Shapeshifter Solo Build Progression

Damage first-

Damage Formula-Initial testing-Damage is attenuated to 50% at a distance of 3.8 metres, to 25% at 4.5 metres. The damage per tick is effectively (5 + SP/6) * (1 + R).

This equates with SP being spellpower and R a random floating point number in the range [0, 1).

Factor into this the swarm does nature damage and you can reach a max of 50% nature damage in Awakening and take advantage of hexes in combat. Final formula with that factored in- (5 + SP/6) * (1 + R)*(1.05-2).

I'm trying to remember where I got the (1.05-2) portion of the formula from and I can't recall-maybe related to hexes or nature damage not sure. I do know I was able to get to 200 points of damage with a high spellpower 250+ spellpower mage.

I don't understand that last (1.05-2) term since it looks like it would always give you negative damage, unless I am missing something.

There are many ways to finish the game on solo but shapeshifter is the worst possible and annoying build to accomplish that unless oyou have the mod that increase the numbers of transformations you can do.As an inside about shapeshifters I don't understand how they could become corrupted animals if they aren't GW to begin with,nor i do understand how they can change the mass of their bodies at will.

Turning this into my log thread.

Tome -Disorient
8 - Horror
9 - Sleep; Combat Training
10 - Mind Blast
11 - Force Field

Have just been increasing magic, no need to list it over and over again.

Anyway, directly after Lothering (and Camp) I went to Lake Callenhad. I kind of hoped I would get Desolate Highway since I was confident I would beat it, but instead no encounter popped up at all. Reason for skipping everywhere else was just to through before Templar's got Holy Smite.

Mostly the tower and fade were straight-forward, but after hitting level 8 it started to seem like my spells were getting resisted more often. I should have bought a better staff (Ember in Denerim would have been good), or possibly staff and robe without the tome. I was running the staff (Heartwood) and robes from the prologue still.

The next main source of irritation was that I clicked on all the "five pages," which triggers "Trade Route" on travel. It's easier to save that for later.

I couldn't hardly CC Sloth, and kept botching the fight against his last form as Golem or Spirit. Ended up doing that mostly as vanilla mage. The other room that gave me issues was actually the one before Uldred with the promoted rage demon and shade, and then the other regular shades. Uldred isn't too bad at this level, although I screwed up the first attempt - have been trying to avoid any friendly fire damage, so I backed away from him since I thought Walking Bomb was about to kill him, but mis-timed it and he hit me with his frost attack and crushing prison.

Related to my blunder with triggering Trade Route, you may have thought there were a couple omissions or oddities about the build order. Specifically, Mind Blast is really late and no glyphs. This really wasn't all that big a problem from the beginning though the end of Circle, but made the Trade Route encounter very difficult and ultimately reliant on RNG, which I don't like.

Without a way to reliably and rapidly CC the mage on the hill, I would end up taking a Paralyze +/- Fireball nearly every time right out of the cutscene. There was basically nothing I could do to prevent his first cast. Sometimes he didn't open with those, either auto-attacking or using Lightning, so eventually I was able to beat it when he did that, and I could move out of his range quickly, hit the melee guys with Sleep, then kill the mage.

I had wanted to see how it would go with the Sleep line instead of the Glyphs (and actually hold off on Mind Blast and Force Field if I could), but that experiment is over. If going Fireball, probably better to skip Cold and Sleep lines early, and get Glyphs during Ostagar or Lothering since Paralysis Explosion is one of the best CCs and you don't really need Cone of Cold necessarily.

Sleep was sort of fun for clearing out the bandits in Denerim, and dealing with Cristoff's ambush though. Of course I ended up dropping a Fireball and Walking Bomb in the middle of the Sgt's men, but they don't count towards your friendly fire stat, heh.

Oh as far as the Spider goes, I slapped on the Balanced Greatsword to get a little more damage, but I didn't really get to use it much. It did seem a bit stronger after I boosted my spell-power with the new gear.

I ended up doing some other sidequests, going to Orzammar for Key to the City, and took care of Honnleath*. I was saving for Lifegiver, but I am considering blowing gold on more tomes to pick up Bear and Swarm (or glyphs, haven't decided). Caster mage doesn't need health regen as badly as solo melee, but it would help shifted forms I imagine.

