As promised, I'm working on yet another installment of my DoD guide. I'm posting my major observations here - please point out other big changes that I've missed, or correct my mistaken assumptions! Base game changes: 1 - Daggers. A Rogue-archetype weapon skill! Awesome skill. But it works just as well for whatever weapon you are using - so I think it's more of a compliment to existing weapon skills, rather than a substitution. Do any of the procs not work with other weapons? They sure seem to... 2 - Polearms. Excellent weapon skill. The focus on makes it useful for throwers, giving a sort of Peltast-type feel. Initial 4-square stab is great, though the damage doesn't scale super well. Stances are a lot of fun, but still a bit twitchy. 3 - Vampirism changes. Still working on my playthrough to exploit them - full report coming... 4 - Defensive Bash now scales with . This makes Shieldbearer 3x better than Master of Arms, at least. 5 - Promethean costs increased a bit. 6 - Meatshield nerfed to 3. (Boo!) 7 - Final Magic Training skill buffed to 5. (I swear it was just 1 before... but maybe I'm wrong?) 8 - Eye Laser damage increased rather dramatically. 9 - Wand Crafting damage spread out across the tree. 10 - Arch-Diggle Smash totally improved - and is a melee attack! 11 - Vegans given even more (!) but their debuffs now have a serious damage component... Also, no bonus XP from vegetables until later in the tree. 12 - Demonologist... still no reason to get past level 3. Ever. Wizardland skills! Bankster - make lots of money. Dump Toxic Assets is AMAZING even at low levels - and scales decently. It's great to balance it between straight damage and removing Bankster debuffs. Insurance fraud makes some money when you put it on an enemy - especially one with a ton of HP. Putting it on yourself seems foolish. Haven't been able to make Fiscal Hedge really pay off - any good stories about that one? Communism - possibly my favorite of the new skills. Lots of good health, great lvl 1 skill, General Winter is awesome. Vanguard party is decent, but the debuffs come a bit too frequently in my experience. I haven't got The Bomb yet... Egyptian Magic - Sandstorm is too good right now. Glyph of the Asp seems really weak, but the tree makes it worthwhile to get all the skills. Anubis and Ra are great powers on their own - but maybe not the best for a wizard, since you don't do much melee fighting? Possibly built for crossbows? Magical Law - Almost a great skill tree, but Polymorphic injuction is pretty weak. Lots of interesting utility in the tree though, that makes it appealing for combo-builds. Paranormal Investigator - my most-played of the new skills, mostly for Xenochemistry. SO GOOD. Tourist - I like this tree a bunch, but I understand why some folks don't. Does the capstone ever lose an item? I haven't noticed that happening, but the description indicates that it might. Would love stories of what you can lose, if anything.
Egyptian magic is a one-stop shop for gish needs. You get a wide range of exotic damage types and a castable buff or two that help you in melee. You can stack all the glyphs with dual-wielded staves and do decent damage of some type to whatever gets past the sandstorm of horrible burny poisony strangly death. I've heard it's getting nerfed hard soon, though, so this may not be true for long.
Yes, Staves are clearly the best weapon for dual-wielding, because the stat bonuses provided per staff are pretty ridiculous. That used to be my defacto suggestion for Vamp characters - but now I have a rather different opinion.
Magic training has offered 5 Savvy on capstone since RotDG, when every level gave 5 Savvy. They just left that one alone when they nerfed the rest of the tree.
I think they are fixing the Daggers / Polearms skills working with any weapon thing in the next patch.
Fixing the damage bonuses, yes. But I suspect the procs and stances will still work with any weapon...
