(Outdated)I finally finished min-maxing a final build... Wow you can get powerful.

[brown29knight]

This thread is about pushing a character to its ultimate potential. You can get some really extreme things going if you are willing to farm all the right gear and plan your stats and skills for it.

For me, it was a Perception based Electromancer Jonna:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3225526075

76 Main hand damage on a mage, with 100% Acc and 32.5% Crit. Lets just say that the few foes who did close on me, found out that a maxed out Jonna is no melee slouch

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3225525973

Here's where the real fun begins: 100% Miracle chance, 125% Miracle potency, all the time. Backfire chance looks high, (I did just take down those 2 Gulion) but every miracle I cast lowers backfire chances, and I have a (undisplayed) Bonus to backfire chance from all the electromancy spells I know, and as a result, I almost never backfire an electromantic spell.

Why Fire barrage? To blow up doors in dungeons from a safe distance, or to take out obstacles between me and a target. Backfire doesn't matter on it, as it is not cast in combat.

Why 21 Willpower? Because it let me perfectly hit the 2 turn cooldown for Jolt. 20 Would not have been enough with my gear.

Why 11 Vitality? Because it let me hit the 50% Energy restoration break point at 50% energy. 10 would have just missed that break point.

Did I need to hunt for the electromancy 4 skill book in order to complete the build? Absolutely. 30 Perception makes for the strongest mage, but it will not automatically unlock your spells. You'll need to find the books (Electromancy and Magic Mastery)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3225543493

Here's the gear. 3 Distant dungeon unique items and one artifact are part of the build. The Relict Blade is simply the best weapon for this build. The Shield of Sun's Eternal truth is the secret to the 100% Miracle chance, while the Hermit's Ring adds cooldown and energy restoration, freeing up my boots and cloak to focus on more magic power and lowering backfire chance. Enchantments are physical damage reduction on the cloak, belt, ring, and amulet, Energy on the chest, gloves, and boots, Energy Restoration on the helm.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3225526020

This Log shows just how crazy this build can get. Over 700 damage done in one spell, followed up by a 74 point jolt.

At 50% energy, I have >50% Energy restoration, so I regain 6 energy every 2 turns or faster in combat, not counting conductivity (which restores a lot more).

I also have 35% Block from a shield, and therefore block a fair number of arrows, bolts, and projectile spells launched at me.

There is simply nothing in the game that can come close to endangering this Jonna, I can walk through distant dungeons never taking damage at all.

Anyone else taken a character to the extreme upper edge of what is possible? If you have, please share, I would love to see just how crazy Stoneshard characters can get.

[ZobrAZ]

Good job, it's a pity that you can get if only whet you actually dont need it any more. And this is not about just Stoneshard - pretty much any game has that you get really cool stuff when you can do it even without that stuff, or if game opens new phase/biome/chapter this top notch stuff becomes junk in that new area anyway. (>_>)"

[funkmonster7]

Impressive.

[funkmonster7]

Just letting you know, I'm playing an Electromancer now, inspired by your build. Going for max Perception, and then whatever else. Finding the treatises isn't hard anyway, once I get to T3 treatise and they can be bought easily.

Originally I wanted to try max Perception Pyromancer, but I have unlocked Pyro achievement already... never unlocked the Elec one. Plus I remember how horrible my experience was during rainy days.

So I might do Pyro again, one day... Just not today. Elec for now. :) Let's see what the fuss is about regarding how OP Electromancers are. (Hell, I hate them even as my enemies.)

[funkmonster7]

By the way, you've never explained why 11 Agility... 11 Vit makes sense because you start with 11 Vit. But you start with 10 Agi, so why that extra point?

[brown29knight]

Backfire chance. 11 Vit and 21 Will are needed for the breakpoints. Once you have them (and the 100% miracle chance), the most important stat is backfire chance.

Keep in mind that the 30 Perception and 20 base willpower are the priority. Those 11 stats are only taken at levels 29 and 30.

[funkmonster7]

Got any advice for fighting Brander? I have all my Elec spells up to tier 3 except the 35% energy drain one that procs off Static Field...

Also Seal of Power and Seal of Finesse, as well as Seal of Insight.

Current stats are:

Str: 10
Agi: 10
Per: 15
Vit: 11
Wil: 19

I screwed up in the beginning getting Wil to 15 first, but stopped to try to raise Per. But I planned to keep Wil at 20 anyway, so I somewhat fixed my mistake. However, at level 13, Brander is hella hard to beat.

I tried 3 times so far. All failed. The first time: Brander was right in front of his goon squad, I had no way to lure only him, so I fought them all, tried to put Resonance on them to amp up my damage. That plan failed, I ended up killing his goon squad, but Brander made their corpses in pyres and I could not outdamage his healing. Once my Ball is on cooldown, Brander chased me down and killed me.

The second time: I used Stardust and tried again. This time, Brander was far back in the room so I lured his goon squad out. I thought I was lucky because I killed his goon squad very far from his throne room. I thought I got lucky. Nope. Brander tanked through all the damage I gave him, and I got unlucky with some Jolts (didn't put Reso on him, dammit), and killed me.

The third time: I got owned by a pair of Sanguimages who came along with their altar guy and an Impaler. I killed the altar guy and Impaler, and the Sanguimages just kicked my ass with their golems. Hard to fight 6 guys...

[funkmonster7]

The more I play Elec the more I miss my old Pyro...

