DsBe^Trog --> Jiyva Viable?

[grocchini]

Hi everybody,

I am not an expert player but I have been playing for a couple of years now and have a handful of wins under my belt, most of them 15 runes and most of them either melee or Tm^Chei.
I have yet to complete more than one ziggurat (I completed one once with an uber tanky spell-less DDFi^Makhleb), and that has been my goal as of late.

Since I came across this post on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/dcss/comments/ ... _thus_far/ I have been toying with Berserkers, aiming at dropping Trog for Jiyva for stat reshuffling and then switching to Gozag for optimal Zigrun.

Here is the dump of my most recent DsBe which is going pretty well so far (one of the luckiest runs I have had in a long time. Ds with PbD and Robust and I found Orange Crystal Plate mail and "Finisher" in D6 or 7...).
http://crawl.kelbi.org/crawl/morgue/Guts/Guts.txt

Has anyone any experience with this god swap shennenigan ? How reliable is Jiyva stat reshuffle?
MNy idea would be to stay with Trog until Zot:4 then switch to Jiyva, start pumping spell casting and necro and learn first Necromutation, or maybe Ignition, while keeping the Orange Crystal plate on and going for the extended game. Would this help Jiyva reshuffle my stats into INT but maintaning my STR high enough for managing the OCP encumbrance rate?

Any advice is welcome

[petercordia]

I switch god pretty often. Usually it's very survivable. If you have extremely bad luck (or are careless) you can die. With OCP you won't even need !curing for god-wrath confusion.

Powered by Death is amazing in a Zig. My only full Zig was with a DS^Qaz with Powered by Death.
I don't know about Jiyva & Crystal plate, and I don't really understand your choice of Gozag (Vehm seems to complement PbD better).

[braveplatypus]

I've done Trog -> TSO a few times.

Earning the experience need to end the the wrath in abyss seems to me to be the best place to do it. Trog has one of the meaner wraths, with the multi turn "pass out" in particular making it dangerous to take to high level areas, but if you're tough enough to take some hits from a berserking stone giant you should be safe to work it off in low abyss.

[bel]

Not sure why you want to do this god swap shenanigans with a Berserker. Why not just start with a character which you want? Berserkers aren't great for Zigs because you want to cast some spells.

If you just want to do one Ziggurat, use a DE of Vehumet with Fire Storm and Necromutation. You can do one Zig in your sleep. For multiple Zigs, you probably want some sort of tanky species (Naga or Ds is good). I haven't really done much of the latter.

[TheMeInTeam]

Berserker has a nice early game, but this sounds like a lot of hassle compared to just picking a wizard for int (or conjurer, only 1 less) and Gozag from the beginning.

It's not like Gozag is a bad god in the early game, it's actually a high tier choice anyway. You have immediate extra survival, access to better equipment similar to Trog, and are already on the god you want to have at the end, without the Jivya malmutate wrath or having to grind off Trog wrath.

I don't think Ds has enough total stats to comfortably wear OCP and still have intelligence/dex to do much of anything in high level magic, no matter how you allocate them. You could with Chei, but that's otherwise a bad idea for several reasons. OCP also seems silly when you're mostly keeping stuff from hitting you in melee and most damage is coming from torment/damnation. I admit clarity is really nice though.

[petercordia]

I don't think Ds has enough total stats to comfortably wear OCP and still have intelligence/dex to do much of anything in high level magic, no matter how you allocate them.

I don't think this is true - I recall casting Shatter in a crystal plate as a Formicid, and Formicids have the same str+dex+int as Demonspawn. That said, it needed 27 skill in all the relevant skills and stat boosts from Chei / Zin really helped smooth out the game before I had that 27 skill.

Why is a Ziggurat with Chei a bad idea?

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't think Ds has enough total stats to comfortably wear OCP and still have intelligence/dex to do much of anything in high level magic, no matter how you allocate them.

