God Tiers by Invocations Importance

[MainiacJoe]

I'm curious to know which gods greatly reward investing in Invocations and which gods make it a waste of XP. I apologize too that this is likely a re-post, but that blasted search engine wouldn't give me any results because "invocations" is too common a word . So here goes, fully expecting that some of these are flat out wrong:

Don't Need Invocations At All:
Ash, Goz, Jiyv, Kiku, Nem, Ru, Trog, Veh, Xom

Minor Invocations Investment:
Beo, Chei, Oka

Medium Invocations Investment:
Dith, Fedh, Lucy, Sif

Heavy Invocations Investment:
Ely, Makh, Qaz, TSO, Yred, Zin

[byrel]

I might drop Sif a tier. Otherwise it looks pretty good.

[prozacelf]

Makh and Yred are kind of weird in that you can get a lot of their benefits for medium investment (Makh) or very little investment (Yred), but they both get more powerful the more you put into them. Fedhas is kind of the same way, although I don't know very many people who think it is worth getting 20+ invo with him.

[WingedEspeon]

I have run 0 invo mak and felt strong before, but that is probably for strong characters/characters that are switching from another god only. 0 invo dith is very viable. Shadow form is nice but not nessisary in a 3 rune game where torment practically doesn't exist especially if you have another form of invisibility. The real benefits of dith are the passives.

[MainiacJoe]

Kind of odd that HO has that absurd Invo aptitude and Beogh doesn't care.

[byrel]

Shadow form is a real benefit in a 3-rune game too. It's not all about torment, by a long shot.

[daggaz]

Makh and Yred are kind of weird in that you can get a lot of their benefits for medium investment (Makh) or very little investment (Yred), but they both get more powerful the more you put into them.

I rarely go past mid-range invocations with Makh, I'm not sure what the benefit is there.. Its not very often you get a hostile demon at around 14 Inv, you can spam it fairly often and piety never seems to be a problem. Do the demons get stronger or something? I mean, so much so that it actually makes a difference? Summon Greater is already pretty OP at the base line..

[prozacelf]

The major difference I've noticed is that destruction seems to be stronger with more invo. I don't have numbers to back that up offhand, but observationally I can say that destruction seems to be a lot more effective/worth using.

[daggaz]

Ahh well maybe thats it. I rarely use it except in edge cases.

[Sar]

Chei is low-Invo? You need like 14 to get Step From Time reliable, and you need Step From Time to survive with Chei. Well, at least in my limited experience.

20+ Invo Fedhas is a good plan if your goal is oklob forts. Their rate of fire maxes out at something like 22 Invo, and their get huge HD with these numbers too (and enough HP to survive multiple oof blasts, enough MR to resist banishment etc.).

[Sphara]

Kind of odd that HO has that absurd Invo aptitude and Beogh doesn't care.

I played >20 invocations game with Beogh few months ago. It felt very strong.

Don't know if follower gift quality scales with invo skill but i got 3 knights at one go many times.
Also smiting with over 20 skill felt like having smite targeted iron shot that never misses.

If I'm ever gonna play another Beogh game, I sure as hell will invest in invocations skill.

[tasonir]

I'd agree on moving chei up to medium invo - you want 9 pretty early on, and 14 sometime after that.

[MainiacJoe]

Works for me re Chei. I've never played Chei, so going by wiki for it which doesn't always list success chance in its ability descriptions.

[chequers]

It might be worth noting that Nemelex is top tier, just uses Evocations instead of Invocations.

[duvessa]

"It might be worth noting that if you completely change what the ranking is about, the ranks change"

[WingedEspeon]

Shadow form is a real benefit in a 3-rune game too. It's not all about torment, by a long shot.

Yes, but getting it online uses experience that could go to something else, and you still get the full benefits of the passives at 0 invo. Shadow form is good, but it is a panic button. Sometimes you have enough panic buttons already and just need more power, in which case you get more throwing a enjoy throwing double javlins or something.

[MainiacJoe]

How does this re-work look? Sif is another god I have no experience with, and so it may not be that high invocations are worthwhile with her. I'm just guessing that sometimes channelling strongly is worth doing. Should Sif be in "Moderate necessary" instead, or in her own "Low is ideal" category?

