Fellowship Ardeos Season 3 Hero Guide

Ardeos is an Intellect-based Damage hero who utilizes powerful fire damage over time (DoT) effects. His game play revolves around generating Cinders with his damage over time effects and direct damage abilities. Upon reaching 100 Cinders, they ignite into a Burning Ember, allowing you to use Detonate on his enemies.

This guide will teach you the basics of playing Ardeos in Fellowship, how to use his abilities, and which talents to choose for the best build.

Season 3 Changes

Ardeos has had a bunch of changes in season 3. We’ve got a reworked legendary some base functionality improvements and a lot of adjusted talents. Gameplay wise this season will feel familiar but we have whole new item system to work with and some cool new talents.

The damage over time component of Fire Frogs, Fire Ball and Crackling Inferno has had haste removed as a modifier to their tick rate as they were gaining value from haste already in various ways.

Engulfing Flames now has 2 charges baseline and will refund part of its cooldown if the target dies while effected. Slow Burn now gives a flat 3 seconds extension to Engulfing Flame and Searing Blaze across its duration as it was getting a bit out of hand last season. Crash and Burn has similarly been slightly nerfed to allow for a stronger Fire Ball too.

Fire Frogs have had a few interesting updates, primarily a significant increase to their damage. Frog Squad has been significantly buffed compared to season 2 and Pyrophibian Frenzy can now trigger from non crits too. This may allow Fire Frogs to be picked up as a potential build much earlier, especially if Exquisite Flaming Toad Cloak is the first legendary you get.

Apocalypse has seen a much needed QOL improvement where it is now a 45 second cooldown, this lines it up very nicely with our Wildfire cooldown. We have a new talent for Apocalypse too which significantly reduces the cast time and gives us 2 free uses of Detonate allowing for bigger Wildfire windows. The legendary now also applies a damage over time effect along with its cooldown reduction so we can use Detonate on that to further enhance our Wildfire window.

Another new talent is Cascading Inferno. This gives us a powerful Infernal Wave every few Detonates, alongside the new Blessing system which has some power enhancers to Infernal Wave this might be a very strong talent and one to look out for if you do find those Blessings.

AND we have 1 extra talent point!

Other Hero Guides

In the event you were looking for a different character guide for Fellowship, please use one of the buttons below to find what you’re looking for.

