Bosses new rate of healing is frustrating for some classes

[marchewka]

Sure it is similar to heal, but the psychological effect is much different. With heal, the enemy gets back to point 0. With shield, he delays the inevitable but whatever you did chip off him is still there, and counting in your favour.

[Soron]

Sorry, but I have to disagree about Shield being a heal: yes, in combat they serve much the same purpose, but out of combat... that heal lets the enemy get back to 100% health ad infinitum.

I'm actually finding this to be extremely problematic on my Anorithils, btw. Bill just does not want to die. It seems like the class is essentially unplayable at the moment, without either powerleveling (not part of ToME's design, afaik), or dumping every available point into Moonlight Ray (negates player choice, which is bad). Even at level 4, when they get access to Jumpgate and a blindness spell, they just don't have the ability to deal damage spikes, they can't keep attacking every single turn, and they don't have any incapacitation spells.

Contrast that to the Archmage that I just made, who took out Bill easily enough at level 3 with Flame, Lightning, Arcane Power, and Phase Door (all at level 1). And even if that hadn't worked, I could've just come back at level 4, when I can stun him with Freeze and Flameshock, and add Manathrust to list of damage spells.

I think Shield would more or less solve that problem. Shield + Phase Door might still be problematic on some bosses, but hopefully by the time that comes up, every class will have <i>some</i> way of dealing with that.

[darkgod]

Good point.

I have made their infusions less powerful and with higher cooldown.
If the problem is still too great with those changes I'll tighten the infusion list

[Grey]

I would also request that bosses can only have one type of healing infusion. Facing a boss wih a powerful heal and a powerful regen is quite frustrating.

[Charlatan73]

I have to say that the ideas for countering runes or infusions would be neat to implement as well.

Implementation doesn't have to be via rune or infusion, maybe a common type of wand or skill option for classes that don't use wands.

[gogis]

As mentioned above, shield is not a heal.
Just disallow NPC to healing/regen/PD/Tele infusions and fill freed slots with various runes.
Mission completed. They become sturdier with wild/shield, able to random nuke you.
Allowing situations, when battle may become infinite is just a bad design and allowing chaps to teleport around adding unnesesary tedium to seek 'em out again. Why to kill fun in the first place?

[grimwerk]

I started a few days ago with beta18, and just updated to beta19. I'm really keen on the rogue class, though the b19 version of Bill the Stone Troll was a big surprise for me. With my limited stamina and iron daggers, I couldn't deal enough damage to keep up with his healing powers. Eventually, impatience won out, and I fought him as I switched between maps to rest. A bit of a cheat, I reckon, but I just wanted to move on.

Before griping here, I created a new rogue to see if a different skill emphasis would allow me to beat Bill at a low level (4). This time, I managed to locate a steel dagger, too. Funnily enough, while I was looking for Bill, I received the "something big has fallen" message (something like that) and received the experience for the kill. I soon found Bill's loot underwater. Made me smile.

So maybe the solution is to include a lake on all boss maps.

In any case, I'm really enjoying the game, thank you!

[Canderel]

lol@grimwerk's lake suggestion

Welcome to the game/forums btw. Yes, for rogues getting a decent dagger early helps a lot.

Or you can set traps, but then that is your build. I am not very good at trap setting. Obviously dirty fighting + dual strike keeps him stunned for quite a while, but stamina is a big issue.

Other solution is also to find a nasty poison trap or even stun trap to help take him out. (I've taken out some true nasties using traps, a certain undead protecting an elven dungeon, walked into a trap loop, and died. I was very happy about that, cause i dunno if I had the firepower to kill him)

[Obsidian]

The Wierding Beast was another pain. Could heal 40% of his health at a shot, had a massive damage shield, and about a 10% a tick regen ontop of his stuns/disables/timeloop abilities. The best I was able to get him down on my decently geared Wyrmic was 60% before he'd heal back to full again. Even stair-scumming wasn't doing it.

The worst part about him was that he'd purge off my buffs... bye bye Icy Skin, made him quite a bit more dangerous too.... oddly enough, my archmage managed to kill him, but only through use of excessive stuns/freezes.

You have room to improve their damage/skills/#s and whatnot, they don't need to be able to heal.

[Zaive]

I'm waiting on b20 just for this fix.... it seems like bosses are too much trouble right now.

[erdraug]

I'm waiting on b20 just for this fix.... it seems like bosses are too much trouble right now.

I thought this was a design choice since (with the new sell system bosses are pretty much the only big) source of revenue other than gems?

[darkgod]

Making bosses interesting is, making them annoying is not