deposit or investment of enchant scroll

[sau]

I usually think that it is best to use enchant scroll for highest tier items like Executioner's axe, Gold dragon armour(skip the Crystal plate armour. because it is hard to see).

So just keep gather it, Until when I get what I want.(It is also the problem of me that don't know how much ability is enough for each dungeon)

And today, I died at Vault again just like all the times. I never go farther then Vault(usually moves like dungeon -> lair -> orc mine -> sub dungeon of lair -> elf hall or vault).

After I killed by Jory the vampire, thought like 'If I have used all the scrolls, game could have been not over yet'

My character was armed with +3+1 battle axe of pain, +2 plate armor of magic resistance and other randarts except cloak and boots.

At the same time, I was holding scrolls like 6 of +1 weapon, 7 of +2 weapon, 2 of +3 weapon, 5 of enchant armor.

After poor havest of elf hall(best Item was +15+15 crossbow of elec), I was hoping to get golden dragon hide and Executioner's axe in the vault. But failed as I already mentioned.

So what shoud I do? just keep keeping? or satisfy for battle axe and plate armor and use the enchant?

Ps : Teach me how to deal with the Lehudib's Crystal Spear. It kills both of my character and mental

[XuaXua]

You shouldn't carry those scrolls on your character if you're not using them; stash them in a cache in L2 or the Temple.

For me, I've been using the scrolls early till I get +4 on whatever I'm using (and I always use it on the highest + blowgun I can find after I've found 5 blowguns, assuming I'm using a blowgun).

I tend to score artefacts that outweigh the vanilla items. In my opinion, if you aren't using a +5 damage weapon by Lair, let alone Vaults (corrosion-proof), then you should blow enough scrolls to get that.

I use enchant armour on enhanced gloves / boots / cloak / helmet / hat, or if I find a proper dragon hide. You're less likely to find those outerwear than your general body armour.

[Midpoint]

enchant scrolls (like most of the limited resources) are a balancing act. You need to use them often enough to survive, and they can have a big impact in the early dungeon, so saving is rarely the best idea. Also, after +4 enchantment on weapons, they start to fail with increasing %age. You may be better off enchanting an earlier decent weapon and living longer, than blowing 8 ?EW II on an exe axe after you've killed the big threats and only getting it to +5 anyway.

So, for instance, if I'm using M&F I'll enchant up an early whip of foo (preferably elec, but other egos work fine too) between +2 to +5 if I find some scrolls early on. Then I'll start banking for an eventual demon whip/eveningstargreat mace. Enchantment has a big effect on launchers too, and vorpal is a great launcher brand, so if I'm using ranged I'll start piling on enchantment as soon as I find them.

?EArmour is a bit of a trickier call. You want to enchant something you are going to hold as long as possible (early boots/cloaks/helmets are good) until you have something 'nice'. Plate armour of MR isn't bad and if nothing else was turning up, I'd enchant it. Plate of rF is acceptable too if you need the resistance (whereas my last splat I found something like 5 +2 Plate of rC and no other egos). Gold dragons aren't especially common; they are late game when you should already have good armour; they may not drop a corpse; the corpse may not drop a hide. That's why a lot of folks use ice/fire dragon armour instead. It drops earlier, allows easier casting, and has a workable malus.

Still, I tend to hold onto ?EA & ?EW with Trog/Oka and with a faith amulet. It's still bad play on my part, but I can expect a good gift eventually.

Re LCS: Yeah, don't get hit and kill the source faster. Silence is useful for foo annihilators and ancient liches in general and LCS is one reason why. So EV helps. I think AC technically helps, but the damage is potential huge (from say an ancient lich) so it only helps shave your doom by a bit. You basically earn an extra round to run, slaughter or get slaughtered. You aren't going to be standing there taking hits from LCS over and over again.

Edit: so, yeah, what XuaXua said but longer

[and into]

Don't take on uniques with nasty LCS like Jory unless you have some strong counter to them. You don't have to kill everything you come across, and trying to do so often results in the death of your character. In Jory's case, silence (via scroll or spell) or dispel undead would be strong counters, but in latter case be prepared to use a scroll of blinking to get away if he gets a lucky hit. Dying to Jory is not likely a strategic error but a tactical one. (Well, could be a strategic error if you couldn't/didn't bother to get the HP max level needed to avoid getting one-shotted, and you turned the corner and he killed you with one LCS. If your HPs were good then it was purely tactics.)

Use enchantment scrolls early. Saving them is a false economy due to how the value of those +s fluctuate over time. (That's not only reason to use them early but it is IMO one of the best reasons and easy to explain.)

In the early game the average total damage enemies are doing to you is low, but so is your HP, relative to what both those numbers will look like later in the game. Even just +2 or +3 AC has a decent chance to literally save your character from death early on. Ditto with your weapons, just a few extra +s on that long sword, especially when your skills are low in the early going, can help you kill stuff faster and easily make the difference between "This Ogre gets only two chances to attack me, rather than three." More AC and more damage are always helpful, throughout the game, but buffing your items is most valuable early on.

