Hellgate Global Evoker Guide

Hellgate Global Evoker Guide by Syantha

This Guide will hopefully answer most of the commonly asked basic and in depth questions about the Evoker. I am not claiming that this build or way of gearing etc is the only way but I guarantee you it is the most efficient, versatile, and straight forward highest dps.

This build will kill enormous packs of dragons in seconds as well as bosses very smoothly, and if you’re into that sort of thing, you can even do it on hell. I consider soloing hell a waste of time, but you CAN do it quite easily with this build if you really wanted to.

If you’re not really interested in details and thorough explanations, I’ve added one sentence summaries for most sections, just scroll down or search for the “TL;DR” bits.

TO SKILL AN EVOKER

http://www.hellgate-resurrection.de/index.php?module=cms&task;=article&article;=1717§ionid;=1&hgrchars;=a0003aa00000000000070a10000001||en-evoker.html

  • 10/10 Demonspine – second best single target skill, fans out to 4 spines at 10 so you need to be fairly close to do maximum damage with it, if you’re unsude about this – being up close is not a problem and I will explain how and why later on. this skill also has a fair chance to stun.
  • 3/10 Firestorm – just to get further down
  • 10/10 Flameshards – absolute best single target skill, fans out much like demonspine into 7 shards, again you need to be close in order to hit one target with all shards. this skill has a very high chance to apply ignites to a target (which is in layment terms a damage over time effect). IMPORTANT NOTE: even though the tooltip doesn’t show it, it is proven that every point into Flameshards actually adds direct damage (probably ~5% per point) as well as the additional ignite.
  • 10/10 Hellfire –  undoubtedly the best aoe skill, it has a massive radius and just as flame shards, very high chance to apply ignites.
  • 7/7 Dual Focus – There is no way around it, you WILL have massive amounts of will feed.
  • 10/10 Arcane Shield –  This is your GOD MODE Skill – if you’re having problems staying alive, you haven’t put enough points into this skill. every point reduces the cooldown and increases the amount of bonus shield, but most importantly it replenishes your shields. When you look at a foci it has a BIG number which is DPS, and below that “Base Power: XXX-XXX” and this is where Arcane Shield takes it’s power from. THIS MEANS; the better andmore upgraded your weapon, the higher your arcane shield will be. Another important note is that while your shields are up, you CAN NOT take status effects – no stuns, no shocks, no poisons, no ignites, no phases – while your shields are up you’re fully protected and effectively immune.
  • 1/10 Blink – this is not stricly a requirement, but I for one take 1-2 points in it for a big number of reasons; it’s great for movement, getting out of a tight spot or just simply avoiding a fight. Oh and you can also teleport past obstacles like the big block of busses and cars you often see blocking roads in London areas.

Another very common question; Is it worth adding skill points past level 10? – No. you gain no benefit whatsoever past 10.

WHAT ABOUT SPARE POINTS?

Depending on your gear and number of expanders;

5-10/10 Spectral Curse – IMPORTANT NOTE; you put points into this after maxing everything else, it is a high end spell and not needed nor very useful at lower levels. Anyway, I can’t quite decide wether I like this one or Hellfire more for aoe – either way, Spectral Curse is an absolutely amazing spell especially for hell mode and big groups of mobs. it slows up to 16 enemies by 65% and works much like corpse explosion from diablo2 necromancers, meaning when a target dies with spectral curse, it explodes and deals spectral damage with high phase strength to nearby targets (I’m not 100% sure on the actual radius number, but it seems at least about 5m). I myself use 10/10 Spectral Curse and I can only say it’s absolutely amazing and very underrated.

Now, if you STILL have spare points because you are a crazy bastard and bought skill expanders for a class that doesn’t need it, after 10/10 Spectral Curse, you take 4/10 Concentrate Damage and another point in Blink and/or Bone Shards simply for utility.

TL;DR 10/10 Demonspine, 10/10 Flameshards, 10/10 Hellfire, 7/7 Dual Focus, 10/10 Arcane Shield, 1/10 Blink, rest into Spectral Curse. However it should be noted that if you have/will have a Balbi’s Ring and/or the Set Pants, you want to wait with maxing any skills until you know what +skills those 2 items give you, as they’re random.


