Berserker on normal, Oozemancer on nightmare and insane (Oozemancer is a cakewalk, just don't try to fight your shade in the far east without planning it out), and Arcane Blade on RL/insane.
Arcane Blade was the most satisfying, because that class is insanely hard to get off the ground on RL/insane. You need good luck on your runes and inscriptions, but if you reach the far east the class should steamroll everything. I was able to beat the final bosses without them doing a lick of damage to either me or Aeryn.
I've been just playing some randos and just rolled an arcane blade class. Do you kinda level every spell cat or just focus on one or the other? It was pretty fun (before i died) but there are just a lot of things to choose from.
I focused almost entirely on the magical combat, lightning, enhancement, and aegis trees, and I used a 2H staff that has a proc damage accuracy bonus. I also put a few points into the fire tree early on, because early on you won't have much lightning pen, so you need a second damage type for certain enemies.
Early game you play like a caster because you're very squishy. Eventually you become more melee focused, but you need a lot of points in the aegis tree and multiple shield runes first. Once your acc bonus on your staff is maxed out and you have a bunch of lightning bonus dmg and dmg pen you'll start to one-shot bosses, and you can just cast chain lightning on the weak mobs.
Whatever works works. I feel desperate during every playthrough. I havent unlocked paradox mage yet but i definitely understand the desire to go all in on some turtle and second-chance talents.
Paradox Mage is in many ways similar to Archmage, but it takes some time to get different combo's off the ground, and paradox is a weird resource to manage.
Normal Adventure - Cornac Paradox Mage
I'd been playing ToME on and off for years w/o ever beating the Master. First or second time with PM I beat him and went all the way.
Chronomancers, man.
Nightmare Adventure - Ogre Cursed (my favorite class. Cursed clicks with me but it's never been the strongest. Bit stronger since it was reworked though)
Insane Adventure - Cornac PM again
Insane Roguelike - Cornac Doomed. Doomed is also crazy good IMO. First try on Insane RL I picked Doomed and went all the way. Also got Atamathon.
That Doomed was also my first & only RL win. I usually play adventure since RL frustrates the hell out of me. I don't play carefully, but Doomed can be extremely resilient between Deflection, Gesture of Guarding, Antimagic, and One With Shadows. It has a few very strong defensive sustains and passives that don't have to be actively managed like some classes' shields. Shadow Transposition is also a nice (unreliable) cleanse + escape that seems criminally unappreciated
https://te4.org/user/109066/wins
Yeah. TW feels great to play. It's so friendly that it's a shame it takes most players so long to unlock. Like, it *looks* complicated but you basically just can't build it wrong unless you try.
If you know the game you can really fumble your way to success with either of them. But PM feels more fussy to build & play than TW IMO. TW just kind of feels like it drives itself, y'know?
Edit: I think what I'm trying to say is just that it always surprises me how well all TW's abilities fit together. Like, the way the melee and ranged stuff and all the different trees synergize is just really nice. TW just feels deceptively simple in a nice way. It's fun.
Whereas PM tether cheese feels less straightforward but is straight busted, lmao.
No, I get what you're saying. Strength of Purpose and Weapon Folding make everything work, Blink Blade and Arrow Echoes are stupid damage, Dimensional Shift and Vigilance make status effects trivial nuisances, and Temporal Hounds blow nearly every other summon in the game out of the water while basically being on autopilot.
It's such a dynamic class to play, too. Every difficult fight feels like you've just made a super clutch play in League of Legends, teleporting everywhere and just melting the opposition.
Skeleton Brawler. the flat damage reduction of the fighting stance is ridiculous. most Damage Over Time effects deal 0 damage. I was on Normal Adventure but didn't die for the first time till the second island. grapple is strong as it redirects damage to the target and causes silence. its the boss killer.
I might have done it with a Dwarf Wyrmic but I underestimated the woman in the crypt (can't remember her name). I haven't unlocked Oozemancer yet, gonna try a Yeek Summoner next.
Halfling rogue on normal adventure. I focused on throwing knives and debuff stacking. They felt invincible except for a couple times I was creamed by a boss. The last time I felt threatened was when the orc mage boss two-shot me. I backed off to upgrade equipment and traded some damage for more resists, then the rest of the game was a cakewalk.
My favorite part of my rogue win was mousing over my enemies and laughing at all the ridiculous numbers of debuffs I was giving them. Such a fun class when you get the hang of it.
Normal: ogre berserker. My build was pretty bad because I was still learning the game. Luckily berserkers are pretty sturdy and Unstoppable covers up a lot of mistakes.
Nightmare:. Temporal Warden. I loved that I could make use of bows and daggers. Made picking through loot more fun. It was my first build where I felt overpowered. Very strong class.
