Build:Mystic Flame Knight

Full Build Details
Hey there traveler! Interested in my build? Well, you are in for a treat. I'm Mylji (you pronounce it Mil - He. Weird name, I know) and here I'll explain every single choice, detail and calculation you need to know about this build.

Stats
The overall stat count for this build is the following:

Fire Damage Bonus: 35% (Gear) + 30% (Warm) + 30% (Immolate) + 25% (Infuse Fire*) for a total of 120%. Ethereal Damage Bonus: 20% (Gear) + 30% (Mist) for a total of 50%. Decay Damage Bonus: 30% (Possessed) + 20% (Greater Decay Imbue*) for a total of 50%. *Imbues do not stack, so it's not possible to have both Infuse Fire and Greater Decay Imbue at the same time

Total Mana: 120 Mana by getting 1 Mana Point + Spellblade's Awakening + Well of Mana + Ancestor's Memories + Peacemaker Elixir. I recommend taking 2 mana points anyways. Mana Reduction: 45% by enchanting an Antique Plate Set with Economy Stamina Reduction: 30% by enchanting an Antique Plate Set with Economy

This build needs a high amount of mana, that being the main reason for taking the Blue Chamber questline. You could also go for the The Heroic Kingdom of Levant questline, but I'd rather have less trouble with my mana management and some extra health that even more damage. The Holy Mission is also a viable option, but again, I'd rather have the tankiness and utility from the Blue Chamber. I'll leave it to your personal choice tho. If you do choose anything other than the Blue Chamber questline, remember to get at least 2 mana points instead of 1 when you get mana from the Ley Line.

Costs
Counting only the essential skills (no complementary passives nor skills), you will need:


 * Kazite Spellblade: 1200 silver
 * Cabal Hermit: 500 silver
 * Rune Sage: 1900 silver

Other essential skills:


 * Sigil of Fire:. 50 silver (unless you learn it for free from the First Watcher at the [[Conflux Chambers])
 * Mana Ward: 50 silver
 * Sweep Kick: 50 silver
 * Pommel Counter 50 silver (unless you learn it for free from Burac)

The we go into the armor, as this build uses a crafted set:


 * Antique Plate Sallet: 200 silver + 1 Shield Golem Scrap
 * Antique Plate Garb: 400 silver + 1 Shield Golem Scrap
 * Antique Plate Boots: 200 silver + 1 Shield Golem Scrap

And we cannot forget that to get this set, you will need to travel to Harmattan, wich will add some 200 extra pieces.

All of that for a grand total of: 4750 pieces of silver (if you learned both Pommel Counter and Sigil of Fire for free). And that's the bare minimum, so you better start farming that cash!

Gameplay
This is mostly a melee focused build. While counting with some ranged options, like Elemental Discharge, Fireball and Runic Detonation, you won't really use them that often. Instead, most of your damage will come from melee attacks, so prepare yourself for a close up fight. I do highly recommend to play really aggressive with this build, as both the weapon and buffs are all under a timer.

In terms of mana consumption, the build goes as follows:


 * Every rune costs 8 mana to cast. To summon the GRB you will need 4 rune casts. At 45% reduction, only casting your blade will take 17.6 mana points from you (a tad bit less if you have the Light Mender's Lexicon). Let's round it up to 18 for the sake of it and we already got quite the expense. This number also applies to Runic Heal and Runic Detonation, in case you want use them.


 * All 3 Boons (Warm, Mist and Possessed) cost 8 mana each, leaving them at 4.4 each, or 13.2 for all three of them. Let's say 14.


 * Sigil of Fire costs 7 mana, as does Mana Ward. At 45% reduction, that leaves them at 3.85 for Sigil and Ward (let's say 4).


 * Finally, Infuse Fire costs 15 mana and at 45% reduction, that leaves us with a 8.25 (wich I'll take as a 9).

Sweep Kick and Pommel Counter use stamina, so they do not count.

