Not sure how much Oozemancer has changed in recent updates?
In any case, I tried building Str for heavy armor and taking the prodigies Superpower and Windblade. It's working really well. Windblade deals awesome damage when you're dual wielding mindstars and have 5/5 psiblades. Superpower boosts that damage further, while improving your ranged capabilities too.
Oozemancer Guide
Moderator: Moderator
Re: Oozemancer Guide
Oozemancers don't get much benefit from any stats except will and cunning natively so you can do any gimmicky thing you want with your third stat.grobblewobble wrote:Not sure how much Oozemancer has changed in recent updates?
In any case, I tried building Str for heavy armor and taking the prodigies Superpower and Windblade. It's working really well. Windblade deals awesome damage when you're dual wielding mindstars and have 5/5 psiblades. Superpower boosts that damage further, while improving your ranged capabilities too.
Digitochracy
n. 1. technocracy. 2. government by the numbers. 3. rule by people with the longest fingers.
n. 1. technocracy. 2. government by the numbers. 3. rule by people with the longest fingers.
Re: Oozemancer Guide
Oozemanser need all Con he can get (on Nightmare), so I don't see any free Str.
English isn't my native language.
Re: Oozemancer Guide
That's odd. They have multiple stacking tanking mechanism and aren't held up as a counterexample when people complain about con being weak.GlassGo wrote:Oozemanser need all Con he can get (on Nightmare), so I don't see any free Str.
Digitochracy
n. 1. technocracy. 2. government by the numbers. 3. rule by people with the longest fingers.
n. 1. technocracy. 2. government by the numbers. 3. rule by people with the longest fingers.
Re: Oozemancer Guide
Well, If you done game on Nightmare without pumping statpoints into Con, maybe I'm doing something wrong.
English isn't my native language.
Re: Oozemancer Guide
I haven't, but I don't remember anyone rebutting a "fix con" thread by saying it's important on higher levels so I suspect you are doing something wrong. From what I've heard the key to playing the higher difficulties is obsessive paranoia about monster detection and never using autoexplore.GlassGo wrote:Well, If you done game on Nightmare without pumping statpoints into Con, maybe I'm doing something wrong.
Digitochracy
n. 1. technocracy. 2. government by the numbers. 3. rule by people with the longest fingers.
n. 1. technocracy. 2. government by the numbers. 3. rule by people with the longest fingers.
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HammyHamster
- Cornac
- Posts: 39
- Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 5:23 pm
Re: Oozemancer Guide
I thought I'd update this guide, as it was very useful to get a feel for the Oozemaster, but imo needs some updating (new Eyal tree, races, difficulty, etc.)
This is my Insane winner: http://te4.org/characters/177742/tome/1 ... fd862574ee
-This was no-deaths, but luck is involved. I can never resist a chest, vault, or the dark crypt (where you have a ~50/50 chance of dying on the initial entry danger and character level). So I'll usually not play in roguelike mode, where I'd be smart to skip these. And it's rare I'll skip a boss or unique - a silly stubbornness that often gets me killed multiple times.
The following are my updates to tree advice by Bpat with fairly recent tree/talent changes and insane difficulty in mind:
Race:
-I'd put Halfling at the top. Every ability compliments oozemaster. And you really only need 1 point in each tier and therefore it could save on generic points without too much loss. I really like militant mind for that little extra mindpower boost in enemy groups.
-Thalore would be second. The Thalore nature call (treants) can be handy in emergencies or dangerous groups as they taunt and pull the focus away from you. Tier 3 (resists) should have a bit of investment.
Prodigies:
*Spine of the world first. (The main weakness of the oozemaster is phys effects). Amazing with this build.
For the second, it's flexible. Some possiblilities:
-I chose superpower(SP) to maximize Mindpower(MP). Maximized MP has many benefits, since everything you do is MP. By the end SP only adds ~10 MP, but heroism infusions will then boost will,cun,str (top 3 stats) and thus add ~6 MP. Ymmv. Plus if you like to melee late-game, you have a little boost.
My theory was that even with the reduced scaling at high levels, every MP adds a bit more offence and defence.
...Only 10-16 MP bonus ultimately with all the items you can wear for bonuses, though...so it's not going to make or break your build.
-This run http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=45310 swore by Fungal Power. I tried it and found it not to my style. Especially not as the first prodigy. It shines with a particular rapid cycling infusion setup and a fair amount of regen on/off micromanagement to get free turn cycling via 5/5 Ancestral life investment.
-Windblade could be fun, but note that it hits friendlies too.
**Keep in mind that Mindpower affects most every talent. Talents improve with increased MP.
Class Talents
Slime
-Slime Spit Use with care in some cases, as the bounces will hurt friendlies if they are between enemies. Think escort safety....
-Slime Roots. A great movement option and by mid game this should be at 4. It's your best escape/positioning and you need the accuracy. Acid splash is best for damage and some oozes. You can't rely on it as an escape if it is constantly on cool-down when in battle. Some enemies may teleport you into the middle of crowds. That can be very bad for your early game, depending on what talents are on cooldown. It can go through walls. (It's basically an oozemaster version of controlled phase door).
