ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Thanks for this awesome guide. I never could get very far with Cursed. Picking Cornac and maxing Rampage is essential. So far I'm lvl 21 and I haven't come close to dying!

Do I go for 5 points in dagger mastery if going for dual wield?

That gives you most offhand damage but I wouldn't really ever bother with two different weapon skills.

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Stronk is a potent combatant with a terrifying appearance.

Yeah found out on my own that 2H is vastly superior, but I'm not getting anywhere past ~25's anyways before I calm down and start playing this game properly, god I'm too impatient.

A couple of questions: What am I supposed to do if I find myself in a room with alot of magic users? I can't seem to survive long enough to kill anyone important without atleast dying once. Am I supposed to rush in, blow all my cooldowns, get out, reset, and rince and repeat?

Typically, if you come around a corner and see casters, you can just duck back out of line of sight and wait for them to come to you. If you're out in the open, you can use Movement infusion or Rampage to quickly run back out of line of sight, or use a targeted teleport if you have one.

Alright, and one final question, just to make sure I haven't colosally missunderstood the point of this class: During Rampages, I'm supposed to just use the regular melee attack, correct? And outside Rampages, I'm supposed to use talents?

Yeah, using other talents during Rampage will reduce its duration. You can do it if you really need to, but you should avoid it. Outside of Rampage, you can use talents or bump attacks as you see fit.

(Disclaimer: I only won with Cursed once, on normal/adventure difficulty.)

You can bump attack if you are safe. You don't have many activated abilities, so against tougher enemies being safe is usually a result of using your activated abilities to lock them down and then you have nothing left to do but bump attack until your cooldowns wear off or you have to run away.

Rampage is about mobility and/or damage output.
You only activate Rampage if you need to run quickly to avoid death. I frankly can't think of a better use for it than emergency movement.
When Rampage procs on its own, its more of a damage boost that lets you take free steps between attacks. Note that Rampage proc usually means you are taking big hits, so you get +2 duration from repositioning and absorbing damage without even thinking about it, to offset the lockdown talents or shield/heal/debuff removal inscriptions you use to stay alive long enough to escape to a position of advantage. I completely ignored Rampage duration when deciding what to do next in my winning run.

In my opinion the point of Cursed is being a cunning predator using your unlocked talent trees Strife and Endless Hunt (and Slaughter to some extent). You see everyone in the area through walls and around corners. You decide who you are going to ambush to get the best advantage. You jump out and start unloading debuffs and damage, hopefully tearing them to shreds before they can recover. You move and choose targets tactically to make sure enemies can't get the upper hand, but if you can't keep off the debuffs or damage, you run away snarling to lick your wounds. And then you come back, pick off anything that strayed from the pack, rinse and repeat.

To me, Gloom and Rampage are support trees. They are zero maintenance ways of making your life easier as you go about your normal business. They rock, and you could spend about 30 class points and a category point on them without buyer's remorse, but they aren't what you do for a living.

Thanks for all the tips guys. I've reached the point in the game now where I'm just slaughtering everything it seems like, first time I've come this far in this game, prior to this I had made like 20 characters all to level 20 and then die. Now I'm at 43 and I've only died once to a mage rape room.

Edit: Right after writing this, I finished the Garkuls set and got Khulmanar's Wrath, feels like I'm playing a Wyrmic now with the constant shout spamming.

Reckless Charge is amazing and you're not remotely giving it its due. Leveling it up increases the range but also enables you to knock enemies out of the way. I basically always have 3/5 by level 10, and it almost completely solves the problems you report with getting surrounded on AM. Also, thought this is less reliable, ranking up telepathy will sometimes allow you to escape a hard fight by blindsiding over a wall. I consider all 3 skills a higher priority than maxing out my gloom and rampage passives, but even if you leave telepathy and blindside at 1, I really do think reckless charge is a must-raise.

Woo, back after a long hiatus. Tested for 1.4.6, this all still works. Reckless Charge is amazing like Orion and others said, and Millefiori is right about Unnatural Body (still) sucking. Made changes to the guide as a result. Still want to get a Cursed Aura character running-- I was in the middle of it, but dropped off and now I've lost my save. Alas.

As for Corrupted Shell, I think Orion's right about not being able to qualify. I thought two escort trees and some spell runes might do it, but I think Corruptor's quest line will only trigger for 10 talents specifically, and not 10 "things on your hotbar that count as a spell." I'm taking it off.

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Cursed Guide [1.6.7] Nightmare
Primitive Guide [1.6.7] Insane

Wondering if I should do a full rewrite. I've tested out Cursed Sentry and it's honestly so amazing it deserves to be talked about extensively.

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Cursed Guide [1.6.7] Nightmare
Primitive Guide [1.6.7] Insane

So I took Ruined Earth and Spine of the World for a test drive. These two together are REALLY good at buying you time to survive without making you lose your damage output outright. Paired them with Irresistible Sun, and investment in Dagger Mastery + Dexterity for a really unorthodox build. I don't recommend doing this starting out, but it was really fun regardless!

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Cursed Guide [1.6.7] Nightmare
Primitive Guide [1.6.7] Insane

Responding to something from a ways back, but since you're back and chatting I guess there's no harm, heh.

Pretty sure it's ten talent levels. Faaairly sure runes count. Less sure about temporary talents (strike or volcano or whatev' from a rare utility item, ferex). Definitely sure a cursed could do it (probably get by with just light and/or stone alchemy or summat along those lines), but I'm less sure about a cornac.* A shalore could manage relatively easily, though -- I used to end up with shalore berserkers running around with access to (if not actual investment in) the hex tree fairly often, the times I've gotten on elfzerker streaks, and a cursed would have no more trouble.

Would be nice to hear what you have to say about cursed sentry... from what I recall the time or two I've tried it, it was almost farcically bad, somewhere in the same ballpark as the (currently almost entirely useless, at least for steamguns ) one-handed weapon automaton tinker. S'definitely been long enough since I last did that that something could have changed, though.

*Though if you get one of the arcane escorts, almost certainly... if you save up some generics (and I think a cat point... forget exactly if it's needed), you can probably even do something real cheeky on top of it (just to be sure) and pick up the corrupted heart tree and shove points into it before actually engaging the corruptor :V

Oh, really? Just 10 levels altogether?

In that case, it's not just runes that might do it; if you REALLY wanted to qualify for the Destroy Zigur quest, I think buying the Staff Combat category from Angolwen might work too. Does the sustain in that tree require you to be using a Staff? If not, then the points wouldn't be completely wasted in there either.

With regards to Vile Life... Does it have the "is a spell" descriptor on its talents?

As for Cursed Sentry, it's mediocre at Level 1, but ramps up quickly and is really useful at 3, and amazing at 5. It hits fast, can tank more than its 240 HP would suggest, it doesn't require Hate (leaving you less dead in the water in the rare case that you get resourced drained or a fight drags on too long), and can help you with Rares that you would otherwise be unable to fight on your own. In fact, depending on what weapon you use, Sentry can oftentimes solo some Rares on their own, with some fights needing a recast of it (and occasionally not at all).

If you're gonna run it, get it to 5 ASAP.

The whole "doesn't require Hate" thing also applies to Ruined Earth on that note. RE helped me escape a huge mob of demons (including Forge Giants and Champions of Urh'rok) backed by an souped up Runed Bone Giant stair guardian in High Peak.

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Cursed Guide [1.6.7] Nightmare
Primitive Guide [1.6.7] Insane