Best melee?

[buzzkill]

Drolems are over rated and not all that common (IMO). I've been killed a lot, but only once by a drolem. A drolem I was fully aware of. I get that drolems are hard to detect, but the mindless drolem is usually the least of my concerns once I reach drolem depth.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Methinks play style is crucial here. For the free-fallers, drolems are much more of a risk. For me, I'll agree they're a significant problem through DL 50-55, but after that, what worries me a LOT more, among the monsters invisible to ESP, are the Qs.

[Derakon]

Methinks play style is crucial here. For the free-fallers, drolems are much more of a risk.

I'd argue the exact opposite. Those that dive rapidly through the depth at which drolems are most prevalent are far less likely to encounter them than those who linger. Sure, encountering one would be comparatively more dangerous for a diver, since they're underpowered, but not significantly so; drolems are badass enemies regardless of how powerful you are.

[Timo Pietilä]

Aren't drolems both non-evil and invisible? That makes them pretty hard to detect IIRC, since Reveal Monsters is pretty expensive. Besides, if you're blind you can't cast spells, and your device success plummets too ...

Drolems are not invisible, but they are empty-minded which means they do not appear in ESP.

I don't think blindness affects your device skill. Melee yes, but devices are OK while blinded. Confusion wrecks your device success.

[Derakon]

I don't think blindness affects your device skill. Melee yes, but devices are OK while blinded. Confusion wrecks your device success.

Having recently looked at the device activation code, you're correct. Blindness has no effect. IIRC confusion halves your success rate.

[PowerDiver]

Having recently looked at the device activation code, you're correct. Blindness has no effect. IIRC confusion halves your success rate.

I have no idea what the rule is now, but that is the old rule and it has changed.

[Magnate]

I have no idea what the rule is now, but that is the old rule and it has changed.

Eddie is right - I re-did device activations for 3.1.2, and almost all player states have an effect. Bless and heroism give small (5%) boosts to skill, and almost all other states give penalties - but confusion is only -25% IIRC, and nothing is worse than that (heavy stun is -20%) - though they are all cumulative.

More importantly, the success algorithm is much more linear, so you don't suddenly drop from 97% success to 3%. But it's harder to reach 99% success than it used to be.

[Derakon]

Shows what I get for using old (3.1.1) source code for my references. Guess I should download a newer version. Thanks for the correction.