Nemelex discussion

[Yermak]

Hello.
I started a game with Neme recently but I haven't play with him for a long time. I chose not to get decks of summonings. And while sacrificing all stuff on D:1-12 I got only 3 decks (used first two also). Is this normal? I'm under impression that Neme is not worth worshipping. Was decision not to sacrifice corpses a big mistake?
Thoughts, tips, advice?

[dck]

I'm not a very good nem player but what I do is sacrifice basically everything and then turn off decks I don't want (normally dungeons and wonders) when my piety is already pretty high.
Also I use cards a lot during this period.

I do remember one guy I played where I decided not to sac corpses from the very beginning for some reason and decks did come a lot slower than normal.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Deck of Summoning is the strongest thing about Nemelex, so I am going with "Yes, big mistake."

[moocowmoocow]

Your first goal is to max piety, so yes you want to sacrifice everything and spam decks if you can do so safely.

[mopl]

Also train Evocations a lot.
Decks are useful for everything : you kill with Summoning/Destruction, you escape with Defense.
Wonders and Dungeons decks are a little harder to use, but you can even play without them...

Nemelex is not a boost-God, like Okawaru for melee characters, he induces a complete playstyle : spam decks

[Sar]

Also train Invocations a lot.

Evocations.

[mopl]

Also train Invocations a lot.

Evocations.

Exaclty what I meant... I edit in order not to mislead the reader... Thanks

[Lasty]

I'm under impression that Neme is not worth worshipping.

Nemelex regularly gets listed among the most powerful gods by experienced players. The most likely reason people may have told you Nemelex is not worth worshipping are that it forces obnoxious sacrificing (praying over every extraneous item in the dungeon) and that it leads to card and deck juggling, which some may not enjoy.

I do not like playing Nemelex, but that's mostly because of the tedium of sacrificing.

[Yermak]

Your first goal is to max piety.

Yes it was pretty much what I needed, it looks like I start getting decks more often with high piety.

Deck of Summoning is the strongest thing about Nemelex, so I am going with "Yes, big mistake."

I don't like this kind of powerful summons because they trick you into misconception that you are doing good. But then suddenly (late game) summons are not powerful enough, you're out of decks and thus out of firepower. My question wasn't like "Are summoning decks good?" but like "Will I get enough piety and decks without corpses?"

I do not like playing Nemelex, but that's mostly because of the tedium of sacrificing.

I'm using "auto_sacrifice = true" option and I'm fine. Though my char is Felid and I don't know how this option is useful with other races who use armours and weapons which aren't autopickupable.

I'm under impression that Neme is not worth worshipping.

The most likely reason people may have told you Nemelex is not worth worshipping are ...

This was my own impression after pre-Lair game. Now I think Neme is still ok to worship to. Best thing about him is those XP cards I got. Now I have decent HP due to my XL to deal with new Swamp.
Interesting: I haven't use Neme abilities other than first yet (though I have to stack one of my escape decks for smooth play).
I drew cards from decks of wonders one by one. Yes, I got shuffled in the process, 24-8-17. Not bad for my Statue form plan.

[moocowmoocow]

Decks of summoning are powerful enough to get you through late game. You can take down orbs of fire with them, and that's about as difficult an enemy as you can face. When you get a new deck, Draw Two will identify it for you (costing one card, no big deal). To safely use decks of wonders, you can triple draw once or twice, then stack five. Blind drawing is not recommended because of Shuffle, Wild Magic and Banishment. Draw four is kind of overkill... never really used that one much.

[mopl]

Decks of summoning are powerful enough to get you through late game. You can take down orbs of fire with them, and that's about as difficult an enemy as you can face.

Sure. I just spec-ed a Kobold of Nemelex splatting TRJ with decks of Summoning.
Plus your good Evocation skill makes new evokable even more useful !

[TheDefiniteArticle]

I don't like this kind of powerful summons because they trick you into misconception that you are doing good. But then suddenly (late game) summons are not powerful enough, you're out of decks and thus out of firepower. My question wasn't like "Are summoning decks good?" but like "Will I get enough piety and decks without corpses?"

My point was that, even if your piety and number of decks was the same, losing summoning decks would be a significant hit to your power. I've no idea what happens to piety when you never sac corpses, just that it is a challenge game regardless of the answer. If you for some reason don't want to use deck of summoning, the best advice I can give would be to worship a different god.

re: lategame, Draw Four Summoning puts allies on the field faster than anything can hope to kill them, and even if that's not enough to eliminate your problem, it is enough to enable you to walk past the problem safely.

[and into]

TheDefiniteArticle is spot on, here. Decks of summoning scale well throughout the entire game, 15 rune and ziggs included. Deal Four from summonings is a good emergency measure and, when done from a legendary deck of summonings that has at least four cards left in it, is probably the single strongest use of 10 auts that any character can have access to in the game, except perhaps successfully casting death's door (depends on situation).

Late game keep a few decks of legendary escape stacked with good defensive cards; use destruction to soften dudes up or attack large groups whenever making noise doesn't seem too dangerous, and also use destruction decks to gain piety and get new decks when you can; finally, use summonings for difficult fights.

Honestly you can turn off sacrificing for Wonders on the ^ screen right at the start and be reasonably safe blind-drawing, without needing to use peek at two that much. That's mostly what I do when I play Nem.

