kingdoms-amalur-reckoning
Cage has been leveling up as a pure finesse archer. His arrows now are too powerful so he wants to change it up a little bit.
He wants to try out those girly weapons called chakrams and some pew-pew spells.
How should he level up his abilities? What type of gear should he use, finesse or sorcery based ones? What moves should he use during battle?
Update: This works with both the Steam and Origin version of the game, and has gotten easier to do than from my original post. There is no additional plugin you need to install or forum threads to monitor.
First, you need to go to this site and download the program found there, called widescreen fixer. There is a .7z file you need to download. You will need a program like winrar or 7-zip to open and extract the files. Extract the files anyplace you like.
Now, open the "Widescreen Fixer.exe" in the main widescreen fixer directory. In the dropdown list you should see Kingdoms of Amalur listed:
At this point, click the standard "config" wheel to the right of the drop-down:
Change the game version to the Steam 1.0.1 option (the most recent patch) if you are using Steam, and the Origin 1.0.1 option if you are using Origin, and then select your field of view options. I have mine set to 90 and it is much better, but you could go even higher if you wanted. Then, set your resolution to the resolution of your monitor (1920x1080, etc.), by default it should auto-detect your resolution. Save your settings and close this window.
If you click on the "Settings" tab in the main Window Fixer, at the bottom you will see the following dialogue:
You can click your mouse in the box that says "Add" and press a key which will tell "Widescreen fixer" to activate the fix once you are in the game.
From here, start KoA:R from your respective location (Steam or Origin). Now, once at the main menu, press the key you set it to above, I believe the default is the "Multiply" key on the numpad. Then, start your game as normal. As soon as you start moving around you should see the field of view move out.
Here are some in game shots of my rather low level mage, with and without this fix:
The default Field of View:
The field of view set to "90" through the widescreen fixer at 1920x1080 with my character standing at the exact same spot looking in the same direction:
It makes quite the difference! I haven't had much time to test if this creates graphical artifacts or not. From what I can tell most of the artifacts have been corrected since my initial answer to this question. Since it is turned on via the "Widescreen Fixer" program, it is easy enough to disable if you decide you don't like it. Simply hit the key to turn it on again to turn it off when back at the menu screen, or exit the game and do not run Widescreen fixer this time. You can always just remove the Widescreen Fixer directory if you don't like the use this.
In addition, as the game is patched, it may stop this FOV fix from working, so you may need to update the widescreen fixer program in the event that happens.
Additional note about the security concerns involved with Widescreen Fixer (based on the comments):
I received word from the creator of the Widescreen Fixer program (David Rudie) that the program does not in any way try to access the internet. In the 2.X versions of the code the check box you see in the interface tried to do auto-updating but did not work correctly, so that code was removed but the check box is still there in the 3.X versions of the program.
In addition, he says:
A couple of users reported issues that Widescreen Fixer would crash on launch. After looking into their error messages it turns out that Microsoft will mark certain things downloaded from the internet as remote, even if it's stored locally. Users then have to right-click on the .exe file, get properties, and then unblock it.
All I can say for sure is that nothing in the code accesses the internet.
Hopefully anyone who wants to use this fix that was concerned about security issues (Windows 7 did not prompt me for any firewall access but users in the comments reported that some dedicated firewall programs did) will have their concerns put to rest.
Shards effectively have quality levels. Instead of adding more ingredients like Alchemy and Blacksmithing, increasing one's Sagecrafting skill allows for the use of more advanced shards.
Sagecraft by the Numbers
Three quality levels:
Seven shard types:
Four gem categories:
Skill Progression
All characters can combine Cloudy Shards into gems innately. At level 2, you can combine Lambent Shards into gems. At level 6, you can use Pristine Shards.
Reaching level 3 in Sagecrafting lets you fuse identical shards into a higher tier, much like Diablo II's Horadric Cube, or Torchlight's Transmuter.
Reaching level 8 unlocks the epic gems recipe category.
Reaching Level 10 allows a master Sagecrafter to extract gems from equipment, with no harm to either gem or armament.
Every time you increase your Sagecrafting skill you also increase the chance of finding shards in the first place.
Gem Recipes
Like Alchemy, there are set combinations to create certain effects. Unlike Alchemy, you get a preview of the results of the transmutation before performing it, so you're never sagecrafting blindly.
