Advice about weapon to choose

[Talharim]

Hi,

Here is my char: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=21275
I am unsure about which weapon to choose: Dethanc does the most damage; Taratol activates for speed and Theoden has ESP.

Right now I'm using Theoden for the ESP and when I find a unique or something big and don't need information about the monsters around me, I'm using Theoden. Otherwise I'm using Dethanc for the damage.

Does this make sense?

[bio_hazard]

Right now all 3 have their uses- just a pain to have to juggle them to keep them all charged. You'll eventually get other sources of ESP which may relegate Theoden to your house. The lightning immunity of Taratol makes it useful for some cases but depending your inventory might not be something you necessarily want to haul around all game, but I'd certainly keep it for now.

The dagger will become obsolete quickly since you'll certainly find something with higher damage against everything and/or get more blows/round with the bigger weapons.

[luneya]

Lightning is probably the least important of the immunities, particularly for a midgame warrior. The only significant lightning creature you should be seeing is the colbran, and you should be able to either fight or teleport away from that one without having the immunity. The speed activation is good, but you'll need to spend a lot of time waiting for it to recharge after each major fight, as you don't want to actually hit things with Taratol. It might be different if your dagger was one of the other 'thancs, but with Dethanc vs Taratol, there's never any reason to attack with Taratol until you have enough str and dex that you get enough blows to match the damage potential.

I'd continue with what it seems that you've been doing: carry Theoden out of combat for ESP, swap to Dethanc before attacking anything, and leave Taratol at home to save the inventory slot. You can make this easier by engraving both weapons with @w0, so that you can use the x key to quick-swap between them. When you find another source of ESP, you can make Taratol your carry-weapon instead, but until then, it's probably not worth the hassle of juggling three weapons.

[Estie]

ESP is not only for detection, that character also has no source of see invis which makes Theoden the only choice. Thanc as high damage swap might be carried.

[Talharim]

I gathered as much, taratol takes a long time to refresh and, as such is not that useful. I forgot about the activation of thengel, thanks!

[Grotug]

I remember when I used to play Standarts and I'd often find Taratol and I'd always think what an amazing weapon, two great boosts to it, but in none of my games that I found it was I ever able to justify using the weapon, due to its poor damage. I'd lug it around for awhile and then just give up on ever making it work as a worthwhile swap. That said, there are warrior games where I will carry 3 weapons for different monsters, particularly if I have one good against Undead but nothing else. I love *slaying* Undeads (powerfully). There's tons of not very dangerous ones and they drop stuff and I almost always have sDex since DEX rings are super useful to HT/Warrior in the early game and "Trickery is overpowered in the late game.

In addition to Colbrans, Storm giants also like to destroy my TO rods/wands.

[Pete Mack]

Back in the day Taratol was pretty good for dragon pits (especially blue, of course.) But those are ridiculously rare now; I don't remember the last time I saw one. It's all Hydras and Undead (with occasional demon or angel) pits.

[Derakon]

Taratol can also be useful as an ersatz Rod of Speed. If you're having trouble finding speed items and don't have access to Haste Self, that can be pretty useful, though it's irritating to equip it, activate it, equip your real weapon, then later re-equip Taratol to recharge it.

[Pete Mack]

@Derakon- very true. I used it heavily in a fairly recent attempt at Paladin, where I wasn't finding nearly enough sources of haste self. (I think I only found three potions before DL 65 or so, and spent one on use-ID.)