ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I'm finding more and more as the game goes on that the standard enemies present very little challenge and then I run into an enemy two or three times my level and I die- over and over again. I'm currently playing as a Dwarven Berserker and I've been taking care to raise my saves and resistances but it doesn't seem to do a lot of good when I encounter a level one hundred enemy! I even found a unique suit of armor with like forty armor and twenty defense and still I saw little improvement in the frequency of my deaths! I did manage to clear out this armory in The Far East that you get an achievement for- but only by kiting the enemies one at a time- is this how the game is meant to be played with a melee character?

Bottom line I'd just like to know which attributes/skills/statistics I should be focusing on so I don't die so often. At present I can't even imagine playing with one of the permadeath options as turning a corner and getting one shotted just happens to often at the moment.

Thanks in advance.

I personally think play-style attributes are more important than character attributes. There's a great post a short time back about this, though I'd have to dig for the link. There's a reason that vault room in the Armory has an achievement attached to it. Being a completionist is a deadly impulse in ToME. Learning to run away is one of the greatest skills you can learn in this game. It's one I still haven't fully embraced, and I pay for it.

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Here it is. It's a good thread in general, but this post specifically should be read by all new players:
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... 66#p175592

RyanFialcowitz wrote:I'm finding more and more as the game goes on that the standard enemies present very little challenge and then I run into an enemy two or three times my level and I die- over and over again. I'm currently playing as a Dwarven Berserker and I've been taking care to raise my saves and resistances but it doesn't seem to do a lot of good when I encounter a level one hundred enemy! I even found a unique suit of armor with like forty armor and twenty defense and still I saw little improvement in the frequency of my deaths! I did manage to clear out this armory in The Far East that you get an achievement for- but only by kiting the enemies one at a time- is this how the game is meant to be played with a melee character?

Bottom line I'd just like to know which attributes/skills/statistics I should be focusing on so I don't die so often. At present I can't even imagine playing with one of the permadeath options as turning a corner and getting one shotted just happens to often at the moment.

Thanks in advance.

I haven't beat the game yet, but I do play exclusively melee (bulwark) and roguelike. I find roguelike forces you to learn 'survivability' at all costs.


Important for survivability:

1) Movement Rune. Only use to escape (usually out of line of sight).
2) Teleport (not phase). For when you really, really need to escape.
3) Depending on build, a Wild of some type. I use a magic, then a magic/mental. I used to gloss over these. No longer. Nothing like having an offscreen rare put impending doom on you to realize the need for status removal.

That's 3 of your inscription slots dedicated to 'worst case scenarios'. I'm even adding a Heroism to that. (My other slot is a regen).

Generally speaking, that is my 'survivability'. I do value saving points (for example, i take the chant that gives some if i get that escort), but overall I -expect- to get various ailments regardless of saving roll so have those escapes in place.

Personally, I also take the harmony tree -- nothing like turning 5 diseases into something good. I don't know that it's necessary though. I also like that Celestial Light skill that removes bad effects, but I haven't bought it yet.

The two most important skills for survivability in a roguelike is to - check your options, and play safe. If you're getting swamped, taking that 'one extra swing' because you think you can instead of tele'ing out can get you dead if some enemy uses a talent on you that puts your tele on cooldown that turn. Likewise, forgetting you have an escape option you set up... for example, being too proud to use the rod of recall in a battle going bad... you could have tanked out the 40 turns, but instead die in 50 because you never used the rod.

To make good decisions you have to understand how dmg is calculated. Even if you know how each invidual talent works you can still make huge mistakes just because you dont know the order in which calculations are made. Im sure there are some general guidelines in other threads so i won't go into details. Just keep in mind, that you can find a lot more details in source code.

1) resists affect almost everything. They are super important. I havent seen enemy with 100% resist penetration so most of the time you will mitigate some dmg even with one digit resistances
2) armor and defence matters only when enemy is trying to hit you with his weapon. Most spells/ mind powers / nature powers are not affected by armor and defence even when dmg type is physical. Heavy armor will not protect you from for example sand breath. Resistance to physical damage will.
3) defence that is close to attacker accuracy can make him miss. Even if he hits you defence still matters because attacker wont get significant accuracy bonus. Accuracy bonus depends on weapon but in general it makes weapon crit more often or crit harder or simply do more damage.
4) armor and armor hardiness reduce dmg from each strike. Most of the time weapon will use physical damage but damage type doesnt really matter. When weapon coverts dmg to for example fire damage you will still use armor to reduce incoming damage.
5) heavy armor skills reduce enemy chance to land critical strike
6) dex critical shrug off allows you to turn critical strikes into normal strikes
7) magical shields / normal block are very similar concept to amor with 100% armor hardiness but they will work against any type of attack

