Title isn’t clickbait, I think Trog is overrated. Notably, I’ll be comparing Trog to Okawaru, a god with similar combat focus. First, each god has a restriction that they impose. Okawaru will not let you have any allies, with certain magical effects like battlesphere or foxfire being exempt. Trog, on the other hand, will inflict penance if you cast any spell. No spells at all is extremely major, especially as Trog is explicitly a melee god. No allies isn’t ignorable, but it isn’t as restrictive as Trog. Next, their first buff ability. Okawaru gives heroism, which gives all non-spellcasting skills with the exception of invocations, evocations, and shapeshifting, a temporary increase of 5 levels. Fighting’s HP boost doesn’t apply here. That’s a powerful buff that increases your damage, accuracy, and defense, and can help you hit mindelay. Trog gives berserk, which gives the might and haste effect, as well as multiplying your max HP by 1.5. While on the surface, this seems better than heroism, the only things you can do while berserk are melee attack, move, open doors, and change weapons, and berserk runs out very fast if you aren’t attacking. In addition, when berserk runs out, you are slowed, and there is a cooldown on berserk. Also, nothing is stopping you from using heroism and then drinking potions of might and haste. Next their second buff. Trog has Trog’s hand, which you get at 2 stars of piety. This gives you an additional 1 HP/turn of regeneration and 2 pips of willpower. This is quite useful, not too much to say about it. Good for preventing banishment. Worth noting that you can’t activate any of Trog’s abilities while berserk, you have to use this beforeHAND. At four stars of piety, Okawaru gives you Finesse, which makes all weapons attack twice as fast while it is active. Doesn’t stack with haste, but haste will still increase the speed of your movement and whatnot. This is extremely powerful, especially for slower weapons. Ever want to use Sniper or the Dark Maul? Oka is the way to go. Trog’s hand and Finesse aren’t really comparable, but Finesse can make you attack faster than you would while berserked. At four stars of piety, Trog lets you summon some berserk allies. This is pretty cool, you can’t really do this with Okawaru, but again, you have to use this before going berserk. At five stars of piety, Okawaru starts giving you throwing weapons, which is really useful, throwing is a powerful ranged option for otherwise melee characters, and javelins and large rocks can really deal some damage. At this point, you can also enter single combat, which is great for eliminating a major threat without being swarmed by enemies. At five stars, Trog will start giving you acquirement-level weapons with either antimagic, fire, speed, or heavy brands. At six stars of piety, Okawaru will give you a one-time choice between four acquirement-tier weapons, and the same for armour. Which of these you prefer depends a lot on what else you get, especially whether or not you can find really good armour in a run. Also worth noting that Trog doesn’t care about invocations. This is an advantage, although Oka doesn’t need major Invo investments to work, just a bit to make sure you can consistently activate his abilities. Overall, Trog is built around berserk, and berserk is highly situational, while Okawaru’s only active downside isn’t too big of a deal. Trog’s later abilities are good, but the only one that really stands out is Brothers in Arms. If you are new to crawl and want to play a basic melee brute, Okawaru is a truly excellent choice, and Trog is a noob trap.
I think you’re both underestimating how good allies are and overestimating how situational berserk is. It’s kind of splitting hairs regardless because they’re both very strong gods, but berserk is a buff that is only bad in situations where a significant amount of enemies will be showing up post-berserk… and even then, the benefits of berserk are so large that it can still wind up worth using anyways.
+50% HP + might + haste is a crazy stack of buffs, particularly for as cheap as it is and available as early as it is(very soon after starting worship or literally from the beginning of the game). It’s an “I win” button against almost all dangerous single targets or not-enormous groups of enemies. Heroism is flexible but not nearly as big of a jump in power, and while you mention that there’s nothing stopping an oka follower from drinking potions of might+haste, those are a strictly limited resource while trog worshippers can berserk in basically any fight they want to.
In fact, it should be pointed out that berserk costs 0-1 piety to use, 0.5 piety on average.Heroism on the other hand costs 3-5 piety, 4 on average. That’s a solid 8 times more expensive than berserk… berserk used to cost nothing at all, and in my opinion the cost it was given was mostly cosmetic. It doesn’t really meaningfully slow down your piety gain at all.
Lastly, it should be said that yes, no spells is a strict conduct, most characters who go Trog were never planning on using spells in the first place and probably have very low int. Sure, that’s not exactly optimal outside of trog worship, but on the other hand finding sacks of spiders, boxes of beasts, and books that contain mana vipers makes me sad when worshipping Oka. When worshipping Trog, I’m only sad about that last one!
- Yes, might and haste are limited resources, and heroism doesn’t have the raw power, but you are overlooking how powerful finesse is. Also, remember that berserk forces you into melee, no ranged weapons or throwing allowed.
