Is Elyvilon really powerful?

[Sandman25]

I've heard many times that Elyvilon is one of the most powerful gods so I am not sure why most players of division 1 in CSDC switched to different gods for KoHe. It's especially surprising since Ko is one of the best species for Elivilon because of gourmand IMHO.
9 players of the first division reached Temple and 7 of them switched to different gods:
Dithmengos (2), Trog (2), Ashenzari, Fedhas, Cheibrodos.
Is Elyvilon worse than all those gods?

[dck]

Because even though she is the best god in the game she is also extraordinarily annoying to worship and Ko isn't a weak race.
An argument could be made that Fedhas is better than Ely with both picked up at temple depth on some characters but at the end of the day you still gain Ely piety by instakilling monsters with a smite targeted ability and where fedhas has shrooms she gives you endless HW.
Obviously though, if you started a He and thus have had Ely from D: 1 and have been gaining piety since she's completely superior to any other god (and she is also the best choice from all zealot backgrounds).

[crate]

KoHe is actually quite bad as far as healer start goes (try playing it). Kobold of elyvilon is fine, but KoHe is bad (there is an important difference here).

Healer is a very un-fun start in lots of ways, switching to a different god (Trog and Fedhas in particular) allows you to play in a less excruciating manner.

[Sandman25]

crate,
Yes, I tried playing KoHe several months ago and died before Lair if I am not mistaken. I am not comparing KoHe to other healers, I am wondering why good players switched to other gods.
As far as I see dck would stay with Elyvilon, I would do the same too. But I suspect I maybe missing something.

Edit. I think "un-fun" factor cannot be applied here since it was a competition game.

[dck]

I would never stay with Ely, I am acknowledging it as the far superior choice.
I'd probably join zin or fedhas.

[KoboldLord]

The healer background is a pretty degenerate start, and it should probably be removed. It is just barely possible to squeak out an invocations-only build with it, at the cost of being mind-bendingly tedious as you have to kite almost everything in the early game around a pillar until your <10% chance to pacify non-threatening melee brutes finally kicks in. It is not good to have that sort of gameplay even as an option, much less as the implicit suggestion of a starting background.

Elyvilon is strong once you have a decent pad of invocations and gets stupid the moment you hit Lair, but she doesn't have a whole lot to offer you on D1. She's good for adders, which is relevant, but with only 1 or 2mp she's not much better at jackal packs than just hitting them with a starter weapon and she's got little to offer against early humanoids. On average, throwing rocks is going to get rid of them faster than pacifying them will. If you started in a cul-de-sac and there is a humanoid through the only door out, you'd better hope you can punch it to death.

Picking Elyvilon as a Temple deity is much better. You get free healing of both health and status almost immediately, and piety is easy enough to get that you can use it frequently without any worry. Low levels of invocations are cheap, and if you keep up on invocations training you get nearly unparalleled control over what you want to actually fight. A couple others offer benefits that are as good or better at this point, but Elyvilon is still top-notch.

If you're in a sudden death competition, though, you definitely don't want to lose to a D2 gnoll or something when everybody is watching. Elyvilon offers no help against a D2 gnoll. Trog does. Switching to Trog is hardly ever a clearly wrong play, and is the traditional fix for every mismatched Nemelex Choice in every tournament.

I have no idea why that one player thought it was a good idea to switch to Chei, though. Maybe she's just that player's favorite.

[Sandman25]

I see. Elyvilon is not really powerful god since she does little before Lair, she becomes good when you have already won. I checked morgue files again to see if players switched to other gods before Temple:
Dith(Temple, Temple), Ash (Temple), Fedhas (before Temple), Trog (Temple, before Temple), Chei (before Temple).

[Sar]

I'm not sure how did you took that out of all these posts and I am also not sure how giving you near-infinite free healing (in amounts that are actually really huge that early, even free curing you get on turn 0 is significant) you get for just sacrificing weapons you don't actually need is "nothing".

[crate]

I think "un-fun" factor cannot be applied here since it was a competition game.

