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Credit goes to the original poster of this guide, Primorac. His original post can be seen by clicking here
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Greetings everyone!
First of all, I’d like to make 3 things clear:
1 – This is the first guide I try to write, so please apologize in advance for whatever you think is wrong, incomplete etc.
2 – English is not my first language, so don’t expect me to have a vast vocabulary or perfect grammar. I just hope I can make myself understandable.
3 – Feel free to use, publish or translate this guide, but please do it without any changes. I don’t see how anyone could profit from this, but if this opportunity ever exist, it’s a wrong thing to do. Don’t do it. J
I – Introduction
I’m a long time action-RPG fan, and always believed that area of effect spells is the way to go. Most of the times there are quite a few monsters to kill, so why kill one at a time when I could damage a whole area and take them all out in a single strike? It’s generally the fastest way to advance in this kind of game. With that in mind, my first impulse while checking TQ’s skill trees was to build an Elementalist (Earth/Storm) based on the area damage spells (Volcanic Orb / Eruption). And so I did. I gathered with a group of friends and played the whole game, on all difficulty levels.
After playing through all the game, I think I learned a lot from my mistakes, so I went on and built a second char (again, an Elementalist). I played much better with her, picked the skills more wisely and also got a few more nice items, either found or traded ones. Finally, with a better knowledge of the game and a nice item inventory, I built a third (and last) Elementalist. This guide was written based on my playing with this guy. As you can see, it was made based on a twinked char (a char who got items from other chars – generally higher level ones), which has affected a lot of my decisions and play style. Oh, it’s important to say that this is for PvM only. You’ll find no considerations about PvP here, since I’ve never even played PvP on TQ.
Here I’ll try to show you what I did regarding to attribute, skill and equipment choices. I’ll also try to tell you how I advanced through the game. By no means it’s the right or best way. It’s just a way I found to be effective and fun. So, if you have other items or if you’re playing untwinked, you’ll probably play the Elementalist class quite differently than me. Like I did, I strongly encourage you to find your own play style, even if it’s not the most effective in terms of killing power. What you should get most of your game is FUN. One of my intentions in writing this is that you adapt things to your own play style and have the most effective and fun build for you without having to play the whole game to discover things for yourself, possibly saving quite a long time.
As a final word on this introduction, let me say that this guide is more intended at new/inexperienced players, as I consider myself one of them. The game is fairly new, I’ve been playing it for just about a month, and there’s still A LOT to learn. There’s a lot of stuff regarding the mechanics I don’t know about, so this guide won’t go into deep details of how things work in the game. That said, even if you are an experienced player you might find some useful information (at least I hope so).
Now, on to the guide.
II – The idea
Ok, the basic idea of this build is to be able to kill things as fast as possible, but without neglecting safety. I tried to find a balance between killing speed and survivability. That said, the way I achieved it is to keep monsters stunned as much as possible. If it’s stunned, it can’t hit you. And to do that, the greatest strength of this build is the possibility to spam spells that stun or disable monsters in a big area.
III – Attribute Points
This is a very controversial area, and from what I read in forums most people disagree with me on this one. But to my experience and my play style, it’s better to get enough attributes to use your gear and then dump the rest in health. For this build in particular, getting super high int won’t make you kill monsters much faster, but having over 1500 more HPs can mean staying alive after one or two hits.
So, when I finished the legendary mode, at level 55, my attribute points, including equipment bonuses, were these: Health – 5261 / Mana – 2021 / Str – 50 / Int – 519 / Dex – 150.
IV – Equipment
This is a very important section. Any build, of any kind, will greatly benefit from proper equipment. This build in particular is extremely dependant on proper gear. I say this because it’s main characteristic come from an equipment bonus: -x% recharge. This is what allows us to spam VO, Squall and Eruption, thus stunning and killing everything on the screen very fast, even if each spell on it’s own doesn’t deal much dmg. I’d say a good bonus percentage to recharge time is 90. 80 is still quite good, but less than this will start to bother when you keep clicking the mouse button but VO doesn’t come out. Of course, if you can get to zero recharge time (-100% recharge), do it, but don’t sacrifice too much of other bonuses for it.
Another thing to consider are resistances. It’s very different playing with negative resists and maxed ones. With high HP and high elemental resists, you don’t need to worry about a lot of one-hit-kills that annoy most people. Sure, there are still a lot of dangerous threats out there, but at least you got this part covered.
+HP, +energy, -x% energy cost, +energy regeneration: these are also nice mods to have on your items. +HP will help keep you alive. The energy bonuses will help you use less energy potions. This build demands a lot of energy, since you will be spamming spells non-stop when fighting. More energy always helps, even though it’s not necessary at all given that you can buy potions from vendors.
