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**bojck** · 10-03-2020, 03:58 PM

Part 1: How to Mage

1.1. Moving, attacking & staying alive

Have you ever watched how your character runs back to certain death, while you're telling him to move away? If yes, tune in!

In this video I'm running around Elban @113 here to demonstrate different movement techniques and attack patterns.

1.2. Getting started. Crafting first proper gear

There are many different builds that are good enough to get you through story mode and early trials.

If you're a new player and running story mode, do it at your leisure : ) To make your life easier, try crafting set gear and pay attention to the item and set bonuses.

There is just one thing that you don't want to skip: buying crafting recipes for 50k gold each from Liana the recipe vendor. Buy one every 3 hours, no matter if it's for your class or not! If you don't have the gold, craft some cheap gear with the Extra gold stat on EACH item. Buy a gold booster (be it 100% or 200%) and farm some gold. You'll be surprised how fast you earn gold with a nice +Gold multiplier!

I'd suggest to use at least one full gold booster in map 43 Darkhold Citadel once you complete story mode. This will earn you enough resources to craft some starting gear and progress in trials.

Once you have recipes for the set of your choice, craft set items. This tutorials are for Elemental Lord Regalia, combined with Grand Magister's Command weapon set, which is currently the best mage gear in the game (as of 1.5.34).

Some of the recipes cannot be bought from the vendor - you need Glory to get them. Glory is only earned from events (and Arena at higher levels), so spend it wisely.

You are aiming for the following items:
- ELR armor set: 6 pieces
- GMC weapons: 2 pieces - staff and tome
- Frostfire sash
- Vial of Wind Spirit
- Talisman of Storms
- Slayer (weapon enchantment)
* Fire Lily & Talisman of Power
* Sash of the Igniter (for a Death from Above build)

Craft a dedicated gold farming set!
It is not worth farming gold with a mediocre +gold bonus. Make a separate Gold farming gear, use a gold booster and get the gold

Craft an XP farming set!
Same applies to farming experience. Champion levels are your best friend, and they are not hard to get when you have a good xp bonus. The first 500 CLs come easily. Some would say that the first 1800 are easy, others would argue that '2100 to 2200 were the golden days'. As an example, you need more xp to get from 2300 to 2301 than from 0 to 1800.

In any case, ELR is the best mage farming set right now. Frostbeam has huge damage and can kill monsters quickly at trials 80-105, which is what you are aiming for ultimately. Trials above 103 don't give more experience, so farming above 105 (Kara) is not efficient for XP.

Edit: since 1.5.34 drop rates from trials are reduced, which means that at trial 80 you get mostly epics, mixed up with a few rares and legendaries. 100/105 drop nearly equally epics and legendaries. At 120 all drops are legendary, and item levels are slightly higher.

Death from Above is a great alternative. It has lower damage, but it also triggers shatter, which has a huge area of effect. More on this in the next sections.

I don't have glory. What do I do?
Buy frostfire sash first - it's just 10 Glory. You can reach high trials (well over 100) without any of the other gear that costs Glory. Then earn Glory from War supplies and ANB events and get the other stuff.

Bracers or Lily?
It's up to you. You'll eventually get them both. You can do without any of them, but they are both really good. Bracers increase your frostbeam damage with 400-500%, and Lily increases your damage significantly if your Champion levels are low or your gear isn't top-notch. More about this in the next parts of this tutorials.

1.3. Shatter & Thermal shock. Grand Magister's Command weapon set

Everything you need to know about the jack of all mage builds!

How to get GMC weapons. What is shatter, how does it work and how to use it. Wispy's doing a full-map pull here to demonstrate the effect and usage of shatter:

From Wispy:

For those of you that find my monotonous, slow and highly enthusiastic speech too boring, a quick synopsis for Grand Magister's Command, Thermal Shock and Shatter:

First up, you need to equip the skill Frost Bolt into one of your auto-attack slots. The reason for this is that having Frost Bolt equipped gives a 7% chance for Blizzard, and 100% chance for Northern Wind to proc when those skills hit (cause damage) to an enemy mob. Northern Wind is the key trigger to shatter. Northern Wind causes all enemies on screen, plus any red dots on the mini map plus any mobs still chasing you (even if they're the other side of the map) to count as Frozen. Note that they wont actually be frozen, so will still keep moving but the Northern Wind effect means they are treated as being affected. The next thing required is the Grand Magister's Command weapon set (Igneus staff and Glacies Tempestas tome). Having both weapons gives a two-piece set bonus.

Thermal shock
The first part of the bonus is 'Casting a frost support ability extinguishes the burning effects for all creatures around the caster and deals 1000% of their remaining burning damage instantly'. This can hit critically and can be boosted by Power Infusion, Talisman of Storms or other damage boosting trinkets. The 'Frost support' abilities are Frost Nova, Blizzard and Frost Beam, and the 1000% weapon damage proc is the Thermal Shock effect.

Shatter
The second part of the bonus is 'Casting a fire support ability deals 3000% weapon damage to all creatures around the caster that are frozen and removes the frozen effect'. As every creature currently affected by Northern Wind is treated as Frozen, casting your fire skill hits them with 3000% weapon damage instantly. This hit can also crit, and be impacted by things like Power Infusion or Talisman of Storms (and others) for an even bigger effect. The 'fire support' abilities are Immolate and Death from Above, the 3000% weapon damage proc is the Shatter effect. In addition to hitting all those mobs, it restarts the internal countdown for them losing interest in chasing you, meaning as long as you keep up the Frost Nova then Immolate rotation, you'll never lose aggro on any mob and so can pull the entire map, round them up into a big blob and just hit them all with other more powerful AoE skills (such as Frostbeam).

