Statistics: The abilities winners use in Sil 1.3.0

[bron]

Leaping?

I consider it a toss up between Leaping and Dodging. I pretty much always take Sprinting, and so I need to take one or the other. Leaping can occasionally get you out of some bad situations, and of course sometimes you get cut off by chasms after falling through a trap door. So it's occasionally useful, and (rarely) a lifesaver. Dodging on the other hand is somewhat useful a lot of the time. I would definitely take it over Leaping if I was planning on taking Flanking. I used to take Flanking a lot, now days much less so because of the expense.

I often just delay choosing which one to take as long as possible. If I get stuck in an appropriately bad situation, I take Leaping to get out. If I haven't gotten stuck by the time I'm ready to take Sprinting, then I take Dodging+Sprinting.

But really, instead of Leaping, my preference is a Mattock of Belegost.

[wobbly]

So my list would be different to ripforareason's, just a playstyle thing mostly. Just a few comments. Missing from the list & right down low in the stats is listen. This ability is ridiculouly good. With the right setup better than song of trees+Rauko-Bane kinda good. Regarding mind over body it has a use under rare situations where you have 2 hunger artifacts. You can still go poison resist+con, you just lose hardiness. Both crowd fighting & block are also very solid. Not flashy or ultra powerful but handy for solid no nonsense builds. As for eye for detail it's not really a warrior ability. It's almost an automatic pick for me on a pacifist run & moderately handy for smiths or doing the ascent with Morgoth still alive.

[ripforareason]

So my list would be different to ripforareason's, just a playstyle thing mostly. Just a few comments. Missing from the list & right down low in the stats is listen. This ability is ridiculouly good. With the right setup better than song of trees+Rauko-Bane kinda good. Regarding mind over body it has a use under rare situations where you have 2 hunger artifacts. You can still go poison resist+con, you just lose hardiness. Both crowd fighting & block are also very solid. Not flashy or ultra powerful but handy for solid no nonsense builds. As for eye for detail it's not really a warrior ability. It's almost an automatic pick for me on a pacifist run & moderately handy for smiths or doing the ascent with Morgoth still alive.

Poison Resistance requires Hardiness, unless there is a difference in dependencies in mpa? Greater werewolves are pretty brutal without rPois and you can't even fight ancient spiders without risking a death. Listen requires Keen Senses, which everyone should take, but then you should take Rauko-bane and Loremaster and you're already at 4 perception abilities. Also not sure what blocking is supposed to do... are you supposed to pair it with focused attack? Or is it just for the protection from ranged attacks? I don't worry about them too much, personally.

I had Crowd Fighting a few times when I found Gundor and didn't really notice the difference. I actually thought about taking Eye for Detail on a smith, but then I just took loremaster (on my latest one) and it works out well, there's no lack of XP. Somehow every character I play that has loremaster feels stronger than ones that don't. I think it's partially due to the identification XP and partially due to having 1 more of every consumable because you aren't use-IDing them.

That character had a very unpleasant time with Fear users, though. I wish we had rFear on the Will tree, I would take that every game. Fear is so annoying.

[wobbly]

I'm not near a computer for a bit. What is off mind over body then? Critical resistance?

Re: poison resistance - I usually don't bother. I tend to go heavy protection though, not sure if werewolves are better or worse on evasive characters. Often get it on my gear anyway. Spiders are a nightmare without but there's so many ways to deal with them & if I'm an elf I'll be carrying a bow.

Block - yeah archers/fire & cold breathers. Other things you can do but usually they're too much hassle to pull off. You can handle archers without, shrug, it's just a risk removed. I sometimes have it as again, I tend to heavy armour. It's also very nice if you plan to take Glaurung in melee.

Rauko-Bane is ultra nice but it would be dogmatic to think it necessary. If you look at my comp character it has serpent bane. Fact is Raukos were little trouble without. Listen & a longbow deals pretty well with most. (Though I do have one of the best rauko killing weapons right from the start).

Re: Lore-Master - I get that id xp anyway. Just used to playing without. Agree on extra consumables & learning quickness & others early does avoid unpleasant accidents.

I'd probably take rfear too. Staying or Este kinda work here but they're both expensive & touch & go.

