Solipsist Guide - using runes

[jenx]

So you want to win the game on roguelike normal mode?

Here is my sample character:

http://te4.org/characters/2460/tome/c99 ... 6ff8f6d5b3

The absolute easiest win I've ever had. None of the high peak bosses even bothered me, nor any boss.

Vor Armoury RoD I did after final battle - took me barely any time at all. Just cast inner demons on one wyrm and step away. They night terrors will clear the room for you.

I died to Atamathon, but I was tired and didn't approach him correctly. I probably could have beaten him, as I have with weaker solipsists, but I was lazy.

So, key points if you want to win with a solipsist on normal. There are undoubtedly other ways, but this works for me and has been tested on hundreds of characters:

1. Grab every piece of +hp gear for the first 30 levels or so. I had helmet, cloak, gloves, belt, etc. Target: 500 HP asap.
2. Don't take 3rd and 4th talent in solipsism too early, as you can't defend against burst damage and loss of speed.
3. Order of spends: inscription slot > nightmare > inscription slot > discharge
4. Discharge in 1.0.4 is awesome, even with a few points. I could do 5000+ damage PER TURN if surrounded by high damage creatures andusing Mind Storm. And the most important use is against sleep-resistant creatures, namely, runed bone giants. you only have psychic assualt and discharge to hurt it. (final battle was a synch with mind storm on.)
5. Skip AM, and go for two shields, one teleport, regen , and phys/mag wild infusion. Put one shield on when enemies visible and one on when enemies NOT visible. This helps a lot going around corners and running into arrows etc. Will occasionally miss, but generally makes you much safer. Why shilelds? Because solipsists can't cope with massive burst damage. Resists are regularly countered by npc talents resist penetration, and AM shield and Dram Forge are insufficient.
6. When surrounded, TELEPORT. Don't wait even one turn, unless you are tanked and know your opposition.
7. Get Cunning/Survival first talent to 3, to disarm traps, and then go to far portal every time you can. traps in far portal will kill you otherwise, as most surround you with critters. This also helps in key zones (dark crypt, vor armoury, etc) and vaults
8. Get Psiblades for 750 gold, unlocked at 1.0, and go 5/1/3/0. The third talent is awesome when combined with last solipsism talent. You can survive about 7 turns with usually no damage (particularly with a shield). By then, you've killed everything.
9. Nightmare tree take to 5/5/1/5. But build it first as 1/1/1/5 asap, and leave on.
10. For psychic assault, take to 5/1/1/5 and use first and last talent only.
11. For Sleep generics, go to 5/5/1/0 or 5/5/1/1. Have sleep on autocast, as also psychic assault and sunder mind and nightmare. Why 5 for first talent? Each point reduces the cooldown. so 4 gives you the radius increase and 25% chance of contagion, but 5 gives you faster re-use, which is vital for solipsists.
12. do NOT put night terrors on autocast - it burns up psi too fast, and you want to use it on tough bosses, which might not be visible initially. With its long cd, it's way too risky to use on autocast.
13. take slumber to 1/1/5/0. The sandman talent makes your nightmare and sleep talent more effective more often.
14. take thought form initially to 3/1/1/1. Why? the second talent means it is resistant to your sleep/nightmare talents AND gives it more damage against sleeping npcs. the third talent gives you feedback, and thus makes it easier for you to use resonance and heal talents from feedback tree. and the fourth talent gives no boost to mindpower. but don't rely on this, as they die too often.
Once you have high mind damage increase, then go to 4/1/4/1, to give mind damage bonus to thought form. E.g. my thought-form was whacking creatures for 1000+ HP sometimes.
15. Also, on thoughtforms, create one and then check its attack stat. It will change dramatically depending on its equipment. Ive seen one warrior have an attack of 86, and then I recreate it, and it is 145 !!!!
16. Prodigies are Mental Tyranny and whatever. I took Eye of Tiger, but it doesn't make much difference. I've taken Cauterise, Blighted Summoning (but it's broken, so don't do that) etc. Mental Tyranny is best.
17. Set regen infusion to autocast on enemy. This refills your psi as you first encounter critters, which is vital to keep your speed up. Don't wait for it to go down.
18. Set resonance to autouse whenever available. Why? Because you often take damage from a critter you can't see. So if you have enough feedback to cast resonance field, then something is hurting you, even if you don't know what it is. Remember that this can crit. so by end, when mine absorbs 632 damage for example, with 200% crit multiplier, it absorbs 1264 damage over 10 turns!
19. Get light radius to 10 wherever possible. This is critical for seeing archers, who will kill you otherwise.
20. I avoid distortion, because it uses too much psi and too many turns to kill.
21. I avoid Dream Hammer, because it is a melee talent. You hit 10 rogues in a row, each with 40 on hit damage, and remember, you hit them twice, that's 800 damage to YOU from dream hammer. And 3 of the 4 work only adjacent to you, so unless you wish to hit and kill your thought form, it is too inflexible.
22. Stats are Wil then Wil/Con then Con then Cun. After that, you can pump one of Mag or Str of Dex, if you want a prodigy from one of them.

