remove wand of flame

[snow]

This item exists soley as an autopickup exception. It had some very minor utility with jellies at one point but this is no longer the case.

[dck]

It also exists to kill things early on and achieves this very well.

[snow]

It also exists to kill things early on and achieves this very well.

I honestly can't tell if you're trying to be clever or not. We have a consumable that's only use case is killing popcorn and every single background starts with something that achieves the exact same thing only with a limitless supply. The only argument I can think of to keep wand of flame is that the artificer starts with it but honestly it could just start with a different wand.

We have an item (a consumable no less) that litters the entire dungeon because of a possible use case for a small subset of combinations... which is entirely redundant if you think about. Honestly try to think of a use case that's not covered by a different item.

I've heard arguments about "softening up" melee brutes too... I feel this only slightly better than picking up stones and tossing them with no skill. If this sort of thing ever makes a difference you should probably be using those extra turns to run away or something instead.

[dck]

Yeah I'm gonna have to ask you to zap the wand at things that are dangerous early on (and not even so early on) and compare the damage to zero skill stones.
And I don't know what crawl you're playing that has every background start with a full LoS ranged attack that does remarkable damage but it doesn't seem like standard business to me.

[Sprucery]

Ice beasts.

[snow]

Yeah I'm gonna have to ask you to zap the wand at things that are dangerous early on (and not even so early on) and compare the damage to zero skill stones.
And I don't know what crawl you're playing that has every background start with a full LoS ranged attack that does remarkable damage but it doesn't seem like standard business to me.

Remarkable damage...? You're just making things up now. Also any early threat that's actually a threat has its own ranged attack or is fast so honestly zapping a wand of flame is a waste of turns. I'm not talking theory but actual application: wand of flame is a pretty terrible item and there are other items, spells, and abilities that show up just as early that have comparable or greater utility. Just remove the wand and adjust item weights.

[dck]

~12 ranged damage is pretty remarkable to me yes.
Often killing orc wizards in one shot is also remarkable.

[Bloax]

It can kill ogres without risking melee combat, and even significantly cut into the health pool of trolls for when you're playing weaker characters.

That's not "useless", that's quite good.

[Sar]

I remember a suggestion of merging flame/fire and frost/cold wands to roll either bolt or puff, the more Evo you have - the bigger chance of bolt.
That would be a big nerf to bolt wands, though.

[snow]

It can kill ogres without risking melee combat, and even significantly cut into the health pool of trolls for when you're playing weaker characters.

That's not "useless", that's quite good.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. You shouldn't unload a wand of flame on on Ogre if you can't kill it some other way. You significantly increase your chances of dying by trying to zap that Ogre. You could fail to kill it and another enemy could come into view and block your exit. You should play Crawl DEFENSIVELY and not try these suicidal just-might-be-crazy-enough-to-work plans.

Also in regards to merging wand of flame and fire and having it scale: I've thought about this too but wands have to be good with no evocations for some reason (and also aren't allowed to be really good at max evocations either).

[dck]

Wands are already ridiculously good at very high evo.
It's true that you should do a lot of things in crawl, a lot of things nobody is going to do for the most part but it's still fair to bring them up when they are relevant.
An ogre being enough to kill you in melee isn't relevant to this case. It is safer to zap him from the edge of LoS and kill him (or just go if you miss enough) before he reaches you than it is to walk away from him eschewing all notion of offense altogether and then walking back to stairs risking to run into monsters that may have wandered into the previously cleared zone.

[Zooty]

Putting aside the issue whether wand of flame is useless or not (it's not), it's weird to not consider only flame. Wand of frost does exactly the same damage and there are more early monsters with cold resistance than fire resistance. Wand of magic darts does less damage and never missing is mostly useful against spores.

[KoboldLord]

I remember a suggestion of merging flame/fire and frost/cold wands to roll either bolt or puff, the more Evo you have - the bigger chance of bolt.
That would be a big nerf to bolt wands, though.

I think the big argument against would be that it would make the targeting interface tricky. If you have a small chance for one effect and a bigger chance for the other, the targeting system has to cover both possibilities, and projectiles are often best targeted in a different way than beams.

[crate]

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12051

[damiac]

Wands of flame and frost are pretty useful pre-lair. Risklessly killing an ogre early on is a lot better than running. With 0 evo, you do a hell of a lot better with a flame wand than you do with 0 skill stone throwing.

[KoboldLord]

They may be useful pre-Lair, but the question is whether they're worth the extra clutter and busywork involved with having a marginally useful early-game item that is completely worthless for the rest of the game. Remember, they don't have any special chance to generate in the early game where they're actually useful, and they don't stop generating after they're already worth less than an empty inventory slot to all possible characters. I would say that the chance to generate an uncommon item that can snipe an orc wizard or ogre early on is not worth the item bloat when there are several other uncommon and common items that can also snipe orc wizards or ogres early on.

[johlstei]

I don't think the proposal included tuning up other wand generation rates to compensate, or at least that was my assumption. Personally I have them off of autopickup by default, so I'll pick up that first unid one, and that's generally enough. If I'm really using it I'll pick up more manually.

[damiac]

Well, they're about as useful as throw flame or throw frost, which remain useful even post lair. And saying they're useful only pre-lair is only if one has 0 evo skill, they still remain a useful tool to soften up enemies if you do have some evo skill.

Are they worth the bloat? I don't know... but clubs are useful through about 0% of the game, and those drop all game long as well. Cutlasses, hand axes and maces are fairly useless past the early game as well. Admittedly, these items aren't auto pickup by default. So maybe the 'solution' to this 'problem' would be to make these wands not autopickup by default. Add wands of confusion and magic missiles to the 'not autopickup' list, and you've remedied the inventory annoyance at least.

[Sar]

Cutlasses ... are fairly useless past the early game as well.

https://loom.shalott.org/learndb.html#cutlass
Maybe you confused them with falchions?

[duvessa]

nope, that's true of cutlasses pretty much

[damiac]

Hahah, I did mean falchions, but I suppose it applies to most short blades too.

[Sar]

I don't know, branded cutlasses seem pretty okay. Elec, pain, speed. Though having might helps.

[headcrabtan]

wait so you never played Ar

[scorpionwarrior]

I'll keep a wand of flame in my pack until after lair, they're a good cheap way to kill electric eels and break los at the same time

[Baldu3]

Snow does not like Flame.

[partial]

It also exists to kill things early on and achieves this very well.

I have never found a wand of frost/flame early enough to killdudes with it

[Wahaha]

Shooting a wand of flame with 0 evo at a spiny frog while it approaches can take off 1/3rd of its health.