ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hi everybody,
Like many I'm now struggling with self healing enemies in beta 19.
I'm playing my first doomed. Level 3 and up against Bill.
Willfull strike hits him for 20, and Reproach for around 45.
Also have a poison trap I can lead him over.
So a couple of combos of that, and hes down to about 75%. He then regens and is instantly back to over 95%. We've been going round in circles for 20 minutes now. I got rid of my shadow as all it was doing was getting killed and draining my hate.

I don't really have any other means of dealing damage (level 1 creeping darkness doesn't appear much use). Anyone have any tips? Or should I just come back later.

Not complaining, I guess this could make the game more non-linear now. Do I need to level up on the lower levels of several dungeons and be around level 6-8 before trying to take on a boss? This just looks like it could go on for ever...

Edit: Yep, just played around in levels 3 & 4 of the trollmire until I was level 5. Then, once I got bill all alone with a 2x1 bunch of trees to runaround, the knockback in Willful Strike, damage of 40 and 65 respectively, meant we could work him down. I think what happenned is I improved my tactics too. I needed the extra damage, but also had to get into the situation where I didn't waste much "cooldown" time. Thus the cooldowns of 3 on my damage spells racing his regen.

So guess you could say the new features are working. Making me play smarter in boss fights. This will take some getting used to (especially coming off a b18 character who has just been callously shadow blasting everything - to the point where I was casting it round unexplored corners just in case it made some pretty green numbers float upwards). But think it will be cool. I'm not normally one for "having a plan" in a fight - looks like I might have to in the future.

Edit: Now struggling with the weirding beast, he has a healing infusion which seems to heal for over 300, and on a very short cooldown. This is looking tough withought a disabling spell, wish I'd learnt the madness talent. The bitch is it takes so long to get down here. I'll give it another 5 or 10, otherwise I'll have to come back later. Bastard.

Edit: Got him, he stunned himself with a starfall and I resisted. Woo hoo.

budswell wrote:
Edit: Now struggling with the weirding beast, he has a healing infusion which seems to heal for over 300, and on a very short cooldown. This is looking tough withought a disabling spell, wish I'd learnt the madness talent. The bitch is it takes so long to get down here. I'll give it another 5 or 10, otherwise I'll have to come back later. Bastard.

Edit: Got him, he stunned himself with a starfall and I resisted. Woo hoo.

My archer is having a rough time with the beast in Sher'tul fortress, too. He's got better infusions and runes than I do, including a potent healing infusion, and a regeneration infusion which heals him for more than I can deal in damage in a round. Plus weird powers that apparently shut down my regeneration infusion and the hymn I got from an escort. He normally keeps me too close to him with his grab move for me to even be able to pull off a scattershot, and on the rare occasions I can, he usually resists. I try heaving him away, and he grabs me back. When it does work, I can't do enough damage while he's stunned to get him past maybe 40%, and then he heals back to full hp as soon as he unstuns. *sigh*

Yeah, its hard. I had the advantage of "feed" draining his health. So I would just sit and feed, letting him hit me, this ould have been much harder if I had to worry about myu own health. So I watched until he used his healing infustion, then I would unleash all my damage stuff, trying to work it so that I used the quick cooldowns first, so they would be able to get a 2nd one in. Even with all this was still at it for 20 minutes until the lucky "friendly fire" sealed the deal. But I link to think I was getting closer anyway.

Watch his health (look/mouseover) closely, he tends to heal once he gets around 60-70% health. I've never had any luck with archers (only killed bill once). I guess my strategy would be.
- just pepper him down to around 70% without using talents
- then do your stun talent
- then throw all your damage talents at him
- fingers crossed

In general I think the new bosses mean you have to focus your early character on getting a high damage attack and a stunning talen both with a reasonables cooldowns.
But I like it, its now very different to fighting general bad guys. Gonna suck in a crowd though - all the early bosses are relative loners which is nice.

And you can always back up the stairs and try and hunt 'h's to get another level or two. Beats coming all the way back later...