Solomon Dark Guide

Peppermaster

Hi, I'm starting this guide to keep up the hypes for the new solomon game and help fellow players are not used to the changes in Solomon Dark. I may be wrong on certain controversial stuff like whether FIRE is bad in Solomon Dark or not. I will accept any opinions, questions, corrections, or better ideas. So, if you have any of them, please throw them on the comments. More contents for this guide will be posted later.

Here are the orders of topics that I will possibly discuss in this guide

1, Starting School of Magic

2. Welding Skills

3. Secondary Skills

4. Subskills

5. Enemies

6. Charms&Curses

7. ETC.

1. Staring School of Magic

FIRE (C)

 To be honest, Fireball is a good spell. Fireball itself got a huge late game mana cost buff. In old solomon game, level 8 fireball costs 66 mana. In Dark, level 8 fireball costs 22 mana (same as level 3 fireball in old solomon game!). Now here are the problems:

1. Weak early game: Explode was the core skill that made fireball a strong skill for early game. By just leveling one explode, you can easily clear mass skeletons with only few fireball shots. However, leveling up explode more than 1 point was not good because it only increased splash damage slightly. Now, leveling up explode increases not only more damage than before, but also the splash radius. That looks good. Here is the problem: THE EXPLODE RADIUS FOR LEVEL 1 GOT NERFED. It is so small that if you hit a skeleton, the skeleton behind the skeleton, whom got hit, does not get hit. You need to reach 3 level of explode to feel same as it was from the old solomon game. I think this nerf's purpose was that Mr. Raptis wanted to make higher level explode more useful. However, because explode at level 1 got weaker, it take more shots to clear the wave, which means you use more mana, which leads to mana shortage. Because the mana passive skills got nerfed, the early game for fire starter got very difficult.

2. Two useless welding spells: Meteor Swarm has ridiculous high mana cost(normally about 200 mana per second), terrible accuracy, and inconsistent damage. I think the unusual high cost was probably caused because Mr. Raptis forgot to fix it. Until it is fixed, if it is possible, don't use it. Steam Jet has been considered worst weldable skill in the game. It has short range, cannot guard against arrows, and blocks player's vision. It is very uncomfortable, and why would you that when you can use frost jet which can block arrows? Fire Missile and Flaming Lash? They are good welding spells but if you are going to use it, I recommend you to start with air or ether than fire.

3. Ring of Fire: It deals damage and pushes enemies back. That is it. Is the damage good? No and it is weaker than the old solomon game. Is the range good? It got smaller than the old solomon game. Is there better spells? Flash Freeze, Magic Circle, Magic Storm, Summon Golem, etc. 

To all the Fire lovers, I am not saying fireball su$# balls. What I am saying that starting with Fireball is not a good choice because of its weak early game, inferior secondary skill, and 2 out of 4 welded skills are terrible. If you want to use fireball, then I recommend to start lighting or ether and get fireball.

WATER (A)

Frost Jet & Flash Freeze has been the greatest starting skills in old solomon's boneyard and it is still the great in Solomon Dark. Frost Jet was good because it dealt wide aoe damage with ability to push enemies and block arrows (main reason that made me to abandon magic circle). Flash Freeze... ... it is really long aoe stun. It just can't get anything better than that. 

Of course, flash freeze got a duration nerf(10 second -> 5 second) because it is too good. Even with the nerf, flash freeze is still great and  frost jet is not only good but it also got improvements! First, mana cost got slightly lowered. Second, addition of sub skill "hail" covers frost jet's lack of damage. Third, addition of sub skill "permafrost" made frost jet's crowd control much stronger. Also, the water welding skills are all good (except steam jet). I will talk more about them later.  

Because of arrow blocking, constant aoe damage, knocking enemies away, and wide aoe stun, Water is still the best starting school of magic.

Peppermaster

AIR(A)

In Solomon's Boneyard, starting with Aliss (a typical lighting user who had lighting & magic circle) was not so great. Lighting had one of the worst early game because of its weak damage, limited targets, and high mana cost when upgraded and Magic Circle did not helped much to deal with the bad early game. In Solomon Dark, however, starting with lighting is actually not bad at all, in fact it is actually great. The reason why it is great is because of Magic Storm. 

Magic Storm is a reworked version of acid rain, one of the worst skills in the game due to its weak damage. If you think magic storm will suck like acid rain, you are wrong.  First, magic storm's damage is more powerful. Second, not only it is good at clearing massive amount of enemies, but also it also excels at dealing massive damage to a single target (unlike acid rain). Third, Magic Storm has an upgrade to make it much more powerful and lasts longer. Fourth, the new secondary skill for air, "Prismatic Shock", increases all air damage which synergizes perfectly with Magic Storm. 

Because of the presence of magic storm, the early game for air users are much more easier than in the old solomon game. More important thing is that Magic storm is also very powerful at the late game. It is so powerful that you will begin to use it as a primary spell than lighting. 

This does not mean lighting gets completely abandoned when you have higher level for magic storm. When you learn Hurricane, firing lighthing also blocks arrows from all angles and deals damage to all enemies on screen. Also, you have Prismatic Shock to boost your damage.

There is a very huge downside however... ...

LIGHTNING CANNOT HIT COFFINS!!!

