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Build Babble

For discussion of character builds. THIS PAGE IS SPOILY

• Initial stat allocation
• Class choices (Which, how many...)
• Build dependancy upon dragonball wishes
• Chi vs. Technomancy
• Etc.

Sample Builds

(Think you have a good/interesting build idea? Submit it here!)

In an attempt to make the page a bit more up-to-date/accessible, I'm splitting off the /Old Builds - those that may not apply for one reason or another.

Also, under the theory that it'll probably do better with its own page anyway, I give you /The Doctor is In. If you're having difficulty with your build, or trouble with parts of the game, or just don't feel like scumming for an hour and a half at the beginning of the game, come on it, tell us what you're working with, and we'll happily hand out personalized advice.

Chi barehander 3 school build, submitted by LordBucket

• Version: 0.87

• Initial stats: Str: 6, Int: 6, Wil: 12, Dex: 6, Con: 14, Chr: 12, Spd: 14

• Gender: Male

• Schools: Kickboxing, Sumo, Kungfu

• How to play: Retrieve Joe's knife at level 1 to allow you to do damage. Pump strength right away and a lot, followed by Barehand once it makes more sense than your weapon. Pump con for massive hit points. Study Kungfu for Martial Arts, to allow identification and better to-hit. Start with Chi Masters around level 20.

Easy Starter: 3 school build, submitted by LordBucket

• Version: 0.87

• Initial stats: Str: 10, Int: 6, Wil: 6, Dex: 6, Con: 14, Chr: 14, Spd: 14

• Gender: Female

• Schools: Kungfu, Judo, Ballet

• How to play: With your starting 2500zn, buy a polearm. Preferably a spear. Equip your high heels and marry Oolong at level 1 for free Dragonball storage. Train martial arts skill from Kungfu, and you should be able to easily devastate everything you see. By level 5 even green belts won't be difficult if you fight them one at a time. Raise Dodge to 10 from Judo, then Dex just enough to allow you to train weapons from Kungfu. From here, max out everything that give you to-hit bonuses. You should be able to complete the Mouse Hunt by level 12, at which point investing heavily in Dex, so you can start raising Con to increase your hit points. Raise speed as comfortable from Judo. By level 20 you should be able to start mopping up instructors (except Jacque) with no difficulty. Raise speed to about 15, and you should have smooth sailing through to the middle game.

Not so easy Barehand-Chi - 2/3 school build, submitted by ReenenLaurie

• Version: 0.87

• Initial stats: Str: 8, Int 14, Wil: 14, Dex: 6, Con: 6, Chr: 8, Spd: 14

• Gender: Male

• Schools: Kickboxing, Sumo, (later on maybe some kungfu for martial arts)

• How to play: Get the initial 5 points into barehand. Screenscum to the left, until you find a small snake. Set options to be able to kill friendlies, and drive it into top right corner. Eventually gain 2 levels. Max barehand, and spend the rest on Str. You should have pretty much 0 zeni (you typically need to sell the kubotan), and 0 skill points now. Now go explore the bunny hole for money - Enough to get you to 1000zn. Spend this at the library. Max Barehand, and get immovability (therefore get Str up to at least 20). Raise Con to about 15 (or more HP is good). By about level 12, you can take on the Judo instructor (+4/5 levels), and after that you should be able to buy double strike. You are not ready for the Karate guy yet. Go to Karin and get Blocking. With mountain dew, and your bean, you can beat the Karate guy now.

Judo-Dancer Technomancer: 3 school build, concept by Sirrocco, submitted by LordBucket

