SirImperialMike's and Sheldon1994's Master Guide

Introduction
This Guide is the author’s recommendation for two successful methods for defeating “For the King” on Master Difficulty.

This guide is by no means the only method. Please enjoy the game and discover for yourself all the possibilities. Contained within are some strategies that can be employed to help you achieve a Master Difficulty victory. These strategies are by no means required for a victory. Feel free to develop your own strategies and contribute what you learn to the wiki and the community at large. With these disclaimers behind us, let’s begin.

Challenges
It should go without saying that Master Difficulty is… well… harder! What makes it more difficult? (Feel free to review the Wiki description about Master Difficulty here.)

In particular Master Difficulty will challenge you in two ways:


 * 1) No Life Pool :  If one of your characters dies without a Devotion, their going to be hard to resurrect.  There will likely only be one or two Devotions within reach of your team at the beginning of the game.  A character dying early can really set you back. If you do have a character die, you’ll need to use a Cult Device, Stone Table and/or Fountain of Life to resurrect that character.  Spending the time finding these things can really slow you down.  Best to avoid death!
 * 2) Chaos timeline : The Chaos timeline is much shorter than in Journeyman or Apprentice difficulty.  With only 4 team turns between Chaos, you’ll be pressured to move quickly and efficiently to keep reducing that Chaos and preventing it from activating.

Goals
In order to defeat Master Difficulty, you must:
 * 1) Be extremely efficient with your movement
 * 2) Keep the Chaos timeline under control
 * 3) Acquire as much gold as you possibly can
 * 4) Upgrade your gear as soon as humanly possible
 * 5) Gain experience for your characters as quickly as possible
 * 6) Avoid taking damage

Of these six goals, one goal stands out as being of greater importance than any other. That goal… is “ Avoid taking damage ”. The winning strategy for the end-game in FTK is to avoid taking damage. Damage can be reduced to zero when following the strategy we detail in this guide. However, in order to reduce damage to zero, it requires acquiring certain weapons that won’t be found until mid to late game. Therefore, in order to win, you must survive long enough to acquire these all important weapons.

Strategy for Winning
The main strategy to win in FTK on Master Difficulty is to not allow enemies to attack. PERIOD. If your enemies can’t attack… you don’t take damage. Easy! Done!

How is this strategy pulled off? There are two effective methods that can achieve this. However to pull this strategy off, you’ll need to acquire certain weapons that make this possible. Most of these weapons won’t be acquired until you’ve passed the King's Maze. So, you have two challenges. 1. Survive long enough to get through the King’s Maze. 2. Pick up these needed weapons.

So let’s cut to the chase. The two methods are:

Party Rush
over and over such that your first turn never ends. This is the most powerful of the two methods. Your enemies will never have their turn occur, allowing you to kill them all before they even get their first chance to act. However, the needed weapons to pull this off are hard to acquire. There are only three weapons that make this work. You must find one of the three. The three weapons are: The strategy is mainly to use Tome of Wonder on an intelligence based character and/or the Golden Lute on a talent based character. When the first character performs the Party Rush, the other two party members are moved to the front of the timeline, essentially replacing the first character. You’ve turned one characters turn into two turns. When the second character also performs a Party Rush, you once again bring the other two party members to the front of the timeline. You’ve now placed the first character who Party Rushed the first time back to the front again. You can now repeat this process over and over. Each time you perform this “Rush-Rush” the 3rd character in the team is getting a free turn to act. This third character kills the enemies while the other two characters keep Party Rushing. For this strategy to work, both Party Rush characters need their respective stat as close to max as possible. Additionally, they’ll need to use focus on each Party Rush which will slowly deplete these characters Focus pool. You’ll need lots of Golden Roots and/or Precious Pearls to keep the focus going.
 * Tome of Wonder
 * Golden Lute
 * Goblin Staff (least desired)

Ideally it is best to acquire two of the three Party Rush weapons, but technically only one is truly necessary. You can still pull this off with a Single Target Rush weapon and a Party Rush weapon. Say you found the Tome of Wonder, but no other Party Rush weapon. Well, the Minstrel can use Ornate Lute with Single Target Rush to bring the Scholar with the Party Rush back to the front of the timeline and repeat the process again. The third character (Busker) is only rushed once instead of twice, but hey... that's good enough to make this work. So, it is recommended as you play to pick up an intelligence weapon with Single Target Rush (e.g. Knotted Staff) and a Talent based weapon with Single Target Rush like the Ornate Lute. Then all you need is to find one of the three Party Rush weapons.

Target Group Reset
This strategy uses a weapon that will reset the entire enemy team. This must be done over and over to keep the enemy from acting while your other two party members kill off the enemies one at a time. There are only three weapons that can Target Group Reset. These three weapons are: This strategy is more likely to be attainable primarily due to the likelihood of acquiring the needed weapon to pull this off. Of the three weapons, the Volcanic Tome is the easiest to acquire. Furthermore, no other weapon is needed. The Volcanic Tome can pull this strategy off all by itself. The Volcanic Tome has a 50% chance of dropping to you as a reward for defeating the Fire Priestess found at the end of the King's Maze. If not dropped from the King’s Maze, you can also acquire a Volcanic Tome by taking the Reduce Chaos side quests from the four towns found in the Badlands and Desert. These side quests will spawn the same Fire Priestess that you fought at the end of the King’s Maze. Each side quest camp you fight will give you yet another 50% chance to acquire the Volcanic Tome. Therefore, you have many chances to acquire this tome from loot drops alone. The Volcanic Tome can also be found in town markets and merchants, so it is relatively easy to acquire this weapon. Just like with the first strategy, this method will need a large focus pool. It requires spending at least 2 focus for each use of the Volcanic Tome. Your character using the Tome will run out of Focus fast. You must have Golden Roots and/or Precious Pearls to keep this strategy going.
 * Volcanic Tome
 * Royal Lute
 * Royal Hammer (least desired)

Knowing these two strategies is not enough to win the game. You must still survive long enough to acquire these needed weapons, Golden Roots, Precious Pearls, etc. So… the rest of this guide will help you with the details of surviving all the Acts in the game.

