After further review: Melee still sucks

My melee build (win on DM/PD):
Dual-Wield, Axes, Assassination, Burglary, Archelogy, Smithing, Tinkering.

As I stated in another thread, DM/PD, I got the Clockwork Chainaxes crafted on 4th floor and rolled through everything until I hit 10th. All the liquor went into the Cube since I had nothing to spend mana points on. It wasn't until 10th that I actually put the crossbow to use (except for corruption dragons/golems). I generally save bolts and rely on throwables when I have to early, so by the time I got to 10th I had enough to outfit an army.

Very fun melee build. Hell, even early on, two Fine Steel Axes can put the Fear of God into zomby's and the like. Naturally, I maxed out crafting skills as early as I could.

 

All classes have some use for booze -- it powers the Syzygy buff that you can get from Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters. That buff has something for everyone -- +12HP, +5 dodge, and +2 celestial damage for the warriors, +2 sagacity and +8MP for the mages. And +2 nimbleness for both.

 

Okay, this is a double post, but it's separated by a rather lengthy period of time and besides I'm talking about something completely different now. Anyway, took my melee character to level 10 today, GR/PD. His build was swords/dual wielding/berserker/master of arms/psionics/burglar/assassin. His equipment on entering level 10 was two Self-Righteous Swords of White Lies, artifact full plate (mostly giving extra damage sources), rocket boots, and artifact Sir Albrecht's Helm. No special rings/amulets, and an artifact sneaky assassin's crossbow with 12 righteous damage. All told I'm doing a lot of holy smiting. Relevant stats are 30 absorb, 9 piercing resistance, 46 block, 46 counter chance. On a good hit I can deal over 100 damage.

Really the only enemy down here I can't melee for extended periods is the archdiggle, who's hitting for 29 on criticals. Thing is, I block or counter most of the time, so it's still pretty safe for me to attack one. If things get hairy, I can Ninja Vanish and then Crystal Healing at a distance, or use some of the 1440HP worth of food I had when I entered the level. Which isn't to say that it's been a cakewalk; groups of monsters require careful positioning and I've used plenty of bolts to whittle things down safely, especially the corruption blobs. But most of my damage is coming from melee.

The fight with Dredmor went as follows:
1) "Oh hey, there's Dredmor. Um, Ninja Vanish!"
2) Run away, chug down buff potions, come back.
3) Fling 2 Holy Hand Grenades while Dredmor corrupts my weapons. This evidently confuses/stuns him?
4) Land 14 unanswered hits on Dredmor as Sneaky Shiv stunlocks him (or else the stun from Holy Handgrenades just lasts that long).

So yeah, that was a bit anticlimatic.

 

I think you can still claim melee works even if there are a few enemies you can't engage in melee like archdiggles/corruption/item break enemies. And if you have the right build/gear you should be able to melee archdiggles with high armor/piercing resist + procs.

 

I finally finished taking my melee character through and killing Dredmor. The only time I used bolts was on a zoo, because I didn't feel like being careful (floor 9 zoo, fire rapes), and on Dredmor. Used some clockwork bolts, and some squid bolts. I still had to kill him with melee though. I dealt about 1/3 of the total damage with melee. I never dropped below half health, and it only took a couple of minutes to finish. I NEVER took an escape skill, and never had a heal skill.

Again, the skills were as follows.

Swords
Dual Wielding
Berserker Rage
Master of Arms
Burglary
Assassination
Smithing

I only took burglary for the lockpicks. I only put a level in it at the end, since everything else was maxed. focus was on counter, but I also had very high block, and absorption. Basically, I made a tank, and it worked.

So, now I've just got to beat Dredmor on GR permadeath, since I've gotten the badges for the other two difficulties.

 

That's almost identical to my build -- just swap out smithing for psionics. Though I did make heavy use of Crystal Healing and occasional use of Psychokinetic Shove, and I leveled up Burglary all the way. How'd you keep your health up? Chug invisibility and retreat to digest food?

 

Nope, the only time used an escape was with Dredmor. One invis potion to setup for the squid bolts. No, I just found plenty of food, and pots. I still had several omelets, dire sandwiches, grilled cheeses, fairy wodgers, heal pots, replenish pots, and lively regeneration pots left.

I had two rings of iron thorns, embossed serpentine plate, Albrecht's helm, and rocket boots. So I think that has something to do with it. The only time I got low on health was fighting casters, as I didn't have good resistances. Even archdiggles normally didn't hit for more than 5, or so (like 15-25 on a crit, or something), if I got hit at all.

