Your advice\tips on Nightmare

[GlassGo]

What race, what class i need, to beat Nightmare difficulty?
I already tried Cornac Arcane Archmage - his lack of firepower was unsatisfactory, tried Dwarf Alchemist - his firepower is OK, but survival capabilities... even Untouchable didn't help in Dark Crypt.

So, what is your advice?

[Tharsonius]

if u have wildfire tree imo archmage is one of the best classes for this. fire archmage higher/skeleton/shalore.

i only played one time trough nightmare as paradox mage (adventure mode 1 death after final fight) and i think the main difficulty is the start especially for melee classes. so ure better of playing a mage/psi ranged class imo (archmage, solipsist, oozemancer, paradox mage..)

more important is imo that u know many skills in the game, and which enemies are dangerous/how to deal with them. for example in rhaloren camp the stone projectile mages are way stronger on nightmare.

this type of topic is better in spoiler section and u will get more detailed answers there i guess.

[GlassGo]

if u have wildfire tree imo archmage is one of the best classes for this. fire archmage higher/skeleton/shalore.

I have. The problem with Archmage is that Arcane build require Cornac for Timeshield, otherwise he get it on last category point (he just didn't survive long enough).
But Fire build can solve a problem - he doesn't need Meta so strong.

i only played one time trough nightmare as paradox mage (adventure mode 1 death after final fight) and i think the main difficulty is the start especially for melee classes. so ure better of playing a mage/psi ranged class imo (archmage, solipsist, oozemancer, paradox mage..)

Well, just now I trying Paradox Mage, right before I started topic. ) Glad to know it's a class that can survive and win Nightmare.
I want to try Soly, but no luck to unlock it. Any mods that help with it, I consider for myself as cheat. )

more important is imo that u know many skills in the game, and which enemies are dangerous/how to deal with them. for example in rhaloren camp the stone projectile mages are way stronger on nightmare.

Yes. I noted, that Shadows are much more deadlier than on Normal.

this type of topic is better in spoiler section and u will get more detailed answers there i guess.

Didn't think about it. Please move it, moders. )

[GlassGo]

Well, I tried Shalore Paradox Mage (was instagibbed and one-shotted by crocodile-rare in Nur, when I came around the corner), tried Ghoul PM - was killed by Withering Thing's Shadows.
Any suggestion?

[Tharsonius]

suggestion for paradox mage or in general? i think fire archmage is easier for sure

paradox mage has low life ofc, so u need to play very careful until u get cauterize(dont autoexplore). i put 1 point to almost everything on PM and glitched some skills i used only rarely to 5 when needed (like confuse cone and gravity well, ashes to ashes)


chronomancy/energy is far stronger than it looks. first talent gives decent elemental damage reduction, second physical and up to 60+% slow projectiles. the most dangerous enemy for paradox mage are mind classes since u have no damage reduction vs them and they have many non projectile ranged stuff.

i put the generics like 3 dimensional step 3/3/1/5 chronomancy energy midgame. redux i used with gravity well for crowds or quantum spike for bosses.

i took cauterize at lvl 30 and temporal form 42 nd i think theres no real other choices for a PM, hidden resources can be nice but cauterize is just needed due to ur fragility and temporal form finally lets u deal more damage than an archmage.

withering thing is a top killer on nightmare, i think many players skip it. if u dont want to skip it stay out of sight range and kill some shadows like 10 times, he will be out of hate and an easy victim.

[ZyZ]

I made several attempts with archers / stone wardens and at this point first 30-35 levels are perfectly doable. I definitely prefer pet or control classes over pure dps and range over melee. Stone warden is my favourite so far.

Statistics suggest it's not the the easiest class to play but they are very strong in early game.
* Elemental split minions are strong enough to kill most enemies and talent itself is a tier 1 wild gift so you can reset this skill with rank 1 nature balance. Power Core shield will save your life many times without you even knowing it
* Stone wall is a good defensive talent. You can block enemy los and use Pulverizing Auger / Stone Walking / Gem Portal to retreat. Much better option than random phase door.
* Eldrich slam is very strong aoe (radious 7). It will one shot most normal enemies in dreadfell (~700-1200 dmg) and do serious dmg to orcs latter. Dmg depends on you weapon dmg so you actually have to boost strenght not magic to get most from it
* 2 shields allows you to make great spectral / eternal Guard combo later
* Maxed stone vines are extremly strong when you face melee mobs. Just do not forget to turn it off when there is fast range mob around and you plan to use standard movement. Good archer can hit you at least 3-6 times before you reach next square.

MOst of the time i died to something new or unexpected. Mindworm boss hitting like a truck (bam 300 mind dmg, bum 300 mind dmg Who would expect that ? ), grand corruptor too early, lv 68 multi-hued great wyrms in some random cave, lich at the end of big vault etc If you can force yourself to avoid everything that looks super dangerous but intriguing ^^ you should reach far east without much problems.

[adamn]

I'd say Thalore Oozemancer is by far your easiest bet. People have said that playing an Oozemancer on Nightmare is like playing any other class on Normal, and I agree. They're really strong. A Thalore Oozemancer will have disease immunity, great resists, great heals, split damage with bloated oozes, DoT mitigation with antimagic, can wear heavy armor without worrying about fatigue... Just really hard to kill. And with super high nature penetration, anything that isn't poison immune, even bosses, dies really quickly.

