Pimp My Random

I did not know this. Interesting. On a side note, Shield Bearer works the same way.

 

Hmmm. If you hadn't gone Golem already, I might have said try Demo for Circle....but that takes 2 points, so more chance of an early death. You don't have mana for both Golem and Demonology stuff, so ignore Demo for now other than eventually taking a point for the passive, which is decent. Take another point in Golem eventually for the wall, it is awesome to avoid getting flanked and getting out of some tight spots (including walling up zoos and just saying "bye!" if you don't feel like clearing one). I'd advise against going all the way to the robot though. The robot costs a LOT more mana, and while it does do more damage it doesn't have a ton more hp. Later in the game your pet is just a meat shield, and spamming mustache is more efficient than the robot.

This is a hard mix. There's no real "I win" skill to carry your melee game. I *guess* go Shield Bearer early? Defensive Bash is kind of, sort of the short cooldown melee attack you wish you had....it just doesn't scale well (but it does knockback and stun). As I noted in my post above, you can use 2x weapons just fine and still get all of the benefits of Shield Bearer.

This won't be a great run. Going an extra point in Arch after It Belongs for the pacifier move might be wise, since you lack any better escapes like teleports/invis. Maybe go deep in Dual Wield and Wand Lore after that? Really tough to say. You might want to hope for an early death so you can start a better game.

 

Eh, I'd say the circle is still worth it . Especially early, the Golem doesn't take much upkeep because he can survive for ages, and Celestial Circle is just that good. But definitely try and pick up the circle once the Golem stops being useful. Between Shield Bearer and Celestial Circle you get an extra 65 block, which is nothing to sneeze at, and dual wield should give you some decent damage output.
Do hold onto your burnt out wands and salt - one more level in Wand Lore gives you access to Coral Wands, which cost Salt, Lutefisk, and burnt out wands, and they're your only source of renewable healing. It's probably not worth the skill point, though - just wait until you start finding a million Hats of Bergstrom on DL3 or so.

 

Golemancy + Wand Lore + Demonolgist is actually quite a combo. Wand Lore provides 10 Magic Resist, plus the 75 from Celestial Circle plus a little natural Stubbornness can get you the 100 you need to ignore Corruption. Wand Lore also provides 6 nice, rarely-resisted Aethereal damage to every attack, including Softballs, which you can gather a huge amount of and throw at the enemies that are distracted by your pets and walls. The healing, de-curse-inating, and other Wand-based utility is just a bonus at that point.

 

Hmm. I forgot about the +aethereal damage from Wand Lore. That is pretty handy.

Yeah, the more I think about it the more I think you guys are right....getting Circle is probably a must eventually, even without mana skills to support it. You can use Golem to put up walls to create chokepoints and then tank things with Circle.

 

Funny you should mention that. Saved the game right away this morning since I was out and about all day. Come back, start it back up. Kill a couple things with the blade...thing. Open door 1 and a flood of things comes at me, too many to kite, back against a door, open it hoping I've got room, and it's a dlvl 1 Deth and Sigfried plus other diggles staring at me and not happy.

So yeah...that was the end of that...

Next up in the category of "Things That Will Probably Not Go Well":

Swords
Alchemy
Wandcrafting
Killer Vegan
Piracy
Warlockery


and....


Wait for it...


Werediggle Curse

 

Start with Piracy (for the mists) and then go with Alchemy and Wandcrafting. You'll want to level your Werediggle Curse later to have a source of eggs for brimstone flasks, but that's that. Later you'll likely want to prioritize Killer Vegan over Swords.

 

I see two routes here.

1) Start with Warlockery to get the Challenge, then push Swords, then the rest of Warlockery, then Smithing. Equip yourself with a Katana and whatever badass armor you can find that doesn't utterly destroy your Magic Power (but kinda nuking it is OK). Use Warlockery for what it's meant to be for -- supplementing your swording with magicalness.

