ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

OK, so I took my level 21 Dwarf Berserker into the Last Hope Graveyard and started opening the coffins. The first several coffins had level 35 elite vampires and ghouls, but these weren't too hard. Then I got a level 35 eternal bone giant. I only have a tier 3 gem to put into Tirakai's Maul, and my Warshout doesn't confuse a 100% resist confuse enemy. I couldn't put a dent into him; it seems he resists 75% damage and flings 50% of it my way. So I ran away. (I believe I would have died in 2-3 turns.)

The reason I went in there was to level up in preparation for the Master. I haven't attempted Dreadfell yet. So, three questions:

1) Should I attempt the first eight levels of Dreadfell, now that it's clear that I can successfully fight at least some elite undead?

2) How effective would my Duskhunger light source be against the Master? It has 30 arcane resource burn on melee hit, and I heard that the Master has a low mana pool.

3) Would my Rod of Annulment be effective in this fight?

I've done all the lower level dungeons (even Bearscape and Poosh), except for Dreadfell, Mark of the Spellblaze, and Farscape.

Level 21 is on the low side for Dreadfell (although you will still be level 24 or higher by the time you reach the Master). Have you done the Ruined Dungeon, the Halfling Complex, both parts of the Derth lightning thing, the Temporal Rift, and Lake Nur?

As Majestix said, I would do all of those listed before any of the others (having some light protection might be nice in one of those places depending on what you get...). It's been a long time since I played a dwarf, but I think you should be able to hit at least level 24 or 25 before you go to Dredfell. The Last Hope graveyard is very, very difficult and I wouldn't do it until after Dredfell. One place that I have found surprisingly easy if you are careful is the Elven Ruins. It is a level 30+ dungeon and has awesome gear. You need to be very, very careful but I tend to clear out the first level of it fairly early on because the loot is so amazingly good for the risk. I even cleared it completely with a level 16 paradox mage recently (level 18 when exiting). Mind you paradox mages are overpowered (even in 1.3.1).

To answer your questions:

1) You probably can if you want. As long as you have maxed Unflinching Resolve, then I think it's probably generally safe. I would avoid the vaults like the plague, though. There are definitely some that you won't be able to get through (depending on which come up). You will probably get some escorts -- don't get too attached to them
2) Don't know.
3) To be honest, I don't find the rod of annulment useful ever. It puts 3 talents on cooldown, but only for 3-5 turns. It's not long enough to be useful. For melee characters, a helm that gives you skull cracker is one of the best items in the game. I usually start out with it and follow up with something that stuns. That will pretty much shut down anything. Then go for the big damage blows. With a berserker you can get the same effect with warshout followed by stunning blow

With the master, there is one item that you will want to try to get in advance: torque of psychoportation. When you are up against a foe that is stronger than you, you want to make sure that you can go one on one. I don't think it is a spoiler to say that the master is a necromancer and so going one on one is sometimes difficult. You need a "get out of Dodge city" technique. Then circle around picking off the weaklings until you can get to the master again. It is really easy to get surrounded and in trouble in that fight. Also, not to be spoiler-ish, but make sure you can withstand a lot of damage (really good armour/good healing/good shields). You will need it eventually.

mikekchar wrote:3) To be honest, I don't find the rod of annulment useful ever. It puts 3 talents on cooldown, but only for 3-5 turns. It's not long enough to be useful.

If those 3-5 turns break them out of a healing/stun cycle on a long fight, they can be exceedingly useful. Doesn't happen often, but it can and does come up.

Majestix wrote:Level 21 is on the low side for Dreadfell (although you will still be level 24 or higher by the time you reach the Master). Have you done the Ruined Dungeon, the Halfling Complex, both parts of the Derth lightning thing, the Temporal Rift, and Lake Nur?

I've done all of these, except for the Temporal Rift. I haven't died in Adventure Mode, so right now I have five lives, plus the resurrection guaranteed by the Blood of Life. I didn't want to waste all those lives by dying in the Temporal Rift. BTW, can Blood of Life be used to get back if you die in the Temporal Rift?

Also, I should have stated this earlier, but I stupidly stepped into most of these dungeons at 1st level and then stepped out, thus locking in their low levels. I'll never do that again. Yes, it makes the dungeons easier when you go there later, but it completely ruins all escort missions, and it lowers the level of loot that you eventually get. It also leaves you xp-deprived when you get to my present crossroads. Better to face these dungeons when you first step into them.

mikekchar wrote:It's been a long time since I played a dwarf, but I think you should be able to hit at least level 24 or 25 before you go to Dredfell.

