Killer Vegan is the worst skill ever!

Discussion in 'Dungeons of Dredmor General' started by LkMax, Aug 4, 2014.

  1. LkMax

    LkMax Member

    Seriously, constantly getting stuck by a horde of diggles without being allowed to kill them is annoying as f**k.
    GET OUTTA MY WAY, YA DIGGLE BASTARDS!
    I don't even like the skill, I just wanted the achievement, but I guess I'll have to pass on that one...
     
  2. I beg to differ. I would contend that it's probably the most OP skill tree in the game. Let's look at it's advantages and disadvantages.
    Disadvantages:
    • Suffer debuffs when attacking animals
    • Suffer debuffs when eating anything non-fruit/tofu
    ...And that's it. Now let's look at the advantages:
    • Largest raw Burliness buff of any skill tree
    • Largest raw Nimbleness buff of any skill tree
    • Huge HP gain
    • Huge HP Regen gain!!!
    • No animal will ever attack you (...except in Wizardlands for some reason)
    • "Blinding Hit" proc that stuns at lvl4
    • Righteous damage and resist buff--great exotic damage type to have, tons of enemies on lower levels are weak to it
    • Permanent mind control spell on animals--because why not?
    • Self-purifying ability to nullify accidental (or intentional!) vegan breaking moves
    • Extra XP for killing vegetables
    I probably missed some. tl;dr version: As much as Vampirism is the "hard mode" skill tree, Killer Vegan is the "easy mode" skill tree. If the animals are bothering you that much, grab a magic tree like Promethean to nuke them without triggering the curses.
     
  3. LkMax

    LkMax Member

    My real complain about this skill is that the animals apparently keep surrounding the player despite not attacking him, and I constantly got stuck on the first rooms of the first floor for that reason.

    So... if you kill the damn animals with magic, you suffer no penalties? umm... interesting, I'll have to check this out.
     
  4. Haldurson

    Haldurson Member

    [QUOTE="Kirby J
    As much as Vampirism is the "hard mode" skill tree, Killer Vegan is the "easy mode" skill tree.[/QUOTE]
    Vampirism is not 'hard mode'. You just have to create your build around it to realize its potential (hint: it largely scales with health regen). With a Vamp build, I've been able to get my health regen to a peak (buffed) of 45+ or so, which is pure awesome.
     
  5. Haldurson

    Haldurson Member

  6. Wolg

    Wolg Member

    Debuffs trigger on melee attacks and skills that include melee attacks. Put that stack of softballs to use on animal roadblocks.

    My preference is to get the charm as soon as possible. It's not permanent, but helps by letting other animals do your abbatoir work for you, though some are arguably better at it than others. Note that animals taking damage will try to stand next to you; annoying as this can be, while they're doing so they are standing still for the charmed animal's attacks.
     
  7. Kaidelong

    Kaidelong Member

    The reason? When this wasn't true, Vegans could farm diggle hell and NOTHING could attack them. I just wish GLG decided to be smart and only make animals aggressive in Diggle Hell, rather than in ALL level 0 dungeons (Wizardlands, Mysterious Portals). Or specifically allowed exceptions to peaceful taxa, something like <exceptionTaxa name="Diggle Demon"> and so forth.
     
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  8. Haldurson

    Haldurson Member

    Well, farming Wizardlands already feels a little bit like an exploit. In trouble? Escape to a wizardland to heal. Not strong enough for the level you are on? Farm Wizardlands to gain an extra level or find good loot in relative safety before you go any deeper or stumble upon the next monster zoo.

    Honestly, I almost never go to the wizardlands anymore and have stopped recording the codes because of that. I know that it's not REALLY an exploit, but it just feels a bit like scumming to me.
     
  9. LkMax

    LkMax Member

    Even better...
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2014
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  10. Isn't it pointless to have it any higher than 5?
     
  11. Turbo164

    Turbo164 Member

    Vampirism attacks have no limit. Even after you pass the 5-13 cap needed for your difficulty level, Vamp keeps getting more drain.
     
  12. SkyMuffin

    SkyMuffin Member

    You forgot about the extra fruit drops from killing...uh... vegetables :confused:. You can brew some extra alcohol early on, or eat it and feel extra healthy. Also you can sell all that other gross food and buy stuff with the zorks!

    My favorite Killer Vegan benefit, however, is not having to deal with those very painful acid spitting eelies. You can even charm one and lure a strong monster into it (robots in Dungeon Level 2, for example).
     
  13. Darxio

    Darxio Member

    Personally, I feel like most people don't use Killer Vegan to it's full potential.

    https://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/share-your-builds.3207/page-16#post-57910

    Vegan Shame may be a terrible debuff(One of the absolute worst in the game to get hit with). But why waste a turn just uncursing yourself from it... when you can turn it into the most frightening weapon in the game.

    Combine Magical Law with Killer Vegan. Use Rune of Objection to give your debuffs(VEGAN SHAME) to the enemy. Watch them crumble before you as you lay stacks upon stacks of Vegan Shame upon the enemy(Fuel your vegan shame with shredded cheese and ground meat.). Each debuff reduces all stats by 5 and sight by 1, which means with enough applications, they can't even see you to attack you, and with enough applications, things will die by just not actually having hp(-5 Burliness and -5 Caddishness = -10 hp). While you can only have 3 stacks of the debuffs, enemies have no limit.

    I have killed Dredmor with my build linked(Floor 10 and Floor 15 variations).