*More things I forgot from hiatus is how vulnerable Kitty seems to be to Nature damage, which is nice since I always seem to have acid flasks. Needed to "pre-buff" and hit lesser warm and cold resists before her last cutscene though.
Also the point in the origin I spent in Cunning was a waste since I miscalculated Fade essence number... I only really wanted 16, not 17.

I figured mana regen would be more important once I had swarm and was taking hits to mana instead of health.  I didn't notice anything with spider or bear yet.

I did make it up to level 14, and did in fact take AW and Combat Magic so I could put on whatever armor or weapons if I wanted.

Tome - Bear
Tome - Glyph of Paralysis
12 - Glyph of Warding; Improved Combat Training
13 - Glyph of Repulsion
Tome - Heal
14 - Arcane Warrior, Combat Magic

I ended up doing Soldier's Peak, Return to Ostagar, some side quests, the initial bit of Brecilian Forest, and then went to Redcliffe.  I wanted to make sure everyone stayed alive, which is why I burned that third tome on Heal.  I ended up buying Lifegiver and then Wintersbreath after RtO and Precious Metals.  I was tempted to just buy Staff of the Magister Lord, but went with the ring.

If it seemed like I was skipping around, it was because that was what I was trying to do.  I didn't want to do Attack at Nightfall until the militia had Scattershot, which makes it much easier for everyone to stay alive.  The castle is pretty simple for a mage with these powers.  I killed a few undead as a Bear and used Spider once or twice.  Animation canceling seems to work for bear attacks similar to 2H warrior, so I was doing that to increase attack speed a bit.  I usually just left staff equipped when I switched.

As far as critiquing the build so far, I could have shifted nearly everything up by 3 if I skipped Disorient, Horror and Sleep and just got the glyph line.  Paralysis Explosion is largely better than Sleep, the only thing is that you don't get spirit damage from Nightmare combo.  Of course I could have had Virulent Walking Bomb by now if I had done that.

I was considering not using any DLC gear whatsoever, but did end up slapping on Helm of Honnleath when I got Combat Magic.  I might also let myself use Starfang when I get it crafted, we will see.  I could have saved a little money if I was running the staves from Soldier's Peak and RtO... oh well.

I don't know if I want to finish Nature of the Beast or do the Urn quest next.

This post is going to be a bit long winded.

For those following along, here is the build progression so far:

Level
1 - Flame Blast, Flame Weapons; 1pt Cun (mistake), Rest into Mag; Coercion 1
2 - Winter's Grasp; All attributes into Magic from here on out
3 - Fireball; Stealing 1, Coercion 2 (Formari)
4 - Frost Weapons
5 - Cone of Cold, Walking Bomb (Joining)
6 - Vuln Hex; Poison
7 - Shapeshifter, Spider; Disorient (Tome Camp 1)
8 - Horror
9 - Sleep; Combat Training
10 - Mind Blast
11 - Force Field
Tome - Bear
Tome - Glyph of Paralysis
12 - Glyph of Warding; Improved Combat Training
13 - Glyph of Repulsion
Tome - Heal
14 - Arcane Warrior, Combat Magic
15 - Swarm, Combat Training 3
16 - Master Shapeshifter
17 - Death Siphon

Like I said before, this really isn't ideal... it is probably better to skip the Disorient line and move up the great glyphs. You don't necessarily need Mind Blast for the prologue through Kocari, but it would be helpful for the Tower Ogre if you want to fight him in the open. You can also potentially delay Cone of Cold since it isn't all that reliable against the Ogre either, and also Walking Bomb until you get good lockdown cc. But you should have most all of these by the time you are leaving Lothering.

After Redcliffe, I ended up taking care of a few side quests, then finishing the Ruins and Werewolf Lair for Nature of the Beast. Sided with the wolves and forced Zathrien to break the curse. The only annoying part was really the dragon, which I tried a couple times to kill "straight up," but gave up on it since it was too expensive and used "clever tactics."

Got River Crossing leaving, because that always seems to pop up for me, but Sleep can be cast fast enough that this is much easier for Mage than any class (like most things, but still).

