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Easy Rider, Pure Caster Rev-Tech Seraphim. A Guide to Mass Destruction.
By ScoobyDouche
First let me say this is by no means meant to be the most optimized build. My primary goal for making it was to create a viable, pure caster seraphim, that can be affective without utilizing any weapon related skills or aspects.
This build does take time to reach its potential and depends on quality equipment to be effective, so shopping will be an important part of your success. If you are turned off by shopping, item management and a tough beginning you probably won't find that here. If you're still interested and are willing to spend the time to build her up, she will rock your world!
Strong AOE - Flaring Nova may seem mediocre at lower levels, but with upgrades and the right equipment it will turn into a devastating AOE that will maw through packs of mobs like a bulldozer.
Strong Defense - Defense isn't usually the first thing associated with a pure caster hero. The Rev-Tech sera however, comes equipped not only with a great shield buff but also with possibly one of the best defensive combat art in the game in the form of Divine Protection. We will make use of Celestial Magics Cleansing Brilliance imba attack speed reduction aura and Hallowed Restoration to round off her protection and give enable her to heal and break roots at will as an added bonus.
Boss Destroyer - Why settle for heavy AOE and strong defense when we can also have the ability to kill bosses in 10 hits? what? 10 hits too much, how about 6? 5? no? then what? 2 shots?! can the Rev-Tech sera do that? You betcha!
Party Friendly - You can heal party members with hallowed restoration and this build will make use of cleansing brilliance which will slow down creeps attack in an area around the seraphim and Flaring Nova modified for stun chance will slow down incoming damage even more. This can benefit not only our heroin but also anyone whom she parties with.
Most important of all if the added light radius from CB which will illuminate the darkness and bring joy to all around you. No really.
Shopper - As i mentioned earlier, this build will require good equipment to be effective. Integrating Bargaining in the the build makes her self reliant and you also gain a shopper in the process.
If you already have a shopper you intend to level along with her you can check out the alternative builds section for some suggestions on what to take instead.
Equipment Dependant - Clothes maketh the man! Just like Tony Stark, you need quality equipment to realize your true power (to abuse items!) and be effective.
Can't One-Shot Champs - Even though she can kill bosses in the blink of an eye, she can't seem to be able to one-shot most champs, Still, most champs will fall from two waves of Flaring Nova which takes about 3 seconds to complete so she can still take them out, just not effectively as a melee sera. At later levels when you get 75 in concentration you can have BFG up at all times and use that to deal with champs.
Training Takes Time - The pure caster takes time to start showing its true power. You will have to rely on your weapons at the early stage until your skill build starts to take form and you upgrade your combat arts and equipment.
The build is pretty straight forward but the order is not terribly important since it will not come to full potential until most skills are already picked. Still, here is my recommendation for the build order:
Level 2:  Revered Technology Lore
Boosts damage, crit, and casting speed of Flaring Nova and Archangels Wrath, needless to say you will want to invest a lot of points in this skill. I suggest keeping this maxed at least to level 150.
Level 3:  Warding Energy Lore
We're taking this to strengthen Warding Energy buff a bit to help our survivability in the early stage. It's not a lot, but we will want to start maxing it early as well. However, don't put any more points in here until level 9 because you will need to invest them in Riding first to unlock Bargaining.
Level 5:  Riding
Since this build focuses almost solely on one aspect, the Riding skill will fit in quite nicely.
Faster regens on all but one support combat art makes for more DPS and faster killing. and to top it all off how about a hefty chunk of bonus hitpoints and defense? yes thanks!
Add another point to Riding and on each level untill level 8 (for a total of 5 points) to unlock Bargaining and stop.
Level 8:  Bargaining
We take Bargaining early for a couple of reasons. First, its one of the only skills that has great benefit in lower skill and character levels. Since this is a build that matures slowly we can really use Bargaining at this time. I will discuss shopping in more detail later on. No more points for now.
From level 9 start dumping your extra point/s in Warding Energy Lore untill its maxed at level 20.
Level 12:  Armor Lore
Faster regens? check! higher level armor without penalties? check! more armor and mods? check and check!
