Dungeon Master Forum

The reason I'm starting this topic is because way too many times I have ended up going through the game (and all its levels) collecting absolutely EVERYTHING even slightly interesting when it comes to weapons & armour. I would always think to myself, "Don't leave it, keep it - you might use it later!" And every time I finished the game with tons of stuff I never really used...

So I wanted to created this thread to share our experiences in terms of the ultimate weapon (or weapons) that we dream of (finally!) finding deep down in the dungeons as the most powerful items in this game. And armour of course!

So let's begin... what is your favourite:

1) melee weapon: the ultimate weapon you will hold in your hand throughout the game once you find it

2) ranged weapon: the ultimate ranged weapon that you use for attacks from a distance (if that is your preferred combat-style)

3) special purpose weapon(s): additional weapons that you keep just in case, to use only in special occasions (such as the Vorpal Blade against ghosts)

4A) armour: what is your PERFECT set - list all the individual pieces that you ultimately want to equip yourself with

Perfect set of armour......a shirt and pants to avoid appearing naked.
But very light so I can carry all those boulders around.
In all seriousness, I never found armor and shields to be of much use
and my shield hand carries a flask or potion.

I'll take a quick stab at this:

Best Melee / Special Weapons: The Diamond Sword is definitely the best conventional melee weapon. Hardcleave isn't bad, either, and ordinary Axes are also surprisingly good. The Vorpal Blade you mentioned is the only supplemental special purpose weapon I normally carry around.

Ranged Weapon: I honestly don't recommend using them once you have ventured beyond the first couple floors of the dungeon. Ranged weapons are extremely valuable when your party is very weak at the beginning of the game, though (although you often tend to throw just about everything you have available at enemies during that phase of the game).

Armor: The best armors in this game actually can be worth using if your characters have very high Strength. I normally play the SNES version of the game where the DexHelm and PowerTowers are available. If I recall correctly, I mixed these up with the Darc and Lyte sets of armor on my two front-row characters so that they both had weight levels in the same ballpark as one another [although there is some chance I put the DexHelm and PowerTowers on characters in the back row and used all of the Darc / Lyte armor pieces on the front row characters]. I believe I put stuff like the Flamebain, Mithral Aketon / Mail, and ordinary pieces of plate armor on my characters in the back row (in addition to whichever helmet out of the DexHelm / Helm of Darc Helm / Helm of Lyte and whichever leg armor out of the PowerTowers / Poleyn of Darc / Poleyn of Lyte my front row characters were not using).


--Jay

Melee weapons - I'd say that the Diamond Edge is probably the best all round. The Hardcleave and Inquisitor are great because the Berserk attack can cause serious damage but it misses quite a lot of the time.

I have never really used ranged weapons. It just seemed a bit pointless as you could only fire 4 arrows or rocks. DM2 and RTC improve on this with the quiver.

Special purpose weapon - The completed Firestaff seems the obvious choice despite Invoke being random. Fuse works on the Black Flames as well as Lord Chaos.

I feel pretty much the same around Vorpal Blades, they are more a supplementary weapon, used on the frontline in between Des Ew spells from the back or a backup in case of low Mana.

I have never bothered with armour apart from the Powertowers for the strength boost though these only appear in CSB. I sometimes try out the armour in DM2 but can't remember enough about it to commit to a favourite suit.

Best melée weapon - In DM, Inquisitor, followed by the Delta Blade, followed by the rapier, because I found the "thrust" attack seems to have the best damage-to-speed ratio, whereas some things like Hardcleave/Executioner are high damage but very low speed, so if you miss, it's a longer wait before you can try again. Actually, wait, does Diamond Edge have thrust too? If so, put that a step below Inquisitor.
In CSB, Dragon Fang as that game's equivalent of Inquisitor.

Best ranged weapon - I don't actually use them, so have no particular opinion on this due to a lack of trying them out to any great extent. Unless Ful bombs count?

