[Build] My Knight Enchanter solo build for Nightmare/Trials
Feb 25, 2017 6:29:01 GMT
PapaCharlie9, fylimar, and 1 more like this
Post by rynas on Feb 25, 2017 6:29:01 GMT
I came back to the game after a long hiatus and thought I'd share the KE solo build I've settled on after experimenting a lot with the DLC and patch changes.
OVERVIEW:
LINK: FINAL BUILD (31 POINTS)
(Humans will have an extra point that can be put into whatever seems useful.)
LINK: 26-POINT BUILD: Essentially complete, but missing passives that increase damage and survivability. Can be achieved as early as level 22 (21 for humans).
LINK: 18-POINT BUILD: Basic KE Flaming Array build, with the addition of Winter's Ruin. Build towards Rejuvenating Barrier, then down the Winter tree.
NOTE: I highly recommend installing the Flaming Array 1-damage Fix mod for this build. Otherwise, it might be better to take Searing Glyph.
The overall idea is to have a build that can handle literally any opponent, including promoted dual-immunes, with relative ease.
The build focuses on the hardest-hitting spells in every element (Fire, Cold, Electricity, Spirit). Since offense is also defense for KEs, this means you can maximize your effectiveness against any type of enemy, if you play smart. With decent gear, each one of the main damage spells (Fire Mine, Fade Cloak, Winter's Grasp, Energy Barrage) is capable of almost completely refilling your barrier on a crit. Ice Armor adds protection in tough fights. Dispel (Transmute Magic) gives an all-around boost when needed.
This build is primarily intended for soloing, but it works great in a party as long as FF is off.
SKILLS:
* - indicates primary damage spell
Fire Mine (Flaming Array)*: Over 1600% Fire damage. Main source of damage vs. non-fire-immunes. Cast on top of enemies, and maneuver around to get them to step on additional mines if you want. Bugged with Chaotic Focus (see below).
Fade Cloak (Decloaking Blast)*: 1000% Spirit damage. Main source of Spirit damage. Sheds debuffs, makes you immune to everything, deals heavy AoE damage, and knocks everyone down. Also has a low cooldown.
Energy Barrage (Energy Bombardment)*: Over 800% damage. With an electricity staff, this becomes the main source of electricity damage. A Hidden Blades masterwork proc greatly increases the electricity damage, and Encore's Mark of the Riff proc greatly increases total damage. Also has a very high chance of proccing Flashpoint. It recharges Spirit Blade even if the target is immune to the damage type.
Winter's Grasp (Winter's Ruin)*: 1000% Cold damage. Main source of cold damage, and it hits hard. Devastating vs. rage demons and other cold-vulnerables. Cast only on chilled/frozen enemies, or else it sucks. The freezing is just icing (HA!) on the cake.
Fade Step (Frost Step): 300% Cold damage. Our only "mobility" skill, secondary source of cold damage, and sets enemies up for Winter's Ruin. Also use it to escape trouble when Fade Cloak is down - it costs no mana, does decent AoE damage to replenish Barrier, and you can blast someone with Winter's Ruin to nearly refill your barrier afterwards.
Spirit Blade (Defending Blade): Over 150% Spirit damage. Still ok vs. guard and barrier, but most importantly as a spammable filler for reducing cooldowns with Clean Burn. Defending Blade gives a good damage reduction vs. ranged and chips away at their health while you're pounding on other enemies.
Dispel (Transmute Magic): Adds 50% barrier and gives you a 25% boost to damage for 10 seconds, as long as you use it to actually do something. "Doing something" means stripping enemy barriers, buffs, and mines, or removing debuffs on you (important vs. Hakkonites). Very underrated skill, imo.
Blizzard (Winter Winds): Shit damage. Fire-and-forget spell that activates Ice Armor in a large area and makes enemies vulnerable to Winter's Ruin. You could also use Ice Mine (Chilling Array) to fill this role (for 1 less ability point), but I've found Blizzard to be more convenient and reliable.
KEY PASSIVES:
Combat Clarity, Rejuvenating Barrier: Combat Clarity increases mana regen by 35% when in melee range (buggy, but mostly works). Rejuvenating Barrier increases mana regen by 35% when you have an active barrier on, which should be almost all the time in combat. Without both of these, I find myself mana-limited frequently, especially when spamming Winter's Ruin.
