The Tavern

Proposal: Reduce Minor Destruction's range from 7 to 5. Increase Major Destruction's range from 5 to 7.

Mahkleb's Major Destruction is a bad ability. It has a range of 5 and casts a spell from the following list: Bolt of Fire, Lightning Bolt, Sticky Flame, Iron Shot, Bolt of Draining, Fireball, or Orb of Electrocution. Since it can pull Fireball and Orb of Electrocution, it cannot be used safely to take advantage of bolt targeting if something is in melee range line of fire. Similarly, due to Orb of Electrocution, you cannot safely cast this spell in corridors or with various terrain features present, and is troublesome to cast at a monster at range 2. It costs piety. Finally, it competes with wands, which generally do the exact same thing and are much more reliable.

Realisitcly, Mahklebs major destruction has a use case of a group of monsters that are exactly 3-5 spaces away and not in a corridor, and casting major destruction in this case is still a wash at best against wands of acid, iceblast, or clouds.

Minor Destruction is a great ability. It has a max LoS range, costs no piety, and can be spammed as a primary ranged attack for most of the game.

This proposal trades some of the use case of Minor Destruction (which is basically whenever you want to use a ranged attack) for the use case of Major Destruction (which is still more situational due to piety costs). It removes some of Major Destruction's competition with wands.

I am not sure if this proposal is a nerf or a buff, thus it feels like it is in a good place.

It's probably a nerf, because Minor Destruction is available when other similar options are sometimes not available. On the other hand, Major Destruction becomes available by the time most characters have collected some wands or ranged weapons.

I almost never use Major Destruction, because the variance of the output is too big. In a dangerous situation, I can't rely on it doing damage, because it might pick a spell that my target is resistant/immune to. Also it costs piety, which I'd rather spend on the more predictably useful Greater Demon, although that has its own problems.

In less dangerous situations I don't use Major Destruction, because it costs piety, which again I would rather spend on something else. Although sometimes there is so much piety to go around that I throw it in a couple of times for no particular reason. By that time there are plenty of wands and ranged options available usually. And those are much more predictable.

I don't know how, or even if, it would be possible to reduce the random nature. It would help if each spell that comes out of it had the same behaviour, either bolt, single target, or explosion.

Similarly, it would make the ability more useable if there was a guaranteed proportion of physical damage to each attack, say 50%, to reduce the risk of wasting a turn.

Would it be an option to make it just one guaranteed-destruction blast, probably Bolt of Magma, with extended range of 5? That would help in any situation.

I don't actually get what Makhleb is supposed to be the god *of.* I guess risks? Possible self-harm? Demons and random damage conjurations and demon summoning and heal-on-kills and "hey did you know Zin had wrath" don't really have a very cohesive theme. And while gameplay concerns are way more important than flavor, I think flavor can help build a consistent set of mechanics, particularly with gods.

Changing destruction to, say, hurl Damnation for some significant cost (HP, rotting, contam, draining, statdrain, piety, sometimes having the damnation rain down on you too) might be more useful as well as more firmly positioning Mak as "god of demonic crap."

Destruction as "existing conjurations for people who don't train conjurations" is not generally very compelling IMO.

I agree that the mix feels a bit disjointed. Health from killing is a nice mechanic, but doesn't have any connection with demons or chaotic magic.

The god of self-harm is supposed to be Yred.

I think there might be an opportunity here...

1) Create an Yred/Makh hybrid that does life-drain, pain mirror, heal on kill, etc. If any demons it should come with soul eaters, or similar. Remove the destruction powers.
2) Consider creating an Yred/Kiku hybrid. Do we really need two gods framed around hordes of undead? (They play differently, due to the training, etc.) Necromancy is strong enough, does it need a special god?

On the other hand I quite enjoy some of the strange idiosyncrasies of the current gods. Some of the overlaps and ability mixes are quite odd, but hey, it's crawl!

njvack wrote:I don't actually get what Makhleb is supposed to be the god *of.*

Makhleb is the god of invocation based summon demon, invocation based conjurations, and a heal on kill. Three of his abilities are fine, very strong. If Major Destruction wasn't a bad ability this complaint isn't a thing.

