1.5.10 Madness Paradox Mage guide
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2019 3:38 am
This guide will explain how to play a Hidden Ressources Cornac Paradox Mage. I played this character on madness difficulty up to level 50: https://te4.org/characters/224640/tome/ ... 38e264252e I got until the final boss and couldn't kill them sadly 
I'll begin with my thoughts on the skills which I think will help explain the strategy. I'll add the build order I used and also my recommended zone order for madness. You will kill enemies almost only with Attenuate, with seal fate and low damage spells making it last forever. With echoes speeding things up a bit.
Flux: Unlock this at game start with cornac.
Induce Anomaly: Keep at 1. A fine skill once you have twist fate but be careful when you cast it, stuff like rearrange or clone can be troublesome sometimes.
Reality Smearing: Always keep this activated. Fine to keep at 1 early on but I like it at 3. Extra points are not worth it for a hidden ressources build
Attenuate: Max it asap. This skill needs to be nerf. It stacks and with seal fate it is just ridiculous. Your main source of damage and also your heal and your way to kill ennemies who just don't die at 0 life.
Twist Fate: Put on autocast. Awesome at one point, but the second point is good to get at some point for 9 cd instead of 13.
Gravity: Very underrated tree
Repulsion Blast: One point wonder, sends melee away.
Gravity Spike: One point wonder, sends melee away.
Gravity Locus: Activate only when you have hidden ressources. Makes seal fate proc twice everytime you deal damage so quite good but gives too much paradox for the early game.
Gravity Well: Slows for 33% at level 5. A late game skill.
Matter:
Dust to Dust: One point only as you don't care about damage, use to trigger seal fate and to dig corridors
Matter Weaving: A pretty good skill helping you 100% stun resist. Always keep this activated. Put 3-4 points in there eventually.
Materialize Barrier: One point and awesome. Dig a corridor and use it to wall yourself and have your paradox and skills cd go down. Always put your self in a position to wall yourself when possible.
Disintegration: Activate all the time once you have hidden ressources and on need before that. Two points to dig faster.
Spacetime Folding: Pass
Speed Control:
Celerity: I like to put a second point to race the patrols in the east but probably not necessary.
Time Dilation: Late game skill, 3 to 5 points late when you have enough skills so that your speed just don't let you having no skills left to cast.
Haste: Pretty crappy early on, nice when hidden ressources makes it a free spell. Three points to litterally have a free spell.
Time Stop: I don't like this skill but I understand why some people do. Unnecessary imo because of temporal reprieve which is just way better.
Stasis: Unlock at level 10
Spacetime Stability: One point because you have to.
Time Shield: I do not understand why some people don't like this skill. It is absolutely awesome and lategame gives you a shield which is almost as big as your actual life with crits. Four points for 8 turns.
Stop: Stun is an awesome effect which will make any non-resistant boss a walk in the park. One point is enough early game, max eventually for the max radius.
Static History: Useless with hidden ressources
Timeline Threading: Unlock with wyrm bile
Rethread: Good skill, one point as you don't care about damage.
Temporal Fugue: A lot of people love this spell and it is a combo with bathe in light for the light build. Unnecessary for this build, put one point and forget you have this skill.
Braid Lifelines: Helps damage, three points to get a 4 turn effect
Cease to Exist: Mostly good for the lowering resist effect. Atleast 3 points in this.
Timetravel:
Temporal Bolt: Good skill which trigger seal fate, one point as you don't care about damage.
Time Skip: I used to overrate this spell a lot. Good skill early game but gets not so good in the late game when you don't have 1 vs 1 very often. You can add points late game if you want.
Temporal Reprive: This skill is awesome, max this mid game. Lets all your skills reset and will make your paradox go down way more then it's cost if the length is long enough. Absolutely ridiculous once you have hidden ressources.
Echoes from the Past: Decent finisher early game and well worth to put 3 points asap. Max at some point.
Spellbinding: Unlock at level 36
Empower: For attenuate, you'll never have problem landing it ever again. Max as soon as unlocked.
Extension: For Temporal reprieve. Put 3 points. Would also be good on seal fate but better on temporal reprieve.
Matrix: No.
Quicken: Seriously, no.
Combat Training:
Thick Skin: Keep those +Con items so that you can eventually max this.
Heavy Armour Training: Keep those +Str so that you can eventually max this... and wear massive armors.
Rest: No
Chronomancy:
Precognition: Good if you don't have Track from an escort or an item. But track is way better and I highly recommand equipping an item with that skill if you find one. Finds trap though so remember to use it for those trap heavy dungeons.
Foresight: Just put one point and forget this.