Finally, Shatter is classed as a Fire damage skill if you were building that into Belts, Bracers and Trinkets.

Thermal shock is considered a Frost damage skill and is boosted by +frost stats on items.

1.4. Bonus: 'Crowd Control to Mage...ergh...Tom...' - an advanced 'Basics' tutorial by Wispy

Crowd control in Eternium is both a basic and advanced topic. If you're new to the game, kill some monsters first for the funsies, but do come back to watch it later!

Another Mage tutorial where I talk drivel for a little over 6 minutes (sigh) about the Eternium Crowd Control mechanics and how three of the typical ELR Frostbeam Mage skills feed into that. As a bonus I've included gameplay of all bosses from Trial 121 to 125, mostly because I'm way overpowered for those trials so can talk about certain mechanics and not have to pay too much attention to what is going on. I'm well aware that this isn't something that is going to be relevant to a lot of Mage players until you start hitting walls and wondering how to improve your boss fights - for example how to get that extra distance between yourself and say Magroth or Elban to get a full channel of Frostbeam. In this video I am not concerned with the knockback from Arc Lightning, the slows from Frost Bolt or Frostbeam as none of these feed into the overall "resistance" mechanic. I don't look at Blizzard or Archer minions either because in a typical Frostbeam Mage build you are not taking that skill or those companions. What I do cover is the passive crowd control from the tome Glacies Tempestas, the freeze from Frost Nova and the Vortex powers of Maggie and Eileen. If you're only interested in the gameplay elements, I recommend you jump to 6:50 in the video and watch from there, but be warned you're missing my dull delivery about the mechanics in play if you do skip ahead! The next video will be back to basics and all about the power of the frost beam, and maximising that damage (and yes, the title will be another pun, you have been warned).

**bojck** · 10-03-2020, 04:03 PM

Part 2: ELR. Where does damage come from?

Wispy shows in detail how to get that notoriously high beam & thermal shock damage:

'Choo choo, it's full beam ahead on the knowledge train as we shine a light on what makes Frostbeam such a devastating skill in the Mage's spellbook.

You can spend nearly 20 minutes of watching and listening to me make many mistakes in my commentary, for which I couldn't be bothered to go back and correct since they aren't critical bloopers (I know my sheet damage on the first TL144 is 5.5m, not 6m....I know that 57B is not almost 97B....I know that I only did half the number of Frostburn because the original had 2 channels and the second demonstration 1), or you can read the synopsis below.....it's your choice

Obviously the main component is the Frostfire Sash, which at 10 glory should be a priority acquisition for all aspiring ELR Mages. This sash allows us to put large stacks of burning onto our enemies, and as it hits everything in it's path (and a narrow corridor either side) it's a potent AoE skill. Combined with Frost Nova and Immolate we get synergies galore.

The skill rotation I use is:
1. Auto-attack with Arc Lightning to set up 5 stacks of damage and attack speed buffs.
2. Frost Nova to proc Northern Wind
3. Immolate to proc Shatter and set our targets on fire.
4. Frost Beam to proc Thermal Shock, deal regular Frost Beam damage and put 40+ stacks of Frostfire burning on our targets.
5. Frost Nova to proc another huge Thermal Shock.

As Thermal Shock is a Frost damage effect, putting +Frost on both trinkets, your belt and bracer is boosting the damage further. A Bracer of Mastery with increased Frostbeam damage is a nice bonus, and honestly I'm not in the least bit bothered about the % increase value rolled, anything is just great. The Vial of Wind Spirit boosts haste - more haste = more stacks of Frostfire - more stacks of Frostfire = bigger Thermal Shock Talisman of Storms - (for a crit build only, use Talisman of Power for Firelily builds) - 3000% more Crit Damage, YES PLEASE!!!'

**bojck** · 10-03-2020, 04:06 PM

Part 3: Beams and bosses

Garm @159

High health, predictable routine, regular attacks are hard to avoid at first.

This is my way of dealing with the infamous green lizard on higher trials!

On lower levels you can survive his basic attacks. To stay alive you need to avoid the poison breath (which is pretty obvious), and stay in the blue circle while he casts poison nova. Later in the game you can't possibly have enough toughness and recovery to tank all his basic attacks, because of the high DOT (damage over time).

At some point you have to dodge at least half of them. On the bright side - if you get the hang of it, you'll have an easier time with The Broken Dragon and Kara as well, and you'd be able to do trial 139 with less than 250K toughness

Dodging works just as well on mobile, especially on a larger screen. Regarding stats - there's a wide range of stats that can potentially work. Only stat that is a must for me is movement speed on both pants and boots. If you find yourself dying too much, increase vitality, armor and life on hit, but still try to dodge some of the attacks.

Check out this awesome video by Wispy as well:

- TBD @152

Medium health, DOT attacks, complicated fighting strategy.

Coping with The Broken Dragon @152. Key attacks to avoid are:
- fire breath;
- staying too long in the fiery patches on the ground - more than 2 stacks of fire DOT are not healthy!
- overflow: I'd recommend to run enough vitality and armor to be able to survive overflow. At lower levels, to feel more comfortable, make sure it doesn't take more than 50% of your health.
- basic attacks: dodging those is the exact same skill as what you use for Garm (check the other video above). The higher the trial, the more you should avoid those.

