fejoa wrote
Just merged your awesome work Red.
Thanks!
fejoa wrote
Maybe we need to think about the valpurium battle-axe again.
I'll try to explain my reasoning:
I wanted the zombie of Khaz-zadm feel like a boss, a worthy fight, and also offer a meaningful treasure for its defeat. The zombie already had rather good stats, so I let those be, but I gave it resistances, as Ighalli pointed out she can be felled by a wand way too easily. Optimally, she should be a bit hard to fight right after arriving to Attnam, but doable with good equipment and/or after a floor or two of GC. Valpurium battle-axe was given to her because a) it makes her much more intimidating in melee and b) it is a cool treasure well worth the hassle defeating her.
Why a battle-axe instead of a hammer? Well, I find axes are rather underused right now - every other weapon category has a special weapon or an artifact that makes it good to train. Axes, though, lack both special weapons and artifacts. They are not actually unbalanced or underpowered (I feel quarterstaffs are, but that may be IMO), it's just batter to train eg. hammers with the hope of finding a thundr hammer, even if you happen upon some nice axes. Thus I wanted at least one cool and powerful axe in the game, so that some players might actually train axes and stick with them through the rest of the game, just as they do with artifacts of other weapon categories.
I might have gone overboard with making it valpurium and not a different high metal, but I think it's balanced by the risk - the last floor of Catacombs is dangerous, there is the necromancer and the zombie herself can crit you pretty bad with the axe. It is true that this guarantees a valpurium battle-axe in each game, but you have to be able to actually obtain it, which in some games will take some time to build up power. And you can also obtain a valpurium sword in each game by praying to Valpurus, which I don't find that difficult to achieve. You can sell the god gifts just as much as the axe - it's true, though, that the cash you get is quite formidable.
If we are to nerf it, I would prefer to either make it a valpurium axe instead of a battle-axe, or slightly nefring the material, but still leaving the zombie with a powerful axe, for the reasons above.
What do you think?
Also, sorry for the trees, I totally missed them. :/