I think this is glitch but Mr. Raptis will be busy working on Hoggy 2 right now so I suggest you guys to learn another primary spells just to deal with those pesky coffins. 

Overall, Air is really good and I strongly recommend you guys to play it

ETHER(B)

Ether has been considered decent school of magic and it is still decent. The main differences are that you now start with call leviathan instead of acid rain (f*** you sirmen) and magic missile has a new sub skill "piercing". Call Leviathan is a bit underwhelming compared to magic storm(mostly because magic storm is just too good) but it is still a decent spell. It is very helpful clearing out early waves but it does fall off eventually at the late game.

Normally, Magic Missile was weak at the late game because it was not good at clearing waves compared to other primary spells. However, because of "Piercing", Magic Missile's late game is not as weak as it was back then. Piercing is a very simple sub skill: Your magic missile pierces through enemies and seek out other enemies. It is actually a very powerful skill because it increase the maximum number of enemies that you can hit with per cast a lot. For example, if a mage had 2 piercing and 3 more missile, the maximum number of enemies that you can hit per cast is 12 (3*4). 

Welding Spells for ether are literally all good. They are all pretty much accurate and any primary spells have good synergy with maggic missile.

Overall, ether is very decent school of magic. If you are sick and tired of lighting and frost jet, ether is the one you should try.

EARTH(B)

Earth is probably the most difficult starting school of magic in the game. Because of really slow fire rate, every shot matters. You need to make sure that each shot kills as much enemies as it can. Thankfully, you start with summon golem, which taunts nearby enemies and deals decent damage to nearby enemies. Utilizing golem is the key of Earth users' early game. It is very difficult for earth mage to deal with enemies that are close to the mage, especially if they are spiders. By using golems, you can easily get away from enemies and take time to charge up your boulder. Be aware, that earth mages' weakest time is when summon golem is on cooldown.

Late game is quite decent. After upgrading some hasten rocks, you will be able to deal with enemies too close to you more easily than before and both elemental flourish for boulder are really good and unique. 

Welding spells for earth is generally decent. BUT NEVER TRY TO COMBINE EARTH AND FIRE! Meteor Swarm is still very incomplete in balance wise. Do not play that skill until Mr. Raptis fixes it (he said he will touch Solomon Dark a bit after finishing Hoggy 2). If you are really bored, try hailstone(earth+water). It feels like you are shooting a machine gun rather than casting a magic(when you just spam click)

NiGHTcapD_ntc

Peppermaster will more than likely go through these in even greater detail, but I'm putting this here so we have something. Also it lets me get my facts straight via peer correction.

Weld basics:

Ether-Fire: Fire Missile. Powerful fire-and-forget, but can wreck guys up close. Get here from Ether.

Subskill usage: Grab lots of More Missiles and at least one of every other subskill you can. More Missiles effectively multiplies both damage and coverage and use both Fireball subs to spread the love more once the missile makes contact. For spells welded with Magic Missile, always have at least one Smart Missiles so they can redirect if their initial target dies.

Ether-Water: Frost Missile. Fire-and-forget. Can block arrows and slow enemies. Get here from either.

Subskill usage: Again, grab as many More Missiles as you want and at least one Smart Missiles, and use as many Cone Of Ice as you want to increase both the ability to slow targets and the ability to block arrows with Chill Wind. Never weld Frost Jet without Chill Wind.

Ether-Air: Ball Lightning. Fire-and-forget, best aimed into crowds. Can stun enemies. Get here from either.

Subskill usage: Again, grab as many More Missiles as you want and at least one Smart Missiles. Use as many Chaining as you want to increase the number of effected targets, which you can stun with Stun.

Ether-Earth: Ethereal Boulder. Chargable. Best against weaker enemies; fully charge for use against bosses. Get here from either.

Subskill usage: Again, grab as many More Missiles as you want and at least one Smart Missiles. Grabbing Bind Rocks allows for better crowd control on enemies thee boulder would kill in one hit; but what you really want is tons of Hasten Rocks, so you can fire more often.

Fire-Water: Steam Jet. Leaves steam in the air, which damages enemies before eventually dissipating. Cannot push enemies nor block arrows, and Fire subs only activate on killing each enemy. Get here from Fire.

Subskill usage: *sigh* If you're going to run this, don't even bother with any of the Frost Jet subskills. Dunno about Hailstones, but since you're not getting there without going through the others, don't upgrade Frost Jet for anything other than damage. (Though if you're running this, you'll probably get them anyways just to use on FJ raw.) Upgrade damage to a comfortable level before going big on the subs, as you can actually set off some impressive chain explosions as skeletons die and explode on each other.

Syrion

I might be mistaking it for magic Storm, but I think Lightning can hit coffins, albeit only at tiny, very specific angles, which is obviously a bug. You may see the coffin flashing red when you "sweep" the lightning over the coffin, hitting it for a very short time. But, I've only used it in conjunction with Magic Storm, which might have caused the hits. Either way, coffins are easy to destroy, it can just take a long time.

