Star of Elendil vs lantern of True Sight

[wobbly]

Star of Elendil seems a bit pointless since lanterns of true sight were added. You'll generally find the lantern 1st and I'd much rather have rblind, unless its a dwarf.

[Nick]

I wanted to vote "all of the above".

[Pete Mack]

Star has a good activation. Phial recharge time is too short once you get a little speed, and in any case most spellcasters don't need it at all. In contrast, rods of mapping are a pretty late find.

[wobbly]

The activate is good but its actually a lot smaller radius then a staff of mapping.

[klassik]

awesome choices for poll

[tangar]

the poll is funny.. but it doesn't have obvious answer - leave it as it is, which I would vote for. Star of Elendil is useful and I use it often at the beginning.

[Pete Mack]

The poll--which I hadn't actually looked at til now, since "I never answer polls"--is entirely a successful troll.

[Hounded]

It needs something. I almost inevitably stick with the Phial or an enchantern until the Arkenstone appears.

I do still miss the Palantir though.

[drquicksilver]

I use Elendil if I find it, on a class which has access to its own light spell (because it saves the weight of a staff of mapping or a slot for a rod of magic mapping if I've even found that yet).

On a class without access to a light spell or a magic mapping spell, I'll still use Elendil+Illumination over Phial+Magic Mapping.

So to me it seems useful?

[Sphara]

The Star is nice, but for me, it suffers from long recharging time. I want to be able map several times on a level and you can't do that with Elendil. Not without resting a lot. This especially, when there are rock digging monsters on the level (final fight!). Stack of Mapping items is usually my choice. A staff of mapping, while heavy, has high base charges and I don't think rods of mapping are that rare. Then there are different mapping spells and enlightenment potions...

Rough personal estimate:
90% of the time, Phial wins. 95% of the time, Lantern of True Sight wins. 99% of the time, Lantern of Shadows wins.

[Grotug]

My problem with Star of Elendil is that it's a frickin star; a cosmic body distilled into a special artifact; it should be very powerful and {special}, yet I usually yawn when I find it. EDIT: woops, I just read a wikia of he star and it's not a star at all; just a special stone.

My proposal is make the star more rare. Change its activation to a name appropriate one: _Starlight and give it +5 light radius and automap another +5 radius automatically as @ walks. Now it's truly a unique item in the game that isn't reproduceable with so many other items/spells. And it's rare and powerful and truly special. It also creates a dilemma about what to wear. True Sight or Elendil or Arkenstone; all doing separate things.