Multiple stabber-related Short Q's

[BountyHunterSAx]

So, lots of little questions and many of them are just to confirm what I *think* I know. Obviously if I'm wrong I'd really like to be set right. Without further ado...

1.) Daggers reach the base-stabbing-damage cap faster than any other blade type, since there's a doubling somewhere in the formula (or a lower threshhold). That said, the stab-bonus damage does NOT suffer due to using a dagger rather than a sabre or long-blade, as long as your dex*stabbing thingy-mabaob is greater than the 300/600 cutoff.
True?

2.) The increased accuracy - at least theoretically- helps increase your stabbing opportunities by making you less likely to miss. The increased damage from enchant weapon II / slaying bonuses is *NOT* factored into the formula that determines your stabbing damage.
True?

3.) Skill level 10 with short blades gives you min-delay with daggers. For invisi-stabbing/confuse-stabbing where it may take multiple attempts to actually get a stab in, this is important.
True?

4.) *serious question*: Invisibility against enemies that cannot see invisible makes them LESS LIKELY to wake up when I approach.
Is this true? It definitely *feels* true, but I'm not certain. Obviously once they wake up I still have tier-2 stab opportunities as well.

5.) My zombie/skeleton allies walking either have ridiculously good stealth checks, or are not a factor in being detected.
I'm iffy on this one; my instinct is to say they would be, but in actual playing I find it hard to call whether or not that's true. How do summoned/zombied allies play in to being detected for the purposes of getting in a sleep-stab?

6.) Does an unbranded quick blade and a dagger of speed give the same min-delay?
My math says yes; but my brain says 'ow'.

7.) Passwall and Dig are both silent spells. If I am behind a 1-thickness wall and dig towards an enemy, do they get a chance to detect me the moment I finish digging? Or do I get one 'free turn' as it were. Same question for passwall.

8.) When using darkness or some ability that decreases LOS, do enemies get alerted or awoken?
I've never trained for this skill specifically because I believe the answer to be yes. But if Ashenzari provides me enemy locations outside my vision, then that coupled with diminished LOS on them could be phenomenal.

9.) One of the most irritating things for a 'pure-stabber' to run across is The large golem-type enemies. Immune to hostile enchantments, Immune/Highly Resistant to elemental damage, and HD=22 so immune to confusing touch. Also see invisible. How do I force them into a stabbable state?
Thusfar I've used mass-summons and tried to ankle-stab when they were momentarily distracted. I've killed crystal-golems with this tactic, so i know it can work; but I'm hopeful I'm overlooking something.

10.) Does flame/freeze/pain/distortion/chaos/elec/stab brand bonus damage take effect BEFORE or AFTER the stabbing multiplier? That is to say, is my pitiful ~4dmg being turned into 36 flame damage on a high-level tier1 stab, or not.

11.) What spells should I stop overlooking and give a real try to? I primarily use invis/high Stealth training for my first bunch of free tier-1 stabs. Next I switch to EH for juicy vulnerable targets or Confuse for undead/harder to EH targets. If I'm dealing with several awakened creatures I'll use mephitic cloud +stab for mid-tier or Invisibility/Mass Confusion for higher tier (think Vault-level) enemies. I use confusing touch for enemies that I suspect have ridiculously good MR and that I think I can survive a turn or two against mano-a-mano. Passwall+Dig make for EXCELLENT assassination and escape tools; especially for Ashenzari. And finally I like keeping shadow creatures, blink, and teleport for 'when shit goes wrong'.
And despite this massive kit there are still several enemies that force me into a "fine, spam shadow creatures and win" mode.



That's about it for now.


-AHMAD

[byrel]

1.) True. Also note that bonus damage suffers from dramatically reduced return on investment as you approach the cutoff.

2.) False. Stabbing is a bonus added to your full damage (including slaying, etc.) + a multiplier on that sum. Accuracy only affects Tier 2+3 stabs; Tier 1 are guaranteed.

3.) True. Other important thresholds are 8 for quick blades, and 14 for sabres. (Both require more stabbing skill, but have much better non-stab damage output.)

4.) Very True. Sense invisible somewhat reduces this. This is what makes an early cloak of darkness such a great find on any build. I'll nearly always immediately pick up a bit of stabbing and a dagger, and waltz through the early game with very little experience investment. It gives you time to raise your endgame offense/defense skills without being constrained by current effectiveness. Watch out for the handful of invisible seeing/sensing critters though.

