Things I wish I knew...

[HEvansisme]

There probably isn’t anyone playing this game anymore, but these are the things I wish I knew to make the game easier, really easier.

1. Read and reread the journal!

Often times we think we may know how a sigil works, but the journal does help in clarifying things – even though it’s less than perfect.
Example, when I first started using the Phase sigil, I was under the impression that if I used a Control attuned spell on an enemy, any non-Phase Destruction spell I cast on said enemy would be stored and later released automatically. How wrong!

I quote the journal: “Traps the target in a distortion field. While the distortion field is active, it absorbs and stores any spells that hit the target…” -- This is what lead me to my initial assumption.

However, if I read the Destruction section of the Phase sigil, I would have noticed: “Does moderate amount of direct damage and translocates the target…If the target is in a distortion field when translocated, it’s teleported and any spells stored in the field are applied…” -- Put 2 & 2 together and it would mean that you would need to use a Phase Destruction spell to finally apply all that stored damage.

Sure, they should have mentioned that in the Control section, but alas!

2. It’s all about the farm, and upgrades

At every chapter you progress, so does the difficulty of the enemies. This means you must upgrade MOST of your gear at every new chapter.
IMHO, the upgrade priority goes like: Shield > main Mastery spell > Control spell > Destruction spell. I’ll explain this later.

Don’t use the Smart Inventory when upgrading, open up the inventory and study the stats. Some stats will prove to be very useful (to the point it’s game breaking), while most are just…fluff.
Even if you don’t think an item isn’t worth upgrading – it’s still useful as upgrade material for that one item you want to upgrade!
Upgrade Whites as material for Green upgrades, upgrade Greens as material for Blue upgrades, and upgrade Blues as material for Purple upgrades….and so on.

3. Agile shield is the best, but also the weakest.

Unlimited blink is useful in dodging the lob attacks by enemy mages, which can wipe off one layer on hit. Said enemy mages can also silently teleport behind you and launch lob attacks. Also useful for dodging those slowing projectiles from the mini-boss in Shax’ lodge.

4. 100% Crit missile > 80% APOC missile > Nova > Everything else

100% crit missiles allow for “fire-forget-get the hell out” tactics – without the drawback of charging your shots. This is very important in NGP as enemies will constantly approach from all directions, and staying in a spot for more than 1sec can be hazardous.

80% APOC is sufficient enough to trigger an APOC sigil almost every hit. No need to sacrifice anymore Destruction/Mastery/Control points for added chance.

IMO, Nova doesn’t benefit from improved charging or casting times. That said Novas are only used in choke points to handle masses. Most of the time my missiles do the rest. More on why later.

5. 100% crit =/= 100% APOC

Learned this the hard way. APOC only happens on charged shots. It doesn’t matter if you do 1mil crit dmg if you didn’t charge that shot.

6. What do those numbers mean?!

You see a Shape or Augment, and notice 3 circles with varying values. What do they serve besides telling you the Destruction-Control-Mastery values?
The value of the item – or specifically, an augment!

Wait, does that mean they’re unimportant to Shapes? No, they just don’t have that much influence as opposed to Augments.
IMO, for Shapes, Augment slots > affixes/suffixes properties. This is why you shouldn’t use Smart Inventory, and should compare Shapes to find out the truth yourself!

Back to Augments - Why are those circled numbers so important to Augments?
First off, we have to know what quantifies as a valuable Augment. To do that, find the value of a pure Augment. Example, a pure Control augment at level 11 is 0-12-0, meaning 12!
So, if you can find another Control augment that is 5-6-5, that means it has a value of 16!

But, that would mean I shorten the duration of my control spell! – So you say.
That is true, however, it more than makes up for that by improving the damage and mastery consumption. This is the key to millions of damage!

Different Sigils Attunements, are influenced differently by bonus Destruction, Control and Mastery.
Example, Fire and Lightning Destruction attuned spells benefit greatly from bonus Destruction and Mastery values. However, for Lightning – Control values play a very big role too. Imagine doing up to 3x more damage to chained enemies than the primary target!
All this info is found in the journal!

