Madness Archmage Win

[Mex]

Congrats!

I'm all ears to any changes to the guide.

Wild over Heroism?

Spikes in difficulty?

Do you see any other classes being madness viable in 1.3?

Next class you will be playing on Madness/Insane?

[St_ranger_er]

Congrats! What is the most difficult part in your run?

[Mankeli]

Thanks!

I'm all ears to any changes to the guide.

The build is perfect. Build order depends on item drops too. For example, I got some insane max mana items right of the bat so I got inferno much much earlier but other characters aren't necessarily able to. But I do have one suggestion: Teleport 4/5 should be gotten before t-2 dungeons. Why? Because teleporting monsters from Old Forest entrance etc. is priceless. Also, Burning Star is bonkers, much better than one point in vision. But you aren't guaranteed to find that, of course.

Wild over Heroism?

First of all, I didn't find a single phys/mental wild in this game. Not one. Crazy.

Second of all, I might have changed to heroism before the final fight if I wasn't in a rush in High Peak:10. Skipping practically all monsters on all High Peak levels meant that you had a window of opportunity when there are no monsters next to the portal and you have your buffs up etc. to enter the portal (or stairs).

The reason I went with wild for this long willingly was that mental effects aren't cleared by cleansing flames and for a mage on madness, they are absolutely brutal. Confusion, inner demons, silence...basically, getting hit even once with one of these effects when draconic will is down can be a death sentence.

The 1 K EHP I would have gotten from heroism is pretty meaningless. I mean, if your endgame arcane reconstruction shield can't handle the damage (shadowblades and to a lesser degree other flurriers on melee range) that means that the damage is too much and you should GTFO immediately. The 1 K doesn't really add much there.

However, I would have loved that extra spellpower boost. I was surprised to find out that with equipment shuffling, I was barely able to beat saves even on high peak! That meant that I could teleport that bloated horror DOOMED stair guardian on HP:8 with 100 spellsave standing right on top of the stairs (they can't move, only phase door). But I only had like 50/50 chance because I could get spellpower to 100-104 or something. So I would have loved that heroism for those extra inches in spellpower. Even an effective change of like 2-3 in spellpower would have helped surprisingly much.

EDIT. In the end, I don't think I used the wild infusion once in the final battle because at this point it was easy enough to chain skills properly but heroism wouldn't have done much good either because the final bosses couldn't deal enough damage to get through AR shield, their spellsaves were too high anyways and extra damage from increased SP was not very important.

Spikes in difficulty?

Heart of Gloom and the first t-2 dungeon you complete, Dreadfell, Vor Armoury/Briagh's Lair, High Peak. And last but not the least: Invasion portals. Does anyone now how crazy those places are? Well, let me tell you. High Peak has level 150+ monsters, invasion portal had 200+ level monsters. Yeah.

BTW, the only reason I entered the place was because of a bug: The portal was already destroyed once but then when the whole level was cleared and I used autoexplore the autoexpolore landed my char on the portal and the question "enter or destroy" popped up again. I pressed enter by accident or because I thought it woudln't matter but turns out you can enter the portals after destroying them.

Also Tower of Telmur was completely insane. It was extremely close to become a no-win place for my character simply because one level had two bosses that I didn't stand a chance against. Maybe do the Goedalath quest instead? This is not a spike in monster levels but it's a spike because of the TERRIBLE layout and dense monster population of that place

Do you see any other classes being madness viable in 1.3?

Necro,MAYBE, and only if you one doesn't appreciate one's free time and wants a class that takes even more time to complete than an archmage. But I only got my necro to level 30 something, maybe it gets faster when you can chain sacrifice AND heal for the majority of your HP bar every turn or something. I haven't played with the new Paradox Mage yet.

Next class you will be playing on Madness/Insane?

I should probably do something else beside play ToME now but I'm tempted to try the new shalore paradox mage on insane (and unlock ogres in the process).

[Mankeli]

Congrats! What is the most difficult part in your run?

Thanks!

There were two kind of difficult parts: The ones that were difficult because of the player's stupidity and the ones that were difficult regardless.

Gnarg on Vor Armoury almost killed my character but that was because I played poorly not because Vor Armoury was so incredibly tough (it was difficult, obviously, but not the most difficult part).

The parts that would have been difficult regardless of how well I was playing were probably Briagh's Lair and Tower of Telmur (the first part). Also High Peak because High Peak:8 because the stair guardian was doomed. But on High Peak, you aren't required to actually kill anything so I'm kinda torn on how to evaluate its difficulty. I don't think cauterize procced once there, the monster density is sparse and there are plenty of tiles to dig.

