Almighty Dredmore

This will take time:

Is it just me or did Dredmor get much more powerful in conquest of wizardlands? I didn't manage to actually get to him since the final patches of Realm of Diggle Gods (just before "Name your...") cos i notoriously kept dying on my arch-enemy floor 9 with every character. But recently i got to him three times, once with my assassin, shooter with near non used blood magic and non used except the first skill communism (i just hit random and did a go with it xP, ended up actually facing Dredmor with a Mokujin if someone gets my drift) and he stomped me notoriously despite very powerful all-artifact equipment, tons of wands and 3 bolts of mass destruction (3 of them to the face took about 20% of his HP), but that actually didn't shock me that much.

The second one was a mage which i probably will play again cos it worked out awesome and undoubtedly my most powerful build (ill write it under the post), despite being a god of magic he barely was able to beat dread and he did so by a combination of solar inscriptions (oh might solar inscriptions, no-one has resists to you and yet you are near-free mana cost spell and a trap) and The Stars Aligned, mostly running to a portal, throwing lots of inscriptions on the floor for dread to walk on them, going invisible, going into portal and doing the same and making dread run from portal to portal until he is near dead and Aligning the Stars into a final death blow on dread (epic!).

The third was a clockwork knight with smithing, tinkering, dual wield, swords, perception and burglary. Here i had tons of armor (i wanted to dish out max out of parabolic stomper, well... its an EXTREMELY weak skill, actually the whole clockwork knight skill is one of the weakest trees and loses even more when compared to the almighty Roguish Innovator, so its purely take for fun) and well... i died.

I remember the beggining of DoD when i was able to kick Dread's...lower..back... with a warrior while not being physically able to even touch him with a mage, well now im not able to do too much with any character xP
All those were on dwarvish moderation and permadeath cos thats how i roll, and honestly... I like the idea but i think Dredmor is too powerful, hell its a powergamers enemy, there are only so much builds in the game that can kill him without having insane equipment luck on the way, cos the only two realistic options on dread are acid and holy damage, the rest does utterly nothing! (21 slashing dmg + 7 piercing + 10 holy + 12 acid + other dmg + 39; hit only with holy and acid, no effect with other dmg; and this character died). Its sad that the game being only a quasi-roguelike takes dying is fun so seriously, too much of anything (except pizza) is not fun, it feels me with sadness that i must choose one of only a couple builds to be able to beat the game, cos the rest will in the end be just sore losers and shall never see the last 5 levels.

Also: Dreads lightning attack: seriously?! -.-

My mage build:
Fleshsmithing, Promethean Magic, Necronomiconomics, Astrology, Blood Magic, Perception, Burglary
All Fleshsmithing, Promethean Magic up to drake, All necro, All Astrology,
2-3 blood magic, 3 perception, 3-5 burglary
beginners tip: 1 into burglary (lockpicks) > 2 into perception (traps) > 2 into promethean (wyrmling) ; the rest is up to personal taste, me: 2 fleshsmith (bore, as main attack) > 1 blood magic (bore + vitae theft = mana profit!!) > 3 fleshsmith (miasma = uberspell untill you get full necro) > 1 perception (traps) then burglar if traps becoming a problem or rush necro and after that rush astrology.

 

He got buffed after YHTNTEP was out, so it's not something added in this expansion.

And it's not like you can't get around his lightning spell - either get close to him and just hit him or get some resistances (very easy with encrusts if you can craft stuff, but it's not like there are no items that give you voltaic resistance). And if he hits you too hard, just turn invisible and heal yourself.

 

Clockwork Knight is an absurdly powerful tree for a warrior. It just doesn't deal particularly good single-target damage. Charge of the Steam Brigade with maxed tinkering is such a wakeup call. If you had smithing and tinkering, you could have easily done what I did:

2x Mirror Shield
1x Really Good bow

Dredmor only has 10 Piercing Resist for pete's sake! Ingeniously Scythed Steel Bolts do 12 piercing damage! Then there's your bow. You can get a recipe for a 24 damage bow, and add 5 Radiant and 5 Aetherial damage to it with encrusts. You know what Dredmor has zero resistance to? Radiant. And Aetherial.

So encrust it twice, use easily crafted bolts, and a damn good bow, throw in a Ring of Digglish Torment (+12 Piercing) and you're doing 38 Piercing, 10 Radiant, and 10 Aetherial damage a hit. With two mirror shields equipped!

Then you just have to survive Thor's Fulmeric Bolt, but even if you don't abuse Encrusting, you can get 20-30 Electric resist really easily, then you're just taking 20-30 damage off one. And since all his other spells are busy bouncing off you, you have lots of time to heal up. Just Rocket Jump away, eat some food/quaff some pots then walk back and keep shooting him.

