Heya, I'm not a beginner (I just suck horridly at the game) so any tips as how not to die on level 2 would be nice, In all fairness though, I usually play with Permadeath on on the hardest difficulty, but I think quite a lot of people play on Going Rogue, so Permadeath should'nt be the issue. Thanks
Don't worry about what difficulty other people play at. Play at whatever difficulty you are comfortable with. But if you start to feel too comfortable, increase that difficulty. The game isn't supposed to be frustrating, but it also is meant to be hard. Everyone here has died countless times, I guarantee it. Even the best players die, and often in the most embarrassing ways. So don't worry about that. There's a lot of great threads here and on the Steam forums about various things such as what skills work well together, different types of builds, and so on, so definitely look around. But besides that... Don't worry about dying, especially while you are just learning the game. You will definitely die a lot, but hopefully, you'll learn something that will help you in your next game. Everyone needs the best crossbow they can find. Don't pass it up because you don't have the skill or you are a mighty warrior or a fearsome wizard. That crossbow can save your life. If your skill gives you a buff or a special attack, and you aren't using it, then you're wasting that skill. Use it or lose it. One of the most important things to learn early on is to play slowly and carefully -- that means watching out for traps, watching your health (and mana, if applicable), and so on. If you don't know what something does, try it. There's usually some kind of hint in the title or description of the item. If after you try that thing and you still are not sure what it does/did, it's possible that you used it wrong or under the wrong circumstances. Try not to get into situations where you can be hit from multiple sides -- identifying choke points -- defensible places where you can retreat to such that you minimize the number of monsters that can attack you at one time -- optimally, the position will also give you room to retreat further, if necessary. Use ranged attacks and/or thrown and bolt weapons against particularly difficult monsters -- usually bosses, but other monsters that you know will be difficult. Sometimes even certain normal monsters can be a problem early on if you don't have a good enough weapon. If that's the case, whittle them down first with other attacks. Even that meager thrown baseball can make a difference. If it hurts a lot when it hits, don't melee it. When you are in trouble, stop, think, examine your terrain, examine your inventory, think again, then decide what will get you out of trouble. That potion or wand or fungus that you were saving up for a rainy day... If it's raining, you know what to do
Probably the best advice I can give is to try to minimise the damage you take while keeping the stats you need, regardless of what sort of character you're making. This sounds obvious, but it's not as simple as it sounds. For example, if you're playing a gish (warrior/wizard) character, you're going to have to make decisions between having good or good and . If you're taking too much damage in melee and not using spells constantly, or vice-versa, you'll have to make sacrifices. Also be aware of what damage resistances to have at different times. is huge for survivability at every point in the game, but most other resistances are different at various levels. For instance on floor 2, is good for dealing with Deths, is for dealing with Zombys, is for the Electroblobbies, and is for Toxiblobbies and Mummies. Getting the right resists can be the difference between life and death, so be aware. Of course, you won't know what sort of resists you'll need until you get to the appropriate dungeon level, so be on the look out for the types of damage your enemies are dealing and try to remember it for next time.
If you use crossbows and/or thrown weapons a lot and don't use weapons much then choose unarmed as a skill. The damage it adds are added to both types of attacks.
Unarmed is good, regardless -- it may lack the high damage of using an uber weapon, but it makes up for that in defense and its two special knockback attacks. And all melee bonuses you get from skills add to thrown weapons, but NOT to crossbow. You'll probably use both. But Thrown weapons gain more of an advantage from being a melee fighter. Crossbows gain the advantage of the inherent bonuses of the weapon itself. Crossbows and Thrown weapons are also good, regardless of your build. But the problem is that if you use them too much you will run out of ammo. You cannot be a dedicated archer or knife-thrower in this game, period. That's why I recommend conserving your ranged weapons for bosses, zoos, and creatures that cause you headaches. While I don' t disagree with Professor Science's analysis, that early in the game, you don't generally have lots of choices as far as armor and your resists are concerned. Occasionally you may look at two items and be at a loss of which to use, but that's something that is more common later in the game. Everyone needs a way to kill things and to avoid being killed. So you first consider how are you killing things? If its in melee, you want a weapon with high damage. If you can't kill everything in one blow, you'll want to be able to take a few hits -- that's where defense, crit, counter, armor absorption, piercing resist, dodge, and so on come into play. If you are killing things with magic, you'll instead want mana, mana regen, haywire, and magic power, with a way of staying out of melee range (a pet, a teleport or jump skill, invisibility, and so on). It's also good if you have a way of healing yourself. All those other resists are certainly significant, but they are of secondary importance early in the game, because if you take care of your primary concerns, the rest of it is unlikely to cause too much of a problem. Honestly, most people don't start feeling the need to think about special damage types until around level 7 or 8ish (whatever the floor is with all the cold damage)
Don't waste lockpicks on doors. The second level of Burglar will take care of that for you, but if you didn't take that skill, just remove your lockpicks from your inventory, then kick the door down. If you do this, then you'll generally have enough picks to open all chests. The downside is that you can't close a door after you kick it down, but it's totally worth it IMO. If you are getting that "monster zoo" feeling, you can spend the pick(s) just in case. You don't even have to drop the picks; just grab them from your inventory by left-clicking, use the keyboard to walk into the door until it's smashed, then drop the picks back where they were. I leave them on my belt so I don't have to hunt for them. Another door tip: a door is three squares wide, and you can stand in front of any of those three to open it. But you can only close it from the ends, not the middle. I never open doors from the middle, because that extra turn can be enough time for a monster to step up and block me from closing it.
