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[dei]

Paradox mage is honestly the most fun class I've played in a game on a computer, but all the paradox classes got hit hard with nerfs. Temporal Warden kind of deserved it, because they were bonkers when spin fate upped defence, but Paradox mage is hardly better or easier than an alchemist, or an archmage, not to mention release Solipsist.

SO MUCH GOD DAMN FUN THOUGH.

Like, fuck you skeleton, eat GRAVITY kind of fun. Sadly I'm too bad to play a good PM now. Got one to level 40-something in b038, my best character in Tome4 ever.

My best character in regards to level was a level 23 Higher Archmage that died horribly in the Ruined Dungeon - twice. Then again I've only been playing for a couple weeks so...

Anyways, I have a couple questions. First of all, how should I build my stats on an Alchemist? I've been building Aldeen - my female Higher Alchemist - similarly to Granmeri - my female Higher Archmage. That is to say I've been maximizing Magic and putting the rest into Willpower. On a test run with this combination it seems to work out well like this but I want to know if anyone has a better suggestion.

Second, how should I build my stats on a Temporal Warden? I've been building Weissel - my female Higher Temporal Warden - somewhat evenly with a 1/1/1 ratio between Dexterity, Magic and Willpower. She was doing fairly well but this was part to some nice drops, but I'm not certain if this is the best way to build her stats so I was wondering if anyone had a better idea on how to build her.

Thanks for the help.

[Un67]

^ I'm doing reasonably well with my current Dwarf Temporal Warden and I just killed the Master with him for the first time . Only death I had was on Urkis, and this is Roguelike mode and I'm getting into new territory for me so I'm kind of nervous.

From tons of trial and error and literally playing two dozen of them and killing off the best ones sometime around the T2 midgame, I've determined the following things about how to build a TW from the very beginning (this is just from my perspective, and I'm a relative newbie when it comes to this game).

For stats, you want to go really high up into Dexterity early on so you can pick up Flurry and Piercing Arrow early on. I also like having two points into Bow Mastery for faster reloading. Second priority after that would be Willpower, and finally Constitution. You take care of Strength by sustaining Strength of Purpose, and I didn't bother with Magic because I didn't feel that investing into and sustaining Quantum Feed was really all that worth it and that there really weren't all that many talents dependent on it.

For sustains, I went for maxing Weapon Folding, Strength of Purpose, and Displace Damage, which brought me up to a decently manageable 300 Paradox. Weapon Folding helped increase damage and clear paradox, Strength of Purpose boosted my saves and weapon damage, and Displace Damage just made me a lot more survivable. I also ended up picking up Chant of Fortitude and Premonition from escorts, but I'm really not sure how good as choices those were.

For the most part, my class points went into the aforementioned sustains, and then I got a point into all of the dual weapon talents and later ended up opening the other bow tree with my second category point to work up to that final skill that has the AoE ranged arrow stun, which is a really awesome skill. For generics, I mostly focused on getting a good number of points into Dimensional Step because it's such an awesome mobility talent, while picking up a few points into Weapon Accuracy, Weapon/Dagger Mastery, Thick Skin, and a single point in Armor Mastery. I also dumped a lot of my generics towards Money is Power, but that's not really applicable to you. So, I hope that helped

[Frumple]

Alchemist, you max magic, get con and willpower to a comfortable level, and then max cunning, with whatever ends up being left after all that going into con. I stop investing into wil when it hits about forty or so, con around the same point. Then I max cunning, for the crit boost. Then whatever's left goes into con. Alchies don't actually need that much mana, so they can skimp a bit on willpower, but con keeps them from splatting after the golem does and cunning is another damage multiplier (and a potential mana source, if you've got a mana-on-crit weapon; one of the better artifact staves provide that, so...).

Wardens are more complicated. Their primary stats are definitely willpower and magic, but depending on things you can skimp on magic a bit, using quantum feed and a high willpower to take up the slack. After those, though, you invest according to your build.

