[S] Worth of crafting?

[FV20X6]

I've got a Giant Druid (with oath) who got a drop of a chunk of iron fairly early from Brodda, so I finally gave in and raised magical infusion. I'm going with this skillset:

[Skills]

Throwing : 35
Wrestling : 40
Spellcasting : 40
Magical Power : 35
Nature Lore : 50
Magical Device : 30
Perception : 30
Dodging : 35
Spell Resistance : 40
Magical Infusion : 25


As usual for wrestling/throwing giants, it's been terribly effective; But on the same token I haven't seen lategame with a real crafter. What's my best option? Weapon to try to fill my quiver with custom javelins, since I don't think there's too much variety in throwable weaponry? Armor to simply cover up my resistances and get a high AC? Alchemy to go with throwing?

Speaking of alchemy: Is it ever worth it? I'm always glad to see potions of essences I find, but apart from flirtations with grenade flinging gnomish ninjas, I can't imagine it being a skill that you'd really appreciate towards the middle and end of the game, unless you can really make strong potions of poison and detonations.

I look forward to advice from the more experienced players, and hopefully I'm wrong about alchemy.

[camlost]

My preference has pretty much always been for armor forging, due to the sheer number of slots you can fill with it. However, I do know that you at least used to be able to forge some pretty awesome weapons and launchers. Actually, I almost never pump magical infusion, as you still get good stuff, it's just uncontrolled stuff, which is a fine payoff as far as I'm concerned. I've never done a lot of throwing, so I don't know how useful that would be, but I bet its pretty good.

Alchemy also lets you create rings and amulets of types you've seen, though I expect this is of dubious usefulness (or maybe I'm just jaded because my one ring of speed attempt failed).

Joshua

[Satyr]

I won with a very simillar character some time ago http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=6528 , I just added 30 levels of Holy Alliance to get detect evil for the early midgame and played oathless for the additional punching power /hps. The druid's offensive spells coudn't really deal the same damage as wrestling, but this may be the other way round with an oath-bound caster. The shapeshifts and the last dungeon book on the other hand were really usefull.
I found armor forging/ infusion to be a *very* powerfull combination (I'd even say it comes close to being *too* powerfull), because you become almost independent of artifacts for covering your resists/speed/etc. needs. If you go that way, death-by-boredom is probably the greatest danger during the endgame.
I didn't bother with alchemy, a collection of ego/artifact throwing weapons (look out for weapons of returning) were more than enough for the odd monster that resisted unarmed combat.