EV based melee

[oldark]

When I try going for a dex based melee fighter (ex. Lajatang) I have no idea what to prioritize. Should I abandon strength entirely? How much should I be training Dodge early on and what is the heaviest armor I should be wearing? I usually either play AC based melee or a caster, both of which are simple enough for me to know what to do but I'm completely befuddled by EV.

[Sar]

I have no idea what does "EV based melee" mean and what does it have to do with lajatangs. Can you please provide more details about characters you play?

[scott9027]

Seems pretty clear to me that it refers to a character whose primary offensive skill is a melee weapon type, and whose defenses are weighted towards dodging rather than armor.

The heaviest armor I would wear would probably be FDA, the ideal for this kind of character would be a nice PDA. Early on, I would wear the best leather I can find and hope for a nice artifact ring mail.

I'm curious what the connection with Lajatang would be, any weapon choice seems equally irrelevant to what you are trying to do in my limited understanding of the game mechanics.

Strength would depend on race and background, but in most cases I would ignore it entirely.

This is overly general, but I would still train weapon heavily until it reaches 1.0 aut attacks and then train dodging to about 10, return to weapon until min delay (assuming laj or 14 skill weapon) and then dodging to 15. YMMV this would be my first instinct for this build. The real benefit of this layout is that you are set up very well to pick up useful spells as they come along in the mid and late game.

[Sar]

Well typically I try to get a somewhat decent balance of AC and EV on my melee characters. This depends on available armours, race, starting stats, etc. I don't sit down as say "well this is going to be an EV character" or "this is going to be an AC dude".

I mean you can have very decent EV in a plate armour, and it's probably a good idea to for most of the characters for whom wearing plate is a good idea.

That said, I would almost always pick Dex over Str on levelups.

[oldark]

Thanks for the quick responses. I read somewhere (not sure if wiki or in this forum) that Lajatangs, along with short blades, benefit highly from dex and if so it seems like a good combination for a light armor skald or gladiator.

[Sar]

Basically the best thing to deal with the so-called "strength weighting" of melee weapons if to pretend it doesn't exist. At least that's what I do!

[mopl]

Basically the best thing to deal with the so-called "strength weighting" of melee weapons if to pretend it doesn't exist. At least that's what I do!

And apparently it doesn't hurt you too much : http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/sar.html

[damiac]

You seem to be a bit confused on the role of dex and str, and weapon selection.

An EV based melee character would simply be one who trains mostly dodging, rather than armor skill, and because of that, would enjoy more benefit from lighter armors (benefit defined as AC+EV score). But this is typically something that happens due to dungeon circumstances, not a decision you'd make at character generation. For example, a gladiator starts with leather armor, so any gladiator starts off as an 'ev based fighter'. The gladiator would see more defensive improvement from investment in dodging skill.

An AC based melee character is the same thing, but he's wearing armor that will benefit more from armor skill over dodging skill (again, benefit meaning more AC+EV total)

Weapon selection is pretty immaterial to either choice, and in most cases, stat allocation as well. You really shouldn't be letting your weapon of choice determine how you spend your stat points, and no weapon gets more benefit from dex than from str anyway.

So, as Sar said, without seeing what kind of character you're talking about, it's hard to give a concrete answer. But I'll try to give a few helpful generalizations:
Early on, most characters are going to be EV based, because few characters start with high AC armor. So typically dodging is a good early defensive investment.

Later on, most characters are going to see some benefit from armor skill, with characters in heavier armor seeing more benefit. So armor skill becomes a better investment the more base AC you have.

Dex is a good default stat to dump points into, if you're not trying to cast spells. Its primary effect is increasing your EV, but you'll see minor damage and accuracy increase.
Str is a good stat to put points into when your Str is currently lower than your armor's EVP, or when you want to increase spell success whole wearing heavy armor. Secondarily, you'll see minor damage increase.
Int is a good stat to put points into when you want more spellpower/success.

This is extremely general advice, but that's the best you'll get with such a general question.

I do want to stress, it makes no sense to decide "I want this character focused on EV". All characters want as much AC and EV as they can get. Available armor usually decides the balance, and your armor/dodging training should be weighted toward whichever gets you more AC + EV.

[oldark]

Interesting. I almost always see plate armor lying around, usually in the first 3-4 levels, so why would your ev+ac ever be higher without it than with it? Usually I grab the heaviest armor I see unless I'm a caster.

[Sar]

I think it's also worth noting that AC is more valuable than EV in really early game, but later they're very roughly equal point-by-point (and it's better to have a good amount of both than a huge amount of only one stat). So if you found that plate mail early and you don't cast any spells, you might wanna wear it.

[scott9027]

If you are wearing +3 leather and have trained 10 dodging I would assume you'd lose overall defense (AC+EV) by equipping +0 plate with 0 armour skill.

[oldark]

So I should determine my armor based entirely off the spells I want to cast in it and just raise strength as needed to match it. And aim for a dodging skill of around 10 at first?

