I recently won insane, and it was time to improve the tips to give the new players. There also was a few update since my last edit and saying Arcane Might was a bad idea no longer made sense for example.
Demonologist was my first win after a big break, my first and easiest nightmare win, and now my first insane win.
This guide exists because I had a lot of fun everytime I played the class and want you to enjoy it too
And not many people talk about Demo, sadly
Insane winner (more to come, hopefully ^^) :
The first one : http://te4.org/characters/101797/tome/4 ... fd1af82cbb
The one that refused to use talent other than block : https://te4.org/characters/101797/tome/ ... 25cbd1c079
you can see here that guy killing slime tunnels guardian by using block and.... nothing else : https://www.twitch.tv/videos/259434504 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/259433262)
The Antimagic one : https://te4.org/characters/101797/tome/ ... 31a761372c
Highlights :
- searing halls is still easy in insane (more on that later), only unkown is wether or not the boss will gain op talents. Never happened to me but I've been told it can.
T1 are usually easy enough, except i seem to have some bad luck with norgos' rare+ snakes (again, more on that later).
Didn't drown anyone because real heroes don't but still went to buy stuff first thing and to see the lumberjacks after Trollmire.
Regarding T2s, Old Forest and Nur are the real killer, followed by Daikara.
Dreadfell is when you really start to shine and after Dreadfell/Reknor I felt completely invincible until the end (ok, got scared in Ardhungol because SO MANY SPIDERS! and also several mobs that were removing my sustains). Seriously, I got Goedalath rock, forgot about it,and did two whole prides with it in inventory (so -50% heal mod and other bad shit) without noticing.
Learned that Dethblyd cause MASSIVE lags as demo. Even persisted to some extent after I transmogged it.
Left a portal in the final fight open to help with vim regen and give a bit more healing to osmosis shield. Argoniel was long to kill but I had no res pen, so, my bad. Nerver felt in trouble.
Because no respen couldn't do Athamathon but Linaniil went down hard. Killed her 5 times before running out of stamina then 2 more times after a quick walk in the wilderness to resplenish my strength. Also I had cauterize since level 30 but Linaniil was the first to trigger it. And even then, only because I forgot to use heroism.
Strong points
- Very resilient
Unique talents/trees
Lots of debuff
Versatility
- Stamina issues
Limited AoE
Highly dependent on sustains
This guide is for a standard sword and board build, I plan to try and mess around with staves at some point but that is for later.
Races
TL;DR : Get Ogre for 2her, if you don't want for some reason then get an elf.
Nothing surprising here, but here we go anyway :
Cornac – 1.5/5: The main point of Cornac is the free category point, Demonologist don’t need it and have lackluster generics trees. If you don’t get good generic trees from escorts, by the end of the game you’ll have too many generic points
Higher – 3/5: You can get some mileage out of third and fourth talents. Farstrike allows you to proc the third for 15% damage boost 5 turns out of 6. Last talents helps a lot with stamina issue.
Shalore – 4.5/5: Shalore racial are excellent, speed boost, crit chance and power, and timeless. Shalore are almost always one of the top races for a reason
Thalore – 4/5: First racial is great even without WIL, as are all res and the summons. The xp penalty means it’ll take longer to get good demon seeds though
Doomelf – 3.5/5: First talent is an instant tp that goes through wall no questions asked, and a second (not instant) to follow if needed. More points drastically reduce the cd. Crit shrug off and reduced debuff synergises really well on second talent, and you'll have a lot of debuff to extend with pitiless.
Halfling – 2.5/5: Racials are nice, even at 1 points which can be useful if you unlock several generic categories.
Dwarf – 1.5/5: No racial interest you, no point.
Yeek – 3.5/5: They level up fast so you get good seeds faster, all racial but first are really good. Trouble is the mid game when you don’t yet have good items to compensate your fragility.
Ogre – 5/5: Best race for demo. 2her with shield gives you so much more damage, the proc malus doesn't bother you so much, another inscription and a mean to chain them more effectively is huge.
Ghoul – 1/5: Plenty of good stuff but so much bad. No infusion, -20% global speed makes this the worst.
Skeleton – 2/5: Nice racial and good immunities but no infusions.
