The Pre-Game Show So I beat Dredmor last night, GRPD NTTG. I went toe to toe, manno-manno. I've heard it can't be done. I've come with proof otherwise. Don't get me wrong. Taking Dredmor down up close and personal isn't easy. The RNG is gonna be involved more so than some people may be comfortable with. You have to accept some risk as part of it. But it can be done. You just have to plan ahead. Like, from character generation. I played using the following skills: Swords Dual Weilding Blacksmith Alchemy Qi Gong Elemental Warrior Kung Fu Of these, Elemental Warrior is OP, but only because its resistances will save you several hundred points of damage across the course of the game. For the Dredmor fight, 3 Fire and 3 Cold resist are a drop in the bucket. The Gaia's Wrath proc is a bit much, too, but I don't think it ultimately made that much of a difference in the fight, as most of it was me killing Dredmor, or killing some of his minions after he blinked away then trying to find him again. I'll make a few notes about how you might be able to get a very similar build out of core game skills later. One reason most people think you can't fight Dredmor in melee is that people think he'll use his horrific melee attack against you a hit that does something like 80 damage (non-crit). But he doesn't. Even if you're right in his face, Dredmor still spams his spells most of the time, attacking you physically maybe one turn every fifteen. Sure, he can counter you, too, but as a melee fighter you should have enough counter and block to shrug that off once or twice. Dredmor's most dangerous move is casting Thor's Fulminaric Bolt on you, and that can happen as long as he can see you. When I found Dredmor I looked like this: Up until that point I had been using a Doul's Possible Sword from an Evil Chest, but its damage bonuses couldn't hit through Dredmor's resistances, so I upgraded to a Savvarius I had saved just for him. Note that yes, I am carrying three of them. I bought all of them from Brax (who apparently robs the Amusin clan for fun) and offered two of them to Krong. FUN FACT Savvarius is apparently immune to Krong's displeasure. I Kronged one of those and was informed Krong was unhappy with me. The Kronging report showed no negative stats added, though, and when I looked at it afterwords it had actually gained a Putrification damage. This may require more testing. /FUN FACT Among other things the magic Savvarius's are the source of my Transmutation resistance and some of my Necromatic resistance. The Boilerplate and Sun God Mask are magic too, both Zoo rewards. Like my backup sword, the Sun God Mask and Window of the Elements were equipment I saved solely for fighting Dredmor. If you see these, hang on to them. They prevent an invaluable few points of damage from Dredmor's favorite spells, and this is going to be a slow war not a fast brawl. Shrike's Ring was swapped in for an Emerald Encrusted Gold Ring, as a way to up my counter. In retrospect, I didn't need it. Dredmor just didn't attack me enough for it to matter. Diggle God of Fertility is bonkers all of the time, but the more so in this battle. The ability to heal 1 HP per turn, and have +22 HP total, is pretty neat. The trigger on hit Regen proc is just plain crazy. I also had voltaic and hyperborean potions, which were invaluable. An infernal one would have been nice, but I was only taking 14 fire damage from Dredmor's fireballs to begin with, so it wasn't necessary. He did seem to cast that more than any other spell, though. I have no idea why my magic resistance is so high. There's a lot of stats on the Crossbow, I think that's part of it. I don't think it mattered much, since Big D's Haywire chance is 89%. I think it kept my equipment from getting corrupted once. Other than that, I don't recall it doing me jack. If there is one thing I would change if I could, I'd have hung on to the Magnetronic Plate I found on DL13. It gives 10 Voltaic resistance, which would have been huge against Dredmor's Bolt spells. After Daddy D's EDR I only had a 2% dodge chance anyway, so the Magnetronic penalties weren't that significant. And again, he doesn't swing at you much. The battle was an epic, fiftysome turn affair, 25 of which were actually spent with Dredmor in melee with your's truly. It was a back and forth battle, that's for sure.
