Mindworm Murray - First win and Sleeplipsist notes
Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 2:28 am
Hello! Learned about ToME a couple of weeks back while trawling old RPS articles, and took to it in a big way. Just had my first win on Normal / Adventure difficulty with a Thalore AM Solipsist focused on sleep synergies.
I died a few times once I hit the east, mostly because I was completely unfamiliar with it and because my general power level felt absurd enough that I got overconfident a lot.
MM was my third shot at a Solipsist, so I had a sense of how the early game went and what I wanted to focus on. I wasn't sure whether to go into Distortion or into a sleep strategy, but I knew I wanted one or the other for crowd control. In the end, I decided on sleep because I felt that the synergies looked stronger. Full Distortion, to me, is ideally paired up with Discharge for some passive damage while channeling Maelstrom, and that's something I want to try in the future. I was absolutely strapped for generics all the way through, because Thalore + Dreaming + Fungus + Anti-magic + Armour Training All Resist mean there really isn't a spare point to be had. Class talents felt tight most of the way through, but that's partly because I spent some points on things I wouldn't bother with were I to do it all over.
I didn't feel that Thought-forms were worth any points, and still don't, so no points there. In the early game, I focused on maxing Mind Sear as quickly as possible, while putting a point each into Distortion Bolt (basically unused) and Wave, which I used frequently for the knockback. I feel that's an excellent use of two points for any Solipsist. (The 5/5 in Wave are vanity points added when I hit 50 during the final fight). I went with a few points in the Slumber tree early to get a third Sleep and the DoT on wake-up, but in retrospect, this wasn't terribly useful. The DoT is nice, but it doesn't really become relevant until late in the game when all the sleep synergies (more damage on sleeping targets, more damage against insomniacs, etc.) kick in. Were I to do it again, I'd use those points to fill out Psychic Assault more quickly. From there, I mostly played it by ear.
I picked up Mental Tyranny as my first prodigy, and forgot to spend my second because I was under the impression that it kicked in at level 50 and hit the last fight at 46. I don't really know what I would have taken anyway, so it's no big loss.
I picked up all five infusion slots and never once used the fifth. I didn't manage to find a physical/magical wild, which would have been really nice since Solipsists get a talent to cleanse Mental debuffs. In the end, it didn't really matter.
In the early game, the Sleep solipsist was a damage machine with a bit of crowd control and a bit of tankiness.
In the mid-game, he was a defensive specialist with damage best described as "basically sufficient".
In the late game, he was an absolute rock defensively, and some late luck with gear brought his damage output up to middling. I think I really hit my stride during the orc prides, and from that point, it was smooth sailing.
It's really tough to overstate how defensively sound AM/sleep Solipsists are. They have every defense in the book except mobility. Multiple sleeps to shut down groups? Yep. Beasties spawning to draw fire? Yep. Kiting? Sure. Straight-up face-tanking? Got that too. Once I found a Psychoportation torque (it took until just before Dreadfell) and particularly the Wanderer's Rest boots for positioning and short-range escapes, mobility was taken care of as well.
Some specifics:
Solipsism: I feel the ideal mix here is 2 or 3/5/5/5. Taking all damage as Psi is unnecessary and probably not that good an idea, as the global speed drop from hitting the Solipsism threshold is quite relevant. The other talents in the tree are all a bit go-big-or-go-home, being basically useless with low point investment, but they're all quite powerful when maxed. There's an extraordinary amount of beefiness to be found in this one tree.
Slumber: A decent pickup eventually, but not early. Slumber itself is the worst of the sleeps and unlikely to see much use, but it's actually easier to toss a few spare points into than the superior Sleep, because class talents are easier to come by than generics for this particular build. I never ended up using Dreamscape, though the option was there if I needed it. I think 1/5/0/0 is perfectly reasonable even for a sleep-heavy build. For that matter, so is skipping this tree entirely. The DoT's nice, and it'll synergize with increased damage against insomniacs, but it's not remotely necessary.
Nightmare: Amazing tree, except for Waking Nightmare. Nightmare is what makes sleep builds work.
Nightmare is the best sleep because a) it hits a huge area; b) it does its own DoT (I was getting 200ish/turn on sleeping enemies), which is quite relevant; c) it lasts a long time; d) it costs class talents and not generics. Absolutely worthy of five points, though Inner Demons/Night Terrors/Psychic Assault/Solipsism are of a higher priority.
