First post on this forum. I'm a big fan of the roguelike genre and I jumped at the opportunity to buy this game when I saw Screenshots on steam. I also seem to have played every single game that's been referenced in the game, weird, it's like the person who wrote it had the same taste in games as me or something. Nevermind about that, this thread is about the best strategies for finishing a permadeath session on going rogue difficulty from start to finish. This means that you have good options for survival in the early game (levels 1-3) as well as solid options in the harder levels (7-10). So far, I've had a very hard time with melee builds on GR difficulty, though i may be able to survive on the early stages, the later ones have a hard time dealing with the monsters, especially the arch diggles (one killed me once by counterattacking me with two crits in a row). I've had the most success with a pure caster strategy Magic Training Mathemagic Promethian Psionics Blood Magic Archaeology Alchemy What I like about this approach is that it gives you options for the early level play (narcosomatic induction and alchemy distillation makes getting to character level 3 possible) but gives you a consistent strategy that is not overly reliant on lucky RNG rolls or equipment pickups. "This Translation is all Wrong" (from archaeology) gives you the ability to insure that by levels 4-5 you will have the required 7 mana regen bonus to gain 1 mana for every turn (which allows spells like narcosomic induction and kinetic shove to be used indefinately) Hold on to magic rings,amulets, and crossbows and keep rerolling them until they give you mana regen bonuses. Furthermore, Alchemy insures that you will be always have powerful orbs and other essential spellpower boosting gear (magic sandals are great too) IMPORTANT Benchmarks Summon Wyrmling: The earliest character levels are the most difficult and uncertain for this build. You'll be doing lots of running while you regenerate mana. your best bet for survival is to turn sewer brew in to gut rot (for mana regeneration) and narcosomic induction (to both deal damage, and control monsters so that you can lead them in to traps). gargoyle traps are very useful to you, since you can use them to deal damage to creatures without using too much mana (so try to avoid disarming them all). "This Translation is all Wrong": The wyrmling alone should be sufficient for levels 1-2, and during that time you should focus on leveling archaeology until you have the aforementioned skill. This will allow you to focus on rerolling artifacts until they give you the necessary mana regeneration bonuses that you need to gain 1 mana per step (on GR you need 7 mana regen bonus, more than that is not necessary) it will take many rerolls to get the stats you're looking for, so the earlier you get this skill means the earlier you can get started. Xeuclid's Translation (Teleport): Once you're able to reroll for you mana gear you should focus on getting this spell, which will allow you to survive in nearly every situation. In fact, once you get this spell and 1 mana per step, the only thing likely to kill you is your own idiocy (which, as a function of time, is inevitably going to kill you one way or another) Alchemy Crafting Once you can teleport and regain 1 mana per step, your next goal is to maximize your spellpower. It's not even necessary to have fireball by this point, but if you wish to have it that's your perogative. Alchemy crafting will allow you to make orbs (ideally you want to dual wield starry orbs since they offer the most spellpower of any crafted item) By alchemy level 5 you should have two starry orbs and some magic sandals. Recursive Curse, Fireball, Gog's Tactical Pyre, Psychokinetic Shove: Up to this point most of your killing will probably be done by fireball, curse of the golden ratio (free zorkmids WOOOO) and rune of exploding (GREAT FOR MONSTER ZOOS) but by levels 6-10 you'll want to have these big guns. Recursive curse can kill most monsters on levels 8-10 in one casting, and psychokinetic shove will give you the space you need to take on the monster zoos efficiently-- just try not to step on your own flame walls. Once you've attained all of the above you're ready to take out dreadmor, invisiblility and restoration potions help a lot. Good Random Loot/Store Gear If you've been reading this far, you'll probably know that the priorities of this build involve mana regen first and spellpower second. Everything else, even damage resistance and Armor are secondary. Avoid any item that reduces mana regen or spellpower, you shouldn't be getting hit in melee anyways. Armored Mage's/Archmage's robe - your best armors, enchanted versions with mana regen are even better. If you can't find these then you could also settle for Lekon's Seerly Robe or Voluminus robe of the Vizier (in that order). The Mana Torus - It's very unlikely that you'll find a better ring than this. This is an ideal anvil candidate. Cybertronic Amulet - another good option for the anvil. If you find an artifact amulet, reroll it until it gives mana regen bonuses. Ankh Amulet - a higher survival alternative to the cybertronic amulet for people prone to stepping on thier own fires or getting hit by ranged attacks. Mana regen and spellpower bonuses are even better (reroll until you get a spellpower bonus) Gold Rings - Since they always offer 2 spellpower, they are a good option for maxxing spellpower on your ring slots. Orb of Nothing - This is by far your best item. Get two of these as quickly as possible. These details should be good enough for anyone who is interested in beating Dredmor on GR/Permadeath. It is by no means the best nor the only strategy that works, just the one that worked for me. If you have a method that works for you, I think it would be great if you could share it with us in this thread.
