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(this is not yet ready, but I already included a ton of useful info. Will improve this post during the weekend)
Table of contents:
1. Intro
2. The new mechanics introduced by DR
3. Stats
4. Skills
5. Combat mechanics
6. NPC guide
7. Final words
1. Introduction
I decided to write this guide to help the AoD/DR community get a better understanding of the game and (hopefully) be more successful with their builds and strategies. I intend to share everything I know in this guide. For now this is a WIP and suggestions are very much appreciated. At first I'll focus on putting as much information as possible. Later on, I'll edit this post to make it look pretty. I'll try not to waste your time repeating the tooltips and tutorials. I'll either consolidate multiple sources or bring you undocumented information. Anyway, let's get to it!
2. New Mechanics
I'll start by pointing out the improvements DR did on the AoD formula, since they are not covered in the tutorial.
2.1 The new belt
You are now able to use items straight from the belt slots. That includes throwing weapons and some small weapons. If your item description says "Can be placed in a belt slot" that means you can use it in combat without wasting APs equipping it. Do take note that in DR there are way more weapon options that can be put in the pocket slot compared to AoD. There is even a pocket hammer (gorza)! Fighting with a one handed weapon as a dodger to save APs on equipping bombs and nets is a thing of the past. You can now use these items straight from the belt slot and they will replenish as well.
In this scenario Roxana can fire her crossbow, throw a pillum (which will replenish, just like bombs do) or stab the guy on her right with the dagger. There is no AP cost for switching weapons.
2.2 Facing bonuses
A pretty simple new concept. You now get bonuses depending on your position relative to the direction the enemy is facing. You get a 10-15% THC bonus when attacking from the side and a 25% bonus when attacking from behind. Keep in mind this also applies to enemies!
Ranged attacks are affected by this new mechanic as well.
Facing is likely to change several times during battle, but I noticed one important pattern: dodgers don't change the direction they are facing on a successful defense, but blockers do. A successful block leaves the blocker facing the attacker. With proper positioning you can use that to your advantage. Here is an example:
Hieron's attacks got blocked (no surprises there...) but he still managed to be useful by forcing the enemy to face away from my character, thus allowing for an attack with a juicy 25% facing bonus.
2.3 Positioning phase
The tutorial tells you everything you need to know about the positioning phase. It's worth pointing out, however, that there is plenty of things you can do in this phase besides positioning. You can reload your crossbow, apply poison to your weapons, switch weapons, equip consumables, use potions and even change your helmet!
What? Where is your helmet, bro? Time to load up those barbed missiles, then!
2.4 Waiting
In addition to skipping turns, Dungeon Rats allows you to "wait". That puts the waiting character in the end of that turn's queue. Waiting is useful on occasion, such as when you intend to knock enemies down with another character. A simple example is shown here:
At 1:30 you will notice that I wait with the main character, so that Marcus goes first and hits the knockdown, which allows my character to land 2 power attacks on the scorpion, killing it.
3. Stats
3.1 STR
Strength improves your damage with every weapon, with the sole exception of crossbows. It also provides a bonus to your block chance and a bonus to the attack rating of axes and hammers. STR is also used on the CS formula of several special attacks. Most notably knockdown and aimed attacks to the head, legs and arms.
Special attacks whose critical chance is influenced by strength include knockdown, throw opponent, whirlwind and aimed attacks to the arms, legs and head. Throw opponent actually uses a slightly different formula, with "(STR - 6)", instead of "(STR - 8)", which implies the CS bonus is 10 points higher than what the table shows (check the CON table for it, since it uses the same values).
Bear in mind that because damage stacking in AoD/DR is multiplicative and armor mitigation is a simple subtraction, maxed strength actually yields WAY more than just 40% extra damage. Check the "Damage Calculation" section for details.
3.2 DEX
Dexterity determines your action points, improves your dodge chance and provides an attack rating bonus to spears, swords and daggers. Note that due to the introduction of several new armors and the nerfs to the Studded Ordu armor, the whole "11 AP master race!!!" is no longer a thing. Raise your DEX as high as you can afford.
3.3 CON
Constitution determines HP, poison resistance, natural vsCS (resistance to critical strikes) and provides a bonus to your defense rating. The defense bonus is equal to blockers and dodgers and stacks with their attribute specific bonuses. It is also used on the CS formula of special attacks such as "Aimed: Legs" to reduce the likelihood that you will suffer a critical hit.
