LIFESPRING: A Beginner's Guide

Hey, geeks and gamers! This is MediumHadronCollider, aka Pellasmith, here for another guide on character creation in VALKYRIE. Today we’ll be tackling my favorite Divinity: Lifespring!

What IS Lifespring?

As far as the lore of VALKYRIE is concerned, Lifespring magic resonates with the divine energy of Nerea Akhione, the goddess of rivers and seas, skies and storms, and forests and the seasons. She’s the ruler of Tiresia, or the Material Plane, and the only major god who can be found there. According to her followers, not even death can keep them from her will; they’ll just be reincarnated as various Nereads (dryads, naiads, etc.) and keep the cycle of life spinning along. The whole world of Tiresia is inhabited by these beings, which lends some credence to this claim.

In terms of game mechanics, Lifespring revolves around resilience. Health and mana regeneration are both common features of this divinity, as are ways to increase PHYS RES and MAGI RES. But if you’re not interested in tanking, or supporting a tank, have no fear; there are also ample spells for those who wish to stalk the woods for their prey, or turn all the mighty power of nature against their foes. “Nerea rules all that lies betwixt the heavens and the hells”--she’s not opposed to being versatile!

Stat-wise, Lifespring's casting stat is Wisdom. This is the stat that any spell you cast will scale with (even the ones not specifically tagged as Lifespring-aligned, like a Priest's Cure and Antidote). On top of being the Lifespring casting stat, this stat also increases your MAGI RES (resistance to magical damage types) and your maximum mana pool--keep that in mind when you're sorting through loot and shopping for new items! You might not need that much extra MAGI RES or flat mana, if you're ranking up your Wisdom adequately.

Bottom Rank Spells

At the core of every divinity in VALKYRIE (well, except for Might) are the ‘bottom rank’ spells. These spells cost one Milestone point each, and don’t have any special Milestone unlock requirements (though the ones on the outer ring additionally cost specific Seed items). Unlike early game spells in many other RPGs, these ones aren’t necessarily any weaker than the spells that occupy the rest of the ecosystem--in fact, because of their low mana costs and tendency towards lower cast times and/or simpler mechanics, a lot of them could be considered better than the higher-rarity spells gated behind them, at least in terms of reliability and breadth of use-cases, and end up becoming bread-and-butter spells for even late-game ability rotations.

Woodsense (detect nearby plant or beast)

      > Vine Lash (damage an enemy and pull them towards you)

            > Sleep Dust (+Dream Seed) (put a small group of enemies to sleep)

            > Summon: Dryad (+Full Seed) (summon a dryad)

      > Autumn Step (dash a short distance, reducing your Focus)

             > Tailwind (+Breeze Seed) (grant directional movement speed to allies)

             > Skybreath (+Frost Seed) (summon a boread)

Howl (raise allies’ Strength)

       > Nature’s Might (raise a target’s Strength, Dexterity, or Fortitude)

             > Moonlight (+Moon Seed) (heal a creature)

             > Tremor (+Quake Seed) (interrupt a creature’s cast or attack)

      > Wild Aspect (take on an attribute of any beast)

            > Pounce (+Fang Seed) (teleport towards the last creature you attacked)

            > Overgrow (+Full Seed) (target grows in size, increasing stats and Focus)

It’s a bit hard to categorize these bottom rank spells by class--by design, you can path into any archetype from any starting point, more or less. For example, from a starting point of Howl, you can diverge into a Strength focus with Nature’s Might, or a more versatile threat with Wild Aspect. Nature’s Might further diverges into caster archetypes with Moonlight, and tanky-melee archetypes with Tremor… while Wild Aspect diverges into aggressive-melee with Pounce (featuring considerably more mobility) and supportive with Overgrow. These all have further forks with the Keystone spells beyond them--but those I’ll cover in the Milestone Tracks section below, since the Keystones each unlock their own Milestone track and therefore come with further implications.

