Advanced Guide
Advanced Guide
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This is a general guide that covers advanced tips, endgame goals and builds.
Goals
Here's a list of things to work on (mainly lategame):
- Reaching level 20 (on all 3 spirits)
- Farming Stinktooth/M'ogresh/Radulos/Nyxaliss for gear
- Find/augment full legendary gear (has more rolls)
- High damage roll weapon
- High rolled runes
- Unlock Whirlwind (from Stinktooth)/Ambush (from Bera) recipes
- Farming for Putrid Shank (from Stinktooth)
- Farming for Steelclaw's Bite (from Stinktooth)
- Farming for various Nyxaliss drops
- Farming for Corrupted Blossom (from Temple)
- Farming for Cowl of Obscurity (from Gaekatla rep)
- Farming for Gaekatlan Druid skin (from Gaekatla rep)
- Seasonal events
- Contribute to the crippling wealth gap by getting an unholy amount of idols
- Become the strongest :D
Spirit Tips
Owl
Summon Skeleton are many times used by slightly weaker owls to help keep enemies away by distracting them. Although it is recommended to use no more than 2, so that you have alternative attacks in case you are caught off guard while summoning a skeleton.
Ice Spear can be used to deliver a quick hit thanks to its low cast time. However, it does have a long cooldown.
Magic Missile simply deals massive damage in exchange for a medium cast time and slightly long cooldown.
Smite can be paired with Magic Missile for some extra damage, as the smite stun is usually long enough to get an MM in.
Fireblast can be used to keep mobs at distance for a few more ticks, allowing critical time to cast a final MM or cons to heal. It also works well when paired with Ice Spear or Smite. Owls can farm groups of enemies by coupling Fireblast with a source of healing such as Consecrate, Cowl of Obscurity, or Healing Touch.
When engaging in combat alone (or in a duo if using Vile Essence), a Healing Touch may be used instead of a Consecrate as it provides better hpt on single targets, although it relies the caster to be reactive towards damage taken rather than proactive, which can be more dangerous.
Owls generally use Tomes as the preferred offhand slot item because of the spell crit chance and multi implicits being more useful than the block chance implicit stat of the Shields. Some owls prefer to use shields for more armor, because owls are generally have less health and armor than other spirits. The Strength requirement on shields can sometimes be a problem though.
Bear
Bear can farm groups of enemies via AoE damage sources such as Rune of Whirlwind, Shield of Lustre, or Gourdhowl together with a source of healing such as LoH, Cowl of Obscurity or Harvest Life.
Rune of Flurry may be used in pairing with a high damage axe to deal large amounts of damage in a short period of time.
If not using an axe, bears generally use Shields as the preferred offhand slot item because of its block chance implicit stat being more useful than the Spell Crit Chance and multi implicits of the Tomes.
Using a Charge to stun and a Slash to inflict large amounts of damage works very well on bosses such as M'ogresh.
Lynx
Rune of Flurry may be used in pairing with a high damage spear to deal large amounts of damage in a short period of time.
Lynxes generally use Gilded Shield as the preferred offhand slot item because the armor implicit stat being more useful than the Spell Crit Chance and Multi implicits of the Tomes.
Due to how often lynx can apply damage with Smokebomb, building for crit with a Cowl of Obscurity vastly increases a lynx's durability.
List of Builds
Most builds are designed around a certain spirit and a level 20 character. Before level 20, different stats might be more important to kill mobs and level up as fast as possible so players can start working on getting the strongest endgame gear. It's probably best to focus on reaching level 20 before specializing your build.
Bear
Lynx
Owl
Additional Passive Tree Advice
When considering where to go in the passive tree, generally the big nodes are useful to get. However, you must weigh whether they actually improve your build or even if it is worth pathing to at all. Consider these two lynx trees for example:
The first tree is an example of what a more novice player may take, because they believe the extra dex and phys incr from the small nodes on the lynx side is more benificial than spending them pathing to the multi node on the bear side. However, they fail to consider that the 1 dex nodes are not very valuable (each representing 0.1 max rolls), and while the phys incr represents 5 max rolls, phys incr going from 60 to 75 is much less useful than an additional 100 multi, which is not slouching either at 3.3 max rolls (consider that when calculating damage, the phys incr would represent a change in the phys incr factor from 1.6x to 1.75x, while the multi would represent the addition of 1 to the multi factor. Assuming everything else is equal, we can consider two equations, damage = 1.6 x (multi + 1) and damage = 1.75 x multi). When solving for what multi would cause the damage to be equal, we come to the conclusion that the multi node is better until 1867 multi (INCREDIBLY unrealistic), so it is always better to take the multi node over the phys node)
Look at the this owl passive tree for another example:
There are two possible paths in this tree for the right side, taking the upper path as shown or taking the lower path. They both result in the same ultimate goal (60 multi), but the paths there are vastly different in value. The path shown consists entirely of small nodes, which provide cast speed (which can help dpt) and int (which always helps dpt), while the alternate path includes a big node, but only provides mana regen and max mana, which does not serve to help dpt and only provides a cushion of max mana to allow lower dpt owls to cast more rotations of their runes before running out of mana.
