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1Hello. I did not want to post this, but I have been summoned by people who still play ToME such as Cathbald, Isaiah/Hellowhat, 5ft7 and five disgruntled Steam forums users lead by Bozobub. This is an intervention and the only person with things to lose are the people still playing. Do not delete this message without first reading and understanding it. I only wish for ToME to remain as an enjoyable game and platform for “surprise mechanics”, “harmless fun” and DLC and will put some of my bad blood behind me to make this post. If you don't know me, I am somewhat of a legend. I am the best ToME player by miles, possessing the only Madness win that can be truly verified, and the most cathpilled one as well. I am the cutting edge of theorycrafting. I am the stone the builder refused. I got banned from ToMEchat after months upon months of flaunting the superiority I worked hard to earn. I am the reason why there is no offline tag in the vault anymore. I'm kind of a chill guy when you get to know me. My name is anathema to the community, and so I will not directly speak it but instead just make myself known. I shit-posted psuedononymously on the Discord for a year (well, Shibari and everyone in the know knew I didn't try to hide it) in bad faith and nowhere near as many people took offence to it despite the only thing that changed being my name. So I hope you will not have any problems with a review of 1.6 and the course ToME is heading on in good faith, even if the means that which it was posted in were disingenuous. Anyway, this isn't about me, this is about you. 
2
3Let’s talk about 1.6. It’s relatively new, having been only two and a half years in development and still being in alpha, but it makes such sweeping changes. A lot of people have said that  everything about it is fine and good, but at the current state of bloat no one individual can have tested and played everything of an update so early in alpha. I hope to get my anecdotes out, but more to face the facts and objective reality of the situation, even if so many of these points seem opinionated. There will not be many “jokes” in this. I am more of a “joker” than some, though. Facts and the experience of other high-level players will be considered before “jokes” as much as possible.
4
5This was, in the most part, written close to the end of the betas. If 1.6.1, which will fix everything and have no flaws, tackled a specific issue this mentions then pat yourselves on the back devs!
6
7Let’s start with the most important thing. While each individual change was considered in a vacuum when it was added, though, I will have trouble separating them because I actually played the game.
8
9WEAPON DAMAGE
10Nerfed around the board. In principle, this is good, but in practice the numbers are just terrible. Right now, as long as you invest heavily in Armor and hardiness you will keep up entirely with the curve of melee damage until High Peak - nothing will have more than ~10 displayed damage
11
12Except for the first few rares you meet in the first t1, that is, or maybe the second t0 if you were Chrono/Ashes/Dwarf/AM et al, which have ~50 damage, but then it doesn’t really increase linearly or coherently from there.
13
14Some numbers: 
15Rares in t0 ~15-30
16Cursed rare in t1 40-~50
17T2 bee swarm in old forest ~65-70
182H wielding patchwork troll in Reknor, or an undead randboss in Dreadfell ~110-130
19Gnarg ~80. Can’t hurt anyone anymore unless they try, whereas his huge damage multiplier despite his middling ~130 punished you heavily for having really low armor in 1.5 (there’s a good Kruz death for this). Also, Bill can have more.
20Prides 150-~200
21Endgame patrol 2H ~170
22High Peak 180-~220, tops.
23MADNESS high peak - lower bound 300, upper bound 500 on a mindslayer, which I believe specifically has a talent that ignores the new scaling now?
24
25This is the upper bound of weapon damage. Cathbald did say he’s seen 260 on Psiblades in High Peak insane however. Of course, Psiblades is still much more dangerous, but actual weapon-wielders are pathetic, especially Skirmishers. They have no way to capitalise on their smarter usage of debuffs and dispersed/thinned skill investment making them pick up more debuffs, leading to fights where neither side can do anything but bump for negligible damage.
26
27Later in the game, enemy damage - on dedicated melee classes can vary by close to 100% - from low 120s to 150ish to 220ish with no apparent rhyme or reason.  It doesn’t seem to be because certain monsters have Str investment and others don’t, or weapon mastery investment since they all have around the same. Either way it makes inspecting for damage more important compared to before where you always had a rough idea of what damage something would do. The former category is harmless but the latter is capable of doing some damage if you aren’t a class like PM, Wyrmic or Bulwark with their innate armor boosts, or if you haven’t found Blackened Mind or Tarrasca yet. 
28
29Meanwhile, player weapon damage is horrendous for the first 25 levels but picks up slightly when you get your prodigy. This is probably not what was intended, since that’s the same curve as 1.5 and earlier yet even more exaggerated. This is particularly noticeable in the first few t1s, more on that later. Lategame damage seems like it would hit the right spot in 1.5 though - my Wyrmic, a medium damage class, would crit regularly for ~3k, not far behind breaths which do extremely high damage for spell scaling talents. A Cursed or Mindslayer would get a fair 5000 or so damage per round with optimal conditions, still more than casters but not completely egregious but early melee is insufferable and feels like playing Odyssey of the Summoner. Later in the game enemy talent lists get so bloated with heals and monsters with 230+ armor completely ignore your damage so every fight feels like a slog.
30
31The nerfs result in some other absolute Clown World nonsense. Equipping a t5 Mindstar will give you around ~5 base damage over Bloomsoul. 2 handed weapons are always worse than some combination of 1 handers, since you can’t kill bulwarks even with the extra ~10% damage a 2hander would do. Mindstars are better as weapons with the nerf to their egos, and normal weapons are better as stat sticks with Enduring and Enhanced added. There is even a concept of “psiblade and board” gaining traction on certain classes.
32
33While damage is irrelevant as long as you have enough to win the game, you should not be forced to trade 15 damage blows with marauder bears, while stunned and confused since neither of those statuses matter to you. 
