Hybrid guides

[Matseb2611]

Hiya everyone. I am thinking of starting an FAQ of guides for hybrid classes. Yep that is right, the one about all those most difficult, underdog classes.
For those who don't know hybrid classes are those that have 1 fight mastery (warfare, defence, hunting, rogue) and 1 true mage mastery (earth, storm).

I was thinking that anyone could contribute. Though:
- preferable if you completed at least epic with the class you're writing a guide on.
- there not to be more than 2-3 guides on each class
- focus should be on skills, attributes and techniques and less on gear.
- also focus should be on surviving in late epic and legendary, with some mentions of normal and early epic gameplay.

First of all need to make sure we do not clash with guides. Who wants to write which one?
I'm thinking of writing on battlemage and on juggernaut.

The Guides

Contents
Battlemage.................................(BMG)
by Matseb2611
by IdfTrotter
Juggernaut.................................(JUG)


(BMG)
Battlemage (by Matseb2611)

Intro: Battlemage is a very offensive class, because Warfare is an offensive fight mastery and Earth is an offensive magic mastery. The whole combination therefore lacks in defensive skills.

Attributes: As with most hybrids attribute points should be allocated in str:int:dex at a ratio of 2:1:1. This makes sure that both physical (from warfare) and fire (from earth) damage are scaled up, and at the same time raising DA (Defensive ability) a bit so not to get critted all the time.

Early game: The initial stages of the game are quite simple and in fact earth enchantment with brimstone makes normal difficulty too easy as it significantly raises DPS, and volcanic orb takes care of the groups really well.

Fight strategies: However in legendary difficulty a lot of fire damage is resisted by monsters and battlemage doesn’t have any good debuffing skills to weaken the monsters. The best way here is to singe some health off the enemies with fire and then to finish them off with melee. A good technique for that would be to cast eruption on the crowd of monsters and to stun them in place by war horn. The eruption will rip a reasonable chunk of their life (depending on how many points in intelligence you have). The remaining health can be taken away by pummelling them to death.
At difficult times add a Battle Standard onto the battlefield to make things easier for you.
Volativity could also be a good option to up that fire damage approximately on every 3rd hit.

Pets: Battlemage is also a very pet dependent class and Core Dweller is exactly a perfect pet for him/her. As battlemage is so good offensively but bad defensively, a Core Dweller can take up a lot of enemy aggro onto himself, allowing your battlemage to kill enemies while they are not even going for him/her. With Core Dweller the best skill allocation would be to max the skill itself, max inner fire, max metamorphosis, and to only have 1 point in wildfire (it’s not worth maxing). Casting Heat shield on Core Dweller can allow him to stay alive for longer as heat shield grants 15% physical damage absorption.

Dual Wield: Battlemages are good dual wielders, however because of their bad defence it might be a good idea to spec out of it and use a shield in latter stages of legendary difficulty. Shields giving high bonuses to resistances are highly encouraged of course.

Gear: The best gear for battlemage would be anything granting bonus physical and fire damage (elemental damage includes fire as well), bonuses to DA, and perhaps even damage absorption (due to lack of a shield if you go with dual wield, but heat shield skill should give you enough anyways).

Not advised: War wind – this really is for strong physical damage dealers and as battlemage invests a large chunk of attributes into intelligence, there won’t be enough strength to make this skill so good, plus battlemage gets enough crowd control from volcanic orb/eruption.
Flame surge – this skill is pretty underpowered and unless you have a correct gear, skill and attribute point set up this is a definitive no-no.

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Battlemage (by IdfTrotter)

Intro: Battlemage was my first character. So I made a lot of mistakes, suffered a lot of death but now that I have finished Legendary with it, I have some insight of this character. Like it was said, Battlemage is quite weak in defense. But instead of adding some defense, I chose to max offense and rely on Core Dweller to attract all enemies. So my build is mostly a fighting class with Core Dweller as a buffer. It’s a very straightforward build !

Attributes: Mostly in Strength, nothing in Intelligence.

Early game: I have tried a lot of different strategy, and found that Ring of Flame was very good in Normal. I only began to use Core Dweller against Normal Typhon. I used Eruption as soon as I could. When my fire damage became less effective against monsters (due to lack of Intelligence I guess), I switched all my skills to max my physical damages and kept only Core Dweller, Brimstone, and Heat Shield in Earth Mastery.

