1.4.3 Temporal Warden Guide: The hybrid killing machine

[San0ix]

Got it, thank you. So, Arrow Threading alone is not enough to handle Paradox control needs for non-will races?

Exactly.

[munch]

Thanks a lot for the answers.

[HammyHamster]

Nice guide, btw.

Fun fact:

It appears that the Celestial Light tree works with skeletons for healing.

I took the tree from an escort and decided to use it for barrier shield and providence and was pleasantly surprised to see healing light and bathe in light actually healing my skeleton. I had simply planned to use a fair bit of light resistance to avoid the light damage, but ...apparently that's not needed.

This makes an extremely strong addition to skeleton TWs. It means that you likely don't need stasis for timeshield (although spacetime stability is helpful). Of course, the reason I was using it was that Bathe in Light empowers any shield, including the skeleton Bone armor.

And therefore, Healing light and BiL are also good escort rewards, if the tree is not of interest.

[San0ix]

Nice guide, btw.

Fun fact:

It appears that the Celestial Light tree works with skeletons for healing.

I took the tree from an escort and decided to use it for barrier shield and providence and was pleasantly surprised to see healing light and bathe in light actually healing my skeleton. I had simply planned to use a fair bit of light resistance to avoid the light damage, but ...apparently that's not needed.

This makes an extremely strong addition to skeleton TWs. It means that you likely don't need stasis for timeshield (although spacetime stability is helpful). Of course, the reason I was using it was that Bathe in Light empowers any shield, including the skeleton Bone armor.

And therefore, Healing light and BiL are also good escort rewards, if the tree is not of interest.

I know, I took that on my TW skeleton on Insane Stasis is a better tree though because Time Shield is arguably better, you don't really have too many generics to spare as a skeleton and you NEE`D the paradox control.

[HammyHamster]

Also of note:

The only skill that scales with Spellpower and really matters is Time Shield

(Chronomancy)Precognition and See the Threads durations scale with Paradox level.

With only 36 current magic the variance is:
-precognition: at 0 it's essentially 1 turn/point and at 300 it's 2-3turns/pt.
-StT: 0/1pt is 2 turns and 300/1pt is 5 turns. This one could be fairly significant for roguelike runs.

So willpower-focused builds might also be able build around a much longer intended duration for these skills.

[bpat]

Surprised to see no mention of Flexible Combat, which is really good especially with Arcane Might. My current character (level 34 on Insane) took Arcane Might at level 30 and will probably take Flexible Combat at level 42. Arcane Might increased my damage by around 40% which is pretty great, and the physical power and magic mod help Flexible Combat's damage a ton. You should never be getting stunned or pinned anyway thanks to Movement Infusions so Temporal Form is only really good for the offense and bleed immunity, which aren't good enough to justify it over Arcane Might. Also I don't believe Draconic Will is needed thanks to Phase Door Runes and Time Shield, especially now that it doesn't work with Timeless anymore.

I also believe you are severely underrating Fate Weaving, since Webs of Fate can block 31% of all incoming damage and damage enemies instead with great uptime thanks to Timeless and Invigorate. I took it at level 10 and it's working great. Also Seal Fate gets really good later with stuff like Breach, Warp Blade, and on-hit effects like gloom since you will trigger it many times each turn.

[San0ix]

Arcane Might increased my damage by around 40%

I feel like you misunderstand the damage calculation, because there's no way that's true if you look at the damage calculations I already did.

You should never be getting stunned or pinned anyway thanks to Movement Infusions so Temporal Form is only really good for the offense and bleed immunity

Movement Infusions are vastly worse than teleport infusions because out-of-phase and detrimental effect removal.

Also I don't believe Draconic Will is needed thanks to Phase Door Runes and Time Shield, especially now that it doesn't work with Timeless anymore.

It is in the late game to protect you from the two sorcerers and nasty uniques.

I also believe you are severely underrating Fate Weaving, since Webs of Fate can block 31% of all incoming damage and damage enemies instead with great uptime thanks to Timeless and Invigorate. I took it at level 10 and it's working great. Also Seal Fate gets really good later with stuff like Breach, Warp Blade, and on-hit effects like gloom since you will trigger it many times each turn.

