ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Ah, prodigies, the thing you forgot to get the first 5 times or so you got to level 30 (if you’re like me anyway), the subject of much theorycrafting, much debate, and much ad hominem.
You only get 2 of those and want to make the most of it, but how? You can’t try and refund like other talents and people only ever talk about 5 or so being good, why is that? Let’s dig in!
I’ll mention “Who benefits from it the most?” in my opinion, but it’s not because a class is the best for a prodigy that the prodigy is best (or even good) for the class!
While there is probably a class that benefits from Fast as Lightning more than the others, I would still never take Fast as Lightning on them!

Strength prodigies :

Flexible Combat (flex) :

“Sometimes when you hit people you hit them again with your fists”
Power level : really good
Why is flex good?

• First it gives more damage of course, but you don’t have unarmed mastery so not that much (unless you’re a brawler and then flex is REALLY really good and should be your first prod, always).
  Second, it procs all your “on melee hit” stuff. So you get another chance of slowing the enemy, blinding them, diseasing them, and so on.
  And third, gloves usually have a chance to use talents on hit and those can be great. Special mention to dominate and cripple, which will give you another melee attack using your normal weapon. And have great side effects.

Who benefits from it the most? Brawler(duh), Rogue/Shadowblade (expose weakness), arcane blade (arcane combat).

I Can Carry the World! (ICCtW) :

“Do you even lift bro?”
Power level : really good, best level 30 prod on a LOT of weapon class.
50 str is a huge deal, more than some realise. Most weapon users get a ton of damage out of it, and the fatigue to 0 helps a few classes.
+1 size category isn’t often useful but at least is there!
Who benefits from it the most? 2h users as those have bigger STR mods.

Irresistible Sun (IS) :

“Eat a sun and get your own gravity field”
Power level : bad
The pull is nice but that’s it. It has 25% uptime and at high STR will only do 2k damage over the duration (before damage boost).
In comparison windblade has half the cd, will deal more damage per cast, instantly, and will disarm those who survive.
Who benefits from it the most? Stone Warden, you can use that then call your halves and get 3 Irresistible Sun for the price of one!

Legacy of the Naloren :

“Swords are SO last year”
Power level : let’s just say you can reach 600 char sheet damage. Without trying too hard.
Naloren is great damage (and great procs, 10% chance stunning blow on hit? Yes please!) It’ll blow every other 2h out of the water, damage wise.
Who benefits from it the most? Ogre MS for triple wielding exotic weapons! All 2h users really, can’t think of one who really gets more out of it.

Massive Blow :

“Counterstrike seemed nice but I’d rather deal damage to apply it rather than block.”
Power level : nice
Neat idea but not competitive with the passive damage prods. You shouldn’t use it if you’re not fighting near a wall, requires good mobility.
The counterstrike is nice if you can follow up with a big hit.
Who benefit from it the most? Wyrmic/SP : even after the knockback they can get in a huge hit without moving (ranged melee attack) or close gap fast if needed

Pain Enhancement System (PES) :

“More muscle = More everything”
Power level : good but overrated, it’s not “the ultimate prodigy” like you sometimes see people say
The main drawback of the prod is the uptime, 33% (6 turns) isn’t much. It still is a massive boost for that duration though.
I feel that the defensive buffs it gives are underrated but still, do not take this on char that use STR weapons, you’ll gain no damage and damage is the goal here.
Who benefits from is the most? MS, Psyshot. Combined with Superpower is really nice. Shalore for longer uptime.

Steamroller :

“RushRushRushRush”
Power level : nice on normal where you can keep the buff for a while and one shot things with rush. Bad in insane where it won’t do much against relevant targets.
With the current state of rush, you really want to keep it for an escape (please reverse the change and make it target enemies only!) so this put you in danger, and the damage even at full stack isn’t THAT good.
Who benefits from it the most? I want to say Berserker, since they lack mobility and can reach good damage.

Superpower :

“The brain is a muscle too.”
Power level : good
Not much to say on this, it’s passive and does its job. Seriously I have no idea what else to write.
This is the power level passive prod should be imo (looking at you ICCtW and AM)
Who benefits from it the most? Psyshot and MS.

You Shall Be My Weapon! (YSBMW) :

“Hit someone hard and play bowling with enemies”
Power level : bad
Requirement (size) limits your gearing, the damage value isn’t huge without a lot of +size knocking away is bad for damage, stun is low duration.
Who benefits from is the most? Ogre Cursed for size and mobility (to close the gap after the knockback and to line up nicely with other enemies)

Dexterity prodigies :

Automated Reflex System :

“Can’t touch this”
Power level : bad
Why does this have a 4 turn cd? An extra turn (that you will use to move anyway) against some specific enemies only, with a cd. This doesn’t say prodigy to me.
This is worse than heightened reflexes, a T3 brawler skill that gives 100% global speed for 1 turn when a projectile targets you, at 2/5, without cd (and 250% at 5/5).
I guess it’s nice if you have a pull and they’re not archer/TW so you can make them hit themselves, but it has become even more specific circumstances.
Who benefits from it the most? Classes with pull?

