do you guys use staves?

[emulord]

Idk what the current state of the game is since I play lots of variants and old versions, but yeah, it just maps the terrain, it doesnt light anything up.

[Adam]

I guess then it's staff of mapping, not enlightenment.

[wobbly]

There's a staff of enlightenment in 2.9.3 & it is indeed the staff of mapping just with the old name and a bunch of variants that split from V early enough have it.

I use a bunch of staves but my favourite is the Staff of Winds. Speaking of which, surely you could crack that wormhole open a bit wider Nick, it's a fun staff.

[Ancient Yeek]

I use wands quite a bit and will often hoard rods especially Frost bolt for Hydra like first poster pointed out until my character's back gives out and have to sell them all.

Staves tend to be too heavy and will only use them if have good stuff on it. Confuse Sleep and Slow staves I tend to ignore unless it's to kill early uniques.

Also nobody else a fan of Wonder? I love it in early game before I find any Artifacts it can absolutely destroy early uniques or cause fun. Definitely recommend more experimenting with Wonder makes the game more fun. Mage with a wand of wonder is incredibly entertaining with the new recharging and mana tapping... just don't cast it in a vault.

[Nick]

I use a bunch of staves but my favourite is the Staff of Winds. Speaking of which, surely you could crack that wormhole open a bit wider Nick, it's a fun staff.

I've heard of (Oangband) characters killing Morgoth using only the Staff of Winds

[luneya]

I use wands quite a bit and will often hoard rods especially Frost bolt for Hydra like first poster pointed out until my character's back gives out and have to sell them all.

Staves tend to be too heavy and will only use them if have good stuff on it. Confuse Sleep and Slow staves I tend to ignore unless it's to kill early uniques.

Also nobody else a fan of Wonder? I love it in early game before I find any Artifacts it can absolutely destroy early uniques or cause fun. Definitely recommend more experimenting with Wonder makes the game more fun. Mage with a wand of wonder is incredibly entertaining with the new recharging and mana tapping... just don't cast it in a vault.

Yeah, wands of wonder can be nifty in the early game, though I've never really gotten the full mage experience; I prefer melee characters. The spell version was overpriced to the point of uselessness (with the old classes; it was dropped from the current mage spellbooks). Someday I'd like to try playing an old-style mage with the preference files edited so that wonder is only a 3 mana spell like the standard bolts (and probably available at a lower level), and see whether being able to spam wonder would be game-breaking or just useless.

[Grotug]

The only staff that I use in every game regardless of race or class (especially in the first half of the game) is staves of teleportation. Otherwise, I use a staff of light early on, and cure light wounds to cut down on turncount (pick it up, use it liberally, drop it) and staff of mapping a lot as well as staves of detect evil when playing warrior and speed staves often come in handy. I've had some games where staves of destruction were quite useful when teleport other would not show up. _Banishment is useful at times, but I usually struggle to find an inventory slot for them. You mention rods of speed; these have been nerfed badly and are largely rendered pretty useless by the abundance of speed gear that @ has found by the time @ has reached the depth @ finds rods of speed. I've been led to understand earlier versions of Angband had speed items more rare, such as boots and rings which are too common now.

I usually carry wands of frost over rods of frost because they do slightly better damage and they are a stop gap before I have better or more reliable means for dealing with hydras.

I love wands of wonder in the early game but sometimes they can be annoying like when they destruct.

Recently I've taken to wands and rods of slow monster as they work on sooo many targets. I sort of see why, now, that these were nerfed in earlier versions of the game as they are quite powerful, especially since you can recharge wands an infinite number of times for ~650 gold in the shop.

I've been maintaining for awhile that Teleport Other is overpowered and the game would be more fun if the game was slightly less dangerous and TO removed or made super rare like rods of speed. This would require more creative tactics for getting at stuff inside well guarded vaults, such as luring and destructing or luring and self teleporting.

I usually struggle to find an inventory slot for healing staves when playing as a warrior.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

...You mention rods of speed; these have been nerfed badly and are largely rendered pretty useless by the abundance of speed gear that @ has found by the time @ has reached the depth @ finds rods of speed. I've been led to understand earlier versions of Angband had speed items more rare, such as boots and rings which are too common now....

I don't think I agree. I'm often in the position of grinding at DL98 or DL99 to get enough speed to take on the Big Bosses. But, that may be a result of quick-diving.

