Devastation

[nateskeez]

So, I died for pretty much the same reason as every other person does: overconfidence.
Pecan, the trollish healer, had lots of promise. Started with a strength of 30 and toughness of 26. Brick wall, especially for a healer. Always fun in early game. Took the Guth'Alak quest and went straight down to his level, so that he was generated. Made a quick run to the vault in PC in hopes of good items. Ok haul. Few necklaces; lots of gold. Ran through the UD to ultimately get to CoC. Nothing too crazy happened in there, thankfully. Made good progress though the upper levels of CoC. Ran into a ring merchant who happened to have a ring of ice, which I of course purchased. Cleared the first 10 fights in the arena. Pecan was pitted against a freakin' cat in one round. Had no way out of it, so I knew that meeting the Cat World would be interesting. Started boning up on missile attacks in preparation for that. Managed to buy a longbow of accuracy from the Dwarftown merchant.
Then it happened: Through selling items to said merchant, I learned that I had acquired a spear of devastation a few levels back. Just sitting in a room. Never got a weapon of devastation before (as far as I had ever indentified, anyway). Almost came when I saw the damage multiplier. Strapped it on and started to melee my way through all but the last of Thrundarr's quests. Many, many monsters fell at Pecan's hands with that weapon. I tasted severe melee prowess for the first time in 5 years of playing this game, and it tasted good. Of course, that (predictably) was my undoing. I became drunk with it. I skewered my way through the onslaught of undead at the Dwarven Graveyard. Bloodaxe proved to be a bit of a challenge, but my excellent healing ability (by that time) narrowly spared my ass.
Should have taken that close battle as a warning, and perhaps done some grinding for a bit elsewhere. Nothing doing. Was too drunk with power. Naturally, I was rushing my way through this game. I was only level 11, and only had 38/11 DV/PV (my armor was damaged at that point). Tried to melee Nonnak. I figured I could take him with such a great damage output. Of course, I came to my senses too late. Duh, "damage" doesn't equal "hit". I had him moderately damaged before I realized I needed to turn tail and heal before trying to engage him with missiles. While fleeing, I ran into a blindness trap, and ultimately stumbled my way into Nonnak's icy clutches.
Here's hoping if I ever get such a weapon again, I'll be smarter about it.... if anything, have more patience. Had to learn the hard way. It's amazing how I continue to not learn from my many deaths in this game over the years. Oh well. It's too much fun!

[Feorg]

Ah yes, I've been there in one of the games very soon after weapon affixes were introduced. I think I was a paladin or an archer and found what I recall was an eternium two-handed sword of devastation in Small Cave (10d5+24) when I was still level 1. After that nothing caused me trouble at all. I wasn't such a high level character when I decided to do the "beyond the forest" quest and went through Dwarven Halls. I may have been doing a lot of damage but didn't have high hit points and ran into something nasty on DH:2. It wasn't the last character I lost there, although nowadays I don't take the location lightly and remember to use detect monster wands etc. Of course since the affix thing was so new I didn't even understand at the time what a unique find it was, weapons of devastation are rare enough, not to mention them being two-handed swords made of special metal. Well. I still remember that game after 9 years so maybe I did learn something.

[nateskeez]

I usually try my luck with DH, because I just lack the patience necessary to traverse the AF. If I have a wand of digging and a wand of door creation, I'll run through the north end of the forest, but otherwise, a DH run it is. Just ran into a black slayer in there for the first time the other day. Yikes.

I just ran across another interesting weapon of a few affixes in my current game (attached). My 2nd "devastation" weapon ever. Too bad it's not 2H like the one you mentioned, as this character is a monk. 5D7+13 seems way more attractive than the 1D21+8 my bare hands are currently producing, especially with the bonus against chaotics, but I need to keep training said hands. I'm sure it will come in handy at some point, though. At the least, it's worth a crapload of money.

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[Joe]

Lol. Had a chanceless death a few days ago with a freshly started Dark Elven paladin. Started with two short swords and removed one and looked for something better than the lousy 1d6 damage. After killing some monsters I got the worst broadsword I've ever had: a cursed mild broadsword. Got killed soon after by some chieftain (forgot which monster) while I was surrounded by him + a giant ant on the other side. Hoping for the best I berserked him and critically hit, but I didn't manage to harm him. Oh well :P

[Silfir]

For what it's worth, monks don't get any penalties for using melee weapons.

There are two level-based monk powers separate from the class powers: The barehanded attack and the kick and an inherent bonus to DV. Both grow larger as the monk levels. Being Burdened or wearing a shield takes away both; wearing "heavy armor" (anything except: Robe, Black robe, Shirt of the Saints, Robes of Resistance, Elven Chain Mail, Clean Robe, Clothes) negates only the armor bonus.

If you don't find one of the artifact non-heavy armors, your only real armor option of decent power that keeps the DV bonus is elven chain mail, which is definitely sweet, but does not carry crucial resistances and other stuff that is on, say, the ancient mummy wrapping or dragon scale mail, and is weaker than dragon scale mail or eternium plate mail.

Either way, monks will get DV, be it shield DV or monk DV. A powerful one-handed weapon can therefore be a more than viable choice for a monk. The only question is if a 5d7+13 weapon is that kind of powerful, considering your monk is going to keep getting levels, and the weapon stays the same. Executor, Serpent's Bite, definitely.

[JellySlayer]

Honestly, it is doubtful that your fists will ever be nearly as good as the devastation weapon. Spear/sword and shield (or a good two-hander like the rune covered trident) is a perfectly viable combination for a monk. It's only beastfighters who have to use their fists; monks can do whatever they please. Even if you totally ignore all of the combat bonuses, monks are still a great class due to class powers and skillset.

[nateskeez]

Thanks for the tips/info, guys. While using the weapon was as tempting as it could be, I didn't want the barehanded skills to fall to the wayside. Just in case, for any stupid reason, something happened to the weapon in later game. Never know what the RNG is gonna throw at you, or what kind of untimely brain fart I would suffer.

I've had tremendous luck with finding good weapons lately. I just had an orcish barbarian (one of my fave combos to play) find an eternium 2 handed sword the other day. I've never snagged one of those before. It wasn't affixed with devastation, but of course, it was no slouch in damage. Plowed my way through many a foe. Unfortunately, that character made a return to the small cave at about level 8 and had to kill something on the way to the UD stairs. He was then manhandled with great ease by a powerful ratling fencer that I assume spawned as a result of said killing...