Post by: martinuzz on March 01, 2011, 04:57:39 am
After a long period of inactivity, the Tome community has been revived last year, and Darkgod has coded a whole new roguelike engine, the T-4 engine.
Since then, there have been over 20 beta releases of Tome4: Tales of Maj'Eyal. The name was changed during the releases, about a half year ago, abolishing the Tolkien naming and setting to be replaced with a unique new world, with it's own history, important figures, and artefacts.
The game is set, like it's predecessor Tome2, on a huge continent, with multiple quests and (procedurally generated) dungeons spread over it. Some are always visible, but a lot of those dungeons have to be found by exploring. The late-game takes you to a second continent.
Tome4 offers an innovative approach to roguelike gaming; there are no potions, no scrolls. Those have been replaced with 'infusions' and 'runes', which can be placed into a limited amount of slots. Also, most items cannot be sold. This eliminates the endless hoarding / itemscumming for items, potions and scrolls, and adds a tactical element to the game. Beware, monsters can use runes and infusions as well. In general, the programmer's intent is to eliminate scumming, and general repetitiveness from the game where possible, in favour of gameplay.
There is an abundance of races and classes, some of which need to be unlocked by doing certain things ingame.
The classes are wonderfully fleshed out, each having their own unique skill- and talent trees, giving each class a real distinct feel, adding to the replayability. There are some general, overlapping trees as well.
Tome4 also offers 5 difficulty settings; the 4th, 'roguelike' is the most classical approach: 1 life, death is permanent. (Except, there are 2 items in game that can give you an extra life, and some classes / races have special talents for life saving)
The easier modes give the player more lives. This deviates from the accepted definition of a roguelike, but offers some leniency to those players who find permadeath too harsh. The 5th, hardest mode is meant for those of use who like BDSM. Harder monsters, weaker player.
Tome4 has been chosen 'Ascii Dreams Roguelike of the Year 2010'. I say, well deserved. Out of it's slumber, the Tome series has risen with a masterfully crafted sequel.
download: http://tome.te4.org
forums: http://forums.te4.org
wiki: http://te4.org/wiki/tome4
Post by: MasterFancyPants on March 01, 2011, 05:50:57 am
Is the old game still available, it seems like ever since they started their own engine it has just disappeared. :(
Post by: martinuzz on March 01, 2011, 07:32:03 am
Dunno.. I still have it on my pc, never needed to redownload.
But it should be available online still, I'd think...
Searching... Hold on....
Ah. Try this link:
http://www.furytech.net/tech/angband-mirror/tome/
Post by: jnecros on March 01, 2011, 09:00:51 am
I liked the older TOMEs, I think I spent the most time playing 2. The only problem I had with it was the lay out of the world, but that's middle earth for you..stuff is really spread out
Post by: Majestic7 on March 01, 2011, 09:18:10 am
Post by: Robsoie on March 01, 2011, 11:03:13 am
It's not implemented in the current beta20 (but you can do it yourself) and will more likely be a part of the next beta.
Quote
Ok people who have lags can you please try that:From the thread (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=23480&start=90) about the problem, people have been reporting it working perfectly.
Edit the file game/loader/pre-init.lua and addCode: [Select]collectgarbage("setpause",100)
collectgarbage("setstepmul",400)
collectgarbage("restart")
at the top of it
Then run the game and see how it feels
Finally and hopefully, the greatness of this game system should not be crippled by those very very bad performance anymore.
Post by: freeformschooler on March 01, 2011, 11:33:29 am
Apparently, though i have not tested it yet myself, but a solution have been found for all those horrible engine stuttering and barely playable heavy slowdown.
It's not implemented in the current beta20 (but you can do it yourself) and will more likely be a part of the next beta.QuoteOk people who have lags can you please try that:From the thread (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=23480&start=90) about the problem, people have been reporting it working perfectly.
Edit the file game/loader/pre-init.lua and addCode: [Select]collectgarbage("setpause",100)
collectgarbage("setstepmul",400)
collectgarbage("restart")
at the top of it
Then run the game and see how it feels
Finally and hopefully, the greatness of this game system should not be crippled by those very very bad performance anymore.
You're a life saver, there. Or at least a game saver.
Anyway, I always look forward to the next ToME4 update, because the classes are fun as it is, but there's always more to be added. I was a little sad when they took out Pyromancer and Cryomancer because now everyone wants to beat the game as a godly Archmage.
Anyway T4 is really not much like the older ToME games. There's some artifacts of them still in there but the presentation makes in seem much newer, and more modern.
Post by: Neonivek on March 01, 2011, 12:37:56 pm
That is the reason I never picked up the 4th.
Post by: Soulwynd on March 01, 2011, 01:09:49 pm
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=57203
Post by: Neonivek on March 01, 2011, 06:20:20 pm
Post by: Deadmeat1471 on March 01, 2011, 06:54:50 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 04, 2011, 04:46:59 pm
Highlights include two new classes, talent icons, and a drastic loading time improvement for most users, along with a whole slew of other stuff. T4's coming along nicely, yeah.
Spoiler: Full Changelog (click to show/hide)
Post by: LoSboccacc on September 04, 2011, 05:03:23 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 04, 2011, 05:09:01 pm
The step away from Tolkien has honestly improved T4 quite a bit, really. It's much more interesting now :P
Post by: Robsoie on September 04, 2011, 05:18:07 pm
Just in time as i was planning to get a new character in Tome4 and have skipped the last few releases since June.
A note : i gave a look to the support board and noticed that some annoying bugs have been reported and the solution from the dev is :
Quote
Temporary fix: disable fbo
In your home/t-engine/4.0/settings/ edit/create the file fbo_active.cfg
inside put:
fbo_active = false
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 04, 2011, 05:37:41 pm
Post by: Roboboy33 on September 04, 2011, 05:40:19 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 04, 2011, 05:44:43 pm
Linux version was terrislow for me last time I tried it
Give it another shot :P
If it's still happening, drop a post by the forum or stop by the IRC channel. I haven't heard any performance complaints from the linux users hanging around. The game's mostly developed on linux, so performance issues can probably get squashed pretty quickly. Darkgod, T4's main dev, does most of his work on a linux machine.
As for DDL: Windows music (http://te4.org/dl/t-engine/t-engine4-windows-1.0.0beta32.zip) and no music (http://te4.org/dl/t-engine/t-engine4-windows-1.0.0beta32-nomusic.zip) versions. The latter is considerably smaller, file size wise.
The site's occasionally a bit slow, especially on release days. Part of this is because it's integrated with the game itself, heh. Anyway, try again in a bit if those don't work.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 04, 2011, 09:48:51 pm
Edit: it worked when done from console. I reserve this post for further updates on performance
Edit 2: works far better than it did last time I tried it. Plus, massive interface overhaul. I'm impressed :O
Edit 3: tends to hang up a lot, though... :/
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 05, 2011, 06:57:06 pm
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 05, 2011, 08:58:09 pm
Bumping this, and a question: Places don't seem to respawn items anymore. Is there any place I can repeatedly raid in order to get more stuff? :O
The fortress home has a place that allows you to grind. Keep feeding the chest items and you'll eventually unlock it. You can also attack wandering adventurer parties, if you're feeling
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 05, 2011, 09:05:42 pm
I've massacred one or two adventurer parties, though. No fuss. Golem makes short work of them.
Post by: Frumple on September 05, 2011, 09:48:25 pm
Alchies do pretty good against advn parties, though, mostly because the golem likes to suck up murder-shots. Helps that the effects of golem resilience was massively improved this beta :P
That, and a maxed explosion expert alchie bomb basically hits the entire ambush map. Still, adventurer parties are massive risks for most characters. You get the wrong combination and number of classes and you're just outright fooked. Like a farportal boss, but split into several critters, heh.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 06, 2011, 07:34:51 pm
Ah, hubris. Obviously level 11 is too soon to tackle that quest.
Post by: ThtblovesDF on September 06, 2011, 08:10:45 pm
(downloaded, won't start, to lazy to babysit it)
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 06, 2011, 10:08:15 pm
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 06, 2011, 10:33:38 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 06, 2011, 11:52:59 pm
Post by: dennislp3 on September 07, 2011, 12:36:00 am
Also version 33 bugfix out!
Post by: Frumple on September 07, 2011, 12:54:50 am
The innate magical nature thing probably isn't a good thing in T4, though. About the only power sources that don't potentially entail something nasty is stamina and, maybe, the celestial magics. Mana-casters have already come close to breaking the world, once, the equilibrium users are apparently all batshit insane (we have seen no particularly stable EQ users in fluff :P), vim users are basically feeding off what the mana-users' world-crack attempt unleashed (oh, and blood/death/life force, and not in a good way), the afflicted are powered by hate, paradox users are, well, screwing with time (and time screws back, hard), and psi-users have enabled the Way.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The celestials seem like they might be alright. They're basically solar powered, heh. Celestial power is still arcane power, though, which probably means they either had a hand in the world-shatter attempt or potentially could. Nasty stuff. Well, that, and they've got all of one actually-benign talent tree. The rest of them are about killing people :P
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 07, 2011, 05:24:25 am
I swear I like the elves better. Even the Rhaloren seem less condescending than these would-be ubermenschen.
On eq: strictly speaking, those don't qualify as magic users, I think. You can learn antimagic with them.
Post by: Frumple on September 07, 2011, 06:22:24 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Highers aren't magic users, no, but they're touched by magic... which generally isn't the best of things, or at least has the potential to go south :P All the extra-normal power sources in T4 have been shown to go tits-up pretty easily. At least stamina's stuck with normal violence and murder, heh.
The only ones that can go AM are EQ, stamina, hate, and psi users. If you've got access to any other resource before you hit the world map for the first time, you won't even be able to see Zigur, much less join.
Not that joining up with the Ziguranth is a sign of anything even remotely good. Genocidal racist/misogynist child torturers, they are, among other atrocities. Mind you, what they're nominally going against (magic users) aren't much better (Hey guys, let's break the world!), but th'Zig folks are pretty sickening. I'll take my reckless advance of power (mages, corruptors, etc) over them any day of th'week.
As long as I'm not doing a challenge run, anyway :P
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 07, 2011, 06:35:52 am
They are basically better-than-thou humans. They're not really interested in being a ruling-class type thing, if the racial talent fluff is anything to go by, but they're apparently good at it. They're also probably inbred to a certain degree, but that doesn't necessarily have negative consequences for them (magic!). It probably would for the cornac humans. ... and of course, highers are still human, if with some odd quirks, with all that entails, and not the Thalore. That means they've probably screwed up something or other in the past, or are currently screwing up something or other in the present, or at least have a few of their members doing stuff-you-should-get-killed-for.
The magical ability in highers is unnatural, which is why all of them are inbred. I think it was gained by a bunch cornac mages trying to copy the shaloren. Highers tend to be scholars and mages in lore.
Cornacs are regular humans. They do regular stuff.
Shaloren are elves that somehow live forever using magic. All of them are spell casters.
Thaloren are basically forest elves. They're loners who hunt and sell stuff to dwarves.
Yeeks are goofy looking yetis. They used to be secret slaves, until they unlocked their power and escaped.
Halfings are militant slaver midgets. They're either warmongers or mad scientists in lore. They enslaved two races already. Definitely the biggest assholes in the game.
Dwarves... are dwarves. :P
Orcs are fantasy Klingons. Orcs are considered to be nearly mindless beasts by humans and halflings, despite being able to talk, write, and cast spells. ??? They were enslaved by halfings, until they revolted. The yeeks ran from Maj'Eyal, but these guys wanted revenge. Sadly, they were nearly wiped out.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Edit: Didn't see that post..
The rhaloren aren't that bad, really, as T4 factions go. I mean, they're not good, and they've got heavy ties with the corruptors (which isn't, quite, necessarily bad, but it's not good, either.), but they don't seem to be entirely terrible. The player ends up doing worse than they probably ever will, really.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Highers aren't magic users, no, but they're touched by magic... which generally isn't the best of things, or at least has the potential to go south :P All the extra-normal power sources in T4 have been shown to go tits-up pretty easily. At least stamina's stuck with normal violence and murder, heh.
The only ones that can go AM are EQ, stamina, hate, and psi users. If you've got access to any other resource before you hit the world map for the first time, you won't even be able to see Zigur, much less join.
Not that joining up with the Ziguranth is a sign of anything even remotely good. Genocidal racist/misogynist child torturers, they are, among other atrocities. Mind you, what they're nominally going against (magic users) aren't much better (Hey guys, let's break the world!), but th'Zig folks are pretty sickening. I'll take my reckless advance of power (mages, corruptors, etc) over them any day of th'week.
As long as I'm not doing a challenge run, anyway :P
The Rhaloren think the corruption caused by the Spellblaze is beautiful, so they're more crazy than evil. Magic users didn't intend for the Spellblaze to happen, but they were losing against the orcs. They were desperate. Basically, everything was the halflings' fault. Enslaved two sentient races, caused countless wars, and killed the true hero of the story, Garkul. :P
Post by: freeformschooler on September 07, 2011, 07:29:33 am
Post by: RedKing on September 07, 2011, 08:55:34 am
Okay is there any trick to playing a Yeek? Sure I have the mind control ability thing, but if any creature so much as lightly caresses my face I explode into a thousand pieces.
Haven't played in a long time, but I had decent luck with a Yeek Monk. Because monk abilities are so dependant on skill points and levelling up, and yeeks level quickly (if they survive), I could have a pretty decent yeek-fu fighter quickly. The trick is just learning to survive those first couple of levels, taking five minutes to play hit-and-run with a large brown snake or something similar.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 07, 2011, 10:46:00 am
Post by: dennislp3 on September 07, 2011, 02:06:14 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 07, 2011, 02:50:23 pm
Haven't played in a long time, but I had decent luck with a Yeek Monk[...]
Wrong ToME :P
Yeek brawlers work about same way, though, since brawlers' base damage scales with level a bit, and yeeks have good cunning/alright dex, so they can run a finesse/pugilism build decently. It's a right pain getting a yeek brawler off the starting island if you don't find a decent set of ego'd gloves, though, and more than a little nuisance getting out even if you do.
Dwarves... are dwarves. :P
Hyper-greedy dwarves that dug too deep. Can't forget that. The dwarves left in the game are basically sitting on top of a hellbreached fortress. Except instead of HFS you get cthulhunoid horrors, though fortunately the lesser versions.
Orcs are fantasy Klingons. Orcs are considered to be nearly mindless beasts by humans and halflings, despite being able to talk, write, and cast spells. ???
Don't forget perform hyper-advanced fantasy biology! The non-steampunk orcs (the steampunk orcs we know basically nothing about, so far, except that Word of God says they exist) produced a fellow that was capable of performing incredible feats of formshaping/gene manipulation and basically save his species. There were some issues involved, but...
... but yeah. Orcs have produced among the most impressive characters in the fluff, so far. You really get a feel for this when you go up against a particular critter in the game who Garkul basically headbutt to death. Said critter is probably going to kick your ass seven ways 'till sunday, especially in the latest beta.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 07, 2011, 07:42:26 pm
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=27528
and boosting bombs over other stuff. I maxed throw bomb, and am considering whether maxing fire infusion is worth it or storing the points for something else and going straight to max cold infusion...
Post by: Frumple on September 07, 2011, 07:50:16 pm
Note that the advice in that thread is somewhat outdated now that golem power and resilience have been boosted -- an svn run of an alchie (between b31 and b32) had a max resilience golem being very hard to kill, even up 'til Reknor and beyond. A few of the golem's own talents were boosted, too, though pound is currently buggy. Still, golem is definitely less dead weight than it was (and it wasn't before, it just wunnit doing enough heavy lifting.).
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 07, 2011, 08:02:39 pm
As for golems vs bombs: I'll bear that in mind. I was considering focusing on golems (and in fact I have a golem-ish cornac stashed away) but that thread turned me off, so I stashed it in favor of my current skeletal alchemist. I might increase golem just the same. I don't know. On one hand, my battle with Korpul ended up with my golem dead. On the other, when K came after me he had maybe 5% life left. so it might well be worth it to focus on golems. The problem is that, indeed, you can end up defenseless if the golem dies. Maybe I'll walk the middle road. I put three points in extract gems mostly because of wanting to gather enough to buy decent stuff. I dont at present care that much for imbue item. And I don't like the infusions very much, so I might as well invest a point in resilience every now and then, until I get to frost infusions.
I've not had good experiences with acid infusion. I find it blinds rather infrequently :/
That's why I dont like infusions very much
ALso: a footnote: I'm boosting the arcane path in the golem. I like it better than the pound talents and such
Post by: Frumple on September 07, 2011, 08:11:14 pm
Golem survivability is massively improved once you pick up supercharge, which insta-resurrects the golem and gives it a hefty regen and damage boost. The effect is further boosted by the innit +50% healmod you get from 5/5 resilience.
Eventually (if you're a bit lucky), you'll find Wozzname's Rock (disclaimer: Not actually named Wozzname. Starts with a G) and possibly get ahold of the lifebinding emerald, and stick the both of them in the golem (either in the eyes or imbuing one of them into the golem's armor -- the third potential gem will be a pearl) for an additional 80% healmod. Between that and the resilience healmod, you'll have a golem that has some damned impressive healing capabilities and is tremendously hard to kill.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 07, 2011, 08:38:12 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 07, 2011, 08:46:39 pm
Advanced golem tree is useful for runic, gemming, and supercharge. Lifetap can save yer arse occasionally, but it's not terribly useful in a more general sense.
Post by: Seriyu on September 07, 2011, 09:32:32 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 07, 2011, 10:18:33 pm
PD: Insight on hidden compound quest?
On cursed: I've tried a few, but yeah, the problem is that it's hard to renew hate without combat, and it's hard to win combats without hate :)
Doomed used to suck even worse, but I dont know if they were beefed up after all
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 08, 2011, 02:08:50 am
*creates Rage Winterchill in order to check*
Post by: Frumple on September 08, 2011, 02:24:23 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 08, 2011, 02:42:47 am
Post by: Seriyu on September 08, 2011, 06:51:54 pm
I'd just assumed if you equipped enough of them you got the tree but that seems fairly useless if you'd only have them when you had the equipment equipped.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 08, 2011, 06:56:20 pm
For instance: (I love this example): Let's say that you have a conveyance mastery of 2. If you invested three points in teleport (for instance), your effective level would be 3x2=6. Which would make you able to control teleport by investing just three points.
On my alchemist experiments: The only real advantage I've found with my undead alchemist over my living one is the water breathing.
Post by: Seriyu on September 08, 2011, 06:59:56 pm
That actually is very useful wow. I'll have to pay attention to that!
Post by: Frumple on September 08, 2011, 07:09:54 pm
The caveat is that some talents run off of raw instead of effective talent level. What this means is the only thing that matters for those talents is the number of points you have in them, not their displayed talent level (which is effected by mastery).
It's one of the reasons that stone alchemy, one of the alchemist escortee's reward trees, is such a good reward -- extract and imbue gem both run off of raw tlvl, so the reduced mastery is irrelevant.
Unfortunately, there's no way, currently, to determine if a talent runs off effective or raw without code diving, short of doing something to affect the mastery and seeing if the talent's numbers change. Really need to suggest something along those lines at some point, hum. Think I'll go do that now, heh.
Post by: Seriyu on September 08, 2011, 07:13:27 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 08, 2011, 07:17:27 pm
The best you could do, that I can think of, is run a find-in-file of the talent folder for "getTalentLevelRaw" minus the quotes.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 08, 2011, 07:22:33 pm
I just saved an anorithil and picked the light magic tree as a reward. I found this to be a good idea because of the healing spells it carries. The thing is, I've just realized that, being an alchemist, I need those generic points to pump stone alchemy. Of course, and arguably, after that I don't need those generic points for very much, so I might as well share them between the two. And the healing spells would complement nicely my alchie stats.
So... thoughts?
Post by: Seriyu on September 08, 2011, 07:24:15 pm
Thank yah!
Post by: Frumple on September 08, 2011, 07:32:55 pm
So... thoughts?
Alchie'll have plenty of generics to bump up some healing mojo (They want channel staff/staff mastery, 5/5 imbue/extract, point or two in gem portal, single point of armor training, and 5/5 thick skin), and your eventually-massive magic stat will make up fairly handily for the low mastery. Just make sure you put some points in providence, for it is the sexiest of light tree talents.
Also, 5/5 bathe in light (note, I do not actually suggest this, as BiL's kinda' crappy) could theoretically put a 5/5 resilience golem with wozzname rock and lifebinding emerald up to the healmod cap, which would be all kinds of neat :P
Post by: Seriyu on September 08, 2011, 07:39:21 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 08, 2011, 08:02:40 pm
I'd restart, if it wasn't for the two lucky escort missions I've gotten.
Post by: freeformschooler on September 08, 2011, 08:12:12 pm
I'd restart, if it wasn't for the two lucky escort missions I've gotten.
When you say lucky, do you mean "walk almost a straight line from the start to the portal with no monsters or obstructions"? Because that just happened to me and I got a free skill off of it.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 08, 2011, 08:20:06 pm
Post by: freeformschooler on September 08, 2011, 08:22:00 pm
As in self healing white magic?
WHAT CLASS HAS THIS?
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 08, 2011, 08:22:50 pm
I got it on my alchemist, though, thanks to rescuing one.
It's not very impressive healing, mind you. Archmage's is significantly better. Cool down is faster though.
Another skill tree protip:
If you defile a noble's tomb in the Last Hope cementery, you get one of the cursed skill trees (I got cursed items. I dont know if you can get any other ones). You may or may not want this.
Post by: Frumple on September 08, 2011, 08:53:17 pm
The aegis tree is borderline broken for other reasons :P
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 08, 2011, 10:10:32 pm
Aegis heal is a bit more powerful, yeah, but healing light is free.(http://gamersmafia.com/storage/comments/509/9/its-free.jpg)
Post by: Seriyu on September 09, 2011, 01:14:28 am
EDIT: I've figured out a workaround but I'm still interested.
Post by: Robsoie on September 09, 2011, 02:40:15 am
But it's annoying.
Just played a bit with beta 33, and the interface visual has been very polished since last time i played, i like the icons too they makes it easier for the controls instead of the listing.
And the tileset is pretty, though it will take a few days to get used to it, Tome4 has some of the best visuals and interface for a rogue like.
Tried a Cornac berzerker as in the old version i played i had a long run with one, and got killed by the big troll in Trollmire, it looks like the nerf to the loot (in the last version i played, it was not rare to drop insanely good armor and weapons) makes it more difficult now.
But that's a nerf that was really needed, as i remember having used one of the weapon i found very early for the remnant of the game as nothing dropping was any better.
Though it makes you wanting to get a bit more level up while exploring other dungeons before going back to the Trollmire end, as you're then going to deal less damage and get hit with more of them, making Bill much more dangerous than before.
Post by: Seriyu on September 09, 2011, 03:27:52 am
Post by: Robsoie on September 09, 2011, 03:45:37 am
So I went to Kor'Pull , had my character getting to level 7, and got back to Trollmire (i noticed in this version monsters do not seem to respawn, unless it's depending of the difficulty, though in old version monsters were respawning after moving through 2 maps) and this time Bill didn't stood a chance, nice how just gaining a level (and stats+skills increase) can turn the tide toward my character victory.
Then managed to beat the Shade in Kor'Pull after getting more powerfull after killing Bill ;) but i remembered the Shade being much stronger in old version, killing my character too often at the level he was when reaching Kor'Pull end.
Anyways, really always a great game.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 09, 2011, 04:34:02 am
It's biggest drawback is that it heals enemies too :/
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 09, 2011, 08:49:01 am
If you defile a noble's tomb in the Last Hope cementery, you get one of the cursed skill trees (I got cursed items. I dont know if you can get any other ones). You may or may not want this.
You don't. There's a bug that causes you to lose items when swapping cursed gear.
This time when i faced Bill the troll i was at level 6 after only having cleared the Trollmire levels, i could nearly kill him (going him down to less than 50 health) but Bill killed my character before i could get the final strike just as i was out of regen and wild infusion, and of course getting the Eidolon to give me another chance, Bill was of course being back at full health.
So I went to Kor'Pull , had my character getting to level 7, and got back to Trollmire (i noticed in this version monsters do not seem to respawn, unless it's depending of the difficulty, though in old version monsters were respawning after moving through 2 maps) and this time Bill didn't stood a chance, nice how just gaining a level (and stats+skills increase) can turn the tide toward my character victory.
Then managed to beat the Shade in Kor'Pull after getting more powerfull after killing Bill ;) but i remembered the Shade being much stronger in old version, killing my character too often at the level he was when reaching Kor'Pull end.
Anyways, really always a great game.
Who's Eidolon? Yeah, monsters and items don't respawn anymore, and enemies don't heal when you leave a dungeon.
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2011, 08:58:46 am
My necromancer is almost ready for Dreadfell. I heard that Melinda can move into your fortress? Is that true? How does she respond to the eldritch horr..err your butler?
At th'mo, all she does after moving in is give you a kiss when you
You don't. There's a bug that causes you to lose items when swapping cursed gear.
Hrm, nasty. Just noticed the bug report. This should be avoidable by manually unequipping the cursed item before equipping the new one, though. Kinda' annoying, but...
Anyway, there's some nice curse effects nowadays, and the 30% chance to curse is pretty ignorable if you don't want to invest in it. It's not that bad, and can add another level of niceness to your kit.
Who's Eidolon?
Critter you talk to after you die in adventurer mode, to come back to life.
Post by: freeformschooler on September 09, 2011, 10:36:13 am
EDIT: Nevermind, both problems just cleared themselves up after a while. Very strange.
Post by: LoSboccacc on September 09, 2011, 11:44:54 am
any suggestion?
Post by: Robsoie on September 09, 2011, 11:51:08 am
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2011, 12:04:01 pm
Could also try disabling/enabling the talent icons.
Post by: LoSboccacc on September 09, 2011, 12:07:10 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 09, 2011, 12:07:41 pm
Seriously, I don't dare to try the chronos just yet, and I know for certain that trying to unlock necros is suicidal at this point
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: beorn080 on September 09, 2011, 02:52:28 pm
Edit: Nevermind. You just drag the item into the hotbar.
Post by: dennislp3 on September 09, 2011, 04:15:47 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2011, 04:49:56 pm
My two favorite classes are temporal wardens and mindslayers -- the first is very easy to unlock (just beat the temporal rift), but the second is one of the hardest in the game.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That said, while I've unlocked almost all the classes legitimately (I haven't got around to unlocking paradox magi yet, hum, though I've been through the rift a couple times with TWs), I unlocked them a lot earlier than that by editing
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
T4's good enough I can happily edit my way around it and move on with enjoying the game, heh.
Post by: Seriyu on September 09, 2011, 05:28:05 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2011, 05:36:51 pm
Level 12 is probably a death sentence :P S'doable, though. Just... not likely.
Post by: Seriyu on September 09, 2011, 05:45:21 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2011, 06:02:28 pm
The big deal about actual teleport effects, like from the rune, amulet, or staff, is that they have a minimum range, which is about a hundredfold more important than their maximum. A PD rune or effect, unless it's controlled (and sometimes even then!) is entirely too likely to land you right beside whatever you just tried to escape from, or, at best, still within firing range of it. A teleport effect won't, except in very rare circumstances in very open areas (of which there's like, maybe two in the entire game).
Teleport might land you in a new clusterf- ah, problem... but it's pretty much sure to get you out of your old one. Phase door has no such guarantee and is entirely too likely to bring you closer to whatever you were trying to get away from.
You might be able to get by with a movement infusion, if it's a good 7-800+%, though. They're like PD, except incapable of inadvertently moving you toward the enemy and considerably more controlled. Can't get you out of being surrounded, but better in every other way.
Seriously though, phase door is basically crap as an escape method. It's got two uses, and then only with the controlled talent, not the rune or item activation -- short range movement, to get yourself away from melee enemies or close to ranged ones*, and for targeting escortees, to move them out of a gangbang of some sort. To re-emphasize, phase door is not an escape method. Do not try to use it as one unless you have absolutely no other choice, because it's probably going to kill you if you do.
* Movement infusions are a thousandfold better at this.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 09, 2011, 06:09:12 pm
Damn, I want to unlock the cool stuff legitimatedly, but barring archies most special classes require a lot of work :(
Seriously, I don't dare to try the chronos just yet, and I know for certain that trying to unlock necros is suicidal at this pointSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Necromancer unlock isn't very hard, but I edited my list to get it early. :P
PROTIP: Check all the tombs before entering the door at the end of the hallway. And do it at level 20-25. The boss herself isn't that difficult. Oh, and triggering the boss fight causes the exit to disappear.
Edit:
@Seriyu
My berserker winner used a teleport rune, until I get a decent movement infusion (or two). Movement feels like cheating. ;)
Post by: Seriyu on September 09, 2011, 06:23:14 pm
EDIT: Oh, also another thing of note, I rescued a seer and picked out premonition for it. Figured most of the rewards weren't good for me as a berserker, so I just picked one at random. Good or bad?
I recall arcane eye being in the options and in hindsight it may have been a better choice.
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2011, 06:34:57 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 09, 2011, 06:37:19 pm
Post by: beorn080 on September 09, 2011, 07:17:25 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 09, 2011, 07:50:34 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 09, 2011, 08:48:24 pm
Necromancer unlock isn't very hard, but I edited my list to get it early. :P
PROTIP: Check all the tombs before entering the door at the end of the hallway. And do it at level 20-25. The boss herself isn't that difficult. Oh, and triggering the boss fight causes the exit to disappear.
Hmm,
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
On teleport: I agree: phase door sucks. I try to keep several teleport things on my person (at least enough for two teles in a row).
On this topic: I like that archmage's can control the teleport, but I'm finding that doing that is far less useful than teleporting several times in a row. So, should I ditch doing that, invest one single point (and get a teleportation rune, or better, a staff, since I want to use the rune slots for manasurging), and invest the points elsewhere instead (until I get prob travel, that is)?
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2011, 08:51:48 pm
Post by: beorn080 on September 09, 2011, 09:28:14 pm
Also, taking a Cornac and putting your category point into the Staff Magic category boosts its power significantly, since both the channel and power skills are based on effective level.
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2011, 09:33:40 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 09, 2011, 09:40:55 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2011, 09:42:53 pm
Anyway, 5/5 mastery/channel hits pretty ruddy hard with a high-end staff, especially once your magic gets up there. It's definitely something useful to do while throw bomb is on cooldown.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 09, 2011, 09:48:02 pm
Edit: I get a "strange compulsion to go backward" message. Could he be alive still?
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2011, 10:00:34 pm
I've definitely seen Z kill the wayist within a turn of me opening the door, though. A crit flurry with the wrong (or right, from Z's point of view) daggers can just demolish the wayist... or you, if you're unlucky. Z's pretty nasty.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 09, 2011, 10:12:43 pm
PD: I hate the ToME sandworm lair almost as much as I hate the one in Diablo 2.
EDIT 2: consumed the heart and got nature's harmony skillset for my trouble. The interesting thing is that it has a potentially useful sustainable skill (elemental harmony) which grants a bonus if you receive elemental damage. Should I go for this?
Post by: beorn080 on September 10, 2011, 12:39:58 am
Post by: Frumple on September 10, 2011, 12:46:07 am
Should I go for this?If you've got the cat point and generics to spare, the answer is an almost unqualified yes, strictly for elemental harmony. It is incredibly useful.
This yes goes from almost to completely if you've got access to an easy source of acid or fire self-damage, especially fire. Staves are good for this with non-magic pumping classes, flaming or acidic iron daggers for most everyone else. You can use the attack talent to target yourself with a melee bump.
Elemental harmony's fire effect stacks with most other sources of global speed. This can get faintly ridiculous, even after its nerf and the recent change to global speed stacking. The acid is pretty good too, especially if you've got a hefty amount of healmod tucked away somewhere. None of the other effects are exactly going to hurt, either.
--
Stone touch isn't very impressive, unfortunately. It's good for chaff, but a lot of stuff you'd really like to use it on (bosses, some elites, most uniques) are flat out immune. It's also not very safe to actually use until you get it to tlvl three :-\
The only top tier things in the stone alchemy tree are imbue and extract gems. Gem portal's alright -- it's a poor man's probability travel -- but a nice tele rune or conveyance staff's probably going to be more helpful.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 10, 2011, 12:46:37 am
Also, stone touch needs a few levels to be really useful. Otherwise it works only close range.
Edit: I consider it an useful assistance spell, if not a reliable one. I cast it until it works. When it does, my golem does short work of the statue. I've had it kill some nastier bosses. It's also good versus adv parties...
Edit 2: almost got my ass handed to me in dreadfell. Must figure out how to level a bit before trying that again
Post by: Robsoie on September 10, 2011, 03:53:24 am
In very old version, i had my character managing to save her, but at some point a new version was released with a better AI for casters was introduced (instead of moving toward you, they were running away from you), making it nearly impossible if you were not using a ranged character to kill all the casters before the countdown reached 0.
Is this quest having improved so it's possible again to save the lady if you're not using ranged attacks or should i not bother with the berzerker i'm running currently ?
Post by: Frumple on September 10, 2011, 04:09:51 am
I've saved melinda a few times now, since tac AI started having casters back off from melee threats. As long as you've got adequate movement capability (1-2 movement infusions and rush, possibly double rush or better -- talent+boots, possibly some boots on swap) you should be alright. Just realize that if you're not a class with hefty burst damage (Fighter, sunpa, possibly cursed, can lack a bit here. Wyrmic has some decent ranged capability and lightning speed. Reaver, brawler, TW, slayer shred the cultists once you get beside 'em.) you're going to be cutting it close.
Still. Bring plenty of movement aids and you'll probably be fine. Worst comes to worst, failing to save Melinda is about as good an outcome as managing it. Saving her tends to get you somewhat better loot, but failing gets decent-enough loot and XP. It's win-win, really.
Post by: Robsoie on September 10, 2011, 04:16:31 am
Post by: Frumple on September 10, 2011, 04:20:25 am
Post by: Robsoie on September 10, 2011, 04:31:41 am
Post by: LoSboccacc on September 10, 2011, 06:23:16 am
Post by: Frumple on September 10, 2011, 06:30:20 am
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 10, 2011, 06:52:18 am
Hmm,Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You'll fight them 1-on-1, instead of several at once with a boss.
Anyone tried to save Melinda in this version ?
In very old version, i had my character managing to save her, but at some point a new version was released with a better AI for casters was introduced (instead of moving toward you, they were running away from you), making it nearly impossible if you were not using a ranged character to kill all the casters before the countdown reached 0.
Is this quest having improved so it's possible again to save the lady if you're not using ranged attacks or should i not bother with the berzerker i'm running currently ?
The countdown was changed. Now, killing a cultist will increase the countdown by 5 turns. I managed to do it with a berserker who had elemental harmony, two movement infusions, and rush. I saved her recently with a necromancer, but that was much harder.
The easiest way to save her is to still play a caster, and join the Grand Corruptor. Almost everyone will be friendly towards you. :D
Post by: Frumple on September 10, 2011, 07:10:26 am
The easiest way to save her is to still play a caster, and join the Grand Corruptor. Almost everyone will be friendly towards you. :D
It's almost as easy to just be a corruptor, heh. I think the last time I got one to crypt 5, all the cultists were dead in <10 turns :P
... corruptors have a lot of ranged dakka. A lot of ranged dakka. Give 'em a movement infusion and that dakka might as well be painted red, huhuhu.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 10, 2011, 01:52:37 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 10, 2011, 06:54:11 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 10, 2011, 07:07:42 pm
It's been a while since I've played a summoner, though, and the rest of the talents in the tree look kinda' ho-hum. Detonate's supposed to be alright, but...
Post by: Seriyu on September 10, 2011, 07:14:59 pm
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 10, 2011, 09:25:11 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 10, 2011, 11:16:09 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 11, 2011, 01:26:02 am
I found a sling and was thinking in investing 8 gold to get ranged weapon training early on...
Post by: Frumple on September 11, 2011, 02:26:07 am
Doomed unlock, on the other hand, is a bit of a beast. Mostly because the place you unlock it is in the east and the fight scales to your ability in a particularly nasty way, heh. It's also incredibly easy to abuse for an easy victory, though, if you get that far and don't mind being unscrupulous :P
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Seriyu on September 11, 2011, 02:37:31 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 11, 2011, 02:57:16 am
The afflicted? Yeah, they're playable. Cursed unlock is pretty easy -- just wander around the kinda' inverted U portion of the forest north of last hope, and you'll figure out the rest. You can do it pretty much any time, but around level 10 is good for making sure it doesn't surprise you.
I meant more on the lines of what kind of build works with cursed. I've found them to be terriweak.
I havent tried the new doomed (I manually unlocked them in an old version), but unless they've been pumped up I doubt it's any differnet...
Post by: Frumple on September 11, 2011, 02:58:59 am
They should have an easier time of things in the latest betas, since base accuracy got bumped up a few points.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 11, 2011, 06:53:44 am
Doomed unlock, on the other hand, is a bit of a beast. Mostly because the place you unlock it is in the east and the fight scales to your ability in a particularly nasty way, heh. It's also incredibly easy to abuse for an easy victory, though, if you get that far and don't mind being unscrupulous :P
The doomed unlock looks scary, but it isn't too hard. Once your doomed copy loses enough health it'll mostly stop attacking and start fleeing from you. Though, I'm not sure if it's A.I was improved recently.
I don't like the afflicted classes. Cursed doesn't fit my playstyle and doomed kinda suck against everything, except bosses.
Post by: freeformschooler on September 11, 2011, 08:51:43 am
EDIT: Found it.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 11, 2011, 09:09:18 am
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 11, 2011, 03:26:37 pm
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 11, 2011, 07:24:11 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 11, 2011, 07:32:13 pm
Did you know there's actually an achievement for personally killing six of your possible nine escortees?
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 11, 2011, 07:40:51 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 11, 2011, 08:18:31 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 11, 2011, 08:39:07 pm
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 11, 2011, 09:00:04 pm
Post by: dennislp3 on September 11, 2011, 09:09:28 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 11, 2011, 09:38:59 pm
Or hit F2 (F3, or higher, if you've got other allies), or click on its box in the party members area (on the left), or hit ctrl+tab. In windows, anyway, by default. You can change the keybindings, of course -- the list's under 'party'. It works infinitely, from what I understand, but there's something like a 20-something turn delay between usages. The wait also isn't a very long wait, at all :-\
Oh there's just a cooldown?
Good to know.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 12, 2011, 01:02:18 am
Aegis is all in all a pretty cool tree...
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 12, 2011, 08:07:36 am
EDIT: anyway, killed the worm. Toughest battle for my archie so far.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As of now I'm venturing out of the Sher'tul fortress in order to massacre adventurer parties (something I'm becoming quite profficient at, since I acquired the capability of spawning a couple of shields on me in short notice) in order to power the fortress' reactor.
Which kind of makes me a villainous figure, I guess
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 12, 2011, 01:02:46 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Found a strange town in the mountains. Had to dig to get there. Some buildings whose doors cant be opened. Any idea on what the hell is this?
EDIT: anyway, killed the worm. Toughest battle for my archie so far.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As of now I'm venturing out of the Sher'tul fortress in order to massacre adventurer parties (something I'm becoming quite profficient at, since I acquired the capability of spawning a couple of shields on me in short notice) in order to power the fortress' reactor.
Which kind of makes me a villainous figure, I guess
If you start as an undead character
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 12, 2011, 01:07:05 pm
In general, necro lore has many very amusing bits and pieces. Like the one about how being a necromancer of the nicer sort means that your PR will improve with villagers (with the disclaimer that this doesn't mean that they wont burn you alive if you are caught, but that some of them might feel bad afterwards)
Post by: Frumple on September 12, 2011, 01:09:23 pm
My necromancer became a lich. Whoo! And I finally did the orc breeding pits.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I don't think it has any effect on the ending, though. Not yet, anyway.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 12, 2011, 11:50:55 pm
Normally I don't like melee characters, and in fact I'm playing this one mostly to get an achievement. But whoah. The high speed (particularily when I use Grace of the eternals) is amazing. Even without it I can dodge around many sorts of projectiles.
Post by: dennislp3 on September 13, 2011, 12:09:47 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 13, 2011, 12:33:03 am
Post by: Seriyu on September 13, 2011, 12:53:23 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: dennislp3 on September 13, 2011, 01:24:24 am
Think humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, lizardmen, etc...
pretty much intelligent bipedal creatures
Post by: Seriyu on September 13, 2011, 01:33:01 am
I guess I could just roll a bunch of dwarf charecters and see if I get it :P
EDIT: WOW, joining zigur is pretty tough. That arena match just keeps going.
Post by: Robsoie on September 13, 2011, 09:38:59 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: postal83 on September 13, 2011, 10:34:36 am
Post by: Robsoie on September 13, 2011, 10:58:35 am
But the menu and icons remain visually nice.
Post by: Frumple on September 13, 2011, 11:21:37 am
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 13, 2011, 01:57:18 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 13, 2011, 02:19:56 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 13, 2011, 02:38:36 pm
I just lost my promising level 13 Human (Cornac) Berzerker... [snip]
You were (probably) getting confused by bloated horrors, which are stationary-but-teleporting critters that like to hit you from outside of your light range. Spellshield wouldn't help you in this case, as it's a mental save that's getting checked, not magic.
You actually can do something while confused, occasionally, but it generally ignores what you're trying to do. Further, instant talents (like shield runes or wild infusions, ferex) always work while confused. Confusion's pretty nasty, though. S'one of the reasons Daikara can be particularly vicious, and there's a few other areas where it's prominent (like Nur 3, heh).
Nur can usually be taken right after OF, which leads into it. You can usually expect to survive killing Wrathroot (OF's boss) around level 12 or so. Some can do it earlier, some should probably try for later, but 12's a good goal line for stepping into the Old Forest. You were right about there, just not used to dealing with confusion effects, I'd imagine, or how to deal with bloated horrors (summertide phial or solid infravision can be pretty useful in Nur).
Post by: beorn080 on September 13, 2011, 03:05:48 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 13, 2011, 03:08:50 pm
For the rest of 'em, though, they're locked and a cat point is needed.
Post by: Robsoie on September 13, 2011, 03:20:35 pm
Though it may not be that good to train a category as you would need instead to unlock a slot for rune/infusion (as you can never has enough of them agaisnt some enemies)
@Frumple
Thanks for the hints, i was thinking it was a spell that were confusing me, but as i'm now running a Cornac Fighter , i just discoverd a Helm adding to Confusion immunity +11% , so indeed it was a lost cause from the start i stepped in there as Confusion is separate from Magic in resistances and i had nothing protecting my berzerker from it.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: beorn080 on September 13, 2011, 03:24:50 pm
There's three cases of that -- combat training, from one of the last hope weapon shops, fateful aura, from doing something you'd expect to get cursed for, and antimagic, from doing the obvious. I'm not sure if the slime tree AM users can get access to nowadays needs a cat point or not.Bleh. Wanted to learn the healing tree from the Anorthil escort, since I have a surplus of generics and another healing skill would be exceedingly useful, but if I'm not gonna get access until level 20, it was a waste. Stupid summoners needing to unlock the augment tree.
For the rest of 'em, though, they're locked and a cat point is needed.
Post by: Frumple on September 13, 2011, 03:31:47 pm
Your best bet for water breathing items is armor shops, especially leatherworkers, tanners, or clothiers. Belts of unlife are somewhat common, and there's also helms (of the depths) and body armors (of the deep) that give waterbreathing. That said, Nur's pretty doable without waterbreathing at all, so I wouldn't worry terribly about it.
Daikara at 17 is doable. If you've already done OF, Maze, Sandworm, and all the first tier dungeons, there's not much else you can do besides it. Maybe the halfling ruins or ruined dungeon... possibly the ring of blood. The other option is to grind advn parties for loot and XP, or run farportals. Either of which is massively more dangerous than Daikara, heh... or Dreadfell. Or the east, really.
Re: Beorn: Healing tree probably wouldn't be the best idea for a summoner, anyway. It scales off
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 13, 2011, 03:41:35 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 13, 2011, 04:50:05 pm
All in all, i was level 19
Before going to Daikara, i went to Last Hope to see what they had in stock (and what changed there as it's been lot of time since i vsited)
And noticed a graveyard location very close to Last Hope.
I didn't remembered such thing, so rather happy to see something new, i went there.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 13, 2011, 05:38:53 pm
Post by: beorn080 on September 13, 2011, 05:49:16 pm
Actually, lost the paladin due to trying to get back down from the 100 Equilibrium I hit killing the ants.
Post by: Seriyu on September 13, 2011, 07:00:03 pm
Might throw out an adventurer mode char to see if I can at least get into the far east and maybe unlock a class or two along the way.
EDIT: Wow, bill the troll is distinctly off limits to caster charecters. One shotted me from several tiles away, didn't even know he had rush. :o
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 13, 2011, 07:49:48 pm
Post by: beorn080 on September 13, 2011, 07:55:33 pm
Post by: Rift on September 13, 2011, 07:56:44 pm
Quote
6738 kills: Bill the Stone Troll
hes killed more players then any other monster/creature in the game. now that's just impressive. In fact hes the cause of over 4% of all player death.
Post by: Frumple on September 13, 2011, 07:59:56 pm
I generally don't recommend doing Bill during your first trollmire go, though. It's fine to leave him alone for a while, come back later. The encounter scales with your level, so you won't really be missing out much.
It's particularly funny to take him down after you drop the Mire backup guardian. Level 40-something Bill is amusing :P
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 13, 2011, 09:36:29 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 13, 2011, 09:56:22 pm
Didn't know he was the deadliest enemy in the game though, that's impressive.
Post by: beorn080 on September 13, 2011, 10:30:16 pm
Post by: DeKaFu on September 13, 2011, 10:51:56 pm
I keep seeing people saying you can buy extra rune/infusion slots using category points... How?
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 13, 2011, 10:52:28 pm
How does digging work? I've got a pick, and have been trying to dig through a wall into the treasure troves I can see behind them, but after about 20 sets of swings, it still isn't open.Some rooms only let you dig on a specific tile.
Post by: Frumple on September 13, 2011, 10:53:56 pm
As a general rule, however, a tile either can be dug out or it can't. If you finish a dig attempt completely (i.e. aren't interrupted by a monster), then if the wall can be dug, it will be dug. If it's not dug, then the wall cannot be dug out, period.
(Complete newb here)
I keep seeing people saying you can buy extra rune/infusion slots using category points... How?
Use a infusion while you've got a spare cat point and your inscription slots are filled up. It'll give you an option to buy a new slot with the cat point.
Post by: DeKaFu on September 13, 2011, 11:11:34 pm
Another question: How do you deal with more items than you can carry? Is there somewhere to safely store things?
Post by: beorn080 on September 13, 2011, 11:14:06 pm
Thanks!Vaults. Quite useful, I'm stockpiling all my metal gear in the old forest until I hit 20 and pick up stone alchemy. Though I've already got more money then I need.
Another question: How do you deal with more items than you can carry? Is there somewhere to safely store things?
Edit: Figures. Tempted to try every wall, but I doubt it. None look special and there are a lot of them. Will have to go back with some form of teleport control.
Post by: Frumple on September 13, 2011, 11:20:40 pm
Thanks!
Another question: How do you deal with more items than you can carry? Is there somewhere to safely store things?
There's vaults, but better than that, you can also murder something to get a house. The house has a storage room that auto-organizes dropped junk for you! It also has some other neat stuff, like a library that lets you access all the lore you've ever found, on any character, and something you can enter to have a go at potentially challenging zones that give particularly (potentially) delightful loot. It's also where you find the transmogrification chest, which lets you convert junk you don't want into gold. It's really nice.
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 14, 2011, 12:21:00 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 14, 2011, 01:10:57 am
(if so, that's why. Vaults are higher-level-than-you, by default)
Post by: Tnx on September 14, 2011, 01:21:20 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 14, 2011, 02:20:46 am
Quote
Where's that house
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Quote
Curious because what would you do if you need to get stronger (grind)?Fulfill the other races' starting levels, kill adventurer parties or
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
On paradox mages: I thought they'd be easier than archies because their powers look neater on paper.
Of course, the underlying problem is that these awesome powers tend to fail at the time that they are most needed. Or worse, cause horrible anomalies...
I've come to realize that the key is not with having a couple of attack skills whose reload times overlap (as with archmages), so that you can keep barraging at the incoming enemies. Instead, it's better to have ONE high level attack skill, so that you have to use it less often, and thus lessen your paradox increases.
Post by: Seriyu on September 14, 2011, 03:31:10 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: beorn080 on September 14, 2011, 04:04:21 am
Post by: DeKaFu on September 14, 2011, 07:13:34 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 14, 2011, 07:42:03 am
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 14, 2011, 08:18:42 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on September 14, 2011, 11:30:00 am
After having feared that during my Crawl sessions, after what i just experienced in Tome4, it now make me laugh
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: DeKaFu on September 14, 2011, 11:41:35 am
Do quests generally have any kind of time limit? A lot of the Alchemist ones so far have suggested so but I don't know if it's just flavor or actually a mechanic.
Post by: Frumple on September 14, 2011, 11:42:32 am
As for fearscape's regularity, well, it's a corruptor talent. The player has access to it, too. You'll see it as often as you see corruptor class'd random unqiues or classed enemies that happen to have access to it. In my personal experience, though, you're not likely to encounter it more than a few times over a game. There's two guaranteed encounters with it, that I can recall (Grand Corruptor, shoeimp), but the rest comes from enemies with some classes tacked onto 'em.
Okay, probably maybe my last question for a while:
Do quests generally have any kind of time limit? A lot of the Alchemist ones so far have suggested so but I don't know if it's just flavor or actually a mechanic.
Only time time limits are involved in quests you'll actually have a little timer counting down on your status bar. Otherwise, there's no time limit. You can take as long as you want on the alchie quests.
Post by: Robsoie on September 14, 2011, 01:15:32 pm
Especially when you're already hammered by many snow giants.
It was sad too that my character being a fighter, i had other priority in stats upgrade than adding points to Willpower (that need to be rather high to be able to unlock the anti magic skills within the category) and was not able to use anything arcane anymore (not just some rune, but even some items that could have been usefull to me were arcane powered) but didn't had high enough willpower to actually give skills points to the anti-magic skills.
Next time i build a fighter, i'll avoid the Anti-magic quest, at least not before my character is very high level to afford getting more points of willpower, and does not depend as much on teleport/phase runes/unes/infusion (and items that were arcane powered).
Post by: beorn080 on September 14, 2011, 02:22:16 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 14, 2011, 02:38:51 pm
Can I just throw my stuff onto the ground on the first floor of the old forest or whatever or does it need to be in a specific area?
Post by: Frumple on September 14, 2011, 02:53:24 pm
That's... actually almost the best answer I can give. Vaults are best distinguished by being obviously different in construction than the general layout of the zone you're in. You definitely have to actually drop the item inside the vault area, though.
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 14, 2011, 03:02:28 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 14, 2011, 03:05:31 pm
Post by: beorn080 on September 14, 2011, 03:10:13 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 14, 2011, 03:14:59 pm
The locked ones are definite, though.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 14, 2011, 03:20:57 pm
From what I can see of it, the Antimagic school isn't that good, considering you lose teleport, and pretty much all other equipment based movement abilities. Though, if you can get it before knocking out the escort quests, and don't mind scumming/praying to the RNG, you can get a decent phase door ability in the slime tree.
There's rush and blinding speed. And movement infusions. I still wouldn't recommend anti-magic to anyone.
Post by: beorn080 on September 14, 2011, 03:43:43 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 14, 2011, 03:46:25 pm
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 14, 2011, 03:58:11 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 14, 2011, 06:53:12 pm
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 14, 2011, 06:54:37 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 14, 2011, 07:08:36 pm
While it looks much more like a forest than the Old Forest (Old Forest is in fact a regular dungeon, corridor+rooms with trees replacing stone walls) it really makes the navigation painfull.
Post by: Frumple on September 14, 2011, 07:31:16 pm
Mire's actually not that bad since the road was put in, unless you're one of those folks the compulsively fully explore levels. Then it's just not quite as bad, heh.
More seriously, if you don't like trollmire, everyone except yeeks and dwarves can just leave their starting zone. Go to one whose layout you like better. There's at minimum six first tier dungeons to choose from, and that's ignoring the possibility of jumping right into second tier dungeons.
Post by: Seriyu on September 14, 2011, 07:57:49 pm
It's a terrible disability really
Post by: Ranwick on September 14, 2011, 10:10:11 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 14, 2011, 10:10:58 pm
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 14, 2011, 10:12:04 pm
I have to explore the entire floor because what if I missed an enemy and as such like, six exp DXI'm the exact same way. I'd rather the game use a more standards "halls and room" method of level generation.
It's a terrible disability really
Post by: Seriyu on September 14, 2011, 10:13:50 pm
Post by: beorn080 on September 14, 2011, 10:36:20 pm
How do you choose to equip your golem (as an alchemist) instead of simply healing it? I was able to do it once, but I've not been able to do it again.Click on you're golems portrait below the map, that should let you take control, then just pick up the gear and equip it.
Post by: Frumple on September 14, 2011, 10:36:52 pm
Sandworm Lair (It's what finally taught me to either read the te4_log.txt for artifacts or just not try to fully explore everything!), Trollmire (and by extension, the S-whatever Fens), and Maze are probably the worst of it for full exploration. Reknor (either version) is not terribly pleasant, either, nor is the Elven Ruins (Shadow crypt, trapped! quest). I guess the abashed expanse might be kinda' annoying to full explore, mostly due to the things attacking you.
Most everything else is quite easy to navigate and fully explore if you actually want to, especially the latter bit of that, as they tend to be pretty open.
I'm definitely glad T4 is experimenting with non-standard level generation, though. Halls and rooms gets bloody boring when you've done it nth million (okay, so maybe I've only buggered about halls-and-rooms a few hundred thousand times playing roguelikes. Point stands!) times. Plus different battlefields force you to think and use new and non-standard tactics. I'd say that's a pretty good thing, all around.
Plus some of them are kinda' pretty. I really like the aesthetics of the heart of the gloom, actually. Makes me feel like I'm in a tree.
Edit: Fuller explanation of how-to-choose-golem:
Or hit F2 (F3, or higher, if you've got other allies), or click on its box in the party members area (on the left), or hit ctrl+tab. In windows, anyway, by default. You can change the keybindings, of course -- the list's under 'party'.
You can then equip it as you would yourself. This is also necessary to allocate the golem's stat and talent points.
The thing that was being noticed was refit golem. It pulls up a dialogue when your golem is at full health, among which is options to change equipment. This function is mentioned in the description of the talent. It's also how you, once/if you get gem golem, insert gems into your golem's eyesockets. Last -- but not least! -- there's also an option to rename your golem. I always name mine, "The Loneliest Number."
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 15, 2011, 12:30:15 am
Post by: Frumple on September 15, 2011, 12:43:06 am
From what I've seen, it seems like it does because paradox is a lot easier to get rid of, especially in the early game. A paradox mage can rock their paradox score into the heavens just as fast, or faster, than a summoner can jack their EQ up, but the PM can drop their paradox back down a helluva' lot quicker.
Time wardens vs wyrmics are a different story, though. TWs have massively more powerful sustains (especially celerity and weapon folding), so they can largely get by with very limited active paradox use. A wyrmic only has one decent sustain -- well, two, now that elemental harmony's in -- and generally has to be much more proactive with equilibrium usage than a TW. Between that and the fact that swallow doesn't give genuinely good EQ returns until later in the game, they definitely rack up EQ faster than your average TW build is going to rack up paradox.
Wyrmics, arguably, get a better offensive stamina-using tree than TWs (re: Shield Offense, which can dole out tremendous damage), but they generally have to lean much more heavily on EQ use to maintain quo than TWs have utilize paradox.
There's also the simple fact that paradox still functions well enough with a considerably higher raw number than EQ does. EQ starts at 0, and more EQ is strictly worse -- paradox isn't really intended to be regularly used below 150-200, and more paradox isn't necessarily bad (just risky).
So the answer is: Depends on how you're playing :P
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 15, 2011, 01:35:13 am
Post by: Virroken on September 15, 2011, 01:38:16 am
Post by: Seriyu on September 15, 2011, 01:48:03 am
I mostly play adventurer because I want to see more lore frankly. :P
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 15, 2011, 01:50:34 am
Post by: Seriyu on September 15, 2011, 02:07:37 am
I go into the heart of the gloom and there's an escort on the first floor. It doesn't look good already because well we're surrounded on all sides by animals and rats and plants as is typical in the center of the heart of the gloom. I ignored him because pfff yeah right, I can't defend him in a situation like this, he's already in the open.
And he actually made it. Ran straight at the portal without stopping to fight the rats that were chasing him. Was a warrior when I already had everything he had to offer but still, nice for it to just work for once. :D
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 15, 2011, 02:12:04 am
Edit:
HATE SKELETON ARCHERS. HATE HATE HATE.
Post by: beorn080 on September 15, 2011, 03:08:53 am
Do note, that if you're building a summoner, you typically won't ever have more then three summons out, even if you have the cunning to have 4-5. The only times I ever send out more is against adventurer parties and bosses, so it is useful. Against normal mobs though, after a point with enough will and resilience, fire drakes and hydras are your best bets.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 15, 2011, 07:46:51 am
It does halls-and-rooms in, uh. Kor'Pul, OF, N-whatever's Lair. Lake of Nur, yeek starting zones. Dreadfell, rhaloren camp, High Peak. It sorta' does it in Daikara and Tempest peak. Dark Crypt (but not shadow!). Lower bits of the halfling ruins. The rest of them use something else.
Sandworm Lair (It's what finally taught me to either read the te4_log.txt for artifacts or just not try to fully explore everything!), Trollmire (and by extension, the S-whatever Fens), and Maze are probably the worst of it for full exploration. Reknor (either version) is not terribly pleasant, either, nor is the Elven Ruins (Shadow crypt, trapped! quest). I guess the abashed expanse might be kinda' annoying to full explore, mostly due to the things attacking you.
Most everything else is quite easy to navigate and fully explore if you actually want to, especially the latter bit of that, as they tend to be pretty open.
I'm definitely glad T4 is experimenting with non-standard level generation, though. Halls and rooms gets bloody boring when you've done it nth million (okay, so maybe I've only buggered about halls-and-rooms a few hundred thousand times playing roguelikes. Point stands!) times. Plus different battlefields force you to think and use new and non-standard tactics. I'd say that's a pretty good thing, all around.
Plus some of them are kinda' pretty. I really like the aesthetics of the heart of the gloom, actually. Makes me feel like I'm in a tree.
SWL can be fully explored once you return from
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You what needs to be nerfed? The goddamn bird in Derth. Every time the game is perfectly quit except for the occasional deafening SKAWWWW.
Edit:
HATE SKELETON ARCHERS. HATE HATE HATE.
I LOVE playing as skeleton archers. Pinning, stunning, and crippling enemies from afar is fun. The best class for killing archers is PM. Making archers kill themselves with their own arrows is hilarious. :D
Post by: Frumple on September 15, 2011, 09:09:55 am
I wished this game had auto-explore, but most of the players seem to dislike the idea. And, unsurprisingly, a lot of the players seem to dislike Crawl as well. :(
It actually comes up pretty often on the IRC channel, et al, usually with fairly positive responses. If someone was to code it, I'm pretty sure auto-explore would be patched in without complaint. S'just not very high on the dev's priority list, nor most of the other primary code contributors.
A lot of the T4 players play crawl, from what I've seen, but aren't terribly fond of some of its design decisions. T4's a very different game, so that's fair enough, I suppose.
Re: Skeleton Archers: Bows can get hilariously overpowered (I've found randart ones with 40% attack speed :-\). Enemy skeleton archers can get these bows. Hilarity often ensues (and then you die).
Post by: Robsoie on September 15, 2011, 09:57:34 am
In dungeons that are more interesting, i never found myself wanting to press the "O" key.
Maybe lowering the size of the particularly annoying dungeons like Trollmire and Maze could help then, as i think those 2 have floors that are way too big for something that is such a pain to navigate.
Personnally, i actually enjoy the sandworm dungeon, i never felt any need of pressing O on them, it's really an original design for it and the size of each floor feels just right, not too big not too small.
Post by: Seriyu on September 15, 2011, 05:10:13 pm
I would post a charecter dump for advice but it happens to output in a huge block that looks terrifying to format in a readable way :o
Post by: Frumple on September 15, 2011, 05:17:28 pm
Alternately, spoiler it inside code tags. It'll come out fairly readable.
Post by: Seriyu on September 15, 2011, 05:42:22 pm
I'll head to town and sell all the random junk in my inventory and then edit the dump in.
EDIT: Here we are. (http://te4.org/characters/7726/tome/4615ba2a-dfee-11e0-a676-0025900d6212)
I am litterally standing on a big pile of assorted resistances and a see invisible ring, as a note. Getting ready to go into derth for the thundercloud event, assuming I have enough lightning resist lying around.
Post by: Frumple on September 15, 2011, 06:11:16 pm
5/5 wrath of the woods was probably a fairly hefty mistake, unfortunately, especially as a brawler (they don't need terribly much willpower, all things considered). All extra points in that talent does is decrease the cooldown, and even at 25 CD, you're probably not going to be able to use it twice in one fight.
You probably want relentless strikes, and aiming for iron skin (different tree) and maxing it and thick skin is a very good idea. You'll want rush eventually. Branching out into other activate talents will probably help, too, but you're still pretty low level.
Anyway, I wouldn't recommend doing derth right now. Head over to old forest or the maze if you have done all the first tier dungeons (you have access to six!). If you need to do some shopping, just go to one of the other towns.
Post by: Seriyu on September 15, 2011, 06:19:07 pm
Should I be working on that now or later or not at all or what? And as a general charecter question, am I to assume I shouldn't be raising racial talents unless I'm using the stat that increases their effects? (Con for resilience of the dwarves, and so on?)
Post by: Robsoie on September 15, 2011, 06:21:32 pm
I managed to keep him alive for a very long time and in just half a hour i wasted 5 lives, most of them stupidly.
Last life lost was while exploring Dreadfell as it's the only ongoing quest i have not completed for now (out of the alchemists) there are a few open dungeons out there, but without an idea on how high level i must be before attempting, i'll continue on Dreadfell.
It was one of those nasty "resist nearly everything" ghost-like dark things, they always have been a problem for my characters even in the old version anyways, while one is not too hard at level 23, it was a nest of several of them.
Managed to kill a few before i remembered i had a teleport rune (always forgot i have this one) and got killed just before clicking.
One of the most annoying enemy has been those mummy-like glowing greeny thingies (i really need to learn their names) that always move in pack, can surround themselves with a shield and shoot you with spells.
With them i had to use the teleport multiple time between my attempts at getting them, as in pack with their spells they can overcome my 800+ health+regen+healing+dwarf resilience+wild infusion if i am not very cautious
Went back into my fortress before thinking on what to do next, trying to get to level 24 by hunting a few parties or trying to destroy the few remaining "ghost-like dark things" in Dreadfell.
But even then, there's the master up that fortress, in the old version he was very very powerfull, and i'm not sure if i have the right level (23) to attempt this with probably only one life left (or two as i have the life phial), i wish i had not wasted some life stupidly.
Anyways, my current character (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/71d43d02-dfef-11e0-a676-0025900d6212)
Question : is there any interest in powering up the fortress after you got to the point of getting the rod of calling upgrade already ?
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 15, 2011, 06:41:57 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 15, 2011, 06:43:28 pm
Okay, how's antimagic? Magic Shield? The one that increases spell save. :P
Should I be working on that now or later or not at all or what? And as a general charecter question, am I to assume I shouldn't be raising racial talents unless I'm using the stat that increases their effects? (Con for resilience of the dwarves, and so on?)
Spellshield. It's generally not very useful unless you're specifically pumping saves. Saves are kinda' weird right now, as they're often not terribly useful unless you have a lot of them. Basically re: spellshield, you've probably got better things to be spending generics on. A point in it to unlock unending frenzy (1-3 points in that is generally quite helpful) is usually enough.
Re: Racials: Generally, you shouldn't waste raising them if you're not pumping the stat they scale with. A lot of racials don't involve stats -- they're fine to raise even if you've got stat mismatch. Even if you are pumping the stat the active racial scales with, the first tier talents don't get anything but cooldown reduction from talent investment (at least for non-undead), which is largely useless. Even at 25 CD, you're not going to be able to use them more than once a fight very often.
But even then, there's the master up that fortress, in the old version he was very very powerfull, and i'm not sure if i have the right level (23) to attempt this with probably only one life left (or two as i have the life phial), i wish i had not wasted some life stupidly.
23's usually alright with taking the master. Higher would be better, but it's doable.
Anyways, my current character (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/71d43d02-dfef-11e0-a676-0025900d6212)The thing about racials applies here, too. Even if you're investing in a scaling stat, the first tier racial talents are usually not worth investing in. They're primarily a once-a-battle thing -- lower cooldown isn't going to help much.
5/5 resilience + stoneskin, probably bad idea. CD reduction on resilience isn't going to help much and stoneskin just isn't very good. 0/5 money is power, worse idea -- it's the absolute best dwarven racial talent. Fixing that in the future will help you out.
You want 5/5 berserker, bad. Primarily for the resistances, but the damage boost will be noticeable and the accuracy will help a lot. Finish raising mortal terror, ASAP! Then go for unstoppable, it's a tremendously powerful panic button. Put a point or two in perfect strikes -- the duration increases with point investiture and can help deal with high defense enemies. As a berserker, you only need to hit a couple times to make things dead, usually.
5/5 spellshield, bad (or at least suboptimal, heh.), see above. 5/5 quick recovery would help you out. 1-3 points in unending frenzy can prep you for eventually getting shattering impact. Thick skin, armor training, good. 1/10 combat accuracy, not good, especially without precise or perfect strikes to shore up your accuracy. I imagine you're missing a lot at this point :(
Weapon mastery is just about right -- you don't really want to get it over four or five points on a 'zerker, and it's perfectly fine at three.
Question : is there any interest in powering up the fortress after you got to the point of getting the rod of calling upgrade already ?
Yes! Once you hit 30 power, you unlock the ability to enter farportals for the cost of 30 energy. Farportals take you (usually) to a random zone filled with critters. At the end of the zone, there's a randomly classed boss NPC (usually possessing 2-3 sets of class talents, which can get pretty nasty) that's guaranteed to drop a random artifact! If you can kill it, anyway.
Post by: Seriyu on September 15, 2011, 06:48:24 pm
Post by: beorn080 on September 15, 2011, 07:25:46 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 15, 2011, 07:36:10 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 15, 2011, 08:02:29 pm
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 15, 2011, 08:18:21 pm
Spellshield. It's generally not very useful unless you're specifically pumping saves. Saves are kinda' weird right now, as they're often not terribly useful unless you have a lot of them. Basically re: spellshield, you've probably got better things to be spending generics on. A point in it to unlock unending frenzy (1-3 points in that is generally quite helpful) is usually enough.
Saves are pretty useful. My 1st winner had over 120 saves each and I was rarely affected by status effects. When I was affected it only lasted 1 turn. It was nice to see my dwarf berserker shrug off the final bosses' curses and hexes.
Post by: Robsoie on September 15, 2011, 08:52:03 pm
Just lost my character from not enough saving apparently, after unlocking the farportal in the fortress, i left the move right key pressed until reaching the portal.
bad , bad, bad , bad idea.
I thought the "presence" mentionned by the butler was the unique in the area where i was going to be teleported, but it's not that, the "presence" is an unique bloated crap unique that was in front of the portal, so basically i ran straight to there, and noticed immediatly 6 lines of bad status displayed for my character, and the bloat crap thing summoned a few monsters while i was unable to move so they could just use my character as a punching ball.
I tried the teleport rune as everything else was simply failing (and this time i remembered i had that rune), and .... it didn't worked, i guess one of the numerous status badly afflicting my character was crippling completely its rune usage too, so out of option, i just waited a few turns so the monsters put that character out of his misery.
So for everyone that had never experienced powering up your fortress, do not rush to the new open portal as there's a status crippling unique waiting to cast them on you, or take a high level character with enough of those saves.
Post by: Frumple on September 15, 2011, 09:06:21 pm
That said, teleportation doesn't work in the fortress. It's usually useless inside a lot of special levels and vaults. One of the other reasons movement infusions are generally more useful than PD runes :-\
And yeah, re: saves -- they're useful, but you generally need a lot. Also, investing in spellshield before you've got money is power, as a dwarf, is rather suboptimal -- MiP gives much better saves, heh. There's also the opportunity cost of investing it it when you could be putting the class points into, say unstoppable :P
Mostly I just don't like spellshield, though, heh. +30 magic save for 5 class points seems... lacking. Especially when dwarves can get +50 all saves for five generics and some money hoarding, and most of the other save-granting passives do something else besides saves (or at least more than one type of save), hum.
E: I have been enlightened that spellshield's overall power's going to go up pretty noticably with the new save system. It's something, for all I still don't think the talent's worth much :P
Post by: Seriyu on September 15, 2011, 11:26:06 pm
I didn't see any wierd rooms or anything that would be indicitive of a vault. I also saw a snow giant which is pretty odd for the maze, but it wasn't really unmanagable.
One shotted me pretty handily when I was trying to get it's name, from outside my sight range even.
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 15, 2011, 11:37:53 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 16, 2011, 06:28:27 am
From reading, opening one of the coffins has a chance to summon a random undead, and in randomness it can be an unique.
1st coffin was a strong vampire, but i managed to destroy it as it was not that much dangerous, but 2nd coffin made an undead unique appear.
And this one was much more tricky : everytime he hits you, he regenerates a bit of life, and he has a spell to heal himself greatly that he casts regularly. It was a problem as his resistance allowed him to lower my best weapon damage a lot
And it was not all : he was casting from time to time a shield spell that protected him all the kind of damage i could do with my main weapon for 8 or 9 turns (and during that time he could regenerate).
And when the shield spells was out, he was able to cast an Evasion spell for nearly as much turns too that basically made my high damage skills (rush/death dance).
In the end i was unable to destroy it and had to run away after several attempt (the best i could was getting him down to 300 health when i was lucky to get lot of critical hits and be lucky that i could use rush and death dance with his shield or evasion active for 2 or 3 turns), but he was always reganerating too much for the level my character was.
So before attempting the graveyard quest near New Hope , be sure to be carefull :
-do not go directly to the last room, as from what i understand all the random classed undead (that can all be uniques due to the randomness) will spawn and rush to the help unique.
-open then every coffin to deal with them one by one, but be sure your character is high level enough in case the game decide to spawn randomly a -very- strong undead unique, and get as much resistance and save as possible.
Post by: beorn080 on September 16, 2011, 01:40:23 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 16, 2011, 02:05:46 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 16, 2011, 02:56:23 pm
There is an issue with the Graveyard as well. The curse that occasionally protects the coffins can mess you up badly in the long run, since it is the one Cursed start with. So, if you don't need generics badly, you can actually get better gear eventually, but if you're already tight on generic points, it can screw you over.
While i have unlocked the Cursed several time, i never played such a character, and indeed during my graveyard attempt my character got the curse after opening the 1st coffin.
What is it doing and is it possible to get cured from it ?
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 16, 2011, 03:28:57 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 16, 2011, 04:05:23 pm
Is status resist stuff important to keep around?
Post by: Frumple on September 16, 2011, 06:11:11 pm
Stun resistance protects you from both being stunned and being frozen, two debuffs which, while somewhat less dangerous than they were in earlier betas, are still incredibly vicious status effects. Blindness becomes more prevalent in the later game, and not being able to see what/where things you're fighting is can be deadly, for obvious reasons. Stuff like telepathy, arcane eye, or track, can help mitigate this effect, fortunately. Confusion is deadly in its own right -- you can read a few pages back for, iirc, Robsoie's encounter with how brutal confusion can be.
Post by: Seriyu on September 16, 2011, 06:25:20 pm
Hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
EDIT: Oh. Stun/Freeze.
Welp. :P
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 16, 2011, 07:01:32 pm
(http://i53.tinypic.com/154j3h0.jpg)
Post by: Seriyu on September 16, 2011, 07:04:01 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 16, 2011, 07:14:02 pm
Bringing light to the rumors of spontaneous generation since T4 had greater ammo egos.
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 16, 2011, 08:26:55 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 16, 2011, 08:37:49 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 16, 2011, 08:43:30 pm
Despite this, the bosses are pushovers (comparatively) and not really an issue. Good loot, decent XP.
Rift's major difficulty is, as I call them, time Es. Time elementals. They're faster than you, they have ranged attacks (which is often a nasty debuff, as well), hitting them in melee hurts you, and there's going to be upwards twenty or so of the bastards in the first area of the rift. Then a few in the second, and another junkload in the third.
Further, the buggery things randomly trigger paradox anomalies, which can cause horrible or wonderful things to happen. The longer they're alive, and the more of them there are, the more anomalies get triggered and the more likely they are to trigger.
Bascially, I recommend going past it, killing Rantha, then coming back. Get another level, just in case, then give it a shot. If you've got decent healing, you might be okay. If you're a ranged class, you're probably in a lot better shape than a melee class is (The retaliation damage stacks bloody quick).
The rift is doable, but it's dangerous. If you're not confident, be free to skip it. It's not as dangerous as the crypt (enjoy! It's going to jump you soon~) or the spellblaze, or dreadfell, but it's a bit tougher than daikara's normal levels are.
Post by: Bobbyloathesyou on September 16, 2011, 08:55:49 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 16, 2011, 08:59:35 pm
Incidentally is there anything plot relevant in the farportal room?
I just got the message and I was gonna check it right after I got another level, then I died. Ironyyyy :P
EDIT: Also startin my first reaver so I guess if anyone has any advice for that that'd be nice too.
Post by: Frumple on September 16, 2011, 09:15:47 pm
Frumple, in case you didn't get my PM, I'd be interested in that class unlock spoiler. I too will still enjoy ToME, I just don't have the kinda time to put in to unlock all the classes!
Sent!
Re: Reavers: Check this (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?p=97758#p97758) out. It's a bit outdated (vim regen has changed significantly, so you'll probably want a bit of willpower when you can spare it, as an example, and your desired equipment loadout has changed significantly.), but should give you a good idea of one way to play and build a reaver.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 16, 2011, 09:48:31 pm
It's a bit outdated
Understatement. That build was probably made in b21... and we're in b33. :P
Incidentally is there anything plot relevant in the farportal room?
The murals have some backstory. You can't fully understand the messages until you beat the game though.
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 16, 2011, 09:49:51 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 16, 2011, 09:54:17 pm
It's a bit outdated
Understatement. That build was probably made in b21... and we're in b33. :P
Just a wee titch of one ;D
That said, reavers themselves haven't really changed in any major sense since that guide was made, outside the changes to vim regen (and drain coming before blood sac). Most of the changes have came about due to peripheral changes -- new egos, classes, etc. It's still a fairly solid build, heh.
That said, the last profiled reaver winner was back in b21. They're definitely not the strongest of classes, heh.
Post by: Seriyu on September 16, 2011, 09:56:22 pm
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 16, 2011, 09:59:23 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 16, 2011, 10:06:02 pm
I honestly don't see how wardens are expected to survive it, actually. The time I went in there, the only reason I got out alive was because I abused the hell out of the AI's movement patterns, mixed with some LoS trickier (that won't work in the upcoming b34.). Nasty, nasty fight. I actually don't recommend TWs to go for the rift. Just let your future self kill you, it won't cost a life.
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 16, 2011, 10:09:41 pm
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 16, 2011, 10:22:23 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 17, 2011, 12:09:09 am
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 17, 2011, 12:31:48 am
Post by: Frumple on September 17, 2011, 12:42:56 am
Post by: Seriyu on September 17, 2011, 01:08:05 am
Post by: Frumple on September 17, 2011, 01:09:32 am
At least not currently, anyway. Dunno about for the future.
Post by: Seriyu on September 17, 2011, 01:36:15 am
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 17, 2011, 01:58:17 am
Post by: Seriyu on September 17, 2011, 05:15:34 am
Post by: Frumple on September 17, 2011, 05:21:19 am
That's the major differences, though, that I can recall off the top of my head.
Post by: Robsoie on September 17, 2011, 06:44:10 am
Anyways, in a previous page i mentionned a -very- dangerous strong unique in Daikara that had the ability to cast Fearscape, launching you in a lava world that deal to you very high fire damage each turns spent there, often a death sentence.
On my previous Dwarf Berserker run, this unique and his fort populated by dozens of Giants was not in it, but i'm currently running with a Cornac Berzerker (at that point i feel the difference in XP you recieve as a Cornac instead of the lowered XP you recieve as a Dwarf as i'm 2 level better at Daikara as a Cornac than i was as a Dwarf) and encountered the Giant fort, in fact there are a Giant fort in 2 of the Daikara levels !
But this time i was prepared and didn't opened the door of the main building, i prefer to keep my character alive :D
If you encounter something like this in Daikara :
(http://i.imgur.com/3bF9Vs.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/3bF9V.jpg)
It should be where you're going to find the "I cast Fearscape on you and you die in a few turns from fire damage because you were logically having cold/electricity resistance instead of fire considering Daikara enemies are all about cold/electricity damage.
Post by: Frumple on September 17, 2011, 06:51:21 am
There's some loot, though, and the random unique'll usually have solid drops. S'not bad to drop the place if you're able.
Post by: Robsoie on September 17, 2011, 07:09:07 am
This should get you more chance to survive in case the unique has the Fearscape spell (and with the kind of luck i have, he'll always have it :D ) so you'll be able to resist the high fire damage (my character had a few fire resistance but he took a bit more than 70 fire damage by turn).
In this run i have been surprised by the Daikara end, there was the usual Daikara boss, but in the same room there was a 2nd one, a warg unique (fortunately much less dangerous than your usual uniques).
Good that i had a Cornac with 2 levels of experience more than when i was playing a Dwarf in the same situation, as the difference in level (and so skill points) really showed , making that battle (despite the presence of that 2nd unique) easier than before.
Post by: Tnx on September 17, 2011, 11:26:53 am
EDIT: Where are the save files located? I'd like to save scum if I can.
EDIT2: Not sure if this is a bug, but all my skills on the lower bar disappeared. I can still use them by right clicking on my character though.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 17, 2011, 01:17:00 pm
Reply to edit 2: that's due to the mouse wheel.
Unrelated, but found some decent cursed advice in the other forums:
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=27352
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Tnx on September 17, 2011, 02:32:33 pm
Post by: beorn080 on September 17, 2011, 02:42:08 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 17, 2011, 02:51:34 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 17, 2011, 02:52:51 pm
Sure. They run off different saturations, for one thing. The other thing is that undead can't use infusions. At all.
That's the major differences, though, that I can recall off the top of my head.
I never actually quite figured out what the saturations did actually. Can't use any runes while a rune saturation is up, can't use any infusions while an infusion saturation is up?
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 17, 2011, 02:58:40 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 17, 2011, 03:02:47 pm
Re: Rampage: The first talent gives you increased chance to crit for a period of time, while increase hate loss. Each talent after that adds something to the initial rampage active -- brutality increases the rampage duration and adds +damage (weapon power, I think) to the rampage, reflexes decreases rampage's cooldown and adds +global speed, and finally, instincts adds +accuracy and evasion to the rampage.
Post by: Robsoie on September 17, 2011, 03:14:56 pm
After a while it become to be frankly annoying to have you leaving a zone and the game is saving, then you notice you forget something, re-enter a zone, and it save again, leaving then ... save again.
Post by: Tnx on September 17, 2011, 03:21:15 pm
EDIT: What potion is better from the halfling alchemist? +5 luck or 2 class points? I'm an elf shadow rogue btw.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 17, 2011, 03:30:01 pm
Post by: Tnx on September 17, 2011, 03:37:06 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 17, 2011, 03:37:32 pm
Is there any ways to save -only- when i want to save/quit the game ?
Not that I've noticed. You could definitely muck around with the code to get that sort of effect, but I've no clue how. The best you can do is get it to only save on zone change (and when you tell it to, of course). You could give a shout over on the T4 forums and request that. Dunno if it'd get in until the game's more finished, though -- a big reason for regular autosave is simply the aid it gives to testing and debugging.
Hmm so I'm seeing items that have the size +1 category. Looked it up on google but couldn't find any info. What does it mean?
It means you get one size category larger :P
Seriously though, it doesn't do much right now. There's some brawler talents that are messed with by size cat, but it's generally only meaningful for halflings (and yeeks, I think.). There's a few other talents that interact with size cat in various ways, but they're fairly rare.
What potion is better from the halfling alchemist? +5 luck or 2 class points? I'm an elf shadow rogue btw.Probably the class points. Luck is nice, but class points are considerably more scares than +luck kit.
I don't get what you mean. I can't seem to find a page on the wiki that tells me what luck is for either.
It's at least theoretically possible to get five (or six, I think) potions from the alchemist quests, if you get really freaking lucky. It's probably not going to happen. Usually, you're only going to get three or four.
As for luck, it gives a little bonus to most things. +Acc, +dam, +SP, +saves, +other stuff. Unlike earlier ToMEs, it has no effect on item generation. It's actually pretty decent, but class points are considerably more decent, heh.
Post by: Robsoie on September 17, 2011, 03:46:09 pm
a big reason for regular autosave is simply the aid it gives to testing and debugging.
Yes, now that i think about it, this is making sense as it's always considered beta test.
I'm sure someone have certainly suggested this anyways, as when you play for a long time, the zone saving get very tedious (and i can't imagine enabling dungeon floor saving, having that occuring at each dungeon floor must be really atrocious).
Anyways, my Cornac berzerker is currently level 25 and surprisingly always alive (surprisingly because i have used the teleportation rune -a very lot- to escape less than 100 health/nearly death situation.
When i think the anti-magic path that should coming naturally to any fighter class lead into your character being unable to teleport/phase anymore, (and because it is needing lot of points invested in Willpower, will not make that much of a difference when being the target of spells considering fighters characters if they want to survive need to invest in Strength and Constitution) , it shows that this is a path really need a balancing rework to become actually an advantage instead of a crippling disadvantage.
Post by: Seriyu on September 17, 2011, 03:46:58 pm
Saturation increases the cooldown of the next inscription you use, basically. It stacks, too, so if you use an infusion while not saturated, it'll have the normal cooldown. The next infusion you use will have +1 cooldown, if you're still under saturation, the one after +2, etc.
Re: Rampage: The first talent gives you increased chance to crit for a period of time, while increase hate loss. Each talent after that adds something to the initial rampage active -- brutality increases the rampage duration and adds +damage (weapon power, I think) to the rampage, reflexes decreases rampage's cooldown and adds +global speed, and finally, instincts adds +accuracy and evasion to the rampage.
Ohhhhhhhhh okay, I get it now. Thanks. I'd read the description of the effect back when I started but I thought it meant the cooldown increased one for every time you use it period.
Post by: Tnx on September 17, 2011, 03:47:15 pm
Infusions; if I wanted to upgrade does the infusion I use takeover one that I do not want anymore? EDIT (Never mind on this one, i save scummed to see what would happen)
Is price a good indicator of what equipment I should wear?
Alchemist quest: 4 stat points or 4+ to all saving throws?
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 17, 2011, 03:58:54 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 17, 2011, 04:20:34 pm
-Healing rune
-Shielding rune
-Teleportation rune (or at least Phase if no teleportation is around)
Too bad it doesnt seem possible to wear more rune with unlocking more slots with sacrifice of a category point, or i'll add Movement and Invisibility too.
Currently trying Dreadfell with my level 25 Cornac Berserker.
The less i can say is that in comparison to the tier-2 quests i just finished and started the tier 3 quest (Dreadfell) , the jump in difficulty is rather high, while the elder and master vampire are managable, the major problem is the skeleton archers, they do so much damage that the other super undead troops seems laughable in comparison.
Even Daikara suddenly feels easy in comparison.
Oh and a question : is the item enchanting in the hidden mage village having any interest ?
The various gems i have been collecting so far does not seem to have anything remotely as good as what i find in dungeons , the most interesting gem so far would give an item a +6% resistance to all.
While nearly every items i use have more than that by default.
I'm not sure the shops are balanced yet too, out of the infusion/rune shop that i go to if i can't find early one of my wanted rune, i never found anything in any of them better than dungeon loots.
Post by: Tnx on September 17, 2011, 04:34:12 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 17, 2011, 04:45:01 pm
Anyway, b34's out. (http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2011/09/news/tales-majeyal-beta34-aka-say-no-jittering) Mostly a bugix/polish release.
Post by: Robsoie on September 17, 2011, 04:58:56 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/W95O6s.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/W95O6.jpg)
(notice the archer summons shooting in their own friends back ;) )
I was battling him (and his unlimited amount of summons) for at least 10 minutes with my usual stair tactic (can't even imagine to have gone that far if it wasn't possible, using stair in battle saved my character too much time to count them).
But it was not rare for my character to get hit for 500 hit in a single turn while surrounding by the Master and his summoned strong minions (and that's where you really like the Shielding rune and the Wild infusion to prevent being killed in 2 turns), forcing me to retreat upstairs.
Would hate to take on the Master with a character that has much less health.
A big thanks to the Death Dance too, perfect in those surrounded situations (and dealing more than 300 damage to the unique in the same turn is very very usefull).
If it can be of any hint about how dangerous Dreadfell truly is, my character entered at level 24 , died 2 times (and i don't think i could have avoided it, as often it was in confused state), and after finishing the Master, that Cornac Berserker (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/f5f84a4a-e177-11e0-8906-0025900d6212) is now level 28.
edit : is it possible to use beta 33 saves in beta 34 or should i just wait until my character is dead to upgrade ?
Post by: Frumple on September 17, 2011, 05:02:45 pm
Post by: Tnx on September 17, 2011, 05:03:30 pm
EDIT: And I found some cool items too.. Vargh Redemption Ring and Flamewrought gloves, and a light source thing that gives +1 to life regen..
Post by: Robsoie on September 17, 2011, 05:13:21 pm
Generally less effort and risk in just waiting until your character dies to upgrade. It's possible to get old version characters to load in newer versions, but it's fairly likely to cause problems.
Thanks, i'll wait until that character dies before upgrading.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 17, 2011, 05:24:40 pm
Post by: Tnx on September 17, 2011, 05:28:48 pm
EDIT: Ah nvm, I opened up the files in my save with wordpad and found what I think is the right line to edit.
Post by: Seriyu on September 17, 2011, 10:51:57 pm
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 18, 2011, 06:34:59 am
About what level should I attempt the Zigur arena? I tried at level 19 or so last time and my last fight was a level 30 corruptor. But I've heard of people doing it earlier then that and they seemed surprised that it wasn't beatable. Does it pull from a random pool of enemies or what?
That level 30 corruptor is always the last fight. People on IRC like to egg newbies on to do the anti-magic quest as early as possible for laughs. I think the earliest you can take the quest is level 10, but I'd recommend doing it whenever you feel ready.
Post by: Robsoie on September 18, 2011, 08:45:15 am
-you have not done it yet with any character and want to get the achievement corresponding to it
-you find Tome4 way too easy, and want to cripple your character by preventing him to use any rune (yes, it means no phase or teleportation to save your character life when you're surrounded by strong monsters) and any items that is powered by arcane (lots of good ones are powered by arcane)
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 18, 2011, 09:02:43 am
And four more times. In the same spot, no less ???
Quote
[LOG] Arryn Redd hits The Shade for #LIGHT_RED#22 fire#LAST# damage.
============================== TACTICAL AI golem (servant of Arryn Redd)
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Knockback T_GOLEM_KNOCKBACK
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Combat Accuracy T_WEAPON_COMBAT
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Attack T_ATTACK
[DEBUG] hit a foe!
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents can use Attack T_ATTACK attack weight 1.9957632565535
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Thick Skin T_THICK_SKIN
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Stamina Pool T_STAMINA_POOL
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Mana Pool T_MANA_POOL
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Armour Training T_ARMOUR_TRAINING
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Weapons Mastery T_WEAPONS_MASTERY
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Reflective Skin T_GOLEM_REFLECTIVE_SKIN
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Eye BeamT_GOLEM_BEAM
[DEBUG] hit a foe!
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents can use Eye BeamT_GOLEM_BEAM attack weight 8.8757609341631
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Self-destruction T_GOLEM_DESTRUCT
golem (servant of Arryn Redd) 1195 tactical ai talents testing Rune: Shielding T_RUNE:_SHIELDING_1
Tactical ai report for golem (servant of Arryn Redd)
* attack 18.404465030774 (mult) nil
Tactical choice: attack T_GOLEM_BEAM
[LOG] Golem (servant of Arryn Redd) uses Eye Beam.
These are my last messages. After that it hangs up.
Post by: Robsoie on September 18, 2011, 09:56:22 am
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=28510&p=117432
It looks like the same problem as you (unless you're that user) that involve the Shade and a golem.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 18, 2011, 10:30:34 am
Post by: Tnx on September 18, 2011, 11:03:18 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 18, 2011, 11:07:57 am
I guess this game wont be long-lived though, as this is a big bug and due to be changed son. Cue savegame loss.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 18, 2011, 12:44:38 pm
Hmm so I got all the alchemist quests active as the TOME4 wiki suggested, but one of the alchemists already completed the quest without my help. I got them pretty early on so I'm wondering if it was better to just talk to them later? Does the quest start on a timer once you speak to them and activate it or is it on a timer regardless if I speak to them or not?
The brotherhood quest has four alchemists, and each of them has 3 mini-quests (potions). When you finish one another closes. Talk to them again to get another list. If an alchemist finishes all 3 potions, then the brotherhood quest ends. You only get the promised prize if you complete the last quest for an alchemist.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 18, 2011, 02:40:38 pm
EDIT: apparently cant shoot bows while equipping alchemist gems. Shucks.
Post by: Tnx on September 18, 2011, 02:49:14 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 18, 2011, 03:18:23 pm
About what level should I attempt the Zigur arena? I tried at level 19 or so last time and my last fight was a level 30 corruptor. But I've heard of people doing it earlier then that and they seemed surprised that it wasn't beatable. Does it pull from a random pool of enemies or what?
Okay, good, I'm not missing something huge. :P
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 18, 2011, 03:58:39 pm
Edit: frozen golem bug: I also suspect the bug is related to cold damage. I've noticed that my cold damage dealing armor now can freeze enemies, and possibly so can the golem's eyearm beams. Maybe trying to freeze a frozen cube triggers the crash?
Post by: Frumple on September 18, 2011, 07:49:47 pm
Ice. Ice damage. There's a difference between cold and ice damage :P The freeze thing has been reported, though. Have hit it twice, myself. The freezing-iceblock... maybe. Dunno, but I'll suggest it over on the forum, I think. The CPU lockup is definitely being caused by trying to get out of an iceblock, though.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 18, 2011, 11:40:55 pm
Post by: Tnx on September 19, 2011, 10:34:33 am
Post by: Frumple on September 19, 2011, 11:27:40 am
Chair, could you try swapping to ASCII for a mo' and seeing the stairs show up? I'm in b34 and seeing the mark just fine, but am playing ASCII. I understand there's occasionally oddities in tile mode that isn't there in not-tile, heh.
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on September 19, 2011, 11:50:46 am
Post by: Frumple on September 19, 2011, 12:15:27 pm
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on September 19, 2011, 12:50:17 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 19, 2011, 01:45:08 pm
Post by: Tnx on September 19, 2011, 02:29:15 pm
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on September 19, 2011, 02:33:23 pm
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 19, 2011, 03:07:41 pm
Yeah I always thought the music for the merchant trapped quest was odd. *Music Plays* "Hmm it seems like I am actually at an elven rock concert..."I could have sworn that music was remix from a Nintendo game, but I can't remember which.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 19, 2011, 04:09:19 pm
Btw, is parwdox clone any good? What happens if your past self dies?
Also: how good is paradox clone vs the timeline threading enemy clone ability?
Post by: Frumple on September 19, 2011, 05:15:54 pm
it's stil too big for me. i'll try to remember to download this by the end of the month if i still have some traffic left
Okay, got something for you to try, if you can spare the bandwidth. It's a very ghetto-style slimmed down version of T4 b34 (Just cut the music and most of the graphics out) that comes out to be about ten megs, roughly a forth of the normal T4 nomusic download. I have no idea if it will work, or work well, or anything along those lines, and completely disclaim myself of anything of that nature! But tentative test has it working, so it might function for you, too.
This is the link (http://www.mediafire.com/?xd88ph5yl5n24i4). It's to mediafire; tell me if that doesn't work or you have a preferred filehosting site, and I'll upload there, instead.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 19, 2011, 05:20:57 pm
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on September 19, 2011, 05:33:18 pm
it's stil too big for me. i'll try to remember to download this by the end of the month if i still have some traffic left
Okay, got something for you to try, if you can spare the bandwidth. It's a very ghetto-style slimmed down version of T4 b34 (Just cut the music and most of the graphics out) that comes out to be about ten megs, roughly a forth of the normal T4 nomusic download. I have no idea if it will work, or work well, or anything along those lines, and completely disclaim myself of anything of that nature! But tentative test has it working, so it might function for you, too.
This is the link (http://www.mediafire.com/?xd88ph5yl5n24i4). It's to mediafire; tell me if that doesn't work or you have a preferred filehosting site, and I'll upload there, instead.
wow, thank you. i dl'd it, gonna try it now
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 19, 2011, 05:51:32 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 20, 2011, 03:01:10 pm
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 20, 2011, 09:20:26 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And my status has finally been recognized..
Quote
The merchant carefully hands you: Wide-Brimmed Pimp Hat (3 def, 0 armor)
Nybbas wears: Wide-Brimmed Pimp Hat (3 def, 0 armor).
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 21, 2011, 10:12:52 am
Also: golem freeze bug fixable (albeit in a non-online compatible way):
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=28510&p=117432
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on September 21, 2011, 12:02:52 pm
On those hundred of attempts the best i had was having only 1 acolyt alive (but way out of reach before countdown reached 0).
The fact all those acolyts have more than 800 health does not help to killthem quickly, as even at the level i was and death dance maxed, it wasn't possible to one shot any of them, even after rushing (at max skill) too
So if you don't use a character that has ranged (spell or bow) attack :
- get very lucky to find an item giving you a 2nd Rush ability before you hit level 24 (and have the quest spawning), so you can use Rush 2 times without having to wait way too much to re-use it.
- if no 2nd Rush, get even more very lucky to find one of those very rare controlled phase door (but be sure you have Rush, as 1 controlled phase door and having to wait many turn will not allow to make it)
- if none of the above, don't even try as it's stupidly exposing yourself and just wait for when the too small countdown reach 0, the floor is in fact rather easy at the level you are (it used to be more difficult in old version, but it seems the damage ouput by focused nukes from the acolytes has been nerfed) as even the spawning demon unique is easy to kill.
And the most hilarious : i tried the debug cheat teleport to see what was the difference in loot/reward and the reward in killing the demon was much, much better (artifact + good items) than the ridiculously low level weapon Melinda's father gives to you.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 21, 2011, 12:36:35 pm
In this particular game I was able to finish the quest because I had wisely invested 4 dots in explosion expert (thus making me able to hurt several cultists in every bomb throw), plus I had gotten lucky, and found an awesome 100 damage artifact staff on level 1 (which allowed me to deal a lot of damage to cultists while my bombs reloaded). Without the staff I'd likely not have achieved it, as while fighting the next to last cultist was what allowed me to deal a coup de grace . My golem wouldn't have reached him in time, and I still had to wait three turns for my bomb to reload. In fact, in a previous game with a very decent alchemist with a strong golem and strong bombs, it WAS impossible. Bombs have a too large reload time to be useful.
I think it'd be doable for an alchemist even without the unique staff (provided a decent-enough non-unique, though), if he had invested heavily in the staff combat beforehand (I hadn't. I had been investing heavily in the healing light spells I got from an anorithil).
Maybe it'd be possible to preserve the same build by buffing up just the barrier spell, of the healing tree (at first, that is) and of the stone tree, invest three dots in extract gems, and then one in each talent up to gem portal (imbues are nice, but you can make do without them for a while). This would mean an investment of 6 + (3 + X) where X is the number of points you wish to buff up Barrier (I think three would be nice, which would mean 12 points.) Which means that, of all the guaranteed generic points you'd have gotten by then, you'd have.... 8? left to invest in staff combat in order to make it a viable cultist killer? I think four and four in each of the two useful staff combat talents should make it worthwhile...
Post by: beorn080 on September 21, 2011, 12:44:31 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 21, 2011, 01:20:40 pm
Another damnit: I've killed over 10 adventurer groups, still no reagents. I need to get that damn magic emerald...
Edit:
*KABOOM*
Make that eleven adventurer groups without reagents :(
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 22, 2011, 12:02:22 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 22, 2011, 06:34:52 am
Also: lost a life to the Master of Dreadfell (due to the infamous "spawn at the bottom of the stairs" issue.). On the bright side, I massacred the orc ambush afterwards
PD: stupid elder took my staff :(
Woot! necromancer unlock :D
Post by: Robsoie on September 22, 2011, 11:31:40 am
It crashes like crazy (in beta 33 and not playing online , not yet finished with my character to move to beta 34) once you get out of the lair or out of a Orc party encounter :
-you get back to worldmap , and before the damned automatic save , crash, nearly every single time.
Strangely, if before exiting Briargh lair/Orc party encounter i change the graphic mode to ASCII, it will not crash when it will start to save, then once back in town , i could rechange to the regular nice tiles, looks like there's something bad with the desert and the nice tileset.
I hope it's solved in beta 34, but as i see no "error" message in the te4_log.txt it not something easy to report.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 22, 2011, 02:49:59 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 22, 2011, 04:12:15 pm
And while floor 1 of where i landed was easy (mostly very strong vampires and strong undeads that my level 40 had no problem with), when landing on floor 2, i saw an unique fire wyrm and his bunch of followers.
So i shielded my character with my nice 400+ shield rune, used wild and regen and used all my wild abillities (gained from the early game worm unique heart) in which i had invested due to some nice bonus it gives and a bunch of points that had no real need elsewhere.
Then braced for the unique arrival (as he was faster than his follower, it was going to be a 1 vs 1, something usually my character had no problem with when facing an unique.
And how wrong i was, in only 4 or 5 turns, character dead.
Because there was a whole bunch of these accumulating each turns (and obviously no rune/infusion had cooldown fast enough) :
(http://i.imgur.com/mCkxb.jpg)
So goodbye the nearly 1500 health of my character very quickly, i don't even want to imagine having a caster in this battle.
And i had nice protections even in physical, so ouch.
Lesson to learn : keep farportal for much later.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 22, 2011, 04:30:49 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: ThtblovesDF on September 22, 2011, 05:36:50 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 22, 2011, 05:40:47 pm
Post by: gogis on September 22, 2011, 05:57:33 pm
About what level should I attempt the Zigur arena? I tried at level 19 or so last time and my last fight was a level 30 corruptor. But I've heard of people doing it earlier then that and they seemed surprised that it wasn't beatable. Does it pull from a random pool of enemies or what?
Just about yesterday i did that with with 10 level fighter... Last fight was 27 level orc corrupter(I was 11!!! vs 27). I hugged topleft 2 wall bricks and spammed my HP infusions before he got cd's on abilities. After that I chased him (new AI casters always run like sissies) then he was out of mana and I comfortably finished him.
I cba how hard he was, I always play adventure dificulty, I hate roguelike one/timer crap since nethack in 90-x (crap i was pissed off most times, I got my copy of NH on diskette from friend, no spoilers, no inet for next 6-10 years), but in Tome it's always about level/timing. I've found Maze/Zigur to be actually HARDER later on, so I do both whenever I can, earlier is better.
Post by: DeKaFu on September 22, 2011, 06:08:07 pm
Anyone know a fix for the game just getting stuck at the first (loading) screen? 0%, not responding, regardless of time passed. Dual core 3.2 ghz here.
I have this problem on my main computer, but not my laptop. Both running XP.
Would also like to know how to fix it.
Anyone have any tips for summoners?
Post by: Frumple on September 22, 2011, 07:27:29 pm
Lesson to learn : keep farportal for much later.
Actually~
It's arguably (somewhat) safer to do farportals early. They scale to your character, so the stronger you are, the more powerful the foes you encounter in them. That fire wyrm was a classed random unique, which is more or less why it tore you a new one. Earlier in the game, it's less likely to generate vicious doom beasts like that.
I wished I found a plain vorutun ring/amulet. I'm at level 50 and I still don't have one.I have the tome and a bunch of gems, but I don't think I'll find any plain vorutun jewelry in this playthrough.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Re: Spoiler: The only limit is your supply of plain amulets and gold. Plain voratun amulets are flipping rare, especially now that magetown seems to refuse to sell them (Scummed their ring shop at level 50 a good dozen times with no results :-\ Only stralite.). Best chance I've seen is Vor's Armory. I guess it's theoretically possible for an adventurer group to drop one, or for you to find one in a farportal, but...
Anyone have any tips for summoners?See if this helps. (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=27606&hilit=summoner) I don't play summoners very often, so all I can really contribute is once you've got 5/5 hydra and some points into resilience, you can start keeping multiple hydras up simultaneously. This will pretty much steamroll the entirety of the west, in my experience.
Post by: beorn080 on September 22, 2011, 07:38:07 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 23, 2011, 06:29:26 am
Lesson to learn : keep farportal for much later.
Actually~
It's arguably (somewhat) safer to do farportals early. They scale to your character, so the stronger you are, the more powerful the foes you encounter in them. That fire wyrm was a classed random unique, which is more or less why it tore you a new one. Earlier in the game, it's less likely to generate vicious doom beasts like that.
I didn't knew the unique in Farportal somehow scaled with your character level, ouch i would hate to see what is generated there when you go at max level (level 50 i think)
Thanks, will keep that in mind for future characters.
After getting back to the West, i noticed i completely forgot to explore the halflings labs with subject Z in the end.
Was rather easy at level 40 as even Subject Z couldn't stand more than a couple of turns, Rush was definitively helpfull in saving the wayist in time once you open the door (good as i didn't unlocked yet the race.)
Oh and a question, as i noticed i missed another optional dungeon, with the slaver and the arena on the bottom, i went the "good" path and just punched to death the arena master instead of accepting to compete in the arena with the slaves.
As it's not the only choice you can do differently ingame, i wonder, is there an importance in doing the right thing in Tome4 in the current beta ?
About items, when you get back to Last Hope after completing the portal in the East and need to fetch some items to build a 2nd portal (that would allow to get back to East easily) , the tower dungeon you're sent in is more difficult than as the floors are very small and you can't really have corridor to fight.
But i found that the items you can find on the ground are of much better quality than what i was finding on the ground up to now.
(be sure to fight on stairs, so you can get downstair if the situation is too difficult to heal and get up with full rune/infusion and health.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 23, 2011, 08:37:41 am
Re: Spoiler: The only limit is your supply of plain amulets and gold. Plain voratun amulets are flipping rare, especially now that magetown seems to refuse to sell them (Scummed their ring shop at level 50 a good dozen times with no results :-\ Only stralite.). Best chance I've seen is Vor's Armory. I guess it's theoretically possible for an adventurer group to drop one, or for you to find one in a farportal, but...
Ah, I forgot that they nerfed the reward. The only time I managed to find the tome before was several betas ago. I couldn't see invisible things, so it didn't end well.
Oh and a question, as i noticed i missed another optional dungeon, with the slaver and the arena on the bottom, i went the "good" path and just punched to death the arena master instead of accepting to compete in the arena with the slaves.
As it's not the only choice you can do differently ingame, i wonder, is there an importance in doing the right thing in Tome4 in the current beta ?
In previous betas, you received nothing (other than crappy loot and some xp) for killing the yeek slaver boss. Now, you can complete the quest and get an achievement. :P
Winning the arena mini-game gets you a class unlock and a nice guaranteed artifact.
Post by: Robsoie on September 23, 2011, 09:14:26 am
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 23, 2011, 09:29:26 am
So for now, behaving good or evil does not impact the story/quests out of some unlocks or items ?
Siding with the
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on September 23, 2011, 09:52:56 am
The player in T4 is a pretty horrible person, heh, and a number of the quests are set up to actively encourage this. T4's chock full of delightful What the Hell, Hero? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitle0z548336167v) (or perhaps Moral Dissonance (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralDissonance), but DG's well aware of how evil his main character has to be in order to win the game :P) moments.
Post by: Robsoie on September 23, 2011, 11:00:56 am
I hope at some point it will be reconsidered, that would be a good way to give some replayability too instead of having it only dependant on the selected class (for the different start).
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 23, 2011, 11:18:54 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 23, 2011, 11:50:53 am
Make sure to bring along some magic dispelling device (staff of corruption, or foos of dispersal) in case he brings you to fearscape
Post by: Robsoie on September 23, 2011, 11:53:12 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 23, 2011, 02:14:53 pm
I'm finishing my alchemist game and then I'm going back to beta 33
Post by: Robsoie on September 23, 2011, 02:47:10 pm
How do you assault an Orc Pride bastion with a berzerker ?
I save scummed to test the waters in them, and all the entrances seems to be built the same way : you're inside a large open room and there is a dozen of orcs, most being casters.
And so without corridors to focus the battle inside choke point, it's basically your character being focus fired by every casters/archers, with summons appearing around and you're hit by every kind of elemental damage (so preparing for specific resistance does not work as you would need all of them) damage accumulation by turn is then so high that even high wild infusion, great shielding rune, high regeneration, healing and the various equilibrium skills do not allow my level 43 character (+/- 1300 health) to survive more than at most 10 turns.
I tried rushing a caster but it does not really protect you from the other, as they're all placed roughly in half circle around the stair entrance, though it allows to at least take one down very quickly.
Only real working tactic i found was to use the teleportation rune that get you inside the bastion, avoiding this death trap entirely, inside the bastion it's rare to get in situation that has more than 2 enemies, so it's easy.
Post by: Frumple on September 23, 2011, 03:18:19 pm
Rush one of the threesomes in the north or south sides of the entrance, then nail them with deathdance + shattering impact -- this will either kill them all or most of them. A second, possibly third swing will kill that three.
Then, movement infusion to the other threesome and start hammering with SI boosted hits. They'll drop in <4 turns. Finally either rush or simply walk to whatever's left.
If health gets low, I popped unstoppable followed by timeless, granting me twelve turns of invincibility (usually followed by a full heal). None of the entrances (not even the grushnak pride barracks, which are absolutely one of the most dangerous fights in the entre game) survived past that point.
By that point, though, I had native >100 hp/round regen while bloodbath was going (and >50% crit rate, so bloodbath was always going) along with decent enough resistances, armor, HP, etc, so it was pretty rare they actually managed to damage me enough to need unstoppable.
A pastebin link to that character's victory dump. (http://pastebin.com/PSDya2uu) Also known as "How an endgame shattering bloodthirst berserker looks." It's a genuine shame some debugging invalidated the save file :-\
Post by: Virroken on September 23, 2011, 03:39:42 pm
Staff was stolen, talked to elder, cleared spellblaze. Now what?
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 23, 2011, 03:42:47 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 23, 2011, 03:59:15 pm
Quote
My elfzerker -- the shalore berserker that was the last 'zerker I got to the east, in... b31, I think -- took out the pride entrances fairly simply.Just looked at your log, you had no teleport/phase and healing runes ?
I can't imagine how half my character survived would have been actually survivable without those 2 additional runes bought with category point
Is the movement infusion that good ?
I hesitated to take it at some point, but it would have meant removing one rune of mine (as category buying slots is limited in how much category point you can use to buy slots) and considering how much usefull they had all been to my character survival i couldn't do that.
Looks like my teleport tactic is working extremely well : avoiding original death trap by teleporting inside the bastion, clean the whole bastion, then open the entrance door from the inside and kill the previously death trap by having the advantage of the terrain.
Cleaned Vor Bastion and killed Vor like this without losing a life.
Oh and about the Orc being the "good guys", i just visited the Orc breeding camp, fetched every notes on the ground, and read the description of the people in there, and the less i can say is if the player is not morally the best, the Orcs may have been "good guys" in older ages, but in the age in which the game is taking place they are fully horrible.
Post by: Frumple on September 23, 2011, 05:39:48 pm
The character had teleport on tap, though, via a (elm) conveyance staff in the alternate weapon slot. It saved th'critters life quite a few times and has absolute ridiculous synergy with unstoppable -- if everything's not dead when the duration on unstoppable hits two or three, you simply swap weapons and teleport out, no muss no fuss.
As for the orcs, as you read the lore, you see that the dude that did what he did is actually a fairly sympathetic character -- the orc species is an incredibly desperate one. They were brutally enslaved and then basically genocided for attempting to free themselves (and get a little well deserved vengeance in the process). He did what he did to save his species from complete extinction, for all that what he did was indeed absolutely horrible. There wasn't really a choice for them, though. The female population at the time, apparently, was no longer large enough to maintain a viable species.
They're not exactly nice (They're expansionists with a bit of a vengeance kick -- that probably includes a little counter-genocide), but compared to some of the other races (Halflings, the little midget bastards), they're not that bad.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 23, 2011, 06:25:44 pm
Not good enough. Spellblaze at the very least can still disappear during the game :(
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 23, 2011, 06:26:32 pm
How do you assault an Orc Pride bastion with a berzerker ?
Simple. Fight in corridors as much as you can and retreat often. Stair-scum, if you absolutely have to. And try to lure enemies into a doorway in an empty room. Fighting multiple enemies at once is a bad idea, unless you're an overpowered caster. :P
My only win, so far, is with a dwarf zerker (b27, roguelike):
http://te4.org/characters/4906/tome/ee13078a-89b2-11e0-86bb-001cc000edf0
I made a few mistakes, like focusing on damage and regen above all else, but the game was still pretty easy. Not bad for my 5th character ever. Now, my characters usually die due to bugs and upgrades. Heh.
Is the movement infusion that good ?
YES!
Edit: Movement gives you perfect control on where you're moving. And you move so fast that most enemies won't be able to act.
Post by: Robsoie on September 23, 2011, 06:57:25 pm
Their hunt of godlings is rather suspicious to start with and their weaponry/technology that nearly destroyed the world seems to hint at very bad source of powers.
I liked the story of the major Orc hero (Garkul the Devourer) too (headbutted Atamathon :D ), but i would not really call him a good guy either, after all murdering whole cities of defenseless people does not really play well for good karma :)
For the females, there's a difference between assuring the future of their race and building gigantic new hordes in few days (as from the description of the female and the female unique in the end, they seem produce many baby orcs by minutes), so it lead into thinking that the notes are not telling exactly the truth (after all the orcs history notes were wrote by Garkul followers and admirers), as they were not building back their race, they were building several legions for further invasions.
That's what i like in this universe, like for the case of the temple of creation (the naga versus the sea dragon), you're left with yourself to judge the truth behind the notes and claims you read, meaning that Maj'Eyal history may not always be wrote in truth but in way that servers their writers views.
Anyways, it's rather amazing to see the superb effort to create such a coherent world in Tome4, you can see that it has been a great work to rebuild from the middle earth environment into something very different but with such a completely new vast amount of history.
Now in gameplay, that has been one of the most difficult dungeon for my character.
While the underground large level between theose are "piece of cake" easy, the guarded barracks with the large amount of very strong orcs in the main large room is very hard as my teleport tactic can't work, each guarded barracks being too small for the teleport to make an effect.
Additionally, i don't know why it's happening, but while the corridor looks nice for a defense (as individually none of the legion of defender is of any threat), after a few turns, i'm teleported all around the room, often landing in the middle of somewhere that put my character in jeopardy.
I save scummed a very lot to complete the 2 first ones (there are 4 of them) replaying those guarded barracks a lot until i figured out a tactic using the Rush followed by Death Dance , then retreating to stairs, healing, going back and hoping for the best.
As Frumple and Dr Feelgood seems to be enthousiastic with it, i will need to study seriously those movement runes, would most likely have saved my character in those without the need of save scumming in the 2 first floors of them as i would have been able to run to the stairs instead of being stuck in sometime nearly impossible situations, but losing a teleport or a healing ? argh. Decisions ! Decisions !
:D
At least it allowed me to get a frankly great artifact massive armor (Plate Armor of the King) and get to level 48
Though i found some slimy stairs at the end of that Pride after killing Grushnak, wonder where it is leading.
Post by: Seriyu on September 24, 2011, 07:33:07 pm
Ergo, dwarf fighter on easier mode along with adventurer mode.
I'LL GET IT THIS TIME DX
EDIT: Given a choice between say, a platemail with 5% nature resistance and a ringmail with 15% nature resistance, what would be the armor piece to hang onto?
Post by: Lmaoboat on September 25, 2011, 12:01:17 am
Post by: Seriyu on September 25, 2011, 12:13:37 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 25, 2011, 12:08:44 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 25, 2011, 04:10:01 pm
Metal gear?
Oh wait, the missing location bug. I've actually never ran into that. If it's only spellblaze I actually have a theory, which is there's a little piece of "charred land" down across the southern ocean, and if the location was set to only spawn on that specific land type, maybe it's spawning down there?
I dunno. I know nothing of coding. :P
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 25, 2011, 04:31:27 pm
I had thought that maybe the missing locations were spawning somewhere unreachable, but the thing is, I've seen them spawn and then disappear.
Post by: Seriyu on September 25, 2011, 04:56:33 pm
You've reported it right?
EDIT: Okay, so I've blown clean through daikara and everything preceeding it and now the quest line is suggesting I go to dreadfell. Is this a good idea? I've heard it's almost better to go to the east before dreadfell and mark of the spellblaze.
On the other hand, my charecter is leagues above pretty much anything else (although I'm sure easier is helping with that). So I'm not sure.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 25, 2011, 07:11:12 pm
What level are you?
Post by: Seriyu on September 25, 2011, 07:47:40 pm
Running through farportals right now at the advice of the chat.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 25, 2011, 08:33:11 pm
It would be cool if the necromancers were granted a "ritual" tree, as suggested. As of now they're a bit lacking.
Post by: Seriyu on September 25, 2011, 08:56:37 pm
I also forgot about the two wands of flames I was carrying around for that specific reason which certainly didn't help. :P
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 25, 2011, 09:58:04 pm
Barrier is probably alright as an instant shield spell for the whole game, though.
Post by: Seriyu on September 25, 2011, 11:03:15 pm
Story's picking up and thank goodness for it.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 26, 2011, 08:10:56 am
I've never played warriors. I was able to do dreadfell with an alchie about that level, but I was pretty high in the golem trees by that point :)
It would be cool if the necromancers were granted a "ritual" tree, as suggested. As of now they're a bit lacking.
If you want extra generic trees I suggest getting the fateful aura (graveyard curse) or hex (siding with the grand corruptor) trees. Pacification Hex is pretty useful.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 26, 2011, 08:17:42 am
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 26, 2011, 08:28:02 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 26, 2011, 09:44:13 am
Post by: Frumple on September 26, 2011, 09:51:16 am
Post by: Virroken on September 26, 2011, 11:06:49 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 26, 2011, 12:14:47 pm
That being said, I've found doomed nigh-unplayable. I think that cursed are far more playable, as far as afflicted go. Their powers are really weaksauce, and having several of them linked to magic yet not receiving a spellpower bonus doesn't help. If you want to play a dark wizard, go for necros or corrupters instead.
Doomed need to be revamped badly. If I had to make a suggestion, I'd say that they ought to use some magic meter, and have talents that turn hatred into regeneration for that magic meter.
Post by: Seriyu on September 26, 2011, 04:36:56 pm
I can't even imagine working that, melee talents are bad enough with them.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 26, 2011, 05:10:12 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 26, 2011, 05:43:59 pm
Doomed specifically have three trees (shadows, darkness, and primal magic) that scale of magic and magic specifically, i.e. the tooltips aren't lying for once. They also get a boost to the power of these trees as they gain levels, one of the few classes that have anything that scales with character level. Everything else scales with either willpower or mindpower (which is will+cun).
Most of their heavy damage talents do scale off willpower, however. The exception is primarily vaporize, which despite its downside hits like an effing brick -- it had to be nerfed somewhat recently because it was one-shotting high level players in the hands of doomed class'd adventurers and random uniques. The other two magic scaling trees primarily grant various utility abilities, some of which are quite useful.
Doomed also have a massively easier time of hate management than cursed (cursed are basically gimped in comparison). They have an entire tree dedicated to a talent called "Feed," which targets something in your LoS and constantly regens your hate (amount scaling with willpower) while the enemy remains in LoS. Later talents in this tree lets you start draining health, stealing their damage output (-%damage all on them, +%damall on you), and filching their positive resistances. All in all, hate management for Doomed is quite easy, despite them using hate based talents considerably more actively than cursed tend to.
As for their overall strength, Doomed take a bit of getting used to, but in recent betas they've been nerfed multiple times simply because a number of their talents were too powerful. They've always been tricky to play, but they're definitely not underpowered at the moment.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 26, 2011, 06:12:51 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 26, 2011, 07:18:58 pm
Code: [Select]
return self:combatTalentSpellDamage(t, min, max, (self.level + self:getMag()) * 1.2) This is used instead of spellpower. The magic stat has a very definite impact on the trees in question, though spellpower does not. It's not just a prereq ;DWhich is to say the spellpower equivalent for the magic scaling trees is character level + magic * 1.2. A 50th level doomed with 100 magic is going to have a spellpower equivalent of 180 for the darkness and primal magic talents.
Now, being fair, apparently the magic scaling aspect of the shadow tree (specifically the one that would boost the level of the shadows themselves based on magic) was apparently commented out a while back, so yeah, magic does nothing for that tree. Darkness and primal magic still scale with magic, though.
Post by: Robsoie on September 27, 2011, 03:27:47 pm
In the past version that i played months ago, i never managed to keep the jeweller alive, and now as i'm near finished with completing the remaining optional active quests before going to the slime pits to use the 4 orbs of command and get to the grand finale, i have made a save from before summoning the jeweller ready to be save scummed.
My problem is not the enemy waves difficulty, as at that point i have now my berzerker at max level and after attempting the quest once i saw that he could destroy the whole demonic waves without much problem.
But again the jeweller got eaten... My problem is the enemies that regulary disarm my character for 7 or 9 turns, allowing them then to not be killed in 1 turn or 2, and so then able to race to the jeweller without me being able to clean the place with a Death Dance and its now huge damage, as hand to hand damage is very very far from the damage output my character does with his artifact weapon..
I thought maybe equipping items with disarming resistance would help, but it would mean having to remove all those nice items that make my character very resistant to everything else.
Are there resistance you don't need for this battle ?
edit : checking around, it looks like there's no disarm resistance ?
I guess the quest is then impossible, unless really lucky and all those monsters disarming you for a lot of round miss their disarming attack everytime, as disarmed once and you can be sure the Jeweller will be heavily wounded, you're disarmed twice, and he's dead.
Post by: Bitoru on September 27, 2011, 05:03:15 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 27, 2011, 05:21:33 pm
I think there's a button for switching control to golem but I forget it.
Post by: Bitoru on September 27, 2011, 06:11:35 pm
If it's your golem you can drop the weapon you want to give to him on the ground, right click the golem, select give order, and then take control or something similar. Pick it up as him, and there you go.
I think there's a button for switching control to golem but I forget it.
Oh hey, that works. Thanks!
Post by: Robsoie on September 27, 2011, 08:07:19 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Now that was an intense battle, really the epic situation i hoped to see for the finale.
The character dump there on pastebin (http://pastebin.com/QtwfwzE0)
(overshot the max level a lot, as i notice i have after that battle an excess of 2167% point of XP, those sorcerers power was really strong enough to warrant such avalanche of experience)
Difficult to imagine how it is actually possible to play the whole game without dying at least once as it can be much harder than Crawl in some specific dungeons with an unique generated with stats and ability that are deadly to your equipment choice, even at high level.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 27, 2011, 09:07:51 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 27, 2011, 10:50:17 pm
If it's your golem you can drop the weapon you want to give to him on the ground, right click the golem, select give order, and then take control or something similar. Pick it up as him, and there you go.
I think there's a button for switching control to golem but I forget it.
Oh hey, that works. Thanks!
Another thing to mention is you level up your golem in a similar way, if you haven't figured it out by now.
Post by: Paul on September 27, 2011, 10:53:10 pm
Character: Halfling archer using slings with steady shot and the stam regen thing. Basically just a combination of shoot, shoot, steady shot repeatedly - using the halfling special power on tougher things to get more crits. Playing on roguelike, but thinking of changing that to adventurer haha.
First death: Found a house in the starting forest. Opened the door. 5x5 room with 25 rattlesnakes inside. Killed some of them, but died to their poison (which was doing like 15 points a tick, and I was low level so I didn't last for many ticks).
Second death: Found a stone in the starting forest. Moved it. Got swarmed by grizzly bears. Killed two before dieing, must have been at least 8 or 9 in there, most were out of sight and just kept moving in and out of sight since I was fighting one at a time.
Third death: Cleared forest no problem, including both boss trolls, giving me lots of levels. Moved on to the other little dungeon place across from forest after selling my loot in town. Had a nice Halfling sling (which reduces cooldown on steady shot) with good damage and armor that regenerated my health. Found a sealed door on first level. Opened it. Got shot in the face for 140 damage by a beefy archer with 600 life (I had 240 life). Used regen and stepped closer, got stabbed for 50. Managed to get it down to 300 health before dieing.
One of these days I'll learn to not open those sealed areas.
Post by: Virroken on September 28, 2011, 02:58:09 am
Post by: beorn080 on September 29, 2011, 03:55:09 pm
Also, does teleport resistance stop yourself from teleporting, or just from being teleported against your will?
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 29, 2011, 11:06:16 pm
Post by: gogis on September 30, 2011, 11:15:04 am
Don't worry, that remains unlocked.
That being said, I've found doomed nigh-unplayable. I think that cursed are far more playable, as far as afflicted go. Their powers are really weaksauce, and having several of them linked to magic yet not receiving a spellpower bonus doesn't help. If you want to play a dark wizard, go for necros or corrupters instead.
Doomed need to be revamped badly. If I had to make a suggestion, I'd say that they ought to use some magic meter, and have talents that turn hatred into regeneration for that magic meter.
Thats soo very wrong. I always have maxed hate playing doomed, and have problems with hate as cursed and I have no idea how to play said corrupters, because you haze zero vim all the time. Actually thats ridiculous, I must to use -50% hp talent to get vim all time. If you cant kill things with your vim depleting skills you lose all vim cost.
And cursed is a verymuch gimped berserker, even in the late game. And that includes *tough* early game, so I have no idea why bother.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 30, 2011, 12:19:03 pm
Quote
I always have maxed hate playing doomed,Yeah, because feed allows a more or less constant hate influx. Nonetheless their skills are weak, in general, so it doesn't make much of a difference.
Quote
have problems with hate as cursedThe idea with cursed is to boost your passive and sustained skills early on. Max gloom skills will provide you with free area damage around you, free replenishment of life, and weaken your enemies from time to time. And all this without spending hate.
Mind you, they're still weakish when compared to other classes (constant hate drain and nerfed regeneration are the two banes that Afflicted classes share as a source of suckyness), but they're far more playable than Doomed, imo.
Quote
Actually thats ridiculous, I must to use -50% hp talent to get vim all time. If you cant kill things with your vim depleting skills you lose all vim cost.Sanguisuge...
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on September 30, 2011, 06:33:50 pm
http://te4.org/characters/4906/tome/3855b448-d7c0-11e0-b5e9-0025900d6212
Post by: ChairmanPoo on October 01, 2011, 12:42:47 am
I'll boost magic later mainly for level 5 vaporize, and possibly the shades tree (which is useless at the beggining of the game)
I also reduced the "seethe" cooldown to 40, because of the annoyance of 0 hatred after travelling from somewhere to somewhere else.
Post by: Duuvian on October 01, 2011, 05:22:19 am
The start as a cursed dwarf was very tough, I relied on Norgan to do most of the work on the escape from Reznor and I had to start over several times as the boss in that kept killing Norgan and then quickly myself.
I'm at level 18 and just killed the giant minotaur in the Maze. I had to use the stairs once to beat him.
I've put a lot of general skill points into the cursing of items, but due to finding so many artifacts and my reluctance to switch from them it hasn't been as useful as I had hoped.
Post by: beorn080 on October 01, 2011, 04:44:39 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on October 01, 2011, 04:46:37 pm
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=27039
Post by: Tnx on October 01, 2011, 05:40:23 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on October 01, 2011, 05:51:45 pm
- Golem/Arcane blade freeze crash (AKA: the game crashes after a golem or arcane blade gets frozen and uses eyebeams or arcane combat). Fixable via lua editing (search this thread for the details).
- Disappearing places in worldmap: this one is nasty and there's no fix as of now. It's not game-breaking, strictly speaking, as it only affects optional dungeons (spellblaze, golem graveyard, ruined dungeon...), but it's very, very frustrating. I went back to .33 because of this one.
Post by: Paul on October 01, 2011, 07:35:06 pm
Oh well, brawlers probably suck anyway. At least compared to super overpowered archers. Seriously, this archer is ridiculous. I just went in that Vor Armoury place and cleared it out, then saw the sealed doors and opened them... greeted with super wyrms that were actually labeled overpowered, and it gave me a warning about retreating.
Pfft, retreat? Never!
I had just hit level 38 upon opening the door (leveled up on the boss of the armoury). It involved lots of regening, shielding, and phase dooring (which luckily kept putting me back outside instead of warping me deeper into the room) - but I killed them all. I was level 44 when the last one fell. I had to use my blindness immunity artifact necklace to see what was going on and came SO close to death tons of times. Every time I'd be almost dead with all my infusions on cooldown I'd manage to finish off one of them and bam level up full health again.
This char has crazy damage potential though. I got the 600 damage in one attack achievement at level 17, and the 1500 in one attack at 33. With the two area effect talents (scatter shot, volley of arrows) and aim on he can clear a room in a couple seconds. Playing on roguelike mode with a blood of life (got it from Bill, heh) and haven't used it yet, although I've come close plenty of times. Always wind up getting out thanks to shield runes and regen infusions and the phase door rune I started the game with. Having the extra life is the only reason I didn't run screaming when I opened the door to the overpowered wyrms, but I didn't even need to use it.
It's funny, at the start I kept dieing - restarted like 6 times below level 10. But after I got higher up and got some better equipment, the char seems nigh unstoppable. Aim seems to make all the difference.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on October 01, 2011, 08:01:40 pm
Quote
Always wind up getting out thanks to shield runes and regen infusions and the phase door rune I started the game withIMO you'd be better off with a movement infusion or a TP rune instead of a phase door one
Post by: Paul on October 01, 2011, 08:04:57 pm
I often use it just to move around, on all the annoying ambush maps I'll activate aim and shoot everything in sight, then phase door to get in closer to shoot the rest without having to deactivate aim :D
Post by: Tnx on October 01, 2011, 10:31:31 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on October 01, 2011, 10:37:38 pm
Anyway, other than that, it works fine. I even had successes with adventurer parties, barring the initial one which turned sour (and costed me a life). But that was lack of custom more than anything. My new strategy consists on hitting the movement infusion as soon as the map loads, getting to the exit (or to a suitable cover) and then try to tackle the adventurers one by one (madness helps with this. High level blast helps a lot more, as it can send each hero to one corner of the screen.
I embarked on this build after I saw a Doomed NPC (of an adv party) send a good chunk of my minions through kingdom come with an AOE skill which I've later identified as "blast"-
Geez the disappearing dungeon one sounds harsh. Do they vanish as you play or is it just wonky at generation? Maybe I can walk around and cross check with a Tome4 world map for dungeons.
They can both vanish as you play and during map generation. I've seen both happen.
In fact, I've seen "vanish-as-you-play" more frequently.
PD: I have to ask: What's the point of "using a magic item places all antimagic on cooldown" if you CAN'T use magic items when you take antimagic?
Bah, I'm restarting. I'd rather have the best of both worlds (read: movement infusions, shields, and teleport staves) than the lousy antimagic tree. A decent shield rune attuned to will or con can save your life if you roll badly on the freeze resistance roll.
Post by: DeKaFu on October 02, 2011, 01:55:12 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on October 02, 2011, 02:40:54 pm
Post by: DeKaFu on October 02, 2011, 02:47:49 pm
That's too bad.
Post by: gogis on October 02, 2011, 08:51:57 pm
My Cursed dwarf seems pretty strong to me. I've got an artifact shield, ring, 1h ax and body armor though, along with some other decent stuff. On anything except for bosses he hardly takes damage due to all the armor and defense and the Gloom makes it easy to kill crowds of stuff while regenerating health from Dark Form. My infusions are: 1 200+ hp regen, 1 status cure/resistance, and 1 instant heal (which used to be a second health regen until I found the instant heal with as much health restoring power as the previous regen infusion)
The start as a cursed dwarf was very tough, I relied on Norgan to do most of the work on the escape from Reznor and I had to start over several times as the boss in that kept killing Norgan and then quickly myself.
I'm at level 18 and just killed the giant minotaur in the Maze. I had to use the stairs once to beat him.
I've put a lot of general skill points into the cursing of items, but due to finding so many artifacts and my reluctance to switch from them it hasn't been as useful as I had hoped.
That is exactly what called weak. With berserker dwarf you have breeze in first dungeon, kill maze boss whenever you pleased and doing antimagic quest at level 10 (yes, killing 27 level orc corrupter in the end). I was cursing while I've been playing cursed all time. Sooo underpowered. I just gave up after dying 5 times in a row at start. Norgan dies - I die.
Post by: baruk on November 08, 2011, 05:04:31 am
Post by: Seriyu on November 08, 2011, 05:16:39 am
Post by: baruk on November 10, 2011, 07:20:52 am
On insane, your main character is normal, rather than elite. I'm not sure what advantages elite status confers at the moment, but it seems significant that the alchemist's golem still gets to be elite on insane difficulty - perhaps a loophole that has been overlooked.
The game isn't really meant to be played on insane unless you like dying over and over again for very little preventative reason from what I understand. It's there for masochists. :pThis sounds like a challenge to me.. I've now managed to get a summoner to level 4, which is promising - getting through the early game seems to be the toughest part, other classes I've played just seem to lack enough killing power to take down the level-boosted creatures.
Post by: Kaleb702 Games on November 21, 2011, 09:06:27 pm
But that's probably just because it's so awesome.
Post by: baruk on November 27, 2011, 02:04:08 pm
I've now managed to get a summoner to level 4, which is promisingThat summoner bit the dust at level 11 (http://te4.org/characters/8653/tome/797e81e8-0add-11e1-8f52-0025900d6212), he got ambushed in the wilderness by a level 30 (or so) alchemist. Things seemed to be going quite well when I managed to take down the golem, until I realised I was also facing an invisible high level mage nuking all of my summons to death with temporal damage - before long all 6 were knocked out and on cooldown, leaving me defenceless.
To get around the ambush problem, I came up with a lower risk approach to navigating the world map - make sure you've explored everywhere and signed up for every available quest at level one before you've even killed your first monster. If you die, then you lost a level one character, no big deal.
Post by: Neonivek on November 27, 2011, 02:12:14 pm
This makes me unhappy.
Post by: Robsoie on November 27, 2011, 02:35:35 pm
Post by: gogis on November 30, 2011, 05:47:02 am
...
Autoexplore ! :o
Omg, thats huge, going to check it asap.
Post by: gogis on November 30, 2011, 05:48:53 am
I realised that I am going to have to unlock all the classes and races I unlocked ALL OVER AGAIN.
This makes me unhappy.
You can unlock manually by editing some text files and adding several strings with class names (thats what i do)
Also your unlocks should persists if you have online profile.
Post by: Neonivek on November 30, 2011, 09:26:45 am
I realised that I am going to have to unlock all the classes and races I unlocked ALL OVER AGAIN.
This makes me unhappy.
You can unlock manually by editing some text files and adding several strings with class names (thats what i do)
Also your unlocks should persists if you have online profile.
Lucky for me I already unlocked all my missing classes. It was only two.
Still sad that one of my characters, my best character who I was able to essentially skip 3 dungeons by accident with, died because of an arena fight (That I couldn't back out of).
Why is sparing to the death?
Though my current character is great, except I don't think I am doing it right.
Post by: Frumple on November 30, 2011, 09:43:12 am
Post by: Neonivek on November 30, 2011, 02:52:51 pm
The, uh. The arena fights aren't sparring. Those things are to the death. Bloodsport. There's a reason that guy's kinda' shady.
Not refering to him...
Also that fight doesn't autokill you if you can't win a fight because you can always back out of it upon death.
It was another one, where dying didn't have an option not to go to the exact same spot I died... I died to an invisable enemy.
Post by: Frumple on November 30, 2011, 03:15:16 pm
AM sucks in general if you're not very specifically building for it, really. Nasty thing, hum. Pretty decent if you're setup to take advantage, but a kick t'the balls of anyone else.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on November 30, 2011, 03:25:03 pm
Post by: Neonivek on November 30, 2011, 03:31:50 pm
Auto-explore is great. I don't like the new saves system. I wish this game was harder. Normal mode is boring and insane mode seems to be impossible to win.
It won't ever really be. The creator doesn't exactly know how to balance the game too too well or to gate the experiences.
A lot of the time the game just ups and kills you with something you didn't know was comming.
Post by: Frumple on November 30, 2011, 03:38:24 pm
Insane mode is insane. It's not meant to be balanced, or winnable, or anything, really. It's just there for masochists to throw themselves at and die (and occasionally reveal highly broken talents/talent combinations). More'll be done with it, from what I understand, once normal mode is actually more solid, balance wise. Which'll come once the (main campaign) content stops rolling in. Anything after that will probably be done by interested community members, I imagine.
But! Addon-functionality has been added, so lil'patches by the community are really easy to slip in, now. If you're willing to bring the difficulty more in line with what you want (or convince someone else to do it :P) and share it with other players...
A lot of the time the game just ups and kills you with something you didn't know was comming.Roguelike is roguelike is roguelike :P
Learn by dying has always been a bit of a thing for RLs. The new inspect creature command, though, places most of the fault-of-dying on the player, since most of the enemy's tools are pretty translucent now. That makes T4 one of the more forgiving RLs, so far as th'single action "Whoops, you screwed up, time to re-roll" thing goes.
Though, to Feelgood... what would you improve? Do you prefer arena or infinite dungeon over the main campaign? What about normal is boring? The dev is interested in these things, heh.
Post by: Neonivek on November 30, 2011, 03:41:32 pm
I never consider "it is a roguelike" to be an excuse for "You should have known that was going to happen WAY before you could have possibly have known that was going to happen".
It is more of a flaw that Roguelikes havn't moved beyond used to lengthen out and create a gap between experienced and inexperienced players.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on November 30, 2011, 05:17:55 pm
Though, to Feelgood... what would you improve? Do you prefer arena or infinite dungeon over the main campaign? What about normal is boring? The dev is interested in these things, heh.
The early game is a chore to get through. Nothing in the early dungeons is threatening. I tend to rush through the dungeons and kill the bosses. I know artifacts can randomly appear in the dungeon, but fighting dungeon trash is dull. I kinda wish the entire game was as hard as the prides/high peak.
Post by: baruk on November 30, 2011, 07:13:26 pm
Alchemists seem viable on insane - my Thaloren has reached the middle dungeons so far, having just nabbed the level 20 achievement. As long as the monsters ignore my squishy caster and attack my golem, I have no worries.
Post by: Neonivek on November 30, 2011, 07:42:18 pm
Normal should be renamed easy. The new normal could be halfway between easy and insane.
Alchemists seem viable on insane - my Thaloren has reached the middle dungeons so far, having just nabbed the level 20 achievement. As long as the monsters ignore my squishy caster and attack my golem, I have no worries.
Normal is only easy if you
A) Know the exact order in which your expected to play the game
B) Know exactly how to create your character
and
C) Know exactly what enemies your immediately going to face
Post by: Robsoie on February 29, 2012, 05:55:06 pm
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2012/02/news/tales-majeyal-beta38-aka-new-beginning
In fact i missed several of them, the last version discussed on this thread was beta35, lots of change apparently since, here's beta 36 and 37 release articles if you want to see what's new since the last version discussed here :
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2011/12/news/tales-majeyal-beta36-aka-saving-saves
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2011/12/news/tales-majeyal-beta37-aka-dawn-victory
With DF getting back to cruise speed and that amazing new DoomRL release, i wonder when i'll have the time to dive again in ToME4 , so much great games, so little time.
Post by: Graven on March 01, 2012, 05:27:23 pm
I've been playing it for the last month or so, since I decided to take a break from Crawl. I'm playing b37 since they nerfed paradox users pretty hard in b38 and I kind of want to play them some more. Paradox mage is the most interesting caster I've tried in a game bar none, too bad they're so screwed by their own resource. People keep saying Temporal Warden is so overpowered, but I'm playing my Nth TW - currently level 21 Dwarf TW, no deaths, just entered Daikara, and I feel downright fragile sometimes. God damn archmages feel more durable than my temporal wardens!
All in all I'm not sure I really love Tome 4 like I do Crawl. It has a majestic combat system and nothing to do with it - I find the majority of the fights much more boring than Crawl's combat despite the greater number of things to do, there are some enemies which are utter bullshit - why hello dreadmaster! - and the game is so slow it drives me crazy. There are a ton of crashes and I guess memory leaks, since the game slows down even more after several hours of play. And yeah, I know the latest beta does alleviate some of these problems, but it does not eliminate them, and having a roguelike lag my pc is not an acceptable state of affairs.
There are also whole levels whose gimmick is annoying - Sandworm lair comes to mind very very fast. The game is also too long - I've never won it because even on the character I got farthest on - Dwarf Paradox mage, level 40-something, cleared all the orc prides, I felt so bored at the end, I stopped paying almost any attention to enemies. Not to mention the best timeline splitting abilities crash the stupid game every second time they're used. Also Farportal bosses can spawn with some hilarious talents which lead to instagib deaths - level 10 Beckon, for example.
I also don't agree with some of the equipment decisions - no potions/scrolls, but infusions and runes are fine? Also I still can't quite understand when I need to focus on defense, when on armour and when on saves - not to mention the 30 or so kinds of resistance and status effects, but this is mostly my own fault. The game certainly doesn't go out of its way to help me, though, that's for sure.