Fight strategies: From Epic to end Legendary, my main strategy is to throw Core Dweller into enemies, War Horn, kill archers then join next to him to maximize the chance to hit different enemies with Dual Wielding and War Wind.
When mobs are more difficult (with heroes) than they first appeared, I cast Battle Standard and/or Ancestral Horn.
Against bosses, the main strategy is the same : Core Dweller provoke them, put him where it's safer for you, and I hit them in the back (yes, I know, that’s not fair, but I don’t want to die). As soon as they use an AoE attack, I have to flee, then come back.
This tactic worked very well because Core Dweller seems unaffected by lots of attack (Fire, Poison ...) but if he dies ... I die. So it’s important to watch his life bar.
One of the rare boss I had problem against was the Demon Bull : it killed Core Dweller very fast with his gore attack and his 2 AoE were fast, deadly and difficult to anticipate. I had to kill him with a bow, and that was long (it was easier in Epic, because I still had Eruption).

Skills: I ended Legendary at level 59 with this :
http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.a...0-0-6-6-16-0-0
I have discovered War Wind lately (it recquires some habit to use it so I first disclaimed it). It’s not yet maxed out but should be. Move, War Horn, War Wind is devastating.
Heat Shield for you and your Core Dweller
Inner Fire and Wildfire are not worth because Core Dweller don’t do much damage.
Metamorphosis is good because it help Core Dweller stay alive longer.
No Dodge Attack and Ignore Pain because they don’t do damage !
War Horn is amazing. It shuts down all those monsters and even those Machae archer that run so fast. It’s only useless against bosses.
Ancestral Horn against midrange bosses and heroes.
Otherwise, everything that do more physical damage is good !

Dual Wield: This build want to make the most damage possible and don’t care about defense, so that’s obvious to max it.

Mouse: Onslaught (obviously) on left button and War Wind on right one.

Some tips: If you find some equipment that gives bonus to Earth skills, keep and use them only to cast Core Dweller then put back your main equipments to travel and fight. Against big bosses, you can use Battle Standard before to cast a bigger Core Dweller.

Gear: Anything that gives physical damage bonus, or attack speed bonus. I don’t care about defense and resistance.

Survival ability: It’s said in the forum that resistance is very important in Legendary. It must be true with other builds / strategy but Legendary was the easiest level for me. If you are not aimed or touched by enemies, resistance and defense are useless !

Problems and limits of this build:
It’s not that easy to dodge enemies; there are always monsters which are not provoked by Core Dweller and jump straight on you.
AoE attacks, hidden Heroes and casters can give you problems.
If you try a 0 death challenge, this build is not for you. It would require to let Core Dweller precede you before ANY move you make then follow him. It would be very long and boring.
So most of the time, I ran and flee when I encounter monsters. When they get attracted by my pet I came back. Sometimes I can be trapped, slow down, or choose the wrong path and be slained in seconds.
Excessive trust is deadly. The game won’t let you forgot for long that your character is VERY fragile.
Hope you like to drink, a lot.
I was lucky enough to find 2 Thorny Maul before Epic Typhon, then a Sabertooth. I don't know if everybody has access to such wonderful weapons but if you don’t have weapons that can deliver high damage, this build may not be worth. In other words, if you can’t kill bosses before they get rid of your pet, you’re in trouble.
I have tried Sapros the Corrupter and it would fit perfectly this build if you are lucky enough to get one (I haven’t kept mine because it came from a supermarket mod).

Conclusion: Like I have said before, it’s my first character, so I can’t compare. I understand his defaults, but I found it interesting and it’s a real challenge to play, when even Satyr’s can kill you with a few strikes !

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(JUG)
Juggernaut (by Matseb2611)

Intro: Pretty much the opposite of Battlemage. Excellent surviving and tank ability, but poor OA and DPS late game. Early game Juggernauts as the name suggests it are annihilators.

Attributes: As with most hybrids attribute points should be allocated in str:int:dex at a ratio of 2:1:1. This makes sure that both physical (from defence) and fire (from earth) damage are scaled up, with some dexterity points for OA and DA. However more OA will be vital from gear in late game. A few points in energy will also be useful.

Early game: Juggernauts are pretty much as overpowered as it gets early game (except for some exceptions). Earth enchantment with brimstone highly raises DPS, shield hits annihilate packs after packs of mobs and survivability is just as good. This makes normal and early epic difficulties to be a cruise.

