First NM/RL Winner - Shalore Doombringer

[Ritz]

After 120+ hours of endless deaths and miserable letdowns suffered on NM/RL I finally managed to clear the game with an OPbringer, not only killing the bosses, but also bringing down Ata and Lilaniil - contrary to my worst fears, with unexpected ease. Huge thanks to geckola for the amazing guide, and thanks to the chat members for contionous support and general fun - especially for the tip about investing into Reckless Strike. To my great surprise, it ended up being the key ability that carried me through the end game, and the self damage was actually easily offset with equipment/shielding runes.

The final bosses were definitely the hugest pain in the ass. Even though Elandar went on his knees in the mere 5 rounds, his surviving crony appeared to be much tankier, and I didn't have a reliable way to restore my vim for reckless strikes simply because my attacks kept missing! That's considering I leveled combat accuracy to 3. Will have to keep that in mind for future runs. The same went for the monsters summoned through portals - at first I wanted to restore vim by killing them instead of attacking the Sorcerer directly, but they evaded my blows just as easily. I ended up running around in circles and regenerating resources through the passive effect of Devouring Flames by setting the boss on fire with Gwai's Burninator. Took me maybe half an hour, and I don't wish such a finish on anyone else playinh ToME. Still, can't argue with results =P

Taking Hope Wanes turned out to be useless as well - I either killed enemies in one hit (thus not being able to stack fears) or couldn't hit them at all (to the same effect). Really should've thought this through better.

Anyway, the turning point of the run was picking up the second Elemental Fury. One was already great, solving all of my damage problems and allowing me to forego leveling the Fiery Torment (I took it later anyway because I had 10 class skill points floating around at the end of the game and not knowing what to make of them). But the second one was the most game changing item in all of my runs - my damage DOUBLED on the spot. Literally so - the minute before I was doing 700 per hit, then I equipped the second ring and bumped for 1.4k. Naturally, up until the end bosses there were very few enemies who lived more than 1 round - it was either a bump kill for trash or Reckless Strike kill for rares/uniques. I didn't even have to take healing/regen rune, because the natural regeneration through demonfire combined with Draining Assault solved all of my health problems, and for the worst case scenario I had a second level Healing Light from escorts (granted, the only time I used it was during the final fight). I ended up dying once (in the final tower), but that was entirely due to my own carelessness and tiredness - I just held an arrow button and bumped myself to death when blindly running into a gatekeeper boss. I swear I do this WAY too often, but still, I blame the tediousness of the mid-game with all that Pride business.

Atamathon was a complete joke, falling down in about 5 rounds while bringing me to about half health. Lilaniil was even easier, since I pretty much one-shot her every reincarnation and she didn't have a chance to do any damage to me whatsoever. Doombringers are definitely the strongest melee class in my eyes, and it's such a relief to play one after dozens and dozens of failed zerker, brawler and cursed runs. Buff cursed plox!

Here's a link to the character if anyone's interested. My second win ever, the first being Normal/RL with an OPmancer (and yes, Oozemancers are bloody broken, play one if you don't believe me): http://te4.org/characters/1898/tome/6f9 ... cea17ce628

Oh, and yeah - #ShaloreMasterRace.

[Effigy]

Congrats!

Regarding the accuracy problems, you should consider investing in Perfect Strike in the future. It's very good.

[Ritz]

Regarding the accuracy problems, you should consider investing in Perfect Strike in the future. It's very good.

*Slaps his face furiously* I bloody KNEW I forgot something important. I knew it! Taking Shalore threw me off guard, because I never considered Blinding Speed as an option, and leveling up the second talent seemed useless due to no Dex. Dang. Thanks for the tip! And thank you for congratulations I've been trying to beat NM/RL for over a year, playing sporadically here and there, but succeeded only know, so it means a lot to me. ToME can be a harsh mistress...