I haven't been playing ToME for too long, but I'm enjoying experimenting with different classes. Possessor looked fascinating, but I noticed there are no guides... so it's time to fix that!
I'm no expert on ToME or Possessor - this post will definitely evolve as people respond with better ideas than mine. I'm working my way through Nightmare right now.
[See Open Question 14]
Special Thanks
Special thanks to everyone whose guides have gotten me this far, and to whomever came up with the guide format I'm going to shamelessly copy (bpat?).
Many people have contributed ideas to this guide, all more knowledgeable and handsome than myself. In no particular order, thank yous to: Micbran, Snarvid, ster, Zoogy, Arakes, Number43, Aquillion, and twas Brillig. Some of this information includes quotes from posts in this forum and others.
General Information on Possessor
Since our Possessed bodies cannot heal (until Cannibalize, which is still not a great solution), we need to consider their health to be a resource we permanently spend every time we fight a creature. "Rest a while" doesn't let us start each fight at full health. We need to constantly evaluate whether or not we are going to gain more from a fight (experience, loot, a new body to Possess) than we will spend (unrecoverable health for our current body).
We need to avoid getting caught in a negative feedback loop. If our best body gets killed, then it's that much harder to keep progressing with our second best body. This can spiral out of control until we are out of strong bodies to Possess and can't progress. Picking our battles and bravely running away is an important skill.
It is important to note that Solipsism converts a percentage of our healing and life regeneration effects into Psi. This means that those effects are much less useful than for many other classes, but not useless for a Possessor. This is important to keep in mind so we don't run out of Psi for Possess, Assume Form, lose the bonus from Clarity, or fall below the Solipsism threshold.
What Bodies Can We Possess?
The Possess talent controls the number of types of bodies we can Possess. A Possessor starts the game with three bodies in storage and knowing their types. Everyone starts with humanoid and animal, and one more based on race (difficulty does not matter):
- Cornac: giant
- Ogre: immovable
- Shalore: immovable
- Yeek: insect
- Higher: giant
- Doomelf: demon
- Skeleton: undead
- Ghoul: undead
- Good: demon, undead, dragon, horror, humanoid
- So-so: insect, vermin, animal, elemental, giant
- Bad: immovable, aquatic, spiderkin
What Bodies Should We Possess?
Keep an eye out for creatures with certain skills. They're worth Possessing even if they aren't elite+:
- Rush or other movement skills
- Anything that prevents health loss like Barrier, Bone Shield, Bone Armor, Kinetic Shield, etc.
- Weapon mastery - the creature skill stacks with our own skill for amazing dps
- Arcane Blade for Arcane Combat procs off Psychic Blows retaliation strikes and AoEs
- Doombringer skills like Incinerating Blows, Burning Sacrifice, Unleashed Mind, and/or Seismic Mind
- Summoner skills are great for keeping the body around since we're so far removed from the action. The early game can be much easier if we can throw a Flamespitter around every blind corner. It also makes our escorts survival much easier since we can block their forward progress and let the summons take the hits. Try combining summons with a sling or bow and trying to stay out of melee. Later on these are a fairly bad choice. Note that some unexpected types like bandit lords or vampires have summons.
- Solipsist skills scale well with Mindpower, of which we should have a fair bit
- Mindslayer (be sure to add TK wielding skills manually to the action bar) for excellent durability interactions of Solipsism and Shields.
- Necromancers for innate soul regeneration, and particularly if we find a Necro with Create Minions, Assemble, and/or Sacrifice.
- Gunslingers for hilarious dual-steamgun havoc with instant-speed switch to Possessor weapons if the enemy closes the gap
- Temporal Wardens for instant speed switches in both directions (melee to range with Bow threading, range to melee from possessor), really nice mobility, some possible durability upgrades, and doggies.
- Gloom is a really nice ability to grab off a host - it's not super reliable, but just turn it on and keep doing whatever else you were going to do anyway, and a chunk of the time your enemy will get a solid control effect planted on them.
