Today I was trying a dagger warrior (because of the blade wall) and one thing led to another and now they're using a polearm and a dagger. I noticed that the defensive stance skill for polearms is a buff, and it seems you can have the buff despite not using a polearm. So, is it possible to have dual swords (for the counter bonus) and somehow stack the dagger blade wall ... and maybe even the polearm buff? After all, being able to get +25 block & +25 counter is pretty awesome. I am thinking perhaps I will have it dualwield these polearms until I can get some of the better daggers later on (clockwork-y ones).
It's currently possible - it's something I don't really feel like talking about because... well, i'll just say it. Grab Dagger, Swords, and Dual Wield. I understand what you are trying to achieve with your build, but Sensible Swiss stance won't work well with blade wall because one is aimed at knocking people away from melee range, and the other on being in melee range. Using the combo i mentioned, equip two swords, pick up dagger blade wall, then max swords (or vice versa. Your call, really). Counterattack will hit 50+. Max dual wield, and you'll won't fall far from 100. Just like that. Essence and co. can confirm this, but unless i'm mistaken, it's not something you should be able to do. It's just because Gaslamp never quite got around to implementing a code that would STOP you from taking advantage of a buff unless you had the relevant item equipped. Given it's part of the code that's supposed to go live next patch, I imagine Gaslamp will probably fix the exploit soon-ish.
Now I'm wondering if that massive +25 critical buff from the dagger skill tree also helps your crossbow critical. Presumably you can do that, use unarmed and two orbs/books for even more damage on the crossbow. Or dual shields ...
It does. Double Wield Axes + Crit Stance + Cross bow = Fun times I also think it's broken, btw, which is why i don't use it. At least it was when i tried it a month ago or so (i did a maximum damage crossbow run). Still don't use Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster for the same reason.
Hm, trying to see what you can get without messing with the buff system not checking your weapons. Daggers: +2 from skill, +25 from buff Polearms: +10 from buff, +3 from Partizan Dual Wield: +15 from skill Thorn Rings: +8*2 (this needs some luck to get the recipe though) Gear: Possibly another +8 from base stats on things That's 79 You could get up to 13 more from dual wield if you are never hit and have that buff from attacking non-stop... Or another +5 from the Perception second sight buff (though you have it only for 49 turns then you have to hide for 50 more turns) There's also just your primary stats adding to counter chance There's also the possibility to have things enchanted with it.
The reason why i mentioned the whole dual axe + crit stance gig is it's not a "how high can you hypothetically get crit" build. With what's pretty much a 5 point investment or (which is what you can scrounge with two wizardland + floor 1 on GR), you can hit a 50+ crit rate. I mean, yeah, if you want crit for the sake of crit, then sure, theory crafting will give one thousand ways of getting it to 100. But if you want effective crit, you should really be thinking what you want to do with this crit - if you want to down a crossbow centric build, then yeah, that means crossbow (Obv.). If you are more of a melee person, assassination is the logical step (plus it has great synergy with dagger), and so on and so forth. That being said, you can clearly see why the "buff checks for weapon" mechanic is needed to balance the game.
Actually, does crossbow crit do anything? Crit doubles melee power, which helps thrown weapons but surely not crossbows that don't get anything from it.
Somehow a quirk to the mechanics causes it to do more damage (i wouldn't exactly be able to pinpoint what - i "think" it's when you have a slashing/crushing component added by kronging or some such), but yes the damage boost is nowhere as big as hitting anything in melee. The major benefit would be carrying over the from the dual wield combo. That's more a meta-gamey thing - it doesn't sound great on paper, works like a charm in practice (because bolts and crossbows do a lot to begin with, by eliminating the few weaknesses it does have and adding even a "bit" of damage to the base pool, you make it THAT much stronger). If you're looking for huge damage figures from stacking crit early, go down the thrown weapon route (it sort of scales off going into the late game, where bolts and crossbows just give absurd base damage values).
Of the offensive skills, Crossbow is the one most in need of help. Not only are the damage gains from the skill itself minimal, but Unarmed still stacks with it (as of 2 days ago). I'd love to use unarmed with my crossbow characters because it gives you some hand-to-hand offense while still using tomes, but almost never do because actually increasing the Crossbow skill itself gains you less benefit than increasing Unarmed (or even tinkering, which gives you trap sight and affinity while giving you just as impressive combat boosts due to the ability to build better bows). In every crossbow centered build I play, I always end up finishing the crossbow skill tree pretty late (character level 15 late) because there are just so many other skills that do something Crossbow doesn't - help you survive. Even with the resource gathering skills like Perception and Rogue Scientist, it's pretty impossible to use the crossbow as your primary offense until several levels into the dungeon.
It's a noticeable difference even at the beginning, but when it takes 3 or 4 shots to take down a diggle, the attrition is still really bad. I've tried with various skill configurations and the conclusion I've come to is that unless you get super lucky with an item (finding a diggle ring of digglish torment in a fountain, for example), it's literally impossible to go through the first 3 or so dungeon levels with the crossbow as your primary offense. After that point, when you've got your ammo recovery maxed and maxed tinkering is letting you make the max number of strong bolts, you are able to exist on pure crossbow attacks (especially if you can make, find, or steal a bolt erupter to give each shot an AOE attack). Barring a super lucky find like that, every dedicated archer I play ends up working the first few dungeon levels like a weak, cautious warrior. I think they should make the following changes - Allow the Crossbow skill to literally double the inherent damage that bolts do (which sounds overpowered, but really just brings early damage into line with what a warrior swinging a melee weapon would do) and having a transmute ability that would change any stack of bolts into the equivalent of a copper bolt forged at your current tinkering level. Having an inventory full of nonstacking bolts sucks and sucks even worse when you get deeper into the dungeon and the bolts filling up your inventory are useless ones. Alternately, if someone added an ability (call it Fletchery) that gave you a random chance of every kill generating bolts tied to your Crossbow level, you'd be able to actually use them without worrying about things and it would give players an actual incentive to increase the Crossbow skill early.
I'm trying something, but apparently you can encrust a glove with mad spikes for a ton of piercing damage. Of course it'll be unstable so you better not get hit but...
It would be interesting if we could actually make the fairly-accurate-to-life (not like it matters much) wooden bolts. Like from Hefty Sticks or something... These descriptions are hilarious:
