I've been hearing quite a bit about gish builds, but I've never tried one myself. I know what they are (more or less) but I tend to make specialist characters focusing on either melee/crafting or pure casting. So, I'm looking for suggestions for a good, recent gish build that's able to beat Dredmor on GRPD. Or at least suggestions. Or idle gossip you heard at the salon about a guy who once knew a guy who had a good gish build, and you think maybe it was something like this and that. Whatever.
I've also only won with pure casters or pure warriors. From what I've overheard some guy on the street recalling a conversation with a man whose friend once read about them somewhere, the general idea is that first you suck at being a caster, then you suck at being a warrior, then you really maximise that suck until it triggers an overflowing error and somehow turns you godly in the late game via multiple combat buffs stacked over chest of evil weapons stacked over healing spells all the while slowly nuking stuff from inside your tank. Or something.
For a basic one, take one of your pure melee builds, Axe + Duel Wield + Battle Geology + Berserker + whatever, and replace a couple of the skills with magic that either enhances melee (Power of Magic Steel, Pact of Fleeting Life, etc) OR does usefull stuff regardless of (Polymorphic Injunction, Skatha's Roots, summons, teleports etc). Warlockery is powerful but requires a more specialized build; I shall defer to Essence's advice on that: http://community.gaslampgames.com/t...ck-to-i-make-warlockery-work.5144/#post-59935
Great Gish! Astrology Necronomiconomics Ley Line Walker Dual Wield Staves Communism Battle Geology OR Alchemy Basic plan: Staves 2 (stun), Astrology 5 (Necro resist), Necro 5 (Pact + Mark), Communism 3 (General Winter), Ley Lines 5 (Teleport) Necro, with Aztrologys resists, gives you Pact + Mark, which are badass melee power all by themselves. Add Syzygy + Aegis + Aura on top and you"re a freaking tank. General Winter softens everything up for you, and Ley Lines makes everything flow nicely and adds that all-important Teleport to the mix.
Wow, Essence's gish is miles off from what mine would be. Staves Dual Blood Warlock Alchemy Archaeology/Astro/Berserk/Geology/Emo/Psionics While Essence is trying to be sensible and not get killed, I'm trying to make it so that all my stuff makes me better at what I do, which is be a wizard who kills everything with Puissant Touch. This is the kind of build for people like me who are willing to make things touch on themselves because the build just makes sense god dammit. Warlock is at least sorta useful for almost every character ever. Characters who aren't gishy can turn on Mana Maille and not care that they have no mana. Characters who are gishy can turn on Mana Maille and also destroy everything with Pussant Touch, and if you're gishy you can even make Warlock your main shtick and build up to the hilarious capstones. As for this build right here, personal experience has shown me that a character with a ton of Wizard levels will fuck shit up big time with Puissant touches, way more than I was expecting. Alchemy is by far one of the best support skills in the game for one reason alone: Rust potions. Also, with this build you can get away with leveling it early so as to make your own cool stuff--an early Knobbly Staff is great. About the optional skills: Archaeology gives you trap-sight without any level investment, which I like. One level in it gives you the potentially way broken It Belongs In A Museum. You can often leave it at level 0 or 1, but every level of it is great, actually. Berserk gives you Warrior shit, which this build badly lacks. You'll probably get your ass kicked by the first horribly-scary-thing like a Baron or a named Friendly AI that you see if you don't do something about the fact that you're almost all Wizard. Geology is for the same reason as Berserk--it's the quintessential "make the warrior's life way easier" skill and it is also one of those skills that's amazing at its first level with no levels put into it. Emo has a level 0 that is... okay, not great. Its one level dip is one of the best things ever. The rest of the tree is shit unless it's been radically changed recently. Psionics also has a one level dip that's one of the best things ever. Also you have so many Wizard levels that I bet nerve staple and set-you-on-fire would be powerful if you're into that kind of thing. I play without a teleport a lot, but if you want one, make it Burglary. Ninja Vanish with a two level dip and a short COOLDOWN teleport with no restrictions at all with four. Can you say holy cow?
By core: You'll want Viking Magic and Astrology. They're both amazingly good. Ley Walker and/or Blood Magic will keep your mana up really well too. You do want some survival, and because you have spells (many spells), Vegan works really nicely for that, making those early levels before you get rolling a breeze. A rogue skill should be taken, to give you trapsight and what have you, and Alchemy is awesome for being crazy prepared.
