On the Prepping of Gods

[Zazzlegut]

Admittedly, this is the weakest part of my game. God use in general, I mean. (Prepping one is a sub-weakness. )

So with the new year (year of the Gorgon, judging from the recent dailies) I thought I would try to up my god game and want to solicit some advice. I've looked at the wiki but want to do a reality check with the really good god-hoppers out there.

It looks like like MA, EM and Binlor are good startup piety farming gods....and JJ seems to be good to get into early as well. True?

TT seems to be a good mid-game god. I've never prepped him due to the piety penalty for all damage.

I tend to use Dracul a lot for middle and end games.

When is Taurog useful? I seem to hardly ever use him and can't imagine prepping him.

GG is the god I'm most cautious about. I don't like the beads cluttering slots and I get punished using him more than any other god. How do you best use GG?

I know there are "combos" for god hopping. Do you try to intentionally have certain god combos available in a dungeon or just do the best with what comes up with your favourite prep?

I know god use depends on class and dungeon quite a bit, but any general tips are much appreciated.

Thanks! ..........Z

[eastless]

It's easy! Let me tell you my opinion!
Taurog: the best deity for Warmongers. See my thread. Warmongering Normal/Hard in ~10 mins, just no-brainer.
Sometimes, may be, you want to prep him just to get Cowardly trait on monsters. But I can't imagine this necessity. If only to drive away Bridge Troll!
Glowing Guardian: never prepping! Piety generation penalty is too bad. Otherwise it is very strong deity and easy to worship, I'm entering him at level 1 pretty often. Just don't drink potions (better just convert them and get Parched also ), don't use poison, B2P, blood drinking and lifesteal. Not hard at all! In my opinion also this is the best and only deity to start in VGT, I always scum for GG on the 1st floor (except various Punchbagers or Infinimuters).
I don't like his balls too , but it's okay, just deal with it.
Dracul: never prepping! We need all blood! Never worship until late game (= boss fight) or if you need resists immidiately (see my Warmonger Half-Dragon in DL from my last post, farmed 100 piety under Taurog, killed some undeads and then converted just to not to waste piety under Taurog and get my resists).
Tikki Tooki: never prepping except Goblin Assasins VTening Normal/Hard dungeons and Punchbagers. Prep penalty is the worst ever. Convert in for clean up phase and boss fight. (I tried to start VGT Orc Rogue in TT, do not recommend )
JJ: never prepping! I love my inventory slots! I used to avoiding him before, but in my current kingdom I'm playing him often and he is remarkable strong! Extending your bars, free unclogging glyph, two full refills - what else do you need?
Binlor: very rarely prepping, pretty much for Namtar/Naga City resist stacking. Early join, farm 100 piety, getting access to secret sub, convert to other god and desecrate him if you have no resists - the best deal! Or stay and stack up resists and use his overall strong boons to level up and win!
Mystera: I have become a habit always spend my mana just in case I'll find her! Early join, piety farm, get some boons and leave or stay and win! Prepping together with Codex.
Earthmother: nasty plants! Never prep! Too bad it's impossible to worship her in VGT just because you have to spend mana on IMAWAL instead of battles, and you know, precious bloodpools. But it's great deity in all sub-VGT dungeons, if you can deal with plants (IMAWAL+ENDISWAL) join if you're caster, join if you're striker, join if you just met her or join after piety farm (if you found IMAWAL ).

[Darvin]

[Zazzlegut]

Good timing, Darvin!

I had a few spare minutes and jumped into DD to try a Warmonger run in the Norther Desert. I went with Orc Berserker, hoping to find Taurog. Instead, I found GG waiting and said, what the hell, might as well.

It was going great until the final boss was Goo and I thought "oh crap". And then, finally realized his one boon makes your damage be magical! Funny how that never jumped out at me before as being important.

Killed Goo with three quick hits. Got the Warmonger and could have gotten parched but I used a health potion at level 1 for a higher level kill before finding GG.

Man, I wish I had more time to play. Eastless said he did 50 runs in two day. I don't do 50 runs in a month.

[Tinker]

[Lujo]

At a very basic level:

Binlor: Easy to farm piety with and you can prep him for either pissorf, knockback or just for a bunch of hits with almost max physical resists on the boss (particularly handy with halflings who can refil health). If you're just going for pissorf, you can farm up a 100 piety and swap over to someone else and desecrate for more piety and indulgences. If you're going a properly melee type of thing (say Halfling Berserker), you can prep bear mace. Mind the leveling not to lose your resists. His penalty is actually tangible as it makes farming piety with pissorf more difficult (especially on maze maps), and it strongly pushes you to using pissorf to hit stuff into other stuff rather than walls.