If only someone took the ability-driven combat system and stuck it in Crawl's superiour general game and level design :(
Post by: Lord Dullard on March 01, 2012, 05:41:25 pm
I just feel nostalgic for playing Lost Souls in the old game whenever I look at T4, honestly. Are there are any saving graces that make it worth playing vs. the old version?
Post by: Neonivek on March 01, 2012, 05:43:12 pm
As well I think they should adopt the same design philosophy for unique weapons as Boarderlands did (ignoring the useless ones). In that they are used to ensure that your equipment is up to date, but that you more then can get supperior equipment (of the same level).
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on April 03, 2012, 10:48:22 am
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=33395
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=31819
Please give them a try!
All in all I'm not sure I really love Tome 4 like I do Crawl. It has a majestic combat system and nothing to do with it - I find the majority of the fights much more boring than Crawl's combat despite the greater number of things to do
It's probably because most enemies in tome4 are pathetically easy and only once in a while do you come across something dangerous. It's the opposite of Crawl - a lot of enemies are potentially dangerous and you have some easy monsters to give the player a break.
Edit: Oops. I clicked post instead of preview.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on April 13, 2012, 01:40:29 am
If you weren't so damn devastating at times, I'd not bother to keep you around.
Post by: Felius on April 27, 2012, 06:56:54 pm
Any recommendations for a second character? General tips?
Post by: Aoi on April 27, 2012, 08:02:11 pm
I'm fond of Cursed and Summoners myself, but the former's kind of difficult, especially in the recent revisions.
Post by: Neonivek on April 27, 2012, 08:15:49 pm
Dodge the adventuring parties? Those can be so swingy it's ridiculous. Mix in the limited amount of space you have to fight in, and escaping/hiding is even harder. They can drop some pretty cool gear though.
I'm fond of Cursed and Summoners myself, but the former's kind of difficult, especially in the recent revisions.
A lot has to do with the weird way the game handles skills
SOME skills are useful right when you put a single point into it but are never worth continual investment.
Others outright REQUIRE you to max them out just to be useful.
Post by: Frumple on April 27, 2012, 08:33:12 pm
You can pretty much coast until level 25-30 on that, without much more consideration.
Also don't be afraid to ask questions and junk in the in-game chat. It's usually pretty friendly, or has been when I was on. Give the t4 forum a look over, too, especially character reports. You can get some good ideas and advice around there.
Post by: Aoi on April 27, 2012, 11:33:28 pm
Dodge the adventuring parties? Those can be so swingy it's ridiculous. Mix in the limited amount of space you have to fight in, and escaping/hiding is even harder. They can drop some pretty cool gear though.
I'm fond of Cursed and Summoners myself, but the former's kind of difficult, especially in the recent revisions.
A lot has to do with the weird way the game handles skills
SOME skills are useful right when you put a single point into it but are never worth continual investment.
Others outright REQUIRE you to max them out just to be useful.
I miss the old Cursed. I clocked a win on one back around r17 or so. Boost the power of their gloom and you could just walk through anything.
Post by: Graven on April 28, 2012, 05:41:01 am
Paradox Mage used to be great but took a lot of nerfs because of its association with Temporal Warden, which really makes me sad, because PM is so much more interesting than Archmage, but the Archmage is outright better now. Don't worry PM, you're still the best to me ;(
Post by: Robsoie on April 28, 2012, 05:51:08 am
Be sure to have a teleport/phase door rune if you can't avoid those adventuring parties, some of them that are composed of conjurers will focus their spell shots and so will kill you in a turn or two even if you have super high resistance and antimagic (very underpowered skills the last time i played).
Teleporting and hoping you then land next to the exit is the only way to avoid losing a character for those cases.
Post by: Frumple on April 28, 2012, 06:31:51 am
Which does screw undead a bit, of course.
As for antimagic, it's a bit better than it used to be, providing you're a willpower primary class. AM shield makes you ridiculously tanky vs nonphysical damage (especially with some resistances backing it up) and the aura can do a pretty good job of shutting casters down, especially in close quarters (i.e. an ambush map). Plus some of the coming AM egos are intensely sexy. Then there's the fungus tree, which is still pretty hilarious after I helped talk DG into nerfing wild growth. You're still gimping yourself a bit taking AM, but it's not quite as shitty as it was, and will be a bit better still in b39.
Re: easy classes, you can add mindslayer to that list (providing you can unlock the bastards, heh. As always, I recommend the easy method, i.e. a text editor), and probably necromancer (ditto the unlock condition). TWs are still fairly ridiculous (ly kite-y), but they have been sequentially toned down for a few versions. Anowhatsits are pretty vicious, too, but the resource management for them is a bit tiresome.
Post by: Felius on April 28, 2012, 06:53:54 am
Post by: Frumple on April 28, 2012, 07:29:20 am
That said, while I've unlocked almost all the classes legitimately (I haven't got around to unlocking paradox magi yet, hum, though I've been through the rift a couple times with TWs), I unlocked them a lot earlier than that by editingAn action I wholeheartedly recommend for everyone, andSpoiler (click to show/hide)not sosubtly mention just about every time an unlock comes up. I vehemently hate the unlock system :P
T4's good enough I can happily edit my way around it and move on with enjoying the game, heh.
Archmage unlock is to
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on April 28, 2012, 10:37:06 am
Re: easy classes, you can add mindslayer to that list (providing you can unlock the bastards, heh. As always, I recommend the easy method, i.e. a text editor), and probably necromancer (ditto the unlock condition). TWs are still fairly ridiculous (ly kite-y), but they have been sequentially toned down for a few versions. Anowhatsits are pretty vicious, too, but the resource management for them is a bit tiresome.
Necromancers being easy is an understatement. I was 1st to win with one (on my 2nd try) and it was on roguelike mode. Though, Pro travel is getting nerfed soon. Most classes in TOME4 are overpowered. It's easier to list those that aren't: the afflicted classes, reaver, wyrmic, brawler, and rogue/shadowblade.
Post by: Frumple on April 28, 2012, 11:40:38 am
Same way antimagic is -- fungus tree access. Even post nerf, fungus tree is pretty major. It's... basically aegis for regeneration. Or, to put it another way, its fist talent (post-nerf) boosts the heal from regen infusions by a flat out 100% at 5/5.
Corrupted metaclasses are getting a new tree too, but it's more of a boon for corrupters than reavers; the torment tree is also considerably less game changing than fungus. Biggest boon from it is a vim pool increase, though there's some neat stuff in it.
Post by: Felius on April 28, 2012, 09:32:56 pm
Post by: Frumple on April 28, 2012, 09:36:57 pm
As for the slavers, if you killed the boss critter on that level, the orb won't work. Otherwise, try talking to the critter first, maybe.
Post by: etgfrog on April 28, 2012, 10:42:52 pm
Post by: Frumple on April 28, 2012, 10:56:40 pm
A high level shadowblade is particularly hilarious -- EoS + momentum is just great.
Post by: Graven on April 29, 2012, 08:36:42 am
Post by: Frumple on April 29, 2012, 12:08:56 pm
As for the when, m'not sure. DG got hit pretty hard by a real life issue not long after b38 got released, and it's slowed things up a bit. He also might be waiting for the fellow working on weapon ego changes to do a bit more work, I'unno. Could be something else, too, I've been a little distant from things since my computer capable of playing t4 died.
Post by: Neonivek on April 29, 2012, 02:38:54 pm
Oddly enough the parts that annoy me is when its terrible roguelike elements kick in. (enemies that will kill you UNLESS you knew they existed ahead of time, or HUUUGE difficulty spikes because of a mechanic that just kicked in that will get you killed unless you knew about it in advanced and planned accordingly).
I am sad that the only character I play well is the summoner so far. Though as I found out only maxed out summons are any good at actually doing their job (and not all summons are good) and otherwise you use unmaxed ones as fodder.
Post by: freeformschooler on April 29, 2012, 02:50:53 pm
Post by: Seriyu on April 29, 2012, 04:38:28 pm
The game is fun
Oddly enough the parts that annoy me is when its terrible roguelike elements kick in. (enemies that will kill you UNLESS you knew they existed ahead of time, or HUUUGE difficulty spikes because of a mechanic that just kicked in that will get you killed unless you knew about it in advanced and planned accordingly).
I am sad that the only character I play well is the summoner so far. Though as I found out only maxed out summons are any good at actually doing their job (and not all summons are good) and otherwise you use unmaxed ones as fodder.
When I was playing, I never actually had that problem, there seemed to be way way less "you walk around a corner and die" deaths, which was a big part of the appeal for me. I was playing on Normal mode + Adventure (as opposed to roguelike, I forget the name of it, you get lives as you level up) though, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Post by: Frumple on April 29, 2012, 07:14:21 pm
I wish I understood how to play Yeeks right. I always die within the first few levels when I'm playing as them but tend to do much better as other races/classes.Playing yeeks is mostly just a matter of playing something incredibly squishy. If you're aiming for an easier start, you pick a class particularly able to compensate for that (I.e. Archmage, alchemist, berserker, etc., so forth, so on.), either with massive firepower or some way to damage soak decently. The first two dungeons for yeeks take a bit of luck, though, sometimes. You usually want to start with the ritches and just carefully kite around killing stuff until you gain your first couple of levels and hopefully pick up some better kit. Then you either roll the dice on trying to take the queen, or you hop over to the lair to get another level or two off of non-boss mobs. Of course, that's assuming something like having two ritch pits generate in the tunnels doesn't happen.
If you get through those two dungeons, you probably want to abuse the rod of recall (or possibly a teleport rune or something) and skip project Z (protip: Z can and probably will wreck your shit). After that, you're on the main map and things become muuuuch easier, especially as you'll shortly be rolling in character levels. HP is still an issue after that, but you have a lot more tricks to deal with it (and that sexy 15% global speed boost).
Basically, yeeks just have an absolute bitch of a starting area. If you can get past that, you're golden. For a while, at least.
Post by: freeformschooler on April 29, 2012, 07:36:14 pm
Post by: Felius on April 29, 2012, 10:40:36 pm
I personally only encounter this kind of thing with ranged attackers or ranged spellcasters. No matter what my defense is, no matter what my saves are, a small group of them seem to be able to take 100-200 hp per turn before I can even get close to them.The game is fun
Oddly enough the parts that annoy me is when its terrible roguelike elements kick in. (enemies that will kill you UNLESS you knew they existed ahead of time, or HUUUGE difficulty spikes because of a mechanic that just kicked in that will get you killed unless you knew about it in advanced and planned accordingly).
I am sad that the only character I play well is the summoner so far. Though as I found out only maxed out summons are any good at actually doing their job (and not all summons are good) and otherwise you use unmaxed ones as fodder.
When I was playing, I never actually had that problem, there seemed to be way way less "you walk around a corner and die" deaths, which was a big part of the appeal for me. I was playing on Normal mode + Adventure (as opposed to roguelike, I forget the name of it, you get lives as you level up) though, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Post by: Frumple on April 29, 2012, 11:07:45 pm
Some classes have some ranged disable options that can help out, too, or ways to lure the buggers around corners and suchlike.
Basically, if you're contemplating just walking toward them while taking fire, you might want to take a moment to reconsider your situation and how you should be reacting to it :P
Post by: ChairmanPoo on April 30, 2012, 01:10:48 am
Post by: etgfrog on May 04, 2012, 12:55:51 am
Post by: Neonivek on May 04, 2012, 01:02:01 am
I personally only encounter this kind of thing with ranged attackers or ranged spellcasters. No matter what my defense is, no matter what my saves are, a small group of them seem to be able to take 100-200 hp per turn before I can even get close to them.The game is fun
Oddly enough the parts that annoy me is when its terrible roguelike elements kick in. (enemies that will kill you UNLESS you knew they existed ahead of time, or HUUUGE difficulty spikes because of a mechanic that just kicked in that will get you killed unless you knew about it in advanced and planned accordingly).
I am sad that the only character I play well is the summoner so far. Though as I found out only maxed out summons are any good at actually doing their job (and not all summons are good) and otherwise you use unmaxed ones as fodder.
When I was playing, I never actually had that problem, there seemed to be way way less "you walk around a corner and die" deaths, which was a big part of the appeal for me. I was playing on Normal mode + Adventure (as opposed to roguelike, I forget the name of it, you get lives as you level up) though, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Its because this game really damage/difficulty spikes you.
The very first ranged units you find in the game mean buisness and are high-damage elemental based attacks.
I know I often never have a single problem in the game until the super powered ranged units start showing up.
Funny thing is that it isn't even the worst encounter you will find in the game in terms of HUGE difficulty spikes. The worst depends on your character but depending on who you are they can just outright kill you.
Also yes Tome 4 does have a LOT less unfair stupid deaths then the regular roguelike. It still does have a few (my greatest archer experienced one)
Post by: Frumple on May 08, 2012, 06:44:45 pm
One of the fun new features! Random classed elite monsters! No, not randbosses, just... y'know, regular elite monsters. With classes.
My first encounter with one is on Mire 2. It was a dire wolf archer. It murdered the alchemist I was escorting, and then me. I laughed uproariously, and then quit :P
Still, absolutely hilarious, and was completely not expecting it.
Went back to kinspike the bastard and check something. Best part! There's no visual cue you've just ran into something classed, as per the little purple box around random bosses. Kick to the ass! Ahahaha!
E: Temporal warden classed wolf on same level! I'm crawling in classed asskickers I can't identify at a glance! Whee! It's like playing Portralis, ahahahaha!
Post by: Robsoie on May 08, 2012, 06:58:16 pm
Will have to see what's new .
The random elites are surely a good idea, though in some location ( an elite on Mire 2 really ? ) that could be a serious balancing problem for some classes/races combo.
I hope at least the reward for killing such thing is worth it.
Post by: Frumple on May 08, 2012, 07:14:06 pm
... same for the other two I met in the mires.
As for amount, well, I don't have enough data to really make a strong statement, but so far I've ran into three -- two on mire two (an archer and temporal warden, both Cs) and one on mire three (poison ivy summoner -- if I had approached prox from any other direction than the one I did, I would have been fighting it and prox at the same time :-\). This either means I've been terribly (un?)lucky or the numbers might be a bit high on 'em.
But so far they look like a formula for hilarious hokey shit later in the game. Especially if they're not squelched on summons (Ran into a honey tree vault, so it looks like they are, but I'm not yet absolutely sure).
Post by: Seriyu on May 19, 2012, 10:55:51 pm
Question, "stone alchemy" is a good choice for pretty much anyone if they manage to save an alchemist right?
Playing a human defiler. Already picked it, so if not, uhhh, oh well.
EDIT: Just died to a unique, oh well. Question still stands.
Post by: Frumple on May 19, 2012, 11:14:49 pm
Now, personally, I pretty much always take the tree if I'm not building something incredibly strapped for category points. A cat point and six generic talent points for an additional 10% resall (to say nothing of the lifebinding emerald or wozzname's rock) is incredibly desirable. That it can be +30 (5*6) stats or +10% damage or whatever else sort of gem you feel like shoving into your armor doesn't hurt. It's a quite versatile passive effect.
But, the cost is hefty. It's a category point and at-minimum six generics if you're beelining straight to imbue item 5/5 and ignoring everything else (Gem portal's alright, but useless for non-alchs iirc -- unless you can get some alchy gems from murdering rand-class monsters -- and stone touch is pretty iffy. Extract gems is a massive money generator if you're after that.), which I'd suggest. That's the other part of the downside, though. The only directly (and unconditionally) useful thing in the tree is imbue item. Extract gems is a bit more useful nowadays, though, what with that particular late-game money sink of incredible power. The only other thing to consider is actually investing in any of the talents will lock you out of anti magic, but that's a non-issue for the defiler metaclass anyway.
Overall, you probably didn't make a mistake, especially playing one of the defiler classes. They've got generics and cat points to burn, really, so the "downside" of taking the stone alchemy tree is heavily mitigated.
Post by: Neonivek on May 19, 2012, 11:23:23 pm
Post by: Frumple on May 19, 2012, 11:33:18 pm
There's several class add ons you can look to for examples.
Frumple would add the ink sage, huhuhu. If I ever get around to coding it, anyway. Not likely, but still...
Post by: Neonivek on May 19, 2012, 11:49:12 pm
Mind you it isn't so much that I am thinking of recognition. If I am using ingame tools then it is for me to use. If I am using out of game tools then it is for other people to use.
Post by: Seriyu on May 19, 2012, 11:52:25 pm
Post by: Frumple on May 20, 2012, 07:21:31 am
It is meaningless to me to add my own class using such mechanics unless someone else can use them.Yeah, it's really easy to distribute addons for general use. Just throw it up on the forum and maybe sling an email (or drop in the IRC -- it's a good place to get some coding advice, too.) at DG once you've got it in testable shape. He'll probably slip it into the main site's add-on page.
Mind you it isn't so much that I am thinking of recognition. If I am using ingame tools then it is for me to use. If I am using out of game tools then it is for other people to use.
Ah yeah, I was a cornac. I did notice Defilers seemed to have very few generic skill trees, but I wasn't sure if Stone Alchemy was a generic or what. Thanks!It's an easy thing to miss before you're used to the game, but you can't get additional class trees. Everything you can pick up during the game is generic. So no worries about accidentally choosing a class tree you might not want to spare class points for, heh. You couldn't in the base game even if you wanted to.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on May 20, 2012, 11:56:53 am
Hello ToME thread.
Question, "stone alchemy" is a good choice for pretty much anyone if they manage to save an alchemist right?
Playing a human defiler. Already picked it, so if not, uhhh, oh well.
EDIT: Just died to a unique, oh well. Question still stands.
Stone Alchemy is good in general. The Light tree is incredibly nice for corruptors, if you can get it.
Oddly enough I have found myself thinking a lot about what I would add if I was told I could add one class to the game.
I created an Illusionist class and geomancer tweak addons. And I never touched code before. It's pretty easy. The geomancer tweaks were added to game in b39. Addons can be found here:
http://te4.org/tome/addons
Post by: Frumple on July 01, 2012, 10:14:24 am
Post by: Dariush on July 09, 2012, 09:12:51 am
Post by: Graven on July 09, 2012, 09:32:34 am
Since I just passed my bachellor's state exams, I'm planning on spending a week doing nothing but playing roguelikes. People are saying Reavers are really good now, anyone have any feedback on this?
Post by: Frumple on July 09, 2012, 10:33:33 am
Holy fuck, this game is awesome. How do you beat the Reaver boss on the third floor as a dwarf berserker? He keeps ripping me to shreds. :(Zerker should just faceroll 'im, but if that innit working...
... do what I do about half the time nowadays. Let brotoq aggro the meat shield dwarf, and just walk right the fook past. You can take the stairs out while brotoq's still alive :P
Re: Reaver, I don't think much has changed, except getting overkill -- which is nice, but not really game changing. Reavers have always been pretty decent, just kinda' flimsy (which get offset later with plate armor and suchlike). They dole out ridiculous amounts of damage in melee and have decent enough ranged damage and debuff. They're fairly sexy, really.
Post by: Dr.Feelgood on July 09, 2012, 10:55:18 am
Anti-magic Mindslayer (http://te4.org/characters/11413/tome/de75ca02-8282-43b9-9667-e7b3cc71af76) Beat Atamathon (again) and cleared the "Room of Death".
I got instant-killed by one of the new traps in B41. >:(
People are saying Reavers are really good now, anyone have any feedback on this?
The Plague tree was buffed. And reavers now have the Vim and Torment tree, which makes them very easy.
Post by: Frumple on August 21, 2012, 07:07:53 pm
From the site, release highlights:
New event/zone: the Dogroth Caldera and various associated subzones
New class: Psionic / Solipsist: The world is but a mere projection of your thoughts you are all powerful! Or are you?
Better levelup interface
Reaver improved
Rogues get a new Scoundrel tree
Archmages get a new Aether tree
New "minor" events; like special features in some zones
Better shield graphics ahoy !
Infinite Dungeon improvements
Many bugfixes & polishing
Spoiler: Expanded changelong (click to show/hide)
Post by: Neonivek on August 21, 2012, 07:18:18 pm
Poor Mages... the game tries to trick you into doing a quest you won't win.
Post by: Frumple on August 21, 2012, 07:23:12 pm
Post by: Neonivek on August 21, 2012, 07:29:22 pm
... which one? The initial archmage quest?
Yep
Post by: Frumple on August 21, 2012, 07:35:27 pm
But yeah, the text of that offer might be able to stand a harshening or something. Make it a bit more obvious it can kill you. I guess, anyway. Archmagi trivialize most things.
And there's always yeek/dwarf/undead! They don't even get to try that quest~ Ghoul archmage is kinda' hilarious. Skeleton archmage is best archmage, because skeleton+aegis=win. Close to it, anyway. Etc., so forth. Undead are great in T4, really.
But anyway, yeah, if you want me to hit you up with an unlock file, just yell. It's pretty easy to text-editor your way through the unlocks. Takes seconds, too.
Post by: Neonivek on August 21, 2012, 07:56:31 pm
Ohh well the only classes I ever unlocked are the Summoner and Wizard anyway... >_<
Post by: Frumple on August 21, 2012, 08:50:25 pm
The base classes are... well, they're interesting enough. Zerkers and alchies are easily two of the most powerful classes in the game, and archmagi (which aren't base, but usually either the first or second unlock) are god-tier, too. Summoners can cheese their way through the game and are pretty top-notch without it... honestly, all the classes are viable (and have been won, repeatedly), powerful, and interesting. Some are just trickier to get a functional build going :P
But yeah... I do like alchies, zerks, and arcane blades (of the base classes, though I probably wouldn't recommend ABs unless you've got a really good idea what you're doing; they're pretty weak if poorly built.), so the initial stuff isn't exactly stifling. Several of the unlocked ones have more... zing, though.
Post by: Neonivek on August 21, 2012, 09:59:47 pm
But that in a way annoys me. There is this large selection but the only competent character I am with is the Summoner (and one time the Archer)
Pro-Tip Summoner: For the most part going halfway with a summon isn't going to get you too far, most offensive summons only come into power at the 5th tier. It can be the difference between a creature that can only barely kill off a single ordinary enemy and a summon that can even bite a chunk out of bosses. Mind you having a lot of chumps to die while you wait for the stronger summons to be able to summon again isn't a terrible strategy either. It is how I beat some bosses WAAAAAY before the level you were expected to beat them.
Post by: Robsoie on August 22, 2012, 01:44:44 am
Post by: Neonivek on August 22, 2012, 01:50:40 am
Quote
Some are just trickier to get a functional build going
Tome is a lot like playing a Tower defense game. You have to see how the point mechanics are for each class.
Is it a class where you try to get to the top of the hill as fast as you can? or is it one where you try to have as many skills as possible?
As well determining how to spend your superfluous attribute points as well for better armors/weapons.
Plus just like a tower defense game there are a few speed bumps and fake outs as well to try to stall you.
It is why I can spend several runs just trying to get a functional build on a single character.
Post by: tompliss on August 22, 2012, 06:45:16 am
I am doing pretty good (remember playing 1 or 2 games long ago, and dying during the first quest), as I got through the whole first quest, killing the "bonus boss" without any problem : I focus on defence (using "Shield wall" and "precise strike" all time, and infusions for healing and reducing damage), and lure monsters around corners to fight 1v1 in melee.
I am now in some sort of necormancer's castle (read a journal entry about that), which is more difficult : I am getting some HP regen debuffs which nearly netralize my infusions, from traps, so I've got to play in a safe way...
Anyway, any advice ?
I am level 7, and building the character with strength first, then dexterity and constitution. Mostly because many skills have a strength requirement. and even that way, I have a hard time gathering loot, as i get encumbered very easily... Am I doing anything wrong ?
I read I can unlock other classes with achievments, but I don't see a list of undone achievments, so I guess I'll have to try everything ... or is there ?
(I mean, other than a wiki, spoiling the achievments)
I prefer to play in a small window (hey, i'm at work ! :D ), but the menus (and mostly the inventory and the leveling menu) doesn't fit a small window, even in ascii... Any way to reduce their font size, or anything like this ?
[EDIT]
err ... just died ...
Got encased in ice, and a shade finished me (didn't use every power I could...).
Those traps do some damage ... :(
Post by: Frumple on August 22, 2012, 08:43:48 am
As for bulwarks, it's mostly just a case of maxing shield wall and tanking your way through the first tier dungeons (which you were doing! Is good.), which'll get you to level twelve or so and open up a fair number of options, including your first unlocked tree, which can bring quite a bit to the table.
Biggest advice in your case (to be considered for your next chara) is to not do kor'pul as your second dungeon. There's six "first tier" dungeons available to all characters (and as many as two more, for some races/classes), and the shade (kor'pul's boss, which is what killed you) is one of the nastier bosses. There's a dungeon to the east of the starting zone (follow the tree line right, until you find a small opening. It'll zig-zag north into a small area with two dungeons and a town.) that has a much easier boss (norgos, in the furthest west/left dungeon in that little area) that you can kill for more experience and a chance at some better loot. Then you can come back and give a try at the shade a bit tougher and better equipped.
As for traps, mostly just pay attention to them -- most of them have set areas of effect and you can avoid them if you're being careful. Remember to rest up after getting damaged (try not to explore unrevealed parts of the map at less than full health, or with talents on cooldown), and don't fight in/on traps if you can avoid it -- and you usually can, though it may mean leading your enemy away from it.
As for what
Anyway, the biggest habit to break I can think of, that you would have picked up from other roguelikes, is conservation. There are very few limited or unrenewable resources in T4, and unlike many RLs -- RPGs in general -- the melee classes are all very much reliant on regular usage of their active talents. You can (mostly) safely blow everything on every enemy, and then rest up and do it on the next one -- and not only can you, you want to. T4's built such that you're intended to use shield bash (amongst many others) on everything but the most trivial of enemies, so get in the habit of doing that. In DCSS terms, think of yourself as more of a melee-range caster than a fighter or berserker or whathaveyou.
Post by: Graven on August 22, 2012, 08:50:57 am
Post by: Frumple on August 22, 2012, 09:05:29 am
You might enjoy arena mode if you'd like some quick combat, I suppose. It's much quicker, if a bit simpler.
Post by: Robsoie on August 22, 2012, 10:38:49 am
Sometime you may face a really strong one that is able to destroy you quicker than a dungeon boss, so be carefull
Most of them are strong but not impossible, but a few of them may kill you once or twice no time before you can destroy them (can't imagine how it must be on Insane then :D ) .
But that additional difficulty , coupled with shortened dungeons makes ToME4 actually more fun to replay, i finished the game long time ago but couldn't replay it without unfortunately getting bored.
It was a great decision to make the dungeon shorter and add random elites, i replay the game with pleasure.
Post by: Frumple on August 22, 2012, 11:45:52 am
And those new random spawned elites, oh those elites ...Ha... yeah, some of the bosses are somewhat of a victim to power creep. Sorta', anyway. They still manage to kill plenty of scrubs :P
Sometime you may face a really strong one that is able to destroy you quicker than a dungeon boss, so be carefull
But yeah, farportal bosses are (potentially) deadlier than anything the main campaign throws at you, and a classed unique with the
Post by: rhesusmacabre on August 22, 2012, 12:01:55 pm
I'm not sure I like the new 2-tile wide Maze. It's a lot quicker than before, but it seems to have lost some character.
Post by: tompliss on August 23, 2012, 09:58:26 am
After my Bulwark died, I tried the arcane mage ... it was squishy for a dwarf !
I don't think I even finished the first quest, but tried a human alchemist after that.
It was fun, but not what I wanted from a mage typed class (died near lvl 10, because of those white orbs (or something) dealing massive damage... :(
So I decided to play an (elf) ARCANE blade, forgetting about the blade part.
I am doing great, with this one. I am now level 12 (first time I got that far).
I handled the first Elven quests (not the tower near the first town), the cursed one in the woodsmen town, the two dungeons near Norgos, a bunch of adventuring parties, the first human quest, the arena, and the "storming the city" event (the first part only). Now, i'm heading toward kor'pul.
I love that way of playing, getting some power from the 3 spell schools, being very squishy but with the shield rune, the healing spell, I handled the bosses, for now ...
dump :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Mudslide is very useful for the knockback (as most bosses I got were melee ones), and Flameshock, both for the area damage.
I just leveled, so now, i'm looking forward to use my new Inferno ^^
Any comment on this build ? :D
Post by: Trapezohedron on August 23, 2012, 10:52:32 am
When playing a mage, it's always good to get LVL 3 manathrust, because when it gets to LVL 3, it becomes a beam. Arcane Blades don't get to use this skill though. ):
Inferno has a really huge range with a long countdown until it dissipates. However, it can, and it will damage you unless you have access to the meta tree and get a certain spell there to LVL 5. As above, Arcane Blades don't have access to this tree, so you better distance yourself away from this spell.
You can use this to lure creatures out of hiding if you manage to hit them beyond line-of-sight. Arcane Eye is very useful for this purpose (get via mage class or escort).
The second flame skill (Flameshock) is great, especially when maxed, as it can slow down masses of enemies and burn them over time. Too bad this skill has a long cooldown.
Flame (first spell) turns into a beam if leveled up to five. It's up to you to decide whether it's worth the additional points or not.
Post by: tompliss on August 23, 2012, 11:38:32 am
Flame (first spell) turns into a beam if leveled up to five. It's up to you to decide whether it's worth the additional points or not.You mean it goes throught ennemies ?
Then I will definitly level this up !
(need confirmation on this, guys)
When playing a mage, it's always good to get LVL 3 manathrust, because when it gets to LVL 3, it becomes a beam. Arcane Blades don't get to use this skill though. ):You mean the manathrust that I have as a rune ?
What do you mean by it being a beam ?
Anyway, I found 2 items (one very early, second dungeon or something), with a 0.1 mana regen. It's ridiculous but it helps, as it get improved my the manathrust second effect !
Post by: rhesusmacabre on August 23, 2012, 12:34:18 pm
The rune you have is manasurge. Mages have the arcane talent tree that allows them to learn manathrust. Combined with lightning and flame, it allows at least one beam attack per turn while the others are cooling down.
Post by: Robsoie on August 27, 2012, 02:34:52 am
Then ... ouch ... argh.
Is it just me or the entrance level with those odd clouds with all those elemental temporal tornado-look alike teleporting monsters is much more difficult than in the past (as it's been several version i didn't played) ?
My good berserker character didn't lost all his lifes only because i had a teleportation infusion to get to the exit of that entrance level, but still he was killed a few time by some of those things in a few turns (and they're not even elites version of their kind).
In the past it was not easy, but i could clean the place with a berserker at that point of the game (having explored all the "normal" beginning dungeon, leaving Daikara for the last "normal" beginning dungeon as usual).
Could it be a result of the smaller dungeons that then do not provide as much experience/levels as before ?
Or was that entrance level boosted in difficulty for some reason ?
Post by: Frumple on August 27, 2012, 02:46:26 am
My guess is that you weren't paying attention to the zero-g effect. Moving normally in that place is a risky, risky business; zero-g hacks your movement speed down to something pitiable (50% reduction? More?). With a melee class you'll primarily want to find a corner that limits approach vectors (and more importantly, lines of fire... turn back the clock hurts) and let them come to you. Ideally, if you move, it's either through rush (possibly double rush, via boots) or a directed teleport of some sort (ghoulish leap, ferex). At the very least via movement infusion. Moving normally is a good way to just get torn straight to bitsies.
They are kinda' painful, but they're usually not too terrible as long as you make darn good and sure to not get ganged up on; find that cubbyhole and make sure no more than two at the most are coming down on you.
Post by: Robsoie on August 27, 2012, 02:52:03 am
In the past, the entrance level was much easier so i assume it was indeed a pre-zero-g version, the real difficulty started when you actually entered the time paradox remake of the levels you explored previously.
Fortunately, now that i know about the difficulty boost, my next character will not waste time in there and will teleport, then teleport and teleport again :D
Post by: Robsoie on August 28, 2012, 08:07:49 am
As usual with melee characters the tactic is
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Oh and something else has not changed : how silly overpowered (i mean at the time you meet such monsters) the "devourers" random monsters can be without even being one of those new "elite" spawn.
My level 21 brawler that took out so many bosses got his more than 500 health + reverse shield rune active + wild infusion damage reduction ... destroyed in 1 turn by a group of them (funny there was so much damage in that 1 turn that the game even mentionned my character being killed multiple time :D )
So if you spot devourers (you can have them as early as Maze, i saw some in it during this run) and there's no corridor in sight, whatever powerfull you are just teleport away, really the best move you can do against those things if you're short in your amount of lives.
I remember there were luminous things too in the past that were insanely overpowered too for the time you met them, i wonder if they are always the same in that game, as i have not yet found any.
Post by: Neonivek on August 29, 2012, 12:22:50 am
The game has plenty of points Robsoie where if you weren't prepared for something LOOONG in advance, you are going to have trouble.
So they arn't overpowered... they are a Wiki-monster.
Post by: Robsoie on August 29, 2012, 07:57:43 am
Anyways, after reaching level 25 , my Brawler cleared Dreadfell , letting the last level and "The Master" for later, as i remembered (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78614.msg2619003;topicseen#msg2619003) how strong that dungeon bosswas in past versions, and as the stair tactic has been removed from the game (as now monsters and bosses get back to full health if you go upstairs) it would surely be even more difficult for melee character.
So as i was rather high in fortress energy after "transmogrifing" so much loots, i decided to go into some farportal exploration to grind some more levels for the Dreadfell finale.
In the past i always waited until near endgame to go there, it's a huge mistake considering the bosses are created dependant to your level, i especially remember that playerkilling thing (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78614.msg2630988;topicseen#msg2630988).
So at level 25 it would be much more managable and so would help my character to get more fit for the Master battle.
After 3 farportal assaults (one was really though) my character was level 28, more health, more power and added some more skill points where i needed.
I cleared the last floor of Dreadfell , letting The Master alone and out of sight (thanks a very lot for the Track skill of my brawler), and finally once the place was ok for my "get the hell away from death" teleportation tactic, it was time for the finale.
Attracted The Master attention and started brawling the guy, as expected very hard, and his summons add to his firepower each turns, so each 6/7 rounds of punching and kicking, it was time to teleport to heal and get back my infusion/rune control.
And finally ...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So it was back for a bunch of brawl -> teleport -> heal/getbackruneinfusion control/wait -> brawl.
And ...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
With the stair tactic removed, teleportation is really a must for melee characters, especially considering how easy you get into rune/infusion saturation in the middle of a battle, when you need your rune and infusion the most.
But be sure to clear most of the dungeon floor, you would hate saving your character last hundred points of health by teleporting then being insta killed by a couple of elite units you landed next to.
Post by: Robsoie on August 29, 2012, 08:28:52 am
Before trying to get into this location, i -highly- suggest you to backup your saved game , really do it (due to past experiences crashing with ToME4 i always do that before entering any new dungeons).
Because ToME4 autosave everything, and once you get into the Volcano Caldera, chances are that the game will be stuck (bug reported in the board), and if you have not backed up the save game from before entering, your character is simply toast and you're in for restarting the game from the very beginning, as the only available save in the load game menu will be leading you to freeze the game again and again.
So either do the saved game back up or avoid the Volcano Caldera location if you play with ToME4 beta42
Post by: dei on August 29, 2012, 09:35:02 am
EDIT - Jesus tittyfucking Christ, 183 MB for a freeware roguelike? Wait, I'm downloading the version with the free music attached. Now my interests are really piqued. Hopefully the soundtrack is good.
Post by: dei on August 29, 2012, 03:46:25 pm
...Or am I having a blonde moment here and just missing something in the documentation or lack-thereof? Don't get me wrong, I like this game. It's just that nowhere on the internet nor in the documentation does it say how to make these alchemist gems.
EDIT - I didn't realize I double-posted. Sorry about that.
Post by: Mephansteras on August 29, 2012, 03:49:09 pm
Post by: Frumple on August 29, 2012, 04:13:59 pm
Things to note about alchie gems is that each one has a different effect and, very importantly, higher tier alchie gems do more base bomb damage (though the additional effect may offset things a bit -- amethysts will do about the same damage as most tier three gems, ferex). There's a list of bomb effects somewhere on the wiki, I think. E: Right here, actually. (http://te4.org/wiki/gems)
Post by: dei on August 29, 2012, 05:17:12 pm
If I remember correctly you can turn any gem you find into alchemist gems. I don't remember the exact skill used to do it, but look through your skills. It's there somewhere.
Yeah, it's "create alchemist gems". Unique alchie talent, you start off with it. It eats a normal gem and turns it into a few dozen alchemist gems. You can get normal gems either by picking them up off the ground or by extracting them from metal items (specifically melee weapons (barring whips), shields, massive and heavy armor, and any of the metal hats/gloves/boots. Lanterns or rings don't work.) with extract gems, in the stone alchemy tree.
Things to note about alchie gems is that each one has a different effect and, very importantly, higher tier alchie gems do more base bomb damage (though the additional effect may offset things a bit -- amethysts will do about the same damage as most tier three gems, ferex). There's a list of bomb effects somewhere on the wiki, I think. E: Right here, actually. (http://te4.org/wiki/gems)
Yeah, right after I started a new game the talent finally showed up. It wasn't showing up before when I first tried to play an alchemist and in fact the first three times I tried loading the client and tried doing anything the game itself crashed to desktop. But now everything works fine and I'm back on track again.
I'm playing a Higher Alchemist and doing okay so far. Roguelike mode kind of screwed me over a bit so I went into Adventure mode. Somewhere along the way I unlocked the Summoner class however, which was kind of interesting.
...At least I learned from the first and so far only time I played in roguelike mode to like with other roguelikes I play not underestimate this game just because I start feeling even the slightest bit confident. The number one cause of death for my characters in any roguelike is overconfidence or really confidence of any kind, so I'm going to have to keep that in mind again.
Either way this game is going to be something I waste a lot of time on in the coming weeks. Thanks for this thread and thanks for your help.
EDIT - Got a score of 94 with a level 9 Higher Alchemist on my second go throughout the game. I'm wondering though what kind of a build would work well for me. I'm thinking something with the alchemist that has a high direct damage output combined with high magic, dexterity and willpower as to further boost spell damage and provide some additional protection as well.
If I could throw in something that might add stealth and ease of movement like how I do in ADOM, Dungeons and Dragons, ELONA or even Morrowind I would probably be set. I do real well with a hybridization of a glass cannon and an escape artist, so if you have suggestions on how I could do that with a Higher Alchemist in ToME I would appreciate it.
Post by: Robsoie on August 30, 2012, 05:40:20 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on August 30, 2012, 08:11:56 am
As for escape methods on an alchie, you can itemize for it a bit. Double up or teleportation runes or go tele/movement infusion, get ahold of some escape items. Natively, you've got gem portal which is kinda' anemic but sometimes useful. Dwarves have a similar talent for their forth racial, so you can kinda' stack it if you're feeling like it. Shalore get a global speed boost from their first racial talent, which can help a lil'. Everything else with some movement options (Yeeks, ghouls, though the latter involves some trade offs) is probably locked to you, currently. Then there's a talent or two dealing with golem movement (invoke and some kind of swap-position, iirc) which can help a little, sometimes.
As for builds, the general alchemist build I use is an initial class point into golem power, then the rest into gem bomb until it hits 4/5 and alchemist protection opens up. Then I stuff every class point I get into alchemist protection until that maxes, and then the rest into the third tier bomb talent until that maxes. Usually a point into golem resilience in there somewhere. After that, things get friskier depending on what I'm doing, but that's my basic "get me through old forest" build. Ignoring generic investment, anyway :P
The big thing is that with maxed out alchie protection and the radius boosting talent, you don't need to invest in dexterity. Literally the other thing points in dex does for an alchie is increase your bomb throw range (at a rate of one per twenty dex, iirc)... and with the maxed radius booster, you hit out to a max of ten anyway, which is enough to get you through pretty much the whole game. Defense wise, constitution is going to get you a lot more bang for your buck than dex (defense in particular is a pretty crappy, well, defensive stat in T4. Especially if you can't stack it pretty high, which alchies can't.). Standard stat spread, f'me at least, is to max out magic, and then alternate between con and willpower, keeping them even. Usually do this until I'm comfortable with my mana pool (not too hard, as alchies don't need terribly much compared to other mana classes) then switch to con/cunning, for the crit boost (which is small, but more helpful than mana I'll never need).
Post by: dei on August 30, 2012, 11:51:13 am
Yeah, that's the Room of Death. There's a cheevo for killing those buggers. Most combos can't manage it, especially when they first walk in to the vor armory. Come back when you're 50 :P
I read about that on the wiki this morning. It sounds Fun. Also, the name reminds me of Kobolds Ate My Baby for some reason - oh wait I know why! ALL HAIL KING TORG! ALL HAIL VOR!
As for escape methods on an alchie, you can itemize for it a bit. Double up or teleportation runes or go tele/movement infusion, get ahold of some escape items. Natively, you've got gem portal which is kinda' anemic but sometimes useful...
That sounds pretty good...
Dwarves have a similar talent for their forth racial, so you can kinda' stack it if you're feeling like it.
I know that this forum is the drunk midget capital of the world but I always feel iffy about playing a Dwarf in any game. I'm a little superstitious about the whole dexterity bit that seems to plague them in every game I see them in. I'll give them a shot though, once I think of a - oh god now I have another use for my favorite drunk midget Sodel Athelod, thanks!
Shalore get a global speed boost from their first racial talent, which can help a lil'.
I played a Shalore in my third run and to be honest with you I don't like how they gain experience so slowly while being so frail. Then again usually if I play (non-dark)elves it's as a class that when converted to ToME would be either Archer or Archmage - either the woodland sniper or the haughty and overpowered glass cannon.
I don't see myself playing a Shalore as an Alchemist because of that and how their first quest is made harder than that of the human castes due to their experience penalty and frail bodies. The whole reason I tried Shalore is it gave me the stats I was wanting in higher quantities than the Higher, but I missed that sense of stability and the nice recovery infusions too.
...I could give it another go though sometime soon. Shield was pretty nice.
Everything else with some movement options (Yeeks, ghouls, though the latter involves some trade offs) is probably locked to you, currently.
I don't like the thought of playing the undead or a yeek anyways so it's alright. Reading up on the yeek at least made me think of them as Scientologists. If I were a ranger they would be the hated enemy I picked at level one. Either them or monstrous humanoids.
Ghoul did sound okay though from what I was reading on the wiki, though personally skeleton sounds nicer. Probably because I like bone as a material.
Then there's a talent or two dealing with golem movement (invoke and some kind of swap-position, iirc) which can help a little, sometimes.
I'm starting to use my golem to scout. I also somehow managed to get my golem to learn Stone Touch after escorting an alchemist, which makes for some interesting battles. Since his acquisition of the skill he's been defeated about once and once only.
As for builds, the general alchemist build I use is an initial class point into golem power, then the rest into gem bomb until it hits 4/5 and alchemist protection opens up. Then I stuff every class point I get into alchemist protection until that maxes, and then the rest into the third tier bomb talent until that maxes. Usually a point into golem resilience in there somewhere. After that, things get friskier depending on what I'm doing, but that's my basic "get me through old forest" build. Ignoring generic investment, anyway :P
It sounds like a good build. So far I've maxed out the whole gem bomb and barely started the whole bomb protection bit in favor of beefing up the golem's offense and defense. I didn't even realize I could level the little bastard up either, but now Jean-Claude van Damn he's fine. Next talent point he gets is going into Taunt to draw further aggro away from Aldeen (my Higher Alchemist).
The big thing is that with maxed out alchie protection and the radius boosting talent, you don't need to invest in dexterity. Literally the other thing points in dex does for an alchie is increase your bomb throw range (at a rate of one per twenty dex, iirc)... and with the maxed radius booster, you hit out to a max of ten anyway, which is enough to get you through pretty much the whole game.
Like I mentioned, I'm kind of superstitious about wizards and dexterity. It's out of habits brought on since my introduction to Dungeons and Dragons in the 6th grade that I've made sure every single wizard I play in a game has above average dexterity, in order to avoid being hit as often.
In fact I make sure any build I play ends up having good dexterity for that reason, though then again I tend to shy towards wizards, rogues, and the occasional ranger or cleric. It's what I do for every game that will let me do such a thing.
However...
Defense wise, constitution is going to get you a lot more bang for your buck than dex (defense in particular is a pretty crappy, well, defensive stat in T4. Especially if you can't stack it pretty high, which alchies can't.). Standard stat spread, f'me at least, is to max out magic, and then alternate between con and willpower, keeping them even. Usually do this until I'm comfortable with my mana pool (not too hard, as alchies don't need terribly much compared to other mana classes) then switch to con/cunning, for the crit boost (which is small, but more helpful than mana I'll never need).
This I agree with very much. When I first made the post asking for advice I didn't know much about the stats but now I'm putting points into what you've mentioned. Just a little less consistently for the constitution and the cunning, but then again I'm new so I'm bound to make mistakes.
Luckily one of Aldeen's equips raises health by forty points, so she's not as squishy as her previous incarnation from the first run. Of course it also helps that I had her spend most of her gold on a wizard's regeneration infusion - I almost said inscription and then inception because I'm running on caffeine and no sleep - that restores a hundred and fifty health over five turns.
I did screw up on the whole wild infusion and put one in that removes magical ailments, but then again I have more problems with being frozen or what-not on rare occasions than being poisoned frequently now that I can have Aldeen recover thirty hit points a turn for five turns.
Now if only her golem would stop stepping on poison spores and flooding the motherfucking room with toxins. Anyways, thanks for the advice. I'll give Dwarf Alchemist a shot and I'll try Shalore Alchemist again too. I'll start raising constitution and cunning a little more often as well, especially since that cunning tree I don't remember the name of seems like it would be perfect to throw in there sometime.
Post by: beorn080 on August 30, 2012, 10:38:34 pm
Post by: Frumple on August 30, 2012, 10:58:44 pm
If it doesn't work, and no one beats me to a more effective version, I'll run through it again tomorrow with something actually functioning; I'm quoting myself from quite a while back on an iPad, so I don't have access to the t4 computer to actually double check things :P
Spoiler: unlocking the easy way (click to show/hide)
Post by: Seriyu on August 31, 2012, 05:04:16 am
I wanna give the game a shot again, especially since I've heard once you beat the first few "basic" dungeons you get a new birth option that lets you skip them or something? Maybe that was a rumor. But this makes it pretty hard to well, play.
Anyone know a fix?
Post by: Frumple on August 31, 2012, 05:33:22 am
As for the birth option... no, not so much. You do get to start off with the transmutation chest, and you can certainly skip some or (if you're really on the ball) all of the tier one dungeons, but there's nothing that starts you off at, say, level ten with a decent kit spread and the first tier dungeons locked. You do manage to unlock a couple of other campaign modes that offer some quicker action, particularly arena mode. Infinite dungeon is fun, but brutal and a half, especially if you don't leave the vaults the hell alone :P
It'd probably be pretty possible to code up an add-on for dungeon skip/accelerated start stuff, though. Not my cup of tea (terrible at coding), but someone could probably manage it.
Post by: Seriyu on August 31, 2012, 06:13:54 am
Post by: Robsoie on August 31, 2012, 06:51:37 am
And he met an unbeatable foe, even more than an "overpowered wyrm" unique from the armory
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Presented like this he seems to be hard but not invincible, but in gameplay :
- he deals more damage by turns than my regen+regen infusion+various high resistance+armor/hardiness+wild infusion+shield rune+healingnexus (got the equilibrium skills from eating the sand worm queen heart) can heal me, and enough so it can destroy my level 43 character in 5 or 6 turns.
- he casts from time to time Impending Doom, meaning that you must teleport away while you still have enough health to wait for the Impending Doom to disappear by itself (as it blocks the healing and regen runes you'll be losing health like crazy even out of his sight considering it last for at leats 10 turns)
- he has various powers that make a huge list of crippling malus for your character each turns (so your equilibrium skills and wild infusion that will help in 1 turn will just see him rethrowing the malus list next turn) that basically make you deal insanely small damage to him and render your protections basically useless
- if you stay too much time in front of him, i don't know what power it is, but he will block your teleport rune (and then you're dead considering previous points)
- despite he takes very few damage (due to your character damage output being crippled, evne if you deal damage he's not resistant to) he has great health regeneration, so much that in the most extremely lucky attempt i got on him, he was down to 65% of life remaining , i teleported to avoid sure death, then went back to him and he was already healed to 95% in what was in fact just a few turns.
- during the battle he can feed on you to regenerate himself, like if he needed that :D and healing nexus apparently does -nothing- against that, he heals himself and healing nexus does not capture this healing back to you.
I would hate to meet that guy with a weaker character.
It was my last Farportal run, as the only way to survive was to Recall, and Recall "breaks the Farportal forever" unfortunately.
Though if at level 43 this guy can spawn, i would hate to see what else in the farportal runs will spawn in higher levels, as from my tries, i'm sure that monster can take the 4 "overpowered wyrms" :D
Too bad there isn't a test arena, i would have liked to pit him against the wyrm of playerkilling (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78614.msg2630988;topicseen#msg2630988) from past version
Post by: Frumple on August 31, 2012, 07:16:26 am
But yeah, real fun is with stuff like forge giants, GMHWs, crap like the elite horrors... stuff like that, with some really nasty classes thrown in. Good luck against something like a doomed/solipsist forge giant or runed bone giant :P Those monsters can happily get over 10k HP (and multiple lives, in the case of the latter~) and stats/offensive capabilities like you wouldn't freaking believe. I've seen level 50 characters get flat-out instapopped, one round TKO, 3-4k HP gone in a blink, it's crazy. Also absolutely wonderful, but crazy nonetheless.
Anyway, moral of the story is that farportal runs will eventually kill you. No exceptions. You either stop or you die :P
The fun is in seeing how far you get before something splats you, heh. Seven goes is actually pretty good, especially if you're running them later in the game.
Post by: Robsoie on August 31, 2012, 10:34:12 am
Post by: Graven on August 31, 2012, 10:40:55 am
Post by: dei on August 31, 2012, 12:07:42 pm
I might try a Summoner sometime this weekend just to see if I really would like playing as one. Right now I'm going to take care of a few things then get back onto my Higher Archmage, whom I've named Matya.
Speaking of Archmage, out of the spells I was advised to get maxed out I like Lightning the best. It's both efficient and powerful, and I like the fact that it can go through multiple enemies at a time. Then again so can Flame 5 and Manathrust. I guess I like beam spells.
...Also I've almost if not entirely maximized Arcane Reconstruction and I've got one point in each of the Conveyance skills because honestly they sounded like they would help out a great deal and because someone recommended Teleport.
Finally, I think I found another reason for me to like Higher - the second racial talent they get increases their line of sight. I don't know if there is anything bad from doing this but I like being able to scroll off-screen when targeting things. It's very useful in my opinion, though to be blunt in my opinion all of the Higher racial talents I've tried so far have been useful to me.
I do have a question however - should I be picking up the loot I find to sell or should I only do that for the really valuable stuff? I've been ignoring most everything except for gemstones and equipment that Matya can use or sell for an okay profit. Is that the right thing to do?
Post by: Neonivek on August 31, 2012, 12:19:53 pm
Anyone mind spoilering the Solipsist unlock? I did everything, including the god damn necromancer, but I hear it's a random unlock and stuff like that grinds my goat something fierce.
Reminds me of the old undead unlocks before the vast majority of them were removed.
Post by: Robsoie on August 31, 2012, 12:53:45 pm
I do have a question however - should I be picking up the loot I find to sell or should I only do that for the really valuable stuff? I've been ignoring most everything except for gemstones and equipment that Matya can use or sell for an okay profit. Is that the right thing to do?
There's a specific quest
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
If you succeed
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So better pick up everything and sell it to make money and try to not buy anything because that sum of money takes a lot of time to gather (i was level 30 i think when i reached that sum).
Note :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on August 31, 2012, 12:55:20 pm
Anyone mind spoilering the Solipsist unlock? I did everything, including the god damn necromancer, but I hear it's a random unlock and stuff like that grinds my goat something fierce.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I do have a question however - should I be picking up the loot I find to sell or should I only do that for the really valuable stuff? I've been ignoring most everything except for gemstones and equipment that Matya can use or sell for an okay profit. Is that the right thing to do?It'll do until you clear out lake nur, which is at the bottom, so to speak, of the old forest. Probably safe to do around level fifteen, sixteen... twenty as an outlier. Beating the boss at the end (weirdling beast) and activating something with your rod of recall (and then having a little chat with what pops out) will give you an artifact that makes item management considerably simpler. Even better, once you've done it once, it'll unlock starting with the item at birth.
Ideally, though, while selling off purples and suchlike is fine, you probably want to save the gems until you get this artifact (and in subsequent playthroughs, until you activate it fully by repeating the activation sequence) and then feed them all to said artifact. Gems are the best method of charging the thing up, bar none, and it's pretty common to be able to open up at least the first thing charging it up does just with the gems you collect up to the point of activation. You don't have to be OCD about it, though -- if you have to sell some gems, even all your gems, to pick up a good piece of kit, do so and don't worry about it. Money comes easy, especially once you get th'artifact in question.
Ninja'd a bit, and much more succinctly :P
E:
Spoiler: One thing about the merchant, though... (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on August 31, 2012, 01:41:43 pm
The only items i found in shops that were actually better than what i had were in fact too expensive considering the amount of gold i had at the level i was, and by the time i gathered that much money for a specific shop item i had already found a lot better in a dungeon run.
And that was not once or twice, but for every of my characters.
Post by: RedKing on August 31, 2012, 02:02:52 pm
Post by: Frumple on August 31, 2012, 02:16:20 pm
They're a lot more useful, also, when you know exactly what you're looking for in kit and want to get it as soon as possible. The dungeon givith, but it often givith what that focus slayer would rather be using instead of what the sword and board slayer you're actually playing needs. Stuff like that. It gives you a fallback for when the dungeon isn't cooperating, or a jumping off point to get you to better stuff. I've not had many characters solve a make-or-break thing with shopping, but I've had a lot made considerably easier than they otherwise could have been.
And then occasionally you find that invig/speed dragon leather boots in lost hope, or that verdant/eyal plate, or that psychoport torque, or... well, you get the idea.
Any tips on where to go after you finish the starter dungeon? I tend to breeze through that, then wander the overland map until i find something interesting, whereupon I'm usually horribly overmatched and die in a heartbeat.There's at least five other dungeons in around the same level bracket as the starter. I recommend Norgos lair as a second dungeon (follow the treeline east from derth, there'll be a little opening that leads to a town and two dungeons; you want the one on the left. You can roll a thalore if you want to just start there.), or trollmire (probably your starting zone, for most races). Then withered heart (to the right in that little culdesac), kor'pul (just west of troll mire), scintillating caves (start a shalore; alternately, go south from derth a ways (past the mountain range on the left) and you'll find another little zig-zag opening in the trees) and then the rhaloren camp, just west of said caves. That's all the first tier dungeons that everyone has access to -- dwarves and yeeks get two more, undead and the celestial classes all get one extra (the extra doesn't stack :P).
Then you've got the tier two dungeons (you can reasonably start taking these around level eight, level ten, though clearing out all the tier one dungeons will usually put you in the 12-15 range). Old forest is just south of derth, and the maze is just west of it; the maze is probably the safer of the two. Then you've got the sandworm lair on the beach to the west, past the mountain range the maze is beside, and daikara a bit past the norgos lair area, a bit north-east of Zigur (town in the middlish of the map, more or less on a lake. If you've got mana (and a few other resources), you won't be able to see it); daikara's the hardest of the tier two lot, kind of a tier 2.5, before dreadfell and the rest of the game.
After all that, and possibly somewhere in between, is a bunch of randomly placed extra zones you can roll for loot and XP, followed by dreadfell, one of the only two actually required dungeons in the west. Dreadfell is followed by fairly easily followed plot stuff that takes you where you need to go :P
Post by: Flying Dice on August 31, 2012, 10:45:47 pm
Any tips on where to go after you finish the starter dungeon? I tend to breeze through that, then wander the overland map until i find something interesting, whereupon I'm usually horribly overmatched and die in a heartbeat.The other starter dungeons tend to be good places to go for more loot and experience. So the Trollmire, the Old Forest, the snowy one, the corrupted cave thing, and one or two more. Typically I'll stop right before the boss for my starting area and go clear out the others up until right before their bosses. Though the underwater temple in the Old Forest(?) end is something that you'll generally want to avoid for a while.
Post by: Robsoie on September 01, 2012, 04:49:20 am
(http://i.imgur.com/Dpe4L.jpg)
Went from +/- 6000 golds when entering that Pride to a bit more than 8000 golds after clearing the 2 non-barracks levels.
Will allow me to get a 2nd special generated superitem in Last Hope.
Post by: Un67 on September 02, 2012, 07:41:05 am
So far my favorite class is Temporal Warden. Being able to instantly switch between ranged and melee is absolutely amazing, and I like the whole "sustain a bunch of stuff, weaken with ranged, kill with melee" style. Cursed was also fun but a bit hard to start up.
The only real problem I have with this game are some of the really unfair enemy abilities. My first good Temporal Warden got inside the fortress and then found himself slowly killed off by some Creeping Doom spell from a rare blade horror. I didn't have any cure magic, so ::)
Post by: Robsoie on September 02, 2012, 08:22:03 am
And all those rune/infusion curing those very very nasty effects can't do much when some of those monsters just re-affect you each 2 or 3 turns (while you abilities/rune/infusion cooldown are way higher than that)
That's why i think always having a teleportation ready is of extreme importance to survival, and never wait too long when facing a battle you believe you're not going to win, as some of those nasty abilities can block your teleportation too.
Post by: Frumple on September 02, 2012, 08:30:06 am
Incidentally, the random classed stuff is basically the number one thing that gets pointed to when multiplayer is brought up. Balancing nightmare. Did you know there's actually a small flotilla of talents the AI just won't use? Because they're too unfair when used against the player? Imagine stuff like that in the hands of a human, 100x more capable and ruthless in exploiting them.
It'd be great, actually, but all the fights would be over in like two turns :P
Post by: dei on September 02, 2012, 10:50:00 am
Post by: Frumple on September 02, 2012, 11:16:01 am
Post by: Robsoie on September 02, 2012, 01:37:30 pm
level 62 ?
Damn those uniques and their cheating around the level 50 cap :D
Post by: Frumple on September 02, 2012, 02:17:43 pm
... and only in the main campaign. Well, and arena. Infinite dungeon, assuming you manage to survive to that point, you can keep on going past 50. The level 5 limit on talents opens up, too, once you hit that point.
It still freaking demolishes you :D
Post by: Graven on September 02, 2012, 02:57:12 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 02, 2012, 03:16:38 pm
Solipsist uniques are pretty nasty, though, yeah. Depends on what talents they get and some other stuff, but they can seriously ruin your day at times. Bugger to kill, plenty of damage, nasty nasty status effects, and then those thought-forged monstrosities. It can be a lotta' pain, heh.
Post by: Robsoie on September 02, 2012, 03:16:42 pm
And a level 67 unique in High Peak, maybe someone should tell them that the level is cap is 50 :D
Very strangely it was a push over in comparison to nearly everything i fought in High Peak , with lots of very though battles with tons of elite versions of regular monsters.
Maybe it's because of the -20 physical, as my character is a brawler, despite i can deal several kind of elemental damage (that this unique has strong resistance against), the primary source of it is still physical, so basically my character was the worst kind of enemy this unique could face.
Post by: Frumple on September 02, 2012, 03:31:31 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 02, 2012, 04:00:44 pm
Basically it was a similar siutation to the farportal guy i mentionned previously.
Only boss of a High Peak floor i decided to skip to keep my character having an extra remaining life (she's on her last leg) for Sanctum
Post by: dei on September 03, 2012, 05:03:56 am
I just didn't expect that it would be to two Inner Demons who in one turn destroyed her shields, turned her to stone and shattered her into pieces with arcane magic. Oh well, at least I know what kind of a build I can go for with archmage that will carry me so far.
...However I am a little frustrated with both the crash to desktop followed by freezing that happened while I was trying to get Granmeri through Trollmire again. I think it may have had to do with my CPU heating up a fair bit though - I notice if I play Tales of Maj'Eyal for too long and if my CPU's temperature is at or within a few degrees of 70c that the game will slow down and crash more often. Then again my computer gets to that temperature with any game other than ADOM and Morrowind, and that's with the cleaning I did earlier this evening.
Regardless of these problems I'm finding that Tales of Maj'Eyal is probably one of my favorite games right about now. I play almost nothing else even with me trying to get back into Dwarf Fortress and Morrowind. Oh well, what are you going to do?
Post by: Graven on September 03, 2012, 06:12:12 am
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93674769
For those not in the know, it's Steam's new game verification process, to determine which games are popular enough to be on it.
Post by: Frumple on September 03, 2012, 06:16:21 am
Oh well, what are you going to do?You can give a try at lowering the graphics settings, if you haven' already. Set particles to 0 or 1, disable mostly everything, etc. If you don't have a decent graphics card, T4 will happily consume your CPU to make up for the slack, heh. For me, if I don't have most everything off, T4 idles at 100% CPU... with everything off, it idles more along the lines of 5-10%, though it loves spiking up to 100% when resting, auto exploring, etc. T4's actually pretty intensive, as roguelikes go.
Alternately, check out the addons on t4's website and try the one called "reduced ultrashield particles". It fixes a known bug with some things in the game using a particularly intense particle effect, which can cause heavy spiking on weak GPU systems. It probably isn't helping you heating issues :P
Post by: dei on September 03, 2012, 06:29:35 am
Oh well, what are you going to do?You can give a try at lowering the graphics settings, if you haven' already. Set particles to 0 or 1, disable mostly everything, etc. If you don't have a decent graphics card, T4 will happily consume your CPU to make up for the slack, heh. For me, if I don't have most everything off, T4 idles at 100% CPU... with everything off, it idles more along the lines of 5-10%, though it loves spiking up to 100% when resting, auto exploring, etc. T4's actually pretty intensive, as roguelikes go.
Alternately, check out the addons on t4's website and try the one called "reduced ultrashield particles". It fixes a known bug with some things in the game using a particularly intense particle effect, which can cause heavy spiking on weak GPU systems. It probably isn't helping you heating issues :P
Yeah I think my ATI Radeon 9250 is only decent for something like Morrowind, Mabinogi or Dwarf Fortress in terms of graphics in more modern games. It may be able to run HD "video" with the greatest of ease but Armok help me if I want decent graphics for a video game that came out after 2005.
It's just as well, I would rather have a decent storyline over superior visuals any day. I'm used to low-light situations and some of the graphics these games have to offer hurt my eyes worse than that big flaming ball of gas I wanted to block out with a giant dish ever since I was eleven.
...Anyways, I'll set those graphics the way they should be. Then I'm going to see if I can run Tales of Maj'Eyal and play it without sleep once again. It's a little before 4:30 AM and honestly I don't want to sleep because of some issues with my PTSD that occur at least a few times a week where I'm living. Tales of Maj'Eyal is a good escape from that.
And just as a heads up, if you see "sirkh" in the chat, that's me. I thought I should let people know for some reason.
Post by: Robsoie on September 03, 2012, 07:48:38 am
Used the old teleportation trick in the *spoiler edited* (a trick that worked in the older version too) to get back to the worldmap before i should be able to :).
I needed that as i totally forgot to get all my superitems from the merchant with all the amount of gold i had by that point (i could afford in total 3 superitems), will get back to that place later.
Too bad the Paladin that join you in the final battle does not have a special line of dialogue when you met her again in town , to explain why she's there instead of getting killed alone against the *spoiler edited*.
As i forgot to get back to the "Room of Death" in the Vor Armory, and i was wondering with the amazing equipment i had now if my Brawler could take them .
And he managed to do that, though i was mistaken the 1st time as i thought there were 4 overpowered wyrm, but in fact they were 7 !
A though battle, but with some "door tactic" it was possible to fight one at a time and finally overpower ( :D ) them, but i would have hated to try to fight them earlier.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
the superitems are really worth not wasting your gold in shops for the whole game (and a good reason to save the merchant in the Trapped quest), they're better than artifacts in most case.
Post by: DeKaFu on September 03, 2012, 10:06:44 am
I couldn't find any proposed solutions anywhere and found this by sheer chance, so hopefully someone finds it helpful.
Post by: Robsoie on September 03, 2012, 12:08:05 pm
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=34503
Post by: Robsoie on September 03, 2012, 01:50:56 pm
Atamathon ... bah, what a disapointement and a complete push over.
My character i mean, she only survived by teleporting away and running out of the level :D
On that very small Atamathon level there's a "Damp Cave" in the middle, before the fight i went inside, it's very small too, there were a few bandits and a simple elite version of one of them and ... nothing else, even the loot was very basic.
Is this "Damp Cave" place having any purpose that i didn't noticed ?
Post by: Frumple on September 03, 2012, 02:00:31 pm
Post by: beorn080 on September 03, 2012, 02:14:34 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 03, 2012, 06:27:23 pm
However, I've got a question about stash management, (before Nur), namely, what should I be keeping and what not? Elemental resistances obviously, status resists, inparticular stun... is there anything else notable to hang on to?
Post by: Frumple on September 03, 2012, 06:58:20 pm
Seriously though, certain activates and powers you want pretty badly. A source of teleportation per capable slot (staff, amulet), rush boots on melee, speed boots for everyone (even if you don't use them normally, they're a godsend in certain areas), psychoport torques, any tools you can use that grants silence, particularly useful various other stuff (some of the hats, healing amulets, there's kind of a list of etcs.)... I don't horde for stats much in the early game, but I most definitely will hold on to that elm staff of conveyance or whatever like the devil itself wants it.
Certain debuff weapons can be a good idea, too, just in case. Glacial/elemental/caustic, slime if you're not arcane, etc., so forth.
Post by: Seriyu on September 03, 2012, 07:31:36 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 03, 2012, 08:11:51 pm
That said, everything except particularly lucky damage resist rolls obsolete pretty easily... there's some level of influence based on material level (so, ferex, a copper gladiator ring will never [caveat: so far as I know] get 10 on its stats, while a voratun glad ring can.), so it's not uncommon to replace older stuff fairly steadily. There's pretty comfortable tier breaks, and as a rule anything at least two tiers above an item is going to be noticeably better -- it's next to impossible for an iron weapon to beat out a d-steel, steel to be out stralite, d-steel, voratun. Stralite and lower quality voratun stuff is more equitable, but you'll probably (eventually) replace everything with fifth tier stuff (barring certain artifacts). Similarly the best iron can beat the worst steel, best steel worst d-steel, etc.
As a general rule, just try and keep whatever the "best" for a particular slot or stat is, if you're going to go through the effort. It can make many encounters considerably easier if you kit up for them. I'm just too lazy to go through the effort of swapping crap out ;D
Anyway, as you play more and see more crap (or code dive the objects folder and see what the maximum stats are :P), you get a better feel for what's particularly rare or unusually powerful or useful.
Post by: beorn080 on September 04, 2012, 12:38:27 am
Post by: Seriyu on September 04, 2012, 12:49:48 am
Post by: beorn080 on September 04, 2012, 12:55:29 am
Post by: Frumple on September 04, 2012, 01:17:42 am
Con kit helps pretty tremendously to qualify for the higher thick skin levels, heh. Quite a few little things like that, actually, especially with some of the odder artifacts that you might still be interested in using.
No guarantee the behavior sticks around, though. Quite a few folks with some influence over the development don't really like the kit swap mechanic, at least regarding stat qualification.
Post by: beorn080 on September 04, 2012, 02:17:19 am
Post by: Robsoie on September 04, 2012, 12:39:32 pm
Last time i went in that place was the last time i completed the game, it was a year ago.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So any strategy with melee only character to beat Sanctum in b42 ?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on September 04, 2012, 12:49:37 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on September 04, 2012, 01:01:57 pm
Spoiler: Some strat junk (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on September 04, 2012, 01:25:18 pm
I'll have to try the movement infusion, i saved one very nice in my equipment but forgot about it.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on September 04, 2012, 03:05:41 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Yes !
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
comment :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
A little annoyance breaking immersion that is always not adressed since last year :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: beorn080 on September 04, 2012, 03:34:26 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 05, 2012, 03:08:01 am
I gave a try to the 30 waves variant with a Dwarf Berserker and got killed in wave 25, out of healing solution as one of the opponent blocked all my infusion/runes early and they were hammering my character from every location.
The not really nice items i collected didn't really help as they were not offering any item based abilities.
The mid-boss nearly took forever to kill, dancing around the pillar to get my health back between 2 strikes (the thing hitting very hard), that giant unique snake thing was regenerating like crazy. A battle of attrition.
But all in all it's a very refreshing and fun way to play ToME4, will have to try again.
Post by: Robsoie on September 05, 2012, 01:35:11 pm
http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/4a675c82-0581-447f-901c-d423f2af51a7
The experience penalty Dwarves have is showing as he was only level 20 when i managed to defeat the master of the Arena, but lots of fun and some though fights.
Question about the Arena :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Question 2 :
Is there anything to do after completing the Arena and beating the arena master ?
I mean i can move my character around, there's no wave countdown anymore, and no exit anywhere, can only leave by pressing Escape and Save&Exit.
Or is that a bug ?
Post by: Frumple on September 05, 2012, 02:10:05 pm
As for the unique critters, I'm pretty sure the dialogue was just the original creator (DG wasn't the one that coded most of the arena module, actually~) playing around :P You might code dive to double check, though, I suppose...
The unique ones are set for the arena, though, they're not random.
Post by: Robsoie on September 05, 2012, 02:32:13 pm
For the unique girl and her intriguing dialogues, i guess i'll never know (can't find anything about this on the ToME4 boards too), not being able to read the matrix :D
Post by: Frumple on September 05, 2012, 02:41:48 pm
This is the totality for the bit of code you were asking about, actually:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You can check out the whole thing in ...\data\chats\arena.lua. The .team file in ...\game\modules\ is mostly just a renamed zip file, you can open it up with pretty much any archival tool (winzip/rar, .7zip, etc.).
Post by: Robsoie on September 05, 2012, 04:21:31 pm
Post by: dei on September 05, 2012, 09:25:27 pm
Post by: beorn080 on September 05, 2012, 11:42:41 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 06, 2012, 04:48:34 am
The bug is said to be fixed for the next version but sadly nothing can be done if you have no previous saved game backed up.
Post by: Graven on September 06, 2012, 08:15:29 am
Post by: Frumple on September 06, 2012, 08:34:50 am
Post by: Robsoie on September 06, 2012, 08:54:47 am
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2012/09/news/sneak-peak-b43-new-featureprodigies
Those "prodigies" sounds like they're a great addition because they're rewarding for the player to manage to get a character surviving up to that point.
Post by: dei on September 06, 2012, 09:20:32 am
I recall reading a while back that the caldera is extremely broken, they know about it, and the only fix is to save before going in, and back up that save to a different location. Otherwise, it should be fixed next beta. But I could be wrong.
Well after talking to some people on IRC last night I backed up my broken save for bug-fixing and decided to do something I've never done for any game - make multiple saves with different characters. As it stands right now the builds I want to play are...
- Higher Archmage
- Higher Alchemist
- Higher Necromancer
- Higher Paradox Mage
- Cornac Shadowblade
- Shalore Arcane Blade
- Thalore Summoner
- Thalore Archer
The rest don't sound very much like something I would want to play, and the ones I have listed sound like ones that would fit pretty well with concepts I have developing in my head. Last night before I went to bed I started up Granmeri and Aldeen, a Higher Archmage and a Higher Alchemist respectively. The next one on my list that I have unlocked right now is a Cornac Shadowblade, which I'll work on after I not only get back from my appointment today but also after I write down the character description for Aldeen. I wrote one for Granmeri the day before yesterday and revised it again the same day, and I'm pretty satisfied with her description.
...I do the whole description thing for both creative reasons and as part of an experiment into psychology that I've been running and tweaking since I was around eight or nine years old, though it's not so much of an experiment as it is a coping mechanism. However the last time I explained it in depth to someone I got mixed reactions - some thought I was imaginative while others thought I was downright loony. Either way this bit of experimentation helps me enjoy games like Tales of Maj'Eyal more by giving me a face to the character I'm playing and allowing me to form a greater sense of attachment, among other things.
Looks like lots of new fun is planned for the next version :I like the sound of [REDACTED] on an Archmage personally, though as I said on the ToME forums just a little bit ago I would probably have to improve my build and overall strategy for Granmeri by around 200% just to even be able to reach level 40 under ten percent of the time. If I go by the statistics I have built up for myself I can get Granmeri to around level 20 or higher about thirty percent of the time. That's over six runs that I've done with her so far and with the average level she rises to before game over time being about 17.
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2012/09/news/sneak-peak-b43-new-featureprodigies
Those "prodigies" sounds like they're a great addition because they're rewarding for the player to manage to get a character surviving up to that point.
If I wanted Granmeri to actually beat the game I would have to get about a 250% improvement. The 200% to get the first prodigy would mean her average level would have to be 34, while in order to beat the game her average level on a non-successful run would have to be 43. If these predictions I am making come true then going by how fast it's taken me to rise to that average level I am at now compared to how long it took me for my first roguelike - It took me seven years just to get to an average level of 13 in that game and that is still my average today - I'm guessing that I might beat Tales of Maj'Eyal within the next five to seven months.
I'm probably going to be wrong on this one though, but then again you never know. It is my opinion though that Tales of Maj'Eyal is a lot easier to get into and understand than Ancient Domains of Mystery, somewhat easier than Dungeon Crawl and Gruesome, and a little bit easier than Dwarf Fortress. I hope I am right and Tales of Maj'Eyal is the first roguelike I am ever able to beat but honestly I'm just going to wait and see.
Anyways, I've got to get going for an appointment out of town with my psychiatrist. I'll see to finding out a nice little concept for a Cornac Shadowblade while I'm on the bus I guess? Either way, have fun today.
Post by: Robsoie on September 06, 2012, 12:27:40 pm
Lots of people are coping with their personnal problems, their pain, etc .. with working and creating something, writing is one of the methods to achieve this as it get your own focus on something else than your own problems.
Additionally i'm sure the devs may be open to additional lore and stories could be perfect for helping on that point, the lore documents you find ingame are really helping to make the ToME4 world more interesting.
Post by: Wirevix on September 06, 2012, 05:59:08 pm
I'm a little frustrated that the Thalorians always start you out inside Nogor's Lair, though. There aren't enough monsters in that forest to get me up anywhere near high enough to kill that bear, but since it starts you there I figured I was doing something wrong and it took 3 playthroughs before I gave up and started leaving the dungeon as soon as the game starts. With how much health he's got, and how often he stuns, he's just murder to the level 3~ish Archers I was trying to fight him with.
Maybe it's just because I'm terrible at the game~
Post by: Seriyu on September 06, 2012, 06:02:21 pm
Disengage is good to have for archers, for situations like that. Also heave for when you're against a wall.
Post by: Flying Dice on September 06, 2012, 06:24:07 pm
Post by: dei on September 06, 2012, 07:28:57 pm
Why not try to start writing a story setup in the ToME4 world ? you're already creating descriptions and background for your characters, so why not get into the next step and write a story with them, could be a good way to focus your imagination out of your personnal problems.
Lots of people are coping with their personnal problems, their pain, etc .. with working and creating something, writing is one of the methods to achieve this as it get your own focus on something else than your own problems.
Additionally i'm sure the devs may be open to additional lore and stories could be perfect for helping on that point, the lore documents you find ingame are really helping to make the ToME4 world more interesting.
...I would like to write a story featuring my characters but I don't think I could stay strictly in the Tales of Maj'Eyal setting. For one I have a tendency to not stick within the canon of any franchise and instead take what I understand about it and throw in my own headcanon for the rest of it. I don't always understand what the canon is or the words being used to describe it and because of this my imagination fills in the rest with something that makes sense to me.
Take the Higher for example. I know they are part of an experiment that the Conclave performed, but I don't know the ends of what kind of experiment it was. So my mind filled in the blanks and said that the Higher are incestuous and despite no longer being part of an experiment they continue this today out of habit.
Hence why most Higher I can picture in my head look the same, with blonde hair, ivory skin and blue-green heterochromatic eyes. The blonde goes from a platinum blonde to a strawberry blonde similar to what I have, and the ivory skin ranges from bone-white ivory to a kind of creamy ivory. The blue-green heterochromatic eyes range from sapphires and emeralds to blueberries and limes, and tend to reflect their owner's magical nature that in turn represents itself as an affinity with a certain element. Granmeri for example has electrified sapphire and emerald eyes while Aldeen has fiery and passionate sky blue and moss green eyes.
In turn however this leads me to believe that most Higher end up in arranged marriages with one of their cousins, with any other sort of relationship like that being considered taboo. What's more, a Higher that falls in love with someone that they don't have some blood relation to is shunned by their kind and often times ostracized if not downright persecuted or exiled.
Aldeen is one of those Higher that didn't want to marry her first cousin because she was in love with a Cornac man. The man himself was assassinated and Aldeen was disowned and disinherited. This somehow ended up with her disregarding most human men entirely out of trauma and with her falling in love with her golem, whom she named Golgotha. She even went as far as to imbue this golem with an intelligence and personality that was similar to the man she had once loved, a man who could be described best as a lumberjack with a hearty laugh and a love for pancakes and pancake-chested women.
Granmeri on the other hand wasn't part of an influential family like Aldeen and just didn't like her cousin because of how harsh and unjust of a man he was. He beat her and abused her and this eventually lead to her taking his life. She fled from Higher society with bounty hunters on her tail, and began training as an archmage with the help of a very generous old man who taught her everything she knew while hiding her from them. She did this so she could take back the power that had been taken from her as well as find her place in the world outside of Higher culture. However, she is too nervous to take much of a risk despite her power which fries goblins and puts holes in the chests of trolls, and she doesn't really assert herself when there is a problem. She hasn't really found her place in the world yet because of this.
Anyways, I haven't really fleshed out much of an idea for Cornac, Shalore and Thalore save for a few seeds of understanding for them. I see the Cornac as the everyman, with the best and the worst of what humanity has to offer in every package, usually in some kind of expressive or eccentric way. Shalore and Thalore however I can only sum up as "gray elves" and "wood elves" respectively. However that leads me to at the very least a visual of what they look like in my head.
Shalore to me seem like they would have pale skin, and that their hair would be white, silver, gold or auburn. They would also have eyes in shades of purple, gold and silver as well. A Shalore might stand about a head above a human but many would be a head or two below that of a Cornac, with a few inches of height given to the males as well. The men would be lean and somewhat frail while the women would be delicate and a little curvy. Shalore would also have limp wrists but nimble fingers that could make gestures that no human hand ever could.
The Thalore on the other hand would have earthy tans that cover their whole bodies and hairs ranging from black to brown to blonde. Their eyes would be more along the lines of brown and green and their ears would be a bit longer than the Shalore. A Thalore might stand at the same height as a human but would on average be half a head shorter, with the advantage of height being an extra three or four inches on the female. The men would be masculine, both muscular and well-endowed, yet light and nimble at the same time. The women would be feminine, with soft curves, fertile hips and little muscle tone but the same lightness and nimble bodies as the men. Their eyes would be a bit more narrow than the Shalore and their fingers like those of the finest craftsmen, able to fletch arrows, carve wood and sew garments of fine quality.
It also seems like to me that the Shalore would be noble and kind yet at the same time intolerant and unforgiving, while the Thalore would be wary and unwilling to trust but once that trust is earned you have a friend for life. Thalore also seem like they would have a lust for life and insatiable appetites, thus leading to many a banquet held within the forests they call home. On top of that I think the Thalore would also be skilled hunters and would probably have diets that involve large amounts of meat, while the Shalore seem like they would have a diet similar to that of a human.
I don't know about the others yet though as I haven't spent much time with them. I might get around to learning about the Dwarves eventually but as for Halflings I dislike them in any setting that isn't Tolkien-themed and I dislike them even more from what I've heard so far about what they've done in Tales of Maj'Eyal.
Anyways, back to the original suggestion. I might consider writing a story sometime but again I tend to not understand the canon very well with most franchises because of how it's explained and what not. It's kind of difficult for me to understand most franchises and their canon because it's not explained efficiently enough or with the right words that my crippled Autistic brain can understand and comprehend. Either way I don't think that I could contribute some kind of story that didn't either not coincide with the canon of Tales of Maj'Eyal or didn't somehow not only not coincide with Tales of Maj'Eyal but also cross over into one of my other stories related to one of dozens of franchises ranging from The Elder Scrolls to Dwarf Fortress to Steins;Gate to South Park to My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic.
The world inside my head that encompasses all of these and dozens more is like some kind of messed up multiplicity-themed pseudo-pornographic Mexican soap opera turned into some magnum opus of meme-ridden harem fanfiction that reads more like a video game than Homestuck. If I try to somehow focus all of that imagination inside my head on one franchise it's not only going to be difficult but somehow something I won't be able to do without fully immersing myself in the game for long enough to know the canon and the story by heart. It's part of the reason why when I write about the descriptions and background stories for my characters I leave it at that - because if I try any more it's going to be too difficult for me to do right now without somehow screwing things up more than my landlord's vast collection of power tools.
I will consider it though. If I can write it more like a documentary than an actual story I can do it like that. I tend to do better with writing if I describe it or write it in some kind of textbook format. Come to think of it I probably should have just said that instead of writing this post for the past two hours.
I don't feel like deleting it.
EDIT: I am so retarded right now. I failed to understand the third part of the suggestion that had been quoted. Sure I would love to contribute to the lore of Tales of Maj'Eyal, and hopefully next time when something like that is suggested I don't go full-blown maximum Autism and fill your screens with a wall of text the size of a bottle of detergent.
That sort of happens when I work on writing the same damn post for two hours.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on September 06, 2012, 10:13:38 pm
In any case, running the first few levels of several starter dungeons is generally advised before taking on a boss.
IMO, bad advice, bosses will just level up with you. And most bosses just need caution, some pillar dancing and active usage of infusions will do the job
Post by: Wirevix on September 06, 2012, 10:27:50 pm
Post by: beorn080 on September 06, 2012, 11:44:19 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 07, 2012, 12:15:05 am
As an escape it's only really useful for breaking LoS by knocking yourself back near a corner or corridor and hopping in that, buying yourself another turn or two for the actual escape methods to become ready. Problem being you do actually have a target, which can make it somewhat unattractive in certain situations (quick moving enemy just outside your vision range, around a corner, etc.).
Still. It is pretty decent for archers, maybe a couple of other classes; ones that can make particularly good use of a short breather. 'Course, late game disengaging often doesn't do much besides open yourself to the enemy's deliciously violent array of mid to long rage death, but hey, what can you do :P
Post by: lemon10 on September 07, 2012, 03:27:14 am
My level 24 solipsist (that just completed dredfell) left a town to the world map. It failed to load and when I restarted the game, it loaded but with a black screen instead of the world map (and trying to move causes an error).
If it was a local map, then I would be able to teleport away back up, or even kill myself and get ressurected at the world map, but I don't think there is a way to fix this (and my last save was ~4 hours ago).
Really bloody annoying.
Post by: Frumple on September 07, 2012, 03:40:09 am
That said, if you'd just completed dreadfell, your latest save was when either when you entered or left the joint, unless you've been mucking around with the lua. T4 autosaves in a lot of situations, but even at the absolute least on zone change. The black screen instead of a load does say something probably went bottoms up with your save, though. DG might be able to fix that, yeah.
Post by: lemon10 on September 07, 2012, 04:02:30 am
My best bet for what happened was that the game set my location to some bizzare variable, so that I was nowhere on the map, so when I tried to move it spit out a error because there was nothing anywhere.
Post by: RedKing on September 07, 2012, 08:06:48 am
Post by: Robsoie on September 07, 2012, 08:56:18 am
And the solution was
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on September 07, 2012, 05:08:34 pm
Can't believe the amount of "enemy making 1 shot as soon as enemy appears or is out of view = yeek dead" situation i met with these characters.
I even had to replace my manasurge rune by the unique shield reflection rune to avoid certain death in some zones, so i could activate the shield and take the damage before being able to do anything else instead of losing a life.
Must be hell to try to play a Yeek Archimage in roguelike difficulty.
Post by: Un67 on September 07, 2012, 05:26:33 pm
Post by: Neonivek on September 07, 2012, 05:33:12 pm
I've never found a reason to play a race that was outright better but earned exp slower.
Post by: lemon10 on September 07, 2012, 10:21:26 pm
After rescuing my Soliphist from the horrors of glitching, it seems the games autosave function (at least on this account) is completely broken.
Last night play for ~three hours, it borked out and froze upon loading (which isn't uncommon for mea t least), when I loaded it this morning, it was at the same state as it was yesterday (with the same character level and items). I fix it again, and play for ~1 and a half hours (saving it manually once), when it crashes next, it goes back to where I manually saved it (erasing my completion of crypt ). I think this dude is permanently broken, so at least I will try to unlock yeek with him, so my next dude will be a yeek sophilist (which I suppose I will start as soon as I unlock him, since I think it will save more time then having the game screw me multiple times over the course of the game by not saving like it should and crashing).
Post by: Graven on September 08, 2012, 03:21:08 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 08, 2012, 03:38:26 pm
Nothing better than to break your whole game and force you to restart from scratch when you land into a bugged area and the ugly autosave will save there, preventing you to play anymore if you don't backup a save before
I hope the dev will seriously consider to make that autosaving an option, allowing the player to save only -when he wants to save- and when quitting.
But in the current state, it's very annoying, add too much time in which you do nothing but wait for that double autosave to work, and that without mentionning the possibility of breaking your character definitively too.
Post by: Frumple on September 08, 2012, 03:45:32 pm
Beyond that, I think there will be a disable auto-save (except for the get-zone-out-of-memory bit) option at some point in the future, once DG stops active development (On the main maj'eyal module, anyway). The other half of autosave is to help with debugging and suchlike, yeah.
In the meantime, someone capable of decoding lua could probably hunt down the saving stuff somewhere in the code and spit out a little addon just flat out disabling non-manual saves. Just expect it to cause some problems, heh.
Post by: Robsoie on September 08, 2012, 04:09:03 pm
Post by: Graven on September 08, 2012, 04:44:47 pm
On an unrelated topic, does anyone have any Temporal Warden advice? I'm trying Solipsist now, and the overabundance of options reminds me of how I felt when I first tried TW. TWs remain my second favourite class after the Paradox Mage, but the last win in the Vault is in b040, and there were nerfs to the paradox classes later than that, weren't there?
I'm mostly interested in a melee-oriented TW, but good ranged build advice is also quite welcome.
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2012, 12:39:01 am
The big thing I find with a TW is not getting into a single build mentality... if you're really trying to get a TW through, you don't run a melee build, or a bow build, or a caster build, or whatever, really. What you want to do is invest your talent points so you can leverage all of that maximally. So this means stuff like investing as little as possible for the greatest benefit, and generally trying to overlap as little as possible, at least for the early-mid. You want flurry and you might want sweep, but you can probably do without whirlwind; your paradox talents (especially slow, but also stop and echos) cover AoE damage plenty, and you don't want to be fully surrounded in almost any situation. You want dual arrows (it's a free damage boost on your bow attacks), but you probably don't want volley of arrows (AoE, yadda). You don't really need much beyond a few points into dimstep for a long, long time. When you can, invest in stuff that's going to have a multiplicative effect on your other capabilities -- slow and haste are both good examples of this, and I personally place much, much higher value on them than stop.
When it comes to actual on-the-ground; though it can be annoying to keep swapping, use that bow and consider prioritizing debuff-capable bows and ammo. Max out celerity and make sure you're in melee with melee enemies as little as possible; if at all able, only use a melee attack when you can one-shot something. Even a primarily melee build is going to be seriously benefitted by heavy utilization of ranged force and control. Similarly, don't try to win a ranged fight with most ranged enemies; drop a slow on them, dimstep or movement infusion over, and lay down a double strike->flurry. Fight the enemy where they're weakest, instead of where you're strongest, basically, because a TW is built best when it's not strongest anywhere.
The TW talent set makes them one of the classes most able to do just that, whereas most classes are more about maximizing their own strengths and leveraging them unilaterally. Wardens do better when they instead maximize enemy weakness and adjust their tactics to take advantage of that. Choose your battles, choose your battlegrounds, etc., so forth, so on. You've got the speed, mobility, debuffs, and damage, to basically fix every fight in the game specifically to your favor. Do so. Stack the odds.
Post by: dei on September 09, 2012, 01:20:55 am
Also, how do I build a Shadowblade for speed and high damage output? How do I build an Alchemist for high damage output and the golem for maximum damage and durability? Is Freeze a good choice to add onto an Archmage? What about Stone Wall, is that good to add onto an Archmage? Does Command Staff and Change Damage affect the damage of an Alchemist's bombs? I'm sorry for asking so many questions, I'm just wanting to get them all out at once while I'm here and can remember them due to the whole short term memory loss bit I deal with on a regular basis.
I'm going to sleep now because honestly I have got to wake up before 9:00 AM tomorrow, though preferably before 7:00 AM for once. Good night.
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2012, 02:25:29 am
SBs get speed primarily from essence of speed (temporal tree) and momentum, but both are pretty late game due to how expensive they are. Maybe blinding speed and some conditional stuff (Shalore racial, fire harmony). Before that, they're primarily burst melee guys (flurry/sweep with the added darkness damage) with high mobility (controlled phase door), so it's nothing really fancy. Remember the second tier talent in the tree that has willful combat is an instant, so it doesn't take time to use. SBs can also invest in the phantasm tree if they're fully plucky; there's some nice stuff in there.
Alchemist damage output comes naturally; max the bomb tree except shockwave (which is mostly junk), and then invest in two infusion talents (I tend toward fire and acid; most tend to take fire and one of the debuff-able infusions. Fire hits a bit harder, but the crowd control can be useful). Generally you'll want to use the highest tier gem you can get access to, as bomb damage scales with gem tier. Other than that, you just get channel staff to at least 3/5 (initially; you'll max it eventually) and max out staff mastery. Get a nice staff and channel will pretty easily be chunking off 1-200 HP per turn at range by the time you're twenty-ish. You can invest in the heat tree, but it will never do more damage than your bombs can; it's more for supplement while the bombs are cooling down than an actual primary damage source, though there's some utility, too.
Golem durability and damage comes from the first two talents in the basic golemancy tree, the gem and runic golem talents, and supercharge golem. The first two are no-brainers, simple passive boosts. Gem golem allows you to change the golem's base damage type (so a golem with an amethyst in its eye will do arcane instead of physical when it beats on something, ferex.) as well as adjust the golem slightly as needed to lean toward damage (+% alldam or stats) or durability (+% resall), usually you'll gem the golem toward resistance to stack with the golem resilience talent. You'll also want to stick an appropriate gem in the golem's armor with imbue.
Runic massively increases the golem's regen (boosting it further with a verdant/eyal heavy or massive armor is possible! Chainmail of bloodletting is also pretty good.) and allows you to stick extra offensive runes on the golem (I lean toward the fire and lightning one's, but acid wave can be good, too. Don't use frost spear. Rune of the rift is a possibility on a magic-leaning golem, but requires willpower to land easily, so is sub-par.) for extra damage. Know that the golem starts with three inscription slots, same as the player, so 5/5 runic golem actually gives the golem six, total. Get two shield runes (and possibly the rune of absorption or whatev', if you happen upon the troll hedge wizard) and then load up on damage runes.
Supercharge gives the golem massive healing as well as insta-resurrects the golem if it's dead (unlike refit, which takes many turns) -- you can use it two ways, mostly; preemptively at the start of a fight to lengthen the golem's up time, or save it to resurrect the golem after it drops. Sometimes if you do the former, the talent will have came off cool down before the golem pops, letting you very much massively extend the golem's presence in a fight.
Freeze is an excellent single-target debuff and alright damage. Most archmagi stick at least one point into it, more id they've got the points to spare. Stone wall is pretty useful, but somewhat situationally so, and you can get it on a hat. YMMV, I've personally never really used it much.
The +% damage on staves effect everything. Bomb damage, heat tree, channel staff, smacking things in the head, whatever. Doesn't boost the golem (though it does boost the damage on summoner summons! Iirc, anyway.), but that's about it. Vilestaves are excellent on an acid/fire alchemist, especially if it's a greater prefix ego.
Questions are fine, heh. There's also the t4 forums and the in-game chat, if you want second opinions or on the fly advice or answers.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on September 09, 2012, 04:36:44 am
Concentrating solely on strength and dexterity gives you insane damage with arrows, especially with maxed strength of purpose and weapon folding, and without melee weapons you can avoid spending generic points on weapon skills, and high dexterity let's not spending points on combat accuracy, all that generic points can be used for racials (Shaloren and skeletons have cool options for archery based warden) and bringing armour training to 10 (that will improve your survivability, trust me)
Post by: Graven on September 09, 2012, 05:54:52 am
I generally prefer melee classes to ranged ones, and back in b038 melee TW was quite possible. Guess I'll try a generalist/ranged one.
I also tried Solipsist, and it's balls out easy. You can tank through almost anything and do incredible sustained damage. Really, really needs a nerf. You have great CC, you can base your entire defence on your mental saves, you have a controlled phase door... My first death was to a fellow Solipsist unique, albeit a snake. Then I died 3 times to the Minotaur since I hadn't anything to rid me of stun, so I got mad and quit.
Weirdly enough I feel I don't like the Solipsist. Sure, he plays great, is really powerful and has some fun talents... I don't actually know why I don't like it. Ever had this happen to you? There's a class in an rpg or whatever that you ... just don't like in general. Without a reason. Kind of the opposite of how I feel about Doomed and Cursed. Maybe it's the [miniature] lore, like ability description and even names of talents.
Wow, this feels dumb when I try to type it out. On the other hand the Dreamforge line of talents is incredible. I could base a god damn novel on that thing alone.
Post by: lemon10 on September 09, 2012, 06:55:50 am
Post by: Robsoie on September 09, 2012, 09:13:15 am
But it will take a while before he's able to deal the "600 damage in 1 hit" required to unlock the Marauder, i have read a bit on the tome4 board about the talents to use, hopefully i'll keep it surviving until then.
And mostly everything seems to be able to see my character when i have activated the stealth talent, looks like i'll have to put more points in it to improve its efficiency, as getting into high damage are requiring hitting something while being stealthy.
Post by: Terra_Inc on September 09, 2012, 11:28:10 am
And mostly everything seems to be able to see my character when i have activated the stealth talent, looks like i'll have to put more points in it to improve its efficiency, as getting into high damage are requiring hitting something while being stealthy.
Early game stealth is basically useless for sneaking up to an enemy. The main use of stealth in that part of the game is to keep ranged enemies from hitting you consistently - they'll miss a lot even if they see you every now and then. It nicely complements Rush, if you're going for that (which I personally would recommend).
Once you have more levels and more points in stealth / higher cun, you can sneak up to most enemies quite easily. My b39 rogue had no problems sneaking up to the master and killifying him quickly. Combine maxed stealth with maxed shadowstrike and do a flurry or whirlwind. Pure carnage, I tell you.
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2012, 11:57:27 am
And re: focused TW: I definitely agree it's possible; my TW winner (albeit many versions back and utterly ridiculous -- four stats over 200, ultimately broke the game in the post-game by getting movement speed below zero, etc.) was primarily melee spec'd. Doing so closes off parts of your toolset unnecessarily, though, which is why a focused TW is going to be weaker almost necessarily.
That said, if you are going to focus, definitely focus on either a ranged or caster (or hybrid archer/caster) build; TW mobility means you completely trivialize most melee enemies in the game innately (celerity kiting means you can kill pretty much anything without rush or a ranged talent with tier one ammo all the way up into the late game) and bows later in the game both do utterly ridiculous amount of damage (especially randart ones that manage to stack some speed reduction) and are much, much safer for the relatively squishy warden.
As for armor training, I'd be cautious. You can do it, but remember and remember well that fatigue (coming from, say, the heavy or massive armor you have to wear to really take advantage of heavy investment in armor training) makes you more likely to bugger up your paradox talents. Either that or makes the more likely to explode badly... something like that. Fatigue on a chronomancer is a bad thing nowadays :P Of course, a nice lil'feathersteel amulet can make most fatigue problems go away, and chronomancers really like the improved feathersteel amulet, so...
Post by: Robsoie on September 09, 2012, 02:28:14 pm
And ARGHHHH
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on September 09, 2012, 05:05:32 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
My Rogue had just reached level 21 and got lucky on this one, a Shadowblade that was lost alone in the Daikara.
Funny that at level 21 my Cornac Rogue that does not have much Constitution (didn't put any points so far, but will do from now) has already the double of health than my poor Yeek Archimage had (despite i increased his Constitution) at the same level.
No wonder everything seemed to be able to one-shot the poor guy at that level.
Only 2 classes left, the 2nd one from the Temporal branch and the new one that i'm not going to unlock in b42 due to the Caldera ruining my saved game if i enter in it.
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2012, 06:06:16 pm
If you're looking for the *band variant experience, go with T2, not T3. Or... don't, really. *Bands are kinda' stale, imo :P You might try furyband, though it's a little crazy.
Or steamband. Steamband's just about the only *band variant I'd really recommend, ha. Unless you count Sil, I guess. Or a few other things. The *bands are alright for what they are, but they're definitely a different sort of beast compared to the other major roguelikes.
Post by: dei on September 09, 2012, 06:26:02 pm
-a metric fuckton of useful advice I am saving to a txt for my own personal use-Thank you for the advice, I appreciate it. I'll make use of it sometime tonight as I've just thought out the concepts needed for me to make my Temporal Warden and Shadowblade. I'm working on concepts for Summoner, Archer and Arcane Blade as well, so I'll ask about those next time.
However I don't really find the t4 forums, IRC or the ingame chat to be as helpful as coming here and asking people in a thread that is both themed around the game and in a more comfortable environment. I always feel iffy about phpbb forums and IRC anyways, and ingame chat goes by too fast in the main window and not fast enough with the logs.
Soliphists are the only class that should have no trouble taking out soliphist rares, since their main threat is that they will sleep you for like 5 turns and do like 500 damage and eat through all your sheilds, if you have the lucid dreaming talent on (which you should always have on at least at level one as soon as you get it), then they can't sleep you, and become a pushover pretty much.
I can regularly take out Soliphist rares with an Archmage and careful use of tactics. I fight at least three every other run from what I recall, but then again I'm talking about Solophist rats, slimes and skeletons. I haven't gotten a character past level 23 either and the worst I've fought was a pair of Soliphist adventurers. Never again.
Post by: DeKaFu on September 09, 2012, 07:37:05 pm
Soliphists
Soliphist rares Solophist rats Soliphist adventurers
Nooooo
It's solipsist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism).
I've been playing this a lot lately. I managed to get a halfling rogue up to level 20 before dying miserably, and am currently running a dwarf wyrmic. I'm around level 18 with my skills spread pretty thin. Having a lot of trouble deciding which drake skills are worth the points. :/
Edit:
As a more general question, is it generally advisable to toss all your stat points into the main 2-3 stats for your class, or is it better to spread things around a bit more?
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2012, 07:51:29 pm
Particularly sand, but ice and lightning also help with the crowd control. You want swallow, especially if you go antimagic, and doubly so in the mid-game and beyond; the higher level the enemy, the more equilibrium swallow restores on consume. You can expect to keep antimagic shield running indefinitely on a higher end wyrmic, if you go antimagic. You probably want burrow, eventually (it's been recommended previously on this thread, by someone else: Mix burrow with lightning speed or a movement infusion for an incredible escape method), and quake can do some interesting stuff (it moves anything.).
You definitely want lightning speed, though how many points in it is up to you, so long as you have at least one. In all seriousness, one of your two starting class points should be going into it. The other two storm talents are somewhat iffy, but not terrible (just not wonderful) now that static field can land on more stuff. The flame talents are solid enough, especially the first tier one once you've got some stats to back it up; confusion is incredibly powerful. The rest of the fire ones are just fairly solid damage talents.
E to the E: Generally you're going to max your primary stat, followed by your secondary, only dipping into other stats as necessary. A wyrmic, ferex, might put a bit in con if they're having trouble with their HP and a bit in dex if they're having trouble hitting things, but is mostly going to be putting everything into strength and then willpower, or the other way around depending on which talents you're focusing on first. They might go 2/1 into both and alternate or something, too. You hit level cap pretty quickly (early/mid teens, iirc) if you're going all-in on a single stat, and can spread the leftovers around as needed after that while still keeping your primary stat topped off.
Things get more complicated with classes that have more that two major stats (arcane blades, ferex); generally for them I find that beelining for your talent's stat reqs is most important, after which you can invest as needed to cover holes or boost effectiveness, whatever you need.
Post by: DeKaFu on September 09, 2012, 08:55:14 pm
Any thoughts on Icy Skin? The extra damage was nice at the start but I'm not sure it'll be worth much in the long run. Is it worth investing in/keeping turned on just for the armor boost?
There's a lot of intriguing classes and races in this game that I want to try that I've never managed to unlock, and probably won't for a long time since I'm generally avoiding unlock spoilers. I actually kind of like the fact that you need to unlock things... It means you have something to look forward to when your better-than-ever-before character inevitably gets killed. :P
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2012, 09:23:54 pm
You might consider avoiding going full out into it if you're not intending to go above leather for your body armor, though. Deciding on that probably depends on if you find nature's blessing or not, heh, since you're running antimagic.
Post by: lemon10 on September 09, 2012, 10:57:51 pm
If you are careful (and recognize them as soon as they appear ideally), then you should be able to take them out without that much problem, ESPECIALLY if you have played one before (otherwise they are kind of a black box).-a metric fuckton of useful advice I am saving to a txt for my own personal use-Thank you for the advice, I appreciate it. I'll make use of it sometime tonight as I've just thought out the concepts needed for me to make my Temporal Warden and Shadowblade. I'm working on concepts for Summoner, Archer and Arcane Blade as well, so I'll ask about those next time.
However I don't really find the t4 forums, IRC or the ingame chat to be as helpful as coming here and asking people in a thread that is both themed around the game and in a more comfortable environment. I always feel iffy about phpbb forums and IRC anyways, and ingame chat goes by too fast in the main window and not fast enough with the logs.Soliphists are the only class that should have no trouble taking out soliphist rares, since their main threat is that they will sleep you for like 5 turns and do like 500 damage and eat through all your sheilds, if you have the lucid dreaming talent on (which you should always have on at least at level one as soon as you get it), then they can't sleep you, and become a pushover pretty much.
I can regularly take out Soliphist rares with an Archmage and careful use of tactics. I fight at least three every other run from what I recall, but then again I'm talking about Solophist rats, slimes and skeletons. I haven't gotten a character past level 23 either and the worst I've fought was a pair of Soliphist adventurers. Never again.
As any class that heavily relies on shields, they are extremely dangerous, as they are very easily able to break a 1000 point shield (especially if they they aren't alone) and deal you 100 points of damage on top of that (with some bad luck you can go from 1000 point shield+full health to dead between actions).
Whoa Frumple, those there are some huge posts. Thanks! You too, Ranger :)Yeah agree with everything you say here (well, don't know about the Dreamforge talents, since I haven't really tried them out).
I generally prefer melee classes to ranged ones, and back in b038 melee TW was quite possible. Guess I'll try a generalist/ranged one.
I also tried Solipsist, and it's balls out easy. You can tank through almost anything and do incredible sustained damage. Really, really needs a nerf. You have great CC, you can base your entire defence on your mental saves, you have a controlled phase door... My first death was to a fellow Solipsist unique, albeit a snake. Then I died 3 times to the Minotaur since I hadn't anything to rid me of stun, so I got mad and quit.
Weirdly enough I feel I don't like the Solipsist. Sure, he plays great, is really powerful and has some fun talents... I don't actually know why I don't like it. Ever had this happen to you? There's a class in an rpg or whatever that you ... just don't like in general. Without a reason. Kind of the opposite of how I feel about Doomed and Cursed. Maybe it's the [miniature] lore, like ability description and even names of talents.
Wow, this feels dumb when I try to type it out. On the other hand the Dreamforge line of talents is incredible. I could base a god damn novel on that thing alone.
And yeah, Soliphists (Yeah, thats right mister "Hey, don't spell things completely wrong", I will spell things wrong any way I want :P), would be totally awesome as mages or a class/category of magic in a fantasy universe.
You should have almost no trouble beating the game as a Yeek Solopist. Next version they will probably be nerfed quite a bit, so that window of opportunity will be closed.
On my second try with a Sopolist (first try ended due to game glitching out on me), I got to level 44 (10 levels farther then I have gotten, and quite a few quests further then I have ever gotten before), in addition, almost all of my deaths were completely avoidable if I had been thinking a little better or paying more attention or just a little more prudent (except one where the game killed me in three turns when I accidentally moved three times due to terrible lag).
They are so strong, they have excellent utility (group sleeps, individual sleeps that easily work on bosses, knockback, vortex that sucks enemies in), damage (mindblast, nightmares (which is a 5 turn disable+500 group damage)), tankiness (due to how they avoid damage), pretty good summons (you can summon clones of a boss using one of your abilties that can tie him down for like a dozen turns, (and if yeek the yeek mindslayers as well)), crazy hard TO disable (get crazy high saving throws for everything, they can probably sleep anything nearby if they aren't outright dazed, immune to silence, immune to sleep, can regenerate all their psi in a single turn with a simple healing infusion).
Yeah, they are pretty boring though, especially compared to archmages (who they can eat for breakfast in battle if they were both played with human level intelligence).
EDIT: I am pretty sure saving throws aren't perfectly linear (eg. a +10 to mental save doesn't give +10 if your mental save is already there), does anyone know how exactly your saving throw is determined?
EDIT2: If you are planning on playing a solypist, then you should avoid the discharge and thought form tree. Discharge does damage about equal of what you already sustain, requires you not to move or cast any other abilities and basically require that you get wailed on if you want to get a decent damage from it, as well as having to have like 6 enemies in view the whole time its on (even with like 8 points in it its pretty useless). Thought-form doesn't scale very well and isn't really much good as anything other then distraction (which it might be worth putting 4 points into just so you can summon each of them one after the other to soak up some damage).
Post by: Frumple on September 09, 2012, 11:25:56 pm
It may be 1-9, 10-19, etc. Still, something like that. There's better details from folks that actually bother to remember how the numbers work over on the main t4 forum. Frumple just knows that more = better and doesn't really pay attention to a metric beyond that :P
E: Strong disagreement on thought-forged, especially if you're planning on doing anything with feedback. They're your best source of getting feedback and easily one of the best summons in the game, with excellent scaling, random kit, and the ability to turn into damage monsters when under the effect of overmind. I'm still not 100% sure how well they do in the 40-50 level range, but my yeek solipsist that's in the thirties has been soloing farportal bosses with overmind thought-forged and the bonus you get from having a defender or warrior (especially warrior) up is pretty big. Major reqs, and having a second target around can never be underestimated.
I'd recommend 5/5 first tier, I think three into second (there's a point where they get two tlvls for one point investment, it's either two or three points invested), and 5/5 last tier (but a flat minimum of one, to get the feedback return), with as much in overmind as you can spare. 5/5 overmind on a bowman with a high level bow is an absolute monstrosity, and can do more damage in a single turn than a lot of things in the game.
Post by: dei on September 10, 2012, 01:26:22 am
Right now Weissel has a psychic's regeneration infusion as well as a psychic's wild infusion that cures physical and magical ailments and I think a sneak's wild infusion that cures mental ailments. That seems to have worked well so far but in the long run what kind of inscriptions should she have?
Tomorrow I'm going to play some more with Weissel and spend time with Granmeri - my female Higher Archmage - and work on starting Aldeen - my female Higher Alchemist - up again as well. Right now I'm too tired to consider doing that right now, as it's been a stressful weekend with the partying my roommates have been doing and with one of my friend's in the hospital.
Post by: Frumple on September 10, 2012, 01:43:56 am
Movement infusions are almost a definite if you're not undead, though, at least one. They combine with celerity and haste (just make sure to cast haste before popping the rune) in an incredible way. Two is usually overkill, but at the same time double movement infusion gives you supreme control over positioning, especially when stacked with the various mobility talents TWs have. Just one is probably enough, though.
Post by: Robsoie on September 10, 2012, 05:34:32 am
So unless you're going to the anti-magic zigur branch, check if any of your worn item is powered by "arcane-disrupting force".
Whatever great the item appears to be , it is in fact a sure way to get killed when your life-saving powers/runes/talent will suddenly refuse to activate when you really need them in battle :D
Post by: Waterplouf on September 10, 2012, 12:19:43 pm
I just downloaded the game and I was messing around with the graphic mode and now I don't know how to switch back to the initial graphical tiles ? ( I kind of feel a little bit derp :P )
Post by: lemon10 on September 10, 2012, 12:31:20 pm
Post by: Waterplouf on September 10, 2012, 12:35:37 pm
I had a bug where the shockbolt actually didn't change anything, so I thought it was another ascii-like tile set. A reboot and everything was fine.
Post by: lemon10 on September 10, 2012, 12:51:55 pm
E: Strong disagreement on thought-forged, especially if you're planning on doing anything with feedback. They're your best source of getting feedback and easily one of the best summons in the game, with excellent scaling, random kit, and the ability to turn into damage monsters when under the effect of overmind. I'm still not 100% sure how well they do in the 40-50 level range, but my yeek solipsist that's in the thirties has been soloing farportal bosses with overmind thought-forged and the bonus you get from having a defender or warrior (especially warrior) up is pretty big. Major reqs, and having a second target around can never be underestimated.Hm... I only ever put 4 points in it early on, and it wasn't really very much help except as a distraction I guess.
I'd recommend 5/5 first tier, I think three into second (there's a point where they get two tlvls for one point investment, it's either two or three points invested), and 5/5 last tier (but a flat minimum of one, to get the feedback return), with as much in overmind as you can spare. 5/5 overmind on a bowman with a high level bow is an absolute monstrosity, and can do more damage in a single turn than a lot of things in the game.
I suppose it would be nice to use your thoughtform as an offensive summon (with overmind), but that requires A LOT of points to do really well, and the Solipsist is one of the classes that has a ton of other abilities that you basically need to get first and others that you pretty much need to max as the game pregresses (that in my mind are more important then the numerous points you need to put into thoughtform), ~15 for the solipsism tree alone (although depending on how much health you have and how good your other saves are you can go quite a bit lower), 6 in psyscic assault (since level 5 nightmare is AMAZING, and even 1 level in inner demons is amazing as well), 6 in psychic assault (so you have all the abilities unlocked and a good damage on mind sear), 4 in distortion (so you unlock all of those abilities at level 1). That's 31 points right there, and can easily go up to 40 points if you feel like fleshing those out a bit.
Its good to hear that it is super good if you actually put a lot of points in it, but I suppose I don't know quite when I could put points in it without waiting till like level 30, especially since you need a bunch of points to really use it well.
Post by: dei on September 10, 2012, 02:06:56 pm
With a three inscription warden, I'd go regen/wild/movement, barring artifact stuff... possibly shield instead of regen, if I was trying to diversify to avoid saturation trouble (and had some kit regen or something to help with resting an' crap). With a four, probably a shield rune or rune of the rift. Five, either another regen, a heal, or a second shield. Possibly a second movement infusion instead. Rune of the rift if I hadn't with the forth, perhaps.
Movement infusions are almost a definite if you're not undead, though, at least one. They combine with celerity and haste (just make sure to cast haste before popping the rune) in an incredible way. Two is usually overkill, but at the same time double movement infusion gives you supreme control over positioning, especially when stacked with the various mobility talents TWs have. Just one is probably enough, though.
I'll be saving this to a text file as well for future reference, so again thank you very much.
Post by: beorn080 on September 10, 2012, 02:58:23 pm
-snipped-I second the thoughtform bit. 7 points into the tree, to get the three forms and feedback returns from them is extremely useful. Note that in my runs I typically found the berserker form most useful, with the defender immediately switched to if anything gets close, and bowman as a backup meatshield. In the times I've used it, bowman seems FAR more interested in staying away from critters close to me instead of shooting them, so it never worked out well except to throw a body between me and the horde if the other two died/cooling down.
Distortion and dreamforge always felt a bit weak to me. Mostly because the psychic assault line has a one turn cooldown attack in mind seer, and the others are incredibly nasty. Some of them damage your thoughtform if its nearby, but that gives it feedback anyway, and the feedback goes to you, healing you, so win/win.
Post by: lemon10 on September 10, 2012, 03:16:42 pm
The first ability is near useless, the second ability is a wave knockback (which you only need to put 1 point into) and is fairly nice sometimes when you need to push stuff away and they have insomnia and you don't want to run away and mindsear is on cooldown, the third ability is fairly useful when combined with the fourth (it takes away a single sustain/positive effect every single turn, which can be very helpful).
The fourth ability is super useful (especially with a few points in it so it lasts longer and effects a bigger area), you can use it to keep enemies away from you for its whole duration (especially bosses), use it to drag enemies from around corners without going into their line of sight (or put it to stop them from following you around a corner). It is especially useful while they have insomnia and you are can't move (and don't want to have to pop a wild infusion or movement infusion or teleport)
Yes, the raw damage of the tree is pitiful, but the utility of the tree is super helpful, especially for only 4 points.
Also: What is everyone's thoughts on dreamforge? It looks like it might be pretty useful (especially the damage shield, and I imagine the fourth ability could be useful at higher levels (with a good spell failure chance and a decent AOE), but its hard to tell (and I don't want to waste a category slot+points on it if its not very good).
Post by: Frumple on September 10, 2012, 03:33:24 pm
Now dreamhammer, I like, and it's actually pretty vicious. The big thing with it is that it's very much a combo tree -- a standard pattern for my hammer using solipsist was to mindsear while they're one-two tiles away, lay out a toss (remembering to manually aim just past the target), probably use mindsear again, use the tier three when they got right beside me to stun, then drop the first tier talent and immediately follow through with whichever of the second and third tier talents came off cooldown due to the first tier's effect. Then you can nail with a knockback wave, sleep 'em, or swap positions with your thoughtforged and wait to do it again. A lot of upfront damage for when mindsear alone wasn't cutting it. S'pretty nice if you can manage to be safe in melee (not going 5/5 on solipsism can help there, as can using a natively high life rating race (dwarf, ghoul, skeleton, primarily).
Post by: lemon10 on September 11, 2012, 01:31:00 am
I was in the temporal rift, and I used overmind to swap to my bowman. Except it didn't work properly, a error message popped up, and the game proceeded to run at 100X speed (and of course both me and my summon died in like ten turns), I didn't actually get the death message, and didn't go to the elodien plane, I just stood there dead (and luckily enough it didn't save like that), and the game kept running till it froze (after about a year had passed by).
Post by: dei on September 11, 2012, 09:55:31 am
Huh, just ran into an amusing bug.
I was in the temporal rift, and I used overmind to swap to my bowman. Except it didn't work properly, a error message popped up, and the game proceeded to run at 100X speed (and of course both me and my summon died in like ten turns), I didn't actually get the death message, and didn't go to the elodien plane, I just stood there dead (and luckily enough it didn't save like that), and the game kept running till it froze (after about a year had passed by).
The Temporal Rift understands that this release is buggy and thus wants to send it into the future to a time where Solopsist will be fixed!
Post by: Robsoie on September 11, 2012, 10:26:05 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It really helps giving more "life" to the game.
Post by: RedKing on September 11, 2012, 10:32:12 am
Post by: lemon10 on September 11, 2012, 12:27:44 pm
Post by: Robsoie on September 11, 2012, 01:38:43 pm
Post by: dei on September 11, 2012, 05:36:03 pm
Finally got to unlock the Paradox Mage with my Temporal Warden, a bit annoying is that doing so is preventing me to get into the temporal rift dungeon :/
Paradox Mage is one of the ones I want to play right about now. The story inside my head right now somehow involves one that uses control over space-time to alter memories in order to get away with mischief and misconduct. Thinking a Higher Paradox Mage that managed to use time travel to send the knowledge she has from the future back to her younger self in order to do something I haven't figured out for some reason.
...Must Google how to unlock Paradox Mage.
Post by: Graven on September 11, 2012, 06:00:45 pm
SO MUCH GOD DAMN FUN THOUGH.
Like, fuck you skeleton, eat GRAVITY kind of fun. Sadly I'm too bad to play a good PM now. Got one to level 40-something in b038, my best character in Tome4 ever.
Post by: dei on September 11, 2012, 08:17:41 pm
Paradox mage is honestly the most fun class I've played in a game on a computer, but all the paradox classes got hit hard with nerfs. Temporal Warden kind of deserved it, because they were bonkers when spin fate upped defence, but Paradox mage is hardly better or easier than an alchemist, or an archmage, not to mention release Solipsist.
SO MUCH GOD DAMN FUN THOUGH.
Like, fuck you skeleton, eat GRAVITY kind of fun. Sadly I'm too bad to play a good PM now. Got one to level 40-something in b038, my best character in Tome4 ever.
My best character in regards to level was a level 23 Higher Archmage that died horribly in the Ruined Dungeon - twice. Then again I've only been playing for a couple weeks so...
Anyways, I have a couple questions. First of all, how should I build my stats on an Alchemist? I've been building Aldeen - my female Higher Alchemist - similarly to Granmeri - my female Higher Archmage. That is to say I've been maximizing Magic and putting the rest into Willpower. On a test run with this combination it seems to work out well like this but I want to know if anyone has a better suggestion.
Second, how should I build my stats on a Temporal Warden? I've been building Weissel - my female Higher Temporal Warden - somewhat evenly with a 1/1/1 ratio between Dexterity, Magic and Willpower. She was doing fairly well but this was part to some nice drops, but I'm not certain if this is the best way to build her stats so I was wondering if anyone had a better idea on how to build her.
Thanks for the help.
Post by: Un67 on September 11, 2012, 08:32:38 pm
From tons of trial and error and literally playing two dozen of them and killing off the best ones sometime around the T2 midgame, I've determined the following things about how to build a TW from the very beginning (this is just from my perspective, and I'm a relative newbie when it comes to this game).
For stats, you want to go really high up into Dexterity early on so you can pick up Flurry and Piercing Arrow early on. I also like having two points into Bow Mastery for faster reloading. Second priority after that would be Willpower, and finally Constitution. You take care of Strength by sustaining Strength of Purpose, and I didn't bother with Magic because I didn't feel that investing into and sustaining Quantum Feed was really all that worth it and that there really weren't all that many talents dependent on it.
For sustains, I went for maxing Weapon Folding, Strength of Purpose, and Displace Damage, which brought me up to a decently manageable 300 Paradox. Weapon Folding helped increase damage and clear paradox, Strength of Purpose boosted my saves and weapon damage, and Displace Damage just made me a lot more survivable. I also ended up picking up Chant of Fortitude and Premonition from escorts, but I'm really not sure how good as choices those were.
For the most part, my class points went into the aforementioned sustains, and then I got a point into all of the dual weapon talents and later ended up opening the other bow tree with my second category point to work up to that final skill that has the AoE ranged arrow stun, which is a really awesome skill. For generics, I mostly focused on getting a good number of points into Dimensional Step because it's such an awesome mobility talent, while picking up a few points into Weapon Accuracy, Weapon/Dagger Mastery, Thick Skin, and a single point in Armor Mastery. I also dumped a lot of my generics towards Money is Power, but that's not really applicable to you. So, I hope that helped :)
Post by: Frumple on September 11, 2012, 08:57:49 pm
Wardens are more complicated. Their primary stats are definitely willpower and magic, but depending on things you can skimp on magic a bit, using quantum feed and a high willpower to take up the slack. After those, though, you invest according to your build.
A melee heavy TW that's not going dual-daggers will invest more into strength than dex, and may or may not invest into magic beyond the minimum. It's up to them whether they use strength of purpose to pump their strength to ludicrous levels (hitting tremendously hard with the main hand) or to allow them to skimp a bit of strength (with the spare going into... whatever. Magic, dex, con... possibly cun, with a crit build.). A strength-centered TW will probably want to offhand a mindstar these days, and just not bother with dex once you've got enough for flurry or whatev'... at most enough to qualify for the fifth tier bows, and a lot of that can be supplemented with kit.
A dual-dagger TW will go into dex, and probably supplement that with bow use (since they're already using a dex-prime weapon and bows secondary scaling stat gets boosted by SoP). They may or may not invest in dex beyond the minimum needed to wear voratun daggers (48, iirc) and then boost something else (again, magic, con, or cun; the third helps with dagger damage a bit, on top of the crit).
Bow-warden will go dex, obviously, with spare points (after willpower and dex is maxed and magic is as high as you feel like going) going into strength, to boost bow damage, or magic, to improve the effectiveness of various talents. I'd probably emphasize magic with whatever's left over over strength, though -- bows do plenty of damage without much help, heh, and magic makes a lot of a warden's defining stuff better.
Caster-heavy warden will go about evenly into dex and strength, with emphasis depending on weapon choice (dual-dagger, staff, or other) after willpower and magic is maxed and con is comfortable.
Early game, I max willpower and stick the rest into whatever I need to hit talent or kit requirements. Mid, I tend to focus in on the latter part of that, hitting kit stat breakpoints and making sure I qualify for all the talents I plan on using. Late game, I tend to focus in on magic if it's not already maxed -- I find that my wardens do best when their utility skills are at their most powerful, and most of them scale off spellpower. Once will and magic are maxed, the rest go into whatever I'm emphasizing; probably dex if I'm not going heavy into non-dex scaling weapons, since it boosts both daggers (which you'll probably end up offhanding in the late game just for the spellpower boost on a couple of artifact daggers) and bows. There's a good chance I go cun, though, especially if I'm playing a shalore -- spellcrit helps wardens too, if not as much as a dedicated caster class, and the physcrit benefits stuff like flurry, too. It's pretty easy to get a crit chance in the mid-twenties (just about guaranteeing one or two crates per flurry) in the late game without really trying.
Emphasis into con depends a lot on how comfortable you are with the game... I find myself skimping on it considerably these days (using kit to qualify for thick skin), but some investment in it will definitely let your play less carefully, and is good for learning the game a bit better. More wiggle room for running into stuff you've never run into before and you're not quite sure how to deal with. You can never really go wrong with con, though, if you've got what you need elsewhere and aren't quite sure what to do with the leftovers. I just prefer to embody the "make the other poor bastard die for their country" philosophy :P If the enemy's dead before they can hurt you, you're in good shape, huhuhu.
Post by: dei on September 11, 2012, 11:01:30 pm
Alchemist, you max magic, get con and willpower to a comfortable level, and then max cunning, with whatever ends up being left after all that going into con. I stop investing into wil when it hits about forty or so, con around the same point. Then I max cunning, for the crit boost. Then whatever's left goes into con. Alchies don't actually need that much mana, so they can skimp a bit on willpower, but con keeps them from splatting after the golem does and cunning is another damage multiplier (and a potential mana source, if you've got a mana-on-crit weapon; one of the better artifact staves provide that, so...).
Wardens are more complicated. Their primary stats are definitely willpower and magic, but depending on things you can skimp on magic a bit, using quantum feed and a high willpower to take up the slack. After those, though, you invest according to your build.
A melee heavy TW that's not going dual-daggers will invest more into strength than dex, and may or may not invest into magic beyond the minimum. It's up to them whether they use strength of purpose to pump their strength to ludicrous levels (hitting tremendously hard with the main hand) or to allow them to skimp a bit of strength (with the spare going into... whatever. Magic, dex, con... possibly cun, with a crit build.). A strength-centered TW will probably want to offhand a mindstar these days, and just not bother with dex once you've got enough for flurry or whatev'... at most enough to qualify for the fifth tier bows, and a lot of that can be supplemented with kit.
A dual-dagger TW will go into dex, and probably supplement that with bow use (since they're already using a dex-prime weapon and bows secondary scaling stat gets boosted by SoP). They may or may not invest in dex beyond the minimum needed to wear voratun daggers (48, iirc) and then boost something else (again, magic, con, or cun; the third helps with dagger damage a bit, on top of the crit).
Bow-warden will go dex, obviously, with spare points (after willpower and dex is maxed and magic is as high as you feel like going) going into strength, to boost bow damage, or magic, to improve the effectiveness of various talents. I'd probably emphasize magic with whatever's left over over strength, though -- bows do plenty of damage without much help, heh, and magic makes a lot of a warden's defining stuff better.
Caster-heavy warden will go about evenly into dex and strength, with emphasis depending on weapon choice (dual-dagger, staff, or other) after willpower and magic is maxed and con is comfortable.
Early game, I max willpower and stick the rest into whatever I need to hit talent or kit requirements. Mid, I tend to focus in on the latter part of that, hitting kit stat breakpoints and making sure I qualify for all the talents I plan on using. Late game, I tend to focus in on magic if it's not already maxed -- I find that my wardens do best when their utility skills are at their most powerful, and most of them scale off spellpower. Once will and magic are maxed, the rest go into whatever I'm emphasizing; probably dex if I'm not going heavy into non-dex scaling weapons, since it boosts both daggers (which you'll probably end up offhanding in the late game just for the spellpower boost on a couple of artifact daggers) and bows. There's a good chance I go cun, though, especially if I'm playing a shalore -- spellcrit helps wardens too, if not as much as a dedicated caster class, and the physcrit benefits stuff like flurry, too. It's pretty easy to get a crit chance in the mid-twenties (just about guaranteeing one or two crates per flurry) in the late game without really trying.
Emphasis into con depends a lot on how comfortable you are with the game... I find myself skimping on it considerably these days (using kit to qualify for thick skin), but some investment in it will definitely let your play less carefully, and is good for learning the game a bit better. More wiggle room for running into stuff you've never run into before and you're not quite sure how to deal with. You can never really go wrong with con, though, if you've got what you need elsewhere and aren't quite sure what to do with the leftovers. I just prefer to embody the "make the other poor bastard die for their country" philosophy :P If the enemy's dead before they can hurt you, you're in good shape, huhuhu.
^ I'm doing reasonably well with my current Dwarf Temporal Warden and I just killed the Master with him for the first time :D. Only death I had was on Urkis, and this is Roguelike mode and I'm getting into new territory for me so I'm kind of nervous.
From tons of trial and error and literally playing two dozen of them and killing off the best ones sometime around the T2 midgame, I've determined the following things about how to build a TW from the very beginning (this is just from my perspective, and I'm a relative newbie when it comes to this game).
For stats, you want to go really high up into Dexterity early on so you can pick up Flurry and Piercing Arrow early on. I also like having two points into Bow Mastery for faster reloading. Second priority after that would be Willpower, and finally Constitution. You take care of Strength by sustaining Strength of Purpose, and I didn't bother with Magic because I didn't feel that investing into and sustaining Quantum Feed was really all that worth it and that there really weren't all that many talents dependent on it.
For sustains, I went for maxing Weapon Folding, Strength of Purpose, and Displace Damage, which brought me up to a decently manageable 300 Paradox. Weapon Folding helped increase damage and clear paradox, Strength of Purpose boosted my saves and weapon damage, and Displace Damage just made me a lot more survivable. I also ended up picking up Chant of Fortitude and Premonition from escorts, but I'm really not sure how good as choices those were.
For the most part, my class points went into the aforementioned sustains, and then I got a point into all of the dual weapon talents and later ended up opening the other bow tree with my second category point to work up to that final skill that has the AoE ranged arrow stun, which is a really awesome skill. For generics, I mostly focused on getting a good number of points into Dimensional Step because it's such an awesome mobility talent, while picking up a few points into Weapon Accuracy, Weapon/Dagger Mastery, Thick Skin, and a single point in Armor Mastery. I also dumped a lot of my generics towards Money is Power, but that's not really applicable to you. So, I hope that helped :)
Alright that helps a fair bit. Thank you both. It's just as well that I plan on restarting my Alchemist and Temporal Warden to coincide with the advice given here.
But basically what you're saying I should do for Alchemist is...
- Maximize Magic
- Raise Willpower and Constitution to comfortable levels
- Maximize Cunning
While what you're saying for Temporal Warden is...
- Maximize Willpower
- Raise Magic and Constitution to comfortable levels
- Maximize Dexterity
- Use dual daggers and a bow
- Maximize Weapon Folding, Strength of Purpose, Displace Damage and Dimension Step
- Put several points into Weapon Accuracy, Weapon Mastery and Dagger Mastery
- Put one point into each of the dual weapon fighting talents
- Get Piercing Shot and that AoE Stun bow attack
Then again that stuff for Temporal Warden is what sounds like a build that will work well with my style of playing one already. Either way thank you for the help, and I will be saving this to a text file for future reference.
Post by: Frumple on September 11, 2012, 11:38:23 pm
Similarly, if you get one-hand (mace, waraxe, longsword)/dagger, you'd get both if you were trying to boost both main and offhand damage (arguable usefulness, with the offhand damage penalty), and ignore dagger mastery if you're doing one-hand/mindstar... unless you were main-handing a dagger, I guess. Which might be alright with a heavy dex build...
Definite other TW talents are celerity (which is frankly a god-tier talent, and I recommend getting that to 5/5 ASAP... at least 3/5, so you can match speed with snakes), slow (AoE damage and slow over a duration, very nice), and haste (strong global speed boost, meshes well with the already low attack speed of bows). Then, like... the other stuff. Wardens have access to a lot of nice junk, heh.
Post by: lemon10 on September 12, 2012, 12:14:11 am
I have beaten 3/4 of the prides, am level 50, have some pretty neat gear, and have 4 lives left in addition to an unused blood of life.
I will post a char log and overview when I manage to beat it.
I tried out the Dreamforge tree (finally). It is ridiculously and comically overpowered.
Looking at it early game on the preview the final skill seems rather Meh ("I have to wait in place 5 turns to do 20 damage to nearby enemies in a radius of 1 and have only a 5% chance of stopping their spellcasting?"), but if you level it up all the way it goes from meh-> OH GOD THIS IS SO RIDICULOUSLY POWERFUL.
At my stage it costs 50 psi sustain (out of a base of 1150), and you can't move (but you don't really need to ever move anyways, you can tank most of the damage, especially with a thought-form defender active) , in return you will do 80 damage per turn (adjusted for average enemy resistances, it deals a bit over 100 if they don't have any) to every enemy within 5 radius, have a 25% chance to screw up their spellcasting, and reduce their mental save by a whopping 25. Keep in mind that these numbers are lower for someone without 55->80 mindpower (depending on what thoughtform I have active), and they will be lower for pretty much everyone, but they will still be rediculously high.
It has a cost, you can't really put enemies to sleep since they will take 80 damage the very next turn, but it doesn't really matter the ability is so powerful.
To be honest, it is probably the most powerful sustain in the game, costing only 50 psi to deal such a absurd amount of damage to pretty much everyone in sight every turn.
The rest of the tree synergizes with the solipsist tree (and either your choice of premonition or antimagic (antimagic is better, but you have to give up more)) to be completely ridiculous.
Forge Shield: A very nice ability, it reduces large damage by 20-60(?) depending on how many points you put in it, and every small attack in the next turn (of the same damage type will effectively be blocked). If you get hit by a 600 lighting attack, you could see it reduced by 15% by antimagic (note: I am not sure on this, antimagic non-shield might not take effect till after the attack) or premonition taking it down to 510. Take off another 50% due to elemental+resist all, down to 205. Take off 60 for forge shield, and that is only 140 (100 if you maxed antimagic shield) damage left over from a 600 damage attack.
Forge Bellows: Pretty decent, put a point or two into it (more if you want it bigger and better), the damage is ok, but its real draw is putting down blocks that block LOS, allowing you to wall yourself in for a few turns or have only one enemy be able to see you.
Forge Armor: Decent bonus armor, defense, some PSI on hit (which looks pretty irrelavent, but against standard enemies it means that they heal you when they attack).
Forge Armor looks only OK, and it wouldn't be a whole lot more then that on something besides a solipsist but, combined with forge shield, solipsism, resist equipment, heavy armor, thick skin, defender resist-all bonus and anti magic (or premonition) allows you crazy tanking. You can probably tank better then a bulkward when you finally get all that. Anything short of A) rares, B) mages C) multiple tough enemies at the same time can't even deal damgae, you can simply walk into them until they die from dreamforge and the combination of your basic weapon damage (if you can get mindstar mastery you get a fair bit more damage), I imagine that mindhammer would be quite nice too. It obviously takes a long time to get to this stage, since to max all the talent and get con/str high enough for the heavy armor and thick skin is tough and takes till ~40 (assuming you have been saving +str and +con equipment) if you don't want to skimp on your will and cunning. But even at the early levels, being able to block 50 damage of a 150 damage spell or attack, having +10 armor or having a passive +60 damage to all enemies in range is huge.
At the stage I am at, if I don't see high level spellcasters, rares, or +5 orcish berserk level melees in a ring around me, I just run into them until they die (especially if they are in a line), and half the time they don't lower my PSI down below 1000.
Post by: dei on September 12, 2012, 12:20:05 am
Caveat being if you go dual-dagger, plain weapon mastery won't do anything for you, only dagger mastery. Nowadays, the bonus only applies when you're wearing an applicable weapon (no more maxing sling/bow/dagger/weapon/staff and getting ridiculous physpower :P) and, so far as I know, only to the particular weapon (I.e. If you're wearing mace and dagger, weapon mastery boosts the mace, dagger the dagger, but the two don't stack as far as physpower or the % boost goes).
Similarly, if you get one-hand (mace, waraxe, longsword)/dagger, you'd get both if you were trying to boost both main and offhand damage (arguable usefulness, with the offhand damage penalty), and ignore dagger mastery if you're doing one-hand/mindstar... unless you were main-handing a dagger, I guess. Which might be alright with a heavy dex build...
Definite other TW talents are celerity (which is frankly a god-tier talent, and I recommend getting that to 5/5 ASAP... at least 3/5, so you can match speed with snakes), slow (AoE damage and slow over a duration, very nice), and haste (strong global speed boost, meshes well with the already low attack speed of bows). Then, like... the other stuff. Wardens have access to a lot of nice junk, heh.
I'll keep that in mind as well once I try messing around with Weissel tomorrow, since right now I'm too tired to do anything coherent with this game.
Post by: DeKaFu on September 12, 2012, 10:58:16 am
Post by: lemon10 on September 12, 2012, 11:03:54 am
A) Copy over the entire file from C:->Users->[user name]->T-Engine (this will have all your saves and other info too).
B) Log in on your online profile. Try to start a game. Cancel it (since it won't have all the unlocks), then try to start a game again (and it should have all the unlocks). That won't copy your saves, but will get all your achievements and unlocks.
Post by: DeKaFu on September 12, 2012, 11:12:28 am
Post by: lemon10 on September 12, 2012, 11:21:21 am
If you don't have the folder and you don't have a online profile then you are screwed though.
And if you don't have an online profile but you have the folder then you could just make one before transferring.
Post by: Frumple on September 12, 2012, 12:46:12 pm
If you do have an online profile, though, the unlocks and cheevos should transfer over naturally. If you don't, it's just a matter of moving the files to the right place.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 12, 2012, 03:21:50 pm
Tip: knockback buffs sometimes cause double damage to creatures because of knockback/turn fuckups.
Post by: Wirevix on September 12, 2012, 03:23:03 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Neonivek on September 12, 2012, 03:36:59 pm
Post by: Wirevix on September 12, 2012, 03:44:17 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 12, 2012, 04:37:46 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 12, 2012, 04:41:17 pm
Worst comes to worst, you might clear out a few levels on other zones, get another level or two, or perhaps cash in some junk and buy a second regen or heal infusion... maybe a better weapon. All those can help.
Bosses level with you to a degree, yes, but you tend to benefit considerably more than they do from more levels, especially in the early game where every level can exponentially increase your survivability (by giving you access to certain key talents, etc., so forth.). Level three is one of the safer breakpoints for taking any of the first tier dungeon bosses... level four if you're really unsure. The second tier talents tend to make the early bosses considerably easier, as a rule.
Though it's not necessary, per se. All of the first tier dungeons (except the dwarf stuff, I guess.) can and have been cleared starting at level one. Many (perhaps all) of the bosses have been killed at level one. So, it's doable, though there's an element of luck involved.
Post by: dei on September 12, 2012, 08:53:16 pm
I want to play a Thalore sometime but honestly I'm having too much fun with my Higher characters. After that I might try a Dwarf but that's unlikely - I never play Dwarves in any game, nor Halflings for that matter. Dwarves. Then again seeing as despite my attempts to get back into Dwarf Fortress I find myself not wanting to go more than past the first Spring I should give it a try once more.
Playing a Dwarf that is, the Halflings can shove off if they're not from Middle-Earth. Every single damn setting that uses the name "Halfling" makes them unappealing to me in some way to the point where my dislike of them shows in some of my more haughty or arrogant characters. Regardless, I do like how from what I've heard Dwarves have good saves in this game like they do in many of the other games I've seen them in. I'll give them a shot sometime.
However, the bosses of the Dwarf starter dungeons seem to be a tad difficult. One of them for some odd reason makes me think of that movie Teeth however, which makes me want to try a Dwarf even more. In hindsight though I probably should wear a cup.
Post by: Frumple on September 12, 2012, 09:19:00 pm
Though they're definitely dislikable. Most of the setting's problems were directly or indirectly caused by the halflings. Spellblaze? Halflings, by way of the orcs. Orcs? Halflings. Elves (well, shalore and rhalore, anyway) splitting up? Halflings, largely by way of the spellblaze and repercussions. Nagas,
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Thalore are probably the closest that T4 has to a "good guy" faction. They mostly just want to be left alone, heh. Mechanically, they're pretty solid. Racials aren't top-tier, but they're solid and the thalore stat spread and life rating are quite good for physical classes and the non-magic (I.e. Willpower) hybrids. They're a solid race, though definitely the "weaker" of the two elves (5/5 timeless does ridiculous things for several of the classes. Elfzerker is best zerker.).
Dwarves dug too deep. They have excellent stats (particularly their life rating, which is the highest of the living races, iirc) and their saves talent remains one of the best saves boosting talent in the game, despite more than one nerf.
Post by: dei on September 12, 2012, 10:35:57 pm
As for the Thalore it does seem like they're the equivalent of "good" in Maj'Eyal. That's alright I suppose, but then again I usually play a character that teeters around Neutral Good - Chaotic Good - Chaotic Neutral to begin with so it works out either way. The Thalore to me seem to be that first choice, which is unusual for Wood Elves as I know them, but it makes them seem even more worthwhile to play.
