ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hi!

I have unlocked two equilibrum classes (Summoner and Wyrmic) but I am having trouble using them. The only way (bar Swallow) to let your equilibrum drop is to use Meditation, but this also halves your damage. I have tried playing without Meditation on but after a few talents I start failing them. I don't really like it since you kind of depend on these talents, otherwise you could play any other class.

How am I supposed to use equilibrum/Meditation? Can someone help a newbie out?

Thanks in advance!

PS: I haven't been able to get past Dreadfell and have unlocked only a couple of things. I would appreciate it if you could avoid posting spoilers but if you think it is vital to your answer go ahead.

Equilibrium classes often play around with Wil, that also goes pretty well with Antimagic and Fungus trees. The latter has ways to reduce your equilibrium.
As for Meditation you shouldn't leave it on, just use it after fights and deactivate later. On normal mode the Summoner can play through the game with meditation on at all times pretty nicely.

Oh and Wyrmic gets Fungus tree by default, no need to go antimagic to gain access to fungus with them.

Your failure chance only starts increasing if your equilibrium is higher than your willpower, so increasing will helps.

Even when meditation is off, as long as you have a point in the skill your equilibrium will go down when resting. Make sure you rest between fights whenever possible.

Use Meditation sparingly, it's instant cast so turn it on when you have already burned your cooldowns, when you need to kite, when you heal, then turn it off again.

You can lower your equilibrium by many other means as you get farther in the game. Some items (helms and mindstars generally) lower equilibrium on hit. The anti-magic tree has the resolve skill which lowers equilibrium on hit. Third skill in the fungus tree makes regen effects lower equilibrium. The Jelly summon on the summoner lowers equilibrium when it takes damage, it's very effective.

Limit your sustained abilities. Since they raise your starting equilibrium they mean you have less to spare before you start failing, Icy Skin on the wyrmic stands out as particularly expensive for its limited value.

Use your stamina based weapon skills. Either the 2-hander tree or the shield tree can give you some skills that don't use equilibrium.

Edit: Forgot to add: Damage penalty is based on whether you have meditation up when you use the skill, so for example summoner summons will do half damage if you had meditation on when you summoned them, but if you summon them, then activate meditation they don't suffer any penalty.