Project: Community Skills Guide

Interesting note: a zenzizenzizenzic is a number taken to it's 8th power. So the zenzizenzizenzic of 3 is 6,561.


Mathemagics. Ugh. I'm iffy on it. Here's why.

Froda's Jump Discontiunity: It's an escape button that doesn't actually escape very well at all. Unless it's a single named mob you're running from, FJD is about 50% likely to deposit you in as much or more danger than you were just in.

Beklam's Diminishing Calculus: is great on DL1. It saps 3 Melee Power and 3 HP from a foe as well as dealing, as much as makes no difference, 2 Necro and 2 Transmutative damage to it. It stacks up to 10 times and on DL1, it's totally worth it. Two floors later...not so much. Buffs and debuffs need to scale, dammit.

Curse of the Golden Ratio: does 6-7 damage/turn for 6 turns, and the monster poops gold while it dies. This is actually a pretty solid DoT to put on the back row of a horde while they approach so that they die while you kill the front row. Unfortunately, the only two characters that really use those tactics are gishes and Necro Beatsticks, neither of which will put in the 3 skill points necessary to reach this skill before DL 6 or 7.

Zenzizenzizenzic: One of the best ways to get Mana Regen, but you have to have a little bit to start with or it doesn't pay for itself. If you can nail 5 points of Mana Regen from, say, Ley Line Walker and a choice Kronging or two, there's basically no reason not to have ZZZ up for the rest of the game.

Zeuclid's Translation. Better than Move In Mysterious Ways, except that the path to get here is so harsh.

The Recursive Curse: let's not lie -- the stat penalties inflicted by TRC are basically fluff. The important part here is that it's a decently long-term DoT that inflicts a mostly-not-resisted kind of damage, and it's cheap as hell. If you have the mobility skills and the mana regen -- OH LOOK YOU DO! -- you can basically flit around the dungeon dropping this on everything that moves and then waiting for it to die. This might not look like it, but it's actually a hell of a capstone skill.


In total: Pair Mathemagics with Ley Line Walker and some form of first-few-rooms offense, and be prepared for a long, kite-filled adventure. Probably could benefit from some boosting of the first two levels, but if you manage to grind through them, you at least have a valid built-in strategy from this skill. I just happen to not be a big fan of that strategy.

 

Well dreadmor has 91% magic resist so he isn't immune to DOT but pretty close. Mathemagic and Magic training actually work really well against Dreadmor. Just take away his license to cast and the slam him with Recursive curse, which might deal about 20-40 damage to Dreadmor. If he get close to you Xeuclid's Translation out of there. When you start running out of mana you could use Extra-planar concentration.

 

Actually it has been discussed in other threads that he is hardcoded to be immune to normal DoTs. Magic resistance is just a bonus for him. Bleeding and fire still gets him though.

 

Oh well there is that. Recursive curse can still deal 20-40 damage to him with enough magic power though.

 

Yes spamming the curse is nice, if you don't mind casting it 50 times or so, and revoking Dredmor's license is a bit of a silver bullet. I'm hoping the devs make him immune to antimagic soon or give him a crossbow. Either or. One ability really shouldn't stop him from wrecking your face in my opinion.

 

I kinda would love it (and hate it). That if you casted anti-magic on him then he pull out a badass crossbow and fires squid bolts at you every round until the anti-magic wears off. Bascially making it the worse possible strategy unless you got like 30+ nerco resist.

 

I say just make him immune to antimagic. Problem solved. He is a lich after all, he is animated by magic. Would he not fall dead on the ground if he is unable to use magic?

 

Meh. Blanket immunities are boring and heavy-handed. Just universally make anti-magic resistible by Magic Resist. Remove the DoT immunity, too, it's not doing what it was intended to do (keep him from dying off-screen to Burn and Bleed effects). Just leave him with his nice happy 95%-ish Magic Resist and let that do it's job.

 

We're a bit far afield here, aren't we?

 

Happens. It's part of why I collect everything into a master document. It's easier to search, and you don't have to try and sort out the bunny trails.

 

OP updated with new PDF. We are now at 10 skills out of 33. Since there have been no skill suggestions I will pick at random.

Berserk Rage
Type: Warrior
Role: Turbocharger or Payload
Berserk Rage makes the melee experience that much better, and the Killing Blow ability gives the skill enormous late game potential.
Theme: Aaaargh!
Strategy:
Berserk Rage is all about melee, hitting and getting hit. A berserker is at his best when he's toe to toe with something, and benefits most from high block and armor absorption stats. A high dodge and counter will decrease his ability to maximize this skill. The procs make a berserker better in melee, increase his maximum HP and give him more armor absorption, making him a beast to try and kill physically, while he also gets a number of passive exotic damage and magic resistances from his third level skill, all in all a nice package.
Pros:
You hit them hard. With the fury of a thousand suns.
Cons:
This skill is not exactly, uh, deep? Basically, a character is maxing out his Rage when he's hitting and getting hit. Kiting and buff management are less important than wading in and whaling on people. Since the second and half the fourth level procs rely entirely on your being hit, Berserkers will want to be well defended in heavy armor and possibly shields, which decreases their synergies with non-warrior builds, although such builds are still viable with good planning.
Synergies:
Berserk Rage procs give you a ton of melee power. Assassination and Axes both up your critical hit rate, allowing you to take greatest advantage of all that melee power. Master of Arms and Shield Bearer let you get some defenses without burdening yourself with heavy armor. Fleshsmithing and Emomancy both give you healing spells that can fill all those extra HP your buffed Burl and Caddishness gives you. Again, note that skills that buff dodge and counter, like Artful Dodger or Swords, actively work against this skill.
Takeaway:
Berserk Rage is very powerful in a very limited fashion, much like weapon skills. But it's still a solid skill for a person planning on melee, particularly if he does not plan on taking Dual Wield.

