ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I want to like the Demonologist, I really do. I like pet characters and I went out of my way to unlock the class early, only to never play it. The problem . . . Osmosis shield.

Every time I use an inscription it wants to turn itself off; I'm guessing some bug is counting inscription use as a "rest" even though I'm not resting?

Other times the skill just seems to turn off randomly in the middle of slow bump attacks with no explanation just a message "Character deactivates osmosis shield" and I look at the log and groan "No, no he doesn't" because I did no such thing.

I turn on the grid to make sure I'm not "running", I've even turned off all of the run buttons in the interface area to try to disable the game accidentally having me run . . . and yet I randomly have the sustain turn off as I slowly crawl my way across the map. It is very frustrating.

I'd be tempted to just not use this skill but I keep hearing how it is essential to the class, it does SOUND interesting, and to be frank I don't have any good places to put those early points when I'm starting out . . .

Am I missing something or is this skill simply broken?

Juuust to make sure, your character isn't wearing anything powered by antimagic, right?

S'definitely something odd going on, though. Osmosis shield is pretty painless to use in my experience... nothing like what you're reporting. Any addons running?

Nope it's vanilla ashes of Urr'rock and today I was using a brand new Cornac Character who hadn't picked up anything yet and still was having the same issue.

do you still have vim when it deactivates? i can't see any other reasons, never got problem with osmosis shield.

Sometimes it deactivates while I'm walking and not using any skills at all; plus if it was a lack of vim issue you would think that it wouldn't always be this one sustain. I don't see this sort of problem with Willful Tormentor which I use on many different characters. Indeed most sustains reserve a certain amount of mana/vim/positive/whatever up front and then don't need to be worried about unless you really go crazy with the resource, or get hit with a negative effect like being silenced.

This is why I threw the issue to the forum. The skill does this sort of odd behavior consistently for me. It's nice to know that it is easy for everyone else to use; but that only deepens the mystery for me. I've tried Demonologists repeatedly over the course of many months with the same results frustrating me into setting the class aside time after time for this very same reason.

It does drain vim each turn while it's sustained. Most sustains don't do this. I'm just mentioning in case you didn't realize this.

That is probably the issue. The skill doesn't list any vim drain on my screen or in the wiki; but it does have a BLANK location where one could be listed if it appeared at a higher level. So if it is starting out draining my vim then the problem is likely an interface issue rather than a problem with the skill itself.

I'll check for a change listing a negative vim "heal" in the upper left hand corner of my screen next time I try the skill out and see if an otherwise unlisted drain is being added on. It wouldn't have shown up AFTER the skill shuts down which is when I've been hunting for anomalies in the log, rereading the wiki, and checking the skill description for an explanation and I wouldn't have found such an issue when I was assuming it was a problem with "running" or with heals counting as a "Rest" or anything else in the skills listed description.

If it shows up then the solution is to simply not use this as a sustain that I expect to remain active between battles and to turn it off manually at the end of each encounter. Thanks!

Does look like there's a small bug with the description, double-checking the code. The drain vim thing in the description/tooltip should have a number -- it drains 3 vim per turn it's active. That's why the talent turns itself off when you rest or run, so you don't have to manually turn it off after a fight.