Why do people say Valks are easiest?

[Jason Cannon]

When I first became serious about wanting to ascend Nethack, I asked
around for tips, and the general consensus seemed to be that Valks
were the easiest class to ascend. Why do people say that? What makes
them special? I find I consistently do have better chances with a
Samurai than with a valk... Samurai start with a great set of body
armor and a sword that will last them the whole game. They have good
ranged weapons right out of the gate, too, even though my Samurai
didn't really need his yumi and ya to ascend. Samurai have good stats
and can twoweapon, and the starting katana is (one of) the best
offhand weapons available.

[Janis Papanagnou]

On 13.01.2012 08:47, Jason Cannon wrote:
> When I first became serious about wanting to ascend Nethack, I asked
> around for tips, and the general consensus seemed to be that Valks
> were the easiest class to ascend. Why do people say that?

The excellent shield. Other armor is quickly added, even the wimpiest
leather armour will give a Valk no lesser armour class than the splint
mail that the Samurai has. Very good weapon that quickly leads the Valk
through the early game. High chance for a lawful Valk that can dip for
Excalibur that can be used early in the game and also through the whole
game. Excellent permanent missile weapons (daggers) that are available
in abundance in the Mines. Excellent fighting stats and carrying capacity.
Later in the game; an excellent quest artifact that effectively doubles
the existing life points of the Valkyrie. And the quest is comparably
easy. And they can also two-weapon.

> What makes
> them special? I find I consistently do have better chances with a
> Samurai than with a valk...

Don't know why you have problems with Valks. I ascend ~55% of Samurais
and ~70% of my Valkyries. In addition, dwarven Valkyries are considered
one of the easiest classes, I ascended 80% of those; that I have only
achieved with human cavemen or topped with rangers (80% and 100% resp.,
in my case, on NAO).

> Samurai start with a great set of body
> armor and a sword that will last them the whole game. They have good
> ranged weapons right out of the gate, too, even though my Samurai
> didn't really need his yumi and ya to ascend. Samurai have good stats
> and can twoweapon, and the starting katana is (one of) the best
> offhand weapons available.

Janis

[FX]

> the general consensus seemed to be that Valks were the easiest class to
> ascend. Why do people say that?

Experience :)

I'd say "among the easiest class", and it does certainly depend on your
playing style, but Valkyries coast easily through early game. I find
myself that elven Wizards are particulary easy to play in early and
mid-game. But maybe I just have a fondness for magic!

--
FX

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

On Jan 13, 2:47 am, Jason Cannon <jasonca...@gmail.com> wrote:
> consensus seemed to be that Valks
> were the easiest class to ascend.

For a beginning player, I would say this is probably true.
If they're not clearly the easiest, they are at least close.

Specifically, _lawful_ Valkyrie.

Some people say lawful _dwarvish_ Valkyrie, but dwarves
have lower limits on intelligence and wisdom, so that only
makes undeniable good sense if you don't care at all about
spellcasting, IMO. Forgetting about spellcasting would be
a no-brainer for a barbarian (they can't cast worth beans
no matter what), but it may not be so clear for a Valkyrie.
Perhaps it's a matter of personal taste. See below.

The advantages of lawful alignment, for a race that starts
with a longsword in which they can get expert skill, are
rather more clear.

> Why do people say that?

It isn't any one thing. Here are a few thoughts...

Only knights and barbarians start with more strength,
and not very much more at that. Nothing starts with
more constitution. Thus, a median-value Valkyrie
starts with the ability to carry 950 weight. (The exact
numbers vary, of course. Randomness is involved.)
The theoretical maximum for any role is 1000.
In the early game, this means you can wear plate
mail (until you find mithril) and still carry around lots
of other useful things. The high starting strength also
makes it easier to kill things with your long sword.
Valkyries don't need gauntlets of power. Any gloves
(except fumbling) will do in the early game. (In the
late game, of course, you want gauntlets of dexterity,
for the spell-casting benefits, unless you decide you
don't want to cast any spells.)

Speaking of the starting longsword (a better weapon
as it stands than many roles have until well into the
Mines), if you make it to Delphi (and you are lawful)
it can be easily converted to the blessed rustproof +1
nearly-double-damage-to-everything-hostile sword
of searching and drain resistance, one of the best
artifact weapons in the game, and very definitely the
best one that any role can reliably obtain that early
in the game. This is an ascension-kit weapon, and
you're getting it before Sokoban, pretty much every
single time, without needing to find an altar or a
particular weapon or anything. Knights can do this
too, but other lawfuls (e.g., Samurai) would have to
find a longsword first, which typically means several
levels into the Mines. Neutrals and chaotics can
only get a weapon this good by artifact wishing
(unless you don't mind one that destroys monster
inventory or kills shopkeepers, priests, and pets;
and even then they can't get it so early so easy).

