Demonspawn Mutation discussion/advice

[tcjsavannah]

Been playing Demonspawn almost exclusively over the last week thanks to a suggestion on here, and I've been enjoying it for the most part but I was wondering if there are certain mutations that you get throughout a character that either change the way you play drastically or force you to give up said character.

The main two that I'm thinking of here are Nightstalker and Powered By Death. Has anyone ever changed their character to a stabber based on getting the Nightstalker mutation? You would think also that Powered By Death would be tailor made for Kiku, but am I right on that?

Also, Hellfire is fun. Suicidal in some aspects, but still fun. Ran into the Vault and saw an eight-Ogre pack all lined up like the Brady Bunch... boom! Fried Ogre on the menu tonight!

Any other Demonspawn mutations that affect the direction of your character once you see them crop up? (EDIT: I'm working on 7.1, so if there are more changes on 8.0, please specify..)

[colma]

Demonic Guardian is pretty ridiculous at 3, especially if paired with Makhleb's greater servants. Cadre of badass summons without the need for spellcasting or summoning skill? Yes, please.

PbD works well even without kiku. Post-endgame kiku would probably be needed for it to be any use (kinda like the vampire-no blood problem)...but most of the time post-endgame is just academic anyway .

[christhawk]

I've had great success with Demonic Guardian at 3 with Trog's Brothers in Arms, too. PbD is a great way to keep an early-game berserker alive, btw.

[moomoo]

PbD is great even without kiku. I've had some fun with Iron shot and nightstalker but its quite lame for conjurers.

Having just joined Okawaru and getting demonic guardian mutation kinda messes a character up for good.
Poisonspit is very underwhelming in my books, it's nice for a few early threats tho.

[tcjsavannah]

If you're a Demonspawn Venom Mage, you're almost guaranteed to get poison spit. Breathe Flames 3 is pretty powerful though - I was one-shotting Nagas with it on one character with it.

[Funkymoses]

I just completed my first-ever 15-runer with a DS that had nightstalker but didn't really change my character much since he was a melee guy. It would be a problem if I was trying to go with conjurations or ranged attacks, but with DS aptitudes neither of those really makes sense. He also had antennae, which was cool because he'd pick up enemies a couple squares before they came into range. (Also he found a fixedart hat that gave rC+, rF+, rElec, and MR in a shop.)

The only items that are really terrible are thin skeletal structure and magic mapping. Let's see... you could be nigh invulnerable to enchantments or passively freeze everything that attacks you, or you could get some marginal utility in hell when you just want to go down levels. Or +9 AC versus some extra stealth.

A bunch of the level 2 facets are slanted towards melee types (nightstalker, ice, spiny) so you're probably going to end up wanting to do melee stuff. Other things are pretty obvious -- if you get bony plates you want to use a shield, etc.

[jackalKnight]

So basically Ds are very likely to become Makhleb-oriented melee users, since many of the mutations are related to melee combat?

[tormodpwns]

not necessarily because Demonspawn make good spellcasters too. Although DS mutations are great for melee, especially now that you're guaranteed a bodily mutation (which boosts Unarmed Damage). Personally, I think the best one to get is Horns because that allows you to still wear caps and wizard hats, while claws drop your gloves and talons/cloved feet drop your boots.

BTW, what exactly does PbD do? Does it give HP for kills like Makhleb?

[Waywinkle]

It comes up as a status effect like regen when you kill something. I've only had it once and I died pretty quickly afterwards so I don't really know what it was doing.

[mad]

More to the point, the regen is while you are near the corpse; if you go too far from the corpse, the status disappears, and if you approach it again, the status reappears.

[lucy_ferre]

My best character was a DSWz, so I think they make good casters. Anyway, PbD gives you regen when you kill something while standing near a corpse. The more corpses around the faster your regen becomes. The main downsides are limited range, massive hunger increase, and the fact that corpses are rare in the endgame. I think it makes corpses rot away faster too...

[Funkymoses]

So basically Ds are very likely to become Makhleb-oriented melee users, since many of the mutations are related to melee combat?

I've never used Makhleb -- I went with Nemelex because getting decks of wonder can offset slow leveling and get you your mutation set a lot faster, in addition to the rest of Nemelex's crazy bonuses. If you get PbD that overlaps somewhat with Makhleb, it seems, and the same with Demonic Guardian.

Yes as far as melee goes. Evidently other people find DS conjuration types to be good characters; I've never used them. But with the level two mutations melee-slanted and the body slot mutation you're probably not going to be using all of your demonic bonuses if you're busy pinging people from a distance. Also, damaging spells overlap with breath weapon somewhat. Meanwhile demonwhips are awesome, you get an effective +0, +2 bonus with them, and you can turn off maces and flails really early to shove exp into other things. If you're a DS and run across Grinder in your game or Pikel drops a pain whip the necromelee build is basically shaking you, saying "AAARGH CHOOSE ME."