Mindworm Murray - First win and Sleeplipsist notes

[marcin]

Hello! Learned about ToME a couple of weeks back while trawling old RPS articles, and took to it in a big way. Just had my first win on Normal / Adventure difficulty with a Thalore AM Solipsist focused on sleep synergies.

I died a few times once I hit the east, mostly because I was completely unfamiliar with it and because my general power level felt absurd enough that I got overconfident a lot.

MM was my third shot at a Solipsist, so I had a sense of how the early game went and what I wanted to focus on. I wasn't sure whether to go into Distortion or into a sleep strategy, but I knew I wanted one or the other for crowd control. In the end, I decided on sleep because I felt that the synergies looked stronger. Full Distortion, to me, is ideally paired up with Discharge for some passive damage while channeling Maelstrom, and that's something I want to try in the future. I was absolutely strapped for generics all the way through, because Thalore + Dreaming + Fungus + Anti-magic + Armour Training All Resist mean there really isn't a spare point to be had. Class talents felt tight most of the way through, but that's partly because I spent some points on things I wouldn't bother with were I to do it all over.

I didn't feel that Thought-forms were worth any points, and still don't, so no points there. In the early game, I focused on maxing Mind Sear as quickly as possible, while putting a point each into Distortion Bolt (basically unused) and Wave, which I used frequently for the knockback. I feel that's an excellent use of two points for any Solipsist. (The 5/5 in Wave are vanity points added when I hit 50 during the final fight). I went with a few points in the Slumber tree early to get a third Sleep and the DoT on wake-up, but in retrospect, this wasn't terribly useful. The DoT is nice, but it doesn't really become relevant until late in the game when all the sleep synergies (more damage on sleeping targets, more damage against insomniacs, etc.) kick in. Were I to do it again, I'd use those points to fill out Psychic Assault more quickly. From there, I mostly played it by ear.

I picked up Mental Tyranny as my first prodigy, and forgot to spend my second because I was under the impression that it kicked in at level 50 and hit the last fight at 46. I don't really know what I would have taken anyway, so it's no big loss.

I picked up all five infusion slots and never once used the fifth. I didn't manage to find a physical/magical wild, which would have been really nice since Solipsists get a talent to cleanse Mental debuffs. In the end, it didn't really matter.

In the early game, the Sleep solipsist was a damage machine with a bit of crowd control and a bit of tankiness.

In the mid-game, he was a defensive specialist with damage best described as "basically sufficient".

In the late game, he was an absolute rock defensively, and some late luck with gear brought his damage output up to middling. I think I really hit my stride during the orc prides, and from that point, it was smooth sailing.

It's really tough to overstate how defensively sound AM/sleep Solipsists are. They have every defense in the book except mobility. Multiple sleeps to shut down groups? Yep. Beasties spawning to draw fire? Yep. Kiting? Sure. Straight-up face-tanking? Got that too. Once I found a Psychoportation torque (it took until just before Dreadfell) and particularly the Wanderer's Rest boots for positioning and short-range escapes, mobility was taken care of as well.

Some specifics:

Solipsism: I feel the ideal mix here is 2 or 3/5/5/5. Taking all damage as Psi is unnecessary and probably not that good an idea, as the global speed drop from hitting the Solipsism threshold is quite relevant. The other talents in the tree are all a bit go-big-or-go-home, being basically useless with low point investment, but they're all quite powerful when maxed. There's an extraordinary amount of beefiness to be found in this one tree.

Slumber: A decent pickup eventually, but not early. Slumber itself is the worst of the sleeps and unlikely to see much use, but it's actually easier to toss a few spare points into than the superior Sleep, because class talents are easier to come by than generics for this particular build. I never ended up using Dreamscape, though the option was there if I needed it. I think 1/5/0/0 is perfectly reasonable even for a sleep-heavy build. For that matter, so is skipping this tree entirely. The DoT's nice, and it'll synergize with increased damage against insomniacs, but it's not remotely necessary.

Nightmare: Amazing tree, except for Waking Nightmare. Nightmare is what makes sleep builds work.

