Between unlocks, tips, specific builds and general advice we'll be covering a lot of ground in this guide. There should be something in this guide for almost everyone, but that also means much of it may be information you no longer need or simply have no interest in, so don't be afraid to make use of the table of contents and skip around as you please. Also, keep in mind that this guide, like the Pirate's Code, is more a set of general suggestions than hard and fast rules. If you simply do not vibe with one of a relic or Arcana I suggest, don't use it. On the other hand, if you find one that really works for you, feel free to prioritize it, whether or not it fits with my advice. All secrets or items unlocked after defeating the final boss are spoiler tagged.
Some information may be out of date following the 1.23 update. I plan to update the guide accordingly and flesh it out more in general.
For more detail on any particular element of the game (including spoilers), I recommend checking the Gamepedia wiki.

This game has a lot of things to spend your Chaos Gems on, but which ones should beginning players prioritize? One obvious answer is if you know of a specific build you want to try, you should purchase the necessary equipment whenever the opportunity arises. However, in the absence of any vital relics or arcana there are some general guidelines to follow.

Your starting outfits, Hope and Patience have no bonuses, so the first thing you should do entering the hub for the first time is to go to the top-right corner and buy a new cloak from Savile the Tailor. Pick what seems interesting, or use the information in this guide to inform your decision. Once you have your first outfit, however, a lot of the urgency surrounding unlocking outfits disappears. It's a lot easier to obtain specific outfits than relics or arcana because outfits are selected from a smaller pool and are randomized after an outfit is bought, rather than every run. Don't completely ignore outfits after you've unlocked your first one, but don't let them deplete your savings too much to buy any relics or arcana you might want from the other vendors. Avarice is a good choice for jump-starting your Wizarding career, since it increases your Chaos Gem gain, while many experienced players use Awe as their go-to.

While your starting dash, Air Burst now has an effect even when not enhanced, it's pretty mediocre and should be replaced fairly quickly. Wave Front and Circuit Line are particularly well-liked at higher levels of play. Basic arcana are also good investments as they can significantly change your playstyle. If you aren't running a melee-focused build, ranged basic arcana can really take the pressure off and let you attack targets that might otherwise be too dangerous. For standard and signature arcana, while you should prioritize those you particularly want to try or use in a build, you also shouldn't be afraid to pick up all sorts of arcana and experiment- you may discover one that you really like.

Aside from picking relics that really suit your playstyle or builds you want to try, I don't have much advice on this subject. If nothing jumps out at you on your first trip to the hub, just talk to Mimi and equip the Friendship Bracelet- while it's designed to incentivize using co-op, it still provides some bonuses when solo, which is more than you can say for the default Museum Ticket.

If nothing up for sale seems that great to you and you have more than 100-200 Chaos gems, there are a few ways to make use of them. You can simply cycle the relics and arcana available by buying a few- these items come in certain tiers, and higher tier relics and arcana require some items in the previous tier to be unlocked before they will appear. Even if your purchase doesn't open up a new tier, it gives you something new to experiment with and improves the chances you'll get something you want next time by removing it from circulation. For more information on this, check the Pools page on the wiki. You can also spend Chaos Gems with many of the NPC's hanging around in the hub. Jade in particular can give you a nice head start on any run by selling you 200 gold for 20 gems.

• First of all, don't be too afraid of pits. You can only fall into one as the result of being attacked or falling short with a dash. Furthermore, falling into one isn't a game over as you might expect, though you will take a substantial amount of damage before being teleported back out. Your enemies, on the other hand, aren't so lucky. If you can maneuver them over one, they will plummet to their doom and eject any drops back up for you to collect. This can make for a fast and efficient method of clearing out cannon fodder if there are any ledges available.
  
• When building a character, unless you're running the Dark Katana it's best to make sure your basic arcana has range. A ranged basic lets you keep your distance which means less risk, less health lost, and longer, more successful runs.
  
• Also, Health Potions bought at the relic shop will heal you for less every time they're used, unless you have Royal Jelly. Because of this, it's best to rely on health orbs and relics that provide healing for as long as possible, only buying potions when absolutely necessary.
  
