A slight spin on the usual 'good build for beginners?' thread, I think. Are there any skill combinations that seem to make the game considerably easier? For some silly reason I'm hesitant to flip on Easy mode -- I'm more interested in a build that will allow me to complete the game on the default mode with less difficulty. I've played this game a ton and haven't beaten it (or really come close), and I feel like I've spent so much time replaying the early game that I'd really like to see what else is here. Builds that provide crazy health/damage buffs, etc., would be great.
I've been artificially boosting the difficulty of the game so much over the last year, through challenge runs and personal limitations I'm setting myself, I have found that your style of playing is a lot bigger factor on your longevity in-game than your build is a build that allows for a lot of "mistakes", I've found, is something along these lines: Beserker Rage Master of Arms Shield Bearer Maces Smithing Tinkering Clockwork Knight , and powerhouse, aim for a high by the time you're near the lowest levels and you're golden it's entirely possible to get 100 and 100 , making it trivial to melee Dredmor to a pulp EDIT: Swap out Maces for Axes, due to the absolute loads of Axes of the Solar Disc on level 11 and deeper. is nice vs Dredmor
Almost anything with Magical Law and powerfull cooldown abilities. Blood magic also helps. Spam Earthquake, Toxic Canister, Cogito Ergo Splat, Steam Brigade charge, Swashbuckling, whatever powerful ability you have. Piece of Cake! Another easy way is to take Daggers, Swords and Dualwield and go for 100 . It is also not really hard to play a Vampire with most boosting skills stacked, some means of fast healing and at least a bit of . Builds with 100 and 100 are also neat yet not as effective as anything above. And, well, you can always combine some of these ideas together.
It's important to note that lifesteal from Vampirism doesn't work on Dredmor, as his taxus is Undead.
This build will be VERY easy during your early game: Build title: The VICTORIOUS LANCER Polearms Shield Bearer Master of Arms Clockwork Knight Smithing Tinkering Battle Geology Your focus should be boosting your melee power as high as possible, and using special attacks like rocket powered punch and seismic uppercut to deal lots of damage. By dungeon level 3, even with the starter gear and plutonic fist you can fend for yourself. Get rocket punch, seismic uppercut, and Wallenstein's Inevitable Victory stance as soon as you can. You might also want to pick up some smithing level to craft yourself a better weapon, most of your aoe attacks like parabolic mecha stomp, earthquake, and charge of the steam brigade will also scale to melee power. Later in the game, focus on maximizing your block and use plutonic fist on your enemies to reduce their crit/counterattack chance. Switch to the sensible swiss defense late in the game as the added defense will be more important. Later tinkering levels will allow you to craft the clockwork knight suit to get more melee power.
Pets are easy mode until Floor 4-5. Use that time to build your magic power and mana reserves to the point where you can spam high-end spells without concern, and keep yourself out of melee range no matter what happens. Promethean Magic (Nuke everything all the time, period. Also, Wyvern.) Ley Line Walking (Keep mana coming) Blood Magic (Keep mana coming) Mathemagic (Keep away from melee.) Perception (Keep away from melee; gather Alchemy ingredients..) Alchemy (Craft health and mana potions en masse.) Fleshsmithing (Healing and the Zomby Gambit.) This build functions in the earliest part of the game by hoping to get lucky killing a beastie with your weak sauce Promethean skills and your feet -- and then immediately raising the beast as a Zomby. Then let it kill something, and raise that as a Zomby, and so on until you have 9 Zomby pets. Then hide behind them until you can level Promethean up to Wyvern. Summon Wyvern and hide behind it until you can kill everything with Promethean and Fleshsmithing. Level those up to 4ish each, then get 2nd Alchemy, and go from there. Your plan for Dredmor, should you survive that long, is to get a door between him and you, close it, slug enough of your ungodly quantities of healing and mana potions that you can survive a couple of rounds, open it, blast the crap out of him until you're hurt, teleport away, close another door, and repeat.
I don't think that any build, minus skillful play (at least on GR/PD) 'breaks the game', but certainly some builds are easier to win with than others. I've found that certain Egyptian Magic builds have the potential to become easy, at least relative to most builds. That said, they are not necessarily all that easy for the bulk of the game. The bulk of the game was pretty easy with this build: Egyptian Magic Blood Mage Ley Walker Alchemy Perception Staves Dual Wield You also might want to swap Alchemy and Perception for Magical Law and Fleshsmithing. I've also won several times with crafting builds. I won't say that it's exceptionally easy but it certainly is easy for the early to mid game. An example of what I'm talking about would be: Tinkering Smithing Alchemy Perception Paranormal Investigator Burglary Clockwork Knight I won't say it's easy because crafting builds can, of course, be extra work. But they do give some really nice advantages.
Awesome. Thanks so much for all the suggestions. Yeah, I didn't expect so. It'd have to be ridiculously overpowered for somebody as awful as me to progress very much. I've played for 25 hours (which may not be nearly as much as most of you but is definitely a lot, lot more than I spend on most games) and haven't even gotten CLOSE to the end.
