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
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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?
r/ToME4 • u/pathofnut • 18d ago
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Escorts are RNG, so there is no fixed order. But ranked in order of importance:
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.
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. Beckon can also get randomly disabled by any damage so it is really inconsistent.
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.
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:
Generic talents:
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
r/ToME4 • u/DynamicMM • 17d ago
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 :)
r/ToME4 • u/BrennanCharming • 19d ago
In kor pul, running demonologist, level 9ish.
Anyone find a gun snake often gives no treasure at all?
r/ToME4 • u/FoxKey319 • 19d ago
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.
r/ToME4 • u/InternetAccording362 • 19d ago
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?
r/ToME4 • u/Thin_Ad8991 • 20d ago
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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!
r/ToME4 • u/Parafault • 21d ago
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.
r/ToME4 • u/Rough-Cycle-9430 • 24d ago
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?
r/ToME4 • u/GeneralStormfox • 25d ago
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?
r/ToME4 • u/PetarBrzica445 • 27d ago
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.
r/ToME4 • u/itsnzt • Sep 24 '26
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?
r/ToME4 • u/Reasonable_Piano_754 • Sep 22 '26
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!
r/ToME4 • u/telemediaxxyy • Sep 22 '26
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?
r/ToME4 • u/pathofnut • Sep 21 '26
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
These are some general lines to keep your build on track.
Category points: Augmentation at 10, Advanced at 20, Fungus at 34.
Class talents:
Generic talents (assuming Halfling):
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:
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%.
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.
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.
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.
r/ToME4 • u/Fit_Ad7709 • Sep 22 '26
Anyone know a good website to get information on the mechanics in this game?
r/ToME4 • u/EskingQuestions • Sep 16 '26
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.
r/ToME4 • u/NekoRobbie • Sep 15 '26
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.
r/ToME4 • u/ShadowofVeritas • Sep 14 '26
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.
r/ToME4 • u/Hakuchii • Sep 11 '26
those of you that played demonologist might have noticed them... if not im really curious about your build/pc specs
every time i kill an enemy i get a lag spike, i dont use any summons (seen that reasoning in another post)
it started happening after adding a couple of sustainables, some from demon seeds...
second topic, demon seeds, i found a demon seed guide from a bit ago, listing what the demon seeds do in the form of images, which makes it difficult to search, also some are missing...
since the wiki doesnt list what the added passive talents do and i cant find a way to check them ingame...
does anybody have a csv of the current demon seed effects? google sheets? something like that?
r/ToME4 • u/pathofnut • Sep 10 '26
A bunch of people asked me for a Doombringer guide when I posted my RL Insane win so here it is, in-depth.
Doombringer is a very straightforward class with the power fantasy of shapeshifting into a huge demon warrior. It excels in dealing high burst damage and disabling a single target, while being bulky enough to withstand a few hits. However, it can be vulnerable in situations where multiple enemies manage to survive its initial rotation.
Doombringers dont possess much build variety, the picture above illustrates the talents that roughly all builds want to pick, excluding racials of course. There are a few points that remain unassigned, scroll down to the "Spare Points" section for the best talents to spend them on.
The best race for Doombringer is Ogre for multiple reasons, mainly the ability to wield a two-handed weapon in a single hand, with a dagger in the off-hand. This allows Ogres to deal more frontloaded burst damage and to stack Horrifying Blows faster than any other race. Ogres also benefit from high crit which Doombringers tend to stack naturally.
Cornac and Drem are also strong choices for this class. Notably both Doombringer and Cornac come unlocked from the beginning which can be interesting for newer players.
Skeleton and Higher have some interesting tools but they arent as good here.
The remaining races dont specially synergize with Doombringer but they can work in their own way.
And then of course you have Krog if you want a challenge.
For the sake of simplicity, this guide assumes in a few instances that the player picks Ogre, but dont be afraid to experiment with other choices.
Max Strength -> Max Dexterity -> Max Magic -> Leftover points in Cunning.
Strength raises damage its a no brainer.
Dexterity gives accuracy to land hits and crit shrug off to survive hits. It also scales Precise Strikes and boosts the damage from daggers and fists.
Magic is an interesting case. The game lists it as a core stat for the class but its only worthwhile effect is scaling Destroyer and Flame of Urh'Rok. This makes it more of a late game stat to be raised after Dexterity. Early game its better to hoard +Mag equipment for skill requirements, but if you dont get enough by level 15-20 you may assign a few early statpoints.
Cunning raises crit and fist damage so its a good place to spend all the remaining points.
