Best standart melee weapons

[Egavactip]

Well okay, there is a point. If I find Doomcaller or Deathwreaker, then something has gone desperately wrong with the RNG.

More seriously though, my games tend to end as soon as I hit the power threshold for Morgoth (that is, I don't hang around to kill uniques or gain equipment), so I spend relatively little time each game at the depths where the uber-items can plausibly be generated. I can't remember the last time I found Doomcaller or Deathwreaker, and I think I've only legitimately found the One Ring once.

It found you.

[Gram]

OK, here's an update. I enchanted all the artifacts up to (+14,+14), making a noticeable difference for Pain (more crits), Sting and other "midgame" +blows arts, and many aggravating weapons. I'm including damage against evil demons at equal weight and also replacing undead with evil undead=max(undead,evil). Also, I created a MoD of extra attacks +2, which as people have already said is the highest pure damage non-aggravating melee weapon.

Name	Base	Evil	EvUnd	EvDmn	Brand	Naive avg
Pain	591	591	591	591	591	591
Aule	440	540	641	641	641	580.6
Wrath	430	522	794	522	612	576
Ringil	430	498	566	702	566	552.4
Eonwe	420	493	566	713	566	551.6
Aiglos	414	472	643	472	529	506
Eorling	455	538	538	538	455	504.8
Sting	462	493	524	493	462	486.8
Aglaran	474	474	474	474	474	474
Thunder	434	434	434	434	602	467.6
Durin	416	416	416	532	532	462.4
Crisdur	405	476	546	476	405	461.6
Dagmor	448	448	448	448	510	460.4
Eowyn	388	445	614	445	388	456
Ulmo	447	447	447	447	447	447
Erebor	401	401	401	492	492	437.4
Fundin	392	448	504	448	392	436.8
Anduril	376	426	476	426	476	436
Careth	433	433	433	433	433	433
Balli	398	398	398	552	398	428.8
Orome	379	379	379	379	532	409.6
Nain	400	400	400	400	400	400

Name	Base	Evil	EvUnd	EvDmn	Brand	Naive Avg
Grond	699	1022	1988	1988	699	1279.2
Deathwr	555	753	1349	753	952	872.4
Doomcal	486	590	590	693	693	610.4
Zarcuth	448	531	614	614	614	564.2
Anguire	430	470	470	511	511	478.4
Calris	405	476	476	546	405	461.6
Melkor	417	417	417	417	578	449.2
Gothmog	391	391	391	391	524	417.6

Name								Base	Evil	EvUnd	EvDmn	Brand	Naive Avg
Mace of Disruption of Extra Attacks (5d8) (+14,+16) <+2>	649	649	1042	649	649	727.6
Mace of Disruption (Holy Avenger) (5d8) (+16,+20) [+3] <+1>	491	633	774	774	491	632.6
Mace of Disruption of Extra Attacks (5d8) (+16,+15) <+1>	551	551	891	551	551	619
Scythe of Slicing of Extra Attacks (8d4) (+17,+14) <+2>		591	591	591	591	591	591
Mace of Disruption of *Slay Evil* (5d8) (+13,+15) <+1>		457	598	739	598	457	569.8
Blade of Chaos of Extra Attacks (6d5) (+17,+14) <+2>		568	568	568	568	568	568
Scythe of Slicing (Holy Avenger) (8d4) (+17,+15) [+2] <+4>	428	546	664	664	428	546

[Timo Pietilä]

Slay dragon is never a priority for me; dragons are usually pretty easy kills. I don't think I've ever been scared of a dragon that wasn't Kavlax or massively out of depth. Which is kind of a shame, really.

There is a long period where dragons don't pose a threat, but once you enter Law Dragon -depths things change. Then you have dragon explosions just like you might get Demon explosions. Undeads are not that bad IMO, very few of them summon stuff, so it usually is one on one fight (except when there is a graveyard).

Dragon is maybe par with Demon, Undead a bit less to me (Undeads are usually not worth the fight).

[Estie]

Well okay, there is a point. If I find Doomcaller or Deathwreaker, then something has gone desperately wrong with the RNG.

More seriously though, my games tend to end as soon as I hit the power threshold for Morgoth (that is, I don't hang around to kill uniques or gain equipment), so I spend relatively little time each game at the depths where the uber-items can plausibly be generated. I can't remember the last time I found Doomcaller or Deathwreaker, and I think I've only legitimately found the One Ring once.

