ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

An interesting question. Players who have little/nothing unlocked are almost certainly less experienced with the game, and so will (probably) get much less mileage out of some default classes like Archmage or Arcane Blade, while will benefit from the simplicity of others like Berserker or Alchemist. Same for the default races: Shalore's synergy is less obvious than, say, Halfling.

At the end of the day such a list depends on what you think the goal of a early ToME player should be: learning the game? winning? unlocking content? Each would mix up a prospective "tier" list.



The elitism is real.

I don't think a early ToME player can be expected to win (and it's good, you need a long time in game to understand some of the things that make a character good).

I was merely suggesting that saying Wildfire Archmage is the best character in the game is hard for new players who cannot play it and are looking for a more "suitable" option to unlock some content.
For example, I read somewhere that Alchemist were a good option to unlock Wildfire (and it worked for me ;-)).

The game is probably too complex for it to have a clear roadmap, but I'm thinking something like "take a berserker, learn the importance of escape, take an alchemist, unlock wildfire, take a wildfire archmage, win the game" is a start (I'm still happy to have beaten the master for the first time today after something like 10 characters killed (I tried different races / classes, and I read a lot of posts to understand what went wrong)).

So I'm just wondering, in short, what is the best race / classe combination to start the game as a new player and not die in the first 5 levels ;-)

Thalore berserker is the best of the starting set imo, or you could go aether AM since they're still invincible.

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<Shibari> You're full of shit
<darkgod #tome> ster is a troll
<Sheila> and ster, i do agree with you on most things game-related, but do try to not be such an ass!
<mex> your posts lead to people like me being abused and murdered

Ugh "elitism" comments, seems like that's the new buzzword used to dismiss opinions of people with a better understanding of the game than you. Tier lists aren't for people new to the game, there for what works at high levels of play. Tier lists rank how strong things are, not how easy they are to play.

If you want to have an easy time at Normal difficulty, then Oozemancer, Summoner, Solipsist, and Paradox Mage are should do the trick. Of the classes unlocked at start, Berserker is the easiest. For races go Thalore, Cornac, Halfling, or Ogre if you unlocked it.

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My wiki page, which contains a guide and resource compilation and class tier list.

In this case I think it was used to highlight an unhelpful and possibly deliberately inflammatory response to a legitimate question.

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My feedback meter decays into coding. Give me feedback and I make mods.

Kinda, I mostly take issue with the elitism response to Sheila's explanation for why the Reaver win was not legitimate. Ster's comment comes across poorly but the essence of it is true where good classes are universally good. The thing it fails to mention though is that how good a class has almost no correlation with how well a beginner will be able to pilot the class. Tier lists aren't really meant for beginners since the nuances that make a class high or low tier aren't always apparent or relevant to everyone. Take Oozemancer for instance; it's always been one of the easiest classes for beating Normal but it has some flaws that limit it to B tier like no stuns, no stun prevention, forced Antimagic, and poor mobility. Basically how well a class performs if played well (high skill ceiling) is how good the class is, which is what tier list is based on, and how well a class performs if played poorly (low skill floor) is a good criteria for recommending classes to beginners.

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My wiki page, which contains a guide and resource compilation and class tier list.

Anyway, here's bpat's Normal/Adventure "tier list". The classes in each tier are in no particular order.

Free Win Tier
Oozemancer
Solipsist
Summoner
Paradox Mage

Easy Tier
Sun Paladin
Berserker
Gunslinger
Sawbutcher
Stone Warden
Doombringer
Temporal Warden
Alchemist?

Reasonable Tier
Archmage
Corruptor
Marauder
Brawler
Skirmisher
Wyrmic
Anorithil
Cursed
Anorithil

Difficult Tier
Reaver
Mindslayer
Necromancer
Shadowblade
Archer
Demonologist
Bulwark

Impossible Tier
Arcane Blade
Doomed
Psyshot
Rogue

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My wiki page, which contains a guide and resource compilation and class tier list.

How are oozemancer and solipsist free wins if you have to have basically won to unlock them?

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<Shibari> You're full of shit
<darkgod #tome> ster is a troll
<Sheila> and ster, i do agree with you on most things game-related, but do try to not be such an ass!
<mex> your posts lead to people like me being abused and murdered

Solipsist can be unlocked at level 20 which is pretty easy to get to. Oozemancer at level 30 but you can just skip the second flor and rush the boss for the unlock. If I recall correctly as soon as I unlocked Oozemancer I quit playing whoever I was playing to unlock Oozemancer, made an Oozemancer, and steamrolled the entire game for my first Normal win.

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My wiki page, which contains a guide and resource compilation and class tier list.

I think bpat's list is what I was looking for when asking the question, thanks ! I just wanted to see if there was a (big) difference between the beginning of the game and what more experienced user could extract of the class/race they play (and if Archer was bad overall or not ;-)).

it is interesting that paradox mage is both the easiest class and yet one of the few that can win madness.

i think temporal warden should be in the easiest list, but it is harder to unlock I think. I did the unlocks so long ago I can't remember tbh

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MADNESS rocks

TW is the one you unlock when you do temporal rift, PM is unlocked when you do the TW specific event afaik

Yeah I'll move TW to Easy Tier. Even if you go full noob and skip Fateweaving, TW has more than enough defense to get by.

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My wiki page, which contains a guide and resource compilation and class tier list.

Stupid question, what makes Arcane Blade so hard for a first normal win if it's Madness viable?

It's just a nightmare to manage if you're newer/less experienced since early game AB has a lot to deal with - somewhat poor defenses that are also active (autoexplore is thus a very risky idea in most cases), horrible resource management, and unintuitive offense (you've got Arcane Combat but trying to melee early on often leads to death, so you have to spam spells like a pure mage instead). Also, their insane damage is complete overkill on normal - it doesn't matter if you could do 30k damage in a turn when even bosses might only have a few thousand health total - so playing a class that requires a lot less active participation and calculation for defenses, damage, and mobility (sun paladin, oozemancer, etc.) will be comparatively better.