Riposte Swordsman Advice


Ask fellow adventurers how to stay alive in the deep, dark, dangerous dungeon below, or share your own accumulated wisdom.

Dungeon Dilettante

Posts: 2

Joined: Wednesday, 26th June 2019, 19:11

Post Wednesday, 26th June 2019, 19:36

Riposte Swordsman Advice

Hey. I'm very new at this, but I'm working on a build, and I want some advice on if what I'm doing is even viable, and how to optimize it. My idea was to make a character with high evasion who can take advantage of the ripostes with two handed long blades. I chose to be a Minotaur monk of Dithmenos, since Minotaurs have good aptitudes in both long blades and dodging, and Dithmenos because his shroud reduces enemy accuracy, and doubling up big sword attacks sounds pretty good too. I chose monk because they have good skills for this, and it lets my shroud come online earlier. So here are my questions.

Is this a viable strategy?

Should I consider a different race/class/God, or different sources of evasion?

What attribute should I be leveling? (I'm not sure if I should go for strength to get rid of the EV penalty on armor, or dexterity to double down on EV, or some balance of the two.)

Thank you for your advice :D

Zot Zealot

Posts: 1004

Joined: Thursday, 16th August 2018, 21:19

Post Wednesday, 26th June 2019, 20:14

Re: Riposte Swordsman Advice

In general I have the impression repose isn't particularly good, but it's good for laughs.
(It's good enough to make a sword better than a mace in many circumstances, but the difference in base damage between a sword and a mace is rather small to begin with.)

Repostes only trigger when you dodge a melee attack, which means it just isn't very good in a lot of circumstances. It won't help against ranged attackers, and it won't help much against enemies with high HD.
If you really want to have a reposte build (for laughs), your proposed plan actually sounds decent. Don't sacrifice too much AC for the sake of EV and you should be fine. You should probably get at least enough strength to conformable wear shadow dragon scales, and you can afford to put the rest into Dex (even if it's not optimal).
Some other paths you can consider:
Go Uskayaw & train a bunch of stealth. Pump more Dex than you usually would. Use Line Pass to make enemies confused. Reposte stabs are hilarious.
Chei. Chei gives a lot of Strength & Dex, which can result in a lot of EV. wear an amulet of acrobat & kill enemies with . for bonus points. Much better with a ranged option to deal with scary enemies, in my opinion.
Play bcrawl, and play a Avariel reaver. Most importantly they start with steam dragon scales, which allows you to have good AC & EV. Also you start with Vehm.

All these characters would be perfectly fine with a mace though. I think that's kind of the point I made earlier, that reposte isn't very good.

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 689

Joined: Saturday, 12th December 2015, 23:54

Post Wednesday, 26th June 2019, 20:24

Re: Riposte Swordsman Advice

It's viable in the sense that you can win doing it but not viable in the sense that it's worse than playing a minotaur that uses heavy armor and doesn't try to maximize ev at the expense of other things.

For this message the author Hellmonk has received thanks:
nago

Swamp Slogger

Posts: 182

Joined: Monday, 2nd July 2018, 16:47

Location: United States

Post Wednesday, 26th June 2019, 20:58

Re: Riposte Swordsman Advice

SwolePonHiki wrote:I chose monk because they have good skills for this, and it lets my shroud come online earlier.

Starting skills are of very little importance. The total amount of experience of all your starting skills combined is about equal to what you earn in the first 2 dungeon floors. Generally you want to choose a background for its gear or other perks that don't usually appear in the first 2 floors.

SwolePonHiki wrote:Is this a viable strategy?

Yes. It is not 100% optimal (that is to say, there are better strategies if you are looking for maximum winrate), but it is certainly good enough to win with. Quite comfortably in fact, because Minotaurs are way above average in terms of species effectiveness.

SwolePonHiki wrote:Should I consider a different race/class/God, or different sources of evasion?

if you are looking to play melee, Monk is a pretty weak background compared to Gladiator (which starts with a better weapon and more strength) or Berserker (which starts with a powerful god and more strength). As far as Gods go, Trog is really great with melee and Okawaru is great with big weapons in general. Realistically Dithmenos doesn't do as much for you. If you are looking for a fun evasion theme, yes, I think Dithmenos increases your effective evasion by more than any other god (Okawaru's Heroism will increase your evasion to some degree, but probably not as much). If you are looking for a fun build and don't wish to optimize too much, you'll still do fine; I already mentioned that the Minotaur species is so strong it will comfortably carry the suboptimal choices.