Be aware that some creatures have more abilities than what is listed when Assuming their Form. Keep an eye out for these abilities as they will appear in the first unassigned action bar slot. I suggest keeping a few empty slots next to the placeholder abilities you get in your normal (unpossessed) form. A few examples:
- Some rogues/bandits have "bonus" skills to choose their active poison.
- Solipisists sometimes give you their Thoughtform Summons without you having to, or indeed being able to, choose them as one of your selected talents. A helpful ability when it includes Warrior or Defender.
- Chants
- Endless Woes on Spider Mages
- Giant Leap on many giant uniques
- Temple of Creation bosses each have 4-5 apiece
- Protector Myssil (sp?) has 4-5, but is Antimagic
- Aluin has Irresistible Sun and Arcane Might
- War master Gnarl has Windblade and Giant Leap
Cornac is an obvious choice given the importance of your first few category points (see the Category Points section). It really helps in smoothing out the early game.
Ogre can use a huge number of Possessor weapon skills as well as creature weapon skills. The inscription/infusion/rune bonus is also good.
Shalore is good for all the reasons they're usually good, and synergizes well with the Pain Enhancement System prodigy (see the Prodigies section).
Yeek is not a particularly good race for Possessor (at least, not as as good as the top three). However, Possessor is a particularly good class for Yeeks. Posessing a body makes up for the racial life penalty (though you're doubly penalized when not in a body). Yeek also has a nice speed boost and a couple of instant combat abilities.
Higher lets you use Steam without slotting for it and gives you a instant heal that helps with PES's inherent conflict with Solipsism. Also not as good of a race as the top three.
Stats
Increase Str and Wil as needed for talent and gear requirements. After meeting requirements, Str is a higher priority than Wil, though you'll want to max both eventually.
After those two stats, you should focus on:
- Cun if you are going to invest heavily in the Solipsism talents (for Mindpower and Mental saves)
- Mag if you are going to take the Arcane Might prodigy or unlock the Celestial/Light talents
- Dex otherwise
If you are going to do Tinkers and not heavily invest in Cun, hang on to Cun gear for Physics/Chemistry requirements.
Inscriptions
Initially you'll might be doing some fighting outside of bodies, so go for Movement, Shielding, and Regeneration to start. Heal and Regeneration are less useful than for many classes, but not useless (see the General Information on Possessor section).
If you unlock another Inscription, another Shielding or Movement would help a lot. If you find the Regeneration isn't helping enough, I would switch it to another Shielding or Movement.
If you're going to do Tinkers, you may want to use a Medical Injector. Salves are less effective than they are for many classes (see the Tinkers section). You shouldn't need a Steam Generator, as many bodies that have Steam spenders also generate Steam.
Around the tier 2 dungeons it feels like Shielding doesn't scale well with the damage coming in. You might consider switching Shielding to a second Injector. On the other hand, it's still health that your body doesn't lose.
Heroism is unusually bad for Possessors. The bonus stats don't get fully converted to a body. We don't have enough ways to heal a body to take advantage of the negative health effect. If a bonus stat is one that increases your max Psi (which is very very likely), it won't increase your current Psi, which will bring you closer to your solipsism threshold (and the accompanying global speed reduction).
Equipment
Defenses are great. The usual top choices like armor and stun/freeze/confusion/teleport immunity still apply. If you invest heavily in the Balance talent, mental save becomes more important than physical or spell (but saves are only so-so and not a big gearing priority).
Activated abilities are good (since you can't be sure of what abilities your bodies will have). Rush, movement, and damage reduction/shields are especially good.
There is no "best" here since different stats synergize with different bodies. You can swap gear around as needed before Possessing a body to shore up its weaknesses.
Tinkers
Attachments are very good, as always. Similar to Equipment, there is no "best" list. Swap them around as needed before Possessing a body.
Healing/affinity tinkers/salves are less useful than for many classes, but not useless (see the General Information on Possessor section). The damage reduction of Pain Suppressor Salve does work.
The sawrd is amazing, as always.
A full(?) list of craftable Tinkers has been compiled in this thread: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=45949.
