Eyestabber's in-depth guide to DR/AoD mechanics

[Absinthe]

Yes. Specifically, I am referring to effects with a random chance to trigger when you hit enemies. Daggers, spears, and axes are not affected by the nature of crits overriding weapon mastery procs.

 

[Trash Player]

But neither of those offer dr the way hammer does & perfect escape route via knockdown (pity about that one tile slide tho).

As for cs, maybe I am doing smth wrong but playing solo I am extremely sp starved. Got dodge to max, hammer to 9 and alchemy to 4 and still cant do shit against the enforcers mob (ran out of bombs in previous fight and his alchemist offs me once I am done with other melees).

Build 10 10 7 6 4 4, thought about using them jars to up my con, but havent been able to invest a single point in crafting so far.

Invest in INT. CS is not a cost efficient option for non-dagger melee. It is better in AoD with training abound.

 

[Blackmill]

I remember throwing being ridiculous in the late game last time I played. I think it had a chance to ignore armor, or something. Is it still very good? Or did it get nerfed?

 

[vazha]

Invest in INT.

At the cost of? Con or Per?

 

[CappenVarra]

Invest in INT.

At the cost of? Con or Per?

hammer doesn't gain much from PER

CON can only be dumped when playing Easy difficulty - and what's the point of that?

going different main stats for attack/defense (like you did with Hammer/Dodge, or i'm currently doing with Dagger/Block) is already going to be harder than same-stat skills (e.g. Hammer/Block), and starting with 10/10 does carry a price of its own...

 

[vazha]

Invest in INT.

At the cost of? Con or Per?

hammer doesn't gain much from PER

CON can only be dumped when playing Easy difficulty - and what's the point of that?

going different main stats for attack/defense (like you did with Hammer/Dodge, or i'm currently doing with Dagger/Block) is already going to be harder than same-stat skills (e.g. Hammer/Block), and starting with 10/10 does carry a price of its own...

Well, hammer only gets synergy from axe and two points at that, so i figured going 4 per would hurt. Also int 5 says its going to give me a grand 1 sp each time, is it really worth it? Thinking of doing a Hammer/dodge 10 10 9 5 4 2 run, without crafting, one jar for healing machine to up con and some alchemy for endgame. Thoughts?

 

[Absinthe]

Invest in INT. CS is not a cost efficient option for non-dagger melee. It is better in AoD with training abound.

I always dump int unless I'm hybriding, to be honest. Perception is more valuable, giving +5 to THC with each point (+8 for ranged weapons because it's also the synergy stat). 4-10-8-10-4-4 crossbows is a pulverizer, but it means you are using dodge and big crossbows. Crossbow builds also benefit from carrying multiple preloaded crossbows, since swapping crossbows is cheaper than reloading many of them (and hand crossbows can be fired from belt slots), at which point weight limit becomes a concern. At least you can stash excess items in the inn, which will let you carry more weight, but you can have a hard time looting with low str and multiple crossbows.

I remember throwing being ridiculous in the late game last time I played. I think it had a chance to ignore armor, or something. Is it still very good? Or did it get nerfed?

Throwing passive is the one passive that has remained untouched throughout the various iterations of the game. And I'm not sure why, considering how damn crazy it is. Just make sure you're using Crafting to keep your ammo up and masterwork them for more weapon mastery chance.

 

[CappenVarra]

Invest in INT.

At the cost of? Con or Per?

hammer doesn't gain much from PER

CON can only be dumped when playing Easy difficulty - and what's the point of that?

going different main stats for attack/defense (like you did with Hammer/Dodge, or i'm currently doing with Dagger/Block) is already going to be harder than same-stat skills (e.g. Hammer/Block), and starting with 10/10 does carry a price of its own...

Well, hammer only gets synergy from axe and two points at that, so i figured going 4 per would hurt. Also int 5 says its going to give me a grand 1 sp each time, is it really worth it? Thinking of doing a Hammer/dodge 10 10 9 5 4 2 run, without crafting, one jar for healing machine to up con and some alchemy for endgame. Thoughts?

try and see, dunno

 

[Absinthe]

Well, hammer only gets synergy from axe and two points at that, so i figured going 4 per would hurt. Also int 5 says its going to give me a grand 1 sp each time, is it really worth it? Thinking of doing a Hammer/dodge 10 10 9 5 4 2 run, without crafting, one jar for healing machine to up con and some alchemy for endgame. Thoughts?

Int is a lot better in Dungeon Rats where you get extra starting SP for each point of int. If for some daft reason you are playing DR without Crafting, I would recommend 10 Con so you can fully resist most poison damage. Alchemy will do you some good, but there are too many poison-immune enemies in DR. You do need to be able to make your own healing salves though. If you want to do damage without running Crafting I'd sooner recommend running high crit with daggers/axes/spears.

