The Tavern

Just had a mini-optimization problem in my brain here:

Let's say you're playing Be. Considering piety decay, recovering from berserk, and the time it takes to lure monsters to safe places, how often should you be killing things with zerk?

* In basically every fight?
* In every fight that'll take more than a few turns?
* Only in fights where you might to need it to win?

I usually tend toward the third option, for whatever that's worth. Sometimes tending toward the middle option if I'm in a branch with plenty of edible chunks and I feel safe that I'm not going to end up exhausted and surprised by a tough monster that I wish I could have raged for.

The amount of time it takes to rest from low HP to full is huge, and if you reset the fight, you might be doing that more than once. My rule of thumb is, any enemy that you might end up resetting against (ogres, komodo dragons, ettins) will cost you less time if you lure and berserk it. This is also a major real time convenience, since resetting these kinds of fights is tedious.

For just this question I think the best answer is "When berserking is safer than fighting this battle without berserking". In other words, risk minimization. If you wanted to tackle a larger issue, then something like "When berserking is safer than fighting it without berserking or attempting to walk away/escape". Depending on if you are considering running away as a separate question or if you've already decided to try the fight. I think the answer there does already have value, although it then leads to the second question of how to determine when berserking is safer than not berserking.

Good criteria for berserking:
You aren't near too many unexplored areas or have already cleared significant parts of the floor
The monsters will be fairly easy to kill with berserk's damage bonuses, but might hurt you significantly without the bonuses
Incoming damage is relatively smooth and predictable
An escape path is nearby/easy to get to

Bad criteria for berserking:
Unexplored areas nearby
Monsters that have recently shouted
Player has made a lot of noise recently or is marked
Monsters may be able to survive even berserk's damage bonuses
Monsters may be able to do burst damage which would make running away required (think of a crystal spear caster)
No escape path nearby

I'm sure you could add a few more conditions to the list but those are just the general sort of things I'd check before berserking. Do it enough and it becomes pretty routine, although to be fair, I don't really play Trog much at all these days.

My answer is to only zerk when running away is impossible. I broke this rule in the tournament and lost a 6-streak for it.

Looking at minimising turns spent recovering from fights, it's almost always better to lure and berserk. The main benefit is reduced resting time as stormdragon mentioned above.

A few points:
* The "-Berserk" status lasts for 12 + 2d12 aka about 24 turns.
* Damage taken while berserk is effectively reduced to 2/3 due to the max HP inflation. Because you kill the monster faster it attacks less, so let's say berserk halves incoming damage.
* Regeneration rate varies with your max hp

Recovery time calculations:
Without berserk: damage / regen rate
With berserk: lure time + max(damage / 2 / regen rate, 24)

It's hard to turn these into good heuristics or rules of thumb to follow. Here are some scenarios:

Scenario 1: MiBe XL1 vs expected 6 damage. 0.06rr, 20 turns luring
Without berserk: 6 / 0.06 = 100 turns recovering
With berserk: 20 + max(6 / 2 / 0.06, 24) = 70 turns recovering

Scenario 2: MiBe XL10 vs expected 30 damage. 0.22rr, 40 turns luring
WIthout berserk: 135 turns recovering
With berserk: 40 turns luring + 68 turns healing = 108 turns recovering

The above post just sounds like you're trying to make a case for an amulet of regeneration, I don't think it's a good idea to decide whether to berserk or not because you're interested in saving 30 turns after the fight is entirely done. Is this thread primarily focused on speed running? If you aren't trying for a Trog high score then I don't see the point in reducing after battle rest slightly; I know piety decay exists but that has to be a much smaller factor than whether you die while slowed.