1.4.9 Sawbutcher Guide

[bpat]

Somehow no one made a Sawbutcher guide yet. Time to change that! Here's a link to my AoA Insane winner for reference.

Races
AoA: The only notable racial synergy is Timeless + Continuous Butchery and that's often overkill so pick whatever race you are most comfortable with.
EoR: Doesn't really matter, all three races make for good Sawbutchers.

Stats
Str > Cun > Mag > Dex if going Arcane Might, otherwise Str > Cun > Dex > Con

Category points
AoA: Inscription slot -> Automated Butchery -> Inscription slot -> Furnace
EoR: Inscription slot -> Automated Butcher -> Furnace

Inscriptions
You need two Steam Generators for most of the game so your first category point goes to a second Steam Generator. If you get a ridiculously good one then you can probably get away with just one after 5/5 Mow Down unless playing Embers of Rage in which case you want Steam Powered Armour which will require a second generator. Other slot or two go to Movement or Regeneration Infusions.

Prodigies
Some combination of Flexible Combat, Arcane Might, I Can Carry The World, and Spine of the World is probably best. I took Flexible Combat at 30 and Arcane Might at 42 but if I wasn't Shalore then Spine of the World would have been more appealing.

Tinkers
Belt: Fungal Web for sustained healing. Backup: Thunder Grenade for AoE stun.
Body: Ablative Armour for crit reduction and armour, Backup: Spike Attachment for armour or Second Skin for status resistances.
Cloak: Grounding Strap for stun resistance. Backup: doesn't matter they there aren't any other good options.
Feet: Rocket Boots for movement. Backup: doesn't matter because there aren't any other good options.
Hands: Spring Grapple for pull (works with Saw Wheels!). Backup: Fatal Attractor for taunt summon though any summon will do.
Head: Headlamp for accuracy or Focus Lens for sight radius.
Lite: None, these cost a generic point and you don't benefit much from either.
Weapon: Razor Edge or Crystal Edge for damage increase, Silver Filigree for demons, undead, and horrors. Backup: Acid Groove or Viral Injector.

Class Categories

Butchery: 5/1/1/0 early and core, Tempest of Metal and Overcharge Saws luxury

Float points in Massive Physique to max Steamsaw Mastery faster.

Overheat Saws sucks but it has its uses early since it ignores armor, making enemies with high armour more manageable. It's instant so don't waste steam on it when not actively attacking.

Tempest of Metal is great at both dealing damage and reducing damage but it doesn't scale well with points so don't go past 1/5 until later.

Overcharge Saws is okay but I don't think it is good enough to max until very late, if at all. It gets better the most points you have in your other talents so you'll want to max all your other important talents first.

Sawmaiming: 4/2/4/0 early and core, 1/5 Goresplosion luxury

To The Arms applies a powerful damage reduction debuff so it should be used early in fights. The fifth point does almost nothing so leave it at 4/5.

Bloodstream is okay. It amplifies bleed damage but somehow it seems to not do as much as I expect from reading the tooltip. 2/5 gives a nice breakpoint and it doesn't get much better past there. Also it is one of your only ways to damage non-adjacent targets making it good against Summoners and such early.

Spinal Break is probably what you want to be opening fights with, right before using To The Arms. It removes sustains and also temporary buffs so it can be a good counter to things like Blinding Speed and GWF. It also slows but you should ideally have enough slow on hit that you aren't using it just for the slow. The fifth point does almost nothing so leave it at 4/5.

Most on-kill effects are bad and Goresplosion is no exception. You could take 1/5 solely to counter Necromancers because it's instant but I don't think it's necessary.

Battlefield Management: 1/2/2/5 early, 1/5/4/5 core, Saw Wheels luxury

Saw Wheels is ridiculous. It gives a great movespeed boost and a massive instant burst of damage when ending on a very low cooldown. Doubles as a gap-closer and an escape. You don't need more than 1/5 but it scales decently with extra points.

Grinding Shield is good against physical enemies which are usually not as threatening as magical ones anyway but it still helps. It's worse than Tempest of Metal but still very powerful.

Punishment is underwhelming early when it costs a lot of steam and you don't have many on-hit status effects but it becomes very powerful later. The fifth point doesn't give much damage so I recommend leaving it at 4/5 which has the potential to deal 317% weapon damage.

Battlefield Veteran is what makes Grinding Shield and Punishment so good. The negative life it gives to Grinding Shield will nearly double your lifepool early and the cooldown reduction on Punishment lets you use it every three turns if you only use it on targets with 7 temporary status effects.

Battle Machinery: 0/0/0/0 early and core, 1/1/4-5/0 luxury

This entire category feels like it's made for a steamcaster class that doesn't exist. Its damage just isn't good enough compared to your melee attacks. However Tremor Engine can be a useful source of debuffs if you want to spend the 6-7 points to get it.

