Dungeon Rats - first impressions and general feedback

[kryminator]

Guys, how does the potent poison work? I am asking because it is said in game that it does 11 (the best one) dmg and lasts 5 turns, but it seems that it does only 2 dmg (after applying the poison to my uberspear I was confused why aurelian soldiers are hit by poison for 0 dmg and weapon panel in inventory shows 2 dmg) so I dont know if potent poison is some kind of poison modification which my frail mind cannot understand or is it a bug?

Usually I use only normal poison and not even the best one and it always worked as it was described (e.g. 9 dmg for 3 turns) but since I am playing solo and had a lot of SP I have maxed alchemy so I wanted to take full advantage of it.

High CON gives poison resistance.

Yes, I know that but they cannot have so much CON to nullify the strongest possible poison (11 dmg for 5 turns) especially that not the strongest (9 dmg for 3 turns) non-potent one hit them for 6-9. Looks like, it is either the bug or some kind of potent poison mechanics.

Check this out, here is the poison before applying it on the weapon:

And after that when I move cursor on the weapon it is 2 dmg instead of 11:

and it seems to be true since soldiers in ending fights have enough CON to nullify these weak (even weaker than the most basic one) effects of that bugged poison.

 

[Whisper]

Guys, how does the potent poison work? I am asking because it is said in game that it does 11 (the best one) dmg and lasts 5 turns, but it seems that it does only 2 dmg (after applying the poison to my uberspear I was confused why aurelian soldiers are hit by poison for 0 dmg and weapon panel in inventory shows 2 dmg) so I dont know if potent poison is some kind of poison modification which my frail mind cannot understand or is it a bug?

Usually I use only normal poison and not even the best one and it always worked as it was described (e.g. 9 dmg for 3 turns) but since I am playing solo and had a lot of SP I have maxed alchemy so I wanted to take full advantage of it.

Its bugged, dont use.

 

[Old One]

Considering how plentiful the ingredients for poison are, it might make sense to cut the number of strikes in half.

 

[Elhoim]

Aimed legs is only for enemies that use dodge.

We are doing an alchemy balance pass for the next version, along with other balance changes. We'll do some more extensive changes for update 3, along with new additions. We are also adding ally/enemy markers, and improved visuals for creature armors and bomb explosions.

 

[sgm]

Doing my second playthrough with a Dagger/Dodger build. Was able to get to the Molerats before I had to use any buffs or bombs.

Spoiler

Larping my way through Escape from Butcher Bay.

 

[Fenix]

This time a pathetic Reinard killed my char lol. Bowman hit me two times, alchemist threw 2 bombs, even spearman managed to hit me lol. Anf Reinard finished my char on counterattack...

OK, I give up, next char will be dodger....

 

[Black Angel]

Any tips on Democritus fight?

 

[Fenix]

Well, net him at least.
And go back to crates, fight them one by one.
Actually step back one square from them, fight will be much easier.

 

[HoboForEternity]

how many waves are the final battle in the bridge?

once, twice, thrice, they're easy, but they kept coming (half of them are wounded because of the ballistae) and i am eventually overwhelmed.

 

[Fenix]

Fight them, and fight them hard, like US marshall!

Also - holy democratic shit, this is... just look at this...

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[TigerKnee]

6 waves - the final one is very self-evident from the text.

Beat the game - difficulty curve is kinda wonky for my character because it wasn't optimized - it's tough up until the Reinhard fight and then strangely just kinda becomes easy with a handful of spikes. I suppose it's because 7 Int / 6 Cha is pretty painful for early game because both Int and Cha takes a long while to pay off - Roxanna is the first good 3rd member you can get. I would definitely dump one of them unless you're Crossbow.

 

[ComradeReptiloid]

Dont even try block builds. They suck hard. If you receive 4 points of block for 1 points of STR, and 3 points of block for 1 point of CON it will be manageable. And +25 basic bonus instead of 15. It's like extra 2 block from the get-go for inconvenience.
BTW, why nets considered to be ranged weapon? This one upgrades spear builds even further. If you land Aoo, then enemy do not throw net, which is dumb.

 

[ComradeReptiloid]

Doing my second playthrough with a Dagger/Dodger build. Was able to get to the Molerats before I had to use any buffs or bombs.

