Sif vs. Okawaru (split from "Sif Muna Reform (Buff)")

[duvessa]

sif is already better than okawaru

[dynast]

making it more of a Okawaru of Magic and less of a god you JUST take for the gifts.

Contradictory statements are contradictory.

[Sar]

how is channel better than hero???

[dynast]

How are they in any way comparable?

[Sar]

* abilities

[dynast]

Ok, channel doesnt cost piety or magic. BOOM

[Sar]

I should've probably made it clear that I was asking minmay about his "sif is already better than okawaru" statement, because it sounds completely backwards for me and I want to know why am I stupid

[dynast]

I share duvessa's opinion on the matter, so let me try to explain the best i can: You dont worship Okawaru in the grounds of playing a caster, a hybrid at best, the same way you dont worship Sif as a fighter. No matter how good you think heroism is, people dont worship Oka for the heroism, mainly because heroism means you are stuck with your shitty starting weapon for a longer time, the thing you want with oka is the first weapon gift, and if you get armour you are screwed, so you are better off finding a good weapon on the floor, in which case you dont need Oka in the first place. The very opposite happens with sif, you start as a caster with a decent spellbook, and soon enough you have the ability to rephenish magic as much as you like, which means you have a reliable setup to make progress in the game at *.

[Sar]

I'm pretty sure the meta was "you worship Okawaru for abilities, not gifts", which is what I agree with: if you picked your weapon skill reasonably, you will get an upgrade to your starting weapon soon enough, and Oka gifts are a bit crap anyways. Has it changed? Am I behind the times?

Also wrt caster/fighter - Oka is much more useful for a "casty" background than Sif is for a "melee" one.

Also I see the posts were moved (for a reason, too), I'd like mine to be moved to that place as well!

[dynast]

I dont think there is a meta on how to play oka, but it is a fact that you want to see your piety grow up as fast as possible and that you want Oka gifts to be good, and those gifts can in fact be good, and saying that oka gifts are bad is just a meme. With Sif, once your piety reaches * you are set. There is very few gift dependant Sif playstyles that i know of, like the one where you try to secure dragon form on a transmuter and get acess to it early by having no miscast effects. Its easier to say that people worship Veh for the "gifts" than Sif.

[Sar]

Makes no sense to me, but I guess.

[dynast]

I agree, It makes no sense, thats why you cant compare the two gods.

[KoboldLord]

I should've probably made it clear that I was asking minmay about his "sif is already better than okawaru" statement, because it sounds completely backwards for me and I want to know why am I stupid

It's all channeling. Okawaru has some useful abilities that make your character better at its focus in the early game. You were hitting things before and getting hit back, and now you get a more favorable damage ratio. In contrast, Sif Muna has only one useful ability, but it completely changes your character's playing style and removes one of the major checks on your character's endurance in the face of complications. Shoot until your mp bar is empty, and then just keep shooting only a little bit slower.

I share duvessa's opinion on the matter, so let me try to explain the best i can: You dont worship Okawaru in the grounds of playing a caster, a hybrid at best, the same way you dont worship Sif as a fighter. No matter how good you think heroism is, people dont worship Oka for the heroism, mainly because heroism means you are stuck with your shitty starting weapon for a longer time, the thing you want with oka is the first weapon gift, and if you get armour you are screwed, so you are better off finding a good weapon on the floor, in which case you dont need Oka in the first place. The very opposite happens with sif, you start as a caster with a decent spellbook, and soon enough you have the ability to rephenish magic as much as you like, which means you have a reliable setup to make progress in the game at *.

Heroism is incredible, and you should not refuse to use it because of gifts. It has a virtually negligible piety cost, so if it reduces the damage you take by any significant amount in a fight it's going to be a net gain compared to letting the piety decay while spamming 5 to get your hit points back.

[duvessa]

You get channeling really fast (almost always significantly faster than heroism) and it's really strong for any of the backgrounds that would conceivably take the god in the first place. Early spell gifts are not really important for these backgrounds (elementalists, cj, wz, etc. all beat lair easily with just their starting book).
Sif is never an optimal god but neither is okawaru or 80% of the other gods, this is caused by ridiculous gods like Trog and Fedhas existing, not by the 80% of gods that aren't overpowered.

even if you do use channeling, you'd be better served switching to a staff of energy once you find it

staff of energy channeling at 27 evocations is slower than sif channeling at 5 invocations

[edgefigaro]

Heroism is the core ability for oka. It generally solves all of the problems of a fighter being able to manfight tough monsters. It is entirely spammable. Finesse and gifts are gravy.

Heroism is like having a fully kitted ash fighter at 1* instead of 6*.

I make no claims about oka vs sif. I don't understand sif, and my last good char got killed by a hydra while I was leaning on channeling to refill MP after a fight. Never took a shot at the hydra, was dead before I realized it snuck up the stairs.