They'll be here very, very shortly. They don't play like any other class in ToME, so I decided to highlight some of their oddities and point players in the right direction. Some things to note:
1) Talent info texts refer to 'energy' while the resource bar on the left side of the screen says 'psi.' It's all the same stuff.
2) You're never going to have much energy. It goes up by one per character level and one per point of willpower.
3) Energy doesn't regenerate naturally. You have to absorb it through damage shields or various other means.
4) Mindslayers are all about sustains, though it's not as simple as just turning them all on. You'll never have enough energy to do that.
5) Many key abilities are triggered by turning sustains *off*.
6) Telekinetically wielding a weapon requires a special talent that mindslayers start the game knowing. Use that instead of the 'w' command. Use 'w' for wielding weapons in your actual flesh and blood hands.
7) Mindslayers are perfectly happy wielding two-handers, one-handers with shields, bows, or slings in their flesh and blood hands. Don't feel confined to a single weapon type. However, you can only telekinetically wield a single melee weapon, so it's usually best to make that one a two-hander.
8) ToME still gets a little confused when you try to equip a shield while telekinetically wielding something. For now, just remove the telekinetically-wielded weapon, equip the shield, then re-equip the weapon. Sorry!
9) The entire Focus tree is designed around telekinetically wielding gemstones instead of melee weapons. Try it out if you want to play a mindslayer like a caster.
10) Mindslayer abilities scale powerfully with stats and talent points. If some talent doesn't look worth investing in, check again later.
11) The Conduit talent interacts in a complicated fashion with the various aura talents. If you're wondering why an aura isn't cooling down, it's because you've got it tied up in Conduit.
12) The shield and aura talents are exceptional tools for absorbing and dealing damage spikes. And, of course, managing damage spikes is how one wins.
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Awesome
This sounds incredibly cool!
Honestly I was more psyched
Honestly I was more psyched about this class before I realized energy was going to be a stingy starvation thing. I don't see how this class works at all. Death seems to be the only thing it is good for and that's from the pov of a few different variations on it. Perhaps it is just to strange for me but nothing I have tried with it seems viable so far.
Energy management
Managing energy is a challenge, and an intentional one. I recommend keeping auras off by default and using them only when you know you have enough energy to produce a spike. They drain energy very quickly, as I'm sure you've noticed. The various leech talents, in addition to hindering and harming those around you, can return a decent amount of energy. Use them when near multiple enemies for best results. Perhaps the most important advice I can give is that mindslayers do not play like other classes. You don't have enough energy, particularly at the start, to just go around firing off your abilities whenever they're cooled down. Do your damage with Beyond the Flesh and save energy for when you need it. You don't need to be using energy-costing abilities in order to do competitive damage. The telekinetically wielded weapon does that just fine.
I read your words and
I read your words and understand them but the meaning seems to escape me. I did not experience any of this. What I experienced was using 1 shield that started out as on and it drained all my energy and I never got it back again. I tried the various things suggested and nothing seemed to work.
Shields and auras
Shields protect you and turn absorbed damage into energy. This is the primary means of gaining energy. Auras project energy, doing damage to everyone around you. Running around with an aura on is a sure way to empty your energy pool.
I notice that neither of your two mindslayers in the vault has Beyond the Flesh or Kinetic Shield activated. Neither of these require energy to activate, though the shield does reduce your maximum energy. Turning both of these on will help a great deal. I see that you did at some point use Kinetic Shield on your first mindslayer, but didn't reactivate it when it cooled down. Try to keep it active at all times (cooldown intervals excluded, of course). Beyond the Flesh should stay on almost all the time. It has no cooldown, no cost, and no drawbacks. It is your primary means of doing damage.
Again, I understand the words
Again, I understand the words but not the meaning. It might be me though as English is only my primary language. I kid. But seriously it seems there is a disconnect between your information and what I am experiencing in the game. Not that I have gone back to the class after my abysmal first experiences. When I do I will try and apply what you said though it seems to me my energy drained without EVER touching an aura.
Bug trouble
Earlier I found a bug in b19 which incorrectly deactivates all sustains when energy reaches zero. As some of these sustains are the primary tools for gaining energy, this is obviously very bad. This doesn't account for you losing all your energy, but it does mean that once you reach zero energy, you're in trouble. To get energy back, you could prime the energy pump by using a leech talent to get above zero energy, then switch on a shield. It's already been fixed in SVN.
Sorry you had a lousy experience. If you try again, let me know what's draining your energy unexpectedly. Any lua errors in stdout.txt would be very helpful, too.