 

[vazha]

During my previous hammer run, I had not spent a single point outside weapon skills, had 10 dodge 10 hammer and precisely squat in crafting (2 in alchemy), and 0 sp points. To get crafting to a respectable lvl (say 6, to craft stuff with three enchants), I would have to lower either hammer or dodge by 2 points. Guess what? I reloaded, did that, and got even more wrecked by the enforcer. Sad story.

 

[Trash Player]

You are asking for full spoilers at this point, right? There is a gaunlet with killer constructs past the Enforcer, better save the bombs and fires next time.
These are from my rusty memories:
1. Well, you can't max out weapon skills and get C+A to 8 even with 7 Int before the Emperor. Int is better than Per for non-dagger melee.
2. You need crafting to get the boost jars. 7 for the last one, which is next to the boost machine.
3. The boost machine is behind 3 killer machines. It is more of a bragging right reward than anything. They are mercifully optional.
4. Emperor is next. A beast himself, flanked by 3 ranged retinues on 2 opposite platforms. Imo, those fuckers are worse. +3 melee roadblocks.

 

[vazha]

Well, fuck.

 

[agris]

This thread reminds me that DR is one of the best combat games I’ve ever played.

Merry Christmas Vault Dweller !

 

[Absinthe]

CON can only be dumped when playing Easy difficulty - and what's the point of that?

Con can be dumped even on the highest difficulty provided you are going with high block and crafting, which also assumes you have high strength (more block). The combination of a well-crafted shield + high block chance + decent armor is that you can block attacks down zero. Poisons can't hurt you if you the hits aren't damaging you. 10-8-4-10-6-2 is a doable build that way, if a bit risky.

 

[Trash Player]

CON can only be dumped when playing Easy difficulty - and what's the point of that?

Con can be dumped even on the highest difficulty provided you are going with high block and crafting, which also assumes you have high strength (more block). The combination of a well-crafted shield + high block chance + decent armor is that you can block attacks down zero. Poisons can't hurt you if you the hits aren't damaging you. 10-8-4-10-6-2 is a doable build that way, if a bit risky.

Poison is like the least of problems. There are 1 nigh avoidable bomb and 1 absolutely unavoidable bomb for melee solo. 'Decent' armor appears late and is less powerful with sharpened weapons abound. 4 CON melee build is 'doable' in theoretical realm only. It seems you confuse AoD with DR. AoD is very lenient, even triple 4 builds can do a sizable portion of combat content with spoilers. Crafting is better in AoD with free ingots. A sword solo can literally skip it in DR.

 

[CappenVarra]

i only used 4 CON for AoD pure talkers

in combat, it always turns into "reload when hit" which is no way to play

and yes: in theory, with endgame gear and skills you can avoid a lot of hits and can get away with a lesser HP pool

until a javelin throw gets through the block and bypasses your armor etc.

 

[Fenix]

I remember when I used sword solo, it was the easiest early fights in DR and then I was curbstomped by centriped probably.
Then I had some questions (don't remember which exactly) but nobody knows answers.

So what stats would you recommend for solo sword?

Did a quick test with 6 St/8 Dex/10 Con/4 Per/10 Int/4 Cha with swords&block - Scolopendra only doable with the help of one grenade I guess, Queen Ant maybe without, but I spent another grenade and was left with like 16 hp. So maybe on the edge.
Died in fight with scorps in before Barca, decided to hoard sp to rise block to 10, probably should rise swords instead.

Game is as good as usually.

 

[Absinthe]

Poison is like the least of problems. There are 1 nigh avoidable bomb and 1 absolutely unavoidable bomb for melee solo. 'Decent' armor appears late and is less powerful with sharpened weapons abound. 4 CON melee build is 'doable' in theoretical realm only. It seems you confuse AoD with DR. AoD is very lenient, even triple 4 builds can do a sizable portion of combat content with spoilers. Crafting is better in AoD with free ingots. A sword solo can literally skip it in DR.

Honestly the biggest problem with 4-4-4-4-4-4 builds in AoD is the lack of starting SP, but even that can become a war machine with the right methods. Crafting in DR is mostly valuable for more THC, more damage, more weapon effect chance, massive DR on shields, higher block chance (by reducing armor penalties), and getting high vsCrit (by putting it on both armor and shield). And poison is a massive problem for 4 con builds. Once you get poisoned you're going to die soon since poisons do 4 damage per turn and you only have 30 health. Antidotes are worse than worthless in these fights because you will get poisoned over and over again unless your block lets you DR all the attacks down to zero so all they do is waste AP. Bombs are ugly business, but still survivable.

i only used 4 CON for AoD pure talkers in combat, it always turns into "reload when hit" which is no way to play

I do 4 con combat builds loads in AoD, tbh. Works great when you do them right.

and yes: in theory, with endgame gear and skills you can avoid a lot of hits and can get away with a lesser HP pool, until a javelin throw gets through the block and bypasses your armor etc.

