Project: Community Skills Guide

Regarding Necro: Pairing it with the unarmed tree is very strong, as the melee buffs synergise well with dual shields gameplay (add damage, add bulk, add life steal which goes well with tankiness).

 

The melee buffs synergise well with any melee build, as long as you can mitigate the necro pain. Pact of Fleeting Life is one of the most powerful melee buffs in the game with life steal easily keeping you at full life in most early to mid-game encounters. I've melee'ed whole zoos with this on mage builds on some of the earlier floors. I can only imagine how amazing it would be with a more gishy style build. The biggest drawback is its limited duration (about 30 turns I believe) which can leave you in the lurch if you aren't careful.

 

Nercronomicomonomics is one of the trees I starts out slow but is awesome by end game. I'm not a big fan of Deadly hex or Nightmare curse.

• Deadly hex doesn't scale very well.
• Nightmare Curse is nice for stopping named monsters for a bit but its a gamble and can be resisted.

At level 3 is where Nercronomicomonomics starts to really shine.

• Mark of Chthon is a pretty good buff. It gives the player and extra 4 damage and a 42% to deal a 3 damage sleep spell. The sleep can be resist like nightmare curse but it is likely to have many more chances to succeed.

At level 4 you start get a for each level which a pretty common damage type.

• Pact of fleeting life has already been talked about and with good reason its awesome. 32 turns of 90% life steal. this spell pretty makes the whole vampire tree worthless (all trees do actually).
• Eldritch Inhabitation is very cheap to cast. It causes bleeding, confusion, flesh bore, DOT, AOE, and acts like a thermite bomb. All that could be yours for the low low press of 4 mana... and temporary blindness, that also part of the cost
• Tenebrous Rift is the capstone skill and you better believe it does its job well. This would be the best spell in the game hands down if was so common after floor 13. Massive damage, Massive AOE, DOT which cast more spells. A decent mage can clear a zoo with 2-3 of these no problem. The biggest drawback of this spell is that the AOE (range of 4) is so big you are likely to kill yourself.

So what combos really well with Nercronomicomonomics? Well mages and melee. Melee Blood magic vegans do quite well. The blood magic keep you pretty much full magic while adding magic power and magic regen. The only drawback of blood magic is that it lowers but vegan will never face this damage. The drawback of vegan is that you can't melee animals but Nercronomicomonomics can handle that. I really like the build Unarmed, Shield Bearer, Nercronomicomonomics, Blood Magic, Vegan, Tinkering, Demonologist/ Beserker Rage. Its a vegan that fights demons by using the blood of the living to summon demons . Stick with shield and armor that don't reduce magic and you can melee and spell caster quite well.

 

Note for everyone not aware: Necronomeconomics' debuffs (specifically Curse of the Mind and Soul Price) are supposed to debuff your , and will start doing so with the next update, but it's currently borked. That's all.

 

Since we seem to have played out Necronomiceconomics pretty quickly, I'm going to go ahead and say start our next skill on Tuesday, that is tomorrow. And since the subject of Golemancy has already been breached, let's go ahead and make that our next skill to talk about! That gives us two mage skills under the belt, so I'm going to propose we cover Swords/Axes/Maces/Staves/Unarmed Combat on Friday, then Fungal Arts on Tuesday, giving us at least one skill of each covered. Also, the damage/resistance smilies do not translate well in the PDFs. Please don't use them in future posts! Re-editing them is a pain. I should have the first part of the PDF up sometime tomorrow evening. Thanks for your contributions guys!

 

Wootah already began this part of the discussion so I'll just transpose his words here.

Wootah sums it up pretty well. Golemancy is one of the best survival skills in the game, especially for magi trying to survive the first floors. Just drop two points for mustache golem and unliving wall and enemies won't ever be able to get in melee with you.
The damage output does wane in the late game so it should be supported with some alternate means of damage and a teleport of some sort for full battlefield control.

My only real gripe with the Golemancy tree is that I can't have a Mustache Golem and a Mortal Machine at the same time.

 

Gomemancy needs a major buff for the Robot that Loves. Specifically it needs an AoE attack that it can spam with a reasonable chance to proc fleshbore, and several times the HP too. (It also needs to fly to be useful over Promethean Magic.)

The reason is that by the late game it is useless, yet still costs a load of Mana. It then gets instagibbed by anything at all after DL 10. By level 7 or so you are better off never casting it again since it is unlikely to do anything more than take a hit for you and die. The 'Stash golem can do that just as well, or if you have Promethean Magic, the summon is better than everything in Golemancy since it flies and costs nothing at all with boosted .

As it is, the only reason to take Golemancy is the Digging Ray. That spell is awesome.

Aside from Digging Ray, there is exactly nothing I want in the skill. Hell, there could be a multi-spawn like that used in the mod Fax made called Meteorology. (Spelling?) With a skill to spawn a half dozen little flesh shields you could get some actual defense out of them rather than just having to recast it every turn since it dies that fast.

 

The walls are a skill of their own. Plonk down a wall, lob spells at enemies, profit.

 

Golemancy tree is kinda a boring but useful tree to me. This build spends a lot of time laying back and lets summon and spells do the work. This tree can make its very hard for monster to reach you.

The first skills is completely and 100% useless, it does almost no damage, cost quite a bit of mana, and requires a set up.

Mustache Golem on the other hand is quite good. Getting this on level 2 means you can destroy the first 2 floors with no other offensive skill. This gives you time to raise Burglary, Alchemy, Lay Lines, and/or Killer Vegan. Though the zoo can be tough with just a golem but some monster will walk past it.

Unliving Walls is amazing spells that is useful all game long. It is 48 turns blockade of one spot. You can turn chock holds into a chance to recover for 48 turns. Without any regen all that is 6 mana and 4hp, which for a mage character should be enough to recast unliving wall. This spell makes you near invincible with the last skill of this tree.