• Don't be shy about using your signature like a standard arcana- You can still get use out of it without the charge, and fully charging it instantly refreshes the cooldown.
  
• Finally, always experiment and use what works best for you. Builds and general advice are all well and good, but knowing your build and how best to use it is essential in this game. Using Arcana that you like won't just mean more fun, it'll often mean greater success than just doing what someone tells you to.

The differences between some stats or quirks of different abilities may seem insignificant, even to more experienced players but can produce significantly different effects in practice. Understanding these differences can help you at all levels of play. Here, we'll discuss the trade-offs that result from these subtle differences.

First of all, this game has no sources of flat damage reduction, so, for example, two attacks doing 10 damage each will deal the same amount of damage as one attack that does 20 damage (excluding negligible breakpoints with armor). So, what's there to compare? Well, attacks that hit many times will stagger small enemies more, and many relics add effects that have a chance to trigger on each hit. These relics generally do not scale with the damage of the hit, so the raw speed of attacks or damage ticks is the only relevant factor, but (to my recollection) there are no relics that provide a greater bonus to fewer but stronger hits. Bigger hits can be more effective against large enemies than numerous smaller ones, since arcana that deal low damage several times often rely on knockback and staggering (which big enemies are immune to) to deal the full damage, but in my experience, Large enemies are easier to kite around and deal with once you isolate them. For this reason, I personally prefer to strike quick and light.

This is perhaps the most subjective part of this section, and you generally shouldn't let concerns over which elements are represented determine which arcana you use. Enemies associated with any particular element are resistant to attacks of that element, less resistant to attacks of a second element, and vulnerable to a third. I won't go too much into that here, but you can find more information on the wiki page for arcana.Elemental Pointes, Royal Flush, and Neve's jewels all reward players for going all in on a particular element, but there are also relics that reward players for having a more diverse arsenal. Additionally, chests will sometimes appear that must be hit with one or more specific elements to be opened, and it can be handy to be able to burst down enemies without worrying about them being resistant to your whole arsenal. Still, you shouldn't let concerns over particular elements determine your entire build, as having arcana that you're comfortable with and synergize with the build is more important than a small damage penalty or an extra chest. Chaos Arcana largely lack these weaknesses, as very few enemies are resistant to them and they can act as a wild card against these locked chests, with each one opening any single lock.

Max health, armor and evade chance all serve to increase player's survivability. But how are they best applied? First of all, not all of them are equally effective.
Increasing health at the expense of the others is not the best choice because of the way it interacts with healing. To even enjoy the benefits of higher max health, you must be able to gain health beyond your previous cap. Furthermore, while many sources of healing scale with your max health, many do not, and the other two sources of survivability can increase the efficiency of the health points gained. On the other hand, health increases combine more favorably with armor and evade chance than they do with each other.
Armor and Evade chance both effectively reduce your damage taken, armor by simply reducing the damage taken and Evade chance by nullifying the attack entirely. When using armor, you still always take damage, which can trigger a number of relic effects, some positive and some negative. Since Evading eliminates the effects of the attack entirely, it doesn't trigger these effects, and also ignores any stagger, knockback, or status effects that the attack might also inflict, making it harder to get juggled by enemies or knocked off of ledges. It can even save you from a game-ending hit if you're running endgame challenge items, though if you're using them you probably don't need me telling you what to do. On the other hand, evade will trigger the Covert Ops Mask, and it is the only source of survivability that takes full advantage of the Limited Edition Robe. I generally prefer evasion over armor, but depending on your relics and playstyle, results may vary.
Most people can just skip this part, but for those of you who really want to optimize, you can find how your ability to absorb raw damage (assuming no healing takes place) compares to the default with the formula H/(E*A), where H is your health, E is the chance to be hit by an attack that makes contact (i.e., the chance you WON'T evade), and A is the percentage of the normal amount of damage you take from attacks (For the most part, these are just 100% minus your evade chance and armor, respectively). Increasing H multiplies the effectiveness of E and A, while increasing E and A concurrently yields diminishing returns. For example, if you have 10% armor and 10% evade chance, you take 81% as much damage, while having 20% in just one or the other results in you taking 80%. This seems insignificant, but becomes more and more important at higher values. Maximizing either E or A yields a greater increase in survivability, since pieces are being taken out of a smaller and smaller pie. For example, if you increase evade chance or armor from 0 to 25%, your survivability increases by one third. If you increase one from 50% to 75%, on the other hand, your survivability will double.