One other bonus I really like is +x% movement. It doesn’t really help us much in terms of dmg output, but once you have it, it’s tough to let it go and run slowly again.
Regarding +x% to elemental dmg and +x% casting speed, the more the better, but imho they’re not more important than any other bonus listed here;
The thing is finding a balance of all the available equipment you have. For example, if you can have -70% recharge and +300% elemental dmg, it is better than having, say, -85% recharge and no bonus to elemental dmg at all. In my case, I have -91% recharge and +30% elemental dmg. I know a lot of people would say this elemental dmg is ridiculously low, but it’s enough for me. I could easily lose 15% on recharge to get another 40-50% elemental dmg, but I prefer the way it is. The same thing goes for resists. Find your own balance according to your own gear availability and you’ll do fine.
Now, the gear I’m currently using: The Full Archmage Set (chest, hands, legs, head), Aphrodite’s Favor amulet, Heka Staff, Eye of Horus and Seal of the High Priest rings. I won’t display all the stats of the items because this guide is getting quite long and you can check them on various websites.
One last thing about the equipment: plan ahead to use better gear as soon as possible. Use the +int bonuses to equip higher items. The attribute bonus from an item can be used to equip itself, differently than the latest versions of D2. For example, if you have 100 int and two staves, one that has an 100 int requirement and gives +50 int, the other has 150 int requirement and +50 int. Equip the first one, than the second. I know this seems logical to a lot of people, but since we’ve had games with a different system it’s good to emphasize this point.
V – Skill Points
Here’s the TitanCalc link for my skill choices up to level 55 (when I “finished” the game), followed by a brief explanation of each skill: CLICK HERE.
Volcanic Orb (12 points): this is the basis of the build. It’s an aoe spell that recharges very fast. With all the gear on, it recharges faster than the time to cast, so you can spam it at will.
Conflagration (1 point): important for the area increase, I don’t think it’s worth it to max this skill. Burn dmg takes a while to process, and I don’t like to have to wait for things to die. Instead of waiting, I’d just throw another VO anyway, so only 1 point in this skill.
Fragmentation (12 points): VERY important skill, it grants the much desired stun effect to VO. Also, the fragments from it cover even more area than VO itself, damaging and stunning additional targets. You just have to get used to the timing. Once you do, this skill is great! For untwinked play, I max this skill before VO.
Earth Enchantment (12 points): it works on spell dmg, so it basically increases the damage from VO and Eruption, which is a good thing.
Volativity (12 points): has a chance of increasing dmg from fire attacks, including spells. This is what we want: increase the dmg of our attacks. So, max it.
Core Dweller and it’s tree: this is really unnecessary. I just put points here after all the rest was at the target level. I picked this skill instead of others because the Dweller sometimes serves as a shield, which can be handy and life-saving. But this is occasional, don’t expect much (at least on this build) from your lava friend.
Summon Wisp (3 points): this little fella is useful because of Eye of the Storm. I’ve put 3 points because, together with +2 from the amulet, it gets the Thunderclap skill, which sometimes stuns enemies.
Eye of the Storm (8 points): this skill from the wisp is very handy, as it adds quite a lot of elemental dmg (including fire, despite the skill description). It doesn’t trigger always, but it happens often enough to deserve 8 skill points.
Squall (12 points): I still didn’t actually use all the skills in the game, but I dare to say this one is the best of all. Squall has so many benefits, both defensive and offensive, that I can’t imagine this build without it. I’m sure if I were responsible for the game, I wouldn’t allow it to be this powerful. Anyway, let’s list it’s goods:
- it has HUGE radius, often hitting foes offscreen.
- it’s recharge time is very quick, allowing you to spam it at will
- it’s duration is long enough to deal with any situation – just recast it if needed.
- it deals quite a lot of dmg, often killing monsters by itself.
- it ALWAYS makes ranged attackers (including casters) miss their attacks. This is like having 100% dodge ranged attacks.
Obscured Visibility (6 points): as if Squall weren’t good enough, this skill boosts it to an almost unfair level. It lowers the damage output of monsters and, most important for this build, it reduces their resistances. Reducing resistances are a big plus, especially at later stages of the game, where monsters have higher resists. It’s better than improving your damage by the same amount in this case, obviously.
Static Charge (12 points) and it’s pre-requisites (1 in each): I got this one for the sole purpose of enhancing Squall dmg. Yes, Squall is so good that it deserves this boost.
VI – Level Progression
If you’d like a somewhat detailed description of game progression, in this section I’ll present the most important events in each stage.
