do you guys use staves?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[Adam]

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

[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.

[Sky]

there's a staff of enlightenment?

[emulord]

I use staves WAY more than wands. For wands its "whatever I find and then drop empty later" except for early wands of light and stone to mud

Staves for warriors:
Light or Enlightenment
Teleport
Detect Monsters (until rod of detection)
Detect Traps (until rod of detection)
Identify (until replaced with rod)
Speed (lategame)
Healing (lategame)

I tend to pass on Destruction and just take scrolls of tele level instead.

[Kruzifixxion]

No there useless

[LordRotharoth]

I almost always keep TO, and I like to have Teleportation staves incase I'm blind, and very rarely I'll keep Wands of wonder for like DL7-12 or something like that, but I don't really use anything else, other than Recall rods, and restoration sometimes

[sffp]

Staves are useful when you're blind and can't read the teleport scroll or use cast the spell.

Curing
Teleport
Speed

[archolewa]

I just pulled off my first Rogue win almost exclusively using devices (I did use the occasional arrow of slay undead in the end game). I used pretty much every attack wand I got my hands on, especially Wand of Light against orcs and Lightning bolt against corridors of others in the early game. Fire bolt and frost bolt were my bread and butter through the midgame, until I found a wand of Drain Life.

Mapping was one of the first staves I got my hands on and I kept some with me the whole game, because I didn't have to wait for them to recharge (and when playing a rogue, I find that I want to spend as little time as possible on the level).

Similarly, I ignored rods of TO and used wands until my TO spell got reliable and had enough SP. I did ignore the Wand of Dragon Breath, because the fact that the element is random makes them unreliable. I did have a wand of Dragon Flame and a wand of Dragon Frost to take down creatures that were weak to those elements, or couldn't be hurt by Drain Life and Annihilation.

I really liked spamming Wands of Dragon Flame because I could hit an entire room of enemies fairly quickly.

I used wands of Fire balls to hit enemies with splash damage before they came into LOS.

I also used a staff of healing that I found, because hey, renewable healing! I even used it when fighting Morgoth (phase door away, invoke the staff unless Morgoth smashed me with Mana Storm, so I had to chug a *healing* potion or risk being killed next turn).

I abused the staves of *Destruction* I found, because I like just sending the Tarrasque and Black Reavers, and other nasties from the level. I also *heavily* used wands of stone to mud to set up kill corridors, bypass nasty monsters, and keep a bead on Morgoth as he approached.

Staves of Light were also really nice in the early and midgame, though they became less necessary once I got telepathy.

It was a ton of fun, because with a reliable recharge, my rogue had:

1. A wide variety of elemental damage.

2. Could hit most nasty enemies really hard from range.

3. Mostly renewable healing.

4. A mostly renewable means of knocking enemies off a level.

5. Renewable mapping.

One of my most interesting and versatile characters to date. I don't think I used any staves of dispel evil though. Though come to think of it, it might have been a good choice against the Ringwraiths. Alas, maybe next time.

But yeah, when I'm playing warriors, paladins or priests I generally ignore most wands and staves. They don't have as reliable recharge, so wands and staves are much less renewable, and so much less useful, except for utility wands and staves.

[Nick]

Also in 4.2 rangers use them to make arrows.