As for fire magic, I find it gets very strong once you get "Embers to Imps" with Embers at level 3+. This combines the high damage of each fireball with much better crowd control, and damn if it isn't great fun :D

Similarly, Earth can be very situational, until you have Hasten Rocks at a high level, pair it with Gargantuan and maybe even have a "casting speed +100%" ring. At that point it's extremely strong and also incredibly fun :)

Peppermaster

@Syrion

No, I don't think you can hit coffins with lighting. I've tried it with a custom-made boss coffin that does not spawn maggots and the health bar for the coffin never went down. I think attacks that acts like lighting (flame lash, chaining from other welding skills) cannot hit coffins and Magic Storm does not act like lighting.

For the Starting school of magic section, I was talking about starting with one of the five pre-made sets of spells not talking about the entire spells in a certain school of magic. Of course Fireball is extremely powerful in late game but what I was talking was that starting with fireball and ring of fire is not good. Also, you can start with something with more powerful early game to deal with the early game problem and then focus your skill points on fireball to make your late game powerful.

All the stuff about late game like embers to imps, gargantuan, etc. will be discussed later in the subclass section.

Peppermaster

@NiGHTcapD_ntc

Thank you for the putting some information for the welding magics.

I will put more details and my opinions later.

P.S. Fire Missile is now Burning Bolt

NiGHTcapD_ntc

Errata: Get Cone Of Ice for Steam Jet. It increases your area coverage with the spray. The more screen covered, the less you can see, but the more area that damages foes.

Fire-Air: Flame Lash. Super-damaging Lightning, best aimed into crowds. Expensive as all unholy hell, or at least it was in Boneyard. Get here from Air.

Subskill usage: Like with Steam Jet, Fire subs only activate on killing an enemy with the lash. Unfortunately, this can kill some before you even get to aim at them, so the explosions wont necessarily be as impressive. What is impressive is this thing's DPS; especially when souped up with Chaining, which again, multiplies targets. Don't even bother too much with Stun; just garb tons of Chaining and as many of the Fire subs as you so desire.

Fire-Earth: Meteor Swarm. Inaccurate piece of crap, though decently large DPS if you have a lucky day or your opponent is huge. Must get in relatively close to hit. Mana-expensive, especially given that it's broken right now. May as well come from Fire, as Earth subs don't help much.

Subskill usage: They seriously don't. Hasten brings down meteors faster, and Bind just keeps the burning craters up a bit longer...Bind may actually be okay, if you know what you're doing and play MS for the craters as opposed to the impacts. All Fire subs increase impact damage in some way or another, grab those.

Water-Air: Blizzard Beam. Pretty much a solid laser of potentially infinite length and potentially infinite targets, but it's costly as all hell. Can you keep up with this mana-hungry powerhouse? Get here from either spell.

Subskill usage: Chill Wind, must have. Blocks arrows. Cone Of Ice, width expansion to the beam. Grab lots, tons in fact, especially if you don't aim all that good. Chaining works from every target in the beam and can spread to those outside of it. You want this, especially for crowd control. Stun works as it always has, though it's not like you'll see it much due to Chill Wind...but it does help with those chained as opposed to blasted. Your call.

Water-Earth: Hailstones. I'd...honestly like to get more experience, or rather any, before I make a judgement call, but I will say that it charges quick from what I've seen and heard and fires even faster. I really want to get my hands on this one.

Subskill usage: 

Air-Earth: Grounded Bolt. Shoots three bolts that arc along the ground, not particularly homing. Better from afar. Get here from either.

Subskill usage: Hasten makes you shoot faster, grab plenty of these. Bind makes bolts pierce after impact, have a few. Chaining takes effect on hit like with Ball Lightning, take a few of those. Stun...is, as always what you make of it.

Is this about right @Peppermaster ?

Peppermaster

@NiGHTcapD_ntc

Fire Missile: It is Burning Bolt now. Also, putting more points on explode greatly increase splash damage radius.

Ethereal Boulder: I don't think this spell requires lots of hasten rock because it still is faster than regular Boulder. Instead, I would rather focus on the damage, more missile, bind rock.

Steam Jet: It CAN push enemies. It is just too weak to actually see them pushed back.

Grounded Bolt: The name for this... ... is controversial. The game says it is Ground Bolt and Crawling Shock. I think Mr. Raptis wanted to change the name to crawling shock and he forgot to change ground bolt to crawling shock.

Blizzard Beam: I would not recommend too much point on cone of ice. Sure wider beam is good but the increase width is too minuscule. 

Hailstone: This one is a really fun one to play with and I'll put more detail on that soon. 

Rest of the stuff are pretty accurate and fine.

I will put more detailed thoughts and facts once I'm done with those.

Again, thanks for your contribution.

NiGHTcapD_ntc

I just really like my Frost Jet with Cone Of Ice. Can you blame me?

Peppermaster

You are not the only Cone of Ice lover, my friend.

Peppermaster

2. Welding Spells

Ball Lightning (A)

At the first time I used ball lighting, I felt ball lightning was the inferior version of other ether welding spell because it did not had either a massive aoe damage or an arrow block. As I play more ball lighting, I have realized two special things that makes it unique from other ether welding spells: its fast attack speed and slow missile speed. Because of its high attack speed, the dps and wave clear are really good. Also, the mana cost is fairly low for a welding spell. The downsides for this spell are that the chaining does not deal damage to coffins(for some reason, coffins are immune to lighting) and it lacks defensive qualities. 

The sub-skills work just the same so I will not go over them. 

Overall, Ball Lightning is a fairly decent spell with little to few downsides.

