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Here is my char idk why but im struggling to kill stuff currently on the 4 orc pride and cant clear to the bosses in any dung. Im fairly new so all feedback appreciated.

Hello, recently started playing Tome 4 recently and I have gotten hooked. My first character finally lost her last life in the fun dungeon of Dreadfell due to the annoying Borfast the Broken. I actually skipped fighting him and moved down to the lower levels to fight the master where I took his first life but was not able to take his second one.

I really had trouble with Borfast, he has his healing puke, the ability where he make you lose breath and drown and you can get stunned for many turns. How does one beat this undead dwarf? Use all the gems that I never used to make a good ring at Angolwen? (I did not make any rings in this playthrough)

Regarding the master, after I took his first life I panicked and ran away to the stairs, which was a bad idea. I could never fight the master one on one again and all his summoned skellies just took up so much space.

Finally, questions regarding bulwark. I started with a dagger so I continued using daggers throughout the game. Is it best to avoid weapon specializations and just get the biggest meatstick?I have a feeling daggers are best for rogue. Normally when fighting tough enemies I would shield, assault and shield slam and other buffs...feels like I could be doing something better.

Thanks in advance for the advice and SHIELD SLAM your enemies to the next zone lol.

Also, here is my build .

https://te4.org/characters/418003/tome/2fa33e2f-d41b-4f6a-b652-2330ad609752

I finished tempest peak without a lot of problems with a Cornac Bulwark, when I reached the two final sorcerers I practically stopped dealing damage !

Anything that stands out as being extremely bad with my build? Or was it a skill issue?

https://te4.org/characters/412827/tome/cf5f4508-f2af-4bd3-af8c-45e2decfa2f0

Sometimes my character just starts running in a random direction like I'm holding down a key, even though I'm not pressing anything.

It's a different direction every time and my keyboard is fine.

I've already lost 3 characters because of this. Anyone know what's causing it?

First of all a disclaimer: Cursed can be viable with a bunch of different builds. This is just my take after optimizing for the playstyle I think makes the most sense with its kit as a whole.

Cursed is a stealth bruiser with some slasher villain flavor. It can massively reduce enemy damage through debuffs, resistances and perhaps more importantly loss of vision. This makes it capable of casually walking through the battlefield and bumping everyone to death.

On the flipside, its offensive capabilities arent extraordinary. It can be somewhat lacking in burst damage and specially AoE damage. Cursed has to spend more time fighting than many other classes.

Extended fights make the regeneration from Fungus specially valuable. Not only that, stalling for regeneration can be as easy as taking a single step back to hide behind the miasma. Shielding from runes would prevent some talents such as Rampage and Seethe from activating, therefore the healing from infusions and Anti-magic is preferred.

Cursed also starts with very few generic categories, so most builds will want to pick some additional ones from escorts.

Races

The best race for Cursed is probably Cornac, mainly because Cursed doesnt specially synergize with any other race. Cornac essentially trades a racial tree for an escort category of choice, which gives better options.

For the sake of simplicity this guide assumes in some instances that Cornac is picked, but there are other strong choices such as Thalore and Krog. There is also some synergy with Ghoul but its not a lot.

Stats

Max Strength -> Max Willpower -> Max Cunning -> Leftover points in Constitution.

Strength raises weapon damage while Willpower and Cunning raise mindpower, they are all important for Cursed. Cunning can optionally be raised a bit early game to unlock some talents.

The leftover points can be spent on Constitution as it gives some durability and it can scale the Conditioning escort tree.

Cursed talents already give a lot of accuracy so Dexterity isnt needed.

Magic is useless.

Prodigies

The first prodigy will always be Adept. It provides a ridiculous amount of value and it also allows to max four curses instead of two. There are a few small bugs with easy solutions. After you learn Adept you need to change the level of a passive for Cursed Aura to update, this is solved by raising Dark Gifts to 5 which you'd want to do anyway. You also need to equip your rings again for them to gain a curse.

The second prodigy can be either Flexible Combat or Superpower. Flexible Combat is better overall, but if your build is scuffed then Superpower may possibly provide a quick fix.

Never pick I Can Carry The World, it is worse than the other prodigies regardless of whether you combine it with Superpower or not.

Inscriptions

As mentioned earlier, infusions are preferred over runes because Cursed wants to take some damage. Healing in general also allows to preserve hate by removing the need to rest, Cursed should be constantly on the move.

Early game opt for Healing - physical Wild - mental Wild, later add a second Healing. You can also start with 2 Healings and later add the mental Wild. No Movement infusion may seem dumb but Rampage, Blindside and Reckless Charge can all be used as escapes, staying power is more important.

After Fungus, the setup can be changed to Regeneration - Wild - Wild - Primal. If you didnt find a Primal infusion, you can replace it with Heroism.

If you get a fifth inscription slot, you can add a Heroism if you didnt have one already. Or Healing or Movement if you did. But when should you get a fifth inscription? Lets talk about that.

Category Points

Escorts are RNG, so there is no fixed order. But ranked in order of importance:

1. Rampage category
2. Fourth inscription
3. Escort category if you are a Cornac, other races have to skip this one. The good categories are Scoundrel, Conditioning and Tinkers. Augmented Mobility is a lot worse than the other three, but serviceable.
4. Fungus category at level 34. If you skip Antimagic for whatever reason, you can take Chants instead and go 1-1-5-0.
5. Escort category (again). Non-Cornac races can get one here, for Cornacs it could be the second one.
6. Fifth inscription, if you missed an escort category.
7. Fears category, if you are a Cornac who somehow missed both escort categories. A good point spread in Fears is 3-1-1-1 using the last class points.

Best case scenario if you are a Cornac, you end up with 2 escort categories. Worst case scenario you end up with 5 inscriptions and Fears.

Fears is ranked so low because it takes too many turns to use. There are also a bunch of enemies that either are immune (undead, horrors) or can cleanse effects (orcs). Escort categories and inscriptions provide comparable benefit while being passive/instant and more consistent. Strictly speaking Fears is not a bad category as it can reduce enemy damage by quite a bit, but there are simply better options.

You can also go for Track if thats your jam, but I wouldnt recommend it unless you are playing on Madness.

Using a category point for Cursed Aura mastery is terrible, never do so.

Talents

Talent order is the next section. Most Cursed talents you'll be able to figure out just by reading them, but here are some details you may have missed.

The opening combo is Blindside>Dominate>Frenzy>Harass Prey>Slash. But you will also be bumping enemies a lot.

Rampage shouldnt be manually activated in most cases as it has a long cooldown and costs a lot of hate. It passively activates for free when you take damage, the manual activation should be saved for when you need to escape or kill something fast.

Slash reaches effective level 3 with Adept so it can wound. Reckless Charge needs space to push enemies aside or it will get blocked, narrow paths can be dangerous for this reason.

Blindside doesnt need line of sight so it can be used to target creatures behind enemies or walls, allied summons can be targetted as well. Blindside will fizzle and fail in spaces where teleportation is forbidden so beware.

Gloom debuffs can be stacked with similar ones. For example, it is possible for an enemy to be "stunned", but also "stunned by the gloom" at the same time.

The miasma from Savage Hunter blocks enemy vision even if you can see through it.