Mucus
-Mucus I had this set to auto-cast on sighting enemy. 1/5 until late game. It's your best early battle source of EQ management. You can't afford to fail too many talents due to high EQ percent failure. (Failure starts when EQ > willpower). And at 1/5 it doesn't last long and has a long cooldown.
-Oozewalk I thought I'd get much more use out of this, especially to remove some magical effects. However, Acid Splash is a good offense and that means that it's usually not available for emergency oozewalk when you need it or that your oozewalk options are to move to worse spots -such as closer to the dangerous enemy pack that was recently splashed. Mucus is usually 1/5 until late game so it's usually on cooldown as well (you need to use it imediately to keep your equilibrium down, especially early-mid game). But maybe with better micromanagement....idk. This can not go through walls, unlike Slimeroots.
Ooze
-Reabsorb 3/5 gives 7 turns of 40 % immunity all. That's better than a really good infusion both for % and duration. A good buff while in battle, before opening chests and vaults, and entering unknown or ambush levels. You can get by on 1/5, though.
-Call of the Ooze This is fun, especially if you have high melee damage/phys crit and/or many good procs. But point choices have to be made. 3/5 very late is enough to get you 2 ooze-ninjas in the end-game. They only attack this way once, and it's the first time you call them. As an example, my 3/5 ooze call on the final fight did almost 700 non-crit damage, but the boss shrugged off the procs. (Note that my Eyals, acid splash and poison were doing over 1000 per turn together - and slime spit crit for ~1500 with bonuses....for reference damage). A handy use for this is when you can't see an enemy in your range-the ooze will target it and strike it (depending on the number of enemies, etc).
Moss I only put points into this near the last half of the game, and only 1/5 in the first 2 for a long time. There are only so many points to go around....
-Grasping Moss Really good crowd control. I had it with 1/5 but used it a lot. Maybe I should have invested more as the prime moss for the radius, % chance and damage.
-Nourishing Moss I had 3/5 for emergencies, but mostly used grasping moss anyways for the pinning. So ymmv.
-Slippery Moss A one-turn confusion-like effect chance. I'm guessing that creatures immune to confusion are likely immune to this - I never tested that, though.
-Hallucinogenic Moss A 2 turn confusion chance.
Oozing Blades - first category point, as ooze beam is your best general attack, for the most part. And you need Unstoppable Nature. One beam tree is enough, but I suppose you could squeeze in the Acid beam tree in addition if you are stubborn--at the cost of one less infusion.
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-Oozebeam - will have the highest damage for a direct attack end-game. It's a 10 range beam! Does not hurt oozes.
-Unstoppable Nature At harder levels you need to get this to 3/5 fairly quickly. Before Dreadfell. Many undead have ~80% nature resist. Max it in the East or sooner.
Wild/Gift Eyal's Fury - An amazing AOE tree. second category point.
Reclaim Does decent damage. 1/5 is enough due to limited points. But can do high damage at 5/5. Splitting btw acid and nature means you need to be aware of resists. This is not a projectile, unlike Slime Spit, so it doesn't kill friendlies or get blocked by friendlies in the way.
Nature's Defiance 1/5 is enough to get by. Great passive: EQ restore, arcane resist, spell save boost, nature affinity. 2/5 at the end, if you like nature affinity.
Acid Fire A decent ranged attack with a good radius (puller/damage mid game) and when 5/5 removes effects from enemies quite well (~45% chance) for 11 turns. Keep in mind it's acid damage for resists.
Eyal's Wrath Superb. Does nature damage per turn and restores EQ, while sucking Vim, pos, neg energy (and some mana...) At 5/5 it lasts 9 turns, rad 6, ~200+ dmg per turn.
Generic Talents
Survival
Piercing Sight You need at least one point to avoid getting shanked early-mid game at harder levels. Your high cunning will make most things visible with 1/5.
Evasion Worth considering. With 1 point and eventual high will and cunning this could give ~30% evasion for 15+ turns. That's a very useful defense. But usually you can find boots with it.
Call of the Wild
Nature's Touch 1/5 is enough. This takes a turn to use and may limit your regen to a lower rate if you forget to manage the resulting regen started due to wild growth. Very useful for escort survival. You can simply improve it with a higher heal mod (equipment); therefore more of your limited points are usually not worth investing. Note that it can crit for even more healing.
Earth's Eyes 1/5 is enough. It's situational, but useful. It can show how to path attacks or exploration and escorts. It also will remove darkness areas/spells for visibility during fights.
Nature's Balance This is a superb talent. 3/5 by mid game (the description is innacurrate with 1.4 level - still 1 tier/ point). One reason: Leave's Tide reset. Later 4/5 to allow Eyal's Wrath and Acid Fire to reset. Silence can be nice to reset too. You don't use this all the time, but in the big and dangerous fights it means the difference between running and staying to the finish.
