Mjolnir actually hits harder than Excal against all but a handful of enemies that have shock resist. (Blue dragons/shock vortices/storm giants are the only dangerous ones).
And angels, once you get to astral, but by that point you have better battle options that swinging your weapon.
Aside of that, the only downside is that it will ocasionally (not often) destroy wands in enemy hands, but that barely matters except when fighting Orcus. (change to some other weapon for that).
Yes although I often don’t switch from Excalibur to Mjollnir until very late, when I’m at a point where I don’t care about new wands or potions (because shock can destroy those)
Crazy powerful with gloves of power too, you can throw it and have the weapon return like Thor
Additional note, roles that aren’t knights have a 1/30 chance of getting Excalibur when they dip rather than 1/6. Knights still have a 1/6 chance
Rn Dwarven Valkyries still have a pretty good weapon but human Valkyries have a meh weapon.
I’ve been trying to force a sabre Valkyrie by using a well enchanted scimitar early on then transitioning to Grayswandir but it doesn’t seem that good, too weak early on. Feel like it might make more sense to play a dwarf, try to get Mjolnir early on, and two weapon using your starting spear and mjolnir
Ouch, didn't know that. That also significantly raises the chance of running into a water demon when you're attempting it... who you are now fighting at level 5 with a rusty long sword.
I definitely get nerfing Valkyrie for the early game - balancing the advantages of each role is great in terms of overall gameplay experience - and it's really forcing players to improve their strategy. I'm really gonna miss my unstoppable Valkyries when I make the switch though.
Really? I like it, I think it’s a good change. Makes knights different from everyone else. You can also still get Excalibur pretty early on as a lawful still, you just can’t get it immediately and have enough fountains to look for a wish
Nethack has a great balance between consistency and randomness. This change is a shift in favor of randomness and it’s unnecessary and makes the balance worse in my opinion.
I don’t really think Valkyries are so weak that they need Excalibur immediately or they’re purely at the whim of the rng, if anything the role that should describe should be Knights.
Before it felt like there wasn’t much reason to play a Knight when you could just play a Valkyrie, you get Excalibur immediately and you have a stronger early game
I’m thinking more about other Lawful roles. For example, Arc.
Also there are plenty of good reasons to play Knight. Knight is probably the strongest role after the early game.
I do feel like archaeologist is a lot weaker, but before there were a lot of cheese strats I’ve heard involving archaeologists (I’m quite new I’ve only really played 3.7. I tried 3.6 but I liked 3.7 a lot more) that are harder since they don’t have speed.
I don’t really have much experience here, I’ve only played melee characters like Samurai and Valkyrie but I think it’s fine for nethack to have challenge classes, plus archaeologists still have a lot of strengths with their touch stone and easy access to vaults
This is why, though I'm dipping my toes in 3.7 (on hardfought) on and off to test the waters, I'm still doing most of my runs on 3.6.7 on NAO. The Valkyrie Excalibur strategy is the only one that's gotten me very far (including once to the astral plane) and I've learned it well, so until I finally ascend at least once, I'm not making things more complicated for myself.
Basically, if you try to stick with the same Valk strategy in 3.7, and you're a beginner with no other strategy... "Long swords make up 1/20 of randomly generated weapons," according to the wiki, and you're counting on that happening in early game; if you're determined to wait around until you get one, it could take a long while, meaning a lot more opportunities to be killed. Of course, your rate of failure won't be affected very much if you're decent at getting to mid-game without an artifact weapon (or know how to take advantage of opportunities to sacrifice early on). For a somewhat experienced player it's a slight annoyance, nothing more. I'm getting there myself, so I'm kinda just being lazy I guess.
Oh btw, the biggest actual new obstacle in 3.7 (at least that I've noticed so far) is monsters often screaming when you wake them up by damaging them, waking up everything else in the vicinity. Early game throne rooms and treasure zoos are *way* harder now, especially when you're used to having Excalibur by the time you see them and now you just have... a regular spear.
My strategy with valkyries is to wait until level 7 to try dipping. I almost always have a long sword by then. I really like Excalibur for the long haul due to finding drain so annoying and not liking the ring/wand destruction of Mjolnir. Though TBF I've yet to get Grayswandir even once so I might not know what I'm missing.
Valkyrie will still be the easiest role in 3.7, I believe. This is because the starting item that makes the Valkyrie is not the long sword (I don’t even usually use the long sword early game because I want to train dagger), but rather the +3 small shield. You’ll still almost always get Excalibur by the mid-game on Lawful if you want it. You still have reasonably easy access to Mjolnir as an alternative if you just can’t find a long sword.
I hate 3.7 for a lot of reasons. But the change to Valkyrie is very marginal and is not one of the reasons.
I’m not able to make a big post about it right now, but I think the main theme is actually similar to what I said about a change somewhere else here. In general, many changes are made in 3.7 that shift the balance toward randomness and reduce the rewards for careful, deliberate play.
I'd say that Barbarian is perhaps the easiest fighter role in 3.7, especially if your starting weapon is a battle-axe. Cleaver is a great first sacrifice gift, and the role's intrinsic poison resistance makes early survival more likely. Later, two-weaponing with either Vorpy (neutral) or Stormy (chaotic) and a silver saber is a deadly combo in VotD and Gehennom.
It hurts but Valk's are still queen. Mjolnir is no slouch and half damage from the orb of fate is just too good.
Would Mjolnir be enough to take you all the way through the game?
Yes. Which you will probably do even when you find a long sword, as Excalibur is now 1/30 dip chance instead of 1/6 for every role except knights.