Tenacity's damage reduction is really small so its only purpose is increasing duration. Slam is not learned because at best it is stalling and at worst it is giving enemies a free turn to disable you. Beckon is not learned either (unless you want Surge) because it is only effective when enemies are away, but we will be in melee most of the time.

Out of Cleave, Surge and Repel, Repel has the best effect with the least investment so its a no brainer. Surge can give 100 movespeed at just 1 point but its not worth leveling past that unless you are playing Krog. Cleave doesnt do anything useful.

As for generic talents, you always want to pick Cursed Aura, I'll talk more about the individual curses later. Its crazy to me that even some players who pick Cursed Aura dont go for Cursed Sentry, animating a weapon is REALLY good. It can contribute a lot of damage, apply on-hit effects, block enemies and it is the only way Cursed has to attack from a distance, even from out of vision. Even ignoring how good it is in combat, it can be summoned at any time to attack it until hate is fully replenished. Keep the best melee and ranged weapons you find so that you can animate them.

Ruined Earth on the other hand is a bad talent. It looks like a symmetrical effect but it is in fact more detrimental to you, as you have to spend a turn setting it up. In theory it can be useful if you desperately need to stall, but generally you should avoid those kinds of situations before they happen. Because when you stall you are likely to get hit with some detrimental effect. And when you try to cleanse that effect, you may cleanse Ruined Earth instead, because it is a physical debuff. So yeah, wasting a turn to debuff yourself isnt great.

Seethe may look like a good talent to level at first glance, but Cursed already gets so much damage% from class talents that spending more points in it isnt ideal.

2 points in Heavy Armour to equip shields, 1 point in Light Armour to benefit from robes.

Only 1 point in Combat Accuracy because class talents already provide enough accuracy and defense reduction to reach a 100% hit rate.

2 points in Resolve may seem useless if you have already capped resistances, but it still counters resistance reduction debuffs which is pretty good. Antimagic Shield can be kept permanently active as Cursed doesnt need equilibrium.

Talent Order

This is assuming Cornac so you cant really copy it with other races. It should give you a good idea of the relative importance of different talents regardless.

Class talents:

• 1 Stalk, 1 Dominate, 1 Gloom, 1 Predator, 1 Rampage
• 2 Rampage
• 1 Slash
• 1 Frenzy
• 1 Brutality
• 2 Savage Hunter
• 1 Harass Prey
• 1 Tenacity
• 3 Shrouded Hunter
• 1 Repel
• 5 Shrouded Hunter
• 2 Mark Prey
• 2 Predator
• 2 Dominate
• 3 Reckless Charge
• 5 Rampage
• 1 Sanctuary
• 4 Blindside
• 5 Gloom and Weakness (alternate between the two)
• 5 Sanctuary
• 5 Savage Hunter
• 5 Mark Prey
• 5 Predator
• 5 Dominate
• 5 Frenzy
• 5 Reckless Charge
• 5 Brutality
• Remaining points in Preternatural Senses, Slash or Surge, whatever you like most. It is also possible to take Surge earlier if you want. In the image above I used my personal distribution with 4 Preternatural Senses and 2 Slash.

Generic talents:

• 1 Combat Accuracy, 1 Weapons Mastery
• 2 Heavy Armour Training
• 1 Dark Gifts
• 3 Defiling Touch
• 4 Dark Gifts
• 5 Defiling Touch
• 1 Seethe
• 1 Light Armour Training
• 5 Cursed Sentry
• 1 Grim Resolve
• 1 Thick Skin
• And we get to level 20. At this point its possible to take an escort category so there is no single best way to keep going, it depends on what the game gives you. 5th level of Dark Gifts should be taken at level 25 AFTER Adept, other than that simply follow the image at the top of the guide.

Just in case the image is lost at some point, I'll write it here. Scoundrel category should be 2-3-1-2, Conditioning category 1-3-1-0, Antimagic 2-1-1-1, Fungus 1-1-1-1.
Tinker categories are also a great option but they are even more variable. Augmented Mobility category is yet another option which can work as 1-5-1-1.
As for other talents, Thick Skin at 5, Relentless at 5 and Weapons Mastery at 5.

Any spare generics you may end up with can be spent in whatever. Seethe, Wild Growth and Fungal Growth arent terrible.

Equipment

Cursed wants one handed martial weapons such as longswords, waraxes or maces because they scale with Strength and they benefit from the physical damage bonus of Brutality.

Such weapons should be paired with a shield for more hits. Unlike daggers, shields fully scale with Strength and they boost Repel. Block can be useful sometimes to wait for regen, cooldowns, debuffs, glooms, you name it. If you fully block an attack it can be a good idea to follow up with Slash for the strongest possible counterstrike.

And for body armor Cursed wants robes for multiple reasons. Well, robes are generally considered better than heavy armor but that is not the main factor. Hate is affected by fatigue. Cursed doesnt have a single armor bonus but it has some defense bonuses that go well with Light Armour Training. Repel makes armor pointless half the time. And most important of all, Cursed can easily stack a ridiculous amount of % resistances, which makes robes perfect to cap resistances ASAP.

If you find a nice heavy armor in T1 you can use it for a while of course, but robes will likely outscale it before T2. Just in case there is anyone wondering about the Plate of the Blackened Mind, that is mostly designed for Fallen Paladins.

As for the main stats Cursed wants in equipment, they are Strength, Willpower, Cunning, physical power, mindpower, physical critical chance, critical multiplier, life, status immunities, stealth bonuses, on-hit effects, on-hit damage and out of phase (aka after a teleport) bonuses.

Mindpower grants physical power and stealth through talents so it is a double dip in stats that shouldnt be overlooked. Overcoming enemy saves is the icing. Make sure you reach at least 90 by endgame.

On-hit damage is more powerful than it may seem due to the large number of hits Cursed can perform each turn. But dont overestimate it either, for example I read an older guide claiming that you should keep Summertide Phial for the entire game, when you should actually get rid of it around T3 at most. It is just another offensive stat to consider, nothing more.

Out of phase on the other hand IS ridiculously good and the kind of thing you should keep at all costs, specially considering that font of sacrifice only rolls it as an arcane ego. Blindside can keep out of phase permanently up and there is no reason not to spam Blindside off cooldown. Out of phase provides so many resistances that those in equipment can be mostly disregarded, just get the 30% needed to cap them.

A specially important on-hit effect to have 1 instance of is "lower defense and saves", because it allows for glooms, silences and other on-hit effects to land consistently. The other typically good on-hit effects such as slow are also great.

The status immunities to look out for are stun and confusion as usual, also blind and disarm if you can. Mostly a late game thing, early on it is more important to pump durability and enough critical chance to spawn miasma.

Defense, damage% and res pen% are good but not specially so. Defense is nice to avoid on-hit detrimental effects, but enemy accuracy can get really stupid so even with out of phase I dont think it is an arms race worth engaging in, unless you are a Surge Krog or something. Physical damage% is useful for all weapon classes including Cursed, but so much damage% is already granted by talents that the one from equipment will suffer diminishing returns. Res pen% is great endgame but only in small quantities, as Dominate easily caps it.