Overall, my advice for you guys is to pick a Milestone Track from below, and then choose the spells that path up to it--for example, if you really like Stormbearer, you can take Howl > Nature’s Might > Moonlight > Thunderclap. Don’t feel too much pressure to start with the exact perfect one: you can take multiple tracks, and many of them even synergize with each other (a classic example being Trailblazer+Wolfpack for any Supp-Melee with a Dexterity focus). Play around with stuff! In all my time playing the alpha, I’ve seen all kinds of fun builds work, and with the beta coming up soon there’s going to be even more space in the playground to mess with.

Milestone Tracks

In the interests of brevity, I’ll try to limit this post to a short blurb that covers the main highlights of each Milestone Track in this tree. Bear in mind that we’re anticipating multiple new bottom rank spells and Milestone tracks for each divinity when the beta opens, so don’t take this list as exhaustive by any means! Like my last post, I’ll also include a rating for each track I cover, and the classes that best suit it IMO. As always, these are my opinion and therefore subjective, so please don’t take them as gospel… or as personal attacks.

Woodworker ★★★★★

Spell Path: Woodsense > Vine Lash > Summon: Dryad (+ Full Seed) > Arborcraft

How could I not start with my personal favorite, and the core of Pellasmith’s build? Woodworker is, at its core, a supportive track that focuses on empowering allies with potent defensive buffs, especially your own summoned dryads. It’s arguably best-in-track for in-combat defense--and this is supplemented by the outrageous out-of-combat utility of Friend of the Forest, which allows you to recruit dryads to your guilds as followers!

Woodworker has a ton of things going for it, even early on, before you’ve unlocked it--early control in the form of Vine Lash, and early summoning in Summon: Dryad, which means you can dynamically fill up party slots with whatever your party’s currently missing. Even Woodsense, which isn’t exactly a bottom rank spell worth writing home about, at least has synergy with Vine Lash (which deals increased damage if the caster is being enhanced by a plant-related spell)... and can come in handy for those early Silverwood quests!

And the track scales monstrously well, too. Like all Summon spells, Summon: Dryad just gets better and better as your Milestones and Prestige go up, and especially so with Friend of the Forest, which lets you recruit your summoned dryads as followers for your Guild. Forest Aegis (Epic; unlocked by Verdant Guardian) provides a massive bonus to PHYS RES for front-line tanks, as well as keeping them from being hindered by plant-type obstacles and opponents (and counting as a plant-related enhancement for Vine Lash!). The Milestones Oakchannel and Arcane Arborist both enhance Arborcraft (Oakchannel by making your channels much harder to interrupt, Arcane Arborist by letting you enhance Arborcraft with the effects of any other spell you know), and come with very strong spells in their own right--Rootbind and Timberfall (very strong if applied to a Tickleburr with Arborcraft--try it out some time!). World Tree is also an incredibly good Legendary spell (fun fact: if cast by a Lifespring player, the tree counts as a dryad!), with a relatively low mana cost for its immense healing and potential to be further enhanced by an ArcaneArborist-Arborcraft.

Class-wise, Woodworker does well with any dedicated support; Enchanters, Arcanists, or Shamans. My personal preference is Arcanist, as you can apply the ArcaneArborist-Arborcraft to any wooden weapon or equippable you craft, effectively giving you a free additional enchantment on every piece of gear. If being decked out in fully wooden gear in the endgame doesn’t sound too palatable to you, check out Mythwood; if you can secure a reliable source of that, all this gear can still have durability on par with mithril and adamantium! Priest forks, particularly Enchanters, gain a ton of extra mileage from Cultivator (bonus DEX and STR on anything you heal with a spell) and Barkskin (apply shield points to anything you heal with a spell) because of all their cheap healing options, and the insane value that comes with ArcaneArborist-Arborcrafting a Command spell into a dryad.

The track admittedly does somewhat worse on dedicated tanks and bruisers, like Warlocks, Sentinels, and any of the Warrior forks. Even with Oakchannel, Arborcraft is liable to be interrupted if you’re taking primary focus, and Arborcraft occupies a decent part of this subtrack’s power budget. The lack of a very good offensive amplifier is also a problem; Rootbind is good for interrupting enemy attack chains and lining up staggering blows, and Timberfall can deal some serious damage if it reflects a hard enough hit, but the only truly offensive spell in Woodworker’s roster is Sawduster (Lumberg’s Finest) which, as a channelled spell, is again better cast as a back-liner empowering a front-liner.

