Share Your GR Builds!

Did you try pyrokenisis?

With 40 spell power it does 35 damage and sets them on fire for 4 mana. The fire adds a bit of AE damage if you spread it around.

By comparison curse does 15 a tick at that spell power.

 

Mathemagic abuser here also. That skill singlehandedly carried me through the last 3 floors of GR/PD. At around 50 magic power Zen costs 0 mana which translates into a bonus 18 magic power + 3 mana regen whenever I want. Combined with blood magic and two orbs of nothing I basically had infinite mana. All I did to win was blink around casting recursive curse on anything that moved. At the very end I had 90 magic power and recursive curse costed only 6 mana and was doing 40 damage a tick. Soooo overpowered and will probably be nerfed soon. Anyways, here were my skills:

Math/ Promethean / Golem / Alch / Blood Magic / Mage training / Wands

Mustache golem and wands got me through the first few floors when mana was scarce. Explosive rune gave me the aoe to deal with mobs. I used alchemy to craft high end mage gear in order to get enough magic power to abuse mathemagic, which did the rest of the work.

 

I can't emphasize how useful the Mustache Golem is, especially on the first few floors. If you have a decent weapon (even one that you aren't proficient in... I typically craft a Jingly Jangly Staff by Floor 2 or 3 with Alchemy), you can survive the first 4 floors by just summoning a Mustache Golem next to an enemy in melee range and hitting the target while the golem is tanking. That's pretty good for the investment of only one skill point. The rest of the Golem spell school is pretty nifty, too. Just surviving to get to that first skill point can be a challenge in some magic-heavy builds on Going Rogue, but once you get that first level and skill point, you can coast on just the Mustache and a weapon for a long time.

 

Well, I just beat dreadmor again on GRPD

The build was: Staves, Dual Wield, Psionics, Blood Mage, Burglary, Assassination, Fungal Arts

I got bored around DL 6 and dived down to 10. My gear was pretty bad. It was a lot more challenging post patch because of all the ranged damage dealers. Also I skipped archeology this time so gear was meager until I got to DL 10. Final stats were probably something like 13 armor + 7 piercing resist, 40 melee damage, 75 hp/mp, lvl 18, and 45 spell power. My block/critical/counter chances were all in the 30s. MPgen a lowly 2.

Fungal is still without a doubt the most overpowered skill line in the game. When I went to DL 10 I had 180 nightcaps. Even without any mana gen gear I never had any issues. Granted it helped that I had enough spell power to get nerve staple down to 3 mana and pyro down to 4. Combat at DL 10 went more or less the like the following: pyro->engage in melee->cast nerve staple->2 melee attacks = dead. If I got into trouble I shoved things away or popped a hoglantern.

Dreadmor was a push over. I found dreadmor, and immediately hoglanterned. Then beat him the following way cast staple + 2x pyro and repeated until dead.

I will say with the nerf to archeology, a pure caster is probably right where they should be. You can't have full managen gear by DL 3 now. So the game is probably very punishing without relying on melee early on.

Anyway, the last patch was great. Kudos to the dev team. I had a lot of fun and had a lot of close calls this time around. With the djinns on DL 10, there is always some danger. Not relying on archeology also made the game a lot more fun.

My one beef would be that blood magic doesn't seem to trigger from burning damage. I spammed pyrokenesis a lot so that hurt a bit. It was fun using nerve staple to melee enemies even though my armor was so pitiful.

 

I am using:

Crossbow - To kill named /ranged monsters quickly as damages from ranged monster increased drastically in patch 1.0.5. Crossbow is used as ammo is less scarce than throwing.
Unarmed - Great pushing power from skill level 2 allows you to push gargoyle bolt traps right at the enemy feet. Also allows you to use two shields and provide an easy way out in melee should you be desperate on ammo and traps dancing early game.
Vampirism - Sustain ability when fighting monster zoos. Also helps with sustainability and allows the game to be played at a faster pace.
Dodger - Level it up at level 2 / 3 for early cash / equipment / xps. Allows you to run hit strong melee monsters / close in to kill ranged monsters to suck some blood.
Burglary - To open locked doors, which can stop a vampire dead. Also early XPs.
Tinkering - Vampires nemesis are ranged monsters, locked doors and traps. It protects poor vampires from YASD from traps well. Not to mention, early XP and helps clearing a zoo a lot. Also it provides easy crossbow bolts.
Archaeology - Better starting dodge and counter stat. Synchronize well with Dodger's level 2 early game and tinkering early game.