P.S. I originally gave B for this skill but now, considering its massive synergy with Prismatic Shock, I think it is actually much better than Burning Bolt because of higher dps and more utility(stun).

Burning Bolt (B)

Burning Bolt(formerly known as Fire Missile) itself hasn't really changed much. The changes that burning bolt had are: 1. projectile speed increase (not confirmed) 2. explosion radius now scales with explosion's level. 3. shoots slightly slower than frost missile and ball lightning. Because of explosion radius now scales with the level of explosion, the late game wave clear will be far more powerful than it was in the old Solomon games. If Ball Lighting is about rapidly firing lots of missile, Burning Bolt is slowly shooting bunch of nukes. Besides that difference, Burning Bolt is quite similar to Ball Lighting: They both lack defensive qualities. 

The sub-skills work just the same so I will not go over them. 

Peppermaster

Frost Missile (S)

In my opinion, this spell is pretty much perfect. It has every good aspects of magic missile and frost jet: automated aiming, shooting multiple projectiles per each shot, aoe damage, slow, and arrow block. Also, because the each missile can block arrows, you can just shoot once and block bunch of arrows while frost jet can block same amount of arrows holding the attack key for couple of seconds. It is literally fire-n-forget like NiGHTcapD_ntc said above. In late game, you will eventually get bored of this game for being too easy and your mind will be filled with suicidal urge. (true story)

The sub-classes for the ether part are same but sub-classes for the water acts little different. Chill wind increases the slow that each shot gives to enemy and cone of ice increases the aoe width. Chill wind also makes each projectile block arrows. Spending too much on water sub spells is not recommended. They are essential but high level of either chill wind or cone of ice is not efficient compared to spending skill points on more missile and primary spells. More missile is crucial to Frost Missile because more missile you shoot, more arrows you can block.

Ethereal Boulder (A)

Ethereal Boulder is very simple yet powerful spell. This spell is basically a magic missile that can pierce enemies(bind rock), upgrades its attack speed with sub-skill(hasten rock), has slow fire rate, has strong damage per shot, and be blocked by obstacles. Pretty long and uninteresting, isn't it? The only thing that we should care is the fact that it can pierce enemies. 

Piercing may not look like a powerful ability but if you found out that it is one of the two elemental flourishes for Magic Missile (other one is ether blast, previous known as ether charge) you will realize it is really powerful ability for Magic Missile. The best part of Ethereal Boulder is that you can use piercing early in the game. One of ether users' problem is early game wave clear. Because magic missile is single target, it is very difficult to deal with massive number of skeletons. The best way to clear out the wave is learning piercing but it does not come out on early level. Ethereal Boulder, on the other hand, can be learned as early as level 5. Because it can be acquired so quickly, ether users does not need to suffer anymore from early game mass skeletons.

Another good aspect of Ethereal Boulder is that it allows ether users to choose ether blast without concerning about not having piercing because Ethereal Boulder already has piercing. Ether blast, in arena type of game like boneyard, is not good because it only reduces enemies max hp rather than dealing damage (which is not helpful when fighting against mass weaklings). This problem can be easily solved by combination with Ethereal Boulder. The way this combo works is that first, Ether Blast reduces all enemies' max hp drastically and Ethereal Boulder finishes those weakened enemies.

The major downside of Ethereal Boulder is that it lacks utility(slow, stun, arrow block, etc) which leads to weak late game. In late game, swarm of enemies with massive health pool will overwhelm the player. In order to clear the wave, player have to buy some time and Ethereal Boulder has no ways to buy time. This, however, can be solved by either getting good secondary spells or having Ether Blast.

Peppermaster

Steam Jet (D)

Oh dear... ...The worst welding spell in the game (besides Meteor Swarm). Let's just get straight to the problems.

1. Really short range with no defensive mechanism: This ability has shorter range than Frost Jet! Furthermore, it has no arrow blocking or defense up to protect the user from ranged attack! Do I really need to explain you readers what is so bad with this?

2. Weaker knockover: Apparently, it can push enemies. However, it is so small that you need to put at least 3 points on chill wind to see enemies being pushed over by this ability.

3. Blocking Vision: The steam is too thick that you can't see what is going on. It also makes it more difficult to dodge arrows.

If this ability at least can block arrows, then I will get at least A grade for it. But without any defensive qualities(excluding the negligible pushover) it is just bad. The only good side is that this spell's damage is quite powerful. But what good is a powerful spell when you get soaked with rain of arrows and get hanged on a portrait?

Flame Lash (A)

High DPS & High Mana Cost. This is basically what this skill is all about. I am not sure whether Prismatic Shock increases damage for this spell but if it does, then this spell is the strongest welding spell in the game(offensively). This spell works like lighting except when it kills an enemy, it explode and release some embers based on your ember and explode level. Because it only triggers when the target dies, explode and ember are not efficient. Going for damage, chaining is the best way to build Flame Lash. Even though it has little to no defensive qualities, Flame Lash's ridiculous DPS covers that weakness. Because of its ridiculous mana cost, Flame Lash is not efficient in early to mid game when you have few battle mage and channel mana. Therefore, if you aim to use Flame Lash, you should think of welding it at the late game when you have enough battle mage and channel mana to deal with the massive mana cost.

