ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Havent had a chance to play yet, but the new tree looks pretty badass expecially for minionless necros. Anyone had a chance to play with it yet? Thoughts?

Essence of the dead looks especially tasty. Invoke Darkness as a cone? Ice Shards as beams? hell yeah. Plus...husks! A way that a minionless necro might actually have a use for a pet!

This makes early game necromancer a delight to play, where before it was a tedious chore for me.

Consume soul is delightful, just what the class needed to alleviate early game mana issues. I just hit level 7; my mana pool is only not a puddle because of the shimmering affix (ego?) on some lucky gear drops, because I'm sustaining Blurred Immortality (and ignoring Con in favor of Wil), Necrotic Aura (for the souls; this one's more of an investment in class talents for Aura Mastery than a mana investment), & Animus Hoarder (expensive, but provides me with a steady stream of souls for Consume Soul.

I'm not high enough level for Animus Purge at the time of posting, but I'm definitely picking it up next level; another nuke that gets me a minion sounds fantastic!

Edit & Update: Animus Purge is amazing. A solid rare can generally last about two rooms (maybe more depending on how much you let them get hit) while providing solid support, getting in harm's way while you nuke safely from afar. Putting a 5/5 in Invoke Darkness makes your minions, including the Purge Animus ones, immune to your Nightfall spells, something that's only annoying when you want your old minion dead in favor of a newer, shinier one that's about to die from an Animus Purge. I've gotten everything from Bulwarks to Cursed and even a Summoner and a Solipsist rare. They're quite handy, balanced by the fact that the spell is soul-intensive (costs four souls & 50 mana, and only refunds two souls if you get a minion out of it) and that you can only have one non-healable minion at a time. Ironically enough, this ability makes me *hate* zones primarily inhabited by undead (which unfortunately includes Dreadfell; I've yet to make it past the Master), as you can't Animus Purge undead, and enemies are a limited resource outside of the Ruined Dungeon.

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I won very recently a Ghoul Necromancer that was relying on his minions a lot, and the 2nd Animus skill (Animus Hoarder) was a must especially considering the Curse of the Meek spell is bugged and does not give any soul in the current 1.1.0 version.

Once maxed it allows to get 2 souls instead of one by kills and improve your max stock from 10 to 19 !

Really a great skill when you need to refill your soul stock in a hurry and with it being bigger you can afford to lost minions on a hard battle in a near cleared dungeon level.