Crafty Hands :

“That one alchemist prod”
Power level : decent
This is pretty much +20% all damage and +10% all crit, or +10% all damage and +5% all crit and +60% stun res.
That’s nice but just not up to par with the “good” prodigies. Of course there are also the artefact gems but those are not guaranteed.
Who benefits from it the most? Well, given that only 2 classes have access to it (disregarding gaining it from escort)…

Giant Leap :

“Petition to make it a racial, like ghoul leap is”
Power level : nice
This is one of my favorite prodigies, even though I rarely take it. Cleanse + tp + damage + daze. Whatever you want, this has it!
Who benefits from it the most? Berserker/Bulwark. Can you use it during last stand? If so it’s great. And you probably can since it’s not a dash and can be used while pinned.

(Rick)Roll with it :

“NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP!”
Power level : awful
Bottom 5 prodigies for sure. Has anyone ever used it? Thought about it? 15% phys res is LOW and that’s at 100 DEX.
Moving back when hit and gaining 200% MS once per turn is nice, unless you’re a melee and then it’s detrimental.
Who benefits from it the most????

Swift Hands :

“Micro-management, the prodigy”
Power level : the most tedious and unfun good prodigy.
Ok, this is really strong but I do NOT like it. That’s because I like to have the best general usage equipment on me rather than adapting it to different situations though, and other people would play differently.
Charms are really strong and being able to swap at will and to have no cd when you equip them is awesome.
Who benefits from is the most? High IQ, high APM players.

Through the Crowd :

“Why can’t I handle all those summons?”
Power level : bad
Who reliably has 3+ summons at once all the time in combat? Oozemancer, TW, Summoner, Necro. You get saves and GS, summons do too.
From what I remember it’s bugged and summons don’t get it. Even if they did, 10/15% GS will at most add up to 1 turn over their life span (if they’re not killed first!), with the exception of temporal hounds, who get 50+% GS boost already, so the effect isn’t as noticeable.
But you also get the GS/saves boost! Of course it will disappear if you get blinded, if you hide behind a corner letting your summons do the work and you’re cooldown gated if you’re a Summoner. The save bonus is capped, just like GS boost, even if the desc doesn't say so.
As Ooze or Summoner you have access to windtouched speed which does the job better, with better uptime and has another even stronger benefit.
Also it doesn't work on Ooze because your summons aren't in your party. Same with Necro.
Doomed and Cursed can also make some use of it with curse of nightmare. I wouldn't get it on Doomed because you have too many downturns as is, would work nicely on Cursed though.
Who benefits from it the most? Well, between three choices (TW, Summoner, Cursed) I guess I'll go with TW since at least it'll consistently be on.

Vital Shot :

“Pew pew”
Power level : nice
Huge damage shot which stun and cripple. Other monotarget prodigies have nothing on it.
One downside, you can’t use vital shot through allies unlike regular shoot with archer/TW. So you could get pulled into it and killed. Or kill a friendly/summon.
Who benefits from it the most? Probably skirmisher since it has way less damage than all the other eligible ones.

Windblade :

“Eldritch slam did it better”
Power level : nice
Best active weapon prodigy. The damage is AoE rather than single target, range 4 rather than melee, and it disarms which is huge against weapon classes.
Who benefits from it the most? 2h user who struggle against other melee, so Cursed.

Windtouched Speed (WS) :

“They’ve been calling me WINtouched ever since 1.5”
Power level : really good
I love this prodigy ever since the buff (it used to only give global speed). The cooldown reduction floors, so a 3cd becomes a 2 cd, and a 11cd becomes a 9cd.
It applies on everything, notably inscriptions. You could get 0cd double strike with brawler if you get gloves with –cd and take this prodigy.
Anyone who can easily get it should, talents granted from totems (rushing claws, etc…) count toward the requirement.
Who benefits from it the most? Out of those who can easily get it, Oozemancer/Wyrmic.

Constitution prodigies :

Armor of Shadows :

“Now you see me, now you don’t”
Power level : good if reliable way to apply darkness every turn, bad otherwise.
I really like this since the buff. Armor and armor hardiness is always good but the 20% evasion really is the cherry on top.
You need to be able to deal darkness damage every turn to ensure your tile is unlit though.
Who benefits from it the most? Anorithil, Brawler with gloves of sorrow

Bloodspring :

“Oh shit, is that my blood?”
Power level : bad
That’s a prodigy I really want to like but it’s hard to find a use for.

• If you’re not melee it won’t do much because you won’t be in melee range.
  If you’re melee it’ll annoy you because it knocks back people.
  If you didn’t pump CON it’ll do low damage as it does 100 + 3 x CON (each turn for 4 turns).
  It has a cd and only trigger on big hit so having a big HP pool makes it harder to trigger.

Who benefits from it the most? Probably Berserker as they have fearless cleave and can just chase the knocked back monsters (and will pump CON).

Corrupted Shell :

“For when you want to buff 7 things at once with a single stat”
Power level : decent
Your gain life, armor, hardiness, defense, and all saves. Armor, defense, and saves scale with CON.
Who benefits from this the most? An Anorithil with this and Armor of Shadows would have 100 armor 100% hardiness even in robes so this is funny. No real ideas.

