My first ever Tome winner!
I admit it - I was inspired by another winner post here: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=36635
I followed the general route; fire & arcane - love beams. Sure - they are fragile at start - escape allot & pray to land safe.
A success strategy was to auto-fire Rune: Shielding when any enemy was spotted. It is a 0 turn event and gives me some turns to mess around and then escape.
I learned about Wildfire and unlocked it late mid-game. Great feeling to burn everything!
I found several great staffs. I also found all 3 talos-items! Wow - I had to give it a shot - 1 prodigy it must be worth? Oh man - what a staff!
(never tried the Losgoroth-thing... but perhaps should - i HATE those pink losgoroths, revenge!!!)I was very lucky with the escorts - especially Celestial / Light. 2 good spells as-made for archmage.
It is a feeling of power - opening a vault door... shielding up, adding a Displacement shield on the baddest in the room, lob a fire flash in the center of the room, then Illuminate and finally the beam weapons to clear the rest. All clear in a couple of turns.
I was scared of the endgame.. http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=36795. I followed advice and leveled up via an endless amount of far portals. Got killed there once... but mostly a walk in the park. Didn't find any spectacular gear. I saved my last prodigy - and behold - I finally unlocked Cauterize - which I see many use...
The trip up the peak was a breeze - but something super-duper killed me once...
I was tense before the final fight. Didn't know if I should swap the Infusion Wild rune... No worries - I shielded up, fired away at the mele-wizzard. Used mudslide & blast wave when he got to close. In not too many turns he was down. The portals did spawn some stuff... not to nasty. With 1st down in the center - I went after the 2nd who hid in SE-corner - chicken. I left my mele-buddy in center to take care of the spawns.
Now I actually lost my shield 2 times. Stone prison to recover - actually put some Pride-trees outside so he could play with those. Out of the stone prison & shielded up - I saw my mele-buddy was surrounded by dragon & wyrms... tough ... I lobbed a fireflash to help him - and then finished of the last wizzy.
Finally... a win. Now I can rest...