Need help brainstorming a dumb idea.

[sixteenmiles]

Okay, I've been working on a dumb idea. I don't really know how viable it is in the long-run, and I don't care *too much* about it being the most optimal, but in the few runs I tried, it was pretty fun. I just think, I'm probably not the smartest person and I bet there are improvements that can be made.

Since mostly build guides get posted on this forum I should open this thread by clarifying this is not a build guide. I died with this build because it is dumb and I don't recommend you try it. I'm just messing around with it because I'm trying to come up with Adventurer builds that aren't based around Puglism/Magical Combat or Attenuate as 90% of the builds I see on the character vault are.

It started with the idea that Torture Souls from the Animus tree could hit anything you could see, as long as you have dealt damage to it. So if we could spread damage across the widest possible area, then we could hit Torture Souls to pop a screen's worth of enemies and create a pretty fast clearing build. So my first iteration of the idea used the following:

Spell/Animus: 1/1/5/0
Spell/Phantasm: 5/5/0/0
Spell/Necrosis: 5/1/5/5

as its core. And then for fluff I just threw in:

Celestial/Radiance: 5/1/5/0
Spell/Glacial Waste: 5/1/1/1
Demented/Chronophage: 2/1/0/0
Celestial/Hymns: 3/1/1/5
Corruption/Shadowflame: 1/1/5/1 (I was using the planar portal item and fearscape as my panic buttons)

for extra tankiness I took:

Chronomancy/Energy: 5/0/0/0
Chronomancy/Flux: 1/1/0/0
Corruption/Vile Life:: 3/1/1/0 (From corrupted heart)

The basic gameplay loop was to set Illuminate to trigger on enemies seen, equip a staff with the highest level Illuminate, smash auto-explore and whenever an enemy stepped into range, trigger two Illuminates, tag the whole screen of enemies and then hit Torture Souls to pop them. This was incredibly fast clearspeed early game. Probably the fastest I've ever done the T1s and T2s, because as soon as any enemy comes into range, you just explode the whole screen of any enemies. You barely need to stop auto-exploring through the levels and you definitely don't need to think about anything at all. Just mash buttons, win.

At that point I was just trying to create an aura of death, so anything that didn't die from the initial burst would die to the passive damage of Spikes of Decrepitude, Radiance, Hymn Nocturnalist, Hiemal Shield, and Severed Threads. Eventually I figured out I didn't need to even cast Illuminate or Torture Souls because things would just passively die around me as I walked through the level.

So I tried a second iteration of the build that kept Illuminate on auto-cast but dropped Torture Souls and went all-in on the pure auramancer idea.

I dropped Torture Souls and added in Celestial/Star Fury to put Twilight Surge on auto-cast when available so as to feed Hymn Nocturnalist and Corona with negative energy. And I added in Celestial/Eclipse to add Corona to the aura of death. With this version of the build I would just walk through levels while everything passively died around me, but I got so complacent doing this that I died a few times to stupid shit and never quite made it as far as I did with the first version.

Basically, I think I've sort of hit the limit on where I think I can take this personally. I don't know the mechanics of the game that well. I'm sure there are interactions I'm missing, or categories that I'm taking that are probably unnecessary, so I'm putting it out there to the collective, to say hey, this is a fun build that I enjoy playing because it explodes screens worth of enemies and is kind of janky in a way that I like but it's not actually very good so are there any improvements I could make that would keep the core idea of the build but just tip it over into the realms of not being a terrible pile of trash? Thanks.

[whitelion]

There's a bit of tension between "I want to clear the whole screen in a couple casts" vs auramancer, and the latter probably scales better later into the game. Illuminate+Torture souls isn't going to clear the screen once you get into the later game, and both have long cds. Without Torture Souls, you don't really need Illuminate either. I'll focus on what I think could be useful for the auramancer build.

I'll suggest something like this as a starting point

Class categories
-Celestial/Star Fury
-Spell/Undead Drake
-Celestial/Eclipse
-Spell/Glacial Waste
-Corruption/Doom Covenant (unlock at 10)

Generic Categories
-Spell/Necrosis
-Chronomancy/Spacetime Weaving
-Celestial/Hymns

You still have 1 of your cat points from level 1 if you are Cornac, and the ones from 20, 34, and wyrm bile for all races.

Raze from Undead Drake will be a nice addition since your auramancer already focuses on darkness damage and does many instances of it. This also synergizes with Dark Reign from Doom Covenant, which triggers with 20% chance every time you deal darkness damage. DoTs and ground effects don't count, but Raze does, and you'll have no trouble getting a stack almost every turn. At the max of 4 stacks you get 28% affinity for all (or even 32% if you get Adept for the 5th stack), which is better than it sounds since affinity is calculated based on damage before resistances. This will let you tank a lot of damage so long as you don't get one-shot. Hiemal Shield synergizes well with both Necrosis and Raze, though not as well with Dark Reign, so you could also go with something else defensive instead. Ambush could be nice later especially if you plan to take Ethereal Form, which is an attractive choice given how affinity works from Dark Reign. Umbral Agility gives you lots of darkness respen and defense, while Shadow Leash shuts down many enemies for 3 turns and hits really hard.

Meanwhile, all your bolts are flying around and you have your Star Fury skills as buttons to press. You probably want another offensive spell category for stuff to do. Nightfall could work if you want more buttons to press to shoot people and Night Sphere+Errupting Shadows will work great with all the instances of darkness damage you deal. Age of Dusk could be good as well with Dire Plague and Crepuscle fitting nicely into the auramancer theme, and Undead Drake providing you with the souls you need. You could even take both of these if you want.

Spacetime Weaving is a great choice for helping you stay alive on any adventurer that isn't antimagic. Dimension Step is instant with cd 10 and allows for tactical reposition/getting out of trouble. Wormhole can be nice in a pinch too since it goes through walls, though it does take a turn to set up.

Beyond that there's still a lot you could play with. Obviously anything else that fires free attacks or damages everyone around you fits the theme and good defenses are always useful.

[visage]

Raze from Undead Drake will be a nice addition since your auramancer already focuses on darkness damage and does many instances of it. This also synergizes with Dark Reign from Doom Covenant

It also synergizes strongly with Corona, as Raze crits trigger on-spell-crit effects.

[sixteenmiles]

There's a bit of tension between "I want to clear the whole screen in a couple casts" vs auramancer, and the latter probably scales better later into the game. Illuminate+Torture souls isn't going to clear the screen once you get into the later game, and both have long cds. Without Torture Souls, you don't really need Illuminate either. I'll focus on what I think could be useful for the auramancer build.

Yeah, I felt this. Double tapping Illumination to clear screens felt real good in the T1s and T2s but later in the game it didn't matter as much, and things were dying to the death aura anyway, so I got lazy and stopped pressing the buttons.

Class categories
-Celestial/Star Fury
-Spell/Undead Drake
-Celestial/Eclipse
-Spell/Glacial Waste
-Corruption/Doom Covenant (unlock at 10)

Generic Categories
-Spell/Necrosis
-Chronomancy/Spacetime Weaving
-Celestial/Hymns

Thanks for this! I just checked and I don't have Undead Drake or Doom Covenant unlocked, so I'll have to get on those before I can test this out, but theoretically already looks more synergistic than what I was doing.

[whitelion]

Thanks for this! I just checked and I don't have Undead Drake or Doom Covenant unlocked, so I'll have to get on those before I can test this out, but theoretically already looks more synergistic than what I was doing.

If you try something like the build I suggested at some point I'd be curious to hear how it goes. It sounds good in my head, but I haven't actually tried it and there's always stuff you don't realize until you actually play a build.