Cursed Rampager

[belmarduk]

and the deaths I did take

Ah. I see.

Still, this looks like some great advice, and if I try Cursed again, I'm sure I'll do so with this page opened.

Cute. If there's one thing that never gets old about Tome, it's the passive aggressive elitism from people who think I'm playing the game the wrong way. Adventure mode is the default. Sorry I am playing on the default settings and not making an already difficult game harder for myself?????? I guess if we don't want new people coming to the game the best way to do it is make somebody think they're playing the game the wrong way for making use of the feature of having extra lives.

I regret starting this thread at all.

Just realized you did not talk about prodigies at all.

Flexible combat. Your second choice depends on what you qualify for, really.

[supermini]

I regret starting this thread at all.

You shouldn't. Just ignore assholes. I've won on both adventure and roguelike and I don't think one is more worthy than the other or that winning on roguelike somehow gives you a unique understanding of ToME and the mechanics.

[darkgod]

Calm down please; I know greycat and I truly believe this is not an insult at all (and he said your guide IS helpful).
Smile everybody!

Oh and thanks for the guide, we need more !

[Judecca]

Gonna have to say, calling the rest of Endless Hunt useless is pretty silly. Unless you plan on staying in rampage 24/7 and are unwilling to give up turns, Harass Prey at high hate deals more damage than an autoattack and gives 2 chances to proc cleave on top of 2x any other on hit effects you have. And that's ignoring how badly it neuters your target.

Also, calling dual-wielding a 1h/dagger a gimmick build is really, really incredibly off the mark in every conceivable way unless you think the vast majority of people playing cursed are all doing it as a gimmick option. (they're not)

Skipping Blindside is also pretty immensely questionable to advocate to other players, for obvious reasons. Even one point in it should be basically mandatory because there's no reason to turn down yet another way to get in someone's face.

Calling Cursed Aura a big waste for little gain is kinda odd. Shrouds when maxed gives you 10-15% resists both upon moving and after killing something, which are two things cursed do a whole lot of, on top of a bunch of other little benefits. Yeah, it's a bit more of an investment than Thick Skin, but turning down more resists is hard since you get to worry a little less about getting it from your equipment. There's some other good stuff in the curses too but shrouds is the biggest standout IMO.

Also you shouldn't associate DWing or surge with defense, because realistically speaking, no one does it for defense. They simply do not have the capability to get defense as high as, say, marauders/brawlers do.

The rest is good but that stuff was just things that were really bugging me.

[belmarduk]

Yeah, in hindsight there are areas where I probably underestimated the value of certain skills simply because I hadn't had much success with them. I will probably do another Cursed playthrough as a dual wielder to see what I was missing. Cursed aura is an OK talent tree but I have never found the room to build it as a Rampager. It's esp. unlikely if I am going for Mindstars or Fungal since I simply won't have enough generics to go around to max the relevant talents without making big cuts elsewhere. The problem with cursed auras is, basically, what could I have spent 8 points on instead?

Once I have better perspective I will update the guide with more relevant information. Thanks for the feedback, everyone who stayed positive about it.

[Winston]

Sure, dual wield has it's positive sides, but...
1) Okay, we take points off Str, Wil and Con, put them in Dex, for what? To use daggers, deal more damage with them. What else Dex gives? Accuracy? Dominate works fine for defence reduction, and as author says, it can even be skipped without problems. Defence(+ defence from Surge)? We have enough things to soak damage (Rampage, AM Shield, Sanctuary, high armor, etc), rather than avoid it. In my winning run i've put 1 point in Repel for 15% chance to avoid melee attack, and noted no significant difference. Maybe i've forgotten something, and Dex should receive more attention when playing Cursed?
2) Damn, it's Cursed warrior, he (or she, heh) is supposed to smash things with big twohander and shout "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!", not stab them with dagger . Reaver can wield two normal onehanders, that's ok. But dagger...
3) Sure, Cursed can wield duals and kill things with Frenzy, or shield and do something like "Dismay + Block + Slash"... But Rogue still deals more damage, and Bulwark can sometimes oneshot things with Assault after Block. If only we had more than 1 mediocre talent for duals and 1 for shield... Or at least talents to improve Counterstrike and offhand damage (yes, i know about Cursed Form offhand bonus, but that's highly RNG dependent).

