Darkness Reborn Review- Looks like Kritika but totally different

November 14, 2014, 8:41 pm

≫ Next: Torchlight 2 Engineer Cannoneer Build [Comprehensive Guide]

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We have the luxury of testing Darkness Reborn before it will be released globally this November 18th. 

Our first impression on the game was its just another Kritika: Chaos Unleashed release by Gamevil but after we play for long hours, we feel that it is totally different and probably appealing than Kritika. 

Go read our review below on Darkness Reborn.

Note: All image you see where taken in-game.

When compared to Kritika, well we can say that Kritika is more vibrant in terms of visuals but Darkness Reborn don't fall behind. It has good graphics but the thing we really love about Darkness Reborn is that its visuals don't burn too much of battery life. Compared to Kritika which drains our battery faster, Darkness Reborn can give you longer hours of playtime while experiencing a good quality graphics.

When it comes to features, Darkness Reborn has a load of it. Starting from the well-known single play campaign wherein you raid dungeons, clear it, get some loot and level up. It is your nomal single player game wherein you exert much time to level up your character.

The difference is that in campaign, there are certain possibilities that you can open a so-called "rift". You got better chances to open rift when you go on hard made in dungeons. Once in the rift, you get to clear mobs for 3 rounds and when you finish it, you can acquire either loot or crafting materials and some gold.

Next to the single play are the main mode features of the game: The boss raid and the PvP. Boss raids lets you go in a 6-main raid to try and kill the world boss. Currently, there's only one boss named Belphegor (that big two-headed dragon). When you killed Belphegor, then you progress to the next level which now, the boss has lots of fire power and more beefy.

And of course, when you finish the Boss Raid, you acquire rare to legendary loots and jewels, depending on how hard the raid you have finished.

And also, there's the PvP which has three modes at the moment- the versus AI, the Individual Rankings, and the custom match. The versus AI pits you against bots in a 3v3 match. You can choose between easy, medium and hard mode, and once you win, you get to acquire Sol (diamonds in the game).

The Individual Rankings is you all out 3v3 brawl with other players and the custom match is the mode wherein you cam invite someone to fight with or against. Also, there is a Guild Ranking match in PvP which will be added in the future wherein Guilds will battle against each other. All these matches in PvP are build for one thing, and that is to gain Sol. Other matches (like individual rankings) can also give you gold or energy.

The PvP matching is good but there's one thing we don't like. In an individual match wherein we are winning, our foes suddenly quit the match and it was declared a draw. We only acquire 2 Battle Points (the one you need to increase to acquire good loot and more Sol in PvP) which is unfair in our part. We think it would be great if we had won the match and get the prices which is right for us. Anyway, it's only our little suggestion and it totally depends to the developer if they do something about it. Nonetheless, the PvP matches are great just make sure that you have a strong internet connection or else.

And last on features, there's the achievement wherein you get to acquire Sol and gold once you finish a certain achievement. There's the workshop also wherei  you get to use your crafting materials and have a chance to craft good equips and lastly, the roulette wherein you got one free spin everyday to get gold, loots or Sol.

Now that we're done with features, let's head to your character. At the moment, you can choose either Warrior and Kunoichi. The warrior is basically your tank, while Kunoichi is your assassin or dps class.

Each class has their unique skills and you are given 4 slot to choose between 4 unique active skills that has two branches each. In addition, there's the passive tree also that will let you increase your attack, HP, etc. We don't have much to say about the skills in Darkness Reborn as we think that it's typically Gamevil. Oh yeah, there's something we've missed- the hero skill tree. Currently it's not available but we do hope that it is not the same as the Masteries of Kritika wherein you just add fire power to your current active skills. We hope it is totally different. Fingers crossed!

If there's one feature on the class we really love, that is the detailed stat. On Kritika, there is only defense and offense which we think is a bit boring and sometimes unfair. Just think of this, if you don't spend some cash on getting high dps items, then be sure to always sux on PvP. In Darkness Reborn, it is totally a different story. Each character has some resistant and additional elemental attribute which we think makes up a good character in a MORPG. In addition it will make the game more engaging and addictive as players will try to build their own class in their own way. Let's say you want a fire type Warrior, then you go junt some equips that could increase fire attack. In short, it gives more variety and adds more fun playing your class.

When we sum it up, we can say that Darkness Reborn is not only a good looking game, but a great dungeon crawler MORPG that every social mobile gamer should look forward on playing. There may be some minor lapses in the game like minor crashes and some visual bugs and stability issues but we can't blame it as it is currently on its early stage and we know that Gamevil will be improving it very soon. In addition, we think that Darkness Reborn is another "pay-to-win" scheme by Gamevil but we are really used to it honestly. The developer need to earn some cash for the fair trade of giving us a great game. Anyway, you can absolutely acquire anything just by grinding so no ones complaining.

Darkness Reborn will be available on mobiles this November 18th. We've reportedly recently that it was already out but it was only the SEA version. Also, we thought that it was the final build but now that it's removed on Google Play, we assumed that it was only a beta version. We hope our data won't be erased once the final build comes. Another fingers crossed!

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Torchlight 2 Engineer Cannoneer Build [Comprehensive Guide]

November 15, 2014, 2:06 am

≫ Next: Torchlight 2 Elite Tank Cannon Engineer Build by Azure

≪ Previous: Darkness Reborn Review- Looks like Kritika but totally different

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SKILLS:

Foreword: In Torchlight 2 the Max level is 100 and Max fame level is 32 (at least that’s where it capped out for me), which brings us to 132 skill points. While reading my analysis you might wonder why I did not include Fusillade. The answer is, that after hours of testing Fusillade at different ranks in different areas and different encounters, with different builds, I deemed it simply unplayable in too many situation. While Fusillade is completely overwhelming in pure single target fights, especially vs slower enemies (a perfect example is chillhoof) where it deals TONS of damage, since every rocket procs damage over time effects, i must sadly admit that in 90% of the boss encounters it is pretty much useless. The poor targeting A.I. will make at least 50% of the rockets miss the boss, despite the 3meter aoe explosions, some heavy multitarget encounters like Cracklebitch will become nearly unbeatable. With this said, the only ability left to really center a build around is Blast Canon (yeees I know about spider mines, keep reading please..)

THE CORE BUILD:

(Importance in descending order, skills that are labeled with 1/15 should be taken immediately when available)

Forcefield 15/15:

Best ability in the game. Low mana costs, excellent utility, high casting speed at rank 15 and the only thing that makes you survive New Game+ on Elite without wanting to commit suicide or renting a Tankgineer. Use it whenever available, don’t enter fights when its down, if it gets destroyed reapply as soon as the CD is gone. Some bosses in NG+ Dish out aoe abilities that hit you for 200% of your HP and are really hard to dodge. Luckily, at lvl 60 Forcefield will already absorb approx. 120% of your HP without any charge, at lvl 100 its between 200 and 400%.

Healbot 15/15:

Not much to say here. Health, mana, Damage reduction and an increasing revenue with every point spend, bringing the buff to an 80% up time at lvl 15. Once cast, he lives forever or until you change the zone. If you don’t take it, you’re doing something seriously wrong.

Sledgebot 15/15:

Insane damage, next to unkillable, draws enemy aggro and has an up time of 80% at tank 15. Use it as a cool-down till Rank 10, after that just spam it at fights whenever available. Profits from Minion damage and health exclusively.

Heavy lifting (15/15)

Buffs your dps by 30% which increases your blast canon dammage by approx 25-40% (heavy depending on your gear and your stats), Total dps increase of about 15-30%. This Information is Confirmed and tested on several occasions by several players.

Gunbot 15/15:

Oh god I sometimes hate this skill so much…Gun bot might be the best Construction ability if not for his abnormal stupid A.I. You will be like this

Skills 1-4: Holy Shit this guy sucks..

Skills 5-9:…still sucks…

Skills 10-14: Hey..this guy is actually not so horrible..

Skill 15: Oh my God this guy is FUCKING AWESOME!!!!

Just remember that this little bastard needs you to have some decent amount of Armor degrading per hit, else 30-90% of his damage will simply be mitigated. Otherwise he profits from Minion damage and health .

Roflcopter (Immobilization copter) 15/15:

Yes, yes, i know this guy sucks and I’m a dumb fuck without a clue…except, not. This little copter is one of the best skills we got and mandatory for all Elite players. The slow works on everything except orange bosses, or it is reduced beyond noticing on them, but on everything else it works wonders. Vicious swift mobs who would destroy you turn into harmless critters which can be easily dodged and killed. Brutal casters who onehit you with their spells are suddenly not so scary any more because they keep getting interrupted. And perhaps I should point out that his shock damage is a solid dps boost of about 15-20%, just saying..

Blast Canon 15/15:

You might wonder why this comes so late in priority. The answer is simple: mana. So much mana. Our best dps skill is unfortunately the most mana consuming skill of the engineer, with a default cast speed of 0,6 seconds per +blast= 1,66667 casts a second. With 0% cast speed, this will still drain 56,67 mana per second at rank 15. Now perhaps you might see why Healbot is so mandatory. Still you should spam this skill whenever possible. Don’t auto attack, as the dps loss is brutal, and drink a mana potion whenever you get low. Worth noting is that this skill is directly based on your total dps, including elemental damage, so if your cannon does fire damage exclusively, the whole skill will do fire damage. This sort of backfires for everything else except physical and fire damage, because those will not benefit from the skill internal damage boost.

Storm Burst 1/15:

Must have. You need the mobility this Skill provides in an endless amount of situation. Use it to escape prisons, grabs (you can use it while being dragged to break the effect), to gain distance to bosses, dodge skills, a.s.o. Oh and by the way, you can use this to increase your running speed when traveling the map.

Coup de Grace 1/15:

Very, very, very useful. The first rank is a musthave, the other 14 an interesting choice and will be discussed in secondary skills part. Especially on early levels the damage gain is significant.

Charge domination 1/15:

The only thing that builds us charge. Just like CDG, the other 14 are a viable investment but the first point is a must have and the highly empowered force field saved my life in aoe encounters countless times.

This uses up 108 Skillpoins and leaves us to spend 24 in “Secondary Skills” of minor priority.

SECONDARY SKILLS (in descending usefullness):

Spidermines (1 or 15/15):

Aaaaaahh..Spidermines….how i hate them. If you want a reliable dammage and stun source you have to invest 15 points, and these guys will still be only insignificantly better Blast canon dammage wise. One point is an option too if you wanna have a little army of drones at the beginning of an especially hard fight, but it wont have really much impact tbh. The only situation where 15/15 points are ABSOLUTELY mandatory is if you go for pet/minion dammage as a core stat which will be discussed in stat suggestions later. If you do go for it, use this little babies whenever possible and consider skilling them a higher priority than Blast Canon.

Tremor (1-15/15):

A great skill. Stun, knockback, survival boost, and most important, dammage boost of up too 38 for all your minions and your canon blast, as long as most of your dammage is physical (it consumes a charge though, so be carefull that you don’t make your forcefield to weak). This skill, though, looses a lot of value if you use a Fire canon, in this case you should consider Fire and Spark.

Bulwark (1-15/15):

Free damage reduction. Always good if you’re having troubles with some nasty mobs.

Dynamo Field (15/15)

Many people have asked me to mention this skill and I indeed deemed it worth mentioning at this point though I’m not one of its fans. This skill is a low dammage AOE skill that does

not apply anny /per5 effects but builds a moderate-high amount of charge extremly depending on the level (0,2 at rank 0, 0,48 at rank 15 increasing by 0,02 by each rank). Lets look on the pros and cons of that skill:

Pro:

A reliable source of charge for multi target encounters. At rank 11 Using it twice on 4 targets will genrate exactly 4 charge…

that can be used to tripple the power of your next forcefield, which leads to:

A solid surviveability boost on Multitarget encounters.

Cons:

Not viable in singel target fights. No discussions here!

Always a dps loss over BC. Especially bad on higher levels.

—–> In order to make up for the dps loss of blast canon you have tom stand still longer and keep using blast canon when u would normally use storm burst to gain pace. This will DEFINITELY work on Veteran. This will MOST LIKELY work on low dmg Trash groups on Elite. This will SOMETIMES work und High dmg Trashgroups or Bossed with low dmg adds. This will get you most likely KILLED on bossed with Hard hitting trash.

Truth be told, on Elite the most nasty Enemies dish out 20-25k hits. With a normal 0 charge forcefield this will drop you to smth between 10 and 90% with forcefield up, sometimes a bit of it will be left but u should still reapply it when cd’s ready. With an empowered Forcefield you can take up to 3 hits before retreating. Usually, its simply not worth the risk.

Fazit: Dynamo Field is not exactly viable for increasing your dps. It CAN be used as a boost to your surviveability if you have problems with it, it is a decent idea on hardcore, because if you combine Movement+dynamo field up to 4-5 charges+forcefield+bulwark+tremors+healbot it will literally take some deus ex machina to kill you. But outside of Hardcore engineers should have 0 to little survival issues even on elite at higher level because force field just ranks up so ungodly hard. You literally have to stand still and lets slow hard hitting bosses slap you in your face to die..

It is a good recommendation for very lazy casual/normal/vetran players though, since a 4-5 charges forcefield will let you must likely tank throught the next 15-30 seconds completely…

Charge domination (2-15):

More Charge=More Forcefield=less death. Only works for Multitarget encounters though where enemy adds will keep dieing from your aoe.

Coup de Grace (2-15)

If you really want this poor trashmobs mutilated..not really necessary, though.

Fire and Spark (1-15/15)

If you have a lot of fire dammage, this skill is a really good dps boost. If not, its next to useless and only buffs your coup de grace. *Updated: It is confirmed that there is currently no HIGH level (80+) fire cannon in the Game. Best in Slot is currently a Rune Canon with 4 times http://torchlight2armory.com/item?i=-57 … 2903698498 which deals 3970!! physical dammage (wrong tooltipp in armory) over 5 seconds and every dot works parallel, its not just refreshing itself (or 3 times the skull and an armor penetration +750 per hit one for minion heavy builds). WHICH MEANS THE SKILL IS CURRENTLY HIGHLY UNDESIREABLE!!*

BAD SECONDARY OPTIONS (Warning! do no get those skills. I write them down because some people acutally do and I want to discourage them):

Shock grenade(15/15):

All our charge goes to Forcefield or Tremor, so this will never be a real aoe stun. The damage is horrible, the radius small, and not even its procc chance can really shine. While this may last longer than other stuns, its horrible damage loss over any other skill makes it unworthy of ever casting. Hands, off!!

Seismic Slam (15/15):

Remember what i said about Shock grenades? Same goes for this. Except the radius is bigger on higher levels…

Storm burst (15/15)

Ehm, so if you want me to label you Sir Chargealot you might actually put another 14 points here for even more mobility. But, honestly, please don’t. 2 sec CD is perfectly fine.

Aegis of Fate (15/15)

This skill can not procc while forcefield is up. On average, you survive 2 hits on higher levels Elite difficulty before going down to the third. Some mobs might onehit you. Aegis of Fate has a 16% to procc after a hit and absorbs enough to barely eat another hit. If, after reading this, you still deem this skill worth of putting 15 points into it, please move on to another guide.

TLDR: Here are 3 builds for the lazy ones of you who did not read my analysis or want some final suggestions, and one bad build which is a remnant from an older update:

General, solid and viable physical damage build: http://torchlight2armory.com/skill-calc … l50iCaaaNe

High level (95+) Minion dammage build (does more dammage in absolute endgame, but less in early/midgame and has a bitt less surviveability): http://torchlight2armory.com/skill-calc … l50iKYHX1y

Super high survival (a.k.a. I’d rather bore you to dead than die myself) build: http://torchlight2armory.com/skill-calc … 6DlEbkghNe

Fire damage Canon build (if you found a full fire damage canon, this build will melt faces…otherwise its not viable): http://torchlight2armory.com/skill-calc … l50iCaaaNe (The fire Cannon is a lie!)

credits: This Torchlight 2 Engineer Canoneer Detailed Guide was brought to us by Vallhael.