Clean Burn: Reduces spell cooldowns when you cast a spell. Synergizes with Spirit Blade spam and extra regen to let you spam your high-damage spells and Fade Cloak.
Chaotic Focus: Turns Fire Mine from ouchy to super-ouchy. Bugged with Flaming Array, but you can use this to your advantage: Spec into Searing Glyph, cast Barrier, then immediately cast Searing Glyph. Switch back to Flaming Array, and all of your Flaming Arrays should have max Chaotic Focus from then on (unless you cast another fire spell).
Fade Shield: Core KE skill, no explanation needed.
Knight-Protector: Reduces rate of barrier decay by 35% - i.e., increases decay time by more than 50%. Barrier is what keeps us alive, and the reduced decay is very noticeable.
Conductive Current: Deal more damage when mana is lower. You should constantly be casting and never, ever have full mana, so this is always going to help.
Ice Armor: With decent gear and the True Grit inquisition perk, you can have melee, magic, and ranged defense (which DO apply to barrier) all maxed at 80% when Ice Armor is active. Comes in very handy in tough fights.
GEAR:
The build is not gear-dependent. You can solo naked if you want, as long as you have a high-damage staff. That said, a couple of things are especially helpful:
Fade-touched Dawnstone/Everite (Heal 25% of damage taken over 10 seconds): Healing potions are useless with trials on, and you will probably screw something up or fall down at some point and take damage. Damage to barrier counts as "damage taken," so this masterwork is excellent at passively healing you up when needed. You don't even need to do anything special - it's basically a constant, passive in-combat heal.
Sigil of the Great Bear (+100 mana/-50% mana regeneration): Your base mana-per-second regen remains unchanged with this, but it effectively doubles the regeneration bonus from Rejuvenating Barrier and Combat Clarity. Very, very good when you need to cast Winter's Grasp a lot and don't want to wait for mana. Plus, other sigils are crap.
Electricity Staff (Veil Quartz or Stormheart): Two of your three ranged damage abilities (auto-attack and Energy Barrage) are going to be based on your staff damage type. Ranged damage is most useful against enemies that are constantly trying to get out of melee range. Despair Demons and Arcane Horrors are some of the most common examples, and both are immune to cold. This makes cold a very bad choice, especially since you have Winter's Ruin. Fire may also be a decent choice, but you lose the ability to do electricity damage. Or just carry multiple staffs.
COMBAT:
Start combat with a high-damage spell to get your barrier up. The options are:
Flaming Array (Fire): Run up or Fade Step into range
Energy Barrage (Electricity): Wait for it to hit before fully engaging
Blizzard/Fade Step + Winter's Grasp (Cold): Expensive; need Sigil of the Great Bear (or a Lyrium potion) to open with Blizzard
With decent gear, each of these should give you a hefty amount of barrier to get started. The Cold option is for the very, very rare case that you have a single promoted enemy that's immune to BOTH fire and electricity. Otherwise, there should always be at least one target that can be hit with Flaming Array or Energy Barrage.
The next step is usually Fade Cloak to avoid the initial burst of damage and fill barrier some more. Cast Blizzard to activate Ice Armor and/or set up Winter's Grasp if it's a tough fight or there are cold-vulnerables. Then, a general "cycle" of spell priority:
Flaming Array > Fade Cloak > Energy Barrage > Winter's Grasp (vs. chilled) > Spirit Blade
In other words, hit enemies with Flaming Array whenever you can; Fade Cloak when Flaming Array is down; Energy Barrage when the first two are down; etc. Spirit Blade spam when all other useful abilities are on cooldown.
Drop spells from the "rotation" as needed to account for immunities and re-prioritize to account for vulnerabilities. You should be able to keep Blizzard up pretty consistently as long as you don't cast Winter's Grasp too much (e.g., twice in a row after Flashpoint), but one cast is often all you need in most fights. Fade Step out if you're in a tight spot and Fade Cloak is down, or if you just want to Winter's Grasp something without casting Blizzard. Dispel enemy barriers, buffs, and mines for a damage boost and extra barrier.
