ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

It occurs to me that I haven't gotten around to posting my updated Inscription guide on the forums yet so here it is.

Infusions

Regeneration: Good for classes that have some form of damage mitigation, so they can survive sustained combat (Oozemancer). Bad for classes that have damage block instead of mitigation and low health (Archmage). I usually use this around 70% life, though often that turn is better spent killing enemies. It’s a good way to kill a turn when dazed or pinned. Notable synergy with Fungus. Stat scaling is approximately 3.5 per stat point.

Wild: Physical is the only kind you want, since you really want to be able to remove stuns. If you have 100% stun resistance, Mental can be good too if confusion is proving problematic. Prioritize low cooldown over damage reduction when choosing which Wild Infusion to use. Stat scaling is very low, approximately 0.1% per stat point.

Healing: Great early since poisons and bleeds can be a serious issue. Falls off harder than Regeneration but low cooldown keeps it decent. I usually favor Regeneration over this but it’s by no means bad. Scaling is approximately 2.5 per stat point. Note that this does not trigger Ancestral Life.

Sun: It’s not very good aside from a few specific zones (Alt Kor’Pul). The apply power is actually really good but it’s still not worth a slot. Can be a decent placeholder if you find one early and have nothing else to use in your third Inscription slot.

Movement: The most important Inscription on characters without 100% stun resistance, and still very useful on those that do have 100% stun resistance. Use this over talents like Rush to initiate and you won’t get stunned or pinned. Using it and not moving is fine if you expect to be stunned in the next few turns. Great for repositioning in combat to dodge scary projectiles or get out of/into melee range. Scaling is 3% per stat point.

Heroism: Usually better than Shielding Rune on classes that have good healing but low health. The stat boost is very good on physical damage dealers, but really you’re mostly using it to survive burst damage. Long duration is not to be underestimated; don’t hesitate to use it if you think you’ll need it in the next few turns. Stat scaling is approximately 4 per stat point.

Insidious Poison: It’s just bad. Magical effects are the least threatening of the three types and the healing reduction is pitiful and even if it wasn’t, it’s relevant against very few enemies.

Runes

Shielding: Great on squishy characters, usually better than Regeneration on casters. It has a very low duration compared to Heroism so you’ll have to be more careful about when to use it. Note that resists and other damage reduction doesn't apply to your damage shields so if you have 100 life, 100 shield, and 50% resist all, your effective life is 300 not 400. Scaling is 3 per stat point.

Phase Door: The out of phase buff is actually ridiculous late game and I believe this rune is underrated because people don’t realize how good the out of phase buff can get. It may seem hard to justify spending an Inscription slot on a random teleport since it can send you to your death, but with really high out of phase buffs it's very unlikely you're going to die. It would be better if the max range was around 5 or so but it is still very good. This Rune really shines late but it's absolutely amazing once out of phase buffs are passing 40%.

Teleport: Very overrated. The range is huge and it doesn’t give the out of phase buff so you could easily teleport to certain death. Use a torque of psychoportation instead for times that you really need it and save your Inscription slot for something better. Some people like it because of the minimum range but aside from the final battle I can't think of any situation where it'd be better than Phase Door.

Manasurge: Obviously very situational, useless on all but a few classes, but those few classes can make great use of it.

Invisibility: Not reliable, not instant. Pass this up for something better.

Vision: Just get Track from an escort or items. Worst Inscription in the game.

Controlled Phase Door: Worse than Movement Infusion, use only if Undead.

Heat Beam: Worse than Wild Infusion, use only if Undead. Doesn’t remove off-balance so it’s unreliable.

Biting Gale: The freeze has a high apply power and the wet debuff is great for some classes so this is actually pretty good. It's hard to justify fitting this in but it's still a solid Inscription, especially on Undead. This is often good to use just for the freeze and wet even without having a mental debuff.

Acid Wave: Same deal as Biting Gale, except it’s usually worse since freeze is usually better than disarm and Biting Gale applies wet. Magical effects are usually trivial compared to physical and magical so run it for the disarm rather than the cleanse.

Lightning: Really good Corruptor and Reaver because it preserves Bone Shield charges. It’s not bad on other classes but you usually have better options.

Unique Inscriptions

Rune of Reflection: Usually better than Shielding Rune for classes that max Magic. Scaling is 5 per stat point, which is better than regular Shielding Rune's 3 per stat point scaling.

Rune of the Rift: Necromancer's Forgery of Haze likes to use this and it's actually pretty great to remove a foe from a fight for a while, but it can be saved against so it's not that great. Definitely not worth the slot on any other class.

Infusion of Wild Growth: Thorny Skin Totem on an Inscription that also damages and pins enemies. This one is alright, though I rarely end up getting it because I prioritize good potions over this.