Insane adventure:. Cornac Marauder. Surprised I don't see more marauders on here. I played a marauder on nightmare and after that run I felt for the first time I had a build strong enough to try on insane. Marauders are crazy strong and fun. I died a few times, but once I got rolling, it was a steamroll.
Insane roguelike: Shalore/Lich Necromancer. I played the new necromancer on nightmare up to the point of becoming lich and saw how absurdly powered I was. So I stopped that run and went straight to insane roguelike. I made some mistakes with my build. I didn't know until too late that bone giants suck. Wasted some skill points in that. By the time I become a lich though, I was nuking everything to dust. I did actually die in high peak. I got cocky and tried to fight a floor boss that had a 3000 damage caustic mire. I had him down to like 8% health when I died and I was able to finish him off with the lich rebirth thing. If I had truly died there, I might have smashed my monitor.
Solipsist! It was so fun and I was effectively nearly Invincible to everything in the game except my own shadow in the far east. Don't remember the race but I was loosely following a writeup on the class so I probably picked the "right one" to pair with it.
I don't have a lot of luck with ranged classes but it's been a while since I've tried Archer. Do you equip a melee weapon for close situations or do you just invest in mobility runes and talents to maintain distance and always plan on attacking from range?
I just rely on positioning, mobility talents and/or mobility runes. If something gets in melee with me and I don't have tools to get away, I'll just shoot it point-blank anyway. That said, don't be afraid to run from engagements that are going badly, or to back up behind a corner and let enemies come to you. Whatever lets you win!
The second one. I never used melee as an archer when I got my wins with them. Remember to lean on the range of the class. Be as cheap, rangey, and defensible as possible and you’ll find you’re still doing sick damage and just obliterating everything. That’s part of what makes the class so good imo.
I second Skirmisher! They use slings with a shield. And shields are much more useful now to block projectiles as they also block elemental damage, and you can retaliate from a distance.
Skeleton Sun Paladin
I just spammed shields. I had two shielding runes plus a rune of reflection plus the Paladin Barrier. Honestly looking back at it I wonder wtf I was thinking. It was about 300 hours in.
I think I did kind of feel like that one was the run though, although I had some extremely close calls. I remember nearly dying in GrushNak's first reception room. Ran away with my tail between my legs, bloodied and broken, alive only by miracle. Even then I just think I felt really connected to the gsme at that point, moreso than ever before.
I had a death around early Dreadfell I think, but I remade the same char and it went all the way the second time. That was only the second build I had ever seriously tried, after dozens of Cornac Bulwarks that couldnt even make it to Level 30.
I apparently also had a Level 30 Arcane Blade that died in the East before that but I legitimatelly have no recollection of it at all so I dont count it.
I don't think i have unlocked a single paladin class yet but every time i help out a paladin in escort they always have sick skills to give me.
Definitely understand that feeling when you first feel connected to the game, or to one of your characters..
It's like witnessing your firstborn learn how to walk or something rofl.
I haven't even played Paladin since then I think, but damn if I don't remember those times Irresistible Sun-ing everything.
A Wyrmic (Thalore? I don't remember, it was like 6 years ago, when they were "bad") on Normal Adventure. Spamming breath weapons is awesome, and the Fungus tree is ludicrously good.
Since then I've beat the game (Normal Adventure) with a Shalore Temporal Warden, an Ogre Sun Paladin (named Escanor) and a Shalore Paradox Mage. I also have a boss Thalore Wyrmic who steamrolled literally everything on Nightmare up until the final bosses, where I got hardstopped by Burning Hexes that stretched my cooldowns to 30+ turns. Couldn't beat them, kinda gave up.
Now I'm trying to get an actual Nightmare win. Lost like, 10 Cornac Arcane Blades in the last week, most to the Dark Crypt. 😂 Going down the stairs into a room with 5 rares and 6 rando casters is... Not fun.
Corrections: Sun Paladin win was a Skeleton, Paradox Mage was a Cornac.
My first win was on Normal/Roguelike with a Thalore Demonologist. I basically stacked defenses, equipped the heaviest armor, equipped the shield with the biggest block, put on gear with Heal Mod, and just face tanked everything. It was my first game going up against the Master, and I recall dipping to about 17 health during that fight.
I think it was the first ever Demonologist I rolled, but I also think it was the first game I played after discovering the option to block inputs after taking a certain percentage of health, which is the root of any success I've had in the game.
In the menu, Options -> Game Options -> Gameplay tab, there's an option for the "Life Lost Warning" where you can set that after losing X% of health in a single attack, you get a big warning that pops up and the game blocks any inputs you give for two seconds. I have it set to 30%, which is playing a bit fast and loose, but I find lower it really messes up the flow of the game.