You already get a lot of all res from out-of-phase and you sacrifice paradox control, which is pretty much necessary unless you are going for max Wil, and then you'd sacrifice hounds, which is also survivability (ad probably more than 30% dmg. reduction).


I feel like I already touched on everything you mentioned, so maybe read the other comments first

[bpat]

Your calculations for Temporal Form seem a little off to me. It's not a 15% all damage boost because if you have +100% physical damage, you will have 230% temporal damage which gives an increase of 7.5%. 100% physical damage may not be realistic but 50% or higher is easy to hit. Anecdotally my mainhand weapon damage went from about 110 to 155 when I got Arcane Might, which is pretty great imo. I'm not a fan of Temporal Form because of the low uptime, though Timeless does help with this I still think I would prefer a passive. Also the Flexible Combat synergy is huge and I like to take Flexible Combat on all my melee characters because it is such a great damage boost. If I could get a third prodigy I'd probably take Temporal Form or Vital Shot, but sadly I only get two.

I don't see any reason to not have at least one Movement Infusion if I end up using 5 Inscriptions. I will probably aim for Regeneration, Movement, Phase Door, Shielding, and Heroism by the endgame. I'm not a fan of my mobility taking a full turn which is why I favor Movement Infusions, and I should be able to permanently have an out of phase buff anyway.

Webs of Fate has negligible impact on Paradox, if it's somehow an issue then you can just tune your paradox to 24 less than usual because it's instant. I really doubt Time Shield will outperform Webs and class points are more valuable than generics on this class. Maybe I will have to skip an Inscription to get a third category now, but I think Webs is worth an Inscription slot (31% damage displace and ignores res pen).

[San0ix]

I'm not a fan of Temporal Form because of the low uptime, though Timeless does help with this I still think I would prefer a passive.

Fights almost never drag out more than 10 turns as a TW though.

Also the Flexible Combat synergy is huge and I like to take Flexible Combat on all my melee characters because it is such a great damage boost..

TW deals WAY more damage with it's bow after Daikara, you only go into melee combat for melee skills/teleports and bow skill refreshes most of the time.

I don't see any reason to not have at least one Movement Infusion if I end up using 5 Inscriptions. I will probably aim for Regeneration, Movement, Phase Door, Shielding, and Heroism by the endgame. I'm not a fan of my mobility taking a full turn which is why I favor Movement Infusions, and I should be able to permanently have an out of phase buff anyway.

Phase door runes also improve you out-of-phase effect (globally), teleport runes are huge for the two sorcerers fight to quickly get rid of some debuffs.

Webs of Fate has negligible impact on Paradox, if it's somehow an issue then you can just tune your paradox to 24 less than usual because it's instant. I really doubt Time Shield will outperform Webs and class points are more valuable than generics on this class. Maybe I will have to skip an Inscription to get a third category now, but I think Webs is worth an Inscription slot (31% damage displace and ignores res pen).

Even if you set your paradox to 0 you won't have a high enough pool for the two sorcerers most likely.


And once again, I already touched on a few of these points >.<

[HammyHamster]

First I want to say that San0ix's guide here is an awesome general guide and very informative. Certainly the best place to learn. It helped me understand the TW.

I found the TW to be both fun, fast and very forgiving.

TW is very open to many variations, and it can be tweaked to your style. I'd thought I'd share a slightly different playstyle, adapted from playing a lot of shadowblade builds and learning some of the finesse from them. Not better, just different, to show how flexible TW builds can be. And some of San0ix's talents descriptions might have been tweaked in recent patches.

I finished a Roguelike Normal run at a very brisk pace and a slightly different build. That included running a number of farportals, the crypt, and Atamathon without too much trouble.
The build: Skeleton TW And while it was only normal, I was always thinking to myself "would this be effective in Insane?". I'm pretty sure it would work really well.

