ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I'm currently playing a Cornac Doombringer Normal Roguelike. Just finished Grushnak Pride, but it was a *very* near thing, because the boss Just. Wouldn't. Stop. Blocking.

How do I counteract this? A couple of times I bumped, but that didn't seem to do anything except let him punch me, and put the counterstrike on me. A couple of times I waited, hoping the block would drop next turn (it didn't). A bunch of times I just hit him with the best skill I had available, but all that really did was waste a skill and put the counterattack on me. I tried my spells that don't involve hitting him with a giant flaming weapon, and those would get blocked.

Does anybody have any strategies for dealing with enemies who like to spam Block?

Block itself, as a talent, only ever lasts one turn - two with the Eternal Guard prodigy. The problem comes from the fact that many bulwark talents trigger a block, disregarding the cooldown of the Block talent itself.

There are a few ways to deal with this, first and foremost for a Doombringer being damage over time. You don't want to hit while the block is up, because as you found out that just gets you debuffed and smacked hard. So put a burn on him while Block isn't up, and let it burn him on the turns that he's blocking. This is a very simplistic strategy and often it isn't enough to ensure your victory, but paying attention to the timing of your skills is a step in the right direction. Every dangerous enemy has a certain rhythm to them, based on what talents they have available, and learning to dance with them properly will take you far. That's not to say that you can necessarily predict that rhythm with perfect accuracy - but you can make educated guesses based on cooldown timings and observed patterns.

Secondly, use ranged attacks if you have them. If I recall, you can still have Counterstrike inflicted on you from range, but it isn't going to do your enemy any good if they aren't in range to hit you.

The most effective way to deal with this, and the hardest to plan for, is being able to put enemy talents on cooldown. You can find this on some weapon egos and few and far between on some class skills, none of which I think DB has - if you want top go this route you'll be looking for specific egos on weapons, and specific pieces of gear (such as the Rod of whatever-it's-called - you'll know it if you find it. Absorption maybe?) But the premise is pretty simple - he can't trigger a block if all his blocking talents are on cooldown.

OK, so I guess against blocking enemies I should use a staff (I grabbed the staff tree, and was using a staff for most of the game but ended up going back to a Two-handed sword when I got Warmaster Gnarl's Murderblade), since they have more effective burns. I tried just letting him burn, but the burns just weren't effective enough to get through his HP fast enough using a sword.

Thanks!

Not that it matters, I'm officially stymied by a unique blinkwyrm with Displacement Shield, Time Shield, Block and 65 defense (compared to my 45 Accuracy) in one of the other Prides. *sigh* So I miss pretty much every attack except for burning claw, shadow ball, reckless attack and one other whose name I don't remember. And the two shield talents and blocking means he can pretty indefinitely block those too, and then get healing back. This is my own fault for not looking at the unique's talents and stats before I opened the hut door but still. Everytime I take the time to carefully read each talent, I long for Angband and it's concise paragraph.

I could try running for the next level, but I wasn't smart enough to clear that before opening doors, and there's a lot of open space between me and the blinking blinkwyrm.

Ah well.

And I died. Turns out I didn't make a mistake. That wretched unique was one of the uniques guarding the switch I needed to pull. So grabbed a second Movement infusion, and proceeded to run around looking for the other switch so that I could try to advance. Got the switch pulled, while being chased by a bunch of uniques, Fearshift for *some reason* didn't actually shift me to the exit like I hoped, so I was stuck in a corridor taking way to long to kill the stupid summoner, and then kept getting pinned or stunned or something so I couldn't move.

So, yeah. A unique with twenty points higher defense than my accuracy, two shield talents (one of which heals), and block, which I had to bypass in order to advance in the game.

*Returns to 1.5.10*

*Sees that he can't get a 1.5.10 compatible version of the Ashes of Uhr'Rok expansion.*

*Cries.*

archolewa wrote:
*Returns to 1.5.10*

*Sees that he can't get a 1.5.10 compatible version of the Ashes of Uhr'Rok expansion.*

*Cries.*

Should be on GOG.

Slough wrote:

archolewa wrote:
*Returns to 1.5.10*

*Sees that he can't get a 1.5.10 compatible version of the Ashes of Uhr'Rok expansion.*

*Cries.*

Should be on GOG.