 

That is one area where Smithing shines: the ability to make 2 Iron Thorns rings, which are a stupid-good boon to any "pure melee" character. I might have to try that build Draygo and see if it goes any better. I'm getting tired of the limitations of Vampirism - it's not hard to make 12-ish Omelettes through the first 3 Floors and then hoard them until Floors 9 and 10. Also, with the changes to smithing and chalk not being so outrageously rare, it might be more worthwhile now as opposed to the last time I tried it waaaaaay back in 1.0.3.

 

Yeah, I actually had something like 15 extra steel ingots at the end. It's not that hard to get steel anymore. You still need to be frugal, if you want to get your armor early, but it's so much easier now.

 

I killed Lord Dredmor for the first time, on my first try, on the medium difficulty and no permadeath with my
unarmed / master of arms / astrology / promethean / magic training / perception / assassin build.

I was determined that I was going to beat him to death using just unarmed, without using a single bolt or attack spell. I opened up a tiny room and he was right in front of me. I used inky hoglantern to move away, then ate some grunge ear, lobstermane fungus and drank three voltaic potions. I put on radiant aura, suit up, and second sight. Once I had all of that on, he stepped next to me and then I kicked him until he died. I did have to use a couple of healing potions when I got too low on hp, but after that initial setup I never put anything else on. He kept hitting me with spell after spell, but I had a strong resistance to most of them. He does hit really hard though when he melees back.

This was a great character, and I'll miss playing him. I rarely used promethean, and never even finished the skill tree for it or astrology. I just had fun kicking everyone to death, and I'm glad to see that he was even able to take down Dredmor with his bare hands/feet.

Melee and unarmed don't suck in my book

Edit: I used two ensigeled shields for most of my defense, along with a serpentine plate. Other than that, I used the canadian hat and some good boots. The rest were some heavily enchanted rings and a necklace that I kept through the game and gradually built up with the anvils of krong.

 

I have a pure melee build with no spells and no need for bolts I'm trying for my current GRPD run.

Here is the theorycraft. Skills: unarmed, master of arms, shield savant, vampirism, assasination, fungal arts, smithing.

The idea is simple 100% block chance + massive mitigation to tank anything in melee. To deal with corruption mobs I'll abuse sparkly. It's a 6 turn stun with a low CD. Fungal grants all the utility I need. Though I'd like to swap out either master of arms or shield savant for berserker.

The question is, will i do enough damage to kill things?

 

@jhffmn: You'll definitely do enough damage to kill things, but Radiant Aura from Astrology is what saved me time and time again, due to the stun factor. It would stun the enemies, and I could pound them quickly to death. I would level the Unarmed skill up as quickly as you can, because it makes a huge difference. The Throwing Buffalo technique is extremely useful, and has a cooldown of only 5, thankfully.

Part of it is the luck factor too. Even with 100% block chance, the spells can still hit you. I assume you're going to make the iron thorn rings to help with your blocking. I didn't get to have those, but they would have been sweet. Whatever rings and necklaces you do use though, just keep adding krong bonuses to them from as early as possible. Maybe even save all of the anvils until after you get the iron thorn rings, then go back to the previous floors to get the enchantments. When rings and necklaces go on the anvil, I consistently get some kind of resistance. Also, keep the canada hat, it will save your life so many times, and is even great against Lord Dredmor himself. It sounds like a fun build though. Good luck!

 

@icantsave yep, I'm saving all my anvils for the rings =p.

I'm doing the following skill order fungal 2 -> max unarmed ->max smithing -> max vamp -> sneaky shiv -> fungal 3 -> max shield -> max master of arms

So, I'll want to hit lvl 23 before DL 10 and I'll need to hit lvl 12 before i start running into magic golems.

Edit: Well, I have 50% block and 10 armor already at DL2 and character lvl 6 so i'm going to rush sparkly next to deal with magic golems. Also, to bypass the need for food i'm going to be using pet/vampirism.

 

One of the best items that I found was an axe that gave me +4 hp and mana regeneration. I used the unarmed skill, but after I would finish clearing a room, I would equip it and then i'd cast Suit Up which gives +2 hp regeneration, and then with +6 hp and +4 mana regen, I'd be back to full health very quickly, without needing any food. I found that by floor five, and never really needed food again.

I do enjoy my vampire characters, but I haven't gotten as far down with them yet. You can stack the vampire effect with Greedy Blungecaps too, which would be great for keeping healed up. I might have to try the fungal arts + vampirism combination. It sounds like a fun challenge to play.

 

crap sparkles doesn't do anything. So far i've seen it paralyze 1 enemy out of 20 casts or so. I was thinking it was a 100% effect.

I can probably still do this but... man I really wish I had some form of paralyze outside of shield bash much later on.

 

Are sneaky shiv and blackjack not hitting much?

 

This thread has lost its way.

 

Yeah, I haven't had time to play another melee character to die on floor 10 and rant about Arch Diggles, it's my bad.

 

It's not arch-diggles that scare me, it's corruption mobs.