WHAT ABOUT SKILL X AND Y – HOW COME YOU DONT USE THEM?

The most common question/debate is probably a +1 Evoker Skills helmet and quite plainly put, as good and tempting as that might seem on low level, think about it. with the build above, you really really don’t need the extra skills, they’re completely wasted. I’ve used a +1 helmet for a few levels once until I realised what an imbacile I was for paying 500k for it when I could use a veiled threat for 20k, which is not only much cheaper, but also much better. A similar thing goes for +Skills on weapons – they’re nice for low levels but as soon as you’re able to max the skills, they’re simply a waste of will feeds.

Anyway as for Concentrate damage, Venom Armor and Elemental Drain, they’re great utility skills and you want to get switch weapons with +3 or even +3+2 (+5) on them, I think it is agreeable it’s a waste to put points into something you can use on a switch set and switch back to your normal set afterwards.

  • Concentrate Damage – great for boss fights and groups with a guardian – either way you need to know how and more importantly WHEN to use it. When playing solo you have to be on the move too much to make it worth specing into it, unless you have a lot of expanders.
  • Venom Armor – great if you want to just let the boss hit you in the face and nuke, especially in conjunction with Concentrate Damage. it is in no way needed for general gameplay as long as you have Arcane Shield maxed.
  • Elemental Drain – fairly good for bosses especially when you’re in a group with multiple people who benefit from lower resistances on the boss. I myself don’t use it very much or close to not at all, mostly because of laziness, but the benefit really aint that big even with 5/5.

To save some typing, all of the spells listed below are commonly asked about and for reasons unknown to me, they are considered good and are recommended by some – but I promise you all of these are an absolute waste of points, are simply subpar in damage and will never under any circumstance match up to Demonspine and Flameshards for single target, or Hellfire and Spectral Curse for AoE. (which is a shame really, I’m a big fan of the Lightning skills animations and sounds)

  • Bone Shards – it’s a pvp and oshit i’m cornered stun skill.
  • Skullsplitter – it’s a great skill with big damage potential but it’s too random even if you learn to throw it properly. it may be very viable with a high crit build due to it being 30 seperate fragments, I will definitely test it some day. However it should be noted; in order to make a good build with 10/10 skullsplitter you need 6 extra skill expanders, unless you want to use a +1 helmet which is absolutely rubbish and never worth using.
  • Lightning Field – way too small radius, way too little damage
  • Tempest – way, way too little damage the big cooldown together with it being stationary makes it not very desirable at higher levels.
  • Arc Legion – this is an AMAZING skill for low levels for so many reasons and I know how what an easy mistake to make it is to spec 1 or even 10 points into it but simply put – you’ll waste at LEAST 6 points getting to arc legion in the first place so it’s just not worth it – and like all lightning spells, shock adds almost no damage at all. Also don’t be fooled – even though the tooltip says the shock damage increases – it doesn’t. IF you can get it from an item thats very cool, but don’t aim for it because it’s only really useful on low levels. once you got Hellfire decently high you will be laughing away at this skill.
  • Venomous Spirit – One up side; applied poison effect. downside; only 1 boss that is not very desirable to kill any more requires poison effects.
  • Swarm – Not as big as Hellfire, not as powerful as Hellfire, takes too many points to get there and again the only up side, if you can even call it that, is that it applies poison.
  • Spectral Serpents – kind of a nice spell if you plan on soloing high end bosses on hell mode, which is in my opinion an absolute waste of time but each to their own. sadly the serpents are stationary and don’t have a very big shooting range of their own (I would say ~15m) and don’t do alot of damage, nor do they have a very high phase attack strength.
  • Brom’s Curse – Nice for parties, but in no way necessary in any situation for yourself or your team mates.

TL;DR Lightning and Poison are inferior – there, I said it.

TO DISTRIBUTE ATTRIBUTES AND TO GEAR AN EVOKER

In Synergy with your gear, you want to put as many points as you can in Willpower, and only as many points in Stamina as absolutely necessary to equip your armor. disregard strength entirely, accuracy is very much something for high end boss killing – I will explain in detail further down.

