Your favorite builds?

I see alot of people going dual wield, but i need to ask, how can you survive against 3 or 4 mobs?

Shield and armor skills are invaluable! In the second level of the dungeon, most creepers hit for block, 1 or 2, never more then that. With my dual wield build, i would get hits of 5, 6 and 7. For offensive, a couple of points in your weapon of choice and some viking magic makes short work of anything level 2 sends at you.

 

@Jajusha You need to be a little strategic, find a corner with one passage, or somewhere that only one creep can hit you at a time and stay there wait and kill them one by one.

 

I'm using a Warrior/Rogue character, evenly split.

The skillsets I've chosen:

Swords
Artful Dodger
Master of Arms
Deadshot
Perception
Smithing
Archaeology

I'm still playing through with this character, so I dont have a full skill list to describe; I'm currently on the third floor, only just got there.

I took It Belongs in a Museum early, from the Archaeology set, because it's a REALLY good skill overall; the boosts from sacrificing artifacts to it can add up in a big way towards getting you to the next character level. I also took the first sword skill early, the one that's kinda like having a second type of critical. Second level of Smithing right now, also got the...er... I think it's called "tighten up" or something, from the Arms one. And only one skill left to grab in Artful Dodger (which is a very short skill tree). Also have the majority of the swords skills now, including the one that hits three in a line. And lets not forget Knightly Leap, which actually turned out to be useful once I figured out good uses for it.

So far, this is a very good set of skills. Most enemies cant do overmuch damage right now, but I can hit pretty hard, have a good chance of blocking, countering, OR dodging, a good chance of critical, and constant use of the Museum skill means I advance nicely (at the cost of not being able to sell those items to Brax, that is). Smithing allows for the occaisional creation of a quite useful piece of equipment, which is a great way to get a nice sword pretty early on. The fact that I dont use magic means that I can take EVERY drink item and stuff it into the Lutefisk cube, to get artifacts out of the statue.

I'm very familiar with Roguelikes, and my playstyle is a careful one; I'm the sort that pays very close attention to stats and stuff, and I make careful decisions on exactly what to equip based on the stats; I really like how incredibly well this game handles this aspect. The proper choice isnt always so clear! The skills my guy has are great and all, but some of the equipment is very important to survivability as well; some resistances (acid and necro are real helpful on the third floor, as is electricity) and an HP MAX and Regen boost are helping alot as well.

I ran into my first Monster Zoo earlier, on floor 2. My health never dropped below half; careful use of items and such got me through it. Crap, but there's ALOT of monsters in those rooms.

 

I found a fun Celestial Monk build. Staves, artful dodger, Celestial/Star magic, magic training, ley lines, perception, and burglary. Basically I run the wacky celectial auras, kill everything with my staff, and let my high mana recovery just keep me crushing all.

I like another build too. Unarmed, throwing, artful dodger, perception, burglary, archaeologist, assassination. Great fun. Tho I cant figure out how to use It Belongs In A Museum ... But still its a fun build.

 

I've been very succesful with a new build I'm calling the "Paladin".

Essentially the skills are: sword, shield, armour, astrology, promethean magic, leywalking and perception.

Perception is perhaps debatable, but I find the trapfinding invaluable, and having a higher chance to hit enemies is key. By level 6 this build because evenly balanced between warrior and mage. Basically you start by developing: sword, shield, armour. This coupled with a three star blae should make it so you can 1 hit kill any monster on the first floor. You need to remember to keep your buffs (radiant aura and suit up) active at all times, but you should have enough mana to always use radiant aura, and suit up recharges fairly quickly. These will be ke ythroughout the game as they give you survivability, and make up for the fact that you don't want to be wearing heavy armour that will lower your magic. Then you want to up leywalking, perception, then promethean magic. Your promethean magic will never be as strong as a purist mage, but it is very effective for doing damage to a large group of enemies that is approaching you. By using it, by the time enemies reach you, it should only take one hit to kill them. Often you will use the dragon breath spell, then if the nemies surround you, one will hit you, causing your radiant aura to kill all of them. As yo ureach later stages in the game, you should find yourself depending on magic more, but this basic concept will still stand.

The important thing to remember with this build if that you want to save your mana for difficult monster or large group fights. Keep your buffs active and fight melee (or even use a bow if you want. Even without the mastery you can manage to do some damage) and have full mana for bosses and groups. Solar inscription becomes a bit of a spammed skill, as being able to knock out monsters is invaluable.

Also: I would be interested in trying to develop a mage that uses unarmed combat and shields as the base, but then has magic skills to follow. The dual wielding with shields seems like an interesting strategy. I'm also starting to think that having the master of arms skill might be very useful to a mage, as the skills there help to make up for not using stronger armour. Has anyone tried anything like this?