User:Vyn/Alchemist

The following notes based on the character below:

Anin: Thalore Alchemist (normal/adventure)

This was the first character I played after a 7 year hiatus from ToME, so it is very much experimental and not as optimized as it could be. Single death was due to walking into the Damp Cave and losing track of stealthed enemies. As usual, it was an entirely preventable event with better play.

General Impression

• Alchemist is very good at attacking around corners or from beyond sight range
  • Throw Bomb has very high AoE damage, particularly in confined spaces
  • Combined with some means of scouting, alchemist can sail through most of game tossing bombs around corners and never letting an enemy get in sight

• Golem is a very average tank
  • The golem cannot solo tank enemy groups, or output any meaningful damage past the early game. It is great as a disposable decoy to soak up some attacks in battle, and for inflicting on-hit debuffs. On-hit global slow is particularly useful.
  • Make sure to bind a hotkey for controlling golem (party: give order to character 2), as it has to be repositioned frequently for best effect
  • Higher levels of Supercharge Golem can reduce the cooldown enough that the treants summoned by Thalore's Nature's Pride can tie you over in some battles. Probably won't work in insane+ difficulty however.
  • Healing totems can affect golems and help keep them healthy. Works on escorts too.
  • Golems do no activate invulnerable vault monsters. It can safely walk around the greater multi-hued dragons in the Vor Armoury.
  • Golems can wake up the sleeping dragons in a vault however.
  • Despite the golem being a somewhat lackluster individual unit, the ability to direct its action to some degree allows for many tactical maneuvers that are simply impossible with other classes. Some examples below...
    • Control a golem to open doors and activate objects. If a trap would normally move the player into a different zone (e.g. tentacle swallowing player, falling down into grave), then that effect will fizzle on the golem. If you actually want to get moved into a different zone however, you can still activate the trap yourself, then use Golem Portal to immediately switch places with your golem (presumably parked some distance away).
    • Use the golem to block an escort, while you leisurely clear the path ahead.
    • Park the golem in a safe location while scouting ahead yourself. Use Golem Portal to switch places with the golem when you run into trouble, then Invoke Golem to recall the golem next.
    • Park the golem near a doorway while you explore inside. Run past the doorway after engaging the enemies, and the golem can intercept the first pursuer coming through the door.
  • When controlling the golem, remember to check the orders for your alchemist that is now under AI control. There is a bug where, under some unknown circumstances, the AI controlled alchemist will have their leash anchor set to a non-existent enemy (in my case, it was the rogue that last killed the alchemist). If this occurs, your alchemist will immediately run off screen when you switch control to the golem unless you correct that order, and this may have to be done every time a new level loads (bug eventually fixed itself in my game).

• Alchemist has decent PBAoE attacks
  • Fire Storm and Body of Fire actually yield pretty good sustained damage, but requires proximity
  • There are very strong cold damage unique items that can combo well with Fire Storm and Body of Fire for a PBAoE style of attack.
    • Frozen Shroud: a damage burst plus an incredibly strong lingering AoE
    • Frost Lord's Chain: has ice block penetration, and grants Shivgoroth Form, which gives you Ice Storm
    • Both items above can be tricky to use, since they will damage the golem. One must command the golem to move into safer positions, and it may be necessary to disable the golem's Knockback and Pound talents to prevent it from moving around too much.
  • High movement speed or infusions/runes/talents for repositioning can help one utilize PBAoE damage more effectively.
  • Flash Freeze is very helpful for a PBAoE play style, making it easier to position yourself relative to your golem and the enemy.

• What to do in between bomb cooldowns?
  • Bombs have a 4-turn cooldown, so a good alchemist should find something productive to do during that time.
  • The basic Channel Staff attack can always help increase damage output, and it possible to build for it, particularly with prodigies like Arcane Might boosting staff damage. While this would no doubt be effective, it is not quite exciting.
  • It's always fun to have more buttons to push, and unlocking more generic categories will do just that. Extra talent categories also benefit a lot from the Adept prodigy, which is my new favorite in 1.7.4. See section on generic unlocks below for more details.
    • The alchemist has notably more generic points to spend than class points, so I sacrificed unlocking Energy Alchemy in preference for more generic unlocks.

• Smoke Bomb is incredible for blocking line of sight and messing with enemy AI
  • The smoke is most effective when it is deployed before enemies have first caught sight of you, so that you can attack from within the smoke. This will cause the enemies to start scampering about looking for you, but they will move around randomly and generally not head straight towards you.
  • You will need some means of scouting to see through the smoke yourself. A wand of clairvoyance will be your default tool. Track can be a helpful pickup from escorts. The best option is unlocking Divination from escorts however, and putting a few points into Arcane Eye.
  • Stair traps can be easily dealt with because enemies will not have you targeted initially, so you can immediately drop smoke and prevent them from seeing you, and then start throwing out ranged attacks.
  • The enemy behavior is actually a bit perplexing, considering that most enemies have 10 range infravision and should be able to see through the smoke without any trouble. It is not clear if this is a bug or intended behavior. However, one can rationalize this behavior by assuming the smoke is magical in nature.
  • Smoke will prevent the golem from attacking as well, but you can manually order the golem to intercept enemies if they are getting too close for comfort.
  • The fact that smoke bomb can interact with burning enemies is its greatest weakness. Thankfully this interaction is only checked on cast, so you can still burn enemies after the smoke is up.

