Just finished Dungeon Rats on Murderous Psychopath difficulty, and think I've lost most of my hair in the process. I tried to beat the game on normal a few years ago and gave up at the Enforcer. This time my build was still sub-optimal... I made a character aiming to specialise in bows but gave him low strength and dexterity, meaning he couldn't fire the bigger bows twice per round without a neurostim. I buffed perception thinking I'd specialize in precision headshots, but for some reason bows can't target the head. I also didn't max crafting on Hieron or alchemy on Ismail, so I didn't get any of the high tier equipment.
Hardest fights?
- The Enforcer still gave me a lot of trouble. In the end the fight was made relatively easy by creating a 6 tile wall of flame with two fire flasks to block off the melee attacks, while my ranged attackers targeted the enemy bowmen. Once they were out of the way, it wasn't too hard to tank melee while my ranged attackers circled to the side to get some easy poisoned shots in their flank
- The Emperor, obviously. Once again it was down to creating a wall of flame to keep melee attackers away while I alpha struck the ranged attackers on either side. At this point I realized how good throwing weapons were.
- The final fight against the legions, where each enemy isn't too difficult, but they wear you down via attrition. In the end I used my PC and Roxanna to alpha strike with poison ranged attacks, and then have everyone hunker down in the side building. It was then essentially a game of using flame flasks to play keep away while pelting the legionaries with bombs, acid and ranged attacks.
- Any fight with a construct. Constructs in this game are a nightmare. Late game I was having a lot of trouble hitting high dodge enemies because I'd specialized in defense over offense (which you need to in order to survive), and even when you hit these guys they still have high DR. Looking back, throwing would have helped.
Minor stuff I wish I'd known when I first started:
- Cassava roots pretty much become non-existent half-way through the game. You're better off healing with rations and healing salves you find, as they always give 1 point, whereas if you build alchemy, cassava roots can be used to make higher level healing potions
- On the other hand, you find a lot of reagents to make poison and antidotes with. No need to be stingy here.
- You can be pretty liberal using the bombs early on. Obviously you shouldn't waste them, but if there are 3 humanoid enemies who can be hit by a single bomb, and there is a good chance of knockdown, you might as well use them. A quick decisive battle where you spend a bomb is better than a drawn out one where you need to waste a couple of healing salves.
- You can poison and sharpen arrows and ranged weapons! I only realized this 2/3'rds of the way through the game. I don't know why I assumed you couldn't do this, but it would have helped to know earlier
- Having a dagger or throwing weaon in your belt allows you to use the 'feint' move, where high dodge characters can change places with the enemy. This can be useful for reducing mobility bonuses or exposing their backs to ranged enemies
- Acid flasks are life saving, especially the area of effect one. Heavily armored enemies such as robots and centurions are turned into jello after a few turns
- Throwing is awesome. I should have specced Roxanna in this instead of crossbows.
- Alpha strikes are incredibly important. In many fights there is one particular enemy who is a real pain (usually a bomber or ranged attacker) who is relatively unarmored but can mess your day up, and it's a good idea to take them down ASAP. Having a couple of your own ranged attacker with neurostims + poison + hand crossbows preloaded in belt or a scoped crossbow with Snipe allow you to take an annoying enemy out of the equation so you don't have to split your forces
- Pilum and certain other javelin weapons ignore the ranged protection bonus that shields offer. This is *massive*.