[stinkstink]

Daggers? As long as you get an alchemist or two to betray, a mindstar is the better offhand. You don't even need to unlock the tree.

[Judecca]

Sure, dual wield has it's positive sides, but...
1) Okay, we take points off Str, Wil and Con, put them in Dex, for what? To use daggers, deal more damage with them. What else Dex gives? Accuracy? Dominate works fine for defence reduction, and as author says, it can even be skipped without problems. Defence(+ defence from Surge)? We have enough things to soak damage (Rampage, AM Shield, Sanctuary, high armor, etc), rather than avoid it. In my winning run i've put 1 point in Repel for 15% chance to avoid melee attack, and noted no significant difference. Maybe i've forgotten something, and Dex should receive more attention when playing Cursed?
2) Damn, it's Cursed warrior, he (or she, heh) is supposed to smash things with big twohander and shout "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!", not stab them with dagger . Reaver can wield two normal onehanders, that's ok. But dagger...
3) Sure, Cursed can wield duals and kill things with Frenzy, or shield and do something like "Dismay + Block + Slash"... But Rogue still deals more damage, and Bulwark can sometimes oneshot things with Assault after Block. If only we had more than 1 mediocre talent for duals and 1 for shield... Or at least talents to improve Counterstrike and offhand damage (yes, i know about Cursed Form offhand bonus, but that's highly RNG dependent).

Just to be clear, are you calling Surge mediocre? Because, ironically, if you asked basically 90% of the people ingame chat they would call Cleave/Repel worthless and Surge borderline ridiculous. I'd be forced to agree with them, too--Cleave barely picks up until you're past 30-35 or so and for me personally that's just too long to wait, and everytime rampage is down it's really frustrating chasing down some more run-happy enemies unless you have Blindside and a few points into Reckless Charge, without all that bonus move speed. Also, stop associating Surge with dual-wielding, because again: no one does DW surge for defense. The defense is completely irrelevant. People DW because it's widely considered better offensively, which is a different argument altogether.

Additionally, not everyone who used daggers offhand is pumping dex for damage. In fact, odds are they're barely squeaking by with the stat reqs to use it and forget about it. And, not every cursed has AM shield (hell, not even some AM cursed pick it up depending on what you're doing), and 'high armor' isn't enough to negate some of the more horrendous melee enemies late game--again, not that this matters because you're not getting dex for the defense.

And in response to 2, there's plenty of charm in beating up a dude with 2 weapons instead of 1!

(and yes, offhand mindstars are a perfectly salient point, though I've personally yet to try it. I'll probably give it a shot after I finish up this 2h cleave cursed.)

[belmarduk]

Daggers? As long as you get an alchemist or two to betray, a mindstar is the better offhand. You don't even need to unlock the tree.

This really hadn't even occured to me on my first run through.

[Winston]

Just to be clear, are you calling Surge mediocre? Because, ironically, if you asked basically 90% of the people ingame chat they would call Cleave/Repel worthless and Surge borderline ridiculous. I'd be forced to agree with them, too--Cleave barely picks up until you're past 30-35 or so and for me personally that's just too long to wait, and everytime rampage is down it's really frustrating chasing down some more run-happy enemies unless you have Blindside and a few points into Reckless Charge, without all that bonus move speed. Also, stop associating Surge with dual-wielding, because again: no one does DW surge for defense. The defense is completely irrelevant. People DW because it's widely considered better offensively, which is a different argument altogether.

Of course, no. Surge is cool, and i'm taking it almost always, even with twohander, because additional speed is always useful. By saying "mediocre" i meant that in context of using duals, rogue has "+ offhand damage" talent, "+ defence from dw" talent, etc, and Cursed only has "+ defence", which is not so useful. Speed part is good, i agree with you. Interesting note - in my winning run, without Surge and Cold Iron Acorn, the biggest problem from low speed was not kiters (Beacon+Blindside+Dominate, or Rampage). It was faster hate decay from running back and forth through dungeons. It's not that i was hate starving, and forced to hit bosses with autoattacks (like it always was in old versions, hehe)... But it was significant enough to note.

And in response to 2, there's plenty of charm in beating up a dude with 2 weapons instead of 1!