Well, I've done the first level or two of Dreadfell, and so leveled up to 22. But keep in mind that I stepped into Dredfell at level one and then stepped out, thus locking most of the critters to lower levels (cf. previous post). I won't make that mistake again.

mikekchar wrote:The Last Hope graveyard is very, very difficult and I wouldn't do it until after Dredfell.

Given the level 35 eternal bone giant, I agree!

mikekchar wrote:One place that I have found surprisingly easy if you are careful is the Elven Ruins. It is a level 30+ dungeon and has awesome gear. You need to be very, very careful but I tend to clear out the first level of it fairly early on because the loot is so amazingly good for the risk. I even cleared it completely with a level 16 paradox mage recently (level 18 when exiting). Mind you paradox mages are overpowered (even in 1.3.1).

I'll definitely keep that in mind; thanks!

mikekchar wrote:As long as you have maxed Unflinching Resolve, then I think it's probably generally safe.

Actually, I've put no points into Unflinching Resolve, so I guess I should prioritize that. (I maxed out Vitality, however.)

mikekchar wrote:To be honest, I don't find the rod of annulment useful ever. It puts 3 talents on cooldown, but only for 3-5 turns. It's not long enough to be useful.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I have found it useful in particular situations, however.

mikekchar wrote:For melee characters, a helm that gives you skull cracker is one of the best items in the game. I usually start out with it and follow up with something that stuns. That will pretty much shut down anything.

Yes, but this is a hard choice, because I also have the Steel Helm of Garkul. That gives me great boosts to armor, three stats (+5 Str, +4 Wil, +5 Con), and all three saves (+12 each). That's pretty good! But I also have a bladed dwarven steel-helm that lets me do 307 damage with Skullcracker. It's a hard choice as to which I wear.

mikekchar wrote:With the master, there is one item that you will want to try to get in advance: torque of psychoportation. When you are up against a foe that is stronger than you, you want to make sure that you can go one on one.

I don't have one yet. I do have a Rune of Teleportation (15 min, 80 max).

mikekchar wrote:I don't think it is a spoiler to say that the master is a necromancer and so going one on one is sometimes difficult. You need a "get out of Dodge city" technique. Then circle around picking off the weaklings until you can get to the master again. It is really easy to get surrounded and in trouble in that fight. Also, not to be spoiler-ish, but make sure you can withstand a lot of damage (really good armour/good healing/good shields). You will need it eventually.

I can't be spoiled on the Master, because I defeated him with a previous character (one of the greatest moments I ever had in this game). But that was a Shalore Summoner (26th level). My berserker gets into the thick of things rather than hanging back, so I'm a bit worried about various conditions being inflicted on me.

I only have a tier 3 gem in my Tirakai's Maul, and I'd really like a tier 5 gem!

Danton wrote:

mikekchar wrote:3) To be honest, I don't find the rod of annulment useful ever. It puts 3 talents on cooldown, but only for 3-5 turns. It's not long enough to be useful.

If those 3-5 turns break them out of a healing/stun cycle on a long fight, they can be exceedingly useful. Doesn't happen often, but it can and does come up.

Yeah, I forget which, but it was either the boss in Bearscape or Poosh, but the Rod of Annulment really helped the time I used it.

Mm... about your best chance for a tier 5 gem at this point, if you haven't already closed the quest, would be finishing off the derth alchemist's requests. Probably the earliest you can get one, barring fairly extreme luck (and probably gem extraction). Tier 5 stuff is very uncommon in the west, especially at that low a level.

As for the graveyard, it's... honestly more of a "whenever" than "later". I usually (try to) do it around level 18, myself, to minimize the chances of something really nasty popping out of the sarcophagi. 8 times out of 10, it gets cleared at that point, with the rest split between dying and fleeing, heh.

And yeaaah, unflinching resolve's considerably more useful than vitality, especially for notable investment. Getting it up to at least 3 or 4 ASAP is usually a pretty good idea, especially if you're intending to put points into the general conditioning stuff anyway -- definitely prioritize it over vitality in the future. Vitality is "good enough" with just the one point, usually. Alright place to toss otherwise unneeded generics, but it definitely doesn't benefit substantially from extra investment (whereas unflinching resolve very much does, tremendously).

