Hi All!
This time, I tinkered a little bit with Temporal Wardens (without Tinkers…) and I made
a really fun Temporal Warden build what is also incredibly versatile and strong.
Note 1: this build works only with Drem race, so you will need Forbidden Cults DLC for it.
Note 2: the build is very strong, but the playstyle is very unusual. I am playing like a Paradox Mage
with a bow and not like a conventional Temporal Warden.
Note 3: the build itself is very paradox: you can use both Arcane & Antimagic powered items.
Have you ever made a both Arcane & Antimagic character before?
If not, you can read here, how to utilize the benefits of both, without any drawback.
Note 4: Temporal Wardens have Warden’s Call and unfortunately this talent is causing memory issues.
It creates a new actor for every trigger and this is drastically increasing the save file.
As you can see from my first playthrough (links at the end), in the last video the “save bar” went crazy and my game crashed…
Because I love the concept of Warden’s Call, to solve this issue I made and addon that changes Warden’s Call.
On my runs I did not used this addon.
The addon can be find here:
https://te4.org/games/addons/tome/wardens-call-fix
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=51613
I will be glad for any feedback and idea to make Warden’s Call better and solve the memory issue.
Note 5: Unlocking Threaded Combat is not completely necessary. It just offers extra damage and extra debuff(s).
With the right gear it can be skipped and another inscription or escort granted generic category can be unlocked.
At my latest playthrough I went this way.
I., Introduction
The build is a primary spell caster, while using a bow for extra damage, debuffing enemies and paradox tuning.
For anyone who is not familiar with the paradox resource, one of my guide contains a detailed overview about paradox itself:
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=50483
You can find the paradox overview at the very start.
Only the “tools for paradox management” part is different here, because Wardens have different talents
and this build have a different relation to paradox and a different management system.
In a nutshell, what is this build and what it offers to you?
My Temporal Warden is fighting with a CORE that I also using for Paradox Mages:
using multiple Spatial Tethers on myself, with a minimum distance of 7-8 from each other.
This means, at every turn, we will automatically teleporting multiple times, and every teleport that we do
triggers a radius 2 AoE warp damage (physical + temporal) around both teleporting locations.
So, we will automatically do multiple AoE damage each turn.
Because Temporal Wardens also have Spacetime Weaving tree, they have very strong synergies with teleporting:
Dimensional Shift is a passive that clears (reduces the duration) detrimental temporary effects from us on each teleport.
Phase Pulse is a sustain what triggers also on each teleport, and applies a radius 2 AoE random warp debuff effect
on each enemy around us. (The debuff is equally likely chosen from: stun, pin, confuse or blind)
So, during fights, we will continuously dealing AoE damage, continuously debuff our enemies
and continuously clear detrimental effects from ourselves.
Because Temporal Wardens do not have that much utility as a Paradox Mage (no Redux for initial double Tether,
no Spellbinding for longer duration Tethers), to make this strategy working I had to figure out a different way:
a, The absence of Redux can be solved by choosing Drem for race.
Frenzy is similar to Redux, but it just works on non-instant class talents, but without the cooldown limit.
We will use it for our Spatial Tether, so it works. (Frenzy also enables to use multiple class talents while its duration lasts)
b, The absence of Spellbinding – Extension can be solved simply with Paradox Modifier.
Because we don’t have Reality Smearing and we won’t cast as many and as expensive spells as we would do with a Paradox Mage,
we can tune up our paradox to higher & higher levels as the play progresses and we have higher & higher Willpower Paradox Modifier.
This way we can also reach 10-12 turn long duration Spatial Tethers, but without Extension.
So, we will have a very high paradox all the time: isn’t it dangerous?
Not for this build!
Solutions to manage high Preferred Paradox:
1., We will build our character like a Paradox Mage, so both Magic/spellpower AND
Willpower/Anomaly Chance Reduction from gear will be top priority.
We will have very high Willpower Paradox Modifier (WPM)!
Meanwhile, we will just have 1 important sustain: Phase Pulse with 36 sustain cost. (36 Paradox Sustain Modifier totally)
With just a total 100 Willpower (and/or reduction from gear) we will have 200 WPM, so our Total Modified Paradox (TMP)
will be (36 – 200 = - 164) 164 lower than our Actual Paradox.
With 588 Preferred Paradox (1.4 x Paradox Modifier), that means 424 TMP, so
we will have a good range (424-599) for our paradox to safely cast spells.
Later we will also sustain Contingency (+36 TMP), when it’s safe and of course at end-game we will have more than 100 WPM.
2., Higher paradox means longer Invigorate!
We will have a 24 turn cooldown and 11-12 turn duration Invigorate effect,
so 46-50% of the time all of our talents will cool down by 2 per turn.
3., We will unlock Stasis and learn Static History level 5
With high paradox and 10-20% spell cooldown reduction from gear, we can reach a 22-20 turn cooldown,
9-10 (+1 because it’s instant) turn long duration Static History effect.
So, as long as our Total Modified Paradox stays below 600, we can cast spells safely.
With ~50% uptime Invigorate, this means, we can have our Static History effect ~75% of the time.
4., We will choose Hidden Resources prodigy at level 25
We need this extra safety insurance. Hidden Resources is very good for starting the fights and it will cool down at 8 turns
with our Invigorate, while it has a 5+1 turn duration. It will also solve the ~25% missing uptime from Static History.
With Hidden Resources, Static History and Invigorate, we can continuously cast our spells totally safely
even with 588-675 or more Actual Paradox to continuously have a 1.4 - 1.5 Paradox Modifier.
Also, any time we lose Static History from a Disperse Magic/Negation, we will have a backup HR and vice-versa.
5., We will use a bow and learn Arrow Threading at level 2-3
We will continuously use bow attacks so we will tune our paradox during fights.
Main benefits of the build:
Because we build & gear our character as a Paradox Mage (except from the bow & quiver)
we will have very high effective spellpower (~90-110 at end-game).
Furthermore, we will tune our paradox to reach high Paradox Modifier, so at end-game
we can easily have ~ 130-160 EFFECTIVE spellpower! Continuously!