If you've played for any length of time, you've probably noticed that relics worn on the head will appear on your character model in-game. Only the most recently equipped relic will be visible, so if you have two or more such relics and you really prefer the appearance of one of them, you can drop and reequip and it will override whichever one is currently visible.

Something you may not have realized is that there is one relic that can modify more than your headgear. When you acquire the Magician's Outfit (a fusion relic) in addition showing the Magician's Top Hat again, it changes your outfit into a black cloak with a red interior lining. Personally, I think the cloak looks badass, and I usually drop and reequip some other headgear to overwrite the top hat again.

Certain Relics can be combined to create fusion relics, adding to their bonuses while removing removing the downsides of component cursed relics, all while combining them into a single slot. Most of the time, the component relics will mention this in their descriptions, but there are three where this is not the case. The details are as follow:

• Fury of Cerberus is obtained when you have both the Bracers of the Beast and the Ancestral Gauntlets, which is itself a fusion relic made from the Firstborn's Gauntlet and the Lastborn's Gauntlet. It's basically the ultimate parry relic, combining all the the component's effects, and the shockwave created when you guard an attack now freezes enemies instead of stunning them.
  
• Unicorn Disguise is a fusion of the Equestricap and Unicorn Tail, and provides a larger bonus to speed and seriously reduces the time needed to achieve max speed. Additionally, it takes the appearance of a unicorn head worn on your own head.
  
• The Master Key is obtained by combining all four key relics, and will immediately teleport you to the boss room and unlock all other rooms with portals when you enter a stage. Additionally, it removes the enemies spawned at the start of a boss fight.

Although they don't gain new bonuses like other fusion relics, certain types of relics can be can be compressed into a single slot, saving inventory space. The only relic of this kind I've discovered thus far is the Legendary Library, which contains agent-related relics.

Occasionally, while exploring the trials you will find a very large gift-wrapped box. When you open it (by attacking) it will yield a "pack" of several Arcana and/or relics that share a theme. The best of these can define a build, creating numerous strong synergies. These are quite rare so I'm not sure of the extent of each pool, and I believe there some that are focused on leap and buff relics, but these are the ones I'm sure of:

This pack is focused on the movement arcana. It's a decent pack, but I wouldn't let it derail your build if it clashes with what you already have. Contents-
Three of the following Arcana:

• Tectonic Drill
  
• Inferno Cannon
  
• Voltaic Needle
  
• Glacial Cross

Three relics:

• Jumper Cables- Reduces the cooldowns of movement arcana by 25%
  
• Soccer Cleats- Increases damage from movement arcana by 15%
  
• Sturdy Shoebox- Increases max health by 4% for each movement arcana equipped.

This pack is focused on agents and to a lesser extent, summon arcana in general. It is very large and quite strong, but unavoidably has some weaknesses, similar to the summoner build I describe below. Contents-
Three or Four of the following arcana:

• Whirling Wind Agent
  
• Earth Stomp Agent
  
• Rapid Fire Agent
  
• Line Shock Agent
  
• Water Pulse Agent

Three or Four of the following relics:

• Vampire's Cookbook- Heals you every time a summon kills an enemy
  
• Archaic Cheat Sheet- Reduces the cooldown of all summon arcana by 15%
  
• Grimoire of Ruin- Increases summon damage by 20%
  
• Hardcover Textbook- Increases the limit on the number of summons active for each arcana to four
  
• Pop-up Primer- Increases the number of summons created by summon arcana by one
  
• Yuna's Storybook- Doubles the duration of summon arcana

This pack is focused on charged arcana. It's likely the weakest pack, since it comes with no relics and the shared theme is more of a shared weakness; the fact they need a substantial time commitment to be fully used. Contents-
It contains three of the following arcana:

• Furious Tempest
  
• Violent Thornstorm
  
• Raging Inferno
  
• Ball Lightning
  
• Aqua Breaker

This pack provides a number of relics to boost your signature. It's a particularly great boon for signature-focused builds, but can also help most builds if you don't have more useful relics filling your slots. I've only gotten it once so this list may not be complete. Contents-
It contains the following relics:

• Wanderer's Mechanism.
  
