Currently doing GR with a melee build and doing very well. Up to floor 9 at the moment, but I'm wondering if there are any ways to improve it for a perma death run. Skills Axes - 6/6 Killer Vegan - 5/5 Demonologist - 3/7 Duel Wield - 6/6 Assassination - 5/5 Fungal Arts - 1/5 Astrology - 1/6 Axes Enemies can't dodge or counter crits, which is huge late game, plus the damage is nice. Even with a focus on crits I have 40 counter chance. Killer Vegan The stat boosts are too good, plus it makes a good chunk of the enemies in the game harmless and even helpful to you. Probably overpowered, but at the same time animal road blocks can be very annoying. Demonologist Open zoo, find a decent position, cast celestial circle, slaughter zoo. Not sure if this is worth leveling further. Duel Wield Only need one point in this, but the passives are nice when you have nothing else to raise. Assassination Not that great in general, but more crit for axes is always nice. This could be replaced, but I don't think I would. Fungal Arts Way too good for one point of investment. Every build has one point skills and this is probably the best one. Micromanaging the spores can be tiresome though. Astrology Radiant Aura is great, but not sure if it is all that useful when you have Celestial Circle. Could be worth raising for even more buffs, but the mana cost is probably too much. Astrology is the only thing I would replace since it looks like I'll have enough points to level up another skill. Any suggestions on what would be best there? Smithing is nice for the burly bonus + crafting, although evil chests will give you better items. Burglary has some nice utility, but the swiftness bonus doesn't do much for this build. Berserk is also worth considering, but the +10 magic resist is mostly pointless with celestial circle and an on demand crit isn't as interesting with this build.
Viking Wizardry. Magic Steel + Hand of Belimyr = very helpful damage boost, and Arctic + Unholy Warcry is pretty devastating to enemies.
I would switch out astrology for artful dodger or bezerker just so your completely independent of mana. Other than that its a pretty solid melee build.
I was initially considering Viking Wizardry, but I was thinking it would be too mana intensive with celestial circle. Artful Dodger doesn't really do anything for my build that Burglary can't do, although I get a teleport with less investment. I still haven't run into a situation where I feel I need a teleport though. I'm leaning towards Berserker at the moment.
