Overview
Fire based Ternion stave attack build using the Conjurer class
Introduction
Merlin, Wizard of Camelot
Mastery: Conjurer (Spirit / Earth)
Build: Fire based Ternion stave attack build
This build is oriented around building a caster stave attacker that can tank bosses. Spirit’s Ternion skill allows your stave to basically shotgun nearby enemies to death. With a bit of ‘Attack Damage Converted to Health’ (hereafter referred to as ‘ADCtH’) you’ll keep your health sustained while spamming Ternion. Fire staves are used to combo with Earth’s fire buffs. The build has a good mix of offence, passives and emergency life savers.
- Excellent AOE
- Fairly tanky compared to other caster builds, can basically face tank bosses
- Optional pet support
- DPS scales with your stave as well as by your Int in comparison to spells which only scale with Int after reaching their max level while also possibly coming with useful buffs or debuffs.
- About middle of the pack for boss clearing speed I guess
- Mass ranged / casters can be tricky to deal with
- May need alternative gear stashed to min/max resistances as you’ll likely won’t be getting much stave and will be short one gear slot because no shield
Run completed with the xMax (x3) mod
[link]
Required Skills
Deathchill Aura
Deathchill Aura reduces nearby enemies speed and health. The Ravages of Time synergy reduces their damage and armour absorption while the Necrosis synergy reduces their bleeding, vitality and life leech resistance.
An excellent aura that should be a priority to max after you’ve gotten Ternion and Earth Enchantment going. The base skill and Ravages of Time are probably worth maxxing before Necrosis. Necrosis should help later with ADCtH.
Earth Enchantment
Aura that will boost your total fire damage and add additional fire damage to you stave attacks. The Brimstone synergy skill boosts physical damage buff and adds burn dot. The Stone Skin synergy adds a buff to fire resist and armour. Max both Earth Enchantment and Brimstone fairly early but leave Stone Skin until later. If you’re wearing caster gear then a bit of extra armour may help but there are other skills more worth picking up first.
Ternion Attack
The heart and soul of the build, Ternion is a powerful spammable ability for staves. The base skill fires 3x projectiles in a spread pattern. At low skill levels, each projectile is individually much weaker than a normal staff attack. As you put additional points into the skill, the damage of each projectile goes up and finally at ultimate level (16/12), each projectile will hit for normal stave damage. The Arcane Lore synergy increase projectile speed and adds a splash affect to your Ternion attack.
Ternion can be a bit energy draining but once maxxed is a devastating shotgun attack. It’s best used at close range so you hit enemies with all 3 three projectiles. ADCtH is used to combo with your Ternion to provide sustain; each firing of Ternion tops your health back up. Ranged / caster enemies will the be the most challenging enemies you face as they are harder to shotgun down quickly as Ternion’s projectiles spread out the farther they go. Enemies with good projectile avoidance can be hard to take down as well and you will want to supplement Ternion will spell and pet damage when fighting them. Also there are a few areas where changing elevation can screw with projectiles, watch out for these spots as if you’re not hitting with Ternion you’re not healing yourself with ADCtH.
Both skills are a priority to max. Drop a few points into the main skill to make the individual projectiles a little less weak, then max Arcane Lore before returning to max the base skill.
Dark Covenant
Dark Covenant is a activated buff that boosts your total speed by 10% and gives you a nice buff to energy regeneration at the expense of costing health per second. It’s Unearthly Power synergy boosts your total physical, bleeding, elemental and vitality damage at the cost of additional health per second.
Dark Covenant is an excellent buff. It’s perfect for mitigating energy issues from Ternion and you’ll get a bit of a damage buff from the extra elemental damage from Unearthly Power. The skill has two drawbacks. Firstly, the active health cost. This is pretty negligible really and in combat you’ll be healing up with ADCtH anyways. The second drawback is that you will only be able to use it for a slight amount of time. The skill has a lengthy cooldown of 80s and once activated the buff will last less than 30s. CDR gear can help reduce the cooldown letting you use the skill more often.
The base skill is good for the extra energy regen but until you get some good CDR you might as well invest your skill points into buffs that are always on and max out the Dark Covenant and Unearthly Power later.
Heat Shield
One point wonder skill that provides a short term buff that grants a bonus to physical resistance, fire damage absorption and fire retaliation. The skill has a short cooldown before you can recast it. Drop a single point into the skill as soon as you can as you get the full buff to physical resistance (15%) right away. Increasing the skill buffs the damage absorption and the retaliation damage. The fire retaliation damage is honestly negligible so it comes down to the fire absorption. Put extra points into the skill if you want more absorption of fire damage but you’ll likely need to drop points from other non-vital skills to do so.
