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Thalore |
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 11:53 pm Posts: 138
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Well, there's also 8,600,000 deaths statistic to put some context to that number. Judging by the 'Earned Lv10 Achievement' numbers, about half the playerbase plays Adventurer mode. Anyway, here's win #2! http://te4.org/characters/182577/tome/b ... ac574f4486Normal/Roguelike, Sword/Shield Sun Paladin. This character had the Blood of Life (found in the inventory of that one Last Hope merchant's regular inventory), but never died. Not too many close calls, either. The previous iteration of this character died in a situation he could easily have escaped had I actually taken twenty seconds to consider all my options. ToME'll beat impatience out of you real fast. The Good Stuff:- Eternal Guard:
I took Spectral Shield first, thinking that reliability in block would be more useful than Eternal Guard's infinite-block capabilities. Boy, was I wrong. After getting Eternal Guard at 42, I was nearly invincible. Sun Paladin is kind of swimming in damage shield utility, but I found that I never really needed to activate them ever again. (I mean, I still did, just with an instant rune instead of Barrier, usually) Eternal Guard turns bosses into mush, the room of death into a reasonable fight, and Atamathon into a crying wuss who can't penetrate your shield, much less your damage shields. This is even before considering how kickass Counterstrike is.
- Chant of Resistance:
I tried going for gigantic resist all, using both maxed out Thick Skin and Chant of Resistance (scales with spellpower pretty well!), which resulted in about 35%~ resist all once both were at 5/5. With various resistances on bits of gear, I was capped on resists for pretty much any element I wanted. With resistance, retribution, and various damage shields, my actual HP pool never really took a hit. I never really was in much danger the whole run; there was very little that could deal enough damage to even get past my shield's block values. By endgame, I was at 45% resist-all.
- Stat Placement:
Following some advice from chat, I opted to ignore Constitution as much as possible, and let equipment take care of requirements. As a result, I capped Magic, Strength, and Cunning, with a dozen and a half points left to dump in DEX, hoping to take advantage of shield's +2.5%dam/acc thing. Given that my HP never dropped much, it was pure benefit.
- Dispersion:
I'm starting to think dispersion gloves might be too valuable to ignore on most characters. I wore some crappy T1 dispersion gloves for most of the game.
- Accuracy:
Between Illumination, Combat Accuracy, and DEX pump, I was looking at 73 Accuracy, with most enemies reduced to 0. If I'm understanding accuracy bonuses right, that meant shield damage (including the bonus attack each round from shield of light) was getting a truly ridonkulous bonus.
- Merchant Randarts:
This is the first run I've had the chance to buy a couple. These things are really good. My results ended up being just good enough to wear despite having almost the exactly wrong bonuses I was looking for. The Meh Stuff:- Status Effects:
Having neglected to take Chant of Fortitude, I was completely at the mercy of stuns and disarms. Frustrating as heck, as I never found any useful immunity gear. Crusade and Providence are great, but are too unreliable as Stun usually put one or both on cooldown. As always, movement and wild infusions were the backbone of staying capable in combat. Born into Magic/Spell Shield took care of magic, and a torque of clear mind took care of mental effects.
- Dispersion:
Enemies with dispersion are crazy dangerous for an early game Sun Paladin. I was more afraid of a random rare around the corner with dispersion than anything else. By late game, I had enough tools on hand to deal with thing such as Blinkwyrms. But losing your damage shield and Weapon/Shield of light all at once is a seriously deadly situation for an early character.
- Higher:
Not really a great choice. Only born into magic proved to have any use, really. I wanted a race that had a smaller level penalty, so I suppose it worked out fine. Cornac might have been a better option, as the warrior escort category would have been a welcome source of stun removal. I had plenty of generics to spend, too. Comments on various skills:- Healing Light, Second Life, Highborn's Bloom, Gift of the Highborn: I never even cast any of these. Second Life is probably too valuable to neglect, but the others aren't worth much attention. My stamina never even approached 50%, and I didn't really wear any stamina regen gear. I picked up 1/5 Quick Recovery only at endgame.
- Bathe in Light:
Useful early on, when Sun Paladins make heavy reliance on damage shields, but fell off once Block was capable of ignoring all damage. Pumping a Barrier before a fight makes it huge, but also will cause it to break that much sooner from Weapon of Light refreshes. I halfheartedly raised it, but probably shouldn't have. Whatever it gets from Anorithil escorts would probably have been sufficient. It was useful in the final encounter, however...
- Providence:
Hard to evaluate. Obviously it's good, but it's most effective when you're only suffering a couple of effects now and then. If you're dumped on by 6+ effects, it's probably time to teleport out. It probably won't remove what you need it to.
- The Radiance Line:
I imagine most players don't think much of these skills, and I didn't opt to unlock Searing Sight or Judgement...but Illumination is great. Nobody nearby ever had a positive stealth or invis score, and those damn Dreads were finally put in their place.
- Sun's Vengeance:
By endgame I had a 85% spell crit. Shield of Light triggers when you get hit, can crit. Weapon of light triggers when you hit, can crit. Basically this was going off all the time. You really need that addon to note when you have access to your instant Sunray, though.
- Retribution:
Amazing and an instant 5/5, but can easily be a double edged sword when you have allies around. Take extreme care not to vaporize your escortees... Taking the time to deactivate/reactivate between fights is worth it, too. Interesting Stuff:I ran into Gorlak Pride, and attacked the enemies therein. One of the ork inside was a Sun Paladin. In one turn, I was hit by 5/5 Martyrdom, took enough damage from other orks to cause my Retribution to break, unleashing a 400+ damage AoE onto every ork in the room. This also triggered that paladin's Retribution, too. I lost a 1200 damage shield as well as 70% of my health, instantly. That was scary. Overall I had a fair number of dead generics at the end of the game. I dumped points into Overseer of Nations and Healing light just because there was nowhere else for them to go. I probably would go Cornac and try for a useful escort tree on another run. My equipment was very poor for most of the game as well, but Sun Paladin seemed capable enough to stand even without powerful stuff. I can't speak for 2H Sun Paladin, but once Shield Pally got going, he was crazy good.
_________________ Pronounced try-bull, not tree-bell
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