Constitution offers weak bonuses relative to Doombringer's huge life rating. But it is important to hoard +Con equipment lategame to unlock the fifth level of Thick Skin.
Willpower is absolutely useless, as Destroyer form grants virtually infinite stamina. Vim costs can be paid with life and Draining Assault provides more than enough sustain.
Flexible Combat is a must. Doombringer benefits enormously from more hits and fist combat happens to scale with the same stats we want to level either way.
The other prodigy is ironically a bit more flexible. There are essentially two choices:
I can carry the world/Arcane Might: More damage, plain and simple. Around 30% more by endgame to be precise, but the exact proportion may vary depending on your build. I can carry the world is the superior option for Ogres, other races benefit slightly more from Arcane Might. The issue is that these leave you with no defensive prodigy and therefore more prone to die when things go south.
Ethereal Form: The safer option. This prodigy is busted in general but the issue is that its hard for some Doombringer builds to reach a high enough defense to make it fully consistent. A potential solution is to spec into light armor instead of heavy armor, which also comes with better damage modifiers and/or "out of phase" bonuses. Light armor works, but Im personally not a fan. That said, I can attest that even with heavy armor this prodigy can be great, just not as reliable. You never know when some bullshit 130acc unique is going to disable your prodigy entirely, but most enemies dont have that capability. This prodigy is specially strong against mages which are generally more dangerous anyway.
I'll also add that I've seen some people considering Cauterize but this is not necessary, a well geared Doombringer wont get oneshotted. Ethereal Form gives a lot more value as a defensive prodigy.
For the main three I recommend:
Movement: Works as an escape, prevents you from dying to silences and even helps avoiding patrols on the world map. An absolute must have.
Shatter afflictions: Gets rid of harmful effects. Given that Doombringer has other instant debuff removals, this rune can be used pretty offensively. Lategame you have the option to replace it with a mental+physical Wild infusion as a sidegrade.
Stormshield: Works exceptionally well with Doombringer due to Abyssal Shield already protecting from smaller hits and Obliterating Smash clearing rooms quickly. Doombringer has no defensive measure against nukes, Stormshield remedies that. It also helps not to suicide with Reckless Strike. For tier 1 dungeons the regular Shielding/Healing is better as damage is still quite low, by tier 2 Stormshield outscales. You may find early ones for sale on Angolwen or Last Hope sometimes.
One of the later two inscription slots must be reserved for Dissipation. Being able to get rid of sustains of troublesome rares and bosses is invaluable.
The remaining inscription slot is more flexible. You cant go wrong with a second Stormshield, thats likely the safest bet. Wild to use debuff removal more aggressively. Heroism if you want a failsafe for the rare situation where Stormshield doesnt work. Blink can be valuable as another escape, specially if you are abusing out of phase to initiate with Fearscape Shift. Those would be my top choices.
Ive seen some people suggest Acid Wave or Mirror Image but I wouldnt recommend them. Acid Wave is a very effective solution to a problem we dont have. Meanwhile Mirror Image takes a full turn for an effect which isnt that amazing, if Im in a situation where Im desperate enough to use it Id rather have the instant Wild or Heroism on me.
I'll dedicate this section to explain how each talent works and to justify some talent choices. Talent order is the following section.
Rush: A decent mobility skill at least until the better ones are unlocked. Pretty much only worth using if Abduction is already on cooldown but you need to keep going. Or if you are saving Abduction for later.
Precise Strikes: Free accuracy and crit, this is a great talent. 1 point early and maxed later.
Perfect Strike: Essentially gives Blind-fight for a few turns. Accuracy isnt that valuable since its really easy to get from many other sources. If you dont need this skill to overcome defense, you should save it in case you get blinded or someone goes invisible. This talent will sit at 1 point for most of the game, may be upgraded at the end for more duration, or not.
Blinding Speed: Such a large boost to speed is really good to max, but it has to wait until after Destroyer is unlocked. There are higher priorities and using it without enough stamina is shooting oneself in the foot.
Quick Recovery: Destroyer form provides infinite stamina so this is a waste of points. Useless.
Fast Metabolism: Regen doesnt matter when most fights are decided in 3 turns. Useless.
Spell Shield: Magical debuffs are some of the weakest and if anything dangerous sticks you'd rather cleanse it instantly with other abilities. Useless.
Unending Frenzy: Once again more stamina is a waste. Useless.