YMMV with other shorter cooldown talents. Rarely it helps to quickly reset a few other tier 4 talents (Slime roots, mana clash, etc)
Mindstar Mastery
Leave's Tide As said, amazing defense to all friendlies in range 3. All of your damage-sharing Oozes close by, as well. Escorts too... It kept Aeyrn alive in the final insane boss fight. You need 5/5 for max of ~56% complete defense now. Worth it. With Nature's balance reset, you can run this for 14 turns! Note LT is affected by your mindstar damage (more basic damage increases %).
So two Tier 5 mindstars have the best improvement.
Antimagic
Resolve 1/5 will suffice. It scales with MP too. Points are limited...
Silence 3/5 for range 10 shut-down of casters.
Antimagic Shield You'll find that you won't have the willpower to run this effectively until late game. 1/5 for 75% of the game and then 5/5. Leaving it off also allows resolve to help your early EQ issues. You'll already be running mitosis, psiblades, and unstoppable nature. Then wild growth. You can also squeeze in Acid skin as it's only 3 EQ.
Mana Clash 1/5 for most of the game. The real value is shutting down Vim/Pos/Neg casters. They don't have a lot of points and when gone, they are neutralized (corrupters, etc). Later enemies rarely have their mana pool impacted by this, as their pool is often 1000s. Note that it does arcane damage for resists. For example, I had this at 5/5 at level 40, and this combined with Eyal's Fury meant that end-boss Elandar quickly had no Vim or Neg points and therefore half his talents were sitting useless.
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My style of play for this character.
1. Limit how often you are hit, ie Evasion - usually 2 of the 3 running at once: Leave's Tide and Evasion or Duck and Dodge.
***Evasion does not stack and it overrides. What this means is that when Duck and Dodge(DD) is triggered, it overrides and cancels previous Evasion (boots or tree). This is good and bad: Good in that DD is 50%, bad in that D&D is 2 turns unless you invest points. Not overly critical, but something to be aware of. I found that with the Evasion talent of ~ 29+% on boots active, DD wasn't activated all that much. LT doesn't count as evasion.
*Note that you don't need this protection everywhere, but don't forget it in the tricky fights or risky areas.
The math:
Early Leave's Tide is ~30%
Duck and dodge ~50 %
-So 1 - (1-.5) *(1-.3) = 65% chance not to get hit. Add in oozes and a few health boosting items, and your early-mid game is not bad.
Note that DD requires you take damage to proc so running another source of evasion to start (say, boots) is extra safety. Better extra-safe then dead when D+D procs after a one-shot.
Later, LT is maxed it works up to ~77% chance to miss all damage (with DD running). With 31% evasion (boots or evasion talent) and LT, this would be 70%.
*Therefore, this strategy is not specific to the Halfling race. (Although Halfling Duck and Dodge helps increase the evasion a small % for the mid-game to some extent, or greatly if you can't find boots; and only if you don't get one-shot before DD activates.)
And don't forget that LT helps your friendlies in range to evade and prolongs their life.
2. Have a full-on combat window of 14+ turns. That's enough to kill most any boss. Full-on means all valuable offensive talents in play.
-Leave's Tide x2, Eyal's Fury x2, Acid Fire x2 and others depending on your needs....all due to the handy Nature's balance. 15+ turn Evasion too.
-two Heroism infusions of 10+ turns for back-to-back. I never ended up going below 1 health, but it's certainly less stressful to have the safety. And definitely a boost to MP with the stats.
-a short cooldown regen infusion (close or at 12 cooldown). With 4/5 wild growth you'll only ever have one or 2 turns of down-time without a regen on.
-a short cooldown wild physical infusion (lower cooldown is better than resist % to complement spine of the world ). Mental combo would be nice.
-short cooldown movement infusion for positioning and maybe stun/pin/freeze control.
3. You need a Track skill item or escort by the time you get to Dreadfell.
You need to see what's coming at you until ~ level 45. After that you can survive most anything, even surprised. On occasion, insane levels can be comprised almost entirely of rares and/or quite a few uniques. Track can very often show you where enemies are that you can't normally see because they have too high invisible or hide.
4. As always, health-item boosts so when you do get hit, it's not a one-shot.
Edit Note:
I managed to kill Atamathon using more or less this strategy above. He starts with 32k life, but little mana(~1k) on insane.
I ran around a lot more than usual to make sure I was never next to him without Evasion and LT running. He just hits too hard to be getting hit more than once in a while. Especially if he catches you in Irresistible Sun - you'll have to weather 6 turns of beatings if you can't escape.
(For example, he caught me with Irresistible Sun, from which I used Slime Roots to escape, and immediately he used Giant Leap, which I evaded. That could have hurt and I then had to suffer through Irresistable Sun anyways...as Oozewalk was not useable at that time)
-I started with evasion(boots), LT, Heroism, wild infusion for resists, boost and all Eyals running. (This is my basic chest and vault opener strategy).
