Should Sif get another buff? Wiz bonus?

[PowerOfKaishin]

After playing Sif with SpEn I had a lot of fun tossing wayward exp in random spell schools (and training spellcasting to 21). When the amount of books Sif gives you is combined with the amount of extra exp SpEn gets to put into random shit alongside a wiz bonus of their own, they're able to use a very diverse set of magical spells. Personally, I think this is (or should be) the main draw of picking Sif Muna as a god, but currently in order to have such a diverse skillset you need amazing aptitudes in all or most relevant schools. Basically, you need to be a DE or Sp. If you're a race like Hu or Op, your aptitudes aren't good enough to have the experience necessary to cast spells from many different schools, since you have a lot of other stuff you need to worry about as well.

I believe Sif Muna should grant +Wiz to better allow characters to use many of the spells that she grants.

On another note, should Sif also gift enhancer staves in addition to books? Possibly randart ones as well? These would have a separate timeout from the other gifts so as not to interfere with her main draw.

Sif Muna already got a massive buff with insane MP Regen and the token One More Spell ability, but she is by no means OP nor top tier and I highly doubt either of these would make her OP.

My topic in DCAdvice with this combination:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=20936

[Moose]

+wiz (passive)
+enhancer (passive)
+3 to Spellcasting apt (passive)

At that point I might consider worshipping Sif.

[Shard1697]

+wiz (passive)
+enhancer (passive)
+3 to Spellcasting apt (passive)

At that point I might consider worshipping Sif.

That's pretty insane. Why on earth would anyone ever, ever pick Vehumet if Sif, who is already probably usually better than Veh, also gave you Wiz and an enhancer for everything?

[Shtopit]

IMHO, the best way to power up Sif would be by making the book drops work by having Sif propose one of two books, with the player able to choose between them. It's still situational, but it should be an aid.

[andreas]

+wiz (passive)
+enhancer (passive)
+3 to Spellcasting apt (passive)

At that point I might consider worshipping Sif.

That's pretty insane. Why on earth would anyone ever, ever pick Vehumet if Sif, who is already probably usually better than Veh, also gave you Wiz and an enhancer for everything?

So you're saying that then you might consider worshipping Sif, too?



(The smiley face means I'm just making a horrid joke please don't hate me.)

[PowerOfKaishin]

+wiz (passive)
+enhancer (passive)
+3 to Spellcasting apt (passive)

At that point I might consider worshipping Sif.

That's a little insane, although the spellcasting bonus seems like it could be interesting. I had thought of a flat piety-scaled bonus to spellcasting (10 at max piety) instead of the wiz bonus (and instead wizardry is just another enhancer staff gift). Enhancer passive should be Veh, and to all conjurations. Sif wouldn't let you have the effect of multiple different simultaneous enhancers, just the ability to pick the one you want.

Is there something that prevents randart enhancer staves from being generated? I've never seen one and I wonder why.

[duvessa]

If you compare it to what currently strong gods like Kiku/Fedhas/Trog offer, then +wiz +enhancer +3 apt doesn't seem nearly as good. But I'd rather nerf the nutso gods.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Earlier (and maybe more frequent) books would make me worship Sif more often. I don't think Sif needs the rest.

There's probably some design space for a god that actually makes spells better (power, cost, range, hit-chance, etc.), without giving access to more spells.

[BabyRage]

I never understood how Fedhas is strong god.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Wandering mushrooms are extremely strong and very easy to access. Semi-permanent allies that hit reasonably hard (20!) and confuse? Crazy.

Sunlight has its uses and a few oklobs quickly deal with many dangerous enemies. Praying to destroy some undead is just icing on the cake.

Wandering mushroom allies are really strong.

[BabyRage]

In my experience mushrooms die in 1 hit past the first 10 dungeon floors, not to mention how annoying it is to play with them. Praying on corpses? What is it 2010? Oklobs are situationaly useful, but you can't use them too much. I would take heroism/makhleb demons/gozag potions over it any time. Other Fedhas abilities basically don't exist, cos they are useless.