Party Recommendation
Lets begin with the recommended character classes to make up your team. It should go without saying, that we need characters that can use the weapons mentioned above. The common factor when looking at these weapons is that they are either Intelligence based weapons or Talent based weapons. So, we must have an Intelligence character class and a Talent character class.

The Intelligence characters available to us include the Scholar, Monk, Herbalist, and Treasure Hunter. Of these options, I recommend:

Scholar: Why the Scholar?
 * Has the highest Intelligence stat of the four
 * Has a really good passive ability “Refocus” Focus will be important for the end-game strategy.
 * Has the best speed of the four
 * Has a decent secondary talent stat. This is handy for boat movement which checks talent.
 * Starts the game with a Teleport Scroll. Very handy at the start of the game.
 * Starts the game with 5 gold. This is the most starting gold of the four.

The Talent characters available to us include: Minstrel, Busker, and Treasure Hunter. Of these options, I recommend:

Minstrel: Why the Minstrel?
 * Has the highest Talent stat of the three
 * Has two really good passive abilities in Encourage and Inspire.
 * 1) Encourage is the key ability.  This passive ability will help ensure that our end-game weapons always succeed.
 * 2) Inspire ability provides passive experience gain for the other two party members.
 * Starts the game with the most gold of any character class in the game… 10 gold.
 * As a primary Lute user, will act as the primary Gold Multiplier character in the team, using Lutes that have Gold Multiplier
 * Disarms Traps that are Talent based, including the end devices of both the Glittering Mines and King’s Maze.
 * With high talent, boat movement will benefit greatly.

The final character needs to round out the party for what it is lacking. The Scholar fulfills our needs for Intelligence Stat checks. The Minstrel covers Talent stat checks. Both have decent Awareness. What we’re lacking is Strength. There are five classes that can meet these needs, Blacksmith, Busker, Monk, Woodcutter, and Hobo. I tried all these and found that the Busker's abilities were the most valuable.

Busker: Why the Busker?
 * Has a decent Strength secondary stat. Although this character doesn’t have the highest Strength of the available classes, it is this characters other abilities that make this character standout.
 * Has two extremely valuable passive abilities in Distraction and Entertain.
 * 1) Distraction is a passive ability that will cause enemy attack rolls to fail on occasion.  This helps support our main goal.  “Not take damage”.  In this case, Distraction will help to reduce damage taken throughout the entire game.
 * 2) Entertain skill brings in passive money.  As mentioned at the start, money is one of the keys to winning.  The extra gold Entertain will net can pay for all sorts of things.
 * Has a great talent stat, making boat movement effective.
 * Starts with a Broken Lute that can speed down enemies. This contributes to taking less damage.

Overall, we wanted a third character that could cover the Strength stat, deliver good damage output, and contribute good passive abilities to the party. An Awareness based character like the Hunter can produce good damage output as well, but doesn’t cover the Strength stat. In fact, most Awareness based characters just don’t have good Strength. The best damage output weapons appear to be strength based, so we decided to go with Strength as the stat we wanted… and the Busker was the best of the available classes for achieving the goals we set out at the start. Additionally, we wanted to take advantage of Shields. In particular the Aegis of Husher which provides +5 Party Armor was something we wanted to leverage. Even the Wooden or Iron Tower Shield are both useful.

This third character class is the most optional of the three. Feel free to try other character classes if you disagree with our recommendation.

Character Positioning
Before starting your game, you need to position your characters to maximize efficiency and reduce damage the party will take.


 * Left-hand side character : This character starts with the first move. How you use this character's first turn is important. I usually place my Scholar in this position. The reason for this is due to the Scholar's Refocus ability. If I choose to initiate a combat on this first turn, the Scholar has a chance to Refocus after their turn ends. This will set up my Scholar to be more prepared for their teammates turns where a second combat can be initiated.
 * Center character : This character will always be involved with AOE enemy attacks. This character takes the most number of hits during the game. For this reason, I place my Strength based character in this position. I want the character with the greatest Armor and largest Vitality to be in this center position. I use the Busker here. The Busker also happens to use a Lute that also has Combat Range Support. This allows him to participate in battles 3 hexes away from Oarton that are initiated by the first to move character.
 * Right-hand side character : This character is the third to take their turn. They'll be patiently waiting in Oarton for their turn to come. Ideally you want this character to have Combat Range Support right from the start of the game. I always place my Minstrel in this position because their Lute provides Combat Range Support.

The First Move
Before moving your first character you want to:


 * Check out the Oarton Market. You want to purchase an upgraded weapon for one of your characters before moving your first character. Of particular interest is the Knotted Staff which provides Party Heal. If you're playing with a character that comes with Party Heal built in, then look for a Lightning Staff, Dusty Book, or Burnt Tome. If no Intelligence weapons are available to upgrade too, then look for a Strength weapon that can work as an upgrade for your center position Strength character. If you trade all your gold to the first character they can usually purchase a starting upgrade weapon. Don't forget that you can also sell your starting weapon for the character who will receive this upgrade weapon.