Went to Orzammar to get the rest of my money from Rogek, took care of Aeducan Thaig, killed the Ambassador. At that point I had 132g 83s 6c (312g 54s 90c spent for 445g 37s 96c "accumulated") and went to the Tower to buy Staff of the Magister Lord. Got Desolate Highway finally, but high level mage beats it pretty fast. Killing Skinny Frank at Callenhad got me to Level 16.

Took care of Caravan Down, got Twisted Path on the way to Denerim. Did the Ransom Drop, got Back Alley on the way to doing Last Request. The most annoying part of that mission is really the 3 Mage room, but you can lock down the mage on one side and the sleep the whole rest of the room.

Went back to Lake Callenhad to help Sten and start the Urn quest. Went to Haven. Killed nearly all the villagers with Swarm. I didn't really use shifted forms much in the mission. Tried them a bit against Drakes (not very good), but did use Bear against the AW like mage with Spellshield up - very good against him (he cast some anti-magic bs while I was still casting Bear, so it did nothing).



Undead die pretty quickly to Fireball, Flameblast and Walking Bomb when you get some CC mixed in, so not a big deal. Also in Werewolf Lair I ended up using vanilla mage CC and Nuking^TM which prevented any Shadow Wolves from even getting close to me.

Anyway, to be completely honest I am having a hard time effectively integrating effective shifting into this game. I wasn't really trying to go all in on shifting, which may be part of the issue since my gear is optimized for spellpower and low fatigue. But the form quirks are also problematic for a solo.

For Spider and Bear it seems like if shift with a staff the damage isn't very good, especially on Spider. But if I shift with Starfang (did end up giving it to myself, so two DLC gear pieces so far), attack is too low for enemies I tend to fight.

The main problem with Swarm for me is that hits deplete mana instead of health. Which means that it doesn't work with the "blow all the mana on CC and nuking, then shift" strategy which I would most like to deploy. Of course the alternative might be to drink a lyrium pot, then shift. But if I did that most of the time it seems like it is better to auto-attack and then hit them with another Fireball which will likely be off cooldown soon.

The other option would be to go Swarm at the beginning of the fight and just use up all my mana that way, but the damage and CC is just too low. If I want to make myself seasick, I can spin around melee and archer enemies who can't hardly seem to get their attacks lined up.

As mentioned, I tried Bear a bit against the Dragon in Brecilian Ruins, then a Drake in Urn, but it didn't work well in either of those situations. It is CC'd too easily with knockback attacks (which may as well be knockdown for them) and stuns. If I was designing the Bear form, Rage would have been more like Indomitable and prevented stuns and knockdown.

I also fought the second drake in the "Arcane Warrior Room" a bit with Swarm. It was amusing for a bit, but the damn Drake managed to knock me out of swarm and simultaneously stun me with a Roar, which I found a bit annoying.

I have been toying with the idea of just slapping on high armor rating gear and trying to do the Carta hideout nearly completely as the Bear. Haven't decided. I might also try to swarm the High Dragon and Flemmeth to death.

edit:

Should also be mentioned... it isn't really as if Arcane Warrior active talents are all that great in a solo either.  When I did my previous mage solo, I mostly just turned on Combat Magic for the novelty.  Stabbing things with mediocre attack rating doesn't really do all that much damage.  Of course, AW has the huge advantage that you can run your sustains at the same time, which is unfortunately not an option for SS.

Blood Mage has an expensive (talent point wise) skill that is good, but can be somewhat replicated by vanilla-mage stuff.  Also I think casting from mana is probably the easiest way in solo since you are always drawing all the aggro.

Spirit Healer is pure support, so it is right out.

Yeah, Combat Magic passive is good for equipping gear, what I meant with that was that turning on sustains with high fatigue and regen penalties, then stabbing ends up being less efficient then just casting vanilla mage spells. Not really a revelation or anything since mage is extremely powerful, but it was just meant to put some of my comments about the shifted form in context, for solo anyway.  Would be different with some melee utility / damage abilities from their respective trees, but you can't get those in standard game.  This is in contrast to a warrior solo where the specializations make a big difference, IMO.

The Drake or Dragon "Roar" ability is what stunned the bear form. Even said "stunned." Looked it up and it is a mental resistance check, and honestly I don't think I have had any characters with high enough mental resistance to pass that check in my nightmare runs, but I also don't tend to try and build for it.

