New Player - Some questions

Firstly would just like to say hi to you folks, I just bought DoD and whilst usually commercial Roguelikes are garbage I must say they have done a great job with this one, IF they keep improving it for a sustained period of time like most roguelikes DoD could well be remembered as a classic. The price was good and the content seems good from what I have seen, keep up these traits with tons of content and not being greedy and I will buy everything that comes out in the RL line from Gaslamp.

Regarding questions, well first heres my current preffered build:

Dual Wield
Artful Dodger
Assasination
Beserker/Rage
Smithing
Armour
Axe

Regarding Dual Wield, I was told part of it is bugged? Could someone clarify how many points to put in it so that I am not effected by the bug?

I also could not work out why Krong gets displeased sometimes when I use the Anvils?

Is archaeology any good? Which of my build skills do you reccomend I can ditch for something better?

Is the Armour skill needed to be able to get benefit out of heavy armour?

How feasible is a magic only character?

Feel free to include any tips you guys have to help a newbie to last a bit longer in game! Including peoples builds and whats good about them.

Ow by the way, to stay within roguelike tradition I always have permadeath on but put my game on Dwarvern Moderation

I wish I had beta access as it looks like the new beta patch fixes dual wield

Actually Fungal Arts sounds good as well, I dont know what to do as I enjoy smithing , now Im saying I like fungal arts and maybe archaelogy, plus dual wield,axe..........what to ditch?

 

Dual Wield: Currently all of the stats gained with points are bugged, and the very last point actually decreases stats. Most you should put into dual wield right now is 1 point, for the proc.

Anvil of Krong is a gamble, but the odds are in your favor. It seems to hover around a 70% success rate in my own experiences. Archaeology goes good with using anvils, and cashing in artifacts for exp is always nice. I'd say it's a tossup between that or burglary, the infinite lockpicks and ninja vanish are life savers.

No, you don't need the armor skill to make use of heavy armor, but it's got some decent stats in the tree, so if you're scrambling for warrior points it's not a bad choice.

Magic only characters are extremely feasible, it's got an interesting bell curve for difficulty as you descend, but there's a certain point in the game, if you get enough magic power and mana regen then the end game becomes easy. Just have to watch out for traps, as they hurt alot more with high magic power.

If you're playing a smithing character, save up all of your materials and get smithing to level 4 or 5 right away, I'd say 4 and then get knightly leap. Then it's just praying you get the materials to make a good set. You should be able to get to floor 5 without an issue, floor 6 with careful play, but floor 7 will attempt to crush you mercilessly.

This is sort of why I prefer burglary over archaeology. I quickly learned to never open doors from the middle in case I need to close them immediately after I open them. And if you don't have lockpicks, and you have to shatter the door, well, just hope it's not a monster zoo.

Most well-rounded builds can be won, though RNG will always be a factor. Just play safe, and conserve your consumables for those acid-rainy days.

 

1) The skills don't give the bonus, and the fifth one give -5counter instead of +5
2) Roguelike
3) Yeah, pretty much every spell of Archeolgy are good
4) No, just some bonus.
5) Pretty easy, you still need to pass the first level, then it's a breeze


All i can suggest is learn now all the spells and then play it seriously with the patch, after a while the various minor bugs become annoying

 

Thanks for taking the time to write that. Whats your take on fungal arts?

Really enjoying this game atm and I am intending to reroll with a new build which is why all the questions.

 

Thanks as well Daig!

 

Fungal arts. It has alot of micromanagement. The summons aid survival 100%, but it's a very slow playstyle. I can't use the skill, it irks me to no end, but having a limitless supply of fairy wodgers and inky hoglanterns, etc can be immensely useful.

It's something you'd have to try for yourself, but it's one of those skills you concentrate your skill points on from the beginning to ease it's use down the road.

 

Thank Yees - Theres just too many good skills, trying a new set now and the crafting is just so fun

 

Personally I find that Smithing is too much of a gamble. You have to put a ton of points into it right away to get any real benefit, and in the meantime, you're wasting a ton of inventory space on Ingots and chalk and so on. Lastly, it's bugged (like a lot of skill trees) in that the Burliness it claims you're getting isn't affecting the proper secondary stats - so even though you're getting Burliness, you're NOT getting all the attack power and HP and such that SHOULD be going along with that. So really, you're burning 4 skill points and 1/3 of your inventory and praying to the RNG gods for some Chalk so you can make some early Steel weapons. You DO get some Trap Affinity, so it's not all bad, but you're still at the mercy of RNG to be able to craft the good stuff before it becomes obsolete.

I'm a big fan of Burglary, as well. Free lockpicks = TONS of XP (and no lost loot to smashed chests!), not to mention that Ninja Vanish can save your life over and over and over again, and is invaluable when fighting Lord Dredmor himself. Not to mention the Trap Affinity you get.

Krong has a 5/7ths chance of buffing an item, and a 2/7ths chance of cursing it.

Related, if you take Archaeology, you get 2 of the best skills currently in the game (at least until the patch hits). It Belongs In a Musuem lets you turn ANY artifact you can't use into large chunks of XP, and This Translation is All Wrong! let's you reroll the random stats on any Artifact. The last ability lets you restore each Anvil of Krong once, so you can use each Anvil you find twice - again, very powerful. Plus you start with a Fedora.

