ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

After trying to start a ghoul cursed some 8 times now, I give up, and I doubt the initial quest is working as intended.

For one, isn't the level 7 boss supposed to be optional? However, leaving the area without killing him doesn't update the quest, it just hangs there as active in the quest journal.

Also, that quest seems terribly unbalanced. I'm sure SOME undead classes can beat a level 7 boss that has a damage shield and hits like a truck when they are level 2-3, but a ghoul cursed seriously can't. Not without dying at least once. The main issues are the ghoul's movement penalty, and the bosses damage shield. If the boss is required to complete the quest, please rebalance it.

> However, leaving the area without killing him doesn't update the quest, it just hangs there as active in the quest journal.

This does not change the fact that quest is totally optional. The only thing you really need from starting dungeon is cloak of deception

> I'm sure SOME undead classes can beat a level 7 boss that has a damage shield and hits like a truck when they are level 2-3, but a ghoul cursed seriously can't.

Some race + class combinations are good and some are bad. As undead you should probably focus on classes that start with heightened senses talent or something else that improves vision. If you insist to play race / class combo that does not start with great dps talent and is basically blind (vision range 2 in darkness) you should expect quick and painful death.

I believe that the undead starting quest is very difficult, but that, ideally, it *should* be possible to complete with any undead race/class combo. That doesn't seem to be the case currently, so I believe it should be tuned and tweaked until it is. I don't think it should be a cakewalk for undead of any class, some classes will have it tougher than others, but it should never be impossible for a class to complete, as it is now.

Hopefully you were talking about normal mode, this might actually be very hard to do in nightmare cause all of the archers and mages that are there, http://te4.org/characters/112195/tome/f ... caa214da96.

hints:

• use your runes, dont fight without shield rune up, kite back till it comes out of cooldown, enemies will get only one hit every five turns you are a ghoul you will takes those hits like a champ
• use rats to block more dangerous enemies from getting to you, dont kill them till you have all your cooldowns ready
• if you are surrounded get yourself in an blind alley and use phasedoor, you are almost guaranteed to make it past the wall and leave your enemies behind.
• when the boss raises his shield kite back and phase door don't fight him with his shield up.
• I was having problems killing the boss till I invested 3 points in dexterity after that killing it was easy.
  
  I died once (and had to restart) while doing this because I opened a vault .

I've done it with ghoul cursed multiple times, my problem with ghoul cursed is once i make it out.

Make judicial use of your phase door and shield runes. The boss dosent regen HP. Smack him a few times, shield up, once shield is down phase door away, rest, repeat. Usually works pretty well for me.

Its just rather lame that you have to do that on normal difficulty.

Sradac wrote: Make judicial use of your phase door and shield runes. The boss dosent regen HP. Smack him a few times, shield up, once shield is down phase door away, rest, repeat. Usually works pretty well for me.

This doesn't work because the boss uses a damage shield, by the time it's whittled down with a crappy two-handed weapon drop at level 2-3 it's time use phase door, and he's still at full health. Even just taking his damage shield away would make this quest doable. And as someone else said, the starter quests including the undead one should be doable with any race / class combo, not just an optimized one. Heck, the yeek quests are doable with a yeek archmage.

I've played said yeek archmage quite successfully, so I don't think the problem is me.

CelesTial wrote:

Sradac wrote: Make judicial use of your phase door and shield runes. The boss dosent regen HP. Smack him a few times, shield up, once shield is down phase door away, rest, repeat. Usually works pretty well for me.

This doesn't work because the boss uses a damage shield, by the time it's whittled down with a crappy two-handed weapon drop at level 2-3 it's time use phase door, and he's still at full health. Even just taking his damage shield away would make this quest doable. And as someone else said, the starter quests including the undead one should be doable with any race / class combo, not just an optimized one. Heck, the yeek quests are doable with a yeek archmage.

I've played said yeek archmage quite successfully, so I don't think the problem is me.

Man read the posts of your own thread getting out of that dungeon is not even hard to do, I posted proof and tips to do it.........

I'm pretty sure that the boss doesn't use it's ranged nuke if you are right next to it (as it would hurt itself too). The ranged nuke can be quite nasty so this has saved some of my weaker characters (or then I've just had extreme luck with the monster AI but I'm betting on the former).

So what I do with weaker classes is 1) hit him while his bone shied is down while using skelly'/ghoul's own shielding runes , 2) then retreat when the bone shield comes back up with the boss right next to my character then go back to 1) again. Ghouls may have to use phase door because of the slow speed so this is definitely trickier than with skeletons because an unlucky phase door may put you into nuking range.

And BTW, DON'T open any vaults in that starting dungeon. Skeleton master archers are kind of difficult to handle at level 2.

It's definitely a tricky place and ghoul cursed is probably the worst starting character in that place (or at least the worst I can think of on the top of my head).

Whoever said that getting out of that starting dungeon is hard? It's completing the undead starter quest with any class combination of undead that should be rebalanced. If the quest updated upon leaving the dungeon, without killing the boss, that would be fine as well. Some of us just don't like having an active quest hanging in the journal forever, with no way of going back to that place later.

By the way, I'm pretty sure the boss regained health while I was resting. Maybe he was changed recently, or it's some kind of glitch. I've seen it happen with a few other rares / uniques / bosses as well, but not always. Some heal up and some don't.

The point I was trying to make with the yeek archmage is that I know how to use shield runes and phase door, and when to use them. That boss is still an impossibility for a ghoul cursed, especially with no halfway decent weapon drop.

I just tried this combination and killed the bone giant on second try. It's pretty horrible but definitely not as hard as you make it sound. That doesn't mean that it couldn't be rebalanced: skeleton mages and warriors are pretty tough nut to crack for level 1 character and those vaults probably make new players cry.

The bone giant really isn't the biggest threat there though and it can be kited if you have killed the other monsters first so that you don't get caught between it and a skeleton warrior.

I keep making suggestions but nothing happens.

HousePet wrote:I keep making suggestions but nothing happens.

Ooh! I want to read these! Link please?

My latest post: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=40678