Overview
This is a guide on how to build your Aerev, particulary Necromancer to save the world on Circle Mage difficulty.
Introduction
Hello, guys!
I have recently realized that Soul Harvest has no published guides on how to develop your character to be effective throughout the campaign,
So I am going to highlight some things, which are important to make your way a bit easier.
The most important thing to know is that everything written here is based on my personal experience and may not be true or acceptable for all the players. So I will be glad to see any commentaries or advices, I just ask you no to be rude.
Second, I am not a native English speaker, so the guide may contain mistakes. I apologise if you encounter some while reading.
I have completed the game with a Necromancer build on the Circle Mage (CM) difficulty, so it is appropriate for any difficulty, I guess.
General tips for any campaign
First of all, I want to start with a few tips for any party you want to pick up. And any Aerev:
1. Necromancer and Demonologist are your best friends, sorry for those who loves “good guys”. On CM enemies hit really hard and have very high resistances, you can meet enemies, which are almost immune to damage. So you need a Necromancer to enfeeble your enemies (reduce their damage and power multiplayer for 30-40 %) and Demonologist to weaken them (reduce their defenses) I have builds for Evocation and Light magic, which can really crush enemies, but you may struggle quite hard without Necro-Demo-duet anyway. Light mage is absolutely needed too to heal, but that is more obvious.
Below is the fight with the Spider queen, which might be somewhat tricky, as she is rather tough and enfeeblees your characters. The mai tactic is to obstruct the path with two of your melee fighters. My Necromancer enfeeblees the Spider, severely reducing her damage output summon the skelly-boys as meat shields and hits her with Void Arrow. Also I have a healer in my party. That’s the core tactic for any of your Necromancer fights
4. Try to concentrate on a small amount of active abilities. Well, at least, if you are a casual gamer like myself, you won’t be able to use a lot of abilities at the same time in a real-time game with no pause, and circle menu for skills is inconvenient for me, so I use the following scheme:
F1 – single-target ability, mainly for strong tagets, for example Soul harvest,
F2 – AoE ability, Corrupt Soil,
F3-F4 – emergency healing like Blessing and Lifebloom,
F5 – anything I find useful, another heal, some shield or the Void Arrow, like I usually do.
F6-F12 – skills I use, but not that often or they are not emergency
By holding shift you unlock you second skill bar, I usually put there all the auras, F1-F4 should be kept for abilities with long recovery or long-lasting effects like Summon Corpse Golem.
5. Choose your race. As on Circle Mage, your enemy is quite nasty, and after recent patches he became stronger, it is a good idea to buy schematics to reduce the cost of your buildings and units. As their cost is high, it is better to stay with one of the races you like. For the playthrough for the guide I chose the Dark Elves to increase the feeling of myself as an ultimate dark Lord-Necromancer.
Synergy skills for the Necromancer
Why is this a first paragraph of the build? Well, the main reason is that one of the first things you have to do in the campaign is to choose your skill trees, as well as your synergy skill, but the game says nothing about that. The build is aimed at using Necromancy skills mostly, so if you follow this guide you may choose any second skill tree, you like, but I have certain recommendations.
1. Plague bearer (Druidism synergy)
Arguably the best synergy skills for the Necromancer. The third level of this ability damages for 20 pure damage per second, reduces attack speed for 16 %, movement speed for 20 %, also it can infect surrounding enemies. The ability triggers every time your enemy is struck with a poison ability. Also there are no enemies invulnerable to the plague, except for those immune to all the afflictions. It is effective, it costs no focus, and the Druidism skilll tree is one of the best skill tree pairs (I’ll explain later why)
2. Summon Corpse Golem (Demonology synergy)
Second best, as for me. Your Corpse Golem provides a lot, he is a decent meat shield with almost 1500 health for the third ability level, he has decent damage output, the game also does not sayhe attacks in AoE, knocks down your enemies and applies Bleeding effect, which deals crazy 100 damage per second. If you use Raith in your party, you may summon two Golems, which can destroy a small army on their own.
Effective against Bosses
Nice, but that’s all about it. It’s a good skill with high anti-living pure damage, works well against some bosses, has AoE damage on the third level, which is too small to really make some effect, cooldown is quite big. As for me, you do not absolutely need it, but you won’t regre it.
