First Winner! Roguelike! Wildfire Archmage!
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:13 am
http://te4.org/characters/31034/tome/3a ... 886400e3d8
So, woo, I won. First time. Roguelike. The one death was against a super powered up forgefiend with 13,000hp and fearscape. I killed him with like -99hp (ring of death) and then died to my own cleansing flame. I decided to keep the ring and used up a blood of life, which showed up at the saved merchant in lost hope for 2400gp. I saw him when I used the dragon orb in the slime tunnels early (like level 45 or so) - I didn't realize what it was until he showed up. An extra level or two and I'd have lived, but I ended up never needing to use my ring of death anyway, thanks to cauterize.
I opened up every vault, although I did wait for dreadfel until I had gotten back from the east, and I did the room of death at level 50. I've tried it at like level 35 and it just doesn't work. At 50 it was easy peasy.
Build: Fire and lightning for the abashed expanse. Then dump lightning for the light spell and manathrust.
Inscription at 10 (2nd wild), wildfire at 20, temporal at 36. Wyrm bile went to the 5th slot (2nd heal). Reflection shield helped a ton. Foolishly I got the celestial light category instead of just the healing light spell, but temporal was just so much better than Celestial Light that I had to buy it. I might take celestial/light as a cornac or something, though, since healing light can crit and an infusion cannot. Saved all the escorts for extra points.
Dispersion shield is very nice, especially since it basically replaces a manasurge rune. You can manage it from exploding by using other shields when your mana is near full. Just watch when it does explode, because if it's absorbed a lot of damage, it may still eat significant amounts of your health.
Blur Sight: I kind of got this by accident, but I will say that with it up and incidental defense gear, I had a defense of 60 and master archers in the final dungeon would miss me often enough. If I didn't take it, the points would have probably gone into inferno and arcane vortex, or maybe congeal time.
Blastwave: This power sucks at level 1 and I've seen lots of builds skip it. I don't. The area is gigantic, and knocked-back foes will usually still be in the burning wake to roast. Only downside is that its burning will overwrite the burning caused by flame which is more damage.
Overseer of Nations: while most people leave this at 1/5, I 5/5ed it, because I realized that at super long vision ranges it lets you spot monsters before they can detect you, and fireflash and inferno have super long ranges. A lot of the time I could spy a wyrm or a magehunter and blow it up from 13 tiles away. If they survive the fireflash, infero and burning wake, well, illuminate reaches 11 tiles and the beams go 10.
I got Premonition from an escort but never used it. The sustain cost of 120 is high for 1/5, and by the time I got it, I already had the burning star so I didn't want Vision. Teleport I considered raising, but late game I hardly ever had to run. It did save me once at the end dungeon when the last group of monsters in a zone dispelled my sustains. Disruption shield.. I should have used more, it's handy but temporal shield and my reflection rune were, on the whole, much better because they didn't take a turn to use.
Disperse magic is great, I had a pair of gloves with it and used it regularly to abuse enemy mages.
Gear I focused on fire penetration, spell critical, and fire damage, plus healing multiplier and vision. Tarelion's staff is the way to go for this, extra damage, mana regen, and quicker fireflashes. With everything up I could set off a fireflash a square away (even with essence of speed 5 it detonates instantly) and do 1500 damage, and between wildfire and high fire resistance my shield would eat 30 damage. Who needs spellcraft?
Prodigies: cauterize saved my butt at least twice. Unbreakable will triggered tons, since lost of monsters open with Battle Cry or confusions. It has a relatively short cooldown too, which is why I picked it over draconic body.
Thanks to essence of speed and some movement gear, I did charred scar with like 200 turns to spare.
Trouble spots: While not on this particular character, I died a bunch of times on this build in melinda's tunnels. I survived this time by levelling up to like 26 via a farportal before attempting it, then I put melinda in a spiral and took it slowly and carefully.
This build is vulnerable to zigurites and orcish magehunters. The best way to deal with them is to see them from far away and blow them up, or, failing that, shield up and set off a fireflash on your feet and hope they die before they rip down your sustains.