With two normal weapons, like Reaver does - sure. But this is matter of player's taste.
P.S. I'm not sure, but i've seen somewhere in the game, maybe in Cursed unlocking message, or old in-game description, some text describing Cursed, which tells that they destroy their enemies with massive two-handed weapons. If this is correct, then using duals or shield on Cursed should be considered as severe breaking of the game lore .

[greycat]

P.S. I'm not sure, but i've seen somewhere in the game, maybe in Cursed unlocking message, or old in-game description, some text describing Cursed, which tells that they destroy their enemies with massive two-handed weapons. If this is correct, then using duals or shield on Cursed should be considered as severe breaking of the game lore .

I think that's from an older version. I don't see text like that in afflicted.lua currently.

(Cursed used to require a two-handed axe for many of their talents to be usable. This was back in the days when you had separate Sword, Axe and Mace mastery skills, though....)

[Gamer-man]

this guide looks awesome, well put together, thanks for kicking off these guides with a great example, and i'll be sure to give this guide a try soon!

[belmarduk]

P.S. I'm not sure, but i've seen somewhere in the game, maybe in Cursed unlocking message, or old in-game description, some text describing Cursed, which tells that they destroy their enemies with massive two-handed weapons. If this is correct, then using duals or shield on Cursed should be considered as severe breaking of the game lore .

I think that's from an older version. I don't see text like that in afflicted.lua currently.

(Cursed used to require a two-handed axe for many of their talents to be usable. This was back in the days when you had separate Sword, Axe and Mace mastery skills, though....)

Also remember when Axes were automatically always worse than Swords, and Swords were automatically always worse than Maces?

being a cursed meant you were locked to the worst weapon type in the entire game.

[Winston]

So. Beaten the game in new version, what can i say...
1) Cleave is cool. Especially now, when monsters can push each other forward, so you engage 2+ enemies more often than in older version. But... Still, something is wrong with Cleave, Repel and Surge. They are high in skill trees. They cannot be used together. They take away 3 luck. And for all of that, they are only helpful, not awesome, and can be skipped without much problems. Compare them with something like Assault - they are worse, and it has no such penalties.
2) Still i think that Blindside is awesome, and Beckon, Dominate and Harass Prey are good enough to take them. Maybe i'm doing something wrong, but there are situations, where i don't have enough defence to simply stay in corner surrounded by enemies, and beat them all to death. For example, post-Dreadfell orcs or Vor Armoury. Sure, i can win there, but that requires lots of repositioning and hit-run tactics, and there Blindside shines bright (and i don't want to rely on random teleport from torques or something else). Yes, after hitting lvl 40 i've never encountered such situations this time - but this means i must survive until that...
3) It seems that in new version we have better weapon than Gaping Maw. Now, being a naga friend gives you nice reward... Veeery nice reward... And free 5 generic points, if you are going for it from the beginning of the game. I got only 3 myself because of forgetting this, stupid me.
4) Cursed aura... I've taken it this time, but had no points to spent here. You must pump up Weapon Mastery, Armor, Accuracy, Thick Skin, Antimagic tree (if you take it), possibly Power Is Money (or Guardian Of The Wood in my case), Fungus, etc... Even if you are playing cornac without AM and other things, and have points, curses are too random, and not too powerful. Even if you are lucky and have high Shrouds or Nightmare or whatever you prefer. I hope there will be some prodigies focused on this in the future. Something that requires being wrathful (taking Cursed Aura and keeping the book), and something that requires being calm (not taking Aura and destroying the book).
5) Taken Spell Feedback at lvl 50, but can't say much, i was powerful enough already, so noted no difference. But still it suits well for the AM Cursed lore. As i imagine it, at least .
6) Grim Resolve cleanse still not working. Arrrrgh! At least now Thalore has better racial stuff, so diseases are not the problem anymore. And +10% resist all is also nice.

[XLambda]

6) Grim Resolve cleanse still not working. Arrrrgh! At least now Thalore has better racial stuff, so diseases are not the problem anymore. And +10% resist all is also nice.

If this is a bug, you might want to report it. That increases the probability of a fix quite a lot.

(Disclaimer: I have no idea whether this one was posted to Bugs before. )