Torchlight 2 Elite Tank Cannon Engineer Build by Azure

November 15, 2014, 2:48 am

≫ Next: Gamevil to help bring PC MMORPG ArcheAge to mobile devices

≪ Previous: Torchlight 2 Engineer Cannoneer Build [Comprehensive Guide]

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Remarks

The greatest thing about Torchlight II is the ability to customize your skill set to your own liking and have it be viable toward higher difficulty levels. However, I am going to introduce a build that is both powerful yet engaging to play. Your ability to micromanage your minions and skills will determine your success in elite difficulty. 

The foundation of this build rests on the ability to debuff or weaken enemies to fire damage and physical. As such, this build synergizes well with fire embermages, beserkers, and melee engineers while keeping essential skills to benefit co-op play.

Attributes

Strength: Half your points go into this. You won't be solely relying on your cannon to do damage; however higher strength will enable you to equip better armor, which given the lack of a shield is essential.

Dexterity: No points in this. Some of you may be surprised, but as I said above, your damage output does not only consist of your cannon, therefore points are better spent elsewhere.

Focus: None. It might be tempting to put points here, but the fewer points placed in focus, the greater your character will be near the end of the game.

Vitality: The other half of your points go here. It is important to note that cannons require on a vitality requirement, therefore higher vitality will allow you to equip better cannons even without meeting the level requirement.

Skills

Healing Bot 10

This skill is essential to this build and most engineer builds. You do not, DO NOT have to max this. Near level 50, your character basically will not need potions anymore as this skill, combined with a strengthened Forcefield allows your HP and Mana to regenerate such that you can safely use skills with impunity. 

Blast Cannon 15

This is your primary skill, always have it on right click. The beauty of this skill is the secondary effect of increasing physical and fire damage taken by the enemy. Combined with Spider Mines, which deals both fire and physical damage, your character is quickly able to bring bosses to their knees.

Spider Mines 10

Most people are under the misconception that it is necessary to max this skill. More points invested in this skill does not in any way increase the damage done, but decreases the cooldown time, and increases the summon duration, allowing one to summon more minions at any given time. Because of the setup time involved and the use in an actual boss fight, as long as the cooldown is sufficiently short enough to allow you to run and occasionally cast Spider Mines is enough. Therefore, at a cooldown of 2.1 seconds, you will already achieve nearly maximum efficiency with this skill.

Gun Bot 15

This skill doesn't need much explanation. The reason why both Gun Bot and Sledgebot are needed is that having more minions means that less of the enemy is focused on you, allowing more freedom to run around and firing Blast Cannons and Dynamo Field.

Sledgebot 15

Forcefield 15

Your second most useful skill that will save you many a death, have this on right click as well. The usefulness of this skill cannot be taken lightly. Even at level 1, this skill is still incredibly useful because any hit, regardless of how strong it is, will be blocked by Forcefield. Even near late-game, the amount of damage absorption by Forcefield is ridiculous. 

Dynamo Field 15

This is your only skill that gains Charge, and it does that well. Forcefield receives a massive buff for each Charge acquired, therefore this skill is an absolute must to realize the potential of Forcefield. At higher levels, when attacked by an enemy mob, your Charge will rapidly be filled. The inherent danger to this is, of course, that you actually have to be fairly close to an enemy to gain charge. This danger can be somewhat mitigated by Tremor, but still requires the player to think carefully in what situations to attempt to gain Charge. For instance, in co-op play, your Forcefield becomes invaluable to your party, so by having the monsters focus on other players, you can assist by gaining charge and casting Forcefield.

Tremor 15

Since your skills aren't casted very fast, it becomes necessary to have a skill in your arsenal that allows you to escape a tight situation and find a safer location to fight. Tremor has a very large range and decent knockback and is much better than Seismic Slam for that purpose. When maxed, this skill makes it that much easier to acquire Charge, with that 2 second stun inflicted on all enemies within 24 meters. It is worth noting that this skill has the largest radius of effect for any skill for all characters. Seismic Slam's radius is less than half of this.

Immobilization Copter 1

You don't have to get to Tier 1 to see the usefulness of this skill. One point is enough to hinder larger monsters, giving you more time to dodge their attacks.

Heavy Lifting 5

At level 5, you receive a 10% increase in Attack Speed, which is sufficient because you will be casting Spider Mines nearly as often as you will be attacking with your cannon.

Bulwark 5

A nice bonus to armor and decrease in physical damage. The disadvantage with placing excess points into this passive is when the need arises for this passive you would be one-hit KO'd anyways, so a 15% reduction in damage isn't going to help much at all.

Charge Domination 1

Always nice to be able to fill your Charge bar without much effort. One point is more than enough.

Total Points: 122

You should be left with 10 additional points that may go anywhere depending on your needs. If you find yourself dying too often, place points into Bulwark and Charge Reconstitution or Heal Bot. If you want to deal out more damage, place points into Heavy Lifting, increasing your weapon DPS. For greater crowd control, add points into Immobilization Copter.

Equipment

Cannon: Honestly any cannon with around 500+ DPS is fantastic for late-game. Acquiring a Legendary is even better, but there are several uniques that can compete in terms of damage. Socket with a "-X Armor on Hit" and you are golden. 

Armor: Preferably with an increase in pet/minion damage modifier as well as mana recovery per second. 

Miscellaneous: Equip a weapon that decreases pet travel time. The only one I've seen is a Level 76 unique Dragon's Claw sword, which decreases pet travel time by 60%. Combined with the spell Animal Handling, another 40% reduction, you are looking at a 1 second pet travel time!

Spells: The disadvantage to having a large skill arsenal is the lack of space on your hot-key bar for spells. To this end, passive spells such as Adventuring, Animal Handling, Barter, and Concentration are preferable; your pet should be equipped with at least 1 attack spell (Frost, Fireball, or Roller), 1~2 summons (Summon Archers, Summon Skeletons, et cetera), 1 debuff or buff (Silence, Elemental Overload, et cetera).

Gameplay

A basic strategy when you enter a new area is to cast Heal Bot, Immobilization Copter, and Forcefield right off the bat. Then based on the number or strength of enemies, summon either Gun Bot or Sledgebot or both to have minions that assist you in dealing damage. You should be fairly consistent with Spider Mines, casting them every so often as you walk if entering a dangerous or unexplored area. If you encounter strong enemies, use Dynamo Field to gain charge and recast your Forcefield often. The attack pattern is simply maintaining distance away from enemies while alternating casting of Blast Cannon and Spider Mines.

Minions!

Tremor's Radius

Gamevil to help bring PC MMORPG ArcheAge to mobile devices

November 15, 2014, 5:26 am

≫ Next: Torchlight 2 Shadow Berserker Build Guide by Takka

≪ Previous: Torchlight 2 Elite Tank Cannon Engineer Build by Azure

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GAMEVIL Partners with XL Games to Publish Mobile Version of ArcheAge. You can check the official press release below.

LOS ANGELES, CA – November 14, 2014 – Global game publisher GAMEVIL has partnered with development company XL Games to release a mobile version of the widely successful MMORPG ArcheAge.

XL Games CEO Jake Song is also known for developing the hit titles Kingdom of the Winds and Lineage. His latest game ArcheAge, released in Korea in January 2013, showcases the latest technology, a unique storyline, and a high degree of freedom in gameplay. As a result, ArcheAge received three awards at the 2013 Korea Game Awards, including Best Graphics, Best Planning and Scenario, and the highest honor of the President’s Award.

In addition to receiving praise in Korea, ArcheAge has also amassed over 2 million players in North America and Europe after being released in these regions in September 2014. By adapting this online game into a mobile RPG, GAMEVIL and XL Games hope to let even more gamers around the world enjoy ArcheAge. 

GAMEVIL is the leader in adapting online games for mobile, having also launched a mobile version of the RPG Kritika on iOS and Android this past summer. The mobile version of ArcheAge will combine XL Games’ development with GAMEVIL’s service to provide the ultimate mobile MMORPG experience.

Our thoughts:

It's kind of early to hope for something like bringing the total package in the mobile version and we thinl that's not gonna happen. When we read that XL Games are complimenting on the effort of GAMEVIL of bringing Kritika on mobiles and at the back of our head, we are thinking that it will be a different ArcheAge that we will be seeing in mobile. Well, for most that's a good thing but we want the PC ported in our tiny device! hehe. So demanding right? And we think that's never gonna happen anyway. 

No further details yet are revealed aside from Gamevil partnering with XL Games to create an ArcheAge mobile game. If an update comes though, we will surely post ut here in Web Junkies. So stay vigilant!

Torchlight 2 Shadow Berserker Build Guide by Takka

November 15, 2014, 3:40 pm

≫ Next: Torchlight 2 Pure Outlander Dual Pistol Build Guide by TheMasterBlaster

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credits: This Torchlight 2 Berserker build guide was brought to us by Takku

Basics

The Berserker is usually interpreted as a physical melee class, but it is not a tank. Your survivability comes from selfhealing (lifeleech gems/weapons, Shadow Burst, Wolf Shade), Dodge (Dexterity, items) and passives (Shred Armor, Blood Hunger).

While high Dexterity seems like a good idea (big crit and dodge chance), dodge is not a reliable source for your survivability and as for the crit chance, you have to realize two things:

1. Your crits don't hurt unless your base damage and crit damage are high (high Strength, crit damage from items, etc.)

2. You always crit while Frenzy is up (by filling your Charge bar), so a high basic crit chance is only viable up to a certain point

Therefore, I consider Strength to be superior to Dexterity mostly (see Stats to find out more).

Focus increases your mana, magic damage and execute chance. Your damage is mostly physical, and by raising your Focus too much you will seriously gimp your damage - do not. Your execute chance will be high enough on it's own, so there's no point in raising focus for this either.

Vitality is the most reliable base attribute for survivability, but the increase in health and armor only seems huge early on, where you don't receive much armor/health/resistances from items and gems yet.

Attributes

The Berserker class, as I picture it, is mostly about physical dps. A while ago, I stumbled upon a really helpful thread on the runic games forums about Maximizing Damage with Stats[forums.runicgames.com] which basically says that Strength is superior to Dexterity when it comes to maximizing your damage.

At level 100 you have 495 attribute points to allocate, and the gist of the mentioned thread is that 373 points should go into Strength while 122 should go into Dexterity.

However, the Berserker starts at 15 Strength and 15 Dexterity, which means you'll have 30 points left. You can still put them into Strength/Dexterity, but I decided to put them into Focus early on to get a bit more execute chance and also a bit more mana. This is entirely up to you.

My idea of allocating attribute points results in the following (without gear, of course):

373 Strength

122 Dexterity

35 Focus

5 Vitality

Now I realize 5 Vitality seems incredibly low, but I'm doing fine with it. Read the Skills and Gameplay sections to find out why.

While leveling up: I put nothing into dexterity before I had about 160 strength. At level 30 or so, I decided to put 30 points into Focus because my spamming of Shadow Burst to stay alive resulted in a shortage of mana at times. In NG+ Act II, I raised my base Dexterity from 30 to 70 so I would crit more often and thereby survive better from Blood Hunger's procs. At level 75, I was at

300 Strength, 70 Dexterity and 35 Focus. To give you a better idea of how to balance Strength vs Dexterity, here's a short list from the thread I linked above:

Originally posted by Caspid:

Rules of thumb:

If you have 100 points available to spec into Strength or Dex and are looking to maximize physical damage, the distribution will be 100 Str/ 0 Dex.

@155, 154/1.

@200, 181/19.

@250, 211/39.

@300, 242/58.

@350, 274/76.

@400, 308/92.

@450, 342/108.

@495, 373/122.

Skills

As I mentioned above, the build is a work in progess that is doing fine so far. The allocation I have in mind results in a 27/30/75 build (100 skill points from levels, 32 points from fame).

By following my build, you'll end up with 4 active and 6 passive skills, namely:

Active Skills:

Stormclaw (15/15)

Your basic chainlightning from melee hits ability. 40s duration with a 20s cooldown, so you can always keep it up and blast through huge groups of enemies. Also, it seems that every bounce can crit and thereby proc the Blood Hunger passive, although I still have to verify this.

Shadow Burst (15/15)

This ability comes with a lot of utility. It let's you escape from traps and also from being cornered, it breaks shields (100% chance with the T3 bonus) and it keeps your health bar up where Bloodhunger proves to be insufficient... and while you're healing yourself with this, you can also escape attacks from certain monsters with low attackspeed but high damage (usually those carry big mace or something of the likes) or cone/beam attacks from bosses. Awesome.

Wolf Shade (15/15)

Not only does this little guy attack your enemies, but he also buffs your damage and heals you whenever he deals damage. With the T3 bonus you can basically always have him around, until then you don't really need him for anything that is not a boss or a very strong champion mob.

Wolf Pack (15/15)

This ability is awesome, but I'm still not sure if I want to keep it. The damage is insane and it's my only way of taking out enemies from afar (in this build), but it comes with a few problems: It's not easy to use (the wolves may simply run into a wall and despawn if you're doing it wrong) and the mana cost is huge for a physical damage character. For the time being, I'm keeping (and loving) it.

Passive Skills:

Blood Hunger (11/15)

10% lifesteal per critical strike. It's only 11 points because the 4 missing ones are better used somewhere else in my opinion.

Executioner (1/15)

Only one point here because further points do not increase the time your charge gain is increased but simply the execute chance and the rate. 1/15 gives you 6% increased charge gain for 2 seconds while 15/15 gives you 42% increased charge gain for 2 seconds. The difference might seem big, but it's not as big as you might think, and you don't need +30% execute chance from a passive at higher levels (I found my first weapon with +25% chance to execute in Act 1 NG+ if I recall correctly).

Rampage (15/15)

This is one awesome passive to have as a duel-wielding Berserker. 33% chance on kill to gain 25% increased attack-, casting- and movement speed? Yes, please!

Cold Steel Mastery (15/15)

I'm not too sure about this one. 30% more physical damage seems awesome, but then again I don't know if maxing out something else (Blood Hunger or Executioner, for example) wouldn't be more rewarding. The 60% to Ice damage sound nice, but I don't really do any Ice damage in this build unless I pick up a weapon dealing high amounts of Ice damage on it's own already. Don't worry, I'll keep you posted on this.

Frenzy Mastery (15/15)

Increases your frenzy duration to 13,5 seconds when maxed. I'm not all that sure about this one either because high-end gear (possibly combined with more points in Executioner) would let me gain charge a lot faster, and that would make me gain Frenzy more often and thereby make a longer Frenzy duration redundant (or at least less effective than other options). I'll keep you posted on this as well.

Shred Armor (15/15)

This decreases your targets armor with every strike, letting you deal more physical damage. Since claws already ignore 50% of the target's armor, this alone wouldn't be awesome enough to justify 15/15 - but this skill is actually an armor leeching one. High attackspeed will result in more survivability for you, because this passive will allow you to "steal" some of the armor you remove from your target (which is awesome).

While leveling up: The general idea is to always max Shadow Burst over Stormclaw over Wolf Shade while also getting a lot of points into awesome passives such as Blood Hunger and Rampage. The other abilities mentioned are nice additions, but you'll already have your basic tools of the trade readily available with these. It is important to keep in mind that you should invest more into Blood Hunger and Shred Armor if you feel that you're dying too much even though you're spamming Shadow Burst.