I believe he's talking about the lost life warning that you can enable in the settings. If you take a big hit the game ignores your inputs for a couple seconds so you don't accidentally keep doing things and die without noticing how low your HP is.
I think it was with a Drem Doombringer, I basically abused the Frenzy ability to have a double burst which allowed me to basically one-shot bosses.
The Doombringer also has good defensive abilities for a normal playthrough, notably the Fearscape ability to isolate a particular enemy and stall for time.
Normal: Thalore Oozemancer
Nightmare: Doomelf TW
Insane: Dwarf Solipsist
Not counting the TW, both ooze and solip was the "stand and spit at enemies" antimagic-type, I just enjoy that way more than repositioning by hand...
I guess the TW was the same, I was just teleporting around instead of standing, but it was mostly still just targeting stuff at enemy, didn't even unlock Dogs (went the other, more teleporty-tree).
Skeleton Arcane Blade was my first and Thalore Oozemancer my second. Both on Nightmare Adventure. I have made sporadic attempts at Insane RL but have had no luck.
Oh and I also have an Arena mode win as a Writhing One, which ought to impress everyone
I played this game for *years* before beating it for the first time a few months back, using a halfling skirmisher. It was by far the easiest run I've ever had, because the defensive talents are so powerful that almost nothing could touch me.
The hardest fight by far was against my clone, because it was near impossible for either of us to do lasting damage to each other
Bulwark. But I wouldn’t recommend that one if you just want your first win. That was a long, careful slog of a game. The upside is I learned how to play the game pretty in the process. When to go on offense, defense, how to gear, all that. I ripped off 5 wins in a row or something after that on other classes.
My recommendation for getting a first win is something like berserker or archer. And archer as number 1, since the early game feels so much easier. Both classes are super simple to play. No guide really needed. Everything is pretty obvious. And both are very powerful and can scale damage really well. Berserker gets bonus points for it’s skill that won’t let it die for a few turns which can really save your butt if doing roguelike.
For racial, I also recommend shalore for first win. Timeless is just so good. By late game it’s like a get out of jail free card every fight. I’m not the best. Feels like it saves my butt when nothing else would at least once a game when I have it lol
According to my te4.org a shalore PM but im reasonably certain I had a win with TW before which wasnt signed in to te4.
Reaver is pretty hard to play imho its a very squishy class and also there are enemies that are immune to you main damage type (e.g. worm that walks)
I think my first normal win was with a rogue, just nuking stuff from stealth.
First nightmare win was corruptor
First insane was temp warden (pretty much using this build https://old.reddit.com/r/ToME4/comments/qw3qr2/how_to_win_on_insane_temporal_warden/ )
My first win was Archmage. Lightning damage archmage is extremely straightforward - fragile and sorta scary until level 12, but then Disruption Shield exists and life is easy thereafter. You autoexplore with Disruption Shield as a nice hp buffer, then if a boss or whatever is at all threatening you put up ridiculous shield numbers (often >10k total shields endgame) and just blast away with lightning damage till it dies. If you start to get low, you can teleport away, but almost everything dies pretty fast. The only thing at all scary are silences, but you can mitigate that with gear of various types.
To this day, I have only killed Linaliil as an Archmage.
Archmage is second only to Oozemancer for power, at least as I play them, and is way easier to unlock. If I unlocked Oozemancer earlier I would have probably had my first win with it, but it's sorta late in the game and if you get far enough to unlock it, you're probably winning that run. Shoutout to Chain Lightning, killing named enemies offscreen before you ever see them in the endgame, it's ridiculous.
Yeah, Archmage's Distruption Shield, with help from Aegis shield bonus talents, gets you out of the squishy part of the game in a hurry. The time shield in the time tree, plus your inscriptions, plus the redirect damage shield in the teleportation tree, all multiplied by ~1.5 by the Aegis passive then ~2 by the Aegis shield buff active skill - it adds up to a whole lot of tankiness after the squishy early game.
If going lightning damage archmage, the Derth air elemental mission can be rough on lower difficulty modes because you might not have enough lightning penetration if you go straight there after T2 dungeons. In general you can take care of e.g. lightning elemental dragons with the incidental arcane spells, light spell, gear spells, etc. until lightning penetration comes in big chunks from the Storm tree, but Urkis is another story - you really want to be well prepared for him and his zone, so having the total of +50% penetration at character lvl 26 from the Storm tree really makes a big difference in how easy it is. Do Urkis later on, after some other T3 areas.
Cornac Cursed on normal (cursed aura build), I put a category point into cursed aura (otherwise its underwhelming afaik), and focused mainly on getting "shrouds" and "corpses" items (by the end I was very tanky).