SwolePonHiki wrote:What attribute should I be leveling? (I'm not sure if I should go for strength to get rid of the EV penalty on armor, or dexterity to double down on EV, or some balance of the two.)

Strength, for sure. Mostly because it substantially increases the damage of your attacks (including riposte attacks). The reduction of EV penalty is icing on the cake.

Dungeon Dilettante

Posts: 2

Joined: Wednesday, 26th June 2019, 19:11

Post Wednesday, 26th June 2019, 22:45

Re: Riposte Swordsman Advice

Thanks for the advice, guys. I'm playing this build now, and having a lot of fun. Overall, I took your advice to mean this is somewhat viable, but not worth compromising survivability for, so I'm going with heavy armor and strength all the way. Even though I'm worshipping Dithmenos over Trog, I was lucky enough to find an amulet of rage early on, which I'm training my evocations to use better since I just hit min delay with my longsword. :)

bel

Cocytus Succeeder

Posts: 2184

Joined: Tuesday, 3rd February 2015, 22:05

Post Thursday, 27th June 2019, 00:43

Re: Riposte Swordsman Advice

Just ignore riposte and play as you normally would. Long blades are fine as weapons. They have good damage and there's a fair variety of one- and two-handed versions. They're also fairly common.

If you're playing with Dithmenos, keep in mind that long blades cross-train with short blades, and you can set up stabs with shadow step. However, stab damage depends on stealth, and if you're wearing heavy armour, training it might not be worthwhile. There is one heavy armour (shadow dragon armour) which is also stealthy, but you only find it late in the game.

Blades Runner

Posts: 616

Joined: Thursday, 25th October 2012, 03:19

Post Thursday, 27th June 2019, 02:32

Re: Riposte Swordsman Advice

Instead of Dith, try the god that allows you to strike stuff by moving around it... umm forgot the name offhand, Ukasomething I believe. You may also want to use an acrobat amulet. Ultimately, it's fun to toy with but less effective than other more straightforward techniques.

Swamp Slogger

Posts: 182

Joined: Monday, 2nd July 2018, 16:47

Location: United States

Post Thursday, 27th June 2019, 13:00

Re: Riposte Swordsman Advice

svendre wrote:Instead of Dith, try the god that allows you to strike stuff by moving around it... umm forgot the name offhand, Ukasomething I believe. You may also want to use an acrobat amulet. Ultimately, it's fun to toy with but less effective than other more straightforward techniques.

Sounds like you're thinking of Wu Jian Council's "whirlwind" ability which attacks all adjacent monsters (at reduced damage) when you move. This doesn't increase your EV at all, even with acrobat, because acrobat treats it as an attack. I agree that Wu Jian is a subpar god.

Blades Runner

Posts: 616

Joined: Thursday, 25th October 2012, 03:19

Post Saturday, 29th June 2019, 14:57

Re: Riposte Swordsman Advice

stormdragon wrote:
svendre wrote:Instead of Dith, try the god that allows you to strike stuff by moving around it... umm forgot the name offhand, Ukasomething I believe. You may also want to use an acrobat amulet. Ultimately, it's fun to toy with but less effective than other more straightforward techniques.

Sounds like you're thinking of Wu Jian Council's "whirlwind" ability which attacks all adjacent monsters (at reduced damage) when you move. This doesn't increase your EV at all, even with acrobat, because acrobat treats it as an attack. I agree that Wu Jian is a subpar god.


Yes that's what I meant, thanks. I think I only played with this combo once awhile ago, so it's likely I don't recall clearly. So you're saying no EV bonus from the amulet when you move adjacent and you're worshipping Wu Jian? Hmm, I wonder, did it add the EV bonus at one time and then it was was changed?

Lair Larrikin

Posts: 18

Joined: Monday, 17th April 2017, 11:30

Location: UK

Post Thursday, 11th July 2019, 23:31

Re: Riposte Swordsman Advice

My second win was a MiBe with triple sword of elec. It's good fun.

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