Nenya
| = Nenya | |
|---|---|
| Base item | diamond or silver ring |
| Affiliation | |
| When carried | none |
| When worn |
|
| When invoked | none |
| Base price | 0 zm |
| Weight | 6 |
Nenya is an artifact that appears in dNetHack and notdNetHack. It is unaligned and elf-favoring, and its base item is a ring with the randomized appearance of a "diamond ring". If the diamond ring is a ring of polymorph in the current game, then Nenya will appear as a silver ring instead.
Description
While worn, Nenya has the usual effects conferred by the ring whose appearance it matches, and additionally confers water walking, monster detection as the blessed potion or Skilled spell, and protects the wearer's inventory from water damage. Each attack made in melee or with a thrown/fired weapon while wearing Nenya adds +1d20 silver damage.
Wearing Nenya also massively lowers the failure rate of divination spells, guaranteeing the ability to cast any divination spell at 0% fail rate for almost any character: this does not supersede the inability to cast spells for other reasons, e.g. the influence of the Spire, lacking free hands, or any other effects that block all spellcasting.
In addition, wearing Nenya also applies a wisdom-based modifier to energy regeneration, as well as to the wearer's AC while not flat-footed, i.e. while not paralyzed or else occupied. The modifier is a flat (Wis-11)⁄2, and will not cause negative energy regeneration for the player character, instead worsening existing regeneration to a minimum of 0 unless it was already negative.
Strategy
The effectiveness of all of the elf rings depends on their base item type in that game. If you're lucky enough to have a game where ruby rings are free action, then Narya is obviously much better than when it's a ring of hunger. Despite this, if you have a free ring slot and decent wisdom it's possibly worth wearing.
For most non-pet based builds, Nenya is possibly the most powerful out of all of the elf rings. Permanent monster detection and waterproofing are both very helpful, though non-essential, intrinsics, and the water walking can be helpful if you lack a source of flying otherwise. Almost all builds can benefit from the AC bonus, though possibly not with particularly low wisdom (which is notable for Barbarians and certain other melee roles).
For all non-spellcasters, divination spells being castable can be a huge boon. This enables guaranteed casting of the identify and magic mapping spels, and potentially even clairvoyance, if you can find the spellbooks for them. These are all relatively high level and hard to cast normally, but are outstanding to able to cast somewhat freely.
For spellcasters, this can still be very helpful, since it saves needing to spend skill slots on Divination spells, freeing them up for other less commonly utilized skills (like Matter for polymorph or dig). The energy regeneration is also helpful to cast any spells, but obviously less directly impactful in combat - more for quality of life out of combat than anything else.
For melee and ranged builds, the extra silver damage is rather effective in the lategame and endgame. Most of the difficult enemies fought in Gehennom are weak to silver, so this is mostly a free damage bonus.
Unfortunately, for pet based builds, Nenya most likely offers the least directly beneficial effects out of the elf rings. Unlike the others, it offers exactly no direct bonuses to pets. Thankfully, you're merely left with the consolation prize of fail-less divination spells, some silver damage, and 2 very useful (but non-essential) intrinsics.