Tried that. GOG Galaxy apparently only has the past 6 months of releases available for rollback (back to 1.6.2 I think), and I can't seem to find a way to download older versions directly :sad-face:

archolewa wrote: Tried that. GOG Galaxy apparently only has the past 6 months of releases available for rollback (back to 1.6.2 I think), and I can't seem to find a way to download older versions directly :sad-face:

The most right solution would be to have older versions available on te4 for donors/purchasers. And I know how you feel about 1.6. I scrounged up 1.5 DLCs from GOG once I realized I wanted to stay with it a while. Didn't know there was a time limit...

Yeah. To be clear, there are things that I like about 1.6. Everything through Dreadfell is a ton of fun, I like the changes made to Cursed, and the Anorithil changes look interesting though I haven't tried one yet. The Master is my favorite fight in the game, and that hasn't changed with 1.6. I just had a really fun fight against him with a Thalore Cursed when the banshee unique decided to show up in the middle of it. Who was winning definitely shifted several times throughout the fight.

Unfortunately, despite all the changes made to the East, I still find it such a drag. It's still too long, your character's power growth is still mostly flat, the Prides are still boring wide open spaces with little opportunity to engage in the kind of LOS shenanigans that I enjoy in a roguelike (with the exception of the necromancer pride, but *that* one increases the chances of criticals, meaning there's a much higher chance of getting Critted to death). The only difference is that now the East throws massive numbers of uniques at you, and sometimes they'll wreck you. Also, many of the Pride bosses are much more aggravating.

Maybe someday I'll see if I can write a mod that replaces the prides with a single Dreadfell style Fortress with four floors. Each floor has a particular theme (antimagic, melee, magic, necromancy) with one of the Pride masters on it. And the endgame is basically fighting your way down through the fortress and then back up High Peak. And probably dump the floor-wide effects.

So, I feel that I have an apology to make...

That being, having now started a new shield-using character (modded, but that doesn't matter in this case) I can see that the basic Block talent actually lasts two turns by default now. I'm not sure when this change was made, and I'm relatively certain that it's a bug as the text for Eternal Guard still states that it makes Block last for two turns.

I noticed that you already submitted a bug report about the ant blocking for three turns; I don't know how he got THREE out of it, that's even more crazy - but as I initially stated that Block only lasts a single turn I felt obligated to come correct myself.

That said, I'm still pretty sure it's only SUPPOSED to last one turn.

PseudoLoneWolf wrote:That being, having now started a new shield-using character (modded, but that doesn't matter in this case) I can see that the basic Block talent actually lasts two turns by default now. I'm not sure when this change was made, and I'm relatively certain that it's a bug as the text for Eternal Guard still states that it makes Block last for two turns. [....] That said, I'm still pretty sure it's only SUPPOSED to last one turn.

The basic block talent lasts two turns... but goes away at the start of your turn if it blocked any damage. Eternal Guard in 1.6 means that it no longer ends due to blocking damage, only after the full two turns.

It is not a bug that the default block talent lasts two turns.

Block doesn't stop you laying down the Stun-locking.

HousePet wrote:Block doesn't stop you laying down the Stun-locking.

Pretty sure Doombringers don't have a reliable means of stunning (they have incinerating blows, but I don't think that's guaranteed to trigger even maxed out), and the only stun talent I had available was from the staff tree. Which, I probably should have switched to against the Pride leader guy. Didn't help against the Blinkwyrm because its high defense meant I couldn't land a stunning blow to save my life. Which yeah, I guess the next time I play a Doombringer, I should be on the lookout for more means of stunning.

archolewa wrote: the only stun talent I had available was from the staff tree. [...] Didn't help against the Blinkwyrm because its high defense meant I couldn't land a stunning blow to save my life.

but blunt thrust is the one stun talent that DO deal with not being able to hit !

Hit a target for 125%, 136%, 144%, 150%, 157% melee damage and stun it for 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 turns.

Stun chance will improve with Spellpower.

At level 5, this attack cannot miss.

Cathbald wrote:

archolewa wrote: the only stun talent I had available was from the staff tree. [...] Didn't help against the Blinkwyrm because its high defense meant I couldn't land a stunning blow to save my life.

but blunt thrust is the one stun talent that DO deal with not being able to hit !

Hit a target for 125%, 136%, 144%, 150%, 157% melee damage and stun it for 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 turns.

Stun chance will improve with Spellpower.

At level 5, this attack cannot miss.

And I had it at 4/5 XD. To be fair, I play on normal, and I had maxed out Combat Accuracy. I've never had problems hitting things before now on Normal with maxed out Combat Accuracy, so you can imagine why I may have forgotten about that.