Project: Community Skills Guide

I just cleared a dungeon on floor 13.
Puffballs are so good for confusing monsters up front so that they don't flow out of the dungeon en-mas giving you more time to back up and line up your AOE spells (Fleshmithing putrification) en-masse. Plus, with my throwing skill, the puff balls are hitting upwards of 70 damage, which added in with the hyperborean mittens and I single puffball is doing 100's of damage. And I my fair share of them back from the zoo. I still have about 130. Love those things.

 

BTW, if no one else has any suggestions for Rogue skills to cover I'll go ahead and start on Burglary tomorrow.

 

I suggest Burglary! It is my favorite skill.

By the way Lorr, I hope you didn't feel like I was attacking you or your project earlier in the thread, I was just giving you my two cents of input.

 

No worries, Karock. The first thing they teach writers is have a thick skin. The second thing they teach them is feedback is always good unless it's a death threat! My life hasn't been threatened yet, so things must be going pretty well. ^_^

So it's Friday and it seems today's Rogue skill is Burglary. I'm taking suggestions for skills for next Tuesday's and next Friday. Think Wizard, then Rogue again. Try to avoid skills that are being heavily updated in the upcoming DLC. For example, most crafting is best left be for the time being.

Burglary
Type: Rogue
Role: Fuel Tank or Payload
Burglary can be used to increase the general resources at your disposal and/or saved for later development into a powerful survival skill.
Theme: Grab Their Stuff and Run
Strategy:
Burglary specializes in moving around the dungeon with no restrictions and getting items for free. However, outside of performing these admirable tasks, the skill is not that threatening. While monster problems can be avoided for a time with Burglary, eventually a character will need a plan for dealing with them.
Pros:
Increased trap skill, nimbleness, activated invisibility and targeted teleport for escaping bad situations, infinite lockpicks that increase XP and pretty much increase loot per floor by 1/3 and the ability to steal one item from Brax on your first visit without repercussions. If it's not fighting, this skill probably does it. Seriously, all this skill needs to be stupidly overpowered is a heal of some sort. Which is why it doesn't have one. On the bright side, it fits with just about every skill and build you can cram it into, and is great even with just one point invested in it.
Cons:
No combat potential at all. Other than small nimbleness bonuses to keep you from getting hit just a little bit more, Burglary will not help you win a fight in any way. It can help you walk away from them, and make up the XP by picking locks, but really, who wants a named monster running around the dungeon when they don't know where it is?
Takeaway:
Burglary is a great skill for anyone, not just Rogues. It provides tons of options for just about any situation, including huge resource gains and excellent panic buttons. However, since it doesn't do much else, it's probably not a good choice for a character that already has good skills for those purposes. If you have Mathemagics or plan to craft your way to most of your better midgame equipment Burglary is less good (but still very good.) Still, you may find yourself considering this skill for every character you build.

 

Burglary. The first skill is amazing in and of itself as a game-starter -- nabbing an extra dozen booze, food, bolts, thrown, and crafting items from the first floor is a great way to ensure survivability for any Roguey character. But that's not really what anyone cares about. Even if you never plan to see the deeper levels of Burglary, everyone who has ever taken the skill puts at least one point in it -- often their first level-up of the game -- for the infinite lockpicks.

That's the level that everyone also talks about the most, so I'm skipping it. The third level of Burglary is the one that noone talks much about -- Lockdown. Lockdown has the simple effect of rooting a monster. It's a cooldown effect that roots an enemy. Sounds all good, but there's a hidden catch (with this and all root effects): the enemy has a chance to break free every turn, and that chance is greatly multiplied if you target that enemy with anything on your turn. So it's a great escape, but if you don't move as far away as possible before recommencing the attack, you're losing out on a good chunk of the effect. Obviously this is much less effective against caster mobs, but it's great against named meleers that you need to soften up a bit.

Next up: Ninja Vanish. 20-turn cooldown Invisibility, lasts 10 turns -- meaning that for the cost of 5% of your turns, you can spend 50% of your turns invisible. More often, though, you'll use this anytime you're overwhelmed. If you're not surrounded, it's a great way to get away. If you are surrounded, you can pop as many mushrooms, potions, food items, and booze as you can manage to stuff in your face in 10 turns before hopping back into the fray. Less common uses: get Invisible in order to safely clear the cooldown time of a more important getaway ability. If your Move in Mysterious Ways has 9 turns left and you have 9 HP left, hit Ninja Vanish and wait for your opportunity to teleport to come around. Similarly, dropping a powerful DoT on a foe and then going invisible is a great way to bring it into melee/nuke range.

Then: Five Finger Discount. It's one of those skills that looks cool, but in reality, is mostly for show. Unless you get super-lucky and manage to rob Brax of an item that's several levels out of depth, FFD is often going to be a few hundred extra zorkmids 2-3 times each floor. Granted, everyone gets lucky a couple of times on each run, and FFD is several more chances to get lucky.