Suitable places for beaming are during her Fire breath, and immediately AFTER a patch is placed and you have moved out of it.

- Elban @153: I'm sharing a link to Wispy's video on YouTube, along with his description:

High health, fast, some deadly attacks, mid damage of normal attacks.

From Wispy:
'A run of Trial 153 to show the Elban boss fight. It's precisely for this fight that I run a relatively high Life on Hit stat meaning I can pretty much stand toe to toe with him during his basic attacks. In order to stand right up against Elban and trade blows like this, it is crucial not to let him hit you with his Bleed attack (telegraphed with the pointed arrow on the ground). It's an easy attack to avoid, just run roughly double the distance of the arrow to get out of range. For Elban's 'Devastate' leaping attack I prefer to move towards him and out of the large red circle (instant death if you remain within) which means I can then resume auto-attacks with no danger of running back into his circle of death during the attack. I also find it easier to click on him to auto-attack if I move closer to him during that animation. Elban's Life Drain attack is also relatively easy to break free from. It's a case of ensuring you also have enough room behind you to be able to move a sufficient distance directly away from him to break the drain. It's vital to move directly away from him, as the Life Drain will rapidly kill you otherwise. The only real pain point in this fight is that Elban's special attacks do not necessarily follow a set pattern, or trigger after a set number of seconds which means that sometimes you are forced to cancel Frostbeam early due to an unexpected special attack starting. I find the only genuinely fixed attack pattern is right at the start of the fight where he opens with Life Drain, quickly followed by Devastate and then his Charge - I try to save my first Frostbeam channel when he telegraphs the first Charge attack.'

- Magroth @156

Lower-medium health, lethal when enraged, high-damage normal attacks.

Key attacks to avoid:
- Any attack when he's enraged (run away from big red demon)
- Meteor - lifts his hands up, red dots appear on the ground. Don't stand on the red spot waiting for the meteor to hit you!
- Charge: just step aside
- Normal attacks: at high trials, his regular attacks do very high damage. Until a certain trial you can just beam at him and tank these attacks, given enough toughness and life on hit. Later on use potions/apples to be able to tank a few more hits, or move away.

Pro tips:
- Use vortex to keep him away
- Use secondary attack after moving to avoid running back into the black circle and die

- Kara @155

Leaving Kara for last. The easiest boss until 140-150, she becomes the hardest to survive against later on.

Low health, medium damage normal attacks, high damage multiple-shot attacks, one deadly attack, annoying minions.

At higher levels, the easiest way to deal with Kara is to increase your toughness and life on hit A LOT. She has lower health, so you can afford losing some sheet damage in exchange for survivability.

- Try to stay within her single-shot range.
- Stay away from the minions, use vortex to keep them at bay
- Beam both at her and the minions by repositioning yourself or vortexing
- If things get messy, run far far away until you replenish your health. It's very hard to fight at that ultra long distance (when Kara's on the edge of the screen), so this trick is just an emergency escape.

Boss health chart by LodWig:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jg8a98dju...lions.pdf?dl=0

Attached Files

**bojck** · 10-03-2020, 04:06 PM

Part 4: XP

EDIT (version 1.5.34): maximum Ability rating is no longer required. I find 1500 AR good enough (remember Integralas Mantle can add almost 500).

EDIT: DfA farming is much more mobile-friendly than frostbeam. With high-level xp gear it clears t100 faster than beam.

Frostbeam

The Beam has huge damage, but is hard to control. It can clear t100 in 60-70 seconds with very low Champion levels and lower-level gear, especially with Fire lily.

Edit (1.5.34): in ANB I prefer using frostbeam for xp farming, as it allows running trials 100-105 quite early. To boost damage when your gear and CLs are still bad, you can use Slayer staff enchantment and (a legendary) Talisman of Power. Boss fights will be much shorter!

Key points:
- use shatter to pulls mobs, then beam them down. For beginners, gather only several groups (3-5) and beam them down. As you get more comfortable, try making larger pulls (whole map pulls are also an option)
- the direction of frostbeam cannot be controlled, but you get used to it. It is not as random as it seems at first
- use nova and immolate before you beam at Kara (to get the 100% beam damage boost and to apply immolate's debuff on Kara)
- practice a lot. This build is harder to play than DfA, but it's worth it.
- use +frost on items to boost beam and thermal shock
- as an alternative, use +fire to increase shatter damage. This is a good alternative, especially at lower trials.

Edit:

DfA

Farming trial 90 with a Death from Above build with Fire lily. Normally doing 30-40 second runs with that build @t90, 50-55 second @t100.
This build really shines at lower levels, or with high-level gear.

Key points:
- mobile friendly.
- casting nova, immolate and DfA triggers shatter twice. It is ridiculously fast and easy to play at lower levels. Remember to cast nova on an enemy to trigger Northern wind - this makes all enemies around count as frozen while it lasts.
- shatter both pulls the mobs and actually does the damage
- use +fire damage to boost shatter (3 fire damage items + 1 frost damage is totally fine)
- make sure you have 1500 Ability rating to shatter more often
- use slayer helm enchantment to take down elites faster
- run closer to the center line to pull mobs on both sides. Shatter has a wide area of effect - try to maximise it
- slayer enchantment on staff is nice, it speeds up boss fights greatly
- try stacking more DfA missiles before the boss spawns
- cast immolate on boss. Then cast DfA and frost nova. Rinse and repeat : )
- Talisman of Power (or ToS for crit builds) is quite useful in this build to boost your damage

Cons:
- lower damage compared to Frostbeam, but wider area of effect.
- Slow to take down bosses on higher trials (Slayer weapon enchantment and Talisman of Power help)

Lily or crit?
They both work well.

