The 'Builds That Won' Thread

Mostly Encrusting. That's the only reason i took both Tinkering and Smithing. Rocket Thrusters and Agressive Shielding respectfully.
I could've got even more if I wore two shields at the same time. But I figured that the stun-effect from the Spear of Holy Sacrifice is more useful.

 

Fourth successful rogue/permadeath run so far.

Mathemagic
Astrology
Blood magic
Artful dodger
Unarmed combat
Tinkering
Perception

100% dodge mostly due to rocket boot encrusting and rogue skills and a nice teleport/area damage magic combo. Pretty straightforward, yet possibly the hardest build I ever played to the end. Had to restart from the scratch at least 4 times, sometimes going as far as floor 10 only to die miserably. Dodge is not the greatest defence, especially on fire level.

 

Dwarvish Moderation, Permadeath, Realm of the Diggle Gods turned on. I call it the Thunderdome Build.

Skills:
Swords
Dual Wielding
Burglary
Smithing
Piracy
Clockwork Knight
Big Game Hunter

The key to this build's success was relying on the early-game power of Piracy (Swashbuckling and Mists of the Corsair will let you successfully tango with pretty much anything that the first 4-5 floor can possibly throw at you) until Clockwork Knight's mid/late game could come into play and start doing work. Another large part was the synergy between Piracy and Smithing- with a little luck, you can be rocking two Emerald Encrusted Gold Rings (totals +30 HP and +4 HP Regen) before the third floor. Swords and Dual Wielding were for general combat, Burglary was purely utility (I took Lucky Pick early and Lock Up when I really wanted more Trap Affinity), and Big Game Hunter was purely because, quote, "I want a pack of attack Diggles dammit." I also bought every Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster I came across so I could have the Astrology Buff all the time.

Although not the reason for its name, this build revolves around focusing on one idea; dueling. The entire thing was built for the purpose of standing up to any one opponent, regardless of what they were or what floor they came from, and killing them before they killed me. Originally it was because I was sick of plowing through entire mobs, then dying 1 on 1 to a decent-sized monster (like the Big Red that offed my 2nd place file), so I made a build that was intended to help me deal with such things that eventually evolved into focusing on consecutive dueling- winning 1 on 1 fights one after the other until the room was clear.

Why is it called the Thunderdome Build? There's a story to it. After pelting Lord Dredmor with 8 Bolts of Mass Destruction, 9 Bolts of Squid, and 20-some odd Holy Hand Grenades with a few Rocket Powered Punches thrown in for good measure, I looked at his health. It was about 80 or so. I said to myself;
"Oh, what the hell, this needs to be climactic! BLOW EVERY COOLDOWN, WE'RE GOING IN!" followed by throwing the Black Spot on him, then chugging every buff potion and mushroom I had left (not much), popping Swashbuckling, Mists of the Corsair, and Thaumecha-kinetic Dampener (in reverse of that order), and once it was all ready to go, launching Charge of the Steam Brigade right on top of him. In short, it went like this; two men entered that room on the 15th Floor. I was the one that left.

Spoiler: Tombstone

Spoiler: Stat Sheet

For Reference:
Schrat's Helm (Sidenote, before I had this I alternated between a Crown of Yellow and a Plague Doctor's Mask)
The Crownstar Addendum (found that in a fountain on Floor 1)
Armored Archmage's Robes (with a stupid amount of bonus enchantments)
Clockwork Regulator Belt
Clockwork Actuators
Rocket Boots (MUST HAVE if you Rocket Jump a lot. Go figure.)
Pyromancer's Gauntlets
Emerald Encrusted Gold Ring x2
MH: Emerald Sword (heavy Encrusting and Krong'ing)
OH: Axe of the Solar Disk (likewise, lots of buffs on it)
Ranged: Bolt Erupter (enchantments out the butt here too)

I'm currently trying a similar setup to tackle Going Rogue with Permadeath. The best attempt so far got to Floor 6... then Steam screwed up and didn't save the file (this is also why, if that Stat Sheet looks like Floor 14, that's because it is- that's the only remnant I have on file). The most successful since then is Elincia XXXVI there in 5th Place on the tombstone, where I was in one of the Overworld-spawned Wizardlands trying to chase down that Elder Gnome and didn't realize how low on health I was until he poked me and I died.

 

Whelp...I'm back.

After more than 6 months in which I swore off this game in pure anger (due to a very very stupid death for a promising character), I decided to make a character with all the subtlety of a Demon diggle duel wielding a chainsaw and a jackhammer.

I like to call this build "The Scorched Earth"

The primary components are:

Promethean Magic (duh)
Mathemagic
Blood Magic
Wandcrafting

The rest were to fill in holes (healing, traps, exp, sight, ect...)

Archeology
Perception
Alchemy

Wands got me the first 2 levels for the dragon. The dragon got me Gog's tactical pyre and the targeted teleport. From there I upgraded wands and perception.

My general strategy was to Burn and Burn the world away with Gog's. I used stoney wands to seal up farms and set up large flame fields and just let the enemies kill themselves. If the enemy got close I just teleported away. In the event I faced an enemy that could REALLY resist fire, I would use the curse. Wand encrusts allowed me to supercharge my damage. Just look at my stats in the little montage below to get what I mean. I relied on my massive magic resist to protect me from spells and corruption.

