ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

this guide had a 1.3.3 version as the OP of this thread with a different title, and I think that it having been there for over 2 years was quite long enough; now its time to update it for patch 1.5.8

a guide to insane rougelike AoA antimagic solipsists, up to date as of patch 1.5.8... I actually won with a solipsist on insane RL 4 times, but one of the times included the use of the item vault, and another time included one of the times when DG gave everyone 666666 gold; though those still gave me experience with the class
I also almost won a third time with a discharge+thought-forms build, but then I got reckless in high peak lvl 8 and didn't wild infusion away a braided debuff, causing my quick self-inflicted demise... I would've easily won on that guy if I'd just paid attention
I also admittedly savescum for escorts(instead of using the addon), the alchemist quests, and to an extent, the wyrm bile, on all of my characters; I'd feel shafted if I didn't, even if I'd win anyway, which I would've

I plan to get another win as a sleep build after the DLC comes out

much of this guide is applicable to non-antimagic solipsists, though they aren't as good as the antimagic ones




The class in general:
the solipsist is a class that sort of ahderes to the false doctrine of solipsism, which states that the only thing that is real... is you, and that literally everything else in ALL of existence is merely your imagination
solipsists in Tales of Maj'Eyal are basically non-magical mostly-ranged non-hybrid mind wizards that can put people to sleep, distort reality, conjure up an ally with only his mere thoughts, and more, and he very remarkably shares his health bar with his mana replacement, the psi bar, and can replace most of his physical and spell save with his mental save, making the stacking of mental save be very powerful for that class. solipsists pair very, very well with antimagic

most of the solipsist's class categories and 3 of their generic categories synergize with the rest of the category that it came with, so if you choose to invest more than a little bit in one category as a solipsist, you should probably invest heavily into it

solipsists are very, VERY good at crowd control to the point that they don't even need any armor training talents

the solipsist class is intially locked; you unlock the solipsist by getting to level 20, then going to the overworld in the maj'eyal campaign and hoping that there is a message saying that there is volcanic activity; if that is the case, which it always is if you're a yeek, then going to the norgoth caldera and beating both dreams is supposed to unlock the solipsist class

the class also deals alot of mind damage, which is a special damage type that can innately be resisted(up to 50%) independent of your mind resistance by making a mental save against it

for the in-game description and some example values for every solipsist talent, please visit http://tometips.github.io/




sleep mechanics:
before I tell you much about the class' talents, I should tell you about sleep and how it works, since many of the class' talents have to do with sleeping
when an enemy is asleep, they are unable to perform any and all non-instant actions until the debuff wears off or is otherwise removed
being asleep also gives the enemy the insomnia buff for 1 turn+every turn that they're asleep including the turn during which you put the enemy to sleep(max 10 turns of insomnia), only ticking down while the enemy is awake; insomnia grants you +50% sleep immunity per turn of insomnia
all sleeping debuffs' durations are shortened by taking damage; how hard it is to wake up an enemy by hitting them will be referred to from here onwards as the "damage wakeup threshold", for the lack of a better term
being asleep also makes you more vulnerable(or just susceptible) to certain talents that have to do with sleep; namely inner demons, dreamscape, waking nightmare, dream prison, and lucid shot, and solipsists don't get access to lucid shot
the talent, lucid dreamer, puts you to sleep without you getting the insomnia debuff, and it also enables you to perform non-instant actions while sleeping(so pretty much any action you could normally perform), but it also makes you vulnerable to talents that only affect sleeping targets and that have extra or boosted effect(s) against sleeping targets, and it also removes the 50% damage penalty for your dream projections(more on that below)




the stats:
strength: it increases your physical power, maximum encumbrance, and physical save; this talent increases notably your physical power, which makes your dream hammer attacks hit harder, and it also increases your mindpower by .6 per strength if you take superpower as a prodigy, in which case you should get the prodigy at level 42 and max out strength after maxing out your willpower and then your cunning
dexterity: it increases your defense, accuracy, and critshrug; this is really only any good for a solipsist for the critshrug; your dump stat as a solipsist is going to be either this or dexterity
constitution: it increases your hp by 3-4 per point(depending on your talents), and also increases your physical save and healmod with each point; your dump stat as a solipsist is going to be either this or dexterity
magic: filthy, disgusting magic, this vile attribute increases your spellpower, but at least it increases your spell save too; this stat is good for jack nothing as a solipsist, don't put a single point into it
willpower: the solipsist's primary stat; this stat increases your mindpower, mental save, and spell save, and increases the usage stat for mindstars and the dream hammer and enables you to meet the stat requirements for most of your talents; all solipsists should max this out, and max it out first
cunning: the solipsist's secondary stat, this stat increases your mindpower(by half as much as willpower does), and your mental save and all critical strike chances, and increases the usage stat for mindstars, but not by as much as willpower does; all solipsists should max this one out, and do it second




the class talents:
PSIONIC/DISCHARGE(locked): I have played an insane rl solipsist with 5/5/1/5 CPed discharge and 5/5/5/5 feedback up to lvl 8 of high peak, where I died because I forgot to check to see if I was braided while fighting a PM(a very quick and unexpected death), and lemme tell you, discharge is NOT worth the points; it sucks, and the entire category is basically mind storm and backlash is a 1 point non-wonder

mind storm: this talent only stays active while you stand still and have it sustained, and all of the projectiles will, if they come into contact with your thought-form, harmlessly pass through it as if it weren't there. the more enemies that are within range 7, the more projectiles mind storm fires, up to the cap and until you run out of feedback to spend; with good insane gear, expect crits for 500 mind damage per projectile; standing still can be very bad for your health at times, so it is not advised that you use this talent unless you are very certain that you'll live if you don't go anywhere for at least several turns... be careful not to make any bump attacks via. a movement key, because doing so, even if you don't move, will end mind storm immediately(but you can bind attack to your hotbar and use that without breaking mind storm), and this talent will also immediately end(without spending a turn) if you attempt and fail to move onto impassable terrain

feedback loop: this talents takes your feedback decay and turns it into feedback gain for x turns, increasing with mindpower; it can crit to increase the duration... this talent ends up giving you a little bit of feedback per turn, giving you from less than 1 to maybe 2 extra feedback bolts per turn. you cannot use this talent if you don't have any feedback

backlash: this talent deals damage once per turn per enemy equal to the feedback gained from the attack that hit you, or an amount based on your mindpower, whichever is LOWER; there is basically no reason at all to invest more than 1 point into this talent because barely anything is ever going to hit the mind damage cap(at clvl 50 at least) after the first point invested into the talent

focused wrath: this talent will not only increase the critical multiplier of all discharge talents(but not other talents) by an amount that scales with your mindpower for x turns, but it also causes all of your mind storm projectiles and backlash to hit the guy of your choice until he dies; usually that enemy dies very quickly if theres alot of enemies around you, but if thats the case, you may not want to stand still


PSIONIC/DISTORTION: the butter of any good solipsist build, distortion not only has distortion bolt, which innately comes with 100% resall penetration, but the category also allows for some great crowd control and AoE damage, and it can strip physical debuffs from a target with ease(if your mindpower is high enough); every solipsist build should 5/5/5/5 this category... all of your distortion talents debuff the target with distortion on hit, which bypasses all saves and reduces the target's physical resistance by an amount based upon how many raw points you've invested into the distortion category, and also makes the target become extra more susceptible to the first 3 distortion talents

distortion bolt: this talent fires a bolt to the targeted location with 1000% travel speed and 100% resall penetration(not just physical) that deals 50% extra damage in a radius of x including the center(up to 3) to a target that is already distorted; at effective talent level 5, all of your distortion talents will never harm you nor any non-hostile NPC, but before that, you'd better be careful with those explosions... distortion bolt currently has a bug(which'll be fixed in 1.6.0) that allows the explosion's 50% extra damage to crit(on top of the actual bolt critting), making the 50% extra damage against distorted targets become more than 50% extra damage, and eye of the tiger currently has a bug that allows eye of the tiger to lower the cooldown of the talent that procced it if said talent is a projectile... and distortion bolt is a projectile

distortion wave: this talent does exactly as much damage as an undistorted distortion bolt, but it attacks in a cone of a radius of up to 9, and it also attempts to knock back everything that it hits, and it will also attempt to stun everything it hits that was already distorted; you might sometimes just want to use this talent to do damage, but sometimes you'd want to save the talent for a knockback or a stun or to in some cases apply a distortion effect

ravage: a very underrated talent, this talent, if the target fails a physical save against your mindpower, debuffs the target for up to 10 turns, causing the target to take a bit of damage each turn, adding up to be more than twice as much as a distorted distortion bolt at 5/x/5/x; if the target was already distorted, then ravage will deal 50% more damage(for over 3 times as much damage as a distorted distortion bolt!) for the duration of the entire debuff and also strip the target of a physical effect or sustain every time it hurts the opponent... this talent should only be used on enemies that are gonna take some time to kill, and it can crit, making it hit even harder

maelstrom: this talent conjures up a whirlpool of distortion anywhere in LoS in a radius of 10, which sucks enemies towards the center of the whirlpool by 1 tile per turn, also hurting the enemy for as much as an undistorted ravage, and distorting the target as well; the maximum radius of maelstrom is 4, which is actually pretty big, and it can last for up to 10 turns, but maelstrom's effect is not increased against targets that are already distorted... using this on a single target is not necessarily a bad idea


PSIONIC/DREAM SMITH: this category allows a solipsist to be very dangerous in melee range, since this category gives you talents that hit very hard... being within melee range of a hostile melee NPC, though, is generally not advised as a solipsist, nor as any other ranged class for that matter, and also late-game weapon damage is gonna be nerfed in patch 1.6.0, which also means that this category is gonna be nerfed in patch 1.6.0, and also, dream hammer damage IS increased by your physical power

dream-smith's hammer: this talent conjures up a hammer for 1 turn, which is used during that same turn to whack the opponent of your choice one time for x% weapon damage; when used, this talent will also end the cooldown of two other dream-smith talents; investing into this talent increases the base stats of your dream-hammer mind-weapon that is used for all attacks made with this talent category, which does not take up an equipment slot, and does not exist in your inventory... it only exists in your mind, except for when you're using it, and also, usage stat for the dream hammer is 120% willpower, and I don't know if its boosted by arcane might or superpower, but dream hammer talents CAN proc arcane combat and other melee procs... do consider having only 1 point into this talent if you aren't a dream hammer build in order to have a safer non-instant way than meleeing yourself to get rid daze if its on you

hammer toss: the best dream smith ability, and most of the reason that this talent category is good, this talent will throw your dream hammer up range 11, dealing x% weapon damage to enemies it hits on its way to its destination, and then when it gets there, it comes straight back to you like a boomerang, except that it takes the path to you that it took to get to its destination, which is alwasys a straight line... it also deals just as much weapon damage on its way back, and it can friendly fire against non-hostile NPCs(such as your thought-form), but yours will never hurt you; this talent also increases the accuracy of your dream hammer for all dream hammer attacks as you invest in it

dream crusher: this talent is like dream-smith's hammer, except it doesn't hit as hard or take other talents off cd, but it attempts to stun the opponent too; investing this talent doesn't increase the base stats of your dream hammer, but instead adds bonus% damage and physical power to your dream hammer attacks, like weapon mastery does for swords, axes, and maces

forge echoes: this talent is an AoE(up to radius 4) centered on the guy within melee range that you hit with it, hitting as hard as dream crusher, but it deals weapon damage as mind damage, except to the guy that the AoE is centered on; investing this talent adds a relatively small amount of mind and fireburn damage based upon your mindpower, and this talent is really not worth putting any points into unless you don't have a better place to spend them for some reason


