Rod of healing, not as useful as I expected.

[ulrichvonbek]

I got one early in the game, and I was really excited. I had never had one before. It did help me win a few fights that I would have had to run away from with high HP monsters early on, but I was really cautious about using it because of the 1000 turn recharge time.

I'm playing a Paladin, and now that I'm later in the game, I can just cast the spell as reliably as zapping the rod and since I've got some speed items, the player turns for recharge are now over 2500. I'm really tempted to just drop it. Any reason to hang onto it?

[Derakon]

For a paladin or priest? It's not so great. It's excellent for other classes who want to save all their healing potions for the endgame though. The main reason to save it would be that it restores 500HP instead of 300, and that it doesn't require mana. Whether that's worth losing an inventory slot is up to you.

[Timo Pietilä]

For a paladin or priest? It's not so great. It's excellent for other classes who want to save all their healing potions for the endgame though. The main reason to save it would be that it restores 500HP instead of 300, and that it doesn't require mana. Whether that's worth losing an inventory slot is up to you.

One thing why I love Crown of Gondor is that it also heals 500 points, Elessar does that too and if I have one of those rods I can heal three times in one fight without using any potions.

Too bad that my luck of finding Gondor has gone down.

[Derakon]

Gondor's completely absurd. IMO it needs to lose the STR/CON boosts, or the activation.

[Mondkalb]

I tend to collect rods of healing, even with paladins (it is not too unusual to find three or four of them).

If slots available, I store them in my home until endgame. A couple of rods can spare mana or potions and I had some pretty hard games with scarce potions where the rods came in handy.

[Timo Pietilä]

Gondor's completely absurd. IMO it needs to lose the STR/CON boosts, or the activation.

Lose that SPEED. Gondor is rare enough that it can be excellent, but with that speed-bonus it becomes a no-brainer which is bad. Without SPEED it isn't much better than Crown of Might if you have rConf from other sources (and are not playing priest/paladin).

That crown is one of the old artifacts that nobody have complained being overpowered (partly because it is so rare) before it gain that speed bonus, so apparently that is what is making it overpowered.

There is nothing wrong about very powerful items, they just need to be rare enough to cause "wohoo!" -effect.

Which reminds me, artifact shields are too common in 3.2.0. I usually have found four of them before finding my first elvenkind shield, at which point elvenkind is useless. I'll start a new thread about these.

[ulrichvonbek]

I tend to collect rods of healing, even with paladins

That makes sense to me, if I had two, I would feel completely different. Of course, that means if I do decide to get rid of it, the RNG will immediately send another my way just to torment me.

[d_m]

That makes sense to me, if I had two, I would feel completely different. Of course, that means if I do decide to get rid of it, the RNG will immediately send another my way just to torment me.

Right.

Saving a rod in your home on the chance that you see another can be nice. When playing warriors I'll save rods of identify in my home in case I can find 2-3, and then I'll start using them instead of scrolls/staves.

[Spacebux]

... the player turns for recharge are now over 2500. I'm really tempted to just drop it. Any reason to hang onto it?

Drop it.

The Rod of Healing is a wasted item in its current form. Not unless you happen into finding 4 or 5 more to make the slot useful, it's a wasted slot. You're much, much, much better off stacking potions of *healing* - no failure (can't fail to quaff!), easier to replenish/stack, and even if you don't have ImmCold, there isn't that great a danger to losing them.

If the kind developers (note, I need to kiss some @ss after my last few posts) were to reduce the recharge rates for the Rod of Healing, it may be useful in future revisions.

[Taha]

Rods of identify are actually useful now, relatively quick recharge (8 turns?) means it can be functional even with only one.
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VAPORIZERS

[Estie]

Which reminds me, artifact shields are too common in 3.2.0. I usually have found four of them before finding my first elvenkind shield, at which point elvenkind is useless. I'll start a new thread about these.

Thats ok since chances are that first elvenkind shield is better than all the 4 artifacts (at least for randarts thats what im used to see).

[Derakon]

Er, elvenkind shields just give basic 4 + one high resist and a stealth boost. Thorin gives +4 STR/CON, acid immunity, resist fear/sound/chaos, and free action; Anarion gives basic 4 + full sustains; even Celegorm gives basic 4 + light/dark/blindness resistance. Depending on what high resist Elvenkind gives you it might be better than Celegorm, but I don't see it beating out the other two.

And yeah, I can't remember the last time I saw an elvenkind shield. They really are very rare.

[Magnate]

Lose that SPEED. Gondor is rare enough that it can be excellent, but with that speed-bonus it becomes a no-brainer which is bad. Without SPEED it isn't much better than Crown of Might if you have rConf from other sources (and are not playing priest/paladin).

That crown is one of the old artifacts that nobody have complained being overpowered (partly because it is so rare) before it gain that speed bonus, so apparently that is what is making it overpowered.

There is nothing wrong about very powerful items, they just need to be rare enough to cause "wohoo!" -effect.

Well, they also need to not be no-brainers, IMO, but that's a philosophical point (see the thread about Crawl).

So who added speed to Gondor? Was it JLE? I don't think it was me, because Gondor doesn't aggravate.

Anyway, we'll be doing a pass through artifact.txt prior to 3.3 to tone down some stuff (like off-weapon +dam), so we'll remove the speed then.

[Timo Pietilä]

So who added speed to Gondor? Was it JLE? I don't think it was me, because Gondor doesn't aggravate.

JLE. He added majority of small speed-bonuses in items and also increased dice of some of the old items like Eonwe (it used to be 4d4, now it is 5d4) and added some new items like Eowyn and Fundin.

[Estie]

Er, elvenkind shields just give basic 4 + one high resist and a stealth boost. Thorin gives +4 STR/CON, acid immunity, resist fear/sound/chaos, and free action; Anarion gives basic 4 + full sustains; even Celegorm gives basic 4 + light/dark/blindness resistance. Depending on what high resist Elvenkind gives you it might be better than Celegorm, but I don't see it beating out the other two.

And yeah, I can't remember the last time I saw an elvenkind shield. They really are very rare.

Well THORIN now is great of course, for some reason I never see any shields of such calibre. As for Anarion....I used to find it very late if at all. While it offers a way to get sustains for the endfight, early on Id prefer a good elven shield (res poison, res confusion; stealth and less weight). Celegorm is about same as elven, so should have same chance to appear ? (assuming base leather shield is established).