And yes....Going Rogue + permadeath and Killed Vlad for the first time as well.

LOL at my divine resist. Well...I've killed Dredmor with a rogue and wizard build. Time to make a warrior build I guess.

 

Fifth rogue/permadeath run so far.

Golemancy
Fleshsmithing
Magical Law
Blood Magic
Archeology
Tinkering
Perception

It all started when I got bored from playing my typical almost invincible super-optimized builds. I decided to try something squishier, a mage or a rogue perhaps. And I really wanted to check out some of the skills I tend to overlook. Surprizingly it turned out to be a pretty fast and easy run. I skipped some floors and went straight for Dredmor. This build relies mostly on Fleshsmithing when dealing with zoos and Gag order for individual enemies. Perception + Tinkering + Magical Law makes a neat little combo which allows to recharge and boost your eye lasers ( encrusts are great for maxing damage). In the end this was the only viable way to hurt Dredmor with this build. Pew pew!

 

GRPD mage build I won a few weeks ago with. I'd bet someone's posted something like this already (because OP Egyptian Magic) but here it is (only went to level DL10 but I could easily have persisted to 15, I just don't like the item balance of post-DL10 floors):


-Smithing (Took it for some early firepower in the form of crafted weapons. Also good later on for encrusts, since you'll be locked into mage gear and Serpentine Filigree and Diamond Crust (?) will offset your low and ; Citrine Crust and the 6 crust involving sapphires are also a little nice if you can get them on a weapon early on but aren't all that necessary. If Dredmor spawns in a funny spot where he can't attack you like he did for me, you can craft a ton of throwables and kill him through a Death of 1000 Cuts if you have some , , or on your ranged attack. Grabbed 4 levels and let it be.)

-Egyptian Magic (Sandstorm and glyphs. With all the glyphs active, you'll be dealing a ton of damage in melee and can OHK almost everything. Dredmor will resist your sandstorm completely, though, so you'll need another way to damage him.)

-Viking Magic (I wanted more manadrain-over-time buffs for some reason. Magick Steele will get you through DL1 though, so that's something. Thor's Fulminaric Bolt might be nice for bosses though after you drop a sandstorm on 'em since it costs virtually no mana if you pick it up in the endgame.)

-Warlock (Never ended up upgrading it, not even for Mana Maille. Puissant Touch is nice, but in all honesty I probably would have been better off replacing Warlock with Magic Training or Shield Bearer. Maybe Astrology if we're going to go crazy with manadrain-over-time stuff since it has Syzygy. Does anything else have them?)

-Burglary (Utility, 'nuff said.)

-Leylines (Two things: and Thaumaturgic Tap. You NEED Thaumaturgic Tap to sustain all the Glyphs as well as Minor Syzygy, Magick Steele, and Hand of Belimawr (?) if you upgrade Viking that much.

-Alchemy (Took it for health, mana, and invisibility pots and... never made them. At all. Never even upgraded it. Might as well switch it out for something I would use.)



Basically, for the first DL, pop Magick Steele but not Glyph of the Asp (it's not as useful yet). Once you level up, put a point in Leylines. Activate Glyph of the Asp, and for your second level get Glyph of Imhotep. After that, it's really your choice what to do, I personally leveled up Smithing to 4 for the extra (you are primarily going to be a melee fighter after all) and so that I could make Fine Steel Swords. However, you should aim to max out Egyptian Magic by DL5. In order to sustain all the glyphs and actually keep your mana from stagnating (even with Thaumaturgic Tap's boost), you'll need to get your up high enough to regenerate mana every turn, so do that ASAP. When you can spam Sandstorm for everything, you're good to go until you hit Dredmor; save a lot of things to kill him as he'll shrug off sandstorms completely unlike everything else.

I didn't do it, but you're definitely going to want to keep that Baron's Hat for the drunken powers it provides. I didn't do it because my warlockery hat managed to get 2 on it, but until I got enough to regenerate 1 mana per turn I really wished that I had it.

 

Sixth successful GRPD run. Now with mods!

Radiant wizard
Blood magic
Wind magic
Magical Law
Fleshsmithing
Dastardly Scoundrel (from Faxpax)
Archeology


Pretty straightforward radiant wizard build with a lot of escape powers, neat anti-magic and healing. My first succesful attempt at playing with mods. I had to conquer first floors with my zombie army and than switched to nuke+ escape strategy which lasted till the very endgame. Playing Radiant wizard would probably be much harder without Faxpax mod since it gives a lot of ways to boost crafting without using actual crafting skills (items, new diggle gods etc) which I used to to encrust my gear shamelessly to get lots of and .

 

Dwarvish Moderation, Permadeath, 15 floors. Finally killed dredmor

By the way, having a Railgun and doing the gaudy bauble encrusts 2x (without instability) and then making Clockwork Drill Bomb Bolts, was more effective than Sawblades. Quite more effective. like annihilation!

