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[Toady Two]

I could use some advice for playing earth elementalists.

I would like to second that. I'm currently playing a DDEE () of Makleb and early game has been a cakewalk after using 200 + stones. My defenses are pretty high up with a Dex ring for evaision, stoneskin and the deep dwarf natural resilience.

As it usualy with Makleb Deep Dwarves shit gets harder around Lair when heaving hitters start showing up.

Along with Earth I'm training up Transmutation and Conjuration. No books so far, hoping for maybe Blade Hands or any combat buffs really.

[Dr.Feelgood]

I could use some advice for playing earth elementalists.

Sandblast is very powerful now. Save stones for killing tough early game monsters. Stone Arrow is great as well. Use it to kill hydras and death yaks.

Slow monsters down with Leda's Liquefaction and blast them with Iron Shot. Shatter is now a single school spell, so try it out. You can play as a Passwall assassin, but that doesn't sound very... reliable. LRD still sucks. I won with a staff of earth user. I'd recommend Nemelex if you go that route.

[Dakk]

I could use some advice for playing earth elementalists.

Sandblast is very powerful now. Save stones for killing tough early game monsters. Stone Arrow is great as well. Use it to kill hydras and death yaks.

Slow monsters down with Leda's Liquefaction and blast them with Iron Shot. Shatter is now a single school spell, so try it out. You can play as a Passwall assassin, but that doesn't sound very... reliable. LRD still sucks. I won with a staff of earth user. I'd recommend Nemelex if you go that route.

LRD sucks if you use it as a damage spell against stuff. Generaly I only use it against statues, golems, and skeletal undead. I one shotted a skeletal dragon using it once.

[Mindmaker]

I could use some advice for playing earth elementalists.

Sandblast is very powerful now. Save stones for killing tough early game monsters. Stone Arrow is great as well. Use it to kill hydras and death yaks.

Slow monsters down with Leda's Liquefaction and blast them with Iron Shot. Shatter is now a single school spell, so try it out. You can play as a Passwall assassin, but that doesn't sound very... reliable. LRD still sucks. I won with a staff of earth user. I'd recommend Nemelex if you go that route.

LRD sucks if you use it as a damage spell against stuff. Generaly I only use it against statues, golems, and skeletal undead. I one shotted a skeletal dragon using it once.

It's awesome with petrification.
You can get rid of some tougher melee monsters that way.
Not to mention that monsters in quite a large area, take much damage.
Blood and chunks everywhere.

Eh, I'm was still confused about the spell damage, skills etc. so I just killed him myself (been very successful, having two rigs of magical power).
Rather stick to some less complicated fighters until the wiki explains how casters really work.

[3]

Would using Bullseye on a kobold (currently) with no shield skill be worth it? Its SH is pretty absurd. I'm XL10 on D:9 about to start lair.

Edit: Did it anyway. Being able to block ten attacks in a row as I'm backing off is pretty great.

[Leafsnail]

Have you ever used projected noise, or seen anyone use it? Or heard a story of someone using projected noise?

Yes, especially in ziggurats.

It seems like it could have some pretty serious monster pulling capabilities.  Normally you have to get within a monsters LOS and ping it to do that.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how you'd stop floods of other monsters from accompanying that one.  Hm...

[G-Flex]

Would using Bullseye on a kobold (currently) with no shield skill be worth it? Its SH is pretty absurd. I'm XL10 on D:9 about to start lair.

Edit: Did it anyway. Being able to block ten attacks in a row as I'm backing off is pretty great.

It gives you negative 5 EV, which is quite bad, and as a kobold you need a whole 21 skill in Shields to get rid of the casting/attack speed/damage penalties.

[3]

That's what I thought. Regardless, I was doing alright with it until the game decided to throw multiple mambas/death yak packs/frog packs/bees at me on one level.

[Mr.Person]

You should always use the heaviest shield you can unless it's restricting casting of a particularly hard spell you want to cast.