Items

At level 100, I'd go with the Harbinger Set[torchlight2armory.com] because it is simply amazing. Attackspeed, Critical Damage, Execute Chance, Lifesteal and more awesome bonuses await. As for weapons, I definitely favor claws due to the 50% armor ignored and the lack of splash damage is easily made up for with Stormclaw. If you feel like you want to use any other kind of weapon, feel free to do so but make sure you always wield two of the same kind - you cannot Execute otherwise, which would seriously hurt your overall dps.

Some awesome claws to choose from at level 100 are:

Iceshard Dominator[torchlight2armory.com] (Highest Attackspeed)

Sunglaze Needle[torchlight2armory.com] (Highest DPS)

Not of This Earth[torchlight2armory.com] (Legendary)

While leveling up: I didn't find it particularly necessary to grind for a better weapon while levelling up. I always used the claws I found most appealing to my playstyle, which meant that the base attackspeed had to be 0,8 or lower, preferrably as low as possible.

However, at some point I wanted to go with higher base damage so I picked up a Snakebite[torchlight2armory.com] which I got from the Gambler in The Mapworks while I was farming Act II in NG+ (around level 65-70) as my mainhand, and soon after I got a second one which dropped from Vyrax, the boss of a sidequest in Act III (and a few hours after I wrote this, a third one dropped from Bloatfang). It's an awesome weapon, really!

As for armor, I wasn't too picky until I stumbled upon a few pieces of the Highridge Set[torchlight2armory.com], also while farming Act II in NG+. Note that the set pieces are actually blue, not green as the link suggests. I found a helmet with +26 Strength and +18 Dexterity and a friend gave me Shoulders with +557 Health and +8 Dexterity. The bonuses on the set pieces can vary, but they were usually fine. I only got 6/9 pieces, however, because I already made level 70 and moved on to Act III.

As a general rule of thumb, always favor Strength and Dexterity over Vitality and Focus, and grab a few pieces that give you attackspeed, critdamage and bonus to dual-wielding or melee damage.

Gems

There are a lot of Gems to choose from, so I will just provide you with a brief overview of viable ones. In general, you should always use gems to raise whatever you are lacking. The common games will mostly be interesting while levelling up. At higher levels, you will hunt for the unique gems listed below them in order to replace the common ones you had until then.

Note that every item can have 2 sockets if you find the enchanter whose only purpose is to add sockets to your items! See Enchants to find out more.

Also note that the common gems have various grades. the highest being "Giant ... Ember" and requiring level 100.

Common Gems

Iron Ember

Physical damage or armor reduction per hit in weapons, both are nice for a Berserker. In armor, they can sometimes add melee weapon damage (among other less viable bonuses).

Chaos Ember

Perhaps the gem with the most varying bonuses. Among the viable bonuses it can have for weapons are attackspeed, critical chance, critical damage, dual-wielding damage and execute chance. As for armor, there's dodge chance, movement speed, knockback resistance and other stuff. While those are also nice to have, they are not as good as benefits from different gems.

Blood Ember

In weapons, these will add lifesteal on hit which adds survivability. Socketed into armor it adds health or health regeneration, which are not that viable in my opinion.

Void Ember

The same as Blood Ember but with mana rather than health. Might be useful to a certain extent since more mana means more Shadow Bursts, but other than that you can probably stay away from these.

Unique Gems

Yololo Skull

Better version of the Blood Ember (in weapons), and awesome name.

Skull of Umbarmun

Better ersion of the Void Ember (in weapons).

Skull of X'n!troph

Same as Iron Ember's armor reduction version, but on steroids.

Skull of Yanfeer

+10% to all damage in armor/trinkets.

Skull of Whorlbarb

+10% crit chance in weapons.

Vellinque Skull

Same as Iron Ember's physical damage version, just better.

Skull of Vastok

+18% attackspeed in weapons.

Rambren Skull

+60% critical damage. Boom.

Skull of Limoany

-5% all damage taken in armor/trinkets.

Skull of Riechliu

Same as Blood Ember in armor/trinkets, just better. Gets the most out of the healing received from Blood Hunger and Shadow Burst.

There's also gems increasing charge rate, decreasing charge decay rate, reducing fumble chance or adding to strength/dexterity, but none of them are high-end gems and therefore negligible, although they are really awesome while playing on lower levels. Speaking of which...

While levelling up: As mentioned above, you will usually find yourself using the common gems until you get the high-powered unique ones at level 100. You may find a unique gem every now and then while levelling up, so feel free to use them if they appeal to your playstyle and/or current needs. However, there are a few gems that actually help you level up faster:

The Eye of the Artificer & The Eye of Cacklespit

Each provides you with 1% more experience gained. Hooray!

Use them if you find one, but they are not worth farming in my opinion. Better pick up Adventuring[torchlight2armory.com]!

Panosh of the North	Random locations	ice damage (flat on weapons, +% on armor)
Telsor of the Storm	Random locations	electric damage (flat on weapons, +% on armor)
Borris the Stout	Random locations	random attribute boost (all items)
Jurick the Socketer	Random locations	adds up to 2 sockets (all items)
Karkozi the All-Powerful	Random locations	only way to get a 4th enchantment. also, free

Make sure to also check out "Fondo the Master", "Filip the Lucky" and "Garbahd the Enchanter" in the list linked above!

I'm not going to go into great detail on enchanting here. There's guides for that and you will find them if you know how to use a search engine. However, I'll say a few words on how to proceed as a Berserker:

1) Definitely let the Socketer add sockets to your items until each has 2!

2) Decide whether you want to enchant with ice damage, electric damage or attributes.

3) Seek out the enchanter that does the enchants you want.

4) Bring enough gold to remove the enchants if they are not the ones you want, then try again.

5) Find Karkozi the All-Powerful so you can get a 4th enchantment since the others only add up to 3.

While leveling up: Enchanting on lower levels gives you an edge as well, but I would consider searching for those enchanters a waste of time until you got your final gear together. I'd simply use the enchanters you find in the towns or the one in the Mapworks.

Scrolls

Awesome

Dual Wielding[torchlight2armory.com]

Weapons Expertise[torchlight2armory.com]

Armor Expertise[torchlight2armory.com]

Helpful

Barter[torchlight2armory.com] (verily)

Silence[torchlight2armory.com]

Critikal Strikes[torchlight2armory.com]

Haste[torchlight2armory.com]

Willpower[torchlight2armory.com]

Levelling/Farming

Treasure Hunter[torchlight2armory.com]

Adventuring[torchlight2armory.com]

Pet

Rumble[torchlight2armory.com]

Heal All VI[torchlight2armory.com]

Summon Zombies[torchlight2armory.com]

Summon Archers[torchlight2armory.com]

... all summons are probably nice, especially while levelling. Your pet has it's own manapool, so feel free to give it stuff like Frost or Fireball too!

Gameplay

The gameplay with this build is simple enough - but it requires some practice.

First and foremost, you always want to have Stormclaw up. It clears huge groups very fast, and even bosses summon minions frequently - killing them with your Stormclaw procs will trigger your Rampage passive, which is what you want.

For tough fights (bosses and strong champions), buff yourself with Stormclaw and wait for your mana bar to recharge before engaging in combat if possible, then summon your Wolf Shade so that it's out as much as possible.

During the fights, you'll mostly be attacking with your basic attack, aided by Stormclaw and your Wolf Shade, and save your Shadow Burst to heal yourself. Make sure to hit as many enemies as possible with it (depending on it's rank, it will heal for up to 5 enemies hit!

Also, use Shadow Burst to break shields (100% chance when maxed) and close gaps so you don't find yourself running too much - you need to autoattack to survive. Shadow Burst can also be used to avoid damage (slow but hard hitting opponents, a lot of bosses are much easier this way).

Have your potions ready should you run out of mana from spamming Shadow Burst too much (which shouldn't be necessary as long as you always put as many points in it as possible), or need to rebuff Stormclaw and Wolf Shade in prolonged fights (although most enemies will be dead before that's necessary).

Last but not least, Wolf Pack is intended to weaken strong groups from afar. Be careful though, it eats your mana like nothing else in this build!

Check out this buid in action below.

Act III NG+ War Titan (Emberworks Run)

Torchlight 2 Pure Outlander Dual Pistol Build Guide by TheMasterBlaster

November 15, 2014, 8:04 pm

≫ Next: Signature campaign to ban Clash of Clans in Philippines

≪ Previous: Torchlight 2 Shadow Berserker Build Guide by Takka

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credits: This Torchlight 2 Pure Outlander Dual Pistol Build Guide is brought to us by TheMasterBlaster.

Terminology and FYI

In all of my guides for builds I frequently refer to the early game, mid game, and end game. For my purposes, these references relate to specific levels...

Early Game = level 1 to 30

Mid Game = level 31 to 70

End Game = level 71 to 100.

Regarding skills...

I frequently mention the stats of certain skills in these builds. Be aware that usually I am referring to the max 15/15 points for a skill, or at least the max points used in a particular skill for a build. If you would like additional clarification about certain skills please ask me and I will add it to the guide.

Mods

This entire build is based on the Synergies Mod. I feel that this mod is a good improvement of the core game without breaking the game and making it too easy. Most of the information in this guide is still viable with the core game, but certain details are likely to be different. If you haven't tried the Synergies Mod you should check it out! You won't regret it!!

Stat Points

Strength - 300

Dexterity - 80

Focus - 80

Vitality - 75

STRENGTH

This is a ranged dps build, so Strength is the main skill here. Strength is what determines the amount of extra crit damage, and most of the stat points should go into Strength and Focus in the early game.

DEXTERITY

It's tempting to put more points into Dexterity, but it's really not necessary. Because this build has such a fast attack speed due to the Rapid Fire skill, even a mediocre crit chance % means you will still get plenty of critical hits. With the proper gear you will still get even more crits. You need to put quite a few points into this stat early in order to use higher level pistols, but later you can have just 1 point per level. You want to have most of your Dex points by the end of the third act (early/mid 50's level) so you can use the highest level pistols possible for the final boss.

FOCUS

This build is extremely mana dependent, and its main skills also benefit from increased magic damage. Near the endgame you should have at least 300 mana points. Since natural mana regen is based on the total amount of mana you have, a high focus will help quickly fill up your mana after a series of attacks. With 2 or 3 mana regen gems, it's unlikely you will need to use mana potions very often unless you suffer from a mana drain attack. You're going to need plenty of mana starting from the very beginning, so you should almost always put at least 1 or 2 points into Focus each level until you reach 80 points. The sooner you reach 80 Focus, the easier it will be to maintain constant attacks without needing to use mana potions.

VITALITY

This is not a glass cannon build. The extra Vitality helps to boost armor value and elemental resistances. It also increases the odds of surviving more than just one hit by hero mobs and bosses in the endgame. Vitality is not too important in the early game, but you will need all of it before completing your first run through all the acts. At some levels you may even want to put all 5 points into Vitality until you reach 75. With the proper gear, enchantments and gems, you should end up with at least 125 Vitality.

Skills

WARFARE - 60

Rapid Fire - 15/15

Rune Vault - 15/15

Long Range Mastery - 15/15

Akimbo - 15/15

RAPID FIRE

This is an early game skill, but it will eat your mana like crazy, so be sure to always have plenty of mana potions on hand. However, in the mid and end game you will have enough Focus and mana that you can use Rapid Fire exclusively, rather than occasionally using basic attacks when low on mana. This is a somewhat short range skill compared to other ranged builds, so be prepared to do some fancy footwork and kiting - or leaping ;D

RUNE VAULT

This is more of a mid game skill, but since this is such a great escape skill you should put one point into it in the early game. Not only is it an awesome escape skill, it works perfectly when paired with Rapid Fire. Rather than kiting by running and stopping to shoot, you can Rune Vault then continue shooting. At Tier III this skill has a high chance to blind targets in the area, leaving them helpless to attack you. It also builds charges, and allows you to use all weapon abilites like armor strip, life/mana steal, % chance to burn/freeze/poison/shock, etc. when you activate Rune Vault. This skill is a kiting.

LONG RANGE MASTERY

This is an early game skill. Until you have enough focus that you can use Rapid Fire exclusively, you will sometimes need to use basic attacks. This skill provides a nice distance bonus to basic attacks. However, the main reason this skill is so awesome is because it increases ALL your ranged attack damage with pistols, including Rapid Fire. At the mid and end game you won't even need the extra distance bonus, but it's an ok perk for the early game. Note that this skill does not incease the range of Rapid Fire, but thats not a problem.

AKIMBO

This is another early game skill. Extra pistol damage and increased chance to Execute. Whats not to like?

LORE - 27

Dodge Mastery - 12/15

Poison Burst - 15/15

DODGE MASTERY

This is an end game skill. There's not a huge % difference between 12 and 15 points in this skill. 12 points provides a 26% Dodge bonus, which is plenty enough to help you from getting hit very often. With your natural Dex bonus to Dodge, and the proper gear, you should have about 50% Dodge in the end game - you're going to need it!

POISON BURST

This skill is simply amazing, and is used by almost every solid Outlander build. With 15 points it has a high chance of activating. This skill works like a nuclear chain reaction when it hits a mob horde. When fighting a solo boss this skill is worthless, but most bosses have at least some minions that you can kill with this skill to help weaken the boss.

SIGIL - 45

Stone Pact - 15/15

Shadow Mantle - 15/15

Master of the Elements - 15/15

STONE PACT

This is a mid game skill. It heals, increases armor, and reflects damage for you and allies. It has a fairly wide radius and a decent duration. This is a great defensive skill and you should use it a lot if you want to stay alive.

SHADOW MANTLE

This quirky skill is more of an end game skill. Its great vs ranged mobs, but it has a short duration and does not have a guaranteed damage reflection bonus. However, with 15 points it also has a good chance to blind ranged attackers, meaning that they will stop attacking you and not always kill themselves with damage reflection. I only use it in a pinch when getting hit hard by several ranged attackers and need to buy some time while killing melee attackers.

MASTER OF THE ELEMENTS

This is an end game skill. At 15 points this skill adds an extra 60% poison damage to your Poison Burst attacks and all other poison damage. It also gives 30% damage for the other elements, meaning you want end game pistols that deal mostly elemental damage rather than physical damage to maximize the awesomeness of this skill.

SKILL PRIORITY

Rapid Fire

Long Range Mastery

Akimbo

Always keep these skills at maximum until they are 15/15. Eventually you will have some extra points for the next set of skills for this build.

Rune Vault

Poison Burst

Stone Pact

Rune Vault is a mid game skill, but put 1 point into it early. I like to alternate points between these skills and level them up at a similar pace.

Dodge Mastery

Shadow Mantle

Master of the Elements

Don't worry about putting points into these skills until you have extra points after leveling up the previous 2 sets of skills for this build. You will probably complete your first run through all 3 acts before putting very many points into these skills.

Spells

Player Spells

For leveling and end game...

Marksmanship

Dual Wielding

Armor Expertise

Willpower

I like to use Adventuring for leveling, but if you really want to stay alive you will definitely need Armor Expertise and Willpower before you fight the Djinn near the end of act 2. So perhaps until then you could substitute Willpower with Adventuring if you would like to level up a bit faster.

Marksmanship and Dual Wielding both significantly increase damage, and Marksmanship also makes it easier for you to get higher level pistols.

Pet Spells

Nether Imps x2

Blood Zombie

Archers

This build doesn't take full advantage of a minion build, but using your pet to summon all these minions lets you concentrate on the action. The minions don't deal any significant damage, but they occupy enemy mobs while you stand back and blast away. If you pay attention you can often use the Archers as a barrier to prevent melee mobs from closing on you too easily.

