Project: Community Skills Guide

What we see here is a disagreement over how to classify Daggers. 123 rates it as a turbocharger and uses it as a way to augment certain builds. However, I feel that using Daggers this way is not only a disservice to the skill, its not that good a performer as a turbocharger. Sneaking isn't necessary if you want to be a tinkerer. That's mainly about bolts, crafts and trap salvaging, you don't need stealth, or anything Daggers offers, really, to max Tinkering as an engine.

If we take Daggers just to up crit rate we wind up with a skill that penalizes melee power to boost crit rate. While for a dedicated Dagges user that provides a way to bypass block chance and avoid the occasional counter attack, for an axe user or other melee fighter there are better turbochargers. Berserk Rage offers much, much more melee power most of the time and an ista-crit skill that will probably give us just as much if not more damage than the sneak attack stance from daggers, and it will come faster than maxing out Axes and taking Daggers, which means you'll enjoy it for longer until monster defenses make critical hits less important. Clockwork Knights offers Clockwork Threshing and Clockwork Ravagers, who's extra attacks will produce much, much more damage than a +25% crit boost with a -5 melee power penalty.

Likewise, if you want maxed counter all you need is Dual Wield, Swords and Smithing, and you can add Paranormal Investigator if you're unsure of you ability to acquire the Ring of Iron Thorns recipe. Those will get you pretty much all the counter you could want and add damage instead of subtracting it. Shrike's Ring or Digglish Torment rings are just gravy, as is the Wreath of Iron Thorns.

But I feel that Daggers is more than "just another melee skill". The other melee skills were more turbochargers than engines. Daggers is an engine. It offers three activated abilities and two stances, allowing you to tailor your approach to any situation. Lone monsters are easily overwhelmed with the Sneaky stance while platoons and zoos can be worn down with the Wall of Blades and repeated uses of your DoT skills. If things get too hot, just walk around a corner and watch the monsters loose track of you entirely. Then stick 'em full of Thaumites.

If you build with Daggers as a turbocharger all those other abilities and stances are just sitting there as dead weight. You don't get the passive bonuses. Your activated abilities aren't that hot. You never really want to max out the skill, even when you have nothing else to do with all your levels. Viewing Daggers one way leaves you with a meh skill that tweaks you out early and leaves you below the curve late, while viewing it the other gives you a fighting style with attitude and flexibility that's a lot of fun to play and offers a lot more synergy. You can look at it whichever way you want, but I know which I like better.

 

This damage not being affected by must be confirmed, the wiki says the opposite.

 

Wiki? No. Bad Vitellozzo! Use Dredmorpedia.

 

But I cannot info for this question in the pedia.
A WILD LATINUM APPEARS.

 

Alright. Until I or another can find a reference to this in Dredmorpedia, can you show us where you see a wiki showing it does not effect ?

I am searching now. But it may be easier to just jump to the XML and get lost in the code for a day or two.

 

Dwarven Handshake
Sword Poet
Bullseye
Those three all give and . That proves nothing in and of itself, but it suggests they may work together. Especially considering how low the they each give is.

*Edit* This seems a good time to mod a simple item to give 20 and 100 just to see for sure if it does more than 20 on melee. That should prove it once and for all. But I must sleep. Sorry in advance for the double posts... I would be ashamed if I was capable of that.

 

I don't know if you are talking to me right now, or to 123. I think crits and pierce works together. Anyway, here's the wiki page, which says the same. http://www.dredmorwiki.com/wiki/Critical_Chance

Have I never mentioned how much I like this autoability of the forum to autotrack links copied from text?

 

98% sure a crit literally just doubles your melee power for your attack/negates blocks. (And also might have some interactions with counterattacks? But I'm not sure.)

 

If a crit is dodged, the target takes no damage.
If a crit is Countered, the target (and attacker) takes no damage.
If a crit is blocked, the target takes normal attack damage.

Melee and Throwing crits are supposed to double your (so if you have a melee weapon with nothing but , the crit would increase your foot's I assume)
Crossbow crits I have heard only double your , but does nothing for your ...but I may have heard this from the wiki. :S

 

The wikis is provably wrong and in fact contradicts itself. The basic damage types are Slashing, Crushing, and Blasting -- not Piercing. All of which is irrelevent to critical hits, which 'merely ' double your Melee Power (or, when using a crossbow, your crossbow's base damage.)

