This is the corrected version (in text form) of an old video guide i made years ago for this mastery. In that video there are a couple of mistakes i did back then and they have been corrected in this version. Also, this version starts with the 2 skills Atlantis dlc brought to the game, the video guide was older than Atlantis and it didn't include these. Still, if you want to take a look at the video, it is still 90% valid and at least you can see some gameplay of the skills there. If you want to check out the video, please CLICK ME!
DREAM IMAGE
---------------------
This is a skill that belongs to Atlantis dlc. It is a very powerful pet which actually is a clone of your own character and it has its own stats of Health/Energy and physical damage attack. The great thing is that it uses the equipment of your own character so it also attacks with the same weapon and applies the same effects to enemies. It is a very powerful pet and this is why it has a limited time and a long recharge time as a skill.
Leveling up this skill, increases the life time of the pet, the energy cost of the skill and the main Health/Energy stats of the pet. Its damage is fixed and will not get increased by level. At level 12/8 the life time of this pet will be 27 seconds.
Last but not least, this clone of your character will be able to cast only a very few skills your character uses, not all skills can be cast by it, and it will be able to cast those only if you assing them to right/left mouse buttons. You will need to experiment a bit to find out which skills it can cast.
PSIONIC BEAM
--------------------
The 2nd skill for Dream mastery that comes with Atlantis dlc. You need to remember that this skill works with all weapons, not only with Staves. The only thing that works with Staves of this skill, is the visual effect and mechanical attack of a beam that is a new and unique type of projectile. All other stats of this skill work with all weapons. The very great thing about this one is that at level 4 it provides -1 Charge Levels.
This means that when you attack with Psionic Touch and you charge up 3 levels before the actual effect to trigger, with this reduction to charge levels you need to charge up 2 levels before the effect of P.Touch triggers! This is a super powerful mechanic and it becomes even more crazy when you level up the skill to level 8/6 because then it becomes -2 Charge Levels! Now every 2nd attack of P. Touch, triggers the Total Damage and Vitality damage effects of it! Now you destroy your enemies like a boss!
TRANCE OF EMPATHY
-------------------------------
This skill is an aura skill, we activate it once and it stays on until we die. It has a radius of effect which means that it also affects your allies, other players and your pets. We get 2 abilities from this skill, the Attack damage converted to health and the Damage Reflected. The Attack damage converted to health is a very nice help because every time we hit enemies with our weapons and shields we gain back some health and it helps with survivability. This one is also good for the survivability of our pets because those too get the same ability from this skill.
The good thing about this skill is that it stacks with attack damage converted to health that we get from other sources, from items for example and the bad thing is that this ability doesn't work against all types of enemies, it works in the majority of enemies except for undead enemies, devices and constructs. But for the most part it works. One more detail to remember is that this Attack damage converted to health stat doesn't get affected by +% to Life Leech that we get from other skills and items. The +% Life Leech increases only the Life Leech over time stat.
The 2nd ability of this skill is the Damage Reflected, this one can go up to 60% if you upgrade the skill to its maximum level 12 and also it can stack with damage reflected that we get from other sources. This number here means that when enemies attack you, they will get back 60% of their attack damage and they will damage themselves. To get the most out of it you would need to stack more of this effect by finding good items for this job and don't forget that Damage reflected does not cap at 100%, it can go even higher, much higher.
Trance of Convalesence
------------------------------
This is one more aura skill. It provides damage absorption, health and energy regeneration. It also affects allies and pets so it is a great skill for both pet builds and also multiplayer sessions. Energy Reserved is like a cost that we pay for this skill to be active, it means that down here in our energy bar, 100 energy points will not be available to us for casting skills so for example if we have 556 energy points and activate the skill then 100 of the points become unavailable and we now can use only 456 points. So in case we had a skill that required 457 points to activate, we would not be able to cast it because now we have only 456 points.
The damage absorption that we get from the skill works against all attacks, both melee and ranged ones so it improves our survivability.
Health and Energy regeneration are very useful and can stack with the same abilities that we get from other sources like items and skills.
On level 12 this skill gives 15% Damage absorption, +12 Health regeneration and +3.2 Energy regeneration.
Trance of Wrath
---------------------
This is the 3rd and final trance skill of this mastery and as the description says we can only have one active.
The meter radius of the skill grows as we put more points into it and the same happens to the Electrical burn damage over time and reduced resistances over time. The skill disruption is a fixed number and there is no way to increase it.
This skill deals electrical burn damage over time, it is a DoT skill, electrical burn damage is a lighting element type of DoT and one way to increase the damage of this skill is by increasing the levels of it while the other way is to use items or even other skills that provide + a percentage of elemental damage. Of course putting attribute points to Intelligence also increases our overall elemental damage.