Build:

Paranormal - maxed
Tinkering - not maxed like 1-2 off at the very end
Rogue scientist - maxed
Unarmed - maxed
perception - all but eye lasers
Alchemy maxed
Artful Dodger

In the end, had 110 Dodge = not getting hit. Just not. Soooo rare to get hit and when you do, you have like 45-55 counter and about 45 block, so each is checked, meaning ... you dont get hit.
Rocket encrusts on boots 2x, had rocket boots
+life 1-2x on main gear, used also the Fire+1 dodge encrusts. Got +4 total of wand lore, encrusted shields with the nicer resist all. Did my books too Kronged lots of stuff, had two reflector shields just for the last fight. Did 1x alchemy Service pack on all rings i would use and did a 2x on a crafted service pack amulet for lots of resists. Had 88 resist all bc of paranormal and encrusts.

Level 9 alchemy acid projector and canister destroy almost everything down to level 15. If i throw canister then meet them with acid, whatever it is, is dead.

Dredmor was being slowly injured by my level 9 canister. you know its a strong canister when that happens I could have done the whole fight that way and take super long time. but i could have.

Paranormal is like one of the best possible skills in game. I thought it was just going to give me the 9th alchemy. But no, it was like key.

It has come to my attention how cool wand lore is. Only sad part of wanting to take it is Bergstrom hat might not be available and also the rings might not. Still worth it though. The encrusts arent simply nice, they are flat out the best. If i had wand lore as a skill with paranormal, I could have had 100 magic resist and 110+ dodge without really working at it very hard. Also, by end of game, I had 55 magic power. that made my canister toss plus brimstone flask a killer. i would toss a poison cloud on top of that all, mix the three, use Close Encounter on the door, and just see 40% of a level 10+ zoo die, open door clean it up more. hit space bar a lot.

last floor i was level 34 on, had great gear that is attainable. nothing freaky just some kronging and encrusts no super drops. krong did well on Universal principles, held two of them until dredmor. I tihnk actually i would have killed dredmor easier and safer if i just didnt use the two shields but they did reflect.

I noticed that my next build which is going to rely on Xbow damage would be really strong. I didnt have the skill chosen and still the bolts did more than melee damage on regular monsters. I duno why people say that xbow is a tradeoff for damage. ingeniously steel bolts and rail launcher with gaudy baubles and whatever tomes you want is really strong. If i focus on more +pierce in the gear and xbow skill it would be really powerful. I was 2-3 shooting monsters at the bottom floor.

Anyways, that was months coming to not die and see dredmor. yay

 

At last! My first Dredmor kill! Dwarven Moderation, Permadeath, NTTG, RotDG. Vanilla, sadly, since mods have been causing the game to crash lately.

Here's the skills:

Necronomiconomics
Astrology
Warlock
Blood Magic
Magic Training
Man at Arms
Shield Bearer

It played out as a pretty straight gish build until later on. Necro and Warlock beared the brunt of the first few floors with the help of melee/Puissant Touch. As I got further down, I completed Necronom for Tenebrous Rift. It's a little dirty, but I abused the heck out of the fact that it won't curse you if you target an empty space. Around floor 8 or 9 I started to find items to crank my . I managed to pull off 6 , so I could keep up Mark of Chthon, Syzygy, and Lesser Syzygy and still gain mana. Man at Arms and Shield Bearer kept my health up and eventually helped me earn 100

Krong was the bane of my freaking existence, though. I found a Mana Torus in a fountain on the first floor, Kronged it one too many times, and it gave me negative . Not to be deterred, I found enough items with Trap Sight to counteract the Torus. Then I just started to get amazing gear from Evil Chests and quests, and the ring was replaced for something less detrimental. After that, I just wised up and stopped Kronging things that I needed to stay good.

I had the Magic Power, so I was using Tenebrous Rift for most fights, with The Stars Align for anything that got too close. Rift just eats Monster Zoos with Blood Magic to power it, it's so busted. The last few floors were more of the same, just a few close calls. I maxed out everything but Warlock, which I got to Puissant Veil at 32. I picked up the Diggle God of War's blessing, but dropped it after some thought for the Diggle God of Death. It hurt to give up my buffs, but I figured the resistances and extra would help against Dredmor.

Finally, Lord Dredmor himself. I cut it far, far too close. I managed to find dual Mirror Shields, so on they went. I duked it out in an open room for a while, but that wasn't going anywhere. I was retreating to a staircase when I closed Dredmor behind a door. I then proceeded to cheese the rest of the fight by spamming The Stars Align next to the door while Dredmor flailed around (presumably) on the other side. I boozed back up when I ran low, rinsed, and repeat. I opened the door once, to draw his aggro. I was met with a Fulminaric Bolt to the face, which very nearly ended the run right there. Thankfully, doors are OP, so I closed the door, healed up, and finished the job.

Now that I've at least proven I can beat the game, I'm going to start introducing mods again. The fact that the lowest floors had about ten unique items was bugging me near the end, and high quality food ran out when the booze kept flowing (thankfully!). Cheers!

 

Three wins, one on each level, all permadeath, all no time to grind. Why those settings? Why, to get all the achievements as fast as possible, my dear! [MAXIMUM ACHIEVEMENT ACQUISITION EFFICIENCY ENGAGED]

No, I did not upload photo proof. If someone wants screenshots, ask me for them. I don't have access ATM and don't care enough unless someone else does.

