1841

It sounds like roguelikes may not be for you. If you find it grinding and repetitive, why not just move on to something else?

1842

Well, I see some appeal in the game. It can have negative parts, but also positive ones. For now I will play more, but I suspect I will be tired of it after 3 or 4 floors more.
Maybe I will try another build in a “short mode” game, to see how it is then, a faster pace should improve it.

edit: for reference, I never got to finish a Diablo (I or II) game in all my life :P.

1843

Inventory size is not moddable but it is something I badly want to do something about. It’s definitely on a todo list somewhere.

Likewise the repetitiveness and grinding is something I personally absolutely loathe (hence the “no time to grind” option) and I would like to do more to address the issue. Though there’s also a category of fans who want /more/ grinding and have requested an ‘endless dungeon’ mode. I don’t really get it, but I recognize it. I’m glad we focused on more and deeper content for the expansion because I don’t think endless grinding has much appeal (nor does it play to the strengths of the game).

So: I recommend “no time to grind” with permadeath activated on “going rogue”. Don’t worry about clearing entire floors, just descend when you feel like it. And have a beer in hand.

1844

This is my build

Flehshsmithing 3 (nice support magic skill, the first three spells are my buff spell, my debuff spell and my heal spell)
Staves 5 (my melee skill)
Crosbows 1 (barely used, i have to admit, maybe after i max staves)
Golemancy 2 (my offensive spell + pet)
Magic Training 1
Ley walker 2 (for my mana needs)
Perception 1

1845

No, ive seen that. What I’m actually looking for is a list of what changes were made to the original skills.

1846

Ah, well you can go to the wiki page for a skillset and click view history to see what’s been changed between the most recent version and whatever it was back in September. If you’re just quickly looking for what new skills were added to the old lines, then as a general rule of thumb whichever ones have the redheaded heroine instead of the old hero in the picture are new.

Well I do hate to say it, but you appear to have chosen all the most passive and least offense oriented skill trees in the game there. You can either push on and get to the point where your mustaches start being killed way faster and you have to work harder and use new spells to stay alive, or start a new character with more explosions and active skills.

1847

Fleshsmithing is actually no slouch, but you’ll be running around a lot while it works.

1848

I’d suggest focusing on your spells more. Either Miasmatic Putrefaction, in Fleshsmithing, or Invive Thaumite Swarm, in Golemancy, will deal much more damage than Fleshbore or Animate Blade Being. Thaumites will hit an enemy 8 times with each hit hurting about as much as one Blade Being.

My furthest character is currently:

Crossbow 5
Tinkering 5
Fleshsmithing 6
Viking Wizardry 6
Magic Training 5
Vampire 4
Blood Magic 1

… at character level 25, dungeon level 13. Putrefaction is my main damage dealer, with Fulminaric Bolt and a crossbow for enemies that resist gas. Right now I’m wielding a staff and a Kronged-up Tome of Universal Principles - the book’s elemental damage helps my crossbow and the bonus magic blast can paralyze enemies. Most enemies drop in 2 or 3 hits, but Muscle Diggles are scary. Muscle Diggles are so damn scary. What psychopath thought those up, anyway?

1849

Well I do hate to say it, but you appear to have chosen all the most passive and least offense oriented skill trees in the game there. You can either push on and get to the point where your mustaches start being killed way faster and you have to work harder and use new spells to stay alive, or start a new character with more explosions and active skills.

Hey, I still haven’t finished the character! I plan to finish maxing the staff skill, because it’s the closest one to its max (only one to go!), and then level up or fleshsmithing or golemancy.

But it’s true I did a “support” mixed wizard/warrior character, instead of a more direct, damage dealing character. It’s by design, this character have a lot of “active skills”, as you say it. I found it more entertaining. Exactly, I use 6 actions in a regular way (melee and 5 spells/skills) and an additional two other spells from time to time. Apart from using the good bolts with the crossbow or the wands for strong enemies. And that number will grow when i level up more: still on the 4th floor!
I could have done a axes/berserk/vampire/assassin/dual wielding character, but that seems to me more boring, as it’s based in stacking up lots of passive bonuses.

1850

Heh, i know some people will think I am a “casual” because i prefer the save option instead of permadeath. There is no risk then!, blah blah blah. I will go one step further and i will add that, in fact, the game needs an autosave option.

Because today i died three times in the same floor (and one more yesterday around the same point), the four times starting again from the same save. Each time i forgot to save, absorbed by the game combat, exploration and loot, advancing greedily and thinking nothing could stand my way.