Stone Form
One point wonder ability. 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. Also combos well 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 as extra points just boost health regeneration while in Stone Form. You can just use a pot instead to heal up. The Molten Rock synergy skill adds a pretty negligible fire retaliation damage, not worth picking in gernal.
Ring of Flame
Ring of Flame encircles you in a ring of flames that does fire damage to enemies. The Soften Metal synergy adds some additional damage but more importantly reduces enemies’ Offensive Ability and armour. It has two drawbacks: firstly, its range is very short and secondly, it has a puzzling high Active Energy Cost per Second in comparison to pretty much every other aura in the game.
The base skill isn’t very useful for the build. The aura damage isn’t worth the energy costs. Soften Metal through should be maxxed to weaken enemy melee OA to help limit melee crits on yourself. With a single point in the base skill and maxxed synergy energy costs aren’t really noticeable.
Death Ward
Excellent passive emergency skill. Death Ward gives you a small heal when your health drops below 15% and also gives you excellent damage absorption for a couple of seconds. Only applies if the last attack you took drops you below the the threshold without killing you; if you’re above the threshold, take a hit and it reduces you to 0 health then Death Ward will not trigger. Has a lengthy internal cooldown between uses. Should be maxxed out when you have free points.
Summon Outsider
Good one point ability for boss fights. No good reason not to drop at least a single point into the skill for support. If you have free points you can max him out as he’s excellent addition for taking on bosses but his long cooldown and short summon period means the Outsider will only be active for a short period of time.
Volativity
Excellent passive that gives you a 33% chance of getting big boosts to your fire and burn damage. Max as soon as possible.
Optional Skills
Vision of Death
Vision death is a CC ability on a short cooldown. It applies a debuff to nearby enemies that reduces damage and causes Chance to Fumble attacks, Chance of Impaired Aim and Fear for 3s.
Spirit Ward
The base skill reduces damage taken from Undead while the Spirit Bane synergy does the exact reverse, increasing damage done to the Undead. They’re excellent passives for fighting the Undead. Spirit Ward is probably more useful; as ADCtH doesn’t work against undead, the damage mitigation from Spirit Ward will help keep your alive combined with potions.
Summon Liche King
One of the best overall support pets in the game. A ranged elemental / vitality damage pet, Liche King does decent damage while also being relatively tanky. It’s not designed for tanking but doesn’t die constantly either. The Death Nova synergy gives the Liche King a short range AOE attack that does vitality damage, reduces enemy health % and converts attack damage to health for the Liche. The Wraith Shell synergy grants the Liche an ability to give themselves large amounts of physical resistance and overall damage absorption. The Arcane Blast synergy gives the Liche a multi-projectile elemental / vitality attack that stuns and slows enemies.
Requires a fair amount of skill point investment to get going through.
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. Despite this, I feel like it can be less tanky than other pets that have damage absorption or avoidance instead of straight up health / armour like the Dweller.
Requires a fair amount of skill point investment to get going and it’s aggro seemed off at times. You won’t need a tank too much anyways, if you have the right gear equipped you should be able to face tank melee enemies yourself. Should be more useful against ranged enemies through; have dweller grab their attention first then you can get close range to spam Ternion without getting shredded doing so.
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.
Good damage, fairly short cooldown and the stun can be useful. It’s a good skill overall but would require a bit of skill point investment, Eruption is probably better choice.
CIrcle of Power
Summons an immobile, short lived totem that buffs allies within its radius. Boosts Bleeding, Vitality and Life Leech by 100% and boosts your casting speed, recharge while reducing your energy costs. Further points put into the skill further boosts the casting speed, recharge and energy reduction buff.
The skill has a 60s cooldown so you won’t be able to use it too much. Worth a point for the extra buffs, especially on bosses but probably not worth heavy investment.
Eruption
Basically creates a mini-volcano on the ground for 6s that spurts out fiery rock fragments that do physical and fire damage. Pretty good skill that you can use to supplement your Ternion damage but not a priority. Drop a single point into it to unlock it and level it up when you have free points.
Soul Vortex
An Atlantis exclusive skill, Soul Vortex applies a life and energy leech to nearby enemies and also slows them. Useful for sustain and leech.
Fire Nova
An Atlantis exclusive skill, Fire Nova creates a really long range, 360% AOE that applies a burn DOT, does fire damage and a chance to cause Impaired Aim. From a pure damage perspective, Fire Nova is a little underwhelming. Primary use of the skill is to apply CC with Impaired Aim. I wouldn’t call the skill mandatory, more nice to have.
