ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hi!

I'm trying to beat ToME on nigtmare/rougelike difficulty. So right now i've only managed to get to lvl 26 on tri-beam cornac archmage with all possible shield that I can get and then was YASD happen to me on 2th lvl of Melinda's crypt, couse of my own arcane shtorm and (surprise!) ring of ?elemental harmony?

I'll be pleased if anybody could answer some questions that bother me)

1. Sometimes my shielding and manashield sustains just fall of without any obvious reason. I know, that there are some monsters that could turn off sustains, but sometimes ALL sustains just fall of (especially when i'm low on mana) that could be very frustraiting). Why does this happening?)

2. Is there any way i can inspect nightmare archmage winners? I've checked the vault, but there are some crazy chars with 5/5 in all talents?

3. Any viable builds expect wildfire? It seems like all the winners have wildfire(


Thanks, and sorry about my English)

All mana sustains will disable if you hit 0 mana.
Also, if you equip an item powered by arcane disrupting forces, spell sustains will random deactivate.

VenikSmerti wrote:2. Is there any way i can inspect nightmare archmage winners? I've checked the vault, but there are some crazy chars with 5/5 in all talents?

3. Any viable builds expect wildfire? It seems like all the winners have wildfire

2. Look at total level and addons. Some people play in the Infinite Dungeon after winning the game and may be higher level than 50. Also I think there are some "cheat" addons which allow you to basically cheat, but I don't know what those are called, so look through the NM winner's addons at the top of the character sheet.

3. Wildfire is great. Really, really great. There are probably other viable builds though. Here's an Air/Storm build for example: http://te4.org/characters/109274/tome/8 ... 319d3b0d4d

Here's an Archmage of mine that went on to clear, but the vault never updated. Instead of Wildfire, I unlocked Meta and Celestial/Light from an escort, and grabbed every utility spell from every basic tree. The end result was somewhat less damage than a fully focused Wildfire Archmage, but with significantly greater survivability. Having cleared Nightmare with a Wildfire Archmage in a previous version, I'd say both builds were pretty much overkill even for Nightmare. There's just nothing in the lategame that can break through Aegis-boosted shields.

VenikSmerti wrote:Hi!

I'm trying to beat ToME on nigtmare/rougelike difficulty. So right now i've only managed to get to lvl 26 on tri-beam cornac archmage with all possible shield that I can get and then was YASD happen to me on 2th lvl of Melinda's crypt, couse of my own arcane shtorm and (surprise!) ring of ?elemental harmony?

I'll be pleased if anybody could answer some questions that bother me)

1. Sometimes my shielding and manashield sustains just fall of without any obvious reason. I know, that there are some monsters that could turn off sustains, but sometimes ALL sustains just fall of (especially when i'm low on mana) that could be very frustraiting). Why does this happening?)

2. Is there any way i can inspect nightmare archmage winners? I've checked the vault, but there are some crazy chars with 5/5 in all talents?

3. Any viable builds expect wildfire? It seems like all the winners have wildfire(


Thanks, and sorry about my English)

I recommend skipping the Dark Crypt on Nightmare or harder since it's really easy to get oneshot with a low-hp class like Archmage or just plain killed by diseases and such. Also take off Elemental Fury when Disruption Shield breaks or you'll just kill yourself since the arcane resistance won't help much.

1. When you hit zero mana, all your mana sustains deactivate even if you weren't Mana Clashed or anything.

2. The guys with 5/5 in everything are cheaters, just ignore the character and look at the next one in the vault. I wish cheating characters just wouldn't be added to the vault at all since this can be frustrating.

3. You can go Aether/Meta since Aether Avatar gives you Manatrust every turn and Aether Beam and Breach are good for area damage (also good at blowing yourself up, hence Meta). This tree synergizes well with Disruption Shield since you can boost your max mana with Aether Avatar and immediately cast Aegis once you have 4/5 in Pure Aether. The downsides are no Cleansing Flames and no Temporal unless you go Cornac.

Earth is winnable in nightmare roguelike. Here's my character:

http://te4.org/characters/30061/tome/28 ... d5776c3c4a

I won on my 1st attempt. I can't say the same for any other class I tried on that difficulty. An earth mage basically ends up being a corruptor with crazy shields. The only enemies who can break your overpowered shields are Atamathon and Linanil. Your damage by the endgame is around 1100-1800 damage per spell. Most enemies die in 1-2 hits.

I picked a dwarf to stack saves, and it was worth it. You become practically immune to status effects, which made my 2nd prodigy a waste. The only downside to earth is that +physical damage gear is rare.

That's an awesome build. Can you give a brief level breakdown?

It's a straightforward build.

- Stats: 2 Mag, 1 Will. 2 Mag, 1 Con. When magic is 30: 2 Con, 1 Mag. 2 Will, 1 Mag.
- Save +Str gear to put a point in armour training.
- Max out Pulverizing Auger first, since it's your main attack spell.
- Put a point in Power is Money whenever you reach a cap on your saves.
- Max out spells with a debuff, such as Flameshock and Illuminate.
- Dump points into Conveyance for escape options, then Aegis for the broken shields.
- Unlock the Stone tree at level 10. Dump everything into Earth and Stone.
- Spend your 2nd category point on an inscription slot.
- Avoid Melinda's quest and the crypt in the east.
- Don't open vaults, until much later in the game.
- Get Cauterize as your 1st prodigy. It lets you auto-explore without having to worry about being instant-killed while your shield is down.
- Keep a method of removing effects around, because a few effects ignore saves. Most notably, spell feedback.
- Look for +phy damage gear. Stuff with high saves, high spell crit, and crit multiplier are also great.
- Put another category point in the Stone tree. Body of Stone will lower your cooldowns by 4, instead of 3. I didn't do it, because the talent was bugged at the time.
- Unlock the Meta tree and dump points into it.
- Shivgoroth Form was the last thing I maxed. I took it for Elandar, but it wasn't necessary. Still, it's a nice talent.

Awesome, that's really cool. I'm trying it now, seems to be working.

How do you unlock the Stone category at level 10 all I have is aether, meta and temporal?

themessy wrote:How do you unlock the Stone category at level 10 all I have is aether, meta and temporal?

A random unique boss (Hakon'zur or something) will pop up occasionally. Kill him and you unlock Stone.

Basically keep playing, it'll happen fairly naturally as you progress to your win with Arcane/Aether

Thanks for the info, does that boss randomly appear in any dungeon or is he specific?

Random. Though, he often appears in Daikara.

Ask and you shall receive! Just was wandering around Daikara with my archer toon and guess who shows up...haha, got it unlocked now, thanks for the infos!

I played an earth mage recently and it looks like they got nerfed. Their attack spell cooldowns were increased and body of stone's cooldown reduction was nerfed. Don't bother wasting a category point on the stone tree.