Pugilist build

[Iratebirb]

I want to create a character that's really good at punching things to death. What would be the best way to see this through?

[Wiggler-sempai]

-Pugilism of course, but it's worth remembering it gives you multiple 20-damage hits- these are not the same as Main-hand hit/attack. As such while more main-hand damage is nice, what you really want is a lot of on-hit effects and a few extra attacks so you can proc endlessly.

-psychic also has an unarmed-ability (mind blades) but it's not that hot for the points IMO. Feel free to use it though.

-unarmed/bare hand effects proc so long as your main hand (top item box) is a bare fist/ bare hand weapons, so you can carry something in your offhand as a stat stick.

-While not necessary for a good build, pugilism synergies with dodge as it gives you some innately.

-Oros is not the only viable pugilist god, but is the MOST viable one. It turns all weapons into Shimmering orbs that count as the bare-hand weapons needed for pugalism, not matter their original size, increasing the breadth of options. Also-they deal astral damage and give you 1 extra range (Aim synergy maybe?). The fact that other equipment also has encumbrance removed is just bonus, as is her actual prayers which are easily charged except the heal.

-the classes/races with direct synergy are the Nartaka (item gives them charge on unarmed hits, lighting on hit/step) and the Unataak (on stand still, attacks with bare fists/clenses stats)

-this doesn't mean other cultures/classes are viable, just that what makes them viable works with anything "On-hit" and doesn't need Pulgaism/bare handed. I feel Assassin would be thematic, and Secutor is never a bad idea.

-Anti-synergies include any god/culture that changes your mainhand weapon (what weapon?!), and on prayer abilities. Stand Still abilities synergize with unataak only, and on step is ok if it also includes an attack on step.

-I think there's quite a few class that synergize with on-hit, but the direct unarmed classes are Dianmai and Merzot If i rember correctly- So toxic/Martial is probably your best best for the run. I feel Elementalist has potential, but you'll be spending so many point on pugilism anyway that there's not a lot to spare.

[Wazuzu]

Depends on the cycle you're playing.

If you're in the first dozen, try this:
Any race you like
Any class you like
Oros for god
Ogham for prestige

Points into: Martial/Pugilism, Psychic/Psiblades

Stat points spread equally between Str Dex Wis earlygame, focus Wis / Vig lategame.

Look out for highest damage / silliest gimmick weapon, wear minimum armor.

You will be tabbing multiple ranged fist attacks per turn, on max range, with nice damage, while healing to full and summoning dozens of tentacles that carry your weapon Hit.

[Draken]

Here is a nice buid that I just easily cleared cycle 10 with:

Brud Nartaka of Oros.

With the Dianmai class

Brud => Some nice Healing when you attack something with Sickness stacks. Useful against bosses.

Nartaka => Starts without a weapon and deals damage on hit. Also has an item that gives + Charge if you attack with Bare Fist weaons.

Oros => Turns all weapon into Bare Fist weapon. Also makes you not have to deal with Encumbrance or Inflexibility.

Dianmai => Applies Sickness on attack, gain Evasion on apply Sickness, deals damage on Hit.

Attributes:
- Strength 5 for no penalty.
- Dexterity, as much as you can afford.
- Wisdom, I put in about 1/5 of the Dexterity value to keep healing and damage up a bit. Not neccessary.
- Vigor, I just put in points until my Health was equal to (Dexterity + Wisdom) * 100. You want a bit of a buffer.

Skills:
Poison:
- Toxikinesis, 1 => All your Hit's apply 5 Sickness, all Sickness triggers Poison.
- Poison Skin, enough to stay healthy => Heals you if you Poison someone for a small amount.
- Morbumancy, 1 => Turns Sickness stack on enemies into more damage.

Martial:
- Pugilist, all the rest -> triggers more Hit's each time you attack.