Nightmare is the best sleep because a) it hits a huge area; b) it does its own DoT (I was getting 200ish/turn on sleeping enemies), which is quite relevant; c) it lasts a long time; d) it costs class talents and not generics. Absolutely worthy of five points, though Inner Demons/Night Terrors/Psychic Assault/Solipsism are of a higher priority.

Inner Demons has a reputation for being a boss-killer, but it's more than that, and I wish I'd put more points into it more quickly. You can wipe out entire groups with impressive speed by Nightmaring them, cloning the biggest baddie, and walking away. This is particularly funny with summoners or necromancers, because every copy brings friends. This, and not Mind Sear, was actually the core of my offense past a certain point. Maxing ID makes it last a very long time, which plays nicely with the long sleep from Nightmare, and 5/5 also boosts the chance of cloning high enough that you'll inevitably get numerous copies of a sleeping enemy and have a good shot at cloning an awake/sleep-immune/high-save enemy. These are both relevant scenarios.

Waking Nightmare is weak. The DoT damage scales poorly with extra points, the per-tick chance to proc a debuff is low, and solipsists are too tanky for that debuff to be relevant anyway. I kept hoping it'd scale into something useful, but it never did.

Lastly, Night Terror is excellent all around. The beasties don't hit hard, but they're great distractions, and the damage boost against sleeping enemies is large and quite welcome.

Dreaming: Sleep is a good spell, and if I had any generics to spare, I would happily have added a few points to it. That said, it's perfectly adequate at just one point. Extra damage against insomniacs is excellent for a build that always wants to lead with Nightmare, and getting some all-important mental save out of the bargain is a lovely value. An early point in Dream Walk offers some much-needed (if awkward) mobility to a class that doesn't have any without gear.

Sleep immunities: Not really relevant. The only notable enemy groups with sleep immunity are giants and vampires. Giants aren't a long-term threat, but it's good to save Daikara until the non-sleep arsenal is padded out a bit (particularly because the only drawback of Mind Sear is range; you'll eat more than a few boulders). Vampires are dangerous but uncommon, and a lot of what they do is blunted by the Thalore anti-corruptor racial for those so inclined. Bone giants are also immune, but there aren't enough of them to matter, and they're trivial to kite.

Anti-magic: seems an obvious yes on a Solipsist. A class that gets global speed for being full on Psi and loses it for being low on Psi benefits enormously from Fungus-extended regeneration. The anti-magic tree actually wasn't as relevant. I had a mere one point in Anti-Magic Shield for most of the time that I had it, and that was plenty.

All in all, good fun was had. Sleep solipsists are enormously powerful and pretty interesting to play. I'm actually considering a second Solipsist because there are so many trees I haven't touched (I kind of want to betray enough Alchemists to try a melee build), but that'll have to wait until I win with another class.

[Velorien]

Congratulations on your first win and thanks for the sleep feedback!

If you want to try another solipsist build, especially a melee one, don't delay too long as they're about to be nerfed (especially Dream Forge, one of the most melee-suited trees, which is due to be weakened AND made generic so you're even more starved for points). On the plus side, Mindstar Mastery will be buyable in Zigur (for even more generic point issues).

[marcin]

The mindstar mastery change sounds like a good one. I was actually a bit surprised to see just how few classes (ie: one) get it naturally.

Out of curiosity, are future patch notes kept anywhere?

[tylor]

Why no love for Thought-forms? For one point (and 20 upkeep) it's a meat shield, and for two points more it's a full feedback bar, no?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Heck, why stop there? Defender thought form with the right talent points, even just one of them, is like an extra +20% resist all! That on top of your base +15% makes you ridiculously meaty. For that matter, they also provide a decoy that sucks damage away from you, making you yet STILL more tanky. On top of that, you can throw armor training, plus the dreamforge armor, and you just end up becoming so flipping tanky it's not even funny. With a wild infusion to boost resist all, I could get up over 60%. That's MAD.