This also means you don't need to worry about
trying to find a co-aligned altar (or take the risk of
attempting to convert one) early in the game. In
fact, there's not really even any point in sacrificing,
as a Valkyrie (or Knight), until you've been to the
bottom of the Mines and retrieved the luckstone.
As a Valk, you're using a middle-game approach
by then. (Some roles, e.g., Tourist, would still be
playing with early-game tactics, due to poorer
stats, sometimes until reaching the Castle.)

The Valkyrie's base spellcasting handicap is
low enough to allow casting mid-level spells in
all schools, once you get far enough into the mid-
game to do potion alchemy for gain ability and
optimize your armor for spell casting (non-metal,
robe, etc). A lot of roles have _lower_ casting
handicaps (Samurai have the same), but the
other major role with a really easy early game
(Barbarian) has it much worse. The Valkyrie is
not an early-game spellcaster like wizards and
monks, but by the time you get to Gehennom
you have very low failure rates for certain really
useful spells (identify, charm monster, extra
healing) and 0% failure on low-level spells like
jumping, light, magic missile, and force bolt.
The only strong-melee role that clearly has the
Valkyrie beat in this regard is the Knight.

Early intrinsics for a Valkyrie are pretty useful:
cold resistance AND stealth from XL1, speed
at XL 7. The only roles that have clearly
superior automatic intrinsics in the very early
game are barbarians and healers (who both
get poison resistance, the most important one
in the early game, from XL1). The roles with
comparably good automatic intrinsics include
archaeologists (speed AND stealth at XL1;
they also get search at XL10; by then lawful
Valkyries have extrinsic search) and monks
(nothing until XL3, but it's poison resistance,
and they get good ones regularly after that).
Other roles don't have it as good in this regard.
Some of them have essentially worthless
automatic intrinsics (Knights) or have to wait
until mid-game to get them (e.g., Tourists get
search at XL10, and if they by some miracle
manage to survive without poison resistance
until XL20, or more likely if a gremlin steals it,
there's that). Samurai get just one (admittedly
fairly good) early intrinsic: speed at XL1.
(They also get stealth at XL15, but that's too
late to help you survive the early game.)

Valkyries can get to expert in both longsword
(which they start with) and dagger (which are
very readily available from quite early), so
other weapon skills pretty much don't matter.
They can get to skilled in two-weapon combat
and, if you care to go that route, riding.

They can only get basic skill in saber, but by
the time you're ready to #twoweapon a silver
saber you're going to be expert in your primary
weapon (Excalibur) and high-level-enough to
hit while unskilled anyway.

Spell skills are not so advantageous (basic
only in attack and escape) but are adequate
if you don't mind waiting until mid-game to
get serious about spell casting. Roles that
can do well with early-game casting (Wizard,
Healer, Monk, Priest) have significant hurdles
to overcome in terms of early-game survival,
things that make them much more difficult
for a beginning player. (Monk is arguably
the easiest of these roles to learn, but their
weapon-skill limits and dietary restrictions
make them much harder than Valkyrie.
If you can get a Healer to survive until
the Castle, I hereby acknowledge your
clearly superior NetHack prowess.)

There may be other things too.

It is, of course, not all one-sided. Every role
has advantages and disadvantages. Conduct
players tend not to favor Valkyrie. But as a
beginning, you're almost certainly not ready
for that style of play yet.

Since you mention Samurai: they're also
often considered a good choice for beginning
players. Some of the reasons are similar to
some of the reasons for Valkyrie. Probably
the most important single advantage that
Valkyries have over Samurai is being able
to dip for Excalibur at Delphi. (Well, that
and not needing to memorize a bunch of
Hepburn-bastardized nihongo.)

[TJR]

In part because Valks really are the easiest to win. There are lots of
arguments what properties makes them so, i.e., whey they should be the
easiest. Instead, looking at the most reasonable statistics available,
they head the ascension percentage of those games where the player was
really trying to win.

http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Role_difficulty#Role_difficulty_statistics

[Doug Freyburger]

Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> Jason Cannon wrote:
>
>> When I first became serious about wanting to ascend Nethack, I asked
>> around for tips, and the general consensus seemed to be that Valks
>> were the easiest class to ascend. Why do people say that?
>
> The excellent shield. Other armor is quickly added, even the wimpiest
> leather armour will give a Valk no lesser armour class than the splint
> mail that the Samurai has.

For armor when I'm playing any combat wombat class an early goal is
mithril body armor. For AC it beats most of the common ones. For
weight it beats all of the heavy ones. Basically it's the target armor
until dragon scale mail is available. For a samurai I will switch to
it. For a valkyrie I will wear it in addition to the shield. Later in
the game the shield is dropped in favor of dual wield but in the early
game it's a life saver.

