The Tavern

Question is in general - I've only won two games- both MiFi Oka-TSO- both 15 rune wins, one online and one offline with no tiles. I'm looking for another 15 rune win with a different species and end game God preferably lol. Working on one offline on a different phone so not sure I could post a char dump - but lvl27 4 runes (just killed the royal jelly and snagged the slime rune-have had some great gear drops - over 15 slay bonus on me right now lol - it's time to hit the crypts and this is normally where I'd make the switch to TSO. Any good suggestions? If I end up another stupid death I'd like a game plan for my next run - hoping this guy can go all the way though.

Best late game god for gargoyle is TSO. Other options are Zin, Makhleb, maybe Lugonu and Ru. Oka is fine too, finesse is better than haste for fighting.

I've considered trying to take oka all the way. I can pretty much spam his two skills and keep full piety

Oka, TSO, Zin, or Makhleb from Oka. Trog and Kiku are good too, but Trog is similar enough to Oka to not be worth the wrath, and you're probably not going to go heavy Necro at this point (and does torment resistant from Gr stack with Kiku?). Lucy could be good for escaping by sending yourself to the Abyss, but Zin's Sanctuary seems stronger and you get Zin's other abilities too (Does Banish work on anything important in post-end?).

I've tried makhleb and like the healing from kills. I've never really messed with Zin. I needl to look up his abilities

Whatever god you got the first three runes with is strong enough for the remaining twelve.

Hellions, tormentors, sixfirhys, and all the enemy demonspawn classes (Warmonger, Blood Saint, etc.) have MR 60, same as naga mage. Pretty easy to beat with banish, which requires LOF but has full LOS range. Distortion weapons can still banish anything in Pan/Hells, of course — Lugonu lets you swap between a disto weapon and anything else you want to wield.

Corruption is among the strongest abilities in the game and remains so in extended. And you can self-abyss to get out of trouble.

So yeah, Lugonu is very solid in extended.

Obviously this is true, but "strong enough" is not the same as "the best". Also Fed and Yred (expecially before 0.19a) lose a lot in extended, so I'd almost surely dump them.

Now on the subject:
Okawaru becomes less useful due to few reasons. Heroism is less useful when your skills are high enough. Finesse is less appealing with infinite haste. Gifts don't do anything when you already have good gear. While it's still OK to do extended with him, there are better options, the top being Makhleb and the good gods. Which of these will be the best for you depends on your character.

Ru is also good for melee, if you make the right sacrifices.

1. at max piety: 100% mutation resistance

2. Vitalization: among other things: stat boost by invo/3
That's +9 to each stat at 27 invo.

3. Sanctuary (at high piety): you've brought yourself into a situation where you know that you'll most likely die next turn and even a CBlink won't save you ?
That's what sanctuary is for: the button which results in you not dying even when playing badly

Recite is nice, yes, Imprison, too, but 3. and 2. are what makes ZIN an excellent endgame god.
It costs a lot of exp to get these abilities or high invo, too, so ZIN is not that good (rather bad) for early or mid game.
End game/Extended is where ZIN shines.

I agree that Zin is great. With high Invocations, Recite kills (pillar of salt), paralyzes, or confuses like half of any Pan/Hell mob and gives the rest less powerful debuffs (corona, daze, etc). And Recite's only cost is breath.

Vitalization is strong just for the stat boosts, but its primary purpose is to protect you from negative statuses. This is great in Tomb (and those annoying little green x's in Abyss that give Sickness). Vitalization is also good if you don't have poison resistance: activate it when Green Deaths etc come into view.

Honestly, I don't use Imprison. I'm sure it has good uses, but I haven't figured it out.

Sanctuary gives you several free turns to chug HWs or teleport, plus blasts monsters with holy wrath.

And the passive mutation resistance makes extended much less annoying for me.

For me, the big competitor to Zin is TSO. The biggest deciding factor for me is whether I need more rN from TSO to take some of the sting out of torment. TSO's healing for evil kills is strong as are the angel summons, both of which I miss when picking Zin. Cleaning Flame is strong, but I don't miss it with Zin. On the other hand, Zin doesn't hurt your stealth, plus all the benefits of his abilities, most important of which is Sanctuary. His food conduct is annoying, though.

When picking Zin, always take the basically free detour to TSO if you need a weapon of holy wrath. Zin's donate half of gold ability gives you piety quickly at a time when you probably don't have much use for gold since you've bought everything you want (or buy right before donating).

EDIT: And train as much Invocations as you can with Zin and Recite often, except when you don't want to make noise.

True (and in every other case very important), but this was about a melee gargoyle.
A gargoyle is already immune to most things vitalization is good for.
I pointed to the stat boost because even for a gargoyle vitalization is excellent.

tormentor/malmutator/fiend enters LoS->imprison

alternatively, imprison pan/hell lords and just walk past them and take the rune