stoneychips wrote:WingedEspeon wrote:Why are you rebranding an elec battle axe?
I'd gone through most of Vaults with just a +1 flaming battleaxe, not finding much with higher enchantments.
Unless something has changed recently, electrocution only has a chance to proc on each hit. Is the
Wiki wrong on this one? I mean, sure it's pretty good on a dagger or even hand axe (more particularly, around Lair where everything is less durable and fewer mobs are immune to elec there)...
Since the brand inflicts a flat rate of damage independent of the damage your weapon does, electrocution brands work best on a fast weapon with low base delay (demon whips, quick blades, spears, whips, etc.).
I suppose you might argue that you get more damage out of the procs over a long time, on average, than from the more consistent bonuses of flaming or freezing? I dunno really, I've used elec around Vaults before too and it seemed okay but I've felt somehow more impressed with freezing in particular.
Elec will outdamage freezing, flaming, and draining on average in all but the most pathalogical cases, on even the heaviest weapons, given a set of things that isn't resistant or immune.
It is less consistent, however the average damage is higher *including that inconsistency*
While it is true that elec is a flat bonus, and flaming/freezing are percentage based, in effect that just means that the difference is *larger* on faster, lighter weapons, and that to get to the point where feezing/flaming catch up requires less over the top rediculousness (last i checked you needed something like 60 str on a +9 exec axe at min delay. To get freezing to average the same as elec, but that was a while ago)
Axes have a secondary reason to find flat damage brands appealing, as the cleaving secondary hits do lower damage, and hence the freezing/flaming brand's damage is lowered too, whereas elec is not.
As has been pointed out, there are are also far fewer things that are resistant to elec, although the things that are, are totally immune.
Some other minor facets that make other brands useful to use should you have access to more than one:
Cold can slow cold blooded things (mostly reptiles, not ones that have any cold resistance though)
Fire cauterizes hydra heads so you can reduce the number of heads with a flaming bladed weapon.
Draining does pretty good damage to anything that isnt resistant, and can lower their attack power.
For damage doing brands, i usually prefer:
Holy=silver>pain>elec>drain>freezing>flaming>vorpal
Presuming you are looking at things that take damage from such sources,
That isnt going to be always 100% true (notably pain is dependant on your neromancy, so it could fall lower on the list, it actually does no damage with 0 necromancy)
And of course the actual weapon is more important than the brand most of the time (rarely a better brand might make a slightly worse base weapon better than a stronger base weapon with a worse brand) and there are lots of outlying cases where the general rule won't be correct (although it isn't usually far enough wrong that it is a serious problem)
And there are two non damage brands (antimagic and vampiric) which are both excellent, and which i would often use over a damaging brand in the appropriate circumstance.
Also drain, flaming, and freezing all do similar damage (freezing and flaming are actually identical) but i put them in the preference order i did because of their secondary effects, and how frequently they are resisted generally.
Tuesday, 20th June 2017, 13:40 
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The Int amulet/ring wasn't bad, but there was a more interesting amulet with similar Int already in shops -- albeit pricey.
