ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

What I mean to say is, what trees can you put together in a small enough amount of space that they function by themselves, allowing you to use your remaining category points for whatever you want?



For instance, let's take a look at base classes.



The basic Berserker package would consist of:

Techniques / Two-Handed Assault
Techniques / Berserker's Strength
Techniques / Combat Techniques
Techniques / Bloodthirst
Techniques / Conditioning
Cunning / Survival

This uses six of the eight category points you would have by L10, freeing up 2 cat points.



A basic ranged Temporal Warden package might be:

Chronomancy / Bow Threading
Chronomancy / Temporal Combat
Chronomancy / Temporal Guardian
Chronomancy / Temporal Hounds
Chronomancy / Chronomancy
Chronomancy / Spacetime Weaving

Once again, six of eight cat points by L10, and you have 2 cat points remaining.




Both of these operate perfectly fine by themselves, but are there any other offensive packages with (enough survivability baked in as well, preferably) we can utilize that also give wiggle room, or perhaps might even be smaller?

LordKarasuman wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 4:58 pm What I mean to say is, what trees can you put together in a small enough amount of space that they function by themselves, allowing you to use your remaining category points for whatever you want?

On what difficulty? On Insane and below, you don't necessarily need any offensive categories, assuming you've got some way around enemies that heal. (...and depending on what you count as an offensive category.)

Assuming we're talking about Insane rather than Madness, then there are assorted single-category packages that provide reasonable offense. Temporal Hounds comes to mind. Another would be Flux. Gloom could be your single-category "offensive" package for a perma-stealth Adventurer. Demonic Pact probably counts, as well. Given that you can get away with zero, you could draw a line pretty low and count every category above that line as a single-category offensive package.

For a two-category package that carries a lot of punch, there's Arcane Combat and Stone. (...or Lightning.)

Hi!

Fun topic!

I very very like this kinda offensive setup:

note : being a Drem, so having Frenzy greatly enhances this.

( Chronomancy - Speed Control) -- optional
( Corruption - Blight ) -- optional
( Technique - Assassination ) -- optional
( Spell - Stone Alchemy ) -- optional

Wild-Gift - Storm Drake Aspect
Chronomancy - Timetravel

( Chronomancy - Flux ) -- optional
(wild-Gift - Call of the Wild) -- optional
( Spell - Meta ) -- optional

So, the "core" is: you dealing a % based life loss to enemies in a huge AoE with Static Field.
It is NOT a damage, so cannot crit, and not affected by extra damage modifiers,
but this also means it bypasses most of the damage mitigation layers.

As a Drem, you can immediately double cast it.

If you have Nature's Balance optional talent, you can reset this talent and cast it even 3 times.

If you have Time Stop optional talent, you can start with it, so the enemies cannot even act anything,
while you can freely cast Static Field, Static Field, Nature's Balance & Static Field again...
So, Static Field is not a damage, therefore it is not affected by Time Stop's 100% generic damage reduction ...

If you have Stone Touch optional talent, you can cast it on an enemy and if the enemy takes a damage instance of
at least 30% of it's max life (so Static Field with ~102 mindpower will do this against any rare- enemy),
then the damage instance will be 100% of it's max life.
In most cases, that means: Stone Touch + Static Field is an instant kill against rare- enemies.
And it still works under Time Stop.

If you have either Corrosive Worm or Marked for Death optioal talents, you can place it ontot the enemy,
before casting Static Fields. So, when these effects expires it will definately kill the enemy.
Corrosive Worm is more fun (Blight is also a better category than Assassination), because it's AoE.
It also works with Stone Tocuh + Static Fields --> rare enemy dies & also explodes imediately.
If there are enemies around, those will be already damaged from the Static Field, so the extra explosion
will be devastating.
Note: these are dealing damage, so will be reduced to 0 under Time Stop.

If you have Attenuate optional talent, any enemy that is taking a hit (or damage) and going below 20%
of it's max life due to this hit, it will be instakilled.
Note: this works with Static Field, it checks onHit.


By choosing Timetravel, you will have Echoes from the Past.

This is similiar a bit to Static Field, but it deals damage instead. It deals a % of the enemies missing life,
what they miss very much, after 2 or 3 Static Fields...

You can have the optional talent Metaflow, so you can reset this talent to use more, just like Nature's Balance for Static Field.


So, this is the core:

Static Field & Echoes from the Past


Optional supplemets:

Time Stop, Stone Touch, Corrosive Worm, Attenuate
Nature's Balance, Metaflow
Drem Frenzy

Tradewind_Rider wrote: ↑Sun Oct 10, 2021 12:55 am
So, this is the core:

Static Field & Echoes from the Past


Optional supplemets:

Time Stop, Stone Touch, Corrosive Worm, Attenuate
Nature's Balance, Metaflow
Drem Frenzy

Oh, this is delightful. It has a core pair of categories but so many ways you can add to it that it can be completely its own build. If I wasn't a peabrain I'd probably go out and try this immediately.

visage wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:31 pm

LordKarasuman wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 4:58 pm What I mean to say is, what trees can you put together in a small enough amount of space that they function by themselves, allowing you to use your remaining category points for whatever you want?

On what difficulty? On Insane and below, you don't necessarily need any offensive categories, assuming you've got some way around enemies that heal. (...and depending on what you count as an offensive category.)

I understand the logic behind this, and I think part of it comes from the uh... The 1.5 Antimagic Archmage win? I'm curious if anyone has replicated that in 1.7.

visage wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:31 pm Assuming we're talking about Insane rather than Madness, then there are assorted single-category packages that provide reasonable offense. Temporal Hounds comes to mind. Another would be Flux. Gloom could be your single-category "offensive" package for a perma-stealth Adventurer. Demonic Pact probably counts, as well. Given that you can get away with zero, you could draw a line pretty low and count every category above that line as a single-category offensive package.