34
35Even the notorious Cathbald, who suggested this change as part of his vision, agrees that it is too much right now.
36
37Rating: E
38
39AI CHANGES
40I don’t agree with Darkgod’s statement that a smarter AI is a better AI. Everyone in game design has a similar idea, that the AI only has to be fun to play against. The current AI, offensively, plays much like smart_cheat in a band, ignoring or moving to the end of rotation skills that would be less useful (It knows all your stats already. Lore justification: inspect creature.), and it uses instant talents much more intelligently, those are both good changes. But the fact that you tend to have more resistance to attacks than it has resistance to healing or self-teleportation causes it to gravitate toward playing defensive whenever possible which is horrendously unfun. Monsters should make you lose, instead of obstructing your ability to win.
41(Some exception can be made for Gorbat and Grushnak, since you directly lose by not being able to kill them) 
42
43PATHFINDING
44
45The pathfinding AI being better would lead to more interesting situations if fighting multiple rares mattered now, but it’s basically omniscient when it works which is ridiculous. Playing around with telepathy and long duration track shows that monsters will immediately realise your position and home in on you from some arbitrary radius, there sometimes can be no delay in that information being shared at all and sometimes it happens instantly. But, despite having improved responses for so many things, the AI is clearly still just a bundle of scripts and has fatal flaws such as having no way to notice you while you dig your tunnels to fight the mass of rares in, unless one of them starts in LoS of you.
46I believe monsters starting in LoS is even an ancient bug from 1.5 when stair dancing was removed, though pride entries and the final fight were exempt. If it was equally omniscient in all fields or rolled back so enemy strength didn’t have to be compromised to increase the number you fight at a time that would be a welcomed boon.
47
48The AI is also too smart for itself sometimes, such as a solipsist randboss pushing past a rare instead of hitting both with mindset while the melee rare debuffs you, or taking a 20 turn detour to attempt to flank you, usually Phase Door and Teleport and such are used for this purpose effectively however.
49And Spellblaze Crystal in its current state can suck a fart out of my unwashed asshole.
50
51Explicit escape AI still exists on monsters that had it before. Short list: greater and ultimate shivgoroth, patchwork troll, naga tide hunter and psyren, orc cryomancer and pyromancer + high pyromancer and cryomancer, orc corruptor, all liches, champion of Urh’Rok, maybe others?
52
53
54
55
56COMBAT AI
57
58Another thing much more common as a result of the AI  improvements in 1.6 is hostile teleportation, pulling and the like. Most of the time these lead to very interesting tactical situations as you lose the positioning advantage. Sometimes they instantly kill you with no way to fight back, and far more frequently than pure damage does. As the developers have no problem with trying to nickel and dime and price gouge free and now even paid players, I believe that deaths due to this should flash a heartfelt message from DarkGod himself: “buy and enable Embers you cretin this is what we made Kinetic Stabiliser for”. Perhaps a similar one could show up if you spend more than an hour fighting Gorbat because of Acidic Skin, but that is beyond the scope of this section. I don’t have a serious suggestion regarding this - they are good to have in the game, but you have no effective way to build against or mitigate them without buying Embers + taking Tinkers, or using Rod of Sarillon as a swap weapon. Teleport resistance should show up on more than just a rare property, one fixed artefact and a removed ego. Maybe even bring the Anchor of Space-Time back. But after seeing Shibari’s approach of fixing problematic content in the main campaign - with the developer equivalent of a sledgehammer - maybe another developer should handle this issue and his opinions left to the DLC.
59
60Even though Necros that aren’t orc necromancer basetype kept their deliberately-stupid AI, summoners didn’t so they hang out of LoS and throw flamespitters at you which is obnoxious but not good at killing you. They should probably still be able to place summons not in direct melee range of you, that’s an improvement even if their other behaviour is not, since without the double-dip they don’t need such a rigid set of rules to be beatable.
61
62
63As an aside to all this, imagine an AI that plays actually perfect. Plays on the edge of LoS or out of it whenever possible, staggers status so something is always on, immediately gets back into the fight after refilling on health. Would that be fun? I feel like it’s not even fun to play with, let alone against, while used by monsters that have twice the breadth of options you have and much higher HP. 
64
65Smarter is better right? It already does most of that, even. Not necessarily at the best of its ability but still too often. When you are fighting 100+ randbosses in a game not all of them need to be a 30 minute ordeal, some just need to kill or be killed quickly.
66
67Going back to the Angband roots for a second, that game has the stupidest possible AI. It checks against your stealth whenever you are in a monster’s “activation range”, then eventually wakes up and attacks you randomly with all its talents. Yet this can still produce engaging and memorable fights.
68The current AI tries its hardest to make you loathe engaging with it and remember it for wasting your time. 
69
70As an aside to the developers, have you ever played a tabletop game, where not only does the GM have absolute control over his game, but he is doing it in real-time as well? It is ever so tempting to just kill a player off with no real reason. But that creates an impossible situation for the player, and the impossible is trivial. The player understands that you broke the social contract as a petty way to get back at him. He will take his beer and pizza he brought to the session back home and leave. If the player is given no option to win a situation, like, say, a tier 1 dungeon where you were not allowed to buy any useful armor or a movement infusion before engaging 5 rares because of the new AI, maybe a Gorbat fight where his 3000 heals are too frequent to outdamage with bad melee, or a floor of the new High Peak full of vaults - because apparently someone forgot to test these -  with all ways to truly escape from enemies removed, he will take his beer and pizza back home and leave. Perhaps instead of aiming for the impossible like winning with badclass now every device that helped the cathpilled win the old near impossible of insane badclass and madness would be better?