Tanks

Healers

DPS

Ardeos’ Abilities

Ability/Icon	Name	Cast / Cooldown	Range / Radius	Effect
	Searing Blaze	GCD	↔ 30yd	Target enemy burns for 67% Intellect fire damage every 2 seconds for 24 seconds. Generates 12 Cinders over its full duration.
	Engulfing Flames	1.5s 20.0s	↔ 30yd	Engulf your target in flames, dealing 182% Intellect fire damage every 1.5 seconds for 9 seconds. Generates 30 Cinders over its full duration.
	Fire Ball	GCD 30.0s (2)	↔ 30yd ↻ 5yd	Throw a ball of fiery devastation at the targeted area, dealing 281% Intellect fire damage to all enemies in the radius and setting them on fire, dealing an additional 20% of the initial damage dealt over 12 seconds. Fire Ball’s damage over time can not critically strike. Each tick of Fire Ball has a 50% chance to generate 2 cinders.
	Infernal Wave	1.5s	↔ 30yd	Conjure a fiery wave to cascade toward your target, dealing 155% Intellect fire damage. Generates 40 Cinders.
	Fire Frogs	GCD 45.0s	↔ 30yd	Conjure five Fire Frogs to leap at your enemies dealing 77% Intellect fire damage and burning them for an additional 100% of the initial damage dealt over 12 seconds. Fire Frogs’ damage over time can not critically strike. Each Fire Frog will perform 3 attacks before dissipating.
	Flickerstep	Instant 20.0s	↔ 8yd	Instantly teleport forward a short distance.
	Scorch	Instant 20.0s	↔ 30yd	Interrupt the target’s spellcasting and prevent it from casting for 4 sec.
	Apocalypse	3.0s 45.0s	↔ 30yd ↻ 10yd	Conjure a major eruption of fire in the targeted area, dealing 1546% Intellect fire damage and applying Searing Blaze to all enemies in a large radius.
	Detonate	GCD	Self	Instantly Detonate all active fire damage over time effects from Ardeos abilities on enemies, dealing damage equal to 2.5 seconds of average ticking damage to each enemy.
	Flame Ward	Instant 30.0s	Self	You take 40% reduced damage for 4 seconds.
	Pyromania	Instant 90.0s (2)	↔ 30yd	Instantly adds an Engulfing Flames effect on the target, and apply it to up to 2 other nearby enemies. Enemies without an already active Engulfing Flames and with the highest amount of health will be highest priority.
	Fireflash	Instant 24.0s	↔ 30yd	Conjure a bright flash of fire in front of the target’s eyes, causing them to become Disoriented for 30 seconds. Disorient Disoriented enemies are incapacitated, left to wander around aimlessly for the duration. Any damage dealt to a disoriented enemy will break the effect.
	Wildfire	Instant 45.0s	↻ 60yd	All active fire damage over time effects from your abilities instantly flare up, causing them to tick 20% faster for 9 sec.
	Incinerate	1.5s Cast 4.55s Channel SPIRIT ABILITY	Self ↑8yd	A jet of fire erupts from your hands as you channel for 4.5 seconds, dealing 95% Intellect fire damage every 0.5 seconds to all enemies in a cone in front of you. Each hit extends the duration of your currently active damage over time effects by 1.5 seconds per tick and applies a stacking damage over time to them dealing 24% Intellect fire damage every 3 seconds for 12 seconds. The damage over time portion is increased by +20% for each stack that is applied to an enemy. Spirit Ability When you activate your Spirit ability you gain Spirit of Heroism, granting +30% haste for 20 seconds.

Cinders & Burning Embers

Ardeos’ spells generate Cinders and ignite into Burning Embers upon reaching 100. Burning Ember is consumed by Detonate to deal additional damage based on your active DoTs. With a cap of 4, management is important. You’ll need to balance spending Burning Embers to avoid wasting resources against saving them for your burst windows.

Ardeos Talents and Build Progression

Talent Points Total	Talent Tree (Row + Column)
2 Points	1C
3 Points	1C + 2C
4 Points	1C + 2C + 2A
5 Points	1C + 2C + 1A
6 Points	1C + 4B + 1A + 2A
7 Points	1C + 4B + 1A + 2A + 2C
8 Points	1C + 4B + 1A + 5C
9 Points	1C + 4B + 1A + 5C + 2A
10 Points	1C + 4B + 1A + 5C + 2A + 2C
11 Points	1C + 1A + 5C + 2A + 2C+ 3C
12 Points	1C + 1A + 5C + 2A + 2C+ 3C + 4B
13 Points	1C + 1A + 5C + 2A + 2C+ 3C + 4B + 6A
14 Points	1C + 1A + 5C + 2A + 2C+ 3C + 5A

Slow Burn (1A) causes your Fire Ball spell to extend the duration of your Searing Blaze and Engulfing Flames by 3 seconds over its duration. This is a straightforward way to help keep your DoTs active on targets for longer.

Frog Squad (1B) causes your Fire Frogs ability to summon 2 extra frogs, makes each one attack an additional time and increases their damage by 20%. It’s a simple but effective talent that increases the damage from your frogs, which directly boosts the power of your Detonate and synergizes well with Pyrophibian Frenzy.

Great Balls of Fire (1C) increases the damage of your Fire Ball spell, buffing both the initial hit and its DoT effect. Before you have enough points and gear for the Fire Frogs build, your Fire Ball is a much larger part of your overall damage, making this a great boost early on.

