Remove scythes


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Temple Termagant

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 04:41

Remove scythes

Apart from Sigmund why is this weapon type in the game? Do players wield Scythes, ever? Are the randarts good enough to justify their inclusion?

Edit: meant fixedarts, I also love the scythe of curses. It is nice to see real randart scythe love too though.
Last edited by Iniera on Thursday, 12th May 2016, 22:05, edited 1 time in total.

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Sar

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 04:43

Re: Remove scythes

Scythe of Curses is cool

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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 05:05

Re: Remove scythes

Don't other fixedarts with unique base types exist? Wouldn't it be possible to keep the Scythe of Curses while removing other scythes?

I think then the question would just be what to do about Sigmund.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 05:31

Re: Remove scythes

You could always let Sigmund spawn with a scythe, and not include them in normal weapon generation.

Sar

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 05:33

Re: Remove scythes

worked so well for Yiuf and his hammers

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Vestibule Violator

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 07:24

Re: Remove scythes

Sar wrote:Scythe of Curses is cool


This randart holds a special place in my heart, as it played a significant part in my very first crawl victory.

In any case, I think the OP is going about this completely the wrong way. Rather than ask "why not remove this useless item?" I think we should ask "what can we do to make this item less useless?".

I have no idea why scythes are so incredibly terrible, scythe of curses is literally the only good scythe in the game that one outside of an insanely lucky randart(which very very rarely spawn scythes to begin with). I always was fond of the idea to give scythes a sweeping effect that let them act as axes with extended range. In addition to reducing the insultingly high delay.

Spoiler: show
In case what I said didn't make sense, all % would be enemies that would be hit from a single attack. The first set represents axes, and the second set represents what the scythe would supposedly do.

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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 07:55

Re: Remove scythes

Could also make scythes replace halberds, if they're to be better.

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 08:59

Re: Remove scythes

Just wondering, why exactly do scythes need to be removed?

I mean, something normally has to have a REASON to be removed. But I don't see any reasoning behind removing them besides RemoveEverythingTM.

Yeah they are bad, but so are clubs, also I think GSC's are terrible compared to regular SC's in terms of practicality due to requiring way less skill and only increasing base damage by 2, not sure if that counts but it does to me. There are also a couple spells like conjure ball lightning and that one spell that removes enemy buffs that are equally as useless as scythes. There are probably worse spells, but those are just 2 that come to mind.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 09:03

Re: Remove scythes

Could just make the base speed 1.6 or 1.7 and people would probably stop ignoring them. That would fit naturally into polearms strength progression too.

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 17:26

Re: Remove scythes

Scythes seem intentionally designed to utterly suck. Clubs suck too, but at least they fit in the progression, and are given as starting weapons. Nobody starts with a scythe, and I can't imagine a scenario where anyone would use a scythe, outside of amazing randarts/fixedarts.

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 17:51

Re: Remove scythes

Tiktacy wrote:Just wondering, why exactly do scythes need to be removed?

I mean, something normally has to have a REASON to be removed. But I don't see any reasoning behind removing them besides RemoveEverythingTM.

Yeah they are bad, but so are clubs, also I think GSC's are terrible compared to regular SC's in terms of practicality due to requiring way less skill and only increasing base damage by 2, not sure if that counts but it does to me. There are also a couple spells like conjure ball lightning and that one spell that removes enemy buffs that are equally as useless as scythes. There are probably worse spells, but those are just 2 that come to mind.

The same reason hammers were removed, I guess, except hammers have even better flavor than scythes did.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 17:54

Re: Remove scythes

Removing scythes to not trick players into wielding them is a pretty good argument imo.

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Shoals Surfer

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 19:35

Re: Remove scythes

Scythes with Reach and Cleaving gets mentioned every time scythes get brought up and this is clearly a sign it should be implemented.

Mostly so Reapers become whirlwinds of hellish destruction, but Scythe-Zigging and Sigmund murdering summons and skeletons could be interesting little bonuses as well.
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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 19:40

Re: Remove scythes

The best scythe I actually used was that:
  Code:
a - +12 scythe of Reinforcement {speed, MR++ Stlth-, DAT SCYTHE}

Probably wasn't worth reskilling my character, probably not as good as a good bardiche, but I still had to use it. Oh, and I had 11 slaying, so it wasn't really that bad.

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Temple Termagant

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 22:13

Re: Remove scythes

crate wrote:Removing scythes to not trick players into wielding them is a pretty good argument imo.


This was my angle, anyway. Scythe reform is obviously reasonable as well since keeping them and adjusting their stats wouldn't be hard, polearms aren't presently a very crowded weapon type.

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Pandemonium Purger

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Post Thursday, 12th May 2016, 23:27

Re: Remove scythes

Sar wrote:The best scythe I actually used was that:
  Code:
a - +12 scythe of Reinforcement {speed, MR++ Stlth-, DAT SCYTHE}

Probably wasn't worth reskilling my character, probably not as good as a good bardiche, but I still had to use it. Oh, and I had 11 slaying, so it wasn't really that bad.

If you are a Mf that is actually a great weapon. Speed gives a lot of power to a weapon. Even finisher is a good weapon of a Mf with no bardiches available.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Sunday, 15th May 2016, 22:32

Re: Remove scythes

To be honest I almost never see scythes outside of Sigmund and Reapers anyway.
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Tomb Titivator

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Post Monday, 16th May 2016, 03:39

Re: Remove scythes

dowan wrote:Clubs suck too, and are given as starting weapons.
to who?

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 16th May 2016, 04:06

Re: Remove scythes

hobgoblins

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Post Monday, 16th May 2016, 04:09

Re: Remove scythes

HardboiledGargoyle wrote:
dowan wrote:Clubs suck too, and are given as starting weapons.
to who?


They used to be given to OgEn/As, but that was removed. This was back when "stabbing" with a club could confuse monsters, so it sort of made sense for stabby Ogres.

Slime Squisher

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Post Monday, 16th May 2016, 04:18

Re: Remove scythes

Clubs are a "starting weapon" for unarmed book starts who need to scrounge up a melee weapon off of the first goblin they kill.

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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2016, 17:27

Re: Remove scythes

dowan wrote:Scythes seem intentionally designed to utterly suck. Clubs suck too, but at least they fit in the progression, and are given as starting weapons. Nobody starts with a scythe, and I can't imagine a scenario where anyone would use a scythe, outside of amazing randarts/fixedarts.


And now that weapon stats aren't hidden, players can easily see that they utterly suck and know not to use them.

Giving them reach+cleave is a cool idea, and wouldn't really change anything in D1-4 except for Su and Wz starts. But I'd like to see exactly how the squares would work out.

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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2016, 17:29

Re: Remove scythes

And now that weapon stats aren't hidden, players can easily see that they utterly suck and know not to use them.

This is kind of not really true, mainly since "base damage" doesn't make much sense since it's not actually damage. If enchantment and base damage worked the same way (they should), perhaps this would be a reasonable argument.

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