• The primary threats to an alchemist are enemies that can quickly dispose of the golem and still hurt the alchemist afterwards, either due to sheer numbers, quick cooldowns, or very high damage basic attacks. Careful play should prevent one from getting outnumbered, Burning Hex can extend enemy cooldowns, but enemies with high damage basic attacks will have to be dealt with by bomb kiting or manipulating the AI with Smoke Bomb.

• The alchemist class seems to be well balanced for normal/nightmare. It is probably viable on insane too, but likely to be very demanding in terms of micromanagement, due to the poor control interface for the golem. There really should be hotkeys that directly set the leash anchor and leash range of golems.

Generic Unlocks

Some suggestions for unlocks. Raw talent level in brackets, assuming Adept prodigy has been taken.

• Hexes: can be obtained locked after helping Grand Corruptor attack Zigur
  • [1] Pacification Hex]: best cast on enemies you are not actively attacking, but this situation is rare
  • [3] Burning Hex: one of the best debuffs against strong foes, but does require one to at least survive the first round of attacks (disposable golem is helpful here)
  • [1] Empathic Hex: utterly useless due to asymmetry in player vs enemy damage/health ratios
  • [1] Domination Hex: can make big rooms of enemies fight themselves, try to target low spell save enemies with AoE attacks

• Divination: can be obtained locked from escorts
  • [4] Arcane Eye: only need effective talent 5 to see stealth/invisible creatures, so 4 points with Adept is enough
  • [1] Keen Senses: a decent sustained buff, works well enough with 1 point and Adept.
  • [1] Vision: scouts terrain for better bomb placement, did not use this much due to finding Burning Star
  • [1-3] Premonition: more damage mitigation is always nice, especially since you will mostly be taking ranged attacks that tend to have more uniform damage types

• Curses: can be obtained locked from escorts
  • [1] Curse of Defenselessness: duration is just too short to matter, and it only helps the golem land hits
  • [1] Curse of Impotence: this can actually extend the golem's lifespan quite a bit against lone bosses
  • [3-5] Curse of Death: a decent DoT spell, pales in comparison to the PBAoE sustained damage mentioned above, but this one can be cast at range and is not dependent on items
  • [1-3] Curse of Vulnerability: duration is a bit short compared to bomb cooldowns, but it could work well on a Shalore alchemist using Timeless to skip one bomb cooldown

• Chants: can be obtained locked from escorts
  • [3-5] Chant Acolyte: this improves all three chants available, one can only wish the alchemist's elemental infusions worked in this manner
  • [1] Chant Illuminate: a weak talent for alchemists, but we need it for the next one...
  • [1] Chant Adept: allows the instant cast chants to also remove a debuff, can be life saving in some circumstances
  • [0-1] Chant Radiant: a little bit of bonus fire damage might be useful if you have spare generic points

Prodigies

• Adept: A great prodigy for any character being played for the first time. Allows one to experiment with more talents to see how they perform with the character. The +1.5 talent points even affects item talents, and is further boosted by mastery, so it can have a very substantial impact.
• Worldly Knowledge: Gives more buttons to push in between bomb cooldowns, and guarantees access to Divination.

Play Style

1. Use a wand of clairvoyance, Track, or Arcane Eye to maintain contact with enemies
2. Use Throw Bomb around corners to take care of most enemies
3. For tougher enemies that can also chase you down quickly, contact can often still be broken with Smoke Bomb, allowing for more time to continue your attacks. Make sure to keep scouting talents running. Arcane Eye on the target is optimal.
4. If the enemy still breaks through, then it may be time to send in the golem to tank a few turns and waste their cooldowns.
   • Burning Hex cast early will help ensure enemy talents will take a long time to recycle
   • If the battle is expected to be long, it will be best to have the golem approach from a flank, making it easier for you to approach with PBAoE attacks, but this can take some micromanagement
5. Use Caustic Mire to slow and damage the enemies. The slow is very strong and cannot be resisted.
6. Once the enemies are in a good position, use Flash Freeze to pin them in place
7. Activate movement abilities and get yourself into a good position to use PBAoE attacks
8. Turn on all the PBAoE attacks. For the character played here, just the sustains and DoT effects will deal ~1k damage per turn before crits, for 10-15 turns.