ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Stealthy Arcane Psyshot

I really enjoy playing the Stealth Bomber build, but I could not make it work in Madness, as I could not deal damage fast enough. OK, so what can deal damage fast enough? Magical Combat is always a good choice, but melee weapons do not mesh well with stealth. So, how do I combine the two? Psyshot is the answer.

Here is my insane winner:
Akira

Unfortunately, I am not sure that I can beat madness with this build, but my character has made it to level 30:
Maddy II

If you want to pummel monsters with magical procs, this is the build for you.

Initial Talents
Cunning / Stealth
Steamtech / Psytech gunnery
Spell / Temporal
Technique / Magical combat
Chronomancy / Flux
Celestial / Light
Psionic / Finer energy manipulations

Buy
Technique / Combat training
Buy the Shoot talent.

Level 10
Spell/Stone

Level 20
Technique / Bloodthirst

Level 36
Unlock Tinkering

Wyrm Bile
Steamtech / Furnace

How to Play the Build at Various Stages

1: Until Level 12

Forget about using stealth. It will drop before your first shot hits. Wield a steamgun in your psionic focus slot and in your main hand. Wield a mindstar in your off hand. Equip some shots. I recommend buying the best you can find from the Zigur or in Last Hope. Something with the sentry ego (increases the ammo capacity) or that provides auto-loading is a really good idea. You will go through ammo twice as fast as Psyshot, so you need all the ammo you can find.

Equip a movement infusion or a rune of teleportation. Running away is very important.

2: Once you Have Unseen Actions (Level 12)

Keep stealth equipped as much as possible. Try to save some thief escorts so that you can increase your infravision range. A wand of clairvoyance will be very handy.

You can now hurt monsters very badly and very quickly. Start increasing Reshape Weapon/Armour and Resonant Focus to increase your damage.

3: Unstoppable (Level 22)

Unstoppable is your insurance policy. If you are cornered in some place where you cannot run away (e.g. random encounter or some of the prides), this will help you for up to seven turns. The good news is that you will be healed for every mob you kill during this time. Plan to run away when the clock runs out if you cannot kill enough of your enemies.

Essential Equipment

Items

The best guns you can find or build. Randarts from the Merchant are a fantastic idea.
Shots with the sentry ego.
Creative and sand egos on your mindstars.
Items that have procs. You will be hitting a lot, so it makes sense to stack the debuffs.

Inscriptions

Start with 2 wilds, a steam generator and teleportation or movement.
Switch to injectors once you are proficient at Tinkering.
I ditched the teleportation for heroism on the insane run and used a torque of psychoportation for High Peak.

I think Steamtech/Thoughts of Iron is a really strong tree for Adventurers that are already planning to use tinkers. You get Molten Iron Blood, which is a pretty strong defensive talent, plus a "free" medical injector and instant mental cleanse that can transfer the effects to nearby enemies. Might be worth trying to fit in the build.

I agree re: Thoughts of Iron. It could possibly replace Bloodthirst or Temporal. However, the 45% speed buff from Temporal is tough to give up and Time Shield useful early into the game. Bloodthirst is a possible candidate for replacement, but I think that it would be difficult to survive certain encounters without it.

I'd been playing around with a non-stealthy version of this, but only on Nightmare; one of the lovely things about psy-wielding a steamgun is that things like Blunt Shot are duplicated. Makes stunning a whole group of enemies more of a guarantee.

Considering that only half of your hits are melee and that Magical Combat has such high dual-wield penalties, did you ever try out something that gave you flat damage-per-hit, such as Temporal Combat?

Similarly, you didn't consider it worth the points to get the (non-extended) damage boost from Mindstar mastery?

visage wrote:Considering that only half of your hits are melee and that Magical Combat has such high dual-wield penalties, did you ever try out something that gave you flat damage-per-hit, such as Temporal Combat?

The only good proc that works on ranged attacks is Crystal Edge, which he has. Also you don't get dual wield penalties from a TK weapon (though unless i'm missing something this build should be dual wielding anyway but i don't see the gunslinger tree that lets you do that so i will assume it doesn't)


Oh and RIP this one with the loss of unseen actions in 1.5

ster wrote:Also you don't get dual wield penalties from a TK weapon (though unless i'm missing something this build should be dual wielding anyway but i don't see the gunslinger tree that lets you do that so i will assume it doesn't)

This build is built around the psyshot's "gun + mindstar" mechanic. Does that not count as DW for purposes of Arcane Combat?

visage wrote:

ster wrote:Also you don't get dual wield penalties from a TK weapon (though unless i'm missing something this build should be dual wielding anyway but i don't see the gunslinger tree that lets you do that so i will assume it doesn't)

This build is built around the psyshot's "gun + mindstar" mechanic. Does that not count as DW for purposes of Arcane Combat?

oops im dumb yes it does

doesnt matter though since you can go over 100% proc rate easily

ster wrote:doesnt matter though since you can go over 100% proc rate easily

Huh, I must have been playing with modded arcane combat for too long -- how do you get over 100% proc rate on it?

get lots of cun, pes would help a lot but for whatever reason OP didn't take it in his win

ster wrote:get lots of cun

Just how much cun are you getting? As I read the code, even at 200 cun you're still under 82% proc rate.

ster wrote:get lots of cun, pes would help a lot but for whatever reason OP didn't take it in his win

PES might be a better choice than Superpower. It is certainly worth trying out.

So I gave this build a shot (harhar) but with Demonic Pact instead of Magical Combat. The idea being to use Flame Bolts and/or Corrosive Cone as the procs. The good news is that Psytech Gunnery does indeed proc them, the bad news is that both effects originate from your character's tile and seem to have a limited range. The great news is that having multiple seeds of the same sort stacks the talent levels additively, so that endgame you could get tlvl 15 Flame Bolts. Not too shabby!

tabs wrote:The great news is that having multiple seeds of the same sort stacks the talent levels additively, so that endgame you could get tlvl 15 Flame Bolts. Not too shabby!

AFAIK Demon Seeds only stack talent levels up to level 7. At least that's what happened on my Demonologist / Sawbutcher hybrid with a level 50 Fire Imp seed on each saw.

Sadly, yes. I noticed that while making Demon Seeds Plus. So far, I haven't figured out why, so I can't change that. If you find the code for that, please tell me.