ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Bummer. Died 25% from lvl 50 by stupidity against Thelos. Being this close to the final battle I made several errors in a row:
- playing early in the morning
- playing semi-nonchalantly because Thelos' tower was a walk in the park before the boss showed up
- last but not least: after dying forgetting to reactivate Shield Wall and HoP.... --> freeze/stun/dead with opponent at <10% *bonk self* on 2nd thought Shield Wall might've been still on cooldown anyway, not sure

NB: Concerning last point. The last use of BoL felt a little bit cheezy. Not sure if finding BoL 2 times with 1 character is a bug or not. Personally I think it should be a 1 time occurrency, if only to make me feel better for wasting a 3rd chance I shouldnt have had in the first place

Oh well, at least there's still a few things to strive for: level 50 and winning. I'm now sure that I should be able to do it with a fighter, barring the final fight of which I still have no idea what to expect.
A few things I've learned this time for better survival:
- boots of speed a real blessing to avoid Orc Patrols
- having 2 Wild Infusions is worth it to postpone extra talent category to lvl 50. Especially curse removal is essential in certain places, disease/hex removal handy as well and an almost continuous ~25% Damage reduction is nothing to sneeze at either.
- bumping willpower a fair bit before maxing strength seems to help protect against blood mages/corruptors/high *mancers better than Spell Shield which I didnt put a single point into this time

Things to improve:
- might want to exchange teleport rune with shielding after Prides. Rarely seemed to need it after that and had a wand of TP anyways.
- use Antimagic. Was planning to do that, but had to use PD rune to save my ass inches from completing quest.

Dump: http://te4.org/characters/59/tome/11f6b2ee-1d4f-11e0-bbb3-001cc000edf0

Now you wish you'd played on normal...

WOW, this gave me an idea for the normal vs Hardcore debate.........

Hehe, not really. In fact my best 2 tries have been on Hardcore. Playing on Normal just for experimentation and getting to know areas etc. The added lifes makes one careless. Also the feeling that winning on Normal wouldnt be the 'real thing' subconsciously leads to suicidal tactics.

Currently, in beta18 - saves can be completely ignored unless you can raise them permanently to around 185+ - otherwise you are much better off resisting them directly through %resist [like stun res] or healing them through talents or wild infusions.

Otherwise, congrats on getting so far - and yes, the shade of Telos is a real brute...

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Thanks! And also thanks for your excellent guide on fighters. I used it extensively as the base for my own build, which is gradually moving away slightly from yours. Mainly to check out effect of minor changes on both talent/category choices and stat investment.

Saves only useful above 185? Hmm, didnt know that, but it does explain the uselessness of Spell Shield. And yes my almost paranoid attention to wearing optimal resist gear and having two wild infusions this time around did help.

I underestimated Telos. I shouldve checked what his monster type was, that might have awakened me to the risks before it was too late.