PSIONIC/NIGHTMARE(locked): this talent tree goes very well with slumber and dreaming, but you can even get it by itself just for inner demons, which is arguably the best talent in the entire game

nightmare: attempts to put enemies to sleep in a range 7 cone for x turns, which also deals darkness damage ever turn until they wake up; said darkness damage does not make them wake up faster, but other darkness damage does... this talent is pretty good, but I'd personally say that its a 1 pointer; low damage wakeup threshold, and nightmare can crit, increasing both the darkness damage and the damage wakeup threshold by your critmult

inner demons: the best talent in the entire game, this talent, if the enemy fails a mental save against your mindpower, will have a %chance every turn during which the enemy has the debuff of making a clone of the enemy that is friendly to you and has less hp and does less damage; there is no cap to the amount of inner demons that can be active at any one time, and it can be casted on enemies of any rank... if the target was asleep when inner demons was casted, then the mental save against inner demons will be halved, and the enemy's fear immunity(if any) will be ignored... but if one of the inner demons are ever resisted whether the enemy was asleep at first or not, then the debuff will end early. inner demons will never spawn in the dreamscape, at least from non-dream projections; this talent checks the opponent's fear immunity, and this talent can crit, increasing the chance that inner demons spawn, and inner demons can cause your game to potentially(fps?) lag into unplayability because of the cloning bug... try not to save the game after dreamscaping insane atamathon while inner demons is up, no matter how slow the game becomes

waking nightmare: this talent deals exactly as much damage as ravage for exactly as many turns, except as darkness damage, and it doesn't distort the target or anything like that... but it does have a chance every turn while active, scaling with mindpower, to randomly stun, blind, or confuse the foe for 3 turns; this talent can crit, making it hit even harder, and if the target is asleep when waking nightmare is used on it, then the chance of avoiding a negative effect will be halved, and the target's fear immunity will be ignored; waking nightmare checks the opponent's fear immunity

night terror: no sleep build is complete without this talent: this talent is a 50 psi sustain that increases all damage AND all respen against sleeping targets by a percentage based upon your mindpower, AND it also causes sleeping foes that are killed in their sleep to be replaced by a friendly terror of the zone's level for up to 12 turns; this is obviously a very strong talent, and is easily a 5/5 if you get it


PSIONIC/PSYCHIC ASSAULT: this is the solipsist's dump tree for class points; any extra class points you have left over, you'd wanna dump them here if you don't have anywhere better to put them... talents in this tree do NOT synergize with each other, except that synaptic static sorta synergizes with sunder mind and vice versa

mind sear: this talent is very good; its a range 7 beam on a 2 turn cooldown that deals a hefty amount of mind damage based on your mindpower... this talent will never hurt your-thought form

psychic lobotomy: this talent is a range 7 single-target attack that check confusion immunity(even for damage dealt) and deals less damage than mind sear, but will confuse(under 50% power, scaling with mindpower) the victim and reduce its cunning by a substantial amount for up to 7 turns; its okay since you don't have any other reliable confusion unless you'd count waking nightmare

synaptic static: this talent is a point blank AoE that deals exactly as much damage as psychic lobotomy without the confusion immunity check; max radius is 6, and the damage can brainlock affected targets, and this talent will never hurt your thought-form

sunder mind: this talent is for solipsists who don't have enough mindpower to beat an opponent's mental save; this talent is a single-target range 7 attack that deals a little bit less than half as much damage as mind sear does, but it cannot be resisted by the opponent's mental save, unlike all other mind damage... this attack will also irresistably lower the opponent's mental save by x(stacking), and it has a 4 turn cooldown, and x is increased by your mindpower


PSIONIC/SLUMBER: this talent tree goes very well with nightmare and dreaming; if you're gonna invest into this category beyond 1/1/1/5, then you should go for at least 5/1/5/5, and also, dreamscape is good for breathers

slumber: this is a single-target talent that puts the enemy to sleep with a high damage wakeup threshold; slumber can crit, which increases the damage wakeup threshold by your critical multiplier

restless night: this talent deals mind damage to the opponent for 5 turns after the opponent wakes up after being put to sleep by you; restless night can crit, increasing the damage by your critical multiplier, and restless night does stack with itself

sandman: this talent makes all of your sleep talents have a higher damage wakeup threshold and reduces the sleep immunity granted by insomnia, with the first talent point reducing it by a very, very large amount

dreamscape: this talent takes a sleeping target, stops time for everyone but you and it(for some reason), and teleports you inside of the opponent's mind(which is a small zone) for up to 15 turns, where the opponent appears frozen in time, being invulnerable without debuffs or buffs ticking down or doing anything to it and even being unable to be healed, but the opponent will spawn a dream projection every few turns to defend its mind, which is a clone of the enemy that deals half damage, and the enemy can have very many dream projections out at once; every dream projection that is killed will cause the real enemy to take 1 turn of brainlock and irresistible damage equal to 10% of its hp when it wakes up, potentially killing the enemy... if enough dream projections are killed while dreamscape is active, the effect will end early, and loot dropped by the enemy in the dreamscape will teleport to the real world after the debuff wears off, and while in the dreamscape, all damage dealt by you will be increased by a VERY large amount based upon your mindpower, and dreamscape CAN critically strike, increasing the bonus to all damage by your critical multiplier(+250% all damage from a crit at lvl 50 is very realistic)... enemies with the lucid dreamer buff will not have their dream projections suffer the 50% all damage penalty while in the dreamscape, and dreamscape can cause your game to potentially(fps?) lag into unplayability because of the cloning bug... try not to save the game after dreamscaping insane atamathon while inner demons is up, no matter how slow the game becomes, and additionally, one can opt to use dreamscape on a mostly harmless opponent, giving you a breather that can last for up to 15 turns, kind of like temporal reprieve, but longer


PSIONIC/SOLIPSISM: the bread of any good solipsist build, solipsism is a defensive category, aside from how it can also potentially keep your psi bar high, which helps to prevent it from hitting 0; the solipsism category is the most integral part of the solipsist class... the first point invested into each talent in this category increase the amount of psi that you gain from willpower by .5, but also decreases the amount of hp gained from constitution by .25, and the first point invested into each talent in this category also increases the solipsism threshold by 20%, 10%, 10%, and by 10% respectively; when your psi gets below the solipsism threshold, you lose your grip upon reality, decreasing your global speed by (threshold-(current% of max psi bar))%, but you can get your grip back by getting more psi... solipsism is a category that players should strongly consider putting a category point into, and all solipsists should 5/5/5/5 this category either way

solipsism: all damage AND healing that you take passively is reduced by x%, but all of the damage that you don't take because of that is reduced by x% and then lowers your psi bar accordingly, and the healing that doesn't heal you because of it goes to your psi bar instead; psi damage reduction increases with your character level... this talent is the single most important talent for any solipsist to get, and any and all solipsist builds period should 5/5 this talent, and early too; more points into solipsism means more effective hp, and also means that its easier to regain psi after you lose it, but it also means that its easier to lose psi, which really isn't a problem if you have some meaningful form of healing available... all solipsists start out with 1 unremovable point into this talent, with or without talents picked for you at birth, and the talent permanently halves your life rating with the first talent point

balance: this talent passively replaces x% of your physical save and spell save with your mental save, so that at 100%, your physical save and spell save would be equal to your mental save, whether your mental save is higher or lower than the other saves; it gives 75% conversion at tlvl 6.5, and 85% conversion at tlvl 7.5... with this talent, you can stack mental save, which can get all of your saving throws to a very high amount, allowing you to shrug off almost every debuff that is thrown at you, except for some of the physical debuffs; you can realistically get 110 effective mental save by high peak on insane, or probably even 80+ on pre-insane, and in insane high peak, almost all enemies, randbosses included, will not have even 80 effective spellpower or mindpower, let alone 70, but physical power and accuracy tend to get much higher

clarity: this talent passively increases(won't decrease) your global speed by ((current% of max psi bar)-threshold)%, up to a maximum of x%(41% at tlvl 6.5, 44.4% at tlvl 7.5); increasing this talent to a high enough level(somehow) is capable of suppressing your solipsism threshold

dismissal: this talent causes all damage that you take that is(equal to or?) less than x% of your mental save to be checked against your mental save; if you make a successful check, you reduce the damage taken by at least 50%, and it can critically strike(which can proc eye of the tiger), reducing damage taken by even more(but not with a bigger threshold); this talent is very good for defense, especially when your mental save gets really high


PSIONIC/THOUGHT-FORMS: this category involves a mentally-conjured mass of thoughts thats shaped like you and can attack and take damage for you; thought-forms can actually hit pretty hard if your gear is good and you critsummon it; thought-forms will NOT follow you into nor out of the dreamscape nor the fearscape, and also, this category synergizes with psionic/feedback and psionic/discharge, but its at least okay on its own too

thought-forms: you materialize your thoughts into a leather-clad bowman, whose dexterity, strength, and constitution are based on your mindpower and has twice as much dexterity given than strength and constitution given; at level 3, you can instead conjure a mail-clad warrior(berserker) instead, whose primary stat is strength instead of dexterity, and at level 5, you can instead conjure a plate-clad defender(bulwark), whose primary stat is constitution instead of dexterity; thought-forms will always materialize next to you if they go more than 10 tiles away from you, and they are immune to your mind sear, synaptic static, and mind storm.. the thought-forms can be crit summoned(not for each of str, dex, and con, but for all 3 stats at once), and they will always have a base willpower, magic, and cunning equal to that of the solipsist, up to a maximum of 100 base willpower, magic and cunning; the skills of the bowman are steady shot, aim(automatically active upon summon), and crippling shot, and the skills of the berserker are berserker rage(pre-1.1)(automatically active upon summon), death dance(pre-1.1), and rush, and the skills of the bulwark are shield pummel(a stun!), block, shield wall(automatically active upon summon), and armor training... using one thought-form will put the others on their full cooldown, but deactivating one won't, and a thought-form will trigger its conjuration cooldown upon death without triggering that of the other thought-forms... each thought-form is a separate talent, and critsummoned thought-forms can eventually hit very hard, though they'll only last for so long unless you pick defender, and YOUR thought-form's talent levels do NOT scale with the game's difficulty level; also note that your thought-forms do take care to not hit you, so don't worry about the bowman hitting you with its arrows or the warrior using death dance on you

transcendent thought-forms: your thought-forms now know lucid dreamer(automatically active upon summon), biofeedback, and psychometry at talent level=transcendent thought-forms talent level, rounded down

overmind: a sustain that lets you manually control your thought-form, also increasing its %all damage and its %global speed by x%, based on your mindpower; at talent level 1, it also passively causes all feedback gained by your thought-forms to also be gained by you, even while overmind isn't active, and at talent level 3, it also passively gives your thought-forms a bonus to all saves equal to your mental save, even while overmind isn't active, and at talent level 5, it also passively gives your thought-forms +%all damage equal to your(the solipsist's) +% mind damage, even while overmind isn't active... you don't gain feedback from hitting your thought-form, but you DO gain feedback when your thought-form hits you... which can potentially one-shot you with if summoned with high critmult, so if you're gonna do that, then use the defender to do it

thought-form unity: while thought-form: bowman is active, the solipsist's mind speed is increased by x%, and while thought-form: warrior(berserker) is active, the solipsist's mindpower is increased by x, and whole thought-form: defender(bulwark) is active, the solipsist's resist all is increased by x%; in all 3 cases, x is increased by the solipsist's mindpower, and on another note, making a thought-form warrior with this talent before making a thought-form defender or bowman with this talent will make the bowman or defender have more stats because of the mindpower boost



the generic talents:
TECHNIQUE/COMBAT TRAINING: this talent tree has 15% resall, non-mindstar mastery stuff, armor mastery stuff, and combat accuracy; you unlock it for free by spending 50g at a last hope weapon shop to learn it

thick skin: 15% resall at rank 5! easily one of your most important generic talents

heavy armour training: the main endgame advantages that this talent has over light armor training are extra armor and the crit reduction, which directly decreases the enemy's crit chance against you instead of giving you a chance to ignore any hit after its already been determined that its a critical hit; you don't actually need more than 30% hardiness in insane high peak as long as you have 100 or more armor because the dangerous enemies by that point have 250 or more character sheet damage, but the hardiness does helps a little bit, even if it could be replaced by phys res+forge shield+dismissal

light armour training: this increases your defense, gives you more defense, situationally gives you even more defense, reduces fatigue, and increases hardiness by up to 60% while not wearing metal chest armor; again, you don't really need hardiness in the endgame because the not-cannon-fodder enemies are gonna be punching right through that hardiness anyway with their huge attacks, but in 1.6, hardiness is gonna be more important after endgame weapon damage gets nerfed

combat accuracy: this talent increases the accuracy of your mindstars and your dream hammer attacks; I wouldn't recommend investing into it

weapons mastery: you won't be making good use of anything that this talent gives you; leave it at 0 points

dagger mastery: you won't be making good use of anything that this talent gives you; leave it at 0 points

exotic weapon mastery: you won't be making good use of anything that this talent gives you; leave it at 0 points