This is a rounded up total, but let's say in a fight you:

-Cast all 3 boons -Cast your GRB -Cast 2 Runic Detonations -Cast 1 Sigil of Fire -Cast 1 Mana Ward -Cast 1 Infuse Fire

That would mean that in a single fight, you can easly spend a terrifying 87 mana points in a single fight, without considering longer fights in wich you might need to recast some spells. Now, you will not usually need this much magic to deal with even a few hard enemies and most of the time just the GRB with Infuse Fire will be enough, but the point is: this build can chug through your mana like a starving vampire in a blood bank. This is why we take basically every mana passive in the game. I would still recommend to go for 2 points of leyline mana, as it will make your early game way more manageable and your late game a little less dependant on potions.

I really like to use Runic Trap in the middle of a fight. It's a nice AoE that you can activate at a distance and will damage everyone but you, wich is a really nice touch. You can even use it as an opener, by casting Shim, running to the opponent and casting Fal in it's face. This can be a very nice initiator if pulled off correctly and may even down a lot of small enemies. It's also good for groups, as it does some AoE damage. However, another good option is it's big sister Runic Detonation, as the damage bonuses do apply on it (Runic Trap does not benefit the same way!), the blast radius is bigger and the damage is also improved. Just put it near the fight, bait a group or a solo enemy, turn around and detonate while showing your back to your foe. Why show your back? Cause cool guys don't look at explotions, obviously.

Weapons
First I'll explain the weapon of choice: Great Runic Blade (GRB for short). Amazing weapon for both early and late game and extremely powerful overall. With a wopping 39 pure ethereal damage, is the best weapon of it's element by quite a margin. The only sad thing about this blade is that is timed and that might get you some trouble in longer fights, but the fact that is so crazy powerful AND it comes already buffed outweights the constant need for recasting.

For the offhand its also a very easy choice: it's either a Lexicon or the Light Mender's Lexicon. Since this build does not use the Internalized Lexicon passive, one of those is needed. Of course, the better choice is the Light Mender's Lexicon, as it will give you a tad bit of extra mana reduction during your first casts, but don't worry too much about it, as the normal Lexicon is a good enough replacement for the early game and way easier to get. Whatever the lexicon, it will be unequiped after casting Great Runic Blade, making the character lose it's bonuses, so for the most part is not relevant to this build for other than the initial cast.

Armor
Next is the armor of choice: the Antique Plate Set. If you enchannt every piece with the Economy enchantment, you'll end up with a set that gives you nice defenses, a 45% mana reduction, 30% stamina reduction, 20 ethereal damage and 35 fire damage. You won't find a better set for this build. Alternatively, you could use the Rust Lich Armor or enchant the Antique Plate Garb with Spirit of Harmattan instead of Economy to buff even more your decay damage, but I like the more balanced option of the full Antique Economy set.

As for the backpack, I chose the best light backpack in the game, the little cow one. This allows for good carry weight, as well as allowing the player to roll withouth taking the backpack off. Another good choice would have been Zhorn's Hunting Backpack, but I like keeping my mobility high.

Skills
'' Remember: Every mandatory skill will have a little * with it. If the skill does not have this *, it is not considered mandatory and can be skipped from buying. ''

The first skill tree is Kazite Spellblade. It's pretty straight forward. It gives us the best fire buff in the game and the breakthrough is a bunch of nice stats. From this tree we'll take the following:

TIER 1


 * Steady Arm*
 * Fitness*

TIER 2: Breakthrough


 * Spellblade's Awakening*

TIER 3


 * Infuse Fire*
 * Elemental Discharge

The second skill tree is Rune Sage. This build consumes A LOT of mana, so having those extra 40 points in there is really appreciated, as it allows us to take a smaller hit to our health and stamina pools. Also, we need Arcane Syntax in order to actually summon the GRB, plus it will get us another nice ethereal damage source: Runic Detonation, as well as it's little sister Runic Trap. We add Runic Prefix on top of that to get some nice and good benefits to our various spells, as well as gettin a Greater Decay Imbue for the GRB, just in case we come by fire resistant enemies. If that is not the case, do not be afraid oof either usingn this buff or overwriting it with Infuse Fire for more damage. We end up with the following list:

TIER 1


 * Shim*
 * Egoth*
 * Fal*
 * Dez*

TIER 2: Breakthrough


 * Well of Mana*

TIER 3


 * Arcane Syntax*
 * Runic Prefix*

For the final skill tree we have Cabal Hermit and we take this for one single reason: Shamanic Resonance.

