Any hope for a tweak patch?

[Blovski]

- Dracul/GG

I've always found GG's prep penalty more discouraging than Dracul's. I mean, Drac's is pretty severe but just having him around for the late game is almost never a bad thing, whereas using GG for stuff other than cleansing really requires early bird worship. Again, very quickly stacking absolution + 100 piety enlightenment + abysmal piety gain + potion restriction makes him much more appealing for a dip-in to get your cleansings done then a dip out to whichever god will let you down your potions than for the beads + Enlightenment route.

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RBS

Yeah, I think a little bonus damage wouldn't go amiss here.

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Goblins

I'm just not sure that Goblins having their bonus be fully active past level 10 is really in the design. It's kind of counteracted by how much power they gain in scenarios where XP gain is deeply unreliable (Grimm's, VT, etc).

[Astral]

Wow. I disagree with so much stuff here, I guess my play style is very different to yours'.

Let's start with MW. Are you guys aware that KB triggers corrosion too? So if you prep a Bearmace in addition, you get twice the value out of it on regenfighters? Unfortunately it does not combo with the Sorcerer's mana shield (would lead to a beautiful dwarf strategy) nor with the Gorgon's DG - bit of an inconsistency.
It's sad that Goblins specifically combo unfavorably with it, but the item already works really well on some things. The tweak would make it a 2nd BM Ring which also gets around MR. Now you need to work for it's effect a bit - either reveal a great deal of the dungeon to constantly corrode everything important, or spend health and blackspace to reach the desired corrosion level. Are you a caster with low attrition, but some unneeded blackspace? Smack your boss a few times, and if you have Whurgarbl apply burning stacks at it as well.
If MW corroded hidden stuff, it would favor underexplorers (including regenfighters) too much.

Btw MW is still a fantastic lvl1 bosskilling tool. Here I was only 4 corrosions away from brawling down the boss just with my '2 bars'.
http://postimg.org/image/q8sdjqh4p/
http://postimg.org/image/j6meoveid/

I'm unsure what to say about TT. On one hand early worship is finicky (especially if prepped), on the other hand he acts as a lock on the most powerful feature in the game - poison strike - and making that boon easier to spam and keep can be dangerous.
Joining him later, when you already leveled up a bit, have popcorn to waste and gold to spend does work out. Also at low levels you couldn't get much mileage out of TT, so why do you want to join him? TT does not help building your character stronger (besides with poisonstrike, but using it this soon will backfire), taking learning is meaningless (it's effect on higher level monsters is negligible, and you don't have much popcorn yet).

Even though poisonstrike in nerfed, you can still stack it to levels where it acts as a general solution to everything. Against the few counters you have the Potions boon.

On topic of MA, I'm not sure what you mean by "glyph spam lead to more glyph spam". If you refer to the max mana increase, that's subtle on level ups and irrelevant during exploration.
I disagree about MA being too good. Straightforward to handle? Yes, as a tutorial god should be. But JJ and TT can outperform her with right amount of dedication. Not to mention that she is kinda a one-trick-pony, while every other god (except Taurog) has more flexibility and lends itself well to different strategies.
I would not touch her prep penalty, since from all the gods only 2 have more impactful penalties (GG, TT).

I'll skip the halfling vs gnome debate now, or else I'll never finish this textwall

Funnily Gnome Sorcerers don't make elves look bad. You did find one specific spellcaster build that takes very little effort to use well, and I'm happy it exists, since apart from it and Bloodmages (who by the end don't really feel like casters) no build is optimal for Gnomes. Wizards, Assasins, Fighters are all better off being elves. Warlords who have a potion based ability are best used with melee races, and spike stronger/have more flexibility as elves.
The thing that makes elves truly awesome is that they spike harder and thanks to the high level kills they pull off they save popcorn, generate more xp, reach higher levels and thanks to that become more powerful. They use dings better than anyone else and they are guaranteed to have a lot of dings. When you need a refill, just level catapult the 100% refill you get om bigass mana tanks is better than the gnomes' potions. If you feel the need, you could drink a potion with elves as well, but I have been using them parched for ages without hindrance.
I recommend using elves with JJ and combining mana boosts with their CP bonus. Contrary to expactations this lets them save blackspace too, they work like the caster versions of healtmonsters, manamonsters if you will.
With these builds I regularly reach 1-3 prestige and score 5-6 badges.

