ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

What I don't get are leaving rush at 1 when maxing all the shield offense skills and maxing elemental harmony before thick skin and accuracy.

The only closer is the movement infusion, which is also the only escape and shield offense suffers from much worse decreasing returns than thick skin. The fifth point in riposte is like 2-3% crits after blocking. Shield Bash has a rider that scales, but taking riposte, shield slam, and assault down to 4 to bring rush to 4 would help mobility a lot. Actually, shield bash may have a duration breakpoint at 4 with 1.3 multiplier. And, since you're already taking Perfect Strike I'd also max Blinding Speed before putting a second point in Shield Slam or Assault. Especially on a Shalore.

Elemental Harmony, on the other hand, is purely reactive and uncontrollable for most classes -- including the bulwark. You could max accuracy and 4 point thick skin or vica versa for that and get a consistent benefit. You obviously value accuracy or you wouldn't be 4 pointing Perfect Strike.

And this sort of thing is why people write full guides. If you have bad reasons for some questionable decisions others can explain why you're wrong and you can learn from them and if you have good reasons we can learn from them rather than discounting your guide as bad because of them.

What I don't get are leaving rush at 1 when maxing all the shield offense skills and maxing elemental harmony before thick skin and accuracy.

Rush: if you're rushing further than the lvl1 tiles you're probably generating unnecessary risk, best to go around corners in explored territory and wait. Elemental harmony gives a very significant speed buff which is more important than 5% all res. You have plenty of accuracy from Precise Strikes and Perfect Strike; it has diminishing returns anyway.

The only closer is the movement infusion, which is also the only escape and shield offense suffers from much worse decreasing returns than thick skin. The fifth point in riposte is like 2-3% crits after blocking. Shield Bash has a rider that scales, but taking riposte, shield slam, and assault down to 4 to bring rush to 4 would help mobility a lot. Actually, shield bash may have a duration breakpoint at 4 with 1.3 multiplier. And, since you're already taking Perfect Strike I'd also max Blinding Speed before putting a second point in Shield Slam or Assault. Especially on a Shalore.

Shield offense is a class tree and thick skin a generic one, they aren't comparable in terms of point investments. Points on Rush as above. Blinding Speed isn't as important specifically because you're Shalore and already have a speed buff.

Elemental Harmony, on the other hand, is purely reactive and uncontrollable for most classes -- including the bulwark. You could max accuracy and 4 point thick skin or vica versa for that and get a consistent benefit. You obviously value accuracy or you wouldn't be 4 pointing Perfect Strike.

Elemental Harmony can be triggered with a wand of fire wall, who knew hey! Accuracy has diminishing returns as above.

And this sort of thing is why people write full guides. If you have bad reasons for some questionable decisions others can explain why you're wrong and you can learn from them and if you have good reasons we can learn from them rather than discounting your guide as bad because of them.

I don't usually make questionable decisions though...

Has anyone actually played this on nightmare or insane? I'm curious if anyone has gameplay experience or if this is theory crafting? Mankeli, was this your bulwark that died in hi peak?

Furey wrote:Has anyone actually played this on nightmare or insane? I'm curious if anyone has gameplay experience or if this is theory crafting? Mankeli, was this your bulwark that died in hi peak?

Nah, my bulwark was way different, I haven't tried one with these settings.

Link: http://te4.org/characters/121593/tome/7 ... 4cfb933602

I went with an ogre and a two-hander and a shield. I unlocked the obsolete two-hander category, light and battle tactics. It wasn't an optimal build.

My build worked just fine until it didn't. It wasn't even that difficult. I had one unfortunate encounter in High Peak where a pyromancer sun paladin unique entered LOS and one-shotted my bulwark in one turn for 2 K worth of damage while digging.

My thoughts on this build:

1)Harmony is pretty bad on average compared to alternatives against pretty much everything except the final bosses with bulwark etc. talents. Maybe excluding Gorbat and Grushnak too, I don't know how much they can have armour if they roll the bulwark class. Situational benefits are, well, situational. So not having harmony and instead having something else is better in 90+ % of battles. It's too bad that if the 0,1 % where it's really really good happens to be the final battle though like it was the case for my bulwark.

So the goodness of harmony build basically boils down to this: do you prefer your character being stronger in general but taking a gamble on the most difficult battle(s) of the game?

2) Dirty Fighting is good but the chances of finding cripple on shield, weapon or gauntlets is pretty good. Warcries has battlecry which would help against perma-evasive Elandar. However, the cooldown is too long, what's the cooldown of this skill on helmets? Then again, you need your charm cooldown on dispersion.

My Elandar had a cooldown of 10-11 evasion. Maybe spydric poison (remember, vitality reduces poison durations) with battlecry tree would be enough.

Once again: Dirty Fighting is good against everything, warcries would be very situonally very useful and the rest of the tree isn't that bad either.

3) The fifth point in riposte doesn't give much at all, the fourth point however does. The rush range is fairly meaningless. Also, it's much nicer to start the battle with assault (which usually means dead monster) then 120 % mainhand weapon damage.

4) I don't like the "one-hit" prodigies too much: you'll only hit with your mainhand weapon which isn't doing much damage on a shalore. I doubt it will be enough to one-shot things much. You can spread status effects like this effectively though. I would probably prefer I can carry the world: It helps with stam and inscriptions (especially on an ogre) as well as damage.

Final sad truth: The builds doesn't really matter that much compared to luck. If Elandar has perma-evasion, vitality, undispersable essence of speed, 95 % all resists (thanks true grit), decent armour and if Aeryn for some reason or another dies like right away, then it's going to be REALLY difficult (but I guess doable).