I’ve been playing this game for a long time, and I’ve always dreamed of putting together a build with maximum (or near-maximum) recovery speed. I’m particularly interested in doing this with a class that has a large arsenal of spells—like a mage—so I can cast spells left and right at a frantic pace.

I’m specifically looking for solo builds.

Could you suggest a build or provide some tips on how to create one?

Scordeo's Edge with Blade Cascade on a Bloodmage who uses Wall of Draining will grant you 0 recovery time for an extended period of time. Start with Wall of Draining and some fast defensive buffs and then use Deleterious Alacrity of Motion to speed your action time up, too. Hack away until you trigger Blade Cascade, then enjoy 0 recovery. Every now and then you have to use another Wall of Draining and Blood Sacrifice.

If you wear the Cap of the Laughingstock you will put a beneficial effect on all enemies around you (and yourself): immunity to Resolve afflictions. This makes it so that the Wall of Draining always has a beneficial effect to drain from. It works mich better that way. If you think it looks stupid just hide the headgear with the eye symbol next to the headgear slot.

Ofc. Wall of Draining prolongs all beneficial effects on you - like for example the light version of Lay on Hands from the Healing Hands gloves, +50 deflection from the Escape Cape and all your wizard self buffs etc.

You can so a single class (get access to Wall of Draining much earlier and more casts per encounter without the need for Blood Sacrifice) or pair it with Psion (access to mind control without having to deal weapon damage helps a lot when going solo), Priest of Skaen (get Salvation of Time and Barring Death's Door, Shadowing Beyond on top), Steel Garrote Paladin (high passive defenses and armor, heal up quickly when hitting afflicted enemies with Scordeo's Edge + Blade Cascade, passive and active healing), Troubadour (unlimited summons and passive healing) and whatnot. Lots of good options there. Streetfighter also works well to start with very fast recovery until Blade Cascade kicks in. You just have to go bloodied with Blood Sacrifice asap after casting initial buffs. Almost forgot Tactician, always good with casters.

Another way is to use Wall of Draining in combination with Scordeo's Trophy (the pistol). It has an enchantment that gives you a -5% recovery time boost every time you hit an enemy with a shot - for some time. With Wall of Draining you can stack a ton of those. If you Scordeo's Trophy with one hand and use Rushed Reload (-50% reloading time) you can stack those little bonuses pretty quickly into a big one.

If you also multiclass with Ranger and use Driving Flight you can get two stacks with one shot.

Combine with a shot from stealth to open up (-80% recovery time/reloading time) you can reach a significant amount of stacks very quickly and have very short recovery and reloading times (never 0 though). Reloading times have a hard floor though, they can't go below a certain timespan because the animation for reloading doesn't allow that. But your recovery times will be very short.

The advantage of a pistol compared to a sabre for a caster generally is that reloading can be canceled in favor of doing something else. So your reactivity (before reaching very short or even 0 recovery) is much better with a pistol than with a sabre. But the ceiling of the Blade Cascade setup is higher than that with the pistol.

You could combine both weapons: shoot with the pistol a few times to grant good recovery speed initially, then using the sabre much faster in order to trigger Blade Cascade.

Other "fast" setups for allowing to reduce universal recovery (not just weapon recovery) is to use a Barbarian (Frenzy+Bloodlust+Blood Thirst) or Streetfighter like I said above (-50% recovery time when flanked and/or bloodied) or Cat Druid (cat flurry).

Bloodmage/Cat Livegiver ia a pretty popular solo build that doesn't depend on items so much. It just combines awesome healing that fuels Blood Sacrifices with high speed casting from Alacrity + Cat Flurry.

Keep in mind that casting spells quickly not only reies on short recovery but also short casting/animation times. So DEX boosts and actual action speed buffs are at least as important as recovery time buffs since most spells have lengthy casting times, too. That's where the Bloodmage/Cat shines. Barbarian, too - but there's less synergies besides the speed compared to the Druid. Shifted Druid also gets great armor with 0 recovery penalty, often resulting in shorter recovery times than Barb or Streetfighter with a big bonus but heavier armor (on order to survive the early phase of combat).

Edited 9 hours ago9 hr by Boeroer

48 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Scordeo's Edge with Blade Cascade on a Bloodmage who uses Wall of Draining will grant you 0 recovery time for an extended period of time. Start with Wall of Draining and some fast defensive buffs and then use Deleterious Alacrity of Motion to speed your action time up, too. Hack away until you trigger Blade Cascade, then enjoy 0 recovery. Every now and then you have to use another Wall of Draining and Blood Sacrifice.

