Hey there, long time lurker, played DoD since release <3 But I was trying to search for "useful" builds I have trouble playing melee (can get to 10, but can't kill Dredmor, even on Med) and I hate having to need 4 weapons, 2 for corruptions and 2 for normal ~_~ (I don't use Archaeology) Can anyone list several builds, I know a popular one is, Unarmed/Staves, Dual, Shields/Beserker, Smithing, Vamp, Alchemy/Fungus And can anyone suggest a Necro build?, I don't want to rely on Promethean, Maths, Golemancy, they make the game... easy <_<
If you've got the DLC it seems the final skill in demonology clears corruption, did not test it myself yet, though. As for builds, I'd take someone else's advice over mine I tend to build characters on a conceptual level and lately have been going random exclusively.
Also, new emomancy heal, debuffs sagacity, burliness, nimbleness and existential resistance by 1 each for 100 steps, and clears every single debuff I've encountered so far, seems quite synergistic with Necronomiconomics.
Haven't reach the final boss yet.. still on floor 5, but I'm loving my build... Staff fighting • Dual-wield • Artful Dodging • Vampirism • Blood Magic • Perception • Assassination I think the Staff fighting skill was a bit off. I thought that it would give a bonus to magic offensive skills. Oh well, at least the Ki-Cascade Strike (6cell AoE with a very large chance of Haywire - fuels vampirism and blood magic as well) is there.
My favorite build at the moment is Werediggle, Demonology, Piracy, Big Game Hunter, Astrology, Berserker Rage, and Assassination. It goes like this: (Radiant Aura a long time ago). Reach a monster zoo. Summon the Hounds. Celestial Circle. Werediggle Form. Hit stuff until you turn normal again. Re-up Radiant Aura. At 25% HP or so, turn on Swashbuckling. When that runs out, Mists of the Corsair, run for a bit, re-up Celestial Circle and Werediggle Form and punch the rest of the zoo to death.
I enjoyed playing this melee build in 1.06 (DM): Axes/Shield/Berserk/MoA/Fungal/Smithing/Perception Died at the hands of Dredmor at Clvl 23, but mostly because it was my first time fighting him and I didn't know what to expect, like being able to deal over 60 AoE fire damage in 2 turns. Got him down to 30% thanks to invisibility fungi hit-n-run spam, which felt depressingly cheesy but sadly the only way for my character to beat him without going the bolt or wand (non-melee) route. Currently, I'm running the following melee build in 1.08 (DM): Axes/Dual/Berserk/MoA/Astrology/Smithing/Assassination Assassination turned out to be a completely useless pick because the first skill doesn't work due to a bug, but Astrology is a nice one-point wonder addition to any melee build. The lack of Fungal art is mostly due to how inconveniently spore summoning works in 1.08, and I doubt I'll stand much of a chance against Dredmor without 40 invisibility mushrooms like last time, but hey. Other than that, this build is probably doing better than the one above, partly thanks to the melee skill buffs in 1.08 (weapons & Berserker). I seem to need healing a lot less this time around, which is odd considering my previous build was not only more defensive but also supported by *much* better equipment to boot (screenshot is 1.06 gear, can't use artifacts in 1.08 due to the corruption changes).
I've been having reasonable success with a nearly full rogue build. I put Dredmore down like a sick dog with some holy hand grenades and clockwork drill bolts on my last run (GR PD), and am trying for a repeat with the "No time to grind" setting (finding it a little more difficult with less crafting items available). My skills were the following: Unarmed, Artful Dodger, Burglary, Assassination, Archeology, Fungal Arts, Tinkering. The start of this build is incredibly squishy until I put a point into Unarmed for the knock-back of the Buffalo Throwing Technique. The third floor is also quite a challenge since the Rogue AIs resist piercing damage from crossbows and unarmed combat (I try and save my Fell Truffles for the extra damage boost). With only one Warrior skill and all the rest in the Rogue archetype ones (it'd be nice for at least one melee skill to work for Rogues ... daggers?), Nimbleness, Churlishness, and Savvy rise dramatically by mid-game and so do Dodge, Counter, and Sneakiness. With some luck finding strong artifacts to send to the museum, they get even better. Sneakiness got to the point where I could run through a room full of monsters on the 10th floor without more than one noticing me. I just wish there was some kind of backstab multiplier for hitting monsters that aren't aware of your presence (or sleeping).