[tylor]

And if it is Thalore (and it is), it can sum up to 41% Resist All always, I think, and with Wild or WotW it can be capped (or nearly so).
Though I'm not sure, can Form survive serious firefight long enough to be relevant?

[marcin]

Heck, why stop there?

A sense of fairness and a spirit of generosity towards the orcish peoples?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Yes. It won't stay active through whole final boss fight, but it'll happily keep you safe long enough to inflict serious damage. Also a godsend for most high peak or standard boss fights. By the time the thought form is dead, your DPS has almost finished the boss. And if it does go down, you just summon one of your other thought forms, for different bonuses. (Mental attack speed for casters on the archer, mindpower on the warrior, neither of which are insignificant, though both pale to the resist all bonus.)

Heck, why stop there?

A sense of fairness and a spirit of generosity towards the orcish peoples?

Really? Fairness? *laughs*
Oh wait, you're serious? Let me laugh even harder!

Besides, I'm already being generous. I'm generously providing the orcish race with a swift death at my hands, as a favor from me to them. I'm not even going to hold it against them that I had to work to kill them. We'll just call it even.

[Velorien]

Out of curiosity, are future patch notes kept anywhere?

http://git.develz.org/?p=tome.git;a=shortlog. The documentation is... variable, and can range from "x change has been made" to "mwahahahaha", depending on DG's mood when he uploads the changes. It's pretty amazing, though, when someone (including oneself) makes a suggestion on the forums, and within a few hours DG has actually coded it up and posted it as an SVN update for everyone to download.

If you want to play the in-development version early, you just need some free software, and a set of binaries from johnnyzero's thread on this forum. I do so all the time, and it's less buggy and more feature-filled than the release (though because it's been updated to 1.0.1 already, I can't use addons until their creators update them when the official release arrives; also, no online character vault).

[tylor]

As for other prodigies, Both Spell Feedback and Eye of the Tiger looks even more awesome than for other classess. First because we can tank caster's damage better than anybody else, while little shy on damage side. And second, because we have great crit chances from Cunning. And with high speed even low coolbacks are problematic.

[marcin]

If you want to play the in-development version early, you just need some free software, and a set of binaries from johnnyzero's thread on this forum. I do so all the time, and it's less buggy and more feature-filled than the release (though because it's been updated to 1.0.1 already, I can't use addons until their creators update them when the official release arrives; also, no online character vault).

Cheers.

As to why I'm not fond of Thought-forms, a more serious answer:

1) I really don't feel that I need more tankiness, and Feedback generation was never really a problem either.

2) As a general rule, I don't like pet classes all that much when those pets are run by AI (or, worse yet, when my own character is run by AI because I'm controlling the pet). It's alright with something like a necro or summoner, simply because they spit out enough pets that one of them is inevitably going to luck into doing something useful. Also, their pet play is more interactive. Thought-forms aren't fun; they're essentially just another sustain to toggle.

3) Lastly, I avoided pets for the same reason I avoided Discharge on this character. I did sometimes find myself using sleep not as a damage steroid but as normal crowd control to take dangerous creatures out of the fight until I could do something about their helpers. In that context, I really don't want random AI-targeted damage floating around waking what doesn't need to be woken.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

You can avoid random damage by managing your thought form properly, specifically by adjusting it's anchor, leash distance, and targets. (Acts that take no time, IIRC.) In some circumstances, this could turn into extensive micromanagement, but it's usually quite minor and easy to manage. Set your archer/warrior/defender to target a specific enemy, and if that enemy dies, adjust there target again. In the case of the melee ones, especially defender, set the leash distance conveniently close, say 2-3 tiles, or just leash them to the ground with a leash distance of 0. AT that point, they MUST stay where they are, and you can leave them to bottle up a choke point, while you go deal with other things. (Though thought forms have a limit in distance they can exist from there master, passing that distance warps them to you) But it works great to leave one bottling a hallway while you proceed into a room, or bottling the room exit while you cower5 in the hallway behind it. Tactically, thoughtforms can be quite useful, though repeatedly adjusting your archer thoughtforms target to avoid waking something might be a mild annoyance after a while.