Contingency -> See The Threads useful?

[Imas]

Setting Contingency to auto-cast See The Threads seems like a good idea, but thinking about it more... does it really help that much? Or should I just set it to cast my best shield?

Casting it through Contingency doesn't get me around the 'only once per zone level' limit either, I guess?

[berandro]

No it doesn't, but this did save my life on my only Roguelike-Nightmare win once. But still I would prefer to set it to cast Time Stop, which basically gives you a free turn (or even 2 if you put enough points in it) to do whatever you want, including casting See The Threads if you want.

[Icedfate]

I'm still confused about time stop, how does 1 extra turn really make so much difference?
if you re already screwed because something took over half your life away in a single attack.
I supposed that one turn is enough time to blink away?
In my last time warden run, i had it set to cast time shield. I dunno. the time shield was strong enough to take a hit, so it gave me time if I needed to escape anyway.

now if time stop can give you 2 turns that might be more valuable but could you give a better explanation as to why you suggest time stop?

[roxeluze]

contingency on a shield of anything will always be a better choice in terms of survival and adaptability to most dangerous situations. It should be enough to rotate back into a shield close to cooldown or already off of cooldown, if you think of a shield as extra health, I would choose extra health for survival over anything else including what stop does. Hell if you can find a shield of reflect that is damage on top of your own.

[berandro]

Well the time stop gives you time to run away from whatever hit you so hard. As a Temporal Warden, you should have at your disposal many different types of teleports and maybe even a movement infusion. Unless you're unlucky (or careless) enough to have EVERYTHING on cooldown when time stop triggers, you have one free turn to do whatever you want without the risk of taking further damage.

Time shield, as roxeluze said, is also a good choice, but sometimes it's not enough. Whatever hit you so hard can eat through your shield in one turn, applying further status effects etc. But I guess it's a matter of personal taste. I always felt safe with Time Stop, and the one time I had it on See The Threads actually saved my life. Never tried Time Shield also because I didn't put much points in it.

[berandro]

Also important to note that I was playing a doom elf. I'm not sure about it, but I think their racial teleport cannot fail even if you're confused, and it's instant cast. In all my playthrough, I made myself only use this skill defensively, so I always had this as a last resort.

[berandro]

So with time stop and Haste of the Doomed you can basically teleport twice without losing a turn.

[Icedfate]

the thing about the time shield + contingency is that it essentially gives you double shields. because the contingency works even if the shield is on cooldown. so if I get surprised by an enemy and the contingency goes off nd uses the shield, i still have my shield avilable to use.
if I've used up my shield and the fight goes too long and they knock down myhealth, another shield pops up.
this extra layer of protection helped me immensly when i beat the game on normal.

time shield usually lasts more than one turn. if you are needing to trigger time stop to take that 1 turn to escape, you better be able to escape in 1 turn...

I did find an item in my playthrough, the "Temporal Anomoly Robe Designed In Style" and it had an ability to take me to a pocket of time safe from attack for 2 turns, which i used mainly to aid in cooldowns or pop a heal or something. (i picked up the celestial sun paladin's heal spell from an escort which takes a turn to cast) so maybe you could do that wiht time stop?

of course, my time warden win on normal was somewhat sloppy. I missed out on many things I should have gotten, and I didn't follow up on some things. I never killed the orc broodmother or the naga queen, I failed to kill my future self, i failed to kill the orc ambush, i failed the second part of melinda's quest, i failed to noticed to extra content back in the west when i came back from the east, i failed that part where you have to rush down and beat that enemy to retrieve the staff of absorption and I failed to keep aeryn alive in the final battle, which forced me to permadeth myself to win the game.

the guides are saying that i ought to be able to beat it on insane as the time warden, which i have not even unlocked insane mode yet.

[berandro]

Originally posted by FeMaiden:

I never killed the orc broodmother (...) i failed to kill the orc ambush (...)

