Okay, so. I've been trying through atleast 3 dungeons to do a successful archer character. The skills I've been using are: - Crossbow Spec (Of course!) - Sword Spec - Burglary - Tinkering - Archaeologist - Perception - Deadshot I go to upgrade Tinkering to max before anything else, so that I have a steady stream of bolts. However, my bolt supply isn't the issue. Every run, I've only gotten to character level 5 before dying. I've been sticking to floor 1 almost entirely, but on the last run I did I tried floor 2. On that run, I even had a Steel Lever Crossbow! The problem I seem to be having is that I am having terrible luck with where the hoards of monsters are located. (Not the zoos, just rooms that have a bunch of mobs.) It seems that it is very common to find a "hoard room" that is very difficult to navigate, and ends up backing me into a corner. The other half of the problem is that I tend to run out of bolts from the sheer number of monsters there. I'll go into a room with some 60 bolts and run out, and so am forced to use my sword. After about the point where I get a wooden crossbow or a simple/lever crossbow(can't remember which), I can't seem to find a way to get a sword that has NEARLY the damage output of the crossbow that I have. Generally, what ends up happening is my sword hardly scratches the enemies. (Another thing: The rooms that I died to generally were hoards of deths, which are a lot more resistant to damage than the other floor 1 monsters.) Can I please get some advice on how to survive longer?
Get an ai partner. Level 2 of the fungal skill gives you enough spores to get enough fungus + gets you a summon creature that is beefy enough to take on the 1st floor pretty much by itself. Plus you can use it later on as crowd control. Its also a rogue skill so that helps too. I would replace burglary or perception. I would also take artful dodger. You need a way to escape/get space.
I have done a mage and fungal arts combo before... the slime dude is amazing. Thanks for the tips. If you wouldn't mind, could you answer a couple other questions? Mainly, what is an animal zoo, and how do you get uberchests to unlock?
The uber chests are unlocked by switches found in the level. The zoos are just rooms that are full of monsters.
Thanks. Are the switches necessarily close by the chest, or is it possible that it's halfway across the floor? Also, are the switches that when you pull them, give no message, the ones that trigger the uberchests?
The switches can be anywhere, and the only three things I've ever observed a switch to do is open a nearby wall (sometimes a room or two away, but not usually), create a bunch of traps, or, presumably, unlock an uberchest somewhere. I'm not sure what the message is, but if you don't see either of the first two happen odds are pretty high it was an uberswitch.
You are encountering 'Horde Rooms' because you are taking too long to finish the game. A few monsters spawn every X number of turns, and the more turns that pass the more monsters spawn. As far as I can tell this applies to ALL FLOORS of the game. The game literally gets harder the longer you play.
I had same exact build however I took unarmed instead of sword which I think you should of done too because the unarmed skills push enemies away, one of them is an aoe which helps a lot. I was on the 4th almost 5th floor before the patch and hadn't used a single healing item or stopped to space bar spam or anything, oh and also equip two shields unless that's been patched or something, seems so OP even when I did get hit which was rarely due to the dodge, counter and block I had the damage was so very minimal having two shields equipped.
@incendax I've also gotten unlucky and opened doors at the VERY. Damn. Start. Right at the spawn. That have the hoards in them. Can you tell me why that happens? @kbe Problem is that then my damage output is too low, and really early game ammo is very tight.
Soka, drop your swording and grab unarmed. Equip 2 shields. Do - not - fire - any - bolts until you are a good tinkerer (4) and can get a crapload of arrows from a single ore. Also drop perception and get dodginess
I've wielded only ( 1 ) shields before, and it seems like what happens is my melee does no damage. (Because my weapon slots would both have no damage attributes or damage values.)