Money Tip : One of the main benefits of playing with the Minstrel is their starting gold. Minstrel starts the game with 10 gold. The Scholar starts with 5 gold. That's 15 gold from those two characters to start the game. Combined with the third character's starting gold, you should be able to purchase a weapon from Oarton that costs 20 gold (selling one of your starting weapons if need be).


 * If you're following the character recommendations above, before moving your characters, switch Lutes between the Minstrel and Busker. The Minstrel's speed while using the Broken Lute is just good enough to speed down the Axe Cultist in a Chaos Camp before he can attack you. The Busker will use the Simple Lute until you acquire a Strength based weapon. Strength weapons drop frequently at the beginning of the game so it won’t take long to switch to a Strength weapon.  Consider holding on to the Simple Lute even after acquiring a Strength weapon as the Combat Support Range can come in handy early on.  Switch to the Simple Lute when you need that Combat Support Range.


 * How far is Woodsmoke from Oarton? If Woodsmoke is within 5 to 7 hexes to Oarton, then one of your first three characters needs to end their first turn in Woodsmoke. Ideally I prefer my Scholar on the very first move of the game takes this responsibility. Entering Woodsmoke will trigger all of the Act I key landmarks to spawn, including the Cult Device and Chaos Leader Camp. Knowing where all the key locations are on your map is essential to planning your moves during Act I to be as efficient with your movement as possible. The character who enters Woodsmoke should immediately accept the Reduce Chaos side-quest to spawn that camp as well.

Move Tip : If Woodsmoke is more than 7 hexes away from Oarton, it is beneficial to use a Teleport Scroll to get there during the first turn. Sheldon1994 and I have tested this over many playthroughs of Act I, and we've concluded that revealing all the major landmarks early saves you many turns of running back and forth across the map. The Scholar starts with a Teleport Scroll. Another reason we chose that character class for our team. In our case, if we use our Scholar to initiate combat on the first turn rather than travel to Woodsmoke, then we usually trade the Teleport Scroll to our third to move Minstrel. The Minstrel then reveals the Side-quest from Oarton, then teleports to Woodsmoke, and finally reveals the Side-quest from Woodsmoke.

Act I - Do’s and Don’ts
Most failed master difficulty attempts will fail in the first Act (up to and including the Glittering Mines). The chaos timeline is short. Your characters have no gear, no healing herbs, and no banked lives to resurrect with.

It is almost more important to know what NOT to do than what you need to do.

Don’ts

 * Don’t purposely attack the following two enemies unless you’re in desperate need to get past them…
 * 1) Jelly Cubes - getting team poisoned is never good
 * 2) Ghosts - They never drop money or loot.  They’ll curse you and damage you and you’ll get only Exp in return.  Not worth it.
 * Don’t attack cultist camps unless near max health on all your characters. A cultist camp can focus down one of your characters in their first three attacks and kill a character before you have a chance to act.  Additionally, they can both Burn and Bleed the same character resulting in an almost certain death.
 * Don’t attempt pop-up events that can’t be focused. “It’s a Trap”
 * Don’t ambush camps. It isn’t worth the focus spent attempting to ambush, and if you fail, you’re giving the enemy an additional attack while you’re out your precious focus.
 * Avoid using Party Heal while in battle with enemies. If you need to heal during a battle, use a Godsbeard individually. Heal as much as possible using Inns at the towns. An Inn’s services are half the cost of a Godsbeard.  Save those Godsbeards for when its an emergency.
 * Don’t share money across all three characters. Pool your money to the Minstrel who will act at the party’s Gold Multiplier.
 * Don’t sell these otherwise useless items:
 * 1) Goblin Staff - Goblin Staff can be used for an end-game strategy.
 * 2) any weapon with plus speed bonuses - Speed items can let your party “proceed” through traps using speed.
 * 3) any gear with plus Awareness bonuses. - Awareness items can help you to complete any events that check Awareness.

Do’s

 * Acquire any Party Heal item before entering the Glittering Mines.
 * Do use Party Heal between battles inside dungeons. Simply equip the party heal item after battles are done.
 * Try to get at least one character upgraded to Pipe level 1 before entering the Glittering Mines. This should be your party healer.
 * Do try to get all 6 Godsbeards from the Oarton and Woodsmoke markets (3 from each town) before entering the Glittering Mines.
 * When fighting the cultist camps, always have each character use focus to get perfect attacks off on the axe wielding Chaos Acolyte. This should prevent him from getting an attack.
 * If the Golden Hero is in the Guardian Forest, do pick it up before leaving the biome.
 * Do the main questline cultist camp before other side quest cultist camps. The reason for this is because the main questline cultist camp is guaranteed to drop a weapon as loot. You want improved weapons as early as possible.  This is one way to get a better weapon early on.
 * Do the Dark Cave before the Glittering Mines. Go in with a fully healthy party.
 * Always kill Jelly Cubes first. Try to speed down the jelly if at all possible.
 * Target killing Cutpurses last in a group of 3 enemies. They’ll often waste an attack attempting to steal from your characters.  If they do steal something… then immediately kill it, taunt it, shock it, speed it down, or reset it.
 * Make sure to locate the Scourge and Alluring Pool before leaving the Guardian Forest.
 * The Glittering Mines will give the party a guaranteed Portal Scroll as a reward. Use it to get to Parid almost immediately upon exiting the Glittering Mines.

