While I'm not new to roguelikes or Dredmor in particular, I still have yet to do well at any of them. I was wondering if it would be possible to obtain a fairly decent skill build from the audience so that people (like myself) might have a shot at finishing a nice Permadeath Dwarvish run at things. These builds can assume that we have all the expansions, because frankly you should even if you don't. So... anyone want to post what they made the fatal blow to Dredmor with? Also, as a side note, if you kill Dredmor on Dwarvish with Permadeath, do you get all the achievements behind that one (ie Dredmor on Elvish w/o Permadeath) or do you actually have to complete runs like that? Because if that's the case, perhaps I should try an Elvish w/o Permadeath run to get the hang of the game a bit more. Is that something that would be recommended? Ideas? How would you get a newbie into the game if they're interested already? Build Submissions:
You only get achievements for the level you played on. And, generally speaking, builds are only useful if you know how to use them well, aka. if they suit your playing style. And the thing you need, even more than a "good" build, is learning not to constrict yourself to your build as that is a common cause of death amongst DoD characters. That being said, here is the last build I killed Dredmor with; it's not the freshest one (I did that run in July, so before the expansion and all the changes it brought), but it should still be usable: Burglary - when you begin, it is only useful for getting some random stuff from vending machines and for the slight experience boost it gives you, but later it'll become your best friend with Ninja Vanish and Move In Mysterious Ways, two abilities that allow you to either enter or exit a room not bothered by anything. Locking enemies also works, nearly as well as Nerve Staple from Psionics, and it's a good substitute for it when you don't want to spend mana needlessly because you have a Dampener running. Big Game Hunter - similarly to Burglary, it's not that great when you begin, but with just one skill point you get a "healing ability " for yourself with its Butchery proc. Unless your luck is rotten, the amount of meat you get from it should get you through the whole game. Release the Hounds is also useful as yet another ability that distracts monsters, and Lure is, or at least was, decent for what it does (it could pull a monster that you don't want to face against into the minefield you made a moment before). Fungal Arts - because having another method of healing and some spare invisibility mushrooms can save your buttocks when you are facing against a monster zoo and have to make a tactical retreat. The pet you get from it can be useful if utilized well, but you generally care more about the mushroom-making procs. Psionics - the only wizard archetype skill used here, and something to use mana mushrooms for. Psionics starts as something moderately useful, but if used whenever you have mana and can use it, if becomes really handy. Nerve Staple will likely save your buttocks just as often as invisibility mushrooms and two burglary-granted skills; the same about Psychokinetic Shove. You don't really want to bother going for the last skill, unless you know how to use it to its full potential (since you already have pets, and it's generally better to just go for one of the more offensive abilities). Clockwork Knight - it gives us even more movement-related abilities, as well as a basic ranged attack that we can use to save our throwables. The Dampener (shielding ability) is also helpful later in the game if you can keep up with its drain (yay for imbibing even more mana mushrooms), and the chance to find some scrap metal will help you with crafting some basic bolts/projectiles (even more so if you find the goggles). Master of Arms - something to keep your health from decreasing too quickly. And if anything, it helps you survive the earlier floors (before you build up your other skill trees). Assassination - our damage-increasing skill. Obviously it only gives a moderate increase, but scoring critical hits against Dredmor is advised if you aren't using spells (which this build doesn't have, duh). With it having three warrior archetype skill trees and three rogue archetype ones, it can go for both bolts and thrown weapons (depending on whether you find better crossbows or better burl-increasing items, but I went for both and the results were good too. Generally, what you are doing with this build is moving all around the battlefield and abusing invisibility/stun to switch from ranged to melee and back, depending on the enemy, and blocking everything with your pets if necessary. With the only mana-using skills being utility ones and defence-granting ones, all the mana mushrooms you can find will be enough to make using them frequently possibly, for as long as you didn't leave Fungal Arts with not points in it. Dredmor is a little problematic with that build, as the battle against him is a battle of attrition where you just keep your health above the damage he can deal with his Thor's Fulminaric Bolt and turn invisible whenever it goes below that to heal (and buff yourself with mushrooms, too), but with pretty much everything you are to rely on being easily replenished here, you should not have any problems with endurance battles, really. As to why would such a build be good for beginners - it's because it's simple. It requires no real combos, all of its resources are renewable, and there aren't too many skills to pay attention to (one bar will suffice, unless you do stuff like keeping Lucky Pick on the bar when you have 300~400 lockpicks just because you need to gather junk.