This thread has a lot of great survival tips, although most of them are more strategy based than stat based. I especially recommend reading Thomas, Pigslayer, and my posts in that thread. As for building your character for defense, you'll definitely want a good Infusion setup. My general recommendation is Movement, Heroism, Wild (physical/mental or physical/magical), and Regeneration on almost every character, and either another Movement, Heroism, or Shielding for the last one. Some classes such as Corruptor, Marauder, and Archmage have very different optimal setups than this so this doesn't work for every class, but it's optimal for about 70% of classes. As for defensive stats, I'll list them in the order of importance.
1. Stun and confusion resistance: These two statuses can completely debilitate you and should be avoided as much as possible.
2. Health: Resistances can't protect you against everything. Lots of health will often give you at least enough time to get out of a bad situation.
3. Damage resistances, especially physical, fire, cold, blight, nature, and mind: Although high level Orcs get very high resistance penetration, most enemies early and many late (like Demons, Horrors, and Dragons) do not. 70% cold resistance can turn a 1,000 damage freeze into a 300 damage freeze, which does wonders for your survivability. Hold onto resistance rings and switch them depending on the zone, for instance, lightning in Tempest Peak, fire in the Charred Scar, blight in the Dark Crypt and Rak'Shor Pride, fire and cold in Vor Pride and Armory, nature in the Sludgenest, etc.
4. Healmod: If you have 50% healmod, your Regeneration Infusions and healing talents are that much better. Try to stack large amounts of this once you've eliminated the possibility of being instakilled.
5. Other status resistances, especially disease, poison, and pin: This prevents you from wasting your Wild Infusions on lesser statuses when you're stunned as well. Diseases can be very deadly and poisons, while weaker, cause annoying effects like reduced damage, talent failure, and immobilize, and pin can mess you up if you need to escape making them the next most important resistances after stun and confusion.
6. Critical reduction: Really hard to get at the moment since the only sources are Dexterity, Armor Training, and Indiscernible Anatomy, but this is seriously good. I think some items with this stat are being added next patch and Brawler is getting a good source of this too.
7. Armor and armor hardiness: Makes melee much less threatening. Amazing early, not as great late but still decent.
8. Saves: These aren't reliable enough to warrant skipping a Wild Infusion, so don't bother stacking these. Physical save is probably the least bad of the three, but spell save is pretty much worthless.
9. See stealth/invisible: Good against guys like Orc Grand Master Assassins, but getting these to decent levels is futile on higher difficulties. Probably more important than mind and spell saves on Normal.

Thanks for all the replies!

I forgot to mention that, at the time, I was playing on Nightmare which accounts for some of my difficulties. But there were several times when as a level forty character I came across a level one hundred enemy! Even with all these tips I'm incredulous that someone could survive such an encounter with any of the permadeath options.

On that note- is there a better class for someone like myself that is more interested in dying less, a class with better defensive abilities perhaps?

Edit
I forgot to mention that I went Anti-Magic on that character and was rather underwhelmed with the results. Is that a good survival oriented route or am I better off with all those Arcane items?

Also, what are good abilities/prodigies to choose to enhance one's defenses?

Antimagic is overrated. What class are you playing?

bpat wrote:Antimagic is overrated. What class are you playing?

Berserker as mentioned in my first post. But I'd like to play a class/race that doesn't have to worry so much about being constantly one shotted.

RyanFialcowitz wrote:

bpat wrote:Antimagic is overrated. What class are you playing?

Berserker as mentioned in my first post. But I'd like to play a class/race that doesn't have to worry so much about being constantly one shotted.

Oh sorry I missed that in your first post. On Nightmare you probably won't get oneshot as Berserker until very late. Be careful around enemies with Freeze. If you're still getting oneshot, take Cauterize to prevent it. If you want a class that will never be oneshot, try Corruptor or Reaver. Their Bone Shield is amazing.

bpat wrote:Oh sorry I missed that in your first post. On Nightmare you probably won't get oneshot as Berserker until very late. Be careful around enemies with Freeze. If you're still getting oneshot, take Cauterize to prevent it. If you want a class that will never be oneshot, try Corruptor or Reaver. Their Bone Shield is amazing.

I gave up around first getting to The Far East as I was sick to death of dying so much. I had tried to use gear that raised my saves and resistances and still I would die frequently- this was on Exploration Mode by the way. I've heard people on other forums echo this opinion that the balance of the game, at present, makes the other permadeath options less than attractive.

Granted most of my deaths were due to boss type characters that were drastically higher in level- but I quickly found that Stunning Blow stopped stunning enemies in that level range and without that I didn't have a lot of disabling type moves. For one enemy in The Fearscape I could only beat them with hit & run melee tactics- which is not, in my mind, how a Berserker should be played. . . Like I mentioned earlier I had a unique piece of armor with like forty armor and twenty defense and I was STILL dying! I'm not saying that nicer gear should equal immortality but I would hope to see a sharp increase in deaths.

I checked out Cauterize on the wiki and it seems to be a spellcaster prodigy- woe is me! I suppose I could just lower the difficulty if I ever come back to the game but that just seems wrong somehow.

You can get Cauterize on any non-antimagic character by spamming runes or using spells from wands (like Volcano).

bpat wrote:You can get Cauterize on any non-antimagic character by spamming runes or using spells from wands (like Volcano).

Good to know.

Skeleton berserker winner (savescummed final battle)
Skeleton is immune to poison and bleed - v. usefull.
Skeletons exp slower which is in fact better
My skely had 3 shields (2rune 1 skill) and a heal (skill).
Max str and vit.
Stun and confusion shout are a must.
Max rush, death dance, berserker, thick skin.
Some in stamina and health regen. Rest is optional.
Unstoppable + Garkul for Golem.
Dwarves guild is bad for health. You need teleport rune.
Wear the blind-immunity-neckalce. Or take it off to learn its value.
Keep items with certain resistances for certain boses.
Far portals until youre rich and famous.
Use all the exploits you know. Or read mine

RyanFialcowitz wrote:

bpat wrote:Antimagic is overrated. What class are you playing?

Berserker as mentioned in my first post. But I'd like to play a class/race that doesn't have to worry so much about being constantly one shotted.

oozemancer
solipsist