ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

This is the only class in the game that I haven't figured out. I kind of wanted to try out a Ghoul but it doesn't seem viable… but that's my problem, nothing seems viable for a Bulwark. Any advice?

Forewarning: I have not beaten the game with this, or with anything else for that matter, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. With that out of the way...

I did an antimagic Thalore Bulwark that survived pretty well. I just pumped pure defense skills, mostly ignoring the offence lines, and as soon as I hit level 14 I did antimagic and went to the peak to get Fungus. That is the key moment-get Fungus (and save your generics until you can get it so you can immediately get the benefits) and two good regen infusions and you'll be able to regen tank just about anything.

In addition, use Last Stand. It roots you in spot, but makes you even harder to take down. Find a spot where you can stay safe from mass hordes, plant your mushrooms in the earth, and kill all who come your way. I actually only died because I stupidly deactivated it at low health, and it dropped me from about 200 (with Last Stand bonus) down to 14. I was killed next turn.

Your only major danger at this point is ranged attackers (or melee burst damage, but if that kills you you're in a too dangerous spot anyway). You'll need two things to cover this (and should probably get these early on). A movement infusion and a torque of physchoportation. The infusion is to close in to mages and murder them before they can murder you, and the torque is for whenever things go south. Use it often, even as early as half health. Discretion is the better part of valor.

Hope this helps. And if anyone else has better advice for Delmuir here, I'd advise listening to it more than me. Again, I died with this. (Roguelike mode, so that was it, and didn't actually have teleportation on me. I'm kinda dumb at this game.) Good luck.

My method is exactly the opposite of the previous poster's.. and again, I haven't beaten the game yet either, but my Bulwark is doing VERY well against everything I'm facing, currently.

For one thing, I did not go Antimagic. In fact, almost everything I'm wearing is arcane powered. Suck it, Zigur. But seriously, teleport runes and speed infusions are must-haves.

Anyway, I ignore Last Stand. Immobility is DEATH. Get Rush to at least 3/5, but higher never hurts. Get Step Up and, when you can, Blinding Speed. Stack up saving throws and resistances. Keep some spare rings in your inventory for resistances, in fact. That way if you run into, say, a whole ROOM full of fire wyrms, you can throw on a few fire resist rings and shrug off their attacks. Thick Skin is obviously a must.

During the low levels, you'll almost be required to use a the shield torques. Trust me, they're good. When you can knock off, say, the first 70 points of damage from any given element, you turn a room full of mages from instant-death to children with spitballs. During higher levels you can probably stop using them and rely on just your resists and your enormous HP.

Your goal is going to be to kill enemies fast and hard. Against melee heavy enemies you really have nothing to fear; block so that you take no damage and give them the counterstrike debuff, then smash their faces in. Against ranged enemies, rush and do much the same. The only things that can threaten you are enemies that deal magic damage like wizards and wyrms, and in that case you really just need to deal as much damage as you can, as fast as you can, and be prepared to bail if your HP is low.

As for races, I'd say ghoul is a really bad choice because as I keep emphasizing, for a melee character, MOBILITY IS LIFE. A few good races IMO are Thaloren (for the extra all-resist), Dwarf (Stone walking is a wonderful escape button) or Shaloren (Timeless will make all your buffs last longer). Even Cornac can be pretty good, because chances are you'll have plenty of leftover talent points and wish you had another category to spend them on. And five infusions are a MUST.

I'll give you a few key pointers that were game changing to me when I figured them out:
*Armor is not as important as you probably think. Blocking will provide more than enough physical damage absorption. FOCUS ON ELEMENTAL RESISTS.
*Just because you're the 'tank' class doesn't mean you can just stand there and duke it out, surrounded. You're not a berserker with Unstoppable and Death Dance. Position yourself so that only one or two enemies at a time can attack you and you can probably regenerate faster than they hurt you thanks to Vitality.
*The biggest thing that'll get you killed is walking into a room full of mobs and taking magic damage or status effects to the face (confusion and freeze can be pretty brutal when your saves are low early game). This is why you want a speed infusion, and/or Rush/Step Up/Blinding Speed/anything to make you move fast. You want to get right up in a mage's face and hit him with a stun ASAP to reduce his damage, without letting him wail on you with lightning bolts and fireballs.
*Teleport. Speed infusion. Always have a plan to escape. Sure you're tanky, but this gets you into a bad mindset like "I'm not squishy like a rogue so I don't need to worry". you get mentally lazy and you find yourself in a situation where your slow, armor-plated butt can't waddle away fast enough. Escape BEFORE things go bad.