Choosing Sanctums
Not a whole lot to say about this other than a few simple recommendations. Obviously get each character a Sanctum as soon as possible.


 * The Scholar would prefer either the Sanctum of Wisdom or Sanctum of Shadow. Avoid giving the Sanctum of Purity to the Scholar. Usually a waste because the Scholar’s gear will provide the immunities that this Sanctum of Purity provides.
 * The Minstrel would prefer either the Sanctum of Wealth or the Sanctum of Purity.
 * The Busker will benefit from almost any Devotion, though if it is available I prefer to target the Sanctum of Focus, Sanctum of Haste, or Sanctum of Life.

Don’ts

 * Don’t purposely attack the following enemies unless you’re in desperate need to get past them or they’re alone. Never attack these if they’re in a camp of 3.
 * 1) Jelly’s and Ghosts!  Continue to avoid them… even if alone.
 * 2) Crag Hulks
 * 3) Hobgoblins
 * 4) Rocs
 * 5) Infant Triclops
 * 6) Bisontaurs
 * 7) Blood Birds
 * 8) Thunderhawks
 * 9) Swamp Flies
 * Don’t waste time fighting random enemies in the Golden Plains. Get a boat and get sailing.
 * Don’t walk through the Poison Bog or Burning forest. Get a boat and sail around the edges.  Make small jaunts into these biomes from the waters edge.
 * Don’t purchase a Raft. Go for a Fishing Boat or better.
 * Don’t attempt any Sea Cave, camp, or mini-dungeon that is level 5 or higher unless you are also of that same level and have upgraded your weapons to mid-game weapons.

Do’s

 * Do search out the Golden Plains to uncover the Alluring Pool, Catacombs, Cult Device and Scourge. Avoid fights while doing this search.  Make use of +Find Distance items like a Torch or Compass to make this faster. Pull your party together using either the Catacombs or a boat.
 * Do one Sea Cave(level 4) while Chaos is under control.
 * Use Vision Scrolls to uncover Bog, Burning Forest, Desert or Badlands territory to attempt to locate their Alluring Pools, Cult Devices, Scourges and mini-dungeons.

Overworld Pathing - Act II:
Upon leaving the Glittering Mines and entering into Act II, you need to efficiently complete main quests and side-quests while sea cave spelunking as much as possible. You have exactly 15 team rounds before all towns (excluding those in the Guardian Forest) refresh and raise their prices. This 15 round refresh also raises the level of mini-dungeons, scourges and cultist camps that haven’t yet been activated as side-quests. As you are on a hard 15 round timer, you should use the Portal Scroll acquired from the Glittering Mines to portal over to Parid as soon as possible.

Recommend you find and complete the mini-dungeons in both the Golden Plains and in the Rogue Isles, as well as activate the side-quests from Devil's Wharf and the Golden Plains towns in this 15 round time period. To accomplish all this, your pathing must be efficient.

Keep grinding down to a minimum. First, search out the Golden Plains quickly, avoiding overworld fights. This search is mainly looking for the Catacombs. You want to find and complete the Catacombs before those 15 rounds passes. Use the Cult Devices you uncover to keep the chaos on your timeline at bey. Once you’ve found the alluring pool, Cult Device, scourge and Catacombs, pull your team together by entering the Catacombs and complete it.

After finishing the Catacombs, get sailing immediately. You should have enough money from the loot acquired in the Catacombs to purchase a Fishing Boat. Begin searching the Rogue Isles for the alluring pool, Cult Device, scourge, Dark Cave and optionally the Forgotten Cellar if it spawned in the Rogue Isles. Use the Cult Device, side-quest from Devils’s Wharf, and optionally the Forgotten Cellar to keep the chaos timeline under control. Try to get your first level 4 sea cave completed during this time. Try to locate and complete the Dark Cave before your 15 rounds ends.

Once things reach level 5 and 6 they are much more dangerous. You should acquire mid-game weapons before attempting anything level 5 or higher. Weapons you should be looking for include:

Scholar weapons (in order from worst to best):
 * Yew Staff
 * Frost Staff
 * Enchanted Broom
 * Goat Wizards Staff
 * Mages Staff
 * Fire Staff
 * Starfish Staff

Busker (Strength) weapons (in order from worst to best):
 * Hooked Sword
 * War Hammer
 * Bastard Sword
 * Large Bone Club
 * Mace
 * Longsword
 * Broadsword
 * Battle Axe

Minstrel weapons (in order from worst to best):
 * Fancy Tambura
 * Ukulele
 * Ornate Lute
 * Rapier
 * Archlute
 * Theorbo

While completing your first level 4 sea cave and the Dark Cave in the Rogue Isles, you likely need to deal with an approaching scourge on your timeline and/or a Chaos creeping close to the end of your timeline. Use the alluring pool from the Rogue Isles to return back to the Golden Plains to take care of these threats. Kill the scourge, and take out one of the side-quests you activated from either Parid or Cazeli’s Watch if necessary. You should also sail the coastlines of the Swamp/Burning Forest to locate the Cult Device in that biome. Take out the Forgotten Cellar (if not found in the Rogue Isles or Golden Plains) to help keep the Chaos at bey. If you’re pressed… try to take on the side-quests from the two towns in the Swamp/Burning Forest.

