ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I've died a good 7 times now. A few were stupid(statues), but I'm getting wrecked. One time I made it out the game throws me into the Rhaloren camp...next to a level 12 guy who cast freeze and murdered me before I could do anything.

Fun times. Any tips for surviving the start?

http://te4.org/user/111153/characters

Skip flame leash. You will be a shield pummel melee for a while. Take shalore. The speed racial will really help. Take wraithform. Walking through walls is awesome.

Don't rush out at anyone. You have to fight the start zone one on one. When you see a mob let him come to you. Back up. When he is two squares away, rush, speed, demon seed, pummel, bump, rest.

I tend to take Wraithform at 2. Problem is living that long. Flame Leash was pretty nice for pulling in the stupid Clerks, though.

As for race...wasn't sure which to take. I liked Ghosts, but my best one couldn't beat the Bone Giant, and the game exploded when he went to Derth, forcing me to delete. I don't play many Shaloren, but seems like the lack of any healing would be pretty awful. I could give it a shot though, I guess.

I just got a dwarven demonologist out of the searing halls on nightmare without dying, by pumping dex in the beginning and relying a lot on block and maneuvering. I also got really lucky to get a fire imp on the first level, so it may take a couple of tries to get an early demon seed which will greatly up your damage potential. Osmosis shield and the regen also help a lot.

1) Make sure you take a starting point in Pummel. Vim is precious early, and you need an attack that doesn't cost any.

2) Get through the first bit (the open plains before that first building) however you can. Once you get to walled areas, you can use Wraithform to escape and rest up if things get ugly.

3) Hope you get an imp, because that passive makes a big difference to your awful damage.

The damage isn't that bad. I recommend anything but Yeek. I tried Yeek and it was ugly.

Seriously, any race can do just fine, but luck plays a big factor in the beginning. Like others said, if you can pickup a fire imp early then it ups your damage considerably when it procs. I would steer clear of the Wretchlings till you get to the mainland and start fighting regular stuff. When you pickup the demon summons then you can pull out a seedling and it really makes a huge difference in the early levels. Also, pickup at least 1 point at start in Osmosis sheild -- that one is essential to any Demo build I think.

... weird. Flame lash basically carried the couple of demonologists I've ran so far through the initial parts of the game -- having a cheap talent that has alright range/damage and, most importantly for that early, cannot miss, is very nice. It's also about your best option for proccing bleak outcome until you can get an appropriately ego'd weapon (and/or wretchling mainhand seed) and shield. I wouldn't put more than one point into it, but definitely put that one point and use it well. Until you get some levels and kit in you, it's your best bet for vim regeneration (particularly if you can get a group with it without getting surrounded in the process) and just about your most consistent damage source. Also AoE, which is always nice.

Very early game (on normal, anyway) is mostly flame lash -> seed -> pummel -> bump until repeat is available, healing/shielding as necessary. Tends to either zero out or cost one or two vim, total, per critter killed (with a gain, if you manage to get two or more critters in the lash fire field). You can throw up osmosis shield for the boss fight, but it honestly is kinda' too expensive until you've got some better vim management seeds and/or a larger vim pool... also a bit weak until you've got a better shield.

That's what got me through the demon starter zone, anyway. Got my ghoul through the undead starting zone without much trouble, too.

Some one jokingly suggested Yeek on the IRC. Gave it a try, and made it through the starting area no problem. Can't say I expected that.

I played a Dwarf Demonologist and used Flame Leash ALL the time in conjunction with Darkfire especially in the Prides where you have those rooms with the locking mechanisms for the doors. I would cast Darkfire then Flame Leash (or Inferno if I had a Forge Giant in the weapon slot) and just fry those Orcs.

I also got REALLY lucky and managed to find the Black Crown along with a necklace that had demon seed mastery so I could summon Forge Giants for 18 turns. This worked really well with the boots I had that allowed me to use the Blindside talent so the first thing I would do upon entering a Pride would be to Blindside to the Orc in the middle, open the door, summon a Forge Giant in that room, and back out. I wish I could close the door and just let the Forge Giant wreak havoc

I tend to do ogre demonologists (nightmare, roguelike) but I haven't really had that much trouble getting out of the initial area. While I open both rush and leash, I use leash to draw enemies to me in the initial map, instead of going to them and risking alerting more to my presence. Rush was also useful to escape an oncoming fireball or pick off a distant clerk, but I try to rush toward terrain I've already cleared if possible. Also, take advantage of the terrain. There's a buff there that gives you fire absorption, so try to leash enemies onto you while standing in them so the clerk fireballs don't hurt as much. It always appears near your starting location, so definitely use that.

In the subsequent maps, alerting enemies with rush is not a problem because of the rooms.

Corrosive slashes give you a way to regen vim if you can grab the wretchling seed. Mostly I depend on the fast level ups early on to restore vim though. In my experience osmosis doesn't really help much at that point, though.

I agree with opening pummel, I have never opened wraithform on a demonologist but when I did so on a doombringer it was pretty good in the end of the first map. I tend to rely on phase rune to do a similar effect, though of course that is riskier.

Make sure you use your wild or heat beam to cleanse burn effects from the imps.