Difference between revisions of "Goon Survival Guide"
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This is a list of a bunch of really common tidbits of advice that pop up in the thread on a regular basis. If you follow all of it, you've got good odds of making it past Dreadfell. | This is a list of a bunch of really common tidbits of advice that pop up in the thread on a regular basis. If you follow all of it, you've got good odds of making it past Dreadfell. | ||
| + | ==Starting Out== | ||
| − | + | * A Wild Infusion that removes a Physical effect is incredibly good. Being stunned or frozen will account for a huge chunk of your deaths if you don't have one, or if you fight when it's on cooldown. Your starter Physical Infusion can easily go unreplaced for an entire winning run, and often should. Note that your Wild Infusions will also reduce damage, but this usage is niche. Save your Wild Infusion to clear a Stun unless you are absolutely certain you can finish this fight and rest without meeting anyone who can Stun you. | |
| − | + | * Replace your starting Shield Rune/Regen Infusion with better ones ASAP. Scour the various towns' Infusion and Rune shops, the starter Shields and Regens are very weak. Note that you can use a Shield Rune or a Regeneration Infusion while Frozen (in an ice block), but you can't use Healing Infusions or other big direct heals. | |
| − | + | * Phase Door Runes are kind of worthless, except for running out of a Vault. If you have one, replace it fairly soon with a Teleport Rune or another Shield Rune or a Movement Infusion, or a Controlled Phase Door Rune which is awesome. | |
| − | + | ==Leveling Up== | |
| − | + | * Stun/Freeze immunity is extremely valuable, but not necessarily worth sacrificing gear in other places over. If you've got two roughly equivalent pieces, go for the one with stun/freeze immunity. Always max abilities that give you stun/freeze immunity, they're essentially never a bad choice. When you have 100% Stun resistance, then you are free to replace your physical Wild Infusion. | |
| − | + | * Getting a high light or infravision radius is invaluable in unlit dungeons, it sucks horribly to bumble around with a radius 2 light while a mage nukes you down from the darkness. The fist talent in the Survival tree (Heightened Senses) gives you decent starter infravision. | |
| − | + | * Stealth/Invis detection is often very helpful, as sneaky types tend to drop a lot of spike damage and hurt a lot, and can ruin your day if they get the drop on you. Some dungeons are full of sneaky guys (alt Kor'Pul for example). | |
| − | + | * Side with the Assassin Lord once for the Poisons Tree, then never again UNLESS you are going for crazy high Stealth as a Rogue or Shadowblade. Saving that Merchant gives you access to some ridiculously strong+expensive gear which is usually much, much, much better than what you get by siding with him. | |
| − | + | * Unless you have a specific reason to do something else, try to put at least one point per level into con. HP is good, physical saves are good, and HP + Thick Skin is even better. You really don't need to boost your mag/str/dex/cun over what you need to level skills before going to the east. | |
| − | + | ==Tactics== | |
| − | + | * Always have an escape option. Movement Infusions, Teleport Runes, and Controlled Phase Door Runes (or talents/generics that grant you equivalent effects) can and will save you when you inevitably wind up in a fight you can't handle. Warp out or Run Away, heal up, give your cooldowns time to reset, then go back in for another round. | |
| − | + | * Dig is GREAT. Abuse dig to set up fights favorable for you. For melee characters, this means narrow, winding tunnels that force enemies to step into melee range before they have Line of Sight on you so you can shred mages without spending multiple very painful turns closing the gap on them. For ranged characters, this means opening up a way to shoot at enemies from afar, and leaving yourself room to kite them. Fighting on advantageous terrain can turn fights from guaranteed death to easy loot. The Kor'Pul shade is a notable example of this, if you charge through the dark corridors at him he'll probably kill you unless you're really overleveled, but if you dig through the wall next to him, you'll probably murder him very easily. | |