71
72
73Rating: B
74
75THE HIGH PEAK CHANGE
76
77In a vacuum this might be good, I had fun juggling things in Vor:A and Briagh on Madness. But it’s 5 minutes before the final fight and Elandar lost his extra classes so you wouldn’t get overwhelmed because of bad luck in the final dungeon. Fighting that many enemies, even with a corner to do it in, is not feasible for resource-starved or lower tier classes, and getting to the final fight at all is unlikely without external aid like charm mastery + pick of dwarves emperors or the Hourglass. Will the Item Vault to get such items, or the Embers DLC to make all enemies into trivial classes be needed to win all classes now? 
78
79Maybe if the hidden vault bug is fixed and there’s always a hidden vault on the floor to hide in it could be fine. That seems to have occurred already but I’m not certain and Cathbald didn’t help. It is quite spoilery and anti-noob, always good qualities.
80
81An addendum to this post: I had written it down immediately after dying to that situation after 10 minutes of trying to salvage a hopeless fight since all those monsters couldn’t even kill my wyrmic until primal infusion and all my other tools were exhausted! Some testing in dev mode and some actual play seems to suggest that the monster density only gets out of hand when lesser or greater vaults generate on the floor, so while it’s still harder and more random than the final fight in any concievable way especially if you failed Charred Scar it should be possible for all characters.
82
83Rating: C
84
85FIXEDBOSS REWORK
86Spellblaze Crystal in its current state can suck a fart out of my unwashed asshole.
87
88This is great! One constant complaint is that the game doesn’t form quite as many iconic situations as other rogue likes due to random bosses and have as many set pieces, and bosses like Bill and Urkis now keep their reputation even on Insane! A large chunk like Norgos, The Master and Briagh are now never threatening instead of only sometimes threatening though, small loss for a large gain.
89
90At least this was what I thought about the concept. The execution itself has serious issues. Atamathon ate a huge nerf for no reason whatsoever - even if he does get an actual weapon instead of a staff, it will have ~170 base damage and he only gets one class. Many more than the few bosses above I mentioned become trivial or gain nothing useful with the new system, Briagh’s the most notable though but several infamous backup guardians now have nothing to show for. Ukruk and Golbug are now guaranteed self-healing, 150+ armor roadblocks when average characters wish they had 150 damage by the end of the West.
91
92Perhaps the most important issue, however, is that is bloats natural TLs to absurd levels. A sacred rule of old Insane+ was that there wasn’t any stacking on top of their normal class, now it’s encouraged. Vor will randomly fireflash you for 3k, Glacial Legion will freeze you for 2.5k and Elandar will do the same for 3.8k when they couldn’t quite before. 
93Although most of these have been targeted directly by nerfs already, it’s worth noting them in case other similar problems emerge since after all this is just the early alpha, and it would be better to target the source.
94
95Let’s talk about Elandar for a second actually. He has some double digit number of sustains now instead of 7 so dispersal rune tax can just fail to remove anything notable, he got another physical evasion sustain after hymn of shadows lost it, and his 10k extra max mana gives him around ~40000 effective HP on insane due to Disruption Shield. Was all of this intended?
96Since Disperse Magic got a CD nerf that makes it possible to play around, that has to have been deliberate but the rest is not so certain.
97
98Rating: A
99
100PRODIGIES
101Who asked for these to come at level 25 exactly?
102
103Quick since there are so many:
104Eternal Guard/Spectral are obsolete and rolled in - good
105Adept existing - allows for interesting builds like cursed aura adept, good
106Corrupted Shell and other defensive prodigies - nothing will surpass cauterise, diversifying them in other ways instead of trying to compete is better, Ethereal Form in particular is quite powerful
107Tricky Defenses and Fast As Lightning haven’t been removed somehow, Swift Hands also
108Elemental Surge is a lot better, Endless Woes might actually be worse and definitely not worth taking on anyone either way
109Giant Leap is still unlikely to be used even though it’s instant, I live for A T A and Gnarg one shots coming back one day because of that however
110I don’t care to check the numbers on Mystical Cunning but sure it’s better, perhaps even worth taking
111Flexible Combat did not need a nerf it was the worst of the melee prodigies except in very specific circumstances rip Brawler. To put into perspective how bad it was, I would have taken ICCTW before it on 1.5 brawler.
112Light was probably worth taking as a prodigy, the only option I can see Worldly Knowledge being used for at current is Augmented Mobility for both the stacking global speed buff and telekinetic leap
113Naloren meme is finally dead, thanks a lot
114Meteoric Crash is quite a lot better but still suffers from being a passive that can, even permanently, mess up terrain
115Irresistible Sun had its time in the spotlight back when SW still copied buffs to its halves. It still has no idea what it’s trying to do but at least Aeryn will exist harder in the final fight.
116Blighted Summoning is interesting, solves the lol elandar kill ur summons problem now, overall talents are less useless, makes rakshor and gorbat fights slightly more interesting
117
118Rating: B, brought down by the weird change to lvl25
119
120A PLAYTHROUGH IN TEXT - THE EARLYGAME
121
122You make a character. You go check the shops, which have 4 items each, to see if there are any items which you want to buy in 12 levels time. You may do [REDACTED] here. You go to Trollmire. You fight whites for 15 minutes like it’s Normal, and a white Prox and a white Bill. If you had a starting zone, you start here. You clear Korpul, though it should probably be Spellblaze nowadays. Rares now show up, you have 100 gold to get as much armor as possible and a movement infusion and they better have shown up in the shops.
123You may [DATA EXPUNGED]. If you’re a Yeek, you start at this point and Trollmire is the most dangerous t1 with Big Bill’s Hell and the awful terrain.
124
125Notice anything? This is the 1.5 start complete with shopping, except that you’re down 20 to 30 minutes of your time fighting whites, and some of the rares you fight are easier, except when you go into a t1 proper and are accosted by not one but several 50 dmg melee rares before you can afford the tools that let you deal with them. Nice going.
