CIP - KoBe

[mrthehoople]

Never tried this before, would appreciate some advice..

My second attempt at this has landed me some cool gear very early on - a +3 leather armour with ACC+3, a +3 dagger of electrocution and a +2 sabre of freezing! Also bought a wand of invisibility in a shop which made Eustachio a very easy kill. Also have a wand of cold.

My current thinking is that I should use the dagger - I'm at mindelay on Dungeon level 4 and can use experience to train dodging, fighting and stealth. I'm figuring stealth is going to be key to making this build work. Or shall I use the sabre and keep training short blades? I'm finding my sling pretty useful too, is it worth training that? If I find a buckler shall I train shields to 7?

Any other advice on this build? Thanks

[Magipi]

I am not sure why you started with short blades, they are generally bad if you are not stabbing. However, I guess the elec dagger is much better than that sabre even if you are just meleeing. The reason: the elec brand is that good.

But with that invis wand, I would definitely stab everything, and train stealth for that. Let's hope you don't run out of recharging scrolls too fast.

[mps]

With KoBe, you want to start with long blades and skill that in the early game. Use good daggers if they generate, but don't skill short blades, just use the crosstraining in early D if you have good brands available, e.g. electrocution, venom, maybe draining depending on what your long blades situation looks like. Trog will gift you good long blades, usually including a double sword, so you'll have solid melee. When you've got your long blade at min delay, start on xbows. If it's a 3 rune game, plan to stop at 18 for arbalest mindelay.

Meanwhile, when you've got long blades to 10, start mixing in fighting, dodging, and armor as usual for melee characters. Don't use shields except in the early game if you come across a buckler. Don't skill shields.

[Sar]

Why not use shields on a KoBe, though? IIRC you can use a demon blade and a shield on a Ko (you definitely can on a Ha) and there isn't much difference between demon blade and double sword. One is faster, other is more damaging. Of course, you need lots of XP for shields but it's not like Be is XP-starved.

[mps]

Because xbows are a better defensive skill than shields. If you get a really good demon blade, okay, but xbows are 2-handed and unless you want to put 25 levels into throwing, they're your best option.

Also worth mentioning, you'll easily hit the 70-85 AC+EV defense range with a KoBe around v:5 anyway. There's no reason to have more defense than that, certainly not at the cost of lower damage output.

[Sar]

Ah right, ranged. I don't usually use it but it makes lots of sense.

[radinms]

Why do you play KoBe and not go stabbing route?
And what is your version?

sabre? My version has cutlass.

[mopl]

Why do you play KoBe and not go stabbing route?

You definitely want a blowgun !

[Reptisaurus]

My first win was KoBe. I think I had fairly heavy armor, a shield, and short blades at 27. So take heart, you can still win even if you totally screw up your skills!

[mrthehoople]

sorry I've been away...

very interesting replies.

My version is ancient, I need to upgrade. I'm very surprised people have suggested going long blades with kobold aptitude of -2.. I assumed that kobold berserker would be a stealth/stab type build using short blades with a shield. Can someone explain why long blades is so much better (is it simply because it's hard to deal much damage with short blades in a straight fight? In which case wouldn't M&F be better with the better aptitude...)

I've had a few goes now using short blades, stealth, dodging and buckler. Admittedly I'm not doing brilliantly... Do people generally use xbows to deal the damage with this build then?

Thanks for the info, next time I die I'll maybe try a long blade build. I figure the carnivore/berserk combo is pretty powerful and offsets the need to invest more experience to reach mindelay

[mopl]

Long Blades is a good idea because with crosstraining, you'll get some SBlades skill and you can swap to daggers to stab.

Also LBlades benefit more from Dex than M&F, and as a Ko you'll have decent Dex.