For the crit build use ToS/ToP and Vial of wind spirit, and ideally a Slayer weapon enchantment. Make sure to add decent critical rating to make damage a bit less 'spiky'

**bojck** · 10-03-2020, 04:07 PM

Part 5: Gold farming

Farming gold in story level 43 - Darkhold Citadel.

This is the map with highest gold earned per minute! Difficulty doesn't affect the yield.

- Run to the end chests, shatter only once near the end.
- Aim for Extra gold on every item, and always use a gold booster.
- Try to get run times down to 20 seconds.
- Use Grand Magister weapon set - shatter is a must!
- Put movement speed on boots and pants and use 'Fleet footed' passive.
- Hold left button all the time while moving to avoid engaging mobs on the way.
- If you lack damage to kill the monsters at the end of the map, put power on gear, or use Fire lily.
- For some additional resources and gemstones you can farm level 47 Morgenheim instead.

**bojck** · 10-03-2020, 04:07 PM

Part 6: Push and pull

EDIT 1.5.34: Mob speed was increased in this version, and enemies develop Crowd control immunity faster (you can't freeze or vortex them when immune). Large pulls are now way harder even on PC. Add more toughness and prepare to take some hits. If you are a beginner, start with smaller pulls On mobile smaller pulls might work better in general.

6.1 Small pulls, 1/3 map, 1/2 map

Going through different techniques for gathering mobs aka doing 'pulls'.

When 'pushing' higher trials, as an ELR mage you need to do larger 'pulls' to be able to clear the map in time. In this part I'm doing 3 pulls:
- starting with a small one of just a few groups. It is safer, but slower to clear the whole map
- 1/3 map. It's quite easy to pull 1/3 of the map with an ELR mage - just shatter near the center of the map and zap a few groups with arc lightning
- 1/2 map - finishing the trial with a 1/2 map pull, which is a decent size. I'm going into a dead end to show you how you can get away from such tight spots like a true mage

6.2. Full-map pull & clear in < 3 minutes @155

This is the second part of the 'pushing and pulling' tutorials. In this video I'm doing a full map pull.

If you watch closely, you'll see a very neat trick for escaping when fully cornered

The Kara fight in the end is a bonus!

This is an advanced strategy. It has a lot of downsides, but on good maps can yield pretty good results. This is close to what I'm using on most occasions when pushing high trials.

Namely, the cons are:
- high likelihood of getting killed during the pull;
- pulling too many elites with different auras, as well as healers. Too many protective auras and healers make mobs almost immortal - fps drops. I'm running at 60 fps normally, but when vortexing big groups it drops down to 10-20.
- too many chargers, archers, fires, etc.

Pros:
- potentially fast clears
- high risk of dying while doing the pull
- you find out quite early what the map composition is, and if you don't like it - abandon and try again

**bojck** · 10-03-2020, 04:08 PM

Part 7: Push stats. Passives & Companions.
There's a wide range of stats that can work very well with ELR. It all depends on your playstyle. Here are some tips on what stats to aim for.

Crit build
- Put critical damage on every item
- Aim for 1500-2500 haste. Note that Vial of Wind spirit adds further 0-450 haste depending on the number of charges. Higher haste means higher Frostbeam and Thermal shock damage (roughly 1% additional haste = 1% additional damage). As an experiment, run Training grounds with different haste values and observe the number of Frostfire charges. More haste also means more alacrity, therefore lower cooldowns.
- Edit (1.5.34) 1500 Ability rating is the new default. With an Integralas mantle, that's around 2000, which is usually enough. Feel free to experiment!
High AR means lower cooldowns which results in more beams. The choice of companions (number of healers and warriors) is an important factor here.
- 45-50+% Critical chance. High critical chance makes damage less spiky. Currently Thermal shock does huge damage when it crits (especially if ToS is up), but negligible damage otherwise.
- Power - the more the better, if not at the expense of something more useful to you
- Armor & vitality - put enough to feel somewhat comfortable. With high toughness you have less sheet damage, but don't have to dodge as much, so you can effectively beam longer uninterrupted. Some types of mobs and attacks still need to be avoided. 1 Million toughness or more is the norm above trial 150. If you are quick and dodge well, you can do with less. Gemstones are the best place to put additional Armor. Adding armor as a stat on gear is not optimal.
- Life on hit - at least 2000. 2500-3000 is quite common. Experiment to find out what works best for you. Keep in mind that while casting Frostbeam you recover much more health per second than with regular attacks. Some bosses are much easier with higher LoH, namely Kara, Elban and TBD.
- Movement speed - both pants and boots
- +frost damage in all 4 possible slots
- dodge - a few items with dodge can be useful

Lily build
With a Fire lily build Critical rating and damage are ignored, which leaves more room for other stats. The desired stats are similar to the crit build, with a few exceptions:
- Put power on every possible item and enchantment
- Use higher haste for extra damage
- Allocate all champion points to haste and power
- Do not put any CR or CD

Passives and Companions
Vortex is the single most important companion skill for a Beam mage. Running with 2-3 healers is the norm. Marcus's Stun and toughness bonus and Robin's attack speed bonus are excellent alternatives.