Peppermaster

Blizzard Beam (A)

This spell shoots an infinitely long beam of light that deals damage and knock away all enemies within the beam. Unlike its really cool visual effects, it is not as strong as it looks. Blizzard Beam is all about utilizing its infinite range and crowd control abilities (stun & pushover). For this spell, maxing Chill Wind is highly recommend because it has infinite range and pushing enemies away allows you to deal damage safely. Even though it can block arrows, it is difficult to block them because the width is very thin. The main sub skills for this spell are Chill Wind, Chaining, Cone of Ice. Stun is not necessary because enemies cannot move when they are constantly being pushed over by the beam. Chaining allows beam to hit extra enemies who are close to the beam but not touching it. Because it is also air skill, it can boost its DPS by using Prismatic Shock. Also, you can kill a boss without even seeing it using this ability(it is possible to do the same with Frost Missile and Frost Jet). The only problem with this is that it takes more than minutes to kill those late game bosses and your patience will eventually run out.

Hailstones (B+)

Hailstones is a spell that you play because it is fun, not because it is OP. This doesn't mean Hailstones is bad. It is actually very powerful spell. Hailstones works similar to boulder except there are no minimum size you need to reach in order to fire, each shot can significantly knockback enemies(chill wind required), shoots barrage of stones instead of shooting a big boulder, projectile speed is very fast, and stones spread apart(requires cone of ice). 

When you constantly spam attack button, you fire stones like a machine gun. It really feels like you are playing a zombie survival game(technically it is) with a SMG on your hand. The problem with this machine gun shooting is that it is pretty difficult to aim and you might get frustrated. But don't worry, if you spam fast enough, it still won't take more than a second to hit a target. The good thing about machine gunning is that you absolutely do not need hasten rock. Hasten Rock only quicken the charge time not attack speed. Because you never charge up when machine gunning, hasten rock is unnecessary. Also, once you get used to machine gunning, machine gunning becomes more accurate than charging up and its long term damage is significantly higher than charging up. If you feel like you are pro at this game and want some challenge, machine gunning Hailstones is the best way to play this game.

When you decides to play Hailstone by charging up, or shotgunning as I call it, your burst damage and wave clear get really strong. It is so strong that Hailstone with all level 1 skills can kill a monster with 100 hp by only shooting two fully charged shots. Does it take long to fully charge it? Absolutely not. In fact, you don't really need hasten rock like you do with boulder. The downside of this method is that it is still possible to miss even if you aim correctly because the clusters of stones are grouped irregularly. However, it is quite negligible when you use machine gunning to deal with those missed enemies. 

Overall, Hailstones is really fun, powerful in all round, and challenging spell to play with. However, it will take some time to master using this spell.

Crawling Shock (B)

It is pretty much similar to Ball Lightining. The differences are that this one cannot pass through obstacles, does not home, cannot increase number of shot fired per cast, can massively increase attack speed by sub skills, and it pierces. The projectiles move a bit random but it is negligible because the hitbox for each projectile is pretty big. The playstyle would be quite similar to Ball Lighting except the fact that this one needs a bit more aiming. The reason why I am only giving B even though its late game damage would be strong is that it is not homing spell and obstacles can easily block it.

Meteor Swarm (F)

I had a long rant about why meteor swarm su*ks on this discussion page: 

http://www.raptisoft-forums.com/discussion/265/meteor-swarm-math-problem-math-masters-welcomed#latest

Go check it out if you want to know why I think it is terrible.

Peppermaster

3. Secondary Spells

Ring of Fire (C)

Though I consider this as a useless piece of garbage, it is actually quite decent in early game. It has decent damage and it knocks back all enemies(with few exception that comes in mid to late game). However, if you do not put points on ring of fire, your ring of fire will deal very little damage enough to think that it has no damage at all. Even if you try to put some skill points on Ring of Fire, there is a point when it cannot kill any enemies. If you need something to buy some time, stunning them for couple of seconds is way better than just pushing them away. I feel like ring of fire should get more powerful as fireball gets more powerful so that it doe not fall off in late game. 

Magic Circle (B)

Magic Circle is pretty powerful spell. It slows down enemies and projectiles and heals your health and mana little bit. Health regen may seem underwhelming but it can be a life saver in early game. It does let you survive by a tiny bit of health when you would normally die. Slow can be very useful for dodging arrows and buying some time to get more mana or cooldown. Also, in Dark, leveling Magic Circle increases slow up to 90%. 

The downside is that the circle is quite small and cannot be upgraded like in old solomon game. Of course this doesn't mean I like the old version of Magic Circle. The old one had very negligible slow compared to Magic Circle in Dark. Another downside of this ability is the late game. In late game, slow is not enough to stop the endless hoard of enemies and the duration of the slow become shorter than Ring of Ices freeze(which is way better than slow) duration. I feel like it needs something more useful 

Ring of Ice (formerly known as Flash Freeze) (S)

A wide range aoe stun with at least 5 second(max 60 seconds) duration. This explains everything about Ring of Ice. If you are not convinced how good this is, go play a MOBA type game and get hit by a skill that stuns you for about 2 to 3 seconds. Considering how long 3 second of stun feels, 5 seconds of stun is ridiculously long stun and there are so many things that can be done within 5 seconds. Also, each time you level this skill up, your stun duration increases drastically up to 60 seconds! Because stun is ridiculously powerful, Ring of Ice never falls off in the late game where you cannot instantly kill enemies and slows and pushing is not enough to buy enough time to kill them. As long as it changes freeze to slow, Ring of Ice will always be the best defensive secondary spell in Solomon games.

