Ask me about Battlemages! OR General BM Discussion

[naxcilliac]

I'm putting up this topic for all the earth / warfare lovers out there. i currently have a level 61 Battlemage that I've twinked out to be able to 3x Hades in a matter of seconds with no even risk of death. don't let my postcount fool you, i've been an avid TQ player for years and i'm a bigger lurker than poster, but I see people through multiplayer and the forums struggling with this offbeat mastery combo.

Now i'm not trying to say I'm the best or anything, but I am pretty knowledgeable about melee BM and I'd be very happy to answer any questions and help anyone who's having difficulties by recommending strategies and equipment.

Useful post hotlinks for quick viewing
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General Optimal BM Melee Building by nax
Useful BM Melee Tips and Suggestions by nax
Melee BM Build Suggestion by ASYLUM101
General Eruption by ASYLUM101
Useful Eruption Info by Tyr
IRace's Battlemage Build
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[shadow noob]

Hi,
can U write a guide about this?

i am curious about this battle mage , is he a classical warrior or a mage spammer?

I have seen people in youtube spamming war horn(stun + reduction to health and then finishes them off with nuke like VO/Eruption/ancestral warriors).

Cmon tell us about your build/Guide

thanks for help.

[jakkey]

yea im also curious about how you made your build..

i took my battlemage thru epic and early legendary but gave up cos i literally was chugging about 4 potions every fight and it was just no fun, i had no survivability and tbh i hardly did much damage, i played as a warrior tho and not mage.

[Irma2]

Writing a guide may be more useful as people don't always know what to ask. If Poinas had sat around waiting for people to ask him whether applying % health reduction 3X with Ternion was viable, he might still be waiting to share his Pwning with Spirit build idea. Likewise if Violos had waited for people to ask whether the Battle Standard flat damage bonus applied to individual Trap bolts, Assassin Trappers would still be among the rarest builds in the game.

What might be intuitive to you might be wildly new and offbeat to others.

[Violos]

I am curious though, or still waiting for someone to convince me, that the offbeatness(?) of this particular combo, popular as it may be, makes it anything more than either a Warrior with Heatshield or a Pyromancer with Ancestors and Warhorn. And better at something than another class with either mastery.

Because from all I can tell and have seen, hybrids, physical damage mages and the like all end up like jakkey after half the game. Unless they are totally twinked out, but that can make any char strong.

[ASYLUM101]

My battlemage can kill 3x hades on legendary too!

[shadow noob]

please everyone!... to all who said they can kill 3x Hades in legendary. please show us your titan cal and equipment and your brief strategy please

thanks!

[ASYLUM101]

http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.a...-6-0-6-6-6-0-0

Something like that iirc. if you have +skills gear, leave eruption and VO/Fragmentation at 12, use the extra points somewhere else. Warhorn, Doomhorn, Warwind, Lacerate, Battle Rage.. Seriously, I maxed out Battle Rage on my character. You can work more on EE if you want, but I found it to be fine at rank 1 - 6 (6 with + skills)

Yeah, no CD. He's total trash when you use difficulty mods, not to mention if you're geared right (takes forever to get that gear) you don't need him to tank.

I've got a Sapros and a Leeching Aor of Harrowing (energy drain and %HP redux), so energy isn't really an issue even with my fairly low INT (~250). Also have 3 monkey kings on my jewels. So major debuffs, allows me to use doom horn on bosses for quick farming.

For mobs, just cast volcanic orb at your mob and warwind in. If they're not dead by then, finish them off with a few hits, you should have enormous attack speed with a BM (~170+). For heavy mobs, VO, warwind, eruption, and just attack.

For bosses, same thing really. Always start with VO. That stun gives you an advantage over trash mobs and heroes, bosses it has no effect obviously. After the VO, you wanna get real close to start smashing them, use warwind, drop a battle standard, doomhorn, then an eruption and start whacking them. Doomhorn is great at the start of a boss fight if you debuff. Believe what you want, it works wonders against bosses. -25% HP at max level? hell yea!

If you're playing xmax, you might wanna try pulling them out one at a time, but if you have really amazing gear (high resists, high DA - prowler/sbc/batrachos/hallowed combo) you can do all 3 at once.

On most bosses fighting all 3 is easy but Hades is tough because he can one shot you. With 3 of them running around, even with max resists he can deal massive damage. So, rush in after the VO, warwind to him, cast battle standard, cast doom horn, eruption, then start knocking them down till they're all in 2nd form. If it takes longer than 10 seconds you probably should have pulled them out 1 by 1. At the second form, cast another VO, warwind again, doomhorn, and start knocking em into form 3. Use Eruption whenever possible, same for battle standard. Form 3 is the fastest really, but you can't hit him with VO iirc, it doesn't target him properly since he's floating. Try it if you want, if it hits, use it when possible. If not, just use warwind to apply debuffs, doomhorn, and smack them around till they're gone. If you have time to drop another BS or Eruption, do it, but chances are the fight isn't longer than a minute total really.

