Mind Palace’s strange behavior is exclusively an artefact of its very strong negative relationship with Hikkikomori. When we filter out all Hikkikomori and repeat the analysis, it becomes clear that Mind Palace is in fact another Utility power, behaving similarly to the other Utility powers. Doing this also makes it appear that, in the absence of Hikkomori weirdness, Mental powers work well with one another, and the two generally-good strategies are ‘one Utility and one Physical power’ or ‘two Mental powers’. Office Workers’ apparent good synergy with Mind Palace was an artefact of Office Workers being less likely to be Hikkikomori.
I’m unlikely to put in much more time, so my presumably-final answer and a summary of findings for the goddess:
My powers: Temporal Distortion and Barrier Conjuration
(I see very little to choose between the three physical powers for my second choice. Agility has a n=20 sample of people exactly like us vaguely suggesting it might be better for us, Barrier Conjuration has a smaller effect in a larger sample vaguely suggesting it might be good for non-Sociopaths. Since some other people have done Temporal + Agility I’m letting hipster-ism steer me to picking something different. Monstrous Regeneration is also an equally-good pick, but has no real evidence towards being better, and if it involves getting hit and then regenerating rather than not getting hit it might be much more painful.)
Key takeways for the Goddess:
Anomalous Agility, Barrier Conjuration and Monstrous Regeneration are Defense powers. Never give someone more than one of these.
Enlightenment, Radiant Splendor and Uncanny Luck are Mental powers. These tend not to be very good, but Enlightenment + Radiant Splendor work extremely well together for a subset of people (the subset is not readily identifiable by your Angel’s trait system, but may be discoverable with more work). That subset of people already tend to choose to take them/you choose to give them. Keep giving Enlightenment + Radiant Splendor to anyone who you would have given it to before, but don’t try to spread it more broadly.
All other powers are Utility powers. Most heroes should take one Utility power and one Defense power.
When picking out Utility powers, you can do this based on personality classification (ask your Angel for his list of traits):
Nerds do well with Temporal Distortion. They should take Temporal Distortion plus a Defense power of their choice.
Sociopaths and Otaku do well with Shapeshifting. They should take Shapeshifting plus a Defense power of their choice.
Someone who is both a Nerd and a Sociopath/Otaku can either take both Shapeshifting and Temporal Distortion, or take one of those plus a Defense power, both seem okay.
Hikkikomori do appallingly badly with Mind Palace. Never let a Hikkikomori take Mind Palace.
Hypercompetent Dark Side does poorly with Enlightenment or Radiant Splendor—this shouldn’t matter if you’re following the ‘one Utility and one Defense’ plan, but keep it in mind if people request something else.
If you found this information helpful, are you hiring? Since it looks like my winrate is probably only 80-90% even with the best-chosen powers, I might prefer a position as your new Data Angel over being a hero, depending on what the benefits are like.
Some additional takeaways for me in my new life:
Otaku do extremely well (~30% better winrate than anyone else). This suggests that this world is going to ‘behave like a story’ in some way, or reward people for acting in story-like ways. Even if I’m not as good as an Otaku at identifying these things, I should try to behave like one. If I see a damsel in distress, I should go try to rescue her and not think too hard about it. Even if it seems like a stupid decision, empirically the Otaku who are likely to do that end up succeeding at extraordinarily high rates.
Temporal Distortion does much better than most powers for Nerds, but much worse than most powers for non-Nerds. It probably requires careful nerdy thought to get the most out of it, I should make experimenting with it a high priority and see if I can figure it out faster than most other Nerds.
The amount of benefit gained from having a single defensive cheat power rather than not having one suggests that I am likely to be at risk of death from early physical attack. Be on the lookout with Barrier Conjuration early on, in case the Demon King can try to assassinate me before I level up.
Further refinement:
Mind Palace’s strange behavior is exclusively an artefact of its very strong negative relationship with Hikkikomori. When we filter out all Hikkikomori and repeat the analysis, it becomes clear that Mind Palace is in fact another Utility power, behaving similarly to the other Utility powers. Doing this also makes it appear that, in the absence of Hikkomori weirdness, Mental powers work well with one another, and the two generally-good strategies are ‘one Utility and one Physical power’ or ‘two Mental powers’. Office Workers’ apparent good synergy with Mind Palace was an artefact of Office Workers being less likely to be Hikkikomori.
I’m unlikely to put in much more time, so my presumably-final answer and a summary of findings for the goddess:
My powers: Temporal Distortion and Barrier Conjuration
(I see very little to choose between the three physical powers for my second choice. Agility has a n=20 sample of people exactly like us vaguely suggesting it might be better for us, Barrier Conjuration has a smaller effect in a larger sample vaguely suggesting it might be good for non-Sociopaths. Since some other people have done Temporal + Agility I’m letting hipster-ism steer me to picking something different. Monstrous Regeneration is also an equally-good pick, but has no real evidence towards being better, and if it involves getting hit and then regenerating rather than not getting hit it might be much more painful.)
Key takeways for the Goddess:
Anomalous Agility, Barrier Conjuration and Monstrous Regeneration are Defense powers. Never give someone more than one of these.
Enlightenment, Radiant Splendor and Uncanny Luck are Mental powers. These tend not to be very good, but Enlightenment + Radiant Splendor work extremely well together for a subset of people (the subset is not readily identifiable by your Angel’s trait system, but may be discoverable with more work). That subset of people already tend to choose to take them/you choose to give them. Keep giving Enlightenment + Radiant Splendor to anyone who you would have given it to before, but don’t try to spread it more broadly.
All other powers are Utility powers. Most heroes should take one Utility power and one Defense power.
When picking out Utility powers, you can do this based on personality classification (ask your Angel for his list of traits):
Nerds do well with Temporal Distortion. They should take Temporal Distortion plus a Defense power of their choice.
Sociopaths and Otaku do well with Shapeshifting. They should take Shapeshifting plus a Defense power of their choice.
Someone who is both a Nerd and a Sociopath/Otaku can either take both Shapeshifting and Temporal Distortion, or take one of those plus a Defense power, both seem okay.
Hikkikomori do appallingly badly with Mind Palace. Never let a Hikkikomori take Mind Palace.
Hypercompetent Dark Side does poorly with Enlightenment or Radiant Splendor—this shouldn’t matter if you’re following the ‘one Utility and one Defense’ plan, but keep it in mind if people request something else.
If you found this information helpful, are you hiring? Since it looks like my winrate is probably only 80-90% even with the best-chosen powers, I might prefer a position as your new Data Angel over being a hero, depending on what the benefits are like.
Some additional takeaways for me in my new life:
Otaku do extremely well (~30% better winrate than anyone else). This suggests that this world is going to ‘behave like a story’ in some way, or reward people for acting in story-like ways. Even if I’m not as good as an Otaku at identifying these things, I should try to behave like one. If I see a damsel in distress, I should go try to rescue her and not think too hard about it. Even if it seems like a stupid decision, empirically the Otaku who are likely to do that end up succeeding at extraordinarily high rates.
Temporal Distortion does much better than most powers for Nerds, but much worse than most powers for non-Nerds. It probably requires careful nerdy thought to get the most out of it, I should make experimenting with it a high priority and see if I can figure it out faster than most other Nerds.
The amount of benefit gained from having a single defensive cheat power rather than not having one suggests that I am likely to be at risk of death from early physical attack. Be on the lookout with Barrier Conjuration early on, in case the Demon King can try to assassinate me before I level up.