Nerf Silence of the Dead and whip of the vampire snake
issueid=5951 01-21-2018 07:15 PM
Ancient Member
Number of reported issues by Grond: 971
Nerf Silence of the Dead and whip of the vampire snake

The dagger "Silence of the Dead" and the whip of the vampire snake are absurdly powerful artifacts. They could be heavily nerfed and still be among the best weapons in the game, so that's what I suggest doing:

Whip of the vampire snake
The whip increases in power rapidly, and can get up to or beyond (+18, 5d3+27) {Dx+43} (+43 spd). Factoring in the dexterity bonus to damage, this whip has as much base damage as axe of the minotaur emperor and gives about 2.5x the dexterity and speed bonuses of ring of the master cat. I suggest removing the dexterity blood scaling entirely (see also 5866), reducing the maximum speed bonus to about a third of what it is currently, and reducing the maximum damage bonus to around two thirds of what it is currently. Maxing out at around (+18, 5d3+18) {Dx+7} (+15 spd) would make it an incredibly good weapon, but not quite as game-breaking.

Silence of the Dead
The dagger slays humanoids, grants a ton of positive intrinsics, increases in power rapidly, and can get up to or beyond (+27, 4d4+26) {Dx+25}. The dagger does significantly more damage than the next-strongest humanoid slaying weapon, and offers massive bonuses with no drawback. I suggest completely removing the blood scaling from this weapon, as it has enough good things going for it without that. At (+6, 4d4+6) {Dx+9}, it would do comparable melee damage to other humanoid-slaying weapons, and its use as a returning missile wouldn't be so overshadowed by its melee bonuses.
Issue Details
Issue Number 5951
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Implemented
Priority 5 - Medium
Suggested Version ADOM 3.1.0
Implemented Version (none)
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 6
Votes against this feature 1
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




01-21-2018 07:28 PM
Senior Member
I just found both!

Silence of the Dead is too strong. It jumped to +18, +18 just by using it to clear out a gnoll vault and a couple of summoners with their minions. I agree with Grond that it doesn't need to scale with kills. When it was +22, +22, I cleared out Darkforge with trivial ease--two bows per steel golem. Wow!

I haven't tried the whip yet... but if the speed bonus can grow too that's pretty crazy. I probably won't use it because I'm already crowned lawful.

Another possibility for the new blood-drinking weapons would be for their bonus to decay over time. That's what I thought would happen, actually---they get more and more powerful as long as you're killing, but then over a long period of walking around and doing errands, the bonuses slowly rever back to their initial level.

Ben

01-22-2018 09:33 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by BenMathiesen
Another possibility for the new blood-drinking weapons would be for their bonus to decay over time. That's what I thought would happen, actually---they get more and more powerful as long as you're killing, but then over a long period of walking around and doing errands, the bonuses slowly rever back to their initial level.
This. I also expected the bonuses to start decaying when you're not killing, much like regular boost stat decay.
The decay would have to be rapid enough to ensure that only vaults and perhaps large tension rooms could level the weapon up to a high degree.
After that, it should start dropping the extra stats at the same pace that a bleeding character loses blood, which also makes thematic sense.

I have a gray elven assassin crowned with the dagger and as you can imagine, it's a high dex dagger specialist.
I have RotMC and a number of other +dx items.
With this dagger, nothing really poses a threat. Nothing can hit me with that stellar, dex-based DV and I can hit everything.

01-25-2018 05:28 AM
Senior Member
5d3+27) {Dx+43} {+43 spd}
Maxing out at around (+18, 5d3+18) {Dx+7} (+15 spd) would make it an incredibly good weapon, but not quite as game-breaking.
How does this compare to, say, black whip of extinction?
BWoE: 4d8 with guaranteed crit is, on average, 36 damage + 38 from maximized weapon skill + 2*Dexterity bonus = 112 damage with each hit if Dexterity is 50. Can be further increased by around 36 damage using rings of slaying.
Current WotVS, not critical hits, on average: 37+19 from maximized weapon skill + Dexterity Bonus = 96.5 damage with each hit if normal Dexterity is 50. two rings of slaying +9 is an extra 18 damage.