CUNNING/SURVIVAL: this category has trap disarm, built-in non-stacking infravision radius, reduced item cooldowns, track, and a talent that lets you reroll a failed save once(with less save); its pretty good, but you have better choices for talents, as good as that last one sounds, and this category has other stuff too, and unlocking this category automatically teaches you disarm trap, though you after low levels won't care much for traps other than major anomaly traps, since they won't be very threatening to you

heightened senses: this talent gives you infravision radius, as well as stealth, invisibility, and trap detection; its not worth investing into

charm mastery: this talent lowers the usage cooldown of all items by x%; it IS good, but I'd rather put my points elsewhere

track: this talent shows you every enemy within a large radius for x turns, even if the enemy is behind a wall and out of your vision range; some players may swear by this talent or something, even though its a 1 point wonder, but I'd rather put points elsewhere

danger sense: this talent allows you to re-roll a failed save with a save penalty, and it also increases your trap detection, gives you a little bit of crit shrug, and reduces the damage bonuses that attackers gain against you for being unseen; this is a very, very good talent, and I can easily see some solipsists going 1/1/1/1 into survival just for this talent... but I'd rather put my points elsewhere, personally, especailly since I'd be relying on having high saving throws to the point where the first point of this talent isn't worth it


PSIONIC/DREAM FORGE(locked): this category contains one of the best and one of the worst talents in the game; some builds won't want to unlock this category, and some others may have some points to spare for it... and by the way, fireburn damage means 50% direct damage fire, and the rest is dealt as fire damage over 3 turns via the Burning debuff, which DOES stack with itself

forge shield: passive defense! this sustained talent takes any attack that would do over 15% of your hp in damage(before psi conversion?) and then, BEFORE it hits you, reduces it and all other damage sources of that damage type taken for 1 turn(2 at lvl 5)by x, based on your mindpower(x=39 at elvl 6.5 with 100 mindpower); this can block multiple damage types at once, increasing the 15% threshold by an additional 15%(not multiplicatively) for each additional damage type, and if forge shield fully blocks an attack, then it'll debuff the enemy with counterstrike, allowing you to hit the enemy twice as hard with your psiblades, your thought-form, or you dream hammer; this is a very, very underrated talent, and I'd recommend maxing out forge shield if you can manage to do it; it pairs VERY well with dismissal, since it can potentially take attacks that aren't within dismissal range, and put them into dismissal range, allowing you to dismiss half or more of the attack after forge shield

forge bellows: one of the best talents in the entire game, this deals x(small) mind and fireburn damage and knocks back enemies in a cone of range x, and then has a 50% chance for each tile(seperately) to turn the targetted tile(s) into a temporary wall tile, every wall tile of which deals x(very tiny) mind and fireburn damage to all adjacent enemies during every turn... enemies can be hurt by multiple wall tiles that way during the same turn; this talent can easily be a lifesaver, but the solipsist also has other means of crowd control up his sleeve, so this talent isn't really a necessity... I'd rather invest into forge shield

forge armor: this talent causes forge shield to give you armor and defense and give you psi when you're hit by a melee or ranged attack while forge shield is sustained, EVEN if forge shield hasn't procced; this talent is a 1 point wonder, don't bother putting any extra points into it since that armor doesn't get that much better and the extra psi isn't worth it

dreamforge: one of the worst talents in the entire game, this sustained talent deals a tiny amount of mind and fireburn damage to enemies adjacent to you every turn, but if you don't move, then over 5 turns, it gets stronger and the radius(up to 4 at the 5th turn of standing still) increases until at the consecutive 5th turn of standing still the damage is higher, but still tiny, and it begins breaking the dreams of the enemies that it hits, reducing their mental save and afflicting them with some spell failure chance, and also having a chance to attempt to brainlock them... don't bother getting a single point into this talent, even as a discharge solipsist


PSIONIC/DREAMING: this category has some essential stuff that every solipsist should put at least one point into, and early on too

sleep: this puts enemies within a radius of 1(max 2) to sleep with a low damage wakeup threshold for x turns(1 less than nightmare and slumber at rank 6.5), and at talent level 5, it has a 25% chance per turn to spread to an adjacent enemy; I personally do see a reason to put only 3 points into this talent; the third point increases the duration to 4 and radius to 2, but the contigation may be annoying due to its RNG, which lowers the amount of control that you may have over the fight(you may want insomnia to run out on an enemy so you can reliably use slumber on it)... or you might just have a better place to stick your generic points; sleep can crit, increasing the damage wakeup threshold

lucid dreamer: this talent gives you a bonus to all saving throws and a passive %bonus to all damage dealt against enemies that have the insomnia buff, but this talent also puts you to sleep while letting you use non-instant actions, which really only has the effect of making you vulnerable or otherwise susceptible to talents that have an increased effect upon or only work on sleeping enemies

dream walk: this talent is a non-magical controlled phase door, except that it will automatically appear adjacent to a sleeping enemy if a sleeping enemy is targeted by dream walk; it has a range of 7, and its radius decreases with the amount of talent points invested into the skill... this talent is, imo, a 1 pointer, but I would put more points into it if I didn't have somewhere better to put them

dream prison: this AMAZING sustained talent takes ALL sleeping enemies within range(even if you put them to sleep AFTER activating dream prison) and prevents their sleep durations from ticking down for a reason that isn't taking damage or having the sleep removed by a mental wild or something, but this talent also drains a set % of your psi pool while sustained, and it will immediately break if you move, allowing the sleep durations of your enemies to tick down normally... be careful not to make any bump attacks via. a movement key, because doing so, even if you don't move, will end dream prison immediately(but you can bind attack to your hotbar and use that without breaking dream prison), and this talent will also immediately end(without spending a turn) if you attempt and fail to move onto impassable terrain; this talent is a 1 point wonder, as additional points into the talent only lower the psi drain, and a good solipsist build should have no problem with the psi drain, as they'll easily be able to recover their lost psi after they hit level 12 or so by healing themselves


PSIONIC/ FEEDBACK: this category has a good half-shield and a good heal in it, but otherwise, this category is only good for discharge builds... most solipsists should at least max out the second talent

biofeedback: this talent gives you a feedback meter, which increases when you take damage(and more when you take more damage), and constantly decreases, and decreases faster if you have more of it, and you get healed based upon how much feedback you lose if you have this talent... and the healing isn't very much at the endgame if you 5/5 the entire category... higher level characters gain more feedback per percentage of hp lost than lower level characters, and this talent, when invested in, increases the healing and makes your feedback decay slower(but not by as much as it increases the healing); don't ever invest more than 1 point into this category, even for a discharge build, because feedback loop turns your feedback loss into feedback gain and gets longer if it crits, and the more you invest into this talent, the less effective feedback loop becomes, and the extra feedback healing isn't worth it anyway, and also, you will not gain feedback from hitting yourself

resonance field: this talent spends some feedback and gives you a 10 turn shield that does not go to the shield resource bar and absorbs 50% of all damage taken, up to x, and damage absorbed by this shield will count towards your feedback gain; this shield can crit, increasing x by your critical multiplier... this is a very good talent, especially when used when you expect to take alot of damage over the next 10 turns, and I think that every solipsist should invest more than 1 point into this talent, preferably 5

amplification: this talent increases your maximum feedback and makes you gain more feedback from damage taken, based upon your mindpower... its a 1 or even 0 pointer unless you're running a discharge build, but discharge builds aren't that great anyway

conversion: this talent spends some feedback to restore a significant amount of hp and some amount of stamina, mana, equilibrium, vim, positive energy, negative energy, psi, and hate; this talent can critically strike, increasing its effect by your critical multiplier


PSIONIC/MENTALISM: this category has a mindpower boost, a free mental sort-of-infusion, and it has some cheesy stuff in it; the most important thing in there for most builds is the mindpower boost, and for early to mid-game, the second talent

psychometry: this talent passively increases your mindpower and physical power for every antimagic, natural, or psionic item that you wear, including your ammo, up to a maximum per item of (item tier/2) or x, whichever is lower(x is always equal to the other number or higher at tlvl 1.3 and higher); this is a very good talent for lategame, as it makes just about all of your attacks hit harder, and it makes your passive defenses better too, and the physical power even applies to dream hammer attacks

mental shielding: this talent instantly removes 1 or more mental debuffs from you when used; the number of debuffs that can be removed and the cooldown respectively increase and decrease with your talent level... this talent is good for earlygame and midgame as a floater, but once you get your mental save to 80 or higher and also have relentless pursuit, you're gonna wanna get rid of this talent, as the only mental debuff you'll care about after that is a nightmare horror's inner demons, which you can use relentless pursuit for(and then run for a while when its inner demons is gonna come off cd in a few turns)

projection: this is a sort of cheesy talent that temporarily transfers control of your character to a psionic ghost-like projection of your body, which is invisible and has increased stealth and invisibility detection, and your projection(at least) does not need air to survive, but all damage suffered in this form is shared with your physical body, and you can only deal damage in this form to ghost-type enemies(such as ruin banshees and dreadmasters) and enemies that you have a mind link on, in which case you can only deal mind damage to them... I'd personally not bother with this talent, as using it can be quite risky if you aren't as safe as you thought you were, but if you bury yourself into a 1 tile wall with a burrow mindstar+dream walk, then you can kill most non-burrowing enemies that way somewhat more safely by being able to retreat into the walls(or just dissipate the projection early), where the enemies can't hurt you without a pre-existing DoT or something

mind link: this talent puts a debuff on the target, increasing the mind damage taken by the target by x% until the enemy dies or gets far enough away from you(range 14), but only one mind link can be maintained at a time; mind link also gives you telepathy for the target creature type while it is active... this is a talent that you probably shouldn't get unless you're gonna get projection, since you'll have better places to put your generic point into


WILD-GIFT/ANTIMAGIC: this is your best defensive generic category; it most notably contains antimagic shield, and also gives you access(in AoA) to a quest that enables you to get the wild-gift/fungus category

resolve: this talent increases your resistance to a given non-physical non-mind damage type by x% AFTER being hit by said damage type for x turns, which can crit for more resistance(which can proc eye of the tiger) and has no cooldown; it also reduces your equilibrium and stamina by x when it procs... this talent will be non-functional while antimagic shield is active unless this talent is at elvl 5 or higher; you'll want to max out this talent

aura of silence: this attempts to silence everything in a radius of x around you, including yourself, for x turns; each target that gets silenced(not including you?) refunds you x equilibrium; this talent reaches radius 10 with only 4 effective talent points, so you probably don't want to max this one out, and I'd say that this one is a one-pointer, since there are better places to put your generic points

antimagic shield: high passive defense! this talent takes all non-physical non-mind damage against you and reduces it by x(x=120 at elvl 5 with 100 mindpower), also dealing manaburn damage(with diminishing returns reset every turn, and a 10 per turn cap) to the enemies that it absorbs damage from, and increasing your equilibrium by 1 for every 30 points of damage absorbed by the shield, which also causes an equilibrium check to be made that instantly deactivates antimagic shield if it fails; there is currently a bug that causes this talent, when it burns the arcane resource of an opponent while the one with antimagic shield has empathic hex or something on him, to remove all of the opponent's mana when the player absorbs damage with antimagic shield, dealing manaburn damage accordingly, except without the diminishing returns or the 10 values per turn cap

mana clash: this talent deals x manaburn damage(high) to a single target within range 10, and also gives you a temporary buff that causes all damage dealt to also deal 15% extra damage as manaburn damage for x turns; there are better places to put your generic points, but if you really wanna stick a point in here for the manaburn damage for x turns thing, then go ahead