Now this doesn't mean you should throw every enchant weapon on the first dagger you find. However, if you are using a weapon or armor that you have been using for about a floor and which is unlikely to be replaced by something better in the very short term, then I'd enchant the weapon up to +4 and I'd enchant auxiliary slots to +2, then I'd enchant any suitable armor with an ego to its maximum level. Once you get a weapon you are extremely happy with, go as high as you can take it, unless there is some secondary weapon you want to enchant up. Exception: Don't use a ?enchant armor on a shield. The increase in SH value is not nearly as valuable as an increase to AC.

Saving these scrolls for the perfect weapon/armor just means you die a lot with those resources hoarded and unused.

[XuaXua]

The only in-game reason I've found for not consuming the scrolls earlier than intended is if a Treasure Trove appears, asking for a +5 Demon Whip or some crap like that, and all I can find is a +1/+4 and I'm hunting all over creation for Enchant scrolls.

Also, never buy Enchant Scrolls until from shops you need them (unless you are in a bazaar and you have the gold and there is nothing else you need) as they are safe stored in shops.

[shizmoo]

Scrolls of recharge I burn right away on a rod to +9
Scrolls of enchant weapon I hoard and wait until okawaru gives me or I find the strongest single handed enchantable melee weapon
Scroll of brand weapon I use on that weapon if I find or given with no brand on it
Scroll of enchant armor im not too sure when to use it because when given the chance I wear all artifact. Probably best to burn right away

[ackack]

Scrolls of recharge I burn right away on a rod to +9
Scrolls of enchant weapon I hoard and wait until okawaru gives me or I find the strongest single handed enchantable melee weapon
Scroll of brand weapon I use on that weapon if I find or given with no brand on it
Scroll of enchant armor im not too sure when to use it because when given the chance I wear all artifact. Probably best to burn right away

I would be hard pressed to come up with an approach to these scrolls that is further from how I play than this one.

I've used recharging on rods in the past, but that was only to cross the threshold where I could drop two fclouds or three shots of a rod of lightning. There are almost no rods now that I consider worth the investment. If I'm struggling early and need more charges on a conjuration wand, I'll use recharging on that. Otherwise they get hoarded and used basically only on hasting/heal wounds/teleportation/maybe digging.

Enchant weapon usage is quite liberal until I hit +4, at which case I will usually stop. This includes on fairly early weapons that I know I will be getting rid of soonish.

I don't know how I would approach brand weapon now that the branding spells are gone, but that used to be "hoard until you've found Freezing Aura and the right weapon."

Enchant armour is imo the toughest of these to pace. People have elsewhere made compelling arguments about immediately enchanting your aux slots and I think that's a reasonable approach. Personally, I like the various dragon armours so much that I typically hold off on using these for a while so I can get a nice one. If you happen to have found unusually good body armour such that it's unlikely that you'll make a switch, then start using on aux armour.

[tedric]

People have elsewhere made compelling arguments about immediately enchanting your aux slots and I think that's a reasonable approach.

That's what I do, after being convinced of the logic by other Taverners. AC is so important in the early game, and ?enchantArmour usually drop early and often enough, that it's worth using half a dozen to improve whatever early gear you find. The wisdom of going for peripheral slots first (hat/gloves/boots, then cloak) is because those items are much rarer than body armour. I also like to spread the enchantments around, so I'll bring all of my current peripheral gear up to +1 before bringing any to +2 -- this gives the same AC benefit but makes it less likely that I'll "waste" a scroll on a vanilla item only to find a better replacement (sometimes an artefact but more often just a +2 vanilla, which means I could have had an extra +1 on a different slot) on the next floor.

[dirtywick]

Enchant armor depends I think. A point of AC is the same wherever it comes from so you should use it on things that you are less likely to replace later.

If you're wearing a robe or light armor and don't have MDA then I'd use it on aux slots starting with something with a brand other than a cloak. Robes and leather are plentiful and replaceable. If you're wearing heavy armor I'd wait until I found a branded plate and use it on that until it is maxed out, you can wear it the rest of the game. Main point being you should prioritize something that can be immune to corrosion if possible. The exception to this is boots of running because you'll never take them off.

Enchant weapons scrolls though are common and upgrading branded weapons is a fine use even if you know you'll eventually find a better base type, like a whip or long sword or morningstar. But there's enough of those too that you should probably wait for a branded one.

Recharging varies depending on needs. An early wand of fire or cold, or even fireball, is really helpful and can really smooth out the early game so to keep it charged isn't a bad idea. Later on I don't even pick them up generally and wouldn't burn a scroll on one. Tele is good too but I tend to have plenty of scrolls and digging usually has tons of charges on it. If you have a wand of healing or hasting that's where all of your scrolls should go. Rods you can always retreat and let them recharge.

