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Enlightenment

PostPosted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 11:38 pm
by JayPlaysIndieGames
Who effectively uses enlightenment and how? I've probably only used this boon once, but I've never gotten much out of it. The only way I can comprehend it being effective is if you have at least 5 or more prayer beads. Is this a boon just for paladins who stumble across GG altars at lvl one or two?

Re: Enlightenment

PostPosted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 11:47 pm
by joek0
I'm the one who made the request for GG on your most recent YT videos. Any advice is helpful. That includes gjust general tips with using GG. GG and TT are my least used gods.

Re: Enlightenment

PostPosted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 12:22 am
by Darvin
Anyone who gets GG at a sufficiently low level can grab it. You do not actually need any prayer beads to make it effective, as the primary benefit is the +5 mana. The only deity that offers better value is JJ, with +6 mana for 65 piety, and he's effectively even more finicky about early-worship than GG is. You want to grab this boon and combo it off of an end-game levelup catapult, so clearing out too much popcorn with absolution is actually counter-productive. Same goes for protection, you want to activate that boon afterwards to gain the maximum benefit from the %-based mana recovery.

Getting into GG at level 1 or 2 is pretty much mandatory if you want enlightenment, but if you can manage a level-up (or, preferably, two) after the fact there's plenty of piety to grab some protection and still convert out due to the massive payouts he'll give to a long-term follower. There's also a unique use of enlightenment in Dragon Isles, where it can be used as a one-time curse clear just prior to the boss fight. This level is very XP-generous so there's ample piety to pull it off, and it lets you avoid worrying about curse stacks prior to the boss fight. I'd go so far as to say it's a critical component for a warmonger berserker run on dragon isles.

Re: Enlightenment

PostPosted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 12:38 am
by Blovski
As I've mentioned elsewhere, the current shape of Enlightenment came about when absolution was still *insanely* cheap, and a GG character would routinely have their inventory stuffed with prayer beads without very much effort at all. You'd be raking in a huge amount of benefits from it, with the limiting factor actually being your inventory space more than the piety to use your boons, and have some piety still to go, normally. Good but imbalanced times.

Now, as Darvin points out, your biggest benefit is the mana and so it's honestly best for an earlyish grab followed by a conversion out so you can use your mana potions. And it's still great on fighters and other characters who used to use him for the mana boost.

It still has utility on Paladins as well, since they'll have more beads while still being able to afford it, and in vicious/high-xp maps is often reasonably useful. Personally I think at 100 it's overpriced unless they improve the benefit per bead a bit more, and would like to see it sort of squared up with Chaos Avatar (which I think is about equal in effect now) for the cost. Also, specifically having the cost of 100 piety makes it really awkward to time if you want to get the benefits from having a lot of beads.

Don't get me wrong, it's not in a terrible place at the moment, but it's one of the few god powers that doesn't really feel like it's playing out right and I'd like to see it made a bit more manageable or offer more benefits per bead now bead gain has been brought back into line.

Re: Enlightenment

PostPosted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 12:45 am
by lolQuaff
There are very few situations where I like saving up the 100 piety to use enlightenment. I almost always prefer using the piety towards protections/cleansing or saving enough to transfer out and get much more benefit from another god.

Re: Enlightenment

PostPosted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 3:49 am
by TheSchachter
I definitely think Enlightenment is only really useful in the Vicious dungeons. Not only do you end up with more XP in most of them (more per-level gain), but they're the only dungeons I can think of where the kind of careful play required to prepare for it (enough beads to really feel the effect, notably) doesn't end up being complete overkill. In Hard dungeons or easier you're better off either burning your Piety on Protection + Potions or Converting... and this is also often the case in Vicious dungeons too, especially if there's a Dracul altar lying around (GG - Dracul is one of the best God combos by far) Though sometimes I still use it when I don't need it, 'cause I like burning all of my Piety on the 100 Piety boon :) You can still feel some of the effect, especially if you use the bonus XP for a catapult, and like Darvin says +5 mana isn't bad at all.

Aside all that, Enlightenment is for dedicated GG worshippers, but I mean *really* dedicated. The following factors contribute:

-Being a Paladin
-Desecrating an altar or two (*very helpful*)
-Heavy Conversion (this is another reason why Vicious dungeons are better for this, since they usually give you more gold to buy conversion fodder)
-Maximizing the opportunities to get piety from Burnt Offering and Poison/Mana Burn (this isn't necessary for casual GG use tbh, it's more of a question of laziness and attention :P)
-Undead Heavy maps (situational)
-Not using the Church Preparation to prepare the GG altar(which makes the planning all the more difficult)

And with all that, careful management of your Piety. Probably 5 Absolution shots, and a bunch of Cleansing (which you can both justify and attenuate cost-wise by repeatedly getting yourself poisoned and mana-burned!) to both get more beads and prevent Piety overflow. Like I said, it's pretty rare that you actually need to do this to beat anything below Vicious, and few dungeons below Vicious give you the opportunity and resources to pull it off...

But when you do... Man, does it feel good! XD