ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So I'm a big fan of the Chronomancer classes, Paradox Mage in particular. I've played it a fair bit, but there's one thing that has me curious about: the Flux and Stasis trees. I understand what they're supposed to be: opposite methods to manage your Paradox. But the main thing that I'm questioning here, is whether or not it's viable to build both on a single character. Are there any big synergies, both between the two trees and other trees in the class, that would make such a build viable?

I can already make out some synergy between the two. Stability can counteract the paradox damage from Reality Smearing. Time Shield and Attenuate's healing could give good survivability for a bit, and Static History could be a fallback anomaly stopper while Twist Fate is on cooldown. Is there anything else, particularly with other trees, that would make this work?

Flux and Stasis are great with each other, because they can be your main damage trees.
Attenuate is really great, and Stop is great too (good damage and AoE stun).
This is all you need in damage department, and Reality Smearing is one of the best game's defence, Static History is great too for managing your Paradox.
Two great trees - take them!

Flux is your most important category, unlock it at level 10 and go 1/2/5/1 immediately. Stasis is nice but it can be delayed until later (I recommend level 36, taking Energy at level 20). Time Shield is overrated but nice (can be left at 1/5) but Stop and Static History really shine late game when stunning and paradox management are more important.

When I turned on Reality Smearing and get hit, paradox can simply go up to 100% failure, for a PM that's no different than death, I'm always wondering how to manage that downside.

That should never happen as long as you use Induce Anomaly, Twist Fate, and (later) Hidden Resources unless you tune your paradox to something silly like 450.

fateriddle wrote:When I turned on Reality Smearing and get hit, paradox can simply go up to 100% failure, for a PM that's no different than death, I'm always wondering how to manage that downside.

This is why you use other talents to reduce damage, such as webs, absorption, shielding runes, time shield, temporal fugue, etc. The talents for pm need to work together.