The Tavern

The 0.10 brought some interesting changes, most notably: (1) aux attacks are now independant of unarmed skill (2) polearms always have reaching (3) slaying no longer affects base damage (4) how skills are now learned with partial amounts also counting. With all of these modifications, most people ask: What is, in most situation, a solid weapon choice?

Depends.

Polearms = best or at the very least second-best one-hander, best non-GSC-twohander
misclicked though - in reality I hate non-GSC maces

(I take "unarmed" to actually mean "unarmed" and not "blade hands")

It really depends on the situation. I like polearms (Swords on sticks rule!) for automatic reaching and staves for lajatangs which I really like.

You can change your vote


It's considered standard to use forms at some point.

Lajatangs of speed are very powerful when found around Lair. And if you're an elementalist, you can then switch to staff of [your strong elemental skill].

Polearms now for sure.

It would be very helpful if some knowledgeable people updated the Weapon Comparison Spreadsheet.

Weapons are for suckers, because then the other guy can hit back. Killing monsters that are still off-screen is the way to go.

Ranged combat is still easily the best even though most people don't bother to use it.

"Suckers" ... Hmm, my first thought was: but I don't play Vampires.

I want to say that the Dev team have done such a good job with the polearm reform. It is a pleasure to use the ranged option (tab usually works). A blessed trishula is a rather nice endgame weapon if your resists come from a shield. Since the reform, I almost have to decide "ok, I'm going for flavor" to use any other class.

I've never really tried unarmed with anything other than a troll. So, in the interests of exploration, I've got a draconian wizard going who has just got dragon form online, who also has a longbow of velocity at about +5 so far that I will be trying to get blessed. It also seems that ranged is good, although it seems annoying to cart about so much ammo.

It is? Looks like all my heavy-armour non-casting monks, all TrBes and FeBes, some DsBes, a lot of chars who had better things to train (Charms, Translocations) and every single ghoul are just exceptions then.

Unarmed, IMHO. You have absolutely no need to find anything and you have absurd base damage, even without forms.

People who say unarmed has absurd base damage without forms often (excuse me if you do know, I'm just judging from experience here and not personally criticising your knowledge) disregard an important fact: unarmed skill defines your base damage, while weapons have their base damage pre-defined. However, unarmed skill doesn't apply any multiplier to the damage, while weapon skill multiplies the weapon's damage, so at the very least your damage per hit is considerably higher with a high-base damage weapon.
Of course there are other things to consider, like 5 delay and one-handed-ness but ultimately many races, even with decent (0-1) UC apts might prefer a weapon - if UC was that great MiBe would want UC, but an anti-magic executioner's axe is many people's choice for a reason.

Also, the best brands available don't just simply increase damage but are often vamp or antimagic, something unarmed never has and that gives weapons a further boost.

which joker here picked short blades

Maybe someone who likes stabbing and thinks oneshotting powerful monsters is fun?

An early dagger of pain or elec can certainly get someone to zot, especially if they're more magic oriented. And backstabs from sabres does high damage.

There's a big difference between "it can get you to Zot" and "it can get you Zot easily", and a huge difference between "it can get you to Zot" and "it's the strongest weapon class in the game". I don't play my games with a scimitar of freezing and IMB exclusively even though I am pretty sure I could get to Zot with them, because there are better options available.

Of course the answer given does vary according to the stage of the game we are looking at and the race you picked. Yes, a short blade of electrocution is basically the best weapon you can get on D:1 barring Xom gifts and yes, your SpEn is better off with a dagger of pain than a demon trident of speed - but it's very unclear what exactly is meant by the poll since it doesn't specify location/XL and so I do take it as "the best weapon you could wish for, disregarding apts and current skills" and that isn't a dagger of pain or electrocution, but (in my opinion) a vampiric bardiche. I have several reasons for this:

-reaching is extremely powerful in that it will allow you to avoid taking damage or avoid taking a lot of damage from all slow melee/melee-focussed monsters, and ridiculously powerful with Swiftness/boots of running, optionally adding Haste, because the monster you aren't taking damage from don't even have to be slow any more. This is one of the major reasons why I believe polearms are more versatile/generally powerful than axes nowdays. I also think that they are a class that leans more towards two-hander strength now, if less obviously than Axes, mainly because tridents are "sort of OK", not good, and demon tridents are very rare.
-a character using a reaching weapon will always get one hit more in before he gets hit than a character who isn't. In my opinion, this is enough to compensate for the lack of 2 base damage as opposed to an executioner's axe, even if your opponent isn't slow or you aren't especially fast - you'll usually be taking less damage because the difference in base damage is not very significant, but one extra hit from a really high-damage weapon is significant!
-I think that vampiric brands are superior to speed brands - if your character isn't doing more than two times the damage to a monster than that monster would do to you (exceptions allowed of course), he isn't that strong usually. As such you will often be at or close to high HP and go on meleeing monsters for a lot longer than you would than you could with a speed brand, especially in corridors where you usually should be, and if I have the choice between "killing monsters at double speed" and "killing monsters finishing the fight at full HP" I choose the latter, from the perspective of safety, "strength", realtime and turncount.
-you're wielding a 18 damage vampiric brand weapon which sort of speaks for itself

I think this definitely beats non-form unarmed - and forms, well, we are talking about weapons here and not about spells, right? And I'm really not sure if I would want to give up my reaching and vampiric benefits just for significantly more raw damage, even in the case of Blade Hands.

Stabbing - well, I think it's a lot less versatile and while, for instance, SpEn is a very strong build, you will find that this is not just because of the stabbing, but also because of extremely high survivability not due to weapons but to the Sp part, and great ninja powers not connected to weapons but to translocations, the Sp part, Haste, other buffs and Invisibility.

In my experience short blades are the best weapons to stab with and so are connected with stabbing. Yes using short blades does not necessarily mean you will stab, but if you stab, short blades are the way to go.

Even my stabby builds grab the first long blade they see and start training it for fights that go beyond the initial stab. And once Stabbing is high enough, I only pull out the dagger for things with boatloads of hit points.

The tiny little hipster inside me keeps screaming "YOU MUST PICK STAVES!!111!11!11oneoneeleven LAJATANGS ARE SO ALTERNATIVE AND UNDERRATED!"...
Yet I'll have to go with my heart's call which is Polearms.

Unarmed would be better if it gave a minor bonus to general weapon use.

I picked Polearms because inherent reaching.

I think reaching should be neutered a bit if you're using a shield, penalty removed with appropriate shield skill.

No it wouldn't. If you want to fight unarmed you fight unarmed (and thus the bonus is useless), if you want to fight with weapons a major bonus from weapon skill/Fighting is a lot more useful than a "minor bonus". I also fail how this makes any sense from a game-design perspective, and in particular how this could possibly make unarmed combat any better (as opposed to the Unarmed Combat skill).

note that , if that's where you're coming from.



What for? One-handed polearms are a lot weaker damage-wise than two-handers. On spell-less melee builds, a bardiche is usually an obvious choice over a demon trident (theoretically, of course, various drops like vampiric dtrident vs bardiche of draining could change your pick)

Of course cerebovssquire knows the game much better than I do, but I'm going to vote for maces and flails nevertheless.

The reason being that while it does not contain the ultimately best weapon (unless you're an ogre perhaps,) even if you worship Okawaru you cannot guarantee getting the ultimate best weapon.

The base damage of a great mace was increased to 18 in 0.10, which while it is inferior to exe axe, triple sword or bardiche (no reaching) does make it better than a battleaxe or great sword, and therefore the best weapon you are actually likely to find. Demon whips aren't bad either.

I really wanted to vote for staves (staff of earth is still the coolest, though I suspect even before the nerf it was inferior to the best weapons.)

Although I threw a few comments in to spruce things up, I now prefer polearms. For only 14 skill levels, you get a weapon that is strong early game and can be used very tactically, something the other weapons (asides forms) offer. I believe a few added perks to other weapon types would add a bit more choice. Then again, someone proved that any weapon can win the game: robot from the future.

