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[Frumple]

You definitely need to upgrade your alchemist gems. Your bomb damage scales with gem tier. You're still using tier 1 bombs. In dreadfell. If you upgrade to tier 3 or tier 4 alchie gems (you've got several tier four gems, so you're good there), you will see a massive increase in bomb damage. It will be like night and day, heh. I'd probably guess your bombs are doing about half the damage they should be doing at this point... maybe less. You'll see once you convert some of the rubies or whatev' into alchie gems and start nuking everything to dust.

Kit's fine. Defensive posture is kinda' useless*** IMO -- maxing out staff mastery for bigger channels usually helps me out more (offense is your defense, etc.). Few more points into golem resilience would be helpful, especially on that fragile golem end. It's a pretty sizable defensive boost*. Some better shield runes on the thing, if you can manage, would probably help there, too. Maybe an acid wave rune, if you can get a hold of one. Fairly sure the golem's AI can handle that without blowing you up, these days.

Other than that, build wise, what you've got is workable enough. I don't personally go into fire alchemy very often**, and I probably would have put the reflection rune on the golem, but your bombs should be (would be, if you were using decent alchie gems for your level ) blowing everything to smithereens. If it's not too late to swap points from defensive posture into staff mastery, your channel staff hits would likely be hitting in the 2-300+ damage range very easily at this point, as well.

And yeah, stair dancing isn't something squishy wizard really wants to be doing. Might want to gem portal into a more open space and let the bombs do more talking than your face, heh.

*E: I generally don't put any points into the golem's con until after stat reqs for all their talents are met (or at least until reflective skin can be maxed out). General path is strength to 36 (or 38... whatever it is for the last physical talent), then magic to however deep in the magic tree I intend to go (at least reflective skin), then back into strength until the stat req for voratun plate is met. Stick the golem in plate armor, max out resilience, and get a couple good shield runes (and possibly the reflective shield rune, as well), and it'll tank well enough between passive toughness and active healing (refit, supercharge) well into the end-game.
**E:This is more personal preference and lingering dislike than anything. It's a pretty decent tree nowadays.

***E2: More explicitly, the problem with defensive posture is three-fold.
One: You shouldn't be getting hit, especially in melee. Bomb around corners, let the golem tank, etc. Sometimes it happens anyway, but it shouldn't be, and if it does, defense and armor probably isn't going to save you, heh. The ranged defense and armor does help against archers, but your main ranged threat isn't archers, ha.
Two: Defense is frankly kinda' useless if you don't have enough of it, and an alchie really doesn't have the means to get that critical amount. Defensive posture helps, yes, but see 1. 40-ish actually isn't too bad, but iirc you need somewhere around 50-60 at this point in the game to really get a lot out of it 
Three: Armor, while still useful enough in small amounts/low hardiness, isn't really worth major investment in if you don't have means to up your armor hardiness a significant amount. And alchies don't really have the means to do that unless they luck on to some pretty rare kit (or go heavy/massive, which... they could, technically. They don't really need much mana, so the fatigue issues aren't as bad for them. Most of the armor they really want to be wearing is cloth, though.).

So it boils down to defensive posture just being kinda' hella' suboptimal on an alchie, at least when it comes to fairly normal builds. It's sexy enough on melee-centered staffers, especially the ones that would actually be going heavy armor (sunpas or reavers, perhaps), but an alchie doesn't really get much from the investment.

[kcwong]

Doh! The gems... I completely forgot about them.

Thank you for the tips... I'll keep them in mind on my next bomber. This one already wasted too much lives. He did unlocked Reaver class for me though - throwing a bomb on a mage in a corridor. So I'm trying one now.

[Robsoie]

So it's dancing on the stairs... until I got hit too hard for me to handle. It also didn't help that when you are trying to deal with the tower, you are just about the level to trigger Dark Crypt... which cost me 1 life.

And yeah, stair dancing isn't something squishy wizard really wants to be doing. Might want to gem portal into a more open space and let the bombs do more talking than your face, heh.

Wait a minute, stairs dancing  ?
No, no no ! You don't do stair dancing anymore in  ToME4 !

A dozen of versions ago, it was a tactic to take down most overpowered bosses, but since then the dev have removed that because now if you get up/down a stair, the said boss (and every monsters on the level) are reset to full health, ruining all the efforts you did to take down a bit of their health.