Special purpose - Vorpal blade, for non-material beings, as noted already in the example in the original post. I tend not to get up close to most such creatures if I can help it (I prefer to use magic on them), but it's nice to have a weapon that can hurt them if needed. The gemmed Firestaff is also handy as a spellcasty thing (I'll swap it in and out with a character's sword when I'm step-dancing the Dragon to death, as an extra means of dealing him some damage) and gives +2 Wizard levels so that's always nice.

Armour - Generally anything that gives some kind of stat/skill boost, like how the elven boots boost Strength, or the Pendant Feral gives +1 Wizard level. I can't remember every exact item I end up using but it's generally a bunch of stuff like that. I tend not to bother with actual metal armour (plate, for example) as it tends to be too heavy - I'd rather stick with leather until I find one of the aforementioned stat/skill-boosters I can swap in. And I never bother with shields - my dudes have an empty flask in their off-hand at all times, and I'll make potions as I need them (I don't carry spare flasks or bother making potions ahead of time).

Many thanks Paul Stevens, jayrshaw, Ian Clark & Ameena (all in posting order)!

It is heartwarming to know that decades after the initial release of DM we still have a group of truly legendary fans that treasure this game and care about it regularly. Wow. Double-wow when you consider - at least in my case - that this is one of the greatest games ever created in our lifetime.

Interestingly enough another game by FTL probably comes second in my ranking: Sundog: Frozen Legacy (only Atari ST edition). This is even more incredible considering that a single software developer could create two groundbreaking games back in the day across completely different genres.

Anyway, getting back to the topic at hand...

1) Melee weapons: the weapons I remember the most (before I had access to website stats like damage, etc.) were the:
- Delta
- Diamond Edge
- The Inquisitor
- Hardcleave

These are the main four melee weapons that I recall from back in the day, and the only ones that I truly cherished once I found them. But at the end of the day I do like playing as a one-man team which means that I only need ONE of them. Which begs the question: which is the true winner and the best weapon to carry throughout the game?

From your opinions it seems that the Delta is the least powerful weapon (albeit a darn good one nonetheless!) whereas the Hardcleave is cumbersome to use (high-damage but slow use), which leaves the Diamond Edge and The Inquisitor as the remaining TOP choices.

Reading through the posts above it appears there are different opinions as to which of these two items is truly the best. So how do we go about resolving this?

Looking at the stats these swords appear to be COMPLETELY different. Maybe I'm not reading the stats correctly, but it appears that the Diamond Edge seems to have three different attacking options that share the exact same damage: stab/chop/cleave. All of them are listed as 48. Am I missing something here or is this indeed the case?

The Inquisitor, on the other hand, has swing/thrust/berzerk listed at 16/66/98 appropriately.

So which sword is truly #1? And how do we factor in that the Diamond Edge also reduces the opponent's armour by 25%?

For most ordinary purposes, Chop is the attack you want to use. It is reasonably fast, does decent damage, and does not have a negative defensive modifier associated with it like Stab, Thrust, and Berzerk do. If you want to inflict as much damage without regard to your characters' defense, Stab is probably the best attack to use due to how fast it is, though.


--Jay

I found Stab to be too low damage for my liking, hence my preference for Thrust. I wouldn't know about any of the hidden defence changes or anything though - I've never read up on that kind of stuff. I can finish the game just fine as-is so haven't seen any need to seek out any fruther info like that.

jayrshaw wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 2:57 am Chop is the attack you want to use. It is reasonably fast, does decent damage, and does not have a negative defensive modifier associated with it like Stab, Thrust, and Berzerk do.

Which makes the Diamond Edge and Hardcleave stand out as two very good weapons to use the 'chop' attack with. What's your opinion on The Inquisitor? Any reason (apart from the chop function) to prefer the Diamond Edge over it?

Ameena wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 12:53 pm I wouldn't know about any of the hidden defence changes or anything though - I've never read up on that kind of stuff.