If you wear the Cap of the Laughingstock you will put a beneficial effect on all enemies around you (and yourself): immunity to Resolve afflictions. This makes it so that the Wall of Draining always has a beneficial effect to drain from. It works mich better that way. If you think it looks stupid just hide the headgear with the eye symbol next to the headgear slot.

Ofc. Wall of Draining prolongs all beneficial effects on you - like for example the light version of Lay on Hands from the Healing Hands gloves, +50 deflection from the Escape Cape and all your wizard self buffs etc.

You can so a single class (get access to Wall of Draining much earlier and more casts per encounter without the need for Blood Sacrifice) or pair it with Psion (access to mind control without having to deal weapon damage helps a lot when going solo), Priest of Skaen (get Salvation of Time and Barring Death's Door, Shadowing Beyond on top), Steel Garrote Paladin (high passive defenses and armor, heal up quickly when hitting afflicted enemies with Scordeo's Edge + Blade Cascade, passive and active healing), Troubadour (unlimited summons and passive healing) and whatnot. Lots of good options there. Streetfighter also works well to start with very fast recovery until Blade Cascade kicks in. You just have to go bloodied with Blood Sacrifice asap after casting initial buffs. Almost forgot Tactician, always good with casters.

Another way is to use Wall of Draining in combination with Scordeo's Trophy (the pistol). It has an enchantment that gives you a -5% recovery time boost every time you hit an enemy with a shot - for some time. With Wall of Draining you can stack a ton of those. If you Scordeo's Trophy with one hand and use Rushed Reload (-50% reloading time) you can stack those little bonuses pretty quickly into a big one.

If you also multiclass with Ranger and use Driving Flight you can get two stacks with one shot.

Combine with a shot from stealth to open up (-80% recovery time/reloading time) you can reach a significant amount of stacks very quickly and have very short recovery and reloading times (never 0 though). Reloading times have a hard floor though, they can't go below a certain timespan because the animation for reloading doesn't allow that. But your recovery times will be very short.

The advantage of a pistol compared to a sabre for a caster generally is that reloading can be canceled in favor of doing something else. So your reactivity (before reaching very short or even 0 recovery) is much better with a pistol than with a sabre. But the ceiling of the Blade Cascade setup is higher than that with the pistol.

You could combine both weapons: shoot with the pistol a few times to grant good recovery speed initially, then using the sabre much faster in order to trigger Blade Cascade.

Other "fast" setups for allowing to reduce universal recovery (not just weapon recovery) is to use a Barbarian (Frenzy+Bloodlust+Blood Thirst) or Streetfighter like I said above (-50% recovery time when flanked and/or bloodied) or Cat Druid (cat flurry).

Bloodmage/Cat Livegiver ia a pretty popular solo build that doesn't depend on items so much. It just combines awesome healing that fuels Blood Sacrifices with high speed casting from Alacrity + Cat Flurry.

Keep in mind that casting spells quickly not only reies on short recovery but also short casting/animation times. So DEX boosts and actual action speed buffs are at least as important as recovery time buffs since most spells have lengthy casting times, too. That's where the Bloodmage/Cat shines. Barbarian, too - but there's less synergies besides the speed compared to the Druid. Shifted Druid also gets great armor with 0 recovery penalty, often resulting in shorter recovery times than Barb or Streetfighter with a big bonus but heavier armor (on order to survive the early phase of combat).

I’ve always hoped you’d reply to me! :D

Using Scordeo’s Edge isn’t for me—the same goes for the Priest class, the Tactician subclass, and Wall of Draining. I’ve already used that particular mechanic to solo-kill Dorudugan for the first time. I was already familiar with most of what you mentioned; I was just wondering if there were any "fairer" ways to reach maximum recovery speed.

I was considering the Streetfighter subclass, as I’d just finished a playthrough using your dual-mortar Monk build (which I adapted into a Streetfighter/Steel Garrote multiclass) and was looking into ways to boost recovery speed.

I hadn’t even thought about a combination with a Druid—I’ve barely played that class—but I think I’ll go with that. Thanks a lot!

P.S. Apologies in advance if I’ve phrased anything incorrectly; I’m using a translator.