First off, my Elvishly Easy build. The character was named Pyro, for obvious reasons:
Promethean Magic
Magic Training
Blood Mage
Leylines
Staves
Master of Arms
Psionics

AKA Baby's First Wizard, or I-knew-I-wanted-to-burn-EVERYTHING-and-had-no-clue-what-I-was-doing. I chose the skills because I knew I would need magic power, and lots of mana. Turns out I always had more mana than I needed (big surprise!), unless I used Invisible Geometries. Staves, Master of Arms, and Gog's Tactical Pyre actually made for a pretty good melee class, the dragon was a great distraction, and of course once I got Obvious Fireball everything died. I chose Psionics purely because it was suggested to me because healing...I found it rather lackluster. The only time I needed healing on this difficulty was in zoos, and that healing spell is horrible in zoos.
Killing Dredmor was a nightmare. Obvious Fireball did next to no damage, so I had to rely on Clockwork Sawblades and Holy Hand Grenades. It was great to be able to silence him with Magic Training's right to cast ability, but it meant that Dredmor was always trying to kill me with melee, which meant I had to rely on the hyper-expensive Invisible Geometries...It was a looong fight because I could barely damage him with my thrown items, and he COULDN'T damage me because he was always silent and I always teleported away. Also, half my turns were spent recovering mana because Invisible Geometries. But it worked, I was happy, and most importantly I learned very early that you CAN actually beat the game--because my next dozen attempts on Going Rogue were miserable failures, and I got very frustrated.

My Dwarven Moderation win is actually the most recent of the three. I only went for it because achievements. I called it the King of Hearts, for the (somewhat) obvious reason that this skillset maxes out your health pool.
Killer Vegan
Smithing
Piracy
Fleshsmithing
Master of Arms
Communism
Polearms

The decision to choose each skill was simple. I looked in the Dredmorpedia at j-factor, and searched for every skill that increased maximum health. Then I searched for each that increased Burliness, since that adds health. Then I searched for each that added Caddishness, because that also increased health. Not counting Werediggle (Werediggles are AWESOME btw, just not with what I was building), I got exactly seven skills. Yes, I took Polearms just because that one level increased my burliness by one hp! (Though I learned that the Polearms skills are like the ultimate defensive melee solution. They're actually pretty hype)

In my quest to acquire maximum health, I was not disappointed. After maxing all skills, getting the fertility blessing, equipping two Emerald Encrusted Gold Rings (which I got extras of through Smithing, since Krong cursed a couple), and encrusting my endgame armor with some Gaga Glaze, I had +300 HP. That was BEFORE any temporary or brittle buffs. As far as the rest of the build's capabilities...

...I was struck more than anything by how retardedly OP Veganism is! It felt like a good fourth of the monsters in the game just ignored me, which by itself transformed the usual nightmare of floor one into a cakewalk. The stat bonuses from the tree are insanely good. The righteous flash stun effect on melee is also insanely good. And although my build was far from optimized to "safely" kill animals without the debuffs, it really didn't matter because on the first few floors, my fleshsmithing zombies would take care of them. Mid game, Talhoffer's Lunge Strike would OHKO most animals, 2HKO at worst. And late game? I had 5th lvl Veganism, and Dialectical Materialism synergized surprisingly well. (Except for Real Socialism, when the Kremlin would take all my Zorkmids! That always SUCKED)

The other skills were anywhere from meh to pretty awesome. Everyone knows why Master of Arms is good on any build. Polearms was a surprise superstar, because all the skills it gives you are like having range attacks with your melee! Fleshsmithing was pretty lackluster, though the first few levels were nice to have zombie hordes, and Knit Flesh is the best healing spell in the game that I've ever used. Piracy was tons of fun; I had plenty of gems for my endgame wand crafting and encrusting, Swashbuckling ensured no named monster was ever scary, the Black Spot also ensures those named monsters are manageable, and Broadside is just fun. (Also, throwables!) But Communism was still my favorite. Even if Guerilla Attack and Socialized Healthcare (or Mists of the Corsair for that matter) were nearly never used, I just like the flavor. (I had 1HP per turn by floor three, so healing was almost never needed) Dialectical Materialism saw a ton of usage with Vegan, and Vanguard Party was great for Chests of Evil and zoos. Iron Curtain gives awesome stats, and of course the capstone gives you a NUCLEAR WEAPON. What other tree can boast that?!

I also managed to finally craft the Communist Power Armor in this build! I had to find a Bolt of Mass Destruction and blow a hole to a diggle secrets statue to get my smithing to level 7, but it was totally worth it, especially because of the other sweet encrusts I was then able to do with my +2 in every craft. Some were even +3 or +4 because of items I picked up. Speaking of, that turned out being the main way I beat Dredmor--Pearlescent Wands! Those things are really, really good against him! (BTW, stats are 6 piercing resist, 6 hyperborean resist, -4 nimbleness, -10 magic power, +16 block chance, +12 armor absorption, -10 sneakiness, -4 mana regen. Basically a totally awesome warrior armor, especially if you somehow get it before the snow floor. For some reason the stats for this and the Communist Power Ushanka are absent from both Dredmor wikis.)

