Project: Community Skills Guide

Discussion in 'Dungeons of Dredmor General' started by Lorrelian, Apr 14, 2012.

  1. GreyICE

    GreyICE Member

    Also, in the writeup for demonology I'd totally mention removing items from pedestals (and destroying walls). It's not the most impressive piece of utility, but it's something that Warriors generally lack unless they take Psionics (which isn't an awful choice at all for a warrior, but isn't mandatory by any means).

    I knew No, You are the Demons was terrible when I took it (on floor 15), but I wanted that damn achievement and Dredmor was getting rocked by encrust procs no matter what I did. But it still managed to utterly exceed my expectations on how bad it was.

    Celestial Circle tree is nice, but overall it can be a bit of a crutch. That being said... crutches are often fine.
     
  2. Lorrelian

    Lorrelian Member

    This thread has been running for over four months. What have I done? Also, this totally should have been posted yesterday. That was even my day off. What's wrong with me?

    Piracy
    Type: Rogue
    Role: Turbocharger or Fuel Tank
    Piracy makes you better at a certain flavor of melee combat or provides you with a certain type of fairly rare crafting resource.
    Theme: Avast, Me Hearties, I'll Shiver Yer Timbers!
    Strategy:
    Buckle that swash and swing through the battlefield in a whirlwind of iron close and far.
    Pros:
    Piracy is a counter-puncher's number one survival skill, and the flagship skill of the swashbuckling, or rogue/warrior hybrid, archetype. The Swashbuckling skill makes you a melee god for a handful of rounds. Mists of the Corsair lets you vanish into the dungeon once those rounds are over. The Black Spot is a decent debuff, particularly for enemies that are hard to hit. Plus you can stockpile cannonballs and jewels, for use or sale, and Caddishness is a buff to important combat stats like Critical Hit, Counter and HP.
    Cons:
    Piracy just doesn't do that much for someone who's not planning to get close and personal. Plunder is a nice source of cash but rogues planning to keep their distance can get it better elsewhere, and won't get much from the rest of the tree. Broadside just isn't worth it for the dedicated thrower, particularly when there are sawblades and other such things available elsewhere.
    Synergies:
    Gems go well with all the crafting skills but Tinkering as ingredients, and selling a pile of them lets you buy more ingredients from vending machines. Swords and Dual Wield go with the swashbuckler theme, while Master of Arms and Shield Bearer let you keep your AA and block up without sacrificing nimbleness and counter attack. Artful Dodger and Burglary both buff Nimbleness significantly, which will up your counter chance.
    Avoid both Pole Arms and Battle Geology, those offer buffs and/or require equipment that lower your Critical and Counter chances, the core of the Piratical identity.
    Takeaway:
    Piracy is one of those skills that makes great "filler" for those last one or two slots in your build, particularly if you're not taking crafting or, conversely, want to craft one or two powerful pieces of jewelry but not much else, and you don't want the commitment of taking Perception. In that position, it's incredibly solid and, if used right, also a lot of fun. And that's the important part, aye matey?
     
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  3. Tycho

    Tycho Member

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  4. I personally find the Plunder ability of Piracy to go especially well with Alchemy- the transmutation skill at level 3 lets you create any gem you want, given enough time.

    And with Archeology, Piracy, and Alchemy you can manufacture experience once you've found the Windows of the Elements recipe. 3 skills is a heavy investment for that ability, though.
     
  5. Lorrelian

    Lorrelian Member

    Whew. New PDF in the OP, and with that I'm outta here for the weekend. See you on Monday for a new Dungeon Delving post! Also look forward to a new skill on Tuesday and possibly an update to Exotic Damages And You later in the week. ^_^
    [/self promotion]
     
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  6. Turbo164

    Turbo164 Member

    Do attack buffs get consumed on Counter nowadays? Because I remember a while back, people used to stack :counter: (Swashbuckling ahoy!), activate Killing Blow from Berserking, then press space bar four times while everything around you died.
     
  7. Lorrelian

    Lorrelian Member

    Time for the last RotDG skill! At this rate, I may even be able to call the thread done before I have to reopen it for the next expansion. =/