Normal Greece:
The beginning of the game is quite easy, just go around killing stuff and use potions when you need – don’t forget you can teleport back to town to get more of them faster. The first thing on my mind is to be able to wear a set of good items as quickly as possible. That said, instead of getting abilities, for the first levels I just pumped the masteries themselves for the int and dex bonuses. Of course, regarding to attributes, I’ve just put points on int and dex. Plan according to your own equipment availability to use better gear asap.
If you’re playing untwinked, you’ll do better if you get VO early on. But I wouldn’t recommend spending more than a point – I’d say it’s more important to get Conflagration and Fragmentation before that. After you have all 3, start putting points only in Fragmentation and VO. Conflagration is more important for the radius, which doesn’t increase with more points – leave it for much later. Anyway, don’t be scared of experimenting with skills, you can change them later by using the mystics. It costs gold, but that should be no problem. What you CAN’T ever change are the skill points you put on the masteries and the attribute points.
At level 18, I got to the first Telkine. As expected, he didn’t pose any problems. I had 1 point in VO, 1 in Conflagration and 1 in Fragmentation. The rest went on the masteries. Regarding the equipment, I was wearing the Pyromancer’s Set, Loratian Greaves, the Staff of Nabukhuthnusar, 2x Cartouche Ring and a green amulet.
Normal Egypt:
As I hit level 20, I maxed the Storm Mastery, thus allowing me to wear the Archmage’s Set using the least possible dex (I don’t count equipment bonuses because I don’t intend to wear +dex gear). Also, I can use pretty much any staff in the game, and I start using Heka Staff. Now the game will be a breeze for a long period. I’ll just max Earth Mastery and finally start allocating points in the skills.
The second Telkine was easier than the first one, given that my gear and my skills were better. I took him out at level 26, by using Squall to lower his resists and spamming VO and Eruption. Having the Wisp’s Eye of the Storm to help me, he lasted about 10 seconds.
Normal Orient:
This is, as expected, the toughest part of the game. But we’re still on normal mode – compared to what is coming, it’s piece of cake. The third Telkine was as easy as the second, dying in about 10 seconds and taking almost no life from me. Typhon himself took a bit longer, but was also very easy. Just spam Squall and Eruption on him, while running in such way that you avoid being hit and also keep him taking the damage from Eruption.
I finished the normal mode at level 32, pretty much what I expected. All side quests were done, my char has zero deaths, so it’s safe to say that this build was working so far. Then again, pretty much every build can finish normal with no problems, especially with good gear, so the real test is still to come…
Epic Greece:
The Greece part on Epic is still quite easy. No monster will be a big threat if you’re playing focused. Melee enemies are generally easy and will die before ever getting to you. For the ranged foes, you’re gonna have to make a better use of Squall, a skill that gets more important as you advance through the game.
Of course, Talos is quite hard (he’s found just before the Minoan Labyrinth). His Fire attack will stun you for a long time, and then he’ll use a stomp attack to keep you stunned even more, and finally unleash powerful critical blows. Another problem is that he won’t get stunned by your attacks, so you have to be constantly on the run. I advice you to clear the area of monsters, leaving him for last. Then, keep your distance, avoid get hit by him (especially by the stunning fire attack), and use your normal staff attack to take him down. It takes quite a while, but it’s not that hard. And keep potions ready, because you can use them while stunned (and that will probably save you life).
The Telkine should pose no problems. I took him when I was level 38. As usual, just spam Squall, Eruption and VO on him while using potions as needed (I didn’t have to use any, but we never know…).
Epic Egypt:
Egypt is actually easier than Greece (imho), since the Stalkers are fast and sneaky bastards. Just pay attention to the boss of the library. It’s poison attack actually took my HP bar to less than one fourth because I went too careless to the fight. I pressed the potion number on the quick bar like a maniac… lol, that was a close one.
At level 40 there’s a good gear upgrade as you’re able to wear some legendary amulets and rings. So, I used at that point 2x Celestial Band and the Polaris, which gave me a bit more of –recharge.
Of course, if you wanna kill the Manticore, it’s a particularly tough part. But it’s not that tough. Just run in circles around it, while spamming both Squall and Eruption. It took me a while to take it out, maybe a minute or two, but at least it didn’t hit me. The same goes for the Telkine, but he was faster than the Manticore.
Epic Orient:
Now playing on epic, I took my chances against the Dragon Liche. By using the “run around in circles spamming Eruption and Squall” technique, I took him out easily.
By level 45 there’s another important gear upgrade: it’s possible to equip the Eye of Horus. At this point, I used just one of it, because I was still wearing the Polaris. When I switch to the Aphrodite’s Favor (therefore losing the –recharge on the ammy), I’ll put another Eye of Horus on. At last it’s possible to spam VO and Squall as fast as they can be cast. Eruption, too, will have a very quick recharge time, which allows us to cast it almost as often as desired. By this point, it’s a safe bet that more energy potions are going to be needed. But you should have tons of gold by now, so it’s no problem.