My Going Rogue win was named "About Time". In retrospect, I could have chosen a better name, but it reflected how frustrated I was with every other build I had tried so far. I was determined to make the ultimate power build, to guarantee victory. I don't remember who posted it (maybe Essence?), but I know I found it on this forum and thought the idea was great: get 100% block and reflect!
Unarmed Combat
Shield Bearer
Master of Arms
Smithing
Fungal Arts
Clockwork Knight
Vampirism

...Yes, you read that right. My first Going Rogue Permadeath victory was with VAMPIRISM. It can be done! And while I see why everyone says it sucks, it still worked pretty well for me and for this build. THAT said, I now know that the Pact of Fleeting Life COMPLETELY obsoletes the entire Vampirism tree.

Basically the strategy was: get 100% block chance through armor, dual shields, and skills. Hence Master of Arms and Shield Bearer. Also get 100% magic reflect (or at least 98%) by getting two mirror shileds. I couldn't rely on the RNG, especially on NTTG, so I thought I would need Smithing to get two shields. (I was correct; only found one mirror, one filigreed) Unarmed Combat so I could still do damage with dual shields. Fungal Arts...IS FREAKING AMAZING!!! Having hundreds of mushrooms by endgame? Never having to worry about using them even on floor 1 because you're guaranteed to have more the more you kill?! Yes please! In retrospect, this could have only been more awesome if I had beelined to the pet slime on floor 1. Clockwork Knight for its awesome utility and transportation abilities--rocket jump works VERY well with the fire resist from Smithing. And of course, Blaze of Glory is far and away the most climactic capstone ability in the entire game. And Vampirism, becuase I'd constantly be fighting everything. Sometimes there'd be droughts of monsters with blood, which would mean I'd have to rely on eating the dead. But it was actually pretty sweet how when I would FINALLY find an animal, it'd be one hit and 1/3 of my health was restored.

The idea was to slowly melee Dredmor to death with my feet of steel. Buuut he had different, very teleporty ideas. It wound up being about half melee, half Clockwork Sawblades. But the idea DID work--+100% block guaranteed nothing got corrupted, and 98% reflect meant no damage spell besides Thor's Fulminaric Bolt ever hit me. (And the mushroom that gives you the Power of Plaid ensured it didn't hurt too much!)

My next build that I'm trying is 100% focused on maximizing Clockwork Knight, because that tree is just awesome. (GRPD of course) That, and I'm aiming for the "I Never Asked For This" achievement. (Clockwork Knight, Smithing, Tinkering, Axes, Dual Wielding, Master of Arms, Archery) After THAT, I'm not sure...I'll probably try to get the "I Can't Believe That Worked" achievement...with Going Rogue Permadeath, of course. Anything less would be a hollow victory. :3

 

This build was hard to get up off the ground, but unstoppable once it was complete!

- Swords
- Daggers
- Dual Wielding
- Piracy
- Magical Law
- Ley Walking
- Tinkering

This meant my character eventually had:
- 100% counter rate in melee
- 100% immunity to magic (thanks to Gag Order and Ley-Line Siphoning)
- 100% trap affinity

Monsters could literally not touch me in melee combat, and I could force them to melee me by using gag order. The most deadly traps in the game were merely a source of free XP.

I was able to take down Vlad Digula and Dredmor in melee combat! This build was hilariously game-breaking, yet still fun!

 

So I tried to use a Clockwork Knight themed build..."Havoc" was doing pretty well. But then I got overzealous, refused to drink my health potion, and got picked off by a Spelling Bee. Oh well. It was doing really good too, being able to get those Clockwork armor pieces super early kind of breaks the early game in half. I'll try again after I've done some other builds. (Axes, Dual Wielding, Clockwork Knight, Smithing, Tinkering, Archery, Master of Arms)

New build that won, GRPD of course

"Maleficent"
Necronomiconimcs
Blood Mage
Demonology
Burglary
Magic Law
Shield Bearer
Master of Arms

Between the warrior skills and the Necro melee buff spells, she played like a gish. Except when I didn't like what I saw--then she was a rogueish wizard, nuking everything before teleporting and vanishing.

There were a few thoughts that went into the creation of this tree. I wanted to hit a few goals. First, I wanted to see if I could get a character up to 100% block, reflect, and magic resist, as opposed to merely block and reflect like my "About Time" build. Second, I wanted to speed up two of the most annoying parts of the game: Monster Zoos and lockpick management. Therefore, Necronomiconomics for Teneborous Rift, and Burglary for Lucky Pick. Three, I wanted to go for a "pure evil" theme, and I think it came out pretty good--it would be hard for me to pile on any more negative righteous resist, and besides, what's more evil than a thieving, bloody, necromantic, demonic lawyer?