Gear, Gems, and Enchantments

Gear For Leveling...

When you get to Act II if you are lucky you will find the pieces for the Outlaw set. It's only 2 pistols and an amulet. Each piece and the set have great damage bonuses including bonuses to poison. You can use this set for a long time before it no longer serves your damage dealing needs.

For armor I prefer the Badlands set because of all the critical damage bonuses. However the best bonus is when you have 6 pieces for the 8% movement speed bonus. It makes kiting significantly easier. The biggest drawback of the Badlands set is its low armor value that cant support you up to the end game. So unless you want to be a glass cannon you should upgrade to the Wildwood set when you meet the level requirements.

The Wildwood set is super funky looking, but it has some really nice elemental damage bonuses. For this build you should always use pistols that deal mostly elemental damage rather than just physical damage, so the Wildwood armor set is a natural fit for the mid game that can take you into the 70s level range before upgrading to your end game gear. Try to get pieces that have a bonus to poison % damage to compliment the set bonus and enhance your Poison Burst skill. If you manage to get 7 pieces for the magic-find and exp bonus then thats nice, but don't go crazy trying to find that final piece. You can survive well enough without it.

Gear For End Game...

Eventually you will get to the point that you will die from just one or two hits by a hero mob or boss. The benefits of the Wildwood set are fantastic, but the armor value can't support you into the end game. When you have several Vendor Boon Scrolls, and are at least in the low 70s level, you should try to buy the Labarinto set to take you into the end game. I needed about 8 scrolls to buy 6 Labarinto armor pieces. The final piece is an amulet that you can't buy from the Vendor Boon Scrolls. Hopefully I'll get the amulet as a drop. Make sure you have saved LOTS of gold before using the scrolls.

The Labarinto set has some pretty good benefits although the increased range for Wands, Bows, and Pistols is wasted for this build if you use Rapid Fire as your primary attack. However, the Attack Speed, Critical Damage, and Critical Hit bonuses are exactly what this build needs. Additionally, many of the Labarinto armor pieces have a huge bonus to ranged attack damage. There are other end game unique armor pieces and sets with huge poison bonuses, but it's a trap! Poison Burst will already be strong enough in the end game thanks to the Master of the Elements skill, and you really don't need more than that. What you will need vs end game bosses is raw pistol damage bonuses, and thats what Labarinto does in addition to the pieces providing some nice survivabilty perks.

Pistols...

There are so many awesome Pistols to choose from that work well with this build. Just keep in mind a couple important concepts when choosing your pistols...

In the end game elemental damage is better than physical damage for this build, especially poison.

Certain pistol affixes won't work with Rapid Fire, but some do. Things like Knockback work great with Rapid Fire, but other things like distance bonuses, health and mana steal I am not sure about. However, the more pistol affixes the better after you have Rune Vault at Tier III.

Gems

I like to use a mixture of three types of gems to socket my gear. The skulls that increase all damage are great for leveling. Two or three of those skulls makes a big difference. Near the end game I prefer using Orpantile Skulls for the 20% ranged damage boost.

You will need 2 or 3 mana regen gems in order to maintain your mana pool.

To make you less squishy you will need either skulls that increase your health, or skulls that increase your vitality. While leveling I prefer the skulls that increase Vitality, because it also helps increase your armor and resistances. Near the end game I like to add at least a couple of Skulls of Riechliu to push my health up to 10K and higher. You can also sometimes buy these from the Vendor Boon Scroll, but they are incredibly expensive.

Enchantments

I am not too picky about enchantments for armor. While leveling I prefer the enchantments that decrease elemental damage or physical damage. For my pistols I prefer getting 3 poison enchantments.

Gameplay

This is a very fun build to play but it can be tricky because Rapid Fire requires mid ranged kiting rather than long ranged kiting. However, when used in combo with Rune Vault the kiting becomes fun and exciting to watch. Until you buy your end game armor set you will get more and more squishy as you level up. Be prepared to do some serious kiting in boss fights.

I will admit that this build is very repetitive to play, especially in the early game. To truly maximize the benefits of dual pistols means you have to use several passive skills, so you wont have enough skill points for many other active attack skills. This build is designed to do one thing extremely well - shoot pistols. If you think that kiting and using Rapid Fire as your main attack will get too boring then you should try a different build or make adjustments to this build. However, be aware that substituting some of the passives or defensive skills will severly cripple your end game survivabilty, especially in Veteran and Elite difficulty settings.

You MUST use the key to prevent you from moving while attacking. The last thing you want to do with this build is accidentally run into the middle of a mob horde. I use the SHIFT key as my movement stopper keybinding. That way I can line up my left hand on the SHIFT, Z, X, and C keys. I use the C key as my alternate toggle between Stone Pact and Rune Vault. I bind Shadow Mantle to my number 1 key because I dont use that skill as often. In the mid and end game I NEVER use basic attacks, instead I replace my basic attack button with Rapid Fire.

You can click on a target then attack it with Rapid Fire if you want. But most of the time I find it more beneficial to not target anything and just unload with Rapid Fire. If you hold down the SHIFT key (or whatever key you use to prevent your character from moving) and place the cursor close to your character, it's very easy to maintain a continuous barrage with Rapid Fire and rotate your character by carefully moving the cursor in a circular motion around your character. You can rapidly send out a 360 degree spread of shots if you are getting swarmed and have nowhere to run.

This build works just as well on Normal as it does on Veteran or Elite. The only difference is that elite difficulty requires a lot more kiting than veteran or normal

Signature campaign to ban Clash of Clans in Philippines

November 16, 2014, 4:37 am

≫ Next: Torchlight 2 Frost Embermage Build Guide by Odir

≪ Previous: Torchlight 2 Pure Outlander Dual Pistol Build Guide by TheMasterBlaster

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Breaking News! Some PH parents wants to ban Clash of Clans in the Philippines. Here is the report:

From http://trendingnow.altervista.org/signature-campaign-ban-clash-clans-ph/;

In an effort to fight the addiction of millions of players, the Concerned Parents and Citizens Organization launched a nationwide signature campaign to ban the popular strategy game called Clash of Clans. Millions of players worldwide are now addicted to this mobile game that it already reduced their productivity and damaged their social life.

A parent of a Clash of Clans player said, “My son requested me to buy a pocket wifi, he said he badly needed it then I discovered that he uses it in school so that he can loot even in school, his grades dropped from A- to C+ because of this game”.

One Pastor even said, “I think this is the work of the devil, this game diverts our youths attention, so instead of going to Church they will just play the game, one kid even asked me to pray for his clan”

The nationwide signature campaign already gathered 50,000 signatures and counting, the movement aims to gather at least 1,000,000 signatures.

Our thoughts:

Are they really serious? Why not impose a way called "discipline" to their children instead of asking to ban Clash of Clans in PH. Take note that Clash of Clans is for ALL AGES which means not only children play this but also grown ups. And to result in banning the game is so absurd in our own opinion. A piece of advice- DON'T LET YOUR CHILDREN HOLD A TABLET OR SMARTPHONE. DISCIPLINE THEM FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

If you want to help out, use the hashtag #DontBanCoCPH to show your support. Post it to any social  networking site like Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus.

Go chief! we need your help now!

Torchlight 2 Frost Embermage Build Guide by Odir

November 16, 2014, 4:33 pm

≫ Next: ThinkGeek products is now in Philippines with the help of Abubot

≪ Previous: Signature campaign to ban Clash of Clans in Philippines

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credits: This Torchlight 2 Frost Embermage Build Guide is brought to us by Odir

1. Overview

So there am I sitting and reading through the forums about this and that trying to figure out some things I missed and getting some ideas how to build my frostmage, especially trying to figure out how to surive the best non prismatic bold way in Elite Hardcore. And let me tell you, im level 64 right now and I dont regret going the Frostmage way.

What can you expect to do as a Frostmage? Surive alot better then Firemages, do a hell lot of AoE damage therefore, debuff enemies (group play), and buff damage for you and teammates. And most of all have more fun then spamming PB 

What you can not expect! You wont dish out the very best damage, but you will be the cc king, the best defense isnt always the best offense! Especially when you are playing Hardcore like I am. You cant expect to rock from level one because as a Frost Mage you will scale well better in lategame.

2. Stats

Ah how I missed the good old Stat distribution I was used to, no thanks to the recent other big ARPG out there... Runic be blessed! So i will go through them in the order you will find it i.g.

Strength: Ignore this! enough said 

Dexterity: Crit Chance&Doge Chance, well as a glass cannon in lower difficutlies I would recomment pushing it a bit more then I did but this Build is intented to survive and not get one shotted.

Focus: This will be our main "Focus" of stat distribution, it enhances our elemantal damage as well as our manapool. Put em here!

Vitality: As I already mentioned this build goes for a bit more survivability then a pure glass cannon, so we will be putting some of our points in here too, as it enhances our Healthpool as well as our Physical and Elemental Armor Rating.

I would recommend going the 3:1:1 Focus/Dex/Vit until you hit 53 Dexterity, why 53 ? Because this is the magic number to hit +10% Critchance. (If you are not playing HC or on a lower difficulty keep going with 3:1:1 or switch to 3:2 Focus/Dex or full Focus for a full glass cannon build) After you got 53 into Dex switch to a 3:2 Focus/Vit distribution or whatever you like and feel comfortable.

So at level 100 your stats should look like this:

Strength: 5

Dex: 53

Focus: 345

Vit: 137

Thats a total of +10%Crit +170% Edmg + 34% Armor and a Base Healthpool about 4680 HP pretty nifty I think

3. Skills

I will look a little closer at the skills my sample build will be using, and giving my thoughts about the skills we will use.

First of the Passives:

Charge Mastery

Your expertise with Charge lets you gain it faster, and retain it longer.

Hells yeah, lets us spamm our skills more frequently, whats not to love? also every skill exept Hailstorm will generate charge, at level 5 a single Frost Wave into a big group will generate a full charge bar, yes plz!

Staff Mastery

Your skill with staves lowers the elemental resistances of enemies when you strike them. The effects are also applied to any skill using staff damage and are cumulative with each hit.

Essential for debuffing enemies and getting resis low for the extra dmg, must have on elite, since icy blast will stack this debuff to shred their resistence!

Frozen Fate

When you kill an enemy, you have chance to freeze up to 4 additional enemies within a 7 meter radius.

Who doesnt want more CC? But dont put to much points into it, it will be a cc overkill and those left over points are more suited investing in other skills.

Ice Brand

When you hit a frozen enemy, you do an additional burst of ice damage.

Like in a PB Build this will get us the extra damage we are looking for, since all our damage skills have a chance to freeze our foes. Info: Brands are currently bugged i guess, they will only be triggered by a "hit" this means AoE surface skills like frost wave or even magma will not trigger the brands! But the dot which is apllied, for example "10 Ice Damage over 7 seconds" or "3.5% chance to inflict 6 Fire Damage over 3 seconds" will trigger the brands because it is concidered a "hit" , so keep that in mind!

Prismatic Rift

Your chaotic energy teleports enemies away when they strike you, with a chance of random elemental effects

As a ranged caster we dont wanna get hit, but if we do so, we dont wanna get hit twice, this helps whith our survivabillty, especially in elite/hc, so maxing this is a pretty good idea.

Active Skills:

Icy Blast

You unleash a hail of 5 ricocheting icy bolts to slow and immobilize your foes.

Lets face it, on its own this skill doesnt do any damage, but as soon as you get ice brand this will start to shine a bit more, and if we look at the design of this spell, it rly isnt ment to do damage, its for debuffing and cc, and since we wont go PB lets take what we get, and make the most of it. Icy Blast will trigger Ice Brand since its a "hit" effect like PB but not only this, it will procc our Staff mastery to shred the elemantal resistance of our enemies and has a chance to freeze and immobilize them, even more the first tier upgrade will debuff the damage they do by 20%, man does this skill look more appealing now or what? But on the other hand I dont recommend investing more then 5 points in it, why? First of all we wont be using this to dish out our top notch dmg, and this scales so bad its not worth for the dmg alone, second thing is we will be using this to quickly debuff our enemies or the boss we are fighting to stack the staff mastery debuff from range and aplly the -20% dmg debuff, so we want to keep the mana cost low!

Hailstorm

You call down shards of ice from the sky, pummeling foes within a 15 meter radius. Hailstorm gains no Charge.

Isnt this great? More and more of our skills have more then just the purpose of damaging our enemies, this skill has a chance to stun and freeze them, and the best thing? the tier upgrades will debuff them so our frost skills we do, do even more dmg up to 60% and keep in mind that we debuffed them to death with icy blast already. Max this!

Frost Phase

You vanish from one location and instantly reappear in another, dealing cold damage in both places within a 2.5 meter burst.

This skill is great for an escape skill, you will knock back enemies on getting away and on the landing point, hell its our teleport with no cooldown to get everywhere a little faster or to scout an area . Dont put anymore then 1 point into this, because we wont be using it for the damage and we wanna keep the mana cost low, by the way: the damage doesnt scale with the points we invest only knock back and freeze chance will rise so dont mistake this for a damaging ability like frost wave...

Elemental Boon

You imbue yourself with a bolstering aura which increases your elemental damages and resistances. Boon's benefits are also applied to any allies within 12 meters.

More damage for us less damage for foes! and with the tier upgrades we get slow and immobilization resistances, this will save your behinds more then you can count in elite/hc, belive me it happend to me alot, so max this for more resist chance, dmg reduction and what not! oh and it will buff your allies as well.

Frost Wave

You hurl forth a wave of ice shards, impaling and freezing foes in its path.

I cant express how much i love this spell, when you get the first tier upgrade and got full charge, spam this and watch them die, oh did I forget to mention that this will procc ice brand due to the dot, will freeze your foes, has a range going out of the border of your screen and bounces of walls ands object? HELL YEAH ;D i cant wait to get the last tier upgrade with 5 waves!!

Ice Prison

You summon pillars of ice around a target, trapping it within. You, however, can pass through the barrier. Pillars reflect damage back at foes attacking them.

Pillars last for 8 seconds

This is the king of cc's... First of all it can block an entire hallway so meeles even not trapped in it so they wont get to you, point ice prison. Second of all every enemy attacking this thing will get dmg reflected, point Ice Prison. Third you can trap f*ing bosses inside it! Point Ice Prison. 4th Its blocks ranged attacks! point ice prison. With the three tier upgrades it will deal damage over time, deal damage when shattered and have a cool down of 2 seconds. Holy S* thats 7:0 for ice Prison, clearly a winner Max this!

Thats it, thats all we need to rock the world of torchlight!

4. Sample Build

5/105/15

This is my Sample Build, you have 132 (yes 132 there are only 32 levels of fame in retail...) skill points to invest, the core build only needs 125, so the remaining points can be distributed as you like.

For example "Deaths Bounty" for that little extra survivability or Astral Ally for some more DPS (I dont like Astral Ally myself but if you want, go for it...) Even some points in Electirc Dmg Skills like Thunder Locus would make sense, since they will get buffed from hailstorm and so on...

If you start leveling your Character keep in mind not to push icy blast and other actives to soon in purpose of the mana cost. invest in those nifty passives or save them up for later because as a Frostmage you need the survivability at first because this build really starts to shine when you get frost wave.

