Tips on Proper Ethereal Crucifix Usage

[Smuckem]

Asking because I tend to find it fairly early on in most of my saves (very early on, in one case) but never feel comfortable using it when applicable; that -20% Max HP is a bigger turnoff for me than it probably should be, and I can't seem to figure what classes (vanilla or modded) can make use of it without immediately gravitating towards better alternatives.

Suggestions?

[alicerinz]

I believe it's just a bad item.

[Uncle Al]

I tend to use it on low hp damage dealers in the cove if they're not in position 4. Classes like an occultist or jester can get absolutely destroyed by an arterial pinch, so protecting against those kind of makes up for the loss of 6hp or so, while the bonus damage on eldritch comes in very handy. Even a grave robber who can self heal bleeds benefits from not having to spend a turn doing so if they resist the bleed, while a single round of 8hp bleeding is more than you lost from wearing the crucifix.

It's quite good on a cove leper too, as 80% of leper hp is still pretty survivable and he's got a noticeable weakness to bleed. Lepers are good in the cove, because there's often stuff you want to hit hard on the first round in ranks 1 and 2. The fact that's virtually never true in any other zone except harvest is a big reason why the leper is so fundamentally flawed.

20% hp is a hell of a lot - it's almost the same as running around at level 3 with level 1 armour (which is a bad idea) so yeah it's a pretty situational trinket.

[alicerinz]

You could also just use any other +25 damage trinket in the game. There's quite a lot of them.

[PalmTree]

I personally find that it's only decent at best. -20% Max HP is way too much even for low HP classes, and the +30% Bleed Resist isn't that great (It's literally outclassed by the Fortifying Garlic). The only salvageable thing about it is the +25% damage vs Eldritch... which is something you already get from the Eldritch Slayer's Ring for a much less severe cost.

You're better off just giving someone Dismas's Head or a Slayer Ring so that you get the damage without the ridiculous HP loss.

[Skinny Pete]

I'll run it in Cove sometimes or against an Eldritch boss. I don't like it in Weald because it turns almost all hits from a Giant into an instant DD and Eldritch is less prevalent there anyway. The HP penalty isn't that bad on very high HP characters.

I always go for Eldritch Slayer's Rings when they show up, at least until I have four of them, so once I get those, I rarely have any use for the Crucifix.