ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So I've been trying to play the Cursed class this week, and even though they have some talent-based effects that mention dual wielding, I can't seem to equip two weapons. Is there something I'm missing?

The offhand weapon can only be a dagger or mindstar. Only Reavers get to dual wield two full size one handers.

Is it worth dual wielding as Cursed, then? Should I go heavy into mindstars, or just sword+dagger or somesuch?

I've been going sword-and-board at low levels because survivability at the start is brutally low, but my latest character has moved quite a bit up the power curve after passing level 10.

Mindstars can work well on a Cursed as they are a Willpower based class, but you would probably not use them that much until picking up the appropriate talents and getting some higher tier Mindstars. Instead you would use either Two Handed Weapons or Shields for the interim - for the starting levels before 10 as you might guess.

I probably wouldn't bother with Daggers on a Cursed - going with a One Handed Sword and a Mindstar maybe, but not a Dagger.

I've tried a sword-and-dagger Cursed a few times without any real success. Unless you find a SUPER-MEGA-AWESOME dagger, investing the points into Dexterity isn't worth the time. The only real benefit from dual-wielding is a small Defense bonus from Surge; your Cursed will likely never get much Defense so a small boost isn't interesting, and the movement bonus is the real benefit for Surge.

If you're interested in a dual-wielding Hate class, you can check out the Nullpack addon for the Creep.

Isotope-X wrote:I've tried a sword-and-dagger Cursed a few times without any real success. Unless you find a SUPER-MEGA-AWESOME dagger, investing the points into Dexterity isn't worth the time. The only real benefit from dual-wielding is a small Defense bonus from Surge; your Cursed will likely never get much Defense so a small boost isn't interesting, and the movement bonus is the real benefit for Surge.

If you're interested in a dual-wielding Hate class, you can check out the Nullpack addon for the Creep.

Sounds like the best paths, then, are two-handers or dual mindstars.

I might go for the former on my current character, since he's a Dwarf, but maybe mindstars would be good for a Cornac who has the extra category point to burn.

Dual wielding just seemed like a better idea than two-handers because it gets you an extra curse.

You don't need the cat point for mindstars if you've got cash!

You're right. I should have remembered that since I bought the staff category on an archmage the other day, and I've seen the mindstar trainer in Zigur.

I'll see how long my cursed dwarf lives. I think I have some good mindstars stashed in my item vault.

HunterZ wrote: Sounds like the best paths, then, are two-handers or dual mindstars.

I wouldn't say so: a longsword/axe/mace and a mindstar make at least as much sense as dual mindstars, and you still get the extra curse. In many situations, mindstars are better than a dagger but worse than a normal mainhand weapon.

The problem with mindstars is that they almost always do either nature or mind type damage, but Rampage boosts physical. The other problem is that low tier mindstars suck; they only start being decent around tier 3.

On the other hand, a mindstar in your off hand is pretty decent since you're building the stats for it anyway and mindstars' damage isn't reduced when wielded off-hand (while a dagger's main damage is cut by 50% and Cursed don't have any talents to change that). Plus you may be more interested in their on-hit effects than the plain damage.

jotwebe wrote:The problem with mindstars is that they almost always do either nature or mind type damage, but Rampage boosts physical. The other problem is that low tier mindstars suck; they only start being decent around tier 3.

On the other hand, a mindstar in your off hand is pretty decent since you're building the stats for it anyway and mindstars' damage isn't reduced when wielded off-hand (while a dagger's main damage is cut by 50% and Cursed don't have any talents to change that). Plus you may be more interested in their on-hit effects than the plain damage.

Don't forget their other effects like granting resistances, giving category/talents a boost, or other attributes of use. I'm not sure if Cursed have their own defined type of Mindstar but I fully understand how powerful they can come off being from my use of the 'Eye of the Wyrm' on my Yeek Wyrmic winner.

If they don't have their own specific mindstar it might be worth thinking up one that they could maybe use too.

AFAIK neither Cursed nor Doomed have any artifact mindstars that are tailored for them, although they do have egos that increase max hate or grant hate on (mind-)crits (I think). Maybe that is the cause for their anger?

Checking the artifact database pretty much confirms the lack of cursed mindstars.
There is one darkness based mindstar that can only drop in the Dark Crypt.
There is also one mindstar commented out in the code, that looks like it was designed for Cursed.
I suspect there was some issue with the ability that lets you change it from being a mindstar to an axe and vice versa.

However, that isn't to say that there aren't good mindstars that you could use. Core of the Forge, Nexus of the Way and Psionic Fury would work fine for Doomed.
Eye of the Worm and Core of the Forge would be okay on a Cursed.
If you went with Antimagic, Eyal's Will would also be nice.

Personally, I don't think artifacts should be tailored to specific classes, but a couple of twisted mindstar artifacts would be fine.

HousePet wrote:There is one darkness based mindstar that can only drop in the Dark Crypt.

Wow, never came across that one. If I ever do, that's one piece of loot that definitely will go into the vault.

HousePet wrote:Personally, I don't think artifacts should be tailored to specific classes, but a couple of twisted mindstar artifacts would be fine.

Heh, I personally think crawl got it right with artifacts being usually worse than a decent random. Instead we get more and more and they get buffed with every version...