Objects you never bother to pick up

[gglibertine]

There are a fair number of items I just don't ever bother with, either because I don't think they're useful enough or because they're more trouble than they're worth:

Scrolls: Blessing, Holy Chant, Holy Prayer, Monster Confusion, Door Destruction, *Destruction*
Potions: Berserk Strength, Infravision, Brawn, Intellect, Contemplation, Nimbleness, Toughness
Wands: Magic Missile, Disable Traps, Stone to Mud, Polymorph
Staves: Detect Evil, Earthquakes, *Destruction*
Rods: Disable Traps
Amulets: Infravision, Slow Digestion
Rings: Constitution, Reckless Attacks

What are yours? Should I be trying to use any of mine?

[archolewa]

I snatch up all the *Destruction* scrolls I can find. They have a 0% fail rate, and are much more common than staves of *Destruction*, so I like having them as a panic button. Otherwise yeah I ignore all the same scrolls.

I'll typically drink Brawn. Extra swings and carrying capacity are definitely worth losing another stat point. I'll drink Nimbleness if I'm close to a threshold for another swing.

I pretty much ignore Berserk Strength and Infravision though. I'll only carry Berserk Strength in the very early game, since it can cure Fear.

I *love* wands of Disable Traps and Stone to Mud. Being able to rapidly tunnel out a kill hole is invaluable, and having a guaranteed way to disable traps on chests (some of which can be *nasty*) is also really great. Especially for Blackguards and Paladins who tend to have terrible trap disarm skill.

I agree with you on the amulets. I'll use Rings of Reckless Attack early as a Warrior. They tend to have enough swings early to make the damage bonus really add up. I'll often use Rings of Constitution if I'm having trouble finding potions of Constitution and gear that gives constitution bonuses. *Especially* if the ring gets my Con into the accelerating returns threshold. An extra 60-100 HP is invaluable.

I pretty much never pick up Ego weapons, with the exception of Maces of Destruction/Scythes of Slicing/Chaos Blades. Ego weapons are never as good as artifacts. Especially Defender weapons, though I always play a Warrior or Hybrid class, so I need my weapon for damage.

I don't bother with the rings that give an elemental resistance and can be invoked for an elemental attack. A single elemental attack just never seems to make a difference, and using up an entire ring slot for one elemental resistance and a bit of AC just never seems worth it.

I ignore armor with the Dwarven ego. The con bonus is never high enough to be worth it, and it doesn't give anything else of note.

I also ignore Diggers, preferring to rely on wands and rings. They're waaaay too heavy.

I don't bother with Staves of Confusion or sleep.

[gglibertine]

I *love* wands of Disable Traps and Stone to Mud. Being able to rapidly tunnel out a kill hole is invaluable, and having a guaranteed way to disable traps on chests (some of which can be *nasty*) is also really great. Especially for Blackguards and Paladins who tend to have terrible trap disarm skill.

It never even occurred to me that I could use Disable Traps on chests. Now I'll start picking them up!

I pretty much never pick up Ego weapons, with the exception of Maces of Destruction/Scythes of Slicing/Chaos Blades. Ego weapons are never as good as artifacts. Especially Defender weapons, though I always play a Warrior or Hybrid class, so I need my weapon for damage.

I always pick up decent ego weapons until I have an artifact, and sometimes they're even better than the artifacts, at least for a while. (In my last game I never found anything that was better than my Long Sword of Gondolin -- it did much less damage than my artifacts but the ESP made up for it.)

I don't bother with the rings that give an elemental resistance and can be invoked for an elemental attack. A single elemental attack just never seems to make a difference, and using up an entire ring slot for one elemental resistance and a bit of AC just never seems worth it.

In the early game I find them really useful, but by midgame you've usually got dragon scale mail of some kind.

I also ignore Diggers, preferring to rely on wands and rings. They're waaaay too heavy.

I'll carry a shovel if I'm not playing a dwarf, but yeah, I'd never bother with a pick, much too heavy.

