Goon Oozemancer Guide 1.1.5
Guide 1
Class Talents
Slime:
- Slime Spit - Should be maxed almost immediately, barring picking up singular points in other skills. Early game it's strong enough to kill anything but bosses in a single hit, and it'll remain your hardest hitting direct nuke throughout the game. Also of note is that this ability hits friendly targets, while most other Oozemancer abilities don't, but it's not really worth worrying about if one of your oozes is in the way, there'll be another along sooner or later anyway.
- Poisonous Spores - Also very damaging and very good, melee enemies that have the misfortune of getting Spydric Poison on them are basically doomed, and once you're in the East dropping it on Orcish mages will kill them even when they teleport away most of the time. Downside is that it doesn't work on poison immune enemies (Mostly everything skeletal and non-corporeal, also giants for some annoying reason).
- Acidic Skin - Only worth a single point, mostly because the next skill in the tree is good. It's really cheap to sustain though so you'll be keeping it up despite it not being amazing.
- Slime Roots - Once you've fully upgraded it it's basically Phase Door which can't fizzle when going through walls and it also finishes the cooldown on some skills. Always save it for escapes obviously, but it's extremely good.
Mucus:
- Mucus - Should also be maxed early. The poison damage stacks for every turn an enemy spends in it, and it'll also help keep your equilibrium low.
- Acid Splash - Get a point in this early, but it's not really needed to spend more points in this for a while. It's biggest use is synergies with other skills, since it's a way of dropping Mucus at range, or dropping Mucus fairly nearby you since it has a shorter cooldown than the actual Mucus skill. Eventually you'll want to put some points in it, since the radius does upgrade when you put enough points in it.
- Living Mucus - This is also worth picking up when you can, and again not really worth sinking more points into. Ooze spawn is already pretty reliable, and I have a feeling it's basically a chance to spawn for each tile covered in mucus considering how often they show up even with the baseline ~20% chance to spawn.
- Oozewalk - Another controlled teleport, and also a good way of clearing debuffs. It can be put on cooldown when you're stunned though. Acid Splash can helpfully provide you with a distant area to teleport to if you need it, though unlike Slime Roots this one is limited by your line of sight.
Ooze:
- Mitosis - Works fairly well with a single point in it, though it's worth investing in later.
- Reabsorb - Worth upgrading when you start getting into the more dangerous parts of the game. It'll eventually give you 40% resist all for 10 turns when used.
- Call of the Ooze - Also worth upgrading, and one of the reasons Mitosis is worth upgrading. Does a fair amount of damage, and more importantly will spawn some Bloated Oozes you can hopefully Reabsorb.
- Indiscernible Anatomy - Disease, Poison, Bleed, and Blindness immunity in one convenient package. Also makes enemy critical hits less dangerous, which is nice at times. Nice to have maxed before you do anything involving Elven Cultists or Corruptors.
Moss: I never really invested in these, so I don't really have any thoughts. They didn't look overly impressive, though I picked up a point in the first one for utility purposes eventually since it's another way to keep melee enemies at bay (Or in your Mucus for a longer amount of time).
Oozing Blades Category - First category I unlocked, mainly for the fourth skill it has.
- Oozebeam - I kept this at one point until I'd picked up other skills I found more important, but if you upgrade it it's about as damaging as Slime Spit is and it doesn't have travel time and a shorter cooldown.
- Natural Acid - One point is plenty really. It helps make Acid Splash an even better skill to start a fight with, and it can make Nature Resistance on an enemy go negative.
- Mind Parasite - I didn't really invest heavily in this, but it's relatively good against rare or unique enemies with annoying skills. Only downside is the cast range on this spell is rather short, and of course you'll see it puts all the least important skills an enemy has on cooldown.
- Unstoppable Nature - Max it as soon as you can. 50% nature resistance penetration is helpful for all the usual reasons skills like this are, and it'll also give a 10% damage boost to most of your skills.
Corrosive Blades: I also never picked this one up, since most of the acid skills you pick up are actually in this tree, and as far as I could tell Natural Acids effect was still applied when the target was acid immune anyway. It does give you some extra nukes though, which might have come in handy against the occasional poison immune rare or unique enemy.
Generics:
Not going into too many specifics here since nothing here is exclusive for Oozemancers. A point in Meditation is convenient but you shouldn't need more than that, and Nature's Touch is always good to have of course. Antimagic skills are always nice, Aura of Silence will shut down the vast majority of casters and has a huge range when upgraded, Mana Clash is of course always good, and Antimagic Shield you'll eventually be keeping up all the time since Oozemancers have a really easy time keeping their Equilibrium at the lowest it can get. Psiblades is also worth maxing since the Oozemancer spells seem scale really well with extra mindpower. And the obligatory point in Heightened sense is nice.
