gammafunk wrote:So far as comparing abilites goes...
Unable to use spells -> Massive Negative Power on most strong characters.
It's only a "Massive Negative Power" if you compare current Trog to a version of Trog that had the same abilities but didn't restrict magic. It's not much of a negation compared to Oka since Trog gives you abilities that are comparable to some of the strongest spells in the game (conjure flame, regen, haste, strong summons) and with no skill investment in spellcasting or any other spell school.
Massive negative power compared to atheist. That's the clear default position to compare gods to. This particular feature of trog has negative power, entirely independent of what other abilities he brings.
Burn Spellbooks -> 0 power
What is "0 power" supposed to mean? Throwing a book down in front of a monster and creating a cloud of flame has become useless for damage or escape? Was conjure flame also removed for being useless?
I don't think you can throw spellbooks anymore, and the clouds don't last as long as conjure flame in my experience. Furthermore, you're choosing to delay piety in order to hold the ammunition for this ability. Still, 0 power was an exaggeration. It's undoubtedly optimal to do this sometimes, even though I don't for tedium reasons.
Berserk -> High power combat buff that will kill you. It turns you into a worse mummy: unable to quaff potions, unable to cure confusion, unable to use any escape. In exchange, you're quite hard to kill and deadly. Good for situations where your answer is going to be 'tab'. Bad for all other situations.
This is one of the more hilariously inaccurate descriptions of berserk I've seen. Are mummies free to quaff other potions and then (in one turn) quaff might, haste, and gain 50% hp? And it's good for "situations where your answer is going to be 'tab'", but when is finesse good, when you're not going to be using tab?
I think it's 100% accurate. "In exchange you're quite hard to kill and deadly" was intended as a non-technical description of might, haste and 150%HP. In exchange, you get almost 0 lateral options, in a game where smart use of lateral options is one of the biggest skills to be learned. Finesse is quite good in situations where you're using tab along with consumables, AOE spells, ranged weapons, evokables, etc. Berserk doesn't allow any flexibility to your approach. If you berserk, you either run away or melee attack. That's it. If you finesse, you can blink, conjure flame, heroism, use a ranged weapon, etc.
If you move while zerked you move quickly and for a few steps, so if think about your position before you zerk, you can very often get yourself to a safer position should you have misjudged the situation. This can be safe stairs or just a choke point where you can worry about only one weaker enemy while you work on your escape.
Agreed. Berserk is not negative power; it's quite useful. But it's downsides tend to be underestimated because they only punish you occaisionally (when you misplay). And when they do, it tends to be lethal.
BiA -> strong to extremely strong melee-only living summons, at high piety cost.
Melee-only and quite fast, which means it gets gets in front and to the monster quickly. Saying "at high piety cost" and referring to finesse as "0 downsides" when the piety cost for Oka is actually way more significant (since it's easier to lose the ability and harder to gain piety with Oka), doesn't make sense.
Fair. When I said 0 downsides I was comparing it to berserk, which has huge mechanical downsides. The piety cost is certainly a downside, though since it's basically the only piety-relevent ability Oka has, it's more of a frequency limit than anything. OTOH, I find BiA to need used more often on trog, since berserk starts being quite dangerous in depths. I usually have more trouble keeping enough piety for good BiA than for finesse.
Gifts-> A pile of AM weapons. Rarely useful after Lair, since you already got an above-average AM weapon of whatever type.
It's not my experience at all that Trog only gifts AM weapons, in fact it's rare to worship trog and not have a viable weapon of another brand gifted.
Yes, Trog gifts other things. Often enough your best weapon will be AM though. At least we agree about the distribution of utility of trog vs. Oka gifts. I prefer the flatter curve of Oka's but I can see an argument for Trog's being better.
Mind you, I really like the design of trog. I think it's somewhat better than Okawaru, and somewhat more interesting to play (though I find a hybrid of Okawaru even more interesting than a melee fighter of Trog). But I think Okawaru's peak power is notably higher than Trog's, and his midgame power is slightly higher. Early game, Trog wins. But a lot of characters do struggle later than early game... So I think on net Oka's better than trog.
Saturday, 9th January 2016, 02:11 