Using those talents early means that they last much shorter on the initial volley, but it saves you 3 turns of battle set-up and allows you to immediately move away if things go bad, while at the same time inflicting a lot of damage.
-Eyal's Wrath and Mana Clash completely remove his mana within a few turns. Acid Fury stripped what sustains he had up over time. He has some annoying mana talents (molten skin, arcane pull, reflective skin). He regenerates very little mana (and some via a Mana Surge rune). If Eyal's wrath can be maintained in contact he will never get his mana back....it's easier said than done, though. A few times I needed to run around a tree for a break.
-use oozes and a basic tentacle (charm) to block him from rush and approach (summoned at start and repeated where needed).
-start with Grasping moss and Thorn grab to hold him and then move away if possible.
-reset talents with Nature's balance so LT and Eyal's are ready again, and run them. (Evasion should still be going, as it's ~15+ turns)
-use Ooze beams and Slime spit when safe from him. Slime spit needs proper positioning to not shoot through your blockers and kill them too.
Run away until talents are good again and repeat. Resists are maintained at a high % by alternating between the wild infusion and Reabsorb(3/5). Two heroism infusions means one is usually active (I never went below 0 health, but got to 3% once in the battle and I was glad to have what little buffer heroism gave, while I ran away).
Also, prior to the battle, I respected my last 4 class points which were in Call of the Ooze and Nourishing moss and moved them to 4/5 Nature's Defiance (to add more %Nature Affinity heal just in case he was able to successfully run Reflective Skin - which he did for a short time) and 2/5 Grasping Moss (for better slow and pin % chance - it's the only physical effect he is not immune to). His saves are very high (100-115) on insane, so he's not going to fail much or be held long, anyways.
General Game notes:
Items + RNG:
-I found a misc item (totem) with +1 invoke tentacle early. That tentacle is pretty useful. Call it to take a bullet for you from an archer or a mage. Use it to distract/hold a mob while you go somewhere else (think escort). Immune to poison, I think. Nice early game help. A torque with mindblast would also be good early.
-Self-found (no player vault). Equipment drops for me were quite bad until Vor's Armory. I did find a couple of nice mindstars in the Sacrifice Crypt, though. After Vor's, the vaults and uniques started giving up amazing stuff. It's an probably insane-level thing with all the exta rares and unique creatures. Escorts were lucky, with early escorts and 2 free escorts in Dreadfell (small, enclosed starter room thing).
So basically it was very careful play prior to finding decent items that boosted defence, mindpower, and health in the East.
Farportals provide a lot of item opportunity, as well. I went in after I finished the game.
Stats:
I maxed in this order: Wil, Cun, Str, Con. EQ fails when greater than your willpower. Wil + cun = Mindpower. In my case, str was intentionally maxed for the Superpower prodigy.
To get 50 con for Spine of the World by level 30, I had to store/carry +con items. You can store them in any early area vault, if too heavy. I think I also had to add a point or two of con, as well.
Note that con does not have nearly the same early impact on life as does +life equipment. 1 con is ~ 4 health. A 50 health item ~ 12 con. So con is not critical initially. Mindpower and offensive killing is.
Summary: buy/use some +life equipment to help low/mid game life, don't invest in con initially.
Escorts:
I had some nice randoms. But the most useful were definitely Mind Sear and Track.
Mind Sear works well as it's a 2 turn cooldown, and it makes a nice filler attack. You are pumping MP anyways, which makes the damage grow. It's range of 7 may seem ok, but you get used to range 10 oozebeam and slime attacks and may often find it short-ranged in comparison.
Sleep is nice early game crowd control and running, but it's only 2 turns. Dream walk is very unpredictable, and may hurt you more than help- but an extra option is never bad. It does have a nice possible combo with sleep. Sleep then dreamwalk to the "sleeping" target is very accurate, if you want to be close in, that is... I never used it this way. I instead always used Slime Roots to move accurately.
Vitality is overshadowed by all the other healing. My vitality heal was ~25x2=50 ( it is affected by heal mod) while my healing was almost 200 via regen infusion. So it's a questionable choice, but improves with heal mod %. When my health was so low that vitality was activated, I wasn't ever waiting for it to heal via vitality.
The rest of the escorts don't give you anything critical that you can't already get. I'll not deny the extra points are always nice, though.
This is my Insane winner: http://te4.org/characters/177742/tome/1 ... fd862574ee
-This was no-deaths, but luck is involved. I can never resist a chest, vault, or the dark crypt (where you have a ~50/50 chance of dying on the initial entry danger and character level). So I'll usually not play in roguelike mode, where I'd be smart to skip these. And it's rare I'll skip a boss or unique - a silly stubbornness that often gets me killed multiple times.
The following are my updates to tree advice by Bpat with fairly recent tree/talent changes and insane difficulty in mind:
Race:
-I'd put Halfling at the top. Every ability compliments oozemaster. And you really only need 1 point in each tier and therefore it could save on generic points without too much loss. I really like militant mind for that little extra mindpower boost in enemy groups.
