Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should use


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Temple Termagant

Posts: 5

Joined: Saturday, 7th April 2018, 19:44

Post Saturday, 7th April 2018, 19:58

Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should use

I'm a beginner MiFi on my best run to-date, two runes and by now level 23. I'm about to complete Depths 4, and then may head into Elf a bit before trying for the third rune which is where I have failed before. I started out with long blades but so far I haven't really found any which take my fancy. Way back on D6 I found the +6 Rapier of the Magi (Pierce, Dex+2) and based on observation that weapon still seems to be my most efficient. Nevertheless, I have by now found a LOT of possible alternatives but I'm not really sure how to decide which I should consider as my main. Thought I would post here and get some second opinions from more experienced players.

My skills...

  Code:
 Skills:
 + Level 24.8 Fighting
 - Level 15.5(19.1) Short Blades
   Level 20.4(22.3) Long Blades
 - Level 7.4 Polearms
 - Level 3.3 Throwing


Weapons in my armoury:

  Code:
Hand Weapons
 r - the +6 rapier of the Magi {pierce, Dex+2}
   (You found it on level 6 of the Dungeon)   
   It inflicts extra damage upon your enemies.
   It affects your dexterity (+2).
 v - a +3 demon blade
 B - a +4 great sword of protection
 C - a +1 great sword of holy wrath
 E - a +4 vampiric long sword
 L - a +6 quick blade of protection
 P - a +3 short sword of speed
 R - the +9 spear "Hydrabane" {flame, rElec rC++ rN+ Str-2}
   (Okawaru gifted it to you on level 3 of the Depths)   
 T - the +5 short sword "Ucokk" (weapon) {venom, Dex+4}
   (You found it on level 3 of the Depths)   
 V - the +7 Spriggan's Knife {MR+ EV+4 Dex+4 Stlth+}
   (You found it on level 3 of the Depths)
 W - the +0 dagger of Change {freeze, rF++ rC+ rN+ Int-5}
   (Okawaru gifted it to you on level 3 of the Depths)   
 Y - the +8 spear of Demonkind {venom, rC++}
   (Okawaru gifted it to you on level 3 of the Swamp)   


Right now I am also using a large shield +2 (protection) and a pretty low EV. I also have pretty good resistance coverage from armour and jewellery so that is not a big factor from weapons (although I only have rElec on weapons so sometimes I have switched to using them for specific enemies)

Appreciate any help to determine which of these weapons are promising for the three rune end game!

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Saturday, 7th April 2018, 20:14

Re: Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should

The +3 demon blade and the +4 great sword are the only decent weapons in that list. All the others are frankly crap at this point; you can drop them. If you have a scroll of brand weapon, you probably want to use it on the demon blade.

Are there no other great swords available? Protection isn't a very good brand (and holy wrath is basically like no brand at all, plus that great sword has worse enchantment anyway).

Temple Termagant

Posts: 5

Joined: Saturday, 7th April 2018, 19:44

Post Saturday, 7th April 2018, 20:31

Re: Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should

No, that is seriously the best stuff I have found unless there is something good in the 'enchanted great sword' category of which there are a few lying around. Nothing in shops or drops.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6454

Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06

Post Saturday, 7th April 2018, 21:59

Re: Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should

Generally use the demon blade, keep the shield, train some shield skill, do not train any more long blades (or short blades)

You could also keep the vampiric long sword around; if you get stuck in a situation where it's do or die, a vampiric long sword with a potion of berserk rage will kill lots of stuff and heal you when you get into a desperate situation (And there's non-demonic, non-undead things around to kill), but it's not very good to use generally (be aware that it will take an extra turn to eat food so that you can wield it when things are bad) It's not too important though, if you feel like you have enough other emergency options, you can just drop it.

The great sword is slightly inferior to the demon blade+large shield of protection combo, but it isn't sufficiently worse that you'd be considered to be making a serious error by going with that option, I might swing back in favor of the two-handed melee weapon if I had a nice two-handed range weapon I wanted to use as well.

The rest of the weapons in your inventory aren't particularly useful at all (unless maybe the 'hydrabane' spear is in actual fact your best option for killing hydras, I don't know what you've been using on them so far)

Ideally you would brand the demon blade, but obviously that relies on you finding a scroll of brand weapon.