Spoiler

Larping my way through Escape from Butcher Bay.

After this post sword + dodge an dagger + dodge move to second and third place respectively. Crossbow + dodge number 4 now. Spear + dodge still at the top of the chart.
Sorry for double posting.

 

[sgm]

You can easily murder the hell out of Reinhard's crew with a Dagger/Dodger build and sustain very little damage.

Spoiler

Run your ass to the bridge and use poison and feint to almost complete neutralize any chance of attack. Poison Reinhard and feint away. He'll use an antidote the next turn, but can't attack since you're out of his range. Poison him again and just work on killing the rest of his crew, making sure to keep someone alive between you and him until the poison does its work. Spearman and Alchemist usually get caught in the middle with the Archer in the back. Only the Alchemist can attack you and only with his dagger. And he'll miss. It's funny watching his whole crew go down in the same round as the poison drains the last of their HP all at once.

 

[ComradeReptiloid]

Wait, how you avoid 1st alchemist bomb? I know how to block him, but then you must dodge spear attack and one Reinard attack, which is risky even with max dodge, or I been unlucky 60% of the times I tried this strat. You must strike down alhemist or wait one turn, then run from alchemist on 8 tiles distance --- that will make him switch to throwing daggers. In later case you cant avoid being bombed by him in the end. If you decide to kill him on second turn, then you must dodge 2 reinard attacks, 2 spearman attacks and 2 axeman attacks, which is impossible.
I guess you must take one bomb to your face. Also I dont see how it possible to block alchemist on the bridge after you deal with Reinard and his minions. If I remember correctly bridge is two tiles wide. This means, that you must take spearman, archer, alchemist and axeman at the same time. With 4 INT I doubt that you have high defense, attack or good gear at this point. So it will take around 3-5 turns to kill all 3 melee enemies. Every turn you will constantly take 4 hits from melee, and 4 from ranged. After you done with all melee enemies, alchemist will throw at least one more bomb before he dies. There is no way you can bait alchemist into rushing you with dagger.
Can you present video proofs of this fight?

 

[Tigranes]

Blockers are just fine unless you're trying to do ironman, at least in party (haven't tried solo yet). I'll leave the question of how optimal which one is when to the number-crunchers, but there are plenty of enemies whose damage per hit is low enough that your heaviest armours and blocking will make even final battle attrition reasonable, and then you just focus on bombing and otherwise keeping at bay the heavy hitters.

Re. alchemist bomb if you mean the fight where alchemy dude starts behind you, presuming you have high sequence, you can bomb him then go stand next to him; if he gets up, moves away, and you hit him with AOO, usually he doesn't have the AP left for throwing bomb. In this scenario you've probably used the liquid fire to seal off the front 3, meaning you can focus and kill the alchemist before he ever gets his second turn - and probably finish his friend off easily before the fire runs out.

Another way is actually to start at the front and run around the corner, and then keep the alchemist & his friend away with liquid fire. You know what the range is for throwing bombs, so you can actually stay far enough away that he resorts to throwing just stupid daggers. And then you gun him down with Roxana.

If you don't want to use your liquid fire, then you can still do these kinds of things but you're relying on your chaaracters being good enough to dodge/block multi-headed dicks from front and back.

The best reward for preventing alchemist using any bombs is that you can loot all of them.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Guys, is the CON check required to grab the jar on the scorpion's den based on the PC's CON? Because I can't grab it even with Marcus in my party, and I'm pretty sure I managed to get it with 8 CON on my solo run.

 

[sgm]

Wait, how you avoid 1st alchemist bomb? I know how to block him, but then you must dodge spear attack and one Reinard attack, which is risky even with max dodge, or I been unlucky 60% of the times I tried this strat. You must strike down alhemist or wait one turn, then run from alchemist on 8 tiles distance --- that will make him switch to throwing daggers. In later case you cant avoid being bombed by him in the end. If you decide to kill him on second turn, then you must dodge 2 reinard attacks, 2 spearman attacks and 2 axeman attacks, which is impossible.
I guess you must take one bomb to your face. Also I dont see how it possible to block alchemist on the bridge after you deal with Reinard and his minions. If I remember correctly bridge is two tiles wide. This means, that you must take spearman, archer, alchemist and axeman at the same time. With 4 INT I doubt that you have high defense, attack or good gear at this point. So it will take around 3-5 turns to kill all 3 melee enemies. Every turn you will constantly take 4 hits from melee, and 4 from ranged. After you done with all melee enemies, alchemist will throw at least one more bomb before he dies. There is no way you can bait alchemist into rushing you with dagger.
Can you present video proofs of this fight?