The Dwarves kind of make sense from how you've said them - Dwarves in my opinion must somehow be related to Dragons for how greedy and materialistic the lot of them are. I like the whole stats bit as well since usually the stats are the core of the character base, but the only problem is I've played exactly one Dwarven character in my entire time gaming and have had two in my entire time doing some kind of in-my-head storytelling so I'm somewhat unfamiliar with them.
However I'll give them a try despite that since they seem kind of fun. After I hit all of the tier one dungeons on Granmeri, Weissel and Aldeen I'll start with a Thalore or a Dwarf. I'm thinking Thalore Archer, Thalore Archmage or Thalore Summoner versus a Dwarf Archmage. As for the Halfling, I think a Halfling Temporal Warden or a Halfling Archmage might work.
...Can you tell that I like Archmage? It's one of my favorites because of how easy it is for me to play as one and get to level 15-20, which is usually as high as I go right now. Out of the three serious runs I've done previously for Archmage I've gotten all three to level 20+, but then again I constitute a "serious" run as one where I'm trying to beat a previously-set high score.
...My high score was 284 with my Higher Archmage Granmeri. It was also my second high score because I while half asleep had her revive with the Blood of Life in the same spot. Shame it's not there anymore, it was kind of entertaining having lost the game twice to two of her Inner Demons. Anyways, time to fix a playlist with some nice Japanese music, take a shower and then get into the game and work on getting Granmeri through the tier-one dungeons, followed by her "sisters" Aldeen and Weissel.
It's going to be a long night, but what better way to spend it than with my characters that I love and adore in a game I've quickly grown to love and adore and do so more and more each time I play? None if you lack a social life or love life like how I do. Anyways, once again thank you Frumple for turning me onto Halflings. Despite my tendency to play characters of the alignment I have mentioned before I think it would be nice to play a character I could nuture into a formidable antagonist.
Post by: lemon10 on September 13, 2012, 12:49:56 pm
All the pictures were taken a bit before the final battle.
Spoiler: Part of my char dump (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Now some more information in picture form (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Thoughts on talent trees and strategies (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Yeek ending thoughts !Warning Spoiler! (click to show/hide)
Post by: Wirevix on September 13, 2012, 06:51:22 pm
Post by: Seriyu on September 13, 2012, 08:23:16 pm
Post by: dei on September 14, 2012, 12:21:02 pm
However the only place I haven't really had her check is Derth, which right now is home to some buttmad lightning elementals that will kill her in one blow. Do I have Weissel go into Derth and hope for the best or do I just have her rough it out with the minotaur that doesn't know how to use his indoor voice?
Post by: Frumple on September 14, 2012, 03:17:32 pm
Though I'm sorta' mixed about the minotaur. I pretty much... never have problems with the guy, even with all the debuffs he spews out. But dude kills a lot of people so I'unno. Some confusion resist or a mental wild would help, maybe. Somewhat. A little. Debuff him first :P
Post by: lemon10 on September 14, 2012, 03:28:59 pm
But since I always make sure to have a mental infusion on hand he hasn't even threatened me in a very long time (since he can't close if you resist the confusion).
EDIT: He is also the only one of the T2 bosses I have EVER had real trouble with (well, aside from the time that the old forest boss resurrected at full health unexpectedly while I was in a vault, which screwed up my blink escape and got me killed), which is quite a bit more then I can say for any of the others.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 14, 2012, 05:00:38 pm
In my opinion out of the ones I've fought Prox the Mighty, the Shade of Kor'Pul, and Bill the Stone Troll are the hardest in that order.
It puzzles me that you find Prox to be a hard boss. He's so damn slow and there's so much terrain to kite him that I've never found him to be much of a threat, even for relatively weak characters
Post by: dei on September 14, 2012, 06:31:20 pm
Banzai!
Though I'm sorta' mixed about the minotaur. I pretty much... never have problems with the guy, even with all the debuffs he spews out. But dude kills a lot of people so I'unno. Some confusion resist or a mental wild would help, maybe. Somewhat. A little. Debuff him first :P
Well after taking Weissel on some window-shopping that ended up with the purchase of some nice gloves from Last Hope she managed to find a mental wild infusion and a nice spellcowled linen cloak of warlust. I had also forgotten that her enlightened cured leather armor of command also gave her some confusion resistance, but whatever. The minotaur fell in an epic battle that involved the overusage of wormholes and the slaying of a bandit lord and his harem of bandits.
In my opinion out of the ones I've fought Prox the Mighty, the Shade of Kor'Pul, and Bill the Stone Troll are the hardest in that order.
It puzzles me that you find Prox to be a hard boss. He's so damn slow and there's so much terrain to kite him that I've never found him to be much of a threat, even for relatively weak characters
I'm not certain how to respond to your befuddlement except to say that I've only beaten him on the first try and with ease with a Temporal Warden or an Archmage, granted that Granmeri and Ingthad (my Higher and Dwarf Archmages) were at least level 5 before fighting him. Alchemist I have some difficulty with on him if I don't pump at least three points into the golem talents by the time I face him and the Shadowblade I played died horribly because of how fragile she was. Everything else that I've played either hasn't gotten a chance to face Prox the Mighty or had been at least level 5 before facing him.
Either way Higher Archmage and Higher Temporal Warden are the best for me to use against Prox the Mighty, especially since I have Granmeri get Phase Door 4/5 by level 5 at the latest and since Weissel often has Celerity at a point where she can kite the entire population of Trollmire by around level 2-3. I make mobility a top priority for the both of them since they are largely ranged attackers, and that works out well.
...Also I don't mean to be rude or weird by saying this but please keep in mind that I've been playing Tales of Maj'Eyal for a little over two weeks and therefore can't be expected to be as awesome as everyone else. I mean just today I screwed up the whole bit with Epoch on Weissel, though at least now thanks to Edge and a few others I have put the reasons why to not just press '5' while facing your future self on the wiki. I'll get Epoch another time, perhaps on another Temporal Warden.
I might want to try Temporal Warden on a Skeleton, a Dwarf and a Halfling sometime. It's for another one of those stories in my head that I am unable to get down on paper, or at least the Skeleton Temporal Warden is. However that is a long way off, as before that I want to work on a Dwarf Archmage, a Higher Shadowblade, a Thalore Archer, a Thalore Summoner, a Higher Paradox Mage and maybe a Shalore Archmage and a Dwarf Wyrmic alongside my Higher Alchemist, Higher Archmage and Higher Temporal Warden before working on a Halfling anything.
Somewhere along the way I'll probably unlock both Skeleton and Ghoul as well, and I'll make a Yeek Archmage or a Yeek Paradox Mage in order to unlock Mindslayer after somehow defeating Subject Z. In the meantime though I'm going to work on what I said I will work on, seeing as barring me somehow fucking up in the ingame chat I will probably keep this game as my main source of roguelike entertainment for the foreseeable future.
Post by: Un67 on September 14, 2012, 07:52:04 pm
Post by: Frumple on September 14, 2012, 08:27:24 pm
Stats wise, you max magic, get willpower to maybe 20-30 (vim regen on kill is boosted by willpower), then split between con and cun, leaning toward cunning. Maybe get enough strength together to wear platemail if you're feeling frisky -- vim is one of the few resources completely uneffected by fatigue. The particularly sexy late game armors for blast-casters are both robes, though (black robe and firewalker, iirc. They've got trigger-on-spell abilities.).
Talent wise, they're not very complicated. You don't have many generic talents, and of the curses and hexes, pacification and domination, and death and vulnerability are the particularly good ones. Domination can be left alone if you feel like it, but pacification is incredible (especially maxed), vulnerability is one of your relative few native methods of resistance reduction, and the curse of death is just g'damn painful (not to mention buggers up healing).
Class wise, you mainly just throw points into junk that does damage, especially the direct AoE stuff. You can go into diseases or not, as you please, with a similar lean toward bone (though bone shield is somewhat useful in the later game -- though only against certain enemies -- and spear and nova gives some alright damage diversity from your normal blight/acid kit) being up to you. The fearscape tree is another up in the air thing... it can bring some amazing tools to your table (especially if you're a skeleton and can properly abuse wraithform), but its really good stuff (flames of U-whatever and fearscape) are very expensive. Willful tormenter helps out a bit with that, nowadays. Regardless, it's usually better saved for your 20 or 30 cat point.
Mostly you just stack on the pain and pick up the few defensive-type talents you can manage when the opportunity presents itself. Corruptors are largely all-dakka all the time, heh. 'Bout to turn in for the night, but I can probably write up a bit better point-by-point sometime tomorrow, when I'm more aware and hopefully using a proper keyboard. If someone doesn't ninja me to it ;D
Post by: dei on September 15, 2012, 10:51:03 am
My second question is in regards to their talents. What talents make for a decent Paradox Mage? I've been prioritizing Celerity and Static History for the first few levels but that in turn leaves Molnichol's attacks somewhat weak. I'm wondering what those who have played Paradox Mage would recommend I prioritize and work on with a Paradox Mage.
My third question is in regards to inscriptions for a Paradox Mage. What kind of inscriptions should a Paradox Mage acquire? I don't have any clue about this because both of the test runs I did last night didn't bring up any noteworthy inscriptions, yet for some reason I have a feeling that they would benefit from healing infusions and movement infusions because of how low their health is and because of how they have access to Celerity and Haste - both skills that make movement infusions even more useful than they already are. But still, am I right on that assumption or is there something else that a Paradox Mage would benefit more from in regards to inscriptions?
I might have a fourth and final question later depending on how my findings from my continuation of the second test run go; those findings may also determine if said test run is to become a serious run that has Molnichol - my Cornac Paradox Mage - attempting to beat Weissel - my Higher Temporal Warden - in regards to her current high score. But, I hope I can make use of whatever knowledge can be given with your answers before I do that. Thank you for your help as always.
Post by: Frumple on September 15, 2012, 01:43:03 pm
As for more general or comprehensive strategy/build stuff, check out this thread (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=34597) over on the t4 forums. It's a pretty decent one as far as PM banter goes. I chime in, but I'd take most things I say about paradox magi with a grain of salt. Haven't played them much.
As for inscriptions, basically anything you'd normally take on a caster. Some healing or damage mitigation (shield runes), some utility (probably a wild infusion, but PMs have at least one talent for dealing with debuffs, iirc), some escape (TP or movement). Like TWs, they benefit uniquely from the rune of the rift, though there's currently an issue (it'll randomly level up stuff you hit with it, granting them a full heal in the process) with time skip (and thus the rune) that makes using it kinda' iffy.
Post by: Omegameep on September 17, 2012, 02:38:30 am
I'm hoping there will be a mod workshop similar to Dungeon of dredmor.
Post by: dei on September 17, 2012, 06:25:21 am
I also took Frumple's advice that was posted on the Tales of Maj'Eyal forums about buying new talents over investing in older ones that don't have some kind of a breaking point and applied it to all of my characters, with some additional provisions of course. For example I always prioritize translocation whenever possible and maximize it for the most range possible - hence why I already have Dimension Step 5 on Molnichol and had it there by around level 7 I think. That range will help in any situation that involves getting out of the line of fire, with the notable exception of vaults.
Those vaults are often times a cause for concern on most of my characters, especially the ones in Daikara. Then again the ones in Daikara are what really give me trouble there and only there as the rest of said zone is ridiculously easy for many of my characters. I have more problems in the Maze and the Sandworm Lair, followed by rare occasions in Old Forest that involve poisoned water or legions of snakes. Damn insidious reptiles dodge bullets at an alarming rate.
But back to my priorities with talents, other than translocation talents I prioritize talents that increase physical power, accuracy, spellpower, resistance to damage, saving throws and damage dealt on most of my characters. Any sort of talent that provides a percentage variable of some kind I want to have up to at least a minimum of 25% and preferably at least at 50% as soon as possible - Aegis and Entropic Field are two talents I treat like this. I also like to make sure that healing talents like Healing Light and Arcane Reconstruction are leveled at a rate to where a casting of one can equal a full heal at the point of time it can do so. For Arcane Reconstruction in particular I'll also make sure to maximize it after getting Phase Door 4 in order to maximize the damage shield that Arcane Shield will provide - often times this will end up with Granmeri being able to get a 400+ health damage shield when combined with Aegis, and that is quite nice at the point in time I usually need that sort of thing.
I don't know if that stuff I do for talents is good or not, but I like to think it is. If there are any suggestions I would like to hear them. Right now though I'm wondering why I'm still awake around a time where I usually wake up in the morning. Oh well, looks like there might be an early morning sleep-deprived run of Tales of Maj'Eyal in order.
Post by: Robsoie on September 24, 2012, 10:34:45 am
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2012/09/arrp/arrp-2012-fylish-island
From what i read on the official boards, it looks like this zone introduce an Orc class for the players.
Probably going to be featured in the next version too.
For those interested and didn't knew how to, if you wish to listen to the most excellent ToME4 soundtrack, you can open the file named "tome-0.9.42.team" located in
...\t-engine4-windows-1.0.0beta42\game\modules\
with your favorite archive extractor (7zip, winzip, winrar, etc...) , navigate to the "data" folder and you'll find a "music" folder that contains the 40 superb musics in OGG format.
Post by: Frumple on September 24, 2012, 12:25:29 pm
Post by: Graven on September 25, 2012, 01:37:21 pm
I need some help, though. I got a kickass lantern from the vendor you rescue from the rogues, but it's powered by Arcane forces. If I go antimagic, will I be able to use it? I've never gone antimagic before, mostly because screw Zigur and everyone in it, so I don't know.
Edit : Yeah, I won't be able to. Oh well, this guy seems like an asshole anyway, time to go antimagic.
Post by: Frumple on September 25, 2012, 02:13:02 pm
Solipsists are one of those that can just go "Eh." and move on. Antimagic shield makes solipsists (even more) utterly ridiculous, and when you throw the fungal tree and 100% heal to psi conversion on top of that... you don't die. Pretty much period. It just doesn't happen.
And then you get mindstar mastery tree too and suddenly you're trolololing around meleeing farportal bosses. It's a helluva' thing to watch, heh.
Post by: Graven on September 25, 2012, 03:12:50 pm
Because I went into the god damn Farportal forgetting I don't have a god damn lightsource, because of course Wintertide is also powered by Arcane forces, so after bumbling around for 20 minutes I had to recall and the stupid thing broke.
Oh well. The problem is I still can't find a light source. This is getting ridiculous.
edit : Welp, found one. In Dreadfell, level 3. Good thing I'm not anything other than solipsist, because I'm not sure blindly wandering into undead-warehouses would've worked out for me on a Paradox Mage.
Post by: Frumple on September 25, 2012, 04:47:10 pm
Which there are quite a few, thinking on it, but it's still a nuisance :P
Post by: Graven on September 26, 2012, 03:30:26 am
And I find antimagic unfun :( I want to help those sun paladins and anorithils god damn it, why can't I just try to convince them to renounce their villanous magical ways after I get them away from the huge spooky undead-infested tower?
edit : Oh wow I had forgotten how much I hate the Orc Breeding Pit. I'm serious, the thing literally makes me physically sick. It's also curious how many mental hoops I'll jump through to justify
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Now I have the four Prides and the Vor Armoury left, and I need someone to suggest zone order, because this is only my third time in the East, and the first ended in the Dark Crypt before visiting anything else.
Post by: Frumple on September 26, 2012, 06:11:05 am
And yeah, Ziguranthi are terrible people in a lot of ways. Attempting redemption of an arcane user would probably get you flayed or something. They've got a nominally noble goal (preventing a second cataclysm, basically) but their methodology is horrific ♫
Arcane users have their own problems, heh. Especially that 'end of the world' bit looming down the line :P
And haha, yes, to the spoilers. The player is actually a terrible person. Pretty much regardless. You're not so much a 'good guy' as you are violently and efficiently reinforcing the status quo. It's actually one of the things I love about T4... it manages to get that across, that the good you're doing isn't an objective good, but rather a 'good for your people', most of the time.
Post by: Robsoie on September 26, 2012, 06:40:57 am
Those 3 or 4 small guarded barracks levels are an excellent way to lose a character, as it's easy to get teleported against your will then surrounded + hammered by very hard hitter all in a turn.
Post by: Frumple on September 26, 2012, 07:53:47 am
Post by: Graven on September 26, 2012, 08:38:41 am
More importantly, I killed the second boss in the Sandworm lair and got Wyrm Bile and promptly drank it all up. Did I mess up too badly?
edit : Also I think my game is broken, because I'm supposed to search for an Athame and Diamond in Reknor, but the entire thing is empty. When I first went in there I got the message about more bodies and yellow light, but... nothing happened. I've been in and out at least 4 times, and there is nothing at all here. On top of it all I gave the stupid orb of many ways to that asshole in Last Hope to study it, so apparently I'm stuck.
edit : Dig? How would I actually realise to dig! I mean I thought "hey, maybe I should dig a bit" but the game was running so slow, and with the triple saves every time I change level it drove me insane! I'll try it later, thanks, hopefully it's that, I've been playing this fucker 2 days now.
Post by: Frumple on September 26, 2012, 10:28:40 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
If it's not there, then yeah, something broke. IRC folks can probably walk you through fixing it, though!
Post by: lemon10 on September 26, 2012, 10:59:09 am
edit : Dig? How would I actually realise to dig! I mean I thought "hey, maybe I should dig a bit" but the game was running so slow, and with the triple saves every time I change level it drove me insane! I'll try it later, thanks, hopefully it's that, I've been playing this fucker 2 days now.You shouldn't have to dig, if you do there was a slight glitch. If you dig out the whole map and the boss isn't there anyways, then there is a big glitch.
Post by: Un67 on September 26, 2012, 06:31:35 pm
Post by: Graven on September 27, 2012, 05:59:05 am
I really don't think I'll be playing Tome 4 anymore, or at least for a while. It drags on and on and on, runs worse than Diablo 3 later on, and I'm starting to find certain parts of it retarded. Like the 20 different kinds of resists, damage, status effects and item stats; the ridiculous talents random rares can spawn with; and mostly, getting attacked outside of LOS. Sorry Tome, that's bullshit and there's no way you're convincing me otherwise.
I had absolutely no idea whether to stack resistances, armor, defence, status resistances or saves, and I couldn't get all of them, especially since the best randarts I found were powered by arcane forces. So I tried to get all the resists I could, but I kept getting stunned and frozen, then I switched some gear for stun resistance, but just started getting blinded instead, and in the end I started taking way too much damage to handle.
Oh well, enough whining. But if anyone can write a short guide on items, like what items to stack to increase your damage on the different classes, or what defenses are best, I'd be really grateful, and I assume other people who are about as good as me at Tome. It has a fun combat system, but I'm pretty sure I hate everything else in it by now.
Post by: Robsoie on September 27, 2012, 03:02:10 pm
It sure may help to keep the player on his toes, but it can be indeed frustrating.
For the last battle a tactic that proved -very- efficient for me :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
But if the adventure mode frustrated you enough to want to try something else, give a try to the Arena gametype you surely unlocked already, it's very fun and refreshing after a long adventure mode, and perfect to try many builds and skill combinations (as you level a very lot quicker)
Post by: lemon10 on September 27, 2012, 03:49:54 pm
Edit : Nope, couldn't win. In High Peak I just started getting instagibbed, for no apparent reason.Yeah, high peak is kind of ridiculous hard even as a solipsist (I lost 4 of my lives there). I think its because you go 95% of the game being completely immune to 99% of all the enemies and being able to melee them to death without even using talents, then go to a place where you take real damage from every attack. You don't expect it and think you can sit in melee range of that rare/unique for like 5 turns and be totally fine, when since he is level 80 he kills you in two turns.
You really should just ignore the rares and get up to the final level ASAP.
Going into the final battle you need: A movement infusion and the controlled blink ability.
There are a bunch of other abilities that *really* help, but most are fairly optional.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I had absolutely no idea whether to stack resistances, armor, defence, status resistances or saves, and I couldn't get all of them, especially since the best randarts I found were powered by arcane forces. So I tried to get all the resists I could, but I kept getting stunned and frozen, then I switched some gear for stun resistance, but just started getting blinded instead, and in the end I started taking way too much damage to handle.Honestly, I didn't find AM worth it for my solipsist, there are so many great arcane items and runes that it really hurt not being able to use them, I kept forgetting to put my AM shield on when I needed it, the first ability in the tree isn't much better then divination, and you already have a comic amount of damage shaving, so a bit more is kind of MEH.
Not being able to use the runes and items really hurts a lot.
Note that the below advice applies *only* to solipsists, every class has different needs.
For defensive choices:
Resists: Get as much resist-all as possible (rank 5 thick skin+rank 5 of the ability that means that your summons gives you bonuses), and just try to get all the others as high as possible in general.
Armor: Pretty useful most of the time, you probably want to get the best plate armor you can wear, and don't bother with it after that (besides the dreamforge ability)
Defense: Don't really bother, more is better, but don't chose items for how much they give you, since you won't really be threatened by melee attacks and the other things you get or better.
Status resists:
Stun: Very nice to have a resist of, but not super critical, you can just run away (or use abilities to block their sight, or knock them back, or teleport away, or use a movement infusion or put them to sleep, or use summons).
Freeze: Rather annoying, but its not very dangerous *usually* since it blocks 60% of the damage you receive, and the rest probably won't do much damage past your sheilds, if you really need to get away you can use a infusion to break it then escape.
Blind: Use telekinesis on the boss/rare, and now being blind doesn't matter
Anything mental: Use your mental blocking ability
Anything magical: Use a infusion/remove all ability (The chase is on or whatever its called), you can't really do anything else about these if they get past your saves.
I really don't think I'll be playing Tome 4 anymore, or at least for a while. It drags on and on and on, runs worse than Diablo 3 later on, and I'm starting to find certain parts of it retarded. Like the 20 different kinds of resists, damage, status effects and item stats; the ridiculous talents random rares can spawn with; and mostly, getting attacked outside of LOS. Sorry Tome, that's bullshit and there's no way you're convincing me otherwise.Yeah, the pacing starting in dreadfell gets really bad, going from fresh and quick to slow and tedious (for me at least).
Yeah, the dozens of different resists are huge pains in the ass.
As is getting attacked from out of LOS (although by the end of the game that stops happening since you get +6 light radius lamps).
Getting instakilled (from max->0 without a single action) is complete bullshit, and they should try to reduce how often it can happen (but as a solipsist you don't ever really need to worry about it).
Post by: Graven on September 29, 2012, 06:35:06 am
One last request, though. Can someone post a general gear-guide of sorts, for casters, melee and ranged? Just the general baselines, like shoot for high armour, or this and this damage is the most important, stuff like that.
Post by: DarrenGrey on October 07, 2012, 10:41:34 pm
Tales of Maj'Eyal is being greenlighted.
I'm hoping there will be a mod workshop similar to Dungeon of dredmor.
A bit late to reply, but I should note you can currently make add-ons to the game as is. It can be a bit fiddly, but there's loads of them made already: http://te4.org/tome/addons
Also, the Steam Greenlight page is here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93674769 If you're a Steam member and would like to see the game on the service then you should go vote it up :)
Also also, beta 43 should be out soonish, and the intention is for this to be the last beta and content-locked. So after that all focus will be on bugfixing and balancing before the v1 release. I see a lot of complaints of balance on here, and I'd suggest if you're unhappy about something to post a bug report for it. After v1 there will still be updates, but the main focus will be on a new campaign where you play as orcs with steamtech (awesome, right?)
Also also also, I'm the main lore guy for the game. If you have any lore requests let me know!
Post by: dei on October 11, 2012, 09:28:50 pm
Oh well, I'm having more fun with Dungeons and Dragons right around now. Have fun with ToME I guess.
Post by: lemon10 on October 11, 2012, 09:46:12 pm
As a solipsist you are are A) Super crazy tanky, pretty much every death is personally your fault over multiple actions (from level 30+ you can melee every non-unique non-rare to death, even without any melee skills), you are so tanky you put a bulkward to shame B) Deal great irresistable damage (nothing resists mind damage, which you deal tons of).
They will be nerfed next version, but winning as a solipsist right now is crazy easy.
Post by: Frumple on October 11, 2012, 09:56:25 pm
Not being able to win at a roguelike is nothing to be ashamed of or worry about, though :P There's plenty of people that's been playing RLs for years without a single victory, or only one or two (and then with specific games; I can walk Incursion up and down the sidewalk nearly blindfolded, but I've never beat Angband, ferex.).
Post by: tootboot on October 11, 2012, 10:37:43 pm
Post by: Robsoie on October 11, 2012, 11:07:22 pm
Or even killed in 1 turn for the characters that do not have much health, like yeek archimages, oh the nightmare on one side they're super powerfull but that combo is easily insta-killed by nearly everything that is able to attack first from out of your sight (like when you're at a corner, do not see the monster far but it can see you and cast spell you to death) due to the lack of health.
There's the easy mode (no achievement , could be a problem if you want to unlock some classes) that provide the player with more lives.
Or there's always cheating, either by backing up the saves (do it anyways before entering any new dungeon even if you don't plan to cheat, it's the only way to continue using a character if you run into a dungeon loading bug that will destroy the save) or using the debugging consolse (http://te4.org/wiki/t4modules-debugging) to refill your health if you don't want to lose definitively a character you enjoy playing with.
Post by: Seriyu on October 12, 2012, 02:33:29 am
Post by: Frumple on November 25, 2012, 05:21:37 pm
Quote from: Release Highlights
New progression path for high level characters: prodigies talents
Removal of traps in most zones, uness it's a vault
Many new artifacts & uniques
New quest zone for Cursed
Nerf of Solipists
Engine supports tile animations and movement "twitching"
Removal, addition and rebalancing of many egos.
Buff of Wyrmics
New minor even in many zones: glowing chests
Graphical updates
Many bugfixes & polishing
Spoiler: Expanded Changelog (click to show/hide)
Post by: Mephansteras on November 25, 2012, 07:01:24 pm
Post by: Robsoie on November 25, 2012, 07:34:23 pm
I gave a quick look, nice new pictures in the loading screens
My offline/online profiles seems to work, my unlocks are still unlocked.
Got a little arena attempt with a shaloren solipsist in offline play, worked nice as i survived for a while and even reached level 13 after killing the bone serpent boss, and then in the following wave a damned undead archer appeared, paralysed my character (and blocked all my skills on the same turns) and killed my unfortunate solipsist in a few turns with arrows without me being able to do anything.
And my very good thoughtform warrior was too far to reach the archer in time.
The usual ToME4 yasd :)
Post by: dei on November 28, 2012, 04:23:08 am
If it matters, you can very easily activate debug mode and debug-resurrect as many times as you feel like. Other than invalidating your character for the online vault (no effect on manual character dumps!), it's functionally identical to exploration mode infinite lives.
Not being able to win at a roguelike is nothing to be ashamed of or worry about, though :P There's plenty of people that's been playing RLs for years without a single victory, or only one or two (and then with specific games; I can walk Incursion up and down the sidewalk nearly blindfolded, but I've never beat Angband, ferex.).
I don't like losing very much at all unless I'm roleplaying, and there is no room to roleplay in Tales of Maj'Eyal. At least none from what I see. However I am considering getting back into the game when I get a computer that can handle Dreadfell. As it stands now that area is nigh unplayable for me due to the fact that I've got an old computer that doesn't do well with rendering big anything.
I'll probably pick up this game sometime in the next year if I can get a cheaper place to rent and some means of getting a more modern computer as I really did love playing a Paradox Mage and there aren't any other games that replicate such a neat little class. Until then I guess I'll watch silently for updates.
Post by: Mephansteras on November 28, 2012, 11:57:57 am
Post by: Robsoie on November 28, 2012, 03:30:18 pm
So try the arena mode to see if it is freezing for you too
Post by: beorn080 on November 28, 2012, 05:54:17 pm
Post by: Frumple on November 28, 2012, 06:35:03 pm
Adventurer's are... pretty great. Only problem thus far is starting melee ones are a total PitA for the first few levels. Because your primary resource is, basically, category points, you can't really afford (from an optimization standpoint) to waste one unlocking combat training when you can pay 50 gold to get it.
So that means killing Prox or whoever, in melee... without combat accuracy. Protip: It takes a long bloody time to kill Prox when you only have an accuracy score of seven.
But... yeah. It's great. My greatest obsticle to getting characters into the end game is getting halfway there and going, "It'd be really nice if I had <talent tree X> right now." With adventurer... you know what? I have that tree. Do I want to run a cursed with corrupted strength today? I can! Do I want to have every summoning talent in the game? Let's rock the mob. Basically every tank/healing talent in the game? Transform and roll out, because nothing's gonna' kill me this run! I might not be able to kill anything either, but by the dead gods I'm not dying. Wanna' have another go at breaking the movement speed system? Rampage/celerity/quick-as-thought/mobility tree/step-up. Let's do this. I vunder vat kind uv attack speed a hasted rampaging reaver vith momentum kan do! Find out! AHAHAHAHAHAHA.
...
So yeah, they're neat. S'got some problems insofar as UI goes (You have to expand lots of trees in the class tree list before you can see the lower down ones, ferex), but the sheer possibilities are just... delightful. Wish they had a couple more starting cat points, though. Most classes start with 10-11 trees on average, iirc; Advens start with eight, counting the racial and what cornacs get. You can work with it, though. Yes, yes you can.
Post by: beorn080 on November 28, 2012, 10:41:03 pm
Golemmancy is broken for them. They don't get the golem minion it seems with it. So, don't take golemmancy when you try them. Pity. Golem + Thoughtform + Wildgift summon + Necromancer skeletons + Throw bomb + alchemist protection + Staff combat. Always wanted to try out that combo.
Post by: Robsoie on November 29, 2012, 04:06:57 pm
Good Bulwark character, nothing seems to be able to be a real threat thanks to the nice skills, got hit harder than usual just at the end of the regen and then an enemy come and deal insane damage of the kind the character has no resistance, and that to add to the injury got just a bit over the current character health.
(http://i.imgur.com/YbVPQ.jpg)
Post by: Robsoie on November 30, 2012, 09:58:35 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It was "only" the 30 waves arena though.
I really like the Arena game mode, it's excellent to play lot of race/class combo you unlocked and test various possible builds with the skills (as you levelup quickly) and see what's working best for you.
I had never played the skeleton necromancer before, but it has impressed me, it's a powerfull combo and it's very fun to play.
Post by: beorn080 on November 30, 2012, 11:09:49 pm
On that note, I just beat the 60 wave variant with a cornac summoner. Ranged wildgift, thoughtform, necro minions. Once you can start getting liches and runed eternal bone golems, necro minions are almost impossible to beat. Especially with the prodigy for summoners.
Post by: Robsoie on December 01, 2012, 03:17:33 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
My first attempt at the 60 waves version and my first victory in it, that skeleton necromancer combo is indeed very powerfull as the abilities are nearly all usefull, i had a lot of fun.
Though a bit sad that due to the experience malus of the skeletons i could only reach level 38 by the end and so i couldn't try the prodigies.
But whatever, victory !
:D
Post by: Eurynomos on December 02, 2012, 07:31:51 pm
Post by: Frumple on December 16, 2012, 08:18:56 pm
Still, things continue to progress! We're getting closer to V1 and the start of new campaigns, yeah.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on December 17, 2012, 06:31:57 am
Quote
Arcane Blade lost the cooldown penalty on flame/lightning/earthen missilesYay! My favorite class got buffed
Arcane Blade now has 2h-crippling, shield-offense and dualwield-offense trees locked at 1.0 mastery
Post by: Robsoie on December 17, 2012, 11:01:48 am
Though i'll certainly spend most of my time playing the Arena gametype as i've got addicted by it :)
Post by: Robsoie on December 27, 2012, 11:08:51 am
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2012/12/tome/tales-majeyal-100rc3-aka-game-candidates
Quote
Dark Empathy prevents minions from damaging the masterMore bugfixes and tweakings are always a very good thing
Quote
Dark Empathy prevents minions from damaging the masterA very very good thing
Quote
Dark Empathy prevents minions from damaging the masterReally very very good.
:D
Post by: Graven on December 27, 2012, 11:30:28 am
In unrelated news :
Hey DarrenGrey, if you're still reading this thread, you said you were the main lore guy, right?
Why the hell is everything so depressing in the main module :( I love the gameplay, but every bit of lore, especially later on, depresses the hell out of me. Like, I don't want to
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also I just remembered : Can I become Antimagic and just kill the stupid zigguranth so they, too, stop depressing me?
Post by: Robsoie on December 27, 2012, 05:57:34 pm
http://te4.org/download
edit : article about it for changelog
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2012/12/tome/tales-majeyal-100rc4-aka-end
Post by: Robsoie on December 28, 2012, 02:58:20 pm
- then at some point my character fight an enemy, either boss, unique or group of monsters.
- whatever i do there, whatever tactic or skill is used, nothing seems to work, and the boss, unique , group of monster manage to kill my character (i don't mean those insta-kill crap, but the 99% of the time in which the enemy just freeze the escape/healing/regen abilities by some silly affliction or powers so the character can only die hopelessly)
- frustrated, i then threaten my computer to throw it through the window.
- on the Eidolon plane my character rests for a while and i decide to give a 2nd try at that battle by asking the guy to send me back
- but i know that the boss/unique/group of monster will all be back to full health, and that the battle will then very likely go the same way and will end into me throwing the game directory into the trash bin :D
- and surprisingly the battle is solved in a few turns, with my character annihilating the boss/monster/unique without much problems.
- what the ... ?
In ToME4 , this is happening to every of my characters regularly :D
Post by: Frumple on December 30, 2012, 08:33:56 pm
Post by: Seriyu on December 30, 2012, 08:42:00 pm
If so, neat, I find a lot of Indie projects like this get caught in an eternal flow of new versions and such and never actually end. :P
Post by: Frumple on December 30, 2012, 08:56:02 pm
... I don't really know what version 1 means, other than some kind of numbering milestone, and presumably the end of the content lock that started a few versions back.
Post by: Seriyu on December 30, 2012, 08:57:12 pm
Post by: Robsoie on December 30, 2012, 09:43:01 pm
At least this 1.0 version is fixing the broken Arena gametype from RC4 that was spamming error message each turns.
I played the RC4 adventure gametype lot since a few days (as my beloved Arena was broken :D ), and it reminded how much i like and hate this game in the same time :D
Post by: getter77 on December 31, 2012, 07:59:46 am
Post by: Robsoie on January 01, 2013, 10:17:28 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And so that lead me into a question as i never expected the story could go that way :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I have been lucky with items with that character, and getting skills that increase his armor and shield protection , he's currently able to stop lots of damage.
His only weakness is that he does not deal that much damage by turn in comparison to past fighters type i played (but thanks for the shield bashing and to the critical damage chance increased that helps a lot) but it's the first time i have that much protections (usually i am not very lucky in the items i found)
And this time during the Master battle i wasn't waiting very long to teleport away and recover my abilities, that's why i lost so many character since a few versions against him, because staying too long in front of him (and his numerous summons) increase the chance of your skills being blocked, sure way to lead into a yasd.
Post by: Graven on January 02, 2013, 01:44:55 am
And so that lead me into a question as i never expected the story could go that way :Spoiler (click to show/hide)
...I'm sorry.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on January 02, 2013, 09:02:54 am
Thanks for the precision, i'm not sure my character will survive for long enought to learn that, as i have been into a loop of stupid death for stupid reasons in previous characters run (forgetting to check my health and getting killed by a lowly monster, forgetting to escape despite i could easily do it, etc...)
How much i love that game, the gameplay variation between each combo is making replayability amazing, as unlike the majority of roguelikes it's not just a matter of bonusmalus somewhere and you always end in playing the same way.
And i absolutely love how it does away with the silly "hungry every 5 minutes" element in most other roguelike without making it any easier in the same time.
And how much i hate that game when it kills definitively a character i was enjoying playing :D
Post by: Robsoie on January 02, 2013, 11:04:06 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on January 02, 2013, 12:21:25 pm
I don't think there's a difference between one black p (or is it h? It's hard to tell in ASCII) and another, though.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on January 02, 2013, 01:15:53 pm
My poor level 30 Dwarf Bulwark and his very high armor ( 90! at 100% hardness ) got stomped in only a few turns once he got teleported by one of the monster power in the middle of several dozen of orc spell casters that focused fire on it.
It's been a very long time i have not been in the Far East, but i didn't remembered Vor Armory (out of the death room of course) being that hard for a melee character. Even when i won the game, Vor Armory wasn't -that- hard.
Will have to grind some more XP and levels then come back later (though there's not much places to do that currently as i cleared most of the lower level dungeons from Far East), it's simply crazy in there.
Post by: Robsoie on January 02, 2013, 04:14:00 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Incredible how gaining 2 levels can make such a difference and allowed me to stand more than a chance in Vor Armory bottom.
Post by: Graven on January 13, 2013, 07:36:28 am
From what I understood I need to chainstun peoples at the start, remove points from stealth and traps and go slowly, but even with that advice I died twice before reaching level 12 - true, both times it was my own fault, but still.
I have 5/5 in Dual Strike and Flurry, 5/5 stealth and random generic talents because I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing. I unlocked technique/combat veteran, because I seemed to be having troubles with stamina, but that might have been a mistake. I even put a mastery point in Cunning/Stealth, but peoples [and rats, and moulds, and poison ivies] see me from a mile away anyway. I had to go to Norgos' lair and stairdance to kill The Big Bear himself, since Trollmire was demolishing me.
I hear rogues deal incredible damage lategame, and I love stealth/backstabbing characters, but this is hard :(
Post by: rhesusmacabre on January 13, 2013, 08:51:22 am
Post by: Frumple on January 13, 2013, 09:32:10 am
As for DS/Flurry, I wouldn't max those early, myself. I usually get flurry to about 3/5 (around 90-100% damage per hit) and leave it for quite a while, and there's no telling if I'll invest much in DS at all (stunning's good, killing is better, and DS+dirty fighting is usually enough to kill most things even with both at 1/5). Sweep and whirlwind are both good, as well.
Traps will get you through most of the tier one stuff. Bear trap alone is enough to kill most of the melee bosses, really, if you felt like kiting a lot (obviously not as viable with a ghoul rogue [also note: ghoul rogues are pretty solid. They're beefy.].), and it makes kiting in general a sinch. Just remember you can place a trap directly below you and then step off it.
Other than that... I'unno. Don't forget that instant melee attack you've got, it's nice. You probably want to prioritize debuffing daggers (icy, elemental, slime, etc.) since you'll be doing plenty of damage anyway. The poison tree's fairly solid for that, too.
There's... probably plenty more that could be said. Check the T4 forums for character reports, I think we had a few rogue winners fairly recently. The posts on those should be somewhat illuminating. E: Actually, that was a shadowblade. Ehn. E2: Though according to the vault, tiger_eye did win with a (really freaking weird) ghoul rogue that... as near as I can tell, went, uh. Staves (http://te4.org/characters/6887/tome/e4ae4db3-f5d0-4485-986a-e430790b181c). ... man, I don't know what the hell went on with that critter.
Post by: Robsoie on January 13, 2013, 10:37:05 am
The main escape solution is then the movement infusion (as antimagic is preventing phase door and teleportation that are huge live saviour early , middle and later game)
But unfortunately i learned that even with a movement infusion does not replace phase/teleport in some specifically deadly situation.
-sandworm lair-
It happens that sometime when you travel following one of the neutral worms digging a tunnel that it lead into a room full of monsters that move and block the tunnel exit before you can get out.
In such case you need to kill quickly the monsters blocking you and get out of the tunnel because it just crumble on itself after some time and will kill you in some turns (damage if you're a low health character or lack of air if you've got plenty of health).
And when the monster that block the exit is an elite, it has a lot of health, and even if this specific elite is not dealing much damage or is not really dangerous, chances are that you're not going to kill it quick enough to avoid the tunnel crumbling on you.
That's where phase/teleport save your character ... usually.
But you're antimagic so no phase/teleport.
I learned too that when buried , you can't use you quick digging mouth tooth to dig the squard that would save your character, you're interrupted by suffocating each turns.
Basically, you're dead and can do nothing against it.
The dwarf has a skill that allow him to move through wall, unfortunately it's a high level skill you're far from learning at the level you are when you're exploring the sandworm lair.
Damn antimagic. I have yet to find an antimagic powered item that is actually good in my current run, maybe bad luck though i have read they were more powerfull under an antimagic user but i have yet to see that, unless more powerfull is a punny +1 somewhere, and i'm +/- at the time to explore Dreadfell.
Post by: Robsoie on January 13, 2013, 10:05:17 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on January 13, 2013, 10:23:46 pm
But yeah, it's like every level of that place is one of the dreadfell levels stuck in an area about the size of an adventurer party ambush (smaller, actually, iirc) only with less cover. Only it's leveled to eastern heights and there's probably a pack of Gs running around. On every level. No vaults, though! Oh yeah, and the boss wall walks.
Man, in retrospect that place is kinda' brutal, innit? It always seemed to be cake even without stair abuse, but I can't recall why, haha. I'll have to go that route next time I reach that point in the game, just to experience again. Shoeimp's shoes aren't as great these days, anyway :P
Post by: Robsoie on January 13, 2013, 10:52:55 pm
I remember now, a bit more than a year ago the last time i took this path, an alternative to the stairs was to be completely dependant on luck in term of how the level was generated, if you were having your entry near corridors, you could relatively control the fight (relatively because i remember there were a bunch of dreads that could attack from the walls)
But if as i just experimented your stairs are in the middle of a big open room, with dreads, the boss and some elites, well, brutal is not even strong enough to describe how hopeless this can be without the stair attrition tactic :D
And if not lucky, you may not even be able to retreat before it's too late, as my character was constantly under several effects (that apparently do not care about any resistances, but prevented me to go down) that made the game refusing to allow him to go down.
Post by: gogis on January 14, 2013, 08:18:14 am
Post by: dei on January 15, 2013, 12:21:50 am
Post by: Frumple on January 15, 2013, 12:41:58 am
Torment... I forget if that's locked on corruptors, since I don't recall it being so on reavers. If it is, then that's probably an even better idea to go for, first, as both shadowflame and bone's sexiest bits on a corruptor are hefty cost sustains and willful tormenter gives you a good chunk more vim to play with. I hear good things about overkill (especially on a corruptor) and blood vengeance, too. Blood lock's kinda' situational, and even beyond that is kinda' useless when you've got curse of death.
Didn't checked this for like a year. Does zerk bloodtree is still utramegasuperstrong? I remember smashing orks in far east, easily outhealing all incoming damage. Me see it's about a time to unsheathe my rusty dwarvish broadaxe again...It's still solid, but the healing bug with it was fixed long, long ago and the bonus from it has turned static, so the upper limits are much, much lower (though you get more out of it with minimal hp/stam regen stacking, now) both for the regen and the stamina. Mortal terror's still sexy, though daze has been changed (I wouldn't say nerfed, but definitely changed. You can uses it to kick off debuffs now, if you feel like usin' the zerk's.). The third tier is still superfluous and unstoppable's still unstoppable.
Post by: dei on January 15, 2013, 01:24:14 am
Shadwflame tree's probably the better idea for an initial investment (every talent but the second -- never max that, ever, it causes the radius to equal the range, i.e. you blow yourself to hell with it -- is pretty solid, especially nowadays if you find an undeath belt), but bone's not exactly a bad idea either (shield, as you note, is good, and the rest adds a bit of damage type variety to your arsenal.).I had a feeling just a few moments ago that someone was going to mention Corruption/Torment - which is locked on Corruptor - and that I should go with it, as well as that it would be you Frumple that would give me that advice. Thank you for the advice. I appreciate it.
Torment... I forget if that's locked on corruptors, since I don't recall it being so on reavers. If it is, then that's probably an even better idea to go for, first, as both shadowflame and bone's sexiest bits on a corruptor are hefty cost sustains and willful tormenter gives you a good chunk more vim to play with. I hear good things about overkill (especially on a corruptor) and blood vengeance, too. Blood lock's kinda' situational, and even beyond that is kinda' useless when you've got curse of death.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 15, 2013, 12:54:27 pm
Quote
I hear good things about overkill (especially on a corruptor) and blood vengeance, too. Blood lock's kinda' situational, and even beyond that is kinda' useless when you've got curse of death.
Overkill basically turns all your spells into AoE attacks. It's ridiculous. Blood Vengeance is only useful if you get hit. By the endgame, you can kill everything before they touch you.
Post by: Frumple on January 15, 2013, 01:12:11 pm
Spoiler: Re New Class (click to show/hide)
As for new areas... ehn. Nothing major that I can recall, but there's been quite a lot of balance tweaks here and there and a new difficulty added that's in between normal and insane. Amatathon got buffed again, prodigies got distributed around, and there are some new unique enemies, some of which can get pretty nasty, but difficulty in general hasn't shifted too much, I'd say. Except for the LoS thing, which has made things rougher in general on melee dudes.
Post by: dei on January 15, 2013, 04:22:26 pm
Spoiler: Re New Class (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2013, 05:00:50 pm
Be warned that Yeek Archimage despite being very powerfull combo is an extremely low health one, meaning that you can be killed extremely easily, and even 1 shot-killed regularly.
So you must invest some point in Constitution to avoid many, many 1 shot-killed situations.
A tactic i have used to unlock Mindslayer with a Yeek Archimage :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Prodigies are awesome (most of them, as some have a questionable usefullness), definitively improved the survivability of my characters late game instead of the festival of frustrating death it was.
Post by: Un67 on January 15, 2013, 05:49:37 pm
Spoiler: "Unlocking Mindslayer" (click to show/hide)
Post by: Zyxl on January 15, 2013, 05:53:47 pm
Any tips for infinite dungeon mode?
Post by: Frumple on January 15, 2013, 06:19:23 pm
Any tips for infinite dungeon mode?Don't. Open. The Goddamn. Vaults.
Then you're pretty much peachy until the stair guardians start coming in, at which point it's basically just a really long farportal with sporadic bosses. Really, that's my best advice without knowing more in particular about your builds and/or playstyle. Just. Don't open the vaults. Until you're at least in your, like, twenties or thirties.
Anyone that opens an ID vault before that point is implicitly stating their willingness to reroll their character. Infinite dungeon vaults do not, at all, play fair. They do not have sanity checks on them. They will spawn OoD creatures you cannot escape from. Those creatures will be carrying tier five equipment that they won't drop on death. This will happen on ID (2). You will die. You will die repeatedly. Do not. Open. The vaults.
Post by: dei on January 15, 2013, 06:39:24 pm
I found that difficulty is a lot dependant on what combo you use and in which zone you are.Thank you for the advice, I will have to try that sometime.
Be warned that Yeek Archimage despite being very powerfull combo is an extremely low health one, meaning that you can be killed extremely easily, and even 1 shot-killed regularly.
So you must invest some point in Constitution to avoid many, many 1 shot-killed situations.
A tactic i have used to unlock Mindslayer with a Yeek Archimage :Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: "Unlocking Mindslayer" (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2013, 06:56:13 pm
But whatever, in my last farportal adventure ... big spoiler happened
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
First time since i play and explore farportal that i see this and i explored a lot of them with my many characters, so is there more to this ?
Post by: Frumple on January 15, 2013, 06:59:42 pm
Also, no, you can't kill the blighter. Invulnerability flagged.
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2013, 07:01:47 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: dei on January 15, 2013, 07:32:40 pm
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 15, 2013, 07:51:59 pm
First time since i play and explore farportal that i see this and i explored a lot of them with my many characters, so is there more to this ?
If you encounter him while carrying the staff of absorption he has slightly different dialogue.
When is someone usually able to go into the farportals in this game? Is there some sort of requirement that has to be met?
Your fortress needs a certain amount of energy. And there's a mini boss in the room.
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2013, 07:59:32 pm
If it take another couple of years before i can meet him again when i have the staff ... :D
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on January 16, 2013, 02:39:55 am
steamrolled to lvl 21 almost without serious problems... (nearly died to farportal boss with manaclash, but barrier saved my ass) celestial\light + aegis is a broken combo
And, spellpower? 52. By inventory (and Arcane power, of cause) alone. Spell crit 22% without halfling racial ability active
Really should stop playing archmages in a - all points in magic and other attributes receive what is left.
Post by: dei on January 16, 2013, 03:10:54 am
When is someone usually able to go into the farportals in this game? Is there some sort of requirement that has to be met?
Your fortress needs a certain amount of energy. And there's a mini boss in the room.
I actually did two farportals with my Cornac Corruptor yesterday, and I have a third one available at this time. I'm going to wait until my character is a little more capable of handling herself before going off into another farportal though.
Also, I think I really like Corruption/Shadowflame now. Why do I really like Corruption/Shadowflame you ask?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on January 16, 2013, 08:31:27 am
Be carefull about Farportals :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
If the game frustrate you, give a try to easy mode, it's still challenging (of course depending on your race/classe combo) but you will see much much less 1/2 shot killed situations.
Though if you haven't unlocked anything or does not have most achievements, easy mode prevents you to get them
Post by: dei on January 16, 2013, 01:32:00 pm
Just finally won the easy mode with my antimagic dwarf bulwark (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/21fa472f-2456-47fe-a242-b8d8e9985b9a), antimagic really helped in the last battle, though as there were plenty of difficult zone for this character despite it being the easy mode i doubt i will ever try antimagic in normal again, it cuts you from too many usefull items and escape solution (though it's really great against some bosses).
Be carefull about Farportals :Spoiler (click to show/hide)
If the game frustrate you, give a try to easy mode, it's still challenging (of course depending on your race/classe combo) but you will see much much less 1/2 shot killed situations.
Though if you haven't unlocked anything or does not have most achievements, easy mode prevents you to get them
I think that I won't try Easy Mode specifically because it doesn't save your achievements, though I also won't try it because thanks to the Bay 12 Games community I don't mind losing sometimes. I just don't like those bullshit deaths that end up with my Paradox Mage dying twice thanks to her becoming her own grandmother. Though I did see a doujinshi that was similar to that sort of situation once...
Well either way, I'm having fun with my Cornac Corruptor, whom I named Nikki for some reason. I also like how unlike my Cornac Paradox Mage (Molly) or my Higher Archmage (Merry) that Nikki decides to attack the citizens and guards of the various towns and hamlets for both power and resources. It leads to some interesting situations that in turn teach me a bit about how the AI works in Tales of Maj'Eyal.
Nikki isn't a villain though. She's just kind of spontaneous with a side of Bipolar, like the person who plays her. It's kind of interesting how I come up with these sorts of things for my characters in this game. It's probably why I haven't gotten to some of the other classes yet - I haven't come up with those little quirks for builds like a Cornac Reaver, a Cornac Cursed or a Yeek Archmage yet, and those are builds that I would like to try once I come up with the proper concept for them.
Post by: Robsoie on January 16, 2013, 03:07:49 pm
The ToME4 adventure is a very long one, longer than most roguelike i played so i grow attached to my characters (unless i play a combo that i discover quickly to be boring to me), and the more the character is leveling, the more varied his skills/talent list is getting.
Allowing you many more varied strategy and tactics.
So losing the character when playing Adventure mode when it start becoming really fun is for me very frustrating.
I think if ToME4 didn't have several lifes for the character in Adventure mode, i would have simply stopped playing it long time ago, especially considering that "bullshit deaths" can happen if you're not lucky indeed.
The Arena game mode is an exception in this in ToME4, because it is coffee breaker by its concept, so when i lose a character there, i don't mind, i didn't invested much time on it, and thanks to the accelerated leveling, you can have access to the varied strategy&tactics from many skills/talents relatively quickly, so re-rolling a character is not frustrating.
Post by: DeKaFu on January 16, 2013, 04:31:55 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on January 16, 2013, 04:38:04 pm
Myssil... is in Zigur. Zigur's, ah. Not Last Hope.
Post by: DeKaFu on January 16, 2013, 04:39:36 pm
That would do it, yup.
Post by: RedKing on January 17, 2013, 10:54:19 am
I've gotten to where I can reliably get a character to lvl 10, but it's that 10-20 range where I inevitably bite off more than I can chew. Although I've got a Dwarf Cursed that's kicking some serious butt right now. Made it to lvl 14 before getting his first death (note to self: don't take on an entire garrison full of storm giants).
Post by: Graven on January 17, 2013, 11:40:18 am
Mostly though it's just about having mobility and escape options. Rune of Phaze door is good, Teleportation is better, innate class mobility is great, always try to escape a little bit before you think you'll need to if you know you are not a great player, don't engage adventurer parties... update your infusions... what else. Maybe try a Bulwark or Berserker, the thread on SA has some really great character advice, as do the official forums... hm.
Oh yeah, this guy does LPs, including a beginner's guide :
http://www.youtube.com/user/belmarduk/videos?view=0&flow=grid
Haven't watched them, but supposedly they're decent.
Post by: dei on January 17, 2013, 12:08:27 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on January 17, 2013, 12:16:08 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 17, 2013, 12:16:30 pm
Sometime only 2 levels can make a huge difference for a character survivability in a specific dungeon.
So in the beginning of the game, when you're tasked to do Trollmire and Korpul, do not only do those before going to the next quest (old forest, maze, etc...), go on the map and do all the starting dungeons you can ( norgos, lumberjacks, bloom, scintillating caves
ToME4 needs you to grind as much as you can to optimise the survival chances of your character, as you will have then better skills, highers skills level, deal more damage, have better items, better resistances etc... than if you do only the quests dungeons.
Refer to this to get an idea on which dungeons you need to clear to get better chances of surviving later :
http://te4.org/wiki/zones
Then there's experience of playing.
After playing for a while you will know you will need to get the Lightning resistance as high as possible before entering Tempest Peak or Urik will kill you in a few turns, the same in Daikara in which you will need to max your cold resistance or you'll get a very hard time against Rantha (in Daikara get some lightning resistance too, as there are some enemy that use lightning attacks)
If you don't have good resistance in comparison to what is waiting for you in a dungeon, you're going to lose a life, so if you have found no items improving the res you need, do not hesitate to check every shops to see their rings/amulets/etc...
Dreadfell is a big "game over" generator usually, at the level you will be, even grinded as much as you can, it's the most deadly place. But each additional levels you will be able to gain before entering Dreadfell will help, and you really need them.
Once you get past Dreadfell, your character will be usually good enough to survive for more dungeons, until the next "game over" generator dungeon of course (the Prides in the east by example, places in which maxing your level as much as you can seriously help) .
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 17, 2013, 12:22:27 pm
Y'all make me feel inept. I have yet to get a character to lvl 20 (outside of the Arena). Have beaten all the second-tier dungeons (Old Forest through Daikara) a couple of times, beat the Sher'Tul Ruins once. How on earth do you get to the Far East to unlock all those nifty priest/paladin classes?
I've gotten to where I can reliably get a character to lvl 10, but it's that 10-20 range where I inevitably bite off more than I can chew. Although I've got a Dwarf Cursed that's kicking some serious butt right now. Made it to lvl 14 before getting his first death (note to self: don't take on an entire garrison full of storm giants).
Protips:
1. Always be in control of a situation.
2. If in doubt, run away.
3. Never fight fair.
4. Don’t get complacent.
5. Survival is your top priority, not conquest.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on January 17, 2013, 12:28:03 pm
I am guilty of 4... so many character dead because of that
Post by: Un67 on January 17, 2013, 12:34:01 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 17, 2013, 12:47:40 pm
The boss is not that powerfull, so you can defeat her if you're at a correct level.
But the problem are the unique undead elite that will spawn near the tombs while you're entering the boss room, they're -much- more dangerous and will kill you most of the time if you attack them all.
So the best tactic is to attack the boss, trigger the rod of recall, killl the boss and be teleported before the wave of playerkilling enemies will reach you.
Then you can come later and kill them all once you get higher level.
A workaround to this tactic would be to open each coffin , to spawn them individually and kill them one by one before going after the boss.
But it will curse your character, and as you're usually tight with the generic points, you may have to waste a lot of them to counterbalance the cursed skills, and so not putting them in the usefull generic skills you need.
If you play a cursed character, you will not care at all, as you already have the curse , and already counterbalanced it with the cursed skills.
Post by: Un67 on January 17, 2013, 12:57:29 pm
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on January 17, 2013, 12:58:02 pm
Of cause there are some cases, when character survivability raises a lot from a single level, when ghoul gets retch, when sun paladin gets barrier or providence and so on, but usually your gear is more important.
Also, I disagree with resistance stockpiling at early levels. It's good, sure. but healing bonus, boost to firepower, useful charm usually overweight it.
Post by: Robsoie on January 17, 2013, 01:25:43 pm
And then it become extremely hard, as your minions are of your level and so will not be powerfull enough to deal with nearly everything you'll fight.
That "lagging behind" problem becomes obvious in Dreadfell, when you face the master with your minions and he nearly insta kill them, forcing you to resummon, then he re-insta kill them, and you're then back at 0 undead reserves .
Meaning you can't summon anything anymore until you find more monsters to kill (and if the dungeon floor is cleared, you'll have to leave the level , resetting the master at full health, in order to find more monsters to kill and get more undead reserves.
After winning the 60 waves arena with skeleton necromancer, i have been surprised how much of a very harder time i have with it at just mid-game.
Post by: Frumple on January 17, 2013, 01:32:50 pm
Post by: Un67 on January 17, 2013, 01:43:04 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 17, 2013, 01:57:11 pm
As for general stuff, you'll want mobility kit (rush/speed boots, tele rune, movement infusion, etc.) whenever possible and advanced mobility is where your first cat point is going to go (Second's either grip or finer energy manip). First three talents in that tree are solid, but you can probably avoid maxing the first and third tier -- you don't really need their maxed range, in most cases, but an extra point or two is generally a good thing. Antimagic's a pretty good idea, especially with the resulting fungus, but you can do without quite easily as well. I'd probably recommend heavy or massive armor, likely the latter until the end game (unless you've found good -fatigue kit you don't mind wearing).
Race wise... thalore, dwarf, or undead (Either -- ghouls are my preferred 'cause of the built-in stun immunity a ghoul slayer can get, plus g.leap is great and Quick as Thought and Beyond the Flesh help mitigate the ghoul global speed penalty). Maybe halfling or cornac. Yeek or shalore are good for focus!slayers and highers are alright doing whatever.
There's probably more I'm forgetting, but that's a start.
Post by: Robsoie on January 17, 2013, 02:00:00 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 17, 2013, 02:00:19 pm
Post by: Un67 on January 17, 2013, 02:06:58 pm
Thanks for the advice, it looks pretty helpful. Also, what about the various leech skills? What the other skills do looks pretty self-explanatory, but I'm not sure what these leech skills are really for. Am I meant to use them as debuffs or to regain psi, or both? Or can I safely ignore them?
Post by: Frumple on January 17, 2013, 02:13:18 pm
I sorta' don't use 'em. I generally just take the first point out of the first talent, collapse the tree, and never look at it again. But... give 'em a try, see if they work for you. They'll let you be pretty free with the your spiking and other talent use due to the psi gain and the other effects aren't exactly bad.
Post by: Robsoie on January 17, 2013, 03:36:17 pm
Early dungeon; Rhaloren camp, my Shaloren necro had cleared Scintillating caves very nicely and was doing great in that dungeon.
Then a named random unique, cast the shield, cast Darkness, cast then Chill of Tomb as usual.. except that my character die just then !
(http://i.imgur.com/Ncj4B.jpg)
Convenientely my character had exactly 142 health before that.
So whatever crap this early random unique used, it crumbled my shield and insta killed my character.
And out of this amount of damage that early in the game corresponding oddly to my health , here's now the bullshit death part : that character being a necro had blurred mortality active.
This excellent necro talent, at the level 1 i had it for now, prevent him to die unless he reaches -50 health.
So let's see 142 health at the time of the strike - 142.22 damage = my character was ending at -0.22 health , meaning that there's no reason for my character to be dead at all !
perfect example of bullshit death.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 17, 2013, 05:29:28 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Any advice for melee Mindslayers? I'm a sucker for equipment gimmicks (Celerity, Corrupted Strength, and Beyond the Flesh are all pretty awesome skills) but I'm not quite sure how to make these guys work. Just spike shields and auras whenever possible and hit things to death? And what should my priorities be? If I understand correctly, the shields are pretty important, right?
Not a melee mindslayer, but my last win was with a Anti-magic mindslayer. It was pretty powerful. By the end, Mindlash had 0 cooldown and dealt over 1000 damage.
http://te4.org/characters/11413/tome/de75ca02-8282-43b9-9667-e7b3cc71af76
Post by: Robsoie on January 17, 2013, 06:40:27 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Too bad those zones do not appear offline, they're worth experiences and items.
Post by: amjh on January 17, 2013, 10:34:20 pm
Post by: Flying Dice on January 17, 2013, 10:37:28 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 17, 2013, 10:39:49 pm
Incidentally, uncontrolled teleport is often more useful than controlled teleport, from what I've seen. The standard thing (for my critters, anyway) with conveyance is to take it 4/1/-/-, with the latter two talents depending on other factors.
Post by: amjh on January 18, 2013, 01:19:07 am
Post by: RedKing on January 18, 2013, 10:03:09 am
Random bosses often seem to be my bane more than the plot bosses. Some are laughably weak, some are OHGODWHYYYYY...
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 18, 2013, 02:35:48 pm
After looking at some winners in the vault I'm surprised so few people abuse Elemental Harmony. 41% global speed boost is awesome.
Post by: Frumple on January 18, 2013, 03:12:28 pm
Arguably the best part about harmony speed, though, is that it stacks with other speed buffs... like say, Eden's Guile or the Shaloren racial >_>
Or did. Dunno if they fixed that.
Post by: dei on January 18, 2013, 03:32:21 pm
Post by: Un67 on January 18, 2013, 03:47:20 pm
Post by: freeformschooler on January 18, 2013, 03:52:37 pm
^ I don't think it is, though. It's still on Greenlight.
I think dei's talking about the awareness Greenlight gave to the free version. Otherwise, yeah, not available on Steam.
Post by: RedKing on January 18, 2013, 03:54:00 pm
I don't want to be that guy but has anyone else noticed that the Tales of Maj'Eyal community has kind of deteriorated since it's inclusion on Steam? Every time I get into that game now people tend to be assholes of some kind.It's my experience that the Internet is composed primarily of assholes, especially in the context of online gaming.
Post by: dei on January 18, 2013, 03:57:22 pm
^ I don't think it is, though. It's still on Greenlight.I still see assholes every time I'm on though. Honestly I hope that the Steam Greenlight fails horribly because if this does get on Steam I will probably play Tales of Maj'Eyal exclusively offline.
Pretty much this. I don't like the Steam community from what I've seen so far. Then again most of whom I've seen in the Steam community from brief glimpses into it would count as either sexual deviants, powergamers, elitists, hipsters, idiots, assholes, and the occasional /b/tard.^ I don't think it is, though. It's still on Greenlight.
I think dei's talking about the awareness Greenlight gave to the free version. Otherwise, yeah, not available on Steam.
I've been on the internet for close to fourteen or fifteen years now. Until the Steam Greenlight Tales of Maj'Eyal was the only online game that I had played which did not have assholes for the most part. Steam ruined that.I don't want to be that guy but has anyone else noticed that the Tales of Maj'Eyal community has kind of deteriorated since it's inclusion on Steam? Every time I get into that game now people tend to be assholes of some kind.It's my experience that the Internet is composed primarily of assholes, especially in the context of online gaming.
Post by: Frumple on January 18, 2013, 03:59:45 pm
Post by: dei on January 18, 2013, 04:18:33 pm
Ehn. The uncivil folks may be a bit more common, but the average fellow using the chat still seems fairly alright. I'm not exactly on 24/7, though, so maybe I've just been getting lucky. Regardless, you can always filter the chat out. I've actually been doing that recently simply because the message log causes massive lag when I open it, after a while. If I don't see the text, I don't feel compelled to answer questions, heh....I'm tempted to filter the chat out myself but to be honest with you part of what drew me to Tales of Maj'Eyal was the online chat. I play online games not just because they are fun but because I want to socialize. I have no offline friends who play video games or have any interest in what a nerd like myself would like, so I play online games to fill that gap that is unable to be filled offline.
I guess I'm just feeling more than a bit disappointed about the decline of the Tales of Maj'Eyal community, and quite cynical about it's future if the game does get put on Steam. I've noticed that almost any game that I have liked that has been put on Steam has had to deal with the community becoming much worse after it's inclusion in even so much as the Steam Greenlight. Honestly, I would rather talk to /b/tards, conservative fundamentalists and pedophiles than most of the people in the Steam community, and the whole bit with the decline of the Tales of Maj'Eyal community is blatantly pointing that out to me once again like a slap to the face. And I hate conservative fundamentalists.
Hence why I hope the Steam Greenlight isn't a success. I don't want to have to filter the chat just to enjoy Tales of Maj'Eyal, especially when the wiki is incomplete. I suppose I could ask the lot of you here for help, but I still hope I won't have to start filtering the chat because of a bunch of assholes who haven't been raised right and only care about powergaming and various forms of chicanery that include calling me names for some reason like a couple of those bratty children did yesterday.
Post by: Blaze on January 18, 2013, 09:55:28 pm
Also, I ate the heart of the sandworm queen and, if I'm reading this right, I can get +6 to ALL STATS whenever I get zapped by lightning?
Maybe I WILL finish Derth's Quest this time.
Post by: Frumple on January 18, 2013, 10:08:30 pm
Lightning harmony's probably my... third tier harmony effect. Fire harmony is best harmony, and acid harmony can be really sexy on a regen/healmod tank. Then lightning and nature roughly tying. Cold is... iffy. Not as sexy as the rest.
The best of things with harmony is an elm staff. Command staff and manually attacking yourself (there's an attack talent in your talent menu [default m]. You can hit yourself. As a side note, you can break daze with that.) gives you desired buff on command for a few hitpoints, so long as you're not mainlining magic.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 18, 2013, 10:27:48 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Especially with overkill. I killed most of them with one shot. I think that was the easiest time I had getting that achievement.
Post by: dei on January 18, 2013, 11:15:51 pm
Burninator is fun...I want Gwai's Burninator very much now. It would make the game a lot easier in some cases if one of my characters had it. I could nuke the shit out of Dreadfell...Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Especially with overkill. I killed most of them with one shot. I think that was the easiest time I had getting that achievement.
- edit -
I feel your pain Dei, RotMG went to the dogs after they went on Steam. I was very happy with the community there before, but now it's all about "loot", "add more endgame content", "scammers", and "omgthispersonhaxbanplz". Add me to the "It's Popular now it sucks (http://Aren'tyougladthisisn'tatvtropelink.fakelink)" elitist bandwagon.I'm glad someone agrees. I wouldn't go as far as to say Tales of Maj'Eyal sucks now, but personally in order for me to even get along with the community now I have to resort to my "training" from my days on 4chan's /b/ board.
Also, I ate the heart of the sandworm queen and, if I'm reading this right, I can get +6 to ALL STATS whenever I get zapped by lightning?
Maybe I WILL finish Derth's Quest this time.
Furthermore...
I don't want to be that guy but has anyone else noticed that the Tales of Maj'Eyal community has kind of deteriorated since it's inclusion on Steam? Every time I get into that game now people tend to be assholes of some kind.It's my experience that the Internet is composed primarily of assholes, especially in the context of online gaming.
People that are assholes on the internet are assholes because that blanket of anonymity that is provided by the internet lets people show their true colors. On the internet, people don't have to fear retaliation for telling someone to go fuck themselves and can just eagerly flame away. It is such a shame that Tales of Maj'Eyal has a community that resorts to internet arguments and fat loot fetishism. Like I said before, the only real way I can deal with assholes on the internet is to resort to what I used to say and do on 4chan for close to four years, before my ban last November thanks to a false report.
Post by: Graven on January 20, 2013, 04:29:14 pm
Now I have to do all the god damn early game dungeons again and the thought alone saps my entire will to live.
edit : VVV
Yeah, but I'm pretty sure I can win a 3-runer in Crawl in the time it takes me to get to the Master here.
Post by: Blaze on January 20, 2013, 04:30:54 pm
Welp I just cruised through almost the entire west on a Cornac Cursed, lost one life due to... something, in the Sandworm Lair, went antimagic, saved The Wayist, then lost all my lives in Melinda's God Damn Crypt because if I can't beat it on an antimagic cursed why would I even play.Welcome to pretty much every damn roguelike ever made.
Now I have to do all the god damn early game dungeons again and the thought alone saps my entire will to live.
Post by: Frumple on January 20, 2013, 04:38:17 pm
Yeah, anyway. Cursed should have been able to drop the crypt pretty easily, though, AM or otherwise. Rampage around, blindside crap, GG pointy-ears. Silence or mana clash would have just been icing on the incredibly angry cake.
Now, if you were expecting to tank your way through all that dakka... yeah, that wasn't going to happen. Not even the old-school AM mindslayers could manage that, really. AM shield/resolve/blight resistance helps a lot, but the crypt is really more of a test of your mobility and offense than anything.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 20, 2013, 04:57:31 pm
I was thinking of doing a Let's Play of this game on nightmare/roguelike. Any interest?
Post by: Graven on January 20, 2013, 04:57:49 pm
The very first level was a combination of three wide open rooms connected with single hallways stuffed to the brink with spellcasters. I lasted a long time... well, a long rampaged time, so probably about 5 enemy turns. Being antimagic and with no teleportation kind of screwed me hard. I knew I should just leave, but I was really annoyed and besides, I didn't expect to do better in Dreadfell.
Also it's not just about the time it takes, it's the time it takes while I'm not doing anything at all. Version 1.0 still saves three separate times every time I change location, and not to mention that there appears to be either a pretty severe memory leak, or t2-3 dungeons are for some strange reason 3 times slower.
Also someone tell me if Brawlers are easier than Cursed because everyone talks about how powerful lategame Cursed are, but some of us have troubles getting there.
Post by: Frumple on January 20, 2013, 05:05:20 pm
My level 36 corruptor died in Vor's Armory. I got bored with one-shotting everything with impunity, so I started playing recklessly. Elemental Harmony still stacks with other speed sources. I started every fight with a 90% global speed boost. It was fun.S'pretty much always interest of some sort in T4 let's plays, methinks. We don't have nearly enough of them yet :P
I was thinking of doing a Let's Play of this game on nightmare/roguelike. Any interest?
Post by: Graven on January 20, 2013, 06:20:49 pm
My level 36 corruptor died in Vor's Armory. I got bored with one-shotting everything with impunity, so I started playing recklessly. Elemental Harmony still stacks with other speed sources. I started every fight with a 90% global speed boost. It was fun.
I was thinking of doing a Let's Play of this game on nightmare/roguelike. Any interest?
Especially if you play something less orthodox, like a Rogue/Shadowblade or Brawler, I'd definitely be interested, at least at the starting part up to the East.
Post by: gogis on January 20, 2013, 07:54:21 pm
But seriously, I am SO glad they finally made autoexplore, which I whined about year ago.
Also I have a feeling that they toned down difficulty alot, I am finishing west now, and no close calls in any quest dungeons. Especially it's noticeble in Daikira, which i finished almost on autopilot, while in older versions i shat my pants everytime boulder / lightning hit me around the corner.
Post by: Frumple on January 20, 2013, 07:59:21 pm
If you still want crazy regen, go antimagic and pick up fungus.
Post by: dei on January 20, 2013, 08:47:20 pm
However, I am considering expanding the classes I play to Wyrmic, Cursed and Archer as well. I have heard that Dwarf works fairly well with Wyrmic and Cursed and despite my dislike for the Dwarven starting area I may indeed go with those particular races for those particular classes. However, I was wondering what particular race would go best with Archer, which I would like to play because Archer rares and uniques are often times what I have the most problems with defending myself against or defeating as a spellcaster of some kind.
I was considering either Thaloren or Halfling for an Archer of some kind, and I would like to hear about the advantages or disadvantages that each race would perhaps provide for the Archer class. If one could please provide this information I would be very appreciative.
Post by: Frumple on January 20, 2013, 09:15:54 pm
Halflings... I just don't play much. Their racials I hear are good (and with lucky day and a couple pieces of luck kit, can provide a few turns of 100% evasion) and they've got a good life rating, so they're fairly sturdy. Looking over the racials again, they're actually pretty decent insofar as offense goes (solid crit buff, especially if you're pumping cunning which most archers will to some degree for the crit, plus an alright physpower booster). Halflings are pretty standard go-to slingers, since they've got the cun scale going. Halflings make pretty good everything, really, since cunning's nice in general and they're fairly sturdy. Downside being... a XP penalty (there may be a pattern building, here) and a minor strength penalty which makes getting a bow archer off the ground slightly (but only slightly) more annoying.
White elephant in the room, though, are skeletons. Skeletons make basically freaking ridiculous and terribly hard to kill archers since bone armor scales with dex and their first tier bumps up both dex and strength (a bow archer's primaries). Downside being no infusions and I guess XP penalty but eh. You get to skeleton master archer back at them, heh.
I like ghoul archers, too, heh, but I like ghoul just about anything so eh. Still, leap helps with archer mobility and the fast attack speed on bows/slings helps offset the ghoul global penalty, so it's a pretty good (if somewhat aesthetically silly) combo. Downside being, y'know, ghoul. And a XP penalty.
Post by: Robsoie on January 20, 2013, 10:09:31 pm
In early game they're great, their racial talents are powerfull enough to complement any class.
But at roughly daikara/tempest peak you will notice that you're not as high level as you would wish your character to be, meaning then that you have talents that will be at a lower level than what you would have with other races.
And then you go into Dreadfell, and there it is hard, very very hard to be lagging behind in term of leveling.
Can't even imagine the Prides with a skeleton considering how lower level you would be at that point of the game in comparison to everyone else.
You really feel that difference that start to appear in mid-game when you play a skeleton after having played a cornac.
Post by: Un67 on January 20, 2013, 10:38:07 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 20, 2013, 10:45:19 pm
Caster wyrmic, maybe? Acid aspect makes for a pretty easy start, iirc, then you pick up the mindpower scaling junk and breaths, range dakka everything to death. I like shattering impact 'zerkers, which are basically critzerkers that pick up SI...
Could try a staff AB. Run it like a (somewhat gimped, but whatever. Flame alone can murder everything up to dreadfell pretty easily.) caster, then transition into casting and beating things over the head with a stick. Staff warden's another one along those lines, only even better at transitioning since they can swap weapons without using up time.
... sling rogue? I hear strangely decent things about those, but it sounds kinda' annoying to get rolling. Still, some crazy bugger dropped the post-dreadfell ambush with one, once.
If you've unlocked adventurers, that opens up a lot of crazy shit. Rampage everything.
Post by: Un67 on January 20, 2013, 10:51:38 pm
Mostly, I guess something that has a bit of tactical diversity and isn't just doing the same thing over and over and over, but has a bit of a toolset to make use of. I guess that could mean all sorts of stuff, though.
Ehh, I'll figure something out.
Post by: Frumple on January 20, 2013, 11:00:41 pm
Shadowblades, perhaps. Brawlers... maybe. Doomed might fit, but that latter two can be iffy to get used to, mayhap.
Possibly try some addons. Spellblades are pretty sexy right now.
E:SEXY BESHOED GOD OF DEATH! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
So yeah. Opened glowing chest. Know what popped out? Alchemist and summoner. Minotaur and bloated horror. In a 2 wide culdesac in the maze. Blocking my way out. Me with no teleportation, promptly surrounded by hydras, canines, ritches. Plus the minotaur, bloated horror, and golem in flat out melee range. No way out.
So, like. Shit. Panic. I haven't put a point into con since I started the game. Try a bit, live a little. Then the enemy bastards (all of them but the summons) pop shields and I'm like, daaammmmnnn. Activate TK core. Rampage procs, do some damage, shields still up, way further into culdesac blocked by summons. I'm popping healing light, devour life, and my regen infusion whenever they're up, despite this, I end up spending, shit, like six turns with <50 hp. Eden's guile gets activated somewhere in there. Hit wrath of the woods, pop wild infusion when I'm in that <50 hp zone. Two turns left for regen to be up.
I. Fucking. Live. Golem drops. Pop regen, horror drops. Regen pulls me back over 100 health. Minotaur drops. M'fucking victory. Suck my psi-wielding doombeast, RNG.
Adventurers are great 8)
Post by: gogis on January 21, 2013, 07:08:16 am
Bloodbath's still fairly solid -- 25+ hp regen isn't really anything to laugh at, and the stamina boost plus some unending frenzy is still enough to keep shattering impact running fairly easily. Mortal terror is still incredible and unstoppable is still unstoppable. Endgame 'zerkers continue doing what they do by murdering everything with violence.
If you still want crazy regen, go antimagic and pick up fungus.
Huh? 25hps is nothing compared to 500+. It's 20 times lower, actually. I remember some fights in east, 300-500 incoming dps fighting mages was a usual thing. Some lucky crits and we talk about 1k spikes. Antimagic was not working at all, shield was crumbling on first turn. There must be something gamechanging here, I will see and report later. Alot of new things I see now, maybe something missing here.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 21, 2013, 08:34:30 am
Can anyone suggest some combos that are interesting but aren't super-frustrating to set up? I mostly prefer either up-close and personal melee guys or blasters, and have pretty much everything unlocked except the Far East classes, Solipsists, Marauders, Skeletons, and Pyro/Cryo trees.
Shalore Berserker, Ghoul Reaver/Corruptor, and Dwarf Paradox Mage (melee).
Post by: Un67 on January 21, 2013, 03:09:40 pm
Post by: Graven on January 21, 2013, 08:37:55 pm
I did, however, find this shield, which seems pretty sweet, even if I'm not sure I need these exact stats on a shield. Considering I got it at level 17 or so, I won't probably be getting a better one anytime soon. I'm thinking of doing the elven ruins at some point soon, probably right after Daikara, which might be my last mistake on this character.
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc9/Baron_Sengir/Shield_zps15af5bef.png)
Also god damn photobucket, get your shit together. Each newer interface is more cumbersome than the previous one, how do you even manage that five times in a row.
Post by: Robsoie on January 21, 2013, 11:25:51 pm
Wow, that's a lot of luck there, the shield is powerfull and will serve you well, and 30% lightning resistance ! great to use on Tempest Peak that has a lot of lightning shooting monsters (and Urkis that like to kill players that didn't equiped enough lightning resistance items)
Though i always hope to find a multi-resistance shields when i play shield based characters, you never have enough resistances so multi-res items still are the best.
My normal difficulty (and even the easy difficulty one) dwarf bulwarks winners were using in the end shields with multiple resistances, both generated item i must say, not artifacts.
Post by: RedKing on January 22, 2013, 03:24:26 pm
Best game so far, got a Thaloren Archer up to lvl 23, finally snuffed it after a cat-and-mouse matchup against The Master.
Post by: Graven on January 22, 2013, 05:11:02 pm
Arcane blade is pretty fun, though. I'll probably do another one soon, since if I had any way to deal with the stunning, uniques usually died to a rush->assault->shield bash combo, including Wrathroot, the weirdling beast and Rathma or however the drake in Daikara is spelled. So squishy, though.
Post by: Frumple on January 22, 2013, 05:21:45 pm
Could also try halfling, I guess. They get a stun removal talent, though it's admittedly their forth tier so it takes a bit to get it. Alright synergy with AB, too.
Post by: Graven on January 22, 2013, 05:36:35 pm
Why couldn't the mages from Angolwen or whatever [seriously, the names of places and people in Tome4 are ridiculous], after seeing me beat Tempest Peak and/or the Grand Corruptor be all like "Hm, yes, it seems rogue wizards might actually be the most horrible thing you'll have to face out there, and with all those orc mages running amok you should go check out this here hidden Temple of the Void where you can learn Void magic which helps deal with enemy spells offensively unlike the defensive side of the supposedly natural antimagic, and makes their spells blow up in their face, anyways good luck brah!"? I have seen discussions about how overpowered antimagic and fungus is, so it'll even serve a balance purpose.
Anyways, I assume from your post stun resist hasn't actually been removed from the early game as I suspected, right? I must be the most unlucky bastard out there.
Post by: Frumple on January 22, 2013, 05:40:33 pm
And yeah, imperialist slaver midgets. Halflings are pretty interesting in T4... probably up there with Darksun halflings for good midget riffs, I'd say. You can always RP yourself as a rebel or something, though!
... though I do sorta' wonder what the blazes you play if you're talking about moral problems with the races. All thalore all the time?
Post by: Graven on January 22, 2013, 05:47:36 pm
Also Dwarf because I've played dwarves in anything that has them and I'm not about to stop now. Totally not because they let me ignore saves to a degree, which are still the thing that confuses me most about Tome4.
I'm not that stuck up on morality, mind you! It's just that the whole "Crowds ripping mages to pieces" thing reminds me of how god damn Sapkowski went completely batshit bonkers after the two [amasing] short-story collections about the Witcher and basically ruined one of the most original fantasy settings out there in the fourth and fifth novels so damn hard.
edit : also I really think we should get a weaker but still viable magical talent tree dedicated to fighting mages, since AM and especially fungus is incredible and being able to teleport doesn't really equalise things.
another edit : Oh wow, if you manage to displace one of the townsfolk in water, they'll just sit there and drown, and you can get randarts from the elite ones... I don't think this is intended behaviour.
Post by: amjh on January 23, 2013, 09:36:54 pm
First time there, easily killed everything.
Then some sand fell on me, but I managed get away.
Then some more sand fell on me before I got time to heal.
Post by: Frumple on January 23, 2013, 09:46:27 pm
The sand itself can't kill you. It can trap you, so you suffocate, and it can hurt you, so a worm mass can murder you, but the damage from the sand falling can't kill. It halves your health every time it lands on you, but, so far as I'm aware, it won't kill even if you're on 1 hp.
Anyway, sandworm lair gets pretty routine after a while. It is recommended that bring along a source of teleportation (runes, psychoport torque), though. Just in case.
Post by: Flying Dice on January 23, 2013, 09:51:57 pm
Well, look on the bright side, such as it is.This, so much. I've a complete ToME casual, but one of the first lessons I learned was the importance of teleports in there. Sort of like the importance of waterbreathing gear in oh-god-oh-god-giant-squid-things-can't-find-any-air-pockets dungeon.
The sand itself can't kill you. It can trap you, so you suffocate, and it can hurt you, so a worm mass can murder you, but the damage from the sand falling can't kill. It halves your health every time it lands on you, but, so far as I'm aware, it won't kill even if you're on 1 hp.
Anyway, sandworm lair gets pretty routine after a while. It is recommended that bring along a source of teleportation (runes, psychoport torque), though. Just in case.
Anyhow. Currently running a Wyrmic JoaT, and it's being surprisingly tanky for something I'm playing primarily as a kiting character. I've put a decent chunk of points into the skills that buff healing, and I got lucky with my escort missions, so I've got a healing spell that generates celestial energy (or whatever it is that Sun Paladins use) and the chants category ready to be unlocked. I've got a bunch of gear with damage-on-hit enchantments, so I don't even have to hit things back, just keep running away while my timers tick down.
Post by: Frumple on January 23, 2013, 10:14:42 pm
Activate burrow. Activate lightning speed. Shout "OH YEAH" Or optionally, huzzah. Profit.
Electric tunnel
Post by: Flying Dice on January 23, 2013, 10:21:44 pm
Post by: amjh on January 23, 2013, 11:32:06 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 23, 2013, 11:33:53 pm
E: Yeah, after some quick bugging of the IRC people and accidentally stumbling across the file the code's in, it looks like it can't directly kill via damage (maybe at 1 or <1 HP, but nothing higher than that). It does, however, look like it can suffocate you to death by itself. Effect of sand dropping on you appears to be half your current life in physical damage (so it can be resisted) and 30 air. Presumably if the air catches you below 30 to begin with, it's a kill.
Post by: amjh on January 24, 2013, 12:12:40 am
Post by: Frumple on January 24, 2013, 12:17:47 am
Post by: Skold on January 24, 2013, 05:23:00 am
Thalore are in a pretty good place right now, but not exactly optimised for archery. Willpower scaling on the first and forth tier talents and primarily defensive on the other two. Forth tier's a summons which can be pretty useful for archers, though, as meatshields and distractions, and the damage buff from the first tier talent's a'ight. Still thaloren are generally better for either more tanky classes (to further emphasize that) or flimsier ones (to help shore that up). They're not going to do poorly on archers, though, as with the recent buffs they do pretty alright with everything (no one's going to argue too hard with two meatshields and an extra 10% passive resall). Downside being a XP penalty but... eh.
Halflings... I just don't play much. Their racials I hear are good (and with lucky day and a couple pieces of luck kit, can provide a few turns of 100% evasion) and they've got a good life rating, so they're fairly sturdy. Looking over the racials again, they're actually pretty decent insofar as offense goes (solid crit buff, especially if you're pumping cunning which most archers will to some degree for the crit, plus an alright physpower booster). Halflings are pretty standard go-to slingers, since they've got the cun scale going. Halflings make pretty good everything, really, since cunning's nice in general and they're fairly sturdy. Downside being... a XP penalty (there may be a pattern building, here) and a minor strength penalty which makes getting a bow archer off the ground slightly (but only slightly) more annoying.
White elephant in the room, though, are skeletons. Skeletons make basically freaking ridiculous and terribly hard to kill archers since bone armor scales with dex and their first tier bumps up both dex and strength (a bow archer's primaries). Downside being no infusions and I guess XP penalty but eh. You get to skeleton master archer back at them, heh.
I like ghoul archers, too, heh, but I like ghoul just about anything so eh. Still, leap helps with archer mobility and the fast attack speed on bows/slings helps offset the ghoul global penalty, so it's a pretty good (if somewhat aesthetically silly) combo. Downside being, y'know, ghoul. And a XP penalty.
My apologies for not responding sooner. I managed to break my account and just a little bit ago got a new one set up. I have been running a Thalore Archer and have done fairly well, though I did also manage to get that unlock file so now I do so happen to have access to Skeletons and Ghouls. I think I might try a Skeleton Archer sometime soon since they do seem to have fairly good Dexterity, but likely after I am done with my Thalore Archer.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on January 24, 2013, 06:52:26 am
Be sure to find a large quiver (Little trick: use two bows and two quivers. In many cases it's better solution to switch than reload talent)
Skeleton archers are good, but not for dexterity but for their awesome generics
Post by: Skold on January 24, 2013, 07:47:14 am
I love shalore archers... A bit squashy but Volleys of arrows
Be sure to find a large quiver (Little trick: use two bows and two quivers. In many cases it's better solution to switch than reload talent)
Skeleton archers are good, but not for dexterity but for their awesome generics
I have never played a Skeleton before in Tales of Maj'Eyal so I didn't know anything about their racial talents. I will have to check them out after I finish with my Thaloren Archer, which I should get back to sometime later today. Right now I'm trying to play games other than Tales of Maj'Eyal because some days I spend hours on end playing just that and I'm trying to diversify.
Post by: RedKing on January 24, 2013, 08:21:03 am
However, I'm now getting to the point where I can stack a couple of sustained shields, which should help tremendously. Need to find some mana regen items though, cause those shields cut into my max mana pool pretty hard.
Post by: Skold on January 24, 2013, 09:00:11 am
Started a Yeek Archmage specializing in Arcane, Phantasm and Aegis. It's going somewhat well, although he's already died twice early to poor luck (and being squishy enough to instagib with a lucky crit).
I have never really considered specialization with any of my characters. Perhaps I should give that a shot, as I had been having ideas regarding an Aegis, Arcane and Fire Archmage but didn't know if specialization was feasible.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 24, 2013, 09:50:50 am
Post by: Robsoie on January 24, 2013, 10:09:21 am
The problem with Yeek Archimage is that they're very powerfull, so much that you forget that they have insanely low health.
So low that everything at some point of the game will be able to one shot kill your character if you have not increased constution.
Post by: RedKing on January 24, 2013, 11:10:32 am
When playing Yeek Archimage i -highly- recommend to put many , many points in constitution.Yeah, I don't expect him to make it all that far, just trying out a few things. For one, sinking a ton of points into Manathrust early pays off bigtime. Most of the critters you're up against in the starter dungeons have some measure of fire or cold or lightning resistance. They have very little arcane resistance. It's got a cooldown timer of 3, which is comparable to the starting fire spell, and a mana cost of 10, which is comparable to lightning bolt. Becomes a beam at lvl 3. By backing up into a corridor, a single manathurst can take out a whole stack of critters. I'm pleased with it.
The problem with Yeek Archimage is that they're very powerfull, so much that you forget that they have insanely low health.
So low that everything at some point of the game will be able to one shot kill your character if you have not increased constution.
Post by: beorn080 on January 24, 2013, 02:23:06 pm
Skeleton archers are good, but not for dexterity but for their awesome genericsThis. So very much this.
Don't pick your race for stats. The best stat boost you get is +6 will from yeeks. Everything else is lower then that.That's two levels. It might help your early game a tad, but long term, once you get past about level 5, it really doesn't matter too much.
However, your racial generics/free category point are really what matters(Aside from undead boosts). Dwarves are almost always a good choice, for example. They have an early racial that boosts saves, and a later racial that ALWAYS boosts all saves based on amount of gold you have. I think, unless it was changed, that 5 points brings it down to 60 gold per +1, and like +20 to all saves. That means that at level 21, you basically buy slotless +20 saves for 1200 gold and 5 generics. At level 24, you can get yourself a cutrate teleport effect. All the effects scale based on Con, which everyone needs and uses. So, dwarves fit almost any class, though some of it is redundant.
Pick your race for the talents, not for the stats. Only exception might be the life stat, if you plan on skimping on Con.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 24, 2013, 03:23:51 pm
Dwarves are almost always a good choice, for example. They have an early racial that boosts saves, and a later racial that ALWAYS boosts all saves based on amount of gold you have. I think, unless it was changed, that 5 points brings it down to 60 gold per +1, and like +20 to all saves.
65 gold per +1 (up to +35 to all saves). Yeah, dwarves are awesome.
Post by: Graven on January 25, 2013, 04:05:45 am
And then you start a Thalore Brawler and reset fifty times till there's brawler's dwarven steel gauntlets in Zigur and then die to Norgos because god damn brawlers have a slow start. This is madness. I have one at level 15, at least, but I'm almost too afraid to play him. The desire to punch things at the speed of light is too high, though.
Post by: RedKing on January 25, 2013, 09:47:48 am
Yeek Summoners seem to be a natural fit -- they stay out of direct combat, so weak HP isn't as much of a problem, and that early boost to Wil and Cun gives you high Mindpower and allow your critters to punch above their weight to start. Having a cheap Ritch Flamespitter that can do 100+ damage every turn from range is potent.
Post by: DeKaFu on January 25, 2013, 10:06:13 am
What would be good in terms of escort reward trees? I have a category point burning a hole in my pocket and don't really need the spare rune slot. I normally don't opt for reward trees because I'm a bit of a points fiend who has to max everything (I'm getting better) so I can never seem to spare the generics.
I've already gained access to (locked) stone alchemy but I'm not convinced I shouldn't hold out for something better.
Post by: RedKing on January 25, 2013, 11:01:35 am
Post by: Robsoie on January 25, 2013, 12:22:30 pm
And they have less malus to experiences than skeletons, meaning you'll be less lagging behind in level than them, giving you access then to some needed skills before Dreadfell than skeletons can't access even after grinding everything.
Though after playing melee characters for a long time, it's hard to get back into a spell caster one, their lack of armor (and so the various nice resistance most of them can give) make your character easier to kill.
And i'm not sure if that's because ghouls are supposed to be slower, but each time i autoexplore and meet a monster that can spell cast, he immediately shoot my character with a spell before i can do anything.
So when playing ghoul be carefull about this and give yourself points in constitutions to get higher health as monsters will have a free action against you when you meet them.
Too bad you can't order your summons to walk ahead of you instead of lagging behind.
Post by: Flying Dice on January 25, 2013, 02:27:47 pm
Post by: Skold on January 25, 2013, 02:44:40 pm
Skeleton archers are good, but not for dexterity but for their awesome genericsThis. So very much this.
Don't pick your race for stats. The best stat boost you get is +6 will from yeeks. Everything else is lower then that.That's two levels. It might help your early game a tad, but long term, once you get past about level 5, it really doesn't matter too much.
By that logic, I should use Shalore for Dexterity-based characters and Thalore for Willpower-based characters, which to me is kind of ass-backwards since I am used to picking a race based on their stat bonuses and not their racial abilities. You can blame Dungeons and Dragons and that glorious bastard Gary Gygax for that. My apologies, it's just that I tend to be a creature of habit.
However, your racial generics/free category point are really what matters(Aside from undead boosts). Dwarves are almost always a good choice, for example. They have an early racial that boosts saves, and a later racial that ALWAYS boosts all saves based on amount of gold you have. I think, unless it was changed, that 5 points brings it down to 60 gold per +1, and like +20 to all saves. That means that at level 21, you basically buy slotless +20 saves for 1200 gold and 5 generics. At level 24, you can get yourself a cutrate teleport effect. All the effects scale based on Con, which everyone needs and uses. So, dwarves fit almost any class, though some of it is redundant.
To be honest with you I don't see that as a reason to make my characters short, hairy manic-depressive alcoholics that for the most part hate arcane magicks and aren't waifu material.
Pick your race for the talents, not for the stats. Only exception might be the life stat, if you plan on skimping on Con.
I don't mind squishy characters to begin with because I've grown accustomed to playing such a character. Therefore I usually ignore the Life attribute when making a choice of what race to use for my characters.
Post by: Frumple on January 25, 2013, 03:10:22 pm
By that logic, I should use Shalore for Dexterity-based characters and Thalore for Willpower-based characters, which to me is kind of ass-backwards since I am used to picking a race based on their stat bonuses and not their racial abilities. You can blame Dungeons and Dragons and that glorious bastard Gary Gygax for that. My apologies, it's just that I tend to be a creature of habit.Any race can do any class decently well (well, except undead and wilders unless you muck around with the code a bit), but yeah, the racial stats outside of XP penalty and life rating are pretty much irrelevant past level one or two, frankly. Most of the racial stat modifiers are less than what you'd get from a middling ego. They're there, but the difference in the long run is maybe a point or two of foopower or something. Not much.
Thalore actually are one of the go-to willpower class races, though. Shalore make fine anything, really, and of the dex based ones the only one that maybe isn't benefited whole heartedly by their talents is bulwark. 10% passive crit chance boost, timeless, and a nice global buff make everything better, heh. Downside being if you go AM with a shalore you lose out on timeless (and the first tier, I guess), iirc, which... yeah, less than optimal. Doable, but less than optimal.
Quote
To be honest with you I don't see that as a reason to make my characters short, hairy manic-depressive alcoholics that for the most part hate arcane magicks and aren't waifu material.Dwarves are actually kinda' okay (comparatively, anyway) with magic in T4, and in general aren't really much like DF dwarves (outside of the digging too deep part). No opinion on the waifu part, all @s look the same to me :P
Quote
I don't mind squishy characters to begin with because I've grown accustomed to playing such a character. Therefore I usually ignore the Life attribute when making a choice of what race to use for my characters.Yeah, once you get used to playing low health races, it's not that bad. That said, life rating makes pretty noticeable difference. Hundred+ extra HP by the end game can mean you didn't get one-shot, heh.
Post by: Skold on January 25, 2013, 06:20:31 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 25, 2013, 07:05:19 pm
post is then redacted too.
Post by: Skold on January 25, 2013, 08:54:33 pm
Post by: Graven on January 26, 2013, 06:17:09 pm
So I came back from the east, killed the new boss in Reknor and a certain asshole did a certain thing and now I'm stuck in the Fearscape, with a demonic orb and I'm supposed to "find the exit".
Thing is, I've walked the thing about six times over, and there's nothing even remotely resembling an exit. There is a small area, about 25 tiles in total in the right corner which I can't get into, since it's completely isolated, could it be there perhaps? And if so, how the hell do I get my ass over there?
The only thing apart from that is a relatively large open space and two fire lakes, but I've walked all over them spamming my demonic orb and nothing happens. Am I the victim of a bug? If so I'll be really sad, since I'm on a wyrmic that, while extremely slow at killing things is quite tanky and seems like a possible win.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 26, 2013, 06:26:57 pm
Edit:
I'm currently playing a level 20 Dwarf Solipsist on nightmare/roguelike and I must say that this class is a bit... overpowered. It feels like cheating.
Post by: Graven on January 26, 2013, 06:30:18 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
There were just a few wretches, and I found a pair of randart boots, so supposedly a rare died because of the Fearscape, but there's nothing here at all. Should there be a boss here?
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 26, 2013, 06:40:00 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 26, 2013, 06:40:43 pm
In addon news, I want to happily point out this. (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=36553) Zizzo, of old time T2 yeek fame, has put out quite a number of little tweak addons that can be pretty useful if you find certain aspects of T4 to be somewhat annoying. This latest one, which I linked, completely bypasses the locks on classes and races, opening up the entirety of the game's core content to whoever wants it. Better, it doesn't mess around with the allow_build or whatever, allowing you to run this alongside a more "pristine", if you will, game in which you accumulate unlocks as you please. Considering how much unlocks annoy me, and how annoying it can be to hunt down the allow_build file, sometimes, I figured folks here might like the heads up :D
Post by: Graven on January 26, 2013, 06:42:01 pm
Oh well, guess I'll do that for a while. Thanks a lot for the answers guys!
edit : Oh jesus fuck I ran around the whole map Earth's Eyes-ing the entire thing, psychoported in the secluded area, stood in the middle of the map rapidly clicking in place for 10 minutes... and now it gave me a message saying the annoying imp is dead and there's a portal... only I haven't even seen the stupid thing. If it's outside the map somehow... god save the queen.
Edit : Yeah how does it feel to get god damn eaten alive Tannen, I bet it ain't so great now is it, huh, am I right or what.
edit : Ok, this is getting a busy post, I know but... I started going into Farportals since I usually never do it, and...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Does that affect anything, or is it just a cool random event?
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 26, 2013, 09:07:20 pm
Urkis could only hit me for 0-17 damage for most of the fight. The only thing that slowed me down was Hurricane, which nearly tanked my psi pool. I have the fungus tree now, so I'll probably never run into that problem again.
Does that affect anything, or is it just a cool random event?
Cool random event.
Post by: Darkmere on January 27, 2013, 03:48:55 am
Any protips on making the opening part more streamlined? Sell to a shop you don't need so you won't level lock it is about all I've come up with. I also hope it's not wasteful to breeze through all the low-level dungeons for loot, 'coz I do that too.
Post by: Graven on January 27, 2013, 07:10:20 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ajF8PRCNWg
The wiki has some spoilers on the bosses and zones, among others.
I also have compiled a txt file with class advice from the SA forums, which is somewhat detailed. Not for all classes, though, just some. I also haven't credited any posters, because it was meant to be personal, but :
http://pastebin.com/index/GqXnEfcA
It's about 15 pages, feel free to browse through.
edit : Oh wow I... I actually won! Go Crundles the XXVIth, my first win!
http://te4.org/characters/15454/tome/d1b09234-e89a-4e01-bfcb-71ebfb01c586
I suspect the reason I won is because I got obscenely powerful equipment. Well, that and antimagic sword and board wyrmics are insane. I just set my two healing infusions to autouse whenever and I had a constant 200+ regeneration going. Things were bad as far as stun and confusion resistance goes so I died a bit, once pinned between two skeleton master archers while surrounded by minor undead at level 21, once to the Grand Corruptor since she healed from the Fearscape and I couldn't really do anything to her [him? I keep forgetting whether the Grand Corruptor or the inquisitor in Rhaloren camp was a woman] and one more to an assassin in the breeding pit because screw poisons.
I killed both the Grand Corruptor and Protector Myssil eventually, since I figured it was time for a change in Zigur leadership. I got an achievement for eating 20 bosses, and I also saved 30+ slaves in the hidden compound since I always do that. I survived the ork ambush after the master so that was nice, I guess. I saved Melinda without dying which might be first for a character of mine. I also got what I assume is the best possible ending -
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As I said, lategame wyrmics are insane, and I didn't really know what I was doing, so my gear was suboptimal for large periods of time. At the end I could block-assault/prismatic slash for 2k+ and spit three different breaths for 500 damage each, so the infuriatingly slow killing of enemies got a bit faster.
And for some reason I found wyrmics really boring. I guess because things died really slowly? They should've felt awesome to me - oh wow I eat enemies and spit sand into people's eyes... and at the very late game - 40+ I did really enjoy playing, but before that it was a slog.
So a few questions now - I assume every melee with a shield should use block and counterstrike as much as possible, right? There is no passive blocking, and counterstrike doubles the damage of every ability used on the enemy, not just bump attacks, I assume, since my assault did double damage, but the wording on the ability is odd.
And second - I feel like doing a caster now. I hear Corruptors are the new thing as far as incredible damage is concerned, but how's their survivability? If I want to kill entire rooms but I prefer to still not keel over after a slight breeze should I go with a Corruptor, or an Archmage?
Post by: DeKaFu on January 27, 2013, 12:50:31 pm
Torn between shelving the character or actually unlocking Necromancers while I still can... :P
I'm certainly not planning to beat the game like this though. Is there any fix for this or is the save file a writeoff?
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 27, 2013, 01:23:52 pm
And second - I feel like doing a caster now. I hear Corruptors are the new thing as far as incredible damage is concerned, but how's their survivability? If I want to kill entire rooms but I prefer to still not keel over after a slight breeze should I go with a Corruptor, or an Archmage?
If you're worried about survivability, then get bone shield, fearscape, and dark portal. Bone Shield will protect you against 7 attacks. Dark Portal is the only escape option corruptors have, so you might as well use it. Fearscape is plain awesome. It's one of the main reasons to play the class imo.
Post by: RedKing on January 28, 2013, 09:27:28 am
Anybody have suggestions on beating Subject Z with a Yeek, so I can unlock mindslayers?
I figured a wyrmic would be the best route, because I can take lightning speed to rush in there before he kills the Wayist, and I can take Nature's Touch to heal the Wayist, *and* I can take that cold attack at lvl 4 and encase Z in ice. One would think these three things in combination would be enough.
Wasn't even close. For one, he puts some nasty DoT on the Wayist, so even with my Nature's Touch heal, the damage after 1-2 turns had erased what I healed.
Tried an archmage, thinking I could nuke Z quickly before the Wayist has a chance to die. Couldn't nuke hard enough. Tried summoner, but my summons can't really do anything to help the Wayist, or disable Subject Z quick enough.
Suggestions?
Post by: Robsoie on January 28, 2013, 09:36:58 am
At level 4 of the talent that Archimage has, Phase Door allow you to target someone else to phase him around.
Do this immediately when you see the yeek under assault so the poor guy does not get killed quickly.
After that, yeek archimage have powerfull spells that in combination to the ice should get rid of Subject Z.
Something else if you have no access to phase door as a skill/talent (the infusion only phase you) but i never tried is to simply use the rod of recall as soon as your yeek come from the tunnel and do not move until you're teleported out of the dungeon.
This way you should not trigger the yeek vs Subject Z duel (as you're too far) , and can go levelup elsewhere until you think your character is powerfull enough to destroy SubjectZ before he can destroy the poor wayist.
Post by: RedKing on January 28, 2013, 09:41:02 am
I'd actually be more likely to use Teleport on the Wayist to get him way the hell out of the way, but then he'd likely get slaughtered by some random undead.
The idea about recalling from inside the ruins and coming back later sounds the most legit, because then I can use whatever class I want.
I'll have to try those out this evening.
Post by: Un67 on January 28, 2013, 10:23:14 pm
Pump up Invoke Darkness first on the class side and Phase Door on the generic side, and then go for the undead minions talent after that on the class side. When you've cleared out both the ritch pit and Murgol's lair (not too hard, Invoke Darkness is really strong early on), go to the tunnel and slowly walk to the left. The moment you see the Wayist, Phase Door him away to the very end of the room near the entrance as Robsoie has suggested, then summon your minions in front of you to be meatshields and do some damage, before blasting Subject Z with Invoke Darkness (once you've maxed it, it doesn't hurt your minions). Should be an easy unlock, I did it on my first try.
Post by: beorn080 on January 29, 2013, 09:53:33 am
However, there is a different reason to do it aside from just leveling to try to save the wayist. If you get to Derth under level 11, you can pick up 2 generic points at the arena. 2 more skill points are always welcome.
Post by: RedKing on January 29, 2013, 11:40:33 am
If you've unlocked Necromancer, here's another method:Yeah, haven't gotten anywhere close to unlocking Necromancer yet. The point about being able to get to the Arena is a good one. Usually sitting at lvl 8 by the time I'm done with both Yeek starter dungeons.
Pump up Invoke Darkness first on the class side and Phase Door on the generic side, and then go for the undead minions talent after that on the class side. When you've cleared out both the ritch pit and Murgol's lair (not too hard, Invoke Darkness is really strong early on), go to the tunnel and slowly walk to the left. The moment you see the Wayist, Phase Door him away to the very end of the room near the entrance as Robsoie has suggested, then summon your minions in front of you to be meatshields and do some damage, before blasting Subject Z with Invoke Darkness (once you've maxed it, it doesn't hurt your minions). Should be an easy unlock, I did it on my first try.
Having a pretty good run for the moment with a dwarf brawler. Does mean that I need to spread my stats out like crazy, but it should make him a tough nut to crack in time. Also means I have very few options on the generic side, so Antimagic actually seems like a good investment.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 29, 2013, 03:15:22 pm
Post by: RedKing on January 29, 2013, 03:26:53 pm
My "standard unlocking build" are alchemists.
Hmm....I don't know that I've ever even tried a Yeek Alchemist. Suppose it couldn't hurt. I tend to make my alchemists all about the golems and ditch bombs and gemworking for the most part.
Post by: Frumple on January 29, 2013, 03:40:43 pm
Someone with controllable phase door really is about your best chance, overall. Though I sorta' unlocked slayers originally with a 'zerker of all things, so... whatever. Keep trying 'till the RNG smiles upon you and Z decides to let the wayist live.
Post by: Un67 on January 29, 2013, 04:26:16 pm
A) I don't think that it's intended behavior
and
B) The maximum level for the arena quest was raised in 1.0, to 13 I think.
Post by: beorn080 on January 29, 2013, 08:20:55 pm
Golems fall off pretty quickly, seeing as they only have 2 hands, a body, and 2 gem slots, minimal stat gains per level, and almost no skills. There are tricks to making them more potent, such as scumming escorts for certain ones, not sure which would be best, then giving the reward to the golem. Something that heals them would be useful, I think. But, yeah. A golem later on isn't much more useful then a meatshield to hide behind.My "standard unlocking build" are alchemists.
Hmm....I don't know that I've ever even tried a Yeek Alchemist. Suppose it couldn't hurt. I tend to make my alchemists all about the golems and ditch bombs and gemworking for the most part.
Currently I'm running a Cornac Alchemist focusing on the Heat and Bombs trees. Surprisingly, Heat + Smoke Bomb is fairly amazing. Hit the heaviest one with heat, then drop a smoke bomb on the group to hit EVERYTHING with a 400-500 damage debuff. And, if you don't need smoke bomb, you can save it for a very useful LoS remover.
Also, I got the best stick+wand combo ever. Staff gives +3 ward talent level, and the wand gives +1. The wand has a bunch of useful assorted ward elements, and the staff just one. But, changing the element on the staff changes the element it gives wards for. So, hello 5+ cold wards for Daikara, or whatever I need. Go in, analyze a target's talents, gem portal out if I must, then just set my staff up to absorb it all. That + Rune of Reflection makes me nigh immortal.
Edit: And so ends Kih the Cornac alchemist. Opened a vault door in Dreadfall. 3 Major demons, no corners to duck around, no way to gem portal out of LoS. Pop rune of reflection, throw an acid bomb at them to try to blind them. Next turn, get teleported PAST them onto a lava floor, golem is dead, I'm at 80 life. Next turn, dead. Was last life, but oh look, Blood of life doesn't give you an extra life. Use that, appear in same spot, drop dead instantly.
Edit2: I just got a cloak. Fairly weak. Except, it has telepathy-Humanoid/orc. Is this any good?
Post by: DeKaFu on January 30, 2013, 02:46:02 pm
Keeping in mind that the furthest I'd ever gotten previous to this run was just barely past Dreadfell...I died in the east at level 42 after beating
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I singlehandedly unlocked both trees as well as Ghouls and four new classes (though still no Necromancer, darn it). Tried a character dump after I died (I'm offline) but I think I messed up and lost it. :(
So apparently Alchemists are really good? Once their bombs are built up you can basically clear the entire room every 3 turns. Not sure I'll try one again though, since that's pretty much the only interesting thing they can do. :-\ Between being a one (or two) trick pony and the hassle of extra inventory management (keeping the chest from transmogrifying things you want to extract, worrying about equipment for both yourself and golem) they're just not that much fun to play.
Also, since this is my first time ever making it to the east:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Graven on January 30, 2013, 08:06:07 pm
I really wish there were an alternative solution with the same outcome as cleaning that place. Yeah I want a pink and fluffy solution in my hurrr grimdark roguelike, bite me.
Also yeah, alchemists are supposedly one of the best casters out there, but I hate pet classes and can't be bothered to micro the golem, which would be much more optimal.
On the subject of casters, I tried an archmage, got him to about level 12 pooling my points and then just stood there staring at the fifty different trees.
Then I went and died 4 times in the ruins under Lake Nur at 15, because teleporting away from the luminous horrors works only when there's at least a single room without 3 of them in it. How on earth am I supposed to build an archmage and not constantly skirt the edge of death while still being unable to quickly kill a single rare? I went fire/wildfire/aegis and it did not work out well. I could kill groups really fast, but single enemies were meh.
Post by: Frumple on January 30, 2013, 08:26:43 pm
I mean, they've got other stuff they can do (and once you get things rolling, especially with fire, everything just melts because you've probably got 100% respen and so much +fire damage faerosi cringe in horror), but I just spent like four or five hundred turns playing smack and away with a bastard with impending doom.
I also just realized ID's a goddamn necromancer talent, not archmage. Right. Yeah, conceptually they're more about the AoE layering, so, like, do that. Drop inferno and freezing vapors and whatever BS the arcane trees are crapping all over stuff with nowadays and then teleport away and let crap melt. Can't teleport, pop bone armour and laugh 'cause you just shat out a 1.5k hp shield at like level twenty or some crap or throw up stone wall and go nyah nyah nyah. Hit the frakkers with mud slide or tidal wave or whatev' and then PD yourself (or movement infusion -- if you're not undead, you can use those) to the edge of their range and let them wade through your fields of death all over again. Or PD them to the other end, either way. Basically, archmagi have a crapload of options -- specialization isn't necessarily a bad thing, but even a specialist mage wants all that tasty-as-hell utility. Get it, use it, yeah.
Regarding the orc patrols... it might be worth throwing an idea post up on the forums suggesting rares get squelched in those. They were quite doable for however many betas there were before the breeding pits were implemented, but I do imagine the inclusion of rares has been a nasty stealth buff. Or play with the opt-in advn parties addon, which I think covers orc patrols, too. Well, or code up an addon with an alternative ;)
In other news, I've been reminded that yeek berserkers kinda' rock the house. I'd forgotten about that, and have noticed a neat synergy where the global boost mostly makes up for the penalty from precise strikes, which means I can go str/dex/con and still have fairly ludicrous crit rate (59% at level 24, whee). Anyway, yeah, enjoying this so far. Fair bit flimsier than your normal 'zerker, of course, but that still means I've got like 700 HP and a hefty chunk of HP regen.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 30, 2013, 09:28:44 pm
You can outrun orc patrols on the world map with boots of speed or anything that boosts movement speed. You can also use a movement infusion and flee if you bump into them. They're not too difficult if you're playing a caster though.
It doesn't really matter what spells you pick as an archmage, since they're grossly overpowered. My easiest win on roguelike was with an earth/water specialist.
Basic strategy: 1. Pile on damage-over-time effects. 2. Leave the area. 3. Wait for everything to die. The AI is pretty dumb and it'll (usually) stay put in the damage zone.
Post by: DarrenGrey on January 30, 2013, 09:57:57 pm
Hey DarrenGrey, if you're still reading this thread, you said you were the main lore guy, right?
Why the hell is everything so depressing in the main module :( I love the gameplay, but every bit of lore, especially later on, depresses the hell out of me. Like, I don't want to, but I also don't want to waste two hours to patrols, why can't there be a "I'm a big babby pls" solution?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also I just remembered : Can I become Antimagic and just kill the stupid zigguranth so they, too, stop depressing me?
Just popped in on the thread and saw this... Sorry you find the lore depressing! Well... not really sorry actually. I'm glad people actually have some emotional reaction rather than just slogging through the zone you mentions with a hardened heart. Be glad you are depressed, it means you have a soul :)
As for anti-magic, there is one group that can help you out there, but they're just as mad :-/
Post by: Graven on January 30, 2013, 10:23:35 pm
edit : I've also taken to helping the Grand Corruptor destroy Zigur and then gently nudging him into the water so he can drown. Screw the lot of you, the god damn Grand Keeper of Reality is a mage, and you're fighting against all magic?
Post by: DeKaFu on January 31, 2013, 01:52:17 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on January 31, 2013, 10:47:47 am
Boss fight started and that boss fell rather quickly without any real problem for my character, the bloom really did a number on him.
Only my evil clone was left, but it wasn't going to be harder as after a few rounds i was nearly at full health with a good management of my abilities and the clone was down to "unknown" (blurry immortality i guess, though it's odd that my clone had it as i don't have this).
Then it was just going to take 2 or 3 turns to finish him.
But i couldn't, because each offensive ability or direct attacks i was then doing on the clone ended with a new .lua window appearing and the attack/ability not having actually happened (the ability icon not being in cooldown by example).
After trying every kind of attacks and as a result only more .lua errors and nothing much going on, i understood that this battle was simply broken at that point by those errors, so i clicked on the rod of recall to get out to avoid wasting my time in getting more lua errors.
And it was in fact just opening the pandora box of lua error.
Following that, several dozen of lua error windows one appearing on top of each other.
Fortunately there was a button "close all" , and i clicked.
But apparently the game decided that closing each window took me a turn , because it resulted in my character being killed.
Good i have still a few lives left, but still very annoying when those "bullshit deaths" happen.
Post by: RedKing on January 31, 2013, 11:31:44 am
Died THREE fucking times. Why? Urkis in the starting room with a full-blown lvl 33 storm wyrm as a roommate, for starters. Then stumbled across a bitchload of storm giants including Burf the unique legendary storm giant chieftain *and* the Fragmented Essence of Harkor'zun.
Soooo many elites and randbosses :'(
Then in Dreadfell, I open a vault and there's a lvl 51 daelach (something like a balrog), which proceeds to kick my ass all over the place. Even with prodigious heals, regen and a 800%+ movement infusion to scoot away and heal, it wasn't working. Wound up running for the stairs and just continuing up. Got murdalized by something else a few floors up, finally cut my losses and resurrected back outside. Kinda running out of areas to grind. And I'll still have to get by that daelach when I go back in. :'(
Maybe I should try the Temporal Rift. My one previous attempt was instadeath, but my brawler dude is lvl 25.
Post by: Chosrau on January 31, 2013, 11:49:49 am
Post by: DeKaFu on January 31, 2013, 11:54:12 am
Maybe I should try the Temporal Rift. My one previous attempt was instadeath, but my brawler dude is lvl 25.
Heh. I had a level 20ish Dwarf... Cursed I think? try that place after an earlier character got through without much problem. Hadn't died up until then but wasted every single life I had except for the last. >_>
I've left it for later on characters since.
Post by: RedKing on January 31, 2013, 12:06:26 pm
Oh, I suppose I need to go find the Ring of Blood. Place like that is right up my alley, being mostly physical and melee. Not a whole lot to grind though.
Peeked into the elven ruins, but yeah...way over my level. Killed a handful of things then got out while the getting was good.
I *think* the Caldera is available, but according to the Wiki that's a beefier zone than Dreadfell is. I really want to get a character to the East so I can unlock anorithils and sun paladins.
Post by: Chosrau on January 31, 2013, 12:11:30 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 31, 2013, 12:13:30 pm
Temporal Rift with a melee character is pretty suicidal. Movement Speed of everything is greatly reduced, so even taking one step means your enemies can attack you several times from afar.Which is largely why you don't move, or if you do, it's via stuff like rush. Temporal Rift's actually not that bad with melee, you just have to be quite careful about positioning and largely let the elementals come to you. And not try to fight more than one or two at a time, really. Once you're past the initial time!E gauntlet, it's a bit less tetchy (until you hit the twins, anyway. They can mess you up if you're not careful. Stay in the little starting corridor, if you can manage it.).
Alternately you can go in with a couple sources of teleportation (double rune, maybe psychoport or whatever) and hopefully a movement infusion and just teleport around until you land close enough to the exit to make a dash for it.
But yeah, movement speed is cut to a third (not by a third, to) and there's some other stuff going on (iirc, projectiles are slowed, too), so you do have to be really, really careful about when you move and where you move to. Unless you've got a ridiculous amount of move speed, I guess...
Well crap. Suggestions? Last Hope Graveyard seems like a bad idea, although if I take on the crypts individually, I should be able to beat even greater undead into submission, mano-a-corpseo.Ring of blood isn't really an XP joint, per se. It's mostly there for the awesome ring. 25 should be fine for starting to duck into dreadfell, but... yeah, you've got problems with that. Could try to clear out the ruined dungeon if not already done so, but i hear it's turned nasty recently so... maybe not. Caldera definitely didn't seem beefier than dreadfell (finally got a damn character that spawned it, yesterday), but it does have its (somewhat annoying) gimmick. Graveyard's eternally iffy. If the RNG doesn't decide to screw you, you're fine. If the RNG does decide to screw you, you're stuck in a small room with a murderbeast.
Oh, I suppose I need to go find the Ring of Blood. Place like that is right up my alley, being mostly physical and melee. Not a whole lot to grind though.
Peeked into the elven ruins, but yeah...way over my level. Killed a handful of things then got out while the getting was good.
I *think* the Caldera is available, but according to the Wiki that's a beefier zone than Dreadfell is. I really want to get a character to the East so I can unlock anorithils and sun paladins.
Maybe do a farportal run or try to nibble on a few adventurer parties?
Post by: RedKing on January 31, 2013, 12:29:06 pm
Might check out the Caldera then, see if i can unlock Solipsists. Don't know that I'm going to be able to beat Dreadfell with zero lives left, especially when the RNG has already screwed me so bad in there.
EDIT: Bah...the Caldera proved to be my undoing. Stupid "fragile mouse" dream.
Okay, new run...Yeek Archmage foucing on Arcane/Aether/Earth/Conveyance. Used the recall trick to delay having to fight Subject Z until beefier. Plan is to use a combination of Phase Door/Teleport and Stone Wall.
My idea is to target Stone Wall around the Wayist. If Z can't see him, he can't target him. Then Manathrust and Aether Breach Z into oblivion quickly. One thing I'm worried is that somehow targeting the Wayist with Stone Wall will trigger him hostile?
Post by: beorn080 on February 01, 2013, 03:49:42 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
BANZAI
Post by: Frumple on February 01, 2013, 04:37:10 pm
Mind sear!
And they all die. But yeah :P Point in thought forged critters early on really helps yeek solipsists, by the way. They don't exactly need it, but a meat shield you can mind sear through makes getting off the island even more of a breeze.
In related yeek news, my yeekzerker has surpassed Amatathon in accuracy and physical power... at level 32. Doesn't hit as hard, obviously (Amat's got that delightful +80% all damage, among other things), but it's pretty darn hilarious anyway. Yeekzerkers are just kinda' beautiful, so far~
No clue what to invest my prodigy in, though. Just kinda' sitting on it, at the moment. Gonna' get some kit together and a few more levels for stats and see what else I can qualify for.
Post by: Graven on February 01, 2013, 04:43:59 pm
This one made it all the way till the dark crypt, pausing only to get instagibbed three times in the halfling ruins [one time to a random skeleton warrior, twice to Subject Z], and die once in the attack on Zigur and twice to Wretchlings, at least according to the game log, which hit me 142 305 times for 20 damage apiece in a single turn.
I went arcane/aether this time, just for a change. It still feels like I do no damage. By this point even my sun paladin was hitting for 400+ with assault and crusade, and he definitely didn't slouch over after a single hit from a skeleton. Arcane Explosions, or whatever it's actually called, is a great spell, really fun to use, but it does about as much damage total as a single turn in Inferno, and the rest of the arcane spells are horrible. Not to mention they are also short-ranged, for some reason?
I dunno, maybe I should drop the DCSS mindset of "nuke 'em all", but if I do, why the hell am I even playing a squishy caster?
So yeah, I'm apparently really bad at Tome casters. I'd try a skeleton, but...40% exp penalty :'(
Post by: Robsoie on February 01, 2013, 05:17:28 pm
It's hilarious how insanely hard it can be suddenly.
My best attempt was with a dwarf bulwark in which i reached the level 30 (nice thing is that each 10 levels you learn more about the lore), but the majority of my attempts get killed much earlier.
In any case avoid vaults and treasure chests at all cost !
They're very tempting considering you find much less items than in adventure mode and as you levelup faster you're always ending with a nice leveled character but really crappy equipment.
But Infinite Dungeon vaults and treasure chests spawning uniques are going to kill your character much more than they do in Adventure mode (probably due to your equipment being so much worse than what you have at +/- equal level in adventure mode, meaning you have a lot less resistances, less armor and less defenses).
And when you think you're doing good, keep in mind that Infinite mode can have you entering in a big room with several uniques or bosses next to you.
On my last game, i arrived in a room with the Shade (from the Kor'Pul dungeon) , the Spellblaze Crystal (from Scintillating caves) and an unique wolf (random unique) dealing high damaging lightning (on my character that had found no lightning res item), basically it was just insta killing my character as soon as he arrived.
Completely crazy :D
Post by: beorn080 on February 02, 2013, 01:00:23 am
Suddenly:I did end up switching out points for mind sear, though, I don't want to keep it so will have to make sure to take it out every level. Can you actually mind sear through thought forged and not hurt them? Didn't realize that.
Mind sear!
And they all die. But yeah :P Point in thought forged critters early on really helps yeek solipsists, by the way. They don't exactly need it, but a meat shield you can mind sear through makes getting off the island even more of a breeze.
Post by: Graven on February 02, 2013, 06:39:25 pm
I just lost both the wayist and a life to paradox failures and backfires, because if you're gonna die to random bullshit you might as well die to the randomest, right guys?
I was fighting a doombringer in a small room above the section of the level Subject Z and the wayist are. My paradox gets quite high since the doombringer has decent hp and resists, so when I attempt to finish him off the god damn wayist and Z, along with some hostile gnomes for good measure, teleport on top of me and of course Z instagibs the Wayist as he tends to do.
And I don't even know how I died, except it involved The Fractured Essence of Wots-his-face and Urkis in the Tempest peak, along with a paradox level of nearly 1500 [48% failure rate], my slow backfiring and dropping on my head, living through a fight with both of them with about 20 hp left and ... well no idea what else. It was kind of frantic. In the end a paradox teleported me right back into the two of them. I didn't foresee a death before The Master, too, the way things were usually going. Oh well.
Man, paradox management has gotten tedious since I last played. It's not rare to have my wait for my paradox to go down after the fight last three or four times as long as the fight itself. Still the most fun caster, but hell.
Edit : Nope! Went and stuck my god damn face in the temporal rift. Two deaths!
Aaand two more in the dark crypt. I'm done.
Post by: lemon10 on February 02, 2013, 07:59:16 pm
No, unless it was changed, mind sear hurts them as well. It isn't that big of a deal though, and hitting them once or twice with it might do some decent damage to them, but they are pretty tanky so they can handle it.Suddenly:I did end up switching out points for mind sear, though, I don't want to keep it so will have to make sure to take it out every level. Can you actually mind sear through thought forged and not hurt them? Didn't realize that.
Mind sear!
And they all die. But yeah :P Point in thought forged critters early on really helps yeek solipsists, by the way. They don't exactly need it, but a meat shield you can mind sear through makes getting off the island even more of a breeze.
They can ignore sleep though (once you get them the ability that gives them lucid dreaming), which is quite useful.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on February 02, 2013, 09:06:55 pm
No, unless it was changed, mind sear hurts them as well. It isn't that big of a deal though, and hitting them once or twice with it might do some decent damage to them, but they are pretty tanky so they can handle it.Suddenly:I did end up switching out points for mind sear, though, I don't want to keep it so will have to make sure to take it out every level. Can you actually mind sear through thought forged and not hurt them? Didn't realize that.
Mind sear!
And they all die. But yeah :P Point in thought forged critters early on really helps yeek solipsists, by the way. They don't exactly need it, but a meat shield you can mind sear through makes getting off the island even more of a breeze.
They can ignore sleep though (once you get them the ability that gives them lucid dreaming), which is quite useful.
Mind Sear doesn't affect thought-forms.
Post by: Frumple on February 02, 2013, 09:12:40 pm
Post by: beorn080 on February 03, 2013, 02:44:01 am
At effective level 5 on distortion bolt, no effect hurts them anymore. However, they can still get tagged by a distortion bolt and block it from hitting things. So, if you lack a clear line of sight, save the psi. Otherwise, fire away. And no, they don't have a mind damage bolt. They have a beam, 2 smites, and a self burst.
Edit: I lied. They have Mind Storm and Focused Wrath, both of which use feedback to shoot mind damage bolts at targets through sustains.
Post by: Graven on February 04, 2013, 05:15:40 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
edit : Oh god this is so painful make it stop please
I know shadowblades get broken lategame. I cleared the Spellblaze at level 21 without taking a single point of damage with one. I also know I have tried over 30 and still haven't even gotten to Darkfell. Random rares instagib me, random uniques instagib me, occasionally random normal mobs instagib me. I can have God's own daggers - doesn't matter.
Edit : It seems like I was right - I'm currently level 28, with 4 deahts - one to a rare with 80 retaliation damage, because I really need to start inspecting rares before flurrying them, twice to the game being a bastard and spawning a rare umbral horror as the farportal room boss and 100% shadow resist is nasty, and once in the dark crypt, because I underestimated a rare and didn't teleport away. I did stomp both the Spellblase and the dark crypt, though, which is making me feel warm and fuzzy.
The basic strategy is clear the entrance if anything can see me, and fling shadowbros at the entire level with cteleport and phase door. It seems shadow veil - the ability which blinkstrikes enemies without input - takes however many turns it states, but only counts as a single turn for shadowbro control. This basically means I can use all my abilities, shadow veil, then use all my abilities again, interspersed with even more abilities because I 5 pointed the attack speed sustain. It's hilarious.
I'm not sure how well it'll work against single bosses and the end bosses, though, but I have a lot of doubts I'll even reach there. It's still hilarious, but I'm not yet sure if it's hilarious enough to make up for the abhorrent start Shadowblades have.
edit : level 36, just killed Golbug, about to go to the East for the first time. I cleared up everything, including the elven ruins, have 8 generic points unspent because I just now got the category point to unlock celestial:light. Prolly shouldn't've been a Cornac even though they're my favourite race.
Welp, dead at 42, kept killing myself with flurries, lost my last life to the overpowered Wyrms, because both my teleport and phase door went retarded and kept teleporting me around the stupid thing. It turns out you can't just spam shadows at them, you need to physically walk into the vault, or they keep "vaulted" status and can't act or take damage. I did clear it up, then went to clear the prides - smashed through Vor, then something happened in Grushnak and I died during a shadow veil, despite the damage reduction and my shielding rune. Not sure I can handle the early game of a shadowblade again, and it's actually somewhat boring.
Well, probably not as boring as a dual-regeneration antimagic fungus wyrmic, though.
Post by: Spitfire on February 07, 2013, 05:43:57 pm
Thanks!
Post by: Frumple on February 07, 2013, 06:22:44 pm
Post by: Spitfire on February 07, 2013, 06:44:23 pm
a) Set the leash anchor.
b) Set the leash distance.
Ctrl+F2 opens the same menu.
Post by: Frumple on February 07, 2013, 06:52:19 pm
So far as I'm aware, there's no way to get stuff back from him after you did that. If you gave him any artifacts (yellow items) you can at least kill him and they'll probably drop, but anything else is... probably lost forever. Also, he now can't move and there's not really any way to fix it.
Sad thing is, I'm actually the one that suggested that feature :-[
Still, bug is bug. I've reported it over on the T4 forums, and it'll probably be fixed whenever the next version rolls around. Sorry about the trouble, bleh.
Post by: Spitfire on February 07, 2013, 08:12:33 pm
Still having quite some fun! The game makes a pretty epic impression, hope that holds up
Post by: Graven on February 08, 2013, 03:45:06 am
http://te4.org/characters/15454/tome/e4953109-c6bd-44a8-b355-571514636ee1
For all of you prospective Cursed players, I have one advice. Don't play Cursed. Ever.
It's really powerful, incredibly so, matched only by how mind-numbingly boring it is. I died twice, once to the Grand Corruptor, because I thought I was ready to fight him after smashing through the crypt when I really, really wasn't; and once at the end bosses, not sure exactly how. I was doing what I did for the entire second half of the game - rapidly clicking my mouse to a black screen, because I'd long ago ran out of remove blind, when I suddenly... died. Then I revived and killed the two mages in like 50 turns, because Antimagic and Fungus are insane on a willpower character. I did come really close to dying once more - in that one Prides vault that has a ton of horrors in it. I went all in and was surrounded by 6 or so of those upgraded Luminous horrors, the ones with six arms? I forget how they're called. They eventually overloaded my antimagic shield, which I didn't notice. Good thing I had the elixir of invulnerability.
Everything Cursed have is passive. This is what makes them powerful, and also what made me want to punch myself everytime I found a vault. Because things in vaults tend to take a lot longer to die, but still don't prove any threat. In fact, nothing in the east posed any threat, I just berserker-clicked my way through it. Also I had a lot less anti-blinding thingies than the hordes of orcs had blinding thingies, so that was kind of annoying.
As a Cursed you have like 5 pushable buttons - Rampage or screw-your-world, a screw-your-damage, a screw-your-health and two varieties of screw-your-mages-and-ranged. At some point I forgot all of these existed.
I really want to win an Arcane Blade, because I hear they're considering nerfing them, because some feller hit one of the bosses for 20k with one? Which I hope isn't true, because it's the worst possible way to balance things in a non-competitive singleplayer game, also noone ever wins ABs, but then I remember I have to go throught the east again and then I remember how many things suddenly need very urgent doing. Like dishes, buying a sponge or two, finding that one book with mice I vaguely remember from my childhood and so on.
Tome really needs to rework its endgame, is what I'm saying. Also antimagic is incredibly powerful and if someone is yet to win, go Wyrmic - it's positively entrancing compared to Cursed :D
Post by: Darkmere on February 08, 2013, 05:08:22 am
Post by: Robsoie on February 08, 2013, 07:33:03 am
Difficult to picture how can that work in your mind though , a small halfling devouring some kind of gigantic dragon in a single bite :D
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on February 08, 2013, 07:37:00 am
Quote
Impending Doom is affected by spell save
Quote
Impending Doom now "only" reduces healing factor by 100% instead of outright preventing healingYay, my regeneration tanks are happy
Quote
When reaching 0 air you now start suffocating instead of outright dying. Suffocating makes you loose life very quickly and can not be prevented by shields/absorbs/Good.
Quote
Brawlers now get the Mobility tree at 1.2
My favorite class got quite a nice buff and a reason to not wear plate armors
Post by: Graven on February 08, 2013, 08:14:44 am
Quote
Bellowing roar, sand breath, balance your str/wil and con, work toward assault if you are going shield and sink a point in it, 5/1/5/1 fungus, 5/5/X/5 combat training, 4/1/5/5 the higher draconic tree, X/5/X/X the acid tree.
Xs are variable in that you may find some things more or less useful or you might want a different breath than the acid one. You usually want 3 breaths by end game though. Venom breath sucks, fire is 'average' (only does damage), sand is the best, acid is decent, cold is decent, lightning is good but variable damage.
Apart from that bear in mind it seems Lightning and Ice breath's status effects appear to work with spell power not mind power, or at least I never ever affected anything with them and I unlocked the Ice Tree on my wyrmic, so I spammed a fair bit of it. Might be worth it to go with sand -> acid -> fire, in this order.
Other than that I ate an oozing horror and felt really disgusted with myself, so don't do that, I guess x]
Post by: RedKing on February 08, 2013, 09:41:35 am
Post by: Darkmere on February 08, 2013, 12:22:28 pm
Apart from that bear in mind it seems Lightning and Ice breath's status effects appear to work with spell power not mind power, or at least I never ever affected anything with them and I unlocked the Ice Tree on my wyrmic, so I spammed a fair bit of it. Might be worth it to go with sand -> acid -> fire, in this order.
Other than that I ate an oozing horror and felt really disgusted with myself, so don't do that, I guess x]
That's really close to what I was using. I went 5/0/0/0 fire, 1/1/1/5 sand, Acid.... uh... the vortex and breath, and was going for 1/X/5/5 higher wyrmic. Confuse for casters, blinds for everybody, disarm for melee. Sword n' Board. Thalore. I died from many stupid mistakes and abysmal stat point distribution. I'm trying to decide if anti-magic would be better than teleport runes as sword n shield, or if I should wait for a 2H setup I want to try later.
I make it a point to devour every boss I can. I imagine this Legolas impersonator raging out Liu Kang style, and it's hilarious. Fatality!
Post by: Robsoie on February 09, 2013, 08:16:48 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And the less i can say is that it is a disapointment.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Graven on February 09, 2013, 08:28:49 am
Post by: Robsoie on February 09, 2013, 09:31:03 am
It's the first but the last time i'm going to make a Lich from a Necromancer.
Dreadfell is insane without in-battle healing (especially those "dreads everywhere" levels as they resist the type of damage the necro spells deal making those big groups extremely hard to kill even with my minions boosted with the surge spell).
Post by: Dr Feelgood on February 09, 2013, 10:51:29 am
Get the light tree if you can. My dude didn't get it, since that escort didn't spawn. Use undead link and vampiric gift for healing. Abuse probability travel and arcane eye. Hide behind walls and watch the battle while being completely safe. You can avoid taking damage in 90% of battles. Pro travel got nerfed, but that strategy should still work.
Post by: Robsoie on February 09, 2013, 11:55:47 am
On the page you linked, i don't understand, how did you obtain the "Technique / Combat Training" category (the one with thick skin and armour training) , as it's not a category necromancers start with and the escorts do not give it ?
Post by: Graven on February 09, 2013, 12:15:13 pm
Post by: Frumple on February 09, 2013, 01:22:11 pm
Post by: Robsoie on February 09, 2013, 01:58:46 pm
Buy it from Last Hope weapon vendors for 50g.
Thanks, i had no idea Last Hope was selling that , i thought it was only those bow/sting categories.
Great , those skills will help a lot.
Post by: Darkmere on February 09, 2013, 09:32:48 pm
Post by: Frumple on February 09, 2013, 10:22:23 pm
Post by: Darkmere on February 09, 2013, 10:47:05 pm
Post by: Frumple on February 09, 2013, 11:27:20 pm
Post by: lemon10 on February 09, 2013, 11:34:39 pm
So if you have ever gotten that scroll in any game and you check the area, they it will could for the purposes of the game.
Post by: Darkmere on February 09, 2013, 11:47:29 pm
There is a place in the fortress (up then left from the main area) that you can get all the lore you have ever collected into your game.
So if you have ever gotten that scroll in any game and you check the area, they it will could for the purposes of the game.
As I understand it, that part is bugged at the moment and the lore doesn't carry from char to char properly. Maybe next version it'll get fixed.
Either way, this game is getting long in the tooth, so it's time for honor and
EDIT: Well. used my last rez (ring of the dead) in the last fight, then died. Considering my previous best attempt was level 31 and BARELY to the east, not bad progress, eh? I'm amazed at how expansive this game is.
Post by: DeKaFu on February 10, 2013, 02:10:11 pm
There is a place in the fortress (up then left from the main area) that you can get all the lore you have ever collected into your game.As I understand it, that part is bugged at the moment and the lore doesn't carry from char to char properly. Maybe next version it'll get fixed.
So if you have ever gotten that scroll in any game and you check the area, they it will could for the purposes of the game.
I got sick enough of this fact that I went ahead and downloaded this (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?p=146462) addon that's supposed to fix it. I'm not entirely convinced it's working though. :-\
After a short and horrible game with a Rogue (mine always are, for some reason) I decided to try out a Thalore Doomed. Because hey, most aptly named class in the game!
Anyway, turns out Doomed are fun.
After a rocky start, I managed to pump up the shadow tree enough that I'm now a walking infinite persistant asshole factory. I just completed Daikara and unlocked the Sher'tul fortress and I'm sitting with 3 lives left. I have my doubts I'll actually beat Dreadfell but I'm having a good time, anyway. :P
The game was also kind enough to hand me this out of a gold chest early on (either Labyrinth or Trapped area, I forget):
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
By the way, just how scary are the farportal dungeons? I've unlocked the ability to go to one a few times but I've always avoided it because I don't want to waste lives.
Post by: Graven on February 10, 2013, 02:39:22 pm
Post by: Robsoie on February 10, 2013, 03:00:58 pm
Items i agree is not something that should be your target when going into Farportals, as i think in all the numerous farportals attempts i did, i only got 1 item that was superior to one i already have at my level (it was a generated 2 handed sword, though i found better in the Orc Prides few time after that).
My main use of a Farportal is to grind XP when i already cleared all the existing generic dungeon and still feel that my character is lacking a level (or a skill/talent) , Farportals are good for this, though you may need 2 or 3 of them to get that level you need.
Now the Farportal problem is those generated bosses. Most of the time , they're strong but beatable.
But as Graven said, if the randomness assign some skill combinaisons or near impervious defenses that by bad luck correspond exactly to the kind of damage you deal, you're going to face a boss you simply can't beat and that will surely kill you.
Here's an example (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78614.msg3570714;topicseen#msg3570714) of one i encountered with a level 43 Brawler.
And your only escape solution will then break the Farportal forever for this character, a pity there's no quest to allow you to repair it, as it's very annoying when it happens.
Now due to the scaling to your level, be warned that if you wait for when you're very high level, you may notice that most generated bosses are more powerfull than even the most overpowered campaign boss.
