What is the most potent warrior build?

Title says it all, what is the most potent (weapon using) warrior build? This excludes unarmed, staves, and a caster BUILD, however caster skills can still be used if need be.

 

Why would you exclude unarmed or staves? They are fine for beating things up at melee range.

 

Well they're not necessarily a warrior build, since warriors don't use their fists unless they don't have any weapons :\ Same goes with staves

 

Of course warriors use staves, especially when 'staves' includes polearms and spears.

Polearms and spears are the 2 most used weapon of ancient time.

 

Spears are part of the staff lineup, therefore fitting for a warrior.

 

I just finally beat the game (Dwarvish Moderation, but it's a start) with a Vampire Fencer.

Skills: Swords, Dual-wielding, Berserking, Vampirism, Astrology, Burglary, and Archaeology.

Benefits: dual-wielding swords is for the win because swords are freaking everywhere. They appear all over the place as Quest rewards, in chests, spawned on the floor, and Brax sells a ton of 'em, too. Some of the most powerful weapons are swords, too (Blade of the Anti-hero, Knightly Sword, Doul's Possible Sword, etc).

Combine this with Archaeology (max it out with next 3 levels after getting "eat corpses" in the Vamp tree, trust me on this one) and you can double-boost your best weapon on every Anvil of Krong, and if you get some negatives or stupid stats like Wand Use or too many Resistances, you can re-roll it with "This Translation is all Wrong" until you get something you can live with.

The thing you need to watch out for: Heavy Armor. Don't use it! The Health gain from Vampirism scales with your Magic Power (???) so if you have 0 Magic Power because you're wearing Full Plate, Knight Helm, Metal Sabatons, and the like, you won't drain enough health and will wind up dead. You're better served using some of the better "armored" Robes (for SOME absorption and Magic Power) and then a variety of "Rogue" equipment that increases Dodge, Counter Attack, Accuracy, Crit, etc. The Fedora you start with a good idea of the kind of stuff you want on your armor pieces.

The other thing you want to do is get your Mana Regen stat up to 5 or 6 (done by rerolling all your armor/ring/trinkets with TTisW until it pops up). Why? Astrology. With that much Regen you can have Syzygy AND Celestial Aegis up AT ALL TIMES WITHOUT LOSING MANA. This is pretty important because having both active will give you Aetherial Damage, a ton of Resistances, a boost of max Health AND Mana, and some Armor Absorbtion, Dodge, Sagacity, and Nimbleness. In short, it's like having 3 extra, fairly-high-level Artifacts equipped. Lastly, keep Radiant Aura up NO MATTER WHAT. This ability makes everything easier to see AND can save your ass if you get surrounded (monster zoos, surprise boss packs, etc).

If you can only get your Regen up to the 2-4 range, you can still keep both buffs up, but you'll slowly "bleed" mana and will need a steady supply of booze to keep them running. You can always turn one or the other off if you're backtracking to save on mana/booze.

Lastly, Burglary. This one could be swapped for something else, but I recommend it for 2 reasons: Ninja Vanish and free Lockpicks. The Lockpicks (and the Trap Finding) make it so easy to get to level 5 or 6 on the first dungeon floor. If you remember to keep making Lockpicks, you can unlock every door, every chest, and disarm every trap for HUGE amounts of early XP, which will give you a leg up for the deeper dungeon levels.

As for Ninja Vanish, it makes you nearly impossible to surround and let's you get distance on those nasty melee mobs (Arch Diggles!) and Named melee mini-bosses. It also makes fighting Lord Dredmor himself a walk in the park. Vanish, walk away until he's out of sight (and then some), put EVERY buff you can on, then walk forward until he appears and nuke him from afar!

If he actually decides to cast at you, and it actually hurts you through your resistances, use Ninja Vanish again (only a 20-round cooldown) walk out of sight, use Fairywodger/monster corpses/Lively Regen potions/Healing Potions to get back to full health, find him again, rinse and repeat.

I killed him with 2 shots of a Tentacular Wand, 2 Clockwork Drill Bolts, an Acid Ampule Bolt. The damage over time killed him while I was vanished and prepping for Round 2 of Ranged Damage. I didn't even realize that he had died because it's hard to see that your character is celebrating when you can only see his outline. =p

Anyway, I'm sure you could make some substitutions (Astrology, Burglary) and it would still work, but the above worked very well for me, for the reasons I listed (and others).

 

Don't poo-poo unarmed either. It's very potent itself.

And, actually, if you look at medieval range of fighting (knights, samurai, etc), they all trained in unarmed combat, and it was often used on the battlefield as well. Throwing a guy to the ground (or as some people like to call it, 'hitting them with the earth') while wearing full armor is enough to paralyze them.

 

The best warrior build is a dual wielding rogue/mage with staves, two points in assassination, either 3 points in fungal arts for unlimited greedy bungcaps/2 points in vampirism/or 4 points in necromancy for life steal, archeology, and psionics.

