Mathemagics trivializes the game.

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Lots of ranged monsters would be fine, as long as their attacks act like the player's ranged attacks - if they don't have a clear LOS, there's a chance they'll hit an ally in between.

Insta-hit no matter what attacks should be reserved for spellcasters.

 

It's not so much Mathemagic that trivializes the game, it's that most of the wizard spell lines are at least an order of magnitude more effective than basically all of the melee ones. Playing a "pure" wizard build means you struggle on floor 1 until you get a few levels. Playing a "pure" warrior build means you struggle on floor 1 until you get a few levels, start struggling again around floor 3 when AIs are destroying you with with 8-16 pierce damage per turn in melee, then around floor 5 you wonder why the hell you went with such a terrible build in the first place because the gameplay experience is miserable. Compare that with a proper wizard build where by floor 5 you're practically on cruise control, and monster zoos aren't 300+ turn world wars, they're 10 turn AoE slaughterhouses.

Even if you nerfed all of the offensive wizard lines, playing a heavy wizard is going to be just stupidly more effective than a heavy melee. Melee needs buffs. Big ones.

 

@Wallach
I agree. Melee should be at least on par with magic, and I'd like to see it do better than it does now. However, I would not like it if it becomes that melee breezes through everything as easily as magic does. So instead of overall buffs to melee, perhaps it really is the magic that needs to be taken down a notch.

 

Good ol' <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards">Linear Warrior, Quadratic Wizard</a>.

Fundamentally, it happens in this game because for every level you put in to a wizard skill tree, you get a new ability - you can suddenly do something new, which combines with the set of potential combat situations combinatorially, which means that every level your effectiveness grows exponentially. For every level you put into a warrior skill tree, you can do the same thing you did last level, except a little bit better - which means that every level, your effectiveness grows linearly. Well, okay, at level three you get a new skill that doesn't scale, but that's pretty much it.

There's a reason why the main "fix" for fighters in Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 presented in the Book of Nine Swords was to essentially make them spellcasters with a different mechanic.

 

There's also the bug where you get no health from putting points into warrior, but 2 health for each point into wizard.

 

@wallach
I believe that you can make any warrior build much better with smithing. Make sure to get to level four smithing by the end of DL 1 or 2 and smelt all the saved up ore materials. The armor and weapon possibilities that are available to you are extremely helpful. What is a pure warrior without equipment anyway, am I right?

For example in one play through I was a duel swordsman. By the end of DL 1 I was duel wielding enchanted (thanks to Krong) Gladius with real decent block values. Yes it all depends on what is available to you, but you can make decent weaponry and armor with steel, iron, and bronze.

 

I just had a playthrough as a mace/Smithing warrior and the only ores I've gotten through level 3 of the dungeon (clearing everything) have been zinc, Platinum and Gold, and one piece of plastic I was lucky enough to get a couple of pieces of iron eventually (not ore) -- enough to make an iron mace. But I had terrible armor and minimal fighting skills, so I ended up dying to two bosses with level 3 nearly cleared. I got tons of tinkering and alchemy mats, but nothing I actually could use.

Smithing is nice if you get lucky. But that's a big if.

 

@Wallach

Yeah my best warrior defense solution is to go Psionics + Blood Magic, and just use dual staves with almost no defense whatsoever, which said a lot about how terrible all the defense skills are at this point.

I mean come on now, 4 skill points on Master of Armor for 3 damage reduction and blocks that hardly does anything at later stages? Dodger makes almost 0 difference with it's dodge bonus and is pick solely for the knightly leap? Assassination's random processed blackjack outclass all the existing defense skill in every shape and form? This is my experience after getting a normal warrior to beat normal mode, before I decided to skip all defense skills (besides assassination) because they don't help at all. After the change it is significantly easier even though i am on Rogue difficulty.

Also, vast majority of the end game stuff start dealing such huge elemental damage, so trying to survive with 10 defense is no different from 20 aside from the few Arch Doggies and bosses. Typical melee characters are also heavily punished with corruption, item stealing, item breaking, counters. The kind of "good on paper" stuff that only makes the weakest build even worst, and has no affect on mages. Even if I can take the damage I can't afford to lose weapons and armors by getting hit, because they are already at the blink of dying with the best gear set.

You know what I think will be really cool though? If Viking and Necromancy scale with Melee Power instead of Magic Power. That way they can fulfill their role of "melee buffing with skills"

 

I am wondering what difficulty you are all playing at? I always go rogue with permadeath, and I have yet to try a skill set that is OP.

Everytime someone makes a post like this, you should be required to post your game settings and build so I can try it out on Rogue setting.

 

Mages can melee just fine right now at the early levels. I am doing another going rogue run right now and I cleared DL 1 and 2 just using melee + 1 point in fungal arts.

By the time I entered DL 3 I was level 9 already and was starting to amass my mana gen from archeology.