Though it's a fun way to keep playing once you completed the game and have nothing else to conquer and don't want to go into the Infinite Dungeon (post endgame ID is completely uninteresting as if you're not using an addon, your level 50 character will not be able to gain more XP and your level 5 skills will not get more levels, unlike if you started a level1 character in the Infinite Dungeon from the start).
Post by: Robsoie on February 10, 2013, 06:28:17 pm
During the Orc Ambush big battle, the Phase Door spell at level 5 proved invaluable (due to it being controlled) .
The minions were doing the fight, but even at the level i was, there were too many orcs for them, so even if i still had several souls in stock, i would not be able to replace them more than once.
And after it was going to be impossible.
It's where "Curse of the Meek" saved the day, definitively a spell a necromancer counting on minions must not overlook.
In a difficult battle in which your minions will die despite Surge of Undeath, it's very easy to run out of souls, and not being able to summon your minions anymore is a very very bad situation.
It's even more difficult if you already cleared the whole level, as you can't even go hunt for more souls.
Curse of the Meek is the cure for that, providing some "bunnies" that once killed by your enemy will give you some souls (70% of chances for each bunny killed), so you can summon some minions again.
The bad new is that my Lich is on his last leg, the lack of healing really made the game harder than usual, though i had to run through some farportals to level up a bit to prepare for Dreadfell (being originally a Cornac, and so not having experience penalties helped). Fortunately the minions are very good when Surge is available, they did a splendid work.
I'm not sure how that guy will be able to take on the East.
Post by: DeKaFu on February 11, 2013, 03:30:24 pm
So. Ah.
I'm in the Dark Crypt. Any idea why a Doomed who normally summons 4 shadows and has no negative status effects would suddenly only be summoning one, regardless of how many turns pass, even when sitting at 50% hate? I tried turning off and reactivating the sustain, and also tried leveling up, and it still seems to be happening?
Post by: Robsoie on February 12, 2013, 09:38:18 am
The battle that cost the character his last life didn't seemed that hard (i had much harder battles) , but it was one in which my character was focused fire by the enemies basically ignoring my minions and my cursed bunnies.
Then before it was too late as damage was accumulating so much that even my high res were simply worthless ( resistance always feel worthless in this game as even at 70% you still take a lot of damage, probably due to everyone having some kind of res penetration in their damage.
I can't even imagine with less res how much one hit kill the game must be :D ) i control-teleported in a safe place.
But i noticed i was still taking damage. I gave a look to my character and noticed the "Impending Doom" on him, so basically a game over without any kind of hope at that point (i wish there was a big text popping up when you're hit by Impending Doom so you could teleport away instead of staying and getting more damage, i always fail to notice when i'm hit by that horrible spell).
Conclusion : never again i'll play a Cornac Necromancer with the goal to turn it into a Lich, the bonuses are not worth losing every healing/regen (vampiric gift is not a solution because the sustain eat 250 mana ! and in the East due to how very high health everyone has, you need all the mana you can, 500 mana is eaten in a few turns during those battles, and with 250 less mana, you're going to run into more trouble).
I think if you want an undead Necromancer, better play a Ghoul or Skeleton then, because of their healing ability are actually very good .
Ghoul seems to be the better choice, because it does not have the Skeleton heavy experience penalty (Dreadfell with a Skeleton necromancer is hell, you don't have enough skills/talents points because you're not going to be at a good enough level, unless you grind a lot of Farportal, and probably die while trying to do so) and the Ghoul Retch is very good to heal all your minions while healing yourself, while damaging non-undead.
Post by: Absolute Niro on February 12, 2013, 10:02:33 am
Post by: Graven on February 12, 2013, 10:10:21 am
I've linked a beginner's guide earlier, also a file containing really detailed character advice for some classes, so you might want to take a look through that.
Other than that, "Died in the first dungeon" doesn't really tell us anything, because the first dungeon varies. Tell us class, race and reason you died and we could help.
edit : Doing it again, cuz I'm a cool guy.
Beginner's guide : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ajF8PRCNWg
Advice : http://pastebin.com/index/GqXnEfcA
I should probably keep these links handy. Also character advice by Random Posters on the SA Thread. I compiled it for my own sake, so I didn't bother to note the source, sorry!
Post by: Frumple on February 12, 2013, 10:17:31 am
Catchall stuff would be to use your inscriptions (regeneration infusion for most, shielding runes for others. Use both of them pre-emptively when possible, before you're at half health or below.) and give berserkers or alchemists a roll. The former, just max the berserker talent and pick up some combat accuracy and weapons mastery and you can mostly faceroll the first few dungeons just bumping into crap*. The latter, go 5/5/5/- into explosive admixture and you basically win a good chunk of the game. 2/2/- or so into the golem tree will mostly take care of the first few dungeons for you, too.
If you started with a shalore, note you can leave the dungeon and probably should. Just about anything can do their starting zone, but it seems to eat new players pretty easy. There's easier ones further north (you can start as something besides shalore or dwarf and start in them, if you want help findin' 'em). If you started with a dwarf, note that you can walk (well, run screaming like a little girl but either way :P) past Brotoq while he's wailing on Norgan and just leave. You can combat later after you've killed Prox or Norgos.
*Though that's somewhat deceptive -- if you want to succeed in the longer term, you're going to have to be using your active abilities (such as stunning blow, death dance, rush, etc.) very much regularly. T4 has an active design goal of making it so you can't win just bumping everything to death. DG found that sort of gameplay (which is pretty endemic among melee characters in roguelikes) to be boring.
Post by: Absolute Niro on February 12, 2013, 10:17:54 am
Post by: Frumple on February 12, 2013, 10:23:24 am
More in general, should have made sure you had combat accuracy (which I think 'zerks start with a point in) and by and large let Norgan do the tanking. Dude can actually take most of the joint by himself, but some help doesn't exactly hurt.
Sometimes, though, the RNG decides to screw you and you'll get a particularly bunched up group of Orcs and Norgan dies. That can cause problems, but do note that Norgan dying doesn't really mean anything beyond losing a meat shield and a 'cheevo. Also be careful not to death dance the poor bugger :P
Post by: Graven on February 12, 2013, 10:25:03 am
Also note that the dwarven starting area is unique in that you have a companion and level up when you descend a floor. You should generally explore every single tile, just because artefacts occasionally like to lay in a random corner and annoy you. Also you should play the tutorial, since it teaches important stuff.
Post by: Robsoie on February 12, 2013, 10:48:04 am
And use Norgan, he's much stronger than you for the whole starting dungeon, you must avoid fighting the many orcs you'll see, at that point of the game they'll kill your character, so get Norgan to crush them, while helping him from the side.
For the boss fight, be sure to get Norgan helping you, don't solo the boss with your Dwarf Berserker , especially if you have not found anything good as items !
Now a dirty tactic for the starter Dwarf dungeon is to NOT explore each floor in the correct order but rush to the stairs until you reach the boss level.
The reason is that when you're climbing down a stair of that specific starting dungeon, the game will fill your experience bar so you gain 1 level.
So when you're at the boss level, climb back then explore the 2 floors you went from and kill everything with Norgan along you, chances are that you'll be able to gain in total 1 more level than you would be if you cleared the dungeon floors in the correct order.
And in ToME 4 , just gaining 1 level can make a very important difference between beating a boss or being defeated, as 1 level gives you more talent/skill/stat, making you noticably stronger
Post by: Absolute Niro on February 12, 2013, 11:09:00 am
Post by: ranter on February 14, 2013, 09:39:30 am
What really puts me off about this game is that the loot is not as interesting and, more importantly, easy to compare with what you have equipped as in other roguelikes and that exploring is really, really dull. Yes, I know about the autoexplore button, but what's the fun on exploring when a button does it for you?
Still, is decent enough for me to go and try to beat it. I'll report my success and many failures as they come.
Post by: Graven on February 14, 2013, 10:01:42 am
While, say, Crawl can generate insane randarts as early as D:10, Tome 4 has tiers of items. And tier 1 rares and uniques are far less interesting than tier 5, naturally. Only there is no way to get tier 5 early game. You could be lucky and get tier 4 in certain suspect circumstances, but DCSS can generate the Armor of the Dragon King in a shop on D:5. You couldn't buy it, of course, but you'd know it exists. And all in all the chance of you getting a nice randart early on is decent. This doesn't happen in Tome.
Also Tome has the most differentiated loot in any game I've seen, bar none. It's certainly got a greater variety than MedianXL, and believe you me that's saying something. A great deal of it [rares I'm looking at you] is not that useful, but uniques and... orange items? Are they artefacts? I never knew... can have an arseload of different properties, defensive and offensive stats. That's why it's not as easy to compare items as in other roguelikes, and that was a great problem to me [it kind of still is, even] but you can't say loot isn't interesting.
And exploration is dull, yes. You have vaults, but they're monster closets, through and through. Tome 4 is a hack'n'slash roguelike, not an exploration one. Its whole selling point is the pretty nice combat system, and after one playthrough that's what's going to haul you back, if such things are interesting to you, of course. And the East is a lot worse in this regard. If you're looking for interesting exploration please tell me if you find a roguelike that does it because exploration is my crack and I have none :'(
All in all, you are well within your rights to say you don't like the game right now, but you can't say "this and this is not interesting", because you haven't seen it yet.
Post by: ranter on February 14, 2013, 10:45:42 am
Also, I found some tier 3 equip and a tier 5 two handed mace with the alchemist. A pity the journey ended before I could get the golem to a strength where he could use it.
Post by: Robsoie on February 14, 2013, 11:56:13 am
Here's a good page about the dungeons levels so you can see which ones to visit and which ones to avoid according to your level :
http://te4.org/wiki/zones
edit :
For the exploration, ToME4 feature similarly to DCSS an autoexplore key ( Z or W depending on your keyboard) , it cuts all the boring part in which nothing happens when going in a dungeon.
For the class/race combo, some of them are powerfull, some not so much, and there are those that are very hard to play (as in you're going to die a very lot even in your starting dungeons), by example :
A Dwarf Bulwark is a very good and interesting combo, accessible to beginner they're strong and you feel it is one that is very balanced for the whole game from start to high end.
A Yeek Bulwark is going to die a lot in the starter dungeon , that's a very weak combo, you really want to challenge yourself (or you like to lose characters) to play this one :D
Post by: Darkmere on February 14, 2013, 12:02:38 pm
http://te4.org/characters/31725/tome/e679ac55-caff-4fee-a162-a68af9ab8b7f
You can mouseover gear to see what late game is like. Two of the deaths were from impatience (though one of those was me getting hit for 1100 damage in a turn by a chrono-necro-cryomancer boss) and one was from simply being worn down in the last fight.
Post by: Graven on February 14, 2013, 12:07:16 pm
Also gratz Darkmere! What are you planning on playing next?
Post by: Sirian on February 14, 2013, 12:41:39 pm
Post by: Darkmere on February 14, 2013, 01:33:21 pm
Also gratz Darkmere! What are you planning on playing next?
Why thank you! :D
I have a Shalore Corrupter and Higher Arcane Blade going (when I'm too tired/distracted to focus, I start alts). I'll probably stick with the arcane blade as a 2h user just to do something different. I really like everything I've played except plain archers, so I'm sure I'll get to everything eventually. Hopefully it gets steam approval so I can try stone wardens, too.
I've tried this game and had the most luck with an alchemist. There's a pretty nifty combo if you start as a Cornac, with Heat and Smoke bomb, it gives you a massive area of damage over time. The golem is also very useful for tanking while you deal damage from behind. Other classes were kinda weak in comparison.
They're certainly strong, but lack in late-game versatility, unless the RNG is kind and you get fun charms to play with. I had trouble keeping focused once I finished my kit and every fight was "auto-explore, bomb crits a room for 2k damage, auto-explore".
Post by: Blaze on February 14, 2013, 07:43:12 pm
Something about "Not equipped with real weapon" or something.
Post by: Encased in burning magma on February 15, 2013, 12:43:21 pm
My most advanced character, a level 25 templar warden (archer with a focus on mobility and self heals), just finished dreadthingy and was ambushed by a fuckton of orcs. I won by an hair's breadth by spamming absoutely everything, healing myself with the arena ring and the higher human power, teleporting around and shortening cooldowns, etc.
My point is, there is no fucking way any of my other characters will be able to do this. How the hell am I going to do this with them? For instance, my wyrm guy has no mobility and will be turned into paste by the leader orc in seconds.
Post by: Graven on February 15, 2013, 12:49:59 pm
Post by: Encased in burning magma on February 15, 2013, 12:56:55 pm
That's the entire point of the ambush and the achievement you get for surviving it - it's the unlikely outcome, so you've achieved something :P
Oh. So if I die it's no biggie?
Post by: Graven on February 15, 2013, 01:05:28 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It's a bit dumb, honestly.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on February 15, 2013, 01:57:04 pm
Post by: RedKing on February 18, 2013, 08:25:33 am
I mean, I was building him kind of tanky (which is WTF with a Yeek, I know) -- had 5 points in Carbon Spikes, 5 in Energy Decomposition, 3 in Entropic Field and 1 in Armour Training so I could wear better range of boots/gloves/helms. But I knew something was going on when Wrathroot iceblocked me for 0 damage. Then I noticed that EVERYTHING was hitting me for 0 damage. I'm not entirely complaining, because hey now I can unlock a bunch of things. Just trying to figure out what I did that broke the damage calculations.
Post by: Graven on February 18, 2013, 08:41:19 am
Post by: RedKing on February 18, 2013, 08:59:08 am
It's a known bug. I believe it can occur when you double-die, so to say - a single attack kills you and kills you again - but I'm not really sure since it's never happened to me and people usually don't figure out it happened until later, so they don't notice the event itself.AHA. Yes, that did happen to me. Died, and then died again on the Eidolon Plane in the same turn. Wasn't quite sure WTF that was all about, but I just assumed it was a peril of being a Paradox Mage or something to do with having been killed by my future self (though that wasn't actually what double-killed me).
Good to know. And it does appear that I can take some damage from certain spell effects (maybe those "lose 1/4 of your life" sort of things), but it's relatively modest amounts. It's rather amusing walking aroud smacking everything with a staff and being a Yeek badass.
Post by: DeKaFu on February 18, 2013, 11:44:05 am
From my attempts to fix it in game, I can confirm that you can still take damage from attacking yourself, and killing yourself again does nothing to fix the bug.
(Enjoy the image of a skeleton shooting himself fatally in the head with an arrow)
Post by: Frumple on February 18, 2013, 01:14:45 pm
(Enjoy the image of a skeleton shooting himself fatally in the head with an arrow)Not nearly amusing as autophage, uh. -ation. Though I think you can only do that on higher difficulties now or something. Still. When you don't have instakill immunity, you can swallow yourself. And if you're below the instakill threshold... it can. Swallow yourself. It's right up there with the whole yeek-devours-greater-multihued-wyrm thing. And consuming time Elementals. And ghosts.
Never been quite sure how to imagine the scene, but I can't only guess it ends with a *poink* and one of those little * things hanging in the air for a few seconds.
Post by: DeKaFu on February 18, 2013, 04:00:20 pm
They just blew their last 3 lives at level 48 the end of High Peak.
Thoughts on Doomed:
Doomed are great. Super great. Madness + Mental Tyranny + Unseen force = Walking into a room and dealing 1000+ damage plus knockback to everything while stunning and confusing everyone in sight. A couple times in the Prides I walked into a crowded room, popped Unseen Force, was blinded, waited for the blindness to wear off and was greeted with an empty room. Meleeing Storm Wyrms in High Peak while taking practically no damage with a caster (thanks to the Gestures tree) was also incredibly fun. I also successfully cleared out the room of death in Vor Armory (and all I got was a lousy achievement). The Prides were a cakewalk and High Peak was a slightly more bumpy cakewalk.
Thoughts on the final fight:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: LoSboccacc on February 19, 2013, 06:40:01 am
Post by: Robsoie on February 19, 2013, 06:53:09 am
The free version is still completely free (only difference is that you have no donator-only content, unless you decide to donate of course)
http://te4.org/download
Post by: RedKing on February 19, 2013, 09:22:59 am
I'll probably abuse this bugged character to get sun paladins and Anoritihils unlocked, maybe Necromancers if I've got all the lore collected by then. Oh, and maybe Solipsists so I don't lose any more characters to that damn mouse dream.
But then I'll retire him, because it's frankly kind of boring when you don't really need better equipment because you just stand there and beat an ancient runed bone golem down by whacking it with a stick several hundred times.
Post by: khantin on February 19, 2013, 09:32:17 am
Post by: Darkmere on February 20, 2013, 12:20:37 am
Dwarf Wyrmic, killed in kor'pul by being confused for 15 turns, each consistently failing to do anything at all aside from wandering further into the pack.
Mindslayer dragged into the assassin's den at level 7(!), set off a summoning trap. killed by 12 rogues.
Antimagic bulwark goes to Tempest peak with 72 lightning resist. Frost giant with uttercold doesn't give a damn about lightning resist.
EDIT: Bulwark 2, killed by the last tick of a flame dot by 3 red gems in the crystalline caves. Died by 2 points.
Post by: Graven on February 20, 2013, 12:23:17 pm
Get Rampage right away, push rampage to 5/5/1/0/ push gloom to 5/1/1/1, finish up rampage to 5/5/5/0, gloom goes 5/5/1/5, get other abilities as you need them, get surge since the other 2 are balls, get predator somewhere in the east, fungs goes 5/1/5/1 asap, SNORE MODE : ENGAGED.
Post by: Robsoie on February 20, 2013, 12:45:29 pm
I then entered and ... lost 3 lifes in a row to insane streaks of bad luck , everytime it has involced teleporting from a too dangerous situation and landing right into another too dangerous one ... 3 times (reminds me of a lot of my yasd in DCSS).
And each time i went back and defeated both "dangerous situations" responsible in only a few turns without having any problem, always very frustrating when this happens as you wonder how it was then possible for your character to die the 1st time :D.
Then the character reached the Master and defeated him twice (as he resurrects full health) ... incredibly quickly, in fact i don't think i ran any character since the years i play that defeated the Master that easily, i always had to work on his defeat using many tricks.
Probably i wasted all my bad lucks in those 3 deaths on lower floors and got every rolls in my favour this time :)
Post by: Graven on February 20, 2013, 02:41:48 pm
Post by: Encased in burning magma on February 20, 2013, 04:33:49 pm
edit:
WHY DID I GO TO HIGH PEAK AT LEVEL 40
THIS WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA
died like 4 times
got like 5 levels killing the final boss
got a "tactician master" achievement for not closing portals I didn't know you could close
thank fuck for inner demons
Also an interesting idea you guys could want to try is harmony yeek solipist with the meteor prodigy.
Yeek: 15% global speed
Solipist: 50% global speed
Elemental Harmony, standing in your meteor: about 40% global speed
Add gear and it gets silly. Sadly you need psyblade mastery as you act way too fast for your casting cooldowns.
Post by: Darkmere on February 20, 2013, 10:08:22 pm
Well if you're not into the whole "playing games for fun" concept, you can always try a Cornac Cursed, go antimagic and snore your way through the game.
I think it's just that melee is so different from casters/ranged in this game that it breaks my mind a little. I'm just going to stick with casters for a bit then try and ease into it gently, with another sun paladin or arcane blade geomancer or something.
Unrelated, but elsewise related...
I didn't know you could close the portals either. How do you do it? I'd guess stand on one and use Orb of Many Ways?
Post by: Dr Feelgood on February 21, 2013, 12:01:21 am
I didn't know you could close the portals either. How do you do it? I'd guess stand on one and use Orb of Many Ways?
Use the orbs from the orc prides to close the portals.
Post by: rumpel on February 21, 2013, 03:10:03 am
Post by: Lennoxite on February 21, 2013, 05:10:22 am
Post by: Frumple on February 21, 2013, 07:04:51 am
Otherwise, just go in with a magical wild and a teleport rune (or psychoport torque), drop the pain, bounce out, nix hurricane if it's on you, heal up, repeat. Unless he lucks out with regen armor, he's got no means of healing. Y'can attrit 'im to death pretty easily.
Post by: Encased in burning magma on February 21, 2013, 12:08:47 pm
Been playing this game for a while now, got all the way to the Far East before getting my arse handed to by the orc prides. :P Urkis(Not from the prides.) still stumps me, as far as I care.
For the orc prides I suggest going in buffed up (regen), then activate all your instants, such as wayist and such. If you can one-shot someone, do so, run away, then come back with cooldowns up.
Example with my temporal warden: pop heroism and regen, come in, vital shot someone, come out, repeat.
Solipsist: Come in, yeek up one side of the casters, movement infusion and mind control one, blow up another with mindsear + meteor.
It's all about burst damage and instants.
Maybe avoid abusing map transition if you are facing necromancers.
Post by: Robsoie on February 21, 2013, 03:04:38 pm
That's the most annoying thing about Tome. Numerous times I die to a rare or unique, then go back and thrash them to the ground. I don't know if it's rolls, or cooldowns or what, but god damn it makes me want to punch stuff.
And it happened again to my dwarf berserker, his 4th life gone in the Dark Crypt of the East.
Facing the boss that can create a clone of you, i just couldn't manage to beat them, and lost a life, only remembering after fight that i completely forgot to use my movement skill that could have gotten me away in time to heal.
A bit annoyed by that silly mistake, i decided to get back to them after resting and re-activating my sustains.
And ... 5 turns
In only 5 turns my character killed both that boss and my clone assisting him (that were both back at full health) , couldn't believe that after the previous battle that seemed unwinnable, didn't even had to retreat or to activate a regen or do anything different from the previous fight.
definitively rogue-like, luck can help and bad luck will destroy your character :D
Post by: Robsoie on February 21, 2013, 05:58:19 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/L0tj5RQ.jpg)
Post by: Frumple on February 21, 2013, 06:17:29 pm
Post by: Robsoie on February 21, 2013, 06:35:07 pm
Post by: Robsoie on February 22, 2013, 10:18:09 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
completely forgot about that one, and i still don't have the ice one.
Hopefully it's not that far away (as it require the same amount of Ice damage), can't believe how much time it took.
Post by: lemon10 on February 22, 2013, 11:57:11 am
Its really easy to check how far you have left to go though, just go look at your achievements, and it tell you your progress on them (aka, how much damage you have already dealt).
Post by: Robsoie on February 22, 2013, 12:26:46 pm
Anyways, my Dwarf Berserker just won (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/d3cef484-ba99-4acc-abb0-2c47dcbdc006) !
Nearly managed to keep the female paladin alive in the final battle, she only died a few turn before the last boss.
It was hard as i was trying to keep her alive, i have not gone to close the 4 portals, making the battle harder due to the summons coming from there to help the 2 bosses.
But as we were 2 to fight them both, i felt that they went down a bit quicker than in my previous battles (as i usually go to close the portals, she has to be hammered by the 2 powerfull uniques during that time).
Though before the 1st boss was killed, i nearly lost my character as i was really hammered, the boss killed managed to make me gain 2 levels, and it helped , it helped a lot.
My character died 5 times during that run, i think that's my best result for a winner in normal difficulty.
Post by: Graven on February 22, 2013, 04:49:52 pm
I made a Doomed, but I died 4 times before Daikara, since I went antimagic and I had no psychoportation. Being a class that can't necessarily 1v1 everything you meet, being unable to instaflee is rage inducing. Died to random rares, and to urkis. Oh well.
Post by: Robsoie on February 22, 2013, 05:45:08 pm
I still really need to get a successfull ranged/spell based character, my 4 wins in ToME4 have all been melee based (berserker, bulwark and cursed), some of my ranged characters have been good but couldn't managed to keep one to the end and most have failed miserably so far.
Post by: Robsoie on February 22, 2013, 08:46:20 pm
Oh, totally my fault and so stupid i'm annoyed with myself there :D
My character was in the Sandworm lair, after clearing a "room", i noticed the tunneling worms were far on the minimap. So i pressed numpad5 and held it to wait for turns, waiting for the tunnelers to come back so i could move on the whole floor again.
They were taking their damn time, so while holding numpad5 i started reading some piece of paper near my computer.
Then after a few seconds, i looked back on the screen, noticed the loading time and ended in front of the Eidolon ... what ?
In fact while i was bored holding that key and looked elsewhere my character had been killed by a gravity worm that was no real threat for my character at that point (and that i annihilated once i got back :D
A really stupid yasd.
Post by: Frumple on February 22, 2013, 09:10:30 pm
Post by: Robsoie on February 22, 2013, 09:22:44 pm
Post by: Darkmere on February 22, 2013, 10:57:37 pm
EDIT: To avoid doubleposting.
So yeah, tried antimagic wyrmic with mindstars. While trying to move my psychoport torque around on the bar, it activated in last hope (my mouse has a short in it, new one comes next week), and I drowned. All those tiles that look like shore? Nope.
A bit later I opened up the farportal room. Boss inside was a blade demon with Beckon. I had to retreat to the lore room... the boss dragged my butler into the hallway. There's nothing that can move it or get me past, so that's another melee character essentially dead from the game's bullshit.
Post by: Graven on February 23, 2013, 06:00:51 am
Post by: Darkmere on February 23, 2013, 12:01:35 pm
Yeah, it sucks, but it's not like level 22 is a huge investment in anything but auto-exploring early dungeons.
Post by: DeKaFu on February 23, 2013, 03:46:24 pm
:|
Post by: DeKaFu on March 01, 2013, 03:12:11 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So...I'm still alive. What is there to do in the post-game? Farportals, Atamathon, anything else? Would I be totally crushed by Atamathon? (never tried)
Post by: lemon10 on March 01, 2013, 03:41:06 pm
I'm not quite sure how tough you will find Atamathon (although I think he will kill you, since you don't appear to have enough resists and such to sheild through all the damage he can deal to for more then a 1 or 2 turns (at which point you start to take +1000 damage per turn)). Before you fight him you will want to get as much fire resist as possible, keeping in mind that he also has 50% damage return. If you can turn off his damage return he becomes quite a bit easier. Now, if you can get your fire resist up near 75%, I think that you will be able to kill him, although it might still be a little tough.
Once you beat Atamathon though, there isn't really much worth your time to do.
Doing the ID kind of sucks, since you can't level up past 50 even there (and eventually you will just be running into regular enemies that are OMGWTF strong without any real way of getting stronger), and farportals are basically annoying grinding till you find a boss that can beat you (eg. dreaming horror necromancer bulkward) without breaking a sweat.
Post by: Eurynomos on March 03, 2013, 12:24:26 am
Post by: Frumple on March 13, 2013, 09:40:42 pm
Quote from: Release highlights
Improved UI, notably the chat, allowing you to join custom channels, read multiple channels at once, ...
New spell effects
The Oozemancer: a new class, inherently antimagic, dedicated to protect Nature against the assaults of arcane forces
New zone: the sludgenest
A huge list of improvements to many classes and features!
Spoiler: Expanded changelist (click to show/hide)
Current opinion: Slime spit is hilarious horseshit and I'm loving it. Will play more.
Post by: Darkmere on March 13, 2013, 10:53:51 pm
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on March 13, 2013, 11:28:18 pm
Quote
Staff Mastery is trainable in Angolwen
Mindstar Mastery is trainable in Zigur
I hoped for that soooo long
Post by: Max White on March 14, 2013, 02:15:02 am
Post by: Frumple on March 14, 2013, 02:55:56 am
But hell. If it's working for you. Let it work for you, y'know?
Alchies... alchies still just bomb everything to hell and back, I think. 5/5/5/0 explosive admixtures, throw bombs, do whatever. Channel staff or fire alchemy or golems... whatever. LoS bomb of doom does not care. Everything goes boom.
Post by: Max White on March 14, 2013, 03:08:25 am
I don't normally play roguelikes in ways that are expected.
Post by: Frumple on March 14, 2013, 03:27:53 am
Plus some resistances, which isn't terrible. Mostly it's just so you can drop the eff off huge explosion right on your head and give no flips.
And golem bombing stuff around corners is pretty normal, yeah. Expected to a degree for higher danger stuff, though it used to be a bit abusive. I think the AI changes to mitigate the amount that screws with the AI has been implemented with the latest version, anyway.
But anyway... golem'll sweep good chunk of the early game, then later on (mid, late mid) the amount of damage it can do just starts dropping off. Still fairly tanky and it still lays on enough hurt to tilt some odds your way, but you need the doomdakka from the alchemist to really make things work at that point (and fine control of the alchemist itself to keep the alchie from going splat, to the degree that later in the game controlling the golem when something's in LoS of the alchie is basically suicide). Fire alchemy's not terrible, especially supplemented with channel staff and the golem, but if you really want to throughput the pain bombs are still where it's at. They're just entirely too sexy >_>
You want to do something unexpected, leave the ranged at the door and go full golem/staff melee. That would be delightfully ridiculous (you'd die horribly.).
Post by: Max White on March 14, 2013, 03:33:09 am
Speaking of which, I recently unlocked the archmage. My god that glass cannon is fun, I hope its ability to kill anything with only a mean look doesn't drop off...
Post by: Frumple on March 14, 2013, 03:38:18 am
Though yeah after a bit the triple beam combo will stop killing everything in one volley. Eventually you might even need more than two! At which point you've got other stuff you can use like layered AoE doom fields et al.
Post by: Max White on March 14, 2013, 03:44:14 am
I knew the shade was there, I knew it had an ice nuke, I just didn't know it had so much better sight rage than I did.
Post by: Frumple on March 14, 2013, 03:52:51 am
Or, put this way:
Spoiler: Guess this should be spoilered, eh. Detailed shade tactic, uh. Detailed. (click to show/hide)
Post by: Max White on March 14, 2013, 03:56:46 am
I think I preform best when I have multiple disposable units... Perhaps I should give summoner a try.
Post by: Robsoie on March 14, 2013, 03:20:22 pm
For the Shade i agree, digging that wall is the best method to approach it, as the distance between your character and the boss is much shorter, so you don't have to walk for several turns without being able to see him, while he has no problem to do so and bombard you with spells.
And i suggest to first complete the other starting dungeons before getting to Kor-Pul (racial/class starting dungeon -> Troll Mire -> Norgos' Lair etc...) , once you're higher level, the Shade is much less dangerous (and you could have found some interesting items helping you to destroy the boss quicker too)
Post by: nenjin on March 14, 2013, 03:25:52 pm
It's a nice game all around but it really reminded me what Crawl's difficulty adds to the experience. I found Tales a little bit too easy and overly generous with powers.
Of course, it also has largely self-directed difficulty spikes, which mitigates the ease.
Post by: Robsoie on March 14, 2013, 03:28:52 pm
Then he's killed by an elite in 2 turns.
:D
Post by: Neonivek on March 14, 2013, 03:58:46 pm
Although the bit where bosses can deal more damage than I have health... Yea, that was a fun way to die.
I knew the shade was there, I knew it had an ice nuke, I just didn't know it had so much better sight rage than I did.
While TOME ignores many of the stupidness Roguelikes tend to have... it still has its fair share of "Well you should have knew we were going to pull this before you possibly could have known this".
One of my most successful characters died from an unbeatable enemy that was only beatable if I knew the enemy was comming in advance.
So you have to just suck it up when the game throws unbeatable enemies at you and remember to plan for them in advance.
Post by: Max White on March 14, 2013, 05:21:38 pm
Especially for shalore. The ability to turn on your shield before getting hit is practically game breaking.
Post by: Robsoie on March 14, 2013, 05:53:19 pm
Quote
Easy, Normal and Nightmare mode players are immune to instadeath attacks (but not Insane ones, they are insane after all)
There were real instadeath attacks before or is it refering to the regular attack that for some randomness reason could do crazy levels of damage ?
If it's about special instadeath attacks, which monsters have such thing ?
Post by: Frumple on March 14, 2013, 06:00:47 pm
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 14, 2013, 06:04:40 pm
Stoning checks against stoning resist, which the player does not have.
Post by: Robsoie on March 14, 2013, 07:28:36 pm
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on March 14, 2013, 09:40:42 pm
Having played archmage a few more times, I think the most important skill is helping a thief and getting that perk that lets you see guys in the dark.Archmages should use illuminate and\or arcane eye for such tasks
Especially for shalore. The ability to turn on your shield before getting hit is practically game breaking.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 14, 2013, 10:05:33 pm
http://te4.org/characters/30061/tome/27d18fa3-37aa-41cc-aa53-2c4618f26a52
- No deaths.
- Didn't bother to do everything, since I wanted to play 1.0.1.
- Entered final battle at level 46.
This is definitely the most powerful character I've played. Everything died in 1 hit, except bosses who died in 2-3 hits. The final bosses died so quickly that I kinda regret closing the portals before fighting them.
Post by: beorn080 on March 15, 2013, 03:05:33 am
Post by: Max White on March 15, 2013, 04:24:39 am
Post by: beorn080 on March 15, 2013, 06:06:17 am
Post by: Max White on March 15, 2013, 09:48:30 am
Post by: Frumple on March 15, 2013, 09:51:58 am
Post by: Max White on March 15, 2013, 09:59:06 am
Also, do you work on the game yourself Frumple? You mentioned coding before...
Post by: Frumple on March 15, 2013, 10:09:11 am
Sometimes I even throw in a two cent worth something :P
Post by: Max White on March 15, 2013, 10:16:46 am
Right now it seems that you can command your escort to stay still for a while, but only once, and this can sort of such when you get escorts on boss levels.
If instead your escort had a disposition towards you and following orders would drain that disposition, while seeing you kill monsters would cause it to rise, then at least harder levels are still skill based rather than RNG.
The code for all the behaviors is already in game, all you need is an int value to figure out what to do for a given command, either obey or loose their nerve and run for the portal like a loony straight into a boss.
Post by: Frumple on March 15, 2013, 10:37:37 am
Particularly the latter, if it comes to that. There hasn't been much traction for changes to the escort quests in that sort of direction, really. DG seems pretty content to have them fairly heavily RNG based. General word of God has been you're more or less intended (i.e. get RNG screwed) to fail a few, and they're not exactly necessary. I'm fairly sure one of my old winners ended up saving none of them or like two or three or something.
Plus it's not like those crazy bastards in the infinite dungeon don't get buggers down to the hundreds or whatever without any escorts whatsoever, and ID is viciously more difficult than the standard campaign overall. You could strip the escorts out entirely without meaningfully changing the game's balance too much, really. They're just a nice bonus. Outside of undead being a little more annoying at times. Light tree's pretty sexy on 'em.
That kind of mechanic sounds like it'd be more interesting for a pet class of some sort, though. There was an attempt at a marshal or captain or something class a long ways back which was pretty interesting but never really panned out much
Post by: nenjin on March 15, 2013, 11:29:15 am
Post by: RedKing on March 15, 2013, 11:31:35 am
Playing around with a Ghoul Reaver. S'fun. Tough initially because no good way to heal, but once I get up enough to put points into that one Reaving Combat skill that heals you a small bit every time you do damage it was tolerable. Plus life regen items. Then when you get Retch, it's better than most regen infusions at that point.
Soooooo much blight damage. No good way to get rid of negative conditions though.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 15, 2013, 11:34:12 am
I was just thinking somebody could make a significant improvement to escort quests by adding a disposition value.
Right now it seems that you can command your escort to stay still for a while, but only once, and this can sort of such when you get escorts on boss levels.
If instead your escort had a disposition towards you and following orders would drain that disposition, while seeing you kill monsters would cause it to rise, then at least harder levels are still skill based rather than RNG.
The code for all the behaviors is already in game, all you need is an int value to figure out what to do for a given command, either obey or loose their nerve and run for the portal like a loony straight into a boss.
Actually, the "wait" command has a cooldown (12 turns?).
My recent winner lost about half the escorts, due to most of them being generated in Dreadfell and surrounded by enemies at the start. It's even worse in nightmare, since everything in Dreadfell can kill them faster.
Post by: Robsoie on March 15, 2013, 03:40:11 pm
If the bonus given was negligable, ok maybe they're a joke, but the bonuses they give can really help so losing them due to those stupid behaviour is not exactly what i would call fun.
In other words, looks like the Orcs patrol can still one-shot your character to death, as they just did my ghoul bulwark level 32 :
Quote
Armour (hardiness) 120.26 (95%)
Defense 40.97
Ranged Defense 45.97
Fatigue 53
Physical Save 51.65
Spell Save 47.433333333333
Mental Save 21.425
Quote
Acid + 21%( 70%)
Blight + 32%( 70%)
Physical + 27%( 70%)
Cold + 58%( 70%)
All + 15%( 70%)
Lightning + 70%( 70%)
Light + 40%( 70%)
Temporal + 19%( 70%)
Fire + 52%( 70%)
Nature + 32%( 70%)
That is not too shabby as protections, but still 1060 health destroyed in 1 turn by that orc patrol.
I simply enabled my 300+ shield , then phase door-ed , landed near the exit, moved 1 tile toward it ... character dead.
And that without a single orc being an elite, so what the hell ?
Looking at the log, i noticed a big bunch of 260 acid damage attacks.
... when that game wants to kill your character, it will kill him whatever strong and resistant he can be.
Post by: Graven on March 15, 2013, 03:46:32 pm
Also ever since escorts started running away from enemies I'm founding them a lot more annoying. Just... just stop running god damn stay in place when I tell you what is wrong with you
Post by: Robsoie on March 15, 2013, 03:59:28 pm
Post by: Repulsion on March 15, 2013, 04:20:57 pm
I suppose I should try adventurer mode some more, but we'll see...
Post by: Graven on March 15, 2013, 05:03:32 pm
Post by: Frumple on March 15, 2013, 05:21:24 pm
E: Whoops, should have gone back a page. Yeah, we've got roguelike rogue winner in 1.0.0. And a warden. Slayer, shadowblade... looks like everything's accounted for, actually.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 15, 2013, 05:48:11 pm
Post by: Graven on March 15, 2013, 06:13:56 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Amphouse on March 15, 2013, 06:22:23 pm
EDIT: Totally missed the fact that this was covered already. Ah well, my points about runes still stand.
Post by: Robsoie on March 15, 2013, 07:01:08 pm
This time it wasn't a ridiculously stupid one-turn death, it was just bad luck : 2 times my phase door threw me more away from the exit instead of getting me closer.
So after a while despite my character put a good fight, it was another death against the overwhelming amount of summoned undead from the many orcs necromancers.
But to add insult to injury, guess what i found in Briargh's Lair while i was clearing it :
A controled phase door, the 1st the game decided to give me for this character.
As if it was coded to troll me now :D
Anyways, out of my character now being on his last legs, he's doing rather good, now the time for going to the Prides is close.
Though i wished that damned "farportal is destroyed forever if you use recall" wasn't existing (met earlier an impossible to kill boss that was resisting at 70% of the various exact type of damages i was doing and was regenerating constantly while hitting very hard), as without getting a bit more levels it means i may get my beloved Irresistible Sun prodigy (so usefull in the Prides) a bit too late for confort.
I hope future version will introduce a farportal repair system.
I have not unlocked it but i met several oozemancers enemy with their spawning ooze shooting at me, they're a bit annoying to deal with when you have other enemies around, i wonder how it will be managed as a player.
Post by: Frumple on March 15, 2013, 07:29:04 pm
Post by: Robsoie on March 15, 2013, 08:01:31 pm
:D
Post by: Frumple on March 15, 2013, 08:03:11 pm
Seriously though, absolutely no movespeed boosting items in the entirety of the west? That's bloody close to impossible :-\
Post by: Robsoie on March 15, 2013, 08:35:57 pm
Finally i may get my hands on the running man boots. That's an item i usually find early in every of my games but this one niet until now.
Post by: Robsoie on March 15, 2013, 08:39:01 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
edit : yes ! Last Hope had the Hare Skin sling artifact in stock , +20% movement speed.
Finally something i can use to avoid getting outrunned by those pesky Orc patrols.
edit 2
Wow, now after a trainwreck of bad luck, my ghoul just got very lucky, nice pieces of 4000 gold voratun boots from the merchant .
(http://i.imgur.com/UnKSYbY.jpg)
lots of armour (always nice for a bulwakr) + nice collection of resistance, and +40% movement speed boots !
the game will probably spawn more insta kill monsters now :D
Post by: Robsoie on March 16, 2013, 11:51:08 am
But still it was very close, the jeweler only had 50 health left !
(http://i.imgur.com/KX2pIWw.jpg)
It's not the battle that is hard, but keeping that weak jeweler alive in front of those legions of monsters beelining toward him, sometime teleporting close or shooting him at range.
Irresistible Sun + Retch have been very, very helpfull for my ghoul to destroy killing very quickly the invaders before they could destroy the poor bugger.
Currently level 44 (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/25155806-9252-4b35-bc7e-1f85aba364ad) , when i was level 30 i took "Bloodspring" for the first time , i wanted to see if it was as good as it sounded :
(http://i.imgur.com/vUocUHp.jpg)
Unfortunately the problem is that since i took it at level 30 , it has -never- activated at all.
I guess that either the prodigy is broken, or it would mean that i have , since level 30, never took a single hit that (bulwark heavy armor and all my res i guess) removed 20% of my health.
I have difficulty to believe that, but in the same time i have very high armor, high armor efficiency and good resistance, so who know.
Either way , it was a complete waste of prodigy choice for that character, lesson learned, i'm never going to take this one again when i'll play melee characters.
Post by: Graven on March 16, 2013, 11:55:14 am
Also unless you happen to find a stralite amulet the quest reward is kinda meh at best.
Also yeah the prodigy is not very good, since ideally you won't be taking such hits, and even if you do, the heal is minor.
Post by: Robsoie on March 16, 2013, 12:04:33 pm
The boss dropped an artifact whip (i don't have exotic weapon skill) and an artifact shield (inferior to the one i had)
The major problem i always had with this mission is :
-the imps that teleport around, if they land in view of the jeweler they will throw fire at him non stop
-the little demons that create big clouds of acid, this can kill very quickly the jeweler when there are multiple clouds on top of each other, they're the reason the jeweler ended with only 50 health in that attempt.
I have attempted it dozen and dozen of time since i play ToME4 and it's the only time i managed to save the jeweler.
Post by: Frumple on March 16, 2013, 12:55:35 pm
Amusingly, though, the first time I did that quest the jeweler soloed the boss. I think it was because of the poisoned water or something, but it was pretty incredible anyway. Or at least it was incredible once I found out there was an invisible doomboss that spawned :P
And there's a guaranteed source of a voratun amulet! S'just that if you're actually able to get it the end fight should be a breeze >_>
Post by: Robsoie on March 16, 2013, 01:13:21 pm
Maybe if one day i decide to get the prodigy that gives +1000% damage against constructs.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 16, 2013, 03:06:15 pm
I kinda wished there was another bonus boss other than Atamathon. After killing it several times all that's left is the infinite dungeon, which is boring since you're stuck at level 50. Fighting Gerlyk would be fun.
Post by: Robsoie on March 16, 2013, 03:25:00 pm
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=35016
But be warned : you need to have started a new game with it enabled, if you have started a character then enable the addon later, the infinite dungeon still will get you stuck at level 50 as i unfortunately experienced in a past version.
Post by: Graven on March 16, 2013, 03:37:55 pm
1. What in the balls do I do to kill a Dreaming Horror and how does its dreamscape work?
2. Is there any reason to use the following infusions and runes on an AB, or should I switch the teleport for a not-that-great shielding : Teleport, Manasurge, Regen and Wild?
3. Massive amour : yes/no? Since mana is one of the very few things affected by fatigue, and since apparently spells still cost mana when used via Arcane Combat, should I be wearing the heaviest armour I can find, or should I stick to medium and heavy? I'm currently using an "of the dragon" dwarvensteel plate since I have no stun resistance, but I'm kind of running out of mana unless I rest after each enemy.
AB is fun but so damn frail for now... I might have to skip Melinda's Crypt this time.
edit : Oh yeah, level 20 right now, forgot to mention this.
Post by: Frumple on March 16, 2013, 04:10:14 pm
Dreamscape is an arcane monstrosity I'm only half aware of how functions. From what I understand you swap control to the clone thingies and attack the horror. Every clone thingy you lose is like 10% of your health when the dreamscape ends, and killing the thing that dreamscaped you while inside said dreamscape ends it. Something like that. There's better information on T4's forum.
2: Everyone loves regens and wilds, really. Manasurge is pretty useful on certain AB builds since they can be a mana hungry little monstrosity, especially before they get a larger pool to work with, and is of course very useful until you get the mana regen talent going. Teleport's nice until you can get an item based escape of some sort (psychoport torque, tele amulet, whatever). It's one of the better escape inscriptions.
3. Whatever. I usually go heavy since it's got solid egos and such for an AB, but light armor or cloth would be fine, too. Massive's probably a bad idea until way late game at the soonest, because as you note it causes some pretty hefty resource issues.
Incidentally, most things are affected by fatigue, not just a few. Only things that aren't are equilibrium and vim, iirc. Maybe hate. Mana just gets hit twice as hard as most other things.
Post by: lemon10 on March 16, 2013, 05:11:29 pm
Dreaming horrors are solipsists. This means that they A) convert 100% of damage taking into psi damage, B) convert all saves into mental saves (so good luck stunning them or effecting them with anything), C) Roll using their mental save score to reduce damage taken, possibly (and almost always for low damage attacks) down to 0, D) they can regenerate psi quite rapidly, especially outside of combat, as well as seeking you (and moving through walls), so running won't help much unless you immediately leave the level.
As for dreamscape: Right click on a dreaming horror->Inspect->Talents-> Mouseover dreamscape. This tells you exactly what dreamscape does, and lists all their other talents in as much detail as you need.
This means you can drop 2000 raw damage on them over 5 turns, and possibly do only a few hundered psi damage to them after all their resists are checked out.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 16, 2013, 05:13:16 pm
Dreamscape: your character is basically stuck in a time prison (invulnerable, but you can't do anything), and you take control of your mental clones who deal 50% less damage. Every time a clone dies you lose 10% health. Kill the horror to escape.
The player version is mainly used the same way fearscape is used: escape a dangerous situation, rest, kill a weak enemy.
I found this in the maze:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I'm playing a dwarf geomancer. Nightmare seems to give the best loot.
Post by: Robsoie on March 16, 2013, 06:04:59 pm
I hope i'm correctly equiped for them, we'll see.
The thoughest time my character had with the Pride was in the necromancer one ( Rak'shor ), lots of difficult fights i got there with more unique and spell caster teaming up on me than i would have liked.
Post by: Robsoie on March 17, 2013, 04:01:22 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That's again a melee character that i win with, i wonder if i'll manage it one day with a spellcaster.
Post by: Robsoie on March 18, 2013, 07:01:51 pm
As i was playing a ghoul, i thougth it was just some undead flavour text, not that it was telling me that the actual Oozemancer dungeon had been generated
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I entered
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Graven on March 18, 2013, 07:50:50 pm
From what I hear, Oozemancer is disgustingly OP nearly on a Solipsist level, but can actually die. Of course, antimagic itself is hilariously OP so any class intrinsicly antimagic doesn't really have a shot at a fair ground. Really fun to play, though, it seems. I might have to cheat myself the unlock because a non-guaranteed level 30 zone is not something that can actually entice me, unless my AB gets it by chance.
Post by: Neonivek on March 18, 2013, 07:52:32 pm
Very nice, with the ghoul victory and the unlock! Well done :P
From what I hear, Oozemancer is disgustingly OP nearly on a Solipsist level, but can actually die. Of course, antimagic itself is hilariously OP so any class intrinsicly antimagic doesn't really have a shot at a fair ground. Really fun to play, though, it seems. I might have to cheat myself the unlock because a non-guaranteed level 30 zone is not something that can actually entice me, unless my AB gets it by chance.
Then again some classes NEED antimagic.
Post by: Frumple on March 18, 2013, 07:55:26 pm
So far as I'm aware every AM capable class has been won without it (presumably barring oozemancers, I guess.), even in v1. Fungus and the antimagic tree are very nice nowadays, and non-arcane kit not so gimpy, but runes and arcane equipment are pretty solid in their own right.
Post by: Graven on March 18, 2013, 07:59:52 pm
So no, I don't think any class NEEDS antimagic, and in fact it's magic that needs a severe boost. I've been toying with the idea of a "void" tree with an accompanying zone, since the major bonus of antimagic is the survivability, both in general and against casters, and the Aegis tree is not only limited, but worse than Fungus, but I've no idea how to implement it or even suggest it in a reasonable manner so I may as well not have mentioned it at all :-X
Post by: Max White on March 18, 2013, 08:13:24 pm
Honestly, if you are playing a shalore archmage, and happen to get hold of the reflective rune off a troll, nothing will be eating through your shields any time soon. A single status ailment, though, and you are doomed.
Post by: beorn080 on March 18, 2013, 08:34:19 pm
Mirrored Body: Randomly picks one physical ailment currently in effect on you to be shot in a bolt/line at 3+ at foes foes, inflicting the same ailment on them. Chance is increased with talent level and spellpower.
Mirrored mind: ^ for mentals
Mirrored aether: ^^ for magical ailments
Return to normality: Removes all ailments from you. For each ailment removed, fire a bolt/ball of magic at a random foe, inflicting ??? amount of damage of a specific type. Physical ailments give physical damage, magical ailments give Aether damage, and mental deal mind damage. If ball, you are not immune to the damage if the radius hits you. Cost and cooldown are increased for each ailment removed.
There. I THINK that is semi reasonably balanced, and turns ailments from absolute nightmare for mages to potential resource, in the same way that antimagic/fungus removes arcane equipment but gives survivability. Quest for it would be in angolwen, requiring fights against a rogue with lots of poisons/stuns, a solipsist, and some sort of mix of the two. Similar level as the fungal quest.
Also, would allow non mage classes to possibly pick up Aegis tree, as it would be the base of it, in angolwen, similar to the antimagic quest.
Post by: Max White on March 18, 2013, 08:45:08 pm
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 18, 2013, 08:47:36 pm
My dorf geomancer is practically immune to status effects. Power is money and crystalline focus together gives +65 to physical and spell saves, and +35 to mental saves. Rescue the wayist for +15 mental saves and get the alchemist potion that gives +4 to all saves. The master (on nightmare) couldn't land a single status effect on me. I hope I find the escort with chant of fortitude, but that's unlikely now.
Post by: Robsoie on March 18, 2013, 09:03:16 pm
I might have to cheat myself the unlock because a non-guaranteed level 30 zone is not something that can actually entice me, unless my AB gets it by chance.
Thalore is guaranteed to have it, and Thalore Summoners seems to be really amazing.
I'm currently running one, and after just clearing Dreadfell and winning the ambush, i noticed that i had not lost a single life since the beginning with that character !
A premiere for me, unless it's the Thalore Summoners that is that powerfull.
At first i thought the summons wouldn't be that good after having tested in the Arena, but once you get the skills going, they're -really- strong :
in combination to the Grand Arrival, the Flamespitter can truly cripple fire resistance of everything (even putting it in the negative for the monsters in a large zone) when spawning
Then you summon a big drake, that summon many other drake and deal insane fire damage
And the war hound that sounds uninteresting at first, it does a physical resistance crippling with Grand Arrival and hit very hard
And the useless turtle ? with Grand Arrival she heal everyone, you included and can take a lot of beating (and attract the attention of your enemies, that ignore then you most of the time)
Throw a golem in the middle that will daze everyone for a while with Grand Arrival.
Each 10 points of cunning allow 1 more summon at a same time, it's amazing to give a taste of overwhelming numbers to those monsters that have always used against you :D
And Thalore has some very good racial skills that complement things very nicely, the last Thalore racial skill summon 2 more tankers (though they don't hit hard)
The only cons is that he gain XP very slowly, i cleared everything and had to go to Dreadfell and was only level 21 or 22 (with other character i am usually higher).
The battle with the Master was very interesting, a battle of attrition mixed with minions vs minions fights with the Thalore Summoner, really the most entertaining Dreadfell last fight i had since i play ToME4.
Another bad : to optimise your summoner, you will ignore the Magic stats as you will need to put stats into Cunning/Willpower/Constituion at highest priority to improve your talents/skills and get really powerfull.
And the prodigy that gives additional powers to the summons is unfortunately requesting 50 in magic.
A combo you should play without using the auto explore, as to get the max advantage and so survival chances, you'll want to summon the Flamespitter at corridor corners to see if there's something there.
edit : very good guide (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=36906) for summoners
Post by: beorn080 on March 18, 2013, 10:51:32 pm
Post by: Frumple on March 18, 2013, 11:30:18 pm
That said, blighted summoning on its own is only so useful. The summons will feed on your magic stat afterwards, so if it's anemic the extra abilities will trend toward useless. Just go cun/wil/mag, with the remainder in con.
Post by: Neonivek on March 19, 2013, 12:29:05 am
Quote
And the useless turtle ?
What insane person thought the turtle was useless?
Post by: amjh on March 19, 2013, 07:19:22 am
Post by: Max White on March 19, 2013, 07:21:11 am
Also, make better use of the wait command.
Post by: Robsoie on March 19, 2013, 12:45:09 pm
At first they're a bit weak, mostly due to your ooze summons being completely unreliable (too low % of chance of them appearing) , but after some time the character become powerfull as the % of spawning become more reasonnable and you can summon the bloated version at will instead of counting on monster hurting you to have them appearing.
Lost a life very early due to being a bit greedy (opening a chest that got me surrounded without putting mucus around, then stunned with my skill becoming grayed, and with low health for a few levels, it hurts a lot if you can't do anything)
It reminds me in this of the Summoner, that start with weak summons (though at least get them reliably) and end with them being very powerfull.
And with enough Cunning you can get a Summoner-like mini army
The only thing i would change for the character is closing some of the skills tree (fungus by example) that are opened at the start to balance it a bit and get them only with a category point (or completing the antimagic test, as despite you're antimagic by nature you can still take the test).
But once you get your character going, it's a very fun class to play
I noticed at Zigur the shops can teach me mindstar mastery, despite the Oozemancer starts with it.
Post by: Frumple on March 19, 2013, 12:53:02 pm
One I had running did some silly things and ate a few early deaths, but even the most remote degree of caution (which I basically wasn't exercising at all, heh. I did OF through Nur starting at level 10, with only like three tier one dungeons done.) and you're basically unkillable during the early to early-mid game. It's kinda' ridiculous.
Post by: Robsoie on March 19, 2013, 01:04:32 pm
Post by: amjh on March 19, 2013, 01:05:52 pm
Post by: Neonivek on March 19, 2013, 01:42:43 pm
...Why do escort quest NPC's flee from weak enemies but charge at dangerous ones?
Because Escorts are dumbtarded and I HATE THEM!
"Wait here"
"No, I will not wait here! Clearly I am the smartest and charging that herd of snakes to my death is far supperior to waiting here safe but extremely bored!"
"Why does it matter if you are bored?"
"Are you an NPC do you know how bored I am?"
"No... But can't you just wait?"
"NOOO! ARTIFICIAL CHALLENGE HO!"
Post by: Frumple on March 19, 2013, 02:18:11 pm
Other days I just say fuggit and drop a death dance or something on their head on turn one. Sometimes it's not worth the hassle.
The best times, though. The best times are when you just ignore them, and go about doing the auto explore thing, and about half way through the level you get a reward prompt pop up 8)
But seriously they've got a heavy concussion, you can't expect much from 'em, y'know? At least they don't charge towards the first thing they see anymore. Now they charge away from it, into the arms of the second thing they saw. It's kinda' great.
Post by: RedKing on March 19, 2013, 04:43:59 pm
But seriously they've got a heavy concussion, you can't expect much from 'em, y'know? At least they don't charge towards the first thing they see anymore. Now they charge away from it, into the arms of the second thing they saw. It's kinda' great.So much this.
"Help! A giant rat to the north! I'll hide behind this storm wyrm to the south, that nasty rat will never bother me here!"
Post by: Graven on March 19, 2013, 07:35:19 pm
Also I need to start paying attention to rares. My arcane blade died, so I started an Anorithil, currently level 22 with 2 deaths - suffocated in the sandworm tunnels, because screw that place, and died to a rare ghoul in the Halfling ruins, who hit me for about 300+ each turn. The first and last time I've been in danger the entire game. It was almost surreal. Nearly killed me a second time, too, since something stunned me and I couldn't heal. Should've packed a teleport rune, tbh.
Post by: RedKing on March 20, 2013, 09:38:25 am
Dreadfell is especially annoying because I'll just be wandering around nomming up all the regular-tier undead and then suddenly "Here, have a named emperor wight!" D:
Last Hope cemetary is just "There's a soul-eating surprise in every box! Collect them all!"
Only had two characters make it to the Master and one was because he had the invulnerability bug. Other one died with a quickness.
Post by: Frumple on March 20, 2013, 10:18:25 am
Kinda' the same with the rare greater undead. Can't kill it, dip. Go around. Come back later or... don't. Uninterruptable escape methods are really nice for this, if you're not already compulsively hoarding them. Once you get a psychoport torque, it goes in the tool slot and never comes out. Except to be exchanged with better ones. Similar things (tele amulet, some of the artifacts) work about the same. Sometimes both are in order. On top of whatever natural dip-capabilities your class has.
And just, like. Try different things! If you aren't already. Go all out offense, all out defense, builds that go bonkers with mobility, etc, so forth, so on. Try all the things until one of them works for you. That's kinda' how things go, usually.
Post by: Robsoie on March 20, 2013, 10:31:04 am
Because when you're early level, if a coffin generate ultimaterandomeliteherodestroyer , you have less resistance, less survival option, and so chance of losing a life increase, something not really usefull in what is a completely optional dungeon.
Post by: RedKing on March 20, 2013, 10:35:15 am
IIRC, that strategy gets used for a number of dungeons unless DarkGod changed how scaling works per dungeon.
Post by: Robsoie on March 20, 2013, 10:49:31 am
Though going early may setup the boss of the graveyard to a lower level then for when you'll come back.
Post by: beorn080 on March 20, 2013, 11:03:40 am
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 20, 2013, 11:12:15 am
The west feels like normal mode with harder rares. The east... is completely different. Everyone is level 50 minimum, summons hit like freight trains, melee enemies can rush all day (-8 cooldown!), and every mage hits like a corruptor. The talent scaling is crazy.
It's pretty fun!
Last Hope Graveyard: You can set the boss to a lower level, but the uberundead in the coffins will still be tough. If you just want the unlock you enter at level 1, comeback at level 25, kill the boss asap, and use the rod of recall. You can usually escape before they get near you.
Post by: Robsoie on March 20, 2013, 12:01:49 pm
I wonder then how High Peak must be in nightmare mode if "regular" East enemies are all at level 50.
Post by: Graven on March 20, 2013, 01:52:26 pm
I just beat the Master on my Anorithil, then went and died a bunch in the Dark Crypt. Currently level 30, got the shadow armor prodigy since I had literally nothing else, six deaths, no lives, have the blood of life, in Reknor. At least the Oozemancer zone is here, I might give it a try if I die again.
Dreadfell and the Dark Crypt present a significant jump, at least for me. Not in difficulty so much as unpredictability, which is a lot worse somehow. Situations you would be safe in a few levels ago are suddenly lethal, and a great variance in monster damage appears because of the spellcasters. It's really hard for me to adjust :|
Post by: Un67 on March 20, 2013, 01:55:17 pm
Post by: Robsoie on March 20, 2013, 02:03:59 pm
I'm always annoyed when i have fun with a character and he just dies, that's annoy me in every roguelike actually.
And with ToME4 being a long adventure, you grow attached to your character a bit more than in other RL.
Dreadfell and the Dark Crypt present a significant jump, at least for me. Not in difficulty so much as unpredictability, which is a lot worse somehow. Situations you would be safe in a few levels ago are suddenly lethal, and a great variance in monster damage appears because of the spellcasters. It's really hard for me to adjust :|
Yes, for my characters too Dreadfell is a definite turning point.
It's a spike in the difficulty progression that is indeed often surprising when everything else before were going smoothly and suddenly Dreadfell throw you into hellish situations randomly (as sometime Dreadfell does not feel that much, but other time it generates some difficult battles).
It's usually how i can see if a character i'm running have chance to get far, if i start to lose a few lives in Dreadfell, no chance the guy is going to hope for a win, but if he manages to clear Dreadfell brillantly, he's a good potential winner.
Post by: Un67 on March 20, 2013, 02:10:31 pm
Post by: Graven on March 20, 2013, 02:29:13 pm
Personally, if I die in a t1 or t2 dungeon, I delete the character. The early death itself is far more demoralising than the strength of the character in this case. On most characters my first death is in the Dark Crypt. I die a lot more in the crypt than in Dreadfell, so that's not so depressing anymore. However if I die more than three times pre-east, the character is a goner, no point in playing him anymore. There are a ton of situations in the east which can cause a death, so I need the majority of my lives there.
Some classes are an exception, though. A shadowblade will probably have the majority of its deaths pre-22, for example.
Right now I'll probably be abandoning my Anorithil since I died six times, most of those in preventable ways, and I'm starting to feel detached from the character. It's a very long game and the danger ramps up at the Prides, no way I can clear all those with one or two lives.
Post by: Frumple on March 20, 2013, 03:07:42 pm
Don't have any particular advice, though. I don't really play to win or survive, I play to see interesting things happen (this gets me killed often :P) and bugger about with the mechanics here and there (which is what's caused the occasional win). Victory or defeat is tangential to my enjoyment.
Post by: Robsoie on March 20, 2013, 03:25:45 pm
Post by: Un67 on March 20, 2013, 03:57:03 pm
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 20, 2013, 04:29:05 pm
Post by: Terra_Inc on March 21, 2013, 11:06:32 am
The secret to roguelikes is spoilers and cowardice. :PThere's very little to spoiler in ToME. I definitely agree with cowardice though. :(
Post by: beorn080 on March 21, 2013, 11:48:56 am
There are some likely less then known things. Such as being able to right click a creature and pull up it's entire character sheet, including talent list. Though, that is sometimes less then helpful if you don't know what the talent does or means. Or how exactly saves help you, and what you are saving against. Oddly, TOME has the best and worst UI in different areas. "Here is the creature's exact character sheet, including talent levels and stats, but what those stats mean in relation to combat, ehhhhh."The secret to roguelikes is spoilers and cowardice. :PThere's very little to spoiler in ToME. I definitely agree with cowardice though. :(
Protip: If you ever see a creature you have no knowledge of, or is rare/unique/elite/anything but a critter or normal, first thing right click and inspect creature.
Post by: Robsoie on March 21, 2013, 12:21:58 pm
Not noticing that a monster resist 95% of the exact type of damage you're doing is a good way to get a YASD.
For melee fighters it's a good idea to carry several weapons that deal very different type of damage, so when you reach a monster you simply can't reasonnably kill due to his resistance meeting exactly your damage elements, switch to a weapon that elements he's not that resistant to.
Though when meeting some +90 resist all monster, only +X penetration items may help then.
Post by: lemon10 on March 21, 2013, 01:47:51 pm
It was actually pretty close, I used up my last life (from blood of life) on a slime tunnel boss a single turn before killing him (a unique multihued dragon/corrupter with fearscape and 70% resist physical (and 50% resist all)).
The entirety of high peak was actually pretty easy, I could be entirely wrong, but I felt like it was made a little bit easier to compensate for the bosses in the slime tunnel.
The final battle was trivial, I closed two portals with a teleport+movement infusion, then ran back to save the paladin while she was still alive.
She absorbed ~75% of the damage, and I dealt +2k damage every single turn to them, and killed the first one before I even saw the first summon from two of the portals, and killed the other without even being damaged by one of the summons.
I then went into the ID, and got killed on the first level (AKA level 75) after being ganked by three different uniques, and ended up dying due to lack of tankiness when they tracked me down.
Final thoughts: Thalore are quite strong, especially for their level. However, the 35% experience penalty is a huge pain in the ass, and means that by the time you get to high peak you will probably only be ~45 (without truly excessive farportal grinding).
Post by: Robsoie on March 21, 2013, 01:54:01 pm
Usually the major difficulty in High Peak is based on what the game will generate as stair guardians. It's very possible you will not face things very strong, but it is possible that the generated guardians may be completely insanely hard.
A bit like the Slime Tunnel pillars guardians can be easy or insane too depending on what's the game generate.
Now there's the possibility the Infinite500 addon toned down monsters in there , as it is modifying a lot more than only enabling you to reach more than level 50 when you dive in the ID after the campaign, impacting then the whole game.
Post by: Terra_Inc on March 21, 2013, 03:05:20 pm
There are some likely less then known things. Such as being able to right click a creature and pull up it's entire character sheet, including talent list. Though, that is sometimes less then helpful if you don't know what the talent does or means. Or how exactly saves help you, and what you are saving against. Oddly, TOME has the best and worst UI in different areas. "Here is the creature's exact character sheet, including talent levels and stats, but what those stats mean in relation to combat, ehhhhh."The secret to roguelikes is spoilers and cowardice. :PThere's very little to spoiler in ToME. I definitely agree with cowardice though. :(
Protip: If you ever see a creature you have no knowledge of, or is rare/unique/elite/anything but a critter or normal, first thing right click and inspect creature.
Honestly, being able to check a mob's charsheet is pretty darn vital at times. I thought most people were aware of that. It's not like it's hidden or something. The stat system is way too complicated, I agree. You figure most of it out after a while, but it's really not very clear. The most useful things about the charsheet are the talents, resists and retal damage, anyway.
Post by: Graven on March 22, 2013, 09:53:55 am
Is this really so, or am I going bonkers?
Post by: Robsoie on March 22, 2013, 10:18:43 am
Post by: Darkmere on March 22, 2013, 11:02:51 am
It kidna made me lose interest in the archmage, despite being in the prides and going strong.
Post by: Neonivek on March 22, 2013, 11:14:47 am
As for Cowardess you are right. TOME tries to trap you a lot of the time by parking you infront of dungeons you cannot beat and telling you to beat them. The REAL solution is to ignore the dungeon and do the other ones first.
Post by: Robsoie on March 22, 2013, 11:57:20 am
But cowardice can be very boring to play but not much choice if you want to win a game, in opposite bravery can lead into really fun and epic battles facing nigh impossible odds, but then unfortunately too much dependant on luck if you're hoping for a positive outcome.
And counting on luck in a roguelike, well ... :D
Post by: Neonivek on March 22, 2013, 12:10:27 pm
Yet saying I love the summoner only greets me with "Ohh yeah of course you love the summon you noob! it is the most broken class ever and liking him only proves your inadequacy" so I never feel good about being good with the summoner.
My suggestion for people using the summoner is that some monsters are much better maxed out then spread out. The difference between a 4 and 5 rank Hydra is as big as night and day. So you either go for 1 level or 5 levels with few exceptions and those exceptions are monsters without dirrect battle application (like Slimes and Turtles)
Post by: Graven on March 22, 2013, 12:45:18 pm
Also I gave up and rolled another antimagic class - this time a Thalore Doomed. I really need to win something non-antimagic :|
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 22, 2013, 12:49:15 pm
Geomancers are a lot better than they used to be, but they still have a few issues:
- Shield-wielding enemies can block your damage.
- Very few artifacts. Everyone else gets several themed artifacts.
- Few items give +physical damage.
Post by: beorn080 on March 22, 2013, 12:54:57 pm
The only class I can be somewhat foolhearty with is my Summoner. I often got away with doing the dungeons completely out of order (managing to somehow get to the second continent without even beating half the dungeons or any of the secret dungeons)Summoners are not the most broken class ever. They, like alchemists and, to a lesser extent, necromancers, are very simple to play. Pour points into 1-2 stats, max out a few key skills, and spam the hell out of it. Even compared to, say, archmages, those three classes just spam the hell out of 2-3 options. In the case of summoners, it's more, but most of those are just meat shields. Hydra, Ritch, Flame Drake, Jelly, Turtle are your workhorses. Everything else, for the most part, is there to suck up hits.
Yet saying I love the summoner only greets me with "Ohh yeah of course you love the summon you noob! it is the most broken class ever and liking him only proves your inadequacy" so I never feel good about being good with the summoner.
My suggestion for people using the summoner is that some monsters are much better maxed out then spread out. The difference between a 4 and 5 rank Hydra is as big as night and day. So you either go for 1 level or 5 levels with few exceptions and those exceptions are monsters without dirrect battle application (like Slimes and Turtles)
So, no. Don't feel bad about liking summoners. They aren't THAT broken. I mean, Oozemancer's and Solipsists exist still. They are just very easy to play.
Post by: Graven on March 22, 2013, 02:23:31 pm
Post by: Frumple on March 22, 2013, 02:34:32 pm
No real need for spoiler, really. It's not exactly an in-game thing.
Also, this (http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/ignore-raceclass-locks) has been updated for the latest version.
Post by: Graven on March 22, 2013, 02:50:23 pm
Thanks Frumple!
Post by: Neonivek on March 22, 2013, 02:55:26 pm
Post by: Robsoie on March 23, 2013, 07:17:39 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/iOEyWXb.jpg)
Post by: Max White on March 23, 2013, 07:22:49 pm
And counting on luck in a roguelike, well ... :DXom watches over us all... Always.
Post by: Robsoie on March 23, 2013, 10:37:38 pm
What's that Heart of Poosh thing and who's that Kelad "the one that stole Poosh" supposed to be about ?
Post by: Frumple on March 23, 2013, 11:18:47 pm
Insofar as I'm aware, that's the reference. Though I could be wrong, there. Try asking on T4's forums, DG'd probably answer.
Heart of poosh is an activatable artifact. Forget exactly what it does. Something to do with reducing equilibrium? Kelad's just a dude, far as I know.
Post by: Robsoie on March 23, 2013, 11:55:54 pm
Winnie the poo(s)h, man. All the cats? Tigger.Thanks, i was very far from even imagining it could a reference to that.
Insofar as I'm aware, that's the reference. Though I could be wrong, there. Try asking on T4's forums, DG'd probably answer.
Meanwhile, my Cornac Oozemancer is doing very well, just came back from the East , time to get the backup guardians for some xp/items and get that west portal online.
Nicely powerfull class.
Though i should have tried a Yeek instead of a Cornac to see if the Oozemancer was powerfull enough to get them out of the island without much trouble
(still hilarious to try to get a Yeek Bulwark surviving the underwater dungeon)
Post by: Frumple on March 24, 2013, 12:00:19 am
Post by: Terra_Inc on March 24, 2013, 11:06:53 am
As i completed again the "Land of Poosh" that appeared while playing online, anyone know what is the story behind this ? it sounds like some kind of inside joke as i have read no lore related to this, but not having followed the ToME serie since the very beginning i don't get it.
What's that Heart of Poosh thing and who's that Kelad "the one that stole Poosh" supposed to be about ?
It's a DW reference, obviously. The Daleks stole the moon of Poosh.
DarkGod is a SciFi fan, there are tons of references all over the place. I mean, just look at the release names. The Anorithil class is basically a walking Babylon 5 reference. And one of the late-game artifacts, the "Temporal Augmentation Robe - Designed In-Style" literally spells out TAR-DIS.
Post by: Encased in burning magma on March 24, 2013, 11:12:16 am
At level 40, my cornac oozemancer hits for...
Acid splash fires
9 oozes fire beams in reaction, for 110 each
Unstoppable nature procs, 110 each again
Splash hits for 300 acid, sicks 50% nature vulnerability.
Slime take their turns, maybe 5 of them fire for 110 each.
Then slime spit hits for 1200+, on every target, but I could just back away as the mucus and the slimes would overkill everything by a large margin. Anyway, total ranged damage in 2 turns: about 4000. Wut. Total aoe damage is "only" 1500, but spores can remedy that for strong foes.
And also Oozemancer has a ton of mobility/defensive abilities. And here I thought the solipsist was overpowered.
Oh and I didn't factor ooze crit (20%). Nor prodigies.
Post by: Frumple on March 24, 2013, 11:17:57 am
It's pretty great. Don't underestimate call of the ooze, either. Massively jacked up melee attack vs. pretty much everything in sight is delicious, especially when you've got psiblades and maxed out will/cun.
It'll be interesting to see which of its orifices gets violated by the nerf bat.
Post by: Encased in burning magma on March 24, 2013, 11:25:41 am
It'll be interesting to see which of its orifices gets violated by the nerf bat.
I'd wager mucus in general, call of the ooze, oozewalk, and maaaybe mosses.
Errata on my previous post: with 100 will and a cat point, the nature vulnerability is 77%, not 50%.
Post by: Frumple on March 24, 2013, 12:11:37 pm
Post by: Robsoie on March 24, 2013, 12:46:52 pm
Quote from: Terra_Inc
It's a DW reference, obviously. The Daleks stole the moon of Poosh.Thanks, i should probably need to watch TV more to get this :D
After googling that moon of Poosh stolen thing, it makes sense.
Something nice for the Oozemancer is that in one of the locked talent tree there's one that allow you to lower a lot the nature resistance of enemies if you throw acid to them.
It's excellent because the awesome (though not high damaging) acid mucus that hit in large radius (and spawn your oozes) will then cripple the nature resistance of monsters affected, and then you can shoot your high damaging (at talent 5 and high mindpower) Slime Spit that deal nature damage (and is able to bounce through multiple enemies).
Post by: Encased in burning magma on March 24, 2013, 01:57:50 pm
How would you go about aquiring 50 magic on that kind of character? Gear can't really help since he's antimagic by default.
Post by: Darkmere on March 24, 2013, 03:00:24 pm
Post by: Robsoie on March 24, 2013, 03:06:06 pm
By example in Zigur you can ask the direction of Tempest Peak to the Protector without having to take the test first.
So i'm not sure it's possible to use gear to get to the 50 magic, you will probably need to invest a lot of points.
Surely not points you'll have given to Cunning and Willpower, as every skills power is related to Mindpower, so you would then probably use the points you would have put in Constitution and direct them to Magic instead.
Making you more weak in term of health (and then not benefitting of the maximum Resist All you can obtain from Thick Skin) in order to get enough Magic to obtain that prodigy.
Post by: Encased in burning magma on March 24, 2013, 04:10:11 pm
Making you more weak in term of health (and then not benefitting of the maximum Resist All you can obtain from Thick Skin) in order to get enough Magic to obtain that prodigy.
Bah, that's what I feared. Took the antimagic-shield boosting prodigy instead along with Eye of the Tiger.
Unrelated: the paladin bugged and didn't spawn on the final battle. No matter, as I simply squashed them both before they could really do anything :/. Why was the class released in this state? It could be nerfed by half and still be very good.
Post by: Robsoie on March 24, 2013, 06:17:28 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/riLOBXx.jpg)
Post by: Frumple on March 24, 2013, 06:31:32 pm
Post by: Robsoie on March 24, 2013, 06:35:43 pm
Post by: Encased in burning magma on March 24, 2013, 06:41:07 pm
Good, i'm always suspicious of the telepathy brand, as sometime i'm really wondering if what i see through it is in fact seeing me as easily.
That's only a problem for things like saving the yeek wayist.
Post by: Graven on March 24, 2013, 06:42:36 pm
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 24, 2013, 08:51:21 pm
EDIT:
Won with my dwarf geomancer on nightmare roguelike!
http://te4.org/characters/30061/tome/2814d187-e855-40b3-bfd7-f5d5776c3c4a
This is my 2nd win in a row. Pulverizing Auger is fun. I liked attacking enemies through walls.
The orc prides scale to level 60, the slime tunnels: 80, high peak: 90, and the final bosses: 100.
The final battle was anti-climatic. Elandar's freeze spell deals 1750 damage(!), but I killed him before he could attack me. I shut off all portals and killed the bosses without taking any damage. The paladin survived with 40% of her health remaining.
Post by: Graven on March 25, 2013, 01:05:19 pm
Anyway, is there any good reason, if I have 5/1/5/1 in Fungus to not get two regen infusions and set them to autocast when available? So far I've always done it and it seems to work out, but I'd like to know if it could somehow be detrimental.
Post by: Encased in burning magma on March 25, 2013, 01:55:32 pm
Anyway, is there any good reason, if I have 5/1/5/1 in Fungus to not get two regen infusions and set them to autocast when available?
You can additionally autocast mucus (with the slime spawn talent leveled) and your mosses and just play the game with your nose afterwards.
You might have to move your nose to the "acid spit" key for the wyrm vault.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 25, 2013, 02:56:35 pm
Linaniil gets a major upgrade in nightmare. Her meteoric crash prodigy has 0 cooldown, and draconian body has a much shorter cooldown. Even with her upgrade she died very quickly.
Post by: Robsoie on March 25, 2013, 04:21:56 pm
Post by: Niveras on March 25, 2013, 05:51:20 pm
.
I keep playing archmages even though I want MORE
I was doing pretty good with my last one, got to the east for the first time in a long time and had a pretty freaking sweet rare dragonbone staff and over something like +80% fire damage. I wasted a bunch of points unlocking stone alchemy because I thought imbue item was way better than it was (I thought you could imbue more than just chest armor; 5 points for +6 stats or +8% all damage feels pretty weak). And then I wasted another cat point bumping Wildfire tree to 1.5, making the Wildfire sustain reduce fire damage dealt to myself by 105%... and meaning that, since i don't take fire damage anymore, Harmony stops triggering from my own Burning Embers talent. So that's two cat points, 6 generic points (alchemy tree; I only noticed after I bumped it to 5 that I couldn't unspend them), and another 5ish generic giving me only about 25% of the benefit it could have done otherwise. Suffice it to say, when I finally blew myself up for the last time with a 1200ish temporal fireflash (which normally wouldn't be fatal but I was fighting only one thing and didn't have any shields up), I shrugged and decided it'd be better to start over.
Post by: Frumple on March 25, 2013, 05:59:52 pm
And yeah, imbue/extract run off raw (unless you went 4/5 in imbue for some odd reason? The fifth tier artifact gems are half the fun of getting that talent maxed.). So five points in imbue (6 total) gets you access to fifth tier gems for imbuing. The cat point more than the generics is the expensive part.
Post by: Eurynomos on March 26, 2013, 02:23:26 am
I keep playing archmages even though I want MOREI've played doomed, and I don't think they have the same sheer damage out put as an archmage, or at least a good tribeam archmage. Maybe I wasn't building him correctly, but there's my two cents. The corruptor, though, probably is better with sheer damage than the archmage. Luminous and radiant horrors are why I'm always willing to put class points in other combat skills, like manathrust and lightning, at least temporarily.DAKKAFIRE and they seem powerful, I expect some other classes (doomed) are better for sheer damage output. But archmages also have pretty good defensive ability in terms of Aegis tree and especially Disruption Shield (in terms of surviving hits, as opposed to proactively shutting down threats like antimagic). And then temporal form prodigy for dealing with true fire immunes (like luminous/radiant horrors, who are healed by fire instead of just being resist and thus subject to Wildfire pierce).
Post by: Max White on March 26, 2013, 02:29:06 am
How do I late game archmage spell?
Post by: Frumple on March 26, 2013, 02:44:35 am
Late game archmage, damage wise, from what I recall (And note: I haven't actually played one to late game in a long, long time, so I'm going by what other people say), involves a lot of massive AoE and the occasional layered DoT fields (inferno, glacial vapor, etc.).
Just... scope out the vault. Check the winners, see what talents they've invested in.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 26, 2013, 09:35:18 am
Corruptors can nuke entire rooms all day. Massive firepower is their gimmick. Alchemists are close, but they only have 1 nuke. Corruptors have several, due to Overkill.
My geomancer regularly deals 1700-2200 per attack with 120% physical damage boost, 80% penetration, and 220% critical multiplier. A fire archmage can probably deal similar damage.
How do you kill something that does 2400-2800 damage to you at each attack ?
Aegis and max resists. It allows you to tank a couple of Atamathon's attacks before you're forced to flee. It's kinda hard to flee from Atamathon though, since his rush has a range of 20 and you're stuck on a small map.
Post by: Robsoie on March 26, 2013, 10:24:57 am
I remember reading some people mentionning that it wasn't really worth taking but if it can help to take more than 2400 damage, i will have to give a try.
High damaging ranged enemies have always been the doom of my archimages due to their not so good health.
Post by: Graven on March 26, 2013, 11:56:03 am
http://te4.org/characters/15454/tome/9ebb7a65-4379-4c21-8146-7454d86bc212
Where's that band wagon, did I make it in time? Third win, woo! [also third antimagic win, but shush]
Cleared the OP wyrms, waltzed in the final boss fight at xlvl 47, even went and killed Atamathon after! Not before dying to him a few times, though, since I decided to stick to my principles and not inspect him, instead learning his abilities in person. Don't do that, kids. No reason to.
Oozemancer is really fun, and incredibly powerful. It was also an interesting lesson in resistance penetration, decreasing resistances and ignoring resistances, since I've never had to deal with those. Oozemancer doesn't seem to do all that much damage, my highest hit was about 1k, but everything is AoE and with the right combination of talents all enemies are at -50 nature resistance or below, so mobs die in a few turns. Also antimagic makes you nearly invincible anyway.
I still died three times in the west, of course. Got my regeneration infusions bugged somehow once, opened a vault in Dreadfell which had 5 greater demons in a single-tile corridor who pulled me in, and finally, went in the dark crypt. First floor, BOOM - 12 or 15 spellcasters, two rares. Sad thing is, I could've won, but at that point I didn't know how to fight groups of casters and I messed up my ability use order.
The greatest problem was that Tome's endgame is horrible. From the prides on I didn't really have any fun - not because of the class itself, definitely. Tome slows to a crawl, and it's just tons and tons of indistinguishable enemies. I remember a while ago I got a Paradox Mage to the prides and was having similar amounts of un-fun; and when the greatest class in the history of games is not fun to play, something needs to be done.
What I liked most about oozemancer is the range, and the fact that your AoEs don't seem to hit you. See Archmage? This is how you do things, not by dropping arcane explosions in your own lap.
Post by: Niveras on March 26, 2013, 06:23:08 pm
Post by: Repulsion on March 26, 2013, 10:04:11 pm
And if you open up the Fears tree (although I don't have much experience with it) you can just screw your enemies over entirely and cause them to attack each other.
And the Gesture tree makes you able to hit as hard as a traditional warrior in melee, and the last skill in the gesture tree plus Deflection can add up to some very nice damage nullification.
Overall, Doomed have a different playstyle and less damage than an archmage (in most cases), but they ain't weak :V
Post by: Neonivek on March 26, 2013, 11:35:40 pm
Mind you all the examples I can think of aer subpar... but I am sure they exist.
Post by: RedKing on March 27, 2013, 08:33:24 am
With full points in Supercharge Golem, I can res and full-heal my golem for about 4 alchemist gems, every 18 turns. Golem has two shield runes, tons of armor and resist and the Rune of the Rift. And Runic Golem at lvl 5 now, so considerable natural regen.
Curious to see how he fares in the East.
Post by: Max White on March 27, 2013, 08:37:36 am
Post by: RedKing on March 27, 2013, 09:04:28 am
Bomb-alchemist is so last season... Heat alchemist is all the rage now.Yeah, I looked at the Fire Alchemy tree and it looked interesting. Now that I've maxed all the golem-related skills I want, I might pick it up at 30 (then again, a rune/infusion slot would be really nice too). But yeah, I could use more dakka.
Post by: Frumple on March 27, 2013, 09:28:46 am
Post by: Encased in burning magma on March 27, 2013, 11:40:24 am
And if you open up the Fears tree (although I don't have much experience with it)
It's shit. Not worth the points.
Post by: RedKing on March 28, 2013, 08:11:58 am
Bombs would give you a lot of dakka :PMeh. 1 point in the first skill in the fire alchemy tree would appear to give WAY more dakka than my bombs ever will.
Plus at lvl 30, I'm gonna take the Corrupted Summons prodigy and give my golem Corrupted Strength and the Reaving Combat skill tree. Burly McRockslab gonna get burlier.
I'm curious....do golems themselves get to take prodigies at lvl 30??
Post by: Frumple on March 28, 2013, 08:21:58 am
And 5/5/5/0 explosive admixtures, RK. Levels basically everything and massively out damages anything the fire alchemy tree can produce. Heat's good for using while the bomb's on CD and the rest of the FA talents have their uses, but in turns/damage maxed out bombs flat out outperform the entire fire alchemy tree (frankly, they almost outperform some other classes in their entirety >_>). Throw in some infusion investment (which you'd be doing for fire alchemy anyway) and it gets even better.
Post by: beorn080 on March 28, 2013, 09:48:07 am
Post by: Darkmere on March 28, 2013, 10:15:24 am
The golem will never do anything like respectable damage punching and zapping stuff one at a time. And no, they don't get prodigies.
Post by: beorn080 on March 28, 2013, 02:30:46 pm
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 28, 2013, 08:19:16 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Oozemancers are fun. I think that was the fastest time I've beaten the Arena.
Post by: beorn080 on March 28, 2013, 09:51:34 pm
Post by: Aoi on March 28, 2013, 10:20:35 pm
Post by: lemon10 on March 28, 2013, 11:15:20 pm
A) It can be used whenever Oozewalk can be used. Although you say Oozewalk can *always* be used, it can't actually be used when you are frozen, and it probably can't be used while 90% confused either (although I can't actually be sure about it).
B) Slime Roots can teleport you *anywhere* in a 10 radius area, including through walls (as long as they aren't vault walls) without having any chance of fizzling or accuracy problems (although having perfect accuracy would be better, radius 1 teleport is still super sweet).
C) Oozewalk has to be set up properly before use, which usually requires a turn casting time to project the slime before you run (and that only works if its off cooldown).
On the flip side, Oozewalk *does* have a 20% cast time, and it can remove status effects, but despite those, it isn't really a superior escape, since you can't really choose anywhere you want to go.
That said, I highly recommend having your basic Mucus ability on "cast whenever enemies are in sight", since it basically eliminates any and all equilibrium problems you will ever have.
Post by: beorn080 on March 29, 2013, 02:52:12 am
Slime roots IS almost always a better option, if only that it lets you pop more skills once you get away. Seriously though, the sheer amount of spam is FAR more impressive then the Alchemist, and you get more allies, if randomly.
Post by: lemon10 on March 29, 2013, 11:28:18 am
Post by: Aoi on March 29, 2013, 02:45:22 pm
And hooboy, that boss hit me like a truck. Okay, so maybe I was sloppy and didn't prep myself well for it. Send me back where I was for round two! And it one-shots me.
As far as spam goes-- don't forget to grab Nature's Balance. Resets cooldown for 9 of your skills? YES.
Post by: Frumple on March 29, 2013, 02:52:22 pm
... I wonder... oooh. Yeah, that'd do it. Dude got Tricks of the Trade in one of the recent versions, which means he's only ("only") toting a 35% damage debuff when invisible. Which means that he basically got a 35% damage buff, heh. Dude's hitting harder these days. Assault/overpower has always hurt pretty badly when he's not nerfed himself into triviality, though. Especially if he gens with a good sword/shield combo.
Post by: Encased in burning magma on March 30, 2013, 03:50:50 am
Post by: beorn080 on March 30, 2013, 01:19:54 pm
Tried oozemancer in the arena. Went swimmingly until 3 enemy spellcasters critted simultaneously :-\.This. I've had three deaths with my first Oozemancer, who is a Yeek. All three were one shots from spellcasters as I turn a corner.
Post by: Niveras on March 30, 2013, 10:17:27 pm
who is a Yeek.
Well, there's yer problem.
/snark
Post by: beorn080 on March 31, 2013, 01:15:51 am
Post by: Encased in burning magma on March 31, 2013, 02:37:57 am
Tried oozemancer in the arena. Went swimmingly until 3 enemy spellcasters critted simultaneously :-\.This. I've had three deaths with my first Oozemancer, who is a Yeek. All three were one shots from spellcasters as I turn a corner.
Funny, my arena oozemancer was also a Yeek (wanted fast levels and global speed to aim for a high score). Still died despite maxing CON. Died to red crystalX2 + forest wight who all critted, despite being level 35.
Post by: beorn080 on March 31, 2013, 09:43:34 pm
Post by: Repulsion on April 04, 2013, 07:55:17 am
Post by: Frumple on April 04, 2013, 08:00:54 am
Also, has anyone tried the glutton addon class yet? It is delightfully silly. All the talents. All of them! AHAHAHAHAHA!
Post by: beorn080 on April 04, 2013, 12:37:35 pm
1. Abuse the heck out of summon mindslayers. It's instant. That means every battle should start with three meatshields standing next to the enemy, in addition to starting up your mucus and dropping an acid splash on it.
2. Even if you don't use the mitosis talents, get a point in call of the ooze. One, it opens up the 4th tier there, which makes you immune to a whole host of annoying stuff when maxed, and even a point or two gives some hefty resists, and helps negate crits. Anyway, call of the ooze is great since it ensures you have more meatshields. Yeeks like meatshields.
3. Slime roots is awesome.
Post by: Repulsion on April 04, 2013, 05:34:13 pm
Post by: beorn080 on April 09, 2013, 02:41:14 am
Taint of telepathy is arcane. Oooooozemancers do not like arcane. Thus, getting that fracking stone skin potion from the blighter was useless. Shoulda gone for the wild growth infusion.
Post by: martinuzz on April 23, 2013, 08:58:06 am
Tome4 is a gem, go greenlight it on Steam, folks. DarkGod needs your support!
Post by: lemon10 on April 24, 2013, 11:06:52 am
There are only two real threats to oozemancers: A high amount of AOE spells (usually from 2+ fire/ice mages on the screen) killing off all your oozes at once (after which you take normal damage), or 1/2 very high damage enemies instakilling you from off screen/killing you in one turn while you have no oozes active.
Both of these are far less dangerous with more health, and yeeks have by far the least health of all the races.
While this health difference can be overcome to some extent with items, the difference at level 50 between a dwarf and a yeek is 250 HP, or the equivalent of equipping 5 HP boosting items.
Furthermore, the Yeek talents aren't really all that good with oozemancers, their second talent (confusion resist+mental save) is completely useless, and the summon mindslayers isn't very good since they already have tons of meatsheilds, and anything that would kill the meatsheilds would probably kill the mindslayers as well.
The global speed boost and the dominate abilities can be fairly useful, but the health loss isn't nearly worth it, far better to go dwarf for instance for the much higher tankiness (as well as the great resistances).
Post by: Neonivek on April 24, 2013, 11:17:07 am
To my knowledge a Yeek is always a detriment.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on April 24, 2013, 11:23:46 am
Post by: Neonivek on April 24, 2013, 11:24:28 am
You should try Yeek solipsist
I tried a skeleton Soliphsist.
People are right they are extremely powerful.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on April 24, 2013, 11:33:22 am
Skeleton is a bad choice, no antimagic, no mindstar mastery...Only ghouls are worse for that class
Post by: Frumple on April 24, 2013, 11:49:42 am
Ghouls are alright, too. Extra mobility, extra toughness, nice heal, solipsist speed bonus helps offset the ghoul's malus. It's pretty decent. S'worth noting I value ghouls pretty highly, though... the speed penalty makes people crap on them harder than they really deserve. It's functionally not that bad and ghouls get some incredible bonuses.
Yeeks are... honestly, only 'alright' solipsists, from what I've seen. Good, but I'd rather play something tougher. Yeek solipsists have the same squishy problem as all yeek builds do, and while solip tankiness helps ameliorate that quite a bit, it's still there and a problem compared to other races. Best solips are probably thaloren at the moment. Saves boosts, that sexy sexy resall, nice buff, and better meatshields. Even with the nerfs, though, it's pretty hard to go wrong with solipsist anything.
Post by: martinuzz on April 24, 2013, 12:12:53 pm
Yeeks are the worst class for being a oozemancer.
There are only two real threats to oozemancers: A high amount of AOE spells (usually from 2+ fire/ice mages on the screen) killing off all your oozes at once (after which you take normal damage), or 1/2 very high damage enemies instakilling you from off screen/killing you in one turn while you have no oozes active.
Both of these are far less dangerous with more health, and yeeks have by far the least health of all the races.
While this health difference can be overcome to some extent with items, the difference at level 50 between a dwarf and a yeek is 250 HP, or the equivalent of equipping 5 HP boosting items.
Furthermore, the Yeek talents aren't really all that good with oozemancers, their second talent (confusion resist+mental save) is completely useless, and the summon mindslayers isn't very good since they already have tons of meatsheilds, and anything that would kill the meatsheilds would probably kill the mindslayers as well.
The global speed boost and the dominate abilities can be fairly useful, but the health loss isn't nearly worth it, far better to go dwarf for instance for the much higher tankiness (as well as the great resistances).
Yes, Yeek probably is the worst choice for an oozemancer. But I needed the solipsist unlock, and I just happened to win the game after unlocking it XD
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on April 24, 2013, 04:15:41 pm
Quote
Solips don't even remotely need mindstar masteryPlus to mindpower can't hurt. With artifact mindstars it's quite noticeable. Thorn grab for fighting bosses is something i very much prefer to have.
Also, mindstar melee solipsist is quite formidable due to it's epic speed, did that with one Thaloren Soliplists (Used Eden's boots) , never had - class talents are still on cooldown.
Quote
and if you can get mindstar mastery you can probably get fungus or AM instead.Why instead? 2 generic points and 750 gold is not a huge investment for a nice boost to mindpower and ability to slowdown enemy via instant attack. Also, you may get lucky and get it from an alchemist escort something that undead simply can't do. Same goes for nature's touch, free generics for the sleep tree and mental saves.
Quote
Ghouls are alright, too.Well, I think ghoul everything is good and solipsist everything is good. Sure it's playable, but I am sure that skeletons, Shalorens and Ghouls are the worst solipsists
Quote
Best solips are probably thaloren at the momentI tend to agree, Con-wis thaloren with the guardian can get quite insane resist all. + I love resist blight, because corrupters are nasty
Post by: Encased in burning magma on April 27, 2013, 04:12:02 am
Best solips are probably thaloren at the moment.
Best everything are probably thaloren at the moment. Maaaybe shaloren for late game time warden, but eh.
Post by: BishopX on April 27, 2013, 02:00:36 pm
Best solips are probably thaloren at the moment.
Best everything are probably thaloren at the moment. Maaaybe shaloren for late game time warden, but eh.
Shaloren are also the best sling archers as well. They shoot scarily fast.
Any tips on playing a bulwark? Everyone treats them as easy but I can never seem to make out of T2 with one.
Post by: Frumple on April 27, 2013, 02:05:17 pm
Post by: BishopX on April 27, 2013, 02:08:46 pm
Post by: Frumple on April 27, 2013, 02:19:21 pm
Can also rush, bleeding edge (/whatever, really), movement infusion/TP/murder-an-ooze-for-step-up-proc out, then repeat until dead o'mancer. Bulwarks are really mobile, as paradoxical as that might seem, and benefit pretty heavily from hit/run tactics and/or careful positioning. Leverage the advantage!
Post by: Robsoie on May 17, 2013, 07:16:00 pm
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2013/05/tome/tales-majeyal-103-aka-new-dawn
Post by: BishopX on May 17, 2013, 10:31:03 pm
Post by: Robsoie on May 18, 2013, 01:37:49 pm
Currently running a Dwarf Cursed at some point i entered the Kor'Pul ruins and i noticed a lot of thieves/rogues and bandits in there, instead of full undead only as usual.
Wondering if it was the spawning function that had gone wrong, i reached the bottom level and understood why there were no more undead but some rogue infestation in there.
Not spoiling it, but that's really a great idea that got implemented.
Post by: Robsoie on May 18, 2013, 06:40:18 pm
But that wasn't the worst, the worst was :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on May 19, 2013, 10:13:03 pm
I played a Yeek Summoner that was becoming very good, powerfull summons and leveled quickly so he was up to level 20 when i reached Maze (what a difference from when i play skeleton with them i always struggle to reach level 14 at the time i go to Maze).
I got the alternate layout of Maze this time, with the small floors and the holes to reach lower levels, my first.
All seemed to go well until i reached the last floor.
At some point of the exploration i spotted the boss (a corrupted version of a minotaur with tentacles around him) and sent my Drake squad to deal with him while i retreated behind cover to summon something else.
In the middle of that battle, i decided to move up to summon another Drake squad close to where the boss was fighting, but i got bad luck with my timing as it was just in time for him to destroy a drake and get a direct line of sight on me.
Saving/Loading/Saving ... huh ? Eidolon ... wow, the thing just insta killed my character , and from the log it was with 3 shots of +/-100 damage each and another one of a different damage that i was resistant against, but that went over what the few health that was left after the 3 hits, all on the same turn as i did no other action after moving up.
And it was then i remembered .. Yeek ... Health ... Constitution ... damn i forgot after getting such a good run up to Maze that they have nearly no health.
Once i managed to deal with that boss and put an end to the thing, i explored what was left of the floor, moved around a corned and noticed that headless corpse monster surrounded by floating eyes.
Yeah, in Maze ... you know that headless corpse and floating eyes monster that is really dangerous even by the time you're reaching the East.
Save/Load/Save . .Eidolon again, in the log the eyes all shot my character and due to how insanely squishy he was, another instakill.
I'll remember next time i play a Yeek, Constitution ! put points in Constitution even if the skills require other traits, Constitution is what prevent an insta kill on a Yeek ! Remember that at some point of the campaign, the big monsters will deal more damage by turn than what the Yeek will have for health if no Constitution upgrade !
:D
Unfortunately, poor Yeek ran out of life fighting Urkis that killed him a few times.
As even if i increased constitution for the few levels i gained from Maze-Sandworm-Daikara (that went all rather very well) , i didn't found enough cold+lightning resistance items apparently (i had only between 35 and 40% res unfortunately) to prevent Urik to freeze my character from out of sight and kill him a few turns later before i could break out of the ice, the summons being completely useless during that time as their AI seems to be more busy attacking your ice prison instead of Urkis, while he happily lightning bolted me to death in 3 or 4 turns as none of the damned summon was trying to attack him :)
And from what i read in log, it looks like when you're in ice , your summon do not only attack your ice prison, as when i summoned a turtle, hoping Urkis would be distracted enough to give me time to break the ice, i saw that my drakes were all attackin my turtle !
Post by: Robsoie on May 20, 2013, 03:32:36 pm
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2013/05/news/tales-majeyal-104-aka-cabalistic-gesture
lots of bugfixes and performance improvement
Post by: Graven on May 20, 2013, 03:42:46 pm
I'm currently Crawling, but I'll have some more time to play this in a few weeks, hopefully get a non-AM win somewhere in there.
Are there any upcoming new classes? I wouldn't mind a few of those, possibly another Paradox user because that stuff is incredible.
Post by: Bitoru on May 20, 2013, 04:18:48 pm
Post by: Robsoie on May 20, 2013, 05:12:12 pm
Currently no new class since the addition of the Oozemancers, i remember reading the dev mentionning working on Orcs though, so maybe a new race is coming soon.
Post by: Neonivek on May 20, 2013, 05:59:01 pm
Post by: Niveras on May 20, 2013, 07:21:33 pm
I kind of hope he doesn't just cheese it and make you play an orc through all the same content with just some dialog changes. Instead, it'd be sweet to kind of reverse things: start in the east, chase down the staff, come back to the east when you learn about the mages masquerading as the new leaders. The prides can substitute as the western towns (and maybe when you return you'll still have to kill the four leaders for being arrogant/misguided/corrupted), though I'm not really sure what to do about starter dungeons except maybe to just move them to the east when you play an orc. And probably still sterilize the breeding pits so the race can return to some semblance of normalcy; it's hard to believe that there are zero normal female orcs anywhere.
Post by: Robsoie on May 20, 2013, 08:36:29 pm
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=37016
Post by: Robsoie on May 21, 2013, 12:01:53 am
Last time i had it, met a headless corpse with the floating eye that usually is met in the East and so insta killed my character
And what about those group of 3 Luminous Horrors, spawning that early in the game progression, they're a pain in Nur, but in Maze ? argghh :D
But that's nothing, because this time i encountered in the alternate Maze ... a Dreaming Horror.
Yeah, in Maze , where you're usually between level 14 and 18 (depending on your combo) by the time you enter in it.
So for future explorer of Maze, if you see that you're given the alternate version (that has the big holes you must jump in to get in lower levels, and after a few meeting the boss) , note that the monsters are spawned from the same list you will find in the bottom of Lake of Nur.
Then -much- harder than your usual thieves/minotaurs/jellies found in the usual Maze.
A good idea is to not explore it, but jump in the holes as soon as possible to reach the boss, minimizing the chance of encountering the really insane monster that can (and so will) spawn in the alternate Maze.
The alternate boss is much less dangerous than some of what you can meet there
Post by: Robsoie on May 30, 2013, 06:12:44 pm
http://te4.org/wiki/Main_Page
While giving a try to Nightmare difficulty with a Dwarf Solipsist, i was suprised to not find it actually more difficult than normal (at least with a Solipsist), though i think i was leveling up a bit quicker in the starting dungeons maybe that's why as if the enemies were stronger and giving more XP, being higher leveled compensated for it.
And then after clearing every tier 1 zones, i went to Old Forest, i got the alternate version, so as usual with the alternate, harder than the regular version. And wow, it really kicked my poor guy in a few turns, i tried a few times and got killed again and again by that "Shardskin" , well time to try another combo, though maybe going back to normal difficulty :D
Post by: DarrenGrey on June 28, 2013, 04:47:54 am
I kind of hope he doesn't just cheese it and make you play an orc through all the same content with just some dialog changes.
Nope, it'll be a new campaign starting after the events of the main game. An evil Scourge from the West has destroyed most of the prides and inflicted a third genocide on the orcs. You are a member of the Kruk clan, based on an island in the east, and with a combination of steamtech and magic you must find a way to rescue your race and stop the threatening Atmos steam giants.
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And probably still sterilize the breeding pits so the race can return to some semblance of normalcy; it's hard to believe that there are zero normal female orcs anywhere.
There were all mutated in the breeding pits. But every orc born through the breeding pits is sterile. As for future survival... well, magic finds a way. Especially corruption magic :)
Post by: Robsoie on June 28, 2013, 05:59:57 am
So it's not an impossibility that there are Orc tribes and groups (and so females) that are somewhere, far away, untouched from the insane corruption their ancestors put on their kind thinking it would save them while in fact it doomed them all.
Post by: Frumple on June 28, 2013, 06:20:41 am
What doomed them all was, well, a genocidal madperson that specifically hunted down and slaughtered their means of reproduction. Rather imagine the same thing would have happened even if the orcs'd been able to not resort to the breeding pit stuff, it'd just been their women and children hunted down and massacred instead of what was targeted. 'Cause that's how T4's player character rolls, apparently.
Post by: Robsoie on June 28, 2013, 07:08:22 am
nothing good happens when toying with corruption magic, that's a part of the concept :)
Post by: MadMalkavian on June 28, 2013, 07:40:34 am
Post by: Un67 on June 28, 2013, 07:46:54 am
Post by: MadMalkavian on July 01, 2013, 05:15:28 pm
Post by: Robsoie on July 21, 2013, 04:13:58 am
I had a hard time in the beginning, but once you get to a decent level, the Anorithil is basically a light&darkness machinegun (thanks to Corona and Hymn of moonlight and very nice amount of spell critical chance) and unless you're overestimate your character strength (did it a few time unfortunately, costing several life in easily avoidable death), that's a very powerfull combo to clear rooms full of enemies.
I like that celestial class a lot, i played a Sun Paladin previously but was quickly bored by how weak he was as a melee character (i didn't felt such a thing with berserkers and bullwark by example) for too long (maybe it gets better after mid game but i gave up before, too boring by how weak the guy felt), but Anorithil are plain fun and after some time you can really deal strong damage.
As i went to the Tower of Telos way instead of the Fearscape farportal from the Tannen quest, despite it's a very lot more difficult than the Fearscape portal , i had confidence my Anorithil would be very efficient as the Tower of Telos has rooms, not allowing the monster to be beyond the range of my Corona/Hymn of Moonlight machinegun.
And on the corpse of the Shade of Telos, i found the top and bottom piece of the Telos Spire.
So i decided to wait a bit to see if i found the crystal before taking a prodigy, as i never did found 2 or the 3 parts of Telos' staff before, i wanted to see what the full piece would be.
And in a Pride i managed to find that crystal , so i assembled the Spire of Telos from the 3 parts thanks to the prodigy doing just that.
Some spoiler then to see what are the characteristics of those items, so you can decide if you'll want the Spire of Telos or keep the separate parts :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: MadMalkavian on July 21, 2013, 10:48:53 am
If it helps with determining a course of action she also has Celestial/Light. I know it has helped with her survival to level 16 so far.
Post by: Aoi on July 21, 2013, 11:27:58 am
I think Normal mode is too easy, what with the inclusion of extra lives in a roguelike, so I am playing on Roguelike mode. I haven't won the game before and in fact have lost it numerous times by Dreadfell at the latest, the Maze or the Sandworm's Lair at the earliest. With my cornac alchemist outside of maximizing the damage potential for her bombs as well as maximizing Magic and then Constitution what should I have her do to increase her chances of survival? Outside of playing on Normal mode that is.
If it helps with determining a course of action she also has Celestial/Light. I know it has helped with her survival to level 16 so far.
Methods of escape are crucial. I recommend having at least two different types of escape (like teleport and a movement infusion, so if one is blocked, the other can be used) and some kind of ailment removal on command.
Alternatively, you could just spam arcane eye, but that style of play is a little slow and boring for my taste.
Post by: MadMalkavian on July 21, 2013, 11:35:57 am
I use my golem as a means of scouting ahead so that I can decide whether I want to deal with what it is I want to gank or get the fuck out of dodge before they geek me ass. Also yeah, escape methods would indeed be nice. I'll make a stop at all of the shops before making my way through the Sher'tul Fortress later and/or tomorrow to see if there is one my little Chloe can afford.I think Normal mode is too easy, what with the inclusion of extra lives in a roguelike, so I am playing on Roguelike mode. I haven't won the game before and in fact have lost it numerous times by Dreadfell at the latest, the Maze or the Sandworm's Lair at the earliest. With my cornac alchemist outside of maximizing the damage potential for her bombs as well as maximizing Magic and then Constitution what should I have her do to increase her chances of survival? Outside of playing on Normal mode that is.
If it helps with determining a course of action she also has Celestial/Light. I know it has helped with her survival to level 16 so far.
Methods of escape are crucial. I recommend having at least two different types of escape (like teleport and a movement infusion, so if one is blocked, the other can be used) and some kind of ailment removal on command.
Alternatively, you could just spam arcane eye, but that style of play is a little slow and boring for my taste.
Post by: Robsoie on July 21, 2013, 04:33:39 pm
Anorithil are really powerfull once you get to decent level, with their mix of light/darkness/fire spells that are easy to refill basically gives you a solution against everything in term of damage vs resistance, and Corona+Hymn of Moonlight+nice bonus to critical spell chances gives you a powerfull automatic "machinegun" that clear room for you.
They can be a bit hard at first though, i wasted 6 lives on stupid (and avoidable deaths) up to Dreadfell, but after that with some basic cautious moves, you're giving those monsters, elites and bosses a well deserved hammering.
Of course i have been lucky in finding some very good items complementing my character, i believe it helped too (Spire of Telos was very good, though finding the 3 items and taking the prodigy to assemble it is a high cost).
Post by: MadMalkavian on July 21, 2013, 08:25:15 pm
That is, at least until I somehow manage to get past Dreadfell - which I have come close to once with a cornac alchemist. Literally my best build and the only one I'm real good at outside of cornac paradox mage, higher archmage and maybe cornac corruptor if I can unlock it without exploiting a bug this time around. Also congratulations on your recent win Robsoie.
Post by: Robsoie on July 22, 2013, 06:58:34 am
Lake of Nur can be sometime very easy , just getting the stairs not far from where you arrive so you don't even have to face the various horrors, but other time it can be simply insanely hard and you get many things able to 2 or 3 shot your character.
I usually avoid it until i'm around level 20 so my character at least has several more way of escaping and surviving.
But that's not easy with some specific characters that have a large malus to their experience point and may have trouble to reach that level before Dreadfell.
Skeletons by example have a very hard time to keep up with their levels in comparison to the difficulty progression despite you have cleared every available dungeons
And there's the Maze, while Maze isn't hard, the alternate version of it is basically a Lake of Nur, spawning a lot of really powerfull horrors that can be found in Nur everywhere, and the worse is that usually you do Maze early (after clearing every starting then lower level dungeons then Old Forest) and running into the alternate version create a big spike in the difficulty progression
Post by: Robsoie on July 23, 2013, 04:43:17 pm
I have been running several failures so far, but my latest character (Shalore Alchemist) was doing -very- good, it surprised me (though far from my best character a few versions ago , a bulwark that died at depth 30) .
If you never played the Infinite Dungeon gametype, it's a classic dungeon crawling experience, no adventure/campaign, only various randomly generated levels with various kind of monsters, elites and bosses and vaults.
An interesting fact about Infinite Dungeon that prevent boredom is that you gain experience faster than usual, roughly clearing 1 depth can gain you 1 level, but challenge increase at each depth too, so you really need that experience, leading you to want to open the vaults sometime, as monsters in there can add a lot in experience and you can end with one more level and sometime good items.
Clearing vaults early can then help you to get better prepared for the lower depth, but, Vaults in the infinite dungeons can be -a lot- more dangerous than the adventure gametype vaults, it looks like the random generation does not really care about the danger level around, so be cautious and be sure to have ways to escape quickly and run to the stairs in case insanity appears in there.
Another problem of the infinite dungeon is that you find much less items than in adventure in comparison to how fast you advance in level and power, making it a lot harder (due to you needing a lot of real luck) to get yourself good items or artifacts, another reason to explore those insanely dangerous vaults.
So back to my character, he was doing good and had cleared 2 early vaults, so i was roughly at level 16 when i entered depth 15 (a Shalore has a 25% experience gain penalty, so it's very good to be level 16 at that point).
Due to the smaller item distribution at that point i still didn't found any teleportation rune, the only escape possibility i had was a phase rune that was given to my character at the start. And my equipment wasn't really so good at that kind of Infinite Dungeon depth, but from past floors i thought i could still manage as long as i don't try to open any more vaults.
And while looking at clearing the floor, i landed into a room, my golem immediately fired his laser beam and exploded 2 turns later, i noticed why at the limit of my field of view : Epoch and Shardskin appeared.
What ... Epoch + Shardskin ? ... that's just plain insane.
Epoch is a temporal elemental boss, so without elemental resistance, you're in for a huge problem (and guess what ... my character had found 0 temporal res items)
Shardskin is stronger, it's the alternate boss of Old Forest, and is immensely more dangerous than the normal boss of that dungeon (Wrathroot), usually the best survival tactic when meeting Shardskin when you're between level 14/15 (the usual level you are when you're doing Old Forest) is to simply escape and go do other dungeons until you get more levels and so more talents/skills because you really need them to avoid taking a huge risk facing that boss (while if you faced Wrathroot you should have not too much problem at such level)
So basically my character was done for, and indeed my shield exploded that turn when i saw the 2 bosses appearing, while i lost half my health.
I used then the only way i had to escape, the Phase door and appeared right next to Epoch. And died the following turn.
In Eidolon, i rebuilt the Golem, and went back, i used the Phase door immediately of course, letting the Golem to delay the 2 bosses.
This time i was lucky and landed in another room, while my Golem was destroyed again 2 turns later.
I moved as away as i could, only to see Epoch appearing (the damn thing is not only insanely fast but it can teleport).
Of course, the phase door wasn't up yet, and Epoch was simply laughing at my bombs, destroying my shield then myself after several turns of me trying to get away then being pulled back by some of Epoch skills.
Eidolon again, rebuilt golem and went back.
Epoch had some trouble killing the golem quickly (i guess most of the damage was made by Shardskin then), so he was able to tank for me, while i was bombing and staff shooting him, but the damage we were doing was not enough in comparison to how much he was damaging the golem, i was thinking about running through a corridor , trying to locate the stairs so i could escape this hellish floor.
But before i reached that corridor, Shardskin appeared.
Without even trying, i just decided to escape with phase door, only to land at 3 tiles from Shardskin and farther from the corridor i hoped to reach ... looks like when ToME4 wants to destroy your character, the game does not have any mercy.
Of course, the shield crumbled from the death rays, and 2 turns later, my then hopeless character exploded (a turn after my Golem died so i couldn't even try to drain my golem life to heal, as of course, no heal and no regen runes have been found up to now).
At that point, i gave up at Eidolon, no point in testing more my luck in this impossible escape from unescapable bosses.
Post by: Graven on August 11, 2013, 03:48:41 am
Can anyone please give me an update on Reavers? I haven't played since 1.00 and I was never good at reavers anyways. I have a sort of guide from 1.00, but I'd prefer if anyone with more recent experience could chime in.
I really like the idea of the class, but then I find I'm far from good enough to deal with the existential lack of any defenses not comprized of bashing enemies with sticks.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on August 11, 2013, 05:33:57 am
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with the existential lack of any defenses not comprized of bashing enemies with sticks.Bone shield is quite awesome defensive tool. It is buffed since 1.00 because it regenerates over time
5 generic points into armor can't hurt, either.
Post by: Frumple on August 11, 2013, 06:21:45 am
Other than that (and I guess some of the other escort/generic trees, to lesser degrees), bone shield, the couple other defensive talents reavers have, leaning on inscriptions/items, and preemptive defense (debuffs, murder) is what reavers have to work with.
Post by: Graven on August 11, 2013, 07:17:57 am
Post by: Robsoie on August 11, 2013, 07:18:58 am
I lost a lot of them
Then after leveling one that got lucky enough to get decent gear early, and getting the stealth finally decent (first few skills level being as good as not having it with the other skills from the stealth line) and so every action not removing it anymore, the character become surprisingly powerfull, with stealth and hide from plain sight on autocast (and the talent that prevent actions to remove stealth), it's critical hits heaven, with tons of bonuses in the Pride my character managed while using Flurry to get 2000 damages against some of the enemies not specifically protected against my type of damage !
Though he's far from invulnerable, i took "Lucky Day" prodigy and wear some +luck items to help getting more than 100% evasion for 3 turns when losing 10 % health from the Halfling racial ability , but it looks like despite it is at 102% , it does not stop any aoe damage and sometime i even noticed that normal melee attacks are not evaded at all !
It seems sometime it works as it should, but some other times it's like it's not there (despite listed if you look at your character)
Additionally, every single monster of the game is able to "briefly catch sight of you" , regardless on how high your stealth power is (i'm currently at more than 90 and still get the message everytime, the same as when i had much less stealth power).
Fortunately it does not mean they know where you are -exactly- as they don't all shoot you on sight, but they still move to you for melee, fortunately again you still benefit from not being seen regarding the hit bonuses of your skills and weapons.
The fun with Rogues is when you have high Misdirection, it's hilarious when they miss you when shooting their spells/abilities and hit someone else :)
Post by: Frumple on August 11, 2013, 11:14:11 am
Sounds good to me. Any major changes since 1.0 I should be aware of? I'm kind of out of the loop on Tome.Yeah, me too. I... guess there probably have been, but blazes if I can remember what. Changelogs, etc., so forth.
Apropos to nothing, I suppose, I have to say that... reavers are, quite possibly, the most metal users of the light tree in the game (barring adventurers, anyway). Corrupted strength just makes things... amusing. An actual reason to use bathe in light! Have you ever killed a storm drake by activating bathe in light? Now you can! I just did. Healing and murder in one delicious package. Shield yourself and punch their face in, in the same action! It's pretty great. Corrupted strength in general is pretty awesome if you've got any active spell talents, really.
E:At least until you end up beside something with significant retaliation damage, ahaha
Post by: Robsoie on October 06, 2013, 05:51:00 pm
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=38900
temporary changelog, some interesting new stuff :
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?p=162768#p162768
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on October 07, 2013, 03:43:32 am
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Buffed Quick Recovery, Fast metabolism and Spell Shield, they now have bigger bonuses and scale with masteryGood, the whole tree was quite pathetic
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Retch now also has a chance to remove a detrimental or beneficial (depending on undead status) physical effectQuite a buff for ghouls. And NPC ghouls will become way more annoying
Ghoulish Leap cooldown reduces with level
Ghoul talent now provides a maximum damage cap. No blows can deal more than X% of their total life
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Chant of Light now also increases fire damageTime to make high magic summoner
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Yaechs and Nagas in Murgol lair have dropped damage by 35%Heh, Yeeks will have easier early game, time to try non solipsist\summoner
The Ritch Hive Mother dropped damage by 30%
Maybe even melee guy
Post by: Robsoie on November 13, 2013, 07:56:46 pm
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2013/11/news/tales-majeyal-105-aka-mental-anything-released
Code: [Select]
Release highlights:
* Huge improvements to many visual effects, spells and tiles
* Combat log reworked to be far more readable, log heals, shiedsl, absorbs
* New special effects for each point accuracy over defence
* New difficulty mode: Madness, for those that mastered Insane ;)
* Training room in the Sher'tul Fortress
* Faster saves
* New Archers tree: Excellence (new tree), Poisons and Traps
* Many new hooks and tools for addons/modules makers
* Infinite scaling: talents should scale much better past 5/5
* Tons of rebalancing and improvements to many talents, objects, artifacts and zones
* IMPORTANT: saves are not compatible from 1.0.4
Expanded changelist:
* Added a graphical effect for healing and regen effects to most of those effects
* Using Aegis on shields will visualy change them
* Damage shields, absorbs, ... are now noted in the log
* Heals are now noted in the log
* Venom drakes can now appear in the noxious caldera and in gorbat pride
* Flat damage cap% is now applied after shields
* Disruption Shield now partially absorbs the hit that makes it explode
* New "punches" sounds for barehand combat
* NPCs can use Shoot Down
* Adventurers start with both gloves and gauntlets
* Unarmed 0.6 attack speed is bound to Empty Hands, not to being a Brawler
* New Actor:checkPool method to facilitate learning pools/... on talents learnt
* Adventurers now learn Empty Hands when learning barehand talents
* Swords, axes, maces, staves, daggers, whips, tridents, bows and slings now have special "unique" effects when hitting a foe for each attack you have over their defence
* Player can now tag objects with a name; tagged objects can not be dropped, destroyed or transmogrified until the tag is removed
* Fixed actor execution loop to crrectly resume at the next actor after the pause: aka this should fix Through the Crowd
* Automatic talents will be used in order: instant ones first, then higher CD ones first. Only one non-instant talent will be used each turn
* Orcs will search your buddies for the staff too
* Stone Walking and Gem Portal do not fail due to melee autotarget
* Corpses (from the curse) coming out in the middle of an attack will not be destroyed by said attack
* Improved combat logs
* New achievements for Normal (Roguelike), Nightmare/Insane/Madness (Adventure)
* Achievements list onyl shows the ones for the current difficulty to reduce clutter
* Add range to the map tooltip
* Temporal Augmentation Robes talent level reduced
* Nerf Colaryem a little
* Most summoned actors do not drop loot anymore
* Buffed starting gold to 15
* Marauder's Thuggery tree is now Generic
* Marauder's gained Bloodthirst tree (1.1, locked)
* Staff Mastery & Mindstar Mastery trainings now respect previous knowledge and do not screw you over
* When leaving a level with a dominated npc it will be freed from the control instead of waiting for your return
* Torment ammo doesnt have wielder bonuses and instead gets combat bonuses
* archery_projectile is now available to addons
* Alchemists can now unlock a golem replacement: the Drolem !
* Drolem is buffed a little
* Tannen's Tower level 4 has a different LOS system, making the Drolem obscure more of the field again
* Nourishing Moss tactical infos fixed
* Female Dwarves can unlock some cosmetic facial pilosity (because the lore says so!)
* Keybinds are displays more succinctly, so [A]+[S]+Keypad 6 will now appear as ASk6
* Actor's on_takehit and hook "Actor:takeHit" now get a parameter that telsl them the damage type, if available
* New Fortress feature to unlock for 50 energy: training room!
* Fixed mind talent procs happening more than once per turn
* Runic Golem can not be unlearnt
* New GameOptions:tabs hook
* New melee "whirlwind" effect
* New effect for Tempest
* When leaving a level all player originated projectiles are removed
* Ward talent lists available wards
* Wraithform now teleports if you end up in a wall
* Applied infinite scalingto prodigies
* Gem Golem can not be unlearnt
* Temporal Clone can not be used out of range
* Aether Beam and Gravitic Trap can not be placed in walls
* Nature's Pride goes on cooldown even if there was room for only one treant
* NPC are less confused by being LOS'ed
* Rares should be more interresting/powerfull
* Allow Gestures to respect Gloom status effects
* If the Weird Pedestals event can not generate an artifact it will make a randart
* Lost merchant will not generate antiamgic items for arcane characters
* Clarification to Heightened Senses/Infravision tooltips
* Scaling Bug fix in Darkness talent radius
* Scaling fix to hate generation
* Fixed typos in NPC definitions to prevent unintended agro
* Fixed bug in BattleTrance
* Fixed Grim Resolve not curing poison/disease
* Fixed Vimsense power when used with items
* Fixed tactical ai info for Mindlash talent
* Fixed character sheet to correctly show archery damage based on ammo
* Added addons url to the addons menu
* UIs can now have special mouse cursors
* Added two new hooks to the boot module "Boot:load" and "Boot:run"
* Fix maestrom
* Fix necrotic aura
* Infinite scaling applied to npc talents
* New gfx effect for Frostdusk
* New hook "GameOptions:UIs" to add new uis to the ui selector
* UIs definitions are now loaded from files in /data/gfx/ui/definitions/ so that addons can add new ones
* Attachement spots for particles can be read from a file per tileset
* Fixed Projectile class subclassing
* Tooltip for projectiles now shows who cast them and their self/friendly fire status
* Wards are now correctly colored by damage type
* Projectiles can be fired over chasms in the alt-maze
* Meteoric Crash can now crit (using the highest of spell or mind crit chance)
* New Uttercold visuals
* New Wings of Flames graphics! Find them!
* Argoniel learnt how to use Irresistible Sun
* Applied infinite scaling to afflicted
* New Flames of Urh'Rok gfx effect
* Juggernaut effect is now correctly classified as physical. For Zonk, with love
* Brawler's combo points last two more turns
* Fixed Pulverizing Auger in some zones
* Shields now "wooble" when hit
* Fixed crystal set proc
* Fixed slight particles display position error
* Added a slight outline to currently moused over item on the map
* New starfield shader is hungry, so a new video option to enable volumetric shaders is added. It is *off by default*, turn it on if you trust your GPU :)
* Fixed strange graphical artifacts around some texts
* Text outlines are much better now with shaders enabled
* Improved shields shader
* When disarmed the weapon will disappear from the character doll
* Buffs with charges (like Combo points) now display their charges
* Buff/debuff remaining time is correctly centered
* Added the Excellence tree to Archers, granting them more utility and survivability
* Venomous Strike works with ranged weapons too
* Implode has a distortion effect
* Archers now get access to both Poisons and Traps trees
* Poisons now work on both arrows and shots
* Distortion tree got .. distortion shader effects
* Irresistible Sun got distotion effects
* Added distortion effect to meteor crashes
* Added options to disabled "advanced" and distorting shader effects
* Improved water display (with a shader)
* Applied infinite scaling to chronomancy
* Particle systems can have a subparticle attached
* New fireflash and flame effects
* New Gravity Well effect
* Fast Curse Dispel is considered an important achievement
* Applied infinite scaling to corruptions
* Particle systems can now define a global use_shader={type="foo"} to attach a shader
* Particle systems can check availability of shaders
* Particle systems can now also the background that is under them, allowing things like distortion effects
* New distortion effect for the Repulsion Blast and Gravity Spike
* The final artifact from the final fight now requires less to wear so you can bask in its glory
* Applied infinite scaling to celestial
* Weapons can have multiple masteries talents, the best is used
* Added "Chat:load" and "Chat:add" hooks
* Through the Crowd now also makes you like being in the crowd, +10 all saves for each friendlies in sight
* Infinite scaling applied to psionics; solipsism mechanics have been adjusted
* Temporal Form only converts 50%
* Reduced Guardian of the Wood all resistance bonus
* Buffed artifact ammos
* Highscore core is less ToME-centric
* New difficulty mode: Madness (locked). More high level foes, stronger, with much more rares, more randbosses and a unique "Hunted!" debuff!
* Block is only used in melee by tactical AI
* Fixed bloated ooze damage absorb when using only one ooze
* Added an option to disallow online event pushes (but why would anyone do that is beyond me!)
* Online events can now happen in the Infinite Dungeon too!
* Thieves NPCs are now correctly competent with a dagger
* Dominant Will works on elites
* Burnt to the ground achievement is now achievable
* Prothotipe's Prismatic Eye correctly imbues its spell proc whem imbued on an item
* Grappling correctly checks no_breath
* Mitosis & Call of the Ooze correctly respect maxes
* Bear NPCs stats changed to str/con
* Bloodspring triggers at 15%
* Steamroller makes Rush cost only 2 stamina
* Revisionist History lasts 20 turns
* Corrupted Shell increases life by 250
* Fungal Blood also removes up to 10 magical effects
* Never Stop Running cost reduced to 12
* Vital Shot cooldown reduced to 10
* Windblade radius increased to 4
* Superpower grants 50% of strength as mindpower
* You Shall Be My Weapon and Massive Blow cooldown reduced to 10
* Windtouched Speed increased to 20%
* Mental Tyranny now only converts 33% of the damage
* Temporal Form prodigy temporal damage is now always *current* highest +30%
* Swift Hands prodigy allows wear/takoff for free only once per turn
* I Can Carry The World! prodigy also granst 20 strength
* Talents can now have properties: callbackOnAct, callbackOnActBase, callbackOnMove, callbackOnRest, callbackOnMeleeHit, callbackOnMeleeMiss, callbackOnArcheryHit, callbackOnArcheryMiss
* Altered/tweaked/improved many artifacts, keep your eyes open for new fun stuff!
* Special effects on artifacts can now be described with wielder.special_desc
* Achievement for killing all 4 slime tunnel bosses
* In cheat mode one can shift+left/right click on buffs/debuffs to adjust duration
* Ruined Dungeon can have a different set of clues
* Added infinite scaling to techniques
* Ruined Dungeon will not generate without the 6 guardians
* Orc babies do not drop loot
* Traps disarm & detection power scale with level
* Ruined Dungeon orb summons do not drop items
* Sludgenest wall poping slimes power now gradualy increases. Staying inside is not advisable.
* Added 5 achievements for staying in the sludgenest for many turns (one every 100 wall slime pops)
* Improved look of the huge sandworm burrower
* Yaechs and Nagas in Murgol lair have dropped damage by 35%
* The Ritch Hive Mother dropped damage by 30%
* Chant of Light now also increases fire damage
* Golem Power now also adds mastery with staves, daggers and exotic weapons (but not mindstars)
* Fixed Star Shot
* Prodigies dialog allows to unselect
* Huge tweaks to many ego items to make them more interresting
* Changed Evasion talents to not let characters become melee immune
* Applied infinite scaling to the cunning tree
* Saving happens in a separate OS thread, making saves much less painful
* Zones can have a temporary memory cache. ToME uses it to keep the last 3 visited zones (and associated levels) in memory, making switching between them much faster
* Bathe in the Light now provides a damage shield to all affected creatures and fire damage to all damage creatures
* Precognition dissipates when switching level
* NPC will not use automatic talents with hostile targets
* Eldritch eyes do not affect a yeek when they are destroyed when dominated
* Really, do not annoy Linaniil ... but if you do you get an achievement
* Yeeks can not dominate themselves
* Diggers now provide a dig talent and can be used while carrier instead of wielded
* Bone Shield looses a charge only if the damage is > 0
* Meteoric Crash stun chance uses spell or mind power, as the damage does
* Fixed anmalice proc
* Protective Aura correctly grants physical saves
* Combat Training talents split into two lines
* Object tooltip now shows which talent mastery affects them
* Last level of Reknor can not have obelisks and such
* Added "alter_level_data(zone, lev)" possible callback for level creation
* Alternate Daikara has pyroclasts falling whe nthe players getin range 6 instead of 3 and the last level has more trees
* Alternate Sandworm lair has more giant tunnelers
* Alternate Norgos lost Frozen Feet and the shivgoroths got a little damage penalty
* Alternate Maze "normal" horrors have been replaced by temporal ones
* Nerfed Shardskin damage and changed his talents a bit
* Air bubbles have a more explicit description
* Killing an aquatic horror will fill the surroundings with air bubbles
* Reduced Maleable Body effect
* Converted all wild gifts to infinite scaling
* Diggers should be instantly usale even at high speed
* Upgraded LuaJIT to 2.0.2
* getCharmPower now takes a first parameter "who"
* Objects from worldmap ambushes and farportal zones grant less money
* Birther can apply data to the party
* Easy mode now also halves all detrimental status effects
* Fixed traps in immediate melee mode
* Cavern generator can place doors
* Doors can have a "door_sound" field to tell which file to play when opened
* New hook "UISet:Classic:Resources"
* Fixed Prox halfling Feet when used on a halfling
* Allow quests to be in addons data folder, referncing them like zones with an "addonname+" prefix
* Chagned the particle effect for aerther vortex (thanks umbrall)
* In zones with walls on grass you can see small leaves of grass extending over the walls
* New dirt road gfx in the trollmire
* Roomer generator can now understand the = symbol to define tunnels, if not present it defaults as it did before to the floor
* Upgraded the grass to look like nice foresty grass
* Fixed stealth/invisibility: npcs could go straight to the target (it still hindered them though)
* Updated grass to look more like grass and less like golf terrain :)
* Ctrl+P (by default) now allows disabling/enabling all automatic talents
* Tentacles can not be summoned out of range
* Ambuscade shadow can not teleport
* When a summon dies/disappears, any NPCs targetting it will start looking for the summoner
* Added "infinite scaling" methods
* Applied infinite scaling methods to all spells
* Eggsack & crystal shard summons do not grant exp when killed
* Retch now also has a chance to remove a detrimental or beneficial (depending on undead status) physical effect
* Ghoulish Leap cooldown reduces with level
* Ghoul talent now provides a maximum damage cap. No blows can deal more than X% of their total life
* Animate Blade / Crystal Shard summons do not drop items
* Leveling up/down Mimic removes the effect
* Buffed Quick Recovery, Fast metabolism and Spell Shield, they now have bigger bonuses and scale with mastery
* Buffed the Eternal Night set
* Timed effect duration reduction from Time Shield and other such effectsonly affects detrimental ones
* Fixed Doomed unlock
* Removed Rain of Death vault
* Pulverizing Auger max range limited to 10
* Thalore Blight resistance reduced
* Fixed Receptive Mind debuff
* Rockwalk does not break Body of Stone
* Eldritch Stone now grants mana regen on rest
* Fix Deeprock Form preventing unlearning last talents
* Eldritch Stone now is affected by Aegis
* Eldritch Stone graphics updated
* Stone Wardens automatically unlocks Wilders
* Elemental Split only takes a turn if at least one half got summoned
* Mountainhewn Deeprock correctly grants immunities
* Eldritch Stone durations scale with talent
* Eldritch Stone effects have 100% chance to trigger
* Eldritch Stone effects apply power is based on the highest of spell or physical power
* Stone Wardens Stone Half now correctly knows Stoneshield
* Angolwen shops are finally free from their gfx glitch
* Mindlash psi cost now increases the more it is spammed
* Boosted Stealth initial value
* Lost Merchant artifact creation list is split into subcategories
* Birth screen will not spin the CPU madly
* Target tactical info now looks better!
* Addons in chardump will be stoerd differently to make the Vault able to search them correctly
* Wraithform has a graphical effect
* Increased font size on main menu
* Heat Beam Rune, Frozen Spear Rune and Insidious Poison Infusion will not affect crosstier effects anymore
* Resting will not spam the log with messages about party members healing
* Long chat dialogs will scroll
* Archery launchers can now have a damage multiplier and an on fire callback
* When in underwater levels the screen will very slightly .. hum .. wooble
* Buffed Mind Parasite
* Reduced Mucus equilibrium regen
* Natural Acid and Corrosive Nature now have a cooldown
* Mindslayer spiked shields have a new gfx effect
* Added a hook "GameOptions:generateList"
* Add new hook "ToME:runDone"
* New awesome graphical lore for Nur, made by "Impy"
* New achievement for winning the game without ever going west.
* When using a hotkey to trigger a talent/item that requires a target, pressing the hotkey again will validate the target just like enter and space
* Shatter won't stop at the first non-frozen foe it finds
The training room is not that great from what i got during one of the 1.05 beta, it's mostly usefull to learn what kind of damage, or average damage by turn you're really dealing against 1 or X amount of units.
Tough i'm still a few 1.05 beta behind so it could have been made more usefull since then
Post by: Darkmere on November 13, 2013, 08:00:46 pm
Post by: Max White on November 13, 2013, 08:03:58 pm
I need to unlock some of the OP classes. So far I have found rolling with Cornac Archmage, sinking a ton of points into the beam spells, and a few into aegis while saving that category point and praying for the light to be my best run.
Seriously, aegis + light is wonderful...
Post by: Satarus on November 14, 2013, 01:27:02 pm
But if you want to be OP and unlock a few class/races, just roll summoner. Once you can summon drakes, your troubles are over. Don't forget to go anti-magic for that life/equilibrium restoring goodness that is the fungus tree.
Post by: guessingo on November 14, 2013, 02:53:56 pm
Post by: Aoi on November 14, 2013, 03:00:48 pm
so is the developer basically done updating this game? There has not been an update in months.
Tales Of Maj'Eyal 1.0.5 Aka "Mental As Anything" Is Released!
Submitted by darkgod on Tue, 2013-11-12 02:18
Also, you can pick up the alpha/beta releases if you're so inclined, plus check out other people's mod/ules.
Post by: Niveras on November 14, 2013, 07:42:19 pm
Post by: Frumple on November 14, 2013, 08:11:27 pm
Incidentally, the git's also a good thing to RSS if you want to see if any work's being done. Even when there's not a major update push, it's not uncommon for stuff to pop up on the git.
Post by: Max White on November 15, 2013, 09:16:54 pm
Is there a downside to this sort of method, or is grinding recommended?
Post by: Aoi on November 15, 2013, 09:20:47 pm
So currently I am doing pretty much every area in order of difficulty. Start with Trollmire, move onto Norgos' Lair, then Scintillating Caves. Then go onto Kor'pul, Heart of the Gloom and Rhaloren Camp, and so on, doing pretty much every area to get maximum exp and cool items.
Is there a downside to this sort of method, or is grinding recommended?
No real downside, other than it's kind of boring and timeconsuming.
Post by: Max White on November 15, 2013, 09:25:46 pm
The thing I was most worried about is that it seems when you are over leveled for an area it skips you to the end, and from there you don't seem to have a chance to find escort missions in that area... Unless I've just been unlucky.
Post by: Aoi on November 15, 2013, 09:33:22 pm
Eh, a mix of auto explore and special tri beam cannon attack can clear out early levels without much time at all...
The thing I was most worried about is that it seems when you are over leveled for an area it skips you to the end, and from there you don't seem to have a chance to find escort missions in that area... Unless I've just been unlucky.
You can. I believe you can even find them on the way out, too. There might even be an option to disable the auto-port, but I don't recall-- been a while since I booted up, and I haven't gotten a chance to check out the latest version yet.
Post by: Frumple on November 15, 2013, 09:40:47 pm
Also, you can go back up stairs once you start being teleported to the bottom, if you haven't already noticed. Escorts should still show up if they're slated to, iirc. If not, come back down the down stairs after clearing the level (if you're doing it from bottom up, that is). Think that may trigger 'em if the first go through didn't. Still, if you haven't found all nine before going east, it might be time to backtrack and do a quick jaunt down the dungeons* one more time.
*Though I do believe that only the "main" dungeons (barring sandworm lair and... maybe a couple other ones?) can generate escorts. There's also some racial stuff involved (the elves usually get one of the second level of their starting dungeons, ferex)
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on November 15, 2013, 09:45:39 pm
And that's all, you'll not find them in any other place
Post by: UristMcDwarf on November 15, 2013, 09:50:31 pm
Post by: Ak-Sai on November 16, 2013, 12:04:18 pm
Post by: Robsoie on December 04, 2013, 03:08:56 pm
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=39460
changelog from 1.05 so far :
Code: [Select]
Character sheet records the number of creatures/elites/rares/bosses killed
*Perhaps* fixed the rare double-death bug
Fixed Living Mucus limit
Fixed Umbraphage cooldown
Adventurer items start in the transmo chest
Default Inventory tab is "all"
Fixed inventory tab traversal after re-opening
Protector Myssil has learnt Tricky Defenses and Unbreakable Will prodigies
Big particle error should no longer bring down the game
Online events forbidden in tutorials
Tutorial character is correctly having infinite lives
New achievement frames, looks much nicer
starting to add rexo achievements picture
Reduced the cooldowns on the talents of the mice in the dream of vulnerability
Stone Alchemy cant destroy tagged items
Fixed Defiling Touch 6+
Tree of Life will not spam the log
Split tome team file into 3 files for easier packaging & update
Mystical Cunning only gives traps/poisons depending how what you know
Made the alternate ruined dungeon orbs more obvious
Ruined dungeon guardians will not be wall-walkers
Fix Psiblades with "clone" effects
Reduced the power of ego diggers
Fixed self targetting with spells
Bone Grab range now scales with talent level
Buffed Gorbat a little bit
Made Summoners more awesome looking
Fixed speeds on the character sheet
Fixed merchant artifact offering for antimagic characters when browsing the misc category
Make alchemists look somewhat more awesome
Fixed setting armour hardiness on training dummies
Shadow of the player is now trigger when bone shield is either drained or removed
Fixed cancelling Fearscape
Can not Reload when at full ammo
Tweaked some artifacts
Better ingame registration handling
Never Stop Running does not cost a turn to enable
Never Stop Running cost fixed
Ambuscade shadow now will dissipate if out of sight for too long
Fixed Shadowstep to make it respect LOS
Fixed "all achievements tab"
New fbo:png() method
New Necromancer's tree: Animus
Sher'tul Fortress Control Orb now displays the current energy count
Cheat mode (called Developer Mode) can be enabled/disabled from the options in the main menu
Shader uniforms are now available directly as autogenerated methods of the shader, i.e: fooshader.shad:uniMyuniformname(5)
Shaders uniforms are set much more efficiently
Short staves are now dual wieldable by characters that have talents to do so (like Reavers)note : shaders in ToME4 can be very intensive on some systems, so if you see your computer is not up to the task with the shaders, be sure to disable all the shaders options to get better performance
And maybe lower the amount of particles too
Post by: Graven on December 04, 2013, 03:35:38 pm
I have a level 19 Aether one, who seems to be doing pretty fine for himself damagewise, I'm just... not really having fun with him.