And as much as I like it, any DPSes should avoid Woodworker like the plague; there’s about a dozen Lifespring tracks that offer more of what DPSes want than what Woodworker can, mostly because Woodworker gives almost nothing to those selfish, carry-oriented classes. Some M-DPSes dealing with staggering issues might feel tempted by Forest Aegis or Timberfall, but generally speaking something like Sabretooth would be a far better investment, combining comparable (if slightly worse) defenses with vastly superior offensive bonuses.

(ETA: Nice "short blurb," past me.)

Oakguard ★★★★★

Spell Path: Woodsense > Vine Lash > Summon: Dryad (+ Full Seed) > Plant Aspect

The ultimate in resilience and defense, core of the Lifespring Full-Tank build that has become the community’s main perception of this divinity. This track heaps even more healing and shielding on the copious amount that comes with being Lifespring by default, and works well with any kind of front-line build, even the more nimble Dex-oriented MeleeDPS ones. It even has synergies with the Woodworker tree it forks away from: all that self-healing and shielding applies Woodworker’s Cultivator to you, too, and can turn you into a serious juggernaut of a threat on the battlefield!

This track is pretty straightforward--most of its purely defensive Milestones reward you for staying in fights and taking damage for an extended time, and the reward tends to be even more defense. Like in any MMO, a tank like this can really slot into any kind of party--you love healers to supplement your already incredible staying power, damage dealers to take advantage of all that time you can stall for, and other front liners to support your engages (and possibly provide some enhancement/healing as a Supp-Tank, or some extra damage as an Offensive-Tank).

Bloomwreath ★★★★

Spell Path: Woodsense > Vine Lash > Sleep Dust (+ Dream Seed) > Flower Crown

In some senses, Bloomwreath can be seen as the more offensively-oriented cousin of Woodworker; where Woodworker focuses on defensive utility, empowering allies, Bloomwreath adds a degree of offensive utility--weakening and controlling your enemies. Flower Crown is perhaps the best example of this more diverse philosophy towards utility; cast on allies, it grants them a passive regeneration effect until the flower the spell creates on their head is destroyed. Cast on enemies, it instead drains their health, and has a chance to temporarily dominate them and turn them to your side--at least until the flower is destroyed.

Overall, Bloomwreath has a fairly coherent setup. The Sleep Dust prerequisite has sleep synergies within this tree, like Lingering Dreams (which extends the duration of sleep effects you cause) and Nightshade (the spell unlocked by that Milestone, which can only be cast on sleeping targets and deals heavy damage to them without waking them up)... and both sides of Flower Crown’s effects have Milestones pertaining to them, usually triggering on either dealing periodic damage or on granting periodic healing (like Blessing of the Summer Court, which slightly heals the caster when their spells damage or heal other creatures). Unfortunately, Flower Crown isn’t a particularly reliable spell--the flower construct it creates doesn’t count as a dryad, and it has atrocious health scaling and defenses. Later-game enemies will simply destroy it soon after you cast it, and there’s not a lot that you can do to stop this.

Therefore, my recommendation for this track is primarily as a dip. Blessing of the Summer Court is fantastic for Supp-Tank and Off-Tank builds, and while sleep isn’t a particularly reliable status effect (a surprising number of enemy types are straight-up immune to it), the strength it has against enemies that are susceptible to it means that having a LingeringSD in your repertoire is never going to be a bad thing, and can give StrengthDPS characters a solid offensive boost if coordinated well. Meanwhile, the momentary disruption caused by applying Flower Crown itself can be viable to build around for Strength DPS builds, though again mostly as a dip. Again, LingeringSD is useful to double the damage of a single heavy hit (and gives you time to prep for a two-handed swing!), while Rose Dance (Epic, unlocked by Thorn Skin) gives you momentary untargetability and a short-ranged blink to avoid particularly deadly attacks with.

