No Rest for the Wicked

The Intelligence Battle Mage Build in No Rest for the Wicked utilizes a warrior-type front, backed with powerful magic-style attacks and synergies. You’ll be taking an equal amount of strength as you will intelligence in your attributes, so you can benefit from melee weapons with magical runes and two different sources of damage modifiers.

Recommended Battle-Mage Weapons:

The weapons you are looking for typically are as follows:

• Climber’s Pick: Tier 1 One-handed Axe (11 Strength and 11 Intelligence)
• Risen Blade: Tier 2 One-handed sword (22 Intelligence)
• Stone and Cinder: Legendary Tier 2 Two-handed Hammer (16 Strength and 16 Intelligence)
• Icebreaker: Tier 3 Two-handed Great Hammer (42 Intelligence)

Ideally, you want to grab and keep the Stone and Cinder legendary as soon as you can. It is legendary level, and so, you may get it early game from random enemies or bosses, or you may need to farm the crucible for the end-game grind to get one. But, the Climbers Pick and the Risen Blade are fairly common items going through Orban Glade, Nameless Pass, and completing daily missions in Sacrament and beyond.

The Climbers Pick is the first weapon you want to use to start snowballing the battle mage intelligence playstyle. The thing with these weapons is that they tend to have runes that do some form of magical attack. The Climbers Pick has a pretty strong fire throw, which deals heat damage and applies a burn. The Risen Blade comes with Ice Throw, which is another cold damage type ability, which can also stack the cold debuff on enemies, eventually freezing them in place for a few seconds. Both are good, and Ice Throw is very good for the CC (crowd control) on enemies, since there are very few times you can do an extended combo outside of hard CCing enemies. When you get the Stone and Cinder, you get 4 runes, which are:

• Crushing Uppercut (CC damage skill)
• Fire Whirlwind (Area of Effect cleave type spell with fire damage)
• Eruption (floor hazard AOE with huge poise buffs while casting)
• Channel (consumes HP for Focus)

There are other weapon alternatives like the Icebreaker, which is a two-handed great hammer with the cold enchantment rune on it. If you can get a good role on that weapon, you can use it. Be warned it comes with a whopping 42 intelligence requirement, which may mean it is hard to work in your build, if you’ve been speccing your Health, Focus, and Endurance attributes.

Battle-Mage Attributes:

The max level is 30, and you get 3 attributes a level. While there’s no respec in the game just yet, your build will use those attributes like so:

• Health: 17
• Stamina: 12
• Strength: 16-32
• Intelligence: 42

The idea behind the build is that you want a minimum of 42 Intelligence to cover (press the cover button to crouch behind walls or objects) all the bases for the intelligence melee weapons. 16 Strength is also the highest we’ve seen for Cinder and Stone drops.

The remaining points can then be spent on improving your Health and Stamina. Outside of damage buffs, Stamina is the most important stat in the game, especially early on. The more stamina you have, the more stamina you have to dodge endless ranged attacks and 4-6x boss attack combos and take a pot shot back. Invest in stamina fairly early on for ease of life, then pace it out later on when you’re around level ten onwards. Health is fairly important for general progression, especially if you intend on attempting to parry targets. But other than that, rush Intelligence with spare points and get to 16 strength when you get your Cinder and Stone.

Gemming and Enchants:

When it comes to enchanting affixes on gear, you ideally want stamina regeneration, and focus generation for your rune skills. You can take some XP loss, or slight damage penalties and it is okay. Stamina or focus generation nerfs are very unideal for this playstyle.

When it comes to gemming your gear, there are some good options here. Below are the slots on gear that can work for the build:

• Topaz: Weapon - Gain 1-3% Focus on Damage Dealt; Shield - Gain 3-10% Focus on Blocked Attacks; Helm - Focus Gain increased by 6-20%; Chest - Focus increased by 7-25%; Legs - Gain 3-10% Focus on Focus use; Gloves - Gain 6-20% Focus on Parry
• Emerald: Weapon - Gain 1-3% Stamina on Damage Dealt; Shield - Gain 15 Stamina on Blocked Attacks; Helm - Attack Stamina Cost decreased by 7-25%; Chest - Stamina increased by 5-15; Legs - Stamina Regeneration increased by 4-15%; Gloves - Stamina Refill on Parry
• Quartz: Helm - Focus Regeneration; Chest - Focus increased by 7-25%

Note that if you’re dealing primarily cold or heat damage, then placing either a sapphire or ruby in the weapon slot helps to increase the damage of that elemental status. Handy for building up that status effect on an enemy.