Skills to Skip
Flame Surge
Earth’s primary spammable spell (once you’ve maxxed the Barrage synergy skill at least). Flame Arch adds extra damage and more projectiles. Recommend passing because Ternion is simply way better as your main spammable attack with superior damage scaling and ADCtH and you’d need to get a lot of Casting Speed to make it useful along with Ternion.
Enslave Spirit
Allows you to mind control enemies to add them to your army. On one hand you basically get some temporary minions, on the other hand they’ll start trying to kill you again when it wears off. It also doesn’t work on enemies 5 or more levels than you which basically makes it useless in late stages of the game.
Meteor Rain
An Atlantis exclusive skill, Meteor Rain calls down a rain of meteors down on your foes. Visually it looks great. Applies a small burn DOT, applies a decent stun and hits for a huge amount of physical damage. Recommend passing because the skill does physical damage primarily and you will not have much of that so it won’t scale well. The skill is primarily designed for Strength based Earth builds. As well the meteors are random so they may miss the targets and the spell has a long cooldown.
Life Drain
Life Drain is a vitality damage spell that heals you for damage done by the spell. Has a short cooldown. The Cascade synergy adds extra vitality damage and healing and allows Life Drain to blast through the primary target and hit multiple enemies. The Soul Drain synergy causes Life Drain to trigger a short range AOE on the target that does vitality damage, reduces enemy health %, applies an energy drain, inflicts sleep, and does +200% damage to ghosts.
Honestly, at the time of writing this guide, I haven’t used this skill before in a build so don’t have a real opinion about it. I suppose it could be used for extra healing but Ternion + ADCtH should really have you covered there. You can try it out if you want to see if you can fit it in somehow through you’d need to free up points from elsewhere to do so.
My Final Skill Trees
This is my final skill allocation. Ternion skill used as primary spammable attack, Eruption used as primary non-spammable attack. I maxxed out passives and buffs I thought were most important. Earth Enchantment and Volativity for fire damage buffs, Soften Metal for OA debuff, Deathchill Aura for its debuffs and Dark Covenant for its energy and damage buffs. One point into Heat Shield for 15% physical resistance.
Didn’t think Spirit Ward and Bane or Circle of Power needed maxxing but they’re worth investing at least a point into. Soul Vortex provides some extra sustain, Fire Nova provides some extra CC. Stone Form and Death Ward for emergencies.
I tried out Core Dweller a bit early on but decided Liche King was more useful as support. Invested primarily in it’s base skill, not much into synergies. Mostly just there for support as I don’t have any real pet boosting items. One point in Outsider for boss fights. With additional points from more levels, I’d probably invest more into either Liche King or Outside I guess.
As for normal gameplay, I start off by turning on my auras, summon Liche and apply Earth Shield whenever it’s off cooldown (so I don’t worry about it dropping in middle of combat). Drop Eruption whenever it’s available, maybe Fire Nova for CC, then spam Ternion. Activate Dark Covenant when available to regenerate energy and boost damage.
Stats
If you have Atlantis, the extra mastery points give you:
- Spirit mastery = +12 dex, +24 int, +160 health, +64 energy
- Earth mastery = +12 dex, +24 int, +180 health, +48 energy
Health: Put a few extra points here if you want to get a bit more health. Not a huge priority but a few points can help make you a bit tankier.
Energy: Not worth any points. Get more energy or energy cost reduction from gear instead and just use potions when needed.
Strength: N/A
Intellect: Your primary stat which you will dump almost all your points.
Dexterity: Enough to equip your gear, nothing more.
Equipment
This is my final equipment loadout. My DA is pretty bad but Archmage Mantle provides big physical resistance boost which combined with Heat shield helps mitigate melee damage instead. Didn’t have much issues tanking damage with help of ADCtH from the Elemental Rage artifact and random green fire staff with ‘Devouring’ fix for health sustain. Kept an alternative staff with non-fire element available for stuff like Sutr.
Archmage Clasp helped boost my attack speed for Ternion, good CDR and Casting Speed to make it easier and less clunky to throw in some spells in between my Ternion spam. The two Archmage set pieces don’t give much resistances in general so I prioritised resistances with my other gear. Crest of Hpynos provides great resists, so does Leggings of the Defiled. I swapped around a couple of rings when needed depending on zone or boss. I have a pair of +int/energy rings and used Apollo’s Will and Archimdes’ Cogwell to boost resists when needed.