For starters, a straight forward damage build is very simple, effective and fairly cheap. this means that you want as much +Add elemental damage as possible – on mods as well as weapons. Keep in mind +add elemental damage is better than +increased damage because of how it is calculated; increase calculates straight away whereas +add calculates after crits, and thus, crit damage – making +add every so slightly better especially the more crit chance and damage you have.

AS FOR ARMOR – Caster armor all the way, I will explain below just what kind. You should never need armor because of arcane shield and the descrease power cost is very, very helpful.

Until fairly high ranks you will struggle to support two fully modded mythic foci and this is why;

Every attribute of a weapon or an armor costs you feeds that you would rather use on more damage for your weapon(s), be it Hit Points (takes stam feeds) or Buff Duration (takes will feeds) or +3 to a random skill you dont need (will feed) any attribute that is not direct +stats will cost unnecessary and undesirable feeds for something that you dont need.

General rule; if it has an augment, it better be +stats. this goes especially for Uniques!

It should be mentioned that there is something I like to call a “Special Edition” – sort of a special, rare version of a piece of armor. the item will have the same stats, however it will have a different level requirement (lower, unless it’s double) and will therefor cost less feeds, while still essentially giving the same stats as the normal version. this is especially nice for Unique armor.

Special Editions are; 2-4% Increased Use Rate or 8-10% Shield Penetration, depending on the level of the item.

The 3 ways to identify wether the item is special edition or not are; – it will be coloured differently – it will have a different item level – when you inspect the item details you will see the bottom line with said use rate or shield penetration without a “prefix” name in front of it (fex. +10 All Attributes would be called “Fearless”)

A SMART MAN ONCE SAID; “I am too poor to buy something cheap” – think about it, seriously. don’t piss away money if you’re not 100% sure that piece of armor is optimal and you WILL use it. Be picky. be very picky.

TL;DR Only as much Stamina as you need, rest into Willpower

TL;DR2 Your armor’s main purpose is to support you with stats for your weapons. you don’t NEED “Protection” as long as you avoid getting hit where possible and use Arcane Shield where necessary.

TO LEVEL AN EVOKER

While leveling you want to generally make sure your Demonspine stays maxed as a priority, then Arcane Shield, then all the rest. Once you get Hellfire, that becomes your new priority to max out. Stat points go as mentioned above, stamina only as much as needed, rest into will. I like to keep 20-30 stat points laying around ready at my leisure in case I want to equip new pieces of armor and lack some points for it.

Everyone has their own style of leveling but as tips go; I would quest until I reach templar base, hop over to stonehenge for some quick leveling for a few levels just to breeze through the rest of the storyline, I never level too far ahead so that I still get alright EXP from mobs and quests while finishing the quests.

Starting at level 30 (or if you have hellfire before that with a low level weapon) you can grind stonehenge rooms on your own very easily and that’s what I normally do just because 95% of the time, parties will slow you down due to looting and generally not pulling their weight on damage.

If you have the budget and you get lucky enough to find one of these on the Market Place; buy a weapon between level 15-20 required with +1 Arc Legion on it. this doesn’t mean Arc Legion is a good spell, it means Arc Legion is a godlike spell for low levels, for so many reasons that I won’t go into it and will just leave it at; try it out and you’ll know.

Here is a nice list of mostly Unique Items I would buy every time and I absolutely recommend nano forging and modding out nicely for smooth leveling.

  • Mindbender Lens (lvl6 req.) – just to do some damage for the time being, Ember is very useless and does near to no damage even as +6 on this low level and gimps your power pool to virtually nothing, test for yourself though!
  • Existential Core (lvl13 req.) – extremely good weapon, should definitely nano forge it and mod it nicely as you’ll be using it until level 31
  • Forbidden Core (lvl31 req.) –  same as existential here, should be using it until level 45-50 easily
  • NO MUTENTACLES! You should get a pair of good Dreary Hands or Hell Mountain Locus – It’s worth it to invest a little bit into these weapons because you’ll be using them up to level 55 Where you start using Claw of Morax or Glyph Cage, depending on your budget.
  • The Baron’s Duellos
  • Hu’s Shoes
  • Grimhyde
  • Kravitz’ Cornuthaum
  • (Mantle of Sulfuric Guru) – very high feeds but if you can afford it at this low level, go for it
  • (Undeniable Trews) – same as ^

all these armor pieces you’ll be using until level 40-45 or even later if you have no good legendary replacements by then.