Though clearing out some of dreadfell isn't that big of a deal. Most of it really isn't that bad, so long as you don't run in to a particularly nasty unique or rare, and can deal with the worse of the elite undead (master archers, armored warriors, dreads/dreadmasters -- everything else in there are mostly chumps. And none of those are really that hard to deal with.).

Frumple wrote:Mm... about your best chance for a tier 5 gem at this point, if you haven't already closed the quest, would be finishing off the derth alchemist's requests.

OK, I'll look into that. I need an ice ant stinger for the Derth alchemist, and I haven't been able to find one.

Frumple wrote:As for the graveyard, it's... honestly more of a "whenever" than "later". I usually (try to) do it around level 18, myself, to minimize the chances of something really nasty popping out of the sarcophagi. 8 times out of 10, it gets cleared at that point, with the rest split between dying and fleeing, heh.

Yes, I definitely remember the graveyard being much weaker last time I did it, which is strange, seeing as I stepped in and out of it at 1st level. There's no way I faced level 35 eternal bone giants last time.

Frumple wrote:And yeaaah, unflinching resolve's considerably more useful than vitality, especially for notable investment. Getting it up to at least 3 or 4 ASAP is usually a pretty good idea, especially if you're intending to put points into the general conditioning stuff anyway -- definitely prioritize it over vitality in the future. Vitality is "good enough" with just the one point, usually. Alright place to toss otherwise unneeded generics, but it definitely doesn't benefit substantially from extra investment (whereas unflinching resolve very much does, tremendously).

Well, I've been using this guide to berserkers, and he didn't make too much of a differentiation between Vitality and Unflinching Resolve. But now that I read the talent descriptions more closely, yeah, I should have prioritized Unflinching Resolve.

A few version back Vitality received a massive buff, followed by a massive nerf. It's possible there are still some hold-overs from that.

The graveyard is a weird case where it starts hard, gets easier as you get better skills and equipment, gets harder again when your level exceeds the minimum for certain nastier undead (rarer vampires and bone giants are usually what hit me the worst once they get classes), then more manageable again once your skills and equipment catch up. A lot of it is also luck, since bone giants only need a few useful skills to be really, really hard to kill. I usually save it for around level 20, when I'd do Daikara, but a) I play on normal with powerful classes and b) I'm also super paranoid about Daikara because of how many early characters I lost there.

twas Brillig wrote:A few version back Vitality received a massive buff, followed by a massive nerf. It's possible there are still some hold-overs from that.

The graveyard is a weird case where it starts hard, gets easier as you get better skills and equipment, gets harder again when your level exceeds the minimum for certain nastier undead (rarer vampires and bone giants are usually what hit me the worst once they get classes), then more manageable again once your skills and equipment catch up. A lot of it is also luck, since bone giants only need a few useful skills to be really, really hard to kill. I usually save it for around level 20, when I'd do Daikara, but a) I play on normal with powerful classes and b) I'm also super paranoid about Daikara because of how many early characters I lost there.

Yeah, Daikara has traditionally been a very, very scary place. On my current run, I did the "visit it at 1st level and then step back out" trick, and the entire thing was a walk in the park when I entered it again at level 19. Very disappointing!

BTW, I just got Arcane Eye from an escort quest in Dreadfell level 2, and I had a look at one of the vaults on that level (which apparently has no entrance?!). It has a *huge* number of high-level baddies. The vault must take up the entire southern half of the level! Yeah, I'm saving that for later

Greater Vaults sometimes have their entrances concealed in the walls. This can make them easy to miss, unless they're one of the giants ones and you notice that your level seems weirdly small. Go digging!

Againt him, I'm trying two things. Using an item or talent that shatter shield. And also reduce his heals with open wounds, or use the infusion that reduce Healing recieve.
Or it can be an endless fight.

twas Brillig wrote:Greater Vaults sometimes have their entrances concealed in the walls. This can make them easy to miss, unless they're one of the giants ones and you notice that your level seems weirdly small. Go digging!

Noooo waaaaay

BTW, it does seem like a giant one, because the level is weirdly small!

Talentir wrote:Againt him, I'm trying two things. Using an item or talent that shatter shield. And also reduce his heals with open wounds, or use the infusion that reduce Healing recieve.
Or it can be an endless fight.

By "him" do you mean the Master, or the eternal bone giant?