So I found a Daemonic Diggledagger in a chest of evil..

Great stats but, this weapon is such a chore to use. First, it has a ton of effects that take ages to occur, and there are just too many of them. From a single swing I get explosions, curses and what not flying all over the screen, hurting me and the enemies. I guess on the plus side it has life steal, but after the fight I'm left with half a dozen curses on me.

The item could be fun but at the moment it's way too random and takes a lot of time to do what it does.

 

Then don't use it.

 

Thanks for the insightful comment, you really know how to spark a discussion.

 

Can you post its effects? It actually sounds as though it's triggering instability, or the combination of the item and others that are slightly unstable are triggering them. Right now even slight instability has a strong chance of causing a range of unpleasant effects on you and your enemies.

 

Well, first it triggers the tentacle inhabiation, it appears to trigger all of the time. The target is also set on fire and explodes in a 3x3 radius afterwards, sometimes. You are stricken with at least 3 different types of curses, one of them gimps your mana pool, the other reduces your HP, and the 3rd one reduces eyesight and nimbleness.. there's more but this is off the top of my head. The lifesteal helps a lot like I said, but this item just juggles me way too much with HP back and forth.

It's like I enter the fight with full HP, get beaten down to half, then recuperate it all in 2 hits, then almost dead again. Very erratic behavior. Note that the item I got from the chest of evil has like +20 poison damage along with some other very nice stats, if it was the "base" item I would sell it immediately, would be completely useless.

 

Have you tried Necro resistance? Dredmorpedia makes it sound like a mini-necronomiconomic proc fountain.

 

You should feel lucky that you can even unequip it. Some roguelikes don't allow you to unequip cursed gear once you put it on.

 

Already had necro resist, didn't help.

Thanks for the relevant post. We should also feel lucky that DoD supports saving games, changing resolutions and resizing UI elements.

 

Have you turned the game speed up? (press "=")

 

Why do you feel it necessary to be so incredibly rude and condescending? That sort of attitude is not conducive to a positive discussion.

Besides, Ruigi has a valid point. Roguelike games are not known for being fair to the player. Not all items are going to be useful or beneficial.

 

...Is it wrong that I would find that weapon a blast to use?

To be totally fair, sincerity is among the many tones that fail to come along in an online discussion.

Also seconding the speed-up idea. And also the idea of seeing if it's unstable. Instability is one of the many things that should come up in the U.A.I.

 

For a minute there I thought that I wouldn't have to actually explain myself here, but looks like I'm going to have to spell it out for you.

First of all, DoD has got no cursed items. Whether or not they were used in some predecessor games has no argumentative value at all. Second, the point is completely missed because this is not about the item being "fair", it's about game balance, and looking at how game balance is done in Dredmor, like it or not, more stars = better item overall.

So my argument is that the current incarnation of the Daemonic Diggledagger does not have enough benefits to outweight its shortcomings and still be a top-tier dagger, for reasons I elaborated in the above posts, which, again, have nothing to do with the mechanics of some old roguelikes.

From my perspective, you're the one being rude, you, like the guy I quoted, brought absolutely nothing to the discussion, other than telling me how rude and condescending I am and agreeing with a moot point.

 

That's not necessarily the case. Consider the gnomish cap, which has a lot of stars but isn't really a good item. Similarly, the cybercone has only two stars, but is very good. The crude iron helm has two stars, but is actually a worse item than the one-star rough iron hjalmr.

 

Agreed, but the exceptions are few and far in between, daggers being rare, there is really no need to consider the diggle dagger as something that is intentionally gimped.

 

There's already quite a few items that proc eldritch inhabitation or similar effects, I don't think it's really all that weird and the worst drawbacks can be circumvented with some resists and hit-and-run tactics (and the necro curses are part of the design of necronomiconomics effects...)

 

Thanks for the reply. It does seem like the player gets a ton of debuffs while the monsters are left with "just" burning, fleshbore and tenticular inhabitation.

For example, I often end up with no mana at all after a fight. This is alright if you are using no spells of course, but it is a severe hinderance just by itself.

On the plus side, I recommend praying to the Diggle Goddess of Fertility to offset the life you will inevitably lose, whether you get hit or not.

 

That explains some other issues I seem to remember having.. what with being hit by random infestation debuffs with no apparent cause. It's been a while since I've seen it, though. Maybe it's deeper than I've gotten in a while.

 

Yes, that does sound like the current problems with instability. For example, I've got just "slightly unstable" on one item, and every time my character gets hit at melee, the tentacular infestation occurs, along with fire, and poison. Hopefully, it'll all be resolved, soon.

 

I don't understand your aversion to writing new spell effects. This is the same poo poo that broke the holy hand grenade for months, and the same dumb stuff that makes the bolt of mass destruction not work properly either.

Is it really that hard to copy/paste an entry in spelldb and change it from type="self" to type="target"?