General advice on combat and crises | Combat and crisis Torment: Tides of Numenera Guide

Below you can find a list of various advice and hints related to fighting and playing crises in Torment: Tides of Numenera.

Important - The hardest battles (with the "bosses" and other challenging opponents) are thoroughly described in the walkthrough.

• Remember that most combat sequences in this game can be partially or completely avoided (details can be found on the next page of the guide). You just have to be careful during dialogues and avoid confrontation. If you cannot punch your way through a fight, try to solve the task some other way. What's more, even if a battle starts, you can check whether during a crisis it is possible to talk with some opponents. By a successful conversation you can convince them to leave the battlefield (and make the fight easier or even immediately end it) or convince them to join your side. The enemies with whom you can talk can be recognized by the dialogue icons that appear above them after you mark them.
• Rest often and restore the stats of your characters. It's important, as longer encounters tend to use up many points of might, intellect and speed. Having a well-rested party is important to use skills and increase your chances of successful attack. If you play according to our guide, check out the pages with location descriptions. On each of them there is information where you can rest and how much shins it would cost.
• Choose your party members well. In the chapter dedicated to your companions, you'll find detailed information on your potential party members. It's good to choose your party so that their members complement each other's abilities (preferably with at least one member of each class).
• Focus on your objectives - defeat your enemies in fair combat only when you have to (in some crises you must actually escape in order to survive). Very often, you can use various things, such as elements of the environment, to your advantage. Information about the current crisis' objectives always appears on the right side of the screen.
• Make sure every character in your party is equipped with healing items and cyphers. Use them well and you'll have much less trouble in combat. Don't stock these items at all cost (especially the cyphers) since after using them you can easily obtain more later in the game. If you have too many cyphers, you can even be penalized for that by becoming sick.
• When in combat, focus on enemy spellcasters or the ones that have the strongest active skills. Teaching area-of-effect spells or skills to your main character (if you're playing Nano) or one of your party members is a good idea. Enemies tend to form clusters, which can be easily used against them.
• Some fights can be ended by eliminating a specific character (for example the boss or the leader of the bandits). You should keep that in mind and avoid wasting time and supplies on attacking lesser enemies - especially since some of them can spawn endlessly.
• Before every larger battle you should determine which attacks your opponents will use. It is especially important in the case of enemies that can cause serious negative fettles like Blindness or Dazed upon your party members. Prepare skills, cyphers and artifacts that can reduce or neutralize the effects of these attacks.
• When you equip a weapon to your companion, make sure it matches their dominant atribute. Examining a weapon in your inventory will tell you everything you need to now, including whether its base damage comes from might, speed, or intellect. Avoid giving heavy weapons to a Nano or energy weapons to a Glaive, if their stats suggest that there might be a better pick.
• If you have a Glaive in your party, then check if that character has skills that enable him or her to lure the enemies' attention away from other party members (for example, provocation). Activation of these skills is especially useful when you fight enemies who deal very strong damage or when other party members are weakened after previous battles.
• Remember that the death of the main character in combat will interrupt a crisis, after which the character will be transported to the Calm. Depending on the type of the crisis that occurred before the death, you will be able to repeat the combat, you will lose the chance to positively finish the crisis or a completely new way of completing the quest will unlock.
• If during a crisis one of your companions falls, the fight will continue. That character won't be taken to the Calm and won't die in a permanent way. If you manage to win the battle with a weakened team, then after the crisis the fallen party member will be resurrected. The only penalty will be a negative fettle the character will receive. It will reduce its combat abilities in further fights. In order to solve this, your party must rest.