The XP req. for prestige dings continues to grow by 5xp. Whether these dings are worth it or not is somewhat opinion based. From another view prestige dings deal your maximum damage, so why settle for the weaker regular ones.
I agree that Goblins could do with some help, how about making their CP bonus give 5+2 stacking xp instead of changing of tweaking xp bars?
Also others raised very valid points about endurance runs.

About swift hands, if it didn't work on undead, that would be a start. I'm sure undeads don't need their organs.
Another limitation could be restricting swift hands to only remove 1 DP at a strike.

@Kami: I totally agree on Stone Sigil. +1 piety per kill is very tame, even under the stingiest dieties. It also takes popcorn and a lot of time to extract it's benfits, and if you convert during play the bonuses you collected gets halved.
Lower price and/or higher CP is what I'd like on it. This is the only item in the game that regardless of the strat I play always stays vetoed.

I see a lot of players think gnomes are straight up better than elves, and it may be because they are measuring them in MA standards. MA in not the main god you should be using with them in most cases, but rather JJ.
Wizards have small glyphs so they dodge the prep penalty, the casting cost reduction makes them crazy efficient piety generators with bysseps and gettindare. Glyph sense let's you save blackspace.
For once, the Fighter's monster sensing is useful, it let's you find peakaboo targets easily, but also helps you avoid punishments for the short time you're saving up for petition and gathering mana for your 1st kill. The starting 1 point of learning and smaller xp bar let's you enjoy your huge refills more often.
I bet you can imagine what is the point in playing huge mana assassins.
It's another point in JJ's favor that prepping him doesn't make him less powerful, unlike with MA, so you still have the opportunity to convert out and further boost your characters under other gods. Less inventory space is not really an issue when you want to squeeze out all the benefits of your glyphs anyways, and MA would discourage that.
I could also make a point for most spellcasting items working better under elves than gnomes.
The mighty 25 mana was brought up. For elves that's merely a starting point. You can expect 36-50 with them.

The way I see it is elves demand more strategic play but in turn are stronger. Gnomes are really good for playing casually, this is what makes them hard to judge.

I agree with Tinker about Dwarfs needing a buff. Despite being a race who gets permanent benefits, most of the time you don't feel their bonus helpful at all even in big chunks. A little extra damage/mana on the other hand can tip off the scale when you are looking for a high level kill.
I have similar sentiments about GG and Enlightenment too. I think his piety generation is fine when you run across him, but for a prepped one it's awful. If it gave 2/3 of his normal piety on levelups (instead of starting with 0) he would be fine.

Dracul is a very interesting deity in terms of piety management. He starts out stingy, but lifesteal improves his kill based piety farming, and the more sanguine you stack up without drinking pools, the more piety will you make out of those. That's why I often take Blood Curse strategically, even though i hate the effect. The early investment can greatly pay out and you could turn Dracul into a piety farm with +3-5 gains on blood drinking.
I'm reluctant on straight up buffing Dracul with a weaker penalty. Whenever I find Dracul he gives me the feeling that I cannot lose (thanks to his monstrous healing boons). So while an early Dracul is not a real benefit, but a 100% guaranteed Dracul vs. a probable one is an upgrade.
I do feel you Darvin about lifesteal stats needing encouragement, so it would be good if bosses were an exception to the bloodless trait. It's reasonable since you can still score Bleaty, Tower of Goo, or an undead boss. But aside form it, I'd leave the penalty as it is.

There's still plenty of things I'd contribute to, but don't have the time.
Dam my slow typing and wonky keyboard.

[Tinker]

[Lujo]

[Tinker]

[Lujo]

That's another fine idea, there's plenty of ways to go about it, but what needs to be kept in mind is that maybe buffing the goblin might not actually be better than tweaking the prestige XP. Because goblins do have their benefits and they're not small (and that effect in particular is more powerful than it looks, especially on what's technically a nasty spiker). Straight out buffing goblins MIGHT be the way to go, but I believe it would have to be done in a way which compensates the unwieldlyness of their CP (low effect for when you can actually get many, high effect when you can barely get one - and you have to work other features for any actual sinergy with dings).