I'd say your build is fine, but personally, I'd swap Artful Dodger for Burglary and Smithing for Archaeology. Keep in mind that, because of more bugs, Melee classes get shafted on Health and are generally tougher to beat the game with because their strengths tend to be nullified by lower floor monsters' abilities.

All that being said, I did beat the game twice (Moderation, Perma-death) with melee buils, one a Vampire with dual-wield swords, astrology, burglary, archaeology, and berserker rage - and the other with unarmed (dual-shields), burglary, archaeology, necronomiconomics, berserker rage, shield bearer, and ... uh.. something. Both were a real challenge for floors 8-10, but with some luck and the hoarding of powerful Bolts, I was able to win. You should be able to, as well.

Summary: Swap Artful Dodger for Burglary and Smithing for Archaeology. Rest of build is fine. Save all uber-Bolts (Squid, Mass Destruction, Clockwork Drill, Acid Bottle) for floors 8-10 or really large/deep down Monster Zoos and Dredmor himself. Abuse Ninja Vanish if you get in trouble. Abuse Archaeology to get the best stats on your Artifacts. Use It Belongs In a Museum and Lucky Pick for all kinds of "bonus" XP. Save your Potions/Mushrooms for named monsters and monster zoos and Dredmor. Once you have enough money, don't be afraid to blow 20k buying out a Food or Bolt vending machine.

Okay, that's enough rambling from me. Good luck.

 

Great advice all, I am going to make the suggested changes now.

 

Just play 5-6 different builds and try the different skills. They all have it's place despite what people say, and that's the fun of the game. There isn't a "this is the best build", you can get almost anything to work, from warrior to mage or even a sneaky rogue, or astrollogist ballerina, anything you can come up with, variety is what adds replayability

 

Just so you know, in the beta, you don't have to max smithing ASAP to do anything. Number of ingots no longer increases with skill. You now just get better stuff instead of more AND better stuff.

 

Well, that's good. Smithing needed some love. However, as I'm not a Beta Tester, I can but only give advice as to the current patch, and not what we can expect come 1.0.4 (this weekend? Monday? Cross your fingers!)

 

@Fishofmuu, if you no longer get more ingots per level, that would be actually a bad thing, unless I'm missing something and the requirements for smithing have dropped, and the amount of items you can find is vastly increased.
Two per level is a bit low at skill level 5. 3 would be okay, I suppose.

But unless there's a way to make items into ingots, you're still looking at a loss.
I love Smithing. I don't want to see it become worse.

Also, can you reveal how This Translation is all wrong has been nerfed? Because I'd like to know if it's really dangerous to use, or if it's been nerfed, but still works.
Because if all they did was fix the overflow of negative to positive stats on weapons, that's fine. At least that would make it viable and not cheatable.

 

@DavidB1111
Yup Smith got nerfed, HARD, but not as badly as Tinker. Ore -> Ingot is now cap at 2, with level 1. The only redeeming factor is that chalks come by slightly easier, but it hardly makes up for the steel recipe reduction in the first place.

I guess that's what happens when a lot of people complained about it's early advantages. Not that I agree with them in any shape or form.

You still get the ring of iron thorns, and the Flail, so can't exactly call it useless. Let's hope you can still make items without recipes or else smith will become trash.

 

Yes, it's nerfed. You can no longer make a Flail of Pleiades on the first floor. You might have to wait until as far as the THIRD. Oh, my! And tinkerers can no longer make hundreds of bolts from just one ore either.

I don't exactly see how this is a BAD thing. The fact that people were making the best items in the game on the first floor was a bit ridiculous. If you were lucky, you'd have everything you need crafted by the end of the second floor. If you're unlucky, the third. Yes, you're looking at less ingots at higher levels. You're looking at the same number of ingots at lower levels, though.

Unarmed is also nerfed because you can't use it to steal from Brax either.

 

@fishofmuu

The problem is how little damage archery deals, and how many bolts you actually need to kill about 5 monsters on floor 1.... You make it sound as though 39 (3x13) arrow can actually last 1 small fight. Now it's down to 30 (2x15). So for those who expect archers to be "better" on 1.04, well it's not happening.

Archer never had enough arrows even if you rush Tinker on 1.03. Alchemy nerfed was call for, Smith nerfed was understandable, but Tinker nerfed is just a big no in my book.

 

Archery was 100% broken to begin with. I don't see how tinkering being knocked down a peg really changes that much.

Especially with bolts being recoverable now. With a decent bow, my tinkerer did just fine in beta (other than the mobs having annoyingly high HP, ATM).

 

Smithing is great in the beta mostly because of the improved shields/armor. I was immune to Enraged Diggles by level 4.

Right now I'm trying Archery/Thrown/Unarmed/Shield/Armor/Smithing/Tinkering. I'm hoping the ammo recovery of Archery and Thrown stack so I'll eventually have 30% recovery.

 

Actually they stack, but not in the way you might imagine.

The 5, 10, and 15 does add together, resulting in the total of 30, but the recoverybuff from archery and throwing do not mix.

How to test this yourself.
1. Change crossbow recoverybuff to 34, 34, and 34.
2. Create a new character, add 2 skillpoint
3. Fire crossbow, you will have 100 recovery
4. Throw a ball, and you will not have 100 recovery.

 

Actually, you won't have 100%. It's capped in tweakDB rather low, unless you miss.