P.S. All his annoying debuffs bounce off the mirror shields and debuff him, and Obvious Fireball is mitigated by Obvious Armor since it's now blasting damage. Heh, yeah, you shouldn't even feel it if you're a Clockwork Knight, you have a buff that mitigates 8 blasting on top of your armor.

 

I agree that Clockwork Knight is a great tree, and CotSB is awesome. I didn't have the same results that you did with the crossbow/double reflect shield tactic though. Granted, my bow/bolts were a bit too rainbow-ish in terms of damage types instead of trying a focused piercing approach...which probably would have worked, if I had enough good piercing bolts. The problem with going with No Time to Grind setting is you don't get quite as many crafting materials in a game vs. taking the longer route.

In the end I had to go melee and pray, hoping that 80+ dmg melee swings would do the job before I ran out of outs (invisible + heals). Made it, but barely.

 

The bolts (ingeniously scythed steel bolts) are available from the Steel Bolt recipe with 6 Tinkering. And Clockwork Knight takes all the randomness out of whether or not you have steel (you do) so they're pretty badass.

The fact the recipes upgrade as your skill improves... isn't well advertised

 

Getting close to him is no solution, he casts regardless of whether you're in melee with him. I do second the encrusts bit, though.

 

Well i don't recall radiant (i just call it holy) encrusts, im 100% sure that there are none w/o additional recipies and i did not have such recipe when making dredmor hunting eq in the endgame part with my maxed clockwork, maxed tinkering and near maxed smithing clockwork knight. Steam brigade is just not too strong (not even mediocre compared to some spells) even with high armor rating same as other clockwork skills for a fact, and compared to roguish its a laughable tree, fun but weak imho.
And i do know he has no resist to aetheral and holy i wrote that, also about acid cos thats the case too.
Also having to got two shields and a crossbow proves my point, that there is only a couple power-gamed methods to kill dread, i would like to melee him with an imho full melee tree that clockwork knight is. Im just disappointed that he got too strong to call it good fun, its just a very long discussion and i am to lazy to write whats wrong for me, to put it short they should nerf dread, some like to die on dread i just don't, i prefer to have a challenge with a medium character and near no challange with a godlike character with Dread, so that there is actually sense in playing a not-power gamed character, i want some sense of achievement not another killed by dredmor cos you wanted to have fun out of the game not be a lousy troll that has to prove to himself that he can beat dread with a knife on hardest difficulty, i don't need that, what i need is a fun and a picture of a random noob killing the fabled Dreadmor xP

 

Haha, i'm going to do that when I face Count Digula. (I don't care about Dreddy.)

 

If you mean bookcase recipes with random recipes, there is.
Gaudy baubling, Tinkerer 6, +5 righteous and aethereal.
Unhidden.
Craften from a Diamond, a Ruby, and 2 Platinum Ingots, so nothing perception cannot give you afaik.
Have fun blasting

 

For the CK (I'm planning a similar run when game is working; CK, Smith, Tink, Percp, Duel, Pole, Axe). NTtG
More for fun than sheer power (though with encrusts...).
For Dredmore I'm planning on saving (or making, can you?) some antimagic traps and then just crosbowing him to death. With max level tinkering that shouldn't be hard.

I have no intention of going toe to toe.

(Admittedly, having another (non-melee) level maxed character with full health and Hedge one-hit-killed by Vlad has made me particularly melee averse with the big kids. Oh wall spell, why did I not remember that your knockback is inconsistent?)

 

How to melee Dreadmor

First you need to be able to damage him. He has got 30, 10 and over 15 on all other resist expect .

Second you need to be able to handle his damage. Either by having 100 and/ or or close to it or by having 100 with 15. The dodge/counter route makes you take no damage but is harder to pull off. the block route you can pretty much guarantee you'll get it but take 8 per hit.

Third have diggle god of digging, have plenty of invisibility and healing potions/mushrooms, and battle geology.

Here is how the battle will go:

• Use Petrifaction on Dreadmor.
• Use Plutonic Fist on Dreadmor. With 100 that only add 2 extra damage turn while removing his ability to counter or critical hit. Do not repeat this step.
• Get close to Dreadmor and get all your buffs and start whacking him.
• Once Dreadmor gets out of Petrifaction use Seismic Uppercut to give him the Daze status. He now can't cast spells and has -40 and -30 for 8 turns
• Wail on Dreadmor for 8 turns
• Use earthquake to daze Dreadmor again
• Wail on Dreadmor for 8 turns
• Use Seimic Uppercut to give him Dazed again
• Wail on Dreadmor for 8 turns
• Pop an invisibility potion and wait for Petrifaction to come back
• Repeat until you win

At any point you get under 150 health pop an invisibility potion and use healing potion to recover all your health.

