Basic weapon question

[Petoften]

First, hi, I posted here when I played before and got great help I appreciate.

I decided to play a bit more, and have another 'newbie topic'.

Might have more as I play, high odds, but this one is, I decided to play a warrior. I'm finding that a Scimitar (6, 5) with 4d2 base damage, has 20.5 damage/round, while a dagger (3, 4) with base 1d4 damage has 43.3 damage/round!

That's quite surprising to me. I understand the idea of weapon speed being a factor, but what looks like a worse weapon having more than 2x damage!

Does that make any sense as a design? Isn't it overvaluing speed?

Similarly, a mace (6, 6) with base 2d4 has only 23.5 damage/round - but it has dragon slaying and even against dragons it's only 37.1.

Does this really mean, daggers are just that good and throw the other ones on the ground?

OK, I just realized I also have another question, and am wondering whether I should make a thread to ask a lot of little questions as they come up. This one is for clarification on scrolls of deep descent. When should be used generally, if at all intentionally? I remember reading some people saying, go as deep as fast as you can. Even if that's right, is it better to use it early or save it for... when?

[quarague]

The key difference is the number of attacks per round. The dagger is very light so you get 3 attacks per turn, the other weapons only give you one. So per attack the dagger is much worse but per turn (which is the relevant metric) it is superior. If you advance further and get higher strength and dexterity you will get more attacks per second with heavier weapons but in the beginning the best weapons for strong melee chars are light weapons like daggers and rapiers.

[Sky]

daggers are the best weapons at the beginning. Also, consider that you will likely wear a ring of damage, which adds +X damage per-blow.
However, you will reach max blows fairly soon. Once you raise your STR/DEX enough, you will get the same number of blows with heavier weapons, and that is when you switch.

And, once you start getting artifact drops, you don't really do the calculations anymore, because you start to value artifacts based on which powers they have.
It is only late in the game that you go back to maximum damage (generally damage vs Evil)

[fph]

Does that make any sense as a design? Isn't it overvaluing speed?

That is a concern others have expressed. For now that's the current system, sorry. Another alternative is currently being tested, but changing combat mechanics has huge implications on the game balance and is not an easy change.
A plus of the current system is that light weapons are best in the early game and heavy weapons are best in the late game, which is nice and realistic. Just imagine your level-1 adventurer is just *very* unfit and has difficulty lifting a scimitar or a mace.

scrolls of deep descent. When should be used generally, if at all intentionally? I remember reading some people saying, go as deep as fast as you can. Even if that's right, is it better to use it early or save it for... when?

If you are a new player, I suggest not reading them at all. It is best to go down/up with your feet, so that you can gauge more easily if you are too deep before it is fatal. For me, they start being useful in the second half of the game (DLVL 50-90), where there are a lot of very similar levels that you may want to skip.

[sffp]

Hey - you're preaching to the choir on daggers vs. heavier weapons.
I had a +6, +6 dagger on a warrior that was doing more damage than excecute damage heavy weaponry and just shook my head

As to deep descent - there are points in the game where some consider it better to stop/slow down until they have a certain resist - aka "don't go down 1000 ft without free action" or "don't go down 2000 feet without rPoison"
This causes the @ to be over powered for their level while they scounge around for that ring or boots with that characteristic.
But once they have Deep descent - especially to try and reach 1500 where the gain stat potions begin is quite useful.

Also later in the 3K to 45K


Honestly, some of the funner games I've had are early characters that read one way too early and end up OOD at 400/450 feet at CL 3 or 4.

I love gaining multiple levels by killing one thing

[wobbly]

Its also worth keeping in mind that ?dd is the 1st non-phase teleportation you find. It may not be instant but it does get you off a level pretty fast

[Petoften]

That is a concern others have expressed. For now that's the current system, sorry. Another alternative is currently being tested, but changing combat mechanics has huge implications on the game balance and is not an easy change.

I'm open to the answer, 'yes, it's a good design, yes it overvalues speed, and it works for gameplay'. Just wish it was more intuitive.

[sffp]

You think it's non-intuitive now?

When I was a ute, the mechanics were the same but they didn't give you damage statistics for your weaponry in the description.

I made soooo.. many bad weapons choices back in the 90's

[Petoften]

You think it's non-intuitive now?

When I was a ute, the mechanics were the same but they didn't give you damage statistics for your weaponry in the description.

I made soooo.. many bad weapons choices back in the 90's

For snow stories, I used to play rogue when it was only on PDP's

[Petoften]

OK, what the heck. Found a ring of the mouse, +2 dex. It makes my dagger go from 43 damage to 17 damage!

clearly the (0, -8) does something bad. Is that (damage, to hit) or what?

Guess I'll be dropping that.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

OK, what the heck. Found a ring of the mouse, +2 dex. It makes my dagger go from 43 damage to 17 damage!

clearly the (0, -8) does something bad. Is that (damage, to hit) or what?

Guess I'll be dropping that.

The first number (0,... is to hit adjustment, and the second number ... -8) is to damage adjustment. Rings of the Mouse can be useful for stealth, and in certain situations, or when you have a better weapon and can absorb the damage reduction more easily.

[Grotug]

Main gauches are better than daggers.

There is no simple answer to when to use a scroll of deep descent. It's purely situational. Sometimes it's just what you need. Sometimes it's just what you don't need. All depends on how things are going at your current depth.

Usually reading a scroll of deep descent means you need to be super careful when entering the dungeon 5 levels down. It's definitely fun to read them in the early game as a warrior, though. I always hope to read one early when playing a strong warrior char because a warrior can handle most things without any significant upgrades all the way down to about level 13 or 14.

