late game rods

[quarague]

My level 35 half-elf rogue (in 3.5) found a rod of healing and in spite of constantly lacking healing options I dropped it immediately. 10% failure rate is just too high for the situations where I want to use healing. I think this is a general issue of most of the late game rods. If healing rods had a failure rate of 1 to 3% depending on device skill they would be a great find that is useful to keep. Teleport other rods are similar. By the time you find one its mostly useless because the failure rate is no better than the spell (which everyone but warriors get) and you can't use it multiple times in a row. 0% failure is something that only advanced casters should get but if I could get below the 5% spell threshold I might actually use rods.

[Derakon]

Rods of healing are still useful, as are artifacts that activate for big healing effects. But you have to try to use them before you're in one-shot-dead territory, so they're only useful for the classes with more HP.

That said, they take so bloody long to recharge that I never bother with them myself.

As for Teleport Other, it may only be useful for warriors, but warriors find the things invaluable. Same goes for e.g. Rods of Trap Location and Rods of Detection. And they have a niche of utility for hybrid casters if there's a period where the character's SP aren't sufficient to spam the spell; IIRC Teleport Other is moderately expensive for hybrid casters.

[Timo Pietilä]

Rods of healing
...
That said, they take so bloody long to recharge that I never bother with them myself.

Couple of those, few healing artifacts and you save a lot of healing potions. I use those even with priest.

I have vague memory that recharge rates of those have been tweaked so that they are now a bit more useful.

[Thraalbee]

I found rods of teleOther useful for the compo Priest when low on mana and during fights against summoners. You just don't use them when you won't survive a failure.

[Mondkalb]

As a rule of tumb for Angband in general - if you'd use anything your life depends on with even a tiny failure rate, it will fail four times in a row.

[fizzix]

That said, they take so bloody long to recharge that I never bother with them myself.

This is the problem I have with them also. 100 turn recharge is longer than enough to ensure only one use per battle. I might just sneak this change in when no one is looking. I often feel Derakon and I are on opposite sides of lots of things, so when we agree on something it's gotta be a good idea. Right?

I also wouldn't mind the failure rate dropping a bit. 10% fail is awfully high.