-Thalore would be second. The Thalore nature call (treants) can be handy in emergencies or dangerous groups as they taunt and pull the focus away from you. Tier 3 (resists) should have a bit of investment.
Prodigies:
*Spine of the world first. (The main weakness of the oozemaster is phys effects). Amazing with this build.
For the second, it's flexible. Some possiblilities:
-I chose superpower(SP) to maximize Mindpower(MP). Maximized MP has many benefits, since everything you do is MP. By the end SP only adds ~10 MP, but heroism infusions will then boost will,cun,str (top 3 stats) and thus add ~6 MP. Ymmv. Plus if you like to melee late-game, you have a little boost.
My theory was that even with the reduced scaling at high levels, every MP adds a bit more offence and defence.
...Only 10-16 MP bonus ultimately with all the items you can wear for bonuses, though...so it's not going to make or break your build.
-This run http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=45310 swore by Fungal Power. I tried it and found it not to my style. Especially not as the first prodigy. It shines with a particular rapid cycling infusion setup and a fair amount of regen on/off micromanagement to get free turn cycling via 5/5 Ancestral life investment.
-Windblade could be fun, but note that it hits friendlies too.
**Keep in mind that Mindpower affects most every talent. Talents improve with increased MP.
Class Talents
Slime
-Slime Spit Use with care in some cases, as the bounces will hurt friendlies if they are between enemies. Think escort safety....
-Slime Roots. A great movement option and by mid game this should be at 4. It's your best escape/positioning and you need the accuracy. Acid splash is best for damage and some oozes. You can't rely on it as an escape if it is constantly on cool-down when in battle. Some enemies may teleport you into the middle of crowds. That can be very bad for your early game, depending on what talents are on cooldown. It can go through walls. (It's basically an oozemaster version of controlled phase door).
Mucus
-Mucus I had this set to auto-cast on sighting enemy. 1/5 until late game. It's your best early battle source of EQ management. You can't afford to fail too many talents due to high EQ percent failure. (Failure starts when EQ > willpower). And at 1/5 it doesn't last long and has a long cooldown.
-Oozewalk I thought I'd get much more use out of this, especially to remove some magical effects. However, Acid Splash is a good offense and that means that it's usually not available for emergency oozewalk when you need it or that your oozewalk options are to move to worse spots -such as closer to the dangerous enemy pack that was recently splashed. Mucus is usually 1/5 until late game so it's usually on cooldown as well (you need to use it imediately to keep your equilibrium down, especially early-mid game). But maybe with better micromanagement....idk. This can not go through walls, unlike Slimeroots.
Ooze
-Reabsorb 3/5 gives 7 turns of 40 % immunity all. That's better than a really good infusion both for % and duration. A good buff while in battle, before opening chests and vaults, and entering unknown or ambush levels. You can get by on 1/5, though.
-Call of the Ooze This is fun, especially if you have high melee damage/phys crit and/or many good procs. But point choices have to be made. 3/5 very late is enough to get you 2 ooze-ninjas in the end-game. They only attack this way once, and it's the first time you call them. As an example, my 3/5 ooze call on the final fight did almost 700 non-crit damage, but the boss shrugged off the procs. (Note that my Eyals, acid splash and poison were doing over 1000 per turn together - and slime spit crit for ~1500 with bonuses....for reference damage). A handy use for this is when you can't see an enemy in your range-the ooze will target it and strike it (depending on the number of enemies, etc).
Moss I only put points into this near the last half of the game, and only 1/5 in the first 2 for a long time. There are only so many points to go around....
-Grasping Moss Really good crowd control. I had it with 1/5 but used it a lot. Maybe I should have invested more as the prime moss for the radius, % chance and damage.
-Nourishing Moss I had 3/5 for emergencies, but mostly used grasping moss anyways for the pinning. So ymmv.
-Slippery Moss A one-turn confusion-like effect chance. I'm guessing that creatures immune to confusion are likely immune to this - I never tested that, though.
-Hallucinogenic Moss A 2 turn confusion chance.
Oozing Blades - first category point, as ooze beam is your best general attack, for the most part. And you need Unstoppable Nature. One beam tree is enough, but I suppose you could squeeze in the Acid beam tree in addition if you are stubborn--at the cost of one less infusion.
-
-Oozebeam - will have the highest damage for a direct attack end-game. It's a 10 range beam! Does not hurt oozes.
-Unstoppable Nature At harder levels you need to get this to 3/5 fairly quickly. Before Dreadfell. Many undead have ~80% nature resist. Max it in the East or sooner.
Wild/Gift Eyal's Fury - An amazing AOE tree. second category point.
Reclaim Does decent damage. 1/5 is enough due to limited points. But can do high damage at 5/5. Splitting btw acid and nature means you need to be aware of resists. This is not a projectile, unlike Slime Spit, so it doesn't kill friendlies or get blocked by friendlies in the way.
