God: Qazlal Stormbringer

[neil]

My only Quazlal game was a while ago and the problem I'm going to talk about didn't actually manifest because I died somewhat early. But making a distinction (any distinction) between friendly and hostile clouds seems bad to me. Just treating all clouds the same seems like a big boost to usability and consistency of mechanics. And I don't think it's problematic at all for the god to help specifically against cloud-using enemies. Also, why would the storm god give a shit about who made the cloud? It just seems silly.

Do you really mean "any distinction"? Because it seems like it would be kind of bad if your own cloud spells didn't give XP for kills, or if enemy cloud spells did give you XP when they kill another monster. Likewise piety, penance, etc.

[Galefury]

I meant any distinction regarding things specific to Quazlal, so cloud immunity and affinity of summoned elementals.

Edit: cloud immunity should probably be limited to clouds Quazlal can make. No need to include mutagenic clouds, petrify clouds, miasma and the weird new crypt stuff. Drawing a distinction only by cloud type (which is something you can see and already care about) rather than by who made the cloud (which you cant see and usually don't care about) makes much more sense in my opinion.

[Roderic]

not sure if tossed before or currently implemented, Qaz haven't been one of my usual gods. To make more appealing Qazlal to casters a possibility is to sustain spells based on elemental schools, probably the school that you're getting a resistance. Somewhat like Vehumet with conjurations or Kiku with Necro, but milder if too OP

[XuaXua]

a possibility is to sustain spells based on elemental schools, probably the school that you're getting a resistance.

Like an elemental school boost, as if you were wielding the appropriate staff? It seems like the sort of randomly unreliable bonus akin to Elven / Dwarven-branded equipment bonuses.

[Baldu3]

personal comments on god:
- optimal play with running and abusing cloud generation and immunity is boring but unbelievably effective. contrary to earlier poster who say he kill i use it to stay safe and run, it is super great for escaping. this is what i did until next point
- cloud god + cloud spells = ~98% of rest of game completely unchallenging. i dont know what suggestions to make but this god + conjure flame + freeze cloud + poison cloud trivialized the game in an unfun way. i didnt put a single point into invocs because i wanted to get clouds online asap to try out, and it was way too strong combo. lair branches and vaults got clouded to death while i chugged health potions with average defenses.
- cloud generation can change pathing of enemies: this is a very cool thing i found since i'm so used to the game i can predict enemy movement in almost all cases, i though this was refreshing
- big noise had very noticeable impact on game. might be an idea to make this clearer in god description, i didnt think i would bring monsters from so far. this could have been interesting but the cloud grinder killed almost everything with little effort.
- no comments on active god powers since i forgot they existed so never pushed those buttons, the passives are that powerful, i still had 0 invoc at game end
- auto clouds killing my battlepants was just so very irritating

I ended up abandoning game in zot 1 because i had no fun in too long. I only used 2 haste pots to run from uniques i never seen before and another to clear vaults end entry, never needed more. Only other spells i cast were lightning bolt, fireball, blink, and orb of destruction, I was wielding a spear/trident/dtrident for early game sissies and last hits. I'm not sure this review is a negative on the cloud god, but i think it really brings to the front how too powerful clouds are in this game.

edit: i propose a change of name from stair dancing to stair murdering

edit2: sorry wrong thread, ill ask mod to move this post to right thread

edit3: i forgot to mention that the noise made lair significantly harder though, as for next posts what is has to do with Q, is that i could cast freeze cloud over my head with impunity, normally some amount of positioning is required

[Baldu3]

Ok just a bit more feedback now that i've played 3 characters with this god on 0.15 . First was human conjurer casting clouds, described above, had a hard time through lair, but was so sickening OP once clouds were online had to quit from lack of fun. Second was human wizard picking up a bow, again had hard time through lair and orc, but after that stomped the rest of the normal game really hard, and then had huge difficulty in pan and hells, quit in hell tired of the mega noise. Third was human fighter that died in vault end, he couldnt deal with everything that was brought in by noise.

One thing of note is early portals are extra hard to get to safely because of the noise. Also it is very weird not playing the noise management game, but overall i found it mostly fun. I didn't like the second active power since it usually made situations more complicated then before but first power seemed to never miss and was useful all game long for the fighter. I barely used the third power so no comments. The real power came from the amazing passives though, especially with the wizard that had conjure flame by the time to worship god, which meant i could escape almost all situations if i could find a corridor. For the fighter the cloud generation was extremely good for killing since i would lure harder enemies through corridors and then fight 2 steps outside corridor. For everyone permanent repel missiles was amazing and adaptive protection good.

Overall this seems like a weird but fun and very very powerful god for a normal game as long as have a strong start for the difficulty of early worship. I don't think i'll go again to extended with Qgod though, it was very much the opposite of fun since i couldnt stair dance pan like in normal dungeon, and in hells it just brought way too much stuff at once.

Oh, also, the cloud that shoots lightning bolts seems to do way too much damage compared to other clouds, it should really be lowered. Also also, i hope a bright person comes up with ideas to balance poison/freeze clouds better, on their own they are mega strong, but combined with this god, they become even stronger. Maybe try to cut their duration by half or more?

[Sandman25]

I used Qazal twice and liked both games:
1) TeAE hybrid who Spammed Lightning Bolt without any worries about generated noise. Very unusual experience. Autoclouds allowed to retreat from adjacent monsters with equal speed, a very useful passive (especially before Te get their permanent flight). Entered most levels from all 3 stairs, unusual experience again.
But I didn't use abilities much because Lightning Bolt seemed to deal more damage with Archmagi and/or staff of air.
2) Spell-less HOFi. Trained Invocations to 27 as first skill, Disaster was excellent in Vaults 5 and extended (easy Slime rune, instakilled Gloor Vlox, Ancient Lich, Greater Mummy, Ancient Champion etc.). Upheaval was a life saver vs Hellions/Tormentors.
I don't think any changes are needed, it's a very powerful and game-changing god, similar to Chei.