An unusual guide to Archmage (High Thaumaturgist + Storm)

[furioussouls]

First of all

Here is my insane roguelike win https://te4.org/characters/265002/tome/ ... 07dfdf2362 . So while unusual, it's by no means weak. I think wildfire is still better though.
Secondly, i am too lazy to write a full guide so i will just give you some opinions and tips.
Lastly, i am not a veteran so this might not be the most optimal build.

2020-11-17 (2)-min.png (202.05 KiB) Viewed 18907 times

Pros:
+ Super burst. You can kill nearly anything within 3 turns (1 full combo)
+ AOE damage from afar, very effective mob cleaner
+ No melee can come close to you
+ Tanky as hell
+ Doesn't depend on powerful artifacts or escorts

Cons:
+ Lack sustainable damage, so the last bosses are a pain to kill.
+ Weak as hell early (< lv 12)
+ Can be one shotted quite easily if you run straight into a unique or boss without preparing shields
+ Super squishy when all shields are on cooldown

Race: Shalore - imo, the best race to use with archmage no matter the build. You can take drem to make the burst even scarier.

Prodigies: Arcane amplification drone + High Thaumaturgist evolution

Categories: Inscription -> Storm -> Inscription -> Meta (in order)

Inscriptions: Shatter afflictions + Manasurge + Shield + Shield + Movement. You can change these base on your preferences to stuff like Wild, Heroism etc.

Stats: Magic -> Willpower -> Cunning -> Constitution

Equipment: Spellcrit + Mana + Some detrimental effects resistance.

Early game:
- Do every t1 dungeon to get lvl 12 and have access to Disruption Shield

Mid game
- Nothing changes except for placing Arcane amplification drone before you combo

Late game
- Auto exploring is super dangerous. Put an arcane eye in corners. I still auto explored though. The chance to be one shotted is super low anyway.
- Improved combo with Orb of thaumaturgy

General playstyle
Keep your distance from everyone. If an enemy comes close walk away using infusion or teleport away with phase door.
If everything is on cooldown just bump up every shield with Aegis. Not even bosses can kill you with 8000+ damage shields on.

Once you have Arcane amplification drone, put it in front of enemies. It will act as an immortal target, impassable terrain and damage amplifier.
It's seriously good. A lot of times enemies will attack the drone wasting their talents while you kill them from afar.
In a narrow corridor enemies have no way to get close to you and every projectile is blocked.
Try to position yourself to damage both the target and the drone with every spell.

Your main spells will be lightning, chain lightning, and elemental array burst. Use shock and nova if you have nothing else to do.
A full late game combo: put the drone in front and the orb a bit far away. Use your 3 main spells. The rays come first.
The drone will be activated twice each turn, taking damage from both you and the orb.
This means your damage is basically multiplied by 4. And with 100% crit your burst is insane.

You don't have to worry about status conditions either.
You won't be hit with it with the drone, and if you do, there is always shatter afflictions, timeless and relentless pursuit.

My run
Through my whole run there were only 2 times when i was cornered and near dead. The fight against the pyromancer orc boss and the last bosses.
The rest of the run was super easy. I never even needed to use the full shield combo, the trademark of archmage.
In hindsight, i never used Time prison and Metaflow so the points in there are wasted.
Put them somewhere else like Temporal shield, Multicaster, Elemetal ray burst, Disperse magic etc.


Conclusion
Have fun! That is most important thing. Feel free to change anything you don't like.
There are a lot of ways to win after all.

[Just a dood]

cool guide, a few things to note

1. You should probably give more points to feather wind. it gives 100 pinning immunity at 5/5 and 55 stun immunity, along with a movement speed buff. even only going to 4/5 will give 92 pin immunity and 42 stun.

2. while it may be a bit out of the way, I highly recommend stone wall, as it lets you be effectively invincible for a good amount of turns and lets things cool down.

3. I would personally unlock meta as my third category and save the inscription for last, but that's just me. There is also room for an escort category if you want to forgo an inscription, as there is an excess of generic points.

[Tradewind_Rider]

Hey, hi!

Very nice build!

