ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Just a few thoughts from playing 1.6 for a while (thru 1.6.4, for future reference). Mosty small random stuff that I notice while I'm playing.

Good stuff:

• I like the increased light radius on lanterns; makes it a lot easier to cope if you don't find Summertide Phial or a bright lantern.
• I like the increased carrying capacity; so far, at least, it's pretty much completely eliminated the need to scrounge up a temporary "storage vault" to stow my collection of souvenir artifacts until I can get to the fortress.
• I like the new effects on some of the artifacts. In particular, back when DG was eventing Demonic Soul on the anniversary of the Ashes release, the interaction between its effect and Cloud Caller's new effect was amusing.

Bad stuff:

• What happened to psychoportation torques? They were basically the only source of teleportation available to antimagic characters (possibly barring some obscure artifact that drops so rarely that I can't even remember it off the top of my head).
• Some of the bosses are still doing way too much damage. Subject Z recently hit my level 17 Ogre Wyrmic for ~80% max life in a single turn, multiple times during the fight. That's just not on. I had a pretty solid zone order worked out before (lost merchant between Sandworm Lair and Old Forest, Halfling Ruins and Tempest Peak between Maze and Daikara) that kept up well with my progressing character strength; nowadays, though, I'm relieved if I find a source of water breathing before having to rescue the lost mrechant to get one, and after a few utter curbstomps, it's looking like I'm going to have to add Halfling Ruins and Tempest Peak to my "too deadly; never do" list alongside the Halloween event zone (and no more Wild-Gift/Fungus for my summoners is really gonna hurt…).

it's looking like I'm going to have to add Halfling Ruins and Tempest Peak to my "too deadly; never do" list

yeah this is reasonable if all your characters die before lvl 20 but makes zero sense otherwise.

Mankeli wrote:yeah this is reasonable if all your characters die before lvl 20 but makes zero sense otherwise.

No, it makes perfect sense, precisely because I virtually never used to die at this point and now I'm suddenly getting blindsided. These are bosses that I've routinely cleared without serious incident, with multiple characters of comparable power level across multiple versions spanning multiple years. I have never seen the Assassin Lord or Subject Z deal the kind of damage they're suddenly dishing out now. This is not simply a case of "git gud"; something has changed here, and for the worse.

Further thoughts that I forgot before:

• Is anyone actually using these fancy new runes in 1.6, like Mirror Image or Dispersal? All of them so far have struck me as being a bit too special-case and not really of enough general utility to dedicate one of my few inscription slots to them.
• On a tangentially related note, shatter afflictions runes are interesting, and it's nice for undead characters to finally have an actually decent source of detrimental effect removal. Thing is, though, that's "a source", singular, in which context the cooldown is annoyingly high. Also mildly annoying that its damage shield blocks shielding runes and vice versa; in my experience so far, my undead characters frequently find themselves using both at the same time.

Fixed bosses were changed. This is no secret if you have paid any attention at all of what's been happening for like the past year. The general thought to my understanding was to buff them or many of them but due to many variables not all of the changes were actually buffs. Urkis was one of the ones that is quite dangerous now but somehow implying that it's impossible to kill him now is just ludicrous.

I think my score fighting against urkis pre-dfell is now 7-0 on insane RL. I guess if he rolled freeze + uttercold or something on insane he could have possibly done nonsensical amounts of damage but freeze was already nerfed by 1.6.4.

There was/is plenty to criticize about 1.6 but somehow implying that Urkis just needs to be skipped altogether just doesn't make sense. So unless you can somehow give examples how he has just rolled so badly on insane that it's simply impossible to kill him then git gud I guess?

Assassin Lord was severely deadly in 1.6.0 but was nerfed again. As long as you take out his entourage before aggroing him - and this is guaranteed, he will not act until you target him - he should have trouble punching through a decent set of defenses even in Shadow Veil.

Z and Urkis are fair challenges when done post first prodigy - sometimes the Wayist WILL die though, certain classes just don't have the tools to guarantee a safe kill - they can burst out a lot of damage and Z can get up to 65 defense. But they've been fair on all my plays - yeah, you'll have to adjust from 1.5 expectations, but they're by no means an unkillable menace.

Shatter Afflictions is very strong and - specially with dual type Wilds practically not existing - a very attractive option, I run 1-2 on most Arcane characters. Getting ones in the 12-14 cooldown range usually isn't too hard and that works out fine as long as you're a bit selective about when to pop them. The main weakness of them is when the enemy is not dishing out effects and it does stone nothing. Dissipation is a solid 5th slot option, especially if you're worried about Vor or Sorcerers. Mirror Image is a bit strange to conceptualize in how much it helps you in practice, but the effect is very strong - inscription slots are very competitive but I can see it getting play. Overall the new runes are top notch for the most part - I believe Ethereal, Acid Wave and Biting Gale are just not viable.

Love the Mirror Image rune. Give it to your golem.