4.1. Sample Skill Point distribution throughout the leveling progress

Since it is a little bit harder to Progress as a Frostmage, I hope this helps some peeps. This is just for orientation and a suggestion and wont include fame.

level 1-10: 5/4/1 Respecc that magma to Icy Blast and leave it at 1. Get Those nifty passive and push Charge Mastery a bit more until level 7 and get hailstorm, ur first dmg boost.

level 10-20: 5/14/1 Push hailstorm and get icebrand and frost phase as soon as u can.

level 20-30: 5/23/2 Get Boon leave hailstorm at 5 due to mana reason and focus a bit more on Staff Mastery get Ice Wave at 28 ASAP!

level 30-40: 5/33/2 Get tier 1 Frost Wave as soon as you can and leave it be for the moment, push icy blast for that -20% debuff, push brand and hailstorm a bit more.

level 40-50: 5/43/2 Prepare to get Forst Wave t2 and get Hailstorm t2 push brand

level 50+: Try rotating your passives a bit and keep pushing frost wave as it is our main source of damage, get the tier upgrades of other spells as you see needed, im currently lvl 66 so i try to keep pushing skills how i need them at that current situation.

4.2. Sample Build Damage Test Video + Thoughts

So I was wandering what the potential damageoutput could be with this build on lvl 100 and uploaded a Video for everyone to see:

Here is the highest hit i could acomplish:

Thoughts: Holy S*it, have you seen that? Thats only with stats + skills (Strength: 5 Dex: 53 Focus: 345 Vit: 137 + sample build skill distribution, so no glass canon build) I didnt even put any gear on! And look at that Ice Prison shatter for 70k

Let me tell you, Ive tested it with a full prismatic bold build, firemage build, stormage build, nothing could come close to that numbers! and ice waves aoe radius + hit capability in terms of enemies hit, I really think this build is the embermages top damage build om terms of aoe pwnage, sure you dont have homing missiles like PB Build, but nothing comes close to thath lvl 15 ice wave aoe...

hmm nothing else to say

Update:

new achieved max dmg with frostwave on my lvl 100 elite hc ng++++ with about 40% bis (best in slot) equipment and hc stat distribution (so no full glass cannon) :

stats:

5. Rotation

The typical fights I fight look like this:

If you know you are going to face some tough foes or a boss open with Elemental Boon followed by an Ice Prison to block them of. Now get out some quick icy blast to debuff them followed by a hailstorm for that extra dmg. Then start spamming frost wave, with a few icy blast or that first frost wave your charge bar should be full to get the boost for exessive spell spamming. if its going to be a long fight dont forget to redebuff/ice prison and repeat spamming.

Short Version:

elemental boon -> Ice Prison -> icy blast -> hailstorm -> frost wave spam -> ocasional frost phase -> rinse and repeat

6. Item Build

Itemization:

Stats you should be looking for (Also for Enchantments!):

As a Frostmage you should obviosly focus on stats that increase your dmg as well as your survivability:

+x Focus Attribute bonus Priority nr.1 since it enhances mana+elemntal dmg

+x Health Priority nr.2 since we need that much given health to not get one shotted in Elite/HC

+x% to Ice Damage Priority nr.3 Nice to have, especially on those Set/Unqiques (See BiS)

All Damage Taken is reduced by x% Due to the latest Patch, caps at 75% but very rare, if you can get it, go for it

Nice to have stats:

+x% Cast Speed To get more of those Frost Waves out

+x Elemental/Physcial Armor Especially in Elite really usefull

+x% Critical Hit Chance dmg boost

x% bonus to Critical Damage dmg boost

+% Dodge chance every tiny bit helps!

+% Health/Mana why not?

In Generall:

It depends whether you are playing elite/hc or not, if you do, try to focus on a decent 2:1 ratio on stats that boost damage and survivability. If you dont play hc or in a lower difficulty you can focus more on damage.

6.1.Best in slot (BiS) Uniques:

For this build I tried to focus on both damage and survivability. Note that the best survivabilty option come from sockets, because most of Embermage Uniques are more damage oriented. Read the conlusion at the end.

Also note that for BiS all Items should have to sockets!

Gloves:

Belt:

Shoulders:

Helm:

Chest:

Pants:

Boots:

Amulet:

2xRings:

Weapon:

Sockets:

Conclusion:

We went for the six part Set bonus of the Trancendent Set because the 4-6 bonuses are rly nice to have and those extra elemntal armor bonuses on those items are nice to have too, also we went for two set bonus of Emberweave for that +%ice damage.

I chose the specific item combinations (e.g. the Emberweave Helm +health) for the set bonuses and the stats they are giving therefor, a nice mix of defense and offense.

For Socket distribution, you have 20 total Armor Sockets, so you should take 10 of Wfuntir Skulls for 620 +Focus (+310%) and mix the rest 1:1 with Limoany (25%reduction) and Riechliu (+7700 Health)

If you are going for full Glass Cannon farm those Wfuntir Skulls like hell...

For Weapons Sockets, choose whatever you like: I always go with 60% Crit Damage

6.2.Spells and Fish Recommendation:

Dervish VI

Offensive Skill

Rank 1/1

The caster whirls into action with rapidly accelerated attacks and casts for 20 seconds.

Mana Cost: 116

Cooldown: 60 seconds

+30% Attack Speed

+30% Cast Speed

For that extra Cast Speed if needed

Elemental Overload VI

Offensive Skill

Rank 1/1

The caster is imbued with increased elemental damage strength

Mana Cost: 53

Cooldown: 32 seconds

+25% to Electric Damage for 16 seconds

+25% to Fire Damage for 16 seconds

+25% to Ice Damage for 16 seconds

+25% to Poison Damage for 16 seconds

moar powr!

Elemental Protection VI

Defensive Skill

Rank 1/1

The caster is buffered by increased elemental resistances

Mana Cost: 53

Cooldown: 60 seconds

moar def!

The last one is up to you, i would go with a tome of treasure hunter for that + magic find

Pet Spells:

-Heal All VI

-Summon Nether Imp V

-Summon Skeleton VI

-Summon Zombies VI

Fish:

vampiric spider eggs or warsnouts ( Most of the time I dont bother with fish because everything should die quickly enough, just for boss fights nice to have)

7. Hints

Ice Prison: As an embermage you will most likely encounter more one-hit-death-situations as any other class. As already mentioned Ice Prison is one of those skills that will block an entire hallway from mobs attacking you, but recently I thought, hey why not stand in the middle of the prison and see what happens. Since you are able to walk though those giant pillars of ice and your enemies arent, its a great way of keeping them away and blocking range attacks while you can spamm ice wave in peace, if you ever are getting surrounded! And it works Heres a Pic to show you what i mean:

8.Demonstraion Video

---

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November 16, 2014, 8:53 pm

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Torchlight 2 Prismatic Bolt Embermage Build Guide by Kardfogu

November 17, 2014, 5:29 pm

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credits: This Torchlight 2 Prismatic Bolt Embermage Build Guide is brought to us by Kardfogu.

What is a Prismatic Bolt Embermage?

Prismatic Bolt embermages are, well, squishy damage dealing builds with high mobility, of course, this is true to all embermage builds in general, the difference is that embermages start out early and after a short while, their power skyrockets when they acquire the Brand skills.

Pros

Easy-to-use

Mobile

Ranged

Powerful

No gear-dependency

Cons

Defenseless

Summary

Prismatic Bolt Embermages are the mainstream farming characters, where damage meets mobility.

While the teleportation was nerfed in the game, to ensure that embermages don't get unfair advantage over other classes, Frost Phase is still the fastest mobility skill in the game.

Should I Play it?

Yes...

...if you like glass-cannons.

...if you like fast farmer characters.

No...

...if you don't like glass-cannons.

...if you don't like boringly easy massacre

Skillset

Main Skills

Prismatic Embermages have a strict base build, but they have a lot of free points for interesting additions and the class offers a lot of interesting addition! While embermages are all about offense with one very strong mobility skill, they have a very wide variety of that offense.

Prismatic Bolt 15/15

Prismatic Bolt is the main attack skill of the build. On the other hand, it's an irregular one, instead of dealing the damage itself, it's nothing, but a simple trigger of three other skills. With it's impressive chance to trigger elemental effects, it's the easiest way to apply all three elemental effects required for prismatic builds.

Fire Brand 15/15

When Fire Brand procs, it deals fire damage to the target, but it can't proc if the Burning debuff is not applied in the target. Burning deals damage over time, but it should not be confused by the damage over time effects caused by Magma Spear, Magma Mace, Firebombs or FIrestorm.

Ice Brand 15/15

When Ice Brand procs, it deals ice damage to the target, but it can't proc if the Frozen debuff is not applied to the target. Frozen slows the target's movement, attack and casting speeds and it stacks multiplicative with other slow effects. It is important, that immobilized targets are not always frozen.

Lightning Brand 15/15

When Lightning Brand procs, it deals lightning damage to the target, but it can't proc if the Shocked debuff is not applied to the target. Shocked releases shockbolts when the target is struck. Shockbolts released this way deal minor lightning damage to the nearby enemies

Optional Skills

Embermages have countless options for offense and some crowd control options as well. None of the following skills are mandatory or required to make the Prismatic Bolt Embermage work, so the player is free to choose combination of them.

Elemental Attunement 5+/15

Elemental Attunement extends the duration of elemental effects. Prismatic builds are heavily dependent on these effects, keeping them longer on bosses is important. Personally, I always max it in prismatic builds.

Frost Phase 1+/15

Teleportation with knock back and a chance to freeze enemies. Even better, it actually deals quite good damage in a wide area of effect at high levels. While I don't recommend to max it in this build, one should never ignore the potential this skill has.

Ice Prison 15/15

Ice Prison is the most powerful crowd control skill of the Embermage class. It is always recommended to max Ice Prison, in every build.

Frozen Fate 15/15

Frozen Fate is one of the best crowd control passives in the game, possibly second only to the Shatter Storm passive of the Berserker class. When you kill a target with the frozen debuff applied, you have a chance that four other enemies become immobilized. Immobilized foes can't move or turn and most enemies can't attack players standing behind them.

Hailstorm 15/15

Hailstorm greatly increases Ice and Lightning damage done by enemies. Hailstorm not only has an impressive area of effect, it does heavy damage on it's own and it's high chance to stun enemies is always helpful. It's utility to hit anything on the screen is also very useful.

Firestorm 15/15

Firestorm is very similar to Hailstorm, except that it can't stun and it's original damage is dealt over time. Firestorm greatly increases fire damage taken by enemies.

Thunder Locus 15/15

Thunder Locus is spawn-camping spell, it is harder, better, faster and stronger than the player. When used, a ball of lightning is summoned, which attacks everything in it's range. While it is useful to cover areas, it's most interesting feature is that Thunder Locus can damage otherwise untargetable enemies. When it is placed on a spawn point, it often kills monsters at the very moment they spawn, long before the monsters finishing their spawn animation.

Death's Bounty 15/15

Stun and slow over a large area that grants health and mana regeneration. No comment needed.

Prismatic Rift 15/15

Prismatic Rift is a defensive passive that teleports away enemies if they hit you. Aside from the important information that it works on most bosses, there's not much to say about it.

Skills to Avoid

Prismatic Bolt Embermages are magic builds with a quite universal main attack skill, thus skills that use weapon DPS or damage are very likely to end up being ignored. On the other hand, there are some particular skills that one most definitely avoid in the build.

Immolation Aura

Immolation Aura is the number one reason why embermages ignore otherwise useful skills. It grants a minor damage reduction equal to 3 socketables and you have to recast it every minute. Instead of this I recommend everybody to choose something that isn't covered already by gear in a more convenient way.

Elemental Boon

While Immolation Aura at least gives a useful buff with 100% on time, Elemental Boon has nothing like that. Elemental Boon is actually the same as the Elemental Overload spells randomly found, with some minor tweaks. Elemental Boon is just as bad as Elemental Overload. It's uptime is barely more than 50%, the bonuses are marginal. When you have ~2000 Focus translated to ~1000% bonus to all damage, that 36% won't make any difference at all.

Elemental Boon affects all allied players and pets, but they don't care either.

Stats

Main Stats

Prismatic Bolt Embermages are straightforward, go pure Focus and gain your critical damage from your gear.

Some useless statistics are ignored, like execute-chance from focus or armor gain from vitality.

Strength

Your goal is base.

Improves critical damage

Prismatic Bolt Embermages are pure spellcasters, they gain their critical damage from weapon sockets.

Dexterity

Your goal depends on your personal taste, you should hit 100 from your base stats.

Improves critical hit chance

Critical hit chance is important to increase the character's damage output.

Improves dodge chance

Dodge is unreliable and the most powerful attacks are impossible to dodge, so you don't really have to care about it.

Focus

Your main stat, you should aim for ~2000 or more.

Improves magic damage

Prismatic Bolt and the Brand skills all deal magic damage, we are talking about a pure spellcaster build after all.

Improves elemental damage

Damage dealt by Prismatic Bolt and the Brand skills is elemental. Actually every damage dealt by embermages is purely elemental, except for poor lil' Arc Beam, but noone likes it anyways.

Vitality

If you want to use a shield, aim for enough vitality to hit block cap wit a preferred shield. It's very likely to be between 100-299 vitality, no more.

Improves block chance

Not all embermages use shield, but it's not a rare sight. Blocking is a quite reliable way of mitigating incoming damage, but sometimes it's just better to not get hit in the first place.

Gear

Gearing

Prismatic Bolt Embermage is one of the most straightforward things in gear, you need as much Focus as you can get.

Mainhand

Prismatic Bolt Embermages are purely spellcasters, their weapon is nothing, but a stat stick. If you want to squeeze the highest damage output from your embermage, dual wands are the way to go. As long as you have the socketables, anything works with sockets.

While it's always recommended with pure spellcasters to use a shield, Prismatic Bolt Embermages can use heavy crowd control to prevent taking damage.

One important thing, that Prismatic Bolt needs less casting speed, the the main source of the damage are the Brands and they have a hidden cooldown.

Netherrealm Wand

Prismatic Bolt Embermages never use their auto-attack, but it looks less weird than an axe. Socket it for critical damage with Rambren Skulls and critical hit chance with Skull of Whorlbarb.

Netherrealm Axe

Okay, I hate to say this, but this axe is the best stat stick with it's 4 sockets and 8% critical hit chance. Again, jam the most critical damage and critical hit chance gems into it!

Rare Wand

You can buy a rare wand for this purpose, any wand will do with a minimum of itemlvl 80 and 4 sockets.

Shield

Prismatic Bolt Embermage builds can go dual-wield without problem as long as they have Ice Prison and the player knows how to use it, so I'll be short on this.

One can use shields for with added cast speed or shields with high chance to block. Consider, that Prismatic Bolt gains less benefit from cast speed.

The Centerwing

Mediocre itemlevel, mediocre block chance and high casting speed. It's not bad, but it's better for other builds.

Parma's Coal-Burner

Maybe I mention this one too much, but this one is awesome! On the other hand, 15% casting speed is a quite good trade for 199 stat and The Centerwing looks better on outlanders...

Offhand

Prismatic Bolt Embermage has a good use for an offhand weapon. Offhand in this case is a stat stick similar to the main hand. Prismatic Bolt Embermages have difficulties with reaching the critical hit chance cap and the critical damage cap too, so concentrate on the one you prefer.

See Mainhand for good offhand stat sticks.

Armor

General purpose armor is your best bet to hit damage reduction cap and gain the highest possible Focus score.

Damage Reduction up to 75% is required for surviving hits.

Focus, the more the better.

+X% Health.

+X Health.

+X% Mana.

Cast Speed, while Brands have an inner cooldown, your other abilities may benefit from cast speed.

Magic finding luck for loot.

Gold finding luck for farming money faster.

Enchant your gear with attributes by Boris, go for the most possible Focus.

Tactics

General Tactics

Out of the most common cookie-cutters, Prismatic Bolt Embermages involve the most strategy. Prismatic Bolt is an auto-aim multiattack skill, that alone doesn't involve any tactics or thinking, but playing this build as it is intended requires two additional skills.