7. Mastery + Destruction combo = GG is a big fat lie

It should be Mastery + Control + Destruction. This is the way to unleash millions of damage without fancy synergies – not that synergies are that good >.>
It should also be done in that order. Mastery first, Control second, and finalize with Destruction.

There’s a thread somewhere that details the damage calculations. (https://steamcommunity.com/app/261760/discussions/0/34096318990031607/)
In short, the simplest combo is, any non-Necro Mastery spell + Ice control spell + any non-Necro Destruction spell. (Necro spells don’t do anything but raise the dead which deal whatever attunement you used, remember that).
The bulk of that damage is actually contributed by your Mastery and Control – not Destruction alone! This also means, you could have a lower level Destruction spell compared to your Mastery & Control spells. Mine is 14 vs 20.

8. Apocalypticals are mostly useless

Except Delirum’s. They can’t hit what they can’t see, except for ranged attackers who fire on your last know location.

9. Game breaking recipe is…

[Main]
1x 80% - 100% APOC chance high-level missile for your Delirium Mastery
1x 95% - 100% Crit chance high-level missile for your Ice Control
1x 95% - 100% Crit chance mid/high-level missile for your Lightning Destruction

[Icing]
1x high-level Delirium Mastery nova (preferably with bonus duration or crit effect)
1x high-level Ice Control Nova (preferably with bonus duration or crit effect)
1x mid/high-level Lightning Destruction nova (preferably with crit effect or bonus damage on kill)

[Method]
- Charge your Delirium missile, and fire away.
- Once target is tagged with the Delirium sigil, gently tap to fire your Ice missile.
- Target should be frozen solid at this point, so gently tap to fire your Lightning missile.
- Target should now be finely crushed ice, enjoy your new found invisibility!

[Notes]
- Once you’ve killed your first tagged enemy, you will be granted 5 charges of perfect invisibility. This means after killing it, you can only cast 5 spells before becoming visible again. So, be mindful of your remaining charges! You can see it beside the spell rotation section in your view.
- Since you’re using Lightning Destruction, you will end up unintentionally killing nearby cheap summoned skeletons or breaking other enemies’ green shields. This is perfectly a-ok, and should be expected.

[warrax40]

Great.. nice write up.. Finally someone else who get's it.

1. Agreed big time.. Read people.
2. yep.
3. I prefer Tactical shield myself.
4. I use tactical shield so i disagree with this section but i see why you would say this using agile shield.
5. Yeah i learned that lesson kinda the same way. I was like "omg, i can craft a guaranteed crit and APOC and just pew pew.." sadly you gotta charge it.
6. In NG+ mode i found the % based augmentation far more effective than the DE/CO/MA number sets. But ofcourse they both matter.
7. It's not a lie. :-( it's the foundation and key stepping stone to becoming OP; And the synergies are pretty good especially the one that use fire. Common man.
8. Okay i get it now. Try being a bit more creative, The apoc sigil powers are really quite nice, delirium, kinesis, phase, necro are all pretty nice. But yeah Deliriums is Broken as ♥♥♥♥.
9. Doesn't need to be that complicated. Any combo with a self-refreshing Delirium Apoc is broken.

Fantastic write thanks, the community of this game need stuff like this.

Comment on mine. https://steamcommunity.com/app/261760/discussions/0/1368380934262573866/

[HEvansisme]

There really isn't much more to comment.
The moment they included perfect invisibility, it essentially made other apocalypticals and synergies useless.
Fire and Lightning apocs are more offensive and aoe focused, but still need Mastery & Control spells to be of any use. Which then makes you wonder, why even bother when regular spell rotations + invisibility can do the trick, without additional thinking and timing required.

Kinesis, necro and ice are more defensive but totally useless compared to perfect invisibility. Phase is....just not worth mentioning.
In invisibility, No one hits you and you can take your own sweet time killing them without repercussions.

