After further review: Melee still sucks

One oddity I've noticed is that flying monsters will still get hurt by the acid pools that get left behind by traps and some blobby attacks. Evidently acid pools use the same logic as the various "cloud" area-damage spells.

 

I think vampirism is really something you should only get if you are going to commit to getting necro and pact. Just not worth it otherwise. My high magic powe sword build was pretty awesome. Burnt through the game perhaps faster than any character i ever made.

Gonna try a wacky staff/disabler character to see how it does using disables to give the "drain edge" instead of counter attack. mark of cthon, staves, and assassination gives you about a 70% chance a swing to proc a disabler effect. Obviously will wnat to try to anvil every crossbow you find to try to get another disabler from crossbow slot. Gonna be hard to make room for assassination though.

Both this characetrs have been little to no armor characters. Sort fo like monks or ninjas or something. Heh.

 

The problem you will find relying on procs is that the procs do not stun 100% even when they proc. But low magic power vampirism is viable even with 0 magic power, you can get your damage mitigation so high that 3 healing per attack is enough through 95% of the game. And potions/fungal whatever is enough for the rest.

 

Ya, they resist about half the time. Still, if you get a disabler proc from a crossbow, that will come to about 50% disable per swing. When you start having like 4/5 proc effects, there is a very good chance you start having multiple effects on the same swing, these significantly increase the chance of a disable ffect getting through unresisted because they must resist both of them. So if 1 proc has 50% chance, ff 2 procs go of, it's like 75% chance to get disable effect. 3 procs and it's nearly a 90% chance.

i'm pretty sure magic power 0 is only 2 vampirism, but that's really beiside the point. vampirism is grood for the early levels of the game for a melee character, but nigh worthless later on when melee struggle the most, which is why that skill slot should be something else entirely.

 

It's 3. Also, you can get mitigation so high that 3 healing is still good late game. At least I was able to. As in, going toe to toe with an arch diggle left me at higher health than before even with only 3 healing.

 

Assassination on its own keeps enemies locked down pretty well and makes a big difference in how many times you get hit. I don't know that going staves specifically to lock down enemies more often is all that great, mostly because staves have pretty terrible damage.

 

Weird bug. It does drain 3, though it displays it only drains 2. Still don't see it being useful enough after level 5 or so. And not really a huge benefit before that, since there is food all over anyway.

When you are fighting in a dress, you need the extra disable, hah. Just ass alone seems pathetic GR. Not nearly even to blunt the RNG. The disable is more important than the damage later on.

 

I've tried a disable/stun build before. Be aware that proc order + sleep effects can mess you up. For example, in one attack you might successfully Blackjack an enemy only to immediately wake them up again with a resisted Spirit Conduit.

The game really should only apply the actual 'sleep effect' at the end of your turn.

 

Stack disable is a bad idea. Not only due to all the stacking order, redudency and all, even if they all actually work, you still only get protection additively.

This isn't a real time game where you can also boost attack speed for perma-stun process.

 

Ya, disablers are kinda meh. You could combine several disablers that don't have a sleep effect, like ass 2, mace 2, staff 2. Would give you about a 25% chance to get a "true" disable per attack.

Should be about a 24% chance for one disabler effect per swing. 3% chance 2 disablers to land, and a .1% for all three. unfortunately the first point in ass will be garbage,

While a true disable of 27% doesn;t sound too bad, it's 3 skill heavy but even worse, that doesn't even factor in misses/counters and such. Only when you actually hit.

 

Well, after reading some of this thread, I had to try doing a melee character on my first run through of GR (well, third runthrough technically. But the first two were me dieing after opening the first door and bieng instantly swarmed by 8 and 6 mobs repsectivley, so they don't count ) . I went for Swords/Beserk/Mastery of Arms/Burglary/Shield-Barer/Astrology/Fungal Arts. Didn't put any points in astrology, but everything else was mostly maxxed. Now, I will admit, Big Reds on lvl 9 do a ton of dmg (20 dmg crits if I remember rightly) and if I didn't have my vamp/healing mushrooms, they might have given me some problems when they appeared in packs/zoos, but I more or less mowed through lvl 9 with little trouble.