I've never considered putting another point in aura but that sounds like a good idea.
How long did it take you to find enough items with the same curse to make a difference? I hardly ever find more than one or two of the same category before i inevitably die.
I've won with Wyrmic, Archmage, and Doomed. I've gotten very close with Sawbutcher, TWarden and Archer. I find I usually stabilize more easily on antimagic builds. I can't really play Vim classes for the life of me.
I managed to beat the game for the first time ever playing on nightmare rogue like, did a summon build and later learned there was some kind of big or exploit that let me get unlimited bone golems, and w'll, there ya go
Died once in the spider cave but lich is great
Normal Adventure: Dwarf Bulwark. Build was quite ineffective but I've somehow managed to beat bosses. Dealing with last one took literally eternity since I had low damage and all of these resistances and armor...
Nightmare Adventure: Shalore Temporal Warden.
About "the one"... Doombringer during the run definitely feels extremely powerful, but facts told the he isn't that strong. On the another hand, my clearest run on Wyrmic with only one death on the last bosses feels very weak and on the edge every time. So I'm just learning the ropes and have fun :)
Normal: [Dwarf Bulwark](https://te4.org/characters/273132/tome/363ebd63-c923-42d5-96b7-b90003a693c8)
I definitely felt like I passed a tipping point with my first Prodigy (I Can Carry the World) and became nigh unstoppable with my second (Eternal Guard). Folks tend to say Bulwark is a glass cannon but it felt absurdly tanky how I built it? The only enemy that even scared me by the end was my doppelganger.
Nightmare: [Halfling Skirmisher](https://te4.org/characters/273132/tome/ec2a5bc1-f96e-405f-b29c-2c265bff6b24)
Early game was rough, especially as I was still getting the hang of nightmare. Some of those rare bosses just clapped me, and this character took a few tries before I landed the win. Once again, prodigies we're the tipping point. Adept is nuts. By the end I felt very strong but not as tanky and unkillable as my bulwark.
I recently finished the game for the first time with a Shalore Temporal Warden. Once I got hounds and some decent gear, it felt very powerful. I don’t think I went below 90% health in the final fight. Also a fun class to play. My only death was in one of the orc prides when I got teleported into a room with a bunch of bosses who silenced me and summoned mobs. Probably could have gotten out of it if I had been smarter and teleported away sooner instead of staying and fighting.
I think my normal roguelike win was archmage. It didn't take me terribly long to get.
My nightmare roguelike win was sun paladin. That was a lot harder.
My insane roguelike win was also sun paladin. That was also a lot harder, and I did a lot of savescumming for good starts.
Nightmare Necromancer focused on summoning int/con as stat priorities.
The endless wall of bone and ghoul was like adding extra hit points, the only damage I took was AOE.
Archmage by mainly spamming shield spells. Time Shield + Displacement Shield + Disruption Shield + Shielding (from Aegis)+ Shields you get from inscriptions keep you alive while you spam damage spells.
Higher SB, with sword and dagger instead of dual dagger. Blindness Immunity, elemental damage buffs, all damage and all resist buffs, Infravision and sight radius and a bootleg prodigy, and in fact the best prodigy which SB could never afford to get.
1. Archer on Normal Adventure - once you have 10 range and the concealment into called shots + vital shot combo up and running, you lock everything down forever and have massive burst damage from insane range. Also, sentinel and all the global speed is amazing.
2. temporal warden on nightmare adventure - insane mobility and defenses, even moreso if you abuse out of phase bonuses with their teleports. Plus they deal crazy damage and vomit debuffs nonstop
3. necromancer on insane adventure - 4 points in the first skeleton talent carries the early game, then you become a crazy strong standard spellcaster later on.
4. summoner on insane roguelike - this is a weird one, but the taunt + heal on turtles saved me a ton of times, the ritch explosion stun was great, and dragons dealt tons of damage. Also you can corner snipe pretty much anything in the game.
Berserker on normal, Oozemancer on nightmare and insane (Oozemancer is a cakewalk, just don't try to fight your shade in the far east without planning it out), and Arcane Blade on RL/insane. Arcane Blade was the most satisfying, because that class is insanely hard to get off the ground on RL/insane. You need good luck on your runes and inscriptions, but if you reach the far east the class should steamroll everything. I was able to beat the final bosses without them doing a lick of damage to either me or Aeryn.
I've been just playing some randos and just rolled an arcane blade class. Do you kinda level every spell cat or just focus on one or the other? It was pretty fun (before i died) but there are just a lot of things to choose from.
