ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Got my first victory last night with a Skeleton Archmage, focusing on maxed invisibility and only fire spells for offense:
http://te4.org/characters/1022/tome/262 ... 25900d6212

I hated this character up until around level 30, when I started getting enough points in the wildfire tree to even him out. Prior to the sorcerers, the roughest fight was the first level in Dreadfell when I came across a radiant horror vault, which I had to run from until I got a couple points in the wildfire talent. Oddly, this guy seemed to pull a lot more fire-immune or resistant critters during the first half of the game then I generally see. Obviously not an issue later with maxed wildfire, but made for a miserable game early on.

The East was a cakewalk though. It seriously felt like cheating most of the time. No close calls, just pop invisibility and lay down a field of flames, watch as everything stumbles around and dies in a few turns. Once I got Robe of the Archmage and maxed WIL, I could pretty much just keep invis going all the time and not worry about mana. This was a really, really cheesy character.

The only really annoying thing though, is even with keen senses maxed I still hardly ever I saw my character onscreen. This was usually only a minor annoyance, except for when I was fighting the last guy, who kept freezing me as often as he could. Because I couldn't see my guy most of the time, I also couldn't see the frozen status effect and generally wouldn't notice until a spell rebounded in my face. Thus I ended up kicking my own ass as much as the other guy. It'd be lovely if keen senses actually kept pace with invisibility.

Died once to Elendar, but pulled through. That last level is ridiculous though--I can't imagine trying to do that with a melee build.

Yeah i heard invisibility was real cheesy. But hey, i found experiencing the game very rewarding even though i cheesed through some parts. I had a melee character, and i have no idea how it would've gone had i not cheesed quake to get a nice los breaking position. Obviously stun resist at max is a must have for a melee character.

Anyway congratulations, skeleton mage is something i want to try too. Admittedly i haven't unlocked wildfire yet.

Haven't actually tested it, but nailing yourself with a 5/5 arcane eye is a good way to see through, well, everything. Even if it doesn't see through invis, you'll still be able to track where you are by the eye's own tile overlay whatsit. Thing'll probably see further than you can, anyway, so it's useful to have running even beyond the showing-where-you-are thing. Is ruddy shame you can't autocast arcane eye on yourself, honestly.

Frumple wrote:Haven't actually tested it, but nailing yourself with a 5/5 arcane eye is a good way to see through, well, everything.

Huh, never even occurred to me to try that. I did realize with this character that arcane eye is a lot more useful than I'd previously given it credit for. For some reason I'd assumed that it had to be placed within line of sight, so that it was mainly just useful for looking around corners. Kind of facepalmed when I realized you can place it anywhere--that's way better.

Still only stuck a point there though, as once I had enough mana to use invis I pretty much stopped worrying about seeing around corners. That actually hurt me in the last fight, as I'd gotten so use to just farting around in the middle of the room shooting things that I was totally surprised when someone was actually shooting back. So due to complacency (and undoubtedly the good bit of cheap, boxed wine I was downing), it took me awhile to remember that I could actually hide behind something and use my aoe abilities to good effect.