Gonna list the top three races racials but should be pretty obvious anyway :
Ogre racials : 1/5/1+/5
Shalore racials : 1+/5/1/5
Thalore racials : 1/1/5/1
Stats
TL;DR : STR = MAG early (until ~30) then STR > DEX > CUN > MAG
STR: invest here first, your damage come mostly from weapon and shield
DEX: second stat to max, crit shrug, bit of accuracy, prepare for precise strikes if you plan on using it.
CON: don’t invest, you’ll get thick skin with gear and you have DEX as a defensive stat
MAG: enough for unlocks. You can get a little more if you get enough crits without cun and struggles to beat opponents saves.
WIL: don’t invest, it would only get you a bit more stamina
CUN: Go there third to pump your crit
Class trees
- TL;DR :
Shield offense : 1/4/1/1
Combat techniques : 1/1/1/5
Combat Veteran 1+/0-1/0/0
Shadowflames : 1/1/5/1
Demonic pact : 5/5/1/4
Infernal combat : 1/1/3/0
Doom shield : 3/5/4/1
Doom covenant : stay locked
Spellblaze : 1/1/3/0
This amount to 62 class points, so you'll have 6 (or 8 with alchemist potion) leftover
Shield offense: 1/1/1/1 early, 1+/4/1/1+ late
- Shield pummel: your stun. Low cooldown, decent damage. More points for longer stun
Riposte: take this at level 4, allowing counterstrike on impartial block is excellent. If you up it to level 4 you'll block twice and counterstrike will last one more turn. Anything other than 1 and 4 is useless.
Shield slam: 1 point wonder, allows you to block while still damaging the enemy
Assault: Two automatic crit from your main weapon is your best damage dealer. Best used when you foe has counterstrike debuff as it will double the damage again
- Rush: Running away tool, not engagement one. Conserve stamina and flight options people!
Precise strikes: If you max it, wait until DEX is high. More crit chance and accuracy is good BUT you lose 10% attack speed. Better on demo than other classes because you'll always have one or more global speed boost so you won't lose a turn because of it.
Perfect strikes: At the very least it will see use in Dreadfell because dreadmaster. Situationally useful, but you'll be glad tohave it when it's needed.
Blinding speed: 50% global speed boost is amazing. Doesn't stack with Shalore speed boost.
- Quick Recovery : Demo used to have NO stamina regen and while this isn't huge, you're still happy to have it.
Fast Metabolism : a bit more regen, i like to put 1 because it can add up a bit in long fight
Spell Shield : no, spell save won't do much for you
Unending Frenzy : if you're killing several mobs it means you're against low level mobs and don't need to use stam in the first place.
- Wraithform: 1 point is all you need here, you're only interested in going through walls (careful, doesn't work with trees). You can use it as an emergency teleport by going into a wall and cancelling it right away.
Darkfire: Medium range, poor damage, cost too much vim early. 1 point to go on
Flame of Urh’Rok: Sustain cost is a bit high but you’ll start running it before level 15 anyway, it helps for the T2. Fire resist is always good, darkness a bit less but the global speed is very nice.
Fearscape: 1 point, more will only add a bit of damage. You won’t use it often and not early, but the main use is to take a breather. Use it on a non-threatening mob if your fight with a rare/unique/boss is going poorly. Cancel it before going out of vim, starting a fight at 0 is a problem, even with your vim regen
- Demon seed: your unique feature and the main reason you’re here. Level up as soon as you can. More level = more/better demon types. Always use it at least once on boss (100% to work) and try to make it stick on rare and unique (50%). It also dazes
Bind demon: First point lets you summon a demon for a few turns, they usually die pretty fast and are not great damage dealer either but it can still give you a few turns of peace. Level 2 to 5 is much more important as it allows you to have demons on new pieces of gear.
Twisted portal: Unreliable tp at first but greatly improves with more points. Summon one of your equipped seeds when used. With 4 points you get 2 accuracy and 5 won’t offer you any bonus. I got enough out of only 1 point but feel free to invest. Swapping demons seeds is instant so you can remove every seeds before tp if you're scared to loose them.