This means, our Spatial Tethers will deal crazy good AoE damage per turn.
We will apply the Phase Pulse random warp debuffs very reliably with our 130-160 effective spellpower,
enemy saves won’t be a problem at all not even on Madness.
Temporal Warden also has Breach, what we will use continuously of course. We will easily break enemy saves with it,
so we will halve all the enemy immunities against our debuffs! This is just so nice.
During fights, we will use our bow not just for damage, but also for utility: paradox tuning,
applying Breach and other weapon proc debuffs.
This build is just using a very little melee: if you unlock Warden's Call, you should just use your bow
and melee hits will be automatic through your clones.
Otherwise, you should just use Blink Blade and only if you found Blade of Distorted Time.
So we will need high paradox but how much exactly?
Actual Paradox breakpoints:
300: this results in 1 Paradox Modifier (PMod) value for normal spellpower & durations
380: is for 1.13 PMod that makes 8 turns duration into 9 turns
Very useful for Invigorate & Spatial Tether
392: is for 1.14 PMod that makes Static History 7 turns into 8 turns
432: is for 1.2 PMod that makes Seal Fate & Webs of Fate 5 turns into 6 turns
469: is for 1.25 PMod that makes Invigorate & Tether into 10 turns
534: is for 1.33 PMod for a 4 turn Time Stop
568: is for 1.38 PMod that makes Invigorate & Tethers 11 turns
588: is for 1.4 PMod for 7 turn Seal Fate & Webs of Fate
This level is more than enough, I used this level.
675: is for 1.5 PMod for 12 turns Invigorate & Tethers
Only go for this if you found really good gear for this build, not necessary.
II., Race
Just Drem works here, we need Frenzy for the initial double Tether.
Frenzy is good at even 1 point, but for pure safety reasons, we will level this up to 5 for the 25 turn cooldown.
On Madness, we cannot avoid enemies coming for us so we have to use our Frenzy as often as just we can.
Talents that you can Frenzy double cast:
Arrow Stitching, Singularity Arrow, Arrow Echoes, Warden’s Focus
Warp Mines, Spatial Tether, Dimensional Anchor
Breach, Thread Walk, Thread the Needle
Spiderskin is not relevant for us, we will have high all resistance from a robe & Out of Phase.
Faceless is good, but we will continuously teleporting and clearing effects from ourselves
and we will also have Hidden Resources that negates talent fail effects like Confusion.
From Below It Devours is not necessary for us, we will pin and debuff every enemy very seriously.
So our racial tree will look like:
5, 0, 0, 0 minimum
We will have several extra generic point to spend what you can spend for extra confusion immunity
or in From Below It Devours if you like to. The build is not generic hungry at all.
III., Stats
Magic and Willpower are top priority and equally important.
Our bow will serve as a tool for paradox tuning and applying debuffs,
so we do not need physical power, just accuracy to hit.
So our 3rd stat will be Dexterity to use better bows and have higher accuracy.
Remaining points will go into Constitution.
IV., Prodigies
Level 25: Hidden Resources for safe spellcasting with high paradox
Level 42: Cauterize for safety
V., Talents
My recommended unlock order for Madness is:
Level 10: Stasis
Level 20: Fate Weaving
Level 34: Threaded Combat or Inscription
Wyrm Bile: Inscription
I tried both ways and the extra inscription is really nice, especially with Invigorate.
For non-Madness you can go with Temporal Hounds, they will be incredible:
(in the first part of the game, they will be also really good on Madness)
Level 10: Temporal Hounds
Level 20: Stasis
Level 34: Fate Weaving
Wyrm Bile: Inscription
My end-game talents were:
- talents.png (159.49 KiB) Viewed 14667 times
- talents_2.png (162.5 KiB) Viewed 13546 times
The differences are:
- I learned Blink Blade to use Sword of Distorted Time
- I leveled up Seal Fate, because i had Stone Touch & Silence
Description of the Talent Trees:
NOTE: 1.7 made several talents scaling worse than it was in 1.6 and before.
I will note this at the individual talents, where we need 1 more point.
1., Blade Threading:
We will just use melee at the very start of the game. Later we completely avoid melee, so we do not need anything in this tree.
With Threaded Combat: just our paradox clones will do melee for us.
If we manage to find Blade of Distorted Time and do not use Warden’s Call, we will use Blink Blade to spread the slow.
0, 0, 0, 0 if Threaded Combat is unlocked
1, 1-3, 0, 0 if Threaded Combat is not unlocked and we found Blade of Distorted Time
2., Bow Threading:
a, Arrow Stitching: is a wonderful 1 pointer, adds a little extra damage and extra chance for procs.
1 point
b, Singularity Arrow: a bow version of Gravity Spike.
Sometimes useful for us to pull enemies closer to Tethers if they moved out from range.
1 point
c, Arrow Echoes: Unfortunately we can just have 1 effect at a time, so we cannot have this on multiple enemies.
Still very useful & strong, also the duration is affected by paradox modifier (so 5-6 turn for us).
Because we have Frenzy and ~50% uptime Invigorate we will have this and use this pretty often.
1 point
d, Arrow Threading: We need this to maintain our paradox in a range to have the possible
highest Paradox Modifier, but do not go above 600 Total Modified Paradox.
2 points early, 3 points from mid-late game
3., Temporal Guardian:
a, Strength of Purpose: is our weapon mastery. Because we are not a real weapon character,
we do not desperately need this, but extra damage is never bad and we have the points for it.
Slowly level this up to level 5, but it’s not top priority
b, Guardian Unity: is one of our main damage reduction talent.
Every time when we take a big damage (callbackOnHit) that is higher than the given % of our max life,
a paradox clone of our will appear and take a % of the damage. The clone will remain for 2 turns and take
some damage instead of us. The talent has a cooldown and we will use spell cooldown reduction items (10-20%)
so we can reach an 8 turn CD here. With Invigorate it cools down at 4 turn, so we will have our clone pretty often.
NOTE: the clone can act and will act. It will prefer instant talents first, so the clone is very good if you learned Banish.