• Version: 0.88

• Initial stats: Str: 6, Int: 14, Wil: 6, Dex: 6, Con: 14, Chr: 10, Spd: 14

• Gender: Female

• Schools: Kungfu, Judo, Ballet

• How to play: Use a spear in the early game and follow a standard unskilled-weapons strategy in the begining. Dex grants access to weapons at Kungfu. With no strength gains from enrollments, marry Oolong as soon as possible for storage. Save any Technomancy weapons you find in the Estate, and horde skill points. Skip the Robbins Foundation and depend on the library to give you the 20 required Int to become a Technomancer. You'll need to have invested 60 skillpoints in Technology by level 25, and that only leaves you 89 to spend on everything else. Your advantages are high AC and high to-hit. Between Dodge and Technomancy, you should be able to have roughly as high AC as a Dodge-Barehander, with martial arts and weapons from Kungfu, plus the mandatory Dex from Ballet as well as Technomanced weapons, you should have a higher to-hit than any other possible combination. Learn the Paired Weapons skill when possible, and try to acquire a pair of high voltage cattle prods. This will allow you to deliver very respectable damage, and with stunning effects. Judo gives you the highest possible speed modifier, so invest any extra points you have in speed. But, to do all of this you probably won't be able to invest a single point into Constitution until nearly level 30. If you're careful, you won't need it, but consider using a dragonball wish to make up for this.

Discussion

BucketMan: Ok, well, three out of four submissions are Barehanded Chi fighters, using the exact same schools: Kickboxing + Sumo. I guess that tells us something. I may have to see if I can reincarnate Sirrocco's Judo-Dancer Technomancer concept.

ReenenLaurie: Yes, I think Sumo/Kickboxing gives the best early bang for buck, and Chi is the best later game skill. I am thinking a Chi-Marksmen, focusing on ranged... (Ranged is good). But I am still contemplating how to do the first couple of levels. Barehand/Weapons? (none... It will get tricky, because I initially thought of not buying swimming, but it's going to be hard, but the safety of the water sounds excellent idea for XP)

I haven't tried a markman yet, but gee... wielding a machine gun in a roguelike... You just have to.

BucketMan: Early bang, yes, but I think it's more that it's an easy combination. Karate + Judo is just as powerful, but you have to be more careful about it. Last night I played a Karate+Judo build with Blocking+Dodge that had 132 ac at level 15. Chi+Marksmanship? Let us know how you do it. To be skillpoint efficient, you're pretty much going to have to use a weapon without skill until Muscle Tower. It can be done, you just have to be patient. The hard part doesn't come in until later. Chi and Marksmanship don't complement one another as well as most other combinations. (Mahcine guns? Wait until you get to play with the bazookas. :P )

ReenenLaurie: The Chi+Marksmanship went really well (I didn't get to marksmanship yet)... until I realized I still had it on 9 skill points per level (experiment cheat). Chi alone is pretty potent.

• ReenenLaurie: I can get Chi as my first skill... but just getting Rosshi is not a very powerful Chi-burst. And Shredder-dungeon is a bit tough first up. But Marksmanship is fairly cheap... 10 levels for and you've spent all you can. My newer builds like the higher dex anyway (earlier on) so I still think it's viable. But once you're into the whole Chi-Barehand thing, you don't really find time to spend on guns. So I am thinking of doing a barehand(judo-kickboxing)-Chi-Marksman (get strength from a "wizard-gym") What does dodging do? Because if it's only +AC then it sucks, and Sumo-Kickboxing is probably better.

• BucketMan: Each point of Dodge give you +2 AC. (Which personally I think is terrific, and I'd give Dodge skill to every character I play if I could.) Each point of Dexterity gives +1 AC and +1 to-hit. Comparable, but Dodge is cheaper in terms of skillpoints. (Yawara: 1 skillpoint = 1 Dodge. Ballet: 2 skillpoints = 1 Dexterity.) Additionally, Dodge and Dexterity together determine your ability to evade physically based monster special attacks. (Bearhugs, throws, tailwhips, etc.) So, one skillpoint worth of Dodge would give you a 1% chance to evade Honda throwing you, whereas it would take two skillpoints worth of dexterity to do the same.

• ReenenLaurie: Yeah... I think Judo will win out over Sumo for my current char. I want as high to hit as I can get, and as high AC too. And since skills can only go to 50 (thanks for telling me, my barehand is getting very close to it).

ReenenLaurie: On the Marksmanship issue... If I understand from the firearms guide in the game... You have a max of say 60 to hit (to the monster's AC/2)? No dex bonuses, no anything except marksmanship?