Suffuse life: 4 points to self-heal on every damage. 1 more point puts you from 8% leech to 9%. This heals your demons but you don’t care if you never summon them nor use twisted portal. Put one point if an important seed died, else wait to go 4 points at once.
- Flame leash: pull enemies, slow their movement and deals damage. 1 point is all you need, the range stays at 6
Demon blade: damage is ok but only proc once per turn. Too expensive early, not a lot of damage later. Still, it's an instant skill and vim becomes a non-issue.
Link of pain: when you can’t reach a mob, select a source close to you and bash it until one of them dies. In 1v1, select yourself as the source and they’ll take damage every time they’ll damage you. After level 3 the percentage falls off, and it already lasts longer than the cd
*just learned that*
The damage from link of pain ignores resists so you can deal a few thousands damage to a trash mob and the boss standing next to him will take most of it. Could be extremely useful for Argoniel in last fight, providing you leave a portal open.
Demon horns: Damage is low, heal is ok but only once per turn. Would use if it didn't use stamina.
- Osmosis shield: excellent defensive skill but hard to manage the vim early. At level 3 it’ll have a chance to clear a physical status. Further levels have a very small impact.
The wording is complicated but I'll try to simplify.
Everytime you receive damage, you store the minimum between the damage received and the number in the talent description.
There is no limit to the damage stored per turn, only per attack. Every damage you stored will heal you over 3 turns. You can see the current damage stored on the buff icon.
Note that this is a heal, not a regeneration effect, so if you get frozen osmosis shield stops healing you. It is affected by heal mod and that's part of the reason it is so good.
It's a bit similar to armor and hardiness, with armor blocking the smallest amount of damage between your armor value and your hardiness*damage.
Hardened core: More armor and spellpower is always good. This is what allows you to ignore the damage of 95% of weapon users, max it!
Demonic madness: good at 1 point to confuse your foes, it will become excellent at level 4 because you get a free block. Level 5 only brings a small amount of damage
Blighted shield: put a point to reduce your foes’ damage for 5 turns after a block, 1 point is enough but more don't hurt. This is one of the few talents you have that really benefits from spellpower (for both the potency of the effect and the chance to apply it)
Doom covenant: nothing OR 3+/3+/1+/0+
- Dark reign: affinity to ALL for each stack. But you have to kill a creature with darkness damage or deal 10+% of its max life to gain a stack. More points = more max stacks.
Dread end: if you have at least 1 stack of dark reign dealing 10+% of a creature life or killing it with non-darkness damage creates a darkness AoE (only one per turn) Level 3+ you can go below 0 life based on stacks. Good for trash clearing and even more durability.
Blood pact: convert your damage to darkness for 1 turn at the cost of 10% current life, and stamina/vim regen if you already have stacks. Go for level 3 so the resource part is noticeable. Also, cooldown is 7 and dark reign last 8 turns, so this is your only chance to proc dark reign against rare+ (without it you only have demonic madness and the demon horns bleed to deal darkness damage) and if you don't use it on cd you lose your stacks.
Erupting darkness: Low, unfocused damage, that needs Dread end to be active already. Do not like.
- Rain of fire: decent amount of damage in AoE every turn. It takes a turn to use so take care when you activate it. Doesn't deactivate properly on rest, cancel manually.
Only ashes left: small and free amount of damage on low health foes. More point for more damage and range
Shattered mind: more debuffs. Blocking becomes even better, causing chances to fail actions in your foes and reduce their saves to better apply further debuffs. This what you're here for!
Tale of destruction: killing a creature debuffs and damages others. Again, good for trash clearing
- TL;DR :
Combat training : 5/5/2-3/5/0
Survival : 1/1/1/1
Torment : 1/0/0/0
Black-magic : 0/0/0/0
So that's 22-23. Lets say 12 for racials which is pretty standard, you get 34-35. Since you get 48 (50 with alchemist potion) you can see how you'd like to unlock a escort tree. Light or tinker are trees where you can put a dozen points and bring you close to the max points available.
Combat training: 5/5/2-3/5/0: you want all the tanking and damage you can get (of course invest in exotic, not weapons, if you plan to take naloren prodigy). 2-3 points in accuracy is enough, the numbers falls off after.