My best caster build is Necro<-- best early game caster damage spell in nightmare, best zoo killing ability Math<-- zenzen stacking(also why I like ley walker for this guy, normally a pretty poor skill) t M training Blood mage Archaeology Alchemy<-- mostly just for destilling Ley walker. For melee Unarmed Shields Necronomics Vampirism Smithing Master of arms The last is pretty optional burglary/wands/dodger/archaeology/others Like a lot of Gr builds, they both can be tough early on if you get totally hosed by the RNG. Caster only needs to hit level 2.should be fine no matter the drops.
I'm only on dungeon level 5 with this guy, but he's going to win unless I do something phenominally stupid. * Math * Psionics * Viking Wizardry * Ley Walker * Burglary * Alchemy * Your choice (mage school for this guy, but I doubt it makes a difference) Psionics is your primary damage source early on via Narcosomatic Induction and Psychokinetic Shove. This is a tedious but very safe way to kill things, so long as you keep your mana up -- vending machines are your friend. Boost Ley Walker and Alchemy to get your mana regen to 1MP/turn (Nature Orbs should do the trick in Alchemy if you can find a couple off-shield sources), then get Arctic Vortex in Viking Wizardry. This will kill single targets with ease and is cheap. Finally, go for the Zenzi buff in Math. Currently, at character level 11 (and having luckily found an Orb of Nothingness in a store), a triple-stacked Zenzi buff puts my magic power at 54, which means Arctic Vortex deals 23 damage/round and costs a whopping 3 mana to cast. From here I'll grab the rest of the Math line since Recursive Curse is even more broken than Arctic Vortex and of course targeted teleports are useful. Then maybe top off Viking Wizardry since I'm curious about Thor's Fulminaric Bolt, but it won't really be necessary.
Psychokinetic Shove it to death, with some alcohol backing you up. You can push the enemies 3 spaces back from the door, at which point a) they'll almost never cast spells at you, and b) if you need a breather you can close the door to recover. It's very slow, but very safe. Shove is also great for opening up space to use squidbolts, if you have them. Weirdly, I haven't found any of those yet this game.