This was my level 49 ~ point allocations (level 49 is the best indicator of build evolution and playstyle imho, before you get all those freebie points at 50):
Class:
Blade Threading 1/3/3/2
Bow Threading 1/3/2/3
Temporal Combat 3/1/4/5
Temporal Guardian 2/1/2/5
Threaded Combat 2/5/5/2
Generic:
Combat training 5/1/1/0/0
Celest/Light 1/5/1/5
Skelton 1/5/1/5
Chronomancy 3/1/2/2
Fate Weaving 1/2/2/3
Spacetime Weav 1/1/0/0

4 Runes: shield, controlled phase, controlled phase, teleport. (I used the teleport only once - in the battle with Atamathon...so ymmv)
(If not a skeleton I would have used: shield, controlled phase, movement infusion, a regen or heal infusion, and maybe a second shield or heroism. I rarely used the 2nd controlled phase)

Prodigies: Arcane Might and Spine of the World.
I focused on penetration with items, so I didn't need Temporal Form for that - so keep that in mind. If you can't find 30%-50% dmg penetration for one of your stronger elements, you'll need TF for that (in Insane)
-The phys power boost from Arcane Magic for a high magic combat build is very significant. When I took it as the first prodigy, it almost doubled my damage for the mid-game. And it does tier correctly now, but even so, it's very much worth considering - even if in the end-game it is less significant. Note that this means for a TW, it impacts your clone-effect damage too (arrow stitching, wardens call, etc). My end-game geared phys power was ~99 with just a few points invested in strength. Spins add a tiny bit on top of that.
-Spine of the world is really good. TF only covers pin, bleed, blindness, stun. SoTW covers 90% of the game's bad effects. Every 5 turns-you simply need to get rid of the one effect that intiates SofW.

I was kind of feeling out the class as I went. I got an Anthoril escort early and was thinking to go with the standard suggested prodigies, so that is why I had unlocked and put 1/5/1/5 in Celestial light. In restrospect I could have had the exact same play with 1/3/1/2 and spine of the world. And with skeleton and no light tree, I could have probably used a heat rune to remove the phys effect that procs SotW. With a non-undead, who can use infusions, this is not usually an issue. The light tree is just a nice-to-have, not mandatory.
-But do note that Bathe in Light can grow and extend any shield. And Barrier can crit for twice the strength.

With the increased damage from Arcane might or gear and lots of proc effects on weapons and gear, you can control the battle field. Orc pride fights were over in 4-5 steps. (On insane the time might be doubled... but in insane you find good gear much before you do in Normal...so it depends). Items that add crit% and crit multiplier then significantly impact the battle. Over 1000 per hit is not uncommon near the end. Even in Farportal and High Peak, most standard enemies in normal were one-shots.

Speaking of procs, Breach (Temporal Combat) with Seal Fate (Fate Weaving) is impressive. You can stack effects for ages on bosses. Not needed in normal, ofc because you kill so fast, but this would be amazing in Insane. I tested on the end-bosses and I was able to Stack: Fold fate, Spell shocked, Illness, Corrosion, and Confusion on Argonial (who has Spine of the World) until I decided to kill her..8 turns plus. Talk about battlefield control! Elandar, who does not have SotW had many more physical effects in addition (slow, stun, cripple, bleed).