That's the only thing you probably do get hit with. I've avoided the knockdown once or twice, but I never engage him until they're all on the bridge. It's only one tile wide. I don't fight any of them until they're all on the bridge. He can't use his bombs then because he's sandwiched between the Archer and the Spearman, or sometimes Reinhard. Spearman can't attack because he has no room to backup, so he loses his turn like the Archer who has no line of sight due to the narrowness of the bridge. I kill Axeman first, poison Reinhard, feint past him and the next opponent to get between Spearman and Alchemist. Kill Alchemist and feint past Archer. By the time Archer dies, Spearman and Reinhard die of Poison.

 

[Lurker King]

Now I finally understood why I was struggling with solo so much. I was sabotaging myself. Let me explain. I was used to AoD. The problem is that in AoD you can only allocate 7 or 8 points in dodge or block later in the game. Because of that, allocating that absurd amount of skill points to dodge or block in DR right from the get go felt like cheating. Of course, the problem with this reasoning is that DR is much more challenging than AoD, so this is not cheating on solo, but a prerequisite for success.

 

[ComradeReptiloid]

I leave 3 walls of text on block builds. They suck for solo ironman. They too RNG dependent. You will never score perfect block with late game melee enemies. They bypass your shield or your armor like 100% of the times. They land CS even with 150 CS resistance, because they go for head, if you use 10 crafting imperial armor or anything above 9 DR. I have 10 crafting iron gear, 10 block, 10 STR, 10 CON and get destroyed in forge consistently. Criticals and passives do they job on block builds.
Reinard fight is different for solo it's different. 3 standart bombs is not enough to kill alchemist. If you can kill him in one full turn easy enough, then this tactic can be reliable. And you still have to tank at least two opponents at the time with low skills and bad gear, because you starting INT 4.
EDIT: oups. Bridge one tile wide, so its ok I guess. BTW, I tried sword + dodge and dagger + dodge before. I even place them in second and third spots on my list, but they feel too risky on construct fights + you must go with 4 INT, which add even more risks along the way.

 

[Lurker King]

Reinard fight is not that hard. You just need to use liquid fire to separate the alchemist from Reinard's group. I killed him directly, without bombs. I'm using a block build with sword 4/10/10/4/10/2.

 

[ComradeReptiloid]

Damn, I know it's not hard. But I never managed to get away with low hp loses. I win it constantly and stay with 20-28 HP. BTW, how you doing with this build? Do you win Forge? I lost with 4/10/10/4/10/2, 4/10/10/10/4/2, 10/10/10/4/2, 7/8/10/4/9/2 and 7/10/10/4/7/2 all the time. 136 defence rating, 150 CSdefense and 18 DR is too low apparently. I have vids of this builds recorded on November, 14. I can share them, but you probably didnt discover anything new.

 

[Lurker King]

I didn't. I was maimed in the first fight. The dude with the net is ruining me completely and there are no bottlenecks to use. The fight before that was a complete disaster. I end up using those boxes and survived with FOUR MOTHERFUCKING HPs. I'm fucked. I was trying to save some of my alchemy stuff, but this is futile. I will trying some different armors too. Maybe this will help.

 

[ComradeReptiloid]

Guys, is the CON check required to grab the jar on the scorpion's den based on the PC's CON? Because I can't grab it even with Marcus in my party, and I'm pretty sure I managed to get it with 8 CON on my solo run.

All stat checks seem to be for PC but skill checks use character with highest skill.

True. There is only one stat check for whole team. It's for steel sword under thee rock. You cant get it alone even with 15 STR.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Guys, is the CON check required to grab the jar on the scorpion's den based on the PC's CON? Because I can't grab it even with Marcus in my party, and I'm pretty sure I managed to get it with 8 CON on my solo run.

All stat checks seem to be for PC but skill checks use character with highest skill.

Thanks. I suspected that was the case but wanted to confirm in case it was a bug or something.