In order to be able to collect the canister in Rock Bottom you need either a CON score of 7 or 6 CON and 9 STR. Remember that you can use the healing machine to reach those values and then backtrack.
3.4 PER
Perception provides a base accuracy bonus/penalty that applies to every single weapon. It is also the preferred stat for bows, crossbows and throwing weapons, which means it provides an additional bonus to these weapons, just like STR does to axes and DEX does to daggers. It is also used on the CS formula of some special attacks, most notably Arterial Strike and Aimed: Torso.
It should be noted that since shields impose a THC penalty that cannot be mitigated, PER is arguably more important to characters who choose block over dodge.
3.5 INT
Intelligence in DR provides extra SP. The effect is individual and the percentage is applied after the SPs have been divided. Since the main character never leaves the party, and will, therefore, get the most SPs, intelligence is arguably better for NPCs. I wouldn't recommend investing too much on this stat as the main character, since you run at the risk of having leftover SPs. OTOH high INT NPCs can be used as temporary companions much more effectively. I won't include an INT table, because the effect of intelligence is fully shown on the character creation screen. It doesn't do anything other than add extra SPs.
3.6 CHA
Charisma determines the number of party members and gives you access to (arguably) higher quality NPCs. It has zero effect on companions. The spoiler free explanation of charisma is as follows:
Axe: My favorite weapon class. Axes focus on dealing direct damage. Their passive is a poor man's critical hit, increasing the damage dealt but not bypassing DR. Due to the way damage stacks in DR/AoD, high strength characters will get much more benefits from savage blows than low STR ones. As a blocker, my axe of choice is the Skeggox due to the increased chance of scoring a passive. Later on into the game, however, I'll switch to the Mineb because I'll be scoring critical strikes much more often and those override the passive, which makes a THC bonus arguably better than a passive chance bonus. As a dodger I would choose the Shadhavar due to the increased THC and counter. The Zaghnal is the only axe that can be placed in a belt slot. The power of the axe is well demonstrated in my AoD Ironman run.
Hammer: In AoD hammers are mostly bad axes, since you control a single character and denting the armor of one guy is not really a big deal when he has 7 more friends waiting to murder your lonely ass. In DR, however, the hammer finally got its chance to shine. I see the hammer as a team weapon. Denting armor is now much more useful, since you have more characters capable of capitalizing on the reduced DR. The hammer is also capable of delivering knockdown attacks, which drastically reduce defense and drops vsCS by 25 points. It should be noted that the CS formula of the knockdown attack features "WeaponAP", which means bigger hammers are better for knocking people down. Also, knockdown uses the hammer skill instead of CS to determine critical effects, which makes the knockdown attack unique in that regard. When choosing a hammer I go with whatever allows me to attack twice and has the best THC bonus. Note that hardness does NOT improve your chance to score the hammer passive. The rolls are independent (more on that in the next section).
4.2 DEX weapons
Dagger
Sword: The sword is a well rounded weapon most suited for high DEX coupled with mid/low STR builds. On a successful passive roll, the sword causes a bleeding wound that deals 2 HP damage for 2 turns. Its chance is on par with the axe, hammer and bow, which renders comparisons with the axe almost inevitable. If your weapon average damage is higher than 16, that means the axe passive is better. E.g: a 6 STR character wielding a Blue Steel Kopesh deals 7-10 (8.5 avg) damage on fast attacks, which means he is better off with a sword. However, when you add sharpening at crafting 10 and berserk at alchemy 10 into the mix, his damage jumps 18-23 (20.5 avg), which means he would be better off wielding an axe. In other words, sixteen is the "magical number" and you should keep in mind that the sword passive gets no additional benefit from sharpening and berserk, while the axe does.
It should be noted that the sword passive is unaffected by the AP cost of the weapon or the speed of the attack (regular, fast or power), which means that in order for a comparison to be fair, one has to compare same AP cost weapons using fast attacks. My sword of choice is the Kopesh, simply because it boasts the lowest AP cost coupled with the highest passive bonus, which translates into more bleeding wounds. I used that sword to kill Agatoth as a hybrid high CHA and high INT character.
Notice the mediocre STR value. On the description I showed that the total amount of bleeding damage surpassed the benefits of the axe passive.
Other things worthy of note regarding swords:
Unlike poison, bleeding wounds will stack normally, with no cap
Just like every other passive, you cannot score a bleed against a blocked attack
Bleeding damage can occur even when you deal zero damage, but only on successful attacks fully mitigated by armor
All 4 AP swords can be placed in the belt slot.