Additionally it removes all the staying effect from your spells on the area, but do not remove the ones from those monsters (so if a monster cast some confusion curse area that stay for a dozen of turns, going down and up will still keep that cursed area, while if you did the same, nothing would be left)

So never do stair dancing in ToME4 , it does not work anymore.

Against the master what works is the fact that he does not regenerate health naturally, and that his summons aren't lasting forever, and that he's teleporting away, making sure then that his summons are going out of his support aura, making them losing health each turns

That's then the solution when you have a character that does not have enough staying power to beat 2 times (as he resurrect once) the Master on 1 go : teleport

Teleport is immensely usefull for the Master battle, you hurt him, and when you think you're going to be overwhelmed by his summons, you teleport away before something block your rune.

While away, you then regen, repair the golem, while the Master has certainly moved/teleported away trying to find you, and his summons are then dead.

Then you look for him again, and repeat that process until he's dead.

Of course, make sure you did most optional dungeons before (recommended to keep graveyard for later, maybe elven ruins too as for some weaker character classes it can kill them too) , so you're not lagging behind in levels , missing some skills that could have saved your life, made you more powerfull.

[Graven]

Rob's right about both stair dancing and the Master.

What you can techically do is go down the stairs, kill a dude, go back up, rest, repeat. Until one of the billion status effects that prevent you from going up occurs and you die. But you can do it, if a situation is tough enough and there are no summoning/multiplying monsters.

[Frumple]

Yeah, chipping away at parts of a crowd by doing the stair dance thing (kill one+, hop up, heal, hop down, repeat) is still entirely viable and I do it in high tension situations pretty regularly, especially with characters that have high cooldown/high damage talents (something like mindslayers, ha.). I probably wouldn't do it with an alchie, though -- most of their stuff is low cooldown and they tend to benefit more from teleporting to another part of the level than popping up for a restock.

Potential exception can occur due to the golem (especially if the stairs are up against a wall... go down, gem portal into a safer area, let the golem die, let the crowd follow you, bomb it a bit, gem portal back to the stairs, go up, rebuild the golem, repeat), but I tend to reserve stair dancing for melee critters. Especially when dealing with some of the stupider ranged enemies -- you can tank it up a bit as they approach, hop up the stairs to reset the encounter with the enemy starting the fight closer, and then crush them now that they're in killin' range and you're topped off.

[kcwong]

Rob's right about both stair dancing and the Master.

What you can techically do is go down the stairs, kill a dude, go back up, rest, repeat. Until one of the billion status effects that prevent you from going up occurs and you die. But you can do it, if a situation is tough enough and there are no summoning/multiplying monsters.

I know they refill in HP... but not the spell effects.

However, stair standing was indeed what I used for my bulwark that made it to Far East; for that character I can hurt The Master but he must be right next to me first. So I stair-danced and killed his summons until I got The Master right next to me; then I hit him with everything I got.

I'm building up a new alchemist right now... after trying a Yeek one. Going up against Subject Z with the expected results.

[moocowmoo]

Damnit this game is addictive. Must win...

[AlleeCat]

I found this game again after buying the roguelike humble bundle and saying to myself, you know, these games are OK I guess, but I'd really rather play ToME...

[GP Trixie]

Stair dancing is not completly dead, it doesn't work against bosses sure. But against lot of weaker enemies you can take go downstair, take one, go back, heal and repeat until the place is clean. It's especially effective with yeeks who can use their n°1 racial spell which is an *instant* mind control. If you are patient enough you can take anything not mind control immune. Very far from being ineffective in my book.

[Robsoie]

Still, i continue to believe when it comes to the Master and his summons -> stair dancing is a bad, very bad idea.
Because if you stair dance to kill his summons one by one, due to him and so his cooldown being reset by your stair dancing, he'll just then summon more and you're back at square zero .

If the hit&run/teleport tactic of attrition against him still can't work for your character, it could simply mean that you're facing that boss too early, and going back to some unexplored optional dungeons is a good idea to get more levels and sometime get better skills that could reverse the situation in no time.

Farportal if you cleared everything optional already could then be a good idea, tough if you're unlucky (can't even imagine what could be a solipsist combined with oozemancer random farportal boss)  the random boss generated can make the Master looks like a weak monster.

Anyways, i was running a Halfling Summoner and just won the game.