• BucketMan: The parchment guide might be outdated. Yes, marksmen don't receive to-hit bonuses from edxterity or martial arts. So, to-hit is determined by marksmanship skill plus weapon to-hit bonus. Marksmanship by default caps at 100 but can be raised beyond that by dragonball wishes. (Though, currently all skills are capped at 50 by the engine. Hopefully this will be corrected with alpha17.) To receive the AC/2 bonus, you must use armor-piercing ammunition. Also (and this is a big one) be aware that there is a range penalty equal to: (distance to target - 1)^2. So, at a range of 4, you'd have a -9 to-hit penalty. So, for example, consider firing on a monster with 100 ac at a range of 8. AP ammo instantly reduces that ac by 50 points. The range penalty comes to 49, for a net of 99. At ten skill and with no bonus from equipment you'd have an 11% chance to hit. The following round the monster takes a step closer, reducing your penalty, and you now have a 24% chance to hit a target who is still five steps from being able to hit you back. Compare to a melee fighter who can only attack an adjacent opponent and with that same 10 skill (and no dex/MA/equipment bonusus) would only have a 10% chance to hit. Also keep in mind that Marksmanship is extremely simple in terms of skillpoint investment: 100 skillpoints in Marksmanship skill and you're done. Plus, marksmanship does not count against your 'defeated schools' list, so in theory Marksmen will be able to destroy more schools, and therefore should generally have higher skillcaps. So, yes, there are definitely some good reasons to play Marksmen. But, there are also a lot of good reasons not to. Certainly there are plenty of scenarios in which a melee fighter will be the better choice. (Obvious example: you want to participate in the World Tournament.)

• ReenenLaurie: Well... The range thing is a good thing to know... Currently I am level 36 or so. Only studied at kickboxing, and the rest was chi. Considering where all my new skill points must go. My biggest concern is that some of the late game monsters seem to have 400 AC or so (or did I check wrong? those androids). How are one supposed to hit them? Also Cell...

• BucketMan: That's not unique to marksmanship. None of the end-game uniques can be easily defeated just by pumping up your basic skills and pounding on them. For instance, even with 100 dex and 100 barehand, you'd still be completely incapable of hitting Freeza, Cell, Androids 17 and 18, etc, except with a 5% 'lucky blow.' End-game uniques will all generally require some combination of Chi, tools, Technomancy, Fusion, Android enhancements, etc. And, Cell is not the toughest unique in the game. He's up there, but there are tougher bad guys.

Shoob: well, the main reason I go sumo is for the immovability, though I guess a well thought out judo could be just as effective, but throwing is definitely annoying.

Shoob: Ok, I have made it to lvl 42 with my build though so far I have not maxed anything yet. I may post a homemade character sheet, but in brief my character looks something like 206 AC, 35 to-hit, and 1d32+25 to-damage. About hitting monsters with 400 AC, I *think* that chi bypasses AC. (I was fiddling around in wizard mode, decided to see how much levels a lvl 1 character could get from killing cell... it is fun, you gain lvl 100 )

• BucketMan: You made level 42 with only +35 to hit? How are you hitting anything? As to chi: Chi Bursts ignore armor, Battle Aura does not. (But don't worry: uniques will be acquiring deflect and reflect flags soon. That's part of what the whole dball.fire_burst() bug was about.)

• shoob: Actually, I made it to level 41 with only 12 to hit, then at lvl 41 it was upped to 27 to hit (battle aura), then at 42 it was 34 to hit I guess I was just utilizing the whole chi instead of barehand. Though I was still hitting dinosaurs with my 12 to hit and also the muscle tower people (chi burst to kill uniques, and barehand to kill everyone else). heal is *essential*. what I think is even worse than the 12 to hit is my +3 to speed (from running) I really need to get haste or something soon...

• BucketMan: Personally, I usually have +35 to hit before level 20. I see how that could work, though. Chi Burst is fairly devastating, at the moment.

• shoob: Well, I do have both a motorcycle helmet and a leather trenchcoat, which gives me a -15 to hit, so the battle aura is just cancelling out the negative effects of my armor and adding damage. I still havent found the dobak, or any artifact headbands yet, so once I find them, my to hit should increase a bit probably up to 74 (I think) to hit if I dont gain any levels before I find them

Sirrocco: A bit of discussion about my degenerate build: Basically, I wanted to see if a pure chi build was possible. In some ways it is, but it has some serious flaws. If you can struggle along long enough to get through Krilin, then you can save all of the points you otherwise would have dropped into speed. This is huge. On the other hand, pure chi won't really ever give you as much +hit or +AC as you'd like, and all forms of two-hand or two-weapon fighting require significant investment in non-chi skills. I suspect, actually, that the next thing I need to do with my character is focus on weapon skills (I'd go barehand, but I've already closed all of the schools except fencing and Kung Fu.) Take dex to 10 with the dance studio, pick up weapon skill from Kung Fu, and then start working on all of the weapon-based special powers. At some point I might pick up enough Martial Arts to make Master Rosshi happy enough to send me off to kill his rival. I'll wind up with a character who's a bit weak on the defense but quite strong on offense, and should be workable through endgame.

