Neophyte – Lava Chakram and Lightning Fist Guide

Wstęp

This guide centers around using Lava Chakram (referred to as just Chakram) to beat Neophyte on all difficulties including Victory Laps.

Tomes: Anything that are in [brackets] is used to refer to tomes which are the the little square power-ups (Przykład: Mól książkowy)

Umiejętności: these are the actual things that can be used. Remember if you do not get the right skills, especially Lightning Fist and Lava Chakram, just hit Esc -> Restart until it rolls the correct skills.

Skill Selection

In this section we will breakdown the skills we need. Note that skills are listed from best to worse. Also notice that Arcane damage is not used, we can gain it through the tome [Hail of Blades] but it is not useful or necessary.

Basic Skill: Power FistPower Fist honestly will represent very little of our overall damage. Power Fist is a lightning skill which will allow us access to some good tomb synergy. It has a very quick attack speed which is also beneficial. Wreszcie, when paired with Chakram will give us a decent damage boost when compared to other Basic Skills.

Primary Skill: Lava ChakramChakram is probably the most broken skill in this entire game. It does insane damage, high damage rate, quick to cast, and is a fire skill. This will be our main damage dealer and will melt bosses. I used it on Victory Lap 2+ and had little to no trouble.

Defensive Skill: Drain Soul/Stone Skin

• Drain Soul: this defensive skill is my personal go to, but it is not super ideal. The main advantage is that it recovers a bit of health instantly-ish and unlike Stone Skin it does not require the skill to be complete for the cool down to begin, which is good when using [Emergency Supply].
• Stone Skin: Stone skin is pretty useful if you can go big health, big mana build. Just remember that the cool down starts after the buff expires and the cool down is actually quite lengthy

Expert Skill: Invigorate/Meteor Form/Grasping Vines

• Invigorate: this is the skill that recovers your mana. If it not already obvious, the more mana we have the more damage we will do. Chakram only has a 6 second duration and cost 30 mana per cast, therefore we are very mana hungry and this skill goes a long way to ensure we will have mana whenever we need it. Jednakże, Do nie use this when you are near full as it will give you bonus attack speed at the cost of increased cool down on Invigorate; the attack speed is very unnecessary/useless.
• Meteor Form: If you cannot obtain Invigorate, this is the next best thing. It will allow you a lot of mobility but it does cost 40 mana per cast which hurts. The stun is also nice. Use it to jump on the laser enemies in Act 3.
• Grasping Vines: This is definitely the Tier 3 pick here. This requires at least 150% cool down reduction to be useful, but if you can get there it can be quite handy as it makes to root effect roughly the same duration as the cool down, which means with good timing one could chain root the boss making it easier to kill. Jednakże, on most other enemies is not the most useful thing but it does not cost any mana to use which is a bonus.

General Gameplay

Start by using Chakram and dash around. You can actually hold down both buttons and it will use Chakram whenever mana is available while constantly using Lightning Fist. Use Lightning Fist to regain mana or gain stacks if possible. Sustain Chakram as much as possible and if there are potions dash or fight around them and use them as necessary.

Szefowie:the general strategy here is to stick the bosses as closely as possible. Hitting bosses with both Lightning Fist and Chakram. After Act 1, one must constantly be on the look out for dangerous enemies and kill them before returning to damaging the boss, especially the laser balls in Act 3.

• Działać 1: stay between the lock and the bosses. Dash away whenever it starts slamming the lock (big red circle).
• Działać 2: follow the boss closely. This is probably the easiest boss as it summons stuff nearby that can be killed for potions. Using Grasping Vines is very useful in this fight.
• Działać 3: the boss itself is not particularly dangerous. It might take a while to kill but the key here is to cull all the other enemies as much as possible as they will start adding up fast. Also watch out for the attack the causes the boss to slam down; to avoid it, save the dash and dash out.

Tome Guide

There are a lot tomes to choose from, Jednakże, there are some that when paired together create insane synergies which we will need to take advantage of. Dlatego, I have broken down the good tomes in groups by synergies. The higher tier groups are first but not all of the tomes in that group need to obtained in order or all together. Just remember that one only gets 15 tomes in the entire run which tomes one gets/picks up will be critical if one is trying to complete the Victory Lap challenge.

