Max Dodge woes...

So, I decided to make another run at a 100 character. I've tried this in the past, but never had much luck with it. The buffs to dodge, perception, and unarmed made me want to do it, and playing this way has given me some rather interesting insights.

First - it sort of seems like many enemies have a less than 100% chance to hit me. I tanked a monster zoo on DL4 - sat there with 3 or 4 enemies around me, and just killed things one by one. I took a few hits - but very few, even though my dodge was only 76. By my calculations, I should have been hit more often than not (4*0.76 ~ 36% to dodge all four attacks) but in practice I only got hit about ever 10 turns or so...

My build uses Piracy, and in early levels I made heavy use of Swashbuckling to defend myself. But now, swashbuckling does almost nothing, because apparently the game checks for successful dodge before it checks for successful counters. So even with 99 I only counter about 1 attack over the 4 turns, because only 1 attack bypasses my dodge!

I used to be a big fan of the Poncho with No Name - it was one of the first awesome artifacts I ever found in the game. But these days it's just not any good - even for a dodge character like mine. Red Vest has 5 and 1, which is much better for me. Parachute pants give me 10 (I was fortunate enough to find them early on), my Fedora gives me 4 - it seems to me that the Poncho should give 10 or even more.


Here's my character with no equipment - I've got 47 just from skills at this level...


And here I am with my full gear - I think I should be able to reach 100 by the time I reach level 16 - I could do it by 15, but I really want another level of Vegan to get my 5, so that will delay it a touch.

 

What skills are you using for this build?

 

Unarmed (11 ), Perception(16 ), Burglary(9 ), Archaeology(11 ), Piracy(5 ), Artful Dodger (27 ), Vegan (7 )
That's 86 when all skills are maxed.

I'm still quite a long way from maximum level, but with a bit of equipment I'm already over 100% dodge:


I have a shield of Pensive in my other hand most times - which reduces my dodge by 2. Still over 100%, so I don't care. But I wanted this screenshot to be as impressive as possible so... here you go!

 

So, uh...where do the 'woes' come in again?

 

With this kind of build wouldn't you max your counter chance as well at some point?

Also how much dodge do you get per point of Nimbleness?

 

The last two paragraphs in the OP

I agree that it does seem odd that dodge is rolled before counter. A bit counterintuitive-- if you wanted a lot of counter you'd want to minimize dodge....

 

Who cares about counter when you can't be hit? Don't bother with it. Just crank dodge and let Akido do the countering for you. I'm running a similar build without piracy and it's been a ton of fun.

 

Mostly the fact that all my counter-attack is now useless, because apparently dodge is checked before counter-attack. This means that if you want to max out counter-attack, you actually need to minimize your dodge chance - which is weird. I'm also sad that the Poncho with No Name is outclassed by the Parachute pants.

 

Don't you read my guide? Dodge chance is Nimbelness/2. That means you get 1 for each rogue level, and 0.5 for each wizard or warrior level - before other bonuses are factored in. When I list the total dodge given by each skill, I'm counting the innate nimbleness bonus granted by the skill levels themselves - including the initial stat points you get when selecting skills.

 

Unless you're desperate for Mists of the Corsair (doesn't seem worth it to me as it would wear off long before battles ended), would you in retrospect consider Assassin as a preferable choice to Piracy? Or would you choose something else?

 

Tinker would be a good choice. It gives extra nimble and provides you with a mess of fantastic options, including tons of bolts, rocking crossbows, and oodles of explosives. Oh and I guess you could disarm things occasionally.

Not suggested for the inventory management impaired but makes a great addition to any rogue build in my humble opinion.

 

Piracy is actually all about Swashbuckling - that helped me survive the early levels. I wanted to focus on dodge-enhancing stuff early on, but 40 dodge just isn't going to really protect you the way 85 does. Swashbuckling is awesome because it's nearly ironclad defense PLUS decent offense. And with knightly leap, you can afford to use it really well. It's also a great safety skill to give you a chance to drink health potions, or whatever.

In fact, it was my heavy reliance on Swashbuckling which really made this a "woes" thread - because as my dodge numbers started to creep upwards, I realized that Swashbuckling started to be not useful, since dodge gets checked before counterattack. Grrr.

 

That's exactly why I asked. As Swashbuckling is so lackluster with that build, would you in retrospect use something else, and if so, what?

 

Assassination is pretty boring to me - unless it's used in conjunction with Axes, Dual Wield, and Shield Bearer (since Shield Bash is now an attack proc, and scales magnificently with !)

I think Demonology might actually be the better replacement - Fevor of the flagellent is pretty good, and the huge resist would probably fill holes that dodge alone can't.

 

I think monsters have very low edr so replace a skill with anti-magic(Emomancy?) would invincible.

*Edit* wait. dredmor has 120 nimble and 40 edr this means he has only 40 or more?

 

It means he has whatever 120 nimbleness gives him, plus 40. Rejoice.

 

Sort of? You can use both at the same time.

 

Well yes, you can use both, but if you actually want to successfully counterattack things, you need to NOT dodge them. So if your only goal is to not get hit, boosting both is great. But if you want to consistently get the free hit out of your opponent's miss, high dodge only reduces your chances of doing so.

 

I meant the parachute pants and the poncho.

 

Oh, uh.
Whoops.