Dream smith/forge Solipsist

[malboro_urchin]

I just unlocked Solipsist last night. Can anyone give me some advice on how to start out with using the Dream Smith & Dream Forge lines? I'd prefer to avoid heavy investment in Sleep & thought-forms if possible. Thanks!

[Sirrocco]

Some investment in thought-forms is worth it It doesn't have to be a focus, but it's useful enough at a low enough level of investment that ignoring it entirely is nonoptimal. You don't need to go sleep-heavy, and, in fact, shouldn't. The sleep side fo things has a lot of synergies with itself, and the Dream Hammer side of things has a lot of synergies with itself, and they have precious little int eh way of synergies with each other. If you want to go dream-smith primary, you have a question to ask yourself. Do you want Mind Burn? It's a rocket-powered crutch in the early game, but becomes pretty much useless by the late game. If you're confident in your ability to walk through the early game anyway, you're better off saving the points

Be prepared to go heavy armor, and/or work your defenses in other ways. Dream Smith is primarily melee in a lot of ways - it has the ability to reach out and crush the enemy, but it's most effective up close. Also, in the early game, if you don't take Mind Burn, you'll want to be using your mindstars a fair bit.

Antimagic is an excellent pick for this character. You have a guaranteed nonmagical teleport (Dream Walk, which you should get), the gear that you like is generally not arcane, and you like the tanky that it brings. Maxxed antimagic shield plus fungus tree for equilibrium regen is a handy, handy thing. Of course, this a is relatively long-term choice.

You will probably want to pack a movement infusion relatively early on. Dream Walk is great for getting away (though less useful than it should be in the Sandworm Lair - pack a psychoportation tool) but you'll want Movement for closing.

Dreamforge damage is just half fire, half mind. Gear appropriately, if it happens to show up.

The Dream Hammer attack that refreshes other Dream Hammer attacks does not, in fact, refresh itself. In the long term, this isn't so much of a problem - blow two heavy attacks of choice, then the recharge attach, then the three you have open, and you've just sent a *lot* of damage downrange. In the early game, though... well, I mentioned that.

[Doctornull]

Dream Forge has some nice synergy with Discharge, since both have talents which require that you spend some time not moving.

So if you're going for Dream Forge, do consider Thought Forms + Feedback for your early points.

[Who]

For what it's worth, I'm currently running a thought form-less dream smith solipsis with mind sear and having a fun time to this point. I don't think I would call my set-up optimal as I've got points all over the place (distortion, thinking the lowers phys res would synergize with the dream smith hammer damage, a few points in mind sear for when there's downtime, just unlocked discharge and put a few points in). There's a nice mix of ranged attacks (mind sear, hammer toss) and hard hitting melee attacks (dream hammer, a stun attack, and a melee-based AOE if you're surrounded). There haven't been any close calls, clearing out a couple giant towns in Daikara was surprisingly easy. It could well be that solipsis is just a solid hard-to-screw-up class.

[jenx]

imo, and I've won about 6 times with solipsists, is dream forge is a complete waste of time, particularly after it was nerfed a few versions ago.

dream smith is fun, but dangerous. it is a melee attack, so on--hit on the enemy will hit you.

so whack ten rogues in a straight line and you'll get all their one hits twice, on the way there and back!

so you can kill yourself if you are not careful.