Ice Prison

Ice Prison is one of the most powerful crowd control, obviously. It is less obvious, that it can easily outDPS most other embermage skills. Of course, it's most important trait is the utility it gives.

Crowd Control

Ice Prison places 10 icy pillars in a circle. It stops enemies, but is passable for allies. You can use it as a safe room, a roadblock, a prison, or a wall to block ranged attacks.

Nuke

Ice Prison deals possibly the highest burst damage in the arsenal of the embermage.

After tier1, Ice Prison deals damage when shattering. It's base damage at lvl100 is estimated around lvl2373 per pillar, which translates to 23730, higher than the maximum damage of the 3 Brand skills together. You can trigger shatter on will for an outrageous damage with casting Ice Prison again.

After tier2, Ice Prison deals non-stacking ice damage over time to nearby enemies. While this damage is inferior to the shatter damage, it's always welcome. Enemies have no artificial intelligence set up for avoiding Ice Prison, weaker foes often die to the damage over time effect alone.

After tier3, Ice Prison's cooldown is reduced to 2 seconds, making it possible to shatter it every 2 seconds for the previously mentioned semi-phenomenal, nearly cosmic damage.

Thunder Locus

Thunder Locus is one of the key skills of the successful endgame embermage. Thunder Locus can deal with some of the most dangerous foes or can kill off the weaker ones before they have a chance to retaliate.

Spawn Camping

Thunder Locus's unique trait is the ability to target otherwise untargetable enemies. Most enemies are very likely to die instantly while they spawn if they are hit by a Thunder Locus of a well-geared embermage.

Trapping

Thunder Locus has a very long duration, it is possible to place it ahead and lure enemies through it. Otherwise dangerous spellcasting and ranged enemies are die easily if they are lured in the range of the spell. Enemies have no artificial intelligence set up for avoiding Thunder Locus in any way.

Boss Tactics

Bossfights with the Prismatic Bolt Embermage are quite straightforward, spam Prismatic Bolt until elemental debuffs apply, after that just keep them on the boss and try to deal some damage to it every second.

Managing this is actually quite easy with extensive extensive use of Ice Prison, especially when it is combined by Thunder Locus. While Ice Prison easily shatters to boss attacks, you can recast it every 2 seconds, buying time to cast more Prismatic Bolts.

Ice Prison

In bossfights it's both your only crowd control and one of your heaviest nukes, as it is already mentioned. It's heavy ice damage can reset the timer on Frozen debuff as well.

Thunder Locus

In bossfight it's a way to deal periodical damage to the boss, triggering already applied Brand skills without actually attacking the boss. It's good lightning damage may help keeping the Shocked debuff on the boss.

Hailstorm&Firestorm

If the player also has Hailstorm and/or Firestorm, it becomes a lot more complicated, but also a lot more effective, the Prismatic Bolt Embermage enters a "rotation" to maximize damage done.

Opening: Ice Prison => Thunder Locus => Prismatic Bolt until elemental status effects are applied

Loop: Ice Prison => Hailstorm => Ice Prison => Firestorm, rinse and repeat

As you can see, Prismatic Bolt is not part of the rotation in bossfights, it's just an opener in this case. On the other hand, If the player fails to control the fight, the player must change tactics, spamming Prismatic Bolt and Frost Phase to dodge and attack.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Improving the Build

Normally, a guide would end in the previous section, but I'm going to talk about how to improve the common build further.

Prismatic Bolt Embermage is stable, good and isn't far from optimal. You can't really improve the gear and stats, the only area open for tweaking is the skillset. If you want a better embermage, give it situational skills!

Actually, the embermage class is the god-emperor of situational skills.

Skillset

Prismatic Bolt and the Brand skills are stable, but the embermage is a class with a very wide arsenal, highly tuned for situational killing as it is mentioned above. While you can kill stuff dead by spamming Prismatic Bolt alone, it's faster to kill stuff dead with the right skill.

Prismatic Bolt

Prismatic Bolt is solid, it's auto-target, multiattack and it procs three other skills easily, each doing heavy damage. It's a universal skill, easy-to-use and effective. It shines as a main skill.

Brands

Heavy damage, low cooldown, excellent passives.

Ice Prison

There is two reason to pick Ice Prison, one is the crowd control, the other is the extreme burst damage. It's a useful skill to use in crowds, but it shines in bossfights as well.

See Tactics section.

Thunder Locus

Thunder Locus is also a useful skill, it's the best defense in the form of offense.

See Tactics section.

Hailstorm

Hailstorm increases ice and electric damage done multiplicative. Most of the time, Prismatic Bolt Embermages have no real need for this, but Hailstorm doesn't require line of sight and it's high chance to stun is also useful.

Hailstorm increases the damage of both Ice Prison and Thunder Locus.

Firestorm

While Firestrom is the less useful, it shares many traits of Hailstorm. Of course, this means Firestrom is somewhat redundant, but the increase in fire damage is still good if someone can insert it into the damage rotation. On the other hand, Firestorm is the only fitting skill to replace Prismatic Bolt's fire element in a bossfight, entering a rotation.

Elemental Attunement

On harder difficulties, the character needs to move more often to dodge attacks. Elemental Attunement increases the duration of elemental status effects, so the character has more time to use different spells and move around between two Prismatic Bolts.

Frozen Fate

Frozen Fate stops approaching enemies, so the character encounters less enemies. Immobilize is extremely effective against melee attackers.

Stats

Prismatic Bolt and all the spells used in the build deal elemental magic damage, the character is a pure spellcaster. As always, pure spellcaster goes with pure focus, leaving critical damage to weapon sockets.

Strength

No strength.

Dexterity

Only enough dexterity to increases critical chance effectively, around 2-300 is good enough with gear.

Focus

2000+ Focus, enchant weapons and shields for stats as well for even more.

Vitality

If you use a shield, go for 100-255, depending on the choosen shield. If you don't, leave vitality at base.

Gear

Prismatic Bolt Embermages have a hard time with critical hit chance and critical damage. While outlanders can rely on their naturally high critical hit chance, berserkers can rely on their frenzy and gear and engineers just don't give a [swearword here] about critical hit chance, embermages are a different breed.

Okay, let's face it, your embermage won't go pure focus and reach max critical hit chance and critical damage cap as easily as a glaivelander does, but your embermage will have fun having 2million crits with Ice Prison while the glaivelander cries about manacosts on the forums.

Mainhand and Offhand are nothing more, than a stat sticks for pure spellcasters. With Brands having an internal cooldown you have to concentrate less on casting speed. Also, you have to choose between a shield and an offhand.

Never forget that you can go dualwield, Ice Prison offers you a really powerful crowd control and defense, shield is just redundant if you use Ice Prison tactically.

Netherrealm Wand and Netherrealm Axe are the potential stat sticks you can grab, the latter being the better, the former looking less stupid in your character's hands. Anyway, socket Rambren Skulls and Skull of Whorlbarbs into them, preferring critical damage over critical hit chance.

How to make money fast in Heroes Charge

November 17, 2014, 7:25 pm

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credits: This guide on how to raise money fast in Heroes Charge is brought to us by Evilgiz

Guide : How to raise money

So, the big question: how to get the money to upgrade your skills ???

1. When leveling up heroes you can use :

EXP potion/EXP salve/EXP cheese

Potion gives 60xp and sells for 400 therefore, you are paying 400/60=~6.5 coins per 1 exp

Salves give 300xp and sell for 1200, 1200/300=4 per 1 xp

Cheese gives 1500xp and sells for 4000; 4000/1500=~2.5 per 1xp

This means that when leveling heroes you should always start with the cheese then the salves and only afterwards the potions. In most cases if you are focusing on your best heroes you will end up with a lot of extra potions and maybe salves too. You can sell these for a lot of money. I basically sell all my potions everyday earning 50k or more everyday.

2. Enchanting: first of all, don't enchant anything before you are at least Blue+1. Enchanting items gives a temporary boost to your items which is lost once you promote your hero. You are given some vials once u promote but they don't even make up for half of what u had spent. Also enchanting gives a TEMPORARY slight bonus, say +7 physical attack, if your char has 700 attack, that is a 1% increase in atk. I would say that 1 should only enchant after leveling up skills and having equipped the current level items considering skills are permanent(also slight increase in dmg per lvl).

3. Guild and mercenary camp ; a thing about the employment of other heroes is that someone cannot employ a hero which is higher in level than his team level. I am lvl 46 and in a guild where 60% are all lvl 44, therefore I keep my best 2 heroes at lvl 44 so many guildmates have access to them. This gains me about 20-30k everyday. Keep in mind that you have to provide the best and appealing heroes if you want your guild mates to employ them. Meaning, high lvl skills and enchanted equipment.

4. Time rift: both time rifts are a way how to get a lot of money. One of them is aimed solely at getting money and gives 100k per run at difficulty 2. Note that they are not to hard to win and therefore i suggest you try them at the highest difficulty available for maximisation of profits. The second rift drops exp potions salves and cheese, which as i mentioned earlier can be sold for quite some money.

5. Do not waste money on bronze chests cos it ain't worth it. 

6. Midas is ofc a way how to get money, i use it about 5-9 times a day. I suggest that if u like the game it is worth gifting to VIP 1/2 just for th extra chances at midas. We have a flow of gems everyday which can be used on midas and maybe stamina if needed. I suggest to go for the monthly card which gives 120 gems daily for 30 days if youre willing to spend, its by far the most worth it offer imo.

7. Of course always spend money on the heroes you find most prominent and check out what more experienced players are using and always take advice and do your homework before u lvl up something.

8. Soul stones: they sell for 4000 each and can be quite an emergency stash. However, you never know what you might need or want and therefor do not sell any souls stones unless you re absolutely sure u wont use that hero and you are in desperate need of money.

9. Crusade: this gives a lot of money if played right so make some effort to devise a strategy that works well, you can find other thread which talk just about this. 

10. Arena: the higher you rank in arena the more money you will get. However, read that the higher you ranking in arena, the harder crusade will be. So kind of a give and take. Will soon post more about this.

Heroes Charge for Dummies [Level 1-50 Guide for Newbie Players]

November 17, 2014, 7:37 pm

≫ Next: HEROES CHARGE GUIDE: How to clear crusade each day 15/15 for those below lvl 45

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credits: This level 1-50 guide for newbie players in Heroes Charge is brought to us by Cappuccinoman

1: Clear elite stages 3/3 every day, if you don't have enough stamina, prioritize ones that give soulstones for Heroes you use or will be using.

2: Early on you will get a quest to clear an elite stage, then after turning it in you will get a follow up quest to clear it 2x additional times. Make sure you don't screw up by clearing all 3 stages before getting the quest to clear it 2x additional.

3: As soon as you unlock another tank replace Admiral, trust me anything beats it. Ideally Death Knight is god tier, but Savage One is also great. Admiral will still be useful for the Female Only Trial, but that's about it.

4: Commando is a staple in every team; arena,crusade,campagin etc. You can unlock her with crusade points, as soon as you get points spend them on Commando. After you can choose to keep upgrading Commando (I suggest it) or start going for Wind Master.

5: Old Curse is also a staple in every team; arena, crusade, campaign etc. You can unlock it with arena points, start spending them asap on this. I recommend getting Old Curse to 3 or 4 star then you can consider getting Death Knight or maxing Old Curse.

6: Finding a Death Knight is a important, either by spending $$ or getting lucky with free chest or finding a guild with one you can hire (merc). Death Knight is really the only tank that can single handedly do all 15 crusade stages without losing hp (lvls 30-50) - Not required though.

7: Chaplain is also a must for crusade and maxing her heal really does help. Convert is also nice to max but not a high priority. Her damage skill isn't worth maxing at all. (maybe 50+) 

8: I want to mention again how strong Commando really is, same for Old Curse, I went from struggling to beat people with same power level to crushing people with 500-1200 higher power level in arena. Aim to get these ASAP (Through Arena Coins and Crusade Coins) even if it says your power level goes down swapping Commando in for another Hero, do it anyway, losing 400 power level is nothing compared to how strong it will make your team.

9: Knowing which skills to upgrade is pretty big, a general statement is any AoE skill is worth maxing asap. CC skills are second priority then w/e remains. This isn't always true, but is usually the case. Your main line-up will eventually have all their skills maxed so it won't matter late game.

10: Now for enchanting... You always want to complete the daily quest enchant when you get it, but fully enchanting gear shouldn't be done until blue+2 or higher. - Unless your competing in arena and need the early power spike.

11: Enchanting your gear before you promote does not increase your promotion stats. You will get a bit of enchanting mats back as return, but not as much as you spent. 

12: Your heroes secondary stats are increased when you raise your Str/Int/Agility. (Like Physical Crit)

13: Don't level up all your Heroes together, just your main team and a few extra to help for trials etc, (Like Female Only Trial). - Very important!!! Do not level all your heroes!

The account I currently play mostly on is Cappuccinoman@War Chief server (#29) I bounce from ranks 5-30 depending on how early I upgrade after Daily events reset. I'm VIP 5 on that account which I spent like 40$ (Worth it all the way!). Anyway my team line up differs on what I'm doing. My team level is 40 as I'm writing this and I've completed 15/15 crusade every day since unlocking it. I was very lucky that a member in my guild had a DK I could hire.

- I'm now level 53 on the account and still 15/15 crusade daily!

For arena I run Savage One (2star), Wind Master (3star), Succubus (3star), Old Curse (2star) and Commando (1star). I actually unlocked Commando today and swapped Leaves Shadow out for it once I skilled up Commandos party buff skill. 

-At level 53 im now using: War Chief, Old Curse, Commando, Wind Master and Leaves Shadow.

For crusade I run Death Knight (merc, 3star), Wind Master (3star), Succubus (3star), Old Curse (2star) and Chaplain (1star).

- Still using the same team at level 53! I have a new strategy though; sub chaplain out for another tank for 1st stage ONLY. The sub tank will die but it will give time for Death Knight to get full energy so that all the other stages he can ulti at the start. (Again, only for 1st stage! I use chaplain for all other stages)

For campaign I use my Savage One (2star), Wind Master (3star), Succubus (3star), Old Curse (2star) and Commando (1star). - Same as my arena setup

-Similar to my arena team change now at level 53, I use the new setup for campaign.

For trials it really depends on what one you get, all females or phys only or magic only. I try and make best with what I have. I have noticed Admiral plays a key role in the female only team.. Admiral, Wind Master, Succubus, Commando, Leaves Shadow. So don't worry if you spent points on Admirals skills early on, not entirely wasted.

Last edited by Cappuccinoman; 11-10-2014 at 05:18 AM. Reason: Updates

The map and what to look out for. (Excluding obvious Chest, Mailbox, Time Rift, Trials, Campaign)

1. Enchanting Lab

You should use this to complete Daily Event quest each day and also to bolster your Heroes when they are blue +2. Don't fully enchant pre blue+2, you don't need to.

2. Guild

You can toss 2 of your Heroes into the guild merc camp to start bringing you gold income, also a daily to do it. Really good. You can keep using the Heroes you put in there so no harm in putting your best Heroes.

You can also worship a player once a day, either free 15 stamina or you can pay 30k for 30 stamina when you worship.

Guild coins what to buy... well idk yet, Succubus is good, Lunar Guardian is good, Brute is good, Shallow keeper is good.

At 46 you can begin raids, I'll fill more detail on that soon as well as loot app system for it.

3. Merchants

Sometimes you can get rare combination items that are worth buying to save stamina farming for it (so you can ideally do more elite stage maps). Already upgraded boots are a good example, or the trial blue combination items too. You can also sometimes find soulstones sold for gold, worth checking.