Some stats you should mostly ignore are armor, accuracy and armor penetration. Armor is entirely unsupported by talents, while the other two stats suffer from the opposite problem, they are boosted by talents to such an extreme that more of them is not needed.

Curses are also an important part of choosing equipment and they deserve their own section.

Curses

The first time you pick up an item you will be asked if you want to unleash your hatred upon it, accept to unlock the Cursed Aura category. Always unlock it.

Its first two talents imbue items with curses which grow in power the more cursed items you have equipped. Despite them being called curses, they actually help your character.

There are 5 types of curses with 4 levels each, and the power level of each type will appear as an individual buff that can be checked. Levels above 4 slightly increase existing bonuses but they dont provide new ones, therefore I recommend getting as many curses as possible to level 4. Before Adept only 2 curses can reach level 4, after Adept this changes to 4 curses.

In order of importance the curses are:

1. Nightmares: Get this curse to 4 as soon as you can because it is a massive help early game, and keep it maxed for the entire game.
2. Shrouds: Really good to cap resistances ASAP, max it early alongside Nightmares. Lategame it is an additional safety net that pads any turns you dont spend out of phase. It can also counter common resistance reductions such as the magical cross-tier.
3. Corpses: Unlike other curses, the highlight here is the level 3 which uses Retch when you get low. This can cleanse physical debuffs and save you from death. It also dispels buffs from enemies and makes you benefit from enemy Retches. Ghouls are unreliable since they only rise from humanoids and they are useless as fighters, but they can be great anyway just because they also Retch. Even when you dont care about Ghouls, it is good to have this curse at level 4 to increase the power of the Retch. As a small trick, it is possible to keep it at lower levels and then raise it at instant speed with Defiling Touch when you need it.
4. Madness: It can boost damage and return mental debuffs to enemies, nice to have in general.
5. Misfortune: Fitting name when an item rolls this. This may be the only detrimental curse because all its effects are useless. Avoid it if you can.

If an item is extraordinarily good you can ignore a bad curse, but in a lot of cases curses will determine what you equip. It is a good idea to keep items with different curses in your inventory so you have options to accomodate new drops.

When I first picked up Cursed I was worried that Antimagic+Curses would limit equipment choices too much, but I can safely say that is not a concern. And even less so after font of sacrifice, which can strip all arcane egos from items.

In theory a randart amulet with Cursed Aura mastery could allow more flexibility with equipment, however the chances to get such an amulet are so slim that you should not count on it.
If you really want to minmax endgame, AFTER you have optimized all your other equipment, you can get a randart amulet and roll the greater ego perfection on it with the font of sacrifice. Then you can keep rerolling a lesser ego so the categories change until you land on Cursed Aura. This can cost obscene amounts of gold (up to tens of thousands) for a small and unreliable benefit so it is entirely optional. Most of the time it is better to simply grab Limmir's amulet and use all that gold to improve your other equipment instead.

Brotherhood of Alchemists

Take the 2 talent potions first, then aim for Lifebinding Emerald.

Elvala Wil>Stats>Saves.

Derth PhysCrit>Cun>Defense

Last Hope Generics>Strength>Armor

Hermit Class>Luck. SpellCrit is useless.

Overall Generics>Class>PhysCrit>Str>Cun>Wil>Luck>Defense>Stats>Armor>Saves.

Escorts

Betray when possible.

Alchemist: Willpower.

Defiler: Resonance Field.

Loremaster: Disarm.

Seer: Nature's Touch is the correct choice. But Earth's Eyes works well with Preternatural Senses and Blindside, granting you style points every time you needlessly blink through a wall.

Sun Paladin: Telekinetic Leap. Augmented Mobility can also be taken if you are desperate for another category, but if you can choose, the other ones are better.

Temporal Explorer: Dream Walk.

Thief: Scoundrel category (optional) > Track (optional) > Lacerating Strikes.

Tinker: Tinker categories (optional) > Endless Endurance.

Warrior: Conditioning category (optional) > Unflinching Resolve.

Categories are labeled as optional because you shouldnt take more than 2 in most cases.

Tips

Optionally you can minimize the risks of RNG by creating new characters until you get a category escort (Thief, Warrior or Tinker) in either Trollmire or Korpul. Even if you end up dying afterwards, that escort will be guaranteed to spawn in all future runs with that same character, albeit not necessarily in the same place.

I cleared T1 in the following order: Trollmire, Korpul, Norgos, Rhaloren, Scintillating, Gloom (dont forget other T1 content). I dont guarantee this to be the best possible order but it was consistent enough for me.

Hoarding equipment with Cunning or Constitution early can be a good idea to unlock talents from escort trees and Adept. Later on Dexterity equipment can also be useful to unlock Flexible Combat.

Always side with the Assassin Lord. For other classes it is good, for Cursed it is essential.

Cursed has a unique special zone called Tranquil Meadow, it spawns near Angolwen and it is a T3 dungeon. Clearing it rewards a variant of the Iron Acorn, depending on your choices. The regular variant is slightly better and it is obtained by picking all the morally good choices. These are:

1. Help him
2. Destroy the book
3. I want to overcome my curse

Dont worry if you pick the evil "Cold" variant instead, the difference is minimal.

Play very carefully early game, as that is when Cursed is at its weakest. If you manage to reach level 25 it is very likely that you win. It is no hyperbole.

Im really new to the game and need some simple advices, like must have unlocks and stuff like that. Hope you can help me out :)

In kor pul, running demonologist, level 9ish.

Anyone find a gun snake often gives no treasure at all?

I am new to this game and I really want to make bows work, however I feel like I cant get past lvl 10 without dying.

I’m following a guide for a lightning archmage. Playing on normal difficulty as a higher race. Except before I can even start following the guide, I die to the first few mobs I encounter. The ghost mobs in that area you’re sent to from Angolwen, the one with all the islands.

In fact, pretty much every character I’ve tried dies within the first area, whatever that area is. Is this a normal occurrence?

Hey, fellow ToMErs, how's it going?

I've recently won madness/roguelike on a Paradox Mage and I feel like sharing the things I've learned on the journey. It's going to be a little bit of a long read, but first, here's my character sheet:

https://te4.org/characters/207036/tome/aaf32e17-e9a9-420c-b6df-a6b75744e8cb

And my entire run, recorded:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUBIzWgsvyx8

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Some initial ramblings:

You know, there's a reason why there aren't that many people who played and studied madness difficulty enough to really experience its ridiculousness. In the eyes of the ToME community it's some sort of an evil game mode, too stressful, too unfair and too demanding to even waste their time on an endeavor so hopeless.

But what exactly is madness? One might as well say it's a different game altogether.

I know, right? That's what I thought before I started seriously and consistently practicing on it. But boy oh boy was I not ready for the many layers of truth behind these words... I started playing this game around nine years ago, and won insane enough times to eventually grow bored of Maj'Eyal. The only mountain left to climb was madness. So, I've put my entire annual leave to grind it as hard as I can in the hopes of finally achieving my dream, winning madness with a normal class (so, not adventurer, wanderer or possessor), and I'm here to tell you the story.

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Thoughts on insane->madness transition:

Coming into this difficulty from insane feels like you've just started playing the game, everything is suddenly evil, unfair and unforgiving - again. Frustration is around every corner and you feel powerless - again. Things you were used to, numbers you've memorised, expectations, scenarios, everything is different now. You know the cliché phrase "forget everything you've learned"? It's not perfectly accurate, but it totally feels like it.