126As long as you follow the new t1 meta it’s easier than the Cathbald Start, it’s easier than casual drowning, and post 1.4 Insane never needed hardcore drowning except for Sawbutchers who couldn’t buy their t3 weapon. 
127
128After you do that, you go to dungeons with randbosses, where 3/4 of them either will not generate with magic classes or will not generate mobile. By the way, Spellblaze Crystal in its current state can suck a fart out of my unwashed asshole. The mentioned lack of magic classes mean that only Oozemancers and Solipsists will do actual damage to you once you finally have the money to invest in armor. You can genuinely button-mash through Norgos Lair in this patch, caring not about what debuffs end up on you. Finally, you will go into Sandworm Lair, drown everything dangerous as usual, and potentially get roadblocked when 3 oozemancer randboss tunnellers aggro you from one bubble since the AI can share information through solid walls. Afterwards, you’ll go through the other t2s and maybe Hidden Compound and Unknown Tunnels, which aren’t the absolute jokes the late t1s are but nowhere near as thought-provoking as t2s in earlier versions. You will get your prodigy about halfway through Old Forest if no content was skipped, and then the early game is over.
129
130There is no fix that lets you get to the “meat” of ToME instantly without a “gamey” approach that supplies you with rares, and everything you need to fight them at the start. Cathbald and the Unhallowed Morass prove that some classes can deal with 1.5’s stronger early rares from level 2 with no gear if they go maximum Optimal though. Perhaps in the current climate a movement infusion for the infusion starts, access to at least mail armor for every class, and more starting HP will allow everyone to fight t1 rares from the start since the t0 ones are extremely weak. It probably won’t, someone will complain about it, and anything done will need excessive tweaking. 
131Drowning was stupid but it wasn’t broken, and if it isn’t broke why fix it. 
132
133
134Rating: E
135
136A PLAYTHROUGH IN TEXT - THE REST OF THE GAME
137With the t1 and t2 left absolutely trivial - don’t even argue with me about the t2 point, go do them in 1.5 and then try again in 1.6, they weren’t ever as bad as Dread but were at least engaging -  your character will go do the rest of the game. The t2.5s will be nothing except when you have to dodge the usual eternal bone giant in halfling complex. You will snipe Subject Z since his In Vault still doesn’t work properly and get the Yeek reward for free. You will then go fight Urkis or maybe you won’t. The rune-tax is fairly pointless to get right this moment in the game with Create Minions being so much weaker. Maybe you’ll leave him and how often he resets the fight by teleporting and teleporting back until after Reknor. So then you’ll go to Dreadfell. On the first floor, Aletta or another wall walker will wake up the entire level except for two rares off in a corner. You will fight them off without much difficulty despite having a full bar of negative status at all times until an anorithil or archmage deals 3/4 of your health bar with a single nuke, gives you a panic attack and then teleports away at 60% and does nothing the second time around. You repeat this 7 more times, and then fight The Master who lost all his remotely dangerous moves and just uses consume soul constantly with his infinite soul regen. 
138You go to the Ambush and hate yourself for being a weapon class. Maybe you even die on purpose since Ukruk’s xp and loot isn’t worth your time. After all, your second prodigy is probably there already, power spiral has stopped mattering and any loot can be replaced with merchant randarts.
139You then go to Reknor, which is the only mandatory dungeon that really needs to become smaller and denser, realise you can’t kill yourself in the Golbug fight and slowly chip away at him since he’s harmless.
140In the East, the character will effortlessly dodge orc patrols now they move at the same speed as West zigur patrols. They will enter Vor:A with no real fanfare since those floors already forced you into awkward situations and the enemies are now weaker, even if they will all teleport right next to you the moment you open one of the vault doors. Briagh will be solved by waiting at the stairs for him. The backup guardians will be killed at the speed of a retarded snail. Finally, it’s time for the prides, now with even more trash monsters! The Gorbat fight lasts 3 hours because of Acidic Skin, and all of Vor takes 2 and a half total with how often you get teleported. Then to cap it off, the final floor of High Peak will spawn some incomprehensible mess but the power of the Broken Hourglass, a hidden vault to hide in, and a use of wrap of stone at the portal gets you through without fighting any of them. Aeryn survives the whole final fight with no need for the player’s help and even gives them a free BiL, Argoniel dies first and Elandar sits around uselessly.
141
142Congratulations on 1.6!
143
144Rating: F
145
146MADNESS DIFFICULTY
147Didn’t want to comment on this but Shibari said he was looking for opinions on the difficulty.
148Insane -> Madness is more or less the same jump as Normal -> Nightmare now. The only hilarious scaling violations left are Freeze and Blinding Speed, so what you get is more or less 1.5 Insane - right down to the weapon damage monsters can do - with 3x the health and Hunted!. 3x the health is nowhere as significant as the crazy exponential HP growth although both should successfully deter boring DPS based strategies, but overall the jump is far smaller now. Oh, and now you should hope Elandar has Invisibility since he’s useless without his damage instead of having a reasonable set of random classes. That’s nice?
149
150Perhaps it’s too easy now, the wins are already rolling in just looking at this guy:
151https://te4.org/characters/150166/tome/3c0b49f1-11a6-4c2f-9316-2ec0e8d50614
152That character wouldn’t have been able to win the final fight with infinite chances to save scum in 1.5! 
153I see another famous Madness veteran trying the difficulty out now, he’s even made some poignant posts on the forum about the changes.
154He’s also the author of this https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3604865&pagenumber=260#lastpost in case you thought the savescumming thing was a joke. 
