Proposal:Alternative dragon armour buffs

[Shard1697]

• Swamp dragon armour nows gives rRot. Normally SDA is a waste by the time the player gets to swamp or anywhere else swamp dragons show up, since rPois is fairly common and not worth the enchant scroll. This way, SDA is a more enticing option to enchant up for players who already have rF/rC covered, and is a worthwhile swap for the price of a scroll to help deal with later areas where rot is common(not to mention that one swamp ending where you have to walk through areas miasma spawns in).
• Mottled dragon armour now protects against engulf. Ever since item protection stopped being a thing, rNapalm became totally pointless-better to just throw on a rF+ ring when you see a sticky flame enemy. MDA is still useful because of the spot it hits in encumbrance vs. AC, but that's not as interesting as providing a resist people care about like the other dragon armours. So, I think it'd be fairly sensible to extend MDA's weird anti-sticky liquid properties to include making water elementals unable to grip it, for a potentially quite useful if situational resist for spellcasters.

[XuaXua]

that's not as interesting as providing a resist people care about like the other dragon armours.

I don't think too many players give a hoot about rSteam...

edit: added r to "steam".

[Turukano]

Normally SDA is a waste by the time the player gets to swamp or anywhere else swamp dragons show up, since rPois is fairly common and not worth the enchant scroll.

I recently was interested in what players think about dragon armours: Survey: which dragon armour is the best in general? One intention of this topic was if there are other players who consider swamp DA to be a very desirable body armour.

In the meantime, after having found a pearl DA after about 100 turns (!) in a recent game I have to admit that I personally prefer swamp DA over any other body armour. Well, this depends on my playstyle of course. I like hybrid chars and pearl DA has a higher penalty to spellcasting than I like. I don't mind if other players prefer pearl DA. But anyway, swamp DA is great.

[Turukano]

I don't think too many players give a hoot about steam...

I hope you make an exception:

  Code:

+7 steam dragon armour "Dimosub" {Slay+6}


[johlstei]

I don't think too many players give a hoot about steam...

I hope you make an exception:

  Code:

+7 steam dragon armour "Dimosub" {Slay+6}


He means the steam resistance that it provides, Steam Dragon Armour is great on a lot of characters even when it isn't ridiculous like that one.

[XuaXua]

I don't think too many players give a hoot about steam...

I hope you make an exception:

  Code:

+7 steam dragon armour "Dimosub" {Slay+6}


I guess the rSteam is OK on that one...

[XuaXua]

I recently was interested in what players think about dragon armours...

There were statistics someone did a while back that revealed the best DA for winning was the FDA, and I think it was based on an analysis of either armours used or armours worn during winning games. I don't know which thread it was. It was either that or it was someone with an insane amount of wins who spoke up and declared that all he ever used were FDAs when he could get them.

[Lasty]

MDA and SwampDA are both excellent armours (under the right circumstances) without a boost, even an almost-nonexistent boost like the proposed one. Also, the change is so insignificant in terms of actual gameplay that it's hardly worth doing.

Put another way, I wouldn't complain if this happened because I wouldn't notice, but I can't see any reason to take the time to do it.

[Wahaha]

rPois is a lot (a lot a lot) more useful than rRot.

[and into]

rPois is a lot (a lot a lot) more useful than rRot.

I was about to say exactly this.

Beyond that, mottled and swamp already allow for a good AC/EV split at low levels of strength and with minimal/low spell casting interference. Other ones can get a better split going, but only at higher strength levels, so outside of Zin, Chei, Demigod, lucky gear, etc., it can be a bit harder to get the most out of them on characters that also care about spell casting.

Giving SwampDA rRot on top of rPois would be an unnecessary buff (ditto giving rEngulf to mottled), and replacing rPois with rRot would simply be a nerf.

There were statistics someone did a while back that revealed the best DA for winning was the FDA, and I think it was based on an analysis of either armours used or armours worn during winning games.

Popular does not mean the best. Nothing is wrong with FDA, of course, but the fact it shows up a lot in won games doesn't necessarily mean it is the best armor for winning.

[KoboldLord]

The problem with dragon armours that causes them to not be used as often is the fact they don't spawn until relatively late in the game. It has nothing to do with the desirability (or lack thereof) of the resistance they offer. You can't reasonably afford to wait on your body armor until dragon corpses start dropping, and the scrolls involved in making your starter plate armour into marginally adequate mid-game armor is a cost-prohibitive expense that keeps you from reasonably starting over. Better just to keep pumping the +5 plate of foo resistance that you already have, rather than start over.

So you're trying to fix the wrong problem, if you want to see dragon armours on more characters. You'd need more early-game vaults that throw dragons at the player. Lair 8/Orc 4 is about the point where you can't afford to dither on picking your final armor any longer, assuming you haven't found some fantastic artefact that'll keep you covered.

