ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Sup folks; I enjoy playing Roguelikes and I just found ToME a couple of weeks ago. It's complex and fun and I like it a lot, though I tend to have a little trouble surviving But then again, most of that was either !!ROGUELIKES!! or accidentally running into an adventurer party (in my defense however I did almost beat a 3 man party as an Alchemist before a necromancer or corruptor (or something) instagibbed me with one of its skills.) I managed to beat four bosses in the Arena as an Alchemist too but those @$#! Reavers pinned me and then proceeded to carve me up while I couldn't do a damn about it. Is it also a thing to dislike traps? I tend to waste points in trap detection/disarm just to have a chance of getting around them, they hurt.

Ironically, I could always beat Bill the troll without much trouble. And I know most newer players get killed by Bill. The Shade in Kor'Pul, if not for surprise, can be nasty with its freeze attack. The sad part is, I never tend to survive past the third dungeon. Yes, I admitted it.

Any advice for a new player to help survivability, or is it just the luck of the draw? Thanks.

Well I've only been playing for like a month (though a lot during that time), but a few things:

-Mental+physical infusions are a must, stuns and confusion are killers.
-Don't be afraid to take a little bit of HP off a boss and then teleport/movement infuse/phase door away to heal up/let your abilities cool down. Later on in the game this especially becomes important. One boss just recently I had to do this about 6 times to whittle him down sufficiently.
-Don't underestimate the importance of putting points in Con. This was a mistake I made a lot early on.
-If in a deadly area I like to walk around with my shield always up (when it wears off just stay put till you can put it back on). It takes longer, but I find it ups my survivability by a lot in really dangerous areas.

Make sure you clear out all the other early dungeons before going to Kor Pul. Norgos is the easiest boss so I go for him first and leave Kor Pul for last.

Oh and it's easy to avoid adventuring parties. Just make sure you're always at least 2 squares away and don't get impatient when one is blocking your path. Just keep moving back and forth till they move off.

You can also try some of the addons like Half Damage, and others that may make the game easier.

Personally I would steer away from making the game easier, instead choose adventure mode so you have some lives to spare and learn from the mistakes that kill you. (Only been playing about a month as well, though, but now I have a lvl 20 rogue on RL who's (hopefully) about to finish the tier two dungeons) Here's my starting lineup:

Step 1: Finish beginning area. If dwarf, GL! If trollmire -> kill bill
Step 2: Handle at least one other start area, then hit up the area.
Step 3: Finish all start areas (Norgos, Caverns, Trollmire) and their sister-locations (the camp near the scintillating caverns, Heart of Gloom and kor pul)
Step 4: Wiggle around above Last Hope till the lumberjack village mission appear, take care of that.

You are now free to move about the world, hit up tier 2 locations, eat sandworm hearts, and save merchants.

Remember that there is no cowardice in this game. I have been playing it on and off for 2 weeks now, and I just call it tactical re-positioning or advancing in the opposite direction. Furthermore, there are many skills that are "one point wonders," so to speak; they give all the utility the skill provides through just one upgrade, and are very worth the first upgrade.
Also, certain bosses, like the one in Kor'Pul, stay at one location and only move when they see you. So a nifty trick would be to dig the wall where he is situated; allowing you to get the first hit in and allows you not be be ranged to death.

Restarted a Cornac alchemist today, got two escort quests in Trollmire which didn't get flubbed up, and got some sweet equipment too. Hilariously enough, just as I was coming out of Derth, I ran into a 3-man adventurer party. I thought I was dead, but instead, the tables got turned this time over. I got some good equipment out of that haul as well, and incredibly, just as I was heading out of Derth after selling my crap, I ran into another 3-man party. These got owned as well. Don't ask how it happened. I was barely level 6 when I fought those guys and got up to 90% to level 8 from those two parties. To this minute I have no idea how I beat them. I suspect mind sear which I acquired from a loremaster that I saved played a part.

Thanks for the good advice, any other things I should know?

I think the adventurer parties scale with your level. Technically you *should* be able to win every fight, but realistically not so much.

Fun Fact: I once spawned inside a tree during the ambush.

The game must be being sympathetic. So far, I've defeated 7 parties of adventurers, each of which had three members. And seriously, they were ambushes out of left field, all of them, I never deliberately ran into them. They do scale with level though but it provides some good loot. 60% of my current equipment is from them. Thanks to them also I have a bank balance of 400 gold. Every single time I think I might die but I manage to keep trucking. I'm just about to head into the Sher'Tul ruins at the bottom of the lake in the old forest; I was lucky enough to find some purple tier 2 leather armor that has water breathing, so I'm fixed for that. Do I have to go anywhere else prior to this? I did beat the gwelgoroth assault on the town of Derth, but they were assholes and their shock spells hurt a lot.

Alchemists in particular have a much, much easier time with adventurer parties than most other classes. The golem being a distraction and tanking hits plus the massive AoE on your bombs combines very well to make them survivable. Just don't expect similar results with anything else

Actually alchemists are one of the easiest until the very last battle. Bombs are really really strong. My best hit was 3800 on an ice bomb so far. You can use bombs outside of range 10, thus they have a longer range then anything else in the game. They aoe and can be used around corners before you enter. They can be made to NOT hit your pet. Very few things resist acid which you can do very early. They are a magic based class so can pretty much use any escort reward and use it well. (BTW you can give the reward to your golem and this can be very funny)

The golem can be controlled once you learn how to set the ai so your alchy does not just do the death charge. Your golem can carry loot for you, particularly stuff you only need very rarely. You should certainly outfit your golem with the best artifacts you can find. (Skullcleaver early is just amusing).