[Amphouse]

Your character sheet link is broken.

Looks good, although I would never put that much stuff on autocast, but that's just my personal preference. It's nice that there's so many ways to play solipsist; I prefer ignoring sleep talents and building up distortion instead, but there's many different paths you can take with them.

[jenx]

Your character sheet link is broken.

Looks good, although I would never put that much stuff on autocast, but that's just my personal preference. It's nice that there's so many ways to play solipsist; I prefer ignoring sleep talents and building up distortion instead, but there's many different paths you can take with them.

I've fixed the link.

I turn autocasts on and off depending on the zone.

I used to ignore sleep talents, but in Nightmare mode, I discovered that they are the best form of offence. You have to stop the enemies doing stuff at all, and sleep is the main way. To stun them, for instance, you need to cast Maelstrom, then something else to all distortion to take hold, then Distortion Wave. In this time, the enemy has three goes at you. But with Sleep + Mindsear most enemies are dead. The biggest pains are runed bone giants, who are sleep immune. So I tried the same in normal and I think they are super powerful this way in normal mode.

[tylor]

No 5/5 in Dismissal?

[jenx]

No 5/5 in Dismissal?

I usually do 5/5 in dismissal

[Dhurke]

Got first win on roguelike! Normal difficulty

http://te4.org/characters/47270/tome/9c ... 902994dc96

Kind of a breeze with all the crowd control and shields with solipsist. Used jenx guide

Now of Athamathon... any tips?

[jenx]

Got first win on roguelike! Normal difficulty

http://te4.org/characters/47270/tome/9c ... 902994dc96

Kind of a breeze with all the crowd control and shields with solipsist. Used jenx guide

Now of Athamathon... any tips?

great to hear it is still useful.

get your mindpower to 99-100. use a talent to reduce his. then sing hm a lullaby (i.e. put ole ata to sleep!)

[grobblewobble]

How would you rank the races for solipsist?

Currently running a yeek, which looks pretty awesome. The levels come in at explosively fast rate. I used your dwarf walkthrough sheets - it seems the HP growth relative to game area is about equal, but with higher talent levels. Also those yeek racials <3. Dominate is sooo awesome.

[bpat]

In my opinion, Thalore > Shalore = Yeek > Halfling > Cornac > everything else. However, jenx seems to like saves much more than I do, in which case he'd probably recommend Dwarf of Halfling over Thalore.

[tylor]

Solipsist needs mind save much more and other saves much less than other classes. So, dwarf bad, thalore good.

[grobblewobble]

Because of the Balance talent? Yeah, that's another reason I like Yeeks, they get a mind save bonus too.

Thalore has great racial talents, but I personally find it hard to endure the slow levelling (especially compared to yeek). I guess it makes it easier to save Melinda, at least.

[jenx]

Solipsist needs mind save much more and other saves much less than other classes. So, dwarf bad, thalore good.

??? dwarven racial talent for mind saves?

and i only use first solipsism talent, so i need all saves equally strong.

i like the three extra bosses that dwarves get too. higher chance of getting artifacts.

[mikekchar]

Thread necromancy, but I wanted to say thanks for this guide! I was having an awful time trying to make sense of Solipsist and this helped me out quite a lot!

[OrionJAnderson]

Good guide, though a few things have changed since 2013. Mental Tyranny is pretty mediocre now.