Friday, December 21, 2007

Monster's Den Class Roles and Builds

Monster's Den is a recently uploaded game that seems to have taken Kongregate by storm. Personally, I have spent many hours playing the game, and thinking about how to build up my characters and whatnot. This guide will focus on the various character builds that i have experimented/brainstormed of to guide your party in beating the dungeon.





Warrior

Class Description:

Warriors can wear the heaviest of armor and excel at combat with melee weapons. They are difficult to kill and good at protecting more vulnerable members of the party.

Builds:

The Tank

Build Role/Function:

This build focuses on turning the warrior into an unkillable force, to protect your squishier people and soak up all that damage. However, since shield wall usually can't be constantly kept up, it can't stop some ranged attacks.


Skill Point Distribution:

All skill points earned should go towards endurance.


Equipment:

Focus on getting heavy armor stuff with +endurance. +hp regen, +str, +quickness, and poison/stun resist are good things to have as well. Use a shield with the best one handed weapon you can get.


Final Skill Bar:

Resolve
Defiance
Shield Wall
Bloodlust
X

Shield Wall will be your main ability, since taunt and damage reduction are always good things. Resolve and Defiance are more panic button abilities in case he's about to die. Bloodlust is helpful in regaining the massive amounts of energy used by shield wall. The remaining skill can be whatever. Later on, you can replace resolve and defiance with more offensive oriented abilities, when you feel comfortable enough that you won't die.





The Plated Rogue

Build Role/Function:

The warrior has plenty of damage dealing abilities, so this build focuses on maximizing damage.


Skill Point Distribution:

Focus on strength, with some endurance thrown in.
Equipment:

Use a 2h axe for your weapon, and focus on +str, with some +endurance and whatnot. You can choose between going plate and being able to tank better but always be last, or opting to use leather rogue stuff and have better quickness, but lower armor.


Final Skill Bar:

Cleave
Power Attack
Bloodlust
(Inspire) or X
(Overwhelm) or X

Cleave, Power Attack, and Bloodlust are all good all around skills, cleave for AoE damage, power attack for single target damage, and bloodlust to regain lost power. If you go leather, the added quickness allows you to use inspire and overwhelm pretty well, otherwise you can pick whatever.





Cleric

Class Description:

Clerics are holy warriors who cal upon divine powers to heal and support their allies or smite their enemies. They wear heavy armor, but their weapon selection is limited.

Builds:

The Healer

Build Role/Function:

The healer's job is to heal, obviously. In the event that the healer is full on mana or no one needs healing, it can also provide some offensive/defensive support.


Skill Point Distribution:

Most should go into int, with some into endurance.


Equipment:

Focus on +power regen, +int, with some minor emphasis on +endurance and whatnot. Get the offhand that increases your healing.


Final Skill Bar:

Heal
Heal All
Revive
Smite
Holy Light
X

Heal and heal all are your basic heals, heal all for when two or more people are injured. When your energy is full, and there isn't anyone to heal, you can use smite for damage or holy light to blind everyone and prevent more damage.






Mage

Class Description:

Mages use their arcane knowledge to destroy foes from afar and augment their abilities. They can inflict a lot of damage, but only wear the lightest of armor.


Builds:

The AoE Specialist

Build Role/Function:

This build focuses on the extensive use of area of effect spells to decimate large numbers of enemies.


Skill Point Distribution:

Most should go into int, with some into endurance.


Equipment:

Focus on +power regen, +int, with some minor emphasis on +endurance and whatnot.


Final Skill Bar:

Electrical Storm
Fireball
Freeze
X
X

Electrical storm should be spammed. Fireball and Freeze should be used when it's more efficient to do so ( there's less than 3-4 people basically). Consider not using freeze at all later on when your staff attack becomes more powerful than it.





Ranger

Class Description:

Rangers are masters of ranged weapons and the lore of the wild. They prefer to fight from afar, where they can heal and support their allies. They may wear medium armor.

Builds:

The Specialist

Build Role/Function:

A fancy term for the "normal" ranger build, this build focuses on maximizing damage output and having a damaging skill useful for every situation.