Draconic Body :

“Earth, fire, lightning, acid, by your powers combined I am… Captain dragon!”
Power level : decent
Pros : with some heal mod this put you to full. Cons : 15 turn cd and doesn’t prevent one shot.
I don’t think I ever used it but it should do its job : negate a spike every once in a while.
Who benefits from it the most? Something with great mitigation, like Ooze or Psyshot.

Eternal Guard (EG) :

“Eternal means I’ll never die anymore, right? Right?”
Power level : bad
The first of our two shield prodigies and the only one slightly useful. Block lasting longer and not ending when hit means that IF you get hit by small hits several times you’ll get several counterstrikes.
Who benefits from it the most? Stone warden as they have the biggest block value, Demo as they have 4 different ways of blocking and could chain them for longer if they wanted.

Fungal Blood :

“You put WHAT in your blood?”
Power level : decent
I have never used this either but it IS an instant heal with no cd as long as you use infusion (and better with high CON).
The magic cleanse is also nice as it allows you to cleanse stuff like impending doom or entropy without dispersion gloves.
There is also a strat to gain 4 free turns or so with Ooze iirc? Not my kind of stuff but that’s strong. (edit : Apparently it goes up to 30turns? If the math is right, then lol)
Who benefits from it the most? Ogre, because they will make infusions cooldown faster and could have 6 of them if they wanted. Classes with high CON and 5 infusions (like Ooze).

Never Stop Running (NSR) :

*Cue Benny hill music*
Power level : decent, niche uses.
Not a fan of it but I want to try and make it useful in some way, in a silly build.
Who benefits from it the most? Probably Berserk and Bulwark as they lack mobility, have no stamina issue, and have ways to regen it.
I can see Bulwark have some fun with it. Be surrounded and in last stand -> use repulsion -> deactivate last stand -> move to a target without taking a turn -> reactivate last stand.
Basically every movement is a fearless cleave and you can keep last stand up while fighting. Ok, I have to try this now.

Spine of the World (spine) :

“- poisons and - bleed”
Power level : really good
This is the reason your poison Skirmisher/Rogue died on Argoniel and your Berserker/Sawbutcher suddenly felt like he lost 50% of his damage. Only 3 fixed bosses have it in AoA thankfully but it massively changes a fight for some classes and is not a trivial change for others.
Who benefits from it the most? Weapon classes without status cleanse as stun/disarm/blind/pin are all crippling to them and wound/poisons are always annoying. Mages care less because they are less often afflicted by physical status due to being at range, disarm is of no consequence to them and blind/pins are not nearly as dangerous.

Subcutaneous Metallization :

“SM you say?”
Power level : bad
I don’t like this for several reasons.

• Flat DR has for some reason been nerfed and is now subject to diminishing returns even though it’s only useful against DoTs and multi-hits.
  This does nothing unless you go below 50% life.
  It has a cd (btw, 12cd but description says won’t trigger more than once every 10 turns…).
  And once the cd is over, if you’re still under 50% it won’t trigger again, you HAVE to go above then take a hit for it to start.

Who benefits from this the most? Ooze, maybe a Solipsist who invested in CON, to add to their dismissal/AM shield/dreamforge shield damage reduction?

Magic prodigies :

Aether Permeation :

“Why, yes, higher archmage are the purest mage.”
Power level : awful
This forces your itemization to a pretty rare res and lower your max res (because even with the increased cap, your max res is now 53%).
Now, you don’t usually get to that much res… Unless you use PD runes or OOP buff because those are busted.
Who benefits from it the most? A higher because he’ll have less trouble reaching the cap.

Arcane Amplification Drone (AAD) :

“So I just whack it and it kills monsters for me?”
Power level : Abusable, good
You can do crazy shit with AAD. Most of those though are oversights and you should feel bad for using them : using Brawlers “touch of death” to deal 400k in AoE, using Wyrmic with the weapon Acera (for corrosive worm) and the talent “static field” for some similar number, using Garkul’s revenge prodigy to deal 1000% more damage to the AAD (I actually find this one funny and it cost you another prodigy point so it gets a pass :p).
On the other side of the spectrum you have Alchemist, for whom 90% of talents don’t work with AAD (and Alch could really have used that damage boost).
Without taking those examples into account, AAD is a strong tool, you can block corridors with it and if you have beams, cones, etc… you won’t just do 160% of your damage as arcane, you’ll also still do your standard 100% to the target(s) assuming you aim properly. Don’t use single target skills on the AAD if you have beam and stuff. It is important to note that ground effect will not trigger the AAD and neither will DoT.
Who benefits from it the most? I’d say AM because so many spells to trigger it, good speed to use more spells during the AAD life, beams to hit monsters twice. And AM has low damage without it. This is of course disregarding abuses.

Arcane Might (AM) :

“What’s better than a sword? A magic sword”
Power level : really good.
This went through several states, bad, broken, and the current really good. The most common melee prod, with ICCtW.
This requires investing in MAG but adds a good chunk of passive damage and crit on top.
If you were to take only one it’s usually better to take ICCtW on 2h user and AM on other classes, because the bigger STR mod on 2h weapons make them that much better with more STR rather than another scaling stat.
Who benefits from it the most? TW and AB, hands down, as they already scale with MAG to begin with.