When the Drake used "Rake" against the bear, it basically made it fall to the ground for a couple seconds. It is listed in the wiki as a knockdown, which makes me wonder. Also worth mentioning, in the 3 Drake room, the way to cheese it solo is to back into a spot where only one Drake can attack at once, but Bear form was big enough that it didn't quite fit and 2 could engage at once.

As fort the Swarm v the Drake and Roar, maybe I had a lingering DOT that just happened to drop me out of shifted form right when it roared, causing mage form to be stunned. Not sure.

I have a lot of bug fixes installed, but don't recall any mentioning stun or knockbacks / knockdown for shifted form. I guess I could go through and look at them again.

For the hell of it, I did try to kill the High Dragon with just Swarm, but I got discouraged when I saw my DOT ticks were 2 damage. I did see some 8s if I got really close, but couldn't keep myself from getting kicked and taking like 130ish hits to mana when I did that. Nevermind that Swarm's fire weakness made the Fire Bolt more powerful. Perhaps the Archdemon is a better target for Swarm, since it has a "relative" nature weakness (25% resist as opposed to 75% for everything else).

It didn't help that I had forgotten some of the positioning tricks for the dragons from my melee solos, but I think I picked them back up finally. I ended up just staying in mage form and casting. Did it without a health pot, although used Greater Warm Balm, Greater Lyrium, Lyrium, and a couple Lesser Lyrium pots.

Bug fix packs, some texture mods, respec mod, advanced tactics. That's about it.

Level 18, every attribute point I have gotten except 1 has gone into magic.

Mage

STR 20
DEX 22
WIL 32
MAG 80
CUN 23
CON 30

Mental resist 53
Phys resist 31

Bear

STR 39
DEX 43
WIL 32
MAG 80
CUN 23
CON 58

Mental resist 53
Phys resist 65

Since Mental Resistane is

(WIL + MAG + CUN - 30)/2

To hit the cap, I would need combined 230 points in those three... or 95 more attribute points than I currently have.

Anyway, the linked guide is a little confusing when it talks about knockdown for bear and spider:



From fighting the similar enemies, that is more or less what happens to them as well. I think this is working as intended, or at least as previously observed.

There's a 20% nature damage item when you fight the spiders in the Deep Roads. I usually do it 2nd to help with swarm damage.

Bear is much better at tanking bosses, Spider at rear attacks. Poison Spit does help equalize the spiders lessened damage potential. If you get a chance, let me know what you think increases the damage for Poison Spit-I think its more than just magic.

Theres a few mods out there for shapeshifting-you might see if one of them help with cooldowns. Quick Shapeshifting shortens cooldown to 1 second, Shapeshfting plus to 15-30 seconds for cooldown. Shapeshfting Plus seems the best but it was off bsn so not sure if still available.

Checked the wikia, and it states this for Poison Spit:

0.5 x (100 + spider's dexterity bonus) nature damage over 3s.

I was doing 20 points of damage against foes in Lothering with Poison Spit per tick, 60 max so that seems about right. Dex differential was 16, so I'm actually doing a little more damage than indicated by the Formula. Did 28 points per tick on rare occasions when I could Poison Spit a hexed enemy. Nature damage buffs and debuffs like Vulnerability Hex do affect nature damage by Poison Spit. I think it's the secondary dex added by shapeshifting that is calculated by the formula, not the total dex including base 10.

I am using DLC gear, so that does affect things somewhat.

Flemeth wouldnt have dragon resistances-I dont think. It might make a difference. Wikia shows flame resistance for high dragon, not for flemeth-no other resistances.

Carta Hideout

I went with the Wade's Superior Heavy set to see how much I could do just in Bear form with the armor boost. It gave me 41 armor shifted to Bear. The annoying thing though is that the heavy chest piece triggers the archers to go with Shattering Shot, lowering the armor back down to what you would get with something like Reaper's Vestments. Overall the +dodge stuff is probably all around better.

It wasn't really practical to do the whole thing as a Bear, but I did use a lot of Bear and Swarm. Enemy rogues are pretty annoying with the DWE fix.