One thing I’m missing is +skill. I’ve got none at all. I built the character primarily to be more of a tanky mage character and prioritised that instead and equipped the rest of my slots primarily to fill in missing resistances. Extra skill help give your spells a bit better scaling but not having ultimate levels won’t cripple any of the skills.
A few gear suggestions:
Stave: Any green fire stave with useful fixes will honestly do. Archmage’s, Devouring, Betrayer, etc. Socket with something like Anubis’ Wrath for ADCtH, Shen-Nong’s Dark Medicine for reduced enemy resistances or Prometheus Flame with attack speed completion bonus for extra fire / burn damage. Ker’s Fetish is an excellent fire based MI stave, if you can farm from Act 4 with good fixes it’s probably the best available options. Praxidikae is a possible good alternative stave, the vitality damage can be comboed with Spirit’s debuffs / buffs but any good cold / lightning stave should do fine as well.
Helm: Crest of Hypnos (tons of resists)
Coronal of the Abyss (huge DA and some resists)
Stheno’s Wisdom (easily farmed MI, casting speed + physical resistance, socket with Cunning of Odysseus for Int buff or Crystal of Erebus, preferably with either the +2 skill or the resist completion bonus)
Hesione’s Golden Veil (recharge, elemental damage, elemental resistance)
Freyja’s Coronet (recharge, DA, elemental damage, elemental resistance)
Orpheus’ Garland (projectile avoidance, a bit of resistance)
Chest: Archmage’s Mantle (Huge physical resistance, pierce resistance, some health)
Battlemage Robe (lots of DA, dodge attacks, +skill)
Corselet of Freyja (recharge, DA, +1 skill, elemental damage, multiple resistances)
Calypso’s Cover (multiple resistances, +2 skill)
Cestus (multiple resistances, CDR, +10% health / Intelligence)
Gloves: Archmage’s Clasp (recharge, attack speed, casting speed)
Armlets of Freyja (recharge, DA, elemental damage and lots of resistances)
Boots: Demonskin Walkers (resists, +skill, +elemental damage)
Leggings of the Defiled (resists, DA, damage)
Boots of Freyja (recharge, DA, elemental damage, elemental resistance)
Rings: Occult green ring (+elemental damage and casting speed)
Socrates green ring (+Int / Energy %)
Seal of Hephaestus (+ Fire / Burn damage, level 11 Heat shield)
Anything that covers resistances holes you have
Amulet: Blessing of the Gods (resistances, assorted stats)
Essence of Styx (resistances, health)
Myrmidon’s Pendant (good resistances, health, projectile avoidance)
Aphrodite’s Favor (decent mix of resistances, +health, +2 skill)
Necklace of Harmonia (ADCtH, decent mix of resistances, +health)
Brisingamen (CDR, physical resistance, some elemental, +2 skill)
Artifact: Elemental Rage (ADCtH, +elemental damage, some elemental resistance)
Talisman of the Jade Emperor (CDR, elemental resistance)
Eye of Ra (+ Fire / Burn damage)
Marduk’s Tablet of Destiny (+Int%, shield on low health)
Battlemage set in general is also a possibility. It’s an Epic difficulty set and tends to drop a lot so should be relatively easy to find. It’s main gimmick is having lots of DA but they are lacking resistances. Using the actual set in Legendary would give you really bad resistance but you might be able to get away with using pieces of the set individually to pad out your DA while your fill in your other resistances with other gear slots.
Leveling
Start with Spirit Mastery, drop one point into Deathchill Aura and fill up the mastery bar until you can unlock Ternion. One point into Ravages of Time, a few points into Ternion then level up mastery (with one point to unlock Dark Covenant) and max Arcane Lore.
Unlock Earth Mastery now, 1 point to unlock Earth Enchantment then mastery points. One point into Heat Shield for the physical resistance buff, one point into Brimstone to buff EE. You can leave Ring of Flame for now, you only want the OA debuff from Soften Metal and should be fine as is until you reach higher later parts of game.
Now you can take several different ways to build the character. You can level up the masteries to get more stats and more abilities. Leveling up Spirit Mastery will give you access Death Ward, Outsider for bosses and Soul Vortex. Leveling up Earth Mastery will give you access Volativity, Eruption and Fire Nova. You can start pumping into points into Liche King or Core Dweller for a support or tank pet. You can max out Ternion to strengthen your base attack. You can put points into your Auras. Long term you’ll be filling up these skills anyways but you can fill them in as you wish.
Q&A
If you have any queries about the build leave a comment and I will respond when I have time.