Blighted Summoning :

“Blighted, hum. Sure doesn’t feel like it will make my summons better”
Power level : awful.
Nope, don’t take this. First, a lot of those summons are nature and the summons/classes associated will have 0 MAG so the talents will scale terribly.
Second, most of those talents are bad/worse than what the summons already have, which means the summons are literally weaker than before.
But some of those summons aren’t tied to wilder, right? Well, know that treant’s/spiders’ corrosive worm will hurt the player when it detonates.
And that the yeek mindslayer’s dark portal will disease the player upon use.
It leaves us alch golem (on whom reaving combat it irrelevant), necro minions with a mixed bag of usefulness , and TW with an actually decent bonus. Elemental discord is nice when it can proc from 3 different sources and hounds have decent spellpower.
Who benefits from it the most? TW but that’s not saying much.

Cauterize :

“Burn, baby, bur… oh wait, that’s me”
Power level : good
Are you confident in your damage and sustained healing but afraid you’ll be one-shotted? This is the prodigy for you.
As long as you can heal back the 8 turns DoT and not be killed in the next 12 turns you are good to go.
Also useful for classes which rely on huge, dispellable defenses (AM, Necro, Demo).
Who benefits from it the most? AM

Mystical Cunning :

“Poisons? Magic did it better.”
Power level : decent
I haven’t tried this because I’m not a poison OR trap fan but it looks solid.
The poison makes it so you don’t lose a big part of your kit the moment you stumble upon undead/elementals/probably others I’m forgetting.
Won’t do anything against spine of the world though, so don’t get that to counter Argoniel. Also reduce all res so that’s nice.
The trap is useful too but not as game changing. And you gain 20 spell save for some reason, so lol at that.
Who benefits from it the most? Skirm probably since they don’t have a lot to unlock and this makes their poisons that much better.

Revisionist History :

“I’d make a joke but reaching the Godwin point in a guide is probably bad taste.”
Power level : the most tedious good prodigy (revised)
Does this work the same as see the threads and bring you back to the start of the split timeline if you die during it? Because if not this is actually not even good and more in the realm of decent.
Who benefit from it the most? Players having the patience to reroll boss drops? I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t work for merchant artifact though.

Spectral Shield :

“This is my shield, there are many like this but this one is mine”
Power level : awful
End-game shields often have 5 different resists at once already, and who even deals 3+ different damage type in a single attack?
Who benefit from it the most? it’s the least bad on demo since they have the most ways of putting block back up I guess. But please never take this. Ever.

Temporal Form (TF) :

“Being a big temporal tornado has never been so fun.”
Power level : really good
Imo, this prodigy is one of the universal one that you can’t go wrong with picking, like spine.
Sure, better spellpower is better for anomalies but you can always change your base paradox and get better spellpower that way.
For 30% uptime and decent duration you get immunity to a few important status, deal half temporal damage (for which most mobs have no resists) and have better temporal damage mod than your regular damage. The anomalies are a mix of useless, nice and great. Repositioning tools (both for you and enemies) and resistance reduction are pretty useful.
Who benefits from it the most? Chronomancers. Maybe a class like wyrmic/SW with a lot of different damage type to consolidate all that (well, half) on one type.

Willpower prodigies :

Draconic Will (DWill) :

“They say dragons resist debuff with their minds but really it’s just that they’re too stupid to notice”
Power level : good.
Another prodigy I actually haven’t tried. It’s only 30% uptime on status immunity but if used at the beginning of the fight it eats more like 80% of the mob’s debuffs because they tend to cast all of them right away.
Solipsists will throw 3 sleeps and inner demons while you laugh, Brawlers will try to grapple you, Argoniel will use burning hex, the list goes on…
It will be less impactful on longer fights because the low uptime will start mattering and you won’t be able track every cd to use DWill at maximum efficiency.
Still makes status management way less of a pain, which will save you turn/saturation from inscriptions.
Who benefits from it the most? Classes with poor status management and lots of counters. Let’s go with Cursed and Bulwark as they are melee so automatically are more debuffed and care about more types of debuff, have no status management (though they do get some resists from talents) and hate the big ones (stun, burning hex, confuse, sleep, etc…) just as much as everyone else, maybe even more so since they are not in a good spot to start with.

Garkul’s Revenge :

“I want to kill myself harder on Atha’s reflective skin”
Power level : bad.
Disregarding the AAD combo and Athamathon since he should only be done post game, this prodigy boils down to +20% against humanoids/giants.
It will give you +20% against a lot of things in the prides and against the sorcs, that’s for sure. But it’s not even +20% against everyone!
Compare that to Crafty Hands, which is not a good prodigy even though it will give you +20% damage AND +10% all crit.
I guess you could take this to kill Atha before winning so you have a white voratun amulet and make a crazy good Limiir’s amulet. But I really doubt it’s worth it…
Who benefits from it the most? First, find both helmet and teeth in a playthrough, because I only had that happen like twice.