I don't think this is true - I recall casting Shatter in a crystal plate as a Formicid, and Formicids have the same str+dex+int as Demonspawn. That said, it needed 27 skill in all the relevant skills and stat boosts from Chei / Zin really helped smooth out the game before I had that 27 skill.

Why is a Ziggurat with Chei a bad idea?

You could do worse than Chei in a Zig, but there are obviously better options (Gozag, Zin, anything that gives you stuff "on kill").

[Airwolf]

You need to get lucky with useful +Str and +Int equipment. Add a few points to Int on level ups when your Str gets high enough.

I like Zin and Makhleb for zigs. Zin's Sanctuary can keep you from dying and Recite is very useful. But obviously, DS can't use Zin. Makhleb's heal on kills is amazing, especially with big AOE spells like Ignition, Shatter, Tornado, Firestorm, etc. Gozag doesn't seem as strong for zigs to me.

Trog's wrath can be scary and even deadly, but it is survivable.

[grocchini]

I don't really understand your choice of Gozag (Vehm seems to complement PbD better).

Veh could definitely be a good option to get MP on kills, and with PbD 3 that could be viable. As for Gozag I'm mainly interested in its gold distraction as I read that in Megazigs (where there can be as many monsters as there are available tiles) it works wonders. Also potion petition gives you multiple buffs at once and with all the disposable gold you can spam it at pleasure.

[grocchini]

Berserker has a nice early game, but this sounds like a lot of hassle compared to just picking a wizard for int (or conjurer, only 1 less) and Gozag from the beginning.

It's not like Gozag is a bad god in the early game, it's actually a high tier choice anyway. You have immediate extra survival, access to better equipment similar to Trog, and are already on the god you want to have at the end, without the Jivya malmutate wrath or having to grind off Trog wrath.

I don't think Ds has enough total stats to comfortably wear OCP and still have intelligence/dex to do much of anything in high level magic, no matter how you allocate them. You could with Chei, but that's otherwise a bad idea for several reasons. OCP also seems silly when you're mostly keeping stuff from hitting you in melee and most damage is coming from torment/damnation. I admit clarity is really nice though.

I started multiple casters of Gozag and although they're a lot of fun they're a bit tricky to play due to spell hunger issues.

I was just trying to get through 3 runes as quickly and easily possible (and TRog is great for that) in order to get to the zigging consistently enough.

I also just got really into the idea of starting with a melee brute and end up with a level 9 spamming caster in CPA, like this dude did https://www.reddit.com/r/dcss/comments/ ... _thus_far/

here is his dump: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lRjWof ... tAVQW/view

[Sorcerous]

Gozag doesn't seem as strong for zigs to me.

Gozag can be quite broken in zigs with the nuke spells you mentioned. Every kill becomes gold - and the more gold you have on screen, the more irresistible confusion you create. I remember a megazig video where it was almost like the player had honorary Ru worship because after the initial damage burst, enemies would have fewer actions. The title was along the lines of "Mummy multizig record" or something like that.

It got to the point where he could just take potion petitions in peace and line up more fish in that gold-plated barrel to shoot dead with Ignition and Glaciate. Don't quote me on the exact number, but I think it got to ziggurat >75.

[svendre]

Jiyva is an interesting toy if you just want to tinker around with combinations, but I don't generally like Jiyva. If you're at a point where you can manage so many god swaps for the purpose of doing detailed character engineering, consider it as goofing around more than the most direct route to win (for any # of runes). God swapping for short games doesn't usually pay off, but it does for extended games, just not any random combination of swapping. Usually the best path is just one or two at most.

[bel]

Yeah, someone did about 120 Zigs with Gozag. They actually nerfed gold distraction in Mega-Zigs because of that run.

By the way, this is what happens when people do too many Megazigs. Everything on the map is "written" with potions of experience.

[Sorcerous]

Everything on the map is "written" with potions of experience.

Why do people meme @gammafunk so much? I've seen it in some older threads, but I don't understand the meaning.