Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[TripJack]

I would do some fighting and invocations until you find a better sword and have to switch back to weapon skill for awhile

[Delta Foxtrot]

So um. I took everyone's earlier advice and only trained weapon skill unless I hit mindelay with my randart scimitar (DrFi of makhleb). Whats optimal to train after that? Fighting? Dodging? Invoke? Evoke? I've never gotten this far before

Depends on your race/class combo, god choice and other circumstances. But generally once you've achieved a decent skill in something that kills monsters, you want to augment that with some defensive/support skills. A melee character needs fighting (HP) and armour (AC) or dodging (EV). Draconians can't wear body armour so I'd rather go with fighting and dodging.
Some gods -like Makhleb- require invocations skill to use their abilities effectively. You get health-for-kills without any skill investment, but conjurations and summons require some skill to reach tolerable failrates. Makhleb's conjurations are situationally neat, but not really a great reason to train invocations. His minor summons are pretty strong for a mid-game character and worth funneling some XP into if you're so inclined. Keep in mind that his summons can spawn hostile, though they shouldn't pose a problem to a post-lair character.

If you find yourself taking too much damage despite good positioning and tactics, you probably want to train defensive skills (or get a better weapon & skill). If you're doing just fine, get some invocations.

[freeformschooler]

Thanks for the advice. Hopefully should be enough to get me through lair at the least.

[DJ]

How feasible is it to cast in chainmail? I'm a lvl14 HuSk of TSO, currently wearing +2 ring mail of poison resistance, but I found a nice artifact +4 chainmail +rage rElec. My armour skill is at 1 currently, and my str is 13. Obviously I can't use it right now, but could I with a reasonable investment in armour skill?

[tompliss]

It depends
The math changed with the patch (you'll notice that there are no "EV penalty" but "enculmbrance rating" now).

Bu using the previous patch math, it was roughly :
5 skill : +69% fail
10 skill: +58%
15 skill: +47%
20 skill: +35%
25 skill: +25%
Before applying the transformation at the bottom of the page : http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Spell_success ...

You may want to try to make some tests with the wizard mode to check if what you want to be able to cast reliably will cost you much more

[DJ]

Yeah, I don't understand that transformation thing at all.

[tompliss]

The calculated is on the X and transformed on the Y.
Globally, the numbers I gave you are going to be worse in-game.

[DJ]

Ah, OK, so chain mail is a no go then.

[tompliss]

If you find an Elven chain mail, by the way, the debuff is really lower, so you may want to give it a try

[goblolo]

Can someone explain me or give a link to the page with explanation about how armor impedes spellcasting.
IIRC I read something about "Each 3 skill levels in Armour negates 1 point of EV penalty and spellcasting one", but I cannot find that stuff now.

[tompliss]

The page I linked a few messages ago was the one explaining it (but the process is more complicated than what you say) : http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Spell_success

Moreover, the math changed in the last version, so there is no "EV penalty" anymore (even if the encumbrance is 3*ex-EV penalty).
By the way, there is (and was) no way to remove totally the penalty, with armor with a EV penalty (except until -3 for elven), but you could reduce it enough.

I think the best way is to "simply" try what you want locally, in wizard, as every need is different.

[goblolo]

The page I linked a few messages ago was the one explaining it (but the process is more complicated than what you say) : http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Spell_success

Thanks, I already found it on the previous page and did some math before finding that article is for 0.10. Do you know where can I find source code (it's opensource, right?) for calculating spell success in current version?
Anyway, there is a question about rising armor skill for casters. As for 0.10 formulas, I found that there is about -1 point of spell failure (before converting to %%) for every Armour skill level, and that is roughly equals 1/12 of average magic skill or 1/3 of spellcasting skill. If I figured it correctly, It is much more preferably to train magic skills at most to increase success rate rather than armour skill (in other words Armor skill of 10 will not do more than conjuration and fire skills of 1 for, say, throw flame)?

[beorn080]

From what I recall, it REALLY depends on what armor your wearing. Crystal Plate or GDA is going to tank your spellcasting of anything but the most basic spells, even at 27 in all relevant casting skills. However, taking armor up a bit will see improvements. However, if your wearing, for some reason, leather armor as a caster, then you won't see many gains from armor, as the penalty is already low.

TLDR: The higher the penalty to casting, the more effect the armor skill has.  Also, listen to someone else first, as I've never actually gotten to the point of armored casting.

[Leafsnail]

I got Haste to be reliable in my last game in spite of wearing GDA and having 8 int.  It required 20 charms.

[DJ]

Is it just me, or does Skald kinda suck beyond Lair?