So, this build is serving me quite well in Going Rogue on Permadeath, although I have yet to complete it. The idea behind the counter build is to build up as much counter as possible. Your attack skills don't matter, your dodge doesn't (really) matter, nothing matters except building up counter. This is due to the fact that counter blocks the attack COMPLETELY then ripostes and has nothing (as far as I can tell) that reduces it's effect. Be warned that this is VERY SHITTY AND SQUISHY at the early levels. You'll have to chain sleep single enemies whilst you recover health etc. Once you've gained a few levels and the required equipment, you should be alright. Learn the skills of TRAP STACKING (this is putting multiple traps that you've picked up into a pile so the enemy activates all of them for massive damage) and DOOR CLOSING (this is closing doors so 90 monsters don't rape you at once). These will increase your survival 10000% on early levels. My build: Unarmed - Best counter abilities out of all weapon trees and means you can dual wield shields that generally have more counter chance than weapons. Also has a few nice knockback skills. Dual Wield - YES this does work with unarmed (even "ATTACK WITH ALL YOUR WEAPONS AT THE SAME TIME") and dual wielding shields. Necessary for the counter bonus. Artful Dodging - Dump stat, just nice for the nimbleness and dodge bonus off the first level of the skill. You can increase it if you want to. Psionics - I picked it for the first level sleep, which is hilariously useful for controlling a group of monsters and picking them off one by one at the early levels. Later on, it's not that necessary. You could pick vampirism, but I wouldn't recommend it due to early game difficulties, but it might help later on. Burglary - I always pick this just for the lockpicks but if you manage to max out your other skills you could dump into this. It has stat bonuses relevant to the build. Archaeology - Fedora is amazing starting off. Artifact rerolls and double Altar of Krongs are also beautiful. You want to try to get artifacts with + counter and so you can reroll appropriately. Being able to get rid of useless artifacts (which we're going to get a LOT of since the build is very focused) for XP is also pretty good to get the skills you want. Smithing - The apple of my eye. You could probably drop this if you wanted a more random game, but I really can't. This skill is far too important to me. You can get (Runed) Iron Skjoldir at early levels for the counter chance and then Iron Ring of Iron Thorns (+8 counter) later on. Not much else in it other than that, but to me that's useful on it's own. In terms of items, you just want to stack counter and dodge. Counter is more important than dodge (I happily trade 1 counter for 2 dodge) simply because dodge can be reduced by monsters whereas (I'm fairly certain) counter can't. You want to get extra caddishness first and then extra nimbleness. You have to learn how to put your skill points appropriately. I can't help you with this. I see a really nice (useful) artifact on one of the islands so I go get the psionic push, or if I find a bunch of ingots I'll put an extra point into smithing in order to build useful items etc. You level your skills according to how the game is playing out, not the other way around. That's pretty much it, any questions?
Wow, are you 100% sure that counter chance, blocks the attacks completely? If it's true,that means it makes all the rest of the defenses poor compared to counter. On the tooltip it says "....returning an enemy's attack with one of your own", which for me reads, you have a chance to get an extra(free) hit after he attacks you.
I'm 100% sure. I've tested this extensively after I had a moment of lost faith, too. And, yeah. It does make the rest of the defences crappy.
Yes you are right, after testing it myself as well,it seems to be that way. The thing is we don't know what the numbers actually mean in the stats, is a 25 dodge, a 25% chance to dodge or does it translate into something else into a formula? What is the block number for,how does it work? We don't know what the counter chance number means, unless of course all the stats are a %(out of 100), which theoretically means you could reach complete avoidance at 100, which in turn would be bad design. It seems counter chance is harder to come by, maybe that balances it out with the rest of the stats, but nevertheless it seems to be the best physical-defensive stat in the game.
I haven't looked at the tree, but are you sure Unarmed > Swords? Swords has quite a bit of counter, especially in the last talent, and with dual wield you get double the bonus for each sword you have equipped. Do shields even give you much counter? I ignored them in my "counter build" which was more of a "avoidance build" since I had quite a bit of dodge and block too.
Rikkard: Dual wield doesn't work like it says it does. I am fairly certain of this. Two skjoldir / duelist shields give you a decent amount of counter. Yes, I have checked how much counter it is between the swords and unarmed, and unarmed has more. Avoidance builds are pretty worthless (you have to focus on a single stat) due to how the game rolls for combat.
I'm trying that build out right now, only with Vampirism instead of Psionics, and Assassination instead of Dual Wielding. Its excellent, and I've had no problems with it so far (On Level 3 now, Dwarven Permadeath). I find Vampirism to be a great complement to the build. Health is almost never an issue.