2) The fun route -- collecting Softballs again. Run straight up Killer Vegan, then Wandcrafting, and get yourself +5 +6 . Add in the +3 (and the ) from Smithing, and you've got a hell of a throwing arm on that beast. IIRC, Werediggles can throw Softballs if it's the last thing you have in your 'active skill' box, so figure out how to hotkey Werediggle rather than clicking to it, and you've actually got a lot of synergy there. Smithing also ensures you'll never run out of throwables. Nzappa Zaps, here you come!

 

yeah I'd say get a level in piracy for the counterattack boost, then max vegan ASAP for the health. the extra hp will help absorb traps and such. you may even want to just go vegan right away so you can charm some diggles to block traps when to attempt to disarm.

early shouldn't be too hard since you can get pets and you start with some wands.

 

I agree with 1 point in Piracy, then pushing Vegan. After that its very debatable. And yeah, like Essence says there is potential to be pretty nasty from ranged with throwing weapons. I'm not sure what to think of Werediggle. Don't you lose all the +damage bonuses from Vegan/Wand when in diggle form? It's not a skill tree I have much experience with, at all.

 

You're absolutely right, Gaidren. The throwing path would basically necessitate that you ignore Werediggle for that reason.

 

Uh, one minor problem with that. There's no Smithing in there.

 

Killer Vegan instead of Smithing, then. More righteousness is always good in DoD.

 

Ooh, this seems decent.

Daggers
Dual Wield
Archaeology
Berserker Rage
Master of Arms
Smithing

and....

MAGIC TRAINING!

I'm guessing i'll just ignore that last one and level this one like a warrior >_> Do dagger bonuses still apply if I don't use a dagger?

 

Dagger bonuses don't apply; I believe activated spells still work, and the stances work fine. Probably not worth leveling, though, until/unless you try and rush the Wall of Blades stance.
No heal or teleport or escape skills seems worrying, though. Just tank up, cross your fingers, and make sure to actually use the invisibility potions and coral wands that you find when you need them.
EDIT: If you manage to luck out and find the Ring of Iron Thorns recipe early, you've actually got a lot of the pieces you need to stack counterattack to hell and back. A pair of the rings, maxed out Dual Wield, and the Wall of Blades stance is 56 CA, ignoring Combat Momentum, Offensive Maneuvering, your base stats, and any other items or enchantments you manage to get your hands on.
ALSO grabbing level 2 of Magic Training might be worth it at some point for the Silence Missile

 

Yeah, that run is going to be all about stacking counter/dodge to the moon and becoming eventually melee immune. Magic Training isn't a total waste either, eventually late game toss a point in there for the free silence.

Daggers is *absolutely* work taking for the defensive stance alone. It is THAT good. I've had runs were I had the defensive dagger stance and never touched a dagger all game. The Switcheroo attack works just fine with non-daggers as well, or at least it did when I last checked. Switcheroo kiting is probably your only way to really deal with elites risk free early game unless you burn up ranged weapons/wands every time you fight one. Late game you'll be tanky enough that you can probably just go toe to toe with elites and not break a sweat.

 

Don't overlook the 'hidden' synergy between Smithing and Archeology, either -- you can craft artifacts with Smithing and trade them for XP via Archeology.

 

My latest random:

• Unarmed
• Vampirism
• Killer Vegan
• Viking Wizardry
• Ley Walking
• Burglary
• Archaeology

Vampire Vegan, go figure. Using the Viking melee buff I've actually had a pretty easy time damaging things on the first floor. Level 2 got me Lucky Pick, mostly for the bonus XP, but I'm at a loss as to how to deal with both Vamp and Veganism. I'll have a LOT of extra fruit and tofu, from the looks of it...

 

Well, Vampire Vegans aren't all that bad because your best source of healing isn't trying to kill you.

Viking Wizardry also isn't all that bad, and Unarmed can be useful later.

I dare say you should put a point in Vampirism, then one more in Burglary (for the lockup), and then go for Unarmed. Whatever happens later depends on you, though by the time you get there I'd recommend getting Burglary to the cap.

 

S'pose I could try that. I know that Burglary's capstone is one of my favorite skills in the game, useful for any character no matter what. So that's a given.

I've never run a successful Vegan, though. I look at all the Diggles and all I see is XP on the hoof... must... resist...(until I get a decent ranged attack, anyway...)