Arc Blade

Version 0.25: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A blade somehow crafted from pure electricity. Striking an enemy with it occasionally unleashes powerful arcs of lightning. These may arc to other adjacent creatures, or back to the wielder, before eventually grounding out. It deals reduced damage when arcing to the wielder, and bypasses any armour the target may have.

the +8 arc blade

+8 rapier

33.3% chance: Casts Static Discharge on the target with spellpower that's on-average 50% higher than the usual spellpower cap.
rElec

Desirability

The arc blade has damage output that's a bit higher than a fully enchanted demon blade of electrocution, making it a strong weapon versus monsters without electricity resistance. It is particularly effective against crowds, as the discharge damage tends to spreads out, a useful effect if you can fight foes in a bottleneck.

Against electricity-resistant targets, however, this weapon is far less useful. Versus electricity-immune monsters, it's no better than a +8 rapier that happens to grant rElec. Carrying an alternate weapon is strongly advised, as electricity resistance is common later on.

Additionally, this weapon is not good to use near allies that aren't themselves immune to electricity, since they are not exempt from the weapon's discharges. You will at least receive a warning prompt if your attack could harm one of your allies.

Compared to the Static Discharge spell, the arcs from this weapon do more damage and arc more often to adjacent monsters due to the high spellpower used.

History

• Prior to 0.23, the arc blade would cast Static Discharge multiple times but at much lower spellpower. The weapon's enchantment was +4.
• Prior to 0.16, it was a cutlass.
• Prior to 0.15, it was a +3, +5 weapon.
• The arc blade was introduced in 0.14.