Jarvia

This fight was pretty amusing, but I did end up using a lesser health pot when Jarvia managed to stun me and I got loaded with DWE dot. Used some Bear and Swarm.

Deep Roads

Most of the mundane encounters aren't very interesting to talk about. Emissaries largely need to be locked down at range then nuked since spell resist isn't high enough to reliably get through their Crushing Prison / Curse of Mortality wombo combo (esp w/ CoM no-heal fix). But Paralysis Explosion and Sleep are helpful.

Corrupted Spider Queen

She is one of the few enemies that actually uses an exploit against you, so I say it is more than fair to use the clever / cheese method from behind the rocks to solo her.  I didn't want to do that though since Mage should be able to do it straight up without too much pain.

Did it with 0 health pots after a couple attempts, the main thing is that you have to keep her locked down at range and move close so that she does not use the DOT trick against you with her poison spit. I applied a Greater Nature resist and switched to Deadhead (forgot about it the first couple times) for higher physical resist against the webs. I focused the queen to stack DOTs and selectively CC'd / Fireballed minions. This results in the queen potentially dying relatively quickly, but clean up can have a lot of spider enemies. I dumped grenades on them with Fireball to end them, other costs were 2 lesser lyriums.

Broodmother

Ranged characters can solo this fight fairly easily from the ramp, or potentially the back. Used a Greater Nature resist and lesser lyrium (against some adds)

Spirit Anvil

I am only mentioning this because I always feel like I am doing it wrong since it seems like it takes forever.

Branka

As for various other boss encounters, the difficulty solo depends a lot on class. 2H Warrior is really good here.

What is helpful on mage is being to shatter the white rank Golems with CoC and Stonefist, but I didn't have a shatter detonator. If you are really on top of things, you can try to freeze one right when you see a friendly golem go into Slam, but this isn't always practical.

Anyway, this is otherwise a PITA fight unless you like kiting, seeing the words "Resisted", or spending potions. I will say that I can see value to Shapeshifter as a support member in a team, but I didn't have much luck. Part of the issue is that CC duration is very low on Branka, so it is hard to even take the time to shift. The other issue is Branka has absurd armor. When I finally shifted to Bear and hit her with an Overwhelm, each hit did 1 damage.

Paralysis Explosion is reliable if you can aim it, and Fireball is relatively reliable.

I mostly try to kill the Golems first, but this is pretty much going to happen regardless since Branka is so tough.

I did try to kit enemies a bit and use up the Lyrium just so she couldn't have it, but I hate that the "throw hands in the air and dance" animation is so long. She did manage to hit one and form her clones, with one taking a bee-line directly for camped Oghren of course, so had to throw an FF on him so he took zero damage.

That is so I could bend my solo rules a bit since when I am forced to have followers, they aren't allowed to tank anything, which generally means I make sure to get all the aggro. There are only like 2 places that I have found this extremely difficult: here when Branka forms clones,1 and a part of Dwarf Noble origin. In the beginning of this fight, Branka or a Golem is often locked on Oghren, but it is possible to draw threat via Fireball, etc. In the attempt that I finished, I had to use a FF off the bat since one elite Golem went into Hurl immediately, and this almost always seems to be directed at Oghren.

Rescue the Queen

The main portions of the dungeon are not bad at all for a mage, and I used some Swarm action on some groups of trash mobs.

Howe

Really the only advice I have for this one is to kill the mages first. One is a healer w/ Cleansing Aura, the other one does some offensive stuff like Stone Fist. I used Sleep to open, and nightmare combo and waking bomb on one, then I think it was some nukes on the other.

I did manage to use some Swarm and Bear against Howe. Glyph of Warding and Misdirection Hex help for going against him in melee.

Cauthrien

I wanted to do this in the room with no health pots. That's actually pretty annoying to try and do, and I am not entirely sure with my gear and such that it was 100% reliable. Of course Swarm is sort of like a health pot, and lyrium and other things are probably more valuable than the 30-40 lesser health pots you can easily have here without making them...

The first trick I like to use is prescience so as to hit a Swift Salve before you trigger the cutscene. That allows pretty much any character to make it to the door nook before a Scattershot can hit you, outside of very rare circumstances...