Every time you take a big hit, the clone will appear and will cast a Banish on your enemies with crazy high paradox spellpower,
so it will send away a lot of enemies. If you do not want it to teleport enemies, you can prevent this
simply by casting Dimensional Anchor on the enemies.
2-3 points early, 5 for late-game
c, Vigilance: Because we will teleport continuously and we will have Dimensional Shift, we do not need Vigilance,
but in some cases (e.g. when we get Dispersed) we have to run and hide, so it can save our life.
2 points
d, Warden’s Focus:
NOTE: ToME Tips shows incorrectly, that the %’s are affected by PMod. It’s just scales with talent level.
Just the duration is affected by PMod.
The damage reduction triggers on callbackOnTakeDamage (like Webs of Fate), but we have to be within 10 tiles
from our target, otherwise the effects will be removed (checks every turn).
The duration is 10 turns, but it is affected by PMod, so we can maintain this continuously.
We will apply this on an enemy with the highest rank within 10 tiles from us or on any
Archmage/Corruptor/Cultist of Entropy that can negate our tactic if we using Warden’s Call with disruption weapons.
3 points
4., Temporal Combat:
a, Weapon Folding: We really do not need this, but if you will have a good TMP you can sustain this too if you would like to.
On Madness, Archmages & Corruptors can remove ~9-13 of our effects/sustains so we will sustain this just for having
a higher chance not to lose our Tether effect.
1 point
b, Invigorate: is one of our strongest talent. The duration is maxed at talent level 4 (with 1.3 mastery),
but it is affected by PMod, so we will have an 11-12 turn long effect.
This spell affects all of our talents, so our inscriptions and charms too (just charms from item-granted talents)!
This spell will enable us a fast expansion with our multiple-Tether strategy on the battlefield.
With a little spell cooldown reduction from gear, we can recast a new Tether after each 4-5 turns,
and this effect will also make our 10 turn cooldown Stormshield runes cool down at 5 turns… Invaluable!
4 points in 1.6, but in 1.7 you need 5 points here
c, Weapon Manifold: The thing is, with Tethers we already have a way superior damage & debuff mechanism than this. Irrelevant, just for unlock.
1 point
d, Breach: is what we also very need here. We will have very high spellpower, so we can reliably apply this
on enemies, and this will further enhance our Phase Pulse random warp.
Because we are a Drem we can use this talent 2 times at the start of every fight, so apply it on the 2 most dangerous enemy.
With our high PMod, the duration is long enough to continuously maintain it on 1 enemy
and with Invigorate & Frenzy even on 2-3 enemies.
3 points
5., Spacetime Folding:
Contains our Bread & Butter spells: Spatial Tether and Banish.
a, Warp Mines: learning this talent gives you 2 talents. You can lay 2 type of mines (3x3, totally 9 mines with 1 use):
one is teleporting enemies away from you, the other is teleporting enemies towards you.
Other Spacetime Folding talents’ range is determined by Warp Mines.
This talent is just for unlock, but it determines the range of our other Folding talents, most importantly Banish.
We will max Banish (for 9-18 radius) and it’s very comfortable to have a range 8 (+3 from its radius) with it.
1 point at level 1 to unlock, 3 point for the range at late-game
b, Spatial Tether: this spell is one of the strongest talents of a Paradox Mage, but not on its own.
Also because we are Drem, we can also make this spell the strongest in our arsenal with a Temporal Warden.
You can cast it on any actor, and the spell will create a map effect (Tether) under the actor and also sets
a beneficial (on allies & you) or detrimental (on hostiles) effect on the actor.
Once in every turn (as long as the actor has the effect) the Tether is making a check. If the actor is not on the Tethered tile,
there is a chance for the actor being teleported to the Tethered tile. (the chance is 15% x the distance from the Tether)
The Tether will also trigger an AoE damage in a small radius around the target at both locations of the teleports.
If the actor is hostile, it will be also damaged by this, if friendly it won’t be damaged by the AoE damage.
The Tether can still trigger the AoE damage around the target even if the teleport was unsuccessful.
Early game strategy (level 4 - 6):
Level this talent up to level 4 asap. Early game we use it on enemies, it is both defensive & offensive.
Melee enemies won’t have a chance against us, because we Tether them, then teleport or walk away.
The enemy will continuously teleported back to the Tether (cannot attack us) and they will take damage
and cause damage to adjacent foes.
Expert Tether strategy (from level 7 - ):
From level 7, we will have:
Spatial Tether 8 turn cooldown and duration.
Dimensional Step 10 turn cooldown.
Frenzy level 3 with 32 turn cooldown.
Invigorate 24 turn cooldown and 8 turn duration.
To start a fight:
1, cast Frenzy
2, cast Spatial Tether and tether yourself down
3, cast Dimensional Step and teleport away for minimum 7 tiles
(where probably all or most of the enemies are within 2 tiles from you, so within Tether & Phase Pulse range)
4, cast Spatial Tether again and tether yourself down there too
5, cast Invigorate
In the whole fight, we will teleport twice per turn automatically. That means we will deal 2 x AoE damage in 2 locations,
and clear detrimental effects from ourselves 2 x at each turn, automatically due to Dimensional Shift.
Later when we sustain Phase Pulse, we will also apply random debuffs 2 x in 2 locations.
Our Dimensional Step & Tether will be available after 5 turns (with Invigorate) so we can teleport into another tile
and Tether ourselves down there too.
Another 7 turns later we can do this again (we will have 4 Tethers now) but early game enemies will be dead way before this.
Later, we will have Hidden Resources, we can start the fight with it, but always be sure either Hidden Resources
or Static History is available or close to available.
It’s important later to either have some spell cooldown reduction from gear and/or tune our paradox to a higher level for a 10-12 turn long Tether for a continuous maintain and more & more reapply.
Spatial Tether is a game changer talent.
4 points, asap. max it from mid-game for extra damage
c, Banish: has a low cooldown and it is INSTANT, so it is a very strong talent and a potential life saver.
The teleport has low radius at level 1-2, but we can easily teleport enemies through walls especially with a 9-18 radius.
