Borgin the Dwarf Wyrmic (Winner)

[quincunx]

Well, this is my first win (character info here). I first played ToME about 6-8 months ago, and I've definitely enjoyed the changes that have been made since then. Unfortunately, the Golem Graveyard and Mark of Spellblaze, and possibly some areas in the East were missing from my game, but other than those, I think I finished practically everything (I do remember fighting my own shade when I played a long time ago, but I never ran into that fight in this playthrough, so there is a good chance I missed some quests).

Some comments: I never found much resist all equipment until after I beat the final bosses, when I picked up Ureslak's Femur and the Pearl of Life and Death, which was annoying. I was using the Gaping Maw for most of the second half of the game, easily crushing most bosses by casting all my breath attacks and using a regen infusion, rushing in, waiting until the boss stopped being dazed to allow spells to cool down if rush connected, and whacking the boss until it died or I took significant damage, in which case I would lightning rush/speed infusion away, heal, and repeat. None of the guaranteed bosses really gave me much trouble until the very last fight.

Annoyingly, Dwarven Wyrmics, though they have pretty good escaping options, seem to lack survivability in the melee range and damage outside the melee range. They're also infuriatingly weak in the earliest part of the game, and don't have a great way to deal with swarms of summons due to their relatively weak CC and low AOE damage, which quickly builds up equilibrium, making the damage difficult to sustain. I would say their midgame is quite good, when melee enemies struggle to punch through your armor, and you can take down enemy casters with 2-4 breath attacks. However, enemy health scales faster than your breath attacks, so late game, all four breath attacks + the fire AOE will still fail to take down the large clumps of summoned undead that frequently appear.

Also, I became a follower of Zigur early on, and frequently had doubts as to whether it was a good move. I would say antimagic was worth it only so I could regenerate equilibrium. The other benefits, I feel, certainly did not outweigh the loss of plenty of great equipment.

One of my deaths was to The Master, one was to a fire wyrm in dreadfell, and two were to a unique fire imp in a farportal which knew feed strengths, could become invisible, and could slash me for 1250 HP. Another death was to a unique orc beserker in Vor's Pride Barracks #3. She could also do over 1000 damage in one attack, (I think) from range. I don't remember how I died a sixth time.

Wyrmics are certainly strong enough to win, though, and mostly quite fun and challenging to play. Thank you for making such a great game, and thank you, everybody who helped me in chat. There certainly were annoying bugs and crazy random unique monsters, but I look forward to playing some of the other very unique classes in this game, and seeing how polished and balanced it becomes in the future. It's already come a long way from what I remember.