 

An ideal BR build will have very low but massive and .

BR is notably the *ONLY* skill that I can think of that makes Magnetronic Plate look ideal.

 

Small but funny BR trick: the autocrit from the capstone power is not consumed by crossbow shots, but does cause them to crit. This is probably a bug, and very likely to change eventually, but fun.

 

I think that is fixed in the beta, but I could be remembering thrown still working with Killing Blow.

 

Berserker Rage: in many ways, it's better than Master of Arms for saving your life.

First level gives 1.33 and a point of , lasts 7 turns, and stacks up to 3 times. Sure, it adds a couple of other things, but it's so minor that who cares? The important part is up to 3 points of ARMOR.

Second level gives 1.33 and TWO points of , lasts 7 turns, and stacks up to 3 times. That's SIX MORE points of ARMOR -- and because the second level triggers on being hit instead of on hitting, you can have up to 4 chances per turn of having this proc activate. That's some crazy Armor, and a few extra points of damage on the side ain't bad either.

Third level gives some resistances to some pretty common damage types, but importantly also gives you +10 Magic Resist. That's a big chunk of resisting, and very nicely compliments the 75 MR you get from Celestial Circle. (In fact, the whole 'you can't move' of Celestial Circle and the 'bennies from being attacked' aspect of Berserker Rage make Mad Demonlogists a pretty decent gimmick.)

Fourth level gives 2.66 and two points of , lasts 7 turns, and ALSO stacks up to 3 times. It triggers on attacking and on being attacked, but only half as often on each as the first to levels. Still, it's fully feasible to get 15 points of Armor going from just this one skill provided you stay in combat continuously for a long time. That's enormous.

Fifth level, of course, is the auto-crit of doom. Much less powerful now that crits are avoided by any single successful defense roll, but because crits multiply your , and this skill gives you +5 in addition to auto-critting (and in addition to the up-to 15.33 you can get from levels 1, 2, and 4), any crits that do make it through will do huge piles of extra damage to your foes.


Berserker Rage pairs well with any skill that benefits you for leaping into the middle of the fray, getting surrounded, and getting pounded on. In particular, Bushido, Master of Arms, Shield Bearer, Axes, Demonology, and, perhaps wierdly, Astrology (stunning everyone around you is a good prelude to an Axenado) That said, if you get unlucky and it fails to proc for a few rounds, you'll also desperately want a way out, which is why Berserkers are so often paired with Fungal Arts, Burglary, or a mod skill like SwiftStriker, Clockwork Knight, or Wind Magic that has either an early knockback, early teleport, or is something melee-oriented with a teleport later on.

Basically the only real downside to Berserker Rage is that you could be taking Fungal Arts or Burglary in that slot instead. (Glass-cannon wizards, of course, being the exception proving the rule.)

 

It's Tuesday, and that means its time for another skill! Today, Magic Training.

Magic Training
Type: Wizard
Role: Turbocharger or Fuel Tank
Magic Training boosts the effectiveness of your spells and makes them cheaper, letting you wring more magic out of limited MP.
Theme: From Harry Piddler to Gandalf the Great
Strategy:
A formally trained mage seeks to maximize his magic power, so as to hit as hard as possible as fast as possible, thus using the smallest possible portion of resources on a given enemy, and give them the shortest possible time to close and maul him. In particular, the formally trained mage creates haywire events as often as possible, so his spells cannot be resisted.
Pros:
This skill ups your magic power a tad, which is nice, but it also helps your Haywire out a bit more, which in many ways is better. While a +4.5% chance of haywire above and beyond normal isn't much in and of itself, every percentage point helps, particularly on the lower levels where haywire can feel like the only way to punch through effects on high magic resistance enemies. The antimagic skill deals OK damage of a rarely resisted type and silences, which is nice, and very effective against Dredmor. Trancendental Meditation gives huge mana replenishment.
Cons:
The skill doesn't actively help your MP like the other mage support skills do, at least not until the Meditation skill, which is not the best way for AoE-centric builds to regain mana. The Savvy it grants is often superfluous in reducing the costs of spells in the long run, you won't need more than what a character normally gains from levels, this just gets you there sooner.
Synergies:
Any spell tree that has a number of spells that rapidly scale to magic power benefits from this skill. Further, spell trees that have secondary effects that can be resisted, such as Mathemagics, Psionics and Viking Magic, will enjoy the boosted haywire chance. The raw MP boost is good for trees that like to spam cheap spells, again like Psionics. Ley Walker gives steady mana regen for further spamming of spells, while Blood Magic can make up for Meditation's poor fit with AoE trees. Magic Training is suboptimal for trees that neither care about magic resistance nor scale very much with magic power, like Astrology or Golemancy (yes, thaumites benefit from the magic power boost, but they're pretty much all that needs it) or to a lesser extent Emomancy
Takeaway:
Like most Turbochargers, Magic Training is only as good as the skills its paired with. This skill is more about nuking targets with a few powerful blasts of magic than it is about creating massive webs of complicated hungry buffs and/or passive summons. Still, it's a better value than it is often given credit for.

 

I actually found Magic Training strong with Astrology - you need 113 savvy to minimise the cost on The Stars Align, and it scales pretty well with magic power for the fact its a large AoE with a potential cost of 6: 28 +0.71 magic power.

 

I am with mining on this. I take Magic Training any day over Blood Magic. And usually even over Lay Lines. Blood magic does not scale well by the middle game, and is regrettable at best by the end. Magic Training gets you more damage in every magic skill, and usually reduces your costs by a sizable amount too.