Make sure to get some form of trapsight on character creation. You CAN get by without it, but it's incredibly tedious. Just one more point (everybody starts with one) will significantly increase your chances of getting past the first few floors. Many skill sets offer trapsight (archaeology, Burglary, Tourism, Blacksmith, Tinker, etc.) pick one that suits your character. Tinkering is especially powerful in this regard since it gives a ton of trap disable as well. Again, you can survive without it but it probably won't be much fun one stepping everywhere. Also, and most importantly. USE YOUR CONSUMABLES! Skills are awesome and fantastic but the stuff in your pack can be equally incredible. Dying with a full backpack is shameful and makes Krong weep. Don't hesitate to use everything in your power to survive. Even if you have to gamble on some crazy item (like a Root of T'Char.... *shudder*) any chance is better than none and can make for some really cool stories at that.* Best two pieces of advice I can think of but there are whole threads devoted to this topic. A couple are even sticky-ed at the top of the forum.
I tend to play like some tidiness obsessed dungeon housemaid, sweeping up all the cluttered items into my pocket dimension, nicely and neatly sorting them by use. It comes in handy if I find myself in an "Oh noes, I am about to die!" situation. You can use your pocket dimension and low-level wizard lands as a sort of rest break and buffing period. If you have some low level mystic portal keywords on hand, you can load up with healing and buffing items, nom on them in there, and just before the end cram every buffing item you have down your throat before stepping on the "return to pocket dimension" pad. Then you can pop right back out into that fight fully healed and doped to the gills with performance enhancing supplements.
Archaeology deserves a place on nearly every character. The extra is useful for every run, if you're not fond of grinding you can sacrifice magic equipment you won't use for extra exp, the knockback/stun is great for crowd control and as a panic button, and getting another use out of is invaluable. Also worth noting, any one piece of equipment you try to twice in a row through this method will ALWAYS curse it. The most valuable skill IMO is re-translating magic items. I don't know what causes a magic item to "get lost in the museum", but for the ones that don't, you can shuffle the stats to give more of whatever you need (namely for me this is usually , , and ). Other tips: Utilize the CRAP out of the pocket dimension. There should practically never be a time where you can't stick an item in there that you can't use for crafting/selling/taking on a boss later. is your best friend. Traps can really bring in the money and do hefty no-risk damage, so if there's equipment with higher than you're currently using, save it! Changing equipment no longer costs a round, so putting it on, picking up the trap ( which does cost one round), and putting on your better equipment is a method I use a lot for snatching high level traps. For mages/battle mages, 7 (1 recovery per round) is your highest priority. You would be pleasantly surprised how many mana-upkeep buffs you can maintain while barely putting a dent in your mana usage. Having a crafting skill is also very useful, but not a necessity. It's great for making high level equipment early, or equipment you might other while never pick up. The perks of being able to encrust pretty much go without saying. Other than that, just play cautious and have fun! I now play on +1 default speed, but for around my first 150 hours of play I was at default speed. You will more than likely have stupid deaths (like, for example, when I killed myself on level 10 with my own spell mine), but it's all about learning from the mistakes and enjoying the mind-wrenchingly difficult experience. Hope this helps!
One skiil I almost always choose is perception. The extra trap sight is visible area are great. Plus you get the Lucky/ier/iest Find procs when you kill something. Great for crafting plus selling those low level swords/axes/maces/boots/rings is a great way to earn a little extra cash in the beginning. And if you complete the skill tree, you get the Laser Eyes.
Archeology+Crafting = Endless XP This is especially true with tinkering because Mace of Windu requires no special ingredients and gives tons of xp. Having anti-magic is a good way to increase survivability in the endgame. A few methods include using Magical Law, Emomancy or Magic training. Another good thing is 100% which is doable with mirror shields, magical law, berserker, mirror darkly shields with some caution or right resistances and a number of other helpful items. Having high , and most importantly is better than simply maxing armour and resistances. Having high is more important than having good weapons. You can get lots of it with polearms, dual-wield and, counter-intuitevely, tinkering.
If you move using the mouse you won't run into traps because the pathfinding automatically stops you before you walk into one.
Yeah, it feels like cheating, the tradeoff is that a mis click will make you walk past a bunch of monsters while they beat you to death. I always play with the keyboard.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. If all else fails and you still need some anti-magic, saving up the anti-magic traps from the first few floors can do wonders.
Magic reflection and resist are great -- mirror shield is amazing, for example. Keep in mind though that Magic Reflection only helps vs. Missile spells, though, so its best to have more than that.