Hidden Ressources :

“Better higher, the prodigy”
Power level : decent, niche
If a sustain has a drain, it will still drain during hidden ressources.
If you are too low on resource, you still can’t use the talent.
Talents with a resource cost in the description (Corona when it fires bolts, Adept Nocturnalist when it fires laser, Trained Reactions when it procs…) all do not work with hidden ressources.
Who benefits from it the most? More like who benefits at all, and the answer is PM.

Lucky Day :

“Lucky day, happy day!”
Power level : bad
10% damage avoidance is nice. It’s unreliable but it’s nice. +40 luck is : 16 acc, 16 def, 12% crit chance, 7 to all saves (which pretty much boils down to 12% crit).
There are 2 other tiny effects but I SWEAR you don’t care about those, even though it might have been faster to type them rather than write all of this in the end
Who benefits from it the most? I’ll go with Sawbutcher because they already have a bunch of avoidance and the more you have the better it gets. 12% crit is also always nice.

Mental Tyranny :

“I do like to tyrannize minds from time to time”
Power level : bad
Class dealing mind damage : Solip, Doomed. Class caring about dealing more mind damage : none.
On neither of those two classes is mind damage your main damage.
Who benefits from it the most? Doomed because with madness more instances of damage is nice even if the damage itself is irrelevant.

Meteoric Crash :

“KA-BOOM!”
Power level : fun but bad.
The meteor just doesn’t do ENOUGH. It is also annoying because it happens in “real-time”.
What do I mean? Well if you trigger it but use talents/movements fast enough, those will go off before the meteor crash down.
It also means if you open with a mind/spell pull/push, the meteor will crash where the monster USED to stand and do nothing.
Other problem : it hurts allies. So don’t blink hounds/call of the ooze with this up! It probably hurts you too? I forgot.
Lastly the damage is low and uptime too.
Who benefits from it the most? That’s a hard one, solipsist? It gives them a ranged stun and they’ll stack phys for dream hammer/distortion so the meteor will deal respectable damage.

Range Amplification Device (RAD) :

“It’s a melee, it’s a midrange, no it’s… SNIPER doomed!”
Power level : bad
I can think of 3 classes who benefits from RAD, doomed, solip and ano. The other mindcaster/mages have range 10 or melee talent.
Things like moss don’t get bigger with this prodigy, otherwise it would be epic.
It’s not that useful because not a lot of your skills will be affected and 3 range doesn’t do a lot in the end.
Unless the mobs are also one of those class, if they could hit you from range X, they can hit you rom range X+3 (since it’s capped at 10).
And melee will rush with range 10 if they want to.
And you take 20% fatigue which can be annoying (especially on solip as losing psi is kinda like losing health)
Who benefit from it the most? Doomed, they have the most talent affected and they don’t care for the fatigue.

Spell Feedback :

“Mind retaliation, more or less obnoxious than melee retaliation?”
Power level : awful
The damage is ridiculously low and it applies to only one target at once. If they have other non-magical talents they can just use those during the debuff.
And why isn’t this caster silenced? You are antimagic so I know you can silence them.
Useful against silence immune caster then, and this just became even more situational.
Who benefits from it the most? One of the two classes that do not run away from antimagic, Ooze or Solip.

Unbreakable Will :

“Unbreakable but only every once in a while”
Power level : bad
Blocking one mental effect you don’t choose once every 7 turns is really bad.
You’re fighting a cursed? Congratulations, it took 2 turns for gloom to stun you instead of one.
You fight a solip? Congratulations you dodged the first of the 3 sleep talents and this will NEVER be up in time for inner demons.
Unless the monster has only one mental debuff and its cd is bigger than 7 you will still get wrecked by mental status.
Who benefits from it the most? Heck if I know.

Cunning prodigies :

Elemental Surge :

“Cuter brother of woes”
Power level : awful
Why does this have a 12 turn cooldown exactly? It would be decent on AM/AB/Wyrmic otherwise, even with only 30% proc chance.
Who benefits from it the most? Hard to benefit from something that has to pass so many checks to be on.
Have to deal the relevant type, have this off cd, critical hit, deal enough damage, win the 30% chance.

Endless Woes (EW) :

“Ewwwww”
Power level : bad
Some interesting effects but the impact isn’t enough for the frequency to which you’re gonna be able to proc them.
Who benefits from it the most? Reaver, has damage of 3 types ,could take TF for fun and having a 4th (don’t do this)

Eye of the Tiger :

“80’s music starts playing”
Power level : nice
I’m not a fan of this because of the randomness and the interaction with talents like blinding speed.
I use blinding speed at the start of the fight and then every time I crit I have a chance to reduce blinding speed cd by 2, which I don’t care about because it’s 55 and will not make a difference.
Who benefits from it the most? Brawler/Archer for those sweet Double Strike/Steady Shot -> random talent -> Double Strike/Steady Shot -> repeat. They’ll also have very high crit very easily and good attack speed.

Fast as Lightning :

“Run Forrest, run!”
Power level : awful
Who moves that fast? And if you do, what is managing to touch you?
If you’re in corridor (the smart move) you can’t blink through obstacles because you’d have to change direction!
Nothing salvageable.
Who benefits from it the most? Darkgod, feeding on the tears of those who took this prodigy.