[ripforareason]

To get Staying you either need slaying or trees. Slaying, to me is a throne-room only thing. I can't get much use out of it because the enemies all run away except Trolls. I've been using Keen Senses in place of Trees because it's less experience and seems to work. I've never even learned Este.

Mind over Body branches into rPois, you're right, and curse breaking into Critical resistance. I would only use Mind over Body if I had, like, Anguirel and Delmereth dual wielded, or something. But I never find either of those. Meanwhile Hardiness branches into both... though I wouldn't take it if it wasn't a prereq for rpois or critical resist.

[BookofAeons]

May I ask how you collected the dumps? I'm curious to run my own analysis, but I'm not seeing an effective way to filter the ladder.

[Patashu]

May I ask how you collected the dumps? I'm curious to run my own analysis, but I'm not seeing an effective way to filter the ladder.

I did it manually - http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-browse...=&c=&n=&e=&s=1 , middle click on every 'green' dump (winners), repeat with each page until the version changes, then go to each tab I opened and download the dump (it's the same spot on each page, so I can just right click/save as, hit enter, then hit ctrl+w to close the tab and repeat).

[BookofAeons]

I did it manually - http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-browse...=&c=&n=&e=&s=1 , middle click on every 'green' dump (winners), repeat with each page until the version changes, then go to each tab I opened and download the dump (it's the same spot on each page, so I can just right click/save as, hit enter, then hit ctrl+w to close the tab and repeat).

I was afraid of that. You're a champ for going through all 1.2+ logs by hand. I might still try my own, but not anytime soon in all likelihood.

[Patashu]

I was afraid of that. You're a champ for going through all 1.2+ logs by hand. I might still try my own, but not anytime soon in all likelihood.

If you can wait until Australia Monday/US Sunday, when I get into work I can upload a .zip of all logs.

[half]

Wow Patashu, thanks for doing this analysis! Life is keeping me very busy with other things, but it is lovely to check in and see this data and everyone's thoughts on it.

Here are some of my own.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this distribution. Lots of abilities are getting a lot of play. Some of them were deliberately designed to be niche, and to feel unusual and different to have a character with them, a little like rarity in a trading card game makes playing with certain things feel more special. So I'm pretty happy with the overall shape of the distribution (at least until you get down to ones used about 10 times or less).

Suprisingly high
- 169 Dexterity: I suppose there are a few abilities with this name, and I know it is good, but I was surprised to see it all the way at the top. Perhaps adjusting for all the ways you can get it (and get it multiple times) I'm less surprised.
- 167 Hardiness: I'm very surprised by this one. As far as I can tell, it is mostly as a pre-req for Poison Resistance, but I expected to see this in the bottom half -- shows how out of touch I am!
- 154 Song of Slaying: We never really got this one quite right. It was always intended to be great in the throne room, but it is a bit too good there and too weak elsewhere. Turns out to be very hard to get this balance right, especially while keeping any kind of user understanding of the formula (it is already probably the most complex formula in the game).
- 150 Keen Senses: I didn't expect to see this so high up, but I'm not disappointed -- it is a neat ability.
- 89 Momentum: This was designed by Scatha as a 'pressure valve' on the Strength limits on weapons, allowing characters who really need it to smooth things out, while keeping the sharp cut offs for most characters. We didn't expect it to be as widely used as it is, so it might just be too good. I'm glad it is not even higher up on this list though.
- 64 Rauko-bane: I have little idea why this one is so popular (is it the addition of Balrogs?). I'm happy to see people using Bane though, since I think it is a fun and flavourful ability.

Happy with the level
- 42 Leaping: This is about where I'd like it, perhaps a little low, but this includes the 1.2 characters where it had a pre-req instead of being one. I really had trouble gauging how hard to make it to acquire this, but it looks like the 1.3 system is about right (maybe still a bit too unattractive). I echo the earlier comments about how powerful this is with archers. I also find it really fun to use, so I get it a lot, but I'm aware that making it optimal to not get the fun abilities is not a good thing!
- 40 Two Weapon Fighting: This was always a historical and source inaccuracy, that I included because (like most roleplayers) I've always found it to be so cool. I tried to balance it to incentivise semi-realistic weapon combinations and to be weak enough that people won't always get it (very hard to do -- witness its huge power in many games). I'm happy with where it is on the list and was worried it would be much more popular than this.
- 25 Eye for Detail: I think there was a point when no-one was getting this, which worried me. 25 seems about as popular as intended.

