User:Vyn/Anorithil

The following notes based on the character below:

Satz: Drem Anorithil (insane/adventure)

Overview

The Anorithil is a mid-range caster:

Strengths

• Tanky and resilient because...
  • Light tree gives shields, healing, and continuous cleanse.
  • Chants tree gives many defensive buffs and on-demand cleanse.
  • Positive/negative energy only take normal fatigue penalty, so it is feasible to use heavy or massive armors.
• Exceptional crowd control with Circles and many other talents to silence/knockback/blind/confuse/clone enemies.
• Absurd burst damage with Arcane Amplification Drone.
• Can easily escape from most dangers with Jumpgate.

Weaknesses

• Optimal combat range is within circle radius, which is typically 4 or 5 tiles, which will expose one to more danger.
• Many talents deal friendly damage, so must be careful when fighting around friendly/neutral units.
• Positive/negative energy pools are quite small, and need to be boosted with equipment (e.g. belts with the "of containment" ego), or pickup talents that can mitigate casting cost.
• Damage type is normally limited to light and darkness, which can make it difficult to deal with enemies like radiant/searing horrors or Sun Paladins.

General Impressions

• The Anorithil are mid-range casters. Their optimal range is 4 or 5 squares, due to the various Circle talents and PBAoE attacks in that range. Being able to position yourself so enemies are forced to fight with a wall behind them is particularly useful, as this allows one to pin them in place with Circle of Warding, without pushing them too far away.
• The positive/negative energy resource can be depleted quite quickly, so the resource recovery talents – Twilight and Twilight Surge – need to be part of the normal spell rotation.
• Anorithil are pretty survivable casters due to access to the Light tree talents for recovery. They utility of the Twilight tree's talents are also pretty helpful: resource recovery, teleport, confuse enemies, clone enemies.
• The Glyphs tree is very underwhelming. The effects are just too weak outside of Glyph of Moonlight's damage debuff, and even then the duration is too short. The supposed synergy between Empowered Glyphs and Darkest Light is usually too much trouble to setup and play for. It is much easier to utilize Darkest Light by just equipping items with damage affinity to light or darkness damage.
• The common wisdom is that Anorithil have great synergy with spell procs. While this is true, it is also very dependent on item drops. If you cannot find a Life Drinker, there's really just no easy way to force the issue. Common artifacts like Prothotipe's Prismatic Eye are pretty underwhelming.
• The Anorithil has a decent selection of beam and AoE attack talents. It also has many attack talents that scale with the number of visible enemies. This makes Arcane Amplification Drone a good choice for an offensive prodigy. Of particular note is that Corona triggered AAD attacks will often be the largest component of one's damage output, due to the three Circles each triggering Corona twice for each enemy in sight, and the AAD counting as one enemy.
• Radiant/searing horrors and Sun Paladin enemies can be a big problem to Anorithils due to their high damage affinity to light. There are some countermeasures that one can take however.
  • Picking up the Harmony tree for Healing Nexus can shut down enemy healing from damage affinity.
  • Look for items that can change your damage type, such as the relatively common Elemental Fury. Keep an eye out for artifact weapons too. Even if they are not your preferred staves, you may still use them to deal with damage affinities.
  • Arcane Amplification Drone can also change your damage type.

Deaths and Threats

• First death was due to opening a chest in the Dark Crypt, which spawned a random boss elven guard, with Gunslinger and Archer classes. I managed to trap the boss in my circles and push it away, after which it started to shoot at me. I kept back peddling to dodge the projectiles, but then got hit with a critical Volley (not a projectile?) for 1143 damage and was one-shot killed. This could have been a survivable shot, given that my health was at 964, a shield on top of that would have saved my life, but I must've let it lapse while dodging the projectiles earlier.

Aside from the tactical issue above, there is also the strategic issue that entering the Dark Crypt at early levels on insane difficulty, even after acquiring one's first prodigy (Adept in this case), is still a very dangerous affair. I had actually made plans to go hide in Dreadfell at level 23 due to a similar death on my previous character, but I got greedy and killed the Sandworm Queen on level 23 for more talent points, gained a level, and that made it impossible to travel any distance on the world map without triggering the Dark Crypt.

One issue that may have to be resolved before hiding inside Dreadfell is storage. It would be convenient to rebind the Rod of Recall to the Sher'Tul Fortress in order to camp out Dreadfell for any extended period of time, especially on casters with low strength. To make this possible, it would be important to save up a stash of high value loot in a vault somewhere, clear out the Weirdling Beast in the Sher'Tul Fortress at level 23, then go back and transmogrify the stash to quickly charge up the requisite fortress energy.

These preparations are pretty important for a full clear run, given that The Godfeaster is another forced encounter on the world map at level 30, and one will almost certainly get caught up in that immediately after a full clear of the Dark Crypt.

Battle Notes

• Preparation procedure before taking the stairs:
  1. Activate Hymn of Detection and rest until full
  2. Use Barrier for a long duration shield. Can repeat this step to fish for a critical hit, amplified by the Hymn of Detection's bonus.
  3. Use Precognition, Track, or a wand of clairvoyance to enable long distance scouting.
  4. Take the stairs. The active scouting talents with the detection bonuses from Hymn of Detection should help you assess the situation correctly.
  5. If combat is necessary, can activate Hymn of Shadows for the movement and casting speed buff.
     This also cancels Hymn of Detection, which will turn you invisible with Hymn Adept, giving you a few turns to engage enemies while invisible.

• It is possible to distract Subject Z from the Yeek Wayist by casting Shadow Simulacrum on it. After that, using a movement infusion or the speed bonus from cancelling Hymn of Shadows with Hymn Adept, one can circle around Subject Z, then push him back through the door with a torque of gale force. To ensure that the torque's full force will take effect, it is important to dig out a long passage directly in front of the door. Once Subject Z has been pushed through the door, you can quickly catch up to him with another movement boost and dispatch him before the Yeek Wayist is able to endanger itself again.

Beware that many Anorithil talents will damage neutral units like the Yeek Wayist, so they cannot be used in this encounter. Among these are all the Circles talents and Mind Blast.

Sun Flare and Starfall are also CC options, but they cannot reliably stop Subject Z from killing the Yeek Wayist.