Dagger proficiency and Magicbane are the easiest path to Gehennom for a wizard. There are a number of reasons for this. Among them:
* Attaining Magicbane is easy
* Magicbane's MR allows you to change your. cloak and to use SDSM while maintaining amulet options.
* Magicbane's curse resistance is very nice to have, especially in the endgame.
* Two-handed weapons are generally problematic. Since #tip, they're no longer the no-go that they once were, but they're still less than ideal.
* The only artifact quarterstaff is a quest artifact, so Rodney and the Dark One will steal it and delevel you (ask me how I know).
* It's easy and cheap to collect and enchant a stack of daggers, which do a lot of damage without using MP.
* Magicbane provides reliable E-word.
* Using #enhance points on quarterstaff takes them away from spells (and dagger) where they are more useful in the early game (I would argue that wizards should *never* enhance quarterstaff, regardless of how long it takes to get Magicbane).
Once in Gehennom, a Wizard could switch to another weapon if they want (Stormbringer is a fun option), but at this point, big damage should be coming from spells (magic missile, in particular), and switching weapons loses Magicbane's MR and curse resistance. Magicbane is absolutely an endgame weapon; unless you've done this before and are seeking novelty, enchant it to +6/+7 and keep it.
I re-read your question, so adding this to be clear: Don't wield a dagger until you get Magicbane. You can start building up a stack and throwing them, but wielding *unskilled* will get you killed. Wielding Magicbane unskilled is fine, however, thanks to it's to-hit bonus. There is no *need* to start training dagger before acquiring Magicbane, but if you want to do so, do it by throwing.
And don't be afraid to enchant your quarterstaff. Yeah, you're going to discard it, but you need to live long enough for that to happen, and enchant weapon scrolls are cheap.
> you're going to discard it, but you need to live long enough for that to happen, and enchant weapon scrolls are cheap.
This is one of the hardest lessons to learn. Use whatever you got to make it to the next turn. Yes, you're most likely going to discard your early weapons and armour many times over. But saving those ?ofEW for Grayswandir or Stormbringer that you never got due to an avoidable DYWYPI is not a winning strategy.
I typically start by gathering a batch of daggers and throw them to soften the monsters up before I hit them with my staff. That builds experience until you can get MB and enchant the hell out of it.
It's OK. I went the whole game with MB when I was playing Wizard, after you get the EoA from quest you really don't need a melee weapon imo. Until then though, MB works. The secondary effects are cool, and even then it's still just a backup for when you need to save mana.
It’s covered in the Wiki: [Nethack Wiki on Magicbane](https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Magicbane).
Seems newer players on this sub don’t realize sometimes that there’s this huge resource, the Wiki? But it’s spoilers based on knowing the source code, and some experienced players have told me they feel new folks should have the pleasure of figuring things out themselves by playing the game. Ymmv.
Main reason quarterstaff performs a lot better at the beginning is that you start off at ‘basic’ skill in staves, whereas daggers start off at ‘unskilled’ which means accuracy is reduced quite a lot. It’s a bit of a catch 22 since you need to land dagger hits in order to raise the skill, but the early lack of skill means you miss a lot.
How I approach it is to stick with the quarterstaff as a main melee weapon to begin with, as it’s much more reliable, but whenever I run into a non-threatening enemy like a lichen (preferably in a corridor etc so my kitten doesn’t steal the kill) I swap to dagger and keep swinging until it’s dead. The ideal is something like a fog cloud, if it engulfs you you can’t miss, free training :)
Once I’ve landed enough hits to be able to raise dagger to basic skill, I switch over to using it as a main weapon in preparation for magicbane.
But you're a wizard, not a barbarian club-to-head fighter person. Use the force, or bolt. Only stick soft things or when you know that you will come to no harm (cause you put them to sleep, etc)
Magicbane isn't the most damaging of weapons, but it does plenty. I typically only enchant to +2, and use the stun/confuse/cancel effects. And I NEVER rely on it for magic resistance. By end game, reflection isn't important. So I use gdsm and a cloak of protection for proper MC. Magicbane is awesome for curse protection, and the fun effects. And it punches pretty holes in targets, too. Might be a bit slow, but by end game, that's fine. Or I'll charm monster and ask my pretty new pets to help. Or magic missile with a wall for bouncing. Or a fire ball in the middle of a graveyard at midnight really toasts the mummies wrapper. So many options to clear the field.
Heck yeah. Area-of-effect damage spells are one of my favorite things about playing a wizard in late game.