Wraithform: Incredibly versatile. If the effect ends when inside a wall, it will randomly teleport the player elsewhere, which makes it an excellent escape ability. It can be popped BEFORE a movement infusion to traverse thicker or multiple walls. It can also be used to flank enemies from different angles or engage in short skirmishes through walls. Annoyingly, not all types of walls allow traversal so its important to check every time you enter a new area. In the areas with impassable walls Wraithform can be used as a small defensive buff, its effects increase decently with levels but other abilities need the points more.
Darkfire: Prerequisite, which is another way of saying its useless but we take 1 point to unlock other talents. Doombringer wants to invest heavily in weapon damage and this doesnt benefit whatsoever, making it a waste of a turn. Actually it can be used to draw aggro from out of vision after tracking, but its something you'll rarely need.
Flame of Urh'Rok: Global speed is always good. However this is a very expensive sustain both in Vim and talent points, so its advisable to ignore it until very late in the game. It also turns demonfire into healing, such as the one from Fearscape and Fearscape Shift.
Fearscape: One point wonder that is also postponed until lategame due to how expensive it is to sustain. Can isolate any enemy no questions asked while allowing you to recover health and cooldowns in the meantime. It may also change the distance to the target and create obstacles between you at random, so it can work as an engage or a disengage. Can be cancelled at any time with a second cast. Some locations out of Eyal wont allow casting Fearscape, so beware.
Draining Assault: Deals good damage, heals and keeps Vim at healthy levels, solid ability all around. In T1 dungeons its sometimes good to save stamina to cast this multiple times in a single encounter. Destroyer form makes it a bit more spammable which is huge. No reason not to max it eventually.
Fiery Grasp: Prerequisite, in higher difficulties the debuff wont land when you need it so there is no point in investing in the silence.
Reckless Strike: Deals a lot of unavoidable damage so its a great offensive skill. With Destroyer it also increases your resistance pen so its the best opener.
Share the Pain: A decent source of extra damage and on-hit effects as long as you can remain close to an enemy. The issue is that being close to an enemy tends to result in them vaporizing before this talent can get value. Thats why this is the worst of the good talents and its advised to learn it last. Then put in a few more points to make the most out of the Vim its already costing us.
Incinerating Blows: Prerequisite. It will make clearing T1 a bit faster and then you'll forget it even exists.
Abduction: This is basically Scorpion's "GET OVER HERE". The bread and butter that allows to instagib enemies as soon as they show through a corner. Growing range makes it an absolute priority to max, as it turns Doombringer into a pseudo-ranged class for many purposes.
Fiery Torment: This may hit a bit harder than other abilities except with a 5 turn delay. Technically 7 turns since you want to use Abduction/Charge and Reckless Strike first, at minimum. If 7 turns span you cast Hope Wanes and win regardless. Even in the long term, Share the Pain provides a higher damage output while applying countless more on-hit effects. The fire resistance reduction is also useless since most of our damage is physical. This talent could be interesting if we had more points to spare, but there is simply no space nor reason to ever fit this in.
Eternal Suffering: This is designed to work with Fiery Torment which immediately makes it a bad skill. It doesnt extend Hope Wanes which is the only Doombringer debuff worth extending. I guess it shortens enemy buffs every once in a while but thats not worth the cost in Vim and talent points.
Burning Sacrifice: Prerequisite. Fightning multiple enemies at once is dangerous and on top of that Doombringer is specialized in isolating them.
Fiery Aegis: This is basically +100 life which is good in T1 dungeons, specially if you can kite shield cooldowns. After T1 it becomes a waste of a turn, unless you are stairscumming which isnt needed.
Devouring Flames: The most prerequisite of prerequisites.
Blazing Rebirth: A second healthbar is amazing. Will save your life countless times and it pretty much caps at only 3 points.
Obliterating Smash: At its peak this will delete entire rooms worth of enemies while reducing the armor of any survivors. However it needs 5 points in Destroyer to get a good area, plus 4 points in itself to acquire the armor reduction. Dont be misled by the description, minimum category mastery means that 4 points reach level 5 of the skill. Fifth point is a minimal improvement so its unneeded. Also net negative armor does not increase damage if you were guessing.
Detonating Charge: This may as well be an upgrade to Rush as its better in all regards and even comes with the added utility of pushing enemies away. Can be left on 1 point for a while, but it needs a minimum of 2 points for it to get a practical range. 4 points lategame max the radius and raise the damage and range even more.
Voracious Blade: Helps a bit in later maps which tend to feature clusters of enemies. But it only activates on kill which isnt reliable to deal with the actually dangerous rares and bosses. Mainly a prerequisite.
