I'm stuck...at character creation

Soooo.... read it and answer my thoughts!

 

You're right, mirror shields (and mirror darkly) are pretty common. While nothing is really guaranteed with the RNG, being able to make your own gets us closer to that guarantee. Since it's such an intrinsic part of the build's late success, I prefer to maximize my chances of acquiring 2 of them.

You're also right about Unarmed. It would boost your offense far more than smithing. I just don't add unarmed to archery/thrown characters because the stacking damage feels like a hack to me. It's just a personal thing.

There are lots of ways to develop this build. I was just talking about one I've found fun and successful. If you wanted, you could put all your levelups for the first 2 DLs into Rogue Scientist and ride that offense for another several levels. You could also fill BGH by the end of the first level and let the hounds do the vast majority of your fighting until you've gotten archery and tinkering to a better place. Hell, you could switch in burglary for any of these skills and fill it first then rob Brax to make the first half of the dungeon a cakewalk. It's all personal preference.

As far as healing and escape, again, it's a playstyle thing. My observation has been that when I have healing on demand (like knit tissue), I get a little stupid and stay in toe-to-toe battles that I shouldn't. Having to rely on food (plus found potions and wodgers) makes me a little more careful about how I fight.

Escape is the same thing. I've played so many squishy rogues that my first instinct is to run. Open a door and see several monsters, bean one in the head with a softball and run. Some'll forget I exist in a few steps and I can then deal with them one-on-one. The same applies to zoos - it's just a longer process. People who stand in the doorway of zoos spamming fireball or relying on their 100 block and counter would probably find this playstyle insufferable, but I enjoy it.

I also agree with Haldurson re: Archaeology. Way back when Dredmor came out, it (along with burglary) were mandatory in any character I played. Now, I almost never choose it. Back when finding a useless artifact was twice as good as a statue to vandalize, the huge exp boost was too good to pass up. Now, it's liberating to see an artifact that is useless to me on an island and chuckle as I go about my business, leaving it lying there.

Anyway, as I said, all the things you mentioned are viable (and maybe objectively better). Unarmed gives massive advantages to early melee and offensive archery bonuses that stick around for the life of the character. If you put every levelup point into rogue scientist, you'll have the toxin cannister by early DL2 and can ride those skills for another 3 or 4 dungeon levels while you build up your other skills (plus you could switch out alchemy for something with more healing (unless you really want to play with high level encrusts or brimstone flasks)).

If I were recommending a build for pure non-magical power, the only rogue skills I'd include would be tinkering and maybe fungal arts. This build and levelup progression was just the one I believe works best for a character whose primary offense for the vast majority of the dungeon will be archery.

 

I am having difficulty with people's opinions that you can have 100's of healing potions by some low level and also have an Archer.

An Archer. not like someone that goes tinkering to kill dreadmor, I mean someone that takes archery maxes and tinkering and collects all metal to make bolts. I have not made a bolt and am on level 6. I use unarmed to kill unless too dangerous. Iron = healing potions and iron = bolts. Hm! problem!

I maxed Perception before level 3. it was really good idea. And i have not made anything out of any element so far. I dont have that much iron and steel and bronze at level 6 as many would imagine. So, this is much harder than planned.

yes, I am intending to make later game Brimstone flasks. All diggle eggs go to sulphur trying to see how it will be. It is a cool build. No escape spell though might mean i will die soon

 

Don't use iron ingots to make bolts. The 4 healing potions you can make from one ingot is more valuable than the bolts you can make. Stick to plastic, bronze, copper, brass and steel (remembering to save enough for bows) to make bolts. Buy every chunk of Hematite or iron ingot you see in vending machines/Brax shops.

Also, try not to use healing potions as routine HP recovery. Think of them as emergency supplies. Obviously, if it's all that stands between you and death, use it, but when you're getting to that point where you're starting to get concerned about your health, run away and eat a sandwich or something. If you really have the patience, carry around stuff with so you can switch it in and recover by pacing.