Rakshor’s Cunning :

“Undeads are still in, right?”
Power level : awful
Please, let us choose the undead so I don’t have to run 10 wilders with it to win on 2 different undead races.
Refund all racials, because seriously why not?? This is really bad right now, a defensive prodigy would have prevented more than one death and wouldn’t have left you in a weaker state than before.
Who benefits from it the most? Oozemancer for maximum elitism points as you won’t be able to use any non-escort skills and have access to neither runes nor infusions!

Secret of Telos :

“Telos’ staff was apparently pretty big”
Power level : nice
It’s a pretty solid staff. Lots of spower and crit, crit mult, confusion immunity, affinity to 6 elements!
The bad part is not being able to change the elements. Also it gives mana and vim but poor celestials get shafted.
The active on the staff is really nice, giving a few immunities and 50% life steal, 66% uptime, full uptime with device mastery.
Problem is finding the items needed.
Who benefits from it the most? Necro/Corruptor/Anorithil are all interested.

Trick of the Trade :

“I forfeited 4k randarts for this?”
Power level : awful
I wanted to use this as worldly knowledge, for stupid funny builds.
Turns out you don’t get stealth if you didn’t already have it locked.
No perma stealth demo (with the demon seed giving 100+ stealth power), no stealth bomber alchemist, nothing.
Who benefits from it the most? Adventurer, you can use it to save 2 cat points if you wanted both stealth and scoundrel I guess.

Tricky Defenses :

“Full of surprises, better than full of wounds”
Power level : good in normal/nightmare, bad in insane where flat DR becomes mostly irrelevant.
I used that on my first winner! And never since.
You can get 160-180 DR on antimagic shield with this.
Better have good EQ management in that case though.
Who benefits from it the most? Solipsist, you want to reduce everything to the lowest possible before the dismissal check.

Worldly Knowledge :

“Who needs escorts?”
Power level : variable, anti-escort RNG
Can’t really rate this like the other prodigies, on a class building MAG you could say light is worth the prodigy point. Others are really more for “fun” build.
Who benefits from it the most? Players who like weird builds but who don’t want to play adventurer.


This concludes this guide who turned out way longer than I thought it would. As usual I’m looking for all feedback you guys care to type out, prodigies are something that needs discussing as the balance right now is poor to say the least. 1.6 will bring some changes for sure and I’ll update this in time but maybe some good ideas thrown in now could see their way in 1.6 too :p

Edit : some corrections after interesting replies (Fungal Blood, Through the Crowd). Thanks guys and girls !

Could probably make a note about Tricks of the Trade giving Scoundrel. Version 1.2.3 is a little far and away but I had a Skirmisher winner take it back in the day. It was after the release of the Skirmisher class, so Archer's still sucked and Skirmishers were overpowered; Skirmishers didn't have Scoundrel by default either so that should be noted too.

Davion ShottyFace the level 50 Dwarf Skirmisher

Anyhow, for classes or races that lack decent talents to put their generic points, getting Scoundrel might be an interesting pickup; for similar reasons to Worldy Knowledge (except with less choices). I haven't used those talents since the rogue redesign but they could be interesting for disrupting enemies and hampering them.

Something to note is that you could probably talk about enemies using prodigies against the player. You did that once with Spine of the World (shout out to the Sher'Tul High Priest btw) but there are other instances where enemies using prodigies can stand out.

There is also a strat to gain 4 free turns or so with Ooze iirc? Not my kind of stuff but that’s strong.

Starting at T=0 using this guy
Hallucinogenic Moss (to proc PES) -> T=0
Infusion: Heroism / Fungal Blood -> T=-129%
Cancel regeneration / Infusion: Movement / Fungal Blood -> T=-258%
Cancel regeneration / Infusion: Regeneration -> T=-273%
Cancel regeneration / Fungal Blood -> T=-402%
Slime Root -> T=-302%
Cancel regeneration / Infusion: Movement / Fungal Blood -> T=-431%
Cancel regeneration / Infusion: Heroism / Fungal Blood -> T=-561% (don't know why Ancestral Life is now giving me 130% of a turn on regen effects)
Cancel regeneration / Nature's touch -> T=-591% (Should have probably started with this instead of Hallucinogenic Moss)
Cancel regeneration / Nature's Balance / Slime Root -> T=-391%
Infusion: Heroism / Fungal Blood -> T=-521%
Cancel regeneration / Infusion: Movement / Fungal Blood -> T=-651%
Cancel regeneration / Infusion: Regeneration -> T=-681%
Cancel regeneration / Fungal Blood -> T=-781%
Cancel regeneration / Nature's touch -> T=-811%

