Qazlal's Upheaval is a newbie trap

[Pollen_Golem]

If you're playing a Qazlal game, Upheaval is a very inefficient invocation. Disaster Area costs only twice as much MP and three times as much piety, but takes only 1 turn and is likely to hit your target at least three times. After a player gets to 5* piety and trains invocations into the teens, Upheaval is almost completely obsolete. Other early god abilities stay useful throughout the game, so it should seem odd for Qazlal to break this pattern, leading Qaz-newbies to obliviously keep using Upheaval. There are but a few edge cases where Upheaval is preferable to Disaster Area, two of which should be avoided anyway:
1) You want to finish off a damaged monster that is either dangerous or about to escape.
2) You are low on invo/piety, so you can make a poor man's Disaster Area using Upheaval.
3) You are in an extremely open environment (e.g. no walls are visible) and enemies are few.

This is a natural consequence of Upheaval scaling with invocations once (upheaval size/strength) and Disaster Area scaling with invocations twice (upheaval size/strength AND number of upheavals)

Without diving into solutions, is this a recognized issue?

Please, no comments about Qazlal itself being a newbie trap.

[KoboldLord]

If you're playing Qazlal, you should be spamming invocations frequently enough that you don't actually get the minimum piety to activate Disaster Area until after all the difficult parts of the game area already over. There is no problem. Abilities that you get later are allowed to be generally stronger.

[Arrhythmia]

Please, no comments about Qazlal itself being a newbie trap.

WELL HE IS!

[Siegurt]

[duvessa]

I agree upheaval becoming obsolete because of another god ability is poor, but I don't agree that this situation is unusual: greater healing also makes lesser healing obsolete, and greater servant makes lesser servant obsolete.

[Berder]

In my experience with Qaz, upheaval is the most reliable way to deal damage to a single enemy, in an open area (when not using the corridor trick with Disaster Area). Disaster area might not hit at all.

[Pollen_Golem]

Elyvilon's lesser healing is more piety efficient and useful if you have a several turns to burn, e.g. something's coming for you. Makhleb doesn't trick you into using lesser servants all game long. Completely open areas are generally avoidable - you can usually maneuver into a corner, at least - especially if your goal is to deal damage to a single enemy. The problem I see is that players keep using Upheaval as their bread-and-butter invocation throughout the game, despite its heavy time and piety costs, because of some disappointing Disaster Areas at low invo.

[advil]

This is silliness, and I say this with a 15 rune qazlal win (so not necessarily an expert, but hardly a "Qaz-newbie").

Reasons: (i) I'm not going to use disaster area to try to take out a couple of hellions lurking behind something, and for this reason upheaval never becomes obsolete even through extended. (ii) At high invoc, even 27, there is still a small chance disaster area won't hit any given spot, in my experience this happens often enough to be a real concern. (iii) in emergency situations (one of which is when your last disaster area improbably missed the bad things) you may need to hit disaster area several times in a row, and tossing it off casually (vs upheaval) increases the likelihood that this will be impossible. (iv) neither is an _efficient_ way of killing things maybe unless they are in large quantities, and if your concern is efficiency the solution isn't to come up with reasons to use only disaster area, it is to have other means of doing ranged damage to individual monsters on a qaz character. I have found throwing to be a good companion, but there are many options. (However, it is entirely possible to have a successful qaz character that is just melee + invoc.)

[Pollen_Golem]

(i) seems like you've come up with one more edge case where Upheaval is preferable to Disaster Area. Very well:
4)There are hellions lurking behind LOS and are threatening you without seeing you.
This situation requires a few unlikely factors coming together: you know where out-of-sight hellions are, you're not more pre-occupied with other monsters, and the hellions present a very urgent threat that cannot be better handled by other means like repositioning or closing a door and waiting for them (you're cornered at low HP?) And hellions are among the few mid/late-game threats that might be one-shotted by Upheaval.
(ii) yeah there's a chance disaster area could miss completely, namely if you're doing it all wrong. But so what - it's not like you use only never-missing attacks, like fireballs and cloud spells. Most attacks in crawl can miss, and that doesn't mean they suck. The possibility of missing completely is a "real concern" only if the target can die in one Upheaval - and this falls under edge case #1 in OP.