Automated Butchery (locked): Unlock at level 20, 5/2/3/0 core, Mow Down and Tech Overload luxury

Continuous Butchery gets hilarious especially with Timeless and a global speed buff. Timeless is probably overkill since most enemies aside from stair guardians and final bosses won't survive even five turns of Continuous Butchery.

Explosive Saw is a silence and pull, essentially the ultimate anti-caster talent. You don't need more than 2/5 since 8 range is good enough and the damage isn't important.

Mow Down is also ridiculous. It costs max steam but doesn't drain steam per turn and it also regenerates a ton of steam in addition to perma-brainlocking AoE late game. 3/5 is usually good enough for perma-brainlock and more points can increase the reliability and steam regeneration.

Tech Overload looks good on paper but in reality you don't have many talents you would need to reset.

Furnace (locked): Unlock at level 36 or with Wyrm Bile, 5/5/1/1 core, Melting Point luxury

Furnace is a significant damage boost and your only built-in source of resistance penetration. Pretty great for just three steam per turn!

Molten Metal is pretty bad as far as flat damage reduction goes, but in combination with Tempest of Metal and Grinding Shield it makes you even more tanky than before. Also it's part of the Furnace sustain so it doesn't cost additional steam.

Furnace Vent doesn't do enough damage to be useful.

Melting Point resets your molten points and removes effects. I don't think more than 2-3 should be needed but it's up to you.

Generic Categories

Physics: Whatever it takes for the schematics you found. See the Tinkers section above for reference. You will want to put enough points here for Steam Powered Armour if playing EoR. You can save points with Brass Goggles or a mastery/perfection amulet.

Chemistry: Whatever it takes for the schematics you found. See the Tinkers section above for reference and also take 5/5 Theraputics for Unstoppable Force Salve. You can save points with Brass Goggles or a mastery/perfection amulet.

Also max Steam Power immediately since it boosts Tempest of Metal's damage reduction and increases your chance to apply some statuses.

Blacksmith: 0/0/0/0 core, Craftsman's Eye and 5/5 Life in the Flames luxury

Massive Physique is nice for maxing Steamsaw Mastery and Thick Skin earlier but otherwise irrelevant.

Endless Endurance sucks.

Life in the Flames is pretty bad but 5/5 is actually okay since fireburn effects can deal a lot of damage.

Craftsman's Eye is great but brought down by having a significant point investment just to unlock it.

Combat Training: 2/3/2/0/0 core, more in Thick Skin, Armour Training, and Combat Accuracy as needed

Engineering (locked): Never unlock, Last Engineer Standing would be luxury if it wasn’t locked.

Survival (locked): Probably don't unlock with a category point but it's a good Yeti Tissue unlock.

EoR Yeti Tissue Rewards

Change the order as you see fit
1) Conditioning (1/5/0/0)
2) Dream Walk
3) Chant of Fortitude
4) Charm Mastery or Premonition

Gameplay
Just Saw Wheels/Spring Grapple to oneshot enemies from range 6 lol. Jokes aside, after the dreadful early game Sawbutcher becomes pretty easy and straightforward so there isn't much to say here. The thing you will probably struggle with most is status effects since base Frost Salves suck and Sawbutcher has no built-in status management like Relentless or Unflinching Resolve. Base Injectors and Salves are so bad in fact that I recommend replacing your starting Injectors with Regeneration/Wild Infusions.

Itemization
Items that are good in general are still good on Sawbutcher. Sadly Steam Powered Gloves doesn't give a Flexible Combat proc so it's not that great if taking Flexible Combat. Black Plate is hilarious with Continuous Butchery. Stack defensive items because your damage will already be crazy high with Continuous Butchery and offensive prodigies.

[Pumpkinreaper]

For equipment, I'd highly recommend anything that gives gloom procs on hit, since with tempest of metal active, you're hitting everything each turn, not to mention it adds more debuffs to the pile for punishment to wreck shit.

For EoR races, I'd say yeti's are probably the best choice since they don't need much investment for generics, hit everything a shitton of times making algid rage even better and their third racial actually heals for a surprisingly good amount (not enough to out heal stuff two-shotting you, mind you, but it adds up pretty fast) and gets hilariously good with a certain unique saw...

Other than that, solidly written guide as usual.

[bpat]

I like Yeti the best in general for EoR but Sawbutcher isn't really starving for generic points aside from Yeti Tissue categories. I always recommend as many on-hits as possible for melee characters and Sawbutcher is no exception considering how many hits they can do per turn.

[ster]

Ogre does have some synergy since the infusion boost works really well with Injectors and there are several ridiculous 2H saws as an afterthought.

