Learning the new skill sets

I've played a few vegans, the thing to keep in mind is that it's best to be as hypocritical as possible. You only trigger penalties by killing animals with melee, so just murder them with spells, summons or ranged attacks. If you don't you'll lose out on a lot of XP. Besides...they'd breed too much and starve! Thin out their numbers!

So far my combos have been Vegan/Sniper/Big Game Hunter (he hates animals so much he refuses to eat them...and kills only for sport!) and a Vegan/Vampire (yes, somehow this works).

The animal swarms seem to really only be a big issue right now at level 1, since that has the densest animal population (diggles, sickly diggles and batties, with only the blobbies and gnomes otherwise).

 

It's only "cute" animals that trigger the debuff. Batties don't but diggles do.

 

The vegan debuff seems really random when hitting animals. I've had it trigger on hitting batties and not trigger on hitting batties. I've had it trigger on hitting diggles and not trigger on hitting diggles.

It's either semi-random or there's some kinda hidden "allowed # of attacks" value that's built up by being a good vegan and used by by attacking animals.

 

I think the XML says there is a 50% chance on hit to trigger the debuff.

 

^^ this.

 

Mind the double post.

Just played a Diggle Master (Big Game Hunter, Werediggle, support skills) and found that Summon The Hounds is just blatantly overpowered. 4 powerful pets with no mana cost or downtime is just stupid. My CL4 character stepped into a Mysterious Portal, found himself face to face with a Muscle Diggle, and WON by just spamming Hounds and launching a few Ingeniously Scythed Plastic Bolts that I found on the floor.

Now, I did upload a modified SpellDB.xml from J-factor that was supposed to fix the "resisting your own HoTs" problem and I don't know if he gave me a copy from the beta and BGH has been modified since -- but if it hasn't and Summon The Hounds is still a 1-cooldown spell, it's broke as can be.

That's all.

 

Yeah I'm forbidding myself from taking Werediggle until its rebalanced. The mere basic transformation already makes the first floor on GR awfully easy. Yawny.

 

Ok, so basically:

Big Game Hunter - imba (1 turn cooldown summon skill)
Werediggle - imba (huge buff, low cooldown, invisibility, unlimited supply of eggs, controlling dungeons with wall destroying skill and more)
Demonology - imba (buffing aura with Warrior/Mage builds)
Piracy - nobody is using it since all (and forum discussions are the proof, no piracy discussion/questions) skills don't increase your stats at all and futher skills are a cooldown ones. It's hard to keep up with all skills you have especially when you have 9+
Emomancy - imba with Necro since healing nullifies curses.
Killer Vegan - lame and game broking tree. You limit your character A LOT with this, even if skills get you nice passive stats, it's still a bad choice for those, who love to get maximum stuff from dungeons floors. You can't kill(there are exceptions), you can't eat(there are exceptions) and mosters will be in your way. Less total experince and playing by rules is not fun.

 

I have to say I like the Killer Vegan tree, it is an extra challenge as if you play by the rules you have to work to level up and stay abreast of the lower level's enemies.

 

I use it all the time. The +75% counter buff alongside the Blackspot make it the best Boss killer tree I've seen in the game. The last ability sucks, but those two more than make up for it. Put it alongside the cloud ability that confuses mobs near you and buffs your dodge and it's one of the better melee defensive trees in the game.

Just because the 15 people that have posted so far in this part of the forums haven't been talking about it hardly proves that no one uses it.

 

Agreed. Other than the epic letdown that was Broadside, I love Piracy even with a broken 1st-level skill. Swashbuckling is an amazing skill for dealing with nasty mobs. (It does have broken flavor text, though, as it now longer actually allows you to counter ALL of the next few attacks...I'm not sure why, either. It was just fine at +100 counter.)

 

Piracy 's my favorite of the new skills. I think Swashbuckling is a tiny bit overpowered still. I'd rather see it lasting a couple turns less. But its very fun to play.

 

I just want everyone to know that this is my new favourite thing. If I never reach Dredmor I will be perfectly alright with that, so long as I can roll through the dungeon as a diggle with all my diggle pals.

 

Vegan is hardly an extra challenge. Just take a healing skill like Psionics and you dont really have to worry about food. Also its not hard to clear areas even if there are animals. Get the second skill, charm a pet, close the door and watch the damage scroll and your exp rise. Or you can just kill all the animals and dump a purify potion or use a purify skill (like Vegan Level 5).

In more ways than one, it makes the game easier to deal with. Some of the most annoying ranged enemies are animals so they will never attack me. As for animal crowding, charm one and you can walk through it. Otherwise, I just teleport past them with Burglary final skill.

 

You just made me realize that Gaslamp Games has set us all up. Next game they make will be 'Diggle Dungeon Keeper Sim' where you can lay eggs, hatch them, talk to your fellow Diggles, dig tunnels, do quests for Dredmor (slay annoying invaders with eyebrows), see how your Diggle tribe flourishes, provide food, see them eat, date and educate their children.

They will sell 30 million copies instantly.

 

Virtual Diggles
(Virtual Villagers spoof)

 

Holy crap.

I would so play this game.

 

Hey gaslamp! You hear that?! 10% commission!

 

Just like Dwarf Fortress, but even more stupid and with diggles! And cool pixel art?

I'd buy it.

 

Some additional info about Werediggle skills.
In Diggle form, you don't get stats from passive skills in Armor/Shield skills and basically all weapon mastery. Haven't checked with Unarned ones. Logically, it could remain, but probably not.