Torchlight II

Torchlight II

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ELITE PRISMATIC BOLT EMBERMAGE BUILD with wand + shield
By Imada
A safe guide for playing in elite difficulty with embermage.
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SKILLS
http://tidbi.ru/eng/embermage.php?lvl=100&fm=32&skill=00000F055F0F100F001FF000F0000F&stat=afakapakaaaaaaaa


FIRE
Immolation Aura 15
Charge Mastery 5
Elemental Attunement 5
Fire Brand 15

FROST
Hailstorm 15
Frost Phase 1
Ice Prison 15
Frozen Fate 1
Ice Brand 15

STORM
Prismatic Bolt 15
Death's Bounty 15
Lightining Brand 15
SKILLS CHOICE
Elemental Boon has a short duration and long cooldown, so it was dropped. Also, some people says that the bonuses are not that great because at end game you'll have more than +1000% magical damage.

I've read some reports saying that Astral Ally isn't worth (the Ally dies fast and deals few damage at end game) so it was dropped. Also, with the recommended pet spells you'll have a small army for yourself and Ice Prison + Hailstorm + Frozen Fate does a great crowd control.

Thunder Locus, Fire Storm and Frost Wave are really good AoE damagers, but in this build I choosed Hailstorm. To be honest, you won't even use Hailstorm for AoE damage, you'll just cast Hailstorm for the crowd control it causes stuning and freezing, and for the eletrical damage bonus the hailstorm tier has. After casting Hailstorm once, you'll spam Prismatic Bolt to wipe your foes.

There weren't points left for Prismatic Rift, but if you play it correctly you won't need it at all. It only works against melee and with all the crowd control and Frost Phase, melee will not be a problem. Ranged and spellcasters are much worse.

Although many people says that at end game you won't have problems with mana, Charge Mastery is great for the 25% damage bonus that embermages receive when charged, and also gives a great help with mana issues at early game. It's really, really, usefull at early game, but really useless at end game. If you're going to focus on a end game build, spend these 5 points at Frozen Fate.

Fire Brand/Ice Brand/Lightining Brand greatly increase the damage of Prismatic Bolt. If you're a noob and doesn't know, Prismatic Bolt hits causes burn, freezes and shocks, so they trigger the brands.

Elemental Attunement is necessary because at end game you'll spend a lot of time moving between your attacks with Prismatic Bolts, and keeping the stats effects up are essential to deal a high damage with the brands (Fire Brand/Ice Brand/Lightining Brand). 5 extra seconds should be enough.

Ice Prison is a great crowd control, so it was maxed.

To spend at least 1 skill point in Frozen Fate is mandatory for crowd control.

Immolation Aura is a good defensive bonus with it's tier. Some people say it's useless because it's equivalent to 3 skulls of limoany, but I think it's better to save 3 sockets to use skulls of wfuntir.

Frost Phase is essential for mobility and dodging. One level is mandatory and enough.

Death's Bounty is a great help for survivability. It also helps with crowd control with it's tier bonus.
LEVELING
As soon as possible, take the skill point form magma spear and put it at Prismatic Bolt. Keep Prismatic Bolt at level 1 until your character is at least level 20 or more, or you'll have mana issues (each level increases it's mana cost) and to level prismatic bolt doesn't greatly increase it's damage. When PM reaches level 5, stop leveling it at least until you're level 60. Only invest more points in it when you feel confortable about mana.

The second skill you'll need is charge mastery. Get it to level 5 ASAP, unless you'll focus on a late game build, then don't put points in it.

At the beggining the brands are not very effective without elemental attunement. Before you start to level the brands, you should already have elemental attunement at level 5.

At early game, you'll have to keep some skill points without spending at some levels because of the high level requirement of the skills of this build.

Investing heavily in Ice Prison until it's maxed is not a bad idea. The crowd control it offers is essential for surviving.

Getting the first level of a skill it's the maximum priority, except for immolation aura. Immolation aura is only usefull for it's tier 3 bonus and it will take some time until you can reach it.

Try to always level a skill till it gets a level multiple of 5, for it's tier bonus. At early game you'll really need the hailstorm tier 1 bonus.