4. Arena coins

You should be buying Old Curse asap and making it 5 star. You can think about getting Death Knight soulstones but, I think Old Curse more important.

5. Crusade coins

Buy Commando asap! Keep upgrading Commando to atleast 4 star **** then you can choose to go for 5 star or another hero

Last edited by Cappuccinoman; 11-09-2014 at 09:21 PM.

Finally - If you want to reply to thread with what Heroes you have and team level, ill gladly share my input on what I think will work for you.

If other experienced players 50+ that do 15/15 crusade every day can also comment for what it's like later in game please do !

HEROES CHARGE GUIDE: How to clear crusade each day 15/15 for those below lvl 45

November 17, 2014, 7:52 pm

≫ Next: Recommended Team Setup for Crusade in Heroes Charge

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credits: This guide on how to clear crusade each day 15/15 for those below lvl 45 in Heroes Charge is brought to us by irony.

Requirements :

1) Death Knight (hire from guild if you dont have one. Need decent skill level on ulti)

2) Chaplain ( need to max heal to your current team level )

3) 2 dps heroes ( aoe if possible ie succubus, lightning master, wind master. non-aoe shadow leaves)

4) 1 commando (helps alot but if you dont have it, use a dps hero)

Steps are below : 

1st round : Keep energy for Death Knight and Chaplain. You can use the rest.

2nd round : At the start of the round, use Death Knight Ulti. If for some reason it runs out and Death Knight hp is 3/4 full, use Chaplain to heal.

Try to time your aoe damage hero to ulti and kill enemies so the energy bar will remain full/close to full for next round. 

3rd round : If you survive, your Death Knight should have full/close to full energy, Cast ulti again whenever possible. 

Repeat step 2-3 until level 15.

If chaplain dies, you are dead meat. If death knight dies, you are dead meat. So time your chaplain heal properly.

It is that easy.

But a reminder, this tip does not last forever, as Death Knight's ulti does not scale up that well into above lvl 45 where the damage from heroes gets higher. I find myself having trouble at lvl 50 though. I have been clearing crusade 15/15 since lvl 32. At lvl 50, I am doing 13/15 14/15 consistently and if luck is on my side 15/15.

In case anyone wonders what team i use,

I use below [level 40-45] 

Front Line : Death Knight ( I hire from guild as I dont have him )

Mid Line : Vengeance Spirit/Old Curse

Back Line : Commando, Leaves/WindMaster,Chaplain

Another alternate team that I use during sub 40

Front Line : Death Knight ( I hire from guild as I dont have him )

Mid Line : Succubus, Lightning Master, Emberstar/Old Curse

Back Line : Leaves, Chaplain

Current Lvl53

Front Line : Death Knight ( I have 1 and 1 Hire one), Lightning Elemental 

Mid Line : Vengeance/Old Curse

Back Line : Commando, Windmaster/Leaves, Chaplain

ADVANCED --For those above LEVEL 50 

Requirement :

1) Own a death Knight and hire a death knight

2) At least 5 dps heroes (It really helps to have a Lightning Elemental or Death Mage. Death Mage guide below by eNdLeSs)

3) Best if you can have another 3-4 good tanks. 

Round 1: Charge up Death Knight 1 and Chaplain.

Round 2: Charge up Death Knight 2.

Round 3: continue as above until you see a team which you think you will lose.

At that round, use 2 tanks. Death Knight 2 and another tank. and 3 dps.

If they pass, good. Change back to Death Knight 1 team and Chaplain.

If they die, use Death Knight 1 Team and Chaplain to finish them off.

But you will probably survive for another round or so unless you have alot more heroes.

If you feel it takes too long to get a death knight from arena redemption, fear not, there is another hero Mystic to use.

ADVANCE FOR THOSE WITH MYSTIC ( will be verified soon. I watched this from a Taiwanese Player's youtube )

Requirement :

Team 1 / Team 2

1) Death Knight / Death Knight

2) Old Curse / Old Curse or any AOE DPS

3) Chaplain / Chaplain **Chaplain can be taken out and put in another AOE DPS for more damage on certain rounds.

4) Mystic / Mystic (minimum 2 star for damage output)

5) Aoe Hero/ Silencer

The points are just like above, first round charge up enery. Requirement is make sure Mystic has energy at start of each round. Can use either team 1 or 2. 

Then Cast ulti of Mystic at start of each round. But Watch out for Warrior Monks, who might stun him. Keep Old Curse Ulti for him or

if you have silencer, silence the other team at critical juncture.

Mystic's ulti is like Death Mage's ulti but Damage at one go. Which is better but takes awhile to charge up.

ADVANCE FOR THOSE WITH ACCESS TO DEATH MAGE (VERIFIED by my guildies and me as well besides the provider below)

Provided By eNdLeSs

Death Mage is a mid-line hero.

1)Green skill is wave(deals HUGE damage to all lines).

2)Blue skill is silence(all lines silenced).

3)Purple skill increases magic power.

4)The ultimate makes some ghosts that deal damage for a period of time and then they return to Death Mage healing her for the damage done. THIS DAMAGE IS SO BIG IT RECHARGES HER LIFE FULLY AND SHE USUALLY GETS LAST HIT. SHE ALSO HAS VERY HIGH ENERGY REGEN => ULTIMATE EVERY WAVE OF ENEMIES.

I use these strategies depending what enemies I am facing/how fast I want to finish:

1) Balanced

A) Front: Brute/LElemental/Warchief. The tank doesn't even matter because the enemies die too fast. They don't damage you at all or very little. Use whatever tank you have for first wave to charge your heroes energy.

B) Mid: Death Mage, Old Curse.

C) Back: Commando, Chaplain.

Old Curse will be the first cc at the beginning of the battle with Ice path. After that Death Mage silences the opponents with Blueskill. 

Commando is a must to speed up your Death Mage and Chaplain is for enemy aoe dmg(in case they get to dmg you). 

2) Agressive

A) Front: Nobody

B) Mid: Death Mage, Old Curse, Vengeance Spirit.

C) Back :Commando, Windmaster/Chaplain/Leaves Shadows.

The ideea behind this is to control the battle from start to end and kill the enemy before he can react. I start with Vengeance's stone form ultimate right at the beginning, continue with ice path so that ice cube comes right after. Silence or powershot or both right after ensuring the end of battle. That is all the time you need for Death Mage to deal TONS of damage.

! TO HAVE A COMPARISON: 

-Old Curse 3*: 10k dmg.

-Death Mage 2*:35-45k dmg. 

I wrote here what heroes I use and it works perfectly everyday 15/15. Before trying her out as a lucky guess I used Dk strategy presented in this thread and the action stopping-trick and retry trick, but that took longer at PURPLE(1-2 hours for 15/15). Now I get it done in 5 minutes. At BLUE Dk-Chaplain might be better than Death Mage.

Feel free to try out with other heroes as well, but take notice to try and stick to the main heroes: Chaplain, Commando, Death Mage. The other two can be AOE Damage/CC+ Tank. I do not recommend the agressive strategy unless you have the exact same heroes or already found a chain-control strategy. Good luck!

Inserted by irony : Well at least a 3 star Death Mage would ensure smooth crusade

Recommended Team Setup for Crusade in Heroes Charge

November 17, 2014, 10:36 pm

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credits: This guide on Recommended Team Setup for Crusade in Heroes Charge is brought to us by everspidy.

Recommended Team Setup for Crusade

One of the important tips for Crusade is to train multiple Heroes. Other than 5 main Heroes you also need to pay attention to the rest of your Heroes and set up your 2nd and even 3rd formations. 

Each formation should contain 1 or 2 Tanks, 2 or 3 Damage Dealers and 1 Healing Support.

In my own case I categorize my heroes as followed,

Tanks: Soulhunter, Shallows Keeper, Savage One

Damage Dealers: Master Mage, Necromancer, Frost Mage, Succubus, Pilot, Leaves Shadow

Healing Support: Chaplain, Cleric

You will also need to set up your main force and your second team.

Main Force: Soulhunter, Necromancer, Frost Mage, Master Mage, Chaplain

Second Team: Shallows Keeper, Savage One, Cleric, Pilot, Leaves Shadow

The matches in Crusade are based on your power value in Arena. 

Every 3 stages can be regarded as one difficulty level and there are totally 15 stages and 5 levels. 

At the first 6 stages, send as many heroes as possible and try to save up their energy for later.

At the 7th, 8th and 9th stages, use your Main Force, but replace the Front line position with one Tank from your Second Team. In this way you can keep your Main Force’s HP for later stages.

At the 10th, 11th and 12th stages, the opponents power becomes very close to yours. Keeping your Heroes alive is the vital importance. Use 2 Healing Supports and use 1 Tank with stunning skills to interrupt enemies ultimate skills and AoE-damage skills.

At the 13th, 14th and 15th stages, first, send your Second Team if they are still alive. And then send your Main Force. However, if the opponent has healing support, do not send your Second Team otherwise they will gain more energy without losing any HP.

In order to complete the Crusade, you must have a Second Team and don't forget Chaplain, she will be the queen of the Crusade if you treat her well(upgrade her with level, equipment and decent stars). 

Tanks are the most important Heroes in your Second Team. So develop your Tanks as much as you can. I hope this article helps. Good luck with your Crusade!

Clash of Clans being banned in Philippines: Real or just a hoax?

November 18, 2014, 6:05 pm

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We have received a news that Clash of Clans are in deep waters in Philippines as some people, especially concerned parents are hoping to ban what they called as "the work of demon game" in PH. However, we are currently in doubt about this issue and that is why we have done some reasearch.

Sunday, November 16, 2014, a national TV show in Philippines named Kapuso Mo Jessica Soho (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6znlDXews3Q) has aired a segment of how popular Clash of Clans is in the country. The segment showed some of the Filipinos being addicted to the game and how some of them made it as a source of earning extra money. But the most controversial part of the segment was the part wherein a mom is pissed off on her kid playing the game even at the wee hours of the night and stated that she will sign the petition of banning the game in PH.

In addition to this, trendingnow.altervista.org had reported that a signature campaign is being conducted to ban CoC in and they have said the the campaign has gathered 50,000 signatures at that very moment. And right after that article, they have released another one saying that the campaign is 500,000 signature (check it out http://trendingnow.altervista.org/signature-campaign-ban-coc-ph-gathered-500000-signatures/) away from succeeding. Aside from that they have posted some images and opinions from their sources saying something against the game, and some defending the game.

Aside from that, they also said that there is a facebook community now which has 150k+ members who are against the game but it's a closed group and when we search it in FB, it is nowhere to be found. Another thing is that when we search the names of the persons who are in their article, we can't find them in the social media. Aside from that, we also searched in google about CoC being banned in PH but, we only see the website along with other websites (including ours) who are reporting that CoC will be ban but, like us, we don't have official proof about this. So, we begun to think- is the news on banning CoC in PH really true?

Even if a tv show has aired a segment of a signature campaign against CoC, we think that there will be some follow ups on this news and probably it will be reported on the news here in PH. But, it seems that this is taken for granted and it's not that important at all or, it just can be a hoax.

We really don't have any official proof yet until thay signature campaign will be proven true. When it does, we will surely tell you guys. But for now, let's just enjoy the game and hope that it will not come out.

Happy clashing Web Junkies!

---

Excessive Texting is Dangerous for Your Spine

November 18, 2014, 7:53 pm

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Sixty pounds is roughly the weight of four adult-sized bowling balls. Or six plastic grocery bags worth of food. Or an 8-year-old.

It is also, according to a new calculation published in the journal Surgical Technology International, the amount of force exerted on the head of an adult human who is looking down at her phone.

Kenneth Hansraj, a New York back surgeon, found this figure using a computer model of a human spine. An average human head weighs about 10 to 12 pounds, and tilting it down to check Facebook, send a text, or to Google the weight of an a human head increases the gravitational pull on said cranium.

"As the head tilts forward the forces seen by the neck surges to 27 pounds at 15 degrees, 40 pounds at 30 degrees, 49 pounds at 45 degrees and 60 pounds at 60 degrees," Hansraj writes in the paper.

According to Nielsen, Americans spend about an hour on their smartphones each day. Unless you train yourself to stare straight ahead into your iPhone screen, you could be continually stressing your spine. "These stresses," Hansraj writes, "may lead to early wear, tear, degeneration, and possibly surgeries."

Of course, physical therapists have been howling about the scourge of "Text Neck" for years. But it's certainly eyebrow-raising to learn that looking at Twitter in the supermarket checkout line is the equivalent of giving an aardvark a piggy-back ride.

Time to get Google Glass? Until, that is, scientists find that the device is crushing the nose-bridges of America.

Reblogged from: What Texting Does to the Spine

New COUGAR PC peripherals and accessories will be featured in UK's largest gaming event

November 19, 2014, 1:38 am

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COUGAR’s UK Reseller CCL cclonline.com will demo COUGAR products at the INSOMNIA show, the UK’s largest gaming event on the 21st through the 24th of November at the Ricoh Arena, in Coventry, England. Products to be shown include the COUGAR 200K Scissor Switch Gaming Keyboard, COUGAR 700M 8200dpi Black Gaming Mouse, COUGAR 700K Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, COUGAR 200M Gaming Mouse Black, Cougar 700M 8200dpi Silver Gaming Mouse, COUGAR 200M Gaming Mouse Orange, and the COUGAR Speed Large Mouse Pad.

COUGAR, a leading PC case, power supply and computer peripherals brand makes cutting-edge gaming peripherals such as mice, keyboards and mouse pads. For example the 700K is premium smart aluminum keyboard that has won the IF (International Design Award) of 2014.

Another outstanding example will be the COUGAR 700M which is an adjustable 8200dpi Precision gaming mouse dedicated for professional gamers. With the design strategy of “Framing Structure”, the parts and components are built on a simple folded aluminum chassis which provides better product strength and a lightweight design.

Many of the COUGAR products also come with COUGAR’s UIX™ System, a powerful, integrated software suite with a simple interface combining your COUGAR peripherals into one application interface. The UIX™ System has been designed from the ground up to allow any of COUGAR’s peripheral to be added like the 700M Gaming mouse. This way one software application suite can control all the peripherals. This is a big difference compared to other company’s offerings where there is one app for the mouse and another one for keyboard, making it a pain to switch between software apps when playing games. There are two major components to the platform; the UIX™ System is for integration, and COUGAR Fusion™ is for device interconnection.

Dedicated mouse pads will be represented with the new SPEED and CONTROL gaming mouse pads that both feature an optimized 4mm thickness giving a thicker mouse pad cushion. This provides better pressure relief on the user's wrist. And not too tall, at 4mm, the mouse pad cushions’ height strikes a balance between comfort and user friendliness.

To find out more about the event please go to: http://insomniagamingfestival.com/

To find COUGAR products for sale go to: http://www.cclonline.com/search/?q=cougar

New Online Action-RPG "Taichi Panda" to arrive on iOs and Android next month

November 19, 2014, 6:34 pm

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It's been a while since we heard a news on Snail Games upcoming action rpg mobile game Taichi Panda. Today, the developer officially revealed a gameplay trailer on the game and along with that is the release date. Finally!

The developer hint it will make its way on both iOs amd Android devices this December. About the exact date, well, we don't really know yet but we bet that it will surprise us early or mid December. If an official date comes though, we will tell you right away. For now, you can savour the goodness of the game by watching its gameplay trailer below.

Taichi Panda will fall in the game play genre of Action/Adventure/RPG. You have the option of choosing from three different classes as you make your way through visually impressive environments facing danger and fighting unique enemies. Classes include Warrior, Rogue and of course, Master of Shadow Fist in Taichi Panda.