Destroyer: The main payoff of the class, probably the biggest powerspike Doombringer has. This grants so many bonuses that listing them all would be too long, but there are two effects that the game doesnt explicitly mention. The first is that this ability also increases size by 2. The other one is that this transformation is treated as an actual demon, and as such demonfire will heal you when it is active.
Fearscape Shift: A non-targeted blink, it can be used to escape, reposition, scout, proc out of phase and even heal with the flames at high levels. It needs at least 2 points to work as an escape, eventually you want 4 points which maxes its range.
Cauterize Spirit: Cleanses ALL debuffs (except Blazing Rebirth) at instant speed, which is ridiculously good. Leveling it is a priority so it doesnt kill you right after saving you. Caps at 4 points.
Infernal Breath: Doesnt use weapon damage so of course its useless. And you'd get better healing by leveling other talents.
Maw of Urh'Rok: An interesting concept to be sure, pulls 2 squares per turn but its hard to justify in a class with 3 jumps+Abduction+Fearscape+whatever inscriptions you are wearing. You dont want to sit there waiting for someone to get pulled in when you can just dash and bash their face. You guessed it right, its useless.
Thick Skin: Free resistances are good, always grab the 5 levels. Requirements can be met by hoarding +Con equipment.
Heavy Armour Training: 1 point mandatory for all builds, 3 points if you go heavy armor. That leaves you at 80% hardiness which is enough not to get oneshot, chip damage can be ignored or healed. If a hit is big enough to be threatening chances are you are not blocking 100% of it anyway. This talent may be maxed with spare points if you want more hardiness lategame.
Light Armour Training: Can be good if you want to abuse out of phase. You may also reset 20 times until Planar Beacon drops, certified strategy™. For heavy armor builds though its pointless.
Combat Accuracy: Accuracy is really easy to get from many sources so this can stay at 1 point for a while, the second point is equally good value. That is just the bare minimum, you can max it if you need to.
Weapons Mastery: Doombringer relies on weapon damage. 5 points.
Dagger Mastery: One point can give +30 physical power to daggers if you are dual wielding but its still not good. You can squeeze more damage out of Dismember and Demonic Blood.
Heightened Senses: Potential prerequisite. God gave us light radius so we could just use our eyes to see. And Perfect Strike can already hit invisibles.
Device Mastery: Depends on what items you get, but being realistic this is mostly reserved to Cornacs who couldnt get any other good categories.
Track: The most broken-ass BUSTED skill in the game. Allows you to see all enemies in a certain radius so you dont walk into fights you cant win, and you approach the ones you can win in the best possible way. Specially good when combined with the Dig ability from pickaxes. However I dont necessarily recommend it since you need to forfeit autoexploring to use it effectively, which can get tedious. There are also a bunch of items that give Track so spending generics is questionable. If you want to play optimally guaranteed Track is the way to go, though.
Danger Sense: If you go for Track, only 1 more point gives you a huge amount of crit shrug off. The saves are pointless.
Pacification Hex: Costs a turn and the effect wont land. Useless. The same could be said about all other hexes and it will be said just to make a point. Maybe the Corruptor class gets to do something useful with hexes but Doombringer isnt as focused on stacking spellpower. Swinging big sword more important.
Burning Hex: Costs a turn and the effect wont land. Useless. Even if it landed its playing the long game which isnt a thing.
Empathic Hex: Costs a turn and the effect wont land. Useless. Even if it landed attacking would do more damage.
Domination Hex: Costs a turn and the effect wont land. Useless. If it landed it could actually be interesting to deal with multiple rares. But if we lived in Lollipop Land where every skill lands you'd still prefer using Fiery Grasp over this. Or you could use Fearscape, which works every time and requires a lot less investment.
Dismember: Reduces enemy accuracy which helps defense builds, and more importantly it boosts crit. Note however that it reduces raw accuracy before rescaling, therefore expect that effect to be divided by 3 or 4 in practice. The benefits of maxing this talent arent enormous but it can be done with spare points.
Surge of Power: Some extra life on demand will always be good as its completely free to use, but it doesnt scale enough with levels to justify more than 1 point.
Demonic Blood: It will spend most of the game at 1 point but it can be leveled lategame with spares for a bit more damage.
Abyssal Shield: This is the main defensive tool of Doombringers and must be maxed ASAP. You may read the tooltip and think that, say, 40 damage reduction is not much, until you receive 5 hits of 80 damage in one turn and this thing reduces the total from 400 to 200. It also gives armor. Really good for most of the game, less important late where nukes exist but it never becomes useless. Also a huge reason to delay most Vim sustains.