Contingency: Way too expensive for the early game but good once you have hidden ressources. Put time shield on contingency at that point and eventually max contingency.
See the Thread: No
Energy: Unlock at level 20
Energy Decomposition: Always keep activate, good even at 1 point as it helps a lot against those burning, poison type of effects. Max late game.
Energy Absorption: Useless, one to unlock Entropy.
Redux: Useless, one to unlock Entropy.
Entropy: The reason you unlock energy, this skill is awesome, cast it to remove shadows, shields, hounds and soooo many other stuff. then laugh with seal fate when you see Entropy (16) on your enemy.
Fate Weaving:
Spin Fate: Leave at one and put some extra points late game.
Seal Fate: Awesome skill. Your opponents will be attenuated, stunned, entropy, slowed forever. Four points is enough early. Max eventually.
Fateweaver: You need to put points in this to help landing attenuate against high spell save ennemies before it is empowered.
Webs of Fate: Of course, you'll also max this.
Spacetime Weaving:
Dimensional Step: I like 3 points asap for range, max eventually.
Dimensional Shift: Not that great but worth maxing at some point.
Wormhole: Too slow. Don't.
Phase Pulse. Lol. No.
As for stats, it's pretty simple. Max magic, willpower, cunning in that order and put the rest in constitution.
For inscriptions, you want a wild physical/mental if you have one, physicial if you don't. And movement. For the last one, take a shield early game and heroism late game when you have hidden ressources and 10 turn temporal reprieve.
For equipment: you want -10% spell cd stuff and 100% stun resist in priority. Then you need decent spellpower to land attenuate atleast until you have empower. Criticals becomes relevant mostly endgame imo and you shouldn't care to much about it early on. Try to keep decent amount of resists too.
For prodigies, of course hidden ressources on level 30 as the whole build goes around it. Then I like cauterize on level 42.
Dig corridors: Seriously. Dig them using dust to dust / disintegration. Go at the end of it. Let a bad enemy close to you if needed, and kill bosses and uniques while they just can't reach you. It's cheesy but you'll need it on madness.
Strategy levels 1 to 29: Paradox management is key so that you don't die. If your paradox goes wild, you will die. The only sustains you should have on all the time are Reality Smearing, Matter Weaving and Energy Decomposition when unlocked. Set your paradox so that you can start your combats with Time Shield - Webs of Fate - Seal Fate and that seal fate lasts exactly 5 turns. Cast induce anomaly as often as you can and use barriers often to let your paradox go down. Try to dig a corridor when there are lots of ennemies so that barrier becomes a small temporal reprieve. Equip a torque of psychoportation to teleport away if you get in trouble. Tier 2s are very tough on madness, don't hesitate to pass on a dungeon if you see a high spell save boss and come back when you hit level 30.
Strategy levels 30+: Enjoy just never ever running out. Start your fight with Time Shield - Haste - Webs of Fate - Seal Fate, then get attenuate-stop-entropy going to crazy numbers casting random low damage skills until twist fate triggers. Then cast hidden ressources and continue casting stuff and use temporal reprieve for a sick number of turns. Come back and hidden ressources is available again !!! Just keep casting stuff using induce anomaly and barrier as needed but soon enough you'll be able to cast temporal reprieve again. At this point, fights are veeeeeery loooooong. You just need not to die, ennemies will at some point.