155
156
157Rating: B, might genuinely be interesting to play Everything Nerfed Madness when Freeze has parity 
158
159THE STUN CHANGE
160Stun was an ultimatum. Once your movement infusion ran out, and discounting how much this entered the game around movement infusion and you got stunned, you left the fight or you ran out of talents. 
161There’s no way to handle this well. Even without Movement, old stun was fine to deal with, but now you have situations where skynet AI brings 5 rare+ to your position  
162
163
164RUNE REWORK
165I don’t like offensive runes and nothing can convince me otherwise. With the opportunity cost of such strong defensive options on the table it’s hard to pick an option that relies on your enemies being weak to it rather than strengthening your character unconditionally. Stormshield is a good, unconventional option that is unfortunately on a majority of white orc pyromancers and cryomancers which hurts my opinion of it, the only real difference between Shielding and Heroism now is whether you want shields or die_at (Heroism is usually the inferior choice even with the bonus for activating it suboptimally - how Shibariesque), good early regen is almost guaranteed now, Shatter is a decent bootleg substitute for double Wild, Prismatic is worse than Stormshield, Mirror Image is probably okay, and armor being the god stat + Taint of Purging + Lifebinding Emerald being useful now makes the alchemist quest a real decision. Movement got buffed for no reason (lol), Phase Door got buffed I suppose but the starting one is really, really bad. Primal Infusion is exactly as broken as salves and then some.
166
167That’s the gist. The only major problem with these reworks is that Wilds with two effects are simultaneously too rare to rely on getting but also capable of showing up in starting towns (Kruz screen of him getting one in zigur here), so you’re forced to rely on Shatter to get rid of all 3 types of effect which is terrible, instead of using a physical/magical + clear mind torque to remove mental or another such combo which adds several complications like bad CD, weakness to silence and inability to go anti magic. If you could reliably get a double one by around Dreadfell AM would be a real choice again, and mages would be playable without needing to treat every oozing horror and brawler randboss as capable of one-shooting in melee since even clear mind can’t help, only crown of command. For reference, my games that have gotten to the endgame in 1.6 respectively found 3, 0 and 1 2-type wilds, it’s ridiculous.
168
169By the way, people were a lot more sold on Dissipation when it removed all sustains and magical effects, rune slot is a much bigger concern than an equipment slot and its power should reflect that instead of forcing you into an inferior option tailor made for people without access to the superior option and then removing the superior option as well like the Shatter situation. It needs a new icon too, there are reports of several elite players assuming they were unequipped dispersion gloves and would need a 4 turn warmup to use. 
170
171Rating: B
172
173CHARM REWORK
174Psychoport did not have to die for this, it was horrendously unreliable and a last resort for bad or outmatched characters.
175The new Clear Mind is good now that hexes are magical, the tentacle totem and lightning storm wand can help with CC, Stinging Totem is absolutely not a catchall solution to monster healing for all characters like it is touted as, the heal/shield ones tend to be outmatched but have some niche, and the active effects are sometimes useful, particularly cooldown reduction and effect extension but getting a perfect randart charm with useful egos is an unlikely event unless forced with the merchant.
176
177Rating: B
178
179RACE REWORKS 
180It’s good that Thalore Higher and Dwarf lost their xp penalty because only 0% and lower xp penalties are viable with how early you get your prodigy and how quickly loot scales up with level now. Also, Yeek is the best race in the game if you can handle the penalty. I feel like Shalore, Ogre et al were always picked due to being more “interesting” with how well they synergise with classes, so this new meta game that flips it on its head without bringing much more to the table feels like a net negative. However, the current strength of several races like Yeek and Higher are more due to the strange new metagame than anything else. With time and fixes, high XP penalty races may be viable again but right now the power spiral of ones with low penalty is more valuable than Timeless or ogrewielding.
181Also, with how many buffs Dwarf has gotten it seems like at least one of the developers is one themself and projecting onto them at this point!
182I guess a few NPC races like Ghoul and Orc might have gotten buffed too.
183Finally, the brain genius who changed Yeek racials is responsible for all the new startscumming tech that came out. Thank you, brain genius!
184
185Rating: C
186
187CLASS REWORKS


188Archmage
189die archmage die mex die light die stone wall die disruption shield everything else gets to stay though
190
191The new disruption shield is basically nothing though, maybe insurance against disperse or mana clash at best. If it worked over your shields it would actually be worse so be glad it doesn’t.
192
193Rating: A for Archmage killer
194
195Arcane Baby
196First it was short staff + dagger. Then it was short staff + shield. Now it’s 2h staff that works best for this class, what an identity crisis.
197Lost Light, didn’t need it as much as AM but it’s close. Stone Wall nerf didn’t affect them, they don’t cycle it. Not being able to Arcane Combat with Auger is a damage nerf for a huge convenience buff, other minor buffs such as the one to Inner Power and Thunderstorm means this class has weathered the storm better than most.
198
199Rating: D 
200
201Sun Paladin
202Flash of the Blade got nerfed but still isn’t fixed cooldown, weird. I thought that argument with Shibari that 2H was better ended up with more. There’s a stronger reason to take shields now with how much better Armour is so Guardian v Crusader is an actual choice, and their class identity was reinforced with Light removal. 
203
204Rating: B for Better
205
206Anorithil
207Ano was pretty strong now it’s even better. It’s a shame the only in-class way to move around is still Jumpgate for them but every change Orange made improves them drastically. The improved Light damage tree, Glyphs becoming more than just a source of crits and the damage-smearing-alike new darkest light are all interesting tools even if their mobility is tedious to use.
208
209Rating: A 
210
211Shadowblade
212Defense still isn’t viable in high peak but it might go to prides now. Having a way to actually use the Shadowstrike guaranteed crit is good, Umbral Agility is good, Phantasm is 1/1/1 bait now, Essence is slightly more likely to be sustained early and their class point strain is lessened a bit. Shame they use weapons and can’t even go antimagic.