You have to invest in the melee mastery tree. You are fairly screwed if you don't. Unarmed means at least you can have 2 shields equipped and still do decent damage for the first few floors until you can start pumping out the bolts. Just plan to spend your first few levels getting unarmed/swords/whatever up enough to do decent damage (or find an amazing item).
every character needs 3-5 basic things to survive. 1) an ammoless manaless wandless melee attack of some sort (one of the skills for weapons most likely) 2) a way of doing ranged attacks (preferably AoE) on the first floor wand lore is absolutely AMAZING for this because by rubbing wands you'll never run out although I am not sure what stat if any the damage scales with so... later on this seems useless (obviously something like promethan magic is best for this but will also likely require a support skill like blood magic/leylines..etc) 2a) crossbows do more damage than wands, ammo can be a bit hairy at the start but once you get a few zorkmids, find your first dispenser, or tinker some up ammo isn't a huge deal 2b) crossbow skill seems to do absolutely nothing! I basically never recover my ammo, this is likely a bug making the skill worthless! you can just use a crossbow without the skill if you want 3) a transportation ability, either from burglary, mathemagic, or artful dodger... this is pretty simply but sometimes you need to simply escape and enemies match your move speed! (also as a bonus you can jump moats) 4) some sort of defensive, buff, recover type ability (fleshsmithing, astrology...whatever) 5) some way to deal with traps... now some characters can probably avoid trap affinity all together if they have a reliable way to heal, but vampires at least definitely need a high trap skill this leaves at most 1or2 skills free to choose from the archeology skill is stupidly overpowered because in this game GEAR matters more than your character and archeology is currently the best gear based skill (better than smithing)
I have a similar build to the OP but have Artful Dodger instead of Swords. I'm not that deep into the dungeon, but so far the "bad weapon" penalty isn't hindering me. I have maxed Archery and Artful Dodger. Ammo has been an issue off and on, but that just forces you to play smarter. Needing a reliable AOE is likely to be my biggest issue long-term. So far I've had to rely on bombs and strategically placed Dwarven IEDs.
Artful Dodger is extremely useful for ranged characters because it gives you a free way to put distance between yourself and monsters. Also, not sure if this is a bug, but damage from Unarmed skills applies to your ranged damage as well, meaning that if you go with Unarmed and raise it early, it helps with survival at the beginning of the game while also not becoming useless to your build later, plus the knockbacks are useful and the ability to wear two shields without screwing up your melee game is far more useful. My problem with Archers is starting out, usually. I can barely even survive long enough on Rogue to reach level 2, let alone max out my tinkering.
I completely agree that the fungal skill is a must for a lot of builds. You can leave a summoned slime alone on the first floor and walk around without it, and gain experience from it fighting (or at least I used to) it makes the first floor very easy, and helps in the second floor. but the poor little slime just cant take the third floor at all, which is where the skill turns into distractions and buffs
A melee skill is by no means a requirement for a crossbow build. If anything, not having a skill allows you to use the best melee weapon you have, regardless of type. I will admit that you're in for a rough start for the first couple levels, though, as you'll start off meleeing for one damage. I'm actually using a build nearly identical to the OP, except that I have mathemagic instead of swords. That's probably the critical piece, to be honest, as you *need* to have some form of escape mechanism if your primary damage source is your crossbow. The key advantage mathemagic has over artful dodger is that you do not need to invest any skill points to gain access to your escape tool. This leaves you the opportunity to max crossbows and tinkering as soon as possible. Yes, I said to max crossbows. The +5 damage you get out of those two skill points is *huge* early on. Another critical bit is to try to avoid smelting raw ores until you max out tinkering. The difference in the quantity and quality of bolts a raw piece of hematite can make at level one tinkering and level five is astounding. And when you are forced to create bolts in suboptimal conditions, try to use ingots that have already been smelted before using the raw ore. The only other bit I can really add is that you should be relying on traps for most of your damage on the first dungeon level. Your first goal needs to be finding some gargoyle traps that you can lure monsters to. Also, be sure to use the traps you're able to pick up as they're pretty much useless once you get further down. Not only that, but they take up precious inventory space. The annoyance of managing inventory space is the main reason I haven't gone further with my crossbow build (Dungeon level five (or six?) on rouge with permadeath).
