If something is marked as optional it is usually beneficial to do, but I personally don't bother to do it most of the time. Either because the overall benefit is miniscule in general or only relevant for longer runs, usually longer than 24 hours. Also, this Guide asumes that you have the following things already unlocked:

• All Equipment pieces or adequat counterparts mentioned in the Equipoment Sets below, regardless of upgrade level
  
• The Desolator Class
  
• The Spellhound, Interrogator, Geode and Ebonsand Behemoth Pet

The Desolator might not be the easiest of the T2 classes, but in my opinion the most forgiving and fastest to farm Mysteries, and later Memories with. Its forgiving, because at no point in the entire run you have to act quick or do get some kind of timing right. Also if you mess up or forget something during a specific phase of the run you'll just lose however many hours it took you to notice your mistake. Whether it be the wrong Equipment set, the wrong recipie or forgot to click the Potion Icon to activate a recipie; even I still do these misstakes every now and then. Another thing that makes the Desolator very forgiving and easy to play is the fact that he DOES NOT use Void Mana which decayes over time. Instead he inherited the Liquid Shadow mechanic from the Umbramancer, and Liquid Shadow GROWES passively over time. Also 80% of the Player Interaction happen within the first 15 minutes, after that its just chillaxing from phase to phase.
The exiles will get longer as you climb in Mysteries like with every other class. If you have to do runs longer than 48 hours to get a decent profit you should abandon Desolator and use a different class instead. Desolator also doesn't progress when offline. Most classes scale in some way with time spent this exile, but Desolator does not. His most important pets, Spellhound and Ebonsand Behemoth, also don't gain experience while offline. His T3 pet, Nix Instability, does get experience offline. It also scales with the total time spend this exile, while Ebonsand only scales with the Idle Time. With my playstile it takes Nix Instability about 4 days to surpass Ebonsand.


This Guide was originally written for version 1.12. The game is at version 1.31.1 as of this update. A couple mechanics have changed or were nerfed during this time. Also my playstyle has changed to be more thorough and active. This Update is mostly from an e500+ Mysteries, 5e5 Memories perspective. While I half assed a lot of runs back then and this guide kind of reflects that, it is much more profitalbe to do things right in the e500+ Mysteries range.

It used to be necessary to use actual spells to set the cauldron recipie. This mechanic still works, but it is much more convenient to use the three buttons next to the cauldron to set the recipie.

There also used to be a shared pool of Equipment sets and Spell sets acoss all classes. Therefore I tried to use as few unique sets as possible, in order to be able to use serveral classes during a realm. Now that each class has their own Equipment and Spell sets I recommend to save a unique set for every phase of the run. My choice of equipment is also a comproimise between reforging as few items as necessary and still making progress. Therefore there is room for improovement in almost every stage of the run by simply using a more optimised equipment set. This is especially true if you don't have everything on legendary, where a sub optimal but higher upgraded item might be stronger.

Here is a list of things to maximise and keep an eye out for, if you want to try to figure things out without this guide:

• Liquid Shadow DOES NOT scale with anything Void Mana ralted, it's a completely separate mechanic.
  
• Most of your spells scale with the amount of Liquid Shadow currently at hand.
  
• Character ability power scales with the amount of Liquid Shadow spend throughout this exile. Hover your mouse over the character icon to see how much Liquid Shadow has been spent so far.
  
• The Pet Elixir scales with the highest pet level reached thoughout this exile.
  
• You get absolutely nothing when offline. If you can't let the game run for serveral hours a day, or plan to be offline for a couple of days use a different class instead. Temporalist and Shaman might be good alternatives here.

You'll increase the Attribute Point cap at e340 and e450 respectively. When that happens just move some points from the Dumping Stat into the ones that need to be maxed.

• Intelligence: 200. If you don't have enough Points in total, then put only 125 Points in Intelligence for the Items.
  
• Insight: 50. But only if you can unlock Void Fission. I didn't bother to do any math here, but from playing around and experience it seems worth it.
  
• Spellcraft: 200
  
• Wisdom: 0
  
• Dominace: 0. Primary Dumping Stat.
  