5.) Not sure. All my play seems to indicate they don't trigger stealth checks.

6.) True. Note that daggers of speed are even (significantly!) more worthless in standard melee than normal daggers.

7.) One free turn

8.) No; darkness (or the Ds Night stalker mutation) does not affect your stealth. Silence and the Lantern of Shadows do however; maybe that's what you were thinking. Yes, these are great for stabbers.

9.) Some golems can't see invis, so that can work. Nets technically work, but not for long. Mass-summons works, somewhat. There's no great solution. They do tend to be slow however; great candidates for practicing the old crawl doctine "Thou shalt not kill everything."

10.) First, a high-level tier-1 stab is going to turn 4dmg into something like 200dmg. You can easily one-stab kill tentacled monstrosities, if you can get a tier-1. I believe brands never proc on a tier-1, which keeps noisy brands like elec from waking up his neighbors. Not sure on other tiers; I tend to avoid them when possible.

11.) Petrify is the only one that comes to mind. Free tier-1 stabs! Plus some swarm spell (D. Swarm is ideal; scorps or imps if necessary) for tier-2 stabs, absorbing bolts, etc. Depending on the branch you may want to use this in place of shadow creatures for damage output too; I used Scorpions as late as V:8 to eliminate poison resistant enemies on a SpVM of Ash (RNG refused to give me Poison Arrow for the longest time.) Dragons, Stone giants, etc. fall to them in good circumstances, without too much fuss. You could also pick up some conjurations instead of summonings for backup: Poison cloud/Freezing cloud are within reach for most builds. Ignite poison is a cheap elemental diversifier if using poison cloud.

[BlackSheep]

1) If you want to stab, use a dagger.

2) Accuracy is a good thing, sure. The damage bonus bit is false, though.

3) Yes. cf. accuracy

4) http://crawl.develz.org/info/inline.php?q=stealth

5) I don't believe allies factor into stealth calculations. (Except maybe if they cast spells that make noise or something. Someone check this.)

6) Min. delay before haste for both will be 0.3. With haste, the speed dagger consistantly hits at 0.2, but the quickblade seems to alternate between 0.2 and 0.3. Quick blades have higher base damage, though, and don't have the 90% damage penalty.

7) Passwall should never wake up an enemy on the other side when it finishes. Dig is silent, but I'm not sure whether casting it counts as an "action" in sight of a sleeping monster revealed by the dig.

8) Darkness doesn't interact with stealth; it just reduces LOS. It's the lantern of shadows that sets stealth to zero.

9) I don't know what you mean by "pure stabber" but many golems can't see invisble, so there's that. Electric golems can, however. You'll probably have to use an alternate means of killing them. (Including "killing" them by walking away.)

10) Brands are applied after the stab is calculated (also after all the other damage bonuses are calculated), and also after target AC is applied. Multiplicative brands apply to "damage_done" which is modified by player_stab(damage_done) so it looks like your stab damage gets multiplied.

11) I like to leverage necromancy since I'm usually playing a spriggan stabber and have no other use for corpses.

[BlackSheep]

I believe brands never proc on a tier-1, which keeps noisy brands like elec from waking up his neighbors. Not sure on other tiers; I tend to avoid them when possible.

I see nothing to indicate that's true. What is true is that brands aren't applied to dead enemies. Since you'll usually one-shot sleeping or paralyzed monsters, you'll have no need for the brand damage, but if they survive, then the brand will get applied.

[crate]

Clarification: (BlackSheep is right on everything as far as I know except #6:)

2) You cannot miss on a sleep/paralysis stab as far as I know. +acc helps a bit for confuse stabs though.

3) Not usually important but true.

4) If a monster can see invis then you get no stealth bonus at all from being invisible. Similarly if it can sense invis and you are within the sense invis range then being invisible does nothing.

6) Qblade at mindelay with haste is 0.2 delay on all attacks, not sure how you're getting 0.3's (do you have a shield penalty?)

[Psieye]

4) I have had numerous instances of monsters that have no see/sense invis managing to detect me despite being invis. It's an extremely low chance though.

5) I've never had allies wake up monsters. Once they are awake though, my allies are very easily spotted.

