Ego items that are better than artifacts

[WingedEspeon]

I just found I pair of leather sandels of speed <+8> on level 41. These are a lot better than the artifacts footware I have found in my experiace around these levels. How often do you guys find ego items that are better than artifacts you tend to find around those levels?

[Mondkalb]

It happens every so often; there are many ego items which can turn out quite useful.
I remember some robes of permanence that turned up on early levels.

[Thraalbee]

The dumps from the recent artifact-less Vanilla competition is a good source for browsing combinations of excellent ego items.

http://angband.oook.cz/competition.php?showcompo=169

[Bogatyr]

Cloaks of the Magi that come with ESP are especially awesome (for mages at least) because they free up the need for ESP in the helmet or amulet slot, allowing you to focus on the best resistance/stat-boosting items for those instead.

Power Dragon Scale Mail is always an awesome find.

[Timo Pietilä]

Cloaks of the Magi that come with ESP are especially awesome

Anything with ESP is a great find because ESP is great. Lordliness crowns, crowns of magi, cloaks of magi, big-dice weapon of *slay evil*, lothlorien bows.

Lordliness and magi crowns especially for their respective classes, because they also sustain the stat.

Crown of might <+3> is also great find, but now that those can have multiple pvals it's hard to find one with +3 to all three stats.

[Derakon]

Even a basic Crown of Might can be very handy for the sustains, especially if you plan on meleeing Morgoth.

Boots of Speed frequently outclass all other boots the player finds, since basically the only things that outclass them are unusually high-rolling Boots of Elvenkind (which can get speed, though usually less than normal Boots of Speed, but also get stealth), and the boots of Feanor. Cloaks are also a good slot for finding an ego item that's better than any artifact you have, if only because Elvenkind/Magi cloaks can have random attributes that happen to plug a hole in your gear, while the artifact cloaks tend to give similar abilities as body armor/helms/etc. get.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Extra attacks, Holy Might, Defenders, Lothlorien bows, Buckland slings, even Slay Evil weapons can often outperform artifacts. @ class can have a big impact on the decision. For example, an awesome artifact weapon that in the hands of a warrior has 6 blows, in the hands of a mage with only 4 blows can easily be outperformed by a decent extra attacks weapon. A great buckland sling can outperform just about any artifact launcher except for bows in the hands of a ranger. Some fantastic Lothlorien bows can even outperform Belthronding, no matter what class is using them. So, in a long-winded way, the answer is, it depends.

[Tregonsee]

I just found Green Dragon Scale Mail of Speed (+5). Better than Caspanion? Less AC, but would also cover the RPoison hole left by ditching Cospanion...

[fizzix]

since basically the only things that outclass them are unusually high-rolling Boots of Elvenkind (which can get speed, though usually less than normal Boots of Speed, but also get stealth)

This was changed recently. Elvenkind get the exact same speed distribution as speed. They're just rarer and deeper.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

This was changed recently. Elvenkind get the exact same speed distribution as speed. They're just rarer and deeper.

I think Elvenkind boots have a limit of +9 to speed (+4 stealth), whereas plain Boots of Speed have a limit of +10 speed. That one point usually isn't enough to merit changing out of those most excellent {superb} Elvenkind boots, if you've been lucky enough to find such a pair, unless you also have Aggravate making the stealth fairly irrelevant (or you're incredibly lucky and find the boots of Feanor).

[AnonymousHero]

Power Dragon Scale Mail is always an awesome find.

Yeah, unless you have one already (look at the inventory).

[Estie]

This was changed recently. Elvenkind get the exact same speed distribution as speed. They're just rarer and deeper.

Excellent. I used to just squelch non-artifact boots once I had found +10 speed; while stealth is great early game, in the lategame its not worth bothering rummaging through footwear to possibly find some high pval elvenkind, which you might use for a while but you can never dump those +10 speed ones because you might just need that extra bit of speed to get to +30 in the endgame. Which meant I basically never got to use any elvenkind boots.

Estie sigil of approval.

[dstyle]

A mace of disruption or scythe of slicing of extra attacks can out-perform a lot of artifact weapons on damage as well.

[Bogatyr]

Yeah, unless you have one already (look at the inventory).

*Dwarven* Power Dragon Scale Mail, woohoo!

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=17987

[Bogatyr]

Extra attacks, Holy Might, Defenders, Lothlorien bows, Buckland slings, even Slay Evil weapons can often outperform artifacts. @ class can have a big impact on the decision. For example, an awesome artifact weapon that in the hands of a warrior has 6 blows, in the hands of a mage with only 4 blows can easily be outperformed by a decent extra attacks weapon. A great buckland sling can outperform just about any artifact launcher except for bows in the hands of a ranger. Some fantastic Lothlorien bows can even outperform Belthronding, no matter what class is using them. So, in a long-winded way, the answer is, it depends.

Slings of Buckland are my new favorite thing, I keep my eyes out for the +2,+2 speed/power ones. Buy some cheap iron shots at Ang-mart, elemental brand them, and you're looking at > 600 damage/round. Great unique killers!

I was just strolling around down with one of my "reject" shots, shooting it from the ground at the townsfolk:

Your Iron Shot of Venom (1d4) (+5,+5) poisons the Boil-covered wretch (425). It was a good hit! The Boil-covered wretch dies.