WILD-GIFT/FUNGUS: this is your second best defensive generic category; it makes rengeration better, and it saves you an entire infusion slot!

wild growth: increases the duration of all regeneration effects(except for those triggered by fungal growth) by x turns(5 at tlvl 5.0); if you're only gonna 5 one generic talent, then it should be this one

fungal growth: all non-regeneration heals will also trigger a regeneration effect that heals for x% of that direct heal over 6 turns; this does not work on feedback, vitality, or healing salves, but it does work on healing infusions

ancestral growth: this talent gives you x%(easily over 100% with investment!) of a turn whenever you gain a regeneration effect, with no limit, and it also gives you x equilibrium every time a regeneration effect tries to heal you; this seems like a very good talent to invest into, but really, you should only stick a single point in here... using that regen infusion really fast is usually good enough, and if it might not be, then you most likely have other options

sudden growth: this talent instantly heals you for x%(huge) of your current health regeneration rate; push this button if you have a sizable regeneration effect(such as a regen infusion) on you while your hp is low to get your hp close to or at 100%


WILD-GIFT/MINDSTAR MASTERY: this category mostly gives you more mindpower, willpower, and cunning from your mindstars, but it also turns your mindstars into good melee weapons; be sure to get an alchemist escort and take psiblades as the reward(if you can) before learning this from zigur, and don't take the 100g option... doing so will enable you to get up to 1.3 mastery for this category instead of 1.2

psiblades: the weapon mastery talent for mindstars; this talent also increases the mindpower, willpower, and cunning granted by your mindstars by x%, and its armor penetration by y%; this also gives you physical pwoer and %weapon damage as the weapon mastery talent

thorn grab: this talent instantly slows down a target in melee range for 10 turns by x%, also dealing x nature damage per turn; this talent is not worth more than one point, if any

leaves tide: this talent makes a radius 3 whirlwind of leaves around you for 7 turns, which gives you an x% chance to avoid any damage taken for the duration, and also deals x cumulatively stacking bleed damage to any enemies within the whrilwind of leaves; there are actually better places to spend your generic points, at least if you're antimagic

nature's equilibrium: this talent hits an enemy with your mainhand mindstar for x% weapon damage(high), and then you get to target a second target(potentially yourself), who gets healed for x(x=0 if the first hit missed or was otherwise evaded); if you have any points in leaves tide, then you should get a point into this talent; the more sizable heals you've got, the better




the inscriptions: for most classes, you want to have a regeneration infusion; but solipsists are a special case... you actually don't want heroism as a solipsist! if you're at negative hp, then you're gonna have 0 psi, which means that you're gonna be very slow, which means that you're gonna be very dead very soon
so don't get a heroism infusion, especially since they don't get you stat prerequisites anymore(I think)... and since you'll be antimagic, you should get fungus and a regen infusion

SLOT 1: physical/magical wild: a low cd should be prioritized over multiple dispel types and over the resist all bonus; it is okay to go for the entire game on insane rl with the starter wild infusion
SLOT 2: regeneration: get a BIG, BIIIIIG regen infusion, and make sure that it has a low cd too; the closer to a 12 turn cd, the better, since with a 12 turn cd, then you can have use your regen infusion only 1 turn(according to the button's cd) after it wears off
SLOT 3: healing: the lower the cd, the better, as long as the heal is at least somewhat large; you may want to select a healing infusuon by dividing the amount healed by the cd, and picking the one witht the biggest dividend
SLOT 4: movement: the lower the cd, the better, but make sure that its over 400% if you can manage to find one; 300% speed ones can actually wear off surprisingly quickly
SLOT 5(optional): movement or wild: you're better off using this category point to get an extra category point into solipsism, or something else




the races: you can't be undead and antimagic(and be a good build), so skeleton and ghoul are outta the picture: below is a list of the races for the solipsist, from best to worst:
cornac
dwarf
halfling
thalore/yeek
higher
ogre
shalore
skeleton
ghoul

cornac gets #1 because of their extra category point and talent points
dwarf gets #2 because they can get +50 to all saves from a racial, and stoneskin and +2 life rating are nice too... but it takes some investment to get those saving throws, but it can be worth it
halfling gets #3 because duck'n'dodge can be obtained with so little investment, and +2 life rating is nice to have too
yeek and thaloren both get +mental save from talents, and both get an instant double summon; thalore is better if you go 1/1/1/1 as yeek or thalore, but with more points, its arguable
higher gets #5 because their talents aren't magical
ogre and shalore have magic talents, which don't work with antimagic, and ogres have more life rating than shaloren do, and can get scar scripted flesh and that third extra inscription slot
you can't be an antimagic skeleton or ghoul solipsist, unless of course you use that one prodigy, but why would you do that?




the builds:
I'm only gonna talk about antimagic solipsists with this guide, since I haven't much experience with playing non-AM solipsists beyond my first ever ToME win(if that guy wasn't AM), and these builds will also only cover those with put only either 1 or 5 points into almost all talents

so, all of your builds should be antimagic, and all of them should get 5/5/5/5 into both solipsism and distortion, and max them before anything else(except for 5/1/1/1 thought-forms if you're gonna go for thought-forms); distortion and solipsism are the bread and butter of most any solipsist, and they're even more important than mind sear!... which is actually very optional

if you, in AoA, drink the elixir of focus and the elixir of foundations, get the arena quest done, and eat the sandworm queen heart, then you'll have 70 class points and 50 generic points to spend by lvl 50, including the 1 pre-spent point into solipsism, but if you're a cornac, you'll get an extra 6 class points and 5 generic points

you can have up to 9 escorts, and you can gain up to 5 class points(into mind sear only) from escorts, and you can gain up to 9 generic points(into only psiblades, thorn grab, sleep, dream walk, biofeedback, or amplification) from escorts, but you of course can also get other escort rewards, but those don't count as free generic or class points... if you'd wanna put it that way

for all of the builds, don't forget to float a point or two into mental shielding until you get at least 80 mental save, and also, all of the builds include the elixer of focus and foundations both; get focus over foundations for all builds, since you can replace the potentially lost generic points with escorts, while you'd be far less likely to be able to replace the lost class points with escorts, if you'd plan on getting mind sear at all

so there are 3 basic builds for the solipsist: they are:
sleep
thought-forms+dream hammer
and thought-forms+discharge

first off is the sleep build, which is the best build:

the minmaxed version with escort scumming as a cornac:
psionic/distortion
5/5/5/5
psionic/dream-smith
0/0/0/0
psionic/psychic assault
0/0/0/0
psionic/slumber
5/5/5/5
psionic/solipsism
5/5/5/5
psionic/thoughtforms
0/0/0/0
psionic/nightmare
1/5/5/5

technique/combat training
5/0/0/0/0/0/0
cunning/survival
0/0/0/0
wild-gift/antimagic
5/1/5/0
wild-gift/fungus
5/1/1/1
wild-gift/mindstar mastery
5/0/0/0
psionic/dreaming
3/5/1/1
psionic/mentalism
5/0/0/0
psionic/feedback
1/5/0/5
psionic/dream forge
5/5/0/0

0-3 temporal explorers
5 anorithils
1-4 alchemists

the same version with no escorts as a cornac:
psionic/distortion
5/5/5/5
psionic/dream-smith
0/0/0/0
psionic/psychic assault
0/0/0/0
psionic/slumber
5/5/5/5
psionic/solipsism
5/5/5/5
psionic/thoughtforms
0/0/0/0
psionic/nightmare
1/5/5/5

technique/combat training
5/0/0/0/0/0/0
cunning/survival
0/0/0/0
wild-gift/antimagic
5/1/5/0
wild-gift/fungus
5/1/1/1
wild-gift/mindstar mastery
5/0/0/0
psionic/dreaming
3/5/1/1
psionic/mentalism
5/0/0/0
psionic/feedback
1/5/0/0
psionic/dream forge
5/1/0/0

the same version with no escorts as a dwarf(inner demons is OP anyway):
psionic/distortion
5/5/5/5
psionic/dream-smith
0/0/0/0
psionic/psychic assault
0/0/0/0
psionic/slumber
5/1/5/5
psionic/solipsism
5/5/5/5
psionic/thoughtforms
0/0/0/0
psionic/nightmare
1/3/5/5

race/dwarf
1/1/5/0-1
technique/combat training
5/0/0/0/0/0/0
cunning/survival
0/0/0/0
wild-gift/antimagic
5/1/5/0
wild-gift/fungus
5/1/1/1
wild-gift/mindstar mastery
0/0/0/0
psionic/dreaming
1/5/1/1
psionic/mentalism
0/0/0/0
psionic/feedback
1/5/0/0
psionic/dream forge
5/0-1/0/0

halflings get to have 0 in the third racial and put the 5 remaining points into psiblades or psychometry, or you can keep the racials; indomnitable is still nice for daze removal after you've gotten to the point where almost nothing stuns you anymore, and it can remove stuns too


next up is the dream hammer+thought-forms build:

the minmaxed version with escort scumming as a cornac:
psionic/distortion
5/5/5/5
psionic/dream-smith
5/5/5/0
psionic/psychic assault
0 or 5/0/0/0
psionic/slumber
0 or 1/0/0/0
psionic/solipsism
5/5/5/5
psionic/thoughtforms
5/5/5/5

technique/combat training
5/0/0/0/0/0/0
cunning/survival
0/0/0/0
wild-gift/antimagic
5/1/5/0
wild-gift/fungus
5/1/1/1
wild-gift/mindstar mastery
5/0 or 1/0/0
psionic/dreaming
1/5/1/1
psionic/mentalism
5/0/0/0
psionic/feedback
1/5/0/3 or 5
psionic/dream forge
5/5/0 or 1/0

4 loremasters or 4 alchemists/anorithils
1-2 alchemists
3 anorithils
0-1 temporal explorers

the same version without escort scumming as a cornac:
psionic/distortion
5/5/5/5
psionic/dream-smith
5/5/5/0
psionic/psychic assault
0/0/0/0
psionic/slumber
1/0/0/0
psionic/solipsism
5/5/5/5
psionic/thoughtforms
5/5/5/5

technique/combat training
5/0/0/0/0/0/0
cunning/survival
0/0/0/0
wild-gift/antimagic
5/1/5/0
wild-gift/fungus
5/1/1/1
wild-gift/mindstar mastery
5/0/0/0
psionic/dreaming
1/5/1/1
psionic/mentalism
5/0/0/0
psionic/feedback
1/5/1/2
psionic/dream forge
5/0/0/0

the same version without escort scumming as a dwarf:
psionic/distortion
5/5/5/5
psionic/dream-smith
5/5/5/0
psionic/psychic assault
0/0/0/0
psionic/slumber
1/0/0/0
psionic/solipsism
5/5/5/5
psionic/thoughtforms
5/4/4/1

race/dwarf
1/1/5/0-1
technique/combat training
5/0/0/0/0/0/0
cunning/survival
0/0/0/0
wild-gift/antimagic
5/1/5/0
wild-gift/fungus
5/1/1/1
wild-gift/mindstar mastery
0-5/0/0/0
psionic/dreaming
1/5/1/1
psionic/mentalism
0-5/0/0/0
psionic/feedback
1/5/0/0
psionic/dream forge
5/0-1/0/0

a halfling can take the probable point into stone walking and put it into forge bellows, and they can take the points into money is power and put it into psychometry or psiblades, or you can keep the racials; indomnitable is still nice for daze removal after you've gotten to the point where almost nothing stuns you anymore, and it can remove stuns too


and finally, the discharge build, which really isn't that good:

the minmaxed version with escort scumming as a cornac: you actually don't want more than 1 point in biofeedback because more points makes feedback loop become worse for feedback gain, which gets longer when it crits
psionic/distortion
5/5/5/5
psionic/dream-smith
0/0/0/0
psionic/psychic assault
0/0/0/0
psionic/slumber
0/0/0/0
psionic/solipsism
5/5/5/5
psionic/thoughtforms
5/5/5/5
psionic/discharge
5/5/1/5

technique/combat training
5/0/0/0/0/0/0
cunning/survival
0/0/0/0
wild-gift/antimagic
5/1/5/0
wild-gift/fungus
5/1/3/1
wild-gift/mindstar mastery
5/0/0/0
psionic/dreaming
1/5/1/1
psionic/mentalism
5/5/0/0
psionic/feedback
1/5/5/5