| − | + | * Urkis is a pain in the ass, but if you can clean off the Hurricane debuff (it's Magical) he hurts a lot less, and if you go all out offense on him, he tends to crumple quickly - he's a glass cannon | |
| − | + | * Technique/Conditioning is a good Escort tree - gives you some really excellent CC resistance and makes DoTs (which are murderously lethal in ToME) hurt a lot less. It's a bit like Celestial/Light but it doesn't lock you out of Antimagic. If you take this then you will want to 5/5 Unflinching Resolve, so take a minute to plan out your Generic points to see if you can spare it. The capstone talent (Adrenaline Surge) is good for Stamina-users. | |
| + | |||
| + | ==Magic vs. Antimagic== | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Magic=== | ||
| + | Note that if you follow this advice, you CANNOT follow the Antimagic advice. | ||
| + | |||
| + | * If you have the chance to get it from an Escort quest, Celestial/Light is truly excellent. It comes with a good heal, a good shield, and Providence, which is arguably the best defensive ability in the game, as it will cleanse a debuff from you every round for several rounds, making you somewhere between highly resistant and completely immune to any and all CC, unless enemies are laying down CC really, really heavily. | ||
| + | |||
| + | * Stone Alchemy is another solid Escort tree, it can make you very, very rich, which can give you access to some ridiculous strong (and expensive) gear. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Antimagic=== | ||
| + | Note that if you go Antimagic, you can't use Runes (only Infusions). | ||
| + | |||
| + | * Anti-Magic is probably worth getting if you are building Willpower and you have access to it (ie are not a dirty magic user - if you're magic you won't even be able to see the Anti-magic town). You'll eat some gear restrictions in exchange for two very good generic trees. | ||
| + | |||
| + | * Related to AM, don't try to do the AM trial at level 10, when it first unlocks. Unless you're really strong or really know what you're doing, you'll probably die. Wait until 15-ish. | ||
| + | |||
| + | * Before you do the AM trial, check your gear (in particular your weapon) to make sure none of it is Arcane. Stepping into the AM trial and having the game strip off all of your gear is a very humiliating way to die. | ||
| + | |||
| + | * All that advice about having an escape option? Antimagic nerfs you hard in terms of escapes. No Teleport rune, no Controlled Phase Door rune. What you have left are Movement Infusions and Torques of Psychoportation. Be sure to have at least one, preferably both. | ||
Revision as of 00:11, 11 March 2014
This is a list of a bunch of really common tidbits of advice that pop up in the thread on a regular basis. If you follow all of it, you've got good odds of making it past Dreadfell.
Starting Out
- A Wild Infusion that removes a Physical effect is incredibly good. Being stunned or frozen will account for a huge chunk of your deaths if you don't have one, or if you fight when it's on cooldown. Your starter Physical Infusion can easily go unreplaced for an entire winning run, and often should. Note that your Wild Infusions will also reduce damage, but this usage is niche. Save your Wild Infusion to clear a Stun unless you are absolutely certain you can finish this fight and rest without meeting anyone who can Stun you.
- Replace your starting Shield Rune/Regen Infusion with better ones ASAP. Scour the various towns' Infusion and Rune shops, the starter Shields and Regens are very weak. Note that you can use a Shield Rune or a Regeneration Infusion while Frozen (in an ice block), but you can't use Healing Infusions or other big direct heals.
- Phase Door Runes are kind of worthless, except for running out of a Vault. If you have one, replace it fairly soon with a Teleport Rune or another Shield Rune or a Movement Infusion, or a Controlled Phase Door Rune which is awesome.
Leveling Up
- Stun/Freeze immunity is extremely valuable, but not necessarily worth sacrificing gear in other places over. If you've got two roughly equivalent pieces, go for the one with stun/freeze immunity. Always max abilities that give you stun/freeze immunity, they're essentially never a bad choice. When you have 100% Stun resistance, then you are free to replace your physical Wild Infusion.