[PowerOfKaishin]

In my experience mushrooms die in 1 hit past the first 10 dungeon floors, not to mention how annoying it is to play with them. Praying on corpses? What is it 2010? Oklobs are situationaly useful, but you can't use them too much. I would take heroism/makhleb demons/gozag potions over it any time. Other Fedhas abilities basically don't exist, cos they are useless.

You can't really shrug off 20+confuse anywhere in the main dungeon, lair, or orcs. In any case, Fedhas gets you through the hardest sections of the game.

[asdu]

Whatever the changes, I'd like Sif to remain the goddess of unlimited, mindless mp channeling spam. The fact that Sif allowed "pure summoner" speedruns was by far her most compelling attribute as far as I'm concerned.

[TonberryJam]

I'd rather see archmage given over wizardry. Could be a 6 pip bonus. Talk about game breaking.

[dowan]

...Why on earth would anyone ever, ever pick Vehumet...?

This is the question you should have asked.

[Gongclonker]

Vehumet rules if you abuse his range extension. It's a whole extra turn to do stuff. He's my #3 god for wins after Trog and Gozag.

Sif should get a +Wiz-like ability, if only so she has a power that buffs wizards' abilities in the same direct way as Vehumet. +Wiz is just right. Then, with V, you can cast farther, but with Sif, you can be more sure of your casts. Both reward a 'generalist' strategy where the caster has to adapt their skilling. Then hybrid characters could pick Sif to bolster their magic abilities without having to give up all melee specialization and get splatted. And it'd be useful throughout the game.

[archaeo]

Whatever the changes, I'd like Sif to remain the goddess of unlimited, mindless mp channeling spam. The fact that Sif allowed "pure summoner" speedruns was by far her most compelling attribute as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure I believe that gammafunk actually changed Sif in a way that would nerf summoning.

[duvessa]

Whatever the changes, I'd like Sif to remain the goddess of unlimited, mindless mp channeling spam. The fact that Sif allowed "pure summoner" speedruns was by far her most compelling attribute as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure I believe that gammafunk actually changed Sif in a way that would nerf summoning.

He did, so...

[archaeo]

Whatever the changes, I'd like Sif to remain the goddess of unlimited, mindless mp channeling spam. The fact that Sif allowed "pure summoner" speedruns was by far her most compelling attribute as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure I believe that gammafunk actually changed Sif in a way that would nerf summoning.

He did, so...

pretend I said "meaningfully nerf," because sure, you can't just stand in place forever summoning dudes anymore, but I doubt he made it unplayably hard either.

[goodcoolguy]

New Sif is just straight up weaker than old Sif across the board. "Divine energy" does not extend your mp nearly as much/as fast as old channel did. It's not even close. The other channel ability, for some reason, spreads the mp recovery across several turns, making it worse than a potion of magic. It's pretty half-baked.

[removeelyvilon]

Lol what, divine energy gives you infinite mana with a comically insignificant drawback + channel magic restores massive amounts of mp for little investment but I really shouldn't try anymore at this point

[Shard1697]

It's also not a huge pain to use, unlike old channeling.

[PowerOfKaishin]

Lol what, divine energy gives you infinite mana with a comically insignificant drawback + channel magic restores massive amounts of mp for little investment but I really shouldn't try anymore at this point

If you can get yourself to move faster than your opponent it also lets you kite with magic a lot faster than normal. You can see why it can be incredibly strong on a spriggan or even on a speed 10 race.

If people still think old channeling is better, the only reason why would be MP restoration during a battle where you need multiple spells all at once. This itself is taken care of by Sif's other MP restoring ability, which gives you like 5 MP per turn or something silly. And you can use it somewhat freely since in this situation you're making the MP back by kills, whereas this would not have happened before.