The last build I killed dredmor with was the cheatypants egyptian magic gish which will be nerfed soon, so I won't list that one. Previously, I used the Rogue Scientist build listed on the second post here: http://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/please-recommend-a-rogue-scientist-build.3923/ Then... well I took a break, so it's been a while. The question is more, what do you want to play? As for getting someone interested, play up the humor. It's what sold me way back at release. Humor, classy art, and varied gameplay.
Polearms Dual Wield Burglary Archeology Smithing Alchemy Magic Law Simple and powerful. Craft a couple of polearms for OP melee early on, smithing/alchemy gives access to great throwing weapons for your ranged needs(and the twin polearms boost your melee power, thus your throwing damage) and zoo clearing(noxious brimstone flasks ftw), as well as good armor, heals, etc. Burglary/archeology boosts your xp gain to make you overlevel (and smithing/alchemy gives you fodder for archeology to speed up the process). Burglary gives you teleport. Magic law gives you great utility/survival tools. When you finally get to dredmor, you can shut down his spellcasting with magic law, and throw stuff at him until he dies. Use invis/teleport to make room as needed.
Here's a few builds that I THINK ought to be newbie-friendly: A) Easy Clockwork Knight build: 1. Clockwork Knight (because of the low-level ranged attack) : You'll want to max this before you max anything else 2. Smithing (add points as needed -- when you have the mats to make use of the recipes) 3. Tinkering (same as smithing, make the best bow you can) 4. Burglary (1 point in to start; eventually you'll want to max it, but it doesn't have to be a priority). 5. Perception (Doesn't have to be a priority BUT one or two points early on is nice) 6. Shield Mastery 7. Berserk Warrior (even with no points invested, will help early on in melee). B) Necro Guy ==> Necronomiconomics is not that hard if you are careful, and collect items that give you necro resist, particularly the necro books 1. Necronomiconomics : avoid overuse until you get Mark of Chthon. 2. Blood Magic 3. Astrology 4. Fungal Arts (add 1 point in asap for the pet, then 1 in UC, then max Necro) 5. Unarmed Combat (add 1 point for knock-back attack) 6. Alchemy 7. Your choice (Piracy or Big Game Hunter or even Archaeologist or Burglary or other, as you wish; Necro Aspirant is great if you have the relevant mod installed)
Abuse crafting and Rogue Scientist for an easy time: Rogue Scientist: Level this first and level it up to get the toxin canister. You can usually do this before your first monster zoo. The abilities granted by this tree are extremely strong early game. Your acid will kill pretty much anything before DL5 (except acid resistant enemies) with your toxin canister clearing whole rooms or making zoos a lot easier. The free alchemy levels mean you can brew healing potions and similar useful things. The basic ranged attack can knock back scenery (iron bars, etc) and the acid projector destroys walls, allowing access to hidden rooms. Smithing: Powerful early weapons and armour and access to encrusting for late game upgrades. Level this second to enjoy weapons much stronger than you should be finding. Also combined with tinkering will give you all the traps skill you need. Tinkering: Extra traps skill early is extremely useful. Later on you can access the powerful crusts and clockwork gear. It also powers up your Rogue Scientist skills, allowing them to stay useful late game. Burglary: Infinite lock picks are very helpful and powerful due to the extra exp. Later game supplies good escape and survival skills. Clockwork Knight: Extra ingots and crafting materials and useful movement and knockback skills. This is also required to get level 7 smithing. Put two levels in if you require the extra movement skill but be careful of the damage it inflicts upon you. Dual Wield: The strongest one-point-wonder skill in the game. Two weapons means twice the damage. Later game you want to level this for the extra counter attack chance, as with your Rogue Scientist augmented limbs counter attacks become extremely powerful. Choice of support magic: It's advised to take at least one magic tree so that the many items and buffs for mana/magic are not wasted. Psionics has lots of utility. Astrology supplies a strong early buff and multiple stunning spells. Fleshsmithing gives you a nice healing ability and early game pets. Recommended - Magic Law: A few levels in this will supply you a useful silence/DOT for those ranged casters and the ability to transmogrify annoying opponents into less threatening things. This can be very useful if certain foes are causing you trouble due to resists or combat prowess. The debuff cleanse can save your bacon. How to play this build: Early game you should look to craft weapons and armour to stay ahead of the curve, encrusting lets you do the same late. Rely on your Rogue Scientist abilities to kill packs of monsters or clear monster zoos, by the time these become too weak to accomplish the task alone you should be geared enough to handle things in melee without any trouble. I advise starting levelling skills as follows: 4 levels of Rogue Scientist, one point in Burglary then max Smithing. After this put points in where you feel they'll be most useful. The penultimate Rogue Scientist skill is extremely strong and worth getting, the ultimate skill is less so and can actually be dangerous to use as well as being mana hungry.
