First playthrough: starting area + first side quest
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/885159427

I initially used a mix of Magma Spear and Ice bolts (magma spear to pierce, ice bolts to freeze). Then the good old Prismatic Bolt came into the mix, but with a twist:

Barbed (and the other barbed-like affix) enemies can drop down your health to like 30% in response of a full prismatic bolt load. This can very quickly lead to death. This makes it super risky to play the Embermage with Prismatic Bolt.

I am making the choice right now to still use that skill, but only against the enemies for which i'm 100% sure they don't have such a barbed affix.

Later on, for T1, I will have to drop that skill altogether since all enemies have some form of barbed ; but for leveling I think it should be fine, just as long as don't spam it.

To prevent mistakes, I assigned PB (Prismatic Bolt) to a key instead of a mouse button.

So PB won't be my bread & butter skill - instead, I use Ice Bolts for bread and butter. Ice Bolts has this very nice thing that it CC (crowd control) a whole bunch of enemies. This makes it very easy to kite them. And it is immune to barbed enemies (you won't receive any damage in return)

Along with PB, I intend to take the three brands: fire/ice/lightning. Starting with Ice because I am spamming a lot of Ice Bolts.

I also took the Thunder Locus - I never tried it much, but I'd like to experiment with it a bit.

PB can't be used on barbed monsters - but on bosses that don't have barbed, and combined with the new Wand Chaos (the Wand Chaos of Synergies can be procced on pretty much any Embermage skill iirc - this has not been updated in the description yet), this is a pure slaughter.

Each Prismatic Bolt comes with its own change to proc Wand Chaos. So even if it starts at just 8% - since you release 5 bolts, the chance to cast "at least one wand chaos" is (1 - .92^5) = 35%. And that's on the same target. Wand Chaos can have a bunch of effects ; but the most OP are acid rain, glacial spike and meteor strike. This will be our "boss melter" skill. Even on Elite difficulty, it kicks ass.

My future plan is to unlock the Freezing Wave skill (5th skill from cold tree), which will eventually become by new bread and butter skill.

Both Ice Bolt and Freezing Wave do not trigger the "barbed" effect. And they CC entire crowds. So these are very safe skills to use.

One last point : of course, I took one point of Frost Phase. You never want to be surrounded as Embermage. And later on, when you will start having to dodge skills that would insta kill you, it will be the only reason you survive at all.

About my gear, so far I've privileged +Health ; and on my shield, missile reflection chance. This makes my character bulkier. In general my goal in hardcore will be to dodge any deadly skills ; but, in the case that I don't, having 30% chance to be saved by reflecting the missile, or just blocking the damage altogether, this can be a life saver.

Though, this block chance and this missile reflection chance are not to be relied on. It's all RnG. In softcore you can rely on this, because if you die once per dungeon because of some unfortunate serie of bad RnG it's fine. In Hardcore, we can't take that luxury. So the block chance and missile reflection chance are failsafe, rather than an actual way to tank. We should never tank anyway. Not in TL2 Elite, where you can get two crits and say "bye bye" to your health pool, especially while leveling. And even less in Synergies, once Hero snipers from Act 2 come into the mix..

Oh boy, can't wait to try the Luminous Area :P

Anyway, stay tuned for the next episode, where I'll dive in Temple Steppes and maybe kill Grell!

part 2 - clearing temple steppes
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/886756290

I started using Magma Spear much more - even though the skill itself isn't great, i've found that its wand chaos procs are absolutely amazing.

I also unlocked Freezing Wave - my setup is now the following :

Magma Spear on LMB
Ice Bolt or Freezing Wave on RMB
Prismatic Bolt on Z (W on English keyboards)

The freezing thing happens at the start of the fight, to CC them. If they are close I use Ice Bolt. It works like a kind of shotgun - great at close range. If however there's a nice column of monsters, i use freezing wave. That's the CC skills

Then, to do the actual damage, either Magma Spear if they are nicely aligned, or i pick them one by one with Prismatic Bolt.

Prismatic Bolt is also perfect for sniping enemies that annoy you on the sides.

But as always, I stay extra careful for Prismatic Bolt backfires against Barbed enemies.

Though I did notice something weird: a barbed enemy didn't inflict me any damage at all after PB! I'm wondering if it has to do with the enemy type - especially since that enemy didn't have the red aura thing.

But better safe than sorry - i still try to make sure there's no barbed monster before going full PB.

Then, I got a sweeet drop at the merchant: a great wand with Knockback. This works so great for Embermage. Magma Spear is enough to keep them at distance. Prismatic Bolt sends them away giving you extra breathing room. In particular, the Hero monsters tend to be very annoyed with Knockback.

But this is just the start of the game. The Temple Steppes tend to be always somewhat of a tough pass early on, then as soon as you acquire a higher DPS weapon and get one or two more levels it turns into a slaughter. This is nothing compared to what awaits me.

But I'm still proud of my toughness so far. Got around 1500 health, a decent amount of missile reflection, i'm quite sturdy right now, and in addition I have a bunch of CC + a Skeleton I spell that is soo useful to lure monsters away while I DPS them all. I think Grell won't be an issue, especially after I do the two side quests dungeons.

Part 3 - Side quests and Grell
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/887956197

Just advancing through, blasting foes as I go!

GL on the frozen wastes!

Thanks!

Part 4 - Most of Frosted Hills
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/890342195

i had to give up my Knockback weapon for one that had double DPS. Simple math. :p

I'm starting to get some bigger damage spikes but nothing too dangerous. I was still able to melt everyone.

I got a neat surprise waiting for me at the bandit camp - I didn't remember at all the Synergies addition of all these Act 2 enemies! I think I had a close call there, health globe went around 50%, and it was tough to get some breathing space, but I made it. Teleporting around and casting Freezing Waves like a madman.

I had the misluck that the Troll boss had Barbed affix, so I couldn't use Prismatic Bolt on him without endangering myself. Took him down with Freezing Waves too, the fight wasn't too difficult.

Next time: going to the Icedeep Caverns then killing Regent

Defeated Regent !
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/891652450

That's the end of Act 1.

I managed to find a Blocking II and a Dervish II spell - it's the start of OPness :)

I don't know how bad it will get for Act 2. It all depends on the damage the snipers do. If I see it's too dangerous, I might have to farm grell for a while to get the damage reduction eyes

So what happened to your hardcore playthrough? I am doing one as berserker myself, or at least have been trying for a while now.

My PhD happened :-) the mantle of responsibilities felt back on my shoulders, i have to finish the first draft for mid april, so i'm pretty much going to do just that for a bit