• Patience: 50. Because of Companionship Ring. Otherwise completely useless because the Burst Phase is out of Idle Mode.
  
• Mastery: 200
  
• Empathy: 100 with legendary Bite Sleeves. Make sure that your Points + Bite Sleeves are 175 in total.

When you reach higher Atribute Caps: maximise Mastery, then Spellcraft, then Intelligence. Dump the rest in Dominance.

Please note that my choice of Equipment is a compromise between reforging as few Items as necessary and getting the most profit out of every run. Thus there is often room for minor improvement in pretty much every stage of the run. Therefore I encourage you to play around with what Equipment you have available ESPECIALLY if you don't have every Item in legendary. Ignore the Item Slots you have not yet unlocked.

UPDATE: I'm pretty sure (but not 100% and can't bother to look things up in the wiki) that there was no "Regalia of Shadow" Set when this guide was originally written. So it might be beneficial to have seperate sets for Liquid Shadow generation and Burst, with the LS-generation having a full Regalia Of Shadow set.
Also, the items in the key-locked regions of the Expedition have not been in the game back then. I will update this guide again when I have them all on legendary.

Optimize for Character Ability power, then Incantation power and Offline Bonus.
A mix of the "Conjurer's Chains" and "Regalia of Shadow" Sets.

• Shoulder: Conjured Razorspaulders
  
• Head: Conjured Ragecrown
  
• Back: Darklight Mantle
  
• Neck: Shadow Tendril
  
• Wrist: Conjured Sawrings
  
• Chest: Darklight Tunic
  
• Hand: Darklight Claws
  
• Finger: Firey Ring + Resonator Ring
  
• Weapon: Black Blade
  
• Waist: Endless Pouches
  
• Offhand: Enigmatic Parchment
  
• Research: Self-Reflection
  
• Feet: Conjured Spiked Stompers
  
• Trophy: Anima Core + Heart of the Storm
  
• Legs: Prior to e450 Mysteries Empowering Legguard, afterwards Spellweaving Kilt.

Alternative Items: Seeping Shadow Signet, Pheromone Gland, Fossil Seeds, Ceaseless Hunger, Arcane Accelerator, Fold of Magma, Chiropteric Rod, Head of the All-Eater


Optimize for Pet experience gained and reduction of spell duration.
"Falconers Set" with some additional stuff

• Shoulder: Falconer's Leather Wrappings
  
• Head: Falconer's Ranger Hat
  
• Back: Falconer's Warm Cape
  
• Neck: Hollow Eye Pendant
  
• Wrist: Bite Sleeves
  
• Chest: Falconers Furcoat [sic!]
  
• Hand: Falconer's Gloves
  
• Finger: Companionship Ring + Whiplash
  
• Weapon: Shadow-Scyers Crystal Ball
  
• Waist: Collar Of Obedience
  
• Offhand: Habitstone
  
• Research: Self-Reflection
  
• Feet: Conjured Spiked Stompers
  
• Trophy: Anima Core + Heart of the Storm
  
• Legs: Falconer's Bottoms

Optimize for passive spellshard generation, then Evocation power. (I personally go for spell shard generation only)

• Head: Easymind Hat
  
• Waist: Umbral Coil
  
• Research: Spell Shards Fractalization
  
• Legs: Empowering Legguards
  
• Optional Finger: Spell Helix
  
• Optional Back: Conceiling Shroud (I personally don't reforge Coneiling Shroud or Spellhelx. But then again, my build is a compromise between reforging only the bare minimum and still making progress)

Easymind Hat, Conceiling Shrouds and Umbral Coil all give Wisdom atribute points, which shouldn't be underestimated in terms of passive spellshard generation.

UPDATE: I totally forgot to mention Enchants in this guide, sorry guys... I just keep all items from the Burst set at the same level and call it a day. I'm pretty sure there's a much more efficient way to spend your EDust, but I can't bother.

And last but not least a screenshot of the two Equipment Sets that I've saved. Please keep in mind that you have to be at e450 Mysteries to use every Item shown due to the attribute cap.