Psychic:
- Psy Blade, 4 => Increases range of Bare Fist weapons, also triggers more damage on Hit
- Psychokinesis, 1 => More damage on Hit, some more Repulsion
- Psychic Retort, 1 => Gives you 2 defensive Hit's when you are attacked. Useful against faster enemies

Recommended items:
- Emerald Eye => Blinds enemy on Poison damage
- Jade Pilum => More attacks with more Hit's and we got at least 3 stacks on us (Evasion, Repulsion, Charge).
- Noxious Dagger => More Sickness on attack, more Poison damage on Sickness. If you can't find Jade Pilum.
- Marsh Trabea => More Evasion on Poison or Death damage.
- Emerald Gauntlets => more Sickness, triggered from Dianmai and Psy Blade.
- Thunder Mask => Charge on Kill.
- Nadra Kamerband => Turns Poison damage into more Death damage.

This is a very safe build that attacks at range 6 thanks to Psy blades.
It deals a ton of small damage bits and has good speed. Dodge get very high thanks to the Evasion stacks while it also will blind enemies, making them miss most of the time.
The raising stacks of Charge and Sickness quickly stack up the damage until even the bosses only last 2 to 3 turns.
Anything that doesn't die will also get a lot of Sickness stacks, so enemy attacks will do very little damage.
Repulsion and Psychic Retort will deal with very fast enemies that hit you before you hit them.
Poisonous Skin will heal unavoidable damage.

Hope you have fun with it.

[Bobthe6th]

Worth noting, Oros+Psiblades+(weapon with area attack on two handing) is pretty much the only non-Strijela way to get >1 ranged area attack. Long ranged area attack is nuts, especially with Pugalist meaning you don't really care about hitting. Admittedly bad map geometry can make it pointless, but when it works it is great.

[mcy]

Originally posted by Bobthe6th:

Worth noting, Oros+Psiblades+(weapon with area attack on two handing) is pretty much the only non-Strijela way to get >1 ranged area attack. Long ranged area attack is nuts, especially with Pugalist meaning you don't really care about hitting. Admittedly bad map geometry can make it pointless, but when it works it is great.

Asi Malak is the most straightforward way to do so.

Also technically chakrams are already ">1 ranged area attack" by themselves.

[mcy]

Originally posted by Wazuzu:

Depends on the cycle you're playing.

If you're in the first dozen, try this:
Any race you like
Any class you like
Oros for god
Ogham for prestige

Points into: Martial/Pugilism, Psychic/Psiblades

Stat points spread equally between Str Dex Wis earlygame, focus Wis / Vig lategame.

Look out for highest damage / silliest gimmick weapon, wear minimum armor.

You will be tabbing multiple ranged fist attacks per turn, on max range, with nice damage, while healing to full and summoning dozens of tentacles that carry your weapon Hit.

Pugilism and Psiblades pop out immediately when you look at the powers list. Ditto for Oros. There isn't a prestige class that go well with them, so Ogham is a very good idea there. Kudos on that.

So moving from that:

When you have prayer on attack, you should look for on prayer triggers. That gives you Naqui for race and Priest for class (there are other options, but Naqui fits the theme of pugilist and Priest goes best with Naqui, it would be too long of a digression to go into other options; but I'll note Templar as an honorable mention - but Anoint stacking is too slow compared to Attune from Naqui).

As for other skill ideas:
Aim for damage scaling with multiple attacks
Cryokinesis (singleton) for on hit synergy
Cryomancy for freeze and on prayer synergy
Psychokinesis and
Master Repulsion to round up the list

I guess this'll work. I tried once, got deep but didn't quite get to the end (on c32) due to complacency on my part.

--

Although, I don't think pugilism is very effective, due mainly to the lack of a really synergistic prestige class.

[mcy]

Ah, for items, an area attack weapon and armor items that add stacks. Gold set comes to mind, thanks to Oros removing inflexibility. Dread Helm is nice, too.

[Draken]

Originally posted by mcy:

[
Although, I don't think pugilism is very effective, due mainly to the lack of a really synergistic prestige class.

