Dithmenos

[dowan]

(Split from GDD)

Dithmenos is more of a ranged god than a stabber god, at least I see it that way. He gives way better bonuses to conjurations and ranged attacks than he does to stabs and stabbing weapons. The stealth bonus obviously helps with the stealth gameplay, but the tons of extra damage bonus helps a lot more, and that has nothing to do with stealth.

So if someone asked me what the best god is for a stabber, I might tell them ash, oka, trog, fedhas, and I guess maybe dith.
If someone asked me the best role for a dith follower I'd say conjurations user, ranged weapons user, then maybe stabber.

[Sandman25]

Spoiler: show

Dithmenos helps stabbers tremendously too, you have double chance to confuse/EH monsters, monsters get distracted by shadow attacks allowing stabs, shadow form gives guaranteed invisibility while 50% penalty is not that important for stabbing.

Edit. Sorry, forgot it is GDD.

[Quazifuji]

Dithmenos is more of a ranged god than a stabber god, at least I see it that way. He gives way better bonuses to conjurations and ranged attacks than he does to stabs and stabbing weapons. The stealth bonus obviously helps with the stealth gameplay, but the tons of extra damage bonus helps a lot more, and that has nothing to do with stealth.

So if someone asked me what the best god is for a stabber, I might tell them ash, oka, trog, fedhas, and I guess maybe dith.
If someone asked me the best role for a dith follower I'd say conjurations user, ranged weapons user, then maybe stabber.

I think there are two things going on here:

1. Shadow mimic is so powerful that Dithmenos becomes extremely strong for any character that can make really good use of it regardless of how much they'd use any of Dithmenos' other abilities.
   
2. It turns out that stabbers often benefit more from a god that helps them kill enemies they can't stab than a god that makes them better at stabbing. The problem with Dithmenos for stabbers isn't that other gods help them more with stabbing (I think Dithmenos improves a stabber's ability to stab more than any of the other gods you mentioned), it's that stabbers already have no trouble killing stabbable enemies, what they need is a way to deal with ones that are harder to stab. The other gods you mentioned all help with that way more than Dithmenos.

So yeah, there are flaws with Dithmenos' design. But then, that also shows why making him more general-purpose was so important - even though he's actually pretty situational for stabbers, he's still a useful god with abilities that synergize with a wide range of playstyles. You could have something similar with a god designed for unarmed combat. If you make a god that's only useful for unarmed combat, then either they're strong for unarmed combat characters and bad for everyone else (boring), or they're bad for everyone (also boring). If you make a god that's general purpose but designed to synergize wel with unarmed combat, then not only is it more interesting to have the god be more versatile, it also means that the god's success isn't solely dependent on how effective it is for unarmed combat characters.

[Sprucery]

Maybe the discussion on Dith should be moved to another thread, but imho Dith is absolutely great for stabbers, because shadow step helps you stab sleeping enemies so much. One-shotting orbs of fire is something. Of course it's best for a stabber who also has a ranged attack for shadow mimic.

[tabstorm]

Dithmenos is not that good imo. He's only really good for a Spriggan stabbers, and that has more to do with Spriggan-ness than Dith, as stabbers are generally straight-up bad because of the high enemy density in the game and relative ineffectiveness of Stealth combined with forcing the use of the worst weapon class.

I would take my chances with Sif or Vehumet over Dith on a conjurer since I don't want to be locked out of Fire magic if I have to rely on floor drops for spells and I would rather not make a shitty hybrid melee character. Dith is decent for ranged but I wouldn't rush to choose him. I think ranged is your best bet if you want to play him for the sake of it, but this is actually true for a lot of gods. People just don't like using ranged.

[Sandman25]

When I wanted to play a caster of Dith, I picked GhIE. Gh has -2 aptitude in fire and low Int so it was very unlikely that I would miss any spells due to Dith conduct. Also low Int meant that I wouldn't go for high level spells and thus increased fire power from Dith was very useful. Another thing is that IE is not a "shitty" hybrid due to Ozo Armour and Summon Ice Beasts.
The character got 5 runes in PDA with Haste, Freezing Cloud and quite respectable defenses.
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=13926&p=195229

[goodcoolguy]

If you want to stick with short blades for an entire game, Kiku is the obvious choice, since it's the only reliable source of short blades that do respectable damage to a significant fraction of monsters.

About Dithmenos, my take: Dithmenos is wildly overrated. I would rate it in the bottom 10 gods for sure, maybe bottom 5.

[njvack]

If you want to stick with short blades for an entire game, Kiku is the obvious choice, since it's the only reliable source of short blades that do respectable damage to a significant fraction of monsters.

Lugonu. Except blink frogs, nothing resists distortion.

[Sprucery]

About Dithmenos, my take: Dithmenos is wildly overrated. I would rate it in the bottom 10 gods for sure, maybe bottom 5.

I started to believe in Dith when Berder streaked 4 Octopodes of Dith (15 runes each).