In a worst case scenario, if you're really hard up for healing potions/wodgers, head back up to dungeon level 1 and grind monsters until Perception drops refill your stock. This can also apply to metal/plastic for bolts.

 

hm grinding with max perception might be a good idea. thanks for that. Ok, so you dont make ingenious iron bolts. I never thought about that. I could churn out the potions soon. my alchemy is going up now. Lots to go up in this build to get battle ready. I havent gotten the Rail Launcher recipe. I got Bolt thrower thankfully. RailLauncher is so sweet though. I hope i get it.

 

Yeah, that's what makes an archery build difficult - you not only have to increase the skill itself, but also other skills to make it viable.

That's why I always recommend not concentrating on archery itself early. I'll take crossbow blast ('cause sometimes it'll one shot a monster unexpectedly) then wait until I have the complementary skills before really concentrating on archery itself. You lose a very slight amount of offense early doing this, but you gain all that extra time with maxed Perception and ever increasing Tinkering.

Like I said earlier, all archery does is gives minor offensive bonuses and lowers bolt attrition. Skills like Unarmed and Tinkering offer enough damage (directly or through crafting more powerful bows/bolts) to more than offset the extra damage of archery and actually make your survival more likely in other ways.

Perception is just the best skill ever. Finding healing/invisibility items plus steel, brass, bronze and diggle eggs - along with a way of turning invisibles visible so you can run away and snipe them from long range and a nice fire attack - that's a helluva lot of benefit from five skill points.

 

Well, ok, the dodge reduction, crits and a few pierce make it so that any bolt does a few things: damage decent, and you can pick it up. I mean, I havent made a bolt ever and on level 7. I have stacks of bolts all types in my pocket dimension. I am not exclusively shooting, but i shoot often. I recover clearly more than half shot at this point i tihnk it is safe to say. So, I am saving up for when i get tinkering to max recipe. I havent placed one point in tinkering yet

I know that is odd, but i have 1 away from maxing BGH, 2 away from maxing Unarmed, Archery is maxed I have a couple in alchemy. Perception maxed long ago. I havent done anything in Rogue Scientist. It just is never a level where i can go get something in it yet. I think once unarmed is maxed I will be in clear a bit. That gives crits ethereal damage and will make my guy not ever miss. I have like 81 Dodge reduction with 2nd sight on. That saves a lot of bolts.

My question is this: I have BGH, Archery, Unarmed will be maxed. I am hoping a Bolt Thrower will be good enough and then encrust it with the +5 etheral +5 righteous encrust. Will that be enough to take down 300 hp monsters?? I duno. I might need something special i dont have yet. Cant figure it out.

 

ooo I just maxed out BGH for first time... what a cool skill line Very cool. Adds to warrior hps/damage too. I agree the Diggle Hounds rock They are clearly the exit strategy for the build. they make me laugh a lot too which is most important.

 

Yeah, those dudes are funny!! Hunter's lure is also very useful for a sneaky archer because you can lure those last 3 melee monsters out of a zoo without risking alerting the spellcasters in the corners by attacking them.

As far as damage goes, I've never really had a problem, but I maximize damage by wearing all the offensive damage equipment (like a cyber cone instead of a vampire hunter's hat, for example). For things I can build or have replacements for, Krong it. If it gets cursed, it goes to Brax or the cube. You can usually pick up some extra offense and resists this way.

For hats and neck slot, I'll just use whatever, but I close my eyes and mumble a little prayer before drinking from every fountain and entering every Brax shop for a diggle ring of digglish torment. 2 of those and it's like having an extra bolt thrower's damage added to whatever you've already got going on.

The last couple of exchanges we've had got me thinking about healing and brimstone flasks, so I just started another character with werediggle substituted for BGH. The goal is to crap out infinite diggle eggs to serve both purposes (plus after playing so many rogues with no melee skills, werediggle form just seems super strong at the start).