Survival: 1/1+/1+/1
- Heightened senses: 1 point is nice to have
Charm mastery: if you use charms I'd max it, otherwise leave it alone
Piercing sight: get 1 point from thief escort, if you don't get one put at least one yourself
Evasion: I may invest here if I have spare points left but 1 points is nice enough
- Willful tormenter: because I like more vim. Good to put 2-3 early if you plan to use Flames of Urh'Rok very early.
Blood lock: situational usefulness. One point because you never know.
Overkill: Not a fan, but hey, running it might save your osmosis shield from entropy and it's not too expensive.
Blood vengeance: you'll be happy when it triggers except you won't really notice and the chance isn't that great even at high spellpower. But more entropy fodder
- Bleak outcome: you gain more vim per kill if you dealt the right damage types. Useful at one point, less and less with more as you can only hit the creature so many times before it dies. Also only works on one creature per turn.
Stripped life: buff on kill -> useless against single strong mob. Also absolutely useless if you don't have at least 2 points in Bleak outcome.
Grim future: Come on, you need to apply bleak outcome, which isn't guaranteed. Then you need to kill the guy. Then you try to apply a bad effect (ok daze isn't that bad but disappearing as soon as the mob take damage sucks). And on top of that it's a huge cooldown! Pass
Ominous shadow: on kill, you gain a charge for 12 turns to become invisible. During two turns. With a low power. And let's be honest, the only mobs you'd want it to be useful against will see right through the invisibility. Don't.
No Harmony because equilibrium don’t mix well with vim. No Vile Life because it sucks. You want Light if you can save an Anorithil escort and you want tinkers if you can save a tinker escort (yes, you can get both if given the opportunity, but you'll be stretched thin)
Light: 1/5/1/5
- Healing light : Good enough heal but takes a turn to cast.
Bathe in Light: Pump your heal mod, heal you, shield you, refreshes shield duration. And it can crit. So... yeah.
Barrier : Strictly worse than healing light since it doesn't benefit from heal mod and your osmosis shield doesn't work on damages blocked by damage shield.
Providence : You never have enough cleanse and this one can keep running for 5 turns at level 5.
Chemistry: 5/1+/1+/0
Category points
Start with aninscription at level 10 then escort tree or inscription at level 20 (escort would be better but you need to have saved the right one already). Third goes wherever second didn't.
Last one is either a second escort tree or spellblaze/covenant (spellblaze being better).
If you couldn't get any generic tree from escorts, consider getting worldly knowledge; unlocking both your class tree will stretch you too thin in class points and enhancing a tree is bad.
Demon seeds
Ok, that's where the fun begins! *Did you know you could find most of those info here? Wish I had known sooner...*
Tier 1 demons:
- Fire imp :
- Mainhand – flame bolts: passive, 26-52% chance on melee hit to launch 1 bolt at each visible enemy (max 2-5 total bolts) dealing fire damage, range 5. Damage goes up with spellpower
Offhand: reduces fire damage by a flat amount (5-25), bonus to fire res (15-35%) (allows block to absorb fire damage)
Body – fiery cleansing: active, pay 10% of total life to lose 2-5 detrimental effects, 27-14 turns cd
Finger: +1 vim when hit
- Mainhand – corrosive slashes: sustain, convert melee damage to acid and gives armor pen (20-77)
Offhand: reduces acid damage by a flat amount(5-25), bonus to acid res(15-35%) (allows block to absorb acid damage)
Body – acidic bath: active, acid AoE radius 4 around you, you gain 40% acid res and 55-112% affinity for 4-11 turns (this heals you even at the lowest level)
Finger: +1 vim when hit
- Mainhand – flame bolts: passive, 26-52% chance on melee hit to launch 1 bolt at each visible enemy (max 2-5 total bolts) dealing fire damage, range 5. Damage goes up with spellpower
- Water imp:
- Mainhand – frost grab: active, range 10, bring an enemy to you and slow his movement speed by 50% for 4-9 turns. Cold damage based on spellpower. Grants +0.5 mana regen
Offhand: reduces darkness damage by a flat amount, bonus to darkness penetration
Body – blackice: active, you gain 1 charge (1-6 max) for 20 turns when killing creatures with non-fire damage in melee. Use a charge reduces fire res of a creature by X%, based on spellpower
Finger: +2 vim when hit
- Mainhand – farstrike: active, range 4-8, deals 141-216% weapon damage, 2 turns cd. This can be targeted at an ennemy hiding behind others!