Passives are chosen between Endurance, Glass cannon, Power Infusion and Celerity. They allow for some easy customization for each boss - e.g. fighting Kara benefits from adding toughness and recovery, while Garm requires more damage.

Edit (1.5.34): Lily/crit ELR are both pretty awesome! Both can clear high trials (155+). Lily allows putting more defensive stats, which is why a lot of mobile players prefer it. Currently crit can push several trials higher.

**bojck** · 10-03-2020, 04:10 PM

Part 8: Lily and Crit

Once it was evident that ELR was the best set in Season 4, the biggest question standing was 'Lily or Crit?'.

The original estimations we made back at the start of the season placed a Fire Lily push build slightly lower than a regular (critical damage) build. The consensus was that for XP farming, leveling and playing with lower-level gear, Lily is the clear winner.

These estimations were hard to validate because of the introduction of the new Glory currency - it was hard to put your hands on a Fire Lily at first, and there was not enough glory available to buy the recipe. That, combined with the high price of crafting full high-level gear that suits either Lily or Crit.

Ultimately results showed that both type of builds are really good at both XP farming and push. Lily is miles ahead when it comes to character levelling, as well as playing with lower Champion levels or lower-level gear.

When it comes to push, I believe Lily is also capable of reaching trial 160-161. I managed to reach 153 in ANB Gold and was a second short on 154. Wispy did 153 in ANB Silver. Players such as Mahara made it into the 150s for the season leaderboard without having perfect gear (he also reached high into the 140s with epic quality gear). So we still don't have a clear answer to which build is better when it comes to true end-game.

So why should I use a Crit build after all?
1. You are short on Glory. Lily costs 100 Glory.
2. You want to push 160+ and don't want to risk it. The Crit build is proven to be capable of dealing with trial 162 or more.
3. You like to deal massive damage in one blow. If ToS (Talisman of Storms) is on, and you deal a critical hit when triggering Thermal shock, you deal humongous amount of damage at once. That's kinda cool! Not that cool when you don't do a critical hit. With top-notch gear you are looking at 2000% critical damage or even higher. Combine that with +3000% from ToS...
4. You don't have a ton of Shadow essences to make proper Lily gear

Why Lily?
1. You already have the Glory, or expect to obtain it soon.
2. You want to farm xp consistently, and get Kara down with 1 beam and nova @trial 100-105 every time. 3. You like damage to be more even. Not a fan of RNG? Lily makes gameplay smoother and more predictable.
3. You can accommodate more vitality and armor without sacrificing that much damage
4. You can get better results with Epic gear
5. You can put both XP and EG on gear, and still have good overall stats
6. You don't have a ton of fire essences for crafting Crit gear

For details on which stats to use, please refer to the posts above.

**bojck** · 10-03-2020, 04:11 PM

Part 9: Crafting 77s. CTs and real end-game. Levelling crafting toons.

The ultimate end-game goal is playing with full Celestial level 77 gear and pushing the highest trial possible. With epic skillz you can be very close to the top spots on the leaderboard, even without the perfect gear. Skills always trump gear, but for top spots you need both.

Even if you're not running for top spots, crafting perfect gear is very lucrative! After all, RPGs are all about the loot

It's a slot machine that runs on dead skeletons! In this case monsters rarely drop good stuff. There is an occasional level 77 drop of the right kind with the right stats, but that's incredibly rare. To obtain the end-game gear you want, you farm gold, xp and materials, then salvage and craft.

How do you get all 77 Celestials?
One at a time, with a lot of grinding and crafting. Try to take 2 77s out of every ANB event. Be patient and do your best not to CT any item lower than 77 (except for a perfect lower level bracer). Also, grind fast and smart, and craft efficiently. Create 'crafting toons' for crafting every level 77 item out of ANB.

How do you get 5M+ damage?
That's easy - you craft all 77 celestials! You also switch as much defensive stats to offense as possible.

Crafting toons - why do I need those?

This is an end-game topic, and not a beginners guide to levelling. It is only useful if you have a high Champion level (say 1500+) and enough materials to craft at least 15-30 legendary items.

The first two videos can also help you level up in ANB!

With the current crafting system when crafting end-level set and unique items, you have a guaranteed level 77 (exactly one) in the first 64 attempts with a new character. The next 77 will come in the second 64 crafts. This is a 'bad-luck prevention' algorithm implemented in the game to avoid long bad-luck streaks.

Thus, the best way to craft a 77 is to create a new toon, level it up to 70 and craft until you get a 77. Then delete the toon and repeat. This has been discussed in a lot of places here and in Discord, so for details check the other topics to keep this one on point.

It took me weeks to get to level 70, you say you level up in 20 minutes?

It depends on the recipes you have. The gist of it is to have a lot of Champion levels. All characters share those, including the new toons.

- If you don't have Fire Lily, and don't want to unlock items with gems, you'd want to unlock a second ability slot and put Nova and Immolate. Most of the damage here comes from Shatter. Craft full xp gear once every 10-30 levels. Craft GMC weapons often - you could just recraft high level staffs, as most of the damage comes from there. Use an xp booster (for me a 15-minute mushroom soup is just enough) and do trials until you hit level 70. Use Shatter to run trials quickly. Use a Vial of Wind spirit (any level) for the additional AoE damage.