Magic Storm (S)

Acid Rain was considered(and it is) one of the worst spell in the game. This spell is a reworked version of Acid Rain and it is now probably the best offensive secondary spell in the game(excluding those unlockable spells like call comet). Normally, offensive secondary spells fall off in late game because their damage is not strong enough to deal with massive number of tanky enemies. Magic Storm, on the other hand, does not fall off because it has an upgrade that makes Magic Storm more powerful and using Prismatic Shock doubles the damage of Magic Storm. Unlike most secondary spells, Magic Storm has an upgrade called Magic Tornado, which increases Magic Storm's attack speed and duration. This allows players to set multiple active Magic Storm on the field. Also, because Magic Storm deals strong single target damage instead of weak aoe damage, stacking Magic Storm deals massive damage to bosses. Because Magic Storm is an Air magic, its damage is also amplified by Prismatic Shock. Combining stacks of Magic Storm with Prismatic Shock will destroy bosses in no time. Is dealing with mass skeleton bad for Magic Storm? Not at all. Magic Storm is powerful enough to deal with weak skeletons at eh early game . Once you learn Magic Tornado, dealing with mass skeleton gets even better.

Call Leviathan (B)

Call Leviathan is decent offensive spell that is good in early game. The dps of Call Leviathan is not bad at all but it lacks potential for late game. I would only use it when I need some help with early game and Magic Storm does not come out. Beides dps, it can be used as a barricade to make some bosses to get stuck between Leviathan and graves. 

Summon Golem (A+)

This spell is the core spell of Earth starters. Because Boulder's fire speed is very slow, it is very difficult for Earth starters to deal with enemies coming from many directions. Golem sloves that problem by getting aggro and dealing decent aoe damage nearby. Other than being a taunting meat shield, it can constantly knock back enemeis including bosses! Because it can push away bosses too, this makes melee bosses and even Discorporeal very easy. Also, there is also an upgrade to make golem to reflect damage which make it more offensive spell than just meat shield summoning spell.

Magic Shield (S+)

This is the most essential spell in the game. In early to mid game, Magic Shield is not essential because as long as you don't have a messed up build, you won't receive much damage to feel like you might die. In late game, it is very difficult to kill enemies quickly and you will start getting hit by the overwhelming amount of projectiles and mobs. To make sure you do not get overwhelmed by mass projectiles and enemies, you must have either high health pool or magic shield. It may seem like going for health up could be good but here is the problems: 1. poison 2. does not increase health regen at all. 

Magic Shield, on the other hand, can quickly refill the shield health and is not affected by poison. 

Also, it can deal damage to enemies when it gets destroyed (upgrade required)! As long as Mr. Raptis makes an alternative for Magic Shield, Magic Shield is the probably going to stay in the god tier in Solomon Games.

Dampen (S?)

Well... ...this one looks amazing but ... . it crashes the game. 

Earthquake (A)

Decent crowd controlling spell with good duration. It would be nice if it was a stun but it still works similar to stun. Still a nice alternative to Ring of Ice.

Firewalker (D)

I am no fire hater but this spell is awful. The concept is fine but the size and the duration of the trail is stupid. It is pretty impossible to hit anything because the trail is small and it disappears to quickly. If you want to use this, make sure you increase the duration in the wizardskills folder. Otherwise, good luck.

Peppermaster

Phasing (F)

This spell could have been good but not in this game. Obstacle is not much a big of a deal in this game and also there are not much to super deadly big projectile that can be perfectly dodged by blink spell. I think this spell is not really necessary and relevant in this game but it might be more useful in the new Solomon's Keep.

Teleport (D)

This spell is a must-have... ... for Keep only. This game, it is a bit underwhelming and unstable. It's nice to escape from bad situation but its pretty much like pushing away enemies like Ring of Fire. Also, it can put yourself into further danger. Only get it if you have absolutely no choice.

Regenerate (F)

To be honest, why would I care about getting this when I can just get Magic Shield or Magic Circle? Well the good thing about this spell is that its duration is infinite but I find it is useless unless I am interested in doing some martial arts build kind of thing.

Turn Undead (A)

It is pretty much like Ring of Ice except you "weaken" enemies and make them flee. I am not sure what this weaken means but I assume that it increases damage. The only problem it has is that it make enemies flee instead of stunning them. This makes little bit difficult for players to hit some enemies. Also, the duration is very small compared to Ring of Ice (don't get me wrong. 3 second is still a long crowd control duration) I guess it can be useful when you need more damage and need hard cc.

Stoneskin (A)

Invulnerability for several seconds. Simple and powerful. The only downside would be that the cooldown is really long compared to other spells but it is very acceptable. The duration is pretty long (10 seconds) and it can be very useful for survival. However, because of its long cooldown, Stoneskin alone is not enough to deal with the late game.

Mindstar (A?)

Well... ... spending 1 skill point to get +1 skill for all skills is neat but it hoard mana quite a lot. If your mana sustain is fine, go for it. It's pretty worth it I guess. But be aware that your spell mana cost might increase also. 