Damunja, Arch Magus and Dianmai should work quite well for a Pugilism build as they all can make good use on the multitude of on Hit triggers Pugilism provides.
Frost Knight and Venite might also work.

Sahasi, Pyromaniac, Surtmir, Frenzied One and Strijela all look like they could ramp up their buff and debuff stacks very quick with the help of Pugilism.

And I probably missed some.

Also about area weapons, they can be pretty good, yes, but depending on your build two weapons might be better. If your build is already fast enough or does enough area damage, getting double the amount of hits on one target can be a lot better. Especially if you got two weapons with useful effects.

[Wazuzu]

Originally posted by mcy:

Although, I don't think pugilism is very effective, due mainly to the lack of a really synergistic prestige class.

True, but it's a reliable ranged option if you pick Psiblades, multihit if you pick Pugilism (although it's quite bad, it is also quite cheap, at 3 points per hit). Oros is also a very helpful god in helping pugilist be a more universal build, since you get access to ALL weapons, excluding your starting one.

[Draken]

Originally posted by Wazuzu:

Originally posted by mcy:

Although, I don't think pugilism is very effective, due mainly to the lack of a really synergistic prestige class.

True, but it's a reliable ranged option if you pick Psiblades, multihit if you pick Pugilism (although it's quite bad, it is also quite cheap, at 3 points per hit). Oros is also a very helpful god in helping pugilist be a more universal build, since you get access to ALL weapons, excluding your starting one.

Pugilism isn't bad. But it's a combo power. You need to get some other combo pieces for it to shine. But if you do, it is pretty strong.

Just here, look, the "no real synergy" Dianmai Pugilism:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385075117
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385075370

That was two attack I hit the King of Many Colors with and not only is he almost dead, but also at 10 Accuracy and 10 Hit.
And my damage was constantly scaling up.

So yeah, there are definitely good Class synergies for Pugilism outside of just Ogham.
Honestly, Ogham doesn't really have any real synergy with Pugilism in the first place. Both just do their own thing.

What you need for Pugilism to shine:
- A way to reach the enemy (speed, Psyblade, teleport)
- A way to turn a Hit into a scaling boost. In the above case, each Hit would apply Sickness to the enemy and Charge to me to steadily increase my damage and my survivability. Also a small heal.

[Wazuzu]

Originally posted by Draken:

Pugilism isn't bad. But it's a combo power. You need to get some other combo pieces for it to shine. But if you do, it is pretty strong.

Not to downplay your build ideas, but I've won with such surprisingly garbage builds that I'm not surprised by the way some things happen to work out.

Originally posted by Draken:

Honestly, Ogham doesn't really have any real synergy with Pugilism in the first place. Both just do their own thing.

Ogham has a very important synergy with Psiblades pugilism - it is triggering the prayers from a safe distance. It has a countersynergy with Oros though, as you would probably want to wear all those modified equips, especially those that have built-in inflexibility or high encumberance.

[Draken]

Originally posted by Wazuzu:

Originally posted by Draken:

Pugilism isn't bad. But it's a combo power. You need to get some other combo pieces for it to shine. But if you do, it is pretty strong.

Not to downplay your build ideas, but I've won with such surprisingly garbage builds that I'm not surprised by the way some things happen to work out.

Originally posted by Draken:

Honestly, Ogham doesn't really have any real synergy with Pugilism in the first place. Both just do their own thing.

Ogham has a very important synergy with Psiblades pugilism - it is triggering the prayers from a safe distance. It has a countersynergy with Oros though, as you would probably want to wear all those modified equips, especially those that have built-in inflexibility or high encumberance.

Ogham has a synergy with Psyblade, because then you can trigger attack to prayers at range.
But he has no synergy with Pugilism directly.
Pugilism turns attacks into more hits.
Ogham doesn nothing with attacks or profits of hits.
You could maybe use Dorok that way you would have a 1/3 chance to get an extra attack against an adjacent enemy, but that's a poor choice, and probably better of for a build without Psyblade.