213
214On the enemy side, Shadowgrasp can one shot you from auto explore - this is coming from someone who never had trouble with emergency steam purge, and hasn’t been one shot by either yet -  and puts you in a bad situation if it doesn’t. Fuck auto explorers.
215
216Rating: A for Autoexplore killer
217
218Rogue
219Arcvasti said this was dead because it didn’t have exploit weakness but rogue was never bad, just ignore the forced anti magic and light armor and horrible mess of talents and unlocks, it didn’t even get iconic moves unlocked.
220
221Even though scoundrel stayed locked the Assassination assassination means someone might actually use scoundrel, the lethality shuffle and dirty fighting unlock take away the 3.5elike feat taxes razakai wanted in the game to hurt martials so you can form a class identity early instead of at the third category unlock.
222
223Rating: A for Arcvasti killer
224
225Cursed
226Stalk and Rampage are such huge damage boosters the nerfs matter less so they end up as kings of the blind. 
227Fears changes were mostly a Doomed thing but at least you have a reason to unlock it, and Predator is quite powerful now since LoS blocking is almost as strong as digging when the omniscient AI pinky promises to not ignore it and lock onto your position anyway, plus it gives you 17% damage reduction vs Argoniel and Elandar.
228
229Rating: B
230
231Doomed
232Allres on shadows, buffed curses, buffed fears, buffed races that you would go doomed on, no hate cost on shadow decoy. It’s a good day to play doomed.
233
234Rating: B - better, brings nothing new to the table
235
236Skirmisher
237Is this a new class? Why did they add a class just for enemies to do nothing with it?
238
239Rating: W for wtf?
240
241Paradox Mage
242Nerf it and make it direct this time. It’s been years dude. DoA exposed it, the guides exposed it, I talked about it for almost a year. Why did it not get nerfed directly when everything else did?
243
244Rating: Still the best 2019
245
246Brawler
247Kirk video
248
249Brawler is a victim of circumstance more than anything. Grappling still got nerfed for no good reason however. They never did “good” damage even in 1.5, and you can’t even get randart t1 or t2 gloves ever and definitely can’t shop for anything. Did gloves even get the buff to low-tier damage like other t1 and t2 weapons?
250
251Rating: F———— oh nononononononono this can’t be happening
252
253Wyrmic
254Basically just got numbers buffs and breaths will actually apply status now. Is the only class that can use casual digging. The numbers buffs bring it from a class full of incoherent talents with bad damage and survivability but the ability to run to a class full of incoherent talents with reasonable damage, CC, enough HP to at least take some damage and battlefield control only beaten by PM and TW. 
255
256Rating: B because I died on high peak so it can’t be that good.
257
258Summoner
259I’ve never played this class, never want to play this class and even if I did Sheila’s guide would have made me not want to right after. 
260Kruz hates the changes because he likes controlling summons and doesn’t like grand arrival giving you free bodies so they must be good.
261
262Rating: S for slaiya la kruzifixxion.
263
264Reaver
265Lost 1/3rd of its damage on corrupted strength for some reason before the weapon damage nerf. Virulent isn’t an active that auto applies so you can intelligently use it as well as autocast it like feed.
266New Bone adds a tiny bit of damage and they got better strikes? There has to be an upside somewhere.
267
268Rating: D, corruptor got all the good buffs here other than vim rework. 
269
270Corruptor
271Curses actually good, blood grasp an actual defense, blood boil usable to people who aren’t named Davion Fuxa, wilful tormentor isn’t a sustain for no good reason anymore, bone spear for early game before you get a reasonable amount of +blight. Not bad, but this was touted as more important than some other more significant reworks? Also, Corruptor really liked Light and their niche got cut into somewhat with Stormshield.
272
273Rating: C
274
275Bulwark
276
277Wasn’t Shield Wall nerfed back in 1.5 because it hurt Shibari’s feelings? And now it’s back in full glory and more on the same version where weapon damage got absolutely butchered?
278
279Rating: F-
280
281Antimagic
282So the tree was slightly better in 1.5 because Mana Clash mana burn was absurd and you could get a reasonable amount of phys. power. Now it’s strictly optimal for any non-magic character to go anti magic, and use 2 Wilds until, if ever, they find a double type wild for other reasons - the tree still does what it has always done. 
283Fungus giving HP fixes all low racial life ratings but also propels Ooze, Solip, Mindslayer and even Rogue and Mara’s durability into untouchability. If you weren’t Furbat or Snarvid ancestral life is even stronger than before due to working on affinity, lifesteal and the useful direct heals that were preferable to Regen. 
284Combined with Psiblades doing much more damage than actual weapons and Nature being easier to get %dmg and penetration for as well as the extremely common Primal Infusion, Antimagic is a meta-shaper right now.
285The buffs to various Antimagic-only artefacts are substantial even if only one is likely to be seen on a playthrough: spellhunts. These are great, except for how easy it is to start scum for them and how substantial their effect is compared to any other t1. Remind you of anything? Maybe Calm Waters? Oops.
286
287  
288Rating: B, Hellmai would be proud but Spellhunts are just too much.
289
290OTHER
291
292Artifact changes generally positive, I’m sure something iconic was lost in the transition though. Calm Waters is still fine if you get it early. Being able to get West arts from elven ruins and backup guardians instead of never ever is ok, you forgot to remove Morrigor, removal of summon double dip made sense for necro on doomed but not summoner itself funnily enough, Meditation should disable on run/rest/explore, there are a gorillion bugs still outstanding, harmless fun micro transactions can eat me and the ridiculously huge DLC popups that come up if you mouse over them in the menu are terrible, stop buffing robes they were already optimal for what they did, please remove respeccing entirely instead of limiting it to the tedious town model, the out of combat pre-buffing model or the Mex Model, what’s the point of removing Inspect Creature on stealth monsters when you can see their damage in the character sheet anyway.