Possibly the best skill of them all. so good its hard to justify not taking it on practically any build with any class. No more points till later. You should have some +all skills in your armor by now from shopping which will be enough to get plenty of usefulness out of it without having to spend points on it early on.
Level 18:  Celestial Magic Focus
Reduces regens and enable upgrades on Cleansing Brilliance buff and Hallowed Restoration. At this level don't put points in Warding Energy Lore, add 2 more in Celestial Magic and upgrade Hallowed Restoration with the hp regen mod (Recuperation) for a nice boost in your defensive capability. 2 points in Warding Energy at level 20 will get it maxed. Keep it maxed now every level along with Rev-Tech Lore.
Save any extra points you have until level 25.
Level 25:  Revered Technology Focus
Improved regen times for Rev-Tech aspect, higher spell levels and faster upgrading of combat art.
By this level you should have a good amount of +all skills on your equipment and once you take this skill you should see a significant improvement in your regen times. Dump all your extra points in here now and the extra points on level ups until maxed.
Level 35:  Concentration
Two buffs to start and three at mastery, better regens across the board and lower regen penalties from buffs. A great skill that will allow us not only to pump our defense with more buffs but significantly improve regen times for more DPS and spammability. No more points for now, put your 2 extra points in Celestial Magic Focus this level and upgrade Cleansing Brilliance with Distract. After 35 keep pumping your extra points in Rev-Tech Focus until maxed at 45.
Level 46: No skill picks here but by Rev-Tech Focus along with the Lore and Warding Energy should all be maxed. Put your extra points in Celestial Focus until you finish upgrading Cleansing Brilliance and Hallowed Restoration. then stop.
Level 50:  Combat Discipline
At the moment, combat arts cast from combos do not benefit from the casting speed bonus provided by lore skills, this kills combos for this build and we will not be using them. However, Combat Discipline provides us with a much needed bonus to our damage and that is enough as it is. Again +All Skills items will play a role and boost this skill for us sufficiently until we have points to invest in it. No more points for now but we will invest in this skill heavily later on. Save all your extra skill points from now until level 65.
Level 65:  Constitution
Loosing your hitpoints is the safest way to die. Now, I'm not quite sure what i meant by that, but it sounds good so it stays.
Constitution provides us with a much needed bonus to our hp pool, which we will not be pumping with Vit. The real benefit will come from the regen during combat once mastery is attained. This will keep your health bar full under the shield and allow you to keep pulling creeps for longer without taking breaks.
When your shields are big enough and regen faster they will go down only after many pack pulls, since your hp is always full this means virtually no downtime.
Attributes - Being a caster, your two best attributes will be Int and Stam. Stam early on to cut on the long regens and Int later on for spell damage and intensity. Putting it all in stam for the first 50 levels and then Int from then on seems to work well. you can always add more at later levels.
A word about runes: Read as many as you like, as long as you like reading Divine Protection runes. Otherwise just read one. You will get what you need from your equipment and will probably only need to read runes at a very late stage, definitely not before level 120-130.
Flaring Nova - The bread and butter of this build. Once this combat art is upgraded and regen times allow for spamming every 2 seconds and below you will not need anything else for creeping.
- Bronze - Impulse - Sends out two pulses, but reduces strength and area of effect. (+1 pulse. -30% damage reduction) .
Even with the damage reduction we still net a 40% damage boost from the two attacks, this is very powerful and one of the most important parts of this build. the increase in radius is nice but we need the damage and most creeps come towards you anyway.
- Silver - Stun - Chance to stun opponents within range. (19.8% + 0.2% per CA level chance).
With double pulse and just 50 combat art levels creeps will have about 50% chance to get stunned from each nova cast making you even safer as less creeps are attacking you. Perplex is apparently bugged atm and does not work so we will skip this for now.
Note: If you plan to go with an alternative build with Exaulted Warrior and melee reflect, you might still consider Perplex. Keep in mind however that will probably will not have a high level of Battle stance and this means lower reflect chances.
