Help break me out of my comfort zone!

I think the bolt could kill a pure wizard character in one hit if I'm not mistaken but I still kinda alright with that.

 

Dredmor's spells override his melee attack, so if he rolls a spell on his turn (and there's something like 16 spells in his spellbook, each with an 80% cast chance, so it's unlikely he won't roll a spell) you're only in danger of his counter attack. Which is about 60%, IIRC. But since that attack exposes him to your counter attack, and you're a melee fighter who should have about 40-60 counter chance already, odds are good you'll get a second shot. Assuming your attack wasn't a critical, in which case his counter won't work and his block is much less impressive.

In short, what a melee fighter really needs to kill Dredmor is EDR, to force criticals through, Critical Hit chance to negate Dredmor's other two layers of defense and Counter if you're feeling anxious. Add a stack invisibility items to get you close to him and give you time to heal and you're good to go.

 

I'll keep that all in mind.
It's just, I was always able to get close to him without worrying about being blasted by spells. So, I don't know what's going on there.

 

I got lucky in my last fight with him -- he was anti-magicked a couple of separate times during the fight (he must have gone over a trap).

What was really funny was that I went down the stairs from floor 14 to 15, expecting that I'd have to hunt him down... and he was immediately adjacent to the stairs. I ran up the stairs and hunted down a different staircase so I could start at a greater distance, since I was primarily Viking-focused mage hybrid (built as melee and gradually shifted to pure caster relying primarily on spamming Thor's Bolt).

 

I wanted to return to this thread and triumphantly post a screencap of my destruction of Dredmor with either of the 2 characters I was plowing through the last few levels to him (one on DL12 and one on DL14).

Sadly, however, in my excitement today over the expansion, I loaded the game via Steam and as per usual, Steam wiped all of my saves. Cue panic. Cue anguish. Cue a foul mouth that I would make a Diggle blush. I mean, for the first time EVER, Krong hadn't been having a hate-on for me! Can that ever happen again?! And why oh why did I decide 'Eh, I should sleep before I battle Dredmor' about the character that was on DL14?

But, all in all, I was successfully nudged out of my comfort zone. I delighted in 100 . I have discovered the Zoomolishing glory of Miasmatic Putrefaction, and I wish to explore more ways to make Zoos melt before me. Now I want to play with Golemancy, because having my own thaumites sounds fun, and I'd love a way to bust through dungeon walls to discover these 'secret rooms'. I wish to run wild and free down the halls as a Communist Bankster. I might even become a Vegan Vampire, and enjoy it. I haven't yet pulled totally away from Rogue skills, but I don't tie myself up in them anymore.

So, again, thanks for the advice!