[bpat]

You're right, Ogre does have some nice synergy with injectors and Ogrewielding is great if you find a nice 2h steamsaw because it doesn't reduce the two stats you care about: accuracy and steampower. Also you can actually get more than one Infusion haha. Ogre's getting hit so hard in 1.5 though having worse Inscription stat scaling, the losing the free Inscription slot, and getting an Accuracy penalty when Ogrewielding so it's not going to be very good on Sawbutcher (and probably in general) after the patch.

[ster]

yeah RIP ogres, though they'll still be the best option if you don't care about extending overkill butchery

[bpat]

Even if it weren't for Continuous Butchery's Timeless synergy, Shalore would still be by far the best choice. Grace of the Eternals is amazing since Sawbutcher is a physical class that maxes either Dex or Mag and doesn't have access to Blinding Speed. Also Saw Wheels has just 2 cooldown if you use Timeless making Timeless a great escape tool. Furthermore, Timeless is a good status cleanse and Sawbutcher is one of the few melee classes with no built-in status management talents. Magic of the Eternals is a great place to dump spare Generic points which Sawbutcher has plenty of and Secrets of the Eternals is always decent at 1/5 because surprisingly many enemies can't deal with invisibility even at low powers.

Ogre's still arguably second best, though I think Doomelf is slightly better thanks to Haste of the Doomed and Pitiless. Ogre does a lot of things very well and looks great on paper but aside from the extra Inscription it just makes Sawbutcher better at stuff it can already do well instead of filling the gaps like Shalore and Doomelf do.

(Actually the real best race is Cornac because instant Inscription slot solves Sawbutcher's early game problems and the second half of the game is trivial for Sawbutchers.)

[ster]

(Actually the real best race is Cornac because instant Inscription slot solves Sawbutcher's early game problems

An instant inscription slot does not give me 2 t3 steamsaws or an actual steam generator to use the slot with.

[bpat]

Nothing guarantees you t3 steamsaw and steam generator drops but Cornac lets you have the ridiculous Inscription setup of Regeneration, Wild/Movement, Injector, Generator from the start of the game which is very powerful early. The level 10 category point would go to the second Steam Generator as usual, 20 to Automated Butchery, 36 to Furnace, and Wyrm Bile to Survival. Also next patch this will be even better if you go Antimagic which will trivialize most non-Solipsist, non-Doomed enemies. Apparently Aura of Silence will use physical power if it's higher than mindpower which is absurdly powerful on this class.

[nargo]

Thank you for guide!

Used this for my first Insane/Roguelike win as dwarf
https://te4.org/characters/170406/tome/ ... f49c075a93


Died to atamathon though (used up blood of life too)
rip dorf.

[Iconoclast]

Not sure I completely understand the Steamtech/Physics or Steamtech/Chemistry talents. I've been searching for a guide and can't find one. It says on yours only to get as much in them that you learn the requisite schematics, but wouldn't you want the highest level of them (5) to make? Each level increases the talent level of the tinker right?

[MilesTiden]

Each level increases the talent level of the tinker right?

Nope. Tinker talent level is solely based on materials used. The points just determine what you can make, and most of the higher level things are less useful, barring like, Steam Powered Armor in EoR.

Unrelatedly, this guide helped me clear a sawbutcher on Insane, my first non-adventurer Insane clear. It was... actually HILARIOUSLY easy. Like, I just auto-explored and mindlessly played easy.

[tabs]

Automated Butchery (locked): Unlock at level 20, 5/2/3/0 core, Mow Down and Tech Overload luxury

Continuous Butchery gets hilarious especially with Timeless and a global speed buff. Timeless is probably overkill since most enemies aside from stair guardians and final bosses won't survive even five turns of Continuous Butchery.

Explosive Saw is a silence and pull, essentially the ultimate anti-caster talent. You don't need

Mow Down is also ridiculous. It costs max steam but doesn't drain steam per turn and it also regenerates a ton of steam in addition to perma-brainlocking AoE late game. 3/5 is usually good enough for perma-brainlock and more points can increase the reliability and steam regeneration.

It seems the rest of this thought was left out somehow?

[meezy]

What's the benefit to Flexible Combat over say PES? I went with FC because everything else in the guide has served me well, but I never seem to see the extra attack in my combat log.

[tabs]

Finally (after an embarrassing number of attempts) won EoR Insane/Adventure (charsheet). I think that ICCTW should be up there as a prodigy choice; perhaps over AM because, really, building MAG isn't doing you any other favors whereas STR/DEX/CUN is a trifecta for Flex too.

Also, any thoughts about going Antimagic with STR>CUN>WIL and Flex+Superpower in AoA? Seems unlikely to be the best choice in EoR.