If we take this skill to its cap at 12 it deals 182 damage over 4 seconds. This means that for each one of the 4 seconds the skill deals one fourth of this number so it would be 45,5 points per second.
On the other hand the reduced resistances number doesn't get divided by 4, it reduces all resistances of enemies (except for armor) for 4 seconds, so for this period of time the enemies will have 32% reduced resistances.
Of course reduced resistances means that the electrical burn damage of this skill deals even more damage than what this number shows and it would be a great idea to try and reduce the resistances of our enemies even further by using other skills and items with this skill, the more you reduce resistances the more powerful the skill becomes.
The skill disruption ability interrupts some of the attacks of the enemies surrounding you so it helps with your survivability. The last thing to remember is that this skill applies only to you, not to your pets, not to other players in multiplayer.
Lucid Dream
-----------------
This is a great skill because it provides more damage to physical, vitality and electrical burn as percentages. This detail is important because when we get a percentage of damage instead of a flat number of damage, then this percentage increases all of our attacks with items of that type of damage and it also increases the damage of all of our skills that deal the same type of damage, even if these skills come from another mastery. So, this skill could work on at least 3 different types of builds since it provides buffs for 3 different types of damage.
Premonition
-----------------
This skill is very nice, Offensive Ability works only with melee attacks and also it helps with dealing critical damage to enemies, again only melee attacks can deal critical damage and only if your melee attacks deal Physical or Pierce damage, melee attacks of Elemental damage e.t.c. do not crit.
Defensive Ability is also very powerful and increases your survivability especially against critical damage from enemies, the more Defensive Ability you have the less critical damage you take. So, this skill is great and you want to use it in all types of builds that you make, even if you don't need Offensive Ability in case you play a ranged build or spellcaster, the Defensive Ability it provides is always useful.
Temporal flux
------------------
A very nice skill, the Ttotal Speed ability increases all types of speed and it can be used along with other skills and items that provide more total speed. Total speed itself has no cap because it increases at the same time three individual types of speed that each one of those do have a cap.
Correction from the video: Projectile speed doesn't belong to Total Speed stat.
The Avoid Projectiles is a very useful ability for survivability reasons and it helps against all types of projectiles, the good thing about it is that we can stack it with other skills and items so we can get an even bigger amount of projectile evasion.
What we said for the other 2 applies also to Slow resistance, Slow resistance is a secondary type of resistance but for some builds it can be crucial so it helps very much. The great thing about secondary resistances such as this one is that these do not receive a penalty when we play on higher difficulties so it is easier (compared to primary resistances) to get it to its maximum which is 80%.
Sands of Sleep
------------------
This is a nice skill for crowd controlling enemies, if many enemies come at you at once, you can use it on them and make them sleep for a while. This is very helpful for killing them easier and even better when you need to escape and your enemies run fast enough to catch you, so you put them to sleep and go away.
Putting points increases the time they will sleep over and actually you could increase the duration of the skill by using some items that provide a buff for sleep duration although there are not many items in the game with this buff.
Anyway, this skill is mostly for leveling new characters, it could also be used in advanced builds but not so much. Lets not forget an importand detail, not all enemies can be put to sleep, this skill will not work on every enemy in the game and of course it will not work against bosses (a couple exceptions may exist).
Summon Nightmare
---------------------------
This is one more pet of this game and it works the way all pets do. It has its own energy bar which uses to cast its abilities and it has 2 abilities, up to level 4 it is using the Psionic Beam ability but when we take it to level 5 it unlocks its 2nd ability, the Dream Surge skill. The 1st skill hits only one enemy while the 2nd is an AoE skill which hits multiple enemies in one attack. The 2nd one also converts some of the pet's attack damage to health, but this health goes back to the pet, it doesn't go to our characters.
Also when we increase the level of the pet, its chances to dodge attacks and projectiles increase and it helps with its survivability, these 2 chances, cap at 51% on level 18 and stop there, after level 18 there is no increase at all on this pet.
Hypnotic Gaze
-------------------
This is a very nice addition to the abilities of this pet because it helps with crowd controlling some enemies that get confused and also it reduces the resistances of enemies meaning that both our attacks and the attacks of our pets deal more damage against those enemies.
The more points we invest in this skill the more both the duration of confusion and the reduced resistances increase with maximum being 50% reduction in resistances and 8.5 seconds of confusion on level 12 out of 8.