So I hit lvl 10, an Arch Diggle comes my way and I prepare for the...4 dmg. Have to say, the way they've been built up I was expecting fireworks. At one point I took on 6 of them at once, 3 hitting me at a time and with a single vampirism mushroom I walked away from the fight with about 95 hp left. I mean, I know this is my first time on GR and I don't have much experience, but I can't imagine Arch Diggles posing a threat unless you wander in there pretty undergeared.

I wasn't amazingly geared either. Rocket Boots/Serpentmail/That shield with the 10 magic Def. None of them were artifacts. I had 0 luck finding any armour-type artifacts that game. And up until halfway through lvl 10, I was using a vampire hunters hat. I also only had access to the anvils from lvl 7 downwards, so I didn't have much in the way of upgrades from them. (tip to all btw, having radiance aura on while being attacked by a mob when standing next to Brax is not a good idea.)

To be fair, the Djinn Fizzes gave me a heart attack every time I walked through a door into two or more of them, but apart from Dredmore himself, they were the only remotely threatening thing on lvl 10. I honestly don't see where the problem with melee is.

But, I do see where the problem is with other skills. Some caster types seem to be ridiculosly powerful in this game. Psionics springs to mind immediatly. One spell should not be the sole requirement to winning a rogue-like. Or any rpg for that matter. (Such as Shove)

I would personally endorse casters bieng brought to par around where melee is atm.

 

Yeah the Djinn's are scary. Everything else on floor 10 is pretty manageable. And as you said, if you have the gear diggles aren't a huge threat.

 

The whole arch diggle being a threat thing is from 1.03. They haven't been a threat since piercing resist is introduced.

 

I don't think I've ever had that much pumpkinn trouble, since I found out for the poison cloud ability as long as you stay unmoving it only damages you on the first tick.

But yeah, thermoblobbies utterly DESTROYED one of my characters out of NOWHERE. I'd killed dozens of the things then all of a sudden he shoots me with a 20 damage attack 3 times in a row! Massively unfair

I guess I can't really say anything about floor 10 (JUST got to floor 5 with a second character, most of my early characters were just testing the water)...

Wait, with dodge and block you couldn't keep up with incoming damage? Dodge nullifies damage (provided it isn't a spell or spell-like ability) and block lowers all damage (I think) to 1/4th how much it'd normally do. So unless the problem was with spells I would assume you just don't have enough dodge/block.

Also yes, vampirism seems to be completely dependant on magic power to determine how much life it steals, so unless you get gobbles of magic power you'd probably end up more reliant on defense.

As I mentioned before, I've never gotten super far before, but unless you have a heavily magic-oriented character I can't see how you could progress well WITHOUT melee. Especially at zoos, where there are so many enemies there's no chance you could just mow them down with crossbow bolts and never be reached.

Oh, and if you are on going rogue then you should probably be hoarding every possible advantage you can get (bolts, potions, traps, throwing items, wands).

AH! Almost forgot to mention, the assassination skill helps! The first ability lets you put enemies to sleep (only a temporary measure, but helpful to let you buff or eat or relocate), and the second skill simply stuns enemies, which is awesome. The third skill only adds a few points of damage, but it also adds a nice chunk of critical chance.

 

Mages can kill entire zoos without resorting to melee (let alone bolts). They just need enough magic power (to keep costs down) and mana regen / Blood Magic / booze. Some spells that will clear zoos for you:
* Psychokinetic Shove (Psionics; tedious but ridiculously safe)
* Tenebrous Rift (Necronomiconomics)
* Arctic Vortex (Viking Wizardry)
* Recursive Curse (Mathemagics)

Additionally, early zoos can often be cleared by pets (especially Moustache Golem / The Robot That Loves), and I read a report of someone steamrolling the game by stacking Corpus Burst / Miasmic Putrefaction from Fleshsmithing, though I haven't personally verified that one.