If you do have a Lily, craft a legendary low level Lily and Vial and just use fireball (level 3+) and Vial to farm trials until level 70. With Champion levels and Lily damage is not an issue. There is no need to unlock items or ability slots. I'll post a video on clearing a trial with vial and fireball.

If you intend to make multiple crafting toons, stash some useful gear to use with the next toons. Personally, I keep a level 50 ELR set in the stash, along with some useful staffs, lily and vial. A low-level fireball bracer is also handy.

Note that low-level toons have a bigger movement speed bonus, so always buy coffee and craft +ms boots and pants.

Levelling up in trials using Shatter, Vial and Lily (30 sec trial run). 75 gems spent per crafting toon (+50 for deleting previous toon)

Levelling up in trials using Fireball, Vial and Lily. 0 gems spent per crafting toon (+50 for deleting previous toon)

If you want to see your new characters flying around, unlock higher level gear to be used by level 1 characters. This is costly, but can be very satisfying! Check topics on 'Speed-running' in the forum, and take a look at the video below:

How to level up a new character to level 70 by Kinnu
Here Kinnu uses high level items unlocked for level 1 heroes. This is NOT a new player strategy - it takes a lot of time and gems to get these items!

**bojck** · 10-03-2020, 04:11 PM

Part 10: A New Beginning. Gems & budget

- How do I get to Trial 130+ in 6/9/12 hours? What about t150?

Good news is that you can actually reach trial 150 with mage without spending a single dollar on a budget of 2K gems. It takes a lot of skills and knowledge of the game. How frugal you are with your spendings is a personal choice. In this post I'll try to show you how to make the most out of gems spent.

0. Unlocking stuff. Buying crates and companions - MUST read for new players

Unlocking attacks, abilities, passives, companion slots and inventory rows is cheaper in ANB. Way cheaper. Also, Books of Learning help level up abilities. When the event ends, you can save this character and use it as your main.

If you are just starting out, you need gems to unlock those and see that an ANB event is coming, save your gems and spend them in ANB!

Stash space is not transferred to main. Ability upgrade slots are not cheaper (2nd slot costs 400, 3rd costs 900). Buying companions is not cheaper - 500 gems each.

If you are aiming at trial 130+, buy all the 'cheap' unlocks right from the start. Get that 2nd upgrade slot for 400. Spending 900 on the 3rd one is up to you! It is nice to have, especially in Gold. In Bronze it is possible to upgrade ALL your skills to level 10 (or at least get to synergy 170) without unlocking this slot, if you do a lot of very fast trial runs.

It is best to decide which companions and bigger crafting crates to buy beforehand, and get them right at the start.

1. Levelling

The first task in ANB is to level up to 70 and start upgrading abilites.

You'd also want to progress to at least Severed Mountain which is the first suitable place for gold farming, picking up Eileen and Marcus on the way.

1.1. Story mode

Move fast through story mode. Craft a weapon often, as well as boots and pants with movement speed. Level up fireball to at least level 3 for the splash damage. Decide whether you'll wait a few days to level up abilities, use gems, or just keep playing and use Books of Learning later on. These are all viable strategies, depending on your time and budget.

Given a larger budget, buy crafting crates and make xp items often. If resources are not an issue, go for rares or epics with some extra stats. Crafting better quality jewelry with gems helps a bit, but it's not a must.

If you buy MoTs (mark of Titans), craft GMC weapons and just shatter everything.

If not, craft a low level Vial of Wind Spirit. Until level 70 it pretty much destroys all enemies in range. There's no need to recraft it as you level up, except for the increased +xp bonus.

If you also don't have this, use fireball, blizzard, DfA, beam, Talisman of Power... anything that works for you : )

Do you have the recipe for Fire Lily? Use it to make a cheap low level Lily - ideally epic or legendary. It will boost your damage tremendously (4-5 times). Do not allocate any stats to critical rating/critical damage.

- When do I stop running story mode?
This can vary. Most people stop at Severed mountain and switch to doing trials until the event ends. Some choose to run to The Broken Dragon (before or after levelling to 70) to pick up Robin the archer. Others make it to 43 Darkhold Citadel, as they prefer to farm gold there. DC has a better yield and takes much less total runs than SM for the same amout of gold.

Some players actually switch to trials as soon as they hit story level 4.

1.2. Trials/levelling

When your character reaches level 10, trial 1 is unlocked. To unlock trial 2, either finish t1, or reach hero level 20, and so on.

There are two main ways of levelling: doing complete trials or doing hit and runs using portals.

- Complete trials
If possible, craft GMC weapons and use shatter. This makes your life tremendously easier. Lily and Vial make it a breeze. With a good staff and some +power on gear, monsters die with 1 shatter. For the boss fights, use whichever skills/attack that works best for you, e.g. frostbeam, blizzard, or just frostbolt.

With good +xp bonus and an xp booster you can gain 10 or more levels from a single trial. If you aren't lazy and have the resources, recraft every 10 levels. If not, just craft a good staff and pants and boots with higher MS and get going. If you really want to try hard, craft better xp jewelry often.

Aim at doing higher trial than your level, e.g. at level 25 aim for trial 3. There's an xp boost when fighting higher level mobs that caps at 10 levels above your current level.

- Hit and run (portal runs)
An alternative to complete trials is doing short hit-and-runs, be it in story mode or trials. Just walk into a level, cast a portal immediately, kill a few groups and go back to town. Do not abandon - there is a time penalty. Use shatter or an AoE skill like blizzard. Most people use this strategy on Severed mountain. The downside is that you get no resources on the way.

