Some players say Xom is strong, but others (and I) don’t find Xom helpful. Xom does almost nothing mid-combat, and their item and mutation gifts can just be replicated with good RNG. It feels like atheist with a free potion of mutation.
I’ve never won with Xom and I hate them (don’t love mutations). But this post shows that playing Xom is viable. They got 20 Xom wins in a row. They might just be that good of a player, but in the post they talk about all the good things Xom does. So Xom is certainly a viable god.
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I’ve played Xom a bit, and characterising the effect as ‘a free potion of mutation’ is wildly off the mark. You end up with like 20 positive mutations, where non-xom characters are lucky to have net-positive mutations at all.
Xom is also moderately likely to help you when you need it, mid-combat, giving you buffs or giving you allies or debuffing your enemies. It’s nothing you can rely on, but on average it makes the game easier.
Even so, I would not call Xom a strong god.
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I think Xom is a net positive over an entire game… but, importantly, in a way that doesn’t account for how you have to win every fight and the monsters only have to win one. Xom gives you more good stuff than bad stuff, but any one lot of bad stuff can kill you at the wrong moment.
I won vanilla CK without abandoning Xom because eh, why bother otherwise? That’s why I went CK, to experience Xom.
(As such, I recommend the bcrawlism (stolen by Stoat Soup) where CK can pick a new god but Xom just keeps messing with you all game…)
Xom is (to borrow a phrase from Dwarf Fortress) “Fun”. He really favors already strong characters where you can play recklessly, but you have to have good fundamentals to deal with the dumb stuff he’ll sometimes send your way.
My most memorable Crawl win to date was the Psyche Cosplay.
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Hi, sorry for a delayed response! Xom is currently having some changes in trunk, which will make it less likely to kill you early on (no more getting several tier 3 demons next to you on D2). I’d say if you are 100% capable of winning a game, having Xom will likely reduce that chance, but if you are 50% likely to win a game Xom might increase it??? Anyway it’s very hard to give a definite answer on how good or bad Xom is in my opinion
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I’ve always wanted to make a UC Troll game work, and tried things like fighter, shapeshifter, and monk, to a total of 58 losses. On a whim, tried my first ever CK game instead, and got a one-n-done win with it. Xom’s good mutations absolutely carried that game. I had like 10 positive effects around Lair. I think I had clarity, rpois, sinv, +8 str, +8 AC(fur and scales), rf+, rc+, and ER-2 at one point. He also upended bad fights for me by dropping a swarm of friendly demons down constantly. I now have an appreciation for Xom and am not as wary of taking an early altar for him. I probably wouldn’t risk it if I were ever playing to streak though. A bad tp into enemies early on can be auto-loss before you have escape resources stockpiled.
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The big thing is that Xom isn’t reliable. With the other gods, you know pretty much exactly what to expect in terms of benefits and disadvantages, Xom is very random. I think Xom isn’t bad in a vacuum, but there are so many other options for gods that Xom starts to feel dissapointing.