[goodcoolguy]

Lol what, divine energy gives you infinite mana with a comically insignificant drawback + channel magic restores massive amounts of mp for little investment but I really shouldn't try anymore at this point

Yes, you get infinite mana if you can wait long enough. Of course, you always have infinite mana if you can wait long enough. Old channel gives you mana much faster than divine energy. I really don't understand what's complicated about this.

re: New channel, it is much worse than potion petition, which is a problem because Gozag shops are also much better than Sif book gifts. 5 mp per turn sucks if you're casting something higher than level 5 and you're low on mp. There is no reason that it can't give the mp all in one shot, so that it would at least be competitive with abilities offered by other gods. Sif just offers very little to a type of character that's already bad.

[Shard1697]

But new channel lets you actually take actions while gaining a lot of mana.

[goodcoolguy]

See edit. It's not actually an advantage to get mp spread out over a period of several turns.

[PowerOfKaishin]

See edit. It's not actually an advantage to get mp spread out over a period of several turns.

Then why is old channel useful?

[goodcoolguy]

It was free.

[tabstorm]

1. New Sif Channel: avg 4 MP per turn, for several turns, while being able to take actions during those turns
2. Old Channel: avg ~4.5 MP per turn at 27 invo, without being able to take actions during those turns except hitting aa, but at no piety cost

How is 1. worse than 2.? The only real argument you can make is that the probability of a high roll to restore enough MP for another spellcast from 1 turn of old-channeling at very high Invocations makes it preferable to new-channeling, but then you might as well ask: "Why didn't you just evoke channel at the start of the fight if you were going to be fighting a pitched battle?" I guess you could say that the piety cost is too high, but that means Sif's piety gain is still too low.

[PowerOfKaishin]

It was free.

Channeling is only useful during battle, with hiding around a corner to still be considered part of a battle. New channeling lets you take other actions AND because you're killing enemies you're getting piety back.

Even then, if it really was still better, old channeling was just dumb from a game design perspective.

[goodcoolguy]

1. New Sif Channel: avg 4 MP per turn, for several turns, while being able to take actions during those turns
2. Old Channel: avg ~4.5 MP per turn at 27 invo, without being able to take actions during those turns except hitting aa, but at no piety cost

How is 1. worse than 2.? The only real argument you can make is that the probability of a high roll to restore enough MP for another spellcast from 1 turn of old-channeling at very high Invocations makes it preferable to new-channeling, but then you might as well ask: "Why didn't you just evoke channel at the start of the fight if you were going to be fighting a pitched battle?" I guess you could say that the piety cost is too high, but that means Sif's piety gain is still too low.

If new channel can be used in every nontrivial fight without worrying about piety, like e.g. heroism, that would change my opinion. It's hard to tell whether that's the case because Sif piety growth seems to be broken right now. If you can't use it in every fight, then I don't think it makes sense to compare it to old channel.

[Shard1697]

How does sif piety gain seem to be broken? I've used channeling pretty often and never dropped a * in piety, and I usually get enough piety to start getting gifts by lair.

[Xion350]

IMHO, the best way to power up Sif would be by making the book drops work by having Sif propose one of two books, with the player able to choose between them. It's still situational, but it should be an aid.

This. Like three books maybe could be offered. "Sif offers you a selection of books from her libraries." It would at least let me pick the most useful book to me. Instead of getting books that I have zero skill in and zero desire to waste XP training.

[Shard1697]

What does the UI look like for that? You'd need to be able to check spells inside the books. Would it be like examining books in a shop?

[and into]

What does the UI look like for that? You'd need to be able to check spells inside the books. Would it be like examining books in a shop?

Blue forced-interrupt message: "Sif Muna's library has some new acquisitions."

You can then examine the books via the abilities screen and choose amongst three randart book options: low-piety option, medium-piety option, high-piety option. The more costly options have more spells, and higher level spells. You can also choose the option, "reject this month's book club offer." Choosing any option resets gift timer, eventually you get a new slate of books to choose from.