Game Features:

- Discover hidden riches and rare equipment to boost your power

- Explore a graphically exciting world filled with unique locales and creatures

- Develop your character and choose your gear

- Take on powerful bosses and rise to fame and glory

Taichi Panda is expected to be a free to play game when it is released.

DPS/SUPPORT Level 80 Abyss Walker Build in Dragon Nest [T4]

November 19, 2014, 7:22 pm

≫ Next: Clash of Clans Guide: The Barch Attack Strategy (TH 10) to Reaching Champions League

≪ Previous: New Online Action-RPG "Taichi Panda" to arrive on iOs and Android next month

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credits: This DPS/SUPPORT Level 80 Abyss Walker Build in Dragon Nest [T4] is brought to us by ZYCRANOS

Skill Build

As far as the assassin tree goes, you will be able to put 46 points in it while maxing out the other two trees. You don’t really need the mana passive, just put 4 points into it because of circle gore and not having the fifth point to make FoE 16 wouldn’t make it worth it. If you are going more PVE based you can take points out of aerial evasion and/or fake cog to make FoE 21.

Illusion Strike- Basically the move you spam in order to get your level 65 passive up. Get it only to 6 because the scaling on it is terrible and you just want the ex so you can left click to end it faster. In PVP this move is actually very good in both damage in SA break, so you would want to cast the whole thing before ending it with the left-click.

Night Explosion- This move is just a very good move all around in my opinion, except for the cast time which you have to be careful of. If you plan to go pure DPS (meaning not maxing healing/cure) recommended getting this to 16. In PVP this move is very op. It has an very high SA break when it explodes and then leave a “black hole” like sphere with insane suction. This basically combo’s into everything and anything you have. In PVE this move is also very good for smaller mobs, grouping them together for your other moves. On bigger enemies, such as bosses, the move becomes less effective because it loses its utility, however it still does decent damage.

Plasma Burst- It is a very high SA break move (notice a pattern?) that you can cast from the air with a relatively large AOE. The issue with this move is, sometimes while casting it you can dive right into an attack, both in PVE and PVP. The ex allows you to right-click and dodge backwards, but sometimes you don’t even have a chance to do that. If you really want more support moves this can be lowered to 6 or even 1 if you want or you could switch the points with night explosion if you like the move more, as it is easier to get the full damage off.

Shadow focus- This move is more of a utility than a DPS skill imo. Basically what it does is ignite the dark burn on an enemy, has a very big frontal AOE that hits enemies in the air, and yes, it has insanely high SA break. Although it does do relatively high damage, many don’t find leveling it to be worth it unless you really want to do nothing other than DPS. It has a higher CD than most of your other skills, and only use it when your other skills are on CD or to activate my level 65 passive. In PVP this skill however is very good for initiating. It is very hard to dodge and will cancel almost anything your opponent is doing.

Line of Darkness- Basically your highest burst damage move. You dash forward (high SA break again, yay!) up to three times with ex for every time you left click in which you have a short time frame to redirect each hit. It does very high damage per hit and has a relatively low CD, making it an all-around great move. Maxed for obvious reasons.

Dark Conviction- This is your ult, and boy does it do damage. On larger enemies if you manage to get every sphere, or almost every sphere, to hit a boss you will deal MASSIVE damage in a very short amount of time. Its downside is that you have to be almost point blank and fighting a large enemy to get the full effect of the ult, making one of the worst PVP ult’s in the game. Maxed for obvious reasons.

Outbreak- It is kinda sad we didn’t ex this move because it would have been great. Basically you dash forward dragging enemies with you until you end with a punch. It is great for both closing gaps and escaping, not to mention comboing in PVP. Not worth leveling because it does light damage and scaling isn’t very good.

Chakra of Energy- This is your heal, and an extremely good one at that. Whether or not it should be maxed on an AW is completely up to you. Max it because a 20% heal every 15 seconds is ridiculously good in my book.

Ring of Chakra- Creates a tunnel that gives movement speed and damage reduction. Use for an AW imo.

Ring Strike- Basically the entire reason a LF is top tier dps. This move does a insane amount of damage and will keep you in the air for about 3-5 seconds while you pound your enemy into the floor. Even though this move is light damage getting it to 11 is almost required for an AW just do to the amount of damage this skill is capable of doing.

Healing of Chakra- This move is probably the single best support move in the game imo. You float and heal both health AND mana while giving a significant buff to damage (LF get a defense buff too). Now, that being said, maxing this on an AW is all that smart. Maxing this move means you won’t be dpsing but supporting and if you are going to sit in you meditation stance all the time you might as well have gone LF because they do it better. People take it so they can fill the role of a LF if you party doesn’t have one, but if you wanted to support, you wouldn’t have gone AW. Left it at 1 just for the mana recovery while solo and the summon, but if you want it maxed you should take points out of plasma burst and night explosion for it.

Ring of Energy- LF ult. It is a great support ult that I think all AW should at least get 1 point in just because of its utility. It is also much better in PVP then dark conviction, so there is that too

Spectral Gaze- Summons a wall in front of you basically. Low damage and not much use other than in PVP, many don’t think it’s worth it.

Bless of Ajna- This is technically a support summon but since you are a DPS and this boosts your damage, you should max it and tech if you have the chance. At level 7 it gives 32% dark damage which is incredibly high considering it lasts basically forever.

Chakra Cure- Another support move, however max this one just because lowering the CD will be worth it. If you raid a lot you wouldn’t need this maxed, but if you solo or PVP you feel that it is worth the points. If you don’t want to max it, still recommended getting it, just putting the extra points into night explosion or plasma burst.

Illusion of Chakra- Your mobility/targeting system for your summons. Left-clicking during the dash does an attack that marks the enemy that your summons will then target. Dodging during the dash will blink you forward a short distance. Not worth putting more than 1 point into the move.

Chakra Strike- Get this if you PVP, but just not a very good move.

Summon Shadow- Summons two shadow clones (one in PVP) of yourself that when maxed, will do ex moves of both AW AND LF moves (ring strike ex ) with no cd’s on their moves as well as the stupidly good auto targeting AI have. Last 15 seconds in PVE and 7.5 in PVP when maxed. They also get your level 50 buff making their damage even higher! Maxed for obvious reasons.

Healing of Ajna- This was a skill that went back and forth between think it is worth it, and not worth it. It gives you a buff that heals a certain % of health every 2 seconds. It is a very small amount and as a DPS class would normally say don’t worry about it, however if you have points left over and the extra healing on the side isn’t a bad thing. Up to you if you want to get it, but if you do, it is not recommended maxing.

Pact of Ajna- Extra DPS on the side that you don’t have to control in PVE that isn’t worth leveling due to low scaling. In PVP however if your opponent does focus it, you are almost guaranteed a win because of the amount of lock down/damage it has.

Nightfall- What many like to call the Bubble of Nope. Some people dislike this skill but many really love it. You set down a field that deals damage overtime, burns the enemy, and debuffs them to where you do more damage to them (32% at max level). The only problem with this skill is that it is stationary and enemies can jump out of it, so timing is important. The ex gives it a bigger AOE and makes it last longer which means the skill has less downtime. Maxed for obvious reasons.

Incarnation of Darkness- Imagine rippers arsonist, but the dark version without the resist and a much longer CD. In-case you don’t know what the ripper buff does, basically what you do is give you and your party a % dark buff (25% at max) that lasts 30 seconds. The skills has a minute CD though so you want to make sure not to waste it. Max this because more % damage is always a good thing.

Chakra of Abyss- Your level 65 passive. Every time you cast either illusion strike or shadow focus you get a 10 second buff that grants 10% physical attack and dark attack. This skill doesn’t have a CD and illusion strike has a 9 second CD, so you should infinitely be able to keep this passive up, even if you never used shadow focus.

This is the crests for AW many found to be pretty easy to choose as not very many of them are all that great.

Line of Darkness DMG +20%- Your highest burst damage skill, more damage is always a good thing.

Incarnation of Darkness CD -20% or Duration +20%- This is personal preference which one you want, but more dark damage either more often or for a longer period of time is great. Use the CD plate because it decreases the CD by 12 seconds while the duration only increases it by 6 seconds. Also buff clears are a pain, so you could only have it for 10 seconds, regardless of your crest.

Now here's the last 2 slots.

Nightfall CD -20%- Very powerful skill with a very good debuff, this decreases the CD from 30 seconds to 24, making it have a lower CD than even Line of Darkness, hence your burst is up more often.

Ring Strike DMG +20%- One of your strongest moves even though it is in the LF tree. More damage to an already powerful move, what more could you ask for?

Chakra of Energy Heal Amount +3%- This is more for people who want to be a little more supportive, but it is still a great crest even if you aren’t going support.

Plasma Burst DMG +20%- More damage for one of your DPS skills. Either take this one or night explosion DMG depending on which one you leveled more.

Night Explostion DMG +20%- More damage for one of your DPS skills. Either take this one or plasma burst DMG depending on which one you leveled more.

Currently, Zycranos is using Ring Strike DMG and Nightfall CD.

Zycranos'  Current Stats

Zycranos Gameplay Videos

Clash of Clans Guide: The Barch Attack Strategy (TH 10) to Reaching Champions League

November 20, 2014, 12:14 am

≫ Next: Clash of Clans TH8 Farming Base: The Trapception

≪ Previous: DPS/SUPPORT Level 80 Abyss Walker Build in Dragon Nest [T4]

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This is an attacking strategy guide in Clash of Clans to help you out in reaching the Champions League. This guide mainly focuses on how to attack Town Hall Level 10 bases, which is the hardest base to attack in the game in our opinion. And lastly, this attack strategy mainly uses Archers and Barbarians to attack TH 10 bases.

Note: This is a guide so we suggest not to follow it blindly.

credits: This Clash of Clans Guide: The Barch Attack Strategy to Reaching Champions League is brought to us by King James III

Barching to Champions League 101

Requirements:

Lvl 6 Barbs and archers

Minimum 220 camp space

lvl 5 lightning spells

Minimum level 15 heroes.

Why does barch work?

Many base designers are mostly worried about protecting the center of their base. To do this they put their strongest defenses in the core and leave point defenses to cover the outside. These defenses only target one at a time and are left vulnerable to multiple targets overpowering them.

The basics:

The aim is to get 50%. To do this to a th10 you need to destroy 39 buildings.

Typical army comp is 75barbs, 165 arch. Bring 5 lightning spells and both heroes.

Search for bases that offer 27+ cups. (9 for one star)

Selecting a base:

This is the most critical part of barch and the most difficult.

Some count 39 buildings that they think they can destroy. I prefer to look for specific types of buildings:

Mines, collectors, drills, builder huts, hero altars, army camps, and barracks. All of these can commonly be found outside walls and easily accessed. If all of these buildings are outside or most are outside and a few directly behind a wall, then locate their key defenses...

(Note: builder huts and hero altars can be lightninged if in the center if in a pinch)

The 4 main types of defenses to watch out for are multi-target infernos, xbows, wizard towers, and mortars.

If discos are near the outside, this is an instant skip. Discos fry barch faster than you can deploy it.

Xbows are the second most devastating. If two of 3 are near the outside if the base and cover several building you need to get, skip.

Mortars and wizard towers are less dangerous, but can wreck a raid. Try to avoid mortars that cannot be destroyed, but still cover several buildings. In many cases there is 2 central mortars and one outer that covers collectors and such, in this case: lightning the outer mortar twice before you attack.

Deployment:

Most barch attacks will happen quickly so take your time luring heroes and CC (if applicable)

Lure heroes to a corner that is not covered by defenses. Always fill your CC with the troops you use to kill heroes. If you have wiz or witch in CC, deploy 4-6 barbs at heroes before deploying CC to tank.

Luring clan castle. Rarely do I lure clan castles. Typically they are more central and a barch raid can be nearly finished before it is activated.

If a clan castle covers a large portion of the buildings you need to destroy, lure it to a corner. Use a lightning spell to save troops if there is a witch or if there is 20+ archers.

When you are finally ready to deploy troops, it is critical to check for outlying Giant Bombs.

GBs insta-kill barch and can kill a raid if they kill enough. Use 5-10 test barbs on places you suspect a GB may be. Common spots are:

In front of an exposed wall, in between builder huts, in front of exposed de drills. Anywhere you see a suspicious 2x2 opening. Then it's time to deploy.

Speed is key when deploying barch. I use one hand to deploy and one to navigate the screen.

Take inventory before you deploy and divide by 4. This is how many troops you will deploy in each side.

Use two fingers to deploy a thin line of barbs (usually 15 per side) and quickly follow with a thick line of archers using 3-4 fingers. (Usually 40 per side.)

Do this on all four sides.

As you do this more, you will notice some sides need more barbs because the buildings are exposed, and some need more archers because the buildings are behind walls. Develop a feel for slight deployment variations, but don't vary too much.

Never count on your troops breaking through a wall. It may happen from time to time, but don't count on it.

If you trigger opposing CC troops while deploying, just continue. There are so many troops to kill the CC troops won't have time. If the CC kills troops on one side and you need a few buildings on that side, just wait till they run away and then deploy a few remaining troops or heroes to clean up.

Backup:

Spells and heroes are for backup. Try to win raids without them because they take a long time to replenish.

If you only need one more building and all your troops are dead, deploy AQ at a low HP building and use her power. After 50% leave immediately.

If you need 10% more, you will need to deploy both heroes, and maybe a few spells. BK should be deployed at areas where buildings are close together because he is slow. Use his power to break through walls. AQ has a long range so use that to your advantage. I rarely deploy heroes into the same area.

While raiding, keep an eye out for building health. Try to mentally tag 2-3 buildings that almost died but didn't, these can be taken out by lightning.

Mentality:

Do everything you can to win a raid, but try to conserve spells and heroes when possible. There is a lot of nexting bases that look barchable, but only raid if you feel it's a sure thing. It takes discipline, but keeps you going up instead of down. I try to pick bases that I don't need spells or heroes. This way, when something goes wrong (this happens a lot) heroes and spells can save the day. That way when I have a heart-attack, it's because I barely won instead of losing.

Share replays:

There are several skilled barchers in our clan who would love to help you reach champs. Swallow your pride, and enjoy the process of learning to perfect the art. It's frustrating when you feel like you did everything right and you still lost. Stay positive because it is a process of learning and developing that feel. Before you know it you will be barching 55% on maxed bases without heroes. Something that seemed impossible before.

This will be a walk-through for an entire raid, to show the timing of deployment.

This base is somewhat similar to the base I showed earlier in the thread in the sense that a lot of the key buildings are behind walls. However, in this base, almost all of them are still reachable AND so are a few storages (with little defense coverage). Exposed storages can be deadly, because of their high HP. These ones have very little defense coverage and will be taken down with ease. 

Base Selection. Note the time: 1m 26s

I chose to lightning the top mortar, and lure heroes to the top corner. While my CC troops were killing heroes i checked for GBs. There were none to be found. On a base like this, the most likely place GBs will be found is in front of the exposed storages. (I think there were actually double GBs located behind the exposed storages, between WTs and Cannons). 

Once the second Hero was killed I deployed my first wave of barbs, then archers behind with 43s on the clock. 

By the time I deployed all my troops (Except heroes) there was 25s left. That means I deployed all 240 troops in 18s. SPEED is key! I can't stress that enough. 

Because there was still a section behind walls that still had a lot of low-HP buildings, I deployed my AQ early so that the opposing CC troops would be busy before they go to her. 

Use AQ invisibility power when you think you can save her the most HP, that way her regeneration time is short. 

The AQ took out all the buildings in that section while invisible and secured the victory by 4%. I ended the match after that to conserve her health.