I remember back when Avatar was around (another vet, probably the most hours and biggest post count, first guy to do everythign with everything, great guy), one of the most frequent things he'd drop in his sparse comments after the last VGT rework was that VGT needed a sligh nerf, and I actually agree with him (and VGT is my "trademark" dungeon, I've done that thing to death and then some). So I wouldn't dismiss taking a look at the core prestige mechanic as the right move here too easily.

And yet, yeah, maybe it's just that the scaling on goblins could be tweaked to simulate it.

[lieronet]

I'd really like to see the last bank upgrades go, honestly. Saving for return + locker slots is already a chore, and requiring that the player piss 80-120k extra away is really salt in the wound. Just make Bank 3 hold 100k, or make Bank 4 do it.

[Blovski]

[quote=Lujo]Some class/race/item combos may outperform "standard mystera worshipper guy" in terms of big numbers end game, but I'm not sure other Gods can. GG can't, EM requires you to play her and be more than "prep: magnet fireball", Drac has the silly sanguine + bloodswell spike but his own buildup is much more taxing, Taurog has actual downsides to him and you can't walk in anywhere with him expecting to win, TT does varying stuff, JJ doesn't have an actual spike built in (let alone a buffet of utility), GG is more of a piety farm / utility guy... Only Binlor really does something close to what Mystera does, and that is provide everything you could possibly need but he gives piety for drudgery and punishes levelups (and his resist destroy boon is wonky).[/quote]

Well, Taurogzerker is probably the single easiest, strongest point-and-click combo.

[quote=Lujo]I don't think GG has an impactful penalty at all. Yes if you would want to go Enlightment, but he's the one guy who you can perp as a piety farm on anyone who doesn't blow potions while leveling. In any run whatsoever. If you need a cleansing - you take it, if you want humility, you take it, if you want a restore or two you take them. You'll still be rolling in piety, or at least have enough to convert into whatever or use the Pactmaker for whatever. I remember prepping him often and never taking a single boon, effectively ending the run faithless except with a load of piety. I feel like his prep penalty isn't nearly effective enough, because it prevents you from doing the one thing noone ever seems to do anyway, while still letting you use all the utility people worship GG for (and prep the guaranteed magic strike people want on runs with resistant bosses).[/quote]

Exactly. The piety penalty is crippling in most dungeons for anyone who wants to actually use GG fully and not a big deal for people who just want to drop into him for a Cleansing or five. Again, it's the combination of the severe piety gain penalty, stingy alternative piety gain options, uniquely massive cost of Enlightenment and fairly high cost of Absolution. If I had a personal tweakpack I would definitely be looking at making Burning, Mana Burn, Poison and Undead kills much more rewarding to allow stick-with-him users to go for an Absolution/Enlightenment build *with* effort and consideration.

re: Gaan-Telet - as I said, he's still alright in super-long-game scenarios but I feel he's kind of an awkward JJ in normal play.

I think TT's penalty is there to hammer poison-farming Monks, more than anything.

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re: prestige. I'm not so worried about VGT but I think Demonic Library and Naga City are plenty easy right now... kinda hesistant about making them easier to rebalance the Goblin a tad.

[Lujo]

[Blovski]

Yeah, I just think Taurogzerker is the simplest power combo in the game (easier, maybe, even than Mystera) and can stomp VT dungeons through very simple play; maybe the Monk is stronger but in terms of pure simplicity...

Basically, you kill higher-level magic damage things, like you want to anyway, you convert all your stuff early, like you want to anyway. Then you have a stupid high resist, megaboosted monodimensional monsterman of an Orc Berserker, and then you get a chain of Death Protections, can use all your potions and can easily convert out with a ton of piety to spare. It's a really good simple combo and effective as anything.

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On the absolution thing - the issue with old absolution is that there wasn't really any reason not to take 5-10 hits at first level and leave ASAP. Now piety gain/absolution cost is just too damn slow to make that worthwhile. That's why I think rewarding the burning, mana burn, undead and poison things more would allow a dedicated user to play with Absolution and Enlightenment in typical scenarios while not really buffing the dip-in-dip-out or the cleansing jockeys.