Source
r/Dredmor•
ibward

Lets Talk builds

I posted this on the official forums already but I'll repeat it here as I'm really enjoying this game so far!

Here is a couple of builds I've had limited success with, I'd like to hear what you guys are doing too:

my newest (after five tries):

Character type: Arcane Warrior

Skills: Swordplay, Dual Wielding, Berserker Rage, Mathemagic, Viking Wizardry, Ley lines, Archaeology

Skills Assigned: I've started with a focus on swordplay, berserk and dual wielding traits with one exception "Skatha's Roots" the second Viking skill (found that it is effective for holding overpowering individual opponents in place while i fall back, like those who come out of "evil chest").

Notes: This class is deeply offensive and survivable. I found that on the second floor and after I was tending to get overwhelmed with my warrior builds Mathmagic offers me a ready out via the mana cheep teleport spell. Viking powers up my already strong offense and offers some supporting spells and ley lines insures that I can keep my buff always. Archaeology offers free exp. and gives the rouge points that allows me to disarm traps with relative ease. so far so good.

Another because I've heard people say they have had trouble clearing first level with a mage (I haven't been too deep into level 2 with it, the game crashed, but I was breezing):

Character type: Mage

Skills: Mathmagic, Psionics, Promethean Magic, Blood Magic, Ley Lines, Golemancy, Staff-fighting

Skills Assigned: Your first priority should be to max Ley lines, once this is done, cuppled with blood magic, mana largely ceases to be an issue. Then Jump to Animate mustache, that little guy is lovely.

Notes: try not to engage your enemies in melee until you have weakened them. This should be easy considering you have both mathmagics teleport and psionics sleep spell (this can be your best friend) Use wise placement of Golemancy's Animate blade being to weaken enemies and then lay the final blow with your stave. You'll do fine.

EDIT: and staying thoroughly drunk helps too! Like I need a voice besides the one in my head telling me "you need to drink more booze"

Posted Jul 14, 2011, 4:51 AM UTC · edited

1518
venomcoopa626•

Well I've been trying a lot of things but the most effective (until I died of course) was: Character type: Rogue-ish fighter

Skills: Swordplay Crossbows Dualwielding Berserker rage Deadshot Assassination Tinkering

Skills Assigned: I started on swordplay and the went into dual wielding when I found a second sword, then 1 into Berserker rage. I put another into Tinkering so I could start building crossbows and keeping my inventory clean. 1 into Assassination next for the shiv ability and I was going to put 1 in Crossbows but I died on level 3. =P

Notes: Shoot first slash swords later. I would weaken enemies from afar before they came in to be destroyed by my swords. It was a pretty simple character and it got me through my first monster zoo just fine. I think I died because of an acid trap. I was sooo sad...but Dredmor, like life, must go on.

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ibwardOP•

I feel your pain. I have already died more than once trying to disarm a trap I thought would be benign (I could never play without permadeath).

I've considered playing with crossbow/deadshot but came to the conclusion that bolts were simply spent too quickly and to hard to find. I suppose with your balance between ranged and melee combat it could work though. I'm sure tinkering helped as well. I should give the crafting system more of a shot.

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venomcoopa626•

Yeah Crossbow sets need tinkering in order to be effective. Crossbows were really just extra damage until the enemy got closer.

1
quamper•

I've been going mostly

Swordplay/Duel wield/Berserker Rage/Dodger/Perception/Assassination/ and then either Smithing/Tinkering/Archaeology for the last skill.

Generally I go first point Dual-wield right away and the Sword and after that it gets more situational depending on how my inventory/equipment is looking.

I've had really good success with that build. It's pretty basic crazy damage dealing/damage avoiding. So nothing too unique really, but it's pretty effective.

1
TheCommieDuck•

I've been going for Swordplay, Beserker Rage, Archaeology, Vampirism, Blood Mage, and one of the other magic ones and one of the crafting ones.

It may not be functional per se, but damn it's fun - spend the first skill point on the eating dead bodies skill from the vampirism..great against large numbers of enemies, seeing as you gain health from every kill and with the blood mage+beserker you get extra melee and magic damage from kills.

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ibwardOP•

I find it uncanny that you can survive at all with vampirism. Quite impressive. I imagine that you have to use magic to soften up opponents before engaging as you can't possibly stand to take normal melee damage.

You've inspired me, once I die with my current I will give a vampire a shot, though I doubt I will last too long.

1
TheCommieDuck•

I just run in there and melee them.

1
ungood•

I've experimented with vampirism. Haven't done great, but figured some things out to get to at least level 3.

  • Get the cannibalism skill ASAP, otherwise it's really hard to get through even the first level.
  • Magic power affects how much you health you drain, so mage training can be useful.
  • Watch your HP like a hawk, anything less than 3/4 full is an emergency and you should go looking for some easy prey to restore your health.
  • Never pass up an opportunity to eat a corpse, even if you're close to full. You can survive through monster zoos by restricting your adjacent squares and eating a corpse every chance.
  • Fairy fungus (forgot their name) can be used in place of food.
  • Flesh-smithing has a heal spell.

One benefit of vampirism. You can turn all your food to lutefisk and donate it to the squid god!

1
ibwardOP•

TLDR: I’m quite sure I could win with its on “Going Rouge” though it requires you to be careful. Also nearly everyone should take Psionics simply for the Crystal Healing spell.

I've done it now, and my vampire has gotten fair farther than any other character. I agree now that it is fantastic. The major challenge as you pointed out, is the very beginning but once you cross that threshold you can make yourself nearly indomitable.

I've got to disagree with you the “Drinker of the Dead” skill. It seems logical to grab it early and I did the first two times I tried but currently I've gotten my character level up 14 times and still haven't so much as touched the skill. I found a much better option.

