Think my DR run just got ended by robots. Played solo dodge build with spear, and it was super effective against human enemies (losing actions to interrupt or dodge really shat on them), decent with creatures (at max dodge, most of them basically cannot hit you. Scolopedras just whish impotently as you cull them), but fucking robots have high enough hit chance to negate your dodge and high enough armor to shit all over you. Got past the first three encounters using consumables, but that last shooter before the sarcophagus just rapes me
One of the patches nerfed interrupts. Less damage, less -DR chance. Before patch you could just kite them as evidenced by ironman spear run by some guy.
And if you waste all your consumables on robots, you will be fucked with emperor or aurelian waves
Yeah, I could use all of my bombs and just force that fight, but that'd just delay the inevitable. In general, interrupts never deal any damage unless enemy has super low armor (think 3 or 4 damage per interrupt on average, with 6 STR and a steel dori spear), and decreate DR in about 20% of cases. Their main utility is in robbing enemies of their AP. In any case though, the spear wasn't really the problem, the dodge is. Dodge is REALLY good for the bulk of the game so long as you stay ahead of the curve, as nothing can touch you. But by end game, everyone's stats are pumped enough that they reach you, even if you pump it to max, at which point you're basically fucked. Sure, enemies will only have like 40% chance to hit you or something along those lines, but that's way, WAY too much on solo, especially since you aren't running with much armor on you. That's not to mention that low-penalty armors also tend to have low vsCS, meaning you'll be eating crits left and right, especially with the robots' flurry (but also any knife fighters you meet beforehand, but those can usually be killed quickly).
Overall I'd rate a dodge build as fairly smooth sailing once it gets going, up until you reach endgame where it basically implodes. It's especially good against creatures – it shits on them relentlessly since their hit chance is especially low, meaning they can't spam poison at you either (block builds may want to pump alchemy sooner for good antidotes)
The correct way to handle alchemists is to nuke them with your own bombs the moment the combat starts. They usually carry 2 or 3, so if you play your cards right, you might actually come outta the fight a bomb richer than you entered it with.
