Timeline: Some very important starting items, and Khutzi quest
0:55 - Greedy Armour (digspot)
1:22 - Soldier's Helmet (shop)
1:27 - Beach Crab killing strategy
2:05 - Magic Orb piece (digspot)
4:15 - Jewel of Health (some guy)
4:39 - Glyph of Ability (digspot)
8:31 - KHUTZI, Mana belt and Amulet of Strength
Hello and welcome to Chapter 2! A lovely change of terrain as you can see.
Buy Resurrection Combat King for Fradz, he doesn't have it in a spell. I bought 4 levels of it and 1 siphon life Combat King (which I don't think actually works in this version...). The reasoning behind skill points are explained below. Definitely get 2 levels of blessing of lightning as it will allow you to dig ANY digspot from the start of the chapter. And Greedy Armour absolutely must be gotten right away (dig with level 2 blessing of lightning) for the increased gold and exp. Also soldiers helmet from the start is great for HP, and Fradz needs HP badly. Remember to walk into any Teleports you see to activate them.
First thing to do is to NOT do Nhutzi quest, but run to the top of the map and get the Jewel of Health. This item gives an extra permanent 25HP every time you level up, so get it before you level up. There is also a lovely digspot there with an ability point. Whilst I'm there, I prefer to do the Khutzi quest first, cross the river by boat for thief's knife (black merchant) and the digspot/TP there, then cross again and work my way through the mountains all the way to the Nhutzi and Voldro's quests.
Also, watch for my strategy against the crabs. You can take them at level one with well one timed Energy Ball and a scissor stab/invis strike alone. Abuse the skills and use meditate when mana finishes. Fradz at early levels MUST make use of his spells!
So as usual, here is the strategy I am employing for Fradz, and for this Chapter.
1. SKILLS
Fradz is the best DPS hero in the game with his skills and stats, so I want to maximize on that and build him as such. Sword Dance gives him superb attack speed, which combined with his naturally high attack rate already, makes him simply deadly in burst damage.
Meltdown - armour reduction and strong nuke, synchronizes well with other -armour skills for high physical DPS later in the game.
Scissor Stab - reducing armour increased physical damage, and for the same reason we chose Meltdown (reduces armour by 10), this simply synergizes perfectly with it (can reach -25 armour now). It's also a nuke.
Blessing of Lightning - an AOE (Area Of Effect) instant heal. Fradz is low on healing spells and this is one of the few AOE heals in the game. On top of that it increases all the stats of allies too, which is simply great.
Energy Ball - extremely powerful yet overlooked spell when used correctly. It heals and makes Fradz unkillable for a few seconds (helps in survival if you need just a bit more time to wait for a spell to come off cooldown), but the main point is the damage output possible. Because Fradz travels forward, enemies that get hit tend to walk away, and if Fradz follows them in the spell they will take damage multiple times. This can deal the most damage of any of Fradz's spells in this entire chapter. BUT, one disadvantage is that if you kill an enemy (finish it off) while in energy ball form, then you don't gain any charges on your sword of haste (or whatever starting pack item that needs charges). For this reason I only levelled it up once so that it would weaken but not kill enemies. Needless to say, if it was levelled up further most enemies could be instakilled easily.
Invisible Strike - Survival in tight situations, plus the move speed for navigating around, plus more importantly the extra damage on a backstab attack. That extra damage is better than most nukes, and very powerful at all levels. I use this a lot to kill enemies, usually on every cooldown. Just watch out for it in the video!
Teleport Strike - best skill for a physical DPS Fradz as it allows him to use all of his DPS buffs and attack damage and make full use of -armour. Stupidly powerful if all hits are directed at a single target (make sure nothing else is alive in range) with 5K or something damage pretty easy to achieve.
The aim is to maximize your strengths while watering down your weaknesses. Fradz's main weakness is survivability, so I have 3 skills that help survival while also enhancing his physical DPS (guess which ones and why that is the case!).
2. SKILL BUILD (how to spend ability points)
At the start you have 6 points.
2 x Blessing of Lightning - this is only for the stats. From the beginning if you have level 2 of this you can take EVERY digspot on the entire map. That's why I take it. If you think you are losing out on an ability point this early on, that is not the case because you can use the skill at the start to get another ability point from a digspot.
1 x Scissor Stab - levelling this up further gives a higher nuke damage but nothing else, the damage increase isn't that great.
2 x Invisible Strike - the damage from levelling this up is way better than the damage increase in scissor stab because this is a much more often used skill with more uses than scissor stab.
1 x Energy Ball - because as discussed above, it is really powerful but I need to ensure I don't kill with it.
3. ITEMS
Surprisingly you have a bit more cash than in chapter 1!
So as we want Francisca, we will want to buy both parts of Archeon's set from the shops, and complete the set after a quest. Then make this into a Topaz Axe when possible (Topaz from shop, axe from shop, recipe from shop) as it is very powerful and nets you an extra 12 agility permanently.
Zocmo's set is great, so buy his boots when possible. They increase movespeed a LOT, and since it's an aura you can leave Zocmo's Boots in your box and still get increased movement speed. I use this tactic in the epic/elite boss battles to free up an inventory slot.
Other good stuff to buy in this chapter, Soldier's helmet. You get the other two parts free and soldiers set is great on Fradz mainly for the extra HP, and also the other little bonuses.
I may need Ring of Rejuvenate for bosses, but hopefully it won't come to that
A lot of stuff can be sold again, including Centaurs Axe, whatever you get from the lucky box if it isn't useful, one amulet of strength (you get two), a bunch of evil eyes, mana belt, health belt etc.