- Gold - Flux - Increases Flaring Nova's damage. (66.6% increased magic damage / 28.6% increased overall damage) This should be a no brainer considering the other mod 'Laggard' which slows your opponents. We want dead creeps, not slow creeps!
Archangel's Wrath - If Nova is the bread of this build then Archangels Wrath is a big juicy burger on this bread!
Again, needs upgrades and regen to shine, but once it does it will shine oh so brightly in the face of these so called 'Bosses'.
Bronze: Salvo - Fires two successive bolts, each with slightly reduced damage. (+1 projectile)
Its unclear if and how much damage reduction is applied, but i didn't see a noticeable decrease in damage with this mod. at most its at 30% like Nova's double pulse which still nets us a heavy damage boost. 2 shots also have a double chance to burn increasing our dps even further.
- Silver - Lock - The fire bolts will seek their targets.
You will only be using Archangels Wrath against bosses so it doesn't really matter what you pick but since we already have a good AOE, Lock seems like the more reasonable pick.
- Gold: Vulnerable - Increases the chance to land critical hits. (19.8% + 0.2% per CA level chance)
Critz iz good! and day skail witdh yore kombat arte laivel. oh darn, was my spell checker off?
Aaaanyway, the alternative increases chance for burn. you already have a chance to burn and burns don't stack. Damage from crit stacks and burst damage>DOT in most cases anyway. That's my case and i stand by it!
Warding Energy Buff - Your first line of defense. Warding energy not only mitigates a ton of damage but it also gives you a regen penalty! um, wait that's a bad thing...where did i leave my notes...? Anyway, Its a great buff, and once it's big enough it will take a while to cut down, allowing you to keep creeping and creeping and creeping...
Bronze - Field Force - Strengthens the energy field and absorbs more damage until it is exhausted. (50% increase from base value).
50% increase to your shields is A LOT, bigger shields mean lower downtimes, especially after you get constitution mastery and health regen in combat, since at that point your downtime will only be defined by your shield size and shield regen speed. with a high enough amount of both your downtime will be minimal and mostly be finished in between pulling packs without stopping, hence no downtime. The alternative gives a chance to reflect ranged damage, a fairly high chance at higher levels but ranged damage is weak to begin with, reflected weak damage is also weak and if the creep has good armor resistance against his own damage type (which is usually the case) it will be weaker yet. So I'd rather invest in a better shield that will protect me from the real damage dealers which would be melee creeps, rather then invest in reflecting weak damage. On top of that we are relying on stun from Nova for defense, stun and reflect don't mix.
*Silver - Field Force - Improves the energy field and absorbs more damage until it is exhausted. (50% increase from base value)
Cut / Paste from bronze mod. replace words 'ranged damage' with 'spell damage'. add note on how spell damage isn't weak, but it isn't as common as melee or even ranged. say something like bigger shields will be more versatile, or something. and don't forget to edit this out!
*Gold - Resource - Reduces the cost to maintain the shield. (50% + 0.5% per CA level decreased)
Lower regen is always good for the caster hero and we need it from every source we can get. I feel that the damage block would be overkill since you already have divine protection, +25%hp and regen in combat, a minimum of -20% to enemy attack speed, 100% shield enhancement, and a good chance to stun all targets around you.
If you play hard core perhaps you could take this to be on the safe side.
Divine Protection - One of the best defensive moves in the game no doubt. Full damage absorption and low regen times with upgrades make this the ultimate panic button that can be ready when you need it. It's even possible to keep divine protection up at all times once the duration exceeds the regen, but personally, I cant be bothered with recasting it every minute and having no shield if i forget. Besides, playing with divine protection as your sole shield leaves you with one shield instead of two.
Note: a current bug will remove the shield buff once Divine Protections duration has ended so don't forget to reactivate your buff if you do use it. Hopefully this will be fixed soon and we will be able to use divine protection and keep warding running when it goes down.
Bronze - Capacity - Divine Protection lasts 50% longer. (50% increase)
*Silver - Boost - Reduces shield's recharge time. (50% + 1% per CA level decrease)
Both of these scale with level, and at higher levels you can reach cool downs of 25sec and below which makes it spammable and much more flexible as a second shield.