As for Pugilism builds, here is a nice high synergy build I just run on circle 10:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385163535
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385163262

This time without Psyblade. It's a bit less safe, but still pretty good in my opinion.
Pugilism's many Hit triggers work very well with both Humbaba's Bloodrage as well as Damunja throwing lightning and bleed all over the place when a Hit triggers.

Electrokinesis and Hemokinesis then turn those Hit's and damage types into even more lightning and bleeds as well as blood damage.

All those bleed and charge stacks meanwhile synergies with Pugilism as the next Hit will cause even more damage.

Roil, Bloodbath and Bloodrage all heal off any damage and self damage that comes our way. I think I often got over 100 heal triggers from a single attack.

Meanwhile we stack up speed thanks to Master Charge and Berserk from Lochra.

The build does have a weakness against fast range attackers, but that's not uncommon for melee builds and doesn't make it bad.

It killed the King of Many Colors in 2 turns.

Of corse if you tell me exactly how this build is bad or had no synergy, I am willing to listen.

Edit: I am seriously here. I love theorycrafting builds and often I miss something and it doesn't work out the way I intended it to. Both of the build I posted here are something I threw together relatively quickly, so if you can give me some feedback on how to improve them, I am all ears. Or if you tell me why Pugilism and Dianmai/Damunja do not have a good synergie, because then I obviously have a serious error in my understanding of the game.

[Wazuzu]

Originally posted by Draken:

Ogham has a synergy with Psyblade, because then you can trigger attack to prayers at range.
But he has no synergy with Pugilism directly.
Pugilism turns attacks into more hits.
Ogham doesn nothing with attacks or profits of hits.

Yea I think I just misunderstood "pugilism" in your post as " build oriented around fist-fighting" and not the skill itself.

[Draken]

Originally posted by Wazuzu:

Originally posted by Draken:

Ogham has a synergy with Psyblade, because then you can trigger attack to prayers at range.
But he has no synergy with Pugilism directly.
Pugilism turns attacks into more hits.
Ogham doesn nothing with attacks or profits of hits.

Yea I think I just misunderstood "pugilism" in your post as " build oriented around fist-fighting" and not the skill itself.

Ahhhh.
Yeah, I was mostly talking about the skill.
Using fist weapons isn't really that defined a category. There are quite a few "count as fist" weapons. There is the "everything is a fist weapon god". Probably a few things I didn't think about where you run around with no weapons.

[mcy]

Originally posted by Draken:

Originally posted by mcy:

[
Although, I don't think pugilism is very effective, due mainly to the lack of a really synergistic prestige class.

Damunja, Arch Magus and Dianmai should work quite well for a Pugilism build as they all can make good use on the multitude of on Hit triggers Pugilism provides.
Frost Knight and Venite might also work.

Sahasi, Pyromaniac, Surtmir, Frenzied One and Strijela all look like they could ramp up their buff and debuff stacks very quick with the help of Pugilism.

And I probably missed some.

Also about area weapons, they can be pretty good, yes, but depending on your build two weapons might be better. If your build is already fast enough or does enough area damage, getting double the amount of hits on one target can be a lot better. Especially if you got two weapons with useful effects.

Damunja works, of course. My bad, I drew a blank there.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385271873

Sahasi sounds reasonable, I'll give it a spin. My issue is that I find it weak categorically.

--- this I'm neutral on. Not how I approached it in the past, so I don't have an idea one way or the other:

Frenzied One would be item dependent, I guess. I'll think about it.

--- these I disagree with:

Strijela has better options I think. Still, it's strong enough on its own that it may well work, will try and see if it measures up.

So, you drop Psiblade for Dianmai? Feels suboptimal to me, still I'll take a look. Same issue with Surtmir.

Arch Magus wants to stand still; throwing attacks in the build feels suboptimal. I don't even see an angle to work there.

---

I think I should not that by "work" I mean "work on c32". I know I can win with no powers and no prestige classes on low cycles.