If you are a mage, Sleep can potentially cover the whole room, which is nice. What isn't nice is that Cauthrien and the elite Mage have non-trivial spell resist, so one or both might resist it potentially. When Cauthrien resists, there is a chance that she hits you with a stun before you get to the nook, or just hit you for some big-ass damage number above 70.

So I started by using Sleep on the room, then moving to the nook. Ideally the Mage and Cauthrien were asleep. I would use Horror on the Mage for nightmare combo, then use Waking Nightmare on Cauthrien, the archers to the right, and her melee lackeys. Then throw Walking Bomb and Virulent Walking Bomb on mooks to the far bit of the clump. The Mage is the first priority target, and can be hit with some AOE including grenades. Hit Rock Armor before the first swing Cauthrien took at me, along with Incense of Awareness. Paralysis Explosion and Fireball should locked the mooks in place so you don't get Friendly Fire damage, and then use some AOE.

Ideally you will have cleared one side of the archers, the mage, and melee mooks before really having to deal with Cauthrien. I tried to keep up Glyph of Warding and / or Misdirection Hex. I shifted to Bear after dropping those on her the first time, and then tried to fight her that way. Bear is kind of large, so you have to be careful about positioning because it is easy to stick out a bit and get hit with a Scattershot. Anyway, Bear did ok damage against her with animation canceling. When my Glyph and Hex were gone, I used Overwhelm. That took away maybe 20% of her health bar. Slam was resisted. I probably stayed in Bear a little too long, but dropped out and went to CC and DOTs / Nukes again.

When health was getting a little low, I CC'd her again, tried to put on some hexes, chugged a Lyrium, and went to Swarm. In the edge of the nook I could hit her and at least one of the archers on the left (from entrance) side, helping to restore health. Cauthrien missed a lot, but when she did hit it was for like -132ish mana per hit. She resists Divide the Swarm, or at least did for me.

Crime Wave - Bann Franderrel's Estate

I mostly used Swarm for both of these, which is pretty funny. Not much else to say.

Loghain

Fought entirely as a Bear just for the hell of it.

Gaxkang

Used the chug method, since I didn't have high spell resist. I could have gotten Spell Shield earlier, but it really isn't necessary for most of the game.

I tried to go to Bear against his Revenant form, but after doing a few hits between 1 and 9 damage each, he used Pull to CC me and just went back to Arcane Horror. Ended up staying in mage for the rest and just using DOTs. I burned a Greater Spirit and Lesser Cold resist (didn't have higher) at the start of the fight. I think I used two lessers and a regular health pot. Had to keep health up for when spells landed.

Back from the dead, so to speak. Had a long time away from my desktop, and so this little solo had a bit of a hiatus. Anyway I did manage to finish off this run the other day, it is funny how much nuance I lost in just 6 months. But onto the end.

After Unbound, I got Winding Road and then it was Redcliffe. I did that in August, so I don't quite remember what all I did there, but I am sure it was Swarm to gib trash mobs, and then some spells for more elite units (vague, I know).

Battle of Denerim

Gates

Not much to say here since the npcs do pretty much everything, and most enemies are critter tier (IIRC) and die to one or two hits. I just buzzed around in Swarm.

Market District

Realized I had a Tome of Skill and Sundry, so used it for Survival 1 (just for small nature resist, really).

For the opening, I tend to lure an ogre at a time regardless of what class. But with mage you do have enough nuke-age to take a couple. Nightmare combo works ok to start on them, then DOTs. PE for the near emissary to lock it down and reduce likelihood of Crushing Prison / Curse of Mortality. I sort of botched this section though and drew multiple ogres when I tried the PE. Got sort of stuck, but was fortunate to have enough DPS. For the Hurlock General here, I started to put on some DOT at range, but he wanted to resist. I then used Swarm form to buzz around, although one hit from him takes off huge mana. If you are fast enough he is pretty stupid, but a stray it or two might knock you out. I did end up going to Bear to finish him.

Alienage

Lost of junk here, started with Sleep, Horror, Waking Nightmare on the ogre and the first group. Retreated and took a lesser lyrium, went to Swarm and buzzed about a bit. Sort of screwed up against the mage General and took a Curse of Mortality, but I used a spirit resist pot and so I lived. Hit level 24 when I talked to whats-her-name at the end, took Drain Life (because I couldn't think of anything else I wanted), and Survival 2 (more nature resist). I couldn't remember if I avoided Drain Life on purpose just to keep from healing myself, or if I just didn't have it prioritized. Early game most of the time you want bigger damage spells in solo, at least in my opinion.