 

I though that the was a basic damage type, not affected by the armor, since it is given by lots of common weapons, and that was a exotic damage, affected by the armor, only because it isn't given from any normal non magical weapon. Was I wrong?

 

Basic vs. exotic isn't a statement of rarity; it's a statement of how it interacts with some other stats, mainly , , and . Block is more effective against physical damage - it quarters the amount you would take, while only halving exotic damages. Armor Absorption only works against physical damage types, and Melee Power is split up against your physical damage types. I mean yeah, there's plenty of exotic damage types that are more common than explosive damage, but none of them are blocked by AA or boosted by MP.

 

First, no crit no longer bypass counter or block. This is a crucial change that you didn't take into account.

Second, you NEED dagger to reach 100%, unless you start counting anvil buff and archeology. Yes before when crit still bypass counter this doesn't mean much, however now this is also perfect melee immunity which is huge.

Although I must admit I am not big with crit build, I lost interest once I found out it no longer bypass block/counter.

 

A critical hit negates a counter attack, no damage from that hit. A block reduces bonus critical hit damage to normal damage. Both facts I was aware of and took into account when writing my above posts. I have had 100 Counter before there was a Daggers skill, Smithing and two swords was all I needed, so don't tell me its impossible.

 

You count combat momentum and Offensive Maneuvering buffs didn't you? Cuz I don't, and I won't. Those happens after combat already taken place, which means I could have already taken damage. It also mean I am forced to use heavy armor.

Having true 100% critical, which means no after combat buff considered, is the only way to be perfectly immune to melee damage at all time, and never end up taking random exotic damage because of it. I can also switch to mage armor if I choose without worry about taking melee damage.

 

Max out Swords --> get 10 counter.
Max out Dual Wielding --> Swords becomes 20 Counter, add 15 more counter (total 35).

Assuming you're a level 20 character with 5 Fighter and 15 Rogue levels, that's about 12 points of Counter, for a total now of 47.

Wreath of Iron Horns = +5 = 52 Counter.
Ostentatious Tunic = +2 = 54 Counter.
Swashbuckling Belt = +4 = 58 Counter.
(there are no pants that give Counter.)
(there are no shoes that give Counter.)
Bucanneer Gloves = +3 = 61 Counter.
2x Ring of Iron Thorns = +16 = 77 Counter.
(there are no Amulets that give Counter.)
2x Partizan = +6 = 83 Counter.


I think 17 points of lucky Kronging, artifact bonuses, and the impact of various bonuses to your base stats is perfectly reasonable by level 20. So it's definitely not impossible, even well before the bottom floor.

 

I was in fact, counting both Offensive Manuevers and an unknown number of instances of Combat Momentum. Given how easy it is to keep the Manuevers once you have a high counter, I see no reason not to count it, and Momentum is usually good for at least your first strike proc. Also, Diggle God of War buff, who gives 1 1/6th counter all by his lonesome.

Also, Essence: How can you get +6 counter from Partisans and +20 counter from Swords at the same time?

Anyway, 100% anything builds kind of strike me as absurd, since a few spells like Ennui or Diggle Plague will make your "melee god" fairly mortal after only one or two stacks. Also, I'm not really scared of a 2% chance of getting hit for damage. But really, this thread isn't about builds its about skills! And we'll be back to talk about the Polearm skill later tonight, when I have more time to write about it! =D

 

Oh, right. +4, then -- from 2 Gladiuses. I forgot that the weapon stat bonuses are actually weapon dependent.

 

If more enemies inflicted status effects like "stunned" or "dazed" we'd see counterattack builds run into late game problems

 

But that's exactly why having 100% before combat momentum and offensive maneuvering is so important.

First you start the battle with 100%. Then a few turns later after you get hit by Ennui or Diggle Plague, Combat Momentum and Offensive Maneuvering kicks in to keep you at 100%. And because Ennui and Diggle Plague is that common in later stages, it makes dagger that much more important for a sword build.

If enemy stun, it would probably kill melee completely.

I like how way back crit bypass counter and defense.