What Wishes would be worth the loss of stats for a starting character?

[SinsI]

I've been experimenting with limited cheating, and one way to do it is to give the starting charter a memorized Wish spell and enough (temporary - for this spell only) PP to cast it.
But since direct casting of Wish makes you lose 10 points from a random stat, it has a huge cost.(This is also a way you can create a Zero Wis challenger (http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php/14663-inofficial-challenges?p=108912#post108912))
What Wishes would be worth the stat loss (assuming all your starting stats are at least 11 and you can't cast Wish once any stats are below that)?

Amulet of life saving, Girdle of Giant Strength, Seven League Boots... What else can be good enough to justify -10 to a stat right from the start?

[Blank4u47]

Eternium tower shield, eternium full plate, ring of elemental mastery. I'd choose any of those in a heartbeat. Stats are nice, but they're pretty replaceable in low levels.

[JellySlayer]

Well, depends on the stat, I guess. Worst case scenario is that you lose 10 points of To. For that, there's very few things that would be worth the gain... eternium tower shields or RDSM might be enough, I suppose.

[Blasphemous]

What Jelly said pretty much.
If it's appearance or charisma, any wish is really worth it.

With some herbs you could rebuild lost willpower/toughness/dexterity but of course in the mean time you have to cope with the low value.
Strength could be trained with encumbrance.
I think the most painful attribute to lose is learning as at this stage of the game it would affect your ability to increase skills, weapon marks, etc, and for non-casters it's very difficult to train.
Perception is another attribute that would be difficult to regain.

[SinsI]

Assume that you lose 1-2 (10 over 9 stats, averaged up) points from every stat with each Wish. 1 point for the less important stats (Appearance, Charisma), 2 points for Toughness, Strength, Learning.

[grobblewobble]

The question can´t be answered in general, it depends on the goals you have with that character. And averaging out the loss is not a good way to look at it.


Worst case scenario is that you lose 10 points of To. For that, there's very few things that would be worth the gain...
The question is how to evaluate the gamble. A simpler question of the same kind: would you accept a 1 in 10 chance to die downright, if it gives you a 9 in 10 chance to get a great item? If you are about to try a desperate speedrun, and you can just roll another, the answer would be yes. But if you absolutely want this particular character to win and you want to take as little chances as possible, no.

It also strongly depends on the kind of character you are playing. A troll barbarian doesn't need a wish to have an easy early game, but losing 10 strength or toughness will make you cry. A grey elf thief is about to drop dead from the first gush of wind that hits it, and if I was somehow forced to play one, I would gladly risk a gamble in order to make the early game easier.

Oh and the best reason to risk the loss of 10 toughness would probably be to save Khelly if you absolutely want an ultra finish. In that case my answer would be yes, no matter what.

[JellySlayer]

The question can´t be answered in general, it depends on the goals you have with that character. And averaging out the loss is not a good way to look at it.

The question is how to evaluate the gamble. A simpler question of the same kind: would you accept a 1 in 10 chance to die downright, if it gives you a 9 in 10 chance to get a great item? If you are about to try a desperate speedrun, and you can just roll another, the answer would be yes. But if you absolutely want this particular character to win and you want to take as little chances as possible, no.

This is a good way of thinking about it yes. The mentality is a lot like draining a pool in early game actually, though here the odds are much better. At 90%, yeah, it's probably worthwhile--losing 10 To (but getting your wished-for item) has higher survival prospects than Doom + Teleportitis from a pool, I'd imagine.


Oh and the best reason to risk the loss of 10 toughness would probably be to save Khelly if you absolutely want an ultra finish. In that case my answer would be yes, no matter what.

There's so many opportunities to get wishes later in the game to save Khelly now though, it's actually fairly uncommon in my experience not to be able to save him. For a super-early game wish like this, AoLS feels very wasteful to me, especially at the risk of losing 10 points in a decent stat.