Mystera: Very easy to farm piety with as long as you spam your glyphs. Also very easy to just win anywhere with what she gives you especially if you score a strong spellcasting item on top of it. She's not that hot on dungeons with a lot of magic damage enemies. If you get used to prepping her you forget that there's an actual penalty as you get used to her penalized piety gain rate.

EM: Great for leveling, early vineforms, later refils etc. Easy piety, easy desecration for later. You can probably VT anything with a Dwarf Warlord + EM, and there's a million other things you can do with her. Her "penalty" mostly just makes it easier to spam mana refills.

JJ: Just geting the Wheytwut can solve many dungeons, and if you know what glyphs to spam he's very easy to play. Much better early than later. JJ Goblin is a package of it's own, makes the class semi-irelevant. He's one of the dinging gods. The penalty looks scary, but you can get used to craming stuff into your inventory to make it even worse (bear mace + wheytwut + martyr wraps on JJ monks for example) - but since he gives you stats without taking inventory slots and helps you refil by dinging, it's not that bad. Usually my JJ invenotry contains a JJ-friendly glyph to spam, too. It's a tradeoff, but once you get into it it's no biggie.

GG: The other dinging god, also much better prepped than found. Again, goblins are natural worshipers, although he's arguably the most flexible god to worship for warmonger types (cleansing does wonders), and the potion guys can get a load of piety off him. Generally what you do is get some absolutions of potions and early conversions to help you level up (and get piety), play a bit more of a health game until you hit enlightment, and then you have 2 big bars. Alternatively just play a cleansing jockey.

Dracul: He's surprisingly fine if prepped if you know what to convert for piety, and picking up a level of lifesteal is ok with your class and if getting a free level is something you like. Dwarves love this guy and halflings can get a lot of piety. There's ways to make him work with spellcasters too, since lifesteal helps with popcorn munching (I remember once warmongering the entire Slime Pits using lifesteal on an Elven Fighter, just for dings while simultaneously pissorffing SMM and the Goo from levels 1-10). You can kind of argue that he doesn't have a prep penalty so much as an opportunity cost as converting into him late is just so effortless and rewarding.

Taurog: He's very straightforward - worshiping him doesn't really constrict you (his spellcasting penalty can be meaningless since he dishes out piety for killing stuff and converting glpyhs, I've pissorf-spammed dungeons while in Taurog), and you can prep him just to cash in on leveling up by killing magic damage guys, grabbing something or the other and swapping out, or you can just prep him on a warmongery type and roll the dungeon. The penalty is felt only ocasionally on properly mazy maps with long corridors or wide open maps where enemies can lead you on a merry chase. Berserkeres, Monks etc can murder a lot of stuff with him, but he won't solve physical resistance on his own, which makes figuring out GG (cleansing) or Binlor (knockback) for warmongers a good idea. His penalty is more that he clogs up your inventory if you want to go full-Taurog and that his boons cost max mana.

TT - his penalty looks scarier than it actually is, what it means is that you just have to play in the correct way. He helps you ding and buy stuff so it's easy to beat most places with him + a spelcaster or even a hybrid. You can actually buy piety from him so the hit is not that scary, and if you're leveling up efficiently most of the time you're not getting hit by anything anyway as everything is either popcorn or getting spells tossed at it. "Michael Bay" is the classic TT spellcaster - you blow stuff up and make a lot of money while critics have convulsions. You can prep a spellcastery race + Rogue (although you can prep any popcorn muncher as he gives you a getindare to begin with) for practice, or an assassin if you really want to just dip your toe safely. Or you can prep him, leave him at the entrance, find something else and then return when you need his potions - or you can go full silly and prep Fabulous Treasure.

[Sidestepper]

Here's my non-comprehensive list of prepped god strats.

Taurog: The penalty can be anywhere from mildly annoying to slightly beneficial. It probably affects Monks the least.
- Warmonger: Prep Taurog, trash your glyphs, get Warmonger. Works bests with Monk and Berserker. Consider bringing a Really Big Sword as a hedge against Goo Blobs. Compression Seal is recommended.
- Piety farm: Here, you are prepping Taurog mostly to accrue piety for someone else. Consider picking up the sword and one of the armor items, assuming you can handle the mana hit. If you are lucky and find Pactmaker, you can segue into the almighty Packrog approach, where you simply use Taurog to power Body Pact.

