Priorities?

-There are a lot of things that are good to clone/mirror. What takes precedence when you have many items that are good for cloning/mirroring?

-Changing materials. Between equipment and limbs, what comes first?

-Speaking of limbs, should I focus on upgrading my arms or legs first?

-Wishes. I read the FAQ, but what do YOU personally wish for the most often?

-Chest armor. Light or heavy? I find heavy armor really burdens me and slows me down, but light armor gets me killed when something gnarly shows up.

-What's your ideal weapon set? (Aside from the Justifier.)

1. I guess equipment. I don't really fancy artificial limbs because if you depend them you can get boned if you lose'em.

2. Um, legs I guess so you can carry a bunch of stuff. If you're going pure unarmed I'd go for the arms.

3. Hehehe wish for whatever you find neato!

4. Eh, whatever works.

5. Hehe I don't have an ideal set but I love using Defender and an Ebony shield combo.

Any time I come across wands of mirroring, I use them to copy some scrolls of enchant armor/weapon for some neat enchantments. Clonings get similar use, along with any ommel fluids. When cloning, the most valuable things to clone IMO are SoCMs, ommer cerumen, ommel urine and ommel sweat in that order, followed by enchantment scrolls and harden materials. It all depends on your current equipment and inventory though, so if you've already got 6-7 SoCMs sitting in your inventory it makes no sense to clone more of them.

SoCMs I use solely for equipment after getting good enough intelligence for better materials. That's more of a personal preference though, finishing the game with all natural limbs feels much better than doing so with artificial ones as they tend to make the game much easier. As for which limbs to change first, it depends on how much equipment you've got to carry and which stats you're aiming for. If you're lacking in agility and keep getting stressed if picking as much as a scroll, changing your legs to angel hair for example would be a good idea.

What do I wish for? Wands of cloning, almost always. There are never enough of those.

Chain mail is really only useful in the early to mid-game, unless you happen to find one of those elusive arcanite chain mails which does pack a good amount of armor. If the negative sides of better armor feel too large, you can opt for the arcanite-alloys for the material (arcanite, mithril, octiron). Especially arcanite and octiron have an extremely low impact on your stats while sporting a respectable amount of armor value. Octiron is my favourite for armor, right after valpurium. Makes for a neat black knight feel too.

My ideal weapon set? Dual wielding Turoxi. It will end up killing you by in the end by breaking any wands in your inventory not in a box, thus leaving you vulnerable without a reliable way of teleportation. For a win, I'd go with dual wielding hugely enchanted whips of thievery or flaming swords.

Change material for equipment first, hands down. You can never have enough armour, as demonstrated by Freelance Berzerker's Dwarven Bite of Death.

As for limbs, again, whatever you happen to need at the time. Personally I'd go legs first, better agility means better maneuvrability.

As for wishing I find myself often wishing for amulets of life saving, I don't often get too far and thus don't have much to clone

As for armour that really depends. If you're using artificial limbs you could even handle adamantine plate mail. Otherwise chain mail provides an excellent middle ground. As mentioned octiron is an excellent material, but there are many other good options. Dragon hide is good for boots and gauntlets if you can't find SoCM and unicorn horn provides good defense for low int requirement. Sometimes you can find ommel bone/tooth plate mail early on, those are excellent. The best are valpurium and golden eagle feather, hands down, but that's obvious

As for ideal weapon set... Well, I tend to go with whatever I happen to find, but my best characters often have flaming swords.

Weapon set: I am partial to Saal'thul and a whip of thievery, mostly because both of those weapon types are accurate and thus avoid death by failing at hitting enemies in the early game, and also because both invisibility and weapon-stealing are fairly good attributes (by this I also mean that I like it when I find a short sword and a whip/belt because then I can train these types and wish up the artifacts later).

Chest armor: When it's only a few extra points of armor, like a nymph hair armor vs. a copper chain mail, I'll take the lighter armor. When it's more? Keep the heavier armor nearby, maybe, but I wouldn't wear it in general until I expected to face something nasty (or met it and ran away).