Spear: The spear class trades damage for additional range, chance to push enemies back and a much higher passive chance. Through proper positioning the spear can grant you several additional attacks every turn, so long as you keep your distance. The spear passive is a chance to cause an "interrupt attack", which is checked every time an enemy gets within attack range. When you hover your mouse inside an enemy spearman's threatened area, you'll see how likely he is to perform an interrupt attack.
In this scenario the Spearman on Scaurus' crew has a 69% chance to launch an Interrupt Attack (IA) against Marcus if he moves towards the hovered square. Note that Scaurus himself can't score any more interruptions, since Marcus is already inside his attack range.
The obvious conclusion is that spears favor a more defensive playstyle that relies on kiting and luring opponents to their doom, rather than rushing into their faces and hoping for the best. That philosophy is reinforced by the fact that, with the sole exception of the Hasta, spears have a minimum range of either one square or a diagonal, much similar to ranged weapons. I got the "Man of Steel" achievement in Dungeon Rats with a spear build, so the viability of spears is well demonstrated. By the way, my spear of choice is the Krospar.
Note that in Part 1 at 1:22:30 I use the Hasta to get in the Alchemist's face.
Here is another "4fun" video I made a while ago, showcasing the power of Spear + Critical Strike. That was before the spear buff.
Don't forget your precious spears inside your enemies!
Other things worthy of note regarding spears:
Because interrupt attacks don't cost any AP, high AP spears like the Trident and the Krospar are arguably better than their low AP counterparts. With enough upgrades your interrupt attacks will deal reasonable damage and dent armor pretty consistently.
Scaurus has a unique spear that has a range of two squares despite being one-handed. Sadly, there is no schematic for reproducing his weapon.
The ability to "wait" represents an indirect buff to spear users, since you can now position yourself on a good spot, wait for enemies to run and eat some some IAs and only then will you actually spend your AP attacking.
4.3 PER (ranged) weapons
Bow:
Crossbow
Throwing
4.4 Defenses
Block: as you probably already know, blocking happens when you miss an attack against a shielded enemy. There are two types of blocks in AoD/DR: regular blocks and perfect blocks. A regular block adds your shield DR to your armor DR on the damage formula. When a perfect block happens you will see a message like "the attack glances harmlessly off your shield", which means the attack had no effect whatsoever. Perfect block chance is modified by the THC of the attack, which means that a low THC attacks gets fully blocked more often. The formula is:
Perfect_block_chance = passive + 50 - THC
So if your passive chance is 35, and the attack has 60 THC then the chance to perform a perfect block is...
35 + 50 - 60 = 25%
The implication of the above formula is simple: spamming power attacks while hoping to kill a blocker with the damage that exceeds his armor + shield value is a bad idea, since you're very likely to get fully blocked instead. Other important things to know about block:
You (obviously) cannot score a critical hit on a blocked attack.
You cannot score a weapon passive on a blocked attack. Not even with the Hammer. If you attacked a blocker with a hammer and got his shielded got dented then it was because...
You can score a successful ADC (armor denting chance) against a regular block. Check section 5.2 for details
Poison does not apply on a successful block unless the attacker managed to cause at least 1 damage.
Blockers will always change their facing on a successful block. You can use that to your advantage. Check section 2.2 for an example
Blockers benefit from increased resistance to critical hits, since shield vsCS stacks with armor/helmet vsCS. Example:
On a successful defense, shield users will stop a ranged attack, while dodgers won't. That's mostly irrelevant information in AoD, since you control a single character. In DR, however, this allows you to protect team members by blocking the line of fire with your shield bearer. Example:
The crossbow constructs can't target Marcus in this fight. They are forced to take very low THC shots against the main character instead.
Dodge:
Unlike block, the chance to counter is fixed for every dodge, regardless of THC.
4.5 Critical Strike
CS - vsCS = actual CS chance. It can't be lower than your CS level.
vsCS comes from constitution (natural), armor and shield. The ingame description is dated/wrong. Helmet vsCS is only used when the head is targeted, replacing armor.
Critical strikes on "normal" attacks (fast, regular and power) ignore armor. Always read the tooltip to see if a particular move bypasses armor on crit, because not all of them do. Critical strikes on aimed attacks impose twice the penalty.