*Gold - Neither are very impressing to me. Improved Reflection increases chance to reflect ranged damage, Improved Mirror tooltip says increases chance to reflect spell damage but it actually give spell block instead. Leave this for your second to last pick. I took ranged reflect for no particular reason.
BeeEffGee - This oversized thing looks like it belongs on the wings of an X-Wing fighter. The upgraded BFG is the fuel that drives your boss killer, Archangels Wrath. Once you get the first enhancement upgrade you will not need anything else to start killing bosses.
Bronze - Enhancement - Inflicts more damage. (8 + 2 per CA level physical damage)
- Silver - Enhancement - Inflicts more damage. (8 + 2 per CA level physical damage)
May not seem like much, but it does wonders for archangels wrath damage when using the BFG.
I don't remember at what level i actually took this, but my archangels wrath damage went from 5k to 11k after picking the first enhancement. and about 23k after the second. We like? yes we like!
Since we will only use BFG for boss killing we don't care too much about regen in this case, particularly when its a trade off with some heavy duty damage.
*Gold - Accuracy - Increases the chance to hit. (10% + 0.1% per CA level chance of sure hit)
Does chance to hit help you with archangels wrath? Is it evadable? blockable? can it miss?
These are questions that have been discussed in many threads. Some will testify that it does. Others say it doesn't. I think it might be a combination of combat art block and creep animation. Regardless, it never seems to miss on bosses no mater how poor your chance to hit is. Despite all that we still take Accuracy simply because Penetrate doesn't work with archangels wrath, so you might as well take it and not worry about either your attack rating is good enough or not. Take this as your last upgrade.
Cleansing Brilliance - This has to be one of the most underrated buffs for the seraphim. The light radius increase is just amazing and really shuns away that evil darkness!!1
Oh and it will also decrease opponents attack speed in an AOE around you and deals good amounts of passive AOE damage to undead and mutants. But that's not important, the LIGHT RADIUS is where its at!
*Bronze - Distract - Reduces opponents' attack speed within the area of effect. (20% + 0.2% per CA level decrease).
Two words: Imba!
ok that was only one word. But seriously, this upgrade is so good it don't need no other roads, err, words! 20% attack speed reduction aura from a permanent buff is already nice in itself, but at higher combat art levels you can attain 40%, 50% or even more which is just godly as it effectively nagates a ton of damage from everything except combat art.
*Silver - Undead vs. T-Mutants. Take your pick, doesn't really matter. I picked Purify for undead and I'm happy with it.
*Gold - Illuminate - Increase the area of effect. (26.7% increase)
Bigger range on the attack speed reduction aura is what we want. Oh and more light range don't forget!
The second mod will increase the DPS on your damage aura, if you are really intent on killing lots and lots of undead and mutants then you could take this, but Illuminate will benefit you always and not just when fighting undead/mutants.
Hallowed Restoration - This is a great skill for this build early on when your shields are not yet strong enough and your constitution isn't at mastery yet. Later on we can also use it to break root pretty much all the time.
*Bronze - Recuperation - Temporarily increases the hit point regeneration effect. (20hp/s + 40hp/s per CA level healed) .
Turns hallowed restoration into a heal over time, very helpful early on.
*Silver - Prevention - Temporary protection from damage over time. (Note: this modification appears to also break Root effects, 100% chance; the in-game description may be incorrect)
The root breaking bit is the reason were even modding this combat art in the first place.
*Gold - Nothing.
Radiant Pillar (optional) - Since you do not gain the cast speed from lore skills while using combos i cannot justify upgrading this combat art at the moment and until this is fixed as it will significantly slow down your casting speed and damage output.
The exception to this would be if you team up with other players and want to play more of a support role, then you could take the Delude and brightness to decrease opponents attack rating (penalties stack with each pillar!) and increase the AOE range.
The other exception would be that the casting speed in combos is fixed. If/When this happens it might be beneficial to add it to a combo with nova. and mod it:
- Bronze - Hypnosis - Attracts opponents to the center of the pillar. (1200 area / 160% from default damaging area).
