So whats the point of Communism?

The entire skill set is basically debuff debuff debuff in exchange for 1 free extra hit, an okay heal wit ha 50% chance to lower all your stats, and a snowstorm that hurts you a ton.

What's the point?

 

See also: Bankster, Egyptian Magic, Daggers, and Paranormal Investigator.

 

It makes the game different, snowstorm can be rendered useful by getting appropriate resistances, and the heal on a warrior tree makes it easier to go for "pure" warrior builds (for whatever reason one would want to do that).

And hey, it's funky to play as a "communist" adventurer.

 

But it seems like the cons outweight the pros by a lot

I guess if the final skill lets you get A BOMB every like 300 turns or whatever I could see it being worth it. But I kind of doubt anyone would pair up communism with wand crafting.

 

When I found out that you could play a Communist Bankster in this expansion, my only thought was that I could finally die in peace after achieving one of the greatest contradictions to ever exist.

 

I think it's mainly here for "in soviet russia" jokes. Also to make up for the Bankster skill , since attempting to implement collectivization is apparently worse than ruining the planet's economy for personal profit. That seems to be the message , at least.

 

Every game needs a communism skill!

 

In Soviet Russia, planet's economy ruins YOU.

 

Guerilla Attack is a simple free hit on miniboss monster who you may not want hitting you back. The heal helps out pure warrior builds alot and reduces consumable usage, General Winter is pretty easy to resist once you're up to floor 6-7 onwards through the scattered resist you get from other skills, it may be a problem if you get it on floor 1 so don't do that. Dialectical Materialism is very situational, can be useful to save your life by clearing thaumites or acid off you but not often. Vanguard Party and Iron curtain are the meat of the tree. The 5AA from Iron Curtain would be great on its own but the stubborness with it is amazing, vanguard party has all good stats for a pure warrior esque build. The bomb is really bad unfortunately, can't reccomend it. Also goes well with smithing with the communist power armor recipes.

It's lots of free warrior stats and a small bit of utility. Definitely not useless, does have some drawbacks but its a really fun tree with tons of flavour.

 

I think if The Bomb were improved that could also be a good draw for the skill.

Since the ingredients are so rare right now it's basically only a one-or-two use ever skill, and... yeah. :|

(I mean it certainly shouldn't be a COMMON thing to use but a one shot effect is probably not worth a skill point for it alone.)

(...maybe have it have a long cool down and give you some Cold War themed debuff??? Can't stockpile nukes without imperialist swine getting irritated at you.)

 

1) It gives you an attack that lets you turn invisible. Let me say that again. You hit people. Then you're invisible. The utility here is huge. Invisibility is one of the best time buys in the game. Smack the diggle.* Eat, drink and be merry (one turn of each). Resume normal combat.

2) There is a healing activated ability, plus health regen and actual HP. This doesn't sound like much, but over five or ten floors of gameplay the resource saving is huge. I've frequently taken the tree just for 1 and 2.

3) General Winter is very powerful, particularly if you build to manage the damage.

4) Iron Curtain is amazing, particularly if you plan to tank combat with Dredmor or Digula, or you're just a gish or rogue looking for a little more beef.

5) The Bomb isn't a great thrown weapon. But it does add 3 transmutation resistance, and more resistance is always good. Transmutation isn't a major resist, but some things do deal it.

6) There are funny recipes.

*Wow, that sounds so wrong now that I think about it.

 

Doesn't the Ushanka that you get when you take General Winter do a pretty good job of mitigating the damage from it, like completely?

 

A lot of it, yeah, but you might well have a hat you don't feel like replacing just to mitigate an unpredictable effect.

 

I mean if you're designing your build to actually work with your skills, it makes sense to focus your gear on hyperborean resistance. Sort of like how if you take necro you focus on necro resist and countering necro debuffs.

 

Ushanka = 4 , Toque of Kanada = 6 . Yeah.......

 

It also confuses the diggle, and seems to leave it peaceful after it recovers.

 

In my humble opinion the only reason to take communism is for the first skill. It's one of the best skills in the game. I only take communism if I know all my skill points are going to other trees already and I need a skill with a really good first level ability.

 

Yes. I had forgotten about that part, there's at least a chance to cause confusion, I don't think it can happen every time, though, and sometimes it gets resisted.

 

Well, semi-spoilers ahead, just in case you don't want to see the full stats...


I saw that General Winter scales with crit chance (on the wiki, building up the character now so I haven't confirmed it). That, plus wielding a hexaxe giving you a pretty constant +100 crit chance, should mean an area effect 15+ damage/tick snowstorm. Not bad for a melee character, and you can eventually mitigate it .