Wu Jian

Version 0.21: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"Follow the Path!"

The Wu Jian Council is a congregation of martial monks, ascended to divinity after battling their way out of the afterlife. Disciples of the Council are able to execute acrobatic martial maneuvers, such as wall jumps, spinning attacks and punishing lunges. They will eventually become able to request help in the form of a storm of heavenly clouds. Followers unlock these abilities through practice, so they do not benefit from training Invocations. The god revolves around three "martial attacks" and the interactions between them. The player is incentivized to use these special attacks in difficult fights, and they're designed to prevent any of the three from being overcentralizing or optimal for any particular build.

Racial restrictions

Demigods cannot worship the Wu Jian Council (or any other god).

Appreciates

Wu Jian likes it when you kill living beings, you destroy the undead, you kill demons, you kill holy beings and you destroy nonliving beings.

Deprecates

• Forgetting them. Piety slowly falls over time (about 1 every 340 turns), and you are excommunicated if it falls to 0.
• Abandonment.

Given Abilities

(Note: The piety levels for these abilities may not all be correct, need someone to verify)

Piety level (-): "Young Dog"

• Lunge: Triggered by moving towards an enemy, dealing 120% of the damage of a normal attack. Deals extra damage against slowed or distracted enemies. It is important that constantly luring and lunging against full-speed monsters isn't optimal; hence, Lunge doesn't impart any status effect, and instead exploits monsters who are already unable to kite effectively.

Piety level (*): "Young Crane"

• Whirlwind: Triggered by moving from a tile adjacent to an enemy to another tile adjacent to it, dealing 80% of the damage of a normal attack. It can hit all surrounding monsters though, allowing the player to cleave almost like using an axe, and allows the player to reposition while still dealing some damage to the enemy. It applies the pin status, which stops the enemy from moving for 1 turn, allowing the player to obtain a gap.

Piety level (**): "Young Tiger"

• Wall Jump: Triggered by moving against a solid obstacle or using the active ability. It propels the character two tiles in the opposite direction, taking 2 turns and dealing 200% damage to all surrounding monsters in the landing site. It makes a good finisher since it can deal twice the damage of a normal attack, and if that kills the enemy, the enemy doesn't get a chance to capitalise on the 2-turn requirement. It also allows the player to escape being trapped.

Piety level (***): "Young Dragon"

• Serpent's Lash: Instant ability with short-lived Exhaustion and a low Piety cost (2-3). Causes your next two movement actions to be instant, and boosts your martial attacks during them. Serpent's Lash can be used as a simple escape, as well as allowing the player to stack damage with a lunge-whirlwind combination, pin the target for 2 turns instead of 1 using 2 whirlwinds, or get 1 free wall jump (since wall jump takes 2 turns, it counts as both movement actions).

Piety level (****): "Red Sash"

• No new abilities.

Piety level (*****): "Golden Sash"

• Heavenly Storm: Summons a storm of golden clouds. Provides a hefty Slaying bonus and constantly triggers a powerful opaque fog, reducing visibility and protecting against ranged monsters, but is also very loud and so will attract all enemies in the surrounding area. The storm is very short lived, but continuing to use martial attacks against multiple enemies refreshes the duration and increases the slaying bonus. It can last indefinitely if the player is able to stay in combat against multiple enemies in the open. Heaven on Earth has explicit synergy with Serpent's Lash, as the latter will prevent the storm from decaying while allowing the player to build it back up quickly. Costs 21-31 Piety.

Piety level (******): "Sifu"

• No new abilities.

Penance

Those who turn against the Council must be prepared to endure death by a thousand cuts. No hiding place is secure, no disguise perfect enough to avoid the sudden spring of traps, the flying daggers and the armies of animated weapons that will ambush the betrayer.

Being under penance while worshipping Wu Jian results in the title "Wooden Rat". Upon abandoning Wu Jian the penance counter is set at 25. Punishments include summoning various branded dancing weapons & applying a debuff (barbs, slow, silence or stat drain & corrosion). Barbs debuff is accompanied by a dagger of electrocution, slow is accompanied by a quarterstaff of speed, & silence is accompanied by a dire flail of flaming.

Strategy

There isn't a 1-to-1 relation between moving and attacking with whirlwind. Instead, moving causes a number of attacks which correspond to how many swings of your weapon you could perform in however long it takes you to move. For example, with a weapon delay of 0.7, one attack will always be performed, with a 3 in 7 chance of a second attack.

History

Added in 0.21.