    Killer Vegan's theme is to circumvent the code of Vegans through its capstone. Take it a step further and become the one vegan to rule them all.
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2014
  14. Kaidelong

    Kaidelong Member

    Do dread collectors spawn if you use Aetheric Death Ray to both kill Brax and remove his corpse in the same turn?
     
  15. Darxio

    Darxio Member

    I am unsure(It would have to be tested). My gut instinct tells me it should work(If the body gets removed before the enemies get to take a turn).

    Plan for at least one turn of collectors spawning(Which is not bad to deal with at all thanks to the polymorph), and keep in mind its safest on NTTG.
     
  16. Oh Killer Vegan... how much fun I had on the run with you.

    I had always thought the reason the Wizardlands were so hostile to Vegas was to balance their awesome power- interesting to learn otherwise.
     
  17. celem

    celem Member

    Just built a run around Vegan actually. Ran it perma Rogue to Dred but he smited me due to some unfortunate player errors. (RotDG)

    Vegan
    Archer
    Tinker
    Smith
    Burglar
    Assassin
    Big Game Hunter

    The passive animals thing is just horribly executed in the game. Theres no change to their AI, they just cant attack, so instead they will hug you and be generally annoying. Despite this Vegan is an OP awesome skill of awesome and clearly the best in the game. It's a fueltank, it tops off your HP while clean, its like you are constantly digesting food. Its also a booster, boosting melee massively through a great statline by advancing the skilltree. So much of a boost infact that it became the engine too and I was able to do away with a melee skill. The build has no mana regen but uses no mana, self sufficient. So I could probably have run the dungeon using only Vegan, the rest makes life easier. (much), but I was generating more food through Green Harvest than I needed to crawl all the way to Dread on Rogue.

    So....kill 'em. Use your bow on anything animal and reap BGH xp acceleration to boot. They never aggro, even if you hit them with bolts. You dont have a melee skill but you wont even notice on the others/demons/veg/constructs with clean vegan running. I didnt even race for vegan 5, you get plenty of tofu/fruit in the first levels for healing and while you stay clean you can expect 1hp per tick regen. Burglar gets you some freebie bolts from vending machines, be sure to build ammo dispensers in each rune room. Try not to use your slowly building metal supplies for bolt crafting until you get some tinker levels in so that they get upgraded.

    Hits like a train in melee with ridiculous amounts of burly, I went to see Dred with about 45 burly with smithing still at 2. My ultimate fail was a crash returning from pocket dimension to face Dred wiping my inventory. I had all my equipped gear, and a hotbar full of basic ammos. Plus 2 million gold and a pocket dimension full of artifacts. But the problem was I lost all the potions accumulated on the run plus all the exotic bolts from 15 floors of crawl. I cried a little, went to find him and died painfully fast with no tools.

    Key skills:
    Vegan 5: I just didnt really use it, you still want it for the stats, vegan makes you a monster, but dont use the skill as a crutch, it wont remove all of the debuffs if you have multiple stacks of all of them.
    Archery: 3/5 The 2 that increase ammo return, you want this.
    Tinker: You need to keep your crossbow upgraded and your skill will produce high quality bolts. A master tinker using a branded bow can fire scythed wood or plastic and own.

    Assassination can be left at 1 for ages, blackjack is great, the rest is candy until the main 3 skills are in
    Smithing is an oddball. I took it to make armor but dropped plenty of arts I could wear, never bothered raising it, though had I not gotten impatient I would have buffed it for the encrusts. The burly from it is nice, but massively shadowed by vegan, and tinker's craft is higher priority. buff smithing late.
    BGH: Just 1, dont need to touch this, I couldnt be bothered chasing to 4 for extra trophy xp just to generate a lot of meat I cant eat.
    Burglar. Get lucky pick fairly early. Then leave it alone till you push to 5 for your escape move, tinkering is your trap skill.

    I used: Vegan, Tinker, Vegan, Archer x2, Burglar, Tinker, Archer to max, Vegan to max, Tinker to max

    Stuff to keep in mind:
    You have no escape until burglar 5, get it before Dred. I didnt need one before then, the vegan is OP.
    If you lose clean body not only do you become a feeble wuss but your health regen stops and your total hp pool bombs. It's that simple, watch what you hit, never melee an animal. If an aoe hits an animal thats not your problem.
    ONLY fire the bow at animals. Even with maxed archery you will burn ammo too fast to clear everything as an archer. With only animals its very close to sustainable.
    Since you have no melee skill you can and should use anything, change all the time, for the tiniest upgrade. You will hit like a truck and proc aoe confuses both on hit and when hit. Since you are only actually fighting 66% of the dungeon and just xp farming the passive 33% this is easy mode itself.

    Your offhand is always free. shields, tomes, orbs. whatever you like. I used mainly books/tomes for good brands (elemental damage) and stats over the shield. Theres rarely anything anywhere near the Vegan that isnt confused.

    Dred: Biggest bow you can get, double Bauble encrust for Aeth/Right dmg. Try and source a melee with one of these 2 brands, I ended up with a sun axe with Righteousness and a mirror shield in the offhand. Double baubled mech bolt thrower that I kronged and was lucky enough to get acid on. You need to stock potions from the crawl for the fight, likewise mushrooms. Use the Burglar 5 to disengage and recover, try and engage at range, done right you hit as hard as he does (blast/aethereal/righteous brands and acid bottle bolts).

    It really wasnt a hassle, theres a few types of animal, learn them and its not troublesome even in mixed zoos. In fact having a third of the room passive and blocking LoS makes it all a bit of a laugh.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2014
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