Advanced Levelling Guide
When levelling additional characters to 20, the experience can be made much easier through proper itemization and decision making.
Itemization
In order to maximize the rate of xp gain, it is important to be able to complete quests as quickly and often as possible. The most common quest types are ones asking to loot specific categories of items (purveyor quests), so to facilitate this it is important to have as much item quant as possible. This can be done either by setting up quant items on a levelling build or by having another player using a quant build take the last hit on every enemy.
Occasionally, there will be quests asking for magic quality equipment of a specific categories or asking for any rare quality equipment. In order to facilitate this, some item quality helps immensely. You can do this again by putting it onto the levelling build itself, having an external player with it, or by killing or assisting in the killing of bosses such as Stinktooth or Radulos, which are guaranteed to drop several higher rarity items.
Decision Making
Before you start picking up your loot drops, you should ask yourself if it helps you complete your current quest. For example, if you are in sewers and have a quest to kill 9 rats, it is best for you to avoid picking up any loot they drop in the hopes that a purveyor quest is coming soon. Saving the drops can allow you to build up many lootable items on the floor allowing for rapid fire completion of purveyor quests when they appear. Additionally, hold off on picking up magic quality or higher items, as those can be used for the purveyor quests associated with higher quality items. HOWEVER, eventually items do despawn after 10 minutes, so be mindful of how long you have left your loot on the floor.
What is QQ and why should you consider it?
QQ stands for Quantity and Quality. It is a method of farming that prioritizes the amount and quality of items dropped rather than the speed at which enemies can be killed. Consult this helpful page for an in-depth look at the mechanics.
Types of QQ Builds
Full QQ Farm
The idea of this build is to cap both quality and quantity, at 286% and 200% respectively. This often leaves the build with little to no offensive power, so these are most frequently used for farming low level enemies such as Bunnies or Seagulls. Farming these enemies will NOT provide any idols, so this is purely a farm for augmenting materials, as well as for legendary items to craft with.
Late game quant setup
Extremely late game builds, which can solo all content the game has to offer easily, can begin to replace some of their dpt with item quantity. This can be used to farm M'ogresh and Temple more effectively, as with max quantity mog will start dropping 5 items instead of the usual 3, and mog already has max quality built in so the player does not need to build any. Temple already has some quality built in, and item quality is much harder to build for, so players often settle for just quantity. Both mog and temple drop lvl 20 gear and runes, meaning quanting them gives the best chance for gear upgrades or powerful legendary runes.
Item Crafting and Late Game Equipment
In your journey, you probably picked up many idols and salvaged many items into materials. A brief explanation of crafting can be found here, but we will be considering what items are worth expending valuable resources on. The following sections are entirely the opinion of one player, Arkie, and should be considered more anecdotal advice rather than firm rules.
Augmenting & Smolding
Due to the exponentially increasing nature of augmentation prices, when crafting your own augments it is more efficient to test the waters with one to two augments. If neither of these augments is a stat in line with what you are looking for, the item is bricked and you can move on, unless it is a vital unique item such as Crescent Dagger, Putrid Shank, or Gourdhowl, in which case smolds can be used to try to salvage the craft. As tempting as it is, the process of smolding and augging an item to get good augments is far more expensive than the process of unsing an item with good augs to get a good roll). All weapons with less than epic damage should be considered bricks before even augging unless they are again a vital unique item.
If 1 out of the 2 augments are what you are looking for, you can chance the 3rd augment depending on the roll of the good augment. If it represents is well rolled (I would consider about 0.6 max rolls or higher well rolled), the item can be saved if the third augment is also good and well rolled (you can judge the value of the rolls most easily with waddon, but remember that different stats are more or less useful than others) If the initial augment is low rolled (I would consider 0.4 max rolls or less a low roll), it is likely not worth trying for the 3rd augment, but it can be saved by a high roll (I would consider 0.8 max rolls or more a high roll). This is highly unlikely and it is simpler to just consider the item bricked.
If 2 out of 2 augments are what you are looking for, always go for the 3rd augment. Even if they are low rolls, 2 low rolls can be saved by as little as a 3rd low roll. If they are both well rolled, the 3rd augment does not matter if it goes poorly, but can astronomically improve the value of the item if it goes well. The standard piece of late game gear will feature 2 good, well rolled augs out of 3 (referred to as 2/3 augs), while 3 good, well-rolled augments out of 3 (referred to as 3/3 augs) are coveted by all.
