Yet Another Victory: Post your winning builds.

[ColorlessGreenIdea]

I got my first win!

I had been struggling a lot because I couldn't find any spells which did reliable damage, most seemed to take 2-3 hits to kill even the weakest enemies. The biggest problem was spawners which always required a ton of effort to kill. Then I discovered Flame Burst, which deals enough damage to one shot a spawner in an 8 tile radius around you. As soon as I saw it I started trying to make a build around it. On my first try I got all the way to level 19 then died.

It took around twenty tries but it worked.

The key is a combo between Carnival of Pain and Crackledarkener. Using Carnival of Pain, every time I used Flame Burst, every enemy hit dealt a ton of dark damage to everything else. Then Crackledarkener converted that dark damage into a burst of lightning damage. The result was everything on the map got blasted by fire, dark and lightning all on its own. This build (and alternate versions with other wands) turned out to be extremely strong until I got to the end game with enemies who had high resistance to dark, fire and lightning all at once.

The key was Vampiric Gaze.

That spell makes every summon attack an enemy in eyesight. The second I saw it I knew that if I could fill the map with minions I could kill anything. All it took was an engine to get that many. Which is when I figured out Carnival of Pain has an upgrade which summons Fiery Tormentors based on how many enemies you kill with it.

So, basically every time I cast Carnival of Pain, the entire map became filled with Fiery Tormentors. Combine Vampiric Gaze with the upgrade which makes it deal poison damage (a type few enemies resist) along with dark, and everything in the game got Care Bear Stared to death. The only time I ever had trouble was against maps with a ludicrous amount of dark resistant enemies.

I got to the Orphan, who I had died against three times by then, and after a fight so long I used two mana potions, I got my first victory against it.

I continued on and confronted Mordred for the first time.

This was also my first time I killed Mordred.

[Natethegreat]

I had a run get close that was pretty funny. I was doing a poison build with two poison pipes and drill shoes. I would pick levels with a bunch of walls, spawn in a wall, and just hold space while I slowly poison and killed everything, had to watch out for burrowing enemies and slimes but got to level 20 before I lost

[Patented Skinner Burgers]

Magic Missile w/Ricochet + Arcane Orb w/ Double Shot + Suspend Mortality w/Endlessness is pretty silly until rift 15ish. Don't even need any item synergy. You'll need something like Annihilate to help with rift 2-5ish, but you can ride off of those reincarnating orbs well into the late game after that.

[yxiaozzz]

Minion build. Im still looking for fool proof way to beat the game with this build. It lags really bad at higher realm. Early game is both map dependent and item dependent. You can beat the game with just wolf and a bunch passive upgrade tho.

[Welch Vineyard]

I have 2 public screenshots from my wins on my profile, a fire build and an ice build. My preferred start is to use fireball to rush fire burst. if i cant solo the first 2 rifts with fireball i pick up pyrostatic pulse to hold me over. Fire burst with the wall melt upgrade is my favorite spell. At some point i always take siphon shields with shield steal upgrade, its just too useful later on and against mordred. If i can fit in blink/teleport i will but its not always necessary.

[Stormlock]

Just got my first win. Build used lightning form /w the fire upgrade, alongside bloodflame and an item for extra 50% fire resist, to let me basically teleport around levels and cast my entire spellbook of fire spells on turn one. Once I got word of chaos to stun everything and pyrostatic curse for fire immunes, it was pretty much a lock. Still, was surprsingly close a couple times, despite trying to diversify my damage a bit leading up to that. Seems diversifying damage isn't as relevant now, since the game just throws the perfectly resistant enemies at you. Better off picking resistance lowering spells and skills. In the end, I killed Mordred before he could take a single turn. Kinda expect it to get nerfed somehow, Bloodflame is just too silly once you get full fire resistance.

I've tried minion builds many times and I feel like the key is toadblood and suspend mortality. Those two seem like the most powerful spells/skills for that route.

