Introduction

Alright, this guide will be pointlessly complicated AND pointlessly specific.

Are you in the 1% of players that care about a difference between 22k and 24k DPS when farming on ArchMage?

And if you are, do you happen to be in the other 1% to have wasted $100 on Acheron?

Mechanics

Acheron

Acheron, when used, applies a DoT to the user. This stacks up to 30x for about ~1500, depending on the active buffs.

You can let this DoT fade, but to do so, you have to pay attention. You also need to temporarily stop using your 3, reducing DPS.

Alternatively, you can just outheal the DoT. ArchMage’s Corporeal mode in particular is great for this.

HoT Squaring

A little-known mechanic in AQW is that if you have a Damage Out boost active when you apply an HoT, the HoT will be stronger even after the original Damage Out boost fades.

By Damage Out boost, I mean this stat: asd

This is called squaring because the HoT is multiplied ty the boost at the time of healing too. It’s multiplied twice, so multiplied by the boost squared.

This also works for DoTs, but we care about HoTs here.

Enhancements

We care about the cape slot here.

Penitence increases our defenses and decreases our DoTs, including self-DoT. It’s almost always used alongside Acheron.
Lament and equivalents are neutral for our damage output and survivability. ArchMage can outheal the Acheron DoT without Penitence, most other classes cannot.
Vainglory offers a boost to our damage output, but halves our healing. This means we can’t heal enough to counteract the self-DoT… or can we?

The Plan

Very simple. We get our Corporeal HoT so high that it outheals the fully-stacked Acheron DoT despite Vainglory. We take advantage of HoT squaring to achieve this. This way we can have our cake and eat it too.

As an added benefit, the DoT will keep our health low for the purposes of our 4 skill.

Now how do we achieve this?

Double Potion

Did you know, Potent Honor potions have a cooldown of 60s (that’s 30s at max haste), and a duration of 35s? This means that you have a 5 second window to use a second potion. The best option here is Dark Potion - the one you get from the secret Dark Box quest.

If you have Acheron, you have Dark Potions too. But if you want a high HoT for a different purpose, you can substitute regular Honor Potions.

Elysium into Acheron

Another pointlessly complicated trick. Elysium gives you a 10% damage boost, Acheron a 30%. However, Elysium’s boost lasts long enough for you to exit combat, switch to Acheron, and finish applying your HoT.

5-3-3-5

5-3-5 is the standard way of applying your Corporeal HoT. It keeps your Mana maxed, and you benefit from the 30% damage buff from your 5-skill. You use 3 twice - once to apply Elysium, once to apply Acheron.

Missing Link

As it turns out, even with all the above tricks combined, we can’t outheal Acheron-Vainglory. We need to get our HoT higher still. We have a few options to finish the setup. Any one of the below will work:

Divine Elixir

Fairly easy to get, increases our healing. Needs to be reapplied every 15 minutes.

Revitalize Elixir

From Alchemy, gives us an additional HoT. Needs to be reapplied every 15 minutes.

Lord of Order

Have a friend use LoO’s 3 skill for a 30% damage boost. Optionally, they can also use 4 when applying the combo to give you a bit of extra haste. Only needed once to set up.

Legion Revenant

Similar to Lord of Order, use 4. Only needed once to set up.

Execute

Gear

Making sure you’re wearing this:

Weapon: Elysium, with Acheron in your inventory
Class: Wizard
Helm: Pneuma
Cape: Vainglory
Potion: Potent Honor, with Dark Potion in your inventory

Combo

use Potent Honor Potion
switch to Dark Potion as you wait for it to cool down
if using a friend, have them spam their buff skill continuously
wait until the potion cooldown is around 7 to 5 seconds depending on lag
use 5-3
leave combat
switch to Acheron
use Dark Potion
return to combat
use 3-5

Result

You should see an HoT tick of 2100 if you executed the combo properly. The next tick should be 2011 as Elysium fades. Then, lower as Potent Honor, Arcana Sigil, Dark Potion, your friend’s buff, and Acheron each fade.

Don’t worry, the DoT will get high again when you return to combat.

In my testing, a well-executed HoT of 1526 will just about outheal the max-stack 1516 DoT.