Cursed Builds

[Charlatan73]

Hey - I am trying to figure out how to improve the survivability of my Cursed characters. I typically start off with a Dwarf, and I do open the Cursed Equipment tree, mainly cause it's fun.

I know to expect the earlier levels to be a bit tough, that's just how the class goes. I was wondering if someone would share some skill progressions that have gotten them to higher levels with the class.

I can see the character builds, but it's tough to determine what skill points were used for in order to achieve level 50.

Thanks!

[Sirrocco]

First question is where you are having trouble. "How do I get my Dwarf Cursed out of the starter dungeon?" is an entirely different question from "How do I build my Dwarf Cursed to survive in the early to middlegame?" which in turn is different from any endgame questions you might be asking.

[Charlatan73]

fair enough - I'm having trouble in the early - early mid game - between level 10-20

I'm typically a dwarf, so by the time i get out of the mountain i'm about level 7. i immediately go to derth to get my 2 generic points out of the arena.

I then hit Bill, Shade, Old Forest, and that's when i run into trouble. I don't know if i need to do a different order, or if my build just isn't cutting it. When I try to do lake nir i lose lots of lives.

[ohioastro]

fair enough - I'm having trouble in the early - early mid game - between level 10-20

I'm typically a dwarf, so by the time i get out of the mountain i'm about level 7. i immediately go to derth to get my 2 generic points out of the arena.

I then hit Bill, Shade, Old Forest, and that's when i run into trouble. I don't know if i need to do a different order, or if my build just isn't cutting it. When I try to do lake nir i lose lots of lives.

Do the other starter dungeons (the two sets of elf ones) before old forest. Try the Sandworm Lair and the Maze before Old Forest if you need to get beefed up a bit. These should give you a bit more running room.

[SageAcrin]

-Do all starting dungeons as Cursed that are possible. Cursed have a terrible earlygame and need all the help they can get.

-Rely more on your basic physical than offensive skills. Your strongest offensive skills scale with Strength and kinda suck at low levels. Combine with the constant Hate drain they provide and you'll be in a bad situation very fast, if you try to rely on them early.

-Take advantage of the fact that none of your skills care about what weapon you have early. 1-11 there's no weapon focus at all for Cursed, so use the strongest weapons you can find. Don't think that you have a "dualwielding" Cursed, there's no such thing until you start putting points into Surge.

-Learn Rampage as soon as you hit L10. It's the only activated skill that will keep you from dying, early, and it's quite useful at it. All of the skills are useful there(I haven't really messed with Slam, but it's decent on paper).

-Fatigue impacts Hate. It doesn't show it, but it does. Try to keep away from the very heaviest stuff, unless it's worth it (which it often is, so it's not really a big deal). Just remember this.

-Think in terms of mobility. Get Blindside and Reckless Charge, both(I suggest leveling the one of those two of your choice. Reckless Charge scales up more, so I prefer that). Blindside is Rush except it teleports you, meaning you don't have to care about people between you and the target, while Reckless Charge doesn't even require a target, so it can be used as an escape.

-Stack lots and lots of passive/sustained abilities. Gloom, Stalk, etc. The weapon-specific skills are all excellent and should be capped off when you get access to one-I recommend Surge the most, though.

-Shieldings are your best friend. Shielding Runes don't get impacted by your lousy healing modifier. (If you're going Antimagic Cursed, you're outside of my experience, so someone else will have to give you some info there, but I personally think that's a poor build.) A full Teleport rune can be quite useful, too, as most of your escape mechanisms all leave you in the same area-sometimes you really want to be gone.

-Play a Berserker instead. Berserkers give you a good idea of how to play a Cursed in a general sense, while being better at it. The advantages Cursed have on Berserkers are mostly quirky situational stuff or mobility, and it's quite easy to screw them up due to their viciously hard earlygame. Getting more experience with the game overall, with a better class, makes you less likely to die with a weaker one.