Bumblebee ★★★

Spell Path: Woodsense > Vine Lash > Sleep Dust (+ Dream Seed) > Buzz Bolt

Bumblebee is a… weird track. It offers a bunch of niche utilities, which might make it a good option for a dip, but gets ruined by a couple of destructive Milestones--particularly Hive Mind, which is hard to avoid unlocking and makes it impossible for casters to enhance their own Intellect and Wisdom (and as a Wisdom-based divinity, this is very bad for Lifespring casters!). The track does offer passive flight with Royal Elytra, which is very rare, as well as a charm effect in Monarch’s Decree (which Wisdom casters usually don’t have access to at all), but I haven’t been able to piece together a build that really lets those features shine yet.

Trailblazer ★★★★★

Spell Path: Woodsense > Autumn Step > Tailwind (+ Breeze Seed) > Footwork

One of the most classic takes for Lifespring characters, favored by Hunters and Thieves. The Dexterity bonus bundled in with Footwork alone can’t be overstated for Dex DPS builds, which both those classes mentioned are normally best suited for. Members of the Marksman (Hunter) and Assassin (Thief) forks are particularly pleased with this Milestone track; Marksman because the base class tends to have issues with mobility (even with a sky-high Dexterity stat) that Trailblazer spells can ameliorate, Assassin because class spells like Modify: Sharpen and Slash make extremely good use of the high Dexterity numbers available from heavy investment into Trailblazer.

In terms of spells, Springtouch (Uncommon, unlocked by Blessing of the Spring Court) is a must-have; it allows you to enhance one of the target’s three physical stats (those being Strength, Dexterity, or Fortitude), and triggers Blessing of the Spring Court, spreading whichever bonus you grant to allies in the area. On a team with multiple DexDPS, that’s invaluable, and even StrengthDPS will benefit from the additional speed that Dexterity grants. Overbolt (Epic, unlocked by Hammering Bolts) is a great damage multiplier, and allows you to break attack chains from afar with the staggering effect it grants your ranged attacks. Backstep (Uncommon, unlocked by Fleetfoot) is a really good way to create distance from enemies that have managed to close the distance on you, though be careful where you use it--I’ve watched teammates Backstep themselves off a cliff before! Finally, Trailblazers even have access to summoning magic, though it comes a fair bit later, with Wild Calling (Rare, unlocked by Forest Path). Unlike the Common spell Summon: Dryad, this actually allows casters to summon the other types of neread, too, rather than just dryads (I recommend boreads, especially Taranic Skyhawks).

Anchorite ★★★★

Spell Path: Woodsense > Autumn Step > Tailwind (+ Breeze Seed) > Waterfall

This track leads to an evasive melee/caster archetype, basically. I don’t have much personal experience with it, but apparently it’s pretty good for Monks (a rare Priest fork that focuses on Dexterity)--Waterfall gives you a pretty strong series of melee attacks, and then gives you a long-lasting buff to their Dexterity based on your casting stat (which for Lifespring players is generally Wisdom) and how many hits you actually landed. Sea Breeze is a great Milestone that makes any water-related spells you cast (like the aforementioned Waterfall) reduce the duration of all negative conditions on you and your nearby allies--fantastic for getting rid of nasty, short-lived debuffs like stuns and staggers--and there are quite a few Milestones here that grant Wisdom conditionally, to the point that I’d actually suggest this tree as a dip for any Full-Caster, even Artillerists or Witches. For heavy investment, I’d run Monk, Hunter forks or Thief forks.

Hyperbore ★★★

Spell Path: Woodsense > Autumn Step > Skybreath (+ Breeze Seed) > Seek Shot

I haven’t played around too much with this Milestone track: as best I can tell, this is mainly for characters who want to keep their distance from enemies while pelting them from afar, but indexes more on the “pelting them” angle than the “keeping distance” angle like Trailblazer does. It does have a fantastic mobility spell in the form of Wind Wake (Epic, unlocked by the Milestone Sermon of the Skies), but being as that can take a long while to unlock, it can be tricky to keep conditional Milestones like Distant Storm (which gets disabled if an enemy is within melee range of you) active.

Overall, it’s a soft dip on any Full-Caster, and a decent option for any RangedDPS. For spells the keystone Seek Shot is good enough on its own, and I’d honestly be inclined to ignore spells in this tree entirely until you’ve got Sermon of the Skies and can go straight into Wind Wake.

