[1.0.0] - First TOME 4 winner ! - Poiyu the Yeek Summonner

[Bast]

http://te4.org/characters/487/tome/2ca5 ... 02da06a34f

Here it is : my first ToME 4 winner, and my second TOME winner, considering (afaik) a Dwarf Swordmaster in old ToME 2 days.

I had started this character because I wanted to unlock the mindslayer class, that he did indeed, going further in his quest until he sacrificied himself to give all the world the Gift of the Way (even to those pesky halflings, and to the few dozens of orcs which survived his adventures in the east). It is only my third character who went to the far east, and the first to clear the Prides.

I've enjoyed plaing this character a lot, and I am very pleased with the improvements the summoner class has recived since b.34 (and my last succesfull summoner, killed but recentely at lvl 32 by a patrol of orcs) Master Summonner, and the respective Grand Arrivals made the mid game really intersting, justifting the use of multiple strategies depending on the opposition. (especially the dazed effect assiociated with the Iron Golem, that was really a one-point wonder before I reached lvl 40 or so and I started pumping up summons)

Antimagic Shield has been immensely useful to mitigate damage from casters, also. Mindstar mastery was more for the fun of it, and it made me regret that no melee class is designed with these weapons as standard weapons.

Before that, the early game was mostly easy, unless you count a pit of ritches by the stairs of hte Riches Tunnel lvl3, where the mental control abilities of the yeek and stair scumming where my only chance to survive. It is worth to note that the early summons keep being useful thoughout the whole game.

Somewhere in Dreadfell I think, I found the immensely useful "watchleader's alchemist's lamp of focus", and its Cunning-scaled ESP. That made the mid-to late and the late game arguabily easyer than the tier 2 dungeons, because I had (almost) full level ESP every several turns, enabling for strategies where monsters didn't even know that something was launching these enless waves of monsters at them. "Wanderer's Rest (4 def, 0 armour)" and it's 6 tile leap was also a life saver a few times.

The most difficult boss I faced must have been the Wyrmic pride leader, who had a tendency to crush my summons and to hit me hard from a far away distance. Other hard bosses where found in the High Peak, especially tricky bosses with Time Mage abilities, that make quite a ruckus in the battlefield... I could have found my doom in High Peak lvl 8, where the stairs were guarded by a Luminous Horror boss with unfair resistances and dramatic damage output. I was hopefully able to lure it far away from the stairs and to mine my way to them unnoticed.

The final battle was not very difficult, thanks to the fact I was always able to send waves of monsters to the bosses and to the summoned monsters alike. It was interesting and intense though, and I have realy liked the special Yeek ending, that could be still expanded a bit : I would have liked to be able to control a shade of myself, travelling all over Eyal and the East, and speaking humourous dialogue with Way-converted NPC (I mean : being a non-combat shade of my character, not bypassing the sacrifice part of the ending itself)

All in once, I would like to thank DarkGod (and all other people involved with the desing and/or the coding) for having made a freeware game I actually play and enjoy more that all the commercial games I bought recentely. I like the gameplay very much, it is a good variation from the gather ressources / grind a lot from the *band history of the game, with tactical approach to combat and lot of variations in gameplay (replayability it is !). Lore is really interesting, and often very well written, one can only hope we will see it expanded in playable campaigns one day!

So, I would like nnow to play a good front-line fighter with magical abilities, and not a wyrmic (I love them, but I want to try something else). Which would be interesting to play (knowing I intend to stay in Roguelike permadeath settings)