Which weapon, and Ogre Berserkers in general

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I'm playing a L13 OgBe; currently in Lair 4. I have two questions.

First, Trog has given me two great-looking weapons. Which is preferable?
- the +5 giant spiked club of Uwacwili (weapon) {vamp, rF+ Str+3 SInv}
- the +3 giant club "Skullcrusher" {speed, Str+7}

Second, using either of these weapons is likely to make me feel overconfident. Can anyone point me at some sound general strategy for OgBes?

All advice gratefully received!

[Berder]

Probably go with the vamp gsc unless you have a blowgun or rod you want to swap to (this may depend on where you are). rf+ sinv don't hurt either. It may depend on how much m&f skill you have though. It's a good idea to use a weapon that takes less than 1.0 time to hit, to avoid taking multiple hits at once.

[cerebovssquire]

It really doesn't matter if your hit time is slightly over 1 as long as you're aware that you can be hit twice. You shouldn't attack in a situation where you can't take two hits without dying anyway. Anyway, the vamp gsc is better.

With regards to general strategy:
-22 M&F is enough for GSC min delay so don't train above that
-raise dex rather than str. This applies to almost every "melee character". Og can get decent EV despite size restrictions and mediocre apt, especially since you're not investing exp into spells so you can train a lot of dodging. You should train dodging after getting your maces to mindelay and some fighting. Otherwise you'll be virtually defenseless until dragon armours start appearing.
-light and medium dragon armours are fine, a mottled/fire/ice dragon armour in late dungeon is better than waiting until Zot to spend your ?ea on a gold dragon armour (which kills your EV anyway, which isn't necessarily going to be low, see above).
-large rocks are fantastic, so don't exclusively fight at melee range

[Berder]

You shouldn't attack in a situation where you can't take two hits without dying anyway.

Realistically, you do this all the time. "Two hits" is potentially an extremely large amount of damage against many enemies. A stone giant can deal 90 damage in two unarmed hits. Or consider two max-damage LCS from a lich - could be capable of killing you from max HP.

Anyway, attacking with a slow weapon means that you need to reserve more hp as a safety margin than you would when attacking with a faster weapon. It gives you a smaller range of hp in which you can safely fight, as if your max HP were reduced. It's not the worst thing in the world, and probably the vamp GSC is better since it's vamp, but it's something to stay aware of.

[duvessa]

Not attacking stone giants at 90 HP sounds pretty good to me, actually.

[xentronium]

Stone giants should throw giant stones.

[Berder]

Not attacking stone giants at 90 HP sounds pretty good to me, actually.

Ridiculous, what if you only have 120 hp max. You might be thinking of an ogre with 300 hp or something. But that's not typical.

  Code:

<halberd> !lg * killer=stone_giant x=avg(mhp)
<Sequell> 3975 games for * (killer=stone_giant): avg(mhp)=127.8

It's simply not feasible to have that large a safety margin.

And remember what I said about the lich's cryspear. What does it do at max, something like 130 damage in one hit? A lich or alich could potentially kill most characters in a couple lucky hits of crystal spear. Not to mention, if you're fighting a group of enemies, especially ranged enemies like yaktaurs, it's very common for the maximum potential damage if they all get lucky to be instantly fatal - but that virtually never happens. You have to trust to luck to a certain extent; it's unrealistic to think you can have a huge two-turn-worst-case safety margin all the time.


How much damage can stone giants do with thrown rocks, anyway? Isn't it more than 45 per hit? Being able to take two lucky stone giant rocks to the face is not something most characters can do.

[Sar]

If you are fighting stone giants and aliches and your weapon is not around min delay it means something went terribly wrong (or maybe you are using dark maul).

[Berder]

If you are fighting stone giants and aliches and your weapon is not around min delay it means something went terribly wrong (or maybe you are using dark maul).

I believe the original statement was about whether you should attack in a situation where you can't take two hits without dying - regardless of the weapon.

It really doesn't matter if your hit time is slightly over 1 as long as you're aware that you can be hit twice. You shouldn't attack in a situation where you can't take two hits without dying anyway.

It's my understanding that the "anyway" in that sentence makes that sentence apply to any weapon regardless of delay, not just those with hit time over 1. "Anyway" means "in any case," i.e. in the case where you have a slow weapon and the case where you don't. There would be no need for the "anyway" if the sentence was meant to apply only to slow weapons.

As mentioned, a 2-turn safety margin is not feasible.

