ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I think I've figured out the pattern to all my recent deaths. It's been a very long time since I've had any characters make it to Dreadfell. They all die in or around Daikara.

I believe the common issue with all of them is that once the "easy" dungeons are exhausted, I'm left underpowered with nowhere to grind to become more powerful before taking on the deadly dungeons. I consider the deadly dungeons to be Daikara, Temporal Rift, Tempest Peak, Dreadfell. When I get to the point where these are the only places left to go, I'm usually level 18-20 or so, and then I get to spin the great wheel to decide where I want to die today.

Since other people are getting past this point in beta 28, that means I'm obviously the one who's going about it wrong. But what am I doing wrong? (I know, that's an awfully open-ended question....) How are other people either managing to survive the deadly zones at that level, or managing to become more powerful before having to go into them?

Got some examples? I'll admit to having similar trouble myself, but then I've never been all that great at the game.

A big problem tends to be choosing power over protection. Not putting enough points in Con and getting the health talents is an especially easy trap to fall into when there are so many neat attack talents to invest in and I want to cause more damage with higher St or Mag. Also, there's a bit of luck involved in finding a decent shield rune, healing/regen infusion and general good equipment (especially weapons for melee types). On top of that there's the hard choice between items which give resistances and items which give attack power. Getting the right balance can make for tough decisions.

There's also of course the usual problems with overconfidence, not paying enough attention, forgetting important abilities, etc etc... Roguelikes are mean sometimes :)

Examples are all here: http://te4.org/user/36/characters

Typical story is "Well, I walked right through the Maze without blinking, I stomped the Sandworm Queen, what's next... Urkis... put on lightning resist stuff, go in, die. Shit."

Prioritize survival above all else. Learn/acquire escape options, increase your health, and learn to run away before things get too rough.

I agree the Daikara is extra hard compared to the previous three zones.
Maybe it's the burrowing/wallwalking enemies, maybe it's the giants that confuse you, the powerful dragons that resist stunning...

Hmm, lots of melee chars - your own preference? Was a nice ghoul you had going in the infinite dungeon by the way. Have you tried a ghoul barbarian in the main campaign or arena mode? Lots of fun...

Anyway, I'd say you've had some trouble getting decent weapons by the looks of things. Which I personally find odd - I usually get some dwarven steel very early on. Some of your characters seem low on Con and resistances too, but not all of them. None of them have phase runes or movements infusions, which I consider pretty vital for those hairy situations. The equivalent wyrmic talent has a long cooldown so it can't always be relied on.

Zonk wrote:I agree the Daikara is extra hard compared to the previous three zones.

Well, the game doesn't get any easier, so it pays dividends to learn that the best way to win is not to die . Survival, caution, escape from sticky situations and sticky effects are all crucial. Investing in constitution seems to be a popular choice to increase survivability, but I find Con to be boring, so I usually invest in something else.

Also, I commend you, greycat, for continuing to play in roguelike mode (this is a roguelike game after all!)

I agree you need to be pushing survival over damage. However, when I think survival I specifically don't think of Con. Admittedly its part of the whole survival package, but it should be added last. Con early game is only useful spike damage situations. Late game it has slightly more impact through resistance, since if you have ~50% base resist all or so, 70 con can bring that up to ~60% buying you 20% more sustainable survivability. But even that is debatable as 60 stat points can do alot of other things as well.

To put it another way, if you can't survive a damage spike this turn, what makes you think you'd survive it next turn if you had those extra 12-100 hit points? And if you've been being ground down over time, then you don't need more Con, you need more healing or escape options.

So in that case, you need escape mechanisms first and foremost. In terms of runes, you need a Teleport rune or Movement infusion at the very least, targeted phase door if you can get it. Also, if you're early game character doesn't have innate healing/escape options, you should be spending your category points on infusion/rune slots. Resource-free abilities are always good in a pinch. Also, don't forget many items also can provide escape mechanisms. Amulets and staves with teleport have saved me on more than 1 occasion when hit by cooldown increasing effects and my character had no mana left. Also boots with phase door and disengage.

As evidence that you don't need to pump Con to win at rogue-like difficulty, I present Hiruma Kai. He had 20 base con before buffs and equipment.

So think defensive escape powers, and especially runes/infusions first. Then healing/shield/regen. Then finally offense. And then maybe Con.

As Lord Dimwit put it... "You cannot have too many hit points."

What is the point in being able to one-shot something if you are equally vulnerable to be one-shotted in turn. I always pump CON every level.

Lots of different view-points here, which makes this very interesting!

Surviving Daikara/Tempest Peak for me has never really been about resist lightning, it's been about resist stun/freeze. Basically, I can do anything except Daikara and Tempest Peak (even the gwelgoroths) but soon as I see Urkie without 75%+ stun resist, he gets me. Snow giant packs mean permadeath too usually, when I don't have high stun resist. My archmage was able to get Urkis down to 100ish hp twice before losing the last life he had, and the sole reason he was dying was because Urkie kept freezing him. If you're frozen, the only way you deal damage to others is through sustains like Thunderstorm. *scratches his head as frozen Urkis was able to keep damaging my archmage even though Urkis was frozen*

There are several reasons Daikara is a significant step up from the other Guardian dungeons:

1. Many enemies have highly damaging ranged attacks (lightning, boulders, dragon breath, etc).
2. Enemies tend to get generated in huge packs.
3. Xs tunnel through the level, funneling said huge packs straight towards you when you least expect it.
4. Random uniques show up for the first time: the Fragmented Essences X boss is extremely dangerous if there are still giants/dragons around to join in the fight, and you are cut off from the stairs. Giant randbosses can also be a challenge but if you are opening the vaults that contain them you brought them upon yourself.

Nevertheless, I usually do Daikara second (after Old Forest/Nur but before Sandworm and Maze) to guarantee picking up Rune of the Rift before the Crypt, and survive fine. Stun resistance, confusion resistance, a shield rune, and lots of health (I add 1 to CON every level) are keys to my survival there.

I had been frustrated with lots of dying around CL20 for the past several betas (not that I get a ton of time to play). I decided to prioritize pumping CON on all my characters, and have been able to get back to dying carelessly once I get over confident after killing the master

It seems to me that defensive measures are much more important these days, and even my berzerkers need to get decked out with powerful healing and shielding options. It can be challenging to use this approach with classes that are a weaker at the start, but that just means that they require more care and patience.

dunno.. i personally have no special problems with tempest peak/temporal rift and definitely not with daikara, i mostly played characters with ranged attack though. but i don't know what to do after this. ~22xl is dangerously weak for dreadfell, especially for its boss and there are no other quest dungeons except it. i lost three adventurers in dreadfell atm (two archmages 17-18 xl and an archer 22xl), all of them on dreadfell 9 :3
i have a 22 xl thalore archer now (daikara, temporal rift, tempest peak completed) and i want to try to level her in halfling ruines/ruined dungeon etc to level 28 or something before venturing to dreadfell again

hm, i looked at my profile it seems most of characters weren't updated, some of alive ones have lower xl than they really have and so about dead ones

greycat wrote:Examples are all here: http://te4.org/user/36/characters

Typical story is "Well, I walked right through the Maze without blinking, I stomped the Sandworm Queen, what's next... Urkis... put on lightning resist stuff, go in, die. Shit."

Urkis is mean.
My worst Nemesis actually.
One should be very careful around him.
Do not wait until 25% hp left. Leave (teleport) before unless you know you have him.
And even that is sometimes not enough if that Lightning Tornado (or what it is he casts) is hitting you for several more turns.

Thunderstorm...