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EARTH ENCHANTMENT
As the description says, the flat fire damage of the skill works only with weapons. In general in this game flat numbers of damage can be applied only by weapon attacks, default weapon attacks or skills that directly use weapons to be applied, for example Onslaught of Warfare mastery and more. The percentages to fire and burn are global stats and they increase those types of damage you deal from both spells and weapon attacks.
This is a great skill as it can also affect your pets and allies and improve the performance to damage of whole parties so it is a great idea to use it but if you don't care about the fire damage it provides then you should still use it for the 2 addons it comes with. Leveling up this skill doesn't change the flat number of fire damage it provides but it takes the percentages up to 100% at level 12/12.
BRIMSTONE
This first addon provides a percentage to physical damage and a flat number of Burn over time. The physical damage will increase the damage you deal with weapons and spells, not only with weapons, and it is a good idea to use it if you play with this type of damage. The burn damage over time is a flat one which means it can be applied only when you attack with weapons or skills that use weapons like Onslaught. This is a skill you would normally try to max out for endgame. The burn damage number may seem low but if you use items providing flat burn damage, they will all stack together and will become pretty good.
STONE SKIN
This one is a great skill for many classes especially those based on Intelligence based armor items. The flat armor will be applied at full to each one of the four armor slots and will help to mitigate incoming physical damage more. The Armor stats in this game mitigate only physical damage, nothing else. Of course it also provides Fire Resistance which is always useful, at least until you reach endgame and find many items that provide great fire or elemental resistances to max it out without using this skill here. As a new player/character, you should definitely use this skill and make it a priority.
VOLATIVITY
Here we have a skill of tremendous power! It is only a buff to physical and fire damage types of your attacks with weapons and spells but it is a huge one because at maximum level 12/12 you can get from it +89% Physical damage and +178% to both Fire and Burn damage! And then you have +4 levels to gain if you have items that provide plus to skills so the numbers go much higher!
There is a detail to remember. The "33% chance of" stat is different from the "33% chance for one of the following:" in that it triggers all effects of the skill together instead of choosing randomly one of the 3 effects. If the wording was "chance to trigger one of the following" then it would trigger only the buff to physical damage or the buff to fire or the buff to burn. Now it activates all 3 and that makes it very powerful. Also, this skill doesn't affect your pets, only your weapon attacks and spells.
HEAT SHIELD
This is a skill i almost never max out unless i have points to waste. Usually 1 point to this skill is enough if you have great fire resistances because the Damage Absorption of this skill works only against Fire/Burn damage and the 15% Physical Resistance doesn't change by level, it's a fixed number. Of course you also get a small number of Burn retaliation damage which is kind of useless. Retaliation damage in general, only get's affected by gear that provides a percentage to retaliation (there are very few items that do this) and by leveling up your character because it scales automatically to your levels. So, as a beginner you spend a point here to get the 15% Physical Resistance and move on to much more important skills.
STONE FORM
This is a great skill because it provides immunity for its duration and at the same time it heals you up. If you can get a huge amount of - Recharge to your skills so that you will be able to cast it all the time, then you can make a great build for completing the Hardcore achievements on Steam or even a great build based on Damage Reflection mechanics!
As a new character it is a good idea to spend a point to this one as you level up and invest in other more important skills. Spending more points only increases the energy cost and Health regeneration but you will not really need this amount of Health regeneration in the beginning of the game especially if you use health potions at the right time, it is better to max it out in legendary difficulty.
MOLTEN ROCK
This addon does two things, first it adds 2 seconds to the duration of Stone Form and second it adds some flat instant Fire retaliation. This means that when enemies hit you while under the effects of the skill with melee attacks, they receive back some fire damage. Retaliation works only with melee attacks, not with ranged or spells. It's a good idea to spend a single point just to get the 2 seconds duration and then forget about it unless much later you have points to spare and you know that you use Stone Form all the time.
METEOR RAIN
This is one of the skills Atlantis dlc brought to the game. It is an awesome looking and very powerful spell that throws meteors from the sky to the ground but the bad thing is that many times it misses the enemies and it doesn't feel very efficient to use. This is a very powerful skill if you take it too maximum level and it deals both physical and burn damage and it also stuns enemies.