If there's one final comment I can make is, this game really pales in comparison to Two Worlds 2. I got this game thinking I could whip up some ridiculous or hilarious spell - how very wrong.
In TW2, I could modify my unguided missile into a guided one.
But wait, there’s more! I could make them into a spray of guided missiles. (I can even determine how many missiles in the spray)
Wait, even more, I could make it a CC, defensive or offensive spell.
Even more, I could make them ricochet.
Even even more, I could make them cause an AOE upon impact.
Even even even more, I could make them summon minions.
And, that’s just one “shape”.

Compare that with Lichdom >.>

[warrax40]

Originally posted by HEvansisme:

There really isn't much more to comment.
The moment they included perfect invisibility, it essentially made other apocalypticals and synergies useless.

wait a moment, you sound disappointed? .. i thought it was really awesome. One of the big pushes for this game was for the dragon to feel really badass and Overpowered. Is it not cool to have a spell crafting system that actually allows this?

Fire and Lightning apocs are more offensive and aoe focused, but still need Mastery & Control spells to be of any use. Which then makes you wonder, why even bother when regular spell rotations + invisibility can do the trick, without additional thinking and timing required.

well you bother because it's fun.. -_-

Kinesis, necro and ice are more defensive but totally useless compared to perfect invisibility. Phase is....just not worth mentioning.

what you got against phase? it's the other really OP sigil like delirium

In invisibility, No one hits you and you can take your own sweet time killing them without repercussions.

yes.... there are also other equally as overpowered things you can do as well. For example you can make a 100% dmg reducing shield aka invulnerability.

If there's one final comment I can make is, this game really pales in comparison to Two Worlds 2. I got this game thinking I could whip up some ridiculous or hilarious spell - how very wrong.

you can, you REALLY can..Ever try lobs at 400% casting speed? I feel like you missed the fun and creativity somewhere along the way when you found one of the really brokenly overpowered combinations and maybe you just stopped there, i don't know..

In TW2, I could modify my unguided missile into a guided one.
But wait, there’s more! I could make them into a spray of guided missiles. (I can even determine how many missiles in the spray)
Wait, even more, I could make it a CC, defensive or offensive spell.
Even more, I could make them ricochet.
Even even more, I could make them cause an AOE upon impact.
Even even even more, I could make them summon minions.
And, that’s just one “shape”.

sounds really cool actually, i'll probably go buy that when im done writing this.

Compare that with Lichdom >.>

Anyways bro, thanks for the awesome write up. Lichdom battlemage needs all the help it can get when it comes to getting the player into the spellcrafting.

Talk to you later.

[warrax40]

oh damn... Two worlds 2 has a "overwhelmingly negative" feedback.. with a CASHSHOP.... / run and hide!

got any motivational words of wisdom for that game like you put here in the Original post. Cause right now it seems like a bad choice.

[HEvansisme]

The recent wave of negative feedback is primarily due to the developer disabling the command console (which was used to cheat) after they recently launched the new DLC. What the developer did was to force users to pay for "cheating" e.g. pay to unlock all skills, for crafting material & etc.

As to why I bought TW2 - spellcrafting. So far, compared to Skyrim, Magicka 2 & Lichdom - TW2 is unbeaten in terms of depth and variety. And not forgetting, it's wayyy older than any of those games (2010).
Don't take my word for it, check out this basic TW2 spell crafting guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdXLXZqI67Q

In TW2, you start off with no defined type. You wanna be a warrior / archer / assassin / mage or a little bit of each? No problem, just allocate the appropriate stat & skill points.
I never liked playing melee chars, so I started off as an archer, but was very quickly captivated by the mage class. When you do choose to be one - you'd still have to decide which school/element you'd like to specialise in ;)

If you're looking for something as polished as Skyrim, TW2 is no match. It has a couple of bugs, but nothing that would completely stop you from progressing.

Story wise, I think it's way better than Lichdom, but not as interesting and immersive as Skyrim. In Skyrim, I could really feel the struggle of both the Nords and Imperials.