Backdraft (2A) extends the duration of our Searing Blaze’s by 1 seconds every time we press Detonate. This feels somewhat mandatory to a lot of builds otherwise you’ll need to manually reapply them before your next Apocalypse is ready.

Flare Up (2B) causes your Infernal Wave to also damage your primary target and any nearby enemies affected by your Searing Blaze. This hits your main target too, making it a damage increase for both single-target and multi-target situations.

Apocalyptic Inferno (2C) reduces the cast time of Apocalypse by 1.5 seconds and gives us 2 free Detonates. This feels very comfy to play with and allows us to fit extra Detonates into our Wildfire window.

Firestarter (3B) increases the critical strike chance of all of Ardeos’ damage over time effects by 20%. Importantly, this also allows your Fire Frogs and the DoT from Fire Ball to critically strike, something they are unable to do without this talent.

Undying Flame (3C) increases the duration of Engulfing Flames. This very powerful with our single target and when coupled with Slow Burn gives our Engulfing Flames a much longer duration.

Cascading Inferno (4A) causes Detonate to give us a stacking buff. Every 4 stacks of this buff our next Infernal Wave deals extra damage, is instant cast and has double cinder generation. This combined with other Infernal Wave talents and some synergistic Blessings has the potential to be very powerful.

Crash and Burn (4B) is a talent that reduces the cooldown of Fire Ball every time Searing Blaze deals damage. This is incredibly effective on AOE and very inneffective on single target. We pick this up with Fire Ball builds where it is very powerful.

Crackling Inferno (4C) grants Infernal Wave +20% Critical Strike Chance and causes its critical strikes to apply a powerful DoT, burning targets for 60% of the damage dealt over 24 seconds. The new DoT it applies scales with your Expertise and Haste. With enough gear, this burn effect can end up hitting harder than the initial spell, and it provides yet another damage source to empower your Detonate.

Pyrophibian Frenzy (5B) is a core talent for the frog build. It gives your damage over time effects an 8% chance to spawn a Fire Frog and doubles that chance whenever they critically strike. This creates a powerful feedback loop with your other abilities.

Reign of Fire (5C) gives your Detonate casts a chance to instantly grant you a charge of Fire Ball and makes your next Fire Ball a guaranteed critical strike. It’s a bit of a gamble, but since Fire Ball is so important before you have all your talent points, this can provide a potent damage spike.

Burning Initiative (6A) is a new talent that lets us start the dungeon with 50 spirit towards our Spirit Ability and 2 Burning Embers. This talent feels good to play but generally doesn’t provide much value outside of getting to our first Spirit Ability faster.

Intensifying Inferno (6B) is part of a powerful trio along with Flare Up (2B) and Crackling Inferno (4B). On its own, it buffs your Infernal Wave‘s damage. But more importantly, it also increases the damage of the DoT from Crackling Inferno and the splash damage from Flare Up. Crackling Inferno also counts as an extra dot for Intensifying Inferno to scale from. While individually they may seem underwhelming, they synergize incredibly well together and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Remember to not take talent trees as is and adjust for any legendary or weapon trees you get, or content you are doing.

Ember Generation

Ember generation is one of the most important aspects of Ardeos’ kit to master and understand. For single target this is fairly simple, our primary generator is Infernal Wave, we want to fit as many Infernal Waves in as possible so we can press Detonate as much as possible during our Detonate windows.

For AOE our primary generator is Fire Ball, unlike Searing Blaze and Engulging Flames which generate a fixed amount over their baseline duration, Fire Ball generates each time the damage over time effect ticks. This is another reason haste is so good for us.