I don't bother with Staves of Confusion or sleep.

I rely on Sleep for things like terrified yeeks and things that breed. Confusion isn't nearly as useful as Slow Monsters though, which I won't leave town without if I can help it.

[Sphara]

Rod/wand of Hold Monster has such a low duration (for against anything it actually works) that I do not carry those.
Early game fast animals like a stegocentipedes or a sabre-tooth tigers might be a good target to paralysis. But they just wake up immediately and catch you up almost right away. Plain useless for that. Better just read ?PD.

Same goes for scare/confuse monster. Unless I'm a mage using Tap Energy, all these are completely ignored by me. It's kinda weird that Slow Monster and Stun Monster are endgame evocables for melee chars, whereas other early game status-affecting sticks, are almost completely worthless.

Yes, you can post some scenarios where they just might be useful, but those are too rare to sacrifice an inventory slot.

[gglibertine]

Rod/wand of Hold Monster has such a low duration (for against anything it actually works) that I do not carry those.

I knew I was forgetting one! Yeah, they just don't last long enough. Confuse is a little better, but still not very useful.

[Selkie]

I ignore armor with the Dwarven ego. The con bonus is never high enough to be worth it, and it doesn't give anything else of note.
.

It gives free action, which isn't nothing. Also it's not completely rare to find +2 to strength and Constitution, which can sometimes be the little extra that adds 40hp to your character.

The truth is I'm usually deciding between dragon scale mail and Dwarven armour, and I'll usually choose the latter

[m0stlym0nk]

Rod/wand of Hold Monster has such a low duration (for against anything it actually works) that I do not carry those.
Early game fast animals like a stegocentipedes or a sabre-tooth tigers might be a good target to paralysis. But they just wake up immediately and catch you up almost right away. Plain useless for that. Better just read ?PD.

Same goes for scare/confuse monster. Unless I'm a mage using Tap Energy, all these are completely ignored by me. It's kinda weird that Slow Monster and Stun Monster are endgame evocables for melee chars, whereas other early game status-affecting sticks, are almost completely worthless.

Yes, you can post some scenarios where they just might be useful, but those are too rare to sacrifice an inventory slot.

I wonder if it could be souped up without making it over the top. Perhaps "hold" has a monster go through 2 states.

1. Existing turn range of held.
2. Then, a turn range of being "groggy" and in essentially a debuffed state, with appropriate text.

Ie, less binary, and more something that an enemy has to work off over a number of turns.

[smbhax]

As a new player I found trying to figure out what to keep among the forest of slow/confuse/hold/sleep type wands and things a bit bamboozling, ended up being pretty disappointed with all but Slow.

With Slow though I think I couldn't tell how to tell how long the enemies stayed slowed--maybe I was missing it in their description, but I thought I looked and their move speed description didn't change, I dunno.

[ster]

There are a fair number of items I just don't ever bother with, either because I don't think they're useful enough or because they're more trouble than they're worth:

Scrolls: Blessing, Holy Chant, Holy Prayer, Monster Confusion, Door Destruction, *Destruction*
Potions: Berserk Strength, Infravision, Brawn, Intellect, Contemplation, Nimbleness, Toughness
Wands: Magic Missile, Disable Traps, Stone to Mud, Polymorph
Staves: Detect Evil, Earthquakes, *Destruction*
Rods: Disable Traps
Amulets: Infravision, Slow Digestion
Rings: Constitution, Reckless Attacks

What are yours? Should I be trying to use any of mine?

So like
I know TO can do everything in V
But that doesn't mean TO should be used to do everything
Why would you never use essential pieces of kit (stone to mud, destruction, arguably detect evil)
Do you even have a single win?