And actually it was truth, I am not finding this floor hard for my character or anything like that, I advance at good pace… until the statistics laugh at my face, because the levels are pretty big, so at some point there will be a moment where there will be a combination of me having bad luck with two traps, and at the same time having an encounter with more numerous/stronger enemies than usual, and having bad luck with the “dice” with the monsters blocking and/or avoiding and countering my hits three times in a row (just happened me 20 mins ago).
Yes, i could have prepared myself better, but i lower my guard because 19 of 20 times I’m not having problems.

The last time i died, i cursed aloud because again i forgot to save after advancing a big section, and quit the game, thinking “fuck this shit, i will play some Batman or BF3”.

That said, I am already thinking on my next character build. :P

1851

And this, I think, is the essence of roguelikes.

1852

I’m already thinking on my next character build, because honestly, is my favorite part of the game. I love the originality of the concepts, the names of them, the names of each skill, the variety of combinations to make your own custom class, etc.

It’s what it sold me on the game, just reading the name of the skills and the descriptions of what they do. I mean: Emomancy? Necronomiconomics? Fleshsmithing? Werediggle? Fungal Arts? Vampirism? Mathematic? Archaelogy? YES YES YES
Not only they are funny, but it turns on my imagination, making me think about the possibilities of having a pirate vampire expert in magic viking or a psionic berserker with emo spells.
I loves games with an oddball twist.

1853

I’m finding the werediggle skill to be overpowered. A really strong combo of offensive and defensive buffs. I coupled it with dual-weilding and found myself doing 30+ damage per hit by level 8 or so.

The Auger is a great utility ability to top it off, making it not just offensive. The invisibility allows you to run away on those rare occasions when you’re caught flat-footed.

1854

This is the essence of a roguelike in many ways. The dungeon is big. There will be MANY occasions where there is a small chance you will die. Over the course of completing the dungeon, the odds will eventually overcome you. So the key is to recognize those moments, realize the possibility that your next action could get you killed, and do something different instead.

Embrace that idea, and you may find yourself clicking on that permadeath box before you know it.

1855

This is exactly why I love the game so much.

I mentioned your skill choices being the most passive because you complained about being bored since you kill everything in the same way. Ley Walker, Magic Training, and Perception are just piles of stat buffs until you max them out and get Eye Lasers, Archery just lets you shoot people harder, and Staff combat is pretty straight forward. So the things that will give you more options in approaching situations are Fleshsmithing and Golemancy, but until you get them to level 6 Fleshsmithing is pretty much a support skill and Golemancy mostly summons golems. Basically until you level up a bunch your main play is you beating things to death while they are distracted by your mustache, which is why I said to either press on or try something else that brings in more options sooner.

Edit: I also want to add that there’s no shame in playing without permadeath. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten past level 8 with it on, so with the expansion I shut it off and turned on No Time To Grind in the hopes of one day getting down past the 10th floor and seeing the realm of the Diggle Gods.

1856

I reached the 5th floor, yay.

I also leveled up twice while clearing the 4th floor (the second to last room was the zoo). I decided to level up now Golemancy, as the Thaumite Swarm & Mortal Machine seems good, but the spell just before (Unliving Wall) is kind of crappy. I get it, i am supposed to use it to create walls and separate big groups, i suppose, but meh.

It’s true Perception and Magic Training are “filler” skills in my build, but even I don’t plan to level up these skills in the first place, so it’s not very important if their tree doesn’t have a lot of active skills. My main ones are staves, golemancy and fleshsmith. And Thaumaturgic Tap rocks.
ut i have to admit i didn’t notice the archery skill was so bland, it’s all passive buffs. I am still a noob :P

1857

So I got this on the steam sale. It’s pretty fun! What are some good starting builds? The one I went with was mace, shield, armor, and a few other random things.

1858

If you use Unliving Wall ON the square an enemy is in, it’s supposed to do a bunch of crushing damage in addition to making a wall there. Still kind of meh, I agree.

For starting builds just make sure you don’t take dual weilding and shields, or unarmed and other weapon skills. Shields + Unarmed is totally boss though. Also, Fungal Arts is the best jack of all trades support skill ever.

1859

My last run was mace, shield, berserk, armor, burglary, smithing and archaeology. Made it to level nine on going rogue, permadeath. I tend to go for the lockpick skill first then smithing, maces. The second berserk skill gives a bunch of resists, the armor skilltree adds some regen. Not much in the way of active skills but you’re a hell of a damage sponge and the mace deals respectable damage.

1860

There is nothing quite as beautiful as opening a Tenebrous Rift in a monster zoo and hearing “HAYHAYHAYHAYHAYHAYHAYHAYHAYHAYHAYHAYHAYHAYHAYHAYWIRE!”

Of course then the game thumbs its nose at me and my reward for clearing the zoo is a wizard’s sleeve.