There's no real-life prize so I'm pretty sure it's applicable.

[KoboldLord]

I see. Elyvilon is not really powerful god since she does little before Lair, she becomes good when you have already won. I checked morgue files again to see if players switched to other gods before Temple:
Dith(Temple, Temple), Ash (Temple), Fedhas (before Temple), Trog (Temple, before Temple), Chei (before Temple).

No, that's going too far. Loads of free healing is very good, but loads of free berserk whenever you want it is stupid-good. Mushrooms are also stupid-good, but not quite so much as everything Trog has on offer. There are very few starting combinations where going Trog or Fedhas is going to be a bad idea.

[Sphara]

These were the challenges in WalkerBoh's competition KoHe game:

Tier I Bonus: Enter Lair before killing or pacifying a unique.
Tier II Bonus: Enter Zot before pacifying or killing a unique.

When i did read those, I immediately decided I'm not going for bonus points. It was doable but too hard and heavily dependent on early escape items or excessive stair-jumping.
So I went Fedhas (once again like a cheater) because I found his altar before the Temple. Mushrooms make the early game a joke and when you get to Zot:5 vestibule room with the oklob battery.. that makes the joke even more extent.
Playing a kobold healer and not pacifying any unique before entering the Zot is just asking for trouble. DrKe did it but died in the Zot:5. He really should have won that game.

So it is not that Ely isn't a strong god, it was the competition's challenge points that made most of player ditch him/her.

[and into]

To state it more specifically: Completely putting aside the game play experience and whether or not it is fun, nearly all He starts have no good means to damage stuff, and thus no way to take out enemies that you cannot pacify. Pacification is very strong, but is not all that effective against some early threats (like gnolls and, unless you are HOHe, orcs); some early game threats are completely immune, like ants and bees. That's why Ely is a strong god, but He is, for many species, not a very consistent start.

[Sar]

Well you also don't often meet those threats on D:1 and after D:1 you usually have some means to damage stuff in melee. And of course, being able convert some of your nutrition into free !curing and !HW will help one with those tough fights, even with lacking melee skill. That said, I can see it being annoying, yeah.

[and into]

Well you also don't often meet those threats on D:1 and after D:1 you usually have some means to damage stuff in melee. And of course, being able convert some of your nutrition into free !curing and !HW will help one with those tough fights, even with lacking melee skill. That said, I can see it being annoying, yeah.

All totally true, but MP is actually a limiting factor early on. You can train more invocations for better pacify and more MP for pacification and heal, but then this further delays getting a halfway decent damage option online. It does "click" pretty early—usually before Lair, in my (admittedly far from copious) experience—but until then, it is a pretty annoying and stressful start for a lot of species. It really makes you appreciate the +1 low-tier weapon that AKs get to start with, though.

[Sar]

Probably I need to play more He.

[crate]

you're quite capable of avoiding everything you can't kill/pacify as a healer, unless you're a naga

if you try to do this you will quickly see why healer is not a fun start

[tasonir]

I haven't played a ton of healers, but I've done quite a few KoHe starts and they are hard to start with. They don't have any way to deal with things you're going to have trouble pacifying, and classic early game threats like worker ants can't be pacified, are fast, and have poison. They'll kill a lot of KoHe's. Your primary melee aptitude is short blades, which are weak weapons, otherwise you have to use a negative aptitude.

If you want a good He, try DD damage shaving and the healing means you can get away with low skills in melee. Free heal wounds wand. Better apts on weapon skills you'll want all game long. This is the healer option I've won with.

Another option is troll, because there's seriously no way to struggle in melee before the lair with a troll. If you want to keep gourmand, here's your option.

you're quite capable of avoiding everything you can't kill/pacify as a healer, unless you're a naga

Worker ants

[crate]

You can kill worker ants.

If you can't then wow you wasted a lot of piety.

[Blink]

VsHe seem ridiculously good. But that seems to be mostly because of the Vs part, not so much the He part... though having actual healing early has helped saved my bacon once or twice.