A melee heavy TW that's not going dual-daggers will invest more into strength than dex, and may or may not invest into magic beyond the minimum. It's up to them whether they use strength of purpose to pump their strength to ludicrous levels (hitting tremendously hard with the main hand) or to allow them to skimp a bit of strength (with the spare going into... whatever. Magic, dex, con... possibly cun, with a crit build.). A strength-centered TW will probably want to offhand a mindstar these days, and just not bother with dex once you've got enough for flurry or whatev'... at most enough to qualify for the fifth tier bows, and a lot of that can be supplemented with kit.

A dual-dagger TW will go into dex, and probably supplement that with bow use (since they're already using a dex-prime weapon and bows secondary scaling stat gets boosted by SoP). They may or may not invest in dex beyond the minimum needed to wear voratun daggers (48, iirc) and then boost something else (again, magic, con, or cun; the third helps with dagger damage a bit, on top of the crit).

Bow-warden will go dex, obviously, with spare points (after willpower and dex is maxed and magic is as high as you feel like going) going into strength, to boost bow damage, or magic, to improve the effectiveness of various talents. I'd probably emphasize magic with whatever's left over over strength, though -- bows do plenty of damage without much help, heh, and magic makes a lot of a warden's defining stuff better.

Caster-heavy warden will go about evenly into dex and strength, with emphasis depending on weapon choice (dual-dagger, staff, or other) after willpower and magic is maxed and con is comfortable.

Early game, I max willpower and stick the rest into whatever I need to hit talent or kit requirements. Mid, I tend to focus in on the latter part of that, hitting kit stat breakpoints and making sure I qualify for all the talents I plan on using. Late game, I tend to focus in on magic if it's not already maxed -- I find that my wardens do best when their utility skills are at their most powerful, and most of them scale off spellpower. Once will and magic are maxed, the rest go into whatever I'm emphasizing; probably dex if I'm not going heavy into non-dex scaling weapons, since it boosts both daggers (which you'll probably end up offhanding in the late game just for the spellpower boost on a couple of artifact daggers) and bows. There's a good chance I go cun, though, especially if I'm playing a shalore -- spellcrit helps wardens too, if not as much as a dedicated caster class, and the physcrit benefits stuff like flurry, too. It's pretty easy to get a crit chance in the mid-twenties (just about guaranteeing one or two crates per flurry) in the late game without really trying.

Emphasis into con depends a lot on how comfortable you are with the game... I find myself skimping on it considerably these days (using kit to qualify for thick skin), but some investment in it will definitely let your play less carefully, and is good for learning the game a bit better. More wiggle room for running into stuff you've never run into before and you're not quite sure how to deal with. You can never really go wrong with con, though, if you've got what you need elsewhere and aren't quite sure what to do with the leftovers. I just prefer to embody the "make the other poor bastard die for their country" philosophy If the enemy's dead before they can hurt you, you're in good shape, huhuhu.

[dei]

Alchemist, you max magic, get con and willpower to a comfortable level, and then max cunning, with whatever ends up being left after all that going into con. I stop investing into wil when it hits about forty or so, con around the same point. Then I max cunning, for the crit boost. Then whatever's left goes into con. Alchies don't actually need that much mana, so they can skimp a bit on willpower, but con keeps them from splatting after the golem does and cunning is another damage multiplier (and a potential mana source, if you've got a mana-on-crit weapon; one of the better artifact staves provide that, so...).

Wardens are more complicated. Their primary stats are definitely willpower and magic, but depending on things you can skimp on magic a bit, using quantum feed and a high willpower to take up the slack. After those, though, you invest according to your build.

A melee heavy TW that's not going dual-daggers will invest more into strength than dex, and may or may not invest into magic beyond the minimum. It's up to them whether they use strength of purpose to pump their strength to ludicrous levels (hitting tremendously hard with the main hand) or to allow them to skimp a bit of strength (with the spare going into... whatever. Magic, dex, con... possibly cun, with a crit build.). A strength-centered TW will probably want to offhand a mindstar these days, and just not bother with dex once you've got enough for flurry or whatev'... at most enough to qualify for the fifth tier bows, and a lot of that can be supplemented with kit.

A dual-dagger TW will go into dex, and probably supplement that with bow use (since they're already using a dex-prime weapon and bows secondary scaling stat gets boosted by SoP). They may or may not invest in dex beyond the minimum needed to wear voratun daggers (48, iirc) and then boost something else (again, magic, con, or cun; the third helps with dagger damage a bit, on top of the crit).