Once you reach level 6, you should have improved Act II gear and improved weapons. You should be well prepared now to handle anything that is level 6, including all level 6 sea caves and level 6 cultist camps. Continue to complete sea caves with an occasional cultist camp until you’ve exhausted all sea caves within reasonable reach and/or you’ve run out of cultist camp side-quests to keep your chaos at bey. You can deal with the Mind Lord once you’re level 5 or if you’re in need to reduce chaos. Take on the Lich's Crypt after you’re level 6, preferably level 7.

King’s Maze
Finally, you’ll take on the King’s Maze after everything from the Rogue Isles and Swamp/Burning Forest is complete (or… if you’re pressed to reduce chaos and need the King’s Maze to remove it). Ideally you should be level 8 or close to it when you enter the King’s Maze.

Before entering the King’s Maze, you should do your best to purchase as many Godsbeards, Golden Roots, and up to 6 Panax for the team while prices are low. Once completing the King’s Maze all herb and service prices in towns will increase. Get these important herbs before you enter. As you visit the towns in the Swamp/Burning Forest you should make it a point to try to purchase all their Godsbeards and Golden Roots.

One of the main goals this guide is looking to accomplish is to deck out the team with a certain set of weapons and gear at certain stages of the game. Upon entering the King’s Maze we prefer to have:

Scholar’s ideal set : Weapons: Starfish Staff or Fire Staff. Both is even better. Armor: Mage’s gear (Chestpiece/Headgear/Boots) Trinkets: Golden Hourglass; Majestic Belt; Bellowing Horn; Noise Maker Necklace: Old or Polished Necklace Busker’s ideal set : Weapons: Battle Axe or Broadsword or Longsword and Wooden Tower Shield Armor: Full Iron armor Trinkets: Majestic Belt; Bellowing Horn; Golden Skull; Great Rune Necklace: Rusty or Golden Medallion or Amulet of Souls Minstrel’s ideal set : Weapons: Theorbo Armor: Performer’s gear; plus Lucky's Hat or Princess Hat Trinkets: Lucky Coin; Four Leaf Clover; Noise Maker Necklace: Fancy Ruff; Shiny or Sparkling Pendant

In addition to the ideal equipment above, you’ll want to pick up Icy, Flaming, and Lightning Talismans when you can. Additionally pick up Hildebrant's Reserve(s), Faded Pearls, and the following scourge unique drops if you’re lucky enough for them to spawn: Royal Droll Hat; Volcanic Hat; Disciple Hood; Lucky's Hat, Golden Hourglass.

Clearing the King’s Maze
On your way though the King’s Maze, this guide’s character set-up and strategy is looking to take advantage of the Theorbo and Starfish Staff’s unique abilities to speedown enemies, reset enemies, and restore focus to party members. As you progress through each fight, we are looking to eliminate 2 of the 3 enemies in each group, leaving one relatively slow enemy to be killed last. We will have some nice play time with the last enemy.

During the fight working your way down to just one enemy left, make use of the Theorbo’s Target Group Speedown ability to give your other characters time to kill at least one enemy before it can act. Once the first is dead, you can either Single Target Speedown or Reset an enemy while your teammates take out the other. Usually target the slowest enemy with the reset while your teammates take out the other.

When you’re down to just one enemy left, use the Minstrel’s Theorbo to Single Target Reset the last enemy to keep the lone enemy unable to act. Each reset gives the other two party members free actions. We use the Starfish Staff to restore focus to every member of the party while the Minstrel continues to reset this last enemy until everyone is at full focus, then we finally mercifully kill this last enemy. If you don’t have the Theorbo and its reset ability, the Archlute or Hooked Sword can accomplish the same thing. So yeah… don’t sell that Hooked Sword. It can come in handy. You can have the Busker switch into the Hooked Sword to also help with the resets. Heck… have both the Busker and Minstrel resetting. You can play with them as long as you wish, with focus restored by the Starfish Staff. We refer to this as Starfish Staff Cheese. See that section of this guide down below.

King’s Maze - Final Group Fight
The King’s Maze will culminate in a fight against a Fire Priestess, Ice Priestess, and an Undead Bisontaur. You can expect burning and freezing attacks. The Bisontaur hits hard and has very high health. Flaming and Icy Talismans can help a little with the Priestess for both immunity and extra damage.

During this fight against the Undead Bisontaur, you can kill the Bisontaur quickly before it gets a chance to act if you do the following combat strategy:


 * First, ensure your Scholar has confuse immunity. The Mage’s Hat normally provides this.  Otherwise you can equip Faded Pearls on the Scholar to provide confuse immunity.
 * Have the Scholar use a Hildebrant's Reserve to increase damage output by 100%, and hit the Undead Bisontaur with either the Starfish Staff’s or Fire Staff’s power-up attack. Make sure to use focus so these attacks hit.
 * Have the Minstrel speedown the group like normal with the Theorbo.
 * A second follow-up attack by the Scholar while still under the effects of the Hildebrants should finish off the Undead Bisontaur.

If one of your characters gets the burn condition, it’s possible the Ice Priestess will put out the fire. Don’t use a Panax to hastily. Prioritize killing the Fire Priestess before the Ice Priestess.

Upon completing this fight, one of those two priestesses will drop their tome. You have a 50/50 chance at either the Volcanic Tome or Glacier Tome. You really need to pray to the RNG gods here and hope you get the Volcanic Tome. If you don’t get it, don’t worry. There are many many more chances to get this tome which we’ll detail in Act III.