Faecaller ★★★★

Spell Path: Woodsense > Autumn Step > Skybreath (+ Breeze Seed) > Fae Familiar

This is actually a very fun Milestone track. With two summon spells available in your first four spells, one of which summons a denizen type that no other Lifespring track has any access to--fae, which are usually restricted to Soulshape users--you have a lot of versatility in the early game, which scales well into the late game as most minion-mancer builds tend to. Unfortunately, Fae Familiar doesn’t allow the summoning of fae that can be considered ‘mounts,’ restricting your summon list somewhat until you acquire Fae Pact (Epic, unlocked by obtaining Feywild Wanderer)... but that’s a fairly minor limitation!

Overall, the focus on control and utility (and almost total lack of personal defense) scans to me as best suited for a support or caster--the Priest forks Sage and Enchanter both do well with the additional utility from spells like the visibility-cutting Fog Veil, and the enhancement-enhancer Cloudfont, which lightens its targets (note: don’t use this spell on your StrengthDPS or tanks--weight is important for staggering opponents and avoiding being staggered by opponents. Use it on your agile Dexterity teammates instead!). I also like it on Full-Caster builds: there’s no shortage of Fae that can distract and stall for you while you cast big-ticket, long-cast-time spells, and control spells are very good for setting yourself up for those big hits too.

Sabretooth ★★★★★

Spell Path: Howl > Wild Aspect > Pounce (+ Fang Seed) > Mutilate

The premiere tree for any Lifespring player looking to carry from the frontlines. Mobility, defense, tons and tons and tons of offense--Sabretooth has it all.

Just on a theoretical standpoint, the internal synergy within Sabretooth and its spell/Milestone combos is off the charts. Panther’s Guile unlocks the Rare spell Nightwalk, and makes it so that if you can kill an enemy within three seconds of leaving the stealth it grants, you regain that stealth at no cost. Omen of the Hunt unlocks the foe-staggering, formation-scattering Epic fear spell Grim Visage, and maims any enemy that can’t shake off your fear quickly enough. And the synergy between Lone Wolf and the Rare Blood Frenzy is insanely brutal in any sort of group scenario--whether that group consists of your allies, your enemies, or both!

In my estimation, Sabretooth is a must-take on any Lifespring MeleeDPS: if you intend on dealing significant physical damage in melee range, this is what you need to go. Pounce is mobility and PHYS RES shred. Mutilate is enormous damage against already-damaged targets and even more PHYS RES shred. And Heartseeker rounds out the combo by multiplying the physical damage you deal with your next attack, following any mobility short of a global teleport, and guaranteeing it strikes critically. The combo costs a fair bit of mana, but guess what: with Marked Prey, you regain a large portion of the mana you spent in the last three seconds when you kill something!

Despite the strength of this tree and its Milestones, however, I must recommend against taking it as a dip, especially on anyone who intends to buff allies at any point--Lone Wolf cannibalizes any positive effect you apply on anybody else (instead applying them on yourself at reduced strength), destroying any supportive build and severely reducing the impact of otherwise amazing spells like Guard or Summer Balm. Any off-tanks would be far better suited speccing into the other fork off Pounce, Wolfpack.

Wolfpack ★★★★

Spell Path: Howl > Wild Aspect > Pounce (+ Fang Seed) > Beast Call

The supportive/summon-oriented cousin of Sabretooth, Wolfpack promotes an aggressive, melee-range playstyle--but does so for an entire party, not just one particularly vicious lone wolf. With Milestones like Pack Hunter (increasing the damage and poise-break you and allies deal when within fifteen metres of each other) and spells like Snow Cloak (an area-of-effect Stealth effect), the more really is the merrier.

The key spells in this tree are Blood Bond (Uncommon, unlocked by Primal Bond)--a “ritual spell” that allows you to designate an ally to share all of your buffs with, at the cost of losing some health whenever they take damage. And I do mean all. This spell alone makes Wolfpack the premiere option for supporting any other frontliner. Unlocking Primal Bond can be difficult--it requires knowing six spells that are also available on the Direblood tree, but with Howl and Pounce you’re already at two, and there are several options available low down on this tree, and on the core Lifespring tree, that can get you to six. (My recommendations for this are Vine Lash, Ravage, Blood Hunt, and Polar Rush--all cheap and unlocked by easy-to-get Milestones, besides Vine Lash which doesn’t have a Milestone requirement at all.)