1-5 alchemists
2-8 anorithils
0-2 temporal explorers

the same version without escort scumming as a cornac:
psionic/distortion
5/5/5/5
psionic/dream-smith
0/0/0/0
psionic/psychic assault
0/0/0/0
psionic/slumber
0/0/0/0
psionic/solipsism
5/5/5/5
psionic/thoughtforms
5/5/5/5
psionic/discharge
5/5/1/5

technique/combat training
5/0/0/0/0/0/0
cunning/survival
0/0/0/0
wild-gift/antimagic
5/1/5/0
wild-gift/fungus
5/1/1/1
wild-gift/mindstar mastery
5/0/0/0
psionic/dreaming
1/5/1/1
psionic/mentalism
4/0/0/0
psionic/feedback
1/5/5/4

the same version without escort scumming as a dwarf:
psionic/distortion
5/5/5/5
psionic/dream-smith
0/0/0/0
psionic/psychic assault
0/0/0/0
psionic/slumber
0/0/0/0
psionic/solipsism
5/5/5/5
psionic/thoughtforms
5/4/4/1
psionic/discharge
5/5/1/5

race/dwarf
1/1/5/1
technique/combat training
5/0/0/0/0/0/0
cunning/survival
0/0/0/0
wild-gift/antimagic
5/1/5/0
wild-gift/fungus
5/1/1/1
wild-gift/mindstar mastery
0/0/0/0
psionic/dreaming
1/5/1/1
psionic/mentalism
0/0/0/0
psionic/feedback
1/5/5/0

as a halfling, you can forego the fourth and third racials entirely to get 5 points between psiblades and psychometry and get a point into conversion, or you can keep the racials; indomnitable is still nice for daze removal after you've gotten to the point where almost nothing stuns you anymore, and it can remove stuns too
SCROLL TO REPLY #10(not including the OP) FOR THE REST OF THE GUIDE

Wow! I'm impressed. And I've written a guide on solipsists and thought I knew them inside out, but you've given me some brand new ideas.

i've won on nightmare roguelike with these sleepsters several times, but not insane, so you've given me a new challenge.

I like your concise style too. cut to the chase as they say.

Decided to give Solipsist another try on insane after taking a look at this guide. Decided to make a few changes in that I'm playing yeek, and I did unlock Nightmare with my first cat point. One death so far at level 16 to a white level 26 shadowblade in a vault that crit shadowstepped me for about 500 damage prior to some of it being converted to psi.

Only issue I've had so far is with Distortion Bolt. The tooltip says the travel speed is instant, but it definitely doesn't feel like it as it has seemingly been dodged a few times. Do you have any idea what the deal is?

distortion bolt doesn't actually travel instantly even though the description says that it does

its probably 1000% travel speed

also I really don't recommend being a yeek, as that makes it far too easy to get oneshotted and it makes you require more +hp from items, which you can't always find but you also can't always afford to take hp over other stats either if you have gear to choose from
if you just find some outrageously amazing gear, such as triple heroic gloves of the juggernaut, that lets you compensate for missing out on at least 130 hp then I guess you can go yeek if you manage to get to the lake of nur, but even then you'd probably wanna go 1/5/1/1 into the yeek racials unless you wanna sacrifice something for the speed racial

you'll basically need much better gear to win insane roguelike with a yeek solipsist than you would to win with a dwarf or thalore solipsist, so therefore yeek is a worse solipsist class than thalore or dwarf as they can more easily afford to itemize elsewhere

Great guide! Strong and durable.

Been experimenting with this:

Have you tried the Wild Gift/ Harmony tree instead of an infusion? It seems worth it to unlock just for one point in Waters of Life(1 pt).
Elemental harmony is useful mainly because fire is so common(1 pt).
One with nature makes up a little for the loss of an infusion slot. (2 pt)
(*could move points from mindstar mastery to these)

Also, I've found one point in thought-forms is useful throughout. The archer is often a great distraction and provides a free lane through a pack (ie. opening a chest or a surrounded situation) with movement infusion... although any summons charm could do that.

@ HammyHamster, no, don't take wild-gift/harmony over an infusion slot, the infusion and the extra .2 mastery for solipsism are far too valuable to be worth sacking for wild-gift/harmony, and the generics are valuable too, especially if you don't get all the escorts that you want, solipsist is already really tight on generics as it is and you want reversion to heal for a substantial amount

as for the bit about thoughtforms, that seems like a good idea; in that case I'd take the point out of psychic lobotomy, but if you're gonna take 3 points in thoughtforms, then take all 5 points out of synaptic static instead and get 4 in thoughtforms and 1 in slumber for the extra crowd control, or use the points to go 3/1/1/0 into thoughtforms

Reiterating that this is a very nice fundamentals guide!


I've been trying a non anti-magic variation of this with a Halfling on insane. It's working pretty well and I'm steamrolling most things which started ~lvl 35 or so. The hardest part is, as you wrote, the first 20-30 levels.

My concept is to max Halfling's Duck and Dodge and Militant Mind. And to use Forge Shield/Chants/Premonition for extra help on Dismissal.

It tends to 2-shot many rares (especially mages and archers) using the Dream Smith category. Although I found Core of the Forge mid-game which helps. Dream smith is eventually a significantly faster killer than Distortion or Mind Sear, with some extra % physical penetration items. Distortion is very nice for CC of very large groups and dangerous melee opponents, and really, really helpful in the early game- as you state in your guide.

I've never really needed Psychic Lobotomy as of yet for CC, so even though I've got it, I can't say much about it's effectiveness.

As far as silence goes, there are charms that can cast it...so the only real loss of anti-magic is extended regen (fungus) and resolve(anti-magic). There are not many occasions where you are surrounded by casters, and in the primary spot that you'd want mass silence (ie, crypt), they have 50% silence immunity anyways. Without heavy armor, you don't need regen on all the time. Also, a point in Forge Armor helps psi regen some.

Only one death so far this run, which was more or less stupidity and early overconfidence in Dreadfell (went in at level 15 and got one-shot in a surrounded situation).
On this current run I went through the crypt successfully (I always go through there and a few previous attempts have ended there - but it's the best or rather most exciting part of the game imho).

Currently I'm on the East and the rest of the orc prides at lvl 50 char level. Amazing thing is that I'm running only with minimal resists (15% Thick Skin and ~+15% of a few others) and hardly taking any damage due to a combination of Evasion(halfling), Forge Shield/Chant of Fortress/Premonition/Dismissal (very high saves due to items, Militant Mind, and a short burst of Luck of the Little folk), and Leave's Tide. Including the Room of Death and Vor's Armoury/Pride. I picked up Premonition and Chant of Fortress from escorts. Once in a while there will be a big damage spike when everything is bypassed - for which a heal infusion and/or Conversion works nicely. And honorable mention goes to Forge Bellows for emergency cover/CC.

I did put on some extra fire resistance for the Charred Scar run, so I could mindlessly run into the middle of packs and use Dream Hammer.

I took Eye of the Tiger (definitely great on this build) and Swift hands. Swift hands is intended only for the final fight, as I've got some item ideas on how to disable and dispatch Elandar quickly, and maybe temporarily put on Elemental Fury(splits dmg into 4 types) or something similar to quickly strip away Argonial's Bone Shield layer, and maybe get Tactical Master. (The East gets pretty repetitious and grindy after a few playthroughs...I wish there was a shortcut to the final fight after the Charred Scar...). I'll edit this if I get to the final fight and note if I was wrong/fail.

So far I've only used SH once - so yes, for a more consistently useful prodigy, Superpower would be 100% better.

Withering Orbs (invisiblity kill amulet) was on almost all the time and is a very good and easy-to-find-early amulet -it's very effective in helping invisible things to die. I've found and been using the Crimson Robe, which may be better for this build in general (except perhaps for the final fight, depending on the final combination of gear/resists). I've just recently found Shards and Breath of Eyal in a vault...so I'll have to do some experimenting.

Dream prison just keeps the duration counter on all active sleep debuffs from counting down, and disables any per-turn effects, like DOT from Nightmare or the spread from Sleep. If you aren't dealing any damage, this means that anyone you put to sleep stays that way forever, or until you move. Since dealing damage to sleeping targets decrements the duration by one for every set bit of damage, hitting imprisoned targets will still wake them up, because dream prison doesn't keep them from losing the sleep/slumber/nightmare debuff, it only stalls the duration counter.

It's really, really OP. You can typically set up a full set of inner demons, get your status clear going along with however much regen you wanted, and get in a free mind sear before anyone else gets a single move.

Maybe antimagic light armor dwarf might be a good idea in 1.5 now. Grats on predicting the future zeyphor.

I'm actually playing now such Solipsist, only Yeek not Dwarf, Antimagic and with Tinker skills.
That's INCREDIBLY annoying, annoying to no end - how did you won on Insaine without armor?
Basically EVERYONE who can deal physical damage is a threat.
I'm not on a second continent yet (in elf ruins), and already was in at least dozen "alsmost oneshotted" situations.
Archers are threat even if I used torn totem and got 100 hardiness 90 armor, that's absolutely madness.

I can imagine that I need to carefully approach to every shiFtty rare in the rest of the game, and that's really sad.
Maybe it's better to actually learn that damned armor skill and wear that armor?

part 2 of the new guide:
the escorts:
escorts are tough to get to the portal, but about half or more of them are doable without save scumming

I won't give you much advice for escorting escorts, but what I will tell you is that, beyond right clicking them to give them an order, is that they won't repeatedly stay if asked to
thats where sleep comes in; you can put the escort to sleep(hopefully without restless night), causing the escort to stay put for a bit... using dream prison on your escort is an option worth considering if you really want that escort to stay put
during that time, you can also swap places with the escort, moving the escort closer to where you want the escort to be... but that may not be such a good idea
also, you can use overmind to swap places with the escort if your thought-form is next to the escort, which also may not be such a good idea
and if you get nature's touch from a seer escort or earthen beads, then you can use it to heal your escort
keeping your escort behind you in a hallway is an easy way to prevent the escort from going anywhere

oh, and watch out for temporal explorer and loremaster escorts in t1 dungeons, they might friendly fire for a threatening amount of damage

there will always be 9 escort quests; they may be found in trollmire 2 and 3, kor'pul, heart of the gloom, norgos 2 and 3, scintillating caves, rhaloren camp, old forest, daikara, dreadfell, or lost kingdom of reknor
concerning the ones in the starter zones, it will ONLY pick from the first 4 relevant levels of the starter zones that you go to

only one tinker escort will spawn per game

these are the escort rewards that should be chosen:
alchemist:
1: psiblades
2: psiblades
3: psiblades
4: psiblades
5: psiblades
6: thorn grab
7: thorn grab or 1 willpower
8: thorn grab or 1 willpower
9: thorn grab or 1 willpower

anorithil:
1: conversion
2: conversion
3: conversion
4: conversion
5: conversion
6: 4 mental save
7: 4 mental save
8: 4 mental save
9: 4 mental save

loremaster:
1: mind sear
2: mind sear
3: mind sear
4: mind sear
5: mind sear
6: 2 willpower
7: 2 willpower
8: 2 willpower
9: 2 willpower

