Please help me learn from my death

[Ory]

Just trying to figure this game out better and struggling with determing what went wrong with the deaths:

http://te4.org/characters/9884/tome/20b ... 2dedf6d341

I died twice to an ant that was the result of opening a chest in "The Maze".

I had a shield in place -- rune of shielding 195 damage, after that went down I put up a displacement field (179 damage, 50%)...

From the log in the left hand bottom messages it looked like both kills were 'one shot' kills... I know that before doing my last attack on the ant I was at full health. The damage was listed as 'physical'. I know I was stunned and could not teleport away (so that is one thing to work on... but it still seemed like I died too quickly).

Is there a text log to get better information from? (where is that file).

Thanks

[lukep]

What kind of ant was it? rare/unique? what classes?

One thing I noticed about your build is that you are focusing heavily on defense. I generally find that to be a trap, as it just makes enemies that aren't dangerous anyways (low power melee ones) completely harmless, without affecting spellcasters or strong melee enemies without a large investment.

In fact, I would encourage you to go far broader in your build, I find getting 1/5 in a lot of skills to be much more useful than 5/5 in a few (most of the time). For example, Flurry, Sweep, and Whirlwind can all be used to boost your damage against tough enemies, the only disadvantages they have are in very, very long fights, where you could use the Stamina elsewhere. Perfect Strikes, Deadly Strikes, and Willful combat are all instant, and can be used to buff attacks (and deal damage, from Deadly strikes). Invisibility (even at 1 power) makes you always completely invisible to enemies with 0 see invisible, and level 1 armour training gives you double the options for some item slots (but you may not have found any yet).

You should also try to get more HP, most likely from equipment bonuses. That's the easiest way to survive bursts of damage long enough to escape.

EDIT: also, when you see a rare/unique, check it out to see if it hits your weaknesses particularly bad, and run away early.

[Ory]

Yes, I was focusing on defense because it seemed to be helping me live through the 'swarm moments'.

I do not know what class it was... it was light purple in color (border)... is there a file or log that I can see more about it?

[lukep]

Only if you haven't played since then. There is a log file (named te4.txt IIRC) that you can look at, but it isn't easy to read.

[Ory]

ah, well... I did play since then... but at least for the next time I know. I also saw that I can 'inspect' an enemy and hit 'd' to export a text file on it. That will make it easier to determine what to do.

I really like the Shadowblade, but figuring out how to build them has been tough. My summoner lived to level 23 with no issues, but got killed rather badly in the Orc Tribe stuff.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Also, chests are sorta a trap. They might spit out a random mook, or 3 rares (purple bordered enemies with a set of 'class' abilities (for instance, alhcemist abilities, that'll chuck bombs or use heat spells on you; or bulwark abilities where it will use shield bashes, rush, and similar talents.) all at the same time. They DO offer some rewards, but sometimes they're risky. You should always be ready to retreat before opening a gold chest. Vaults are even worse, at least from dreadfell on. However, gold chests can spit out some incredible loot. Yeah, sometimes it's .70 gold, or it could be a tier 5 randart. (Yes, that's possible.)

My summoner lived to level 23 with no issues, but got killed rather badly in the Orc Tribe stuff.

Good god, how did you even GET to the orc areas at level 23? That's.... low. Very low. Additionally, if you've got the orc tribes, generally, the first thing to do is get the **** away from them and back west. (There are quests for this.) Just for future reference.

[skein]

You can get to the orcs that early. Just skip all the tier 2's and go directly to dreadfall at 13th or so. You will finish dreadfall around 16-17th. That opens the dwarf one which will gain you a couple. You could probably get to the orcs before 20th if you really tried. With a thalore or shalore it would be even easier.