Category Points
Here are the important places to spend category points (in no particular order):
- You'll definitely want to improve Psionic/Possession to 1.5 - this will allow you to Possess bosses. They're that good. This can be deprioritized a bit on Normal where there are fewer random bosses.
- You'll definitely want another Inscription slot (Shielding, Movement, or an Injector if you do Tinkers).
- You'll almost definitely want to unlock Psionic/Body snatcher. The sheer quality of life of storing more bodies, getting more uses out of them, and healing them (the only way to do so) is amazing. I suppose you could skip this, but you'd have to play very very well.
- Unlocking Tinkers (see the Tinkers section). This requires you to get the Tinker escort quest.
If you are Cornac, or choose not to unlock Tinkers (but why would you do that?!), there are a few other options:
- Antimagic - Not as great as for other classes. You already have plenty of places in which to spend category points and generic points (especially if you go Tinker). Some of the magic creatures you can Possess are pretty powerful, even if you aren't putting a lot of stat points into Mag.
- Psionic/Deep horror - I haven't tried this myself, but has a few ok abilities (see the Psionic/Deep horror section). That said, it doesn't feel like this tree would be worth taking over the above options.
- Celestial/Light is another option, but it isn't as good here since the healing effects are wasted on our bodies.
Psionic / Solipsism
3/0/0/0 early, 3-5/1/5/0 by mid or late
Solipsism is tricky. 1/5 isn't enough help for the rare times you're out of a body. However, by mid to late game your bodies health has scaled way beyond your Psi. Too many points and you can run out of Psi. Running out of Psi means you can't Possess to gain new bodies nor Assume Form if you current one is killed.
Balance is meh unless you're very invested in Mental saves. Even then, saves are only ok.
Clarity is pretty good. Everyone loves a global speed buff.
Dismissal is meh, the odds are very low. If you have spare Class Points (which isn't likely) and lots of Mental saves, maybe this is worth investing in.
Psionic / Possesion
5/2/5/3-5 as soon as you can, 5/5/5/x is a luxury
Possess is awesome. The whole reason you picked this class, right? Bosses are a lot of fun to Possess.
Self Persistence - the first two points are very efficient. Further points aren't bad, but aren't very efficient either.
Improved Form - the stat gain tapers off pretty quickly, but getting higher level talents from your bodies is huge.
Full Control
Psionic / Body snatcher
Bodies Reserve
Psionic Minion
Psionic Duplication
Cannibalize - the only way to heal a body. Synergizes well with Psionic Duplication since the healing penalty is "per use of a body". You can use a body, heal it once or twice, then discard the "most destroyed" version of it; the new version has no healing penalty.
Psionic / Psychic menace
Psionic / Psychic blows
Psionic / Battle psionics
5/0/0/0 early in your tree of choice. If the tree(s) you picked have defensive talents, they're worth some points too.
Psionic / Deep horror (locked initially)
x/1/x/0 if you unlock this category
Mind Steal is good at shutting down troublesome enemy talents, which is something Possessors are normally lacking.
Spectral Dash is pretty bad.
Writhing Psionic Mass is a damage reduction panic button and physical/mental cleanse.
Ominous Form
Generic Talents
Technique / Combat training
0/5/0/0/5/0 early, 5/5/0/5/5/0 by the mid game
Thick Skin is absolutely worth it. Hang on to Con gear to meet the requirements.
Heavy Armour Training is great.
Light Armour Training - skip.
Combat Accuracy is good. You should have enough spare Generic points to max it eventually.
Weapon Mastery is good on its own, but absolutely amazing if you Possess a creature that also has Weapon Mastery, since they stack.
Dagger Mastery is needed if you go daggers, but not recommended.
Cunning / Survival
Heightened Senses
Device Mastery
Track
Danger Sense
Psionic / Mentalism
1/2/0/0 eventually, but no hurry
Psychometry is bad. This isn't a Mindpower focused class.
Mental Shielding is a decent cleanse, albeit only for Mental effects.
