User:Karalin Taucher/Obsidian Totem Axe Farmer

An Elementalist build for farming Totem Axes from Root Behemoths in The Falls. This build uses Obsidian Flesh to defend against casters, and Fire Magic to deal damage.

Armor
Radiant Armor is recommended for this build. Use a Geomancers Aura with a Superior Rune of Earth Magic for running, and then a Pyromancers Aura with a Superior rune of Fire Magic for killing.

Enchanting Set
Preferably a Spirit of the Forgotten, Totem Axe or Rajazan's Fervor and a focus item with +1 Earth Magic. eg Galigord's Stone Scroll, or crafted from Sheco in Bukdek Byway, or swapped for 5 Stone Horns with Denos Makaluum in Vasburg Armory. A possible alternative is a Fire or Earth staff with a +20% longer enchantments mod.

Killing set
When engaging groups other than Wind Riders, a Fire wand and offhand both with 20% chance of halving recharge times(HRT)of fire magic are recommended.

It may be possible to get away with using an Earth Staff with +20% enchanting and HRT for the entire run.

General Usage

 * Cast Glyph of Lesser Energy before any chain of spells, whenever it is available.
 * Cast Obsidian Flesh only when engaging casters, never while running.
 * Keep Sliver Armor and Stoneflesh Aura up as much as possible when running.
 * Use Mystic Regeneration when your health is low. Remember maximum gain is when you have other enchantments on you as well.
 * Use Meteor Shower and Immolate for Root Behemoths.
 * Use Immolate and the point blank damage from Flame Djinn's Haste and Sliver Armor for other mobs.
 * Wear your Geomancer's headgear when running, and when fighting Wind Riders or Jungle Skale.
 * Wear your Pyromancer's headgear at all other times.

Areas
Starting the run at Ventari's Refuge, head out to Ettin's Back. Equip your Earth magic headgear. Cast Glyph of Lesser Energy before casting Mystic Regeneration, Stoneflesh Aura, Flame Djinn's Haste and Sliver Armor. Run towards the portal to Reed Bog. Recast your enchantments as they expire. Use the Glyph prior to casting enchantments as it becomes available. Flame Djinn's Haste and Stoneflesh Aura can be kept up indefinitely, and for most of the run, the downtime in Sliver Armor makes little difference.
 * Ettin's Back

Take the south eastern path through the Reed Bog to The Falls. Once again, cast skills 1-5 in that order, keep running and recast enchantments as necessary. Stoneflesh Aura negates just about all the damage in this area. Head into The Falls.
 * Reed Bog

Once again, use Glyph of Lesser Energy, cast your first four enchantments, and run. You can stop to recast even whilst in the middle of spiders and Shepherds. As long as you use the Glyph whenever possible, energy is not a problem. Mystic Regen will give you 9 pips off health regen, or 12 when you have Sliver Armor cast, so degen and damage is not a problem. If you are in range of a Symbiosis spirit, you will have 800+ health!
 * The Falls

From here on in, you will find the following groups of monsters. Below each group you will find the best method for dealing with them.

Enemy Types
Avoid these by running straight past them. It is unlikely you will be able to survive them in the large mobs that inhabit the area. Make sure that you do not get cornered by them, and just keep running until you lose aggro. Tackling a full mob (or even 2 mobs) of Jungle Skale is little problem. Get them to bunch up as much as possible, and then get in close to one and cast your spells in the following order: Glyph of Lesser Energy -> Obsidian Flesh -> Mystic Regeneration -> Sliver Armor -> Immolate -> Flame Djinn's Haste. Cast Stoneflesh Aura to cover the short downtime in Obsidian Flesh. Recast your spells and Glyphs as they become available. Obsidian Flesh should be your priority enchantment, as the Skale will strip your other enchantments without it. A max damage fire wand can help things along nicely. Keep your distance so that you don't cause any Life Pod pop-ups. Equip your Pyromancers headgear. Cast Glyph of Lesser Energy if you want to followed by Meteor Shower, Stoneflesh Aura(optional) and a few Immolates. Wanding helps again here. 1 Nuke and 3 Immolates later, your Behemoth should be dead. Once your Behemoth is dead, you will almost inevitably have to run past it in such a way that the Life Pods will spawn and follow you. It is possible in some placements to run past the pods, or to avoid spawning them altogether, if the Behemoth didn't drop any loot you wanted. However, do not drag them into other mobs. Tackling 1 or 2 Life Pods is easy, but 3 can be more difficult. Careful advancement towards the Behemoth corpse and prompt running away can enable you to spawn just one Life Pod at a time. When facing one or two, the best thing to do is get in close, cast Flame Djinn's Haste and Immolate. This will usually kill single Life Pods or the first of a pair. If you have to run away, or you have spawned three, try to pull just one or two. Persevere and you should find one partially separates itself from the others. Get in quick and repeat the combo mentioned above to kill it before the others have a chance to heal it. They are also stupid enough to stand in a meteor shower a lot of the time if you don't mind waiting for the recharge before tackling the next Behemoth. If you fight these without Obsidian Flesh active, you will die. Equip your Geomancers headgear. Cast Glyph of Lesser Energy and Obsidian Flesh before aggroing them! Much as with Jungle Skale, get in close and cast Sliver Armor, Flame Djinn's Haste and Immolate while Obsidian Flesh is up. Meteor Showers can help as well. Once Obsidian Flesh has run out, you can either run away, or try to exhaust your foes' supply of interrupts before recasting Obsidian Flesh. It is usually wiser to kill 2 Wind Riders at a time before running away. As you run away you will surely be under the effects of Conjure Phantasm, but just keep running until you lose aggro and then heal.
 * Jungle Trolls
 * Jungle Skale
 * Root Behemoths
 * Life Pods
 * Wind Riders

Counters
Wind Riders, if given the opportunity to cast anything other than Conjure Phantasm on you will usually kill you.

Variants

 * Replacing Sliver Armor with Serpent's Quickness to keep Obsidian Flesh up (near-)indefinitely means that you can spend longer taking on Wind Riders and Jungle Skale, but with the loss of Sliver Armor's damage, and the increase drain on energy, the net result is a longer overall run.
 * Change to E/R and swap Mystic Regeneration for Troll Unguent. This has the advantage of being unstrippable due to it being a skill rather than an enchantment. It makes the run through the spiders tricky though.
 * You can swap out Glyph of Lesser Energy for Glyph of Elemental Power, but this makes energy conservation much more difficult.