This is the only Spellset that has all spelltypes (Incantation [green], Evocation [red], Summoning [blue]), therefore you'll equip this set whenever you have to set a new recipie in the cauldron.
UPDATE: It is no longer necessary to use actual spells to set the recipie.

• Day Into Night
  
• Onxy Hound
  
• Artificial Muse
  
• Condensing Shadows
  
• Condensing Energy
  
• Manabeast

I personally have not saved this Set. I just select the spells manually, just like its Equipment counterpart.
UPDATE: I still haven't saved this one. I also use Burn All That Burns and nothing else.

• Burn All That Burns
  
• Manabeast
  
• Optional: Seethe in Shadows (The more Liquid Shadow you have the less effective Seethe In Shadows becomes relative to Burn All That Burns.)

Please note that you'll only be stacking 3 out of 4 Spells at once if you have Void Fission unlocked, unless you have VIP5 or want to buy Sources manually, in which case you can stack all 4 spells simoultaniously. If you you choose to stack all four spells then replace Crystalization with the fourth spell. Note that it can happen, that Transmute and Dark Draught can't produce Sources fast enough. This phenomenon is directly linkt to how fast you cast the spells. Switching the position of Transmute and Crystalisation in the spellbar and/or unequipping Habitstone fixes this.

• Eclipse
  
• Void Fission if you have it unlocked, Condensing Energy otherwise
  
• Ritual of Power
  
• Dark Draught of Midas
  
• Transmute
  
• Crystallization

• Eclipse
  
• Void Fission if you have it unlocked, Critical Mass otherwise
  
• Ritual of Power
  
• Empower
  
• Condensing Energy
  
• Seethe in Shadows

Here is a picture of all the different Spellsets:

• Start
  
• Liquid Shadow Generation
  
• Liquid Shadow Spending
  
• Stacking
  
• Burst
  
• Optional: repeat Stacking, Liquid Shadow Generation, Spending and Burst if you are not satisfied with the Mysteries gained

Equipment: (2) Stacking
Pet: Spellhound
Spellset: (1), (3), (4); bastically all of them
Cauldron: Shadow Elixir (red, blue, green, red, blue)

Start with the obvious, namely leveling the Apprentice high enough to switch to the Desolator. Use the spells Focus Magic, Magic Missile and Manabeast as well as some manual clicks to get experence from actions. If thats still not enough use Void Lure as well and catch some Void Entities.

As Desolator you want to use Spellset (1) to set the Cauldron to the Shadow Elixir. Your Liquid Shadow should now jump to e5 or e6 just from passive generation. Then equip the other two spellsets (4) Burst and (3) Stacking to charge all spells preemptively. Use the Stacking Spellset and set all spells to reckless to bring the Spellhound to level 150. This step greatly speeds up the Liquid Shadow generation Phase.

After that equip the (2) Liquid Shadow Spending Spellset and Equipment. You'll have to use the pet Geode to get enough levelreduction to be able to use the spell Burn All That Burns. Burn Liquid Shadow until the amount spend and amount currently at hand are roughly equal. Mouse over your Character portrait to see how much Liquid Shadow has been spend just over the Ability power Bonus.

Lastly make a miniburst: Set the Cauldron to Pet Elixir (green, red, blue, blue, red) and change the pet to Ebonsand Behemoth. Use the Stacking Equipment to quickly bring the Behemoth to about level 100 to 110. A higher petlevel is not worth the time necessary to level up the pet. After that set both your Equipment and Spellset to the Burst set. Be sure that you keep clicking the Orb to stay out of Idle Mode. Activate the Weapon and set all spells to reckless. If you want another burst to get a few more upgrades then use Crystalization to refresh all your spellshard based spells. The main purpose of this early burst is to get as many of the Pet Experience Gained uprgrades as possible. That is because the power of the Pet Elixir is directly proportional to the highes pet level this Exile.

