Tactics that Work for Everyone

Pressing + speeds up the animation, allowing you to spam the A and D or the W and S keys to regen health and mana faster than just spamming spacebar to wait a turn. To turn the animation speed back to normal, press - a couple times. Oh, and make sure you're in a safe area when doing this.

 

Time is EXP. That's time you could have spent grinding/farming.

 

True, but this isn't a discussion of how to optimize anything -- it's about tactics that anyone can use to get closer to winning the game, so the extra time isn't really a factor.

 

The time you take to make your constructions site OSHA-compliant is time wasted too, if you look at it that way. And if someone dies due to some idiot discarding OSHA like a dirty sock, there is reckoning.

Sure, in DoD dying because you failed to do something or because you did something doesn't have any real world consequences. But it still does not mean we can give bad advice, because this is a "guide" thread which is supposed to help people who don't know better, and by the time you know enough about DoD to comment negatively on such a thread, you are also good enough (that, or delusional, but let's go with the first one) not to care about guides of this sort.

 

Here's a list of Encrusts you can make with 0 skill, and when I have time later today I'll do 1-skill (for when you find the relevant items):

0 skill points:
Smithing Kit:
Polymer Shell (weapon) - Coal, Plastic Ingotx3: +1 3
Buckle Up (chest, legs) - Leather Beltx2, Swashbuckling Belt: -1 +1 5

Ingot Press:
Defensive Curds (head, chest, legs) - Aged Cheese, Brie Cheese, Havarti, Parmesan Reggiano: -1 -1 +2 6
Gaga's Glaze (head, chest, legs) - Fresh Steak, Steak, Aged Steak, Grilled Steak: +5 9

Tinkering:
Encoggling (chest) - Brass Mechanisms: -1 , -1, +1 6


Are any of them worth it? Probably not, but hey, they are things that everyone can use, and apparently some people have had a lot of success building to survive instability and then encrusting things to the point of frequent explosions, so...there you have it.

 

Actually, Gaga's Glaze is cool for when you are playing with rogue-mage characters (little health, not much use for armour because you are seldom hit and it always hurts like hell) with Big Game Hunter, because you can put one or two of it onto every piece of armour you find (and that is +15~30 easy health, which can be a lot early on).
And Polymer Shell is a good filler when you are making a defensive build without using Unarmed, since you'll have weapons you have nothing to put on.

But yeah, the rest of them are "carp" unless you are really desperate for the bonuses they give you.

 

Gaga's Glaze is super useful regardless of who I'm playing. Steaks aren't too uncommon and they're easily stockpiled. Anything with negative stats that's a level 0 enchantment I avoid like the plague though.

 

If you have an invisibility ability, use it whenever you open a door. If big hulking nasties are on the other side, you can flee without them noticing.

 

Time is also monster spawns, if I remember correctly. So correct me if I'm wrong but it feels like I'd get more XP in less real time by quickly adding to the game time I spend on each floor using this method.

You can up the speed and pace with wads like Donut said, and also tap the spacebar when you're feeling particularly impatient. Spacebar makes it skip like twice as many turns as long as you use the keyboard to move during this time and not the mouse.

Pay attention though. Sometimes things spawn in your room and get like five free rounds on you because derp.

 

This came a lot later than I wanted it to, but:

Level 1 Encrusts Anyone Can Use (if you find the right items in-game: Kronghammer, Tinkerer's Goggles, Potion of Alchemical Inspiration)

Alchemical Tools:
Overgrowth (Weapon): Potion of Lively Regeneration, Apple, Wooden Sword: 2, 1, 5.
Fungal Bloom (Crossbow): Odious Puffball, Mud Wen, Fell Truffle: 2, 6.
Seaman's Encrusting (Legs): Lutefisk x4: 1, -1, 12


Tinkering Tools:
Seemingly Useless Mechanisms (Crossbow): Brass Mechanismsx2, Brass Piping, Copper Wire: 2, -2, 5.
Faraday Shielding (Shield): Copper Wire x4: 2, 5


Smithing:
Stone Crusts (Chest, Legs): Hematite, Bauxite, Casserite: 1, 1, -3, 4. (!!)
Copper Plating (Chest, Legs): Copper Ingotx3: 2, -1, -1. 6
Iron Spikes (Weapons, Gloves): Iron Ingot: 1, 9