To go along with DaltonRaccoon, elemental resists on your shield actually lets them block that element.

Let's say you have a room of Fire Wyrms-if you have a Steel Shield of Fire Resistance, your block ability will now block fire damage too. So keep all rings and all shields of resistance you find.

As for Last Stand, it should be gotten at least at level 1. Helps that the skills leading up to it are pretty damn nice too. It's debatable whether or not to start a fight with it, but if you find yourself low on HP and with all your escape options cut off, at level 1 Last Stand and character level 20, it'll add about 200 HP and make you die at -200, effectively giving you an extra 400 HP at the cost of mobility.

And at DaltonRaccoon, your arcane powered perversions can burn in Urh'Rok. Life came from nature, and your arcane atrocities bring only pain and death.

So, i have beaten the game with the bulwark 2 times, with shalore and with Cormac. Obviously there are more and maybe even better ways to win, but this is how i did it. I didn't really much understand what i was doing on the Shalore, and so the Racial saved me every time i got disarmed, along with the skill you get from the Paladin on the 2nd continent. My 2nd character, the Cormac i had alot better idea of what i was doing and what was useful. This is what i learned.

http://te4.org/characters/111170/tome/5 ... c8d18fbd1f - Cormac

http://te4.org/characters/111170/tome/7 ... 170fd60da0 - Shalore


Character Screen Selections:
I dump everything fairly evenly in Con and Str, after those are maxed, i go for dex. After that i go for Wilpower just for the rolls.
I start off the game maxing my Infusion slots. 2 direct heals, 2 Heal over times, and 1 teleport.
Along this line, Fast Metabolism is amazing early game and should be maxed.

Shield Offense Category - max all skills (only really need 4 in Risposte)
Shield Defense Category - A few in shield wall if u want (i don't use it much at all) and max out Shield Expertise pretty much everything besides S.Expertise sucks in here)
Combat Techniques - Max the first 2, Rush and Precise Strikes
Combat Veteran - Max it all (Besides metabolism, it should be done quite late game)
Superiority - Max Shattering impact (Its AOE is the BOMB)

Prodigies - Eternal Guard (first) and Spectral Shield (second)

Dangers:
At all points in the game, being disarmed is a great way to die. Its the worst thing that can pretty much happen to u as a bulwark. Get Disarm resist on gloves and rings to max it out if u can. The swordbreaker dagger is also very useful.

Beyond this, magic is generally how u will die otherwise. For me the hard part was to not get too crazy. I roll around as a bulwark smashing things faces in, then all of a sudden i'm surrounded and having dudes casting on me.

For times like this, and for when disarmed, i use the teleport glyph. It just gets me out. Only 1 time has it ever put me in a worse spot. Teleporting probably saved my life about 50 times a game.

I don't use shield wall much at all, i do always keep Precise Strikes up tho, and later in the game Shattering Impact (its my AOE). Shield wall is just not needed and it lowers ur damage. Also armor was not really a big factor, but i used The Untouchable in each game i won. If u don't plan to use this, or don't get it, high armor and Shield wall might be needed.

Shattering Impact is AMAZING. It is ur one and only aoe, and its totally worth it. You hit a mob for 4k with an Assult, and BAM everything arround that guy is dead too. Or you can focus bosses, and just know that everything around him is going to die without u even trying. With Unending Frenzy maxxed out, u won't ever have to worry about ur stamina, and can pretty much just keep Shattering impact buff up at all times. Mind you, the point required for this may mean that u pick less poopy stuff like Last Stand, Perfect Strike, Blinding Speed, Shield Wall, and Repulsion. So keep that in mind when going about ur build. I can def say it is worth by far.

