Late-game brands


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Dungeon Dilettante

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 14:41

Late-game brands

I'm pretty new to DCSS, so I don't have a great feel for what I really want from late-game gear. I'm using a +9 demon trident of electrocution, which seems to get the job done well enough, but there are also 3 scrolls of brand weapon laying around the dungeon. Should I roll the dice and try for another brand, or just stick with what I have? I really appreciate any input, thanks!
Last edited by Philosiphyzer on Saturday, 11th August 2018, 04:47, edited 1 time in total.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 15:49

Re: Late-game brands

Philosiphyzer wrote:I'm pretty new to DCSS, so I don't have a great feel for what I really want from late-game gear. I'm using a +9 demon trident of electrocution, which seems to get the job done well enough, but there are also 3 scrolls of brand weapon laying around the dungeon. Should I roll the dice and try for another brand, or just stick with what I have? I really appreciate any input, thanks!

http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/Philosiphyzer/Philosiphyzer.txt

Electrocution is pretty much the best possible late game brand, and a demon trident is one of the better possible weapons to have it on. Do not rebrand it, you will make it worse.

If anything find *another* weapon, and enchant and brand that until you get like, freezing or vorpal or something, so you can use it on the small minority of critters that are immune to electrical damage
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Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 15:57

Re: Late-game brands

Siegurt wrote:If anything find *another* weapon, and enchant and brand that until you get like, freezing or vorpal or something, so you can use it on the small minority of critters that are immune to electrical damage

Or speed. Speed is as good or better than elec.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 16:18

Re: Late-game brands

Fingolfin wrote:
Siegurt wrote:If anything find *another* weapon, and enchant and brand that until you get like, freezing or vorpal or something, so you can use it on the small minority of critters that are immune to electrical damage

Or speed. Speed is as good or better than elec.

Yes, speed would be great, but the odds of that are tiny. I mentioned freezing or vorpal because those are common brands, and good places to stop if you get them in a couple tries, if you got like poison (which is an amazing early brand, but not a good late-game brand) or protection, it would be worth retrying for something better, but if I got freezing or vorpal on my backup weapon, I'd just keep it, as the odds of me getting something better than that are very small.
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nago

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Post Thursday, 9th August 2018, 16:39

Re: Late-game brands

Thanks for the help!

Cocytus Succeeder

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Post Friday, 10th August 2018, 07:34

Re: Late-game brands

Fingolfin wrote:
Siegurt wrote:If anything find *another* weapon, and enchant and brand that until you get like, freezing or vorpal or something, so you can use it on the small minority of critters that are immune to electrical damage

Or speed. Speed is as good or better than elec.


But you cant get speed with ?brand weapon - and actually speed is a possible brand for most weapon type only if artifact

And I can't fsim right now but I'm pretty positive that a elec demon trident would be much better against anything not resistant than a speed d. trident as its base damage isn't so high.
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok

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Slime Squisher

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Post Friday, 10th August 2018, 15:54

Re: Late-game brands

nago wrote:But you cant get speed with ?brand weapon - and actually speed is a possible brand for most weapon type only if artifact

Man, there go all my dreams...

nago wrote:And I can't fsim right now but I'm pretty positive that a elec demon trident would be much better against anything not resistant than a speed d. trident as its base damage isn't so high.

Yes, but we were discussing brands for a secondary weapon, precisely for rElec Monsters. Speed would have been better than freezing or vorpal.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Friday, 10th August 2018, 20:05

Re: Late-game brands

On a demon trident, elec is maybe a little bit better than flaming or freezing against nonresistant enemies. It's a small difference, about 5% in my test. Speed is better than elec by about 15%. However, you're not going to find a demon trident of speed. Speed is a very unusual brand. The best brands on most weapons are vamp (for a 3 rune), antimagic, or holy wrath for 15 runes. To get a holy wrath weapon you can use TSO to bless a demon weapon.

Vorpal, draining, elec, flaming, and freezing are also all perfectly acceptable brands. Chaos is a decent brand too, though rare. The only undesirable brands are venom and protection, both of which are good in the early game. And sometimes distortion, which does good damage but is irritating to use as it blinks and teleports enemies around, and prevents weapon swapping.
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Tomb Titivator

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Post Thursday, 16th August 2018, 16:30

Re: Late-game brands

I quite like Freezing although it isn't as generally viable by late game. In Zot and on the final orb run, freezing is very useful for Orbs of Fire (OOFs) in Zot, which are otherwise rather a pain to hit (although Earth magic/heavy physical works too). Anti-magic can help disrupt them from mutating you too, but it can be slower actually finishing them off and they'll still spew nasty hellfire or just burn ya. Freezing will also slow down most of the Zot draconians since they are cold-blooded. And there's usually still a fire giant, red dragon, or other flame-happy demons around somewhere.

Holy, anti-magic and speed all have their place, but none of them come from a scroll.
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Post Thursday, 16th August 2018, 17:24

Re: Late-game brands

I usually keep my eyes open for a holy/antimagic weapon of a decent base type that at least crosstrains with my main weapon and enchant it to +9 after my main weapon is solid. You'll want that for extended, but as others have said, an elec demon trident will do a great job on 98% of the monsters.

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