Mystera Annur
Mystera Annur | |
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Initial worship | |
Punishment |
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Prep penalty |
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Likes | |
Dislikes | |
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Boons | |
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Contents
Unlocking
Mystera is the goddess of magic and glyphs. Mystera is well-suited to a variety of races and strategies, but has very few repeatable boons. She also has few offerings to help you in the end-game. Mystera is best worshipped during the early exploration phase when there are still plenty of tiles left to reveal to earn piety, and if found late is usually not worth following.
Mystera is unlocked to the north, in a subdungeon protected by the Guardian of Magic. Although it is theoretically possible to kill this guardian, the intended approach is to use magic to get past him. This can be done by any of the following ways:
- Using
ENDISWAL to dig around him
- Using
WEYTWUT to teleport past him
- Using
PISORF to push him out of the way
Boons
Magic
Fairly straightforward boon, but its piety cost increases rapidly and only 2x purchase is enough for most characters. Raising your maximum mana to 15 means each mana potion will restore exactly 6 mana, but beyond that point the piety cost for a mere 1 mana is seldom worth the trade. Dedicated spellcasters can purchase this boon 3-4 times, then use various %-based mana restoring methods to utilize the raised maximum mana.
Refreshment
One of Mystera's powerful boons, granting you bonus mana regeneration every time you convert a glyph. If you can raise your maximum mana, this can be a major benefit. But it does mean the timing for converting glyphs becomes more difficult to gauge, and races like Elf or
Human will have to go without their conversion bonus. Races like
Gnome,
Halfling, and
Goblin have no problems leaving all their converting for the end of the dungeon and they benefit enormously from this boon. Only
Elf Wizard is the notable exception. Keep in mind
Refreshment gets reduced to 25% if you convert to another religion!
Gods who provides free glyphs, such as The Earthmother,
Jehora Jeheyu,
Tikki Tooki, or especially
Binlor Ironshield synergies with refreshment. Binlor-worshipping
Wizard with more glyphs preperation can have up to 9 glyphs in the inventory, that's 400% restoration.
Mystic Balance
Mystic balance is a double-edged boon that causes expensive glyphs to cost less and inexpensive glyphs to cost more. Wizards, who already have a discount to their spell costs, get disadvantages more than benefits from
Mystic Balance.
Berserkers, on the other hand, are largely unaffected by its downsides and benefit enormously from this boon. Ironically, this makes Mystera one of the better deity choices for a
Berserker, essentially cancelling out their spellcasting penalty.
For most classes, whether you want to use Mystic Balance depends on which glyphs you rely on primarily. Most glyphs already cost 5 MP and are unaffected. The
BLUDTUPOWA glyph has no mana cost to begin with and is also unaffected. The
BURNDAYRAZ and
CYDSTEPP glyphs are the most notable improvements, which makes this boon very useful to fireball spammers and to
Warlords. The
WEYTWUT glyph is also dramatically improved, and becomes easier to use as a finisher. On the other hand, the
PISORF glyph becomes impractical for offensive purposes (it's still functional for breaking through walls and moving monsters, however) and the
GETINDARE glyph becomes less mana efficient (though still worthwhile). The
BYSSEPS and
LEMMISI glyphs are the hardest hit by mystic balance, and are below-average to begin with; they should be consigned for conversion if you select this boon.
Flames
Flames is rarely worth pursuing. The massive attack penalty on the flames makes it a terrible idea for hybrids and even for most spellcaster builds. For it to actually be profitable, one normal character would need to cast fireball 2.5 times more often than regular attacks on average, or you can't get any hits on the boss in which case you only do fireballs. You will need to be very dedicated to a pure caster approach or a rat monarch for either of these to be worthwhile. Most characters will skip out on these two.
Weakening
Weakening is also not very attractive to most characters. It costs an enormous amount of piety, and it's only usable if you don't have any resistances of your own. You're usually better off using a Piercing Wand or
Stone Heart, which have no downsides and reduce resistances with less effort. Only dedicate fireball casters without
Piercing Wand will take this boon.
Strategy
Mystera rewards you with piety whenever you cast spells, and deducts piety whenever you kill monsters that deal magic damage. Like playing Taurog, only in reverse, so long as you ensure you cast sufficient spells between each kill you will turn a net profit in piety. Unlike Taurog, the amount of piety Mystera offers is proportional to the mana cost of the spell, so it really doesn't matter which spell you are casting. Because Mystera does not afford any piety-based spiking boon, the usage of this god is largely restricted to two approaches.
1) Mana Reinforced Hybrid - Because you cannot convert your remaining piety to damage and remaining Magical Attack popcorns, she is not very good at bossfight phase. Most hybrid characters will farm a lot of piety, purchase some good boons, and eventually convert out at some point. Your boons will be a couple of
Magic and either
Mystic Balance or
Refreshment.
Weakening is not your choice because
Magic resist is not a big problem, and
Flames is completely out of range. If you purchased refreshment, you will want to convert out after full usage. It usually means you want to use the mana restore during the levelup phase, or your new god can provide spiking immedietly after converting in.
Glowing Guardian,
The Earthmother,
Tikki Tooki and
Dracul all have the feature. If you have full piety you can convert into
Jehora Jeheyu, desecrate Mystera, and purchase
Chaos Avatar. Mystic balance is probably better if you want to fully exploit your new god.
2) Extreme Fireball Caster - Prepare Crystal Ball/
Piercing Wand/
Dragon Soul/
Mage Plate, an altar of Mystera, extra mana boosters or flame magnet, Item: Schadenfraud Schadenfraud potion and any appealing things. Finding
BLUDTUPOWA helps enourmously. This build is best pulled from
Elf Wizard,
Gnome Sorcerer,
Bloodmage,
Assassin or
Chemist. This build completely gives up physical attack and focus on
BURNDAYRAZ casting. Your will purchase all the boons except for
Weakening, but if you need a way to erode magic resistance you will even purchase it. If you do not need weakening boon, you can convert to
The Earthmother,
Glowing Guardian or
Jehora Jeheyu to restore your mana for the last chance. One funny thing is in rare cases physically attacking the boss will actually decrease your total damage output, because it cuts the burning stack going in.