Doesn't use Invocations at all:
Ash, Goz, Jiyv, Kiku, Nem, Ru, Trog, Veh, Xom

Low Invocations is viable, but high Invocations is worthwhile too:
Beo, Dith, Makh, Sif, Yred

Moderate Invocations is necessary
Chei, Fedh, Lucy, Oka

High Invocations is ideal
Ely, Qaz, TSO, Zin

[Sar]

with Oka you only need like 6 Invo

[MainiacJoe]

So maybe Sif and Oka together in a "Low Invocations necessary" bin?

[ElderVIII]

Yeah. Oka is 7 Inv tops. Sif I usually get by with 4-6 Inv especially if I find a crystal ball and/or staff of energy.

[byrel]

I usually get 8 on Oka, but that's preference at that point.

[archaeo]

Sif I usually get by with 4-6 Inv especially if I find a crystal ball and/or staff of energy.

I'm not sure if I'd bother with |energy with Sif, if only because at 4 invo you can get as much MP per success, and unless I'm really mistaken with my anydice calculations (or badwiki is grossly wrong), getting good Sif channeling success is a lot faster than |energy success; I seem to be seeing a success rate above 95% with 4 invo and 15 int, which you can only get with 27 evo with |energy.

I also never bother with CBoE unless I'm doing extended, which means I have all game to get a good evo investment going.

[byrel]

I suppose maybe it depends on how short on food you are; sif channeling is more hunger costly.

[MainiacJoe]

So here is a fancy-schmancy picture using the altar icons like the other God Tier list. Thank you everyone for your contributions to the thread, this has been a topic I've wondered about for a while.

Spoiler: show

InvocSmall.gif (14.17 KiB) Viewed 9640 times

[archaeo]

I guess, byrel, but most of the time, shortly after I channel I get to eat whatever caused me to need to channel, and if I'm worshipping Sif, I can learn necromut long before I even get close to "short on food" if it appears that's going to be a problem. Players who find themselves making decisions based on hunger costs are probably making pretty significant mistakes elsewhere (for example, not training enough spellcasting), the kinds of mistakes that can't be fixed by reducing the per-channel cost by 50-150 satiation points.

#RemoveFood

[Sojiro]

I think this 'both high and low can work' category is a great idea.

[Pollen_Golem]

ManiacJoe's last "fancy-schmancy picture" looks great although I think TSO deserves to be in the "Both low and high invocations are viable" category, more so than Dith.

[kuniqs]

Being able to kill OOF with 3 smites at 27 Invo is glorious

[bcadren]

Makh and Yred are kind of weird in that you can get a lot of their benefits for medium investment (Makh) or very little investment (Yred), but they both get more powerful the more you put into them. Fedhas is kind of the same way, although I don't know very many people who think it is worth getting 20+ invo with him.

I'd add Sif to that list. Almost none is enough to channel some; but with max Invo, it's like d8 (IE twice as good as staff of energy; 1/4 as good as CBoE, but much more reliable). Offline; but I did Fedhas Extended once; let's just say 20+ Invo Oklob (x 4-6) and a Mf Throwing Javelins can beat every hell/pan lord pretty well.

[gammafunk]

I would get 12-15 invo with Sif on a magic-heavy character, more only if I'm getting more than 3 runes or otherwise have a lot of XP to burn. Only 5 invo with Sif if you're using a lot of magic isn't very good.

Using a CBoE for a 3-rune game is already really bad if we're trying to talk about reasonable XP usage. The idea of using CBoE when you have Sif is pretty funny, unless maybe you're a felid (who chose sif because you can't use |energy when your CBoE does a drain) or you want to go zigging with Sif channel as a backup (but you should just use Vehumet instead).

[RBrandon]

I agree with the teens range for Sif. Basically the more invo you have the more mp you get. Having infinite mp on characters that cast spells is very good.

[MainiacJoe]

Bumping this up because I think it's actually substantive compared to most of its competition lately.

[DrKe]

Bumping this up because I think it's actually substantive compared to most of its competition lately.

i think the image could use some work, since the altars are actually lined up and spaced consistently - hard for me to process as a crawl tier list image