[Tyren]

I found this thread useful. With my roguelike curseds i've defeated master once and i was able consistently make it to lake nur.
My usual skill preference: skip cleave and repel, put one hard point in every other activated skill when available,
Dominate-4 > Harass Prey-max and Slash-3 and Frenzy-3+ > Sanctuary-1 > Slam-1. Put the rest into rampage tree, gloom or blindside. Unless i play a cornac, i spend first cat point on inscription and pick rampage tree at level 20.

Stats:enough STR, WIL for talents and gear, max CON until you have thick skin-5.

Generics:Combat accuracy 2+, relentless-max thick skin-max weapon mastery-max or soft points only if you plan a mindstar build. Nothing in Cursed Aura this early. Spend the rest on anything useful or save a few points.

Gear: Dual weapons must have +elemental attack damage (not just poison). They require only 3 points in frenzy. Stack healing mod, for derth ligntining resistance. Have a set of strength, dex and con gear in a vault to save stats and boost thick skin.

Tier 1 and 2 Dungeons: Don't accidentally hit your escort with reckless charge or frenzy. Avoid side dungeons like graves, temporal rift, old forest cellars and come back at high level. At early levels i avoid lost merchant quest until after tier 1 dungeons and lumberjack quest, make sure to have at least 2 regen/heal/shield inscriptions and wild-physical infusion. Don't talk to assassin and pull everybody into doorway. Enter derth if you have 40+ lightning resistance or good inscriptions. Then enter maze, maze-2 is sometimes tricky. In old forest it's possible to get the escorts killed or die to solipsist rare. Therefore i clear Sandworm after maze and Daikara last. In b43 find cursed class quest and see the dream for free xp, you can't die in it. The subsequent dungeon is mostly tougher than Lake Nur, with boss encounter similar to weirdling beast. High risk/high reward if attempted before tier 2 dungeons. Pre east cursed's worst enemies are bosses with fearscape or dazing attack (spellblaze, sometimes snow giant vault), solipsists, worms that walk, nightmare horrors, dream horrors, weirdling beast, enemies calling multiple rares for help, dreadmasters, any source of diseases, high damage reflection, stoning, impending doom, bloodlock.

Other useful tips. -Disable rest on auto-explore in game options. -Right click gloom and stalk to enable auto-use.
-Start with shalore, skip starting dungeon and buy infusions.
-On visited levels non artifact loot disappears when you enter another location on worldmap.
-Hate stops depleting at 50% of it's value unless you spend it, fight or take damage. Clear Sandworm lair-1 and stalk the tunnelers if you run out of hate.
-Stalk applies on a single target attack hit if any creature gets hit by such attack on your previous turn (also works with reckless charge).
-When fighting a tough monster without ranged abilities who can't catch up with you, it's often possible to run around and wait for gloom stun. Reckless charge 2 tiles away from it to use a heal.

[Charlatan73]

Thanks so much for the info guys i really appreciate it. I definitely saw some additional information and suggestions that I am sure will help!
Thanks again. i'll certainly be returning to this thread and the forum link provided above again and again

[Sirrocco]

My progression as a dwarf Cursed tends to be something like...
- Start with the dwarf dungeon, because you have to. Startscum until you get a level 4 Norgan. Clear both of the base levels in turn. Die repeatedly before I actually manage one that takes down the big guy.
- The two initial elf dungeons (I avoid escort dungeons as long as I can, because those escort points are precious, precious treasures)
- Deep Bellow and then the two tier 2 elf dungeons
Somewhere in here I deal with the thieves when they grab me, and the shady cornac in order to get him before level 10.
- Bill, then the shade.

At this point, it depends on how I'm feeling. Sandworm lair is odd. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't. It's always worth doing, but I vacillate on when to do it. Maze is definitely a plan. I leave Old Forest until I've gone through both of those and maybe one or two of the optional dungeons. If I'm planning to go antimagic, I save all escort dungeons until I've successfully done that (though that takes a while). On the flip side, you don't have but so many generics to go around, If you're planning on going with cursed equipment, it's probably better to skip on the antimagic (and vice versa)

note that damage return in general is quite strong in the early levels, particulalry if you can get your tankyness up. I pretty much always equip Tooth of the Maw as soon as I get it, for example, and it generally fills my tool slot until well after lvl 20.

