Useless Artifacts

[sgeos]

Very subjective, but which artifacts are useless, and why? (Ie, only useful for selling sacrificing or feeding the ratling.) Just have fun with this one. =)

[Aldgar]

Black tome is very useless. Corrupts you if it is in your inventory, corrupts you a lot if you read it for ~30 castings of a random spell, is heavy(400 oz) and generally worthless.

Phial of Caladriel is a light source that burns all your pp at once, and is generally considered easy ratling fodder

Scythe of Corruption *can* be used to create potions of raw chaos, but beyond that, it is ratling fodder

Big punch is usually too heavy, and thus ratling fodder

Sword of Nonnak is(aside from casters who might want to use the Wi boost to increase ball diameter) very weak offense-wise, and thus ratling fodder

the artifact bolt and artifact arrow are very much useless and ratling fodder if you're unlucky enough to be crowned with those

Crown of science is -apart from the LE boost which may be useful, and the dooming which *may* be exploited in order to get that elusive giant boar skull(though rings of doom or weapons of damnation work just as well)- ratling fodder

Long Sting is ratling fodder.

[mike]

less than useful:

silver key
cat's claw
long sting
soaker
black tome
black torc
phial
boots of great speed
artifact missiles
gauntlets of eternal peace

[gut]

Hey, Soaker gives -para, that's handy sometimes.

I would count the Kherab arts as useless. Even though
the shield is the best in the game, it's corrupting nature
and the quest requirements spoil it.

[Soirana]

some of these [black tome] might give lawfull boost than saccked. This far away from useless

[sgeos]

Artifacts change alignment when sacced?

[Soirana]

well, first time i sacced black tome with very low level char i went from something like CN to L getting my equipment destroyed in process.

One of facts which lead me to opinion - guidebook is just not enough.

[sgeos]

The guidebook is just a collection of observations. There is still a lot that is unknown about ADOM.

[Silfir]

Sacrificing the crown of science got me from N= to L once. Resulting in an angry god, of course (though I am NOT sure which one was angry - the neutral one? The lawful one?). "Chaotic" artifacts aren't well understood in this regard. I'd always sell the gold I get for them unless I WANT to be lawful as quickly as possible. Usually those artifacts are more valuable as ratling fodder.

Ratling fodder is a good point - all of the artifacts mentioned can be fed to the ratling, which makes them as useful as the guaranteed artifact you can keep instead. At least I can't name six guaranteed artifacts that are both easy to get and easily fed to the ratling. Usually the ankh has to bite it for me, and one of the named useless artifacts will let me keep the ankh.

Only the corrupting artifacts aren't perfect ratling fodder because you almost invariably have to take some corruption until you get them to Dwarftown - though it's minimal if you are willing to kick it all the way there.

@mike: The black torc is a popular topic of debate. It gives several benefits which many find to more than outweigh the fact that it's cursed and autocurses. I agree, but only if the wearer either can't pray for healing at all due to lack of piety or arbitrary game restrictions or has other ways to heal in an emergency that are equally effective, i. e. the water orb or blessed potions of extra/ultra healing.

How is the silver key not useful? If you have this artifact doors are your bitch. You can open them all and you can lock them all as often as you want, with a single item, forever. I love the concept of an artifact that gives you a truly unique power - it's up to the player to make use of it.

Honestly, even the black tome of Alsophocus has an interesting unique power, it's just too godawfully corrupting with so little reward to get any real use out of.

The phial also has an unique power in the way in which it works - but Light spells are always a good enough replacement. So I agree, it's not very useful.



There is no artifact that is always under any circumstances totally and utterly useless, even if you don't want to feed the ratling and even if the money they sell for doesn't count. All the weak artifact weapons are generally more powerful than many of their mundane counterparts (surpassed usually by eternium variants or adamantium). It's the nature of the precrowning and crowning concepts that makes us judge artifacts against each other, but judged on their own almost any artifact will enrich the character's possibilities. Even the black tome gives one the theoretical ability to infinitely gain spell knowledge and can be fed to the ratling.

So, at least to me, the topic should be "artifacts shitty compared to the good ones".

[sgeos]

There is no artifact that is always under any circumstances totally and utterly useless, *snip* judged on their own almost any artifact will enrich the character's possibilities. * snip *

So, at least to me, the topic should be "artifacts shitty compared to the good ones".

I basically agree, and I knew that when I posted this, hence I said "Just have fun with this one. =)"
I'm actually not a fan of any 2-handed artifact weapons other than the ToRR. I like my shield.