If you do want to scum Wonders, though, I'd recommend turning off sacrificing for it, as soon as you start worshiping Nem, and leave it off until you have around ****-- piety, then turn it on and sacrifice all the excess permafood you can spare. As soon as you do this, start using peek at two on new decks (price of using Wonders); keep sacrificing unneeded stuff, including for Wonders, and eventually you'll get a deck or two of Wonders. If you get those decks fast, and still don't have great card power, then save those decks for a bit until higher piety and decent evocations. Once you got that, use a combination of draw three twice, then stack five, to scum high power helix and experience while avoiding the bad cards (i.e., most of the deck). I don't really find all of this terribly worthwhile, but if you want to, that's how you can play around with Wonders, without shooting your character in the foot.

But, OP, if you don't like summoning and having allies (some people don't), then yeah I can't really recommend going Nemelex, he's just not going to be as strong of a god as many others, and will still be rather finicky and annoying, so you get all the bad and lose out on much of the good.


EDIT: Well I guess I should say if you want to be even safer, use draw three only once from deck of wonders, then stack five. Or if you want to be absolutely safe, either 1.) only use stack five on it, or 2.) use scrolls of identify, if top card is safe, draw; if top card is not safe, use stack five.

[Sar]

Huh, why'd you turn wonders off? I never scum for wonders and last game I got like 4 XP cards. I always Peek at Two because it's cheep (at least it seems to be) and I usually want to know if I'm drawing destruction or escape. And wonders is mostly safe with Draw Three and stacking.

[and into]

Huh, why'd you turn wonders off? I never scum for wonders and last game I got like 4 XP cards. I always Peek at Two because it's cheep (at least it seems to be) and I usually want to know if I'm drawing destruction or escape. And wonders is mostly safe with Draw Three and stacking.

Right, peek at two is cheap so it isn't a big deal, personally I just find it somewhat annoying; but I gave some advice about how to use wonders without hurting yourself in case you don't find it annoying.

I'd cut it [Wonders] off at start because getting piety high on Nemelex fast is really important, as that (largely) eliminates any risk to using summoning, and makes all the cards so much more powerful. This is especially true if you do not feel you can devote a lot to evocations right off the bat upon joining Nem, which is often the case.

You can't use Wonders safely until high piety anyway, so why bother sacrificing for it early on? You want summonings and destruction in order to start the crazy upward spiral of piety, more decks, and better decks. Each deck of Wonders is at best a speed bump, in this sense, as you can't even use them safely (and even then, not entirely safely) until you hit ***--- piety, and when you do use them, you end up discarding most of the cards and getting a net piety loss even if just a small one. But if you'd gotten another deck of destruction, with say 9 cards in it, those are 9 more ticks of piety and cool-down before your next deck.

So I'd suggest waiting until ****--, that way you have enough piety that allowing some speed bumps probably won't screw up your character, you've probably got at least a few more decks than you need, so you can afford taking a moment to try to use Wonders.

Decks can have as few as four cards, so two triple draws carries some added risk; one triple draw plus stack five is almost entirely safe but you can hit like shuffle plus two wild magics—that sort of thing has happened to me a couple of times. Simply doing one stack five is entirely safe but somewhat wasteful; you can also integrate scrolls of identify if you have some to spare to get slightly better efficiency out of your Wonders as that IDs the top card.

[Sar]

Hm well, I don't recall getting early wonders (I usually sacrifice everything and turn off escape when I have enough stacked legendary decks). But yeah, I suppose. I didn't even consider Nem's piety effect, never gave it a thought. Also I remember stacking wonders before realizing I can Triple Draw them.
In the end, Wonders are not the reason to join Nemelex and he's perfectly strong without, but it can be a nice bonus when you can use them and well, all those junk wands don't do you anything good anyway.
Also, turning escape off might be a bad idea if you're low on Haste since Velocity is Haste + Swiftness.

[and into]

Hm well, I don't recall getting early wonders (I usually sacrifice everything and turn off escape when I have enough stacked legendary decks). But yeah, I suppose. I didn't even consider Nem's piety effect, never gave it a thought. Also I remember stacking wonders before realizing I can Triple Draw them.
In the end, Wonders are not the reason to join Nemelex and he's perfectly strong without, but it can be a nice bonus when you can use them and well, all those junk wands don't do you anything good anyway.
Also, turning escape off might be a bad idea if you're low on Haste since Velocity is Haste + Swiftness.

Oh yeah, I wouldn't recommend turning off escape. On joining Nemelex I would say, just turn off Wonders only, leave the rest on, then sacrifice everything. Later on you'll have way more food than you could ever use (usually) and the piety to actually work Wonders to your advantage, at that point turn it on and start sacrificing stuff for it.

It probably is wisest to use peek at two on all decks regardless, as soon as you get it, even if it is somewhat annoying. I think you are right about that.

[Sar]

It's just that when I have 4-6 stacked escape decks with Warps and Velocities and Tombs, I usually feel like I don't have much use for them since I don't need to run away much with Nemelex, and I mostly want decks I can use to harm enemies. I turn escape on occasionally if my stacked decks are running thin. Might be not the best play, though.

[and into]

It's just that when I have 4-6 stacked escape decks with Warps and Velocities and Tombs, I usually feel like I don't have much use for them since I don't need to run away much with Nemelex, and I mostly want decks I can use to harm enemies. I turn escape on occasionally if my stacked decks are running thin. Might be not the best play, though.

Ah, I misunderstood what you were saying, my bad. If you have several ornate / legendary stacked decks in late game I don't think it is going to affect your win chances whether you turn escape off or leave it on (assuming you do turn it back on as you begin running somewhat low).

[dirtywick]

There's a lot of armor laying around though so if you leave escape on and keep sacrificing they come up quite often in my experience. I also find that I don't want other decks diluting summoning and destruction as those are the ones I want to spam and get replaced.