Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Robsoie]

I didn't noticed :

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There's a new fortress power you can activate once you have enough energy : changing the appearance of your 'servant'

[Frumple]

S'a few other new ones, too, and those not simply aesthetic.

I don't think there's a difference between one black p (or is it h? It's hard to tell in ASCII) and another, though.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Undead can basically eat the cloak for 10 energy. Anyone with extract gem can pay 25 energy to have transmogrification automatically extract before t.mog if the resultant gem would sell for more. Might be more, heh.

[Robsoie]

Either Vor Armory got a big difficulty upgrade, or i have been extremely unlucky as i don't remember what happened there to be that insane with ranged caster everywhere, powerfull uniques and the boss.

My poor level 30 Dwarf Bulwark and his very high armor ( 90! at 100% hardness ) got stomped in only a few turns once he got teleported by one of the monster power in the middle of several dozen of orc spell casters that focused fire on it.

It's been a very long time i have not been in the Far East, but i didn't remembered Vor Armory (out of the death room of course) being that hard for a melee character. Even when i won the game, Vor Armory wasn't -that- hard.
 
Will have to grind some more XP and levels then come back later (though there's not much places to do that currently as i cleared most of the lower level dungeons from Far East), it's simply crazy in there.

[Robsoie]

I decided to go grind more experience in places i thought i was going to put for after Vor Pride, and it proved to be a good idea.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I went to the temple of creation and then to the orc breeding camp and finally the dark crypt, that i was keeping for after Vor Armory.
Sadly i lost a life to the orc breeding camp due to 4 elites ganging on me and killing me in 1 turn ! Then coming back i immediately teleported away and could deal with them 1 by 1.
Can't imagine how impossible it would have been without a teleport/phase (antimagic path, i'm not going near it again at any time soon).

From these 3 dungeon clearing i went from level 30 to level 32, got some nicer items, then decided to give another try to Vor Armory and managed to clear it, beating the insane amount of spell users and the 2 bosses waiting around.
Though i avoided the death room, not that crazy as i remembered i only managed to clear it when i reached level 50.
Went to level 33 from this.

Incredible how gaining 2 levels can make such a difference and allowed me to stand more than a chance in Vor Armory bottom.

[Graven]

Hello Tome4 Thread! Teach me how to rogue.

From what I understood I need to chainstun peoples at the start, remove points from stealth and traps and go slowly, but even with that advice I died twice before reaching level 12 - true, both times it was my own fault, but still.

I have 5/5 in Dual Strike and Flurry, 5/5 stealth and random generic talents because I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing. I unlocked technique/combat veteran, because I seemed to be having troubles with stamina, but that might have been a mistake. I even put a mastery point in Cunning/Stealth, but peoples [and rats, and moulds, and poison ivies] see me from a mile away anyway. I had to go to Norgos' lair and stairdance to kill The Big Bear himself, since Trollmire was demolishing me.

I hear rogues deal incredible damage lategame, and I love stealth/backstabbing characters, but this is hard 

[rhesusmacabre]

The first talents I try to get to 5/5 are Dual Weapon Training and Dagger Mastery. These will maximise your damage on every attack rather than occasionally. DW Defence is also a favourite. I generally only start buying points in Stealth at level 10 or so.

[Frumple]

Gwarble. I'd seriously suggest giving the T4 forum a search on stealth specifically, as the details are annoying and I can't remember them off the top of my head. Suffice it to say that stealth is actually really powerful and stuff "seeing you" doesn't quite do what you might expect it to. Insofar as I can recall, just because they can see you one turn, doesn't mean they see you the next. Stealth is just... really nice, but the mechanics are somewhat obtuse.

As for DS/Flurry, I wouldn't max those early, myself. I usually get flurry to about 3/5 (around 90-100% damage per hit) and leave it for quite a while, and there's no telling if I'll invest much in DS at all (stunning's good, killing is better, and DS+dirty fighting is usually enough to kill most things even with both at 1/5). Sweep and whirlwind are both good, as well.

Traps will get you through most of the tier one stuff. Bear trap alone is enough to kill most of the melee bosses, really, if you felt like kiting a lot (obviously not as viable with a ghoul rogue [also note: ghoul rogues are pretty solid. They're beefy.].), and it makes kiting in general a sinch. Just remember you can place a trap directly below you and then step off it.