If you can do XMAX hades with a BM, you can do Typhon easy. It involves more running though (gotta dodge the meteors and avoid the thorns) but it's similar. Grab the shrines, run around til his thorns are down, throw a VO, warwind, battlestandard, doomhorn (if you hit them all, if not make sure you get one hit on all 3), then eruption and start laying waste. Typhon should be dust in a moment.

My gear: well, unless you farmed like hell you won't get anything close to this, but it's probably the perfect gear for ya.

Weapons - I already said above, but, A sapros and a leeching aor of harrowing (socketed with anubis wrath, 35% attack speed bonus)
Helm - Sentinel's Helm of Permanence socketed with a Legendary Crystal of Erebus (resistances bonus)
Boots - Batrachos Greaves (no affix, couldn't get one lol) - Hermes Sandal (DA bonus)
Gloves - Impenetrable Stonebinder's Cuffs of Guile - Jade Emperor's Serenity (18% ele resistance bonus)
Torso - I usually go with my Prowler's Cuirass of Regen(nice regen buff, nice resists) socketed with Guan Yu's Grace (DA bonus) but sometimes i use a Veteran's Revenant Plate of the Glade. (same socket), I don't use the revenant all that much cause this character didn't find it so I dunno how legit it is. (someone gave it to me, "tqvault dupe" :/)
Artifact - Star of Ishtar. Great ele resists, great stat boosters, and damage resists. (stacks with heat shield, awesome.)
Rings - 2x Hale Jewel's of Immortality socketed with monkey kings (Dexterity bonus), lets you get something like 6k HP and 700 STR easily. you can work on int or dex to increase other stats if you want because of this.
Necklace - Honor Guard's Medallion of Guile (ridiculous necklace I found in Elysium) - Monkey king with dex again.

So what does all this mean?

It means you're invincible to almost all melee, ~ 1800 DA with this gear. It means you have higher than 40% resists all around, the exception being poison, so you may want to buy different gear for cerebus or scarabeus. Aside from those 2, no boss should give you much trouble, and only a few mobs will bother you. (poison frogs in hades) Bosses like Hades should be a piece of cake, and you should be able to dodge about a quarter of the projectiles that hit you. (16% ctap on my gloves, 18% on my necklace, 20% on my revenant plate)
Should have 750 STR, 500 DEX, 250 INT.

It's probably one of the only ways a BM can actually FIGHT 3x Hades, without being a caster of course. (caster's only need to spam a few eruptions and VOs, combined with Ancestors - it's a cakewalk)

I'd put up a video but I haven't played the character in so long I don't really know how to pull it off myself. (not to mention playing while recording xmax is a recipe for death) I'll see if I can get it though.

Here is without XMAX


(xmax + video recording lags my PC SOOO MUCH, even on low settings.)
If you don't like the music... mute it!

[shadow noob]

your int is low, why does U need eruption and VO? low int = low damage for spells.
and
Warrior BM vs Mage BM: which is better?

and apart from the 2 enemies... how about Toxy, the damage reflector a**hole?

[ASYLUM101]

Toxeus you just need battle standard. He's not a problem at all.





Int isn't that low, 250 is decent. Adds about 40% damage to your fire spells. But the point of my build isn't to be a caster. It's a hybrid build, ever hear that term before? It means you focus on being your primary class (aside from the caster) and cast spells for a bit extra DPS or effects. VO is great because it has a HUGE aoe of stun. (every particle stuns) the damage isn't amazing, but it's decent, and that's what you have WW for. VO for stun, warwind for damage and debuff, warhorn for hp redux and MOAR stun.

Eruption deals great tic damage. You're not a caster, like I said. You rely on the spells as support, not as your primary method of killing. Casting eruption on your target while you're beating them up is a great way to deal extra damage. With the 40% extra fire damage from the 250 INT, and not including any %Damage boosts or EE or Brimstone or the debuffs from your gear (monkey/dong/sapros), Eruption deals a minimum of 133 damage per fireball. Eruption spews out about 5 fireballs per second, for 6 seconds. On a single target, that's about 4000 damage if EVERY fireball hits him. Chances of that happening are low, but still, the damage is only additional to your melee attacks which will be ALOT if you have a similar weapon setup to mine. (dps only reads about 1000, but sapros, hamstring, and harrowing kill dudes in seconds and allow you to deal up to 3000 damage easily.)