The stated "bleeding chance" is CS's own passive. Example: if you have 80% THC, 50% CS and 22% "chance to cause bleeding on a critical strike", that means a bleeding CS is only 8,8% likely to happen.
CS also improves the odds that special attacks will score their critical effect. For example, a critical knockdown will keep the enemy down for 2 turns, instead of one. A critical impale (spear special attack) deals massive damage and leaves the opponent completely vulnerable.
The bleeding caused by arterial strike is its own critical effect. Don't confuse it with the sword passive or with CS' passive.
CS does NOT improve consumable critical chance (like the chance that a bomb will knock someone down).
Let's say weapon hardness is 40 and you use a fast attack (-15%) against an armor with a hardness value of 10:
40 - 15 - 10 = 15% chance to dent on hit.
Do NOT confuse this with the hammer passive. ADC is an independent check that the game does for EVERY SINGLE WEAPON. Hammer passive is a passive roll. Both can happen, btw!
5.3 Weapon passives
Every weapon in AoD/DR has a passive. Swords cause bleed, spears have a chance to interrupt approaching enemies, hammers can dent armor and so on. You can read about your passive by hovering the mouse over your weapon skill level in the character screen. That's your base chance to score a passive. Add that number to the bonus provided by your weapon and you have your chance to score a passive on every successful non-critical hit.
By looking at both these screens we can conclude that Ismail has 57% chance to score a bleeding wound on every successful non critical sword attack (29% from his sword skill + 28% from his masterwork Shamshir).
Weapon skill level and bonus passive chance from the weapon itself are the only things that matter. Weapon AP, STR, DEX, the attack type are completely irrelevant. That's the reason why the Kopesh is my favorite sword and I used it to demonstrate how a hybrid character could kill Agatoth. As mentioned earlier, scoring a critical strike will override the passive. A successful block (regular or perfect) means you can't score a passive (not even with the hammer). Other things worthy of notice about passives:
Whenever you hit an attack, the game first checks for a critical hit. Failing that, it checks for a passive. You cannot score a critical hit and a passive on the same attack roll.
There are two weapons that don't roll for a passive: the spear and the dagger.
Spears have a unique mechanic. Instead of rolling for an additional effect on every successful attack, the spear wielder has a chance to perform an "interrupt attack" every time an enemy walks into his threatened area. This has no AP cost and there is no limit of attacks per turn.
Daggers don't roll for a passive. Instead, they add their passive chance to their CS chance, but only for targeted attacks.
5.4 Damage:
When it comes to damage calculations in Age of Decadence/Dungeon Rats, one thing is certain: not everyone gets a trophy. Stronger characters will severely outperform weaker characters. When it comes to calculating damage, most RPGs opt for additive stacking damage bonus. So if you have "+50%" and "+40%" you'll get your base damage increased by 90%. The ITS system, however, works with multiplicative stacking. That means not only a stronger character will deal more damage with basic weapons, he will also reap more benefits from damage increases than a weaker character would. The damage formula is:
Damage dealt = [(Sharpening Bonus + Base damage) * (STR_adj) * (1 + Berserk_adj) * (Attack_type_adj)] - enemy DR
In case you trigger an axe passive, you should add an extra "* 1.25" after the attack type adjustment.
Right away you're gonna notice that damage increases do not apply equally. Sharpening with 10 crafting, for instance, adds 5 extra base damage, which translates into 5 extra damage for STR 6 characters, 4 extra damage to STR 4 characters and 7 damage to STR 10 characters.
Let's verify the above formula with an example:
My guy Maximus Murderus is using a Meteorite Skeggox. On the inventory screen you can see the weapon's base damage is 11-14. Now, when we add 5 sharpening bonus from crafting 10, 1.4 STR adjustment from strength 10 and 1.5 berserk adjustment from alch 10 potion, the minimum damage we should get on regular attacks is:
[(5 + 11) * (1.4) * (1.5) * 1] = 33.6
And the maximum:
[(5+ 14) * (1.4) * (1.5) * 1] = 39.9
Which is...
ALMOST what the game shows. Notice that the game seems to round down minimum damage but compensate this by rounding the maximum damage up and adding some leftover values from the minimum damage. Now, consider we had the same situation, but instead of 10 STR, we had a character with 6 STR. The minimum damage would be 24 and the maximum damage would be 29. Suppose your enemy is wearing a blue steel Praetorian Armor (11 DR). Maximus minimum damage against this target would be 22, while the example character would be dealing 13 damage. The difference is not merely 40%, but rather an almost 70% (!!!) increase.