Somepoint between level 30-40 you'll start to feel the need to level death's bounty till it reaches level 10.

When at new game +, you'll really need to farm 10 riechliu and 10 limoany before going to new game ++. Research the metods to farm the phase beast challenge "avoid the lava" for riechliu and "protect the crystals" for limoany.
ROTATION
1 - Always keep Elemental Protection and Immolation Aura up.

2 - If you're facing a boss or a elite, cast Elemental Overload and Dervish whenever you get charged and the cooldown is up. Also, use a vampiric spider egg or a warsnouts at the beggining of the battle.

3 - Use ice prison for crowd control. It's also very useful against bosses and elites, not only crowds.

4 - If you're facing a crowd or have health/mana issues, use Death's Bounty.

5 - Cast Hailstorm for the bonus it gives for eletrical damage with it's tier and for stunning and freezing enemies in an area.

6 - Spam Prismatic Bolts for 6 seconds, then repeat the rotation.


At any moment during the rotation, run or use Frost Phase to keep distance from your enemies and dodging spells so you don't get killed. To stay still during a battle it's to flirt with death.
HOTKEYS
I like to put the Spells (Dervish/Elemental Overload/Elemental Protection), pet food and Immolation Aura at the bar, so I can easily cast them (it also helps remembering to cast them). At the right click I rotate between skills using the hotkeys F1 (Ice Prison), F2 (Death's Bounty), F3 (Hailstorm), F4 (Prismatic Bolt) and F5 (Frost Phase). The left click is only for movimentation and picking up itens.
STATS
Aim for the following stats, without bonuses:

STRENGHT 5
Strenght is useless for embermages.

DEXTERITY 53
Dex 53 gives critical and dodge chances at base 10%.

FOCUS 342
The main stat for embermages, it increases the magical damage of skills.

VITALITY 140
Vit 140 gives a base 35% armor bonus and 24% block chance. With the 15% block chance powerful shiedls usually have and the spell blocking VI, you'll have 51% block chance.

At the beggining, put stats points at the ratio 1:3:1 dex / focus / vitality. When dex gets 53, start to put stats points at the ratio 3:2 focus / vitaliy until vitality gets 140. After that, put all your stats points at focus.
ITEM BUILD
This guide was made considering you'll use a wand + shield.
With a wand + shield instead of a staff you'll have 2 extra sockets for wfuntir. And the weapon damage is irrelevant, once you won't attack with it, but cast spells.


Stats you should be looking for (Also for Enchantments!), in order of priority:

+ Focus (this is the best stat for any embermage)
+ % all damage
+ Damage reduction
+ % Cast Speed
+ Elemental/Physical armor
+ % critical chance
+ % critical damage
+ block
+ dodge
+ health
+ mana
SPELLS
Dervish VI
Elemental Overload VI
Elemental Protection VI
Treasure Hunter VI until you're full item build. After that, use the Spell Blocking VI
PET SPELLS
Heal All VI
Summon Nether Imp V
Summon Skeleton VI
Summon Zombies VI
PET FOOD
Vampiric Spider Egg and Warsnouts are great.
TIP
1 - Keep any VENDOR BOON SCROLL to use it only when you have a lot of money (at least 700000 gold) and at an area level 100 or more (like Tarroch's Tomb at new game +). Then you may have the chance to buy many best-in-slot itens.

2 - Use a town portal at the begging of each dungeon before adventuring in it.

3 - Don't be surprised if you die a lot of times. It's ELITE difficulty.
If you're dying to much on a boss, grind before facing him again. Explore all the map, do other dungeons, so you can gain some levels and find some items. If it was not enough, re-roll your map starting a lan or internet game with this option active, and grind some more.

BEST-IN-SLOT ITENS
Wand and shield:

There are many good wands and shields, use the ones you found with the best stats according to the topic "Item Build".


