Build:Hex Mage

Hex Mage is a Character Build in Outward, created by JackGrey.

Summary

Hex Mage
The build is designed to one shot most enemies and massively damage bosses
Breakthroughs			Required Faction

Equipment
Weapon	Off-Hand	Head	Body	Boots	Backpack
Rainbow Hex	Levantine Secret			Flux

Quickslots
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8

Full Build Details

The Gear: The build is meant to get the most damage you can out of your elements. The Rust Lich Armor give 100% total increase to Elemental damage with -90% to physical damage, and some really good physical defense for caster armor. We are trading off any kind of elemental resistance to have increased damage. The rust lich armor doesnt offer anything special in terms of enchants so the option to sacrifice a little bit of damage for another armor such as the Tenebrous Armor set ( which gives 30% less elemental damage, 15% less mana cost reduction, 15%, less physical damage reduction, but takes awake the -90% damage Physical damage reduction, give a good amount of elemental resistance to 3 elements, some corruption resistance, 23% increased movement speed, and no stamina cost increase), which is another good option and maybe even better in the long term. It really all comes down to preference. The goal of this guide is just to stack the highest amount of elemental damage we can get. The Chimera Pistol is used to apply elemental weakness, it can also be applied with the Fabulous Palladium Shield which does the same and you can run shield charge. The pistol has 100% build-up meaning it only needs one shot, the shield has 60% build up but the shield charge does hit twice. It all comes down to preference between these two. I chose the Steel Sabre over the Cerulean Sabre for the smaller stamina cost and the faster attack speed. We dont really care about the damage it deals as it is just here to apply our hexes. The Astral Bow is just meant to be pulled out before you use torment or rupture as it gives 10% damage to all elements except physical. You never need to bring arrows or actually use the bow, however you can bring elemental arrows if you want just to finish off enemies from afar. Any Enchant on anything that gave elemental damage is what I chose for the enchants and anything that didnt, I left off anything that wasn't directly beneficial to let the player following the guide to choose what they wanted.

The Faction:

I chose the Heroic Faction as it gives 15% increased damage to everything. Since we are doing all 6 elements ( i.e. Ethereal, Poison, Lightning, Cold, Fire, and physical) we are getting that 15% applied across the board meaning if we add that up, we get another 90% increase to damage. The Faction does all really come down to preference as a close second was the Holy mission as it can give 10% to Ethereal, Lightning, and Decay damage with other improvements on top of that, but this build is just meant to get the max damage possible.

The BreakThroughs:

Shamanic Resonance is used just to increase damage from the boon buffs. Also the tree has infuse wind which will help us attack faster to reapply the hexes if needed. Reveal soul can also be used in combination with spark to restore mana in a pinch without having to worry about a source of mana gen. Also you can keep a waterskin full of lay line water to increase your mana gen. Staying awake also gives you passive mana generation at the cost of some increased stamina usage. For all these reasons, we did not choose to go with Leyline mastery

Bloodlust is an obvious choice for many reasons. It helps us restore burnt health, mana, and stamina, it gives us access to rupture, and rockwells revelation for even more damage. This line is the core of the entire build.

Daredevil is the third breakthrough and choosing a third was the hardest one to pick. The reason I chose speedster is for the CDR and prime. The goal is to be using probe as a basic attack anyways since it uses less stamina and hits faster than a basic attack, and we dont really care about the physical damage down anyways. Attacks are there to apply the hexes and that is all. So getting some extra cooldown reduction, increased dodge invulnerability, and depending on which of the last skills you take, either some extra damage reduction or increased speed, Its a all around good tree. Keep in mind that Alertness does make your damage resistances go down, stacking the boons should do more than to counteract this but it is something to be aware of. It is something that bothers you, both getting hit and using skills to consume your alertness levels are options to remove them. Also probe applies pain and confusion which are more hexes for torment and rupture

Possible other Breakthroughs and why I didnt choose them: Philosopher was my first choice when I was designing the build. It had increased fire damage as a last skill and a source of mana generation which are pretty good things to have, however with the amount of mana we should be able to restore from being tired, leyline water, Spark with reveal soul, the mana generation just wasn't really something I felt we needed.

Spellblade was another option however I dont like that spell blade consumes the boons to apply the infusion and when comparing the infusion vs varnish, varnish is just going to be better as long as we are using a low phys damage weapon. If you dont know the Infusion from spell blade gives +25% of the weapons total base damage (including elemental and physical) and turns that into extra elemental damage and then applies a flat +10 damage of either ice or fire. Where the varnish does +10% total base damage added as extra elemental, and adds +15 flat elemental damage. For the weapons that can have Rainbow hex applied to it, the varnish is just always going to be better especially with the added extra damage from the boon that we wont have to consume. Shield Charge is still something you should pick up from the spell blade as if you decide to run the Fabulous Palladium Shield instead of the Chimera pistol, you will need Shield Charge to apply the elemental weakness. Keep in mind that you will have to hit with the initial shield charge and the hit at the end in order to apply the elemental weakness.

If you have to use probe instead of the technique if the monster didnt die after the first combo, make sure you get to alertness level 4 for the cooldown reduction. Also you need to hit 5 times with the rainbow hex sword to apply the hexes.