[G-Flex]

You should always use the heaviest shield you can unless it's restricting casting of a particularly hard spell you want to cast.

I disagree.

• Different shields get bonuses from different stats: Dex for bucklers, average of Dex/Str for shields, and Str for large shields. So if you're a high-dex character, the lighter ones might get more edge, making the inherent SH difference between shields matter less.
• An EV penalty of 3 or 5 (shields and large shields, respectively) can be pretty significant. It affects your damage in some way, your casting rates (but you mentioned that), and adds a delay to your attack in the amount of up to your adjusted shield evasion penalty. If you're a small race, this penalty is going to be much higher. If you're using short blades, for instance, your minimum attack delay is 5 (even lower if using a weapon of speed or a quickblade), and a Large Shield can up to double that, making you attack half as quickly. That's very bad.

[Dakk]

Thankfuly my kobold earth elementalist trained some translocations and managed to find a ring of control teleport so he has alot of escape abilities.

Altough my luck didn't last long as my 0.8 build bugs whenever I try to enter the lair and exits out 
This cut me out from getting 2 runes.

[Mr.Person]

Shield's stat weighting is as relevant as weapon's stat weighting. In other words, it's irrelevant. A large shield will always provide more SH than a smaller one and will probably provide more SH than EV spent. I say probably because small races such as kobolds might just be better off with a regular shield than a large one.

The weapon speed attack delay is only relevant if you're using a big, slow weapon. For a quick blade or something like that, your weapon skill will remove that delay in almost no time at all. For a larger weapon, your skill will still remove the delay, it'll just take a lot longer. If you don't wield a weapon, obviously this isn't important at all.

The spellcasting penalty from a large shield is high, but the penalties with a buckler or shield are really quite small. Everybody should use either a 2-hander or a buckler. Period. Generally around the mid-game, everybody should upgrade to a shield (small races might want to wait a little bit to get more shields skill). Most, but not all, races will then want to move up to a large shield. Spellcasters in particular should generally use large shields. The casting penalty is very manageable in the late game and the increased SH from a large shield even on a low Str character is totally worth it. Think of it this way: would you rather have 5 more EV or 10 more SH? Then, as your shields skill goes up, you get that EV back along with additional SH. That's not even mentioning that your dodging skill is still going up, increasing your EV further.

However, on that note, if you wish to remain a pernament buckler user, there are reasons for doing so. Characters with lots of spellcasting skill but not so much skills in the various magics (casting ogres, spriggans, generalist wizards) might want to pass on larger shields since their success rates will always be a touch on the low side. Low-level spellcasters with early shields should also probably pass on them until later since shield penalties are very relevant in the early game. That being said, there is no reason whatsoever to pass on a buckler if you can wield one.

[G-Flex]

Shield's stat weighting is as relevant as weapon's stat weighting. In other words, it's irrelevant.

Bullshit. Your stats increase your SH by a significant amount.

A large shield will always provide more SH than a smaller one and will probably provide more SH than EV spent. I say probably because small races such as kobolds might just be better off with a regular shield than a large one.

This depends on the relative usefulness of EV and SH. There are things you can evade but not block, for instance, and vice-versa.

The weapon speed attack delay is only relevant if you're using a big, slow weapon. For a quick blade or something like that, your weapon skill will remove that delay in almost no time at all. For a larger weapon, your skill will still remove the delay, it'll just take a lot longer. If you don't wield a weapon, obviously this isn't important at all.

This is wrong.

Judging by in-game testing I just did, it not only also affects unarmed attacks, but is applied after the speed cap for your weapon.

Using a kobold with no shields skill as a test (but max short blades skill), the delay on a short sword goes from 5 to randomly between 5 and 8 (more often 6 and 7, it seems?). This would be the same for non-kobold players at no skill as well. With a large shield (not on a kobold, obviously), it can go up to 9, and hovers around 6-8.