This was done by using 2xMedical Injector/Movement/Heroism/Regeneration. Now if used 2 healing infusion instead of the medical injectors and with some luck :
Nature's Touch crit to proc PES -> T=-24%
Heroism + fungal -> T=-154%
Healing + fungal -> T=-414%
Healing + fungal -> T=-674%
Regen + fungal -> T=-834%
Slime root resetting 2*Healing + Regen -> T=-734%
Healing + fungal -> T=-994%
Healing + fungal -> T=-1254%
Regen + fungal -> T=-1414%
Movement + fungal -> T=-1544%
(Let's assume you TP'd next to something) Nature's Equilibrium -> T=-1574% (got me The bigger the better! cheavos lol)
Nature's balance resetting Healing*2 + Regen + Heroism + Movement + Slime root + Nature's touch or Nature's equilibrium -> T=-1474%
Healing + fungal -> T=-1734%
Healing + fungal -> T=-1994%
Regen + fungal -> T=-2154%
Slime root resetting 2*Healing + Regen -> T=-2054%
Healing + fungal -> T=-2314%
Healing + fungal -> T=-2574%
Regen + fungal -> T=-2734%
Heroism + fungal -> T=-2864%
Movement + fungal -> T=-2994%
Nature's touch or Nature's equilibrium -> T=-3024%

You can get 30(!) free turns, which is pretty good. Especially when nothing cooldown during the free turns, which means that you get to cast all you abilities under the effects of PES and Heroism.
Beware though, your abilities won't cooldown either. Since I had 15 non-instant damaging/debuffing abilities, I would have stopped at the red line, unless I got lucky and mnemonic proc'd.

Oh god.
I knew I was being conservative (because I wanted someone to tell me it was even better) but 30 turns?!
Why stop at the red line though, you'll just bump without taking a turn for the remaining 13 actions :p


I do talk about scoundrel. It's not worth a prodigy point but it's there. I haven't talked about other bosses prodigies because I didn't consider any having near the same impact but if you have ideas I'll be glad to hear them

Because if you go for 30 turns your infusions are all in CD. I'd say a safe way to play would be to stop at 29 turns and save the movement infusion to flee, rest and attack again.

Arguably most prodigies don't have the same level of impact as Spine of the World, but they can be noticeable enough for the player to feel them; and for an inexperienced player to be killed by them.

Gorbat and Protector Myssil both have Spell Feedback which basically makes them extremely obnoxious to fight when using a character with few (if any) non-spell talents. Aeryn has Draconic Body which combined with her awesome array of Sun Paladin survivability will cause you to bang your head against the wall if you don't have burst damage enough to bring her down. The Grand Corrupter has Corrupted Shell, and it is one of the reasons he can be such a pain to kill if he catches you with Fearscape.

I think The Master has Hidden resource too - but it is sort of hard to gauge how dangerous enemies are in regards to their resources. Only the Grand Corrupter comes to mind in that regard; where when he runs out of resources his Fearscape turns off. I think it might be more 'thematic' for The Master then anything else.

Several enemies also have many of the Strength/Dexterity prodigies too. Irresistible Sun can be found on Aeryn and that Backup Guardian Sun Paladin you meet in the Trollmire. Warmaster Gnarg has Wind Blade. Giant Leap can be found on several enemies during the end of the Embers of Rage campaign; and that is before even mentioning the multitude of bosses with it. Backup Guardian Massok in Daikaira has Massive Blow. The Backup Guardian Treant in Old Forest has You Shall Be My Weapon! - though the prodigy is so weak that even an enemy using it STILL can't make it useful.

Main thing to note here is that some of the 'bad' or less useful prodigies may only be so for players - not for enemies.

GC has bloodspring, not corrupted shell, yeah, it's annoying if you're a melee.

Among all your exemples I legit knew only of IS for Aeryn and Aluin and of Massive Blow for Massok. (And because you can't miss IS)
And I do not care for IS on them, it changes nothing to my fight strategy, if I'm ranged I'm out of the AoE, if I'm melee I'm fine being in melee range. This will change in 1.6 but not for now.

I agree that some bad prodigies for player are good for NPC (spell feedback if you're a caster), and that a new player will maybe have problems when encountering it, I don't really know what I should list, and how. This is pretty long already :p

I might add "notable enemies with it" under some, I'll see if it looks good and if I can find enough exemples to mean something.

EoR Aeryn also has Cauterize (but no Draconic Body, iirc) and YSBMW. In this case, you actually notice the second one, since it can hit for roughly 1000 damage on Insane if you have bad armor.

Solid guide! As a long time player I missed some usefulness on certain prodigies, for example didn't knew about giant leap cleansing effects, masssive blow counterstrike, or telos staff(can't rely on finding all parts) lifesteal (would be insane on mindslayer/adeventurer/swift hands chars I guess? even more woth bloodcaller).

As for hidden resources, I'm pretty sure that you don't have to have enough resource to use abilities during prodigy duration, unlike higher last racial.

Also I found worldly knowledge somewhat bugged, don't have access to some trees even if meet conditions. Maybe due to rewoked trees/revamped classes.

Never Stop Running isn't bad. I won't make any claims about where it falls between "so-so" and "excellent", but it isn't bad. It is (among other things) a reliable, highly predictable escape move, and those are never bad. I don't have the feeling that any class I've extensively played NEEDS it, but when I've used it I did find it very helpful. I guess it probably saved my life a number of times.

There are other powers that can get you out of trouble via teleportation or fast movement of course, but having one more of those is always significantly better than not having it. I mean if you truly had enough escape moves then you'd be invincible, so you must not have enough. Gaining one more can't be bad!

If this prodigy isn't worth taking it's got to be because others out-compete it, not because it's useless. At worst it's something vaguely like an extra inscription slot that's permanently occupied by a movement infusion. Not the best thing you could possibly get, but not bad!


