I tend to get a few levels, then get to a point where i make a mistake and im dead. so looking for a more defensive and forgiving build. I have seen some shield and unarmed builds, but none that combine the two. i would think they would go well together since with unarmed you can use 2 shields. I think this build would do well with a high counter chance. what is a good way to raise my counter chance? So go defensive and have counter take things out. how does this look? unarmed shield bearer battle geologist (level 2 gives a 50% chance of buff on block) warlockery (level 2 gives mana shield. should not be that hard to maintain with all the liquor) man at arms or dodge golemancy (2nd target and another attack). plus good to hide behind if i get in trouble archaelogy burglary or smithing not sure. any suggestions?
If you want to go full defence and high counter, I wouldn't suggest Dodge; Dodging rolls happen before Counter rolls, so having a high effectively decreases your behind the screens. Also, you'll be wearing the heaviest of armours, which will decrease your a lot. While this decreases your (solving your first problem), it's basically a lost skill you could have spent on something else. You could get it for the teleport, but personally I wouldn't take Dodge. Warlockery's level 2 barrier is a very mana intensive ability. Every hit you take has a cost of 2 . With a full Melee build, you will be engaged in melee combat literally all the time, whilst having the lowest maximum of any builds. You will run out of mana a lot. Even if you have the booze to technically support your mana needs, booze only recovers 1 per turn, still putting you at a significant loss in Monster Zoos and other swarms of monsters. I would suggest taking Blood Mage if you will be relying on / using the barrier. Smithing is a nice skill for this kind of build. Not only will you be able to craft the best equipment you'd need. But also, more importantly perhaps, it has 6 levels and is of the Warrior archetype. This means you will be gaining 12 raw and 12 , in addition of the 7 listed bonus. 19 12 equals to 36 extra maximum . Not bad for one skill you would use for the craftables alone, anyway!
i only say stuff to craft up to level 5 smithing is that correct? would you swap out warlockery then? if i need blood magic it means i probably cant take golemancy or battle geologist. any other suggetsions for an unarmed plus shield build? how do you raise counter? are there skill trees for it or just certain types of eq? any types of eq that are especially good at raising counter?
There are a whole bunch of Real of the Diggle Gods equipment that requires 6 and even 7 . If you switch out Warlockery, you wouldn't need the Blood Magic to keep up your mana. Something that could work (in my humble opinion) is: Unarmed, Shield Bearer, Blood Mage, Warlockery, Smithing and Golemancy. That still leaves you one skill completely at your digression. The Piracy skill is vaguely built around . It's been a while since I played a Pirate, but I recall a temporary buff that boosts your by 75. The skill also gives you an extra 5 , which is what scales off of. There's a whole bunch of loot that raises , too, in addition to random artifacts. If you're really set on boosting your , you should consider Swords + Dual Wielding, which both give a lot of passive . Having these two together with Unarmed and Shield Bearer, however, is quite obviously very silly. EDIT: one thing to consider, with the Unarmed skill, is that you do very little damage when wielding two shields. Chances are very high you'll be using one shield and one weapon by the time you reach Dredmor, as two shields put you at a serious damage disadvantage. Wielding a weapon when you have the Unarmed skill gives you no negative effects. EDIT2: also, just the fact that you died, doesn't mean the build you tried isn't viable or lacking in any way. If anything, it's probably your actions that lead to your death, rather than your build. If you really liked a build you did, but died, you can definitely try it again, before dismissing it as "wrong" or anything. I'm fairly convinced that you can beat the game with any build, if you're careful enough. Of course some will be a lot easier than others.
