There has been no Doomed winner since b34, so I thought I try and change that. But alas, I could not, and I doubt anyone could.
The b38 Doomed has some fundamental flaws:
1. Unlike previous betas, where max hate increased during the game from 10 up to 14+, in b38, it rescaled to 100 but never jumps to 110, 120, etc. Hate management is extremely difficult, particularly against 1-2 enemies, as you can only gain hate by feeding, and you spend it too quickly to build up enough hate to do major attacks like blast, unseen force etc.
2. It is simply underpowered. Look at my stats on the sheet:
- WIL 123
CUN 104
CON 114
most of the game I had a +21 heroism infusion for 11 turns!
Aletta's Diadem
24% physical damage
25% physical resistance penetration
So the damage output needs to be buffed considerably. And hate accumulation I think should increase inversely proportional to number of foes in LOS. So if you have one enemy only, feeding rate increases, so you can battle bosses in particular, but also difficult solo enemies.
All my deaths were to bosses or elites. Three were to one in the @#$@#% far portal, which I should never have ventured into.
3. Shadows are hopeless in the new version, because they burn up hate too quickly. I didn't use any with this character, as I had play tested quite a few previously, debuging to get to lvl 50 and then maxxing shadows. At early levels they seem fine, but at high levels they get killed constantly, only reform 50% of them time, and so suck up hate big time.
4. Mindpower can't be buffed through equipment. I had to keep on the diadem, but this was the only +mind dmg item I found in the whole game, except for 1 amult of soul searching (?), which comes with negative fire resist, so is no good. Unlike spellpower, which randomly appears on all sorts of gear. I got Mindpower to 60, but only through pumping stats high, and getting a randart mace with +13 WIL and +7 CUN (Tidezephyr in char sheet).
5. Seethe makes no sense. Generic points are at a premium, but I was forced to go to 2/5 just to keep some hate alive between dungeons particularly. But the 40% dmg reduction? Alsmot died a few times when I realised it was still on!
6. Gestures make no sense either. I got several characters to the East with gestures, but the weapon plus shield combo is just too good, so I eschewed it for this build and it proved much better without it. The major point is that as you progress you use hitting things less and less, so gesture of pain becomes a waste. and the crit chance increase are too small to dump 5 class points into gesutre of power, and the damage loss frmo gesture of guarding is too great. I did one build with this maxxed and tracked the effects of guarding the log using a tail program and --flush-stdout, and it was diminishing my attack too much to make it worthwhile.
7. Knockback becomes less and less useful as you progress, as more and more NPCs are immune. So they just sit there whacking you. And with lots of NPCs, you discover that knocking them back just gives them a new opportunity to Rush you!
8.Unseen force is way too expensive - 30 hate and 50 cooldown? I barely used it. I did a cost analysis/time/damage analysis and it came out last by miles.
9. Dark vision is completely buggy. It never stops creatures seeing you, and half the time, you can't see through it so you lose your feed. And now without pity, you just get shot constantly. That's why I maxxed resistances and CON, to stay alive.
10. Hateful whisper also does little damage. 169 mind damage only once to a character? When it has 10,000 HP in the last stages? Alchemists and Corruptors and Rogues are doing massive damage at this stage. And madness makes little difference, compared say to Gloom
11. Several NPCs can't be fed upon, which makes them incredibly hard to kill. I never fed once on a nightmare horror. For some reason it just never takes. And luminous horrors constantly cast providence which makes it turn off. So when you fight these with no other NPCs around they are incredibly tough.
12. On the other hand, dreadmasters were easy, as you can feed on an invisible creature once you know where it is, and you can land agony on it. So I just watched them and then fed and agony and presto, no dreadmasters. One vault had 6 or 7 of them!
13. I was very dependent on equipment, as the talents just are not sufficient for defence or offence. No on hit spells work for mind attacks, either, so they feel very inferior to spellcasters.
Overall, Doomed are fun to play and teach you a lot about combat, as you learn to take much more interest in the talents and stats of NPCs, but at the end of the day, they are just too underpowered. I survived for ages in the last battle but still couldn't kill anyone and probably only reduced one NPC's hitpoints by about 40%. Maybe a better player could win with a Doomed, but I doubt it with the current beta.