I wonder if storm's decent. Aether seemed to be the one with highest single-target damage, however. Doesn't look like Storm has a nice single-target combo like Aether Avatar -> Arcane Vortex -> Aether Breach.
My biggest problem with Tome4 is that it's a great combat system wrapped in a horrible, overly long and boring campaign.
Pretty awesome classes and combat system, though. Keeps dragging me in every couple of weeks.
Post by: Robsoie on December 04, 2013, 04:27:06 pm
Taking month long breaks help me a lot for that to refresh my interest in the campaign, same as for Crawl, i really need a few months break between plays so i can enjoy getting back into it.
But give a try to the Arena gametype, it's a concentrated bucket of battle fun.
Or the Infinite Dungeon gametype, that will kill you much faster than the main campaign :D
Post by: lemon10 on December 04, 2013, 05:01:03 pm
Post by: Graven on December 07, 2013, 07:33:21 am
If only I hadn't lost all my 5 lives by the Daikara to various random things instagibbing me through my fifteen shields.
Swear to god I am yet to die in Tome and then go "Oooh, now I see what I did wrong!", unless we count "I was fighting the thing" as doing something wrong. It's always "... ok...". Maybe I should be more thorough in examining rares, but then more than half the things that kill me are standard enemies which after I respawn proceed to do 0 damage to me as I effortlessly destroy them.
Post by: Robsoie on December 07, 2013, 08:25:15 am
but then more than half the things that kill me are standard enemies which after I respawn proceed to do 0 damage to me as I effortlessly destroy them.
This still happens a lot to me, though it's never standard enemy but rare/elite version of them, or even bosses.
Just now, i am running a Cornac Summoner in the Infinite Dungeon gametype.
So far he has been very good, i'm level 26 and i'm on depth 24 and i have been lucky to survive a couple of vault (vault in ID are more dangerous than in the main campaign) and got some nice items.
Then i met the boss "can'trememberthename" in a room, that's the major demon that appear if you fail to save Melinda under the very short time limit when you play the campaign inside of th "Dark Crypt (http://te4.org/blogs/burblulls/2011/05/crypt-kryl-feijan-and-you)".
Confident in my character i launched my summons and got my character destroyed in a few turns, as my crappy phase door teleported me directly next to the boss instead of a bit away (so i could have saved myself).
A bit annoyed as it's a boss i never got crushed like that when meeting him in the campaign, i decided to get back and ... annihilated him easily.
Still not understanding why this situation happens regularly (as in both cases i started the battle with full powers/talents/health/equilibrium) but to add on the hilarity i found a teleportation rune on the loot.
teleportation that would have saved my character originally as it's much better than a crappy phase door.
Post by: lemon10 on December 07, 2013, 01:58:58 pm
On one side you can have enemies not use their special abilities for turns in a row, causing them to be nearly completely harmless, of miss all their attacks. With good luck even highly dangerous enemies are trivial.
On the other you have enemies use their most damaging abilities simultaneously, and all crit at the same time. With luck like that even one or two normally trivial enemies can be dangerous, and dangerous enemies lethal (unless you treat every single battle like all the enemies are always going to crit you dead). Its almost made worse by how low the crit chance of enemies is since it makes it completely unexpected when it does happen. So although the chance of 3 crits in a row is like 1/2000 its still high enough to happen dozens of time through the game.
That said, you do have extra lives, so it does balance out for the most part.
Post by: Robsoie on December 12, 2013, 05:25:20 pm
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2013/12/news/tales-majeyal-110-aka-full-steam-ahead-released
i was expecting 1.0.6 as it was what was in beta testing, not sure why the version got bumped that much, maybe to go along the steam version that is getting launched.
anyways :
Code: [Select]
Release highlights:
* New necromancer tree: Animus
* All achievements now feature beautiful 128x128 images
* Improved Alchemist interaction with its golem
* Tons of fixes and balance adjustements
* Many improvements for addon creators, including a way to enable debug mode and a tool (inthe debug menu) to register and upload addons to te4.org directly from the game.
* Includes a Fez. Fezzes are cool!
Expanded changelist:
* Shadowstep now will work if the target is seen and either: is not in vault or is in LOS
* Fixed Indiscernible Anatomy
* Achievements are not gained in debug mode
* Murgol lair has the underwater effect
* Fixed Unstoppable
* New "callbackOnArcheryAttack"
* Put in a failsave in the lost wife dream
* When slasul make his portal, he will move if he stands on it
* New colors.hex1 function, use like: colors.hex1"ff45d5"
* The various callbackOn* of talents now also work on temp effects
* New callbackOnMeleeAttack when the actor attacks
* Ambush should be safer
* melinda always erupts
* Much improved Melinda quest line, she looks less a dummy too
* Spacetime Tunning is now given upon learning a paradox using talent
* Fixed tooltip offset in charsheet
* Fixed Revisionist History on autocast
* Cauterize now protects you until the next time you can act
* Switched over the Yeek Wayist dialog so that the hostile action is not the default one
* Removed the "secret" room of Reknor 4
* Changed mindlash gfx
* Fixed Probability Travel debuff name
* Changed Wrath of the Wood icon to remove confusion with Heorism
* Improved the look of out of time zones
* Actors can implement canWearObjectCustom for additional wear checks
* Alchemist's Refit Golem split into two talents: Refit and Interact
* Alchemist's Interact talent lets the player change talents, name, tactics and inventory without switching to the golem. Inventory in this mode is special, the equipment side is the golem's and the inventory side is the player's
* Stores display gold remainig in their title
* Disabled the advanced tutorial until it can be updated
* Eclipse will only increase the positive/negative regen when below the threshold
* Fixed Alchemist Golem Blighted Summoning
* Solipsist's Projections can not create Thought-forms
* Fixed Lay Web
* Character sheet records the number of creatures/elites/rares/bosses killed
* *Perhaps* fixed the rare double-death bug
* Fixed Living Mucus limit
* Fixed Umbraphage cooldown
* Adventurer items start in the transmo chest
* Default Inventory tab is "all"
* Fixed inventory tab traversal after re-opening
* Protector Myssil has learnt Tricky Defenses and Unbreakable Will prodigies
* Big particle error should no longer bring down the game
* Online events forbidden in tutorials
* Tutorial character is correctly having infinite lives
* New achievement frames, looks much nicer
* starting to add rexo achievements picture
* Reduced the cooldowns on the talents of the mice in the dream of vulnerability
* Stone Alchemy cant destroy tagged items
* Fixed Defiling Touch 6+
* Tree of Life will not spam the log
* Split tome team file into 3 files for easier packaging & update
* Mystical Cunning only gives traps/poisons depending how what you know
* Made the alternate ruined dungeon orbs more obvious
* Ruined dungeon guardians will not be wall-walkers
* Fix Psiblades with "clone" effects
* Reduced the power of ego diggers
* Fixed self targetting with spells
* Bone Grab range now scales with talent level
* Buffed Gorbat a little bit
* Made Summoners more awesome looking
* Fixed speeds on the character sheet
* Fixed merchant artifact offering for antimagic characters when browsing the misc category
* Make alchemists look somewhat more awesome
* Fixed setting armour hardiness on training dummies
* Shadow of the player is now trigger when bone shield is either drained or removed
* Fixed cancelling Fearscape
* Can not Reload when at full ammo
* Tweaked some artifacts
* Better ingame registration handling
* Never Stop Running does not cost a turn to enable
* Never Stop Running cost fixed
* Ambuscade shadow now will dissipate if out of sight for too long
* Fixed Shadowstep to make it respect LOS
* Fixed "all achievements tab"
* New fbo:png() method
* New Necromancer's tree: Animus
* Sher'tul Fortress Control Orb now displays the current energy count
* Cheat mode (called Developer Mode) can be enabled/disabled from the options in the main menu
* Shader uniforms are now available directly as autogenerated methods of the shader, i.e: fooshader.shad:uniMyuniformname(5)
* Shaders uniforms are set much more efficiently
* Short staves are now dual wieldable by characters that have talents to do so (like Reavers)
Post by: Bitoru on December 13, 2013, 10:07:21 am
Post by: BigD145 on December 13, 2013, 11:12:32 am
Post by: Darkmere on December 13, 2013, 11:15:54 am
Post by: Singularity125 on December 13, 2013, 02:57:51 pm
I only played a couple hours of this so far. I did the two tutorials and I had a dwarf bulwark that I was working on. Somehow he made it through the starter dungeon without getting murdered, but I don't expect that luck to last. ;) I want to play this game a bit more before making a decision, but it's likely I'll throw them the six bucks. I've certainly spent that kind of money on dumber things.
Post by: Darkmere on December 13, 2013, 03:10:33 pm
@Singularity125:
Bulwarks are actually pretty rough going for new players due to their extreme lack of ranged attacks and magical defenses in the early to midgame. If you run into troubles, you can get the same basic melee style AND magic-type damage with a sword-n-board wyrmic, or for a really straightforward ranged type, the alchemist has you covered. I'm shamelessly plugging my Alchemist starter guide here. (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=36836)
Post by: Graven on December 13, 2013, 04:51:02 pm
Oh well, really excited to see Tome getting regular updates. Now maybe if we could get a new campaign...
Post by: Robsoie on December 13, 2013, 05:27:57 pm
Someone posted a screenshot of the race/class selection menu in which there was a "demonologist" entry there, though oddly i can't find the thread with that screenshot anymore on the te4 forum despite it was on the 1st page of the discussion board.
So maybe something about new classes is coming soon too.
And the dev mentionned in a thread in which someone was gathering some class ideas for addons
Quote
Psyren, Possessor and Demonologist are kinda on my todo, so .. others please
But no idea if all of that will be donators/steam only like that stone warden or if we will have access to these on the free version
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on December 13, 2013, 05:46:22 pm
Quote
But no idea if all of that will be donators/steam only like that stone warden or if we will have access to these on the free versionIIRC it is planned that when new special class will appear, stone warden will become available for free version
Post by: Frumple on December 13, 2013, 05:46:34 pm
Someone posted a screenshot of the race/class selection menu in which there was a "demonologist" entry there, though oddly i can't find the thread with that screenshot anymore on the te4 forum despite it was on the 1st page of the discussion board.Honestly, such a screenshot would mean more or less jack. It's incredibly easy to add stuff to the race/class selection part (I've actually managed that before, and I have the coding skills of a handless monkey who had its brain replaced with a cracked brick). You could pretty literally just copy a current class and rename it to whatever, and that's assuming addons aren't involved.
Non-talent class data is stored in ..\game\modules\tome\data\birth\ if they're not addons. I... really don't want to bother downloading the new version at th'mo, but if anyone wants to check and see if there's anything not yet enabled, that'd be a place to check. Assuming DG hasn't gotten more careful about hiding in dev stuff, anyway.
Post by: Robsoie on December 13, 2013, 05:54:16 pm
the screenshot must have been about an addon then, it was listed with the corruptor on the same category and in the lua there's no demonologist there, at least yet on the free version of 1.1.0
Post by: Robsoie on December 13, 2013, 06:00:12 pm
i wonder if it's something that is unlockable or if it's somehow the alchemist golem class definitions that ended there for some reason, i know nothing about lua coding, so if someone can make sense of it :
Code: [Select]
-- ToME - Tales of Maj'Eyal
-- Copyright (C) 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 Nicolas Casalini
--
-- This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
-- it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
-- the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
-- (at your option) any later version.
--
-- This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
-- but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
-- MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
-- GNU General Public License for more details.
--
-- You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-- along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
--
-- Nicolas Casalini "DarkGod"
-- darkgod@te4.org
---------------------------------------------------------
-- Constructs --
---------------------------------------------------------
newBirthDescriptor{
type = "race",
name = "Construct",
locked = function() return profile.mod.allow_build.construct and true or "hide" end,
locked_desc = "",
desc = {
"Constructs are not natural creatures.",
"The most usual contructs are golems, but they can vary in shape, form and abilities.",
},
descriptor_choices =
{
subrace =
{
__ALL__ = "disallow",
["Runic Golem"] = "allow",
},
},
random_escort_possibilities = { {"tier1.1", 1, 2}, {"tier1.2", 1, 2}, {"daikara", 1, 2}, {"old-forest", 1, 4}, {"dreadfell", 1, 8}, {"reknor", 1, 2}, },
}
newBirthDescriptor
{
type = "subrace",
name = "Runic Golem",
locked = function() return profile.mod.allow_build.construct_runic_golem and true or "hide" end,
locked_desc = "",
desc = {
"Runic Golems are creatures made of solid rock and animated using arcane forces.",
"They cannot be of any class, but they have many intrinsic abilities.",
"#GOLD#Stat modifiers:",
"#LIGHT_BLUE# * +3 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +3 Constitution",
"#LIGHT_BLUE# * +2 Magic, +2 Willpower, -5 Cunning",
"#GOLD#Life per level:#LIGHT_BLUE# 13",
"#GOLD#Experience penalty:#LIGHT_BLUE# 50%",
},
moddable_attachement_spots = "race_runic_golem", moddable_attachement_spots_sexless=true,
descriptor_choices =
{
sex =
{
__ALL__ = "disallow",
Male = "allow",
},
class =
{
__ALL__ = "disallow",
None = "allow",
},
subclass =
{
__ALL__ = "disallow",
},
},
inc_stats = { str=3, con=3, wil=2, mag=2, dex=-2, cun=-5 },
talents_types = {
["golem/arcane"]={true, 0.3},
["golem/fighting"]={true, 0.3},
},
talents = {
[ActorTalents.T_MANA_POOL]=1,
[ActorTalents.T_STAMINA_POOL]=1,
},
copy = {
resolvers.generic(function(e) e.descriptor.class = "Golem" e.descriptor.subclass = "Golem" end),
resolvers.genericlast(function(e) e.faction = "undead" end),
default_wilderness = {"playerpop", "allied"},
starting_zone = "ruins-kor-pul",
starting_quest = "start-allied",
blood_color = colors.GREY,
resolvers.inventory{ id=true, {defined="ORB_SCRYING"} },
mana_regen = 0.5,
mana_rating = 7,
inscription_restrictions = { ["inscriptions/runes"] = true, },
resolvers.inscription("RUNE:_MANASURGE", {cooldown=25, dur=10, mana=620}),
resolvers.inscription("RUNE:_SHIELDING", {cooldown=14, dur=5, power=100}),
resolvers.inscription("RUNE:_PHASE_DOOR", {cooldown=7, range=10, dur=5, power=15}),
type = "construct", subtype="golem", image = "npc/alchemist_golem.png",
starting_intro = "ghoul",
life_rating=13,
poison_immune = 1,
cut_immune = 1,
stun_immune = 1,
fear_immune = 1,
construct = 1,
moddable_tile = "runic_golem",
moddable_tile_nude = true,
},
experience = 1.5,
}
Post by: Frumple on December 13, 2013, 07:18:47 pm
That said, you can unlock the runic golem manually via some lua editing, there's just not much point to it. Iirc, there's an addon or two that does something along those lines, and I think one that tries to actually do something with it.
Post by: Singularity125 on December 13, 2013, 09:21:22 pm
@Singularity125:
Bulwarks are actually pretty rough going for new players due to their extreme lack of ranged attacks and magical defenses in the early to midgame. If you run into troubles, you can get the same basic melee style AND magic-type damage with a sword-n-board wyrmic, or for a really straightforward ranged type, the alchemist has you covered. I'm shamelessly plugging my Alchemist starter guide here. (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=36836)
Actually I'm quite enjoying this character so far. I like being able to turn my defense into offense with shield pummel and such. I've had a couple dumb deaths so far... (Note to self 1: If your character trembles in fear on entering a new area, you'd better pay attention to that! Note 2: Vaults aren't to be messed with either) But I'm still alive, somehow.
This is what I'm running with right now. http://te4.org/characters/98638/tome/a30543db-7736-4f36-8f6e-1ee8f51c611c Feel free to criticize what I'm doing. I'm sure I could optimize things better, but oh well. :P
Post by: Frumple on December 13, 2013, 09:34:30 pm
*Except you'll probably want to max out shield wall fairly soon. The stun res is verra' sexy, and the rest of it's decent, too.
As for the crystal focus, something more detailed is probably earlier in the thread. Short form is it turns (or did, anyway) a plain white weapon into an artifact. Part of what it does during the process is multiply the base damage by a certain amount, so you'll probably want to hold off using it until (if) you luck upon an unenchanted voratun or stralite one-hander. It's not really the best of weapons for a bulwark (I'd personally recommend the femur, if you find it, hohoho), though every melee critter probably likes to have it around (one of the other things it does is turn the weapon's damage type to arcane, which isn't resisted by much. Good for use against physres heavy enemies.). S'better for the magic hybirds, mostly.
Post by: Aoi on December 13, 2013, 09:36:37 pm
Post by: Darkmere on December 13, 2013, 10:16:01 pm
I've beaten the game with a Thalore antimagic bulwark (http://te4.org/characters/31725/tome/80ca834a-85a6-495a-b76d-fc499aa3f542) and it was my... second win I believe, so I do like them. They're just not as prepared for the entire game for newbies as the old tutorial would want you to believe.
Post by: Aoi on December 13, 2013, 10:44:59 pm
I ended up clocking a Normal/Adventure win with a Ghoul Bulwark a while back that was centered around being to soak a ton of damage while slooooooowly whittling down with reflect damage and puking constant puking. Undead enemies, and things that relied on ridiculous amounts of spike damage were the only things that could really cause problems, so I had to run away from them.
Currently, I'm really enjoying the Turtle addon... one of which is basically my above build, except turning it into a race.
Post by: Darkmere on December 13, 2013, 11:01:35 pm
Post by: Robsoie on December 14, 2013, 04:52:52 am
http://te4.org/wiki/Zone
Usually i do the following order and so far it has worked good for the characters i won with :
- racial/class special starting dungeon (excepted the The Deep Bellow when you're dwarf that i keep for when i'm at least level 8 )
- Trollmire (if you have no racial/class starting dungeon and so get into Trollmire first, you should avoid the lair level you get access to after killing Trollmire boss, and get back when you'll have 2 more levels in order to minimize the risk)
- Norgos Lair (alternate Norgos lair is a bit more difficult with many shivgoroth that shoot cold at you)
- Heart of Gloom
- Derth's arena
- go to trigger the Lumberjack Village
- Ruins of Kor'Pul
- Scintillating Caves
- Rhaloren Camp
- by then you should be able to trigger Unknown Tunnel
That's all for the early game dungeons, then next tier
- Old Forest
- Maze (if alternate maze , the ones with the huge holes, do the before, alt Maze has more difficult monsters than regular Maze)
- Sandworm Lair
- Golem Graveyard
- Hidden Compound
- Daikara
- Ruined Halfling Complex (sometime i do this one 1st before Daikara)
- Lake of Nur (if i run into something too strong in there i go to next before coming back)
- Ruined Dungeon
- Tempest Peak
- Dreadfell
mid dreadfell, if you think you're not high enough level , you can go back into Daikara and if you have some temporal resistance, do the Temporal Rift.
if you have done Lake of Nur, if you still think a level may help (gaining a level -always- help) you can try some Farportal in your fortress.
For some races that are not too crippled in experience gain , you may reach level 24 before Dreadfell, and so trigger the Dark Crypt, now that's something that can be very hard depending on the room configuration (and how good or weak your class/race combo is), as it's an optional dungeon, i recommend to only do this one if you know your character race/class combo is strong, losing a few lives in Dark Crypt can be very easy
Post by: Graven on December 14, 2013, 06:28:12 am
You can get decent gear in there, but if it's gear you're after, and you're sure you're the meanest, baddest sonofabitch around, go do the elven crypts.
I've done them once pre-east, on a Shadow Blade, because hey, what is anyone going to do to a shadow blade? It was fun.
Other than that Robsoie's tier list is really nice, and it minimizes the risk of death. [Don't ever go in the Last Hope graveyard pre-east the undead that spawn are the grim black wind that envelops the last flickering candle of humanity's hope].
Post by: Frumple on December 14, 2013, 08:11:58 am
Personally, I've dropped the place sans life-loss with 0 blight res (well, probably some resall by that point, but eh) before, several times. Mostly, it's just a matter of mobility (particularly if you're melee) and LoS control, and knowing what the right targets to kill first are (and being able to do so quickly, of course). It's pretty rough, especially if you get caught immediately at 24, but it's very doable.
... though I will say, re: Rob's list: I usually do the lake of Nur a lot earlier. Immediately when I hit the Old Forest (though I've taken to hitting the Maze immediately after the first tier junk, rather than doing OF first), trending toward level 14-16. There is no way in hell I could stand waiting until post Daikara for that storage chamber >_<
Plus, the earlier you get that over with, the earlier to start collecting farportal energy...
Post by: Robsoie on December 14, 2013, 08:36:01 am
http://te4.org/blogs/burblulls/2011/05/crypt-kryl-feijan-and-you
:D
The difficulty with Lake of Nur comes from your own luck in what the game will generate in the lake of nur dungeon, meeting luminous horrors too early is nearly a game over situation for a too early character.
It's a very big risk and the Weirdling Beast that guard your desired fortress is very strong if you're not strong enough to deal with what it can do.
Where i placed it in the list should minimize your risk (though it can be still very hard depending on what the game decided to generate there, a bit like in the alternate maze that can be of equal difficulty if you get dreaming and luminous horrors everywhere)
Post by: Frumple on December 14, 2013, 08:43:40 am
A nice summary of Dark CryptMovement infusion and that may have been survivable :P
http://te4.org/blogs/burblulls/2011/05/crypt-kryl-feijan-and-you
:D
There was at least two chokepoints in those first two rooms that might have been reachable with a decent-ish one, heh, and once you've cut things down to only one or two being able to hit you it becomes a lot more... possible. Mobility and LoS control! That is key, hoho.
Later E: Actually, with a bulwark specifically (... and I guess marauders and ABs too, these days?), rushing the weakest target to pull a instapop step-up rush might have done it, too, thinking on it. That's often a pretty good idea for a surrounded step-up user -- kill the furthest out/weakest to proc step-up, so you can dip out.
Post by: Singularity125 on December 14, 2013, 04:33:11 pm
To plan your zone exploring, give a look to there :
http://te4.org/wiki/Zone
Usually i do the following order and so far it has worked good for the characters i won with :
- racial/class special starting dungeon (excepted the The Deep Bellow when you're dwarf that i keep for when i'm at least level 8 )
Oh, good, I was about to feel weird for not doing that yet. Since I'm level 12 though I probably should do that next.
- Trollmire (if you have no racial/class starting dungeon and so get into Trollmire first, you should avoid the lair level you get access to after killing Trollmire boss, and get back when you'll have 2 more levels in order to minimize the risk)
- Norgos Lair (alternate Norgos lair is a bit more difficult with many shivgoroth that shoot cold at you)
- Heart of Gloom
- Derth's arena
- go to trigger the Lumberjack Village
- Ruins of Kor'Pul
- Scintillating Caves
- Rhaloren Camp (I died here because of a vault. Haven't gone back yet. >.>)
- by then you should be able to trigger Unknown Tunnel
That's all for the early game dungeons, then next tier
- Old Forest
- Maze (if alternate maze , the ones with the huge holes, do the before, alt Maze has more difficult monsters than regular Maze)
- Sandworm Lair
- Golem Graveyard
- Hidden Compound - Spent all my gold trying to figure out the brawler thing :P
- Daikara
- Ruined Halfling Complex (sometime i do this one 1st before Daikara)
- Lake of Nur (if i run into something too strong in there i go to next before coming back)
- Ruined Dungeon
- Tempest Peak
- Dreadfell
mid dreadfell, if you think you're not high enough level , you can go back into Daikara and if you have some temporal resistance, do the Temporal Rift.
if you have done Lake of Nur, if you still think a level may help (gaining a level -always- help) you can try some Farportal in your fortress.
For some races that are not too crippled in experience gain , you may reach level 24 before Dreadfell, and so trigger the Dark Crypt, now that's something that can be very hard depending on the room configuration (and how good or weak your class/race combo is), as it's an optional dungeon, i recommend to only do this one if you know your character race/class combo is strong, losing a few lives in Dark Crypt can be very easy
Other than that Robsoie's tier list is really nice, and it minimizes the risk of death. [Don't ever go in the Last Hope graveyard pre-east the undead that spawn are the grim black wind that envelops the last flickering candle of humanity's hope].
I learned that one the hard way. :( I don't even know where some of these dungeons are, because I'm trying to play this one with a minimum of spoilers. It definitely looks like I've done some things out of order and made life harder for myself though. XD Ah well.
Post by: Frumple on December 14, 2013, 08:16:31 pm
Rhaloren camp... yeah. Do not open the vaults in there unless you really know what the blazes you're doing (especially the larger oval ones!) and you have some form of quick escape. Not if you really want to live, anyway. It's definitely got the nastiest vaults (on average, anyway) of any of the first tier dungeons. You'll occasionally get 30th level elite spellcasters in those ruddy things, and regularly get 20-30 level spellcasters, elite or not, which will happily wreck the face of most early game characters. Incredibly dangerous for most people, that early in the game.
Though, there's not really an "order", per se. I remember a fellow that pretty regularly just flat out did the Maze first, and the second tiers (barring daikara, anyway. It can seriously use more tools than a level 5-6 character is likely to have...) are usually pretty doable if you've got just the initial two dungeons (even one can often be enough) under your belt... just a lot harder. Still, experiment to see what you enjoy the most, should be your goal. Some folks don't bother doing all the first tier stuff, and that's fine.
Post by: Aoi on December 14, 2013, 08:22:22 pm
Post by: Frumple on December 14, 2013, 08:29:44 pm
As for the spiking, yeah, they can spike, but they can generally only do it once and actual damage throughput usually isn't very dangerous (and limited to the casters. The non-casters are chumps.). Often scary (which can make the player panic and do silly things), but rarely actually dangerous. Most of them have the stupid AI, though, so you can almost always just let them come to you and cut down the engagement to like 3 tiles and two turns, heh, if you need to. Line of sight/fire control will get you through it pretty easy, if you're not strong enough to mostly faceroll it, yet.
That said, it is usually the one I do last. Mostly because the other four are a lot closer to each other >_>
E: Ooh, though if you have a digger, do remember the mining trick for the boss. That wall in between the opening to the boss vault and the boss itself can be dug through. Saves a lot of time on approach.
You can do the same thing in kor'pul, actually~
Post by: Graven on December 14, 2013, 08:36:29 pm
Really disliking the variance in damage output from rares in Tome. Gonna go League a bit, this shit is too hard for me right now.
What's a good general strategy for reavers, in the meantime? Just keep encounters to as few enemies as possible, and kill them as fast as possible? Because I seem to end up getting surrounded everytime despite my bests efforts.
Perhaps it's time I tried another Arcane Blade.
Or another antimagic class, because god knows I haven't gotten enough free rides to victory as it is.
Post by: Frumple on December 14, 2013, 08:50:02 pm
... and the mid game. And the late game. Kinda' squishy, but squishy matters less when everything is dead.
As for keeping encounters to as few enemies as possible and killing them as fast as possible. That's not a reaver strategy, Grav. That's an everything strategy :P Which is to say yes, you should be doing that on a reaver. And a 'zerker, archmage, solipsist, doomed, slime-dude... everything. All of the classes.
More than that, there's a few guides running around the t4 forums/wiki/etc., iirc. Should be able to get some more nuanced ideas out of that. The reavers I run tend to just faceroll (mostly by bumping and corrupted strength procs to the face) everything up 'till the east, which is when I get bored and play another character >_>
Post by: Elephant Parade on December 15, 2013, 04:18:48 am
Post by: Graven on December 15, 2013, 06:35:45 am
In other news, rolled a reaver, died once to a Oozemancer rare, got a randart Stralite waraxe with 50-70 damage from the maze.
I'm still going to die in a second, but it's pretty amusing so far.
Post by: Robsoie on December 15, 2013, 08:04:45 am
I have not used the new to 1.10 Animus tree, because out of the 2nd skill that sounds very attractive, i still feel the other usual "must have" skills are still more "must have" for my minions for the pre-Dreadfell (and so far proved me right).
But probably later if i can finish the Master , i'll get to it, at least for the 2nd skill of the tree.
Post by: Robsoie on December 15, 2013, 03:02:23 pm
While it ends the same , Melinda is living in your fortress, but the events that lead into her moving in after being saved had more than just with the usual "convince her to live in your fortress".
I have no idea if it's something new, but on the dozen of characters that i managed to save Melinda with, it's the very first time i run into this alternate story.
And i must say wow
(http://i.imgur.com/z5uJ0dc.jpg)
Post by: Aoi on December 15, 2013, 04:38:50 pm
Obviously, there's a lot of things that have to still be done manually (levelling, world map, equipment, etc.) but it's interesting to see how far some classes can get with a minimum of control.
Post by: Blaze on December 15, 2013, 04:50:30 pm
Post by: etgfrog on December 15, 2013, 05:01:23 pm
How does one go putting Telos's staff back together? I got the top and bottom halves. Maybe there's three pieces?There is a gem for the staff...then the elite talent for putting it back together...I could be wrong though as that was quite a while ago
Post by: Graven on December 15, 2013, 05:04:03 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
But I hear it's a pretty nice staff.
Post by: Robsoie on December 15, 2013, 05:22:44 pm
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78614.msg4422898#msg4422898
Though i don't know if since then the staff parts and the reunited spire got their stats modified in the current version
At that time it's interesting to note that the upper part of the staff (and the bottom one) are 1 handed, meaning you can wield the upper part of the staff (that is very good on its own) and a shield.
Something you can't do with usual staves that are all 2 handed (and the reunited version is 2 handed)
(edit : just noticed i mentionned that already on my spoiler :D )
Post by: Blaze on December 15, 2013, 08:18:23 pm
There's no more prides or dungeons left to go through, so all I've got left is the Exploration Portal and ID. So I'm wondering if it's still possible to get the crystal.
Post by: Frumple on December 15, 2013, 08:24:02 pm
Post by: Robsoie on December 16, 2013, 05:20:48 am
Additionally if you're after more lore, doing several farportal run can sometime lead into something interesting.
But on the very numerous character i have played into ToME4, it's very rare i found the 3 pieces.
Post by: Niveras on December 16, 2013, 05:34:04 am
As I recall, there's a unique (Shade of Telos? or something of Telos) in some dungeon that has a high bias to drop one or two of the pieces, but you may have killed it already.
Post by: Robsoie on December 16, 2013, 05:50:06 am
If you haven't accepted to give him the orb temporarly, the tower of Telos will not exist and instead you will have the special Fearscape level.
So if the tower of Telos does not exist in your game, you'll probably have less chance to get a complete staff
Post by: nenjin on December 16, 2013, 12:35:53 pm
Post by: Robsoie on December 16, 2013, 12:43:38 pm
Post by: Frumple on December 16, 2013, 12:44:23 pm
E: If you really want to be sure, anything defined in ..\game\modules\tome-<version>.team\data\maps\vaults\ should work. Plus some other stuff, haha!
Post by: Robsoie on December 17, 2013, 12:46:20 pm
Though for the 1st time my character failed to arrive in time in the Charred Scar, despite he was wearing the +20% movement amulet and was using the maxed ghoul leap as much as he could, still in the end the Ghoul arrived too late (either the +20% amulet does not really work as intended or the ghoul is even more extremely slower than i thought, as ghoul leap can leap a whole screen lenght !)
It allowed me to get into the alternate ending
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That Ghoul Necromancer was a lot of fun and by the end was rather powerfull thanks to some nice item (i even got the Spire of Telos rebuilt) but still i got only 3 deaths on him.
Post by: Robsoie on December 17, 2013, 02:31:56 pm
I started my fight with a Retch on her face, my minions surged and casted Rigor Mortis on her.
She went down after some turns of battle despite her 10K health, not that surprisingly, as minions surged and Rigor Mortis helping, they can hit -very- hard and lucky me her resistances weren't high in the type of damage my minions and myself were dealing.
Then i noticed what was actually "buffed up" as ... she resurrected full health and etc... by her "force of will", funny considering she has less willpower than my character, hmm that reminds me of some difficult battle against some special elite bone giant with immense health, bone shields and the ability to full health resurrect once.
To make it harder, my skills were in all in cooldown by then as there's no time to rest between her death and resurrection, and my remaining minions were not on their prime anymore, that 2nd battle was harder, but with time, teleportations, trooper renewal etc... we prevailed on that difficult battle !
And then i saw that "buffed up" wasn't the right wording, "bullCHEAT" is more appropriate because Linaniil resurrected ... a 2nd time, yeah just like that full health , all her spells and powers ready to use instead of cooldown and round 3 with no time to prepare .
This 3rd battle was hopeless, as i was running out of souls (and i guess the Curse of the Meek bug really didn't helped) and i noticed that at my best critical shot at her (near 1000 damage) , on the same turn she healed ... more than 4000 health !
And how about my attempts at getting a bane of confusion/blindness with the circle of death ?
Nope, convenientely Linaniil has no problem in using a Rune of Vision at every turns she get a Bane of Blindness without having to wait for a cooldown or anything, and for when it was a Bane of Confusion affecting her ... well it looks like confusion for the player and for Linaniil do not have the same effect because she can still do everything she usually does in battle ....
As i wasn't anywhere near my max health i had to teleport away several time and played the cat and mouse with her until i was able to fully heal my 1502 health.
But out of souls (Angolwen was cleared by then), i popped up out of cover and noticed she was back at 10000 health while i had just reached my 1502 ones ...
And at some point she just decided to cast another of her double meteor shower of mass killing and this one simply killed me in 1 hit, while at full health and protected by a 400 points shield.
Looks like the power of bullCHEAT is strong with the upgraded Linaniil , a 2nd Athamaton but without a prodigy that can help you :D
Anyways, as it was useless to come back, as it would have reset her and so all her cheating resurrection, i just went away.
Post by: Singularity125 on December 17, 2013, 11:53:41 pm
Are saves cross-platform compatible? I wouldn't see why not, but you never know. I'm heading home for christmas in a few days and I'm packing light, which means I only have my laptop I've put linux on, but I'd like to continue my current character.
Also, it's a bit off-topic but I'm wondering how well the linux version of steam works. I've never tried it before since so few of the games in my library are linux-compatible. But it would be neat if I could get that version working rather than standalone ToME. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. :)
Post by: Frumple on December 18, 2013, 12:34:51 am
Post by: Robsoie on December 18, 2013, 04:12:40 am
It's given me close to six hours of entertainment already (not sure why the online profile only says an hour and a half... maybe I lost connection at some point.)Since some days the server has been going up and down a lot, probably not ready for the wave of new player from the steam release, that's probably why it didn't recorded your time correctly.
But that said it's not rare at all to lose the connection with the server, for the last 2 years and for every of the characters i played online, i noticed on each of those i kept in the online vault (i usually delete the ones that didn't reached level 20) :
"This character may have been played while not online."
Post by: Graven on December 21, 2013, 09:11:41 am
Beat the shit out of the Master, then beat the shit ouf the Orcish ambush which honestly kind of scared me, because I don't have the best track record when it comes to the ambush. The master took some hide-and-seeking, I had carved an anti-summon tunnel, but I couldn't stay in it for long since the Master likes going invisible and stunning my non-see-invisible ass for extended lengths of time.
I feel pretty good about my defences [as much as a Reaver can have defenses] - I got the Anorithil escort light tree, I have Wrap of Stone for the stone wall, 2 regeneration infusions [just found a 450-regen one, better not forget to put it on], a teleport rune and a movement infusion, alongside Dark Portal and maxed Bone Armour.
I had great luck with weapons, finding a tier 4 randart stralite waraxe of slaughter or whatever that ego is that boosts damage, and the Unique sword that "gets more powerful with every death" and occasionally spits disgusting oozedemons around, so I've hit enemies for upwards of 700 damage in one ability.
I seem to nearly always be autoattacking, though, since if I try to use my abilities liberally I run out of vim like a blind chainsaw juggler. Thank god I have the light tree. Am I doing anything wrong? How am I supposed to get vim back? Since the guy whose build I copied only had like 2 points in Drain, and no points in Leech. I have a point in leech, so I can get decent returns when surrounded, but ideally I shouldn't be getting surrounded, right?
All in all, I kind of want to cheat-unlock myself an oozemancer and give that another go. Winning an oozemancer was definitely my most fun win ever [considering the other competitors are a Wyrmic and a god damn Cursed it's not much, but hey]. Melee classes in Tome are really boring, with the exception of Arcane Blade, and to some extent Wyrmic and Reaver, since autoattacking things to death is so slow as compared to Crawl. I want to play something like Brawler, but attacking really fast in Tome isn't as fun as it sounds.
Post by: Robsoie on December 21, 2013, 09:40:26 am
I even defeated the Atamathon for the 1st time ever and got that "Athamatoned" achievement (got a few near death situation in that battle though as sometime the thing still insisted in ignoring my ooze taunts and attack only me, good that i had many fast healing abilities) !
But that said i had insane luck with the merchant items, that allowed me to have very high Willpower and Cunning (more than 140 both !), leading into super high Mindpower, allowing me to do very good damage.
Definitively the strongest character i ever used (as i doubt i'll ever be that lucky with all the high +will +cun items for high mindpower -> very high damage) , out of a few High Peaks uniques that gave me lots of problems with their resistance being exactly corresponding to my damage output, i had a lot fun to play with it
The only problem i see is that unlike some other classes there's not much variation in the Oozemancers build, as the only possible variant would have been to go the Moss skill tree route, but that skill tree is so much inferior to the other ones that currently it's only for those that want to intentionally play with a weaker Oozemancer.
I wish Angolwen was available, i would really have liked to test that character against the recently stupidly overpowered Linanill and her cheating many resurrections and 9000+ damage healing. Too bad it's unavailable for antimagic characters.
Post by: nenjin on December 21, 2013, 03:27:53 pm
Feed always seems to wreck me every single time. Feed goes off, 2 turns later, I get one shot. Hate that freaking thing.
To the point now I can stay permainvis even in combat. Rogue is fun but since I played it the last time, I'm eager to finish and try a spellcaster.
Post by: Darkmere on December 21, 2013, 05:16:51 pm
Post by: nenjin on December 21, 2013, 05:54:25 pm
Post by: Graven on December 22, 2013, 07:04:36 am
Got me a pair of boots of rushing, which are my new favourite item because man is rushing a great skill. I'm waiting for ages after each fight anyway - so my stupid bone shield can recover - so I can rush every fight.
Rushing is the best.
I should probably give Arcane Blade another try, or maybe a Sunbro - not sure how they compare in the "ZzzzzZZZzzZZzZ" scale of Tome melee.
edit : God I'm so dumb. Forgot to side with the Grand Corruptor the first time, so I had to replay the stupid scar the second time, because of course it only saves when you enter, and nearly died in the process.
At least I got to destroy Zigur and then bash the stupid Corruptor's stupid face in. Missed out on the loot, though, for some reason - she didn't drop anything when I killed her in Zigur.
Post by: Robsoie on December 22, 2013, 09:47:20 am
Post by: Darkmere on December 23, 2013, 07:01:26 pm
Just a public service announcement, if you use the stone warden's split forms AND the eldritch stone shield, your halves will get the shield, and it will blow up and kill you. Until you are dead.
Also got a death from turning a corner in Daikara into a room (NOT a vault) of 9 of those boulder throwers. Instant kill. And something or other 1-shot me from full health to dead through the entire eldritch stone shield while I had resilience of the dwarves up. Come back and it can't get me to 95% I don't even know anymore...
Post by: Graven on December 24, 2013, 02:11:47 pm
My reaver's doing OK, just arrived in the Sunwell, haven't died in a while, got Arcane Might as a prodigy because there wasn't anything else available. Wanted Draconic body, but apparently I'm not close to the draconic world, whatever the hell that means.
Think I'll just minimize the risk on this feller, not open a single vault and play safe as hell.
Gonna try a sun paladin afterwards - this bastard (http://te4.org/characters/58734/tome/af0e5dca-4eea-4227-a3c9-4ef287b15d3b) apparently cleared the room of death at level 39, so maybe I can at least feel a bit powerful with it? Who knows.
Post by: Darkmere on December 24, 2013, 04:18:53 pm
Sun Paladins are pretty nice if you like tanky melees. My second win was with one and I quite enjoyed it even if I played poorly.
Any advice on killing the Weirdling Beast as a weapon-based Mindslayer? I've had a pretty good run so far (level 20, died once to Urkis from incautious use of a shield spike) but that damn thing just won't die and I don't know what tricks I can pull to shut down his regen infusion. Plus... can't use sustains so it's touch and go anyways... I'm at a loss for now so I just retreated.
Post by: Robsoie on December 24, 2013, 04:24:04 pm
Eat the heart of the sandworm queen from the sandworm lair
Eat the wyrm bile of the backup guardian that will appear in the sandworm dungeon after you come back from the East
Post by: Frumple on December 24, 2013, 04:25:53 pm
Post by: Darkmere on December 24, 2013, 05:58:10 pm
Re: WB as slayer... have your auras up (after the initial sustain strip, of course. Taunt it with augmentation or sumthin'), rush (via boots) or jump into its face (if possible), nail it in the craw with a (4-5/5) kinspike, preferably into one of those little wall things so you don't have to chase it. Usually doesn't take more than that, you should be putting out a lot of melee damage. Maybe do tri-wield with a nice dagger for the fight for some extra stabby, if you're not already. Insidious poison or other useful enchant (purging, whatever) might not hurt, too. Mostly you just rush the bugger down, you should have more bump damage throughput than nearly everything.
I've got a Tier 3 2H sword and the tree stump mindwielded at the moment, by far the best I've found. I did focus heavy on shields early because they're damn amazing, so my damage is ludicrous for most things except some sustained elites. I'll try the post-purge rush once I get a few more levels under my belt but before I head east, and check for a poison infusion to replace one of my Wilds. Thanks for the advice, it's my first decent 'Slayer, so I'm a bit new to the class (and psionicists in general. Haven't tried a solipsist since Dreamforge got buffed).
Post by: Frumple on December 24, 2013, 06:26:13 pm
Tri-wield (maybe sword and board -- either of them give better raw stats than dual 2-hand, if maybe less immediate damage) with as much on-melee stuff as I can manage is usually pretty standard. Probably fungus, if I don't get something really sexy in terms of arcane escort missions.
After that, it's mostly just hoping I find the right items (rush boots, especially, but a good movement infusion goes a long way) to cruise into the east with. I find they have a pretty easy time with the early to late-mid game (up until the east, basically), after which things get a little more rough (but you've got stuff like antimagic and finer energy manipulation to tank and kit yourself to the nines, which helps smooth things out.). Still, I like 'em when I want to turn off my head and walk into things, heh.
Post by: Darkmere on December 24, 2013, 08:25:49 pm
Post by: Robsoie on December 25, 2013, 07:22:36 am
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2013/12/news/tales-majeyal-113-aka-oh-christmas-troy-released
Code: [Select]
Release highlights:
* New Doomed tree
* Many important fixes
Expanded changelist:
* New Doomed tree: One with Shadows
* Fixed dying as you win the Derth arena
* Fixed correctly dying while killing the chronolith twins
* Added the missing unlock text for Madness
* Sanctum portal has a message about requiring the orb of many ways
* Fixed achievements borders ingame for various difficulties
* Corrupted Shell also provides 20% armour hardiness
* Wait longer for login
* Fixed the video options dialog
* The game will detect if it was not started sucessfully (up to the main menu) last time it was run and automatically enable safe mode in this case
* A few sanity paranoid code checks
* Moderators are shown as such
* Achievement tiles for most online events
Post by: Graven on December 25, 2013, 08:54:25 am
In the meantime, I decided to give my reaver a rest, and started a Marauder, because I love all forms of rogues in games.
Level 20, entering the Ruined dungeon right now. Got some nice fixedart daggers, doing pretty decent damage with decent crowd control.
Died 3 times, but for a change I actually know what I did wrong the first two times - I got surrounded by 12 000 rogues and a rogue rare in the Labyrinth, and not even Marauder levels of defence can save you from 13 different poisons killing your infusions and your health and your wild infusion doesn't do shit and oh you respawned hohoho go take another break now sonny.
Marauder seems reasonably fun. Headbutting things will never not be hilarious, and from what I hear, you get insane levels of defense so that leaves only spellcasters to worry about.
Which is actually what everyone worries about but hey.
Post by: Robsoie on December 27, 2013, 01:47:15 pm
There's also the nature of the vote that unfortunately allow anyone to vote multiple time despite having already voted previously, opening a big door to vote abuse toward a title.
Currently it's ToME4 leading with 200 more votes than Adom.
Cataclysm DDA is in 3rd position, really great to see this one rising.
So many other game would deserve more votes, but difficult to rival the amount of players the big names have.
Anyways, got to play this new version of ToME4 mostly to check that new Doomed tree, but lost my ridiculously weak Yeek Doomed before even getting the chance to taste that tree (that is interesting to make the summoned shadows even more usefull for your own survival), but i knew it was going to happen as Doomed Yeek is a perfect definition for that combo, it's really doomed :D as early Doomed have a hard time, and Yeek well they're really in danger of a 1 shot if a nasty resist their mental domination.
Instead of playing with some more serious Doomed, i decided to go to Dwarf Brawler as it's been a very long time i didn't played one (my first winner was a brawler actually).
And wow, it's been really long as i forgot how really low damaging a Brawler can be in very early game, fortunately i had good defenses so i wasn't much in danger.
But at some point in Trollmire i ran into a rare bear that had shield wall enabled and lots of health (lots for early game i mean) and i started brawling with it, due to his shield wall the bear was dealing very low damage (the cons of shield wall for bulwarks) so i had no difficulty regenerating regularly, but shield wall big advantage is that it increase defense and armor , and then i was dealing really ridiculous damage by hits with my best damaging skills (2 to 4 by hits when crits)
It took nearly forever to take that bear out in one of the most boring fight i ever had in ToME4.
So much boring i didn't even cared to even retreat against the too powerfull troll wizard unique that can sometime appear in Trollmire and decided to give up out of boredom in Eidolon
Post by: Darkmere on December 27, 2013, 03:17:29 pm
Post by: etgfrog on December 27, 2013, 03:38:04 pm
Post by: Graven on December 28, 2013, 10:57:46 am
My game is finally turned into an endless shitstorm of 1 frame per second and spending 9 out of 10 turns staring at a black screen because I'll be fucked if I know how to gain Blindness immunity and the orcs know it and revel in my misery as they spam sun infusions and fuck you Tome 4 whoever designed this is so far removed from the concept of fun he exists on an entirely different dimension.
Also apparently my saves are bad, and I don't know whether to prioritize resistances, or status resistances, or saves, or armour, or penetration, so my confusion immunity is 20% and the precious few turns I can see what is going on I have to do that through a smudged filter as if someone with really greasy skin has been rolling over my laptop.
I also messed up a bit at the Vor Armoury and currently have only 1 life left, and no Blood of Life, so I probably won't be winning a Reaver this time.
Ugh.
Post by: Darkmere on December 28, 2013, 11:08:04 am
... but what the hell do I know, I can't even make it to the east without some random moronic deaths these days, so my opinion is probably invalid.
Post by: Robsoie on December 28, 2013, 01:38:47 pm
While i had some wins, i had an impressive list of characters that i lost on various level of bull happening in the game, some annoying me so much that i simply ceased to play for a while, a bit like i do with Crawl that annoy me so much with the press "autoexplore, 20 seconds later -> you're hungry !" system that i always end into forgetting it for months before giving another go.
I was so happy the very first time i had gone antimagic and managed to reach the Prides, i used the Silence skill on the horrible entrance of the necromancer Pride, none could cast ! Maybe the fact i had found nothing providing enough darkness resistance wouldn't prevent me to get running into that Pride.
... except apparently they were all generated with an infusion they used on their turn, that removed the silence effect from all them, then their following turn i was insta killed by many of their shots. And it's not the weak (at the time, though it's not much better now if you don't get the prodigy to improve it) antimagic shield that helped.
Post by: Graven on December 28, 2013, 02:33:21 pm
Apparently he has 99% Blight resist, and Impending Doom, and my teleport didn't quite work out on the 13th try to kill it.
Should've gone away and levelled up, but I was getting sick of Reaver - it turned out to be just another autoattacker because Vim is the dumbest resource ever and if something [say a gigantic pack of antimagic orcs] drains your vim you can't really regenerate it, and while it hits relatively hard and has pretty decent survivability with the Anorithil tree and Bone Shield, it's just not that great alltogether.
Would've liked a win with a non-antimagic character, though.
Oh well.
What's the most OP melee class in Tome? I'm guessing Sun Paladin for the survivability, and Cursed for Antimagic, but I've won a Cursed and it was horrible. I just want to be able to clean up vaults as they come by and jump in the middle of packs and AOE stuff and not give a shit.
Post by: Niveras on December 28, 2013, 02:43:24 pm
If you want a non-AM win there's always archmage. Fire/wildfire offers lots of killing power and archmages in general have good utility: escape via PD or teleport, detection via vision and arcane eye (useful to find out if that dangerous thing you teleported away from is around that next corner), good emergency healing, and cleansing flames basically allows you to ignore mental and physical effects (though you still want a mental wild infusion) and is good for stripping buffs from enemies. My only difficulty with fire mages is radiant and luminous horrors, because fire penetration doesn't help against their healed-by-fire-damage.
Post by: Darkmere on December 28, 2013, 02:47:22 pm
Sun Paladins are rock solid and you get free access to Celestial/Light for cleanses IIRC, but their damage is fairly low. It didn't matter to me because a mental infusion and Providence are all you need to clear everything off you in a few turns, if you can deal with every fight taking several turns.
Post by: Robsoie on December 28, 2013, 03:14:59 pm
And the Bulwark Assault skill with his shield is capable of very high damage too in high level when you have a high end weapon to benefit from the automatic crits hits
But of course like all the melee characters, Rush is a complete must have, and getting a 2nd one through some item is ideal.
I got a couple of wins with Bulwark (dwarf and ghouls) and enjoyed them.
Post by: Graven on December 29, 2013, 08:52:43 am
When I got tired of Assault endlessly asking me if I really want to target myself, I finally clicked yes. Because in the previous version it plain wouldn't do anything, at least with melee abilities.
Not in the newest version! My Arcane Blade boldly stood up against the coming darkness, and smacked himself in the head for about 3 times the total HP I had. Dumbest death I've had in a while.
Post by: Robsoie on December 29, 2013, 10:20:47 am
Post by: Darkmere on December 29, 2013, 10:39:25 am
Post by: Robsoie on December 29, 2013, 12:02:04 pm
Anyways, just experienced one of those infamous "bullshitdeath"
Running a good Ghoul Corruptor, good because usually i get killed with such combo much earlier.
I got the bandit tunnels and landed on the level in which you can save the merchant.
Nothing special out of a chest that generated a rare that i managed to kill despite its original and oh convenient "silence" :/
Then as i know that the place usually have a hidden alert trap (that generate a few regular enemies when triggered) , i pressed W and waited to see if my character ran on it.
And it did, i see 5 regular bandits appearing, and ... Eidolon is loading.
What the ... ?
And i looked at the log
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Basically the turn they appeared, they were able to do an extra turn before me for some reason , and then as they were 5 it's obvious from the log that some of them even attacked more than once too .
I found this so much stupidly frustrating that i didn't even bothered to come back despite i had several lives left and gave up on the character on eidolon.
I guess it's time to leave ToME4 for a while and get to complete my house and trap system in UnrealWorld.
Post by: Niveras on December 29, 2013, 12:55:16 pm
It is definitely not the best way to go about it, since it effectively works to be more like "every 4 actions, all enemies take an extra action" but, not being much of a mathematician or game designer, I'm not sure how else you might be able to implement it.
Post by: Graven on December 29, 2013, 01:59:33 pm
I'm not sure why you would ever want to target yourself on purpose while using Assault.
Because the buttons I press are as follows : "1" - assault -> hover mouse over enemy -> space to cast on target being hovered over. Which works if the game is not lagging, but since it very often lags, it presumes I'm trying to target myself and asks me. Since I was used to pressing yes meaning nothing at all in the previous version, I thought I'd show the game whatfor and pressed yes again. God bless.
Also damn, that's a painful death :(
I've just noticed that nearly all my early-game deaths come from a pretty god damn stupid "pooling" behaviour I apparently have. On most classes you can usually get to about level 10-12 depending on race without spending a single skill or stat point, with just the starting points. And while this works out relatively decent sometimes, and a lot of times it means going into the rogue tunnels on an AB without teleport. Or dimension door.
I guess I like the sudden boost in power when I finally do spend? This is even more stupid because in Tome levels are actually quite important. I don't even.
Post by: Robsoie on December 29, 2013, 02:32:52 pm
That was probably cause by the ghoul's weakness of -25% global speed. Turn-based games deal with such things by making the effect "accumulate" until such time as it accounts for a single turn. You see this in DCSS as well.-global- speed ?
It is definitely not the best way to go about it, since it effectively works to be more like "every 4 actions, all enemies take an extra action" but, not being much of a mathematician or game designer, I'm not sure how else you might be able to implement it.
I always thought it was just the movement speed that had that malus; ouch that's even more painfull as a character than i thought then.
Hmm, that would explains some of the things i saw and just put on the game simple randomness, i start to wonder then how i ever won with a few of my ghouls if it's not only the movement that's affected but every single actions, those few must had been really extremely lucky runs.
Post by: Frumple on December 29, 2013, 05:56:48 pm
*E: Ah, checked. Yeah, it's still a base .8 global speed, so still just a 20% penalty. 1 in 5, not 1 in 4.
Post by: Darkmere on December 29, 2013, 07:03:02 pm
Post by: Graven on December 29, 2013, 07:19:39 pm
Nowadays I just can't exist with an experience penalty, though. Thalore and Skeleton are incredibly powerful races but what's that is that a 40% experience penalty oh I think someone's calling me for business over at Cornacsville.
Post by: Darkmere on December 29, 2013, 07:29:02 pm
I didn't know about the cloak thing, but I'm still far too wary of the absurd racial penalties to really try an undead in earnest. Does the boosted attack rune stats balance out their inability to use infusions? I hadn't played much since those got put in whenever it was.
Post by: Frumple on December 29, 2013, 07:40:37 pm
As for shalore, they're honestly fine with pretty much any class, but especially ones that work well with crits (built in 10% all crit, yespleasethankyou). Shalore 'zerker is still one of my preferred combos.
Post by: Robsoie on December 29, 2013, 08:26:25 pm
Post by: Robsoie on December 30, 2013, 10:44:52 am
In the past i played a few without reading any guide and wasn't really impressed.
So for this one i read a few things, apparently in order to do any reasonnable damage and get some resistance, the mindslayer need to have a bunch of sustain active due to the synergy between them requiring other sustains or you'll get only weak effect for each, letting then only few psi for the psi spells (the best one being mindlash)
Fortunately there's some psi skills that help refilling, but still in the end with all the required skills, that's a very lot of points you need to invest everywhere, difficult to specialize in such conditions.
Then one of the nice thing of the mindslayers is that they can "telephatic wield" a weapon, on top of the ones you're already wearing, and get your willpower/cunning replacing strength/dex for the damage/accuracy for it (good as mindslayers wants lots of willpower/cunning)
As they're not exactly great for health, i took a dwarf to help a bit.
Now all was good until i noticed that the "best damage spell", the mindleash was still dealing ridiculous weak damage despite i started to have some levels and maxed it.
Then reading from closer, to actually get the best of the spell, the "telepathically wielded" weapon must be a mindstar, yes, those weak damage things ... oh well, at least mindlash is good now, but still not impressed by the damage dealt when maxed in comparison to other classes i played at equal level.
After a rather boring time noticing that damage weren't all still not that good despite what i hoped and the conduit sustain joining my bunch of already enabled ones, i finally reached level 21 after completing all tier 2 dungeons and killed Urkis (that for once i found surprisingly easy despite i had only 35 lightning resist) i remembered that i forgot to get to the lake of nur to get my fortress running.
So i did and once reaching the weirdling beast, i noticed it had some nice skill "taint".
And what does taint does when it use it : it disable all your sustain back into cooldown.
Oh well ... but wait a minute, a mindslayer to do anything that is not ridiculously weak damage need those many sustain synergies , and so it began a game of me re-enabling sustains when they were available, while hurrying to heal (good i got the healing light from an escort) and regen as without sustain not only the damage is weak but the resistance are.
And when i was near to be fully online with my most important sustain enabled, "hey my friend, how about another use of Taint" , and back to square zero with pathetic low damage and resistance.
Oh and taint basically heal the beast for 75 health by sustain disabled apparently, so it was near full health each time it used it.
I decided to give up that character there as boring was too much boring, never going to play mindslayer again that's a given.
Post by: Darkmere on December 30, 2013, 11:14:36 am
There's two different ways to play mindslayers, and all the guides I've seen were written before mindlash got nerfed, so the "ultimate killer mindlash every turn spam" is outdated and misleading.
You can be a tanky melee class with lots of bump damage, which requires dual-wielding and mind-wielding a big 2-hander, using Conduit to boost the mind-wielded weapons attacks, or triple-wield mindstars and play a Will-based caster. It kinda sounds like you wanted to do both at once, and there's just not enough points to go around.
Weirdling beast: leave one unimportant sustain up and keep your distance for the first part of the fight. When that's removed by taint, activate everything else (almost all of a mindslayer's sustains are instant) and charge it, doing as much damage as possible. after a few turns, spike your shields and disable all but one cooldown til it uses taint again, then wait for a purge, repeat. It should be dead after two taint casts.
Mindstars: They don't work like any other weapon in the game. The low-level ones have crap damage multipliers (15% will 15% cunning or something awful), but the LATE game ones are much better (40% wil 40% cun) AND they don't have the offhand damage penalty. If you take Mindstar mastery in zigur and max psiblades, there's an additional multiplier on them that makes the tier 4 and 5 ones get the best damage mods in the game AND they have no dual-wield penalty. But you have to get there first. I did a mindstar wyrmic who ended up VERY strong endgame by meleeing with psiblades.
Post by: Robsoie on December 30, 2013, 11:34:11 am
Though i had no idea it had been nerfed, if i knew i would have gone with some of the nice 2 handed weapon i had found to telepathic wield, very likely why i got so disapointed by it in comparison to nearly all other class ranged main damage dealer, and wouldn't have bothered with that spell.
My problem was that i was trying to play it mixed : having decent ranged attack (what i though mindlash would be) due to the lack of Rush skill (and finding boots with it is too dependant on your luck in loots) and having decent melee (as i noticed psi go down very fast with mindslayers spells+sustains) and it appeared that it result in everything being weak.
Conduit sounded good in theory and in its description, too bad the aura even maxed aren't the big damage dealer they sounded to be, the damage by turn is rather low (fortunately conduit a bit more than doubled it) but nowhere near an AOE spell from another class.
What was interesting with the aura what the "spike" mentionned that is supposed to happen when you have dealed a few rounds of damage with it and can really deal some good beating.
But in practice at absolutely no point of all my 21 levels i saw my maxed best aura (i took the one with lightning to max) doing a "spike" under Conduit, only the regular damage (doubled by conduit, so roughly 74 lightning damage to melee-distance characters by turn)
If the spike was actually working, yeah that would have certainly been an amazing class as when it is supposed to happen it can deal actually more damage than the disapointing Mindlash and would deal it to nearly every monster around you.
But that never happened ingame, at some point i even tried to play with the aura regularly (Conduit disabled) to see if it was Conduit interfering, but no, still no "spike" ever happened
Post by: Darkmere on December 30, 2013, 11:56:06 am
The spike damage scales with Mindpower, which mindstars have as a base modifier, so you can use spiked auras with triple-wield mindstars to play like a mage-type. I did get to use the spiked lightning aura at rank 5 on one character, and it hits 10 targets for decent damage. Spiked kinetic auras have some knockback as well, so they're good even with 1 point just to have a defensive ability. All the auras are instant as well, so as long as you have the psi you can activate and spike them in one turn.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 30, 2013, 12:26:56 pm
Post by: nenjin on December 30, 2013, 12:30:22 pm
But there are diminishing returns on higher level skills, so you're not actually doubling the effectiveness of said talent when it goes from 1.3 to 2.6.
Early on, I think it's a good way to supercharge a talent category. Late game, I think it ends up being a waste of your Cat points.
Post by: Robsoie on December 30, 2013, 12:46:08 pm
"Spiking" an aura is the same as spiking a shield, you deactivate them manually to get burst damage on demand. All conduit does is add free damage to your mindwielded weapon or mindlash with no psi payment, but at the cost of you being unable to spike the aura at all until you deactivate Conduit and let them cool down.
Ah thanks, that was my problem, i thought the deactivation was only for the absorption tree , i thought the projection tree was all about accumulating psi points and then those skills would spike automatically once they got there.
should read more closely the descriptions instead of reading half the words :D
Oh and no wonder i never saw any spike under conduit then, as the wanted projection skill is deactivated constantly under conduit.
Will have to give another try now, hopefully it will end better, though those sustain nullifier rares will be a pain for this kind of sustain heavy class.
Post by: Frumple on December 30, 2013, 01:14:17 pm
Re: mastery, it's mostly as Nenjin says, but there's caveats. Some talents run (or did, anyway... dunno if that's changed recently?) off raw instead of effective talent level -- which is to say, all and only what matters is how many points you put in them, mastery be damned. Extract and imbue gems in the stone alchemy tree, ferex, run off raw instead of effective (incidentally, one of the reasons I like stone alchemy as an escort reward, since the reduced mastery level is irrelevant for the good bits) talent level.
In regards to whether it's a waste... that depends incredibly on the talents themselves. Some talents and some trees benefit considerably from extra mastery (fungus and aegis both did at one point... not sure about right now, but they're potential examples), while others benefit little or not at all.
Post by: Darkmere on December 30, 2013, 01:49:28 pm
Post by: Frumple on December 30, 2013, 02:03:13 pm
From what I remember, a base 1.3 mastery tree will max out at tlvl 7.5 with a cat point investment. There's a few talents that... react well, so to speak, to that. I personally invest cat points pretty often, but that's only because I rarely run with more than four infusions (and even then, the fourth is usually my last cat point).
Post by: Robsoie on December 30, 2013, 03:12:31 pm
At least the movement infusion can help, assuming you're not a skeleton of course.
Not too much of a problem in early game (though fairly boring to have to walk up a monster or wait for it behind a corner) but with the game progression (especially in the alternate maze and alternate , it's making life very hard.)
All in all it's a class for people that like to micromanage their skills, as you need to deactivate your shield aura often to get a shield (to approach something) regularly and need to deactivate regularly your main projection aura / activate another to get some better damage output when there's too many people jumping on you.
And if you want to go the antimagic path, it's even harder to play as i found so many items i found very usefull for my character but are flagged "arcane" while having very few luck in finding half as good non arcane ones on my run.
Really time to go play something else, mindslayer is definitively not for me, can't enjoy it
Post by: Darkmere on December 30, 2013, 04:37:27 pm
It's certainly not for everyone, though. Good thing there's so many classes to choose from.
Post by: Frumple on December 30, 2013, 05:45:00 pm
(as there's no tree with the rush ability for a mindslayer and Reach has a very low range and need unlocking the tree)The mindslayer mobility tree (augmented mobility) can be unlocked at ten (note: You need to do this, period. Every non-dead mindslayer unlocks augmented mobility first.). Both quick as thought (I broke the game with that, many versions back >_>) and telekinetic leap are pretty alright (albeit somewhat expensive), and mindhook helps get things close to you. Fourth tier talent's pretty cruddy, though.
Beyond that, if you want an early gem, try your chance at the alchemist quests. Takes some luck with targets, but the derth alchie's reward (Lifebinding emerald) is a fifth tier gem, last time I looked at it.
Quote
All in all it's a class for people that like to micromanage their skills, as you need to deactivate your shield aura often to get a shield (to approach something) regularly and need to deactivate regularly your main projection aura / activate another to get some better damage output when there's too many people jumping on you.I... I don't think I've ever actually spiked the shield. Any of the shields. Maybe, like, once, twice. Probably over a dozen 'slayers got east, couple won. Aura gets spiked more often, but I usually have thermal and charged tied up with conduit and spike the kinetic as needed. It's pretty painful, so I usually don't find I have to spike it terribly often, heh.
Still, it does seem for whatever reason people have a lot more trouble with 'slayers than I seem to. It's entirely possible the RNG gods have simply smiled upon me most of the times I've played 'em, I'unno.
Post by: Robsoie on December 30, 2013, 06:08:23 pm
Then when i rolled an archimage with the intent to play it more seriously, i struggled for a long while before getting anything worthwile.
That's usually how i get a win, when i roll a character and he gets some amazing item , not just good artifacts, i know that's going to be a potential winner, or i get horrible weaks things for 10 levels worth of battles... characters that usually lose half my lives before reaching level 20 and die somewhere in Dreadfell or in the Prides like 90% of my other characters will do.
Post by: Graven on December 30, 2013, 06:14:45 pm
For the first time ever, I got the alternate Daikara, which was pretty awesome to watch, if a bit laptop-melting.
However, when the last level came, there was that event with the cultists around monoliths. Since I didn't know what it was, and cultists=bad, I started killing them, when a teleport brought me right to the boss, and some more cultists, though still friendly.
"Oh dang!" thought I and hit another teleport, bringing me to one of the cleared corners... when I got an update on my "Into the Darkness" quest and a congratulation on killing the firebreathing dragon... which I had barely glimpsed when I landed right next to it and a cultist before wildly teleporting.
So I got the experience and the loot, all the monoliths are glowing, no more cultists are left alive and I'm not really sure wtf was supposed to happen.
Can someone explain what the normal course of this whole mess would be?
Post by: Robsoie on December 30, 2013, 06:22:09 pm
What happens in the regular monolith event when you run into it in a regular dungeon is that you kill a cultist, a timer appear , some dialogue, and then once the timer run out, big bad comes and you can get some very nice loot if you prevail.
But in the alternate Daikara, the pyroclastic shower can destroy the terrain ... and monolith +cultists can be goners too.
And the code of the event does not like that, not at all and will bug it.
Nothing you can do unfortunately the event is completely borked if it happens in alt-Daikara , all you can hope is that you'll meet the monolith event again in another less bugged dungeon, on my run i got it in the ancient elven ruins too and there it worked without problem
Post by: Darkmere on December 30, 2013, 06:25:48 pm
Can someone explain what the normal course of this whole mess would be?
I've only ever touched off the event once, months ago. Someone correct me but.... Once you clear the map, all the cultists turn hostile and die, powering up the monoliths they're standing next to. It summons the dark-haired demon lady with the fire crown, gag boobs, and hentai tentacles from that loading screen. It's a boss event, she drops the fire crown which is really solid for +% fire damage.
I *think* you're supposed to be able to kill a few cultists early and nerf the boss fight?
I also got that event in alt!Daikara, and I think what breaks it is a meteor crashing into and destroying a monolith, preventing the event from fully triggering. That's a wild guess on my part, though.
Ah, ninja'd with wisdom.
Post by: Frumple on December 30, 2013, 06:47:35 pm
Because at full strength, I'm utterly serious when I say that lady has a very, incredibly, good chance to one shot you. I've seen her get, iirc, something like 2-3k damage in one turn, with a lucky crit meteor shower, in a pre-east dungeon. They also blows up walls! Probably sets you on fire, too, I'uuno. Don't mess around with 'er.
Post by: Robsoie on December 30, 2013, 06:57:11 pm
Yes she's strong with her meteors but still nowhere near that Linaniil cheater at Angolwen, but at that point my character and his darkness shots with high crits, his surged minions, his forgery were simply stronger.
You can look at the stats of the loot i got from her (the Crown of Burning Pain that my character is wearing), i have no idea if she can drop some other loots of the same kind.
Post by: Graven on December 30, 2013, 06:59:13 pm
Currently level 28, clearing out Dreadfell. Arcane Blades are definitely amazing. I only wish they were a bit tougher, but all manner of explosions with every attack, one and two-shooting uniques left and right, and bright colourful effects and I'm so happy. The guy whose build I'm copying -> this one (http://te4.org/characters/47097/tome/5935c3dd-e7e8-45cb-a875-797a8a719826) -> has gotten both shield prodigies, but since he beat the game on Nightmare Roguelike with an AB, and I can barely get to the east, I'll assume he knows what he's doing and do the same.
After this I'm definitely playing an Oozemancer, though. I just want to be OP, and whoever designed the Oozemancer knows how to make a [ridiculously] powerful and yet still fun class, because Cursed is probably even more OP, but dear god don't get me started on Cursed. That or a Wyrmic, depending on whether I feel like melee. Hell, maybe even both!
Post by: Robsoie on December 30, 2013, 07:05:25 pm
Post by: Graven on December 30, 2013, 07:21:57 pm
Independent pets that just hang around and do their stuff I find great, for some reason - like the mercs in Diablo 2. I presume Summoner pets are like Oozemancer oozes in that you just plop them on the battlefield and they do their thing?
I think I'll still go for Oozemancer, though. I just loved the class the previous time I tried it. I hope it didn't get nerfed [much, at least] since the initial implementation? It was extremely powerful on release, but in roguelikes I don't necessarily endorse character balance that much. I find it's fine to have classes which are naturally easier than others, for newer players and for people who just want to have fun. And Tome 4 is a power fantasy with nearly all classes anyway, why bother :D
Post by: Robsoie on December 30, 2013, 07:30:24 pm
You still have to place them strategically, especially in the early game in which your early weak ritch flamespitter (the best early summon) will do wonders to save you if you place it correctly while you other summon will rush to the enemy.
Just remember if you go Summoners, that it's Cunning that allow you to summon more, up to Cunning 20 you'll be able to summon only 1 monster at a time, once you reach 20 , you'll get the ability to have a 2nd one , etc.. for each 10 more points, in the end you lead a nice pack.
And be sure to get the Grand Arrival skill as soon as you'll be able to get it (need to unlock a tree for it), it really change the game for your summons and make them really fearsome
Post by: Darkmere on December 30, 2013, 07:49:40 pm
*sigh* Maybe it's time to try dreamforge solipsist again, since apparently antimagic is the only thing in this game worth a tin shit as far as I can tell.
Post by: BishopX on December 30, 2013, 11:43:21 pm
Post by: Graven on December 31, 2013, 09:02:16 pm
Beat the crap out of the master, 3 shotted him each time, then went into the Dark Crypt and lost all of my lives. All of them. Except I guess one? Something like that. I guess I still need incredibly overpowered regen infusions to do anything in this game.
Gonna cheat-unlock myself oozemancer again [never did manage to unlock it normally] because that was insane. Lesson learned - ignore everything else when going into the crypt except for resistances. God damn elven shitmancers. I keep wasting so much time dying in the crypt I should long since know better.
edit : Started my Oozemancer, swept through the trollmire, already feeling so good. I will rain acidic vengeance upon the Dark Crypt oh yes my precious filthy elvesesses
Post by: Frumple on December 31, 2013, 09:47:08 pm
Really, the general trick to the Dark Crypt is mobility and murder. Kill the right thing(s), get out of the way, repeat until everything's dead. Double-rush and a movement infusion and that thing's cake, if you can't instapop everything in sight without moving*, like most of the major ranged classes can.
... nice chunk of blight resistance definitely lets you be a lot more careless in there, though. Along with the other major damage sources in that joint. I'd recommend it, but it's not strictly necessary.
*Slight hyperbole. Usually by that point they can only erase one or two things in there every turn or so, unless they're something like the alchemists (Dohohoho BOMB entire room dead). Just make sure to splat the right things.
E: Ahaha. Yeah, felt like rolling up an Oozemancer (protip: Slime spit alone wrecks each and every first tier dungeon. All the other talents are just cake until T2 stuff). First rare encountered? Shivgoroth. Killed it with one shot of slime spit bounced off some J or another (like it matters, they're all the same~. Except the pale-ish green one. Those are anacondas and actually dangerous.). It dropped! Mucustouch. The steel waraxe which is kinda' useless but still! Thematic serendipity! It amused me!
Post by: Darkmere on December 31, 2013, 11:00:44 pm
... Damn, it's fun. I can't wait for Dreadfell. Everything so far has just died to my walking shooting stabbing manathrusting bonewall... though the idea of a minionless necro intrigues me, I won't be trying it this run.
Lich sounds like something that's only really viable after you return from the east yeah? Unless you want to rush it really early and go for a hardmode start or something?
Post by: Frumple on December 31, 2013, 11:05:35 pm
Minionless necro works fine, iirc. Even without the distractions they're freaking brutal casters, and viciously hard to kill once that vampire thingy gets rolling. Plenty of AoE, plenty of damage, one decently tanky for a caster. They're solid.
Post by: Darkmere on December 31, 2013, 11:49:02 pm
Lich is basically an extra life, and should mostly be treated as nothing else, generally. Least the last time I paid attention to necros. It's a heavy investment to be useful and cuts off infusions, so... Almost definitely not worth the cat point you need to get the highest end stuff, though, for what that's worth.
Well, looking at it now it's 1.3 mastery by default, so you get rank 6 for 5 points. Using it gets you:
-Poison, cut, fear immunity
-50% disease and stun resistance
-20% cold and dark resistance
-No breathing (ehhh)
-No infusions (but with targeted phase door and the new animus tree... who cares)
-+6 Mag, Wil, Cun (6 levels of stats...)
-+15 spell/mental save
-+15% to all resistance CAPS... so potentially 85% resists
-Celestial/Starfury at 1.1 mastery (the anorithil shadow damage tree)
-1.0 dark energy/turn to fuel the above
It sounds... ridiculous... on paper, at least. You'd have to put 2 points in for the free life anyway (to not take some pentalties for "meager devotion") and 3 more for those bonuses sounds like a bargain. I just saw looking it up though, sounds like you need the Last Hope cemetery clear and to kill the master, so you can't rush it. Sticking to Animus husks and going for it may be something to try on my next char.
Post by: Robsoie on January 01, 2014, 04:21:23 am
For the lichform, it's funny to notice i had a much harder time with a Cornac that went lichform (he died at lv44) than using a Ghoul from the start, that by nature was unable to go lich (and still won the game nicely).
Maybe it had to do with my character being very used up to then in those regen and wild infusion to get out of some difficult situations, and the lichform removing them suddenly and definitively, while when playing with a ghoul i was already used at that point in using something else to get out of health trouble.
But in the same time when i had a lich character, the animus tree wasn't existing, so that was already a healing method that was unavailable.
All in all necromancers are very fun to play, but in ToME4 like in every other RL i always find classes that comes with allies and minions more fun anyways.
Post by: Darkmere on January 01, 2014, 09:55:33 am
Carefull with the husks, i read a few bug reports about them breaking various quest completions, probably very unsafe for that reason to use on a boss or a local dungeon boss (farportal , arena) in the current version, better wait for the next.
-snip-
All in all necromancers are very fun to play, but in ToME4 like in every other RL i always find classes that comes with allies and minions more fun anyways.
Thanks for the warning, I'll stick with standard bonewalls for now.
I like the necro much better than the summoner, too. Summoner's minions always felt... super-cheap and disposable, like after a while I was just tossing out flame dragon of doom.... then whatever else I had off cooldown. Necro summons seem more robust and a bit more interesting, since they can actually stick with you a bit longer. Related... the buffs to Through the Crowd are quite interesting since the last time I played, though I still don't know if I'd actually take it.
Post by: Robsoie on January 01, 2014, 10:49:28 am
But i managed to get it to level 20 without dying, and then accidentally i ran (pressed the wrong button as i had no intention to do so) into a Zigur patrol that showed why Oozemancers even when not under players' hands are really powerfull.
I moved to a group of trees to avoid the line of sight of a nasty looking zigurian, while my golem was going to it, and after that move that put me in safety ... Eidolon is loading.
Looking at the log i saw what happens, on the turn i moved, the guy threw some nasty acid thing that dealt 200 damage to my character (hilarious that i took out a +16% acid res helm to put Garkul's one to benefit from a strength increase in order to put something my yeek was too weak to carry) .
And then, one of his slime that just spawned shot me for more than 200 damage.
Getting over my poor yeek health (and i put lots of points in constitution but Yeek have never enough anyways).
And that at level 20 , i dread to think what those npc Oozemancers can do when in higher level.
Post by: Graven on January 01, 2014, 01:51:25 pm
My fight against the Sandworm Queen was the absolute nadir, I only survived because I had a cloak that allowed me to die at -50 HP. I was below 0 three or four times, and the last encounter consisted of me being constantly blinded, throwing all my CC and damage at the place where I suspected the Queen was since my teleport was on cooldown, and my vision was range 2, which is hilarious when you think about it and horrifying when you are playing. I haven't died by some miracle, but I'm about to face the Minotaur, and I still can't find a source of removing mental effects.
The oozemancer just oozes his way through hordes of various enemies along with his merry oozes, while being constantly healed by two auto-use regen infusions.
I'm not calling for a nerf on the oozemancer, heavens forbid, I like that there are classes which are easier than others since sometimes you just want to blast stuff. I just wish the Archmage had a bit more high-range stuff. Fireflash is such a bad spell, damn.
Post by: Graven on January 01, 2014, 03:11:44 pm
It would still be either a matter of excluding certain oozemancer talents, or possibly just limiting the maximum level of Oozemancer talents on the Adventurer to, say, level 3, if you wanted to balance oozemancer rares.
But yes, some rares are so much more powerful than others, running into the wrong type can absolutely crush your character.
Post by: Robsoie on January 01, 2014, 04:04:34 pm
Died 2 times in a row against a "bringer of chaos" that is absolutely nothing special for a bringer of chaos (i got much stronger one in previous games), and why i decided to give another go at it (as in i'm 100% certain i would have killed it easily with ... any other character) but due to the very low health of that poor yeek is able to kill him before his own health goes to 0
Looks like out of my Yeek Summoner that won (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/0e20c89d-a976-4675-9c30-ace51bf28a5e) some times ago (my only yeek winner), i have yet managed to find any yeek for me able to survive when the game start to spawn semi strong enemies instead of the usual chaff (that he had no problem with, the golem doing a great job, even better than the bombs)
Too bad, it's so great to level up that quickly but the cost is really heavy on the health for most combo.
Though i guess Oozemancer could go well too, as they're even stronger than Summoners
It reminds me my attempt at a Yeek Berserker, oh the hilarity in being 2 hit killed by the very first monster i rushed :D
Post by: Frumple on January 01, 2014, 04:35:42 pm
Actually IIRC all rares and possibly uniques, are generated as Adventurers.Nope. What happens is that they can get more than one classes. I think rares and actual adventurers/ziguranthi only get one, but stuff like farportal bosses (orange critters in general) can get more than one. Almost always two, but I think it may be incredibly rarely possible to get three. That's all there is to it. Which classes they end up with is completely random, barring stuff that's been actively disallowed.
Post by: Robsoie on January 01, 2014, 05:26:11 pm
Though there were many near death situation (thanks for the life tap skill that allowed me out of despair and out of other healing to get a few health from my golem).
Oh and i have a cat too, got it from some random event on the worldmap while moving toward Daikara.
(http://i.imgur.com/xLSucIX.jpg)
Too bad there's no interaction with the cat or between Melinda, the cat and the servant, could have been funny.
Post by: Frumple on January 01, 2014, 05:43:48 pm
Incidentally, yes, despite having played T4 since single digit betas, that is the first time I've seen the servant's icon. Now excuse me while I ass-ski down a mountain backwaaaards.
Post by: Robsoie on January 01, 2014, 06:13:17 pm
Post by: Darkmere on January 01, 2014, 07:53:04 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 01, 2014, 10:35:14 pm
Post by: woosholay on January 02, 2014, 08:07:30 am
200 dmg mind sear and 3 (!) hits for 70~ each at 13 lvl, wat.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on January 02, 2014, 08:16:18 am
That includes some rares
Post by: woosholay on January 02, 2014, 09:37:17 am
Post by: Frumple on January 02, 2014, 10:25:16 am
Though that does sound like you might have gone deeper than you should have. Weakest thing I can think of that might be doing that kind and sort of damage would be a dream horror and if you ran into one of those at 13, well... you were taking risks, and it bit you. Unless you mean the critter was level 13, in which case it does sound like something odd was going on.
Post by: Robsoie on January 02, 2014, 12:43:57 pm
Sometime there's indeed nothing much you can do, hitting autoexplore, and your character moving automatically in a corner and you get shot before you can manually do anything, and when this shot disable all your escape options, the yasd potential increase then a very lot.
I would really completely hate playing ToME4 in roguelike mode, at least the adventure mode and the lives you gain through leveling are helping to lower the amount of frustration generated by those unavoidable death.
And still in adventure mode you will get many death anyways on normal difficulty, in nightmare and more it must be hilarious :D
Post by: Robsoie on January 02, 2014, 01:35:26 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 02, 2014, 02:00:54 pm
Post by: Darkmere on January 02, 2014, 02:44:30 pm
Do you guys do farportals religiously? Early game or late? Is it worth the risks?
Post by: Robsoie on January 02, 2014, 02:53:07 pm
But out of to help getting a level, i usually avoid Farportal , until i completed the game in which case it can be fun (and good to get some achievements and secret lore related to what you can find there)
Post by: Frumple on January 02, 2014, 03:34:32 pm
But again, farportals are a risk. Everything that can bite you in the hindquarters with normal dungeons can do so in the farportal twice over. Those bosses are not limited in chassis and always have at least two classes, which is to say you're rolling the RNG that it's not going to generate something like a dream horror oozemancer/something equally vicious. At least the reaver/AB loop got closed, but there's still plenty of combos that can just about flat delete you.
Though things are a lot nicer nowadays. We're no longer at the stage that "immobile" jellies will chase you across the map (with a 0 cd dimension step, ferex) and grind you into paste. Improvement!
All in all, though, I'd recommend doing a lot of them before settling in to a standard farportal usage pattern. Find one's own comfort zone, et al.
Post by: Robsoie on January 02, 2014, 07:28:30 pm
The experience bonus is really felt too (and it helped a lot for improving my bombs and golem powers earlier than usual), so much that after doing all the optional dungeons and the armory+briargh ones my yeek coming back from the east is level 41 already !
I'm still not really confident in his survivability despite i got nice constitution going, as Yeeks still show their lower health, i got so many time at 100 health left after a battle despite healing, resistances and etc... it will still prove hard to overcome what's ahead, hopefully once i get enough +5 all stats gem, with the crafty hands prodigy i should then be able to get 15 more constitution, though for a Yeek it does not give much health, but it's still something that will be helpfull (as it will give +15 to all other stats).
And i really like my acid bombs, when used is confined space, against enemies that do not have specific acid resistance and it crits
(http://i.imgur.com/tExQNvO.jpg)
I wish it would do that much damage everytime :D but those were special favorable conditions.
Post by: Robsoie on January 03, 2014, 07:09:39 am
And after bombing them and my golem deathray-ing them into oblivion, the unlock appeared !
(http://i.imgur.com/4310Ybi.jpg)
... donators only. Damn.
oh well, at least my golem can still death ray superdemons for the kicks.
(http://i.imgur.com/IuaO5vu.jpg)
:D
Post by: Robsoie on January 03, 2014, 05:30:27 pm
Managing to get my spell crits to more than 90% with several +crits items (and using some gems to imbue
to get even more +crits) helped a very lot in generating some really great damage , and the meteor prodigy that trigger on criticals (though 15 turns cooldown) was really awesome.
To add more fun the Fiery Chocker, that has 10% of chance to cast Volcano was brillant.
It was fun until that end, but what wasn't fun at all and in fact it's terrible design for yeek characters is what follow that Sanctum battle.
In the past i won with a Yeek Summoner , my only winner yeek so far (thanks to how strong summoner are, it helped get around the weak yeek health) and faced with the 2 choices, i decided to enslave the world for "the way" by having the character dying for it, problem is that then you can't play anymore, no farportal, no unfinished buisness.
But that was only 1 of the 2 choices for a winner yeek, so that was ok to get that end as you're basically warned by the choice that does not hide that you're going to die.
What is not ok is the other choice i decided to make, as i have some more fun to do with that character in post-endgame, basically the choice is that you refuse to enslave the world for "the way".
But "the way" still wants to force you do so, and because that silly evil thing is stronger than you apparently, the only thing you can do is asking that sun paladin, that fought on your side in the sanctum, to kill you, something she does gladly.
(http://i.imgur.com/1YFcj1J.jpg)
Yeah, so whatever the choice you do in the climatic battle outcome, your character is dead, you will not be able then to benefit from all the nice items he gathered in High Peak and in the Sanctum to make some fun farportal, or to try to defeat the overpowered Atamathon or even try to destroy that bullcheater of Linanill in Angolwen, or even get another superitem from the merchant that end being a weak one just for the laugh.
So yeek are character that have it really hard, and in the end they're the only character that prevent you to play post-endgame ? i'm sorry, but that was really stupid,
Post by: Graven on January 03, 2014, 06:25:58 pm
In other news, my Archmage is just about to fight the Master. Damn was exploring Dreadfell scary. My damage was horrible until I got 5/5 Wildfire and afterwards dared to bump my fire AOE spells a bit. Still died twice, but that's somewhat par for the course. Haven't explored the Dark Crypt, so of course everything can still come crashing down, but at least I can clear those undead rooms in Dreadfell with great satisfaction.
I also got the Light tree from an escort, so I have two shields to juggle, which also helps. God help me if anything gets to stay in melee range, though. Archmages are squishy. I also hate the whole "check every corner with Arcane Eye for monsters" since I find it a really bad design choice, so I don't do it unless I'm sure there is something scary behind the next door, or in areas with nasty stuff. If I were a bit more diligent with it, perhaps I wouldn't have died the second time [and the first was to the Chronotwins, and I find going there less and less worthwhile with every next character].
Here's to hopefully making it to the East with an Archmage!
edit : HOOOLY BALLS I just got the "That was close" achievement. You know, the one for killing an enemy with only 1 hp remaining. Problem is, I still have a cloak that lets me die at -50 so god damn. It was a Dreadlord or whatever those ugly invisible things that summon lesser ugly invisible things. I forgot that they can turn your sustains off, and smashed him with a Fireflash at point blank range.
I also didn't even kill the ambush. I had just equipped a new staff, so no +20% fire damage, my sustains were still turned off so I wasted 3 turns turning them on, and my teleport didn't bring me in a decent position to Stone Wall myself. So embarassing.
Post by: Robsoie on January 03, 2014, 07:07:23 pm
I wonder if the penalty to damage that apply to players turning invisible is not forgotten to be applied to those monsters, they hit incredibly hard while being invisible and for classes that do not have any high damage aoe spells , they're a big challenge increased by their numbers (when a Dreadmaster is around).
Post by: Frumple on January 03, 2014, 08:47:09 pm
Post by: Graven on January 04, 2014, 06:57:12 am
Dear Diary, today I died 3 times in the Dark Crypt. Because I am bad at pattern recognition. Even when the pattern is "Those 4 level 45 elite elven guards deleted you in one turn in melee. Resurrect and go stand next to them again Y/N?"
I also got to the east, but I only have one life remaining, and I don't really feel that comfortable with my character. Finally I do decent damage, since I found a randart staff with +36% fire damage, and with Wildfire and such I can at least clear stuff pretty fast. Single target damage is bad, prodigies are bad - went for Unbreakable Will, since I had nothing else worth going for.
If I die in the Vor Armoury I'll probably give up on this character, since I'm sort of tired of losing so much time to only die 4/5ths of the game completed.
At least I'm sort of starting to realise some of the mistakes I'm making and kind of try to avoid them in future situations.
Playing a mage in DCSS is still a lot more fun [except for Paradox Mage, that shit's wack]. I guess it's mostly because the spells feel more impactful and there aren't stupid LoS shenanigans, and a turn doesn't take 5 seconds and I don't have to constantly monitor 7 sustains.
Post by: Robsoie on January 04, 2014, 08:35:17 am
Post by: Darkmere on January 04, 2014, 02:25:24 pm
I took a few stupid deaths on my necromancer, one from impatience, one or two from baiting the combat log (trying to figure out specifically what was hitting me so hard) and one from ignorance of game mechanics (you can use Celia's heart for a soul. You can spend mana if you have none, but it nukes all your sustains... and oh yeah this isn't an equilibrium class, derp). I've still got 4 lives left and a blood of life, so I think I have a good shot at getting to high peak if I quit being a dumbass. Overall it's been a good experience, the minion buffer helps me just enough to realize what mistakes I'm making without them being depressingly fatal, so I have high hopes for my next character getting to the east, and me getting back to my old skill level. Good times. 10/10, would enslave souls again.
Post by: Robsoie on January 04, 2014, 03:41:53 pm
Very usefull in some battles on already cleared levels.
Post by: Graven on January 04, 2014, 05:26:55 pm
My archmage is currently at 190% crit multiplier, +71% fire penetration and +98% fire damage, and I could improve half my gear.
I also have about 3-4K shielding available to me at any given moment. Let's see if this is enough for a win to happen.
Post by: Robsoie on January 04, 2014, 05:49:09 pm
It's often that i have a whole character running through the game and finding at max 1 or two items with a miserable 5% arcane res or 10% physical res, but no more, while all the other resistances i find tons of them
Post by: Frumple on January 04, 2014, 06:23:26 pm
So apparently there are some pretty wicked +fire damage artefacts out there.Fairly sure I've seen a few folks breach 150% +dam for fire, maybe 200%. It gets a little crazy. Think it's also one of, like, three elements you can conceptually get 100+% penetration on (along with physical and cold... maybe others, it's been a while since I crunched the numbers). Incidentally, one of DG's favorite class builds over the versions have been fire archmagi >_>
My archmage is currently at 190% crit multiplier, +71% fire penetration and +98% fire damage, and I could improve half my gear.
And yeah Robs, arcane and physical are specifically supposed to be hard to get a hold of in any meaningful quantity. Arcane's whole shtick is being hard to resist, really, and high phys resistance trivializes way, way too much of the game. So they're both pretty rare, comparatively. It's still pretty easy to rack up a good 20-30+% physres, though, especially if you get the right items. TK Core, Harky's gloves... throw in some mountain rings (they... still have those, right?) and you're doing pretty good. Might even kick up a jug shield for an extra non-passive source.
Post by: Robsoie on January 04, 2014, 08:50:10 pm
Post by: Graven on January 05, 2014, 04:59:48 am
This handsome fellow (http://te4.org/characters/15454/tome/798ca539-8b02-484b-8a5a-bde74b8dc2f5) was probably my easiest actual win, since the poor bosses couldn't take down even one of my shields.
I didn't close any portals, or do anything much really, except for spam spells and try not to hit poor Aeryn too much [she survived in the end!].
Actually, nothing after level 40 posed any threat to me at all. Apparently after a horrifying early and mid-game, Archmages become Death Stars, only there aren't any goblin pilots lead by the Force to penetrate the shields. The actual turning point for me was levelling that 50% global speed sustain. It nuked my mana to sub-200 at first, but it was so totally worth it - this basically meant I got first strike in nearly every single fight, and the ones I didn't - against paradox mages - the morons sent me out of time and wasted all their cooldowns while I was invulnerable. Every fight against a caster was basically autoexplore -> AOE stun -> nuke. In the end I was hitting for about 600 in melee too, so I could spice things up a bit.
The most horrifying fight in the entire game was against the boss in the Charred Scar, who has the Wildfire tree and I didn't have the fire damage penetration then. I had to backpedal nearly a third of the way, running, entombing myself, and running again. I took only 100 turns on the counter to get to the boss [I specifically got a movement infusion for that fight, since I was scared I wouldn't make it], and probably half an hour fighting him. It was really the peak of my experience with this character, honestly, and quite a memorable fight.
It was pretty fun, but it took way too long to get going and I only got to feel powerful in the most boring part of the game. I'll probably get one more win in and close Tome4 up for a while, since it is pretty repetitive, all in all, and the end-game is really the worst part of the game.
Wonder if Cursed are still as god-awfully boring as I remember them? Or I might get a non-antimagic berserker and go for Irresistible Fun. I do have that one Oozemancer, but I'm not having that much fun, since he's way too powerful already, and things probably won't get harder.
Post by: Robsoie on January 05, 2014, 05:09:31 pm
Despite the experience penalty, i took a Thalore to help with the summon treants from their racial tree
I decided from the start to make that character a pure Tempest, only getting manathrust to add to my firepower in case the enemy was 100% lightning protected.
During the whole early game it wasn't easy as the archimage was a bit squishy, but it was still doable with the more and more powerfull lightning spells (as i was slowly maxing them)
Then roughly between the end of the tier 2 dungeons up to Dreadfell start it was insanely hard, i lost several lives, the lack of levels (Thalore feel like playing with Skeletons on that slow leveling) was really felt but the problem was actually something else entirely :
At some point of my tier 2 dungeon clearing, i found the Staff of Destruction, it was great at that point of the game as it added +15% spell crits, lots of spellpower, and it haf 10% of launching Impending Doom (though only level 1 unfortunately) on the enemy at spell hits.
I had never used it before because by the time i found it earlier, everytime i had something better already, but not this time so i equiped it.
And then the game became insanely hard. I was wondering at some point how it was possible for my character to lose so much health during the fights, and barely getting any despite the many healing (arcane healing spell, regen, healing light from escort)
And looking at the logs i understood why it was that insanely hard.
It looks like the random generation on the enemy in that run seems to put some reflection shield to at least 1 out of 5 monsters ... leading basically 20% of my battles ending with my character affected by my own Impending Doom !
Once i switched to something else after discovering that, the battles became much more reasonnable.
I'm now in the East, my Tempest is now really starting to feel powerfull as he has several important lightning and storm skill maxed (there's a great synergy between some sustains of those trees and their skills), lots of his lightning spell can now daze and trigger the hurricane effect, he has high lightning penetration (so those pesky 100% res monsters can still get their bottom handed to them) and as i just hit level 30 i decided to choose the Meteor prodigy to add some more overkill damage :)
Post by: Darkmere on January 06, 2014, 12:50:57 am
Post by: Robsoie on January 06, 2014, 07:24:54 am
Have you gone back to the west and defeated every backup guardians (http://te4.org/wiki/Backup_Guardians) (should get a level from them) ?
From slime tunnels 4 powefull bosses maybe you can get a level
Post by: Seriyu on January 06, 2014, 09:38:59 am
I know there's some kicking around near the thaloren starting zone, but I forget if they ever mentioned if both the zones were part of the same problem or what.
Post by: Darkmere on January 06, 2014, 10:04:12 am
Have you done all the optional dungeons in the east ? (orc mother slave camp, the underwater temple of creation, the shadow crypt with the boss that clone you, should get you 3 levels )
Have you gone back to the west and defeated every backup guardians (http://te4.org/wiki/Backup_Guardians) (should get a level from them) ?
From slime tunnels 4 powefull bosses maybe you can get a level
Done all the backups but Aluin who killed me twice so I left him alone. Done all the camps but had to recall out of the shadow crypt when there were two clones of me (bugged, I guess. I don't have forgery of haze, there were literally 2 clones. never seen that before) and i couldn't do meaningful damage. I will say a couple pieces of my gear are crap and I'm fairly close to another randart, so I may grind some farportals for XP and gold, at least to 43, and then see how Slime Tunnels go.
Re: Deep Bellow/Scintillating caves
If I'm understanding the lore right, Scintillating Caves is blight-infested, and blight is sort of a "magical overload cancer" that's kind of a remnant from the spellblaze. Too much raw magic manifested in the world like a disease, so corruptors and reavers who wield raw magical power end up casting plagues and causing sickness.
Deep Bellow is more of a "Eldritch horror out of time" in lovecraft style, where they dug too greedily and too deep, then woke up some cosmic abomination. I think.
Post by: Seriyu on January 06, 2014, 10:33:07 am
Post by: Darkmere on January 06, 2014, 10:39:18 am
Oh when I said thaloren I meant the "physical" elf, rather then the magical. Can never keep them straight. Is the gloom a part of the blight then, or is that something else/hasn't been spelled out?
... Nope you were right, with Thalore, I just can't read. Disregard the Caves thing. I actually have NO idea what causes the gloom/cursed stuff other than "you're cursed!" because... well my cornac Cursed didn't make it very far. There's lore stuff about Doomed/Cursed being fueled by hatred or something, other than that, no idea. :(
Post by: Robsoie on January 06, 2014, 10:42:01 am
So it's possible that it's not some random cosmic abomination but the dwarves dug so deep that they may have started to awaken a part of the imprisonned Amakthel that was cast down there by his own creations, the greedy Sher'thuls .
Post by: nenjin on January 06, 2014, 11:43:02 am
I figure games like DCSS and ToME have found their mechanical niches, and players are highly protective of that. What makes DCSS and ToME what they are, is in large part their philosophies of game design. DCSS prefers grueling challenges, starvation, linearity...whereas ToME is much more easy going. "Gamier" to me, if that's even the right term to use.
So yeah. Fans aggressively defend the corner of gaming their chosen roguelike has staked out, and often overreact to suggestions that it could change.
Post by: Darkmere on January 06, 2014, 12:07:19 pm
I wouldn't take it personally, there's always this thread to hang out in, yeah?
Post by: Robsoie on January 06, 2014, 12:54:45 pm
My only experience of the ToME4 community is from the ToME4 boards and there on a heavy majority they're helpfull and friendly.
Now the ToME4 online chat, like everything similar gaming chat i simply ignore it (with time i learned that it was better for my poor old blood pressure to simply ignore those specific "gaming chats" :D ) so i have no idea if that's the same community that is on it, but if you have bad experience with that online chat community, i simply recommend to avoid it and focus on things you'll enjoy much more.
It's simply not worth wasting your time in something that is bothering and annoying you in my opinion.
Now back on the game, i am trying a character in the Nightmare difficulty, because in theory it's even more difficult i decided to help myself with another Oozemancer :D.
My first observation is that stronger enemies from Nightmare means more experience gained.
I'm running a dwarf oozemancer and i have not yet started the tier 2 dungeons but i'm already level 16 !
Though i imagine with something else than an oozemancer it may be more difficult to survive there, but if Normal mode is boring to you, give the Nightmare mode a try, moving faster in level helps to keep yourself interested (assuming you survive the stronger enemies of course)
Post by: Darkmere on January 06, 2014, 02:25:15 pm
It might be different if I could turn off the achievement/death spam, but that part's started to grow on me after a while. *shrug*
*** Actual game talk here ***
So this is probably the worst run for gear I've ever had. My necro cleared all the vaults and stuff no problem, but I haven't found much of anything in the way of upgrades since Vor armory. My first prodigy was Crafty Hands, and at slime tunnels I still only have Tier 3 hat and belt. Merchant randart gloves came out as rogue/shadowblade, so they're barely useful. Still at 650 fortress energy for farportals.... which gave my necro a 2H axe, shield, dagger, somewhat useful hat. It's the longest string of utterly useless junk I've ever gotten. I'm seriously considering putting my next generic into armor training to replace my spellblaze shard with the shield, just because it has +will and isn't tier 1 (or 2, whatever the shard is).
Post by: Robsoie on January 06, 2014, 04:28:19 pm
Looks like it's something hardcoded into roguelikes :D
Reached level 25 with my dwarf oozemancer just after completing daikara, and i have yet to go to Urkis , the temporal rift, spellblaze and the elven ruins (and graveyard, but i usually keep it for when i come back from east).
Nightmare difficulty really deliver more XP with the stronger monsters in there.
But i think i forbidden to myself my own fortress for a long while, after getting enough energy for the farportal room to unlock, i got the surprise to see that the enemy generatef in the room was a Worm that Walk .
On their own they're already very powerfull, but Oozemancers usually can deal with them fortunately.
Except that this one is really overpowered with additional Temporal skills (that i am not used to, never playing temporal classes) on top of the usual Worm that Walk (over)powers.
But what makes it impossible to beat is that my best weapon, the bloated ooze summoning does not work as it should, what makes the skill so precious is that it summon a few bloated oozes (3 at that point of the game for my character) and they use a rush ability to run toward the enemies they see (and they distract them enough so you can retreat or deal additional damage.
And in that case, once the bloated oozes appear, they ... ignore the Worm that Walk , meaning for unknown reason they don't rush toward him (if they did as they should i could stand a chance), and the Worm that Walk ignore them and still focus fire on me.
I lost a life despite all the healing skills because he was continuously paralyse me, as soon as i was out, *bam* another spell pinning me.
Eidolon does not give the option to spawn out of danger when it is the fortress for some reason, so i respawned in front of the Worm that Walk, but this time he only paralysed me once, so i finally managed to escape on a small hundred of health left.
While the thing has insanely more than 2500 health (huge at that point of the game, maybe it's related to the Nightmare difficulty)
I guess i'll need at least 10 more levels to be able to get back into my Fortress and destroy that overpowered beast.
Post by: Graven on January 06, 2014, 05:53:21 pm
After 4 really stupid deaths on my Berserker [hey kids, don't open vaults in Dreadfell if your status resistances are barely existant!], I finally got to 30 and having used a really shitty Blazebringer axe for quite a while, I got Irresistible Sun.
Just tried it a couple of times in Reknor, since I have to go to sleep, but it seems great. Also it appears it's not a spell, since my Antimagic Greathammer hasn't yet prevented its use like it does with my rune of Teleportation, but that might be just luck. I'm planning on grabing Giant Leap for maximum shenanigans. It would probably be wise to go for something a bit more defensive but screw that noise, am I a berserker or a big pussy cat.
Also it appears they changed the Melinda, lucky girl quest? The first time I saved her I assumed this was a deliberate change and chose the "WHY DON'T WOMEN LOVE ME I'M A NICE GUY" option and laughed and laughed and DarkGod definitely deserved my respect for making that the only option - or so I thought.
But now I chose the second option, and I was on a beach, and divers appeared, and Melinda started to glow, and then I assume the stupid retard drowned because she suddenly keeled over and my quest was over, despite the glow apparently killing the divers, and I'm really confused. What in the balls? Anyone?
Also while this is extremely petty, why doesn't anyone acknowledge my first ever non-antimagic win waaaah
Post by: Robsoie on January 06, 2014, 06:09:08 pm
I don't even want to think about Insane (though i have not unlocked it as it required winning in Nightmare and that seems rather hard)
So far, out of a stupid death in an early dungeon, and the unavoidable death from the temporal powered Worm that Walk, i'm surprised the Oozemancer is doing that fine, but the key is to never be in melee, and the bloated ooze summons are perfect for that as they get the focus of the enemies, allowing you to get out of melee range as soon as possible to escape certain death.
That oozemancer even completed the dark crypt and saved Melinda ! something i would have never thought possible for me in Nightmare, but that's Oozemancer there, they make the impossible possible with some ooze :D
For the Melinda quest, i got it a few time, Melinda delivered her insane damage and we all got back without her dying, despite she always followed me when i was fetching all the lot left behind by her victims, maybe there's a bug you ran into there.
Oh and well done for the win ;)
Post by: Robsoie on January 06, 2014, 07:24:21 pm
What the Worm that Walks ignored is that my character, since his horrible defeat, completed all the alchemist quests, got some really good gear and unlocked the Fungus branch from completing the Urkis quest.
And thanks to the many skills and talents points he got, my character had the mean to fight back and with some very good damage penetration (from the unlocked oozing and corrosive blade trees) on that damned thing 100% acid resistance and bits of nature one.
After entering from the portal, Stragon (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/4ef6181a-aae7-4bc1-b5da-8ae71f22f2a3) was ready
(http://i.imgur.com/sXkUeAzs.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/sXkUeAz.jpg)
and stupidly remembered he forgot to wear some temporal res items, due to the Worm that Walk having some temporal powers, very bad, and Elolaith, the Worm that Walks, was ready on his side too
(http://i.imgur.com/baYDNZts.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/baYDNZt.jpg)
forgot the temporal res, stupid , stupid , stupid ... unless
(http://i.imgur.com/AuY1Xz1.jpg)
He he, not so easy to use your spells now with my powerfull antimagic Silence :)
But battle was still not won.
Enduring the raw power of the Worm that Walks, my brave mucus oozes and bloated ones, supported by a rain of acid and slime beams and spits from my character tearing hole into the damned thing resistance fought as bravely as some ooze can do.
Meanwhile my fungus regeneration was doing a splendid job at keeping me alive and well.
And finally proving again that Oozes can do everything, we prevailed and the terrible otherworldy beast fell
(http://i.imgur.com/0Hxig14.jpg)
No need to say that i assigned the cleaning of my fortress to the servant, that's his job after all.
Post by: Seriyu on January 06, 2014, 08:09:56 pm
In the Deep Below, the Mouth cast regularly "Call of Amakthel"
So it's possible that it's not some random cosmic abomination but the dwarves dug so deep that they may have started to awaken a part of the imprisonned Amakthel that was cast down there by his own creations, the greedy Sher'thuls .
Interesting! I really need to get around to playing this again.
Oh when I said thaloren I meant the "physical" elf, rather then the magical. Can never keep them straight. Is the gloom a part of the blight then, or is that something else/hasn't been spelled out?
... Nope you were right, with Thalore, I just can't read. Disregard the Caves thing. I actually have NO idea what causes the gloom/cursed stuff other than "you're cursed!" because... well my cornac Cursed didn't make it very far. There's lore stuff about Doomed/Cursed being fueled by hatred or something, other than that, no idea. :(
I had actually forgotten the similarity between the gloom and the cursed classes! Curious.
Post by: Frumple on January 06, 2014, 09:21:55 pm
In the Deep Below, the Mouth cast regularly "Call of Amakthel"Yeah, I don't know if it's been specifically mentioned in game, but I've heard DG state that the stuff in the Deep Bellow is specifically because the dwarves managed to dig deep enough to start disturbing
So it's possible that it's not some random cosmic abomination but the dwarves dug so deep that they may have started to awaken a part of the imprisonned Amakthel that was cast down there by his own creations, the greedy Sher'thuls .
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on January 06, 2014, 09:35:43 pm
http://te4.org/game-statistics
I wouldn't have thought that the losgoroths had killed so many characters.
And even more odd, there is 1 character that actually completed the game in the Madness difficulty and Roguelike gamemode (so only 1 life) ?
http://te4.org/game-statistics/achievement/madness_win_full
(edit : link (http://te4.org/characters/8874/tome/5af14d06-a228-4f00-a13e-1d788b4af862) to the character)
I wish there were some replay files, as i'm really curious how it is even possible.
Post by: Frumple on January 06, 2014, 09:50:04 pm
Being fair, unstoppable really is incredibly good. So I wouldn't entirely discount it.
E: Oh, and, of course, Track. Every day, all the time.
E2: Woah, the radius on that Track is glorious. I knew it got silly with high scaling, but radius of 56 at 90 cunning? Wow. But yeah. Ten turns of absolute detection of everything and seven of ~can't-touch-this~ can go a long, long way.
Post by: Darkmere on January 07, 2014, 01:35:13 am
I also didn't get a single bonus dungeon. No bearscape, volcano, sludge nest. Nothing. I did find some serviceable gem-imbue items in high peak, barely in time. And of course, 3 minutes after I won, Poosh spawns.-snip-That's pretty terrible luck. Have you had any bonus zones, like Santascape, or particularly Bearscape? I've found Bearscape to be full of pink tier 5s (even when done at a low level), so as a last resort it might be worth waiting around until the event's next sent?
Oh by the way... I won! (http://te4.org/characters/31725/tome/1ffb934e-b872-412d-a6e0-10d2802edf63) First necro, first Shalore, fourth win ever. 3 or 4 of those deaths were me being stupid intentionally trying to work out mechanics before I realized she might actually make a bosskill attempt, and a couple more were things that changed since I last played that caught me off-guard. Still, a win's a win, and *high-fives Graven* my second non-antimagic one. Now... to unlock paradox mage or marauder next... hmmm.
Re: The Melinda beach yaech invasion... Apparently on the date, there's 2 possible outcomes. yaech kill Melinda.... or a timer runs down and Melinda just dies. Either way she's supposed to release a blight nova on death and immediately resurrect. There's an odd bug that can rez her but not place her back on the map, but you can still talk to her in Last Hope. DarkGod says it's fixed now, but I don't know if that's live or in the SVN version. If you got the bug but can still talk to her in Last Hope, you might try finishing the quest normally by
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Graven on January 07, 2014, 02:20:11 pm
So on a non-related question, I remember hearing about Armour rogues. Since I tried a rogue and stealth was... not great, shall we say, does anyone have any idea how an armoured rogue would work? Is it even any good? My berserker is honestly about as fun as a Cursed, but not as strong - the actual amount of abilities I use is probably less, and thematically Cursed are berserkers, only hate-ier. I presume stealth gets better lategame, but I can't actually survive until lategame because elemental damage is a harsh mistress.
I also remember hearing about minionless necromancers, but I've more of an idea how that could go.
Post by: Robsoie on January 07, 2014, 02:35:45 pm
Still surprised my nightmare oozemancer character is still alive and reached level 47, but in the same time that's an oozemancer and now he's really powerfull (that he wasn't in early game in which i had much more problems), i'm sure they can even take on Insane anyways.
I just came back from Eruan.
I got probably the worst Eruan ever in term of performance, even with particle very low, all shaders disabled and the weather turned off, it was insanely slow despite there were only very few monsters there.
Maybe the 2 big closed vaults were responsible of those heavy slowdown, but whatever is crappy in there that's really an area that would need some optimisation in the code.
I annihilated the necromancer pride before Eruan and the charred scar, meaning 3 orc prides are left before trying the endgame, hopefully Oozepowermancer willl be able to keep surviving and unlock that Insane difficulty i will never play anyways :D
Post by: Darkmere on January 07, 2014, 03:45:20 pm
Re: Plate Rogues... I think early game low investment stealth in ToME is supposed to be more of an escape mechanism than an offensive tool. The reports I've read imply it only gets good if you can survive the early dungeons with stuns and knife fighting. If you wanted plate... I'd almost consider the "I can carry the world" prodigy for zero fatigue, but taking it early costs you mighty leap, or taking it late means you got to 42 without it so what's the point. I admit rogues and Doomed are by far my least played metaclasses, though.
Also... I really should unlock Oozemancers to see what all the fuss is about and get a free win.
Post by: Robsoie on January 07, 2014, 04:17:53 pm
Well, playing an Oozemancer is all about inflicting this pain and frustration you felt at that time, but on the enemy AI. A good way to get your revenge for all the overpowered enemies the game had generated to kill you ;)
Post by: Graven on January 07, 2014, 05:10:09 pm
I'm currently on floor 8 of Dreadfell, level 31 since I did everything except the Elven Crypts, jumped into the Dark Crypt as soon as I could, running around the rooms and slapping my bum as 5+ mages chased me around, opened every single vault in Dreadfell [and there were a decent lot of them], fought the Halfling and Dwarf uniques in Dreadfell together...
And I have 16 skill, 13 generic and 1 cat point, all unspent.
Yeah. Unlike the first time I played an Oozemancer, though, I'm not exactly having the time of my life. I like feeling powerful, but I also like a bit of challenge now and again.
Post by: Robsoie on January 07, 2014, 05:24:00 pm
The last orc pride just fell, going to run into the slime tunnel tomorrow, looks like Oozemancers are still very very powerfull even in nightmare difficulty.
No wonder high level enemies oozemancers are the bane of any adventurers.
Anyways, on the last pride i ran into a naga invasion, i used my movement skill to run into their portal and after killing the nagas on their territories, a "normal" turtle decided to pick a fight with me.
"normal" , just check the resistance.
(http://i.imgur.com/uhyokW8.jpg)
Good thing that my oozemancer have high acid and nature penetration.
Post by: GP Trixie on January 08, 2014, 08:15:09 am
It's been a while since I played tome 4 so I don't remember the name of all the spells but the substain that make you absorb darkness and pierce resistance make everything works. Your clone heal you with his darkness AOE spells. And you don't want to take the ice AOE spell because of your clone. He WILL use it at you at the worst moment possible.
Post by: Robsoie on January 08, 2014, 10:12:53 am
Of course, being an Oozemancer, he was already very strong before entering High Peaks, but very powerfull he became before entering in the Sanctum thanks to some rather amazing random items (that were on a merchant superitem level of awesome) looted from the many High Peaks bosses that increased his willpower to some insane 180 and cunning to 120 !
Giving him a mindpower of 102 for dealing amazing damage and having his Silence working greatly.
The Sanctum battle was even easier than with my Normal difficulty Oozemancer win with this huge Mindpower, despite the 2 bosses were overcheating with their levels and insanely higher health than in Normal ( they were both more than level 100 ! )
The Sun Paladin wasn't much better than her Normal difficulty version, it's a miracle she survived (though she can say thanks to my healing touch).
But it didn't mattered, with such a mindpower >100 and being an Overpowermancer :D , my character teared them apart with insane damage on very high penetration.
The most difficult battle he had, out of the Worm that Walks unique that i mentioned previously and managed to beat at level 30 in my fortress was the Slime Tunnel boss that appears for the undead pillar "Neverdead Something".
That thing was nearly unkillable (and to make things worse he even resurrected), took forever to kill him and i managed only because i had healing and regen from everywhere (thanks to Fungus tree, i would hate to see what a normal class without Fungus would do there).
The major difficulty is that he often casted some darkness obscuring the whole scene, and even if i was immune to blindness, i had nothing in stock (no vision/sun rune because i had to use better runes and i had no skill to track him as i never though i would really need one at that point of the game, something i'll reconsider for other characters) to see him as he liked to phase door a lot in that darkness too so i could never figure out where he exactly was to shoot him.
Meanwhile he was regenerating/stealing my health to 100% quickly when left unchecked.
And as all good superundead as he is, he was summoning legions after legions of undead to confuse me even more on where he could be (difficult to navigate even with Movement when the screen is filled with undead everywhere in that darkness, looks like he was insanely cheating as i killed maybe more than a hundred of his undeads, while even with highest level of animus yourself can only have up to 19 souls in stock, and he never used the Curse of the Meek spell to refill.
To make things worse, i casted maybe a dozen of time Silence but every single time he resisted the effect, i wasn't near the insane Mindpower i had after looting High Peak, but still it was endgame-ready, can't believe he could resist so much time.
And despite my Spell Feedback prodigy it does not look like it disturbed him much
Finally at some point, using my movement rune a lot to get in melee distance from him, it was easier to relocate him into the darkness, and after a long , so very long battle and despite his resurrection i finally managed to put him down without dying (though several close calls during that battle due to the focus fire of his many undead and himself).
Anyways, that's done, unlocked the insane difficulty that i will never play.
But i really wonder how some of the battles can play without the Fungus tree, even as a Oozemancer and despite the bloated ooze sharing my damage , there were -many- time my health was dropping fast, i can't imagine how it would have been possible to not die with a character less strong than an Oozemancer or without as much heal/regen as Fungus allow you to have.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I didn't thought Oozemancer were still that strong enough to take on Nightmare that "easily" (out of a few hard fights) , i wonder if they're still good enough for Insane, but i will not try, masochism has its limits :D
Post by: Darkmere on January 08, 2014, 10:35:42 am
Post by: Frumple on January 08, 2014, 02:08:33 pm
I still remember one high peak run a while back that I ended up with a level with over a dozen vampire lords on it, all aggro'd. It took... several hours to clear out. Killed either one or two dozen eternal bone giants. Several hundred miscellaneous undead. Dozens of Gs, who knows how many of them dreadmasters. It got a little silly. Especially since the top tier vamps, at least, can summon the next tier down (hell, possibly just more of themselves), which can also summon. I forget what the old *band term for that is, heh, but the whole summoners-summoning-summoners thing is always great for a tremendous cluster of a level.
Post by: Graven on January 08, 2014, 04:15:02 pm
I, on the other hand, went and died twice on my own Oozemancer in Reknor :'( I decided that despite lacking any meaningful stun and confusion resistances, I might as well stand in the middle of a great big Orc band, twice in a row, with two separate orc bands. Woe is me.
Post by: Robsoie on January 08, 2014, 04:34:16 pm
Hmm, that explains then why the thing could summon hundred of undeads without even trying the Curse of the Meek to refill a bit.
I wonder if the Master in Dreadfell is the same, as in my battle he did use Curse of the Meek a few times, and my oozes killing his cursed rabbits then refilled his soul stock.
@Graven
Thanks, the danger with Oozemancers is that due to them being very powerfull, it's easy to forget that the game can still generate really strong enemies.
During the high peak ascension, i got a hard battle with one generated boss, a champion or Urh'Rok that was additionally an Oozemancer (i think on the whole game, enemies Oozemancers are the strongest enemies right next to Dreaming horrors), took a lot of time to manage to put him down
(http://i.imgur.com/TmIzwWbs.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/TmIzwWb.jpg)
Oozemancers really need to summon their bloated oozes as soon as possible when a battle start, due to them taking half the damage you're taking yourself, giving then you a big resilience, that is helped with the Fungus tree they have.
Even more than the mucus ooze that sometime spawn in the acid shower you can throw, bloated oozes are your best weapons , not only due to the damage reduction on yourself, but when they spawn and rush an enemy, they hit him really hard.
I think next time i'll try to play in Easy difficulty to see the change , allowing me to then test much weaker unusual race/class combo than i always abandonned after dying multiple times before level 10, as i got probably all the achievements i could gather, it's not mattering much that Easy does not give any.
Now about the Nightmare difficulty, i noticed during the whole run that i found more good items than usual, i wonder if it's linked then to the higher level enemies you get during all the game , would be something great as at least you have a reward for trying to get over the higher difficulty.
In that case, loots from Insane difficulty could then be awesome, and that Madness one (that i will not even bother to unlock as i would need to complete insane, something i'm not masochist enough to try) should put the merchant superitems to shame .
Post by: Frumple on January 08, 2014, 06:30:24 pm
Pale Drake does, though, apparently. Can summon pairs of bone giants.
E: And yeah, higher level enemies == higher level drops. Nightmare (and possibly Insane. Dunno about madness.) does, indeed, generally entail better kit, from what I recall. I think I've actually heard some folks opine it's easier than normal (in some ways) because of it.
Post by: Robsoie on January 08, 2014, 08:19:56 pm
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2014/01/news/tales-majeyal-114-aka-balance-power-released
Code: [Select]
Release highlights:
* Many important fixes
* Tons of new artifacts
Expanded changelist:
* Altered the orc breeding pits encounter to make it a little less unconfortable and more obvious into what you're getting into
* If the stone wardens addon can not be enabled due to failed login, savefile loading will abord instead of damaging it.
* Buffed the rune of reflection to match the description
* Fixed Bloodspring log message
* Fixed Lichform doesnt preventing removing points from necrosis talents
* Fixed weird graphical bugs on windows
* Fixed insidious poison infusion description
* Fix push kick
* Name highlighting in chat works even for people with weird names
* Store dialog should fit better on small screens
* Melinda wont re-die randomly on the beach
* Improved Flameshock description
* Added BSD support
* Vor always gets his manasurge rune
* Fixed usable artifact gems
* When the server receives a donation, notify & thank the player that did it
* Tons of new artifacts to find & enjoy!
* Madness mode now features an HP multiplier on NPCs, scaling with level and rank.
* Insane and Madness difficulties now give random classes to fixed bosses
* In Madness difficulty the Hunted! debuff lasts much longer
* Added image for the No Way! achievement
* Unified speed displays in the character sheet
* Game will not warn you if you try to load an already tainted savefile in developer mode
* Speedup server connection on boot by ignoring empty commands
* Speedup hash validation
Oh man, tons of new artifacts, just when i wanted to take a break to focus on my UnrealWorld character :D
Post by: Darkmere on January 08, 2014, 10:17:45 pm
Post by: Bitoru on January 08, 2014, 10:58:12 pm
Perhaps now not every single character will find that damn Tooth.
Post by: Frumple on January 08, 2014, 11:02:32 pm
Makes me sad. One of the (possibly the) best one-hand weapons in the game, that thing...
Post by: Darkmere on January 09, 2014, 01:28:29 am
Also re: the patch apparently it also fixed a massively annoying bug I had where, once Derth got hit with the storms, it would stay almost completely dark for the remainder of the game. I basically couldn't see anything there after level 15. I'd grown so used to it it felt weird seeing the sky brighten this time.
Post by: Frumple on January 09, 2014, 02:06:54 am
Mostly, anyway. Edge did the majority of the work on those two, and I think the solipsist as well. The afflicted classes and mindslayer were also done by other folks, iirc. For all that DG's done most of the work re: T4, there have been a handful of other major contributors. DG does still tend to do a bit of tweaking and/or streamlining along the way (and often helps out with coding support and whatnot anyway), but several of the classes are mostly dealt with by other coders.
Post by: Darkmere on January 09, 2014, 02:36:27 am
Haha. DG didn't code the temporal classes :P
I did not know any of that, so... fair enough. Now I wonder if there's anything else on the table, should Stone Warden actually make it to the base game like I had heard long ago. There's no shortage of class mods and oozemancers seem pretty set in their role as the go-to OP class even post nerfs.
Post by: Robsoie on January 09, 2014, 07:51:54 am
From my few tests, i always have them having a lot of trouble in early game, from the skill description the class seem to become strong only past level 10 when you can unlock some very good skill trees.
But early game is a real pain :
It seems you need to increase several stats at once to really get the better of your skills , the early game available skills deal only very weak damage in comparison to early game of other class, but you need to prioritize Dexterity because without enough dexterity you're going to miss more than 50% of your strikes and skills hits.
Their main purpose of the early skills is to stun/confuse, but as every effect skill you can only hope it will work on the enemy as if he's generated with high immunity, you're wasting stamina and turns while getting damaged.
From my test you only start to get decent damage once you get Flurry, +/- at level 4
Stamina is very low, and Marauder skills consume a lot of them, i noticed if you use 4 skills, you're out of stamina early game, and if the monster is not dead by then, you're in high trouble (very likely to happen a lot if you didn't got enough points in dexterity as most of your skills will have missed).
The only way to improve that small stamina pool, out of leveling + finding good stamina items, is to increase your willpower, but in early game you really need dexterity (as said before if you don't want to miss more than 50% of your hits) and constitution (for the health as you take a lot of damage early game) and if you find good weapon/armor you may even want more strength to use them.
Basically in early game you don't have enough stats for everything despite you would really need them.
So any tips to make early Marauders game less of a big pain ?
Post by: Frumple on January 09, 2014, 10:12:24 am
I did not know any of that, so... fair enough. Now I wonder if there's anything else on the table, should Stone Warden actually make it to the base game like I had heard long ago. There's no shortage of class mods and oozemancers seem pretty set in their role as the go-to OP class even post nerfs.DG's stated the stone warden will go non-donator when a new donator class is introduced. Dunno if he's changed his mind on that since, but that was the original stance on it. Pretty sure there was even a blog post on the main page about it.
It seems you need to increase several stats at once to really get the better of your skills , the early game available skills deal only very weak damage in comparison to early game of other class, but you need to prioritize Dexterity because without enough dexterity you're going to miss more than 50% of your strikes and skills hits.You need dex for stat reqs and it's not a bad idea for dagger scaling, but for accuracy that's what the combat accuracy talent is for. Just stick a point in that whenever you can and hitting stuff won't be much of a problem at any point in the game (barring the occasional extreme defense anomaly). This... is what you do with every melee class, ever. Also, most stuff that says its chance to effect scales with dex... actually scales with accuracy. Or did, anyway.* That and "scales with magic" (actually scaling with spellpower. I think the game's better about that nowadays.) was one of the more notorious "the tooltip is lying to you" things for a while. Check the code!
*Actually, checking the tooltips it does look like it's better about not lying to you. If it says you just need accuracy, accuracy is all you need. Dexterity does increase that, but so do a number of other things. Combat accuracy is obvious and largely sufficient for a long, long time, but there's also dexterity gloves and a handful of other egos to keep an eye out for (steady, I think "of the archer", probably others. Weapons of balance, of course, which are doubly good for a marauder if they're going defense tank).
Quote
Their main purpose of the early skills is to stun/confuse, but as every effect skill you can only hope it will work on the enemy as if he's generated with high immunity, you're wasting stamina and turns while getting damaged.If you're going daggers, a couple points into the dagger mastery passive will have you doing plenty of damage to clear out the first tier dungeons and make the second tier ones more palatable. By that point, as you note, you've got access to flurry and pretty much anything else you'd be interested in having and should have plenty of damage options. A GWF flurry is a thing of glory and awe, if you choose to kick open battle tactics (and you probably will, eventually).
From my test you only start to get decent damage once you get Flurry, +/- at level 4
Quote
So any tips to make early Marauders game less of a big pain ?You're fine until level four (I've regularly beat Prox with sub-10 accuracy and basically no active talents on adventurers. It takes a while, and a lot of kiting while you regen, but it's very possible.), after which you can pick up a point or two in fast metabolism. I find a decent amount (5-10) of passive regen massively eases the game up until Daikara or so. You've also got the option of cracking open tactical (as a cornac) and starting down the defense-tank path, which Marauders are pretty good at and mostly trivializes the early game. You should be mostly fine just stabbing crap with knives, though. Trawl the stores for some steel or massacre iron and the damage should come naturally.
Post by: Robsoie on January 09, 2014, 10:36:12 am
On all my attempts i didn't found a single better dagger than the default one.
Now on my skeleton marauder attempt, i just found on the 1st floor much better daggers (not artifact but still much better).
And then the game changed a -very- lot for his damage output and monster killing stuff, even the undead start boss that was unkillable on a previous marauder attempt just fell rather quickly.
The class plays then completely differently as you're not in lethal danger at every single battle anymore but you can deal more real damage than with those crappy default daggers.
So basically, you need luck in early loot to get a decent early marauder, or you're going to get a lot of heavy pain due to you not killing fast enough things that can deal huge blows.
Now if only this had happened on a previous non skeleton attempt, that experience huge malus is nasty
Post by: Frumple on January 09, 2014, 10:40:48 am
Post by: Robsoie on January 09, 2014, 10:50:20 am
Yeah... like I said, stores. You can at least pick up something with some additional on-hit, which can pretty easily increase iron damage by 50-100%. Probably have to sell off some gems, but a good shopping trip is usually all it takes to kick off a rogue subclass. Daggers get painful, but those iron ones are pretty much the shoddiest weapons in the game.
wish there were stores in that dungeon when i was trying a few ghouls :D
Anyways, i thought this problem was fixed, but obviously it is still there in the latest version.
When you leave an area, you have the loot panel popping up so you can move the items you want into your inventory, and let the ones you don't want to be transmogrified.
My skeleton was followed from very close by a vault skeleton when he went on stair, luckily i wasn't damaged (shield rune helps).
As there were some good loot, i was moving a few to my inventory then noticed in the world map i was at 14 health ?
So beware, that annoying old problem in which you can get hurt/killed despite you have already moved out of an area is still there in 1.1.4 when you manage the loot panel popup
Post by: Darkmere on January 09, 2014, 11:59:58 am
Unrelated..... Is there any way to forcibly terminate a dream? I'm on the Lost Man dream and it looks like it's bugged. I've explored everywhere, two of the yeeks splurched but neither spawned the greatmother, so now the map's clear and I can't leave. I can't stab myself as far as I know, and despite the game's insistence to the contrary, I'm not ACTUALLY losing health. SO...... now what?
Post by: Robsoie on January 09, 2014, 12:07:23 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 09, 2014, 01:43:12 pm
So the best marauder advice you can have for early game is to rush toward town shops and get good daggers if you're unlucky and can't get some good ones in early loots.
My skeleton marauder (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/b807ad36-8831-4de0-bf3a-e51af961fdb9) character just reached level 18 (only Daikara left to do in the tier 2 dungeons (http://te4.org/wiki/Zone) ) is nearly unchallenged by everything coming at him, and does amazing damage at that point
On that run i currently found 3 new artifacts , the dagger is amazing as it deals much better damage than what i had so far and that bonus to dexterity is just wow considering marauders loves dexterity :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Darkmere on January 09, 2014, 01:59:02 pm
Unrelated..... Is there any way to forcibly terminate a dream? I'm on the Lost Man dream and it looks like it's bugged. I've explored everywhere, two of the yeeks splurched but neither spawned the greatmother, so now the map's clear and I can't leave. I can't stab myself as far as I know, and despite the game's insistence to the contrary, I'm not ACTUALLY losing health. SO...... now what?
Fixed it. Didn't think you could actually bind the regular attack to a button, so I just stabbed myself repeatedly.
Post by: Frumple on January 09, 2014, 02:40:17 pm
Actually, that dagger is insane in general. If that's representative of the new stuff, I think T4 just got yet another level of power creep, yikes.
And oh hey, acid flurry on a cloak. That... that's great. Not like ABs or whatever needed a second flurry to go along with the first one.
... looks like DG may have gone crazy again. Or whoever it was that designed those things. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing (I mean, hell, I enjoyed Portralis, I'm not going to blink at this. T4 still only ends up using exponential notation when it bugs out, instead of during the normal course of the game.), but...
Post by: Robsoie on January 09, 2014, 02:48:06 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 09, 2014, 02:53:24 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/fQiK3WM.jpg)
I hope it's an omen of more good things coming and not the game preparing to spawn unbeatable enemies later :D
Post by: Robsoie on January 09, 2014, 03:24:08 pm
Good i had all my lightning res on and some very good items and skills, poor Urkis couldn't do much to stop that powerful marauder.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Really, when you can finally get your hand on good weapons, and progress in levels, marauders start to become scary.
Post by: Graven on January 09, 2014, 05:47:31 pm
Speaking of fun... I just gave a Paradox mage a try in the new version. Everything was wonderful until the point where I instagibbed myself for the third time [backfires in a prolonged battle are inevitable, despite how careful you are with Static History] and decided that yup, this character isn't going anywhere goodbye Eidolon my only friend.
Might give those armour rogues a try or a Marauder or something. I do have two characters in the East, but they're on 1.13. Are saves compatible? I want to collect new artifacts. Collecting stuff is the best part of "gear" games. Man I love collecting stuff anyone have any spare stuff they don't use because I think I can carry one more War axe or something.
Post by: Robsoie on January 09, 2014, 06:00:49 pm
Anyways, the Skeleton Marauder continues to brutalize the poor enemy bosses, this time it was the turn of Ungole the spider boss in the East.
Flurry and criticals (with some skills that add some synergy and additional hits) can be fun, just not for the target :D
(http://i.imgur.com/y1WxMZn.jpg)
I lost my 1st life in the post-Dreadfell Ambush, because apparently if you kill the boss of the ambush, and then if you're killed in turn (everything i had to heal or shield myself was on cooldown unfortunately at that point) you lose one of your actual lives, unlike if you're killed with the ambush boss being alive.
No idea if it's a bug, but as it's my only death so far it wasn't important, i could still get the boss loot and destroy ridiculously easily (damn annoying those chaff managed to kill my character before) the remaining orcs once i came back from eidolon
Oh and i got a lot of errors from rushing an enemy , using flurry or even sometime just hitting.
All errors were reported from the ingame online report, hopefully will be fixed next time, fortunately none of those errors lead into an invincible enemy or a broken quest.
Post by: Graven on January 09, 2014, 06:22:09 pm
From what I remember of times immemorial when I played Shadowblade, Ambuscade and Shadow Veil utterly broke the game.
Can anyone enlighten me why? Like, literally, none of them got it, and yet they all won, and I didn't, so they must be doing something right. How would you play a Shadowblade without sending a legion of shadows to massacre the world while you sit in the safest room you can find stuffing your face with pie?
Post by: Darkmere on January 09, 2014, 06:39:14 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 09, 2014, 06:59:47 pm
Ok, i'll try again in 10 levels, but that skeleton is really getting xp slowly, it's not going to be very nice if i manage to keep up to the Pride.
Post by: Robsoie on January 09, 2014, 09:04:51 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 10, 2014, 07:28:14 am
the patch notes :
Code: [Select]
Expanded changelist:
Fixed unarmed display of combat speed on gloves/gauntlets
Fix Temporal Form prodigy
When the game refuses to load a savefile due to the stone warden addons being offline, it will let you force it to load -- at your own risk
Made the portal in the Slazish Fens more visible in ASCII mode
Fixed Bill's Tree Trunk
Changed the way the Steam builds are done, this may help reduce the download size on new patches (not thsi one thougth)
I've had enough trying to justify the breeding pits. Or seeing un-intended, by me - the maker of the game, references to real world terrible events. It's gone now.
The removal of breeding pits is going to be harsh on the low XP races like the skeletons that really needs all the XP they can to compensate with their large XP malus, and there's no more way to limit the amount of orcs patrols anymore without that zone.
They should have just changed the zone disturbing theme and/or content instead of removing it like that in my opinion, i was thinking about some kind of orc war training/boot camp to fit with the warlike orc lore, but whatever.
Post by: Robsoie on January 10, 2014, 10:22:01 am
The High Peaks is a bit too long in my opinion, same for Dreadfell, i think they could be shortened.
Though of course the XP progression will have to be thought again to compensate as the end game really needs your character at its top.
Post by: Darkmere on January 10, 2014, 11:18:07 am
I think the game *feels* too long because so much of it is similar-looking. There's the basic "stone walls, square rooms" that's used for.... well... kor'pul, rhaloren camp, elven ruins, dark crypt, halfling ruins, the maze, vor pride/armory, gorbat pride..... I think a little visual variety and tweaks to the map generator to make those zones stand out is far preferable just just axing content.
Post by: Robsoie on January 10, 2014, 12:40:49 pm
And worse, there wasn't yet an autoexplore function, Maze had 5 repeated immense labyrinthic levels (instead of 1+a very short basement as it is now) that you had to explore without any autoexplore, when i managed to get to the minotaur was roughly when i simply ceased to play with my character due to not having fun anymore.
The shortening of every dungeons coupled with the addition of the autoexplore made the campaign immensely more interesting to me.
Post by: Darkmere on January 10, 2014, 02:07:02 pm
Edit: Though, I will grant that the Pits could have done with a few slight tweaks in terms of taste. The description of the boss being a start. Though the fuss everyone is making is just ridiculous.
I think this was the most widely agreed on aspect of the problem, and I'll be honest and say the descriptors were over-the-top and tasteless. Personally, I just didn't read them after the first time and moved on, but the unfortunate truth is that being in a public venue (Steam) is opening up to that kind of agenda from various groups. Trying to keep the content behind a warning that references the holocaust (even though I believe it was probably accidental) was ... a Bad Move. Sprite and descriptor changes would have alleviated the biggest concern from the majority of those who had issue, in my opinion. I still stand by my statement that, while unfortunate, removing the content now that the game is in a more public venue was the best choice. The game doesn't need THAT kind of controversy surrounding a small side area, which left unchecked could have eventually tainted potential buyers' perceptions and cost them sales and support.
Post by: Robsoie on January 10, 2014, 02:45:25 pm
Ouch, i should really have avoided the clone battle in that crypt from the east, it showed me how flurry can one shot a character, mine actually (while my own flurry didn't killed the clone, damn randomness).
Ok, i'll try again in 10 levels, but that skeleton is really getting xp slowly, it's not going to be very nice if i manage to keep up to the Pride.
I got my revenge, my skeleton marauder went back after gaining 7 or 8 levels to that damned clone, and Giant Leap-ed on him (one of the best prodigy for melee character, great for offense and great for escape) and then Flurry teared him apart.
Marauder once they get their skills going well are extremely powerfull, still with 2 daggers it's more than often that a Flurry deals more than 2000 damage , and with the counter strike and etc... being surrounded is not much of a problem, you automatically deals lots of damage to your attackers.
Post by: Robsoie on January 10, 2014, 05:23:13 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/lXEdiJks.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/lXEdiJk.jpg)
Out of the early game that can be very hard or normal depending on what kind of dagger you're using, the Marauder increase in power when improving the skills and unlocking some trees during the progression of the campaign will make him incredibly strong .
The Marauders can be as scary strong as an Oozemancer, and i didn't even took the antimagic/fungus part (undead can't join Zigur) i think that's the 1st time i dealt so much damage (more than 4000 ) in 1 turn to Elandar with a single use of Flurry :
(http://i.imgur.com/6vMz6g2s.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/6vMz6g2.jpg)
It looks like beating the bosses give you enough XP to get to level 50, as my skeleton marauder after completing everything and running a few farportal was only level 46 when it was time to get into the Sanctum.
I took the stone alchemy tree from an escort in early game, so i could increase Imbue Item to 5 and so get the Crafty Hands prodigy to be able to imbue 3 of my worn items instead of only 1 for the endgame, it really helped to make my marauder better.
On the good advice from the ToME4 board, i used a moonstone on the belt (+60 to stun/freeze immunity) allowing me to free the 2 rings slots for more usefull bonus (i was using +30% stun resist rings on both, as stun is the worst thing to be affected by when you use an undead that can't then use an infusion to get rid of it) and used 2 diamonds on the other 2 items (adding +5 to all stats for each items) , giving some impressive results in combination to the already nice item was using.
Giant Leap proved to be the best prodigy i could take for that Marauder, great damage if used offensively with the multi-hits of a marauder, and great survival asset if used to retreat a lethal situation.
All in all, i had a lot of fun with that character.
Post by: DeKaFu on January 10, 2014, 05:26:07 pm
I thought the concept was quite interesting, in a horror sort of way, but it was also... deeply disturbing. Like, in a made-me-feel-physically-ill-and-want-to-put-the-game-down sort of way. It managed to strike a cord that just left me feeling awful and horrified.
I'm sure it's a matter of perspective and many people would take it in stride, but having something like that blindside you in the middle of an otherwise fairly generic fantasy game wasn't a great experience. Not having to make the choice between visiting the place and giving up much needed XP sounds pretty good to me.
Post by: Niveras on January 10, 2014, 05:33:36 pm
Maybe I'll try moving it to my SSD but I would think all the save data is either in RAM or in my users folder, which would already be on the SSD.