A 1 turn safety margin is often not possible to follow either. Against most single enemies, sure. Against multiple ranged attackers, or hydras? Or aliches? They're almost never going to deal their max damage, but if they ever did it would be fatal from what is really a quite safe hp level. And consider the worst case scenario of getting paralyzed then getting unlucky - another instant fatality in many cases.

[Sar]

Most >1.0 delay attacks occur in situations where one finds a good two-hander rather early in the game, so it makes sense to discuss that situation and not some imaginary one involving endgame threats.

[Berder]

Most >1.0 delay attacks occur in situations where one finds a good two-hander rather early in the game, so it makes sense to discuss that situation and not some imaginary one involving endgame threats.

You're still misinterpreting me in the same way you did before! I'm not talking only about >1.0 delay attacks.

[Sar]

Well, you were in the first post in this thread. I don't really care about one-shot theory, I just think that using heavy weapons in the early game is often both valid and good even if you can't swing them fast enough.

[Berder]

Well, you were in the first post in this thread. I don't really care about one-shot theory, I just think that using heavy weapons in the early game is often both valid and good even if you can't swing them fast enough.

I agree, but you do have to keep a larger safety margin of HP when using them. To be good, it not only needs to deal more damage per aut, the advantage in damage must be large enough that it makes up for that.

For example, suppose your max HP is 133 (an xl 13 ogre with 10 fighting), and you're interested in improving your ability to fight a komodo dragon (max damage 34). With a fast weapon, if you're willing to burn a scroll of blinking, you can fight up until 35 hp before you have to blink away. This gives you 133-35 = 98 hp with which to fight. With a slow weapon, you could potentially die at 68 hp, so 100% safety would be to stop fighting at 69 hp, giving you 133-69=64 hp in which to fight - just under 2/3 the amount of hp you had available with the fast weapon. The slow weapon needs to be at least 98/69 = 153% as good as the fast one in order to be worth that.

Now, it's quite unlikely you would actually die from 68 hp, so maybe a more realistic cutoff would be 60 hp. That gives you 73 hp in which to fight. So the slow weapon needs to be at least 98/73 = 134% as good as the fast weapon, in order to be worth it.

[nago]

Again, you're talking about an Og. A Og will have his damned gsc well under 1.0 delay by lair, if not min delay at all.

If you want really make a sensible argument, try to make a lot of counts with things you face when a gsc is >1.0 attack delay like an early ogre or a orc warrior with a good weapon - but thanks God that things will die fast to other kind of attacks, so no sane player will try to suicide himself swinging a gsc with I don't know and don't care what delay.

P.s. I don't know if a gsc is 153% better than a fast weapon but if I can find on D.2 I usually I'm more happy with him than other shit like whip or morningstar etc.

[edgefigaro]

The trick to ogre in general and ogre be in particular is getting your first dragon armor. You catch a break as soon as you have > 10 large rocks. As an OgBe you become offensively strong really quickly. You don't become defensively strong til later though, and what is non damaging popcorn to many melee chars can hurt as you clear it out thanks to low AC. Hoover all the stones (you should be throwning stones when you have no other throwing weapons, not advancing towards targets), tomahawks and javs you find and *throw them freely* until you get your first decent armor. If for some reason you run out of things to throw, assess the situation. You are a OgBe, you can still overpower your enemies and get your thrown items back.

If something dangerous (a hydra) makes it up to you and doesn't have a horde behind it, you can beserk, if something dangerous is getting close and has a horde behind it, pop brothers. If brothers spawns an ogre, fall back, if it spawns iron troll, you are in business.

Consider switching gods once you get your antimagic GSC. Trog is very strong, you don't need to switch, but there are good god options for ogre. I want to see a dark maul spectral weapon ogre of dith, but that may be overkill.

[duvessa]

god people are way too scared of attack delay
if a monster can plausibly kill you in two actions and you would still want to melee it at all, then you're either well below max HP, or you're in really early D
and even if the monster can kill you in two actions, and you're forced to melee it anyway, guess what - your chance of dying is still lower if you use the weapon that does more damage/time!
i mean christ you people seem to have no problem with 20 aut chei moves or 14 aut naga moves, a 15 aut attack isn't going to hurt you, just use the freaking best weapon instead of trying to come up with insane circumstances where it might not be the best weapon (and in reality still is)

[tasonir]

I recently bumped my attack delay over 10 aut with unarmed because I wanted to use crystal plate armor It's a fairly steep penalty but one I've already reduced through better armor skill, and it didn't really cause any problems while I was training. And I didn't even get any bonus damage for the delay!