In terms of "If I had to play it over" (warning. Ramble.) well, I'll have to see what spiritform is like first. I'd want to go barehand regardless, because you get so much more efficiency out of it. You'll never hit as hard, but maxxed-out always-on Battle Aura should make up for that handily. The turtle shells are quite nice as gear, and Offense is still stronger than defense, but I'd want to go crane anyway - both for access to the flight power and for being able to take the quest without sinking a lot into martial arts. If I *was* to decide to go weapons/Rosshi, I'd likely pull off all that starting int, and resign myself to the minimal necessary early investments in Martial Arts and Weapon skill to get the ID anyway. It'd be more useful int he long run, and the effects on early-game survivability and effectiveness would be significant. Ironically, even without Rosshi I'd want the con increase - and since I'm not really interested in the heavy investment in dex, that means a fair chance of kickboxing/sumo. I'd *like* to try out a pure energy-with-side-of-kickboxer crane-style spirit warrior, but I'm not sure about the effectiveness of spirits just yet. In that case, I'd probably take my starting con down to 6 (not sure what I'd raise). It wouldn't be trivial, but it might be interesting - assuming I could somehow scrounge up enough Chi to fly up to Korin before I imploded from my early-game handicaps. We'll see.

• BucketMan: Wow. A highly entertaining read...but goodness, how many bugs did you have to take advantag eof to pull this off? :P Ahh...well, maybe it balances out with the fact that there are still a good 50 points worth of each chi skill unavailable for lack of quests having been implemented yet. In any case, good to see you're still around. :P

  Sirrocco: Not so much "still around" as "back" - and I'll likely be gone again and back again more than once as this goes on. It is my way. The only bug I exploited was the Amazing Shovel of Flotation bug. Beyond that, the only extreme things I did were grinding on first the bunnies and then the mansion until I had both Daniel-san's headband and the Dobak. I didn't even do the chi-blast cheese on the rat king this time through. I did birth-scum to ensure the existence of a tuxedo and buyable spear/bo staff, but that seems to me to be pretty minor. The real trick to it is that you *can*, in fact, get to level 20 purely off of starting stats, library/gym and gear (even easier with +10 trained on str and con) and once you get there, 20 con is plenty for Korin. At that point, you have Korin, Rosshi/Tsuru, and Shredder open, and Mr Popo and Krilin are just waiting for that magic 99+ alignment. It's not *fun* - and I've died more than once (especially to Lunch) but it's quite doable.

Shoob: well I currently have decided to make the uber-melee character think max str, dex, martial arts, weapon, parrying, paired, chi offence, chi defense, chi gung, some chi regen to sustain battle aura, but my latest attempt was cut short by some grenades ( I was this close to getting her married)

Sirrocco: hrm... you're missing dodge, speed, and con from that list, as well as all of the nifty weapon-user talents (riposte, bleeding wounds...). Also, it seems both that you'd run out of skill points and that you've got more +hit than you need (dex, chi offense, weapons, martial arts, and (as far as it goes) paired). Note that paired actually has a limited utility for most weapon builds. The only cases where you can really make use of a lot of it are when you're wielding two different weapons, both of which have significant complexity penalties, not designed for paired fighting. Note that if all you want is battle aura, you don't need much chi-gung or chi. You need a point or 5 of chi, just to *have* a chi pool, and then raise chi-gung and chi-regen in lockstep until you can maintain the aura indefinitely. On the other hand, if that's all you want it for, it's worth noting that dodge is just plain better than chi-defense for you. Both give 2AC per point, dodge also gives some throwing protection, dodge is available from the beginning fo the game, and I believe that dodge may be a smidge cheaper. Also, amusingly enough, if you simply don't care about anything other than battle aura, and you want to have it on all the time, there's no real reason to invest in will.