And now the build order I used (Drownings got me to level 7):
L7 class: Induce Anomaly, Reality Smearing, Repulsion Blast, Dust to Dust, Matter Weaving, Temporal Bolt, Time Skip
L7 generic: Precognition, Spin Fate, Seal Fate (1-2-3-4), Dimensional Step (1-2-3)
L8: Attenuate, Materialize Barrier, Temporal Reprieve, Fateweaver
L9: Attenuate (2), Heavy Armour Training
L10: Attenuate (3), Spacetime Stability, Time Shield, Stop, Heavy Armour Training (2)
Arena: Fateweaver (2), Fateweaver (3)
L11: Attenuate (4), Heavy Armour Training (3)
L12: Attenuate (5), Twist Fate, Echoes from the Past, Webs of Fate
L13: Echoes from the Past (2), Webs of Fate (2)
L14: Echoes from the Past (3), Webs of Fate (3)
L15: Time Shield (2-3)
L16: Time Shield (4)
L17: Matter Weaving (2)
L18: Matter Weaving (3)
L19: Stop (2)
L20: Gravity Spike, Gravity Locus, Gravity Well, Energy Decomposition, Energy Absorption, Redux, Entropy (1-2)
L21: Echoes from the Past (4), Fateweaver (4)
L22: Echoes from the Past (5), Thick Skin
L23: Celerity, Webs of Fate (4)
L24: Time Dilation, Thick Skin (2)
L25: Haste, Temporal Reprieve (2)
Heart: Temporal Reprieve (3), Webs of Fate (5)
L26: Temporal Reprieve (4), Foresight
L27: Temporal Reprieve (5), Dimensional Shift
L28: Disintegration, Heavy Armour Training (4)
L29: Reality Smearing (2), Contingency
L30: Hidden Ressources, Reality Smearing (3), Disintegration (2), Contingency (2)
L31: Contingency (3)
L32: Thick Skin (3)
L33: Heavy Armour Training (5)
L34: Thick Skin (4)
L35: hold
L36: Empower (1-2-3-4-5), Extension (1-2-3), Thick Skin (5)
L37: Stop (3), Seal Fate (5)
L38: Stop (4), Dimensional Shift (2)
L39: Stop (5), Dimensional Shift (3)
Elixir of Foundations: Dimensional Step (4), Dimensional Shift (4)
L40: Gravity Well (2-3), Celerity (2), Dimensional Shift (5)
L41: Gravity Well (4), Fateweaver (5)
L42: Cauterize, Gravity Well (5), Dimensional Step (5)
L43: Matter Weaving (4), Spin Fate (2)
L44: Haste (2), Entropy (3)
L45: Time Dilation (2), Haste (3)
L46: Time Dilation (3), Contingency (4)
L47: Time Dilation (4), Contingency (5)
L48: Twist Fate (2), Spin Fate (3)
L49: Time Skip (2), Spin Fate (4)
L50: Rethread, Temporal Fugue, Braid Lifelines, Cease to Exist (1-2-3), Energy Decomposition (2-3-4-5)
Elixir of Focus: Braid Lifelines (2-3)
And my zone order for madness:
Town Drownings
Trollmire
Arena
Small Lumberjack Village
Ruins of Kor'Pul
Scintillating Caves
Derth
Rhaloren Camp
Norgos Lair
Heart of the Gloom
Unknown Tunnels
Old Forest
Slavers Compound
Sandworm Lair
The Maze
Daikara
Ruined Dungeon
Ruined Halfling Complex
Dreadfell
Lake of Nur
Tempest Peak
Last Hope Greaveyard
Mark of the Spellblaze
Reknor
Unremarkable Cave
Vor Armoury
Briagh's Lair
Backup Guardians
and then hopefully just finishing the mandatory dungeons !
I'll begin with my thoughts on the skills which I think will help explain the strategy. I'll add the build order I used and also my recommended zone order for madness. You will kill enemies almost only with Attenuate, with seal fate and low damage spells making it last forever. With echoes speeding things up a bit.
Flux: Unlock this at game start with cornac.
Induce Anomaly: Keep at 1. A fine skill once you have twist fate but be careful when you cast it, stuff like rearrange or clone can be troublesome sometimes.
Reality Smearing: Always keep this activated. Fine to keep at 1 early on but I like it at 3. Extra points are not worth it for a hidden ressources build
Attenuate: Max it asap. This skill needs to be nerf. It stacks and with seal fate it is just ridiculous. Your main source of damage and also your heal and your way to kill ennemies who just don't die at 0 life.
Twist Fate: Put on autocast. Awesome at one point, but the second point is good to get at some point for 9 cd instead of 13.
Gravity: Very underrated tree
Repulsion Blast: One point wonder, sends melee away.
Gravity Spike: One point wonder, sends melee away.
Gravity Locus: Activate only when you have hidden ressources. Makes seal fate proc twice everytime you deal damage so quite good but gives too much paradox for the early game.
Gravity Well: Slows for 33% at level 5. A late game skill.
Matter:
Dust to Dust: One point only as you don't care about damage, use to trigger seal fate and to dig corridors
Matter Weaving: A pretty good skill helping you 100% stun resist. Always keep this activated. Put 3-4 points in there eventually.
Materialize Barrier: One point and awesome. Dig a corridor and use it to wall yourself and have your paradox and skills cd go down. Always put your self in a position to wall yourself when possible.
Disintegration: Activate all the time once you have hidden ressources and on need before that. Two points to dig faster.
Spacetime Folding: Pass
Speed Control:
Celerity: I like to put a second point to race the patrols in the east but probably not necessary.
Time Dilation: Late game skill, 3 to 5 points late when you have enough skills so that your speed just don't let you having no skills left to cast.
Haste: Pretty crappy early on, nice when hidden ressources makes it a free spell. Three points to litterally have a free spell.
Time Stop: I don't like this skill but I understand why some people do. Unnecessary imo because of temporal reprieve which is just way better.
