Flaming

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

The flaming brand deals an average of +25% fire damage, or 0% - 50% more per swing, reduced proportionally by fire resistance. This damage is applied after AC. Although less effective against creatures with fire resistance, it can devastate anything vulnerable to it.

A flaming edged weapon (Long Blades, Axes, 2-handed Polearms, lajatang) will cauterize a hydra's heads, preventing it from regrowing. In effect, they reduce the head count by 1 per hit, without any of the regular healing.

As flaming applies its percentage boost after AC reduction, it is no better or worse when considering strength, weapon type, slaying, or AC. An executioner's axe of flaming receives the same +25% boost to final damage as a quickblade of flaming. It's just that brands like electrocution and pain deal flat damage; they are stronger with faster weapons, but check strength less.

Sources

Along with simply finding flaming weapons as randomly generated loot, there are a number of sources guaranteed to generate them. Efreets and the unique casters Erica and Azrael always carry scimitars of flaming, and fire giants always carry great swords of flaming. Nessos is always generated with a flaming longbow. Trog frequently gifts weapons that come with the flaming brand. Otherwise, you have a good chance to grant your weapon the flaming brand with a scroll of brand weapon.

History

• Prior to 0.15, you could temporarily apply a flaming brand to your (unbranded) weapon with the spell Fire Brand, which could be made permanent with a scroll of vorpalize weapon.