Just finished my solo play through as a mage, while exploring the power and limit of each skills I discovered some very strong maybe even broken combinations, I'm here to share some of them and make some comments on the run. This will be a very long guide, expect walls of text. An image to start.
This is a screenshot taken from one of the final fights, I basically finished the fight in my first turn before I took any damage. The only time I needed a source skill in my run through, a bug made it took more effort than usual but it's still very clean. For anyone interested in the full fight, here are the rest of the screenshots
http://imgur.com/a/ByPEsUpdate, even cleaner version of the same fight can be found in comments featuring impalement.
First of all, the build, this build is a "glass cannon" build with "elemental affinity" as the second talent, the following talents should be "what a rush" or "executioner", I didn't get the 2nd talent point at level 8 like I thought. There are 3 extremely powerful skill combinations I'd like to discuss here, the 29 + 2n ap combo, the elemental affinity phoenix dive combo, and how to turn environment into hell.
The 29 + 2n ap combo.This requires initiative higher than your enemies, and player being an elf, works for non mages too but wouldn't be as broken.(unless single target)
Glass cannon builds have base 6 ap per turn, what a rush raises this to 7ap. By delaying the first turn in invisbility and adding in time warp, 3 turns are chained together.
Flesh sacrifice not only immediately boosts 1 ap, but also gives a buff that increase max ap by 1 for 2 turns, adrenaline gives 2 ap immediately but also boosts max ap by 1 for 2 turns, this combined with the fact that glass cannon always regen to full ap, results in some weird interactions.
First delayed turn
7 base ap + 1 boost from flesh sacrifice
=8 ap
Second turn
7 base ap + 1 max bonus from flesh sacrifice, + 1 boost from 2nd flesh sacrifice + 4 boost from adrenaline - 1 from timewarp
=11 ap
Third timewarped turn
7 base ap + 1 max bonus from flesh sacrifice, + 2 max bonus from adrenaline
=10 ap
29 ap total
On the third turn, Glass cannon's "always start with max ap" rule beat adrenaline's "lose 2 ap next turn" rule, however this is not always the case. This method does not work if you cast spells in the same order but time warp on the first delayed turn, one would start with less than the right amount of ap on the 2nd timewarped turn, which is probably a bug, and the third turn "lose 2 ap next turn" rule will beat "always start with max ap" rule, this is probably something the devs need to fix, which rule goes first.
Here is a screenshot of me having 9 ap available on the third timewarped turn using the method above, this is without "what a rush" talent, with the talent one should have 10 ap.
If the player character level is high enough and took executioner as a talent, then one will probably gain 2 ap per kill on top of the 29 available ap.
The elemental affinity phoenix dive comboThis is basically the method I use for regular fights, no source or environment preparation required, it involves reducing 2 ap fire skills down to 1 ap and blast enemies with extremely high aoe damage, if this doesn't get nerfed then this build will be even stronger with the release of more 2 ap or 3 ap fire skills. I love how I came up with the whole elemental affinity + phoenix dive fire immunity thing, it just feels so...stylish, and spontaneous combustion turned out to be A LOT more stronger than I thought, although at times it bugs.
-Fight start
-Run out of line of sight and pull enemies out of hiding.(may not be required)
-Teleport enemies into each other on low ground, use teleport scrolls to teleport more if they happen to not cluster and you feel like cleaning them up all at once.
-Chameleon cloak, the teleported enemies will stand still, make sure you move after using this skill or they will know where you are.
-Wait for invisibility to have 1 turn left, delay the turn, (walk right next to enemies, netherswap with another enemy from afar, this step may not be needed, but you generally want to spend an ap before using flesh sacrifice)
-Flesh sacrifice
-Phoenix dive to high ground for 20% increased damage, you can teleport on this turn too if you had to stealth didn't get a chance earlier. High ground is important, not only does it provide damage bonus but skills seem to also gain bonus range, can teleport enemies very far away into the hell mentioned in the third method.
