ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

This character barely worked up a sweat...

http://te4.org/characters/2460/tome/723 ... e3cb3742e2

...and yet was massacred in the last battle.

I don't quite get anti-magic. You use it all game, and then silence doesn't work when you need it, AM shield turns off within a few turns, and Spellblaze Remnants, my gloves, fail to disrupt any spells. So my entire build philosophy failed at the last gasp.

Very annoying.

One big problem I've identified is Spell Shock, which reduced all my resistances by 20%. So next build, I'll put points into spell shield.

The Prodigy Spell Feedback is a complete waste of time. I should have taken Giant Leap. Eye of the Tiger is great, but perhaps not necessary. Not sure.

Problem with AM Brawler is that you have to pump 5 of the 6 stats. So nothing shines.

Cunning Tactical is good tree, but completely useless in Final Battle as well.

Grappling would be another option to take, to get spellcasters.

I also think maxxing hitpoints and regen rate might be better for AM, given the fungal tree. Too many things overcome your resists in any case.

Blind resistance is also more important than I realised, though higher saves might have solved that too.

Stun is certainly different in b43. I had no stun resist whole game and it didn't really matter. One wild infusion fixed that.

I think I'll go dwarf next time for saves, as these are the key to survival.

So that would make an AM Brawler with Grapple, Fungal and two more infusions.

Barely used Haymaker, Body Shot, or Concussive Punch, so I could save myself 8 points there, and 1 from combo string, putting 5 into spell shield, 2 more into Fast Metabolism.

Exploit Weakness is also buggy in b43 and a waste of points at the moment.

Set Up is good, provided you get a turn to use it.

Manaclash is not worth it with this build, as WIL is not high enough.

Neither is AM shield.

Any way, that's what I learned from this!

Congrats on getting there

And they dont have silence resistance, jus good saves

I've now lost 2 toons in the final battle. It's a bit frustrating that, to first order, there is no way to recover from a mistake there - and you spend many, many hours getting to it. If you discover, for example, that your gear is mismatched for the fight - no luck in either fetching things from the house or scaring better items up.

From a mechanical point of view, I'd therefore favor adding an extra step if you die: the villains escape and you have a last stand elsewhere. This represents a final chance to gear up for a genuinely climactic fight (warning aplenty that there is no return, end of the world, etc.)

It is genuinely annoying to lose dozens of hours in a bungled attempt at the last stage.

Hum perhaps but I dont see why, they are no the first powerful spellcasters the player see, what's so different ?

darkgod wrote:Hum perhaps but I dont see why, they are no the first powerful spellcasters the player see, what's so different ?

I see these (certainly at least partly intentional) problems with them:

• You fight two of them, plus a horde of (potentially very powerful) mooks; in most other boss fights, the boss is alone, and otherwise the monsters that accompany them are relatively weak.
• The two have different fighting styles, unlike other multi-bosses.
• Both the damage they do and that they can endure is very high; this is, of course, not unusual for bosses, but never so extreme. Before the final fight (or perhaps a bit earlier, but too late anyway), the character needs to severely neglect a build aspect (attack, defense, mobility, etc.) in order to be punished for it; here, all of them must be virtually flawless (to such a degree that being lucky with shop items and/or random drops is pretty much required).
• Other very difficult non-optional bosses can be at least temporarily escaped from; the final boss level is rather small, and given that there may be more than two highly dangerous creatures in it, the chances to get some rest are practically zero (unless you teleport to the portal to the Iron Throne; if you find a way to reliably get to the portal and back, the fight presumably becomes rather easy).

Of course, all of these can somewhat be alleviated by proper preparation, but someone fighting them for the first time will hardly know what to expect.

5k17 wrote: Of course, all of these can somewhat be alleviated by proper preparation, but someone fighting them for the first time will hardly know what to expect.

That's true for every tough boss in ToME. You're probably going to die first time you face Bill, Brotoq, Rak'Shor... Because you don't know what to expect.

I'm not for nerfing it. Then again, I never lost a life or failed in the final fight so I might be biased.

A sort of "time out" option might be interesting, and provided the bosses recuperated during the period as well, probably not much (if at all) of a nerf. One or two chances to duck behind a wall and get a few turns to adjust kit and whatnot. Not sure how it'd be implemented, though.

E: Maybe an emergency teleport back to your fortress, disabling the rod for the rest of the fight?

Frumple wrote:A sort of "time out" option might be interesting, and provided the bosses recuperated during the period as well, probably not much (if at all) of a nerf. One or two chances to duck behind a wall and get a few turns to adjust kit and whatnot. Not sure how it'd be implemented, though.

E: Maybe an emergency teleport back to your fortress, disabling the rod for the rest of the fight?

How about activating stone wall? It can be found on hats and one artifact and it's not uncommon. People keep telling me it's a weak ability.

You can also activate a global speed boost (eden's guile, shalore talent, essence of speed, dealing fire damage to yourself with elemental harmony). That should give you an extra action or two to replace a few items.

How about various abilities to pin one of the bosses and then use a move infusion to get out of range?

How about silence? If you have good enough mindpower you should be able to silence at least one of them. It's not for every class though.

There's an alchemist reward - elixir of invulnerability. If you made it this far and not used it, now's your chance.

There are so many options for resourceful players.

I strongly recommend adventuring mode if you don't want surprises to get to you. Roguelike is for those who like it super hardcore (not me). Adventuring mode is plenty difficult as it is and if you can clear adventuring mode with 0 deaths it's just as good as doing it in roguelike.

I just finished my first game and died only once, in the last boss exactly for the reason that I didn't really know what I was up against. I'm extremely glad I didn't play roguelike mode as I don't feel I deserved to lose at that point.

I liked the last boss fight, it was really quite different to all other battles. You could always read spoilers if you want to know what to expect from the bosses.

What I'd like is more other very hard endgame fights like Atamathon.

LNQ wrote:What I'd like is more other very hard endgame fights like Atamathon.

If you would like to continue challenging your character, you can enter the Infinite Dungeon after winning. If you keep playing, you will die eventually!

tiger_eye wrote:If you would like to continue challenging your character, you can enter the Infinite Dungeon after winning. If you keep playing, you will die eventually!

I have definitely seen things down there worse than Athamathon, if you can get deep enough. At least everyone's favourite golem doesn't have a 100% global speed boost...

supermini wrote:

tiger_eye wrote:If you would like to continue challenging your character, you can enter the Infinite Dungeon after winning. If you keep playing, you will die eventually!

I have definitely seen things down there worse than Athamathon, if you can get deep enough. At least everyone's favourite golem doesn't have a 100% global speed boost...

I've seen things down there that would change a man.

Reidan wrote:

supermini wrote:

tiger_eye wrote:If you would like to continue challenging your character, you can enter the Infinite Dungeon after winning. If you keep playing, you will die eventually!

I have definitely seen things down there worse than Athamathon, if you can get deep enough. At least everyone's favourite golem doesn't have a 100% global speed boost...

I've seen things down there that would change a man.

By "change" you mean "decorate the walls with your intestines", right?

He probably does

I've beaten the final two bosses with Temporal Wardens and Cursed iirc (not all recorded) and several betas ago. I've now lost two strong brawlers at the death. So it might also be that brawler development has not adapted to recent game development. Brawlers have no talents for disease, confusion, stun, pin, slow resist, and this makes it tough and very gear dependent. that's why I tried one as antimagic, to see if that would help. It helps all the way through, but not at the end.

I'm now trying a third brawler build, not AM but grappling and saves and high hitpoints, to see if that works.