Here's my GR/PD build that I've won with (Pure mage with support): Golemancy, Mathemagic, Astrology, Viking Wizardry, Blood Mage, Burglary, Archaeology. Golemancy - Makes the first 5-6 floors easy mode with pets, zoos a breeze with wall and thaumite (got all but digging ray, also lol Robo that loves on floor 1) Mathemagic - Teleport and buffs? Yes, please. (all but Recursive Curse) Astrology - More buffs? Yes, please (all) Viking Wizardry - So I had more killing skills for less mana than Mathemagic with some variety in damage, with lulzy Arctic Vortex. (all) Blood Mage - Buff and mana return please. (took second skill) Burglary - Free lockpicks forever? (lol no points) Archaeology - Solely for IBiaM to convert unusable artifacts to XP and the nice trap bonus. (Just IBiaM) If I'd play again with this build, I wouldn't go all in Viking (it was also dual for achieve lol), and take that extra point and put it into Mathemagic for Recursive. Equip: Orb of Nothing, Artifact Starry Orb with lulz resists to almost all damage types and an extra mana regen, Armored Archmage Robe, Ring with mana regen, other ring had resists I think, cybertronic amulet (i think, not sure, cause save goes bye bye on win), and lulzy +20 righteous damage Artifact crossbow with health regen
Yeah, Recursive Curse is a better single-target killer than Arctic Vortex, and as it turns out maxing Thor's Fulminaric Bolt isn't all that great for group-killing, which is all you really need after you get Recursive Curse. Though, Hand of Belimawr is amusing, since a mage can cast it once and have +2 conflagration resistance for the rest of the game, no upkeep. And I'm not sorry I took Viking Wizardry, because Arctic Vortex is much easier to reach than Recursive Curse and gives a much-needed offensive boost. Skatha's Roots isn't bad for damage, either. Looking at Astrology, the only worthwhile buffs are Radiant Aura and Syzygy, and you can get the latter from gargle blasters. Celestial Aegis gives a bunch of random resistances (you shouldn't be taking damage), and the attack spells are pretty worthless.
My biggest problem is I get too impatient and spam the spacebar at zoos and then sometimes get overwhelmed. So the last Astrology skill can save my hide in that situation; CA+RA with blind teleporting makes it that much safer (again impatience or too much diablo 2). But yeah, I might even take out astrology for something else, but worked well with no difficulties once I hit clvl 2.
I recently won with the following Caster build in 1.0.5: Astrology (only for Radiant Aura, a godsend early on and for zoos) Psionics (Narcosomantic Induction, Nerve Staple, Pyrokinesis are all key single-target spells for low costs, esp. with high Magic Power) Promethian Magic (even with the more obvious Fireball nerfs, it's still worth it for AoE damage to supplement Psionics. Also, Pet Dragon carries you through about 4 1/2 Floors alone) Burglary (a must to get those first few level-ups quickly, also Ninja Vanish is amazing later on) Magic Training (the second skill is almost required to have a deep enough Mana pool in the middle floors) Blood Magic (do I really need to say why?) Alchemy (You need moar Mana; drink more booze!) Keys to Victory: Keep Radiant Aura up at all times, no matter what. It helps keep you from being surrounded and deals more damage than 2 Dragon's Breaths or 5 Narcosomantic Inductions when it goes off. Will save your ass and kill many a Floor 1 foe. You basically rely on it - and Lockpicking XP - to obtain your first 2 Level-ups, because let's face it, Dragon's Breath is fucking terribad and the Induction is a poor DPS/Mana spell at low Levels. Even at later levels, it can save you from things like Diggle Commandos and Far Darrigs that creep up on you invisibly and can 2- or 3-shot you. The sight buff also lets you target your spells - Exploding Rune and Pyrokinesis in partcular - far, far, far more effictively. You can cast those spells into the depths of Monster Zoos and blow them up from 9+ tiles away, as the nearer ones try to walk through multiple fields of burning ground (and your Wyrmling) to reach you, dying horribly in the process. Regarding gear: Magic Power is King. The next best thing to get is Mana Regen. Once you have 45 Magic Power and 6-7 Regen, you can cast spells at will, all day long, and rarely have need of Booze. The best way to do with is to forgo weapons and dual-shield...er...orb. Naturey Orbs are AMAZING early on, Cracked Orbs will do in a pinch, and then it's all about hoping to find