ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I've played over 50 hours of this game and I love it, but I can't seem to get very far. On normal/adventure I just got my highest which was level 16. Before that I tried easy/adventure and only got to around level 36.

I'm sure part of it is that certain classes/builds are stronger than others, but maybe I'm missing something. I've read a guide of which areas to go to which has been helpful:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =316984973

I wouldn't mind some general advice and also information on which classes are easier and which are harder, but I'd prefer not anything too specific like "choose this class and this ability/spell because it's OP".

Also, I would like to know more about game mechanics in terms of what stats, armor rating, etc. are good to have. I've looked at the wiki, but I don't really feel like crunching numbers.

1) You might be trying to do exactly what the quest log says to do. Instead of exploring the world for some easier filler dungeons.

2) You might be playing on Roguelike.

3) Not learning when to run away and how to use inscriptions properly.

if you can't play on normal, go on easy.

stats
Str: gives you PP, PS and carrying capacity.
increase your weapon damage, and is required to equip most of the items. higher tiers require more str
if you are a melee character, you need it. also, if you are an archer you would probably also like it.

Dex: accuracy and dodge.
this stat is rather important for most of the weapon users, but with dodge it is also useful to casters.
required for rogues, and dagger arcane blades. crit shrug chance may also be useful.


Con: 4hp per.
there are other ways to defend yourself, and in the entire game, there is literally a single category, that uses con.
some skills may scale with it but i cant think any on top of my head.
in my opinion stat dump at best.

magic: SP and SS.
i used to put as much as i can into this, whenever i play a magic user. now i just put as much as i need to for the talent requirements.

WILL: MP, MS, max mana, max psi, max stamina, vim/kill...
in general, its a resource bar extension, so, not all that super important, unless you are a psionic, wielder, or paradox user.
however it is still worth of consideration, as there are many talents that scale with will, and you may find a will based category outside of the above mentioned classes. for example, Skirmisher's "tireless combatant".

cunning: crits, MP and MS
crit is the only non resource stats that doesn't have diminishing returns, and apply to pretty much every attack.
there are also some talents, that scale with cunning or otherwise benefit from it. for example, arcane combat, sun's vengeance, celestial/light, unified body and more.

---

armour and armour hardiness
lets say you have 25 armour and 20% hardiness.
if you are attacked by an attack doing 100 flat damage, your armour hardiness would reduce it by 20, so you only take 80.
at this point its easy to grasp what's happening. attack has been reduced by 20%, which is equal to the armour hardiness.
now lets say we rise armour hardiness to 50%. now, you only take 75 damage... so it was reduced by 25, which is the armour.
increasing the hardiness didn't had much of an effect, because your armour hardiness cannot reduce the attack by more than your armour value.
or you can say that "attack will be reduced by either xx% or yy, whichever is lower".
this, while powerful, having to rise 2 stats for 1 effect may be a little troublesome.

so is it woth investing in? depends.
if you rise it high, you can neutralise "below average" attacks with little to no efforts.

FATIGUE:
your armour and hardiness, will come from equipment, and the armour training generic talent.
every piece of equipment rises your fatigue, which can accumulate.
full armour can easly have over 50% fatigue, meaning all of your talents will cost that much more resources.

recommendation:
a melee fighter has to be able to take a beating, and with a decent weapon, one doesn't need resources to kill his enemies.
a caster, can usually blast enemies from a far, and if need be usually can defend him/her self in another way, however, to run out of its primary (not counting hp) resource, is the same as being stripped naked and silenced.

exception:
Vim and equilibrium care not for your fatigue. that means, you can armour up without hindering your ability to use talents.

problem:
now, after all that i wrote about armour, there is something i need to mention...
pretty sure it only stops physical damage...

Radon26 wrote: problem:
now, after all that i wrote about armour, there is something i need to mention...
pretty sure it only stops physical damage...

Armor affects all "bump" attack damage.

what about arrows and shots?

Same thing, really. Armor affects weapon damage.

Thanks for the responses. I already mentioned that I was playing on adventurer (not roguelike) and was using a guide for which areas to do first. I have found infusions very useful (although I don't pay attention to saturation levels). As for running away, I probably do need to be cautious, but often times it seems like by the time I realize the enemy is too tough it's too late to run away.

I'm sort of ambivalent about playing on easy. Partially just because of pride, but it also felt kind of grindy because much of it was easy. I tend to be impatient which is part of the problem. I also feel like playing on a harder difficulty will force me to improve.

I'm usually very interested in the numbers/statistics aspect of RPGs, but there's so much information I've kind of been overwhelmed and my brain is working well due to ongoing health issues. The wiki actually does a pretty good job explaining everything, but it's hard to know how much 3% here and 4% there are really going to make a difference.

I've often opted for armor that increases health rather than resistances because of that. I have been hesitant to put points into CON, but I did notice the Thick Skin technique reduces all damage. That's interesting that STR affects attack damage even with weapons that don't scale with STR. Again, I don't know if it's worth it, but I do have problems with carry weight so increasing STR is tempting just for that.