[crate]

The worst dragon armours are really fda and ida, imo

don't see why people are considering changing the other ones that are already good!

[Sandman25]

What's wrong with IDA when you have 2 rings with rF++ each? It's only 1 base armour worse than PDA but provides rC++ which is much more useful than rN+ and I hope everyone likes PDA.

[Sar]

What's wrong with IDA when you have 2 rings with rF++ each?

You could wear +6 MDA, Robustness and a ring of protection +6 instead and get better AC and EV. As for resists, I dunno, just put on hat of the Alchemist I guess.

[Sandman25]

You could wear +6 MDA, Robustness and a ring of protection +6 instead and get better AC and EV. As for resists, I dunno, just put on hat of the Alchemist I guess.

Fully enchanted IDA gives +6 AC over MDA at Armour 0, +9 AC at Armour 22 so a ring with rF++ is better than robustness here (even without taking into account rF+ and rC++ which MDA does not give).

[Sar]

Well then just put two rings of slaying +9 there instead.

[Sandman25]

Well then just put two rings of slaying +9 there instead.

And have no resistances (hat of alchemist is not guaranteed and I would prefer CPA in this case).
I have not seen a single +9 ring of slaying after the slaying reform
I was not even sure if they are generated because old +0,+9 slaying was much weaker than new +9 slaying.

[johlstei]

Well then just put two rings of slaying +9 there instead.

And have no resistances (hat of alchemist is not guaranteed and I would prefer CPA in this case).
I have not seen a single +9 ring of slaying after the slaying reform
I was not even sure if they are generated because old +0,+9 slaying was much weaker than new +9 slaying.

That's what he was saying though, how often do you have a ring rF++ before it'd time to pick an armour to enchant? I'd say that's exceedingly rare, maybe not quite hat of the alchemist rare but it's up there.

[Sar]

Basically what johlstei said, I found the "IDA is not bad if you have two rings of rF++" line quite funny in the context of generally evaluating dragon armours.

Btw I don't think FDA is bad, though there are often better armours for a lot of characters. And I remember using IDA a couple of times when I had a lot of rF sources, too.

Edit: also yeah, IIRC slay is now capped at 8.

[Sandman25]

Basically what johlstei said, I found the "IDA is not bad if you have two rings of rF++" line quite funny in the context of generally evaluating dragon armours.

Btw I don't think FDA is bad, though there are often better armours for a lot of characters. And I remember using IDA a couple of times when I had a lot of rF sources, too.

My point was that IDA is better than PDA provided you can deal with rF- it gives. When talking about AC/EV, I will take IDA over MDA/SteamDA/StormDA/SwampDA.

[Sar]

And my point is, you can't really talk about IDA/FDA without considering their elemental penalties. Saying "well you can mitigate that by having an extremely specific random artefact generated before you made a decision to invest your enchant armour scrolls" is saying nothing, basically.

[johlstei]

And my point is, you can't really talk about IDA/FDA without considering their elemental penalties. Saying "well you can mitigate that by having an extremely specific random artefact generated before you made a decision to invest your enchant armour scrolls" is saying nothing, basically.

Even if you do assume some crazy artifact ring has dropped, you also need to consider the opportunity cost of the ring slot. In a game where you really only need one pip of fire/cold resistance, putting yourself two pips away from that on one element in exchange for two pips of the other(one of which isn't that useful) is a pretty poor trade. I'd be way more inclined to wear fire dragon armour if it gave rF+ and no rC-, and was just basically a glowing armor of fire resistance with that AC/encumbrance.

[XuaXua]

I do have to say that, while I understand it mechanically, I don't quote "get" how putting on protection to elements makes you more susceptible to elements.

If I had to explain it for a biological "lore" perspective, to get that innate -rC, I guess the scales of FDA would functionally specifically channel cold inward as a buffer against heat to create the ++rF effect, as a side-effect, making it much easier for cold to access the wearer. And biologically, vice-versa for IDA.

[johlstei]

I do have to say that, while I understand it mechanically, I don't quote "get" how putting on protection to elements makes you more susceptible to elements.

If I had to explain it for a biological "lore" perspective, to get that innate -rC, I guess the scales of FDA would functionally specifically channel cold inward as a buffer against heat to create the ++rF effect, as a side-effect, making it much easier for cold to access the wearer. And biologically, vice-versa for IDA.

it behaves nothing like dragon armour in real life, devs????

[Sharkman1231]

Well, it behaves in a similar fashion to D&D monsters. Red dragon? Polar Ray that mother-fucker. White Dragon? Scorching Ray. The other dargons don't have vulnerabilities unless they are [fire] or [cold].