I dont understand the fascination with Doomcaller. Damage wise its on par with the top 4, if that, but it aggravates. So the only time I would be tempted to use it is when a) I find it (very rare indeed) and b) I dont have any of the top 4 weapons nor a suitable ego, which is even rarer.

[Timo Pietilä]

I dont understand the fascination with Doomcaller. Damage wise its on par with the top 4, if that, but it aggravates.

It is a bit higher than top 4 non-aggravating weapons, but I agree it isn't that good just for damage. I think the main fascination comes from the good old times:

Many new high-dice weapons have been introduced, many of the old ones boosted, very many got better by fractional blows (especially MoD:s) and ESP has got way more common outside of headgear. Wrath especially has got a huge boost by lighter weight and bigger dice.

One of my favorites that is IMO undervalued is Thunderfist. It has double-brand of fire and elec and barring very few uniques and almost worthless normal monsters almost none of those resist both, and it gives boost to STR and CON. It might not be one of the very top and it is not good against Morgoth or Sauron, but because of those stat-boosts it is very good mid-game weapon.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

OK, here's an update. I enchanted all the artifacts up to (+14,+14), making a noticeable difference for Pain (more crits), Sting and other "midgame" +blows arts, and many aggravating weapons. I'm including damage against evil demons at equal weight and also replacing undead with evil undead=max(undead,evil). Also, I created a MoD of extra attacks +2, which as people have already said is the highest pure damage non-aggravating melee weapon.

I think there is one very important aspect missing from your analysis, and that is a Max Blows comparison. What is a fabulous weapon in the hands of a Warrior with 6 blows per round can be much less great in the hands of a Mage with only 4 blows per round. Whereas, some weapons that in the hands of a Warrior aren't close to the top, in the hands of a Mage will be the best for that class. E.g., The Glaive of Pain vs. Ringil. Warrior, the Glaive might win, but for a Mage, Ringil might.

[Gram]

I already mentioned this in my reply to Carnivean, but the only way class max blows will affect any comparisons here is with +blows weapons. (That's because in the late game anybody can get their class's max blows with anything. There is one exception - I think warriors can't ever get their max blows with Grond, so for them it's slightly less overpowering compared to other weapons.)

For mages, a +2 blows weapon gives 3/4 of the damage a warrior gets with it, while all normal weapons only get 2/3. So +blows matters more to a mage than to a warrior.

Class will have zero effect on the comparison between Ringil and Pain. But for a mage Sting will do more damage than Aiglos or Eorlingas, and Aglarang and Dagmor will come right after Eorlingas. For a warrior, Sting will drop behind Thunderfist, Aglarang will drop three places behind Crisdurian, while Dagmor drops behind Eowyn and Ulmo.

The ridiculous amount of off-weapon +damage this character is wielding also tilts things a bit towards +blows weapons. If you can't wear a ring of damage without being too slow and you aren't wearing either Fingolfin or Cambeleg, then Sting, Dagmor, and the extra attacks ego weapons will be correspondingly less attractive.

[Gram]

Timo and Estie: Another part of the reason Doomcaller is interesting is that it slays dragons powerfully, which I haven't included in my table. With this character it gets 900 damage against dragons. The only weapons that do better against dragons are Deathwreaker (950) and Grond (1988), and the only non-aggravating weapon that gets over 650 is Aule (843).

Great Wyrms that summon other Great Wyrms (Law, Chaos, Many Colors, Balance) may be a reason to consider Slay Dragon to be valuable in the late game. But I don't know how much weight to give that. I'm disinclined to devalue Slay Undead. Sure, you may prefer not to melee the undead, but if you teleport level whenever you see one you're going to miss out on a lot, and if you ever find yourself meleeing the undead you very much want it to be over and won as quickly as possible.

[Estie]

Dragon slaying is something falling into the farming period, and thats the time I definitely dont want aggravation (not even Deathwreaker). For the last fights, dragon slaying doesnt matter.

As for number of blows, warriors do NOT get 6 blows with heavy weapons. Max for MoD is 5.2, for example. Since most top tier weapons are heavy, warriors do basically the same damage as hybrids in the endgame.
So, for warriors Ringil and Wrath are better, but not as good as MoD (+2 attacks or Deathwreaker) which are best for everyone.