The Play-by-Play I stumbled into Dredmor while clearing a hoard of Eldritch Slicks and Pectinous Tesseracts that were crowded into a doorway. I withdrew a few steps around a corner to have time to drink my potions and swap equipment. Then I waded into the fray. I opened with a Trompement, since a melee hit with a spell hit on top of that is better than just a melee hit. Dredmor responded with an acid bolt, which I mostly ignored due to my alchemical training and my boilerplate. I hit Dredmor again, noting that a straight melee hit dealt 59 points of damage all together (it was hard to catch the numbers in the battle log, they scrolled by when I wasn't paying attention.) He's only got 672 HP, how long can this take? Dremdor retaliated with a bolt of ice that dealt four points of damage. Another melee hit was answered with a fireball, this one singing me for a noticeable 14 damage and setting Dredmor on fire. (Question: Why can I not catch on fire? That would make this ability much more terrifying.) I swung again but Dredmor blocked it, and I did very little damage, maybe 20 points. Dredmor actually swung back at me, scoring a critical, but I managed to roll a counter to stop it. Turn six I swing again, Dredmor ice blasts me. Turn seven I stop to eat a Deep Omelet, Dredmor calls down Thor! 55 damage. Ouch. Glad I ate that omelet. I score another hit, Dredmor corrupts my equipment. I think there might have been an attack in there, but I'm not sure how I slipped out of it. It didn't take any damage, though. So to get even, I hit him again and he retaliates by reviving the dead. I noticed that my Trompement is ready again and use it again. Dredmor flings ice at me. This is hardly the worst thing he could do so I whack him again. He blinks. The turn before he blinks, things look like this: I take the time to quaff a few health potions to bring myself back up to a fuller health bar. Dredmor walks down from the north, blinks again and is almost next to me, then throws an acid bolt, anti-magic field and ennui at me. Then the battle is rejoined in earnest. I swing, get countered, counter the counter and score a blocked hit. Dredmor responds by lighting the area on fire again. I retaliate with the Trompement, only to get Thored in response. I quaff a potion, Dredmor blinks. I run him down and hit him, he fireballs me. I drink a potion, he casts something I resist. I whack him yet again, he scores a crit that I manage to block (twice in one battle! Sometimes the RNG helps as much as it hurts.) I hit him, but get blocked, he Thors me. Things look like this: I have an invisibility potion and use it. Five potions later I'm ready to fight again. I hit him with the Trompement, he counters part of it, starting another counter war that only ends when he counters my critical hit. I hit him again, he blinks, leaving me facing a small army of red lichesses. I use a purity potion, then back up from the lichesses and kill one, then hide behind a pillar until Dredmor comes up from the south and I jump out and am in melee again. He's lost a little health from being on fire. I score a critical hit with the Trompement, he retaliates by reviving the dead, he blocks my next hit and revives the dead again. My next hit is clean, Dredmor revives the dead a third time (there were a lot of corpses in the area - remember, I was killing hoards when I found him.) I hit him once more, he flings ice. Finally I score a critical hit and end his menace forever! Or at least until my next character. Victorious, I look like this: A lot of the damage in those last few rounds didn't even come from Big D. The only time I was in danger, I was able to take refuge in invisibility, commonly available from a consumable. I was in melee with the Man Himself for 25 turns and only took perhaps 150 points of damage from him over the course of the battle. Could it have been more? Yes. Was it dangerous? A bit. But at no time did I feel like I was on the border of having my character destroyed underneath me. Melee players, rejoice! He can be slain by the power of muscle and iron. Just plan ahead and play it smart. I'll do a "post game analysis" tomorrow, spitball some ways you could do this with core skills if you're mod resistant. Otherwise, I say get too it!
Post Game If you're a core skill purist and you want to take Dredmor in melee there's several skills that add to your ability to do so. I would replace: Elemental Warrior with Killer Vegan or Big Game Hunter. Both will give you between battle survivability, Vegan in the form of tons of extra health and an increased heal factor plus occasional free food, BGH in the form of more free food. Both also boost your accuracy, a must have when fighting Dredmor. I'd lean more towards BGH myself, as that doesn't reduce my XP so drastically, but the Radiant Damage from Vegan is huge in later levels. Another option is Burglary, which gives you a teleport (an ability from Elemental Warrior I found very useful) and an invisibility power, which is nice for buying time to heal VS Dredmor. Qi Gong with Master of Arms or Berzerk Rage. I didn't use the Qi Gong skill tree much. Basically, what you choose to replace it with will depend on whether you want more armoring in early levels or the benefit of Berzerk Rage's many resistances and +10% magic reflect (huge VS Dredmor.) Kung Fu with- wait, why do you want to replace this again? The skill is pimp. But if you must replace it, Artful Dodger, Burglary or Piracy are all excellent choices. They give you Nimbleness, which is the best stat, Burglary helps relieve supply issues, Piracy gives you gems (for making Emerald Rings and Windows of the Elements), Mists of the Corsair and Swashbuckler, for huge boosts to survivability and Dodger keeps you getting hit less and countering more. If you're dropping Alchemy, I would recommend taking Piracy in that slot. If I were to try to melee Dredmor again tomorrow, using only core skills, I would probably use: Swords Dual Weild Berzerk Rage Smithing Piracy Burglary Big Game Hunter/Alchemy Happy hunting!
I killed dredmor in melee a while ago with a random build (Killer Vegan, H2H, Fungal Arts, Magic Training, Astrology, Big Game Hunter, Master of Arms, I think it was) and didn't think much of it at the time. Then again, this was the old dredmor.