Offhand: reduces physical damage by flat amount(5-25), bonus to physical res(15-35%)
Body: grants +1-5 level to rush
Finger: +2 vim when hit
- Mainhand – frost grab: active, range 10, bring an enemy to you and slow his movement speed by 50% for 4-9 turns. Cold damage based on spellpower. Grants +0.5 mana regen
- Dolleg:
- Mainhand: 20% to cast blood grasp of level 1-5 on melee hit (deal blight damage and heal for half)
Offhand: reduces blight damage by flat amount(5-25), bonus to blight res(15-35%) (allows block to absorb blight damage)
Body – blighted path: sustain, gains a charge every time you move (max 6-16), when deactivated, gain 4-12 vim per charge or deal blight damage per charge to a target in melee range (projectile, damage based on spellpower)
Finger: +1 vim on melee hit
- Mainhand – corrupt light: extinguish zone of radius 2-5 and gives bonus to all damage for 4-11 turns. Damage boost depends on the number of tiles extinguished
Offhand: telepathy X (changing with demon level, demon at first, all in last levels)
Body – shadowmeld: sustain, can be activated when on an unlit tile, granting stealth power, based on spellpower. Deactivate if you move. Equipped lite is turned off upon activation
Finger: +1 vim on melee hit
- Mainhand: 20% to cast blood grasp of level 1-5 on melee hit (deal blight damage and heal for half)
- Uruivellas:
- Mainhand – disarm: active, melee, 75-107% damage and disarm for 3-8 turns
Offhand – battle call: every foe in a radius 3-8, gets instantly in melee range
Body: give bonus to global speed based on demon level (up to 20%)
Finger: +2 vim on melee hit
- Mainhand: 25% chance to cast silence on melee hit, silencing the target for 5-10 turns
Offhand – blood shield: sustain, drain 2 vim per turn, you gain flat all damage reduction equal to 15% of your shield block value. When hit in melee you deal 39-87% of your shield block value as fire and darkness damage
Body: gain X% silence resist based on demon level (up to 100%)
Finger: +2 vim on melee hit
- Mainhand – disarm: active, melee, 75-107% damage and disarm for 3-8 turns
- Daelach:
- Mainhand – doom tendrils: sustain, deal fire damage in radius 2 around the caster, based on spellpower. Affected creatures are pinned to the ground
Offhand – fiery portal: active, 28-19 cd, create two portals for 3-8 turns. First portal is created at your location. When any creature steps on a portal it is transported to the other. When activated you are transported to the other portal
Body: gives X% stun resist, based on demon level (up to 100%)
Finger: +3 vim per melee hit
- Mainhand – corrosive cone: passive, melee crit deal acid damage, based on spellpower, in a cone and melt walls you hit
Offhand – acid burst: passive, when you block, you release a cloud dealing acid damage, based on spellpower, in a radius 3 for 3-8 turns
Body: reduces crit damage by X% based on demon level (up to 35%)
Finger: +3 vim on melee hit
- Mainhand – doom tendrils: sustain, deal fire damage in radius 2 around the caster, based on spellpower. Affected creatures are pinned to the ground
- Champion of Urh’Rok:
- Mainhand – doomed nature: active, 15 cd. You curse a target for 5 turns, every time it tries to use a nature power it has 23-57% to fail and if so, to create an AoE of fire damage (based on spellpower) in radius 1
Offhand – armored leviathan: active, 21 cd. You gain 10% of your shield block value as STR and MAG for 3-8 turns
Body: increases max life, strength and magic based on demon level (up to 125HP, 12.5 STR, 12.5 MAG)
Finger: +1 vim per turn
- Mainhand – inferno: active, deal fire damage based on spellpower in radius 10 for 6-11 turns, grants +0.5 mana regen
Offhand – flash block: active, instant block, 10-6 cd
Body: reduces duration of detrimental effects by 40%
Finger: +1 vim per turn
- Mainhand – doomed nature: active, 15 cd. You curse a target for 5 turns, every time it tries to use a nature power it has 23-57% to fail and if so, to create an AoE of fire damage (based on spellpower) in radius 1
Useful mainhand seed:
- Wretchlings: if you find a high armor and hardiness ennemy
Flame imp: your go-to for the first third/half of the game
Quasit : flame leash on cd? no more stamina? One rare is hiding behind everyone else? Quasit is there for you!