I've always based my choices on gut feeling alone and that's why I've always carried the Delta, Diamond Edge & Inquisitor blades once I found them, as well as the Hardcleave (I recall it being quite effective even when thrown at an opponent!). But with 'behind-the-scenes' stats now available for all the weapons in the game I would love to solve my Diamond Edge vs The Inquisitor dilemma finally based on actual numbers alone.

The Diamond Edge is found many levels deeper than The Inquisitor which should be a sign in itself, plus the DE lowers opponents' armour by 25% which could be another key factor. I am a bit surprised though that all three attacks that it offers apparently do the same amount of damage, which doesn't seem logical: why would you do chop (apart from the no negative defensive modifier) or cleave if stab has the same damage effect?

Diamond Edge is found lower down but Inquisitor is found later because you can't get to it until you've got through all the Ra doors on Level Seven. So really about the only thing I end up using it on is the Dragon.

Diamond Edge and Hardcleave both reduce an enemies' armor rating, they both have slightly higher base attack ratings than the Inquisitor, they both have access to the Chop command. Due to its heavy weight, Hardcleave will also have a higher Strength/Weight bonus if the character wielding it has very high Strength. If the character's Strength isn't as high, he/she may not be able to get the Strength/Weight bonus from Hardcleave but could potentially get it from a lighter weapon.

Automaton made a thread a couple of years ago which delved into the actual calculations which are made when a character attacks something, so if you want really detailed information, that's the place to look for it.

I generally only use Chop against enemies unless I am fighting something with very weak offense (e.g. a Screamer). Thrust has high accuracy and damage, but it takes twice as long to recover from as Chop and has a negative defense modifier associated with it. Stab generally tends to deal the most damage over time assuming all other factors are held constant because it is quite fast and also has a high damage rating; however, like Thrust, it has a significant negative defense modifier associated with it.


--Jay

Well I very rarely get hit (step-dance, woop woop) so even if I'd known about the lowered defence thing before, I don't think it would bother me.

Right - a lot of my comments assume that you actually plan to remain standing toe-to-toe with an opponent rather than hitting it, ducking away, and then returning to hit it again once the recovery time for the first attack has elapsed....


--Jay

Nah, than I'd take damage and have to heal up .

Sorry for the late reply (just had the longest plane journey without stepping out of the airport on any leg of the trip).

It looks like the Diamond Edge and Hardcleave are the two best options if you want to attack without suffering additional damage in the process due to negative defense modifiers. But if you were to use The Inquisitor what would your preferable attacking options be between swing/thrust/berzerk?

I agree that a lot of the time you have to dance around when faced with tough opponents to limit incoming damage, but sometimes it's literally a case of "Stand your ground!" because you want to close the gate on your opponent to continuously deal additional damage. Are any of The Inquisitor's attacks better from a defensive perspective?

If you start closing the door on something, it tends to retreat pretty quickly...or as quickly as it can, even the stone golem dudes on Level Seven, which is how I kill them faster to get past the ones guarding the Inquisitor in the first place. And I hit them as much as I can in the meantime.

If I had to choose between Swing, Thrust, and Berzerk, I would definitely be using Thrust. Swing simply doesn't produce enough damage, and Berzerk has a longer recovery time than any other type of physical attack.


--Jay

Yeah as mentioned I've been using all the Thrust weapons (rapier -> Delta Blade -> Inquisitor) in DM since replaying it in RTC/CSBWin. Back in the day I wouldn't have really cared and probably just used what looked cool, because I was like, six or seven and not really thinking about it too much. Not that much has changed .

Delta / Dragon Fang - Thrust attack

Vorpal Blade - for non-material beings

Dex Helm

Flamebain

Power Towers

Boots of speed

Jewellry & trinkets, which give the best boost.

Never bothered w/ ranged weapons, except throwing around everything that´s within the reach...