Solo Build: Archmage Eternal (Single Wizard) - POTD Guide

★ Archmage Eternal - Build Guide for Wood Elf, Human or Wild Orlan.

✦ Difficulty: Path of the Damned + Upscaled + Expert Mode + Ironman Mode + No Berath Blessings

✦ Role: Striker, Crowd Control, Off-tank

✦ Class: Wizard (no-sub)

✎ Progression: have to pick your quests and fights effectively early on, beyond level 5 it's manageable and gets better every level up from there.

★ Showcase Video

Wizard clears Port Maje & rushes core quipments:

Wizard solo Ancient Dragon & Final Boss:

✎ Character Creation

♦ Starting Attributes:

• 10 Might
  

  There are enough Power Level bonus from gear / consumable in this build so put points into elsewhere more crucial for the solo Wizard.

  
  
• 8 Constitution
  

  Not necessarily useful with Wizard defensive buffs. Dumping 2 points are enough to be put elsewhere, there will be more bonus ♥♥♥ from gear and buffs to make sure the Wizard can't be suddenly killed if enemy connects their attacks.

  
  
• 15 Dexterity
  

  There are enough Action / Recovery Speed stacking boost in the build, a decent amount of Dexterity is enough to let the Wizard fast casts in Heavy Armor.

  
  
• 20 Perception
  

  Important for casters, not only it is bad when your spells can't land but being able to score Crits reliable is also crucial to bypass armor of late game big bad individuals. Because spells does not scale as generous as weapons of martial classes does, getting Crits on your spells is the most effective and quickest way to deal with thick armors.

  
  
• 15 Intellect
  

  With bonus Power Levels and Intellect running in the build, a decent Intellect is enough to improve your spells/buffs.

  
  
• 10 Resolve

Wood Elf and The White that Wends are used for this guide.

♦ Leveling:

• Level 1: Chill Fog
  
• Level 2: Spirit Shield
  
• Level 3: Combusting Wounds & Shield Style
  
• Level 4: Infuse with Vital Essence
  
• Level 5: Llengrath's Displaced Image & Bear Fortitude
  
• Level 6: Deleterious Alacrity of Motion
  
• Level 7: Scion of Flame & Secrets of Rime
  
• Level 8: Expose Vulnerabilities
  
• Level 9: Ryngrim's Enervating Terrors & Rapid Casting
  
• Level 10: Tough
  
  
• Level 11: Llengrath's Safeguard & Uncanny Luck
  
• Level 12: Improved Critical
  
• Level 13: Minoletta Piercing Bust & Accurate Empower
  
• Level 14: Bull's Will
  
• Level 15: Potent Empower
  
  
• Level 16: Wall of Many Colors & Penetrating Empower
  
• Level 17: Minoletta Piercing Sigil
  
• Level 18: Spell Resistance
  
• Level 19: Minoletta Missle Salvo & Prestige
  
• Level 20: Snake Reflexes

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♦ Civil skills:

• Job: Hunter
  
• Active: Alchemy
  
• Passive: History

♦ Weapon Proficiency:

• Dagger - Medium Shield - Flail

✎ Equipment / Gear

✦ Gear:

• Thaos' Headdress: +1 Intellect. +5 Accuracy and +5% Damage to Flanked targets.
  

  ✖ Whitewitch Mask: +1 All Illusion Power Level, Grants Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage at Bloodied and grants Ryngrim's Enervating Terror spell. (alternative option)

  
  
• Stone of Power (Neck): +1 Intellect, Grants Power Surge which +1 All Power Level for one entire battle per rest.
  

  ✖ Dragon's Pendant (Neck): +1 Burn Armor, +1 Slash Armor, Grants Breath of Flames and Call the Clutch. (alternative option)

  
  
• Nomad's Brigandine (Medium): +20% Incoming Hits to Grazes and +5 Deflection when there are no allies nearby. Immunity do Disengagement attacks and +5 Deflection against Melee weapons.
  
  
• Kuaru's Prize (Ring): +5% Damage with spells, +1 Intellect, +1 Perception.
  
