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

[Whisper]

Sorry, it was late and I was tired. I copy-pasted the old guide from AoD and tweaked some things but did a pretty crappy job overall.

Did you change some fights?

2nd fight - door locked.

Ant queen - noncrittable (i critted just fine before)

 

[Fenix]

Sorry about the lack of updates guys, but I'm working on the (probably) hardest part of the guide atm: Daggers and Critical Strike. Lots of formulas, printscreens and calculations to come.

Well, nothing hard in it I think - I don't have much expierience in AoD (yeah that's right, didin;t played it much and sertainly didn't finished yet), and I did dagger build from the first try, which devastated all enemies.
Just get a couple of CS levels, get good crafted dagger and you are fine.
For dagger specialized character craft is more valuable then alchemy, so I raised it first.

Ant queen - noncrittable (i critted just fine before)

Use aimed torso, most efficient in case of ant queen.

 

[Eyestabber]

I noticed Yngvar got buffed. Good change. I always found him to be a bit "meh" for the investment of 9 CHA points. The buff will certainly help. Thanks!

 

[Whisper]

Use aimed torso, most efficient in case of ant queen.

They changed her after patch for sure.

Before she is easy to get crit, after patch - very rare (if any).


But main problem - in 2nd fight you cant backtrack to open door (it is closed). I think it was open.

 

[Whisper]

No more 25 sp for Roxanna after patch?

 

[Fenix]

For killing her?

 

[Elhoim]

They changed her after patch for sure.

Before she is easy to get crit, after patch - very rare (if any).

Nope, we didn't touch that at all.

 

[Lurker King]

I don't have much expierience in AoD (yeah that's right, didin;t played it much and sertainly didn't finished yet).

 

[Fenix]

Btw DR goot at making you familiar with AoD combat, wich was one of the reason I stop to play it.
Now, after DR I understood combat much better so I can concentrate on quest part.
Before I played, understood at some point that my char is gimped and start again.

 

[Whisper]

They changed her after patch for sure.

Before she is easy to get crit, after patch - very rare (if any).

Nope, we didn't touch that at all.

Strange, i have harder difficulty in fights.

Like Barka bowman consisently hitting 115 (110+5) evade character.


But for Roxanna you removed 25 sp, i tested it.


Also, still no solution done to lack of ammo at start for solo player, so you are forced to invest in melee and play melee at start.

Bow and shortbow get enough ammo at 1st forge, but throwing you get knives only after water boss fight.

 

[Elhoim]

Also, still no solution done to lack of ammo at start for solo player, so you are forced to invest in melee and play melee at start.

Which kind of ammo? There are lots of ammo sources for bows and xbows on dead miners, chests, etc. They are not enough?

 

[hivemind]

throwing weapons



you get some rocks but that's hardly enough for the first two fights

 

[Absinthe]

Both throwing weapons and arrows, I would say. It's pretty clear that the ammo is intended for group play. If you try to kill everything by yourself running out of ammo is a very real problem. Ammo management is such a concern you try to raise your THC and use poisons to reduce the number of arrows you need to kill people, except you can't poison ants.

A pity you can't do something like craft a bunch of stone-tipped arrows out of the rocks.

 

[Eyestabber]

The lack of ammo is actually a good thing, because it shows you that solo ranged isn't viable very early into the game. If there was enough ammo, you would play all the way up to the facility (with tons of reloads), only to realize your archer character has no chance against the crossbow constructs.

 

[Trash Player]

The lack of ammo is actually a good thing, because it shows you that solo ranged isn't viable very early into the game. If there was enough ammo, you would play all the way up to the facility (with tons of reloads), only to realize your archer character has no chance against the crossbow constructs.

The whole facility is kinda an Alchemy check.

 

[Whisper]

Also, still no solution done to lack of ammo at start for solo player, so you are forced to invest in melee and play melee at start.

Which kind of ammo? There are lots of ammo sources for bows and xbows on dead miners, chests, etc. They are not enough?

1. Throwing

Not enough. You get 10 crude javelins and 15 stones, then you get 15 stones. From enemies you can loot maybe 10 stones and can craft 6-7 javelins.

