Shoals Surfer
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Ask fellow adventurers how to stay alive in the deep, dark, dangerous dungeon below, or share your own accumulated wisdom.
Shoals Surfer
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Ziggurat Zagger
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Slime Squisher
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Ziggurat Zagger
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Ziggurat Zagger
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Ziggurat Zagger
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Siegurt wrote:Is "being able to stop using ranged weapon and switch to using a one handed melee weapon with a shield, instead of a two-handed weapon" really a buff to bows/crossbows? (I mean I suppose it would be if one-handed weapons with shields were considered generally superior to two-handed weapons, but they aren't in most cases)
Ziggurat Zagger
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Barkeep
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tasonir wrote:Imho ranged weapons are a bit too cheap, exp wise, right now, but I'm not really sure what to do about that. You could change it so they aren't the same as melee weapons, but that was kind of the point of the reform...
Shoals Surfer
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cerebovssquire wrote:The delay for swapping shields prevents using an xbow/bow and then swapping to a shield and melee weapon for melee, which would get annoying very quickly. UC is much stronger than other one-handers damage-wise at high skill levels, so having a shield penalty is a balancing factor (but it isn't very significant).
Ziggurat Zagger
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skjarl wrote:cerebovssquire wrote:The delay for swapping shields prevents using an xbow/bow and then swapping to a shield and melee weapon for melee, which would get annoying very quickly. UC is much stronger than other one-handers damage-wise at high skill levels, so having a shield penalty is a balancing factor (but it isn't very significant).
Why exactly would that be annoying? Change the swap system to use item 'c' as a shield and just flip flop at will with minimal delay. I'm not sure why that's so much more overpowered than being able to swap between a 2H weapon and a bow, which is currently permitted. Every veteran player I've ever spoken with says 2H > 1H in almost every situation.
With UC you lose the ability to gain bonuses (resists, +enchantment, abilities, etc) from wielding a weapon. That's already enough penalty in my opinion. Not being able to wear a shield or heavy armor seems like a lot of overkill.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Shoals Surfer
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cerebovssquire wrote:All enchantment does is increase damage and UC is still a higher than a +9 one-hander of a good base type. Most brands also don't do anything else - though losing pain/vamp/disto can hurt. When I say UC is stronger damage-wise than one-handers, I was referring to enchanted and branded one-handers. You could take a look at Siegurt's great visualisation of damage here; it sadly doesn't include very good one-handers but great swords and claymores compared to UC should still be helpful. Though the weapons are better even at relatively high skill levels, consider that the tests are done with a weapon that's +9 all the time and that doesn't reflect actual gameplay.
There are almost always enough resists on rings and armour, I don't think I have ever used a weapon specifically for resists on a melee-focussed character outside of situational swaps. UC characters can still wield a weapon for a resist in many of these situations - if you are wielding a weapon worse than your main weapon for a resist, you are often trying to run away rather than fight with said weapon.
You can, and should, use UC with a shield under most circumstances. The penalty isn't very harsh and the great thing about UC is that it deals two-hander-like damage and still allows wearing a shield.
cerebovssquire wrote:With regards to swapping to a shield from a ranged weapon, you could make a macro for it to make it equal to swapping to a two-hander, so point taken (though it might somewhat annoy new players who don't know all of the interface). However, I think duvessa's point about not adding another tactical swapping slot because we already have 4 is quite important - e.g. if you have a shield of protection and one with a resistance, you would be swapping them around like rings and I wouldn't want to do more of that. So there are problems with swapping shields indepent of ranged weapon use.
Slime Squisher
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Slime Squisher
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TheDefiniteArticle wrote:What do armour and shields have to do with "the reason you wanted to use UC in the first place"??? I think you mean the reason YOU PERSONALLY wanted to use UC, but you will have to explain that reason to me as I am not psychic. Certainly armour and shields have nothing to do with the two things you listed as being the only benefits of UC.
Slime Squisher
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Bart wrote:we can see that UC eventually becomes stronger than +9 weapons, which clearly indicates that the damage is the reason why UC is appealing in the first place.
Ziggurat Zagger
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TheDefiniteArticle wrote:What we can SEE is that UC NEVER becomes stronger than claymores. And takes way too much XP to become stronger than any other endgame quality weapon. Which clearly indicates that someone picking UC for the damage hasn't seen that chart. However both you and skjarl claim to have seen the chart (I am trusting you despite evidence to the contrary), so therefore obviously neither of you are picking UC for the damage. And in that case, I'm still waiting for an explanation.
Shoals Surfer
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TheDefiniteArticle wrote:Bart wrote:we can see that UC eventually becomes stronger than +9 weapons, which clearly indicates that the damage is the reason why UC is appealing in the first place.
What we can SEE is that UC NEVER becomes stronger than claymores. And takes way too much XP to become stronger than any other endgame quality weapon. Which clearly indicates that someone picking UC for the damage hasn't seen that chart. However both you and skjarl claim to have seen the chart (I am trusting you despite evidence to the contrary), so therefore obviously neither of you are picking UC for the damage. And in that case, I'm still waiting for an explanation.