    Killer Vegan
    Type: Warrior
    Role: Turbocharger or Payload
    Veganism makes you a hardcore tank, boosting your resilience immensely. You can frontload this for instant results or wait until late in the game. Admittedly, it's much better if you frontload it...
    Theme: No Cheese For You!
    Strategy:
    Turn your insane physical stats and ability to avoid fights loose on the dungeon! Just remember to bring something to shoot or throw.
    Pros:
    The bonuses to Burl and Nimbleness translate into decent bonuses to melee power, EDR and dodge chance. The radiance damage boost is good at any stage of the game, but particularly huge on the first three or four floors. Between that and the raw Burl, Vegan gives +8 damage above and beyond class stats, which is very, very nice. Radiance damage is the least resisted damage in the game, and more monsters are vulnerable to it than anything else. +5 health regeneration is a huge boon to tank builds. But the biggest bonus of the skill is, hands down, the 33 HP you get. It makes mages unsquishy without any outside help. It makes tanks last a full extra hit. It gives you just enough HP to squeak out of who knows how many sticky situations, and you can usually have it by the end of DL 1.
    Oh, and animals don't attack you. Did I mention that? It's kind of important.
    Cons:
    Melee attacks to animals cause you debuffs. That's not a huge deal, you can always shoot them with arrows or, better yet, throw things with your massive damage bonuses. The real catch here is, you can't eat any food with animal products in them, so no cheeses, sandwiches, omelets, ect. Each time you do this, you get debuffs, and as you go farther in the tree the debuffs get worse. The final skill removes one stack of those debuffs, but you'll still need to be careful in managing them, as they more than undo the benefits of the tree after stacking a few times.
    Synergies:
    All wizard skills like not getting hit by some monsters, particularly because they can attack those monsters with impunity. Blood Mage particularly benefits, as the only monsters with radiant damage are animals, so the weakness to that damage type is completely negated just by having Killer Vegan. Demonology is the same.
    Vampirism and Veganism synergism is strange. More health regeneration is always great for vampires. On the other hand, animals are a vampire's best source of food. It can get... weird.
    Takeaway:
    I only recommend taking Vegan if you plan on using Blood Magic or rushing it right out of the gate. The bonuses from Vegan are huge in the first third of the game, which is probably the most difficult as well. While you can wait to get them until later, you'll be dragging the cons of the tree with you the whole time. Note that Veganism is a great alternative to Smithing if you are a dedicated Non Crafter. It gives you all of the survivability with none of the inventory management. Although there is some debuff management. If you can put up with that, though, Killer Vegan is a very, very good skill.
     
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  8. Kazuhiro

    Kazuhiro Member

    Vampires don't regenerate health, do they?
     
  9. Lorrelian

    Lorrelian Member

    Their abilities now scale to health regen.
     
  10. Nicholas

    Nicholas Technology Director Staff Member

    Are there plans to update the old skills in order to account for new changes in the game since the Skills Guide started?
     
  11. Kazuhiro

    Kazuhiro Member

    ...whaaat?

    I don't get this at all. So it's a wizard tree, and its abilities scale to a stat that you can only obtain via intentionally stacking gear with a stat that doesn't do anything for you?
     
  12. Kazeto

    Kazeto Member

    And you have to fight in melee to regenerate health. So if it scaled with magic power, you would have to choose between actually having magic power to be able to heal, or having any sort of decent armour not to die when something hits you. The decision to change it came after a long discussion and some testing, so you don't have to get it instantly; just read said discussion.
     
  13. Kazuhiro

    Kazuhiro Member

    I see. So it's not Magic Power because hurting vampires for wearing heavy armor would be too brutal. It's also not a primary or secondary stat, which would bias vampirism too strongly towards certain characters--instead it's a stat that's kind of its own thing. It's also a stat that's related to gaining health.

    Hm! This is why other people design these things, not me.
     
  14. Ruigi

    Ruigi Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Cool trick with Veganism and Magic Law:
    You can use the "Rune of Objection" ability to give your Fallen Vegan debuffs to your enemies. A great way to debuff a unique moster while healing at the same time!
     
  15. Mr_Strange

    Mr_Strange Member

    I'm been hoping to use "Objection" to pass off acid debuffs... keeping some acids on hand just to drink and pass...
     
  16. Lorrelian

    Lorrelian Member

    Ah, yes. Actually, there was. I know Vampirism is one skill that needs it. But there are still a few months before we've covered everything once, so I'll wait until then to assemble a list of what exactly needs revisiting. Gives you guys a little time to tweak things like Werediggle Curse. ;)
     
  17. flagoon

    flagoon Member

    As for Killer Vegan, I'm not sure if it's a bug or a feature, but in Wizardlands animals will attack you. At least they are attacking my melee oriented Killer Vegan and it's a pain!
     
  18. Lorrelian

    Lorrelian Member

    Time for YHTNTEP! Since the subject of Clockwork Knights has already been broached, we might as well start there.

    At this point I also want to introduce a new term, which I'll be using: Symbiotic. A symbiotic skill is a skill built and balanced with another skill taken into account. Symbiotic skills are probably a little stronger than par when taken with their partner skill(s) but a little weaker than normal without. They may also have different roles.