VIDEOS:
I wasn't kidding about the naked part. Here's a mid-level (17) version vs. Imshael, with main damage spells but no Ice Armor or Transmute Magic:
[More videos coming soon]
OVERVIEW:
LINK: FINAL BUILD (31 POINTS)
(Humans will have an extra point that can be put into whatever seems useful.)
LINK: 26-POINT BUILD: Essentially complete, but missing passives that increase damage and survivability. Can be achieved as early as level 22 (21 for humans).
LINK: 18-POINT BUILD: Basic KE Flaming Array build, with the addition of Winter's Ruin. Build towards Rejuvenating Barrier, then down the Winter tree.
NOTE: I highly recommend installing the Flaming Array 1-damage Fix mod for this build. Otherwise, it might be better to take Searing Glyph.
The overall idea is to have a build that can handle literally any opponent, including promoted dual-immunes, with relative ease.
The build focuses on the hardest-hitting spells in every element (Fire, Cold, Electricity, Spirit). Since offense is also defense for KEs, this means you can maximize your effectiveness against any type of enemy, if you play smart. With decent gear, each one of the main damage spells (Fire Mine, Fade Cloak, Winter's Grasp, Energy Barrage) is capable of almost completely refilling your barrier on a crit. Ice Armor adds protection in tough fights. Dispel (Transmute Magic) gives an all-around boost when needed.
This build is primarily intended for soloing, but it works great in a party as long as FF is off.
SKILLS:
* - indicates primary damage spell
Fire Mine (Flaming Array)*: Over 1600% Fire damage. Main source of damage vs. non-fire-immunes. Cast on top of enemies, and maneuver around to get them to step on additional mines if you want. Bugged with Chaotic Focus (see below).
Fade Cloak (Decloaking Blast)*: 1000% Spirit damage. Main source of Spirit damage. Sheds debuffs, makes you immune to everything, deals heavy AoE damage, and knocks everyone down. Also has a low cooldown.
Energy Barrage (Energy Bombardment)*: Over 800% damage. With an electricity staff, this becomes the main source of electricity damage. A Hidden Blades masterwork proc greatly increases the electricity damage, and Encore's Mark of the Riff proc greatly increases total damage. Also has a very high chance of proccing Flashpoint. It recharges Spirit Blade even if the target is immune to the damage type.
Winter's Grasp (Winter's Ruin)*: 1000% Cold damage. Main source of cold damage, and it hits hard. Devastating vs. rage demons and other cold-vulnerables. Cast only on chilled/frozen enemies, or else it sucks. The freezing is just icing (HA!) on the cake.
Fade Step (Frost Step): 300% Cold damage. Our only "mobility" skill, secondary source of cold damage, and sets enemies up for Winter's Ruin. Also use it to escape trouble when Fade Cloak is down - it costs no mana, does decent AoE damage to replenish Barrier, and you can blast someone with Winter's Ruin to nearly refill your barrier afterwards.
Spirit Blade (Defending Blade): Over 150% Spirit damage. Still ok vs. guard and barrier, but most importantly as a spammable filler for reducing cooldowns with Clean Burn. Defending Blade gives a good damage reduction vs. ranged and chips away at their health while you're pounding on other enemies.
Dispel (Transmute Magic): Adds 50% barrier and gives you a 25% boost to damage for 10 seconds, as long as you use it to actually do something. "Doing something" means stripping enemy barriers, buffs, and mines, or removing debuffs on you (important vs. Hakkonites). Very underrated skill, imo.
Blizzard (Winter Winds): Shit damage. Fire-and-forget spell that activates Ice Armor in a large area and makes enemies vulnerable to Winter's Ruin. You could also use Ice Mine (Chilling Array) to fill this role (for 1 less ability point), but I've found Blizzard to be more convenient and reliable.
KEY PASSIVES:
Combat Clarity, Rejuvenating Barrier: Combat Clarity increases mana regen by 35% when in melee range (buggy, but mostly works). Rejuvenating Barrier increases mana regen by 35% when you have an active barrier on, which should be almost all the time in combat. Without both of these, I find myself mana-limited frequently, especially when spamming Winter's Ruin.
