Been playing for over 36 hours so far, really enjoying it. Some points are really difficult but it's fun. Currently playing on going rogue on permadeath with a vamp build, duel wield, swords, archeology dodge, armor and burglary. I'd say it's a pretty effective build if you play smart, but when I get to floor 7 it becomes stupid, REALLY STUPID! First time on floor 7, i died within 3hits, 32damage, 30damage dead. The past 6 floors I'd been hit for no more than 20 from a boss, and this was just from a normal mob, big blue i think? I don't know if it's me, but I'm pretty sure it's not. I alt f4d so it didn't save and i tried over and over and over again but constantly got 2-3hit for insane damage. I have 30odd block chance, 38 counter chance, 30 odd crit, 40odd dodge and 10ish damage absorption. I'm currently at the point where I play like a total noob, do a hit or two, vanish and go up the stairs, kill a few mobs and vamp my life back, go down and do a few more hits and repeat, it's taken me about 20mins to clear 2-3rooms. What exactly should I be doing? I've ran out of range crap to throw at all the annoying op monsters. I even took the trouble to steal from brax, and farm those big red demons to level me up a bit, think I'm currently level 15 with the majority of the skill trees maxed. Anyone know why these guys are stupidly over powered, and if they're getting fixed in the next patch?
Hopefully piercing damage will be addressed, I've heard something to that affect. But I agree about floor 7. Toque of Kanada is most needed, and the Big Blues do something around 37 crushing damage, so if there's any time to use high armor absortion, floor 7 is one of those times. Compared to Big Blues, the Big Reds on floor 9 are laughably easy. Floor 8 in my opinion is alot easier than floor 7, I almost feel they should be switched around. Honestly, I'd say skip floor 7 and try your luck on floor 8, and backtrack if you find some good heavy armor. This will make vamping for health .... troublesome though. It's a tad more forgiving on floor 8 and 9, then the punishing difficulty returns on 10. @J-factor Ah, that explains ALOT. Big blues seemed way too strong, but I didn't make that Monstrous mask/statbug connection with wizard types.
Is floor 7 the frozen floor? If so: - "Big Blue" (the blue demon) is bugged and has the stats of a monster that's meant to be 2 floors deeper. - "Monstrous Mask" (the blue witchy) is extremely powerful due to the stat bug that causes 'wizard' types to be given too many stats. Additionally melee builds are significantly harder than magic builds - one has you battling the dungeon, the other has you battling the little blue bar in the corner. Try to find a Torque of Kanada.
I am far from an expert (have not beaten the game yet), but right now it seems to me that a pure melee build is almost impossible to win with. The current build you have right now looks quite similar to what I was playing when I first started as well. Once you hit level 7 though you really need a way to heal and/or buff yourself to contend with the tougher enemies. The monsters at some point start taking more HP from you than you are able to win back with vamp attacks and that's when problems start. I have been playing a melee build with the following and I can make it through floor 7 now, although it is still a challenge: Swords, Dual Wield, Burglary, Archaeology, Astrology (for the buffs), Psionics (for healing), Vamparism. You need the buffs and you need a quick way to heal if you want to melee. I think this game tends to reward a balance of magic and melee more than a pure melee character. I am hoping that the next version gives a little more room for good non-magical characters, but I really find a combination build to be a lot of fun. You also might look at you resistances. I think floor 7 is the ice level right? Make sure you have cold resistance (Canadian Hat for example).
One other comment in regards to Psionics. If you have nerve staple, the big blues and monster masks are almost trivial to take down. Staple them which stuns 100% of the time for two turns. Assuming you have two good swords (or whatever weapon you prefer) you can almost always kill those guys off without them getting a hit in on you. The same goes for bosses. Staple them a couple of times and hack away. If you get hurt, use crystal healing.
Guess I'll just continue playing like a noob till i find the stairs to floor 8, sold the previous Canada hats ): And yeah I noticed those big blues on the wiki have better stats than mobs on floor 8-9. doesn't help that duel wielding stats don't add up and the final skill does -5 instead of +5 :/ Shall try a new build after the patch comes out, am determined to complete this with the current build What resistances should i be looking for? I can always reroll my stats with my archeology skill. And do stats help with vamp, or is it always +4hp? Thanks for the reply, really can't wait till they fix all these bugs.
Five posts above Rederick says that heavy armor makes vamp attack healing "troublesome". I thought that vamp attack wouldn't be considered "magic", but it's true that at some point I found myself leeching only like 1 HP ! WTF H4X!! (j/k), but now I think that's probably because the Serpentine got my magic power down to freaking Z E R O
Yeah, Vampirism scales off of Magic Power for no particular reason. You really need to get your Magic Power up into the mid-teens if at all possible, so that your Vampirism is healing enough to keep you afloat. I personally found Vamp builds only worked when I pumped up my Magic Power and then focused on Dodge and Counter and Block over Armor Absorption. As for floor 7, yeah, good luck. Skipping it isn't a terrible idea, as it contains 2 overpowered (due to bugs) monsters. Barring that, going over lower floors and looking for Throw or Bolt vending machines to raid would be a sound idea, assuming you can stomach all the backtracking and randomly wandering about.
Well, the next patch should be out sometime this week, which pushes the minimum amount of leech up to 3, and reduces it's scaling to magic significantly.
@Marak Well, "for no particular reason" ... I know what you mean, and agree, but I guess it's got something to do with it being listed as mage archetype... unless I'm wrong of course.
I know the reason - but the since the reason is "it was coded incorrectly" I try to be less blunt about it, y'know? =p
@Marak Thanks, from what I can tell currently vampirism attack just triggers the knit tissue spell, and that stacks on your Magic Power. which is pretty weak. You're right though, good eye, I think its an easy fix, (for a new game obviously) currently the spellDB has vampire attack as: effect type="drain" piercingF="0.25" all the other drain effects indicate it should read: effect type="drain" piercing="1" piercingF="0.25" or something like that. It just neads a damage to scale off.
@Argonaut No that's not how it works. piercingF ="0.25" literally means 0.25 drain per magic power (round down) knitting tissue's "healF=0.2" doesn't work, but amount = 1 works. so if you have 4 magic power, u gain 2 life, when you have 8 you gain 3, and so on.
and then it multiplies when monster corpses are stacked on each other, meaning you can stand in one spot and leech dozens of life per hit and roflstomp entire zoos with no comsumbles and never moving from the space you opened the door from. Pretty silly. Hopefully the Vamp fixes in 1.0.4 makes it more "evened out".