- Complete Severed mountain runs
Some players choose to do complete SM runs with +xp and +eg gear. The advantage is that you get a fair amount of gold this way. Note that Magroth feels pretty strong, especially if you don't have Lily equipped.

- Misty Island runs
Misty Island has an xp bonus and decent drops. Some players do some runs there as well (using the free dungeon keys). As I recall, you need to have 3 keys in your regular stash (not ANB) to receive new keys in the ANB toon's mailbox.

Use +100 or +200% XP boosters to speed up the process.

2. Hitting level 70. Gold farming. Crafting jewelry and xp gear

Once you reach level 70, it is time to create gold farming and xp gear. Keep them separate, unless you know very well what you're doing

If you're comfortable with farming trials 100-105, xp/eg is a perfectly viable option.

2.1. Gold farming

Ideally, craft a GMC weapon set with EG (extra gold). Ephemeral boxes could be handy. Craft green/blue items with +gold and some useful stats - power/vitality/ar/haste. Craft a lily if you have the recipe. Optionally, use an ELR robe to increase the duration of northern wind by 2 sec.

Most players farm gold in SM. After 20 runs you begin spawning very close to the end chest, resulting in very short runs (about 10 seconds on average).

Siege of Anderhelm is also a good option. I use 'double shatter' there - nova, immo, DfA to kill mobs on the way.

2.2. Jewelry

In ANB you get 2 ephemeral rings and 1 ephemeral necklace as milestone rewards, as well as 3 jewelry boxes.

If aiming at top spots, you'd craft one set of jewelry in additional to the ephemerals. It is a personal choice whether to use ephemerals for push or xp/eg, or mix them.

You might also want to craft EG jewelry.

For pure legendary extra gold jewelry you need 27 EG necklaces and 54 rings. I find that too tedious to craft, and buy jewelry until I have 9 EG necklaces and 18 EG rings.

When crafting xp jewelry, you have to decide whether to use gemstones when fusing or not, and how many. You can also put off xp jewelry crafting until you've collected some gemstones. You can also use some of the jewelry boxes to craft higher quality jewelry.

If you still haven't - check Nhat's awesome jewelry crafting calculator!

2.3. Crafting XP farming gear

Since you are reading the ELR Mage tutorials, you'd want to craft ELR gear as soon as possible. If short on resources, use the ephemeral boxes. If you've bought a Legendary crate, just craft a full set straight away. Check the posts above for stats distribution and items.

At this point Fire Lily really shines, combined with a Frostbeam bracer. With decent beam skills, you can start farming t80-t100 in minutes. You can do very well without legendary items. To save resources, you might opt to craft rare or epic bracers.

3. Mid-game. Farming

The greater part of every ANB event is actually farming. Do fast trial runs, get the xp, materials, gold, books of learning. Improve your gear and champion levels and carry on farming. It is important to find the balance between clear times and xp and other goods earned.

On trial 80 most drops are epic, mixed with some rares and legendaries.
T90 brings more set items and legendaries (and more xp, naturally).
At T100 the dropped item levels increase slightly. There is a chance to get a few good items, but most drops are salvaged. Legendaries are less than half of all drops. XP earned increases until trial 103, which is why most people ultimately choose to run t100 or t105.
At T105 legendaries are a bit more than half of all drops.
At T120 all drops are legendaries.

Aim for short runs. How short depends on your skills, playstyle and strategy. It can be anything between 30 seconds and 2 minutes.

How to start farming 100-105 without buying any crates?

With the new drop rates (1.5.34), this is harder than it used to be. Still, if you know how to farm with beam, you can start doing trials 90+ very early.

My low-budget strategy is to buy a 50gem crate at the very beginning - it contains a ton of lesser essences. Then I rely on crafting and ephemeral boxes to gear-up. I aim at GMC weapons, frostfire sash, full ELR set, Integralas mantle, Fire lily, Talisman of Power. Remember that some of the items cannot be crafted with ephemeral boxes! Finally I craft frostbeam bracers (epic is perfectly fine). This needs MoTs, which take some time to acquire.

What if I don't have lily/bracers/etc? Can I reach trial 90/110/130 then?

It is possible to reach trial 130 or above in any ANB, starting with 0 glory! That said, this is very unlikely to happen in your first ANB. There's a lot to learn about the game and events to do that, so my advice is to play and enjoy the process

If you reach 90 in your first ANB (and get the first Celestial Transform) I'd call that a success, 110 would be a major success : )

If I don't have any glory recipes, I'd craft GMC, ELR, integralas, normal trinkets & bracers with +frost damage.

I'd buy the frostfire sash recipe (10 glory), then Talisman of Power (20), then Slayer enchantment for weapon (20).

Then I'd get bracers and lily (100 glory each). Then other trinkets - ToS, Vial of wind spirit, etc.

No rush, you'll get all the recipes you need after a few ANBs!

I'm a DfA fan, can I start farming with DfA?

Sure, just use Sash of the Igniter, ideally DfA bracers and put +fire on your gear. Check the farming tutorials above!

4. End-game. Crafting push gear

When going for the highest trial possible, you aim at crafting the absolute best push gear given your resources. Ideally, all items should be socketed and enchanted. The most important item is the staff, as it is the single biggest damage contributor. Still it might be a good strategy to stick with a 76 staff and craft other gear instead of spending all your resources going for that 77 staff.