There really is no point in going melee at all actually, since you can just melee with a mage no problem.

So far my build is mathemagics, promethean magic, mage training, blood magic, fungal arts, archeology, burglary on going rogue/permadeath. I think my build would be improved by swapping mage training for astrology just for the first point buff to perception to help against blinding.

I am feeling pretty confident that I'll ascend again. After I do I try to write up a guide. But I feel that build in good hands could achieve an easy 90% ascension rate given the starting mushrooms helping in the first few turns. Unless someone can come up with a better build, after playing around I feel that is the optimal IWIN build for this game. The key is getting every last drop of xp and abusing archeology to maximum effect for mana gen before hitting DL 3. As DL 1 and 2 can be cleared with a 5-6 damage weapon at no risk even on going rogue (given fungal arts). It's not until DL 3 that you start to worry about being in melee. After you get bloodmagic maxed, xeuclids, golden ratio, and archeology maxed you just need to know your traps and hold on to those potions of purification/zodiac wands and a few stacks of mushrooms.

 

@Lordxorn

It's not that mages are "easy" as much as they are "way easiest" relatively to trying to get a warrior with no magic down to dungeon 10 on hard. But then, if you got a warrior with magic, then they are not hard at all.

If you want my "warrior" build, here it is.

Skill 1 Staves (Skill)
Skill 2 Dual Wielding
Skill 3 Vampirism
Skill 4 Psionics
Skill 5 Blood Mage
Skill 6 Assassination
Skill 7 Magic Training

1 point on magic training -> max staves -> 3 points on Psionics -> max blood magic -> 1 point on Psionics

Once I got that Nerve Staple at level 10, melee become super easy from there on. Nothing hard about beating on stuff that don't hit back, even on Rogue setting.

 

@jhffmn: yeah, you should really swap Mage Training for something else, it's not worthwhile. Astrology would be a good idea, or really any other school of magic - it seems like the bonus to Sagacity and Spell Power for levelling up a wizard skill outclasses the total bonus from Mage Training.

Alternatively, you could take Alchemy in order to guarantee high-level orbs and have better health recovery. It would also help your mana regen, with Alchemy 4 you can craft a pair of Starry Orbs and then enchant them.

@123stw: Staves is a poor skill I'm afraid. All it nets you is a minor spellpower bonus when you have staves equipped; however, you don't need the weapon skill in order to get any of the bonuses from dual wielding staves, so all you're really left with is the stave's unprepossessing melee stats. As long as you can remember to swap your staves for a better weapon when enemies get in to melee range, you'd be far better off with another skill.

 

If I got to swap to staves every 2 turns to cast that Nerve Staple I will go NUT.

As of now it deals "enough" damage down at level 10 rogue. So for me that's a lot better than either extreme swap or use Nerve Staple less.

Edit: I just checked the skill trees and the weapons, comparing both the last non unique weapon and the bonus stat, mace outperform by 2.5 damage and 6 crits.... (bonus 5*2 vs bonus 3*2 + natural 3.5 leech piercing, Mace deals 20 while Stave deals 19). I am not seeing where the big deal is in terms of weapon choice. 16 block, 14 accuracy, 6 bashing, 4 magic power, 2 counter attacks, 2 critical, chance to stun, skill with chance to stun, and a chance to bleed out is not a "poor skill".

Also, when checking Assassination damage line, Sneaky Shiv and Et Tu? shows up as

effect type="damage" piercing="3" piercingF="0.5" bleed="1"

Unless I am misinterpreting how piercingF works, 14 magic power is an additional 7 damage on process (21% each respectively, netting 2.94 expected damage per hit).

With weapons and skills considered, dual staves are definitely on par with dual maces in the damage department.

 

@tacroy Since mage training counts as a mage skill, it's still worthwhile over another mage skill for the stat gain. However I think astrology is a better option as the first rank skill helps against blinding. Sagacity isn't as important/good as spell power, so the bonus to spell power in mage training is pretty solid.

 

@123stw

So I tried your "Mage" build and it did not seem OP at all. I have plenty of other rogue/warrior builds that survive longer. Of course I only had one staff, so my Dual Wield was a waste. I died before I found another one.

The sleep skill I had was low mana, however it did not work all the time. So I was taking damage without getting the vampirism heals, which this build sorely needs.

Of course I always play on Going Rogue, and Permadeath.

Am I missing something?

 

I was spending too much focus on surviving dungeon 10, and not enough for the very beginning.

I changed the build a little bit and have tested it on Rogue Permadeath myself, namely by replacing Assassination with Astrology and picking Vampirism as the first skill for drink blood. It shouldn't have any more problems getting through dungeon 1 and 2, without sacrificing anything for late game.

More permadeath tips for this build here.

http://www.dredmorwiki.com/wiki/Buildsual_Staves