[KoboldLord]

Well, it behaves in a similar fashion to D&D monsters. Red dragon? Polar Ray that mother-fucker. White Dragon? Scorching Ray. The other dargons don't have vulnerabilities unless they are [fire] or [cold].

Psst! Polar Ray is arguably the weakest 8th-level spell in 3.X D&D. There is no build that should ever reasonably use it, even situationally. The common cold weakness for fire subtypes and fire weakness for cold subtypes is also particular to that edition; in older and newer editions, a fire monster is nearly as likely to resist cold as to be weak to it, and vice versa.

I don't know if there's an argument as to why Crawl does it this way. Probably mostly because it's always been this way, and nobody has ever been motivated to change it. I know I'm not motivated to change it.

[PleasingFungus]

Mottled dragon armour now protects against engulf. Ever since item protection stopped being a thing, rNapalm became totally pointless...

alternate suggestion: make sticky flame meaningful again

(suggestions pending)

[johlstei]

Mottled dragon armour now protects against engulf. Ever since item protection stopped being a thing, rNapalm became totally pointless...

alternate suggestion: make sticky flame meaningful again

(suggestions pending)

Sticky flame heats up your armour a lot, doing more average damage the heavier your armour is. (Metal armour only?)

[XuaXua]

Mottled dragon armour now protects against engulf. Ever since item protection stopped being a thing, rNapalm became totally pointless...

alternate suggestion: make sticky flame meaningful again

(suggestions pending)

Considering it's a sticky, burning paste, make it corrode over time? *ducks*

[damiac]

Sticky flame is plenty meaningful. It just appears way too late most of the time. Just spawn mottled dragons a bit earlier, more chance for a nice hide, more chance for the owner of that hide to light you on fire until you are dead.

Sticky flame could probably also stand to ignore AC, or at least not consider it fully.
Edit: Well apparently it already does that. So it should just appear earlier to be more meaningful.

[duvessa]

it already ignores AC

[johlstei]

Someone should assemble a true list of all AC-ignoring things and put it in learndb.

[Siegurt]

Steam dragon armour = Clarity
Mottled dragon armour = immunity to paralysis and petrification

[tasonir]

Well, it behaves in a similar fashion to D&D monsters. Red dragon? Polar Ray that mother-fucker. White Dragon? Scorching Ray. The other dargons don't have vulnerabilities unless they are [fire] or [cold].

Psst! Polar Ray is arguably the weakest 8th-level spell in 3.X D&D. There is no build that should ever reasonably use it, even situationally. The common cold weakness for fire subtypes and fire weakness for cold subtypes is also particular to that edition; in older and newer editions, a fire monster is nearly as likely to resist cold as to be weak to it, and vice versa.

I don't know if there's an argument as to why Crawl does it this way. Probably mostly because it's always been this way, and nobody has ever been motivated to change it. I know I'm not motivated to change it.

I have seriously proposed that FDA/IDA become rF+ and rC+ only, with no associated weakness. Some people agreed, some people didn't, and it never went anywhere. I think it would be a useful buff which would make them easier to use because it wouldn't depend on you being able to cover the weakness before using it, while also not making them much stronger overall. I'd still love to see that, but I'm not holding my breath.

[damiac]

I think that would be good, FDA and IDA are practically unusable for most characters, because RF++ does not make up for RC-, so now I need to give up 2 slots to get to RC+. It's rare that that's even possible, let alone worthwhile, and the armor itself isn't even that great (8ac, 11 evp certainly isn't bad, but it's not that great either)

EDIT: Fascinating? If you say so...

[PleasingFungus]

I think that would be good, FDA and IDA are practically unusable for most characters, because RF++ does not make up for RC-, so now I need to give up 2 slots to get to RC+. It's rare that that's even possible, let alone worthwhile, and the armor itself isn't even that great (8ac, 11 evp certainly isn't bad, but it's not that great either)

fascinating

[Rumbleguts]

While IDA may be worn less often than FDA, it works pretty well for a fire elementalist. A Dg I recently played wore IDA and easily made up for the rF- with a ring of fire, staff of fire, and of course casting Ring of Flames at the start of every fight.
Then again, I bet that an FE wearing medium-encumbrance armour is not very representative of FE's.

[johlstei]

IDA is great armor for djinn

[Rumbleguts]

Ooh, I bet IDA was good for Lava Orcs too.

And IDA will be a good armour for Fire Crabs, once I learn how to code and make them a playable species.

[damiac]

Well, there are cases where the armors are worth using, but it's extremely rare when I have a character where it's worthwhile to use an IDA/FDA, and I also find it, and I have enough EA scrolls for it.

It seems that it's more common for me to have a character wearing PDA than FDA or IDA, and finding PDA is extremely rare.

It would be a nice buff to them if they were just RF+ or RC+.