Some Thoughts on Deities

[Darvin]

To reiterate - refreshment is off the charts in terms of power, unbelievably strong boon. I can't tell why noone else noticed this or voiced it publicly, but it alone makes any prep competing with "extra glyph" a loser.

Perhaps the effect of refreshment could scale by the CP of the glyph? This would make free glyphs you get from other deities not combo with it, and actually make it work well with less glyphs.

When he lost spellcaster support it made his current first boon rather pointless, I wouldn't mind seeing it changed

Given that Blood Curse is integral to 3/3 of Dracul's puzzles, I rate the odds of that as close to zero, much as I completely agree with the sentiment.

What use is there for Mystic balance right now?

Three fireball spike on 15 mana. Two fireball spike followed by APHEELSIK for 15. For elves or owners of elven boots you can hit a 20 MP combo. WEYTWUT spam become much more cost-effective. Probably overpriced as 60, but it's still a solid boon.

On top of all of thet it makes GETINDARE cost 5 (akin to shooting yourself in the foot) and doubles the price of BYCEPPS (even more so).

The GETINDARE loss is the biggest problem with Mystic Balance. I shrug off the loss of BYSSEPS and LEMMISI in most cases, but the loss of GETINDARE is pretty nasty. Still, if you're using a fireball-fireball-GETINDARE combo then the net change from mystic balance is zero. For elven followers who can push their mana up into the 20's then it's still strictly a benefit overall even if GETINDARE is more costly.

It messes up PISSORF and doesn't give enough to BURNDAYRAZ without APHEELSICK.

This I will agree with, but Mystera has always treated PISORF as the bastard step-child of direct-damage glyphs.


As far as Wizards go, perhaps it's time to just remove the attack penalty?

[Lujo]

Well, at least the issue got a decent writeup, Mystic Balace too niche to cost as much as it does (unless you're heavily into fireballs and/or same with APHEELSICK, it's not worth your 60 piety), refreshment too good by a margin which can be trimmed in different ways, wizards seem to be rather below curve as far as spellcasting goes. Why do wizards have the penalty anyway, maybe there's something we're overlooking?

Oh, and the -mag res boon is actually a really powerfull effect when applicable, have to restate this.

Other than that, if any of the devs read all this maybe we get the tweaks we can mostly agree on concerning Mysterea.

What was the original topic again? (Oh, and I'd love to hear whether the wizard ATT penalty has any reason to be there except to forcibly push new players to focus on glyphs with that particular class). Or any glaring stuff with other gods? (apart from TT and Drac who are basicaly desinged to be the way they are).

[Darvin]

What was the original topic again?

Tweaking various deities, so aside from a little wizard and mage plate discussion we're not off topic at all (surprisingly).

Or any glaring stuff with other gods? (apart from TT and Drac who are basicaly desinged to be the way they are).

I guess the "revealed monster only" limitation on Stone Heart might need attention. Unless I find a high-resist boss really early in exploration, there's just not enough time and walls left by the time I do reach him to do a stone heart whittle-down. Since its nerf, the only dungeon I've ever used it on is the Rock Garden, where there are oodles of high-resist monsters plus two high resist bosses (possibly three if one randomizes in).

[Blovski]

@Lujo's lot

EM - Atm, I only desecrate her when I've got a specific reason to now she's got late game value (also, she's less painful than Binlor for a lot of characters). I don't think anyone really regards her as weak atm. Could be wrong. Getting locked out of piety gain with her is maybe too easy but I'm pretty careful about it now.

Mystera - I don't agree about refreshment, if only because it relies on getting a big pool of mana up *and* saving all your glyphs to the end, which are contradictory aims. This is the reason the old mage plate (+1 mana/level, -5% attack/level) was so powerful, in that it let you build up a ton of mana without risking your regen at all. I don't think it's as great at pure no-strings mana regen as clearance. I agree Mystic Balance is specialised at the moment, but cool - lower MP weytwut and cydstepp is fantastic for Rogues, if you stumble across that combo.

Drac - I actually quite like the first boon.

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Again, JJ's the one that needs fixing (partly for the reasons Darvin listed (I think the cost of the health or mana boon + petition is part of the problem, really, noone else has to wait for a medium-paced 65 piety to get anything out of their god), partly because he's absolutely prohibitive for anything except early monotheist and convert-in worship...)

[Darvin]

Mystera - I don't agree about refreshment, if only because it relies on getting a big pool of mana up *and* saving all your glyphs to the end, which are contradictory aims.

Not if you're a gnome. It is a bit of an annoyance for Elves, though. Still, the awe-inspiring spiking power of activating a crystal ball, converting 3 glyphs, chugging 4 mana potions, using two schadenfreudes, and then using the crystal ball again is positively delightful when it all comes together.

[Blovski]

True, but then gnomes get less out of the schadenfreudes, crystal ball, each individual MP and the conversions... with the old Mage Plate it was a problem because that really cut down the mana difference between the two.

[Lujo]

You don't have to spend all your glyphs on conversion - with a redundant/expendible starting glyph + any you might get from either Binlor, JJ, TT (for a quick nip of the utilities and a 50 Piety conversion) or whatever (Subdungeons!), and extra glyph, you can get your 5-6 (3 mana pools of whatever size) Refreshment for spiking the boss. Since elfs get mana for 70 conversion, extra glyph gives them 1 mana per conversion, and if you're going with a quick utility TT you get gold for conversion fodder.

If you just join Mysterea first, pick up refreshment and a mana point and switch to GG, you're refreshing your mana and working towards Enlightment which is awesome for elves. And as Darvin said - thats just giving gnomes 3 more full mana pools on top of the potions and crystall ball. Pick a spellcasting Sorcerer or a Bloodmage who can convert B2P after he's done with blackspace, stick a mage plate on them for good measure, and it gets silly.

Elven sorcerers with mage plate picked up via Quest Item preps and Mysterea have huge mana pools before they convert anything. If they can wrangle enough mana boosts from the dungeon... And that's before you start with Schadenfraude... Wheee...

[Darvin]

Elven sorcerers with mage plate

If you're gunning for Mage Plate specifically and you're already an Elf, you really should be an Assassin.

[Lujo]

Elven sorcerers with mage plate

If you're gunning for Mage Plate specifically and you're already an Elf, you really should be an Assassin.

True true, this was just to illustrate a case of a rather effortless humongous mana pool which gets even bigger, but doesn't necessitate conversions. Or a way to play something other than Assasin as a pure caster, and Sorc does start with 5 mana extra, so... Otherwise, yes, ofc.

[Abraxas]

Regarding the Wizard.
I think the thing with him is, as far as fireball-centric strategies go, he's gotten several stealth nerfs along the way, mostly in the form of losing exclusivity of his abilities.
Magic Attunement isn't that much of an advantage now that we have Magnet: Fire (which makes a world of difference when playing other classes and focusing on fireballing), and as far as fireball strategies are concerned, the reduced glyph cost is the same as taking Mystic Balance with any other class. Furthermore, Magic Sense used to be very useful for Elf Wizards to build up a lot of mana very quickly, but now that we have Refreshment, finding glyphs early on isn't as big of a help.
Essentially, other classes can more or less "simulate" the Wizard's abilities and still have their own on top of that, while the Wizard doesn't have as much room for improvement as far as fireball strategies are concerned.

I'd say that it's alright that more specialized classes have the potential to be more effective in a focused strategy such as pure spellcasting (given that the Wizard is a tier 1 class), and the Wizard is still the superior fireballer for less experienced players, but he could use a tweak as right now he lacks presence in higher level play.