Hmmm...

Concept characterthought - I'll likely flesh him out later - runs heavy on the chi, either melee to about 40 (qualifying level) with riposte, bleeding, etc, and takes well-paired weapons to minimize hit penalties or barehand all the way with blocking and double attack. Starting stats are as my normal, but will as dump stat. Goes heavily into chi offense, chi regen, and chi gung, but barely touches chi, and might not bother with chi defense at all. Either runs as a sumo version that takes just enough strength to get the con it needs (cheap, poor AC), or a judo version that goes heavily into the dodge, and takes dex to dancing-con levels for the con (less cheap. Noticeably more AC.) Regardless, gets all speed from initial stat points (if any), the nimbus, and chi speed. Gets (and uses) essentially all chi-over-time skills, and basically no 'U'sable chi skills.

BucketMan:

• Agreed on Paired. Since it only reduces penalties it's very situational. You'll generally only invest in it to the point that you've matched your penalties for whichever weapons you're using simply because it's more skillpoint efficient than increasing your to-hit. For instance, if you use a katana (for bleed, riposte and poison) with a whipchain (for entangle). That comes out to a net -80 penalty. If you're training martial arts skill from Kungfu, with it's .7 gain rate, that would be 114 skilpoints to get a +80 to hit. But, Kungfu Paired training is 2 per skillpoint, so it would only be 40 total skillpoints to overcome that -80 penalty via Paired skill. 114 vs. 40 is quite a lot. But, of course, if you then change to using paired iron fans, or a pu dao, your net penalty is only going to be -16, so 64 of the penalty mitigation you're getting from paired skill are wasted.
• Chi Defense not only affects AC for Battle Aura, but also determines your chance to reflect and deflect incoming Chi Bursts. Though, looking at the code to give you real numbers I see that it isn't working as designed. As is, Chi Defense only allows you to deflect chi bursts of your own that monsters have reflected back at you. It's supposed to also allow you to reflect/deflect bursts thrown by monsters too. I'll fix that.
• Note that Dodge and Chi Defense are not mutually exclusive. It might be very interesting to see a build designed around having both. AC past 300 really starts to be amazing. Even Musashi won't often hit anything above AC 350. If you can get to 500, you would be immune to 95% of the melee attacks of everything up through Dr. Gero's Laboratory. Combined with proper Chi deflection (once working properly) and high ballistic resistence (BBB, anyone?) a high Dodge, high Chi Defense build might be extremely effective.

  • Sirrocco: is true, but you start getting into limitations of skill point issues. Assuming you're not intending to just scum the dragonballs, running barehand (blocking is rather more efficient than parry, when you like your AC) and getting your Chi Offense up high enough (because you're already heavily invested in chi skills, and if you're running barehand, you'll need it for the +dam...) It's certianly an interesting concept, but I'm not entirely sure if there are enough skill points in the game to actually turn it into a fully operational battle station. The problem with it is that the AC curve is sharper than the others - having far more AC than a monster is ready for stops helping you after a while (Hello, throwing mobs! Hello, chi blasts! Hello fire breathers!) and having hugely less than it needs doesn't really hurt you much more than having only noticeably less. I suspect that you could make it through much of the game by going superheavy on the AC, but I wouldn't be surprised if it suddenly collapsed as a strategy right near the end. Again, something that would have to be worked out in-game, one way or the other.

• Sirrocco: Interesting build idea, but a few thoughts:
  • Note that all vehicles force set a certain speed, which may not be modified. Kinto Un's +20 and Chi Haste are not cumulative. Personally I find depending on Kinto Un for speed to be somewhat crippling. You need a lot of hit points to be safe with only +20 speed.

    • Sirrocco: is true. I'd not intended it as an additional - just for Kinto Un to take you up to the point where chi haste really starts kicking in. That, it is more than capable of doing. The endgame plan is to depend entirely on chi haste.

  • Ballet doesn't have a functional Challenge quest at the moment, so unfortunately, relying on it for constitution means a maximum of +20 constitution.

    • Sirrocco: Yah, but +20 con is quite a bit, actually. It won't make you a HP tank or anything, but it should give you enough HP to do quite well for yourself when you've got full chi haste for speed and significant amounts of AC.