Primal Infusion: Usually worse than Wild Infusion because it will often remove a relatively harmless magical or mental effect when you really want to remove a physical effect. The affinity is nice though and some classes like Berserker aren't reliant Wild Infusions for removing physical effects.

Taint of Telepathy: Barely better than a Vision Rune, which is still pretty bad.

What Inscriptions to use

The core set works well on most classes with some exceptions, which is Movement, Movement, Heroism, Physical Wild, and Regeneration. Wild can be swapped for Phase Door late game. If Ogre, add Shielding, Healing, a second Heroism, a second Regeneration, or a Phase Door. Rune of Reflection replaces Shielding on classes that use Magic, except when specified on classes that want a third Shielding. Wild always refers to the Physical kind.

Berserker: Core, Wild may not be needed and can be replaced with a second Regeneration or Heroism.

Bulwark: Core, Wild may not be needed and can be replaced with a second Regeneration or Heroism.

Archer: Core

Arcane Blade: Shielding, Shielding/Heroism, Movement, Movement, Manasurge. Reflection can replace something other than Shielding for three Shieldings but that may be overkill.

Brawler: Core, Wild may not be needed and can be replaced with a second Regeneration or Heroism.

Rogue: Core

Shadowblade: Core

Marauder: Core, Wild may not be needed and can be replaced with a second Regeneration or Heroism.

Skirmisher: Core

Alchemist: Don’t know because I am awful at this class. Probably the core with something swapped for Manasurge.

Archmage: Shielding, Shielding/Heroism, Manasurge/Movement, Movement/PD/Wild, (Movement/PD). Reflection replaces something other than Shielding. You won’t have a fifth slot usually unless Cornac or Ogre since you’ll want Meta, Temporal, and an elemental category. Sometimes you won’t even have a fourth slot if you take Harmony or Light, in which case drop a Shielding/Heroism.

Necromancer: Don’t know because I am awful at this class. Probably the core with something swapped for Manasurge. Rune of the Rift is surprisingly good here with Forgery of Haze, but may still not be worth it.

Summoner: Core

Wyrmic: Core

Oozemancer: Core

Stone Warden: Core. You don't need Manasurge.

Sun Paladin: Core

Anorithil: Core, consider swapping something for Shielding, probably the Wild.

Reaver: Movement, Movement, Shielding, Shielding/Lightning, Lightning/Wild/Heroism. This is assuming you're taking Light or Tinkers.

Corruptor: Movement, Movement, Shielding, Shielding/Lightning, Lightning/Wild/Regeneration.

Doombringer: Core

Demonologist: Core

Cursed: Core

Doomed: Core

Paradox Mage: Phase Door, Shielding, Regeneration, Movement, (Movement). If you only have three slots, drop the Shielding.

Temporal Warden: Core, consider swapping in Phase Door and/or Shielding.

Pretty solid advice. Might be worth adding the so-called artifact inscriptions (Rune of Reflection, Primal, Wild Growth, etc.) even if they are a little sub-par. Also! I'm pretty sure that damage shields, such as those created by a shielding rune, are unaffected by any sort of damage mitigation that isn't another shield, like resists. Might be worth mentioning. Maybe in the shielding rune section.

I strongly disagree on Teleport rune. I use one on most characters that don't have a similar ability by default and it saves my life on a frequent basis. Psychoportation is also good, but it lacks the minimum 15 range of Teleport, which is critical for getting you away from a bad situation. I can probably count on one hand the number of times Teleport has gotten me killed when I wasn't already doomed, after 1000+ hours playing the game.

Good guide, but I'd strongly disagree about Regeneration VS Healing.

Even a very high Regeneration infusion takes 1 turn to activate, and by the time you actually need it, deciding to spend 1 turn in an emergency situation activating it is a tough decision. It's great for filling up after battle for classes without healing/regeneration skills. But unless you realize you'll be in trouble and activate it ahead of time it's less useful during battles. Except for limited circumstances where there's tons of AOE dots going off, like against wights or wretchlings or the gravity sandworms.

On the other hand, Healing infusion, while being generally 1/3rd or less healing total as a Regeneration infusion, is instant and removes poisons & bleeds (as you noted). I find this to be way more useful

Edited to discuss unique Inscriptions and damage shields not being affected by resists.

Effigy wrote:I strongly disagree on Teleport rune. I use one on most characters that don't have a similar ability by default and it saves my life on a frequent basis. Psychoportation is also good, but it lacks the minimum 15 range of Teleport, which is critical for getting you away from a bad situation. I can probably count on one hand the number of times Teleport has gotten me killed when I wasn't already doomed, after 1000+ hours playing the game.

Phase Door is usually better because it brings your resists near the 70% cap usually allowing you to survive even if it doesn't get you far away. I'd rather use something that'll win you fights rather than bail you out of lost fights. It isn't completely useless but I don't think it's worth a slot except possibly in the final battle.