The bottom line is simple: since sharpening and berserk bonuses are only tied to the skill level of crafting and alchemy respectively, and your alchemist/craftsman doesn't even have to be on the party to provide those bonuses, STR is left as the sole differentiating factor. Its benefits are MUCH higher than what the in-game tooltip would lead you to believe and the difference between max and min STR is YUUUUGE.
5.5 Wrapping things up: a complete example of how the mechanics work
6. NPC guide (MASSIVE SPOILERS!!!)
Marcus: you start the game with him. Solid fighter all around and by far the best NPC on rock bottom.
Ardomir: you need CHA 8. He can step aside with less, but he won't join you. I'm not a fan of Ardomir, since he is just a bad Roxana and Rock Bottom is not that hard. You can always use him as disposable meatshield, tho.
Quintus
Quintus: Dagger/Sword/Block
Cyrus/
Cyrus: Dagger/Xbow and NO FUCKING DEFENSE
Silas: No recruiting requirements since they are fucking useless. Don't split your precious SP with these guys. Feed them to the ants, since you don't have to split SPs with the dead.
Silas: Spear/CS
Hieronymus: No requirements. Terrible fighter. Use him as "craft bot" and only take him along on easy fights, since he is dead weight. Get his crafting all the way up to 10 and then leave him on camp for the rest of the game. Add him to the party when you need to craft something. Remember to use him for sharpening too.
Roxana: Does everything Ardomir does, but better and with no CHA requirement. Roxana is a stronk womyn who doesn't need no man. She just needs one thing to topple the patriarchy: hacked stats. Srsly, do the math. Roxana has 2 more stat points than you. Male privilege, amirite? Jokes aside, Roxana is really good and very versatile. Her only drawback is that she brings no utility (crafting/alchemy) to the party. She makes up for that with sheer murdering power.
Ismail: The alchemist NPC is also a surprisingly viable fighter. With no wasted SPs, high intelligence and reasonably high starting skill levels, Ismail can be either treated as a temporary companion (to max his alchemy) or added to the party long term, since he is capable of pulling his weight in a fight. If you don't think he is worth it, letting the scorpions kill him will allow you to loot his full alchemy arsenal and makes the fight MUCH easier. It reminds me of that time when Vardanis hired a bodyguard...
Yngvar: Needs CHA 9. Probably the best fighting NPC in the game.
Construct: Needs crafting 8. Doesn't have to be the main character. Can't be healed.
What a finest piece of incredibly useful information.
Well done, fellow codexer!
The only thing I want to know after reading it - I remember that at some Alchemy skill number you get twice the number of ingredients, or am I mistaken?
Roxana is a stronk womyn who doesn't need no man. She just needs one thing to topple the patriarchy: hacked stats. Srsly, do the math. Roxana has 2 more stat points than you. Male privilege, amirite?
If you're going crossbows, you should take 4 strength. Since Dungeon Rats doesn't include AoD's hand crossbows for a block build, the stat is absolutely useless for a crossbowman since it does not affect your weapon skill, your weapon damage, or your defense. The only thing it does do is increase your inventory limit, but you already have a stash to get around that.
Also, some notes:
Silas is Spear/Throwing/Crit. He has no defense either, unless you're counting the spear AoOs as a defense. Also Cyrus has 6 strength as a crossbowman so that's 2 stat points going to waste there. Out of the three, I'd say that Quintus is the best since daggers and swords give good synergy bonuses and his other skill is block, so ultimately he has no skill point waste and just 1 cha wasted. If you give him the sword you just looted (instead of the shitty shiv he starts with), he gets decent damage, another +5 THC, and a weapon with hardness for some denting. Just consider giving him another rank of Block to make him more durable.
And the demon doesn't need 10 cha to recruit if you just kill Emperor before activating him.
The formulas are mostly unchanged, with the exception of the Strong Salve now being used to heal stat damage and the inclusion of stingers as ingredients. Stingers = kadura leaves.
Changes:
Worked on the block section
Added screenshots of every single NPC initial stats
Put the tables inside a spoiler tag, since they are kinda of an eyesore
I have a question.
What are "weapon passive"? I mean I understand that it is something that weapon can do based on chance etc., I mean what effect have each and every weapon in game, and where I can read about it?
Practically I'm interested in dagger weapon passive effect.