The flat burn damage on this skill can not stack with other sources (items, spells, addons) because it is a spell but of course it can be increased by skills that provide percentages to Burn/elemental damage, and by Intelligence points or +% Total damage stats. It will also deal more damage to races of enemies that you deal more damage against in the form of a percentage (+% damage to undead, beasts e.t.c.).
SUMMON CORE DWELLER
This is a pet which can become very tanky later after you invest into its addon skills. The base skill increases only basic stats and the physical damage of the pet. It is good to remember that pets do not get affected by the attribute points of our characters and the only ways to increase their performance would be to equip gear that provides bonus to all pets, use skills that affect allies and of course to level up the skills of pets. If you want to use this one as a tanky pet to distract your enemies away from you, then you need to invest heavily to its addons that provide survivability to the pet.
INNER FIRE
The stats of this skill are very good for this pet. The flat numbers of Fire damage will be added to the melee attacks and the others stats will increase its performance each one accordingly. Let's not forget that for melee attacks in general Offensive ability is crucial to be able to hit the enemies and Dexterity points increase the Offensive and Defensive ability of everyone. So, for a good performing Core Dweller, you would need to max out this addon. But remember that all attribute points on characters do not affect pets.
WILDFIRE
This one is an area of effect skill which hits multiple enemies and applies the stats that we can see here. The numbers of Burn damage can be increased if we use skills or items that provide buffs to pets. The percentage to reduced offensive ability would mean that enemies under this effect will have less chances to hit both the pet and your character on their next attack but this works only with melee attacking enemies.
METAMORPHOSIS
This is the skill you would need to max out first if you would want to have the pet as a tank without caring too much about its damage output. It gives good amounts to health and Elemental resistances and increases its survivability against physical damage. About the differences between buffs to Armor Protection and Armor Absorption we will have an exclusive guide since it can become confusing to beginners of the game. If you want to get an example of a pet build which uses Core Dweller as the main pet for both damage output and as a tank, then check out on my YouTube (The Line of Epic Heroes) channel the build "The Rock Star", it is a build guide video.
RING OF FLAME
This is an aura like skill which you activate and stays active until you are left out of energy or enemies dispell it. As a starting skill in normal difficulty it is very powerful if you max it out very soon and combine it with other skills such as Trance of Wrath from Dream mastery. The problem though is that it requires lots of energy regeneration so as beginners you should avoid doing that.
It deals only Fire damage and the more you level it up, the more you increase its radius of effect. To get the best out of it you would need to equip items that provide - Energy cost and more energy points. The Recharge of the skill is there despite it being constantly active as an aura. What it does is to prevent you from casting it instantly after someone has dispelled it on you and you have activated it again and he instantly dispelled it once more, now you will have to wait for this recharge time to be done so you can cast it again. This makes combat a bit more challenging if you rely on this skill too much.
SOFTEN METAL
This addon will add physical damage to the base skill and now it will be more powerful. But this is not the best thing of this addon, the best is that it reduces the Offensive ability of enemies and the Armor so if you use other attacks that deal physical damage they will receive more damage of that type and if they attack with melee attacks they will not be able to hit you as much. Of course it also adds to the cost, up to 5 Energy cost per second so if you'd like to play a Ring of Flame build maxed out, then you would really have some Energy problems. The best way to utilize Ring of Flame would be to spend a couple of points only on that and if you can, max out this addon to use the skill as an utility one rather as a damage output. In case you'd like to see an advanced build based on Ring of Flame, you can take a look at my "Lord of the Ring" build guide video on my channel!
FIRE NOVA
One more skill that came with Atlantis dlc and is awesome! It has a huge area of effect and it deals both Fire and Burn damage. The chance of Impaired Aim to enemies means that now those enemies that use ranged attacks on you, have more chances to miss you instead of hitting you which is very useful to have since the meter radius of effect of Fire Nova is 20 meters and usually ranged enemies will be inside this radius. You can't increase the radius of effect of this skill but you can increase its damage output to good amounts. Of course the Energy cost of the skill goes up by leveling up the skill but this makes sense since it is a powerful one. Spend at least one point on this one for the Impaired Aim effect in case you don't want or can't use it for other reasons.
