Talk:Speed boots

"20 moves per turn"

"On average, the player will thus get 20 moves per turn (167% normal speed, or 5 moves every 3 turns)." - is either incorrect or extremely confusing - 20 moves per turn means 5 moves every 3 turns? Bulwersator (talk) 18:22, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

(Please put discussion into sections.)

This seems to refer to 20 movement points per turn, which indeed means 5 actions per 3 turns; $\frac{20}{12}=\frac{5}{3}$. Fixed the article. —bcode ^{talk | mail} 18:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Strategy section

The strategy section makes speed boots sound like an early-game crutch item that might end up in your ascension kit. In my experience, speed boots are used by about 90% of end-game characters, and the strategy should reflect that.

I've never seen anyone use potions of speed as a substitute. They're heavy, not particularly common, last only 160 or so turns each, and unbagging and quaffing them takes time. If you do happen to have a decent sized stack of them, you'd probably prefer to alchemize them for more HP. The haste self spell works reasonably if you can get its success rate high enough, but not every character is a spellcaster, and unless you have the Eye you probably have other spells competing for your energy. You'll also probably drop and pick up the Amulet to save energy and nutrition, which, again, takes time and gives monsters a chance to surround you.

So I'd like to rewrite the strategy section to present speed boots as the "default" ascension kit boots, and the spell and potion as alternatives that might work for specific characters. Does anyone disagree? --Darth l33t (talk) 15:00, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I've been looking at the ascensions happening in Junethack, and I agree that at least 9 in 10 (for vanilla at least) are using speed boots at the very end. -Actual-nh (talk) 16:30, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I never particularly got that impression - not because I think you're wrong, but because I haven't scrutinized the page enough to really weigh in (that and I have a bunch of other pages I wish to tackle in a similar vein). I'd be perfectly on-board with a rewrite, though. --Umbire the Phantom (talk) 17:11, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, I'm the one who made the edits to the speed boots page. I'll make the case against speed boots here because I consider them one of the most overrated items in the game, and are only considered necessary for ascension because the wiki has said so for a very long time. Most of my ascensions do not use speed boots at all.

Contrary to the article, they're a relatively poor wish in the early game. If you have neither magic resistance or reflection, you should wish for one of those properties. If you have one of those, it is optimal to wish for the other to avoid more instadeaths. Thus, you might consider wishing for speed boots only if you already have magic resistance and reflection, so likely the second or third wish in the early game (a rare occasion), where it also competes with half physical damage artifacts.

Later in the game, wishing for speed boots doesn't get any better. A wand of polymorph or a magic marker is far more impactful, since they can be used to get large quantities of genocide and enchant armor to increase your character's HP and AC considerably. Potions of speed are common as defensive items, do not consume a wish, and can be quaffed before dangerous levels like the Astral Plane. Spellcasters can stack thousands of turns of haste self using a power regenerating artifact and never have to recast it for the rest of the game.

I view speed boots like I do gauntlets of power or a helm of telepathy - they are the easily the best armor for the slot, but the advantages that they provide are small. As a beginner, I was often lured into wishing for a full set of these items at the Castle, only to find I was lacking in hit points, valuable rings, and magic markers. Like gauntlets of power, speed boots are a great item to find early on. They are at their most useful at this point since it allows you to gain speed before finding a quantum mechanic corpse or a wand of speed monster, allowing you to easily escape from speed 12 monsters. However, there are much better wishes, and speed boots should not be on the same level of necessity as magic resistance or reflection as the wiki makes it seem. --Luxidream (talk) 09:53, 27 June 2021 (UTC)