As far as I know, only the Fish Paladins deal . But that shouldn't be to much of a problem, I don't think it will be necessary to max out Blood Mage anyway. If you try it out and find you're frequently out of , it might be wise to take another level in it, otherwise I'd leave it until you are. EDIT: those Tree enemies might deal as well, I can't remember.
it sounds like unarmed is mainly good for mages. as a melee i think i need to do more damage. letting mobs get too many hits on me could be a problem. so i should probably pick a melee weapon. polearm has that defensive stance which i have found useful when i get in trouble. so i can eat some food and not die and then try to run away. however, i think maces and axes have better craftable weapons. unless the DoD wiki is incomplete. what do you think? also, what level do people usually get to when they get to level 15 and fight dredmore? doesn't look like people actually max out characters.
You're probably right on the craftable pole-arms vs. maces or axes. But to be honest, after about DL10 - DL11, you start finding the same loot over and over, loot that most of the time is better than anything you could possibly craft. (Ulmish armour and solar disk axes spring to mind). Depending on how many levels your skills have, it's entirely possible to max out a character, I vaguely remember doing it at least once. Diggle Hell is an infinitely replenishing source of monsters, so you could conceivably grind your way to max level either way, if you deemed it necessary. I personally like Daggers, but the number of high-end ones is seriously lacking, I feel. It has a useful double attack proc, which I think basically doubles all other on-attack proc chances you might have. This again is wild speculation on my part, as it has been a while since I seriously looked into it.
I just had a run that I almost won the game with (probably would have had I not been trying to do this using only items on my item bar -- it was a special challenge): 1. Master of Arms 2. Unarmed 3. Shield Mastery 4. Vampirism 5. Burglary 6. Tourist 7. Berserk Rage Unarmed is a terrific skill -- you trade off offense for defense, and it's not a bad trade at all. As you can guess, it was a very defensive build, but it worked, because I simply altered my gear selection accordingly. Having so many defensive skills, allowed me to shift my gear selection towards more offense-related items. Of course, I could have achieved much greater damage potential with dual wield+just about any weapon, but that was not the point of the build. The point was to survive long enough to encounter Lord Dredmor, and it did that quite successfully. There's simply so many different ways to go in the game that are "viable".
as far as diggle hell goes. isnt there count diggula or something? I think i saw a post from one of the devs. He said you will die if you see him? Currently trying the following. i just cleared duneon level 6 and im level 16. not on going rogue. its the best ive done. maces (maxed out) smithing (maxxed out) master of arms (level 2) Burglary (level 2) Archeology (level 2) beserker rage (level 4) been doing alot of wizardland quests. been pretty easy so far. not sure if this is a great late game build. i took burglary and archeology to level faster. however, most roguelikes late game is easier than early game. also, the portal that takes you to that level 0 area. when is a good time to go there? I went to it at early levels and always died. i know i should load up on heal items, wands and area affect missiles before going.
@Haldurson: yeah i want to try vampirism sometime. looks differnet. anyone try an archer build that goes unarmed with shields? you use 2 shields, get tinkering and then use arrows? not sure if you get enough arrows. id probably want golemancy too id guess. any suggestions on this?
In my experience, Count Digula doens't show up every Hell, and you won't die by just seeing him. He's arguably tougher than Dredmor, but you don't need to defeat him in order to exit Hell. Just find the portal.
For maxxing out counterattack, I like to use swords daggers dualwield and smithing. why smithing? because a great +counterattack item is the ring of iron thorns and you want to get two of them as quickly as possible, also the smithy items help your survive in the early game.
Either go for high or high . is easier to get for dual wielding swordsmen, so whatever. Vampirism is always a good addition too. And yes, unarmed is better for mages, it goes especially nice with Astrology, Warlockery, Viking Magic and Fleshsmithing in case you get hit a lot and need a nice heal. One of my most succesful builds (actually won the game) uses following: Unarmed Warlockery Vampirism Master of Arms Shield Mastery Archeology Demonology At the moment I'm playing another a slightly more rogueish unarmed build: Unarmed Artful dodger Tinkering (for the rocket boots 5 encrust) Perception Astrology Mathemagic Blood Magic Oh, and in case you just want a warrior with lot of you could probably try a dual-wielding polearms user with berserker rage, battle geology and tinkering for the power armour.