[Gram]

Wow, I was totally off base about warriors max blows (I've not been to the late game with a warrior). I must have misread something. And I hadn't even noticed that this character (like all other 5 or 6 blows characters) can't get max blows with Grond. (The damage number for Grond is accurate, I just hadn't realized that a mage will dispense nearly as much damage with Grond since nobody can get 5 blows.)

Everything I said before about blows does still apply to the difference between mages and 5 blows classes, and to weapons 15 lbs or lighter, for which warriors can get their max blows. I'll have to make a separate table for warriors to take into account their preference for lighter weapons.

[Timo Pietilä]

Sure, you may prefer not to melee the undead, but if you teleport level whenever you see one you're going to miss out on a lot, and if you ever find yourself meleeing the undead you very much want it to be over and won as quickly as possible.

Teleport other and just avoid that region of the dungeon in general are the main ways of avoiding battles. Teleport level is poor way to avoid anything, it is emergency escape.

Almost all undeads that are worth fighting in hope for good drop are pretty much pushovers, you don't really need much artillery to kill them (exceptions: Cantoras, Black Reavers and two L uniques). Slay evil or effective brand (Acid or Fire works against most) is all you need. You do want to have RDisen against deep undeads though.

One major undead I didn't mention is Dracolich, but that's evil undead dragon that doesn't resist anything except cold and poison so chances are that you have something that is effective against it.

I consider slay undead important, but not in any way more important than demon or dragon. I actually do want kill dragon weapon for top dragons more than kill undead because a) dragons are rather big, and as such hard to kill fast and b) they have relatively good drops for monster class, so after dragon explosion you have a lot of loot to go thru.

[Gram]

Well, here's the table for warriors. I didn't enchant weapons for this character- too much of a hassle right now without access to Tenser's or Infusions, and since warriors' access to enchant weapon is limited the unmodified stats may be of interest to people. But realistically one would probably find a way to burn a few scrolls on some of these weapons that have a lot of room for improvement, so I may do that (and grab some ego items) later.

Name	Blows	Base	Evil	EvUnd	EvDmn	Brand	Naive avg
Aule	6	551	672	793	793	793	720.4
Wrath	6	517	625	952	625	734	690.6
Ringil	6	540	622	703	866	703	686.8
Pain	5.5	671	671	671	671	671	671
Eonwe	5.8	492	577	663	833	663	645.6
Aiglos	6	521	590	796	590	658	631
Ulmo	6	559	559	559	559	559	559
Aglaran	7	550	550	550	550	550	550
Eowyn	6	464	531	733	531	464	544.6
Durin	5.8	489	489	489	625	625	543.4
Crisdur	5.5	471	550	628	550	471	534
Dagmor	8	518	518	518	518	588	532
Eorling	5.2	478	565	565	565	478	530.2
Fundin	6	470	538	605	538	470	524.2
Anduril	6	451	511	571	511	571	523
Sting	8	490	525	559	525	490	517.8
Thunder	5.5	478	478	478	478	662	514.8
Orome	6	478	478	478	478	662	514.8
Erebor	5.8	470	470	470	576	576	512.4
Careth	8	482	482	482	482	482	482
Balli	5.8	446	446	446	626	446	482
Nain	5.8	468	468	468	468	468	468

Name	Blows	Base	Evil	EvUnd	EvDmn	Brand	Naive Avg
Grond	4.7	776	1123	2164	2164	776	1400.6
Deathwr	5.2	583	792	1419	792	1001	917.4
Doomcal	5.8	595	717	717	838	838	741
Zarcuth	5.8	525	621	717	717	717	659.4
Calris	6	499	580	580	661	499	563.8
Melkor	5.8	507	507	507	507	691	543.8
Anguire	7	478	526	526	573	573	535.2
Gothmog	6	467	391	467	467	626	483.6

Timo: the "insta-teleport-level" bit was an attempt to inject some humor; yes, I'm aware that's not the realistic way of avoiding most undead confrontations. Hard to tell whether someone's being serious on the internet.

[Timo Pietilä]

Timo: the "insta-teleport-level" bit was an attempt to inject some humor; yes, I'm aware that's not the realistic way of avoiding most undead confrontations. Hard to tell whether someone's being serious on the internet.

That could be viable way to play if you have that as spell. See something you don't like, change level. I wouldn't play like that, but someone could.