[Sar]

@scott9027: You are probably not wearing a +3 leather armour in very early game; you wear +0 or +1 one (I think AK, DK and maybe CK start with enchanted leather).

@oldark: Well, I feel like typically characters who'd want to go for plate as their endgame option do have enough natural Str to do so - Mi, HO, maybe Gh, DD, I'm sure I am forgetting something. I can remember raising Str for armour, but in most of those cases I found good/amazing really heavy armours and chose to switch my playstyle to use those.

You "need" only 11 Str for fire/ice/pearl dragon armour, less for swamp/mottled/steam ones. Those will provide you with a good amount of AC without hindering your EV too much.

Edit: by early game I meant really early game, D:1-2 plates do exist and they're a fine pick for "melee" characters.

[scott9027]

How heavy your armor is should be primarily based off the spells you have learned IMO. Sure you can cast Haste in plate, but it's a lot easier to cast it in MDA. Unless you plan on wearing plate and only casting spells later in the game, or want to wear FDA with a low strength race, strength is rarely the stat you want to raise. This may have been remedied in the most recent versions, but DEX/INT are almost always more useful than STR in a general sense.

You want to make a decent investment in defenses once your ability to kill enemies reaches a satisfactory level. You will usually get more bang for your buck raising 8 dodging and 4 armor for example. I personally like round numbers because I'm weird, but you can watch for a new point of EV and stop there.

[Sar]

Plates are more common than MDAs, come with some enchantment (as opposed to MDA, which is usually -1) and can have a decent resist. You might need to get ~4-5 more Charms for platehaste as opposed to MDAhaste, but on a character capable of wearing plate it's well worth it, IMO.

[and into]

In general you want the best AC+EV you can get, within whatever other parameters matter for your character.

Beyond that, I personally like all of my characters ultimately to have at least AC in the high teens, at minimum. That's not a magic number, but it makes me breathe a bit easier, since very low AC tends to mean very bad damage spikes occasionally, even if you have high EV.

Anyway, even if you are focusing on dex and planning for EV to be the higher of your two defensive stats, you still should wear whatever armor happens to give the best AC+EV provided it doesn't mess up your spells or whatever. You could sacrifice a couple of points of AC+EV for a good brand like MR+, but you usually shouldn't sacrifice more than that for a brand, since AC and EV protect against nearly everything, while resistances only protect against a small fraction of attacks.

Your stats are not going to really dictate or change what type of weapon you should use. Go with a weapon type you like and have good aptitudes for, and use the best weapon of that type.

Interesting. I almost always see plate armor lying around, usually in the first 3-4 levels, so why would your ev+ac ever be higher without it than with it? Usually I grab the heaviest armor I see unless I'm a caster.

If your strength is very low and/or you are already training some dodging, then putting on your heaviest armor might not be optimal even if found early. Also some species have specific restrictions or additional penalties from wearing certain armors, and some species have other things going on, such as small species getting a bonus to EV or the minotaur getting a free headbutt attack when they dodge a melee attack from an adjacent enemy.

Or maybe you found a +5 ring of evasion and a +3 leather armor plus some auxiliary armor pieces (helmet, gloves and the like), so you can get something like 12 AC and 22 EV early on with only a bit of dodging training, whereas putting on plate gives you like 16 AC and 9 EV even with the ring. In such a case, regardless of species (well assuming you can wear the leather) you are better off going for dodging, obviously. Later on you could upgrade to a heavier armor, or not, depending on what drops and how you develop the character.

So all of that is just to say that there are definitely situations where focusing more on dodging/EV might make sense, even if you aren't casting spells at the moment. But it will very much depend on the overall situation.

[damiac]

Wait, minotaur retaliation headbutts happen when you dodge? I've played a lot of minotaurs, and I never noticed that. Hah, I guess I'm not very observant.

[and into]

I'll hasten to add that you shouldn't let yourself take more damage by having a lower total EV+AC just in order to get more retaliatory headbutts, since you cannot headbutt anything if you are dead, but yeah, you headbutt dudes when you dodge their attack. (Or have a chance to headbutt them, not sure exactly what the mechanism or formula is or w/e but I'm sure folks who know more about those things could supply it for the curious.)

[Sar]

I think it's based on Str and Dex in some way.

[scott9027]

Minotaur monk of Chei thinks you just may be on to something with that.

[damiac]

A slo-mo MiMo?

I'd better get all the thanks for this...

[Octopode-monk-of-XOM]

thx, topic cleared some stuff up for me

also i figured out now that the STR weight on ranged weapons no longer governs attack speed in 0.15? so it is overall neglibible it seems, couldnt get my head into example values of that formula

[dck]

you wear +0 or +1 one (I think AK, DK and maybe CK start with enchanted leather).

CK get a +2 one because master background

[Sphara]

For me "EV based melee" generally means LOTS of buff spells (Regen, OzoArmour, Butterflies, Haste, Shroud, Swiftness, Rmsl, summoning spells.. just to mention a 'few') and ranged attacks.

The deeper as you go in the dungeon, you will find low AC to be very goddamn crippling, stealthy or not.