 

Oh hm. I have 60 pieces of brimstone at level 7. I am awaiting max output to make these flasks. Having loads of eggs would be great. It is rough storing for a rainy day. makes the build a bit tense and slow. I have not found a Cone yet. I am using the Vampire hat. I have a lot of +crits from unarmed, level ups and Archery. I also was thinking about those +pierce rings.... have to pray to get 1-2 of those! At a certain point of +crit%, i would think that +damage non elemental type would be better. I have 37% currently. I figure if it hits 50%, that would be then better to stack +crit gear to see the physical bolts do their thing. I still think that a cybercone would be great though, just have seen none of them

i am wearing vamp hat. So far i have not come close to dying, i just need to make sure i can output damage now. Working in making tinkering/bolt throwers and encrusting i will try for first time.

 

Archery, Unarmed, Tinkering, Alchemy, Perception, Big Game Hunter and rogue scientist

Problem with this build, doing archery, is that Maxing archery is essential, clearly. When you do, you get a load of bolt return and that is vital. But! how do you kill things up close? You can't run I do find a decent amount of hoglantern mushrooms. Unarmed needs also to be maxed by around 8th level. I just maxed it in middle of 8th level. I can now be ok with close up crap.

Damage: How? Good bolts, I have. I dont have a great xbow. Why? I cant put that many skills in tinkering. In fact i have base tinkering. Why? Perception I maxed early. I have a good assortment of ingots and gear, You need to max out tinkering early! I did it right off the batt, I just did every level tinkering. I got eye lasers too. Very fun but limited im thinking after around this level.

Big game hunter is maxed. Release the hounds is your only escape plan. It works pretty well.

Problem with the build: Lots of cool abilities that are growing too slow to make the build. Maybe my drops are bad. I duno. I am lacking damage.

rogue scientist I have 0 points in. I am going to raise alchemy now. I am thinking this build is going to run out of gas soon.... I have 1 mirrored shield and one dark shield so far I found. My problem isnt magic damage. reason being is that my guy has good stealth so far and will have very strong stealth so he isnt seen easily from afar. Really problem is getting hit so hard and nothing to counter the stronger and stronger hits. Any ideas?

 

The short answer to the damage thing is that archery is always going to be less damaging than hand weapons. Not only is a top end bow about half as damaging as a top end hand weapon (not counting artifacts), you can use 2 hand weapons to get double output. Also, the hand weapon skills result in more direct damage added than the archery skill. Where hand weapons give AOE attacks, archery lets your bolt supply last longer so you get more attacks (versus hand weapons where your attacks are unlimited).

Again, in this game taking all (or mostly) rogue skills is a challenge run compared to melee or magic.

If you're going to ignore tinkering in favor of bolt recovery, there's no reason to have Rogue Scientist in the build because its only purpose there is to offset the bolt consumption. Doing things that way, you'd probably be better off dropping Rogue Scientist in favor of Math, Fleshsmith or Necro. The problem there is that you'll end up using those skills for your primary offense instead of archery. If you're not using it as your primary offense, there's no reason to have the archery skill either - you're better off with Ley Walker or Blood Magic. Since you won't be needing bolts and powerful bows, you could do away with Tinkering. Also, Unarmed is less powerful than wielding 2 weapons. Switch out Unarmed and Tinkering for a weapon skill and Dual wield.

So, now our ultimate archery build is as follows:

Axes
Dual Wield
Necro
Blood Magic
Alchemy
BGH
Perception

But... does our ultimate archer really need perception when the only crafting skill is Alchemy? Let's go with something that augments our primary offense - Berserker Rage!!

There we have it!! Our ultimate archer build does not have any rogue skills at all and does not use archery (except maybe to finish off an enemy that is already at death's door).

Does that feel somehow wrong?

Archery is always going to do less damage per attack than a well designed melee or magic build. The advantage it has over melee (the fact that it attacks from range and can't be hit or countered by most enemies) is offset by melee's greater damage and beefier armor. It has no advantage over magic (and several disadvantages). It's a challenge run.

 

I am going to max tinkering as well. I probably wont put all points in it and put somein rogue scientist as it has +tinkering boost. I am going to use this to bring up alchemy possibly as well.