I don't remember tier-2 dungeon well anymore but Old Forest had one very difficult rare too, a minotaur paradox mage. A minotaur paradox mage actually killed my previous try, a cornac archmage. I also think that the Sandworm queen was very difficult but I may be confusing it with my necro run.

EDIT. Also ran into a few adventure and orc patrols. Potential game enders all. The funniest one was an orc patrol that I hoped had stopped pursuing already but which suddenly appeared while I was resting out my cooldowns to continue clearing Briagh's Lair.

EDIT 2Oh yeah, Ancient Elven Ruins was terrible too, but I shouldn't have been there anyways at that point so...

[Effigy]

Congrats! The times I've tried Madness, I ended up ragequitting in Trollmire. It's surreal to me that people can actually win Madness/RL.

[supermini]

I'm actually surprised that you would even do Telmur on Madness - I avoided that place like the plague on insane. I'd rather just ignore the quest and use the portal in Reknor every time. You end up walking more but seriously screw that place.

It says 5 days and 10 hours! Did this really take THAT long. Wow. But it felt like work so maybe I shouldn't be surprised. No wonder this run took forever.

741 rares killed, they were everywhere.

EDIT. The game may have been running on the background on a few occasions too so if that counts towards the time played then this is off by some margin.

That's...wow. I think my longest run was 50-60 hours and that felt like forever. Even if you're off by 10% this is still double that.

[Mankeli]

Congrats! The times I've tried Madness, I ended up ragequitting in Trollmire. It's surreal to me that people can actually win Madness/RL.

Thanks! Considering the fact that Trollmire, which is the safest dungeon in madness, can spawn orc grand master assassins and rare stealth bees with megaspeed + crazy damage, ragequitting may very well be the sensible option

I'm actually surprised that you would even do Telmur on Madness - I avoided that place like the plague on insane. I'd rather just ignore the quest and use the portal in Reknor every time. You end up walking more but seriously screw that place.

Um...are you saying that neither the Goedelath nor the Telmur quest are required to go back to East? So one could ignore Tannen completely? Because I'll probably can't stop laughing at myself any time soon if this is the case.

That's...wow. I think my longest run was 50-60 hours and that felt like forever. Even if you're off by 10% this is still double that.

Yeah, this took months to complete, it's crazy.

[Marson]

Major congrats! I have a couple of Madness characters still alive, but only because I haven't been playing them.

[Mankeli]

Major thanks!

@ Mex: About the viability of other classes, forgot to say this earlier but Argoniel had way over 200 armour, so GL marauders!

[supermini]

I'm actually surprised that you would even do Telmur on Madness - I avoided that place like the plague on insane. I'd rather just ignore the quest and use the portal in Reknor every time. You end up walking more but seriously screw that place.

Um...are you saying that neither the Goedelath nor the Telmur quest are required to go back to East? So one could ignore Tannen completely? Because I'll probably can't stop laughing at myself any time soon if this is the case.

Neither is required. Don't talk to the guy in Last Hope center or Tannen. Go straight to bottom of Reknor, kill Lithfengel, and use the Orb of Many Ways on the portal just like the first time you went through.

[Mankeli]

Neither is required. Don't talk to the guy in Last Hope center or Tannen. Go straight to bottom of Reknor, kill Lithfengel, and use the Orb of Many Ways on the portal just like the first time you went through.

...and this only took me a year to find out, lol.

@Everyone reading: Considering that Telmur was one of the hardest placest in the whole game, supermini's "avoid like plague" is enough said.

[Effigy]

Hmm, I didn't know you could skip them. Good info.

[Thomas]

Grats man, excellent show of patience and dedication.
Welcome to the kool kids klub.

[Mankeli]

Haha, thanks a bunch, tomisgo!

---

I've seen people on chat and on the forums as well asking about shielding values for archmages so I'm going to put those here in case someone is interested. Crit rate is 100 %.

Arcane reconstruction: 3508

BiL + Arcane reconstruction: 5511

BiL + Arcane reconstruction + Aegis: 11515

BiL shield healing per turn: 529

EDIT. Some context: Shadowblade rarebosses can hit for 4 K even when invisible which means that it's still possible, although very rare, to be hit for your entire BiL + AR + Aegis shield worth of damage in one turn. Welcome to madness!