Hey, new to armor games but I'm a member of kongregate and I have played Arcuz for a bit now. Just here to share some advice and things I have noticed, sorry if others have mentioned but yeah wanted to let everyone know some tips/tricks.
-Poison is the best enchant at lower levels, since it can proc (or activate) the hp/sp when you kill a monster effect multiple times. Now, this is diminished later when you have thousands of life but at the beginning it makes it very easy to level/kill.
-THUNDER however, is godlike later on. Each time you attack it has a chance of hitting harder than your normal attack (or if it crits, harder than your normal critical attack) by a substantial amount, and has a chance to stun. Becomes ridiculous when combined with Speed Up and just spamming attack, or special moves such as Bladestorm.
-ARMOR: Lower level armor can get you through the game/arena quite easily. Modifiers matter a lot more than base armor/damage in almost all cases. Seriously unless you have a gold item, a mid-level blue item or even a normal item with a lot of mods is a keeper. For example, I bought a shield from the merchant dude that had like 5 mods on it for like 11k gold. It still had like 6 or 7 composes on it, so it became amazing. On one item I had 30% more defense, +10 defense, chance to block %, hp +30%, etc.
- WEAPON: I beat the game quite easily with the quest reward from the blacksmith (I got a +2 blue axe, 3rd strongest type I believe)...+attack % and elemental damage are the top 2 enchant you want on a weapon. Its base damage is important but don't feel like you have to have the ultimate weapon to have a chance.
However, if you find a blue or gold weapon, try to upgrade it using stone of soul/blessing/holy + weapon. If you can get to 3/4 you'll have an awesome weapon. Just keep in mind that if you fail at 4 I think it destroys it. But good think you can save before that.
-SKILLS: Best skills in this game, no matter what, are beserk, speed up, holy light, and bladestorm.
Don't know what the other moves do, but seriously speed up is like x3 attack speed. This means that you can basically stun-lock an ogre, ghost, or other strong monster by using it and attacking.
Combining speed up with berserk basically increases your damage capabilties by over 10 times easy (you'll be hitting a lot harder and faster). Factor in an elemental proc and you'll see why those skills are must have.
Holy light at level 3 gives you 100% more sp/hp. This is an incredible boost to your longevity when you consider that you will have many items that add to hp/sp by a %.
Personally, I used the axe and got the finisher. I had it at level 5 so it did double damage, was aoe, and made me invincible for a second. However, I think you would do more overall dps if you skipped that move and instead invested in base damage increase or the +5 to all stats passive.
Bladestorm is godlike. You hit enemies in a huge radius very fast for tremendous amounts of damage, can control the tornado of death you form, and also seem to proc elemental damage left and right (I had level 3 thunder on my quest reward axe, it seriously looked like a thunderstorm up in that beezy).
***Only thing that can mess with you is a thunder centaur charging you, or a lucky lucky thunder skeleton. Those are easy to counter, just strafe a bit to the left or right (aka do not run into them head on) and you have an incredible tool versus bosses and rooms filled with monsters.
Acquiring stones of soul/holy, elemental stones: This is hard to do at first but later on many will drop. Also, say the shop keeper is selling a medium stone of earth. Drag and drop it into your inventory. Exit the store and reenter. She will have another for sale! This means that you can stockpile materials whenever they are available, and this saves you time (and money, if you were planning on buying it from the official arcuz store or something).
Also, keep in mind that a level 1 stone of fire, earth, water will form lvl 2 wind (or, level 2 fire, wind, water will make a level 3 earth, and so on). So if you get unlucky and seem to be able to purchase only 3 colors remember you can craft the 4th one easily.
Now, what I mentioned with the shopkeeper also occurs with stones of blessing/soul. If she happens to sell them, buy as many as you can since they are the most important tools in the game. That is because you need 1 for every level 1-2 enchant, and 1 soul for every level 3. Since level 4 enchants are not really worth it, you should save the stone of holies you acquire for making +2-4 armor/weapons. 3 stones of blessing = stone of soul 100%, 2 stones of blessing = a soul at 50%.
*For all enchanting combos just click the question mark at the potion/combination lady.
Cash Money: Something that can be extremely difficult to come by, especially when you might want to use all of the equips that drop instead of selling them to the merchant.
This fact is further exacerbated by the merchant with the random goods (it is worth buying some of the gear sometimes since it can have great enchants, but still retain a high compose level which means you can add a lot more than you could have on your own).
http://videos.apnicommunity.com/Video,Item,2005933035.html <---
That guide will show you how to duplicate items. Once you have a decent amount of gold, buy the most expensive thing from the merchant and duplicate/sell that. That will make it a lot easier to progress. Also, it doesn't kill the game because if you do not know what you are doing you can still get 1-2 shot by monsters or put your ability points into useless skills.
Note on gearing/items: Although weapons and helmets, shields, gloves, boots, and body armors will have increased base stats as the game progress, belts, necklaces, and rings (the accessories) do not.
That is, if you nab a great necklace, ring, or belt early on in the game do not be afraid to enchant it with useful modifiers like attack%, defense %, hp%, crit%, etc. A high level sapphire ring can be just as good as a starting ring since there is no extra defense or attack on the item. They are there just for the stats.
Final boss: Keep running around him as to not get hit by his melee and ice thing. When he does the area of effect ice blast just jump then attack him. If you attacked him right after he blasted you he'll be stunned for a while and you will know when you did it right because you will be hitting for a lot more damage than at the start of the fight. When you get used to it, you can probably blow beserk/speed up mid-air even and start wailing on him before you even hit the ground.
Phase 2: He'll summon ghosts and continue his pitiful offensive. Bladestorm will trivialize this whole encounter. Just make sure the ghosts are near you, blow bladestorm, and they all fade away.
Phase 3: He gets his own version of speed up. Same thing as the start of the fight, make sure you hit him right as he's finishing his ice move (remember that can be an aoe or a cone-shaped attack). Keep it up and use potions liberally and you will win.
Arena: Just put your skills on your action bars, pots will buff you automatically when you run over them, and just melt faces. The twin-headed beasts are a lot easier this time around, no Phases 2 or 3. Should not need to heal just tack on Thunder/Poison and enjoy your insane scores!
Hope this helped add anything else if you like. Just what I got out of the experience. Some criticisms of the game I guess:
-High drop rate is nice since low level enemies can drop tomes (which increase stats) and stones for enchanting, but its kind of annoying that high level enemies still drop scrolls of town portals (and super rarely yellow items).
-Game is way to hard at the beginning and way to easy later...seems hard to get people to stick to it that way.
-Without duping very hard to get started with a decent item base and gathering cash. I mean, its hard enough trying to gather enough stones/materials for all the enchants you need. I mean one piece of armor would need 10 elemental stones (small) and 5 stones of blessings to give it 5 mods at level (1).
-Quests are really hard at the very beginning unless you spec into berserk really early. Should be more numerous and should award more experience.