• Equipment: (1) Burst
  
• Pet: Interrogator
  
• Spellset: (1) Liquid Shadow Generation
  
• Cauldron: Shadow Elixir (red, blue, green, red, blue)

Optional: Equip the Stacking Equipment set (or just Collar of Obedience and Whiplash) and the Homunculus Pet to max out all sources. The only relevant source is Shadow Coals though. This will boost the Onyx Hound spell.

Equip the Interrogator pet, switch the Spellset to Liquid Shadow Generation and set the Cauldron to the Shadow Elixir recipie. Set all spells to reckless. Then change your Equipped items to the Burst set and Idle a few hours. Your Liquid Shadow should jump to e10 or even e11 within a minute. If not you either have the wrong recipie, wrong Equipment set, or just so severly underdeveloped Equipment that I really wonder how you've been able to unlock the Desolator in the first place. Just how long should you idle you may ask. Well, I personally just eyeball how much Liquid Shadow I collect, but as a Rule of Thumb, start with e13 at e300 Mystries and increase by 1e for every e30 Mysteries, like shown in the table below:

• Equipment: (3) Liquid Shadow Spending
  
• Pet: Geode
  
• Spellset: (2) Liquid Shadow Spending
  
• Cauldron: Any. Optionally Evocation Elixir

This is by far the easiest and quickest part of the run. Just cast Burn All That Burns a couple hundred times. Obviously you need the Geode Pet due to its level reduction to be able to equip Burn All That Burns. Technically you don't even need to change your equpped items, however increasing your passive Spellshard generation from less than a hundred to over 1e3 speeds things up a lot. Therefore equip every items that has either "increase passive shards generation" or "increase Wisdom by X". Just make sure that your total Liquid Shadow spend and remaining Liquid Shadow are roughly equal. Also since this phase only lasts two to ten minutes I don't bother to chance the Cauldron to the Evocation Elixir. Then proceed to the Stacking Phase.

• Equipment: (2) Stacking
  
• Pet: Spellhound
  
• Spellset: (3) Stacking
  
• Cauldron: Any

Yes, thats right, you don't need any Cauldron recipie in this phase. The Spellhound already produces more spellshards than you can spend. Please note, that you want to use Spellhound instead of its T2 counterpart Arcanaworg, because its ability is faster than Arcanaworgs if you use Collar Of Obedience + Whiplash. Also it levels faster, and getting the highest pet level throuhought this Exile is actually the main purpose of this Phase. Additional casts on the accumulative spells are just a welcome byproduct.

Also, here is the reminder from the Spellset section above:
Please note that you'll only be stacking 3 out of 4 Spells at once if you have Void Fission unlocked, unless you have VIP5 or want to by Sources manually, in which case you can stack all 4 spells simoultaniously. If you you choose to stack all four spells then replace Crystalization with the fourth spell. Note that it can happen, that Transmute and Dark Draught can't produce Sources fast enough. This phenomenon is directly linkt to how fast you cast the spells. Switching the position of Transmute and Crystalisation in the spellbar and/or unequipping Habitstone fixes this.

Without Void Fission:
Equip the Stacking Spellset, set everything to reckless and thats pretty much it. Keep an eye on your sources. Everything is fine if you can buy around 400 to 600 Shadow Coals. If you can buy a lot more than this and also a ton of Spellfountains then switch the position of Transmute and Crystalisation.

With Void Fission:
Replace one if the first three spells with Void Fission and reckless everything. Replace one of the other two spells with the one that was left out and keep stacking. Make sure that Void Fission stays in your spellbar, because it stacks slower than the other three due to its longer duration.

I personally only stack to about 1e4 total casts on Void Fission, which results in a Spellhound at around level 180.

• Equipment: (2) then (1) First Stacking then Burst
  
• Pet: Ebonsand Behemoth
  
• Spellset: (3) Burst
  
• Cauldron: Pet Elixir

Set the Cauldron recipie to Pet Elixir (green, red, blue, blue, red) and equip the Stacking/Pet leveling Equipment set to level up the Ebonsand Behemoth. I personally only level up for two to three minutes. Even at e480 Mysteries I only bring the Ebonsand Behemoth to level 130. Then equip the Burst Equipment and Spellset. Activate the Weapon, reckless all spells and make sure to click the Orb every now and then. When your Incantations run out of charges switch Seethe In Chadows with Crystalization to fill them up again, and switch back to Seethe In Shadows, reckless everything again and don't forget to reactivate the weapon. Repeat until Crystalisation is out of charges.
UPDATE: Switching to the Shard Generation equipment set works as well.