FLAME SURGE
This is a spell that releases 3 projectiles all the time and deals fire damage while reducing the Defensive Ability of enemies. It's a spell that is not very efficient if you won't work with its addons too but it has this nice little mechanic which unofficialy is called "shotgun" effect. This is how it works. The spell releases 3 projectiles. If you use it to enemies in a distance then maybe each one of the projectiles will hit different enemies. But if you use it on a single enemy in front of you then all 3 projectiles will hit the same enemy and you will deal 3 times the damage! This is the shotgun effect!
BARRAGE
This addon is awesome for every single stat it provides. At level 8/8 it will reduce the initial Recharge of the skill by -4.8 seconds and at level 12/8 the reduction will be by - 6 seconds which means that now the skill will have no cooldowns and you will be able to spam it all the time as a main spell!
The chance to pass through enemies means that it hits the first enemy and then it goes beyond him and hits an enemy behind him! It is a nice effect which increases the range of the skill in a way, we could say! Finally the Energy cost reduction we get here is awesome and helps very much with casting the skill constantly! One more detail, the shotgun effect works also with the Burn damage of this skill! If all 3 projectiles hit the same enemy then he will receive 3 times Burn damage instead of one!
FLAME ARCH
This addon increases even more the damage output of the spell and it also adds more projectiles! The number of projectiles will reach 2 at level 5, 3 at level 9 and 4 at level 14! So now you will have 7 projectiles coming out of the spell and destroying your enemies especially when you use the "shotgun" technique! Of course it increases the energy cost of the spell but this is why you would need to max out the previous addon Barrage. Flame Surge with its 2 addons is a very nice skill to make builds around but it only deals fire damage which quite a few enemies would be highly resistant of. So, it would be better to combine it on your character with at least one more type of damage, the best candidates in this case would be physical or another type of Elemental damage.
VOLCANIC ORB
This is one more skill that deals both fire and physical damage. It also has a 3 meter radius of effect which makes it an area of effect skill but this radius is fixed and will not increase by level ups. The skill is good on its own but nothing special, it can become better if we use its addons. It is a good idea when you play a new character to spend a couple of points on this one and later to invest in the 2 addons of this skill. The great thing about it is that it has a low recharge time and it can be used very frequently. If you manage to reduce the recharge to your skills by 80% then this skill can become a nice crowd controlling and damage dealing skill as we will see in the addons.
CONFLAGRATION
This addon will only add a flat number of Fire Burn damage over time to the skill and increase its radius of effect by 1 meter maximum. This is a good addon to spend a single point on just for the 1 meter radius increment in case you don't care about dealing damage over time to enemies.
FRAGMENTATION
This addon in combination with maximum cooldown reduction and great energy cost reduction, makes Volcanic Orb shine! Not only do the fragments of this skill deal both fire and physical damage but also the more you level up this addon the more fragments it can release with the maximum being 8 - 15 fragments at level 16/12!
One more highlight of the addon is that it will stun enemies for 1.5 seconds which unfortunately is fixed and won't change by leveling up the skill. But it is enough to be good for stunning minor enemies all the time and at the same time damaging them. So, overall, even if you don't care about playing a build based on Volcanic orb spell, it is still a great idea to spend a single point to the base skill and a single point to Fragmentation for the stun effect. In this case you won't need to increase the meter radius of Volcanic orb by 1 meter because that will not effect the fragments of Fragmentation. By the way, the 2 meter radius on Fragmentation addon, is not how far the fragments can travel but how much "space" they affect, or to make it easier to understand, how "fat" they are.
ERUPTION
This is one of the most powerful and beautiful spells in the game! It deals both fire and physical damage, as Volcanic Orb does, it releases fragments, as Volcanic Orb does, it has a meter radius of effect as Volcanic Orb does but is also has some duration which makes it a very powerful spell! Leveling up this skill will not change the meter radius and duration of effect but it will increase the other stats including energy cost.
The spell can deal great amounts of damage even to big bosses and if you can reduce its recharge to minimum and have great energy cost reduction, then you can use this one every 4 seconds and in combination with the stunning effect of Volcanic Orb it can be totally awesome. Weapon idea for Energy Cost reduction: The Legendary Thrown weapon called "Touch of Nyx" provides about -33% Energy Cost and +10 Energy regeneration per second which makes it one of the best items in the game for spell casters!
The End (Thank you for reading, remember to Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more video and livestreaming content)!
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