Also note that you can counteract the heal penalty with enough of the appropriate gear - and that if and when you do, a high-powered regen infusion is just as useful for you as for the next melee character (very).

[Charlatan73]

Good update!
I am doing well with my Shaloren Cursed. Just got my fortress!
The big things to learn for me are the dual wielding vs two-handers, the effect fatigue has on hate, and dungeon order.
I've only died once and was out of sheer stupidity and general lack of paying attention when attacking a named midge swarm.
Yes, a midge swarm killed me.

[wobbly]

Was it a solipsist midge swarm? Those things are surprisingly nasty. They move backwards fast while firing at range. They make me think of the starting scene of Scanner Darkly.

[mrrstark]

Since Surge seems to be universally liked, I guess dual-wield is the way to go, but what off-hand?

Daggers have a high dex requirement I probably can't meet

Mindstars I just flat don't understand how they work. Mindpower? How do I get more of that? Is there a writeup somewhere that explains how mindstars with their way lower base damage and mindpower translates into actual damage?

What else is there?

[mrrstark]

Also, can someone detail how fatigue impacts hate?
It seems that goes at odds with the general "build a tanky guy with high armor" approach some outlined above.

Also, is it ever worth putting more than 4 in armor training? What does armor hardiness even do?

[tromboneandrew]

Mindstars I just flat don't understand how they work. Mindpower? How do I get more of that? Is there a writeup somewhere that explains how mindstars with their way lower base damage and mindpower translates into actual damage?

What else is there?

Mindpower seems to be influenced by willpower. Which potentially can be helpful for a Cursed.

IMHO, though, for dual-wielding Cursed, it's probably more important to use the off-hand weapon for a special effect or for magical damage than for it's base physical damage, which is probably going to be low. Mindstars don't really deal significant damage until you find a way to get the mindstar mastery skill tree - you can see it as a Wilder Summoner if you want to check ou the mechanics, although if memory serves you'll need to spend a catagory point to use it.

On the plus side, mindstars commonly come with extra effects. So, for dual-wielding, I'm not sure which is more effective: dual-wielding daggers, dual-wielding mindstars, or dual-wielding a sword/mace/etc. (depending on that for damage) with a dagger or mindstar in the off-hand for special effects.

Also: consider using a non-Dwarf race if starting Cursed are a problem. My experience with them is that it can be hard to boost damage quickly enough at the start, so using a Hobbit or a Thalore can help with their racial damage bonus skillz.

[Frumple]

Mindpower from stats is pretty simple. You get .7 mindpower per point of willpower, and .4 mindpower per point of cunning. One point of willpower and cunning combined is 1.1 mindpower. It says it pretty explicitly in the stat tooltip, if you check it when you're leveling.

And yeah, if you're not using the offhand for raw damage (which I wouldn't really suggest, t'be honest, at least until much later in the game), I probably would recommend just using whatever gives you the best bonuses or special effects. A psychic/mystic dagger can give a nice chunk of mindpower to boost up your gloom (and other mindpower scaling) talents, ferex, or a mitotic mindstar can give a hefty debuff effect to your melee attacks. Elemental/icy daggers, various antimagic weapons... the list goes on. Basically, you want to spec your offhand weapon for utility rather than blunt damage, generally. Balanced weapons (or stuff like the unerring scalpel) can also help with early accuracy issues. Lots of stuff you can do.

[Sirrocco]

worth noting that if/when you do go antimagic, havign "antimagic" on your weapon (or other gear) counts as a potentially useful special effect - it can cause magic spells to fizzle (particularly if you stack a lot of them) and I believe they can can disrupt magic sustains (particularly if you stack a lot of them)