Other notes:
-The Paradox sweet spot seems to be 300. You get your best durations for your investment here. (Precognition, See the Threads, Invigorate, Breach, Wardens focus, Time stop, etc)
-You can get by with Paradox control only via Arrow Threading and some willpower investment. Initially you'll have to rest a lot to keep Paradox in control via Spacetime Tuning, until you get Arrow threading going. And then remember to shoot a lot of arrows, which is not hard, since that's your most dominant weapon. But that's only important if you don't want the Stasis tree.
-Fate weaving is a great tree and can also add a little bit of damage mitigation and combat boost via Fateweaver. It's not uncommon to have 3 spins going. I really liked the tree, in general.
-I found the SpacetimeWeaving tree not worth a lot of investment. Dimensional shift is good as long as you can teleport for the removal and it only shortens one effect. Temporal Guardian/Vigilance is % to remove the effect every turn.
I used my phasing for battlefield control and attack position. And in some weird spots (some doorways in prides and high peak) and under some spells effects you can't teleport. And that's why I had 2 points in Chronomancy/Celerity for my skeleton (as a movespeed closer in those situations, while using Stop) - I would rather have had a move infusion.
-Range 5 SpacetimeWeaving/DimensionalStep is perfect for all the orc pride distances until the final fight. If you need further maneuver distance, you can use a Controlled Phase Rune, which will get you close enough, after which you can use the instantaneous Dimensional Step for accuracy, if the Rune missed. Until you get a controlled rune, you could float more points in Step if you like. BlinkBlade(2/5-3/5) will eventually fill the distance gap for strikes.
-See the Threads is not really critical. I used it as my Contingency (who doesn't like 3 chances to escape?) and sometimes to play around with bosses. It does have a bug, though: if you complete an achievement while in a thread, the game won't save. My contingency only ever activated with Atamathon, though. So ymmv with this. I didn't even use contingency until the last half of the game in order to help manage Paradox numbers.
-Invigorate will double cooldown speed of Runes, race talents, and some item talents (evasion on boots), as well as all your abilities. It's great. So it effectively can mean twice-as-fast rune shielding available, for example. And likely Prodigies too...although I couldn't test as my prodigies had no cooldown.
-Blade Threading/Blade Shear can be very effective, when positioned around many adjacent enemies. Especially if you have many procs. For example, if you can get next to the Orc Pride bosses (usually they are lined up together at the start), you can proc them all the first turn and they are rendered much less dangerous for a number of turns.
-1/5 seemed to be enough in Treaded Combat/Blended threads to keep a nice cycling of cooldowns for my playstyle. ~50/50 melee/bow in harder battles. With the occasional activation of Invigorate, as well. Invigorate was at 1/5 for most of the game.
-Combat training/Combat accuracy. Because you are going full-on dex this can stay at 1/5 most of the game. Usually you find a few items with accuracy boosts. Note that end-game 2/5 only gives maybe a boost of 5 with gear and that number diminishes with more points. Depends if you need that 5-10. You could float the points or Spins( Fate Weaving/Fate Weaver) can also add a little accuracy.
-Offhand weapon is a very good candidate for procs, since it does less damage. Look for weapons that have on-hit procs. Early on, your crit% will be too low to bother with any on-crit proc. Blind, slow, and daze are very effective mid-game. Most early procs will be melee-only, and you'll need to be up close to use them. Temporal Combat/Weapon Manifold is also really good at 4/5 and works on ranged and melee. It also adds on top of weapon procs.
-It's possible to constantly run a battle at ~150% attack/spell speed and top it up to almost 200% attack speed (with Speed control/Haste) for 5 turns. That's not including items. The bow you can get at Dakaira can add +25% more speed to that for ~220%.
-I preferred +% phys crit gear and effect procs, and some defensive gear. I didn't find a lot of teleport gear, though.

Some other Prodigies:
-Windblade: As San0ix mentioned, it has potential. Synergizes well with Blended Threads and Warden's Call.
-Temporal Form: damage penetration and some immunities
-Cauterize if you are really scared of dying...however, it may never get used. That's not as much fun as something in constant use, but it's safe if you like that style.
-Draconic Will....honestly, Spine of the World with a few helper items is so much better; it's much less micro-management.
-Flexible combat: I think this is only melee...so keep that in mind if you like to use the bow a lot.
-Swift hands: This cheesy prodigy is not about switching weapons, it's about switching to items that will have no initial cooldown upon switching. Once per turn for free. If you love to stockpile items with cooldown abilities, then this may be for you. Not my style.


Races. I think Halfling would also work well as a TW. Militant Mind is undervalued. It can boost phys power quite a bit.

[HammyHamster]

Does "%reduction-in-effects duration" include good effects or is it only detrimental effects?

*It seems to be only the detrimental effects, now that I decided to specifically test it (Time Shield @ 50% reduction). Is this correct?




(If so, then bigger % is better. I have been seeing this the wrong way...).

[bpat]

Just won Insane with a completely different build. Here's a link to my character. My talent points are shown below. A lot of points are unspent because I didn't find anything else necessary. In retrospect Vigilance should have been at least 3/5 but I made do without.

