Difference between revisions of "Glowing Guardian"
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;Absolution (repeatable) | ;Absolution (repeatable) | ||
:'''Cost''': 2 Piety | :'''Cost''': 2 Piety | ||
| − | :'''Effect''': | + | :'''Effect''': Removes one monster of your level or lower from the game (exception: Undead, monsters on different dungeon levels, bosses), gain +4 Max HP and a Prayer Bead |
;Cleansing | ;Cleansing | ||
:'''Cost''': 5+5n Piety (repeatable) | :'''Cost''': 5+5n Piety (repeatable) | ||
Revision as of 20:15, 28 December 2013
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Missing info |
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The Glowing Guardian is a deity of justice, heroism, and an inordinate number of rules. He is one of the most powerful deities in the game, but he also has significant limitations that require conversion to use him effectively. The Glowing Guardian has been the subject of frequent updates recently, and has seen overhauls to how his piety gain and loss mechanisms work.
The Glowing Guardian is unlocked in a subdungeon to the East that will put you through several trials.
Strategy
The Glowing Guardian is at his finest in two circumstances: at the very beginning of a dungeon run when you're a fresh 1st level character, and at the very end of the dungeon run when you've already spent all or your potions and need a last minute boost to pull off a win. Glowing Guardian is a significantly weaker option towards the middle of a dungeon run, where you will not be able to effectively leverage his long-term benefits but will still run into some of his late-game complications.
When joining the Glowing Guardian at early levels, you will want to maximize your long-term advantage from Humility and Absolution. The Absolution boon allows you to convert weaker monsters into hit points. In the long run, this will only cost you a small amount of HP, but will grant you a considerable number of hit points. As a low-level character, this can easily give you a health total five to six times higher than what you'd normally have.
Because your health regeneration rate does not increase, you will need to level-up to refill your health bar. Exploration will be ineffective for healing until you've gained several levels, and with your high hit point totals you should be able to fight powerful monsters for large amounts of bonus XP.
The Humility boon is one of the most powerful in the game. Lowering your current level will reduce your health regeneration speed and the effectiveness of some glyphs that are based on character level (such as 
HALPMEH or 
BURNDAYRAZ), but will not reduce any of your other abilities. When fighting monsters that are a higher level than yourself, this will increase the amount of bonus experience that you earn. In the long run, this extra bonus XP can be extremely beneficial.
Eventually, you will need to deal with the Glowing Guardian's one unavoidable hatred: drinking potions. At a punishment of 10 piety per sip, this can be catastrophic for anyone who needs this resource in their end-game fight. The most obvious option is to convert out. Given the large amount of piety the Glowing Guardian can generate if you begin worship early, this is a fairly straightforward approach. Another option is to desecrate other altars, which will grant you indulgences to ignore piety loss. A third option is to convert your potions for piety and rely on the Guardian's protection boon, but this seldom pays off.
One of the best ways to use the Glowing Guardian is to convert into his religion after having expended all your potions in order to spend piety on protection. This can be an effective last-minute boost, especially if you have plenty of items in your inventory that you can convert for more piety.
The Glowing Guardian works well with several deities. The most straightforward ways to convert into his religion are from 
The Earthmother or 
Binlor Ironshield. Both of these gods can generate large amounts of piety for 1st and 2nd level characters, allowing someone to arrive in the Guardian's religion with large amounts of piety (and perhaps a few boons already purchased) but still a low-level character. When converting out to other gods, there are two particularly powerful choices: 
Tikki Tooki and (perhaps surprisingly) 
Dracul.
Both Tikki and Dracul are powerful end-game gods that can empower a character who has been leverage the Glowing Guardian's long-term advantages. Both suffer somewhat from the use of absolution, since it removes weaker monsters that can be killed (and in the case of Dracul, harvested for blood) for piety. However, both of these gods can provide benefits that are extremely well-suited to a typical Glowing Guardian follower.
The Glowing Guardian does not work well with 
Taurog, 
Mystera Annur or 
Jehora Jeheyu. Due to inventory constraints, it is very difficult to use the boons of both Taurog and the Glowing Guardian. Mystera offers no particular synergy with the Guardian, but they will at very least not interfere with each other. Jehora Jeheyu is generally not a god that favours conversion between religions to begin with, and given the windows of opportunity for optimal conversion are quite narrow with the Guardian it's seldom an option to jump between these two gods.
The Cleansing boon is rarely used, but can be invaluable for fighting physical-resist bosses or in situations where you are trying to get the specialist badge.
