ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Well, about a week ago I started my run in Embers of Rage with Davion Deadblight the level 50 Whitehoof Corruptor with the intent of seeing what playing a Corrupter was like, and how it meshed with the Whitehoof race.

I had some deaths - first death was against a Void Horror Guardian in the Ruined Dungeon, second death was against myself when I accidentally got pulled next to my Arcane Amplification Drone and detonated an Arcane blast on it. Rest of the deaths occurred against the Final Boss - which I guess is both good and bad; I think his difficulty is a bit out of whack compared to the rest of the campaign.

For the most part, this was an easier run then with the previous win through the Whitehoof Archmage - although that may be due to me picking talents that had more worth on the Corrupter (I went Tri-Beam on the Archmage). Notably, this was a run that wasn't really hard in any specific place except for the final dungeon. The Final Dungeon was hard because of how unfriendly it is - but also for spellcasters you have to deal with Mana Clash, and Corrupters have to face Worm that Walks and a couple other enemies that were Blight Resistant. I also tried visiting Vaults to pick up some additional loot to help me out in the final battle - had a vault where level 100+ enemies were spawning.

The deaths against the Final Boss also felt a bit cheap. While the fight against the Final Boss was difficult due to him being Blight Resistant on top of being All Damage Resistant, I was able to keep piling damage on him due to the Arcane Amplification Drone prodigy and Vimsense. The first death occurred when I had brought the Final Boss down to lower then 1000 hit points, but I guess due to Temporal Spell use the Final Boss triggered an anomaly the perpetually summoned several Temporal Horrors into our battle, getting me killed/ Following deaths were mostly a result of me cleaning up the Temporal Horrors, being a bit too quick to re-enter the battle with none of my sustains being reactivated, and I think I got him on the third bout with him but I may have died again somewhere in there too.

Anyhow, one good thing that I can say is that Blood Boil 'Was' somewhat useful in the final fight. Paired with Bloody Spray and the Arcane Amplification Drone I was able to wipe out mobs of Tentacles and damage the Final Boss all in one go. I was also able to constantly apply Slow to the Final Boss - which while limited in its effectiveness was at least something good to say. Blood Boil still needs to do more though, either damage wise or with more Slowing ability; in the fight I was constantly suffering from 50% movement speed reduction or 30% combat speed reduction - compared to the mere 20% global he might get (and I say might, cause he could get Bleeding instead). Poison Storm was also pretty useful as he liked to constantly walk close towards the end of the fight.

I also had several items picked up which helped out a lot too - I had the Frozen Shroud that allowed me to Freeze my surrounds as well as the Frost Lord's Chain that let me Freeze stuff sometimes when I did Ice Damage (which I could also do with my Biting Gale Rune). Speaking of the Biting Gale Rune, that was somewhat useful since Burning Hex got applied a lot. My other Runes were slightly terrible - I never found a really good Shielding Rune and the Lightning Rune felt unneeded. I did pretty good picking up gear for resistances and none of the Final Bosses attacks seemed to deal more then 500 damage at any given time.

Being a Whitehoof was also useful too. Because I had maxed out every Racial talent, I was 'mostly' able to wander around with max Movement Speed, Damage Boost, and Flat Damage Reduction for most of the fight. I say mostly because apparently the boss likes to 'strip' the effect a lot, but it wasn't too hard to get more Death Charges. Rocket Boots coupled with my Death Charges also helped me with the Corrupters poor mobility - allowing me to save Dark Portal and Dreamwalk (which I got from Yeti Tissue Exchange) for when mobs would surround me from time to time. All in all, being a Whitehoof helped out a lot.

Anyhow, the only place I think I really wasted my points might be on the Generic side of things - Class side of things I think I did fine with. I got the Generic expenditure for Life Support Suit - but unfortunately due to never finding an Unstoppable Force Salve Schematic I couldn't make those. I also got Burning Hex - which turned out to be pretty useless for the boss since he would just shrug it off. I likely would have been better off picking up a category with Yeti Tissue Muscle and putting the talents there instead.

Overall I am really happy with how this run turned out. I think I learned a bit more about Whitehooves and fighting the Final Boss in EoR, which may be useful the next time I do a video of me fighting him.

I'm not sure if it's because you're playing on EoR so they're fewer drops, but literally all your items except your Frozen Shroud are weak. Like, you should have been able to get better items from Kraltor at least in most of those slots. Also your staff isn't even set to blight damage. In light of this, it's no surprise you are having difficulties with the final boss considering your low damage and spellpower are. If your gear is that weak, it's probably worth farming world map patrols and clearing each level and vault of the Slumbering Caves and such.

Would probably say it's not because of it being EoR. I've had (multiple) normal EoR runs that skipped just about everything between the observatory and ureslak's (usually due to fiddling around with mod races/classes, but eh) that still ended up with considerably better kit than that loadout (and plenty stuff equivalent or better that just got APE'd), never mind the runs that didn't skip the intervening stuff. Is kinda' surprising, really. It's enough to make me wonder if there was something odd being done itemization/level clear wise or the RNG was just freakishly unkind that run.

Do have to ask, though... did y'not find a mana coil schematic, DF? The things are ridiculously sexy for staff users, probably one of the most gratuitous weapon tinkers currently in the game, imo, particularly in the EoR campaign (100 gold and four generics for a 25% chance to proc tlvl 5 lightning on all spells? Yesplease). Do see you were a point of electricity off from being able to build them, but it would have been worth it to shift that one point from just about anything to get that coil. Had the sapphire for it, too. Just never build 'em lower than tier 5 unless you've got spare sapphires, ehehe.

bpat wrote:I'm not sure if it's because you're playing on EoR so they're fewer drops, but literally all your items except your Frozen Shroud are weak. Like, you should have been able to get better items from Kraltor at least in most of those slots. Also your staff isn't even set to blight damage. In light of this, it's no surprise you are having difficulties with the final boss considering your low damage and spellpower are. If your gear is that weak, it's probably worth farming world map patrols and clearing each level and vault of the Slumbering Caves and such.

it's Normal

I did get Mana Coil - In Slumbering Caves..... in the little path JUST before encountering the Final Boss. I had already spent all my points by then so I would have lacked the one talent point to invest in it after Grounding Strap.

In regards to gear, I found a lot of tremendously good gear..... for living races....... for heavy armor classes..... for anyone who wasn't a Corrupter.....

To be honest after playing EoR a few times it seems like an average run for gear.

Ah. Getting the coil that late was unfortunate, heh. Still... would say for the future, if you're a staff user that's going tinker, always get at least the 2 in electricity. Mana coil is just kinda' silly,* and it's nice to be primed for it when/if it shows up. Extra amusing thing in that particular case is that it would have made that belt a fair bit better...

For what it's worth, if it's good enough, corrupters can use heavy armor just fine (massive, too, if you feel like using the extra two generics). Fatigue does nothing to vim. Can't recall if there's any fixed arts that are particularly good for 'em on that front, though. Still, if you were getting good stuff it might have managed to be better than what you were using.

... and yeah, sounds like the RNG was just mean that run, ehehe. Least in my experience, EoR's usually pretty generous, particularly considering how much more condensed it is.

*It's also just about the only weapon tinker that does anything worth mentioning for a non-melee staff user. It and crystal's pretty much it, and while they cost the same point wise the coil nets you better tinker access (including the strap, heh).