Why is the Seraph so pathetic?


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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 18:52

Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

A good chunk of the extended bosses aren't incredibly threatening to an endgame character built to fight them, but the Seraph is in a league of its own. When I say "not incredibly threatening", I mean that they can still hurt you with their myriad of abilities. The Seraph doesn't even have this, being a solely melee monster (I think). The fact that I can't remember whether or not it has special abilities should tell you how threatening it really is.

Pan is always the last branch I do and still the four unique pan lords are threats however much I prepare for them. I believe Cerebov is considered the toughest enemy in the entire game with lots of HP and all around great firepower (no pun intended). Personally, I find Lom to be harder thanks to his absolutely nasty spells (especially Tornado) and ability to heal himself for lots of HP. While Statue Form kinda dunks on Gloorx with the right setup, for the most part he is no joke either, especially to undead. Mnoleg is eh, but his floor can seriously mess up any character without a way to circumvent malmutate and even then he is still stronger than a certain holy floor boss.

Why is the Seraph, who is found in the same branch as all four of these monsters so freaking weak? The encounter with the 5 Daevas in the small building outside of the main cathedral is more threatening than this monster, because at least they can stack a ton of smite.

I swear it's bugged too. It's not as fast as an executioner and it still has a respectable amount of HP, so why does it die when I invoke Slouch twice... The OoFs take like 3 or 4 hits at least from Slouch and they are definitely way faster and with less HP.

Can we please buff this monster? I feel like a badass any time I punch Cerebov to death with my bare hands or rip apart Lom Lobon with a nicely-timed tornado of my own. Obviously, this is not so with the Seraph.

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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 22:20

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

The unique Pan lords are meant to be singularly nasty bosses. Seraphs are kind of "boss monsters", but they are still generic monsters. It's like comparing an orc warlord to Saint Roka.

You could definitely make an argument that holy pan should have a unique boss monster like the other levels of Pan and Hell, but the seraph, as designed, is not intended to be that.

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Post Thursday, 2nd February 2017, 22:51

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

If you think seraph today is weak you wish you'd seen the old seraph. I don't remember how many versions ago it was. Just an angel with little more HP, great sword of flaming and no abilities at all.

A single daeva was more dangerous than the old seraph.

During its existence, it had only one online kill.

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nago, Sar

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Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 00:20

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Six months from now: "Why is Gloorx so weak? Even Seraph is tougher!"

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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 02:42

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Because he can't use torment, hellfire, or summon anything that can. The player character is effectively impervious to most normal attacks in extended unless they don't have rC, so the seraph isn't going to kill many people without a way to ignore AC/EV or drastically cut HP in 1 turn.
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Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 04:56

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Seraph can summon holy allies and I think it can buff them as well.

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Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 05:35

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

  Code:
Vanquished Creatures
15 seraphim


No, please don't make Seraph similar to Cerebov.
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nago, Sar

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Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 06:31

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

How did you encounter more than one? Is that from a ziggurat?

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Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 07:18

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

PowerOfKaishin wrote:How did you encounter more than one? Is that from a ziggurat?


I got 12 runes during orb run.
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Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 08:09

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

If they made Seraphs hard then that muslim sword of jihad troll guy might show up again and get them renamed to something less Christian

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Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 08:14

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Except every Christian reference is still in the game because no dev thought that could be a problem.
(I disagree with the reasoning behind the renaming of that fucking sword, I'm not claiming everything should be renamed)
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok

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Post Saturday, 4th February 2017, 12:28

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Give seraphs holy tornado.

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Post Saturday, 4th February 2017, 20:44

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Is there any compelling reason to keep seraphim and cherubim in the game at all? I get that a bunch of forced holy monsters were added because some devs wanted to have enough holy monsters to make a branch, but now people have realized that's a bad idea and a lot of the trash has been taken out (blessed toes, shedu, silver stars, paladins, and I assume apises are only still around because of someone's dual-holiness fetish). Finish the job and get rid of holy pan, imo.

lethediver wrote:If they made Seraphs hard then that muslim sword of jihad troll guy might show up again and get them renamed to something less Christian
nago wrote:Except every Christian reference is still in the game because no dev thought that could be a problem.
(I disagree with the reasoning behind the renaming of that fucking sword, I'm not claiming everything should be renamed)
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Slime Squisher

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Post Sunday, 5th February 2017, 00:24

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

I said before there that the Seraph was buffed. But how the hell can an endgame character die on that holy level? You're gonna have to play out-of-this-world stupid to get killed there.

If you want the seraph to be any threat, place it in the Depths or something.

If you want to make the game better, remove the Holy Pan. It's zero danger EXP fodder. Most players like it because it has some cMut potions and possible artifact large shields.
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Post Sunday, 5th February 2017, 04:21

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

e: please delete
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Post Sunday, 5th February 2017, 04:50

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Sphara wrote:Holy Pan. ... Most players like it because it has some cMut potions and possible artifact large shields.


Dammit, wish I'd known that. Normally I skip it if I already have the rune.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Sunday, 5th February 2017, 16:56

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Holy Pan is not trivial for undead species...

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Post Monday, 6th February 2017, 06:15

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Well, for demonspawns the pearl dragon breath is deadly
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/papilio.html

Done 15-rune wins with all playable species, backgrounds, gods!

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Post Monday, 6th February 2017, 23:37

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Seraph itself is pretty weak sure, but it can summon more angels, which have smite, and in large numbers can be deadly to anyone. I've died to a seraph on the orb run, so I'd say it's appropriately powered. Slightly weaker than the unique bosses, but can be deadly with allies. It's more of a support character, healing and protecting its army. If you don't let it build up an army of summons it'll appear as a pushover, but really you just handled the fight correctly (or at least got lucky).

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Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 9th February 2017, 06:58

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Seraph has a major breach in his defences: injury bond. Being a summoner, he is usually surrounded by 5+ allies, and if you can hit each (cleaving, evocables, AOE spell), he will die 5 times quicker. Being a monster who doesn't have abilities that can damage player heavily, he should have Cerebov-like HP to pose real threat to player.

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Post Friday, 10th February 2017, 18:44

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

ololoev wrote:Seraph has a major breach in his defences: injury bond. Being a summoner, he is usually surrounded by 5+ allies, and if you can hit each (cleaving, evocables, AOE spell), he will die 5 times quicker. Being a monster who doesn't have abilities that can damage player heavily, he should have Cerebov-like HP to pose real threat to player.

Or change the ability from injury bond to injury sink: he reduces damage taken by his allies, without being injured himself.
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Post Friday, 10th February 2017, 19:44

Re: Why is the Seraph so pathetic?

Or give injury bond to his summoned allies instead.

Behold, the ultimate asshole summoner.

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