Projection
Mind Link
Psionic / Ravenous mind
1/x/x/0 eventually, but no hurry
Sadist is bad. This isn't a Mindpower focused class.
Channel Pain is ok damage reduction as long as you have some spare Psi.
Radiate Agony is ok damage reduction.
Torture Mind - another rare way to put enemy talents on cooldown.
Brotherhood of Alchemists
The elixir of focus is by far the most useful.
Prodigies
Pain Enhancement System can be great on Possessors because you potentially need every stat, it helps you equip high Dex items (whack a training dummy, trigger PES, leave host, equip), and it potentially allows some bonkers combos with certain bodies (ex. Aluin has Arcane Might natively, so you could run PES+Superpower+Arcane Might for funsies, while less egregiously and more commonly Mindslayers switch weapon damage over to Willpower and Cunning). However, PES is also a nonbo with Solipsism, because it raises your max Psi without raising your current Psi, thus driving you out of Clarity and towards your Solipsism threshold. You can regen to fix this, but it's an inscription use and a turn. Shalore, however, could do something like "trigger PES, trigger Grace of the Eternals with new boosted Magic stat, trigger regen at new enhanced speed, hit Timeless to stretch out duration and lower cooldown of all three." Potentially worthwhile, but might be more trouble than you care for.
I Can Carry The World is a pretty solid Prodigy in conjunction with Superpower. Both of them help you whale on people harder, and in combination boost your Mindpower fairly significantly (which isn't critical for your Possessor abilities, but can definitely be useful for making stuff you get off hosts better). Removing fatigue penalties is surprisingly good with massive armor, making your psi go much farther (as it takes double fatigue penalty) and preserving your Clarity bonus longer, as well as stretching other host resources significantly farther. The added carry bonus is a nice quality of life upgrade, if you're going to carry around numerous different gear sets for different bodies. Just be aware the +1 size category is only for your base form, and is overridden by the size of your host body - this largely only matters for Ogrewielding, but it's good to know going in.
Flexible Combat looks pretty good. It should trigger off the Psychic Blows AoEs, which could be pretty great.
Arcane Might looks pretty good.
Early game
Drown rares in each town as usual, even though you can't Possess them yet. While in Last Hope, also drown the guards and Possess them just before they die. Having a few level 20+ bodies will be a huge help as you get started.
You're very squishy in the early game, so be careful. One thing to be aware of: if you are possessing a body and it dies, Assume Form does not go on cooldown. That means you can immediately jump into a new body (albeit with a -60% damage dealt debuff that can't be removed). If instead you used Assume Form to leave the body before it died, then Assume Form would go on cooldown and you have to survive on your own for 18 rounds.
You'll want to pick a weapon skill:
- Double mindstars -> Psionic/Psionic menace -> Mind Whip
- Two handed weapon -> Psionic/Psionic blows -> Psychic Crush
- One handed weapon + offhand mindstar -> Psionic/Battle psionics -> Psionic Disruption
For the tier 1 dungeons, do Trollmire and Kor'Pul first. Trollmire and Kor'Pul won't have any rares (except from chests) so you can get loot in relative safety as you build up your body reserve. See bpat's suggested zone order in this thread: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=46250 (search for "zone order").
The Ruined Dungeon is a reliable source of rares to help get your collection started. You don't have to clear the entire place if you just want some bodies, but be aware that the rares you leave alone will be less useful in the future since their level will be set.
Vaults are great - they'll have an overleveled body for you to steal!
Midgame
For the tier 2 dungeons, I suggest doing the Sandworm Lair first. The bonus from eating the Heart is great, so the earlier you get it the better.
The Dark Crypt is very tough if you get it at level 24. I do not recommend doing it. However, it does have tons of rares and bosses, so it could be worth going in just to get a few shiny new high-level bodies, then leaving.
The Lost Hope Graveyard is likewise very tough. There's a chance you'll get some really good bodies from it, though (vampires, liches, bone giants).
Late game
Endgame
Open questions
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14. What needs to change for Insane mode?