[tasonir]

Recharging scrolls are generally best spent on wands, unless you really can't ever find any heal wounds, hasting, or teleport wands. You'll probably be missing one or two of them, but probably not all 3. About the only rod I'd consider charging to max would be rod of striking [Never actually pulled this off though because rods of striking are so rare], if you use some other rod for freezing clouds or something, one or two recharges to fit another cast in isn't bad. But those both seem to just about never happen (most rods aren't that good) so I generally recharge wands. I will use scrolls of acquirement on wands fairly often, unless I already have the wands or really need something else (naga/centaurs should acquire armor to get their barding, for example).

enchant weapon usually goes on whatever I'm using until it's 4/4. EA I usually save for hides, but if you get several of them then some secondary slot to +2 is fine. I usually try to get a dragon armor ASAP because it's a really important step in developing your character, more so if you use heavish dragon armors and less so if you're using lighter ones (but mottled can still be a huge upgrade from robe, assuming you don't lose some critical ego).

[zardo]

I usually try to get a dragon armor ASAP because it's a really important step in developing your character, more so if you use heavish dragon armors and less so if you're using lighter ones (but mottled can still be a huge upgrade from robe, assuming you don't lose some critical ego).

This is kind of the opposite of how I see it. MDA is a big upgrade in AC from robes/leather while still being very light and quite conducive to magic use. There are only a few armors that compete in this category. If you're willing to go heavy, dragon armors don't in fact improve a whole lot on plate. I guess in the middle are FDA/IDA, which may be what you're talking about. Certainly those have some distinct advantages while still providing fairly high AC.

[and into]

Early on, I frequently use ?recharging on wands other than the big ones. I will try to avoid using all of them though; I will hang on to one or two in case I find one of the really good wands. Up until you do your first rune branch a lot of wands are crazy good even with low or no evocations skill. Obviously I don't use them on wands of flame/frost/magic dart. But digging, disintegration, fire, cold, draining... I'm happy to use a scroll of recharging for some extra shots of those.

Every now and then I'll use ?recharging to pump up a rod, but I admit that is pretty uncommon.

Also: An MDA is worse than a +3 leather until you've trained armor skill. Doubly so if the leather has a decent brand, which isn't that hard to find. It is rare to find actual MDA; you usually make it from a hide, so you are out one ?ea (that doesn't matter if your aux slots are all fully enchanted, but if not, then you are in the hole 1 AC).

The dragon armors are cool and all, I'm just saying you shouldn't fixate on them or build them up in your mind as being the sine qua non of your character's defenses.

[Lasty]

I agree with most of the posters about enchanting weapons: once you have a weapon that you'll be using for the foreseeable future (branded anything or decent base type), I try to get it up to +4/+4 right away, since it'll make a much bigger difference than any other possible use of those scrolls.

As far as enchanting armour goes, if I have a body armor I plan to endgame (plate of rF or MR, CPA, any dragon armour, robe of resistance/archmage) I'll enchant that up first. After that, I try to get auxiliary armour to +2 -- I don't like to enchant to just +1, since there's a higher chance I'll waste some of my investment on two pieces of +1 armour than one piece of +2 armour, due to the increased odds of finding something better for one or both slots and also the increased chances of one or both slots being corroded.

As for scrolls of recharging, I usually save them for the big three wands, but if I find a rod that I'm using heavily and running out of charges on, I'll enhance it, and if my character is weak and has a bolt wand that's out of charges, I'll recharge that too. Again, the immediate gains in these situations are more important than the long-term potential to some day recharge a valuable wand.

Also, you absolutely should not carry these scrolls on your person, but you also don't need to drop them in special stash spots. Depending on your risk tolerance, you can drop them pretty much anywhere. If you drop them:
* just anywhere there's a very small chance that they will be eaten by a jelly.
* in a corner that isn't on a direct path through the level there's an an infinitesimal chance that they will be eaten by a jelly.
* on a previously-cleared level, there's a virtually nil chance that they will be eaten by a jelly.

[damiac]

Yeah, dragon armors tend to be a bit overrated. They're good, and finding one in the right situation can be a boon, but it's not worth trading early AC boosts for the possibility of a slightly better enchanted dragon armor down the line.

Probably the biggest 'newbie trap' advice that you see on these forums, and on the various 'guides', is to plan your game around getting dragon armor. No, you shouldn't wait to get your 'real' armor until depths. Treat dragon armor like any other game changing rare item. If you find it early, integrate it into your game plan and thank the RNG. If you don't, make the best of your situation and use those EA scrolls on something decent that actually exists for you.

[Viashino_wizard]

In my experience, sacrificng early game strength for a potential pay-off later on is usually the wrong choice.

[Laraso]

Enchant armor scrolls give you exactly +1 AC, and it doesn't matter if you put it on a pair of boots or crystal plate armor, it's still just +1 AC. That's why I generally burn them on aux armor as I find them, but I usually make sure to keep at least one scroll handy if I haven't found decent body armor yet, just in case I find a good hide somewhere. I generally prioritize enchanting helmets/boots/gloves before enchanting cloaks, because ego cloaks seem to be very common in comparison to ego helmets/gloves/boots.