nicolae wrote:Would a minimum delay of 0.8 or 0.9 work?
Minimum delay is a nerf to damage over time. In fact, it's a really BIG nerf to damage over time, since attack delay is multiplicative rather than additive and it multiplies into more things than base damage. It's also much more granular; Unless the base damage of axes was given a HUGE boost, I think making the minimum delay worse would just make them strictly worse than the other weapon classes. In this particular case, a minimum delay of 0.8 would be a straight 12.5% damage nerf with no way to compensate.
jejorda2 wrote:Make them noisy?
How noisy are we talking about? If we're talking about walking around with a Mephitic Cloud, that's basically the Singing Sword's thing.
XuaXua wrote:An EV penalty, perhaps?
roctavian wrote:+1 for an EV penalty as much as I appreciate the thematics of KL's AC penalty -- it increases the gamble in a certain sense; characters will want to drop the enemy before they manage to get that one hit in. It does perhaps motivate characters to take up heavy armor more.
I did consider combining an AC and an EV penalty, so it would be sure to hit both light-armor and heavy-armor characters equally, but I thought it might be more interesting to make the decision between light and heavy armor a little more difficult. Heavy spellcasters like Kiku worshipers are unlikely to have the xp to spare training up axes, so they're more likely to train up a cheaper weapon class. Of the subset of characters who are likely to be picking axes anyway, more of them tend to be Trog or Makhleb or whomever followers who have nothing to lose from picking up heavy armor, and at most will train charms and translocations later on to get Haste and Phase Shift.
Late-game, it doesn't really matter much. Those heavy-armor axe-wielders will have either 50AC and 25EV, or they'll have 45AC and 30EV. Either way, they'll be fine. Earlier on, however, you can't afford to maximize both AC and EV so you're going to have to choose. If you've got to suck up a -5 to EV, then there's no problem; just strap on that plate armour and enjoy the fact that you weren't going to dodge anything anyway. It costs quite a bit of dodging skill and dexterity to get EV above 6 or 7 in plate armour unless you have a ring or something to cheat with, so if you're already sucking up a -5 you might as well just dump the stat and be done with it until the lategame. A scaling AC penalty is easier to mitigate, however; that +10 plate armour you enchanted up just gives +15 instead of +20, and your whole AC will still be pretty high.
tasonir wrote:I could see the AC penalty, but -5ac in plate seems a bit extreme, I'd lower it to 1-2 points...
That's why I pegged it to scale like the deformed body mutation. -5AC is what centaurs and naga get in plate armour, and it doesn't stop them any. A centaur or naga axe-wielder will probably still end up in heavy armor by the end of the game, and the enchantment bonus would be as big as ever.
And note that the -5 would only be in the best common armor wielding the very best possible axe which is actually super-rare unless you're worshipping Trog or Okawaru. Using the example numbers I posted, which are of course subject to revision if necessary, the best common armor paired with the best common axe would only be -3AC. That's not so bad.
Thursday, 20th September 2012, 01:54 
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