If you do get the Volcanic Tome, that alone can be used to win a Master Difficulty run. Even without the Busker and Minstrel getting their preferred weapons, the Volcanic Tome will completely win the game for you… provided that you have gone sea cave spelunking and have acquired a good pile of Precious Pearls as well as Golden Roots. The Volcanic Tome does like to use up focus (2 focus per use of the Firewall).

Upon exiting the King’s Maze, you should notice a message in the top right of your screen indicates that “Towns Have Refreshed”. This refresh does not actually change the gear found in the town markets. Instead, it increases the prices of herbs and services. For this reason, you should buy as many Godsbeards, Golden Roots, and Panax as you can afford before entering the King’s Maze.

Don’ts

 * Don’t waste time fighting random enemies in the Desert and Badlands.
 * Don’t purposely attack the following enemies unless you’re in desperate need to get past them or they’re alone. Never attack these if they’re in a camp of 3.  Especially don’t fight these if you don’t yet possess the Volcanic Tome or have other reset weapons.
 * 1) Jelly’s and Ghosts!  Continue to avoid them… even if alone.
 * 2) Shadow Assassins
 * 3) Wisps
 * 4) Acid Blobs
 * 5) Triclops
 * 6) Demons
 * 7) Fire Rocs
 * 8) Lightning Hawks
 * 9) Boomers
 * 10) Chaotic Skulls
 * 11) Watchers

Do’s

 * Do make use of your Treasure Maps. If you’ve not used them by now, don’t wait any longer.
 * Do make use of your Vision Scrolls to quickly uncover as many ? hexes in the Desert and Badlands. Try to locate Alluring Pools, Scourges, Cult Devices, and mini-dungeons.
 * Do make sure all your characters pick up Sanctums if they’re still without one.
 * If your Minstrel can get luck up to 70, do make use of your Carnival Tickets.

Overworld Pathing - Act III:
Upon leaving the King’s Maze and entering into Act III, you have exactly 15 team rounds before all towns refresh (loot and prices) and raise the level of mini-dungeons, scourges and cultist camp side-quests from towns that haven’t been activated yet. As you are on a hard 15 round timer, you should make haste to get to Hasta in the Desert as soon as possible.

Priority 1: Volcanic Tome - Group Reset Strategy
If you were unsuccessful in acquiring the Volcanic Tome at the end of the King’s Maze, then your first priority should be to activate the side quests from Hasta, Zini, Imp’s Corridor and Wendero. Each of these towns “Reduce Chaos” side quests will spawn camps that contain a Fire and Ice Priestess. These side-quests afford you additional 50/50 chance opportunities to acquire the Volcanic Tome. However, after the 15 round town refresh occurs, these side-quests when activated will instead spawn typical Culitist Camps rather than the Fire and Ice Priestesses. Therefore you must use your 15 rounds to activate these town side-quests before the 15 rounds are up, otherwise you’ll lose these opportunities for the Volcanic Tome.

Priority 2: Aegis of Husher shield
If you are able to acquire a Volcanic Tome and haven’t yet activated the side-quests from the desert and badlands towns, then your second priority is to try to acquire the Aegis of Husher shield. Before taking “Reduce Chaos” side-quests, first check the available Item side-quest option. What you should be looking for is an Item side-quest for the Aegis of Husher shield (assuming you’ve unlocked it from your lore store).

When fighting the side-quest for the Aegis of Husher, you’ll be facing a camp of three ogres. Oddly enough, the undesired Glacier Tome can actually be useful in this fight. Equip your Scholar with the Glacier Tome if you have it. During the fight, have the Busker Taunt and have the Scholar use the Armor Up action from the Glacier Tome. This will allow the Busker to fully tank the ogres while your Minstrel and Scholar widdle them away. If you follow this strategy, don’t use the speed-down attack from the Minstrel. Instead just attack for damage. The speed-down can ruin the timing of the Taunt and Armor-Up buffs.

Priority 3: Golden Lute and Tome of Wonder - Party Rush Strategy
If you’ve accomplished the first two priorities, then your next quest is to try and acquire the two weapons that can pull off the Uber Strategy of this guide. You want to acquire the Tome of Wonder and Golden Lute. These two weapons will only become available after the 15 round timer passes and the towns refresh for the last time. As soon as you see the town refresh message, immediately check the markets of all four towns (Hasta, Zini, Imp’s Corridor and Wendero). If you’re lucky you’ll find these two Uber weapons. If you locate the Golden Lute but cannot find the Tome of Wonder, it is possible to replace the Tome of Wonder with the Goblin Staff (from Act I). What matters about these two weapons is their “Party Rush” abilities. Although not ideal, the Goblin Staff can literally be used only for the Party Rush ability and that will suffice.

It may not be possible to find the Golden Lute or the Tome of Wonder. If you can’t locate both weapons, then substitute a Single Target Rush weapon into the mix. As long as you have one Party Rush weapon and one Single Target Rush weapon, you can pull this strategy off. If you don't find any Party Rush weapon, then follow the “Group Reset” strategy to win the game.

Priority 4: Preparing for the Final Tower fights
As you’ve been progressing through Act I and Act II and Act III, you’re looking to acquire items that can give your three party members Ice, Fire, Shock, and Confuse immunities. Vexor’s tower will challenge you with the three elements (Ice, Fire, Lightning). Your team will better be able to traverse the final tower if all three of your characters can have these immunities. They aren’t all needed at the same time. Rather you’ll switch from Ice to Fire and finally to Shock as you progress through the tower. In the final fight against Vexor it is recommended to have Fire, Shock and Confuse immunity as best as possible.