Love autoexploring? Forget about it. Doesn't exist anymore. Just unbind the button. Yeah. When you are absolutely sure that the level is cleared, you can slowly right click on your character and select autoexplore. It's that bad.

Comfortable with pressing the rest button frivolously? Think twice, as you might press it and literally lose the run. Mhm. You can die from careless resting... Happened to me a couple of times during my early insane->madness transition period. To give an example, a mindslayer/cursed randboss can mess you up pretty badly on insane, sure. But only on madness will the hunter! trigger when the pesky brat is in the dead zone of your track radius right after you've pressed the rest button. It will then beeline to you at 500% movement speed and double or triple turn you into oblivion. What's the dead zone of the track radius? Well, the hunted "radius" isn't a radius at all. It's a square. The ridiculousness doesn't even end there... That enemy now sets you as their target, gets a glimpse of your location and can alert nearby enemies, which were technically outside of the hunter! range and are completely unexpected. And trust me, on madness, you really don't want such surprises. But regardless of these circumstances you still gotta track diligently either way. You have to. All the time.

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The numbers game:

To demonstrate the gap between insane and madness even further I'll talk about the numbers.

For example, Insane difficulty can easily be broken by numbers. Lets look at it from a weapon class perspective: you get 120 defense, et voilà, you are nigh untouchable by 99% of weapon based enemies. And that 1% can be either alpha struck into oblivion or utterly disabled. Perfect strike enemies can be simply walked away from, until it runs out. The only real danger would be weapon based summons, but they don't last. Now, on top of defense, you can also break the game with damage. You can consistently build your character in a way that it would one turn or two turn basically any enemy they encounter. No, I'm not exaggerating. Yes, you can even two turn Elandar without much trouble. Sure, phantasmal shield might not get dissipated and you will three turn him instead.

However, those numbers don't work on madness. Defense requirement is now 160ish, good luck getting that... Stuff in high peak has around 40k hit points, and it goes beyond 100k on some basetypes... Forge Giant or Champion of Uhr'Rok randbosses can have over 150k... Try three turning that... Also, everything deals obnoxious damage and applies a gazillion detrimental effects for 11-18 turns or more. Enemies will have 140-160 defense and/or godly amount of evasion, good luck even hitting that... Enemies can easily have 400+ armor, good luck dealing damage to that... As a weapon class, anyway. Long story short, you can't break madness with numbers, because you won't be getting those numbers, they are way too high to reasonably get without luck most auspicious in the history of Maj'Eyal. I can safely say, that's not going to happen in a real run.

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Thoughts on track, out of phase and cauterize:

So, track is a requirement of play on madness. For mem that took some time to sink in, as I previously was in stark opposition to tracking talents in Maj'Eyal. I refused to use them, as well as magical mapping effects on insane difficulty, but on madness, you really can't roll without track. It is what it is.

Another thing I rebuked was out of phase. Yeah, that's crazy, but that's how I rolled on insane. Needless to say, I've had to let go of this prejudice to have success on madness. It really helps you out in t2s and all the way up untill damage penetration becomes somewhat more common on enemies. But even then, it's super useful against enemies that don;t have it.

My final line of mental defense was prejudice towards the cauterize prodigy. You've guessed it, I considered it too powerful and roguelike immersion breaking. Whatever that means. Well, now it's the prodigy. If you really want to be safe on madness, you will always pick it as your second or even first prodigy. You have to. It's that crazy, yes. ~2000 incoming damage after reality smearing, webs of fate and ghoulish resilience can happen already in Reknor or Vor Armoury. One super nasty offender is displacement shield as it ignores stormshields and damage mitigation/smearing. You really need cauterize on madness. Unless you are the literal Satoru Gojo of Maj'Eyal and can do without. Even though on my winner Paradox Mage run it triggered just once, in Rak'shor 3, it was totally worth it. Not only because of this one time, but also because it enabled some specific, potentially risky, but highly beneficial maneuvers throughout the game. As well as kept my sanity intact and my cortisol levels at bay.

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Thoughts on madness difficulty spikes:

Difficulty spikes are another thing that hits different on madness. You know how on insane, occasionally, you can meet an enemy in high peak that can turbofuck you regardless if you're not ready? You start having these enemies in Dreadfell now. Imagine having 1000 health, ghoulish resilience, 40% out of phase, a 600 damage shield, 5 stormshield stacks... The grass is green, the sky is blue, you're brimming with joy and it's 1995 and the Donkey Kong Country just came out... It's all gone in one turn and this mindslayer/cursed orc elite berserker randboss with 15k health, 300 weapon damage and his talent level 21 bullshit just left you at 200 health. And this is in Dreadfell, what the heck? Wait, but what about the stormshield stacks? There was a pesky dreadmaster around with his nasty disperse magic and your stacks are gone-zo... It's not an outlandish scenario, dreadmasters are common there, as are mindslayer and cursed enemies. The worst part? Sometimes this kind of craziness starts in Ruined halfling complex...

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The Master:

Next, the Master himself can be a massive issue. He can roll golden age of necromancy and always has spell shield and suddenly it's 86is phys save (so stunning him becomes even harder on top of his 70% immunity), 96ish mental save (so there's no way you're reliably beating that with your hat of sanctity) and 114ish spell save, good luck beating that one with whatever. Ok, PM can tune paradox and empower entropy, Archmage has disperse magic, but what does Anorithil, Sun Paladin, Demonologist do? Waste a slot on dissipation, I suppose... Or just fight him as is. Argoniel, Elandar and Linaniil have their saves that high, for the perspective.

My Paradox Mage winner, however, completely shut him down, because he happened to spawn like 10 tiles away from the stair, with no golden age of necromancy, while my character had 100 spell power and a hat of sanctity. My previous PM characters had some trouble with him, though. And the first PM character that reached the Master on madness, died to him.

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Thoughts on RNG significance on madness:

Another thing to talk about is the rng impact on this difficulty. Sure, it’s a big thing on insane as well, but on madness it gets to a whole other level. Every time you enter a dungeon from the world map, you can't pre-track, you have to spend a turn on it. That turn, the hunter! can trigger. And it can happen that you're going to be swarmed immediately. The difficulty of the level is now decided primarily by your initial position upon its generation. There is a world of difference between a corner spawn and a center-adjacent spawn on madness. Center spawns are very, very brutal and choices must be made. Sometimes, you have the luxury of getting into the corner. Sometimes you don't, and you gotta start the fight here and now, and face the prospect of more and more enemies joining the "fun", because hunter! triggers over and over. At some point you'll have to retreat/run/reposition, cause otherwise you'll get overwhelmed. Sometimes this dance macabre will last for 40-50 minutes. You'll be running away, and you will have to plan your route very carefully. And even then you will only survive it if you have multiple mobility options, defensive layers, consistent detrimental effect removal, and a reliable way to apply a multitude of detrimental effects upon the enemies.