• Family Seal
  
• Surefire Rocket
  
• Ancient Fountain Pen

This section is going to be a bit less structured than the others. It's about what has worked well for me, and mostly aimed at those who are still starting out. It's all obviously highly subjective and you may find the suggestions here don't bring you the same success they do me, but I recommend everyone at least give these a try. With that said, let's get into it.

Arcana-wise, I'm actually a big fan of one of the starters- Rebounding Icicles. It pushes and pulls enemies, making it great at knocking them off of ledges, and deposits them right in front of you for follow-up melee attacks.
For any melee-focused build, my go-to Signature is Arc Sphere. It can staggerlock enemies right in range of melee arcana, has a decent area of effect, and can even do the full damage to large enemies since it remains in one place for the whole duration. The number of hits means it even synergizes great with a number of relics.
I also find arcana that are focused primarily on utility are some of the most powerful, and often a good addition to just about any build, even when Chaos arcana appear and largely outperform
other arcana from the starting 5 elements. Two that appear fairly early on are Mentis Imperium and Scales of Babylon. The former is minimally effective against big enemies, but will charm small ones, causing them to fight for you until they die or you pick a new target. Some small enemies will appear even in boss fights, so it's rarely a bad choice. The latter will increase your speed, and more importantly reduce your cooldowns whenever it's used. This means you can get your other arcana off faster, so it's always good at filling a free/less powerful slot. Calming flow is useful for similar reasons, though it instead triggers when you finish basic attack combos while active. It's particularly good with mitigating the long cooldowns of Agents, which I'll get to in a minute.
Fuelled Berserk is another good one, allowing you to spam basic attacks continuously at an incredible rate. This is equally effective against normal enemies and bosses in their downtime.
Evading Zephyr is extremely strong. While moving or using your basic arcana you evade every attack that's sent at you. This can let you breeze through moves that might otherwise present a great deal of difficulty, like the signatures of some council members, or the onslaught of Master Sura. It also synergizes extremely well Fuelled Berserk, basically turning you into an invincible whirlwind of death while both are active. This combo can trivialize most fights, even letting you whale on bosses and minibosses during their uptime and absolutely melting normal enemies, and was responsible for my first win.
Finally there are Agents, which summon a unit to fight for you until they time out or are destroyed. In addition to damaging enemies they draw aggro from you, saving health and lengthening your runs, as well as attack where it otherwise wouldn't be safe, wise, or even possible to do so, such as hitting bosses in their uptime or attacking from around corners.
When it comes to relics, the best builds need one for healing, barring a few more fringe cases. If you get Royal Jelly early you may be able to rely on health potions to an extent, but it's better to have a consistent source of healing that you don't have to buy over and over again. Regenerative Inkwell is the best at this, if you're willing to part with your charged signature. The Vampire's Eyeglasses are generally the next best choice if you aren't using a specialized build (and sometimes even if you are), since they're the only other healing relic that heal you during boss fights (since aside from a pittance from killing the basic enemies that appear with minibosses).
Also, while many cursed relics are quite situational, some of them can more or less directly offset their detrimental elements if you have the skills. The Volatile Gemstone decreases the damage of your charged signature, but triples the charge rate of your signature. This is more than enough to make up for the 40% penalty to charged signature output, since you'll be able to get it off way more often than you otherwise could. Another example is the Flashy Boots, which can allow you to triple dash at the expense of lowering your regular movement speed. Triple-dashing lets you traverse way more quickly than is otherwise possible, so fast it can be difficult to react. This relic basically comes down to how precise you are with you dashes, and is thus a bad choice for those who use their keyboard controls for their dashing. However, for those who dash towards their cursor (an option in settings) or use a controller this is a great choice for maximizing your use of your dash and your overall mobility.