8) Do note that the Darkness spell makes "quiet" noise. In Crypt/Tomb, which is dead silent otherwise, "quiet" travels quite far and alerts the inhabitants to your presence.

9) LRD. My stabbers always learn Earth magic for passwall/dig/petrify, so why not grab LRD as well? Yes you are giving up the stealth game in the area when you use it. Make sure you simply don't care: either because you can kill things just fine without stealth (because you have LRD); because you've killed everything else in the area so there's nothing left to stab; or because you're going to leave the area and come back thousands of turns later when the stealth game is reset.

11) See my latest VpEn for ideas.


There is also a question you haven't asked: how long does it take for the stealth game to reset (i.e. things to fall asleep again)? I estimate it to be thousands of aut, but I'd appreciate a more definitive answer.

[CommanderC]

There is also a question you haven't asked: how long does it take for the stealth game to reset (i.e. things to fall asleep again)? I estimate it to be thousands of aut, but I'd appreciate a more definitive answer.

From _catchup_monster_moves (effects.cc):

  Code:

    // After x turns, half of the monsters will have forgotten about the
    // player, and a quarter has gone to sleep. A given monster has a
    // 95% chance of forgetting the player after 4*x turns, and going to
    // sleep after 10*x turns.
    int x = 0; // Quiet unitialized variable compiler warning.
    switch (mons_intel(mon))
    {
    case I_HIGH:
        x = 1000;
        break;
    case I_NORMAL:
        x = 500;
        break;
    case I_ANIMAL:
    case I_INSECT:
        x = 250;
        break;
    case I_PLANT:
        x = 125;
        break;
    }

    bool changed = false;
    for  (int i = 0; i < range/x; i++)
    {
        if (mon->behaviour == BEH_SLEEP)
            break;

        if (coinflip())
        {
            changed = true;
            if (coinflip())
                mon->behaviour = BEH_SLEEP;
            else
            {
                mon->behaviour = BEH_WANDER;
                mon->foe = MHITNOT;
                mon->target = random_in_bounds();
            }
        }
    }



[BlackSheep]

6) Qblade at mindelay with haste is 0.2 delay on all attacks, not sure how you're getting 0.3's (do you have a shield penalty?)

I created a SpEn in wizmode and advanced it to 27 training skills. I thought I had 20-something Short Blades skill, but I guess I didn't. I'm testing it again now on a 0.11 installation and am seeing consistent 0.2's. The only other thing I can think of is that I had something odd going on with my 0.12 installation at home.

[njvack]

Quick blades have higher base damage, though, and don't have the 90% damage penalty.

More importantly, speed is the only brand you'll get on your speed dagger. You can get a quickblade of pain, distortion, or electricity, which will thrash some dudes.

[Lasty]

2) You cannot miss on a sleep/paralysis stab as far as I know. +acc helps a bit for confuse stabs though.

You can "miss" if you're in water and you slip, but accuracy won't help with that.

Re: stabbing with elec-brand daggers, I'm fairly certain that elec only makes noise in water, even when it does proc. I'm playing a KoEn right now that's using an elec dagger, and it hasn't been any kind of problem for making noise.

[njvack]

Re: stabbing with elec-brand daggers, I'm fairly certain that elec only makes noise in water, even when it does proc. I'm playing a KoEn right now that's using an elec dagger, and it hasn't been any kind of problem for making noise.

Looking at the code, it does appear that electric branded attacks are noisier than normal ones. It looks like this is the case regardless of whether the elec effect procs or not, and is smaller(?) for more damaging attacks. I'm not sure if this is intended, buggy, or if I'm just misunderstanding the code.

melee_attack.cc:2988 (at least in my fairly-recent git pull):

  Code:

    case SPWPN_ELECTROCUTION:
        noise_factor += 800 / max(1, damage_done);


The water effect is considered an explosion and makes sound separately.

[BlackSheep]

Later on, in handle_noise(), you'll find:

  Code:

    // Successful stabs make no noise.
    if (stab_attempt)
    {
        noise_factor = 0;
        return;
    }

So stabs are silent, except in the water example you cited.

Regarding dividing by damage_done, later on in handle_noise the noise_factor is multiplied by damage_done, then divided by 100, then by 4. (That's an odd implementation. I assume it's different from just dividing by 400 because it's integer division?) Anyway, the final calculation works out to be quite small.