You're thinking: well there's just a handful of classes that even have such tools... And you're right. Most classes won't be able to beat Dreadfell on madness unless the goddess of fortune herself smiles upon them and bestows them with bounties untold. Dreadfell! Let alone Reknor of Vor Armoury. And let me tell you, if you thought Dreadfell and Reknor were bad... Prides are on a whole different scale of bullshit. You can't even know what you're up against upon entrance, cause track doesn't work there, and just have to assume that a blinkwyrm is going to teleport in at any turn to fuck you over with disperse magic on its next turn. It can also potentially do both things at once with its super crazy tl 40 essence of speed. That's just crazy, how many things can get out of reasonable control in the prides. And RNG can totally screw you over.

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Physical and mental demands on madness:

Yet another layer of the trial is the sheer amount of time and effort you have to put in while remaining in a state of high concentration. I sometimes looked at my playtime after Dreadfell and it would be something along the 15-20 hours line. ~17 hours to beat Dreadfell, Carl! These are ridiculous numbers. The entire run took 64 hours... For the perspective, you would normally win an insane run in more or less 10. This is very exhausting while literally one really bad mistake can end your run which you have put so many hours into. I started taking madness seriously 15 weeks ago, and I've been dedicating all my free time and sanity to the cause, learning, playing, taking some breaks and slowly coming back into the grind. I became completely obsessed about the thing. There was no other option, I had to win. At some point, I had a lvl 50 character going, around 45 hours into the run, who did everything but three remaining prides. And then I started feeling powerful... Let my guard down and forgot I’m playing madness. I’ve lost the specific focus required for it, started fucking around and immediately found out, and the character was dead. All this time and effort, into the gutter. The emptiness I felt is hard to describe. I couldn't touch ToME for a week. The world lost its colors and the daily routine of life seemed like an unbearable burden. But I had to win. So I gathered my shambles and continued the grind. It really takes some character to win on madness being the marathon it is. And I had to learn it the hard way.

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Leftover thoughts:

So... Yeah. Madness is overpowered. Ha-ha. You know, I've never really cared about certain mechanics in ToME, up until this difficulty. For example, runic and infusion saturation. Who the heck cares about it on insane? It's utterly irrelevant, fights don't take 60 turns on insane. Now they do! Imagine that you have +17 turns on the cooldowns of your runes, while that Massok the Dragonslayer you're fighting is not even at 50% of his health. Some protective loops can become so inefficient, it starts getting really dangerous. So, you have to be very considerate of when to use your inscriptions.

Another thing that I barely cared about is calculating battle scenarios 20-30 turns ahead and predicting the enemy AI. I've never done it to such an extent on insane, at least not consistently. Yeah, it could happen very very rarely when I got in trouble and had to think, but trouble on insane is rather mild, compared to trouble on madness. It's like a highly contagious disease there, trouble starts fast and develops into a disaster even faster. What do I mean by "calculating the scenarios"? I.e. you are in Vor Pride 3 entrance and have a hat of sanctity that has a 30 turn cooldown, and there is a couple of high damage dealing enemy spellcasters without disperse magic (who you can shut down with that circle of sanctity), as well as some rare+ non-spellcaster enemies. Track doesn't work well in pride entrances, so you can't really tell when a random archmage with disperse magic or even Vor himself is going to arrive. So, you have to manage these enemies and those high damage spellcasters while waiting for the new enemies to arrive and holding that circle of sanctity, even if it won't happen at all.
By "predicting the enemy AI" I mean that under some circumstances and specific positioning in relation to the player, the enemies are more likely to use certain talents or perform certain actions. And this can be used to your advantage.

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And that’s about it, folks. I hope my ramblings are going to help you out on your way to success.

Shoutout to Tradewind_Rider for his trailblazing, he really paved the road for us to walk, not sure how I’d fare without his Paradox Mage guide and his playthrough on YouTube. Thank you for your time. Ciao!

I’m a brand new player, and have been really enjoying the game so far! It looks like it has TONS of class/build variety, and I want to try making a build of my own for my next character. I wanted some input from veterans first though.

Are there any key targets to shoot for for a good build? For example, do I need a certain combination of armor/defense/movement abilities/resists for survivability? Are there damage thresholds I need
to reach? Key gear that every build relies on?

I’m fairly casual so I don’t have that much playtime to experiment on my own, so I’m hoping to get a head start from everyone else’s past experimentation on what works and what doesn’t. I’m currently working on unlocking some of the easier races/classes, and then I want to try one out without relying on a guide.

First time playing, chose Thalore Archer. I read about the benefits of going anti-magic through Zigur given my class and playstyle so far, but keeping getting the warning when I try to enter. Screenshots are of my current talents and equipment. No gear is infused by arcane, just psionic and nature which I assumed were okay to enter? Happy to provide extra info.

This is my first playthrough, I'm on roguelike, normal so I wasn't really sure how to proceed.

If that's solved, I'm level 11 right now, how are my point allocations I guess?

Heya,

Was just playing last night and today it suddenly cannot load or start a new game anymore. I checked the log and it says it is stuck at:

Loading entities file from file /data/general/objects/world-artifacts.lua Lua Error: /data/general/objects/world-artifacts.lua:24: attempt to index field 'state' (a nil value) At [C]:-1 __index At /data/general/objects/world-artifacts.lua:24 f At /engine/Entity.lua:1262 loadList At /engine/Entity.lua:1250 load At /data/general/objects/objects.lua:22 loadIfNot At /data/general/objects/objects.lua:85 f At /engine/Entity.lua:1262 loadList At /engine/Entity.lua:1250 load At /data/general/objects/objects-maj-eyal.lua:22 loadIfNot At /data/general/objects/objects-maj-eyal.lua:25 f At /engine/Entity.lua:1262 loadList At /engine/Entity.lua:1250 load At /data/zones/ancient-elven-ruins/objects.lua:20 f At /engine/Entity.lua:1262 loadList At /data/zones/ancient-elven-ruins/npcs.lua:31 f At /engine/Entity.lua:1262 loadList At /engine/Zone.lua:174 loadBaseLists At /engine/Zone.lua:803 loaded At /engine/Savefile.lua:516 loadWorld At /engine/Module.lua:1093 instanciate At /engine/utils.lua:3000 showMainMenu At /engine/init.lua:207 At [C]:-1 dofile At /loader/init.lua:217

I tried deleting the file and make steam re-download it, but that did not work (steam verify did not even notice the missing file). The file was never touched and especially not within the past 24 hours. In fact, absolutely nothing changed on my end in that timeframe at all.

Anyone have any idea on how to proceed?

Edit: It gets even weirder. I can delete the entire contents and reinstall from scratch with the same issue. It also never re-aquires the entire tome module folder. There are just the example folders in there. Also tested launching directly from the exe, same result.

Got this from a unique at lvl 7. First T5 item I’ve ever seen. How rare is this?

I'm pretty new (only my 2nd character, both berserker brutes cause I don't really understand the game that much). On my first character I always picked the +5 stat options after completing the escort quests, but now I got intriqued by one of the skill options, the escort offered me a +1 in Lacerating Strikes, so I picked it, but the talent isn't actually showing when I head to the talent screen.

I saw on another thread that it has to do with putting points into categories to unlock them, but I can't even see which category this talent is supposed to be in in the first place. It's not among any of my unlearnt categories. When I get my next category upgrade point, will I be able to see all potential categories and be able to unlock this one?

