[Guide] The Bladeflinger Magician

[Nightmare14]

the element rage artifact could also be an excellent choice nice damage boost plus 10% damage convreted to health your have no worries plus an excellent defense proc

plus you could use some monkey king relics if you find good fire boosting green items which would help alot too

[Medea Fleecestealer]

Okay, house move mostly out of the way (still trying to find room for everything!), so I have restarted my Bladefinger Magician as my old PC gave out just after the last update.

No longer tweeking up with increased experience so I've just reached level 15 and exited the Parnassus Caves and so far no deaths, although I occasionally have to chug a health potion when things get tight.

He's wearing an Oracle's Wreath, Glowing Bangle with Pristine Plumage, Ephor's Garb with Golden Fleece, Protective Wrath's Leggings of the Pegasus with Hermes' Sandals, 2 x Brimstone's, one with Demon's Blood and one with Hecate's Crescent, a Rogue's Hormus with Demon's Blood, a Molten Orb with +attack speed bonus and using a Glowing Rod and a yellow Poisoned Runed fire Staff, both socketed with Anubis' Wrath for attack converted to health and additional attack speed. I've decided to try the Anubis' Wrath rather than the Prometheus' Flame relic as I think she'll survive better with the health boost instead of having more fire power, but we'll see. May go back to the Flame later on.

Good suggestions, Nightmare14, and I'll keep them in mind when I get farther along and can use the items. I've got a Pharoah's Standard staff and Red Crown next in line for equipping and also some ... of Feasting green staffs later, but her intel isn't anywhere high enough for those yet.

[Medea Fleecestealer]

Now reached level 20 and just completed the Plight of the Nile Farmers side quest. Gear hasn't changed: now has a Red Crown with an Essence of Udjat of Horus relic with 16% pierce resistance on it instead of the Oracle's Wreath, a Divine necklace with Monkey King's Trickery with +35 DA and staffs are now a Poisoned Runed Staff of Fire and a Charged Runed Staff of Flames, both with the same Anubis' Wrath relic and bonus. Did try the Yuga's Garb, but it doesn't seem as good to me as the Ephor's so I'm sticking with that until I get to the Occultist's Raiment.

Build is working quite well, just the occasional health potion downed and killing foes easily. Even Greek Telkine wasn't that difficult with close up work with knives and staff.

[Fozzie]

Cool that you keep posting your progress, I'm really curious how it's going to work out for you.

[Medea Fleecestealer]

Good so far, Fozzie. Checking the notes from the last Bladefinger it looks like I got up to level 31 before the crash/move, but I can't remember if I'd just tackled Typhon and got to Rhodes or whether I still had that pleasure to come.

It'll be interesting to see how it pans out once I've maxed Earth and start maxing out the other skills. Also I've never used Eruption that much, preferring the Orb, but I've never had any other caster except a Prophet get past Normal so far so I'm willing to see how well it works when maxed.

Edit: Just had a read through of previous posts and saw I'd tweeked the experience previously and was only at Chang'an. So definitely haven't faced Typhon with this toon yet. Oh, happy days.

[Fozzie]

The first real rough time for my Bladeflinger came at Act IV Epic - not too bad, I'd say (and that was on Xmax!). While enemies like Troglodytes, Hydradons, Formicides, Machaeae, Undead and such were no problem at all, Empusae and those bloody crabs were actually a lot harder opponents. I think the former have a rather high chance to avoid projectiles and the latter are simply so flat that it's really difficult to hit them, sometimes - often the knives just soar over them.

[Medea Fleecestealer]

I'm still missing Bracelets of Illumination, Cestus, Pluton's Cornucopia, Keka staff, Demonskin Walkers, Aphrodite's Favour and Ymochel's Riddlerobe. Any particular areas I can send my Conqueror out to farm for these? He's the only one to make it to end of Legendary so far which is why there are so many end game items missing.

[Benitot]

I don't know about the others but I got Aphrodite's Favour from Hades, it doesn't drop often, I got mine at level 68. Cestus You can get from Hades and secret passage, i find it pretty common.

[sans_soleil]

Crabs and empusae are indeed annoying in act 4. I usually use volcanic orbs to deal with crabs, and +% damage to demons for empusae. Mine is still sitting in the second domain of tower of judgement at level 66. Don't see a point to move along any more.

Medea you should be able to get demonskin walkers, cestus, and pluton's robe from legendary Hades or secret passage. You could get cestus in epic too.

Heka staff drops in act 2 epic and legendary. I found one from a skeleton mage from the ruins near Sais a few weeks ago, in epic.

Rather than bracelets of illumination, I'd recommend Adept's Clasp (dropping from epic act 1 onwards) or Arcane Bindings (dropping in act 3 and 4 on epic and legendary). I wore Yuya's Garb for a long time for the recharge. You could also get a decent Pythia's Vestment from act 1 epic.

[Fozzie]

Adept's are the "Junior Archmage's", so they are a decent choice until you can get the real thing.