Use it to get rid of enemies.
Because we tune our paradox to a high value we will have really high effective spellpower, so we can send away any enemy,
even at late-game Madness. (The spellsave check do not have a 95% upper limit and teleport immunity is very very rare)
We can also use it before fights if we see, the area is too crowded.
Fighting against 5-7 unique/boss is way harder, than fighting against 1-2.
With Warp Mines level 3 it has 8 range but it has a radius of 3, so the actual range is 11.
NOTE: if we learn this spell, our paradox clones will use this asap, because they prefer instants.
This means: any time we took a big damage and Guardian Unity triggers, our clone will send away some enemies.
1 point early, 3 point at mid-game, 5 point at late-game
d, Dimensional Anchor: casting the spell has 2 effects:
- it creates a map effect, that tries to apply a detrimental effect (Dimensional Anchor) on enemies once at each turn
- on casting the spell it applies DAZE & the Dimensional Anchor effect on targeted enemies
NOTE: the daze checks for stun immunity, but not checks for spellsave
While enemies have the Anchor effect, when they try to teleport, it will fail and they take damage instead.
We can use this with Banish, but Banish is way better as a safety button to get rid of enemies.
We will use this when we have no problem to fight with an enemy that has teleport and we do not want it to escape.
We also use this when we do not want our clone to send away enemies. Unfortunately, Temporal Warden
do not have Time Skip that has a powerful combo with this talent and both Rune of the Rift & Exiler are weak.
1 point
6., Speed Control:
We will start building this tree up from mid-game.
a, Celerity: Not really useful, just for unlock.
1 point
b, Time Dilation: It is very useful for a Paradox Mage, but we will mostly use SHOOT and not spells.
1 point
c, Haste: Also just for unlock, but we will have a few extra class point too what we can spend here.
With high PMod the effect will have 8-9 (+1) turn duration and the cooldown will be 22-20 turn (with gear)
and it will cool down twice as fast with Invigorate, so we can have this up at ~67-75% of the time.
1 point or more if you like to
d, Time Stop: This is a must have talent, incredibly strong & versatile.
With Paradox Mage, I am using this at the start of every fight to set up my Tethers, but PM have Temporal Reprieve
as an escape option and Warden has no safe place to escape if needed.
Time Stop is one of our safety button, when we got “dispersed”, so when fighting against an Archmage/Corruptor or Cultist.
We can cast a Wormhole under Time Stop and teleport away or we can pop a Movement Infusion under Time Stop and run away.
We can even use both, so we can escape 10 (Wormhole) + ~20 (Mov Inf) = 30 tiles too.
With Time Stop, we do not have to worry about Patrols, not even on Madness.
The duration is affected by PMod, so it will give use 4 turns.
4 point in 1.6 and before, you need 5 points here in 1.7
7., Stasis:
Is not necessary for a Paradox Mage, but for our spell caster Warden, this is essential. We unlock it at level 10
and max Static History by level 25, when we unlock Hidden Resources and we can tune up your preferred paradox.
a, Spacetime Stability: The problem is, the value is too small, insignificant.
1 point, just for unlock
b, Time Shield: an instant shield, what is not considered a damage shield and is an “other” effect
(it cannot be dispelled from us). The shield value is strong at the early stages, that’s why I recommend unlocking Stasis at level 10.
The shield also reduces the duration of newly applied detrimental effects on us, and if the shield crumbles
(took equal or more damage than its power), it applies a Healing Over Time effect on us too. Learn it at level 10.
3 points early, 5 points from mid-game
c, Stop: We have way better damaging spell/mechanism (Tether), we do not need this damage.
Also we have way better stunning/debuffing mechanism (Phase Pulse), so we do not need the stun.
1 point
d, Static History: is an instant and a no-paradox spell. (It has 0 paradox cost, it cannot fail due to anomaly chance)
It applies a beneficial magical effect on us. While we have the effect, we cannot trigger minor anomalies,
but our paradox still increases through spellcasting.
While a Flux user Paradox Mage do not need this spell, our spellcaster Warden will manage its paradox
within a range (high enough to have good PMod, but never reach 600 TMP).
From level 25, we will use this spell when our Hidden Resources wears off to safely cast spells, so in rotation with Hidden Resources.
5 points when we reach level 25
8., Threaded Combat:
You can unlock this tree at level 34, but then I recommend to use my addon to - hopefully - avoid memory issues.
a, Thread Walk: This talent is a non-instant teleport for us, because it does not requires a target.
I call it the “poor mans teleport”, because it takes time and we also have to wait for the arrow to reach the destination,
but with a good bow it can have 10 range. We can also double use this with Frenzy.
This will be one of our escape talents if really needed and everything else is on cooldown.
1 point
b, Blended Threads: Because we are not using Blade Threading at all
(just Blink Blade at every ~5-6 turns if we find Blade of the Distorted Time), this is irrelevant for us.
1 point, just for unlock
c, Thread the Needle: If we use it with an archery attack, then our arrow will have a beam-like targeting,
it will hit any enemy between us and our target. Very nice for extra damage or applying debuffs on multiply enemies.
1 point
d, Warden’s Call: would be an incredibly fun and strong talent if it would not cause memory issues…
This enables us to melee our enemies while we do not have our melee weapons (so they are at our secondary setup).
This is how can we use arcane disruption weapons to significantly weaken spellcaster enemies.
We will look after weapons with “of Disruption” ego and use these with our secondary slot and never switch to our secondary slot!
This way the Spell Disruption effect won’t be applied on us, we won’t suffer from any drawback
by equipping arcane disruption weapons.
Enemy mages will have 50% chance to fail to cast any spell and their magical sustains can be deactivated.
Very nice utility, we do not need Rune of Dissipation.
If you use this talent, I recommend trying my addon, it was very annoying to play with lags and to lose progression.
I really hope it works as it is intended.
2 points by level 34, you need 3 points in 1.7
9., Temporal Hounds:
Gives us very strong summons that can kill enemies and serve as a meat shield. Early to mid-game they are incredible.