On floor 9 DM/PD right now. (Game crashed right after clearing it, when I leveled up. Still had autosave though :O) Mace Berserker Shield Master of Arms Vegan Viking Wizardry Piracy Maxed Vegan. Not sure why, mostly to test it I think. The stats, level 5 vegan and radiant aura are pretty fantastic though. As long as you don't mind sifting through all the animal clutter.. 1 pt in shield, 2 in armor, 1 mace (for dwarven handshake), 1 in piracy for swashbuckling. Then maxed berserkers, then shield. Unsure which direction I'm going to take it next. Thinking Maces. Viking seems like a huge investment, and piracy seems meh. Build worked really well once I got through the level 1/2 turbulence. Very defensive, nothing every really hits me. The procs from veganism + viking wizardry + berserkers make up for any lack of damage. Only think I would swap is piracy for demonology. Just for the defensive circle spell.
Here's what I've been working on. It's a rogue/warrior mix with a lot of variability With an inferior version of this build I was able to finish the game on DM/PD on my third ever time playing the game and now when I go through on that difficulty I can set the game to 4 times animation speed and just faceroll my keyboard. Unfortunately I have currently only got to level 8 so far on Going Rogue since golem bosses hate me (one time one counterattacked me and then hit me for a total of 100 damage, the next time I just got cornered and it kept resisting my knockback - extra annoyingly that was on a level I had just finished clearing but then crashed and then died reclearing it, grr), still working at it though Unarmed Crossbows Psionics Tinkering Master of Arms Shield Bearer - Still working what works best for the seventh, tried Dodging and Vampirism already though I feel neither add as much as any of the other individual skills although they're not worthless - well, vampirism worked okay for me, but that was more of a result of me otherwise being too lazy to constantly eat food. Piracy, demonology or archaeology I guess would be other reasonable options. With the skill point demands of the core build you may want to aim for something that's got good early skills. Order in which I level: 2 points in psionics to get the knockback and, more importantly, heal. Even without building any mage you will able to almost spam these. Unarmed to max, Then tinkering, Then crossbows, Then whatever seems most useful at that point. The first level should be a cakewalk off the bat if you've got unarmed, master of arms and shield bearer as long as you're in the warrior archetype as you start with relatively good gear (4 base damage absorption for instance), unless you've gone for vampirism in which case you've got to be pretty careful until you gain a couple of levels until you get that psionic heal. Early to mid game, your unarmed attack should pack quite a punch, especially if you find a nice tome or two. Just as the damage starts to trail off, the high crossbow damage starts to kick in and takes over as you get that final point in crossbow skill. The damage from the unarmed skill adds onto the crossbow damage and you should have no shortage of bolts if you've been stockpiling bronze, iron and steel. With any luck you've found a clockwork bolt thrower recipe and a pair of tinkering goggles (which now seem to be about as common as leather caps that you'd otherwise need to find to craft them) by this point. Between the spammable psionic push, the two unarmed knockbacks and the shieldbash (if you have it) you will hopefully be able to keep the enemy at bay to be able to keep filling them full of bolts. The master of arms and shield bearer skills along with heavy armour and maybe even using two shields should make you sufficiently tanky too. The choice of using 2 tomes, 2 shields or 1 tome 1 shield also gives the option to vary the ratio between tank and damage. I'm finding working on builds perhaps more fun than actually playing the game (which I just got only recently) so some feedback would be awesome Update: Just tried using archaeology and demonology, both work well since the summon demons rape everything in sight until DL6 on GR. And 'Send it to a museum' can get you A LOT of experience from evil chests. Currently only on level 6 with it though so I don't know how useful the demonology will be late game - I don't usually find corruption too much of a problem since I can just kill corrupting mobs at a range, also if one of the new floors are righteous damage themed then you may be screwed.
