Statistics: The abilities winners use in Sil 1.3.0

[half]

Two more things:

I just saw that there were 208 winners in the sample, so that means:

80% were taking Hardiness
74% were taking Song of Slaying

Those are pretty crazy numbers! Thinking about this in percent actually makes it quite a bit more comprehensible for me.

I wonder if it would be possible to do some similar scraping to analyse the types of characters from their stats/skills rather than abilities. It is tricky because one would ideally go beyond a simple average of each skill and give a feeling of what proportion were heavily into stealth/archery/smithing/song, or dabblers in the same. Average starting stats (and final stats with all the mods included) would be neat.

Finally, I note that when reading through all the abilities in this jumbled order I was struck by just how many of them we managed to create. We had a very blank canvas to start with, as it was a different approach to almost all roguelikes. Some are a bit simple and obvious, like Clarity or Poison Resistance, but others involved lovely and very-roguelike ideas such as in Charge, Keen Senses, Flanking, and Knock Back. A couple of 7DRLs were starting to experiment with such things at the same time as me, and I'm glad to see that many roguelikes now do. Scatha was responsible for the flavour in most of the songs, which were originally going to be much more prosaic.

[ripforareason]

@half: I think there are a few reasons why Hardiness is so common. First, you basically need to take some Will on a character that fights enemies, or you will be constantly getting slowed, confused, stunned, stat-drained, Fear'd, and the like. This means Hardiness is only a bit of extra XP for 1-2 free points of protection, sometimes even more if you have Song of Staying. Second, it branches into rPois, which, for a character that fights enemies, is close to a requirement, imo, especially vs. wolves and ancient spiders. Third, there's a lack of attractive abilities outside the Hardiness/rPois/rCrit/Con tree, and points of Con are very valuable, especially against breathers.

Channeling isn't very useful except on some very niche builds, though I think I saw a morgue where someone had a Will build that used staves a lot. It's hard to starve in Sil without more than 1 regen item, so Mind Over Body is out the window. Similarly, many characters take Loremaster and Staves of Sanctity are plentiful, so Curse Breaking is of little utility. Inner light is useful. Clarity comes on helms and in potion form, and one rarely gets confused until Dragon depth in my experience, at which point you either have a swap or have considerable Will to resist in the first place. Strength in Adversity doesn't seem too useful either, since you usually want to run away when you get into a situation where it might trigger. Finally, I have never used Majesty, but I probably don't want enemies to always be running away from me as a fighter. This is a little annoying, and can add up to a significant XP loss over time.

Keen senses can also be pretty frustrating to play without (though I like to use Song a little more and take Trees + Staying), and is very useful because of the way you can make use of Light tricks with Lesser Jewels and Feanorian Lamps. It also branches into Listen, which I've never tried, but lots of people seem to think it's good. It could be that since many people take Lore abilities, Keen Senses, Bane, and sometimes Concentration, that the cost of Listen becomes prohibitive. There are so many good Perception abilities, that either directly improve your combat abilities or get you out of the ID game, that investing more XP just for monster detection seems questionable, at least for warrior types. Chances are I'm going to fight whatever it is unless I recognize something like a stairs Turkano pack or a vault. I have never really played Vanilla Angband, but as far as I know, it has situations where you can walk around a corner and die to a breather. This is almost impossible in Sil unless you walk around at Dragon depth without free action and rF.

Speaking of Rauko-Bane, I take it because of Balrogs, and also because the bonus to all rolls is helpful in dodging Uru's, which can easily ruin a character with a single critical. It's very good to almost always 1 hit them.

For Momentum, if you are fighting in the throne room, you will typically be fighting at +4 strength: potion and an herb of rage. to get the most out of your strength, you either want Rapid Attack (which can be a pain to get if you aren't using Subtlety), Momentum, or both, especially considering that it's not uncommon to find a strength-boosting item or two. Since heavier (read: 2h) weapons are a bit lackluster in Sil, it would be expected for players to use light and medium weight weapons instead and just take Momentum at the end of the game to get the most out of their strength. For example, a Feanor that starts with 3 strength can often find 2 strength boosting items and will be fighting V at 9 Strength. With Rapid attack and Momentum he can be hitting for something like (+40, 2d12)x2 if he was using a 2d6 3.0lb longsword.

On the topic of the Throne Room, I also think Song of Slaying isn't overpowered there per se, but less useful in the rest of the game. The few times I've tried it at medium depths, I couldn't really kill enemies fast enough to build up a bonus that was of much consequence, I didn't want to waste buffs or herbs of rate to fight surrounded, attracting many enemies was undesirable, and the enemy I wanted to fight with the slaying bonus would often flee after one or two hits, which would waste any buffs that I might have used and deteriorate my Song bonus as I tried to chase them down.