(iii)...tossing it off casually (vs upheaval) increases the likelihood that this will be impossible.

no, tossing off upheaval "casually" is the greater drain on your piety, since you need to use it so much more to get anything done. That's my whole point.
(iv) The existence of a massively inefficient yet seductive option is a problem. Take TSO. You can't just rely on summons - they're not sustainable. Now imagine if TSO had a 1* ability to summon a holy pig, and it cost 1/2 the piety of summoning a divine warrior. Well, it would be OK, maybe even OP, for helping TSO worshipers get through the early game. But if people kept using that ability all throughout the game, preferring multiple swine over a single angel or daeva, that would be a problem.

the solution isn't [silly misrepresentation of Pollen Golem]

huh? what I'm doing is documenting a problem in Qazlal's design. I even refrained from giving solutions.

[Pollen_Golem]

There's a problem with the naming. People read "Disaster Area" and wrongly deduce certain characteristics. The "area" suggests that this ability "converts" surrounding terrain into "disaster" terrain. I.E. Crawldude may think: "if, before invoking Disaster Area, you move so as to see twice as much terrain, then you will convert twice as much normal terrain into disaster terrain." BUT, this is not how Disaster Area works. Disaster Area actually attempts to pigeonhole up to 1 Upheaval into each visible tile that is far enough not to hurt you, up to an invocations-based number of upheavals. To properly reflect this, its name should indicate proactive efforts on the part of your character, e.g. "bombardment" or "disastrify". Lugonu's "Corrupt" ability, ironically, is more like the switch-flipping ability that Disaster Area initially sounds like, but its name is a verb rather than "Corruption Area".

[mps]

a) At reasonable levels of invocations and in realistic situations where you want to hit a single target, you are not sure to hit a particular target with disaster area.

b) There are times when you want to hit a single target for sure on a given turn. Examples include low hp, irritating/threatening monsters including hellions, tormentors, various eyes, etc.

c) Everyone knows that disaster area is more piety-efficient than upheaval in a lot of realistic Qazlal situations.

d) About 90% of what you're saying here is malarkey.

[Sandman25]

Upheaval, max piety/invo.

  Code:

Use which ability? (? or * to list)
Aiming: Upheaval
Press: ? - help, Dir - move target cursor, f - hellion
Aim: a hellion
Magma suddenly erupts from the ground!
Rolled 22 for 3d31
The blast of magma engulfs the hellion.(damage 17)
The hellion partially resists.
The hellion is moderately wounded.
Use which ability? (? or * to list)
Aiming: Upheaval
Press: ? - help, Dir - move target cursor, f/p - hellion
Aim: a hellion (moderately wounded)
That beam is likely to hit you. Continue anyway?
A blizzard blasts the area with ice!
Rolled 72 for 3d30
The blast of ice hits the hellion.(damage 71)
The hellion is frozen!
You kill the hellion!
The blast of ice hits you!
Rolled 72 for 3d30
Ouch! That really hurt!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
You are encased in ice.
Huge Dmg: -64%(-70hp) hp: 36%(39hp)

Disaster

  Code:

Use which ability? (? or * to list)
Nature churns violently around you!
Rolled 62 for 3d30
The blast of magma engulfs the hellion.(damage 57)
The hellion partially resists.
The hellion is severely wounded.
Rolled 39 for 3d31
The cutting wind hits the hellion.(damage 36)
You kill the hellion!

So it looks like damage from upheaval is the same as damage from disaster. Upheaval guarantees that you will hit the monster once, disaster can hit the monster 0-n times where n depends on terrain.

[emikaela]

well, since qaz is considered to be on the weak side anyways, perhaps a reduction of upheavals piety cost would be in order?

[KoboldLord]

well, since qaz is considered to be on the weak side anyways, perhaps a reduction of upheavals piety cost would be in order?

Qazlal is a challenge god because she makes a lot of noise at your position. She grants you powerful and effective abilities that allow you to handle all this constant extra attention, until all of a sudden you can't. Rather than piety, your survival-limiting resource is probably going to be hp or mp.

[partial]

why do people keep saying Qaz is so weak?

Beefy melee combo^Qaz is ezmode for a 3 runer

[onget]

God is newbie trap. newbies learn depends on God, newbie always be death in the early game.

[Sandman25]

why do people keep saying Qaz is so weak?

Beefy melee combo^Qaz is ezmode for a 3 runer

It is not a big deal to win with beefy combo, it is easy even without a god. Purpose of a god is to help win when you need help and I don't think OpTm or MuAM will have easy time with Qazlal.

[partial]

God is newbie trap. newbies learn depends on God, newbie always be death in the early game.

trog is more like this than qaz imo