[forrestomintero]

Literally always grab life drain. aside from the obvious healing benefits and low cost, it 1-shots spawners as long as you don't mind waiting

[Stafford's Bees]

My first ever run. Never played the previous game. Lots of skulls making lots of ghosts.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3208665637

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3209275631

[X-TheDark]

TL;DR : Arch Sorceror with Fan of Flames as main spell, using +range (Spell Sniper/Master of Space/Mystic Vision), to turn it into a ~20 range cone of map-delete;
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My first win was with a Fan of Flames focused Arch Sorcerer build.

I usually almost always grab Fireball / Icicle / Lightning Bolt after Realm 1 to cover the basic elemental resistances/weaknesses/early shield (with Icicle double-hit).

Grab Fan of Flames Realm 2 - this will be our most used/most damaging spell for a very long time, due to following:

• Extremely good chaff clear, efficient as all hell due to built in channelling;
  
• Fire being a common resistance will be dealt with by upgrading with Fan of Frostfire - nothing in the game is immune to both fire and ice, as far as I know + adding another damage component let's us double dip on +damage equipment/skills;
  
• The short range will be built around with +range skills/spells, which is easier to acquire than +radius;

Sometimes I also grab Chaos Barrage early to take care of tanky enemies (Arch Sorc will later buff this significantly).

Now we should try to play until we get Arch Sorcerer - more damage, more range, more charges, more good. If you feel like you need to pick up anything, go for it, but don't delay Arch Sorc too much - the damage/charge/range improvement helps with our cantrips not taking forever to kill;

Now come the memes - we pick up, in no specific order (gauge for yourself how your run is going, pickup anything you need - mobilty, CC, etc. if necessary), the following skills/spells.

• Mystic Vision - spell. The absolute meme-maker of this build. +5 range for 8 turns scales our Fan of Flames (range extends the cone distance) and helps on open maps with annoying enemies using other spells. Grab the Bonus Vision upgrade for extra +5 range (for a total of +10 range) to further scale our Fan into the stratosphere;
  
• Spell Sniper - skill that gives us +2 range on spells (more Fan scaling) - Also useful for out-ranging annoying enemies;
  
• Master of Space - skill that gives us +2 range and +1 radius. Range, because Fan of Flames. Radius comes in useful for Thunder Strike (AoE stun) and any other AoE spells you have;
  
• OPTIONAL - Cantrip Cascade spell. Not necessary, but this also scales with +range, so why not? Very good against things like Mega Shamblers that break into more things for you to Cantrip Cascade. Overlapping Fireball radii, Lightning Bolt beams, etc. We'll be hitting LOTS of targets with this;
  
• OPTIONAL - Mystic Vision + Death Cleave + Mega Annihilation is also very meme, since Death Cleave uses your casting range now. Reminder: we're getting +4 range from skills (already very good) and +10 range from Mystic Vision;

With all the stuff, we now have a ~20 range cone of "delete this general area of the map". Due to the stupendously wide cone, this will curve around almost any walls, as long as you're not point blank to them. We'll be hitting pretty much any Spawner that is in the general vicinity of our aimpoint.

Grab any additional support spells you want. Blink + Blindcast basically becomes a teleport with our +range (and allows repositioning to kill more spawners). Anything that gives you +charges or +duration for Mystic Vision is also good, since it only has 4 charges and extending 8 turn duration is good; Blinding Light lets us not die in open maps, etc. Your build is very flexible at this point;

For skills, further support is provided by:

• Disintegrator (for every 30 damage done by sorceries, deal 1 physical damage to ALL enemies) - doesn't sound impressive, but with how many targets we're hitting, we'll be doing a lot of damage with Fan. This will dish out substantial extra damage on top.
  
• Prince of Ruin (if enemy dies to fire/physical/lightning damage, deal damage to enemy in 5 LOS of the dying mob) - not as useful as Disintegrator, but still - more damage is more damage;

Equipment-wise, recommendations:

• Any +damage for sorceries - we're Arch Sorcerer, so duh; Can be replaced with +damage for fire spells (since Fan of Flames is fire); Any +damage will be applied double, since our Fan is doing fire + ice damage;
  
• Sorc/Fire Lenses (+1 range to respective spells) - even more range for our Fan of Flames (and other spells too, I guess)!
  
