Life without Archeology

Yeah. I forgot about the conducts and stuff. However, this isn't Nethack, now is it.

Regardless, My opinion is not going to change.

 

I know David. I was just answering Haldurson. No worries. I too think KV sucks. If I wanted a debuff remover, I would take alchemy and perception and make Potions of Purity by the dozen.

Just for reference, this is what I was replying to:

 

I can't say I care for KV either. After all, I've never taken it. However, there are obviously a lot of people who do like it. That tells me it's a skill that caters to a particular playstyle. Which tells me it was designed well, despite the fact I don't like it myself.

... then again, the reports of using KV kinda smack of min/maxing (no offense, I don't see anything wrong with that) and that would mean people don't actually like it, they just use it because it's Optimal or otherwise Effective. And sure, I guess you could say that makes the skill fun for them. Maybe. Or something.

 

It's not called "quasi-pacifism" but the idea is quite similar in that you're a misanthropic self-righteous vegan who doesn't hurt the animals because they're cute but has no problem with slaughtering everything else (or with clubbing the baby seals anyway then turning around and "lol, level 5 vegan") and 5 righteous damage and the chance to proc Blinding Flash whenever you're hit isn't half-bad either. (Run-on sentence? What run-on sentence?)

KV is a great skill for a gish build because it makes half the dungeon not care about you (including all of those freaking dragons) and gives you melee advantages against everything else. Also, bear in mind, taking the skill makes animals ignore you for the rest of the game. Mostly. They do still sometimes attack you, but this is a glitch.

Really the main problem I have with vegan is that you're punished for countering against an animal, and they do sometimes attack you.

 

"Also, bear in mind, taking the skill makes animals ignore you for the rest of the game. Mostly. They do still sometimes attack you, but this is a glitch"
Oh, okay. I wasn't aware of that.

That does make the skill much more useful.

 

I think people forget about how incredibly useful this part of Killer Vegan is. You get to totally ignore the following super annoying monsters:

• Eelies
• Octos
• Magic Dragons
• Fish Paladins
• Hungry and Thirsty Diggles
• Diggle Mages
• Diggle Rocketeers

That alone is HUGE. And then lots of HP to pad my mistakes...it's almost too good. By the time you max Killer Vegan at level 5, you have 90-100 HP and can basically melee all enemies without even caring about the debuffs. At least for the first 3-5 floors (yes, even on Going Rogue).

There's lots of ranged items or spells that can get you through early game also.

 

Well, okay, then, I was wrong about it all. My bad.
I must now go and hide in shame.

 

KV has one major drawback. Even if the animals ignore you there's no profit, I.E. experience, gold, and everything good, in that. Plus ( as stated ) it's bugged. I know I got attacked and killed using KV on the first floor in a room full of diggles. I was mad.

 

Only if you choose not to kill the animals with non-melee attacks.

Thrown weapons, spells, traps, all of that doesn't trigger Vegan's debuffs.

This is why I consider Vegan to be best for a Gish tree; you nullify half the threat of the dungeon without decreasing your EXP resources, and get some nice melee bonuses to boot.

 

I just find it ironic you get melee boosts but you can't melee half the game. See? SEE!?

 

The melee boost also works for throwing *profit*

 

chuck brimstone flasks by the dozen! makeshift bombs, thermite, frag, and everything else! If you haven't taken tinkering on any build, you're doing it wrong as well. And as a bonus, trap affinity.

 

You're doing it wrong if you think Tinkering is required on any build.
Archaelogy, Burglary, Smithing, Dual-Wield, sword/mace/axe/stave/whatever I feel like, Perception/Artful Dodger or Dungeon Delver, or whatever the skill in Fax's Vaults mod is called.

All those = Tinkering falls to the wayside.

 

YMMV. I doubt you'd carry around an entire set of equipment just for the trap affinity. It's there as a bonus and you can also craft your own bolts and throwing weapons, plus some decent equipment. The 10 TA is just icing on the cake. And the Savvy bonus is useful for mostly everyone and especially mages. The concussion bombs also mean you don't need no teleport skill to grab items off of islands.

 

But then again, he does have a point - it's possible to play with builds that do not have Tinkering, and while it does decrease the reliability of getting some stuff, your maximal power output is increased if you take a combat-relevant skill tree instead.

Some people don't like to play like that (I seldom play with no crafting skills at all, as it irks me that I have no use for all the ingots), but it is possible.

 

again, YMMV. Power creep is possible to be a mite too much for certain builds; there's only so many skills you can remember to use with the right build. I can manage just fine with ~2-3 combat-oriented trees on Going Rogue. I'm more worried about TRAP OUT OF NOWHERE than anything else, they HURT a lot on that difficulty. I've totally set off only around a dozen? or so traps by accident through carelessness but they still hurt without enough mitigation. And I hate corruption traps. Those are bad enough when enemies have them. It's dumb when you have low TA and can't reliably escape stuff like that. I'd rather just pump TA and TS so that I can turn those traps against enemies and not have to worry about them. Ever wandered by mistake into the fire surprise traps? FUN waiting to happen. Don't get me started on caltrop eruptors. Constant generation is nice and all but those things hurt when they stack.

 

~sigh~

Warlock, I do know that "YMMV" and stuff, but no, it does not vary at all there. We said it is possible to play without Tinkering, and either you say it is a skill tree so vital that none of your characters fared well without it, or you agree with us in that.

Whether or not playing with Tinkering makes your character more potent is not exactly what we were discussing here, you know, but on that, I do agree, our mileage may vary (though I do like Tinkering, personally).

 

For what it's worth, Tinkering gives only slightly more trap affinity than maxing Smithing, Archaelogy, and Burglary with Perception.
I've also never not found, and yes, I am aware that is a double negative, , enough trap affinity to not notice traps.
Also, my current run, Krong is being silly as all get out, my Fedora has 3 Sight Radius, not a typo, 2 trap sight radius, and 2 trap affinity, and a few other bonuses.

I don't know why I get weird streaks of luck with Krong. Once I got like 6 bonuses on my item. The first time.
I also once had a run where 4 fountains in a row gave me a "You found something in the fountain." And sadly, none of them were Crownstars.


I found one once, on floor 4 or something of a run.

 

I see your point, it's a playstyle thing and people can do well enough without it.
Maybe I shouldn't have flogged "TINKERING OVAR POWARZ LOL" without understanding the point of the discussion in the first place.

edit: yeah, but tinkering saves you at least one skill tree (smithing) since it gives 1 TA only anyway. Both of those synergize something crazy good though if you max out perception and then get enough tinkering/smithing levels in total to get clockwork equipment quite speedily.

 

It's okay, Warlock, remember, don't go, the Diggles need you, they look up to you.