DL1 was a little tough. For some reason, the game didn't give me the usual Steel Breastplate and Wooden Shield that is SUPPOSED to come with these trees! I guess my wizarding skills overrode it, since I still got a Sacrificial Dagger. But once I got the OP celestial circle, things were pretty much smooth sailing. I got lucky pick with my first level, and then went for celestial circle. Then I leveled Shield Bearer to 3 and Master of Arms to 2. This way, with Tortoise Maneuver, Suit Up, and Celestial Circle active, I would hit that critical 12 HP regen--basically this made Celestial Circle double as an excellent healing spell. After this I beelined Teneborous rift, and then I was free to level everything in whatever order I wanted. I want to say I went for Writ of Counterspelling--which, btw, is awesome--and saved Demonology max for the end. (I wanted to put off the negative righteous pileup)

Thoughts on each skill tree:

Necronomiconimics: Still completely broken as long as you have enough necro resist. No other skill tree has the nuclear power that is Teneborous Rift. But this tree is so much more than just the capstone; all the spells are excellent! What other skill tree gives you cheap-as-dirt life-drain projectiles, sleeping DOT spells, a superpowered gish buff AND a 90% vampirism buff, and an individual cripling DOT + confusion + AOE spell?

Blood Mage: As long as this exists, Ley Walker will always play second fiddle. It gives you mana when you need it most--right after you used it! It also has some nifty melee procs for wizards who like to get up and personal--and with Shield Bearer, Master of Arms, the Necronomiconimcs melee buffs, Maleficent loved to do such. Also gives a nifty potion spell--saved my butt against Dredmor!

Demonology: Celestial Circle is OP! But I learned after the fact that this line is well worth pursuing beyond that. Abysal Flame is a wonderful melee ability, and Infernal Contract is far and away the best pet summoning ability I've used in the game thus far. (Minus the debuff, of course) Unlike every other pet ability I've used, the Swarmys actually scale well all the way to level 15!
NOTE: Flames of the Heckforge WILL NOT cleanse your equipment of Krong corruption! I was EXTREMELY disappointed to learn this!

Burglary: Come for the Lucky Pick, stay for Ninja Vanish and Move in Mysterious Ways. I (almost) never needed potions because of these two abilities, alongside Pact of Fleeting Life.

Magic Law: Yes, Writ of Counterspelling is THAT good. But I was also pleasantly surprised to learn how good everything else in the tree is. Confiscate Evidence means you're getting all the artifacts, even on floor 1. Polymorphic Injunction was great for getting rid of "problem" monsters, like the ones that corrupt (magic golem, corruption blobby) or screw with your inventory (hungry and thirsty diggles). Gag order...is a suprisingly excellent DOT spell! Very few monsters have asphyxiative resist. And of course, it works wonderfully for muting spellcasters. Wights and Gnomes couldn't annoy me anymore! Rune of Objection synergized surprisingly well with all the debuffs that Necronomiconimcs throws on you--though it gets annoying when you cast it five times, trying to get rid of your Necromantic Blinding, and it just keeps moving your x20 stack of Lingering Weakness instead. The capstone...was surprisingly blah. I only ever used it to reset my Heckforge cooldown later in the game when I decided to fight reckless against corruption monsters. But I'm sure it would make some wicked nasty combo with something like Charge of the Steam Brigade. tl;dr version: This tree is a super cool utility tree that will fit well on most builds...as long as the mana keeps coming in, of course.

Sheild Bearer and Master of Arms: Great trees for pumping up that block chance, armor absorption, and most importantly, HP regen. Oddly enough, these trees work even better on Wizards and Rogues than they do on Warriors. Wizards and Rogues don't like to wear bulky armor that kills their Sagacity and Nimbleness; Warriors couldn't care less, and so they can easily hit 100% block and a very helathy AA without these trees.

Definitely one of my favorite builds, mostly because of Lucky Pick and Teneborous Rift. Almost finished with an all-crafting build--will post after the win.

 

I used a variation on d3ward's build, but i substituted Ley Walking with Burglary. I guess you do need that if you play on Going Rogue, but i went with Elvishly Easy because i don't hate my Spacebar.

• Swords
• Daggers
• Dual Wielding
• Piracy
• Tinkering
  
• Burglary
• Magical Law

This really does make you immune to most threats, except AoE effects. I just teleported with the Burglary skill when i got into trouble.

Vlad Digula was incredibly tough, but unable to lay a hand on me:



I beat Dredmor a couple of times, here's the Piercing/Righteous variation:



Level 15 had a really bizarre store with 10 Monofilament Blades:



Which gave me an idea:



Yeah, that's 170 damage per hit.

I have to say though, that Piracy was quite useless. That +75 counter for 4 turns is great initially, but i didn't use any of the other skills. Other options:

Berserker Rage: Extra damage and resists. The level 5 skill gives you +100 crit chance on your next hit that isn't removed when you counter-attack. Against a single enemy you would do identical damage but get a free casting of Gag Order every turn. Against multiple enemies your damage would go from 1 attack/up to 4 counters > 0 attacks/4 counters at double damage.

Rogue Scientist: Gives access to some alchemy/wandcrafting. The second ability can get quite powerful because it deals damage based on Tinkering level (and you can reach 9). The 4th ability gives you a 20% chance to hit every enemy in range when counterattacking. Ouch.

Oh yeah, i used all Anvils of Krong on my hat, the result is rather amusing:

 

I've just beaten the game on GRPD, using a variation of d3ward's build. I used archaeology instead of piracy.
The early levels till you find a weapon that has more than 4 damage are a pain in the ass. I was killing even dumb bats with the dagger skill, kiting for 7 turns and hitting them once with the skill, and repeat. But when you get a decent weapon and 1 or 2 armor points, you actually start to do something.

