ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

For a while now my main has been to tackle Nightmare mode. So far no luck, but slowly progressing. I thought about my deaths and how I child have avoided them.
This thread is for posting how you usually die (or your most recent deaths) with a little analysis what lead into this outcome (Duh! Loss of HP). Feel free to give pointers on how to overcome these obstacles.

..............................
Here's my most recent deaths:

Nightmare mode - Summoner:
Melinda rescue mission, walked into a room by tapping number button. Regular elf guard stepped in front of me. I took another step towards him and got one shotted.
I was plain careless. Should have noticed him before and summon when there was still room between us. Even autoexplore could have stopped me in time.
Lazy man's solution: make an add-on that will stop autoexplore whenever
Earth's Eyes detects an enemy. I usually use that skill on a summoner but it won't help with autoexplore and I'm too lazy to tap it on when manually exploring.

Nightmare mode - Summoner:
Vault in Dreadfell. Cleared the place nicely, came into a long corridor, walked onward, got one shotted by Skeleton Master Archer lv50+, twice my level.
Learn to respect vaults. Carelessness once again. If not elsewhere then at least on dangerous areas like vaults take extra care to detect stuff. Corner summon is a relatively simple trick for a summoner. Should have used it. For other characters I could have AoE'd or movement infused few steps onward then returning to safe spot.

Normal mode - Solipsist:
Was playing a frailer than frail Yeek Solipsist. Derth Arena quest, second gladiator. He charged me past my through form and I healed. Stupidly I blasted him with a spell instead of moving back. He had some magic sword or gloves equipped since he hit me for 100+ damage of at least four different elements and my thought form for nearly as hard. He's usually a pushover so I didn't bother to do any needless shenanigans.
Carelessness at work yet again. Don't take enemies for granted.


Other than those recent deaths what usually gets me, especially on NM are early game rares. A simple teleport or movement infusion bought asap would often ease these situations.

One could argue that ToME can be won by anyone by being careful. Not sure if I agree completely but on my situation I can say I could have avoided those deaths really easily.

A lot of people are saying Yeek starter zones are difficult. I kinda like them and think they're easy. That's because you HAVE to be careful there. I just need to realize I have to play whole game like it's a Yeek starter zone.

Most of my deaths can be summed up as follows: bad habits formed by too much "easy".

I've had a number of "learning" deaths (Dreadfell vaults, grouped tombstones, etc.), but the ones that really bother me come about because I hit a key one too many times, or forget about a talent I almost never have to use. Pretty much the kind of thing you listed. I've only gotten two characters past the Master, and only one to High Peak. After lazily steamrolling through the prides and over the stair bosses, he died at the mages. I had completely forgotten that Flameshock existed, and so was left with almost my entire hotbar on cooldown, knowing death was a lot closer than the numbers I saw.

I've been playing on Roguelike up until this point, but I knew I couldn't keep this up. The more I played, the more bored I got of the early game, which just lead me to more complacency and more deaths. Even my summoner succumbed. For this last character, I finally decided to use Adventure (also a summoner). I'd like to beat the game at least once.

Dying sucks. However, if we didn't die all the time, the game wouldn't be as satisfying to win.
Luckily for us, there's plenty of great survival tools to help us avoid the soul-crushing disappointment of having a great character die.
I've been pretty successful on Nightmare (see here), beaten Insane once, and have made it past the Master on Madness; these are some things I do to escape the cold, dark, enraging grasp of DEATH.

So what do you do for a living?
A great habit to get into is to check your enemies. If you see a rare/unique/boss (easily identified by the special border around them.. I'm pretty color-blind but I think it's purple), take a second to mouse over them. This can be really helpful in finding out what TYPE of enemy they are. For example, if you see Psiblades and Mitosis buffs, you've got an Oozie on your hands, so be aware that you might get slime-spitted for half your life, and he'll probably be pretty tanky. Prepare accordingly! Learning what each buff on an enemy means will really help you out. A good way to learn this is by right clicking the enemy and choosing "inspect creature"- it will open a big screen that will not only tell you what each active buff on them is doing, but what talent level it's at. For example, for Necro enemies that have blurred mortality, it can tell you how much life below 0 you have to get through before they finally die.