Also, a tip for any class: shield torques are your best friend.

[Furey]

I ran a Cornac summoner and made it to high peak on my first attempt on nightmare. The summoner class gives you great ability to avoid being one shot, since you can scout around corners with your summons, and you can get antimagic shield very early (usually I get it around level 12 or so as soon as I can kill the AM monsters in Zigur)

My general advice:
1. Clear start of intro zones, but be very cautious around bosses. As a summoner you can kill Bill at level 6, if you are lucky.
2. Scout scout scout. Rounding a corner and dying can happen easily on nightmare.
3. If you don't need to kill it, avoid it. Rares can be much more dangerous than bosses, who have static abilities.
4. Run away. Often. Early. You simply cannot slug it out on Nightmare like you can on normal. Fight, leave, heal, return, repeat. I had a worm that walks spawn on my way to the Weirdling Beast. Tried him 4 times (without dying), then decided to leave. Leveled, returned, tried twice more....left. Leveled, returned, and won. You must be willing to retreat, or you die.
5. Gear with HP is essential. Far more important than anything else to get your HP up.

[donkatsu]

So after doing the Elandar fight across a variety of classes and versions, I think that there's no way to guarantee a win if you go antimagic. Maybe things might have changed with the new scaling, but Elandar still gets a huge global speed bonus from Essence of Speed, and if he crits Freeze and Lightning on you in the same turn, you're basically dead unless you have Unstoppable or Aegis. If I recall correctly, it's like 3000-4000 damage if everything goes Elandar's way, so no amount of +life items or heroism infusions will be enough to survive that kind of burst. If you don't go antimagic, then you can use gloves of dispersion and have a pretty good shot at knocking off his Essence of Speed. Otherwise, you have to rely on silence or spell disruption or something, and due to his high saves on Nightmare, it's nearly impossible to get enough mindpower to guarantee that it lands.

I mean, you could pray that he targets Aeryn first and that Aeryn doesn't die before you can kill him, or that he doesn't crit Freeze and Lightning, or that he doesn't use those two spells consecutively, or that he fails his mental save roll against your silence. If one of those things happen, then it can even make the battle seem easy in hindsight. But it makes me rather uneasy knowing that I'm basically counting on a dice roll not to die, especially after all of the effort that goes into getting a character to the final fight on Nightmare in the first place. Even if the dice roll is in your favor, I would much rather have gloves of dispersion (or even better, Disperse Magic as a talent) to get rid of Essence of Speed and remove the danger of taking a strong double hit.

Summoner is an exception because they never have to spend a turn in LOS of anything, ever

[GlassGo]

Summoners have one big disadvantage - they are BORING.

[Xandor Tik'Roth]

Moved to the Spoilers forum at the request of the OP.

Also, I've found that Wildfire Archmages, Oozemancer's and Summoners are stupid powerful IF you know how to play them. That being said, any race/class combo should be able to beat the game if played properly. If some of the insane challenges from ToME 2 are to be believed, anyway...

[madmonk]

That being said, any race/class combo should be able to beat the game if played properly. If some of the insane challenges from ToME 2 are to be believed, anyway...

Yes, if you look in the Character Vault (here: http://te4.org/characters-vault), you'll see that every class has won.

What's more difficult to assess is the specific build used within a class.

[tylor]

That being said, any race/class combo should be able to beat the game if played properly. If some of the insane challenges from ToME 2 are to be believed, anyway...

Yes, if you look in the Character Vault (here: http://te4.org/characters-vault), you'll see that every class has won.

What's more difficult to assess is the specific build used within a class.

There are no Nightmare Archer or Rogue winners. One Marauder. And two of each TWs, Bulwarks and Reavers.

[bpat]

For an easy win, I recommend Thalore Oozemancer, Thalore Summoner, Thalore Solipsist, Shalore Corruptor/Reaver, or Stone Warden. All of these classes have excellent defense except Summoner, which shouldn't be getting hit anyway. Melee is much harder to start with so I recommend going pure ranged, even on classes like Reaver and Stone Warden. If you're having trouble early game, pick up a Tentacle Totem; it will make the t1s and t2s a joke. Skip the Dark Crypt unless you're Thalore or you have a good source of disease and/or blight resistance, my super tanky Stone Warden recalled out after two floors since it was too dangerous without disease or blight resistance. Status (mainly stun) prevention is more important than before since effects tend to last around 10 turns late game consider picking up Spine of the World or Draconic Will. Cauterize is probably the best defensive prodigy you can get so take it if you can. Your inscriptions should probably be something like Heroism, Movement, Wild (physical or physical and mental), Regeneration, Shielding to make sure you don't get killed. Don't go undead unless your class has good defense and you're picking up the Light category since your defense will suffer from not having infusions. With Heroism, it's better to be safe than sorry; don't wait until you're almost dead to use it unless you have Cauterize.

[GlassGo]

Things go hard, so I decided first to unlock Drolem and Solipsist on Normal, and then we'll see...