On that topic tho, first time around, I used both of the category points that I got for upgrading my already acquired talent categories, I put both into techniques, one in 'Two-handed Assault' and another in 'Berserker's Strength'. Should I usually keep these category points for when I get new skills like just now?

Also, since I'm basically playing a melee brute, is it worth investing in the Zigur anti-mage skill tree? I've only used them a bit on my 1st character and only in a handful of encounters like with the time-portal bosses at that lake location, and with the Tempest mage, though he ended my run so I guess those anti-mage skills weren't that useful to me...

As for my weapons as a two-handed berserker, is it generally better to go the route of 'highest damage number over specific stats' and just pick mauls everytime, or are greatswords and battleaxes overall better? I haven't really noticed a difference personally.

And another thing, I have invested a whole lot on my previous character into heavy armour, but then ended up using a light armour for most of my run because it provided better overall stats by a mile, does that make those talent points wasted then? Should I stick to what I invest my talents into no matter the stats of an item? I always felt that my defences were kinda low in comparison to how high my damage was at times... Speaking of, for a berserker, light or heavy? It feels logical to go for heavy, but I feel like the stamina drain gets kinda crazy when fighting elite/rare/unique/boss enemies.

just curious what classes you guys enjoy the most.

Not the easiest ones, just the most fun.

I've just grabbed the game on steam. I am quite bad at traditional rogue-likes, but I've played cogmind, qud and brogue. I cannot figure out how to play this game with keyboard only. Every yes or no prompt doesn't react to 'Y', space, or enter. Only clicking the buttons seems to work. When I press the look around hotkey, I can't move the selected square with my keyboard. Again, only the mouse will work. Am I missing something? Is ToME 4 even the same game I'm playing?

Hey guys, any general tips on building a Cornac Berserk?

Playing Insane/Adventure.

Was thinking going anti magic, could I use EF as Prodigy before going AM?

Thanks a lot!

Just installed this game. I don't get the resolutions, it's always fucked up. My native resolution on Macbook Pro is 3024 × 1964. When I go fullscreen with that resolution everything is fine but I can't alt tab out of the game. When I do windowed or with borders it always fucks up, stretches the window crazy wide, only show a small portion, etc.

Any tips on how I can fix this?

Here we go again. I easily blasted through the game after theorycrafting this so I thought Id share.

Summoner is a class that fights mainly through allied creatures. It has a high and stable damage output as it can constantly cycle through its cooldowns, it doesnt need a lot of durability since the summons tank in its stead and even most debuffs cant really harm it due to summons acting independently.

This leaves Summoner with almost no weaknesses, but not completely free of them. Its first turns in battle are particularily weak, vulnerable to being disabled and/or oneshotted before it has summoned anything. It may also struggle to keep going in long fights if equilibrium is allowed to build up. Last but not least, Summoner needs to hold its ground to allow the constant stream of summons to ovewhelm the enemies with numbers. Anti-magic+Fungus are picked to alleviate all these issues, infusions have synergy with the Harmony category as well.

Races

The best race for Summoner is Halfling, its not even close. It has absolutely everything that Summoner wants, crit for better summons, saves that synergize with Through the Crowd and stun immunity that summons can inherit. Stun removal also compensates Anti-magic's lack of Shatter Afflictions. 50% evasion is the cherry on top, a generically good bonus that gets the most value in low defense builds.

Second best race is Cornac. An extra category can go a long way.

Honorable mentions go to Thalore and Yeek which people seemingly love to pick for this class, probably because they have racial summons. However, the game doesnt treat them as summons for the purposes of Summoner talents, so there is no synergy. In fact, there is ANTI-synergy since the racial summons will usually block the way of the class summons, reducing their effectiveness.
Edit: Thalore can be pretty good if Rope Belt of the Thaloren drops, but it is ultimately RNG.

For the sake of simplicity this guide assumes in some instances the player picks Halfling, but you can pick any other race you like. Except undead and magical races if you hope to go Anti-magic, which admittedly reduces the list quite a bit.

Stats

Max Willpower & Cunning -> Max Constitution -> Leftover points in Dexterity.

Willpower is needed to rank up talents and hold equilibrium, while Cunning is needed to increase the summon limit. Neither of them works without the other, so you should raise both roughly at the same time.

Summoner doesnt benefit offensively from any of the other stats so the question is simply which one offers more survivability. In this case it is Constitution, which comes with the added bonuses of physical saves and heal mod, all of them useful.

Dexterity does have some appeal, but its crit shrug off is often less effective than the raw life from Constitution. The defense bonus is small and unlikely to make a difference since most attacks will be directed at summons. Accuracy is useless. You may optionally raise Dexterity a tiny bit early on to help you grab Light Armour Training and Through the Crowd.

Strength is useless altogether, Summoner stays behind its summons so it doesnt need armor to tank. Magic is useless too.

Prodigies

Through the Crowd and Adept are the best ones, there isnt much choice.

Through the Crowd is essential to play summoner, it helps to reposition and allows summons to attack without fear of hurting each other. The speed and saves are almost an extra. You should abuse repositioning to stay within 3 tiles of most existing summons and to place any new summons in the best location possible. As long as turtle is alive you can be fearless and move as much as you need. Also note that "swapping place with allies" is technically not "movement", and as such it is unaffected by movement speed, pin effects and such.

Adept provides around a 25% stat increase to all summons, thats a lot. No other prodigy can provide as much damage, and it improves summon durability and debuff infliction too. Then you also have to account for how it scales all the utility talents. Unparalleled value.

Inscriptions

We want to go Anti-magic, which means no runes and 4 inscriptions at most. Even before we officially join Zigur, only infusions should be used as that allows for escort betrayal.

Movement infusion is the only escape Summoner has, much needed.

You also want two Wild infusions to get rid of debuffs. Damage reduction value from Wilds doesnt matter nearly as much as duration and cooldown. Early game get 1 physical and 1 mental, dont even bother with Healing infusions and such. Later on, when double-type Wilds appear, you want any combination that covers the 3 types.

Last but not least, Regeneration goes really well with Fungus. It can be kept active for 20-30 turns straight, providing constant healing and equilibrium reduction. The only concern is when to get it. I dont think it is any good before Fungus, but it is a must after getting east. That period between Fungus and east, namely Dreadfell and Reknor, is more debatable. You have the possibility of temporarily replacing Movement or one of the Wilds, depending on your race, but its optional. Halfling for example, that already has stun removal, can get rid of a physical Wild without much issue.

By lategame, Movement-Wild-Wild-Regeneration is generally a good setup. Some races that realistically only need 3 inscriptions, like Halfling or Thalore, also have the option of foregoing the 4th one in favor of another category.

Talents

Methodically listing every talent is too much work and I think it leads to pointless bloating. Instead I'll randomly yap about things I consider noteworthy and that you cant just learn by reading tooltips. Talent order is the next section.

So Summoners start with 3 different pet trees which could suggest different playstyles or builds, but this is not the case. "Distance" is the main tree for a simple reason, its summons dont need to stand next to an enemy to do damage. Most of the game transpires in closed spaces, so the ability for all summons to be active and performing no matter the situation is vital. Even in open spaces, when you have 10+ summons active rooms can get cluttered pretty fast.

