[1.0.1] Thalore Cursed - Nightmare Roguelike Winner

[porkzar]

http://te4.org/characters/5521/tome/118 ... c6f9b0a4aa
Wanted to give an honest melee char a go on nightmare and the end result was surprising. This char ended up being the strongest char I've ever had. Only close call and real use for Draconic Body was in the final fight when Elandar decided to crit for 2k with freeze which brought me to quite some -hp even with draconic body proccing. Had 1 turn left on heroism after that freeze, managed to crit nature's touch which brought me to 58 hp and survived after some heavy regening behind the pillars.

All the mobility combined with Preternatural Senses made the game so much easier, no mob could get a surprise attack on me. Normal routine against bosses/rares was just to pop heroism, racial and regen outside of LoS, jump em with blindside, use domination and pop rampage -> frenzy + slash and pretty much every mob ended up dead. Frenzy was doing 5-6k damage tops by the end and slash was at around 3-4k. Rampage + Antimagic Shield combined with relatively high resists (could get 44% passive all resist without the orb) and mindpower made this rampaging boy surprisingly tough to bring down also.

All in all this char made me fall in love with the Cursed class once again.

[jenx]

ah - I'm so jealous! I've been trying for weeks to win on nightmare, with solipsists mostly and a few archmages. I had never thought of trying a cursed, though I've won with them in normal mode.

can you please give some elaboration:
1. order of cat points
2. order of stats
3. order of major talents (e.g. when did you develop gloom tree, blindside tree, etc).
4. order of dungeons. I find the biggest problem on nightmare is lake nur. if you go at level 17 or so, it is very tough. and after that, daikara and sandworm lair are left, but both have challenges. And i won't risk urkis unless i have the right wild and lightning resist.

So more info would be greatly appreciated!!!

And congrats!

[porkzar]

Thanks! I'll try to answer to those questions the best I can, been playing this char for quite a while and not 100% I remember it all anymore.

1)

1st - Rampage
2nd - Fungus
3rd - Infusion (For starters I was only using 2x Regen + Wild, this slot was used for Heroism)
4th - Infusion (Movement)

2)

Here I went for all the stat requirements for talents first, then started raising str/wil/con pretty much at the same pace. Left base str at around 45 (because I found good t5 randart 1hander from maze) and maxed wil&con, then pumped cun with the rest of the stats.

3)

This is a tough one, seeing I kinda vomited my talents all over the place in beginning, then started maxing them towards the end. First I did put pretty much one talent point in each talent I have on my char currently to get some utility going.
After that I went 5/3/3/1 with rampage, then raised preternatural senses to 5 alongside with blindside(this was left at 3lvl for a good while). At round 15-20level I pumped gloom to 3/3/1/3 and then maxed it at 5/5/1/5 in the end. 2 points in surge with Wanderer's Rest gave pretty insane passive movement speed, also rampage had it speed up to ~960% with that.
Slaughter tree was the last one I maxed, it worked nice enough with 1/1/1/0 for the most parts of the game with a really good weapon. Even tho if I'd play a cursed again, I'd max reckless charge asap. It's a wonderful defensive/offensive ability.
As for generics, max Relentless first, then pump weapon skills/armor/AM/fungus talents as you see fit.

4)

Not sure if you were looking for this kind of story, but I'll try to explain how I usually proceed with my nightmare chars.

Tier 1 dungeons, arena, lumberjack, old forest (go visit the lake nur horror level asap and just leave it for later on), do maze, sandworm lair, hidden compound, daikara, go visit lvl 4 of halfling ruins and come finish Z later on, golem graveyard, kill weirdling beast and head to Dreadfell, go visit last level asap and then come back up clearing rest of the mobs and vaults. You can do Tempest Peak before going for master. Make sure you have antimagic at 1/1/1/1 before going for master, mana clash makes that fight so much more pleasant when you can just drop all his sustains with 1-2 manaclash hits -> bye bye minions and other casting abilities.
Kill master, do Reknor and clear the rest of the remaining dungeons apart from spellblaze (unless you have great fire/blight resist), elven ruins and the oozermancer area. Head east, go visit the pala city, get spider and pride quests. Clear spider cave, find breeding pit and have some serious orc child farming for nice drops (this is easiest done by wearing some reflective damage gear ~100 seems to be good enough and put a regen infusion/another heal on autocast, dig around the rooms so that as many orc mothers as possible can see you at the same time, put a weight on '5' and go have a lunch. Collect loot.)
After this I usually go do the naga area and visit entrance of every pride. Then clear armoury & briagh's lair and go back west for free exp & loot from backup guardians. Clear spellblaze and elven ruins and other remaining dungeons from west, head east to clear remaining prides (start with the one you see yourself best fit for duty, usually I've cleared the fire/cold caster one first, then melee or necro and leave the summoner pride for last one), finish with rest of the optional dungeons and head to high peak. I wouldn't recommend trying atamathon before winning the game first, he tends to oneshot even the most durable chars.


I guess that's all for now, let me know if you want more info.

[jenx]

That's extremely helpful!

I have never visited a dungeon to set a level, then left it to return later, as I feel that's not quite right. But I think now on nightmare that I will have to succumb to this strategy!

[Dougiegee]

I agree, starting a dungeon to set a lower level feels pretty shan. Does it also mean worse loot and does it set the level for the whole dungeon or is it level by level?

[jenx]

I agree, starting a dungeon to set a lower level feels pretty shan. Does it also mean worse loot and does it set the level for the whole dungeon or is it level by level?

True, but I've died too many times now to care. Yes, I think the loot is affected.

[aristalis]

Do you do ruined dungeon with the t2 ones?

[porkzar]

Yeah, have to agree on that one. It is somewhat cheesy to visit the areas early on to spawn em and then come back later. I just got fed up dying quite often to those few mentioned places on nightmare and started doing it this way (which has now saved numerous characters instead of em horribly dying to Lake Nur at lower levels).

I usually do Ruined Dungeon at around 20-25level mark and just clear the whole place leaving orbs intact (unless I can check out the insides of the treasure vault and if there happens to be an artifact I really want, I just clear the place and farm money elsewhere if needed). This leaves you with a safe way of grinding money (and alchemist mats) if you're little short off from getting a randart. With this char I was able to grind around 1k gold within an hour in there on average. There's also somewhat decent chance to get t2-3 artifacts from the orb farming, I've gotten Wanderer's Rest, Ring of Growth and pretty much all of the t2-3 artifact daggers from it for example.

It does affect the level of loot you'll be getting but I'm not usually that bothered, few levels lower Beast or Master shouldn't really matter that much as long as you survive the wild wild west. I'm not sure about the levels after that, let's say you enter Dreadfell at lvl 12, spawn the first level and come back later on, will the levels 2 and onward be spawned according to your first visit there or your current level.