My problem now is i never got the recipe for the top xbow. That is going to be a problem now if that never happens

 

my guy just died. i dont know how, the damage was moderate he was taking. i cant figure it out on a named diggle. level 9. I killed a zoo with this guy in a few minutes smooth too.
max archery, max unarmed really are needed. Perception to eye lasers is a nice thing, next time i might not max to eye lasers just one off to get loot. Lasers help in beginning. I had some +sight objects and a +2 site on bow. but those are rare to get so this time i wont max perception. Maxing soon unarmed was key to survival. I will wait a bit on BGH maxing this time. BGH is warrior so it gives hps/crits/+kick damage. obviously the other aspects of bgh are good and the diggles are neat when in a jam.

i am sad as i didnt get to see rogue scientist do its thing and i just was about to use alchemy. I could make a non alchemy archer. I would remove rogue and alchemy. I think I would add... hm. thinking of what would be for damage. Burglary would be for safety and picks are really nice lol would be nice to get that

but, aside from that, it doesnt add to damage at all. Killer Vegan would be great addition to the build, but relying on shooting all animals would waste loads of bolts very early. It would perfect the build and add healing, life, and some very sweet Righteous damage to the bolts.

Killer vegan works better with perception/throwing/smithing/unarmed. IT is easier to make loads of throwing objects and use like 400 baseballs in beginning i noticed long ago.

Problem with the build is that you want ot make bolts but tinkering is very low until like level 9-10 for the archery build.

 

Wand lore has +6 ethereal damage and +15 magic resistance. that is kinda huge!

 

Obviously it's just my opinion, but the weak monsters you encounter on levels 1 and 2 are what I consider the "warm-up" period to get the character running. If you replay the character, try putting 2 points in perception (to increase steel drops and give you trapsight/affinity). Put the rest in rogue scientist. The first point gets you a knockback skill that can rearrange furniture and one-shot almost anything you'll find on level 1. The second point gets an acid attack that'll one-shot almost any non-named monster on level 2 (over time, so you'll need to activate it then run).

If you're lucky, you'll get the toxin canister before the zoo on level 2. If you're not, you'll have to take it normally. Once you get to that point, you can choose whether to work at tinkering or archery first. If you have the patience to wait out the cooldowns, you can easily use those 3 activations to kill everything down to level 5 or so, which gives you plenty of time to develop archery related things (and if you have Alchemy as a skill, just getting to toxin canister gives you 2 alchemy to get max healing potion yield).

If you go this route, you don't even need to rely on Unarmed. I personally would switch it for Burglary just for the lucky pick (actually, if you could craft picks I'd never choose burglary). Killer vegan does mesh well with Unarmed if you want to keep it, but (again, a personal thing) I can't stand the skill. Just avoiding the annoying animals that love to swarm around me makes the game so frustrating that I rage-quit games where Killer Vegan is in the build. Now, even on randoms, I'll reroll if that skill comes up.

I also really think you ought to experiment with raising tinkering instead of archery first. By the time I've finished DL2, I have generally harvested about 50 oozes. That's plenty of bolts to offset the higher bolt consumption. Since perception and rogue scientist drops make your ammo effectively unlimited, there's no reason to worry much about running out. Being able to make better bows and apply better encrusts more than offsets the extra damage. All you're really losing is fleshbore and a few dodge reduction and crit points.

Archer builds aren't for everyone, but just the fact that you got so far with one almost certainly puts you in the minority. The biggest drawback is that you're relying on the RNG to give you good stuff and/or recipes more than other builds.

 

what it is RNG?

Also, why would rogue scientist give unlimited ammo? or help it?

thank you for the other suggestions.

 

RNG is the random number generator (some people say random number god). Rogue scientist gives you unlimited ammo because the ooze drops can be turned into plastic, which can then be turned into bolts.

It's a more consistent bolt source than perception because perception drops steel and brass (that you need to save for bows) and plastic and bronze that you can make bolts from, but also drops lots of other stuff. With rogue scientist, it ONLY drops ooze that can be turned into plastic.