STATS EXPLAINED

  • Increases Damage by 10% – Straight increase to all the damage that is already there by 10%
  • Increases Electricity Damage by 9% – Increases electricity damage by 9% IF!! you already deal electricity damage, increase can only increase if there is something TO increase – quite logic rite?
  • Adds 9% Fire Damage – this means you don’t need to be dealing fire damage in order to add these 9% fire damage to your existing damage – for example at 100 Physical Damage this would add a straight +9 Fire Damage. this also adds AFTER crit damage calculates unlike INCREASE as above, making it ever so more desirable.
  • Critical Chance Multiplier +50% (Beasts) – If you have 20% Crit, this kind of mod will increase your crit vs Beasts and ONLY Beasts to 30% (see the crit section below for more details).
  • Adds 500 Ignite Attack Strength – this means it adds 500 ignite strength IF you deal fire damage, the fire damage can be through a fire spell OR through a mod that adds fire damage (as above). Ignite is, as described above, a simple damage over time. the higher your ignite strength, the higher your odds of applying it to a target, and the higher the duration.
  • Elemental Attack Strength Increased by 225% – Let’s say your Hellfire has an Ignite strength of 500, this would simply increase it, or if you want, multiply it by 2.25, totaling your ignite strength to 1125. Keep in mind bosses have high resistances, so while thousands might seem like a lot, and you WILL ignite almost everything, bosses will only rarely be ignited unless you have a very,very high strength.
  • Increases use rate of Evocation Skills by 4% – this will reduce cooldowns of your DPS abilities and ONLY your dps abilities, it does NOT work with skills such as Venom Armor and Arcane Shield.
  • Shield Overload – Extra damage to Shields – fairly useless
  • Shield Penetration – Say you have 15% Shield Penetration, that would mean 15% of your total damage penetrates through any shields, directly damaging the enemy’s health even though his/her shields are still up.

ABOUT FOCI

Every spell that you cast scales directly with the damage from both your Foci, it does not matter wether left or right hand has more damage, as long as the highest POWER is in your right hand, due to Arane Shield scaling, (check the tooltip, there are two numbers and there is a very important difference – the big one is damage, the one below that is power as it says).

damage is calculated like this; Foci1 + Foci2 x 0.6 = Your Damage

Critical Chances are a little more complex than that but work additively in a way as well (since 2.0.X) – for example Balbi’s Ring which gives 3% Crit, will effectively give you 6% total crit.

If you have 50% Crit on right and 50% Crit on left hand, you effectively have 100% chance to crit (yes yes, the hard cap is 95%) and you are almost guaranteed to crit with at least one hand, HOWEVER it is not guaranteed that you crit with both hands, so optimally what this means for you, if you want to aim for highest top end damage possible vs bosses; you want multiplier mods on both hands to be as close to possible to 95% crit vs X on both hands.

Sadly there isn’t enough certainty and datamined info on crit for evokers so I’m not giving guarantees on the correctivity of this info.

TOP END LEGENDARY ARMOR

As mentioned above, +1 Skill Helmet is out of the question and is completely unnecessary for an Evoker.

A good piece of armor should have at LEAST 2x +stats, one of which should be all attributes. Armor should cost as little feeds as possible while providing a lot of stats themselves. An optimal, “perfect” piece of Legendary CASTER! armor would be;

Decreases Power Cost by 5%     +13 Accuracy     +10 All Attributes     Increases Use Rate of Evocation Skills by 4%     +13 Stamina     +13 Willpower

TOP END UNIQUE ARMOR

Optimally, until high rank (more about that further down), you want legendary armor with stats (see above) for pretty much all slots except for a unique belt and torso. In case you’re wondering about set armor, scroll down a little.