4. Unholy Feast (Defensive Arts synergy)
Interesting ability, which might be bugged. When you activate tis ability it gives you some health and a DEmonic Frenzy boon, which increases speed, dmage and ability scaling. Theoretically, it must consume a nearby corpse in order to trigger, but no. If there is no corpse, the ability can triigger anyway. if there is a corpse, it will consume it. If the ability is developed to an aura, it heals you every 5 seconds, and the demonic frenzy is constant, you do not need any corpses. Overall, nice choice.
5. Bone fetish (Hunting synergy)
I like the skill, but it has some real drawbacks. The summoned totem deals good damage and interrupts your enemies, which is brilliant. But it is stationary, so it is often inconvenient to use it, and the health is rather low, so it may die easily. Might be useful if you have someone to taunt enemies.
Interesting spell, because it simultaneously heals and appllies regeneration in AoE, as well as damages and enfeeblees your enemies with double damage against living targets. Although that is universal spell, heal and damage effect are not that high and usually it is better to use some other spells. Yes, it heals undead, but most of your summons are expendable anyway, or you can pick Corpse Golem and later Paradox to heal the Golem, as the recovery is quite big.
7. Explosive minion
Hybrid spell, I would say. It’s damage is not enough to really damage single strong targets, and AoE is not that big to hit multiple enemies at once, plus your summon has to stand right near the targets, so you have to wait while your skelly-kamikaze-boy comes close enough. The focus cost and recovery are not that high, if I am honest, which is good. Worth noting, if you have a Corpse Golem or a Demon summon in your party, who are immune to instant death, you may cast this spell as many times as you want, the damage effect takes place for the enemy, but the Golem/Demon does not die.
8. Siphon Mind
I have not really played with that skill enough to have an objective opinion, but it seems not to be as good, as it sounds on paper, as you can reduce your cooldowns and spell cost considerably with certain items. Perhaps, interrupting plays a role.
Skill guide
Here I am going to cover the skills, which are crucial for the Necromancer and the situations to use them.
1. Void Arrow
One of your main skills from the start of the campaign, but not the most important single-target spell, unless the target is alive. The Void Arrow has three main uses, first – killing flying enemies, like griffins, beetles or wyverns during strategy stages. Second – interrupt, if you do not know, when your enemy is going to use a powerful ability, which has some time to activate, there is a yellow bar near his legs, while the bar is filling you may interrupt him with certain skills, Void Arrow is a good choice due to the fact it is activated almost instantly. Third – drain focus, good against most bosses, who do not have huge amount of focus, so you can stop them from using any abilities. A good example is Sentanza’s Ghost in the Eye. Spend at least two points.
3. Call the Fallen
Your bread and butter early game, something you do not need late game. It summons a few skelly-boys, who can deal some good strike damage and are extremely effective for the 3rd level spell, as they make a meat shield (or bone?) and make the Necromancer one of the mages, who can effectively deal both magic and strike damage, and are usually more cost-effective than Void Arrow in terms of focus. Later on you start meeting a lot of enemies with AoE attacks, and the skelly-boys usually do not survive for long to make a difference due to low HP pool. Spend one point
4. Taint Soil
Weak early, one of your bread and butter skills later. It does not deal a lot of pure damage, but heavily debuffs your enemies giving you the opportunity to survive better and use less healing spells. The Plague Bearer perk makes its damage twice higher. Max out. Below is the action.
One of your best spells during strategy stages, when you have to deal with weaker, but usually overwhelming amounts of enemies. The spell summons Revenants, they are not good killing enemies, but are your best meat shields, having very decent health bar. Max out. Below is a screenshot from the Blood Pit, where you are attacked from several directions. My characters deal with one of enemy groups, while the Revenants tank the other one.
Very strong spell, a bit tricky to use, as well as your strongest single-target spell, which can also kill multiple enemies. The most important thing to know is that before using it ensure that targeted enemy has at least three afflictions, as the more of them the target has, the stronger your damage will be, one of them must be Weakened. I prefer four: Bloodied, Enfeebleed, Impaired, Weakened. If you target a few not that strong enemies one or two afflictions might be enough. The spell scales with your weapon. As the game does not explain this, I’ll explain. For example, your character woelds an axe, the damage of the axe scales with your Strength, so the Blood Harvest scales with your waepon attribute – Strength. If you wield a dagger, which scales with Dexterity, the spell will scale with Dexterity, if a wand, scaling with Intelligence – that will be the scaling attribute. The quality of the weapon does NOT matter, if it is rare or epic or just a piece of garbage. MAX OUT. Visual effect of the Blood Harvest is awesome, by the way.