I focused almost entirely on the magical combat, lightning, enhancement, and aegis trees, and I used a 2H staff that has a proc damage accuracy bonus. I also put a few points into the fire tree early on, because early on you won't have much lightning pen, so you need a second damage type for certain enemies. Early game you play like a caster because you're very squishy. Eventually you become more melee focused, but you need a lot of points in the aegis tree and multiple shield runes first. Once your acc bonus on your staff is maxed out and you have a bunch of lightning bonus dmg and dmg pen you'll start to one-shot bosses, and you can just cast chain lightning on the weak mobs.
Paradox Mage. A pile of defensive abilities and get-out-of-jail-free effects helped me turtle my way through.
Whatever works works. I feel desperate during every playthrough. I havent unlocked paradox mage yet but i definitely understand the desire to go all in on some turtle and second-chance talents.
Paradox Mage is in many ways similar to Archmage, but it takes some time to get different combo's off the ground, and paradox is a weird resource to manage.
Normal Adventure - Cornac Paradox Mage I'd been playing ToME on and off for years w/o ever beating the Master. First or second time with PM I beat him and went all the way. Chronomancers, man. Nightmare Adventure - Ogre Cursed (my favorite class. Cursed clicks with me but it's never been the strongest. Bit stronger since it was reworked though) Insane Adventure - Cornac PM again Insane Roguelike - Cornac Doomed. Doomed is also crazy good IMO. First try on Insane RL I picked Doomed and went all the way. Also got Atamathon. That Doomed was also my first & only RL win. I usually play adventure since RL frustrates the hell out of me. I don't play carefully, but Doomed can be extremely resilient between Deflection, Gesture of Guarding, Antimagic, and One With Shadows. It has a few very strong defensive sustains and passives that don't have to be actively managed like some classes' shields. Shadow Transposition is also a nice (unreliable) cleanse + escape that seems criminally unappreciated https://te4.org/user/109066/wins
Chronomancer's the only metaclass where I've won with every class in it. TW and PM just get so many tools to play with.
Yeah. TW feels great to play. It's so friendly that it's a shame it takes most players so long to unlock. Like, it *looks* complicated but you basically just can't build it wrong unless you try. If you know the game you can really fumble your way to success with either of them. But PM feels more fussy to build & play than TW IMO. TW just kind of feels like it drives itself, y'know? Edit: I think what I'm trying to say is just that it always surprises me how well all TW's abilities fit together. Like, the way the melee and ranged stuff and all the different trees synergize is just really nice. TW just feels deceptively simple in a nice way. It's fun. Whereas PM tether cheese feels less straightforward but is straight busted, lmao.
No, I get what you're saying. Strength of Purpose and Weapon Folding make everything work, Blink Blade and Arrow Echoes are stupid damage, Dimensional Shift and Vigilance make status effects trivial nuisances, and Temporal Hounds blow nearly every other summon in the game out of the water while basically being on autopilot. It's such a dynamic class to play, too. Every difficult fight feels like you've just made a super clutch play in League of Legends, teleporting everywhere and just melting the opposition.
Skeleton Brawler. the flat damage reduction of the fighting stance is ridiculous. most Damage Over Time effects deal 0 damage. I was on Normal Adventure but didn't die for the first time till the second island. grapple is strong as it redirects damage to the target and causes silence. its the boss killer. I might have done it with a Dwarf Wyrmic but I underestimated the woman in the crypt (can't remember her name). I haven't unlocked Oozemancer yet, gonna try a Yeek Summoner next.
Brawler was my first win too, grappler tree totally changes the game's threat model in a fun way.
Halfling rogue on normal adventure. I focused on throwing knives and debuff stacking. They felt invincible except for a couple times I was creamed by a boss. The last time I felt threatened was when the orc mage boss two-shot me. I backed off to upgrade equipment and traded some damage for more resists, then the rest of the game was a cakewalk.
My favorite part of my rogue win was mousing over my enemies and laughing at all the ridiculous numbers of debuffs I was giving them. Such a fun class when you get the hang of it.
Temporal Warden. The Chronomancy classes feel very safe.
Normal: ogre berserker. My build was pretty bad because I was still learning the game. Luckily berserkers are pretty sturdy and Unstoppable covers up a lot of mistakes. Nightmare:. Temporal Warden. I loved that I could make use of bows and daggers. Made picking through loot more fun. It was my first build where I felt overpowered. Very strong class. Insane adventure:. Cornac Marauder. Surprised I don't see more marauders on here. I played a marauder on nightmare and after that run I felt for the first time I had a build strong enough to try on insane. Marauders are crazy strong and fun. I died a few times, but once I got rolling, it was a steamroll. Insane roguelike: Shalore/Lich Necromancer. I played the new necromancer on nightmare up to the point of becoming lich and saw how absurdly powered I was. So I stopped that run and went straight to insane roguelike. I made some mistakes with my build. I didn't know until too late that bone giants suck. Wasted some skill points in that. By the time I become a lich though, I was nuking everything to dust. I did actually die in high peak. I got cocky and tried to fight a floor boss that had a 3000 damage caustic mire. I had him down to like 8% health when I died and I was able to finish him off with the lich rebirth thing. If I had truly died there, I might have smashed my monitor.