Also, it brings an exotic and interesting feeling of reliability into this game of die rolls and percentages. Instantaneous movement talents like Never Stop Running, Dimensional Step, and Tumble are like moves imported from another game genre - from the puzzle game genre, say - in that they let you set up a complex maneuver and then execute it with full certainty that it will play out the way you expect, with no randomness or enemy AI activity interfering. It's a special thing, and I like the way it feels. I don't know whether or not there should be many more talents like this, but I like the ones that exist, including this one.


On a similar note, I suspect you might be underestimating the value of Automated Reflex System. That one looks pretty good to me... you can do ANYTHING with that turn, I expect, not just move! You could put up a shield, preemptively heal yourself so that you can survive the hit, or desperately attack so as to finish off the enemy before it disables you somehow... that's better than just gaining 100% global speed for a turn. With doubled speed, you can still get interrupted, whereas a free turn gives you absolute freedom to PLAN. Time stoppage is special!

...But I've never actually been able to take that prodigy, so I can't really judge it. Maybe it doesn't even work the way I think? Haha, I don't know.

Who reliably has 3+ summons at once all the time in combat? Oozemancer, TW, Summoner, Necro.

I think that Through the Crowd works for Cursed and Doomed too, if they're abusing Curse of Nightmares. I've never gotten it with either of those classes (or any class), but I think I've seen that prerequisite turn from red to green because of my Curse of Nightmares effect. You can easily and reliably get a HUGE party of summoned terrors very often, though of course you don't keep them long after the battle ends (but you don't need the prodigy then either, so who cares). Those things make a much denser crowd, in my experience, than anything the other summoner-type abilities can produce.

In fact I think Curse of Nightmares is seriously overpowered for that reason; it provides an absurdly effective "meat shield"-type armor for the player, in addition to giving a Cursed numerous sites to teleport to with Blindside in order to flee, in addition to damaging enemies with the terrors' own attacks AND the hateful whispers that get thrown in for good measure... so maybe Through the Crowd shouldn't be allowed alongside all those other benefits. But I suppose it's probably not a powerful enough prodigy to make much difference there anyway. Especially if it's buggy. (Though it's not like a summoned terror with 115% global speed would be any more effective as a meat shield than one with 100% speed anyhow... you don't need to be fast to block an incoming Soul Rot blob; you just need to exist at all.)

(On Rak'Shor's Cunning:)

Refund all racials, because seriously why not??

Even that wouldn't be enough, even if ghoul and skeleton were exactly as strong as your original race. You still wouldn't want to spend a prodigy point on a single resurrection, not when Cauterize is an option.

A better idea, assuming it isn't overpowered which it might be: Refund all racial points... times some multiplier, like say 1.5 or 2. So then you get your one-time resurrection effect, plus a bonus of up to 10 or even 20 generic talent points. Well okay maybe 20 would be too many. Maybe instead you just get a flat bonus of, say, 7 points, plus all your old racial points refunded. I mean that prodigy point needs to count for more than just a single extra Blood of Life! The Blood of Life is good, but it's not THAT good. And the undead races aren't vastly superior to living races either; nor should they be. So this prodigy has to have some other benefit added to it, in order to have any shot of competing with Cauterize.

Now maybe if it refunded the original prodigy point... haha well that would be something wouldn't it! In that case, there WOULD be a justification for halving the racial talent points, since otherwise, assuming ghoul and skeleton were balanced with other races, you'd be incentivized to turn almost every character undead, just for the free one-time resurrection. Haha that's actually a fun idea though! But there would still have to be some drawback... okay maybe you get your prodigy point back, but only when you reach level 50. Haha maybe that could do it!

I don't like NSR because it eats so much stamina and is only available on classes that USE stamina.
But it is a perfect escape as long as you're not surrounded and have the ressource, and it is instant so can't be put on cd by stun. It's true I should probably have put it at least at decent rather than bad, i just never consider it because stam-using classes WILL take double damage prodigies because those are just so good. Or if they were to take something defensive, cauterise for one shot protection. You will have ways to escape without NSR, or should anyway.

Yeah, Rakshor would still be bad if it refunded all points, agree 100%. So at LEAST let it do that and then think of how to buff it some more.

Through the crowd with curse of nightmare is an interesting interaction I hadn't thought about. This would make cursed a better candidate than ooze for it but not dommed imo, because doomed already has SO many down turns.

Cathbald wrote:Through the crowd with curse of nightmare is an interesting interaction I hadn't thought about. This would make cursed a better candidate than ooze for it but not dommed imo, because doomed already has SO many down turns.

The description doesn't mention it, but the save bonus is capped just like the global speed one; 50 allies doesn't provide a better benefit than 5. So unless you really want to swap with your terrors faster, it's still worse than Windtouched Speed.

Ah, glad i didn't have to check the save thing myself :p
Wintouched speed better is no surprise, but at least it's easier to get through the crowd, given the requirements.

No, I do not condone the strat of saving a cat point and 20 generics, using all that on harmony, taking the prod and then removing the gen/cat points. This shouldn't work and it's stupid. There, it's out there for those who didn't know about it and will want to do it anyway