Crits are another thing which I'm not sure if it's worth it. There's nice synergy between Shalore and Rogue techniques in regards to crits, but seems to require a huge investment in stats and an extra 3-4% chance for crits seems like it might not be as good as something that increases overall damage. Stealth is another area I'm interested in, but that also seems like a large investment before it pays off.

If you're playing rogue you're gonna have trouble. They aren't really geared towards beginners.

Anyways, always take a look at WHY you die. That gives you the most info. Did I die because I was stunned for 8 turns? Status cleanse.

Building HP+ Gear is good. Keep on doing that.

You probably don't want to build Con. Unless you have the conditioning, con is pretty useless. 4 HP and a little bit of physical save.

Crits are good, but need crit mult or on crit effects to be worth it. You're right on stealth. It's 16 points of investment. 5/5/1/5. If you're looking to maximize your damage, you should focus on one particular damage type. Building % dam type is quite powerful once it stacks up to 50ish.

Ultimately, the best advice I can give you is read everything and look up on the forums or ask questions in the chat for the stuff you don't understand.

There are a few detrimental effect that you must watch carefully: Stun, Iceblock, Confusion, Flameshock. And you must know how to get ride of them (usually a wild infusion is the easy way out)

When I began, I died a ton because of the stun.

The one trick that helped me pass level 10-15, was to know when to use a wild infusion.

eg: Iceblock from the Shade (or other) is a physical effect. The shade killed me time after time cause I didnt know how to get ride the effect and used my best spell/skill for nothing.


I'm more than 200 hours into the game, I still die a lot because of Stun. Or because of some detrimental effect (eg: high poison DoT I only checked too late ). Good luck have fun.

i once charged into a room fool of pyromancers and cryomancers...
i have been perma iceblocked and flameshocked.
all the while being mauled by the boss.

and i survived for quite a while in that sorry state.
http://te4.org/characters/54105/tome/aa ... 90becdd813

their attacks didn't do much to me because i had a good defence and some healing from vitality.

but because i couldn't move a finger they eventually took down the poor bastard.

So after a few more playthroughs on normal I decided to sacrifice my pride and go back to easy. I really need to play through the entire game with different classes to get a better idea of how the game works.

With runes/infusions I usually go for shield/fast heal/regen, but maybe I should consider wild infusion. I'm not sure what to swap out though unless I buy an extra slot with category points. I'm still somewhat new even though I've sunk a lot of hours into this game so I want to try out the categories first.

I just finished a rogue playthrough (got to around lvl 17-18 I think) and I learned a bit more how stealth works. It's actually pretty synergistic with crits because later on you get an ability to stay hidden even after doing actions so you're guaranteed multiple criticals. The strange thing is enemies can still target you if you're "hidden" which initially confused me and made me think it wasn't working.

1. You know, the easy way is, donate and play exploration(infinite lives).

2. harder difficulty also has their advantage: more rares means more exp, better equipment. And if you are playing on insane, there are lots of rare NPC to drown, getting you pretty nice equipments plus a probable 4+ level before even starting any dungeon runs.

3. Wild: physical is a must in the early game, teleport is also in high priority. Nobody uses wild infusion to reduce damage, it's for status removal. Stun, pin, blind etc can easily screw your life. This game is more about staying alive. And it is usually some unexpected that kills you, Extra 200 life from heal or shield may not help, but wild then teleport can at least help you run away.

Lotus97 wrote:So after a few more playthroughs on normal I decided to sacrifice my pride and go back to easy. I really need to play through the entire game with different classes to get a better idea of how the game works.

With runes/infusions I usually go for shield/fast heal/regen, but maybe I should consider wild infusion. I'm not sure what to swap out though unless I buy an extra slot with category points. I'm still somewhat new even though I've sunk a lot of hours into this game so I want to try out the categories first.

I just finished a rogue playthrough (got to around lvl 17-18 I think) and I learned a bit more how stealth works. It's actually pretty synergistic with crits because later on you get an ability to stay hidden even after doing actions so you're guaranteed multiple criticals. The strange thing is enemies can still target you if you're "hidden" which initially confused me and made me think it wasn't working.

Correct you are starting to get it. If you are playing to 16 without ever getting something to remove conditions you are causing yourself a huge burden. Stealth is mostly only useful for crits, it mostly worhtless for defense etc.

Next step is to realize that movement infusions are extremely powerful, both because getting to something and striking first is strong but also because it give stun/pin immunity which is very strong for melee. Then to figure out how to get a solid defense and/or offense going. You will also want to pay especial attention to positioning and corners etc as in any roguelike. Special tricks like telepathy via wand of clairvoyance and using mindblast torques early on can help a lot as well. There are numerous more advanced things to learn such as armor can entirely nullify melee crits since its applied before the multiplier and multiplying by 0 is still 0 etc. or that getting spellshocked can make you take a whole lot more damage. Or that wilf infusion remove cross tier effects for free.

I don't recommend playing on easy or exploration mode if you want to get better at the game.
You need to have meaningful deaths to learn.

What classes are you playing? And what monsters/abilities of theirs are killing you?

Use a torque that reduces physical or elemental damage. Have a teleportation rune to escape if you can't beat a monster. Stack status immunities from equipment. Stun/blindness and confusion are the most common (and devastating) status afflictions so prioritize them.