  
• Ring of Focused Flame +10 Accuracy with Fire attacks.
  
  
• Boots of Stone: +1 Dexterity, +1 Resolve, +Resistance to Might afflictions
  
  
• Girdle of Mortal Protection: +2 Constitution, +15% incoming Crits converted to Hits.
  
  
• Gauntles of Accuracy: +3 Accuracy
  
  
• Cloak of Deflection (Cloak): +4 Deflection, if you manage to find a Greater version, use it.
  
  
• Otto Starcat (Cat): +1 Fire Power Level.
  

  ✖ Nalvi (Dog): +1 Resolve, Reduces Recovery penalty for armor (varies by Armor Type) (alternative option)

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✦ Weapon:

• Sun and Moon (Flail): +2 Fire Power Level during Daytime and +2 Frost Power Level during Night time. When upgraded with Solar Execellence, +5% chance to repeat your Fire attacks.
  

  → Flail Modal has a -25 Reflex debuff on Hits which can be useful when you are up against big bads with high Reflex, a quick auto-attack will help you hit them alot easier.

  
  
• Nerian's Ward (Medium Shield): Incoming weapon Damage is reduced as Health is lost (Max +15% DR). 15% of incoming Grazes / Hits / Crits from weapons converted to their lower tier.
  

  → Medium Shield Modal gives +30% chance to Block weapon attacks.
  → In early game on you can use Dagger and Small Shield instead to stay safe before the core equipments.

  
  
• Ninagauth's Teaching (Grimoire): giving you both Ninagauth unique and based spells.

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✦ Foods:

• Action Speed for most encounters:
  
  • Rum: +15% Action Speed, -1 Dexterity.
  
  
• When against big bad battles
  
  • Captain's Banquet: +20% Action Speed, +20% Spell Damage, Immunity to Intellect / Perception / Resolve afflictions.

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✦ Alchemy:

• Drugs:
  
  • Ripple Sponge: +3 Perception, +3 Resolve, +3 Intellect
  
  
• Potions:
  
  • Potion of Ascension: +2 All Power Levels. (crafting)
    
  • Potion of Healing: Small or Morderate (Morderate are sold in Sanza's Emporium)
    
  • Potion of Deftness: +5 Accuracy, +15% Action Speed. (sold by ship merchants or in The Dark Cupboard)
    
  • Potion of Perfect Aim: +25% Grazes to Misses / to Hits / to Crits (crafting)

✎ Abilities Preview

✦ Buffs:

• Infuse with Vital Essence: grants Fit inspiration and Smart inspiration which +5 ♥♥♥ and +5 INT, as inspirations they can also save you from being Weakened and Charmed.
  
  
• Spirit Shield: +3 Armor Rating and grants 1 Concentration.
  
  
• Llengrath's Displaced Image: +10 Deflection, +20 Relfex, +30% incoming Hits converted to Grazes (Deflection or Reflex only), making you even harder to get hit.
  
  
• Deleterious Alacrity of Motion: Great speed boost, granting the player Swift Inspiration (+5 Dexterity, +100% Stride, Immunity to Engagements) and +15% Action Speed. But -3 Health per 3s to self which can be managed.
  
  
• Minoletta Piercing Sigil: whoever hit you in melee with weapons will be pushed way and receive Piercing damage then get Stunned.
  
  
• Llengrath's Safeguard: when Bloodied, push nearby enemy away and grants +20 to All Defenses & +5 Armor Rating.

✦ Offense:

• Chill Fog: a great control spells that deals Freeze Damage in an area and blinding aynone who are inside, ticks per 3s. Blinded cause targets to get -5 Perception, +50% Recovery time, -10 Accuracy, -50% Range and Flanked (-1 AR, -10 Deflection). It can also be used on enemy far away backline to force them moving in closer, clustered together so your AoE could get them all at once.
  
