Wu Jian

Trunk-only: This article pertains to a feature of Crawl which is being tested. It will likely change before the next release, and may even be removed entirely.

"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 (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

• Abandonment.
• Inactivity(?)^{Need piety decay rate if it exists}

Given Abilities

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

Piety level (0): "Young Dog"

• No new abilities.

Piety level (*): "Young Crane"

• Whirlwind: Triggered by moving from a tile adjacent to an enemy to another tile adjacent to it. Can cause slow. Whirlwind is the most spammable of the moves, so it is assigned a non-stacking, longer duration debuff so players are incentivized to improvise once the effect triggers. The slow lasts around six turns.

Piety level (**): "Young Tiger"

• Wall Jump: Triggered by moving against a solid obstacle. It propels the character two tiles in the opposite direction, attacking in an area of effect. Can cause a brief distraction to onlookers. Wall Jump provides the most benefit in terms of positioning and escape, while being the least spammable, and as such is assigned a shorter duration, more tactical debuff (1-3 turns).

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

• Lunge: Triggered by moving towards an enemy. 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 (****): "Red Sash"

• Serpent's Lash: Instant ability with Exhaustion and a moderate Piety cost (5-7). 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, but given how the geometry of the level affects Wall Jump, it's generally more efficient to use martial attacks even when running away, which combines well with the kit.

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

• Heaven on Earth: 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. 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.

Punishments

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. Instead, moving causes the player to trigger the appropriate martial attack a number of times that averages out to your normal attack speed.

History

Added in 0.20.