Bow-warden will go dex, obviously, with spare points (after willpower and dex is maxed and magic is as high as you feel like going) going into strength, to boost bow damage, or magic, to improve the effectiveness of various talents. I'd probably emphasize magic with whatever's left over over strength, though -- bows do plenty of damage without much help, heh, and magic makes a lot of a warden's defining stuff better.

Caster-heavy warden will go about evenly into dex and strength, with emphasis depending on weapon choice (dual-dagger, staff, or other) after willpower and magic is maxed and con is comfortable.

Early game, I max willpower and stick the rest into whatever I need to hit talent or kit requirements. Mid, I tend to focus in on the latter part of that, hitting kit stat breakpoints and making sure I qualify for all the talents I plan on using. Late game, I tend to focus in on magic if it's not already maxed -- I find that my wardens do best when their utility skills are at their most powerful, and most of them scale off spellpower. Once will and magic are maxed, the rest go into whatever I'm emphasizing; probably dex if I'm not going heavy into non-dex scaling weapons, since it boosts both daggers (which you'll probably end up offhanding in the late game just for the spellpower boost on a couple of artifact daggers) and bows. There's a good chance I go cun, though, especially if I'm playing a shalore -- spellcrit helps wardens too, if not as much as a dedicated caster class, and the physcrit benefits stuff like flurry, too. It's pretty easy to get a crit chance in the mid-twenties (just about guaranteeing one or two crates per flurry) in the late game without really trying.

Emphasis into con depends a lot on how comfortable you are with the game... I find myself skimping on it considerably these days (using kit to qualify for thick skin), but some investment in it will definitely let your play less carefully, and is good for learning the game a bit better. More wiggle room for running into stuff you've never run into before and you're not quite sure how to deal with. You can never really go wrong with con, though, if you've got what you need elsewhere and aren't quite sure what to do with the leftovers. I just prefer to embody the "make the other poor bastard die for their country" philosophy If the enemy's dead before they can hurt you, you're in good shape, huhuhu.

^ I'm doing reasonably well with my current Dwarf Temporal Warden and I just killed the Master with him for the first time . Only death I had was on Urkis, and this is Roguelike mode and I'm getting into new territory for me so I'm kind of nervous.

From tons of trial and error and literally playing two dozen of them and killing off the best ones sometime around the T2 midgame, I've determined the following things about how to build a TW from the very beginning (this is just from my perspective, and I'm a relative newbie when it comes to this game).

For stats, you want to go really high up into Dexterity early on so you can pick up Flurry and Piercing Arrow early on. I also like having two points into Bow Mastery for faster reloading. Second priority after that would be Willpower, and finally Constitution. You take care of Strength by sustaining Strength of Purpose, and I didn't bother with Magic because I didn't feel that investing into and sustaining Quantum Feed was really all that worth it and that there really weren't all that many talents dependent on it.

For sustains, I went for maxing Weapon Folding, Strength of Purpose, and Displace Damage, which brought me up to a decently manageable 300 Paradox. Weapon Folding helped increase damage and clear paradox, Strength of Purpose boosted my saves and weapon damage, and Displace Damage just made me a lot more survivable. I also ended up picking up Chant of Fortitude and Premonition from escorts, but I'm really not sure how good as choices those were.

For the most part, my class points went into the aforementioned sustains, and then I got a point into all of the dual weapon talents and later ended up opening the other bow tree with my second category point to work up to that final skill that has the AoE ranged arrow stun, which is a really awesome skill. For generics, I mostly focused on getting a good number of points into Dimensional Step because it's such an awesome mobility talent, while picking up a few points into Weapon Accuracy, Weapon/Dagger Mastery, Thick Skin, and a single point in Armor Mastery. I also dumped a lot of my generics towards Money is Power, but that's not really applicable to you. So, I hope that helped

Alright that helps a fair bit. Thank you both. It's just as well that I plan on restarting my Alchemist and Temporal Warden to coincide with the advice given here.

But basically what you're saying I should do for Alchemist is...