(Just a note: my build was all current core skills, too. It will become better if-and-when the new Weapons skills are adopted, but it works perfectly right now.) Or if by core you mean "no expansions", then take Alchemy instead of Battle Geology and replace Communism with Berserker Rage.
What kind of gear would you use? I'm definitely going to try a dual wield/staves/leyline build, probably astrology as well. Might follow Essence's suggestion entirely, might tweak it a bit (depending on how I like communism).
Only if you pair it with an extraordinary amount of mana gaining skills, as in both Blood Magic and Ley Lines, because you have to have all those glyphs going at once to maximize the effects of Eye of Ra's melee procs.
Just a side note -- I was completely wrong above. I re-checked the XML, and it turns out the Glyph of Ra procs don't require anything except the Glyph of Ra, which "merely" requires 1 mana every 3 turns.
Ok, here's one. Warlockery Demonologist Astrology Unarmed Combat Blood Magic Fleshsmithing Berseker Rage This build mostly relies on skill synergy and melee power. It works like this: 1) Draw a Celestial Circle around you 2) Pull enemies all around you via Warlock's Challenge 3) Gray Heron Takes Flight! Works like a charm. Most of the time enemies are stunned either because of the Warlock's challenge or Radiant Aura's Flashes. When they hit you, you get more and more berserker and demonologist passive bonuses. And if they manage to hit you hard you'll heal right away with Fleshcrafting. The fun thing is that this character feels actually more comfortable in monster zoos than in regular dungeon. The only serious weak point of this guy is his absolute lack of trap removing skills which makes life slightly more difficult. But with a lot of mana, great magic power and fleshsmithing it's not that much of problem.
I'm running Egyptian Magic right now, using it as a gish would probably work, but Call the Sandstorm just ravages (I was close to using the other word, but I'm learning!) anything in its way. I run Blood Magic without any points and Ley Lines, and Alchemy and Fungal Arts, so mana isn't really an issue. I also kick ass in melee, since I'm dual wielding two pretty powerful weapons. In conclusion, Egyptian Magic is wasted on a gish, since it needs lots of support and has hyper orbital nukes.
Except that you really can run Egyptian Magic without any support, completely ignore Sandstorm, and run a gish with Call the Nile for immortality and the amazing combat procs from TGOTEOR and by very sane and very happy with yourself. It's an extraordinarily flexible skill iff you can get past the first two levels without bashing your head in from the extreme do-nothing/actually literally kill-yourself-ness of those two levels.
Actually, the first level isn't all that bad. It gives you extra damage, which can be a life-saver for most "mage" characters (because being able to deal damage at all means no death after a desperate retreat the moment your mana runs out), and by itself is good for gishes in training who still don't have any means of using their mana up in any effective way. And the second level, well... It can be really useful if you don't have any other skill trees which grant you that particular bonus, which can happen if you are playing random builds.
I've just started playing with a general "gish backbone" setup that should, if I get it right, work with a large variety of magic schools. I usually just run around in heavy plate and forget casting, but I dug through the dredmorpedia and looked at what kinds of armor I could wear that offered moderate without heavy penalties on or . Also, since there's some synergy skill for every crafting setup except smithing/alchemy, I started with that. Smithing Alchemy Shield bearer/Master at arms/Dual Wield/weapon skill Ley lines (pick a gish-able magic skill) (pick a utility/other magic skill) (pick your favorite XP booster) Smithing and alchemy give you the armored archmage plate and the mana torus/sapphire ring, as well as encrusts for high resists and with no negative (Diamond encrusts, which alchemy's transmutes fill and smithing provides), as well as the damage boosts from Ultimate Rearden/Offensive Shielding. boost comes from smithing, so a bit of early safety/XP gain while you're gearing up, as well. I'm trying it with Smith/Alch/Shield/Ley/Vegan/Egyptian/Archaeology. On floor 6, nothing really stands a chance. There may be issues later on, but casting should compensate somewhat. I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work with necro/astrology/viking/warlock, or even combo with promethean/psionic/mathemagic. You might not ever tank whole zoos like a clockwork knight, or spam obvious fireballs every turn... but that's the whole point, right?