Mikstury:this group is definitely the best, if one can get all of these then the run is pretty much guaranteed to go the distance. This pairs well with Big Life, Big Mana.

• [Invigorating Brew]: this is the key to this whole group. Without this, this group is not very good. This is an always pick and always first pick. This turns health potions into mana potions, although it only recover 50% of max mana. As we are mana starved, this represents a good and consistent boost to mana regen.
• [Potion Master]: this increases the drop rate of potions by 25%. Which does not sound like a lot but with the [Invigorating Brew] this makes it so that we have closer to having infinite mana. When combined with [Boiling Blood] this also represents a good increase in damage.
• [Boiling Blood]: this turns our potions in to bombs dealing 400% of the max healing potential, zasadniczo 400% of our life. This is good since we will often be surround by enemies and this allows us to quickly make some room while recovering our health. Good against bosses too.
• [Emergency Supply]: this makes it so that when we use our defensive spells we will drop a potions that heals for half the amount a big potion would. Basically a potion on demand but not the best on its own it really need [Invigorating Brew] to be any good. Also remember that the potion cannot be obtained until it falls which also hurts it a bit when in a tight situation. Of the four in this group, this is can be skipped with no loss.

Mana Recovery:this group is a staple and will go a long way to help sustain our Chakram.

• [Lightning Elemental]: this is the main reason we want to use Lightning Fist as 5 casts will gives us not only max mana but also mana regen. Pamiętać, ones does not need to hit an enemy to gain the buff so one can use it prior to the round to gain max charges and just maintain it through the round.
• [Dark Thirst]: this turns each kill into mana regen. This is very good and can represent a lot of mana recovered over the course of a round.
• [Invigorating Strike]: this turns our Lightning Fist into “odzyskiwać 6 mana”. With the quick attack speed that Lightning Fist has this is definitely a good pick. Jednakże, as this skill can be stacked, if one can get at least two of these, it becomes a god tier tome. Pamiętać, one can trigger this by just attack the air so when in doubt hold down the basic attack button for easy mana.
• Berserker: this gives increased attack speed, prędkość ruchu, and healing after killing a certain amount of enemies. This will greatly increase the clear speed as it will allow you to move around very quickly. This combined with [Invigorating Strike] can represent a lot of mana regen.
• [Blessing of Voracity]: this is the “tome” that is just a ton of mana regen, decent pick but I would rather have the other ones in this group.
• [Blessing of Excess]: this is the “tome” that is max mana. Not the best as having a lot of mana is not useful if one does not have a way of regaining it. Jednakże, it becomes a lot better in the Big Life, Big Mana build.

Fire/Damage:this groups is about amping up the damage. Jednakże, with good mana sustain, one only needs a few of these tomes.

• [Fire Elemental]: this gives stacks of crit chance per fire spell cast recently and with how fast Chakram can be casted this represents a lot of damage.
• [Unshackled]: Increased crit chance with lowered mana. This is a top tier damage pick. If one can get this and [Fire Elemental] and a decent mana pool then one will have upwards of 70% Do 80% crit chance.
• [Hail of Blades]: this shoots out blades after casting 3 zaklęcia. With the quick casting of our spells this can add up very quickly. Also this can count towards the arcane debuff of [Elemental Assault].
• [Elemental Assault]: this lowers the resistances of the enemy by the type of damage dealt (Ogień, Tajemne, or Lightning). Since we already have Fire and Lightning this is a good debuff and when combined with [Hail of Blades] will allow us to melt enemies.
• [Fire Affinity]: this gives us increased fire damage. Good to have but does not add too much when compared to the others on this list.
• [Szał]: this gives stacks of attack speed after casting basic spells. Good with [Invigorating Strike] and god-like with two stacks of it but overall not necessary.

There are a lot more great talents but hopefully this serves as a good base.

Challenge Levels

Obecnie istnieją 6 Challenge Levels and they are the following:

1. Bigger Waves

2. Elite Enemies

3. Tougher Enemies

4. Stronger Enemies

5. More Elites

6. Inwazje (Enemies from other Acts will spawn halfway through the round)

Szczerze, these do pose an increase in difficulty but does not change the build. Chakram is just too strong. Jednakże, just note that as the levels increase one needs to be more careful of which starting tomes are picked up early as having bad or wrong tomes can lead to early losses. I would say by around halfway through Act 2, the build should be good to go.