Molten/Starry/Dark Orbs. The final goal is 2 Orbs of Nothing, ideally buffed on an Anvil or two. If you can't get any Orbs, a Staff/Orb combo will do in a pinch, but as soon as you get an Orb with more Magic Power then the Staff, drop the Staff. This build focuses on low-MP spells, and you have the Wyrmling for constant DPS - you do not need to hit things, ever. It just exposes you to counter-attacks that sap your HP and burn off charges of Radiant Aura. As for your other non-Orb armor slots, obviously you want to avoid anything with negatives to Magic Power and Magic Regen, and strive for the pure Wizard gear: Robes, Magic Sandles (or barring that, rogue-y footwear), a Magic Sombrero (again, light helms work early game). Rings and Amulets can be a good source of Resists, Magic Power, and Mana Regen if you get lucky. All that being said, nerfing your Magic Power/Mana Regen for some heavier armor RIGHT AWAY, while your character still working up to Level 3, is a good idea. Your spells can't suck any worse than they already do, and if you put on enough Bronze gear, you can get Batty and Diggle damage down to 1-2 points a hit instead of 4-7. Once you get the Wyrmling, take that shit off and put on your cape and Wizard hat. Here's the guidelines for leveling up your Skills: your first 2 points go into Promethian Magic to unlock Exploding Rune (one-shots most any Floor 1/2 monster if you have the mana) and more importantly, the almighty Wyrmling pet. Hiding behind the Wyrmling works stupidly well for the first 2 Floors, although he starts to level out around Floor 3, and by Floor 4 he's basically just there to save you some mana (by contributing some DPS to save you spell casts) and keep monsters off you sometimes, when his AI co-operates. Once you have your Wyrmling-meat-shield-to-hide-behind-for-the-next-2-hours, you can focus on ratcheting up your Psionics tree. I personally use the next 4 Levels to pump the tree up straight up to Pyrokinesis, as all the spells are useful: Shove lets you get space if your Wyrmling is dead or being retarded (and you can shove Island Artifacts onto reachable terrain with it!); Crystal Healing is a great replacement for Food, allowing you to Lutefisk it all with no worries (although saving a handful of Dire Sandwiches and Omelettes isn't a terrible idea); Nerve Staple allows you to stunlock anything and everything and gets very cheap as your Magic Power rises; and finally Firestarter deals a ton of single-target damage for a much lower mana cost than Exploding Runes or Obvious Fireballs. Now, you ramp up your Mana pool and casting "stamina". Put 2 Levels/Points into Magic Training to gain about 20 Max Mana, along with a few points of Magic Power. Get your Alchemy up to at least Level 3, so you get better returns on Booze and Vitae and are able to brew any Potion type; going up to Level 5 is fairly optional but does open up some solid Orb and Staff options. Each point also increases Sagacity for even more Mana and Spell Power. Somewhere in here, put at least 1 point into Blood Magic to get your Mana/kill up to 3 instead of only 2. When you can spare the point, getting the last skill will increase your Mana/kill to its maximum of 4. Basically, by the time you're Level 12 (or so), and have some Caster gear, your spells will be costing half as much mana as they would normally, and you can spam them for a very long time before needing to drink any booze - especially since your Mana pool should be over 100 at this point, and you're getting 3-4 mana back for every kill. Lastly, pop 2 points into Burglary in order to open up Ninja Vanish, which is great for everything from getting the ideal position to shoot a Bolt of Squid into a Monster Zoo, to escaping from a pack of monsters closing in from multiple sides, to playing Keep Away from Lord Dredmor himself. Another Point will get you Move in a Mysterious Way, a mana-less Teleport with a Cooldown. Coupled with the sight buff from Radiant Aura, you can teleport 10 or more tiles away - basically across the entire visible screen. Great for avoiding the normally "unavoidable" traps that you can't disarm and don't want to walk over, as well as letting you shortcut over large bodies of water/goop/lava. Very, very useful. Lastly, random pointers! * Turn any and all Sewer Brews into Dwarven Gut Rot. These can be drunk in Mana Emergencies or converted into Aqua Vitae (when needed) for the brewing of various Potions. The same applies to Fruit - fuck eating it, turn it ALL into Booze. Keep in mind that