Other than that... I'unno. Don't forget that instant melee attack you've got, it's nice. You probably want to prioritize debuffing daggers (icy, elemental, slime, etc.) since you'll be doing plenty of damage anyway. The poison tree's fairly solid for that, too.

There's... probably plenty more that could be said. Check the T4 forums for character reports, I think we had a few rogue winners fairly recently. The posts on those should be somewhat illuminating. E: Actually, that was a shadowblade. Ehn. E2: Though according to the vault, tiger_eye did win with a (really freaking weird) ghoul rogue that... as near as I can tell, went, uh. Staves. ... man, I don't know what the hell went on with that critter.

[Robsoie]

I wanted to play Antimagic for a change, as my past attempts at trying this had all been disasters, i decided to go with a dwarf bulwark, mister lots of health and lots of armor to at least be able to take some damage

The main escape solution is then the movement infusion (as antimagic is preventing phase door and teleportation that are huge live saviour early , middle and later game)

But unfortunately i learned that even with a movement infusion does not replace phase/teleport in some specifically deadly situation.

-sandworm lair-

It happens that sometime when you travel following one of the neutral worms digging a tunnel that it lead into a room full of monsters that move and block the tunnel exit before you can get out.

In such case you need to kill quickly the monsters blocking you and get out of the tunnel because it just crumble on itself after some time and will kill you in some turns (damage if you're a low health character or lack of air if you've got plenty of health).

And when the monster that block the exit is an elite, it has a lot of health, and even if this specific elite is not dealing much damage or is not really dangerous, chances are that you're not going to kill it quick enough to avoid the tunnel crumbling on you.

That's where phase/teleport save your character ... usually.
But you're antimagic so no phase/teleport.
 
I learned too that when buried , you can't use you quick digging mouth tooth to dig the squard that would save your character, you're interrupted by suffocating each turns.
Basically, you're dead and can do nothing against it.
The dwarf has a skill that allow him to move through wall, unfortunately it's a high level skill you're far from learning at the level you are when you're exploring the sandworm lair.

Damn antimagic. I have yet to find an antimagic powered item that is actually good in my current run, maybe bad luck though i have read they were more powerfull under an antimagic user but i have yet to see that, unless more powerfull is a punny +1 somewhere, and i'm +/- at the time to explore Dreadfell.

[Robsoie]

Oh wow i completely forgot how stupid the design was for that dungeon ..

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

When you come back from the east, you're sent to a guy that is supposed to help you build a portal in Last Hope so you can move between the east/west without a problem.

The guy is as you know some evil mage that will try to get you killed so he can keep the orb for himself.

But at some point of the dialogue, you have a choice : give him the orb for study, or keep it.

If you keep it, you'll be sent on an errand and at some point will be asked to use the orb to travel through the portal, sending you into a fearscape dungeon, then once you manage to kill the boss there, you're back to confront the mage that switched the orb for an "evil" one to get you killed.
Then as you were stupid enough to not notice him switching the orb, you're dumb enough to walk on his teleport trap and he send you in his dungeon.

Fortunately, at the level you are by then, this is all do-able.

But if you give him the orb, the evil mage will send you to an errand that will lead you into the Tower of Telos .
And man, i forgot completely about this place as i didn't went there since a year.

But that must be the most stupidly designed place of the whole game, even worse than whatshisname Pride with the barracks.
The Tower of Tellos has a few levels that are each small but only with open space.
And those open space are full of high level undead.

The summit is even worse as there's a powerfull boss with a bunch of very powerfull elite.
In the past, the only way to reasonnably survive was to battle with an attrition tactic : you engaged the legion that was waiting for you, then when it's not possible anymore instead of wasting a life you retreated through the stairs to recover.
Then went back to battle etc... until you finally managed to defeat everyone up there (assuming of course none was paralysing you to death).

But since that time, the attrition tactic have been removed of the game : if you're afflicted by something , you can't go to stairs, and if you go to the stairs to recover, when you're back up, everyone is at full health and power again.

So unless you have too much lives for your character, avoid to go this path, when asked do not give the orb, what will follow can be hard, but it's balanced, while the path that lead into the tower of Telos is not, not at all.

[Frumple]

Haha! I used to really like that tower, but your spiel made me realize it's been a long time since I got there (can never remember which option to choose, bah) and the last time I had done it was before rares were implemented. Man, that place has to be a goddamn riot now!

But yeah, it's like every level of that place is one of the dreadfell levels stuck in an area about the size of an adventurer party ambush (smaller, actually, iirc) only with less cover. Only it's leveled to eastern heights and there's probably a pack of Gs running around. On every level. No vaults, though! Oh yeah, and the boss wall walks.