Post by: Graven on January 10, 2014, 05:39:46 pm
Second of all no, everyone trying to even slightly defend the Breeding pits is objectively wrong and I will dance a little dance of happiness knowing its gone. It was disgusting, served no practical reason other than to prove the orcs were twisted [and you can do that without being that disgusting] and I've deliberately stayed out in nearly all my games. I've also posted a ton about how disgusting they are so I'll stop now, but thank god they're gone
If they put a sort of training camp it'll be a net gain of a level for me, and I like that. As DeKaFu said, it's a plain repulsive piece in an otherwise pretty decently written dark-ish fantasy world [the halflings, the Mouth, the various horrors and demons' description are all rather nice].
Other than that, I'm about to face some retarded changes at work, so what better than to start a god damn Shadowblade!
I plan on going a bit heavier on the defensive side - appears all the winners skipped the talents focusing on getting Defense, but I'll probably need them to survive the early game. I also noticed this guy (http://te4.org/characters/14645/tome/f84647e4-aa95-4893-b0a1-fd494ece1dee) who won without a single death, and who used a Staff in the mainhand and also got the achievement for doing over 6k damage in one hit, but that's a bit too esoteric for my tastes.
Anyone want to offer some advice on shadowblades? I'm planning on getting the Temporal tree [it was godly on my archmage], Dual weapon defense and training, max Rush and Blinding speed, hit up stealth and Backstab, and for prodigies I'm not really sure - Arcane Might and Windtouched speed? Giant Leap and Windblade? Eh. Any vital skill I need to get that I've missed?
Post by: Niveras on January 10, 2014, 06:03:49 pm
Yes, I can skip them. And forever lose whatever artifacts that might have generated in them, which may have been something supremely useful, the various alchemist rewards (or other quest-only items from the campaign).
Post by: Robsoie on January 10, 2014, 09:14:51 pm
On her last life , (last life at least according to what i found on the board) as i managed to kill her 5 times with my character, but only thanks to having prepared the equipment specifically to survive her fire+physical overpowered meteors and to penetrate her high resistances, but each time she revives she gets more health and more damage.
That's not all, add to her last life having as much health as 2 Elandar, add the fact she has phase door -without- any cooldown and will teleport far regularly so you can't reach and damage her enough quickly (and that from a character with flurry that hit between 3000 and 4000 damage ! ) before her Draconic Body cooldown is finished (so she heal again for the same amount of health as shown)
Basically on her last life i think you need a character able to hit at more than 5000 damage to be able to kill her before Draconic Body cooldown reach 0 and coupled with her regen just heal her full.
And of course she resists -all- the high level dazing and stunning effect my character produce, probably 100% immunity i didn't even checked.
Linaniil, the most stupidly overpowered character of the whole game, i really wonder if the dev even tried to play that battle with a regular character (i'm so angry at a character that does not even exist i even smile when reading what i write) .
I'm not sure what kind of character can hit for 5000 in a turn (not in theory, but in real gameplay), that marauder is the most damaging character i ever played in those 2 years of playing that game and never managed to reach 5000.
Post by: Frumple on January 10, 2014, 10:39:37 pm
E: You know what's great? Meleeing everything to death in the initial level of the temporal rift and taking a grand total of two damage doing it. Temporal blocking kinetic shield + antimagic shield = HAHAHAHAHAHA BITE ME TIME!ES HAHAHAHAHA
E2: Holy hell, when did the sandworm tunnelers get huge? I wasn't expecting a 3x3 (well, looking. Still seems to only occupy one tile) w when I went into the lair...
E3: What the f... why does the ruined dungeon notes now start off as the Dragon Slave chant?
Post by: Graven on January 11, 2014, 02:34:39 am
Also my poor Shadowblade managed to already die once pre-Tier 3 dungeons, but it's kind of my fault since I stood in the same screen as a summoner rare. Shadowblades do not take damage lightly, let me tell you that. By Jove I'm squishy.
Post by: Darkmere on January 11, 2014, 02:53:05 am
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 08:11:35 am
Though surviving up to the endgame will be something else :D
Post by: Frumple on January 11, 2014, 09:04:39 am
Post by: Graven on January 11, 2014, 09:15:50 am
I'm at level 17 or so currently, and I must admit so far I like it a lot less than shield/Assault AB. I suppose the damage will be higher lategame, since shield AB depends more on Arcane Destruction, and that's weaker than Arcane Combat, but for early and mid-game, Assault/AD is a lot more damaging. I was doing close to 1k assaults on my previous AB, and I barely breach 500 total from Flurries with this current build. Not to mention I'm a lot tighter on Category points and I really would like to add a shielding rune without taking away anything.
Also the stat distribution is a bit harsher, and I'm not really comfortable with spreading points through so many things [Cun, Mag, Dex, some Str].
Supposedly it's pretty amazing lategame, but the only recent AB that won on Nightmare had gone for shield/assault with the two defensive shield prodigies for what it's worth.
Hopefully I at least survive long enough to show Rob how Real Manly Men [tm] flurry :D
Post by: Frumple on January 11, 2014, 09:30:49 am
E: Hrrg. Reach wayist. Open door. TK Leap in between Z and wayist. Same turn, Z shadowsteps over me, getting critical on both attacks and instakilling the wayist. One turn, one action, dead wayist. It... it's always annoying when that happens. Z dies two turns later, of course. grumblegrumble
E2: Oh man, that good ol' Dark-Crypt-One-Step-From-Dungeon! It's been a while. I think I missed it.
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 12:20:15 pm
But as i reached level 20 and could unlock the tree with Flurry (i'm dual wielding to benefit from it more, but in the same time dual wielding halve the chance of the "cast spell by hit" skill so you need more luck), the damage output increased a very lot.
I'm not impressed at all by the Earthen Missile that i maxed from the Stone tree i unlocked first following the guide (i should have listened to myself and take the tree with Flurry first, it was a hell to survive without it and kill things quick enough to avoid high retaliations, lost 3 lives already ), even maxed the 3 shots it gives you does not really do big damage, but now that i have Flurry i'll see if it goes better.
Not on a Marauder level of power (especially as he hits a lot more times during a flurry) at that point of the game, i'll see how it goes later
And speaking of that damned wayist, i managed to save his sorry bottom by annihilating quickly Subject Z but due to me being a halfling, that yeek just hated me on sight and tried to kill me.
Post by: Frumple on January 11, 2014, 12:49:17 pm
Incidentally, incredibly annoying encounter? Eternal Bone Giant Shadowblade rare. It can't hurt me, like, at all. But trying to kill something that's invisible 75% of the time, has 50 something defense, evasion, a 755 hp shield, a 580 something hp heal, multiple lives, and 50% resall on top of that is, just.
It's taking a while.
Managed to cut down one life, so far. Might not have been able to manage that if it weren't for the fact the bugger's wearing some anti-magic kit and occasionally getting its invis turned off :-\
Post by: Graven on January 11, 2014, 01:38:49 pm
What am I generally supposed to dual wield? The guide states Top half of the staff of Telos, but that could take quite a while. I'm currently using two daggers, but I'm not sure that's what I should be going for.
Also I went Cornac, to unlock flurry ASAP and to not die of boredom while I reach the level when I'm finally powerful. Seems all my characters have been Cornac lately, just can't be arsed with exp penalties. ORDINARY HUMAN FO LYFE
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 01:52:18 pm
Now i'm wondering if i get out of Dreadfell and take the risk of the Dark Crypt to get another level, or waste a life :D or if i should get to the Master now, level 24 sounds a bit weak for there, and out of dark crypt, my halfling has no more optional dungeons to gather more xp , out of Elven ruins that is out of my level for now and Graveyard that is like Elven ruins, something i always keep for when i come back from East.
Oh there are Farportals, maybe i'll do that for a bit.
edit : since the Urkis dungeon, i got regularly error messages popping up if i simply hit, rush or flurry some enemies, the same as i got in 1.1.4 when i was playing marauders, all reported online, hopefully next version will have those annoyances fixed.
Post by: Tnx on January 11, 2014, 02:06:36 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 02:13:36 pm
It will generate essentially randomly generated small dungeons/enemies/items/boss for you to grind , more XP than hunting bunch of adventurers. You can get into the Farportal as much as you want if you have the accumulated energy from it
Post by: Tnx on January 11, 2014, 02:18:31 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 02:20:02 pm
http://te4.org/wiki/Transmogrification_Chest
Note: once you have acquired this item, it will be unlocked and will be available from the start for every new characters you'll create and play.
Post by: Frumple on January 11, 2014, 02:35:00 pm
But yeah, still no respawning in dungeons. Once you've cleared it, it stays clear. Farportals are just a source of infinite new dungeons (though the boss from 'em will eventually luck out and generate as something that can kill you, so...).
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 02:44:44 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 03:12:58 pm
But i managed to save Melinda (thanks a lot to some leather boots that can allow an extra Rush).
As a reward her father gave me the Spellhunt Remnant gauntlets !
Great ! ... hey wait a minute i'm playing an Arcane Blade, antimagic stuff is extremely bad on them disrupting own spells ...
Sigh.
Oh at least i got to level 25, will farportal a bit to get to level 26 before going to fight the Master.
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 03:28:36 pm
Now let's see the boss.
Hmm, he has a golem, he got alchemist powers, let's be cautious.
Hmm, what's that around me, it looks like ... mucus, no ! don't tell me that's an ...
Following turn, character dead, insta killed by a couple of slime shots that dealt near to 400 multi-elements damage each.
Yeah, the worst possible outcome, a boss Oozemancer and that does multi-elements instead of nature only (though at that level of damage by turn i doubt he needed to use multi elements).
I gave up there, not enough live left to reasonnably think of investing more time into that character.
But still even at level 26 , Flurry , while doing good damage, didn't delivered the awesome level of pain on my enemies that my marauder was doing while he was at level 26.
Post by: Tnx on January 11, 2014, 04:04:21 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 04:09:57 pm
In my opinion a good sequence of zones to follow for the beginning is there , with some change depending on how strong your character is :
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78614.msg4835958;topicseen#msg4835958
that will help maximizing your character survival, Scintillating Cave is a starting dungeon for Shalore, but i advice you exit from it and keep it for later, when you got some more level , at level 1 some of the cristal are highly damaging.
I'm currently giving a try at a no-minion necromancer, using a Cornac so i progress in level faster to reach some good offensive skills.
So far i did Trollmire + Bill and from level 1 i reached level 7 , no experience malus is indeed very good.
Poor bill, i just learned 2 level of Impending Doom and it was enough with a Darkness beam to kill him.
Funny thing, i'm really glad i took a couple of Blurred Immortality levels, as i used for the 1st time ever Chill of the Tomb (never used that in my minion-focused Necromancer i played up to now).
I accidentally didn't checked the area of effect and shot myself with my enemies with it.
Without Blurred Immortality my character was insta killed by that powerfull spell , as i went below 0 health.
It was indeed a great choice to get that skill :D
Post by: Frumple on January 11, 2014, 04:18:35 pm
So leaving the scint. caves for later is usually a good idea with rogue type shalore. Melee ones in general, really. Once you get used to the crystals, it's not like it's impossible to clear it out on the first go, but... it's usually more trouble than it's worth. Personally, I usually hit up the shalore elf zones last, before going on to the tier two stuff. Clear out the stuff near derth and the thalore area junk, then tap the zones with oodles of casters, heh.
Post by: Graven on January 11, 2014, 05:21:13 pm
4 deaths so far, just starting Reknor, gonna be 30 soon. Still, dual wield AB is getting into the swing of things - doing a bit better with the damage. I got to level 10 only using the starting points, so I could take the points from Flame and Lightning out, which seems to have worked out. I guess you could also take them out and put them in every level, but two offensive spells let me play like a worse Archmage and since I was Cornac I could get to level 10 without too much difficulties.
Too many stupid deaths, though, if I die again pre-prides I'll probably abandon as I've wasted a whole day on Tome as it is.
edit : Whelp
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc9/Baron_Sengir/Flurry_zpsee359797.png)
This is a single cast of flurry at level 30. Which reminds me, if I get the strength to get a prodigy via items, and then remove the items, do I still keep the prodigy? Or do I need to constantly have 50 str to use flexible combat, because I can't tell in-game.
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 06:22:15 pm
You're having much better result than me with that arcane blade, good job !
My minion-less cornac necromancer (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/ecb16586-1ff0-46ad-8af3-cf79a87c31dd) is so far doing good, reached level 19 without dying once, well i mean without losing a live, because i couldn't believe how much time i went under 0 health and only because i have blurred mortality maxed i survived (and i'm sure several time i may have been very close to the lowest negative health limit).
That's probably the first time i get under 0 health so much with a character, despite i'm trying to be cautious. I hope to get level 20 in the halfling complex ruins so i can unlock the staff combat tree i got in Angolwen, i really could use another fast cooldown spell and the 1st and 2nd skill of that tree always served me very well for this when i was playing archimage.
Can't believe i played ToME4 most of that day.
Post by: Tnx on January 11, 2014, 06:39:19 pm
Post by: Darkmere on January 11, 2014, 06:43:07 pm
Also, blurred mortality is completely amazing effective HP for the points spent. Worth all 5, definitely. And don't make the mistake I did of waiting on lichform if at all possible. Drop 5 points into it as soon as possible then suicide for it, because you get +3 HP per level but it's NOT retroactive (I misread the talent).
EDIT: Derp, I meant to ask a question. Does the newly buffed Rune of Reflection work like a regular shield rune (completely absorb X damage) or like the Alchemist golem's reflective skin (which still took the damage, just sent an equal amount back afterward)?
Post by: Graven on January 11, 2014, 07:03:39 pm
Also ahahahahahahahahahahah
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc9/Baron_Sengir/Flurryagain_zpsbd028e9d.png)
Killed the poor bugger in a single Flurry. The actual number of hits is more than a screenfull. Eight physical crits, 7 separate casts of Earthen Missiles and 5 extra hits from Greater Weapon Focus. At level 34. People might be right about AB having insane damage.
Now where to find literally all the resists in the world, because I will most certainly need them in a second.
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 07:03:39 pm
I didn't knew that you could buy the unlocking of the tree instead of using a category point., that cat point will then be very used in a very usefull way.
For the lichform, i thought it was retroactive, thanks for the warning, that's very annoying that it's not.
Hmm, doing graveyard early will be intense.
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 07:41:04 pm
reaching level 20 i decided to give a try to getting into my fortress before Daikara and Urkis.
After clearing the water level, i go down, and the stair is in the middle of a big room with 6 Devourers and 3 luminous horror.
They do not seem to care at all about cold or darkness, from my attempt.
Then a Blade Horror come, hey it's a rare, as i'm not going to win this one, i ponder about just going up the stairs or teleport and with some lucks getting near the stairs to my fortress.
I decide to take the risk and teleport.
Bad idea.
I get into another big room, 9 devourers ! i see 2 luminous horrors (so there's a 3rd in the fog certainly) and 1 worm that walk.
And guess what, it's a rare too !
Yeah, when the game decide to kill your character, it just does it...
From the look of it, it will take a lot of levelup to be able to face what's preventing me to find the stairs down to my fortress.
(oh and during other dungeons exploration again i get below 0 health -a lot- but still didn't lost a life yet, only lake of nur just got one)
Minion-less necromancer have it really much harder than with minions.
Post by: Frumple on January 11, 2014, 07:53:20 pm
Thank you !Mmhmm... it's also worth noting that you can go straight to the unlocked state for 500 -- no need to spend the initial... whatever that was... to see the locked cat. Afterwards, if it's anything like mindstars, you can sink in another 750 gold (for a total of 1250, but considering it's the equivalent of two cat points that's kinda' cheap, ha.) to bump the mastery up to 1.3, after you've bought the unlock. The mindslayer I'm running now got the full buy in price... before level twenty, I think. Doesn't take too long.
I didn't knew that you could buy the unlocking of the tree instead of using a category point., that cat point will then be very used in a very usefull way.
Would have got it sooner if the zig patrols weren't infecting the world map like lice and murdering all the adventurer parties. This character hasn't seen anything hostile on the world map since like level six (currently 27, and has spent several sessions just walking back and forth between the normal party spawn points for 5-10 minutes straight). Any advn parties that spawn get killed off before I can find them :-\
... I'd really kinda' like to grind a bit for more willpower/mindpower boosting stuff, too. Gotta' get uberkit to boost that reshape to yet more beautiful levels <3
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 08:00:32 pm
Since a couple of version it looks like the adventurers are now rather rare on the world map, but there's a lot more zigur patrol than before too.
Not sure if it's intented or some kind of recently introduced bug.
I'm not sure my minionless necromancer will do a lot more, while he only died once in a silly hellish lake of nur spawn configuration, i'm very concerned by the amount of time , despite i play it very cautious with shields like an archimage , i got below 0 health.
I have yet started Daikara or Urkis that are a bit harder than what i ran until now, and if it continues in that constant near death situations from half the battles i got, i wonder if i will even get to Dreadfell without running out of life as difficulty increase by then.
Hopefully i'll get my hands on some better items soon, that would be helpfull.
Post by: Darkmere on January 11, 2014, 08:03:56 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 11, 2014, 08:06:03 pm
all i used from animus was the 1st skill (a good healing using souls) so far
I hope the husks have been fixed though.
Post by: Darkmere on January 11, 2014, 11:02:38 pm
EDIT: To avoid double-posting...
Spoiler: I like Vital Shot (click to show/hide)
My Temporal Warden needed a strong single-target attack, so there it is. It's not arcane blade-level, but I'm pretty happy with it so far, since I can fire those off at long range and port away at will. Several times.
Side-note: Temporal wardens are hilarious. Between slow, temporal stun, archery stun, Shalore speed boost, my cloak speed boost, an optional ring with speed boost, and some boots... with speed boost! I can pretty much pincushion almost anything before it gets CLOSE to killing me. I may even go crazy and get the class-specific speed boost.
Post by: Graven on January 12, 2014, 03:48:49 am
Back in the primordial age of b042 when I tried a temporal warden, the only problem was it was like an archer, but a lot more boring, since you hit really fast for little damage. From what I'm seeing the problem is fixed :D I suppose the main stats are Str Dex and Mag?
Damn it people stop making me want to try another class, I've been playing way too much Tome as it is!
What character level is that in your screenshot Dark
Post by: Frumple on January 12, 2014, 04:05:21 am
S'really one of the things I like about wardens... same as with mindslayers, actually. Being able to set some of your other stats (Magic and Strength in the case of the Wardens, Str/Dex for slayers) scaling off others (Will for wardens, will/cun for slayers) makes for delicious double-dip shenanigans. Wardens have been toned back a lot from the glory days, though. I still remember fondly breaking 200 magic (or was it 250...) with my first warden winner (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=25114&hilit=warden)...
Post by: Darkmere on January 12, 2014, 04:19:46 am
The stats I went with were Dex > Mag > Wil ~ Con.
Str and Mag bonus comes from sustains which you need Will for, and it's not all that bad for paradox since you don't need to cast often during a fight. I've never played an archer, but the early game TW *is* a little slow/dull before you can support all the magical time toys... but...
Spoiler: This is my weapon switch (click to show/hide)
And with that thing I've gotten some 1200+ nova spells, even with sacrificing so much +mag gear for raw HP (doing prides, can't be too careful). I'm SO tempted to toss that thing in the vault and make a paradox mage when this game is over.
Post by: Graven on January 12, 2014, 05:32:40 am
So I read on the SA forums that you could turn Smooth Creature Movements to 0 and disable the Smooth fog of war. Turned them off, tried it, didn't seem to matter much so I turned fog back on since it was pretty and left movement to 0. This is literally the only thing I changed since yesterday.
Now nearly every attack I'm getting the following error:
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc9/Baron_Sengir/Error1_zps86bb2b91.png)
And this is what my combat log looks like. It appears I'm hitting myself with my stone missiles for some reason?
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc9/Baron_Sengir/Error2_zps69548529.png)
Anyone, help? Or what do I do to get help? This guy was doing pretty decently and I don't really want to lose him if possible :'(
edit : Oh yeah just noticed, when I get this error on using Flurry, it doesn't go on cooldown, just hits me for some bleeding damage.
edit : Ok this is getting more complex. Read on the Tome4 forums about a guy who, upon equipping gloves, noticed his attack speed drop to 80% on the general screen, and normal on the attack tab. Mine is the same, and I'm using the StormBringer gloves which apparently have 500% attack speed on themselves?
I'll try to see if the gloves are borking my game.
Hmm... it seems all my gloves are borked. The Brawler's gloves I had in my backpack suddenly have -1000% attack speed.
re-edit : OK I THINK I GOT IT!
So I'm using Shantiz the Stormblade - that dagger that has a chance of destroying projectiles. Yesterday this wasn't happening at all. I'm not sure if the gloves had frakked attack speeds yesterday either, I didn't pay any attention.
However I suppose the dagger targets my own Stone Missiles and ... they hit me? And the talent doesn't go on cooldown because of ... reasons? I'll try to report this on the forums, see what happens.
I'm currently using some shitty random dagger I have lying around, and my damage has dropped a bit, but at least I don't appear to be getting the error. Eh.
Post by: Robsoie on January 12, 2014, 08:37:43 am
Started only to happen roughly during Daikara for both my characters and never ceased after that, it wasn't all the time fortunately (or i would never have continued to play the Marauder up to the end), but still regularly and very annoying.
I reported all as i was online, hopefully will get fixed next version.
@Darkmere, not all the husks were broken, but if you managed to husk some boss, the quests related to their defeat would never complete, and so in some condition you could simply make your game progression completely stuck.
And when you necro die, you take control of the husk, like a golem, except that in some condition if you got a creature that deal too few damage to kill itself with its natural regen, that you cleared a level of all enemies and with the fact that husks can't leave a level by themselves, you're stuck on such level forever as unlike a golem there's no autodestruct ability.
Post by: Robsoie on January 12, 2014, 09:10:58 am
The low health characters i played always had a lot of problems with that nasty effect.
Post by: Tnx on January 12, 2014, 01:07:05 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 12, 2014, 01:26:00 pm
If you are talking the rhaloren camp and you had opened a vault... I kinda' doubt that mage was level six. Sincerely. Those vaults (vaults in general generate disproportionately leveled stuff! Bill is your warning, ha.) will happily and generally generate 20+ level critters, and the only elves that casts disease are stuff that doesn't generate in the camp naturally (so you'd be looking at stuff that's level 20 or so, minimum. It's an annoying, but known and apparently persistent issue with the camp.). It wouldn't have been level six, 'cause a rhaloren camp vault that's able to generate those guys will simply not generate something that low a level* :-\ 16 or 26 would have been more likely, and damage like that is normal at that point, especially for the latter. In any case, you open a vault, you take your risks. Most vaults don't play around, and can and will wreck you. Survival, especially low level, after opening a vault is not guaranteed and may simply be the end of you**. That's the trade off you make for out of depth level loot.
... anyway, if you're looking to survive diseases, a magical wild will get rid of them if you can't out heal/shield/etc. them. There's also a particular artifact (maybe more than one?) that can clear them out with an activation, if you're already wearing it.
Though yeah, ghoul diseases, specifically, are something different. They've got ridiculous durations. They've always had ridiculous durations, and for whatever ungodly reason DG and co. have decided to leave it like that despite the issue being brought up numerous times. It's one of the things to remember when facing a vault ghoul... or any ghoul, really, especially the ghasts or ghoulkings -- you don't want to let it into melee range unless you can survive a 20 turn disease. Fortunately, ranged diseases have a much shorter duration. It's only and specifically ghouls that get the ridiculous duration ones.
*In the normal course of things, anyway. There's a known and persistent bug with the camp where it'll occasionally to drop a 20+ level caster on you outside the vaults. Rare, but it happens. Stay on your toes in there.
**Especially if you don't have a ready means to get out of dodge. Opening vaults without a reliable escape method is the russian roulette of T4. Along with farportals, anyway.
Post by: Tnx on January 12, 2014, 01:33:09 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 12, 2014, 01:54:34 pm
Only the Trollmire vaults are generally safe in that regards, i don't think i ever found ridiculous disproportions between my character status and the enemies present in Trollmire vaults.
Remember that you can leave vaults closed and come back only later when you have better level, it lower the risk a lot.
Only exception to the "come back later" being the undeads starting location, you can't come back later as the location is not anymore on the world map (never understood why), and considering you're between level 1 and 3 at most in the undead starting dungeon, it's very recommended to leave those vaults closed, unless you really got some powerfull class and got extremely lucky in that early dungeon items.
Post by: BishopX on January 12, 2014, 02:40:41 pm
I've got a question for the gruop. Is it worth unlocking the light tree as a skeletal AB? It would mean no 4th inscription slot, and incredibly tight generics. But the status cure and shield might be worth it.
Post by: Robsoie on January 12, 2014, 02:46:59 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 12, 2014, 02:56:04 pm
Post by: Graven on January 12, 2014, 03:24:46 pm
Does "chance to cast level 1 Greater weapon focus" on gloves overwrite my own level 5 Greater weapon focus when it procs?
I have Dakthun's gauntlets, or whatever they're called, and Neira's Memory, and one of those is skipping town for a custom randart from the Merchant. And if it does overwrite, whelp the choice has never been easier.
Post by: Robsoie on January 12, 2014, 08:35:23 pm
Just got a streak of ridiculous death on an accidental zigur patrol.
First i went to Maze and unfortunately it was the alternate version, that is a lot harder than the normal one.
I managed to get to the alternate maze lovecraftian-boss that killed my Arcane Blade in 2 hits, i used Flurry, hurt it nicely (40% of health destroyed) while he hit me too for roughly 40% of my health too, then i decided to try to stun it, while he hit me in the same time... and the 60% of my remaining health went goodbye (despite wild infusion that reduce its damage).
Respawning out of Maze, i ran unfortunately on a Zigur patrol when going to the Sandworm dungeon.
When i spawned, there was 2 guys close, my arcane blade teleported away, and landed at roughly 8 tiles of the exit, really great.
I started to move toward the exit and ... died.
looking at the log, ... an oozemancer.
As i was at maybe 3 tiles from the exit i got back, moved and ... died.
Yeah, as a player Oozemancer are overpowered (as i didn't felt i was playing on Nightmare when i completed it with one, maybe they're balanced for Insane in fact), but as a NPC they're the same as players : overpowered , so ... ouch.
In front of my 2 stupid deaths, i even gave up on that character from annoyance.
Post by: kcwong on January 13, 2014, 07:43:48 am
After a few early deaths, I had a little success with a Cornac berserker (first death was at the hands of a pack of boulder throwers, then it's status casters); he made it to level 28 before using up all lives. Right now I have a Bulwark... no lives used and already got home sweet home.
I got some alternative versions last night... they are quite exciting! The maze where you have to jump down holes, and two giant sandworms instead of many tiny ones.
Some questions though:
1. How do you use the coins from donating? I can't find anything in the website/forum.
2. How to effectively deal with snow giant boulder throwers? Especially when they come in numbers, hiding behind other giants inside a narrow passage. My berserker could facetank the boss but three throwers destroyed him in just a few rounds.
Post by: Frumple on January 13, 2014, 07:59:00 am
Post by: kcwong on January 13, 2014, 11:25:02 am
Luckily I found a suit of armor with less defense and armor, but gave me -5 cooldown to rush. With my rush already 5/5, a boost from war cries and inscriptions, that's enough for me to get a chance to charge at them, and killed them with my other one-hit-wonder talents.
I was lucky enough to not wake up the fire dragon during all that; with everything else down and a font of life available, the dragon was killed pretty easily.
Now to the tower that ended my berserker...
Post by: Darkmere on January 13, 2014, 11:52:14 am
**
My time warden is now a winner. I may not have 250 magic, but I acquired all the stats. All of them. (http://te4.org/characters/31725/tome/5c0389fb-8f8f-4397-84d0-ad8abfbc820a)
Between Timeless and Invigorate, Draconic Will outlasts its own lowered cooldown, so every fight started with 17 turns of complete status immunity. At Grushnak and High Peak, the game just decided to throw vaults at me, so after 6 or 7 of them I'm geared to the hilt.
Spoiler: This was a thing that happened (click to show/hide)
I didn't close any portals. I didn't even MOVE in the last battle, just unloaded half a quiver (15 arrows in about 5 turns), dead. One demon wandered up in time puke shadow on everything, but I ignored it and burnt the tank down, too. Aeryn was at 95% health when I won. This is by far my best character ever, but I won't be sacrificing him to Atamathon or anything. Onwards and upwards, eh?
I'm now terribly curious what I could have done with the +50% Mag mod to weapons from the Arcane Might prodigy. Maybe someday...
Post by: Robsoie on January 13, 2014, 12:03:25 pm
Yesterday and a bit today i was running a Ghoul Reaver that was doing great until i found it simply too annoying to be fun, and scrapped the character.
I tried to like that Ghoul Reaver, really i tried, but i simply couldn't.
All of this because the vim management is simply annoying, you need to often use that low damaging "Drain" that give back ridiculously low amount of vim (only 20% of the drain damage) but still more vim back than simply killing things in melee or with a soul rot kill.
There's a sustain that can help to give you back more vim by kills, i took it with joy without reading the description -entirely-, and missed the extremely annoyingly part of that sustain : it cost a certain amount of vim by turn (odd for something supposed to give you more vim), so if you forgot to manually turn off that sustain after a kill and rest, see how your vim bar go down to 0 ...
And all those diseases that add a lot of fun when you start to get them having some more levels, their synergy and propagation. Well, they cost a lot of vim of course, but ... they don't give any vim back for a kill !
And that without mentionning an odd problem of the Bone Shield that half of the time took a frankly boring "forever" to wait/rest for its complete regen (the description when it's maxed of "1 more bone each 5 turns" was simply wrong half of the time, it wasn't rare i had to wait 30 or 40 turns for getting 1 of the bones regenerated, while the other half of the time it was working as the description said).
I didn't liked much the Hate management for Cursed and Doomed, but from my reaver run, vim is simply the most annoying and unfun thing.
If only that sustain wouldn't cost vim each turns, it would make getting more vim a lot less painfull.
Post by: Frumple on January 13, 2014, 01:33:56 pm
Rest seems like you may have been running into bugs (the no-vim from disease kills, bone shield regen), at least some of which I could have sworn was fixed at some point... but vim regen has always been kinda' finicky. Might want to give it a bug report or two, see if it doesn't get fixed in the near-ish future. Buggers are definitely a lot less painful to keep vim up with than they used to be, ha. The wonder and glory of keeping hostile civilians around strictly so you could blood sac in relative safety... thankfully a glory of days gone past, hopefully never seen again.
Post by: Darkmere on January 13, 2014, 01:56:28 pm
I don't have a character far enough or rich enough to check right now, does anyone know if you can specifically buy shortstaves from the randart merchant? I've heard good things about a staff-wielding sun pally, but I don't want to gamble on finding Telos' Top or something similar, because RNG.
Also, is there *any* valid reason to use Stone Vines on a stone warden? Seems like you can smash large groups on your own and the 50% move penalty is begging to be burst-killed by archers and bosses if you aren't flawless in disabling a tree you spent at least 8 points in...
Post by: Robsoie on January 13, 2014, 02:15:01 pm
I really think the removal of the vim cost by turn of the skill (i forgot the name) that allow to increase the vim return for each kills would make it much less painfull and fiddling to manage that ressource.
The lack of mobility was the major reason i tried it with Ghoul, the leap even if not attacking is a fantastic skill to move where you want and need in 1 turn.
It's basically the low quality version of the much more amazing Giant Leap prodigy (that go further and can even hit very hard on radius)
I found too that a shield is extremely helpfull in giving Reaver the resilience a melee character needs too, while waiting for Bone Shield to get some levels.
Post by: Frumple on January 13, 2014, 02:35:21 pm
Shield. On a reaver. No wonder you were having trouble :-\ Reaver defense is offense. Its resilience is making everything else too dead to attack. And I guess bone shield and acid blood. BUT MOSTLY MURDER
Does corrupted strength even proc if you're only wearing one weapon?
Shield rune is fine, though. Probably even good.
Post by: Robsoie on January 13, 2014, 02:57:36 pm
A rune based shield is more than good on a ghoul reaver, as it improves immensely the poor early game reaver survivability, especially ghouls that can't pillar dance easily with the majority of the monsters being faster than them
Post by: Satarus on January 13, 2014, 03:43:58 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 14, 2014, 11:25:24 am
I'm currently running a Thalore Sun Paladin, i'm not experienced in the class, but so far out of the Thalore problem to get experiences , that lead me to be a bit back in the leveling rush, the character is doing rather fine.
The 1st quest (starting in the East actually) got me into serious trouble as my character was level 1 and every naga there was level 4, fortunately "tree dancing" and the searing light that deals continuous damage on the location it stays in helped me to go through and ended in the West.
While my character does not deal as much damage as i would hope, it can take a huge beating and still get going thanks to my shield rune and skill, and the healings so i guess so far it counterbalance the damage output not being that good.
Now about the east, i'm wondering as i see that there are achievement for beating the game without ever going to the west, how is that possible ?
Just curious , before going on my quest and so ending in the west, i left the Gate of Morning and went to the nearby unremarkable cave (the one you come from when landing in the East) , and saw that all enemies were at rather high level (and very likely able to one shot my beginning character).
As i imagine all the East dungeons would be like that, how is it then possible to go and complete the game with a Sun Paladin or Anorithil (that both start in the East) without getting to the West to build him up ?
Post by: Darkmere on January 14, 2014, 11:55:44 am
There is one trick that can be useful if you have a spare cat point. For the Wild-gift harmony tree: Healing Nexus from that combos very well with Bathe in Light.... all the healing you would be doing to everyone around you instead goes to you, so you get a bigger heal when you're surrounded.
Celestial: Sun is absolutely irredeemable garbage except for the flare blinding. Note on mine that some of those spells are doing 40 damage with 85 mag. Get the blind and close the tree.
Other than that, I'd say focus on Light and physical damage boosts/resistance penetration and be sure to get some kind of mobility because they have very little by default. The damage will be a little low, but I've heard if you luck into a shortstaff and take staff mastery your spells hit quite a bit harder and you get pew pew staff channeling bolts, too.
(and to answer my own question from earlier, no you can't specifically buy shortstaves from the randart merchant)
Re: never going west: Orc patrols. You follow the sunwall patrols around and fight weak orc patrols to level. As far as I know that's the way to do it. It sounds like the worst possible way to play the game, to me, so I won't be trying that. Ever.
Post by: kcwong on January 14, 2014, 12:03:39 pm
Now I'm at level 8 of the tower... game told me I'm a bit behind (or just right?) on level, so I went back to my home first. Found some very nice artifacts along the way, including:
Titanic (that's +320 block)
Blood-Letter
Quiver of the Sun
Moon
Star
Spellblaze
Dagger of the Past
The Untouchable
Wanderer's Rest
This tower is like a treasure trove...
Post by: Robsoie on January 14, 2014, 12:13:31 pm
I sometimes wonder why some classes have trees with so many really weak/useless trees that none will then waste points into considering there are trees that with skills so much better than you simply can't afford to waste those points into the useless ones, unless you're trying to increase your own challenge by crippling your character
Post by: Frumple on January 14, 2014, 12:21:43 pm
I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about it, really. It would require some pretty incredible shenanigans -- not only do you have to survive those first few bits (even the patrols have a minimum level way beyond a starting character, iirc.*), you also have to take on high peak with something like less than half the XP and loot chances you'd normally get.
It would seem that four people have managed it, somehow, though. So it's either possible or they cheated. How... well, the winner list for those two classes is
... actually, I've now gone through the latest year's worth of non-dwarf/undead/yeek celestials, and whoever managed it innit in that lot. Someone else can look. I stopped at "DO YOU SEE THAT ENEMY OVE" the cornac sunpa, if said someone else wants to take up the quest to find Never There and Back Again.
*Actually, I can check... hahaha, oh yeah. Well, okay, there seems the possibility of generating, say, 10th level orc warriors! Good for you. Its friends are in the twenties and over. Good luck with that~
Post by: Robsoie on January 14, 2014, 12:42:00 pm
Then i'm not sure how it is even possible to take on Orc patrols, they're already a big problem for some classes , especially when you run into several of the orc spellcasters that will all focus fire on you.
So i guess if there's no some form of cheating involving or some special game mechanics i have no idea about, i can't see how it reasonnably possible without an insane amount of luck.
And to be honest if i had that insane amount of luck in the game, i would just stop playing there and go play at the lottery instead of wasting such insane luck on ToME4 :D
@kcwong , what level are you , and what race/class are you using to get at that point of the game ?
Post by: Darkmere on January 14, 2014, 02:22:00 pm
Thanks Darkmere, i'll keep away from the useless Sun tree then.
I sometimes wonder why some classes have trees with so many really weak/useless trees that none will then waste points into considering there are trees that with skills so much better than you simply can't afford to waste those points into the useless ones, unless you're trying to increase your own challenge by crippling your character
I think in this particular case Celestial: Sun is balanced specifically for Anorithils, who end the game with 100% crit and want lots of fast, cheap spells to autocrit and proc the disco bolts, and they would go for lots of +light and +dark damage mods. It just doesn't line up for Sun Pallies because spellpower plate is rare and you need to be in melee.
But I completely agree with you on other such nonsense like 2-handed weapon fighting on bulwarks or the melee cunning tree for archers. They're filler at best and newbie traps at worst, especially compared to stuff like Stone Wardens (3 build options), Mindslayers (2 very distinct ones), Archmages (like a dozen builds or something), or Doomed (basically no options that I could see? lots of high-investment skills in two or three trees).
Re: east leveling... I'm completely at a loss. Both celestial classes have a slow, fragile start anyway. I can't imagine going up against level 20 corruptors at level 4 and being able to move, let alone kill 5-10 in an ambush map. I suspect there's some kind of chicanery or exploration mode involved. I did try to look up the global stats on steam even though that's a bad metric... but it won't even load them for me. At least the weird ones like making Myssil/Urkis/The Master drop the rod of recall seem rough, but possible.
Post by: Robsoie on January 14, 2014, 02:39:04 pm
Anorithil in the endgame are impressive ranged machines of destruction, not only by your offensive spells that crits, but because of all your sustain ones that shoot multiples spells by turns (Corona and Hymn of Moonlight) makes yourself into some "gatling gun of magic"
I remember how much pain i was dealing to some bosses and their support with that
All of those requiring energy, that the Sun spells provide.
Now for the Sun Paladin, you have many other skills that will save you from melee fights, probably a reason the Sun tree is left behind for them, simply because you don't have enough skills point to put in them due to you having to give priority to what will keep you alive.
Post by: Frumple on January 14, 2014, 02:52:38 pm
Post by: Darkmere on January 14, 2014, 02:53:35 pm
I think next time I find a Telos' Top Half I'm shoving it in the vault and seeing how big of a difference it makes. With boosts from that and the Summertide Vial you might get those numbers in better shape.
Post by: Graven on January 14, 2014, 03:57:19 pm
I probably could do another character, but not more, since I'm finding Tome's rigid classes [while immensely fun in themselves] less entertaining in the long run than Crawl's fluid system.
What I would like, is to do massive single hits. What class would be best for this? I'd rather not play Corruptor if possible, Vim is a horrible resource. I noticed one Shadowblade with the Overpowered achievement, but he apparently focused on +shadow damage, spell power, using a one-handed staff and Shadowstrike, and I'm not that good at Tome theory to replicate this.
Post by: Robsoie on January 14, 2014, 04:06:43 pm
http://te4.org/game-statistics/achievement/damage_6000
edit : though i suspect some tricks for several of them, as i even see some level 18 inflicting more than 6000 damage in 1 hit ? (and not like Flurry , as multiple added damage does not count for such achievement, it needs a flat 6000 damage)
Post by: Frumple on January 14, 2014, 04:20:16 pm
Incidentally, how'd you get to that page to begin with? Does it have that for other cheevos, too?
Post by: Graven on January 14, 2014, 06:12:45 pm
Also for those evil Zigguranth pawns trying to bring down Our Glorious Leader Linaniil, I found the following :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irOT6PrrFh0
It's Linaniil versus two copies of a certain incredibly powerful Giant Golem.
Post by: Robsoie on January 14, 2014, 06:39:34 pm
On the main te4 website, go to the real time game stats page :
http://te4.org/game-statistics
You'll see a list of all the achievements, that you can filter by difficulty if you wish.
For each achievement it tells you how many players (or more accurately accounts as i guess some people may have multiple accounts) got it, and if you click you get to the list.
I wish Zigur followers had a way to get to Angolwen in the post endgame, it's highly frustrating that you can't take on that overcheated Linaniil with all your might with a such a character .
Post by: Frumple on January 14, 2014, 07:13:51 pm
Looks like, of the four who got the Never There and Back Again, two of them are DG, a third is an impossibility (A cornac arcane blade. That also appears to no longer exist. There's one by the same name, but it's level 6.), and the forth both isn't in the vault and is sharing the same naming pattern that DG was using, which is somewhat suspicious.
Which is to say, basically, no, no one's ever actually gotten the achievement. Current holders seem to have grabbed it either by being DG or running into some sort of bug. Good to know.
Also, if you really want to throw an end-game antimagic character at lils, you can probably get in through debug zone teleportation.
Post by: Robsoie on January 14, 2014, 07:19:11 pm
Oh and she does not care about Silence, despite my oozemancer had insanely high mindpower, willpower and cunning.
Basically to kill her the 6 times you need to kill her (as she resurrect at least 5 times), you need a character that can easily make those 6000 damage by turn , while hoping she's not going to teleport or all your effort are useless.
Post by: Robsoie on January 14, 2014, 08:03:31 pm
Quote
Gain per points
Accuracy: .40
Defense: .40
Critical hit chance: .30
Physical save: .175
Mental save: .175
Spell save: .175
In addition, each point gives 0.2% chance to not break stealth (same as Unseen Actions), and 0.2% chance to avoid your own AoE effects (similar to Spellcraft).
So the +40 luck prodigy means :
Accuracy: +16
Defense: +16
Critical hit chance: +12
Physical save: +7
Mental save: +7
Spell save: +7
8% chance to not break stealth
8% chance to avoid your own AoE effects
So well, not really usefull as a prodigy at the point of the game you can take it, there are much better ones to get.
Post by: Frumple on January 14, 2014, 08:15:52 pm
... but in general, yeah, it's kinda' shoddy. Luck just doesn't do all that much.
Post by: Darkmere on January 14, 2014, 09:09:42 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 14, 2014, 09:22:07 pm
Reknor was as boring as usual (they should remove at least 1 level of the 3 completely similar huge ones) and then faced as usual Golbug the Destroyed on the last level.
That boss was destroyed by my character that then took the loot before bumping into that guy that give us the useless message from the king and getting to the portal.
... but hey wait a minute, why was there no popup telling me "Orb of Many Ways" blablabla ?
Looking at my inventory, indeed no Orb at all and nothing left on the ground.
Great, just great, character can't go east.
Post by: kcwong on January 14, 2014, 11:43:48 pm
@kcwong , what level are you , and what race/class are you using to get at that point of the game ?
Higher Bulwark... was level 22 or so when I started exploring the tower.
Here's her character sheet:
http://te4.org/characters/110744/tome/43400623-459d-4d90-b114-ff1c117cfc76
Post by: beorn080 on January 14, 2014, 11:55:53 pm
Odd. Couldn't seem to find the listing before. Thanks, though.How on earth can you possibly get it?
Looks like, of the four who got the Never There and Back Again, two of them are DG, a third is an impossibility (A cornac arcane blade. That also appears to no longer exist. There's one by the same name, but it's level 6.), and the forth both isn't in the vault and is sharing the same naming pattern that DG was using, which is somewhat suspicious.
Which is to say, basically, no, no one's ever actually gotten the achievement. Current holders seem to have grabbed it either by being DG or running into some sort of bug. Good to know.
Also, if you really want to throw an end-game antimagic character at lils, you can probably get in through debug zone teleportation.
Post by: Frumple on January 15, 2014, 12:40:41 am
Alternately. Memory. Freaking. Editor. T4 doesn't recognize that as cheating, so it'd come out looking like a legit character. Freeze your HP at max, give yourself infinite everything useful, and go to town.
*This is a grotesque understatement. I would expect at least several dozen attempts before one even started to get through, and several dozen attempts for each one of those lucky runs before you got even middingly further, and then probably several dozen more for each one of those, just for the privilege of getting completely demolished by the high peaks and endgame fight because you're still under-leveled and under-equipped. Many hundreds, probably thousands, of characters later, you might manage to kill one of the end game bosses. And then die. It is a Sisyphean hell of an achievement.
Post by: Darkmere on January 15, 2014, 01:20:03 am
Looking at my inventory, indeed no Orb at all and nothing left on the ground.
Great, just great, character can't go east.
I would have no qualms whatsoever about debugging myself one if you can do so. Or posting a bug report and asking DG to fix it.
**
This isn't as much of an achievement as the Temporal Warden, but... my last Stone Warden (http://te4.org/characters/31725/tome/d65a10a9-25b6-4aa4-85a5-31acd6cac055) won. He did yield a few lives to feed my completely pointless early-game vault addiction. I know, it's a terrible habit and the gear is pointless, but I can't help myself.
Nothing that stellar to note except by unlocking stone alchemy at level 10 I had enough gold for 4 randarts AND my Dorf saves, and I skipped a few zones because meh. I got a chuckle at the special dialog option for the randart merchant if you have about 10,000 gold and place an order. Also 2k HP was fun because why not?
Might try something harder next time...
Post by: beorn080 on January 15, 2014, 01:59:55 am
Eh? Is there a limit to the orc patrols even though Breeding pits are out? Once you got high enough you could hypothetically just kill patrols over and over until you got enough random gear and XP to hit whatever power scale you like pre-high peak (he says, as though that's trivial). I still have no interest in doing so.So, on my quick trial run as a cornac Anorthil, the first patrol I ran into was, lets see. Two level 10s, a level 12, a level 27, a level 35, and a level 37. Half of those are boss types, and not just uniques.
Post by: kcwong on January 15, 2014, 10:46:44 am
But last time, I didn't ran into a corrupter inside a room. :( -1 life. It's not even Fearscape, my Bulwark survived one before. It's a barrage of lightning spells from him and his minions.
I went back into the the tower... after meeting the boss and frantically teleporting around, I managed to get back on the upstairs... which I abused to recover. Using Last Stand on the stairs, I carefully timed my 3 methods of healing and managed to wear him down.
Spoiler: But then... (click to show/hide)
http://te4.org/characters/110744/tome/43400623-459d-4d90-b114-ff1c117cfc76
I'm a bit confused about the item egos. Which are considered good ones? I can inspect enemies for their talents, but is there an easy way to tell what kind of damage they will be doing? Particularly against spells... I seem to get hurt a ton from them, despite having 50+ in appropriate resists.
Also is there anything you can do if you enter a dungeon, ended up in a room already filled with monsters and an escortee immediately jumped on you? The lone alchemist in Heart of the Gloom died that way...
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2014, 11:04:25 am
Though it's still good to have resist, as if with the enemy penetration your resist wouldn't be high enough, it would then go negative, and that's a world of hurt.
Anyways, as apparently using the debug menu would "invalidate my save" , whatever it means, i decided to go with the zone resetting, so i deleted the file zone-reknor.teaz in my
...\T-Engine\4.0\tome\save\CURRENTCHARACTERNAME\
And so i had to go through those really boring 3 huge levels again.
Then on the last level i noticed that ... the boss isn't there.
Looks like even resetting the zone didn't reset the fact i already crushed him.
No boss meaning still no "orb of many ways" dropping, useless waste of time.
edit : for the escort that happen in room infested with monsters, unfortunately there's nothing to do, the guy is really doomed.
Post by: Darkmere on January 15, 2014, 01:10:52 pm
Anyways, as apparently using the debug menu would "invalidate my save" , whatever it means
The only tangible difference I could find on a quick search was that invalid saved games can't link items in chat. The horror! ... I suppose if you wanted to use the character in some kind of contest or something people could point at that and deride you with internet criticism, but that's all I could come up with about game validation.
**
Anyone have opinions on Legacy of the Naloren? I'm playing an anti-magic dwarf berserker, so it's probably either that or superpower, + some kind of utility for the second prodigy. Does the old 10 pts in exotic weapons mastery thing still work?
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2014, 01:27:37 pm
Going to give myself that "orb of many ways" then, that sun paladin despite the experience problem of the Thalore had been really good at surviving so far, all those shields skills and healing are really making it resilient. Would be a pity to have it blocked.
About the Legacy of the Naloren, i had that win (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/d3cef484-ba99-4acc-abb0-2c47dcbdc006) with it on a berserker. But oddly i don't see my Exotic Mastery listed in there , it was a year ago and i remember stupidly not noticing that the +5 exotic mastery would have been much better if i had already exotic mastery from the warrior escort and maxed it.
I have no idea if now it's still working to +10, but if it's not possible, the whole thing is then useless if it's stuck to 5 max, as the only weapons that are exotic (whips and tridents) aren't as great as what the game can generate for the regular weaponry.
Now if the 10 mastery is still possible (and it should considering how much investment it is you need to do) , i'm not sure if that supertrident will not be beaten by a merchant superitem weapon if you're lucky with the merchant rolls.
Would be a pity to obtain something much better from the merchant, as it would then be a big waste of prodigy
Post by: Darkmere on January 15, 2014, 01:54:55 pm
That is a lot of effort and irritation for the only weapon that's guaranteed to go with the prodigy. Exotics in general seem to be in a bad place, considering I've gotten that one artifact whip several times and rarely a warrior escort to even use it, let alone the point sink...
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2014, 02:09:01 pm
Additionally you need some luck to obtain the exotic mastery (need to save a warrior escort, never guaranteed depending on where it's generated, if it's generated) and without that skill those exotic weapon will be a joke in term of damage scaling with the progression.
So i think in the current situation, it's very likely not worth it, unless you really want to get the prodigy (and the 10 points of exotic mastery to boost the only worthy exotic weapon of the game)
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2014, 03:30:58 pm
Oh well, so beware if you use that debug thing, it will never get its vault entry updated.
Now the other annoyance : in the create items menu there's tons of items that can be created, but guess what : there's no orb of many ways (and not even the fake one).
I looked into the lua console, but neither the wiki entry for debugging or some search on the tome4 board gave me some instruction on what to type in order to create an item (and how to find what is the lua name of that orb of many ways).
Then i went to the last Reknor level, the one with the boss and using the debug "summon" i respawned Golbug the Destroyer, waited a bit and it gave me the dialogue when you meet him, i was happy as maybe this time it would work.
But after killing and looting, still no orb of many ways.
It looks like when things don't want to work, they just don't.
Only funny thing is that when i tried the "grant/alter quest" menu, and sadly noticing it does not alter or remove any quests you have or add, i noticed there's a quest that is not implemented ingame (yet ?) in which in the endgame the void portal can't be closed so you're forced to get inside and fight with that Gerlyk guy that's waiting beyond it.
Post by: Darkmere on January 15, 2014, 05:00:18 pm
That's pretty horrible on the debug console... When I looked at it last nothing anywhere said it would invalidate your character on the vault. I... guess it's good that you couldn't have won anyway... because... I don't even know. There should be better warnings than that with all the documentation that the game doesn't have. Thanks for the warning.
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2014, 05:17:21 pm
At least it showed that debug mode is only to be used if you're not caring about keeping a character in your vault for references.
I guess the bug must have to do with my character spawning in the east and then moving to the west during his starting quest, probably led a buggy variable to make the game think i already had the orb.
While the dev hasn't fixed it, i suggest to stay away of characters starting in the East. From the wiki only humans (cornac/higher) and elves (shalore/thalore) that are either sun paladin or anorithil will start in the east.
So to play a sun paladin or anorithil, just play with another race in case the bug is not fixed in the next version
Post by: Frumple on January 15, 2014, 05:22:14 pm
And yeah, it normally kills vault updating. Flag or somethin' might be better, but... eh. Character dump still works fine.
More game related, I'm loving how tanky late-ish game mindslayers get, I really am. I mean, I always have, but it's nice to be back in this situation after a while away. Between solid armor and antimagic shield chopping everything at the bottom, and the psi shields chopping everything at the top, I'm usually cutting even heavy attacks to half or a third, if they do damage at all. It's beautiful.
E: Also, 5/5 psiblade + 5/5 reshape weapon = Pretty darn painful mindstars. Offhand star is doing more damage than my mainhand weapon or my psi-wield one according to the character sheet, despite having some like half to a third the base damage of the other two. Only about matching the mainhand and doing about 2/3rds the psi-wielded one in reality, but that's still a base 28.5 weapon hitting for around 170 non-crit damage, on average.
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2014, 05:55:31 pm
Post by: Darkmere on January 15, 2014, 06:11:10 pm
EDIT: Scratch that I just lurked your profile instead. I'm good ;)
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2014, 06:23:00 pm
Not only to deal damage, but it increase the mindpower given by your mindstar a lot, and that gives a great synergy to every other mind base skills (that usually improve with how much mindpower you have)
Definitively a skill i recommend to max.
Post by: Frumple on January 15, 2014, 06:38:43 pm
... Frumple, can I see how you spent your generics on that mindslayer? I just started one and I'm curious.Link for anyone else curious, (http://te4.org/characters/2939/tome/d48af120-3ae9-4f40-9725-913b13329ea4) heh. Am running an addon race that's a little (but, for once, actually only a little) on the overpowered side (and notably, in a way that specifically shores up 'slayers primary weakness, their negative life rating), but nothing too egregious. I'd be about at the same level of whoop with a dwarf or thalore, I imagine, though the lack of passive regen would be fairly notable. Regen's a pretty big deal.
EDIT: Scratch that I just lurked your profile instead. I'm good ;)
I don't really do anything fancy with 'slayer generics usually, though. Finer manipulation stuff (perfect control is a lot better than I remember it. Probably one of the best crit boosting talents in the game now, to say nothing of the ridiculously huge accuracy buff.), nothing in voracity, the normal passives on a melee character. Bit into antimagic, good old psiblades. Whatever else comes up as it comes up.
E: ... if you didn't like 'zerkers, though, you'd probably hate that build. I haven't spiked an aura since the dreadfell ambush, three or four dungeons ago*. Or used any active talents outside mobility and the occasional TK Smash. The only time I've spiked shields at all were to switch the non-kinetic one to something appropriate for the area I was in -- which is to say, I haven't spiked them to actually soak damage yet. At all. Admittedly, I do end up killing a lot of stuff while repositioning, but it's still mostly bump bump bump with careful, but only occasional, utility use.
*Took three or four thermal spikes to kill off all but a couple orcs (barring the boss, of course. With kinshield and the armor, he basically couldn't hurt me). Most of the fight was spent bouncing around with TK leap and wanderer's rest to avoid getting surrounded while the aura was on cooldown.
Post by: Robsoie on January 15, 2014, 06:52:47 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 15, 2014, 06:59:29 pm
Specifically, pirate islander trolls*. More than that was not said, but that was DG's intent at one point in the past.
*Several of them had lines like this, actually, though them and the (desert steampunk) orcs are the only two I recall.
Post by: Darkmere on January 15, 2014, 07:54:14 pm
Re: campaigns and new stuff: The only things I've heard mentioned *lately* are the orc DLC thing, and DG told one of the big modders over there to ignore celestials, psionics, and afflicted because he (DG) was making new classes for those metas. Who knows? lunar archers? psibowmen? ... another afflicted class I won't play?
Post by: Frumple on January 15, 2014, 08:03:49 pm
... probably going to pick up Carry the World for the second prodigy, too. +40 str = +20 mindpower >_>
And better melee attacks too, I guess.
*Well, base damage, anyway. Still, it's pretty great to basically turn dwarven-steel into voratun and voratun into solidified pain.
Post by: kcwong on January 16, 2014, 09:18:33 am
Now I'm level 30 and are about to choose a prodigy... I'm looking at 4 of them right now...
Fungal Blood - Stock up on another healing power while running my other inscriptions? Sounds very attractive since I'm a tank. But the power will fade and the amount healed doesn't seem a lot.
Never Stop Running - If there are enough space, I could use this to get myself into a nice position even when surprised.
Steamroller - Rushing all around the battlefield... but I don't seem to have the DPS to kill a lot of things in two turns, since I'm running Shield Wall a lot.
Spine of the World - Status defense is good right? Though I do have pretty good resists on most of them already.
I can pump some more points into strength and get I can Carry the World or Irresistible Sun... but those two doesn't seem very powerful.
Edit:
... wow, those orc patrols are ridiculous. Can't outrun them, and my character simply can't last long enough to kill them all (dps way too low, I screwed up the build I think). Two lives left, two classes unlocked, I think I will set this character aside for now. No point to waste all those artifacts I got which can be transferred to other characters :p
http://te4.org/characters/110744/tome/43400623-459d-4d90-b114-ff1c117cfc76
Post by: Robsoie on January 16, 2014, 11:22:23 am
Post by: Darkmere on January 16, 2014, 12:02:14 pm
Here's my Anti-magic Bulwark winner (http://te4.org/characters/31725/tome/80ca834a-85a6-495a-b76d-fc499aa3f542).
Assault in the shield offense tree is one of the game's best killers. Paired with riposte (for 2 turns of counterattack) and Eternal guard (for blocking every melee attack over 2 turns), it's almost unstoppable. I like to disarm melee, or stun casters, to make them feebly punch my shield block, then assault for massive damage, then use Step Up to run to the next target and repeat. If you pair all that with Giant Leap you can just jump over the melee meatwalls and kill the squishy but lethal casters immediately in every fight. As much as I love Irresistable Sun, bulwarks don't need it as much as sun pallies do. It's still a very solid choice, though.
Post by: Graven on January 16, 2014, 04:23:25 pm
In other news, why fix what is
Currently sitting at level 10 with no skillpoints spent, wondering whether to go Storm, Stone or Ice.
I've tried Storm, and it was pretty fun, problem is that while essentially all Archmage builds are DoT builds, storm is the dottest and with the least direct damage, and that just isn't acceptable.
Stone seems the other major alternative to wildfire judging by people's wins, but I toyed with Stone spells on my Arcane Blade, and none of them seem that engaging, and screw aiming Earthen Missiles 3 times every time I want to fight a dude.
Cold is the dark horse, I've never tried it and apparantly neither has the world, judging by the character vault. I checked out the spells, and honestly not much stuck. Guess you have decent AoE CC with that aoe freeze spell? And you can deal some AoE with that shatter spell? But apart from that, I'm not sure.
Any thoughts on non-wildfire AM builds?
Post by: Frumple on January 16, 2014, 04:31:33 pm
After a while, everything and its hatchling* either resisted or was outright immune to daze, which basically neutered half the build's offensive capabilities. Wasn't very fun. Do believe it's better these days, but the class is still fundamentally centered around a single status effect. The issues with that are kinda' obvious.
Cold's got basically the same issue, except worse, because even without it most of its spells are less damaging than a storm centered build. I hear good things about shivogoroth form, but...
You might be better off going a cold leaning minion-less necromancer.
Wildfire's imba 'cause it's DG's lovechild*, and stone's good enough. Haven't tried arcane but I hear good things about it. Storm and uttercold are just kinda' meh.
*Mild hyperbole, but not by too much.
Post by: Robsoie on January 16, 2014, 05:05:04 pm
For a while he was dealing death everywhere once he got the sustains of both tree .
Then i found the Staff of Destruction, the very good staff that has 10% of chance to inflict impending doom on anything you hit with a spell.
Looked like a combination of awesome with my good tempest.
Unfortunately i noticed i was getting on myself Impending Doom a lot from then, along with the hurricane effect (the one that hit you with exploding lightning for a dozen of turns) too
After losing a bit of lives due to hurricane+impending doom hitting me (as archmages do not have high health, the effect is really disastrous) , my character was soon dead.
At first i thought it was a phenomenal streak of bad luck that the game generated maybe 50% of the monsters able to cast impending doom and hurricane on me.
But then after some discussion on the board, it appeared that one of the very good sustain that automatically shoot people in a radius with lightning and hurricane death in fact can (and so will) hit yourself if you're close to the target.
And when it happens, the 10% impending doom of the Staff of Destruction can then apply .. on you, similarly to the Hurricane effect that comes from you.
So if you go Tempest be sure to NEVER use the Staff of Destruction, and get as high Lightning resist as possible for you (and possibly as high Magic save as possible) to counter the hurricane effect.
Post by: Frumple on January 16, 2014, 05:47:47 pm
Spoiler: Really, game? Really? (click to show/hide)
I'm never going to see that bloody femur ;_;
Post by: Graven on January 16, 2014, 06:28:08 pm
I decided to go with Earth/Stone, probably should've gone Aether.
Unlocked Stone and Temporal at level 10, time shield is amazing. Damage from Pulverising Auger is nice, got a staff with +23% Physical Damage [tier 3 from one of the chests] so yay me, I guess. Cooldowns are a bit long-ish, but I suppose that gets better with Body of Stone. Still not really enthusiastic at my primary strategy against powerful enemies being rooting myself and plinking like a demented turret.
Still died once, to the god damn Sandworm Queen who I guess managed to shoot off all her attack spells and Devour me while I was wandering around in the dark tunnels with my stupid Void Star [2 light radius is a bastard].
Seems decent so far, spells that push people away are always a joy - make me feel really powerful for some reason. Man, if only Gravity paradox mage was better, I'd never play anything else. Would like to get my hands on Wraps of Stone, somehow.
Might have to play Corruptor for my primitive "big numbers" urge, which is a shame, really. Vim is ugh. Also maybe I don't want to be a vile force of darkness throwing my blood at people, game. Maybe I just want to purge the entire world with lightning, how about that? Or show those pathetic Oozemancers the true power of nature via impaling their worthless bodies with gigantic spires of rock?
[Earth should totally have a spell that knocks people back and Pins them if they hit terrain - Impale people all day erryday]
Post by: Robsoie on January 16, 2014, 08:48:03 pm
But i never ceased to forget my escape options (and i had a few, teleport, ghoul leap and even a leap from artifact boots) regularly and died too many times from that lack of attention (or even forgetting to use that nice retch), too focused on the "take that damn monster !" pain dealing business :D.
It was rather incredible how fast that much health can go away if you don't pay attention to it when playing berserkers.
Now i'm running a skeleton archimage to see if i can finally get a decent damage dealing archimage running instead of my past failure one.
Already lost 2 lives again to stupid situations that each time involved the shield rune (that i set to automatically activate when an enemy is spotted) that didn't activate at all despite the autoexplore was stopping due to an enemy.
Most of the time the activation when there's an enemy spotted will work.
But for some reason i don't understand, sometime it will activate automatically only the turn -after- when it has spotted the enemy, meaning that if you're confident in the game to have activated as it should your shield, you'll cast a spell (and the enemy will shoot at you too with his spells/skills/etcand then next turn you have taken tons of damage to your low health (as a mage) , and your shield ... activate ... or not if you've been insta killed by the damage
Could have been understandable if there was a bad effect on the character or a rune saturation, but it was not the case in both situations.
I reported this (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=39970) a couple of versions ago as it's not the 1st time i observed this oddity, but as it's still there in 1.1.5 i guess that's not going to change anytime.
So the best advice is to never trust the game to automatically activate a rune when it should, always check if it has really done it before taking any further action, because losing a character due to that is simply not fun. As said most of the time it will activate as it should, but sometime it will only activate on the next turn (for some character i played it was half of the time), and it's in those situation that it's easy to lose characters that completely rely on their shieldings to survive
Post by: Frumple on January 16, 2014, 08:55:45 pm
Shields up at first sight of enemy sounds like a good way to get killed, anyway. Kicks on at the first sight of hatchling, five turns later it kicks off having soaked up no damage and the drake/wyrm steps around the corner. Splat :-\
Post by: Robsoie on January 17, 2014, 10:45:15 am
My skeleton archmage is still alive (well, as much as an undead can be :D ), i lost a life this time not due to my shield not automatically activating (as i now continuously check) but because overpowered rare had been generated.
It was in the alternative lake of nur (water levels instead of water then ruins without water), it was a rare/unique entranched horror (the regular ones have been burning very well from my strong spell).
Not knowing what to expect, i activated on top of my rune shield my bone shield (skeleton racial) to cover everything.
As bone shield takes a turn to activate, the rare shot me, and ... no more shield and no more bone shield, instead of listening to cowardice and save my character life by teleporting (entranched horror never move) , i decided to give a try to burning that thing with my strong spell before teleporting away, so i could play an attrition game, burning it, retreating, coming back, then burning it again etc...
A bit like you do with the Master if you character is really too weak to stand in a long fight with him.
But while i indeed burned the thing, it shot me again in the same turn and ... Eidolon loading.
Wow, 1st turn it destroyed -both- bone shield+damage shield, and 2nd turn, it destroyed the whole character health (near 600 thanks to many +health items as archmage are very low on health without them).
Looking at the log it appeared that the thing was a Solipsist dealing insane psi damage.
Fortunately it was in a corned of the level, far from the stairs down, so i could go back and just run to those stairs to burn easily the fortress entrance boss and get in it.
Some time later, i went to Dreadfell and managed to defeat the Master, i had to use the attrition tactic as my mana was running low a bit too fast in comparison to his health and resurrection.
I really wonder if the Wildfire sustain supposed to nearly drop enemies fire res by 50% is really working as before as i didn't noticed any real difference between having it on , maxed, and having it off , especially against the enemies that had no visible fire res.
Before for such enemy with no fire res, their fire res would get into negative as expected and they would really take huge damage, but it does not seem to happen now, unless it's some really bad luck in the damage rolls.
Anyways, in my victory against Dreadfell, i found this really good item , a nice alternative to the Black Robe actually, even if it's less strong in Spellpower, it has nice +stats
(http://i.imgur.com/VMKJYbA.jpg)
Post by: Graven on January 17, 2014, 06:31:02 pm
Stone Archmage report : great single-target and AoE damage, great fun, 10/10 would recommend, 4 deaths so far [clearing Dreadfell] worst of which was getting pulled into my own Earthen Missiles by a rare. Debating on restarting, will probably do that if I die one more time pre-return to the west, kind of want to continue for now though since restarting feels like cheating. Will keep on getting Temporal ASAP on any future Archmages, a 700 point shield [with Aegis] at level 20 is absurd.
Going to roll a melee to go alongside the Archmage. Since I've almost won with my Arcane Blade, I want to try a different melee, since everything even remotely similar - rogue, shadowblade, marauder etc - will feel pretty impotent in comparison. My choices are Cursed [really strong and dull as heck] and Sword-and-board Wyrmic [awesome and manly and quite handsome if I do say so myself]. Not really sure what's considered "hip" with Wyrmics nowadays - I just hope they fixed the breaths, since I remember the frost one running on Spellpower rather than mindpower waaay back for some reason.
Definitely gonna go with Cornac again - life's too short for experience penalties.
Post by: Robsoie on January 17, 2014, 06:45:45 pm
But it's really where giving priority to +health item was a good idea.
Several time my character ended one of the big spellcaster+uniques (never encountered so many of them in Dark Crypt) battle with roughly a bit less than a hundred of health.
Without the various + health i had, it would have meant character dead.
Now in the East, i did Vor Armory and Briarg (and the spider lair + the temple of creation too, so i could fetch that nice eldritch pearl), proceeding back to the West to get my 1st superitem from the merchant as i'm over 4000 gold .
A very nice trip east as i got the lost staff of Tarelion during that time there, very good piece of staff in comparison to the not that good one i had.
I'm still unsure on which prodigy to get, they seem so weak for archmage as i'm not meeting some conditions for the most interesting ones for now.
Post by: Robsoie on January 17, 2014, 08:39:21 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/f89vA1V.jpg)
Yes ! To me Meteor prodigy, to glory !
And it proved very quickly to have been a great choice, destroying things my spells were already damaging.
Poor Shade of Telos in his tower, he didn't stood a chance.
Post by: Robsoie on January 17, 2014, 10:21:34 pm
Someone (Mewtarthio) replied to my bug report (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=40151&p=171460#p171421) with the code you need to type (or copy paste, ctrl+c -> ctrl+v) into the lua console to generate a "swirling orb" in your inventry, that once identified is the orb of many ways
Code: [Select]
game.player:addObject(game.player:getInven("INVEN"), game.zone:makeEntityByName(game.level, "object", "ORB_MANY_WAYS", true))Something to keep in mind in case you encounter the same exact bug
Post by: Graven on January 18, 2014, 06:00:02 am
I rescued Melinda, and teleported away to clear the rest of the level. As I was killing dudes, I suddenly got the message you get for dieing in the Ambush - "Go to Last Hope to report this immediately", and... no Melinda. I exited the crypt, and the quest is still on, the merchant is still sad, no artefacts for me.
On the bright side, my Stone Archmage is doing fairly well, got decent +physical damage [however if I was fire I'd be at over +120% already, stupid Grand Corruptor dropped that robe of +20% and there's the Fiery Choker in the merchant's shop bleugh].
Still wish Gravity Paradox Mage was a bit more powerful, as the spells are definitely quite amusing to use, they just need to pack a bit more punch IMO.
Post by: Robsoie on January 18, 2014, 12:40:18 pm
After wasting that time, i remembered that i could have done a Farportal , probably reached the 4000 mark without that much time grinding.
Oh well...
Post by: Robsoie on January 18, 2014, 03:10:54 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/bliSYxk.jpg)
looks like both sorcerer provide enough XP to bring even the high XP malus skeletons to level 50
That's my first Archmage (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/cf375ce2-4a6f-4f9d-8ffd-471ba0a3f256) that won, after failing so much with storm or stone focused builds, i went with fire this time, with some arcane too.
It has been though sometime when my character was up against an enemy that had the ability to turn down all my sustains (and archimage really need his sustain to be efficient) .
That's how i lost a life on high peak, i didn't noticed at first that my sustain were all down, and noticed too late after wondering why i was doing ridiculous damage to an enemy and why i was taking so much pain.
But in the end my skeleton prevailed, my meteors were dealing great damage on crits, and the imbue item (got the stone alchemy tree from an escort) + prodigy to add it to 2 more worn item) gave me tons of more stats (as i used diamonds for the 3 items, basically +15 to all stats , really great).
I first focused all my spells on Elandar, as he's the most annoying of the 2 sorcerers, turning invisible and running away constantly, but some of my skills weren't letting him get away with that and he ended into ashes.
Then i joined force with Aeryn to burn Argoniel to death, it was easy and Aeryn was taking most of the hits while i was casting spells.
I avoided for the whole fight my really good "Blastwave" that served me well for the whole game, as it would have unfortunately got Aeryn very badly hit too, the thing not making any difference between enemy and ally (and good for me i had the spellcraft skill maxed to avoid getting hit by my own spells)
All in all it was a fun run with that character.
Time to take a break from that game.
Post by: Frumple on January 18, 2014, 05:49:40 pm
Spoiler: Latafayn (click to show/hide)
I think me and that 8% lifesteal of yours are going to be friends for a little bit.
Post by: Darkmere on January 19, 2014, 05:22:40 am
My top incoming damage at this point is physical, so.... Carry the World for zero-fatigue, zero-stat-investment heavy armor is sounding very nice...
Post by: Graven on January 19, 2014, 07:01:59 am
I also won - my second non-antimagic win ever!
Behold, the Arcane Blade!
http://te4.org/characters/15454/tome/e5d8ae77-3cf0-41d4-82cc-1186802d19fc (http://te4.org/characters/15454/tome/e5d8ae77-3cf0-41d4-82cc-1186802d19fc)
Biggest mistake ever - taking Temporal Form. Should've gotten Steamroller, since most things died to plain ole' Rush in itself. I only used Temporal Form in the last fight to look cool.
Nearly instagibbed Elandar, then had to stand around bumping into Argoniel cuz cooldowns. This was a pretty fun game. Definitely the most fun I've had in Tome. I played somewhat spazzy, killed myself more times than I can remember [last was in the Slime Tunnels to that Dragon Orb boss, who I guess switched places with me? I just know I hit flurry and woops Eidolon loading hurr hurr. Then I came back, poked him carefully with a bump attack and away went half his health].
Also items became way too arcane for me, so I'm probably using subpar equipment in some slots. At one point I just stopped looking at equipment at all and just went on hoarding uniques for my personal amusement.
The saddest part is Elandar dropped the Hands of the World Shaper, which would've been insane for me at any previous point. Oh well.
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc9/Baron_Sengir/Gloves_zps118ba86e.png)
Post by: Robsoie on January 19, 2014, 07:05:10 am
Post by: Blaze on January 19, 2014, 11:38:07 am
Just before finishing heading off to the Far East I went and tried the Dark Crypt. AM and fungus and WILLPOWAAAAH.
Is it just me or are Cursed just really kinda boring to play?
I have like, 4 skills I activate regularly and everything else is passive.
Post by: Frumple on January 19, 2014, 08:58:49 pm
You win. (http://te4.org/characters/2939/tome/850ff0d9-de53-4e35-a45d-aa3305b83bd5)
Also, dude, Robs. That phys resistance. So much for it being hard to build the stuff up >_> Okay, okay, so like 40% of it was coming from two items. Shush, heh.
Post by: Niveras on January 20, 2014, 07:00:32 pm
Post by: Darkmere on January 21, 2014, 12:25:11 am
Funny story, my saves were garbage so the second I set foot in the east I got directly shat on by pretty much everything immediately (sun infusion! sun infusion! sun infusion! sun infusion!), but I had a great time until then. Finally figuring out a class that completely baffles you feels pretty awesome.
Post by: kcwong on January 21, 2014, 08:18:52 am
You can kill tunnelers? I thought they're immune to every possible thing.
And they have huge amount of HP to boot.
Post by: kcwong on January 21, 2014, 10:50:32 am
Now trying a dwarf alchemist. Now this is a real easy class to start with...
Post by: Darkmere on January 21, 2014, 11:02:23 am
Post by: Robsoie on January 21, 2014, 12:52:06 pm
That Doomed was doing well at surviving, but roughly at level 15 i just gave up because i simply had no fun at all.
The shadows themselves are strong, i had 3 of them running around, but the problem with them is that unlike summons that are always usefull in attacking or helping you get some breathing distance between you and a strong enemy, the shadows will do whatever they want, meaning that if you get surprised around a corner by some monster you think is too strong for you alone, the shadows are ... elsewhere doing their stuff while you're taking damage.
Sure once you get the shadow focus skill that is better, but until you able to get it, boring.
Now the damage dealing stuff. Basically you do weak damage with your spells even maxed, and to add insult to injury, all your spells have very low range.
So despite you're not a though class you're basically forced to always get at 3 or 4 tiles from a dangerous enemy (so they will have no problem to shoot at you then) if you hope to deal a bit of damage, additionally you need to keep them on sight so your skil increasing your hate will work instead of constantly decrease.
Fortunately it gets better once you get the Blast power (but it's still damned low range) as it's basically the only serious damage spell you have (it's AOE fortunately so it can help cleaning rooms) but until then, damage will be really weak.
So basically, early game is tedious, boring and not fun, it apparently only get better later but keeping my interest until then was simply impossible.
Post by: Frumple on January 21, 2014, 01:37:45 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 21, 2014, 01:57:54 pm
Post by: Graven on January 21, 2014, 03:01:47 pm
Still not great, as it's harder to get going, and you need Mental Tyranny, but once you get rolling it's mind-slamming dudes left, right and centre, tanking ALL the hits, turning half the screen into your own Sea of Shadow and running through it at hyper speeds.
Or so I've heard. Never managed to get one to that point. But it definitely sounds and seems [from my limited experience] a ton more fun than a Shadows build.
I'm trying to find something fun to play too, but ever since my Arcane Blade win, everything else seems so... meh. If only every single Flurry didn't take my poor laptop 5 seconds to process... I might start another one still, since I can't find anything else enjoyable to play.
Post by: Robsoie on January 21, 2014, 03:46:19 pm
I'm trying to find something fun to play too, but ever since my Arcane Blade win, everything else seems so... meh.That may be one of the reason because that doomed was very good despite all those disapointing things i listed, didn't died once up to when i gave up on it, probably when you get a very long run with a character you had fun with, the following can be rather underwhelming.
Though i'm still not sure how to have any fun with a Doomed before midgame, when you have your skills really running.
That skeleton brawler i'm running, despite being a disaster and not really making much use of tactics so far have been a lot of fun to me.
But i guess uppercuting a huge dragon to death can have this effect :D
Post by: Darkmere on January 21, 2014, 04:37:25 pm
Post by: Graven on January 21, 2014, 04:57:27 pm
But here's my conundrum. If I want to be a big burly dude who hits things with big tough manly weapons, I have basically 3 choices - Berserker, Cursed and Wyrmic. Wyrmic has low damage, and I've already won one. It's quite interesting and has a ton of options, but it's boring by virtue of these two things. Cursed is the most aptly named class in the game because I'll be damned if I ever play another one.
And this leaves me with Berserker. Who is marginally more interesting than cursed, but still has three buttons to use at the most. Your only options as a berserker are A) Hit dudes and B) Not hit dudes.
So what am I supposed to do, start an Adventurer? No problem, but adventurer is clunky. A ton clunkier than a fluid, skill-based system like DCSS's. Which means every time I level up it takes me 5 centuries to spend my points, and I honestly don't know what to combine Berserker with to make a fun melee class. I'm really open to suggestions, btw. Two-handers, high damage, and possibly AoE. If anyone can suggest a combination of trees that makes this I will be really grateful.
I just want to hit things with huge weapons :'(
Post by: Niveras on January 21, 2014, 05:02:35 pm
You can kill tunnelers? I thought they're immune to every possible thing.
And they have huge amount of HP to boot.
I meant a burrower, my bad.
Well, I don't remember their exact names either. Even if you had said burrower I would've probably asked the same question.
Post by: Robsoie on January 21, 2014, 05:16:05 pm
Now if only the levelup interface code for Adventurer wasn't recalculating constantly every single skills for the hundred of trees you don't even use, making it a real slow/laggy pain to use during the level up sessions.
I hope that will be optimised for further version, Adventurer is so fun for "create your own custom class" , but such a heavy slowdown/lag in the levelup panels ...
Post by: kcwong on January 22, 2014, 10:15:17 am
Post by: Robsoie on January 22, 2014, 10:22:13 am
Usually when i see i got that alternate, i go to another dungeon to make a level or two more of experience.
Post by: Darkmere on January 22, 2014, 11:59:11 am
Alt maze is a PITA though.
Also, I think someone turned the "zigur patrol" dial up to 11. They're swarming in every game I make these days.
Post by: Robsoie on January 22, 2014, 12:12:09 pm
Surprising they have not yet overwhelmed the orcs in the east :D
Post by: Darkmere on January 22, 2014, 03:50:32 pm
That's something that i noticed, adventurers are now rare, but zigur patrols are everywhere.
Surprising they have not yet overwhelmed the orcs in the east :D
Now that you mention it, I have run across an amusing bug... Occasionally if I clear out some Ziguranths then take a portal and orc patrols catch me, the ambush map is populated by zigurs instead. It catches up one or two ambushes later, but the AM cult has in fact spread across the sea.
Post by: kcwong on January 23, 2014, 10:44:58 am
Golem can be rebuilt, let them die :)
Alt maze is a PITA though.
Also, I think someone turned the "zigur patrol" dial up to 11. They're swarming in every game I make these days.
Yeah, I know. :) To be precise I didn't recall away after the lovecraftian thing killed my golem; I gem portaled to the other side, cleared away the clutter and rebuilt my golem. I did the alternate version in one go.
Now I'm closing in on level 19, no death so far. *knocks on wood* Already max'ed out the first 3 bomb talents so damage output is pretty good. I've been putting points in magic, constitution and willpower, so right now I have more HP than my golem... ::)
Edit: Level 20! Character sheet (http://te4.org/characters/110744/tome/8af8e386-612e-48e4-9f1f-4b9874a06cd3). +40% movement speed is very great. :D
Post by: Robsoie on January 23, 2014, 01:53:44 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 23, 2014, 02:29:26 pm
Now, earlier in T4's development? Passive movement speed shoring up an active buff could literally break the game. Could bring movement cost below zero and actually have you gain energy whenever you move (So you could move 10-20 times, and then get a free attack, and then move 10-20 times again, and...), which was pretty hilarious but hella' broken.
You can really stack up the passive +movespeed these days, though. A lot more item slots offer it. Personally tend to wear feathersteel for a long, looong time, heh. Think my last mindslayer's been wearing the thing since like the pre-teens (and is currently in the forties.).
E: Well. That was... borderline embarrassing. Character couldn't hit prox enough times in a row (Acc was dead even with Prox's defense) to actually bring the bugger's health down.
So, uh. I kited him around a pond until he drowned.
I mean, yeesh. I knew it could happen, sure. I knew killing Prox as a general thing wasn't exactly the hardest thing to do. But killing him without actually being able to damage him? That's a new one for me.
Kinda' hilarious, but being in a situation where you actually resort to that because it's the only way (short of going to another zone and getting some levels, anyway) to take Prox down...
Post by: Darkmere on January 24, 2014, 02:41:19 am
Dwarf sword N board arcane blade, finally got all my shield offense, stone, GWF running. 3 orc ambushes surround me leaving the valley of the moon. Fine, I pick one. 2 necros, 2 cryos, two pyros. Teleport fails. targeted phase door fails. Rune of reflection, aegis-boosted crumbles in the turn I cast it. I should be up around 25% all resist with 30-50 of everything else presented there and it was still completely hopeless. Thankfully I can just tell eidolon to drop me off outside... but still, with Breeding Pits gone there's no way I could have avoided something like that.
Rant, rant, rant. I generalize my hatred.
I think next char is going to be Cursed. I played around a bit with a Cornac and he was doing great til getting utterly ruined by the bandit leader (should have picked up a totem of cure poisons I think). Next one will be stouter, probably dorf. I get the impression that they're kinda either/or between Cursed Aura for gear (10 pts) and Anti-Magic (15-ish points). Is this about right? Any success stories/horrible failures/personal preferences between either?
Post by: Aoi on January 24, 2014, 03:31:45 am
E: Well. That was... borderline embarrassing. Character couldn't hit prox enough times in a row (Acc was dead even with Prox's defense) to actually bring the bugger's health down.
So, uh. I kited him around a pond until he drowned.
Huh. I've known for a while that NPCs have to breathe (if they're air breathers...) but... the idea of weaponizing a lake never really occurred to me. XD
Post by: kcwong on January 24, 2014, 08:35:34 am
Is there a way to get that wand? I can't dig the vault's wall, I can't walk on lava, and gem portal doesn't work on vault walls.
Post by: Robsoie on January 24, 2014, 09:11:08 am
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=38431&p=158744#p158737
Post by: kcwong on January 24, 2014, 10:41:31 am
the solution to that vault can be found from Psyringe post there :
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=38431&p=158744#p158737
Hrrrnnng. Trick vaults eh? I don't like them. I am stuck inside another one right now. Already emptied all the rooms I can see, been clicking on all the walls randomly hoping to find another room or the exit.
One of the big rooms shut my golem outside too, nearly died but saved by a timely level up.
Edit: I got this one discussed in this thread:
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=29685
I was stuck in the lower section though.
Post by: Graven on January 24, 2014, 02:23:47 pm
I have no idea how the insane bastards who play this game on roguelike ever win, aside from beating your head against a wall until sheer luck hands you a winnable run.
Dwarf sword N board arcane blade, finally got all my shield offense, stone, GWF running. 3 orc ambushes surround me leaving the valley of the moon. Fine, I pick one. 2 necros, 2 cryos, two pyros. Teleport fails. targeted phase door fails. Rune of reflection, aegis-boosted crumbles in the turn I cast it. I should be up around 25% all resist with 30-50 of everything else presented there and it was still completely hopeless. Thankfully I can just tell eidolon to drop me off outside... but still, with Breeding Pits gone there's no way I could have avoided something like that.
Rant, rant, rant. I generalize my hatred.
I think next char is going to be Cursed. I played around a bit with a Cornac and he was doing great til getting utterly ruined by the bandit leader (should have picked up a totem of cure poisons I think). Next one will be stouter, probably dorf. I get the impression that they're kinda either/or between Cursed Aura for gear (10 pts) and Anti-Magic (15-ish points). Is this about right? Any success stories/horrible failures/personal preferences between either?
Cornac -> all points into rampage until 5/5/0/0 -> antimagic ->zzzZZZzZzzZzzZzZZzzZZzzZzZZZzZzzzZzZzZzzzzZZZZz -> 0 death win congratulations
Curses were buffed a lot, I hear Shrouds became ridiculous, and it's a bit easier to go dual-wield now but the Enemy is boredom, and He is stronger than ever.
Though I guess going dual-wield and getting Windblade will give you at least one button to press, so there's that.
But really, cursed is really powerful and hella boring.
Post by: sjm9876 on January 24, 2014, 02:37:46 pm
I have no idea how the insane bastards who play this game on roguelike ever win, aside from beating your head against a wall until sheer luck hands you a winnable run.i refuse to play on anything but roguelike..... needless to say, I've never won. Yet. One day.....
It does reduce the boredom factor somewhat, mainly as I know there's stuff that I have yet to reach.
Post by: Darkmere on January 24, 2014, 04:46:43 pm
But really, cursed is really powerful and hella boring.
Yeah, I'm intentionally not going Cornac or AM to make things a bit more interesting. This guy will probably be a "break" character to play between my next shadowblade attempts. Also it can't possibly be as boring as reavers. Right?
...right?
Post by: Graven on January 24, 2014, 04:58:04 pm
Though now that you've been talking about them I kind of want to get one going myself.
CURSE YOU DARKMERE
but honestly if you're playing cursed you might as well go cornac because there's literally no reason to make cursed's boring early game even more boring by not having your main damage/escape/everything tool - rampage.
Post by: Darkmere on January 24, 2014, 08:00:22 pm
Post by: kcwong on January 24, 2014, 11:43:36 pm
So it's dancing on the stairs... until I got hit too hard for me to handle. It also didn't help that when you are trying to deal with the tower, you are just about the level to trigger Dark Crypt... which cost me 1 life.
Can someone take a look and tell me what am I doing wrong?
http://te4.org/characters/110744/tome/8af8e386-612e-48e4-9f1f-4b9874a06cd3
Post by: Frumple on January 25, 2014, 12:46:06 am
Kit's fine. Defensive posture is kinda' useless*** IMO -- maxing out staff mastery for bigger channels usually helps me out more (offense is your defense, etc.). Few more points into golem resilience would be helpful, especially on that fragile golem end. It's a pretty sizable defensive boost*. Some better shield runes on the thing, if you can manage, would probably help there, too. Maybe an acid wave rune, if you can get a hold of one. Fairly sure the golem's AI can handle that without blowing you up, these days.
Other than that, build wise, what you've got is workable enough. I don't personally go into fire alchemy very often**, and I probably would have put the reflection rune on the golem, but your bombs should be (would be, if you were using decent alchie gems for your level :P) blowing everything to smithereens. If it's not too late to swap points from defensive posture into staff mastery, your channel staff hits would likely be hitting in the 2-300+ damage range very easily at this point, as well.
And yeah, stair dancing isn't something squishy wizard really wants to be doing. Might want to gem portal into a more open space and let the bombs do more talking than your face, heh.
*E: I generally don't put any points into the golem's con until after stat reqs for all their talents are met (or at least until reflective skin can be maxed out). General path is strength to 36 (or 38... whatever it is for the last physical talent), then magic to however deep in the magic tree I intend to go (at least reflective skin), then back into strength until the stat req for voratun plate is met. Stick the golem in plate armor, max out resilience, and get a couple good shield runes (and possibly the reflective shield rune, as well), and it'll tank well enough between passive toughness and active healing (refit, supercharge) well into the end-game.
**E:This is more personal preference and lingering dislike than anything. It's a pretty decent tree nowadays.
***E2: More explicitly, the problem with defensive posture is three-fold.
One: You shouldn't be getting hit, especially in melee. Bomb around corners, let the golem tank, etc. Sometimes it happens anyway, but it shouldn't be, and if it does, defense and armor probably isn't going to save you, heh. The ranged defense and armor does help against archers, but your main ranged threat isn't archers, ha.
Two: Defense is frankly kinda' useless if you don't have enough of it, and an alchie really doesn't have the means to get that critical amount. Defensive posture helps, yes, but see 1. 40-ish actually isn't too bad, but iirc you need somewhere around 50-60 at this point in the game to really get a lot out of it :-\
Three: Armor, while still useful enough in small amounts/low hardiness, isn't really worth major investment in if you don't have means to up your armor hardiness a significant amount. And alchies don't really have the means to do that unless they luck on to some pretty rare kit (or go heavy/massive, which... they could, technically. They don't really need much mana, so the fatigue issues aren't as bad for them. Most of the armor they really want to be wearing is cloth, though.).
So it boils down to defensive posture just being kinda' hella' suboptimal on an alchie, at least when it comes to fairly normal builds. It's sexy enough on melee-centered staffers, especially the ones that would actually be going heavy armor (sunpas or reavers, perhaps), but an alchie doesn't really get much from the investment.
Post by: kcwong on January 25, 2014, 01:23:22 am
Thank you for the tips... I'll keep them in mind on my next bomber. This one already wasted too much lives. He did unlocked Reaver class for me though - throwing a bomb on a mage in a corridor. So I'm trying one now.
Post by: Robsoie on January 25, 2014, 09:32:26 am
So it's dancing on the stairs... until I got hit too hard for me to handle. It also didn't help that when you are trying to deal with the tower, you are just about the level to trigger Dark Crypt... which cost me 1 life.
And yeah, stair dancing isn't something squishy wizard really wants to be doing. Might want to gem portal into a more open space and let the bombs do more talking than your face, heh.
Wait a minute, stairs dancing ?
No, no no ! You don't do stair dancing anymore in ToME4 !
A dozen of versions ago, it was a tactic to take down most overpowered bosses, but since then the dev have removed that because now if you get up/down a stair, the said boss (and every monsters on the level) are reset to full health, ruining all the efforts you did to take down a bit of their health.
Additionally it removes all the staying effect from your spells on the area, but do not remove the ones from those monsters (so if a monster cast some confusion curse area that stay for a dozen of turns, going down and up will still keep that cursed area, while if you did the same, nothing would be left)
So never do stair dancing in ToME4 , it does not work anymore.
Against the master what works is the fact that he does not regenerate health naturally, and that his summons aren't lasting forever, and that he's teleporting away, making sure then that his summons are going out of his support aura, making them losing health each turns
That's then the solution when you have a character that does not have enough staying power to beat 2 times (as he resurrect once) the Master on 1 go : teleport
Teleport is immensely usefull for the Master battle, you hurt him, and when you think you're going to be overwhelmed by his summons, you teleport away before something block your rune.
While away, you then regen, repair the golem, while the Master has certainly moved/teleported away trying to find you, and his summons are then dead.
Then you look for him again, and repeat that process until he's dead.
Of course, make sure you did most optional dungeons before (recommended to keep graveyard for later, maybe elven ruins too as for some weaker character classes it can kill them too) , so you're not lagging behind in levels , missing some skills that could have saved your life, made you more powerfull.
Post by: Graven on January 25, 2014, 09:40:06 am
What you can techically do is go down the stairs, kill a dude, go back up, rest, repeat. Until one of the billion status effects that prevent you from going up occurs and you die. But you can do it, if a situation is tough enough and there are no summoning/multiplying monsters.
Post by: Frumple on January 25, 2014, 09:58:07 am
Potential exception can occur due to the golem (especially if the stairs are up against a wall... go down, gem portal into a safer area, let the golem die, let the crowd follow you, bomb it a bit, gem portal back to the stairs, go up, rebuild the golem, repeat), but I tend to reserve stair dancing for melee critters. Especially when dealing with some of the stupider ranged enemies -- you can tank it up a bit as they approach, hop up the stairs to reset the encounter with the enemy starting the fight closer, and then crush them now that they're in killin' range and you're topped off.
Post by: kcwong on January 25, 2014, 10:35:23 am
Rob's right about both stair dancing and the Master.
What you can techically do is go down the stairs, kill a dude, go back up, rest, repeat. Until one of the billion status effects that prevent you from going up occurs and you die. But you can do it, if a situation is tough enough and there are no summoning/multiplying monsters.
I know they refill in HP... but not the spell effects.
However, stair standing was indeed what I used for my bulwark that made it to Far East; for that character I can hurt The Master but he must be right next to me first. So I stair-danced and killed his summons until I got The Master right next to me; then I hit him with everything I got.
I'm building up a new alchemist right now... after trying a Yeek one. Going up against Subject Z with the expected results. ;D
Post by: moocowmoo on January 25, 2014, 03:35:43 pm
Post by: AlleeCat on January 25, 2014, 04:12:36 pm
Post by: GP Trixie on January 25, 2014, 04:20:08 pm
Post by: Robsoie on January 25, 2014, 06:45:26 pm
Because if you stair dance to kill his summons one by one, due to him and so his cooldown being reset by your stair dancing, he'll just then summon more and you're back at square zero .
If the hit&run/teleport tactic of attrition against him still can't work for your character, it could simply mean that you're facing that boss too early, and going back to some unexplored optional dungeons is a good idea to get more levels and sometime get better skills that could reverse the situation in no time.
Farportal if you cleared everything optional already could then be a good idea, tough if you're unlucky (can't even imagine what could be a solipsist combined with oozemancer random farportal boss) the random boss generated can make the Master looks like a weak monster.
Anyways, i was running a Halfling Summoner and just won (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/d66728ce-58c4-459c-a97f-b770aab4da75) the game.
Summoners are really near up there with the Oozemancer in the very strong classes (i think what makes the Oozemancer still more powerfull and overpowered than a Summoner is 50% of the damage that should hit/kill you is going to your bloated oozes), as out of a stupid death (me pressing the move left to many time while looking at something on my desk and so not noticing i was running into a skeleton warrior that crushed the poor guy easily) i don't remember any time my character faced a difficult situation.
I wasn't even antimagic, as i decided to side with Angolwen on this run for once with a summoner
But what i didn't expected is that while i never thought a second about building my character as a melee one, in the high peak i was 2 or 3-hits-killing nearly every monsters near me, using Psiblade sustain and wielding 2 mindstars of course.
Wow, never thought mindstars could be so powerfull in melee for a character that hasn't really melee skills Hmm, i wonder then how a melee-heavy hitter character could do with dual mindstars (as you can get the psiblade from mindstar mastery by buying the tree in Zigur) .
I'll have to try with a Marauder next, though the sad thing is that undead can't access Zigur and those skeletons racial are really great for early marauders :/ .
Post by: Frumple on January 25, 2014, 07:07:41 pm
Shame most (rightfully, really) consider mindslayers to be kinda' boring.
Seriously though, any of the prime antimagic candidates make an excellent mindstar melee chassis, especially since you can largely ignore strength/dex (barring stat reqs) for offense and dump everything into will/cun (Which is glorious because crits and moar mindpower~). Effectively turns something that might be a three or four stat class (if str/dex is needed on top of cunning or whatev') into a two stat one (ignoring con, of course, which you'd now have basically no reason not to max.).
Actually... *checks something* darn. Yeah, ABs start with a mana bar nowadays. Curses. Still, if you want to just pick up mindstars and then say to hell with AM, you could do that, providing you can cobble together 1250 gold before you succumb to the siren call of the arcane.
Post by: Robsoie on January 25, 2014, 07:29:01 pm
though you want dexterity for that, greater weapon focus being very linked to it for its chance to double each of your strikes.
But is the damage of Flexible Combat punches laughable enough to not make a real difference on non-Brawler ?
Post by: Frumple on January 25, 2014, 08:10:15 pm
On the other hand, that unarmed attack is also likely to bring some very interesting proc effects to your combat lineup. I've considered it a few times strictly for that. Gloves have some pretty incredible procs and passive effects (
Post by: Darkmere on January 25, 2014, 08:46:14 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 25, 2014, 08:57:16 pm
Post by: kcwong on January 26, 2014, 03:11:49 am
Still, i continue to believe when it comes to the Master and his summons -> stair dancing is a bad, very bad idea.
Because if you stair dance to kill his summons one by one, due to him and so his cooldown being reset by your stair dancing, he'll just then summon more and you're back at square zero .
If the hit&run/teleport tactic of attrition against him still can't work for your character, it could simply mean that you're facing that boss too early, and going back to some unexplored optional dungeons is a good idea to get more levels and sometime get better skills that could reverse the situation in no time.
I inclined towards Phase Door runes before, because jumping into a random place can be extremely dangerous when you are already in trouble... but then I remembered the number one rule of roguelikes - don't get into troublesome situation in the first place. I just have to teleport away before I go pass the point of no return!
So I went and tried a teleport rune on my alchemist. I entered Intimidating Cave at level 17... and this hit and run tactics saved my skin, allowing me to escape. My next category point will be used for more inscription slots so I can have two of them to counter bad jumps a little bit.
Post by: Darkmere on January 26, 2014, 04:36:59 am
Post by: kcwong on January 26, 2014, 08:44:16 am
I was in tower level 2, fighting a horror boss. My golem's almost down, so I teleported away. Once there I tried to pull my golem with me... only to be told by the game it's already inactive.
So I used supercharge to bring it back... and then I got TWO of my golems next to me, both at low HP. I thought maybe on next turn things will return to normal; so I used Refit. Right at this moment the boss appeared and killed my golem again.
However, one of the golem tile remains... I moved into it, and two of ME appeared. Then this.
(http://i.imgur.com/AfkEyvkl.png) (http://imgur.com/AfkEyvk)
And I was doing so well (only 1 unlucky death at the hands of a snow giant boss)... :'( With tears I filed the bug report.
Well, at least I went into Temporal Rift and unlocked a new class...
Post by: Robsoie on January 26, 2014, 08:51:47 am
Try to go out of that level, wait until anything you're affected by disappear and refit the golem, then go back.
There are sure a lot of bugs in the current version, some of the on hit effects from some of the daggers artifact will produce a lot of errors, some bosses will do the same on their own effects.
Hopefully next version it will be fixed
Post by: kcwong on January 26, 2014, 08:57:11 am
Sometime a bug is not the end of a game.
Try to go out of that level, wait until anything you're affected by disappear and refit the golem, then go back.
There are sure a lot of bugs in the current version, some of the on hit effects from some of the daggers artifact will produce a lot of errors, some bosses will do the same on their own effects.
Hopefully next version it will be fixed
Oh I tried... I can't even move now. Recalling will result in a huge amount of error dialogs each turn. When I tried to save the game client hang.
Searching the forums it seems duplicating golem is not a new thing... people said using refit/supercharge while your golem is under temporal effects will do it, and it sometimes happen in fearscape too.
Edit:
Saved! Apparently the game didn't mess up my save... and I'm back to tower level 1. :o With a new level 2 generated, I'm glad I don't have to run into the same boss again.
Now on entering level 3:
(http://i.imgur.com/Nae3dPil.png) (http://imgur.com/Nae3dPi)
My instinct's screaming at me to stair dance. Put shield up, throw bombs to kill something, run away and repeat. With the whole level unexplored, is teleporting away really a good idea?
Well, I'll at least try and see how much I can kill with my first two bombs...
Post by: moocowmoo on January 26, 2014, 04:12:36 pm
http://te4.org/characters/108819/tome/d0ab38b8-dbf6-49c8-a99b-c802c342cff8
Some questions... is charred scar going to be too hard without movement infusion? Any recommendations for second prodigy (thinking either unbreakable will or cauterize)? And lastly, how should I handle the final boss fight? Last time I got there was with bulwark and I didn't even get Elander to 70% I don't think. Do I just pop shields and arcane avatar then start blasting?
Post by: Frumple on January 26, 2014, 05:56:38 pm
... that said, it does look like it's somewhat unlikely you'd manage to beat the timer as is. Controlled PD'll help a little, but you've got no movement speed boosters at all (why no essence of speed?), movement infusion or otherwise. You'd probably be fine if you cobbled together all the passive movespeed kit you can* (Dunno if you've been doing it, but I tend to keep stuff like that laying around the fortress storage, just in case) and spammed the CPD, but yeah. Movement infusion would make things more likely, at least.
*You've got boots of speed, which is good. Giving the shops a look to see if they've got nimble leather armor (or if you've got that early game water robe still laying around) and any ms boosting jewelry (Happen to have found and kept feathersteel amulet?) might be an option.
--
Not sure if I'd go with unbreakable will... are you actually having problems with mental effects? Could you go with draconic will instead? Not passive, but more versatile. Roughly the same with cauterize... do you need more defense or more offense? I tend to prioritize the latter, m'self, and you've already got a defensive prodigy. If you have access to meteoric crash, I'd probably recommend that. Eye of the tiger could also be good for an archmage, especially since your crit is already up there. Elemental surge would be fine, too... especially with that arcane focus, another 20% casting speed reduction would give you some hella' dakka, though meteoric crash would probably give even more.
And yeah, for a mage in the final battle you kinda' just pop shields and nuke everything into the ground, s'far as I can remember. Maybe bounce around with CPD and probability travel (if you bother to get it, anyway. Might not be an issue with quicken spells dropping the phase door cooldown.) if you need some room.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 26, 2014, 06:00:52 pm
Post by: moocowmoo on January 26, 2014, 06:07:43 pm
Charred scar isn't really hard at all, per se. You can fail the count down just fine, it just effects some of the stuff during the remainder of the game. Stuff in the way isn't too big of a deal... usually the worst of it is maybe some fire wyrms. S'mostly just hatchlings with the occasional drake, though, iirc, and a smattering of other junk. Elementals, maybe the odd demon.
... that said, it does look like it's somewhat unlikely you'd manage to beat the timer as is. Controlled PD'll help a little, but you've got no movement speed boosters at all (why no essence of speed?), movement infusion or otherwise. You'd probably be fine if you cobbled together all the passive movespeed kit you can* (Dunno if you've been doing it, but I tend to keep stuff like that laying around the fortress storage, just in case) and spammed the CPD, but yeah. Movement infusion would make things more likely, at least.
*You've got boots of speed, which is good. Giving the shops a look to see if they've got nimble leather armor (or if you've got that early game water robe still laying around) and any ms boosting jewelry (Happen to have found and kept feathersteel amulet?) might be an option.
--
Not sure if I'd go with unbreakable will... are you actually having problems with mental effects? Could you go with draconic will instead? Not passive, but more versatile. Roughly the same with cauterize... do you need more defense or more offense? I tend to prioritize the latter, m'self, and you've already got a defensive prodigy. If you have access to meteoric crash, I'd probably recommend that. Eye of the tiger could also be good for an archmage, especially since your crit is already up there. Elemental surge would be fine, too... especially with that arcane focus, another 20% casting speed reduction would give you some hella' dakka, though meteoric crash would probably give even more.
And yeah, for a mage in the final battle you kinda' just pop shields and nuke everything into the ground, s'far as I can remember. Maybe bounce around with CPD and probability travel (if you bother to get it, anyway. Might not be an issue with quicken spells dropping the phase door cooldown.) if you need some room.
Thanks much... I'll look for the MS equipment but not worry too much. Sounds like meteoric crash is a good choice. I don't have draconic will because either sandqueen didn't spawn or it was hidden somewhere far in a corner or something. So I missed out on both hearts. I was considering unbreakable will only because the only thing threatening to me has been status effects, but most of them are physical. Gonna do the valley of the moon and last orc pride before making a go at charred scar.
Post by: moocowmoo on January 26, 2014, 09:45:22 pm
Post by: Frumple on January 26, 2014, 10:16:08 pm
Reaver prodigies... arcane might is probably is a no-brainer. Not really sure what else you would go with, though. Meteoric Crash would be hella' metal, but I think that friendly fires. Which would get you killed, since you fire off most your spells in melee range, but what a way to go...
Endless woes, maybe? Be doing plenty of blight damage over the threshold via corrupted strength, if nothing else. Seems more of a corruptor prodigy, though. Any of the defensive junk would probably be fine, if kinda' boring :P
Windtouched speed might be hilarious(ly unthematic), heh. It'd take some work to get it, though. Fairly sure reavers aren't flat blocked out of investing in harmony and whatnot, anyway...
E: Woah.
... that's a beautiful image, I think. I guess it'd be... I'unno, flaming bone spikes erupting from the golem's eyes? That is also metal as hell.
Post by: kcwong on January 27, 2014, 09:53:12 am
(http://i.imgur.com/nDD87XK.png)
Without crit it's over 600.
Found a vault with lava floor...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
http://te4.org/characters/110744/tome/317d1102-a7a9-4066-a960-18037735c86c
Now exploring Elven Ruins before going for Dreadfell 9.
Post by: Robsoie on January 27, 2014, 06:55:15 pm
Currently running a Halfling Anorithil (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/d1708b64-8fb3-4ea2-969c-d672d11be884) , and out of a stupid mistake that made him lose a life , now that Corona and Hymn of Moonlight are on, i'm starting to get the "i am power" feel again, though i'll need to increase some skills and stats a bit more and get more +crits (as even when the the Halfling racial activate i'm still only at +/- 40% for a few turns and +/- 20% only without ) to keep that feeling up , but he seems to be on the good road for victory :)
Post by: ductape on January 27, 2014, 07:55:33 pm
I go to control panel to uninstall and there nothing there.
What gives? Anyone had this problem?
Post by: Darkmere on January 27, 2014, 08:35:00 pm
**
After a depressingly stupid (on my part) mid-game, my Thalore Marauder (http://te4.org/characters/31725/tome/aeb4d64e-4a69-49ad-8ded-4d1f7c7f4986) turned into quite a badass. Most of those deaths were complete idiocy of the player, due to lazy arrogance and it being a while since I played a Thalore. Those are probably two of my best randart buys ever, though.
Windblade was amazing, 10/10. Steamroller was a waste, and I wish I had taken something else. The casters you want to kill have just enough health to not go down to one shot, and then teleport, and the bonus was really hard to keep going. Step Up was far, far more reliable. Lesson learned.
Post by: Frumple on January 27, 2014, 10:14:31 pm
Spoiler: Why did you think that was a good idea, golembuddy? (click to show/hide)
... it's times like this I really wish I was more artistically inclined, because the image of a hulking automaton deciding to shove over a dozen shiny rocks into its left eye socket is definitely something I'd love to see on paper.
Post by: kcwong on January 28, 2014, 02:14:33 am
N... no, golem. No. What are you doing, golem? It... don't. Why?Spoiler: Why did you think that was a good idea, golembuddy? (click to show/hide)
... it's times like this I really wish I was more artistically inclined, because the image of a hulking automaton deciding to shove over a dozen shiny rocks into its left eye socket is definitely something I'd love to see on paper.
It's one scary golem (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BodyHorror)... 13 compound eyes.
Edit:
Very nice level of damage as your character is still pre-Master, you should have very few trouble with him this time.
Indeed... his summons were minced meat on the dungeon floor with just one bomb. :D I gave up on Elven Ruins once I saw the level of the boss. Instead I cleared the Last Hope Graveyard and Mark of the Blaze. I was tempted by Corruptor unlock and spared the Grand Corruptor. With the Master dead I got Skeleton too. Woohoo!
Edit 2:
Whelp... I forgot about the next event... it's not time to celebrate just yet! :o
Edit 3:
I worry too much. My damage output is really good for this stage. Woohoo!
Post by: Blaze on January 28, 2014, 03:26:47 am
Post by: Robsoie on January 28, 2014, 05:32:02 am
(don't press D to get the drop menu directly because it will not give you the choice of only dropping a specific number of gem, it would drop the whole stack)
Move away and take control of the golem, and take the gem, now you can assign this 1 gem to the golem slot instead of the game stupidly taking your whole stack.
Post by: kcwong on January 28, 2014, 05:33:38 am
http://te4.org/characters/110744/tome/317d1102-a7a9-4066-a960-18037735c86c
With my previous horrible experience with orc patrols, I think I'm going to heed the advice and use an invisibility rune, replacing the wild infusion I think... but losing dual status cure worries me. I need the 5th inscription slot, fast.
Post by: Robsoie on January 28, 2014, 05:40:27 am
If yes, i think your character should have few problems with the orc patrols .
I suggest you don't remove your Wild infusion, as without it you can easily lose control of your skills and even escape solutions to some enemies (leading to death) , and only a wild infusion would cure such effect
No stun resistance means that you really need to keep your wild infusion
Hey I installed TOME on windows 7 and I opted for no desktop shortcut. Now, I cant find it anywhere. It's not in program files and when I search for TOME i get some files in my USERS directory but nothing I can run.
I go to control panel to uninstall and there nothing there.
What gives? Anyone had this problem?
I don't use the installer, i just extract and run from its folder.
But the game executable is called
t-engine.exe
Maybe search for that on your computer ?
Post by: kcwong on January 28, 2014, 05:58:04 am
Did you won the ambush with your strong bombs ?
If yes, i think your character should have few problems with the orc patrols .
Yes, I won. All minions die in one bomb, and the boss only got half HP left. Non-crit damage is over 800 now. :D
I suggest you don't remove your Wild infusion, as without it you can easily lose control of your skills and even escape solutions to some enemies (leading to death) , and only a wild infusion would cure such effectYou are probably right... I haven't replaced it yet, I'm digging around in my storage room looking for enough Dex to get Crafty Hands. Just 10 more points needed, I can probably get that with rings custom made.
No stun resistance means that you really need to keep your wild infusion
Post by: Robsoie on January 28, 2014, 06:04:05 am
Anyways, you'll get a new slot at level 36 and after killing the backup guardian from the Sandworm tunnel and eating his wyrm bile
Post by: kcwong on January 28, 2014, 08:03:45 am
I think if your bombs were powerfull enough to deal with the ambush, they will be powerful enough to melt any orc patrol you'll see, just activate your shield before doing the bombing run just in case. You should not need an invisibility rune.
Anyways, you'll get a new slot at level 36 and after killing the backup guardian from the Sandworm tunnel and eating his wyrm bile
Your estimation is spot-on. I just destroyed two orc patrols. One involving an orc corruptor took me a few more gems, but not difficult at all.
Edit:
When you have this much burst damage, your worst enemy is yourself. :-X -1 life, but I did it by having all my talents off cool down on return.
Post by: Blaze on January 28, 2014, 08:31:37 am
Reavers...
Whyyyyyyyy are they so hard to play??? I can't hit worth crap even with points in accuracy.
Maybe I should've waited after getting used to AM Cornac Cursed but still, even playing as a Yeek Cursed had an easier early game.
Post by: kcwong on January 28, 2014, 09:43:08 am
The armory is way too tough; somewhere in level 2 I died instantly once there by getting pulled into lava and surrounded by a bazillion other enemies. Didn't even matter I got my shields up.
Another death at the hands of one orc pyro; I think I'm not too far off from defeating him though.
3 lives left; I went back and started grinding Far Portals.
http://te4.org/characters/110744/tome/317d1102-a7a9-4066-a960-18037735c86c
Post by: Robsoie on January 28, 2014, 10:27:34 am
On the East optionals, you have :
- Flooded cave/Temple of creation that spawns while you walk along water and that you already cleared
- Shadow Crypt that spawns on a random location
- Eruan/Charred Scar that spawn in the south only after completing 1 Pride
- Valley of the Moon, that spawn in the south only after giving the book (assuming you found it in loots, as it's not guaranteed) to the jeweler guy in Gates of Morning
There used to be Breeding Pits that spawned on a random location too, but it's been removed from the game and will probably have a replacement in a version or two.
For the Vor Armory , don't enter and fight in the room with the lava, retreat into a previous room and use the door to limit the amount of orcs spellcasters and heavy hitters line of sight on you so you'll face less of them at once.
Post by: kcwong on January 28, 2014, 11:00:35 am
Post by: Robsoie on January 28, 2014, 12:43:30 pm
I've been giving a try at the insane difficulty with an oozemancer (looks like insane is starting to be balanced for such class, but it's still strong even at that level as out of a few rares so far no real problem ) , and it seems a bit harder for him than in nightmare (enemy with more health, hit very harder and they have a couple more levels), he cleared all tier1 and just cleared old forest.
He died 2 times in the bandit tunnel, stupidly both times.
The bosses seems harder as they got some skills they didn't have before, Wrathroot was phase dooring without cooldown (similar to that overcheating Linaniil) all over the screen at every turns (i would hate playing a melee class against that kind of annoyance). And even Eidolon had ... a golem
(http://i.imgur.com/XeffF7F.jpg)
The leveling is faster than in normal but not sure if it's faster than in nightmare, but for the leveling i got i didn't found anything better than i would in normal difficulty (i think i found better stuff at that point in Nightmare), not sure if it was me being unlucky or if it's setup like that.
But it looks i'm reaching my treshold of "replaying the same thing again and again", as i'm not feeling playing more of it, some dungeons could sure lose some levels considering how repetitive some of them are.
Post by: Darkmere on January 28, 2014, 03:18:05 pm
Post by: lemon10 on January 28, 2014, 03:49:20 pm
It was especially bad in my latest run (nightmare cornac wildfire archmage) since difficulty peaked at the crypt (with level 41 mages and enemies) and enemies at the prides were only level 50 or so (by which point I was 50 as well). So for the entire east nothing was really dangerous until later on in high peak (with the exception of some super-invisible antimagic summoner that I never even saw, and only found out about after he killed me the turn after I killed the other rare that I thought was doing so much damage)).
Post by: kcwong on January 29, 2014, 01:34:31 am
I'm now thinking of using the low level gems as a means to scout around corners. Keep it in alternate set. Throw weak bomb around corner and watch for "hit something" message.
This is better than risking my golem's neck - as moving my golem forward can end up drawing fire to my character as well.
Post by: Frumple on January 29, 2014, 01:53:50 am
Post by: Darkmere on January 29, 2014, 02:18:31 am
Put them together and you're really, really well prepared for most of the game, and you can find stairs in annoying places like dreadfell or high peak quickly.
Post by: Darkmere on January 31, 2014, 01:35:11 am
I'm apparently just not supposed to win on a rogue. I had a fantastic run all the way to high peak with 3 deaths, then immediately lost my last 4 lives to the shadow doomed fuckhead in slime tunnels, who was hitting me through 15% thick skin, 40% frost/shadow resist and 75 defense for more than 1300 in a turn. Of something. I don't actually know what killed me, because the usual lag-> eidolon -> fuck the combat log updates just guess what hit you shit happens again.
I tried a few things but obviously had no umbraphage or summertide to purge the darkness, if those even work, and evasion did nothing/no shielding torques cover darkness, which I am wildly guessing is the damage type that killed me. Two shields down and dead in three turns means I literally couldn't do anything at all.
This is the game's penance for me winning a marauder and mindslayer back to back I guess. Fun's over, time to die.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 31, 2014, 11:53:10 pm
Post by: Ygdrad on February 01, 2014, 02:08:37 am
Post by: Darkmere on February 01, 2014, 03:40:00 am
Post by: Ygdrad on February 01, 2014, 04:21:24 am
Be careful with the vines. that 50% penalty can and will completely destroy you versus strong casters/archers.
I don't need to move against those, they get vined and I can teleport to them using the vines, or pull them to me for massive damage. Half of my healing and most of my damage potential is tied to the vines, I can't not run them.
Post by: AlleeCat on February 01, 2014, 06:51:18 am
The Bearscape?
Post by: Robsoie on February 01, 2014, 07:13:28 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on February 02, 2014, 11:21:03 pm
It's great how apparently bone shield buggers up the AI's damage awareness, ha. You can sit around corners and throw bombs at corruptors until the shield breaks without them starting to come at you.
And then they die before they can do anything anyway, because the bombs one-shot them once the shield's down. Wheeee~
E: Oh. Oh shit. If you're controlling the golem when you hit, you know, that special farportal event. The golem gets kicked out. And you stick around.
E2: Talking to it again kicks you out, though. Should have done inspections and whatnot, see what attacking it did and stuff, but eh.
Post by: kcwong on February 03, 2014, 10:31:25 am
(http://i.imgur.com/OOBVK8X.png)
And is this intended (as a special effect of the water maybe)? The cursor, shown off to one side and higher, is actually on myself.
(http://i.imgur.com/NC9fPHsl.png) (http://imgur.com/NC9fPHs)
Which makes lining up your beams extremely annoying.
(http://i.imgur.com/ix3eEJGl.png) (http://imgur.com/ix3eEJG)
Also note to self: I need to read spoilers for a list of countermeasures to all those kinds of statuses. An Archmage lives and dies by his sustains...
Post by: Dr Feelgood on February 03, 2014, 11:41:05 am
How much gold can you accumulate normally? Because I saw this...
The highest amount I ever had was over 8,000 while playing a dwarf archmage. I think an alchemist, or anyone with the stone alchemy tree, would be able to get that amount.
Post by: Darkmere on February 03, 2014, 11:59:47 am
Post by: Robsoie on February 03, 2014, 12:05:35 pm
And is this intended (as a special effect of the water maybe)? The cursor, shown off to one side and higher, is actually on myself.
Which makes lining up your beams extremely annoying.
That's very likely a bug with the shaders used for that water effect, i remember reading some reports about that on the te4.org board.
Can't say more as i play with all the shader options turned off for better performance.
Post by: BishopX on February 03, 2014, 05:45:47 pm
The Far East is surprisingly... empty. Other than orc patrols, I didn't find many locations to explore. Already cleared underwater cave (or something), was told to fight Nagas but from my past encounter with them I'd rather not at this point.
The armory is way too tough; somewhere in level 2 I died instantly once there by getting pulled into lava and surrounded by a bazillion other enemies. Didn't even matter I got my shields up.
Another death at the hands of one orc pyro; I think I'm not too far off from defeating him though.
3 lives left; I went back and started grinding Far Portals.
http://te4.org/characters/110744/tome/317d1102-a7a9-4066-a960-18037735c86c
There are two more zones you could do in the far east before attempting the armory. There's the spider caves (triggered by a conversation at the gates or morning) and the dark crypt. I would suggest doing both, although some folks recommend against doing the crypt on your first time east.
Post by: Robsoie on February 03, 2014, 06:50:20 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: khantin on February 03, 2014, 07:06:35 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Dr Feelgood on February 03, 2014, 08:17:02 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on February 03, 2014, 08:45:42 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The rod of recall should be working, at least it worked the last time i used it there, but you'll have to stay alive for 40 turns before the effect kicks in.
Post by: khantin on February 03, 2014, 08:47:34 pm
Post by: Darkmere on February 03, 2014, 08:49:01 pm
Post by: kcwong on February 03, 2014, 10:59:59 pm
The Far East is surprisingly... empty. Other than orc patrols, I didn't find many locations to explore. Already cleared underwater cave (or something), was told to fight Nagas but from my past encounter with them I'd rather not at this point.
The armory is way too tough; somewhere in level 2 I died instantly once there by getting pulled into lava and surrounded by a bazillion other enemies. Didn't even matter I got my shields up.
Another death at the hands of one orc pyro; I think I'm not too far off from defeating him though.
3 lives left; I went back and started grinding Far Portals.
http://te4.org/characters/110744/tome/317d1102-a7a9-4066-a960-18037735c86c
There are two more zones you could do in the far east before attempting the armory. There's the spider caves (triggered by a conversation at the gates or morning) and the dark crypt. I would suggest doing both, although some folks recommend against doing the crypt on your first time east.
Both cleared; spiders were squished easily, while as mentioned in an earlier post my clone one-shot me because my bomb's still on countdown when the clone was summoned. I returned with my bombs and shields ready and had my revenge.
Post by: Frumple on February 03, 2014, 11:53:38 pm
That was...
... that was a thing. Kinda' a sad thing, though. I'm now sitting on the maxed out crown of burning pain (+35% fire damage!) with a frost-spec'd alchemist. And I picked up firewalker on an earlier level of the ruins, iirc. Between everything, could be looking at a +% fire damage of around 80% (probably higher, actually)... at level 27. Pre-dreadfell. Also a good 30% fire penetration. In comparison, my cold right now is at 56/20, and that's only because I'm running the draconian addon and ended up as a lapis lasuli one giving a passive 20/20 boost. 25% of the remainder is coming from the staff.
What I'm saying is fire is ridiculous in this game :P And alchies remain kinda' silly. Bit boring, but good gods, those delicious numbers.
... also, does anyone know what happens if your golem is wearing kit with a slow projectile effect on it? Half thinking of poking its dex up so it can offhand the stormblade.
Post by: Graven on February 09, 2014, 12:16:32 pm
Since I was following SA's Tome 4 thread anyway, decided to try the goon-made Haunted class - clicky (http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/haunted) - a hate/stamina unarmed grapply feller who stares at people, then teleports and chokes them. Level 14, just choked the sand out of the Sandworm queen, with one death in the assassin tunnels.
The class itself is decently interesting, teleporting in the middle of groups and flinging people left and right is fairly amusing. My problems are more with Grappling itself, since it seems, well, horrible. Debilitating one opponent is fine and dandy, but there's a ton more out there, and their buddies won't take kindly to the act. Enemy grapplers are horrible due to the fact there's one of yourself, mostly [gosh darn paradox mages]. I'm actually not sure which are the custom trees on the grappler, since I've rarely played a Brawler and never a grapply one. The Throws tree is decent, it sort of allows you to hateport in a crowd, then take your hugfriend away and choke him a bit in peace. The one that Attunes [confuses and dazes enemies, supposedly lets you get hate and stamina by hitting them but this part seems kind of broken] all enemies around you is also great.
It seems however it could be best to ignore the grapples and go for the Hit Really Hard talents, and I sort of wish it were a Brawler/Cursed mix without the grapply stuff, but AFAIK the author's idea was to actually make Grappling worth it. Would probably require designing a custom tree that takes all the good grapply stuff and condenses it in one place, also maybe move a tree to generic, since there's nothing worthwhile.
Have any of you messed with other custom classes? Are there any particularly fun ones out there?
Post by: Frumple on February 09, 2014, 12:26:03 pm
Dunno when it was last updated, but the spell...sword? Blade? The arcane blade rework done by H-something. Was pretty solid. Honestly a bit of a shame it never got integrated with the main game.
Mostly I'd just recommend... trying them. All. Just to see if there's anything interesting going on with 'em. Which can be time consuming but eeeeeh.
Post by: Robsoie on February 09, 2014, 01:09:47 pm
Though he's a Thalore, so i'm behind in leveling and only reached level 22 from killing Urkis.
My first observation was that there are an insane amount of skills making it really hard to choose.
My second observation is that the damage spells are rather weak, that's why you'll need to take several of the attack spell so you can at least get decent damage, fortunately the class has several escape option that help in keeping distance for you so you can cast several damaging spell to kill your target
My third observation is that you finally get a very damaging attack spell when you get to Gravity Well (you know the highly damaging aoe spell that was pinning you when you were in Briarg Lair and ran into gravity worms) and Redux, somewhere between level 12 and 14.
And then once you have those 2 maxed, the Paradox Mage become something to be really feared, as you have still all your good escape skills but instead of having to cast multiple weak ranged spells to kill things, you can now throw one of those strong gravity well that will pin enemies and deal some good damage per turns , lasting for several turns .
Even better, if you cast redux just before, instead of casting only 1 gravity well and wait the cooldown, you can cast 2 gravity well in a sequence (then wait for the cooldown)!
Then you can walk away to get some breath and come back to count the loot from the enemies corpses.
I don't know how this will scale later or during Dreadfell, but at that point of the game i feel confident the character is good.
Only problem with having to max magic and willpower and constitution (constitution to help against the low health gain by levels of the paradox mages to complement the great damage reducing sustains you have) , it's that you have no point left for cunning, meaning it's much harder to get criticals .
So you can only hope for great +cunning items, but as you already need to get +health items, that's not going to happen.
EDIT :
Defeated the Master in Dreadfell in a classic battle of attrition, with double Gravity Well (thanks to Redux), making a paradox clone of myself (splitting the timeline) to help in firepower, teleport away when he surrounds me with his summons, rest and come back , that until he died 2 times.
Then the Ambush, i annihilated quickly the orcs with gravity well and my teleporting around (Dimensional Step) and getting my paradox clone to help. But their boss with its insane amount of health was still standing and hard to hurt.
So i started to build a very high amount of paradox due to how much things i shot him with, it's then that i noticed that only having 1 in Static History was not making me lose paradox points fast enough, so with that guy high health my paradox started to go nuts.
Summoned a bunch of farmer, teleported me randomly and as i was finally near to kill that boss, a last paradox effect exploded me , and from the log, it killed the boss too.
Unfortunately the game counted that situation as if the ambush was successful against me despite there was no more orcs, so the staff was taken from me.
On my trip back to Last Hope, i ran into the Crypt, i decided to give a try and to my surprise completed it and saved Melinda, there were several hard situation, but the Paradox Mage can get out of so many thing it's impressive (and summoning treants from the Thalore racial is always another helpful additional escape helper)
So far, the guy has reached level 26 (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/96b2164a-91c1-4e90-8bef-cdb80bf97df1), going soon to Reknor, i'm already bored just thinking of those very long and similar looking uninteresting Reknor levels.
Post by: Darkmere on February 09, 2014, 04:57:13 pm
I think I could get to really like chronomancers, especially given what a badass my warden turned into by endgame. Getting there while staying focused is the big problem, but I like their mobility tricks a great deal.
Post by: Frumple on February 11, 2014, 12:17:52 am
Utterly ridiculous amounts of loot, though.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on February 13, 2014, 03:32:01 pm
http://te4.org/characters/30061/tome/819ee79d-277a-42fb-9f28-50a4e3e4a4d7
The new animus tree is nice. Consume Soul helps with necro's mana issue. Rare husks are great. Early on, they last a few dungeons. Sadly, no healing ever means they die pretty fast later on. Best husks: summoners, solipsists and oozemancers. When they die you get exp. I'm not sure if that's a bug.
Oh, and an orange cat just invaded my flying fortress. Mummra is not pleased.
Post by: Robsoie on February 13, 2014, 03:37:46 pm
But it's sad that considering the big investment (lots of skills points) a Lich necromancer will still have a much harder time than a Ghoul necromancer (Retch is a nice big regen for healing both yourself and your troops while hurting living enemies) or a Skeleton necromancer (Re-assemble is a great healing skill).
Post by: Dr Feelgood on February 14, 2014, 07:39:35 pm
Post by: Robsoie on February 15, 2014, 01:26:51 pm
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2014/02/orcs/orcs-campaign-teaser-planned-zones
Post by: Graven on February 15, 2014, 05:11:43 pm
Also wasn't
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Dr Feelgood on February 15, 2014, 05:43:05 pm
Also wasn'tan unused boss fight at the end of the original Tome4 campaign? There are files and stuff in-game IIRC. Or am I going crazy?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on February 15, 2014, 05:44:14 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on February 15, 2014, 08:53:26 pm
Post by: beorn080 on February 15, 2014, 09:15:10 pm
... considering the very presence of such critters apparently causes stuff like Deep Bellow's Maw (and, perhaps, the Infinite Dungeon), I don't think it would actually matter if it went on a rampage of destruction or not. World would still be buggered.IIRC, the Infinite dungeon is a result of one of ye olden gods being chased by a sher'tul, and it basically just keeps making dungeon levels in an attempt to get away from him. I mean, in theory it would not be infinite, but it would constantly be getting deeper, and as they have a several thousand plus year head start, you are unlikely to ever catch up.
Post by: Frumple on February 15, 2014, 09:39:54 pm
Though yah, there's a limit to the infinite dungeon. S'defined in the zone file somewhere... iirc, it's somewhere in the five digits.
Code: [Select]
max_level = 1000000000,So ten digits. One billion
E: Iirc, someone cheated themselves up to the nines and/or debug mode'd themselves into the depths. Game started crashing on level generation somewhere in the hundreds, if my memory of their report isn't failing.
Post by: Robsoie on February 15, 2014, 10:04:25 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on February 15, 2014, 10:32:05 pm
'Course, that "seas doubled" bit could also be superstitious explanation for rising sea levels, with those actually having some other cause (Caps melting due to sher'tul's war on the gods, the spellblaze, the naga buggering about with something, who knows what else).
Also kinda' makes me wonder what a possible explanation for the violent seas and ocean winds could be... axial tilt? Tidal forces changing to some degree (Okay, who screwed with the moon(s?))? Atmospheric changes? On one hand, magic exists in Maj'Eyal, and things are obviously physics-breaking. On the other, physics do still seems to work to some degree (steampunk!), so it's possible normal environmental stuff is happening (or at least trying to, before magic buggers it up), and there's multiple events in T4's history that could cause world-wide environmental changes.
Be interesting to see where DG and co' goes with it, in any case.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on February 15, 2014, 11:03:46 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Mm... that's assuming she's still alive. I'd half wager there's good odds she's either dead (By the sher'tul getting to her in the end -- last I paid attention the only two living gods were A-bruddah and ID-dood, which would preclude sista'-A among the living.) or corrupted somehow (by the Spellblaze, or something related to it.).
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on February 16, 2014, 08:20:33 am
That is not dead which can eternal lieSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Graven on February 16, 2014, 05:05:50 pm
Just noticed I have a level 23 Corruptor out there, going to play it a bit. Went for diseases/catalepsy first, for insane burst [and by insane I mean JESUS]. Sadly it seems bugged in that it doesn't restore the Vim if the target dies... and the target will die. So that forces me to only use it as a boss kill/emergency AoE, instead of nuking every single thing in the game while cackling.
I'm sort of hazy on the sustains. Got a point in the one that increases your crit chance, and the one that increases your crit multiplier. I suppose I'll max the crit chance one, then max Blood Grasp for the damage. I've ignored Soul Rot - people seemed to be doing fine without it on the SA forums, and I keep hearing praise about diseases/Catalepsy.
Pretty fun so far, not sure what prodigies I should be going for. Vim is still the worst resource, though! God I hate Vim.
I wonder if a Stamina/Vim melee class would work. A brawler, but instead of focusing on multiple fast hits, it focuses on singular headbursting hits. Spending stamina restores Vim, spending Vim restores life. Call it... "POSSESSED". The lore could be : a demon possessed you to accomplish some evil demonic goal, but discovered you were so horrible a person even prior to that, it decided to just grant you some powers and ride along for the free amusement. Demons are lazy bastards, after all. Man, the creativity, the originality. How am I not a world-famous writer.
Post by: Niveras on February 16, 2014, 05:21:50 pm
I think Robsoie is going to be severely disappointment when the campaign releases and you end up just straight up fighting Amakthel (or the sher'tul trying to resurrect him) and absolutely no mention anywhere of Arawe or her role in the godswar or the campaign. At best, it could be explained as either: Amakthel isn't actually as powerful as legend and lore says (it all being trumped up over the ages), or he's just still so weakened that you, being the second (or first) most powerful mortal in existence, can challenge him.
Now that being said, with TOME being an independent development and Darkgod being pretty much directly accessible, you could probably suggest a whole lot of that to him and maybe we'll see some of it in-game (as opposed to most titles developed by teams which are more rigid or reluctant to accept alterations to the story).
Post by: Robsoie on February 16, 2014, 05:51:09 pm
The Orc campaign is mostly designed already with its backstory lore, and the endgame is obviously going to be what the zone described in his trailer/spoiler.
But that does not mean the end of what's planned regarding the lore "big baddies" and other potential endgame bosses.
The reason is that the dev has several other campaigns idea waiting (they will see reality probably depending on the success of his incoming "dlc" orc campaigns), see that page for some of the things he confirmed to be in his future plans :
http://te4.org/wiki/Campaigns#Non-existent_campaigns
of course, that's some heavy spoiler.
edit :
And there's still the Fearscape and Urh'Rok their leader, waiting to lay waste on the world, the dev even posted that , joking or not, we'll see one day
Quote
Just a note about the demons invasion, they are not really waiting for a portal. They are waiting for Eyal's protective shield to shut down under their assault.
Quote
"Eyal's universe is probably filled with planets full of graves of civilizations whose races took the economically sound decision to not put a planetary shield up, which are studied and remembered by those that did, like the Sher'tul."
Post by: lemon10 on February 16, 2014, 05:51:37 pm
'Course, that "seas doubled" bit could also be superstitious explanation for rising sea levels, with those actually having some other cause (Caps melting due to sher'tul's war on the gods, the spellblaze, the naga buggering about with something, who knows what else).It could also be her power grab. If she is restricting herself to the ocean, and the ocean doubles in size, then she now has a hell of a lot more area under her effective control.
It also has the bonus of being slow enough that people don't really notice it over mortal lifespans, and there isn't a sense of crisis about it (therefore heroes won't come to kill her to stop her plans of global ocean domination).
Post by: Darkmere on February 16, 2014, 11:19:08 pm
Spoiler: My understanding of orcs, spoilered for length. (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on February 17, 2014, 08:39:19 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Dr Feelgood on February 17, 2014, 10:46:37 am
Your problem was participating in the in-game chat. :P The in-game chat is terrible.
Orcs: Nothing in-game implies they're capable of peaceful co-existence. They wanted vengeance against halflings for enslaving them. Understandable. Instead, they tried to wipe out every race in Maj'Eyal for having the audacity of being in their way during their genocidal rampage. ::) It's their own fault that their race is going extinct. None of the races are "good", but some are worse than others.
Humans - Started the Allure wars against halflings, because wanted control of the farportals.
Shaloren - Participated in the Allure wars. And caused the Spellblaze.
Thaloren - They stay within their forests and mind their own business.
Halflings - Enslaved 2 races. Performed experiments on them.
Yeeks - Peacefully went back home after being freed. However, they would enslave the world if they had a chance.
Dwarves - They only care about money, but they don't start conflicts.
Orcs - They want to wipe out all races in Maj'Eyal. The first race to use blight.
Post by: Robsoie on February 17, 2014, 11:04:45 am
The Halfling being slavers era by example didn't lasted and they even went to the rescue of the other races when the orcs launched yet another conquest, losing many of their troops to stop their rampage while they could just have stayed hidden.
For the Orcs, according to their own written lore, they never got out of that "orcs are all bastards" time as for all time they were still following their warmongering murderous ways with the desire to destroy everyone and conquer MajEyal, even when they were at their lowest after crushing defeats they were still wanting just that.
Their last attempt at conquering everything was launched by their hero, they could just have tried to leave on their own in the East in which they have no threat, but they simply couldn't even try that , as if conquering the world was their only "reason for existence".
In that they're actually very similar to the Sher'thuls that went on a rampage and destroyed their creators in order to conquer and dominate everything, simply because they couldn't change their nature.
I wonder if it wasn't by any chance the Sher'thuls that actively engineered the orcs instead of the other gods, it would explain a lot on the war and conquering nature of that race.
I don't think the warcraft3 "orcs were nobles then evil corrupted then noble again" apply in the ToME4 case, and the "desperation" leading into the breeding camp was just the work of one of the orc leader that wanted to rebuild an orc army as quick as possible.
Because if it was just about survival and desesperation, they could have done what the orc tribe from the incoming dlc has done : they would simply survive in conventional methods instead of blight corrupting their tribes own future and dooming all of them.
The other race that seems to rely on cruelty and domination are the Yeeks-like race name the Yaechs , that can be found enslaving people and making them die in arena fight for their own pleasure and money, and that are additionally making the yeek life a pain on their remote island
Though they have no lore attached to them, but they share the same "enslaving the world" trait, as seen what happens if you win the game with a Yeek.
Post by: Darkmere on February 17, 2014, 12:01:56 pm
I actually like that everyone in Maj'eyal is kind of a douche, but can have some redeeming qualities. Except the orcs still get put in the "antagonist" bin, because for all of history as far as I know they've exclusively been fighting everyone that they can find, AND each other.
I had kinda hoped the "shamanistic" warcraft-style orcs would make it in the new campaign (and don't get me wrong, I'll play it regardless), but when the previews came out and it was literally "exterminate the sunwall, exterminate the steam giants, exterminate the lone sher'tul" it seemed like Grey and DG have no intention of changing the always-chaotic-evil orkses into something more interesting.
It just saddens me that as nuanced as the rest of the lore can be... you still have the cardboard cut-out evil omnicidal maniacs, and they're the same orcs as most of the other orcs/orks/uruks.
Post by: Robsoie on May 02, 2014, 04:17:03 pm
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=41110
No changelog available, all i have noticed as i didn't played for long is that there's a new "locked" entry in the Rogue category, so a new class to unlock in that version
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You can report bugs (looks like there are several of them already reported, i ran into the "save-quit will make tome4 stuck until i kill the process" on my first and only try) you'll discover in that test version to the thread i linked.
Post by: moocowmoo on May 05, 2014, 01:50:16 am
Post by: Robsoie on June 05, 2014, 06:52:39 pm
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2014/05/news/tales-majeyal-120-aka-exercise-vital-powers-released
new video trailer on the page
changelog :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Darkmere on June 05, 2014, 07:52:49 pm
I wonder how mindslayers got ruined and nerfed :(
</grumpy>
Seriously though... Might have to fail horribly due to lack of attention again sometime or other.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on June 05, 2014, 10:06:55 pm
<grumpy>
I wonder how mindslayers got ruined and nerfed :(
</grumpy>
Seriously though... Might have to fail horribly due to lack of attention again sometime or other.
Mindslayers got heavily buffed, judging from mindslayer rares.
Post by: Frumple on June 05, 2014, 11:12:24 pm
Also gems are now fairly ridiculous stat sticks for 'em. One I've been running... between augmentation, that silly +20 dex dagger, and the gem, has a dex in the seventies with a base dex of ten. At something like level 20. It's faintly gratuitous.
Post by: Robsoie on June 06, 2014, 06:22:23 am
(http://i.imgur.com/H2LAfjds.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/H2LAfjd.jpg)
How to (base spoiler) :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
How to do that (spoiler of the previous spoiler :D ) :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on June 06, 2014, 08:26:29 am
It seems that the new global slow on melee attribute that can show up on rares and whatnot... stacks. Linearly. 22nd level mindslayer inflicting a 45% global speed penalty on everything it smacks in the face yesplease. Also it can apparently get at least as high as 30% on a single piece. My new goal in game is to find, say, four pieces. Or at least three.
Post by: Satarus on June 06, 2014, 08:48:09 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on June 06, 2014, 09:05:15 am
But the difference of power between 1.20 mindslayer and previously can be felt already
I don't like much the new tileset for the "heart of the gloom"
All those mushrooms are too big and make it not easy to read the difference from walls and corridors
In opposite, the new forest tile on the world map is now more clear and proportioned, making it now easier to see the openings (like the one that lead into the area in which you can find the norgos and heart of gloom dungeons)
Post by: Robsoie on June 06, 2014, 10:57:49 am
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2014/06/news/tales-majeyal-121-aka-relativity-released
changelog :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Though looks like you need a 1.2.1 character to benefit from that, a 1.2.0 character save will still be slow
Post by: Frumple on June 06, 2014, 09:14:21 pm
Which is to say. Enough crit -- say, 50% physcrit while dual wielding, or thereabouts, or basically whatever if you've got AoE attacks -- and you've got base 50 hp/turn regeneration, that occasionally doubles. And healmod boosts it. And, of course, it stacks with normal passive regen. And all the other healing you might have.