the Fruit Booze can be upgraded into Brandies by distilling it a second time, once you have 2 or 3 Alchemy Skill. * Don't worry about traps. You'll never be able to disarm anything unless you get lucky with some swap-able Trap Affinity backup gear. If you DO find such gear, go ahead and disarm what you can, at least on the first 2-3 Floors, as the extra XP you get is most important early on and completely trivial later. If you manage to pick a few traps up, remember that they sell reasonably well, or you can Cube them for more Lutefisk. * Getting that first 125 XP is always the hardest part. Getting enough XP to get to Level 3 (for the Wyrmling), relying mostly on Radiant Aura and Expensive Rune, is also rough. Any cosumables or gear you find early will be crucial. Don't save any consumables! Once you reach Level 3, the game gets reeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaally easy for the next 3-ish Floors, and you can then start to stockpile some "oh shit" items - Bolts, Potions, Fungi, Wands, etc. Early on, use them up: you might have to, to avoid an untimely death. * With no weapon skills and no starting weapon, you're at the mercy of RNG to get your character to Level 3. Try to avoid foes and get as much Lockpick'd XP as you can - seek out Chests and Doors and don't be afraid to Sleep things and just run away more: you can come back with your Wrymling and one-shot them all later. Finding Heavy Armor or a decent Wand can be the difference between "Dead" and "With a Wyrmling In Tow, Pwning All Challengers". Good lord this turned into a wall of text. But it worked for me: killed Dredmor using Ninja Vanish and Clockwork Drill Bolts/Squid Wands after clearing about 2/3rds of Floor 10, got a Score of 880,000 and was (at the time) ranked #38 on the GR/PD Global Ladder. Good luck!
A few notes on your suggestions: * The sagacity points you get from boosting alchemy are to make up for the fact that you otherwise get rogue stats from taking that levelup. You'd get more sagacity from pumping mage skills. Alchemy's therefore really not worth taking past level 3. * Ninja Vanish can be replaced by making potions of invisibility. You weren't going to use that coal for anything else anyway. Move in Mysterious Ways might still be decent, but I don't find myself needing it if I have both psionics and alchemy. Why teleport when you can just knock the enemy away and/or disappear? * Psychokinetic Shove can move traps out of the way. Very handy. * You can make it to level 2 with just Narcosomatic Induction, though it's tricky. That makes Astrology significantly less tempting IMO; I'd suggest mathemagics instead. Zenzi + recursive curse is hilariously broken. Plus, you get a targeted teleport, so no need for Move in Mysterious Ways.
Good points. But he mentioned specifically that he wanted advice on surviving at all points in the game and I've personally found that Radiant Aura is exceptional for this. Early on, it's a good source of DPS (and "getting surrounded in a corner" protection!). Later on, it can help if you're low on mana and your Wyrmling dies and you're in a dicey situation. Late game, the Sight Radius boost "buffs" other skills like Teleporting (in any of its forms) and any spell/item that does not have to travel in a line to the target. But yes, Mathemagic is also a good choice if you can survive the early levels with Induction and Dragon's Breath alone. I did not know about Shoving traps around. I feel dumb; this should have been obvious, especially given that I was using the Unarmed active abilities to shove Traps and doodads around on a different character. =/ Getting Alchemy up to Level 5 was an expiriment for me: I wanted to try out the Jangly Staff of Crystals and the Fruitful Staff. They were both underwhelming. And yes, the 2 Sagacity you get for the last 2 points is barely noticeable. So good call on that one, keeping it at 3 for "Max" Potion Brewing (unless you run out of other skills to put points in to). Re: Ninja Vanish vs. Invisibility Potions - I did find myself using most of the Coal I found for Alchemy (instead of making steel) and had about 2 dozen invisibility potions (gogo 50 straight round invisible achievment!) handy late-game. But I still used Move in a Mysterious Way, buffed by Radiant Aura, to get around levels faster or simply to get some mana-free range on a dangerous foe or newly-opened Monster Zoo. Your call on getting those 2 skills or simply, like you said, foregoing Radiant Aura and pumping up Mathemagic instead of Burglary.
