Life is a party!
http://te4.org/characters/26842/tome/6a ... d8fb547959
Second NM win for me!
Compared to Summoner, Doomed have bit harder early game. Their 2 spells have such short range, you can't really melee without hate shield and negative healing modifier doesn't help. Thankfully, the knockback is enough to slowly kite most things to death. I rushed Shadows asap, sinking first category point in it, and once I got enough Shadow Mages levels, they turned from laughable distraction to pure destruction. Especially nice that they do dip from increased difficulty and have level 8 of most talents. 1 point of Deflection added surprising boost to tankiness. After that turned towards Punishment tree (Whispers) so that I actually could do something myself. Skipped Lake Nur till post-east, which again spawned three enemies that would straight destroyed char if entered on default 15 level (plus a tentacle boss).
Went AM, absolutely zero reason not to as Doomed. From one of earlier deaths I learned the best way to fight corruptor (which flings 500dmg spells on Nightmare) is to movement infusion behind rocks and wait for shadows to do their job. Left Urkis for later, no Category points to unlock Fungus before 36 anyway. One of slaves in Ring of Blood was nice enough to drop me Spellhunt Remnants, truly gamechanging artifact for AMs.
Dreadfell went easy till I opened a vault with DUO Dreaming Horrors. My two most promising Doomed before lost their minds (even more somehow) to them. They take 0 damage until their Psi is depleted, get over double damage boost in Dreamscape, and got utterly devastating attacks if you get distorted. After trial and (t)error, it seems the only way to deal with them on this class is using Track (escort or items) and Agony/Whisper/Focus shadows them through walls, then gtfo and hope Madness to proc to deal any notable damage.
Master was pushover, with multiple escape options I never had to fight him with his army (which would make cupcakes out me if I stayed otherwise). Ambush was successful, though certainly not easy (previous Doomed failed there). Rushed to Reknor to avoid Melinda spawning, came back later to blast place to pieces. Dwarven tunnels gave enough xp for 30lvl and prodigy, obviously taken Mental Tyranny so everything except shadows now could proc Madness.
Spider caverns things were looking fine, till I found ANOTHER Dreaming Horror (4th total counting Lake Nur). I made stupid mistake of not rushing to exit, but to stay and fight... for some reason thinking I can outrange him. Got Dreamscaped and thought it's another end of line (quite frustrating to loose chars three times in a row to same enemy, no?). As last resort, rushed with movement infusion under Horror, casted some stuff on him, first turn got ravaged, got 100+ physical dot and lost 90% of my life... launched all my Wilds to clear it, got Healing Touched back and somehow one of my projections actually managed to kill it in same turn. This was pure luck though, those things seem way overtuned.
Rest of caves was easy. Fighting own clone was mistake, I was on verge of death there, his Shadows cheat and blindside you through wall and hit for 200+. Cleared Vor Armory slowly but surely (I was VERY lucky with gear, having 70% cold resist and 50% fire certainly helped against those level ~55 high cryomancers). Skipped Room of Death, no extra lives and no way to reliable way to cheese it means it's not worth effort. Backup guardians were breeze, shadows don't care if you hit like truck, they just fade all of it. Magical bosses are pushovers once you dispel their sustains with gloves. Skipped opening portal back completely, one way is way too risky, second is too tedious, both don't offer any decent reward for AM.
Went Melee->Summoners->Mages->Necro pride sequence. First one nearly ended as tomb in entrance room as I were overconfident and instead of moving away after Call to Battle, ate 2-3 melees bringing me from over 1000 life down to less than 100. Boss was just painful to kill but somehow went down with lucky Madness procs. Rest of prides were piss easy, with Blast often just one shotting half entrance room. Only Gorbat leader gave some fight, although more of an annoyance. 20+ turn blind on 6 turns cd just sucks. Looking back at it, I probably should wear one of Telepathy:orc jewelry I found. Merchant spewed some so-so gear to replace weak links and went into High Peak.
Surprisingly, it was pretty easy. Had very easy combos, even invisible Worm that Walks Doomed/Archmage didn't seem to deal noticeable damage. Only had to skip one boss, Heavy Bone Giant with Berserker+reaver (I think?) combo. It kept using Unstoppable on low health, and healing back to full by killing just few shadows, turning them off wasn't option since he also could melee for half my health and leave Deep Wound that decreased healing by 140% or so, and Blood Lock on top 'just in case'.
For final enconter, went completely mad and turned off only Demon portal (simply because Urrivelas or w/e it's name thing that blackens half zone is too much pita to deal with, and seemingly can't be dispelled by normal means either). Spellhunt Remnants have cone big enough to hit both magi on spawn which really set them back. Shadows, Antimagic totem and spiders were playing with Corruptor when I was busy dealing with Elandor which dropped pretty fast without his sustains. His second half took much longer to kill, even if sucked out of Vim he kept cursing me, -80 to all saves hurt. Thankfully didn't land the dazing one. Drained last of his life by time things that other portals spawned started to advance on my only safe quarter. About time too, fighting whole time on low hate isn't easy, 50% healing mod hurts.
I have to say, I absolutely loved the gameplay of the class, with a mix of self-sustained summons, selfspreading nukes, potent dots and unexpected toughness. Bit underwhelmed with Darkness tree, which I took only for extra Madness chances. I had pretty much everything I wanted gearwise in this run, only exception being lack of extra lives and a t5 artifact mindstar, but merchant remedied that (oh, and the lifesucking rock I guess since I did found plain voratun amu, can't have everything I guess).
On a side note - using Spellhunts on both magi (hitting AM totem rock too in process) made game spew lua codes. First time it crashed game, second time made like 5 error windows at once, but let me close them and continue. Still, something is off there. Also - only 8 escorts, and I did traverse Dreadfell manually on way back.