Summoners are really near up there with the Oozemancer in the very strong classes (i think what makes the Oozemancer still more powerfull and overpowered than a Summoner is 50% of the damage that should hit/kill you is going to your bloated oozes), as out of a stupid death (me pressing the move left to many time while looking at something on my desk and so not noticing i was running into a skeleton warrior that crushed the poor guy easily) i don't remember any time my character faced a difficult situation.
I wasn't even antimagic, as i decided to side with Angolwen on this run for once with a summoner

But what i didn't expected is that while i never thought a second about building my character as a melee one, in the high peak i was 2 or 3-hits-killing nearly every monsters near me, using Psiblade sustain and wielding 2 mindstars of course.

Wow, never thought mindstars could be so powerfull in melee for a character that hasn't really melee skills Hmm, i wonder then how a melee-heavy hitter character could do with dual mindstars (as you can get the psiblade from mindstar mastery by buying the tree in Zigur) .

I'll have to try with a Marauder next, though the sad thing is that undead can't access Zigur and those skeletons racial are really great for early marauders :/ .

[Frumple]

Heh. Psiblades makes mindstars hurt (sustain active or not, but the active component turns it from merely painful to violently so), yeah, especially the higher tier ones, as many have noted. If you're going for maximum mindstar pain, the only option is Mindslayers (well, or adventurers with Finer Energy Manipulation), though. Will/cunning class that can double or better the base damage of the mindstars, and wear three at once? Yupyupyup. Can say, "But Frumple! Flurry/dissolve!" and Frumple goes "Yeah. Six hits in one turn with a cooldown, compared to three hits each and every turn. Maths!"

Shame most (rightfully, really) consider mindslayers to be kinda' boring.

Seriously though, any of the prime antimagic candidates make an excellent mindstar melee chassis, especially since you can largely ignore strength/dex (barring stat reqs) for offense and dump everything into will/cun (Which is glorious because crits and moar mindpower~). Effectively turns something that might be a three or four stat class (if str/dex is needed on top of cunning or whatev') into a two stat one (ignoring con, of course, which you'd now have basically no reason not to max.).

Actually... *checks something* darn. Yeah, ABs start with a mana bar nowadays. Curses. Still, if you want to just pick up mindstars and then say to hell with AM, you could do that, providing you can cobble together 1250 gold before you succumb to the siren call of the arcane.

[Robsoie]

I'll have to give a try, i wonder if Flexible Combat (the prodigy) is that good on non-brawler, with "multiple hits by turns" and with characters that can use Greater Weapon Focus to add even more strikes  i imagine it could lead into interesting results for insane amount of hits in 1 turn.

though you want dexterity for that, greater weapon focus being very linked to it for its chance to double each of your strikes.

But is the damage of Flexible Combat punches laughable enough to not make a real difference on non-Brawler ?

[Frumple]

I... actually don't recall, t'be honest. Without the brawler passive boosts and the unarmed combat mastery whatsit, yeah, they're going to hit for considerably less. M'not sure if the prodigy feeds anything into that stuff to help offset. Mind, if your str/dex/cun is still high, you'll still hit... decently, just not on the same level as a brawler. A mindstar critter probably wouldn't bother unless they've got some interesting on-hit stuff available that the extra attack could trigger, since their dex and str probably wouldn't be that high (exception potentially being a mindslayer, because of augmentation).

On the other hand, that unarmed attack is also likely to bring some very interesting proc effects to your combat lineup. I've considered it a few times strictly for that. Gloves have some pretty incredible procs and passive effects (iirc, once of the few ways to get slime damage without antimagic being involved, even Nope, nevermind. Unless there's some sneaky artifacts I've forgotten.), especially if you consider you're getting access to them without having to sacrifice the enchantment effects actual weapons can bring to the table.

[Darkmere]

Actually that begs the question then, is there any way to see what bonuses gloves get without being a brawler or having flexible combat? I'd never used it before my sword n board arcane blade, so I didn't even know they were a thing. Same with headbutt and bladed helmets.

[Frumple]

Bladed helmet's talent description'll update, iirc, so you can see the skullcracker damage via that. But gloves, barring an addon (and there is one out there already that shows glove and shield stats for everyone, iirc), nah, being a brawler or having flexible combat (or code diving, I guess) 'tis the only way to see the stats. So far as I can remember, anyway.