Wiki?

[LowDownDirtyGamer]

Is there a good wiki for this game? I cannot seem to be able to find a good up to date wiki on this game, which is a little frustrating for a rougelike.

Also how long is this game? How many floors? Is it worth taking a weapon skill as a caster character?

Oh and are there any good YouTube video walkthroughs out there? All the ones I have found are really old and being played by people who don't necessarily know the game very well.

[Haldurson]

Unfortunately, there used to be a really good wiki, but whoever it was that maintained it, stopped. I know that there are people would have been happy to help pay for it, but no one has been able to locate the original owner of that website.

That said, there are alternate resources that I can recommend.

1. Certainly, you can look at the various Steam guides (I wrote 2 of them).
2. Dredmorpedia (http://j-factor.com/dredmorpedia/). One of the good things about that site is that it also allows you to incorporate data that covers a few of the more popular mods for the game.
3. The Community Skills Guide (the discussion thread is here, where you can find a link to the PDF): https://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/project-community-skills-guide.3033/ I cannot speak to how up to date some of the information is, thoough
4. While I may not agree with everything in it, "Mr. Strange" wrote his own strategy guides: https://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/mr_stranges-unofficial-strategy-guide.1185/
You'll have to decide for yourself how useful it is to you. The guides are old, and I think he probably lost interest in the game before he finished them. But it's still worth reading if you are looking for ideas to learn to play better.

One of the problems with strategy guides for this game is that everyone has their own preferred play styles, and there may be a certain degree of 'confirmation bias'. But it's certainly interesting to read about and possibly try what other people do, before you feel competent to come up with your own that fits your own preferred playstyle.

[Haldurson]

And yes, your observation about people demoing the game that don't necessarily actually know how to play very well is exactly what I thought when I was watching playthroughs. Part of the problem I think is that even when people play, it's difficult to both talk and focus on strategy, so as careless as you may be when you are just playing, people tend to be far more careless when creating their videos.

But yeah, too many of those videos had me yelling at the screen, things like "Pick up that damned bow!" or "You have a healing potion, why aren't you using it!" or "Don't walk through the traps!".

The game has either 10 or 15 floors -- 15 if you have (and check off) Realm of the Diggle Gods.

If you are a caster, and you want to take a weapons skill, there are two good ways you can go -- either go Unarmed (ok, technically, not a weapons skill), or you can go with Staves (with or without dual-wield, your choice). I would not recommend any of the other weapons skill for a caster, though.

Staves is certainly a decent choice, mostly because there are lots of Staves that have great caster stats, plus the skill itself will give you useful stats. Not all staves are designed for casters, but there are certainly really good ones for every level. If you happen to find 2 great staves, or you are a crafter, then you'll be pleased that you took dual wield on top of that. Note that if you only want to carry a stave or two for their bonuses, and don't really have room in your build for the skill, you can do that. But you'll be penalized in the stat department if you have two of them without the Dual Wield skill.

Unarmed is decent because it gives you a certain added defense, while allowing you to wield orbs and/or books, and there are plenty of each that are good for casters. Or you can simply go the defensive route while still having an attack, and wield one or two shields.

Of other weaponns, though, there's so few that are good for casters, that I wouldn't bother.

[LowDownDirtyGamer]

Wow.

Thanks for that detailed reply man, I appreciate it.

I have been building a lot of hybrids with mixed results, from your comments it looks like I may need to specialize more.

My current build.
Axes
Beserk
Wands
Viking Magic
Pyromancy
Astrology
Ley Walker

This has been my most succesful character so far, I am currently on the fourth floor and looking pretty good. The Dragon has basically walked me through the last two floors, fire rune seems to nuke monster zoo pretty well. The viking lightning buff and the astrology buff let me mop up anything that makes it to me.

[Haldurson]

Pets are great early on, but moslty they don't scale with level (only exception is the Tourist pet, which scales to the dungeon level).

That looks like a decent build up through around mid-game. Depending on how you play it, you may run into problems around mid-game, or maybe you'll last a bit longer than that (of course, your mileage may vary if you are playing on an easier difficulty level).

You lack any kind of defensive skill, which is important if you are expecting to do a lot of melee towards mid to late game. But if you change your focus to mage gear (which kind of would make axes and berserk a bit of a waste), you can at least have decent magic power, mana, and haywire.

My advice for future builds, if you are going the hybrid route, is to decide ahead of time which of two hybrid styles you prefer:
1. Most commonly, a good hybrid build is really a melee build with magic chosing chiefly to enhance melee, defense, and basic survival. You kind of have part of such a build, but you don't have any defense or escape skills.
2. Alternatively, you can start melee, with the intention of switching to pure mage when you have the required points in those mage skills. Certain mage builds that center around Necronomiconomics, or Egyptian Magic, don't get really good until after you've invested a lot of points into those and related skills. Early on, you just want good melee gear, and then swtich your entire focus.

Starting with some of your choics as a framework, here are two ways you can go (certainly there are lots of diffierent possibilities, though -- these just happen to include MOSTLY choices that you made in the build you mentioned).
For 1:
Axes, Berserk, Master of Arms, Viking Magic, Fungal Arts, Astrology, Ley Walker
For 2:
Staves, Dual Wield, Viking Magic, Pyromancy, Astrology, Ley Walker, Burglary

Each style has a lot of different possibilities, I just came up with 1 of each off the top of my head. Also keep in mind that if you ask 3 other decent players about build, you will likely get 3 entirely different answers because we al lhave our personal preferences and strategies. Nothing I say should be taken as anything other than my personal opinion.

[LowDownDirtyGamer]

Thanks for the thoughts on my build. :)

My character sadly died on the fourth floor. :(

I was clearing out a monster zoo and didn't notice a invisible enemy that killed me in two shots. I only own the vanilla version of the game so I don't have access to some of the more exotic skills in the game right now. I have been avoiding all crafting skills because I have not been able to find a wiki that explains them and I haven't checked the Steam guides yet.

I have been trying to incorporate at least one new skill in each of my builds as I learn the game, since the ingame tooltips, while amusing, do nothing to help your understanding of game mechanics. I have been browsing the links you provided and they are very helpful.

[Haldurson]

If you enjoy the game, You can't go wrong by picking up a copy of both paid DLC (plus the free one, of course). I consider them an incredible bargain even at their standard price. But you can always wait for a sale. There are some great skills, for one thing, but they add a lot more than that. Unfortunately, some of what they add is very rare so you may not see it for a few playthroughs (there are some really rare rooms in the Wizardlands, for example). Also, you have to get pretty far into your game before you even have a chance to find the statue of a Diggle God, and even that's not guaranteed. And eventually, you'll probably want to check out Diggle Hell, if for nothing else, but to get all of the achievements there (There are several).

Also, many of the better mods require you to have all of the DLC, and there are some excellent mods out there.

[transce]

WIkia's is pretty good.

http://dungeonsofdredmor.wikia.com/wiki/Dungeons_of_Dredmor_Wiki

[Haldurson]

Originally posted by transce:

WIkia's is pretty good.

http://dungeonsofdredmor.wikia.com/wiki/Dungeons_of_Dredmor_Wiki

If it's still being updated, cool. I knew about this one but it always was way behind the other wiki (which no longer exists) on updates, plus the old one was easier to read, so I never used this one. The database for Dredmorpedia was fed directly from the live data, so that one was always up to date (I'm not sure about recently though). It does look like some work was done in this since the last time I checked -- the last update was yesterday, which is an excellent sign.

I wish it looked nicer -- the brown print on brown background makes it hard to read, plus everything look drab. But beggars can't be choosers.