If you don’t have the necessary items to equip your entire team for Ice, Fire, and Shock immunity, then the optional side-quest Buried Temple should be done. The Buried Temple will guarantee you three Talismans, each with party immunity to one of the three elements. Having these three Talismans will make it quite easy to provide your team with full immunity to the three elements.

Priority 5: Preparing to Uber Destroy the Ice Revenant in Vexor’s Tower
The first elemental Revenant you’ll encounter in Vexor’s Tower will be the Ice Revenant. This team of Ice enemies can easily be one-shot by the Scholar if the Scholar goes into the battle with the following equipment: If you don’t have either of these two trinkets, then you need either the Sanctum of Focus on the Scholar to provide confuse immunity or else use the standard Mystic or Mage’s hats (at the sacrifice of the Volcanic Hat). With these items and gear, one use of the Volcanic Tome’s splash attack will completely one-shot the side ice henchmen and bring the Ice Revenant down to one-shot range. You’ll be through the fight in two turns of the Scholar. Equip a rush weapon such as the (Golden Lute or Ornate Lute) on the Minstrel and you can finish them off before the Busker even gets a turn to act.
 * Volcanic Tome - Does +50% damage against Ice
 * Volcanic Hat - Gives +100% damage against Ice
 * Icy Talisman - Gives +25% damage against Ice and provides Ice immunity
 * Faded or Enchanted Pearls - Provides Confuse immunity via a trinket
 * Hildebrant’s Reserve - Gives +100% damage at the cost of confusion. If you have Confuse immunity you can use this freely, otherwise you can’t use it at all.

It is possible to attempt to Uber destroy the Fire and Lightning Revenant with the Lightning Tome and Glacier Tome respectively, however there is no equivalent replacement for the Volcanic Hat to support the strategy.

Priority 6: Acquiring the preferred end-game weapons for all three characters
Scholar weapons (in order from worst to best):
 * Tome of Storms - Nerf’s Fire Revenant
 * Lightning Tome - Uber’s Fire Revenant
 * Glacier Tome - Uber’s Lightning Revenant and Ogre camps
 * Volcanic Tome - Uber’s Ice Revenant and is primary winning strategy with group reset
 * Tome of Wonder - Makes possible the super-uber winning strategy with party rush

Busker (Strength) weapons (in order from worst to best):
 * Scimitar - bleed and power-up attacks
 * Zeus Blade - Shock and AOE Shock attack
 * Iron Anchor - Huge power-up damage and splash damage
 * Fire Sword - Fire and bleed attacks
 * Dragon Blade - Single target reset & Armor penetration but at 3 checks
 * Gladius - Single target reset & Armor penetration all at 2 checks
 * Great Hammer - Huge power-up damage and splash damage

Minstrel weapons (in order from worst to best):
 * Fire Lute - Single target reset
 * Ornate Lute - Single target rush
 * Silver Lute - Single target rush
 * Theorbo - Group speed-down and single target reset
 * Royal Lute - Group reset - possible substitute for Volcanic Tome
 * Fancy Theorbo - Group speed-down and single target reset
 * Golden Lute - Makes possible the super-uber winning strategy with party rush

Demon Caves and Buried Temple
If you’ve acquired the priority items mentioned above, begin using the strategies of either Group Reset or Party Rush for all fights through the two Demon Caves and the Buried Temple. If you do so, other than the first attack most enemies will get upon entering a room, they should not get a chance to attack you again. This makes traversing these battles pain free. Consider equipping any items you may have that confer Steal immunity when fighting the Demon. The Demon has an attack move that steals belt items from your characters. If you're immune to steal you'll negate the Demon's attack.

Starfish Staff Cheese
Following the two main strategies of Group Reset or Party Rush, you’ll use up your Scholar’s Focus quickly. Take advantage of the Starfish Staff and/or the Greater Water Tome if you have these weapons. After using Volcanic Tome to reset groups three or more times, your Scholar should be out of focus. At the same time, your Busker and Minstrel should have killed at least one if not two of the opposing enemies. If you’re down to just one enemy left, begin using your Minstrel and Busker to do single-target resets of this last enemy using the Gladius, Theorbo or other equivalent weapons (e.g. Hooked Sword, Archlute, etc.). While they single-target reset this last enemy, have your Scholar swap out the Volcanic Tome and swap in the Starfish Staff. Begin using it to restore your entire team’s focus pool. Once everyone has fully restored their focus, finally finish off the last enemy. Swap back to the Volcanic Tome and then move on to the next room. This strategy will easily get you through all the Demon Caves, Buried Temple, and other side-quest battles in Act III. Using this Starfish Staff Cheese strategy, you may not even need to use those Golden Roots or Precious Pearls.

Vexor's Tower
To finish off the game, you’ll finally head back to Hasta and acquire an Air Balloon. Use this to fly over to Vexor’s Tower. This end-game tower will present you with 4 battles before finally meeting Vexor himself. Between each battle you will be provided time and space to Party Rest. Four Tinder Pouches (Tents) is great if you can conserve them for this. Between each battle you can prepare for the next.