There are 196 different combinations (7 shard types, 2 shards per gem, 4 categories), but there is some overlap; For instance, Fire + Protection and Ice + Protection both give + Physical Damage when used as a weapon gem.
Best Answer
I run a combination sorcery/finesse character, so I'll share my experiences.
Weapons
Chakrams are definitely an excellent ranged weapon, so make sure you take the abilities that give you bonus to chakram damage and unlock their charge attacks. Charging takes time, but can severely damage or thin out weak enemies from the fight. Even uncharged, they can hit several enemies in a wide swath in front of you, so they're my go-to weapons in most situations.
You can pair chakrams with a dagger or faeblade if you want to sneak, but I think this is only really viable after you have the smoke bomb ability. Up to that point, I'd recommend taking whatever secondary gives you the best passive bonuses. Chakrams are good up close and from a distance, so a second weapon is pretty overkill, honestly.
Sorcery Offensive Abilities
As far as offensive abilities go, I like Storm Bolt and Ice Barrage. Storm Bolt gives decent damage, but it's slow to recharge. At higher levels and with its support abilities, you can sometimes stun. Ice Barrage is a more rapid-fire attack, which has the bonus side effect of raising your Fate meter quickly. Casting either of these spells back-to-back with shadow flare gives you a pretty strong 1-2 magic punch against most enemy classes.
Sorcery Support Abilities
Healing Surge is worth points as a support spell, since can give you back lost life. However, it's only really good in situations where you're not under fire (ie, between enemy encounters). You have to stand still and hold the button down in order to get its full effects. I haven't yet used Sphere of Protection, since my character isn't as "squishy" as a full-on mage, so I don't really require the additional defense.
Abilities To Ignore
I've played with the Sorcery summon, (Faer Gorta) and I can't say that I'm impressed. It's a bit slow to move and attack, and doesn't do much damage compared to my weapons and spells. If you're expecting it to tank, it doesn't. I have a level or two into Mark of Flame as well, but I find that the extra effort of doing the mark, and then holding the button to detonate is a bit failure prone. There's a bonus to fire damage skill above Mark of Flame that you might want - many Chakrams have bonus fire/burn damage, so boosting that is worth the 1-point investment in Mark of Flame.
I never use a scepter or staff, so I completely ignored those skills. However, you'll have to put a point into Arcane Weaponry 2 (which has no chakram benefit) in order to unlock 3/4 (which do). The dodge move with the Chakrams is completely overpowered, and tends to stun as well as hit several times. It works great against enemy mages that tend to protect themselves with anti-magic fields, and have an annoying tendency to teleport.
Finesse Abilities
I assume that since you're coming from a finesse build, you already have a pretty clear idea about what finesse abilities work for you, but I'll give a quick rundown anyhow:
Note also that you can roll/blink while you're sneaking and you won't increase your chances of detection. This might be non-obvious, since the "blink" is quite noisy. While smoke bomb'ed, I've even poison blinked through enemies and done damage to them without them detecting me.
Armor
I use a combination of finesse equipment and sorcery equipment on my character. Sorcery equipment sacrifices defense for increased mana regen time in most cases. I typically wear a finesse class body armor piece, and at least one other finesse piece (depending on what I have available). The other minor armor pieces I'll use sorcery gear on. This way, I get the benefit of the high mana regen rate without sacrificing too much armor-wise.
Crafting your own armor with Blacksmithing is also a solid plan, since you can balance your armor set the way you want. My armor gives me massive Mana boosts, plus with sagecrafting I can make +2 mana regen/sec gems, which mean that I can cast throughout the entire fight without ever running low.
Conclusion
As I played on the Xbox 360, I only had access to 4 abilities at any given time. I would leave the "active" abilities on, and then take them off my active ability list (they persist even when they're not mapped to buttons). Then I generally had Ice Barrage or Storm Bolt, plus Shadow Flare, Smoke Bomb, and Healing Surge as my 4. In some cases I might leave off Smoke Bomb or Healing Surge in favor of taking the other mage spell.
If you're considering a respec, you might want to use this calculator to distribute your points ahead of time. I've found it to be a lifesaver for those times when I'm considering a new skill/ability set.