seer:
1: nature's touch
2: nature's touch
3: nature's touch
4: nature's touch
5: nature's touch
6: earth's eyes or 2 willpower
7: earth's eyes or 2 willpower
8: earth's eyes or 2 willpower
9: earth's eyes or 2 willpower

sun paladin:
1: disengage
2: evasion
3: disengage
4: disengage
5: disengage
6: disengage
7: 2 willpower
8: 2 willpower
9: 2 willpower

temporal explorer:
1: dream walk(if the first point) or sleep
2: sleep
3: sleep
4: sleep
5: sleep(if sleep solipsist) or 2 cunning
6: 2 cunning or dream walk
7: 2 cunning or dream walk
8: 2 cunning or dream walk
9: 2 cunning or dream walk

thief:
1: track
2: device mastery
3: device mastery
4: device mastery
5: device mastery
6: device mastery
7: heightened senses(so you can get danger sense; you may as well get it if you save a 7th thief escort)
8: 1 cunning
9: 1 cunning

tinker:
1: craftsman's eye(as attractive as 30% critmult and other stats sound, you're not getting tinkers; there are more important places to stick your generic points)

warrior:
1: vitality
2: 2 strength(if superpower) or unflinching resolve
3: 2 strength(if superpower) or unflinching resolve
4: 2 strength(if superpower) or unflinching resolve
5: 2 strength(if superpower) or unflinching resolve
6: 2 strength(if superpower) or unflinching resolve
7: 2 strength(if superpower) or vitality
8: 2 strength(if superpower) or vitality
9: 2 strength(if superpower) or vitality




prodigies:
these are the best prodigies for a solipsist; all solipsists should consider taking 2 of these prodigies, in no particular order unless otherwise stated:

eye of the tiger
superpower(take this one second if at all, and ONLY if you plan to max out strength)
pain enhancement system(same cases as superpower, but you'd probably want to get this instead of superpower)
tricky defenses
fungal blood, but only if you're cheesy and decide to max ancestral growth
windtouched speed(if you don't like the other ones)
lucky day(if you don't like the other ones)
giant leap(if you REALLY want more mobility)
swift hands(WARNING: this prodigy is EXTREMELY tedious to make full use of)
I can carry the world!(only to be used with superpower or swift hands)

eye of the tiger: an underrated prodigy, this prodigy decreases the cooldown of any technique or cunning talent by 2 when you perform a physical critical strike, and it decreases the cooldown of any wild-gift, psionic, or cursed talent by 2 when you perform a mental critical strike, and it decreases the cooldown of any magic talent by 1 when you perform a spell critical strike, and it reduces the cooldown of any steamtech talent by 1 when you perform a steam critical strike... all cooldown reductions have a shared cooldown of once per turn, and resolve and restless night CAN proc eye of the tiger, and theres a bug that causes distortion bolt to be able to proc eye of the tiger, reducing distortion bolt's cooldown, because distortion bolt is a projectile(which doesn't instantly reach the target), so with 100% mindcrit and this prodigy, distortion bolt suddenly becomes very, very powerful, and even if that bug is fixed, this talent is still a large boost to your offense and defense... I usually take this prodigy first; it is very good, though you might want to pick windtouched speed over this if you're really worried about that solipsism threshold

superpower: this prodigy passively adds 30% willpower usage stat to your weapons, and the 30% is not boosted by psiblades, though the 30% is still added on top of psiblades; it also passively grants you raw mindpower equal to 60% of your strength... unlike pain ehancement system, this talent is ALWAYS active, and it increases both your offense and your defense, though the mindpower boost usually only amounts to 6 raw mindpower at purple mindpower(more if you get some strength gear), which is actually quite a bit when you consider your enemies' saving throws... I usually take this prodigy second

pain enhancement system: whenever you perform a critical strike, then for 6 turns, all of your stats except for strength will be increased by 50% of your strength for 6 turns; this talent has an 18 turn cooldown... this talent can give a huge boost to willpower, cunning, and constitution when it procs, causing your mindpower and mental save(and crit chances) to be higher than it'd be if you picked superpower, but it is only a temporary effect, and it isn't exactly a reliable proc, but in some cases in which your physical and mindcrit are well below 100%, you can rely on it proccing... this talent is mostly useful for making sure that talents such as sleep and ravage don't get saved against by your opponent

tricky defenses: this increases the amount of damage that can be blocked by antimagic shield by a percentage based upon your cunning; 100 cunning gives a 50% boost... this talent is VERY, VERY good against enemies that primarily deal damage types other than physical and mind, but it doesn't increase your offense

fungal blood: every time you use an infusion, you gain fungal power, which can be released at any time with no cooldown as a heal, which removes up to 10 magic debuffs AND can proc ancestral growth; the talent's fungal power and healing given scales with your constitution, and you passively lose 10% of your fungal power or 10 fungal power, whichever is greater, every single turn... this talent is basically used for free turns, and it works best with a regen infusion, 2 healing infusions, and 5/5 ancestral growth, and at least 1 point into conversion

widntouched speed: this talent permanently gives you a 20% global speed boost and reduces all of your cooldowns by 10%; the global speed boost is helpful for not being so vulnerable when you're below your solipsism threshold, and it also increases your offense and defense, but it doesn't do so by boosting your mindpower... its a pretty good prodigy

lucky day: this talent permanently gives you +40 luck and a +10% chance to completely avoid any damage value against you; the +40 to luck specifically grants you 16 raw accuracy, 16 raw defense, 12% physical/spell/mind/steamcrit, +7 to all raw saves, an 8% chance to avoid breaking stealth when you deal damage, and an 8% chance to avoid your own area of effect attacks, similar to spellcraft... this talent really isn't that great as a solipsist, but hey, its an option if you don't like the other prodigies

giant leap: this prodigy causes you to jump to a targeted location within 10 tiles of you, breaking any stuns, pins, or dazes against you, and dealing 200% weapon damage(with both weapons) to whatever you land on and whatever is within a radius 1 tile of it, dazing the opponents for 3 turns... you should only get this talent if you really, REALLY want more mobility

swift hands: this prodigy allows you to instantly swap weapon sets, and it also allows you to instantly swap out any equipment(1 turn cooldown), and it removes the cooldown for activatable equipment that gets triggered by equipping it, though using it still triggers its cooldown... this prodigy is best used with 5/5 device mastery, but it is EXTREMELY tedious to use; except your remaining time to win to increase by upwards of 1000% if you aren't lazy or reckless and you take this prodigy... with this prodigy, you can easily abuse burrow mindstars(removed in 1.6?), eden's guile, rings of speed, earthen beads, dream malleus(if non-magical), omniscience, eyes of the forest, boots of massiveness, boots of rushing, boots of strife, torques, totems, eel-skin armor, cloud caller, summertide phial, umbraphage, mnemonic, wyrnbreath, flamewrought, amulets of healing, shantiz the stormblade, bloomsoul, oozing heart, eyal's will, nexus of the way, core of the forge, psionic fury, and other items with on use effects as well... again, expect to take very, VERY long to win if you use this prodigy well

I can carry the world!: this prodigy increases your strength by 50, your maximum encumbrance by 500, and your size category by 1, and it permanently sets your fatigue to 0... you should ONLY take this prodigy in conjunction with superpower(for the extra probably 6 effective mindpower), or with swift hands, so that you can carry more stuff to abuse swift hands with




levelup progression:
for your class points, for the solipsism build, you should first get 3 in distortion bolt and solipsism, then max distortion bolt and get 1 point into distortion wave, then max out solipsism(talent)
then, you max out the entire distortion category

if you're running a build with thought-forms, then you should first get 3 in solipsism, 1 into distortion bolt, and the rest into thought-forms(talent), then get 5/5 thought-forms, then max out solipsism, then max out the entire distortion category in the order of distortion bolt, distortion wave, ravage of maelstrom, then ravage or maelstrom

if you're running a build with slumber, then get 1 point into slumber before getting 3 points into distortion bolt... but for all builds, you may want to float a point into slumber until you reach a high level

after maxing out the entire distortion category for all 3 builds, max out the solipsism category, in the order of balance, clarity, then dismissal; get clarity before balance and dismissal if your mental save is below 50

for the sleep build, the next order of talent investment is:
1: 2 points into slumber
2: max out dreamscape
if you unlock nightmare after maxing out dreamscape(or have it unlocked already), then do 6 before doing 3, 4, and 5
3: max out slumber
4: max out sandman
5: max out restless night
6: max out inner demons
7: max out waking nightmare
8: max out night terror


for the thought-forms+dream hammer build, you, at the point at which you've maxed out distortion and solipsism, begin to max out dream hammer, getting dream-smith's hammer or dream crusher first, then getting hammer toss LAST

then you max out thought-forms


for the thought-forms+discharge build, you'd want to max out thought-forms before even getting discharge at all, then you'd want to max out discharge


for your generic points, you want to do the following:
first, get 1 point into biofeedback, 1 point into psychometry, and 1 points into sleep in that order
then, put a point into resonance field, then lucid dreamer, then invest into resonance field until you get 1 point into dream walk, then max out resonance field
then, if you're going to invest into conversion, get it after maxing out resonance field
then save up your generics for antimagic; while and after doing so, and until your mental save hits 90 or so, you'll want to float 1 or 2 points into mental sheilding; personally I don't do this since I'm too lazy to do it, but it almost always works out for me anyway, if not always
upon getting antimagic at perhaps level 17(16 might work too), you can get by with 1/1/1/0 antimagic
you want to start out with that, then max out resolve, then max out antimagic shield
then, if you're gonna get forge shield, you get it and max it out, and then if you're gonna get forge bellows, get it and put however many points into it that you're gonna have in it at level 50
then you'd want to get fungus whenever you finish tempest peak or hit level 36, then you'd want to go 1/1/1/1 fungus, then max out wild growth
then you get the rest of the talents in whichever order, except that the discharge build wants to, at this point, max out conversion then amplification, then they can max out the rest of the build
I recommend getting thick skin before psiblades and psychometry, and get psiblades before psychometry... but getting thick skin before both of those may not be doable, depending on the loot

for the category point order:
cornacs, sleep build:
1: inscription slot
2: dream-forge
3: fungus
4: nightmare
5: solipsism

non-cornacs, sleep build:
1: inscription slot
2: dream-forge
3: fungus
4: nightmare

cornacs, thought-forms+dream hammer build:
1: inscription
2: inscription
3: dream-forge
4: fungus
5: solipsism

non-cornacs, thought-forms+dream hammer build:
1: inscription
2: dream-forge
3: fungus
4: solipsism

cornacs, discharge build:
1: inscription
2: fungus
3: discharge
4: solipsism
5: discharge

non-cornacs, discharge build:
1: inscription
2: fungus
3: discharge
4: discharge




gearing up:
you want to get, by level 50; the most important is at the top, and the least important is further from the top:

over 100 mental save, preferably over 110
at least 60% physical resistance, but 70% is quite a bit better; I'd rather get hit for 300 than get hit for 400... wouldn't you?
at least 80 armor; don't bother going very high over 120
high other resistances, though mind resistance isn't very important, since mental save halves mind damage taken if you save against it
more hp than you have psi; preferably ~100 more by lvl 50, but over 150 more isn't so helpful
at least 80 mindpower; more is very preferable, and it might be pretty tough to go above 80 mindpower if you don't have superpower with maxes strength
mindcrit is very good; the closer to 100%, the better, but you can settle for 30% if you want
+healmod is good; it keeps you alive
+max psi is good too, be sure to get +max hp to go along with it
extra heals are nice to have; you'll eventually want to have two mindstars with good on-use effects such as forge bellows or resonance shield or bloom heal in your offset if you find them; nature's vengeance is a good main hander for your offset for the rush on use... item usage cooldowns are NOT triggered by weapon swapping from the main set to the off set, nor vice versa, but they are activated by otherwise equipping weapons
more speed is nice to have too; more speed means less risk of getting double-turned at low psi
a good charm can be quite useful to have, such as rushing boots or a thorny skin totem or a kinetic psionic shield torque
telepathy: all is also nice to have, but you can really live without it
there are also other stats that are nice to have
spellpower and spell crit are pretty much worthless

until you get the necessary stuff listed above, just make do with what you've got

some notable artifacts that you're extremely unlikely to replace, not concerning the offset weapons, are:
mnemonic
breath of eyal
girdle of preservation
and shard of insanity
you don't actually need any of those to win the game, but they all help quite a bit




on the topic of saving throws:
mental save is VERY good to have as a solipsist, and also as a possessor

not only does having a high mental save mean that you have a higher threshold at which dismissal can proc against damage that you take, but it also means that... you can shrug off or shorten debuffs!