[brown29knight]

Brander is one of the harder ones. I killed him the first time by luring out his minions, like you did in your second try. (And it also took me a couple tries) Ball lightning is a huge help if you use it just outside a doorway so it blocks the passage and gives you time to retreat and restore energy and get spells off cooldown.

Since you already tried, you should know the layout of the dungeon pretty well. Try to lure foes away for a few rooms before the boss room, so that you can retreat a few rooms without him setting pyres. That'll give you a lot more time to whittle him down as you retreat.

You'll find him to be a lot less of a challenge soon, lvl 13 is right at the area where your magic power starts to jump up, increasing your damage to the point where killing him is possible even when he has pyres running. Of course to get there, you'll need the gear, and for that you need reputation, so the first couple Brynn dungeons are by far the hardest.

Don't be afraid to gear as a normal electromancer (cowl, mantle, + staff) while you build up your skills, the high miracle chance gear is better once you are higher level and thaumaturgy
is already pumping up your miracle chance a lot.

[funkmonster7]

I'm playing all my trap cards now. Damn Brander.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3231577821

[funkmonster7]

Holy crap I did it. I got lucky by managing to lure out his minions, killed them elsewhere outside.

Then utilized my range and shot a Jolt at Brander, then retreated, laid down my caltrops, then my snare trap, then my Seal of Insight, stood on it and set up my Seal of Finesse and Power. When he came and got caught on the caltrops, I placed Resonance on him; when he got caught in the snare trap, I hit him with other spells. When snare duration ran out, I kept him locked in the corridor with Ball Lightning in front of him. Then rinsed through all my spells and finally killed him. Phew...

Same strategy as my Pyromancer I think. I guess I forgot about the trap trick since I only had to do it once at the time... The second time onwards, I just fried him with brute force.

[Sir Gura]

As always, nothing that a few consumables can't solve. Stoneshard in a nutshell

[brown29knight]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Holy crap I did it. I got lucky by managing to lure out his minions, killed them elsewhere outside.

Then utilized my range and shot a Jolt at Brander, then retreated, laid down my caltrops, then my snare trap, then my Seal of Insight, stood on it and set up my Seal of Finesse and Power. When he came and got caught on the caltrops, I placed Resonance on him; when he got caught in the snare trap, I hit him with other spells. When snare duration ran out, I kept him locked in the corridor with Ball Lightning in front of him. Then rinsed through all my spells and finally killed him. Phew...

Same strategy as my Pyromancer I think. I guess I forgot about the trap trick since I only had to do it once at the time... The second time onwards, I just fried him with brute force.

Congrats.

Should be prettymuch the same, second time on, you should have the power to brute force him.

Good luck with the tentacle boss... the first time you face him, you'll likely need to use a doorway and limited vision range to stunlock him in melee range (with impulse). Often that's the best way to beat him with an electromancer before you are maxed out.

[funkmonster7]

I just realized Lingering Incantations is such an important passive for Electromancer... Uh, duh. I was so focused on learning Elec spells that I didn't think Lingering Incantations can increase my Resonance duration, making me able to hold Resonance on 3 enemies. =_= Oh well, I guess when I run this build again, I'll know what to do. Like the Pyromancer, I ran that build about 3 times in total.

I'm slaughtering human bandits at a distant dungeon. Just the exterior though. If I'm having a hard time finding treatises in T3 dungeons then distant dungeons will have to do... Doesn't matter if I can't kill the boss. I just want books, haha.

Edit: Never mind I forgot about the magehunter, uh... he killed me.

[brown29knight]

I had a hard time finding the t4 books. Oddly enough, I tend to find my first copy in a tier 3 dungeon (after running T4 dungeons a bunch)

I'll typically do the 3 Brynn contracts (for reputation) then hit a distant dungeon while they respawn, then repeat. Once my reputation is maxed, I'll skip the T3 graveyard (no books there) and run the other 2 T3 dungeons and 2 T4 dungeons (again, no graveyards) until I find the books.

I PM'd you with a bit more info about how I ran distant dungeons. Hopefully that'll help you get the build working.

Lingering is great, not only for resonance, but for static field (and the energy drain it does) and ball lightning. Lingering also lets you stack up lots more resonance on one target, making for a killer tempest. I stunned the ancient troll with a tempest that way.

[funkmonster7]

Thanks. I think I mostly got a handle on it now. I've worked out how Electromancer plays out - very similar to other mages really, but with more focus on lowering cooldown, to the point that one has to be a glass cannon to be most effective. I was hesitant to do that, so I struggled for a while. Eventually I decided that I need to wear a circlet instead, which boosted my magic power quite a bit. That helps to some degree.

As most of my fighting struggles centered around not being able to cast spells before enemies start running towards me, that is how I realized not going hard into CDR was a mistake. Once I fixed that mistake, everything became easier.

Lastly, I missed out on Lingering Incantations, that was a major boo on my part lol... That boosted my Resonance duration for one, but also lengthened the duration of Ball Lightning, Static Field etc. Even though it is just 1 turn more, it is a big help since everything stacks up.

One last thing I noticed is I didn't play like how I normally play my mages... With Jonna mages, I usually capitalize on her high XP rate due to her trait, and farm lower level dungeons for easy XP and money. I didn't think about doing that this time around because I knew I couldn't unlock my T4 spells without books, and I was impatient haha... But in the end, just with Lingering Incantations I wouldn't have needed T4 spells anyway. As right now at level 17 I still have no T4 Electromancy Treatises, and I'm doing fairly fine.