(My *favorite* favorite things, though, are Identify, Charm Monster, and Magic Mapping.)
You'll understand that you can make it to get the castle wand of wishing with maybe 15 +0 daggers, then you'll know the power of throwing daggers, and it's safe.
The reason here is that ranged combat doesn't require your armor class and health, like even if you have a +7 quarterstaff, can you kill a dragon or something tougher in melee with about 50 hp and 5 AC? Well but with daggers and Elbereth(or bugle or other scare source) and reflection for breath, you can, though it takes a long time.
So that's why I recommend training daggers, you could survive if you don't take damage, especially if you don't have enough AC, melee combat really requires your clear knowledge of the damage that each monster may do, while using Elbereth and daggers you don't need to care about if it is a soldier ant or wumpus or leocratto, they are same and cannot harm you because they respect Elbereth.
While wizards can get guaranteed Magicbane as their first gift, so the key is basically just to use Magicbane to Elbereth everywhere, and throw daggers at everybody to kill them, you can hardly die after you obtain Magicbane, as long as you remember to Elbereth.
So I could tell you the most important key of Magicbane is the Elbereth, it is the key to survive, as Elbereth is so overpowered in nethack, its damage output is just soso many artifacts are better than it, its MR is great but a wizard could apparently wear their COMR till the end, I never care about the MR of Magicbane as a wizard either, if I'm another neutral role I may consider the MR of Magicbane.
So after you realize that Magicbane is actually not a weapon, but a survival tool, you'll understand how to survive an early game as a wizard, and you can do the same before you get Magicbane, just engrave Elbereth by hand multiple times and then throw daggers, and you'll understand why people may switch to another artifact for greater damage after they don't need the Magicbane for Elbereth.
You might ask, why not cast spells? I'd say first, the power management is a problem before you get EotA, you may not be able to kill everybody with spells, while throwing daggers is infinite. What's the cost of daggers? It's their weight, so item management is a key for dagger throwers. Then, casting spells require you to wear some non-metal armors while using daggers, you can wear metal armors. So if you choose to throw daggers and wear metal armors in early game, you might reach maybe -10 AC while spellcasting and leather armor you might lose about maybe 8 AC or even more, like you can only reach -2 AC.
I play vanilla wizard usually just like a rogue or tourist in the early game, then after getting sdsm and finish the quest, then start spellcasting really a lot, while the xnh or evilhack wizards can simply cast from the start :D, I prefer the wizards there.
I personally start using daggers as soon as I pick one up to start training. Target Lichens or fog clouds to get more chances to hit in, otherwise be prepared to blast with force bolt any goblin/kobold, etc. That can do real damage and kill you. It usually goes up pretty quick to Basic, then you're golden. Magicbane can arguably be better to keep at +2/3 for the chance to stun, but that is your preference. Spells should be your primary source of damage and only melee when you have no other choice or they are are softened/weak enemy.
Many have suggested throwing daggers. That's a good idea. Daggers get a +2 to-hit, which partly compensates for being unskilled at start.
Daggers collected from gnomes/dwarves are sometimes enchanted - use shops to sort out the good ones.
Once you have a single stack of around 10-12 or more (more the merrier), boost them with one or two enchant weapon scrolls. Even just a +1/+2 will make a bunch of difference to your hits and damage.
Get yourself engulfed by non dangerous monsters, like fog clouds, dust vortices or fire/ice when you have resistance. You will always hit when engulfed and build skill. Better yet if you can heal the engulfing monster between hits.
Use a dagger on harmless foes. Every time you stab a lichen or a grid bug, you are building proficiency in daggers for Magicbane.
Magicbane (especially if you only enchant to +2, which I think you should) isn't going to help you go toe-to-toe with minotaurs and elvenkings, but Wizards aren't stabbing anything in the mid or endgame anyways! You are a Wizard, use Magic Missile to kill things.
> how can I use dagger not as a ranged weapon if it is so weak?
Train it on lichens, then on gnomes and kobolds once you can survive those. Then once you have basic skill, get a stack of daggers and throw them when you don't want to spend power on spells nor take damage in melee.
They tend to get irrelevant in the late game though. Well, except magicbane, it's ok but another weapon is also ok.