 But Mylji, if this is a build with lots of fire damage, why not go Philosopher instead?

Philosopher is great for fire buils, but this is a mainly dual element build (triple if you count the decay extras here and there). A very important fact is that a lot of the damage of this build comes from both fire AND ethereal. Philosopher's Fire Affinity gives a +15% to fire damage, a +20% fire defense and that's it. Shamanic Resonance on the other hand, would give the Warm skill a +10% extra fire damage and defense, but also gives that same extra 10% to Mist and Possessed, as well as access to spells that can be useful in specific situations (like against enemies weak to lightning). So, while the damage buff and the mana regen are very nice, Cabal Hermit is better for this build in the long run.

As for this skill tree, you will want to take the following. Please note the the only skill you really need from this tree is the breakthrough, but I still recommend getting the rest, specially Weather Tolerance:

TIER 1


 * Reveal Soul
 * Call to Elements
 * Weather Tolerance
 * Mana Push

TIER 2: Breakthrough


 * Shamanic Resonance*

TIER 3


 * Sigil of Wind
 * Conjure

Other

 * A very important passive you might want is Efficiency from the Speedster skill tree, as it will give you a small max stamina bonus, wich comes really handy for a melee build.
 * Every skill not displayed in the main slots of this build is considered an extra or a situational skill, so don't worry too much about them.

Now if we are speaking of items, there are 3 that you will certainly need at all times:


 * Warm Potion
 * Astral Potion
 * Mana Regen food

Since Infuse Fire consumes your Warm boon, it's nice to be able to re-apply it quickly with Warm Potions, wich are extremely easy to make. Also, as I said before, this build can go through your mana at a crazy rate, so having Astral Potions or even Great Astral Potions to recover your burnt mana or to quickly refill in the middle of a fight is a must. As an addition to the mana potions, you can slowly recover your mana with some foods and drinks, of wich there are a plethora to choose from.

For extra mana reduction and recovery, I recommend the following:


 * Mage Tent
 * Gaberry Wine

Finally, if you really want to get some free regen, don't sleep. The tired state will boost your mana regen to a natural 0.2, wich is nice, but will decrease your stamina regen by 15%, so use it carefully.

Combos
Day to day combo, for normal adventuring. It looks like a really long preparation, but the first half is only to summon the blade, so don't really worry about it. You can even cut it down to one Shim-Egoth combo and fight with the one handed Runic Blade if you are really in a hurry. Most of the time, just the Great Runic Blade with Infuse Fire will suffice.

This is what you go for when you are about to face some really hard enemy. Max damage buffs for max damage output. Just remember that both Sigil of Fire and Immolate only last for 60 seconds. Make them count!

Basically, you just cast your blade, Sweep Kick and start hitting stuff. Most enemies will be knocked down with this and it probably will be your most used combo.

The fact that Pommel Counter applies Confusion is a great advantage in 1v1 situations. If you manage to succesfully land a Pommel Counter, not only you will completely avoid that attack's damage, but every Sweep Kick you hit for the next 2 minutes will down your enemy, leading to some cheeky damage potential. Pretty good in my opinion, but landing the counter takes some practice.

Runic Detonation, preparation and basic combo.

And that's it! I hope you liked it, try it out and follow some of the recommendations I gave you. Do not be afraid of making changes here and there and personalize the build to your needs. Hopefully, I'll make some other build in the future, so stay tuned! Cheers!