Project: Community Skills Guide

Yeah, now I feel like a heel for poking fun. Sorry Essence! ;_;

Hope that he'll recover swiftly.

 

http://community.gaslampgames.com/t...s-in-the-hospital-for-my-son.3739/#post-41683

 

I'm glad it's something so manageable, Essence. I feel awkward saying that given how new I am to the community, but there it is anyways.


Back on the actual subject... I've found Smithing to be an odd skill. It can take on several different roles depending on the other skills in the build.
For a bumrushing brawler, it ensures that the Magnetronic Plate and other powerful clockwork armors will not be missed because of lack of components.
For a gish, it provides far less harsh penalties than the clockwork armors, even offering the Armored Archmage Robe, devoid of penalties.
For a thrower, it offers early and plentiful ammunition.
For a "tank", it offers the three best anti-magic shields in the game.
And for everything else, it offers multiple rings that can compete with (and surpass) artifacts, weapons that readily compete with the best Tinkering can provide (except in the case of attacking Dredmor with crossbows or swords...), and a giant middle finger to the RNG.

For me, that last aspect is its most important one. Being able to get decent gear (even if not the best) no matter what the RNG throws at you can be a really big deal. And even if its crafting options prove superfluous when reaching the lowest floors in RotDG, at least you're likely to get your best gear early and wind up with an extra 7 Burliness to show for it.

For synergy? Really, smithing combines well with just about anything. Even casters can benefit from the rings, robes, and shields and squeeze much needed health out of it. And to really tell the RNG to screw off, Perception provides just about anything Smithing would ever need. It's hard (if even possible) to go wrong with Smithing.

 

I am still scratching my head on the meaning of this. I can honestly say I have never been called a saint, even in jest before this.

I guess thanks is the only thing I can say that makes any sense.

On topic however, there is little I can say worth saying. Smithing is great for warriors, less useful for rogues and all but worthless to mages as opposed to other crafting skills.

 

We're in the home stretch! Less than ten core skills left. Of course, there's still RotDG and YHTNTEP. And I think that CotW is actually part of a Gaslamp conspiracy to ensure this thread is never done...

Blood Mage
Type: Wizard
Role: Fuel Tank or Turbocharger
Blood Mage pretty much serves to help keep your mana full. It's either crazy good at that, or terrible, depending on your build.
Theme: Kill Enemies, Get Mana, Profit!
Strategy:
Blood Mage works best with a caster who has a lot of AoE at his disposal. It underperforms for utility casters or people with a lot of single target damage, like Math-mages or Viking mages. Gishes will get fair value, and they actually have cause to put points in it.
Pros:
Blood Mage gives you mana when you need it - right after you've spent it. Assuming you've spent it to kill something. The more you kill, the more mana you get. At higher levels, each kill buffs your ability to kill things, and also slightly increases your ability to regain mana. Finally the Phylactery is a really great way to get your hands on panic button healing if you don't have it already.
Cons:
The Righteous resist can really hurt you vs. Fish, and if you're not a really, really strong AoE caster it'll be hard to get enough mana out of the skill to justify it.
Synergies:
Blood Mage is just plain bonkers when combined with Promethean Magic or Necronomiceconomics, both of which will provide you with enough AoE to flat out nuke entire rooms and recoup your spent mana if not on the turn cast, then on subsequent turns as the DoT effects take their toll. Astrology has The Stars Aligned, a punishing spell that frontloads most of its damage and can also easily pay for itself. Golemancy gives you Thaumites, which will frequently re-harvest mana all out of proportion to your initial investment. Magic Training makes all your spells cheaper and gives you more raw spell power to harvest more mana with.
Takeaway:
Blood Mage is a decent magic support tree, but it will shine best with a handful of trees and it is not at all subtle. If you're looking for a side of magic with your warriors or rogues, this might not be the best way to go...

 

Wonderful writeup, but you barely glossed over the Hidden Secret of Blood Magic(OMT): The Magic-Buffed Warrior (i.e. The True Gish). Blood Magic is, for example, dropjaw amazing when used by someone who fully intends to melee the entire dungeon to death but uses magic for backup.