Level 27 mindslayer rocking effective
E: Welp, nevermind, two more levels and I've broke 100 hp/turn. Utterly ridiculous.
E2: I just noticed how conspicuously tailored to killing brittle clear oozes the lightbringer's rod is. Nice when you're tooling about the sludge nest. Mind you, shantiz the
E3: Huzzah! Completely cleared the lowest level of the sludgenest. XP rate was kinda' crap, but so much loot ;_;
E4: Snrk. Haha. Turns out shantiz's ridiculous projectile killing thingy doesn't understand friendly fire.
And can one-shot escort critters. Heh.
E5: Portal was even in the same room. Only 13 squares away, though the level generated with us both surrounded by a dozen+ group of mixed vampires, wights, skeletons, etc. Two turns later, everything but two or three Ws and Vs, and me, are dead. Thanks imbablade.
E6: Annnnnd I finally hit +90 to dex. I have 100 dex. Said dex is base 10. +90 from other sources. No stat points invested. Vaguely insane. Also third stat to hit triple digits. Character is level 32. Stupid sexy mindslayers.
E7: Though yeah, not entirely sure people were really thinking through this gem thing. +4 all stat per tier. Another +11 from a cat-point resonant focus. Fifth tier gem, +31 to all stats. That is 186 points of goddamn stats. And then whatever augmentation adds -- my level 32 dude's getting 71 total, for a grand total of 257 bonus to stats. Before the rest of the equipment is added in. Not even counting the +15 con the lifebinding emerald I'm currently using is giving, here. Adding all that junk onto it comes up to 345. That is all of 15 away from being an equivalent stat investment to 60 into every single stat you have. And I haven't even hit the east yet! This is ridiculous! Around a third of my kit isn't even providing stat boosts!
Post by: UristMcDwarf on June 07, 2014, 10:00:26 am
Post by: Robsoie on June 07, 2014, 10:10:09 am
Post by: Frumple on June 07, 2014, 10:13:55 am
Also sweet hell shantiz the imbablade killed off everything but the boss of the ambush in about four turns. Bloody thing needs either a hella' nerf or a shift to tier 5 :-\
Post by: UristMcDwarf on June 07, 2014, 10:31:35 am
Post by: Frumple on June 07, 2014, 10:54:02 am
Post by: Robsoie on June 07, 2014, 10:55:33 am
And your unlocks and achievements are stored in your online profile, so even if you uninstalled everything, if you play ToME4 online, your unlocks&achievement will come back to you.
Post by: UristMcDwarf on June 07, 2014, 11:01:05 am
Post by: Robsoie on June 07, 2014, 11:08:23 am
Post by: kcwong on June 07, 2014, 11:54:14 am
By the way, you can check what you did with characters and some of your stats by clicking on the link located under the main menu of the game that link to your profile on the te4 website
It's no longer just a link... the game client has integrated browser now. Clicking it in-game will let you view it in-game. :D
I deleted all my old characters and restarted... so far so good.
http://te4.org/characters/110744/tome/ab9e1209-5408-4f4d-b7b7-c43552b12154
Cleared the dreaded Daikara without any major trouble, and killed the Earth Master there too... a first for me.
Post by: Robsoie on June 07, 2014, 12:18:25 pm
Just tried, and it's much slower than if i go directly on the link in my browser.
Post by: kcwong on June 08, 2014, 03:49:42 am
Didn't noticed there was an internal browser.
Just tried, and it's much slower than if i go directly on the link in my browser.
Yeah it's rather slow. That affects the launcher (while checking for patch) and the main menu screen too, where the embedded browser is working.
In other news, I died once in the Dreadfell level 1. Should've left that water vault alone. :'( Never-ending tentacle summoning plus nagas are scary.
Edit:
Need some help here. I discovered there's an interface to give your golem not long a leash length, but also tactics like choosing a target (probably a new feature). However, this backfires on you if your golem is targeting any teleporting enemies like a banshee. Your golem will go batshit crazy and chase after it, ignoring leash length and its most important role - to tank for you.
This is worst if you have no other targets nearby, but the map is not yet fully explored. You cannot explore the rest of the map - your golem won't be with you. You have no choice but to follow your golem.
Is there a way to set your golem's target to nothing?
Post by: Shadowgandor on June 08, 2014, 06:08:50 am
So hey, the first tier vile life talent is completely freaking insane. It's deceptively plain -- you get heals on crits or kills. Maxes out at 50 hp per kill or crit. Any crit. Once per turn for either.
Which is to say. Enough crit -- say, 50% physcrit while dual wielding, or thereabouts, or basically whatever if you've got AoE attacks -- and you've got base 50 hp/turn regeneration, that occasionally doubles. And healmod boosts it. And, of course, it stacks with normal passive regen. And all the other healing you might have.
Level 27 mindslayer rocking effective8798/hp (7584 per crit or kill on top of1214 base) turn regen yesplease cue highlander theme. This is like playing a critzerker before bloodthirst got nerfed, only I'm even tankier ahahahahaha.
E: Welp, nevermind, two more levels and I've broke 100 hp/turn. Utterly ridiculous.
E2: I just noticed how conspicuously tailored to killing brittle clear oozes the lightbringer's rod is. Nice when you're tooling about the sludge nest. Mind you, shantiz theimbastormblade also completely wrecks the nest, though not BCOs in particular. Projectiles all around...
E3: Huzzah! Completely cleared the lowest level of the sludgenest. XP rate was kinda' crap, but so much loot ;_;
E4: Snrk. Haha. Turns out shantiz's ridiculous projectile killing thingy doesn't understand friendly fire.
And can one-shot escort critters. Heh.
E5: Portal was even in the same room. Only 13 squares away, though the level generated with us both surrounded by a dozen+ group of mixed vampires, wights, skeletons, etc. Two turns later, everything but two or three Ws and Vs, and me, are dead. Thanks imbablade.
E6: Annnnnd I finally hit +90 to dex. I have 100 dex. Said dex is base 10. +90 from other sources. No stat points invested. Vaguely insane. Also third stat to hit triple digits. Character is level 32. Stupid sexy mindslayers.
E7: Though yeah, not entirely sure people were really thinking through this gem thing. +4 all stat per tier. Another +11 from a cat-point resonant focus. Fifth tier gem, +31 to all stats. That is 186 points of goddamn stats. And then whatever augmentation adds -- my level 32 dude's getting 71 total, for a grand total of 257 bonus to stats. Before the rest of the equipment is added in. Not even counting the +15 con the lifebinding emerald I'm currently using is giving, here. Adding all that junk onto it comes up to 345. That is all of 15 away from being an equivalent stat investment to 60 into every single stat you have. And I haven't even hit the east yet! This is ridiculous! Around a third of my kit isn't even providing stat boosts!
How did you build your mindslayer? I'd like to give that build a shot :P
Post by: Frumple on June 08, 2014, 10:09:41 am
Is there a way to set your golem's target to nothing?Tell it to target itself, iirc. Or you. One of those two.
How did you build your mindslayer? I'd like to give that build a shot :PWell, the character page is here (http://te4.org/characters/2939/tome/229b86ab-4614-495f-9646-adcfc3b07c87). Ignore the blood knight addon... other than a class, it doesn't add much, and the only reason I'm running it is because some kind of display change it does (giving a per turn count to bleeding damage) somehow infested the rest of my game, and now T4 refuses to run without the addon going ::)
There's not really much sophistication going on. I've mostly just burned hard for everything passive (/sustained), bumped up absorption as per normal, and am running around stabbing everything. Psi-wear a gem, get resonant focus up, have all the stats. All of them. I've finally started adding a few more active things to everything, but... mostly I just stab things. Charged/thermal/kinetic strike as necessary, smash when able.
E: Sweet zeus the random global slow on melee attribute can go over 30%. I just whacked something with a 115% global speed penalty. Mind you, the speed mechanics meant they bugger only ended up with something like 46% global (so a 64% penalty), but... still.
Post by: Zireael on June 08, 2014, 11:45:45 am
Post by: Frumple on June 08, 2014, 12:05:41 pm
And yeah, you should, but as I said, something whatever version of the blood knight addon I used at some point did made it so T4 will refuse to load unless the addon's going. Has to do with the bleed effect and whatever the addon in question did to it. Causes...
Spoiler: this error (click to show/hide)
Post by: Zireael on June 08, 2014, 12:45:36 pm
Same goes for achievements/unlocks.
Post by: Niveras on June 08, 2014, 05:36:01 pm
.
My cornac mindslayer had only am 83.3% attack speed, and I couldn't figure out why so I unequipped everything. Turns out it was because of my gloves - some rare iron gauntlets, nothing to write home about but the best I've found so far (playing ID; apparently, amulets, gloves, and belts are far less common than everything else). But they don't have a negative attack speed so I don't understand why it shows up as such on my char sheet. Does the sheet only show non-weapon attack speeds; that is, my attacks still use the 100% attack speed of my mainhand/offhand/psychgrasp despite what's displayed on the sheet?
Post by: Frumple on June 08, 2014, 08:13:12 pm
A weapon makes you marginally more effective at dishing out melee damage, at the cost of... well, everything else.
E: Hahahahahaaaaa. Note to self. Shantiz can proc off of you. And it probably hurts you a lot less than its projectile destroying doomball hurts everything else.
Why T4 so often rewards self-flagellation I will never quite understand. But attacking yourself is a productive action in a disturbingly large number of situations.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on June 09, 2014, 08:52:22 am
Post by: Satarus on June 09, 2014, 11:21:11 am
I finally reached level 20 on insane roguelike. :) It helps that my necromancer drowned half the population for 3 free level-ups and a bunch of yellow/orange items.I thought you were always supposed to drown the rares that spawned in towns. :D
Post by: puke on June 09, 2014, 12:26:21 pm
Now, I never played the old Pern game, but I did play this as Troubles of Middle Earth or whatever it was. I understand it has come along way and all... but I'm pretty sure it is still a free open source game.
What exactly is steam selling? The ease of having it in your steam library with a download manager?
This is the same thing that is free from the official website, right?
Post by: DeKaFu on June 09, 2014, 12:47:58 pm
I believe the Steam version instead lets you pay a set amount for the game and get the same content as if you'd donated.
Post by: Frumple on June 09, 2014, 01:00:04 pm
Post by: Satarus on June 10, 2014, 10:07:01 am
The game from the website is free, but occasionally prompts for donations. If you donate you unlock a tiny bit of extra content (Stone Warden class, item sharing between characters, a game mode with infinite lives, and the ability to change your character tile)
I believe the Steam version instead lets you pay a set amount for the game and get the same content as if you'd donated.
Buying on Steam is just like getting the game from the website and donating like $10 USD. Sure you get access to the Steam Workshop, but you can still download files off of it without Steam.
Post by: Niveras on June 10, 2014, 04:59:44 pm
Only the corruption requires the altar in the mark of the spellblaze, which of course does not spawn in the ID. So that plan isn't going to work.
Irks me a little that new content (at least in terms of accessible talents) doesn't consider accessibility in the ID. It is bad enough that the ID's level gen spawns extremely out of depth vaults in the first floors, meaning a potential lost of very useful artifacts, and the fact that it still uses only a single tileset/level gen algorithm when, I would think, it would be very easy to change those (in comparison to adding actual new content).
But I also recognize that the ID is not very popular so whatever.
Post by: Frumple on June 10, 2014, 05:29:36 pm
Themed levels, dungeon gen alterations, mini-quests/event levels (every once in a while, you might get slammed with a TD or arena level, or something like that dwarf town assault... addon? Rare level? Whatever it is.) and whatnot... you could do a lot to spice the thing up, make it more interesting. It's just folks, well. Haven't. Much, anyway.
But yeah, hopefully within a version or two someone'll notice the vile life stuff not being in the ID and do something about it. They tend to, from what I recall.
Post by: Niveras on June 10, 2014, 05:51:27 pm
Also considering running Psiblades 5/5 and using 3 mindstars, although this makes the 5 points I spent in reshape almost completely useless.
Post by: Frumple on June 10, 2014, 06:48:06 pm
E: Sweet monkey jesus weapon of wrath is knobmongering horseshit. Trying out a sunpa after one steamrolled my mindslayer like damn, and now I'm seeing why it steamrolled my mindslayer like damn. Someone turned these guys into monstrous wrecking balls. Seriously, who thought adding 300+ fire damage (before they even hit level 20, nevermind later) to a melee class's melee attack was a good idea? Sure, you've got to be missing HP first, but what's the class that oozes damage shields like nothing short of an archmage? Sun paladins! They don't give a damn if they're missing half their health, they've got a rolling damage shield wall for 3x that amount!
E2: At least it has the decency to only proc once per attack, rather than once per swing. An assault round dealing an extra 200-300 fire damage per swing would be completely ridiculous.
Post by: Darkmere on June 10, 2014, 08:15:02 pm
Post by: Frumple on June 10, 2014, 08:22:15 pm
Post by: Darkmere on June 11, 2014, 08:40:34 pm
Post by: Frumple on June 11, 2014, 11:38:54 pm
Post by: Darkmere on June 12, 2014, 12:30:52 am
I'd guess somewhere around the point someone decided it was a good idea to have egos that could proc random gloom effects. Just about anything can stun just by smacking you, these days. Especially considering that effect can show up on jewelry and whatnot :V
Ugh, so I'm not imagining it. Is this a fairly recent thing? That is, is there a chance of making it less ridiculously frustrating in a rebalance at some point? It's... really starting to piss me off now. I don't want to spend the entirety of the east stunned and poking at orcs for dozens of turns each waiting for ANYthing to come off cooldown.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on June 12, 2014, 08:15:49 pm
I had another crack at the latest version after seeing that apparently Nightmare and Insanity scaling had been made 'better', but the approach to balance seems as lackadaisical as ever, sadly. Oh well.
Insane feels like "old" Nightmare, but with a lot more rares/uniques/random bosses.
Edit: Removed hopeful nonsense. I'll probably die before reaching the east knowing my luck...
Edit #2: Failed at reading comprehension. Tome was never good at balance. It's a casual roguelike. I'm sometimes tempted to create a balance addon that makes tome's difficulty more consistent (and harder), but the majority of players consider balance to be the opposite of fun. ::) I'm just glad the game is winnable on roguelike.
Post by: Satarus on June 13, 2014, 11:34:28 am
Post by: Frumple on June 13, 2014, 11:51:12 am
Post by: Jack_Bread on June 13, 2014, 01:44:23 pm
Mm... fairly recently, I did run into a situation where there was an invisible jelly spitting at me in daikara. And by invisible, I mean non-existent -- blanketing the area in AoEs hit nothing, despite the jelly happily spitting at me the whole time. 'Tis bug, of some sort.I've had a similar thing happen where an apparently non-existent rare tempest mage in the Rhaloren camp pelted me with lightning in a small area of the map. I even layed down a blanket of sling bullets in the area and hit nothing.
Post by: Robsoie on June 13, 2014, 02:38:44 pm
Oh and just noticed, 1.2.2 available :
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2014/06/news/tales-majeyal-122-aka-confidence-and-paranoia-released
changelog :
Code: [Select]
Release highlights:
Various bugfixes and small improvements
Fix for the crash-after-save bug that affected some people
Expanded changelist:
Reduced Death Dance bleed damage
Fixed the donator achievements when playing higher difficulty mode
Reduced Displacement Shield mana cost
Fixed a bug that made mouse hard to move when targetting under the game log in some circumstances
Added an icon to webviews to copy the current URL to clipboard
Mummy wrappings are considered light armour now
Fixed Cuirass of the Dark Lord
Fixed Rak'Shor Cultist, again
Fixed Wintertide storm effect
Moving an item out of the transmogrification chest correctly checks encumberance
Click on your own character to pass a turn correctly reload ammo too
Crystal walls in the crystaline old forest are diggable
Fixed crystaline forest "eating" vault walls in the old forest
Fixed Shattering Charge range limit
Fixed Buckler Mastery
Ring of the War Master now also improved 2h assault talents
Fixed the bug that turned the level into half-ascii mode after coming out of the Eidolon/Fearscape/Dreamscape after a save&reload
Fixed Alchemist Golem gaining too much talents in the Infinite Dungeon
Renamed Lightbringer's Rod to Wand to keep naming consistent
Improved reshaped weapons/armours display
Rare items/randarts with negative life will not always spawn with the max value
Nerfed Mucus damage a little
Uncapped Recovery and altered scaling
Fixed Infinite Dungeon having most creatures poison immune
Fixed corrupting the heart of the sandworm queen on the altar on the same turn as being fearscaped
Gaining a high difficulty achievement also grants lower achievements
Fixed devour life damage type
Fixed crash after saving that happened to some people
Fix Bash and Smash
Fixed Fearless Cleave
Post by: Un67 on June 13, 2014, 04:36:49 pm
Post by: Zireael on June 14, 2014, 01:36:33 am
Mm... fairly recently, I did run into a situation where there was an invisible jelly spitting at me in daikara. And by invisible, I mean non-existent -- blanketing the area in AoEs hit nothing, despite the jelly happily spitting at me the whole time. 'Tis bug, of some sort.
This is a bug, report it on te4.org forums.
Post by: Frumple on June 14, 2014, 03:07:16 am
Post by: RedKing on June 24, 2014, 01:48:24 pm
Halfling Antimagic Summoner with Psiblades.
I blew through Dreadfall in one run, wasn't even hurt bad going up against The Master.
Survived the orc ambush without too much difficulty.
Just blew through Reknor in one easy run.
My ritch flamespitter hits for about 300 fire damage every turn, stays around for like 10 turns, and costs only 2 equilibrium to cast. I can just set up a gauntlet of flamespitter and hydra and wait for a critter to die as it rushes me. If it gets in too close too quickly, I have a ring of pilfering to let me jump away. If it gets in close and it's hurt bad, I just finish it off with a pair of psiblades to the face for about 250 damage.
Thanks to Earth Beads, antimagic and Nature's Blessing, poison actually heals me.
EDIT: Nope. Vor Armory wrecked my shit. If only I could have found those Spellhunt Gauntlets....
Post by: kcwong on June 25, 2014, 04:25:20 am
Either I'm getting a lot better at this, or I hit upon an incredibly OP build.
Halfling Antimagic Summoner with Psiblades.
I blew through Dreadfall in one run, wasn't even hurt bad going up against The Master.
Survived the orc ambush without too much difficulty.
Just blew through Reknor in one easy run.
My ritch flamespitter hits for about 300 fire damage every turn, stays around for like 10 turns, and costs only 2 equilibrium to cast. I can just set up a gauntlet of flamespitter and hydra and wait for a critter to die as it rushes me. If it gets in too close too quickly, I have a ring of pilfering to let me jump away. If it gets in close and it's hurt bad, I just finish it off with a pair of psiblades to the face for about 250 damage.
Thanks to Earth Beads, antimagic and Nature's Blessing, poison actually heals me.
EDIT: Nope. Vor Armory wrecked my shit. If only I could have found those Spellhunt Gauntlets....
I found both Summoners (antimagic or not) and Alchemists to be good beginner's classes. I tend to do well in either... one of my early alchemists cleared the orc ambush in 3 turns and obtained the big damage achievement in armory. A later one obtained the same achievement before entering Dreadfell.
Post by: Satarus on June 25, 2014, 08:05:09 am
Either I'm getting a lot better at this, or I hit upon an incredibly OP build.Summoner is quite strong in the lower difficulties. Just spam your summons and you are fine, paticularly the fire drake. Though halfling really doesn't offer too much synergy. Yeek and Thalore add better base stats and both have strong racials. Though Yeek's is a bit wasted since they can't really take advantage of the extra speed.
Halfling Antimagic Summoner with Psiblades.
I blew through Dreadfall in one run, wasn't even hurt bad going up against The Master.
Survived the orc ambush without too much difficulty.
Just blew through Reknor in one easy run.
My ritch flamespitter hits for about 300 fire damage every turn, stays around for like 10 turns, and costs only 2 equilibrium to cast. I can just set up a gauntlet of flamespitter and hydra and wait for a critter to die as it rushes me. If it gets in too close too quickly, I have a ring of pilfering to let me jump away. If it gets in close and it's hurt bad, I just finish it off with a pair of psiblades to the face for about 250 damage.
Thanks to Earth Beads, antimagic and Nature's Blessing, poison actually heals me.
EDIT: Nope. Vor Armory wrecked my shit. If only I could have found those Spellhunt Gauntlets....
Post by: RedKing on July 29, 2014, 11:06:20 pm
http://te4.org/characters/18400/tome/f9060059-dc1b-46c2-aeb4-1a61df0adfec (http://te4.org/characters/18400/tome/f9060059-dc1b-46c2-aeb4-1a61df0adfec)
Thalore Antimagic Brawler. Found Spellhunt Remnants pretty early on, which was huge. They're marginally decent gauntlets in early game (easy to feed them with tier 1 and tier 2 arcane artifacts) but when you get them fully powered-up, they're veritable mage-mauling machines. Especially when combined with counterstrikes and Flexible Strike prodigy, because the bonus effects are proc on-hit, and I can potentially be hitting 6-10 times a round.
Also, it should be noted that I was level 41 when I started the final boss fight, which is apparently somewhat low. I'm curious now what the lowest a character has ever been and won the game. (was lvl 49 by the time it was done).
Post by: Frumple on July 29, 2014, 11:29:33 pm
Post by: Robsoie on July 30, 2014, 06:20:18 am
Post by: lemon10 on July 30, 2014, 03:39:25 pm
Appears to be level 43. (http://te4.org/characters/30875/tome/ec62aa07-7177-4d57-937c-bf4261f63502) At least on the vault -- I could almost swear someone managed lower, maybe even sub 40. I can definitely testify that the last bosses drop just ludicrous amounts of XP, though. Makes ending with a low level difficult even if you walk into last peak pretty far down there, heh.I know that most of my winners aren't in the vault for some reason. I suspect the same is true for a lot of others. But yeah, I went from 41(43?) on one character to 50 after killing both of the bosses. Even if you went in at like level 5 you would probably end up at level 30.
E: That winner was level 38 before ending it (gaining 5 levels), so he probably went in at level 33 or 32.
Post by: Frumple on August 10, 2014, 11:59:50 am
Spoiler: They're all dead, though they don't know it yet (click to show/hide)
Point to be made: I'm doing OF->Nur as my forth dungeon, after Norgos/Trollmire/Korpul... and stacking encumbrance, because I'm carrying something like 30 artifacts I wanna' store ;_;
The loot piñata situation with this addon on full blast is completely ridiculous, if you can survive the constant onslaught that happens when you turn pretty much every monster into a farportal boss. Not really something you do with normal characters, t'be honest, though lower frequency is pretty tame.
E: And the gold income is just silly, of course. That encounter ended up netting me 430 gold. Also two artifacts! Not counting the random artifacts.
E2: Though you can pretty much just write escorts off. M'actually using the enhanced escort addon (which is to say, escort easymodo) and they're still pretty much guaranteed to be flat erased within a few turns of encountering anything hostile, ha.
Post by: kcwong on August 17, 2014, 03:06:58 am
A new release (1.2.3) has been released.
Change list:
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=41821
Post by: Frumple on August 17, 2014, 04:16:35 am
Though it does look like there's been no mention of it. Hrm.
Post by: Dwarfurious on August 17, 2014, 12:14:22 pm
Post by: Shadowgandor on August 19, 2014, 07:11:04 am
Finally a new donator class: Possessor! Also Demonologist and Doombringer :D
Post by: Robsoie on August 20, 2014, 04:16:59 am
Post by: Zireael on October 17, 2014, 01:23:09 pm
Changelog: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=42528 (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=42528)
It's bugfixes and paving the way for Ashes of Urh'Rok.
Post by: Darkmere on October 17, 2014, 01:25:27 pm
Post by: Frumple on October 17, 2014, 02:24:47 pm
Post by: Darkmere on October 17, 2014, 02:56:44 pm
Post by: Frumple on October 17, 2014, 03:55:19 pm
Spoiler: Convient somewhat half-hearted breakdown (click to show/hide)
Post by: Darkmere on October 17, 2014, 04:50:49 pm
I'll figure out the rest when I get back to it, no worries.
Post by: Frumple on October 17, 2014, 05:01:15 pm
And yeah, both gear and a talent or two re: resource gain -- self-flagellation was one of the few ways a non-wilder anti-magic character could regain equilibrium without getting in a fight, by smashing yourself in the face with something that triggered resolve. Also one of the few ways mindslayers had to regen psi outside of a fight for a loooong while, as well -- was still the fastest, in a per turn sense, even after base psi regen was added. Even ABs got in on the fun, recently -- and let me just say, swapping in a couple of, say, mindstars (anything you did crap damage with, really) to whack yourself with, while you've got lightning hands up is -- well, was -- an excellent way to rapidly regenerate mana.
Get low on resources, turn a corner, swap in low-damage weapons that trigger whatever effect you've got, bop yourself in the head a few times, jump back into the fight before the enemy can heal much/any. It was good stuff. Rarely needed, and definitely a niche application, but occasionally useful.
Post by: Darkmere on October 27, 2014, 02:12:05 pm
http://store.steampowered.com/app/316910/
Post by: Frumple on October 27, 2014, 02:26:29 pm
Spoiler: tiny spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Oneir on October 27, 2014, 03:32:08 pm
Spoiler: tiny spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on October 27, 2014, 03:45:48 pm
Spoiler: Well... (click to show/hide)
Post by: Darkmere on October 27, 2014, 05:50:05 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So, dwarves make pretty good min/maxy doombringers. You get access to reknor, deep bellow and the new starter, and all the normals. Loot shower ahoy!
Post by: Oneir on October 27, 2014, 07:12:08 pm
Spoiler: Pull the lever, Kronk! (click to show/hide)
So, dwarves make pretty good min/maxy doombringers. You get access to reknor, deep bellow and the new starter, and all the normals. Loot shower ahoy!
And here I was just lamenting how embarrassingly squished my elf was...does anyone know what the "play a doombringer as one of these races!" pop-up is about? Stonewardens are the only mechanically restricted races, and it doesn't seem like doombringer should be a lore-restricted one. (Yeek doombringer is too hilarious a concept for words. I am not a good enough player to pull it off.)
EDIT: Y'know, I just remembered how burnt out I got on dwarves the last time I played. There's something so repetitive about Reknor, it makes you wonder why it doesn't have any sort of Alt layout.
Post by: Frumple on October 27, 2014, 07:33:59 pm
I'm finding that staff is definitely the doombringer's ideal weapon (if you're sticking with two-handers, anyway), which is vaguely annoying due to the initial gold outlay, but... eh. Lucked out on a rare elven-wood one... somewhere in OF, I think? Base damage isn't as high as I'd like, but there's no complaints in regards to a +23 SP, +20% fire damage deathstick at this point in the game. I'd post th'char link, but something wonky seems to be happening with the server or... something... and it's not updating.
Spoiler: so here (click to show/hide)
Not really intending to play doombringer past the point of unlocking demonologist, though, whenever that comes around. Not even sure if I'll last till then before succumbing to the temptation of just manually unlocking it, heh.
Post by: rumpel on October 27, 2014, 07:37:14 pm
Post by: guessingo on October 27, 2014, 08:57:56 pm
Post by: Darkmere on October 27, 2014, 08:59:07 pm
Post by: Oneir on October 27, 2014, 09:24:40 pm
Doesn't the expansion also add some artifacts and such? Ditto lore, though that might matter less to people.
Post by: Frumple on October 27, 2014, 09:25:42 pm
E: *brushes little tear away* My gravestone's still there~
Had almost forgotten that was there. The Legless Jack one is a frumple suggestion, heh.
Post by: Darkmere on October 27, 2014, 11:08:20 pm
Post by: Frumple on October 27, 2014, 11:28:03 pm
Post by: Darkmere on October 27, 2014, 11:33:17 pm
Post by: SpiredWarrior on October 28, 2014, 08:21:17 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Shadowgandor on October 28, 2014, 08:47:37 am
If the Maze has the alternate horror version, skip it until after Sandworm Lair. Also be careful of chests and vaults. If you feel like a challenge, open them but try to make it a conscious decision that whatever pops out of them could be way stronger than you.
The Old Forest will contain the first creatures you might not actually want to attack. Some of the horrors in the second part of the Old Forest are just downright unkillable for some class/race combinations.
Take your time. Try to rest in between fights and try to lure ranged enemies around corners or fight in hallways so you don't get overwhelmed. Is there anything in particular that you die to?
Edit: Oh and try to always have some form of escape.
Post by: Robsoie on October 28, 2014, 09:07:59 am
A simple difference of 1 level can give you access to a specific skill or improve one you have to a much more useful state, making your character more prepared to face a threat on a specific zone than if you rushed and ended with 1 less experience level.
Post by: SpiredWarrior on October 28, 2014, 09:13:27 am
And I never realized that I should try to do all of the T1 zones, I thought experience from the enemies there fell off.
Post by: Robsoie on October 28, 2014, 09:31:41 am
The snow giants can be tricky in the case you have a rock thrower in the middle of them, they hit -very- hard mostly because they do physical damage and usually that's the most overlooked kind of resistance.
Staying around a pack of snow giant can be deadly if there's a rock thrower with them (and there's nearly 1 of them with every snow giant pack).
To deal with them, you need to move to a corner of corridor to prevent them to throw things at you, and once they show up, rush them and kill them as fast as you can.
After that, getting some lightning resistance can help against some of the snow giant lightning users.
The thieves has gotten more difficult since a few version, as there was apparently a bug related to poison and thieves monster that prevented them to really deal as much damage as they could.
Post by: Niveras on October 28, 2014, 03:30:26 pm
Usually I die to things like Wrathroot or Daikara's snow giants, but I also have issues with the shadowblades in the Unknown Tunnels and the Assassin Lord. I've realized what to do there, adjust my items for Old Forest or Daikara, but other than that, nothing in particular.
And I never realized that I should try to do all of the T1 zones, I thought experience from the enemies there fell off.
It does, but it can still give you maybe the little boost to get into another level.
Also, get luck out and get some good loot from doing them. Maybe a high level rare weapon from a vault, chest, or rare, or a useful unique from a boss. (Be careful of vaults in the rhaloren camp.)
Don't forget to do arena in Derth before level 12 for 2 generic points. (At level 12, Storming the City opens up and the arena master either dies or disappears.)
There's also the Hidden Compound (slavers) although there really isn't much there besides a little experience. Also the... I forget what it's called, but where you fight Subject Zero and save (or more likely watch die) the yeek.
Personally, I often do maze and sandworm lair before old forest, because once I do old forest I prefer to go immediately to the ruins, but I often have difficulty with the demons in there (even if I'm trying only to find the stairs rather than clear the place) and the weirdling beast. However, I play ranged a lot. Of course, it easily possible to not have to do that, and OF is definitely easier than maze or sandworm lair (particularly the maze boss in his tiny level).
Post by: lemon10 on October 28, 2014, 04:19:24 pm
Usually I die to things like Wrathroot or Daikara's snow giants, but I also have issues with the shadowblades in the Unknown Tunnels and the Assassin Lord. I've realized what to do there, adjust my items for Old Forest or Daikara, but other than that, nothing in particular.Experience from the enemies does fall off there, but killing all the T1 bosses should net you an extra level or two as well as a few T1-T2 artifacts. And as the others have pointed out, even that extra level+the artifacts makes a significant difference, especially if they are artifacts you need.
And I never realized that I should try to do all of the T1 zones, I thought experience from the enemies there fell off.
Also, as the others have said, skip all alt levels till later. They are usually significantly harder.
Also in general you always want to have: A good escape option, a way to purge (or heavily resist) nasty status effects, and keep enough health that you can survive a nasty combination of attacks (eg. while two skeletons might deal 100 damage combined on average, if they both use their best abilities+crit at the same time, they could do 500 damage in a single turn). A source of healing/regeneration is also pretty important in fights
RE: Shadowblades: Try to throw damage at where you think they are before they attack you, them being able to kill you in one hit isn't very important if you manage to kill them before they attack you. If you right click on a spot with a invisible hostile in it, it usually gives you an "inspect this creature" option, so you can usually tell if an enemy is there. Some abilities can only target enemies, even if you can't see them (eg. rush IIRC), so spamming them until one works also lets you find an invisible creature. Stacking health (so that they can't instakill you) would probably help too.
Wrathroot: Get stun/freeze resistance, make sure you have a good way to escape, and try to have a way to purge the freeze (eg. Physical infusion). You can physically break the freeze, but that's sub-optimal since he keeps freezing it on you.
Post by: Robsoie on October 28, 2014, 04:39:08 pm
just reached level 13 with the lumberjack village and now ready for starting the T2 with Old Forest
Looks like the online stuff isn't working great, can't seem to auto-log in to get my character progress saved.
Post by: Frumple on October 28, 2014, 06:02:11 pm
Wrathroot... if you've got a decent heal (regen or otherwise) the freeze is scary but frankly painless -- the CD on it is too long to be a genuine threat in the face of semi-decent (say, 150+ on regen, ~100+ on heal providing the CD is <10, stuff like that) inscriptions. Getting into melee can help there, if you're a melee class, since that can often screw with the boss's AI a little (i.e. they'll just whack you instead of doing something useful).
In regards to the snow giants, you want to take advantage of the terrain and make sure you let boulder throwers come to you -- they're the only genuine threat in that zone, imo, and if you get yourself in an open space with three or four of them, they will wreck you into the ground. If you can keep it one-on-one (and hopefully stun/daze/etc. that gorram freakishly OP boulder throwing talent into non-use) they usually fold fairly easily. Also, protip on confusion: If you're confused and you want to melee something, use the attack talent. I've got it hotkeyed to / on the numpad. If you try to move into the enemy to attack, it will often move you instead of taking a swing. Trying to actually use the attack talent does not have that problem.
Shadowblades and assassin lord sounds like you might be having problems with accuracy. Usually so long as you can hit them (and, preferably, have no more than one beside you at a time) they fold fairly easily. Push comes to shove, just kite until you can heal up. Also, that attack talent again. Or just melee talents in general -- so long as there's just one critter beside you, it'll autoswing at it even if you can't, technically, see the thing.
... all that said, I usually pay... basically absolutely no attention to my saves. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not. I just don't really notice or care. Most status effects that aren't straight up damage have ways to react that help mitigate their effects, so you can often push through daikara with no confusion resists/low msave, and so forth, just by knowing how to react while confused to keep yourself from keeling over. Same for a lot of stuff, really.
Post by: Darkmere on October 28, 2014, 07:05:28 pm
More comments on the xpack/DLC/whatever:
Demonologists just sound fun to play. Their talents really fit my playstyle, so I need to get back into it and play them along with the boosted 2H sun pallies. I'm also surprised at how much I'm enjoying the new lore, which was a non-issue in my purchase decision.
My Doombringer (Urist McDemonbeard) has put me into an unusual situation: he's sitting on my final cat point with full inscription slots and un-trained Celestial/Light... but I don't feel like I need Light, at all. I took Fearfire with the first one and everything I need in class talents feels very good as-is... so I have points to spend as both class and generic. Are hexes any good? I'm thinking about taking Wrathful for more vim to use them.
Also, potential spoilers regarding the race unlock:
Spoiler: Actual spoiler questions inside (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on October 28, 2014, 07:44:52 pm
That said, when given the option between hexes and freaking light there's not really a choice, imo, so long as you've got enough generic points to get providence. Like. All of the light tree is even more intensely sexy nowadays than it used to be. Bathe in Light has become borderline OP (especially in conjunction with damage shields, obviously). Healing light remains an incredibly solid (functionally entirely free) healing talent. The shield is a shield, which again synergizes with BiL, and, well. Providence is providence. Still one of the absolute best anti-debuff talents in the game.
Post by: Robsoie on October 29, 2014, 03:12:40 pm
My halfling brawler (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/f6f2532f-0abd-49ba-b953-a838a7229959) just reached level 23
I don't remember having my character been in serious danger at any time (well with the life i leech from the Bloodcaller it certainly helps :) ) , surprising as i clearly remember in the past my brawlers having a much harder time.
Not complaining as i know there are enough threats ahead that will certainly test my guy, but i was really surprised how everything bosses and rare go down that quickly against that Halfling Brawler, a rush -> double punch -> axe kick and if needed a haymaker nearly kill everything (and i have a flurry of fist in reserve just in case), poor roaming adventurers are going down before even understanding they're going to die.
And i don't even have the Flexible Combat prodigy yet, that's going to be horrible for the monsters once my character will get it :D
Brawlers has gone from weaker class to top class in current version.
Post by: SpiredWarrior on October 29, 2014, 05:00:14 pm
Post by: Darkmere on October 29, 2014, 05:58:46 pm
Post by: Frumple on October 29, 2014, 06:09:37 pm
Demonologists are... different. Playing it, not entirely sure I like it. Hoping things get more interesting as the higher tier seeds show up, since you really kinda' need 'em to use and sustain much of your talents. Need that vim on hit/getting hit, et al. Right now (level 16, in nur) they're just kinda' awkward feeling. Doing alright, outside of eating a death from running into three ooze horrors and a pack of luminious (and not dipping before running out of the resources needed to power my escape methods. Round two went much more smoothly.), all at the same time, though. Biggest problem for them is probably vim regeneration at low-ish levels -- if they're having trouble killing something, there's not much they can do mid-fight if their vim taps out (unless you get that locked tier 3 talent, which instead buggers your stamina right into the ground). I expect that to change when I've got better seeds, but for the time being it's a PitA :-\
E: Ohey, they updated. Demonologist (http://te4.org/characters/2939/tome/43154496-cb5d-4209-ac76-808dc031d9b4) and doombringer (http://te4.org/characters/2939/tome/0caec227-2078-43df-9fb9-a448392aa372). Ignore the blood knight addon -- there's some kind of annoying bug where the bloody game won't load without the freaking thing active. And I'm too lazy to fix it, since it doesn't really meaningfully change the game outside of adding a class and improving the bleed status UI. Demo's gained a level since then, though.
Post by: Robsoie on October 29, 2014, 06:39:42 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then visiting the stores of the towns to see what the post-Dreadfell refreshing of their stock would offer i found this rather awesome thing that i bought immediately :
(http://i.imgur.com/zG7wofOs.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/zG7wofO.jpg)
And a very nice gauntlet that was much better than the one i had, with a really great cloth with lots of stat bonuses. It's rare at that point of the game i buy so many items in stores, usually i have better items already than what they sell.
Then moving out of town to go get the elixir of focus as i got all the requirements, i had the Dark Crypt just happening there, after thinking if i would go or not, i decided to go, after all i had 0 death so far and i wanted to test that brawler completely.
And out of the initial difficult entrance that forced me to teleport (so many spellcasters in that room) to avoid risking some bad stuff, i went down and down and
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So level 27 now and ready to go to that boringly repetitive Reknor.
Looks like the DLC has caused some server problem, most of the time i lose contact with it , hard to save the character to my online vault correctly, i had to retry several times, i guess it means the DLC was successful
edit : decided to go to the mummy place , i wanted to keep it for after, but considering how strong that guy is, i decided to go, and got to level 28 there, punching everything to death, and wow, at that point of the game, Brawlers are really strong
(http://i.imgur.com/IjRFoK9s.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/IjRFoK9.jpg)
Post by: Oneir on October 29, 2014, 07:25:29 pm
I mean that literally. Use it on a grappled enemy and you AoE for wonderful damage.
There's also the fact that all of their talents feel and work together so well. Setting up combos has a fun rhythm to it, not to mention it lets you move around while breaking faces.
Post by: Darkmere on October 29, 2014, 08:15:13 pm
Mind you, this STILL isn't the easiest win I've ever had... so... I'm guessing I probably didn't use whatever stupid OP broken setup everyone has been fist-shaking about, even without taking Light.
Post by: Robsoie on October 29, 2014, 08:47:40 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I walked on them, even tried to press > or < but nothing, anything supposed to happen or is that some kind of glitch ?
Anyways, my halfling brawler is more and more strong, especially now that he has the Flexible Combat prodigy and reached level 32 (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/f6f2532f-0abd-49ba-b953-a838a7229959), it's impressive how the enemies can go down that fast.
Give brawlers a try in case you have difficulty with other classes, they're really strong in current version
Post by: Oneir on October 29, 2014, 08:55:12 pm
Post by: oldark on October 29, 2014, 10:09:17 pm
Post by: rumpel on October 30, 2014, 02:05:33 am
Post by: Darkmere on October 30, 2014, 02:19:07 am
Post by: Frumple on October 30, 2014, 03:15:47 am
How to get that badassery thing, if at all?It's random/DG induced, like bunnification or the bearscape. It doesn't actually do anything mechanical, s'far as I can remember, just causes some cosmetic things. Stuff talking when they die, mostly.
Post by: rumpel on October 30, 2014, 03:32:26 am
Post by: tootboot on October 30, 2014, 04:00:54 am
Tried this game again yesterday. Still can't get the resolution to be playable (broke when it went to steam for me) :(
Try deleting the 'T-Engine' directory in your user folder.
Post by: Robsoie on October 30, 2014, 05:28:28 am
Tried this game again yesterday. Still can't get the resolution to be playable (broke when it went to steam for me) :(
You can try to edit manually the resolution in the resolution.cfg file located in your t-engine user data
for xp that file was found in :
X:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\T-Engine\4.0\settings\
for vista/7/etc... that file is found in :
X:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\T-Engine\4.0\settings\
and set a standard resolution like 800x600 by example (then change it from ingame options or enlarge the window manually)
Post by: Satarus on October 30, 2014, 06:51:19 am
Now for something different, while i was exploring the spider cave in the east, i noticed the floor of each level was having lots of wormholesSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Wormholes (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on October 30, 2014, 04:29:34 pm
Post by: Robsoie on October 30, 2014, 06:53:08 pm
My character just reached level 40 (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/f6f2532f-0abd-49ba-b953-a838a7229959) after going to East and coming back to West , completing all the West remaining places with the destruction of all the backup guardians and now ready to go after the Prides in the East.
And that guy is one punch killing nearly everything or at most 3 or 4 punch killing bosses.
Sure the gauntlet i use (Hand of the World-Shaper) is really great (it even shoot Earthen missiles on 15% of hit, and it's not rare considering how many punches my guy deliver each turns), and i have great items improving my punch dealing stuff, but wow, never i had played brawlers at such level of "enemy total destruction" without really feeling threatened (though as i play te4 for so long, maybe i'm unconsciously avoiding every kind of dangerous behaviour too :) )
When it's not my character willingfully attacking and destroying an enemy, it's the enemy being destroyed by attacking me and falling on my retaliation punches, the Flexible Combat prodigy making things even more crazy of course.
Brawlers are definitevely a powerful class right now, i think i have even less problems annihilating things than with an Oozemancer.
One one of the patrols/ambushes, i found an artifact i never saw before so i guess it's a recently added one , seems to be a nice piece of armor, unfortunately useless for a brawler
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Noticed while i was clearing Tannen's tower that there were new lores pieces in it, making a link between Tannen and the demons (i guess there must be some kind of references to this in the DLC from what was said in those Tannen notes)
Post by: Oneir on October 30, 2014, 07:57:53 pm
One one of the patrols/ambushes, i found an artifact i never saw before so i guess it's a recently added one , seems to be a nice piece of armor, unfortunately useless for a brawlerSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Yeah, brawler has a pretty unfortunate niche when it comes to gear. I got lucky with an early Untouchable and nice gloves, but I think I got tarrasca (not new, btw, just rare) and Borfast's cage (similar, ultra-heavy armor, from that unique ghoul in Dreadfell). I got ridiculously lucky with artifacts on that guy, actually.
Post by: Robsoie on October 31, 2014, 05:30:53 am
I don't remember even bosses going down that fast with any of my previous winners.
Who needs armor if nothing can live long enough to hit you :D
Post by: Frumple on October 31, 2014, 07:12:27 am
But yeah, outside the higher difficulties offense > everything. Normal difficulty you can go really slim on defensive stats and get by pretty fine, in general, providing you hit hard enough.
Post by: oldark on October 31, 2014, 07:49:49 am
Post by: Robsoie on October 31, 2014, 08:09:21 am
My character is now level 44 , 2 orc prides have been crushed under his mighty fist of total destruction.
I had a little tough time in the necromancer pride entrance, as the focus fire of so many necro with the little res i had was a problem when my shield rune went down and i completely forgot to enable the 2nd shield (from the light tree i got from an escort), i teleported fortunately and resumed total destruction, poor guys nearly had pity of them when my character came back at the entrance and one-hit killed each of the remaining necros.
Then when i reached leve 42 i took draconic body as my 2nd prodigy just in case i forget i have a 2nd shield in incoming pride and sorcerer crushing.
Brawlers are sure very fun when you're fed up of characters feeling "weak" when it comes to dealing real damage.
Post by: Robsoie on October 31, 2014, 10:37:36 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Guardians of the Slime tunnels ?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
High Peak ?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Now to prepare my equipment to face the last battle, hopefully i will not get some nasty surprise from the rolls with the guys waiting, they need punching and kicking (i wonder if the grapple skills are worth anything in current version, i didn't took a single one of those grappling trees and never felt the need at any point).
Still impressive how brawlers completely annihilate everything in current version, and funny to notice that it's the character i cared the less about +resist items since the years i play tome 4, in fact i had low resistance (less than 30%) nearly everytime and still not a single death.
Destroying enemies fast indeed prevent the need of resisting their attacks :)
Post by: Robsoie on October 31, 2014, 11:28:01 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As a summary, i think that Brawler is the most powerful class now, i have many wins of many classes, but never i got to destroy absolutely everything with so very extremely few though situations.
Even my Oozemancer had more hard spot than my Brawler.
Final stats (http://te4.org/characters/7727/tome/f6f2532f-0abd-49ba-b953-a838a7229959) of that Brawler Halfling.
Post by: Satarus on October 31, 2014, 12:13:22 pm
Post by: Robsoie on November 01, 2014, 04:26:02 am
And that without a movement infusion yet, i guess with one it must be even faster to clear that sacrifice room
Post by: rumpel on November 01, 2014, 05:59:15 am
Post by: Robsoie on November 01, 2014, 06:05:58 am
Then try to use the column to avoid getting more than 1 enemy at a time, don't hesitate to dance around them until your regen is back online.
Usually when i want the bloodcaller ring (and it's good on brawlers) and so fight in the ring of blood, i keep my fighter behind the column that is on the far left of that arena and let the enemies coming.
remember that uppercuts stun enemies once you have build a few combo points with the double strike, it makes them much easier to kill.
Post by: rumpel on November 01, 2014, 06:37:49 am
Post by: Oneir on November 01, 2014, 09:49:02 am
EDIT: Nifty, unlocked the Demonologist. For those who are curious:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on November 01, 2014, 01:12:06 pm
Is it separated, is it happening before or after the defeat of the sorcerers or is it unfolding at the same time of the campaign events ?
Post by: Frumple on November 01, 2014, 01:58:41 pm
Post by: Robsoie on November 01, 2014, 02:09:21 pm
Post by: Oneir on November 01, 2014, 02:33:01 pm
Post by: Robsoie on November 01, 2014, 02:44:37 pm
http://te4.org/wiki/Campaign#Non-existent_campaigns
Post by: Frumple on November 01, 2014, 02:53:45 pm
Post by: Graven on November 02, 2014, 06:54:42 am
With the Doombringer out of the question, which is the current Most Ridiculous Melee Class in the version of our Lord 1.2.4? Actual hack-n-slash games are running at about 20 fps on my laptop but I wanna click things to death a bit.
I missed out on winning a release Solipsist, and I wanna just crash into things and make the mans fall down without much threat of retaliation.
Also I've already won a Cursed, and I'd rather not play another...ever.
Post by: Shadowgandor on November 02, 2014, 07:58:29 am
There's also a graphical bug that makes one of the aoe effects take up your entire screen. I've been having fun with the new content, but wouldn't have minded to wait a bit longer for the bugs to get fixed
Post by: Robsoie on November 02, 2014, 08:04:38 am
my recent win i was lucky to have not encountered any bug, out of the bad sprite for the distorsion effect (as i play with shaders disabled for more performance), a bug that's still there since many releases.
for the dlc i don't know, i don't have it.
With the Doombringer out of the question, which is the current Most Ridiculous Melee Class in the version of our Lord 1.2.4? Actual hack-n-slash games are running at about 20 fps on my laptop but I wanna click things to death a bit.Check in the past 3 or so pages my reports about my Halfling Brawler, from what i understood from my run with that character in 1.2.4 Brawlers are the most powerful melee terminators that are able to inflict total destruction on everything from lowly monster to endgame bosses.
Maybe the only problem is early game if you can't find/buy good gloves/gauntlets, didn't had that problem as i got a nice gauntlet in the first zone anyways.
So if you just want to just have fun in utterly destroying everything in melee from the start up to the last bosses while dealing insane damage and tons of mobility, go Brawler.
Post by: Shadowgandor on November 02, 2014, 08:53:11 am
You're talking about the dlc or the main game ?
my recent win i was lucky to have not encountered any bug, out of the bad sprite for the distorsion effect (as i play with shaders disabled for more performance), a bug that's still there since many releases.
for the dlc i don't know, i don't have it.
I was talking about the DLC, but haven't played Tome in a while so it might not be DLC specific. Last version I really played was 1.21 I think
Post by: Oneir on November 02, 2014, 10:03:17 am
RE: online payments. I've heard stuff about getting prepaid credit-type-things at stores, but I've never done it and they may or may not exist in your area. If you have any way to get money on to a Steam account (friend with a credit card?), you can buy the expansion there assuming you own ToME there. And assuming you're alright using Steam.
RE: massive beatstickery. Brawler is great. Muscle-wizard is best class. It's hilariously fun. It's not 100% guaranteed roflstomp, but it's a great mix of durability, mobility, and beatstickery. Key points:
- You can punch people so hard they explode.
- You can hit semi-indestructible enemies so hard they die anyway.
- You can put casters in a headlock and make them (silently) give you their lunchmoney.
- You can suplex entire rooms into submission. (see: muscle-wizard)
Allegedly one berserker build is supposed to be broken good, last I checked. But I found the early game so tedious and frustrating that it just wasn't fun to get started. :-/
Post by: Graven on November 02, 2014, 10:16:08 am
Oneir, any idea what that Berserker build was?
And how are Sun Paladin/Solipsist nowadays? Sun Paladin also got reworked IIRC, and I haven't really played it in general.
Thanks for the ongoing replies, btw!
Post by: Darkmere on November 02, 2014, 10:29:53 am
Post by: Robsoie on November 02, 2014, 11:45:01 am
Rush -> Axe Kick (big damaging kick in the face, get combo points, make enemy fail talents) -> regular punching (to benefit from automatic Double Strike and get combo point) -> Haymaker (finisher with devastating damage , remove combo points) -> Flurry of Fist (3 punches, get more combo points) -> Concussive Punch ( finisher with big damage with large area of effect to deal with groups, remove combo points)
and get an Uppercut to stun people if you think you need that.
Assuming you have good equipment to optimise your critical % and damage output, with Flexible Combat, nearly every regular enemies are dead after the axe kick , rare/unique may be dead after the haymaker and some bosses may be nearly dead after the concussive.
I didn't go antimagic so i could benefit from a shield rune to add to my character resilience, along with a teleport just in case (i don't think i actually used it for the whole game).
On the talent , out of the obvious damage dealers i mentionned make sure to get the ones from Cunning/Tactical to improve everything about your punching in the face and defense.
On the other side, the 2 first talents of Technique/Unarmed training are a must have for tons of STR/CON bonus and big damage bonus
Unflinching Resolve is a must, at max it give passively 59% of chance each round to remove stun/blind/confusion/pin/slow/wound effects you recieve.
I didn't used any of the grappling skills, no idea if they're worth the investment or if they're weak and useless
Post by: Oneir on November 02, 2014, 12:10:25 pm
I didn't used any of the grappling skills, no idea if they're worth the investment or if they're weak and useless
Situational, but very worth it. There are all kinds of times when it's nice to keep a mob from getting away, and silencing casters is a life-saver. (also another reason Axe Kick is great, btw, with added bonus that concussing the Master just sounds funny) If you slap more points into it, you can also use it as another damage mitigator: other guys wailing on you wail on your victim, too. Takedown is also hilarious. I can't stress that enough.
Personally, I never used Rush after I got spinning backfist. The cooldown is much nicer, even if the range is much reduced, and the bonus combo points are great. A huge +1 on Flexible Combat, though. You attack faster already, plus you have so many skills that either attack more than once, or give you counterattacks, or...it's just great, basically. I'm curious about running an anti-magic brawler, but my suspicion is you already have enough things to spend generics on that it might not work that well.
Actually, the brawler is one class that makes me really want to try modding/adventurer. I feel like a brawler/marauder or brawler/arcane blade could be really fun.
Post by: Frumple on November 02, 2014, 05:25:15 pm
Actually, wearing the black ring at all seems to be a terrible, terrible idea. Darkfire's a pretty crappy spell to begin with, what with the sizable AoE and self-damage, and about the only way to make it worse is to tack "uncontrolled" onto it. Which is what the ring does.
E: Oh, that poor idiot ghost. Magetown is seriously not the place to try to jump someone. Especially when you're in range of the deathbeast.
Post by: Oneir on November 02, 2014, 05:53:11 pm
Minor heads up: Black Ring on a Doombringer is close to the worst idea ever. Poor Last Hope. I was trying to kill a pumpkin ghost, not half your civilian population. Also ow. Darkfire to the face is painful.
Actually, wearing the black ring at all seems to be a terrible, terrible idea. Darkfire's a pretty crappy spell to begin with, what with the sizable AoE and self-damage, and about the only way to make it worse is to tack "uncontrolled" onto it. Which is what the ring does.
Can confirm regret. I just love artifacts too much. ;n; The one fun thing is proccing off of abduction...except for still being range of the AoE.
Post by: Frumple on November 02, 2014, 06:31:42 pm
Which actually feels kinda' anemic for a 30th level character, but eh. Third level talent, still pre-east, etc., etc.
E: Game. Game ;_;
Why would you drop my 5th level shaloren demonologist onto the second level of the scintillating caves. In line of sight of two goddamn rares? I... I survived. Didn't eat a death. But bloody hell that was close. And cruel.
Post by: Satarus on November 03, 2014, 12:24:39 pm
I didn't go antimagic so i could benefit from a shield rune to add to my character resilience, along with a teleport just in case (i don't think i actually used it for the whole game).
I didn't used any of the grappling skills, no idea if they're worth the investment or if they're weak and useless
I did my Brawler play through as a Skeleton so no anti-magic for me. The racials really helped me with survivability.
As for grappling, it's nice, but not great. You get some damage reduction while you have the grapple and it pins/silences your target. Suplex makes for nice AE damage or you can hurricane throw them for some extra "mobility." Overall a great utility tree, but not so great for single target combat.
Post by: Graven on November 03, 2014, 06:28:39 pm
After restarting about 20 times since I kept dying in the starting area [that thing is a pain], I finally made it to level 14 without any deaths, cleared all the tier 1 dungeons and the Rogue Tunnels and bought a Dwarven Steel two-hander of massacre [73 max damage on a weapon at level 14 is no joke].
I'm currently trying out all these fun new talents which let me hit people in fascinating new ways.
As always I'm copying a build - particularly this one: http://te4.org/characters/54789/tome/b5bb467d-1c82-4a5a-b7ab-f4ded193587f
Not sure about maxing cunning third, though - I might go for Con, just for the safety.
The class has definitely moved up in enjoyment, leaving Cursed comfortably blobbing at the bottom of the "Gnaw-my-own-teeth-I'm-so-bored" swamp.
Post by: Oneir on November 03, 2014, 08:44:55 pm
EDIT: Patch! 1.2.5! Very, very vague release notes!
Post by: oldark on November 04, 2014, 12:43:19 am
Post by: Robsoie on November 04, 2014, 05:49:50 am
out of probably fixing some dlc-related stuff, i wonder what are that patch 1.2.5 "minor improvement" .
Post by: oldark on November 04, 2014, 06:00:39 am
Post by: Robsoie on November 04, 2014, 06:25:18 am
Quote
window.size = '800x600 Windowed'
And see if you can see the window borders
Post by: Frumple on November 04, 2014, 01:27:04 pm
*This one dropped the eggsac summons and a 20th level dolleg on the beast and more or less rolled over it.
E: Woah. Blighted path. There goes any vim problems until stuff with mana clash starts popping up regularly. Also a nice painful beatstick effect. Nice.
E2: Well, that was the worst derth setup I've seen in a long time. No less than eight lightning Es within LoS of the initial opening to the inner town. Maaaay have panicked a little. Survived, but ow. Ow.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 04, 2014, 02:11:22 pm
Anyway, skeletons seem to be decent on insane. Their exp penalty isn't very noticeable when 1/3 of the enemies you encounter are rares. Though their starting dungeon is awful on higher difficulties.
Post by: Frumple on November 04, 2014, 08:08:52 pm
---
Yeah, demonologist's biggest problem, it seems, is that they don't really get off the ground until level 18. But once they finally start off, they start off pretty damn hard. Hitting that third tier of seeds means you get things like goddamn Daelachs on tap (The 27th level one my elfologist has, has just shy of three freaking times my hp), functionally infinite vim (+3 per melee attack, per ring if desired, blighted path (which is actually second tier, but whatever), etc., etc., etc.), and a whole new ballpark of damage and whatnot. It's pretty crazy.
They're basically crap -- easily one of the worst classes -- until they hit that level 18. Then things start coming off the rails. Definitely looking forward to getting the rest of the seed outlay -- currently, my only next tier ones are for rings (daelach) and body (wretch titan, which is actually kinda' cruddy -- just incoming crit damage reduction).
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 04, 2014, 10:28:33 pm
Post by: Frumple on November 04, 2014, 10:51:24 pm
Post by: Robsoie on November 07, 2014, 10:18:38 am
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_tales_of_majeyal_and_ashes_of_urhrok_expansion/post100
Meaning if you play with the gog version, you don't need to create an account and be online to use the item vault and share your items between your characters.
Post by: Graven on November 08, 2014, 06:57:28 am
- Suffocated in the first tunnel of the Sandworm Tunnels, because Path of Light takes a turn to cast [skill descriptions? bah!]
- Died to a Rare in the Ruined Dungeon, because I hadn't levelled up for about 10 levels
- Died twice in the first floor of the Crypt, because some things never change.
Other than that, Two-Hander Sun Paladin is a surprisingly fun build. You have your AoE, your single target damage, some CC, some ranged damage, some resistances, some healing and pretty decent melee damage. The only issue is relatively low mobility, but runes and stuff do exist, even if I personally am not using them.
The abilities themselves combo to a decent-ish extent, and are fun to use, resource management is basically non-existent [I've set Bathe in Light to autocast when no enemies, meaning I always enter combat with full Positive energy] so all in all a solid 8/10 class.
My main two issues : not as OP as I'd like to feel; not as fun as Arcane Blade - Darkmere bow your head in shame right this very instant. Also I feel like all the shiny stuff is slowing my laptop even more, but then again my AB took 5 seconds to parse each turn because of all the coloured explosions.
Damn, I might have to play another Oozemancer or something.
Post by: Frumple on November 08, 2014, 09:41:13 am
Spoiler: Sometimes the game just wants you to die (click to show/hide)
Naturally, I was at full health beforehand. Not that it mattered :P
Post by: Niveras on November 08, 2014, 12:07:18 pm
Post by: Zireael on November 08, 2014, 12:22:16 pm
Spoiler: Sometimes the game just wants you to die (click to show/hide)
Naturally, I was at full health beforehand. Not that it mattered :P
Infinite damage? O_O Didn't know it was possible.
Post by: Frumple on November 08, 2014, 12:46:52 pm
And yeah, DG's actually quoting me about that big number, ha. Different means of going about it, though, I think. That one was just extreme multiplication, this one seems to be some kind of calculation oddity with secondary acid effects. If it were a emergency cut-off effect, I would have expected extreme lag beforehand as it tried to calc up and went crazy, which didn't happen. Apparently lua can handle calculating with infinities, heh.
Post by: Robsoie on November 09, 2014, 08:13:59 am
So i start in the scintillating cave as expected, immediately next to the stair and so to me, there's a bear, ok instead of retreating, let's try to see if that guy can at least kill the 1st monster he see.
shield rune on, then invoke darkness to try to shoot the thing to death.
Well it didn't really go well, my shield is down and the bear is nearly undamaged despite the couple of invoke darkness shots.
I was going to summon a minion when i see an rare/elite snake coming , ok that's very bad .
I shoot my invoke darkness , again damage is so ridiculous that it looks the thing isn't even hurt.
Time to exit, oh i can't ? i'm under some kind of effect, last chance, let's use my Phase Door spell
Great it phased away enough, hmm what is that, another rare/elite snake at 3 tiles of me ?
No escape from such a thing as snakes are always faster even with my 16% speed bonus from the Shalore talent.
I decide to use the Phase Door rune this time and i move only slightly away.
... only to see the other rare/unique snake and the bear appearing at the entrance of that room.
Fortunately my Phase Door spell comes online, let's try and ... wow, i moved next to one of the 1st elite/rare snake while the other close in, let's use the shield that came back usable
Poor shalore necro, couldn't do much
Quote
Galewe the large brown snake hits Gurginis for (14 absorbed), 0 physical, (10 absorbed), 0 arcane, (4 absorbed), 0 acid (0 total damage).
Neredhena the large white snake uses Thorn Grab.
Your shield crumbles under the damage!
The shield around Gurginis crumbles.
Galewe the large brown snake hits Gurginis for (10 absorbed), 0 physical, (10 absorbed), 0 arcane, (3 absorbed), 1 acid (1 total damage).
Neredhena the large white snake uses Thorn Grab.
Gurginis is no longer out of phase.
Neredhena the large white snake uses Thorn Grab.
Galewe the large brown snake throws two quick punches.
Galewe the large brown snake hits Gurginis for 10 physical, 10 arcane, 4 acid, 10 physical, 0 arcane, 4 acid (38 total damage).
Gurginis deactivates Necrotic Aura.
Gurginis deactivates Blurred Mortality.
...dead.
Well, i'll give a try to Nightmare, Insane is a bit too insane for me :D
Post by: Frumple on November 09, 2014, 08:58:33 am
Though trying to kill a bear right off the bat was a bit silly, too. Those buggers are tanky enough on lower difficulties, without the insane boosts. Leaving, go off to trollmire (or maybe heart of the gloom -- it's pretty likely to have squishy rats to oneshot) or something would have been your better bet. Avoiding tougher critters and rares for a few levels is good, too. You definitely have to play differently on the upper difficulties, from what I understand.
Though don't forget the best insane/madness starting strategy: Go around checking the towns and drowning any rares/uniques that generated. Absolute best bet at level 1 in higher difficulties for XP and some jumpstart loot, that.
Post by: Robsoie on November 09, 2014, 10:08:56 am
It's been a long time i didn't tried that but my blurry memory seems to remember about something having changed regarding the town drowning stuff ?
Post by: Frumple on November 09, 2014, 10:12:18 am
Post by: Robsoie on November 09, 2014, 10:17:56 am
Meanwhile i've been running a Halfling Berserker (it has been a long time i didn't played one so i wanted to see what had been changed for that class) in nightmare.
After an initial trouble in Trollmire that forced me to run out of it (a rare troll with a golem) i went to clear Norgos and a bit of the blighted dungeon nearby of it (didn't go to the boss of it as i remember a little difficulty spike with it the last time i played nightmare here).
With much better equipement and 6 more levels, i went back and annihilated the rare troll and his golem and cleared Trollmire without any problem, even the boss went down very fast (i was expecting the nightmare version of it to be tougher)
Then i decided to quit that character, the level of boring repetition was too much for me, i'll have to try some non-melee character as i think i still have too much of them after my long Brawler run and victory.
Post by: Frumple on November 09, 2014, 10:22:25 am
Post by: Robsoie on November 09, 2014, 10:59:09 am
I wonder how marauders can do in nightmare.
Though i'm not sure which race i'll use, the skeleton was awesome, but i have read often that the undead starting place is a horrible hell in nightmare.
Hopefully the Shalore route will help
edit
I went with a Shalore Marauder, and for the fun of it, Insane difficulty.
Of course this time i immediately exited the scintillating cave and went to trollmire.
I press autoexplore, and i'm shot with poison by giant venus flytrap.
I go back to safety of a corner and notice my health going down very fast. my character has no wild infusion (to my surprise, instead i have shield and phase rune) so i waited and the poison disappeared when i was at 1 of health !
wow, that's starting greatly :D
edit 2 : hilarious, i managed to defeat 2 trolls and both of the fights have been boss-level (and those weren't even rare, just regular monsters) type of fight, with lots of pillar dancing (tree dancing in that case) , hitting while i'm protected and with my skills back, then pillar dance more etc...
Then i ran into a wolf, and unfortunately a rare that shot me with some beam to death before i could do anything else.
Quote
Lisildara the bee swarm hits Terriblos for 71 mind damage.
Insane difficulty indeed :D let's focus more on nightmare then :)
Post by: Darkmere on November 09, 2014, 11:08:32 am
My main two issues : not as OP as I'd like to feel; not as fun as Arcane Blade - Darkmere bow your head in shame right this very instant.
I should point out that I'm apparently the lunatic fringe of the player base because I really enjoy wyrmics and thought temporal wardens were a lot of fun. People should probably just ignore my opinions based on those two facts alone.
Nonetheless, I am shamed. :'(
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 09, 2014, 12:33:17 pm
Tips for insane:
- Don't use auto-explore, unless you have cauterize or bone shield. Getting instant-killed is easy due to the amount of rares on each level. Using auto-explore is my main cause of death, but I refuse to play without it.
- Immediately leave your starter dungeon. Go to all the towns and drown all the rares. You'll gain several levels and loot for free.
- Go to the town near Norgos' Lair and buy a psychoport/psionic shield/mindblast item from the totem shop. They're dirt cheap.
- Don't bother with ghouls or skeletons. Surviving their starter dungeon is basically luck-dependent.
- Head to Dreadfell at level 1, then leave. You don't want to face a bunch of level 40 rares, while you're level 28.
Shalore marauder/berserker is probably the easiest combo for nightmare and insane. Unstoppable+Draconian Will+Timeless means you're completely invulnerable for 10 turns. I don't play them, so I can't say much else.
Post by: Frumple on November 09, 2014, 02:45:26 pm
It's just the getting out, and surviving the global penalty...
E: And retch is also a guaranteed status stripper, which is very nice for classes that don't have access to such.
Post by: Oneir on November 09, 2014, 07:57:34 pm
And I'm never taking Flexible Combat again. Everyone always raves about it, always saying 'Oh no, with THIS class, it's totally OP, honest. It's crazy'. Then I take it and it's crap. I need to hack in some kind of option I can enable on chargen that'll keep that prodigy permanently locked for me, just to resist the temptation of listening to the ubiquitous recommendations.
I have no honest idea how useful it is, objectively speaking, but it's pretty satisfying on a brawler. You'd need...really good procs to make it worthwhile on someone who wasn't already mashing people with their face, though.
In other news, my doombringer who was steamrolling high peak is facing off with a currently >100% resist all runed bone giant rare. So that's going to be interesting. I've already eaten one death to it (because I am not a very good player and got over-confident due to aforesaid steamrolling). I may need to resort to strategy.
Actually, though, it might be a good wake-up call. I have a ring of the dead and hadn't died since playing badly against Borfast (very similar circumstances, honestly), so a win is still possible.
Post by: Robsoie on November 09, 2014, 08:15:02 pm
For other classes i never really understood the interest or why it's recommended in so many guides, punches are weak on non-Brawler classes as they lack all the bonuses to them given by skills, i always found other prodigies much more interesting.
Good job on winning a Wyrmic, and nightmare , never managed to get a wirmic really working for me, even in normal, it seemed i had much more difficulty to keep them alive than other classes.
mentionning wyrmics, i noticed there were a "Wyrmic tweak" addon :
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=41739
Post by: Frumple on November 09, 2014, 11:36:42 pm
I think the big thing about it is it's flashy. Even if you're not actually getting much out of it, the glove procs are both noticeable enough and infrequent enough to both be attractive and not become boring. So people notice it, even if it's not really doing all that much.
Definitely wouldn't recommend it on higher difficulties, though, for pretty much anyone. Draconic will is generally your go-to, there, along with... one of the other defensive ones. D. Body, spine, whatever. Might even recommend temporal form if you're non-AM and fairly mono-type damage -- the staff doombringer I'm running on normal took it, both for the immunities and the ability to diversify damage on command. Wyrmic probably wouldn't hate windtouched speed -- passive +20% global speed is pretty nice... there's a bunch of stuff to take instead of flexible combat, basically :P
Post by: Frumple on November 10, 2014, 03:51:16 pm
Could have taken Meteoric Crash, but sadly it's only triggered by spells or mind attacks.Minor point: Wyrmic's basically everything is a mind attack. Everything dragon related, at the least... if the tooltip says "is mind power" and it does damage, it qualifies. The biggest issue with meteoric crash (beyond qualifying for it) on a wyrmic is you're going to spend a lot of time turning the ground underneath you to lava. It'll very happily trigger off of things like ice claw, heh.
Post by: Satarus on November 10, 2014, 03:58:53 pm
Yeah, all wilder skills count as mental powers.Could have taken Meteoric Crash, but sadly it's only triggered by spells or mind attacks.Minor point: Wyrmic's basically everything is a mind attack. Everything dragon related, at the least... if the tooltip says "is mind power" and it does damage, it qualifies. The biggest issue with meteoric crash (beyond qualifying for it) on a wyrmic is you're going to spend a lot of time turning the ground underneath you to lava. It'll very happily trigger off of things like ice claw, heh.
Post by: debvon on November 11, 2014, 06:44:36 am
Post by: Zireael on November 11, 2014, 07:27:26 am
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 11, 2014, 10:45:00 am
Post by: beorn080 on November 11, 2014, 12:06:37 pm
Post by: Frumple on November 11, 2014, 12:25:01 pm
I forget if there's still gold caps on... anything. If so, it might be slightly possible to get more gold out of selling to something with a cap higher than the t-mog chest has, but I forget what the numbers involved are, or if they even still exist. Generally the chest gives you the same price as a shop, though, yes.
Post by: Oneir on November 11, 2014, 01:41:20 pm
Post by: Neonivek on November 11, 2014, 02:27:52 pm
Otherwise why else would they include noob traps?
Post by: Robsoie on November 11, 2014, 02:44:06 pm
Post by: Neonivek on November 11, 2014, 02:53:16 pm
I'm not sure where you see elitism in ToME4 , it's one of the most beginner accessible RL while keeping the difficulty high enough to keep the seasonned RL-er hooked
Don't ask me, I've long since learned my lesson in diving headfirst into Roguelike communities.
"Hey I think the game should disperse ranged enemies a bit earlier in greater quanities, that way when they start to become regular enemies it isn't a sudden extreme shift in paradymes"
"Learn to play the game idiot!"
"Hey, can we just remove that invisible enemy from the tournament it is just a needless noob trap"
"thanks noob! glad we snagged someone"
Note: The above didn't actually happen. It was actually met with a "sounds fair"
Still ToME4 still has enough Noob traps, head scratching mechanics, and HOLY CRUD TON OF SPEEDBUMPS to justify a strong elitism drive. So I would not be surprised to hear if it had a elitist community.
Post by: Frumple on November 11, 2014, 03:31:06 pm
Its a roguelike. Elitism is 50% of the reason you play them.Where did this comment even come from? Why just... drop it in the middle of a completely unrelated conversation?
Otherwise why else would they include noob traps?
Post by: Robsoie on November 11, 2014, 03:37:45 pm
Post by: Neonivek on November 11, 2014, 04:02:13 pm
Post by: Robsoie on November 11, 2014, 07:53:57 pm
I can't comment about what's going on with the chat because i don't read/don't participate and i'm not interested in doing so.
The only te4 community i follow is the one on the main te4 forum and here, and i have not seen the kind of behaviour mentionned, but many users helping people to build their characters and answering questions without all the elitist thing, hence me not really understanding what Neonivek was posting about.
Post by: Neonivek on November 11, 2014, 08:38:54 pm
That way even if you didn't understand what I was getting on about, it would have seemed less like I was trying to talk about all of TOME4.
So I am hardly blameless for my lack of successful communication
Post by: Darkmere on November 11, 2014, 10:14:32 pm
*shrug* better and more easily parseable info on the forums, or I can just ask here if it's something i can't figure out on my own.
Post by: Mailo on November 12, 2014, 12:15:20 pm
Then again, I don't think I've ever encountered this elitism (which I'm sure does exist, I guess I've just been lucky) even in my Nethack and ADoM newsgroup days.
Don't get me started on elitism in PvP games though ... *shudder*
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 12, 2014, 05:53:50 pm
Anyway, if you felt the game was too long here's an addon to quicken the pace:
http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/shorterdungeons
Warning: It will probably make the game harder. There's less exp and loot, though the loot is slightly better.
Post by: AlleeCat on November 12, 2014, 06:02:26 pm
Post by: Frumple on November 12, 2014, 06:06:33 pm
What exactly is killing you inside 'em?
E: Though I rescind that statement if you're playing above normal. Talent level boosted skeleton magi are pretty vicious, from what I understand.
E2: Which, yeah, don't open those unless you've got a reliable escape method -- movement infusion or teleport rune, ferex. PD won't cut it. Maybe not even then... if you don't have the right tools, a ghoulking disease can be a guaranteed death that early in the game.
Post by: AlleeCat on November 12, 2014, 06:11:09 pm
Post by: Frumple on November 12, 2014, 06:20:35 pm
Still, in case of open rooms, get out, fight in corridors, etc. As noted, movement infusions or tele runes are really useful for that sort of thing. You never really want to fight more than one critter at a time, anyway (barring some oddities like brawlers, and honestly not even then most of the time).
Post by: AlleeCat on November 12, 2014, 06:24:27 pm
Post by: Frumple on November 12, 2014, 06:30:33 pm
Post by: Oneir on November 12, 2014, 06:48:06 pm
Post by: AlleeCat on November 12, 2014, 07:16:02 pm
Post by: Frumple on November 12, 2014, 07:21:23 pm
Post by: Satarus on November 13, 2014, 11:27:40 am
I did fine with both the Old Forest and the Maze. It was one area in Kor'pul I had trouble with.
Kor'pul can be hard with the boss caster hitting you from outside of your light source. I typically hit it after all my most other T1s if I am squishy.
Post by: Robsoie on November 13, 2014, 11:40:27 am
The boss is at only a few tiles from that wall, so you'll see him at the same time he'll see you.
This way you'll already be able to attack him and he will not be able to hit you beyond your line of sight.
Post by: TripJack on November 13, 2014, 11:57:51 am
twice i've saved him now, first time he simply disappears (no killed message or anything) after subject Z dies and the next time he gets nicked by my fire drake's AoE cloud which apparently turns him hostile and once again denies me my unlock o_O
Post by: Satarus on November 13, 2014, 01:16:46 pm
Post by: Niveras on November 13, 2014, 03:07:02 pm
Post by: Oneir on November 13, 2014, 03:09:47 pm
Can do the same thing with an archmage. Obviously archmage is a lot squisher than a necromancer, but I think it is an easier unlock. (I forget if you only have to find lore or if you also have to kill Celia to unlock necromancer.)
You need to read all four(?) "How to be a Necromancer" lore, then kill Celia. This is a lot easier if you can unlock the fortress, but you still need to wait until you've found all the lore at some point or another.
Post by: Satarus on November 13, 2014, 04:20:39 pm
Can do the same thing with an archmage. Obviously archmage is a lot squisher than a necromancer, but I think it is an easier unlock. (I forget if you only have to find lore or if you also have to kill Celia to unlock necromancer.)
True, but the archmage has to worry about friendly fire, a necromancer doesn't have any friendly fire from his darkness spells after proper leveling.
Post by: Niveras on November 13, 2014, 06:49:58 pm
Post by: Shadowgandor on November 14, 2014, 07:57:32 am
Post by: Oneir on November 14, 2014, 01:50:18 pm
Or you can use the rod of recall and skip the two completely until you gained a few extra levels.
Oh, yeah, if this is the mindslayer unlock we're talking about that's totally an option. The wayist and subject Z will just kind of stare at each other until you see them. This also lets you get the generic points from the arena guy in Derth, which is otherwise pretty tough for yeek.
Post by: Graven on November 15, 2014, 06:07:51 am
The possible combos I'm considering are a sort of Reaver/Arcane Blade/Sun Paladin, or preferably Reaver/Shadowblade/???
Basically I want to hit stuff really hard in melee, with magical damage, and possibly not be too squishy.
I want reaver so I can wield dual Shortstaves [are these still a thing?] and Shadowblade for huge single-target damage. A toss of Paradox, for the awesome sustains and decent mobility, or that Temporal Archmage tree for the +Global speed sustain would also be decent. The Light tree should bring me enough survivability, and I suppose I can go for Dex/Mag/Cun sort of build - adding Willpower would probably be too much.
Problem is I've not tinkered with Adventurer much, so I don't know what combinations are decent. Also I'm really bad at stats, and I don't want to spread too thin. We're talking Normal difficulty, I don't feel like dealing with the higher ones yet.
Anyone want to advise?
Post by: Robsoie on November 15, 2014, 07:29:34 am
Maybe his build can be helpful for building strong adventurer
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=42603
But i notice he used a lot of addon, no idea what most of those are
Post by: Frumple on November 15, 2014, 10:25:19 am
Hey guys I need some help in having fun in Tome. I want to make a sort of Ultimate Mage-y Melee Adventurer.Yeah, you'll be wanting to go AB.* Iirc, you don't need corrupted strength to dual-wield staves, if you're going for that (you might still want it, for the extra melee procs)... though it's been so long since I've actually seen two decent short staves at the same time on a character I could definitely be misremembering. You're also definitely going to want to splash one of the mindslayer trees to open up triple-wielding -- I usually go for psi-fighting (and possibly the TW strength of purpose/quantum feed one, to further make everything scale off more things) to get that extra scale on willpower/cunning, but any of them will do. Every single adventurer build in existence wants to do that, actually. It also massively simplifies meeting stat requirements, since the beyond the flesh stat boost from gems is vaguely ridiculous.
If you've got ashes and you're aiming for further silliness, you might consider the demonic pact tree (demon seed... and that passive life steal at the end of it's pretty sexy). You'd have to do some weapon swapping to get the seeds, but having a 15th level firebolt -- mainhand seeds are, in fact, weapon seeds, and can be stuck in both in the psi-wield slot and your offhand... and the granted talent levels stack -- blasting off on top of everything else (to say nothing of what the other slots bring to the table) is... pretty great.
Mostly my advice just boils down to "Do whatever, but don't forget the mindslayer". You're more or less going to be wanting to pick up stone, the arcane combat tree, and then basically whatever. Survival-y stuff, because those two are mostly going to cover your offensive needs. Flurry or that acid-flurry wyrmics have (or both!) is usually a good idea, too. Think cursed have something similar as well.
As for those addons, Rob, outside of escorts enhances (Escort easymodo -- it makes them follow you around and gives 'em something like 2% max HP regen) and the succor one (alchies prefer to not choose alch potions you've already accepted when deciding which potion to complete, you get to choose your escorts) they're all UI stuff.
*Well, arcane combat. Probably stone (earthen missiles) as your primary proc, unless you've got Ashes and are also splashing doombringer (incinerating blows/burning sacrifice, etc), in which case fire/wildfire (stone is less category points. Go with stone.).
E: Oh, right. A shalore for the timeless/unstoppable combo? Shalore for the timeless/unstoppable combo. You want to do that. Everyone wants to do that. It's honestly kinda' broken, especially when paired up with draconic will as well.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 15, 2014, 12:47:54 pm
Iirc, you don't need corrupted strength to dual-wield staves, if you're going for that (you might still want it, for the extra melee procs)...
You need corrupted strength to dual wield short staves, otherwise you're stuck with a mindstar or dagger in the off-hand. I wish my mindslayer could triple-wield staves.
Post by: Graven on November 15, 2014, 02:51:25 pm
Yeah, you'll be wanting to go AB
I copied the build Robsoie posted, mucking up two major points along the way:
1. I got Combat Training using a Cat point instead of buying it like a normal person from Last Hope
2. I am a Cornac
However since I'm playing Normal rather than the more aptly named difficulties, none of the above should be that big of a problem.
Other than that - HOLY ARCANE COMBAT PROCS BATMAN
I got the tier 3 Gloves of Barron Harkonen or whatever which have an extra 20% chance to cast Earthen Missiles on hit, so I'm basically an anime.
I was just going to start a normal AB, but I noticed they took out the Greater Weapon Focus tree and that's just not nice. So mega-fist-punching it is.
Post by: AlleeCat on November 15, 2014, 04:52:51 pm
Post by: Robsoie on November 15, 2014, 05:07:44 pm
You need to unlock it if you haven't yet
spoiler :
http://te4.org/wiki/Unlockables
If you can't unlock it, there's an addon that can help :
http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/ignore-raceclass-locks
not sure if it works in latest version of Tome4
There's some file editing too in case, but i don't remember which one, probably someone else will help there
Post by: Frumple on November 15, 2014, 05:35:30 pm
Speaking of which, if someone wants the larger thing,
Spoiler: here (click to show/hide)
Post by: Graven on November 16, 2014, 08:27:39 am
Build copied from http://te4.org/characters/135593/tome/ca6c1723-d4d1-4b24-98ec-2c1dbb3339c1
It's boring. Really, really boring. It feels like it shouldn't be, but it is. I realise how whiny I sound, but nevertheless:
Spoiler: WHINE WHINE WHINE (click to show/hide)
I'll be the first to admit I am not a good player. In the hands of a proper player old AB was probably overpowered. It was, however, a class I had to really pay attention to - a glass cannon with fun abilities. This adventurer build is AB on steroids, and the steroids make you invulnerable, and you're part Cursed, and you probably don't want to play it for too long since sleeping on the keyboard is uncomfortable, and also inevitable.
Now I want to play something a lot tankier, that rushes into a group of enemies and pushes buttons to kill them, and I still need your help
I really want fungus, since it cuts down on resting time while still being somewhat vulnerable to burst, and probably Step Up and Rush, since speed is good. I don't mind OP, but with more buttons to push - the current build has the same issues I had with Cursed way back. It's really, really powerful but passive. Oh yeah and I want status resistance from abilities - at least Blindness because screw being Blinded.
I'm not sure if I want to splice some AB in - I don't make taking a bit longer to kill stuff if it means pushing more buttons, but I also don't want to be like old Sun Paladin where your main offense is enemies dying of old age.
Man I'm staring to become annoying, aren't I? Hopefully someone likes theorycrafting classes and I just happen to be there for him to have fun too :D
Post by: Robsoie on November 16, 2014, 09:03:16 am
Oh yeah and I want status resistance from abilities - at least Blindness because screw being Blinded.
On my Brawler i had Unflinching Resolve maxed that while isn't a protection was a very very good auto-removal for bad effects as it was giving me +/-60% of chance of a nasty effect removal each turn (the chances being dependant on your constitution, that i had at 118 by that time, so maybe not that great on low constitution builds)
Unflinching Resolve is a skill from the Technique / Conditioning tree (that has Vitality, another good skill to remove more nasty and have bigger regen on you're at less than 50% health)
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 18, 2014, 06:15:19 pm
Orc patrols are very annoying, even with boots of speed. Retch almost never removes any effects. Is it bugged? The damage cap is nice, which the only real improvement to ghouls. Mindslayer are really good now, but definitely not newbie friendly. I'm not sure if my build is good. I guess the prides will test it.
Post by: Frumple on November 18, 2014, 06:31:25 pm
Spoiler: if anyone else wants to look at it (click to show/hide)
E: Actually, here's the % check:
Code: [Select]
getPurgeChance = function(self, t) return self:combatTalentLimit(t, 100, 5, 25) end, -- Limit < 100% I, uh. Don't actually remember how to parse the lua's number scaling whatsit. I'm guessing the chance is definitely pretty low if you've just got a point in retch, though...E2: For what it's worth, if you had any interest/hadn't already checked yourself, the code's split between the ghoul file in undead talents and retch inside damage_types.lua. Not terribly hard to find, really...
E4: But yeah, a <100% chance to remove a single physical effect per turn isn't the sexist thing in the world. Nice on insane/madness to strip vitality off, though... possibly, anyway.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 18, 2014, 07:17:27 pm
*checks* Retch has a 27% chance to purge a physical effect.
Checking the character vault, I just noticed that nobody has won a ghoul on insane or madness yet.
Post by: AlleeCat on November 18, 2014, 09:08:39 pm
Post by: Frumple on November 18, 2014, 09:28:11 pm
Post by: Robsoie on November 18, 2014, 09:43:10 pm
http://te4.org/wiki/Zone
Here's there's a zone order recommendation that is +/- what i usually follow and should help your character to build up for the more difficult zones :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Remember that if you're facing a too hard situation, you can escape, go to another dungeon and come back later with hopefully better level and better items
Post by: AlleeCat on November 18, 2014, 09:45:37 pm
Post by: TripJack on November 18, 2014, 09:52:06 pm
Post by: Robsoie on November 18, 2014, 09:53:10 pm
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=34478#p135934
but note :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Quote
not that this class really needs the help to totally dominate everything, but what do you guys think would be the better defensive prodigy for a summoner - draconic will, tricky defenses, or spell feedback?Spell Feedback can be good to disturb spellcasters chances of casting
Draconic Body as a get more life if you're hit hard automatically is very good too
tricky defense, never used on summoners, can't say much
Post by: Frumple on November 18, 2014, 10:42:13 pm
not that this class really needs the help to totally dominate everything, but what do you guys think would be the better defensive prodigy for a summoner - draconic will, tricky defenses, or spell feedback?Almost certainly draconic will. Doubly so if you're shalore -- timeless + DW is one of the ultimate defensive tricks in the game (only topped by adding unstoppable to the mix, which turns into what amounts to 10-15 turns of absolute invincibility, not that summoners have access to it). Feedback would be secondary, but ideally a summoner won't even be getting hit, so... same deal with tricky defenses, really.
Basically, your critters should be tanking for you, you want stuff that stops or prevents you from not getting more critters out. Status effect mitigation, more or less. Or more offense, so everything's just dead instead of attacking you.
--
As for the tier ones, if you don't want to look at the actual map:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: TripJack on November 19, 2014, 01:58:03 pm
Draconic Body as a get more life if you're hit hard automatically is very good tooi considered draconic body too, but with the natural power of summoner & the absurd power of antimagic + fungus on top of that i don't think i have been been down to 30% health since before dreadfell... plus on top of my regen infusion cheese i'm drowning in other lifesaving heals i can use in a pinch, i think i have 5 of them at this point
maybe i'll regret not taking it when some absurd unique in the orc strongholds 1-shots me ;D
Almost certainly draconic will. Doubly so if you're shalore -- timeless + DW is one of the ultimate defensive tricks in the gameim dwarf, but i yeah i decided on draconic will
Post by: AlleeCat on November 19, 2014, 02:29:43 pm
Level 15 Thaloran Berserker. My favorite piece of equipment for a long time was the Thaloran Cuirass I picked up in the Old Forest around level 8. Also, Bill's Tree Trunk is a great Berserker weapon at low levels.
Post by: AlleeCat on November 19, 2014, 03:12:51 pm
Post by: Satarus on November 19, 2014, 03:26:13 pm
I thought it was any detrimental effect, but that would have been too good. My ghoul is immune to most physical effects and confusion. I mainly have to worry about damage.
*checks* Retch has a 27% chance to purge a physical effect.
Checking the character vault, I just noticed that nobody has won a ghoul on insane or madness yet.
Undead starting zone is no joke and that global speed penalty is even worse on higher difficulty.
Post by: AlleeCat on November 19, 2014, 03:53:59 pm
Post by: Robsoie on November 19, 2014, 04:42:31 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It's not one of the unlock you'll be able to make before playing a lot of characters (unless you edit the files to add them as it was mentionned some pages ago)
The 2 undead races require you
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 19, 2014, 05:14:51 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
In other news, I'm halfway through the backup guardians. Most of them are in the 90s range, but snaproot is level 122. Sadly, killing over-leveled enemies doesn't give you tons of exp. Or good loot.
I thought it was any detrimental effect, but that would have been too good. My ghoul is immune to most physical effects and confusion. I mainly have to worry about damage.
*checks* Retch has a 27% chance to purge a physical effect.
Checking the character vault, I just noticed that nobody has won a ghoul on insane or madness yet.
Undead starting zone is no joke and that global speed penalty is even worse on higher difficulty.
Yeah, I lost several undead characters before I even found the 1st staircase. It's pretty brutal. And I can't think of a role where ghouls are the superior choice.
Post by: Robsoie on November 19, 2014, 05:17:54 pm
Post by: Graven on November 21, 2014, 07:16:23 pm
http://te4.org/characters/15454/tome/5df9fc3c-65a8-4931-95b0-ee251f44586a
Running through High Peak, vapourising uniques in multicoloured explosions with my incredibly powerful mostly Tier 3 equipment and the Top Half of the Staff of Telos taped to my forehead was fun, I can't deny that. Unfortunately one or another of the bosses dropped the T5 Hand of the World-Shaper - I was using the T3 Gloves of Huckleberry Finn before.
Overall there's no running away from the fact that this is a build for a severely higher difficulty, and as such is incredibly overpowered on Normal. Bump attacks killed nearly everything in one shot, and I don't believe I've had to fight a single enemy for more than 4 turns since Dreadfell. The full, non-borked build would be absurd - I went Cornac for the normal experience gain, and didn't get Conveyance till about 2/3rds of the game, which caused most of my deaths.
I was thinking of trying to make a sort of Super-Berzerker, kind of like Cursed Squared, but going through the East always drains my will to Tome for quite a while. God damn is the East boring. At least I had the stupid eye-cap so I could at least see the boring stuff, rather than a black screen. Status effect resistances are shooting rapidly to my "Prioritize on Items" list since a blurry shaky screen might work for Crank:High Voltage but it just makes my head hurt when I'm playing.
Trivia!
- I only had the "Do over 600 damage" achievement until I went to hit the dummy after two-shotting Atamathon
- I literally two-shot Atamathon
- I cleared the Room of Death at level 38
- I forgot to buy the expensive custom-made artefacts from the Merchant
- I had no idea what equipment would work best with this build, nor which stats, so I just kept whatever on
...
- I died 6 times with the world's most OP build ;_;
Post by: Frumple on November 21, 2014, 07:20:22 pm
Post by: Robsoie on November 21, 2014, 07:58:39 pm
I got it on my winner and i felt pity for the foolish bosses.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 21, 2014, 09:45:22 pm
I picked the naloren legacy as my 2nd prodigy, since I heard tridents are great weapons for mindslayers. I don't think I'll be able to max out exotic mastery, since my mindslayer only has 2 levels left.
I was thinking of trying to make a sort of Super-Berzerker, kind of like Cursed Squared, but going through the East always drains my will to Tome for quite a while. God damn is the East boring. At least I had the stupid eye-cap so I could at least see the boring stuff, rather than a black screen. Status effect resistances are shooting rapidly to my "Prioritize on Items" list since a blurry shaky screen might work for Crank:High Voltage but it just makes my head hurt when I'm playing.
There's an addon that shortens the dungeons in the east. That should make the 2nd half of the game less boring.
http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/shorterdungeons
Post by: Robsoie on November 21, 2014, 10:23:41 pm
Post by: TripJack on November 23, 2014, 12:20:33 am
Some thoughts on the game:
+Lots of classes and races to try out. This is the best aspect of the game IMO - trying out new classes and race combinations
+At first I hated the idea of a cooldown system in a roguelike. If I wanted cooldowns I would play shitty WoW am I rite? But after playing the game I've grown to like it. On top of managing your normal ability resource (stamina, mana, equilibrium, whatever) you also have to plan around the fact that your abilities take time to become available again. Sometimes you will get support abilities that can reset or reduce the cooldowns of other abilities. Having to manage cooldowns adds much appreciated depth to the gameplay.
+By the midgame you have a good variety of abilities from your talents & items, plenty of options to choose from in combat
+No Nethack-style gotcha deaths, always a plus
+Passable graphics & music for a RL
-Danger level of most enemies is fairly low. Compare to Crawl where enemies are generally less numerous but more dangerous. Too much of the combat in ToME feels like trash combat, even for classes that aren't summoner-level strong... Upping the difficulty level could alleviate this issue but doing so would probably exacerbate the next problem
-Randomly generated uniques. Most of my deaths in ToME come from these. Unlike actual Boss enemies, these assholes more often than not are just buffed trash enemies. Sometimes however the RNG decides to dump some absurdly strong unique on your head and you are dead before you even know what happened. Yeah I know, inspect everything you see. Except as the game goes on and enemies are loaded down with more and more talents it can be difficult to tell how dangerous an enemy really is just from glancing at the stat pages. Random uniques are ToME's 'gotcha' deaths.
-The game is too long IMO. The early game is lame. Even if you skip optional zones (which would leave the player underpowered and could make the endgame too difficult for weaker char types) there are still a lot of dungeon floors to clear in ToME... Despite my desire to try more classes and races I won't be replaying ToME anytime soon due to this. The Crawl style of a relatively short core game and a whole optional 'extended' game on top of that for players seeking extra glory is more to my liking. And due to this & the problem of uber-uniques, I will never, ever, ever be playing ToME on roguelike mode :P
-Extension of previous problem - for a game this long the enemy variety is too low. Enemies you first meet very early in the game will continue to reappear until the very end. I was disappointed to see nothing new even in the end dungeon. More orcs & demons that I've been fighting for half the game, more undead that I have been seeing since level 5, more snakes, more drakes, more bone golems, yay... FFS, give me some ancient liches, some orbs of fire, some killer klowns!
-Wands, scrolls, potions... Although you will have a large number of abilities available to you by the midgame in ToME and I like that darkgod tried to do something new by removing consumables entirely, I find I miss the added variety and resource management aspect that consumables add to Crawl and most other RLs :(
-/+Unlock system, on the one hand it gives players goals to work towards, but on the other hand having unlockable shit in a roguelike seems like borderline blasphemy to me
It's not a bad roguelike. In fact I think ToME is a great choice for any poor soul that is looking to play his or her first roguelike. I will be giving it another spin someday. For me though, Crawl is still the king.
Also if I hadn't seen someone outside the game mention it, I would have had no idea that you can
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: beorn080 on November 23, 2014, 03:21:45 am
Welp, got my first ToME win. Despite 2 deaths I kinda wish I had played on Nightmare instead. Summoners are too strong for normal.For the last point, there are fairly simple ways to unlock everything all at once. It gets quoted every once in a while in the thread, and I forget the exact method, but I saw it a few pages back.
Some thoughts on the game:
+Lots of classes and races to try out. This is the best aspect of the game IMO - trying out new classes and race combinations
+At first I hated the idea of a cooldown system in a roguelike. If I wanted cooldowns I would play shitty WoW am I rite? But after playing the game I've grown to like it. On top of managing your normal ability resource (stamina, mana, equilibrium, whatever) you also have to plan around the fact that your abilities take time to become available again. Sometimes you will get support abilities that can reset or reduce the cooldowns of other abilities. Having to manage cooldowns adds much appreciated depth to the gameplay.
+By the midgame you have a good variety of abilities from your talents & items, plenty of options to choose from in combat
+No Nethack-style gotcha deaths, always a plus
+Passable graphics & music for a RL
-Danger level of most enemies is fairly low. Compare to Crawl where enemies are generally less numerous but more dangerous. Too much of the combat in ToME feels like trash combat, even for classes that aren't summoner-level strong... Upping the difficulty level could alleviate this issue but doing so would probably exacerbate the next problem
-Randomly generated uniques. Most of my deaths in ToME come from these. Unlike actual Boss enemies, these assholes more often than not are just buffed trash enemies. Sometimes however the RNG decides to dump some absurdly strong unique on your head and you are dead before you even know what happened. Yeah I know, inspect everything you see. Except as the game goes on and enemies are loaded down with more and more talents it can be difficult to tell how dangerous an enemy really is just from glancing at the stat pages. Random uniques are ToME's 'gotcha' deaths.
-The game is too long IMO. The early game is lame. Even if you skip optional zones (which would leave the player underpowered and could make the endgame too difficult for weaker char types) there are still a lot of dungeon floors to clear in ToME... Despite my desire to try more classes and races I won't be replaying ToME anytime soon due to this. The Crawl style of a relatively short core game and a whole optional 'extended' game on top of that for players seeking extra glory is more to my liking. And due to this & the problem of uber-uniques, I will never, ever, ever be playing ToME on roguelike mode :P
-Extension of previous problem - for a game this long the enemy variety is too low. Enemies you first meet very early in the game will continue to reappear until the very end. I was disappointed to see nothing new even in the end dungeon. More orcs & demons that I've been fighting for half the game, more undead that I have been seeing since level 5, more snakes, more drakes, more bone golems, yay... FFS, give me some ancient liches, some orbs of fire, some killer klowns!
-Wands, scrolls, potions... Although you will have a large number of abilities available to you by the midgame in ToME and I like that darkgod tried to do something new by removing consumables entirely, I find I miss the added variety and resource management aspect that consumables add to Crawl and most other RLs :(
-/+Unlock system, on the one hand it gives players goals to work towards, but on the other hand having unlockable shit in a roguelike seems like borderline blasphemy to me
It's not a bad roguelike. In fact I think ToME is a great choice for any poor soul that is looking to play his or her first roguelike. I will be giving it another spin someday. For me though, Crawl is still the king.
Also if I hadn't seen someone outside the game mention it, I would have had no idea that you canIs there no message or hint in game that informs you of this? Or did I just miss it?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As for your other negatives, I tend to agree on a lot of them. Recently I've been using the Everythings a Boss mod, exact name slips my mind as well, which basically turns everything into the super uniques you complained about. This is, nominally, a Bad Idea, except you get an ungodly amount of loot, such that its not unusual to finish the second dungeon and be entirely decked out in artifacts, barring a few of the harder slots to fill.
Honestly. My biggest issue with the game is the stats and the stat screen. Talents are fairly easy to figure out, but, how much spell power you need vs enemies saves, and at what point is a save good enough. These things feel like they are hidden away, and it would be nice if it was a little more transparent. But maybe I just have no idea where to look.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 23, 2014, 09:50:30 am
Congrats on you 1st win. Agreed with everything you said. There's an addon that unlocks everything, and an addon that shortens several overly-long dungeons. Oh, and the game is more fun on roguelike. ;)
Quote from: Robsoie
if i remember well, level 50 gives you some bonus points to distribute when you reach that level , not just the +1 of regular leveling.
Still not enough points, sadly. It's my fault for changing my build halfway through. That being said, my artifact tridents deal way more damage than everything else.
Quote from: beorn080
Honestly. My biggest issue with the game is the stats and the stat screen. Talents are fairly easy to figure out, but, how much spell power you need vs enemies saves, and at what point is a save good enough. These things feel like they are hidden away, and it would be nice if it was a little more transparent. But maybe I just have no idea where to look.
You have to build around saves for it to be useful. Saves are a decent substitute for immunities on normal/nightmare, but worthless on insane. I usually aim for power in the 70s-80s, so endgame bosses don't shrug off all your status effects.
Post by: Robsoie on November 23, 2014, 09:58:17 am
The addon previously mentionned may help, but to be honest every of those very repetitive dungeons should be shortened by default (and of course the XP ramp rebalanced to adjust for the loss of floors/XP to clear).
It had already happened lots of version ago in which every dungeons were even longer and some were insanely boring (remember old Maze , 5 levels of that giant labyrinth instead of 1 like now, and at the time there wasn't even auto-explore ! )
Post by: Uristides on November 23, 2014, 10:07:26 am
Long postMy way of dissolving those problems: treat ToME not as a roguelike but as a turn-based ARPG(i.e.: the inbred monstruosity resulting of an affair between father and child). Under that framework it still has some flaws, but most of them are genetic defects rather than outright bad design :P
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 23, 2014, 07:00:27 pm
That was the farthest I've gotten on insane roguelike. Pretty disappointing outcome, since I only had a few dungeons left.
Post by: debvon on November 28, 2014, 11:11:55 am
Post by: Oneir on November 28, 2014, 02:25:27 pm
Should brawlers use shields or nah?
Check if wielding one turns off your brawler skills. If so, probably nah.
Post by: Frumple on November 28, 2014, 02:36:10 pm
Post by: Oneir on November 28, 2014, 03:03:10 pm
It does, yes. I guess conceptually they could, but it would disable their basically everything.That does make me wonder how hideously broken a brawler/stone warden would be. Obviously there would need to be some slightly complicated modding involved to allow shieldpunching.
Post by: Frumple on November 28, 2014, 03:52:58 pm
I don't think it'd be very hard to code, though -- just turn off whatever part of the brawler code disables unarmed talents on wearing shields and you'd be good to go, I think. Or go in the other direction and crib the stoneshield code. Very slightly complicated, I suppose...
If you know how to code, anyway. Supposedly T4's LUA is pretty easy to work with (and it's definitely relatively easy to read, as code goes), but it gives me a headache trying so :V
Post by: Oneir on November 28, 2014, 06:05:49 pm
... probably not very broken, I don't think. It'd be more defense and probably triple-hitting, but it's not like you can't already do that in-game via adventurer stuff. Usual synergy with AB things, I guess...I mean, how well do shield damage stats scale relative to fists? And would glove procs happen on shield bashes, etc. Thinking about it, unless you specifically coded it otherwise, the biggest boost would probably just be from having more slots for egos. But there's always the appeal of magical martial-arts shield dwarves. (...?)
Quote
I don't think it'd be very hard to code, though -- just turn off whatever part of the brawler code disables unarmed talents on wearing shields and you'd be good to go, I think. Or go in the other direction and crib the stoneshield code. Very slightly complicated, I suppose...
If you know how to code, anyway. Supposedly T4's LUA is pretty easy to work with (and it's definitely relatively easy to read, as code goes), but it gives me a headache trying so :V
Yeah, the reason I say "slightly complicated" is because it requires either futzing with existing skills or copy-pastaing entire skill lines with the changes you mention--versus slightly...simple, I guess, modding where you "only" have to add new skills or whatever. I know for sure that ToME let's you add things plug-and-play, but I haven't look into it enough to know how easy it would be to change existing code as part of an add-on.
Post by: Frumple on November 28, 2014, 08:16:42 pm
But nah, shieldpunching wouldn't really be the way to break the shield thing. Shield proccing would be -- stuff like arcane blade's procs and a great deal of extra accuracy from somewhere. Shields have the same accuracy bonus staves do, which more or less makes them staves with a much heavier physical component. Psi-wield an actual staff along with it, and...
Forget if you can flurry with dual-wielded shields, though. Probably.
Post by: AlleeCat on November 30, 2014, 02:17:45 am
Post by: Flare on November 30, 2014, 03:46:23 am
Post by: Uristides on November 30, 2014, 08:30:42 am
Think I'll just go back to Alchemist or Bulwark and have mad fun nuking everything in sight.
Edit: rolled an Anorithil just for giggles. Never thought I'd appreciate them much. Juggling the two resource bars and nuking everything at every range while having all those chants and hymns explode stuff is just awesome.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on November 30, 2014, 02:33:28 pm
Had a few cracks at Insanity, but I don't think it's for me. Silly things like drowning town mobs and such, or visiting Dreadfell at level 1 to set its level lower, they just don't sit well with me. And without things like that it doesn't seem to be very viable. Heck, my attempts at a Skeleton Rogue start never got out of Blighted Ruins (3).
Sounds like a painful combo for insane. The undead start is terrible even on nightmare and rogue is one of the weakest classes in the game.
Setting Dreadfell's level lower isn't necessary, but it might help. Levels don't matter much in tome, and you might lose an escort.
Drowning rare townsfolk is an easy and profitable exploit. On insane and higher, rares are literally everywhere and you can easily gain 7-8 levels without fighting anything. And there's an addon that let's you kill townsfolk quickly. An OP class can probably win without it, but there's no reason not to depopulate towns.
I prefer nightmare, since it's less unfair. I still like insane with its "5 rares around the corner" craziness. :)
Post by: Frumple on November 30, 2014, 04:08:30 pm
Post by: Frumple on November 30, 2014, 11:03:02 pm
That you can make it easier on yourself by running around and drowning the surplus of townsfolk is... fairly unlikely to be changed, because it's a problem that doesn't particularly exist in normal and thus isn't needed to be fixed.
Basically, while they're called difficulty settings, they're closer to extra modes or somethin', not genuine, balanced, difficulty settings. They're just there for fun, and because folks kept asking for them.
Anyone's welcome to make addons adjusting the higher difficulties, though, I do believe. Think there's actually been a couple...
---
... anyway, it mostly just irks me a bit to see people complain about the (almost entirely incidental) balance of nightmare+. Of course it's not balanced and wonky things happen in the game modes that have had basically no attempt to be balanced and are there as much to see what breaks as they are to play :P
Post by: Frumple on December 09, 2014, 09:37:46 am
And, uh. Became functionally invincible. Eternal Guard + many-resistance shield (until you get the other shield prodigy, anyway) + auto-use block = nothing can kill you. Ever. My level 30th critter is shaving off roughly 230 points off of basically everything. It's... kinda' ridiculous. Cooldown pegged to duration and blocking everything that hits you, instead of just one round's worth. Faintly amazing. I hadn't realized it may be one of the best defensive (and, because you're countering pretty much everything always, offensive as well) prodigies in the game.
Post by: RedWarrior0 on December 28, 2014, 12:26:02 pm
Already got through the Room of Death and Atamathon, anything else I should do before I
Post by: Frumple on December 28, 2014, 12:43:02 pm
Of course, unless it's been changed you can't continue to level like an actual ID character could, so you're absolutely going to die eventually, but that's more or less the base campaign's final destination.
Post by: RedWarrior0 on December 28, 2014, 01:06:30 pm
Post by: Dr Feelgood on December 28, 2014, 02:57:49 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on December 28, 2014, 06:53:54 pm
Need at least two fiddy or so, preferably more. If you've got both block prodigies block value is basically all that actually matters on a shield, imo.
Actually, it's not all that sexy at all... time shield's good, but there's not that many resists (less of an issue if you've got the block-all prodigy, but eh), the damage isn't particularly notable (outside the on-hit stuff, which is pretty strong but...), and most of the other bonuses are just kinda' there. You can get way better shields, heh. Right rolls on a tier 5 random unique shield can get straight up bonkers.
Still pretty workable, though. Probably be pretty nice on a shield AB, methinks. They love that accuracy bonus and have aegis, sooo...
Post by: Dr Feelgood on December 30, 2014, 12:23:17 am
Currently, my level 50 sun paladin deals 1400 bump damage, which is better than my old mindslayer. Flexible Combat is better than I expected.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on December 30, 2014, 04:41:42 am
I rarely use block. I mainly use shields for attacking. The closest I get to blocking is using shield slam.
You lose a lot this way. Block is what makes shields close to overpowered
Post by: Robsoie on December 30, 2014, 07:56:12 am
Post by: Frumple on December 30, 2014, 11:26:07 am
I rarely use block. I mainly use shields for attacking. The closest I get to blocking is using shield slam.Yeah... I didn't use block much, either, until I actually nabbed that eternal guard prodigy. Not sure how effective it is on insane or whatnot, but I'm fairly sure at nightmare or below that plus a good shield makes you pretty close to functionally invincible -- shaving 2-300 damage off of everything, after resists, damage shields, etc., is... it's a thing. And then there's the counterstrikes, especially if you've got access to the talent that lets you counter off incomplete blocks. Functional invincibility and double damage vs. everything is, well. Is.
Currently, my level 50 sun paladin deals 1400 bump damage, which is better than my old mindslayer. Flexible Combat is better than I expected.
You really need the eternal guard prodigy to really get your mileage out of block, though. Probably the other block prodigy, too, if you're not going to keep a few swap-ins around to round out your elemental coverage.
Post by: Oneir on December 30, 2014, 01:53:45 pm
Post by: Dr Feelgood on December 30, 2014, 10:51:15 pm
http://te4.org/characters/30061/tome/cab652f4-7369-4960-81da-1e51f7a21c18
Sun paladins are really easy. I never came close to dying. And I don't think anything managed to reduce my HP below 40%. Cauterize was a waste, since Second Life never deactivated (aside from dispel).
The final battle was much easier than I expected. I ditched Aeryn and closed 3 portals. I left the dragon portal open to distract the bosses.
Argoniel had paradox mage and solipsist talents. Elandar had doomed talents (fears, darkness, and shadows). Aeryn died shortly after I closed the 3rd portal, but a dozen hatchlings and wyrms spawned. Most of them attacked Elandar, the rest attacked me.
I closed the dragon portal and ran to the other side of the map. Then, I fought Argoniel and the dragons. Argoniel took 30 minutes to kill. Elandar died quickly afterwards. They didn't put up much of a fight.
Post by: Robsoie on December 31, 2014, 05:06:39 am
I wonder how that ridiculously overpowered Linaniil can be on insane, already on normal she had multiple lives and on her last few lives she could heal herself like that
(http://i.imgur.com/YQUeAiM.jpg)
every +/- 10 turns while teleporting all over the map to make sure you had a very hard time to reach her before the draconic body kicked in and you had to redo your damage (and survive her own attacks) all over again.
Post by: Dr Feelgood on January 04, 2015, 11:01:16 am
I used auto-explore for most of the game, except when doing the prides and high peak. I only bothered scouting, using burning star and track, in high peak to avoid the stair guardians. I think only classes with OP defense can get away with it.
Bosses get extra random class talents on insane. If you're unlucky, then you might fight some boss with time shield/displace damage/unstoppable. Linaniil had rogue and skirmisher talents. Atamathon had cursed and berserker talents, along with 115% resist all. I got splatted by Atamathon after fighting it for 15 minutes and barely scratching it.
Post by: Robsoie on February 04, 2015, 03:08:32 pm
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2015/02/beta-test-13-has-begun
Not playing with, so i can't say what's new/changed as i don't see a changelog on the website and board at the time.
Post by: Sonlirain on February 04, 2015, 05:40:50 pm
No real idea why. I could log through the website but ingame? Nope no sirrie!
Post by: Oneir on February 04, 2015, 07:24:50 pm
For those interested, i noticed there's a public beta test you can play for ToME4 1.3 here :I was doing some alpha testing, so I know a little. There's a lot of miscellaneous bug and quality of life fixes people have asked for (e.g. asking before skipping over-leveled areas, seeing the effective bonus once scaling starts happening). Some of the underperforming classes have been rebalanced (wyrmics, temporal wardens and paradox mages), with smaller changes happening elsewhere. Temporal Warden has gotten a lot better and a lot more fun to play. I've heard people say similar things about Paradox mage. New thing that people may not want spoiled, with increasingly spoiler-y information behind successive spoiler tags:
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2015/02/beta-test-13-has-begun
Not playing with, so i can't say what's new/changed as i don't see a changelog on the website and board at the time.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Bought this game recently on steam (as part of a bundle) but now i have some problems logging on with hte steam version.Have you linked your steam account to your te4 account?
No real idea why. I could log through the website but ingame? Nope no sirrie!
Post by: Sonlirain on February 04, 2015, 07:58:59 pm
Post by: chaoticag on February 05, 2015, 03:43:57 am
Post by: Darkmere on February 05, 2015, 04:05:58 am
I need more information. What class are you? What infusions were you using? What keeps killing you? Etc.
I haven't played in a while but in general melee requires more caution and thoughtful play in the early game, and Daikara has those damned boulder throwers that can end you quick even if you are prepared.
In general: Don't try antimagic until you understand the tradeoffs. Keep the wild infusion you start with for the entire game. Keep upgrading a regen infusion as you level, and use it very early in the fight. Keep at least two escapes (preferably teleport or psycoport, phase door *always* gets me killed). Get rush. I'll say again: get rush.
Escape early and live to fight on. If you wait til an emergency odds are you'll just put yourself in a worst spot and die anyway. Hang around corners when there's archers in the next room. Hang way back around corners when there's boulder throwing giants.
EDIT: And skip the temporal rift. It's not worth it.
Post by: chaoticag on February 05, 2015, 04:17:30 am
I think probably... I tend to not use infusions as much as I ought to, and am probably terrible at keeping them up to date.
I'd play ranged classes more if it didn't feel like they were testing my patience unfortunately. Feels as though they were meant to be played with the mouse somewhat, but that just ends up bugging me in a roguelike.
And yeah, I think I'll avoid anti-magic for some time until I figure out what that'd mean more or less. I figure losing arcane powered equipment is very limiting, and I don't know what you get in return, and whether that hinges on having a certain stat spread.
Post by: Satarus on February 05, 2015, 09:17:21 am
And yeah, I think I'll avoid anti-magic for some time until I figure out what that'd mean more or less. I figure losing arcane powered equipment is very limiting, and I don't know what you get in return, and whether that hinges on having a certain stat spread.
Anti-Magic gets you the Fungus tree. It's a great tree for many different builds out there. The Anti-Magic tree is okay. If you have the generics for it and won't miss runes, I'd say take it.
Post by: Zireael on February 05, 2015, 09:56:53 am
For those interested, i noticed there's a public beta test you can play for ToME4 1.3 here :
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2015/02/beta-test-13-has-begun
Not playing with, so i can't say what's new/changed as i don't see a changelog on the website and board at the time.
The changelog would be ridiculously long, believe me. 8k lines in the git changelog.
Here's a quick rundown by stuntofthelitter of ToME forums and reddit:
Quote
Total Chronomancy rework. Temporal Warden and Paradox mage changed very much (Too much to list, ask about specifics if curious)
Wyrmic change. This is the Wyrmic Tweaks MkII addon by SageAcrin if you want to look up what exactly was done.
New race. Ogres! The start to this unlock can be found on the third floor of the Halfling Ruins (30% chance, 100% if Shalore). Lore for this was written by Hogulus, the same person who did the demon lore in the Ashes DLC.
Redone icons for many things! Very nice looking icon changes.
Many, many quality of life changes. Seriously, too many to even list or recall. There's now a choice to skip to the last floor of a t1 or not when you're high enough level (rather than being forced), You can now see the actual effective stat change with diminishing returns taken into account.
Many bug fixes. Minor, but I'm most happy about getting noxius caldera's lost wife dream finally fixed.
So much more. I'm looking forward to the changelog actually getting put together, because I can't even recall most of the changes to list if I wanted to.
I'll add that the bug fixes include various performance improvements (looking at you, Classic UI & string display!) and level/ego generator improvements.
Post by: Robsoie on February 05, 2015, 11:00:14 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
edit : running a Shalore Oozemancer , i'm crashing the game a bit too much, when doing a Slime Spit followed by an Acid Splash, a new bug i never experienced in previous versions.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: lemon10 on February 05, 2015, 11:59:00 pm
Managed to even kill amma and Linalli without even dying, and cauterize only getting triggered once. I suspect that it is in large part that I am now used to playing on nightmare, and felt like having a easy game (so I simply played on normal).
The class is way more fun to play then they were (in addition to being significantly more powerful). They have a ton of good damage abilities, as well as some pretty great synergy on their stuff.
The good:
+Tons of AOE damage.
+Tons of defensive options. Not only do you have a ton of great defensive sustains, you also have tons of defensive passives, and you can activate all your sustains at once without worrying too much about the paradox cost. Seriously though, so many defensive options, especially if you play cautiously.
+Quite a few escape options.
+Very respectable single target damage (not amazing, but endgame you will be dealing +1000 damage every turn with good artifacts. In the fight vs Linalli I was doing 1500 damage per attack 50% of the time, with a single 3k damage crit).
+Paradox is far less trouble then it was. It can still be a issue (especially if you set it high), but it is quite a small problem most of the time (since you can easily run away and get it all the way down again), and the pre 600 anomalies aren't that dangerous. The only real trouble I had with it was when I set it to 1000 and forgot to put it back down, and promptly got 4 major anomalies in the first 5 seconds of a fight.
+Very quick in both movespeed and casting speed. During fights you typically have a 30% casting speed buff after the first few spllcasts, which allows you to cast multiple spells and avoid getting hit too many time during any action. In addition to that tons of your abilities can be activated instantly, which really helps getting out of tricky situations.
The bad:
+You cannot contingency Shalore's Timeless ability.
+You want a ton of category points, because pretty much every one of their trees are awesome.
EDIT: Added some stuff to the post.
Post by: Robsoie on February 06, 2015, 10:40:05 am
don't read the spoiler in case you'll want to find all the lore about it, as it's summarized in that panel.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Anyways, that's done now, going to see how those things play
Post by: Uristides on February 13, 2015, 03:36:50 pm
I mean, I'm a damn careless player and I usually dive into silly risks without a reliable escape method and get pwned and stuff, but with SP I'm actually surviving that stuff quite well. Melee monster? Eat my shield. Ranged monster? Eat my nukes. Assorted popcorn? Get martyred away. All shields and (self-)heals on cooldown? I can Bathe in Light + Providence and still dish enough damage to kick you straight into the eidolon plane!
CC is kinda iffy and I did have trouble with the weirdling when he spanked enough pos out of me to force my sustains off(and then I went upstairs to recharge, went down again and bashed him away in a couple of hits) but overall I feel like a bulwark on steroids.
Still on the Daikara though, hopefully things will stay this way until I at least put the master down for once.
Post by: XavierIII on March 17, 2015, 09:50:14 pm
Hope you all have a good ( insert time of your choice here)
Post by: Robsoie on March 17, 2015, 10:27:23 pm
Here's the changelog
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on March 17, 2015, 10:56:17 pm
E: Ach, this update seems to have pretty seriously buggered backwards addon compatibility. Having some hefty problems (including sporadic worn item deletion >_>) when trying out the new TW.
On the other hand, time hounds as a summons. That's a helluva' angband/T2 callback. You even have your own little mini-vault instakill thing going down, s'pretty nice.
E2: And they're actually pretty beefy. Just watched a full trio solo a dream horror. I was impressed :V
Post by: Darkmere on March 18, 2015, 05:44:40 pm
They really did a number on them though, all that new stuff took a while to read through.
Anyone tried wyrmics? I was one of the three people who liked the older version, so I'm curious what the big changes bring.
Post by: Frumple on March 18, 2015, 06:48:06 pm
Still, despite the loss of stat gains, they've also lost strength dependency entirely and have gained some pretty nice quality of life stuff -- never having to manually switch weapons is pretty amusing. Buncha' other stuff, too. It's pretty neat. They feel a bit more livable and still do some nice damage and whatnot.
And the hounds are kinda' amazing meatshields, especially once you get the third talent running -- something that literally can't die for 5+ turns at a minimum and shoves itself in the way of whatever's trying to kill you is pretty great. Still a level off from the 4th tier, though. I'm kinda' disappointed they went with C instead of Z for the ASCII symbol :V
Though speaking of mods, don't try to run the older faerie one with the new TW. While dark fae TWs are kinda' amazing (those clones are glorious), it also sporadically deletes your offhand and ammo items. Which is bad.
Haven't tried the wyrmic changes, yet. If it's anything like one of the mods that were running around, it's definitely a bit of a nudge upwards in regards to power, though.
E: Oh wow. 3 round max strength sashy with a 23rd level TW. Mostly due to the hounds, who were putting out ~450 damage/round total on their own, and completely surrounded her. That whole, "Yeah, I'm going to stay here and keep hitting you for another 6 turns after you flatline my health" thing is pretty incredible.
E2: Annnnd they just tanked pretty much the entire ambush. After dropping more or less the entire thing's (outside bossdude) health reserves to half on the first turn via overlapping breath. Not sure how they're going to hold up into the late game, but for the west? The hounds are entirely excessive. They've got more HP among the three of them than I do, do roughly the same damage per turn on average as the actual warden can at full blast (and more, when breathing or with the global speed buff going), and they can't die until at least seven turns after they are killed >_<
And the blink regen can reset the unkillable state! This is freaking bonkers. Also their stats are kinda' crazy. Their everything scales off my magic stat... apparently on top of a base. Which means with my 76 mag, they've got a flat 96 in everything. Any one of them was about on par with any critter in the melinda crypt. They're still matching 1-to-1 vs elite undead and junk (and, of course, they're very rarely alone). It's faintly ridiculous.
Post by: Darkmere on March 19, 2015, 01:47:50 am
So I went ahead and rolled an ogre sun paladin for when my Warden hits a dead end... or more likely wins.
For what it's worth, I thought the quest area/lore was more interesting than the old breeding pens without oozing genetalia at me. So that's a plus.
Post by: Frumple on March 19, 2015, 03:18:52 am
E: Ha! Apparently someone's already won on insane with a 1.3 wyrmic. Turns out someone wasn't paying the most attention to Ice Wall's numbers :V
Post by: Darkmere on March 19, 2015, 11:03:27 am
Yeah they're... yeah.got lucky with the wierdling douche and he didn't purge them. dead from them and the echoing arrows in 2 turns. So........
Lol @ OP wyrmics. I guess it's about time they caught a break? :)
Post by: Frumple on March 19, 2015, 12:34:22 pm
E: Welp! Hounds just mostly cleared the armory death room by their lonesome. I helped a little with arrow echoes and spamming blink to keep the numbers up, but. Yeah. They did most of the work.
Seriously, decent damage + seven turns of invulnerability + unending supply = faceroll. Those hounds are kinda' ridiculous.
E2: Did it sub-40, too (if barely -- the last of 'em got me up to 40 :P) and mostly t4 items. Critter hasn't even gone back west yet~
E3: And now they've solo'd all the backup guardians -- most my warden did was the occasional blink command to get them in place, or catch 'em back to a teleporter. Don't think the damage output can keep up with higher difficulties, but insofar as trivializing normal, the hounds seem to manage that without much effort. Eesh.
Post by: Darkmere on March 20, 2015, 02:11:41 pm
Post by: Robsoie on March 20, 2015, 03:03:59 pm
The same kind of fun it was to run into a high level oozemancer :D
That was interesting. I didn't know you could run into sashy twice in one run. I now have two crowns of burning pain >_>I thought it was a bug when i ran into her 3 times in a row on the same level and started a collection of crowns a few ToME4 versions ago, but i was told that it wasn't a bug but some intended side effect of splitting the timeline with some overuse of Precognition.
Post by: Frumple on March 20, 2015, 09:24:48 pm
As for enemy wardens with temporal hounds, that's actually probably not much of a problem, usually. They take a while to generate and if the AI's not getting hung up on them they're considerably less of an issue, plus it takes fairly careful use of blink and breath to really squeeze the use out of 'em. If the AI had the brains to just flatline their HP and then dip until they unraveled, or just juke the blink, they wouldn't be nearly as useful. That said, I haven't actually seen any rare wardens toting doges around, so it may be disabled or somethin'.
In other news, shantiz and warden call do not play together very well. Like, at all. As near as I can tell it makes it incredibly likely your temporal clone lightning-splodes your arrows, causing a good 100+ damage and daze. Basically every time you shoot something. It's... unpleasant. And unfortunate. I love the imbablade, but it's pretty much unusable on a warden with warden's call. Which I'll reiterate sucks. Blowing up projectiles with AoE daze effects from both a distance and in melee, sometimes twice a turn, would be incredible.
E: Though I will say spreading the wintertide ice storm around while you're shooting people with a bow is... pretty nice. So's pinging them with a 44% gloom chance dagger at the same time >_>
What I'm saying is the call is pretty nice once you've got some particularly sexy proc effects. After this character's done m'probably going to kick open adventurer and see if they can trigger arcane combat :V
Post by: Oneir on March 24, 2015, 09:58:28 am
What I'm saying is the call is pretty nice once you've got some particularly sexy proc effects. After this character's done m'probably going to kick open adventurer and see if they can trigger arcane combat :VI'm reasonably sure the clones are literally you, but with sustains turned off (?) and limited choice of active skills. So all passives should work for adventurer shenanigans.
Post by: Tnx on March 24, 2015, 10:57:16 am
Post by: Darkmere on March 24, 2015, 11:03:05 am
Is there any "New game+" and/or farming bosses in this game? I know I bought it and played it a bit wayyy back but I don't think I got far.
It's a very anti-grinding roguelike, so there's no ARPG-style grinding, no.
However, there is a way to grind up XP and random gear about mid-way through the game, with some associated risk.
However... the New Game+ appeal comes from the absurd quantity of unlockables to be hand. There's loads of new classes and a couple races, along with some character building options that are unlocked through playing. One of the main draws is playing through new classes and seeing new things.
Post by: Frumple on March 24, 2015, 12:02:41 pm
I'm reasonably sure the clones are literally you, but with sustains turned off (?) and limited choice of active skills. So all passives should work for adventurer shenanigans.Sustain's aren't off, actually, or at least instant ones can turn back on. My chaotic warden's clones constantly kick beyond the flesh on and off.
---
As for the NG+, you can go on to the infinite dungeon after victory, though I think you still lack the ability to break the level 50 gap in the vanilla transfer -- I want to say the infinite 500 mod fixes(/changes) that. Starting off in the ID lets you keep going beyond 50, and eventually level talents past 5, iirc.
There's also farming advn. parties, eastern ambushes, and your house's dingus, though those are all pretty much guaranteed to eventually kill you. You can start the first one pretty much right off the bat, but that's a really good way to splat a very low level character, ha.
There's not really much of a need for it, though. It's actually difficult to not cap out on XP by the time you beat the game, and loot is pretty much always plentiful. Gold grinding is actually what folks that nom on overland encounters are usually after, generally to get that delicious merchant artifact or top off some cash for picking up some sort of training.
Post by: Oneir on March 24, 2015, 03:17:15 pm
Post by: Frumple on March 24, 2015, 03:22:13 pm
Really, the best overworld farmers are undead -- they can eat everything instead of just advn. parties and maybe zig patrols. It's faintly great, providing you're running something that can actually kill everything.
But nah, the early 40s, back from east, TW I've got at the moment still sees 'em often enough. Zig parties, too, o'course.
Post by: Oneir on March 24, 2015, 04:31:17 pm
Post by: Stuebi on March 24, 2015, 05:46:10 pm
I'm doing fine until around level 10, at which point the game tends to absolutely annihilate me at every turn. I got furthest with the Alchemist class, mostly because the Golem was tanking absolutely everything for me. But there's still the ocassional
*Enter room, see Dragon, reroll character*
THe worst one was a quest to investigate a Crypta near some village. Entered, met Vampire Lady, she literally ports me to the Hell plane where I promptly burn to death. I'm not really seeing how that is fair, but then again, being fair probably isnt what this game is about.
Does anybody have some suggestions for beginner-friendly characters? I find it really hard to tell what to skill on most of them, and the magic ones in particular get overwhelming really fast.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on March 24, 2015, 06:13:17 pm
My traditional starting character - and the most successful by far, once you get all your golem-boosters (including instaresurrection)
Post by: Robsoie on March 24, 2015, 06:17:11 pm
Quote
THe worst one was a quest to investigate a Crypta near some village. Entered, met Vampire Lady, she literally ports me to the Hell plane where I promptly burn to death. I'm not really seeing how that is fair, but then again, being fair probably isnt what this game is about.The graveyard that is near the city of Last Hope ? if it's that, do NOT go there with a low level character , you're only going to be destroyed !
The thing in ToME4 is that there are dungeons/zones that are tailored for low level , mid level or high level, so entering a specific dungeon before your character is strong enough for it will usually be a sure way to game over.
Here's some help for new players that will allow you to build your character better and ending with it dead less often :
http://te4.org/wiki/Guides#New_Players
Post by: Frumple on March 24, 2015, 06:22:35 pm
Otherwise, check this (http://te4.org/wiki/Zones) or this (http://te4.org/wiki/Zone_order) (for something a little more detailed) which has some mild spoilers and a rough picture of the order you should be doing zones in.
Sounds like you stumbled into the last hope graveyard with that vamp thing, which is something you probably shouldn't be touching until you're at least level 18 or so -- a lot of people hold off on it until the 20s or 30s, even. Zones should be having a sort of flavor message when you enter it giving you a rough idea of how dangerous the place is for your current level -- paying attention to that is often a good idea when you're starting out, heh.
Post by: Darkmere on March 25, 2015, 01:13:35 am
"This area is scary!" ... yeah, I walked into a graveyard. So?
I wonder how many people just get absolutely fed up with the game quickly before realizing that you can do all 6 of the starter dungeons in a very easy order (that is almost never the one you start with) to make the early game very easy.
The "main quest" telling you to skip 4 dungeons is dumb as well.
Does anybody have some suggestions for beginner-friendly characters? I find it really hard to tell what to skill on most of them, and the magic ones in particular get overwhelming really fast.
Alchemist is about as easy at it gets, though I haven't played one in years. Most of the classes come down to picking a set of trees that all synergize, once you've either read a guide or died a bunch trying to learn. If you're up for reading, I wrote a long-winded alchemy guide Here. (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=36836)
It's pretty outdated. Short version:
Shalore, explosive admixtures first, max alchemist protection ASAP, then the others. Get the golem heal and let it run ahead to tank. Fire infusion is best.
Try the dungeons in this order:
Trollmire (DO NOT enter area 4. You'll get a warning if you should proceed, skip for now), north of Derth in the north middle of the map.
Norgos' lair, east of Trollmire.
Derth Arena, talk to the shady guy in town. You'll have to kill 3 jerks in a pit fight for delicious skill pionts.
Heart of the gloom, near Norgos' lair.
Kor'pul, the tower near Derth and Trollmire. go back to the last Trollmire area now, kill that area 4 boss. You should be fine.
Rhaloren camp, southwest on the map near Elvala.
Irritating Crystal Asshole Factory whose name I forget because I hate it, near the Rhaloren camp.
That should be a good start. The ones after this point that you Should Not Do are: Elven Ruins, Last Hope Cemetery, Mark of the Spellblaze, Dreadfell. Sometime about now there should be a pop-up saying you hear screams in a dark crypt or something. This is a one-time encounter that will quite likely Kill You Dead. avoid it for a few games until you have a better handle on things.
Post by: lemon10 on March 25, 2015, 01:27:40 am
I also feel the need to point out that I personally find Heart of the Gloom the most dangerous of the starter dungeons.
Post by: Darkmere on March 25, 2015, 01:50:43 am
Post by: Frumple on March 25, 2015, 03:43:46 am
As for other folks not making it far, it's usually a pretty decent idea regardless. Good chance of gold chests in there, alright XP for relatively little risk, the material restrictions more or less disappear (though that's only really attractive if you're using daggers), the merchant gives a little gold plus access to a shop that might have something particularly useful in it, and it's quite a short encounter. It's a good way to kill some time before going into OF or Daikara or somethin'.
Post by: Oneir on March 25, 2015, 05:35:46 am
That advice about Trollmire 4 is good in general: if a door gives you a warning, take it seriously. Those are vaults, and they can mess up your day if you do them too early. The really gnarly early non-scripted vaults are in Kor'Pul and Rhaloren Camp.
The Graveyard is actually kind of funny, because waiting too long will probably make it harder in my experience. Rare Eternal Bone Giants are no joke! I'm not really sure what the sweet-spot is, aside from the fact that it will vary by class.
Post by: Uristides on March 25, 2015, 06:45:47 am
And I'd agree Crystals is usally easier than Rhaloren on normal. Perhaps with the exception of those times when you spawn right next to the boss and have to juggle between chasing, killing all the crystals that pop up all the time around you and trying to dodge all the projectiles flying around.
Post by: AlleeCat on March 28, 2015, 07:17:22 pm
Post by: Dr Feelgood on March 29, 2015, 09:29:09 am
Anyway, I've been splatting PMs and TWs. The Spacetime Folding tree is fun.
Post by: Piotrhabera on March 30, 2015, 03:34:56 pm
Post by: Robsoie on March 30, 2015, 04:38:39 pm
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2015/03/news/tales-majeyal-131-aka-forever-released
changelog
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sergius on April 01, 2015, 10:55:41 am
So, how's modding? Anyone tried making a custom adventure? That's the part that interests me most about ToME, but I'm too lazy to start. I did manage to follow a sorta tutorial...
Post by: Frumple on April 01, 2015, 11:36:49 am
From what I understand, as a general thing what's involved is fairly painless as modding goes. You're still coding, with all that entails, but the engine is fairly powerful and comparatively easy enough to muck with, and the IRC active enough you can usually get a question answered sooner or later if you don't want to mess with the forums.
Key thing there is as modding goes, of course, but it is what it is. LUA's still coding, but it's not as bad as it could be, and there's a lot of examples of various stuff in the game and mod-stuff already to crib code from.
Post by: Zireael on April 01, 2015, 11:38:01 am
Quote
So, how's modding? Anyone tried making a custom adventure? That's the part that interests me most about ToME, but I'm too lazy to start. I did manage to follow a sorta tutorial...
Depends if you're asking about things that modify the ToME campaign or want to go wholly original with the content/storyline.
If the latter, look no further: Veins of the Earth thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=137955.0)
EDIT: Seconding the crib code comment. That's how I started.
Post by: Sergius on April 01, 2015, 12:20:45 pm
QuoteSo, how's modding? Anyone tried making a custom adventure? That's the part that interests me most about ToME, but I'm too lazy to start. I did manage to follow a sorta tutorial...
Depends if you're asking about things that modify the ToME campaign or want to go wholly original with the content/storyline.
If the latter, look no further: Veins of the Earth thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=137955.0)
EDIT: Seconding the crib code comment. That's how I started.
Nice, I didn't know Veins was a ToME module, I'll certainly be following it now.
Yep, I'm talking about original campaigns. Extra points for making it non-Tolkieny. Back in the old days there were a couple of projects with mecha or zombies but they didn't get anywhere.
Post by: Aoi on April 04, 2015, 02:23:00 pm
Post by: Sergius on April 04, 2015, 09:08:49 pm
It wasn't changed that early tho, just when they made the change to drop ASCII and stuff.
When I say "non-Tolkieny" I don't mean literally Tolkien, but stereotypical fantasy worlds with elves and spells and stuff. D&D style stuff.
Post by: Frumple on April 04, 2015, 09:11:47 pm
... though yeah, there hasn't really been much development of sci-fi stuff on the T-Engine, to date. Maybe in the future...
Post by: ChairmanPoo on April 07, 2015, 07:32:17 pm
You can even base them off different stats. I'm going for a willpower wyrmic right now. :)
Post by: Frumple on April 07, 2015, 08:03:06 pm
You still probably have strength as your second stat to boost up the breaths, but most of their junk scales of mindpower to some extent so a will build's always been pretty tasty.
... mind you, wyrmics have mostly always built str/will 'cause that's what their everything scales off anyway, so, uh. Caster wyrmics (i.e. mpower build) have usually been more a playstyle/kit thing than an actual stat redistribution thing, iirc?
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on April 07, 2015, 09:01:41 pm
Willpower+cunning+magic wyrmic is great way to go, should you get light from the escort.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on April 08, 2015, 09:30:17 am
Post by: Robsoie on April 08, 2015, 09:35:36 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Satarus on April 08, 2015, 02:39:11 pm
Post by: Darkmere on April 08, 2015, 03:48:21 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on April 10, 2015, 03:20:25 pm
Post by: Shadowgandor on April 10, 2015, 04:23:13 pm
Post by: Niveras on April 10, 2015, 05:35:12 pm
Could try a mindslayer since they're also pretty beefy, or at least they used to be, and not susceptible to AM to boot. I haven't played in a couple patches so I don't know for sure how much this is useful advice.
Post by: Frumple on April 10, 2015, 09:09:53 pm
E: Okay, yeah, time to switch over to an adventurer with the neat parts of the forge knight's kit and, like, flame or something. I think that'll go better, just as soon as the game stops generating uniques in the starting room and direct LoS of my character, which has now happened
E2: Ahaha, made it to level two! Flame saved the day!
... until level two also generated a unique fire dragon hatchling. Damnit all.
E3: Okay, yeah, I'm not sufficiently masochistic for this shit. I'll just... leave the infinidungeon alone for a while.
E4: Sweet zeus that XP gain bug with the uniques mod is ridiculous. Walked into the dark crypt at level 26 (which, by the by, I hit before even entering OF, just by doing the 2/3rds of the tier 1 dungeons and the trapped quest), walked out at level 49. In gives-no-damns mode, so I don't really care, but freaking still. That's just silly.
E5: Gained 31 levels clearing out old forest. Character is now level 80. I... I think I'm done for the night.
Post by: Oneir on April 11, 2015, 09:24:53 am
Post by: Frumple on April 11, 2015, 09:42:42 am
The uniques mod does occasionally generate a critter with level parity, though. That mostly just means it takes a while to kill :-\
Could probably make it rougher if I changed up the settings on said mod to beef up what it generates, but eh.
E: The really fun thing is the character is also running the chaotic races addon. If I didn't have another addon that let you unlearn skills, my m menu would be an unworkably laggy mess. 79 levels of random talents really clutter the thing up.
... character would also have like four or five points in leaves tide, which is completely useless for something that's not using mindstars at all. Game keeps wanting to give me points in that for some reason or another.
Post by: Niveras on April 11, 2015, 11:59:03 am
I went to try ID500 and EverythingIsUnique myself, but get errors when I try to open the character sheet. Reading posts, it seems 1.3.0 broke it and the modder is in the process of rewriting the mod to make it more configurable and extensible, so it hasn't been updated for 1.3.X yet.
Post by: Frumple on April 11, 2015, 12:40:03 pm
Oh. Well, yeah, except for the character sheet bugging out. I just, uh. Haven't been opening it. I mean, obviously, because it errors and doesn't open, but I mean just kinda' ignoring it's a problem, since it kinda' isn't. When you're like fifty levels above the zone's upper cap, checking resists or whatever is just a titch unnecessary.
E: Mind you, I play on normal most of the time so I don't really have to pay particular attention to the charsheet anyway, so not having it doesn't really make a difference for me. It's a bug completely trivial to play around, for me, heh.
