The Tavern

I was curious when the best time to pick Jivya was. I have been wanting to make a troll and go with him just for the hell of it but the wiki says the jellies will kill everything and eat all the items on the floors if I get it too early and I will be gimped. I don't really like switching gods but I heard Oka is good for that since all he does is drop creatures at inopportune moments. Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.

If you are going for mutations, you could try Nemelex and shoot for Helix cards. I went this route when I was testing Jiyva and spent about 100,000 turns in the Slime Pits and 50,000 in the Temple. Wrath was hardly noticeable (note I was a XL27 Spriggan so nutrition wasn't a problem and I was high level already).

Just go Jiyva when you find the altar. You will miss some items but that's not a big deal since in return you get an irresistible one-hit-kill attack that only uses up Jiyva piety (which is the easiest piety in the game to gain). You might be a bit underequipped for Zot:5 but that's it.

Jiyva also tends to take experience from your character by killing things before you can get to them and possibly not giving you any XP for the kills.

At least, it seemed that way the last 2 times I tried Jiyva.

If you're talking about optimal play, the best time to take Jiyva is when a neqoxec squad has its way with you and you end up with berserkitis, teleportitis, slow movement, wild magic, slow healing, and deterioration all at level 3, and also you're a demonspawn so you can't switch to Zin instead.

Jiyva is pretty solid in the endgame in general, of course, not just in that comically extreme example. Once you've already gotten your equipment in order, her main drawback is no longer a concern and you just get selective immunity to bad mutations, free summons when you take damage, REALLY rapid regeneration, and so on.

If you pick her up early on, however, she's a borderline unplayable joke god along the lines of Xom or Chei. It'll be an interesting game with its own style, to be sure, but it sure won't be an easy one.

Jiyva is actually quite strong all game imo. The game will actually be easier than normal until you have to go to zot since you have an irresistible one-hit-kill attack that only uses piety (which is absurdly easy to gain), and you get Makhleb-like healing. But it doesn't work on orbs of fire or elec golems so you'll need to find some way to handle them before you get to zot.

and since "some way to handle them" is often as easy as "rF+ and a potion of resistance, plus willingness to ninja," even that isn't too much of a concern.

Except if you've had Jiyva long enough, the first two of those things were probably eaten before you could get them.

Oh, right. I forgot that jiyva eats every single item ever (including shops) and it's impossible to pick anything up ever.

...wait. Actually, no. Reduced loot != no loot.

Don't the jellies eat gold too?

reduced gold != no gold, and the Orcish Mines are a good source

They're a GREAT source till you enter them while worshiping Jiyva.

You should go play a Jiyva game sometime.

Did I miss something? How early can you actually manage to pick up Jiyva that you would have her in Orc?

Sometimes you can find her altar on D:2. Kind of rare, though.

Find the early altar guarded by three slimes (usually before temple /lair / orc, if it generates at all), or clear the lair and find the altar waiting outside the pits. Either way, Slime God before Orc. Granted, this does take a bit of luck...

Wait, guys, I have a way to guarantee an early Jivva altar. Go AK, trawl the abyss for a slimy altar. Somehow don't die beforehand, or getting out. Enjoy your D:1 slime god and lucky wrath!