If you aren't able to spam your spells as a mage, then you aren't stacking enough magic power / regen on your gear.

 

You forgot Explosive Rune and Obvious Fireball from Promethian; combining the two is a great way to clear Zoos. That tree also gives you a pet to hide behind/funnel mobs with.

I dunno, I'm still having massive troubles with my Armoured To The Teeth melee character in 1.0.6. Between Octo's 8-damage spells and Thermoblobbies clearly overpowered Fireballs of 25-Damage Death™ and Eelys stacking Minor Acid Burn on you from all angles, my character has almost died about 8 times now and I'm only on Floor 4. And, all things considered, I have very solid defense for my level - 2 Silvered Iron Shields, a set of Full Plate, an Iron Hjalmr, Winged Aluminum Boots - I have 24 Absorb, 12 Piercing Resist, and about 45 Block, but I'm still taking a massive pounding all most of the time and running low on food. Zoos are a nightmare and consume all my buff potions every time, and consist of about 45 minutes of solid kicking.

It all goes back to AoE items. This character has had pretty awful luck with Squid Bolts, Acid Flasks, and the like, and without those (and spells), the game becomes a luck-based slog through monsters that can consistently bypass your armor stats and zap you within an inch of your life. Something which does not happen to casters beyond the first Floor/Floor-and-a-half. Melee? You gotta endure it for all 10 Floors.

 

I'm on floor 5 with a new melee-er and have had no problems so far. I did get to 8 with Home Slice and died because I was being dumb

 

I actually just finished the game for the second time with a melee character since version 1.06 came out and I think it is right where it should be (hard and rewarding). Strangely enough I have never even come close to winning with a mage type character but I have done so a few times with melee characters. The best build I have found to this point is this:

Swords
Dual Wield
Berzerker Rage (optional really, can choose something else)
Vamparism
Artful Dodger
Psionics
Burglary

I usually spend my first skill point on vamparism because getting those 4HP back per corpse can carry you through the first level easily. After that I level up Psionics until I get nerve staple which is THE life saver for a melee character. I usually try to hold off on taking quests or opening chests of evil until I have nerve staple. After getting it, named monsters and quest bosses are a piece of cake. Also the shove spell is great for getting artifacts from islands and pushing traps out of the way.

After nerve staple I build up burglary until I have ninja vanish for escaping untenable battles and then fill out the rest of the skills. I generally collect and sell everything I can except for booze which is used to fuel nerve staple and crystal healing spells. Buy good swords and armor when available, look for good resistance granting rings (two fire resistance rings for level 9 is a real plus). If I am lucky enough to buy a Doul's (sp?) sword towards the end then I start looking for a killer shield and abandon my second weapon.

It takes patience as you will need to find choke points to deal with zoos and mobs as well as lots of breaks for healing and drinking. Other than that I only have a few simple rules that I follow:

(1) Purple and red demons get nerve stapled 100% of the time unless out of mana
(2) Never place an awesome sword or piece of armor on an anvil of Krong
(3) Always keep the mana level up to the point of being able to cast one nerve staple

 

You see the thing is most guys here don't consider psionic to be melee.

The more common variance is dual staves psionic to push the mana of staple down to spammable level.

 

Yeah, I wondered if the inclusion of Psionics would disqualify this as a melee character, but I figured melee means beating things to death with weapons!

I have done a similar dual staff build, but honestly it just becomes too darned boring to keep playing. That has been my issue with pure magic characters as well I suppose. Once I lose any respect for what is behind the next door the game loses something. The cool thing about a dual sword psionics build is that you need to strategically use your mana because it runs out fast. If you are fighting a zoo and use a couple of staples on a grunt, a named monster might be right around the corner and you are scrambling. Maybe on my next run I will try a build with no spells at all, but it still seems that some support skill is required (alchemy, fungal, etc.) for healing purposes.