Doesn't pull everything but enough to make it useful. Delude is also nice but If this gets in the combo we wont be casting radiant pillar more then once or twice in the same area and most creeps will die on the first wave so we wont be effectively stacking them to get a good amount of reduction on opponents attack value. If you're playing a support role with other players take Delude.
- Silver - Brightness - Increases the area of effect. (33.3% increase).
Both are good mods, but the duration will get longer at higher levels so the benefit from Conserve will diminish with time. More range helps you catch more creeps in the AOE and less creeps move out when they change position.
At the cost of 15 skill points I find it hard to justify raising damage on a support skill that you will only use occasionally. If you plan on using it a lot and want to modify it anyway then I would take Ordeal which acts like Deathblow and will double the damage after the target looses a portion of its health. This will be more effective then Magnify on games with many players where bosses have a lot of hitpoints.
brb...
OK back!
Now, where were we...oh yes!
Before we go into what items we will need for this build, lets talk about shopping and how to get started as early as possible. Or rather, i'll type and you read, you may even type back afterwards, there will be no talking involved.
Shopping - Since gear is a vital component of this build and Bargaining our main source of items, I think at least a few words are in order for anyone who is unfamiliar with this skill and how to get started with it. If you are familiar with how to make a shopping suit feel free to skip to the equipment chapter, but there will be a quiz at the end so you better be ready! OK just kidding! there most probably will not be a quiz. Most probably...
So...shopping...shopping suits...where to begin?
We begin at level 1. from the first piece of loot. every piece of armor is a potential part of our shopping suit. check the items you pick up. If you find a piece of armor with silver or gold sockets(and bronze if you have access to a blacksmith player), keep it and stash it in your chest if you dont want to use it right away. If you find another piece of the same armor with better or more sockets replace the old with the new one. also keep a socketable weapon and shield in your set.
Also keep any armor with +all skills or +general skills if your lucky enough to find them and any relics with +bargaining.
If you check all the loot you should have at least a few pieces for your suit ready by level 8.
Can't i just buy armor with sockets at level 8?
Yes you could, but at level 8 you will not have a lot of gold and socketed armor is very expensive. You will probably need to buy some anyway but anything you can save along the way will help you a lot at this stage. Another thing to remember is that socketing costs are higher for items of higher level and quality, so unless you find some armor with +skills on it its better to use a lower level item and save money. Gloves btw never spawn with +all or general skills so your first pair with a gold socket will be the only one you will ever need for your suit.
Once you get the shopping skill, i would recommend going ahead and working on your suit to start reaping its benefit ASAP. Get yourself a set of +bargain relics for starters and look for armor with at least silver if not gold sockets (don't buy copper sockets for your suits unless you have access to a player blacksmith) and/or with +all skills and jewelry with the same. as you get more items start visiting the blacksmith and socket your jewelry in your suit, your skill will slowly rise until you will start to see lots of rares at the vendor. I try to keep my suit updated and stop every 10-15 levels to upgrade it with better armor and socketables that i find in the shops.
A good and very accessible spot to shop is located in Thylisium. Next to the eastern player chest (in front of the palace) there is a vendor and runemaster. There is an entrance to the sewers right next to the runemaster, you can go dash in and out of there to reset the vendors.
If you want to read more about the mechanics of the Bargaining skill, check out Antitrust's very informative thread
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Are we there yet?
Moving on to...
Item Modifiers - OK so what makes the Rev-Tech sera Tic? lets look at what are the important item modifiers you should be looking for in armor, weapons, shields and jewelry:
+All Skill - This is what you want most early on when skill points a few and each point makes a big difference. The more skills you add to your build, the more use you will make of this modification.
Think about it, with just +1 All Skills you gain double the amount of skill points you would get on a level up. Raising our skills improves regen times, damage and shields, it allows for higher level combat arts and more.
You will also need this for your trading suit.