293
294ABOUT THE CHANGES TO PRIDES AND POTENTIAL CHANGES TO TIER 1S IN THE FUTURE
295
296ToME is not "too long". This genre has games where you can play a single character for 600 hours and not get bored. The problem is that ToME is too sterile. Despite removing grinding, it still plays like a grind. There are 27 classes that can appear on enemies; if you have Embers enabled there are only 3. A 12-20 hour game with as barely as many enemies as it has hours of gameplay.
297Randbosses are barely more than the sum of their parts, and the majority of base types serve as nothing more than number changes. Even if you have to outwit and outfight your enemies in the most creative ways possible, you won't be enjoying doing it to the same enemies with higher numbers for all twelve hours of a game with MMO-esque rotations due to the cooldown system. 
298People will complain that the Prides are just reskins, they're too similar, that they just want the game to end. What if I told you that you're only noticing it by then because the end is in sight? In fact, the Prides are hardly the worst offender. They have setpieces and all of the more interesting monster basetypes, including orcs, are in rotation. 
299Now. Tell me how Old Forest, Daikara and Dreadfell are at all different. I'm waiting. There are minutae that will not pop up in actual moment to moment strategic gameplay, and maybe you will make the Vault Argument. But we can go further. What about Tempest Peak, Korpul, Nur, Rhaloren, Halfling Complex 2-4? You spend 80% of this game in the same dungeon, fighting the same enemies with different coats of paint. The only shake-ups to this formula - bar Vor Armory and Briagh's Lair all come in optional zones which will never be entered by most players, because ToME isn't properly designed for anything other than 1 dungeon and 27 enemies. To call the Prides the only problem is folly. The game is the problem, and you would have to lobotomise it to "fix" it.
300
301Another issue completely unrelated to what I said before is the existence of symmetrical talents, but you can’t ever balance monsters properly due to it since their “one shots you” is your “one shots elandar”. 
302
303CONCLUSION
3041.6 does not know what it's doing. The new t0.5s, Pride Leaders, Dreadfell, High Peak and final fight suggest that Insane is becoming Madness, since bad classes almost certainly can’t clear it. Try Reaver I dare you. The new midgame, nerfed Briagh and neutral Vor (danger down, but more hostile teleports and mages have storm shield) suggest that Insane is becoming Normal. The result is a game for no one to enjoy - elite players will be bored to tears by the weakened monsters you face for the vast majority of the game before getting into something vaguely resembling an interesting situation, and bad players will enjoy cruising along before badly designed AI swamps them in Dreadfell or Prides. 
305
306It feels like every single “meme” ever spoken about ToME’s gameplay was accounted for, or even became true. ToME has become a parody of itself. Armor is overpowered. Monsters with 20 armor or 8 flat damage reduction are unkillable. Tri-beam archmage is a king of damage. Antimagic is good. There are many boring dungeons where nothing happens, like the extra T1s. You can be randomly killed without any chance to react. Most likely all classes can complete the only worthwhile difficulties. 
307
308The update had potential to be great, forcing you to fight multiple rares at a time and fight with status on and use natural terrain to your advantage, but it's still in this early alpha phase after two years where the numbers just aren't right, probably because every alpha tester's opinions were ignored. I wouldn’t even mind the much lower damage, but it should be at a two-shot model like Angbands - make a mistake or get hit badly, react to it properly or lose at the minimum. Its old one-shot model was fine and the current model where death can vary from taking as long as a DCSS death to half a turn is particularly bad.
309If each major change was rolled out and tested separately instead of this interconnected mess that happened the state of the game could be much cleaner and wouldn’t require rolling back so many changes like weapon damage to test the other more sweeping ones.
310I mean - this was in beta for 2 years and for all but 2 weeks the saves change was in, making the whole game pointless?
311Instead of introducing them one by one? 
312
313Just look at all the comments in this post to the tune of “Well the AI change is bad because the stun change and weapon damage change make it pointless….”. 
314
315
316
317Of course, like many free-thinking people that do not have gambling addictions I do not support microtransactions of any sort, and now I've actually played for long enough to see the full DLC cycle instead of just hearing about what happened to Doombringer, the only way I will support ToME ever again is with my words, and never with a Roguelike server moderator's money like how I bought it in the first place. How is Poosh not pay to win again, anyway? And isn't the EU passing laws against that sort of thing?
318
319I hope that something positive comes out of it, even if all it is is some disgruntled player coming back to 1.5 and contesting my wins so I can waste time playing this in my free time instead of more fun roguelikes.
320
321I will probably have to answer questions about this on Discord or Steam but in the event that I can somehow keep posting on this account I will debate here. 
322Otherwise, this thread is officially open to discuss not only my points but your experiences and gripes with 1.6 as well!
323
324IMAGES AND VIDEO
325https://images-ext-2.discordapp.net/external/DgQz3yYG5qaNh-l2tSkVQepBYAGtBiofYOPnJ3rA7lA/%3Fwidth%3D827%26height%3D461/https/images-ext-2.discordapp.net/external/nj5IreNwFk-whobn5PXYyx3mZtPiA64ZH4f2gES0jA0/http/is2.4chan.org/vg/1572563325520.png?width=825&height=460 - awesome high peak
326https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/641455040606765066/641720285011378197/unknown.png?width=297&height=460 - 1.6 doing its best to prevent startscumming
327https://clips.twitch.tv/ViscousInterestingSlothThunBeast - 1.6 is hard
328https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/639920844826607626/639981729662107658/20191101191844_1.jpg?width=818&height=461
329https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PE_prgmbo8 - brawler
330https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/638750132543684616/639483312859119642/delete_1.6.webm - dancing around the AI
331https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/638750132543684616/639508621914537985/smooth_progression.png?width=818&height=461 - smooth progression is getting the note from prox at 50%, spawning tm4 and killing pro then to avoid this
332 
333
334COMMUNITY FEEDBACK AND OTHER MISCELLANY 
335And now for some opinions from the peanut gallery. I’m well aware of the many voices making up this community, here is some choice insight from them.