> Very good weapon that quickly leads the Valk
> through the early game. High chance for a lawful Valk that can dip for
> Excalibur that can be used early in the game and also through the whole
> game.

Having the initial weapon turned into Excalibur makes other artifacts
much less interesting. Excalibur beats Snickersnee for most purposes.
That's in addition to the fact that Mjolnir beats Snickersnee in the
early game but not in the late game.

> Excellent permanent missile weapons (daggers) that are available
> in abundance in the Mines.

Having multifire expert in daggers makes a gigantic difference. No
launcher to wield so not interference from the shield. Daggers do not
disappear so no need to search out every arrow trap to not waste the
irreplacable yas.

> Excellent fighting stats and carrying capacity.
> Later in the game; an excellent quest artifact that effectively doubles
> the existing life points of the Valkyrie.

The Quest artifact is also a get-out-of-trouble-for-free ticket. Hugely
valuable at a few points in the game.

> And the quest is comparably easy.

Plus it contains enough giants that strength 18/** is nearly guaranteed
with a bunch of tarrying and cycling in and out of the Quest until
hungry. That means there is close to no benefit to gloves of power.

>> Samurai start with a great set of body
>> armor and a sword that will last them the whole game.

Neither I gree with. Drop that slint the second you get mithril for the
weight difference. Keep the mithril until GDSM or SDSM.

Bag that sword on the first good artifact. Then use it as the secondary
wield in the late game if you don't get a silver saber.

[anon]

Three words: Mojo and GoP. Sure, an XL 30 knight with magic missile or a
rogue two-weaponing Grayswandir etc. might technically do more damage in
one-to-one combat, but to quote Jackie Brown: "When you absolutely,
positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no
substitutes."

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

On Jan 13, 1:15 pm, anon <a...@anon.invalid> wrote:

> Three words: Mojo and GoP.

Thing is, Gauntlets of Power are a bad deal for Valkyries,
because their strength starts at 18 and typically reaches
18/** well before entering Gehennom. The gauntlets of
dexterity are therefore a much more worthwhile piece
of magical armor. You get more out of the slot.

I mean, sure, I'd take Gauntlets of Power in the early
game if I happened to find them and didn't have the
Gauntlets of Dexterity yet (or didn't have the scrolls
to enchant them) and wasn't ready (in terms of
intelligence) to start getting serious about reading
books. But in the long term meh. Give my Valkyrie
the dexterity gloves, please.

[Janis Papanagnou]

Basically I agree; even though with intrinsic Dex:18 you
really don't need the gloves of dexterity any more.

But I think the poster was referring to *throwing* Mjollnir
which requires a strength of 25, thus gauntlets of power.
It's arguable, though, whether even that, throwing Mjollnir,
is a good idea, given that it can destroy your rings and
wands in the (rare) case you fail to catch it.

Janis

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

On Jan 13, 11:31 am, TJR <tilmina...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> In part because Valks really are the easiest to win.

They have the easiest time surviving to mid-game.
Ergo, they have the easiest time winning, because
the early game is substantially the hardest part to
survive.

This is backwards from almost all other games.
Usually difficulty *increases* (often rather steeply)
as the game progresses, so that a player of only
moderate skill can easily make it through the first
part but then reaches the limit of his skill and gets
to the point where the difficulty overwhelms him
and he loses. Sometimes doing things better in
the early game makes later stages easier, but
usually just _surviving_ the first part of the game
is trivial for any player with enough experience
to even THINK about trying to actually win. Not
so with NetHack. Even advanced players, who
ascend upwards of half their games, suffer a high
percentage of their deaths in the first few levels.
The first part of a NetHack game is *HARD*.

It's slightly less hard if you're playing a Valkyrie.

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

On Jan 13, 7:46 pm, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> But I think the poster was referring to *throwing* Mjollnir

Yes, probably. My point was, that's the *only* real
benefit that a Valkyrie gets out of gauntlets of power,
which makes them nowhere near as good a deal as
they might be for some other role (especially roles
that start with low strength; a Tourist with no
tinning kit, for instance, will typically locate the
vibrating square before finally maxing out strength).

Also, I didn't say this, but throwing Mojo comes
with substantial risks of its own, not least that
you must acquire an essentially complete set of
intrinsics, because you can't rely on rings to grant
you any important properties extrinsically. That
also means a suboptimal means of levitation. The
inability to reliably carry wands in open inventory,
especially rare/valuable ones like a wand of death,
is also significant.

Besides, by the time you find a co-aligned altar
you usually already have Excalibur (if you're a
lawful Valkyrie) and are probably at least Skilled
in longsword. (This point would admittedly be
largely irrelevant for a neutral Valkyrie, but it's
the least of the arguments anyway.)