In my best game i also managed to save an alchemist. When i did, i picked up the Stone category offered. That gem in the chest can provide more bonuses in multiple ways than just boosting a 0.2 in one of the already learned categories. With the exception of Shield Offense. You can use the stone imbue to boost ur damage, or get stun resist, or whatever. Its great to boost deficiencies.

Always use a shield block value 5 shield. It gives u uninterrupted shield block up time. Also the type of element on the shield means it can block that type. I generally stick with fire, until i get late game Temporal Rift. I also use as many +healing items i can get, as they boost infusion heals and the natural regen your have. The Untouchable is my chest peice of choice, but barring that a Troll skin breastplate of Eyal works really well.

Easy Mistakes:
Over confidence. High regen and being built like a tank sometimes make u stupid. Still hug walls, test rooms, lure things back, and use Teleport when even remotely in doubt. Its very easy to get confident and then find urself 1 shot because u got disarmed.

People will also use "Rush" to close on mobs that aren't ranged, and then have it on cooldown when u actually need it.

KEEP BLOCK UP.

Infusions that do healing over time, though u should keep healing done in mind, the more important stat is the cooldown. The best option is a 12-14 turn cooldown with a nice heal value. It lets u roll regen effects quite consistently during fights without much downtime, and u have direct heals for the downtimes (or a teleport )

This bulwark took one death early on, and then waltzed through most of the rest of the game - didn't even break a sweat on any of the end game bosses, for my first and so far only win.

http://te4.org/characters/16204/tome/d7 ... 0194f0a807

Shield Wall is a core skill for maximizing your defense and getting you stun immunity as early as possible. Power is Money, Spell Shield, and Unflinching Resolve will generally help make you very condition resistant as well, so you can devote most of your infusion slots to regens/heals and movement - you generally shouldn't need effect removal, though earlier in the game a teleport is still advisable, later when you get really tough you probably just won't need it.

Shield Pummel, Ripost and Assault are usually the core of your offense. At the time I did this play through, the shields that gave converted armor damage bonuses didn't exist, or he would have maxed Overpower as well to take advantage of them. You'll want a few other special attacks through items or skills to round out your offense, but take whatever suits your fancy.

Stuns are nice for keeping dangerous enemies subdued early in the game while you beat them down, but aren't as effective later, though it's always worth checking - even some of the very final bosses are not stun immune.

For the most part you should never have to worry about physical threats after level 15 or so - it's all about magic, and killing mages is about mobility and single target offense. So Step Up, Rush, and Blinding Speed are all very helpful. You end up ping-ponging around the room, one shotting any caster that is stupid enough not to have a shield up - and once your offense really gets rolling, even their shields won't matter any more. You do NOT have any AOE and it isn't really worth trying to get it. Focus on being able to jump from target to target at incredible speed, and obliterate each one in turn, quickly reducing the strength of a room so that by the time you're out of movement there are only one or two left standing to deal with.

As a rule, all your mobility commits you to a fight, but isn't very good for getting you out of one, so it's important to be able to persist for as long as it takes. Boosting Vitality, Quick Recovery, and Death Dance, combined with the massive armor and block values you possess will give you the ability to stick it out in even the hottest fights indefinitely.

Eternal Guard is sort of a no-brainer as a Bulwark prodigy. Slightly harder to arrange (but even more powerful) is Spectral Shield. Just collect a bunch of garbage items that give great Magic bonuses and equip them so you can learn this prodigy and then throw them out. From that point on, your shield will be able to block ANY attack in the game, which vastly reduces your vulnerability to mages and breath weapon types, and then it's pretty much off to the races. This combo beats the pants off of Anti-Magic, in my opinion. Mages, dragons and demons in the late game were a joke once I got spectral shield, though even before then my mobility would generally result in the quick slaughter of roomfuls of casters, I'd just get banged up more doing it.

So that's one way to go, though from what I can see, there are at least a few other perfectly viable and powerful Bulwark builds that will see you handily to the end-game.