In those fights you use the massive shields that give you massive bonuses against projectiles. The bigger problems are piercing arrows, to which your main answer is to kill them fast and get a very high DR on block (which crafting with a tower shield tends to provide).

 

[the_shadow]

I've been playing Dungeon Rats and just noticed something is a bit whacky with the block mechanics.

Quintus was fighting the injured Scleropendra and blocked twice. The battle log stated that he was hit twice, blocked each strike for 16 damage (armor and shield absorbed 5 damage), but the animation showed him doing two perfect blocks and receiving no damage. I only noticed this because I was expecting Quintus to die pretty quickly, and was amazed he came out alive, so I went and checked out the log. Then I started paying attention to the battle log a bit more, and noticed:

"Quintus blocks Roxana's attack, reducing its damage to 0 points, the armor and shield absorb 13 points" Makes sense.

"Quintus blocks Roxana's attack, reducing it to 0 points damage. The armor and shield absorb 0 points." Doesn't make sense, since it doesn't state it was a perfect block, so the shield and armor must have absorbed the damage.

And later on:

"Javelin Thrower blocks Quintus' attack, reducing its damage to 10 points; the armor and shield absorb 4 points" - But animation shows as if expertly blocked, no damage taken.

"Spearman blocks Marcus' attack, reducing its damage to 16 points: the armor and shield absorb 3 points" - Again, no damage taken, and I get the 'expert block' animation.

In the last two examples, I had used power attack to try and overwhelm the shield+armor DR from an imperfect block. Yet even though the battle log recorded the enemy making an imperfect block and receiving damage, they get the perfect block animation and receive no damage.

 

[the_shadow]

Replayed the game again on Psychopath, this time using an intelligent charismatic character (10 in intelligence and charisma). I wanted to fiddle with high level crafting, alchemy and get the robot/Yngvar/Demon as companions.

Overall the game was much easier the second time. I'm sure part of the reason is simply because I have metaknowledge and can prepare better, but having a main character with 10 crafting and high alchemy is a massive force multiplier. The one thing that helped early on was whetstones. Being able to add +4 damage to arrows/bolts meant I was able to burst down alchemists in one turn before they got to use any bombs, which meant more bombs to loot off their corpses.

I noticed that Ismail has a high bow skill, but trying to use bows with a character that had high AP confirmed in my mind that bows are subpar ranged weapons even for characters that have good stats. I would have been far better off developing his sword skills and taking advantage of his high CS

Yngvar is just a good joinable PC all around. His axe levels are decent, but even better he has good throwing skill. While not as accurate as Roxana due to the lack of synergy from crossbow skill, he has a higher strength that increase throwing damage to compensate.

Both the robot and demon that can join you if you have high Charisma can't heal, but both have really good attacks. The robot's weapon counts as a spear, and has a 5 AP attack that is the same as the Flurry attack that you get with a dagger, but deals way more damage. And it can interrupt approaching opponents. I whetstoned the arm that had the flurry attack, and the bot was one shot killing centurions that approached it during the final battle.

The demon has perfect stats. It has a few different attack types. The double strike attack is useless, but it's main single strike and power attack are awesome. They have a high chance to crit (100% if you approach a lot of enemies from the side), and they knockdown on crit.

This game makes me want to play AoD again.

 

[Tairach]

@ the_shadow

Hi, its my first try on Dungeon Rats. I have played AoD so i wanted to try murderous Psychopath.
Is full support with 4-6-4-6-10-10, with spear, throwing, evade, alchemy and crafting viable? -
Do you have some tipps for me?

 

[agris]

@ the_shadow

Hi, its my first try on Dungeon Rats. I have played AoD so i wanted to try murderous Psychopath.
Is full support with 4-6-4-6-10-10, with spear, throwing, evade, alchemy and crafting viable? -
Do you have some tipps for me?

You’ll have more fun muddling through a normal difficulty regular play, so that you know the systems and thresholds well enough for your psycho run, without us spoon feeding you info. DR is a short game, which makes it actually feasible.

 

[the_shadow]

@ the_shadow

Hi, its my first try on Dungeon Rats. I have played AoD so i wanted to try murderous Psychopath.
Is full support with 4-6-4-6-10-10, with spear, throwing, evade, alchemy and crafting viable? -

You're not going to have enough skill points to invest meaningfully in 5 different skills. Endgame I had 9 in dodge, 10 in crafting, 8 in alchemy, and 3 in spear. The 3 skill points in spear was a waste.