Anyways, I think berder does have a point - there are times it's not possible to be able to survive theoretically bad rolls for two turns. If a yak pack with one captain and 3 yaktaurs comes into view, that's 23 + 18 (arbalest) for the captain, and 15 + 18 for each yak. This is before any enchantments or branded ammo they may have. So that's 140 damage per turn - you'd need 280 to survive 2 turns. Not even an ogre will have that much health by vaults.

Fortunately, this theoretical damage tends to bear little resemblance to what actually happens in game, so it is actually possible to survive dungeon crawl. But it's the potential for things to do such absurd amounts of damage that I always support the 'reduce variance in crawl' threads when they pop up. I admit you aren't going to be hit for 140 damage the second a yak pack shows up, but I think it would also be nice if they couldn't do 140 damage even if it's only in theory.

[Berder]

and even if the monster can kill you in two actions, and you're forced to melee it anyway, guess what - your chance of dying is still lower if you use the weapon that does more damage/time!

If you have no escape options, this is true. In fact the slower weapon has a slight further advantage when you are likely to die immediately if you don't kill the enemy; it deals its punch all at once. A weapon twice as fast, even with the same AvEffDam, would only hit for half the damage and then you die. However, such a desperate gambit only applies if you have no escape options.

[gammafunk]

Anyways, I think berder does have a point - there are times it's not possible to be able to survive theoretically bad rolls for two turns. If a yak pack with one captain and 3 yaktaurs comes into view, that's 23 + 18 (arbalest) for the captain, and 15 + 18 for each yak. This is before any enchantments or branded ammo they may have. So that's 140 damage per turn - you'd need 280 to survive 2 turns. Not even an ogre will have that much health by vaults.

Fortunately, this theoretical damage tends to bear little resemblance to what actually happens in game, so it is actually possible to survive dungeon crawl. But it's the potential for things to do such absurd amounts of damage that I always support the 'reduce variance in crawl' threads when they pop up. I admit you aren't going to be hit for 140 damage the second a yak pack shows up, but I think it would also be nice if they couldn't do 140 damage even if it's only in theory.

In a hypothetical improved crawl, where there is no variance in monster damage and monsters always do average damage if they hit you, before AC you have 21 damage from the yaktaur captain and 17 x 3 for the yaktaurs for damage of 72 per turn or 144 in two turns. This is certainly enough to kill many characters in two turns by the time they encounter yaktaur captain packs. Reducing but not eliminating the variance certainly doesn't prevent these large damage values in one or two turns; it's still theoretically possibly and it would still theoretically kill you. Eliminating the variance of monster damage alone isn't even enough (per my example), you'd have to eliminate variance in player AC or something related, and really you'd have to implement some kind of cap on monster damage (probably relative to player mhp) if you wanted to prevent "theoretical death" from extreme damage rolls.

But as people have been saying, you don't at all need to play crawl according to what can happen in the theoretical extreme in order to win. Crawl is a game that allows the existence of "unfair" extreme events, but it gives you rather a lot of tools to deal effectively with these, so you can just pick up and start using that vamp GSC rather than fretting over them.

[and into]

I've always been satisfied whenever I have used dire flails, battle axes, great maces, great swords, glaives, even (on rare occasions) claymores and exec axes, even at low skill levels. On ogres it would be a very rare situation indeed that I wouldn't be wielding and using the first GC or GSC that I find, even if my M&F and fighting are on the low side.

I dunno about dark maul and triple crossbows—I haven't ever used those at very low skill levels. I can imagine those specific weapons might be slow enough that it could be a problem (but, again, I can't say from personal experience either way).

[and into]

Also "variance" is the new "chei" in terms of thread derailment, I guess.

[Berder]

The way it works is, you have some safe margin of HP after which you need to escape somehow. This margin needs to be higher if you're hitting with a slower weapon. This margin is not necessarily the maximum theoretical damage that could be dealt (usually it's a lot lower than that, such as in the case of a yaktaur pack). But it does mean that the total number of auts you can remain in combat using the slow weapon is lower, meaning the damage you can safely deal before retreating is a bit lower, compared to a faster weapon with the same AvEffDam. And this should be taken into account when comparing weapons.

Also note that it can make a difference even if both weapons are below 1.0 delay.