you have a talent called balance, which at level 7.5, replaces 85% of your physical and spell save with your mental save, so if you found a solipsism amulet and got it to 100%, then you'd effectively check all debuffs that check a save against your mental save... with an 85% conversion, you can expect, in the purples, for your physical and spell save to be about 5-10 points lower than your mental save is at

almost all enemies, even in insane high peak(even in its ladder zones), will not have more than 70ish spellpower nor mindpower, except for the very rare nightmare horrors and maybe also dreaming horrors

so, if you manage to get over 100 mental save and spell save, then you'll basically be immune to all mental and spell debuffs(even from elandar), except when you're dazed, and when the opponent is a nightmare horror or dreaming horror

but physical save, the physical power of your enemies and their accuracy can get VERY high; sometimes into 120+
but the enemy's physical power and accuracy will infrequently be above 90

if you can manage to get 110 physical save, then a great many physical debuffs in high peak are just gonna get shrugged off by you, and even if you don't shrug them off, you might make them shorter with your high physical save

and if you manage to get inner demons or mind parasite on you, then you can just use relentless pursuit(which you won't have much other use for), and if you get em while you're still floating points into mental shielding, then you can use mental shielding to get rid of them

and don't forget that you can hit yourself to end daze early, which may be risky if you have too much of the relevant respen or not enough of the relevant resistance, or have too much mindpower compared to mental save concerning the mind damage mindstars




on tanking as a solipsist:
antimagic solipsists are actually pretty tanky once they get going, even if they wear leather armor with 30% hardiness
lets say that, at level 50, you've got 70% darkness resistance and 110 mental save and CPed solipsism, and some orc corruptor anorithil rare in gorbat pride crits you with moonlit ray for 600 raw damage
so 15% of your darkness resistance is ignored, effectively reducing it to 59.5% darkness resistance
so you reduce 600 by 59.5%, reducing it to 243
then, you reduce 243 to maybe 123 with antimagic shield
then you reduce it by another 30 with forge shield, for 93 damage
then, dismissal reduces that 93 damage by at least 50%, but it'll reduce it by even more if dismissal crits
but THEN, it goes through solipsism; if dismissal doesn't crit, you take 46.5 damage, but then only 18.6 of that goes to your hp
the other 27.9 damage goes to your psi, and then gets reduced by 47.2% to 14.7312 damage
18.6+14.7312 damage=33.3312 total damage taken from that critical moonlit ray

or maybe, at level 32, a rare boiling horror archmage in the lake of nur casts a critical fireflash against you for 450 damage
you've got 50% fire resistance, and 80 mental save with level 6.5 dismissal, and you have 5/5 forge shield and antimagic shield by this point
first, the 450 is reduced to 225
then, the 225 is reduced by antimagic shield by 80 to 145
then, the 145 is reduced by forge shield to 125
and it was too much damage for dismissal to attempt to reduce, so it goes to solipsism:
so 53.75 damage goes to hp
and then the other 71.25 damage goes to your psi, and is then reduced by... 30%?, down to 49.875
so you take 103.625 damage in total from that critical fireflash, which really isn't that much by itself at level 32

for another example, at level 50, you've got 67% physical resistance, your armor is 120, you CPed solipsism, and your mental save isn't high enough for dismissal to proc and an orc elite berserker doombringer berserker randboss in high peak casts detonating charge on you, dealing 280% weapon damage because the talent level is really high
and his character sheet damage is 321, and his weapon's range is 1.4, and the range roll is 1.32, and his armor penetration is 14, and his physical resistance penetration is 15%, and you aren't bleeding
so 321-106=215, and 321=.7=224.7; as you can see, having more armor hardiness would barely help you at this point
so the actual character sheet damage is reduced to 224.7
224.7*1.32=296.604, and 296.604*2.8=830.4912, which is very scary without physical resistance
but you have PHYSICAL RESISTANCE
67% is reduced by 15%, non-subtractively, to 56.95%
830.4912-56.95%=357.5264616
then that gets reduced by solipsism
143.01058464 damage goes to your hp bar
and then, 214.51587696 damage goes to your psi bar, which gets reduced by 47.2% to 113.26438303488
143.01058464+113.26438303488=256.27496767488 total damage is taken by that detonating charge, so you get taken down to about 75% hp in one hit, but it'd be almost 50% remaining hp if he crit since he has some bonus critmult, at which point you'd still be above 100% global speed
and it also deals some fire damage which gets shrugged off completely or almost completely by fire resistance+AM shield, and perhaps also forge shield and/or dismissal

and then, during the next turn, you're still above 100% global speed, so you have a lot of options to get out of melee range of that dangerous rare enemy and stay out of his melee range, even if you don't use sleep

this stuff is like NWN1's damage immunity+damage resistance+damage reduction stats; if you've played on a non-RP server, you probably know what I mean
damage immunity reduces the damage type taken by a % every time
and THEN damage resistance reduces the damage type taken by up to a flat number every time
and THEN damage reduction further reduces all physical damage taken, if it isn't penetrated by a good enough magical weapon, by up to a flat number every time

in moderate amounts, it results in regular hits not doing very much damage, and critical hits doing a TON of damage compared to regular hits

similarly, first, the raw damage taken is reduced by quite a bit by armor, if applicable, then it gets reduced by a percentage by resistance, then it gets reduced by AM shield, then by forge shield if it procs, then by dismissal if that procs, then it gets reduced by a considerable percentage again by solipsism




on crowd control as a solipsist:
solipsists have very good crowd control
maelstrom can keep targets within a radius of 4 closer to one place
distortion wave is a knockback cone which stuns distorted targets
forge bellows is a knockback cone that can make temporary walls to boot
sleep, slumber, and nightmare can temporarily make your enemies mostly harmless(watch out for pride of the orcs and timeless)
dream prison can KEEP your enemies asleep pretty much indefinitely as long as you don't care to move
dream crusher is a stun
psychic lobotomy is a confuse, though I'm not too sure why you'd actually get that talent
waking nightmare can debuff the opponent, though it may not do so immediately(so you use it ahead of time)
synaptic static can cause brainlock(not sure why you'd get it though)
and if you get dream forge for some reason, that can cause spell failure and brainlock
inner demons can draw enemy fire
your thought-forms can draw enemy fire
dream walk is a targeted teleport, though with a large radius(its good enough for me at 1 point almost all of the time)
dreamscape can get you to relative safety for 15 turns if used on the right target, AND cause brainlock after it wears off
you can use movement infusions or rush boots or an offset nature's vengeance as well
and the rod of spydric poison is the rod of spydric poison

solipsists have alot of options for crowd control; you can realistically keep dangerous melee guys away from you reliably enough to matter once your character gets going, especially if you're a sleep build




getting through the campaign:
this isn't too hard, for an insane roguelike run

first off, if you see a ladder zone within a level, just don't go in there at all until (average outside enemy level+20) or level 50, whichever comes first, and don't go into the ones in high peak at all unless you're feeling gutsy or something

first, your character spawns
then, without leaving the zone, clear out level 1 of your starting zone; if you die for some reason(not likely), then just restart your character and try again
then, if you aren't in trollmire(and can go there), then go to trollmire
if you can't go to trollmire, then clear out escape from reknor or the yeek starting zones, then use rod of recall as soon as you walk into the halfling ruins while being a yeek, then head straight for trollmire, or if you're a dwarf, just go to trollmire after escape from reknor, and if you're a skeleton or ghoul, then go to trollmire after the blighted ruins
very, very rarely, you might die in trollmire to a rare enemy
then clean out trollmire, including level 4
if a mountain troll thunderer is spotted, then your chances of survival are still decently high, but you'll have some extra trouble
if you see a patchwork troll, then leave IMMEDIATELY, and don't come back until after beating the heart of the gloom or hitting level 18 or so, whichever comes first

killing bill the stone troll:
keep your distance when possible, and use sleep and slumber to get more turns for your regen and healing infusions to cool down, and use distortion wave(preferably distorted) and your thought-forms, if any, to keep your distance... but if you're a shaloren or ogre or undead, then you probably shouldn't be there yet
you should be able to beat bill most of the time, even if the forest-troll hedge wizard spawns on the same map

after trollmire, go straight to the ruins of kor'pul and clean it out, including the vaults; if you die in a vault, then just restart... or you can just skip the vaults if you don't want the risk of death
very, very rarely, you might die in the ruins of kor'pul to a rare enemy

killing the shade:
first, don't go to the southernmost part of the map until you've cleared out the entire rest of the level, then go to the southwest and southeast corners to check for enemies that are within line of sight; if there aren't any, then engage the shade carefully

if you have cold and/or arcane resistance gear, then wear it; physical resistance also helps

the map should look something like this near the shade:

______________
VX V
___A__B__A___

the V and A are wall tiles, the X is where you should stand(or you could engage from the right side), and the B is where the boss normally stands until getting aggroed

after standing where the X is, the boss will aggro; at that point, he'll probably cast freeze on you
hit the wild infusion and move south away from the boss, then use your regeneration infusion, then get behind the nearby V in order to get yourself out of the boss' line of sight until the boss goes southwest or southeast of the X
at that point, the boss should be in your line of sight; be sure to take advantage of sleep and, if you have it, slumber in order to survive the encounter while using your healing to stay alive while you kill the boss; only run away if you run out of alternate choices, and if you run to the northern section of that fixed section of the map, then consider not running past that point

after the ruins of kor'pul, go straight to the lumberjack village, and kill ben; again, take advantage of sleep and, if you have it, slumber to stay alive while fighting ben, and also (distorted)distortion wave

then go do the arena in derth

NOW you go to the towns and buy stuff; gear up, because you're about to do the first actually hard zone

be sure to get a psychoportation torque if you can, though a kinetic shield torque may be better; a tentacled totem of thorny skin is preferable, though it makes the starting zones alot easier

norgos' lair:

by now, you should be at level 10 or so, and you should have some tools to survive, and the gear too
you'll have an estimated 65% chance of surviving in norgos' lair while also killing everything, but of course, if you don't mind not clearing the zone in one sitting, then the estimated chance of survival increases to 95%

but its gonna be relatively hard
use distortion wave, distortion bolt's long range, and sleep, and slumber(if you have it) to your advantage, and also use your thought-forms to keep you alive by keeping it between you and your enemy when it is deemed appropriate

it may have been a doozy, but next up is scintillating caves

then rhaloren camp

then, if you're a dwarf, the deep bellow

then the heart of the gloom; by this point, it shouldn't be so scary, even if there weren't any staircases

then, go to to zigur and do the antimagic training; you should be ready for it by now
first, buy a charged shield torque if there are any, just in case
during the antimagic arena, be sure to not use maelstrom nor ravage at all until after the orc corruptor spawns, and don't use sleep when you think that the orc corruptor will spawn soon
on turn 1 of the orc corruptor spawning, you should use sleep on it asap, then throw maelstrom on top of it, then ravage it, then use distortion wave after bone shield wears off, stunning him, and then throw a distortion bolt at him
it should be pretty easy from there unless he had a kinetic shield torque, which he actually does have every now and then