• Enchantment +duration/+charges - for more Mystic Vision, since it does have low charges (4) and low-ish duration (8);
  
• Pyrostatic Oculus (if deal fire/lightning damage (either), -25% fire/lightning resistances (both) - useful for stripping immunity with Chain Lightning and general damage increase;
  
• Vial of Ambrosia (gain Clarity for first 10 turns - we cannot be stunned/frozen/petrified) - some enemies have stuns that can reach surprisingly far. Very useful for more open maps.

Forget about summons/pets/sigils, because we'll be covering about a quarter of the map with our Fan of Fire/Ice Death at a time. Very few summons will be able to survive this;

[kioro-djirane]

My very first win was with Dragon spells. I tried a lot but also failed a lot until I grabed the Hydra spell (it didn't seemed usefull at first) with the upgrade that make you regain a charge when they expire. Making the Early-Midgame a LOT more easy. Grabed 3 Dragon summon spells (Holy, Arcane, Ice), then Scalespinner (not sure of the name) and Arch Dragon. Upgraded Holy to Dragon Mage for the healing. By then I was piking whatever just to test out some thing but Word of Chaos was a really good choice because it make you able to do your setup more easily. Word of Ice could also works.

[siepu]

Wins I've got so far, I think those are the easiest builds to win with currently.

#1 got exotic pet on rift 2, managed to clear to rift 4 only with 2 lvl1 spells so I had 7 SP for Hatebolts. Hatebolts currently completely trivialise everything the game has until rift 20, just keep scaling it (+n effects, poison upgrade, Disintegration, sorcery + fire lord etc). Use the many unused points you have for something to deal with the bosses (Rain of Fire uses many of the things you already have and annhilation rocks are really good).

#2 World of Ice + Splitting Shards. Basically make enemies not play the game, need to be lucky to get some dmg scaling from items for bosses and not hit 100% ice resistant enemies. Icicle + Frozen Orb, then Frostbite -> Word of Ice -> Shards. Ice + ele burst spell is decent as damage from another scource than ice or phys.

[Ostrava of Boletaria]

arcane missile-heavy build is pretty fun to play and easy once you get ricochet, violent dispersal and double orb. Focusing on translocations increases your survivability and makes dispersion easier to abuse, which is how you're going to be doing most of your damage.

Basic idea is to throw enemies everywhere with dispersion which will then cast arcane missile for each enemy teleported. Throw out your arcane orbs, which you can also use dispersal on to teleport them closer to enemies if you're camping on a corner of the map. All of your damage output is based on arcane missile so it's pretty easy to build albeit with a slower early game.

[TonerCartridge]

Minion spam has always been my favorite, the new chaos support has really allowed me to roll over a lot of levels.

Prince of ruin combines with Serpents of chaos is great, throw in a spammable mass summon (wolves with the pack upgrade is what i use) and throw on Annihilation blade (mass armamnet upgrade). This constantly let me have hoards of minions doing annihilate to everything constantly. Each time a minion casts annhiliate they summon 3 snakes and if an enemy dies to any of the damages it cascades (never even bothered to pick up the cascading annhilate upgrade). had a couple challenges but mordred was done just after his first arena reset.

Wolf pack + Toadblood makes a lot of levels ezpz, just gotta avoid ghosts till you can spam mass armarments. I had wolves clocking in thousands of damages per level with the annihilate strat. Late game i switch to holy order, any upgrade is fine. with all the minion skill upgrades/equipment they all become almost unkillable.

biggest problem i had was with the giant chaos serpent bossfight

[forrestomintero]

Originally posted by TonerCartridge:

Minion spam has always been my favorite, the new chaos support has really allowed me to roll over a lot of levels.

Prince of ruin combines with Serpents of chaos is great, throw in a spammable mass summon (wolves with the pack upgrade is what i use) and throw on Annihilation blade (mass armamnet upgrade). This constantly let me have hoards of minions doing annihilate to everything constantly. Each time a minion casts annhiliate they summon 3 snakes and if an enemy dies to any of the damages it cascades (never even bothered to pick up the cascading annhilate upgrade). had a couple challenges but mordred was done just after his first arena reset.