Personally, I prepare a push-gear checklist. Thus I know which items I will have to craft/reforge/socket/enchant etc.

Ultimately, you want to take 1-2 level 77s out of ANB (as long as you need them for your main character). Be prepared that this will take a lot of crafts. The first 77 is expected within crafts 1-64; the second one should come between 65-128.

Also, write down all the crafting attempts you make. This will help you work on your strategy in the current and future events. It can also serve as something to refer to when you're complaining about how unlucky you are after the event (which is an essential part).

Remember to always socket before you make the items celestial! E.g. if you craft a level 77 robe, be sure to apply both sockets for cheap!

5. Push

How much time should I leave for push?
It depends... If you are already above CL 1900, levelling up further gets quite slow. As long as you have all the resources for crafting decent push gear, you may choose to do a longer push. I would recommend leaving 1.5-3 hours for push.

Usually up to 10 levels below your max you can skip trials and levels go fast. Then clear times get slower than 6 minutes and you have to do consecutive levels. The last few levels it is expected to have to abandon early. Learn how to identify a bad mob phase early and quit without wasting too much time (e.g. early deaths, too many elites and healers, or just slow clear). Know how much time you need for each boss and abandon before the boss fight if you won't have enough time.

Try to allow for some customization in your gear for different bosses, using sockets/passives/auras.

6. One last thing - whether you aim for trial 90 or 150, have fun and enjoy the game

Check ANB Bronze #8 videos on my youtube channel:

Trial 110 with xp/eg gear in 56 sec: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUYK...oyanBatchvarov

I don't want to clutter this post with links: there are multiple videos following my progress from character level 58 to pushing trial 151.

The 'lvl 58 to trial 90 video' is not public, because of terrible background noise. I'm still linking it here, but please make sure to mute the video: https://youtu.be/LMENtHzACec

There are also a couple videos where I play with another character (my 'testing' account) that doesn't have lily or some of the other good recipes.

ANB Bronze #7 videos from Wispy available on his channel (note there were changes since then):
https://youtu.be/Ncl1k0lQn1Q

Hegemony's youtube channel also has great ANB videos with different classe:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFM...0hIRETFWZkxKag

**bojck** · 10-05-2020, 11:58 AM

Part 11: Mobile (these are all runs prior to 1.5.34)

I'm adding a few runs by mobile players here to illustrate the differences in mobile gameplay vs PC.

The biggest difference for ELR comes when pushing with frostbeam. XP, story mode and gold farming work just as well on mobile.

On mobile you cannot vortex while beaming, which is why the usual sequence is: nova -> immolate -> vortex -> beam -> nova.

I also recommend beaming from a bit farther away on mobile, and vortexing monsters farther away from you. Thus when they 'unvortex' in the middle of the beam, they first have to move towards you before they can fire at you, which essentially keeps you happy and alive.

You may also want to run higher vitality, armor and life on hit on mobile.

150 Kara by Splode

Turns our you can actually do 150+ on mobile, with a Fire Lily build:

145 Kara by Dav:

Dav uses higher toughness and life on hit here which leads to a more enjoyable mobile gameplay:

150-154 by Pennywize

A full 5 boss mobile package:

150 mobile clear - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyAVIeP6gHs
151 mobile clear - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xI_dYbFTtI
152 mobile clear (snow dragon) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lEnU5vLobs
153 mobile clear - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlEp4PjRA7M
154 mobile clear - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy14yMpHj6E

149 Garm

The end of mob phase and beginning of boss fight @149.

I don't usually push high trials on mobile, so I'm not the expert here

Just wanted to see myself how it feels compared to PC. That said, I do farm XP at trials 80-100, do gold farming and story mode on mobile, and I quite enjoy it! For pushing I prefer PC because of the easier (for me) control with mouse&keyboard, and most importantly the larger screen.

Here I found that mob phase was considerably harder and slower for me on phone. Garm himself wasn't much of an issue, and the boss fight took just a bit longer than on PC.

This is just an experiment - check the other videos above made by actual mobile players!

**Surajnirmale** · 10-05-2020, 06:26 PM

Originally posted by bojck View Post

Part 9: Levelling. Crafting toons

Coming soon...

How to level up a new character to level 70 by Kinnu
Here Kinnu uses high level items unlocked for level 1 heroes. This is NOT a new player strategy - it takes a lot of time and gems to get these items!

This is not the good video. Should post the video for leveling up from level 1 using low level items. 1 with fire lily + vows. 2nd without fire lily only with legendary VoWS.

**Yossarian** · 10-16-2020, 03:04 PM

Hi.
I'm quite new player to eternium and I'm currently stuck on trial 95.
This guide is really helpful and I think next ANB event will push much higher.

I was trying to determine what's holding me to get to trial 100.
It's certainly my inexperience, not hiding it.
But also it seems I miss key recipes, which do not have unlocked yet.
Also my craft mastery is at lvl 35. The lvl 50 is must as I understand

I still have 5h 20m on my ANB hero, will see if I'm able to push lvl 100.
That glory would be nice

EDIT: I would like to thank everybody who shares tips on this guide!

**Yossarian** · 10-17-2020, 07:36 AM

Well, I did not want to bother you all. But hey, If somebody have a spare moment, here is my "hero" :-)
Picture with items is too small. Link to better resolution https://1drv.ms/u/s!AixCxqkANafQlkYp...IPgfZ?e=VIWFEx
P.S.- these attributes are with coffee and daily soup

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