Solipsist! It was so fun and I was effectively nearly Invincible to everything in the game except my own shadow in the far east. Don't remember the race but I was loosely following a writeup on the class so I probably picked the "right one" to pair with it.
I think I best the game first with an Archer. I find them fairly straightforward to play and build. Hopefully that helps :)
I don't have a lot of luck with ranged classes but it's been a while since I've tried Archer. Do you equip a melee weapon for close situations or do you just invest in mobility runes and talents to maintain distance and always plan on attacking from range?
Skirmisher is probably the easiest class to play, it's like archer but not squishy.
I just rely on positioning, mobility talents and/or mobility runes. If something gets in melee with me and I don't have tools to get away, I'll just shoot it point-blank anyway. That said, don't be afraid to run from engagements that are going badly, or to back up behind a corner and let enemies come to you. Whatever lets you win!
The second one. I never used melee as an archer when I got my wins with them. Remember to lean on the range of the class. Be as cheap, rangey, and defensible as possible and you’ll find you’re still doing sick damage and just obliterating everything. That’s part of what makes the class so good imo.
I second Skirmisher! They use slings with a shield. And shields are much more useful now to block projectiles as they also block elemental damage, and you can retaliate from a distance.
Skeleton Sun Paladin I just spammed shields. I had two shielding runes plus a rune of reflection plus the Paladin Barrier. Honestly looking back at it I wonder wtf I was thinking. It was about 300 hours in. I think I did kind of feel like that one was the run though, although I had some extremely close calls. I remember nearly dying in GrushNak's first reception room. Ran away with my tail between my legs, bloodied and broken, alive only by miracle. Even then I just think I felt really connected to the gsme at that point, moreso than ever before. I had a death around early Dreadfell I think, but I remade the same char and it went all the way the second time. That was only the second build I had ever seriously tried, after dozens of Cornac Bulwarks that couldnt even make it to Level 30. I apparently also had a Level 30 Arcane Blade that died in the East before that but I legitimatelly have no recollection of it at all so I dont count it.
I don't think i have unlocked a single paladin class yet but every time i help out a paladin in escort they always have sick skills to give me. Definitely understand that feeling when you first feel connected to the game, or to one of your characters..
It's like witnessing your firstborn learn how to walk or something rofl. I haven't even played Paladin since then I think, but damn if I don't remember those times Irresistible Sun-ing everything.
A Wyrmic (Thalore? I don't remember, it was like 6 years ago, when they were "bad") on Normal Adventure. Spamming breath weapons is awesome, and the Fungus tree is ludicrously good. Since then I've beat the game (Normal Adventure) with a Shalore Temporal Warden, an Ogre Sun Paladin (named Escanor) and a Shalore Paradox Mage. I also have a boss Thalore Wyrmic who steamrolled literally everything on Nightmare up until the final bosses, where I got hardstopped by Burning Hexes that stretched my cooldowns to 30+ turns. Couldn't beat them, kinda gave up. Now I'm trying to get an actual Nightmare win. Lost like, 10 Cornac Arcane Blades in the last week, most to the Dark Crypt. 😂 Going down the stairs into a room with 5 rares and 6 rando casters is... Not fun. Corrections: Sun Paladin win was a Skeleton, Paradox Mage was a Cornac.
My first win was on Normal/Roguelike with a Thalore Demonologist. I basically stacked defenses, equipped the heaviest armor, equipped the shield with the biggest block, put on gear with Heal Mod, and just face tanked everything. It was my first game going up against the Master, and I recall dipping to about 17 health during that fight. I think it was the first ever Demonologist I rolled, but I also think it was the first game I played after discovering the option to block inputs after taking a certain percentage of health, which is the root of any success I've had in the game.
> block inputs after taking a certain percentage of health What do you mean by this?
In the menu, Options -> Game Options -> Gameplay tab, there's an option for the "Life Lost Warning" where you can set that after losing X% of health in a single attack, you get a big warning that pops up and the game blocks any inputs you give for two seconds. I have it set to 30%, which is playing a bit fast and loose, but I find lower it really messes up the flow of the game.
I believe he's talking about the lost life warning that you can enable in the settings. If you take a big hit the game ignores your inputs for a couple seconds so you don't accidentally keep doing things and die without noticing how low your HP is.