I completely agree with your reasoning about vampiric brands - it's definitely the strongest brand in game with the possible exception of holy wrath vs vulnerable creatures (which I believe is about on par with speed?) but it's so hard to find that it is pretty hard to count on. I've also lost one or two games by using a painfully sub-optimal weapon for too long just because it was vampiric, so

But in an interesting choice kind of way - I find that shields fulfill the same role as vampiric weapons do. They keep your health at max when the fight is over, and with unarmed combat, barely hurt your damage output. I honestly picked unarmed in this poll, and I have never had a blade hands using character. I know people say shields are worthless in the extended game but I find them to be useful throughout. You can block magic with shields, which is rather rare in any rpg, and blocking crystal spears with high probability makes ancient liches something of a joke.

I am raising up another naga monk whose purpose is to try the blade hands variation, but I think that extended with a shield and necromutation is probably the most survival you can have. You are really just resistant to pretty much everything, and without torment to shave off large amounts of health, the straight damage of hellfire isn't that severe. I'm really afraid I'm going to miss the shield too much

OK guys... I won two archers today and I take back everything I said about bardiches, anyone who says ranged weapons aren't the best class have probably not tried them yet, or tried them when they were a lot worse at crawl (like myself).

Likewise, I thought ranged was pretty bad when I was a lot worse at crawl. Now they are excellent. They also take away the advantage of polearms in that reaching is less helpful in combination with a ranged weapon, except perhaps for Centaurs.

Crossbows are great for most anyone, even at low skill. Longbows seem strongest in the abstract, but it depends on ammo of course. Well-enchanted slings work too but unenchanted sling don't seem to work well. For those with high strength, javelins work wonderfully. Ammo gifts have become the main reason my melee character take Oka or Trog.

Ranged weapons are also why I don't like vampiric weapons. Am I crazy or is the hunger cost too high to swap? (Maybe someone who doesn't think the temple is mid-game has an opinion.) In fact I was surprised to see vampiric weapons considered good by other commenters. Then again I've never tried a vampiric bardiche in combination with javelins. Probably in combination with conjurations they're great but I can never get working spellcaster-type characters that melee a lot.

Hint: if you heal back all the damage you take, nothing else matters

This. I remember my spelless MuFi zig-clearer pretty much staying at full health when taking on a draconian zig-level with vampiric double sword and +12 of the old slaying. I already knew that vampiric weapons were really great before but this experience was just downright insane. And vampiric brand does not need any skill investment in necro...so yeah.

Right. I guess you can always leave the vampiric weapon behind in the Abyss, Pan, the Crypt, the Tomb, and the Hells. Where, of course, speed or holy wrath will suffice.

No need to leave your old standby behind. You just go TSO, covert it from vampiric to holy wrath, and still get hp for killing things.

Actually you get health for killing demons and undead rather then just damaging living so it isn't quite the same.

For the record, the only reason I personally do not consider ranged to be the strongest combat type is the start. Going 100% ranged from the beginning will get you killed, so it's important to have some other way to damage things, and that puts it at a disadvantage compared to everything else.

Polearms after the reaching buff. Killing that tormentor or summoner thats hiding behind other enemies is god like. Not to mention getting a free attack or two in when the enemy is closing in on you.

Well, AFAIK big non-artifact weapons cannot get the speed brand and holy wrath is not that great if found on d:1 and not so many people see the extented anyways... so holy wrath is definitely not the best overall brand in terms of how the game is usually played. But of course, this is just another episode on the 3 rune vs 15 rune and zig-clearing discussions.

And what is Crypt doing in your list anyways? Apart from the liches maybe (ancient or not), I bet you could clear it wielding a lantern of shadows or a book if you have slaying or enough potions of might .

Ok, I read somewhere (It's a long post detailing the best weapon for each weapon class that I unfortunately cannot find now) that a Longbow of Holy Wrath is the best weapon in the game. Is anyone willing to second that statement?

I tabbed through zigsprint with Piercer plus finesse (seriously if you're not convinced that ranged combat is OP go try this, the only problematic levels were a mummy zig where I could not outrace the summoning and the final zig 27 drac level, but drac levels are always hard) so I'm pretty sure that holy longbow is the best weapon in the game against stuff where it works, sure (assuming high plusses).

I like maces and flails. Seems like I'm one of the few... an early whip of elec can last you until late lair, and by then you probably have a plethora of maces to last you until a Demon Whip. I love demon whips so much... uguu~

They also dont chop of hydra heads, which I adore. Common, too.