Clockwork Knight - Flavorful, fun, powerful. This really makes the game experience much better. Vanilla warriors often feel like 'Sit there, swing, sit, swing.' Being able to teleport into the middle of a group of casters, do massive damage, and then teleport back out easily (4 turn cooldown on rocket jump, hello!) is nuts. Ranged attack with knockback is always good for making That One Monster stay away from you and letting you rain bolts into it (for me, the crusader fish... god that damage) Tinkering - Mandatory with Clockwork Knight. Also a great skill just for the trap detection. Also makes crossbows good. Also has great encrusts. I mean you might take this for the traps and clockwork knight boosts alone. Shield Mastery - Great skill to max early, huge survivability boost. Shield Bashes are fun. Communist - Great early heal, General Winter rocks and makes the ice AND fire floor easier, the REAL capstone gives 5 stubbornness, 5 armor absorption, and even more cold resist (this skill tree can make the ice floor lulzy real quick). First level skill is a solid escape skill, which is always nice for newbies. Berserker Rage - mostly for early game, although Ancestral Body Paint is good forever and ever. Demonologist - Rush to the third skill, then stop. Amazing skill for tanking roughly the first 15 floors. Turn demon is AMAZING early game because it can knock things off the stupid water islands and get you much better equipment. Yeah, no other real use for it 1 of: Fungal Arts (MUSHROOMS! And pets) / Smithing (Mediocre, but people seem to like it for inane reasons... mirror shields are good if the stores don't spawn one) / Battle Geology (Dazes for Dredmor) / Magical Law (Shut up, Dredmor... also some other minor utility versus other casters) Notes: If you get smithing here, don't dump your hammer. Atom smashers are great ways to kill yourself without good resists, but they're also amazing versus packs and zoos.
It actually destroys destructible walls as well so you get extra hidden loot each level. You can knock iron bars off walls as well. It's turning into one of my favorite level 1 skills.
Survivor Mage Mathemagic Golemancy Necronomeconomics Magic Training Burglary Leylines The first build I beat DRPD with. Just level Golemancy up to Unliving Wall first. The Moustache Golem will tank the first few dungeon levels for you and Unliving Wall will save your bacon in more ways than you can count. Get one point leylines for all your mana needs and then level up your magic to taste. Once you get that and Xeuclid's translation you'll be able to wall or port your way out of any sticky situation. This build has trapsight from burglary, four teleports if you max all trees, pets, and walls. Surviving until your first level is the hardest part after that you should be pretty much invincible as long as you can keep your mana up. This is why there are TWO mana skilltrees in the build. The biggest issues with this build are the lack of a heal and late AoE, so you might want to replace Necro with Emomancy to give you an early heal and My Chemical Explosion instead of taking forever to get to Tenebrous Rift. Disclaimer: While very effective, this build isn't necessarily very noob friendly, since it emphasizes magical avoidance over statistical defenses like armor absorption. You can be invincible if you're careful and most missteps can be fixed by a simple teleport, but one nasty hit from a named enemy could end you. Bulwark the Unbreakable (aka The Fortress that Walks) Mastery of Arms ShieldBearer Unarmed Smithing Tinkering Burglary Assassination This build will give you everything you need to turn yourself into an unassailable fortress and rain terrible ranged death down on anything that could hope to threaten you. Bulwark was the second character I beat DRPD with. With both Shield Bearer and Mastery of Arms you have enough and to stroll through the first few floors without issue. Level Unarmed early for damage boosts, knockback and fun passive stats. Smithing gives you epic armor and stacks of thrown items for the long game. Burglary for invisibility, lockdown, and teleport: your go to skill tree for daring escapes, also nice for lockpicks and occasionally robbing Brax blind. I took tinkering for crossbows, ammo and trap disarm and wonderful clockwork gear, but with Burglary already covering trap sight duties and smithing giving you thrown goodies, you could easily replace this with a skill of choice. Assassination I took for the passive procs which stun and put enemies to sleep but this skill could also be easily replaced by something more flavorful. Suggested substitutions for Assassination and/or Tinkering include: Communism, Berserk Rage, Clockwork Knight, Killer Vegan, or whatever else suits your fancy. Final Note: This build is very noob friendly. Just watch out for casters and mind your resists. With all the armor absorption you'll be rocking, spells and exotic damage types are the biggest threat to you. Mirror shields help. Last brick in wall of text goes here _________.