I can take him no problem! ....oops
Once you establish what type of enemy it is, make sure you don't underestimate it! For example, I've died a few times to Arcane Blade rares, because I thought I could take it on. If you're in melee range of them, they are capable of 1-shotting you, all it takes is a greater weapon focus flurry with arcane combat procs... bye bye life bar. The other main enemy types that you should be really careful around are:

Solipsist- Mind Sear hits hard and has a REALLY low cooldown, add in a thought-form and they can be super dangerous
Summoner- be especially careful of summoned War Hounds and Flamespitters, they do a LOT of damage, if these are summoned, kill them asap!
Necromancer- if you have a way to purge the auras off these guys, they are a lot easier. Blurred Mortality means they can drop below 0 life!
Oozemancer- Slime Spit hits really hard! And these guys are hard to kill because of the Bloated Oozes they spawn that absorb damage.
Rogue- be careful of high level Rogues, if they have a high talent level poison, it can really mess with you. Remember that physical wilds get rid of poison. Also, be careful of their traps.. often they drop them. After killing a rogue rare, rest to full before you run off anywhere!

All rares have the potential to be dangerous, depending on their level and talents. A quick check may mean the difference between life and death. Try to get statuses (confusion/stun/slow etc) on the nasty rares before trying to take them down!

Wait please!
With a few exceptions (Melinda level, Race through the Fire level), you can take as many turns as you want to do what you gotta do. Rest is your best friend. Mash your precious R key to within an inch of it's life! Rest until all your cooldowns are up. USE YOUR COOLDOWNS in fights. No point saving a long-cooldown ability, when you can just rest up and have it ready again.

That tile over there looks much more comfortable
Your positioning is key! Don't just charge in to a wide open room and expect to slay all the Corruptor's spamming you with Soul Rot. You'll be melted into the floor. Killing enemies one at a time is perfectly respectable. Don't be afraid to run away to a better position; no-ones gonna judge you for a good old tactical retreat Tunnels are great for this, so are corners. The enemies are surprisingly happy to make a nice line for you while you pound them raw... one by one.

Let's make like a tree.... and get out of here!
Always have an escape option. More than one! Although they're great, don't always rely on just one Teleport or Phase Door rune... stuns/confusions/silences can all counter those if you're unlucky. I am an AVID SUPPORTER of the almighty Psychoport Torque, it's saved my life many times. Silenced? Confused? Stunned? Psychoport torque doesn't give a s##t, it's gonna work anyway. It isn't 100% guaranteed safety obviously, because it may teleport you to your doom, but it's damn good. A trick you can use to ensure an early psychoport is to go to Zigur at the very start of the game, and go to the shop (mysteriously disguised as a gem shop). If a psychoport torque isn't for sale, you can just start again (if you want). Another amazing escape option is the movement infusion. Run, rest, recharge, relax... then go back in and bust up some face. Use your escapes earlier rather than later. If you find yourself thinking "maybe I'll survive this turn before having to use my escape", you're wrong. You won't survive. You'll die, and it will be horrible and sad and your family will be angry with you. GTFO of there.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Your Z key will become your best friend. Not only is it faster, it's also safer than running around using your keyboard. When your auto-explore stops, it's for a reason. Look at that reason. If it says "interesting terrain", don't worry about it. More often than not, though, it'll be because there's an enemy nearby! Also, auto-explore picks up all the items on the ground for you

Maybe later
You don't have to do everything as soon as you encounter it (Dark Crypt/Hidden Tunnels are an exception). For example, vaults, or strong rare/unique/boss enemies. They are patient, they will wait for you! Get a few levels if you don't feel safe somewhere, and revisit it later.

WHAT THE F**K, STUPID F**KING GAME! F**K THIS
Sometimes things will seem ridiculously unfair. Things will simply be out of your control. Learn to accept this, don't get angry about it because your anger will only cause you to become reckless and make silly mistakes. Try to see the funny side of your misfortune... enjoy the game for what it is, even if it screws you It'll make your whole experience much more enjoyable!

Good luck and have fun!

Thomas's post is excellent and I recommend anyone playing Nightmare to read it. I want to add a few classes his list of problematic rares, namely Doomed, Cursed, and Archer. Doomed rares are terrifying because Shadows are unpredictable and they can take you out in a turn if you're unlucky. On Insane level 40 Shadows have talent levels over 20 and a few spells and Blindsides will drop you quickly. Cursed rares are problematic since Beckon needs to be removed ASAP or you'll have trouble escaping, let alone fighting. Rampage also gives them the best damage output of any melee rare, especially since they can doubleturn you. Archers often get confused and walk back and forth, but if one has a good AI and high level Rapid Shot, they will apply a ton of statuses and drop your health extremely fast.