With a kobold, even 5 shield skill doesn't affect the attack delay significantly with a shield, although it eliminates most of it for a buckler. Also, with that same shield skill and 10 Str and 22 Dex, the buckler provides only 1 less SH, and at the cost of 2 EV and the aforementioned penalties.

Even at 15 shields skill, the kobold's attack delay is increased by 1 about half the time, which admittedly isn't much, but just proves that it's still there. At that point, the shield does in fact give slightly significantly more SH than the buckler, but still at the cost of a couple EV and other (now more minor) penalties.

At those stats, but as a human, the shield is (of course) without the speed/damage/casting penalties, but the large shield (despite its high resulting SH) still increases attack delay to something like 6-7 a good amount of the time, which is significant enough. Keep in mind this is all with high shields skill.

With no shields skill, this human has only 1 more SH with a buckler than a shield, and with a drop of 2 EV, and with a large shield, the SH is good, the EV drops a bit more, and more importantly, his damage drops off significantly and his attack delay is increased by 20-100% (and this part even happens with a shield, not just the large shield).


The point from all of this? If you have a high-dex character, a small character, or a character who relies on fast weapons, you want enough shields skill to severely diminish the penalties, or else the added SH is hardly worth it. You can even get significant penalties using significant shields skill sometimes, so saying "use the biggest one as long as it doesn't fuck up your spells" is ridiculous, because if you don't have shields skill at a high enough level, it'll fuck up your attack rate too, and might not even provide better SH (or barely any).

The spellcasting penalty from a large shield is high, but the penalties with a buckler or shield are really quite small.

I'm not sure about shields. Bucklers, yes, but shields at low skill? That can be pretty significant if your skill is bad.

Everybody should use either a 2-hander or a buckler. Period.

I do agree with this, for the most part. However, you should invest in shield skill, particularly if you melee monsters.

Spellcasters in particular should generally use large shields. The casting penalty is very manageable in the late game and the increased SH from a large shield even on a low Str character is totally worth it. Think of it this way: would you rather have 5 more EV or 10 more SH?

It depends on the values, because each has diminishing returns. Going from 25 to 30 EV is worth much less than going from 15 to 20 EV.

Also, it depends on whether or not you really want to invest much into shields skill, and whether or not you have armor that also restricts spellcasting; mid-late game, if you use armor with any sort of significant EVP, you might have trouble casting high-level spells. Throwing a large shield into the mix could mess you up more.

That's not even mentioning that your dodging skill is still going up, increasing your EV further.

Your dodging skill would go up anyway; in fact, it would go up faster, because you aren't sinking points into shields.

[Mr.Person]

Shield's stat weighting is as relevant as weapon's stat weighting. In other words, it's irrelevant.

Bullshit. Your stats increase your SH by a significant amount.

That's not what I'm referring to at all. Yes, increasing your stats will increase your EV and SH. What I mean is that in all cases, you'll get more SH out of a large shield than a buckler. It takes over 50 dex and 1 str to get more SH out of a buckler than a large shield. Not very relevant, if you ask me.

Shields don't factor into the stat gains at all. It still boils down to "spellcasters raise Int, EV fighters raise Dex, and heavy-armor users want Str".

A large shield will always provide more SH than a smaller one and will probably provide more SH than EV spent. I say probably because small races such as kobolds might just be better off with a regular shield than a large one.

This depends on the relative usefulness of EV and SH. There are things you can evade but not block, for instance, and vice-versa.

AFAIK, the only thing in the game that is undodgable but blockable is magic dart (orb of destruction might be undodgable, but it is definetely blockable). And in any case, 99% of the time you want as much as both as possible.

The weapon speed attack delay is only relevant if you're using a big, slow weapon. For a quick blade or something like that, your weapon skill will remove that delay in almost no time at all. For a larger weapon, your skill will still remove the delay, it'll just take a lot longer. If you don't wield a weapon, obviously this isn't important at all.

This is wrong.

Judging by in-game testing I just did, it not only also affects unarmed attacks, but is applied after the speed cap for your weapon.