Now for the good stuff. Before I go into any of my own builds, I'd like to refer players to another guide. For a great crit-focused build that doesn't require anything beyond the third pool, check out the guide by elias. I've had a lot of fun and a good deal of success following it.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1422970062

Now, onto my own builds. Under Core Synergy I'll post the easiest-to-obtain bare essentials that give the build its strength, for those that want to try the build but haven't unlocked everything. After that will be other recommendations to include in the base build, upgrades for more advanced players, and relics and arcana I would recommend picking up during the run. Last will be any notes on strategies and tactics for that particular build.

This build is geared towards obtaining as many chaos gems as possible and capitalizing on that Chaos gem gain to improve the run itself. The essential parts can be unlocked as early as the second relic pool, though of course the build benefits from more advanced arcana and potentially one alternate relic. More successful runs provide better gem yields, so even if your main goal is farming gems it may be better to pick a stronger build.

• Outfit: Avarice- Increases Chaos gem and gold gain
  
• Relic: Jade's Chakra Locket- Heals you for every Chaos gem you pick up and gives you armor based on your total Chaos Gems.

• Jewelry Box is unlocked later than Jade's Chakra Locket and does not give armor, but it does provide a much larger heal, resulting in a net benefit to player's resilience.
  
• Token of Wealth can take the build in a different direction. It doesn't actually help you within the run at all, but it guarantees you'll be able to get a bunch of gems on the first floor. If you really want to minmax, you can end the run right there and do it again until you have as many gems as you want. Credit to PrivatePancake for this suggestion.

• Graduation Cap- Increases Chaos Gem income, advancing the purpose of the run and triggering heals more.
  
• Jade's Jeweled Tiara- Gives some signature charge every time you pick up a Chaos Gem and boosts damage based on your total. Unfortunately, most of the time when you're obtaining chaos gems you aren't about to enter a fight, but it still works alright with the build.
  
• Jade's Gem Locator- Gives you a fairly low chance to discover gems while exploring, not a huge boost but does provide some benefit.

Why John Hancock, you might ask? Well, because it's all about your signature. Heheh. Now, with my inner dad-comedian satisfied, let's get into the details.

• Outfit: Fury- +20% to Signature damage and charge rate
  
• Relic: Surefire Rocket- Prevent signature charge from decaying as you build it up, letting you use your signature much more reliably.
  
• A high damage signature with single-target and multi-target capabilities

• Fast-hitting and/or AoE arcana, to charge your signature faster
  
• Fuelled Rage- lets you attack faster, which translates to faster signature charge.
  
• An arcana that groups up enemies to be hit by your signature

• Volatile Gemstone- Triples your signature growth rate, while reducing signature damage. It's still a substantial net gain to the amount of mileage you get out of your signature, however. It can also give you a shot at obtaining the Perfect Time Crystal.
  
• Ancient Fountain Pen- A damage boost that gets bigger the more you use your charged signature is a perfect fit for this build.
  
• Family Seal- Lets you build up that almighty signature more quickly.
  
• Megaladon Tooth- Gives a you a chance to not actually use up your signature charge.
  
• Secret Wild Card- Signature Charge is gained more slowly, but you can cast the charged signature twice. This might present a problem to some builds which might end up failing to build up a full charge altogether due to this relic, but Surefire Rocket removes this problem.
  
• Shark Mask- Slows signature charge, but also guarantees charged signatures will crit.
  
• Wanderer's Mechanism- Increases your signature's damage.
  
• Tattered Scroll- Increases signature charge gained from attacking enemies, but causes you to lose all signature charge when hit. Pick this one up when you're confident you can avoid damage.
  
• Basically anything that gives signature charge

This build is focused on summons, particularly agents since they're the most reliable attackers. I haven't tested it without chaos arcana yet, and having the right one is especially helpful for this build, but the basic principles should still apply. Agents don't have huge dps and even though bosses don't target them, they will still often knock them out with wide-ranging attacks, so this build struggles hard against bosses. My runs with this build have always failed against the third council member, but this build is quite fun and works great when exploring the regular dungeons. Maybe reserve this one for co-op; I intend to test it in co-op at earliest convenience.