Invite Thaumite swam does nice damage and creates a trap which re-spreads itself on top the corpse after a few turns. The few turns part means that most monsters will walk past the trap before it sets itself up. You really need to plan ahead to use this as your offensive spell. If a monster resist it then it become worthless. After level 8-9ish then it can't kill a monster without it being damage first making it kinda pointless. Very expensive.

The Mortal Machine is a better version of Mustache Golem but its only works till about floor 6-7 before becoming completely useless. Unless you rush to max this tree you'll probably never use it.

Digging Ray is AWESOME! It blows a path through walls, I think about 4 tiles in front you. Use this spell plus unliving wall to give your self an easy 144 turns of protection. Throw down some thaumite swams/ rune of exploding/ tenebrous rift outside your fort and kill everything outside. Great for Zoos or just any time your in trouble. Also its great for when the map trys to make you walk around the whole map for a quest/store. Just yell "I'm thinking with portals" out loud and blow through the walls of the map.

Golemancy works wonders with Killer Vegan, Ley Lines, Psionics, Nerconomiconomincs/Promethean Magic. Vegan and Ley Lines give you extra HP and MP regen. This makes creating a fort just that more useful. psionics gives you a push back skill which allows you to create more situations to use unliving wall. Psionics+Digging Ray+Unliving Wall can be an infinite fort. Nerconomiconomincs/Promethean Magic allows you to attack monster outside your fort better than golemancy can.

 

Well this should go over like a lead balloon...

Golemancy
Type: Wizard
Role: Turbocharger
Golemancy serves best as a skill that augments more powerful skill that actually do something for you.
Theme: Battlefield Control
Golemancy gives a wide variety of abilities that let you change the battlefield by adding friendly monsters, "traps" and obstacles - or remove them
Strategy:
Golemancy encourages the player to hide behind summons and obstacles, allowing DoTs and summons to deal damage for you. If you're having trouble making choke points, just burrow one into a wall!
Pros:
Thaumite Swarm is, probably hands down, the best DoT in the game. For the initial investment this spell can easily wipe out 5-10 monsters in a zoo as it recasts itself over and over. Unliving Wall is a great combination of strategic terrain and panic button. Digging Ray is interesting, if not particularly useful in combat.
Cons:
All three summon spells scale to uselessness by DL10, and Digging Ray is not a damage dealing spell, leaving you with Unliving Wall and Thaumite Swarm to carry the skill for most purposes in the late game. Wall destruction is nice on occasion, but would be more useful in a game that isn't a roguelike, where the idea wasn't to eventually fight everything and being sneaky was more of a strategy. The summons slow down combat.
Takeaway:
Golemancy is a lackluster skill compared to many of the other wizard skills available. It does allow a fair amount of strategic play with the Unliving Wall but, since you're likely to just wind up hunkered behind them throwing Thaumites or waiting for your summons to finish things, or using more powerful spells from other trees, I generally find it to be a waste of skill points. Recommended for those who like the petmaster experience or building walls a la Tower Defense games. Those who like faster gameplay should avoid.

 

I actually don't find the first golemancy spell that bad. You need to line the monsters up, but it can take most of the floor 1 mobs down in 2 or 3 goes. It helps with surviving the first couple of floors as a squishy wizard, and allows you to take some of the other wizard skills like psionics or mathemagics that don't really have direct damage spells early on.

 

The thing with digging ray is you can easily dig into the back of a store (i.e. without entering the pink zone) and steal things without getting caught. It's pretty crazy.

 

PDF now attached to OP. Do we want it on Dropbox too?

 

I don't know if this is worth anything, but i thought it would be cool to attach this screenshot of golemancy in action:



Not sure why the Google Documents link wont work.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1KYrkkdLVFBSEF0aXRtcURzQ28

 

Also....

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MONTRESOR!

 

Everything OmniNegro said about the Golemancy pets feels true to me, but I lack a point of comparison to to other pet skillsets - that's because after taking Golemancy once, I was so underwhelmed with pets that I never really even gave other skill trees' pets a fair go. I mean sure, they can very slowly clear the first few levels for you all by themselves, but it was faster and more fun to push the mustache aside and adminster the kiss of death personally.

 

Well the fleshmithing Zombie is MUCH worse than the golemancy pets. In fact it is so deep in the tree that even if you went Straight for it, it would not be worth your time or a spot on the bar.

 

The dragon from promethean magic is pretty solid, the slime in fungal arts is pretty weak but he's useful if you get him early since he isn't deep in the tree. I've never run fungal hard enough to get the mushroom but imagine it probably suffers from the same scaling issues as the mortal machine. The zombie in fleshsmithing is almost completely worthless, failing to distract enemies for even a single turn in most of my experiences. The pact from demonology and the pack of hunting diggles from big game hunter are both excellent for putting some space between you and horrible face eating monsters.

Pets, on the whole make, decent distractions but should never to be relied upon for damage. I frequently use them as a panic button, just throw your pack of diggles to the wolves... err.. other... diggles... to make a clean get away.

 

Mushroom is good for quite a few hits and lasts for me usually till floor 8 or 9.

 

Mushroom (just like any other summon, though I like Release the Hounds the most for that because of the amount of monsters created) are good for tanking any hits that don't deal area damage, since even if they die after 1 hit, that is 1 hit that we could've been hit with. Of course it's more difficult to use it effectively if the summon dies after 1 hit, because we have 1 action per turn and thus it has to be summoned in advance for that, but it's possible to use it even then.

That's how I used it, on the very least, but then again, I prefer fighting myself instead of relying on summons, so I use them as an on-call cannon fodder.