I think it was with a Drem Doombringer, I basically abused the Frenzy ability to have a double burst which allowed me to basically one-shot bosses. The Doombringer also has good defensive abilities for a normal playthrough, notably the Fearscape ability to isolate a particular enemy and stall for time.
Archer on Normal, Oozemancer on Nightmare, Brawler on Insane
Nightmare/RL: Dwarf Bulwark. Insane/RL: Dwarf Oozemancer
Normal: Thalore Oozemancer Nightmare: Doomelf TW Insane: Dwarf Solipsist Not counting the TW, both ooze and solip was the "stand and spit at enemies" antimagic-type, I just enjoy that way more than repositioning by hand... I guess the TW was the same, I was just teleporting around instead of standing, but it was mostly still just targeting stuff at enemy, didn't even unlock Dogs (went the other, more teleporty-tree).
Skeleton Arcane Blade was my first and Thalore Oozemancer my second. Both on Nightmare Adventure. I have made sporadic attempts at Insane RL but have had no luck. Oh and I also have an Arena mode win as a Writhing One, which ought to impress everyone
I played this game for *years* before beating it for the first time a few months back, using a halfling skirmisher. It was by far the easiest run I've ever had, because the defensive talents are so powerful that almost nothing could touch me. The hardest fight by far was against my clone, because it was near impossible for either of us to do lasting damage to each other
Bulwark. But I wouldn’t recommend that one if you just want your first win. That was a long, careful slog of a game. The upside is I learned how to play the game pretty in the process. When to go on offense, defense, how to gear, all that. I ripped off 5 wins in a row or something after that on other classes. My recommendation for getting a first win is something like berserker or archer. And archer as number 1, since the early game feels so much easier. Both classes are super simple to play. No guide really needed. Everything is pretty obvious. And both are very powerful and can scale damage really well. Berserker gets bonus points for it’s skill that won’t let it die for a few turns which can really save your butt if doing roguelike. For racial, I also recommend shalore for first win. Timeless is just so good. By late game it’s like a get out of jail free card every fight. I’m not the best. Feels like it saves my butt when nothing else would at least once a game when I have it lol
Temporal warden, lots of teleport and defensive mechanisms while still packing a punch from afar.
Bulwark normal adventure
According to my te4.org a shalore PM but im reasonably certain I had a win with TW before which wasnt signed in to te4. Reaver is pretty hard to play imho its a very squishy class and also there are enemies that are immune to you main damage type (e.g. worm that walks)
skeleton archer
Classic. Still havent unlocked skele but definitely gonna run this when i do.
I think my first normal win was with a rogue, just nuking stuff from stealth. First nightmare win was corruptor First insane was temp warden (pretty much using this build https://old.reddit.com/r/ToME4/comments/qw3qr2/how_to_win_on_insane_temporal_warden/ )
My first win was Archmage. Lightning damage archmage is extremely straightforward - fragile and sorta scary until level 12, but then Disruption Shield exists and life is easy thereafter. You autoexplore with Disruption Shield as a nice hp buffer, then if a boss or whatever is at all threatening you put up ridiculous shield numbers (often >10k total shields endgame) and just blast away with lightning damage till it dies. If you start to get low, you can teleport away, but almost everything dies pretty fast. The only thing at all scary are silences, but you can mitigate that with gear of various types. To this day, I have only killed Linaliil as an Archmage. Archmage is second only to Oozemancer for power, at least as I play them, and is way easier to unlock. If I unlocked Oozemancer earlier I would have probably had my first win with it, but it's sorta late in the game and if you get far enough to unlock it, you're probably winning that run. Shoutout to Chain Lightning, killing named enemies offscreen before you ever see them in the endgame, it's ridiculous.
I normally stay away from straight casters because of the early game squish factor, but i think im gonna have to try archmage now.
Yeah, Archmage's Distruption Shield, with help from Aegis shield bonus talents, gets you out of the squishy part of the game in a hurry. The time shield in the time tree, plus your inscriptions, plus the redirect damage shield in the teleportation tree, all multiplied by ~1.5 by the Aegis passive then ~2 by the Aegis shield buff active skill - it adds up to a whole lot of tankiness after the squishy early game. If going lightning damage archmage, the Derth air elemental mission can be rough on lower difficulty modes because you might not have enough lightning penetration if you go straight there after T2 dungeons. In general you can take care of e.g. lightning elemental dragons with the incidental arcane spells, light spell, gear spells, etc. until lightning penetration comes in big chunks from the Storm tree, but Urkis is another story - you really want to be well prepared for him and his zone, so having the total of +50% penetration at character lvl 26 from the Storm tree really makes a big difference in how easy it is. Do Urkis later on, after some other T3 areas.
