Brass tacks,time! I got Dungeons of Dredmor a few days ago. So,I'm new. But,big whoop,eh? Anyways,I played a smattering of skills,but find the basis of Clockwork Knight,Smithing,and Tinkering to be the most stable. It got me to floor four,where I promptly got obliterated by a Zoo,behind my first (and only) door. Since then,I've been experimenting with that base. I seem to always default to CWK,Tink,Smith,Dual,and Axes,as I've done a tiny bit of homework,and discovered that Clockwork Ravagers just utterly OBLITERATE things with CWK's and OC'd Limbs. And the active skills are nothing to sneeze at,either,so long as you can stack fire resist,and get the armour to ignore the blast. But,here's the rub: I never survive long enough to get those delicious toys. I know the build is solid,for the most part. So,I'm obviously doing something wrong. Here's what I do; -Rush the Damping Field. Gets me a level into Tinkerer,and two into Smithing; get Steel Axes simultaneously. -Sink points into Smithing,since the endgame gear is based on the fruits of Smithing. From here on out is theory,since I die by this point. -Make steady progress to a full Clockwork set,either Imperial or Boilerplate. Longest phase,and praying that the RNG will grant the blueprints for the base items and the end results. -End goal is a pair of OC'd arms,CW Ravagers,and a suit of Clockwork Armour. Now,considering that I routinely saw one thousand damage firing off on one of my better runs on floor two with one of the abilities (I forget which),that's something. That,or I was seeing multiple damage reports clustered together. I like how this build plays,and I want to ride it to Vlad and the realm of the gods. With that kind of damage output,can you blame me? Skills to go with what I run with,skill substitutions for the better,level order,anything. I see the potential. It is GLORIOUS. I just need some help getting it out. Now,I'm running the Roguish Renovation,Interior Dredmorating,and Craft'n'Smelt Light'n'Shiny version on full sized floors,since I can never seem to get my crafting components anyways.
I don't know what additional skills you are taking on top of those you mentioned, but maybe supplement those core skills with ones that add to survivability. That can include defense-oriented skills, skills with a heal, and/or a skill with an escape or a skill with a pet. Skills you may want to consider including one or more of Communism, Fungal Arts, Master of Arms, Burglary, Demonology (only to Celestial Circle), Battle Geology, and/or Dodge. Furthermore, Perception is always a good companion skill when combined with Smithing and/or Tinkering, as it will get you (eventually) all the ore and ingots that you'll need, once you've put enough points into it.
Archaeology will let you level up faster with "it belongs in a museum" When I level up a clockwork knight build I take rocket punch, as my first level up, then I focus on getting smithing to 4-5. rocket punch is a good skill on the early levels because the rocket punch can knock artifacts off of unreachable places like island rooms on level 1. Leveling up your craft skills early is the most important part of playing a clockwork knight because your goal is to build into whatever equipment setup you've planned for yourself. CKs like to use tinkered clockwork weapons like chainaxes, tesla rods, or chainswords, with power limbs, power armor etc. In the early game you'll probably go for fine steel swords/axes/maces with heavy metal armor. recipe hunting is very important for clockwork knights because they are so gear dependent. The good clockwork recipes usually require a crafted blacksmith item as the base, so it's often best to level up blacksmith first unless you just happen to come across a fine steel axe at dungeon level 3 (unlikely). Once you've memorized most of the crafting recipes you should know exactly what to look for in the dungeon to build up your equipment. If its getting hard to find crafting materials, try playing the game with "no time to grind' disabled.
So,with the mods I got,what with allowing me to break down equipment with diminishing returns,and creative use of the Rocket Fist to steal from Brax,I've amassed quite a bit of Steel to build my base gear with. And Ruigi,thanks for the tip. I was generally rocking Vampirism and Master of Arms as my electives. This time I've swapped out Vamp for Archaeology,and it's helped quite a bit.
you were using vampirism? Vampirism is considered "hard mode" for Dredmor. If you want to heal yourself, you're better off with taking fleshsmithing or communism.
Taking Vampirism without sufficient skills and selecting gear that supports vampirism is certainly giving yourself a handicap. That said, if you create a build around Vampirism, it can be very powerful. Here's my Vamp build that brought me all the way to Dredmor, with the added handicap of having to lutefisk anything that I could not immediately use, wear or wield or that would not fit on my toolbar: 1. Master of Arms 2. Unarmed 3. Shield Mastery 4. Vampirism 5. Burglary 6. Tourist 7. Berserk Rage Description of the run rules are here, for anyone wanting to try a similar attempt: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/dodcr/discussions/0/792923684091178203/
