Make Ignis slightly better when not abandoned

Back Room Game Design Discussion
1

I recently completed a 4-rune Ignis game, mostly for the sake of getting the Polytheist achievement. It made me think about how late-game Ignis is an empty design space in ways that feel kinda unnecessary to me.

Goal: Ignis should be a little more viable to stick with for the long term. Switching gods should still be generically better but long-hauling Ignis should provide a little more mechanical depth than simply “Atheist with rF+”

Proposals:

Kindled Flame: Every time you pick up a Rune of Zot, you regain 100 Ignis piety. Every third Rune grants an extra use of Rising Flame.

  • Lets you continue to use Ignis powers in a longer game. Ignis powers are mostly pretty crap by this point but it’s something.
  • Could also grant buffs to the Ignis powers for every rune collected, to make them a little more usable in the long term.
  • Rising Flame is extremely powerful and is the main buff from this change. But it would be limited to once every three runes so it’s still not great compared to just abandoning Ignis.

The Phoenix Flame: On picking up the Orb of Zot, your Ignis piety grows by 1 every decaaut. You also regain one use of Rising Flame and Fiery Armour becomes permanently active.

  • Mostly for flavor, the orb run isn’t hard and this doesn’t help very much.
  • Fiery Armour is permanently active because otherwise you could simply activate it every time it expires and that’s silly.
  • You regain Rising Flame because leaving Zot:5 with Rising Flame is an extremely fun thing to do and nobody should miss out on that opportunity.
5 Thanks
2

Already has a safer D:1-D:3 than artificer and berserker with no skilling requirement. Why buff an already overpowered background?

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3

By the time any of these buffs come into play, Ignis is almost entirely worthless and any sensible player has abandoned them. So their early game strength isn’t really relevant. This is simply about making their late game path slightly less deterministic.

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4

I agree getting xp from runes would be fun for Ignis. By the time you get your first rune you should probably have already abandoned Ignis if you’re trying for optimal winrates, so I’d consider it more of a “roleplay buff” rather than a “background buff”

And Phoenix Flame sounds like awesome roleplay too

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5

I like the thematic elements of the fading god drawing power from the orb of zot once their champion secures it. Especially given that cinder acolyte is the common path to Ignis worship. Making the orb run a bit easier for someone who kept Ignis the whole game doesn’t seem too unbalancing to me and might add an interesting choice to some non-minmax cinder acolyte runs relating to whether to stick it out with Ignis.

1 Thank
6

I love the idea. But would their extended be too op? If they get the Orb before extended they would get a infinite Ignis and will be too strong. (Doing Zot with Ignis isn’t easy though, even with the buff.)