ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

http://te4.org/characters/177251/tome/c ... 20cd048461

After my previous Nightmare run as a Shalore Anorithil ended abruptly thanks to a brawler vampire rare on the 5th floor of Dreadfell, I wanted to return to a class that I had played previously and done pretty well with - the Summoner. Granted, my previous attempts did well largely because I was playing Normal Exploration in an attempt at getting unlocks, but Summoner was a class that I could work my way around pretty well without too much outside help and succeed with.

This character's build wasn't exactly off the beaten path, but still involved quite a few skills and playstyles that I had not used previously, like persistently scouting out levels with the combo of Earth's Eyes and a Flamespitter placed in front, which was a major improvement over attempting to run through levels nearly blind. However, I could tell from around level 20 that I wasn't going to end up winning, as a multitude of deaths confirmed what I was fearing the most: my character had very little in the way of survivability. Sure, I had Fungus-boosted regen infusions and instant heals from grand arrival turtles and nature's touch, but nothing to prevent being one-shotted by unrevealed rares or having my talents locked down by stuns and other such skills. These situations either ended with me surviving with minimal health or being killed outright, which was the case with my final death to a Paradox Mage rare that I never saw who disabled my sustains and ripped through all the summons I threw out. An investment in Spell Shield would've helped, but probably not enough against any archer or skirmisher rares.

That's not to say that this run wasn't successful though - I've nearly rounded off the race unlocks save for ogres, whose quest I encountered but never got to due to being underleveled. Furthermore, this is my first character that I've managed to get through Dreadfell in my history of playing the game, and this was done while playing nightmare. Also, it lays the path for future runs given that I now understand what to expect in the higher tier dungeons beyond Dreadfell.

So, some of my final notes/questions:

What precautions should antimagic users take against ranged enemies in the darkness or out of line of sight? Antimagic Shield helps against magic users, obviously, but bow users and psionic classes still remain a big threat, and a regeneration infusion doesn't bolster your health in the way a shielding rune does. Are there alternatives to this?

When should I start investing in Con for the health and skills like Thick Skin? By the time of my character's death, I had the ability to summon up to 7 creatures, which I feel was slightly unnecessary given that most fights saw 5 or so summons (usually drake + hatchlings and warhound/golem, with a turtle for healing), but I felt that after getting to 5 total summons that points not going into willpower should be split among Con and Cun.

Any other general advice for Nightmare? Given that I tend to jump from class to class, any help that goes for all characters is useful in getting me closer to my first win.

Getting a Heroism infusion will help to boost your effective life, sort of like a Shielding rune, but they are hard to find during the first half of the game. Zigur or Last Hope sometimes have one for sale.

I don't usually advocate raising Con, but if you're having issues with getting one-shot it may not be a bad idea. I don't think Summoner needs that many different stats, so you can probably afford to max Con.

Just a general piece of advice for higher difficulties: check Zigur and Shatur charm shops to get a mindblast torque or tentacled totem. These are extremely powerful during the early game, likely stronger than your normal talents. It's much easier to kill dangerous enemies if you have a good charm.

Summoner is one of my favourite classes, although I haven't actually gotten as far with a summoner as I have with other classes.

I agree that 7 summons is more than you need. That's 70 cunning, which means you've sacrificed a lot for that cunning. One thing I've done recently is to concentrate on Flamespitter, Warhound and... Jelly. Jelly is actually surprisingly useful because it blocks passages and maintains equilibrium without the need for meditation. Keep in mind that meditation also reduces the damage output of your summons (something that I didn't realize until fairly recently!).

Flamespitter is actually my go-to summon for damage because it is controlled, pinpoint damage. The idea is to place a Flamespitter *behind* your opponent (or off to the side if you can't manage behind), and then lure them to you. Turtle is a good pair with Flamespitter because it can taunt opponents to make sure that the Flamespitter doesn't get attacked. I usually unlock Frantic Summoning so that I can get things cooled down quickly, which means that I can often have 2 Flamespitters active at once. This is very powerful.

For certain spell casters, whacking a Jelly right in front of them is nice because it blocks them for many of their attacks. Only beams and lightning get through. Position is important, so once you get a summon in place you need to think to your self, "Is it bait or meat shield?" If the spell caster has beams, then you want to move off the line of attack so that they have to choose between attacking you or your summons. Hopefully if they choose you, then your summons will make short work of them. If they don't have beam, or especially if they are an archer/skirmisher, then whack a turtle right in front of them and stay behind that turtle. Then throw a Flamespitter off to the side. If there is no room to squeeze in a Flamespitter, but there is a space behind the opponent, walk right up to the turtle and then summon your Flamespitter (or Warhound is good in this instance) on the turtle. It will appear 50% behind the opponent or 50% behind you. If it shows up behind you, then summon on top of the turtle again and you will get your summons behind the opponent. Then back up to exchange places with your summons behind you and wait it out.

Light/infravision is necessary as a summoner. You can invest in heightened senses and/or get as much light equipment as you can get. If you can get light/infravision up to +10, then nobody can surprise you. At that point (and this is a bit crazy), auto cast summon something on enemy visible. Virtually any time an enemy shows up, the friendly little blue line will pop up showing you exactly where they are. This is especially useful if the enemy is invisible or stealthed because if you "catch a glimpse" of them, then they might disappear from your map and it might be easy to overlook (especially if you aren't paying attention to your log... which is common for me). Autocasting anything targetable on enemy visible defeats that nearly every time (it doesn't always work, unfortunately, but at least 95%). I have been playing with Flamespitter auto-summoning and it's a bit like Pikachu popping out of his pokeball whenever he feels like it.... not that I'm into that kind of thing...