Figuring in critical chances (around 20%), maximum damage potential of both weapons is about equal.
The main difference is due to speed - both raw bonus and extra speed from more Dexterity make WotVS stronger.
Suggested "fix" would turn it completely mediocre, making it vastly inferior - and not worth using at all, as bonuses are accumulated over time and not given right from the start.

01-25-2018 06:42 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by SinsI
How does this compare to, say, black whip of extinction?
Suggested "fix" would turn it completely mediocre, making it vastly inferior - and not worth using at all, as bonuses are accumulated over time and not given right from the start.
I don't see how you can call mediocre a weapon which compared to Big Punch would have more to-hit, damage, and DV, belong to a superior weapon group, and increase speed. You do, however, make a pretty good case for nerfing black whip of extinction as well. I suggest reducing the base damage of that from 4d8 to 1d8.

01-25-2018 09:31 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Grond
black whip of extinction damage (...) from 4d8 to 1d8.
That is overnerf. This weapon doesn't scale like the other two in this topic, doesn't confer any intrinsics, only slays things.
Maybe a reduction to 3d8 is acceptable but anything more than this and the weapon becomes unremarkable.

01-25-2018 10:26 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Blasphemous
That is overnerf. This weapon doesn't scale like the other two in this topic, doesn't confer any intrinsics, only slays things.
Maybe a reduction to 3d8 is acceptable but anything more than this and the weapon becomes unremarkable.
I think you underestimate whips and slaying powers. At 1d8 base damage it would deal comparable damage to Serpent's Bite (4.5 + 0-19 vs 10.5 + 0-12), while slaying a wider variety of things. At 2d8 it deals comparable damage to Kinslayer (9 + 0-19 vs 15 + 0-12). At 3d8 it deals more damage than any one-handed humanoid slayer except for Executor. Construct slaying alone I would take over any of the non-slaying bonuses these weapons have, and they are rightly regarded as being some of the best weapons in the game. Mediocre base damage isn't a big issue when you are doubling it along with all the damage bonuses.

01-25-2018 10:34 AM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by Grond
I don't see how you can call mediocre a weapon which compared to Big Punch would have more to-hit, damage, and DV, belong to a superior weapon group, and increase speed. You do, however, make a pretty good case for nerfing black whip of extinction as well. I suggest reducing the base damage of that from 4d8 to 1d8.
Slaying everything on a melee weapon is not that good - if you have high Find Weakness skill, or if you have a weapon that has slaying against things that you are actually have trouble with it grants you very little that actually matters.
4d8 is worse than even a regular sword of sharpness.
Big Punch is a bad, easily obtained starter weapon - of course it should lose out to almost everything.

01-25-2018 11:14 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by SinsI
Slaying everything on a melee weapon is not that good - if you have high Find Weakness skill, or if you have a weapon that has slaying against things that you are actually have trouble with it grants you very little that actually matters.
4d8 is worse than even a regular sword of sharpness.
100% crit chance is a whole lot better than 30% crit chance (100 Find Weakness + good luck). While you can ensure that your character has Find Weakness, a slaying weapon for all problematic enemies is hardly guaranteed. With whip of extinction you are slaying everything in all the elemental temples and D:50, which is something you cannot say even for Executor. And 4d8 on a whip is actually about as good as sword of sharpness damage.