Prismatic Shock (S)

This is must-have for air users for late game. This significantly increases your dps. However, be sure not to get it too early until you have good mana sustain and essential secondary skills. This spell only increases your damage and does not give any utility. 

Magic Trap (A)

It's quite nice to have some traps to deal with pesky monsters. Also, you can just use it a a instant splash damage attack. This ability can be very helpful if you are bad at dealing with mass amount of enemies. Also, the damage scales on your primary spell and how long it has been in the map (up to 8 seconds)

Peppermaster

Fire Wall (A+)

This is basically what the fire walls that those skull bosses in Boneyard shoots. It is pretty powerful, decent area size, and low cooldown. With using good crowd control like golem, ring of ice, etc, it can be a devastating spell. Also, because there are some small spaces between graves, it pretty easy to deal damages to those dumb enemies.

Ether Drain (B)

This is a very devastating spell for enemies and you! This spell can kill you! It's really powerful indeed. But be sure you cast it away from you or you will get sucked away like rest of the skeletons. It is indeed a powerful spell and I want to give S but because you can't cast it nearby you without risking yourself, I instead give B to this spell.

Acid Rain (F-)

This is the main reason why Sirmen is dead. Need more reason? Terrible damage and absolutely no utility. If you are not convinced, try it out at the tutorial.  

Call Comet (S)

Massive area damage + ring of ice+f%&king awesome effect. What can be better than this? This is basically what Meteor Swarm should be. Is it weak in early game? Not at all. It freezes enemies for 10 seconds and deals 50 damage at level one. The only downsides are high mana cost (100 mana for level 1) and long casting time. Of course they are quite acceptable considering how powerful this spell is.  

Planewalker (A)

This ability turns you into a deadly machine of destruction. This spell is not only powerful, but also deals aoe damage. However, you can't use any other spells when you are transformed. So be sure to use your defensive magics before you us this ability.

P.S. Sorry for being late. I have been studying for midterm last week and didn't had enough time to do the guide. Please post any questions, concerns, thoughts about those secondary skills. I would love to hear how you guys feel about the secondary skills.

NiGHTcapD_ntc

Ether Drain also takes away gold and items.

Also Sirmen=/=Sirmin.

Peppermaster

3. Subskills

*sub spells with bold font is an elemental flourish. It is like an ultimate upgrade that you can get at higher level. You can only choose one elemental flourish for each school of spell (for example, you cannot have both immolate and ember to imps for fireball) 

**I assume you all know how each sub spells generally works. If you have more questions on how some sub spells work, feel free to ask.

FIRE

Explode: One big change with Explode is that it can increase blast radius as well damage. The downside of this change is that the explosion radius for level 1 and possibliy 2 is really small compared to older games. Once it reaches about level 3, it is really good but reaching that level 3 is not only difficult but also dangerous because it increases mana a lot. Also considering how channel mana and battle mage got nerfed, it is even more dangerous to put level 3 on explode in early game when you struggle with mana shortage. If you have no problem with mana, I suggest you should put some points on this sub spell. The increase of radius is much bigger than you think and it will make you feel like you are shooting mini nukes at monsters.

 

Ember: This one also got an early game nerf (-1 ember for level 1). Because of this nerf, it is not as helpful as it was in old solomon games in level 1. But because both elemental flourish involves with ember, you have to level it up at least 1.

Burn: This somewhat increases damage for fireball, ring of fire, and firewalker. It is quite a decent upgrade but not visually impactful. 

Immolate: Immolate is an elemental flourish that focuses more on mass aoe damage. The problems with this ability are that you will already have good aoe damage with Explode(unless you put only one to two level for Explode) and Embers to Imps surpasses Immolate in damage potential. 

 

Embers to Imps: Embers to Imps is an elemental flourish that focuses on high damage with homing. This is probably the better elemental flourish because it follows enemies and deals more damage than Immolate. I recommend going for this one.

ETHER

More Missile: More Missile is the most important upgrade for Ether users. First, it makes the wave clear much easier. Second, it increases damage exponentially (against single target). However, the mana cost for this sub spell is massive. Be sure to get some Battle Mage and Channel Mana instead of just all in More Missile. 

Smarter Missile: It is true that having more Smarter Missile isn't a bad thing. However, you need more More Missile and mana related spells in order to survive the early game. So, only level up 1 for Smarter Missile and put points on it after you have no problem with wave clear.

Ether Blast: It is decent in Keep but not in arena mode like Dark. First, you don't have time to charge it. Second, it only reduces max health not deal damage which means that it dose not help killing enemies with low health. Third, Piercing just outclasses Ether Blast in wave clear. It is true that the stacks now deal 15% max health reduction instead of 10% in the old games but it is just not fitting in this game mode.

Piercing: Piercing may looks weak but it is the most important upgrade you need to get for pure Ether user. This spell is very helpful in clearing waves because it increases the number of monsters hit exponentially. Of course, Ethereal Boulder pierces however, Ether Boulder takes longer to shoot, more inaccurate, and cannot pass through graves. 

NiGHTcapD_ntc

"you cannot have both immolate and ember to imps for fireball"

Not true. It should be, but it isn't. After selecting one, on your next level up select the flourish option to give a skill point to...but click where the other option would have been. You'll select that to give a skill point to; even if it has its "maximum" already. This is very, very powerful, but it can be very, very dangerous if you can't control your mana usage.