[Tressol]

Gargoyles like Dith - They are stealthy, bleed smoke often due to bad hp (but yeah, bad hp is bad), and a mimicked Iron Shot is basically amazing. Pretty sure I 15 runed my Gargoyle EE of Dith, and it generally felt pretty strong the whole time, as long as you pick your battles (Dith Stealth Helps) and take out smiters and the like quickly.

[Lasty]

I mostly take Dith for the defensive bonuses. Decreased enemy accuracy, stealth, fog, and shadow form for extreme defense. The shadow mimic offensive bonus is nice, but to me secondary.

I do agree that Dith is not the best stabber god, but Dith is quite good for many other characters.

[Reptisaurus]

I dunno... There's something cool about having ++++++++++ stealth in storm dragon armor.

And I really like Dith as a hexer God. The extra 25 (ish)% chance that every single target hex lands is hugely significant, especially against big groups of enemies.

[TonberryJam]

What about Shadow Jump + stab anything asleep, and play as a summoner? no hexes.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

If you're a summoner, you don't need to shadow step / stab anything. You are probably better off just summoning stuff. Shadow stepping into unexplored territory can be dangerous even though it works most of the time with Dith.

[crate]

Dith is really the perfect AM god, except for the whole silly fire conduct thing (but at least branded ammo is gone so that's a bit less of a problem now).

[stoneychips]

I'm not sure how much has changed for Dith with 0.18, but I recall in 0.17 there were some rather successful Minotaurs of Dith. I got one down into somewhere in Depths or Vaults myself. Stabbing with a battleaxe was quite fun too.

Imo (a marginally experienced one mind you) the Shadow Mimic passive is quite impressive... The only question is whether you'd be better off with some other utility or superpower a different deity can grant that particular character. And yes, it's good for launching more missiles, too.

[dowan]

It's funny to see such wildly divergent ideas of dith's power, but it's not surprising. If you take him as the 'stabber' god, you get some nice tricks, but he just makes you a bit better at what you were already good at. You're sneaky? Now you're super sneaky. Plus you can shadow step, and get even more stabs, although of course they might wake up!

So as a sneaky stabber god, he's decent, but he doesn't offer anything new really.

However, on a ranged character, be it conjurations, throwing, bows, whatever, he really shines. You can easily be quite stealthy, which is handy for everyone, and shadow mimic just means more offensive power. Add to that the umbra effect, which makes you harder to hit, and the fact that you sometimes bleed fog, and you become much more survivable.

Basically, I think Dith is very redundant with a stabber. Crawl is a game where you want lots of tricks, to respond to different situations, not just one trick you're really good at, because that one trick is going to fail sooner or later. Stabbing is nice, but sometimes you need to kill something you can't stab.

[MainiacJoe]

So, a bit tangential: my FWIW list of good stabber gods based on what they give you to kill things you can't stab:

Pray-now tier:
Makh: both summons and destruction are backups for not stabbing, plus heal-on-kill
Pak: Use evocables on it
Trog if not En: Bros. (Also gives needles for that kind of stabbing)

Explore one more level first:
Nemelex: Use cards on it
Kiku: get destructive spells, create allies

Explore two more levels first Tier:
Sif & Veh: get destructive spells
Beogh & Yred: create/recall allies to deal with it

[genericpseudonym]

If you want to stick with short blades for an entire game, Kiku is the obvious choice, since it's the only reliable source of short blades that do respectable damage to a significant fraction of monsters.

Lugonu. Except blink frogs, nothing resists distortion.

I think having a dangerous ranged or summon ability counts as rDistortion. At the very least it stops the player from wanting to hit and potentially blink away the enemy.

How often do you play non-enchanter stabbers? That sounds awful.

Actually, Orc stabbers? That's even weirder.

[Sandman25]

Non-enchanter stabbers are fine. Maybe even easier than enchanter stabbers because you are not in danger every time monsters notice you. Fedhas, Trog, Dith, Oka would be my choice (in that order). Sp, Ha, Ko, Vp for species.

[Siegurt]

Makh: both summons and destruction are backups for not stabbing, plus heal-on-kill

Summons are good for stabbing, as well as not-stabbing

[Happylisk]

Pak remains my favorite stabbing god, cause he gives you unlimited wand of paralysis. If it's not MR immune, it's screwed.

[stoneychips]

I feel like reducing the melee advantage to "stabbing" is too simplistic.

Dith does give stealth bonus, which is also helpful especially early on. But often I have enjoyed it more for the ability to leap close to a sleeping target. This can make a big difference for a melee character who might otherwise have to run across open ground against a ranged opponent.

And just (a bit repetitive, but)... More frequent attacks!

The flip side is that melee characters are not always good at Stealth/Dex/Evasion builds and you don't always get the super enchanted Shadow Dragon Armor. So it can be hard to take advantage of the stealth in the lower dungeon, where big brutes often hit hard if you're not in heavy armor otherwise. You still get more frequent attacks, but it gets much harder to leap close if you couldn't score that sneaky build.