I just won in 1.0.6 with a pure non-mage build, which was a lot of fun. I haven't actually played much with the magic skills, because I was determined to get a non-mage build to win the game. Stubborn, perhaps, but I did manage it in the end. My build was: Axes: High crit chance is important to minimize swings at late level monsters, also, I wanted to try for the all-cybernetics achievement. In the end, I think maces would have probably been a better choice, absent an attempt at the achievement, as Dwarven Handshake is fantastic for gaining room for more crossbow action. Crossbows: I tried to win with a pure melee build, and I'm pretty skeptical. You really need to dish out serious damage with your crossbow to have a shot later on, and this skill is really important to keep your bolt recovery rate up and boost your damage. I think it could be done without this, but it would be tougher. Dual-wield: Counter-attack is pure gold for a melee character, and the jump in damage here is also pretty crucial. You survive in melee by minimizing the number of swings your opponents get, and a few decent bolts and one whack with a dual-wielding character are enough to take out basically anything short of a unique monster. Master of Arms: If you're going to dual-wield, the extra defensive capabilities here are very important. You're looking to win the battle of attrition with the game, and this is a decent hedge. Assassination: Again, crit chance is huge to ensure fewer swings in combat and Blackjack is massive as well. Putting the lead monster to sleep in a train allows you to back off and resume with the bolts, lay down some acid or thermite, and just generally keep you safe. Maybe the most important skill in this build. Barbarian Rage: This was selected primarily for early level survivability. You need something to get you over the hump for the first few levels, and unless you find a couple lucky drops of ammo, you're going to run out of bolts. The extra boost in damage from this skill make a surprising difference. It's crap later, of course, and should be the last thing you level up. Tinkering: Crucial. You need the ability to make a great crossbow to mitigate the luck from drops, you need the ability to make your own bolts that don't suck and you need the ability to make explosives (especially Thermite Bombs). Leveling strategy: For your first level, I always take a point in Axes. That, plus finding a second axe of basically any quality will put you in a strong position for the level 1 monsters, and it's unlikely you will have much to worry about on the rest of the floor. If you don't find a second axe, you may need to take a second point in axes for your second skill point, but you probably won't. Instead, I start dumping everything into Tinkering. The goal here is to be able to maximize the quality of your bolts and to try and climb the ladder on your crossbow quickly. The disarming XP helps quite a bit as well. If you get lucky with crafting components, it doesn't take much to get to a Steel Lever Crossbow pretty quickly, which will make short work of most of the stuff you find in the early part of the game. Try and be judicious with your bolts early, though - with dual-wielding, you are going to do a ton of damage in combat, so you can often skip the prep fire or just soften targets with one bolt before letting them come in to be whacked. After pegging Tinkering, I usually go back and finish off Axes, then Crossbows. At this point, it depends largely on what kind of armor I've found from drops. If I've gotten lucky, I'll do Assassination and then Dual-Wield. However, if my damage intake is poor, I'll focus on Master of Arms until I'm doing OK from that. Barbarian Rage, of course, is last no matter what you do. Make sure you hang on to parts for the Tinker's Goggles, you'll need them for Overclocked Clockwork Power Arms and the Clockwork Bolt-thrower, which are both excellent. The overclocked power arms also make great anvil fodder in late game, because they're relatively inexpensive to replace in parts, so you can get an excellent set without too much effort. Risks: once you get off the ground and get a few levels under you and a couple workable axes, you aren't going to be in a ton of danger until the 4th floor. However, the 4th contains some pretty serious dangers. In particularly, thermoblobbies are strangely hazardous to you, because your resistances will probably suck. I've had several characters die in the 4th floor zoo due to bad sequences. Zoos are pretty manageable, just run to a choke point and drop acid, poison and a thermite bomb to filter the baddies, and then plug away with bronze bolts, hacking the few baddies that make it to you. You'll want to hoard bolts of squid to use for the last couple levels. The 7th floor was also a problem for me, the packs of ice based creatures really dealt out a lot of damage, but the 8th and 9th weren't too bad at all (Big Red can be pretty dangerous, if you aren't careful). By the time I hit the 10th floor, I had stockpiled a dozen or so Grilled Cheese sandwiches and about 10 Deep Omelets, so I was in decent shape on the food. I also had 11 bolts of squid and 4 mass destruction ready to go, along with stacks and stacks of other good bolts and explosives. I double-squidded the final zoo, along with liberal uses of acid bottle bolts, thermite and poison bottle bolts and basically everything was dying to one or two shots before they made it to me. The fight with Dredmor was a shootout and very close, I was on 2 h.p. when I brought him down. I think this build would actually have been improved with alchemy instead of Barbarian Rage - the only real problem I had late game was that I ran out of healing potions before the final fight. It would have required a bit more luck to get established, but the endgame wouldn't have been anywhere near as close if I had a stockpile of potions to work off of.
