Playing with Jiyva

[DDDD]

I want to try a cat healer of Jiyva but have'n got the slightest idea of how you play with Jiyva. I just guess a felid would become even easier to play as it's lack to use most items combines nicely with Jiyvas item destruction. Can you give me some advice on playing with Jiyva? What are the important powers, how can you use them, how do you actually get piety?

P.S.: And I want to win that game, so I need to get an idea how it works beforehand.

[Giant Orange Brainbow Dash]

Piety comes from summoning jellies onto floors and letting them eat all that dungeon junk you don't need.

Slimify is a phenomenal ability that lets you one-shot kill opponents and replace them with neutral jellies.

Expect your mutations to vary wildlly. If you're lucky, it'll fill those holes in your resistances.

Be sad when Jiyva swaps your dexterity and strength and your evasion score drops to barely double digits.

[Lyrick]

most important powers is probably slimify

after activating slimify, the next enemy you hit who is a possible candidate for slimify gets turned into a slime, which is usually much more harmless than whatever it was before.

works on a lot of foes, including demons, liches, bone dragons...most things that aren't slimes or orbs of fire.

[Sandman25]

Summon jelly when you need some shield from banishers/paralyzers.
Summon jelly for distraction especially if you are a stabber.
For cleared floors with only a few items it can be optimal to wait a bit instead of summoning a jelly for item-eating, jellies usually appear fast enough on their own. Though you will almost always be at maxed piety anyway.
Some characters can take more risk vs melee only monsters because if you are unlucky and are hit for high damage, an allied high tier jelly (like Azure or Death) will appear and you will be able to flee. It does not apply to Fe I guess.

[DDDD]

Do you need the invocations skill with Jiyva so that any initial investment into Elyvilons pacifying is not wasted?

You really only have to hit an enemy to slimify it?

[cerebovssquire]

No (certainly not to the extent Ely needs it, you want a few points for slimify success rate iirc) and yes, respectively.

[DDDD]

How does cloud magic work with Jiyva? Are you punished if a cloud hits a neutral slime? Does it count if slimes move into an existing freezing cloud etc.?

[DrKe]

i don't think jiyva uses invo at all anymore, and you will be punished if you created the cloud, probably.

[Sar]

I had a game once where I followed Jello and cast Ozo Fridge a lot. That was weird.

[comebackshane]

Jello abilities are based solely on piety so you don't need invocations (just like Trog)

also you have to plan around the fact that early Jello altars are extremely rare. the only guaranteed Jello altar is on the sixth floor of slime pits. If you're lucky, there might be an altar in Lair before the entrance of slime pits.
Either you have to live with the fact that you won't have any divine asistance for quite a while or you have to switch gods. Be prepared for that god's wrath before you attempt to switch!

important: if you are not worhshipping jello and you kill the roayal jelly, jello will cease to exist

[dornbeast]

...early Jello altars are extremely rare...

Do they still come with four jellies to eat your character before you can worship Jiyva?

[Lyrick]

I had a game once where I followed Jello and cast Ozo Fridge a lot. That was weird.

Did you end up with a lot of cold jellies and an infuriated jello god?

[Sar]

I think I accidentally hit a jello once or twice (maybe more) but I mostly tried to use it without jello on-screen. Which led to some awkwardness, yeah.

Was playing a HaWz (Nemelex combo IIRC), didn't have a god until Lair for some reason so I decided to get Jiyva when the altar showed on L:7. I wanted to play a more melee game but Ice Cave had 2 Ice manuals and a book with Ozo - hard to resist.