Who is the worst god, and why is it Hadad?

[Done25]

Seriously, this religion is so anti-synergy I don't know what the point of it is.

The initial blessing gives you a damage boost if you have prayers maxed out, but using a prayer consumes all charges, and there's no way to regain them mid combat. They also recharge super slowly, so you basically can't use them ever unless you're also running Zealot.

[Rithrin]

I think it's less that the ability set is contradictory than it allows your build to go different directions with it.

Leaving the prayers maxed allows for a really good melee build (I ran Abdi class to synergize). And the prayer mechanic themselves allows for different builds. Zealot for big prayer alpha strikes, as you pointed out, but also just running Alhaja or a build that only uses the prayers to get out of tough situations.

Honestly, I find Dorok or Dumuzi to be much worse. Or at least, I can't find ways to make them good.

[Draken]

Yeah. Hadad is when you run a build that doesn't really have a synergy with praying because you always want to do other things.
Or if you want additional fire/lightning damage to trigger other skills/items.
There are quite a few builds that can make good use out of it.

Dumuzki is pretty niche, but he is good if you go for a build that focuses on preserving your minions. Something like a Gala with War Chant. Though probably only viable on the lower cycles. His second prayer also give up to 150 armor passive when at max charge.

I agree that Dorok is probably the weakest of all gods. His preferred playstyle is you running around with less then 75% health, a high inflexibility and no other healing. Also probably only a viable build on the lower cycles, even if extra attacks are very good in theory.

Another contender for me would be Humbaba. All other gods have a level 1 healing prayer. Humbaba has a real heal only as level 3 prayer, and the rest of his kit is only usable for someone that took Master Bleed. Even that isn't that good as you want to keep those bleed stacks if you have Master Bleed.

Honestly, most gods aren't that useful out of getting early game healing and some stats. Almost all of the damage prayers fall of the cliff in therms of relevance pretty fast. A hobgoblin on the first map can have 3600 health. A Humbaba level 2 prayer would need 103 stacks of Bloodrage to kill it with a size 7 weapon.
Ashem takes 19 turns to set up a max grace Vendi for 11k damage. Which sounds pretty good, but there are enemies that can tank that.
Ninhurs damage prayer deals 1500 poison damage max.
Mehtar is around 5k max and you have to build up the charges for that over multiple maps even as a Zealot.
Those aren't bad numbers, but unless your build is structured around praying you are more likely to do a magnitude more damage by just attacking, stepping or standing still. I rarely found myself using the damage abilities, and even if I did they didn't really do that much.

[JackThejil]

Dorok's actually pretty okay in late cycle, but only if you can survive to get the third prayer and are able to load up heavy on inflexibility (i.e. high strength, low willpower). It gets up being an incredibly strong attack and it's easy (if not safe, heh) to get the charge for it. The other two prayers are basically trash, though, heh.

... anyway, Hadad's great. Damage variety and tied for highest speed (though Humbaba's the overall better stat stick), that's all you really need. I don't even know what the prayers do other than sit at 3 charges and make you spew fire and lightning all over the place, though (if I were going to change something about it, it'd be to have the attack procs happen when you don't have full charges, to encourage prayer use, heh). Despite winning probably over a dozen hadad runs, several on 12th cycle, I don't think I've ever actually used one of Hadad's prayers :V

Dumu's fine even if you're not focused on minion preservation, though -- the free cannon fodder you don't need to spend time on praying for on level start is really useful even if you're not otherwise using the prayers. It can easily save you from a bad spawn, same as amir's nomads or the tuger or the druid level start stuff, and that's very, very strong, especially at higher cycles. Might only get you one extra turn, but that one extra turn is a very important one, heh.

[aremtheman]

My best build used Dumuzki to great effect and I have cleared cycle 12 with it. The minions are good and he can heal a lot if you are stacking armor. That being said, I had better results running Humbaba. Just having ten speed and 2 str in the beginning helps a lot and you can do crazy stuff with bleed stacking.

Dorok is my vote for the worst. However, I think I have had the worst results with Ereshe. I made too many minion saccing builds that did not go anywhere, though it probably pops off with a good pain cleric build. Ashem is pretty bad too.

[megamisto]

ive found hadad extremely useful, especially if using the other picks that give bonuses for having fully charged prayers. the fact it spills fire and lightning everywhere lets you trigger tons of instances of fire healing for heals, for instance.

[Done25]

For Dorok, I went with an Albaz Cultist, and that seemed to work pretty okay. Damage was pretty meh, but always having 10 charges of "erase all status effects and heal for a huge chunk" was pretty nice. Came in handy when the King of Many Colors was stacking Doom on me.

[raeborga]

I beat cycle 12 with a Tengu Warlock of Hadad. Hadad is very pro-synergy, particularly for attackers.

[mountainmelon]

Dumuzi can be very strong in a summoner build with his third prayer allowing you to ceaselessly pump out powerful armored dudes

[JackThejil]

Hadad's second prayer, I've found, is farcical in combination with chamakana. It has trouble killing the King, but if you have a few levels of chamakana near everything between getting that prayer and the King dies in one button press.

And when I say everything, I mean it deletes just about everything on the entire map, every map, outside sometimes stuff like arcoserpents or whatever. It's an intensely powerful prayer in combination with something that generates hits off the effect.