Armor and trinckets:

Trancendent Bracers
Trancendent Sash
Trancendent Mantle
Ascendant Helmet
Ascendant Armor
Ascendant Pants
Ascendant Boots
Trancendent Icon
2x Alchemist Ring of Ember

Although the ascedant seems to be the best choice for gloves, belt and shoulder due to it's extra socket slot and higher armor, you should remember that you can add a second socket to the transcedent itens with Jurick the Socketer . Despiste the fact that the trancendent physical armor is lower, the other trancedent itens stats are much better for gloves, belt and shoulder armor.

And ascendant and trancendent itens are from the same set, so with my recommendation you`ll have the set bonuses till 8 pieces.

About the rings, you won't need to complete the Transcedent Set, because the alchemist ring of ember is so far superior to the trancendent ring that the last two bonus of the trancendent set are surpassed. But these rings only drops with mods, so if you are playing in vanilla, search for 2x transcendent rings or 2x Turquet Band.
BEST SOCKETS
Weapon sockets:
1 rambren skull. If you have more than one socket slot, use rambren skulls and whorlbarb skulls at the ratio 1:1 with preference to rambren.

Armor/Trincket sockets:
adding extra sockets to itens with less than 2 sockets and with a shield, we'll have 22 sockets. With all the BIS itens, we'll have 10% damage reduction, plus 15% from immolation aura. So we'll need 10 skulls of limoany to get 75% damage reduction and 8 to 10 skulls of riechliu to get 16-20k HP. 75% damage reduction is equivalent to +300% HP. With 20k HP from 10 riechliu, you'll have virtualy 80k HP.

For the rest of the sockets, use skulls of wfuntir. Most of the focus bonus needed will be granted by enchantments for + focus. It's needed something aroun 10 million gold to enchant all itens with 3 +focus enchantments each with Borris the Stout (when you enchant the iten and you get a stat other than focus, disenchant it and try again).
VIDEO
Farming the phase beast challenge avoid the lava

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UP59jld8Lg
OTHER GUIDES
Two Handed Engineer for Elite
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1723060215

Summoner Cannoner for HC Elite
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2082100269

Berseker build for elite with one hand weapon + shield - by Imada
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1644968997

MY DUAL CLAW AUTO-ATTACKER BERSEKER BUILD
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1622730074

MY ENGINEER BUILD FOR ELITE with one hand weapon + shield - by Imada
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1545857913

MY SHOTGONNER OUTLANDER BUILD FOR ELITE - by Imada
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1545812329






THANKS FOR THE ATTENTION AND SORY FOR MY ENGLISH FLUENCY
7 Comments
delta 26 Dec, 2023 @ 9:23pm 
Prismatic Bolt feels kinda weak and mana-intensive at the very beginning. I'm thinking maybe keep Magma Spear for the first few levels, then re-speccing over to Prismatic Bolt a bit later.
Janediel 20 May, 2023 @ 12:37pm 
I suggest using The Eye of Boletus Rex (+3% cast speed) for weapons instead of rambren skulls and whorlbarb skulls. PB has a low internal critical chance of 8%, while the 3 brands have an internal critical chance of 70% but an internal cooldown of 1 second https://reddit.com/r/Torchlight/comments/9rvqpj/torchlight_2_prismatic_advice_all_damage_vs_focus/e8px3ui/
potterman28wxcv 8 Apr, 2021 @ 1:13am 
Wait @Imada you are wrong.

The difficulty in TL2 does not change the drops (in vanilla at least). It's just there for proudness of having beaten this or that difficulty.
Imada  [author] 7 Apr, 2021 @ 4:56pm 
As Far as I know, no
potterman28wxcv 3 Sep, 2018 @ 2:06am 
Overall it's a good guide :) I wouldn't call it "definitive embermage guide" though, because it's only about one build.
potterman28wxcv 3 Sep, 2018 @ 2:06am 
A variant I was doing is to get : Dervish VI and Dervish V ; so that you always have one ready to use
potterman28wxcv 3 Sep, 2018 @ 2:05am 
[quote]Strenght is useless for embermages.[/quote]
Strength increases your crit damage bonus ; which also applies to the 3 brands
I haven't done the math in order to know whether Strength is better than Focus for the DPS you get with the brands ; i guess it depends on your crit chance. But Strength isn't useless