Alchemy is good for everyone Was the crossbow skill worth it? I've never really tried it. I made a similar axe-wielder and beat gr/pd, but with smithing and alchemy instead of rage and xbow.
I'd like to suggest Fungal Arts instead of Alchemy. Pets help loads with zoos, fungi do everything you ever need to do to support a non-mage character, and the fact that it's Rogue levels instead of Wizard levels helps with your critical chance even more.
I think it was probably worth it. I was starting to run low on quality bolts towards the end of my game, and having the higher recovery rate really did help. Also, I was really close to breakpoints on monsters on the final level, where three bolts plus one melee swing was just barely enough to kill things, and the extra bit of damage from the crossbow tree might have put it over the top. I had equipment at the end that was probably about as good as I could have made for myself (well, probably my boots could have been slightly better), so I'm not sure that Smithing would have made much of a difference for this build. Without a doubt, Alchemy would have been a huge improvement, though.
Fungal Arts, that's a good idea, I haven't actually tried that out. Zoos weren't really too much of a problem for me, given my high damage absorption - I'd just run around a choke point, load it down with AoE effects from my bolts and plow through them.
I had similar numbers on killing the final enemies. It was also around 3 bolts plus a melee swing if I really wanted to avoid fighting things face on. I'm sure it had a lot to do with luck though. I found a ridiculous crossbow out of an uberchest. I always take smithing with melee characters. It helps a whole lot in the short run, and a lot of the gear I craft I keep until the end anyway. The rings of iron thorns were also a bonus... I never did try using the overclockwork limbs. I've been considering it for this run, since axes got a crit buff. If you can get by without smithing, then yeah, it seems like a good idea to drop it for something else. Tri-crafting really does seem to synergize though. You can make steel extremely easily since you can transmute gems to black pearls, and be on your way to the clockwork axes very very early. For what it's worth, I was also able to transmute gems into emeralds to make the necklaces, but I never got anything good. It only took 2 points in alchemy to create the highest quality booze (to upkeep syzygy) and get the max # of healing potions.
I used to always take Smithing as well, since it was a huge burst early on being able to fill in the gaps in your kit without having to worry about drops. When I finally wrapped up, I had a Rift Axe from a Chest of Evil in one hand and some ridiculous artifact from Inconsequentia in the other, and I got an artifact Serpentine Platemail from the Lutefisk God, along with a St. Whatshisface helmet, so it was really just boots that would have been good. I think the build would have probably worked OK with something instead of Crossbows, I was actually wondering if the dodge skill might have been better. But the core of weapon skill + dual-wield + master of arms + assassination + tinkering + alchemy (or maybe fungal arts) is a really solid base for a non-magic using build and there are some decent options for the last slot.
I'm not sure if dodge would be too helpful since heavy armors have a huge dodge penalty. However, I am definitely not one of the stats inclined players here. I just play. Other people (like stw123) actually calculate numbers
