ToME Vault Link: Rigaderpis
Rigaderpis was my second winner, inspired by the addition of skill trees like Poisons, Traps, and Excellence to the Archer class. It had only one false start, which I don't remember anymore but my stats say it is so. Riga wound up with a better Life/Death ratio than Derptastio, which I would imagine means I improved since that character, but it could all just be luck.
Skills
Again, Riga ran with the core skills of Bow Mastery, Steady Shot, and Scatter Shot at 5/5, as expected. The other shot skills were better planned this time, either sticking at 1/5 because they advance poorly or as high as the best benefits allow. The Archery Prowess tree is the only one that really benefits from more points since it can improve the duration of status effects or, in the case of Flare, give a shot a status effect.
Most of my class skills were 1/5's, actually. I spent category points on Combat Techniques again (this time only picking up Precise Strikes for some reason), but I also went with Poisons for this character; it seemed thematic for a Skeleton at the time, but I bet Ghoul would've made more sense that way. Poisons was a really nice pick-up; poison stacking is pretty easy, and it gets you another "Steady Shot" in Venomous Strike once you have 3 poisons laid out. To make things easier, you can get items and/or infusions to hit with a third poison instead of swapping your poison skills around all the time.
Excellence is a tree that I didn't invest in until the end of the game, when I was sitting on 10+ class points and a category point that I didn't know where to spend. It's a very interesting tree and I really should have spend more time on it; I've already made that a goal for the next archer I draw up. Rather than detail those skills here, I'll talk about them in a different area of the site since they didn't make that much of an impact on this character's win.
As far as Generic skills go, I picked up Stone Alchemy from an early NPC rescue, so I put some investment into it as far as extracting gems and imbuing. More than anything, this skill meant money, and lots of it. Derptastio bought two custom artifacts, each for 4K, while Riga had the cash to buy five before the end of the game. It made a huge difference in power since the bought orange items can be ridiculously powerful. I only did any real imbuing at the end of the game, where I got to use a bloodstone, the Lifebinding Emerald, and Telos' Staff Crystal in my gear; they're pretty amazing.
Skeleton racial talents are also pretty amazing, and I went a full 5/5 on the whole tree. Since Undead means no infusions, I was pretty married to shields this run and that makes Bone Armor an amazing talent. Re-assemble made for a good heal as well. Obviously the debuff duration reduction and bonus Str and Dex are also very nice, especially early game where it can get you into some armor sooner even when you're not investing stats into Strength.
Other than those two trees, I dropped full points into Thick Skin and Combat Accuracy because that's just a no-brainer. I invested a point into Track this time and it was so good. I highly recommend it. Later, I went for full Slow Motion for Shoot Down synergy, but since I only used it in the last dungeon it isn't that remarkable. I got Piercing Sight from an NPC thief and I dropped a point into Heightened Senses, but not before I trigger a late-game trap that nigh insta-ghosted me; I learned too late and I won't make that mistake again.
Prodigies
I skipped Vital Shot this time in an effort to do something new. Instead, I focused full-on into the poisons and alchemy.
I picked Crafty Hands first, expecting that I would just throw gems into my gear as I could until I upgraded to late-game gear, but I realize now that was pretty stupid and absent-minded of myself. If you paid attention to Derptastio, he was using Girdle of the Calm Waters to the very end, and this character was very similar. I did put a diamond into it, but had I not found the Emblem of Evasion sometime around the Prides, I would've not been able to use at least one really good gem. As it turns out, some of the early gear is really good into late game so just throwing gems around willy-nilly is silly. All the same, I'm glad I picked this up and I do think it help a great deal for making my gear all the better.
The second prodigy I chose was Mystical Cunning, which gave me another Poison to use (also the trap that it isn't supposed to give, but I believe that has been fixed now). Vulnerability poison is probably worth the prodigy if you're heavily invested in the poisons, but I can't give numbers for how much of an impact it made. I would say it's worth it for such a build since it drops so many resists and odds are you'll be hitting for more than just physical damage, even if it's just slightly.
Runes
Since Skeleton is undead, I was barred from using Infusions and instead had to make do with runes. I can't say I'm a fan of the Rune play-style since it favors barriers and running away, but it does have the benefit of being able to regen even while you're taking damage. Granted, that's not a huge benefit, but it's something.
I used a standard shielding run and (I believe) the artifact reflection shield rune for the vast majority of the game, which gave me three shields with Bone Armor. I kept the initial Phase Door rune until I found controlled Phase Door later. Nothing really fancy, but since it's runes we're talking about, fancy wasn't necessary.
Gear
There isn't a lot more to say here than what I said with Derptastio and probably elsewhere. Most of Riga's gear was pretty basic stuff. He had the advantage of not needing certain immunities due to being undead, which can be nice I suppose.
What I do find interesting is that, despite being a somewhat Cunning-focused build, I still ended with lower crit chance than Derptastio. I'm not sure how I pulled that off, but I would guess that I had much less gear crit on Riga. I also had two items with Track (gloves and light), for whatever reason. Not that big of a deal, just not what I remember (which is why eyewitness testimony means next to nothing).
The most notable item Riga has is likely Storm Fury. Easily the best bow I've ever seen; randomly shoots lightning bolts that do serious damage, good speed, good range, and bonus lightning damage. All in all, a really solid bow and I think you'd be hardpressed to find anything better outside of a really, really nice random orange. The only thing it really lacks is crit chance, but Riga ended with 66% with Rapid Fire on, so that's not that big of an issue.
Overall
This is another run that I don't remember a lot of specifics for, but I do know that I cleared the Room of Death before the end of the game and it wasn't that difficult at all. Archer is more than capable of handling crowds and isolating targets when it has to, especially if you have your accuracy straight. The things I did different with Riga versus the basic archer template didn't make as much impact on his power until the very end, where all the money turned into powerful items and imbued gear, and I was able to pick up Vulnerability poison instead of Numbing Poison. I don't count Excellence and Slow Motion because they were just point dumps at the very end.
I do think this was a very effective character, though. Anyone wanting to get an easy win could probably copy this character's skills for nearly any race and see an easy time as long as they spend stats right and have moderate luck with items and/or rare monster rolls.
