Attempting a ranged DDBe, trog seems to prohibit this

[tasonir]

It seems like going ranged on a Berserker isn't really practical. I have the crossbow and enchanted 500 +5 bolts, but once crossbows went over 8, with my piety at 4 stars, trog will gift ammo (two sets of javelins) before I had to drop my crossbow to prevent being unable to recharge piety.

Being a deep dwarf, this is especially critical as I need the piety for healing, but I think it would remain a problem for any berserker - your summons would be much weaker and ranged users tend to enchant up a single large stack of ammo, and then any additional ammo gifts are largely a waste. Is there something I'm missing here, a (hopefully elegant) fix that could be made in the future, or are ranged berserkers just somewhat unbuildable? You either have to have low trog piety all game, low ranged weapon skill (less than 8) or you can't carry your ranged weapon.

I know I can do fine with melee, I was just trying ranged to alleviate the boredom

[Blade]

Ranged DDBe sounds doable, but unfun. As you know, DDBe needs all the piety it can get, and yeah, ranged gifts hurt that. It's possible to overcome it, but it won't be fun.

On the other hand, if you're playing 0.11, you can train evo for mp. It makes DDBe incredibly strong, since you no longer have severely limited mp.

[tasonir]

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that is seems unintended and undesireable for berserkers to be effectively locked out of ranged weapons...I think I've always been a bit unhappy with the god gift system, as they can frequently be unwanted and there's no way to opt out of them. I'm just not sure I have any better system in mind, I don't know if people would go for a simple ability that turned off god gifts? Something you could toggle on and off, or a once only shut off? Obviously it wouldn't apply to Xom, but for trog and okawaru at least, and possibly also sif or vehumet (not that you'd ever want to ), etc.

[mageykun]

berserkers to be effectively locked out of ranged weapons

Works fine if you're not a DD, actually. Once you've got a weapon that'll carry you to the endgame, you're wasting Trog piety on your remaining gifts. Getting ammo gifts instead gives you something useful to work with. It's especially useful if you're going for a fragile evasion based 'zerker instead of a heavy armor one, since you have the xp to spare, and you're less invincible in close quarters.

But I can definitely see it being a problem for a DDBe, since you want enough piety to hammer ab for healing, and you can't lean on vampiric if you're shooting. Maybe an amulet of faith might be enough to offset it? Or just learn to live without enough piety for reliable brothers in arms / gifts. :p

[tasonir]

The reason I say they are locked out is because if you ever hit 4 *'s, you get an ammo gift, and that gift timeout prevents you from increasing your piety to 5 *'s. So you won't ever get the strong BIA's, have slightly less trog's hand, etc. Maybe it's possible if you come across a vault with a great deal of mobs to get past the gift timeout and actually reach exalted again, but in general dungeon clearing it doesn't seem to happen. DD's are most likely to be caught down at 4 *'s due to using trog's hand frequently, but I would think just about every race would be there at some point during the game, and then you are essentially locked there, unless you drop the ranged weapon. I haven't tried a 8+ throwing skill berserker, but I assume they'd be unable to ever stop getting ranged ammo, as there's no launcher to drop.

So the choice becomes not ammo gifts vs max piety, but being able to carry a ranged weapon at all vs max piety. This seems like a design flaw to me, but if I'm the only one who thinks so, perhaps I'm wrong.

[rchandra]

yeah, I'm not sure what the exact effect of ammo gifts is but in no way are you stopped from reaching 5 and even 6 star piety. A berserker can go ahead and get his ranged over 8 right away, or after getting a reasonable weapon (not necessarily an endgame weapon), it'll be fine.

[tasonir]

yeah, I'm not sure what the exact effect of ammo gifts is but in no way are you stopped from reaching 5 and even 6 star piety. A berserker can go ahead and get his ranged over 8 right away, or after getting a reasonable weapon (not necessarily an endgame weapon), it'll be fine.

My understanding of it is like this: During the gift timeout, any piety you gain does not increase your piety, but rather reduces the gift timeout. So you don't gain any piety, and then when the timeout is done, you are gifted again, and it repeats. Now, there's a small gap in between and you will gain -some- piety there, but it's not much and using any ability or even just natural decay will stop you from going up much. It is possible to hit 6* piety on trog, but it's pretty impossible to ever maintain it for a long period of time, even if you use 0 abilities. 5* can be maintained fairly easily if you aren't using abilities, but if you're getting gifted ammo in 4*, you'll have a tough time getting up to 5.