ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hi, I'm a new player and I wanted to say how enthusiastic I am about the game in general and a specific race/class in particular.

The berserker class immediately appealed to me. I usually prefer to play "heavy tanks" in most hack&slash games. So I played around a bit and tried to get a feel for what the talents, infusions and so on do and what races work well. Then I looked at the guide (in the spoiler section).

After trying Thalore / Shalore / Dwarf zerkers, I noticed the "backstabbing" skill in the dirty fighting tree. It looked perfect for a berserker, so I tried a Cornac, used the category point to unlock Dirty Fighting straight away and started to pump cunning and backstabbing. I found a few greatswords with "cripples on crits" and used them to take full advantage of all those criticals.

It worked really, really well. This berserker did much better than any of my previous characters. Up until then I'd never made it past level 15 (I'm playing in normal adventure mode). But this guy easily made it to level 20 and at level 21 I even managed the Last Hope graveyard, a first for me. He perished in the temporal rift, a place I'd never seen before.
Now I just restarted and this time I defeated the really big troll straight away, before visiting other places. Excited to see how far I will get.

A word about why it works so well... the drawback is obviously that you need to invest stat points in cunning early, while you also want them in strength and con (if only to unlock various talents). But contrary to what one might expect, this does NOT make you weaker in the early game than the "standard" build. It makes you much stronger. Scoring so many criticals is awesome and easily makes up for a slight lag in stat building. Bosses are not just stunned. They're stunned, crippled and eating critical hits. It's beautiful.

And what is particularly nice is that the bloodthirst tree pays off even better (and much earlier) for this build than usual. With other berserkers, the first point in bloodbath was ok, but not exciting. With this build, bloodbath is immediately awesome because you're scoring so many criticals. It's actually worth pumping bloodbath as soon as you can, from level 10 on. Which in turn gives you so much stamina that you'll never need more than 1 point in Quick Recovery.

I later noticed that Doctornull pointed out the exact combo (including cripple on crit weapons) in the spoiler / guides section. Was the backstabbing talent recently changed?

In any case, I totally recommend this build to any other noobs out there. I'm not sure how bad the lack of racial specials will be later in the game, but this build totally rocks in the early-mid game.

From what I've read, apparently the Berserker didn't used to get Dirty Fighting at all. It's only "recently" (since 1.0.4? 1.0.5?) that it gained access to this combo.

It's cool to discover an unusual synergy like this. You've got way more experience with the build than I do -- I was only posting theory -- so after your Berserker wins, think about writing a guide!

Cheers!

New player here too - 2 weeks, first post - and I love my Antimagic, Dirty Fighting, Dreaming Cornac Berserker so far. It's fun to throw around so much Stunned, Crippled, Dazed and Confused. I defeated the Master for the first time with a Summoner, but I got a bit bored with Summoner and decided to play a melee class that would force me to think more and L2P.

Key parts of this build up to level 20, as I see it:

• Dirty Fighting at 1, Bloodthirst at 10
• Invest in Cunning at the start to get a few points in Backstab ASAP
• Check all the stores early for a crippling 2H weapon, I recommend that as the first big purchase (Battleaxe preferred for major +crit%)
• After level 10, pump Bloodbath and Mortal Terror ASAP.

Two stunning attacks at level 1 makes the early game so easy, especially once you have a few points in Backstab, which I think I had up to 4 points by level 8-ish.

This approach is certainly tight on stat, class, and generic points. You'll have to settle for class skills at 2 or 3 (like Stunning Blow, Rush, Berserker, and Warshout) that would be at 4 or 5 early in a normal Berserker build. My stat points went to Str/Con/Cun for a few levels, then Str/Wil/Con/Dex ever since - current values are in the 50's for Str/Con and 40's for Wil/Dex/Cun. I put too many points in Cunning (I recomend waiting for items to get it to 28) and not enough in Dex.

I've been holding out for Exotic Weapons Mastery - only found 4 escorts so far after clearing almost every dungeon on Maj'Eyal - so Weapons Mastery is only 2/5.

I just finished Tempest Peak and Mark of the Spellblaze. Urkis went down very quickly (MUCH faster than with my Summoner) and the Grand Corruptor wasn't too scary. I've died about 15 times, but almost all of those were in three places that I visited far too early:

• Rhaloren Camp (full of casters, not a wise choice at level 6, especially with only 1 point in Rush!)
• Rat Lich
• The final fight in Bearscape. Bearscape spawned when I was level 15 and I'd just bought a nice greatmaul of crippling, so I jumped right in.

I'm sure you can take it in several directions at 20. For AM, Fungus is the wise choice. I went more gimmicky and unlocked Psionic/Dreaming (I found a +mastery item). I'm happy with Dreaming so far, I use Sleep and Dream Walk all the time - both seem very useful for a 'zerker. Between Sleep and Warshout I can slow the flow of enemies through a door or around a corner so I can whack on one or two at a time. Sleep-Dream Walk is ghetto Rush for when Rush is on CD, like to get to that last caster across the room, and it also works in places Rush won't. Fighting tough casters like the Grand Corruptor, every ten turns I throw in a Sleep-Warshout-Silence combo (or maybe a regen infusion or turning AM shield back on instead of Warshout). Even just 3 turns of sleep is a nice little coffee break.

I run 5 sustains: AM shield, Berserker, Precise Strikes, Lucid Dreaming, and Daunting Presence since I have no stamina problems. I have Psionic Pull and Skullcracker from items and use both, and sometimes Throw Boulder from Snow Giant Wraps (usually right before I run away). Also have Phase Door from an item, though I prefer Dream Walk.

Here's my current skills at 26. There are definitely things I would change. I'm irked that I spent 4 points in Combat Veteran; I'd rather have most of those points in any of the other categories.
Class:

• 2H Weapons: 1/3/3/0
  2H Maiming: 3/0/0/0
  Bloodthirst: 5/5/0/0
  Combat Techniques: 3/1/0/0
  Combat Veteran: 2/1/1/0
  Dirty Fighting: 2/5/0/0 (used Switch Place for a couple levels but moved that point to Rush for now)

Generics:

• Combat Training: 4/3/2/2/0
  Conditioning: 1/1/4/0
  Antimagic: 1/1/3/0
  Dreaming: 2/1/1/0
  Survival: 1/0/0/0 (wasted point)

My class priorities now are Stunning Blow and Berserker to 5 and then Unstoppable, and maybe some more points in Death Dance. For generics, AM shield to 5, Sleep to 4 or 5, and Exotic Weapons if I ever get it.

About to hit Dreadfell, wish me luck!

Doctornull wrote:It's cool to discover an unusual synergy like this. You've got way more experience with the build than I do -- I was only posting theory -- so after your Berserker wins, think about writing a guide!

Cheers!

Thanks. That character died, but now I have a new one going that looks better than ever. Two very good regen infusions (350+ / 5 turns each), the Eden's Guile boots and he finished all the 2nd tier dungeons without one death, as well as unlocking Yeek and Temporal Warden.

I could try my hands at a guide, but I feel I didn't really try enough options yet to get the perspective you need. For example, so far I've gone anti-magic every time, so I can't comment on the tradeoff. I feel it would become more of a character description than a class guide.

I read that there are many stun immune enemies in the endgame, so I'm very curious how this will work out in the long run. But then again, even if the backstabbing skill turns out to be completely worthless in the endgame (and I don't expect it will), the fact that it gives you such a boost early on makes it worth it imo. And you also get Crippling Blow from that tree. In fact I like the swap power too, it can save your life if you're surrounded and you can't teleport.