On Madness, from Reknor/East they are more of a meat shield than damage dealers, that’s why I did not unlocked them.
If you play on any other difficulty, they will make your game significantly easier, because you will have very high Magic.
You can unlock this tree with your level 10 category point, unlock Stasis at level 20 and unlock Fate Weaving at level 34.
a, Temporal Hounds: is a sustain with the highest Sustain Paradox cost (48).
When you sustain it, a Temporal Hound summon will appear and a new one will also appear at every x turns (x = its cooldown).
You can have maximum 3 Hounds at a time. Any time a Hound dies, a new on will appear at x turns again.
Temporal Hounds stats scales with your Magic stat, so you will have very strong Hounds.
NOTE: any time when the distance between you and one of your hound is more than 10 tiles,
the Hound will teleport close to you at the start of the turn.
Temporal Hounds are probably the strongest summons in ToME, they are capable to beat insane for you,
if you gear your character for very high Magic.
4 points asap (from level 10-13 if you unlock it), 5 points from mid-game
b, Command Hounds: Blink: is spell with you can teleport your Hounds to a location or even to aggro an enemy.
Your Hounds will gain defense-on-teleport and all-resistance-on-teleport (Out of Phase) what scales with your paradox spellpower,
but unfortunately OOP is capped at 40%, even if we would apply a ~75-80% all resistance, it’s just 40%. (Changed from ToME 1.6)
We go for talent level 4, because at effective level 5 this spell on use will summon a new Hound instantly
if we have fewer than 3 Hounds.
The cooldown is 10 what is actually a 5 with Invigorate and we can also double cast this under Frenzy,
so we can revive our Hounds pretty often.
4 points
c, Temporal Vigour: is a passive. It enhances your Hounds, they can now survive for a few turns even if their life goes below 0.
Any time they would go negative life and would die, they gain a beneficial magical effect (Unravel), which grants them a few things:
- that much die_at value that just prevents them to die
- invulnerability
- 50% generic damage penalty
At the start of each turn if the Hounds life is above 0 again, the effect is removed.
If the duration expires and the Hound still have negative or 0 life, it will die.
Temporal Vigour also enhances your Command Blink, the Hounds will gain a Regeneration effect
and increased global speed after each blink. If a Hound also has the Unravel effect, the regeneration bonus is doubled.
Furthermore, your Hounds also passively gain stun, pin, confusion and blind immunity.
4 points for the maximum duration (4 turns with high PMod)
d, Command Hounds: Breathe: you can activate this spell to make your Hound a breath (cone) attack
that deals temporal damage. The attack also applies stat reduction on the targets. You are immune to this effect,
and your Hounds are immune to the stat reduction.
The thing is, your Hounds have 100% temporal damage resistance and this talent gives them temporal damage affinity,
so you can heal your Hounds with this spell.
It’s not necessary but good to have.
0-2 point
A little comparison of 1.5 Hounds vs 1.6 & 1.7 Hounds:
Temporal Hounds do not have a 70% resistance cap.
Because in 1.5 Out of Phase was not capped on activation, they could have ridiculous all resistance!
With ~100 effective spellpower & 1.4-1.5 PMod you could reach 80% all resistance and 85% physical resistance on your Hounds,
what could make them incredibly tanky. (Especially with Unravel)
In 1.6 and further they can have just 40% all resistance and therefore a 57% physical resistance.
Their damage was also nerfed: 268 damage vs 185 damage. (With 200 Magic)
10., Chronomancy:
a, Precognition: this is our tracking talent. Seeing enemies in a ~21-23 radius is totally enough even in Madness.
Use this continuously.
1 point early, 2 point from level ~16-20, 3 points from level ~25-30, but you can level up earlier too
b, Foresight: This bonus is irrelevant, just for unlock.
1 point
c, Contingency: is a sustain. On activation, we can bind another spell into it that has no fixed cooldown
and not requires a target. Every time, when our life goes beyond the given threshold, Contingency will go on cooldown
and the bound spell will trigger. If our Contingency has lower level then the bound spell, the spell will use Contingency’s talent level.
The triggered spell do not consume resources, the trigger do not put the spell on cooldown and the spell can even trigger
if the spell is on cooldown.
Spells useful to bind: Stormshield Rune, Time Stop, Time Shield and Damage Shield Rune
NOTE: as you see, not just Chronomancy spells can be bound. If you bound a rune,
1 point is enough for Contingency (inscriptions have tlvl 1)
If you go for Time Stop, then you will need 4 points in Contingency
I am binding here a Shielding Rune first, then a Stormshield Rune, which is incredibly valuable.
Contingency triggers before Cauterize “resets” our life to the original value, so even if Cauterize triggers
and our life do not go below the threshold,
Contingency gives me a free Stromshield Rune.
1 point for Runes or as much as your bound spell
d, See the Threads: this spell splits the timeline, so you cannot cast it if you already split the timeline.
Also, you can just activate this spell once in each map.
It saves the current state of the game [0] and applies a beneficial “other” effect on you.
You can act normally but when the effect ends, the game saves this new state again [1] and loads back the original state [0].
You can act again and when the effect ends it saves the state again [2] and load back [0] again.
This happens three times, so you will have three saved game states: [1], [2] and [3] and when the effect ends at the [3] state,
you can choose, which version you want.
The game will load the chosen version and you can continue playing from that state.
NOTE: any time you die in one of these alternate timelines, the game will load back the original state [0] and the effect ends.
But you do not die.
NOTE: this spell can be buggy, mostly if you leave a map, while you still have the effect.
You can activate this spell if you tracked a very strong enemy, before fighting with it.
See the Threads can give you an extra chance once per map, but it’s not a necessary talent to have.
1 point, just for the extra safety
11., Spacetime Weaving:
This is one of our CORE talent trees.
a, Dimensional Step: is an instant teleport, what requires line of sight.
This spell is one of the best mobility talents in the game. Very versatile talent, I use it when I start a fight and when I need to escape.