  
• Combusting Wounds: one of the strongest dps spell of Wizard arsenal. Once affected, everytime target take damage, they gets a tick of Burn damage making a great synergy with any other fast DoT spells (Wall of Flame, Bitter Mooring,...) or spells with multiple projectiles fired at once. Combusting Wounds remains powerful even at late game when the Wizard need great single target damage to quickly melt down big bad individuals.
  

  Note: this spell does nothing on it own, it has to combo with other dps spells to be effective.

  
  
• Wall of Flame: a fast damage over time, creating a wall of flame in a line burning everyone in it. While WoF is not really strong it own, it can be very deadly when combo with Combusting Wells.
  
  
• Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring: a fast damage overtime beam, dealing Freeze damge to target and anyone who stand in between of the beam. Like Wall of Flame, it makes a great addition to the Combusting Wounds deadly combo list.
  
  
• Ninagauth's Shadowflame: a strong Freeze AoE damage that also paralyzes enemies, reducing their Reflexes and increase your Hits to Crits conversion chance towards them.
  
  
• Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar: a strong Freeze AoE damage overtime, it also Hobbled enemies in affected reducing their Reflexes, both great reliable starting spell in combat to quickly eliminate weak enemies and set up strong enemies to combo with others following up AoE.
  
  
• Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst: a powerful Pierce AoE damage, burst around the Caster with really high Penetration.
  
  
• Delayed Fireball: a powerful Fireball that take a bit time before exploding in enemy faces.
  
  
• Wilting Wind: a strong Raw AoE damage that covers a massive area, and apply Weakened status to affected enemies, reducing their health to be vulnerable for taking down.
  
  
• Meteor Shower: a powerful Burn AoE damage, summon a rain of meteors down from the sky. A great spell to combo with Combusting Wounds, not only it has many projectiles but also applying a strong fast Burn damage overtime afterward, ideally to trigger Wounds in a short amount of times.
  

  In all cases, you can comfortably drop the Meteor Shower on top of your head if needed when the encounter is swarmed with melee enemies, because your Reflex is so high you could dodge most of the Reflex-based spells with this build.

  
  
• Minoletta's Missle Salvo: a powerful Crush/Crode AoE damage, firing multiple focused projectiles. Ideally to be combo with Combusting Wounds.

✦ Crowd Controls:

• Wall of May Colors: is a really great control spells, creating a Wall of Colors in a lane with constant hard CC effects in it (Paralyzed, Dominated) which can mentally mess up and disable enemy minds standing within the Wall.
  
  
• Rymgrim's Enervating Terrors: cause enemies in the area to be Terrified and Weakened, making enemies running around in fear helplessly and weak with their health softened, allowed to be quickly taken down.

✦ AI Behavior Script:

• Link

[Muad'Dib]

Amazing

[EatCat]

Hi
I got 2 questions about Pillars 2: DeadFire

1. I am on Veteran now. But it is too easy. So I decided to change it to Path of Damned….

Can you please tell me, will it change to POD difficulty correctly if I do it in the middle of the game?
I am afraid that balance with difficulty-skulls or something else will be broken.


2. I will not ruin any achievements if I will change difficulty in the middle of the game?

As far as I can see, there are no such achievements like “complete the game at Veteran”

[Vash]

What is a Combusting Well?

[Nachtmahr]

In your video you picked daggers/small shield, but your guide suggests medium shields/flails, so which one is the better pick? Great guide overall!

[Lost Sinner]

Alchemy (Active) and History or Diplomatic (Passive), read my reply to Rilke below for more details.

[PixelVixen]

2nd wanting to know skill points :D

[Rilke]

Ah, I never thought of respecing for those pesky locks, great idea. Thanks!

[Lost Sinner]

• Active is Alchemy and passive is either History or Diplomatic. Active is not always Alchemy, depends on certain areas as Mechanic/Stealth will become useful to get through them quickly to rush core gear/equipments of the build, watch Part 2 or Part 3 of the Wizard solo series for some examples.
• For the most part, focused on Alchemy for combat situations, you can respec your character from any merchants ingame to switch back and forth when the needs arise.

[Rilke]

What do you take for skill points?