If you're getting oneshot in melee, 95% of the times it's because of Block or Shadowstrike. Shadowstrike can be countered by wearing heavy armor with high Armor Training. Countering Block counterattacks is much more annoying, I usually back off until the debuff wears off. On Nightmare, a Crusade or Assault counterattack late game will almost certainly kill you in a turn.

If you're dying a lot in the Dark Crypt, skip it. It's just not worth it unless you're sure you can make it out alive. I only do the Dark Crypt on Normal because I die there more often than I'd like on Nightmare.

Unlike Thomas, I seldom use a Psychoport Torque since I value Mindblast (for melee), Ward, and Tentacles more than an unreliable escape. However, if you have no way to teleport (and even if you do), use a Movement Infusion! If you want to make sure you can get out without risking teleporting to your doom, Movement Infusions usually allow you to move 10 spaces in a turn while also making you immune to stun, daze, and pin for a while.

Thomas wrote:WHAT THE F**K, STUPID F**KING GAME! F**K THIS
Sometimes things will seem ridiculously unfair. Things will simply be out of your control. Learn to accept this, don't get angry about it because your anger will only cause you to become reckless and make silly mistakes. Try to see the funny side of your misfortune... enjoy the game for what it is, even if it screws you It'll make your whole experience much more enjoyable!

If you remember anything in this thread let it be that one paragraph. If you find yourself getting frustrated playing Roguelike, switch to Adventure and your frustration will decrease considerably. No matter what mode or difficulty you play, you will die and it won't always be fair, but rather than get pissed off about it, just keep playing and learn from your mistakes.

Thomas post could be in official booklet of tome it is an excellent short guide without spoiling anything.

There is one more thing you can do to make surviving easier, that is toggling movement mode to passive if you are ranged it will benefit you a lot.

If you don't know what this option does, it is that when you try to move into an enemy position instead of attacking you will do nothing, not waste a turn or anything. This is handy against invisible enemies, you might be spamming move but if there is an invisible opponent in your path you will just stop instead of dying miserably.

If you are a bump attacker you could benefit from this too, having to press the attack action allows you to asses the situation each turn instead of pressing the movement key until your enemy or you drop.

To toggle this option click on the swords and shield under your character portrait.

Using autoexplore is good for the reasons that Thomas listed, but once you stop and spot your opponent you want to engage him using your keyboard, it is easy to miss click in a tense situation, and one miss click might mean death.

I have only 2 nightmare and 5 normal wins, though I only play on roguelike. My advice might not be too useful.

Tips:

- Avoid Melinda's quest. The reward is shitty compared to the difficulty.
- Avoid the crypt in the east. The dungeon and boss fight are buggy.
- Avoid far portals. Randomness is your enemy!
- Avoid the stair bosses on high peak. There's no reason to fight them.
- Rest before exploring.
- Inspect anything above "elite" ranking.
- Always be in control of the situation. Flee at the 1st sign of trouble.
- Always have multiple escape options.
- Plan your characters out in advanced.
- Do not open vaults, until much later in the game.

In other words... be an overly cautious, dirty coward! Pretty much the same as nethack and dungeon crawl.

Great post, Thomas. I'd also like to add, don't forget "Dig". Sometimes shaping your environment to better suit your approach is just what you need. It won't help you in vaults, but if you have Track or Earth's Eyes, you can often place a corner where it will do you some good.

"Bored" was too strong a word in my first post. If I was actually bored, I wouldn't still be playing. I've encountered a fair amount of rote, however, and it isn't limited to the early game. I feel like I need every level I can get on my character in order to face the really powerful bosses, so I end up running through every single zone. This makes the regular content a pushover and no challenge. Norgos doesn't worry me if he's my third or fourth zone boss, let alone the sixth one. The rest of the monsters in the zone are just something to walk over at that point. And once I've got that much of a headstart, it carries over into the T2 dungeons. I much prefer less of a spike in difficulty, as it keeps the challenge more even.

Well spoken Marson. The exact same thing I'd what kills me. The overpowerness in tier 2's lulls me into a false sense of security and then something just kills me in around these so called tier 2.5's like Dreadfell or the Crypt.

Edit: Funny that I happened to read your signature when reading your post up there. Autoexplore & Rest tweaks is the answer to the problem I mentioned in the first post. Gotta try that.

I was going to mention that, then spaced. I'm finding it really handy.

What kills you on nightmare is typically one of two things:

1. Getting 1 shot.
At high levels, low hp classes can get ganked by assassins, thought-forged bowmen, corrupters...the list goes on.