Perk which reduces your spells’ focus cost. MAX, MAX, MAX, as much as you can afford, at least if your second skill tree is Druidism.
Equipment guide
The aim of your Necromancer’s equipment is to reduce focus cost of the spells and cooldown. If you stack multiple items you will be able to literally spam powerful spells with extremely low cost, dealing devastating damage. Here are the items I consider the best for the build. If you see SR, this means the item is strongly recommended for the build, the others can be used, while you have not found something better.
1. Blackened Necklace of the Abyss. SR
Can be obtained for free in Calahbrok for summoning William for a local necromancer
Choose the ring at the start inthe first dream mission and let Berghol upgrade it
3. Blackened Highmage’s Robe of the Abyss
Very good, but not the best gear, which can be found in multiple places or bought in Calahbrok from a merchant,if you have Sigil of Nortandian Trade
4. Divine Perception, SS|R
Your best armor choice, better than the Highmage’s Robe in everything. Can be found on the Crimson Mire, Vinculum is required.
Excellent option, as you armor won’t be that high, and extra option to revive is very good. Obtained after Old Halu, as an optional reward.
6. Madman’s Cap, SR
Seems to work like that, when you enter the combat, your character receive Empowered, which lasts for the whole combat, and 10 seconds after it has ended. I would choose the Madman over the Second Breath, but they are both good, so it’s up to you. Obtained after dealing with Arakys, as an optional reward.
7. There are several head gear items with equal focus bonus, this is just one of the examples.
8. The Bear’s Head quite a good item, allowing you to utilise your potions better, useful for everybody, unfortunately, you will have to choose between it and the Second Breath.
9. General Noria’s Armor
Well, that’s the armor not for your Necromancer, but for one of your party members, because the abilityto stun your enemies in battle is extremely valuable during strategic missions
Obtained in the Eye after the final death of the General’s Ghost.
10. Channeler’s Plate Armor
Obtained as an optional reward after the Windholme mission.
The build does not require certain weapon to be effective, so I will mention two options. I consider the most interesting, the best wand in the game and the best scepter.
11. Wand of Eternal Winter
Obtained as an optional reward after the mission in the Crimson Mire
12. Elen’s Lament
Obtained from the Calahbrok smith after defeating the Treant. Overall good weapom, which allows you to leech some focus and health, while your spells are on cooldown.
13. Draconid mace
Not for your character, but for one of your party members, spreading the affliction really helps, when you use the Blood Harvest.
14. Last mention is a Ring with an extra Attribute point, Intelligence, Willpower or Constitution, honestly any of the mentioned you like.
Attribute guide
I won’t tell everything about the attributes as the game has a clear description. This will be the shortest part of the guide, So general advice:
Do not increase your Strength and Dexterity, you do not really need them. It might be a good idea to put a few skill points into Dex to reduce the cooldown even further, but you need them to be spent on Intelligence for focus regeneration and Willpower fot the amount of focus you have as well as attribute requirements for some gear, like the Divine Perception, are really high. All the other points should be spent on Constitution for survivability. Create Aerev with 5 Int, 3 Con, 5 Will, after that just adapt youattributes for the equipment you’d like to use.
My final Attributes.
Party composition advice
Some short party guide, I use.
1. Raith tank/debuffer. Very important party members, the mai role is applying Weakened to the enemies in order to reduce their resistance, so he needs Eldritch Breath Aura from Demonology skill tree and high Willpower, alsso applies bleeding with Blood shower to get the full effect of the Blood Harvest. A bit tanky.
Look
Look
Look
Conclusion
So the build, as it has bee mentioned is able to:
1. Debuff multiple enemies severely reducing damage output.
2. Deal high mostly magic and pure damge due to powerful spells with low cost and cooldown.
3. Good interrupt opportunities.
4. Provides good army support.
Final equipment:
Includes Madman’s cap, Divine Perception, Ring of Intelligence, Elen’s Lament, Blackened Necklace of the Abyss, Mythical Empyrian Ring.
Final skill tree:
Final mission preparation screen:
Also here are some videos of boss fights with the Necromancer build. Sorry, if they are a mess, they are the first videos I record in my life.
Treant boss fight.
The final Masked Woman fight
The end
Thank you for reading the guide, I hope, that you are ready to harvest souls of your sick enemies, and resurrect their dead bodies as your obedient minions. Let me know, if you like the guide and if you wish to see some more builds. Remember, that it does not matter if you are good or evil, this is all about you having more zomby-boys than your enemy.