I used to put 3 points here very early for the 8 range, I need that. I am setting up two Tethers at minimum 7 tiles from each other,
and I need an instant talent to do this. If I would use e.g. Phase Door, after the teleport, my Tether would just teleport me back and could not Tether myself down to another location. From mid-game, I am going for level 4 for the swapping ability.
From effective level 5 (talent level 4 for us), we can target any other actor and the spell checks for teleport immunity & spellsave.
If we succeed, we swap places with the target. Very useful, it can save our life in many cases.
3 point early, 4 point from mid-game, you can max it at end-game
b, Dimensional Shift: is a passive. Each time we teleport, one random detrimental effects duration on us
will be reduced by the given amount.
This is the very best effect clearing/removal talent in the whole game, but not on its own.
Because we have Wormhole and we will use multiple Spatial Tethers on ourselves, we can teleport even ~15-30 times per turn.
I always cap Out of Phase on gear, so basically Dimensional Shift can clear even 15-30 effect PER TURN from us. Invaluable!
3 points early, 4 points from mid-game and you can max it for late-game
c, Wormhole: you can target an adjacent tile to place an “entrance” and then you can target any tile
(that not blocks movement or not a trap) in radius 10 to place the “exit” of the Wormhole.
Placing the exit ignores line of sight, you can place it through walls.
Wormhole is also one of the best mobility talents in the game.
Because we have Frenzy from level 1, we do not need Wormholes for fighting with enemies, but it’s useful
for escaping by teleporting through walls in a controlled way.
It’s also very useful for effect clearing with a Movement Infusion: you can teleport many times in a turn with it.
2 points early, 4 points later in 1.6, but in 1.7 you will need 5 point for the best accuracy
d, Phase Pulse: is a sustain. While sustained, every time you teleport, you will apply
random debuffs on enemies in the given range on both the starting & exit location.
Random debuffs are equally likely from: STUN, PIN, BLIND and CONFUSION and it also applies cross-tier effects.
This sustain is probably the best debuffer effect in the game.
Because we can teleport several times per turn automatically (with Tethers or with Movement Infusion + Wormhole),
that means, all enemy around us will be continuously debuffed.
This is also an invaluable indirect damage reduction, because most of the enemies actually cannot hit us
(While blinded & confused & pinned & stunned & off-balanced & brainlocked).
4 points asap
12., Fate Weaving:
Unlock at level 20 mainly for Seal Fate and Webs of Fate or at level 34 if you went for Hounds
a, Spin Fate: is a passive. Each time you take damage and the source is not you, you gain a charge on its effect.
You can just gain maximum 1 spin per turn. Each charge increasing your raw defense & raw saves,
and the effect can have maximum 3 charges. These values are low, just for unlock.
1 point
b, Seal Fate: While this talent is very important for a Flux using Paradox Mage, we do not need to extend any effect on enemies.
We will continuously apply stun, pin, blind and confusion (+ cross-tier effects) at every turn with a duration of 5-6 turns.
The duration of Breach will be the same as its cooldown, and we can double cast it under Frenzy
and we have Invigorate to use it even more often.
We can also continuously reapply the slow effect from gear or from Blade of Distorted Time.
But there are some escort/item granted effects that are really nice to have and really useful, like:
Stone Touch or Silence. If you plan on using these (like I did at my latest run), then you should max Seal Fate.
1 point or 5 point
c, Fateweaver: is a passive. On learning, we now gain also raw accuracy & raw powers when we gain a spin.
Same as with Spin Fate, the values are too low, but we have some extra generic points to spend here
and we need spellpower & accuracy and even mindpower if we are using a Mindblast Torque.
1 point early, 3 at late-game
d, Webs of Fate: on activating, it applies a beneficial magical effect on us.
While it lasts, every time we take damage (callbackOnTakeDamage) and the source is not us,
the effect will search a random hostile actor within radius 10 and displaces the given percent of the damage instance to that actor.
This talent is a very strong damage reduction, the only case when it not works is, when there is no enemy
within 10 tiles and we take damage. Very useful, always use this during fights.
We can also have 6 Spins instead of 3 and we using Fateweaver.
5 points
13., Combat Training:
a, Thick Skin: With Out of Phase and a Robe, we will have ~55% all resistance. With 3 point in Thick Skin,
we will have ~65% all resistance, so we can easily cap our all resist and completely forget about resists on gear.
2-5 point, depends on your gear
b, Combat Accuracy: we would like to hit, especially on higher difficulties, so I recommend maxing it.
5 points
c, Heavy Armor Training: we want here just 1 point to wear gauntlets, helmets and heavy boots.
1 point
d, Light Armor Training: we will wear either Robes or Leather Armor so we can have here 1 point, but it’s not necessary.
0-1 point
VI., Inscriptions:
Early game:
- Shielding Rune
- Shatter Affliction Rune or Phys + Mental Wild
- Healing or Regen Infusion
Late Game:
- Stormshield Rune
- Stormshield Rune
- Movement Infusion
- Regeneration Infusion
( and +1 Rune of Dissipation/Movement infusion/Mirror Image Rune if you did not unlocked neither Threaded Combat or Temporal Hounds)
Early game we need a good Shielding Rune for extra defense. Guardian Unity on its own is not enough.
We also need a Shatter Affliction, go for the lowest cooldown just the CD matters, because we have to remove FREEZE
if something freezes us. We can use a Clear Mind Torque against early silence, but silence is not a real problem for us,
we can press wait and it’s cleared due to teleports.
Use the strongest healing inscription that you can find, it doesn’t matter if it is a Healing or a Regeneration Infusion.
We can switch our Effect Clearing Insctiption into a Movement Infusion when we cumulated enough stun/FREEZE immunity, and this means 100% for the West and we need 200% when we reach the Prides at the East.
For Late-game we can switch our Shielding Rune to a Stormshield Rune and we will use another Stromshield Rune when we kill the Corrupted Sandworm.
VII., Gear:
Armors:
We do not want high fatigue because we will have Anomaly Chance continuously, so for body armor: use robes or leather.
If you find a very good gauntlet, helmet or heavy boots of course use that but always prefer lower fatigue if you can.
You can find the “Item Mind Expose” ego / randart power that can reduce enemy defense & saves by a medicore amount,
which is good to have on Madness.