If you have any amount of stealth and hence manage to sneak on anything sleeping, and/or can paralyze or confuse things, you can stab things for loads of damage pretty well with your short blades skill, so keep some sort of dagger-y thing around (the freezing branded dagger would be the most damage of the options you listed, but even a +0 unbranded dagger would be fine) the quick blade would be OK (particularly against confused targets as you'd get more shots at it) but quick blades don't do as much stabbing damage as daggers do. The spriggan's knife wouldn't be particularly amazing (although it does give you a bonus to stealth, which is probably irrelevant, but I can't say without seeing the rest of your char dump) but the knife is not going to do more damage when stabbing than a regular dagger though (And the freezing brand will increase the damage of a stab by a noticeable amount). If you don't feel like remembering to swap to a short blade to stab things, it's probably just fine to whack them with whatever you would kill them with normally, it might take a couple extra swings, but it's unlikely to make a long-term difference.
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Temple Termagant

Posts: 5

Joined: Saturday, 7th April 2018, 19:44

Post Sunday, 8th April 2018, 06:42

Re: Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should

Thanks for the advice. What is it about the Demon Blade which makes it the better choice?

I don't have any stealth skill and one of my best clothing items has -Stlth so I'm not trying to go down the stabbing route. I do have Shields 25 so the large shield can be worn effectively.

Most of the weapons are just in my stash rather than carried with me, although I do take Hydrabane simply because of the rElec. I haven't seen any hydras for a while so fighting them is not really an issue (and the rapier is pretty good for taking them out). Sadly I have found zero Brand Weapon scrolls, and that is at XL24 :(

Blades Runner

Posts: 616

Joined: Thursday, 25th October 2012, 03:19

Post Sunday, 8th April 2018, 10:02

Re: Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should

Metatheory wrote:Thanks for the advice. What is it about the Demon Blade which makes it the better choice?

I don't have any stealth skill and one of my best clothing items has -Stlth so I'm not trying to go down the stabbing route. I do have Shields 25 so the large shield can be worn effectively.

Most of the weapons are just in my stash rather than carried with me, although I do take Hydrabane simply because of the rElec. I haven't seen any hydras for a while so fighting them is not really an issue (and the rapier is pretty good for taking them out). Sadly I have found zero Brand Weapon scrolls, and that is at XL24 :(


That it is at a higher tier of damage, primarily from it's base damage. The base damage of a weapon has a multiplicative synergy with your skill, so while it may not look like much of a difference between 7 and 11, it becomes one. Reaching a certain amount of damage with a weapon allows you to use it more universally to fight opponents with both no armour and higher armour.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Sunday, 8th April 2018, 22:14

Re: Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should

Metatheory wrote:Thanks for the advice. What is it about the Demon Blade which makes it the better choice?
It does more damage.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6454

Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06

Post Monday, 9th April 2018, 03:24

Re: Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should

Metatheory wrote:I don't have any stealth skill and one of my best clothing items has -Stlth so I'm not trying to go down the stabbing route.

You don't technically need any stealth to stab things (it does help with damage) you just need for the thing to be confused, paralyzed or sleeping.

Stealth helps with not waking up sleeping things, but even with 0 stealth, the other two are certainly options (from blowguns, spells, or wands)

If something is paralyzed or confused for whatever reason, hitting it with a dagger (given your prior investment in short blades) will probably do more damage than a single hit from any other weapon, of course swapping back and forth is annoying and the extra damage in those circumstances isn't sufficiently large as to be worth going miles out of your way for, so not using a short blade because it's too annoying is reasonable (but it's certainly going to be effective if you do)
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Temple Termagant

Posts: 5

Joined: Saturday, 7th April 2018, 19:44

Post Monday, 9th April 2018, 12:01

Re: Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should

Thanks :)

So, I actually had my first win on the back of this. I went with the demon blade until I found a +3 scimitar of draining which saw me through Zot rather nicely!

My strategy was about as basic as they come I guess. Lure a few to the stairs and bash them...

Out of interest, the + value of weapons. Does this apply only to the chance to hit, or is it also part of the damage calculation? I think when I see something like +8 I automatically think it must be better than anything +3 or what have you, but these posts have shown this seems to not be a big factor when evaluating a weapon's usefulness.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Monday, 9th April 2018, 15:08

Re: Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should

A +4 weapon does between 0 and 4 extra damage (uniformly distributed) and has between 0 and 4 extra to-hit. It's significant.
The problem is that you are ignoring the base type of the weapons. A demon blade has 12 base damage. A rapier only has 8. Base damage is basically always more impactful than enchantment, because base damage gets a multiplier depending on your strength, weapon skill, and Fighting skill.
You did not provide your character's strength, but if you had 20 strength and the skills you posted, a demon blade's 12 base damage was approximately as good as +31 enchantment for damage purposes, whereas a rapier's 8 base damage was approximately as good as +20 enchantment for damage purposes. A great sword's 15 base damage is approximately as good as +38 enchantment. So the demon blade and great sword are much better than the rapier.

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Temple Termagant

Posts: 5

Joined: Saturday, 7th April 2018, 19:44

Post Monday, 9th April 2018, 18:39

Re: Beginner on a decent run: not sure which weapon I should

Aha, I see. My strength was fairly high at 32 by the time I escaped so it will have been quite a major factor.

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