I have a question.
What are "weapon passive"? I mean I understand that it is something that weapon can do based on chance etc., I mean what effect have each and every weapon in game, and where I can read about it?
Practically I'm interested in dagger weapon passive effect.
I have a question.
What are "weapon passive"? I mean I understand that it is something that weapon can do based on chance etc., I mean what effect have each and every weapon in game, and where I can read about it?
Practically I'm interested in dagger weapon passive effect.
For solo builds, that makes hand crossbows unavailable. And you'll need to add it at the very start since hand crossbows are for block builds, so unless you intend on making 1H crossbow users suffer, they will need to start with one.
This is a serious problem with crossbows' viability since dodge is pretty much nonviable for solo runs unless you love abusing the reload button to rig the RNG. The defense value is much lower than a shield's, especially vs ranged attacks. Simply put: With 10 dodge, 10 dex, and 10 constitution for maximum dodge score... you will still get hit, not to mention dodge penalties can destroy you unlike block builds which have a baseline where they just block for the shield's DR which coupled with a strong armor can still ward off all damage. And on that note, the issue of dodge penalties also means that dodge builds tend to be wearing armors with bad DR when they do get hit. Besides that, dodge builds cannot feint monsters which you can bash, so your mobility frequently suffers for playing a dodge build.
Daggers: Chance of ignoring armor
Swords: Extra crit chance on everything
Axes: Chance of breaking shields
Hammers: Chance of knockdown
Spears: Attacks of opportunity for people entering range, same as now, except it did real damage
Bows: Chance of crippling enemies, same as now I think
Crossbows: Chance of knockdown, which was downright brutal
Throwing weapons: Chance of ignoring armor, same as now
Swords: And its just 2 bleed per 2 turns (4 dmg is nothing) or i miss something?
Axes: Looks good.
Hammers: - DR on armor, when many enemies and you solo not looks good.
Spears: with 1 handed spear with 100%+ passive, enemies will never come close to me? Also Saurus spear have longer reach and 1-handed ?
Bows: Looks nice, you cant block though, only for evasive build.
Crossbows: Low damage and cant increase with Str. Either hit for low dmg several times or 1 (max 2) shots at 8-10 dmg. Penalty of - 4 ap do not stack, i had hit enemy 3 times with - 4 ap and yet he moved and attacked. Nice to put poison on humans fast but with constructs you will suffer as crossbow user.
Throwing weapons: Chance of ignoring armor, works often. Not useful at start of game, but probably would be very good. Only thing is only (?) crafting knives aka Karda dont need much material, other throwing weapons require a lot material.
Swords: And its just 2 bleed per 2 turns (4 dmg is nothing) or i miss something?
Axes: Looks good.
Hammers: - DR on armor, when many enemies and you solo not looks good.
Spears: with 1 handed spear with 100%+ passive, enemies will never come close to me? Also Saurus spear have longer reach and 1-handed ?
Bows: Looks nice, you cant block though, only for evasive build.
Crossbows: Low damage and cant increase with Str. Either hit for low dmg several times or 1 (max 2) shots at 8-10 dmg. Penalty of - 4 ap do not stack, i had hit enemy 3 times with - 4 ap and yet he moved and attacked. Nice to put poison on humans fast but with constructs you will suffer as crossbow user.
Throwing weapons: Chance of ignoring armor, works often. PNot useful at start of game, but probably would be very good. Only thing is only (?) crafting knives aka Karda dont need much material, other throwing weapons require a lot material.
Finished MP solo with swords/dodge, started 7/10/9/8/4/2, ended 9/10/10/8/4/2. Swords are the best, IMO, in solo run, 'cos of bleeding, and you'll want all damage you can make. Bleeding stacks, bleeding wins battles. Together with poison and berserk swordsman shreds everything.
Throwing is absolute destroyer! Its passive works often (unlucky for you) and just ignores all of your armor, no matter how high it is (entered last battle with sky metal lorica equipped, 55 HP, and one pilum thrower shoots twice, 20 (0) + 20 (0) = - 40 HP, the battle is over. For me)
The weakest melee weapon in solo so far is ... axe, 'cos you don't do enough damage to kill quickly. Swords bleed, spear interrupts, hammers are two-handed from the very start (excellent choise for dodgers), daggers crit. Block is a waste, IMO, 'cos with block you'll suffer some damage no matter what, and first ants will show you, what means to suffer damage.