[njvack]

I assume it's different from just dividing by 400 because it's integer division?

Nope. As far as I can tell, (x/400) and ((x/100)/4) are identical by integer math rules. (tested for (1..2000) in ruby 1.9.3).

[some12fat2move]

From _catchup_monster_moves (effects.cc):

  Code:

    switch (mons_intel(mon))
    {
    case I_HIGH:
        x = 1000;
        break;
    case I_NORMAL:
        x = 500;
        break;
    case I_ANIMAL:
    case I_INSECT:
        x = 250;
        break;
    case I_PLANT:
        x = 125;
        break;
    }


OT: I dabble in C++ and Python and searched for a way to switch a string...to no avail. What language is this?

[njvack]

  Code:

    switch (mons_intel(mon))
    {
    case I_HIGH:


OT: I dabble in C++ and Python and searched for a way to switch a string...to no avail. What language is this?

It's C++. I_HIGH is of type mon_intel_type, which is an enum. It's effectively an integer type.

[BlackSheep]

From mon-enum.h:

  Code:

enum mon_intel_type             // Must be in increasing intelligence order
{
    I_PLANT = 0,
    I_INSECT,
    I_REPTILE = I_INSECT, // just for documentation
    I_ANIMAL,
    I_NORMAL,
    I_HIGH,
};

It's a collection of named integer constants.

[some12fat2move]

Got it. Thanks.</derail>

[Lasty]

Inspired by the others pasting code, I took a look at these same files, and found two things:

1) flaming weapons add noise in approximately the same way as electric weapons, but with 400 instead of 800 as the value.
2) all noise values generated in apply_damage_brand() seem to be overwritten in adjust_noise(), which gets called later in attack(), meaning that brands don't seem to actually add noise at all -- possibly as a bug.
3) The noise values that are actually used before being divided as BlackSheep describes are: 125 for whips and bludgeons, 100 for slicing weapons, 75 for piercing weapons, 150 for barehanded (assuming NULL equals barehanded).

[BlackSheep]

2) all noise values generated in apply_damage_brand() seem to be overwritten in adjust_noise(), which gets called later in attack(), meaning that brands don't seem to actually add noise at all -- possibly as a bug.

That does appear to be the case. If any wandering devs decide to take a look at this, also note that adjust_noise() seems to set the hands value of the attack for no discernible reason.

[BountyHunterSAx]

Thanks for the confirmations (and subsequent discussion). I'm still not sold on trying LRD out; but I'll at least start carrying it in my spellset as perhaps another answer to the same damn golems I was just complaining about.

I'm well aware that you can (fairly easily) pick a 2nd path to follow with your stabber. Like conjurations+Stabber or Summons+stabber. The thing is, doing that always makes me ask the question: why not just play a conjurer/summoner? I mean, most my wins are through that kind of caster anyway and they have fewer restrictions and risks on them. I hybridize to a degree, but If there's more ways to go pure stabber that'd be higher on my list - hence why i posted the topic.


There are three really big new things I'm taking away from this:
1.) People place a lot of value on the actual melee ability of their stabbing weapon compared to me. Like, I don't care if my dagger has a subpar melee attack since if I'm using it for anything other than tier-1 or attempted tier-2 stabs, I don't expect it to work. And if I use it for a tier-2 stab it shouldn't take more than two successful stabs. TOPS.
Though I'll probably put more stock into my secondary weapon from now on, since there's bound to be something I'm missing.

2.) Flame/Freeze is by FAR the best brand for stab-daggers, except possibly speed for a different kind of utility. Because if the brand's multiplicative bonus damage applies to the STAB as was said before then holy crap! When it procs, it gives a 25% damage boost which means you're doing at least as much damage in a tier-2 stab as you would have if you'd increased stabbing skill two full levels. It's fantastic!

-AHMAD

[daggaz]

If you have the defenses (high EV is enough) and minimum delay, then you can melee your way thru crawl well into the midgame with a piddling dagger and a little caution. Preferable to get a damage bonus of +4 or more, preferable to have a brand like elec or poison, but it will get the job done. Obviously if you are meleeing instead of stabbing, going for a bigger blade is better, but they dont always show up and frankly, Id rather have the branded dagger than a vanilla sabre most of the time, exceptions for example being brand immune things (ghostsfor both elec and poison).