Using a kobold with no shields skill as a test (but max short blades skill), the delay on a short sword goes from 5 to randomly between 5 and 8 (more often 6 and 7, it seems?). This would be the same for non-kobold players at no skill as well. With a large shield (not on a kobold, obviously), it can go up to 9, and hovers around 6-8.

With a kobold, even 5 shield skill doesn't affect the attack delay significantly with a shield, although it eliminates most of it for a buckler. Also, with that same shield skill and 10 Str and 22 Dex, the buckler provides only 1 less SH, and at the cost of 2 EV and the aforementioned penalties.

Even at 15 shields skill, the kobold's attack delay is increased by 1 about half the time, which admittedly isn't much, but just proves that it's still there. At that point, the shield does in fact give slightly significantly more SH than the buckler, but still at the cost of a couple EV and other (now more minor) penalties.

At those stats, but as a human, the shield is (of course) without the speed/damage/casting penalties, but the large shield (despite its high resulting SH) still increases attack delay to something like 6-7 a good amount of the time, which is significant enough. Keep in mind this is all with high shields skill.

With no shields skill, this human has only 1 more SH with a buckler than a shield, and with a drop of 2 EV, and with a large shield, the SH is good, the EV drops a bit more, and more importantly, his damage drops off significantly and his attack delay is increased by 20-100% (and this part even happens with a shield, not just the large shield).


The point from all of this? If you have a high-dex character, a small character, or a character who relies on fast weapons, you want enough shields skill to severely diminish the penalties, or else the added SH is hardly worth it. You can even get significant penalties using significant shields skill sometimes, so saying "use the biggest one as long as it doesn't fuck up your spells" is ridiculous, because if you don't have shields skill at a high enough level, it'll fuck up your attack rate too, and might not even provide better SH (or barely any).

Either I misread the learndb or it's wrong. Probably the former. In any case, yes, shields attack penalty is added on after skill reduction hits the cap.

I didn't mean to imply that shields will not affect unarmed fighters. I'm aware that they get double penalties for using a shield on top of the penalties that other melee fighters have to endure. What I meant to say was more like "this is irrelevant if you're not using a weapon".

Based on what I'm seeing, outside of the random delay penalty, the base attack speed penalty for using a shield is actually pretty minor. Bucklers seem to have no penalty at all. That's quite odd since the learndb states that large shields give a rather severe penalty which isn't at all matching up with what I'm seeing in wizard mode. I can't vouch for the random penalty, but I'm only seeing a +30% delay for using a large shield at 0 skilll. Hmm.

The thing about shields is that even if you're hitting a big attack penalty from using them, you gain shields skill very, very fast. I've gotten 10+ levels in shields just from doing Lair on a cowardly wizard who constantly ran away. I got 8 levels in shields once from Vaults because I found a large shield early in the second level. Before that point I had no skill whatsoever. Getting 15+ shields skill is absurdly easy, so even if that regular shield is providing major penalties when you first put it on, they go away very fast. Again, I put a provision in there about how low-level characters probably should pass on larger shields since the penalties are amplified at low levels.

I also can't really vouch for melee characters since I don't generally play them. If the random penalty winds up being nasty on large shields, that's something. But the base penalty alone isn't too bad. I guess the real thing to take away is that one should generally avoid using low-level large shields. The accuracy/casting penalties are just too much for a few extra points of EV. The thing about large shields that makes them good is that they gain a LOT of SH from your shields skill. And low level characters won't gain much shields skill because they'll die from missing so damn much.

The spellcasting penalty from a large shield is high, but the penalties with a buckler or shield are really quite small.

I'm not sure about shields. Bucklers, yes, but shields at low skill? That can be pretty significant if your skill is bad.

Only if one also has other penalties involved or is already bad at casting spells to begin with. Shield penalties on spellcasters are really, really minor. A general rule of thumb is that bucklers provide no penalty whatsoever, regular shields will make your top spell level unusable if it's not already excellent, and large shields will do the same but for your top two levels. Everything underneath that level isn't affected at all. So unless you need that top level, use a shield.