Ardeos Openers and Rotations

Your top priority playing Ardeos is stacking multiple DoT effects on targets as often as possible. For single target maintain Searing Blaze at 100% uptime, Fire Ball and Engulfing Flames together and every 45 seconds we want to combine Apocalypse, Fire Ball and Fire Frogs then press Wildfire for a big Detonate damage window. This is due to our Detonate doing damage based on each of our DoT effects on a target so whenever we use Detonate we want it to be with as many stacked DoT effects as possible. For single target we press Detonate during our Wildfire windows, whenwe need some burst damage or whenever you might cap on Burning Embers.

In AOE we want to maintain Searing Blaze whenever we can, at the start of the pull this is usually with Apocalypse or tabbing between enemies individually as the tank groups the pull. Then we make use of the Slow Burn talent to extend Searing Blaze with Fire Ball as much as possible. Use in Engulfing Flames and Fire Frogs with Wildfire every time they’re available and Detonate whenever you have at least 2 DoT’s on each target or you’re capping on Burning Embers.

Whenever there a no new DoT’s to maintain, low on Burning Embers or a pack is about to die, you’ll use Infernal Wave to help you generate Burning Embers for the next damage windows.

Detonate

Detonate deserves its own section, as knowing how it works is important to optimizing your damage as Ardeos. When cast, Detonate looks at each of Ardeos’ active DoTs on each enemy and calculates a bonus damage amount equal to two and a half seconds of that DoT’s damage. This calculation accounts for your Haste and Expertise, using the calculated value as it’s baseline. An important detail is that the DoT’s remaining duration is irrelevant, and Detonate will still grant the full duration worth of damage even if an effect is about to expire. This calculated damage total is then combined and dealt to the target over three quick ticks.

The ability is also designed to prevent stats from applying their benefits twice, which is a common issue known as “double dipping”. Your Haste and Expertise boost the initial DoTs, which makes Detonate hit harder, but they do not increase the damage of the final three ticks of damage. The initial calculation ignores the critical strike chance of your original DoTs. However, each of the final three damage ticks from Detonate have their own independent chance to be a critical hit.

Full Cooldown Burst

When all your major abilities are ready, Ardeos can unleash an absurd amount of damage. To do this we want to use all of our damage over time effects then use Incinerate to do massive damage and then use as many Detonates as we can with Wildfire directly after.

Outside of those burst windows, Ardeos’ gameplay is less about ability priority and more about preparing for the next Detonate window. Avoid staggering abilities as you want as many DoTs active as possible for each Detonate cast.

Gearing and Stat Priority

Secondary Stats have the following effect for Ardeos:

• Critical Strike – Increases the chance for your abilities to deal double damage. This is an important as it also increases the spawn rate of your Fire Frogs when talented into Pyrophibian Frenzy, leading to more DoT effects, which then increases Detonate’s output.
• Expertise – A straightforward stat that provides a flat percentage to all your damage and healing.
• Haste – Increases the tick rate of your DoT effects and speeds up the cast time of your spells. This is especially valuable because it allows more DoT damage to occur within the Detonate window.
• Spirit -increases the Spirit gained from all sources for Ardeos’ ultimate this includes Curses and weapon traits. Additionally, it gives you a chance to refund any Burning Embers spent on Detonate. This refund chance scales with your spirit but has diminishing returns, meaning each point is slightly less effective than the last.

Haste > Crit > Expertise > Spirit

Item level is generally best and will have the greatest effect on your damage and survivability.

Season 3 Gearing

For Season 3 gearing has had a massive overhaul. All weapon traits can now appear as modifiers on gear along with the new Blessings, Dungeon set bonuses and Gem Essence. Notably Weapon abilities, Relic abilities and the new neck defensive trait tree take up a modifier slot on there respective item.

An item can have up to 3 modifers on it at maximum rarity and up to 2 of each type of modifier.

For example an items at the highest rarity could have:

• Chest: 2 Master Traits and 1 Gem Essence modifier.
• Weapon: Weapon ability, 1 Blessing and 1 heroic trait.
• Ring: 1 Stat modifier, 1 Blessing and a set bonus.
• Relic: Relic ability and 2 Gem Essence modifiers.