Check out my current build (on the eight floor, dwarven moderation permadeath with no problem; current score: 242668) I think I will go all the way this time. Skills:

• Vampirism: Important and useful but I feel no need to jump to the higher level skills. The ability to regain health quickly through melee (an effect that seems to grow with the damage done) is the key. It is extremely useful at offsetting blood debts that result from use of Necronomiconomics (henceforth Necro). Drinker of the Dead is useful at first for this but it seems it never offers more than a bonus of 4 health per a body (I could be wrong about this) which is not sufficient to really cull the massive blood debts or melee damage that can result from engaging a monster zoo, especially when employing necro magic. It’s a early game crutch.

• Blood Magic: I feel this skill gets a bad rap and should be one of the first priorities in a build that includes Necro. It offsets the ills of the curse resultant from Necro’s most useful spell, the second unlock: Nightmare Curse.

• Ley lines: self explanatory, though perhaps it could be opted out given you found excellently magic regenerated equipment, which is far from impossible.

• Archeology: Quick level ups. I always have way too many artifacts after the second floor. This translates with Archeology into at least two more level ups by this point and ease at disarming traps; which coupled with the bonuses I currently have from items, results in an ability to not only disarm most traps without fail but readily employ against the enemy. This is without question more useful than selling items.

• Wand Lore: Mainly for getting through the early stage but it is really exceedingly powerful, though not likely something you want to put any points to after the initial skill with haste. The bonus to sagacity is great but largely the first skill that allows you to recharge wands is the winner. I will admit that as I became more powerful the wands have become less important but once you have about five decent wands you can consistently them keep at zero entropy regardless of burn rate. This allows you to release one hell of barrage when you need it.

• Necronomiconomics (the real killer): I at first thought that this skill was useless. I was utterly wrong; it is easily the most powerful in the game. The negatives are the curses that result from the use of its extremely powerful spells. Admittedly you can’t use them when you are weak, but as soon as you can buff yourself against the negative effects you will become unstoppable. The initial spell (Deathly Hex) is useful against many enemies, even deep in the dungeon but the key is not to over use it. Your blood debts will stack and result in quick death if you are not careful. Your real death dealer however is the second spell: Nightmare Curse. I cannot overstate the power of this spell it not only puts the enemy to sleep but deals deadly damage to them in their incapacitated state (provided you keep your magic power skill sufficiently high that is. At my current level of 30 they never wake up). It cost very little but you suffer a heavy magic drain as a result. I cannot over stress how effectively full Ley lines and Blood Magic (particularly blood magic) counter acts this. I can easily cast this spell 10 times before it becomes a problem. Any item that offers necromantic resistances should be equipped and only grudgingly relinquished!

• Psionics (the game winner): The abilities of this skill are mediocre except one utterly shining star: Crystal Healing! Vampire or not, almost everyone should rush this skill. Simply keep your distance from the enemy (and easy task with your sleep spells, which are great early on) and you can restore you health completely in six to nine steps at any time. Easily the best spell in the game, you should grab it before all else. Watch out that you don’t allow enemies you have injured to be healed by your efforts however.

Notes: I cannot overstate the power of this particular build. The initial shock I would imagine that anyone would have when viewing this is the lack of a weapon skill. I have found however that whatever detriment you receive from being unskilled with a weapon is totally meaningless and in fact have almost constantly duel-wielded to receive additional benefits from enchantments and had no problem in melee combat (provided the enemy was wisely weakened before engaging). It’s important to note that you should likely never engage an enemy (other than a blob) that hasn’t been weaken but necro magic should be doing the heavy lifting.

Edit: a bit of grammar and organization. The beauty of working the quiet night-shift: you can worry about meaningless things like this.

7
ibwardOP•

The new patch won't allow me to load my save! DAMNIT!

I guess I'll start over.

2
falcon8•

Beautiful.

Replying so that I may come back to this as a reference when I begin my mage play-through. The Unarmed Vampire fad is so yesterday.

1
Meadmoon•

I really love the Arcane Warrior build, but I'm having issues finding out how to properly use the Archaeology skills, I'm not totally sure what constitutes as an artifact or anything. :[

1
ibwardOP•

oh thats simple, an artifact is any weapon with a funny name. For instance if you have a rusty sword that is named "Killor, the Father of Sausages". They will have a one or two extra attributes. Anything you have forged on an alter of krong (krong, I think that is right) will be an artifact too.

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Meadmoon•

I figured it was something along those lines, thank you very much for clearing that up for me. :D

1
Ectospheno•

Unarmed, Shield-bearer, Artful Dodging, Master of Arms, Burglary, Assassination, Fungal Arts.

Shrooms are OP.

1
donttalknojive•

My most successful build:

Omniblaster

Staves/Crossbows/Promethean/Magical Training/Perception/Burglary/Tinkering

Absolutely gross ability to deal with enemies, extremely self-sufficient. Trap farming from Perception with the bonuses from tinkering and burglary give you a lot of versatility when paired with Fireball and Rune of Exploding. Dragon's breath is great in early levels too. The crossbow bolts from tinkering keep you in the ammo and let you attack diagonally, while the staves usually boost your magical ability and give you formidable melee attacks in the four cardinals (look for evil chests, I always find staff artifacts in them).

EDIT: By successful, I mean happily frolicking on the fourth floor, after having wiped the monster zoos on the previous floors.

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ungood•

I'm doing pretty good with a diablo-like paladin build: Mace, Armor, Shields, Astrology, Ley Lines and Smithing.

Astrology has some good auras and ley lines allows them to be pretty much permanent. With the buffs from armor and shields added, you can shrug off most assaults.

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