Binlor: The loss of walls hurts the most on open maps, and hurts the least on very crowded maps like Namtar's lair and Naga City.
- Mazewrecker: Get Binlor, take a few arbitrary boons to knock the walls, and then forget about him. If you don't have innate resistances, you can just ignore Binlor, otherwise, you'll want to convert. This approach can be used to defeat maps like the Labyrinth, or to increase the amount of available exploration in maps like Naga City.
- Piety farm: Get 100 piety, and then convert to someone else. This is stellar with Glowing Guardian or Dracul, and reasonably good with anyone else. If you don't have any resistances, then Binlor is also a free desecration once you convert out.
- Binlord: Human Paladin of Binlor. Take lots of Stoneskin to build up permanent magic resistance. Carefully empty out your piety before each level up. With good timing, you'll effectively have 65% physical resistance whenever you need it, and you'll also eventually get 65% permanent magic resistance. Since you start with HALPMEH, this is brutal. The limiting factor is walls, not piety, and Stoneskin gives the best walls-to-magic-resistance ratio by a very wide margin, so think very carefully before taking any of the other wall smashing boons. Non paladins can also be Binlords, it's just that Paladins do it better. Works great on VHoS and Namtar's Lair, where magic resistance is king. Works great for Monks, who really need magic resistance, and can leverage their higher resistance caps.
- Knockback Warrior (aka SMASH, worshiper of SMASH, god of SMASH): Orc or Half-Dragon character with Bearmace. Get Stone Form and Stone Fist. Use Stone Skin as needed, but don't go crazy with it. There are not enough walls to be both a Binlord and a SMASH at the same time. For extra fun, bring potions of Strength, Quicksilver, and Reflex. You can use these, along with Might and a pair of well-placed walls, to do an apocalyptic amount of damage to a single monster. You can get crazy out of depth kills this way.
- PISORF Spammer: Prep Binlor mostly just to get PISORF. Sticking with Binlor is optional. Orc Wizards do it best.

Glowing Guardian: Glowing Guardian strongly rewards first level worship. The piety penalty you get for prepping him is largely obviated by the fact that you will find him immediately. Absolution is better than you give it credit for. A row of five beads takes up one item slot and gives you +20 health and +5 magic resistance. If you could buy an item like that, people would be doing it all the time!
- sXe 4lyfe: Monotheistic GG. You want to get about ~5 Absolutions as soon as possible, while still guaranteeing that you can get Humility at level 2. If an easy desecration shows up, hang on to a few potions, otherwise trash them right away. Get Enlightenment when you. Keep an eye on your piety. If you are at 95 piety and are about to level up, find a way to get that extra 5 piety so you can spend it all on Enlightenment. You don't want to waste 20+ piety on overflow! Think hard about taking more than 5 Absolutions, since the piety cost greatly interferes with your ability to get Enlightenment. Only do it if you'll get an immediate use out of the extra 4 HP. Use Protection to carry you through the boss fight. This is probably the most reliable Warmonger strat, since GG rewards glyph destruction and offers a solution to resistant monsters via Cleansing.
- Sunday worshiper: Get in, get Humility (really one of the best single use boons in the game), and get out. Maybe get some Absolutions while you're at it. GG is actually pretty easy to worship for the first few levels (how often do you use your potions before level 7?), so stick with him to amass piety until there is a clear benefit in converting. Dracul and Tikki Tooki are your targets of choice, but almost anyone is worth it to re-enable your potions.
Health Monster MkI: Blovski invented this start back in the beta, when Absolution didn't cost so damn much. It still mostly works, but isn't top tier anymore. Take a Dwarven Paladin and bring a Fireheart. The start works by stacking health and using the percentage based health refills from Fireheart and Protection. Since you're a Paladin, you can also use your health potions if you time it right. Do a forum search for healthmonster to read Blovski's discussion of the concept.

Dracul: I hate the prep penalty, and it interferes badly with Dracul's best low level strategy. I usually take Darvin's advice and prep Extra Altar instead.
-DIY Vampire: Take an early focus on Blood Hunger. Lifesteal is great, and it pays for itself if taken early. The prep penalty hurts this strat very badly, which is too bad, because this is Dracul's best low level play.
-Warmonger: Paladin of Dracul. Trash HALPMEH for early piety. Get one layer of Blood Hunger and Bloodshield. Blood Tithe comes later. A nice change of pace for Warmonger when you're tired of Berserkers of Taurog and Rogues of Glowing Guardian.
-Ace in the Hole: Prep Dracul, but ignore him. Use him as a conversion target later in the game. Blood Tithe and Bloodswell are two of the best late game nukes, and knowing that they're there for you is a big plus.