As for stabbing, most things will die in one hit regardless of your dagger, assuming your stab skill is pumped. If they live, it wont take long in melee to finish them off, as its kind of hard to fight when your pancreas is hanging out of a hole in your back. Assuming you got your stealth up too, chances are good the other guys will sleep thru the commotion. Sometimes I just let the guy follow me around bleeding to death taking swings, while I coup-de-grace anybody in the room who is still sleeping.

I recommend running away however if you meet a tentacled monstrosity.

[jsmith]

Is there a reason to learn both petrify and ensourced hibernation? Does one work better on certain monsters?

[BlackSheep]

Petrify works on cold resistant monsters. Monsters won't wake up from petrify if something makes a loud noise. Petrify has a higher spell power cap than EH, which lets it affect things with higher magic resistance. Petrify works even if you've recently petrified the monster. Petrify has synergy with Lee's Rapid Deconstruction. You can drown flying monsters if you petrify them over water.

[Psieye]

Petrify is better, EH is cheaper and more accessible (given you will want invis).

[rebthor]

2.) Flame/Freeze is by FAR the best brand for stab-daggers, except possibly speed for a different kind of utility. Because if the brand's multiplicative bonus damage applies to the STAB as was said before then holy crap! When it procs, it gives a 25% damage boost which means you're doing at least as much damage in a tier-2 stab as you would have if you'd increased stabbing skill two full levels. It's fantastic!

I think the best brand on a stab dagger is actually speed since 90% of 150 damage on a stab is still 135 and you're getting more chances to actually stab which is presumably why you are using the dagger in the first place.

And scratch my calculation above. You get way more than 90% of the total damage since it's (dagger damage + bonus) * mult. Since only your dagger damage should be affected, it's more like 145 of the 150 damage.

[crate]

You don't really get more chances to stab since things wake up when you hit them....

[rebthor]

You don't really get more chances to stab since things wake up when you hit them....

Invisible /confused stabs are still stabs. And you don't need the bonus damage from a sleep stab, or at least you shouldn't if you're really stabbing.

[Psieye]

You don't really get more chances to stab since things wake up when you hit them....

Invisible /confused stabs are still stabs. And you don't need the bonus damage from a sleep stab, or at least you shouldn't if you're really stabbing.

That translates to over-training stabbing so you don't have to worry about not catching them asleep because you're one-shotting 180 HP uniques with tier-2 stabs?

[zedzed]

That translates to over-training stabbing so you don't have to worry about not catching them asleep because you're one-shotting 180 HP uniques with tier-2 stabs?

Why is it over training if it allows you to kill something quicker? Because if you're invisi-stabbing you can have as many stabs as you like since they can't see you? They do seem to detect where you are though (I think), so it's stab-move-stab instead of just (uber)stab-moveontonextmob?

[Psieye]

That translates to over-training stabbing so you don't have to worry about not catching them asleep because you're one-shotting 180 HP uniques with tier-2 stabs?

Why is it over training if it allows you to kill something quicker? Because if you're invisi-stabbing you can have as many stabs as you like since they can't see you? They do seem to detect where you are though (I think), so it's stab-move-stab instead of just (uber)stab-moveontonextmob?

There comes a point when you're up against See Invis, extreme MR mobs that you can't get invis/confuse stabs on if they wake up (and some of them will). It's another story if you ALSO have needles of stabbing and/or throwing nets that work but if you're reliant on hexes/petrify for stabs then you hit a dead end at that point. Granted you don't need to actually kill all these things to win but either way there's better places to be putting EXP than over-training stabbing. Just leave the extreme HP, extreme MR, See Invis things alone (like Nikola) or use some alternate killing option (like nukes or armies).

[rebthor]

You don't really get more chances to stab since things wake up when you hit them....

Invisible /confused stabs are still stabs. And you don't need the bonus damage from a sleep stab, or at least you shouldn't if you're really stabbing.

That translates to over-training stabbing so you don't have to worry about not catching them asleep because you're one-shotting 180 HP uniques with tier-2 stabs?

I don't know how you got that from my post. For example stone giant and iron trolls have lots of HP and decent AC and can sometimes take more than one tier two stab. Getting to attempt 6 stabs in the time it would take a normal character 3 means that you can continue to try to kill it with stabbing instead of using a different approach, like a pain sabre.