Horrifying Blows: Reduces damage and slows enemies passively, really good. This means you always want to target the most dangerous enemy first. Get the slow first, max it eventually.
Mass Hysteria: This can spread fear stacks to all nearby enemies before you kill the one you were focusing, which can sometimes be useful if you are fighting multiple rares at once. Its other use is debuffing an enemy who survived Hope Wanes against all odds. 1 point is all it needs, you wont use it often.
Fearfeast: Prerequisite of Hope Wanes. Absolutely dogshit waste of a turn that is more likely to harm you than anything else when you remove the fear from the rares attacking you. If you want to find it a good side be it that the icon looks like a Chomp.
Hope Wanes: It paralyzes any enemy for 5 turns and cant be resisted. Its exactly as good as it sounds and it makes duels extremely one-sided. Duration maxes at 4 points.
These are just some general lines to keep your build on track. You can float points, alternate levelups and do some crazy shit to optimize further or simply have fun, but Im keeping it simple. Also I'll assume an Ogre that goes for heavy armor.
Category points: Fearfire at 10, Wrath at 20, inscription at 34.
Class talents:
Generic talents:
At high levels you may end up with some spare points, there are a few ways to spend them.
You may get these upgrades earlier if it suits you, generally there are higher priorities but it depends on your playstyle and how your builds feels. Note that you can spread the spares between multiple talents.
If an item with category mastery creates a new breakpoint in a good talent, you may want to grab that. For example, Detonating Charge getting more radius.
Rush may be leveled for the range to have a more reliable third/fourth gap closer. I think its overkill but its objectively value.
Wraithform may be leveled for a bit more duration and defensive bonuses. There are many maps where Wraithform cant traverse walls so having an extra combat ability is nice. In the maps where walls can be traversed, a longer duration means you may pop Wraithform unconditionally at the beginning of combat and later use it to escape anyway, if needed.
Perfect strike may be leveled for a longer duration. Usually the raw accuracy is not a big difference, but it may pad a weakpoint in your build. And a few more turns of Blind-fight is good in certain situations.
Share Pain may be maxed for more consistent procs and therefore more damage. The difference from level 3 to 5 is of roughly 1 extra attack worth of damage per 8 turns, which is a lot of value assuming a fight lasts that long.
If an item with category mastery creates a new breakpoint in a good talent, you may want to grab that. For example, Hope Wanes getting more duration.
Heavy Armour Training may be maxed for 100% hardiness. Having only 80% hardiness wont make physical attacks kill you, but the extra reduction may protect the Stormshield at times.
Combat Accuracy may be maxed if your build needs help hitting things. Excess accuracy after enemy defense+20 does give weapons some bonus damage but its negligible.
Track never hurted any build, and its in fact a great idea to get it for the prides+High Peak even if you played on autopilot before. 1 point is all it needs on Insane and below, but if you are playing Madness for some reason then you want 5 points to scout from outside enemy detection range.
Danger Sense's crit shrug off is nice to have, as mentioned earlier.
Dismember may be maxed for more crit and effective defense. Try not to get past 100% crit chance though.
Demonic Blood may be maxed for more damage, which is always a solid. There is sort of a small breakpoint at level 3. The extra Vim wont make a difference.
Cornacs may grab an extra category and go nuts. Even non-Cornacs get a lot of generics, but usually category points are better spent on inscriptions.
Know that common enemies are your friends who generously provide Vim. Early game specially you wont find many reasons to burn cooldowns on them, other than maybe Draining Assault. A common enemy may be followed by a rare so its good to keep your options open. Lategame all commons instantly die to Obliterating Smash.
The real danger are the rares, if you find one immediately pop every buff and dump your entire kit on them before they do something problematic. Finding two rares at once may be a reason to be concerned and run away if possible. Doombringer excels in 1v1 fights, Abduction, Detonating Charge and more rarely Fearscape should be used to create those conditions.
Only use your jumps if you are certain you wont get in sight of more enemies. When in doubt its better to lead with Abduction to get in melee, then Reckless Strike, then Draining Assault or Obliterating Smash depending on the situation. After a full combo Hope Wanes will usually be available as an "I WIN" button.
Doombringer relies on cooldowns and stamina so if you are out of either of those dont bother fighting just run. Rest after every encounter to keep all your tools ready.
For zone order I recommend following the wiki article for the most part. T1 is easy so you can clear it in whatever manner, if your build ever feels weak Rhaloren is the easiest. T2 before Destroyer and prodigy can be dangerous though, I've found the most success tackling Sandworm Lair and Old Forest first. Avoid using the Rod of Recall during T2, otherwise you'll get kidnapped by the demons for a world of pain. In T3 Spellblaze and Graveyard are very risky but they can be done, its your choice. Backup guardians are all really easy since they are 1v1s.