Jehora Jeheyu: JJ almost mandates early discovery, and the penalty is tolerable. Bring a Compression Seal. Consider bringing small-sized prep items or consumable items, like the Sensation Stone or Slayer Wand. If you're a pro, bring a Bearmace and use Astral's peak-a-boo trick to get insane piety.
- Healthmonster mkII: Halfling Priest who stacks up to 3 layers of Boost Health. Don't take the fourth layer, you're better off saving the piety for Chaos Avatar and Last Chance. You're trying to combine high health (Good Health + Boost Health x3) with with a string of 100% refills (Good Drink + Halfling potions, Chaos Avatar, Last Chance). Maybe take one hit of Boost Mana, but do not take a second one. Stay focused or pick a different strat.
- Gnome-Elf (or "why do half-elves always have to be half-human?"): Bring a gnome and lean hard on Boost Mana. Take at least three layers and flirt with the idea of taking four. Each Boost Mana increased the efficiency of each future mana potion, and if you're a gnome, you actually gain mana overall every time you sac a potion to Boost Mana. You effectively have the combined powers of a gnome and an elf in one package. Wizards are good because of their efficiency. Sorcerers are good because of their already high mana. Warlords are great because of their synergies with mana potions. For a Warlord, the critical thresholds are 20 (two CYDSTEPS) and 25 (exactly enough mana from one potion to cast CYDSTEP).
- Chaos Blood Magic: Bloodmages need health and mana. JJ gives health and mana. JJ needs exploration. Bloodmages have a glyph that automatically explores. It's annoying that you start with 7 mana, but WEYTWUT costs 8. Smuggler's Den is probably the best solution (instant access to that first mana powerup, plus extra space for B2P), but Elven Boots and Mage Plate are good solutions as well.
- From Sickness unto Health: Naga Cauldron rewards you for collecting debuffs. JJ inflicts you with lots of rare debuffs. Halfling Priest is the obvious choice, but spellcastery gnomes can be good as well because they carry the weakening and corrosion debuffs better. Bloodmages can also ignore the debuffs while having powerful uses for both health and mana potions. Remember that the slow effect from Platemail/Really Big Sword counts for the Cauldron.

Mystera: Like JJ, Mystera needs early discovery, so the prep penalty is largely canceled by the early access. Mystera is a more subtle and generalized deity, and there aren't a lot of hyper focused builds for her. The big question is whether you want to save your glyphs for Refreshment or not. If you rely on early CP (e.g. you're an orc) the answer is probably "no". Otherwise, Refreshment is Mystera's best late game boon.
- Gnome Warlord: It's kind of like the JJ gnome Warlord, but you get a smaller mana pool in exchange for better efficiency and not having to sac your potions. Take Mystic Balance ASAP, and as many hits of Magic as you can. The key thresholds are 16 and 20 (you will need items to reach 20). Refreshment is a good substitute for Chaos Avatar, and having to hold on to your glyphs isn't a problem for gnomes.
- Elf Yourself: Use Magic and Mystic Balance to give yourself spellcasting powers similar to an elf, without actually having to be an elf. If you're doing this, it's likely that you really want your CP early, so Refreshment is probably off the table. That's fine, just allocate that piety to more Magic. Works great for Monks, who can come in as an Orc for the damage, but get easy access to triple fireballs at the same time. This is a huge help for dealing with showstoppers like Warlocks and Wraiths.
- Elf Yourself, Elf: Take an elf and become more elf-y. Probably doesn't need discussion, since this is the first thing that most people will think of. I actually don't like it all that much. There's too much tension between elves needing to get CP right away, and elves wanting to benefit from Refreshment later in the game.
- Proper Elf Yourself, Elf: an elf Wizard avoids the problems stated above by being able to drain CP from their glyphs without having to destroy them. You also get a bonus glyph, which means more Refreshment. You probably don't want Mystic Balance, so that clears up 50 piety for more Magic. Consider Extra Glyphs. It's yet another glyph for Refreshment, and because of they way that Extra glyphs redistributes the CP, you'll only need 8 conversions instead of 10 to get it all. Bring some trash items like the Shop Scroll and the weaker potions to speed up the process.
- Flames: Eh. I'm just putting it here because otherwise someone will bring it up. I consider Flames to be more of an emergency maneuver rather than a plan to build for. You can make it work, it's just rarely better than the existing options.
- Piety Farm: Build up piety, take Magic (first hit is basically free), and start looking for "nuke" gods like Dracul and Tikki Tooki. Take Mystic Balance and maybe more Magic if your piety is starting to overflow, but don't take Refreshment.