Inner Demons has a reputation for being a boss-killer, but it's more than that, and I wish I'd put more points into it more quickly. You can wipe out entire groups with impressive speed by Nightmaring them, cloning the biggest baddie, and walking away. This is particularly funny with summoners or necromancers, because every copy brings friends. This, and not Mind Sear, was actually the core of my offense past a certain point. Maxing ID makes it last a very long time, which plays nicely with the long sleep from Nightmare, and 5/5 also boosts the chance of cloning high enough that you'll inevitably get numerous copies of a sleeping enemy and have a good shot at cloning an awake/sleep-immune/high-save enemy. These are both relevant scenarios.
Waking Nightmare is weak. The DoT damage scales poorly with extra points, the per-tick chance to proc a debuff is low, and solipsists are too tanky for that debuff to be relevant anyway. I kept hoping it'd scale into something useful, but it never did.
Lastly, Night Terror is excellent all around. The beasties don't hit hard, but they're great distractions, and the damage boost against sleeping enemies is large and quite welcome.
Dreaming: Sleep is a good spell, and if I had any generics to spare, I would happily have added a few points to it. That said, it's perfectly adequate at just one point. Extra damage against insomniacs is excellent for a build that always wants to lead with Nightmare, and getting some all-important mental save out of the bargain is a lovely value. An early point in Dream Walk offers some much-needed (if awkward) mobility to a class that doesn't have any without gear.
Sleep immunities: Not really relevant. The only notable enemy groups with sleep immunity are giants and vampires. Giants aren't a long-term threat, but it's good to save Daikara until the non-sleep arsenal is padded out a bit (particularly because the only drawback of Mind Sear is range; you'll eat more than a few boulders). Vampires are dangerous but uncommon, and a lot of what they do is blunted by the Thalore anti-corruptor racial for those so inclined. Bone giants are also immune, but there aren't enough of them to matter, and they're trivial to kite.
Anti-magic: seems an obvious yes on a Solipsist. A class that gets global speed for being full on Psi and loses it for being low on Psi benefits enormously from Fungus-extended regeneration. The anti-magic tree actually wasn't as relevant. I had a mere one point in Anti-Magic Shield for most of the time that I had it, and that was plenty.
All in all, good fun was had. Sleep solipsists are enormously powerful and pretty interesting to play. I'm actually considering a second Solipsist because there are so many trees I haven't touched (I kind of want to betray enough Alchemists to try a melee build), but that'll have to wait until I win with another class.
I died a few times once I hit the east, mostly because I was completely unfamiliar with it and because my general power level felt absurd enough that I got overconfident a lot.
MM was my third shot at a Solipsist, so I had a sense of how the early game went and what I wanted to focus on. I wasn't sure whether to go into Distortion or into a sleep strategy, but I knew I wanted one or the other for crowd control. In the end, I decided on sleep because I felt that the synergies looked stronger. Full Distortion, to me, is ideally paired up with Discharge for some passive damage while channeling Maelstrom, and that's something I want to try in the future. I was absolutely strapped for generics all the way through, because Thalore + Dreaming + Fungus + Anti-magic + Armour Training All Resist mean there really isn't a spare point to be had. Class talents felt tight most of the way through, but that's partly because I spent some points on things I wouldn't bother with were I to do it all over.
I didn't feel that Thought-forms were worth any points, and still don't, so no points there. In the early game, I focused on maxing Mind Sear as quickly as possible, while putting a point each into Distortion Bolt (basically unused) and Wave, which I used frequently for the knockback. I feel that's an excellent use of two points for any Solipsist. (The 5/5 in Wave are vanity points added when I hit 50 during the final fight). I went with a few points in the Slumber tree early to get a third Sleep and the DoT on wake-up, but in retrospect, this wasn't terribly useful. The DoT is nice, but it doesn't really become relevant until late in the game when all the sleep synergies (more damage on sleeping targets, more damage against insomniacs, etc.) kick in. Were I to do it again, I'd use those points to fill out Psychic Assault more quickly. From there, I mostly played it by ear.
I picked up Mental Tyranny as my first prodigy, and forgot to spend my second because I was under the impression that it kicked in at level 50 and hit the last fight at 46. I don't really know what I would have taken anyway, so it's no big loss.
I picked up all five infusion slots and never once used the fifth. I didn't manage to find a physical/magical wild, which would have been really nice since Solipsists get a talent to cleanse Mental debuffs. In the end, it didn't really matter.
In the early game, the Sleep solipsist was a damage machine with a bit of crowd control and a bit of tankiness.