• Maximize Magic
• Raise Willpower and Constitution to comfortable levels
• Maximize Cunning

While what you're saying for Temporal Warden is...

• Maximize Willpower
• Raise Magic and Constitution to comfortable levels
• Maximize Dexterity
• Use dual daggers and a bow
• Maximize Weapon Folding, Strength of Purpose, Displace Damage and Dimension Step
• Put several points into Weapon Accuracy, Weapon Mastery and Dagger Mastery
• Put one point into each of the dual weapon fighting talents
• Get Piercing Shot and that AoE Stun bow attack

Then again that stuff for Temporal Warden is what sounds like a build that will work well with my style of playing one already. Either way thank you for the help, and I will be saving this to a text file for future reference.

[Frumple]

Caveat being if you go dual-dagger, plain weapon mastery won't do anything for you, only dagger mastery. Nowadays, the bonus only applies when you're wearing an applicable weapon (no more maxing sling/bow/dagger/weapon/staff and getting ridiculous physpower ) and, so far as I know, only to the particular weapon (I.e. If you're wearing mace and dagger, weapon mastery boosts the mace, dagger the dagger, but the two don't stack as far as physpower or the % boost goes).

Similarly, if you get one-hand (mace, waraxe, longsword)/dagger, you'd get both if you were trying to boost both main and offhand damage (arguable usefulness, with the offhand damage penalty), and ignore dagger mastery if you're doing one-hand/mindstar... unless you were main-handing a dagger, I guess. Which might be alright with a heavy dex build...

Definite other TW talents are celerity (which is frankly a god-tier talent, and I recommend getting that to 5/5 ASAP... at least 3/5, so you can match speed with snakes), slow (AoE damage and slow over a duration, very nice), and haste (strong global speed boost, meshes well with the already low attack speed of bows). Then, like... the other stuff. Wardens have access to a lot of nice junk, heh.

[lemon10]

Looks like this Solipsist will beat the game.
I have beaten 3/4 of the prides, am level 50, have some pretty neat gear, and have 4 lives left in addition to an unused blood of life.
I will post a char log and overview when I manage to beat it.

I tried out the Dreamforge tree (finally). It is ridiculously and comically overpowered.
Looking at it early game on the preview the final skill seems rather Meh ("I have to wait in place 5 turns to do 20 damage to nearby enemies in a radius of 1 and have only a 5% chance of stopping their spellcasting?"), but if you level it up all the way it goes from meh-> OH GOD THIS IS SO RIDICULOUSLY POWERFUL.
At my stage it costs 50 psi sustain (out of a base of 1150), and you can't move (but you don't really need to ever move anyways, you can tank most of the damage, especially with a thought-form defender active) , in return you will do 80 damage per turn (adjusted for average enemy resistances, it deals a bit over 100 if they don't have any) to every enemy within 5 radius, have a 25% chance to screw up their spellcasting, and reduce their mental save by a whopping 25. Keep in mind that these numbers are lower for someone without 55->80 mindpower (depending on what thoughtform I have active), and they will be lower for pretty much everyone, but they will still be rediculously high.
It has a cost, you can't really put enemies to sleep since they will take 80 damage the very next turn, but it doesn't really matter the ability is so powerful.
To be honest, it is probably the most powerful sustain in the game, costing only 50 psi to deal such a absurd amount of damage to pretty much everyone in sight every turn.

