Rogues and zoos

OK this one is a simple call to help to you guys who play rogues... how the HELL do you clear a zoo?! I've played tank warriors that could grind them down one mob at a time... I've played mages that laugh maniacally while spamming exploding runes, their mana constantly topped up by blood magic... but EVERY rogue character I've played has failed in spectacular fashion at the first monster zoo encountered. This only on Dwarven Moderation no less...

 

Aoe bolts, aoe wands, aoe throwables and/or going to a chokepoint and fighting enemies there.

I always beat them with my ranged characters, though usually I end up with 0 ammo after that.

 

This.
The main problem I see these days is that people think they only need to use what they're skilled for. Such is the curse of "gamers" thses days. Use what you're given. Adapt. If you get a great sword, keep it. If you get a great bow and bolts, keep them. Same goes for wands and potions. Adapt to the situation. Do you think when you're melee you can just charge in and kill them all? No. You get pummeled like an idiot. Either find a choke spot and melee them there with a sword or use some big ass aoe bolts and bombs to deal with them. If not, leave it for later. Especially on Dwarven Moderation.

 

Yes. A good crossbow and lots of AoE bolts and a bunch of bombs. Fungal arts also helps a whole lot. Gives you lots of puffballs, gives you lots of useful buffs, healing, and some summons to help you out. The enemies in a zoo are a lot less scary when they're all confused. A lot of people don't like fooling with the spores all the time, but the benefits are so worth it. Archeology's Remembering your Charlemagne is also quite handy (it's like a concussion bomb that also confuses). If only the cooldown wasn't quite so long.

 

Yeah, my first ever Dredmor character was a straight-up Rogue (by accident, because I had no idea what an archetype was back then.) I survived my first Monster Zoo by spamming Puffballs, downing Hoglanterns and Fairywodger, and then finishing the named mobs in chokepoint melee with stacked Grungecap regen going on. I died like sixteen turns later on a trap (damn you, WASD navigation!), but I got the Zoo prize and was damn proud of myself.

 

As soon as you open the zoo run back to a nearby a chokepoint, shoot/throw stuff at the enemies as they come to injure them and take them out one by one. As other people have said, Fungal Arts is a livesaver. If a nasty named monster comes at you and you don't reckon you can take it out in melee, kite it around with Knightly Leap and attack it from range. Using that skill and/or invisibility to run away and regenerate health is a fine tactic if you're patient. If like me you tend to hoard all the potions, wands etc. you find then zoos are a good chance to clear them out of your inventory.

 

While the struggle is generally greater, I found that zoos are the most fun to deal with as a rogue. Whereas warriors retreat to the nearest choke and spam attack until it's over and mages yawn and fireball everything to death, rogues actually feel like you have to use all your resources to beat the zoo. Save all of the AoE damage items you find, you'll need them.

 

Depending on the rogue build, items you get, and the dungeon level, really.
On lower level I had no problems at all with simply getting some more dodge and sending them to Thanatos one by one as none could hit me, with only critical hits actually touching me (after which I simply moved in a mysterious way, ate something, and got back on track a few turns later).
On the higher levels, however... Yeah, it requires effort and can actually bring a lot of fun.

 

A rogue heavy build is tough.
Everyone has suggested bolts, but those don't work very well when you have to open the door and then shoot. You suddenly find yourself having to run backward so that you don't get surrounded, and giving up precious turns to shoot off an aoe arrow risks you running through it.Once you have "Move in Mysterious Ways" you can open a door and teleport far away and shoot your aoe arrows into the open zoo door and make sort work of it. Make sure to always buy aoe bolts from the vending machines (and use runes to make bolt machines).

A rogue SHOULD have a large number of AOE traps in their inventory, especially late game. They can work wonders on a zoo. You throw them down, and let them trigger as the zoo flows out towards you.
The problem again, is being able to lay them down and still get enough distance to let them follow you through the junk. I personally feel that traps are not worth the time at the moment. If a player could set traps without taking a turn, traps would suddenly become quite valuable.

 

Noxious Brimstone Flasks, Poison Flasks, and Bolts of Squid, mostly. Tentacular Wands help too.

 

Also Acid Ampoule Bolts and Poison Ampoule Bolts And Bolts of Mass Destruction, natch.

 

And a helluva lot of traps (yay for tinkering and compulsive item grabbing), if you are patient and have a long corridor (it's not like you can't close the doors and spend a few dozen turns making the corridor next to it a death course).

 

Save/make those thaumite nest traps, and a wall(rock?) wand. Nyahahahaaaa. Wands in general are great, big AoE on gelatinous wand.

 

You CAN drop traps without expending a turn - Shift-Click and it pops down on your square, armed and ready to go. Then Move In Mysterious Way away, the first mob steps on it, and you greet his advance with a BoMD. Repeat until Zoo done. As has been said many a time, the sequence of victory in DoD is open range, open fire.

Edit: Two things: One, unless you're planning on dropping a STACK of traps, Alt-click and drop the singleton into an inventory space first. Two, I'm not sure stacks of traps dropped in such a manner activate as x number of traps - but singletons all dropped in the space of one turn of differing types DO. So remember, variety!

 

So you're telling me I can drop 5 different traps on one space, move away and have them all go off simultaneously?

 

OK it's official, I now LOVE traps.

 

Save traps, stack them on the same tile, run a whole hallway full of them, prepare grenades and aoe arrows. I've pretty much only specced rogue characters by accident, and it's actually quite easy. Find a choke point, use traps, and AoE spam items, use lockup on the one guy blocking the path, and find different angles to hit the people behind him, or just fill them full of bolts, nades, or wand stuff.

Though it requires you to have a fairly stacked inventory when taking on a zoo, it's much more fun, as you're pretty much spamming everything in your inventory. You also feel refreshed when your inventory lightens up and feel more accomplished. Also, I have a tendency to create a stash of items that I carry with me on every level and drop them off after I get to the next floor, and pick them up again, when I'm done with the floor and move on to the next. It allows a free-er inventory, carrying mostly only the necessary for exploration. When I find the zoo, I usually try to close the door again, before a monster blocks it. And then return to pick up all the ammo I'll need.

 

monster zoo on level two
lay a winding path of firespouts, scalding steam, dwarven IED and blade traps
open door again, haul ass to teleport lever
teleport couple more times so I'm on the east side of the leverport room
laugh because the whole time I hear traps going off, monsters dying like crazy (little exp medals just popping up like crazy)
hurl some flasks and bombs at anyone I can see

Glorious, glorious slaughter.

Hey, does anyone remember dealing with massive chains of explosive barrels in the Doom games (end level of E1 in the first Doom & some of the really evil trick levels in Doom 2)? Imagine something like that in DoD, massive explosive chain reactions w/ environmental hazards. Utter havoc.

 

Hmmm... I think the problem I have is the RNG in my game despises tinkers and thus I simply can not get Fing zinc!!! Tin out of every orifice to make utterly useless Bronze, but no zinc to make that vital Brass.