[tom]

There are a fair number of items I just don't ever bother with, either because I don't think they're useful enough or because they're more trouble than they're worth:

Scrolls: Blessing, Holy Chant, Holy Prayer, Monster Confusion, Door Destruction, *Destruction*
Potions: Berserk Strength, Infravision, Brawn, Intellect, Contemplation, Nimbleness, Toughness
Wands: Magic Missile, Disable Traps, Stone to Mud, Polymorph
Staves: Detect Evil, Earthquakes, *Destruction*
Rods: Disable Traps
Amulets: Infravision, Slow Digestion
Rings: Constitution, Reckless Attacks

What are yours? Should I be trying to use any of mine?

Stone to mud is essential kit for me all game. It lets you quickly dig yourself a hole to fight from. Many fights that are getting out of hand are perfectly manageable once you have dug yourself in, and are taking on monsters one at a time.

A constitution ring is usual mid game equipment, since without this or some nice artifact finds, your hit points are too low.

I like all the brawn, intellect, etc potions for doing a bit of pre-statgain statgaining. With forced descent on, they help a lot as you descend below dlvl 40 with characters who may not have found a single useful stat potion yet.

[tom]

Oh yeah, and *destruction* is poor man/woman's banishment. A late game warrior without destruction is just meat on the dungeon floor

[gglibertine]

I'll give Stone to Mud a try and see how I like it. Brawn, Intellect, etc. are problematic for me because of the chance of losing some of a stat I can't afford to lose -- especially Strength, since I'm always struggling to avoid being overloaded and slowed down.

In my experience, Ring of Constitution doesn't increase my hit points enough to be worth it vs a Ring of Damage or Strength.

[Pete Mack]

Ring of CON doesn't make sense for Warrior, where getting high CON is easy. But it is highly useful for Mage.

Tom: *Destruction* is excellent, sure. But ?Teleport level shows up often in the Black Market in large inexpensive stacks. It is a must-buy object. Definitely my go-to escape.

[Egavactip]

Some of you are refusing to pick up some of the most useful items in the game. Destruction? You can't get enough of that. Brawn? Every single character I ever play gulps the first brawn at the first opportunity--the advantage you get in weight carrying far outweighs most disadvantages. Nimbleness and Toughness are great, too. They can give you more than you lose, and all you do is store a couple of each before using them, to make sure they don't axe a stat you need. You can really pump up your key stats that way, especially for a fighter.

I used to save teleport level but I stopped. I haven't ever missed it. I'd rather fill that slot with staves of speed or destruction or some other useful item. And in the final battles, it makes you start all over from scratch. I've won hundreds of times, so I don't think I'm doing anything wrong there.

[ewert]

My 2 cents:

-Mud is vital for many characters in the end game, unless you are a super high stealth or have the spell, otherwise the amount of porting/fleeing/pretunneling elsewhere/luring gets out of hand

?*Destr* is the most important escape spell for Morgoth fight. You tele Morgoth, and then wipe out all the summons, and wait Morgy to return. IMHO.

Stat swap potions, when you drink at 18 or low 18s, you get more than 1 points worth, but only lose 1 (or 10). So what you do is save them up and only use your primary stat until it is over 18, then the secondary, etc., while not going under 18 in any of the more important ones, thus you can gain 18/xx stats in 2-3 stats before real statgain if you are playing slowly.

=Con or even two are often mid level gear, because you have covered other stuff okay but are still way too low on Con to hit the big bucks and get over 400HP range without them.

?blesses chants etc can be bought in shop for the final big planned 2 fights so yeah picking em up is kinda pointless I agree...

-? confusion works only early game, but they do work, zapping an early unique with conf/stun/slow makes them often cakewalks for melee.

Dmg wands are a niche thing mostly for mages who still don't have mana and have such poor missile skills but good device. So kinda agree most of the time are not used.

-polymorph, actually ... I am so pissed off at high level hydras at the moment, I am contemplating on carrying a rod next game because I want to kill everything but hydras at 30-50 dlvl are so painful and dangerous and WORTHLESS no drops.

Dwarven stuff is godsend for melees early, and depending on drops even mid/late they might be used...

Many items do have uses, but inventory management and being strong enough to not need the extra edge is probably going to make them not be used to be honest ...