The rest of the tree synergizes with the solipsist tree (and either your choice of premonition or antimagic (antimagic is better, but you have to give up more)) to be completely ridiculous.
Forge Shield: A very nice ability, it reduces large damage by 20-60(?) depending on how many points you put in it, and every small attack in the next turn (of the same damage type will effectively be blocked). If you get hit by a 600 lighting attack, you could see it reduced by 15% by antimagic (note: I am not sure on this, antimagic non-shield might not take effect till after the attack) or premonition taking it down to 510. Take off another 50% due to elemental+resist all, down to 205. Take off 60 for forge shield, and that is only 140 (100 if you maxed antimagic shield) damage left over from a 600 damage attack.
Forge Bellows: Pretty decent, put a point or two into it (more if you want it bigger and better), the damage is ok, but its real draw is putting down blocks that block LOS, allowing you to wall yourself in for a few turns or have only one enemy be able to see you.
Forge Armor: Decent bonus armor, defense, some PSI on hit (which looks pretty irrelavent, but against standard enemies it means that they heal you when they attack).
Forge Armor looks only OK, and it wouldn't be a whole lot more then that on something besides a solipsist but, combined with forge shield, solipsism, resist equipment, heavy armor, thick skin, defender resist-all bonus and anti magic (or premonition) allows you crazy tanking. You can probably tank better then a bulkward when you finally get all that. Anything short of A) rares, B) mages C) multiple tough enemies at the same time can't even deal damgae, you can simply walk into them until they die from dreamforge and the combination of your basic weapon damage (if you can get mindstar mastery you get a fair bit more damage), I imagine that mindhammer would be quite nice too. It obviously takes a long time to get to this stage, since to max all the talent and get con/str high enough for the heavy armor and thick skin is tough and takes till ~40 (assuming you have been saving +str and +con equipment) if you don't want to skimp on your will and cunning.  But even at the early levels, being able to block 50 damage of a 150 damage spell or attack, having +10 armor or having a passive +60 damage to all enemies in range is huge.
At the stage I am at, if I don't see high level spellcasters, rares, or +5 orcish berserk level melees in a ring around me, I just run into them until they die (especially if they are in a line), and half the time they don't lower my PSI down below 1000.

[dei]

Caveat being if you go dual-dagger, plain weapon mastery won't do anything for you, only dagger mastery. Nowadays, the bonus only applies when you're wearing an applicable weapon (no more maxing sling/bow/dagger/weapon/staff and getting ridiculous physpower ) and, so far as I know, only to the particular weapon (I.e. If you're wearing mace and dagger, weapon mastery boosts the mace, dagger the dagger, but the two don't stack as far as physpower or the % boost goes).

Similarly, if you get one-hand (mace, waraxe, longsword)/dagger, you'd get both if you were trying to boost both main and offhand damage (arguable usefulness, with the offhand damage penalty), and ignore dagger mastery if you're doing one-hand/mindstar... unless you were main-handing a dagger, I guess. Which might be alright with a heavy dex build...

Definite other TW talents are celerity (which is frankly a god-tier talent, and I recommend getting that to 5/5 ASAP... at least 3/5, so you can match speed with snakes), slow (AoE damage and slow over a duration, very nice), and haste (strong global speed boost, meshes well with the already low attack speed of bows). Then, like... the other stuff. Wardens have access to a lot of nice junk, heh.

I'll keep that in mind as well once I try messing around with Weissel tomorrow, since right now I'm too tired to do anything coherent with this game.

[DeKaFu]

Here's a question: Is there any way to carry over all your unlocks and achievements and everything to a new version/computer?

[lemon10]

Yes.
A) Copy over the entire file from C:->Users->[user name]->T-Engine (this will have all your saves and other info too).
B) Log in on your online profile. Try to start a game. Cancel it (since it won't have all the unlocks), then try to start a game again (and it should have all the unlocks). That won't copy your saves, but will get all your achievements and unlocks.

[DeKaFu]

What if you've never used/made an online profile?

[lemon10]

Oh, both A and B are separate options, you can do either of them.
If you don't have the folder and you don't have a online profile then you are screwed though.

And if you don't have an online profile but you have the folder then you could just make one before transferring.

[Frumple]

... you can just transfer the folder over, no real need to muck about with the online profile. Profile doesn't track sudden alterations in the unlocks and cheevos.

If you do have an online profile, though, the unlocks and cheevos should transfer over naturally. If you don't, it's just a matter of moving the files to the right place.

[ChairmanPoo]

IMO it's pretty hard to mess up an alchemist. The bombs make them nigh unstoppable. My strategy is to max the bomb tree, max fire infusion plus another infusion (your choice. Acid's not a bad one), and get the supercharge golem ability to the max so that I can keep him as a semi-permanent meatshield against bosses.

Tip: knockback buffs sometimes cause double damage to creatures because of knockback/turn fuckups.

[Wirevix]

Why does this happen to me every time I am so bad at this game

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Neonivek]

Because you are doing the stages in the wrong implied order.