So, woo, I won. First time. Roguelike. The one death was against a super powered up forgefiend with 13,000hp and fearscape. I killed him with like -99hp (ring of death) and then died to my own cleansing flame. I decided to keep the ring and used up a blood of life, which showed up at the saved merchant in lost hope for 2400gp. I saw him when I used the dragon orb in the slime tunnels early (like level 45 or so) - I didn't realize what it was until he showed up. An extra level or two and I'd have lived, but I ended up never needing to use my ring of death anyway, thanks to cauterize.
I opened up every vault, although I did wait for dreadfel until I had gotten back from the east, and I did the room of death at level 50. I've tried it at like level 35 and it just doesn't work. At 50 it was easy peasy.
Build: Fire and lightning for the abashed expanse. Then dump lightning for the light spell and manathrust.
Inscription at 10 (2nd wild), wildfire at 20, temporal at 36. Wyrm bile went to the 5th slot (2nd heal). Reflection shield helped a ton. Foolishly I got the celestial light category instead of just the healing light spell, but temporal was just so much better than Celestial Light that I had to buy it. I might take celestial/light as a cornac or something, though, since healing light can crit and an infusion cannot. Saved all the escorts for extra points.
Dispersion shield is very nice, especially since it basically replaces a manasurge rune. You can manage it from exploding by using other shields when your mana is near full. Just watch when it does explode, because if it's absorbed a lot of damage, it may still eat significant amounts of your health.
Blur Sight: I kind of got this by accident, but I will say that with it up and incidental defense gear, I had a defense of 60 and master archers in the final dungeon would miss me often enough. If I didn't take it, the points would have probably gone into inferno and arcane vortex, or maybe congeal time.
Blastwave: This power sucks at level 1 and I've seen lots of builds skip it. I don't. The area is gigantic, and knocked-back foes will usually still be in the burning wake to roast. Only downside is that its burning will overwrite the burning caused by flame which is more damage.
Overseer of Nations: while most people leave this at 1/5, I 5/5ed it, because I realized that at super long vision ranges it lets you spot monsters before they can detect you, and fireflash and inferno have super long ranges. A lot of the time I could spy a wyrm or a magehunter and blow it up from 13 tiles away. If they survive the fireflash, infero and burning wake, well, illuminate reaches 11 tiles and the beams go 10.
I got Premonition from an escort but never used it. The sustain cost of 120 is high for 1/5, and by the time I got it, I already had the burning star so I didn't want Vision. Teleport I considered raising, but late game I hardly ever had to run. It did save me once at the end dungeon when the last group of monsters in a zone dispelled my sustains. Disruption shield.. I should have used more, it's handy but temporal shield and my reflection rune were, on the whole, much better because they didn't take a turn to use.
Disperse magic is great, I had a pair of gloves with it and used it regularly to abuse enemy mages.
Gear I focused on fire penetration, spell critical, and fire damage, plus healing multiplier and vision. Tarelion's staff is the way to go for this, extra damage, mana regen, and quicker fireflashes. With everything up I could set off a fireflash a square away (even with essence of speed 5 it detonates instantly) and do 1500 damage, and between wildfire and high fire resistance my shield would eat 30 damage. Who needs spellcraft?
Prodigies: cauterize saved my butt at least twice. Unbreakable will triggered tons, since lost of monsters open with Battle Cry or confusions. It has a relatively short cooldown too, which is why I picked it over draconic body.
Thanks to essence of speed and some movement gear, I did charred scar with like 200 turns to spare.
Trouble spots: While not on this particular character, I died a bunch of times on this build in melinda's tunnels. I survived this time by levelling up to like 26 via a farportal before attempting it, then I put melinda in a spiral and took it slowly and carefully.
This build is vulnerable to zigurites and orcish magehunters. The best way to deal with them is to see them from far away and blow them up, or, failing that, shield up and set off a fireflash on your feet and hope they die before they rip down your sustains.