+All Combat Arts /+Rev Tech Aspect - Not so important early on when your regen times will suffer too much from this mod, so don't waist your gold buying low lever jewelry with this. Later on however it will be your most effective way to increase damage and will start to replace +All skills in priority, to a point. This is where it gets tricky. once you start trading in too much +All skill with +All Combat art, your regens will start to hurt again and you will need to take a step back. its all about finding the balance between these two mods to achieve good damage with acceptable spamming speed.
Good damage I think is being able to kill most creep types in one nova wave (2 pulses), champs and tough mobs like goblin boar riders should go down after 2 waves, a few creeps might even 3 shots or more due to extremely high amount of hit points or spell resistance or just plain evil like the giant green scorpions in the desert, but these are very few opponents across Ancaria and no build is perfect for all creep types. Speaking of which, this build can swat fen fires like bugs on the wall, which is a great change since we are all familiar with their annoying evasive personality from playing melee or hybrid builds.
Good regen IMO should be under 2 seconds for Flaring Nova and 1 second and below for Archangels Wrath.
From my experience a ratio of about 1:5 +all skills:+all CA's is a good start and by about level 100 you can reduce this ratio towards 1:3 or 1:2. just play with it and see what works.
Regeneration time -X% /Regeneration Rev-Tech - Not much to explain. reduces regens and ups spammability.
Damage +X% - To increase damage from all our source types,
+Intelligence - Int raises your damage and spell intensity, although I haven't noticed any change in damage when i tested spell intensity rings at plat so maybe int will become even more effective later on when spell intensity will start to make a difference.
+Max Shield - This mod stacks directly with warding lore and modification to the buff, it is very potent and you wont need more the a small amount to see a big difference in your shield pool. 1 item with a fair amount of this should be enough..
+Max Hit points - Not necessary on lower difficulties, you might want to get 1 or 2 items with this at higher levels, depending on your equipment at the time. if you feel like your hp pool is going down to fast while creeping, get some of this.
Deathblow - At plat levels deathblow rings start to have enough value to achieve an effective amount with few rings. by effective amount i mean above 55% this will help with those pesky mobs that are still standing 5% hp after the first nova wave and help with champs. lower then that and your not really getting much use out of it. There can never be too much deathblow, but the diminishing returns on stacking this mod are extremely steep and getting an extra couple of % from your fourth or fifth ring wont do you as much good as puting something else on you instead. Over 66% deathblow is also waisted since if you cant get a creep to 66% on the first nova pulse the second pulse wont kill it deathblow or not. and you will need a second anyway. my suggestion is to get 3 or 4 of the best deathblow rings you can buy and use that, if you can later reach similar number with fewer rings then swap them out for more damage or regen.
Are we there yet?
First Things First - Its time to buy yourself the best item an apprentice magic caster could want... A big stick!
Until your combat art start to get reasonable regen times, you will have to rely on melee combat to level up. Once you start seeing rares at the vendors from your shopping suit, look for a nice 2h weapon, preferably with "Life leeched from opponent +x%" modifier on it (the orange mod, not the yellow leech per hit type). Polearms are nice. Look for a few leech rings and socket them if you can as well. If you get enough leech you can turn off Warding buff and use a level 1 Battle stance instead in the beginning.
These will help you to level up quickly and start get your build going ASAP. Later on we we ditch the 2h in favor of 1h+shield.
Armor - isn't going to become an issue till at least late gold if not early plat. For the most part the armor with the most and better sockets will win. This build will make heavy use of +All Skill and +All Combat Arts items and those mostly come from socketable jewelry hence the need for a lot of sockets. Not to say you wont find good armor without sockets or with good stats other then those i mentioned, but you will need to be picky about how much skills and combat art level you can sacrifice for them. Don't go too crazy shopping for armor at the early stage since you will out level your gear rather quickly and you don't want to spend too much gold on short term items.