Even channel staff is fairly respectable. Particularly when you find the greater staves that let you bump a whole category. Set on arcane for pretty much unresistable damage it will still still bump fire and cold to produce wicked bombs.

Avoid opening fire alchemy (you never need to open it at all). Avoid using points on the golem when you could do bombs instead. You can just trade out the manasurge rune for another defensive rune as long as you keep either mana regen bombs or a staff of channeling in your swap. You can even wear heavy armor if you want to since bombs cost so little to use (cuts down on the archer problem though honestly your bombs should do that already)

Oops! too late for that one, I've already unlocked flame alchemy at level 10. But it's helped immensely for survival, since the heat DoT does a chunk of damage. Does bomb damage increase with the tier of gem you use?

Also, I started deliberately hunting down adventurer parties. It's going very well for the time being. Got to level 15 in the process, clearing Norgos' lair, the other psychedelic dungeon near the Shalore starting area, and the assassin lord's hideout. He almost killed me but a timely level up saved the day, after which I pounded his sorry ass into the ground with bombs and staff bolts. I have a bank balance of 550 now, is it worth trying to open shops for anything of use? I decided to do this before the Sher'Tul ruins just so that I could have enough talents and skills before going forward.

Bomb damage increases quite noticeably as you go up the gem tiers, yes. I'd wager a tier three hits nearly one and a half to two times as hard as a tier one.

But ah, why wager when I can check. Lemme' see... hrm. Not as readable as I was hoping, but if I'm looking at it right... a tier three gem is actually somewhat more than twice as powerful as a tier one (20 vs 50) while a tier five is about 1.5x more powerful than a tier three (70 vs 50). S'either that or 3x for t3 vs t1 (30 vs 10) and again about 1.5x for t5 vs t3 (50 vs 30).

From what I can parse of the bomb code itself, this doesn't necessarily mean the bombs with a t3 gem will do 2-3 times more damage than those with a t1, but it does mean that the tier three gem will have double to treble the effect on the overall bomb damage calculation.

In practical experience, it's just very much noticeable. About the only tier 2 two gem that can match tier 3 ones is maybe amethyst (and even then, only for a while) and in general you want to upgrade your regular use bomb gems as soon as you've got a comfortable supply of the next tier up.

As for heat! The heat tree isn't really bad, per se. It's just that you tend to get more bang for your buck by investing in bombs (barring shockwave bomb, which is junk) and the golem. You can skimp a little on the latter and invest some into heat if the urge hits you without seriously gimping yourself or somethin'.

I generally swing by shops to look for inscriptions, since the drop rates on those are relatively low, especially if you're hoping for a particular type (eg teleport runes). Other than that, it depends on your class. Still, there's no real reason to not swing by the stores at this point.

Oh, and don't forget to check out the Wondrous Emporium in Last Hope. That store has lots of very high-quality items.

Makes sense. So far I've just settled for using a stock of ~150 alchemist agates for bombs which do circa 75-90 damage to things with no or little resistances. Is it time to upgrade now?

I've actually got most of my points invested into Golem and bombs. Two in heat for firepower. My stick also does a respectable amount of damage, so I can pump out some while my golem lays into mans with its eye lasers. I'm having a blast, quite literally. Not even the adventurer parties have brought me down to anything less than 50% health before I kill them, it's a circus. I'm going to pump a cat point into advanced golemancy on level 20, can you get any more cat points after the level 30 one? not that it makes a difference since with heat alchemy and cunning survival unlocked, that's the only tree left unopened. I've found a very nice wild infusion that cures phys and magic effects so that makes it better, with 20% suppression tagged on. I got a decent healing infusion too which heals for much more than my max HP for the time being too so in case of trouble, I just have to pop that on to take next to no damage.

I am enjoying this game so much right now it's palpable. One more question; when is it a good idea to ditch a manasurge rune? So far I haven't had to use it more than once or twice but still.

Probably useless edit: The last adventuring party I beat up now makes 17 of them defeated. Among these, three solipsists took a dirt nap.

Frumple wrote:But ah, why wager when I can check. Lemme' see... hrm. Not as readable as I was hoping, but if I'm looking at it right... a tier three gem is actually somewhat more than twice as powerful as a tier one (20 vs 50) while a tier five is about 1.5x more powerful than a tier three (70 vs 50). S'either that or 3x for t3 vs t1 (30 vs 10) and again about 1.5x for t5 vs t3 (50 vs 30).

Yup, those numbers are used for the damage calculation for throw bomb. It scales with (spellpower/2 + ammo power) instead of a normal talent's spellpower scaling, so going from tier one to tier 5 is as effective as increasing your spellpower by 100 (which is impossible to do, BTW).

I ditch the manasurge rune right away, and keep a stack of mana-regen gems in my inventory. (I forget which ones they are though).