Stasis: Unlock at level 10
Spacetime Stability: One point because you have to.
Time Shield: I do not understand why some people don't like this skill. It is absolutely awesome and lategame gives you a shield which is almost as big as your actual life with crits. Four points for 8 turns.
Stop: Stun is an awesome effect which will make any non-resistant boss a walk in the park. One point is enough early game, max eventually for the max radius.
Static History: Useless with hidden ressources
Timeline Threading: Unlock with wyrm bile
Rethread: Good skill, one point as you don't care about damage.
Temporal Fugue: A lot of people love this spell and it is a combo with bathe in light for the light build. Unnecessary for this build, put one point and forget you have this skill.
Braid Lifelines: Helps damage, three points to get a 4 turn effect
Cease to Exist: Mostly good for the lowering resist effect. Atleast 3 points in this.
Timetravel:
Temporal Bolt: Good skill which trigger seal fate, one point as you don't care about damage.
Time Skip: I used to overrate this spell a lot. Good skill early game but gets not so good in the late game when you don't have 1 vs 1 very often. You can add points late game if you want.
Temporal Reprive: This skill is awesome, max this mid game. Lets all your skills reset and will make your paradox go down way more then it's cost if the length is long enough. Absolutely ridiculous once you have hidden ressources.
Echoes from the Past: Decent finisher early game and well worth to put 3 points asap. Max at some point.
Spellbinding: Unlock at level 36
Empower: For attenuate, you'll never have problem landing it ever again. Max as soon as unlocked.
Extension: For Temporal reprieve. Put 3 points. Would also be good on seal fate but better on temporal reprieve.
Matrix: No.
Quicken: Seriously, no.
Combat Training:
Thick Skin: Keep those +Con items so that you can eventually max this.
Heavy Armour Training: Keep those +Str so that you can eventually max this... and wear massive armors.
Rest: No
Chronomancy:
Precognition: Good if you don't have Track from an escort or an item. But track is way better and I highly recommand equipping an item with that skill if you find one. Finds trap though so remember to use it for those trap heavy dungeons.
Foresight: Just put one point and forget this.
Contingency: Way too expensive for the early game but good once you have hidden ressources. Put time shield on contingency at that point and eventually max contingency.
See the Thread: No
Energy: Unlock at level 20
Energy Decomposition: Always keep activate, good even at 1 point as it helps a lot against those burning, poison type of effects. Max late game.
Energy Absorption: Useless, one to unlock Entropy.
Redux: Useless, one to unlock Entropy.
Entropy: The reason you unlock energy, this skill is awesome, cast it to remove shadows, shields, hounds and soooo many other stuff. then laugh with seal fate when you see Entropy (16) on your enemy.
Fate Weaving:
Spin Fate: Leave at one and put some extra points late game.
Seal Fate: Awesome skill. Your opponents will be attenuated, stunned, entropy, slowed forever. Four points is enough early. Max eventually.
Fateweaver: You need to put points in this to help landing attenuate against high spell save ennemies before it is empowered.
Webs of Fate: Of course, you'll also max this.
Spacetime Weaving:
Dimensional Step: I like 3 points asap for range, max eventually.
Dimensional Shift: Not that great but worth maxing at some point.
Wormhole: Too slow. Don't.
Phase Pulse. Lol. No.
As for stats, it's pretty simple. Max magic, willpower, cunning in that order and put the rest in constitution.
For inscriptions, you want a wild physical/mental if you have one, physicial if you don't. And movement. For the last one, take a shield early game and heroism late game when you have hidden ressources and 10 turn temporal reprieve.
For equipment: you want -10% spell cd stuff and 100% stun resist in priority. Then you need decent spellpower to land attenuate atleast until you have empower. Criticals becomes relevant mostly endgame imo and you shouldn't care to much about it early on. Try to keep decent amount of resists too.
For prodigies, of course hidden ressources on level 30 as the whole build goes around it. Then I like cauterize on level 42.
Dig corridors: Seriously. Dig them using dust to dust / disintegration. Go at the end of it. Let a bad enemy close to you if needed, and kill bosses and uniques while they just can't reach you. It's cheesy but you'll need it on madness.
Strategy levels 1 to 29: Paradox management is key so that you don't die. If your paradox goes wild, you will die. The only sustains you should have on all the time are Reality Smearing, Matter Weaving and Energy Decomposition when unlocked. Set your paradox so that you can start your combats with Time Shield - Webs of Fate - Seal Fate and that seal fate lasts exactly 5 turns. Cast induce anomaly as often as you can and use barriers often to let your paradox go down. Try to dig a corridor when there are lots of ennemies so that barrier becomes a small temporal reprieve. Equip a torque of psychoportation to teleport away if you get in trouble. Tier 2s are very tough on madness, don't hesitate to pass on a dungeon if you see a high spell save boss and come back when you hit level 30.