[Sky]

the way that Angband works, DL40 has the same stuff as DL90 .. in a way.

DL40 is pretty much the sweet spot for a character. The following considerations have brought me to this conclusion.
1. there's no undead.
Sure, you get the occasional wight, but no spam of passwall life-draining, stat-draining mobs like Liches.
2. you can kill pretty much everything. It's not much XP, but it's free XP. Even trolls can be a good source of XP if you kill 300 of them.
3. when a vault is generated, the items inside will be considerably better than what your normal drops are, but the mobs guarding them will not be ridiculous - generally a couple TO and the gear is yours.
4. abundance of stat potions.
5. also, you won't rely on consumables to get through normal fights.
6. pits are easy to clear.
if you get, say, a giants pit, it won't have any titans in it, maybe one cyclop. Pits are a great source of "good" drops, e.g !Heal, !Spd, wands of TO, that stuff that relies more on number of mobs killed rather than inherent depth.

eventually you'll be all kitted out and you'll grow bored, at which point the best thing to do is to spam half a dozen Deep Descent and get ASAP to DL98. But, there is nothing on DL98 that isn't also present on DL40 .. just, not as often. The only real reason to go to the lower levels - aside from the obvious need to get to Morgoth - is to kill higher uniques.

I've always considered scrolls of DD to be, essentially, cursed items. Because the way they present themselves, early on in the first few DLs, and they dump you at *at least* DL6, which most new characters cannot cope with. During the first 30-ish CLs you really want to take your time, and build us your arsenal of basic necessities, a weapon with decent all-round damage, a good launcher, ESP, FA, SI, rPois, rNexus, pConf, pBlind, without which it's really not advisable to go any lower than DL30, as you can get into situations where you are no longer in control. And also, obviously, a stash of CCW, RLL, plenty of Spd, a few ?TS, and anything that gives you more basic speed - mostly, because of the really high damage multiplier you get with the first +Spd values.

Once you got your kit, you start to look for the *same* stuff, but better. So, for instance, replace your longbow of power with a longbow of extra shots AND some seeker ammo. Replace your lanthern of sight with a arkenstone. Replace your weapon of gondolin with a high damage, multi-slay artifact. You dod this by hovering around DL40/50, depending on how well built your character is.

When that stage is complete, the only things which will really change your game are high-end artifacts. By this time you should be able to TO with a 5% spell failure at most, have decent stealth and a whole bunch of resists, so navigating the dungeon, even greater vaults, is fairly easy. So, no reason to be at DL50 anymore, when DL98 is just the same. The only real difference is the undead pits, and their tendency to spit out hordes of annoying passwall mobs .. but really, you should be avoiding these, not fighting them.

[archolewa]

But your strategy is *boring* Sky! :P

That being said, from a pure win-per-character perspective, I'm not going to disagree with anything Sky said. And when I'm playing melee characters especially, I do often hit a wall between DL45 and 50, and have to back up for a few floors. But usually going back up five floors, and then back down is enough for me to accumulate the experience and loot I need to go deeper.

Personally, I prefer to steadily descend. Hit the downstairs, fire off magic mapping, treasure detection, monster detection, pick up any loot nearby, kill anything convenient, and hit the nearest down stairs. I'll go down immediatey if there isn't much loot nearby, or lots of nasties. I almost never use scrolls of Deep Descent unless I got *really* lucky (like, oh, finding Ringil on a young gold dragon on dungeon floor 32).

I will occasionally clear a level if I'm finding lots of loot, and/or lots of high-exp-low-damage monsters. I usually avoid vaults before the endgame unless I'm playing something sneaky. Large crowds of powerful monsters make me nervous.

[licker]

Something that I have always found interesting is the different approaches different players take when playing angband (or other roguelikes, even aarpgs, though those are different in that loot is usually the end goal, not actually 'wining').

It has to do with what peoples personal definitions of 'winning' are. Clearly, there is only one way to literally win the game and get the WINNER tag on your character.

However, for me, and some others I have discussed it with in the past, I don't actually care that much about actually winning the game. Which isn't to suggest I don't care at all, but it's the process which is far more entertaining than the actual result. As such, I do not play 'perfectly' or even always 'carefully', I am more interested in pushing the limits I see to see if I can overcome things which others would just ignore or avoid or run away from.

Not completely suicidally of course, but when I find a greater undead pit I want to see if I can clear it without dying, and the cost in resources to do so doesn't matter to me because I'm not actually prepping for the final battle since my goal isn't actually to even get there.

With such a mentality I realize that I am fare more interested in the mechanics of aarpgs in that sense (though I usually don't bother with hard core characters). However, the draw of the turn based style is what keeps me coming back to angband and various variants and various other roguelikes.

Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent, but in one sense it's advice for players, especially new players, to understand what their actual motivation for playing the game is. Sometimes it's enough to just play to learn mechanics and build up the monster memory and find all the cool artifacts (assuming not playing randarts). Winning? Well winning is very hard for most players, even experienced players. And often the best path to winning is what many will consider to be borning. Hanging out at 2000' for ages? Yeah it's definitely smart, and it's definitely the best path to winning (leaving out other goals like speed runs), but my god, I can't take it.

To each their own should always apply, however, that means there is often no right answer, at least to questions like 'how fast should I dive' because that really depends on other considerations. Otherwise, we'd all just hang out at 50' farming worms or whatever breeders we can find until we hit whatever level where the time payoff to get the next one is longer worth it. But then we'd just move to the next depth where we can find the next higher value breeder to do the same with...