Pretty much everything I throw clockwork sawblades at does not live long, up to and including Lord Dredmor himself. I remember back in my very first playthrough, I threw as many of them as I could at him when I found him, stepped onto a Satanic Displacement Glyph to escape, and while I was licking my wounds, Big D bled to death. I'm wondering if I can kill Vlad Digula the same way... Yes, these things are really expensive, but come on, what else are you going to spend those mountains of zorkmids on on the double-digit floors? By that point you'll probably have the best equipment you'll ever find, blessed by Krong, Inconsequentia, the Lutefisk god, or whatever, and you can find them in vending machines much more reliably than whatever the best type of crossbow bolt is. Holy hand grenades are really awesome too. Well, maybe squid bolts can take down monster zoos faster, but you can't find them as reliably as those gifts of Antioch. But I'm just wondering: if not clockwork sawblades and holy hand grenades (hey, that rhymes!), what are you spending your endgame zorkmids on? Maybe there's a crafting-centric build that I don't know about that's more effective?
Just the idea of clockwork sawblades is awesome Last time I beat Dred on lvl 15, I had about 60 left over, too!
As the person who created them, I should be the one to nerf them. TWO PROPOSALS 1. NERF THE DAMAGE I present to you: the new nerfed Clockwork Sawblade Code: <spell name="clockwork sawblade hit" type="target"> <anim sprite="sprites/sfx/impact_blast/impact_blast" frames="5" framerate="70" centerEffect="1" sfx="blades"/> <effect type="trigger" amount="1" affectsCorpses="0" spell="Mechanical Evisceration"/> <effect type="damage" slashing="12"/> </spell> <spell name="Mechanical Evisceration" type="target"> <buff useTimer="1" time="6" self="0" stacksize="1" allowstacking="0" icon="skills/mechanical_evisceration64.png" smallicon="skills/mechanical_evisceration32.png" bad="1"> <halo name="sprites/sfx/blood_loop/blood_loop" num="6" frameRate="100" /> <primarybuff id="0" amount="-2"/> <!-- Burliness --> <primarybuff id="2" amount="-3"/> <!-- Nimbleness --> <secondarybuff id="7" amount="-10"/> <!-- block --> <secondarybuff id="8" amount="-10"/> <!-- counter --> <secondarybuff id="11" amount="-10"/> <!-- resist --> </buff> <effect type="damage" bleed="1" slashing="6" affectsCaster="1"/> <anim sprite="sprites/sfx/fleshbore/fleshbore" frames="7" sfx="fleshbore" framerate="50" centerEffect="1"/> <effect type="dot" amount="6" spell="Fleshrun" /> </spell> 2. NERF THE RANDOM SPAWN RATE Code: <item name="Clockwork Sawblade" iconFile="items/thrown_clockwork_sawblade.png" level="12" type="5" maxstack="2"> <price amount="3000"/> <weapon slashing="10" hit="clockwork sawblade hit" thrown="items/thrown_clockwork_sawblade.png"/> <description text="When you're not using it to disassemble your enemies it makes a great pizza slicer."/> </item> However, I think doing both nerfs would be a bit too much.
Just nerf the spawn rate if it really bothers you so much. Because the weapon itself isn't really all that overpowered, and any damage nerf (or stat nerf) would result in players seldom using it while it is supposed to be a top-tier item.
I think the only thing "wrong" with it is the same thing that is "wrong" with everything in the last 5 floors - you find that stuff literally everywhere!! I walk into a Brax and all he is selling is Sun God Masks and Skull Diggly Mask things, and the Throw. vending machines are 99% clockwork sawblades.
This. The item balance on the last 5 floors is a bit much. My last successful run I found FIVE Flashy Staves of Godewijn on just one floor. By floor 15 I was 'fisking Shrat's Helms and Shields of Black Geometry like no tomorrow. I think I had 40-some saw blades by then, and never even used them.
Well, I just conquered Diggle Hell for the first time. Vlad Digula fell to my Gag Order + Clockwork Sawblades combo. Shortly afterwards, Lord Dredmor fell to the same fate. It's a little sad because on my very first playthrough, Lord Dredmor was in the very last room I opened up. On my second playthrough, I found him when I had only explored half of floor 15. On this playthrough...he was right in the next room that I came down the stairs from. At this rate I'm going to find him on floor 14 next time. It's a bit anticlimactic, really. I think that the high asking price of the clockwork sawblades kind of balances out their overwhelming power. Although I guess it would be fine if both were lowered at the same time. As for the repetitive final floors, I know of at least one mod in the Steam Workshop that adds in a bunch of new equipment, most of it endgame-level. It was the mod I was using in this playthrough, and it really made the Diggle Gods floors a lot more interesting. I just wish there could be more types of throwing weapons to pick from too, since your choices are currently limited to the aforementioned 'nades and 'blades.
Yeah I think making it harder for non-tinkerers to get them is the way to go; if you invest the skill and steel you should be rewarded more than the guy who just trips over dozens of them per floor. So smaller spawn stack size and and some weaker high level stuff to mix up the vending machines ("Bowling Ball - it's how Muscle Diggles play baseball!")
I nerfed them in my own game. Those things are way overpowered. Nothing even comes close to the single target damage they do. My pure Wizard shouldn't be doing more damage with these things than with his own spells. It's just absurd.
Oh wow, I just dreadmopedia what sawblade did. That is utterly ridiculous. 10+, then 12, then 6 +-2-3 -10-100-10 for 6 turns, then 60+() for the next 2 turns. Each damage also gives bleeding. If you got 30 that means you are doing 130 damage before armor with a debuff and 3 stacks of bleeding each blade.
Hmm... Yeah, then it needs to be nerfed. I don't know how I managed to overlook that, but I might've simply commented something out in my DoD's data files when I was half-conscious.