Finally, the ability every build loves -- Move in Mysterious Ways. I expect everyone else to talk about it, and I'm out of time right now, so I'm not going to go into incredible depth on this. You get to go anywhere you can see once every 24 turns. Artifact islands, getaways from mobs, teleporting onto doors so you can see through them safely, and so forth -- the uses are endless and awesome.

 

I don't think you can close zoo doors anymore.

 

Five finger discount is nice for a free item with no risk, but to really make use of the burglary tree, you need to rob Brax blind. Take everything, not just the one item FFD gives you. Once you've reached Move in Mysterious Ways, this is fairly easy. Simply go into Brax's store, grab everything you want then move mysteriously out the door and head for the stairs. Once Brax's big red bullies show up, just pop ninja vanish for an easy getaway. This will allow to get the out of depth items every time instead of hoping FFD nabs it for you. Just make sure to case the joint ahead of time, planning your route to the stairs can be the difference between sweet loot and a re-roll.

There are of course many other methods to rob Brax, but Burglary gives you all the tools you need in one skill tree.

 

Sure you can, but you have to beat the Random Number God to do it: monsters will occasionally (somehow) walk into and subsequently block the doorway in the same turn you open the door. If they stay put, leaving the "doorway" empty, you can slam the Zoo Door in their faces like any could with any other door (assuming, of course, that you're not being suicidal and opening doors from the middle tile).

Also:

FFD generates a random item and claims that you stole it from the shop. You don't actually take anything from the Shop; after the FFD pop-up, the Shop will still be full, with all the Shopping Pedestals filled with merchandise. Regardless, your advice to use Ninja Vanish and Move in a Mysterious Way to rob him blind is still sound.

Fun fact: Five Finger Discount is currently bugged in that, if you enter a Shop with a full Inventory, the generated stolen item is Lost and Gone Forever™. It will not drop to the ground like Zoo/Quest Rewards or other "pop-up items" will - it simply is consigned to the Aether.

 

Since no one has really talked about it, Burglary is basically necessary for anyone who 'must open / get everything' because of the infinite lockpicks. This is the reason why I, personally, cannot make a build without burglary.

Pretty much everything else has been discussed except for noting the offensive potential of Move in Mysterious Ways for a melee character. If you've ever cleared a Zoo with Octo in it on a pure melee character, you know that after you clear all the monsters out, there will be 7-15 Octo just hanging out in the back of the room. As you try to get to them, they can do some major damage to you with their ranged attacks. Move in Mysterious Ways can be used to teleport right into the fray for ranged monsters (or to a square right by them) and avoid a lot of the ranged damage you might otherwise face.

 

It bears mentioning: "In depth" items in the late levels include the Staff of Godewjin, and Crownstars. I had a run a couple of weeks ago where I FFDed four Crownstars inside a couple of levels in the 12-15 range.

 

Burglary is one of the best skills in the game.

• The first skill gives you a random free item from vending machines. The first room of the game has a food and booze vending machine, so you start the game with more healing items. A number of times I have managed to steal WMD or squid bolts from vending machines which is always very nice.
• The second skills is almost always the skill I get with my first level up. It creates lock picks for free. The first floor alone probably has enough locked doors to level you up once or twice. This skill will level your character several times over the course of one game. Also breaking down doors means you can't close them later which can put you at disadvantage sometimes
• The third skill gives you a trap affinity and can prevent a monster from moving. Just this skill tree up to this point can disarm most traps on the first 2 floors. Which is another great source of experience. Traps will level your character a few times as well over the game. The prevent movement really helps with unique monsters which can easily kill you in 2-3 hits on rogue difficulty.
• I don't really use the fourth skill that much. I don't know how invisibility works to be honest. Maybe a melee character could use it for the end of monster zoos where 10+ ranged monster are all sticking together.
• The fifth skill gives you a random items (like not one from the store) when you enter a shop for the first time. It basically makes all brax shops one inventory spot bigger and gives you that item free. Its nice but not reliable enough to rush to. I basically only get it once I want the next skill.
• The last skill is amazing. A free controlled teleport. It has so many uses it is crazy. Every build can benefit from this skill.

 

If you never use lockpicks on doors then there are more than enough lying around to open every chest on every floor. I'm on floor 7 right now with a stack of 100 lockpicks.

I always pick Archaeology instead of Burglary for this reason.

 

The problem with that is you have to manually place your lockpicks outside of your inventory to open every door. It's more effort than using a spore on every corpse under the old system for fungal arts to me. Not really realistic. Also for the first few floors at the least 'having enough' is entirely dependent on luck. I've done exactly what you've said and have run into only having enough for 2/3rds of several floors in a row before (though I can't speak as to what would have eventually happened as I couldn't be bothered to continue that style of play to find out).

 

To save your sanity: you can click the lockpicks in your inventory/belt, break down the door, and then click again to 'drop' them. While they're on your cursor they can't be used on doors.

If you're playing on NttG that might explain the lack of lockpicks. On normal mode I never run into issues though. RNG?

 

I'd say RNG, which is why I say it's not reliable. That DOES sound like a much better solution to the issue though!