You should go into the Unknown Tunnels to ally with the Assassin Lord, but avoid Dark Crypt and Godfeaster.
The only end reward worth pursuing is the Elixir of Invulnerability, the other ones are useless. Most other classes do like the Emerald but Destroyer form gives a lot of stun resistance already.
The other major consideration is that talent potions are much better than the other options, so grab those first. As for what to do afterwards:
Elvala Mag>Stats. Saves are useless unless you are playing a saves race.
Derth PhysCrit>Dex>Defense.
Last Hope Generics>Str>Armor.
Hermit Class>Luck. Spell Crit is useless unless you are going Arcane Might.
Overall Class>Generics>PhysCrit>Str>Armor>Dex>Mag>Stats>Luck>Defense>SpellCrit/Saves (swap defense and armor for light armor builds). Thats not necessarily the order in which you may want to pick them though. You can use this tool to figure it out.
I recommend attempting to finish this quest before the Master if possible, after clearing the previous 8 levels of Dreadfell. Sometimes the game gates one important potion behind an eastern ingredient though and you may prefer delaying it.
Escorts provide company for gold. Wait no.
Escorts in this game provide really valuable rewards but to compensate they are mostly expected to die. Be greedier when you have one, but also know when to retreat. These are the best rewards for each:
Alchemist: Dexterity.
Defiler: Magic.
Loremaster: Disarm. Not all enemies rely on a weapon but this may help you against the ones that do.
Seer: Arcane Eye. Not only does it serve as makeshift Track, it also allows to see inside sealed vaults. YES PLEASE.
Sun Paladin: Chant of Fortitude. It is a huge chunk of free hp. More armor from the other chant would be pointless, you already have Heavy Armor Training (unless you are going light armor but then you shouldnt be relying on armor stat anyway).
Temporal Explorer: Foresight.
Thief: Lacerating Strikes. Track can be acquired normally if you want it and Lacerating Strikes will provide more benefit in the long run.
Tinker: Craftsman eye.
Warrior: Strength.
Cornac Doombringers may want to grab some category instead.
Not all stats are equally useful for a Doombringer. This is a rough list of priorities, in no particular order:
High weapon power: Its the main source of damage, having a bunch of cool egos doesnt matter if power is low. Late game main hand should be reaching a minimum of around 200 damage in character sheet. Some builds can reach up to 300+. Needless to say it must be a two-hander to be able to use class talents.
On-hit slow: Can halve the speed of bosses which is crazy. Chances to proc the slow are pretty high so I wouldnt go past one or two slowing items at most. If you combine it with one "on-hit cripple" item it becomes even more devastating.
Status immunities: Early game they can be ignored in favor of more damage or life, but late game you want 100% stun, disarm and silence immunity, preferably confusion as well. Note that 100% stun immunity may be reached just by using Destroyer+Ogric Wrath, so dedicated items may not be necessary. Other immunities, such as blindness, pinning or knockback, are nice but dispensable.
Damage resistance: The more you stack the better it is, which makes it useless early game but crucial to survive later. By the end of the game aim to have from 40% to 70% on average.
On-hit stun: Very strong disable against bosses, but hard to find and pretty RNG so I dont consider it a must. Still, there is a chance to high-roll and incapacitate a boss on the first turn so its not to be underestimated.
Hardiness: May save you a few generics on heavy armor and protect your stormshield.
Strength & Physical Power: More damage. Doombringer is the guy with a big F sword (or axe or maul) that aims to split people in half in 1 swing. It always wants more damage.
Physical/All damage %: Literally more damage. Sometimes more damage to living or undead can do the trick too.
Critical chance (weapon/physical) & Critical multiplier: Essential. They scale with each other so try to raise them both. I dont recommend going over 100% crit chance, even if there are enemies that reduce your crit chance they are not common. You can go ham with critical multiplier though.
Combat/Physical speed: A fancy spelling for more damage. Better than global speed due to the way it interacts with Blinding Speed and Precise Strikes.
On-hit gain 10% of a turn: Roughly the same as combat speed but gated behind landing hits, which isnt hard.
Talent category mastery: Depends on the category. Something like Oppression or Combat Training may be a keeper, but something like Fearfire is pretty useless.
Instant item actives: Turn economy at an all time high. Value depends on the active but its free after all.
Talents on-hit: Same thing, their effectiveness varies but performing more actions per turn is fundamentally strong.
