Magician (Rogue / Earth) Build Guide

'Unlimited Knife Works' - Knifethrower caster build

Introduction

Emiya, Steel Body and Glass Heart
Mastery: Magician (Rogue / Earth)
Build: 'Unlimited Knife Works' Knifethrower caster


General gist of this build is to spam Rogue's throwing knife ability. Earth enchantment and Envenom Weapon used to boost damage and CC. Very effective at dealing with crowds.

The build is extremely energy intensive through. Without energy reduction you will find yourself chugging potions like crazy and having to go on farming runs to raise funds to afford your energy addiction.

As well, +4 skill to rogue is mandatory for the build and the build doesn't really come into its own until level 25 when equip gear with the +4 skill you need and max both the base Throwing Knife and Flurry of Knives synergy skill. Before that the skill shoots a single dagger with long cooldown. I am expecting you to have pre-farmed epic Stonebinder's Cuffs and a +2 rogue skill amulet before attempting this build. If you have Ragnarok then I'd suggest starting an Accomplish character so you can skip the tedious part and jump straight to the knife throwing.

• Really good at dealing with crowds
  
• Wide variety of damage types (fire, poison, bleeding, piercing)
  
• Can be tweaked to be a hybrid or more of a caster as one wishes

• You will be addicted to the blue stuff without energy reduction
  
• Gear dependent
  
• Takes a bit to get going

Run completed with the xMax (x3) mod
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=755731339

Required Skills

The following are core skills for the build

Throwing Knife
Trace, on, Trigger, off.


The primary skill of the build and also the most unique skill in the game. It carries over many unusual damage factors and effects:

• Uses Casting Rate rather than Attack Speed.
  
• Properties applied to Throwing Knife:
  
  • Armor, jewelery and artifact flat damage bonus
    
  • Armor and jewelery charms'/relics' effects
    
  • Any kind of percentage damage bonus from any source
    
  • Any on hit effect provided by armor, jewelery and artifact
• Properties NOT applied to Throwing Knife:
  
  • Any kind of flat weapon damage
    
  • Any kind of flat shield damage
    
  • Non-damage weapon properties
    
  • Non-damage shield properties

Throwing knife has a 10% chance to pass through Enemies, applies a 3s bleeding DOT and does piercing damage. At rank 1/12 the skill has a 6s recharge, at 12/12 it has 1.6s recharge and at 16/12 it has no recharge which is why +4 rogue skill is required for the build. The Flurry of Knives turns Throwing Knife into a frontal conal aoe with 8 projectiles at 10/6.


Envenom Weapon


Envenom Weapon gives your weapon a poison DOT. Because of how Throwing Knife works this DOT is applied to all your knife projectiles as well. The Nightshade synergy boosts poison damage % and more importantly applies a slowing debuff. The Toxin Distillation synergy boosts Poison Damage % with Improved Duration %. The Mandrake synergy applies an excellent CC debuff causing fumble and confusion.


Earth Enchantment


Aura will give your knives some fire damage kick. Max out both Earth Enchantment and its Brimstone synergy. Stone skin is up to you; at ultimate level (14/10) it provides only a 36% buff to fire resist and 75 to armour and you can feel free to put those points elsewhere if you wish.


Heat Shield


One point wonder ability that gives you physical resistance and fire damage absorption. The absorption is useful against enemies that do that type of damage and reflectors but the real prize is the +15% Physical Resistance. You can put additional points into the skill if you wish. Has to be refreshed fairly regularly.


Volativity


Excellent passive that gives you a 33% chance of getting big boosts to your physical, fire and burn damage. Max as soon as possible.

Optional Skills

You have a fair amount of leeway with selecting whatever optional skills that you may want. With your +skill items you should be able to get good benefits from passives with just a single point of investment. With a bit of tweaking most skills should be able to added to your arsenal without issues.

My character is built with Atlantis expansion so if you don't have that you'll have 16 additional points to distribute into skills.


Blade Honing


Increases pierce ratio and gives some flat piercing damage. Only useable when using swords, spears and throwing weapons.


Disarm Traps


Constructs and devices can be annoying to fight as a rogue. This passive will boost your damage inflicted on them while also decreasing damage you take from them.


Flash Powder


Useful AOE CC ability for when you get swamped but not 100% reliable.


Lay Trap


Makes for a useful extra source of damage during boss fights even without pet boosting gear. The Rapid Construction synergy reduces cooldown and energy cost. The Improved Firing Mechanism synergy increases the number of projectiles, chance to pass through enemies and pierce damage.


Poison Gas Bomb


Does poison damage and slows. The Shrapnel synergy adds bleeding and piercing damage. The Poison Mayhem synergy skill fires multiple bombs and applies a chance for fear and impaired aim.


Anatomy


Passive to boost your bleeding damage from throwing knives.


Blade Barrier


Interesting skill. Summons a trio of stationary whirling blades that can transmit effects like a regular weapon.


Volcanic Orb


Fires an orb in an arc that explodes when it hits the ground dealing fire and physical damage to small radius. The Conflagration synergy skill adds a patch of burning ground that does burn damage. Fragmentation sends out fragments that inflict fire and physical damage and apply a short 1.5s stun. The stun can be useful I guess, I find the skill a little clunky to use sometimes through.