[Patashu]

If you want to buff Song of Slaying for most of the game but nerf it for the throne room, probably the correct Song of Slaying tweak is then

1) builds up initial +Slay faster

2) higher levels of +Slay build up slower

So probably a function involving functions that grow quickly at first then slow down, like log(n) or sqrt(n).

[debo]

I thought Unwavering Voice was removed?

Edit: Just checked. It was removed in 1.2.0, although a bug meant you could still use it by taking Woven Themes until 1.2.1.

[wobbly]

Re Lorien: I agree it's fun & strong. However it's one of the hardest builds to judge right. Particularly as a stabber. Lot's of situations that you're unsure whether stabbing something is going to be very good or very bad. Hard to tell if you next extra stealth, extra song, extra perception or extra melee.

Rr Slaying: I use this before the throne room. Turkano is the obvious case of it being useful.

[wobbly]

Re Vanish - It's actually rare that I take that on a stealth character. Mostly because sprinting is so good for a stealth character & does it better. 2 closed doors is the equivalent of the +10 from vanish & if your standing still in another room or better singing silence you don't have trouble vanishing without it. It's certainly got it's good pts if you need to vanish by breaking line of sight otherwise there's better abilities that already do the same job.

One thing I was unsure of here is how the ability interacts with song of lorien? Does it actually help?

[wobbly]

Almost forgot. Throwing Mastery. I tried this recently & I'd play this for fun on say, a dwarf. However the interface is too painful. Archery is just very smoth. 'ff' 'ff' 'ff'. Throwing constantly slows the game down. To get anything out of it I think you want to be throwing spears in melee for the bonus. Finesse+Throwing & they critical reasonably well. Trouble was it was slow & painful to play that way.

[fph]

- 169 Dexterity: I suppose there are a few abilities with this name, and I know it is good, but I was surprised to see it all the way at the top. Perhaps adjusting for all the ways you can get it (and get it multiple times) I'm less surprised.

Minor suggestion: would it be possible to rename the multiple Dexterities and Graces in the tree to differentiate them, just for ease of discussion and dump-reading?
If you have no better ideas for the names, even something unimaginative like legendary dexterity and prodigious dexterity would do.

[debo]

Originally Posted by wobbly

Almost forgot. Throwing Mastery. I tried this recently & I'd play this for fun on say, a dwarf. However the interface is too painful. Archery is just very smoth. 'ff' 'ff' 'ff'. Throwing constantly slows the game down. To get anything out of it I think you want to be throwing spears in melee for the bonus. Finesse+Throwing & they critical reasonably well. Trouble was it was slow & painful to play that way.

I just keep one big stack and ctrl-t. Unless something is really dangerous, picking what ammo to use is really just a pain. I use throwing a ton until about 500' , especially if I don't find a longbow.

[Patashu]

There are 38 new winners since the last time I ran statistics (most of them by the prolific ripforareason). Let's run them again:

Hardiness,200
Dexterity,193
Song of Slaying,188
Keen Senses,176
Constitution,155
Dodging,153
Finesse,144
Poison Resistance,137
Song of Sharpness,132
Sprinting,129
Lore-Keeper,121
Flanking,119
Momentum,112
Grace,106
Power,105
Lore-Master,105
Critical Resistance,100
Jeweller,91
Rauko-Bane,91
Inner Light,89
Follow-Through,89
Strength,87
Crowd Fighting,84
Opportunist,83
Rapid Attack,78
Weaponsmith,75
Exchange Places,73
Concentration,71
Parry,70
Woven Themes,70
Disguise,68
Song of the Trees,67
Zone of Control,67
Charge,66
Heavy Armour Use,66
Armoursmith,66
Precision,63
Artifice,62
Flaming Arrows,59
Assassination,57
Enchantment,51
Riposte,50
Focused attack,50
Two Weapon Fighting,50
Leaping,48
Listen,44
Song of Aule,44
Clarity,40
Careful Shot,36
Knock Back,33
Subtlety,32
Eye for Detail,31
Vanish,30
Song of Elbereth,29
Master Hunter,29
Majesty,28
Crippling Shot,25
Song of Freedom,25
Controlled Retreat,25
Song of Silence,24
Artistry,24
Blocking,23
Polearm Mastery,22
Point Blank Archery,22
Masterpiece,22
Rapid Fire,20
Cruel Blow,20
Versatility,17
Curse Breaking,15
Channeling,15
Song of Staying,15
Song of Lorien,13
Wolf-Bane,12
Whirlwind Attack,12
Mind Over Body,12
Song of Mastery,10
Dragon-Bane,5
Song of Este,5
Serpent-Bane,5
Strength in Adversity,3
Unwavering Voice,2
Orc-Bane,2
Troll-Bane,1
Spider-Bane,1
Throwing Mastery,0