Because most of the supportive spells in Wolfpack are low-range, and a lot of the Milestones provide personal durability and stagger resistance, the classes best served by taking it are any Supp-Tank or Off-Tank. Thanks to Blood Bond, the track has a unique synergy with any familiar-focused build, and I’d recommend it particularly for any of the classes that can learn Mount: the Warrior forks, the Hunter forks, Sentinel, and Warlock. Look for Beast mounts to make the best use of some of the more niche Milestones available in this track.

Grovekeeper ★★★★

Spell Path: Howl > Wild Aspect > Overgrow (+ Full Seed) > Apple Toss

In keeping with its rather peaceful-sounding name, the Grovekeeper track focuses on defensive bonuses, and establishing and controlling specific areas. Greenfather’s Garden is perhaps its most key Milestone; it seriously reduces the mana cost of channeled spells by allowing you to slowly regenerate mana while channeling a spell. With the right equipment, and with a cheap enough channel, you can even go mana positive!

Though on paper this track could work well for front-line DPSes, or DexterityDPSes, its heavy reliance on channeled spells means that it really has to be localized to backline characters, so I recommend Full-Casters (like Witches and Artillerists) and Supp-Casters (like Enchanters and Shamans). Artillerists in particular like to establish a set zone of control that they can then launch their heavy-duty spells from, and Grovekeeper helps with that. I’d also like to point out Woodworker as a fantastic point of synergy with Greenfather’s Garden.

Riverwatch ★★★

Spell Path: Howl > Wild Aspect > Overgrow (+ Full Seed) > Flow State

A really, really weird Milestone track, with a lot of weird internal contradictions. For example, the keystone Flow State is a really cool spell that lowers the mana cost of your other spells, with the condition that each spell can only benefit from this once (so you’re best served by using as many different spells as possible in the duration of the effect). However, the bread-and-butter spell in this track, the one that a lot of its Milestones either directly or indirectly interact with, is Ark Strike… which gets stronger each successive time it’s used within the same frame of combat. And that’s not even getting into the way that the track can’t seem to decide if it’s catering towards utility-focused full casting, some kind of high-DPS attacking role (with Ark Strike), or a Focus-drawing full tank with its Where All Rivers Meet (a fairly destructive Milestone in that it siphons a portion of all Focus generated by your allies directly to you, in exchange for boosting your Fortitude and Wisdom).

Because of Where All Rivers Meet, probably the only role that I could see safely taking this track are Tanks. I think Supp-Tanks would like some of the spell offerings here (this track has access to Foggy Veil, which is quite good), while Off-Tanks and Full-Tanks would quite like the ramping-up power of Ark Strike, as well as Where All Rivers Meet’s dual offensive/defensive scaling thanks to the Wisdom it grants.

Stormbearer ★★★★

Spell Path: Howl > Nature’s Might > Moonlight (+1 Moon Seed) > Thunderclap

A powerful offensive option for any Lifespring player looking to work primarily with thunder and lightning damage. This tree is particularly valuable as a dip option; while its spells can be effective, it boasts a wide variety of non-destructive Milestones, allowing its takers to build up their Milestone point counts without ruining their builds and while still amplifying their core builds.

Storm Child (and its spell, Dual Shock) is an effective way of shredding both RESes, available early on, and (rarely for a Lifespring Milestone) benefits builds that attack from any distance. This combo has additional synergy with Twinshatter, a Milestone that causes your lightning damage to deal additional thunder damage and vice versa--in effect, any time you’d trigger one side of your RES reduction, you’ll trigger the other half, too, which is very useful in any kind of balanced party. There’s also a camouflage option available in Dark Cloud, for some reason, though it requires investing in the mostly-dead spell Rain Dance to use to its fullest potential, and the spell it unlocks (Veil Strike) is not very synergistic with the rest of the Stormbearer lineup (lightning damage is BRIGHT, and thunder damage is LOUD).