Wishes: While I still played IVAN regularly I wished for levitation belts. You can win one, but I always felt like it was too much of a pain to drum up the needed stats to beat Huang the legit as well as trap his limbs off. Alvers' guide makes it sound a little more plausible/tolerable in some ways than I'd thought though, so if I were to try playing again I might just follow his guide and get it normally. I'd also recommend wishing for artifacts and equipment/items that fill holes in what you currently have (like, say you can't find an amulet of ESP - wish for it because it's pretty handy). Wands and scrolls may be what other people get, but I like things that will last and be continuously useful rather than useful for a limited time.

Limbs: Legs are undoubtedly going to be more helpful since that will increase your speed and ability to lug shit around. Arms will help with hitting things and capacity to wield heavy weapons, but you don't need to dual-wield halberds or two-handed swords to beat the shit out of things (and it won't matter if you can if you can't fight fast enough).

Equipment or limbs: Equipment, because a different material of limb is not going to be strictly more durable than another, while an armor given a better material is going to be directly more powerful and protective than one of a lesser material.

Cloning/mirroring: Clone/mirror the consumables. Bottles of ommel tears and scrolls of enchant armor/weapon are good targets for this, as well as other items you aren't finding a lot of. Note that if you only have mirroring that you'll want to spend that on something that you will have a good use for right away, like scrolls of enchant armor/weapon, because if you tried to mirror a wand or scroll you weren't going to use right away it'd just disappear from your inventory eventually.

One reason why I consider unnamed magical weapons superior to named ones is because you can clone them. Instead of two +8 artifact weapons, you can have one +14 weapon with some good material like spider silk for whips and then clone it to get two of them.

...which is fine as long as you're not planning on using artifact abilities, like for example the life drain ability of Neerc Se'ulb (which was used in Izzy's winning run and is also pretty handy, if stuck on a weapon type I find inconvenient). It's also fine as long as you're not planning on improving the material further (otherwise oops, you're gonna have to burn two scrolls when you could have only used one).

Also, +14? That'll take a shitload of scrolls, way more than I'd believe most people would have a good chance of getting by just finding some and cloning up.

Why do you think I keep wishing for wands of cloning?

But you're right, you need some good luck to get enough scrolls for +14. It's not as much as it may sound like, but still more than on most runs. On the other hand, what are the chances of actually beating IVAN?

1) scrolls of Enchant or Change/Harden material. If I have plenty of spare mirrors then I like to mirror carrots until my perception is about 50.

2) equipment by far

3) I usually wait until I have enough scrolls to change all 4 limbs

4) Depends on what I need. If I still haven't found Mjolak then I'll wish for him.

5) I don't usually wear plate mail, it's too heavy. I prefer very light & strong chain mail.

6) Dual adamantine Mjolak +15

This has helped me immeasurably, thanks!

Are flaming swords worth using over another weapon with slightly higher stats/accuracy? What about whips compared to a weapon with slightly superior stats?

You get a chance to burn your foes, which currently only amounts to some extra damage thanks to burning not being implemented as a status effect (hopefully there is a yet at the end, but I'm still waiting on that...) and also get a permanent light source. It also trains long swords, which supports two-handers (which could be fun in combination with releasing an evil genie in Attnam and looting the swords from his body after death). Other than all that, nothing special.

It depends. If you have equal skill with both weapon types, then yes, flaming swords are the better choice. The burn damage can't be blocked, which is great against heavily armoured foes. For whips though, no, not unless it's a whip of thievery.

1. Clone scroll until I get 5 of each type (except Tele, MatDet, Golem and Charging), SoCM, cans of ommel cerumen (and only that), carrots.

2. Limbs, but only after I get 20 INT and some SOHM scrolls to get Phoenix Feather

3. Arm, it's more important to fend of creeps thant to carry a lot.

4. SOCM, CLONING WAND, CHARGING SCROLL

5. Light, preferably Angel hair +1 taken from good angels or anything else not affecting DEX and AGI

6. Valpurium two-handed sword and Saal'thul (it's like damage + invisibility).

The added benefit of whips over other weapons is that they cannot break. You can safely dip them in acid and then go hit people with it.
Phoenix feather may be good statistically, but you should be aware that it breaks extremely easily when in contact with acidic substances of any kind. Not a good trait to have when against dark frogs or slimes. It's especially horrible for boots, as you'll be stepping in acidic stuff quite a lot without levitation.

