I've given up using the altars. There seems to be a better-than-even chance that my gear will be cursed, and the bonuses I do get are rarely high enough to be worth anything to me. The only decent strategy at this point is to keep an eye out for gear that is comparable to what I have now, and then throw it on the altar, to see if I can get a marginal upgrade.. but that involves either hauling around extra items or remembering where I left them. Does anyone know if there's a hidden variable that Krong tracks as to whether or not he's pleased? I know he seems super-irritated if you give him an item with a lot of stats on it, or an artifact, but he gets displeased even with super basic gear sometimes.
Get your timing straight, you should never interrupt Krong when he's reading a book. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuRuwR2JSXI
It's especially bad because I've had him curse equipment I crafted myself. You'd think that Krong would look favorably upon that sort of thing - he seems to be a DIY type god.
You can always just get archaelogy and learn the skill to reroll an artifact. Krong cursed your item? Just reroll it till you get something better.
Krong does help those that help themselves, he just requires you to be an archaeologist! Every one of those negative stats can be turned into a positive stat! The same is true of those golems and traps that corrupt your items. I've already got a mace that does 90 points of damage!
I'm not sure if this is a coincidence; however, I maxed out archeology, and, out of 10 shrines (with ritual) I have not received one curse. Thus, I have been wondering...
I have always had the impression that he will never curse non-artifacts and the more often you imbue an item on one of his altars, the higher is the chance that he'll curse it. Sadly the improvements are often only marginal, yet the curse often renders the item useless.
For the record, I'm pretty sure the Archaeologist's rerolling ability still keeps the same total number of positive and negative modifiers, it just shuffles them around (and it eventually starts adding new negative ones if you use it too much). So it can't completely uncurse the item, but you can hopefully change the negative attribute to something less harmful. With regards to Krong, it'd be nice if you were guaranteed at least one blessing on a fresh item. Having him get pissed for buffing one item too many times makes sense, but it's annoying getting screwed over on your very first attempt. EDIT: "I have always had the impression that he will never curse non-artifacts and the more often you imbue an item on one of his altars, the higher is the chance that he'll curse it." As far as I can tell, the odds of cursing the item instead of blessing it increases the more attributes the item already has. He doesn't actually care whether or not those attributes came from HIM or not, though, and if you get unlucky he can curse damn near anything, no matter how unmagical it is. (Well, maybe it's impossible for him to curse a totally mundane item, but I've personally had him curse a really lousy artifact with only one stat point on it.)
It seriously pissed me off when i bought a new shiny not buffed boney axe and krong decided to curse it for -4 damage and -1 necro damage. Krong-dammit all.
>Well, maybe it's impossible for him to curse a totally mundane item Nope, I've dumped a plastic ring on the altar and he was displeased and gave it minus health and dodge (Clearly plastic is heathen crafting material!)
I've found that cursing stuff is relatively rare (then again, maybe Krong and I are just BFFs). I don't have hard numbers, but it seems like you'll get a curse maybe 1 out of 6 to 10 times or so. Of course, that one time can really spoil your day.
I've been cursed a couple-three times in a row. Krong must've had a bad day. Or he'd been dumping on me so much, I think he lost the feeling in his legs while sitting on his throne and couldn't get up.
Recently I have been putting non artifact items on, say a gladius. And it will turn it into an artifact which I can then try to reroll with archaeology.
No, the Archaeologist's rerolling ability does not keep the same total number of positive and negative modifiers. Try it a few times and you will often get items that were previously cursed but have no negative modifiers at all. However, there is a type of bonus that can be assigned that grants +2 to two stats in exchange for -1 to one stat (instead of the regular +1 to one stat). The more you enchant a single item the more likely you are to have some of these slots filled with these mixed blessings. By the time you get 40+ enchantment slots on the same item you can get a pretty wide mix.
Wow, yeah archaeology is probably too good. Without it I would skip Krong because it has ruined like 1/4 items for me and losing one is more than 4 times as worse as getting the bonus. With archaeology reroll and krong recharge I have +2 damage, +2 resistance, and +3 secondary skills that I would not have without archaeology at character level 5. If a linear extrapolation is valid and I finish the game at character level 20, that is +10 damage, +10 resistance, and +15 secondary skills that I would not have had at the end of the game. At the cost of 3 skill points, that is a bargain.
