The Happy Dance!

Discussion in 'Dungeons of Dredmor General' started by Incendax, Jul 21, 2011.

  1. Incendax

    Incendax Member

    I've been watching a lot of 'Let's Play' videos and one major reoccurring theme I see is lack of a maneuver I call the Happy Dance. Some may consider it an exploit, some may consider it good tactics, and I personally consider it the key to consistently surviving the first level of Going Rogue difficulty.

    What is the Happy Dance, you might ask? Maneuvering around a trap in order to lure an enemy into it over and over again. Whenever you come across a Gargoyle Trap or Bolt Trap of any sort, remember it and conserve your health/mana by luring ground based enemies to that location, then begin the Happy Dance!

    Rule #1 of Happy Dancing! If enemies are at range, focus on killing any flying enemies first. They don't like to dance.
    Rule #2 of Happy Dancing! If there are are multiple ground enemies, manually kill the weakest ones then Happy Dance the rest to conserve resources.
    Rule #3 of Happy Dancing! You can close doors to separate enemies, then Happy Dance each smaller group to death!
    Rule #4 of Happy Dancing! Wands of Laser, and Poison Ampoule Bolts make great dance partners!
     
  2. Hmm-Hmm.

    Hmm-Hmm. Member

    Also, any skill which helps seperate enemies could be of aid. Sleep, a lucky blackjack and pushback skills, for instance.
     
  3. Incendax

    Incendax Member

    This is very true! Each of those things and more can make a successful Happy Dance much easier to accomplish. However, at its very core there is no skill combination in the game which cannot benefit from this tactic.
     
  4. Hmm-Hmm.

    Hmm-Hmm. Member

    I think it's kind of funny that you sometimes get 'surprise xp' by enemies killing themselves on traps in rooms you've either not been to or in which you've left traps lying about.
     
  5. MikeW

    MikeW Member

    The happy dance is great! Using the environment to give you an advantage over the enemies. Sometimes this can work badly because you can get surrounded and/or forced onto a trap yourself... happened to me D: Even so, it is great and effective.
     
  6. Grey

    Grey Member

    You can get flying critters hit by gargoyle arrow traps by stepping on the trap yourself if the enemy is between you and the trap.
     
  7. waitwhat

    waitwhat Member

    If you have psionics or any ability that can stop enemies in place, then this can help also in positioning enemies to trigger traps repeatedly.

    On Going Rogue its the only way I know to survive when you havent found weapon upgrades or better spells etc.
     
  8. satoru

    satoru Member

    Well patch 1.04 is going to nerf acid traps so the "Happy Dance" is going to be more of a "Dance on the body of the adventurer for making us run around"

    But I don't really consider this a bug/exploit. It's just an environment DoT. It also can be hard to find the 'optimal' location for these kinds of things, so if you can get the right tile placement I don't see a problem with using this.
     
  9. Incendax

    Incendax Member

    @Satoru I have no idea what you are talking about. While finding a Gargoyle ACID Trap in a good position is always a delight and makes for quick work of enemies, I do 90% of my Happy Dancing with ordinary Gargoyle Traps/Bolt Traps and it works just fine.

    Lure them in twice, then whack them once! Or if you're a dedicated mage you can lure them in three times while you CC the rest. It's like a Highland Sword Dance!
     
  10. ComradeRoost

    ComradeRoost Member

    I've been doing this forever in hallways and personally helped me live through my first vampire's first monster zoo. I had no idea it had a name.
     
  11. LordIacobus

    LordIacobus Member

    This topic is full of win. Both informative AND hilarious. I salute you, Incendax!