In the mid-game, he was a defensive specialist with damage best described as "basically sufficient".
In the late game, he was an absolute rock defensively, and some late luck with gear brought his damage output up to middling. I think I really hit my stride during the orc prides, and from that point, it was smooth sailing.
It's really tough to overstate how defensively sound AM/sleep Solipsists are. They have every defense in the book except mobility. Multiple sleeps to shut down groups? Yep. Beasties spawning to draw fire? Yep. Kiting? Sure. Straight-up face-tanking? Got that too. Once I found a Psychoportation torque (it took until just before Dreadfell) and particularly the Wanderer's Rest boots for positioning and short-range escapes, mobility was taken care of as well.
Some specifics:
Solipsism: I feel the ideal mix here is 2 or 3/5/5/5. Taking all damage as Psi is unnecessary and probably not that good an idea, as the global speed drop from hitting the Solipsism threshold is quite relevant. The other talents in the tree are all a bit go-big-or-go-home, being basically useless with low point investment, but they're all quite powerful when maxed. There's an extraordinary amount of beefiness to be found in this one tree.
Slumber: A decent pickup eventually, but not early. Slumber itself is the worst of the sleeps and unlikely to see much use, but it's actually easier to toss a few spare points into than the superior Sleep, because class talents are easier to come by than generics for this particular build. I never ended up using Dreamscape, though the option was there if I needed it. I think 1/5/0/0 is perfectly reasonable even for a sleep-heavy build. For that matter, so is skipping this tree entirely. The DoT's nice, and it'll synergize with increased damage against insomniacs, but it's not remotely necessary.
Nightmare: Amazing tree, except for Waking Nightmare. Nightmare is what makes sleep builds work.
Nightmare is the best sleep because a) it hits a huge area; b) it does its own DoT (I was getting 200ish/turn on sleeping enemies), which is quite relevant; c) it lasts a long time; d) it costs class talents and not generics. Absolutely worthy of five points, though Inner Demons/Night Terrors/Psychic Assault/Solipsism are of a higher priority.
Inner Demons has a reputation for being a boss-killer, but it's more than that, and I wish I'd put more points into it more quickly. You can wipe out entire groups with impressive speed by Nightmaring them, cloning the biggest baddie, and walking away. This is particularly funny with summoners or necromancers, because every copy brings friends. This, and not Mind Sear, was actually the core of my offense past a certain point. Maxing ID makes it last a very long time, which plays nicely with the long sleep from Nightmare, and 5/5 also boosts the chance of cloning high enough that you'll inevitably get numerous copies of a sleeping enemy and have a good shot at cloning an awake/sleep-immune/high-save enemy. These are both relevant scenarios.
Waking Nightmare is weak. The DoT damage scales poorly with extra points, the per-tick chance to proc a debuff is low, and solipsists are too tanky for that debuff to be relevant anyway. I kept hoping it'd scale into something useful, but it never did.
Lastly, Night Terror is excellent all around. The beasties don't hit hard, but they're great distractions, and the damage boost against sleeping enemies is large and quite welcome.
Dreaming: Sleep is a good spell, and if I had any generics to spare, I would happily have added a few points to it. That said, it's perfectly adequate at just one point. Extra damage against insomniacs is excellent for a build that always wants to lead with Nightmare, and getting some all-important mental save out of the bargain is a lovely value. An early point in Dream Walk offers some much-needed (if awkward) mobility to a class that doesn't have any without gear.
Sleep immunities: Not really relevant. The only notable enemy groups with sleep immunity are giants and vampires. Giants aren't a long-term threat, but it's good to save Daikara until the non-sleep arsenal is padded out a bit (particularly because the only drawback of Mind Sear is range; you'll eat more than a few boulders). Vampires are dangerous but uncommon, and a lot of what they do is blunted by the Thalore anti-corruptor racial for those so inclined. Bone giants are also immune, but there aren't enough of them to matter, and they're trivial to kite.
Anti-magic: seems an obvious yes on a Solipsist. A class that gets global speed for being full on Psi and loses it for being low on Psi benefits enormously from Fungus-extended regeneration. The anti-magic tree actually wasn't as relevant. I had a mere one point in Anti-Magic Shield for most of the time that I had it, and that was plenty.
All in all, good fun was had. Sleep solipsists are enormously powerful and pretty interesting to play. I'm actually considering a second Solipsist because there are so many trees I haven't touched (I kind of want to betray enough Alchemists to try a melee build), but that'll have to wait until I win with another class.