Ring of slaying
| Type | Jewellery |
|---|---|
| Name | Ring of slaying |
| Icon | 
|
| A ring that increases the wearer's accuracy and damage with ranged weapons and melee attacks. |
A +4 ring of slaying increases the accuracy and damage of your melee (including unarmed), ranged, and auxiliary attacks. Its boost is equivalent to 4 levels of weapon enchantment.
A functionally identical effect occasionally appears on artefact jewellery and armour, denoted as "Slay ±X" (not limited to 4).
Desirability
Fairly high. More damage and accuracy means you can kill enemies faster, which means less exposure to their attacks. Since each attack gets the same +4 bonus, fast weapons (like Short Blades) get the most benefit out of slaying. Slaying also works well if your character has multiple auxiliary attacks, since each aux attack gets its own slay bonus.
When judging artefacts with slaying, keep things in perspective. Having +1 slaying is virtually useless, while negative slaying is obviously negative. Unless the slaying is particularly high (or low), the other qualities of an artefact are more important.
Comparison to Stats
For the sole purpose of weapon damage, 1 strength (or dexterity) equals 0.025 * <weapon base dmg> * skill multipliers> slaying. For example, when (<base dmg> * <skill multi>) = 40, then 1 str/dex = 1 slaying. Therefore, +6 strength = +4 slaying at 26.7 (<base dmg> * <skill multi>). The higher the base damage, the better strength becomes for weapon damage.
Note that each stat has its other bonuses: strength reduces encumbrance of armour and shields, dexterity increases EV and SH (among other things), and slaying increases accuracy. Slaying can be stronger if you have good auxiliary attacks, since aux attacks have low damage overall.
History
- Prior to 0.27, you could find rings of slaying with a -4 enchantment; such rings were always cursed.
- Prior to 0.25, rings of slaying were randomly generated between 1 and 6 (positive and negative).
- Before the weapon enchantment merge in 0.15, rings of slaying had two distinct bonuses--one for accuracy, and one for damage.
- Prior to 0.10, slaying was more powerful, as it was included before the weapon skill multiplier.