Spellcasters in particular should generally use large shields. The casting penalty is very manageable in the late game and the increased SH from a large shield even on a low Str character is totally worth it. Think of it this way: would you rather have 5 more EV or 10 more SH?

It depends on the values, because each has diminishing returns. Going from 25 to 30 EV is worth much less than going from 15 to 20 EV.

Also, it depends on whether or not you really want to invest much into shields skill, and whether or not you have armor that also restricts spellcasting; mid-late game, if you use armor with any sort of significant EVP, you might have trouble casting high-level spells. Throwing a large shield into the mix could mess you up more.
[/quote]

You can never have too much EV. Even at like 40 EV high-HD monsters still have a solid 30% chance of hitting.

Why you would want to wear armor is totally beyond me, but yes, if you have lots of casting penalties you're gonna suck at casting. And obviously if you have to pick one, you should take the shield, every time.

That's not even mentioning that your dodging skill is still going up, increasing your EV further.

Your dodging skill would go up anyway; in fact, it would go up faster, because you aren't sinking points into shields.

That's not the way I look at it. I mean, yes, you will be putting fewer points into dodging, but you will be putting more points into survival skills. You'll also be getting extra survival out of the points you do put in. The points needed to raise dodging from 17 to 18 can raise shields from 0 to like 8 or 9 or something like that. I'm not sure exactly, but a few points in a low skill go a long way.

I will give you that if you're lucky enough to find a large shield on D:1 or whatever, it's probably a good idea to just pass it up. A regular old shield, however, should probably be worn unless you're small. For every character, a buckler is insta-wear if able.

[G-Flex]

Based on what I'm seeing, outside of the random delay penalty, the base attack speed penalty for using a shield is actually pretty minor. Bucklers seem to have no penalty at all. That's quite odd since the learndb states that large shields give a rather severe penalty which isn't at all matching up with what I'm seeing in wizard mode. I can't vouch for the random penalty, but I'm only seeing a +30% delay for using a large shield at 0 skilll. Hmm.

Did you read the learndb? The entire penalty is random. It rolls 2d(adjusted EVP of your shield), takes the lower of the two results, and adds it to delay. So even bucklers have some, albeit a very low one.

If you go into Wizard Mode with show_real_turns turned on, it's a lot easier to see the delay of actions.

You can never have too much EV. Even at like 40 EV high-HD monsters still have a solid 30% chance of hitting.

I know, but with diminishing returns, a given increase in one stat can be worth more or less than that same increase in another, depending on their relative levels.

Why you would want to wear armor is totally beyond me, but yes, if you have lots of casting penalties you're gonna suck at casting. And obviously if you have to pick one, you should take the shield, every time.

Armor is a lot better in trunk. Even leather armor has a guaranteed damage reduction of about 20%, which is applied before AC against melee. Robes have none. You can also enchant armour up to its base AC and no further now.

My current character is a KeCj of Vehumet, wearing dragon armour. The dragon armour has a GDR of 37%, which is very, very significant, and it also (obviously) provides significant AC and can be enchanted more. Yes, it knocks your EV down significantly enough, and provides casting penalties, but you can also get rather respectable AC and GDR out of it, even if it takes pumping armour skill a bit.

Obviously, he uses a shield too, but it's a buckler; I wouldn't put a shield on a character like that unless his shields skill got high enough to negate the penalties, because it wouldn't be worth it, and a large shield would just be too much.

I will give you that if you're lucky enough to find a large shield on D:1 or whatever, it's probably a good idea to just pass it up. A regular old shield, however, should probably be worn unless you're small. For every character, a buckler is insta-wear if able.

A lot of characters have trouble casting their spells early-game, so this advice works on a very situational basis. Also, shields will prevent your attacks from succeeding at all if your skill isn't high, and this is almost certainly worse for the larger types.