ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hi,
My halfling Doomed has just become my 2nd winner ever. Got them both consecutively
http://te4.org/characters/1471/tome/756 ... 1cc000edf0

Warning: This will be a little spoily

Feel much better about this one, as I only died once. And that was way back when fighting Bill, my first experience with self-healing baddies. Got mobbed when trying to lead him around. Also when I established that "Call Shadows" was useless - all they do is drain your hate (I read that improvements have been made in b20).

Gotta say Doomed is a very powerful and different class. My main weapon was Feed. If I could get a baddie in a one-on-one, then feeding was all I needed to do. I would regen faster (feed health) than they could hurt me. So I just sit there feeding, letting them hit me until feed got them to 0, then one bit of my equiptment would damage them when they hit me for the kill.

There was the odd exception, elite beserkers and bosses, would start off lowering my health. But you can use a regen infusion to top up your regen, and throw in Agony, Reproach, Dark Torrent, Willfull Strike, etc to speed things up. And the longer you feed, their damage gets lower (Feed Power). Use Blast, Unseen Force, and Silent Whisper to help with crouds.

I only got below 50% health once after level 20, and that was in the final fight (23 hitpoints! - lucky I held onlto a couple of wands of healing) and this is mostly thanks to Feed Health.

But the downside of a Doomed (or at least my character) is I could not dish out a lot of damage quickly. Dark torrent maxed out at around 250 for me, and if I backed a "knockable" monster against a wall I'd get about 300 or so with a willfull strike doubled up against a the wall. Overall this is't too much of a problem, you have to play more of a "whittle them down" type of strategy. I used Feed all the time, and then Agony would have been my next most popular, along with Silent Whisper and Reproach. Blast is OK, but it does move them around which is sometimes not ideal.

Two problems with being a Whittler:
- With the new AI, summonners can get out of hand. My [b18] Anorithil never really noticed Summoners at all. But this time round I had to leave a couple of levels (I'm normally a clear everything player) which were overrun by dragons. Goulkings, and Ghasts are a little problematic too, but they don't summon as fast as the dragons. This must be a pain for Melee characters, at least I could lob Agony, Silent Whisper, and Blast over the crowd.
- The endgame fight. The guy who teleports and heals himself is a pain in the whatsit. I was really struggling with him (the other guy was easy), so I swapped in the "Rune Of The Rift" (which I had been carrying around) instead of my Wild one. This has the added bonus of taking him out four 4 turns, good for cooldowns and getting close enough for Reproach. But any high damage rune would do. Then things tipped very much in my favour.

So I guess my tips for anyone playing a Doomed character are:
- Max Feed Health as soon as practical - there weren't too much other "generic" talents I wanted early
- Agony is a good spell, not great damage, but fast cooldown, you can lob it, and it keeps going a bit like poison
- Spellpower doesn't help your abilities, so stave's aren't much use. Instead I went for a weapon/shield combo which had the bonuses, abilities (regen), and resistances I wanted.
- Willfull strike and Blast can act a bit like a beam when used against a queue of baddies. If a knocked back moster hits another they both take damage, and the 2nd monster is knocked back, and if he hits a 3rd monster,.... Kind of like playing pool. Also, if you knock them back into a wall they appear to take double damage. Now this may be old news, but it was my first time playing a character with a "Knockback" ability, so felt like a discovery to me.
- "Human shields", if youre feeding off an adjacent monster who can't lower your health, then try not to hurt him (Feed does that for you), and lob Agony, Silent Whisper, and Willfull Strike at the baddies behind him. Especially useful against archers.

And finally my tip for all characters: After you have eaten the Sandworm Heart, put the points into "Sandworm Aspect" so you can get Quake. This is extremely useful as you can break up line of sight in the final fight, and if you're really luck get youself a nice little corner where you can hit them before they can hit you. Niether of my two winners would have survived without it.

Overall, I want to give a big thumbs up to Tome4. Its the only rouguelike I've come close to having a "powerful character" in, let alone winning. Obviously the extra lives help, but I think its also the pacing, it keeps it intersting. There isn't as much of the the grind that you get in more traditional rouguelikes, and thus less stupid mistakes born out of boredom as you try and hurry through to the intersting bits. And there does not seem to be the "power levelling" opportunities that there was on Tome2.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the more traditional roguelikes, Moria, Andband, Zangband, and T2 have claimed many hours of my life. But I think T4 is definitely a more accessable game. And a bit easier too - which is a good thing for a crap player like me

Good going! Reading this definitly makes me want to unlock and play the Doomed class

Congratulations! Having played the class a bit its always cool to see how others do things. A few things are changing about Doomed (hopefully for the better) so I thought I'd just mention them.

First, Feed Health has been replaced with Devour Life. Devour Life is a life drain and heal attack that requires you to be feeding. At high levels, you can activate it to start feeding. It sounds like Feed Health may have been overpowered. It was never meant to be keep your health that high. Cursed had some similar problems with life leeching that have been addressed.

Shadows have also been improved. They give you hate when they kill so they don't tend to take all of your hate like they used to. The talents have also been improved to make the whole tree a pretty viable way to go.

Also damage has been increased for most of the attacks. It should make play a little faster paced and make up for changing Feed Health. I just hope it doesn't overpower the class.

I started a B20 doomed before i read this thread. Feed health is no longer. I put a lot of points into shades, mainly because i prefer playing without much left hand typing (hand surgery).

Currently level 20 and playing a Cornac. I put a talent point into shades (from 1.3 to 1.5) and at 5 points i have now 4 instead of 3 shades. Some problems are: loot collecting. The sandworm queen was killed by the teleporting shades. So i had to search for the heart in all this sand

What i lack is the anti-boss weapon - okay i am just level 20 and i concentrated on shades. But this guardian of the house robbed all my sustains several times and i needed like 25 minutes before a lucky sequence of madness prevented his healing.

Total different playstyle to the hack and slay characters i normally play.