Nature's Defiance 1/5 is enough to get by. Great passive: EQ restore, arcane resist, spell save boost, nature affinity. 2/5 at the end, if you like nature affinity.
Acid Fire A decent ranged attack with a good radius (puller/damage mid game) and when 5/5 removes effects from enemies quite well (~45% chance) for 11 turns. Keep in mind it's acid damage for resists.
Eyal's Wrath Superb. Does nature damage per turn and restores EQ, while sucking Vim, pos, neg energy (and some mana...) At 5/5 it lasts 9 turns, rad 6, ~200+ dmg per turn.
Generic Talents
Survival
Piercing Sight You need at least one point to avoid getting shanked early-mid game at harder levels. Your high cunning will make most things visible with 1/5.
Evasion Worth considering. With 1 point and eventual high will and cunning this could give ~30% evasion for 15+ turns. That's a very useful defense. But usually you can find boots with it.
Call of the Wild
Nature's Touch 1/5 is enough. This takes a turn to use and may limit your regen to a lower rate if you forget to manage the resulting regen started due to wild growth. Very useful for escort survival. You can simply improve it with a higher heal mod (equipment); therefore more of your limited points are usually not worth investing. Note that it can crit for even more healing.
Earth's Eyes 1/5 is enough. It's situational, but useful. It can show how to path attacks or exploration and escorts. It also will remove darkness areas/spells for visibility during fights.
Nature's Balance This is a superb talent. 3/5 by mid game (the description is innacurrate with 1.4 level - still 1 tier/ point). One reason: Leave's Tide reset. Later 4/5 to allow Eyal's Wrath and Acid Fire to reset. Silence can be nice to reset too. You don't use this all the time, but in the big and dangerous fights it means the difference between running and staying to the finish.
YMMV with other shorter cooldown talents. Rarely it helps to quickly reset a few other tier 4 talents (Slime roots, mana clash, etc)
Mindstar Mastery
Leave's Tide As said, amazing defense to all friendlies in range 3. All of your damage-sharing Oozes close by, as well. Escorts too... It kept Aeyrn alive in the final insane boss fight. You need 5/5 for max of ~56% complete defense now. Worth it. With Nature's balance reset, you can run this for 14 turns! Note LT is affected by your mindstar damage (more basic damage increases %).
So two Tier 5 mindstars have the best improvement.
Antimagic
Resolve 1/5 will suffice. It scales with MP too. Points are limited...
Silence 3/5 for range 10 shut-down of casters.
Antimagic Shield You'll find that you won't have the willpower to run this effectively until late game. 1/5 for 75% of the game and then 5/5. Leaving it off also allows resolve to help your early EQ issues. You'll already be running mitosis, psiblades, and unstoppable nature. Then wild growth. You can also squeeze in Acid skin as it's only 3 EQ.
Mana Clash 1/5 for most of the game. The real value is shutting down Vim/Pos/Neg casters. They don't have a lot of points and when gone, they are neutralized (corrupters, etc). Later enemies rarely have their mana pool impacted by this, as their pool is often 1000s. Note that it does arcane damage for resists. For example, I had this at 5/5 at level 40, and this combined with Eyal's Fury meant that end-boss Elandar quickly had no Vim or Neg points and therefore half his talents were sitting useless.
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My style of play for this character.
1. Limit how often you are hit, ie Evasion - usually 2 of the 3 running at once: Leave's Tide and Evasion or Duck and Dodge.
***Evasion does not stack and it overrides. What this means is that when Duck and Dodge(DD) is triggered, it overrides and cancels previous Evasion (boots or tree). This is good and bad: Good in that DD is 50%, bad in that D&D is 2 turns unless you invest points. Not overly critical, but something to be aware of. I found that with the Evasion talent of ~ 29+% on boots active, DD wasn't activated all that much. LT doesn't count as evasion.
*Note that you don't need this protection everywhere, but don't forget it in the tricky fights or risky areas.
The math:
Early Leave's Tide is ~30%
Duck and dodge ~50 %
-So 1 - (1-.5) *(1-.3) = 65% chance not to get hit. Add in oozes and a few health boosting items, and your early-mid game is not bad.
Note that DD requires you take damage to proc so running another source of evasion to start (say, boots) is extra safety. Better extra-safe then dead when D+D procs after a one-shot.
Later, LT is maxed it works up to ~77% chance to miss all damage (with DD running). With 31% evasion (boots or evasion talent) and LT, this would be 70%.
*Therefore, this strategy is not specific to the Halfling race. (Although Halfling Duck and Dodge helps increase the evasion a small % for the mid-game to some extent, or greatly if you can't find boots; and only if you don't get one-shot before DD activates.)
And don't forget that LT helps your friendlies in range to evade and prolongs their life.
2. Have a full-on combat window of 14+ turns. That's enough to kill most any boss. Full-on means all valuable offensive talents in play.