- With the piety costs, Trog is made with the assumption that you berserk pretty much every fight. Trog is definitely cheaper piety-wise, but you’ll be fine with Oka as long as you don’t use heroism and finesse every fight, piety won’t be an issue.
- This is more minor, but boxes of beasts and sacks of spiders are mutually exclusive, you can only find one per game. And with Trog, you’ll be sad with every good book you find, not just summoning books. But you’ll also be sad if you find a phantom mirror with Oka.
God selection isn’t a zero sum game, and Oka is arguably one of the best gods around for most people.
I play a lot of Oka, and I prefer it, but you’re really looking at Trog play through a very narrow lens. Even without the gifts, Trog makes throwing just as accessible as Oka since you’ve got literally 5 things you can spend exp on and throwing:16 is pretty cheap.
Trog is not built around berserking every fight, I mean you can but it just seems like a dumb idea since you know you’re already limiting yourself. Yes, you have to be a little more proactive in your consumable usage (including anything you can’t do berserk), but that’s a feature not a bug imo. Trog is really built around the regen/will thing… a strong melee character is much more likely to die because of slow, confusion, or paralysis than getting banished. There’s literally a potion that covers the handful of enemies that can banish you before you’re able to handle abyss; if you save it on your Oka for this then the point is moo. Use that baby all the time, berserk is nice to finish off a tough mob or something and BiA is an escape option. Berserk also makes you move faster, so don’t discount its utility for making space to stairs or get to a corridor.
What you really seem to be getting at is that Oka is better for the type of mindless, tabber playstyle with reactive escape options that many people (including myself) prefer over a more mindful, proactive play. And that’s fine there’s room for both, but if you’re analyzing a god based on your shoehorned playstyle then you’re not really giving it a fair shot.
Yeah, the berserking every fight thing was more about saying you have the option to berserk a lot more, and that piety gain can easily support berserking that much. Looking back, I did word that quite badly.
Also, the tabber playstyle is pretty much all you can do while berserk.
Sure, but that means before berserking you really need to retreat to explored territory.
And with Trog, you’ll be sad with every good book you find,
I’m not really sad about any books I find on my trog characters that have 5-7 int. Hell, the only spells I would learn on most melee guys are like… blink and spells that give allies, the latter of which are not available to oka worshippers anyways.
You can like Oka and think they’re better than Trog, that’s fine. But no matter which of the two you put above the other, Trog is pretty plainly a very strong god and nowhere near “bad”.
My Minotaur Troglodyte would be really sad if only he could read.
As for the subject, I don’t really get the hate for Trog.
Sure, I’ll agree that Okawaru has better potential in the long run, allows for more flexibility, his powers are safe to use, sure.
But Trog kicks off right off the first piety star. You get, I’d argue, 75% of value from Trog right off the bat. What’s more, you can use berserk for pretty much every non-trivial fight and still gain piety. And, compared to the * Okawaru ability, Berserk is extremely powerful. Limiting? Yes. Risky? Of course. But it is capable of letting you power through encounters you would have no choice but to run from with Okawaru, or maybe both burn way more piety AND use non-renewable resources.
Trog is a big, strong and dumb god for big, strong and dumb characters who want to have a really strong start.
Title: “Trog is bad”
Title isn’t clickbait
Cool let’s see reasoning behind this hot take
I’ll be comparing Trog to Okawaru
…
They’re gods with many similarities, I wanted to show how Trog was bad because Okawaru outclassed him, you can’t really factor gods in a vacuum, and the same type of characters that use Trog could instead use Okawaru just as well, if not better, while also catering to other types of characters.
Trog is one of few gods that you can actually guarantee having on D:1. One can’t just choose to have Okawaru. One has to find its altar first.
If there is faded altar to Fedhas, Yredelemnul and Wu Jian on D:1 and no other altars. One can’t just choose to have any god you wish for over them. Their choices are either to pick that faded altar or continue as atheist until they find more altars. For generic melee character in vacuum those would probably be worse than Hep, Trog or Oka, but as you said can’t factor gods in vacuum.
One has to take into account what their given options are. After recent god reworks for generic melee characters it is only magic gods, Chei, Xom and maybe Qazal that I would not pick on D:1 over continuing as atheist.
Just because theoretical better option exists in-game, it does not make other options bad as one might not have access to that ideal option.
Ah, that is somewhat a difference in playstyle. Being able to start with Trog is an advantage, but I’ve never felt the need to have a god immediately, I’m fine as long as I have one by D8, and I usually pick my god instead of going for the first available altar that doesn’t have any antisynergy with my build. I probably would take the faded altar you mentioned, though, as I quite enjoy Wu Jian and Yred, and there’s nothing wrong with Fedhas.