Strategy levels 30+: Enjoy just never ever running out. Start your fight with Time Shield - Haste - Webs of Fate - Seal Fate, then get attenuate-stop-entropy going to crazy numbers casting random low damage skills until twist fate triggers. Then cast hidden ressources and continue casting stuff and use temporal reprieve for a sick number of turns. Come back and hidden ressources is available again !!! Just keep casting stuff using induce anomaly and barrier as needed but soon enough you'll be able to cast temporal reprieve again. At this point, fights are veeeeeery loooooong. You just need not to die, ennemies will at some point.
And now the build order I used (Drownings got me to level 7):
L7 class: Induce Anomaly, Reality Smearing, Repulsion Blast, Dust to Dust, Matter Weaving, Temporal Bolt, Time Skip
L7 generic: Precognition, Spin Fate, Seal Fate (1-2-3-4), Dimensional Step (1-2-3)
L8: Attenuate, Materialize Barrier, Temporal Reprieve, Fateweaver
L9: Attenuate (2), Heavy Armour Training
L10: Attenuate (3), Spacetime Stability, Time Shield, Stop, Heavy Armour Training (2)
Arena: Fateweaver (2), Fateweaver (3)
L11: Attenuate (4), Heavy Armour Training (3)
L12: Attenuate (5), Twist Fate, Echoes from the Past, Webs of Fate
L13: Echoes from the Past (2), Webs of Fate (2)
L14: Echoes from the Past (3), Webs of Fate (3)
L15: Time Shield (2-3)
L16: Time Shield (4)
L17: Matter Weaving (2)
L18: Matter Weaving (3)
L19: Stop (2)
L20: Gravity Spike, Gravity Locus, Gravity Well, Energy Decomposition, Energy Absorption, Redux, Entropy (1-2)
L21: Echoes from the Past (4), Fateweaver (4)
L22: Echoes from the Past (5), Thick Skin
L23: Celerity, Webs of Fate (4)
L24: Time Dilation, Thick Skin (2)
L25: Haste, Temporal Reprieve (2)
Heart: Temporal Reprieve (3), Webs of Fate (5)
L26: Temporal Reprieve (4), Foresight
L27: Temporal Reprieve (5), Dimensional Shift
L28: Disintegration, Heavy Armour Training (4)
L29: Reality Smearing (2), Contingency
L30: Hidden Ressources, Reality Smearing (3), Disintegration (2), Contingency (2)
L31: Contingency (3)
L32: Thick Skin (3)
L33: Heavy Armour Training (5)
L34: Thick Skin (4)
L35: hold
L36: Empower (1-2-3-4-5), Extension (1-2-3), Thick Skin (5)
L37: Stop (3), Seal Fate (5)
L38: Stop (4), Dimensional Shift (2)
L39: Stop (5), Dimensional Shift (3)
Elixir of Foundations: Dimensional Step (4), Dimensional Shift (4)
L40: Gravity Well (2-3), Celerity (2), Dimensional Shift (5)
L41: Gravity Well (4), Fateweaver (5)
L42: Cauterize, Gravity Well (5), Dimensional Step (5)
L43: Matter Weaving (4), Spin Fate (2)
L44: Haste (2), Entropy (3)
L45: Time Dilation (2), Haste (3)
L46: Time Dilation (3), Contingency (4)
L47: Time Dilation (4), Contingency (5)
L48: Twist Fate (2), Spin Fate (3)
L49: Time Skip (2), Spin Fate (4)
L50: Rethread, Temporal Fugue, Braid Lifelines, Cease to Exist (1-2-3), Energy Decomposition (2-3-4-5)
Elixir of Focus: Braid Lifelines (2-3)
And my zone order for madness:
Town Drownings
Trollmire
Arena
Small Lumberjack Village
Ruins of Kor'Pul
Scintillating Caves
Derth
Rhaloren Camp
Norgos Lair
Heart of the Gloom
Unknown Tunnels
Old Forest
Slavers Compound
Sandworm Lair
The Maze
Daikara
Ruined Dungeon
Ruined Halfling Complex
Dreadfell
Lake of Nur
Tempest Peak
Last Hope Greaveyard
Mark of the Spellblaze
Reknor
Unremarkable Cave
Vor Armoury
Briagh's Lair
Backup Guardians
and then hopefully just finishing the mandatory dungeons !