-Leave's Tide x2, Eyal's Fury x2, Acid Fire x2 and others depending on your needs....all due to the handy Nature's balance. 15+ turn Evasion too.
-two Heroism infusions of 10+ turns for back-to-back. I never ended up going below 1 health, but it's certainly less stressful to have the safety. And definitely a boost to MP with the stats.
-a short cooldown regen infusion (close or at 12 cooldown). With 4/5 wild growth you'll only ever have one or 2 turns of down-time without a regen on.
-a short cooldown wild physical infusion (lower cooldown is better than resist % to complement spine of the world ). Mental combo would be nice.
-short cooldown movement infusion for positioning and maybe stun/pin/freeze control.
3. You need a Track skill item or escort by the time you get to Dreadfell.
You need to see what's coming at you until ~ level 45. After that you can survive most anything, even surprised. On occasion, insane levels can be comprised almost entirely of rares and/or quite a few uniques. Track can very often show you where enemies are that you can't normally see because they have too high invisible or hide.
4. As always, health-item boosts so when you do get hit, it's not a one-shot.
Edit Note:
I managed to kill Atamathon using more or less this strategy above. He starts with 32k life, but little mana(~1k) on insane.
I ran around a lot more than usual to make sure I was never next to him without Evasion and LT running. He just hits too hard to be getting hit more than once in a while. Especially if he catches you in Irresistible Sun - you'll have to weather 6 turns of beatings if you can't escape.
(For example, he caught me with Irresistible Sun, from which I used Slime Roots to escape, and immediately he used Giant Leap, which I evaded. That could have hurt and I then had to suffer through Irresistable Sun anyways...as Oozewalk was not useable at that time)
-I started with evasion(boots), LT, Heroism, wild infusion for resists, boost and all Eyals running. (This is my basic chest and vault opener strategy).
Using those talents early means that they last much shorter on the initial volley, but it saves you 3 turns of battle set-up and allows you to immediately move away if things go bad, while at the same time inflicting a lot of damage.
-Eyal's Wrath and Mana Clash completely remove his mana within a few turns. Acid Fury stripped what sustains he had up over time. He has some annoying mana talents (molten skin, arcane pull, reflective skin). He regenerates very little mana (and some via a Mana Surge rune). If Eyal's wrath can be maintained in contact he will never get his mana back....it's easier said than done, though. A few times I needed to run around a tree for a break.
-use oozes and a basic tentacle (charm) to block him from rush and approach (summoned at start and repeated where needed).
-start with Grasping moss and Thorn grab to hold him and then move away if possible.
-reset talents with Nature's balance so LT and Eyal's are ready again, and run them. (Evasion should still be going, as it's ~15+ turns)
-use Ooze beams and Slime spit when safe from him. Slime spit needs proper positioning to not shoot through your blockers and kill them too.
Run away until talents are good again and repeat. Resists are maintained at a high % by alternating between the wild infusion and Reabsorb(3/5). Two heroism infusions means one is usually active (I never went below 0 health, but got to 3% once in the battle and I was glad to have what little buffer heroism gave, while I ran away).
Also, prior to the battle, I respected my last 4 class points which were in Call of the Ooze and Nourishing moss and moved them to 4/5 Nature's Defiance (to add more %Nature Affinity heal just in case he was able to successfully run Reflective Skin - which he did for a short time) and 2/5 Grasping Moss (for better slow and pin % chance - it's the only physical effect he is not immune to). His saves are very high (100-115) on insane, so he's not going to fail much or be held long, anyways.
General Game notes:
Items + RNG:
-I found a misc item (totem) with +1 invoke tentacle early. That tentacle is pretty useful. Call it to take a bullet for you from an archer or a mage. Use it to distract/hold a mob while you go somewhere else (think escort). Immune to poison, I think. Nice early game help. A torque with mindblast would also be good early.
-Self-found (no player vault). Equipment drops for me were quite bad until Vor's Armory. I did find a couple of nice mindstars in the Sacrifice Crypt, though. After Vor's, the vaults and uniques started giving up amazing stuff. It's an probably insane-level thing with all the exta rares and unique creatures. Escorts were lucky, with early escorts and 2 free escorts in Dreadfell (small, enclosed starter room thing).
So basically it was very careful play prior to finding decent items that boosted defence, mindpower, and health in the East.
Farportals provide a lot of item opportunity, as well. I went in after I finished the game.
Stats:
I maxed in this order: Wil, Cun, Str, Con. EQ fails when greater than your willpower. Wil + cun = Mindpower. In my case, str was intentionally maxed for the Superpower prodigy.
To get 50 con for Spine of the World by level 30, I had to store/carry +con items. You can store them in any early area vault, if too heavy. I think I also had to add a point or two of con, as well.
Note that con does not have nearly the same early impact on life as does +life equipment. 1 con is ~ 4 health. A 50 health item ~ 12 con. So con is not critical initially. Mindpower and offensive killing is.
Summary: buy/use some +life equipment to help low/mid game life, don't invest in con initially.