Some other thoughts - might be helpful to improve - :

1. max Spellcraft for the 30% spell cooldown reduction. Reduction is the better if you have more & more.
You can have easily an 50% with gear and that is really improving all your power. (offense, defense, mobility, ...)

2. 4 points in Metaflow also helpful, you can reset more spells and if you learn Stone Wall like Just a Dood wrote,
you can even reset that one for 2x duration.
You can also reset Aegis with it for another multiply for your shields ...

3. 1 point in Probability Travel, just sustain it before you use it, so treat it like an activated ability.

4. 4-5 points in Arcane Reconstruction for better healing, that can Crit.
You can also put 2 points in Arcane Shield that has an okay scaling.
You can have a way stronger shield from Arcane Reconstruction than from your
other shield talents.

[furioussouls]

cool guide, a few things to note

1. You should probably give more points to feather wind. it gives 100 pinning immunity at 5/5 and 55 stun immunity, along with a movement speed buff. even only going to 4/5 will give 92 pin immunity and 42 stun.

2. while it may be a bit out of the way, I highly recommend stone wall, as it lets you be effectively invincible for a good amount of turns and lets things cool down.

3. I would personally unlock meta as my third category and save the inscription for last, but that's just me. There is also room for an escort category if you want to forgo an inscription, as there is an excess of generic points.

1)Yeah i should probably do 1. It's just that i never got pinned, and nearly never move anyway. As i said in the guide, most enemies dies in 2-3 turns and the only ones that can pin are archers and some mages and they are squishy. Only some tanky melees can survive the burst and they can't touch you to stun anyway.

2)Never tried that. Maybe next time. Sounds useful.

3)The only useful talents in meta is spellcraft and disperse magic. Spellcraft is not needed that much since this build is based on burst, and disperse magic is for 2-3 late game bosses anyway.
This guide is for general use so i don't want to depend on luck to meet the escort i want. What escort category is actually useful anyway?

[furioussouls]

Hey, hi!

Very nice build!

Some other thoughts - might be helpful to improve - :

1. max Spellcraft for the 30% spell cooldown reduction. Reduction is the better if you have more & more.
You can have easily an 50% with gear and that is really improving all your power. (offense, defense, mobility, ...)

2. 4 points in Metaflow also helpful, you can reset more spells and if you learn Stone Wall like Just a Dood wrote,
you can even reset that one for 2x duration.
You can also reset Aegis with it for another multiply for your shields ...

3. 1 point in Probability Travel, just sustain it before you use it, so treat it like an activated ability.

4. 4-5 points in Arcane Reconstruction for better healing, that can Crit.
You can also put 2 points in Arcane Shield that has an okay scaling.
You can have a way stronger shield from Arcane Reconstruction than from your
other shield talents.

Thanks

1) I tried both 4 and 5 points already. 27% and 30% cooldown reduction are practically the same. I never found any CDR gears.

2) Tried this too. Didn't find it useful so i put the points somewhere else. The reset is too random and it takes a turn.
And like i said in the guide, most enemies dies in 2-3 turns anyway.

3) Sounds nice. Gonna take that next time.

4) Oh, never knew it could crit. It's not in the spell description. Sounds somewhat useful.
Still, the healing itself is never needed, it takes a turn to use, is affected by heal mods, cost some points and the shield is only 3 turns.
I guess using it when you don't have anything else is fine.

[Uniporpoise]

Very interesting! I just did an insane run that was fairly similar, except that I didn’t go the new prod and was a higher but I had very similar observations to yours. My main question is no armor training? NO THICKSKIN?? Absolutely insane (haha). Archmage is definitely one of the most diverse classes, even if not the most fun.

[justn6-forum]

This was my first mage character after only playing Melee's. I took this build almost verbatim up to level 50, all the way to Peak, on the first try on Adventure/Normal difficulty. Was clearing entire rooms in a single turn, really fun build. Most bosses took 2-3 turns once I got closer to 100% crit and pushed more +crit damage % instead. elemental array burst was doing over 3k per beam sometimes! I love the sound effect of that spell. Unfortunately I ended up getting careless right at the end , and lost my last life on Peak floor 3. Checkout my character:
https://te4.org/characters/232824/tome/ ... 64720de48f