If you've done everything correct you should be able to Exile with a profit of e8 to e14 Mysteries. If you are not satisfied then go back to Liquid Shadow Generation, Spending and Burst again.
From around e370 Mysteries onward you should unlock the spell Void Fission during the burst. When that happens equip it for another burst at all cost. You'll get an additional e6 to e8 to whatever you would earn by exiling anyways. From e390 to e400 onwards you'll unlock Void Fission in the early burst phase.

Here is what a typical 4-8 hour run looks like now. It looks intimidatingly long, but most steps are a single hot key, or a few clicks at most. This is also from an e500 to e650+ perspective, where you can't half ass things anymore

Switch to Desolator
Set cauldron to Shadow Elixir
Get Spellhound pet
Set Equpment to Pet Leveling
Cycle through all spell sets to preemptively charge up all spells
Stay on the Stacking spellset for a minute
Set pet to Geode
Set Equipment to Spell Shards
Use Burn all that burns spell to burn off half of the Liquid Shadow (somewhere in the e4 range for 500+ Myst)
Set pet to Ebonsand Behemoth
Set Equipment to Pet Leveling
Set Cauldron to Pet Elixir
Set Equipment to Burst
Do a short burst

Set Cauldron to Shadow Elicir
Get Homunculus pet and wait for it to max out sources
Get Interrogator pet
Set Equipment to Burst
Set spells to Liquid Shadow gathering
Wait around 10-30 minutes, Liquid Shadow is now at e15 or e16
Get Geode pet to burn off half of the Liquid Shadow
Get Ebonsand behemoth pet
Set Equipment to Pet Leveling
Set Cauldron to Pet Elixir
Set Equipment to Burst
Do another burst

The same as before, but 1-2 hours
The Liquid Shadow usually gets e3-4 higher than before
And yes, ANOTHER burst. The reason for all these bursts is to get every possible pet-experience related upgrade. The higher we can get any pet throughout this run, the stonger the final burst will be
Check the Exile Tab. If you can exile with e5 or more profit do it!

Get Spellhound pet
Set Equipment to Pet Leveling
Set cauldron to Pet Elixir
Set Spells to Stacking set, reckless everything
If you have Void Fission unlocked, that you can only stack 3 out of 4 spell at the same time. Keep Void Fission among those three all the time, switch one out once its at 1e5 casts. At the end Void Fission and the two spells that switched will be at around 1e5 casts, and the remaining one at 2e5
KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THE AMOUNT OF MANA GEMS / SHADOW COAL YOU CAN BUY. If that number get into the four-digits it tends to spiral out of control and deplete all Liquid Coal, thereby breaking the Crystallization - Dark Draught Of Midas - Transmute chain that replenishes your sources and reduces incantation cast time. Setting or removing the recipie, and moving the spells to other slots usually helps.

Set cauldron to Pet Elixir
Set Equipment to Pet Leveling
Get Homunculus pet and wait for it to max all sources again
Get Ebonsand Behemoth and bring it to level 150 (adjusts this number according to your Mysts)
Set Equipment to Burst and...
Reckless everything for the final burst.
Optional: Switch to the Spell Shard equipment to recharge all spells and switch back to burst set

So, I hope like this Guide on the rather unconventional class that the Desolator is.

If you find and mistakes, misspellings, inconsistencies and the like let me know in the comments. Especially when things change in future versions of the game so I can keep this guide up to date.
If you have any general questions don't hesitate to ask and I'll answer them to my best ability both in the comments and here in the following Q+A section.

Q: Why is the rum gone
A: Yes, I'll edit this section every time there is a new question. Also if you don't want your question to be showen here then say so in your comment.

Q: Where Void Fission?
A: It is locked behind an upgrade that costs 1e750 Mana.