Crazy Build: Omnidisciplinary Warrior

Right, well, I had a crazy idea yesterday: What if I took EVERY SINGLE MELEE WEAPON TRAINING SKILL at once, on a single character?

I thought I'd test it out, and here's the build I've come up with (I'm currently on floor 3):

Swords
Axes
Maces
Staves
Unarmed
Shield Bearer
Dual Wielding

You're probably wondering: what on earth makes me think this is a good idea? Well, I suspect that in the long run, it probably won't be, but I have this feeling...

The top 5 skills on this list all offer an AOE melee attack at level 4. They all use cooldowns. If I brought axes to level 6, dual-wielded axes, and brought the rest to level 4, I would have a total of 5 AOE attacks at my disposal.

Suppose I find a monster zoo, and I retreat into a bottleneck. I will represent this scenario in traditional roguelike fashion:


ddd==
ddd@
ddd==

In this situation, all five of those attacks would have at least 3 targets, with two of them having 6. With the high accuracy and critical granted by dual-wielding axes, which grants a dedicated warrior a 50% critical rate at a bare minimum, we're looking at 4-to-9 times more total damage per attack, for five attacks, and I'd only have to wait the cooldown time of one of them.

Furthermore, if I eventually mastered the other 3 weapon skills besides axes, I'd be able to alternate at will between a wide variety of fighting styles with different bonuses, as well as (if I make sure to equip two DIFFERENT weapons at any given time) double chances for procs!

I'm excited to see how it turns out, and I'll report my findings later!

 

Well, so far it's going quite well! I've acquired three VERY awesome rings by the 4th floor, one that improves health regen by 2, one that improves fire resistance and armor absorb by two, and one that improves physical strength by 3. Pity I only have two ring slots. What about the other 6 fingers? Why can't I have rings on them?

Anyway, I first mastered shield bearer, because my primary source of healing is to activate tortoise maneuver, press the =(or +) key three times, and run back and forth in a safe room until I regenerate. It works quite well, and certainly beats spamming the space bar, because that tends to result in a monster spawning next to me and then comboing me with 5+ hits before I realize I should stop pressing the space key, typically spelling my demise.

After that, I worked on maces until I got Ragnar's Meteor, then swapped for axes. I only raised one level, however, before I got my hands on TWO chest of evil swords that vastly outclassed the attack power of any other weapons I had at the time, causing me to switch focus to swords. I just mastered Thibault's Trompement, and now I'm working on leveling up axes once again. My crowd control is already starting to look decent, and I don't even have half of my techniques yet!

 

Are you on "Going Rouge, Perma Death"?

Never thought about this build before, but it sounds quite awesome.

 

Yes and yes!

 

The equipment I'm finding with this is just absurd. I've got rocket boots, scaly hauberk of the fish, a plump helmet (admittedly I bought the latter two), and the three aforementioned epic rings.

The game's trying to make me overconfident. IT WILL NOT SUCCEED!

 

Right, here's my current situation:

*I've obtained 3 of the 5 AOE attacks
*I'm on floor 5
*I have equipment (not good enough to bring into combat) that, all together, increases my health regen bonus by SIX. combined with tortoise maneuver, I have 10, and if I get duck and cover, I have FOURTEEN.

Sadly, I've also discovered something that nearly killed me: if something's registered as a melee attack, as in, improved by melee strength and not a throwing item, the enemy can counter it. I tried to use Thibault's Trompement to snipe a named monster, and it countered me from 3 spaces away. Thankfully my character's still alive, but that has scary implications...

For instance, what if I used norwegian axenado, and all 8 targets counter-criticaled me?

...Looks like I'm going to be dual-wielding axes as much as possible, to offset this.

 

That's a major flaw in this strategy. Seems like axes are going to be the only way to go now.

 

It's also retarded, and makes no sense whatsoever. I'm going to file it under bugs.

 

I did this with everything but Unarmed once. Managed to drop Dredmor, but I was playing on DM not GR. Also, I maxed Berzerking and Armor first, so I didn't realize I didn't need weapons to spam the special attacks until much later. This is very interesting...

 

you dont need the weapons to spem the specials?!

:O whaaat

 

I know, i just learned that myself when my Unarmed Runecaster found a CoE Mace that dealt 30+ damage and I decided to stand next to my Steel Golem and hit stuff. When I realized that Flight of the Grey Heron worked with a mace in my hand, I was all "SWEET!"

 

The counter on melee specials has been here since forever, not sure if its considered a bug but it sure is annoying.
Didnt know either you could specials for any weapon ! Now it does seem like a really good idea to take several weapon skills !

 

Yeah the abilities work even if you don't have the right weapon equipped. You miss out on stat bonuses.
But... the question i want to know, is are they supposed to.
How would you even do a Thibault's Trompement with a mace?

 

Or more literally, an "Axenado" with your feet?

 

Footnados should cause some kind of or damage.

 

I was thinking .

(no pun intended)

 

Well, I died. Not because the build turned out to suck, far from it

I got cornered by a named arch diggle, used a spatial instability infusion... and teleported to the EXACT SAME SPOT I WAS IN.

and you know what? SwiftStriker would have saved me

 

swords, staves, dual wielding, blood mage, promethean, alchemy, smithing.

It's got EVERYTHING!

 

I swear they put in troll code into those random teleports, they almost always put you somewhere worse than where you currently are, or move you an inch.. Mathemagically it seems highly improbable..

 

Except inventory space