Wednesday, 2nd August 2017, 21:59 by Reptisaurus
I've been playing Qazal and Ru exclusively, and I'm thinking Qazal is stronger than Ru, and far, faaaaarrrr, faaaaaaarrrr - like 20 orders of magnitude - better than atheist.
Ru defintely has better active abilities, but not only can you not spam them, you can only use one of them per encounter. Spamming the shit out of Elemental force and upheaval are better than your one use of power leap. Apocalypse is way better than disaster area, of course, but if costs more magic points, drains you, and (again!) you can't spam it.
(PRoposal: Qazal abilities should not cost magic points.)
Ru's attack passives are great, but Qazal's work even when monsters are just walking towards you and not attacking you. A luckly lightning strike will kill enemies while you're just running for the stairs.
On top of that, between repel missiles and bonus shields, Qaz offers up a major bonus to defense. Overall, whole package, I think Qaz' passives are just slightly better.
Qazal Noise is a problem, and the net effect is that there is a huge reward for exaggerate caution - but in a lot of ways this just rewards you more for playing optimally/well.
And if you want the noise to go down, just spam your abilities 'till your out of piety. It's stupid, but it will keep you alive if you're trying for the abyssal rune.
Ru is definitely faaaaarrrr better in extended, but I gotta dispute THE BEST.
1) Either you're walking around not being able to read scrolls (this killed my last Ru character in extended) or drink potions, or with no summoning/allies/translocations or no wands or permanent innaccuracy or SOMETHING that most characters use to stay alive. If you even make it that far. )You might think that Rfire - and RCold - don't matter, but the latter has killed me more than once. I don't know how that sphinx simalcrum even GOT hasted, I didn't think that was possible.)
2) Or you got extremely lucky...
3) Or you spent the whole freaking game waiting for the right sacrifices. Getting that 3rd star of piety on depths 2 means that you're getting way, way, less out of your God abilities for most of the game than you would with... pretty much anyone who isn't Xom. You CAN build a kick-ass build with Ru for extended, but to do so means that you're at a huge disadvantage for something like the first 2/3rds in the game.
Qazal is a terribly designed God. (Someone here called 'em "Stairs, the God" which seems accurate) and the Ru is the best God, conceptually, in the entire game.
But Qazal is simpler, and Qazal is better for a lair branch 3 runer.