- Getting a high light or infravision radius is invaluable in unlit dungeons, it sucks horribly to bumble around with a radius 2 light while a mage nukes you down from the darkness. The fist talent in the Survival tree (Heightened Senses) gives you decent starter infravision.
- Stealth/Invis detection is often very helpful, as sneaky types tend to drop a lot of spike damage and hurt a lot, and can ruin your day if they get the drop on you. Some dungeons are full of sneaky guys (alt Kor'Pul for example).
- Side with the Assassin Lord once for the Poisons Tree, then never again UNLESS you are going for crazy high Stealth as a Rogue or Shadowblade. Saving that Merchant gives you access to some ridiculously strong+expensive gear which is usually much, much, much better than what you get by siding with him.
- Unless you have a specific reason to do something else, try to put at least one point per level into con. HP is good, physical saves are good, and HP + Thick Skin is even better. You really don't need to boost your mag/str/dex/cun over what you need to level skills before going to the east.
Tactics
- Always have an escape option. Movement Infusions, Teleport Runes, and Controlled Phase Door Runes (or talents/generics that grant you equivalent effects) can and will save you when you inevitably wind up in a fight you can't handle. Warp out or Run Away, heal up, give your cooldowns time to reset, then go back in for another round.
- Dig is GREAT. Abuse dig to set up fights favorable for you. For melee characters, this means narrow, winding tunnels that force enemies to step into melee range before they have Line of Sight on you so you can shred mages without spending multiple very painful turns closing the gap on them. For ranged characters, this means opening up a way to shoot at enemies from afar, and leaving yourself room to kite them. Fighting on advantageous terrain can turn fights from guaranteed death to easy loot. The Kor'Pul shade is a notable example of this, if you charge through the dark corridors at him he'll probably kill you unless you're really overleveled, but if you dig through the wall next to him, you'll probably murder him very easily.
- Urkis is a pain in the ass, but if you can clean off the Hurricane debuff (it's Magical) he hurts a lot less, and if you go all out offense on him, he tends to crumple quickly - he's a glass cannon
- Technique/Conditioning is a good Escort tree - gives you some really excellent CC resistance and makes DoTs (which are murderously lethal in ToME) hurt a lot less. It's a bit like Celestial/Light but it doesn't lock you out of Antimagic. If you take this then you will want to 5/5 Unflinching Resolve, so take a minute to plan out your Generic points to see if you can spare it. The capstone talent (Adrenaline Surge) is good for Stamina-users.
Magic vs. Antimagic
Magic
Note that if you follow this advice, you CANNOT follow the Antimagic advice.
- If you have the chance to get it from an Escort quest, Celestial/Light is truly excellent. It comes with a good heal, a good shield, and Providence, which is arguably the best defensive ability in the game, as it will cleanse a debuff from you every round for several rounds, making you somewhere between highly resistant and completely immune to any and all CC, unless enemies are laying down CC really, really heavily.
- Stone Alchemy is another solid Escort tree, it can make you very, very rich, which can give you access to some ridiculous strong (and expensive) gear.
Antimagic
Note that if you go Antimagic, you can't use Runes (only Infusions).
- Anti-Magic is probably worth getting if you are building Willpower and you have access to it (ie are not a dirty magic user - if you're magic you won't even be able to see the Anti-magic town). You'll eat some gear restrictions in exchange for two very good generic trees.
- Related to AM, don't try to do the AM trial at level 10, when it first unlocks. Unless you're really strong or really know what you're doing, you'll probably die. Wait until 15-ish.
- Before you do the AM trial, check your gear (in particular your weapon) to make sure none of it is Arcane. Stepping into the AM trial and having the game strip off all of your gear is a very humiliating way to die.
- All that advice about having an escape option? Antimagic nerfs you hard in terms of escapes. No Teleport rune, no Controlled Phase Door rune. What you have left are Movement Infusions and Torques of Psychoportation. Be sure to have at least one, preferably both.
