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{{flavour|It deals dramatically more damage, but attacks with it are much slower.}}

The '''heavy''' [[brand]] does the following:
*Adds +80% base damage, but take 50% longer to swing.<ref>{{source ref|0.30.1|fight.cc|1356}}</ref><ref>{{source ref|0.30.1|fight.cc|992}}</ref> This results in an average of +20% physical base damage.
**The penalty to [[attack speed]] is applied after skill, but before the effects of [[shield]] and [[armour encumbrance]].
**Both base damage and delay are rounded in a weighted manner. For example, a weapon with 16.2 base damage would have a 20% chance to act as 17 base damage, and an 80% chance to act as 16 base damage.

Compared to brands like [[flaming]] and [[freezing]], heavy weapons are penalized less by [[AC]], but receive less benefit from [[slaying]] and will activate less [[auxiliary attack]]s.

==Strategy==
Heavy offers a slightly weaker damage boost than [[flaming]] or [[freezing]], but has the benefit of being irresistible. In an average situation, heavy is competitive with those brands. It has a clear superiority against monsters with high AC or many resistances. Conversely, it is clearly worse for [[slaying]]-reliant weapons, like [[quick blade]]s. Heavy is also poor for species with strong aux attacks, such as [[Tengu]] or [[Vine Stalker]].

In addition, heavy weapons are less impacted by shield/armour encumbrance. For example, lets say armour increases attack delay by +0.1 decaAut:
* A regular weapon would go from 1.0 -> 1.1 delay, or 10% slower.
* A heavy weapon would go from 1.5 -> 1.6 delay, or 6.25% slower.

However, using heavy on most weapons introduces a serious risk - see below for details.

===Risks of >1.0 attack delay===
Heavy can be a good brand on average, but it can be ''very'' risky, as it can prevent you from reaching ≤ 1.0 attack delay. Most weapons have a [[minimum delay]] of 0.7; heavy turns that into a 1.05 [[decaAut]] delay. This represents a 5% chance of a regular speed enemy getting a double-turn of attacks.

For example, a [[deep elf annihilator]]'s crystal spear can deal up to 102 damage. Doubled, that's 204 damage - more than the max HP of many characters. The chance of this actually happening is miniscule (0.003% to maxroll one spear, 5% to double-turn, further reduced by [[AC]]/[[EV]]/[[SH]]...). But it can still be an issue:
*Maximum damage isn't necessary. A high roll, say 80*2 damage, still really hurts.
*Most dangerous situations in ''Crawl'' involve multiple enemies. Add a single other [[list of deep elves|deep elf]] to the picture, and max damage increases further. When you consider a pack of enemies, it skyrockets.
*Because "damage you can possibly take in one turn" is doubled, it can force you to use consumables much earlier. For example, a [[komodo dragon]] deals 34*2 damage before [[GDR]]. Therefore, making a melee attack becomes dangerous at ~60 HP rather than ~30 HP. (Remember that [[wand]]s, [[Throwing]], etc. aren't slowed by your weapon.)

This isn't exclusive to deep elf annihilators - it applies to just about any 10-speed enemy. Suddenly, fighting two [[naga sharpshooter]]s becomes a big issue; each sharpshooter can do 45 damage before [[GDR]], which turns to 150+ damage if the stars align.

Weapons that have a minimum delay below 0.7, like [[demon blade]]s, [[demon trident]]s, and all [[Short Blades]], can reach a post-heavy mindelay below 1.0. Though watch out for [[shield]]s, which can bring the delay back up. Also, for weapons that don't reach 1.0 delay (e.g. [[hand crossbow]] + any [[shield]]), this point is obviously moot.

==Tips & Tricks==
*Slow actions can be useful in a turn count [[speedrun]]. Each attack takes 1 [[turn]], regardless of how long the swing was. If a regular weapon would take 3 turns to kill an enemy, a heavy weapon would take 2.

:In addition, swinging an untrained heavy weapon is a better way to skip time than [[bread swinging]]. For example, swinging a [[scroll]] takes 1.5 [[decaAut]]s, but it takes 2.1 decaAuts to swing a heavy [[flail]] when you have 0 [[Maces & Flails]] skill.

==History==
*In [[0.30]], this weapon brand was introduced. It replaced the [[vorpal]] brand.

==References==
<references/>

{{brands}}
[[Category:Brands]]

Heavy - Revision history

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