• Standard Arcana- Whirling Wind Agent- This arcana creates two aggressive agents. Even among agent arcana it's particularly good at drawing aggro and keeping enemies off-balance.
  
• Relic- Vampire's Cookbook- Heals you a little every time one of your summons kills an enemy

• Outfit- Spirit- Boosts healing received, synergizing with the Vampire's Cookbook. Most other outfits don't especially benefit this build.
  
• Basic Arcana- Any charged basic, since they tend to have good AoE and DPS, and you can rely on agents to keep enemies off your back during the charge process to an extent.

• Standard Arcana- Chaos Reaper-A charged arcana with all the advantages that provides, and more. It hits all around you and the charged attack can even destroy projectiles.
  
• Signature Arcana- Null Flash Agent- The one also summons two agents and attacks fairly quickly, like Whirling Wind Agent. This makes it great for harassing enemies, and it's the only agent that can be your signature.

• Earth Stomp Agent- This one hits a broad area and does good knockback, making it easily worth the slot in an agent-focused build.
  
• Line Shock Agent- Also summons two agents, but they have a larger gap between attacks than recommended for the base build, making them worse at keeping enemies busy and resulting in worse protection for themselves and for you.
  
• Rapid Fire Agent- Attacks quite quickly as the name implies, allowing it to staggerlock individual enemies, or even bully several at a time with reasonable efficacy. It doesn't have the same AoE as Earth Stomp Agent does, or the two-for one summon that some others have, but it's quite a solid arcana.
  
• Water Pulse Agent- This is likely the worst agent. Scattershot attacks can be tricky to take full advantage of, and the agent's AI will not do that. Still, it is an agent and can draw aggro and benefit from the rest of the build's synergies.
  
• Any Seeker- Seeker count as summons and thus benefit from all of the same artifacts as the rest of the build. They don't bring the same continuous damage and utility that agents do, but the burst damage could help against bosses.
  
• Honorable mention: Any Ward These do qualify as summons, but they are geared more towards supplementing attacks of the same element than accomplishing much of anything by themselves. Only pick one up if your other arcana can capitalize on it.

• Pop-up Primer increases the number of summons for all summon arcana by one. This is HUGE as it ranges from being a 100%-33% boost for all summon arcana, and it only gets more effective if you can fill your slots with other summon arcana.
  
• Grimoire of Ruin increases all summon's damage by 20%, benefitting this build greatly.
  
• Yuna's Storybook- Doubles the duration of summon arcana, this can easily result in you having multiple casts worth of agents active at the same time. If you have this relic, its better to constantly summon agents even if you aren't in battle so you'll be at full strength when they have.
  
• Archaic Cheat Sheet reduces the cooldowns of all summon arcana, letting you put out more at a time and replace losses more quickly.
  
• Hardcover Textbook can be a little bit opaque in it's description if you aren't familiar with it. Basically, by default you can't have more than three of each agent active at a time and this raises that cap to four of each. Normally this isn't a problem but if you're running multiple summon related relics you can reach that cap, which is where the benefit of this relic comes in.
  
• Surefire Rocket keeps signature charge from decaying before you reach full charge. Agents don't accumulate signature charge, so this may be the only way you can accumulate a full charge with this build.
  
• Chrono Glove benefit the recommended charged basic, reducing charge time by more than half.
  
• Combo Gloves can give the recommended charged basics an extra charged attack in a row.
  
• Any relic that can decrease your agent's cooldowns, shrinking or even eliminating the gap between casts.

This evasion and crit focused build is based on two extremely powerful items that form an even more powerful combination. Unfortunately, items that strong aren't easy to get- both of them are in the 5th and final pool- but it's well worth it if you can unlock them. This build doesn't have any inbuilt healing options, but between the evasion and the sheer firepower it possesses, it can often prevent you from taking damage in the first place once you get used to it. This is the most consistently successful build I've used thus far.

• Standard Arcana: Evading Zephyr- While activated, automatically evade all attacks while moving or using basic arcana.
  
• Relic: Covert Ops Mask- After evading an attack, all of your attacks become critical hits.

• Basic Arcana: Bolt Rail- In terms of sheer DPS and rate of fire this arcana is nearly unrivaled, synergizing great with the base build and even better with a number of supplemental items.
  