Below I’ve given my suggestions for each modifer type for you to reference and aim for.

Blessings

Blessings is the new system, they are all passive effects, some we can play around and some are entirely passive. A lot of these also tie in to a new system where our abilities have tags on them. For example Infernal Wave hsa a “BASIC” tag on it and Wildfire has a “MAJOR” tag, so any blessings you see effecting those tags will effect those abilities.

Below are the best Blessing’s for Ardeos.

	Best	Good
Blessing	The Wayfarer, The Sinister	The Trickster, The Vehement, The Vainglorious, The Subduer

A special note for “The Vehement” and “The Vainglorious”. These Blessings specifically empower Infernal Wave so if you get a few of these on your gear it might be worth trying out the Infernal Wave centric talents as they synergise incredibly well. If you do not want to play with these talents I would avoid these Blessings.

Master Traits

Master Traits were previously on our weapon trees and now we can have up to 4 of them across all our available gear modifiers. The weapon tree is still there but it only provides 1 rank instead of 4.

Below are the best Major Traits for Ardeos.

	Best	Good
Master Traits	Amethyst Splinters Visions of Grandeur	Brave Machinations Martial Initiative Emerald Judgement

An extra point to be made for Emerald Judgement is that it is only worth using if you are using Emerald 6 / First Strike 2 as Emerald Judgement triggers the buff making it very good on single target encounters.

Heroic (DPS) Traits

Heroic traits are capped at 4 per trait and are generally less intrusive passive effects. Hunter’s Focus and Seized Opportunity are our most notable traits to aim for as they are very powerful for Ardeos this season. Below are the best Heroic traits for Ardeos.

	Best	Good
Heroic Traits	Hunter’s Focus Seized Opportunity	Inspired Allegiance Kindling Vengeful Soul

Defensive Traits

The main thing to consider with Defensive Traits is that they can be very situational. Generally it’s best to aim for the well rounded traits that work in every scenario until pushing super late game where the more situational traits will be stronger. Below are the best Defensive Traits for Ardeos.

	Best	Good	Situationally Good
Defensive Trait	King of the Hill	Heart of Stone	Stalwart Readiness Latent Resurgance First Man Standing

Dungeon Sets

The set from Heart of Tuzari is very strong at all levels. The set from Ransack of Drakheim is also very good and can be used once we have at least tier 6 Sapphire gems.

The sets from 1 boss dungeons are better earlier and generally fall off the later we get into the game.

Heart of Tuzari > Ransack of Drakheim > Gem Power > Spirit > Others

Gems and Gem Essence

For Ardeos in the early game the first node for Ruby, Amethyst and Emerald are decently strong so if you happen to get a socketed item these are easy pick ups for a decent power boost.

As of season 3 Gem Essence can also be a modifier on gear. This provides a certain gem track with 100 Gem Power. This can be very potent early to unlock the initial power of the gem system and late game we’ll use this in conjuncton with gems to hit important breakpoints such as 1 Flawless Gem and 1 Gem Essence modifer to get a gem track to tier 6.

With the new item system in season 3 we have 4 gem sockets to use with each tier of gem giving 150, 250, 350 and 500 gem power respectively. This means 3 of the highest tier gems can complete an entire gem track!

Below is a list of our best traits. Try to have your gem set up so you hit as many as possible. The higher the power ranking the better.

Power Ranking	Trait Node
1	Sapphire 10 / Blessing of the Prophet 2
2	Amethyst 10 / Blessing of the Deathdealer 2
3	Sapphire 6 / Ancestral Surge 2
4	Amethyst 6 / Sealed Fate 2
5	Emerald 6 / First Strike 2
6	Ruby 6 / Might of the Minotaur 2
7	Topaz 10 – Blessing of the Virtuoso 2
8	Amethyst 1 / Sealed Fate
9	Ruby 1 / Blessing of the Minotaur
10	Emerald 1 / First Strike

Weapons Ranked

For reference to the tooltips on any weapons or traits check out our weapons guide here

Weapons Ranked

1. Chronoshift

Chronoshift is likely our best weapon. Where Ardeos is cooldown dependant with our Wildfire windows getting that window more often is incredibly powerful.