Note: If you already have a melee build without battle geology you can sonic wands to daze Dreadmor. It is less effective but works in a pinch.

 

I know I'm kind of being an ass there Shwqa, but it's "Dredmor" and not "Dreadmor". Just saying because I noticed you tend to make that typo commonly.

 

I recommend Diggle God of Death personally. Diggle god of digging is bad, because:

1) 6 makes your split into blasting+main damage type. Apparently armor double dips (taking a bite out of each of equal to total armor value).

2) 10 , really? You can get 12 from a damn ring, with other benefits besides.

Fleshbore is nice, but it still scales off Magic Power for inane reasons, and in a battle between survivability and damage, I always prefer to survive. Always.

Diggle god of death gives you 15 . And if you're not healing primarily through pots/food/coral wands on dredmor, you are doing it wrong (come on, last fight, blow every consumable you have).

 

The reason for diggle god of digging is purely the Fleshbore. Fleshbore makes you do much more damage than without it and it can stack up to 4 times. Remember that Dreadmor has 81. You won't be doing any sizable amount of damage when he blocks. Flesh does:
-1-1-1
-3-3
-20-2

Getting 2 of those on him with plutonic fist and dazed will heavily remove his chance of dodging, countering, or blocking. When Dreadmor is petrified and your whailing on him you get still all of your combat buffs (like combat momentum) and he gets all of your debuffs (like fleshbore).

But diggle god of digging isn't 100% necessary but it is the route I chose to go.

Edit: I think about it this way. If Dreadmor block almost every turn it is going to take 4 times as long to beat him. While Diggle god of death only removes half the damage he does when you have 100 and 15.

 

Just Run Away and Throw Clockwork Sawblades on him.

Worked for me every time on GR/PD.

 

Yeah, it's all about the route you choose. My last character had the buff from Diggle God of Fertility and I managed to kill Dredmor. The point is, the buff has to suit your style, but nothing more than that is important about it because if you don't fight Dredmor the way you know to fight, it will be more difficult to get the job done.

 

I've beaten him in melee using the Diggle God of Fertility. If you're really hung up on the fleshbore you can get it from other sources, such as clockwork drill bolts, and get the benefit of another buff. I can see why you'd want the buff if your fleshbore stuff is in short supply though.

I beat him in melee without using fleshbore at all, but that's not to say it couldn't have been easier.

To the OP: Many discussions have been made about Dred's difficulty. I'm personally of the opinion that if you could make it to him, then you have all the tools to deal with him. Dredmor is like the final test of everything you learned in the dungeon. If you don't use every resource available to you there is a good chance he'll kill you. If you still feel that it's too hard, Elvish is always an option.

Some general tips that should help any build.

1.) Hit him where it hurts. Dredmor has high resists to all but , and . So get those if you can. Otherwise remember that lots of damage in one type is superior to lots split across multiple damage types.​

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2.) Be a coward. If you get low on health go invisible and heal. Maybe teleport away if you want to conserve your invisibility resources. This is doubly important for wizards who don't have the to stand around and bleed. If you are trying to melee Dred, then sneaking up to him with invisibility or a teleport isn't a bad idea either. It will save several turns of pain while you advance.​

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3.) Empty your inventory. This is the last fight so everything is fair game. Use every buffing item you have before the fight. Get full stacks of mushroom buffs. Eat a bunch of food and booze before the fight starts and then throw/shoot your ammunition with wild abandon. Holy handgrenades and sawblades are excellent for this and will provide any character, regardless of build, with enough damage to put a serious hurting Dredmor.​

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4.) If all else fails... cheat. My first victory against Dredmor with a caster I discovered that you can, in fact, mute Dredmor. After revoking Dred's license to cast and erecting some Unliving walls around him, I had a very easy victory. While not TECHNICALLY cheating this made me feel a little dirty. Note that muting may see a nerf in the future but for now any muting ability is very powerful against Dredmor..... as long as you don't let him get close to you. With no other moves available Dredmor will melee attack every turn, which will kill a wizard faster than any of his spells (save maybe Thor's Fulminaric Bolt), so exercise caution.​

 

And . Dredmor has no .

 

I thought the issue wasn't that double dips, but that a lot of monsters were given independent , and as bonus stats, which would double dip if you gave yourself a single point of a damage type what wasn't your main type?

Which is an issue that wouldn't exist with Dredmor, as his standard resist is all in the form of .

 

You are correct sir, not sure how I forgot that. Edited to reflect your input.