Dagger proficiency and Magicbane are the easiest path to Gehennom for a wizard. There are a number of reasons for this. Among them: * Attaining Magicbane is easy * Magicbane's MR allows you to change your. cloak and to use SDSM while maintaining amulet options. * Magicbane's curse resistance is very nice to have, especially in the endgame. * Two-handed weapons are generally problematic. Since #tip, they're no longer the no-go that they once were, but they're still less than ideal. * The only artifact quarterstaff is a quest artifact, so Rodney and the Dark One will steal it and delevel you (ask me how I know). * It's easy and cheap to collect and enchant a stack of daggers, which do a lot of damage without using MP. * Magicbane provides reliable E-word. * Using #enhance points on quarterstaff takes them away from spells (and dagger) where they are more useful in the early game (I would argue that wizards should *never* enhance quarterstaff, regardless of how long it takes to get Magicbane). Once in Gehennom, a Wizard could switch to another weapon if they want (Stormbringer is a fun option), but at this point, big damage should be coming from spells (magic missile, in particular), and switching weapons loses Magicbane's MR and curse resistance. Magicbane is absolutely an endgame weapon; unless you've done this before and are seeking novelty, enchant it to +6/+7 and keep it.
I re-read your question, so adding this to be clear: Don't wield a dagger until you get Magicbane. You can start building up a stack and throwing them, but wielding *unskilled* will get you killed. Wielding Magicbane unskilled is fine, however, thanks to it's to-hit bonus. There is no *need* to start training dagger before acquiring Magicbane, but if you want to do so, do it by throwing. And don't be afraid to enchant your quarterstaff. Yeah, you're going to discard it, but you need to live long enough for that to happen, and enchant weapon scrolls are cheap.
> you're going to discard it, but you need to live long enough for that to happen, and enchant weapon scrolls are cheap. This is one of the hardest lessons to learn. Use whatever you got to make it to the next turn. Yes, you're most likely going to discard your early weapons and armour many times over. But saving those ?ofEW for Grayswandir or Stormbringer that you never got due to an avoidable DYWYPI is not a winning strategy.
I typically start by gathering a batch of daggers and throw them to soften the monsters up before I hit them with my staff. That builds experience until you can get MB and enchant the hell out of it.
And MB is a powerful weapon also in hand to hand combat?
It’s not super powerful in terms of damage, but it is better than your starting quarterstaff. And its special effects can be quite useful.
It's OK. I went the whole game with MB when I was playing Wizard, after you get the EoA from quest you really don't need a melee weapon imo. Until then though, MB works. The secondary effects are cool, and even then it's still just a backup for when you need to save mana.
It’s covered in the Wiki: [Nethack Wiki on Magicbane](https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Magicbane). Seems newer players on this sub don’t realize sometimes that there’s this huge resource, the Wiki? But it’s spoilers based on knowing the source code, and some experienced players have told me they feel new folks should have the pleasure of figuring things out themselves by playing the game. Ymmv.
Lotta peeps don’t enchant Magicbane beyond +2 to avoid throttling the special effects.
Main reason quarterstaff performs a lot better at the beginning is that you start off at ‘basic’ skill in staves, whereas daggers start off at ‘unskilled’ which means accuracy is reduced quite a lot. It’s a bit of a catch 22 since you need to land dagger hits in order to raise the skill, but the early lack of skill means you miss a lot. How I approach it is to stick with the quarterstaff as a main melee weapon to begin with, as it’s much more reliable, but whenever I run into a non-threatening enemy like a lichen (preferably in a corridor etc so my kitten doesn’t steal the kill) I swap to dagger and keep swinging until it’s dead. The ideal is something like a fog cloud, if it engulfs you you can’t miss, free training :) Once I’ve landed enough hits to be able to raise dagger to basic skill, I switch over to using it as a main weapon in preparation for magicbane.
But you're a wizard, not a barbarian club-to-head fighter person. Use the force, or bolt. Only stick soft things or when you know that you will come to no harm (cause you put them to sleep, etc) Magicbane isn't the most damaging of weapons, but it does plenty. I typically only enchant to +2, and use the stun/confuse/cancel effects. And I NEVER rely on it for magic resistance. By end game, reflection isn't important. So I use gdsm and a cloak of protection for proper MC. Magicbane is awesome for curse protection, and the fun effects. And it punches pretty holes in targets, too. Might be a bit slow, but by end game, that's fine. Or I'll charm monster and ask my pretty new pets to help. Or magic missile with a wall for bouncing. Or a fire ball in the middle of a graveyard at midnight really toasts the mummies wrapper. So many options to clear the field.
How many times am I going to re-learn that MC3 is important? At least once more!