4Hooves2Appendages wrote:I almost never use Major Destruction, because the variance of the output is too big. In a dangerous situation, I can't rely on it doing damage, because it might pick a spell that my target is resistant/immune to. Also it costs piety, which I'd rather spend on the more predictably useful Greater Demon

Moving the range to seven gives your character opportunity to use major destruction more frequently, allowing you to potentially hit an enemy or two hard at max range. It still might miss. It still may pull a bad spell. However, there aren't many other ways to hit this hard at max range barring having a fully trained ranged weapon. It also simply gives the ability significantly more chances to be used. The "this can only be safely cast vs enemies at range 3-5" is rather crippling, and the ability's use will open up significantly if it can be cast at enemies range 3-7.

4Hooves2Appendages wrote:The god of self-harm is supposed to be Yred.

Wait, what? Did you mean Kiku? Because I don't remember any way to hurt yourself with Yred. I guess you could turn on injury mirror and get hit on purpose but that would be real weird.

Does anybody even use destruction, if summoned demons last longer and often bring in their own spells?
Also, why Makhleb needs buffing at all? Last time I checked, ze was one of the strongest gods throughout the game.

njvack wrote:I don't actually get what Makhleb is supposed to be the god *of.*

Makhleb is god of demons. Ze has an entire branch with 5 runes in it.

njvack wrote:Wait, what? Did you mean Kiku? Because I don't remember any way to hurt yourself with Yred.

They meant Goza Xom Qazlal Ru.

Lavandula wrote:Does anybody even use destruction, if summoned demons last longer and often bring in their own spells?
Also, why Makhleb needs buffing at all? Last time I checked, ze was one of the strongest gods throughout the game.

Minor destruction is amazing. Major destruction is bad. This proposal offsets a buff to major destruction with nerf to minor destruction as to not significantly change the overall power of the god, and as previously mentioned, I would argue this would be a nerf to the god as a whole.

Lavandula wrote:Makhleb is god of demons.

That's exactly why it would make more sense for Mak to grant castable damnation than random conjurations. It's a strongly demon flavored/associated ability, only cast by demons and some worshipper-type enemy casters who also usually summon demons. That also means that this change would make those enemies make more sense because demon worshipper monsters being able to use damnation would then be consistent with the demon worshipper players being able to use damnation.

Hurl damnation as a makh ability sounds good af. Will implement in hellcrawl.

Shard1697 wrote:
Lavandula wrote:Makhleb is god of demons.
That's exactly why it would make more sense for Mak to grant castable damnation than random conjurations. It's a strongly demon flavored/associated ability, only cast by demons and some worshipper-type enemy casters who also usually summon demons. That also means that this change would make those enemies make more sense because demon worshipper monsters being able to use damnation would then be consistent with the demon worshipper players being able to use damnation.

I agree with the flavour part of this, but I am worried that hp-powered damnation in conjunction with Makhleb's HP restoration is too strong a gimmick. I guess you'd be able to use and even spam it at the end of Lair. Who or what could stand against you?
Maybe it would work if damnation only becomes available from a certain Invo skill, say 20.

Presumably it would cost piety.

I will note that Beogh already gives fairly cheap smiting which ignores EV and AC just like damnation and is quite powerful with invo training.
Not much can stand up to a player who remembers to use powers by the end of lair even discounting that anyhow. What enemy can stop a player who casts oka buffs?

Hellmonk wrote:Hurl damnation as a makh ability sounds good af. Will implement in hellcrawl.

Makhleb is already extremely good in post-stair hellcrawl, so prob need considerable hp and piety cost to keep it reasonable.

How about a damnation bolt? I don't think it exists anywhere else. Or bolt of inaccuracy, I don't think there are other sources left.

just want to bump this cus OP's thoughts on mahk issues are pretty sensible. Minor destruction is incredibly overpowered and could take a nerf, while major destruction is probably the least used god power in the game (can someone check this).

Any of the proposed ideas in this thread seems fine compared to the current state of things imo. Personally, i think a non-random ranged attack should replace major destruction. Spending piety on a random spell that might not do anything seems bad when you could just summon a demon instead.

I really like the damnation idea, it totally fits.

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