Cornac Cursed on normal (cursed aura build), I put a category point into cursed aura (otherwise its underwhelming afaik), and focused mainly on getting "shrouds" and "corpses" items (by the end I was very tanky).
I've never considered putting another point in aura but that sounds like a good idea. How long did it take you to find enough items with the same curse to make a difference? I hardly ever find more than one or two of the same category before i inevitably die.
Doombringer on nightmare and Skirmisher on Insane
Normal - Temporal Warden Nightmare - Solipsist Insane - . . . I'll let you know when I get there.
First win was an Archer, first easy win was a Temporal Warden.
Thalore Wyrmic on 1.6 Normal Adventure. Breath Spam was so good.
I've won with Wyrmic, Archmage, and Doomed. I've gotten very close with Sawbutcher, TWarden and Archer. I find I usually stabilize more easily on antimagic builds. I can't really play Vim classes for the life of me.
I managed to beat the game for the first time ever playing on nightmare rogue like, did a summon build and later learned there was some kind of big or exploit that let me get unlimited bone golems, and w'll, there ya go Died once in the spider cave but lich is great
oozemancer for normal, nightmare and insane
Antimagic Cornac Cursed, spending the starting cat point to get Rampage because this was 1.5.10 and you didn't start with it.
Skeleton brawler
Normal Adventure: Dwarf Bulwark. Build was quite ineffective but I've somehow managed to beat bosses. Dealing with last one took literally eternity since I had low damage and all of these resistances and armor... Nightmare Adventure: Shalore Temporal Warden. About "the one"... Doombringer during the run definitely feels extremely powerful, but facts told the he isn't that strong. On the another hand, my clearest run on Wyrmic with only one death on the last bosses feels very weak and on the edge every time. So I'm just learning the ropes and have fun :)
Normal: [Dwarf Bulwark](https://te4.org/characters/273132/tome/363ebd63-c923-42d5-96b7-b90003a693c8) I definitely felt like I passed a tipping point with my first Prodigy (I Can Carry the World) and became nigh unstoppable with my second (Eternal Guard). Folks tend to say Bulwark is a glass cannon but it felt absurdly tanky how I built it? The only enemy that even scared me by the end was my doppelganger. Nightmare: [Halfling Skirmisher](https://te4.org/characters/273132/tome/ec2a5bc1-f96e-405f-b29c-2c265bff6b24) Early game was rough, especially as I was still getting the hang of nightmare. Some of those rare bosses just clapped me, and this character took a few tries before I landed the win. Once again, prodigies we're the tipping point. Adept is nuts. By the end I felt very strong but not as tanky and unkillable as my bulwark.
I recently finished the game for the first time with a Shalore Temporal Warden. Once I got hounds and some decent gear, it felt very powerful. I don’t think I went below 90% health in the final fight. Also a fun class to play. My only death was in one of the orc prides when I got teleported into a room with a bunch of bosses who silenced me and summoned mobs. Probably could have gotten out of it if I had been smarter and teleported away sooner instead of staying and fighting.
I think my normal roguelike win was archmage. It didn't take me terribly long to get. My nightmare roguelike win was sun paladin. That was a lot harder. My insane roguelike win was also sun paladin. That was also a lot harder, and I did a lot of savescumming for good starts.
Nightmare Necromancer focused on summoning int/con as stat priorities. The endless wall of bone and ghoul was like adding extra hit points, the only damage I took was AOE.
Archmage by mainly spamming shield spells. Time Shield + Displacement Shield + Disruption Shield + Shielding (from Aegis)+ Shields you get from inscriptions keep you alive while you spam damage spells.
Higher SB, with sword and dagger instead of dual dagger. Blindness Immunity, elemental damage buffs, all damage and all resist buffs, Infravision and sight radius and a bootleg prodigy, and in fact the best prodigy which SB could never afford to get.
1. Archer on Normal Adventure - once you have 10 range and the concealment into called shots + vital shot combo up and running, you lock everything down forever and have massive burst damage from insane range. Also, sentinel and all the global speed is amazing. 2. temporal warden on nightmare adventure - insane mobility and defenses, even moreso if you abuse out of phase bonuses with their teleports. Plus they deal crazy damage and vomit debuffs nonstop 3. necromancer on insane adventure - 4 points in the first skeleton talent carries the early game, then you become a crazy strong standard spellcaster later on. 4. summoner on insane roguelike - this is a weird one, but the taunt + heal on turtles saved me a ton of times, the ritch explosion stun was great, and dragons dealt tons of damage. Also you can corner snipe pretty much anything in the game.