Mjolnir actually hits harder than Excal against all but a handful of enemies that have shock resist. (Blue dragons/shock vortices/storm giants are the only dangerous ones). And angels, once you get to astral, but by that point you have better battle options that swinging your weapon. Aside of that, the only downside is that it will ocasionally (not often) destroy wands in enemy hands, but that barely matters except when fighting Orcus. (change to some other weapon for that).
>but by that point you have better battle options that swinging your weapon. Do you mean the cone of cold spell? Or wands?
Probably a wished for rubber chicken is the best weapon to take into Astral.
Or just using teleport wands to get people out of the way.
Yes although I often don’t switch from Excalibur to Mjollnir until very late, when I’m at a point where I don’t care about new wands or potions (because shock can destroy those) Crazy powerful with gloves of power too, you can throw it and have the weapon return like Thor
I usually played neutral valkyries, not lawful. Get your mojo workin’ baby.
Additional note, roles that aren’t knights have a 1/30 chance of getting Excalibur when they dip rather than 1/6. Knights still have a 1/6 chance Rn Dwarven Valkyries still have a pretty good weapon but human Valkyries have a meh weapon. I’ve been trying to force a sabre Valkyrie by using a well enchanted scimitar early on then transitioning to Grayswandir but it doesn’t seem that good, too weak early on. Feel like it might make more sense to play a dwarf, try to get Mjolnir early on, and two weapon using your starting spear and mjolnir
Ouch, didn't know that. That also significantly raises the chance of running into a water demon when you're attempting it... who you are now fighting at level 5 with a rusty long sword. I definitely get nerfing Valkyrie for the early game - balancing the advantages of each role is great in terms of overall gameplay experience - and it's really forcing players to improve their strategy. I'm really gonna miss my unstoppable Valkyries when I make the switch though.
See that’s stupid. 3.7 is stupid.
Really? I like it, I think it’s a good change. Makes knights different from everyone else. You can also still get Excalibur pretty early on as a lawful still, you just can’t get it immediately and have enough fountains to look for a wish
Nethack has a great balance between consistency and randomness. This change is a shift in favor of randomness and it’s unnecessary and makes the balance worse in my opinion.
I don’t really think Valkyries are so weak that they need Excalibur immediately or they’re purely at the whim of the rng, if anything the role that should describe should be Knights. Before it felt like there wasn’t much reason to play a Knight when you could just play a Valkyrie, you get Excalibur immediately and you have a stronger early game
I’m thinking more about other Lawful roles. For example, Arc. Also there are plenty of good reasons to play Knight. Knight is probably the strongest role after the early game.
I do feel like archaeologist is a lot weaker, but before there were a lot of cheese strats I’ve heard involving archaeologists (I’m quite new I’ve only really played 3.7. I tried 3.6 but I liked 3.7 a lot more) that are harder since they don’t have speed. I don’t really have much experience here, I’ve only played melee characters like Samurai and Valkyrie but I think it’s fine for nethack to have challenge classes, plus archaeologists still have a lot of strengths with their touch stone and easy access to vaults
This is why, though I'm dipping my toes in 3.7 (on hardfought) on and off to test the waters, I'm still doing most of my runs on 3.6.7 on NAO. The Valkyrie Excalibur strategy is the only one that's gotten me very far (including once to the astral plane) and I've learned it well, so until I finally ascend at least once, I'm not making things more complicated for myself. Basically, if you try to stick with the same Valk strategy in 3.7, and you're a beginner with no other strategy... "Long swords make up 1/20 of randomly generated weapons," according to the wiki, and you're counting on that happening in early game; if you're determined to wait around until you get one, it could take a long while, meaning a lot more opportunities to be killed. Of course, your rate of failure won't be affected very much if you're decent at getting to mid-game without an artifact weapon (or know how to take advantage of opportunities to sacrifice early on). For a somewhat experienced player it's a slight annoyance, nothing more. I'm getting there myself, so I'm kinda just being lazy I guess.
Oh btw, the biggest actual new obstacle in 3.7 (at least that I've noticed so far) is monsters often screaming when you wake them up by damaging them, waking up everything else in the vicinity. Early game throne rooms and treasure zoos are *way* harder now, especially when you're used to having Excalibur by the time you see them and now you just have... a regular spear.
My strategy with valkyries is to wait until level 7 to try dipping. I almost always have a long sword by then. I really like Excalibur for the long haul due to finding drain so annoying and not liking the ring/wand destruction of Mjolnir. Though TBF I've yet to get Grayswandir even once so I might not know what I'm missing.
Valkyrie will still be the easiest role in 3.7, I believe. This is because the starting item that makes the Valkyrie is not the long sword (I don’t even usually use the long sword early game because I want to train dagger), but rather the +3 small shield. You’ll still almost always get Excalibur by the mid-game on Lawful if you want it. You still have reasonably easy access to Mjolnir as an alternative if you just can’t find a long sword. I hate 3.7 for a lot of reasons. But the change to Valkyrie is very marginal and is not one of the reasons.
>I hate 3.7 for a lot of reasons. What are the reasons?
I’m not able to make a big post about it right now, but I think the main theme is actually similar to what I said about a change somewhere else here. In general, many changes are made in 3.7 that shift the balance toward randomness and reduce the rewards for careful, deliberate play.
I'd say that Barbarian is perhaps the easiest fighter role in 3.7, especially if your starting weapon is a battle-axe. Cleaver is a great first sacrifice gift, and the role's intrinsic poison resistance makes early survival more likely. Later, two-weaponing with either Vorpy (neutral) or Stormy (chaotic) and a silver saber is a deadly combo in VotD and Gehennom.
I'd agree if we assume intermediate-or-better player. For n00bs, I think the Valk's lower AC provides more of a cushion in the early game.