One detail to remember is that if an enemy is affected by Trance of Wrath and has its resistances reduced by that skill, then the reduction from Hypnotic gaze will not stack with the one from the Trance, instead if the number from Hypnotic gaze is bigger than the one of Wrath's then this number will replace the lower number from the Trance and vice versa.
For example, an enemy is affected from level 5's Trance of wrath and has its resistances reduced by 18%, if now the enemy takes an attack from level 5's Hypnotic gaze which deals 22% reduced resistances, then the 18% of this skill stops working and now the 22% of this one is active which means we can not stack reduction to resistances when they come in the form of a percentage to all resistances, the bigger number replaces the smaller.
Master Mind
-----------------
This is probably the best skill of this pet because it buffs the performance of all of your other pets, it provides more damage, health and energy regeneration. The Total Damage ability means that it doesnt matter what types of damage your pets deal, they all will get this buff because it affects all types of primary damage. One thing you should remember is that even though this icon appears in the buffs' icons of your own character, it applies only to pets, your character gets no benefit from this one. Which means, if you want to play a pet build with dream mastery then this skill is amazing and you need to use it.
Psionic Touch
------------------
This is a skill that we can use with our main weapons. It works with all types of weapons, melee, bows, staves and thrown weapons alike. It activates only on the 4th charge, meaning that you attack 3 times, each time counts as a charge level and on the 4th hit it triggers, so the Total Damage numbers that you see here and the Vitality damage work only on the 4th attack you hit with this skill. Leveling up this skill increases the numbers of damage of the skill but it doesn't reduce the charge levels.
There is a way to trigger this 4th hit more often and this can happen if we increase our attacking speed because when we have a very fast attacking speed, we hit faster and we reach the 4th hit sooner so we deal the damage of this skill more often to our enemies. Another great way for this skill to trigger even more often is to combine it with the Volley skill of the Hunting mastery but this would work only for 3 types of weapons, Spears, bows and thrown weapons.
If you use the Volley skill which can release 3 projectiles per attack instead of one in combination with Psionic touch, then, if on your first hit with Psionic touch the Volley skill triggers and releases 3 projectiles, on your 2nd attack the effect of this skill will trigger because the 1st hit counts as 3 hits or 3 charge levels because the 1st hit released 3 projectiles instead of one. This is a great synergy and can work only with these 3 types of weapons. But you need to remember that for this one hit of Volley to count as 3 charges, all 3 projectiles will need to hit one or multiple targets. If only 2 projectiles hit targets and the 3rd one misses, then it will count as 2 charges and you will need to attack again for P.Touch to trigger.
Psionic Burn
-----------------
This skill triggers only on the 4th hit, just like the Psionic Touch does, but its performance doesn't get affected by the base skill which means when it triggers it will not deal the Vitality damage of P.Touch neither its Total Damage, it will deal only its own damage.
This is a nice skill because it hits multiple targets and also it deals even more damage to demons and also slows down the movement of enemies for some time.
So, after it triggers, enemies will receive the electrical burn damage of this skill but we should not forget that this effect here does not stack with the same effect of the Trance of Wrath.
If for example an enemy affected by this Trance gets hit with Psionic burn then only the strongest skill will aply, so if Trance on level 7 deals 100 damage and we hit with Psionic burn which in level 7 deals 132 damage then the 132 will replace the 100 of the Trance. Also the effect of this skill doesn't stack with weapons, only the strongest applies.
Distortion Field
--------------------
This is a nice skill that can save you when you fight against many enemies at the same time. When it triggers you get a flat number of damage absorption, a percentage of damage absorption and a flat number of physical damage retaliaton to enemies.
The damage absorption shows how much damage you negate from incoming attacks of enemies and works with all types of damage, physical, elemental, melee, ranged etc. For example, if an enemy attacks you with 100 damage and the skill provides 45 damage absortpion, you will only receive 55 damage (flat damage absorption).
The percentage of damage absorption does the same with the flat but it calculates damage negation multiplicatively before the flat damage absorption applies while the Physical Retaliaton works only against enemies that hit you with melee attacks so they receive this number of damage.
Since this skill has only 5% chance to trigger the best way to use it is to fight against many enemies at the same time so if for example 10 enemies hit you one after another the chances for the skill to trigger go up. And of course let's not forget that the skill has 15 seconds duration and 30 seconds recharge. This means that to have it active as often as possible we can do that by reducing the recharge time of our skills, in this case a 50% reduction to recharge time would be ideal because it would take the cooldown down to 15 seconds so when the skill wears off it instantly has a chance to reactivate if you get hit.