The problem with the warrior skills is 1) primary stat gains from skills is bugged. 2) skills that primarily grant stats are underpowered compared to some of the abilities in the game 3) There are enemies that can corrupt/break your gear/weapons 4) heavy armor lowers your magic power which is needed currently for lifesteal/healing/assassination damage also the reason why staves are the weapons of choice 5) melee attacks trigger counter attacks even if enemies are stunned so you will need a lot of healing.

Vampirism is getting reworked in the patch and stat gain is being reworked so that will help some. After the patch you could probably do a heavy armor warrior using fungal arts/vampirism if you make use of bows/arrows to deal with some enemies.

 

Thanks guys for all the tips, I'll be sure to try them out soon. I'd like to clear something up though, I understand the uses of unarmed, outside and inside of dredmor, *cough @fishofmuu cough* and I never did poo-poo unarmed. I also would like to know the best unarmed build, however I would love to defeat Mr. Dremor, not with hand, not my fireball, not with stave, but with: (valiant, meaning voice, like the black knight, from monty python and the holy grail. If you haven't seen that movie stop what you're doing, download it, and watch it. No need to thank me) A SWORD and SHIELD. Or a sword and sword if I use dual wielding when it gets fixed.

 

Dual wielding works, just... don't put any points into it. Just getting the skill is fine, if you want the 2x damage.

 

Oh, you can put ONE point in it - Offensive Maneuvers will still proc. And you get the "dual weapons = double damage" bit even with 0 points invested. However, as was said, you don't get any of the Stats that the game claims it's giving to you.

 

I've found that using swords, dual-wielding, artful dodger, vampirism, assassination, fungal arts, and archaeology. But I want to exchange something for burglary. The thing is I like all the procs that assassination gives, fungal arts is useful, archaeology is needed 100% and the others are much needed for the build, but buglary gives free lockpicks as well as escape mechanisms. Is artful dodger's knightly leap worth it? or could I just use burglary's escape mechanisms?

 

I experimented a lot(and failed a lot) with Melee builds, but here's what I found works fairly well:
1. Unarmed
2. Vampirism
3. Berserker Rage
4. Assassination
5. Burglary
6. Fungal Arts
7. Smithing

Level Fungal Arts to 2, then max Berzk Rage. Then work on unarmed and assassination based on need.

Ideally, I liked to have dual shields and a ton of block along with a couple of items that offer trap affinity. If things got really rough you can summon a sporeling to distract while you attack.

I suppose Smithing could get swapped for Archeology but I like the fact that Smithing gives you damage boosts and trap affinity.

You have a lot of tricks to avoid damage here. If you're very low on health you can summon a sporeling and beat the s**t out of it to regain health. This will also restart B. Rage.

 

Re: DaPatcho

Personally I'd say get rid of Artful Dodger to pick up Burglary.

If you abuse Archaeology and get your Magic Power up in the high teens, you can rely on Vampirism Attacks to offset most of the damage you're taking, and if you get in a bind, Ninja Vanish is AMAZING: only a 20 turn Cooldown, and you stay invisible for ... I think... 15 turns? So it's pretty much always there when you need it - for Monster Zoos, for Boss Packs, and for that Melee mini-boss that finally caught up to you.

 

I'm a newbie with a somewhat "pure" warrior build, 1st char, so of course it's having problems. I'm going through the forums and wiki, but it seems like you almost *have* to possess some kind of skill that harvests resources from monsters (like Fungal, Vampirism, etc) otherwise you're in for a difficult time (?).

His build is 1)Swords, 2)Shields 3)Berserker 4)Assassination 5)Viking Wizardry 6)Master at Arms and 7)Smithing

I've done pretty well - he's now 18th - but was chased off of 7th level. Simply not enough food and resources - I take it that resources, unlike the monsters, never respawn?

I know it's due to an inefficient build, but still, managed to get pretty far. Those witchdoctors on 7th are pretty mean.

I'm playing Permadeath so I'm invested in the char, but I imagine he'll die fairly soon (either yasd or deliberately) so I'll be reading up and trying another build.

 

7th is the ice floor, right? A hat of Kaneda is your biggest priority, since it provides 6 resistance to cold damage. Try searching shops for one. If you can't find one, you are pretty screwed, because that DoT spell is very deadly and stacks.

As for an adjustment to your current build, I would say drop Viking, Berserker, and possibly shields. Suggested replacements would be Astrology(that first spell is very nice for melee), Archaeology(double Krong uses and the option to completely reroll a artifacts stats, as well as a source of extra XP), Burglary(free lockpicks, a hold skill, and a great escape skill), and Artful Dodger(a farily decent buff to dodging and a good jump back ability). Also, for a 'sword and board' build, I actually prefer maces. No, you don't get counter boosts, but you do get a lot of control over a situation thanks to the knockbacks. Careful though, they can back fire on you. I have had Dwarven Handshake proc and send a caster over a gap before, making me vulnerable to its spells till I managed to reach it again. If you decide to uses maces, be sure to keep your situational awareness in check before you start wailing on your enemies.