For a two-category package that carries a lot of punch, there's Arcane Combat and Stone. (...or Lightning.)

I've never played Arcane Blade, but I'm assuming it's:

Technique / Magical Combat
Spell / Stone

I've never played an Arcane Blade before, but one look at the Sustains alone tells me all I need to know. 50% ignore phys resistance sounds obnoxiously good.

LordKarasuman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 11, 2021 5:01 pm

visage wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:31 pm On what difficulty? On Insane and below, you don't necessarily need any offensive categories, assuming you've got some way around enemies that heal. (...and depending on what you count as an offensive category.)

I understand the logic behind this, and I think part of it comes from the uh... The 1.5 Antimagic Archmage win? I'm curious if anyone has replicated that in 1.7.

Actually, I was speaking more from my experience building adventurers -- you really don't need much in the way of damage-per-turn so long as you can shut down enemy healing. Just stack all the defenses you want and slowly grind through enemies.

Granted, my experience with low-offense adventurers predates 1.7, so perhaps it no longer applies. I think the last time I built an adventurer that spent no category points on offense it was using melee mindstars, and those have been nerfed since then.

LordKarasuman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 11, 2021 5:01 pm I've never played Arcane Blade, but I'm assuming it's:

Technique / Magical Combat
Spell / Stone

I've never played an Arcane Blade before, but one look at the Sustains alone tells me all I need to know. 50% ignore phys resistance sounds obnoxiously good.

Sorry for the sloppy references; yes, those are the categories I was referring to.

mind sear+windtouched speed should be enough offense for anything before madness, and it only costs a good prodigy, a CP, and 5 class points, minus 1 point per loremaster escort
windtouched speed reduces cds by a minimum of 1 turn, so that means 1 turn mind sears
you'll need a way to keep your psi up, however; early on, it'll mean running out of psi sometimes, but later on, you'll probably find some psi on mindcrit gear, so that should take care of your psi problems

visage wrote: ↑Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:27 pm Actually, I was speaking more from my experience building adventurers -- you really don't need much in the way of damage-per-turn so long as you can shut down enemy healing. Just stack all the defenses you want and slowly grind through enemies.

Granted, my experience with low-offense adventurers predates 1.7, so perhaps it no longer applies. I think the last time I built an adventurer that spent no category points on offense it was using melee mindstars, and those have been nerfed since then.

Interesting.

If you were going to try a "defensive categories only" attempt again, what kind of weapon would you use to take a crack at it? Mindstars again?

Zeyphor wrote: ↑Mon Oct 11, 2021 9:46 pm mind sear+windtouched speed should be enough offense for anything before madness, and it only costs a good prodigy, a CP, and 5 class points, minus 1 point per loremaster escort
windtouched speed reduces cds by a minimum of 1 turn, so that means 1 turn mind sears
you'll need a way to keep your psi up, however; early on, it'll mean running out of psi sometimes, but later on, you'll probably find some psi on mindcrit gear, so that should take care of your psi problems

Does this actually work? I know from experience that Mind Sear definitely does a brutal amount of damage, but I don't remember ever taking Solipsist past 25 and I think every person I see feels that Distortion or Dream Smith is a necessity after a certain point.

LordKarasuman wrote: ↑Tue Oct 12, 2021 7:11 pm If you were going to try a "defensive categories only" attempt again, what kind of weapon would you use to take a crack at it? Mindstars again?

Mindstars by default. One-handed weapons if using Krog. Depending on how you count "offensive category", Earthen Power for dual shield might make the cut... and if you can find some good shields with the ego of "physical damage proc equal to your armor" that would probably also work.

LordKarasuman wrote: ↑Tue Oct 12, 2021 7:11 pm

Zeyphor wrote: ↑Mon Oct 11, 2021 9:46 pm mind sear+windtouched speed should be enough offense for anything before madness, and it only costs a good prodigy, a CP, and 5 class points, minus 1 point per loremaster escort
windtouched speed reduces cds by a minimum of 1 turn, so that means 1 turn mind sears

Does this actually work?

Yes. Here's a character in the vault that demonstrates the one-turn cooldown on Mindsear.

visage wrote: ↑Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:10 pm Yes. Here's a character in the vault that demonstrates the one-turn cooldown on Mindsear.

Well, I mean, I know that Windtouched Speed does change Mind Sear into essentially something you can spam every turn. But did you ever think at any point in late game, "Oh, Mind Sear isn't enough for this encounter, I better use Distortion/Dream Hammer talents"?

Yea, solipsists are pretty strong, I only have 3 unmoded insane RL winners and one of them is Solipsist. Haven't used Windtouched Speed though, went for the Eye of the Tiger which let me spam Psychic Assault talents every turn even above 100% global speed.
https://te4.org/characters/126694/tome/ ... 4379200262

LordKarasuman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 11, 2021 5:01 pm I understand the logic behind this, and I think part of it comes from the uh... The 1.5 Antimagic Archmage win? I'm curious if anyone has replicated that in 1.7.

I haven't tried but I guess it may actually be easier because
1) early game is a lot easier
2) Ethereal Form, an extremely powerful defensive prodigy has been introduced
3) the current game meta allows you to ignore weapon enemies in mid-late game just by accumulating defense, which was totally impossible in 1.5
4) although weapon damage is nerfed, Flexible Combat is greatly buffed so your final DPT should be higher
5) antimagic itself is buffed again, as well as the Krog race