Mountain Dwarf Berserker for total melee carnage

[danr]

I want to put in a plug for Berserker as being a very good class for dwarves:

- Dwarves are good with axes, berserkers can only start with an axe, and dwarves get the racial bonus on their starting axe (equivalent to +0,+2).

- Axes are the best class for going without a shield. Berserkers don't start with a shield so no skills wasted there.

- MDs have the best armour aptitude in the game, making shieldless conduct easiest for them as their armour ability can compensate.

- MDs suck at magic anyway.

- Going shieldless is good for using a crossbow, which MDs have as their best ranged attack.

- This class can specialize its skills perhaps more than any other build. No magic, no invocations needed.

- This leaves XP to be invested in evocations, which can compensate very well for the lack of magic.

So you can really dump almost all your XP into Fighting, Axes, and Armour. Being so specialized increases the odds of getting mostly axes from Trog. Once you have a crossbow up and running those gifts will be useful to as that will be a key ranged attack.

[danr]

Thanks, fixed the OP. I read that about MDs a long time ago, maybe it changed or maybe it was a bad source.

Anyhow, still a great way to go if you want to focus your skills. I actually still found it tactically interesting, because I was really using wands a lot.

[tormodpwns]

I still find a Large Shield + Broad Axe to be better than an Executioner's Axe. By lategame you can probably get 45-55 SH which is incredible in terms of survival. The damage bonus from the Executioner's Axe is only +6, which I guess could make some kind of difference in finishing fights faster, but definitely not as much as the protection you get from a shield. Not to mention shields protect you from ranged attacks and traps as well (whereas +6 damage won't help you approach yaktaur captains).

Also, Evocations to replace spellcasting? There's not much you can do with Evocations except summon things and zap wands, unless you were very lucky to find a rod with useful enchantments. Plus, I find Evocations hard to train to a useful enough level even if you have spam crappy wands at goblins.

[danr]

Umm - if you are worshipping Trog, you can't cast spells anyway, so yes, evocations are good to train in absence of any spellcasting ability.

[danr]

Am I crazy to suggest that an MDBe might find it useful to train wands? I'm getting this weird resistance to the idea that puzzles me.

You can't put ALL your XP into fighting, axes and armour.

I assume that the power of wands increases with evocations skill - so you are more likely to confuse, paralyze, slow, etc.

[szanth]

Srsly. Berserkers of all kinds can benefit from evocations. It's the closest to magic they can get.

[szanth]

Well yeah, rods. But also evocable equipment, so a melee guy still has access to a reliable source of levitation and such, things that casters are pretty much guaranteed to have and that non-casters would otherwise have to rely entirely on potions for.

[MrMisterMonkey]

(you don't really need to train evocations to use a ring of levitation
rings of teleportation are quite nice, though
and if you're a stabber, particularly kobold (for the carnivore/gourmand/saprovore), rings of invisibility should be splendid, but you don't really need good success rates for them)

[danr]

This thread is not about casters, it is about MDBes. What evocations does for casters is off-topic.

Incidentally, what level of evocations is needed for evokable invisibility to be reliable?

With other classes, I've never gotten evocations above 7 or 8 or so, and there comes a point where I just assume all the tough monsters will resist anyway because my skill is not high enough, so I just start dropping my wands of confusion etc. on the floor.

[Volgon]

I still find a Large Shield + Broad Axe to be better than an Executioner's Axe. By lategame you can probably get 45-55 SH which is incredible in terms of survival. The damage bonus from the Executioner's Axe is only +6, which I guess could make some kind of difference in finishing fights faster, but definitely not as much as the protection you get from a shield. Not to mention shields protect you from ranged attacks and traps as well (whereas +6 damage won't help you approach yaktaur captains).

Also, Evocations to replace spellcasting? There's not much you can do with Evocations except summon things and zap wands, unless you were very lucky to find a rod with useful enchantments. Plus, I find Evocations hard to train to a useful enough level even if you have spam crappy wands at goblins.

I'd like know if others agree with this (esp. in v0.8).

According to danr's (excellent) post about weapon damage, by endgame the executioner axe is doing almost 15 more damage per turn, than the broad axe. (34 vs. 19)

Does the shield make up for this? It seems that it would have to prevent about 50% of any damage (since any creature is going to be alive about twice as long during combat).

[smock]

Ever used an enchanted sling with enchanted steel bullets? Yes, they can take out an Orb of Fire before it can turns you into a pulsating lump. This happens in the endgame with Trog. Midgame you have to make due with +2 bullets of flame, which are pretty darn effective.

I don't know how many XP it takes to train slings but it always seems to happen quickly.

[danr]

With an MD I'd go for crossbows though.

I had a HaBe with a sling like that though, it was pretty sick.