How to play Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

How to Play Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

A quickie guide on getting the best start to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Once you've tried it a bit, use this guide to jumpstart your game without ruining it with excessive cheating.

Start on the map at level 11
WHY

• Early game is generally very easy especially if you play a mage. Skip the grind and be close to the level caps for the nearby maps: eastern Odarath and Webwood is 12, Ettinmere, Glendara, and Haxhi are 13. This way you aren't locking areas at a lower level than they could be, and doing so without too much grinding.
• Also, you can run to a Fateweaver early if you need to, and do so without level-locking maps at too low a level.

HOW

• During the start / tutorial phase, you will come across two rats. Kill one and use Cheat Engine to look for the 12 XP you just got. Kill the other and use Cheat Engine to find the XP address, and set the value to 44600.
• Each time you kill something you will level up toward level 10. You can only get one level per kill, but having set your XP to 44600 you will have enough to reach level 10.
• You might not want to spend your skill points yet -- it's not really important here as the tutorial is so easy anyway.
• When you exit the tutorial, you will be level 10. When you walk a short distance from where you exit, a script will level you up to the next level (11).

Start as a Mage

WHY

• Easy to get through early generally easy areas until you get enough Ability Points to play more fun Abilities on the Might and Finesse trees if you like.
• Also play a Mage if you like one-shot-kill sniping even on Hard difficulty (with Storm Bolt) and without any investment in the Stealth skill.
• Great for stealth play because Sorcery abilities like Mark of Flame and Tempest let you attack enemies from behind barriers, minimizing exposure.
• Don't have to worry about gear since you are one-shotting or two-shotting most enemies. If you do look for gear it is to get set bonuses or Utility gem slots to put in Conqueror's Gems go aim for early one-shot-kills.
• This also means we won't be putting any points into Sorcerer weapon skills. The most theoretically useful one is the Staff Block-attack Mage's Vortex, but in practice the auto-aim makes grouping the enemies you intended to group very tricky. You are better off with doing casting Mark of Flame (which immediately staggers the enemy) and then Executing when you are ready.

HOW

Points into the Magic Tree in this order (assuming you re-spec at a Fateweaver) at a minimum:

• Storm Bolt 5
• Mostly you will use this to snipe. At range, start sneaking. When you can see the eye symbol over an enemy, they are in range. Hit them with this to get sneak attack bonus damage.
• Later we will get Stealth to further increase the bonus. Around level 13-15 we'll start losing the ability to one-shot enemies with this but we'll improve it again with Stealth.
• Hit enemies that are alone first. Those that are clumped could be hit (and alerted) by the area shock or stun. If an enemy is one-shotted, even if they are in the sight cone of another enemy, no one is alerted to your attack.
• Mark of Flame 1
• This will be your main attack power when enemies are close and you can't or aren't sneaking up on them.
• You can Mark and Execute from behind cover -- even if you can't see the opponent, as long as you've Marked them with the cone attack, which can go through barriers.
• Once Marked, you can Execute from even very far away, so you can try to get multiple enemy groups during Reckoning mode.
• To group enemies, run around a corner and let them bunch up. If you crouch, sometimes breaking the line of sight that way will cause them to give up searching for you and turn around, meaning you can sneak attack them with Storm Bolt again.
• Conservative Casting 1
• Mark of Flame 5, Conservative Casting 5
• Storm Bolt 6
• Sphere of Protection 4
• Useful later but for now just to pad points to unlock higher Ability tiers.
• Chain Lightning 5
• Healing Surge 1
• More than enough since you are likely not even using Health Potions.
• Sphere of Protection 6
• Summon Faer Gorta 6
• Useful later but for now just to pad points to unlock higher Ability tiers.
• Ice Barrage 1
• You could improve this but honestly it's not the best attack and you already have two elemental attacks so you can probably do without having to fully improve a third.
• At close range, Mark of Flame is better for being able to hit multiple targets cheaply. At long range, Storm Bolt is better for sniping. At medium to long range, the random spread means you are unlikely to many, if any, ice bolts to hit anything.
• One point here to advance up the tree and unlock Frost Shackle later, which may be useful if you decide you want Elemental Rage or Winter's Embrace.
• Smoulder 5
• Finesse Tree - Stealth 6
• Finesse Tree - Frost Trap 1 - optional
• Good for the stagger and slowing and even at 1 rank you can drop 4 traps. Not really looking to kill anything here but to set up zones where you can get some breathing room if you are running to put distance between you and the enemy, such as at chokepoints where they come around a corner. Usage can be quite rare except on game reloads when you know monsters are going to surprise-spawn on you and you had a hard time dealing with them.
• The Stun upgrade may require too much investment to be worth it compared to the gains in further investing in Sorcery.
• Transference 5 and Sphere of Reprisal 5
• Any order since you are still rarely going to use either power. This is just to advance up the tree in powers that ultimately will be useful.