Escorts:
I had some nice randoms. But the most useful were definitely Mind Sear and Track.
Mind Sear works well as it's a 2 turn cooldown, and it makes a nice filler attack. You are pumping MP anyways, which makes the damage grow. It's range of 7 may seem ok, but you get used to range 10 oozebeam and slime attacks and may often find it short-ranged in comparison.
Sleep is nice early game crowd control and running, but it's only 2 turns. Dream walk is very unpredictable, and may hurt you more than help- but an extra option is never bad. It does have a nice possible combo with sleep. Sleep then dreamwalk to the "sleeping" target is very accurate, if you want to be close in, that is... I never used it this way. I instead always used Slime Roots to move accurately.
Vitality is overshadowed by all the other healing. My vitality heal was ~25x2=50 ( it is affected by heal mod) while my healing was almost 200 via regen infusion. So it's a questionable choice, but improves with heal mod %. When my health was so low that vitality was activated, I wasn't ever waiting for it to heal via vitality.
The rest of the escorts don't give you anything critical that you can't already get. I'll not deny the extra points are always nice, though.
Re: Oozemancer Guide
What is an 'early area vault' ?
Re: Oozemancer Guide
@HammyHamster
Haven't played halfling oozemancer for a long time so there is a chance it might not work anymore.
Imho main benefit of playing halfling is ability to reset indomitable with slime roots multiple times. This will basically save you one prodigy. If you have some spare time during fight you can reset slime roots and other nature talents (leave's tide, offensive talents etc) with nature's balance. Obviously you will be able to slime roots again to reset indomitable and nature balance and restart the cycle. As long as enemies do not put enough pressure on you you can sustain all your defensive skills for a longer periods of time.
Haven't played halfling oozemancer for a long time so there is a chance it might not work anymore.
Imho main benefit of playing halfling is ability to reset indomitable with slime roots multiple times. This will basically save you one prodigy. If you have some spare time during fight you can reset slime roots and other nature talents (leave's tide, offensive talents etc) with nature's balance. Obviously you will be able to slime roots again to reset indomitable and nature balance and restart the cycle. As long as enemies do not put enough pressure on you you can sustain all your defensive skills for a longer periods of time.
Re: Oozemancer Guide
Each time you try to open vault game asks you "are you sure you want to open this door". Some vaults are really small and can be found in T1 zone (snakes room or small room filled with runes and inscriptions guarded by skeleton mage etc). Each tile in vaults is a safe place to drop your stuff for later use. Items in vault will stay there forever (never expire)Hatome wrote:What is an 'early area vault' ?
Re: Oozemancer Guide
Gotta put a word in here for Pain Enhancement System as a prodigy choice for people who have the Embers of Rage DLC. Incredible boosts to Cun/Wil with good uptime translate into Mindpower and Mindstar damage increases beyond what Superpower will give, in my opinion.
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frostnuggets
- Wayist
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Wed May 06, 2015 1:44 am
Re: Oozemancer Guide
Sir HammyHamster, why don't you create a new topic for your guide [in case you haven't done so already]?
I am no expert, but it sounds like a great guide that deserves attention and that would help lots of players, including myself, lol (creating an oozemancer rait naw, guby).
I am no expert, but it sounds like a great guide that deserves attention and that would help lots of players, including myself, lol (creating an oozemancer rait naw, guby).
Re: Oozemancer Guide
Can Slime Roots reset PES? Seems like a pretty strong combo to play your best 6 turns under PES, then Nature's Balance -> Slime Roots to reset Nature's Balance and PES if those are options.tabs wrote:Gotta put a word in here for Pain Enhancement System as a prodigy choice for people who have the Embers of Rage DLC. Incredible boosts to Cun/Wil with good uptime translate into Mindpower and Mindstar damage increases beyond what Superpower will give, in my opinion.
E: for whatever reason, Slime Roots cannot reset PES. It can, however, reset infusions, so a pretty decent start to most battles is Heroism-> Regen -> Slime Roots for best positioning.
Would also say that, if you're willing to scum or mod for any escort control, Cornac with tinkers is probably the best Oozemancer race. 13 generics (equal to an 8 point cost for other races, given the +5 generics Cornacs have) for +10 all stats, another +10 cunning, +25% nature and acid damage, huge melee improvements (psiblades really benefit from +damage grooves), +50% stun res, immunity to disarms and hostile teleports, medical injector's flexible status clears, and a host of other small resistances and improvements are very strong, likely better than anything another race has to offer.
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Steven Aus
- Archmage
- Posts: 366
- Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2014 3:38 pm
Re: Oozemancer Guide
Do Tinker items drop in AoA 1.6.5 when EoR is active? Are there any things that you would change from the guide here based on changes up to the current 1.6.5 including changes to Oozemancer/Tinker skills and PES? And how doable is Cornac Oozemancer on Insane Adventure (or even Insane Roguelike) even without successfully getting and rescuing the Tinker escort?