[mrfy]

Otherwise, I use a staff of light early on, and cure light wounds to cut down on turncount (pick it up, use it liberally, drop it)

Btw, you can use the staff from the floor without picking it up and then dropping.

Recently I've taken to wands and rods of slow monster as they work on sooo many targets. I sort of see why, now, that these were nerfed in earlier versions of the game as they are quite powerful, especially since you can recharge wands an infinite number of times for ~650 gold in the shop.

I didn't realize they could be recharged in the magic shop, thanks! I've been using too many recharging scrolls.

And yes, Slow Monster is now very useful.

I've been maintaining for awhile that Teleport Other is overpowered and the game would be more fun if the game was slightly less dangerous and TO removed or made super rare like rods of speed. This would require more creative tactics for getting at stuff inside well guarded vaults, such as luring and destructing or luring and self teleporting.

Given the dangers in the mid to late game, we need TO the way it is now. Especially with more monsters and uniques summoning others. I can usually deal with one ringwraith but multiple ones is too much, for example.

[Werbaer]

Yeah, wands of wonder can be nifty in the early game, though I've never really gotten the full mage experience; I prefer melee characters. The spell version was overpriced to the point of uselessness (with the old classes; it was dropped from the current mage spellbooks). Someday I'd like to try playing an old-style mage with the preference files edited so that wonder is only a 3 mana spell like the standard bolts (and probably available at a lower level), and see whether being able to spam wonder would be game-breaking or just useless.

Frost bolt used to cost 6 mana; fire bolt 9 mana. Compared with that, Wonder wasn't overpriced. But the cost of direct damage spells has been greatly reduced somewhere in the 3.x series.

(which is a good thing; in old times, i used to kill ancient Dragons with Magic Missiles, since the other spells cost too much mana)

[archolewa]

Given the dangers in the mid to late game, we need TO the way it is now. Especially with more monsters and uniques summoning others. I can usually deal with one ringwraith but multiple ones is too much, for example.

Yeah, without reliable TO, pretty much every summoning unique becomes a "LOL nope" unless you're tough enough to melee in an anti-summoning corridor (you know, unless you're one of the classes that doesn't already have as reliable TO). Also, Morgoth would have to be massively reworked.

Also, I'm kinda skeptical that removing TO would make for more interesting tactics. Lure and teleport sounds *way* too dangerous to ever be worth attempting. And lure and destruct is still useful today because TO requires you to be in line of sight and you can only teleport one at a time (neither of which applies to Destruct). Sure if you're playing a mage or thief with their crazy stealth scores, that almost doesn't matter (except for pits), but priests don't tend to have quite the stellar stealth scores in my experience. However, lure and destruct is more tedious, so it's usually only worth doing against undead pits, and maybe the occasional vault. Forcing you to luse lure and destruct everywhere we use TO now sounds like a recipe for an extremely tedious endgame.

To me Angband is all about picking your battles, and TO is a big part of that. I'd be very sad if we minimized it.

[Sky]

Slow is still very useful because it ALWAYS debuffs EVERYTHING. Doesnt debuff *that* much, but when you add a potion of speed to a rod of slow, you get a sensible bonus in just about every fight. I Slow even Morgoth.
No save - no immunity.

TO should be subject to a save, in my opinion. Too much of the game relies on waiting for *something* to come around a corner and getting teleported. It's so common, i have a keybind for "teleport nearest target".

Even with save, it would still be powerful, it just means you'd have to TO 3/4 times a high unique before it works.

[archolewa]

Even with save, it would still be powerful, it just means you'd have to TO 3/4 times a high unique before it works.

Which risks throwing them into the "lets just skip this level category" when they have some sort of nasty spell or breath, or worse have a higher speed. Not exactly rare if you are raiding a vault or diving aggressively.

[mrfy]

TO should be subject to a save, in my opinion. Too much of the game relies on waiting for *something* to come around a corner and getting teleported. It's so common, i have a keybind for "teleport nearest target".

Even with save, it would still be powerful, it just means you'd have to TO 3/4 times a high unique before it works.

I disagree. With the increase in danger from summoners, we need TO to work every time.

[fph]

It is just a matter of styles. There are two opposite game styles: one with one-turn kills and one-turn escapes, like current Angband; one without one-turn kills and without one-turn escapes, like Sil.
Mixing the two styles becomes problematic.