Dùathedlen: bonus to all damage, what else? Annoying to have dark tiles though
Wretch titan: you crit all the time late game, or at the very least least every assault. Careful since it can destroy walls though
- Whatever resist you need, quasit is nice because phys resist is rare but it won’t give you another element to block
Taurhereg: blood shield is incredible... in normal/nightmare.
Wretch titan: just because it's the only damaging one in the slot and the numbers add up to more than I would have thought
Forge-giant: more counterstrike!
- Fire imp: get rid of those debuffs
Uruivellas: global speed, always useful
Forge Giant: no more 15 turns disarm/blind by high level wyrmic or 40 turns diseases
- Vim on melee hit -> proc 3 times on shield slam/assault, 2 times on pummel/demon seed, several times on demonic madness depending on the number of enemies. Way more useful than the other seeds
Vim per turn: if you finish a fight with low vim for some reason (fearscape, mana clash, etc…) put this on, rest, put vim on melee hit back on. Won’t cover all your draining sustain on its own
Early game:
Start with phys wild with lowest cd you find and 2 of regen/shield/heal.
Shield is nice to use at the beginning of the fight when still at full health, heal is nice to clear poison (especially if you're both poison and stun, to be sure the wild clear the stun) and because low cooldown, regen is nice because better numbers than heal and on several turns but takes a turn.
4th slot (level 10): add a movement infusion
- Drop your shield for regen/heal because you can start using osmosis shield thanks to your seeds on ring and osmosis shield doesn't work through damage shields.
When you find a good enough heroism infusion, use it to replace a heal.
Heal gets worse and worse compare to regen as game goes on so make the switch.
Drop your phys wild for a phys/mental if you find one. Or a mental if you get 100% stun resist
A phase door rune can be nice if you find one with good numbers, all res and reduced debuff is very good
- movement, phase door, 2x heroism, regen OR movement, 2x heroism, phys/mental wild, regen
If you go for tinkers, your layout will be : 2x injectors, movement, heroism, regen
- Rune of reflection: good, you can use it instead of heal/regen. Works well with Bathe in Light
Rune of the rift: can give you a breather in 1v1 and has decent damage but you'll need a good enough spellpower. Can replace a regen if you want damage
Primal infusion: no, you don’t want the randomness
For undead: i'd say go for shield, PD, heat beam, biting gale, lightning.
Prodigies
Best prodigies among those listed are the strength and mag ones. If you want a defensive one, take cauterise, otherwise you can go for two offensive one.
Strength based:
- Flexible combat: more damage, proc from gloves, help vim regen with vim on melee hit. Lotsof good on-hit possible to have.
I can carry the world: lots of strength = lots of damage, 0 fatigue is useful to manage your stamina
Legacy of the Naloren: because you’re an Ogre and decided you wanted to have fun today
- Crafty hands: if you took stone alchemy you might as well take this, not optimal, but you don't choose your escorts and this makes stone alchemy better
Constitution based:
- Eternal guard: with your 3 ways to block (4 with flash block), you’ll be able to negate tons of damage and debuff more foes with counterstrike, blighted shield and shattered mind. Also makes acidic burst better
Magic based:
- Cauterize: excellent defensive prodigy, you can no longer be one shot, yay!