 

My biggest problem with J-factor's idea is that the RNG often places lockpicks inside locked chests, thus forcing you to smash them and frequently destroying them. (OT: How do I smash a wooden chest and ruin a suit of Magnetronic Plate? Shouldn't it stand up to that kind of abuse?) I've gone two or three entire floors, even pre-RotDG and NTTG, without seeing lockpicks on the floor or getting them out of an intact chest.

It's Tuesday! Lets talk about Mathemagic.

Mathemagic
Type: Wizard
Role: Engine or Turbocharger
This skill is great for a primary damage skill or as a way to set up other skills to increase their effectiveness (particularly with the Mod skill Archmage.)
Theme: Careful Manipulation of Time and Damage
Mathemagic deals exponentially increasing damage due to its linear stacking debuffs creating a self-contained scalar weakening effect. Which is to say, each casting of the spells from this skill stacks to bury your enemies under crippling status effects.
Strategy:
You basically want to establish DoTs on enemies, then teleport away from them until they die. It's important to have Xeuclid's as soon as possible if Mathemagic is your only damage skill, but really that's not recommended 'cause there's no AoE in the skill line at all. For the most part, you'll be a kiter, dealing powerful DoTs to enemies then 'porting away from them until they're dead.
Pros:
This skill is very powerful simply for the targeted teleport and Recursive Curse. The Curse, when stacked twice on a single target, will usually kill unless it is resisted, and its debuff saps the stats magic resistance comes from. Try to get lots of haywire to prevent that. Xeuclid's lets you escape any harry situation. Froda's isn't really great as a panic button, but helps you survive 'til you get there. Golden Ratio is expensive but lets you buy anything you want whenever you want it. And Belkzam's is useful to the gish, because it debuffs melee hardcore. Plus its a cheap damage spell. Also, every damage spell in the tree deals at least some transmutation damage, which isn't commonly resisted.
Cons:
No AoE. This skill is terrible at clearing zoos. Plus it doesn't do damage fast, it does it as DoT effects, which isn't always useful. But the teleports mitigate that somewhat.
Synergies:
Mathemagics goes well with any skill that wants to make ranged attacks unhindered but is particularly useful with Emomancy (healing, AoE), Necronomiceconomics (there is no "too close" for rifts with Xeuclid's) and Psionics (master of status effects!)
Takeaway:
Mathemagics is a workhorse magic skill. Not as flashy as Promethean or Necronomiceconomics, but powerful and efficient in what it does do. I highly recommend it for anyone who doesn't want their mage runs to consist of just spamming AoE every time you open a door.

 

I'm not a big fan of mathemagic. I only like the last three skills so I pretty have to waste 2 level ups just to get anything from the tree.

• Zenzizenzizenzic is an amazing buff but it eats up a lot of mana points. 6 sagacity, 9 magic power, and 3 mana regen is huge. However it is a pain to keep up because you need to cast it 3 times for best effect and you need to do that again every 42 turns. It is just not fun to keep using.
• Xeuclid's Translation is a nice teleportation spell. Everyone was gushing about burglary's capstone skill. This is it but instead of a cool down it cost mana. It doesn't even cost that much mana. This spell is amazing
• The recursive curse is a great damage over time (DOT) spell. This is the best DOT spell in the game. This spell and any prevent movement spell/skill will kill any unique monster. I'm not sure how well it will work on Dreamor though...

So the these three skills is nice, but:

1. Zenzizenzizenzic is annoying to use
2. You don't need Xeuclid's Translation and burglary's capstone skill
3. Recursive curse is only helpful for small parts of the game, though it does its job VERY well.

 

Froda's is quite funky for allowing (with a bit of persistence) passage through unbreakable walls via blind teleports that normally you'd need a tunnelling ability for which can be a very nice time saver on occasion.

 

This! Lockdown for long-duration single-target CC, plus some form of AoE CC (psi shove is a cheap and easy choice), gives you the opportunity to dictate the terms of engagement for any fight where you're not ambushed.

Thanks for pointing out the hidden catch, I wasn't actually aware of it, despite having used it a bunch. (probably because I use it primarily to keep auxiliary targets away while I tango)

On the topic of Mathemagic, it's a great skill any time you want to play more tactically. Goes pretty well with the aforementioned Burglary, actually, and the concept of moving about, CCing, and picking off targets one by one.

It's a horrible skill if you DON'T have the patience to play tactically, however. Wanton spamming of your spells will not work with anything in this tree.

 

Actually with enough savvy wanton spamming is quite possible. All Mathemagic spells become very cheap with a high savvy. You can cast Recursive Curse for as low as 6 mana, and while the DOT can be resisted the initial damage can't. This is great for wrecking any single monster, excepting Dredmor. Dredmor is immune to the DOT entirely and his resistances are so high, he laughs at the initial damage. Also, this may be a bug, but I've found that you if you click really fast you can often cast the curse or diminuating calculus multiple times before enemies get to move.

The only real downside to Mathemagic is the utter lack of AOE spells, so you should probably back it up with something that makes up for that. Synergises excellently well with magic training, for the aforementioned savvy.