Choosing your Weapon -You can find plenty of good weapons at the vendor but there are two unique weapons i find particularly beneficial for this build if your lucky to find them. Well 3 actually, but officer sabers are good for almost any build that can use them, so were not going to talk about them. OK maybe we will talk about them but only briefly. Actually i think i will devote the rest of this post to officer sabers!!1
Nlovae's Mystery - A really nice weapon for our build. The modifier "Combat art range +x%" will increase flaring novas AOE radius. At higher levels this weapon can spawn with over 10% to range which can significantly enhance the reach of flaring nova. A generous amount of Regen bonus that will be better then what you could socket at a blacksmith at your level/difficulty and 2 gold slots to boot. It seems to have a good drop rate as i already have several of these.
Btw, I like to use the KISS method for socketing weapons.
Keeping It Simple Stupid by socketing a converter and 2 blacksmith runes. this way i don't need to loose the mods in this socketable if i switch weapons. Put your best rings and ammies on armor that you don't need to change when changing zones. Just make sure to change your converters to match the creeps you are fighting.
Tinwora's Curse - This weapon is very similar to Nlovae's and trades the +range modifier with +All combat art (it also has higher damage but we don't care about that) More combat art level means more damage and is definitely worth the trade off on the range if you need that extra damage.
I socket 2x regen blacksmith art on this puppy to offset the regen from the +CA's on it.
Officer's Saber - 3 sockets, and the only one of its kind. If you do find any, your first saber should become part of your shopping suit. if you plan on using it just socket it normally with +all skills like you would for the suit and use it. You could also use them for booster slots for buff and run speed/ Visibility range slots for spotting crowds of creeps from a far and for running faster when unmounted.
Shield Of Mirrors - This is to shields what officers saber is to swords. with even better mods! +stamina +XP from kills and 3 sockets! although they are only 1 gold a silver and bronze, still 3 sockets is 3 sockets!
The best part of this shield is that you can farm it from the Blind Guardian quest any time you like, cool!
Edit: It seems it is not possible to start this quest in MP, so if you are not playing single you will have to opt for one of the other shields. (Thanks Llama!)
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Eternal Block - 2 gold sockets, evasion, physical damage mitigation and chance to block combat arts.
Very nice but rare, i have yet to find one of these.
Unyielding Wall - 2 gold sockets and a reduction in the buff regen penalty. Not bad but since we don't get a large penalty from our buffs the reduction doesn't make a big impact, you might be better off finding something in the shop with two sockets and mods that better fit you.
Set Items - are by no means a requirement, but some are very nice, especially since many seraphim set items have a lot of sockets on them. So i thought i would mention what i consider to be a good combination of set pieces for this build, if your lucky enough to find them:
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Endijian's Artifacts3pc: +All Combat Art Skills
- Endijian's Bracers(Gloves) - A fair amount of +damage is nice and a silver socket. It's basically there to complete the 3pc set bonus.
- Endijian's Sash (Belt) - Your best belt! Rev-Tech regen +Divine prot. and 2 sockets!
- Endijian's Boots (Boots) - Awesome boots! Regen +Nova +Run speed when unmount and a silver slot.
 
Origin of the Seraish. 3pc: +All Skill
- Shoulders of Seraish (Shoulders) - +Combat art skills! and 3 sockets!!
- Helmet of Seraish(Helm) - A ton of +All combat arts, willpower and 2 sockets, sweet!
- Wings of Seraish (Wings) - Armor, a LOT of armor, more then 3 times the rest of the set put together on one item. 2 slots.
 
Twilight of the Gods. 3pc : +Visibility Range
- Holy Protection(Chest) - Take the wings from above, add more armor, throw an extra gold socket and add some magic find for a dash of luck and you got yourself one yummy piece of armor!
- Sofia's Protection (Legs) - These pants rock! Lots of evasion and run speed for when we go underground (someone should really fix the size on those dragon infested cave entrances so mounts could go in...)
- Wristguards of Dusk(Arms) - 3 sockets, VR addition is also welcome and helps to spot creep packs from further away.
Again, there are many very good set pieces for the sera, this is just what i think would be a good mix but it's definitely not the only possibility, especially for a shopper.
I See Dead People - There is a bug that won't allow you to cast if you right click on a dead body. Not only does it prevent you from casting, it will often even cause you to walk to the corpse.
