(Nearly) Forgotten History of the Gods

[Lujo]

True that, but the strange thing is that the piety generating potential of the cheaper glyphs manages to make him not a wasted altar for me very often. That's just a common misconception that gets repeated over and over - sure, he's probably the best thing to find (or prep) early, but I got rather easy CA's and Last Chances even when I swapped into him due to spamming cheap glyphs while munching popcorn. It's easy to tell it's possible because people seem to farm up an inordinate ammount of stat boosts all the time before taking either and then get both (and also start with petition), quite regularly. So what happens is that, yes, you get the really powerful stat boosts, but you also take the big refil stuff during the part of the game where you'd be if you just started in a piety farm and swapped over.

And at least you and I know that just one hit of each stat boost is plenty enough to get a big edge. Also, the ammount of shennanigans that happen with 100 piety swaps (from EM especially) into an effortless CA is quite silly, so anyone starting with EM (or Binlor or Mystera for that matter), doesn't mind finding him later at all.

The most notable thing is that the prepped wheytwut is so bloody strong that you can prep JJ al the time and still not feel inclined to really pull the levers and push the buttons to see all the sights. It's exactly the same thing as with old binlor - this guy removes the walls... and does some other stuff who cares? Other stuff - enormous damage boost and on demand full phys resists string o.O

[fall_ark]

[Lujo]

On that topic - Goblins are pretty much guaranteed an Enlightment. You don't need much to make it happen, just spam some early absolutions for about 4-5 beads, posibly humility and time time the Enlightment to also ding you (not hard with Gobbos). You don't get massive with it, but you do end up with above curve health (helps level during the whole game) and 18 mana post-enlightment.

Feels very "default" as far as GG worship goes.

[Blovski]

^
The thing with Enlightenment isn't that it's useless, just that a beads-enlightenment build is really less than ideal right now. You need to use up a ton of inventory space and a ton of piety on a god you sort of have to start worshipping super early to get decent piety gain, then save up for 100 piety (which usually involves wasting piety), at which point you suddenly have no piety on the least generous late-game piety generator in the game, who incidentally punishes potion use pretty extremely.

Cf. Chaos Avatar - very late game piety generous god with no potion restrictions, 80 piety cost gives you far more ease of use and better odds for converting out afterwards. I think the power levels arerather similar tbh and are definitely in the favour of Chaos Avatar on small scenarios.

Fixing the old Absolution from its, I think 20 or was it 40? piety for 10 beads instead of what would now be 132 piety on a god so stingy he's really hard to play prepped, kind of wrecked the Enlightenment/Absolution interaction. The fix seemed like an answer to the GG early-game wackiness of everyone nipping in, absolving all the level 1 monsters, taking humility then going to do something else but it completely did for the monotheistic design of the deity imho.

The possible fixes are -

Absolution stacking cost less severe along the lines of current Paladin costs. Absolution already comes with a lot of downsides. This is probably my least favourite solution, since I'd rather have the game make the beads->Enlightenment more feasible for a monotheistic worshipper than bringing absolution back towards its old place.

Benefits per supercharged bead higher to encourage more bead-stacking, or at least get some reward out of the number of beads you can feasibly acquire as a monotheist now. Kind of non-ideal as a solution because I really like the GG inventory hog model that used to exist.

Cost of Enlightenment lowered to 80. If it's going to be the *only* 100 piety boon in the game it needs to be more useable than it is now. Not my preferred solution because I really like the idea of a super 100 piety boon that transforms how a god's drawbacks work and because it doesn't fix the bead thing at all. Honestly it could be 60-70 piety and still not be that amazing.

GG generates significantly more as-you-go piety from burning kills, undead kills, getting poisoned/mana burned. This is my preference, since it encourages monotheism, allows more use of boons to fuel beads and promotes diverse boon use into Enlightenment as a viable path while not giving you a huge endgame piety spike to cheese off. Also doesn't mean that prepping GG wrecks any Enlightenment strat if you couple it with good thoughtful play.

/quasi-rant. It's nice that the beads-Enlightenment health monster still works ok on Paladins and in Naga City but I'm sad that GG's core interesting interactions (filling and juggling inventory space, Enlightenment timing, possibly getting punished to clear it in edge cases, early game powerhouse mode vs popcorn and curse clear loss) aren't really pronounced parts of how the god works right now.

Tl/dr: bead focus->enlightenment is not sensible at all for non-Paladins on scenarios that aren't super-long-game. This is sad business because it was a really cool mechanic.

[chandl34]

[Lujo]

You mean you guys don't see the point of getting a 3 fireball pool on someone who allready got 20 HP from Absolution at lvl 1 and possibly humility? With a skullpicker bundled in? I think you guys are trying to maximize beads, which isn't what you really have to do, you want to get 5 absolutions or so, possibly humility, and get enlightment as soon as possible (also easier to ding with the 5 XP it gives earlier on), so that then you have a fireball per protection and you just keep dinging for GG piety.

If you dump some potions there's plenty of pety.

He's not a big health deity, he's a guaranteed big bars deity, very simmilar to JJ.

[chandl34]

To get enlightenment + a line of beads + humility, I've probably been with GG for 6-7 levels. To get out, it takes another 1-2 levels. I'm usually fighting my first boss at level 6, and may not be able to afford enlightenment yet. (I believe in one Demonic Library run, I was on my 3rd boss before I could afford it.) If I buy it, then I'm probably not going to be able to convert out until I'm level 8-9, all while not being able to spend any potions. 5 mana is awesome, but not when I have to wait til level 7-8 to get it, and it interferes with my boss fights. I'd rather spend that piety on Pactmaker, protections, or switching to a better late-game god.

[Lujo]

Hmmmm, why get out at all? Protection only really gets good after you get Enlightment, and +20 health early on is easy leveling for a while.

Also, how big a line of beads are we talking about? If you dump your potions as soon as you find them, say, 6 of them, you cover 5 beads. 4 potions = 4 beads and you get a cleansing or a protection along the way for the 5th if you want it. Or any desecration, full absolution (5 beads) is practically free in that sense and you use it much like you'd use a +20 health boost from JJ, to level, except you don't need to buy a petition for it beforehand. Then you just ding around with the health (should be easy), convert stuff etc, until you have enlightment, and then you have 2 big bars and dump all your mana into protections or cleansings. You're 2 levels ahead on health and you've got 18 mana, what's not to like?

Goblins in particular wreck anything that way, just prep a fire heart or gauntlets and go nuts... At the point you get enlightment, any ding should give you plenty of piety to either dump into protections or stack up to convert out...

Also, any desecration gives you 3 free potion uses on top of piety, it's really something when worshiping GG.

[Blovski]

[chandl34]

Most games, I have a 4 potion + prepped compression seal line. I get 5 or less beads, depending on how many good small items are in shops. That's usually all from absolution, but I may save slots for cleansing if the map calls for it. Then I usually convert out as soon as I hit 50.

I don't know about converting all my potions though. Protections start to get expensive after the first 2-3 of them. You're losing some healing there. You can offset it some with better Crystal Ball, Fire Heart, and schadenfreudes, but I think I could get the same or better results with GG + Pactmaker or switching to EM or Dracul.

Have you ever won a Vicious VT by going Enlightenment, and that was your only hope of winning?