Cigotuvi's Embrace vs. alternatives

[The Ferret]

So, I feel like I'm missing something with Cigotuvi's Embrace in trunk. If I have other alternatives available on a warrior-necromancer, I don't see why I'd want to use Cigotuvi's Embrace:

• Ozocubu's Armour is 2 fewer spell levels, and seems to range from superior (if no corpses are available to power CE) to slightly inferior (Receive Corpses -> CE).
• Playing Kiku, I feel like Ozo's Armour + Receive Corpses + Animate Dead is strictly superior to Receive Corpses + Cigotuvi's Embrace. Using Receive Corpses to power CE also means I'm burning piety pretty much every time I want some defenses... not that piety is generally a problem with Kiku, but I feel like if I used RC+CE for every fight where it would be prudent to boost myself, I'd lose piety faster than I gain it.
• Without Receive Corpses, I'm having trouble envisoning a scenario where I want the extra defenses after producing a bunch of corpses; generally I want it before producing corpses! The best I can come up with are insanely specific things like Vaults:5 with a good party opener that kills all the popcorn (disc of storms, Disaster Area, Apocalypse).
• It seems like in theory Cigotuvi's Embrace wants to be a continuous thing - kill dudes, get corpses, roll on to kill more dudes and get their corpses, and so on. But, at least at 5# spellpower, the corpses fall off in between fights. Does its duration last long enough with high spellpower to enable you to carry your flesh armor from one fight to another?
• If you're using Necromancy heavily, it seems like there are much better ways to use those spell levels in the mid game- Dispel Undead, Excruciating Wounds, Simulacrum, not to mention the usual array of spells useful for everyone.
• Speaking of using Necromancy heavily, you're going to want to train some Ice Magic for Simulacrum anyways... Ozo's synergizes well with most necro builds, so it's not as if CE saves you training in a spell school.

I know people got ridiculous AC with CE in the tourney, but those seemed like contrived scenarios...

What am I missing? I'm playing a KoWr^Kiku (pastebin dump) and I feel like Ozo's is the better defensive spell in pretty much every situation I've encountered... Receive Corpses + CE does give slightly better defenses, and I could probably pull it off since I'm wearing an amulet of faith, but I still feel like I'd be better off forgetting Cigotuvi's and using those spell levels for one of the many other useful spells in my inventory.

Thanks for the help!

[duvessa]

What am I missing?

nothing

[xentronium]

I think it would be better if the corpse armor was permanent, with a spell power dependent chance for pieces to fall off with each attack affected by AC. It would obviously need to have diminishing returns per corpse as the accrued AC bonus increased.

[tasonir]

About the only unique ability that CE has is stacking to ridiculously high amounts with kiku. I guess that could be considered a good emergency button - deliever 1-3 batches, gain 40 ac, become immune to damage (almost) for a dangerous fight?

It's certainly strong. But I'm not sure I can claim it's better than just making 20 zombies. Can't we all just stick with Statue form and stoneskin?

[rchandra]

CE probably is worse than animate dead, but you can use it with Death Channel to quickly go from fight to fight for a fun and effective killing spree.

[mopl]

That seems problematic... Even if it's just to get the highest possible AC, that seems pretty broken...

[Sar]

he wasted literally all of his Kiku piety for that

[TwoLeggedMammal]

That seems problematic... Even if it's just to get the highest possible AC, that seems pretty broken...

Wow, I guess there is no upper cap to it. The tournament sometimes has a category for highest AC + EV, and the last I saw 70AC + 20EV for a CheiNaga in CPA was the winner. This would mess up that award in the tournament at the very least. Maybe it is able to just count base defenses.

[tasonir]

That seems problematic... Even if it's just to get the highest possible AC, that seems pretty broken...

Wow, I guess there is no upper cap to it. The tournament sometimes has a category for highest AC + EV, and the last I saw 70AC + 20EV for a CheiNaga in CPA was the winner. This would mess up that award in the tournament at the very least. Maybe it is able to just count base defenses.

90 AC+EV won't win you many tournament competitions. Even before CE + kiku, you generally need around 120-130+ combined to place.

  Code:

For .15 tournament:
1   Xen            102   62 GrBe   
2   MorganLeah      80   61 HOGl   
3   Medar           85   42 GrAr   

For .14 tournament:
1   AngusOReily      96  54  GrBe
2   mrclean          94  55  GrSk   
3   78291            76  66  GrHu

And a chei naga in CPA with only 90 defenses would be very sad! Here's mine with only 3 runes who's already at 70/39: http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/tasonir/mor ... 040128.txt Still had room for 4 more enchant armor scrolls, and my armor skill was only 21.2 with 18.7 dodging, due to 3 rune experience limits. Could have gone a good bit higher. If I had 15 runed, and if this kiku + CE didn't exist, it could have competed for the category, but probably just around third, not first.