With Chrono we want to make sure we use it after our Wildfire combo and if Fire Ball has less than 24 seconds on its cooldown it may be worth using double Fire Ball to not waste the cooldown.

This is emphasised further when we get our best legendary, Pendant of the Untamed Flame, which makes our Wildfire windows even stronger. When we combine this with getting the capstone trait Visions of Grandeur, Chronoshift allows us to have an incredibly potent damage window over the course of 1 minute where we can have 3 Wildfire windows in a short period of time.

2. Icicles of An’zhyr

Icicles is our second best weapon and in certain scenarios can be our best. Icicles does very consistant damage in AOE and with it being off the global cooldown it does not interfere with Ardeos’s gameplay. This weapon scales very well with large pull sizes of enemies that live for 20 seconds or more so as we push higher this weapon has very high potential damage.

We want to use this at the start of every pull for maximum uptime, so try to make sure it’s off cooldown going into new pulls. The damage of recasting it on already effected mobs is less valuable than applying new effects.

3. Voidbringer’s Touch

Voidbringer’s gives us a decent amount of priotity and single target damage. A major concern with Voidbringer’s however is you will likely pull threat on the enemy you use it on, even bosses. This weapon is good early but where Chronoshift and Icicles synergise with our kit its value is lowered moving into late game.

We want to use this as often as possible on the highest priority enemy we’re facing.

4. Nature’s Wrath

Nature’s Wrath is likely our worst weapon. It has no synergy with the our kit and lacks the priority damage of Voidbringer. The one saving grave Nature’s Wrath has it that it has a healing component which can come in useful but generally we don’t want to be losing output to take a potentially inconsequential heal.

We can either use this on cooldown for maximum damage or hold for big group damage moments that might need some extra healing.

Ardeos’ Legendaries Ranked

1. Draconic Bracers of the Devouring Flame (Wrists)
   • Brimstone Cataclysm: Your Engulfing Flames also causes the afflicted target to take 6% more damage freom you for each Engulfing Flames that is active on them.
   • I believe this legendary will be our best for late game pushing. The legendary allows us to get a lot of funnel damage into priority target and noticably increases our boss damage, both of which are often crucial to the success of pushing late game content.
2. Exquisite Flaming Toad Cloak (Back)
   • Fire Toad: Each time you cojure a Fire Frog you have a 10% chance to instead conjure a Fire Toad that explodes onto the target and nearby enemies near it, dealing 1000% Fire Frog damage. (damage is reduced beyond 1 target) Your Fire Frogs ability always conjures 1 Fire Toad in addition to it’s normal number of Fire Frogs. Fire Toad benefits from all the bonuses that affect Fire Frogs.
   • This legendary is a powerful option for late game content. This legendary allows a Fire Frog build to do very competitve AOE damage. It will lack slightly on single target damage but if overall damage is a limiting factor in your dungeon runs this legendary will likely be your best bet.
3. Ring of Boomtastic Explosions (Ring)
   • Explosivo: Each time you cast Fire Ball the cooldown of your Apocalypse ability is reduced by 8 seconds. Apocalypse now deals an additional 50% of its damage as a damage over time effect over 12 seconds. Apocalypse now has 2 charges.
   • This legendary is very comfy to play with, gaining 2 charges on Apocalypse and reduced cooldown allows us to skip Backdraft as a talent. This also synergises well with our new Apocalyptic Inferno talent. This will likely be a middle ground between Exquisite Flaming Toad Cloak’s AOE potential and Draconic Bracers of the Devouring Flame’s single target.