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Primate Murder -> RE: Character advice, returning player (12/31/2023 1:32:01)
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An FO DPS build with some utility coming up.
Weapons
I'd probably go with fire as your no drop, as the element has the shields least useful for your build.
Once you get your hands on Pyromancer Bloodmage armor, Arcane Cutlass of Combustion ( update) will be completely unmatched as it boosts the damage of your fire spells by a full 30%. Until then, feel free to skip this element and use the slot for a utility weapon like Voidsplinter (harm weapon), Thunder Lord's Staff (autohit), or Mystic Retro Golden Axe (restores noticeable amounts of sp/mp when casting a light spell).
As Moglord is an old standard armor, its skill is not boosted by any weapons. I suggest you skip water element altogether.
MADM Arsenal toggles between extra damage at the cost of blocking and extra blocking at the cost of damage. Great for both utility and dps.
Mystic Blade of Frostval Past can give a massive boost to your first ice nuke. (use with pridelord, spotter drake, and optico misc for max chances of infliction)
...and I tried to find some way to diversify my suggestions, but there's honestly no better choice than Arcane Cutlasses for the rest of the elements for a dps build. 30% extra spell damage is just that good.
Armors
Pyromancer Bloodmage is the best dps fire armor with an elecomped fire spell and hp-costing boost to spell damage. Unfortunately, you have to wait until Caecus returns to the Void to get your hands on it, and until that time Torontosaurus Rex can serve as a cheap alternative.
Moglord Tortress remains the top damage dealer for water.
As an FO mage, Vampire is your subrace of choice. It has Int and Cha toggles, a qc stun, and the cheapest Evolved Form among the three darkovian subraces; the Evolved Form deals less damage, admittedly, than werewolf or werepyre, but it also heals you based on damage dealt. Vampire Transformation's secondary resistance is wind, and I suggest you use it as your wind armor as darkness, alas, has no armor that can match Necromancer.
Santa Avenger is the sole armor that has a weapon-based skill with elecomp to damage, and that leaves it far beyond any competition when it comes to ice. Make sure to use Blade of Frostval Past for ice elevuln, then switch to MAD Arsenal before attack for maximum dps.
Eternal Chamion's Spirit has Mech Warp barrage as a high damage earth spell.
Dynamancer Bloodmage is an energy clone of Pyromancer Bloodmage.
Paladin is an excellent armor for both beastmasters and DPS, but its best skills require you to have a Paladin class title - and Necromancer title is just too good to give it up; still, if you expect to fight a lot of undead, switching titles is just a few clicks, so I suggest maxing out the armors skills. Otherwise, Lumenomancer Bloodmage does the highest damage.
As mentioned above, Necromancer is the mage armor. It has spellcaster lean toggle, Int drive, a variety of powerful nukes, several resource regen options, passives and toggles to enhance your spells - and that's not even getting into 6 guests, 3 pets, resurrection, and all the other bells and whistles it brings to the battlefield.
Shields
Celtic Wheel comes with an Int drive to boost your damage and accuracy.
Accordion Shield gives control potency, which is highly useful for Love Potion spam.
Pies has Cha drive.
Darkovian Bulwark gives you earth/dark compression.
MindBreaker Defender (UR GGB) comes with a qc skill that can lower the monster's accuracy and blocking.
Serenia's Insight has Int drive.
TropoShield (z-token shop) comes with a toggle that pays sp and blocking to make monster Vulnerable to earth/fire/energy elements. Very good for dps builds.
Spells
Perhaps the first thing I should mention is that damage spells have mostly fallen out of meta. They simply cannot compete with armor skills that get a massive elecomp bonus to their damage. As such, I will mainly focus this section on summoning and utility spells:
Summon Poelala. Goes without saying; every nuke mage should be using this guest as a default. There are also specific elemental booster guests that provide a greater boost to their specific element, but (outside of paladin's Manifestation) they all cost URs and should be considered low priority.
Summon Pridelord. Second best guest in the game, it provides omni status potency, making it a massive boon to any effects you may wish to inflict. Returns in February with rest of Crossover GGBs.
Summon Mosquito. The best healing/resource recovery guest in the game. Heals hp/mp/sp based on damage dealt, and with the right buffs you can recover a full spell's worth of mp within a single turn. It will suffer some accuracy issues due to 0 Dex, so I suggest using DefLoss effects or Goggernaut Helm misc for maximum efficiency.
Summon Bun-Banneret. This guest toggles to give you blocking instead of attacking. Can stack with Bun-Banneret pet, MADM shield, and other DefBoost effects to avoid most of the monster's hits. Available when Bun-Banneret returns to the Void.
Purple Rain has been significantly nerfed, giving it a turn delay and debuffs if you activate the rewind early, but it's still a very solid spell. With Essence Orb and Love Potion, you can stun-lock your enemy (if they don't have Freedom) for the entire battle at minimal cost. Likewise, SFP and other quickcast effects have very, very good synergy with this spell.
Invincible Heart can protect you from 99% of the damage for one round (with a several turn cooldown). You can effectively negate a full turn's worth of monster damage, protecting yourself from a nuke - or setting up your own if the monster is immune to stun effects.
New Year's Surprise is a quickcast bth boost, increasing your accuracy for several rounds.
Unlike the other buff spells I mentioned, Arms of the Dragonguard is not quickcast. It doesn, however, make your next attack a guaranteed Lucky Strike, so the synergy with Purple Rain is very nice.
Pets
Poelala, of course.
Godmother; though I should note that Mosquito pet would generally give higher healing and can recover sp.
Bun-Banneret pet (a pet clone of the guest).
Spotter Drake is a wind pet clone of Pridelord. (there is also a Pridelord pet, but it won't return until February)
Underwyrmling toggles to damage monster sp. Very useful against certain bosses.
Lust and Envy. Fire and earth booster pets, but instead of boosting damage they increase your chances of making a Lucky Strike.
Miscs
Essence Orb. Get this first. This item reshaped the meta. Essence Orb allows for quickcast conversion of hp into sp, effectively making everything cost hp. As long as you're standing you can probably use a skill.
Pixel Ether. With Essence Orb, you're effectively extending the effect to your mp bar as well.
Prime Chaos Orb. The second most broken item in the game, this misc compresses a quickcast skill that can permanently reshuffle the monster's resistances. Make a fire monster vulnerable to fire, then unleash your armor's skill, fully removing the downside of elelocked attacks. This is your first UR priority. If you do not have enough URs for everything on the list, grab PCO.
Love Potion. A stackable, quickcast stun. With Essence Orb, you can easily cast this a dozen times, and Purple Rain will let you recover all the hp/sp lost the very next turn. Best used with Pridelord, Spotter Drake, Accordion Shield, and Optico to stack status potency.
Shadowfeeder Pendant. Stackable quickcast celerity. A Love Potion counterpart for when the monster has immunity to stun statuses.
Optico gives omni status potency. Comes with a skill that greatly increases your pet's chances of making a Lucky Strike (great synergy with Mosquito).
Goggernaut Helm gives +10 bth to every attack on the field, including your pets and guests; unlike other accuracy miscs, this is not /2 for spells. Note: this also affects monster attack, so don't use it with dodge strats.
Grakma Warhorn inflicts you with Berserk. Lowers your accuracy but boosts your damage without the /2 for spells that most damage boosts do. Best used with New Year's Surprise.
...and that's pretty much it, I think!
Hope the info's useful, and don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions.
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