Remember to consider the stat requirments of the item while augging, since it is possible to hit on a well-auged item for a different spirit/build, and the item can be sold if it is usable by the other spirit/build.
Ascing, and when should you do it?
Sometimes, you may stumble upon an item that is not level 20, but is worth crafting (primary culprits include necklaces from Thaumaturge Yala, Cowl of Obscurity, rings from Soul's Moor and Putrid Shank). These can be safely ascended to max level and augmented. However, when considering low level epic/legendary items and target crafting, ascing can be detrimental. This is primarily considered when crafting niche items, such as high attack/spell dodge boots, sprint chance boots, or qq gear. Consider the stats page and understand that certain stat types, such as crit chance and multi, only appear on higher level items (starting at lvl 7+), while dodge, sprint, and qq can appear on items of all levels. This means that when crafting for these stats, it is best to use lvl 1-6 items, as these additional stats are essentially blocked out of the stat pool, giving a higher chance for the stats you want.
Dglass is your friend, you just don't know it yet
Dglass is useful for two things, acting as a budget smold and a source of legendary essence. Luckily, these two uses are combined when crafting. Dglassing an item switches it to another item type, removing augments in the process. This is incredibly useful for turning your bricks into useful crafting bases, and if you hit on a trinket in the process that is another legendary essence for the pile. Since you cannot choose which item type you dglass to, this is less useful for target crafting and dglass should be used by people attempting to craft and sell for profit (I do not recommend this as it is often takes far more idols to craft an item people are willing to buy than the amount of idols they are willing to pay for it), or for people fishing for augments to sell to other crafters (particularly late game players willing to pay for the chance to improve their build).
Bone idols (Spoiler: they are bad)
Bone idols are practically useless unless you have an incredible quantity of them. From anecdotal experience, weapon damage quality obeys the same rules as item quality, except you cannot use the item quality stat to increase the likelyhood of a higher quality result. This means that each bone has a 1/2448 chance to produce a legendary damage stat, or about a 0.04% chance. The chance for epic damage is only marginally better, at 17/2448, or about 0.76%. For this reason, bones are probably best off being sold for more useful idols.
Unstable idols and where all your money went
After successfully augmenting your items, or acquiring a well-augged item from someone else, the next step is to uns it into usability. The general piece of late game gear will be a legendary base, so it will have 5 stat slots you can mix around with uns. A good piece of gear will have 3 out of the 5 as useful stats, however I would consider the requirements for how well these stats are rolled are less stringent. I would call rolls on the item base well rolled if they fall around or above 0.5 max rolls and high rolled if they fall above 0.7 max rolls. Typically, you see one set of 3 useful well rolled stats about every 100 uns on a leg item (you will have to spend more for items with less stat rolls, such as epic or rare, to get the same result). A set of 4 happens probably every 500 uns or so, and a set of 5 is essentially a miracle. The high average uns spent for a good set of rolls is what causes the crafting of completed items for sale to be unprofitable. And remember: 99% of gamblers quit before hitting it big.
Runes and Combat
Due to the tick based nature of isleward, there is not a lot of depth to combat. However, there are still some things to consider, primarily regarding avoiding damage from bosses, weaving in basic attacks, and diminishing debuff returns.
Weaving in basic attacks is incredibly simple, just remember to press spacebar. On slow attacking classes like owl with a staff or bear with an axe, you can fill the downtime in between hits with rune casts.
Avoiding damage from bosses is relatively simple. Against Radulos, simply walk out of his gas if you are caught in it. Against M'ogresh, you are given a fairly long time (probably around 8 ticks) between when mog starts putting down spikes and when they actually start hitting, so they are very easy to avoid. Additionally, mog only casts these when in melee range, so ranged characters have even longer before they need to worry about them. Against Lord Squash, be mindful of how many chunks you have picked up. Against Vizier Zunni and Moonpriest Sahira, use the spikes to block the missile if you have low armor, but be mindful of when they shatter. Against all bosses, you can stop midair projectiles from dealing any damage by stunning them.
Debuffs have a diminishing return, where for each type of debuff (stun, slow, pushback) the first application is full effect, the second is half effect, and the third and beyond do not apply the debuff at all. Additionally, debuffs can be overridden by application of the same debuff, and will go off the duration of the last application. This means that it is pertinent to coordinate when debuffs are applied to prevent hazardous mishaps. For example, if 3 bears were doing mog and all charged at the same time, mog would not be stunned at all and immediately start attacking. When not in the presence of a late game character that can easily carry the bossfight, groups of players both bring multiple debuff types and choose the best times to use them in order to have the most chance of success.