 * 1) First Battle: This is essentially made up of a typical cultist camp group of enemies. They will use attacks that drain focus, but should be no different than cultist camps you’ve handled in the past from all the town side quests. It is the strongest for sure, but you should be able to handle it with the Volcanic Tome.
 * 2) Second Battle: This second battle will be made up of the Ice Revenant and his henchmen knights. You will want to have equipped the King's Talisman of Ice prior to entering this battle. This affords you full party immunity to their freeze attacks. If you have managed to acquire all the necessary items from Priority 5 above, you’ll make swiss-cheese of this group.
 * 3) Third Battle: This group is made up of all fire based attacking enemies. You’ll be hit by archers that will use spread arrow attacks hitting all party members with flame attacks. Make sure to have equipped your Kingsman Talisman of Fire. Simply replace the Ice Talisman for the King's Talisman of Fire. You don’t need all three equipped at the same time. Just one at a time.  It is highly recommended to shock these enemies.  Ideally, the Lightning Tome or Tome of Storms for the Scholar is recommended here.  If your Scholar doesn’t have a shock type weapon, then the Zeus Blade for the Busker will come in handy.  Additionally, if you’ve acquired a Lightning Orb or Greater Storm Orb, this would be the group to use these on.
 * 4) Fourth Battle: This is obviously the Lightning group. Have that King's Talisman of Lightning equipped. The flanking enemies must be ‘perfect’ hit. If your team is shocked, this will be very bad… so don’t let that happen. The Lightning Revenant will use a group attack-up move at some point.  He’ll follow that with a very powerful AOE magic attack. You don’t want to allow this boss to attack you.  You can either try to use the Glacier Tome on the Scholar to uber destroy this group (Priority 5 strategy above), or go in with the Volcanic Tome and reset them as much as possible.  Also use the Gladius and Theorbo to single-target reset the Lightning Revenant.  Do NOT allow the Lightning Revenant to successfully get an attack off after he’s used his attack-up move.
 * 5) Final Battle: Vexor is flanked by two very powerful Chaos Wolves. Everything is very high health (aka Vexor has health above 600 in Master difficulty). All these enemies have very high armor and resistance, and Vexor will cast spells that increase their armor and resistance above 70. Essentially unhittable unless you have piercing attacks. It will take many rounds of chip damage attacks to kill these enemies off. Kill one wolf, then the next. If you've managed to save some Hildebrant's Reserve, now is the time to use them up. Using this can potentially one-shot one of the Chaos Wolves, shortening the fight considerably. Keep in mind though that Hildebrant's Reserve will cause confusion, so make sure to use it only with a character that has confusion immunity!

As this is a very long fight, the main strategy is to prevent these enemies from getting a chance to act. You can defeat Vexor and the wolves without them getting more than their first attack off upon entering the room. From that moment on, they should not be allowed a chance to attack again. This is where Volcanic Tome or the combination of Golden Lute and Tome of Wonder come in. Keep using the Volcanic Tome’s party reset, and replenish party focus as needed. Ideally you want one or two Precious Pearls remaining going into this fight. Golden Lute and Tome of Wonder can Rush-Rush the party and allow the Busker to get in free attacks over and over. Try to use one of these two strategies.

Vexor has a powerful AOE magic attack. Don't let Vexor attack. After I had killed the two wolves I thought I could get away with just attacking with all three of my characters and absorbing an attack from the boss. Turned out to not be a good idea to allow that boss to get his AOE attack off. So take this advice. Don't let the boss attack you...ever!

So… reminder. Volcanic Tome to group reset. Minstrel speeds down, single-target resets, or rushes party. Busker attacks with Gladius. Once you’re down to the Boss and one wolf, you can either continue to use the party reset, or switch to the Busker's single target reset allowing the wolf to attack you once in a while. This all depends on how much focus you have and the occasional fail on the Volcanic Tome. If you have Golden Lute, and always party rush with Golden Lute, you should always use the Volcanic Tome’s first attack as the party reset. If it fails, you’ll have a second try.

Uber Destroying Vexor
Sheldon1994 and I have successfully 5-shot the entire Vexor team (Chaos Hounds and Vexor himself) using the Rush-Rush strategy and the Hildebrant's Reserve in combination with the Great Hammer. Because the Rush-Rush strategy essentially stops time, any status effects that are active remain passively active. In other words, if burning is active... the burning will never end, NOR will it damage you. The burning effect will never get a chance to trigger when time is being stopped with the Rush-Rush strategy. Additionally, using a Hildebrant's Reserve will provide a +100% damage buff AND will never end. Knowing this, we decked out the Busker with all increased damage gear (e.g. Amulet of Souls, Golden Skull, Inferno Greaves, Inferno Armor, Inferno Helm) and ... along with confusion immunity from the Sanctum of Focus, proceeded to Splash them using the Great Hammer, pumping full focus into each attack and restoring the focus with a Golden Root to repeat the process 5 times. Each focus spent on an attack increases Critical Hit chance by 5%. With 5 focus used per attack, his Critical Hit levels were raised by 25% from the focus use, in addition to the normal 5% every character gets, plus the Critical Hit buffs from the Amulet of Souls (10%), Golden Skull (8%), Inferno Greaves (2%), Inferno Armor (6%), and Inferno Helm (2%). We raised Critical Hit chances to around 58%. We achieved 4 out of 5 attacks as Critical hits and destroyed Vexor and the Chaos Hounds with just 5 splash attacks with the Great Hammer.

Conclusion
Well… I hope you find this guide helpful. Visit us on the FTK Discord. Special Thanks to  Sheldon1994  for all the play testing and ideas.

This picture shows our entering Vexor's Tower with 50 unused Godsbeards after using the strategies detailed in this guide:

Author:  SirImperialMike