Temporal form: immunity to stun and a few other, damage boost, res pen, barely anyone has temporal resist, this talent is pretty fun
Arcane Might : became really good after its changes, more damage and more crit is straightforward
- Worldly knowledge: because you couldn’t save the escort you wanted
Escorts
On all escort you can take a talent just for stun fodder if nothing interest you, potentially better than a small stat increase even if you never use the skill
- Alchemist: Spell/Stone Alchemy (not the best category but better than nothing if you have no tinker/anorithil)
Anorithil: Celestial/light THEN Bathe in the Light (most useful)
Loremaster: Disarm OR Spit poison (gives more buttons to press, disarm can be useful)
Seer: Arcane eye OR Spell/Divination (arcane eye is nice but you'll have to keep an item to regen your mana)
Sun Paladin: Celestial/Chants OR chant of your choice
Temporal Explorer: Precognition (poor man Track) OR Foresight
Thief: Piercing sight THEN Piercing Sight OR Charm mastery (basically free generic points)
Warrior: Vitality, one point only. Tree is not good enough at 0.8 and neither is Unflinching resolve.
Tinker: Ask where you can learn the trade THEN *have to double-check*
+2 class talent, 2 generics talents +4% phys crit chance, +4% spell crit chance
Then go for whatever is left.
Gear
What are you looking for?
Heal mod -> HP -> status resists -> physical damage/penetration -> crit/crit mult -> on-hit effect (mostly gloom)
First two to not die, status to be always able to run if needed, rest for damage.
Look also for elemental resists, armor, and stamina regen, but armor should be fine with massive and hardened core anyway, elemental resist tends to appear a bit everywhere and adds up without you even noticing and you can deal with the base stamina regen. Negative fatigue also helps with stamina issue.
You need to have a high block value shield, nothing is more important on shield as long as you don't have 200+ block.
Have gloves with Disperse Magic on them, you never know when someone will throw Impending Doom at you and it also makes the final fight easier.
A secondary good weapon with a different damage type might also come in handy.
Searing halls
You’ll always start there, except if you’re undead.
This zone isn’t hard with Demo, so don't worry.
Put one point in every class skill, the only thing you won't be using right now is osmosis shield because it's too costly.
Your flame leash has the same range as their abduction and rush so you have no reason to get caught by them, just wait or walk back to a good spot if they're one tile too far.
You should be able to to dodge fireballs and if you don't just cleanse them, the only other status you could get is daze from rush and we've covered that.
Don’t forget to block, that’s your thing.
Wraithform is good because of the ability to go through walls (and tp from walls by canceling the buff).
Demon Seed everything because the damage is good and the seeds help. Pummel everything because stun.
At level 4, take Riposte and either hardened core or bind demon.
Proceed to kill the boss and tp to Maj'Eyal.
Early game
The tp put you in the level 2 of one of the T1 dungeon. If noone is around just use the Rod of Recall. If you got an escort quest in Trollmire or Kor'Pul you can probably manage just fine, escort quest elsewhere is way more risky and you should probably leave them to their fate. If you don't feel safe with the monsters next to you proceed down the stairs and see if the situation is better (you could get an escort in that level however).
You've RoR out of the dungeon, time to visit the shops and lumberjacks.
Some will tell you to drown every rare+ you see in town and even to use demon seed just before they die to get high level seed early. You can totally do that if you want and it will make your start easier but it's not necessary.
You're looking for a T3 weapon (in Last Hope) and whatever slot where you find +HP. Your starting gold should cover the weapon and one other item at least. Better inscriptions is also good to find. After your shopping is done go to the lumberjacks, with luck they'll kill the cursed; otherwise you're on your own, but he shouldn't give you much trouble.
Go to Trollmire (including Bill) -> Derth arena -> Kor’pul -> Scintillating caves -> Rhaloren camp ->Norgos lair
Remember to equip a fourth infusion at level 10 (preferably movement). Throw in the unknown tunnels at any point after Kor'Pul.
Use Demon Seed as often as you can so you get better seeds.
Generic-wise, level up armor training and Weapons Mastery as often as you can, until level 8 when you’ll probably focus on your racial.
Class-wise you want Osmosis Shield level 3 once you have two demon seed T2+ on your rings (demo, the only class who cares about finding white T1 rings), Bind Demon and Demon Seed level 5. You want 1 point in everything in shield offense fast. If you got the planar beacon throw a point in flames of Urh'Rok at level 8, a tp that heals you and damage other is huge.
