Weapon choosing question (or Darkforge screwed me over)

[Dazed]

Sadly, my Troll died. I went back to try the greater red dragon vault in the Frost Giant Cave after finding a greater giant vault in the CoC which only yielded Death's Blade (boo). Got killed by the red wyrm. Turns out the Frost Giant Cave greater vault had... Wyrmlance. Ironic!

I do find I have more fun when I get hold of an awesome weapon, hrm. Not to say this healer was bad or the rune covered trident sucks, it just felt... boring. I felt that the RCT wasn't doing as much damage as I thought it would or had seen from previous experience, even with Polearms at level 13. In fact, there was one frost giant berserker that it was just not damaging whatsoever in melee with it (buggy giant?), so I had to throw rocks at it to kill it. Other frost giant berserkers were fine.

[Blasphemous]

Trident isn't a particularly good weapon for melee, especially against monsters that it doesn't slay.
Short comparison below, between eternium two-handed sword (wishable) and the rune-covered trident:

Trident: (+6, 3d12+6) -> 9-42 -> average 25 dmg
Sword: (+18, 6d5+18) -> 24-48 -> average 36 dmg

Add to that significantly higher to-damage bonuses for two handed weapons versus pole arms (which get higher DV bonuses instead) when you get both to proficiency level ~10-11 and that difference is even bigger.
So eternium two-hander overall is much better against greater vault dragons and wyrms but only if you have high PV (50+) since your DV will drop significantly.

[LexyBoy]

Greater Red Wyrms are doublehard bastards. I had a red dragon vault with my current char too and no way I'd melee the bugger - even though I had Wyrmlance (random artifact room on R2:1).

As a troll healer I would say that you can generally do with less DV than most PCs, since you have so many HPs to burn and regen fast. Some things you always want to avoid being hit by though.

[Blasphemous]

I forgot to mention what Lexy has already pointed out - great red wyrms in greater vaults are some of the hardest hitting monsters in the game.
They can bring down a 50 PV+ end-game char with relative ease. Best disposed of with slayers, melee is just too dangerous unless you have 50 strength and aotme or at least vanquisher.

[Heikki]

I forgot to mention what Lexy has already pointed out - great red wyrms in greater vaults are some of the hardest hitting monsters in the game.

Yep. "Their melee attack is very strong — with maximum damage outputs exceeding those of balors or even the Ancient Chaos Wyrm."
And because wyrms attack multiple times, even that walking tank with AoTME should be careful.

[Dazed]

I guess after my tiny AoTME-wielding Human Assassin took out a load of great red wyrms in a greater vault without blinking an eye, I figured that a big stomping Troll Healer would have it easier! Boy, was I wrong :P I suppose the Assassin's critical attacks helped a load with that.

[Blasphemous]

Assassins with aotme are absolutely deadly. Crits make up for a lot of their efficiency in melee and they stack with aotme's bonus in this department.
Of all the melee chars in the game, only barbarians with tremendous blows and high lvl monks can reach similar levels of proficiency in slaying tough monsters.
Duelists top the melee pyramid of course, mainly thanks to the amazing class powers, but they are a very specialized class, whereas barbs make decent archers, assassins make amazing archers and passable casters and monks can pretty much excel in melee, ranged and magical attacks all at once, not to mention no Mana penalty for using magical writing sets.

Healers are more of a jack-of-all-trades kind of class and don't really get special bonuses for melee, other than through find weakness skill, no matter what race you are.

[_Ln_]

Frankly I don't really get why people think Trollish Healers make amazing characters. Yes, they have good HP progression on account of being Trolls. But Healers have amazing class powers and get shitloads of HP even if they are not Trolls.

[grobblewobble]

Frankly I don't really get why people think Trollish Healers make amazing characters.

I think the original reason for the hype was that a troll healer has the highest natural regen rate of all race/class combos? Not a good reason, but that's kind of the advertisement you read in the guidebook ("candle troll healer is almost cheating").

Drakeling healer is a really nice beginner option, though. Very convenient skillset, good stats, very good allround if you remember to use their acid spit attacks.

[gut]

> Frankly I don't really get why people think Trollish Healers make amazing characters.

They aren't if you don't roll scum them. Who knows, maybe in the post 1.1.1 they toned it down, but as of the last time I played adom, troll healers were a step above the rest.
I forget the numbers, but St:32 To:34 seem to be popping into my memory. Pile onto that the fact that the healer's doubling/tripling class powers actually come into play early enough to be useful to a troll. Other healers usually start with a scalpel and gloves of smiting -4 or such. Troll healers get the 2 hander club. Seriously, df at xp 8 is the territory of trolls and (maybe) wizards only.