Skill Point Distribution:

Focus on dexterity, with some in endurance.


Equipment:

Load up on dexterity items, with power regen and endurance thrown in there.


Final Skill Bar:

Pierce
Pin
Hunter's Prowess
Envenomed Arrow
Hail of Arrows

Pierce will be your main damage ability, since it does good damage in a small AoE. Pin is used to stop those pesky summoners or acolytes from getting to use a turn, hunter's prowess for creatures, and envenomed arrow against a single target if you can spare the energy. Later on, Hail of Arrows is useful as an AoE move.





The "Other" Cleric

Build Role/Function:

Buffing and healing people with poison immunity buff. Support damage with envenomed arrow.


Skill Point Distribution:

Intellect with some minor emphasis in endurance.


Equipment:

Focus on intellect. Poison helps further buff your envenomed shot, and power regen, endurance, and stun resist if you wish.


Final Skill Bar:

Nature's Balm
Healing Lore
Envenomed Arrow
X
X

Nature's Balm would be your main skill, for hp regen and poison immunity. Envenomed Arrow for damage, and healing lore for when you really need a heal.





Rogue

Class Description:

Rogues inflict heavy damage in melee combat, but can also do well with a bow. They have many abilities which debilitate their foes. They may wear medium armor.


Builds:

The Melee Specialist

Build Role/Function:

A single target damage dealer with high quickness. Can be used with a ranger (and pin) to instantly kill one monster in the frontlines.


Skill Point Distribution:

Focus on strength, with some in endurance.


Equipment:

A Dagger and an offhand should be used. Focus on dexterity, with some minor emphasis on endurance, power regen, and quickness. If you wish to use the pin/coup de grace combo, be sure to have your quickness a tiny bit lower than that of your rangers.


Final Skill Bar:

Pierce Defenses
Sneak Attack
Coup De Grace
X
X

These are your primary damage abilities that scale with weapon damage. Pierce Defenses is used against armored people (but can be replaced with something else in a mostly non armored level), Sneak Attack is your general all around skill, and coup de grace is your combo skill used with pin or a random, lucky stun.

For your other two skills, Hide looks to be a decent defensive skill that basically protects you for one turn, since you regain the damage lost with it's buff. Flash Power, Sap Strength, and Cripple look like good debuffs against bosses and the sort. I haven't had a good experience with create opening, but it can also be a good damage skill.








To be added later:
Recommended Builds for hardcore mode
Ranged Rogue/Damage Reflecting Warrior/Tank Mage Builds?


Feel free to leave a comment or suggestion if you want me to add anything!



16 comments:

Havvy said...

Please decrease the font size overall by 1. It is too big right now.

Oh, and include a tactic were all your forces have to have the highest defense/dmg reflection/Heal per turn items so the monsters kill themselves without killing you. Simple attacks work as backup. Forces that have healing abilities have them equipped. This means warriors, rangers, and clerics.

Haven't died with it yet.

NorthernPolarity said...

i'm trying to work with the fonts, it will be fixed. For some weird reason, the fonts got messed up when i tried to format it correctly. Obviously its not done yet, hence the empty last part :P. Strats and stuff will be added later.

Focus said...

Don't think you are the only one. I had to upload the same article twice or more to format it well. Blogger formating sucks.

Btw, this is going to be the next card challenge. I'm almost sure.

VertFire said...

You should make this the badge guide.

Havvy said...

You could try tblog if you are having format problems. They give you full use of HTML.

Anonymous said...

Plz update to reflect Version 1.2, Blinder is a useless build now. Everything is all mucked around with and different.

Anonymous said...

Interesting idea Ryan... another u might want to look at is a 'tank' warrior in front center, with 2 rangers (1 'specialist' and one 'clerical') and then a mage or cleric.

Personally I liked it with the mage more. Mages are also much easier to kill than clerics for that big bad boss battle. Although if the mage puts flickering flames on the boss like what happened with my luck... well u die quite suddenly.

Anonymous said...

