The Tavern

No weapon, no boots, no gloves. Kirke, Rupert. Also note I was talking about Lair, Lair branches and Vaults, the latter two are full of MR-checking monsters.



I am playing OgHu at the moment, all I found before Vaults was a troll armour which is good enough for experienced players (especially since I am primary ranged character) but not for new players, also it is technically worse than +2 robe because it gives exactly the same AC (training Armour at this point is a serious mistake) and has EV penalty. It is ridiculous to compare the body armour to something like +4 plate armour which is typically used by Mi/HO at this point, also these species have a good chance to find boots and gloves and actually train Armour while also having much better aptitude in it.
Pillar-dancing with untrained fire weapon is far from tactics which new players use. Also I am not sure why but last time I used some flaming weapon it didn't cut heads (it was a hand axe as far as I remember).

Ogres and trolls are both far more frail than HP leads to believe. With a good shield + throwing trained they can output monstrous physical damage in both melee and ranged combat but they're not exactly newbie picks.

As far as I know, the chance of cutting a hydra's head with flaming weapon depends on the damage dealt, but I suspect the breakpoint is so low that one can notice this is actually a thing only with lower tier base type untrained weapon.

I am not sure I remember correctly this hidden gem so take it with a pinch of salt.

Why use a fire weapon, though? For a troll of Trog, wouldn't BIA or rage + a giant mace be better options?

For the extra damage !s, those are always nice. A +6 giant club of freezing appeals to me.
Honestly, even without a brand:
"You flatten the 7-headed hydra like a pancake!!!!" is a fairly common message with trolls.

BiA are not free, it is easy to run out of BiA if you use it for every hydra. Rage + weak weapon is a gamble, by berserking you lose ability to use scrolls/potions.

With a troll I use large rocks against hydras. Large rocks and wands.

Yea, wands are good. Troll Artificer is a start I liked.

Training any ranged weapon vs them works well enough.

https://i.imgur.com/9ixnFh9.png --> https://i.imgur.com/rIn2SkV.png

Doesn't even have to be large rocks if you're throwing.

Ultimately I think it's a matter of playstyle - and yes, newbies can have their playstyle too.

I didn't play the new Trog much - new being the one with Brothers In Arms, Trog's Hand. He makes you feel powerful and it's an easy deity to love. One of his best perks is easy access to antimagic brand.

He's definitely powerful, but a bit like a wrecking ball. If you miss, you're off balance and vulnerable. Passing out with Trog is rare, but it can happen and then Brothers in Arms won't help you. And it's not just the post-berserk effect: you can't quaff, zap, read, or even use Trog's invocations. It's also unstealthy. It works best when you have several monsters around you. I don't think you can even throw while berserked. In practice, Trog is awkward against blinking enemies, awkward in the open and against ranged enemies. He doesn't handle summoners very well - I think it doesn't extend berserk? Your best bet is killing the summoner. Yes, the extra risk does teach proper situation assessment.

Trog also doesn't have super good synergy with his powers and especially with other boosts. Potions of might and haste pile up because they provide no benefit while zerking. They may be better used for situations when you can't afford to zerk, or to make you fast+slow (negate the post-zerk slow). You don't use other invocations or boosters while berserking and BIA + Trog's Hand is not that synergistic other than buying you some time to regen.

In constrast, Okawaru is multiplicative not only with itself but also with most other boosts aside from Haste. Finesse, when you need it, combines very well with Heroism. A might potion goes very well with either, and remember there's no heroism potion. If you berserk as a follower of Okawaru, it will stack with Heroism, and you can still drink Agility just like a Berserker.

Okawaru lets you play methodically and doesn't restrict your tactics by disabling stealth or ranged weapons. No, he boosts ranged and even stealth! The Heroism bonus is so broad, to make the best use of it you need gnoll mentality. You need to build your character in such a way that you benefit from all the skills he boosts. This means wearing medium armor, probably around scale or chain, so you can benefit from Dodging, Armor and Stealth simultaneously. Don't forget your shield! Throwing or Slings? Note for Heroism you're getting: AC, EV, SH, stealth, accuracy and damage (both from weapon skill and Fighting).

Okawaru is very simple to use and very effective. Trog is definitely a more appealing design, but there's no denying Okawaru's effectiveness. There's no downside and Okawaru goes well with everything except playing a Summoner. Lazy player's favorite. The only didactic value it can possibly have is it promotes more consumable use than Trog.

Both these abilities are more than 12 years old (starting from Stone Soup 0.3.0 (20071031))

I'm not sure it's really useful to call them "new"

Which just means I grew bored with Trog around that time. I had a couple of Trog characters and that's it.

Well, FWIW, he was recently updated to not gift ammo or ranged weapons, I don't know if that makes him more interesting, but he's a bit less like Oka now than he was

I absolutely think Trog is good, interesting and varied.

Okawaru used to grant Might and Haste instead of current invocations. That's very close to what he's doing now. I only really like one thing about him: his name.

Finesse is pretty crazy with throwing or launchers, too. An enchanted longbow can just hit "finesse" and tab the entire end vault of snake. At 20+ throwing finesse javelins are competitive with some of the strongest magic in the game. That is a lot of skill investment in something that is finite (ammo gifts are enough to cover all non-trivial fights though), but this also has no issues with gold scales/crystal plate or shields.

Heroism is bread and butter for Oka but the later skill is also very good, and used together you can spit a ton of damage early on. The reason it's worse than Trog is the delay to get this stuff going and the fact that Trog straight up offers you an RNG hedge (MR++ on top) in addition to winning your early game for you and turning you into a respectable heavy armor summoner mid-late game.

Trog is horrid to play with in extended though. Very annoying to have no spells by then, Trog's hand is too piety-intensive to use as sustain in hell, and berserking in there is pretty much always bad since stuff can just appear on top of you. So you're a good tank with some summons and the occasional burst of regen (few MR checks in hell). You can switch, but Trog wrath is annoying too, enough that I just pick something else if planning an extended run. Not getting ammo only makes this part of the game even less appealing for Trog worship.

For 3 rune though? Top tier option, especially if you start berserker so you immediately access berserk. You can make a case for other gods who give literal instant abilities otherwise (Gozag, Hep...though Hep is constantly annoying too for many builds due to bad ally AI + commands that don't do what they say).

trog is better by a wide margin because of brothers in arms. better gifts too.

you can win every species and class by going trog fairly easily. managing berserk cooldowns with stealth (ex shadow dragon armour), learning when to run, when to trog hand, etc takes time to learn but once you have it down you can fairly consistently go through the same steps and win.

I know this because I won every species and class by just going trog and repeating the same steps lol

one factor is wrath in a 15 rune game. okas wrath is easier to survive with jank builds that plan on switching for extended.