Egos for this: of Sorrow on gloves, of Misery on rings or it can be on any randart too
We want 40% Out of Phase. This can be granted by randart power of from egos on boots/cloaks/leather armors.
(voidwalking, voidstalker & of the void egos)
Look for "Ancient" and "of power" ego robes, they can be really good!
Weapons:
We won’t going to melee, but with Warden’s Call our other selves will do the melee instead of us
so we need melee weapons, but what kind of weapons?
The answer is: antimagic arcane-disruption weapons!
Namely: the “of disruption” ego.
I used a “disruption” weapon in both of my mainhand and offhand slot and that means, if my clone hit an enemy,
“I” can apply immediately a 20% spell disruption effect on it.
Because we never gonna swap into our melee setup, we won’t have the spell disruption effect on us at all!
Just be aware, do not bump into enemies and do not click on an adjacent enemy when your ammo is 0,
because then you will make a melee attack and swap into melee.
So, you should set the movement mode into “Passive” not to bump into enemies.
For a bow, we prioritize magical properties (Magic, spellpower, Willpower) and physical & temporal damage/resistance penetration.
Good egos: Enhanced, Warden’s, Keeper’s, Runic, of Enduring
For ammo, we want extra debuffs from the Curses tree. Curse of Impotence is a good damage reduction
and Curse of Vulnerability will significantly increase all our damage.
Best ammo ego: of Corruption (Curse of Defenselessness for Madness)
Good to have: Thought-Forged for some extra save reduction
Early game:
Reach the 40% out of phase cap asap. (1-3 pieces of gear, easy to handle)
Look for extra max life and/or die_at (you will need die_at for unlocking Hidden Resources also).
Get a Clear Mind Torque if you can.
Later:
Get a Mindblast torque and/or a helm with Circle of Sanctity.
Circle of Sanctity is wonderful for this build, we can set up under the enemy, while we Tether ourselves close to it,
and it will be silenced while we debuff it at the first few turns. Later, we can extend the silence and/or it will have 50% spell disruption.
We can pin & anchor most enemies, so they will stay in the circle for sure.
Being FROZEN is our nemesis, we have to cumulate as much stun/FREEZE immunity as we just can.
Egos you should look for: Undeterred on boots, Grounding on amulets, of Perseverance on rings.
You should also check any rare, randart or fixedart for stun/FREEZE immunity and later you can buy crafted rings and amulets with it.
Look for Magic & spellpower
Willpower & Reduce Anomaly Chance Reduction
Physical & Temporal damage and resistance penetration.
Look for spell cooldown reduction either on boots or on pickaxes (spellbinding or quickening egos).
Heal mod is good for us because we will have a ~75-80 life regen from Invigorate with 50% uptime
and we will also use a Regen Infusion.
With a little Heal mod and extra Life Regen, we can reach ~120-160 life regen without the Regen Infusion
and 300-400 when the infusion is active.
Also look for damage affinities if you can.
Some fixedarts that worth to mention:
Temporal Augmentation Robe is really nice, but of course you can find better rares or randarts.
It will give you Temporal Reprieve what is actually affected by your Paradox Modifier, so it can be 3 turn long, instead of 2.
Extra safety options are always welcome and the robe has the stats what you need on a robe, even if not really high ones.
Wrap of Stone gives you another kind of extra safety: Stone Wall.
It’s just level 1 but you will have really high spellpower, so it can be a 8-10 turn long wall.
Aetherwalk is very good for this build on non-Madness.
On Madness, you will need every source of extra physical & temporal damage/resistance penetration because
you cannot deactivate non-magical sustains and this can lead to some invulnerable uniques/bosses.
We also need spell cooldown reduction and/or freeze resist and both can be on boots, so Aetherwalk is not really
the best for this build on Madness.
Zemekkys’ Broken Hourglass has nice bonuses but a +50-60% stun immunity amulet with good stats would be better
if we do not have the 200% freeze immunity without it.
Umbraphage lantern is really good for this build, if you find it, use it for the whole game.
It automatically eliminates magical darkness, so you will have LoS for your Dimensional Step.
NOTE: despite any darkness, you will always have LoS to adjacent tiles, so you can keep casting your Tethers.
This build also uses Movement Infusion so you can set up new Tethers with a Movement Infusion too.
The Untouchable is a very good tier 3 artifact that can save your life a lot of times, if you find it, use it.
Storm Fury is a very good bow, because it has Magic, high spellpower, good spellcrit and a Chainlightning spell on-hit.
Hornet Stingers is very good early ammo. It is just a tier 2 ammo, but we do not really care about damage.
It applies Crippling Poison on the target with a 20% talent fail chance. This is very useful, an extra defensive layer with 20% chance.
Blade of Distorted Time is a BiS melee weapon. Normally we won’t go melee, but this weapon applies
a very high percent of slow (scales with Magic) in AoE. 150-180% slow can be reached with this weapon,
and this means, enemies will have ~40-35% global speed!
This is crazy good!
Rod of Spydric Poison is a very good tool, i advise to clear Ardunghol for it. It applies Pin, but does not check pinning
immunity, but instead Poison immunity.
Eldritch Pearl is a nice "lantern" if you need a free source of Wet for stoning. I advise to do the underwater areas at the East.
VIII., The Master of Debuffs:
This Temporal Warlock is one of the best debuffer (if not the best) in the game so this has to have its own section.
What do you think, how powerful are these enemies?
- Debuffs.png (175.86 KiB) Viewed 14667 times
We will apply Curse of Defenselessness on our enemies with our ammo to reduce their raw defense and saves by 60-80.
This effect ignores saves, cannot be saved at all.
We can also have the Item_Expose effect that further reduces enemy saves by ~30-40.
This effect checks for a spellpower (this will be our highest stat) vs mind save.
We already nerfed the mind save of the enemy with the Curse.
With the help of our Warden buddies, we can apply Spell Disruption on enemies too.
This effect checks for a spellpower/minpower/accuracy (the highest) vs physical save.