Mid game
My usual order: Sandworm -> Maze/Heart of gloom ->Hidden Compound (the ring is nice and easy to get) -> Golem Graveyard (in hope of a good chest) -> Forest (not Nur) -> Derth -> Daikara
Take care with giants vaults, don’t open if you’re not sure you can take it, same for cultist event but she is not as bad. You know almost the exact square where she’ll pop up so wait next to that first pillar and open with whatever stun/daze/confusion you want.
You're on your way to max Hardened Core and Flames of Urh'Rok, and 4 points in Suffuse Life. You are now extremely hard to kill.
Then Halfling ruins -> Temporal rift -> Urkis -> Nur -> Dreadfell -> Spellblaze -> Reknor
Throw in a Ruined Dungeon if you want but Dark crypt is a no go.
The scary part here is Forest. Seriously, the difficulty spikes like crazy in there. Daikara has some good moments too with spike damage. Other than that and the crazy rare+ (that you can always skip, remember not everything has to be killed) everything is going fine enough. And Dreadfell vaults but you know what you're getting into with those, learn to recognize the shapes.
End-Game
Nothing much to say, Spider’s Lair -> Vor Armory -> Briagh, then go back west.
Do the backup guardians, buy 4k items in Last Hope and talk to Tannen, then do whatever he tells you.
When you finally go back east do the pride in the order you like the most (mine is Rak'Shor -> Vor -> Gorbat -> Grush'Nak), and Eruan at some point. Don’t fight anything in the Charred Scar, it’s not worth it. If you’re close to another 4k you can do a few farportals or bonus zones like the Underwater Cave or the Shadow Crypt (but don't actually go fight the shadow, you won't manage to kill him and you'll be stuck there).
The pedestal boss in Slime Tunnels are ok but in High Peak the stair boss might have some awful combination. Be careful!
The final fight can be long, disperse magic on Elandar so he loses some sustains, then, link of pain from him to Argoniel (I need to try link of pain from Aeryn to Elandar, she takes a beating after all). Close 3 portals so you're not distracted (especially the demon one because - darkness and Dùathelen). I'd say keep the drake one open, they aggro Elandar and Argoniel. Now, bash away and Elandar should fall fast. Argoniel is tankier but he’ll go down too eventually, it's just tedious. Should be less so by using link of pain from drake to him though.
Quirks and bugs
*All of this need to be checked because some have been fixed and some not. I'll put some time in this later but the guide is complete, yay!*
There are some problems when playing Demonologist. I’ll list what I’ve noticed.
- DO NOT put Osmosis Shield on autouse! If it get force-deactivated you might be looking at permanent vim degen and lower resources because of a bug. This is still a bug as of the 12th of April 2018
If you’re using Tirakai’s maul or Wheel of fate, take out the seeds before activating them, otherwise you’ll lose the seed
Revenant also works poorly with some seeds. I had put a Daelach for 80% stun resist on it, thinking it’ll eventually gave me 100% confusion resist as I get confused and that the stun will stay at 80% minimum. I was wrong. Revenant was going into negative stun resists to boost confusion resist. After I took out the Daelach, things gradually became normal again and stun resist wasn’t going into negatives anymore even with confusion resist at 100%
Rain of Fire should deactivate on rest but it’s not always the case, sometimes it deactivate instantly on rest, other times it waits a few turns and other when I hit 0 vim. I really don’t get it but deactivate it manually to be sure
Is Walrog supposed to be a demon seed? And is he supposed to be a good one? I found him as mainhand on first game and offhand on second. He is laughably weak,see here. 200HP on brittle ooze with -50% cold resist, at level 50, right. He also doesn’t have powers when attached. Shasshhiy'Kaish gave me usual demon seeds, as did Kril’Freijan
If you try to rest with enemies visible, your osmosis shield will deactivate without taking a turn
If an enemy try to dispel your blighted path while it’s sustained, you can choose to attack with it, find no target in melee, cancel the choice and keep the sustain on
You can also charge your blighted path by bumping into walls, which doesn't take a turn
The drain vim cost doesn't appear when you hover over osmosis shield, blood shield and rain of fire but it's there (3 for osmosis, 2 for blood shield, 4 for rain of fire)
I think as if I have forgotten a few things but also like this guide is way too long already so any comment on which part to expand or shorten will be much appreciated, thank you very much!