then, you go to derth and fight the gwelgoroths, which should be very easy

then, you go to another relatively hard dungeon; the old forest
the only advice that I'll give you for the old forest is the same advice that I gave you for norgos' lair, and that rarely, an enemy that only spawns in high level zones, such as a thauthereg or a saw horror will spawn; if you see a ranged randboss saw horror, try to keep it at more than shooting distance away from you... all it takes is 1 turn of it being in shooting range of you for it to kill you... at least if the AI isn't stupid... and be sure to use a wild infusion against implode if you deem it necessary, and if it does get into shooting distance while being in range of sleep, then put it to sleep, though you'd preferably use sleep sooner than that if its weapons are range 7

your estimated chance of survival in the old forest is 65%

after that, go to the assassin tunnels and explore the map; the ziguranth and allied kingdoms patrols should kill almost all of the adventurer parties, but you still might see one near sandworm lair

next up is the sandworm lair; try not to suffocate in the sand, and bring a psychoport torque or a mindstar of sand if you can, because if you get trapped underneath the sand, then those(or a sandworm) are your only ways out

then you go to the maze, you're likely, but not guaranteed, to survive in the maze

if you see the dark crypt popup, then don't go inside unless you don't mind the estimated 90% chance of dying unless you abuse digging and stairs really hard, and even then, you'll probably die at the entrance

next up is daikara, one of the last actually hard zones that you'll go to

then you go to the golem graveyard, then clean it out, and then you clear out the halfling ruins; be very, very sure to save the yeek wayist

then you do tempest peak and unlock fungus whenever you feel like it

then you do the temporal rift; be extra careful in the temporal rift, because you don't know if you're gonna find a temporal stalker anorithil that hits you for 400 with moonlit ray through antimagic shield or not... though your chances for survival here are around 70%

then you go to the second last actually hard entire zone before high peak, the last hope graveyard, and if you beat this zone, then its smooth cruising from there on out(except for vor armoury); you are very, very likely to win the game at this point as long as you don't do something stupider than going to the ruins of tel'mur, like climbing into an intimidating cave as soon as you see it

from here on, here is the zone order:
everything except for the lake of nur, dreadfell, the sludgenest, lilanill, the ancient elven ruins, and norgoth caldera
the lake of nur(bring water breathing gear if you found any)
dreadfell
norgoth caldera
the lost kingdom of reknor
go buy mindstar mastery from zigur if you haven't done it yet and upgrade it too; most charcters would've done both much earlier
ancient elven ruins... you might be level 50 by now, and if you are, then save 6 or 9 stat points for the wyrm bile, since you don't know if it'll reduce your strength, willpower, and cunning by 3 or not
unremarkable cave... once you get relentless pursuit, you should ONLY use it either as a last resort, or to remove inner demons from you immediately if no other means are available to you of doing so, and also, don't do any orc patrols if you don't have to... just outrun them until you have good gear and are at level 50 and have used the wyrm bile
ardgunhol
then, you get to the last hard entire zone before high peak, vor armoury, perhaps including the vault if you have enough resistances for it(or not yet)
briagh's lair, which is actually pretty easy; you have a 95% chance of surviving here as long as you don't do something really stupid like holding down the up arrow for 5 seconds
do NOT buy randarts yet unless your mental save is below 90, and/or your resistances(especially physical resistance) and/or your armor are lacking
then you do the backup guardians in whichever order(don't forget the deep bellow if you're a dwarf), then do the ruins of tel'mur or the fearscape(I prefer the former)
tannen's tower
underwater cave
orc breeding pits(if you have the so-called addon); using a fearscape portal might get you killed, though you have a pretty decent chance of surviving those
the shadow crypt; exclude level 3 if you don't feel safe about doing it... the most you'll miss is probably only a T5 fixedart, even if it is the girdle of preservation
gorbat pride
eruan
vor pride
rak'shor pride
gorbat pride
slime tunnels
at this point, go to ur'thol and buy randarts as you see fit; don't forget to transmogrify your gems too
high peak; be sure not to go into any ladder zones, and don't bother with the vaults unless your loot could be upgraded by purple item(s)

how to fight and defeat shashisshy'ka or whatever its called without a mummified egg-sac of ungole or the fourth thalore racial:
the reckless version is to kill one single cultist without aggroing the others, and then wait 8-10 spaces from the stone closest to the cultist that you killed, and then once the demon spawns, just stay more than 7 spaces away from it until you see its meteors, but if you don't have good enough mental save to resist its inner demons, try to stay over 7 spaces away from it at all times

1: finish the zone except for the cultists, and leave them alone
2: go directly to a town or your fortress
3: take out 3 class points and go 1/1/1/0 thoughtforms
4: go back to the cultists
5: try to kill just one single cultist without aggroing the others, so they don't hurt you
6: take out your thoughtform
7: wait at least 2 corners and 7 spaces away from the nearest ritual stone(6 if you like taking risks) without being that close to another cultist stone, nor nearly that close either
8: activate overmind and put your thoughtform near the cultist rock: the demon will always spawn near the nearest cultist rock
9: try to prevent the demon from detecting the player(solipsist) and keep your thoughtform alive without activating overmind until the demon uses meteor rain
10: proceed from there as normal for up to 25 turns, try to kill the demon within 30 turns; if you for some reason don't start running after 25 turns are up(or silence when 29 are up if biting gale(if it has it) is on cd for a while)
11: loot, then go to a town or your fortress, then remove the class points from thoughtforms and put them back where they were before
to kill it with a mummified egg-sac of ungole do the same thing as you would with the thoughtform except without getting thoughtforms, spawn the spiders 3 turns before it starts then dream walk and move infusion outta there so you're not in LoS of a radius 1 of the nearest rock and not anywhere close to any other rocks

the final bosses:
how to defeat the final bosses:

you should preferably have the following items on your person in addition the gear mentioned above for just this particular fight, but you'll probably win if you don't have any of this stuff:
eden's guile
nexus of the way
the guardian's totem
a good thermal psionic shield torque, the cooldown doesn't matter(pick the biggest shield)
mummified egg sac of ungole
an extra good healing or regeneration infusion
an extra high-speed movement infusion; the cooldown and free action duration don't matter for that one in particular

once you used the move infusion then waited for its cooldown, then used guardian's totem, swapped in the shield torque, used the speed on boots, swapped them out, then used egg-sac and nexus of the way while you were waiting for the torque's equip cooldown, then used the shield torque and swapped it out, then you can use the orb of many ways to teleport to the final fight: once in there, you'll go through the dialogue and then immediately put a boss(or both) to sleep(check for unbreakable will), then use a movement infusion and the orb of destruction to close the portal of destruction(northwest)... at this point, you can choose to either engage the final bosses, or close more portals first

the final bosses actually shouldn't be too hard if you're geared properly

first off is the sleep build, which is the best build:

the minmaxed version with escort scumming as a cornac:
psionic/distortion
5/5/5/5
psionic/dream-smith
0/0/0/0
psionic/psychic assault
0/0/0/0
psionic/slumber
5/5/5/5
psionic/solipsism
5/5/5/5
psionic/thoughtforms
0/0/0/0
psionic/nightmare
1/5/5/5

the best build

psionic/dream-smith
0/0/0/0

Skipping your best offense category is a really bad move, especially when the points are being spent in useless places like Dismissal (taking it makes you weaker), Balance (saves lol), and, Slumber (terrible returns past 1/1/1/1). You're already building physical damage for Distortion so there's no reason not to take advantage of it with Dream-Smith. Also no points in Thought-forms is really bad considering how much they do for you at just 3/1/1/1. In fact, many talents are very useful with fewer than 5/5 points invested in them. Do you really need 5/5 Dismissal over 3/1/1/1 Thought-forms?

bpat wrote:

first off is the sleep build, which is the best build:

the minmaxed version with escort scumming as a cornac:
psionic/distortion
5/5/5/5
psionic/dream-smith
0/0/0/0
psionic/psychic assault
0/0/0/0
psionic/slumber
5/5/5/5
psionic/solipsism
5/5/5/5
psionic/thoughtforms
0/0/0/0
psionic/nightmare
1/5/5/5

the best build

psionic/dream-smith
0/0/0/0

Skipping your best offense category is a really bad move, especially when the points are being spent in useless places like Dismissal (taking it makes you weaker), Balance (saves lol), and, Slumber (terrible returns past 1/1/1/1). You're already building physical damage for Distortion so there's no reason not to take advantage of it with Dream-Smith. Also no points in Thought-forms is really bad considering how much they do for you at just 3/1/1/1. In fact, many talents are very useful with fewer than 5/5 points invested in them. Do you really need 5/5 Dismissal over 3/1/1/1 Thought-forms?

I've won with both a sleep build and a dream hammer+thoughtforms build on insane rl, the sleep build twice, and I can safely say that slumber is better than dream hammer
remember, dreamscape and restless night can both crit, and restless night stacks
and slumber synergizes with nightmare and dreaming

and don't forget, thought-forms can get in the way of hammer toss, and they can cause you to get the braided debuff in the absence of the enemy friendly firing with rethread

and since when did dismissal make you weaker overall? oh, you lose .25 hp per con and gain 10% solipsism threshold; thats worth taking hits that do like 74 damage after resists+AM shield and then making them do half or less damage
did you ever make a solipsist with 110+ mental save and lvl 7.5 balance? almost all debuffs that check saves don't even touch you by that point, except some of the physical ones and weapon gloom debuffs, and you might resist or partially resist those too

and don't forget those critslumbers; with 100 mindpower and only 200% critmult, you can get over an over 400 damage wakeup threshold with a critical slumber, and you also get dream prison(2000+ across all 5 turns)
and don't forget about night terror either, or lucid dreamer's damage bonus versus opponents with insomnia(which are all opponents that you put to sleep)

in fact, I'll provide another example with that damage reduction stuff in part 2 for you:
say you're in high peak facing a saw horror gunslinger with 250 character sheet damage(a very realistic number) and 25 arp for both guns and 10% phys res penetration, and you've got 100 armor(30% hardiness) and 64% physical resistance
the saw horror uses strafe to shoot you 5 times in a row with both guns

you'll have 75 armor after the arp, which is good enough to negate 30% of damage against up to 250 charsheet damage, so 250 goes down to 175
i don't remember what the range is for bullets, so I'll assume 1.4
he rolls 1.3 for all 10 bullets for some reason, which don't crit; its got 25% crit(162%), and 3 of em crit, but your 17.1% critshrug shrugs off one crit
so 175 goes up to 227.5
227.5-57.6%=96.46(156.2652 for the crits)
then forge shield reduces that by like 30, for all 8 non-crit bullets, to 66.46, which is within dismissal rage
and then dismissal comes into play and saves your hide, reducing all of the non-crit bullets to, at the most, 33.2
instead of taking over over 500 damage before solipsism in the span of 1 100% turn from the non-crit bullets, you instead take significantly less than 265 damage before solipsism because some of those dismissals crit
and if none of the dismissals crit, then solipsism makes only ~106 dmg go to hp, and only ~84 damage go to psi from all 8 non-crit bullets
and then the crit bullets hit for 252.5304 after forge shield and before solipsism
and then you're still above 40% psi, and your regen infusion ticks for like 220 because its a good one and you have some healmod, effectively negating much of the damage that was actually taken

but, of course, you still shouldn't let yourself get strafed by a saw horror if you can help it, because you might not be alone with it next time and more of those might crit, which would not trigger dismissal, and the crits would hit you more than twice as hard as the non-crit ones would, even though the saw horror only has 162% critmult, and even if 3 of them crit, you'd still be alive the next time you got to perform an action, at which point you could use a movement infusion or slumber or something

oh, and additionally, dismissal synergizes VERY well with dreamscape if the opponent doesn't have lucid dreamer, so dreamscaping said saw horror is actually a good idea

you have a whole lot of crowd control, especially with the sleep build, and dismissal decreases the amount of stuff which is remarkably dangerous to your character, which means that you can save your crowd control for the more dangerous enemies, such as archer rares, who are the most dangerous rares that you'll be facing, aside from PMs that manage to braid you

and either way, weapon damage is getting nerfed in 1.6, so dream hammer won't be so strong by that point

EDIT: and don't forget .5 psi per willpower gained from the first point into dismissal