Hello all,
How do I use Okawaru’s Heroism and Finesse abilities, and potions of (for example) haste and might? When should I choose each option and why? I just started playing with Okawaru for the first time.
EDIT: I know potions of haste are like might but also negate slowness, can be used for escape from same-speed monsters, and they’re good with weapon brands/effects that trigger per hit and not just for damage increase.
Thanks
I haven’t played Oka in a while, so please take this with a grain of salt. Here’s the order of priority for me. The abilities go first, since Piety is easier to get than more pots.
Hero - they upped the piety cost, but I’d still use it any time I am about to engage in a risky fight (so, like Urug in lair).
Finesse - this is something I’d use if I was forced into a very dangerous fight (Hero then this) that I needed to win for some reason. Ideally though, I’d avoid these kinds of situations by backing up, luring stuff away, LOS breaks & choke points, teleporting, etc.
Might Pot - I’d drink one if I was facing an even more dangerous situation. So Hero, Might, Finesse. It stacks with both making me a beast.
Haste Pot - last one of these four to be used, if it is used with them at all. It’s semi-redundant with Finesse because the increase in attack speed doesn’t stack. But it still helps running away. I classify Haste as more of an escape tool than a buff.
All of 4 would be used before the fight starts (ideally), rather than half way into a fight where I realize I’m in trouble. Ofc, sometimes one has to do that. But my goal is to use these buffs to make a risky fight a guaranteed win, rather than as a “oh F, this is bad” kind of thing.
I play lots of Oka, Blink’s advice is spot on.
I use haste to conserve blink, the others to conserve haste.
Heroism is especially useful before you have reached the mindelay on your weapon, as it can help you attack faster, in addition to the other benefits like accuracy and defense. Its piety cost isn’t ignorable, but it isn’t massive, so use it when you are unsure about a fight. Same goes for finesse, but it has more offense and no defense. Double attack speed is very powerful, especially on slow weapons. These are useful for taking out minotaurs at the end of gauntlets, the final room of a bailey, and stuff like that. Might’s use case doesn’t change with Oka, use it like you would for any other melee. Haste isn’t just useful for running, it also affects evocables and spellcasting, and makes you use other consumables faster, which helps with healing and blinking.
I know that haste makes everything you do faster. So you’re saying the difference between Heroism and Finesse is that Finesse doesn’t buff my defences but the increase in my attacks is much greater than with Heroism? It sounds like both abilities could bring the weapon to minimum attack delay (or lower) but Finesse might be better for this?
Finesse doesn’t double movement speed.
Hero buffs defenses by improving your Armor, Shield and Evasion. It also increases your Weapon skill, which can lead to reaching mindelay on a weapon. Once your Weapon skill is at mindelay though, Hero won’t make you attack any faster (though it will still increase the +dmg %).
Finesse just flat out halves your attack speed. That can make it feel like you are at mindelay, so in that sense, the two are similar. But Finesse can get you beyond mindelay. So if you are already at mindelay 6, you get attack speed 3.
Finesse and Hero do stack. So if you are 5 levels short of mindelay, activating both will get you to half mindelay.
Haste also halves attack speed, but Haste and Finesse do not stack: i.e., you only get one “halving”.
Alright, thanks everyone. I like thinking for my own how to use things/the strategy to use, but I appreciate the tips, and thanks for informing me about the distinction between Heroism and Finesse and how they interact with the potions.
I have an ongoing game with Okawaru, I think it’s a good run so far but not necessarily because of Okawaru, I think the seed is very good. Let’s hope for the best.
Thanks.
Good luck and may the RNGs be with you!
Died in Swamp:4. It was an interesting run with a bit too many options of weapon choices/items/skilling for my taste. I don’t think I needed Okawaru’s gifts. Snake Pit was surprisingly very easy throughout. I uploaded the morgue to dcss.vercel.app but it only detects the 1 scroll of acquirement that I used and not the 2 more that I had in my inventory. For the interested:
https://underhound.eu/crawl/morgue/zikada/morgue-zikada-20240926-224838.txt
Actually, that leads me to a question that’s actually on-topic: If you’ve already got a high-quality weapon or armor in the game and Okawaru offers you to accept its gift(s), what would you do? Take it now and maybe have too many options or throw away stuff (or the gift), or wait until later (perhaps after training for another weapon category) and then accept the gift? And if I have scrolls of acquirement, should I accept the gifts first and see what Okawaru offers me, or read the scrolls of acquirement first? Or maybe it doesn’t matter that much?
I’ve never been impressed with Oka’s loot. Sure, it’s better than the +0 hat days, but that dude trolls me more often than not. So I’d treat his offer like just any other wish scroll. If I’m ahead of the power curve, I’ll wait. But usually I’m not, so I’ll roll the dice and hope for that +11 electric quickblade w/ +6 Dex rF+++ Will+++.
And then be bummed.
I just accept it right away because otherwise he keeps stopping to tell me he has the same shitty gifts ready every time I pop heroism.
My personal favourite was the time Oka dropped me an item with rF- at a point where I was literally on fire.
Oka only really impresses me when I need a weird fitting armour, like a… forgot the name of it… the horse armour. And they have almost always been solid when I’m duel wielding hand cannons. I think the offerings always include at least 1 hand cannon.
Barding. Yeah, old Oka at least was a pretty reliable source of a barding (and TBH when I have won with Oka, I’ve always had some stuff out of them I was glad to have.)
Okawaru is great for getting hand cannons and barding, and is also good for species with restricted armor, due to the guarantee of items being usable. I usually get the receive gift option around early lair, and I often don’t have anything good in auxiliary slots at that point.