A Few Questions/Observations From an Old Player

[Oramin]

Does the game hate Half-Troll Warriors?

I'm down to level 19 of the dungeon and I'm level 27. I haven't found a single artifact yet; not even the Phial of Galadriel.

[Oramin]

Morgoth bites the dust again.

On to the Half-Troll Warrior.

[donalde]

Vanilla characters top out around 1200HP, IIRC -- that's a half-troll warrior with max CON and a decent set of levelup rolls. Potions of Life are just that ridiculous.

1200 hp on hT warrior is pretty normal, I just looked ladder and found hT Warrior with 1293 hp. That is pretty darn impressive. That is like 100 to 200 more hp than any other race can wish for on clvl 50.

[Timo Pietilä]

3. Any other downsides such as it being bad to wear while facing Sauron?

It's activation can be really bad. Or good. Depends of the mood of the Ring. I would recommend not to use that activation.

[Derakon]

1. Does Permanently Cursed mean I can't remove it once I put it on?

Correct.

2. Just how bad is the experience drain? I've already chugged a couple of dozen Potions of Experience after hitting L50 so I should have a substantial buffer. Can I restore the lost experience?

Every few normal-speed turns, you'll lose a point or two of experience. It's completely negligible. However, the drain is permanent, so the only way to "restore" it is to kill things.

3. Any other downsides such as it being bad to wear while facing Sauron?

Nope. The only things special about Sauron are 1) that he can only show up on level 99, and 2) that after you kill him, you can get staircases to level 100.

[Oramin]

Ok, now that I've found The One Ring on level 98 in a vault, I'm a little curious about using it (see, I told you that would work...).

1. Does Permanently Cursed mean I can't remove it once I put it on?

2. Just how bad is the experience drain? I've already chugged a couple of dozen Potions of Experience after hitting L50 so I should have a substantial buffer. Can I restore the lost experience?

3. Any other downsides such as it being bad to wear while facing Sauron?

Thanks.

[Timo Pietilä]

32->42 speed makes you 11% faster.

Which is more than +5 damage from STR I presume is the point.

OTOH, if he can use some damage enchanting gear with Ringil (like RoDam +15) then hasted +32 is better than hasted +42. Or not, that +11% applies to everything else too.

Speed causes perception distortion: you don't actually see yourself killing monster faster, difference comes from damage monster does to you. Game just feels easier (you have more time to do everything).

[LostTemplar]

32->42 speed makes you 11% faster.

[Timo Pietilä]

Oh, I also lost some STR when I switched over.

That can have rather large impact: STR 18/190 -> 18/220 is five points of damage. One of the reasons why Set of Caestus of Power <+5> can beat Fingolfin or Cambeleg.

[Oramin]

Doesn't Ringil give 10 speed? I thought that was the reason it was so good.

Yep, Ringil gives +10 Speed but when you're a Mage you can pretty much run with Haste Self constantly up. And with the diminishing returns on Speed past +30, there isn't much point to running around with +42 Speed (or so I understand).

That's why we were comparing Durin + Haste Self straight up with Ringil. I had about +22 Speed with Durin and about +32 Speed with Ringil.

[Derakon]

Finally, I was curious, is it actually possible to have a character with 5000 HP or are Potions of Life just on the ridiculous side?

Vanilla characters top out around 1200HP, IIRC -- that's a half-troll warrior with max CON and a decent set of levelup rolls. Potions of Life are just that ridiculous.

[debo]

Doesn't Ringil give 10 speed? I thought that was the reason it was so good.

[Oramin]

Hmm, looks like the calculation has changed a lot since 2.9.7 (2.7.9? ... ok, an older version). I recall getting a lot of *GREAT* hits back then with Durin. Kind of disappointing that the top level crits are so much harder to get. After I finish up with my Gnome Mage (Sauron and Morgoth are left), I'm going to try a Troll Warrior for a change of pace; I was hoping that his lack of ranged AOE ability would be made up for with crits in melee. Well, we'll see.

Well, thanks for running the numbers for me. Shows why impressions should be checked against actual numbers.

Also, after having played around with Kelek's for a bit, I'm satisfied with the game balance with Mana Storm and having regular access to Banishment/Mass Banishment.

Finally, I was curious, is it actually possible to have a character with 5000 HP or are Potions of Life just on the ridiculous side?

[Derakon]

Okay, fine, I guess I'll go source-diving. The formulae aren't linked anywhere that I'm aware of, but the relevant function is critical_norm in attack.c.

Crit chance calculation is based on (weight in decipounds) + (total melee to-hit bonus * 5) + (player level * 3). You have a (chance in 5000) chance of getting a critical hit; if this fails, you get a regular hit.

Crit power rating is given as (weapon weight in decipounds) + (1d650). Durin's best crit power would be 880, giving a "great" hit (2x + 10 damage), barely better than a "good" hit (2x + 5). At 900 power you can get "superb" hits (3x + 15).

Durin's weight gives it an extra +100 to crit chance and crit power compared to Ringil, but its to-hit is lower by 9 (in your case), which reduces its chance by 45. So you'll get crits an extra 1.1% of the time. The actual power of those crits is only slightly better, on average, than Ringil's, especially since Ringil has higher base damage to multiply by.

Almost no major demons resist acid, so the difference between the two is just Ringil's x5 slay vs. Durin's x3 brand -- it should be noticeable, but not extreme.

I hadn't realized how discretized the critical quality cutoffs are. Not just the *GREAT* hit, but also the Superb hit, is functionally unachievable for almost all weapons. And good/great hits are almost identical.

[Oramin]

Hmm, do you happen to have a link to the current (3.3.2) version of the formula for calculating critical hit damage?

I think crits are why it felt like Durin was causing more damage; it was (+13, +20), btw, courtesy of some *Enchant* scrolls. I seem to recall seeing crits on a regular basis from Durin, not so much with Ringil. Oh, I also lost some STR when I switched over. Dragons are definitely slower with Ringil, but Demons don't seem to be any faster.