2. Sticking around too long.
I ... almost...have him....and then you die.

How do you avoid these situations?

1. Avoiding getting 1 shot
There are a couple of ways to handle this. If you are a low hp class, you usually have some means of magical scouting. Use it. If you are low HP and have no means of magical scouting, take cauterize as your first prodigy (assuming you live that long and can qualify) Stack HP. Some gear may look cool, and have nice abilities and all that, but to be honest, on nightmare....HP saves lives.

2. Avoiding sticking around too long.
If you ever find yourself thinking, "Maybe I should just back out of here?", then you are probably right. I never do Melinda or the Crypt on Nightmare. I avoid certain vaults on nightmare (depending on my class). See those really long straight tunnels? They are deathtraps vs mages/archers/summoners. Use your pickaxe to dig alternate paths everywhere. Movement infusion. Soooo OP. I'm playing melee nightmare characters now, and movement infusion is the second thing I buy (After a torque of mindblast!!! <--- a must have for starting melee characters)

Autoexplore is very tempting, I can't resist it and that's mostly why I don't play on roguelike - which otherwise seems a cornerstone of, um, roguelikes. In the ID you can autoexplore and find your next action is to look at the cauterize tooltip which says you're facing a burn of 1400 per turn, teleport, shielding knobs to 11 and cross your fingers.

Is there an option, tweak, twiddle or addon which will convert autoexplore from "stop when something evidently wants to make a necklace of your giblets" to "stop when you see something which might want to make a necklace of your giblets" ?

Autoexplore: It's much faster and easier, but you're gambling on not getting oneshot. It doesn't even take a rare to oneshot you out of autoexplore, a simple orc master assassin can do the trick. If you want to guarantee a win, always use your scout (Precognition, Track, a summon you can control or send at range, a large radius ball spell you can cast around corners, even Volcano can work in a pinch). That said, I prefer to just autoexplore and eat the occasional unfair oneshot rather than slog through the game without it.

Resting: If you're resting and you don't have sight of every single tile in LOS, you run the risk of something teleporting and then nuking you while resting. Try to backtrack to a safe place to rest rather than just resting wherever you just finished fighting.

Botched psychoports: Psychoport has no minimum radius. Sometimes it can just teleport you right next to the thing you were trying to get away from, wasting a turn and possibly killing you. It'll save your life 99% of the time, but try not to lean on it too hard.

Elandar: He just has the potential to do way too much burst damage unless you dispel Essence of Speed right away. You can hope that he'll target Aeryn, or not crit with his strongest spells consecutively, but you have to dispel Essence of Speed for a guaranteed victory. (oh, or you could just be invincible-- see Aegis or Bloodthirst)

Imho the best course of action is to remove skills that negate almost all dmg / totally prevents you from dying no matter what dmg you receive. Bone shield, unstoppable, cauterize, damage smearing and everything like that just cloud your judgement Remove it and we will all see how much dmg is actually deadly.

Atm there is more than enough bosses that deal absurd amount of dmg but most classes that doesnt have skills mentioned above never reach them and they are considered 'not good enough' for higher difficulty levels. Classes that are able to ignore incoming dmg doesnt care about incoming dmg at all so increasing mobs skill levels / dmg output / speed etc is counterproductive because it doesnt address the issue.

Autoexplore: Using auto-explore on nightmare is suicidal. If you're using auto-explore, I suggest getting cauterize or some other life-saving talent.

donkatsu wrote:Elandar: He just has the potential to do way too much burst damage unless you dispel Essence of Speed right away. You can hope that he'll target Aeryn, or not crit with his strongest spells consecutively, but you have to dispel Essence of Speed for a guaranteed victory. (oh, or you could just be invincible-- see Aegis or Bloodthirst)

Dispelling Elandar should be top your priority the moment you enter the final battle. He's still dangerous, even without essence of speed. His freeze spell deals around 1100 damage. Thankfully, it doesn't deal 1700(!) damage anymore.

Edit: Wow. 2200 damage at level 25. I should start playing alchemists...

Sorry, but TOME is almost unplayable for me without auto-explore. I can live without it in high-pressure situations, but many of the maps are extremely time-consuming to wade through manually - and, of course, you're even more likely to click-click-die if you're going one tile at a time than you are if you hit Z, since there are so many clicks in a manual exploration style. An auto-explore light option (pause before going around a corner) would be a helpful asset.