Surprisingly low
- 38 Listen: This is an amazing ability. It is Sil's version of all the detection that is so important in Vanilla Angband. You don't always know when it helped you, as it avoids you getting into trouble instead of helping get you out of it, but I do think it is powerful and probably a little undervalued here.
- 27 Vanish: I'm a bit surprised this isn't higher as it is a premier stealth ability, but it probably makes sense as not that many characters specialise in stealth and those that do have a few different options for style (e.g. Vanish vs Songs vs Assassination).
- 20 Song of Silence: As above.
- 10 Song of Lorien: As above, but even more so. I find this to be an amazing ability that (with Silence and some stealth) can carry a character through the entire game. But maybe people feel like firing up a combat character a lot more than a stealth one.
- 19 Crippling Shot: I was pretty worried that this is just an overpowered ability. It can really turn a very good archer into an unstoppable one. I'm not sure why it isn't more popular, but maybe that is just because archers aren't very popular?
- 18 Rapid Fire: As above.
- 14 Versatility: I guess this one isn't so surprising after all given the low scores for the even better archery abilities.
- 14 Cruel Blow: I love this one. It is very effective with a light weapons character using ZOC. It also lets you do a bit of morale control. Does anyone here use it? Perhaps I'm mistaking it being fun for it being good.
- 12 Whirlwind Attack: This one is also very strong, but I guess it requires a fairly specialised character, and doesn't help in the final fights given the availability of herbs of rage. A character with Flanking and Whirlwind Attack is truly fearsome when fighting in a room, and very fun too. I wouldn't have wanted this to be too common (since it should feel special), but would have expected it to be in the 30s or 40s.
- 3 Strength in Adversity: We liked the idea of this, but never really got something that anyone would use. I thought the comment about the fact that you should be healing or running instead was about right. I think this *might* be underrated (because things that help when you need it most can matter more than you'd think), but I still think it is probably too weak regardless. Its presence in the game does add flavour, but I would have liked to get it more useable.
- 2 Unwavering Voice: Did we tone this one down at some point? I seem to recall it being popular. I'm glad most singers aren't feeling like they need it, but 2 is extremely low, so it looks like something has gone wrong with this ability.
- 0 Throwing Mastery: Clearly a niche ability and Sil only really tries to make throwing supported rather than encouraged, but 0 still indicates that something is wrong here.

Thanks again for the analysis and commentary everyone!

[half]

Two more things:

I just saw that there were 208 winners in the sample, so that means:

80% were taking Hardiness
74% were taking Song of Slaying

Those are pretty crazy numbers! Thinking about this in percent actually makes it quite a bit more comprehensible for me.

I wonder if it would be possible to do some similar scraping to analyse the types of characters from their stats/skills rather than abilities. It is tricky because one would ideally go beyond a simple average of each skill and give a feeling of what proportion were heavily into stealth/archery/smithing/song, or dabblers in the same. Average starting stats (and final stats with all the mods included) would be neat.

Finally, I note that when reading through all the abilities in this jumbled order I was struck by just how many of them we managed to create. We had a very blank canvas to start with, as it was a different approach to almost all roguelikes. Some are a bit simple and obvious, like Clarity or Poison Resistance, but others involved lovely and very-roguelike ideas such as in Charge, Keen Senses, Flanking, and Knock Back. A couple of 7DRLs were starting to experiment with such things at the same time as me, and I'm glad to see that many roguelikes now do. Scatha was responsible for the flavour in most of the songs, which were originally going to be much more prosaic.