Take for example, a classic: Staves, Dual Wield, Emomancy, Necronomiconomics, Astrology, Warlockery, and Blood Magic. At early levels, you can use Radiant Aura + Mage's Mana Maille to spam Deathly Hex with no effort at all, getting your mana back from Blood Mage because Deathly Hex is so cheap. Build up to Mark of the Black Eyeliner and/or Celestial Aegis to resist the debuffs, and suddenly you can throw down Mark of Cthon and Pact of Fleeting Life and just walk around busting heads and gaining mana and buffs from Blood Magic for it. At higher levels, this will easily fuel a continuous Essence of Battle, making it even easier to crush skulls (and empowering your other Warlock spells at the same time).

This works so much better than being a spellslinger for one simple reason: Vital Siphon. Vital Siphon triggers on 30% of melee attacks and grants you somewhere between 1 and 5 mana per iteration. Considering that gishes swing their swords a hell of a lot more often than casters cast spells, this is a HUGE boost to the amount of mana you get from Blood Magic. And it's the first point you have to invest in the stuff!

Gishes also benefit more from Haematic Phylacteries in my experience, but I haven't played enough spellslingers that got up to the Phylactery level to really know that for sure.

 

I've often considered that such a build could be possible, but I didn't want to talk one up since I'd never found quite the right mix of skills to make it work.

Besides, you've done a much better job of making it sound awesome than I would.

 

I have a question about Blood Mage that would be handy to know in such a guide. I've never found anything that's quite clear on this: What debuff removal methods work on the Phylactery creation debuff, or conversely what debuff removal methods don't work on it? Whichever answer's shorter. A friend of mine who's played this longer thought it was entirely immune to debuff removal, but I've seen a claim that the healing fountain room is effective on it.

If there is a reliable way to remove it, then wouldn't that mean any build (so long as they have that method) could benefit from this just by stockpiling a great number of phylacteries?

 

AFAIK, there is no way to get rid of the Phylactery debuff anymore. It used to be marked as a curse, in which case just about anything would remove it -- but it's coded as though it's a beneficial buff now, which means the only thing that can remove it is a specific removebuffbyname effect...which exists only on the Phylactery itself!

 

Creating a Phylactery casts the Haematic Drain effect on the player. According to spellDB, Haemetic Drain has bad=0, so it shouldn't be removed by any decurse effect, only using the Phylactery, which triggers another spell that removes the Drain debuff by name.

This didn't used to be the case IIRC, so you're right, you could just stockpile Phylacteries and decurse yourself for great justice/profit (your pick.) But that won't work anymore.

EDIT: Nicely done, Essence.

 

I haven't played with blood much. Does consuming the phylactery remove the debuff? What about the debuff stack?

 

The context of Essence's post already points out that the phylactery removes the debuff when consumed. As for the stacking, the pedia says it can stack up to 20 times. That's probably very, very lethal, so I wouldn't suggest trying that.

 

Yes but does creating multiple, and then using one remove the stack or just a single application of the stack?

 

I'm assuming it only removes a single unit from the stack per phylactery consumption.

 

It used to remove them all. I have not used it in a while. So I cannot be certain. But I know the Gaslamp crew were trying to decide weather or not to make it remove all.

 

XML says it only removes one instance of the debuff now. 'Course, stacking is borked right now, so you may run multiple instances of the buff without noticing them...

 

Well if it doesn't remove all, and no other way removes any, then they might want to tone down the debuff.

 

I don't think so. Since consuming it removes the debuff, as long as you never need more than one at any given time, you can keep a phylactery on-hand at all times and only have to deal with one level of the debuff. Just use the skill again once you're in the clear after having to consume it. It's current setup is a very nice risk vs. rewards thing.

 

Blood magic works well with killer vegan. Killer vegan makes it so the only reliable source of righteous damage won't try and hurt you. Also killer vegan gives mages a ton of extra health and blood magic gives you a sort of way to heal. Most of my Mage builds have blood magic and killer vegan.