Cocytus Succeeder
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skjarl wrote:If you don't think damage is why anyone ever chooses unarmed combat, then by all means tell us with the real reason for choosing it.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Shoals Surfer
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Magipi wrote:skjarl wrote:If you don't think damage is why anyone ever chooses unarmed combat, then by all means tell us with the real reason for choosing it.
I can see 3 good reasons:
1. I am a troll
2. I am a felid
3. I am a draconian and want Dragon Form for the coolness factor
Otherwise, I would not choose unarmed. Well, maybe with a ghoul.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Slime Squisher
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skjarl wrote:I'm willing to discuss things with you as long as you knock off the butthurt attitude you seem to have decided is necessary here.
The graph has a lot of adjacent colors so parts of it are hard to make out, but it quite clearly shows unarmed edging out both claymores and greatswords by skill level 27.
Barkeep
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Slime Squisher
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TheDefiniteArticle wrote:What we can SEE is that UC NEVER becomes stronger than claymores
TheDefiniteArticle wrote:What it quite clearly shows is that UC and claymore are nearly identical at 27 skill. We certainly can't tell if that tiny gap amounts to a worthwhile difference. And at every skill level that matters, greatsword is superior by a wide margin.
TheDefiniteArticle wrote:Shields and Armour have nothing to do with why you would or would not choose Unarmed Combat; the fact that you are using UC should not significantly alter your shield/armour decisions, and vice versa. If you had actually tried it you would know this.
TheDefiniteArticle wrote:(an aggressive, rude part which you should be banned for) and you are apparently willing to go to such lengths as hacking the game to, I guess, avoid wielding a sling (...)
Crate wrote:except slings, they're awful, rip
Ziggurat Zagger
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Ziggurat Zagger
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Bart wrote:Trivia 1. slaying will give unarmed combat bigger edge due to the fact that UC has higher base damage.
Pandemonium Purger
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Sar wrote:Bart wrote:Trivia 1. slaying will give unarmed combat bigger edge due to the fact that UC has higher base damage.
Base damage? Slaying is just a flat bonus.
Slime Squisher
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Sar wrote:Bart wrote:Trivia 1. slaying will give unarmed combat bigger edge due to the fact that UC has higher base damage.
Base damage? Slaying is just a flat bonus.
Swamp Slogger
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Patashu wrote:Sar wrote:Bart wrote:Trivia 1. slaying will give unarmed combat bigger edge due to the fact that UC has higher base damage.
Base damage? Slaying is just a flat bonus.
I think it's because of enemy AC. If you go above enemy AC, every extra point of damage is one point of damage. If you don't go above enemy AC, every extra point of damage is wasted. So being more likely to beat AC makes slaying better.
Bart wrote:Trivia 3. UC is more accurate. Rarely, but it matters.
Slime Squisher
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duvessa wrote:if the claymore is +8 or higher, then this is wrongBart wrote:Trivia 3. UC is more accurate. Rarely, but it matters.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Konedar wrote:(stuff which comes from an incorrect premise)
So overall I think that slaying is less useful for UC than for most other weapons.
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Shoals Surfer
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njvack wrote:I should probably do this with PMs, but the interface is terrible and I don't have much time at the moment, so:
TheDefiniteArticle and skjarl: Chill. Out. The comments are getting too personal.
Swamp Slogger
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Siegurt wrote:Konedar wrote:(stuff which comes from an incorrect premise)
So overall I think that slaying is less useful for UC than for most other weapons.
1. Unarmed is not particularly slower than most other weapons at equivalent skill levels, provided you upgrade your weapon:
Skill 0: UC 10, Falchion 13
Skill 12: UC 7.77, Longsword; 8
Skill 18: UC 6.66, Greatsword: 7
Skil 24: UC: 5.55, Claymore: 7
There are spots in the skill progression where UC will be slower, and spots where UC will be faster than a "weapon you might have at that same point" depending on what weapons you might have by what point in the game.
2. "By the time UC is faster than a weapon, it will already have sufficiently large base damage that slaying will make a smaller percentage difference"
Again it depends on what you are wielding. For the *heaviest* weapons (i.e. claymores/bardiches/exec axes) UC will *always* be faster, and will gain pre-slaying damage quickly, but not enough to surpass them until you get to near-27 skill, so obviously for those cases UC gains more from slaying. However since weapons (particularly lightweight ones) gain *speed* more quickly than UC, some of the lighter weapons at lower skill levels will be faster and do about the same or less damage than UC, and for those weapons slaying will be a bigger benefit.
Obviously daggers (and quickblades) are the most excessive example of the "fast, low-skill needed weapon" and obviously they get the most benefit from slaying, UC falls somewhere in the middle-to-high end range of all weapons for "slaying usefulness" however once you weed out the "things you probably shouldn't be doing" (Like fighting a hell-sentinel in melee with a dagger) UC falls in the "more useful" side of that range (again, there's always exceptions, demon whips and quick blades get more benefit from slaying than UC, Claymores and Bardiches less)
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