336Some of these are true quotes. Some are paraphrased and I will note when they are.
337
338“Inside fish sticks outside tartar sauce” - Kruz/Anti/Silencer, hero of 56 streaked wins
339http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=50039&start=29  - Mankeli, the other madness winner
340“Shibari should just admit to being the worst tome4 player alive already” - voltteccer, responsible for making archer the most dangerous monster class for a patch with bad feedback
341“dude new stun is epic I got chain-stunned and it didn't matter I just kept bumping” - Reisner, anime avatar user
342We could not procure a statement from Berenthas/Cathbald because he is MIA.
343“god i keep on saying it but it just amazes me
344every time i have the revelation anew
345that 1.6 failed so amazingly”
346- Kirk/Hellowhat/Isaiah, abused tester and Australian shit poster
347“Please remove more items so my items vault can gain even more interest!” - Jon The Red (paraphrased)
348“Perhaps [the difficulty of Madness] was just reduced too much” - Derjuin, recent Madness winner
349“I’m not going to read this or play the game but keep arguing as if I had” - Moasseman, blue named user
350“Every change was positive” - Michael Brandon, idiot
351
352
353
354
355I feel like I was very harsh on the AI during the rest of this. To make up for it, I’ve prepared a fictitious defence of the changes to monster healing and AI - if I wanted to defend that point, I would say this:
356
357I am a big supporter of keeping the coined term "sandbagging" when referring to the AI or the player intentionally "stalling" in order to turn things around or get a break in. Sandbagging is a funny term and fits the "strategy" very well. You basically pile on a bunch of sandbags to stop an offense.
358
359However, be careful not to use the term "sandbagging" in a dismissive manner for any and all situations where defensive skills become used wisely. That is why defensive abilities and Armor exist, to counter excessive offense. If they weren't in place, there would be nothing stopping people from going full DPS (boring) and turn this into no-brain 1.5 land again where you one-shot your way without thought to the end.
360
361If you build a character full of big damage talents with zero support and zero way to mitigate damage output with zero ways to reduce healing, more balanced randbosses will wipe the floor with you, because your massive DPS is remedied by a simple Bathe In Light, thus wasting your turns. What good are turns being blown on big damage if I'm cutting your damage down and make your turns meaningless?
362
363"Sandbagging", therefore, is the necessary evil in place to stop "lolOHKOing". Keep in mind that there's a place for 100% offense in this patch, too, but the spectrum of strategies you must learn and employ is much broader.
364
365For example, let's say that in this stream, Kirk would have ended up losing the battle. Would he have lost because the AI "sandbagged" him? Or would he have lost because they healed efficiently and then managed to turn things around? Neither of those descriptions would make the AI's victory any less "valid". 
366
367Killing enemy units and not dying are both things you need to win. If you only find fun in the killing part and do not want to be required to paying attention to any other aspect of the game, then I can see why you would not like 1.6 and would be better off sticking with the base game. Sorry that you think it's terrible.
368
369
370If you won 20 actions ago and can't seal the deal, you didn't win 20 actions ago. Winning is winning, not almost winning. If you "won" 20 actions ago and the AI then beats you, you lost, and never had victory in the bag. Calling it "sandbagging" to dismiss the AI's victory won't make it any less of a victory. Semantics are fun, but won't make you a better player.
371
372Defensive abilities have always been in ToME. Now that you're actually faced against them, maybe you realize it's not as fun as going full offense against everything?
373
374
375Provisional 1.6 Tier List since bunny asked so nicely. I’d like a formal apology to Mankeli and I in return for saying you were better at Insane than both but I’m prepared to take it like a man.
376
377Race - 
378A tier: Yeek, Cornac, Dwarf, Cults races
379B tier: Thalore, Ogre, Halfling
380C tier: Higher, Shalore
381D tier: Skeleton, Doomelf
382Keep buffing it tier: Ghoul
383
384Class - 
385Note that the divide between tiers is much sharper in this version. Possessor and Paradox Mage can both probably win Madness legit again especially when Freeze is nerfed, but I’ll leave that to people more desperate to prove themselves than me.
386Adventurer tier: Adventurer
387A tier: Possessor, Paradox Mage, Temporal Warden, Sawbutcher, Psyshot, Gunslinger, Annihilator, Oozemancer, Solipsist, Technomancer
388B tier: Archmage, Arcane Blade, Wyrmic, Necromancer, Doomed, Mindslayer
389C tier: Summoner, Stone Warden, Cursed, Anorithil, Corruptor, Shadowblade, Rogue, Stone Warden
390D tier: Berserker, Bulwark, Alchemist, Archer, Skirmisher
391E tier: Reaver, Doombringer, Demonologist, Cultist of Entropy, Writhing One

392Greatest Fall Since Faust’s tier: Brawler
393
394
395I tried to avoid deliberate “jokes” for the sake of joking for the rest of this guide, so have one on the house.
396This is Mex shortly before he died:
397https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/638750132543684616/639866950163628042/nightwalker.png
398
399And this is what happened to Mex (Tamer than the Wyrmic fan fiction still hosted on this forum, but I wouldn’t read at work. Yes, this is a true story.): https://pastebin.com/W0ML3sE2