Quote Originally Posted by SinsI
Big Punch is a bad, easily obtained starter weapon - of course it should lose out to almost everything.
Big Punch is good enough to clear the entire game in melee with. It is better than almost any non-artifact weapon apart from higher-metal weapons of devastation. It has more base damage than all of the 1.1.1 one-handed artifacts except for the Sceptre of Chaos. But let's quantify just how much better the nerfed whip of the vampire snake would be, with equal strength and dexterity in your 15 weapon skill scenario:

Big Punch: 1 + 18 = +19 to-hit, 8 * 3 + 3 + 12 = 39 damage, -6 + 6 = +0 DV
Base WotVS: -2 + 24 = +22 to-hit, 5 * 2 + 7 + 3.5 + 19 = 39.5 damage, +22 DV
Powered WotVS: 18 + 18 = +36 to-hit, 5 * 2 + 18 + 3.5 + 19 = 50.5 damage, + 22 DV

So yes, base WotVS actually already can do more damage than Big Punch. A powered-up post-nerf version would do much more damage than Big Punch while granting a massive defensive bonus and speed. Heck, the powered-up post-nerf version is almost as damaging as gleaming dwarven rune axe (5 * 4.5 + 12 + 17 = 51.5). Note also that these calculations are for normal tactics - as the whip has more of its damage as +damage instead of dice, its damage advantage on higher tactics settings is even greater.

01-25-2018 02:23 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by Grond
Big Punch is good enough to clear the entire game in melee with.

Big Punch: 1 + 18 = +19 to-hit, 8 * 3 + 3 + 12 = 39 damage, -6 + 6 = +0 DV
Molochs have PV 40. Big Punch is not good enough against them.

Gamewise, set of useful resistances on a melee weapon + good DV/PV/stat/speed bonuses > penetration > raw damage stats.

If you want raw damage - use ranged weapons instead.

01-25-2018 03:32 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by SinsI
Molochs have PV 40. Big Punch is not good enough against them.
That calculation completely omits strength bonus, tactics, and weapon blessing... Lets say 30 strength, blessed weapon, blessed ring of damage, berserk with 100 tactics (44% +damage bonus):

(8 * 3 + 3 (base berserk) + (3 + 12 + 10 + 6) * 1.44) * 1.5 = 107.46

Enough damage for greater moloch even, although some crits would be very helpful.

Quote Originally Posted by SinsI
Gamewise, set of useful resistances on a melee weapon + good DV/PV/stat/speed bonuses > penetration > raw damage stats.

If you want raw damage - use ranged weapons instead.
Speaking as someone foolish enough to actually use melee attacks, I have to disagree with you on the raw damage. Raw damage, slaying, and penetration are all more important for melee combat than defensive boosts (there are enough guaranteed resistances and shield DV bonuses to go around). Monsters can and will choose to ignore DV, PV, and their normal number of attacks - killing stuff fast is really important when you are fighting in melee.

01-25-2018 05:17 PM
mtf mtf is offline
Junior Member
Molochs have PV 40. Big Punch is not good enough against them.
This is totally incorrect. I play almost exclusively melee classes and have lots of games where big punch is the best weapon I'd find, and I often deal with greater molochs in melee (like a man!).

Gamewise, set of useful resistances on a melee weapon + good DV/PV/stat/speed bonuses > penetration > raw damage stats.
This is also completely backwards, like grond said defenses don't matter so much when enemies can ignore them. Raw killing abilities are way more important near the end of the game for melee characters.

01-26-2018 11:38 AM
Ancient Member
Arak's guard is another with these properties. Are these community created artifacts?

01-29-2018 11:21 PM
Ancient Member
Another one in precrowning: Headman's hand (great axe).

02-10-2018 01:28 PM
Ancient Member
EDIT: I'm a fool, got it confused with the other artifact.

02-11-2018 06:46 PM
The Creator
I have done several things:

- WotVS now scales much slower.
- Generally all blood-sucking items scale more slowly.
- All blood-sucking items now lose in power over time.
- All blood-sucking items that grant speed bonuses lose power even faster.
- SotD also scales more slowly.
- BWoE now does 2d5 base damage.

Let's see how these things work out and try gradual nerfing ;-)

+ Reply