Wolf pack + Toadblood makes a lot of levels ezpz, just gotta avoid ghosts till you can spam mass armarments.

btw you can combo the goatia spell with the "heal 5 hp when you cast a nature spell" skill to get infinite goatias. Then you can combo that with the lighting lantern skill to also get infinite lightning bugs. Then you just stack lots of minion buffs to diversify your damage types and the build goes wild.

[Yggdrasil Burnes]

Still learning the game, but just won my first run with this. It really boiled down to zerg-rushing the map with nature summons, passive healing, and conjuration skills, but the key parts were thus:

Wolves and Glass Mushbooms + Jar of Embers, to start. I managed to get Jar of Ectoplasm while I was at it, and would not have minded having Trollblood too, but they are not vital. While glassed enemies are resistant to fire, the burning aura procs Melting Armor, which reduces Physical resistance by 10, on top of the already massive debuff of Glassed to physical, which all nature summons deal by default. Fire damage as an AOE also seared through the first couple of realms and would halt the healing of Trollblooded enemies. What fire didn't kill, the Glassing and mob violence did. Jar of Embers procing on all summons is a nice boon too. Second: Mantismaker Staff and Lifespark Lantern Skill. This was vital for resupplying my forces after I had spent them all. The only spells I had were Wolves, Toxic Mushbooms, Bears, and Eagles. The sheer quantity of mantises and lightning bugs helped as both a constant source of DPS and meat shields while my other minions were naturally healing. I added Minion Regen and Natural Healing, which made it so that all of my summons healed not only by turn, but while I was spamming summons on the rollout. Third to come was Toadblood and Scent of Blood, which spawned even more minions as my existing minions died or were injured, which they would heal to farm more blood if they survived. Fourth skill was Hemocorruption, since all of my minions were healing constantly. After this, it was just grabbing Hordemancer, Conjured Vitality and Aggression, and Arch Conjurer to really nail it together.

Some more honorable mentions were that I had acquired Orc Houndmaster, Glass Butterfly, and Redcap Spawners, and an Immortal Redcap as an Exotic Pet, but outside of the Houndmaster Den, which were all subject to minion items as well, they were not as useful as I would have liked. I had acquired some thorns, but as Glassed Enemies skip their turn while glassed, it wasn't pivotal as it would be otherwise.

I should mention that every turn took quite a while to complete, even on XTurbo speed. Probably my own hardware, but keep it in mind that you'll have a LOT of entities to go through their turns every turn.

[Sador]

Originally posted by X-TheDark:

TL;DR : Arch Sorceror with Fan of Flames as main spell, using +range (Spell Sniper/Master of Space/Mystic Vision), to turn it into a ~20 range cone of map-delete;

I ended up getting my first win with a variation of this build, it's a really powerful build once it gets going. The early game is definitely the hardest part, especially as you're trying to save up points for the essential stuff, but once it gets going it wipes out half the screen with ease.

Some notes:

- I ended up getting something that summoned a fire elemental for every x amount of fire damage dealt. This actually made a massive difference to my survivability all the way to the final boss as you keep spawning more and more for free, they're fairly durable and take a lot of heat away from you (especially in close range where you need it most), and any that die are usually quickly replaced, even by their own doing.
- 1 damage for Disintegrator may not sound that impressive in description but effectively ended up doing as much damage as Fan of Flames on its own and was #2 in highest damage as a result.
- I ended up taking some skills that reapplied damage as a different damage source, such as holy, which seemed to help in bypassing some resistances. Enemies with both fire and ice resistance can be a pain.
- Blink was a great panic button, especially in the last few levels where enemies have a habit of teleporting you.
- Investing in Mystic Vision pays off very well, especially in the last few levels where the charges and durations help a lot to keep going.

Anyway, very fun build, I would recommend trying it. Thanks for sharing it!