I have yet went past level 5 as I am very susceptible to YASDs. I have adjusted my upgrade order. After I have vampirism level 2, dodger 2, and archaeology 2, I focus my upgrade on Tinkering to increase my crossbow firepower early on as crossbows and bolts are not as crafting menu intensive than smithing.

I am using this build on my video commentary at: (Commentary in Cantonese)
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...VTZsE9io1x1f5-zPNyjn5DoCdcVNVdivxOEr_R4kjOdM4

 

Just finished GR/PD (and legit #9 on the leaderboards as of this post (damn why didn't I full clear floor 9, lol, could have made legit 5 or so)) with this build:

Golemancy, Mathemagic, Astrology, Viking Wizardry, Blood Mage, Burglary, Archaeology.

Golemancy - Makes the first 5 floors easy mode with pets, zoos a breeze with wall and thaumite (got all but digging ray)

Mathemagic - Teleport and buffs? Yes, please. (all bug Recursive Curse)

Astrology - More buffs? Yes, please (all)

Viking Wizardry - So I had more killing skills for less mana than Mathemagic with some variety in damage. (all)

Blood Mage - Buff and mana return please. (took second skill)

Burglary - Free lockpicks forever? (lol no points)

Archaeology - Solely for IBiaM to convert unusable artifacts to XP and the nice trap bonus. (Just IBiaM)

 

GR/PD win with:

Golemancy, Mathemagic, Psionics, Magic Training, Blood Mage, Alchemy, Burglary

Developed the Golemancy tree all the way first, then relied on pets while I fully fleshed out the Alchemy tree. After that it was balancing out the kill spells with the mana enhancers. Filthy rich by the time I hit dungeon level 6 or so, as I relied a lot on Golden Ratio. Dangerous critters and corruptors I didn't mess around with, I'd hit them hard with a Nerve Staple followed by Recursive Curse. Zoo's, walled 'em off and used a lot of Golden Ratio and Thaumites.

Golemancy rocks. It has the best pets, build walls, Thaumites . . . .and I love the Digging Ray. Love it.

I understand now why there are a few complaints about melee-only builds. It was far more challenging beating DM/PD with a pure-melee than it was GR with this build. Don't get me wrong, it was fun-fun, but once I got past, eh, 7th level (character) or so I was beating the cheese-whiz out of everything. Getting the robot early is killer. Didn't do any melee, just used two Orbs of Nothing and milked all the monsters for gold.

Weakness of the build is traps. Really gotta watch out for 'em. I didn't invest anything in Burglary, just wanted the lockpicks. Didn't need Ninja Vanish. Hell, I had about 50 Heals, Mana, and Inviso potions by the time I hit the last level. You can move traps around, though, using Psychokinetic Shove or Unliving Wall, go around them with the Digging Ray, or just have pets trigger them.

 

I'm increasingly of the opinion that Mathemagics and Psionics is all you need to win. I'm tempted to to make a dual-shields Math/Psion/Sword/Axe/Mace/Staff/Unarmed character on that basis. Sure, your only multi-target damage is Psychokinetic Shove, but that's probably the most versatile spell in the game. Group of monsters? Shove. Zoo? Shove. Named monster? Shove. Trap? Shove. And Recursive Curse is absurdly overpowered. The biggest problem will be keeping mana up without access to blood magic, leylines, or alchemy.

 

If you don't pick any mana regen, Golem/Math is probably better than Psionic/Math. Just the robot alone gets you through half the game, then wall/math does the rest.

But yeah, normally with regens, just getting past floor 1 with either is pretty much a win.