Ether Blast owns bosses if you can hit them with a ton of charges. Their 15% is huge, and stacking it kills them dead that much faster.

Peppermaster

WATER

Cone of Ice: This sub spell is pretty important because it makes much easier to hit enemies and block arrows. But don't upgrade it too much in the early game or you will have problems with mana cost and low damage. Upgrading this also increase aoe radius for Frost Missile.

Chill Wind: You have to level up 1 for this ability because it gives you the ability to block arrows! However, putting more points to this spell is not great because the enemies may be pushed too far that you might have to chase them. If you are thinking of welding, upgrading chill wind is good (even Steam Jet because the knockback effect is reduced for Steam Jet). 

Permafrost: This is very good upgrade because you only need one skill point to get the full effect, no extra mana cost, and makes your crowd controll stronger. Try to get it asap.

Hail: This is like a critical strike for Frost Jet. The percentage may look small but it occurs quite often because the "dice rolling" happens every tick which occurs multiple times within a second. Upgrading this spell will solve the damage problem of Frost Jet. Be aware that this does not apply on welded magics.

Harden: This one makes Water users somewhat invulnerable. Even if your shield pops and you need time to get your shield back, you would most certainly survive because the damage reduction of this spell is ridiculously good. But don't trust this ability too much. You still take damage and it does not seems to reduce poison damage (needs to check). 

Cold Aura: At low level, it is pretty underwhelming but as you level this spell, the radius and slow rate increases greatly and eventually you can get up to 90% slow rate (if you max this spell out). Not sure if it slows the arrow down but it is quite useful against mass tanky melee monsters. 

AIR

Chaining: You may think that you have to level this spell early to get more wave clear but it is very inefficient to get early Chaining. The mana cost increase for chaining is big, it does not increase damage, and it is much better to just increase damage so that you can kill an enemy faster. Only go chaining after you have no problem with mana.

Stun: I am not exactly sure how this works and I normally don't put points on that unless I have no choice. Because stun does not help visabiliy at lower level, I recommend go for damage at first and then put points on stun once you have enough damage and mana related spells.

Hurricane: AOE attack on the entire screen and arrow block. This pretty much tells the whole thing about this spell. It basically makes Lighting perfect by giving better wave clear and arrow defense. This is a must-have for all pure AIR users.

Disintegrate: It's not bad... ... but Hurricane is just too good. It is more helpful in dealing with mass amount of enemies or combining with ether blast. But normally, I never pick it.

EARTH

Bind Rocks: I recommend upgrading this later. Bind Rocks only decrease the size lose IF THE BOULDER KILLS AN ENEMY. Which means, if your bouldere is too weak that it cannot kill an enemy, Bind Rocks becomes worthless. I recommend going for this spell after you get enough damage and hasten rocks. 

Hasten Rocks: This is a must-get when it appears. Boulder is the least mana dependent primary spell in the game. So getting lots of Hasten Rocks without mana related skills is not risky at all.  Also, because of the slow fire rate of Boulder, Hassten Rocks is a necessary spell in order to deal with swarm of enemies. So get it as much as you can.

Gargantuan: This one makes your boulder really really huge. The good thing is that it can kill more, damages more, and hit easily. The downside is that you need to charge a bit longer to get the full potential. Because of this, you might have trouble dealing with emergencies compared to Rock Surge.

Rock Surge: This one gives you a chance to instantly charge up your boulder. This is really good when you have no time to charge up. This is very useful when you are surrounded and you need to clear waves that are not on a straight line. Generally, I prefer Rock Surge because it can deal with emergencies much more easily thus increasing th survivability.

Peppermaster

@NiGHTcapD_ntc

hmm... ... I was also able to pick both flourishes once when Mr. Raptis first uploaded the game. After that I never had a chance to pick both flourishes so I thought it was fixed or something. 

Also, you don't need to care about mana when picking both flourish, if you are earth user. (cuz earth users generally never runs out of mana unless you are using some secondary spells.)

Now, I am not saying that Ether Blast is a weak spell. I am saying is that for most ether users, Piercing just outclasses Ether Blast, even if you consider about the boss fight.

First, after killing the discorpereal, unless you have any other unkilled bosses, you won't meet any bosses. 

Second, when a missile pierces a target, it can attack the target it previously hit again. Which means, its dps is far more superior than ether user with ether blast in both wave clear and boss fight. Sure, clearing 15% of max hp at the start is good but it does not help in clearing the 75% that is left at all. I think it should have been dealing portion of max health not reducing portion of max health.

Third, In the late game, after killing all bosses, you just get constant wave of super strong enemies without any break. There are just too many enemies that you won't have time to casually charge your ether blast. 

Does that mean Ether Blast is completely not viable? Absolutely not. If you are using something else as a main damage source, however, Ether Blast is a better choice because ether blast does not need to put points on other ether spells to get full potential like Piercing. So go for Ether Blast, if you are already have a different primary source of damage, and go for Piercing, if Magic Missile is your primary source of damage.

NiGHTcapD_ntc

Well, I patched it and I still can perform that exploit. I probably shouldn't though. Might get complacent. Or lose way too much mana at once.