I gotta say it's pretty broken when you get to around 70+ counter (by that point you'll also automatically have around 50+ block and 20-30+ dodge). Reaching 100 counter, you're pretty much invulnerable. I was pretty much only melee throughout the game, around 5 crossbow bolts at the early levels for named monsters, a bolt of squid to try it for the first time, 2 instances of stone wand to remove obstacles blocking hidden doors, and that's all. Haven't used a single Krong anvil or an encrust or a potion/mushroom/wand, or even craft (I probably ate like 15 omelettes at most throughout the whole game (hate consumables), and this wasn't NTTG and I pretty much full cleared the first 13 levels.

All in all, this was the most balanced build I've played through GRPD, with no trap trouble (which you get plenty of at Going Rogue), perfect answer to magic and endgame bosses, more than perfect answer to every melee encounter. Dredmor went down in 28 turns, (2 full gags and a few turns on the 3rd).

I'd highly suggest the build, it's quite fun on GRPD, starting like shit and becoming god, feeling rewarded by your patience to withstand early troubles. GL everyone, and GJ d3ward on such a great build.

 

Thanks, I'm glad to see a couple of you folks had fun with my build!

Yeah, I would agree that piracy is probably the least useful skill tree in the build once your character achieves 100% counter rate. I just found the Swashbuckling skill to be incredibly useful as a survival tool until that point, as well as the money gained from selling plundered gems nice for buying good equipment early on.

 

I did a 100% counter run. No, I was not inspired by d3ward, I was actually inspired by the capstone skill of the Sword tree. "I'm not left handed". Yes, it still has the same Swords-Daggers-Dual Wielding core. Also used a bunch of mods I can't be bothered to name.

I named my character Inigo Montoya.

Swords
Daggers
Dual Wielding
Burglary
Artful Dodger
Smithing
Warlockery

The first three are obvious picks. Burglary and Artful Dodger were mainly for the extra Nimbleness, to boost counter chance indirectly. Having 70 dodge at the end take precedent over my 100 counter kinda sucked, but early on those dodges definitely helped me survive. (yes I know Vegan has more Nimble, but I didn't want this run to be retarded-easy mode like every Vegan run is) Smithing in case I couldn't find any Diggle Rings of Digglish Torment or Shrike Rings and had to craft Rings of Iron Thorns instead. Warlockery because I had nothing else to use my mana on, and because Essence of Battle boosts your Nimbleness.

Maxed Swords, Dual Wielding, Burglary

Thoughts on the skills:
Swords--IMO, there's only two reasons to use this. Either you're trying to ratchet up your counter chance, or you're taking advantage of there being tooons of swords in this game. Other than that, normal weapon skill.

Daggers--Don't ever try to take this by itself, you won't kill anything without kiting for 100+ turns with the Switcheroo. Heaven help you if TWO monsters chase you at once! Anyway. Some pretty neat utilities in here, too bad they're all DOT's that would work a lot better at range. Also, they're all obsolete once you hit like 75 counter. I was only one point away from finishing the tree, but never found a need for Thaumite infections because of a really, really good dagger I found on like DL6 or something.

Dual Wielding--Everything in this tree fits perfectly with the theme! ESPECIALLY Combat Momentum. Between Not Drizzt and Combat Momentum, in the middle of a fight you've gotten 20 counter from two skill points!

Burglary--Still awesome. Lucky pick is my hero. Lockup is underrated, ninja vanish is excellent, five-finger discount is meh, move in mysterious ways is hands down the best teleport in the game. Still, didn't need to finish the tree until very late because you're pretty much invincible at 75 counter, even if you only have 100 HP like I did. Also, trap affinity + sight is bonus

Artful Dodger--Ok, this build is hard to get off the ground. This tree helps you survive by dodging most things you dont counter. Knightly Leap is as great as everyone says it is. The rest of the tree...meh. Akkido for Adventurers is nice to randomly stun people on dodge--and you WILL be dodging a lot by the end with this build!

Smithing--So, I never found either the Shrike's Ring or the Digglish Torment Ring. But I didn't find the Ring of Iron Thorns recipe either. That said, one of the mods gave me a recipe for the Rogue Boots. (4 nimble 1 armor) So I leveled to 4, what the recipe needed, didn't touch beyond that. Too bad Krong cursed both pairs of boots, and I didn't have the ingredients for a third.

Warlockery--Pretty cool, I really wish I had taken more levels. Every skill in this tree is fun--or at least, I would assume so, the first four were great! It's just that I focused on Essence of Battle for the Nimble, and then went back to Burglary and Dodger for more Nimble, and then at 100% counter I was nigh invulnerable and went straight for Dredmor. Anyway. Puissant Touch is absolutely a lifesaver on the first few floors. Mage's Magic Malle is as well. Warlock's Challenge is sweet for pulling individual Octos or Diggle Mages or [insert ranged attacker here] out of their mobs to 1v1 melee each to death. And, of course, Essence of Battle is the perfect zoo obliterator. (Bring lots of booze!)