That is a low price to pay for being able to kill Sherry in melle or outrun her when you don't feel like it. As for levitation, I never leave for Caves without it, especially since beating Huang Po Wing Some-Thing dude is so easy in CVS. Sturdy non-metal arms and legs armorpieces should also prevent acids from harming PF limbs.

Which Gods do you guys like? I use to swear by praying Mellis to Dulcis, but today I had a few decent runs with the chaotic Gods, and I was surprised by them helping more than I thought they would. Are the lawful Gods worth it compared to the neutral or chaotic ones? Also, if I pray to Mortifer or Valpurus, what's the further Gods from their alignment that I can safely pray to?


Lots of Mojo love here. Why Mojo over Neerc Se'ulb, out of curiosity?

Mjolak is a hell of a lot easier to acquire in normal gameplay.
Also, my favourite god is Loricatus, second only to Atavus for his armor he gives you. If you go down all the way to Mortifer, any of the chaotic gods should favor you, but stay away from the good or neutral ones. And vice versa for Valpurus, but still keep away from the neutrals.

Also I never did the list so here's mine:

1) Scrolls of Change Material.
2) Changing? Definitely limbs. Hardening, armor first.
3) I'd say legs. High AGI means you can get more hits in before getting hit yourself, plus dodging attacks is extremely helpful in a game like this. Also a higher weight limit from LStr helps a lot the further you go on.
4) Dragon Cuirass in LIVAN, or Amulet of Life Saving. Sometimes SoCM's if I have one or both of those.
5) Light armor. Chances are when something nasty shows up, having the armor bonus from heavy armor doesn't outweigh the reduced AGI and DEX stats from wearing it. I only go for heavy armor if I have a character who was born for AGI or DEX.
6) One short sword, one dagger. Hardened/enchanted as the game progresses. They both have high accuracy and as such are good for blocking as well as attacking. The damage they do isn't great, but skill with them and attacking faster more than makes up for this Damage-Over-Time wise. Also, they don't weigh much which makes more room for carrying stuff without being burdened.

I prefer Mjolak because:
- spears & halberds are both the same class, so it's easy to train at an early stage since spears are so common.
- once you enchant +5 or so, it also has accuracy to match the best of whips.
- since it is such a big, heavy weapon, the damage it can inflict when enchanted & hardened is just ridiculous

The main drawback is the speed of attack... with some of the lighter weapons you can get 2 hits in per turn, but not with this guy.

WRT gods:
1. Valpurus and Mortifer can only be prayed to once you are considered their champion. Praying to them without any alignment training/god-specific sucking-up at all tends to result in instant death. In the event you do pull that off, Valpurus will give you either a two-handed valpurium sword or a valpurium shield while Mortifer will give you Neerc Se'ulb, as well as maybe a pet angel. Prayer cooldown period for both of them have been clocked as around 50 hours vs. the 3 for other gods, so their help is limited even more than the nature of their gifts would suggest (although in order to get the best possible ending, you must be Valpurus' champion on top of possessing Petrus' left nut and having the Shirt of the Golden Eagle - good luck with slaying Petrus and Oree for those, though). As for your actual question, I believe I recall someone claiming that there was some kind of spread you could work with along the lines that you could have three gods more lawful and three gods more chaotic with one in the middle or something like that without having any negative god relations through prayer, but I don't recall it that well, so I'll just say that in the event you were going to revolve around Valpurus or Mortifer that you'd want to avoid praying to any god that was L- or more chaotic/C+ or more lawful (you can't revolve around that, of course, since the most benefit you can realistically get out of Valp or Morty is two prays for a sword and shield or dual Neercs, but we're going with hypotheticals here).

2. I never quite liked dealing a lot with gods; mostly because it seemed to me that the sanest way to train intelligence (by reading every book I could find) was also the worst way to handle god relations and I really wanted to get smarter faster so that better materials would be available for changing my stuff into sooner and give me the life-extension I'd need to win. But of course, by ignoring the gods I often got dead anyway. Since I'm not really going to be much help in the "lawful vs. chaotic" opinion bit, I'll just tell you what the main benefits of each god are:

Lawful
Valpurus - Has a valpurium two-handed sword and shield as prizes for two separate prays, championship is prerequisite for best (most impossible) ending
Legifer - Causes a massive explosion centered on you, which is fine since he protects you from the blast (leaving your enemies to take the damage). Also according to the wiki sometimes gives away helmets of piercing perception or scrolls of detect material.
Atavus - Become his champion and you receive an arcanite plate mail, which comes with 18 AV and is thus one of the nicest gifts you can get (it's also very light and thus not hard on the movement speed). Might give away a chest with random stuff in it too, but most of the time does nothing.
Dulcis - Mostly known for her taming effect, which results in everything next to you getting made into your pet. She may also give you a scroll of taming, a Lyre of Charm, a Horn of Bravery, or a Magic Whistle, but I've usually just gotten the song.
Seges - Is generally only useful if you're starving, as then he'll fill your belly to satiated. Piss him off if you want to starve to death.
Sophos - Teleports you to another part of the level. A ring of teleport control won't affect this mode of travel at all (and so Sophos transport is not recommended save perhaps when in dire straits that prevent simply taking off said ring and reading a scroll of teleportation).

Neutral
Silva - Summons pet wolves to do your bidding if above ground, and causes a level-wide earthquake while underground which destroys traps, explodes mines, and causes damage to the walls. Not my favorite goddess by a long shot.
Loricatus - Can harden anything you have equipped in your weapon slot, give you a scroll of repair or repair anything you have equipped that's broken. A very handy god to pray to IMO.
Mellis - Fills empty cans and bottles (up to 5 at a time) with random food/liquid. Sometimes you can get ommel fluids this way. Also sometimes boosts your relationship with other gods (or spreads rumors if pissed). Also very handy for both staving off starvation and putting more healing liquid/antidote liquid/troll blood in your game.

Chaotic
Cleptia - Will bestow haste, invisibility, or ESP on you depending on what you already have (in that order: thus if you have haste, you get invisibility, and if you have that too, ESP). Obvious benefits are obvious (and likely to add to monster difficulty if improperly applied).
Nefas - May grant you the use of one of her mistresses if you have her favor, said mistresses make strong and bloodthirsty pets - good for survival, bad for weapon experience/stat gain.
Scabies - Gives everyone on the level leprosy. Useless against those who don't use the limb system, and awful for the player character given the chances you'll catch the disease yourself (unless I guess you abandon the level for a while while everybody's arms drop off and then go blocking all the non-zombie bite attacks or something). Also can polymorph you into a random creature.
Infuscor - Grants you ESP, telecontrol, or polycontrol in that order depending on which you already have, similarly to Cleptia's gifts. If you have all 3 effects, she will give you 3 teleport scrolls.
Cruentus - Recommends you to Mortifer, gives you a bottle of troll blood or enchants your weapon. Possibly does more than that but I don't recall (as I'm not a very godly player).
Mortifer - As mentioned, giving you a Neerc Se'ulb is the main reason to pray to him (and having two of those is the main reason to pray a second time).

^Some other handy effects of some of the Gods you mentioned that I found through trying them out:

Sophos and Silva: Give good artificial limbs sometimes.
Cruentes: (Rarely) enchants your weapon +1.
Scabies: Sometimes drops 5 cans of school food at your feet.

Also, Gods will sometimes gift you aligned stuff.

Seges: Ring of Poison Resistance
Mellis: Belt of Carrying, valuable stones
Loricatus: Random enchanted metal equipment

Note that I play Ivan 3D, which I think is based on the CVS, so I don't know if these apply to 0.50. I play Ivan 3D because it keeps track of when you prayed, actually. I find God relations are pretty easy to manage when you don't need to constantly write down when you prayed.

It's worth noting that Loricatus can harden materials regardless of meeting the INT requirement, as it's not obvious.

And that Atavus may give scrolls of wishing. I'm 99% sure I got at least two.

Loricatus doesn't always succeed at hardening items worn, though. How is it figured whether he hardens an item or doesn't if not by Int or some variant thereof?

Blind luck I think. Atavus once gave me a chest with scroll of wishing AND wand of cloning inside (such a nice dude). Popo, CVS also keeps track on praying, but for some reason it is unabel to keep a track on Valp and Mort (maybe due o their 50h cooldown time).

It'd be nice to know whether the code is more precise on that point, though.

Can Loricatus only harden aligned metal?

Yeah, but I like Ivan 3D better for not having the screwed up Valdemar spawn rate, and the darker outlines on characters/objects.