Demonic guardian change is certainly a quality of life improvement if you are a missile character but it still interferes badly with aoe spells, and it's still an allied monster in crawl which means all your actions revolve around it.
Lasty wrote:As for which tier II facets are weaker, I'd suggest Powered By Pain, Nightstalker, Spiny, Rot, and Fire. Before tier III, also ice and probably magic shield.
Pbp, spiny, fire, ice before level 3, foul stench: sure, I can see these, although I don't at all agree for pbp or foul stench. Foul stench is definitely worse if you never melee though, since that's the only time it does anything at all.
Magic shield: I find it hard to believe pbd is better than this unless you already have a guardian spirit item. At level 1 it's basically like having at least robust 1 unless you're wielding antimagic, and if you have any mp skills then it's more.
Nightstalker: What. There is only one mutation in the game that comes anywhere close to being as game-breaking as this one, fast movement. Nightstalker makes every tactical situation in the entire game safer by a huge factor, with the only downside being that a crappy spell becomes crappier (iood). It is easily better than robust by the time you reach lair, and probably much earlier too. I can think of no possible reasonable argument for nightstalker not being the best tier 2 or 3 ds mutation in the game. You can argue that scales and body slots are better because you get them earlier, but otherwise, no way.
To be clear, when I say "pbd isn't even good", I'm comparing it to other tier 2 facets. I think pbd is at or below median for tier 2 mutations on most characters (my list is pretty much nightstalker > magic shield > demonic guardian > rot > ice > pbp > pbd > fire > spiny; you can move rot down if you don't use melee, and rot and ice down if you aren't looking at all 3 levels), because
that's the alternative to having pbd on a demonspawn - having some other tier 2 facet. I'm not saying pbd does nothing, or comparing it to some imaginary "ideal" power level, like when people say "-1 is a good aptitude" when it's below both average and median.
I'm also not saying tier 2 facets as a whole are balanced; if you nerfed every tier 2 facet that would be an improvement to the game, just because it would include making nightstalker less insane.