Atlas is a sand-covered world filled with mysteries, danger, and terrifying creatures. Thankfully you’ll be armed with a mystical Gauntlet filled with magical abilities that provide you the power to shape the sand, form weapons out of it, and ride dunes at amazing speed to help you survive in this hostile environment. At the core of all of this is our unique Essence Stone system in Atlas Fallen.
Essence Stones aim to turn combat into a massive playground for you, where you can feel in charge and experiment with individual Stones, and ultimately shape them into your own tailored character by modifying traits like Damage, Tricks, Momentum, Survivability, and Healing. These stones can be obtained primarily through the game’s Fusion system, collecting Formula, Materials, and Essence Cores by defeating enemy wraiths, purchased by the mysterious Traveling Vendor, discovered in forgotten chests throughout the world, and sometimes as a quest reward.
The Essence Stones are also linked to the Momentum system, which is generated in combat when you strike wraiths and is represented with a gauge that fills up as it increases. The more Momentum you accumulate, the more powerful you become. Although Momentum and the Essence Stones can make you very powerful, there is a catch. Momentum also increases the damage you receive, making you more vulnerable. So bear in mind that hoarding Momentum is also a riskier approach to combat!
Let’s say you are fighting a group of weaker monsters and one big monster, you can use the smaller ones to build up Momentum and use the final attack against the larger one. But since you are in a group combat, keep in mind that you might get hit and that the more Momentum you have, you might take some critical hits.
There’s a lot to try out combination-wise, and it can be interesting to vary the build you are using to adapt your playstyle to a situation. Luckily, Build Presets allow you to save up to three different Essence Stones builds so that you can switch on the fly, as long as you are out of combat. This way, you can save your favorite build while using your other two Presets to experiment or adapt approaches.
One of my favorite builds involve an Active Stone called Endmost Wrath, which also happens to be a special Tainted Essence Stone. Tainted Stones are more powerful but inflict negative effects as well. In this case, Endmost Wrath massively increases my damage output, but lowers my HP to 1 and prevents me from healing while in use. I counter the negative effects with three Passive Stones which all grant a buff below a certain level of HP, such as automatically generating Momentum, shortening the cooldown of Active Stones, and increasing damage even more. The final piece of this build is a Passive Stone called Saving Grace, which prevents the damage of a fatal blow, then enters a cooldown. Considering the very high risks of this build, Saving Grace complements it beautifully.
Another build involves combining several Essence Stones from the Tricks category. Allow one Stone to slow down wraiths, like Clock Master — an Active Stone that spawns a large bubble which all wraiths and their projectiles are slowed down. Couple that with Timely Crystallization, a Passive Stone that grants a small chance to stun slowed wraiths. If the stun effect works, three other Passive Stones add extra stun-based effects, like increasing the duration for which the enemy remains stunned, granting health when damage is dealt to the stunned enemy, and increasing the amount of damage dealt to them.