My personal favorite melee build though has to be Unarmed, Arms, Dodger, Assassin, Archaeology, Smithing, and Astrology. Technically, this is a rouge build, is you care what those little class bars say, but you will be playing it like a brute, so I think its all the same, really. First things first, max Assassin, then Unarmed. Keep the astrology spell up and this combo will give you a VERY good offence and defense for the early game. You can get all this done by the end of level 2.

From there, I would start maxing Smith. Its important not to actually smelt ores into ingots until you have it maxed though, unless you are desperate for better armour. Probably the best armour you can get your self from this is the aluminum set, minus the helm(your fedora will do you nicely) a pair of Heroic Bronze Aspis', and a pair of Rings of Iron Thorns. The latter two are hidden recipes, so if you feel like getting full props, you will need to get lucky and find them, other wise, you can check the wiki. Even if you haven't found the recipe in game, you can make it if you know what it requires. They are both surprisingly easy to make, though aluminum is a little uncommon so you might have to make or find some stand in armour in the mean time. You might also want to carry around a Fullplate or Serpentine Plate for those rare occasions you will actually find Armor Absorption really necessary.

Getting a point in Artful Dodge might be a good idea at this point. The game becomes a slight touch harder by level 5, so a few to many bad rolls can end you if you don't have potions or an escape plan, which Knightly Leap will provide you. If you are feeling confident though, you can hold off on getting this. Remember though, it only lets you jump in a knights move on a chess board.

Next up is Archaeology. This is perhaps the most gamebreaking skill set in the game that isn't related to magic. It basically lets you make your own super artifacts. Run an item you like through 5+ uses of the anvil of krong and start rerolling it with TTiAW until you have something most desirable.

Now is the Arms tree. Its a great tree, in my opinion. Go ahead and max it, though the capstone is optional. Go ahead and get Dodge after this.

By the end of all this, you should be able to maintain or be respectably close to 100 block and 40 counter and dodge. And remember that astrology spell, too. Anyone who even tries to hit you runs the chance of taking some magic damage and getting stunned, which will turn them into a sitting duck. You won't hit like a train, like some builds, but you will be able to take a hit from one and make it regret even trying.

TL;DR: You need a hat of Kaneda, and your current build could benefit from a little tweaking. Also, I like monks.

 

Thanks! He's dead now, I'm afraid - after having all his food & potions decimated, I finally ran out of Potions of Spatial Displacement and got pinned between two monster mobs, squish. Made it to 19th level, though (no idea what the cap is, if any).

Archaeology does look good, as does Burglary, and Dodger. I've been reading good things about Fungal Arts; it and Fleshsmithing look interesting. Might be OT though, since this is a thread about warrior builds.

I'm still 50/50 about Smithing. I already had aluminum armor & boots, Runic Helm, and after that it really was only useful for getting some extra gold from the merchant now and again (by smithing things when I had a bunch of ingots). Still, I never found better that what he was wearing, even lacking Archaeology. I still don't know if I got the strength or not from the skill.

Again, thanks. One question remains unanswered: Do resources *ever* respawn on levels? That is, does food or other items ever respawn, do the Dispensers ever refill, etc ?

EDIT: Trying my 2nd build: 1)Archaeology, 2)Burglary, 3)Artful Dodger, 4)Fungal Arts, 5)Unarmed, 6)Astrology, and 7)Smithing.

 

Primary stat boosts are misleading. You might think that 3 Burliness is better than 3 Melee power, but it's not. The way Melee Power is calculated, for example, is (Burliness-5)/3. In other words, all that Burliness would get you is 1 Melee Power and 3 health. The best you can hope for, stat wise, from Smithing is thus 1 2/3 Melee Power and 5 health. Its best to more or less ignore Primary stat gains. Secondary is all you really need to worry about. Just know that the primary stats you get when you level are based on what class your skill of choice walls under.

 

I actually just managed to beat Dredmor (Moderation/Permadeath) with the very questionable build of Unarmed/Shields/Artful Dodger/Fleshsmithing/Perception/Burglary/Archaeology. The basic idea was to get my Absorb up into the high teens and then start piling on the Block and Dodge and as much Counterattack as I could scrape together. Being able to push enemies back with 2 skills in the Unarmed Tree certainly helps, as did Knightly Leap.

I wouldn't recommend this build unless you like pain, but it just goes to show that you CAN beat the game with a low-damage output Melee build - you just need to hoard your food and health potions, and make damn sure you save as many Crossbow Bolts as you can for floors 7, 8, and 10. On the plus side, 2 shields allows you to tweak your defensive stats in a variety of ways, and you can use It Belongs In a Museum on every single Artifact Weapon the game throws at you for a nice chunk of bonus XP.

 

my build:

-maces
-viking wizardy
-fleshsmithing
-blood mage
-the magic training one
-archaeology
-assassinate

so basically i get blood mage to level 3 right away. with magic training and blood mage at 3 you can basically keep the viking buff active at all times. im onto level 3 and still 1-2 shotting everything in sight. after blood mage 3 i take 1 more point in viking wizardy for the root and 1 in fleshsmithing for the debuff. any heavy monsters simply root and debuff, if they get close then you just whack 'em. this build has been very effective for me and i find im having little to no troubles with magic points and in general seem to be owning at leisure.