Clean Burn: Reduces spell cooldowns when you cast a spell. Synergizes with Spirit Blade spam and extra regen to let you spam your high-damage spells and Fade Cloak.
Chaotic Focus: Turns Fire Mine from ouchy to super-ouchy. Bugged with Flaming Array, but you can use this to your advantage: Spec into Searing Glyph, cast Barrier, then immediately cast Searing Glyph. Switch back to Flaming Array, and all of your Flaming Arrays should have max Chaotic Focus from then on (unless you cast another fire spell).
Fade Shield: Core KE skill, no explanation needed.
Knight-Protector: Reduces rate of barrier decay by 35% - i.e., increases decay time by more than 50%. Barrier is what keeps us alive, and the reduced decay is very noticeable.
Conductive Current: Deal more damage when mana is lower. You should constantly be casting and never, ever have full mana, so this is always going to help.
Ice Armor: With decent gear and the True Grit inquisition perk, you can have melee, magic, and ranged defense (which DO apply to barrier) all maxed at 80% when Ice Armor is active. Comes in very handy in tough fights.
GEAR:
The build is not gear-dependent. You can solo naked if you want, as long as you have a high-damage staff. That said, a couple of things are especially helpful:
Fade-touched Dawnstone/Everite (Heal 25% of damage taken over 10 seconds): Healing potions are useless with trials on, and you will probably screw something up or fall down at some point and take damage. Damage to barrier counts as "damage taken," so this masterwork is excellent at passively healing you up when needed. You don't even need to do anything special - it's basically a constant, passive in-combat heal.
Sigil of the Great Bear (+100 mana/-50% mana regeneration): Your base mana-per-second regen remains unchanged with this, but it effectively doubles the regeneration bonus from Rejuvenating Barrier and Combat Clarity. Very, very good when you need to cast Winter's Grasp a lot and don't want to wait for mana. Plus, other sigils are crap.
Electricity Staff (Veil Quartz or Stormheart): Two of your three ranged damage abilities (auto-attack and Energy Barrage) are going to be based on your staff damage type. Ranged damage is most useful against enemies that are constantly trying to get out of melee range. Despair Demons and Arcane Horrors are some of the most common examples, and both are immune to cold. This makes cold a very bad choice, especially since you have Winter's Ruin. Fire may also be a decent choice, but you lose the ability to do electricity damage. Or just carry multiple staffs.
COMBAT:
Start combat with a high-damage spell to get your barrier up. The options are:
Flaming Array (Fire): Run up or Fade Step into range
Energy Barrage (Electricity): Wait for it to hit before fully engaging
Blizzard/Fade Step + Winter's Grasp (Cold): Expensive; need Sigil of the Great Bear (or a Lyrium potion) to open with Blizzard
With decent gear, each of these should give you a hefty amount of barrier to get started. The Cold option is for the very, very rare case that you have a single promoted enemy that's immune to BOTH fire and electricity. Otherwise, there should always be at least one target that can be hit with Flaming Array or Energy Barrage.
The next step is usually Fade Cloak to avoid the initial burst of damage and fill barrier some more. Cast Blizzard to activate Ice Armor and/or set up Winter's Grasp if it's a tough fight or there are cold-vulnerables. Then, a general "cycle" of spell priority:
Flaming Array > Fade Cloak > Energy Barrage > Winter's Grasp (vs. chilled) > Spirit Blade
In other words, hit enemies with Flaming Array whenever you can; Fade Cloak when Flaming Array is down; Energy Barrage when the first two are down; etc. Spirit Blade spam when all other useful abilities are on cooldown.
Drop spells from the "rotation" as needed to account for immunities and re-prioritize to account for vulnerabilities. You should be able to keep Blizzard up pretty consistently as long as you don't cast Winter's Grasp too much (e.g., twice in a row after Flashpoint), but one cast is often all you need in most fights. Fade Step out if you're in a tight spot and Fade Cloak is down, or if you just want to Winter's Grasp something without casting Blizzard. Dispel enemy barriers, buffs, and mines for a damage boost and extra barrier.
VIDEOS:
I wasn't kidding about the naked part. Here's a mid-level (17) version vs. Imshael, with main damage spells but no Ice Armor or Transmute Magic:
[More videos coming soon]