While our buddies' spellpower will be halved due to arcane disruption, they will still have a good accuracy.
And we can apply Slow (Item_nature_slow) too from our gear, this effect just has a percentage to trigger
but do not check saves.
If we find the Blade of the Distorted Time, we can apply crazy high slow on our enemies.
This slow checks for spellpower vs physical save.
If we find a Cap with Circle of Sanctity, we can also silence enemies reliably.
This effect checks for a spellpwer vs mindsave and for silence immunity. Mindblast Torques can also work
against enemies with weaker mind save but Sanctity is more reliable due to our high spellpower.
We will apply Breach on the enemies and halve their immunities against our Phase Pulse - Random Warp debuffs.
This effect checks for a paradox spellpower vs spellsave.
With Phase Pulse, we will Stun, Pin, Blind and Confuse (30%) our enemies.
These effects checks for a paradox spellpower vs phys/phys/phys/mind save and for the relevant immunities.
Because we have crazy high paradox spellpower, our Phase Pulse will also apply cross-tier effects on enemies:
Off-Balanced & Brainlocked!
Our magical debuffs will also apply Spellshocked.
I also learned Stone Touch at my latest run, so i could turn into stone a lot of enemies.
This effect checks for "instakill", "stone" and "stun" immunities and make a spellpower vs spellsave check.
Apart from fixed bosses, just few enemies have instakill immunity, and just a few base types have stone immunity
(like ghosts, xorns). We can halve enemy stun immunity with Breach and we can halve again by applying Wet too.
We will have ~ 130-160 effective spellpower for our chronomancy effects, while we also reducing enemy saves with ~60-110 raw value. This means minus 10-18 saves even on Madness.
Some enemies will be still immune to stun after breach and there are some levitating/flying enemies
that cannot be pinned and some High Peak enemies have very high physical save, so they can save
our non-chronomancy debuffs, but they can just save 1-2 and not most of them.
IX., Defenses:
While we will be close to enemies, most of them will be stunned, pinned, confused, blinded,
off-balanced and/or brainlocked for all the fight. They will be Breached, so their immunities will be halved.
We will also have:
a, maxed all resistance from out of phase, thick skin & robe (70% damage reduction)
b, 2 x Stormshield Rune with an 50% uptime Invigorate effect & 10-20% cooldown reduction
c, Warden’s Focus (28% damage reduction)
d, almost continuous Webs of Fate (30% damage reduction)
e, strong Time Shield
f, Guardian Unity (64% or 32% damage split) with low cooldown
g, Contingency will trigger a Stromshield Rune for free if our life goes low
h, Cauterize will save us from death
We will have some continuous regeneration from Invigorate and from a Regen Infusion.
When our Time Shield crumbles, it will set a Healing over Time effect on us too.
Against detrimental effects, we have:
a, 40% out of phase always on
b, Time Shield for a further 50% duration reduction
these are totally: 0.6 x 0.5 = 0.3 -> 70% total duration reduction
And in top of that, we will teleport 1-5 or way more times continuously at every turn.
So, we clear 1-5 times a 6-7 turn duration from ourselves.
If you need to escape, do not forget to cancel the Spatial Tether effect from you before escape.
Any time you feel, there is a very strong enemy, cast See the Threads before engaging into combat with it,
and NOT during combat. You can use it once per map level, so use it well.
You also have Banish, do not overlook it! It is instant and you will have crazy high spellpower.
You can easily get rid of any enemy around you with it. The teleport is random, but you have Precognition
so you will see where the enemies are teleported.
There is Time Stop and a Movement Infusion too for escaping.
If you unlocked Threaded Combat, you also have Thread Walk.
Mirror Image Rune is really wonderful, especially in madness. The clones taunting the enemies,
so they reset enemy target for themselves at every turn. They can take a few hit before they die
and the 3 clone covers a huge area.
X., Fighting with enemies:
Before level 4:
Use bow and melee. There won’t be rares and bosses, so no problem.
Level 4-7:
Tether is added to your tools, use it on enemies, while you shoot them with your bow.
Level 7- :
As described at the Talents section under Spatial Tether, use Frenzy + Double Tether at the start of each fight.
Do not melee at all, just shoot with your bow.
Level 25- :
Use also Arrow Echoes from level 8-12 when you unlock it.
Breach from mid-game when you unlock it.
The fights are usually very simple, just shoot with your bow, while you recast your Tethers.
Problems starts when you meet with one or more Archmage, Corruptor or Cultist of Entropy.
On Madness, Cultists can be more badass than Archmages.
Switch will clear most of your effects (reducing the duration by 12 turns…) while it will totally clear all bebuffs from them
and Switch has a 7 turn cooldown.
They can also have Nihil and this means your effects will be applied on you just with ~50% duration.
So you have to run away, then come back and damage them in loops.
Try to separate these enemies if you can, you have Banish to do this job.
Try to silence them if you have Mindblast Torque or a Sanctity Cap, and apply Warden’s Focus on them
if you use Warden’s Call and have disruption melee weapons.
XI., Playthrough:
At first, I unlocked and used Warden's Call. With this build i managed to clear Vor Armoury and the Room of Death:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7LFuMn ... nel=TRider
The playthrough has 13 videos.
As you can see in the last few parts the game became laggy and crashed in the last part.
This was my second run with this build, the first run started to crash at Vor Armoury.
I guess, this is because at this point the fights are way longer and this means extra amount of clones.
But as you can see in part 12, the build can clear Vor Armoury and also can clear the Room of Death,
when it arrives to the East, with not perfect gear.
I consider any build that can do this on Madness a strong build. I am sure this build can clear 1-2 Pride too,
At my latest run, I just unlocked Stasis & Fate Weaving.
The playthrough can be foud here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z77iU7w ... nel=TRider
This playthrough contains 33 videos and it was ~60 hours totally.
I know, people are usually interested in the final fight, it can be found separately here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFUZ5YY ... nel=TRider
But honestly, the final fight was not the hardest part of the game.
Gorbat Pride was really hard!
Thanks for reading!
EDIT:
I added my latest playthrough too and some extra info from the experience from my latest run.