Uskayaw

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"Surrender yourself to the rhythm!"

Uskayaw the Reveller is a god of ecstatic dance. In the dungeon, Uskayaw appreciates the passion and rhythm of combat, rewarding followers for each strike they deliver and for the damage they deal their foes. The longer the dance continues, the greater powers Uskayaw offers. When the dance ends, Uskayaw quickly loses interest. Uskayaw offers powers that help worshippers continue the dance. Worshippers can stomp to damage foes around them and rapidly move through a line of creatures while confusing them. When a worshipper's dance reaches a certain point, Uskayaw will freeze all foes so that the dancer may take a solo. If the dance continues, Uskayaw will link the emotions of foes, forcing them to share their pain. If the dance continues, Uskayaw allows you to end it by melding with and then violently exploding a foe, killing it instantly.

Racial restrictions

Demigods cannot worship Uskayaw (or any other god).

Appreciates

Uskayaw especially likes it when you hurt your foes. Piety increases with damage dealt. Unlike other gods, Uskayaw piety gain and loss is very rapid; you can reach full piety in a single prolonged fight, and will probably be back down at the starting piety level before the next one.

In order to gain piety, you must damage enemies during an action. Your summons do not count towards piety. If you miss, you won't get piety. Damage over time effects, like poison or Sticky Flame, do not give piety.

Deprecates

• Abandonment.
• Inactivity (loses Piety quickly when not attacking foes, to a minimum of 1*).

Given Abilities

Uskayaw's awarded titles are based on Invocations skill, not piety. They are "Wallflower", "Party-goer", "Dancer", "Impassioned", "Rapturous", "Estatic", and "Rhythm of Life and Death".

Piety Level -

• Uskayaw offers no abilities at this level.

Piety Level *

• Stomp - Stomps down in time with the rhythm of the dance, sending a shockwave through all adjacent creatures. (Damage = monstercurrenthp/6 + 2d[2 + Invocations/2]). Does more damage to monsters with more health. (20 piety and 3 MP)

Piety Level **

• Line Pass - Passes through a contiguous line of creatures at superhuman speed, ending up in a new location. Any creatures passed through in this way will be confused, with duration based on Invocations and monster HD. (20 piety, 4 MP)

Piety Level ***

• Solo Time - Upon reaching this piety level, Uskayaw briefly paralyzes all enemies in your line of sight, with duration based on Invocations skill. This happens after you have completed your action, but before monsters get to move. Duration of the paralysis equals (2 * Invocations) + (player_XL - mons_HD) + 6 aut, with a minimum of 10 aut and maximum of 40 aut.

There is a cooldown of 301 - 500 aut when activating this ability due to reaching *** piety again.

However, if you remain above 3* piety, you can randomly trigger Solo Time again = even during the cooldown. If above 3*, every action has a (time_taken) / (100 + cooldown) * 100% to activate Solo Time, where "cooldown" is the remaining time of the aforementioned 301-500 aut cooldown.

Piety Level ****

• Pain Bond - Upon reaching this piety level, all hostile monsters in LOS gain the pain bond status. If a monster has this status, any damage they receive is shared with other nearby monsters with this status. Damage shared decreases with distance, dealing 80%/60%/40%/0% at one/two/three/four tiles away, respectively. Damage given from pain bond doesn't give piety.

Duration of pain bond is 19 + 2d(7 * Invocations + player_XL - mons_HD) / 2 aut. Like with Solo Time, there is a cooldown between activations, and it can trigger again if you remain above 4* piety.

Piety Level *****

• Grand Finale - This power lets you blink to a monster's location and kill the monster, potentially sending flying chunks everywhere. Any targetable monster is instantly killed by this ability. The flavor is that you merge your emotions and body with the target, then violently separate. Success rate increases with additional piety over 5* (120) as well as Invocations. (8 MP, sets piety to 1*)

Piety Level ******

• Uskayaw offers no new abilites.

Punishments

Uskayaw's wrath turns the powers of the dance against the offender. The prude will find their foes going berserk and will be forced to helplessly watch as foes execute their own solos. When the dance is getting too slow, Uskayaw will attempt to bring more revelers.

Strategy

Uskayaw's piety system creates a unique style of play. It encourages prolonged fights, especially against large groups of enemies. In exchange, you'll gain some very powerful abilities, which should (ideally) make these large fights easier to deal with. This playstyle fits very well with two types of characters:

• Axes can cleave through multiple enemies at once, and axe users often have the heavy armour to stay in a fight.
• Stabbers benefit from irresistible confusion and paralysis. Stabs can deal massive damage, which not only gives high piety, but triggers the pain bond - causing the damage to spread between monsters. Grand Finale lets you take out tough monsters you can't stab, including pandemonium lords, the lords of Hell, and orbs of fire, in a single shot.

Conjurations-focused "blaster" casters may also appreciate Uskayaw. While spells are typically the opposite of "prolonged fight", spells can deal a very high damage per turn, and many spells can hit multiple enemies at once. However, Summonings and Necromancy experts will receive much less benefit from Uskayaw.

Uskayaw is generally a god that benefits from high Invocations investment, which makes Solo Time last longer and Grand Finale more reliable to use.

Tips and Tricks

• Remember that, as powerful as Uskayaw's abilities are in battle, they can also be used to flee. Both Line Pass and Grand Finale are effective against friendly and neutral targets, including plants and other firewood. Act quickly (in turns, not real time!), as piety will start to fall after three turns without doing damage.
• Uskayaw's fast piety gain can be further increased by wearing an amulet of faith. Unlike most gods, you take off an amulet of faith with next-to-no penalty.

Details

Piety Gain

For each monster you hurt, you will gain piety based on the monster's threat and the % of the monster's max HP you dealt.

hurt_val = 1d3 + sqrt(2 * threat + 2) * (damage dealt)/(monster max HP)

piety = 10 * log2(1 + (<hurt_val - 5> / 10) )

Piety gain is rounded down. There is a minimum of 1 piety per monster hit. There is a maximum of 40 piety per action.

For reference, a monster considered "tough" (yellow) has a threat between 6-33, and a monster considered "nasty" (red) has a threat >= 34.

Piety Loss

Piety loss is proportional to the time, in decaAut, since your last piety-gaining action. If at least 3.0 turns has passed, you will lose piety:

piety_loss = (decaAut since piety gain)

For fractional decaAut, piety loss is rounded in a weighted fashion (E.g. 5.1 decaAut would have a 10% to lose 6 piety, and 90% to lose 5 piety). This piety drain will bring you down to a minimum of 30 (1*) piety; you won't lose piety if you are at 1* or below.

History

• Prior 0.29, Uskayaw didn't give piety for damage done to hostile summons.
• Uskayaw was added in 0.19. Originally, it was called Ukayaw, making it too similar with the shortened version of Okawaru (Oka vs Uka).