Overall, it’s a solid pickup for any class, at least as a dip. Every adventuring party needs to be able to deal damage, and Storm Child/Twinshatter on their own help you do that. In terms of spells, the unlocks from the “lower” tier Milestones aren’t particularly impressive, outside of Rising Tide’s Rumblewreath--while the utility spells Rainfall and Storm Call have their niche in amplifying rain-based effects, in practice there are more monsters that benefit from rain than player abilities that do, and you’re most likely screwing your own party over by summoning them regularly. That said, the higher-rarity spells like Chain Lightning and Lightning Web are extremely good and often worth the Milestone point investments. Full-Casters, like most Wizard and Priest forks, love these spells.

Firelight ★★★★

Spell Path: Howl > Nature’s Might > Moonlight (+1 Moon Seed) > Glittermote

Another weird track. Glittermote’s wide-area confusion actually makes it a really good control spell, particularly for a squishy backline caster looking to avoid taking focus--but the other spells and Milestones don’t particularly play into this archetype. Swamplight specifically amplifies the Focus you generate by dealing damage, and benefits from you having Focus by increasing the damage you deal to targets based on how much Focus they have on you, while Sunbeam--a really strong spell in most cases--has a soft anti-synergy with confusion, since its long cast time means confused enemies are liable to just wander out of the path of your spell. It’s fairly safe as a dip on any Tank class, especially Off-Tanks (who love the Swamplight Milestone), like most Warlock and Barbarian builds.

Seaspray ★★★★★

Spell Path: Howl > Nature’s Might > Tremor (+1 Quake Seed) > Geyser

A very control-heavy track--extremely good at supplementing something like a heavy Stormbearer investment, or a melee build from one of the Wild Aspect forks. Geyser alone has fantastic flexibility in any kind of scenario where you have vertical earth handy, like being in a cave, or having an ally that can cast Earthshape--though the geyser it summons always goes “straight up,” that’s relative to the earth surface you cast it from. If you have a wall behind you, you can shove enemies away (and if there’s a wall behind them, you can shove them towards you). The other spells are similarly powerful.

Overall, this is the rare track I’d have to recommend for basically… Every Class. There might be better options, especially early on, for focused carry roles like MeleeDPSes, but even they will eventually enjoy having the ability to cover themselves with a well-placed Geyser, or a Fog Veil (Uncommon, unlocked by Swirling Tide).

Giantheart ★★★★★

Spell Path: Howl > Nature’s Might > Tremor (+1 Quake Seed) > Giant’s Horn

Much more obviously frontline-focused than its sister track, Giantheart revolves around drawing enemy focus and shaking up the battlefield--sometimes literally. One of its legendary offerings is the classic Earthquake (Legendary, unlocked by World Walk), an earth-shattering spell that deals heavier damage the closer its targets are to its epicentre--the user--and is perfect for chunking down those beefy end-game bosses. The keystone Giant’s Horn is a great defensive spell that works better if you’ve increased your size recently--such as with Nature’s Might, or the Milestone Colossal Will (which continuously increases your size and Wisdom as a fight goes on).

Great on Full-Tanks (especially in tandem with Oakguard!), and with all the Strength gain I’d be silly not to add Warrior forks on there, especially the ones that tend towards being Off-Tanks. It’s maybe not the most synergistic with something like a Warlock (who rarely use weapons, Strength or otherwise), but enormous close-range damage is very much something that a Warlock would enjoy, so I’m recommending it anyway.

Closing Remarks

Well, there it all is! This was a long while in the making, but it’s good to have it out there. Many thanks to PraxelG, whose advice and experience and adventuring companionship have been invaluable and much appreciated over these last few weeks… and to Masaka6, for being such an understanding Guild leader while I’ve been conducting my research! I’ll be back in raiding form soon, I promise!

While I’ve barely scratched the surface of character-building and gameplay in this wild, incredibly rich game, I do hope that this rundown--as short and simple as it is--proves to be helpful to any people out there looking to build a Lifespring character of their own, especially as the date of the open beta draws near! I look forward to meeting you guys in the wonderful world of VALKYRIE!