E2: Eesh, when you run into an unlimited zone, though. Those drops off level 120+ randuniques.
Spoiler: Stuff like this (click to show/hide)
E3: Level 88. Just now got the exterminator cheevo :V
E4: Level 90. Weirdling Beast is finally dead. I... guess I'll go step on the master now...?
E5: Well that's the first time I've seen that happen. Derth's population just killed off all the elementals before I even made it inside the circle. Seemed to happen just because a boss and about five unique villagers generated. None of 'em over level 20, but they managed all the same. Also yes, I just walked into the derth thing at level 90 :V
E6: Dreadfell 3, character is now level 126. Resist all is currently capped at 92%, with 6% more room to grow and still increasing thick skin and 4th tier volcano turtle talent. Thank you, based true grit. Combined with the eternal guard I, uh. I'm not taking much damage.
Post by: nearlyNonexistent on April 12, 2015, 01:06:51 am
Post by: Niveras on April 12, 2015, 04:02:39 am
Post by: Frumple on April 12, 2015, 06:05:42 am
Steam version or the .zip is the way to go, though. Both painless (well, barring the minor wallet impact with the former).
Post by: Zireael on April 12, 2015, 08:01:45 am
In related news, I succeeded in cloning DG's repository after two attempts (my net hung up in the middle of the first) and have made my first PR for the game engine itself :)
Post by: Frumple on April 12, 2015, 08:26:30 am
More complicated than it looks on the tin, though, and the last couple of tries were beyond my skill and patience. One of these days, maybe...
E:
Spoiler: Level 200 Master, wheee (click to show/hide)
E2: And at level 165, dreadfell is finally complete. Time to roll all over the ambush.
E3: Level 187, finally eat a death. Died to a chronomancy using skeletal master archer that somehow managed to permanently clone itself, like, three times, and was managing to make dozens of turns pass for me without me able to do anything, but still doing damage to me. I think because talents were failing and block was on auto-use, heh.
E4: I shouldn't have gone back DX
Spoiler: I don't even know where I am right now (click to show/hide)
E5: Wow, the infinite dungeon really is the gift that keeps on giving. Admittedly, I was doing the silly thing of clearing out a ID vault (some sort of greater undead thing, fairly sizable, secret doors and junk), but I just ran into the Greater Mummy Lord on ID 7. Character level 15. GML's at 33. Wheeeee.
I was doing so well, too... did eat a death early in the vault to a ruin banshee that killed me on the same turn I killed it, but managed to off another one without dying, as well as a couple of bone horrors and a sanguine, along with your standard greater undead sundries. Mostly cleared the place out, even. Time to run away, though~
Post by: Arcvasti on April 16, 2015, 10:11:12 pm
Also, PTW
Post by: Satarus on April 17, 2015, 10:54:03 am
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on April 17, 2015, 10:56:58 am
Oh, and get a decent amount of mana and way to deal with silence
Post by: Frumple on April 17, 2015, 11:12:24 am
Mind you, you also have basically no reason not to diversify beyond that. You don't really need more than one point in lightning, and no more in flame or manathrust than it takes for them to beam. Plenty of points to spread around after that.
Post by: Robsoie on April 17, 2015, 12:40:13 pm
I don't remember what Archimages were like before i unlocked those goodies.
Post by: Arcvasti on April 21, 2015, 09:16:36 pm
Just bought this a few days ago. I'm having quite a bit of fun as an Archmage who relies on spamming Flames + Manathrust + Lightning to kill all the things. Plus I found a reflection shielding rune thing in the Temporal Rift which, with my Aegis skills on, gives me ~600 points of damage absorption. Considering this is my second character, I'd say this is a success. Only died once, to the zero G area of the Temporal Rift[I drank some artifact potion which gave me an extra life].
^Yeah, he's dead. Got wrecked by the Master because I didn't have a physical Wild Infusion to deal with his freezing[Swapped it out for a mental one in the Daikara to combat snow giant confusion and forgot to switch it back]. Then played a Temporal Warden, who was kinda fun up until I decided to pick a fight with the Grand Corrupter[Damn his lifestealing abilities]. And now I'm a Paradox Mage, who is HELLA fun. Gravity Spike + Repulsion Blast on even huge vault rooms kill basically anything after a rotation or three. Plus rotations are easy if you hit a bunch of enemies with Temporal Bolt for the cooldowns. I've got an actual reliable stun[Stop], a way to get annoying bosses out of my face[Time Skip] and I'm pretty resistant to disables[Time Shield + Dimensional Shift]. Time Shield isn't nearly as good as Archmage shields for pure damage absorption, but them + a ridiculous Regeneration Infusion[~450 health over 5 turns] has been enough against most enemies thus far. And minor Paradox anomalies are more often beneficial then not. I've only died once, to a halfling slinger in a random encounter who silenced me and then did ~400 damage to me the next turn. All in all, I think I might actually have a chance against the Master this time. If not, there's still a whole bunch of races and classes I've unlocked that I haven't even played yet. This is like the only roguelike where I don't feel frustrated about dying. It just means I get to try something new.
Post by: Darkmere on April 21, 2015, 09:58:41 pm
Post by: Emma on April 22, 2015, 03:22:27 am
Post by: Darkmere on April 22, 2015, 03:32:26 am
Post by: Emma on April 22, 2015, 03:49:26 am
Post by: Oneir on April 22, 2015, 07:26:34 am
Post by: Frumple on April 22, 2015, 08:25:24 am
You'll never actually shoot with it, but you'll wear it. They're one of the absolute best sources of high level bonus physical damage % in the game, and a really killer sling in one hand and mindstar in the other can potentially put your summons damage output (which, unless it's changed and/or I'm forgetting, inherits your +phys%) higher than dual 'star would. Not quite as likely as it used to be with all the nice mindstar artifacts/egos faffing about these days, but it's a possibility.
... also, melee summoners totally work. People have done that, heh. The mindstar tree is actually really powerful, and with heroism infusions (or just going with shields or whatev'), you can make even the naturally fairly flimsy summoners pretty tanky. Significantly weaker than the classic 'Summon crap from around a corner and press the wait button as necessary' build, but it's faintly viable (at least on normal. It gets wreck't on any difficulty higher than that, iirc).
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on April 22, 2015, 08:37:39 am
Good shields offer nice resistances and more armor never hurt low HP classes
Post by: Frumple on April 22, 2015, 09:40:07 am
Mindstars actually have pretty decent resists themselves, and a number of other advantages beyond the mindpower. A hella' good shield might make up the difference, but that's almost certainly going to lock you out of AM (which is another maybe, but again some of the best artifact stuff for summoners get benefits from the user being anti-magic, soo...), and almost certainly be a notable damage reduction compared to a mindstar or +% damage sling.
So, like. Maybe? I wouldn't recommend a shield, per se, but it's a thing you could do.
Post by: Arcvasti on April 22, 2015, 08:29:44 pm
Post by: RedWarrior0 on April 22, 2015, 11:50:56 pm
Hah, I killed the Master for the first time. Oddly, he didn't seem to do much after his initial freeze other then throw paltry hexes and a couple minor damage spells that splatted against my time shield. He didn't do the "SUMMON ALL THE UNDEAD" thing that killed my Archmage this time, which was neat. I just unloaded all my damage spells into him over and over again until he died, since he didn't do anything to warrant more complex tactics. Literally the only danger was Paradox anomalies. And then I promptly got wrecked by this one orc boss who ambushed me when I exited Dreadfell and took my PLOTSTICK.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Robsoie on April 23, 2015, 05:17:14 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on April 23, 2015, 05:27:39 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Arcvasti on April 23, 2015, 10:37:23 pm
Post by: Darkmere on April 23, 2015, 11:20:25 pm
Post by: Frumple on April 23, 2015, 11:23:58 pm
You... might be able to teleport out, or at least movement-infusion through the door to give yourself some better room to play with? I've always just kinda' killed them all (barring an occasional splat to the fighter pride one, which is the worst of the lot by a fair margin), so I've never actually tried to just dip out of that initial entryway.
And yeah, corruptor's primarily blight, with some acid/nature and darkness. Little bit of fire (mainly via fearscape, but there's a little bit of other, too). Blowing them up immediately really is your best option, with disabling coming a close second.
E: Oooh, merchant just gave my ogre sunpa warmaking/dispersal (plus some other junk) gauntlets. +20/17% phys/spellcrit and disperse magic, yes, thank you. Physcrit is now at... 73, spell at 89. Not 100%, but it's verra' nice anyway.
Post by: Oneir on April 23, 2015, 11:27:27 pm
Post by: Arcvasti on April 24, 2015, 08:24:52 pm
Mm... yeah, you generally save the prides for after you've gone back west and cleared that stuff out, as well as whatever side dungeons you can manage in the east. Lead up to the end, basically. The opening rooms to pretty much all the prides can be pretty damn brutal. Also the necromancer/elementalist pair is probably best saved for after the (generally much less painful) wyrmic one, with the fighter one last. Tinker with the order, basically, to make things a bit more manageable. It'll still be pretty rough -- these are basically the next-to-last zones in the game -- but you can do a lot to make things easier.
You... might be able to teleport out, or at least movement-infusion through the door to give yourself some better room to play with? I've always just kinda' killed them all (barring an occasional splat to the fighter pride one, which is the worst of the lot by a fair margin), so I've never actually tried to just dip out of that initial entryway.
Yeah, after I died twice charging in I teleported behind the starting room and began killing everyone in there while ignoring the ones in the starting room. I did try to go back to Maj'Eyal before I did the Prides, but I opened the vault with the rainbow wyrms in it and made it almost impossible to get the Athame thing I needed. Will remember next time I get to that place.
Also, if you have trouble with bone shield specifically, try to get some extra damage types. For weapons that's easy enough, but for spells you pretty much need the few artifacts that add damage conversion. Every tick of every type of damage counts as a different attack as far taking out layers of bone shield.
Huh, that sounds useful. Dust to Dust deals two damage types, so combing that with Temporal Bolt could take out five layers in three turns. I'll remember that, although it'll probably be forever before I play a Paradox Mage again[I've got to play all the new classes I've unlocked first before repeating old ones].
Post by: Sharp on April 25, 2015, 06:52:13 pm
I was right, but I was so wrong, the tentacle is called Grimmlarkys tentacle, this is a tentacle that a boss summons and needs to be killed to hurt the boss. I can spawn them every 6 turns, they last for 10 turns, they have 180 health and do 50 damage and have resistances going from 50% to 100%. I am level 12, even if these tentacles don't scale up I think I have broken the game. Oh and how much did this wondrous totem cost me? Well only the princely sum of 35 gold.
Combined with acrobatic talents then apart from getting surprised and frozen immediately I think I should be able to beat anything the game can throw at me. Even in the most dire of situations I think I can probably survive long enough to use the rod of recall to escape (and this time I won't go to the damn far portal room until I am ready)
Post by: Frumple on April 25, 2015, 07:26:09 pm
E: Also, I may be misremembering, or it may have been fixed, but try aiming the tentacle outside the displayed range. Iirc, at one point, it would drop the thing wherever you put the cursor, rather than just where you were supposed to be able to put the cursor.
Post by: Sharp on April 25, 2015, 07:58:03 pm
I think i might put it on auto cast. It's great using them as meatshields and then called shots past them. Still think it's game breaking though but maybe I can finish this game now.
Post by: Frumple on April 25, 2015, 08:04:27 pm
Post by: Sharp on April 25, 2015, 08:27:40 pm
Post by: Frumple on April 25, 2015, 08:36:08 pm
If you want something better while still playing an archery character, you might consider a warden. Those hounds are freaking glorious.
Post by: Darkmere on April 26, 2015, 01:18:43 am
Post by: Sharp on April 26, 2015, 05:01:35 pm
Yeah, the tentacles are pretty great. Only downside is they (currently, anyway -- it may be fixed in the future) don't give XP for anything they kill. Quite useful, though, and you'll probably find even better ones later in the game.
E: Also, I may be misremembering, or it may have been fixed, but try aiming the tentacle outside the displayed range. Iirc, at one point, it would drop the thing wherever you put the cursor, rather than just where you were supposed to be able to put the cursor.
Ok, the downside of tentacles is, like the boss they originally come from, when they die they damage you. Still an amazing item for such a low price though and 100% darkness resistance can still make it very useful in some situations even later on. They do give you xp though. Looks like summoning is pretty strong, now to try and unlock the necromancer.
Post by: Frumple on April 26, 2015, 10:57:33 pm
It's pretty great. Can see basically jack-all while it's happening, since the stacked circles pretty much whiteout a 5 radius circle around the player,* but it's great anyway.
Ano-whatsits kinda' feel anemic, though. Like they're missing a couple of trees or somethin'. Feel less fleshed out than, say, the archmagi, necromancers, or paradox magi. Maybe about on par with corruptors... I don't feel any real need to be careful with my talent points or whatev', basically. At least part of that has to do with the thing where basically goddamn nothing they have has anything but damage scaling. Very few range/radius increases, often on spells that could really use it (Here's looking at you, mind blast. Why do you even exist?).
*
Spoiler: Pictured, in all its fairly oversized glory (click to show/hide)
Post by: Arcvasti on April 26, 2015, 11:28:12 pm
Post by: RedWarrior0 on April 26, 2015, 11:38:42 pm
Yeah, I've been digging the Anorithil. I'm not high enough level to spew Corona's at everything that lives yet, but I like them thus far, despite their miniature range for a blaster. I was honestly debating the usefulness of the Circles tree until you made me realize they're almost all instant to cast. That could be interesting. Not nearly as fun as Paradox Magi are, but I'm almost convinced nothing is.The other thing, IIRC, is that all but one of them
Post by: Frumple on April 27, 2015, 12:07:54 am
Yeah, I've been digging the Anorithil. I'm not high enough level to spew Corona's at everything that lives yet, but I like them thus far, despite their miniature range for a blaster. I was honestly debating the usefulness of the Circles tree until you made me realize they're almost all instant to cast.Not almost all, heh. They're all instant.
It's worth noting that screeny was made by a dark fae running ID500 and everything's unique, so... yeah. That was actually only like level 40 something, I think? Dark Crypt jumped me at level 34, after I got out the rhaloren camp >_>
Finally getting around to OF with it now, which is to say I'm level 7
Wish I could see what my spellcrit is, though. Know it's high (physcrit's 74, spellcrit should be higher), just don't know how high...
E: Also wish my basically everything didn't do friendly fire. That would help significantly, ha.
E2: Ohey, uniques mod got its charsheet fixed. Huzzah!
Post by: Arcvasti on April 29, 2015, 09:25:07 pm
Let's put it this way. That Grand Corrupter dude responsible for more character deaths then anyone else? Lasted maybe 4-5 turns before she panicked and recruited me for destroying Zigur. ALL THE CORONAS. This would be even moar dakka if I had Hymn of Moonlight instead of Perseverance. Still ridiculous dakka though. Now I've only got two classes[Plus Brawler and Skirmisher, but I give zero fucks about them] waiting to be unlocked: Oozemancer and Solipsist and I DID unlock all the races. I might actually win the game this time, now that I remembered not to dive headfirst into the Orc Prides right after entering the East.
Post by: Frumple on April 29, 2015, 11:13:34 pm
Today I learned that ID500 apparently caps out at character level 200. Thank you, uniques mod.
Or maybe it'll open up again once I actually get to the infinite dungeon, dunno. Currently... currently on dreadfell 3.
Also I'd like to state for the record that a level 200 dark fae with 20/20 Powers of the Dark is, uh. I have +1390% all damage. That scales by 2% every percent of health I'm missing. Also +225% combat speed! It's good stuff. Between it and one of my class sustains, my attacks are coming in at 15% weapon speed, so, y'know. About six swings per turn.
Big numbers abound. Stuff's still able to kill me, too, which is amazing :3
E: AHAHAHA, YES! Counter-skullcracker lead to a 188k damage hit ♥
Post by: Graven on June 14, 2015, 01:47:02 pm
My laptop went and keeled over, so I got a proper PC now. Sadly, this meant the loss of all my logins, and it took me quite a while to remember my bay12 password.
I had heard rumours of significant changes to my beloved Paradox classes, and what with my having an actual processor, I thought "What a wonderful time to waste a Sunday to Tome!" Could Temporal Wardens have stopped being the most boring class in Tome?
http://te4.org/characters/15454/tome/0dc46de5-6b06-4be6-8156-83dcaa973e57
I beat the game, shoved the two nerds in a locker, then went and took Atamathon's lunch money.
Yep, New Temporal Warden is defintely not the most boring class in the game. (Go Team Cursed!). In fact, it is insane. Insanely fun, and insanely overpowered. It is hilarious how OP Temporal Warden is. Here's a short list of some of the things you can do:
- Shoot people, shoot people quickly, shoot people with Gravity, shoot people while you're shooting people, make colourful explosions when shooting people
- Summon Temporal Bros TM to shoot the same people you are shooting and to take hits for you.
- Hit people, hit people even more, hit people with AOE
- Teleport around, teleport around by shooting people, teleport away by hitting people, teleport to people so you can hit them harder, teleport so hard you unstun yourself
- Summon TimeDawgs
- Take a Time Out TM, chilling outside the flow of time for a few turns
Temporal Warden is now a ranged Arcane Blade - lots of multi-hits and lots of colourful explosions. Only you are ranged, so no more instagibbing yourself on an enemy's reflected damage. Between Time Shield and having temporal clones share some of the damage you are taking you are nearly indestructible.
The new mechanics are really fun - Before you just shot really quickly leading mostly to finger cramps and falling asleep on the keyboard. Now the theme for Temporal Wardens is working with You-s from different timelines. This is accomplished by having temporal clones appear and shoot random targets every time you attack - they don't seem to necessarily target whatever you're hitting. Combined with the ability to shoot several arrows over several turns while doing something else, having AOE and status effects on each shot fired, including the ones from the temporal clones, and just plain normal AOE abilities, you keep the whole "Shoot really fast" thing while having an actual interesting and engaging class.
I died once to the slave master in the hidden compound, cuz apparently his class got buffed too, a few times to the HyperDragons in the Vor Armoury because I am not smart, and a few times to Amathon.
The Atamathon fight seemed bugged, though - he got a temporal clone (which may have been an anomaly), he killed me by hitting his own temporal clone, who was hostile to me, he killed me again by something, then I got a LUA error in the Eidolon plane, then I got back and showed him what for.
Also I need HELP. For some reason, after a certain point (I want to say the Master fight), the game would just slow down to a crawl. I ended up having to quit and restart Tome every few floors, since turns would take up to a full minute. I don't know if there's a known memory leak (since after a restart it ran incredibly smoothly for like, two floors), or if I need to turn off some random setting, but it was not, in fact, pleasant.
Does anyone know anything about this?
Post by: Frumple on June 14, 2015, 01:53:41 pm
... and after all that, try asking over on the T4 forums, if you haven't already, heh.
And yeah, TWs are pretty great nowadays. My only regret is that the dogs are Cs instead of Zs. Dat lack of zephyr hound ;_;
E: Well, that and the fact they the game breaks if you try to run a dark fae time warden, which is the damnedest of shames. Seems to happen whenever one of your racial clones gets frozen or somethin', after which everything goes to buggery and your equipment starts getting deleted at more-or-less random. Really unfortunate, because the only thing better than time clones is time clones that cause racial talent clones to appear that cause more time clones to appear, all of them throwing more arrows and blinking around the place and basically turning the level into a danmaku stage.
Post by: Oneir on June 14, 2015, 05:00:55 pm
Post by: Sonlirain on June 14, 2015, 05:48:54 pm
I think TWs have a memory leak associated with not properly disposing of your temporal duplicates. So the usual problems with late game ToME lag get much worse.Wow... well that bug is pretty meta if you think about it.
Post by: Frumple on June 14, 2015, 06:31:07 pm
In other news, this doombringer's loot luck has been almost silly. I've currently got a 90% chance to daze and a 90% slow on melee before hitting level 20 and clearing OF. Plus some other stuff! Gloom chance, armor corrosion. It's pretty great. Could also swap 30% of that daze out for chance to blind, if I wanted to (which I don't, daze is a freaking incredible debuff).
Post by: Arcvasti on June 14, 2015, 06:37:08 pm
Post by: Frumple on June 14, 2015, 06:58:52 pm
Post by: Darkmere on June 14, 2015, 07:31:00 pm
Post by: Robsoie on June 14, 2015, 08:22:17 pm
It's been since April i didn't checked what was going on with ToME4 , and a quick look on the website shows that the last news is from April.
Looks like there's still no news for what's the next move, the orc campaign or other things.
Post by: eeviac on June 14, 2015, 09:13:47 pm
Post by: Oneir on June 14, 2015, 10:25:40 pm
I remember having seen already some people mentionning big lag building up with the time classes, i guess breaking the continuum multiple times have a cost with the game code too :)
It's been since April i didn't checked what was going on with ToME4 , and a quick look on the website shows that the last news is from April.
Looks like there's still no news for what's the next move, the orc campaign or other things.
At minimum, they're working on a bugfixing 1.3.2. Maybe they'll do an announcement about any bigger plans when they release that?
Post by: Graven on June 15, 2015, 01:48:57 pm
I think TWs have a memory leak associated with not properly disposing of your temporal duplicates. So the usual problems with late game ToME lag get much worse.
I knew there had to be a trick - no class can be this fun, good and bug-free at the same time.
Oh well.
I'm also thinking of buying the expansion, since I want to reenact Amon Amarth covers. Should be jolly good fun.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/Amon_Amarth_Surtur_Rising_album_cover.jpg)
Post by: Graven on June 19, 2015, 01:47:00 pm
After winning a Temporal Warden, I started feeling like I needed a challenge.
Thus, I rolled a Bulwark, fully expecting the challenge to be not to fall asleep on the keyboard. Turns out I was rather wrong - Bulwark is a pretty fun guy, a little too few keys to press, but still jolly entertaining.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of a Block-Assault combo, and being reasonably tough (only against physical damage, though) is never dull. My biggest problem was elemental damage. I died three times in the Rift in Daikara, once in the Crypt (and I failed to save Melinda because the douchemongers kept kiting me), and a few more times in Dreadfell.
Thusfore, I have a few questions:
- How do I handle elemental damage on a Bulwark? I kept stockpiling resistance armour, but it didn't exactly help. Better positioning and patience would be wonderful but hey, I've gotten to like 6 wins without that, I'm not about to start now.
- Are there any vital Bulwark skills? Do I keep that -20% damage sustain on all the time? It felt like I should, since it also gives stun resistance, and that's always good.
All in all, my biggest problem, and the source of most of my impatience, is the lack of AOE. I'm addicted to AOE. I like AOE, and it's my firm belief all classes should have it.
So my last questions is, is there any good class add-on (I can't get the stupid expansion since it turns out I have no way to pay online - I live in Eastern Europe and frankly I've almost never had to... and whenever I did, I just used my roommate's card, but he gone for the next week or so) with a lot of AOE? Doesn't matter if caster or melee, I just want AOE and mobility. I've done some browsing, but I would prefer your opinion on stuff you've tried, cuz I love y'all so much.
I'm thinking of Anorithil or a Paradox Mage, from the standard classes, since I've won Archmage, and for some odd reason, I've never grown to like Corruptor. Paradox Mage with the new changes should be pretty awesome, but I just won a Paradox class.
Post by: Frumple on June 19, 2015, 02:03:27 pm
*Well, that and using step-up/rush to just kill everything doing elemental damage before they can hurt you much.
Addons... I could speak on that, but later. In the short term, maybe forge knight? They're fun. Slim on the AoE until later on, but fun. Perhaps try the class packs, they might have something in them you find appealing. Or just try adventure mode, heh.
Post by: Arcvasti on June 19, 2015, 02:10:13 pm
Post by: Graven on June 19, 2015, 08:38:30 pm
Damage seems on the low side, but after beating the snot out of the Master I picked up the Meteoric Crash prodigy, cuz I haven't ever used it (my previous laptop would probably have fainted at the thought of rendering all those meteors) and it utterly and ridiculously fixed that problem. The meteors trigger really often, and do on average 3 times more damage than my own spells. I'm also using Gwen's Burninator (the wand that does decent AOE fire damage), because I remembered this is a new PC and I don't have my save file, so no Wildfire for my archmages.
Somehow though the current Paradox Mage seems slightly less fun than the old one. I'll be damned if I can tell you why I think so, but it's just how it feels to me. I've honestly been sitting for like 20 minutes trying to figure out why.
Really, really powerful though, and still pretty great fun.
Post by: Darkmere on June 19, 2015, 10:08:05 pm
So my last questions is, is there any good class add-on (I can't get the stupid expansion since it turns out I have no way to pay online - I live in Eastern Europe and frankly I've almost never had to... and whenever I did, I just used my roommate's card, but he gone for the next week or so)
Re: Xpack, Do you have the game on Steam?
Post by: Graven on June 20, 2015, 06:44:35 am
Paradox Mage Stronk
Feels stronger than my Wildfire Archmage back in the day. Oddly enough felt like this PM was better at both offense (1k ray spells, ~1k meteors) and defense than the archmage.
It would probably be a ton more powerful if I had found the stupid fucking temporal artefacts - Rod of Sarrilon and the tardis robe - you know, the ones I found in every single game I've ever played apart from this one. God I am bitter.
Other than that what can I say - current Paradox Mage takes a while to get rolling, but when it does, oh mamma. I suspect a good deal of the offensive power was due to Meteor Crash. Am I right in assuming this is the best offensive prodigy for casters? I was able to take it after getting the alternate daikara, too, or at least I don't remember seeing other meteor crashes prior to the prodigy - might be wrong here, though.
However, I ran into an interesting problem.
Namely, running out of slots on my quickbar. I might be even dumber than I suspect, but I couldn't find a way to add another roll, so I literally had to skip on two additional trees, and a number of my current abilities. Mostly because while I did remember to use right-click -> static history, using other spells this way was too much of a hassle compared to just waiting for my meteor crash to cooldown. Anyone know how I can add another stupid row to my quickbar? I feel like this character could've been even more fun if I didn't have to stick skillpoints in stupid skills just so I could have a visual indicator of "hey idiot, you have this spell you could use".
Thinking of running a Storm archmage, see how the damage is with that. Or is there another caster (barring stupid nerd vim users) that would get higher AOE damage numbers?
@Darkmere - don't have Steam, if I did, I'd presumably have a way to buy stuff online :D
Post by: Robsoie on June 20, 2015, 07:20:13 am
Anyone know how I can add another stupid row to my quickbar? I feel like this character could've been even more fun if I didn't have to stick skillpoints in stupid skills just so I could have a visual indicator of "hey idiot, you have this spell you could use".
If i understand well, click on that button to "unlock" the interface :
(http://i.imgur.com/dG1hLIi.jpg)
Left click and hold on that button and move the whole quickbar up :
(http://i.imgur.com/1asIwbk.jpg)
Then right click and hold on the same button and scale the quickbar down :
(http://i.imgur.com/kFER0lI.jpg)
Then click again on the lock button to re-lock the interface (and avoid accidentally moving stuff)
I wish i had a much bigger monitor to fit everything with some classes., as increasing that bar hide unfortunately a part of my view on the map.
Post by: Oneir on June 20, 2015, 08:25:43 am
If you want a more interesting shield class (with some good, but not hella, AoE), and are willing to shell out money (even for the Steam version on sale), the donator Stonewarden class dual-wields shields for great results. Once you get Spectral Shield/a good resist spread you basically don't take damage when you block. With Eternal Guard you can do this almost all the time (effect-strippers can turn off block, stun&c. can put Block on cooldown). It's pretty great.
Post by: Frumple on June 20, 2015, 09:04:42 am
And there's always ogres. You roll ogre, any of the two-hand classes (include, for example, a paradox mage :V) can be a shield class :P
Or get a hold of addons and do that silly xorn thing with the four weapon slots.
Post by: Arcvasti on June 20, 2015, 02:19:17 pm
Thinking of running a Storm archmage, see how the damage is with that. Or is there another caster (barring stupid nerd vim users) that would get higher AOE damage numbers?
From my experience, you need a bunch of high cost sustains running for their damage to really pick up[Tempest, Hurricane and Thunderstorm, for a total of 250 mana]. That plus Aegis sustains for survival gave me huge resource problems with them. They've got huge aoe and dazes erreywhere though, so it might still be worth it if you get good +mana items or can spare an inscription slot for manasurge.
Anyone know how I can add another stupid row to my quickbar? I feel like this character could've been even more fun if I didn't have to stick skillpoints in stupid skills just so I could have a visual indicator of "hey idiot, you have this spell you could use".
If i understand well, click on that button to "unlock" the interface :Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Left click and hold on that button and move the whole quickbar up :Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then right click and hold on the same button and scale the quickbar down :Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then click again on the lock button to re-lock the interface (and avoid accidentally moving stuff)
I wish i had a much bigger monitor to fit everything with some classes., as increasing that bar hide unfortunately a part of my view on the map.
What. You can do this. Thank you. Thank so much.
Post by: woosholay on June 21, 2015, 03:24:47 am
Post by: Oneir on June 21, 2015, 10:23:19 am
Quote from: te4 wiki
These campaigns are highly speculatory. They all have been confirmed by DarkGod as planned at some point, but no one knows when or if they will be released. Only the orc campaign has seen comments by DarkGod that he's working on it, and has seen considerable discussion on the TE4 forums.For all I know there's a lot of in-game/IRC chat that I just haven't seen, but Darkgod pretty much works on Valvetime so I doubt there will be any firm dates until things are close to release. Does anyone know if they did beta-testing for the last DLC?
Other than that, I know he mentioned adding a new donator class (and consequently changing Stonewarden to a free class) during one of the last major updates.
Post by: Niveras on June 22, 2015, 04:57:00 pm
I'm not 100% sure if it's a paradox mage thing (probably not since someone mentioned getting it and didn't say anything about it performing weirdly), or an infinite dungeon thing (ID negates certain prodigy requirements, and perhaps this affects meteor's functionality), or a mod thing. Some mod is the most likely culprit, to be sure, but hard to test which mod is actually causing the problem since you'd need to get to level 30 to find out... I guess I could throw in an easy-cheat mod for testing purposes.
Post by: Frumple on June 22, 2015, 05:47:33 pm
Post by: Oneir on June 22, 2015, 06:20:31 pm
Post by: Trapezohedron on June 22, 2015, 10:42:56 pm
I can't quite nail how I should handle some builds for this game...
Post by: Frumple on June 22, 2015, 11:23:46 pm
Post by: Darkmere on June 22, 2015, 11:38:44 pm
Post by: AVE on June 26, 2015, 03:29:54 am
Post by: Graven on July 16, 2015, 04:16:04 pm
"Is that how we're going to play it, Tome?" I asked, my voice heavy with exasperation.
Silence encased me like a marble coffin.
"You're on"
(http://i.imgur.com/b61XQLf.png)
http://te4.org/characters/15454/tome/35202972-8e9e-4d92-8485-d23d0e923359
Build meant for Madness still OP on Normal. In other news, hammers still easier to hold with hands rather than butt cheeks.
Post by: Oneir on July 16, 2015, 05:41:51 pm
Rogue: going mindblades instead of daggers on Insane+ (skipping on Dex increases and increasing Will instead). Has anyone tried this? If only there were less Dex requiring talents, this build will be much more viable. May be going full Antimagic and relying deeply on stealth and traps?
If you're just concerned with the stat requirements on the skills you may be able to get by with stat-increasing gear past a certain point.
Post by: Robsoie on December 04, 2015, 12:21:06 pm
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2015/11/news/tales-majeyal-132-aka-stunt-saver-released
Followed the day after by a hotfix version :
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2015/11/tome/tales-majeyal-133-aka-stunts-whip-doom-released
And announcement about the new expansion coming "Embers of rage" about steampunk Orcs :
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2015/12/news/announcing-embers-rage
Post by: Darkmere on December 04, 2015, 09:27:54 pm
Post by: Oneir on December 05, 2015, 01:00:55 pm
I wonder if they'll pull in you character from winning saves as a (bonus?) boss? That could either be really interesting and challenging, or hilariously underwhelming.
Post by: Arcvasti on December 05, 2015, 05:42:24 pm
I wonder if they'll pull in you character from winning saves as a (bonus?) boss? That could either be really interesting and challenging, or hilariously underwhelming.
Or hilariously overwhelming, depending on how cheesy your character is.
Post by: Frumple on December 05, 2015, 05:49:15 pm
Post by: Arcvasti on December 05, 2015, 05:50:28 pm
Do believe arena mode is supposed to do something along those lines. Can't recall if I ever actually noticed it working, though :V
Yeah, when I was finally supposed to fight my old character[And probably get wrecked. Anorithil vs Wyrmic is hilariously uneven with no AM], it crashed the first time someone took damage.
Post by: Robsoie on February 15, 2016, 07:39:49 pm
Completely missed it, but there was a new version released on the 29 november :
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2015/11/news/tales-majeyal-132-aka-stunt-saver-released
Followed the day after by a hotfix version :
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2015/11/tome/tales-majeyal-133-aka-stunts-whip-doom-released
And announcement about the new expansion coming "Embers of rage" about steampunk Orcs :
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2015/12/news/announcing-embers-rage
There was a new version this month, in fact since that post there have been a whole bunch of new versions, the major release, 1.4.0 changes :
Spoiler: version 1.4.0 (click to show/hide)
And further other versions being mostly bugfixes of it.
The latest of them is 1.4.3 :
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2016/02/news/tales-majeyal-143-aka-rage-released
and one of the commercial expansion got updated too :
http://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2016/02/news/ashes-urhrok-105-out
Post by: Arcvasti on February 15, 2016, 07:43:11 pm
Post by: Niveras on February 16, 2016, 05:44:12 am
I've considered doing a Doomed+ mod. I'd basically re-envision them into a kind of Sauron-like figure, with specialization either into force damage (waving their hands/weapons around and attacking in arcs, knockbacks, heavy armor use without penalties) or psych damage (their pre-update array of mind-damage abilities), with dark/shadows as supplementary utility trees. I'd also re-vamp the dark line to add more mobility, basically copying oozemancer's mucus functions (lots of darkness spreading options, including passive spreading, and a late teleport-through-darkness skill).
But for the problem of being, you know, so lazy.
Post by: Oneir on February 16, 2016, 06:51:10 pm
Post by: Darkmere on February 16, 2016, 07:18:57 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on February 16, 2016, 07:31:50 pm
I have nothing for the orcs but ire and bile.
That's racist
Post by: Darkmere on February 16, 2016, 07:37:50 pm
Post by: Frumple on February 16, 2016, 07:57:45 pm
Orcs are supposed to be bringing steampunk, and that's quite enough for me.
Post by: Oneir on February 24, 2016, 08:39:31 am
- It's short. I don't know just how short, but the whole campaign is under 2.5x experience. TOME is okay at scaling dungeons to your level, but I hit level 10 by the end of the first real dungeon (not counting the racial starting mission), iirc.
- It's interesting! I don't know if it will hold up, and there are issues, but the new class talents and tinker system have potential.
The expansion adds three new classes (two unlocked to start, the sawbutcher and the gunslinger), three new races (with only the orcs unlocked to start), a tinkering/crafting system (with associated new kind of infusion), new artifacts, etc. and, of course, the new campaign. I need to confirm, but I think everything but the new races should be available in the original campaign.
Tinkering involves a set of generic trees which. Each tree has talents for three schools of crafting, investing points unlocks the ability to craft more advanced items in that school and the chance to unlock a new schematic. These items are tinkers, so items you attach to items (just like the demonologist) to unlock either various bonuses (I started with the schematic for the grounding strap, which gives lightning and stun resist) or skills (I found the recipe for rocket boots, which give an expensive sustain which boosts speed while leaving trails of fire behind you). These skills revolve around steam, which also powers the tinkers' class skills.
Steam has a low maximum, but a high rate of regeneration. Skills are split between normal activate skills, and sustains that drain steam at a rate per turn. I'm still working out how managing steam should work, but already I wish there was a "Deactivate on rest" auto-use setting. Some of these talents are really interesting (very much Warhammer Ork in the case of the sawbutcher talents), but after getting a TW to High Peak I feel like I don't have nearly enough buttons, but I may just need to get used to juggling sustains instead of active talents.
So: I like it so far. I don't regret spending money on it, but part of that is I've sunk an ungodly number of hours into regular TOME and enjoy the community.
Post by: Frumple on February 26, 2016, 09:55:57 am
Definitely liking the tinkering system -- a more controllable demonologist seed system with several nice gimmicks, which is all kinds of nice -- levels and whatnot are solid enough design wise, not quite sure about the gunslinger and psishot, yet. Like parts of their kit, and the passives involved with ranged and the tinker bits are pretty great, but more iffy on their actives. Sawbutcher is a fair amount of a blast, though, especially once you get a second steam generator. Lot of passive damage, which I like, lot of survivability, saw wheels give a lot of mobility (they're pretty close to a sustainable movement infusion), fairly neat actives... lot to like, lot to like.
Overall enjoying it a fair amount.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on February 26, 2016, 10:34:02 am
Post by: Frumple on February 26, 2016, 11:47:27 am
... though they do have a bug with saw wheel and metal tempest interaction. Same old problem mindslayers used to have, with the effect proccing every time you move/act as opposed to every turn. Gets silly when you stack up the wheels with movement infusions or whatev'. Damn shame the wheels and the rocket boots are mutually exclusive, though. Flaming chainsaw rollerblades, man. I mean, they already are with overheat going, but... moreso.
Though the description makes it sound more like they're some kind of whirring self-propelled ski pole. Which is also pretty amusing, I guess.
E: Though now I have the most amazing image in my head of an orc attaching itself with chains to a pair of
Post by: ChairmanPoo on February 26, 2016, 12:02:34 pm
(you know you can install extra generators right?)
PD:
I'm restarting the game. Maybe it was a fluke?
PPD: doesnt seem a fluke to me. slice and dice
Post by: Frumple on February 26, 2016, 04:32:02 pm
And yeah, I know about the extra generators, I specifically mentioned that :P
E: Holy shit, the Pain Enhancement prodigy is completely bonkers. I went carry the world for the strength boost synergy, and my full bonus (since the buggery thing apparently refreshes to a degree with the stats it grants) is +85 to every stat. And it's a bonus that refreshes on crit. And one that I'm not specifically kitting for strength for -- my base strength without the prodigy is only 89 or so, on a strength prime character (so ~+29 strength from equipment -- I've got all of that coming from three items). That's completely bloody insane, to the point I'm now thinking about going strength on... basically everything. Tertiary maxed stat, at worst?
Because right now, my idle strength 129 (with the +40 from CtW), has stats in excess of a hundred in literally every one of them once the pain bonus tops off. Compare it, really... carry the world, the highest raw stat boosting prodigy, nets you 40 points. This thing, right now, unoptimized, is giving me a total of 510.
Post by: Frumple on February 27, 2016, 12:11:18 am
Post by: Darkmere on February 27, 2016, 02:51:07 am
Post by: Darkmere on February 27, 2016, 03:17:02 am
Also the skill planner, for that matter.
Post by: woosholay on February 27, 2016, 03:22:07 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Either i'm just tired of ToME or simply want a bit deeper experience of a full-fledged RPG (which sadly D:OS and PoE failed to deliver in any meaningful way).
Pretty fun expac all around, but it's more of the same kind of deal. I wish they would actually improve the base game in some ways.
Post by: Aoi on February 27, 2016, 07:01:12 pm
Flaming chainsaw rollerblades, man. I mean, they already are with overheat going, but... moreso.
Though the description makes it sound more like they're some kind of whirring self-propelled ski pole. Which is also pretty amusing, I guess.
E: Though now I have the most amazing image in my head of an orc attaching itself with chains to a pair ofchainsawssawblades, and basically turning into a steampunk pod racer.
That sounds a lot better than what I came up with: http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Hoopster_-_flaming_Monowheel.jpg
Post by: Darkmere on February 27, 2016, 08:55:32 pm
Beat it as a sawbutcher on Insane Roguelike (sustains are pretty broken once you get a decent steam generator), surprisingly enough I felt like if there were more options in dialogues, conflict resolutions and whatnot, it would be so much better.
Can I get a spoilered explanation? I'm curious if my wild guesses about their writing prove true.
Post by: Oneir on February 28, 2016, 08:29:22 pm
In other news, a nerf has arrived! It just hit Steam, but you can look forward to a lot of fairly obvious nerfs and fixes. (e.g. the new strength prodigy no longer recursively buffs your stats to infinity)
Beat it as a sawbutcher on Insane Roguelike (sustains are pretty broken once you get a decent steam generator), surprisingly enough I felt like if there were more options in dialogues, conflict resolutions and whatnot, it would be so much better.
Can I get a spoilered explanation? I'm curious if my wild guesses about their writing prove true.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Darkmere on February 28, 2016, 09:24:38 pm
Post by: Frumple on February 28, 2016, 09:35:34 pm
I will say I was pretty disappointed when they didn't let you
Spoiler: Is spoiler! (click to show/hide)
Also somewhat unfortunately, I don't really get to blame halflings for everything that went to hell in the embers campaign. For once, they weren't the primary culprit :P
E: I will say, I actually kinda' liked how everything tied together, once the whole thing was laid out. Somewhat surprisingly tightly constructed series of events. Plotwise everything is significantly more interconnected than the main campaign was, and almost all of the zones fit tightly into the narrative. Thinking on it in retrospect, it's actually pretty well done. Kinda' pulp steampunk/lovecraftian, but still. There's not much branching or alternate options, but it's pretty solid regardless, imo.
E2: Honestly, my mind keeps coming back to it and sorta' boggling at how stark the difference in the writing/zone lore/etc. is between embers and the rest, now that y'all've got me thinking about it. Like, maj'eyal campaign most of the zones are largely self-contained, there's not really much connection between them and when there is it's mostly fairly weak. In embers, pretty much every zone (I'd say bar maybe two, the forest and the infinite dungeon entrance) is connected to at least one other zone very strongly via lore (and in at least one case via gameplay), and they ultimately all spiderweb their way back to the final zone and the campaign's last act. The lore bits explain boss motivations, character motivations, why you're doing several things, generally sets the stage up where the player is actually acting fairly sensibly given the situation they're involved in and why they're largely forced to, as opposed to the very murderhobo ethos of the rest of the game... it's honestly what I'd call actually pretty damn good for video game plot and setting writing. Perhaps bit linear and light on direct character conversation/interaction, but I don't actually think the campaign suffers for it.
It's... y'know, it's almost like System Shock 2's log data, or something fairly similar in implementation. It's a pretty strong showing, if y'ask me. I wouldn't say the texty bits detract from the experience, in the least, and definitely adds to it if you're paying even minimal attention. Compared to the original where you can mostly just ignore the text and you'll miss barely anything directly related to what you're actually doing (it's much more setting/world exploration than narrative/plot), the difference is pretty close to night and day.
Post by: Oneir on February 29, 2016, 08:41:23 am
I think, so far (still stuck in a vault in the last dungeon. :|), the least satisfying part for me has to be the pocket of disturbed time. The Temporal Rift is pretty memorable, and has a kind of soft build check. The pocket just has a lot of traps and inexplicably friendly orcs, and an amazingly easy boss fight (at least for a pre-nerf sawbutcher, but I wasn't really abusing their abusable tricks, so). Was the idea that
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Frumple on February 29, 2016, 09:22:18 am
Post by: Oneir on February 29, 2016, 05:45:47 pm
... y'know, I actually didn't go into the pocket. Your mention reminded me I forgot to see what was inside :-\
Spoiler summary in case you don't feel like restarting(?) a character to get all that far:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
EDIT: Save fixed! Game beaten! Still no sodding lightning coil. I spent so many generics on tinkering, and never got to see what Steam-powered Armor did. :( I even had the helmet and gauntlets, so I would have gotten the set bonus, too. Maybe I should toss this guy into the infinite dungeon?
EDEDITIT: In other news I've completely forgotten how to play my temporal warden. Not at all like a sawbutcher, as it turns out. :P
Post by: Frumple on February 29, 2016, 10:39:19 pm
Started up a new psishot myself -- my first one was also my first whitehoof, and I found out 15-20 levels in that that was perhaps not the most wise of combinations :V they can't use mindstar mastery, since they're undead. Psishots offhand mindstars. Whoops.
First thing I've learned after giving it a shot is that vaporous step is actually incredibly good, quite possibly one of the best teleport talents in the game. Basically a self-activated spatial tether except it blows up other people when you trigger it. Also it heals you and regens a substantial chunk of steam after the first talent level of the second tier. Y'do have to be pretty careful about positioning, though... if you're not in LoS of the tether point when you trigger it it just kinda' putters out. Actually using it to see what happens is about the only thing new I've done so far, though... mostly building the same otherwise (maxed iron blood, working on metal star, obviously upping the psyshot talent as available, doing tinker things). Probably going to try to actually use the dread/fear actives instead of just getting mechanical arms and using that to boost damage/survivability. it's pretty freaking incredible for that, though -- basically beyond the flesh, except (short) ranged, hits two targets, and effectively gives you resist all vs. targets they hit. Beautifully powerful, they are. Only uses a single mindstar for the damage output, but shit, load that thing up with global slows on melee hits or +100% daze chance and see how much of a difference that makes.
Also doing the normal addons now, so it should be a bit more interesting. Remembered kinda' belatedly several of them won't exactly work without the maj'eyal map being there, but... eh.
E: Also wow, explosive shell on a psyshot. I'm having flashbacks to phase-warriors, 'cause I just projected a barrage of melee hits in an AoE on the other side of the room :V
Post by: beorn080 on March 03, 2016, 10:38:43 pm
Post by: Darkmere on March 04, 2016, 12:50:58 am
Neither tree is really good for archmage, you'll want the Light tree from escorts for moar shields and heals, because moar.
Post by: Arcvasti on March 04, 2016, 01:26:59 am
Post by: Oneir on March 04, 2016, 06:25:41 pm
Both the trees from the sandworm heart pretty much suck, as far as I can tell.
Post by: Frumple on March 04, 2016, 07:07:01 pm
For an archmage, yeah, harmony's pretty intensely iffy. About the best thing you can offer for it is you've probably got easy ways to proc the fire aspect of the sustain (which'd stack somewhat with essence of speed, iirc). The actives are... there. But not terribly useful, most of the time (imo), and the sexier parts of them are stuff an AM's kit doesn't really need/already has rough equivalents for.
To be fair, the corruption option isn't really amazing, either, but that passive heal on crit/kill is pretty hefty, and you're probably already building crit to some extent, so you'd get good use out of it. Maybe not the best place to put your generics, but it wouldn't be a bad place to put your generics by any means.
Post by: beorn080 on March 04, 2016, 11:09:22 pm
Post by: Frumple on March 05, 2016, 09:52:53 am
Post by: Oneir on March 05, 2016, 12:34:26 pm
Post by: Frumple on March 05, 2016, 01:17:29 pm
They've also got mechanical hands, a sustain which can trigger two melee attacks per turn, at short range. Admittedly their melee hits are all one mindstar swings, but, well. You get a fair amount of them, and even if the raw damage isn't mindblowing they still proc everything that normally procs from a melee hit. And it can do it ten squares out.
The really fun one is I've got one talent that both triggers the melee hit at range, and counts as a mind talent. And I picked up meteor crash. Between that, the hands, and an incendiary groove... I'm doing a fair amount of fire damage.
Also most of the screen tends to always be on fire :V
E: Oh yeah, did the distorted time thing today. Re: the question of canon gender, the text there appears to be randomized -- class/gender is probably going to change with playthrough.
... though I did just realize I can, y'know, just go look at the code. /data/lore/pocket-time.lua. The text does indeed change... seems to be based off your last winner? Or a winner. Something like that. There's basically no actual canon scourge, apparently :P
Post by: HedgehogOfTrog on March 21, 2016, 01:01:58 pm
Post by: Elephant Parade on March 21, 2016, 01:28:50 pm
Do you guys have any tips for surviving early game with a rogue? I'm trying so hard to unlock Marauder but I never survived past early East. Playing on normal roguelike and it's saddening when I get one-shotted on such a low difficulty. Guess I'll try to stack +HP items harder next time.I'm not all that great at the game, but I would recommend against Roguelike; one-shots are just too common for it to be fun, at least for me.
Post by: Frumple on March 21, 2016, 02:39:02 pm
... though with rogue, you should be able to unlock marauder well before the East if you're building for it, unless something's changed that I wasn't noticing. Iirc you can usually hit for 600 around level 20, 22 -- standard build for it is stack up some poisons, hit 'em with a 5/5 venomous strike with maxed shadowstrike (hide in plain sight, to get the stealth back, probably). Maybe use a 2-hander (and stick points into weapon instead of dagger mastery) for the v.strike attack. You'll hit like a truck, and with the damage all rolled into one source like the cheevo needs.
Post by: HedgehogOfTrog on March 21, 2016, 04:56:56 pm
(and if you're running embers and can spare the cat point and some generics, you can offset pretty much all the normal undead issues).What do you mean by that? Do Embers add something for the undead? (didn't get the DLC yet).
Post by: Frumple on March 21, 2016, 06:10:22 pm
Downside is it's a bit rough getting schematics in the maj'eyal campaign, but eh.
E: Well, that and it takes a cat point and saving an escort (plus some generic point investment) to unlock the things in the main campaign. Helluva' lot cheaper in the embers campaign if you're rolling with a rogue there.
Post by: Oneir on March 21, 2016, 08:05:53 pm
Again, though, saying that this is playing the game at that point is stretching it, and this build isn't good for anything in the long run. But if you're getting frustrated playing rogue, and just want the unlock already, it works.
Post by: Frumple on March 21, 2016, 08:33:10 pm
*This one. (http://te4.org/characters/6887/tome/e4ae4db3-f5d0-4485-986a-e430790b181c) Several versions back, but I don't think anything in particular has changed to make it less viable (or more, because it was viable in roughly the same way melee summoners are). Being fair, tiger eye is/was probably one of the best T4 players I'm aware of, but... still.
**E: Actually, I just looked at their generics, heh. They didn't even have illuminate :P
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on March 22, 2016, 03:45:40 am
It is so viable that it was one of reasons of shadowstrike nerf some versions back
Good artefact 130% mag Twohanded staff + staff mastery tree isn't bad way to do it either.
Post by: Arcvasti on March 22, 2016, 08:39:46 pm
Do you guys have any tips for surviving early game with a rogue? I'm trying so hard to unlock Marauder but I never survived past early East. Playing on normal roguelike and it's saddening when I get one-shotted on such a low difficulty. Guess I'll try to stack +HP items harder next time.
As far as unlocking Marauder goes, I unlocked it by blocking with Swordbreaker[Artifact dagger that can block] and then Shadowstriking for a counter attack. Later died to the final bosses, but that was because I ran out of stamina/mana before they ran out of health/stuns.
Post by: HedgehogOfTrog on September 13, 2016, 05:01:55 am
one handed staff + good dagger in offhand+ mag\cun + stealth + illumination + light tree from the escort is a very viable shadowblade build.Do Shadowblades have any procs outside the darkness dmg on hit? How are staffs good for them?
It is so viable that it was one of reasons of shadowstrike nerf some versions back
Good artefact 130% mag Twohanded staff + staff mastery tree isn't bad way to do it either.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on September 13, 2016, 06:12:51 am
Post by: Frumple on September 13, 2016, 07:07:28 am
Though yeah, if an SB goes staff, it's almost certainly not for the proc damage boost. Near as I can remember at the moment, I think the only class that does primarily for that is arcane blades. Maybe reavers, but even they generally do it more for the % element boost than the proc damage one. Good few classes that definitely appreciate the improvement but not many that focus on it.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on September 13, 2016, 09:02:45 am
Post by: Frumple on September 13, 2016, 10:15:58 am
Post by: IcyTea31 on October 06, 2016, 03:24:11 am
Also, a question: Gravity Spike deals extra damage when it targets multiple creatures. Does that count the caster if they are immune to the spell, for example by sustaining Gravity Locus?
Post by: Frumple on March 09, 2017, 11:57:31 pm
Post by: Arcvasti on March 10, 2017, 01:32:57 am
And then there's the Psi management. I don't know WHY this class needed Solipsism. It makes things a complete and utter pain, since all the ability costs are exorbitantly expensive. 40-50 Psi is not uncommon for some of the tier 3-4 talents and you hemorrhage it every time you take any damage whatsoever.
The single unlocked talent tree not devoted to a gimmick weapon combo relies on ridiculousness instead. 50% damage reduction[While reflecting most of that damage to a random enemy] with an enemy below 80% life in LoS? Percent damage reduction in an AoE that doesn't affect the user? If those talents had been tied to a class with less issues, they'd be absurd. As is, they're just another way to lose Psi at a frantic rate.
The whole body possessing thing seems kind of meh too, since it takes a rather silly amount of investment to do anything with[1-2 category points and nearly maxing two categories?] and has been preemptively divorced from a lot of the things that could make it powerful. Although who knows, the strongest body I got before dying was a level 14 Shadowbade, maybe you could actually make things work once you hit the East.
Post by: Darkmere on March 10, 2017, 01:45:58 am
And I'm probably the only one, but I look forward to the transmog feature. I admit it.
Post by: Frumple on March 10, 2017, 06:19:38 am
No clue if you still have to find it for the first time before it starts showing up on new characters, though. If you start and are wondering about where yo' chest is, just know it'll be around forever once you find it for the first time.
Post by: getter77 on March 10, 2017, 07:57:17 am
Post by: DeKaFu on March 10, 2017, 08:33:46 am
Was trying to remember why I stopped playing this in the first place. Ended up stuck because I had a near-end-game character I took a break on, and didn't feel confident picking back up, but couldn't update without losing them... or something silly like that. :P
Fakeedit: Actually, it looks like the Steam version is currently on sale for a very reasonable 2 bucks. Any insight on whether the expansions/DLC/whatever those are are actually good and worthwhile? "Embers of Rage" costs as much as the first two things combined, so I might as well skip it for now if it's not awesome...
Post by: Frumple on March 10, 2017, 09:01:30 am
Of the DLCs themselves, embers involves significantly more content. Ashes is a couple new classes, a race, some artifacts and enemies, and only one or two new areas and a passel of lore, the last added on to the main campaign. Embers is an entire new campaign (that's notably better constructed than the main, imo, especially from a lore perspective), three new classes, three new races, what amounts to a crafting system for item attachments, and a bucketload of new artifacts, on top of whatever else I'm forgetting. I'm not sure how awesome I'd call it (I certainly enjoy it quite a bit, myself, but awesome is rather subjective, heh), but it's definitely the better DLC by a pretty significant margin.
Not sure if getting just the DLCs open up donator content for you, unfortunately, though it doesn't look like it'd be something of a workaround on the steam version anyway. I'd probably recommend nabbing the 4.80 1-3 thing, if you were going to get dlcs. If you're not interested in either, or playing the thing on steam, you might be able to open up just donator stuff even cheaper just donating directly. Forget what the minimum donation is, if there is one.
E: Ah, yeah, had forgotten that... basically, my stance on the DLCs and donator status, is it's arguable enough it's worth the money just for that, that I probably wouldn't directly recommend them for their content. It's mostly pretty good content, just maybe not dosh good content. However, if you've enjoyed playing the game, and want to send T4/DG some monetary kudos for the good work, it's a pretty great way to do it and you get some nice extras for giving a project you enjoy a bit of money. So don't look at it as a question of whether they're worth the price, look at it as a question of whether you think floating the dev the cost is something you think worthwhile. If it is, then get them as a way to donate, and consider the added content a nice extra rather than your primary goal.
Post by: Darkmere on March 10, 2017, 01:00:43 pm
Embers is pretty good and, also agreed, better constructed than Age, but you have to play an Orc or *spoilers* so. Ehhhhhhhh. Ashes is fun for a kind of "advanced start" and some new classes/race but it's not something I could recommend unless you already paid for the base game and just wanted to donate.
Post by: IcyTea31 on March 10, 2017, 03:21:10 pm
Post by: DeKaFu on March 10, 2017, 07:26:57 pm
So here's another question: Any way to transfer my unlocks/achievements from the standalone game to the Steam version?
I'm not sure I'd even want to, since it's been so long I wouldn't entirely mind starting from scratch... But having a choice in the matter would certanly be nice.
early access to possessorsMaybe I got the wrong idea, but I got the impression they were going to be donator-only indefinitely?
I really like the idea of Possessors because I really enjoy monster- and transformation-based classes... Even if it's got some issues, I'm looking forward to trying it out when I can play again.
Post by: Darkmere on March 10, 2017, 07:57:57 pm
Possessors are the new donator class, like stone wardens used to be. Now stone wardens are a base class. Eventually possessors will become a base class and another class will be introduced as donator-only for a while.
Post by: Retropunch on March 10, 2017, 08:08:29 pm
That was a long, long time ago though. Any tips for starting up/having fun?
Post by: ChairmanPoo on March 10, 2017, 09:40:55 pm
Post by: Frumple on March 10, 2017, 10:14:03 pm
Post by: DeKaFu on March 11, 2017, 07:48:10 am
You can link your te4.org account and your steam account, everything should transfer over. I did it, but it's been a while.Heh, never actually got around to making a te4.org account, despite playing for years...
Starting from scratch it is, then. :P
Post by: Frumple on March 11, 2017, 07:55:02 am
Post by: IcyTea31 on March 11, 2017, 09:46:47 am
Post by: Oneir on March 11, 2017, 09:55:37 am
You can link your te4.org account and your steam account, everything should transfer over. I did it, but it's been a while.Heh, never actually got around to making a te4.org account, despite playing for years...
Starting from scratch it is, then. :P
I think a new te4.org account will pick up any local achievements you have.
Post by: AlStar on March 13, 2017, 04:54:40 pm
But then it came - blazingly fast, it killed my grizzly bear form that I normally used to tank things, and it blinded me almost continuously. Finally, all my heals on cooldown, I succumbed to the horror... of Sileta, the large brown snake.
I must say - I actually really dig the play style of possessors, although I unlocked both summoners and archmages this last game, so I'll probably fool around with them a bit before going back and trying another.
Post by: Arcvasti on March 13, 2017, 05:27:58 pm
But then it came - blazingly fast, it killed my grizzly bear form that I normally used to tank things, and it blinded me almost continuously. Finally, all my heals on cooldown, I succumbed to the horror... of Sileta, the large brown snake.
Snakes have high global speed, which means that named snakes can unload nasty class abilities at absurd speed. Named Hornet or Midge swarms, which have DOUBLE your global speed, are even more terrifying.
Today I found out that if mice get the Warshout ability for whatever reason, it comes out as a Warsqueak This is the best thing.
Post by: Darkmere on March 13, 2017, 06:00:13 pm
Post by: AlStar on March 14, 2017, 09:03:34 am
Named Hornet or Midge swarms, which have DOUBLE your global speed, are even more terrifying.How does that even happen?
"Oh, go not under that willow over there adventurer, for a fell beast lurks! DeathCry, the swarm of midges! They'll flay the flesh from your bones! Beware!"
The random rare/elite/boss generator is crazy. I honestly feel more trepidation opening a chest then I do against the end-of-level boss. (But the chest is just so shiny...)
Currently running an archer, and wow, do I feel like an arrow-slinging envoy of death. I've got all the stopping power of a warrior - along with a bunch of control, AoE, and escape options that the warrior doesn't get... and I can do it all from 6 squares away! Stamina use can be harsh... but you start with the stamina regeneration skill, so as long as you throw a couple of levels into that, it's manageable. Running out of arrows is a problem, but it's just one turn to switch over to my sling. So far nothing's managed to outlast both a full quiver and a full sling shot pouch.
I suspect that I'm about to hit some kind of wall shortly, but it's been clear sailing thus far.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on March 14, 2017, 09:36:13 am
Post by: AlStar on March 15, 2017, 11:33:18 pm
Went back to possessor - decided to get possess up all the way up to level 7, and I've now got both The Dreaming One (honestly rather underwhelming), and, just now, Wrathroot (who, if nothing else, should prove to be a great tank at a massive 1239 HP) as bodies in my stable. I'm now looking forward to opening chests, since they'll now give me both an item and potentially a powerful ally/form.
Post by: Aoi on March 16, 2017, 12:10:03 am
It helps to add the taunt mechanism and take randbosses a bit unseriously. "You're a tiny, tiny potato"
What? Did the guys who made SanctuaryRPG start working on TE4?
Post by: Frumple on March 16, 2017, 12:26:15 am
... though yeah, never leave the graves undisturbed unless you're farcically overpowered. Trying to take the boss with a junkload of classed undead pouring in behind you is like an early game room of death, except probably less survivable, ha.
Post by: AlStar on March 16, 2017, 12:39:40 am
I usually hit it around level seventeen or so.I was only level 15 at the time, so that much less powerful (although I think I may have gotten unlucky - reading some comments, it seems like the main boss usually isn't that big a deal, and I really should've died to the hordes of high-level undead at my back). I think my undoing was focusing on the minor undead that spawned around me instead of the boss, who was hitting me with rather nasty spells.
There seems to be a fair number of "gotchas" in ToME - the game seems entirely happy to dump you in places where you have no business being, and virtually the only defense is knowing (either through dying or wiki-reading) that you shouldn't go there.
Post by: Frumple on March 16, 2017, 01:00:06 am
Though yeah, if you were fighting the minion undead in the main chamber you were basically committing suicide. Dealing with them first is workable (usually a decent idea, even) if you can break line of fire with the boss by ducking into one or the side rooms, but trying to do it while in plain sight of the necromancer is just asking for a bucketload of arcane death to be dropped on you, heh. If you're stuck fighting in there you pretty much have to blitz the boss down if you're going to survive, at least if you're not silly overpowered for one reason or another.
Post by: IcyTea31 on March 16, 2017, 01:08:45 am
Post by: Frumple on March 16, 2017, 01:12:26 am
Post by: IcyTea31 on March 16, 2017, 01:15:23 am
Quote
Huh. Guess that strategy no longer works, then.
- All zones now update their base level each time the player enters
Post by: ChairmanPoo on March 16, 2017, 01:50:15 am
It helps to add the taunt mechanism and take randbosses a bit unseriously. "You're a tiny, tiny potato"
What? Did the guys who made SanctuaryRPG start working on TE4?
It's an add-on. Look for Verbose Enemies
Post by: Darkmere on March 16, 2017, 02:37:23 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on March 16, 2017, 04:16:46 am
I dont want to go antimagic though. I'm aware this is a handicap, but...
Post by: Frumple on March 16, 2017, 07:39:50 am
Post by: AlStar on March 17, 2017, 07:27:46 pm
Eh... there isn't, really. Just about everything in the game like that has pretty clear warnings (zone entry feelings, vault warnings, popups, etc.), though it's entirely willing to let you go ahead and bumrush a gaggle of ancient wyrms if you're going to insist on it.While I'll go ahead and agree with you in general (now that I've played a number of additional characters) - I think that quests, at least, don't give enough warnings. Before, I was complaining about the graveyard quest. I'll now throw in the anti-magic town's arena quest - I lost a very promising character when that quest happily matched me up against +5 level ... then +10... then+15 level enemies. The quest giver, unless I totally skimmed over it, never mentions the fact that a character "only" in their teens is almost certainly dead meat.
Post by: Oneir on March 18, 2017, 09:59:02 am
Eh... there isn't, really. Just about everything in the game like that has pretty clear warnings (zone entry feelings, vault warnings, popups, etc.), though it's entirely willing to let you go ahead and bumrush a gaggle of ancient wyrms if you're going to insist on it.While I'll go ahead and agree with you in general (now that I've played a number of additional characters) - I think that quests, at least, don't give enough warnings. Before, I was complaining about the graveyard quest. I'll now throw in the anti-magic town's arena quest - I lost a very promising character when that quest happily matched me up against +5 level ... then +10... then+15 level enemies. The quest giver, unless I totally skimmed over it, never mentions the fact that a character "only" in their teens is almost certainly dead meat.
Nah, it's worse than that. The antmagic quest does have a minimum level, but it's usually a bad idea to do it as soon as you're able -- the mobs are fixed, and have a lot of really awful abilities. That's the thing I want an add-on for -- warnings based on the zone's spawn list and your class. It's like challenge ratings in D&D: saying the flying monster with stun beams is an appropriate challenge for level X characters means nothing if those characters don't have ranged attacks and a way to deal with stun. The minimum levels are good for knowing if you're guaranteed to be outleveled (mobs will spawn from that minimum level to some maximum level, adjusted by rank (?) and chests / vaults)...but do nothing to prepare you for the truly nasty things in the level.
That's not quite enough to require the wiki, if you're good at roguelikes and exploring them (I'm not, and ToME has enough of a learning curve even just for the engine for that to be difficult), but you need to work out how to build appropriate defenses and escapes first...and doing that really well usually requires a guide. :T
Post by: DeKaFu on April 11, 2017, 11:31:08 pm
Having bought it on Steam, this is my first time with the DLCs and also my first time playing online (despite having hundreds of hours and a couple wins under my belt from before I had an account). Decided to start over from scratch, since I actually find the unlock system pretty fun.
Couple things. Is it just me or is the server connection rather flaky? Some days I can't connect to my profile no matter what I do, and even when I do it seems to drop out and reconnect at random. I don't have a single character without the "may have been played while not online" stamp on them as a result.
Speaking of characters in the vault, the updating on that seems pretty erratic too... I have two characters so far who perma-died ages ago and are still showing up as alive and in-progress on my account. The save files are gone, as far as I know, so is there any way to update them or are they just kinda quasi-immortal now?
Finally... I was having a lot of fun trying out a Doombringer for the first time, but then discovered that the graphical effect for the Flame of Urh'rok sustain is totally buggered... :/ Apparently it's a known issue that's being worked on (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=47429&sid=d065780f031a9b1dbf35aa97ed5bf390), but it was disappointing enough that I ended up shelving the character pending it getting fixed. Biggest thing annoying me is that I don't even know how it's supposed to look... Does anyone have a screenshot or description, at least? I want to know what I'm missing out on, here. :P
Post by: Arcvasti on April 11, 2017, 11:36:54 pm
Couple things. Is it just me or is the server connection rather flaky? Some days I can't connect to my profile no matter what I do, and even when I do it seems to drop out and reconnect at random. I don't have a single character without the "may have been played while not online" stamp on them as a result.
Its NOT just you. Apparently, the rather large influx of people since 1.5 came out are too much for the old servers.
Finally... I was having a lot of fun trying out a Doombringer for the first time, but then discovered that the graphical effect for the Flame of Urh'rok sustain is totally buggered... :/ Apparently it's a known issue that's being worked on (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=47429&sid=d065780f031a9b1dbf35aa97ed5bf390), but it was disappointing enough that I ended up shelving the character pending it getting fixed. Biggest thing annoying me is that I don't even know how it's supposed to look... Does anyone have a screenshot or description, at least? I want to know what I'm missing out on, here. :P
I THINK it looked kind of like flamey wings? Most enemies with Flame of Urh'rok also have Bone Shield, which tends to occlude what lies beneath.
Post by: Darkmere on April 12, 2017, 01:11:40 am
It's been so long since I played a doombringer I barely remember what the effect was. I think it was red flames behind your character model.
Post by: Frumple on April 12, 2017, 06:06:31 am
Post by: martinuzz on April 12, 2017, 07:15:51 am
About one out of 20 playthroughs, I am having much fun, for most classes are really unique and well thought out.
The other 19 playthroughs though end in frustration, and me ragequitting at the Eidolon after losing more than one life before getting to level 30.
The mechanics for OOD monsters are really, really bad design. I don't mind losing. Losing is fun, right. But not to completely random, unavoidable, unescapable OOD mobs somewhere in between char level 10-20, forcing me to do the same old, same old, boring (cause not much
I mean don't get me wrong, I have a few wins under my belt, most unlocks done. But from all race / class combinations, I have yet to see the majority's late game.
I just can't bring myself to play the same combination at low levels over and over again. Too boring. Makes me shelf the game for a year or more after a while.
Which saddens me, because I do want to play mid to late game, which is where this game really starts to shine.
Post by: DeKaFu on April 12, 2017, 08:23:50 am
Don't let 'waiting for it to get fixed' keep you from your character too long, if you were otherwise enjoying the playthrough. Half a decade on and I'm still waiting for that 'Can't cancel buffs in the old UI mode' bug to get fixed :(
Well, it's not that I'm that broken up about not having the effect, it's just that having your character permanently mostly-hidden behind a big red square is actually shockingly ugly to look at. :P
It seems that the only way to disable it is to disable ALL the OpenGL effects, and I like having the rest of those... If nothing happens in the next bugfix release or two, though, I guess I'll probably relent.
Meanwhile, I'm trying an Anorithil right now, which I... never actually tried before, due to the overcomplicated resource management headache. Now that it's up and running and can regen negative energy passively, though, it's surprisingly fun. I'm quite enjoying the "walk into a room and watch everything die before you even use a skill" deal they have going on.
Sustain that fires attacks at nearby enemies whenever you crit + sustain that fires attacks at nearby enemies every turn and can crit + passive that increases your crit rate by 20% = very hands-off murder. I suspect it'll fall off in effectiveness once I hit the mid-late-game, but for now it's pretty hilarious. :P
Post by: AlStar on April 12, 2017, 10:33:51 am
Biggest 'whoops' so far was opening the door to the "Death Room" - although I didn't get fragged immediately, I also hadn't completely cleared the armory and still needed to kill the boss and grab the plot item. So I'd just finished working my way through a solid mass of orcs, doing well, just about to start looting when... Wham! Dead.
Scroll up to see that I was incinerated by dragonfire. Well, shit - I still need to get the plot item. So I resurrect, carefully work my way through, manage to make it to the vault where the item is, grab it, hit the teleportation rod... and Wham! I'm blinded and burning. It doesn't quite kill me instantly, and so I'm running behind pillars, just trying to stay out of the line of fire (which is hard when you can't see where the fire's coming from!), using all my talents and items, hoping that the teleport will pop before I'm incinerated.
Long story short: it did not. Room of Death - not even once. Would not recommend.
Post by: martinuzz on April 12, 2017, 11:06:46 am
Post by: beorn080 on April 12, 2017, 02:58:56 pm
I know the ooze tree, I think, has an regen on heal passive that is useful but not very strong compared to a good infusion.I could half swear there's actually an addon that fixes that. Don't actually know, since despite having used only the old UI pretty much since the instant there was a new one, I've never cared enough about buff cancelling to check, but I think I saw or two directed towards fixing that at some point. Might be worth it to check if you give much of a damn about the feature, instead of regularly forget it even exists.
I forget why, off-hand, but I'm sure there's reason to cancel buffs sometimes. Something like you've got a weak regeneration effect and need to cancel it to activate the stronger one, something like that.
And I'm still surprised people use the new UI over the old one. Different strokes, I guess, but I find the new one cluttered and confusing. I'm grateful the old one still exists as an option, though, plenty of developers don't show that courtesy.
Post by: martinuzz on April 12, 2017, 05:02:14 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on April 12, 2017, 05:30:52 pm
Post by: Oneir on April 13, 2017, 07:33:38 am
I'm having a hard time figuring out early posessors. Advice?I tried for a bit, then decided to mindstar wyrmic while the bugs settled down. The most straightforward advice I've seen is Psychic Disruption (the one-handed + mindstar sustain) is supposed to be really, really good. Other than that, there're these two threads with minimal, scattered advice: "Basic Possessor Questions" (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=47364), "Possessor - thoughts and question I still have at lvl 50" (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=47596).
It sounds like cornac is really good, but there's some division over whether (and when) it's worth putting a cat point into possession to nab bosses. Also I suspect possessor is going to get conflicting advice more than most classes because of the normal/insane split in players. Not surprisingly, a difficulty that tosses tons of extra classes on everything you fight makes the body-snatched class way better.
EDIT: One thing I'm trying to work out for myself are which creature types it's worth learning. Humanoids are a no-brainer, but it seems like a really limited resource.
Post by: Frumple on April 13, 2017, 11:51:08 am
Post by: Oneir on April 19, 2017, 05:27:59 pm
Forget exactly how that interacts with typing, but obvious goals are dragons, horrors, or undead. On top of humanoid that covers most of the nastier stuff in the game.Yeah, that tracks. I decided to try possessor on nightmare, since winning with a mindstar wyrmic was painfully boring at the end. (by the time you get over early-/mid-game hurdles and get some decent mindstars you can bump attack almost everything, and literally swallow everything else whole.) (My main regret is not eating the final bosses, because Swallow is an A+ slapstick talent.) I've only cleared trollmire and a floor of Gloom (with some brief side-tracking to possess all three of the gladiators in Derth), and I think I need to back track.
Bodies feel really squishy, and I'm scared of getting caught in one when it pops. I grabbed the Body Snatcher tree with my cornac cat point, so at least I can throw puppets at things when they're nearly dead. So far roughly half of them have run away from whatever's menacing me, though. I think I need to spread out my weapon skills more because I feel like I have nothing to do with psi. Maybe things pick up once I get to Full Control...?
Post by: Arcvasti on April 20, 2017, 02:23:43 pm
The second thing, if you still feel the urge to play them, is that dying while in a form DOES NOT PUT ASSUME FORM ON CD. Never end assume form if you feel like you're in danger: Just let the form die and then hop into another one immediately afterwards. This is why it can pay to keep a couple forms around that are only good for tanking, so you can wait out the "Died in a form" debuff.
Post by: Oneir on April 20, 2017, 05:24:07 pm
The first thing you need to realize about Possessors is that they feel terrible to play.Oh, good. Sort of like how Stone Wardens are stupidly tanky, but you're literally plodding around everywhere? Or worse/better than that?
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The second thing, if you still feel the urge to play them, is that dying while in a form DOES NOT PUT ASSUME FORM ON CD. Never end assume form if you feel like you're in danger: Just let the form die and then hop into another one immediately afterwards. This is why it can pay to keep a couple forms around that are only good for tanking, so you can wait out the "Died in a form" debuff.Oh! That's a really solid tip.
Post by: Arcvasti on April 22, 2017, 12:13:54 pm
The first thing you need to realize about Possessors is that they feel terrible to play.Oh, good. Sort of like how Stone Wardens are stupidly tanky, but you're literally plodding around everywhere? Or worse/better than that?
The "Feeling terrible to play" part stems from a couple things:
1: They have Solipsism, but unlike actual Solipsists, their ability costs aren't designed around it[Some of them have 40-50 point costs] and no healing in forms has big antisynergy with regaining Psi via high regen[Since you'd only be getting ~50% effect from any healing].
2: They have six unique trees, one of which is all about Possession, two of which start out locked and three weapon trees which are all mutually exclusive. So Possessors are easily the most class talent limited class, even more so then Anorithils[Who have ~6 class trees and two of them are basically useless]. Whereas Possessors have a grand total of three usable class trees early on[Counting Solipsism, which I probably shouldn't], increasing to four later on[Since Possession NEEDS a cat point, their unlocks are pretty limited as well]. Maybe high-level form talents and/or being an Ogre to use the 2H and 1H+Mindstar trees would make them feel less bleh, but I've never gotten to that point.
Post by: Oneir on April 22, 2017, 01:27:07 pm
The "Feeling terrible to play" part stems from a couple things[...]
Ah, OK. So just bad design, then. It's kind of a amazing to me that the only talent it has for regaining psi is cannibalism, which is not only locked, but also soft-blocks you from regaining psi when you're in a high-tier form.
I dumped my nightmare possessor after dying in the crystal caves hoping for any kind of decent shield rune -- nightmare makes the caves without a reliable ranged attack, healing, or movement options that much less of a joke, I guess. I felt pretty cool for a bit since I had Framewrough and a TK-wielded Kor's Fall -- so I could pretend to have ranged talents and at least soften things up. Amazingly limited, poorly-scaling damage isn't even enough to reliable take out equal-leveled bears before they can get to you. Eventually I think it was a Sun Paladin mold that killed me, since its durability was kind of absurd.
Post by: Frumple on April 22, 2017, 07:38:19 pm
Other thing to remember with solipsism is you can always just... not put more points in it. If the healing et al issues are a concern. If you're having resource troubles avoiding investment is usually a good idea, even, just so the damage conversion doesn't leave you dried out mid fight. Stuff points in it later on, when you have access to better/any psi regen kit. Or not and just roll with no more than the one point.
Post by: AlStar on April 22, 2017, 08:29:34 pm
I was playing a skeleton temporal warden, and doing just amazingly - hadn't died since very early in the game opening some vaults. Pretty much everything melted before me - I was never in any kind of real danger from the point where I went to the East. I even went and cleared out the room of death before heading to the final battle without any problems.
So I get all the way to the final battle... and just get my ass kicked repeatedly. I think my best run saw me take one of the two bosses down to ~50% HP.
I'm not even sure what I should've done differently, except perhaps grind all the way up to level 50 (I was level 46) - but I honestly don't see how that would've made that much of a difference - the main problems (that my hounds were instantly killed and my paradox level quickly soared to levels that made using any of my skills impossible) would've still been there.
I'm getting a Dungeons of Dredmor vibe - where anyone can get to the final boss, but that boss (or bosses, in this case) is balanced against the twink powergamers, so gods help you if you've got a suboptimal build.
Post by: Frumple on April 22, 2017, 09:23:51 pm
Not sure how your hounds would have been instakilled, though. Iirc your hound tree gives you the tools to guarantee like 6-8 turns or something uptime on at least one hound even if they get 100 to 0'd in one turn (vigor is like half the reason the things are one of the best defensive summons in the game), and half-ish that for the other two, which is enough time for you to get a good chunk of breathing room, usually.
Post by: Darkmere on April 22, 2017, 09:57:51 pm
Post by: AlStar on April 22, 2017, 10:10:33 pm
I haven't played much warden since the revamp. I remember my last version two-turn killed one of the endbosses though. 15 arrows to the face did the trick.Who knows - maybe that was my problem - I went with dual-wielding, not bows.
Not sure how your hounds would have been instakilled, though. Iirc your hound tree gives you the tools to guarantee like 6-8 turns or something uptime on at least one hound even if they get 100 to 0'd in one turn (vigor is like half the reason the things are one of the best defensive summons in the game), and half-ish that for the other two, which is enough time for you to get a good chunk of breathing room, usually.I'll admit to some exaggeration, but the main problem was all the AoE of the final bosses - so I'd have all three hounds, warp them into battle (for the +stats and +regen that gives them), then they'd all die 5 or 6 turns later, and then I'd only survive long enough to resummon a couple of them, who would die pretty much without accomplishing anything.
Here's the character, although it looks like some of the stats got mangled upon death:
https://te4.org/characters/216852/tome/e088abfc-f499-48a0-b5fc-83e291854b8a
I don't even know if I'm looking for advise - I'm just bitter that my character seemed crazy overpowered right up until that last room, when suddenly I was getting the crap kicked out of me - it was a humbling experience.
Post by: Frumple on April 23, 2017, 12:17:24 am
... though, yeah, now comes the unsolicited advise because it's approaching midnight and it's been a while since I babbled on the subject of a T4 build. Totally feel free to ignore it, I just got a bit caught up in mentioning a few things and ended up saying a lot more than I thought I was going to :V
Spoiler: Said advice, ignore as you please (click to show/hide)
Completely aside all that, I have to ask: Were you having much trouble hitting things? I usually have a pretty miserable time when I skimp on accuracy even if I'm doing a dex primary build, but I do occasionally hear someone saying they bullied through without talent or much kit investment. Think I'm usually a good 15-20 effective points over yours with late game accuracy reliant critters, so whether you managed well enough without would be nice to hear.
Post by: AlStar on April 23, 2017, 08:42:15 am
I completely blanked on what to get for my second prestige point. It was triggering off the lightning damage I was getting from my gloves and/or the Spellsword, but that really wasn't optimal... I somehow thought I had more elemental damage coming in.
Quote
Sitting on that 60% global slow on-melee is kinda' painful to look at, though, I won't lie, heh.What was sitting in my inventory that could've done that? That's a major 'whoops' - slowing them down could've made the difference.
As far as accuracy goes, I had absolutely no problems up till the last bosses, but their stats were high enough that I was noticeably missing against them.
Post by: Frumple on April 23, 2017, 12:24:36 pm
And yeah, it's sometimes kinda' hard to wrap your head around the runes, especially for a skeleton warden that can roll with vigilance and resilient bones, heh. Movement is pretty much always highly desired, though, and free-ish versions (CPD, mostly) do indeed help with paradox. Usually nice to have other cooldowns to use, anyway. Plain PD's actually pretty nasty in the end game, too, particularly for wardens who have native kit to deal with a lot of the downsides to the things (plus the stuff in spacetime weaving that dings off teleports in general). Wardens are serious contenders for on-teleport stacking, really, if you can fit some in the kit.
Definitely could have made more use of some other prodigy, though, aye. Even the humble temporal form probably would have done you good -- iirc the anomalies it gets access to still drop your paradox like normal ones. Want to say it's even got a really nice synergy with speed control... pretty sure they're not on a shared cooldown, which means you can pop time stop and then shotgun an anomaly or three to bring your paradox back down a bit. And with stuff like that, it's pretty good to remember 100% damage mitigation doesn't necessarily mean you can't do stuff like continue to drop debuffs or whathaveyou, ehehe. Buncha' other ones work pretty well, too. Surge isn't the worst, exactly, particularly with the kit you had, but there certainly were betters ones, heh.
Post by: Arcvasti on April 23, 2017, 11:30:10 pm
The key to being good with Temporal Wardens is realizing how good Phase Door runes are. Uncontrolled Phase Door is an absolutely TERRIBLE escape mechanism, even on a Skeleton who lacks movement infusions. But, especially as they become higher level, they grant you a very large out of phase buff that increases resist all and probably some other things. This is good on anyone, but ESPECIALLY on Temporal Wardens. This is because out of phase buffs are refreshed whenever a new one is added, instead of being overwritten. And Temporal Wardens have the Threaded Combat tree, which lets them get a small out of phase buff each time they teleport. So if you play your cards right, its quite possible to have 60-70% resist all up pretty much constantly.
As for prodigies... The first thing to keep in mind is that its never a bad idea to stockpile +stat gear to get abilities that are useful, but have stat requirements that don't match your class. Its harder without Heroism Infusions, but it should still be quite possible to qualify for Dex or Cun prodigies.
Prodigies that I'd recommend for skelewarden:
Windblade is good: It does good damage in a nice aoe and disarms to boot.
There's also Precise Shot or something long those lines, which does good damage and also probably stuns?
Cauterize keeps you from dying, which makes it the best prodigy.
Arcane Might is very good on magic/melee classes like TW, take it to get more damage
Below this point are prodigies that I know less about, but are still good:
Draconic Body is OK, but worse then Cauterize.
Temporal Form is quite good... on Paradox Mage. For TW, its only so-so. The biggest draw is being able to lower resists in an aoe with a cooldown of zero, although the respen and stun immunity are non-trivial.
Draconic Will let's you stop caring about status effects... for five whole turns. Its probably stupid overpowered if you have cooldown mitigating stuff like Stone Wall, but I dunno how good it'd be on TW.
Superpower might be worth considering, since Willpower and Paradox get along nicely, but I think Arcane Might is better for TW since they care a bit more about spellpower then mindpower.
Post by: Thexor on April 24, 2017, 12:46:59 am
First: you did much better at immunities than I did, for sure. That said, especially for a Skeleton, I'm a little worried about your lack of silence immunity. On any other race, I strongly recommend a wild infusion with mental cure to get rid of pesky silence effects, since you can't use (magical) teleports as condition removal when silenced. As a skeleton, wild infusions aren't an option, and since runes count as spells as well you have no reliable way to remove silence. I don't think this mattered in the final fight, and reviewing my character I'd failed to follow my own advice (no silence immunity and the wrong kind of wild infusion!), but still.
I disagree with not taking Threaded Combat, though that's somewhat your choice. I really disagree with ignoring bow combat entirely, though. Temporal Wardens are at their best when combining both bow and melee combat; you don't need a lot of points invested, and it makes a world of difference when you can drop back and plaster an enemy from range. Also helps a ton with survivability, since you're able to back off and deal damage from range if pressured.
I personally think Time Dilation is the most broken skill in Tome4 right now, especially since at 4 or 5 points it gets an extra turn of duration, making it trivial to keep up +54% global speed at all times. Then again, I've heard a lot of other people who hate the skill, so maybe I'm an oddity here.
I also really recommend unlocking Stasis if you have a spare category point. Time Shield is a huge survivability boost, and a point or two in Spacetime Stability can help keep paradox under control a little. This goes double since you aren't using arrows at all and thus don't have Arrow Threading for paradox management!
No comment on Hounds; I didn't unlock them in my playthrough. I've heard good things about them, though, so it certainly seems viable!
You've almost completely ignored Spacetime Weaving, which is crazy IMO. Dimension Shift is probably the best part of playing TW; it removes conditions whenever you teleport. Having at least one point here is mandatory, and with the recent nerfs I recommend a few more. Having an extra couple of points in Dimension Step for the added range is a nice luxury as well.
I personally didn't take Fate Weaving on my TW, but I've used it and loved it on a Paradox Mage, so no other feedback there (though I would suggest investing a bit more into Spin Fate and Fateweaver to increase the benefits of each spin).
Arcane Might is a great prodigy for TW. Elemental Surge confused me at first until I noticed the Spellblade; assuming you were hitting for enough damage to trigger Surge with only a 30% conversion, it looks like a good prodigy. I might suggest taking only one of those two, and getting Cauterize as well, which I consider an absolute god-send for survivability; having two prodigies for damage and none for defense seems counter-intuitive to me.
No comments on gear, mostly because I'm too lazy to dig through your inventory and evaluate items! I will say that you look to have better equipment than I did; your resists and HP are very similar (minus your Spellshock debuff), and your melee damage at the very least is considerably better. :-[
Statwise... there's something weird here, and it might just be the Vault being screwy with stats, but my damage seems a lot higher. Our spellpowers are very similar, and yet I've got a lot more damage listed on several skills. Like, Weapon Folding; I've got 2/5 with a claimed +73 damage per hit, while you've got 5/5 yet only a claimed +27 damage per hit. Likewise, my Blade Shear at 1/5 deals a 227 damage cone, while yours at 3/5 only does 66. I do have slightly higher spellpower, but not that much (79 versus 71). Might just be a bunch of +temporal damage% gear I've got; the Vault lists my offensive damage boost as a simple 29% All, and yet I've got lots of gear with +temporal damage%, so maybe the vault just doesn't properly display damage modifiers for specific elements.
Can't really comment on the final fight, since I only have the last turn in your vault entry. It looks like you had a lot of trouble dealing with adds, though - I can see at least a Forge Giant (which killed you), a Daelach, and an Umber Hulk in the last turn's logs alone, plus both Elendar and Argoniel. Temporal Warden is a fun class, because depending on your mobility and damage, you're totally capable of either closing the portals, or killing the bosses before the portals become a problem. Remember to start with Elendar once the killing begins; the Archmage is far more fragile, and his main defensive tool is teleporting away, which you can easily thwart with your superior teleports. Argoniel is far more durable and also less damaging; I usually try to let Aeryn tank him while I handle the damage dealer!
All things considered: it's not the way I'd build a TW, skill-wise. I don't know if the build was responsible for your damage being lower, or if there's something else you could've done in the final fight to improve damage potential. TW can deal a ridiculous amount of damage per turn, and I'd normally recommend simply killing the bosses before the adds overwhelm you.
Post by: AlStar on April 24, 2017, 08:55:18 am
All things considered: it's not the way I'd build a TW, skill-wise. I don't know if the build was responsible for your damage being lower, or if there's something else you could've done in the final fight to improve damage potential. TW can deal a ridiculous amount of damage per turn, and I'd normally recommend simply killing the bosses before the adds overwhelm you.The big thing to remember there is that the final life there was after I'd already died 3 or 4 other times, which resets all enemies HP and doesn't remove the adds. So I'd initially planned on taking out the bosses before the adds became a problem, since I'd read that they spawn fairly slowly, and your ally usually takes care of them - which was true... till he died somewhere on life 3. :P
Anyway, thanks for the input - next Warden will be much better prepared. Although for now I'm just trying out all the new classes that I unlocked with that character - currently trying out a Necromancer. (Side note - I love how the townsfolk go batshit if a single skeleton walks into town, trying to save the world, but that elf who's got the giant bone golem following him around? He's good people.)
Post by: DeKaFu on April 25, 2017, 10:30:55 pm
https://te4.org/characters/217958/tome/23d179d3-3cfd-43f0-88e5-b0bb40ef2ec8
Ogre Sunnypals are really strong, apparently! My first try at either. I died twice in the early game, but never really came close after that. The final battle dragged on a bit, but never even triggered Second Life.
I went for Legacy of the Naloren to try it out because I never have before, and I didn't have any regrets. Being able to one-hand the trident was nice. :P
Also, it probably wasn't entirely necessary but I decided to try to wipe out the penalty from Grisly Constitution by becoming as comically enormous as possible. It worked! Mighty Girdle+Giant Wraps + random boots of bigness + ICCTW! meant I was... very large*. The latter also meant I was able to use Tarrasca without penalty, which was a nice bonus.
Early game (and the rest of it) was definitely helped by finding the Rune of Reflection in one of the starting dungeons.
For now I'm going to keep her alive in case I want to dump some of her artifacts in the item vault, but after that, any thoughts on how I'd fare on some of the post-game challenges? I still need revenge on Atamathon for squishing my Skeleton Brawler winner in 2013.
* Come to think of it, I wonder what size the largest enemies in the game are? Curious if I was having Kaiju battles with the overpowered wyrms or if size category 8 is still just "watch your head in the dungeon" tier.
Post by: Frumple on April 25, 2017, 11:30:50 pm
Pretty sure if you were going to push the grisly negation to the fullest, you'd roll with a possessor and jack the body of some wyrm or another, then make sure the (few) kit slots that can hold size cat increases, does. Wouldn't actually help all too terribly much save for the racial, an artifact or two, and grapple checks, but it might be interesting anyway.
Though yeah, you were basically having kaiju battles. Ask not how you fit your head in places, just like you ask not how giant dragons do. Blame the halflings, maybe. They were doing some space-time dickery at some point or another. Between them and the elven planet cracking
Post by: DeKaFu on April 26, 2017, 12:33:27 am
Which was already enough to reduce the ogre penalties to zero, so I'm not sure there'd be much to be gained from possessor shenanigans. Not that I'd be opposed to having a character the size of a small hamlet, and using "You shall be my weapon" to throw dragons at dragons until they explode. Just, yeah, questionable practical benefit. :P
Post by: Frumple on April 26, 2017, 07:12:58 am
Still... adven build, possessor (though I think that would take an addon to get running... can't remember if possessor is adventurer enabled, and stone wardens mostly weren't for a long while), grapple trees+some unarmed stuff, blacksmith from embers (the t1 talent gives you a size cat boost at 5/5 effective), probably something or another I'm forgetting. Load up on +size kit to the full extent you're able and then go forth and suplex the
Post by: DeKaFu on April 28, 2017, 04:18:54 pm
Doing an Orc Sawbutcher for my first run, but I just unlocked Whitehooves and I'm looking forward to trying one of them out next. Just... really unsure which classes they'd have good synergy with, from their description, and can't find much discussion about them. Any suggestions?
Post by: Frumple on April 28, 2017, 06:00:42 pm
Conceptually there's some further synergy with any class/build that's trying to work itself around fairly high CD talents, since the racial stacking gives you something fairly useful to do in the interim if attacking or whatever isn't more useful. Pretty sure wyrmics (which you'd need an addon to play as so :V) or anyone with step up (or wardens, slayers... everything that can boost move or global speed, more or less) also gets a benefit, since there doesn't seem to be a limit on stacks per turn and lightning speed or whatever would let you hit max stacks pretty easily.
They're just sorta' generically decent, and tinkers (i.e. particularly in the embers campaign) mitigates quite a lot off the problems undead have. Undead orcs so far as class selection goes, more or less, though orcs have a bit more of a stat lean to their racials.
Post by: beorn080 on April 28, 2017, 08:52:29 pm
Post by: martinuzz on April 29, 2017, 11:11:09 am
It can vary somewhat between games of the same difficulty level as well though.
It's also why people argue that the Posessor class is best played on high difficulty levels, for it has more good bodies available.
Post by: Tiruin on April 29, 2017, 11:37:11 am
It's bee quite a time, and now I'm wondering if there was ever a log I can read for posterity when that happened on my tome profile.
>_>
<.<
I just want to get that Sun Paladin class already, never having done the...top of the boss tower with dead people after finishing all the everyquests on the mainland. And then I forget the names of things and substitute them with feelings instead. :I
Post by: beorn080 on April 29, 2017, 12:32:25 pm
Are you playing on higher difficulty than before? Each difficulty level comes with a higher rare mob spawn chance.No, I'm playing on normal difficulty. So far, at level 19, I've killed 40 elites, 31 rares, and 13 bosses. I dont ever recall that many rares last time I played, but that was a few versions ago.
It can vary somewhat between games of the same difficulty level as well though.
It's also why people argue that the Posessor class is best played on high difficulty levels, for it has more good bodies available.
Edit: there seems to be a bug in the interaction of disruption shield, other shields, and sustains, as half the time when I use disruption shield, I lose all my sustains and the shield, despite not having gained any mana or gotten hit.
Edit2: Nope, seems its going to zero mana. My bad.
Post by: martinuzz on April 29, 2017, 04:28:22 pm
Also, demonologist sustains do not always properly de-activate on rest / run. Killed two of my chars so far, suddenly finding themselves at 0 vim.
For now, I'll just have get used to manually de-activatem them.
Post by: martinuzz on April 30, 2017, 04:23:40 am
Post by: Frumple on April 30, 2017, 10:44:40 am
Prodigy wise, finishing off device mastery and getting swift hands might be interesting, so long as you're willing and able to leverage it. Though you'd get more out of that if you've been squirreling away artifacts over the course of the game. Habitually collect the things so regularly I sometimes forget other folks don't, heh. If you're willing to do a bit of grinding and haven't already qualified for it, cauterize could be good for a defensive measure. Just spam runes for a bit, maybe find something to set on fire a bunch (can't remember if hitting yourself qualifies for the damage needed, though). If you're really worried about stun, at least, you might even consider temporal form -- 10 turns of stun immunity on call isn't exactly terrible. Draconic will is also a thought on that front, though I don't quite remember if undead can qualify for it or not -- I think eating the sandworm heart works, but can't recall. Half the duration, but blanket immunity instead of stun and some other stuff you're not much worried about.
Class point wise... you'll at least want snap, from what you have available. Might consider getting the tier 3+4 throwing knife talents up and running, for that extra damage+disable. Definitely kind of a shame you haven't invested in stealth and probably don't have the points for it at this point -- it, particularly plus assassination, is pretty beastly once it's fully invested and your cunning's topped off. Quick check of the character vault shows that every roguelike insane rogue winner (all five of them, ha) since 1.5.0 had decent investment in at least stealth, and all but one in assassination, too... though one of them was cheating like goddamn and playing the area besides, now that I look at it.
Merch stuff, definitely pick up another weapon, or try for armor (/boots/cloak, particularly if you happen to decide to put some amount of points into stealth -- those are the two item slots that have much of a chance of rolling +stealth). Shantiz the imbablade is indeed something you can just kinda' offhand forever, but the swordbreaker at level 45 and looking at the endgame is just kinda' suicide. Even that voratun randart you have in your inventory would be doing you notably more good. One thing I'm definitely noticing you're missing, kit wise... if you can get some on-melee slow (preferably capped out at 60%, but even 30-45 would be great) in there somewhere, it would probably be pretty helpful. Thing's basically the god-stat for melee characters. You have a couple of amulets with 30 (and the 25% nature pen would be nice-ish since you have so much poison tree investment), and a ring you could probably swap the steel one you're wearing out with safely enough. Could probably stand to be swapping in your other light when you're actually fighting, if you're not already, now that I look at 'em.
'Bout all I can think of at this particular moment, though. Definitely would suggest taking a minute or five and eyeballing the insane rogue winners since 1.5.0 (since the rogue change came in), see what they're doing that you're not and all that. Conceptually you might consider asking over on the main T4 forum... there's definitely more regular insane players loitering around there that could potentially give good advice. Not sure if I'd blame you if you didn't, though, heh. Some of 'em are also kinda' jackasses, and you'd almost certainly catch flak for running an undead rogue in insane to begin with. Might get a good response, might just get a bit of abuse and nothing besides "play something else".
Post by: AlStar on April 30, 2017, 09:39:05 pm
https://te4.org/characters/216852/tome/a69ebf08-428e-432e-a4ae-3e942998aab3
Post by: Frumple on May 01, 2017, 08:05:28 am
As for snap, it is fairly expensive, but it's also kinda' ridiculous with higher investment (though if you went for the above, higher investment wouldn't really be something on the table. 4/5 is a full reset on 7 of any of your combat or cunning techniques, which effectively means you get two full rotations before having to wait on cooldowns, instead of just the one. Incidentally, while I totally hear you about the micro, swift hands + one of the second wind active body armors could help quite a bit with the costs, ehehe.
Prodigy wise, though... spine would do you. Considering the lower/lack of cooldown, it's possibly even better for a long fight. Buuuuut temporal form is upfront, blocks most of the same things, and gives you some non-trivial talent access on the side -- two sources of teleportation, an area pull, and a -res debuff to hit things with, mitigating some of that physpen concern you mentioned (and the damage conversion helps with that, anyway). Plus storm, which is less interesting but still might be a'ight AoE damage. You'd just have to pay attention to it, and the CD is actually meaningful, heh. Think I'd probably recommend spine anyway, just because it's passive, but it's possibly worth thinking about. Also fairly sure cauterize pings shields, though it bypasses resistances and whatnot, so it'd still be pretty fine for a shield heavy build.
Last bit, at th'mo, would definitely recommend evasion over light defense or skellie racial, regardless of whatever else you do. A few stat points and some defense isn't all that impressive at the point you're at, but four turns of an extra 30-ish % chance to avoid non-spells (that can be affected by snap, by the by, should you put points into it, which would double the effective duration) is nothing to sneeze at, and the defense boost isn't exactly inconsiderable, either. It's something to consider, though it's also yet another talent to keep track of, and a fairly expensive one to boot. At least has the decency to be instant use, ha.
E: Well, last bit except to note re: chat's talk on stat investment, the critical multiplier from shadowstrike + dance would most likely give you more damage than just about any strength investment you're capable of could, at this point. If you're looking primarily for more damage output. Crit multiplier is probably the best damage stat in the game, late game. Stat wise, I'd... probably recommend checking if any of the runes you're using or want to use scales off a stat you don't have maxed, then go for that one. Doesn't look like it, giving a check, but it's a thought.
E2: Ah, and amusing side note re: trapping: There's actually an insane or madness, iirc, rogue win in a pre-1.5.0 build that went with heavy trapping and staff use, of all things. Basically took shadowstrike and gravitic trap and then did horrible things to everything. It was pretty hilarious, heh.
Post by: DeKaFu on May 02, 2017, 12:27:54 pm
Definitely felt invincible for most of the game past the very start. Not sure if that's because Sawbutchers are crazy good or the campaign was just easier.
Enjoyed the writing quite a bit. A lot more tied-together and plot-heavy than the main campaign, which was awesome, though we'll see if that makes it more or less fun to do multiple runs of.
My one disappointment was not getting to finish the Pocket of Distorted Time due to it throwing up a LUA error as soon as I hit the second floor. :-\ (I killed the process for fear of damaging my save). Well, that and never finding the Lightning Coil recipe to make my steam-powered armor.
Spoilery question about the Ring of Lost Love:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also pretty sure I never had the opportunity to unlock the third race... is it missable/luck-based?
Planning a Whitehoof next, debating whether to try a Gunslinger or Arcane Blade (never used either). My hand pain's been flaring up like crazy though, so I might start cutting back my playtime for a while...
Post by: ChairmanPoo on May 02, 2017, 12:52:31 pm
I bound him, for the record.
Post by: Darkmere on May 02, 2017, 01:32:46 pm
Yetis are unlocked by getting all 4 Cat points.
Spoiler: further clarification (click to show/hide)
Honestly, while the plot was slightly less heavy-handed than I expected, I'm still not sympathetic to the orcs in general, so I don't enjoy EoR as much as I would if the writing was a little better in both campaigns. But that's me.
Post by: Frumple on May 02, 2017, 03:17:38 pm
Whitehoof try, I'd probably recommend the AB. Gunslingers manage, and I'm not sure if the toss/throw talent bug (it does/did the old beyond the flesh thing, proccing every time you move, regardless of how fast you're moving, which breaks the game over its knee) has been fixed yet or not, but they're somewhat undertuned compared to the other two steam classes without that bug, whereas ABs have long been one of the beastier classes and the arcane combat tweaks that came in a bit back made 'em less fiddly to play. Point or three into flame or lightning (preferably flame) will carry you through the early game, stone and arcane combat outputs faintly disgusting amounts of damage late, even after multiple nerfs. Bit of defense investment and you're golden.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on May 02, 2017, 04:20:41 pm
EoR feels better for a few plays, but RNG WILL conspire to keep you from getting that one component for the thing you want. Every time.
Yetis are unlocked by getting all 4 Cat points.Spoiler: further clarification (click to show/hide)
Honestly, while the plot was slightly less heavy-handed than I expected, I'm still not sympathetic to the orcs in general, so I don't enjoy EoR as much as I would if the writing was a little better in both campaigns. But that's me.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: DeKaFu on May 02, 2017, 05:03:30 pm
EoR feels better for a few plays, but RNG WILL conspire to keep you from getting that one component for the thing you want. Every time.
Yetis are unlocked by getting all 4 Cat points.Spoiler: further clarification (click to show/hide)
Honestly, while the plot was slightly less heavy-handed than I expected, I'm still not sympathetic to the orcs in general, so I don't enjoy EoR as much as I would if the writing was a little better in both campaigns. But that's me.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Darkmere on May 02, 2017, 06:51:15 pm
Post by: Frumple on May 02, 2017, 07:23:29 pm
Spoiler: Spoiler, I guess, but very early and barely meaningful (click to show/hide)
Post by: Oneir on May 02, 2017, 08:50:56 pm
Re: controllerPretty sure that's how it goes, anyway. Something close to it, regardless.Spoiler: Spoiler, I guess, but very early and barely meaningful (click to show/hide)
Yeah, that's it. It's just rare enough to take a lot of restarts, though.
Post by: Frumple on May 03, 2017, 09:34:48 am
... and a 70% chance to be replaced by a random artifact :P
Chance is a bit less than one in three, basically. I'd probably recommend just editing the unlock in, heh. "race_yeti = true" sans quotes, in your allow_build.profile. Unlock addon thing Mind, despite unlocking everything legitimately at some point or another, I recommend that for any unlock you don't feel like bothering with/all of them. Pretty sure a few classes I hit the unlock requirements for with the class the requirements unlocked :V
Post by: beorn080 on May 03, 2017, 03:53:43 pm
Post by: BurnedToast on May 11, 2017, 10:48:56 pm
It's advertised as "no grind", but there is a grind - the "newbie" dungeon grind. I discovered two things early on - I can do the starter dungeon for other races (except dwarves for some reason) and the extra exp/loot helps a LOT with starting the "real" game.
But it's not fun.... at all. It's pretty much the definition of mindless grind, I'd guess I would have something like a 95%+ success rate clearing the first 6 newbie dungeons - the only thing that ever kills me is random generated enemies who end up 10x stronger than the bosses, and even then only if I'm so bored grinding it out I just try to mindlessly bump them to death without realizing they are hard.
However, I feel like I can't skip them because there's a limited amount of exp and loot in the game (due to "no grinding") so if I don't do them, it makes everything that much harder. So it ends up that the majority of my playtime is just.... grinding out newbie dungeons again and it's starting to make me not want to play anymore.
It's gotten to the point where I'm honestly considering clearing them out with each class, backing up my saves, then just savescumming back to it when I die because it's just so boring and so time consuming.
....I guess I should just play on
Post by: Arcvasti on May 11, 2017, 11:20:45 pm
....I guess I should just play ontraining wheelsadventurer mode but I can't help but feel like that's taking something away from what makes roguelikes great.
Honestly, Adventurer Mode is basically required to play ToME and keep your sanity. While the game is usually pretty fair, it sometimes just spawns an absolutely ridiculous enemy that can kill you 1-2 turns after seeing it. I always play on Adventurer Mode, although that reflex iss back when enemies could get the talent that makes them invisible AND explodes for huge AOE damage when it runs out. I have memories of literally dying while autoexploring without getting a single turn to react.
As for the starting dungeon grind... Yeah, that's honestly the most annoying part of the game. However, if your level is too high for a given area, it gives you the option to just skip to the last level. Since the boss at the end has by far the majority of xp and loot from the dungeon, you really don't need to do the boring first couple floors. There IS also a way to grind in the very late game, if you still haven't reached level 50 or REALLY want a particular artifact before entering the final dungeon.
Post by: BurnedToast on May 11, 2017, 11:56:24 pm
As for the starting dungeon grind... Yeah, that's honestly the most annoying part of the game. However, if your level is too high for a given area, it gives you the option to just skip to the last level. Since the boss at the end has by far the majority of xp and loot from the dungeon, you really don't need to do the boring first couple floors. There IS also a way to grind in the very late game, if you still haven't reached level 50 or REALLY want a particular artifact before entering the final dungeon.
I thought about that, but I've gotten some really good stuff as random drops from random mobs. I once found an axe off some random wolf on level 1 of heart of gloom (which I was overleveled enough to skip) that I used all the way to my death at level (low) 20-something because it was just so good.
In fact I feel like the chance for random good items from enemies is actually often better than the boss' loot - they all seem to share the same drop pool of like 10 - 12 artifacts (..yellow is artifact, right?) most of which are.... not so great.
So I really hate skipping them, but maybe I should anyway just to keep myself from getting too annoyed with the game.
Post by: Darkmere on May 12, 2017, 12:12:04 am
The game is balanced for Normal/adventurer. The extra lives are there specifically because there can be some outliers in creature threat. If you're new, play on that. Pride is irrelevant compared to ragequitting.
Post by: Frumple on May 12, 2017, 07:51:32 am
So far as the early game stuff goes, skipping is totally fine. The only thing of the tier one dungeons I'd recommend as required would be trollmire, kor'pul, and the crystal caves (and I want to say heart if you're a dwarf?), to get their backup guardians to spawn later on.
Still, if it's still too much (and I totes wouldn't blame you if it is), you might check out addons. Know there's some kind of quick tome thing, and I think there's a handful of others aimed at squelching some of that early game tour. Pretty regularly play the campaign uncapper, ferex, which accelerates XP gain enough you can comfortably skip about half the t1s (and probably a t2 or two) if you don't want to bother with them.
Also find ember's campaign to be a fair bit less painful on that front. Helps that there's only 2-4 tier one dungeons (depending on what you consider dead cow land and the outpost) there, heh.
... and yeah, adventurer is fine. If you want the permadeath feel, you can always just tell the respawn critter to off you. It doesn't take something away, just gives you a bit more choice in whether you want to keep playing or not.
Post by: BurnedToast on May 17, 2017, 01:42:32 pm
The game is balanced for Normal/adventurer. The extra lives are there specifically because there can be some outliers in creature threat. If you're new, play on that. Pride is irrelevant compared to ragequitting.
I'm starting to notice this. I'm playing an archmage and I was walking along in the maze and got randomly silenced. Popped my shield rune and took a step, and an enemy rogue popped out of stealth and burned down my whole shield (+10% of my HP) in a single round.
Popped my wild infusion for the damage resist and tried to run, next round the rogue did 95% of my HP in a single hit - if I hadn't stacked +HP items (yay farming newbie dungeons....) I'd have been completely dead with nothing I could have done since the silence totally shut me down.
Fortunately silence wore off and I was able to phase door behind a wall and heal up (then lightning bolt the rogue to death).
Unfortunately, shortly after pretty much the exact the same thing happened but this time wild infusion was on cooldown so the rogue did too much damage and killed me. I had something like 60 - 80 bonus HP from items and it still took me from 100% - 0% in a single round while I was silenced. On normal difficulty!
This, *after* destroying the boss of the dungeon with minimal effort.
Post by: Darkmere on May 17, 2017, 02:19:59 pm
a) 95% of the time I could just spam spells and fireworks on everything, which was fun but
b) 4 times before going East I got 1-shotted by something from stealth. Different dungeons, different tiers. "something hits you for <large number>."
That's a big part of what pisses me off about stealth in this game, too. Enemy has it? Flawless, you get no warning unless you gimp the FUCK out of your build in a gamble that one stealth guy somewhere will fail his check and you spot him.
YOU though? Absolutely fucking useless. Even maxed out I never got a sneak attack on anything and was spotted the second I was in sight, if not sooner.
Post by: martinuzz on May 17, 2017, 02:20:26 pm
Yeah and that was likely just a normal mob. Ten there's also the small chance for a real OOD spawn. Like, finding a level 30 Duathleden in level 2 of a starting dungeon.The game is balanced for Normal/adventurer. The extra lives are there specifically because there can be some outliers in creature threat. If you're new, play on that. Pride is irrelevant compared to ragequitting.
I'm starting to notice this. I'm playing an archmage and I was walking along in the maze and got randomly silenced. Popped my shield rune and took a step, and an enemy rogue popped out of stealth and burned down my whole shield (+10% of my HP) in a single round.
Popped my wild infusion for the damage resist and tried to run, next round the rogue did 95% of my HP in a single hit - if I hadn't stacked +HP items (yay farming newbie dungeons....) I'd have been completely dead with nothing I could have done since the silence totally shut me down.
Fortunately silence wore off and I was able to phase door behind a wall and heal up (then lightning bolt the rogue to death).
Unfortunately, shortly after pretty much the exact the same thing happened but this time wild infusion was on cooldown so the rogue did too much damage and killed me. I had something like 60 - 80 bonus HP from items and it still took me from 100% - 0% in a single round while I was silenced. On normal difficulty!
This, *after* destroying the boss of the dungeon with minimal effort.
Post by: BurnedToast on June 04, 2017, 07:49:14 pm
Despite complaining earlier about the newbie zones, I kind of feel like the first half the game is the better half. Orc prides are too long, then after that highpeak just keep dragging on and on too... it was just a slow grind through endless boring orcs. Then finally the last bosses had way too much life and healed too much. The first one went down quick-ish, but while the other one couldn't really hurt me but he kept blinking away to heal so it was just this long, drawn out slap-fight.
The first half of the game might have been a little grindy, but it was all quick and to the point, like a roguelike should be, and while most the enemies were fodder I couldn't be too reckless. Dreadfel was a little on the long side but it would have been good as a final dungeon. After dredfel also felt like the point where the difficulty really dropped off too - I only died once after that, and it was due to accidentally bolting myself to death. The only thing that gave me much of any difficulty at all on the second island were orc mage-hunters (mana clash), and once I realized they had a unique sprite and had to be priority #1 they stopped being much of a problem.
After winning I think about how long it took and starting over with a different class and it's like.... meh. Not much motivation to replay it, despite the fact I like it and think it's pretty fun.
Post by: Frumple on June 04, 2017, 07:58:30 pm
... that said, the game's been shortening pretty consistently for a while now. The drawn out design is... not exactly surprising, considering the main dev and the pedigree, though. You may think roguelikes are supposed to be quick and to the point, but *bands don't agree with you at all and Pernangband/ToME2 was one of the worst culprits, heh. Well... *bands, just about every older roguelike period. This quick and to the point stuff is mostly pretty recent, honestly. Extremely practiced folks could sometimes belt through one in a few hours, but games that stretched over literal months were to a large extent what RLs were originally designed to be.
Post by: Ai Shizuka on June 25, 2017, 07:21:17 am
Just died with my first character: level 15 cornac doombringer on level 3 of Lake of Nur, killed by a blade horror. Normal/adventure.
Post by: Arcvasti on June 25, 2017, 12:31:18 pm
Random Advice:
-Be aware that opening chests/vaults/graves/orbs is basically telling the game that it has the right to screw you over with truly ridiculous enemies. It can also give you truly ridiculous items, but they're still risky if you don't have a good idea of what you're doing/building.
-Things with colored circles underneath them are dangerous. Right click on them to view which talents they have so you know what they're capable of.
-Get a bright brass lantern of health from the Derth tool shop. The extra health and light will make a big difference early on. Its also worth it to check out the Thalore town near Norgos' Lair/Heart of the Gloom for movement infusions, psychoportation torques and mindblast torques. All three of those are quite useful early on, although mindblast will peter off eventually.
-Don't bother with sun/poison/vision inscriptions at all, they're not very good, at least compared to some of the others. Invisibility is something I've never tried, but I've heard it doesn't hide you THAT well and reduces your damage by a lot.
Post by: Robsoie on April 20, 2018, 07:12:38 am
It's been a very long time i haven't played, so i decided to check what addons were available nowadays for the current version (1.5.5)
And discovered this jewel :
https://te4.org/games/addons/tome/adventure_party
It basically allows you to create a party , something rare in a roguelike, but after trying it's really very well done, you can manage every of your party members that level up with you, give them items/equip (so all those items you find may finally be of some use instead of transmogrify everything constantly), play as them any time and they will follow you/attack/use skill by themselves, you can revive party members
It's just fantastic.
(https://i.imgur.com/Hi2yFvzs.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/Hi2yFvz.jpg)
It may be unbalanced on lower difficulties of course but who cares, you can just play on higher difficulties if you want to have your party dying a lot anyways :D
Very recommended addon as it just make the game much more fun for me, and always being interested in party based rpg games it's a pure joy to have this possibility in a roguelike, especially when it's the party management is so well made.
May or may not be compatible with other addons , but i only play with it so i can't confirm as it plays without problem when used alone.
Post by: DeKaFu on May 17, 2018, 12:05:43 am
It's themed around eldritch tentacled things, and adds two new classes, two new races and a whole bunch of other assorted stuff. Similar format to the Ashes of Urh'rok DLC, in that it adds content to the main campaign, rather than the Orc one with its own separate campaign.
I already bought it and I'm really looking forward to trying it, but I probably won't be able to for a while. If anyone else has a chance to play with it, please post your impressions!
Post by: Shadowgandor on May 17, 2018, 01:43:38 am
I do feel it’s a bit lacking in burst pre-8, but I’m still figuring things out so take it with a grain of salt. This class seems amazing with Ogre though. Can’t wait to equip my staff once I can wield two handed weapons in one hand.
Post by: Darkmere on May 17, 2018, 04:45:31 am
WO seems to have two kinda-paths you can take, with a couple melee/mobillity trees and what look like ranged/pet trees. So far I've only tried the melee stuff, there's just not enough class points to spread around. However
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
along with
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
are probably my new favorite video game things of all time.
Post by: Robsoie on May 17, 2018, 10:59:21 am
But i probably had the game generated the 2 final bosses with the worst possible skills considering my characters as both were basically unkillable that i just gave up after losing several lives .
Despite i won the game several time alone on normal difficulty and once in nightmare it was incredible to see that with my party we were destroyed so easily by the bosses on this easy difficulty (the sun paladin probably exploded in only a couple of turns , first time i had her unable to stay alive for at least half of the fight ! ).
It's very likely unrelated to the addon, as up to that final bosses fight , easy difficulty was indeed easy, those bosses were probably generated with the worst possible skills combinaisons, unless they were buffed hugely since last time i played ToME4 ... years ago.
Felt like that time when i tried to fight Linaniil (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78614.msg5916112#msg5916112), thinking the dev didn't have that character that overly overpowered, how naive :D
Post by: Darkmere on May 20, 2018, 12:38:39 pm
And i get to a point around level 17 (the T2 dungeons) where the game basically says "no, you got to hell" and I get 1-shot. In multiple places that aren't the usual dangerous killers like Nur or the like, just rando spawns.
Is Nightmare the start of ultra-tedious optimal play like digging diagonally into every encounter or did I "just get unlucky" or what? There's got to be something, I was playing an antimagic wyrmic with 50+ lightning resist and Urkis still hit me for 120+ a turn... 3 slots were +40 hp or more, and I still got 1-shot by "something" from out of sight in old forest.
Post by: Frumple on May 21, 2018, 12:35:59 am
In a void I'd wager you were unlucky, basically. Maybe doing something weird vis a vis character build or itemization or somethin', I'unno.
Go more aggressive, mebbe'? I usually kill urkis/most-everything-in-the-west-except-sometimes-the-crypt without really giving a damn about resistances or HP stacking or whatev', personally, heh. Even on nightmare. Some of that's due to mods, but most of the sentiment is still applicable to vanilla. Can't be one-shot by something if you one-shot it first :V
... the out of sight thing is an issue, mind. High sight/light radius (or track, or something equivalent to it) is pretty high priority if you're going to be playing lazy. though OF's generally supposed to be lit up and not much attacks at >10 range so maybe make the window/resolution bigger so you can see everything you're supposed to be able to see?
Post by: Darkmere on May 21, 2018, 04:24:45 am
I refuse to believe I am the single unluckiest player in the game's history and get 1-shot on every character on a difficulty no one else has trouble with.
*ahem*
So I'm trying to learn possessors. After a few hours staring at the screen and drooling on myself.... they're actually a lot of fun. Like might be one of my new favorite classes fun. Can't decide what you want to play? Reach into your corpse library and play whatever you want! the real early game is a pain, though. Strongly considering trying to mind-wield bows next time I run across a mindslayer just to save wear and tear on my meatbags.
Post by: Il Palazzo on May 21, 2018, 04:42:40 am
the real early game is a pain, though.Just invest a couple levels or more in psionic disruption. Turns the early combat into a walk in a park.
Post by: DeKaFu on May 21, 2018, 09:24:05 am
It's nice having a bit of leeway to screw around and play how you like without completely ruining your chance of winning.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on May 21, 2018, 09:26:48 am
Post by: Robsoie on May 21, 2018, 10:03:28 am
Post by: Frumple on May 21, 2018, 10:45:54 am
I understand what you mean, but I found that specific example strange, as I don´t think light is canonically "good" in this setting.It... might have been previously, sorta'? Then it got fully opened back up to undead so...
Power wise I don't think there's really a "good" at all, exactly. Evil, largely yes (hate and vim), and neutral, sure (basically everything else), but not explicitly good. Equilibrium's anti-undead and some of it's anti-arcane but it's less "good" and more "murderous attempt to establish/maintain a monopoly".
Light flavored celestial stuff's arguably the most acceptable of arcane powers, maybe? Can't recall it being fingered much for the spellblaze, and it's not really in the west much at all so the whole genocide-the-magic-users thing isn't as applicable.
Post by: Darkmere on May 21, 2018, 11:47:25 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
to make sure no major factions exist at some point in the future. Whether that extends to the demons is anyone's guess.
Semi-related, has anyone managed to get the strange device on a dwarf or drem? I got one, but it was on an ogre so it shut down for me.
Post by: Frumple on May 21, 2018, 11:58:55 am
... everybody else is pretty rough though, aye.
Post by: DeKaFu on May 21, 2018, 12:05:35 pm
It's not so much defining "good" and "evil" in the setting as I just thematically don't like having glowy sun powers on my darkness-themed Necromancer (or whatever). Or if I think that particular character would likely look down on Sun Paladins and their ilk.
I know that's probably a weird way to play the game, but it has a strong and interesting setting so I can't help but roleplay just a tiny bit.
Post by: Frumple on May 21, 2018, 12:45:59 pm
Post by: Darkmere on May 21, 2018, 01:56:10 pm
I remember back when Ashes of Rage came out, the lore guy (Gray? grey? one of the color/colour/couloueragegrh spellings) said we'd finally get a look at the noble, misunderstood orcs and see they weren't really the mindless savages the West and sunwall made them out to be.
And then they slaughtered everyone and destroyed the sunwall.
Regardless... a few individual people here and there seem decent on the surface. Linaniil more or less tries to keep mages in line - but I guess living through the spellblaze and eating a piece of a god can give you some perspective. Aeryn will show up to help you save the world, though you could argue she kind of owes you for the whole exterminating four armies thing.
It IS telling that the most noble decision I can think of offhand is "maybe let's not kill every last woman and child" at the end of the orc campaign.
Post by: Frumple on May 21, 2018, 03:23:39 pm
Strictly speaking I don't think you have to even bust open the bridge or free the enslaved orcs; the campaign's win condition is straight south from the starting town and open as soon as you get out whatever your starting area is.
* I actually tend to just 'cause the map layout for it is kiiinda' annoying, heh.
Post by: Darkmere on May 21, 2018, 03:52:35 pm
It more bothered me that the lead-up to it was played off as "you need to see the other side of the story, things really don't be like that" and... sometimes things really DO be like that. There's not much noble about the orc campaign, you just kill your way through all your little kill targets until you've hit your kill quota. I felt like it was ... falsely advertised, I guess?
But again, the entire universe is full of omnicidal psychopaths so it's par for the course.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on May 31, 2018, 06:18:42 pm
Post by: Arcvasti on May 31, 2018, 06:32:33 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on May 31, 2018, 06:39:41 pm
I wish I had a drolem. But I never completed the "back again" part.
I'm pretty inconstant.
But this time it will be good, with my new Dwarf alchemist Zarathruster and his loyal glass golem
Post by: Darkmere on May 31, 2018, 08:47:08 pm
Don't be me, kids. it wasn't fun.
At least I got the unlock, I guess.
Post by: ZebioLizard2 on June 01, 2018, 02:11:06 pm
Post by: Darkmere on June 01, 2018, 08:54:13 pm
Trying to win normal mode on not adventure mode is.. quite difficult, not sure what I'm doing wrong when it comes to playstyle.
Link to character sheet?
Post by: ZebioLizard2 on June 02, 2018, 01:54:44 pm
Post by: Frumple on June 02, 2018, 06:28:08 pm
Post by: Putnam on June 03, 2018, 02:55:20 am
Make sure to keep track of your status effects, and always keep a physical wild infusion around.
Post by: Robsoie on June 03, 2018, 03:16:14 am
Some of them are instant use and so are no problem, but some require a turn, so in case you have 3 skills you automated but each require a turn for activation, it's 3 turns you give for free to an enemy.
And this can be rather lethal for your character when you have one of those random overpowered enemy appearing at range.
Post by: Putnam on June 03, 2018, 06:37:18 pm
Post by: Frumple on June 03, 2018, 06:43:28 pm
Post by: martinuzz on January 26, 2019, 06:01:38 am
Hadn't played for a year or so..
Finally won arena 60 mode.
About time.
Halfling Oozemancer ftw!
Post by: martinuzz on February 28, 2019, 12:32:41 pm
Forbidden Cults still on my wishlist.
And yay! Managed to win my first Nightmare mode.
https://te4.org/characters/1005/tome/988612d3-f032-4618-acc8-774061820a7d
Post by: Robsoie on September 30, 2019, 11:49:52 am
https://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2019/09/news/tales-majeyal-16-beta1-upon-you
there does not seem to be anything new, but out of the apparently very numerous bugfixes, from the changelog it looks like there's a lot of rebalancing/revision of most classes and monsters and AI rework , along some changes to existing dungeons.
Post by: Darkmere on October 04, 2019, 03:04:30 am
Post by: Robsoie on October 04, 2019, 09:35:33 am
What i noticed though now that i reached level 17 is that talents/skills seems to have more additional bonus in them than before, probably making the usual unused (or useless in comparison to other) talents/skills more interesting to take then for more of their bonus synergy.
But i'm far from being used enough to wyrmic to tell if it make the gameplay with them really changed in comparison from before this 1.6
edit : i think i noticed a new AI thing , it occured in the village that get invaded by storm elementals , a big one that was at a distance started to shoot thunder at my character that replied with breathing a few attacks, the storm elemental instead of continuing the assault just ... ran away out of my visual range.
Later he came back, then ran away again so i had to run after him.
Well i hope it's not going to be a regular "tactic" the more i will progress, considering how much monsters there are in dungeons, i don't imagine running after fleeing monsters being very fun.
Post by: Putnam on October 05, 2019, 02:35:25 pm
Post by: Iduno on October 07, 2019, 08:21:41 am
it is a common tactic and many a complaint has been levied about it
How long did it take to get the world map enemies changed so they were no longer your level+1? If I remember, Dark God wanted it to be your level, and so added your level to the monsters' (assuming the world map was depth 0, not 1) and never checked the result.
I haven't played in a few years.
Post by: Robsoie on October 07, 2019, 04:18:41 pm
Post by: Frumple on October 07, 2019, 05:35:58 pm
Could just be misremembering, though. Never did much zigur play.
Post by: Robsoie on October 07, 2019, 09:26:14 pm
Anyways, being in the east and back to west then back to east again, it looks like all the orcs warbands i encounter are at my character level, so i guess it's not +1.
Not that it does them much good, several very high damaging breathes (and lot of elemental penetrating bonus from my items) in a row obliterate those poor buggers thinking they can bully a very nicely equipped dwarf wyrmic, the fools.
At that point i think my character with all its attack skills maxed supported by very good equipment is just unstoppable (i only play at normal difficulty though :D ) , out of some bad random rolls in the sorcerers boss skills i doubt even them will even stand the killin breath machine.
I guess eating too much bad stuff (https://i.imgur.com/UfhYnej.png) probably didn't helped when it comes to how people get my character breath :D
Post by: Iduno on October 08, 2019, 07:54:18 am
For now my dwarf wyrmic (still on the 1st continent) despite having even done the zigur anti magic path isn't encountering a single world map enemy party (maybe a bug as i remember back in the past magic user parties were hostile to such anti magic character), so i can't tell if they're same or +1 level still.
There aren't gangs of 3 adventurers with randomly-generated skills on PC classes anymore? I assume the "no maximum on skill level NPCs have" was fixed so you don't get one-shot with some broken ability half the time when you face them (you don't really face them because they got to move before you did, so you died when the screen loaded, but still), but I thought having people hunting you (with some sort of animal parts as drops?) was something that they were sticking with. It was the main reason to avoid the sand worm dungeon; the mountains prevented you from escaping when adventurers followed you there.
I could have sworn i had to battle some mage party in my past zigur run, maybe i misremember i'm not sure anymore as it's been a very long time.
Anyways, being in the east and back to west then back to east again, it looks like all the orcs warbands i encounter are at my character level, so i guess it's not +1.
Well, that's good news. I think the adventurers and warbands worked the same way, but I only made it particularly far in the orc continent once.
Post by: Frumple on October 08, 2019, 08:00:44 am
They never really factored into doing the lair, though. They've pretty much never actually been particularly hard to avoid if you're careful, even in the confines around that dungeon. The adven parties don't chase you, they just meander around randomly. You avoid the sandworm lair so you don't have to deal with navigating the sandworm lair :P
i mean, realistically you suck it up and do it anyway 'cause the heart and bile are stupid good, but still
Post by: Robsoie on October 16, 2019, 06:10:18 pm
changelogs for beta 2 :
https://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2019/10/news/tales-majeyal-16-beta2-grabs
for beta 3 :
https://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2019/10/news/tales-majeyal-16-beta3-grabs
Post by: Robsoie on November 18, 2019, 04:33:25 pm
And then 1.6.1 has now just been released with a lot more rebalancing and fixes :
https://te4.org/blogs/darkgod/2019/11/news/tales-majeyal-161-techno-annihilation-released
For people that have the ember thingy dlc there's also a new class and the start of a new feature : a class evolution system that apparently will let you evolve a class into a higher one, for now it is only for archimage but more will certainly follow if the feature isn't broken.
Post by: Darkmere on December 10, 2019, 07:32:20 pm
Unlocking technomancer was pointlessly frustrating as I had to figure out Archmage and semi-bork the character build to do it... but it was on normal so whatever. The "Hero Class" seems really fun... provided you get really lucky and unlock Mana Coil. Otherwise I could see Galvanic feeling like a struggle compared to what Wildfire already gives you and suddenly you're fighting steam levels in addition to mana management from the re-worked distortion shield (I've been away a while...). Didn't get a chance to try out the other ones yet.
Annihilator is currently comically overpowered for normal... to the point that 1/1/1 in artillery is clearing most dungeons as I stroll through without even shooting. It reminds me a bit of Oozemancer on launch, I assume it will be nerfed to unusability soon enough.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 10, 2019, 11:49:02 pm
Post by: DeKaFu on December 17, 2019, 12:28:21 pm
This is the second character I've had that has coasted through the entire game and then splatted against the brick wall of the big bad. It wasn't that it was killing me... I was able to whale away on it for about an hour solid before I finally got careless and died. It's that I just had absolutely no way of hurting it enough to get past its shields and healing on its last stage. I was playing as a Whitehoof Demonologist, and I managed to get it down to about 74% health through Fearscape, but after that I just had to watch it slowly creep back up to full health while I was unloading all of my attacks on it...
I kind of suspected this would happen, seeing as it was a defensively-oriented character, but still... It just sucks to have an entirely viable build for the whole game and then be literally unable to damage the final boss at level 50.
Post by: Frumple on December 17, 2019, 01:44:21 pm
Post by: Darkmere on December 23, 2019, 12:10:44 am
One of the AoE final bosses spawned with 97% all resist, lightning resist, and cold resist. At that point I did have +47% respen but it wasn't enough to do meaningful damage in between retreats while I was taking 2/3 life total damage through antimagic in two turns. This was after casually strolling through everything else, including High Peak.
Further plays follow the same pattern of 98% of enemies being complete non-entities while the remaining 2% can 2-shot you. I don't remember this being the case last time I tried Nightmare a couple years ago.... so hard pass, I guess.
Post by: Frumple on December 23, 2019, 08:54:43 am
Unless DG's changed their mind since the last time I was particularly close to the dev process, T4 is fundamentally not balanced around the higher difficulties, though. They're there for 'fun' and for people that want their teeth kicked in occasionally, but making it a smooth or generally enjoyable experience isn't even on the priority list, nevermind high up it. Super broken stuff is (sometimes) fixed, but that's about it.
Personally, if I want more of a challenge or a spicier run without dealing with nightmare+'s horseshit, I'll roll out one of the mods that increases rare/randboss spawning rate and crank those numbers up. That makes things more interesting without enemy scaling et al getting quite as silly.
E: In other news, annihilator is some fun times. Built pretty passive offense so far (grenades, spiderbot, artillery, basically avoiding their active stuff), but I've finally gotten around to really reading some of the talents and holy shit does the tier 4 shield one look all kinds of busted. Flat damage mitigation based off block amount, in a radius? Sign me the hell up, frumple wants that 100+ dam reduction lolno field to stick my arachnoblender and turrets in. There's even a damage component too, ahaha.
E2: And in adventurer fun times, it turns out annihilator rockets will indeed trigger psyshot projections... which, of course, trigger arcane combat procs. I'm having mild survivability issues, and lost two lives to rngreebus deciding a level 37 orc pyromancer was a good thing to drop on my level 12 arse on OF 3, but overall... this is a good kind of silly. Can't even figure out quite how to describe what this would look like. You'd have some crazy thing doing one-handed jojo punches through portals, with the portals exit being attached to rockets they're firing off from a shoulder mounted launcher.
Except rather than punches it would be braining people with psionic voodoo rocks that occasionally erupt into varying pyrotechnics on impact. Also they'd be constantly shooting people in the face to project more rock smack portals. The mechanics are effective, the visuals, absurd.
E3: As for how silly, you know that thing that can happen when you've gotten so silly you're passively killing many things so fast auto-explore doesn't even recognize they exist and just keeps going as you mow down half the level with basically no input from you outside of pressing the auto-explore button? That's how silly. It's not something I've seen very often in the years I've played T4, ahaha.
Also it turns out rocket pods have a nice synergy with relatively low capacity shot, like some of the set artifact shot likes to have. Since, y'know, it doesn't use ammo but is otherwise entirely like a normal shoot command :P
E4: Vor armory death room clear cheevo at level 32. Been a while since I ate the wyrms <3
E5: ha ha ha tk wielding a steamgun makes rocket pod hit twice
ho ho ho psyshot dgaf it hits twice too
this is glorious
gloriously stupid
Post by: Darkmere on December 28, 2019, 01:53:06 am
Wyrmics and AM both got buffs, to the point that anti-magic is what the Light tree used to be for any class with spells. You can make anti-magic fields that restore equilibrium and use mana clash to shut off magical sustains. It's basically amazing.
How amazing? I took a Krog wyrmic through high peak on nightmare with ice breath, sand breath, lightning breath, and some of the basic 2H attacks. Easily.
Annihilators are silly, yes. I put thunderclap edge on my weapon (I think that's it, anyway), and the rocket pods were a stream of spammed AoE knockbacks for the rest of the game. If you want, you can take the defensives for the flamethrower that give you evasion while it's equipped and just stand there while your ROKKIT SHOOTAS stunlock enemies against a wall.
Post by: Putnam on December 28, 2019, 03:59:56 am
Post by: Unnamed on January 04, 2020, 02:49:23 pm
The average difficulty in the latest version is easier but bosses are harder. Also there is the issue that you frequently are oneshot (even by rares). With all the procs and damage boni enemies can easily hit you for 400% of max. health or more which is just ridiculous.
I tried Annihilators both on nightmare and insane difficulty and they are rather weak on insane. Also the attack of the upgraded steamgun turret is the only good nuke but turrets are often oneshot on insane which makes boss fights take really long.
Post by: Frumple on January 04, 2020, 04:40:20 pm
Have a fun, if not terribly optimal, one I've paused to play with shields, that picked up the rogue tools thing for hidden blades and then flexible combat. My bullets shoot rocks that shoot punches, basically. It's all sorts of amusing, and the regular quick as thought procs coming from fist of the desert scorpion are tasty. Wish rocket pods worked right with non-steamguns, though. Might end up fiddling up an add-on for that, I'unno.
Post by: Graven on March 04, 2020, 06:42:22 pm
I stopped playing a bit before that, and from what I can tell, there's been a bit of... controversy. Neither Bpat nor Cathbald seem to have updated any of their guides for 1.6, either, and I was under the impression they're some of the more serious people in the TE4 community.
Post by: Frumple on March 04, 2020, 08:13:53 pm
Personally, the few runs I've done since have been... fine, at least once the run-away-run-away behavior was fixed. Most of the stuff folks were flipping out over seemed only super noticeable if you were playing on like insane or somethin', which has always been masochistic one-shot horseshit land to me anyway. Normal or nightmare's mostly been about the same or better, least as far as I've been able to notice from playing a bit.
Post by: Putnam on March 04, 2020, 09:24:14 pm
Insane's got harder fixed bosses here and there but that's good because fixed bosses were (except for the final bosses and occasionally the master/urkis/weirdling if you were terribly unprepared) kind of jokes. Overall I think it feels fine, there's no drowning but drowning was silly. I should note that I've only won on insane once, though, and that was on 1.5.
Post by: Graven on March 05, 2020, 02:19:43 pm
Thanks, lads!
Post by: Frumple on March 05, 2020, 07:00:30 pm
Post by: Graven on March 12, 2020, 08:13:39 pm
https://te4.org/characters/15454/tome/f12d8b0b-dac5-4561-991c-297ed1e18488
Unfortunately, I now have a very good idea why I never bothered to win a bulwark in the first place.
At some point during the prides my mans got tanky as all heck, but up until the absolute very end (floor 5 of the final dungeon I think?) where I got what appears to be a pretty sweet randart mace, I only did damage with Assault, and maybe occasionally with Bleeding Edge. Enemies with plans other than "shove my face up the angry dwarf-shaped statue's armpits for the next two weeks" were a problem. Also a problem - groups of more than one enemy. Bulwark (ot at least the way I built it) appears somewhat lacking in the AOE department. All in all this run was what you might as well refer to as a "proper slobberknocker".
The mace seems pretty sweet, though - might be fun to transfer it to another character
I probably went way too overboard on defensive items, and I'm still not quite sure how to prioritize offensive stats. Since I have ICCTW as a prodigy, I'm lugging around pretty much every single unique item in the game, but at some point I got too exhausted to actually go over every one and just changed items if they had more resistances.
If someone could check out my items and advise what I could've changed/worn for the better, I'd be pretty grateful. Also I'm open to suggestions on tanky melee classes with better AOE - I seem to remember Writhing One was pretty fun towards the end, but apparently that was nearly 2 years ago so who knows.
Brief thoughts on 1.6 on normal:
1. It's probably perfectly fine
2. The prides have a TON of unique enemies for some reason. Every single one took ages, and the fights did very little to improve my enjoyment of the traditionally bog-like East.
3. The new AI (maybe?) appears to lead to a few more deaths early on due to improved talent usage, and to a lot of enemies running away later on. Considering I treat Tome4 as a better Diablo, this also didn't help my enjoyment :-\ For normal people playing it like a proper roguelike this may be a good thing? Probably not tho
3. All in all I enjoyed it slightly less than usual, but I haven't played in a while (last win nearly an year ago), so I can't actually tell if it was due to any changes, or just to the Bulwark. Will definitely be trying to win a few more characters sometime soon, game's still pretty ace.
Post by: martinuzz on May 31, 2023, 06:35:47 am
Udate 1.7.5 has been released, 'Before the Storm'
Post by: Robsoie on May 31, 2023, 06:45:13 am
Noticed on the website, apparently a "Lost Land" expansion dlc is near completion, and there's some planning for a "Beneath The Tides" expansion dlc (for which he also contracted someone to work with him)
Post by: Frumple on May 31, 2023, 07:14:26 am
Post by: martinuzz on May 31, 2023, 10:25:39 am
It tickles the loot itch just as well as Diablo did.
It always has friendly players online to link that oh-so-not-so-scary-anymore-now unique to that you just debuffed with more debuffs than can fit on the screen and share a giggle with.
Yeah, definitly one of my favourite roguelikes. I go back to it at least once a year and got all the DLC on the 'well-deserved cash for a dev who has been on it for decades' principle (I did play Tome2 too. Also still nice to go back to every once in a while if you can cope with the oldschool UI. And before that, Angband. Originally, the Tome series started as an ZAngband fork IIRC).
Post by: Frumple on May 31, 2023, 11:01:36 am
Quick check though, yeah, it was a pern themed zangband fork originally. Played it a ton back in the day, but never did win a run of it. Literally the only angband variant I've scored a victory in, despite probably several hundred hours playing them, was Furyband, which was a ToME2 fork, heh.
Post by: martinuzz on May 31, 2023, 12:33:02 pm