In terms of things to do, it's also a lot better than Lichdom as it has plenty of side-quests and mini games. You can do things like invests in businesses, perform criminal acts like pick-pocketing/lock picking or even play a harp. This is pretty much like Skyrim.

The world in TW2 is also significantly more varied than Lichdom. There are more locations ranging from forests to Asian inspired towns, and various enemies that don't just move on the ground.
There's also a good amount of flora and fauna for you to harvest, which helps in potion crafting.

If there's one thing I didn't like about TW2, is that once you've cleared an area of enemies - they don't respawn. There's also no endless-run type of mission. This means, once you've completed the main and side quests - there's nothing much else to do. This is the problem most games have.

[warrax40]

hmmm okay.... sounds pretty good.

I do want that console though and i do want to fast track my way to play with the spellcrafting system. Im not interested in developing a RPG character, i have enough of that between MMO's and two other Single player RPGs.

is there a way around the console lockout? yes i want to cheat and yes i want to do it alot.

[HEvansisme]

Based on the TW2 discussions, I think they've renabled the console. ;)

[theothernamewastaken]

Great post. One thing to add, if you really want to break the game using Delirium just use trap type spells and synergies. These will not consume your apocalypticals, so you can just spam away all you want.

[warrax40]

Originally posted by theothernamewastaken:

Great post. One thing to add, if you really want to break the game using Delirium just use trap type spells and synergies. These will not consume your apocalypticals, so you can just spam away all you want.

I knew synergies did not.. but trap shape also? damn that is broken

[krieske]

I guess there are more people still playing than one would think. Great game, and time to check out TW2!

[warrax40]

I tried TW2.. i got scared there are microtransactions everywhere and for a single player game this concerns me also internet connect required to play... i refunded the game.

[erislover]

Wait, so am I to understand that forging augments with distributed values is better than singleton values? For instance, I shouldn't focus on 8-0-0 destruction, but something like 4-0-4 in order to improve mastery consumption, or 3-3-3 to get the control damage and mastery consumption? Argh I've really been going about this wrong.

[warrax40]

Originally posted by erislover:

Wait, so am I to understand that forging augments with distributed values is better than singleton values? For instance, I shouldn't focus on 8-0-0 destruction, but something like 4-0-4 in order to improve mastery consumption, or 3-3-3 to get the control damage and mastery consumption? Argh I've really been going about this wrong.

Yes and no and both.. It depends what you are going for in the spell and greatly depends on the sigil as well. Percentage based modifiers also play a huge impact.


Without presenting you tons of examples with explanation it going to be hard to give you a complete understanding.

My biggest piece of advice is to read carefully what each affect for each sigil does in the journal and next observe carefully when crafting your spell.

a augment like 8/0/0 on a destruction spell will increase the base damage on the spell, for sigils like Ice and fire this is okay but not so good for a sigil like kinesis.

an augment like 4/0/4 will provide less base damage but will make the mastery consumption larger meaning the crits will do more dmg. Mastery consumption is great for a sigil like phase and kinesis for example.

just read.

[Satisfaction]

I have no idea what you said. This game is like studying for a calculus test; that;s suppose to be fun? Augment, phase, sigil... what a mess.

[erislover]

Originally posted by warrax40:

Yes and no and both.. It depends what you are going for in the spell and greatly depends on the sigil as well. Percentage based modifiers also play a huge impact.

OK this made a pretty big difference. Focused destruction didn't suit my playstyle and now I see how it all works. Rolling fire destruction, control necromancy, and mastery kinesis. But my area kinesis is damage and so I can get a huge swath of undead that basically levitate all the enemies. The damage when they smash to the ground is fantastic. Necromancy was a bit of a pain because they'd get in the way, but it's easy to hit levitating foes with a missile (was rolling lobs before).

Basically the first playthrough is like training for post-game. The loot machines are super fun to go through again with everything leveled up. I'm enjoying the endgame three times as much as the base game. Really fun.

Is there a max number for loot? I'm at 13/14 right now.

Also I don't understand the ire for the strategic shield. I can't get away from it.