Coldbringer wrote:Good guide, but I'd strongly disagree about Regeneration VS Healing.

Even a very high Regeneration infusion takes 1 turn to activate, and by the time you actually need it, deciding to spend 1 turn in an emergency situation activating it is a tough decision. It's great for filling up after battle for classes without healing/regeneration skills. But unless you realize you'll be in trouble and activate it ahead of time it's less useful during battles. Except for limited circumstances where there's tons of AOE dots going off, like against wights or wretchlings or the gravity sandworms.

On the other hand, Healing infusion, while being generally 1/3rd or less healing total as a Regeneration infusion, is instant and removes poisons & bleeds (as you noted). I find this to be way more useful

If you have all your Heroism and Movement Inscriptions on cooldown so you can't use Regeneration to survive then something has already gone horribly wrong. Many people are greedy with Renegeration and only use it when low on life, but I most often use it around 50-70% life. Heroism + Regeneration when on the brink of death is better than Heroism + Healing, so as long as you don't waste Heroism then Healing is far worse than Regeneration. Bleeds and Poisons are usually not a huge deal late but Healing is alright early. The only really problematic ones are crippling and spydric poisons, and spydric is prevented by Movement Infusions.

The healing infusion can help to protect the wild(physical) one. Just in case you need to clear stun, pin or daze but there's a poison or wound too. Think about how good the healing infusion is when it removes both a poison and a wound like cripple. It goes well with regeneration+wild+movement and a big tier 3 torque of kinetic psionic shield or totem of thorny skin of the same quality.

spydric is prevented by Movement Infusions

It is not prevented. None of the fancy pin effects interact with pin resistance.

Since that nasty sustain eating entropy debuff was added, I've been thinking more about getting a magical debuff cleanser.

There's a lot of advantage to taking medical injectors as well. A pair of low cooldown injectors are absurdly flexible, giving damage reduction and the ability to survive below 0, cure any negative status (in batches of 3 to maximize the chance of removing the one you really want gone), gain a huge amount of saves and heal mod (I've seen +420 all save and +216% healing mod), or just directly heal (possibly for more life than you actually have), and you pick which one you want the injector to give when you actually use it.

Huh didn't know spydric poison isn't prevented by Movement Infusion, I guess that's a point in favor of Healing. Even so I've recently been finding that Wild is the weakest Inscription in my core setup and I've been cutting it in favor of PD. I'm not even sure if Wild is worth it anymore and if it isn't then Healing definitely is. However Healing is still decent and it's the best Inscription other than Heroism, Movement, Regeneration, Wild, Shielding, and PD; it's good but not good enough.

Magical debuff cleansing isn't worth it just for Entropy. I have found Movement Infusion to be a reasonable soft counter to Entropy, and enemies that use Entropy usually don't apply many other statuses that you need to get rid of so you can save Relentless Pursuit for it.

Medical Injectors are crazy good and you should always use two in EoR. In AoA they're still good but cost an extra category point so whether or not they're worth it is best judged on a case by case basis.

bpat wrote: Healing: [....] Notable synergy with Fungus for free turns and regen.

This misinformation. Healing + Fungus does not give a free turn.

visage wrote:

bpat wrote: Healing: [....] Notable synergy with Fungus for free turns and regen.

This misinformation. Healing + Fungus does not give a free turn.

Weird, I was sure I tested it but perhaps it doesn't. I'll have to double check it then.

think you're missing solipsist (core, although I found a second regeneration to be more valuable than a second movement in my insane victory as you really want to keep psi maxed) and mindslayer (which I haven't played, so no opinion).

bpat wrote:

visage wrote:

bpat wrote: Healing: [....] Notable synergy with Fungus for free turns and regen.

This misinformation. Healing + Fungus does not give a free turn.

Weird, I was sure I tested it but perhaps it doesn't. I'll have to double check it then.

Using the lua console showed no change in energy before and after using a Healing infusion with Fungus up and running. Would there be a better way to test this, or something I missed?

To give some information about the Fungus Category:

Wild Growth - Bumps up any Regeneration Effect duration that is active on you.
Fungal Growth - You receive a 6 Turn Regeneration Buff when you receive a Healing Effect.
Ancestral Life - Each time a Regeneration Effect is used on you, you gain a turn.
Sudden Growth - Gives you a Heal based on your Regeneration Rate.

Out of all Fungus' skills, only Fungal Growth makes use of the Healing Infusion.

Also of note, the Arcane Shield skill from the Aegis Category acts much like Fungal Growth - but instead of a Regeneration Buff you get a Damage Shield.

according to the ogre racials, medical injectors count as inscriptions
maybe steam generators do too; I think you should include those in your guide bpat

furthermore, I think that all undead race/class combos except maybe archmage should run as many shield runes as possible; the more survivability the less likely it is that you'll die
however the shield runes part changes after a tinker escort is found, or if playing embers