With this amount you need to kill 3 enemies (1st fight), then 5 enemies (2nd fight). Then 10 ants. Than 8 enemies.

You will miss some throws unless you doing only fast attacks (with fast you will still miss/get blocked) since you need some dodge/block and you cant max throwing only.

You will run out of ammo at 2nd fight, guaranteed.

2. Crossbow
3. Bow

Slightly better since you get some arrow loot from dead miners but for sure not enough too. For first fight you can get away with 12 arrows at best, but for 2nd having 18 arrows wont be enough.

 

[Whisper]

Also, still no solution done to lack of ammo at start for solo player, so you are forced to invest in melee and play melee at start.

Which kind of ammo? There are lots of ammo sources for bows and xbows on dead miners, chests, etc. They are not enough?

Anyway start solo run with throwing, you will understand in 5 minutes (when you see how many you left after 1st fight, its short).

 

[Fenix]

I plan to play 10 Cha character with throwing, so it would be nice if that problem (not sufficient starting ammo) would be adressed.

 

[TigerKnee]

Eyestabber: How do you feel about Throwing Weapons and separately, INT as a stat now that it has a +5 starting SP per point change?

I'm not sure if they fixed the interaction with how Poison is basically wasted on Throwing Weapons because it only poisons a single weapon, so it still feels rather iffy?

I made a non-optimized Throwing Character but the Elder Scorpion walls me - this was pre-patched so I should probably restart especially because I put points into Intelligence.

 

[Fenix]

I'm not sure if they fixed the interaction with how Poison is basically wasted on Throwing Weapons because it only poisons a single weapon, so it still feels rather iffy?

They fixed that in a way, that you have A FUCKLOAD of reagents.

I made a non-optimized Throwing Character

You mean solo?
5 points per Int is a very strong buff, and gamechanger, so better start anew, and get those points!

 

[TigerKnee]

5 points per Int is a very strong buff, and gamechanger, so better start anew, and get those points!

No, a party game.

The intro screen stated that I "did not have to powergame" character creation to beat the game so instead of using my old AOD builds I went like

4/8/6/8/7/7

Which is probably a really terrible build.

 

[Fenix]

7 Charisma points is a wasted points. It is 6 or 8, or 9 or 10.
Also party build is rarely include Int, but I have read someone played t like that and said that early buff to skillpoints, I mean 5 per Int and throuout the game was helpful.

For example, my next build will be 4\8\4(5\6)\10(8\9)4\10, throwing.

 

[Tick Tock Crocodile]

I plan to play 10 Cha character with throwing, so it would be nice if that problem (not sufficient starting ammo) would be adressed.

I've been playing a character exactly like this for my group playthrough. Ammo is manageable if you accept the fact that you're not going to be doing the bulk of the damage early on and let your teammates handle most things, spending your character's turns finishing off very weak enemies, throwing nets, getting in the way of the other guys to be a temporary meatshield, etc. My approach has been to ignore dodge/block for as long as possible and focus on throwing/cs/alchemy, but if your character isn't as gimped (4/4/8/10/10) you could probably go block + shield bash and be just dandy.

You do have to be very sparing with your ammo, unlike with bows, which I think are fine in terms of ammo for a group playthrough. Up until you get to the first forge, you're usually doing something that isn't attacking. It's a kind of weird way to play.

As for solo, I found that you will run out of all types of ammo very quickly -- stones during the second fight and bows a little after, if you spend time kiting -- but, like what Eyestabber said, I took this as the game telling me early on that full ranged solo was not a good idea.

 

[Fenix]

you could probably go block + shield bash and be just dandy.

Does (or is) 4 Str character with block viable?

 

[Tick Tock Crocodile]

Does (or is) 4 Str character with block viable?

Couldn't say for sure since I haven't tried something like that (with better CON) at all yet, but I'd expect it to be all right. I don't know how much the low strength would affect shield bash, though, since I can't find the formula for that (does it even depend on Str or am I just pulling that from nowhere?).