0.17 Kiku

[MainiacJoe]

Seems like a lot of changes on 0.17 nerf him/her/it: no more base mummy death curses, no more sickness from Haunt, derived undead have limited duration (was the piety cost of Corpse Delivery reduced to compensate?). I'm still going to take it on D:2 with a DECj but I'm wondering if others feel it's less powerful than before?

[Sar]

Base mummy curses pretty much never mattered and AD/AS nerfs actually make Corpse Drop even more attractive!

[MainiacJoe]

AD/AS nerfs actually make Corpse Drop even more attractive!

Okay, I can see that. I've never run Kiku before, in practice how often are you running into piety problems because of Corpse Delivery? (BTW I didn't get AS in my first book, am I guaranteed to get AD in my second?)

[Sar]

You are guaranteed some corpse-using spells I think, so you'll get that or Simulacrum, or maybe Cigo's Embrace. Piety - well, not many things to spend it on otherwise. With old Kiku I'd aa a couple of times every time I'd enter a new Lair level and then AD for some meatshields, it's less attractive now, but either way I'd get all the piety back in Orc anyway. I've done some postend runs with Kiku too, works well even there. Simulacrums of strong things are really strong.

[njvack]

You're guaranteed Corpse Rot and one of (Animate Dead | Cigo's). Not considering species limitations*, you have a 50% shot at skeles and something above 33% at simulacrum. So you'll have something to do with all those cold bodies. Corpse Rot with the corpse-o-matic is really nice, as it makes the whole "get monsters to step on other monsters' corpses" thing a lot less tiresome to arrange.

Anyhow, she may be sliiightly nerfed now that skeles and zombies expire, but is still pretty great.

* You won't get spells useless for your species.

[MainiacJoe]

So I looked at Learndb https://loom.shalott.org/learndb.html#kiku_randbook

There are 192 different ten-spell sets that Kiku provides in two books (neglecting species limitations). Four spells are guaranteed and there are six random slots. In the first book, (Animate Skeleton / Pain) and (Regeneration / Vampiric Draining). In the second book, (Animate Dead / Cigotuvi's Embrace), (Agony / Excruciating Wounds), (Bolt of Draining / Simulacrum / Death Channel), and (of the four optional spells that didn't get chosen, choose one). Thus there are 4 different first books and 48 different second books.

34 out of 48 second books have at least one of Animate Dead or Simulacrum. 2 out of 4 first books have Animate Skeleton. Thus the chance that Kiku will not give you any spells at all that create derived undead allies is (14/48) * (2/4) = 7/48 or 14.6%

[njvack]

True -- but remember that corpse rot and cigo's both give you a use for corpse delivery. So you're never in a situation where you'll be all "aa is useless!"

[MainiacJoe]

True -- but remember that corpse rot and cigo's both give you a use for corpse delivery. So you're never in a situation where you'll be all "aa is useless!"

Oh I know, but Cigo seems like such a letdown!

[duvessa]

probably because it is