Do you have some tipps for me?

- For any moderate-difficult fight, use whetstones. Whetstones with decent crafting is one of the biggest force multipliers, especially for companions who get many attacks per round (eg. Roxana with karda, hand crossbows and the repeater).

- For any fight against humans, use poison. Again, it's especially good on accurate low AP attacks. Use a ranged Roxana to poison everyone on the first turn. The sooner you poison, the sooner they die, and the less damage you take.

- In almost any human fight, there is one particular enemy who is particularly annoying and hard to control. This is usually an alchemist who throws bombs, or an archer with a long bow.
Burst them down with ranged attacks that have been poisoned/whetstoned. Use neurostims to get another attack on the first round if needed, and don't feel bad about using a bomb on them, even if it is only hitting one enemy. Don't be afraid to exchange companions if you need to pick up another ranged companion for special fights.

- Facing is *critical*. You get a big bonus to your hit chance and critical chance if you attack an enemy from the sides/back. Try not to expose your backs to your opponent. I like to bait enemies to a particular position with my melee character so that their backs are exposed to my ranged characters.

However, your dodge characters should avoid putting their backs against a wall, as they lose a small amount of their mobility bonus to dodge. Of course, you could feint the enemy to put them against the wall and then box them in...

- Liquid fire flasks are worth their weight in gold. They can form barriers to create choke points, or separate enemies entirely. They can also force enemy repositions so that you can hit multiple people with bombs, and can prevent alchemists from retreating. Alchemists won't throw bombs if someone is next to them and they can't step back.

- Nets are great for enemies with high dodge. Net them, then hit legs repeatedly to reduce their dodge while netted.

- Don't feel reluctant about using bombs on hard-hitting enemies who dodge (eg. Scolopendra, robots). They are hard to hit via regular means, and they are lightly armoured anyway, meaning that your bombs do more damage against them than enemies who rely on block and heavy armor. Robots and scolopendra are also very vulnerable to the knockdown effect.

- Don't underestimate the value of shield bash and feint. Shield bash pushes the enemy back, meaning melee enemies need to expend 2AP to move to get into attack range. This prevents some enemies from attacking twice the next round. It can also be used to push them into melee range of another companion. Shield bash also has a greater chance to crit and knockdown if you use it from an enemies side/back. Just note feint don't work against non-human enemies, and shield bash doesn't work against scolopendra and worms.

- Lots of stuff can be put in the belt slots, which can then be used without an AP penalty. This includes hand crossbows (low AP attack), the gladius (a low AP attack sword), and the gorza (give it to Marcus for low AP knockdowns).

- If high dodge enemies are ever in a straight line, move you ranged PC into line with them before attack. If the first enemy dodges, the second one is still at risk of being hit, effectively doubling your chances of a successful attack

- Likewise, if your high dodge enemy is being targeting by a ranged character, try to stand between them and another enemy. If you dodge, there is a chance the other enemy will be hit.

- You can use an antidote before a battle begins to protect yourself from poison. Don't be too stingy, there are plenty of them, and you can make a lot more.

- Make sure you keep the rocks you get on Rock Bottom. Once you get Roxana and she has a good CS chance, she can use 'Target: Head'. A critical strike to the head will knock an opponent out for 2 turns, which is effectively a death sentence. Reminds me of the flares from Fallout 1.

- Shields add to defense against ranged attacks, even for dodge characters. If you're facing a lot of ranged attackers, it's worth using one handed weapons and a shield.

- Defense penalties apply to dodge chance *and* block chance. Getting that extra 1 DR probably isn't worth it if you're trading away 2 levels of block, especially if you're facing throwing weapons that have a 50% chance to ignore all DR when they bypass your block.

- Damaging armor not only reduces its DR ability, but also it's protection vs CS.

- The early game is going to be pretty tough, but by late game you're going to streamroll things.

 

[Tairach]

Thank you very much.

 

[Trash Player]

@ the_shadow

Hi, its my first try on Dungeon Rats. I have played AoD so i wanted to try murderous Psychopath.
Is full support with 4-6-4-6-10-10, with spear, throwing, evade, alchemy and crafting viable? -
Do you have some tipps for me?

DR is less generous with clutch consumables but provides great equipments as loot. There are much less random ingots in nooks and crannies like AoD, and even then crafting with metal
is gated behind progression. The first forge isn't accessible in the first quarter of the game, though a good part of it is skippable for later.
On top of that, there is a companion with Crafting 4 along spare SP recruited by the first forge and one with Alchemy 7 half way through. Training them up takes some metagaming and may not be fun.
Best companions are very strong and anyone with Cha 6 can breeze through the game just fine with them alive with some metagaming on top. So even a deadweight PC can do just fine.