- Start with searing dagger to hit those with magic armor, then followed by impalement, doing massive base damage and surface damage, fossil strike/poison dart can be used here to break the magic armor further, then a fireball.
you generally want to teleport an enemy that have relatively low magic armour in in the middle of your cluster, so when you follow up with the fireball, the fireball will put 3 turns of burning debuff on him, epidemic of Flame can also be used here if you don't feel like saving source points.
- Spontaneous combustion on the burning enemy in the middle and witness some funny explosions, I don't fully understand this skill yet, but from my obeservations, it will detonate every enemy in the circle radius for the initial damage once to each of them, then the secondary damage will hit those right next to them and result in really funny damage, but sometimes this skill have a bug that cause the secondary damage to not trigger,this skill deals more damage to each target the more enemies you gather with teleport and netherswap, so grouping enemies next to a boss will burst the boss for very high damage. Some funny explosion images for those interested.
http://imgur.com/a/IQGJh-Adrenaline
-Skin graft to reset all your cooldowns, can now teleport another enemy in if needed.
-Adrenaline
-Impalement to get enemies burning again after the first combustion to lower fire resistance.
-FIreball spontaneous combustion again, then hit whoever is left with searing daggers and flesh sacrifice, poison dart, if you managed to gather them all up and no one still has magic armor then you can probably rain and discharge to stun them all, and keep them stunned with a lightning wand for the rest of the fight, if they weren't all picked up then you can invis and run out to fight and come back, note that fire from phoenix dive will create smoke eventually, which should be taken into consideration.
How to turn environment into hellWhile playing I encountered some really annoying bosses like the witch that have higher initative than me or just simply scripted to go first, when they open with electric discharge or any similar CC I'm pretty much done for. I did consider using a summoned minion to pull them, but I happen to find a broken combo while toying with skills I've never tried.
Contamination, I used to think this was a really bad skill, until I tried it.
Here is how this works
First, rain all over the place and fill everywhere with water, then contamination and create a huge poison zone that lasts
permanently, enemies take damage standing in them, walking through them, they will die.
That sounds pretty easy but we are not done yet, although it's deadly enough as it is.
Although I don't think cursing is available yet, it's possible to obtain cursed effects if there are cursed ground nearby, or through the use of source skills, and there happen to be cursed blood by the shriekers before the Alexander fight, so we can do some funny stuff here.
By igniting cursed poison, cursed fire is created, cursed fire doesn't disappear by itself and make enemies immune to wet, then we cast rain on the cursed fire, this does not douse the cursed burning ground but creates steam, normally, rain + burning ground will creates a steam "loop" instead of a steam "circle" and leave water in the middle, but the cursed fire not only bypass that by creating a steam circle but also doesn't douse and last permanently, now if we shock the steam it'll be a another lightning zone that permanently stuns enemies after their magic armor wear off.
Start the show with poison.
Then we add fire rain and lightning, Notice how Alexander is stunned already on turn 2, and he will stay that way, can also teleport him all the way back if he still has magic armor.
Hell completed. Damage numbers for the zone is shown.
Poor Alexander didn't get a single skill off.
Invis after the worm shows up, your "teammates" will do the job for you and die after.
That's all three of the methods I've discovered, feels quite proud of myself actually, although it's just a video game hah, some of these possibly deserve some nerfs, but the devs will decide.
Early game is edited in comments below as the post is already too long.
Although I haven't played a rogue character personally, but I feels like rogues will be inferior when it comes to doing these massive aoe damage and clearing packs in this stylish and clean fashion, but may come ahead when it comes to pure single target damage, however most of the threats in this game consists of multiple enemies at once, I can only imagine a solo rogue player would need to burst a few enemies down and instantly teleport out, which is pretty awkward since the teleport thing is probably the most broken mechanic in the game but will likely stay.
Thanks to the devs for making such a great game and hopefully this post will help, to players or devs.