 skill against a stone giant. (No forms or claws of course, also no shield for UC, no aux attack).

I also remember that UC gets better than a plain, +0 morningstar around 13 skill (same character, agains stone giant). By then I usually have a better weapon.

And while UC gets very powerful indeed at very high skill (27 for example), it is bad for UC, as those levels are very, very expensive. But if you actually choose UC, you have a good reason to train the skill very high.

VeryAngryFelid wrote:The table is very useful for Gn who has access to UC and multiple +0 weapons without brands.


Uhm, yes, I admit did not think about this case....

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Post Thursday, 25th January 2018, 23:45

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

So I figured out the reason unarmed was hitting for 0 damage - I had selected gladiator as my background and so I started with throwing nets, and throwing nets deal 0 damage.

Character: level 15 human gladiator with 17 str/dex. 11 fighting, 11 unarmed, 14 long blades. Note that long blades has an advantage here. Fighting against a yak:

+0 double sword
  Code:
            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:     10.1 |     37 |      77% |   7.9 |    80  |  1.25 |      9.9


Unarmed
  Code:
            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:      8.0 |     29 |      77% |   6.2 |    80  |  1.26 |      7.7


Roughly 20% less damage. Let's bump unarmed up to 14 to be fair:

  Code:
            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:     10.1 |     42 |      79% |   8.0 |    74  |  1.35 |     10.8

Now unarmed is beating a +0 double sword. Let's crank up the quality of the double sword to +5 freezing.

  Code:
            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:     16.5 |     58 |      78% |  13.0 |    80  |  1.25 |     16.2

About 50% higher damage when you have a high quality weapon. Let's increase unarmed to reach parity:

  Code:
_Increased Unarmed Combat to skill level 16.0.
            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:     11.8 |     40 |      79% |   9.4 |    70  |  1.42 |     13.4


  Code:
 Increased Unarmed Combat to skill level 18.0.
            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:     13.6 |     48 |      78% |  10.6 |    67  |  1.50 |     15.9


Turns out it takes about 4 levels of unarmed to be equal to the jump from a +0 double sword to a +5 double sword of freezing.

For funsies:
  Code:
 Increased Unarmed Combat to skill level 20.0.
            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:     15.2 |     54 |      80% |  12.2 |    63  |  1.59 |     19.4


If you're willing to take unarmed to level 20, you'll deal more damage than you can with a (one handed) sword. All comparisons done without a shield, the shield should lower unarmed damage about 10% or so? If someone really wants to check they can, but it isn't terribly significant.

Wanna go grab 15 runes? Here's your endgame:

  Code:
_Increased Unarmed Combat to skill level 27.0.
            AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
 Attacking:     20.4 |     70 |      80% |  16.4 |    50  |  2.00 |     32.8


Good luck finding a yak in extended though...And you really should have trained more than 11 fighting by now.

TL;DR: With both at 11 fighting and 14 skill, unarmed is already doing more damage than a +0 double sword. But a high quality double sword (+5 of freezing) is roughly equal to 18 unarmed. Unarmed will continue to get better with higher skill whereas double swords are mostly maxed out at this point. Certain rare brands (vamp, speed, antimagic) may provide useful effects that unarmed can't quite duplicate (other than speed).

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MainiacJoe

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Post Friday, 26th January 2018, 13:19

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

I think fsim does not take ripost into account, at least at 0 skill I get better damage with other weapons on fsim than with long blades, which is not my actual experience with 0 skill fighting. That's why I prefer maces to compare. (reaching or cleaving is also hard to compare, it's a little bit a personal opinion how much damage they worth).

According to my fsim, a +9 eveningstar of freezing at skill 16 has 20.8 AvEffDam. (Same char as before, every stat 15, fighting 15, against stone giant). This is more damage than UC without shield at skill level 22, or more damage than UC with shield at skill level 23. So to reach similar damage with UC you need to invest roughly 4 times as much experience.

The reason I usually compare UC with double handed weapons is that good single handed weapons are rare, so if you really really want to use shields, than UC is actually a good option.

I also admit that stone giant favors the weapons, as they have a lot of AC, while yaks favors UC.

In my personal experience UC gets better than weapons above skill level 20 somewhere. At extended UC can get very strong indeed, you may use blade hands in plate with UC 27 for enormous damage - altough you may find a very good weapon as well.

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Post Saturday, 27th January 2018, 00:24

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

Tasonir is right that the chart is ignoring the effects of weapon skill by applying it for UC and not for long blades, but he's forgetting that UC also affects offhand punch, and thus that comparison to a 1h weapon is misleading. I put together a chart similar to this a few years ago using fsim as Sandman suggests, but even that skips the important factor that if you're using UC you should really be using forms or have claws, which both change the table again.

Also, a -2 dagger at 0 skill is worse than 0-skill unarmed.

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Post Saturday, 27th January 2018, 09:58

Re: Is This a Good Way to Think About UC?

Yeah I realized about halfway through I should have put a shield on, but didn't feel like redoing it. What people should really do is the double scale fsim so it'll just show the entire table for all skill levels of fighting and weapon skill or unarmed. But for some reason my local crawl copy always fails to get permision to write a text file.

I don't think it's a bad idea to use unarmed without claws or transmutations, but if you do then you should probably be expecting to train it highly. It's quite strong on its own once you get it high; I primarily use it because I use transmutations though.

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