    Clockwork Knight
    Type: Warrior
    Role: Turbocharger or Payload, if fully Symbiotic functions as an Engine
    Clockwork Knight gives you a number of useful and nifty abilities that make you better in combat. Many of them can wait until the late game to be unlocked. But if you're a dedicated Clockwork Knight, you also unlock gear that will make you nigh-unstoppable.
    Theme: For Queen and Empire!
    Strategy:
    Harness the full potential of your tinkerer's tools to manufacture some of the most intimidating heavy armor in the game, then take the fight to the enemy and pound them into the ground.
    Pros:
    All of the activated abilities are very powerful and scale well to warrior stats, namely melee power and armor absorption. While you probably don't want to try and go smashy into the center of a monster zoo, you probably could pull it off with a little luck. The extra smithing and tinkering skill makes it very possible for you to simply build anything you could want or need, and Tech Scavenge ensures you'll have what you need to do it with, even on NTTG. Finally, it gives you pretty much all the best warrior recipes except the overclockworked powerlimb. Even without symbiosis, the few ranks of smithing and tinkering you get let you make decent gear and give access to some decent encrusts.
    Cons:
    Full Symbiosis requires both Smithing and Tinkering, although just Tinkering will give you full power rocket boots you'll want Smithing to make things possible early on. The best moves have long cooldowns and the skill tree provides nothing that's passive except for the Clockwork Threshing ability, so you'll have to manage your activated abilities carefully. It also clogs the skill bar; a single magic tree, or even an active heavy rogue or warrior tree like Paranormal Investigator or Communism, will not have enough spots for abilities. Getting full value from the tree requires crafting, which is a turn off for some players.
    Synergies:
    As said before, the skill is symbiotic with Smithing and Tinkering. Perception doubles up with Tech Scavenging to ensure a constant source of materials. Master of Arms and Shield Bearer make some of your abilities better, Berserk Rage helps out all of them. Clockwork Ravagers are generally agreed to be the beast weapon for Clockwork Knights, so Axes might not be a bad investment.
    Takeaway:
    Clockwork Knight is a fun skill for warriors that offers a lot of options and a lot of flavor with a heft bit of power to back it up. The theme of building your own gear goes hand in hand with the theme of steampunk, but even if that's a turn off for you, there's still a lot you can find in this tree. It just won't be everything.
     
  19. Lorrelian

    Lorrelian Member

    Warlockery
    Type: Wizard
    Role: Engine or Payload
    Warlockery is a very focused "gish", or melee mage skill. Which is funny, because it actually has a lot to offer just about everyone.
    Theme: Magic Over Muscle
    Strategy:
    Hit it with steel and magic, or use magic to make it possible to hit it with steel!
    Pros:
    For starters, most of the tree's damage is aetherial, which generally isn't resisted. Chronomantic Twist offers interesting options for those nasty boss fights, and Warlock's Challenge is really, really great for enemies with ranged attacks. Manacalypse is an almost stupid good area nuke, even with its drawback. All of the spells are really powerful when you are, well, empowered.
    Puissant Touch/Veil are very good abilities. The Touch lets you deal damage even when an enemy dodges you and the Veil's retaliatory casting is both neat and a great time saving device. It gives gish builds a lot of oomph when surrounded. Mana Maille is kind of absurd. It prevents from 2 - 6 points of damage per attack received at the low cost of 2 mana each. Over the course of the game that will prevent a truly staggering amount of damage, and is about as good as a midlevel shield which you need no gear slot for. Any character will benefit from having these three abilities, even if they're not a mage and have no appreciable mana recover method outside of booze.
    Cons:
    Maintaining Essence of Battle is a headache and it's hefty penalty on cancellation is enough to give everyone who's not a dedicated caster pause. Arcane Capacitor can be a double edged sword if not managed carefully. In fact, all of the abilities of Warlockery, except Puissant Touch, require careful managing if you don't want to get burned somehow. The management may not appeal to all players.
    Synergies:
    Any skill that provides bonus mana is good for boosting your Puissant Touch and keeping Essence of Battle around. Ley Lines, in particular, is a must have, and Magic Training is nice for the raw sagacity boosts. Tourist gives a point of mana regen, but your mileage there might vary. You might want Smithing to make yourself a Mana Torus or two, or Alchemy can upgrade your booze. Both together make the Torus a little more likely. Master of Arms and Shield Bearer will make your Warlock less squishy without impairing magic power or mana regen.
    Takeaway:
    Warlockery is a build around skill. You can take it, but you'll probably need a lot of support to make it fulfill its role. On the other hand, you can just take it for a smattering of fun defensive abilities, if you're looking for a change of pace. Who knows, it may win you over to a full fledged Warlockery run next time you head down the stairs...
     
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  20. Kazeto

    Kazeto Member

    Actually, that one was to be expected. If something is a "gish skill", then it is supposed to benefit casters and non-casters equally (or at least close to equally), so it can be used by every kind of character but for different things. But you likely know that already, so I won't elaborate on that.
     
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