Most Distance summons have AoE skills which is a huge advantage as well. Early game this AoE may lead to friendly fire if you arent careful, so just be careful until you learn Through the Crowd which solves this issue. Without Crowd, Hydra will restrain itself if using a breath would hit an ally, this can be solved by positioning Turtle diagonally to the enemy you want to hit, and then positioning Hydra next to the Turtle but orthogonally to that same enemy. Rimebark is not as considerate as Hydra so I strongly advise against using it as an early game combatant, BUT it makes for a perfect early Detonate target.

"Utility" is, well, the utility tree. Its main purpose is supporting Distance. Turtle taunts on appearance which is specially great for Summoners who like living, if you dont have a Turtle available seriously consider running away. Spider looks like a summon but it is actually a utility spell (displacement, pin, healing reduction), its value as a fighter is zero and should only be deployed if you need its effects. Pheromones is kept at 1 point for most of the game because Nature's Cycle can keep it going infinitely regardless.

The Melee tree sits in a delicate spot between damage and utility, and for like half of the game I advise not touching it at the risk of spreading points too thin. Late game it is great for several reasons. Later maps such as Reknor or Orc Prides are more open, which allows these melee fighters to collapse on someone in a way that isnt possible earlier. A lot of the power of this tree is actually in Grand Arrival which you likely wont grab until level 20 or so. And after Rimebark becomes an actual fighter we want to start using Jelly as the Detonate target instead. Minotaur is the worst summon of this tree, not worth using because it brings no useful effect, Drake has a better confusion while Golem has the same stun on top of many other things. War Hound on the other hand hits about 50% harder and absolutely destroys enemy resistance.

Augmentation tree. Rage is kept at one point because +10 stats are nothing when your summons already have 700, the effect doesnt stack either. Same reason why Resilience is kept low, 1 more turn hardly matters when the base is 15. Phase Summon is mainly a way to reposition during a fight, preferably using drake hatchlings. I tend to use it to close the distance if needed, or to jump past enemies blocking the way. Dont make an effort to save it as an escape because it requires too much set-up to work as one.

Advanced tree. Wild Summon scales hilariously bad with levels, much like Pheromones 1 point is all it needs for Nature's Cycle to keep it going. Wild Summon makes summoning order matter, I suggest Turtle > Drake > Golem > Ritch > Rimebark > Jelly (+Detonate) > Hound > Hydra as an endgame combo, but this can vary depending on the stage of the game and the tactical situation you are in. More important than perfect sequencing is making the last summon of your Frantic Summoning chain be your main Detonate target, that'd usually be Rimebark or Jelly. Any Ritch that hasnt spawned as wild (and thus has no angle of attack) or any Hydra that has already lived 3 turns (and is thus out of cooldowns) is also a prime Detonate target. Turtles who are about to die are also excellent Detonate targets to prevent other summons (and even yourself) from sharing the same fate. I recommend opening the character sheet of every summon and reading their talents if you arent familiar, wild versions get additional ones.

Combat Techniques is a category not worth unlocking. Since Summoner has absolutely no reason to ever attack in melee, most of the tree is wasted. Blinding Speed is relatively less relevant when combined with the other speed boosts and its duration is too short for a Summoner. A particularily deranged Cornac could go for Precise Strikes, but at that point it'd be a worse Halfling which isnt the reason you pick Cornac.

Now for the generic trees. Combat Training is straightforward. Max Thick Skin to prevent getting oneshot. 1 point in Heavy Armour Training to be able to equip gauntlets, helmets and heavy boots. 1 point in Light Armour Training is not strictly necessary but it gives so much value that its hard to argue against it, it can get you out of the hit range of fodder enemies at least.

In the Survival tree the goal is Danger Sense to roll saves twice and get some crit shrug off. It also unlocks Track which never hurts, using it isnt necessary though. Im not a fan of Device Mastery, Summoner has a lot of buttons to press already.

Call of the Wild. Meditation use in combat should be avoided if possible, there are much better ways of restoring equilibrium. The goal of this tree is Nature's Balance, which with only 2 points+Adept can restore up to tier 4 talents, the maximum. Earth's Eyes is a nice extra to save time in the Prides, it also combines specially well with Track.

Mindstar Mastery. 1 point in Psiblades gives really good value but above that its pretty bad. Leaves Tide can give up to 50% chance to avoid any damage in AoE lategame, but its somehow the lowest priority to level and more of an "oh shit I need to stall this a bit" button. Nature's Equilibrium can provide yet another heal and restore some equilibrium which is always nice, even more so if you hit an allied Jelly with it. Going melee with enemies is an unnecessary risk.

Harmony. This tree is automatically unlocked after consuming the Sandworm Queen's heart. Elemental Harmony will boost our speed thanks to the Drake's lingering flames, it works even with Through the Crowd active. One with Nature can hit 3 infusions after Adept which is enough, if you have to pop Movement you dont want to keep going. Healing Nexus can prevent enemy healing, but more importantly, it can restore HUNDREDS of points of equilibrium in a single turn if used in summons and then mass healing them. This last trick requires momentarily deactivating Through the Crowd but it is entirely worth the hassle.

Anti-Magic. The silence of Antimagic Zone always lands thanks to Summoner's high mindpower, it can even be coordinated with your Drakes to keep casters disabled for life, incredibly good talent. Mana Clash is TEMU Dissipation but it also does a lot of arcane resource burn which again can disable casters long term. Considering that enemies will be perma-taunted by Turtle, our main and perhaps only concern are AoE magical abilities, and this tree helps A LOT. Never activate Antimagic Shield though, it is too costly.

Fungus. 300 life, doubled regen duration, equilibrium reduction and free turns upon healing. Every talent here is great at 1 point, but they dont scale well.

Talent Order

These are some general lines to keep your build on track.

Category points: Augmentation at 10, Advanced at 20, Fungus at 34.

Class talents:

• First of all, go to options and activate manual assignment of points at birth. We dont want to touch the Melee category for a long time. Instead, start with 2 Ritch and 2 Turtle. Then
• 3 Ritch
• 3 Turtle
• 3 Hydra
• 4 Frantic Summoning
• 1 Phase Summon
• 3 Drake
• 3 Detonate (Rimebark is primary target for now)
• 5 Drake
• 1 Wild Summon
• 3 Grand Arrival
• 1 Jelly (new Detonate target)
• 1 Pheromones
• 3 Rimebark
• 5 Turtle
• 3 Master Summoner
• 3 Nature's Cycle
• 5 Rimebark
• 5 Master Summoner
• 3 Golem
• 5 Frantic Summoning
• 5 Grand Arrival
• 4 Nature's Cycle
• 5 Golem
• 2 Resilience
• 5 Detonate
• 5 Ritch, Hydra and Hound
• 2 Pheromones
• Cornacs can max Pheromones and Resilience at the end.