Hello COCAK! I think the article content is very good, but there are some formatation issues... Could be, hum, more "read-frendly".
Also, if you can, take a look at my article for Monsters' Den: Review and Walkthrough:

http://kongbr.com.br/2007/12/25/monsters-den/

it's in Portuguese, but if you can take a look, I would be glad.

Unknown said...

Add a assassin class for the warrior in which he focuses on power regen and uses execute.

Anonymous said...

I prefer all Clerics: Str, End, Str, and Int.

got to level 45 with it

Anonymous said...

I'm rather fond of the rangers' Nature's Balm, since it (usually)allows my party to recover their health and energy* before killing the last monster in a group, so I tried putting two clerics in front and two rangers in back (as 'other' clerics, with Hail of Arrows and Focus as the X's). I ended up dying on level 11. Can anyone give me tips on dealing with the Chosen's Sever?

I've also tried 4 rangers, which turned out to be a disaster -- died on level 1 or 2. I think I'll try 2 clerics, a warrior and a ranger next...

*No, Nature's Balm doesn't help regenerate energy, but it allows my party to pass (or Focus) instead of using healing moves.

austinmation said...

How to undo curse without cleric?

Anonymous said...

The 2 clerics, warrior and ranger got me the Hardest of Core badge (finally!), and i'm now using the same party on Book of Dread. Sever is less of a problem on BoD, not only because healing can remove it if the cleric has benediction, but because it only lasts 3 turns now, instead of until the end of the battle!

Curse is still permanent, but can now be removed with healing (via benediction), and the shadows summoned by conjurers can sacrifice themselves either to 50% curse any enemy or remove a curse from any party member. (They only have one hit point anyway, and disappear afterward to allow something else to be summoned there.)

I don't think curses can be undone without a cleric in the original MD, but what's wrong with using clerics?

Anonymous said...

I've had great success with warrior, cleric and two mages (one of the mages fights with a sword and is on the frontline). The cleric's fervor is insane at the higher levels. With his mace and his higher strength he can do up to 1600 damage with fervor, which is often an instant kill. As for the melee mage, I'm using the ensorsoled blade, which allows you to hit the same guy 4 times. Since his sword is so powerful, he can hit for 700 each time -- a total of over 2000. I can kill the leader of the monsters with one strike.

My basic strategy with all this killing power is to focus on getting everyone's quickness above 70 (I think that's all you need to ensure being faster than any monster). Along with the warrior's execute, I can often kill off three monsters before they can even strike back.

Anonymous said...

I have found that, for the Survival Mode, having a "tank" up front, with a ranger that can heal, a conjuror with manasprite, call soul, and refresh, and a typical cleric that uses smite over weapons as your back row is a quite effective group.

The tank takes all the aggro, and 2 characters can heal. The cleric and the conjuror can revive him if he dies (or anyone for that matter). The ranger is constantly attacking.

The best way to use this is to summon a manasprite and a dire wolf if possible. Then you have the conjuror refresh the manasprite, and the manasprite heals you party's power. Wrinse and repeat, healing with the cleric when needed, and all sorts of things. I made my warrior have 135% damage relection, so not only could he withstand a bunch of damage, but he continued to deal damage even if he didn't attack.

This party ended up lasting 15 rounds, and then the tank died. I used the cleric to revive him, but then my ranger got slapped down, so I had to use the conjuror to save him. The party lost the cleric next, and the conjuror got hit next, so no one could be brought back. My tank just kept attacking and healing himself, even after the ranger died.

In the end, the last enemy of one round attacked my tank, killed himself, and then 6 more enemies arrived, and I died.

Anonymous said...

What do I do for the blue altar on level 4 that says "Temporary becomes permanent"?

I think it takes current armor bonuses and adds them to the statistics. Is this correct?

Is it only the four main statistics, or do other things like quickness also also get changed?

Nobody on any site addresses this issue. It looks like a great way to maximize stats by equiping items that all increase the key statistics for each character, even if they aren't the best items. Also, one can buy all the orbs on every level and use them on that euqipment, even if you know that you will sell it back to the emporium, just so the benefit becomes permanent.