Hold the Gates

I don't remember if this is the right name for this section or not. Anyway, I set the four party members to 0 tactics and passive, so it was up to the balance of my recruits and other npcs to do it. This is to prevent anyone from gaining contribution to party damage. I also summoned the dalish army just to make it go faster. Basically this is my sit around and do nothing section, the bit about party damage is the only reason I mention it at all.

Palace District

I tried to buzz around as much as possible here. I don't think there was much to say, I retreated when knocked out of swarm.

Fort Drakon Steps

This is the most annoying part probably. At least they don't all bum-rush you, or this would be much harder. Nuked the archer groups with WB, VWB and Fireball. Retreated to left back corner when dragon showed up. Killed it with Nightmare combo and cold spells. Then Paralysis Explosion for left Emissary and friends. Swarm to buzz towards the entrance and some cover. Sleep, Waking Nightmare, damage spells to clear the mobs. Lockdown the other emissary and kill with whatever. The Genlock Alpha was last, I put DOT on him at range after PE. Don't take an Arrow of Slaying.

Drakon

Conjurer section - killed Shades with Affliction Hex and the two bomb spells, along with CoC etc. The Conjurer is not very impressive if fought at range, lock down and DOTs.

There is a hallway with emissaries and undead, that is the only part where you can't really get any mileage out of Swarm. I used Fireball, Flame, and WB/VWB. I was able to nuke the Assassin's lackeys and then fought him with some Swarm and damage spells. Used Bear and Spider against some Hurlocks. Sold loot to Sandal, which doesn't do me any real good since gold doesn't matter this late.

Archdemon

I was rusty at positioning my swarm, so this took a few tries to get it right.

Equipped Corruption helmet. Shifted to Swarm. Flew to AD and positioned in between all legs, slightly more towards read. It is easiest to get there if AD dances around when you try to move under it. It can't hit you if you are in the right spot, but it obviously moves when it takes enough damage.

When Eamon arrived, I went for a ballista. Used it until it jammed, then used WB / VWB DOT, and debuff hexes. AD went to far platform, so I shifted to Swarm to and buzzed to another ballista. Killed some trash mobs and fired the ballista until jammed. Ran to next ballista since Swarm was on cooldown, killed some Shrieks with spells. Ballista fired until jammed. Used DOTs, Drain Life, hexes to deal ranged damage. AD moved to final spot, so I used Potent Lyrium pot, and shifted back to Swarm. Stayed under AD until dead.

Near the start


Almost dead (that's Kardol with the blue circle)


The End


Finished with 375g21s09c in my purse, with 782g39s90c spent. Total accumulation was thus 1157g60s99c.

Build progression:

Level
1 - Flame Blast, Flame Weapons; 1pt Cun, Rest into Mag; Coercion 1
2 - Winter's Grasp; 3pts Magic
3 - Fireball; Magic to 27; Stealing 1, Coercion 2 (Formari)
4 - Frost Weapons; Magic to 30
5 - Cone of Cold, Walking Bomb (Joining)
6 - Vuln Hex; Magic 36; Poison
7 - Shapeshifter, Spider; Magic 39; Disorient (Tome Camp 1)
8 - Horror; Magic 42
9 - Sleep; Magic 47; Combat Training
10 - Mind Blast
11 - Force Field
Tome - Bear
Tome - Glyph of Paralysis
12 - Glyph of Warding; Improved Combat Training
13 - Glyph of Repulsion
Tome - Heal
14 - Arcane Warrior, Combat Magic
15 - Swarm, Combat Training 3
16 - Master Shapeshifter
17 - Death Siphon
Eamon Cured - Virulent Walking Bomb
18 - Waking Nightmare, Combat Training 4
19 - Affliction Hex
20 - Misdirection Hex
21 - Arcane Shield
22 - Staff Focus
Landsmeet - Arcane Mastery
23 - Spell Shield
ToSS - Survival 1
24 - Drain Life, Survival 2