As for the run itself...
The first few floors were super tough. Lots of kiting with the switcheroo. Beelining Wall of Blades helps a little, but not much. Needed a LOT of food to survive.
Pretty early, like DL6 or something, a shop had a Daemonic Diggle Dagger! I've never used one of these before, and I suspect many of you haven't, so I'll list the effects. It lights dudes on fire. It inflicts fleshbore. It gives you vampire heals. It even inflicts eldritch inhabitation! All of this in addition to the normal peircing, necro, and fire damage it has. (And the fire and necro resist, as well as LARGE righteous resist penalty) That said, it also inflicts a lot of Necronomiconimcs debuffs on you for using it, most notably Necromantic Blinding.
Basically, this dagger broke the game for me. The whole time, I was running around with 80% health--I'd hurt myself all the time point blank explosions from the tentacles, but I'd heal 30% with literally every melee attack on anything not a robot.
That said, necro blindness is *not* fun, so I ran with the...fire dagger, I think it's called Incandescent?--until I found a sweet ring with +2 sight radius on it. Something like DL9 when I found that ring.
Once I hit 75% counter, I didn't need to use any skills anymore. Just click monster get kill. Nothing could touch me. On the off chance something DID hit me to 50% health, munch an omlette or something and stab a guy, get 30% back in one turn again.
One zoo had a lot of Diggle Archmages. I hated that zoo. Used all my ranged weapons on them, along with a lot of Warlock Challenges. They still corrupted a lot of my euquipment.
Still Melee'd Dredmor, because I found an Occam's Razor about halfway through the dungeon. Slice him to silence him? Yes please!

Final Thoughts:
Lots of fun, but you're *very* dependent on a nice RNG. At the end, a good 25 counter was coming from my equipment, and half of those from mods. I would NOT recommend this to anyone doing NTTG, there's a very high chance you could max every skill in this build and still come short of the magic 100% because the RNG didn't give you any good rings. To put this in perspective: I was forced to scrounge for counter anywhere I could get it, I even had to use a BRONZE RING I crafted myself and slightly Krong'd to the very end. You have been warned!

 

What do you think about changing vampire for blood mage? And maybe archeology for something else like berserker, smithing, assassination, etc. The build is great though.

 

FYI: The post you responded to is over a year old. But I'll give my 2 cents on this.

I prefer Ley Walker to blood mage (but yeah, Warlockery really benefits from one or both of those).

I'm also not a huge fan of Archaeology -- Berserker or Smithing or even Burglary sounds great as a substitute.

Also, if you aren't taking Vampire, then maybe you want to change Master of Arms for something else. Both might be overkill, and you might want to swap it for something more offensive in nature, or a utility skill. The main reasoning behind taking both Master of Arms and Shield Mastery is to increase your health regen, which really helps boost Vampirism's life drain skills. Without Vampirism, it's not a terrible choice, but there certainly are better choices (at least imho).

 

moderation, permanent death, NTTG

The build was:

promethean magic
mathemagic
ley lines
blood magic
magic training
perception
master of arms

What I did:

-2 points promethean (for the 'Summon wyrmling' skill)
-2 points perception
-4 points master of arms (defense and health regeneration! must have!)
-1 point perception
level 10

-2 points promethean (for the 'gog's tactical pyre' skill)
-1 point ley lines (mana regenaration buff)
-4 points mathemagic (for the 'xeuclid´s translation' skill.)
-1 point ley line (mana regeneration)
-1 point mathemagic (when fire doesn't work)
level 19

-4 points magic training (more things for your wizard)
-1 point ley line
-1 point promethean (for the +1 resistance)
-1 point perception
level 26 (reached at floor 10 of 15)

-1 point perception (useless)
-1 point ley lines (useless)
level 28


I didn't put the last 4 points in blood magic just in case, also I didn't need more mana(I had lots of drinks either way).
It is an easy build and fun to play with. You can win the game being naked, it doesn't matter much your items.


link: https://i.imgur.com/dkvyAUp.png

 

After many long hours - I have slain Lord Dredmor - Going Rogue w/ Permadeath (All Expansions / No Mods)

The Proof:



The Build:



The Stats:




That's right - DUAL Mirror Shields!

The Gear:



Imgur album of all images: http://imgur.com/a/Ppq04/all


-------------------------------------------- About the Build --------------------------------------------


So, the idea here was, after many frustrating deaths, to simply make an un-killable build. Max out block, magic resistance, magic reflect - I figured I would be taking no damage if I could pull it off.

I didn't know that, even with 100+ magic resistance (From celestial circle's +70) there were still "magic damage" attacks that would be able to hurt me. Also that ground AoE effects would absolutely devastate me. (Easily half my HP, the biggest threat I had.)

The fight with Dredmor himself was pretty tame in comparison. I reflected/resisted most attacks (save his Voltaic AoE)
I had been saving up Holy Hand Grenades, Sawblades, and bolt of Mass Destruction - because I read that meleeing Dredmor was a bad idea. I supplemented that damage with wand damage, mushroom buffs, and potion buffs, most of which I had stored the whole delve (As much as possible.)

Next - I'm trying some heavy damage build. It took FOREVER to kill things with two shields.