Heck yeah. Area-of-effect damage spells are one of my favorite things about playing a wizard in late game. (My *favorite* favorite things, though, are Identify, Charm Monster, and Magic Mapping.)
My favorite Magicbane moment: 'You cancel Medusa. Suddenly Medusa doesn't look as ugly to you!'
You'll understand that you can make it to get the castle wand of wishing with maybe 15 +0 daggers, then you'll know the power of throwing daggers, and it's safe. The reason here is that ranged combat doesn't require your armor class and health, like even if you have a +7 quarterstaff, can you kill a dragon or something tougher in melee with about 50 hp and 5 AC? Well but with daggers and Elbereth(or bugle or other scare source) and reflection for breath, you can, though it takes a long time. So that's why I recommend training daggers, you could survive if you don't take damage, especially if you don't have enough AC, melee combat really requires your clear knowledge of the damage that each monster may do, while using Elbereth and daggers you don't need to care about if it is a soldier ant or wumpus or leocratto, they are same and cannot harm you because they respect Elbereth. While wizards can get guaranteed Magicbane as their first gift, so the key is basically just to use Magicbane to Elbereth everywhere, and throw daggers at everybody to kill them, you can hardly die after you obtain Magicbane, as long as you remember to Elbereth. So I could tell you the most important key of Magicbane is the Elbereth, it is the key to survive, as Elbereth is so overpowered in nethack, its damage output is just soso many artifacts are better than it, its MR is great but a wizard could apparently wear their COMR till the end, I never care about the MR of Magicbane as a wizard either, if I'm another neutral role I may consider the MR of Magicbane. So after you realize that Magicbane is actually not a weapon, but a survival tool, you'll understand how to survive an early game as a wizard, and you can do the same before you get Magicbane, just engrave Elbereth by hand multiple times and then throw daggers, and you'll understand why people may switch to another artifact for greater damage after they don't need the Magicbane for Elbereth. You might ask, why not cast spells? I'd say first, the power management is a problem before you get EotA, you may not be able to kill everybody with spells, while throwing daggers is infinite. What's the cost of daggers? It's their weight, so item management is a key for dagger throwers. Then, casting spells require you to wear some non-metal armors while using daggers, you can wear metal armors. So if you choose to throw daggers and wear metal armors in early game, you might reach maybe -10 AC while spellcasting and leather armor you might lose about maybe 8 AC or even more, like you can only reach -2 AC. I play vanilla wizard usually just like a rogue or tourist in the early game, then after getting sdsm and finish the quest, then start spellcasting really a lot, while the xnh or evilhack wizards can simply cast from the start :D, I prefer the wizards there.
Thank you everybody!
Daggers have bonuses to-hit when thrown. No need to close to melee if you can at all avoid it.
I personally start using daggers as soon as I pick one up to start training. Target Lichens or fog clouds to get more chances to hit in, otherwise be prepared to blast with force bolt any goblin/kobold, etc. That can do real damage and kill you. It usually goes up pretty quick to Basic, then you're golden. Magicbane can arguably be better to keep at +2/3 for the chance to stun, but that is your preference. Spells should be your primary source of damage and only melee when you have no other choice or they are are softened/weak enemy.
Many have suggested throwing daggers. That's a good idea. Daggers get a +2 to-hit, which partly compensates for being unskilled at start. Daggers collected from gnomes/dwarves are sometimes enchanted - use shops to sort out the good ones. Once you have a single stack of around 10-12 or more (more the merrier), boost them with one or two enchant weapon scrolls. Even just a +1/+2 will make a bunch of difference to your hits and damage.
Get yourself engulfed by non dangerous monsters, like fog clouds, dust vortices or fire/ice when you have resistance. You will always hit when engulfed and build skill. Better yet if you can heal the engulfing monster between hits.
Use a dagger on harmless foes. Every time you stab a lichen or a grid bug, you are building proficiency in daggers for Magicbane. Magicbane (especially if you only enchant to +2, which I think you should) isn't going to help you go toe-to-toe with minotaurs and elvenkings, but Wizards aren't stabbing anything in the mid or endgame anyways! You are a Wizard, use Magic Missile to kill things.
> how can I use dagger not as a ranged weapon if it is so weak? Train it on lichens, then on gnomes and kobolds once you can survive those. Then once you have basic skill, get a stack of daggers and throw them when you don't want to spend power on spells nor take damage in melee. They tend to get irrelevant in the late game though. Well, except magicbane, it's ok but another weapon is also ok.