Dark maul
| A large, iron-shod maul specialised for dealing massively powerful blows. Such power comes at a price: the maul's head is so heavy it takes a great length of time to lift it up for another swing.
“This caliber should be appropriate.” |
the +10 dark maul
+10 maul (modified great mace: 52 base damage, -2 base accuracy, 30 base delay)
Vorpal brand
Desirability
A single swing from the dark maul[1] will crush through virtually any monster's armour for heavy damage, but even at maximum Maces & Flails skill, it will still take you 16 or 17 auts to attack - 2.5x the mindelay of the slowest normal weapons. On the plus side, it also has 2.5x the base damage of even giant clubs.
Is this trade-off actually worth it? High M&F skill is practically necessary. It'll help tune the attack delay to a tolerable level, but accuracy is also an issue - even with a +10 enchantment, you'll miss often enough where it becomes a problem. Compared to a well-enchanted demon whip, the dark maul scales better with skill/strength and checks AC much less, but takes the offhand and always risks an enemy double turn. Basically, have high strength and skill to make full use of the maul, and always watch for the 1-2 turn paralysis caused by each swing's massive delay.
Okawaru is an amazing god for the dark maul. Finesse can halve the delay of any weapon, making the maul a lot less risky to use, in addition to Heroism boosting skill levels. Manifold Assault can make the delay much more managable, as you're swinging from a distance. Despite its immense weight and delay, formicids can actually wield this weapon with one hand, since it is technically a modified great mace. Whether or not it is desirable for them to do so, what with their limited escape options, is a different question.
History
- Prior to 0.16, the dark maul had only 44 base damage and a meager +6 enchantment level.
- The dark maul was added in 0.14.
References
- ↑ art-data.txt:1303 (0.29.0)