Fight strategies: With average amount of DA and a few defensive skills Juggernaut is a good tank and can take a good amount of punishment. However from Act 4 epic onwards the game might seem very slow because DPS doesn’t get any better and OA is very poor. Good things here might be to perhaps lower enemy DA or their fire resistance one way or another. Otherwise invest heavily in DPS and OA.
Personally I think Juggy is a good crowd controller. Casting eruption first on a crowd of monsters and then going in with shield charge and batter can really scatter most groups of monsters to pieces.
Skill points in volativity are advised, at least a few. This way every third hit will deliver more damage, exactly what a Juggy needs.
I’ll be back with some more fight strategies…

Pets: In my opinion a Juggernaut does not have a use for Core Dweller at all. Why? Because Core Dweller takes aggro excellently whilst hardly dealing any damage. Juggernaut can handle the tanking already and so having another tank won’t do much difference.

Key skills: Passive shield skills (excellent damage dealers), shield charge (makes life easier against long-ranged mobs), earth enchantment + brimstone (any earth hybrid must have that), volativity (just a few points will do for extra damage, but if got any spare then max it), heat shield (1 point for 15% physical damage absorption – never hurts to have), stone form (just for those near-death situations), colossus form (every defence class should have it), adrenaline with maxed defensive reaction (more damage!). Others are pretty much up to you, though you don’t have to have all the above mentioned skills, they just will make life for a Juggernaut much easier.
Gear: Any gear giving +% damage, +% fire damage (elemental damage includes fire as well), +% attack speed, - (or -%) to enemy resistances and + (or +%) OA.

Not advised: Flame surge – (again) it’s OK on normal, but after that it loses efficiency… badly.
Core Dweller – as I said already a Juggernaut does not require another tank, so you better off spending those points elsewhere.

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[Barnacle_Ed]

General question: Are "Masteries Mod" guides to be included in this?

[Matseb2611]

With masteries mod it is a bit harder to tell the true hybrids, but sure if it will seem like a popular choice then we can.
So we have sorcery as pure mage mastery
Close combat, archery & construction as pure fight masteries.

How about others?

[ZenTsu]

This sounds like a very good idea, if you want i can help write a few as i play through classes if you'd like m8y. Could add sections from different people about various ways to play each class maybe with some build guides thrown in to help

Am currently working my way through Dream builds atm, so would be only too happy to help out.

[Barnacle_Ed]

Well, Mysticism and Time from "Masteries" are hybrids themselves...I don't know if you'd want to count it, but I would be willing write up a Cosmologist guide since I have one on the go.


Even if it doesn't belong here, I could just stick it in the "Masteries" section I suppose.

[Poinas]

I can tackle (auramancer) Evoker..and possibly Guardian.

[Matseb2611]

I was thinking just the earth or storm plus fight mastery, but if you think the nature or spirit plus a fight mastery, or dream plus a mage mastery is hard then sure maybe we can consider them too.

Yeah perhaps we can have a section for mastery mod classes too. The thing is, they all will be in the title post and so lots of guides means lots of scrolling down. We could perhaps break them down into 2-3 different threads if that helps. Ideas?

Gonna start the battlemage and juggy guides tomorrow.

[Barnacle_Ed]

Personally, I'd consider Cosmologist a hybrid since it has a fairly wide array of magic attacks (time charge, time quake, truth hurts, cleansing, holy water, divine energy, conversion), several buffs (escape the fate, relief, life regeneration), and all coupled with some serious melee power (white flame, wink of the eye, micro sleep).


It's a LOT of fun though...the two masteries work extremely well together and the gameplay somewhat reminds me of a Thane. Minus squall though, sadly

[Necessitysslave]

I'm really interested in seeing an auromancer guide or two.

I've done quite a lot of searching on the forums for details on the two basic auromancer builds (diviner and evoker) and I'm still not sure if either of them can kill the legendary bosses.

My highest level char is an Evoker (level 30 act3 normal). But I've started a ritualist now as I think an evoker as my first char was a bit enthusiastic

[Irma2]

Originally Posted by Matseb2611

I was thinking just the earth or storm plus fight mastery, ...

I'd agree with that as a definition. For me, a hybrid is a build that does both elemental and physical/piercing damage, and is thus equally tempted to pump Int and Str. Including Spirit/Nature/Dream + combat mastery would turn Templars, Champions, Haruspexes and Spellbreakers into 'hybrid' builds. How many of these builds are tempted to pump Int?

Just a question, are you interested mainly in melee builds? Sage and Avenger can both be played spear, but they are also viable and interesting archer hybrid builds that don't get much attention among the plethora of Rangers, Brigs and Haruspexes.