Earthmother: The penalty actually works in your favor in many cases. You get more plants to use for IMAWAL and Clearance. It's not always roses though, so consider bringing a Titan Guitar.
- Acid Caster: Just do a forum search for acid caster. It reliably beats most single-screen dungeons. Since it works by revealing ~75% of the map at level one, there is very little randomness. Your only fears are Iron Man and Super Meat Man, and I've beaten both in Vicious with this strat.
- Healthmonster MkIII: Paladin with Fireheart who stacks Vineform. Like 10-20 stacks of Vineform. Dwarf is more in theme, but human is probably better. You don't get as many health refills as healthmonsters MkI and II, but Clearance + HALPMEH works as an indirect refill. It's not percentage based though, which is why I suggest humans over dwarves for this.
- Codex User: Lujo came up with this little gem. You use the Avatar's Codex and spend most of your piety chain-Entangling monsters to cancel out the Retaliation trait.
- Dragon Cannon (aka Potato Gun): JustAZombie invented this bizarre start. You should do a search for it, but the nutshell is that the Half-Dragon does magic damage and knockback. This has the strange consequence that he can't directly kill Murkshades and Toadstools (because they're magic immune), but he can push them around. You stack up Greenblood for corrosion, stack up CP for better knockback, and stack up base damage any way you can. You then use the plants as ammunition against the boss. Earthmother will go nuts and give literally hundreds of stacks of corrosion, but since you're only ever attacking plants, it doesn't matter. Space is an issue, so consider a Titan Guitar. Absolutely bring a Bearmace.
- The Chump: Prep Earthmother and a burn salve with the specific intent of desecrating her. It's like a special prep that grants 30 piety and 3 indulgences. Crusaders do it best, but it's good for everyone.
- Ten Billion Free Hits: Orc Warlord with as many "free hit" and "free mana" items as possible (Namtar's Ward, Potions of Reflexes Quicksilver and Shadenfruede, shop items like Dragon's Soul, Badge of Courage, Crystal Ball). You use Entangle to get in one last free hit and IMAWAL to capitalize on the kill. If you aren't killing something at least 4 levels higher than yourself, you aren't doing right. Killing a 7 or 8 from level one isn't off the table.

Tikki Tooki: The penalty sucks, and Tikki is strongest when converted into late. Still, the prep has it's uses.
- Assassination by Fire: Elf Assassin. Explore the map entirely at level one, poisoning monsters to gain piety. Get as much CP as you can and start fireballing the boss at level one. Spend your piety on multiple hits of Tikki's Edge. With Swift Hands, you can effortless keep leveling up and continuing the fireball chain. It's not as strong on multi-screen maps, but it isn't terrible either.
- The Poisoner: This one is really hard to pull off. You want to get 2, maybe 3 hits of poison, and then escape. You have to do lots of Tribute and you have to eat lots of popcorn early (which I hate). Good preps would either be the Venom Dagger, Agnostic's Collar or Fabulous Treasure. Dodge would be a great boon as well, but there's probably not enough piety for it. If you pull this off with a Monk, you almost can't lose.
- The Practical Poisoner: Paladin of Tikki Tooki. A much more practical approach to poison stacking. You're a brawler archetype worshiping a god that hates brawling, so be aware that you can't build piety slowly, you have to gain and spend it in chunks.
- Micheal Bay: Elf Rogue who deals with the prep penalty by just never getting hit. Get 24 mana if you can, 18 mana if you can't. Rogue damage + First Strike + multiple fireballs ends lots of battles before they begin. Piety will mostly go towards Tikki's Edge, with Reflexes coming in as your late game bomb.
- Giant Slayer: Orc Rogue or Warlord with as many free hit mechanics as possible. Use the Reflexes boon to get even more free hits. Kill the boss at level one. Seriously. This usually works.
- The Other Ace in the Hole: Prep TT and ignore him. Use him as a lategame conversion target.
- King of Ding: Goblin Fighter. Eat glyphs to reach level 2, use Tribute plus popcorn to get Tikki's Edge, and then get out. If you find WONAFYT, you not really get yet another +1 xp from your kills, but you also get to spin up more piety.

[William]

[Tinker]

[Zazzlegut]

Man, I'm loving this thread. What you guys have learned in this game is fascinating.

It's really too bad there isn't a good way to have some kind of ladder system to rank the top players or go head to head. I wouldn't make the top anything, but I'd love see a round robin tournament of the top 10 or so active players.

Oh, the shenanigans!