Again, there was no trouble in this part of the game. Just spam VO and Squall, with the addition of Eruption to quicken the kills, and it’s not that hard. I got to the Telkine at level 46, and took him out easily. Typhon was himself even easier. In under 10 seconds he’s down.
At this point the char is pretty much complete, apart from a few item switches and getting more skills to increase damage output. But the way the char will be played from now on won’t change. Therefore, I made a 2 min video of an Olympus run. So, if you’re interested on seeing how this char plays out and performs, check it out!
Legendary Greece:
Ok, this is where the game really starts. Normal mode is kind of a tutorial. Epic’s just a warm up. In the legendary mode is where the fun really begins. Now every action must be taken with caution, every foe is a dangerous threat… Alright, not EVERY foe. But it’s pretty hard, so we gotta play focused, keep those potions ready, and avoid as much as possible ANY hits.
If you hadn’t understood yet what I meant when I said that Squall is possibly the best skill in the game, now you probably will. You’re gonna use it in practically every ranged enemy, and a lot of melee as well. It makes our lives so much easier and the kills much faster.
At this point I reached level 48, time for the final equipment upgrade: I was finally able to wear Aphrodite’s Favor and the second Eye of Horus. The main skills are also almost maxed. So, to tell you the truth, I exaggerated a bit when I talked about the difficulty. We just have to play focused and slow down the pace a little bit. Just don’t expect to run right through the hordes of enemies while spamming your spells. Careless gameplay will often result in a quick death.
The Hydra shouldn’t be tough. Just keep moving and throwing Squall and Eruption at her, and in about a minute or two she’s dead. The same goes for the Telkine, but it’s faster. I finished Greece at level 50.
Legendary Egypt:
Just like in Epic mode, Egypt is easier than Greece in legendary for this type of char. I didn’t have any problems at all through it. One minor detail: while in this part of the game, I decided to swap one Eye of Horus for a Seal of the High Priest. This gave me a bit more poison resist, and I only lost 2% in –recharge, so I think it was a good swap. I kept this setup to the end.
I got to the Telkine by level 52 and it was piece of cake. At this point, all the needed skills are maxed, so from this point on the new skill points gained won’t help much, but since they are no good unspent, I put them in Core Dweller.
Legendary Orient:
Again, there’s really no secret here. I kept doing the same things I did the rest of the game, only much more carefully. Some monsters hit very hard, but none of them could one-hit-kill me.
The big Neanderthal fella has killed me a few times before, so I knew what was coming and took precautions. Just don’t let him stun you – it would probably mean a quick death. The Telkine was pretty easy, as was Typhon. As many people have said, there are far more dangerous monsters populating TQ’s world, which might seem illogical given that we expect the last big bad boss to be the toughest one. I don’t know what to think about it, except that it must be really hard to make a great game, and Nival has done a great work on this one.
VII – Videos
I’ve captured some videos in an attempt to show how the char plays out. I’ve uploaded all the Telkine duels, my first Olympus run on legendary, plus one or two others. I think this is enough to get the picture of this build. There are both high and low quality videos, for those who have slower connection.
http://rapidshare.de/files/30032232/Legendary_1st_Telkine_-_Low_Quality.avi.html (2,28 MB)
http://rapidshare.de/files/30034584/Legendary_1st_Telkine_- _High_Quality.avi.html (15,5 MB)
http://rapidshare.de/files/30034846/Legendary_2nd_Telkine_-_Low_Quality.avi.html (1,56 MB)
http://rapidshare.de/files/30036004/Legendary_2nd_Telkine_- _High_Quality.AVI.html (10,3 MB)
http://rapidshare.de/files/30036309/Legendary_3rd_Telkine_-_Low_Quality.avi.html (1,43 MB)
http://rapidshare.de/files/30037912/Legendary_3rd_Telkine_- _High_Quality.avi.html (9,75 MB)
http://rapidshare.de/files/30039266/Legendary_Olympus_1st_Run_- _Low_Quality.avi.html (5,94 MB)
http://rapidshare.de/files/30044370/Legendary_Olympus_1st_Run_- _High_Quality.avi.html (41,2 MB)
VIII – Final Words
It was great fun playing this build, and I found it to be very effective. It’s viable to play untwinked, and it’s a great “farmer”. I’d like to present a lot more detail and ideas in this guide, especially in the equipment section, but I think it’s very long already. Maybe we can discuss it in the forums. Oh, and btw, you can contact me about errors, or with suggestions, on primorac_tq@yahoo.com.br... Just please don’t send flaming emails, as those will be promptly ignored.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. And I’m sorry for any mistakes. See ya around!
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