DISCLAIMER: I will not follow this up with another textwal even if I don't agree with whatever anyone posts below. This is quite important, I think.
In the light of the recent developments and discussions and consensuses about the potions and apparent problems with the learning/difficulty curve, we might want to revive this thread in a different light, and a different focus.
The way non-hardcore vets react to nerfs and nerf propositions seems to be related (conciously or unconciously) to a lack of awareness of what tools the players have at their disposal, namely gods. Trisword adjustments, class adjustments, postions adjustments - stuff that the vets could probably agree upon as needed to some degree seem to cause way too much consternation among the non-vets. And I'm not blaming them, but I'm also 100% sure that even if my (or any vet's) assesments aren't correct - our intentions aren't to screw them over, and if we though we'd be doing that we wouldn't be suggesting such things.
While the vets have generally hailed the introduction of a "vicious mode" as awesome (I've went through shock on different grounds, but even I'm enjoing the freshness of the challenges), some of the "not-quite-crazy-enough-vets" and likely the majority of human beings has trouble with the difficulty that comes from transitioning from one boss to 2 boss dungeons.
My assesment is that this has to do with the fact that vets mostly know their way around gods, while the non-vets don't. And this has been a problem forever, and might be the underlying reason the game seems elitist - whether anyone likes it or not, the way gods are introduced probably isn't working well enough. I'd say evidently, but I don't know the metrics (though I'm pretty sure).
I've been complaining about this from day one - the complaints are too numerous to list, but my TT rampage and all talks about "worshiping him just for the gold", the complaints about there not being an equivalent of the alpha pactmaker (a real no-downisde intro god) from the get go, the complaints about the specific way pactmaker is introduced into the game from the recent writeups, the priest complaints all point to this problem. And I've explained in what is a textwall but a generaly well recieved one even by the poeople who don't like me much, that the whole monk business can also bee seen as something which stemmed from this same problem. It's in the potions thread.
Anyway, however late in the development we may be, I think the devs should at the very least reconsider the ways the gods are introduced - whether by adding quests, whether by making their subdungeons not spawn altars which genearally cause a run to crash and burn creating a horrible first impression, but idols as Avatar suggested, or simply moving the pactmaker (with possible adjustments) to the place of a deity you start out with (he has mixed reception even from the vets who use him often).
I also think we need a better way to make pepole figure out they actually need gods then just plonking down a second boss at the second directionals. The way things are now it only causes people to lean more heavily on all the things which make their game playable without mastery of the gods, and that causes balance issues and unsatisfaction later, thus diminishing the rewards of learining how to handle gods. Not to mention that unless you have the current trisword or a small handfull of otherwise needlessly above the curve features unlocked the semi-faithless gameplay is obviously fataly frustrating.
Also, having a class caled "Priest" who is most likely to mess up a run by touching any altar is very definitely sending a wrong message to the average human being. The average human being will take a very long time before he gives GG another chance if they try him out with a priest. I can clearly remember the nasty shock that came from losing all my glyphs, items and potions out of nowhere and did not under any circumstances want risking that happening again - this put gods way on the bottom of my priority list, while they should've been on the top of it, and delayed my development as a player for months and months. Whatever the reasons for the decision to stick with "no early gods" and "no god friendly early classes" I think the downsides of this approach being so strict are severely underestimated.
Also, if allowing people to master the gods too soon or easily would lead to an unsatisfactory expirience - I can assure anyone that the VICIOUS mode challenges even the most decadent and seen-it-all vet, and can probably be depended on to keep anyone who finds the regular game too easy busy for ages (once it's tweaked).
Anywho - I think this, rather than tweaks to particular boons is something that needs the most consideration. Can everyone share, if they remember, their first expiriences with gods, what gods are still puzzling you (when you see someone post obscure feedback about beating something using particular gods) and so on...