This is important to understand because you need to react fast when you are surrounded by a few dozen creeps who are happily enjoying a nutritious meal of shield energy and hit points while your combat art says "huh?"
Since Nova doesn't need a target to cast, the best thing to do is just get used to always clicking on the sides of the screen and away from all the action. This way you are not as likely to accidentally click on a corpse.
Increase Your Reach - Once you mod Nova for double pulse you can take advantage of your fast casting speeds to increase It's range. The animation doesnt show it but the second pulse will move with you. With capped casting speed you will be able to start moving before the second pulse and hit creeps that were out of range.
How to Pull - This might come naturally to many but since this build really shines against large packs i will quickly go over a simple technique to effectively bunch up a large mob.
Basically you want to 'Tag' a bunch of creeps and have them start following you as you run towards a second group and tag them as well. Keep tagging until you feel you have enough and keep running a couple of steps in the same direction after the last pack so everyone is behind you, then turn around, head towards the following crowed which should bunch up nicely and unleash your fury!
don't click to enlarge
So basically you want to get as many creeps BEHIND you before you turn around. This isn't very important if all the mobs in the area are melee, but if there are any ranged in the mix this will ensure they will be bunched with the rest of the pack.
The trick is to know when to stop tagging and start closing the circle. If you try to tag to many creeps, the first group will eventually stop chasing you and turn back, the other groups will soon folow and they will scatter. With time you will develop a feeling for when to do this.
How to Push
- What? This isn't DOTA!
Oops sorry!
Bosses - Now we come to the complex art of killing the mighty bosses of Ancaria. I will try to illustrate the technique used to kill these ferocious beings. It will take some time to master, but once you do you will be able to terminate bosses faster then they can say 'Asta la vista baby!' (oh man that was just bad!)
There are two schools of thought on this delicate matter, and they are both effective despite their differences. I'll give you the short version first:
Take big glowey angel thingy and fireball it at big monster!
i said no clicky!
The second school of thought believes in a more precise strategy and have developed a more advanced technique that has such accuracy it puts the best swiss watches to shame.
Take big glowey angel thingy and fireball it at big monster! then again until it is dead. sheer genius!
fine click it, see if i care...
Translation:
Big glowey thing = BeeEffGee
Fireball = Archangels Wrath.
Note:
Until you reach concentration mastery you will need to swap out BFG with warding energy buff for boss fights and back again after the fight. After that you can leave it unused in the third slot when you don't need it.
Note 2: Until the time when you modify the first enhancement on BFG you can use any 2h weapon with high damage. Damage is the most important thing to look for in an AW weapon. I was using unique pole arms socketed with blue damage rings and it was more then enough for bosses on gold difficulty, don't rush to mod BFG.
Are we there yet?
Almost, btw all these clips were taken at around level 110, on plat.
I'm not talking to you!
If you have a separate shopper that can provide this character with a constant stream of items for her level, you could consider a few alternatives to the original build.
Scavenger - Basically the same build only swap bargain with EP and make her an item finder, this is the build i play coincidentally. you could also take EP and shopping and give up riding, but its hard for me to imagine this build without riding, even though she is fully capable when unmounted.
Tank / Tech-Support - Swap both general skills and get Xwarrior focus and Combat reflex for an even more defensive build with Battle Stance to give us defense and reflect melee and C.R for reducing crits and some evasion.
If you play with others you can take Idol to extend half of your bonus from Battle Stance to your party members. You may also upgrade Radiant Pillar with delude and Hallowed Restoration with Solidarity to extend any heal to all party members. Together with the reduced speed aura from Cleansing Brilliance and reduced attack rating from Radiant Pillar, the Tech-Support sera would be a welcome addition to any party.
Conclusion - If there is one thing we can learn from this guide, is that i really need to learn to write shorter guides.
In short, the Rev-Tech sera is a slow learner but can become a powerful hero with some investment.
here is a snapshot i made of her stats at level 112 if anyone was curious:
Anyhow, my bag of words just finished and i don't know how much longer i can keep this connection, so i hope you enjoyed my guide.
Oh and i almost forgot, the most important thing is to alway
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