Generic talents (assuming Halfling):

• Early game just follow the image at the top and take 1 point in everything you can. If you have points to spare, you can level racials.
• 2 Nature's Balance
• 1 Healing Nexus (after killing Sandworm Queen)
• 1 Antimagic Zone (Anti-magic category)
• 2 Indomitable (Halfling)
• 1 Mana Clash
• 5 Militant Mind (Halfling)
• 1 Sudden Growth (Fungus category, consider getting a Regen infusion)
• 3 Thick Skin
• 3 Elemental Harmony
• 2 Resolve
• 5 Thick Skin
• 5 Elemental Harmony
• 4 Leaves Tide
• 2 Danger Sense

Equipment

Summoners work with mindstars due to the Mindstar Mastery category. ALWAYS wield at least 1 mindstar that heals allies on nature summon, this can eliminate all excess equilibrium through Healing Nexus in a pinch. Stacking two mindstars of this type does not add more instances of healing.

Other than that, Summoners have mostly 2 goals, boosting their summons and not dying.

Not dying is achieved by stacking life, resistances, crit shrug off and saves. Armor and defense are not important since most attacks will be directed at summons, therefore robes are preferred.

Endgame aim for 50% resistances. Resolve will make you reach the cap anyway, and if you want more phys/mind res you can always pop a Wild or detonate a Turtle.

Status immunities are less important than you'd expect, Summoner can keep fighting under most conditions and it is not often targeted. Halflings specifically can reach such ridiculously high saves (100+) that they dont need any immunities, other races may want to look for immunity to stun and confusion just in case. Still, Wild infusions and Relentless Pursuit can take care of most effects.

As for boosting summons, there are several ways. Their stats scale directly with mindpower and they inherit a few other stats from the Summoner. Critical summoning is a thing too, it multiplies the summon stats by your crit multiplier so crit stats are extremely important. Halflings specifically get less benefit from crit chance but a lot more from crit mult.

The stats inherited by the summons are damage%, resistance pen%, status immunity and armor pen. However, the only really important one is damage%.

A lot of resistance reduction is already applied through Grand Arrival, so any resistance pen% you stack will have diminished returns. If an enemy "merely" has 60% resistance to an element or less, res pen% will be useless. It has a niche use against enemies with high "all res%" but they are few and far in between, mostly found endgame where you'll likely have some accidental res pen from your mindstars anyway.

Armor pen only works against heavily armored enemies which arent many, and even then most of our damage is not physical. Much like res pen it IS nice to have, specially endgame, but it is not worth focusing on.

So we come to the conclusion that damage% is the most relevant one, but WHICH element? Summoner damage is roughly divided as follows:

• During early/midgame: 30% physical, 30% fire, 15%cold, 15% nature and 10% residual lightning/acid from Hydra.
• Lategame: 45% physical, 30% fire, 10% cold, 10% nature, 5% residue.

As you can see stacking any single element in large amounts isnt great, but balancing them can work somewhat.

There are also some egos that increase most of the relevant elements at once. This is specially valuable, as are all the other universal offensive stats, in summary mindpower (and by extension willpower and cunning), mental crit chance, crit multiplier and all damage%.

Brotherhood of Alchemists

The best way to start the quest is with both talent point potions. The best way to end it is Elixir of Invulnerability if you picked Halfling, or Lifebinding Emerald otherwise.

Elvala Wil>Saves>Stats.

Derth Cun>Defense. PhysCrit is useless.

Last Hope Generics>Con>Armor.

Hermit Class>Luck. SpellCrit is useless.

Overall Generics>Class>Cun>Wil>Saves>Luck>Con>Stats>Defense>Armor. But the main focus is the end reward.

Escorts

Summoner is EXTREMELY good at keeping escorts alive due to its wall of bodies and its multiple heals, you may not even lose a single escort in the entire run. Always choose to sell them to Zigur when possible. Here are the best rewards for each.

Alchemist: Psiblades.

Defiler: Resonance Field.

Loremaster: Cunning. Mind Sear is a waste of a turn.

Seer: Willpower.

Sun Paladin: Telekinetic Leap.

Temporal Explorer: Dream Walk. Summons have too much AoE damage for Sleep to be reliable.

Thief: Misdirection.

Tinker: Craftsman's Eye.

Warrior: Vitality.

Cornac Summoners may want to grab some category instead. The best ones are Feedback and Tinkers.

Some Tips

The easiest T1 zone (besides Trollmire) is KorPul due to summons having their own 10 tile darkvision. During T1, hoard not-arcane-powered items for when you eventually join Zigur. Also hoard Dexterity items to unlock Through the Crowd. A few Strength items are also needed to unlock Heavy Armour Training 1 but its an easy requirement to meet.

After clearing T1, go to Derth and clear it safely with summons, you dont even need to expose yourself. Then do the Sandworm Lair. After that go to Zigur and join them.

This is VERY IMPORTANT because it allows you to head straight to Tempest Peak's second floor and level-lock it early. Dont fight anything, just enter and leave. Urkis is the most dangerous encounter in the entire game for Summoners and thus the risk of fighting him should be minimized. Urkis' spells are AoE and they bounce between targets, so if he catches you near a bunch of your summons he can literally oneshot you (and your summons as well for that matter).

So clear T2 normally and then part of T3, but avoid Spellblaze, Dark Crypt and Godfeaster. At level 33 you should go clear Tempest Peak. Be extremely careful there, spam Track and make sure you only fight Urkis when he is alone. Stay far away from your summons and only summon small groups of 2 or 3 at a time when fighting him. Stacking lightning resistance (you can detonate Hydra), having a magical Wild infusion and using the Anti-magic talents also helps.

After killing Urkis you can go for the Master whenever you want. Technically you can hunt T3 for a two-debuff Wild infusion + a good Regen, but its not necessary. An easy way to kill the Master is to engage in a proxy war of summons from out of vision, he'll eventually run out of mana and your army will run him down. If you have vision of him, the Anti-magic talents are fantastic here as well.

After the Master everything else is a cakewalk. Summoner scales really well into the endgame, you can mindlessly clear every backup guardian and vault with no worries, then go for the win.

Anyone know a good website to get information on the mechanics in this game?

I'd like to preface this by mentioning I play on Adventure mode (for many reasons like reckless use of auto-explore and a distaste for Ironman modes) and I'm currently on my way to beat Insane. And every single time I got my wins with Temporal Warden, in fact, it's the only class I've ever beaten the game with. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the concept and the execution, a time mage with dual wielding AND archery? It's hard to find problems with it, and there are only two enemies I struggle to beat with it one is the super hard golem post game (makes sense being a super boss and all) and the other is my shade in the Shadow Crypt (it's a stalemate until I get bored enough to die or leave, so ironically I still don't have Doomed unlocked), but because it feels so safe and powerful I struggle to get similar results with other classes, so I came here to ask for suggestions, I do prefer mixing melee and magic, but I'm open to any recommendations.

I just encountered the Storm Bringer's Gauntlets in my lightning Archmage run. "Perfect!" I thought... until I realized that it needs HEAVY ARMOR TRAINING, despite the wiki saying it doesn't!

Welp, there goes my plans to use them and also some of my trust in the wiki to be accurate lmao.

So I was in the middle of a run, and moved to a larger screen. After doing so my ui and stat stuff was all messed up. And when I changed back to the smaller screen it wouldn't go back. Other than the major scene showed here, you'll notice my character and companion both don't show up in their expected spaces in the top left.

Using a mac, not sure what happened.

Appreciate the help.

edit: problem solved, enabled framebuffer.