Phantom Strike
--------------------
This is a skill that hits one enemy, when it hits it deals more total damage which means all types of damage that your attack comes with, will be increased, for example if you deal both physical and elemental damage then both physical and elemental deal more damage with this attack. You need to remember that this skill works only with melee weapons, all types of melee weapons (except shields, they do not affect it). Staves, thrown weapons and bows are not compatible.
Dream Stealer
------------------
This addon is a great skill and in general if you play with Phantom Strike you need to be using this skill too. The main reason for that is that this skill turns Phantom Strike into an AoE skill because now you hit multiple enemies instead of only one target.
The other great thing of this addon is that it adds a good amount of physical damage to your Phantom strike, a great amount of energy leech and a few seconds of stunning the enemies. Remember this detail, if you take the skill to its maximum level 8 then the number of the targets it hits, increases to 6. But if you take the skill one level above, the number increases to 7 whereas if you take this skill to level 11 then it increases to 8 targets and it caps to this number. So to get the most powerful state of this skill, you should take it to plus 3 levels overcap. Hitting 8 enemies with such a powerful skill is no joke, you deal a tremendous amount of damage.
Distort Reality
--------------------
Here we have one more powerful skill, this one deals physical Damage, Vitality damage and also stuns enemies for some time. Increasing the level of this skill, increases only the 2 types of damage it deals, the stun duration and the meter radius of the skill are fixed and do not get increased per level. If you would like to increase the duration of the stun effect you could do so by using some items that give a percentage to stun duration like the Adroit Loop ring for example.
Since this skill deals both physical and vitality damage we can increase further the damage output of the skill by increasing the Strength attribute for the physical damage part and increasing the Intelligence attribute for the Vitality damage part. Another way to boost the skill is to use items or other skills that provide percentages of more physical or vitality damage and of course to use items or skills that reduce the resistances of enemies to these 2 types.
Temporal Rift
------------------
This is a great addon and also very very useful because it can petrify enemies so when we use it we have the ability to stun some enemies and petrify some other at the same time so we can control crowds of enemies and make battles much easier for us. Of course it deals some Electrical burn damage over time and as we can see, it will deal some flat damage to demons, this flat damage will be applied once per Distort Reality attack.
We also get this Energy drain effect which deals damage while draining the energy of our enemies. This is very useful but it works only against enemies that have an energy bar, there are enemies with no energy bars so to those enemies this ability is useless.
One thing to remember is that the damages of this addon do not stack with similar types of damage that we get from items, they work separately.
Distortion Wave
--------------------
This skill is actually a spell and the damage type that it deals is physical. So, one of the ways to increase the damage of this skill is to gain more Strength attribute, by equipping items that provide flat numbers or percentages of Strength and another way would be of course to equip items that provide percentages to physical damage.
The only other thing it does is to slow down enemies, the more points we invest in this one, the more the percentage of slow effect increases, the duration of the skill though is fixed and can not get increased by level.
This is a great skill because it is also a ranged one meaning that you cast it from a distance and hit enemies far away, so they receive damage and when they start running at you, they do not reach you very fast because of the slowdown effect of the skill and this effect gives you more time to do your next moves during battles.
Chaotic Resonance
------------------------
This addon is very importand, when we look at the skill without having invested any points we see that it gives some physical damage and some armor reduction for enemies hit by this one. But, after we put one point we can see now that we also get minus 3 seconds recharge time. This reduction works only for Distortion wave skill, it will not work for any other skill in the game. This reduction is very important if you want to be casting Distortion Wave as frequently as possible and as we can see the initial recharge time of this skill is 10 seconds and after we apply one point it goes down to 7 seconds. Let us remember that this number of reduction is fixed and can not get increased by level, only the physical damage and the reduced armor effect get increased by level and of course the energy cost for casting the skill.
Btw, the reduced armor effect means that enemies affected receive more physical damage so if you use this skill on a target and then use it again on the same target then he will receive even more damage from the same skill.
Psionic Immolation
------------------------
This skill adds Electrical burn damage to enemies hit and also makes demons receive even more damage but this buff against demons works only within this addon. Now the great thing is that when we put one point here then we also get minus 3 seconds recharge time. This one works exactly as the reduction we get from Chaotic resonance, it adds this reduction and reduces the cooldown of Distortion wave to 4 seconds which is very good for casting the skill frequently enough and destroying enemies. Again, this reduction is fixed and can not get increased by level.
Now, if we want to make a build with the primary attack to be Distortion wave, we can reduce the cooldowns of all skills by using items with recharge reduction and get minus 80% reduction which is the maximum we can get. If we do that then the cooldown of Distortion Wave goes down to 0.8 seconds and we can be casting it all the time and obliterate enemies.
No comments:
Post a Comment