Burning Sage [Class Build]

[Lokithecat]

Just a starting point / Jump off build for a effective Wizard, with a few options as to play style.

 

Wizard / Monk (Helwalker)

Difficulty: PotD

Solo: Untested

 

Race: Godlike (Nature)

 

Helwalker Monk, to provide access to a few Monk Passives, and attacks, but primarily for Turning Wheel, and the Might / Wounds portion of Helwalker.  Once you are buffed, you should be looking at +2 Power levels, +10 Might, +10 Int, +25% Action Speed, +70 Deflection, +50% Melee damage as Burn and a Large +Accuracy Bonus.  Due to the nature of these spells / effects this will take about 1 second.  (Set up your buffs using the shift button, so you can have them all go off, use any +Int Buff first, to increase other buffs duration).

 

Con and Resolve are fairly safe to Dump, how low really is up to you.  Since Duration based damage is going to generally be better for this build I would prioritize Perception, Intellect, Might, Dexterity.  Bad Save (Con - Fort, Resolve - Will) are balanced by over the top Str (Fort) and Int (Will), and Resolves - Deflection is entirely negated with Wizard +Deflection buffs, if you do have something get into combat with you.  

 

Perception (Especially on higher difficulty) will make a huge difference as to how much of your spells actually land solidly, and there aren't any great self buffs for that stat within the build.  Infuse at level 2 gets you +5 Con and Int, and should last the entire fight with one cast, and triggers Wellspring of Life.

 

Dexterity is the other tricky one 'in class' but we want that solely for the +Action Speed, which Swift Strikes provides.

 

Pick up the Proficiency for Arbalest, early game it can reliably knock anything on its back; and Scepters, for if you feel like generating Wounds safely, the Modal will burn you and help that way.

 

Dance of Death, Monk 2 is great, since I would plan (at least pre - end game) on using this as a back line character, will Generate Wounds for you, and give you an Accuracy Buff.  If you're using this, don't burn yourself with Scepters.

 

Blade Turning, Monk 3, is just funny when you have 30+ Intelligence.  Who needs Deflection when every swing the bads make at you, hits them instead of you, the Intelligence makes this last quite a while.

 

Duality of Mortal Presence, Monk 4, give you +Int = to your Wounds, and upgrades at Monk 6 to add +5% per Wound Burn Damage.

 

Monk 7 has Dichotomous Soul, which give you 2 Elemental versions of your Massively statted character.

 

​For Skills, I would push as much as you can into Arcana and Metaphysics.  Aside from getting you access to more spells (Scrolls) including Tier 8 and 9 ones, that you can't cast normally, this is the stat for Gear for this build.  Spearcaster (Arc) from the Brass Citadel, and Chromastaff (Meta) from Nemrock the Super Imp.  Spearcaster is just incredible damage and Crowd Control, and Chromastaff will allow you to really start beating on things, while also giving you multiple +Powerlevel for your Evocation type spells.

 

End game you can easily choose between a Wizard style character that just does way more Nuke than a pure Wiz could achieve, or a Monk style character, with more Offense and Defense than any normal monk, by using the Wiz side to Buff.  

Edited May 21, 2018 by Lokithecat

[sffrrrom]

This looks really neat - I like that you can effectively respec as you go on as well to shift from spell-focused to melee-focused or a balance of whatever you want. Think I'll try this out.

[JiggleFloyd]

This class is extremely fun and powerful! With a little love and patience you become a complete master of AOE and single target DPS! In my POTD playthrough utilizing standard party members this guy dished out over 60% of total party damage and finishing kills and had 2000+ crits.

 

Later on in the game your AOE spells become so fun to cast as they just melt everything! So long as aggro isn't on you, the battlefield is yours for the taking. You can run around with crazy speeds and just butcher the ranged opponents. Or you can stand behind your comrades and dish out the pain. 

 

The stats on this guy are just absurd. Be sure to setup a very nice AI on him! Take the time to learn how to do this or the performance will be sub-optimal. You need to cast the buffs in the correct order and without any downtime and only the AI can do this efficiently as most buffs have zero recover time. 

 

Again, he won't be crazy good in the early-mid game and almost seems like a liability in some battles, but once you hit mid-late you should be golden. The only time I ran into trouble mid-late game is when an entire ship of pirates draws aggro on him because for some stupid reason he's out front instead of behind.

 

Also, definitely go with dance of death and stay back until you have your wounds maxed out.

Edited July 8, 2018 by JiggleFloyd