I thought the broodmother was removed from the game?

And I also didn't know you could go past the ambush without killing everyone... The things you learn about this game everyday...

[Icedfate]

the broodmother was removed? but there's still a steam achievment for it.
so then that means it's technically impossible to 100% complete all the achievments?..especially since they add like 400 more every 2 weeks...
and the ambush i'm referring to is after you beat the master and try to leave with the staff of absorption and orc waaay above your level attack you and try to take it, you are not "meant" to win that and if you die, you don't lose a life, you just lose the staff and wow, you always beat that ambush on every playthrough?

[berandro]

Oh, I just checked the wiki and you are right. Well, I never play on adventure mode, so maybe that's why? I seem to remember dying there once and I don't recall getting back to life. But maybe I'm wrong.

In any case, it's not that impressive that I manage to beat it. In nightmare I rarely get that far, so, when I do, it means my character is already pretty strong / got lucky with the drops.

[roxeluze]

Time shield will aways be better, and by the point you have enough points in contingency you should have more than good enough shields, its just extra health that doesn't need to be healed up. Plus if you played as a shalore you can have access to the whole cycle of shields again sooner or right away, the 1 turn of having a chance to escape I understand is beneficial, but it can in no way replace survivability in turns that a shield can do. If you have bleed, burn and etc on you your dead. Shield will alwyas be more beneficial especially time as when it does expire it does grant a small healing boost, during the time shield all detrimental effects, newly applied, will have their durations reduced. As a added note time stop is not as reliable to get you out of trouble

[JacksonTriggs Fan]

I like to use the "personal space" spell thing, the little sub-dimension. You get like 8 turns to burn off your cooldowns, use a heal infusion, prep yourself for combat again, or even start a rod of recall.

[berandro]

I'm in no way adamant about choosing Time Stop over Time Shield. You might be right, but I'm just saying what worked for me when I beat nightmare/roguelike. Time Stop lvl4 is even 2 free turns. That is a lot of time to get away/heal/whatever. And if it was off-cooldown you can even activate it again right away, giving you 4 free turns in total. For me this is better than any shield.

[zirune]

Originally posted by JacksonTriggs:

I like to use the "personal space" spell thing, the little sub-dimension. You get like 8 turns to burn off your cooldowns, use a heal infusion, prep yourself for combat again, or even start a rod of recall.

You can't use Contingency on Fixed Cooldown spells (like Temporal Reprieve) since 1.4.0. Which is too bad, because Contingencied Temporal Reprieve was amazing. It's oftentimes not pure damage that gets you killed, but the fact that you have no abilities available to escape with. Buying yourself a half-dozen turns is easily enough for shields or teleports to come off cooldown to get you out of a sticky situation.

The fewer amount of turns from Time Stop is more debatable, but I still think I'd go with Time Stop over Time Shield in the latter parts of the game and potentially on higher difficulties.

[Imas]

Wow, that's a lot of answers :-)

I picked up an artifact reflection shield rune shortly after posting (which shields me for as much as my full hp by itself Oo ), so I put contingency to that for now.

Setting it to a really good rune seemed ideal for now too, since I can leave Contingency with only 1 point put into it while still getting the full effect.

I would have loved using it with Heroism, but alas, it's an infusion = wild gift =/= spell.


Contingency also saved me once already from a REALLY clutch situation: Ran into a purple-named bee with some extra speed steroids AND extra strong poison... 80 nature damage per turn with 5 turns remaining when I regained control (after it's initial onslaught at buffed-up 300% global speed...).
I was level 10-ish at that point, so less than 200 max hp :-(

Contigency -> Shielding Rune saved me from getting one shotted before letting me even react (instead just putting me from full to single digit hp with 3 points of shield remaining).
Regularly activating the shield let me survive 1 turn of poison, while remembering I had an ability that shaved of 2 turns of one debuff whenever I teleported got rid of the other 4 turns of duration.