[ripforareason]

@half: I think there are a few reasons why Hardiness is so common. First, you basically need to take some Will on a character that fights enemies, or you will be constantly getting slowed, confused, stunned, stat-drained, Fear'd, and the like. This means Hardiness is only a bit of extra XP for 1-2 free points of protection, sometimes even more if you have Song of Staying. Second, it branches into rPois, which, for a character that fights enemies, is close to a requirement, imo, especially vs. wolves and ancient spiders. Third, there's a lack of attractive abilities outside the Hardiness/rPois/rCrit/Con tree, and points of Con are very valuable, especially against breathers.

Channeling isn't very useful except on some very niche builds, though I think I saw a morgue where someone had a Will build that used staves a lot. It's hard to starve in Sil without more than 1 regen item, so Mind Over Body is out the window. Similarly, many characters take Loremaster and Staves of Sanctity are plentiful, so Curse Breaking is of little utility. Inner light is useful. Clarity comes on helms and in potion form, and one rarely gets confused until Dragon depth in my experience, at which point you either have a swap or have considerable Will to resist in the first place. Strength in Adversity doesn't seem too useful either, since you usually want to run away when you get into a situation where it might trigger. Finally, I have never used Majesty, but I probably don't want enemies to always be running away from me as a fighter. This is a little annoying, and can add up to a significant XP loss over time.

Keen senses can also be pretty frustrating to play without (though I like to use Song a little more and take Trees + Staying), and is very useful because of the way you can make use of Light tricks with Lesser Jewels and Feanorian Lamps. It also branches into Listen, which I've never tried, but lots of people seem to think it's good. It could be that since many people take Lore abilities, Keen Senses, Bane, and sometimes Concentration, that the cost of Listen becomes prohibitive. There are so many good Perception abilities, that either directly improve your combat abilities or get you out of the ID game, that investing more XP just for monster detection seems questionable, at least for warrior types. Chances are I'm going to fight whatever it is unless I recognize something like a stairs Turkano pack or a vault. I have never really played Vanilla Angband, but as far as I know, it has situations where you can walk around a corner and die to a breather. This is almost impossible in Sil unless you walk around at Dragon depth without free action and rF.

Speaking of Rauko-Bane, I take it because of Balrogs, and also because the bonus to all rolls is helpful in dodging Uru's, which can easily ruin a character with a single critical. It's very good to almost always 1 hit them.

For Momentum, if you are fighting in the throne room, you will typically be fighting at +4 strength: potion and an herb of rage. to get the most out of your strength, you either want Rapid Attack (which can be a pain to get if you aren't using Subtlety), Momentum, or both, especially considering that it's not uncommon to find a strength-boosting item or two. Since heavier (read: 2h) weapons are a bit lackluster in Sil, it would be expected for players to use light and medium weight weapons instead and just take Momentum at the end of the game to get the most out of their strength. For example, a Feanor that starts with 3 strength can often find 2 strength boosting items and will be fighting V at 9 Strength. With Rapid attack and Momentum he can be hitting for something like (+40, 2d12)x2 if he was using a 2d6 3.0lb longsword.

On the topic of the Throne Room, I also think Song of Slaying isn't overpowered there per se, but less useful in the rest of the game. The few times I've tried it at medium depths, I couldn't really kill enemies fast enough to build up a bonus that was of much consequence, I didn't want to waste buffs or herbs of rate to fight surrounded, attracting many enemies was undesirable, and the enemy I wanted to fight with the slaying bonus would often flee after one or two hits, which would waste any buffs that I might have used and deteriorate my Song bonus as I tried to chase them down.

[Patashu]

If you want to buff Song of Slaying for most of the game but nerf it for the throne room, probably the correct Song of Slaying tweak is then

1) builds up initial +Slay faster

2) higher levels of +Slay build up slower

So probably a function involving functions that grow quickly at first then slow down, like log(n) or sqrt(n).

[debo]

I thought Unwavering Voice was removed?

Edit: Just checked. It was removed in 1.2.0, although a bug meant you could still use it by taking Woven Themes until 1.2.1.

[wobbly]

Re Lorien: I agree it's fun & strong. However it's one of the hardest builds to judge right. Particularly as a stabber. Lot's of situations that you're unsure whether stabbing something is going to be very good or very bad. Hard to tell if you next extra stealth, extra song, extra perception or extra melee.

Rr Slaying: I use this before the throne room. Turkano is the obvious case of it being useful.