Finally, if you unlock mindstar mastery, then leaves tide is incredibly useful. It will essentially give evasion to your summons for the duration of leaves tide. Thorn grab is also situationally useful. If you can up your speed (Eden's Guile, movement infusion, or if you can jump ) you can thorn grab to slow an opponent that makes it to you and then get away. This also allows your summons to take care of it.

I think up until about level 20, it is better to concentrate on maxing out your low level summons and investing in Summoning(advanced) techniques. Frantic summoning, Nature's Balance and Master Summoner can be used to decrease the cooldowns of your summons so that you can get multiple level 5 Flamespitter, Warhound, Turtle and Jelly (well, Jelly probably doesn't need to be level 5...). After that start investing in other summons based on your play style.

mikekchar wrote: I agree that 7 summons is more than you need. That's 70 cunning, which means you've sacrificed a lot for that cunning.

What would you suggest as an alternative to putting points in cunning? I assumed that getting Con for the life and Thick Skin was probably the best direction, as I can't see any other stats that would boost/unlock skills worth investing in as a summoner.

mikekchar wrote: Light/infravision is necessary as a summoner. You can invest in heightened senses and/or get as much light equipment as you can get. If you can get light/infravision up to +10, then nobody can surprise you. At that point (and this is a bit crazy), auto cast summon something on enemy visible. Virtually any time an enemy shows up, the friendly little blue line will pop up showing you exactly where they are. This is especially useful if the enemy is invisible or stealthed because if you "catch a glimpse" of them, then they might disappear from your map and it might be easy to overlook (especially if you aren't paying attention to your log... which is common for me).

That's... a really good idea. I hadn't thought all too much about building up light radius and infravision (especially since I nearly never place points into heightened senses outside of escorts), so I might try that on my next run. Also, the auto-summon on finding an enemy sounds really useful too. I'll see if I can make work of that.

mikekchar wrote: Finally, if you unlock mindstar mastery, then leaves tide is incredibly useful.

I had thought about unlocking mindstar mastery, but decided that since I wasn't playing a cornac with the extra cat point that it wouldn't be worth it. Aside from those unlocked by leveling up, are there any outside sources of category points? I've assumed so, but don't know the specifics of where or how to get them.

Effigy wrote:Getting a Heroism infusion will help to boost your effective life, sort of like a Shielding rune, but they are hard to find during the first half of the game. Zigur or Last Hope sometimes have one for sale.

Just a general piece of advice for higher difficulties: check Zigur and Shatur charm shops to get a mindblast torque or tentacled totem. These are extremely powerful during the early game, likely stronger than your normal talents. It's much easier to kill dangerous enemies if you have a good charm.

Checking for infusions/mindblast torques has been part of my nightmare routine for the early game, though on this specific run I didn't find anything of use. Best I could find was some movement infusions in the Last Hope shop. In fact, I don't remember seeing a heroism infusion on sale in any shop for any of my recent characters, much less one worth using or scaling off of class stats.

A good introduction to summoners on higher difficulties is the Let's Play by donkatsu. I learned a lot there.

The Tapir wrote:I had thought about unlocking mindstar mastery, but decided that since I wasn't playing a cornac with the extra cat point that it wouldn't be worth it. Aside from those unlocked by leveling up, are there any outside sources of category points? I've assumed so, but don't know the specifics of where or how to get them.

Unlocking Mindstar Mastery doesn't actually cost a category point. You go to the mindstar shop in Zigur and pay 500 gold to get it unlocked. You can pay an additional 750 gold for +0.2 mastery as well.

You get 1 category points for reaching levels 10, 20, and 36, and you get 1 more for using a certain item during the course of the game. So you gain 4 categories in total.

Effigy wrote:

The Tapir wrote:I had thought about unlocking mindstar mastery, but decided that since I wasn't playing a cornac with the extra cat point that it wouldn't be worth it. Aside from those unlocked by leveling up, are there any outside sources of category points? I've assumed so, but don't know the specifics of where or how to get them.

Unlocking Mindstar Mastery doesn't actually cost a category point. You go to the mindstar shop in Zigur and pay 500 gold to get it unlocked. You can pay an additional 750 gold for +0.2 mastery as well.

You get 1 category points for reaching levels 10, 20, and 36, and you get 1 more for using a certain item during the course of the game. So you gain 4 categories in total.

That's great to know. Will have to give it a try on my newest attempt.

In terms of what stats to go with, it depends on what you are doing. Willpower is a good bet because it gives you mind power. In my current Normal summoner I managed to get 2 sage escorts to get 2 points in mind sear. Now I sit behind a jelly and blast enemies with mind sear, which does double duty of lowing equilibrium and helping out with killing things. I also picked up Cloud Caller hat and with good mind power can throw lightning with fairly decent effect (again through the jelly, poor guy). There are *lots* of good mind power based items that you can use to great utility as the game goes on. Charm master is incredibly useful for summoners because they often have the extra turns available to use charms.

Also, if you are lucky you can potentially get the sleep tree from betraying an escort (can't remember which one), which has a lot of nice advantages for a summoner (at the cost of a category point). Again, Mind power is the thing you need.

Constitution is nice to have to a certain degree. If you get vitality from a warrior escort, it scales on constitution so it's nice for that. Thick skin is useful, as you say, if you have extra generic points. Strength can be nice to get a point or two in armour. Equilibrium is unaffected by fatigue so armour is your friend In fact, you can potentially go with a shield and a single mind star if you like.

There are lots of options.