  • Balbi’s Ring – very pricy especially for newcomers, however it remains simply the best belt even on max level/ran
  • Veiled Threat – best helmet out there
  • Surplus Surplice – arguably the best torso, especially due to 10-15% damage to beasts for the new tokyo bosses, though slightly worse than the set chest if you’re using a crit build.
  • Tombwalkers – very low feeds for what it provides, only slightly worse than a good pair of legendaries.

If it’s not listed, it’s a no-no.

SET ARMOR

I can only say, what a poor design. most of the pieces are simply awful as they provide almost no stats and require very high feeds. Given the variables on the item are “good”, I would probably be using Shoulders, Torso and Legs for the 3 piece bonus. It MAY be worth using 5 pieces, adding the Gloves and Boots – sadly the big downside with all of these set items are the stat feeds on them, in order to wear a bunch of them one would have to be considerably high ranked in order to still wear good weapons on top of it.

EXPERTISE

You can get the Crit, Damage or Luck one first, whichever you prefer (I personally take damage, then crit, then luck). The only really important bit is to have the crit expertise by the time you start gearing for crit and multipliers etc. The Last two expertise skills should be chosen at preference, I’d personally take the power regen just so I never need to use power packs and Health Regen or Armor as the last.

THE END GAME

As I mentioned, on early ranks you’ll be struggling and trying to scrape every single stat point you possibly can, on higher ranks (30+) it becomes less of a problem – HOWEVER this doesn’t mean you should suddenly disregard feeds and just wear complete garbage because you can. Consider that on high end, a crit build with lots of modifier+dmg mods, every point into accuracy will add an unbelievable amount of extra damage, 2% per hand per point in accuracy to be exact – so no matter what, you want to keep your feeds low in order to keep your dps high.

Now, In Theory, you can have about 75% crit on each foci give or take, with (I’m so not guaranteeing this) almost 1000% crit damage on max rank with absolute top weapons, mods and armor. and that is what you should ultimately be aiming for in terms of slaying dragons at high speed.

— And that would be all for now, thank you for reading and I hope I was of help to you! Special thanks goes out to Proverbial and Klick, my two rocket surgeon comrades.

If anyone has any questions, please, feel free to ask ingame (char name Syantha) and I’ll do my best to answer.

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3 Responses

  1. EVOKER hgg says:

    hi anonymous

    the +dmg ring doesnt work… bacially all inc. dmg doenst work on server t3fun HGG…why? dont ask me, ask then.. did plenty of tests and even inc. dmg as achivement doesnt work..so for max dmg you have to:
    1st: have max crit of 95% (you acomplish that with ccm x mods, and cc from foci and cc gear(helmet, ring, belt))
    2nd: maximum cdb, good evoker have base 1300cdb + mods on foci + pills to increase stats. how to get such big cdb is simple, by legendary stat gear…i wear all legendary stat gear, only belt and helmet arent. so all atrbutes go to accuracy, which increase your cdb (around 500 attributes to accuracy, which is 1000cdb, then glyph gives 200cdb and ring gives 65, and you are almost there then :D ).
    3rd and last: buff up your % ele dmg..this works on your end dmg…basically have as much % ele dmg on your foci’s and on your mods..this makes wonders..

    take care

  2. Anonymous says:

    I have a couple of questions. The first is concerning the gear:
    You do not mention rings in your gear list, am I right in assuming Stengthen Dark Monarch? How does it compare to the +6% dmg ring? (I forgot the name)

    My other question is about ranking. Some people suggest that when you hit 50 its better to rank up a bit before going on to the level cap as the mobs will be lower level and easier to kill.

    However that presents a different problem, as the mobs are lower level the loot is also worse, and more importantly there are no good lvl 50 weapons (lol mutentacles). I'm currently at level 50 still using my lvl 31 modded and auge'd forbidden cores. Needless to say the damage at this level is noticeably sub-par. I was trying to catch you on to ask you in-game but you seem to be never on-line.

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