1/3/1/2 Blade Threading
1/1/1/2 Bow Threading
1/2/1/1 Temporal Combat
5/3/1/1 Temporal Guardian
1/1/1/3 Threaded Combat
0/0/0/0 Spacetime Folding
0/0/0/0 Speed Control
1/5/0/0 Stasis

1/5/1/5 Shalore
5/3/3/0/0 Combat Training
1/1/1/0 Chronomancy
1/1/1/5 Fate Weaving
3/1/0/0 Spacetime Weaving

My category point order was Fate Weaving -> Threaded Combat -> Stasis -> Inscription slot. Webs of Fate is amazing and it alone is worth the category point. It has crazy uptime with Timeless and Invigorate and it's instant. My Inscriptions were Movement, Regeneration, Reflection, and Heroism. My prodigies were Arcane Might and Pain Enhancement System which work amazingly well with each other, with Heroism I was passing 160 Magic.

Melee set used Spelldrinker which is the best offhand for this class in my opinion because no matter what you use, it's not going to do good damage. An amnesia/gloom randart dagger could also be good when you don't need Disperse Magic. Ranged set used the best on-hit effects I could find (gloom and amnesia).

I'll do a more in-depth writeup later but I believe this build's shell to be close to optimal for difficulties below Madness, with spare points leftover to fill in stuff like Vigilance and Seal Fate.

[jenx]

Just won Insane with a completely different build. Here's a link to my character. My talent points are shown below. A lot of points are unspent because I didn't find anything else necessary. In retrospect Vigilance should have been at least 3/5 but I made do without.

1/3/1/2 Blade Threading
1/1/1/2 Bow Threading
1/2/1/1 Temporal Combat
5/3/1/1 Temporal Guardian
1/1/1/3 Threaded Combat
0/0/0/0 Spacetime Folding
0/0/0/0 Speed Control
1/5/0/0 Stasis

1/5/1/5 Shalore
5/3/3/0/0 Combat Training
1/1/1/0 Chronomancy
1/1/1/5 Fate Weaving
3/1/0/0 Spacetime Weaving

My category point order was Fate Weaving -> Threaded Combat -> Stasis -> Inscription slot. Webs of Fate is amazing and it alone is worth the category point. It has crazy uptime with Timeless and Invigorate and it's instant. My Inscriptions were Movement, Regeneration, Reflection, and Heroism. My prodigies were Arcane Might and Pain Enhancement System which work amazingly well with each other, with Heroism I was passing 160 Magic.

Melee set used Spelldrinker which is the best offhand for this class in my opinion because no matter what you use, it's not going to do good damage. An amnesia/gloom randart dagger could also be good when you don't need Disperse Magic. Ranged set used the best on-hit effects I could find (gloom and amnesia).

I'll do a more in-depth writeup later but I believe this build's shell to be close to optimal for difficulties below Madness, with spare points leftover to fill in stuff like Vigilance and Seal Fate.

So, which is more powerful, temporal warden or paradox mage?

[HammyHamster]

Good to see even more build variety, bpat, and nice win!

(Shalore power )

Note the Prodigy Pain Enhancement System is an Embers addition and some may not have it. (I don't). It looks like quite a nice boost, though.

Melee set used Spelldrinker which is the best offhand

If it drops, it is definitely good on some bosses - over time the 15% eventually removes some sustains (~ 1 every 7 hits). My generally preferred offhand is a cripple on-crit dagger; I tend to aim for pretty high phys crit which works out to near 100% on melee. And not many mobs have Spine of the World.

Early to mid game, I liked the Unerring Scalpel in the offhand for killing invisible enemies like shalore mages, cultists, guards and rogues(maze, tunnels). It's good on some High Peak invisible bosses too. Unerring drops fairly often.


>Now that I think of it and I never checked - does the warden/clone use your proc effects or just your damage for attacks? That may make Warden's call even more potent.


Also, Did you carry on and test it out with Atamathon? (he's crit immune and Spelldrinker might work quite well on him). Obviously he's not important, but could be a nice how-to addition for strategy guides.


P.S. And bpat, link your Insane final fight video to this guide - it's very applicable for a guide.

[bpat]

Link to my final battle recording. I'm not sure if Flexible Combat procs with Warden's Call but if it does that would be the next best offense choice if you don't have EoR. Vital Shot or Windblade could be alright, or a defensive prodigy. If Spelldrinker doesn't drop, then the next best would probably be Shantiz, then a good on-hit effect (gloom, amnesia, or cripple), then a good defensive one. Unerring Scalpel is good early but late you will probably want a Perfect Strike pick. I didn't do anything after the final bosses so I haven't tested Atamathon.