Your Favorite Post-CotW Builds

I'm currently playing
Vampirism
Master of Arms
Shield Bearer
Magical Law
Piracy
Warlockery
Battle Geologist

The synergies between the first three are obvious. Magical Law is honestly there for the final skill -- combined with Swash buckling, Temporal Flux, and/or Petrification, it's just evil. Early game has been a walkthrough so far, Plutonic Fist + Puissant Touch OHKs the first floor

 

I like tactical rogue builds that aren't overpowered. Something like:
Daggers
Throwing or Xbows
Dodge
Perception
Archaeology or Fungus
Tinker or Smith
Burglar or Big Game Hunter

I just get bored with a character who can open the doors of a zoo and either stand there hacking away or blasting spells until it's finished. I prefer needing to run away and lure the monsters out a handful at a time to be able to handle them.

I always play GRPD with random characters and the only skills I simply won't accept are Clockwork Knight or Rogue Scientist ('cause I believe they're overpowered) and the worst - Killer Vegan; any skill that makes the game both easier by eliminating the aggro on half the dungeon's population (not to mention the somewhat decent stat boosts) and more tedious by forcing me to tiptoe around them or kill them exclusively with ranged attacks or traps sucks the fun right out for me. If Killer Vegan still debuffed you for hurting animals, but left them all wanting your blood - now that would be an interesting skill...

 

Currently using:

Daggers
Dual
Dodge
Assassination
Burglary
Archaelogy
Paranormal Investigation

...you can see where this is going. The aim was to make a dodge/dodge/more dodge/oh and counter peep. It's great fun so far, currently on level 7 in dwarf mode going rogue. I use the deadly wall of counterattacks stance thingy, and I wield anything that does tons of damage as the passive dagger bonuses are kinda meh compared to evil chest weapon hurt. The dagger attacks all seem to work with any weapon anyway (probably an oversight?).

This way I'm packing about 70 counterattack and close to that much dodge permanently, as well as some block (about 50).

I might try it again but ditch paranormal investigation for tinkering. So far, it's the least impressive of my trees.

So thank you Gaslamp for making my dual wield counterattack fantasy come true

Edit: Just hit level 12 now, and dual wielding artifact daggers rocks... I'm sitting at 80% counter, and feeling VERY sneaky: most used skills are Switcheroo, Knightly Leap, Ninja Vanish and the occasional lockup.

Final edit: Had an easy cruise until Dredmor himself, and faced off with all skills maxed and a good load of consumables. Got killed in the end, for 2.7 mill points - not a bad run!

 

Doesn't anybody play wizards now that we're in wizardlands and it's sorta mainstream?

 

one that I've recently had a lot of luck with is

Blood Magic
Ley Walker
Mathemagic
Magical Law
Psyonics
Wand Lore
Fleshsmithing

Fleshsmithing and wandlore help a great deal in the first few floors not to mention that magical law is all around fantastic

 

I just finished a wizard build playthrough, and in my opinion they're considerably underpowered compared to melee builds. Both my clockwork rogue scientist build and dual wield sword builds started out easier and killed Dredmor easier than my caster. Casters lack a strong starting attack, are more vulnerable to traps and sudden ambushes, lack strong single-target bosskilling spells, and don't get the same benefit from late-game uber weapons. Where my dual wield sword build killed Dredmor in just a few hits, my caster (level 31, I believe, with about 200 spell power (fully buffed), 100 magic resist, 300 mana) felt like he was whittling Dredmor down with a toothpick. I dropped three The Bombs, threw 40+ saw blades, cast dozens of sandstorms and chemical explosions, and hit him endlessly with every diminishing and recursive nuke Mathemagics offers, and none would do more than tickle him. I essentially tickled him to death, thanks to amazing resists and a boatload of mana potions, but it wasn't exactly a satisfying fight after rending Dredmor limb from limb with previous builds. Overall, the only strength my caster had was the ability to wipe out Zoos quickly with Sandstorm. Everything else, from survivability to mini bosses to starting to the final fight, melee trumps caster. Dropping a handful of sandstorms on a 150+ mob zoo was a blast, but it doesn't make up for the lack of a single target early or late game option. Sandstorm is amazing against most creatures, to the point where it was arguably more efficient to cast one sandstorm on a lone mob than it was to cast four or five Recursive Curses just to deal with a single diggle. That being said, kicking mobs did more damage than most of my spells sometimes, with all the passive damage bonuses glyphs and gear give.

The build, for the record, was:
Ley Walker
Magic Training
Alchemy
Wand Lore
Mathemagics
Egyptian Magic
Emomancy

It seems that Dredmor is balanced around the late-game weapons, and there really aren't any items for casters that provide the kind of boost in power that melee receive from dual artifact Axes of the Solar Disc or Monofilament Swords.

 

I'm not suprised. None of the lategame spells can be too powerful, so damage starts to come from all your equips.

 

If you don't mind my asking, what skill order did you use?