Also worth noting for Generics that according to the wiki if you already have the locked Fungus tree, it should unlock when you do the Urkis quest (Which you'll be doing the Zigur way since you start antimagic ).
Build Guide
Max early class skills (In rough order I'd recommend maxing them):
- Unstoppable Nature
- Slime Spit
- Mucus
- Slime Roots
- Poisonous Spores
Pick this up as soon as you can class skills (Even before maxing any of the above if you have to choose):
- Acid Splash
- Living Mucus
Max early generics:
- Psiblades
- Aura of Silence
Pick up as soon as you can generics:
- Nature's Touch
- Heightened Senses
Guide 2
http://te4.org/characters/10369/tome/169aa028-bd95-4796-90d1-e7bd693ed28f
Thalore oozemancer winner. One death the entire game to Atamathon when I got Irresistible Sun'd and had no escapes available. Here are my post-game thoughts, having not run Oozemancer since they were created. I'll touch on general thoughts and individual talents and what feels buffed/nerfed:
So, Oozemancers at inception were pretty broken. Unbelievably so. You simply had to get to level 10 or so and the rest of the game was gravy if you didn't play suicidally. Since then, they've been balanced. They feel pretty strong still and in a good position. I do not play Nightmare so I have no idea how this translates into that difficulty. If I play another Oozemancer it'll be on Nightmare, though.
I didn't pick up extra inscriptions (though I had the option, and were this nightmare I'd at least add a heroism), I put my prodigies into Tricky Defenses and Spell Feedback.
So let's talk talents, starting with class, and tree by tree!
Slime: Largely felt the same as at release, Acidic Skin felt slightly buffed but still not worth toggling on or investing in. Good tree, great damage output, nice mobility option.
Mucus: Balanced since release. My first Oozemancer winner consistently had 8-9 oozes out at any given time. I ended up with 6 at the end, although the talent said 5 max, the talent was incorrect and the cap was always 1 higher. Nothing else to say about the tree, aside from capping oozes at a lower margin it's still largely the same.
Ooze: Significantly rebalanced since release, the spawn caps of Mitosis/Call are now tied to the talents. I remember being able to instantly spawn 8 of these things with one Call at release. Indiscernible Anatomy still amazing. Reabsorb nerfed since release too but a strong one point contender. Might be a more valuable tree in Nightmare?
Moss: I skipped this til end game and I semi-regret it! There is virtually no opportunity cost for using this, just pick two and put on autocast. I wish i had taken 1-2 points in Nourishing earlier on and set on autocast in melee range. At the end of game, maxed Nourishing was doing 75/tick at 120% healing for 10 turns in a huge radius, not counting damage multipliers. I would get 150 healing per turn on top of my ~200/turn from regen infusions. I still don't understand the major differences between hallucinogenic and slippery.
Oozing Blades: Pretty sure Natural Acid duration/cooldown was rebalanced since inception, very strong talent, 2 points in it early will get you through most things and you can add more later. Mind Parasite significantly buffed, check out my numbers on it on the sheet. Unstoppable Nature still the absurd force multiplier it always was.
Corrosive Blades: Wholly skipped, I am not a fan of this tree.
Moving on to generic talents...
Thalore tree, some overlap with Indiscernible Anatomy, but still worth maxing. I had it at 2 points for a long time and maxed it a bit later. Resists are good. Thalore is good.
Combat Training, maxed thick skin and 3 in armor. Options, basically. Standard stuff.
Survival, skipped, I always skip this.
Fungus, standard 5/1/5/1, not much to say here.
Mindstar Mastery, 5 points in psiblades. NOTE: I earned three of these from escorts. I considered Leaves Tide for shits and giggles but didn't bother.
Call of the Wild, so I didn't put a point in Meditation all game after like, level 4. I just kept it in as a temporary point. The two Nature's Touch talents are from escorts. I will only ever actually put a point in this tree if I go 9 escorts without getting/saving a seer.
Harmony, skipped.
Anti-Magic, I went 1/3 for a long, LONG time. As Oozemancer your silence major breakpoint is at 3 & 5. Later I maxed out Clash and then Spell Shield. I would've committed to Shield earlier but was worried about my equilibrium management. I should've tested before assuming, probably would've been used. Resolve was maxed at 50 for Atamathon and the 4th SIlence point was added after I grabbed a fixedart with bonuses to Anti-Magic as that gave me the 6 turn silence at 4 points.
Overall a smooth ride from start to finish, Oozemancers do fine in 1-10 and then suddenly 'click' around L10 and just ramp up from there. A favorite of mine alongside Wyrmics. Feels in a balanced spot, but still strong. Hardest part of normal for most classes is getting through the Master, so a class that can handle that easily is a good contender for an easy winner. If you have questions about Oozemancers or my talent decisions let me know.
Other Links
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=37898 (updated 1.1.5 guide)