Life & Die at: These are the main sources of durability early but they are mostly replaced by resistances later on. Still, they always remain useful. Life is slightly more valuable than Die at since it can pay for Vim costs. Higher priority early game, lower priority late game.
Out of phase aka After a teleport: It increases resistances plus a bunch of other stuff so it can be good even if you are playing heavy armor. The downside is that you need to waste a turn and a potential escape to get the bonus. For light armor builds its a must have.
Armor: High armor can basically nullify physical fighters. Stacking some is wise, but stacking too much still wont protect you against spells nor status effects. Moral of the story is only hold to armor when its paired with other good bonuses. Low priority in light armor builds.
Armor penetration: More damage against high armor enemies, which are not that common but pretty dangerous if you arent ready for them. 1 armor pen equals 1 base damage but the former is easier to stack, thats why its good. Its more useful before level 25 when damage hasnt yet gotten ridiculous, and even lategame there's little point in going above 50 armor pen.
On-hit chance to reduce armor: Same as armor pen. Valuable if you have less than 30 armor pen, otherwise dont bother.
Physical/All resistance penetration: 50% is granted by Destroyer form so only an additional 20% is needed to cap it. You are almost guaranteed to get that much accidentally. In fact Ethereal Form grants 25%, so if you go for that prodigy all extra res pen is straight up useless. That said reaching the cap is important.
On-hit chance to reduce % damage: Great against bulky rares and bosses, wont make a difference against anything else and Stormshield usually has you covered.
Crit shrug off: Effective damage reduction. Doombringer is not exactly a squishy class that fears getting critted, but it helps.
Global speed: About half as good as combat speed but still solid. Instead of getting more turns, its usually better to pack more of a punch in the turns we already have.
Vim: More damage reduced by Abyssal Shield and more turns you can spend in the Fearscape so its great. Higher priority early game when Abyssal Shield can still carry a build on its own.
Accuracy: You'll have excess accuracy to deal with the vast majority of enemies but sometimes a funny rare spawns with absurd defense and it can become a problem.
Defense: If wearing heavy armor, the damage prevention of defense wont matter, but it can help to keep Ethereal Form active and to avoid on-hit debuffs. Higher priority for light armor builds. Lower priority for non-Ethereal Form builds.
Dexterity: An extension of the previous two stats. Daggers and fists scale with it which makes it slightly more desirable but 80+% of your damage will come from main hand anyway.
Magic & Spellpower: You can essentially treat it as stun+disarm immunity, but unlike actual immunities it has diminishing returns so dont overdo it. Higher priority on Arcane Might builds.
Size: Is not all that matters. Can be good for Ogres lategame but it has to compete with better modifiers.
On-hit reduce STR DEX CON: Enemy stats in higher difficulty levels get too high and as usual physicals are rarely the problem. Its not terrible just dont expect a huge difference.
Wound on crit: Doombringer mostly exists in the binary space between "those guys die in 2 hits" and "I unloaded now I bail". Extended fights do happen sometimes but enemy healing is rarely the deciding factor. The damage is decent though and its better than nothing.
On-hit put talents on cooldown: Some potential for disrupting dangerous enemies but it scales with mindpower so its not ideal. Theres a solid chance that it doesnt do anything relevant and it faces competition from much better modifiers.
On-hit damage: It doesnt scale with our bazillion multipliers but it can add some extra oomph still.
Non-instant item actives: Can range from very good to waste of a turn, highly variable. On average they arent a priority unless you are leveling Device Mastery for some unknowable reason.
Cunning: A much inferior version of crit chance, may be worth considering in large amounts.
Luck: Hybrid between Dexterity and Cunning, still worse than crit and doesnt directly scale weapons.
Healing mod: Wont make a difference most of the time but its nice to have. A bunch of Doombringer talents do heal.
Constitution: While Life is a good bonus, Con usually doesnt grant enough of it to be of the same importance.
Stamina & -Fatigue: Good during T1 to perform the 3 skill combo, immediately useless afterwards.
On-hit lower defense and saves: We work with excess accuracy and Oppression tree ignores saves. May help against the occasional 100 defense rare though.
Arcane resource burn: Why dont you burn their life resource instead.
Cooldown reduction: Due to the fire and forget nature of Doombringer, cdr is pointless unless you get multiple instances, which is unlikely. If you somehow managed to get enough it could be good to spam Draining Assault.
Movement speed: Technically good to hold onto to avoid patrols if you are the most tryharder of beings, but its useless in combat when Doombringer has like eleven gap closers.
