Distortion

It warps and distorts space around it. Unwielding it can cause banishment or high damage.

Distortion is a brand that any melee weapon may have. Distortion weapons bend and tear the fabric of space-time, and generate a variety of effects when they hit:

Chance	Effect
33.3%	The target takes an additional 1-7 damage
22.2%	The target takes an additional 3-26 damage (14.5 on average, low variation)
14.8%	The target blinks
9.9%	The target teleports
9.9%	The target is banished to the Abyss
9.9%	Nothing happens

The exception to this is the blink frog (including the unique blink frog Prince Ribbit), which likes distortion energy; it is immune to all distortion effects, and has a 20% chance of being healed by them instead.

Unwielding a weapon branded with distortion will cause severe translocation miscast effects, including severe damage or even banishment (25% chance). This is a very good reason for you to avoid wield-IDing random magic and artifact weapons. A weapon given the temporary distortion brand by the Warp Weapon spell does not suffer this limitation.

Strategy

• Since the brand's effect is not dependent on the damage your weapon does, it works best on a fast, edged weapon with low base delay.

• Note that quivering and firing a distortion weapon does not cause any miscast effects, but this may be less useful than it seems. Happy to throw that Spear of Distortion at nasty foes? You might not be, when your enemy picks it up and either throws it back at you or starts poking you with it. Enemies don't have to worry about un-wielding distortion weapons!

• Should you not want to leave Distortion weapons lying around, there are several ways to safely dispose of them:
  • Lug them to your stash
  • Throw the weapon into lava
  • On levels without merfolk, throw it into deep water
  • Feed it to a jelly
  • Sacrifice it to Elyvilon or Nemelex

• Be very careful about equipping blunt weapons of distortion. This is a good way to kill yourself, because you cannot butcher corpses without suffering miscast effects (which can be quite lethal to low- to mid-level characters). A way to deal with this is by learning Animate Skeleton, which allows for effective butchering without unwielding your weapon.

• Be careful about the blinking effect. It gives you no message when it occurs, suddenly leaving you with empty space where that monster used to be. If you're attacking by attempting to move into the monster, your next swing will move you instead, and that can be bad when you move out of a choke-point or into unfavorable terrain. Attack using Tab to avoid this.

• Certain uniques often drop Distortion weapons, notably Psyche and Sonja. They can also be found in the Hall of Blades, but of course, there you need to fight against them first! Pious followers of Lugonu can have her brand a weapon with distortion, once per game. The Warp Weapon spell can apply a temporary distortion brand.

• Unwielding a distortion weapon can serve as a last resort to teleport you while confused, but be aware that the consequences of this can be lethal.

• If you absolutely need to avoid unwielding a wielded distortion weapon, Kikubaaqudgha and the Shining One offer gifts at max piety that replace the brand of your current weapon with a new one. This will not work on artifact distortion weapons, however, and generating divine wrath by abandoning god(s) to do this will often outweigh the benefits of avoiding a single miscast effect.