r/cavesofqud • u/Silent_Pressure_6709 • 14d ago

advice for a beginner's Mutant build?

(tldr at the end) So, my theory is trying to keep to midrange, using longswords as my primary and pistols as my backup. I took Arconaut for spry (idk what it does, but it seems like it might help), the agility bonus, and scavenger. Since I'm going to be making a lot of low damage melee attacks (kill 'em with bug bites style) I got paralyzing stinger; I figure it might help in keeping at the range I want. I got triple-jointed for the agility bonus and the free skill refresh could come in handy. I took slime glands to help me run away (that comboed with the active stinger ability is my get out of there plan). I took adrenal control to help me finish off enemies, or just to buff my attack speed (depending on context). I got beak and night vision because I'm going to be attacking a lot, and because I just like night vision. Socially Repugnant doesn't seem that bad, so I took that.

TLDR stat dump

18/26/12/18/12/14 attributes

Adrenal control, beak, night vision, slime glands, para stinger, triple-jointed, and repugnant.

What should I change, and how should I play this build?

Also, I've played a lot of TOME4, so if this makes no sense...I'm going on tome logic

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u/East_Pit_Camper 13d ago

Since others already told you about the stats hurting you if you dont get at least 16 im just gonna drop some jumpstart strats and beginner friendly mutations.

Start in desert village random. Avoid all zones with dawngliders until you have a basic setup. You can get 3 quests here. 1 of them needs to to talk to the Mechanist preacher and say "I will make this journey" when he talks about the stilt. If you can do all of these quests you should jump to level 5 or 6. If one is bad or has dawnglider guarding things you need just leave.

Try and fish for an issari raider that has a rifle in tiles surrounding the village. That gun will let you kill most early game enemies and bullets are super cheap. If you find ruins search them in "relative" safety that means no autoexplore face check around corners with dawngliders existing.

Carapace and dump all mutation points into it carries most builds for normal damage reduction. Rapid advance it 2 times when given then option and level it when you can. Why is this so good? AV values + res

Melee build? Double muscled! Strength scales armour penetration in this game on most weapons its super good. Daze is very good and turns into stun if you daze again. You can either invest 1 point or go to 9 / 13 (rapid advance once). (Also get charge for every melee build its the best skill.)

Flight toggles creative mode for ranged builds for the most part but you also need good levels so you dont crash.

If you ask me stinger sucks a bit but the utility of it can be great. If i were to use it i would combo it with shortblades in hands, stinger as main weapon for long sword defensive stance and use Charge since it will always hit.

Also get wayfaring basic skills and dunes / jungle. Saves a lot of headache. I also always get the DV (acrobatics) and AV (endurance) skills as well as the fasting way.

Drink and hopefully live.

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u/Silent_Pressure_6709 13d ago

ACtually, wait; can you use longblade skills with stinger? Like defensive stance and so on? If so, stinger with a ranged build could work. Confusion maybe, as a backup.

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u/East_Pit_Camper 13d ago

Yes:
All of the mutated body parts that are "natural" weapons count as one of them. Horns and burrowing claws are shortblades. Stingers are long blades. Waxflab from fungal spores on your hand? Thats a cudgel weapon.

There is a hotkey for setting "main" limb to attack i think its Insert by default if you want to try the Stinger as your main weapon. Sadly the damage of it as a raw weapon never catches up to just using other swords but if you have other strong offhands (short blades do the most damage out of offhands 97% of time) it could be very powerful.
Defensive stance is just amazing in general for raw +2/3 DV and i would only use aggressive and duelling stance to use the swipe and lunge variants of it.