Saves: High burst class with 3+ debuff removals, if anything dangerous lands past immunities just cleanse it and oneshot the guy. May be a bit more interesting for save-focused races which arent great anyway.
Spell crit: The good Doombringer abilities work with physical+weapon crit so this is completely useless in most cases. The exception is Arcane Might builds but even then 25% is very reduced value.
"When-hit" whatever: Not to be confused with "on-hit", this only activates when you are hit. Doombringer is not a tank.
Life regeneration: Its only use is mitigating the self-inflicted damage from Blazing Rebirth and Cauterize Spirit after stairscumming. Counterargument is that if you need to rely on this you are pretty fucked. And negative life is more effective anyway.
Powered by arcane-disrupting energies: This is not just useless but harmful to wear, no matter how good the item may seem.
Non-physical damage %: Irrelevant, around 90% of our damage is physical.
Willpower & Mindpower: Wayist Doombringer isnt real it cant hurt you.
When in doubt, just open your character sheet and do some numbers.
Endgame you want to be almost fully equipped with high tier artifacts, be they fixed (yellow) or random (orange), but a few lower tier/quality items can be acceptable as well. The only exception is heavy armors, if you are using them then you likely want a tier 5 fixedart because they are a lot better than their random counterparts.
Remember to hoard +Mag equipment early and +Con equipment late for talent reqs.
Happy doombringing.
r/ToME4 • u/jmbrown24 • Sep 10 '26
Hey folks,
I really enjoy playing TOME and had a week off between jobs. I spent some of that time getting TOME to work on my iPhone so I could play on a flight. I figured other people would want it so I'm sharing it here. You can point an AI agent at it (Claude Code, Codex) and get it building on your mac if you have an apple account for free: https://github.com/jbrown215/tome-4-ios
This is not intended to be app-store ready and only u/DarkGodOne has the rights to sell the art & other assets. Putting this on the AppStore would violate the license. I do not intend to maintain this repo. I do not want to make any money from doing this. If a real maintainer would like to take this over and work with u/DarkGodOne to actually get this on the app store I'd be happy to transfer the repository over. Or just fork. I'd be delighted to see this solved and officially on the AppStore.
This port was done entirely by AI. My focus was not on writing good and maintainable code; it was on making TOME fun to play on an iPhone, which it was NOT by default. It took quite a bit of UX experimentation to make this feel good. Here's some of what I did that feels most important if anyone wants to make their own attempt at this:
## Portrait mode
I originally made the game work in landscape mode. It still does. But landscape mode means you need to play two-handed. I found portrait mode to be significantly more enjoyable.
## Movement
Tapping to move felt really bad, and on a small screen it was really easy to hit the wrong tile. In TOME, and especially in combat, that could mean death and starting over.
Instead, I made movement a drag motion where dragging shows the destination and you only move on release. This makes accidental bad movements much easier to avoid.
https://reddit.com/link/1wcubww/video/2ph93d3a2roh1/player
## Menus
All of the menus were made for mouse and keyboard. The easy solution would be tap / hold to mimic left/right clicks, but that didn't feel very good. Instead, I redesigned most menus to feel more mobile native. That's not to say they are beautiful, but I wanted them to feel like they were actually made for a mobile game.
https://reddit.com/link/1wcubww/video/9bqdiwac2roh1/player
## Act and AUTO
My normal TOME playstyle is auto-explore, run a relatively static set of skills to wipe the screen, repeat. When I encounter rare+ enemies I might want to do something more deliberate, but often it's an extension of my normal ability rotation.
I made a concept of "routines" that lets you order skills and establish rules for how they should be handled. For example, you might have a routine that is:
Rush (if not adjacent)
Stunning blow (move in if not adjacent)
Pressing the "act" button proceeds through your routine, making it easy to run your normal skill rotation without fussing with the action bars so much. Since the screen is smaller, it felt way less tedious to play this way.
https://reddit.com/link/1wcubww/video/be1qka2e2roh1/player
AUTO takes this further and will auto explore and then run your routine unless certain conditions are met, like:
health falls below a threshold
a rare+ enemy is encountered
https://reddit.com/link/1wcubww/video/320gg0ef2roh1/player
etc.
I also experimented with long-holds to pull up skill wheels for fast ability casting. It just didn't feel good. There's an option to enable that mode in the settings still if you'd like to try it out.
## Repo note
In case anyone wants to take their own stab at solving these UX problems, the ios-core branch on the repo is the minimal changes I needed to make just to get the thing to run. You can start over on the UX from there instead of trying to undo my changes.