Man, in retrospect that place is kinda' brutal, innit? It always seemed to be cake even without stair abuse, but I can't recall why, haha. I'll have to go that route next time I reach that point in the game, just to experience again. Shoeimp's shoes aren't as great these days, anyway

[Robsoie]

Oh, and i was playing in easy difficulty to see if antimagic had a chance there (i won the game in normal difficulty several days ago but without antimagic, would have been suicidal in several place ), so i don't even want to imagine what it can be in normal difficulty with 30% more damage taken.

I remember now, a bit more than a year ago the last time i took this path, an alternative to the stairs was to be completely dependant on luck in term of how the level was generated, if you were having your entry near corridors, you could relatively control the fight (relatively because i remember there were a bunch of dreads that could attack from the walls)

But if as i just experimented your stairs are in the middle of a big open room, with dreads, the boss and some elites, well, brutal is not even strong enough to describe how hopeless this can be without the stair attrition tactic
And if not lucky, you may not even be able to retreat before it's too late, as my character was constantly under several effects (that apparently do not care about any resistances, but prevented me to go down) that made the game refusing to allow him to go down.

[gogis]

Didn't checked this for like a year. Does zerk bloodtree is still utramegasuperstrong? I remember smashing orks in far east, easily outhealing all incoming damage. Me see it's about a time to unsheathe my rusty dwarvish broadaxe again...

[dei]

I have a question regarding Corruptors and the three skill trees that they have available for unlocking. For her first new talent tree should I have my Cornac Corruptor go for Corruption/Shadowflame, Corruption/Bone or Corruption/Torment? The people in the ToME ingame chat recommended Corruption/Shadowflame, but I personally am leaning towards Corruption/Bone because of the Bone Shield talent and it's ability to block seven attacks when maximized, as well as Bone Spear and it's being a source of damage that isn't Blight.

[Frumple]

Shadwflame tree's probably the better idea for an initial investment (every talent but the second -- never max that, ever, it causes the radius to equal the range, i.e. you blow yourself to hell with it -- is pretty solid, especially nowadays if you find an undeath belt), but bone's not exactly a bad idea either (shield, as you note, is good, and the rest adds a bit of damage type variety to your arsenal.).

Torment... I forget if that's locked on corruptors, since I don't recall it being so on reavers. If it is, then that's probably an even better idea to go for, first, as both shadowflame and bone's sexiest bits on a corruptor are hefty cost sustains and willful tormenter gives you a good chunk more vim to play with. I hear good things about overkill (especially on a corruptor) and blood vengeance, too. Blood lock's kinda' situational, and even beyond that is kinda' useless when you've got curse of death.

Didn't checked this for like a year. Does zerk bloodtree is still utramegasuperstrong? I remember smashing orks in far east, easily outhealing all incoming damage. Me see it's about a time to unsheathe my rusty dwarvish broadaxe again...

It's still solid, but the healing bug with it was fixed long, long ago and the bonus from it has turned static, so the upper limits are much, much lower (though you get more out of it with minimal hp/stam regen stacking, now) both for the regen and the stamina. Mortal terror's still sexy, though daze has been changed (I wouldn't say nerfed, but definitely changed. You can uses it to kick off debuffs now, if you feel like usin' the zerk's.). The third tier is still superfluous and unstoppable's still unstoppable.

[dei]

Shadwflame tree's probably the better idea for an initial investment (every talent but the second -- never max that, ever, it causes the radius to equal the range, i.e. you blow yourself to hell with it -- is pretty solid, especially nowadays if you find an undeath belt), but bone's not exactly a bad idea either (shield, as you note, is good, and the rest adds a bit of damage type variety to your arsenal.).

Torment... I forget if that's locked on corruptors, since I don't recall it being so on reavers. If it is, then that's probably an even better idea to go for, first, as both shadowflame and bone's sexiest bits on a corruptor are hefty cost sustains and willful tormenter gives you a good chunk more vim to play with. I hear good things about overkill (especially on a corruptor) and blood vengeance, too. Blood lock's kinda' situational, and even beyond that is kinda' useless when you've got curse of death.

I had a feeling just a few moments ago that someone was going to mention Corruption/Torment - which is locked on Corruptor - and that I should go with it, as well as that it would be you Frumple that would give me that advice. Thank you for the advice. I appreciate it.