• A fire-and-forget signature arcana that hits many times, like Rock n' Roll or Arc Sphere. This works well with many parts of the build, and doesn't prevent you from continuing to pour on the damage with your basic.

• Basic Arcana: Chaos Crusher- This one actually seems to outperform Bolt Rail in in hit count and DPS at close range. The combo doesn't seem appreciably longer, hits six times to Bolt Rail's five, and results in more total damage when tested on training dummies. It also allows you to move during the combo, unlike bolt rail, and provides the option of attacking from range. It doesn't combo quite as well with Magnetic Follow-up as Bolt Rail, but the hit count isn't significantly lower overall and the DPS is better.

• Fuelled Berserk- The attack speed not only further boosts DPS, which is a big advantage of this build, but also removes the pause after each combo. This means if it's active at the same time as Evading Zephyr, you can basically become invincible by just holding down the basic arcana button. Any attacks that do reach you will only extend the duration the Covert Ops Mask.
  
• Magnetic Follow-up- This build is quite basic arcana-focused, and this Arcana can help supplement that. It also combos especially well with the recommended Bolt Rail, firing 5 times for each combo, and Fuelled Berserk.

• Leemo's Leaf lets you evade all attacks while dashing. Always a useful relic, it's particularly good for this build since it provides another reliable way of activating the Covert Ops Mask, especially if you time your dashes right.
  
• Vampire's Eyeglasses make this an incredibly resilient build. As I've already mentioned the build is great at avoiding damage, but if you add in this relic fueled by its immense crit rate, it becomes nigh invincible.
  
• Dice of The Nemesis essentially gives crits to your crits. Critical hits gain a 2% chance to deal an extra 300 damage. That's a pretty small chance, but this build gets a TON of crits, especially if you follow my recommendations. A single mask-empowered Bolt Rail combo has almost a 10% chance of getting at least one of these "super-crits", and since the bonus damage is a flat amount the low damage of the individual hits is irrelevant.
  
• Assassin's Blade increases crit damage, which is great for a build that crits on practically half of its attacks or more, depending on how lucky you are.
  
• Demi's Teapot causes buff Arcana to last longer- Evading Zephyr being one of them. This alone is enough to make the relic worth it, but it becomes only more powerful with Fuelled Berserk and Magnetic Follow-up.
  
• Cassim's Airy Cloak causes you to evade all attacks for a short time after taking damage. I was initially on the fence about this one, but I've found his can boost the already great survivability of the build even further, and basically guarantees you can get an evasion, and thus a mask trigger, every time you take damage.
  
• Sidewinder's Badge adds a lesser, secondary hit to your basic arcana. This doesn't just increase your damage, but gives you more chances to trigger certain effects.
  
• Any of Cabi's Candies which adds a chance for your fast-hitting basic arcana to launch an elemental projectile.
  
• Getting into Cursed Relics, Nog's Heavenly Boots, which increase your evade chance by 45% but doubles your damage taken, can of course add a substantial chance that incoming attacks will trigger the Covert Ops Mask. Furthermore, as long as you have 10% or more evade chance already, statistically it doesn't result in receiving more damage than not having it.
  
• Jeremiah's Needle adds a sizable bonus to crit damage at the cost of crit chance. Fortunately for us, the crit chance penalty is largely irrelevant when you can have the Covert Ops Mask guaranteeing crits most of the time anyway.
  
• Tipsy Gladius similarly lowers crit chance, but increases evade chance instead of crit damage. With the Mask, however, this can paradoxically result in even more crits than usual in addition to the advantage of more evade chance.
  
• Honorable mentions- Basically any relic that provides evade chance.

When fighting council members, it's tricky to actually make use of the Covert Ops Mask. Try counting their attacks and using Evading Zephyr on the last attack before their downtime, which will be the 3rd for the first one, 4th for the second, 5th for the third, and Master Sura follows a unique pattern. He will use four Standard Arcana from different elements, followed by one attack of the remaining element taken from another council member, and finish up his attack run a special version of a Chaos Arcana accompanied by a signature gleam and sound, so prepare to use it when you see the boss move or the signature effect.