Stone Form


Makes you immobile and unable to attack or cast but grants you 100% damage absorption and a health regeneration buff. Excellent 'oh ♥♥♥♥' button for when you get overwhelmed and need to heal up with a potion or remove a nasty dot like bleed. Good combo with Eruption. Drop the Eruption at your feet then enter Stone Form. You're protected from everything while they take damage from eruption. A single point is fine. Extra points just boost health regeneration. You can just use a pot instead to heal up. The Molten Rock synergy skill adds a pretty negligible fire retaliation damage. Not really required.


Summon Core Dweller


Summons a big golem as a pet. The Inner Fire synergy skill boosts total speed, dexterity and health regeneration and adds a bit of extra fire damage. The Wildfire synergy skill lets him light the ground on fire around him and burns people who step over it. The Metamorphosis synergy skill boosts health, armour, armour absorption and elemental resistance. The Core Dweller is not really a DPS pet. It is basically a high health / armour tank and as such is useful for casters as they're squishy.


Eruption


Basically creates a mini-volcano on the ground for 6s that spurts out fiery rock fragments that do physical and fire damage. Extremely powerful spell if you want to go down more of a caster route.


If you're using a throwing weapon, Calculated Strike can be picked up for your LMB attack, Lethal Strike for occasional blow. Can be useful for single targets. Flame Surge isn't needed, you have knives after all. Ring of Flame is too many intensive and you generally want to avoid enemies getting close to you if possible.

Final Skill Trees

This is my final skill allocation. I've spread lots of points all over the place into various skills. Not too much in the Earth side of things through. Spam knife throwing, keep passives up. Core dweller used for a bit of extra support / distraction. Traps for boss fights. Blade Barrier and Flash Powder if enemies get close. Stone Form for emergencies. Probably should have swapped points into Flame Nova into Eruption as its a tad underwhelming.

Stats

If you have Atlantis, the extra mastery points give you:

• Rogue mastery = +14 str, +20 dex, +280 health
  
• Earth mastery = +12 dex, +24 int, +180 health, +48 energy

Health: You may want to pad your health pool a tad to make yourself a bit more tankier

Energy: Normally I wouldn't put any points into Energy and just use potions. The problem is that without energy cost reduction gear you will burn through your energy like crazy. A bigger energy pool will help you cast throwing knife more before you run out of energy and have to pot.

Strength: You have a bit of leeway here. You need enough to equip your gear and any weapons you want at least. You can go more of a hybrid to equip a top end shield or use the points for other stats instead.

Intellect: One of your main stats. If you decide to go with a more caster focus you'll want to put more points into it.

Dexterity: One of your main stats, it will boost your bleeding, piercing and poison damage.

Equipment

Your equipment should have +4 to rogue at a min and enough resists, DA, health, etc. for surivability.

Your accessories and weapon should preferably buff your throwing knife skill. Weapons with 'activate on attacks' abilities are applied to your throwing knives. Flat damage bonuses are added to throwing knife.

Your weapon options as I see it are a staff, a one hander melee weapon that helps your knives + shield or if you have Ragnarok, a throwing weapon + shield.

I have a Gorgon's Edge and I buffed my strength so I could use an Soldier's Unyielding Will to make myself tankier. With the Gorgon's Edge I could attack from range with it when not using throwing knives.

If you haven't gone heavy hybrid and buffed up int and / or dex more, then a Mbuti's Advocate is an excellent option. The legendary version only requires 177 strength to use and applies the Study Prey on attack. The Santa's Peppermint joke set item requires no stats to use (outside of being level 35) and makes for a viable shield for a caster.

Stonebinder's Cuffs gives +3 skill all at legendary. The assassin's amulet should really be replaced with a sacred amulet or Aphrodite's Favour for +2 to all skills but I needed the strength for my shield.

Archimedes' Cogwheel adds flat fire, cold, lightning damage to your knives. Apollo's adds resists and pierce damage buff.

Stheno's Wisdom gives a boost to casting speed for your knives.

Tunic of the Magi and Leggings of the Defiled help cover resists.

I choose Symbol of the Polymath for my artifact as it helps buff all the stats I was trying to raise for hybrid.

Leveling

Option 1 --- The Easy Way

Make an accomplished character. Equip your twink gear. Immediately max Throwing Knife + Flurry of Knives, Earth Enchantment + Brimstone and Volativity. Put one point into Envenom Weapon, max Nightshade, one into Toxin Distillation, max Mandrake (you can invest in the rest of the tree later, pick up CC for now). One point into Flash Powder, Disarm Traps, Heat Shield and Stone Form. Max all your masteries and start picking up the optional skills of your choice.


Option 2 --- The Hard Way

Start in Greece with a level 1 character. Get your +skill twink gear (I'm going to assume you have some) and put it into storage. Start with Rogue mastery. Put a point into Envenom Weapon and Calculated Strike. Start leveling up the mastery. Skip Throwing Knife for now as it's useless for every build until you can max Flurry of Knives. At level 8, pick up Earth. Pick up Earth Enchantment and Brimstone. One point into Heat Shield. Work your way up Rogue to Flurry of Knives. Fill in other skills for now until you'll ready to go into Throwing Knife. Equip your twink gear. Refund unneeded skills at mystic into Throwing Knife + Flurry of Knives. Follow the rest of the steps listed in Option 1.

Q&A

If you have any queries about the build leave a comment and I will respond when I have time.

[Fantastic Fwoosh]

A tip for 'the hard way', the first Gate of Chaos on normal difficulty in Greece drops a abundance of titanic quality mana potions from enemies, which you can collect by exiting to menu and re-entering without completing the dungeon (locking it forever) to make additional attempts/farming runs.