Shape of Dreams: Best El's Mercy Vesper Build

Vesper is the frontline tank of Shape of Dreams, and he works exactly how you think he does. This hulking paladin uses a big hammer to smash enemies to bits while keeping him and his team alive through barriers and healing effects. Vesper is a lot less mobile than other characters, but he can be built to become a speedy attacker if you so wish.

Speaking of speedy builds, the one in this guide is all about turning Vesper into a force of nature with high speed, high self-healing, and of course, high damage. He won't be able to match the self-healing of Aurena, but he comes very close to it, making him incredibly fun to use if you want to play Shape of Dreams with an absolute juggernaut of a character.

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By Ollie Tuscarny

Best Discipline Vesper Build in Shape of Dreams

Abilities	Description
Discipline (Main Ability)	Vesper leaps forward and smashed an enemy, dealing Light damage (scaling with AD) and triggering attack effects. This skill's cooldown is reduced by 8% when you attack an enemy.
El's Mercy (Passive)	Vesper's Attack Damage is increased. Every fourth basic attack is a guaranteed critical hit and deals Light damage (scaling with AP). Each time you attack an enemy, you gain Attack Speed (up to 24%). When the Attack Speed bonus reaches its maximum level, attacking an enemy will restore a percentage of your missing HP.
Frostbite	Your next 2 attacks are faster and are empowered. The first empowered hit deals Cold damage and grants Barrier. Meanwhile, the second hit deals more Cold damage.
Umbral Edge	Activate this skill to increase your Critical Strike Chance and deal additional Dark damage on attacks. Melee characters gain a 25% damage increase while the effect is active.
Purgatory	Deal AP damage to all enemies in a targeted area and restore HP for a random ally. If a boss is hit, health restoration is tripled.

For this build, we'll be replacing Cruel Sun with Discipline, Vesper's unlockable core skill that lets him leap from enemy to enemy. The mobility is nice (especially with one of his Constellations), but the main reason we're taking this is so that you can use the auto-attack resetting technique to deal big bursts of damage in a very short amount of time.

We will also be replacing Resolve with El's Mercy. The latter has far better offensive capabilities than the former at the cost of having a weaker healing effect. Still, El's Mercy is more than capable of letting you face-tank most enemies, including some bosses, provided that you can keep hitting something so you can restore your health.

Sell El's Sanctuary (Vesper's Ultimate) as soon as you reach a Well or a Shop, then use the resources to buy new skills or upgrade existing ones.

How Do You Play This Build?

Shape of Dreams Vesper Discipline attack

This is a simple bonk build where you hold down your basic attack button while spamming everything else. You will take a ton of damage, but you'll be able to heal all that lost health back thanks to El's Mercy and Purgatory. The only thing you need to keep in mind is that Discipline and Heavy Strike (Vesper's dodge) count as auto-attack resets. Use those in between basic attacks to maximize your DPS.

The build becomes much riskier to use on higher difficulties, especially on Nightmare where healing effects are weakened.

What is Auto-Attack Resetting (& How Do You Do it)?

If you're not familiar with the term, auto-attack resetting (or just AA resetting) is when you cast a skill right after landing a basic attack. This is a common term used in MOBA games, which Shape of Dreams take inspiratrion from.

In this case, you hit once with Vesper's hammer, then you immediately follow up with Discipline, and since Discipline automatically hits enemies with another basic attack after the skill hits, you'll be smacking your targets three times in a row in the blink of an eye. You can do this same thing but with Vesper's dodge and many other skills that you can cast immediately after doing a basic attack.

AA resetting also works extremely well with other Shape of Dreams characters, especially Lacerta, Aurena, and Shell.

Why Take Frostbite, Umbral Edge, and Purgatory?

This build is all about tanking and spanking, making it a very good pick for newer players. Frostbite gives you bonus damage and a shield, while Purgatory heals you when it hits an enemy. Umbral Edge is your main steroid for fighting strong enemies.

Use these liberally, though you may want to save Umbral Edge for when a strong enemy appears, since it has a fairly lengthy cooldown compared to the others.

What Essences Should You Use?

Momentum: Attacking an enemy reduces the attached skill's cooldown. Use this on Discipline or Frostbite.
Paranoia: When you take damage, the attached skill's cooldown is reduced, but it is automatically cast at nearby enemies. Use this on Umbral Edge.
Metal: When you kill an enemy, reduce the attached skill's cooldown. Again, use this on Umbral Edge.
Starry Sky: When you attack an enemy, gain Attack Speed. If the attack deals Dark damage, the bonus can reach up to twice as much. Use this on Umbral Edge.
Voracity: After casting the attached skill, gain bonus Attack Damage and restore health per attack. Use this on Discipline.
Wind: Casting the attached memory increases your Attack Speed for 5 seconds. Use this on either Discipline or Frostbite.
Rigidity: Gain a barrier when the attached skill hits an enemy. Barrier strength is increased if the skill deals Cold damage.
Clemency: Attached skill heals you for a percentage of the damage dealt.

There are more potentially good Essences for this build, and since RNG plays a huge factor on buildcrafting in Shape of Dreams, you likely won't be able to get every Essence or Memory in one run. It's best to keep the core ideas of a build in mind before you run, then try to make that build work with whatever you get. In this case, the effects/stats you want for this build are:

High attack speed
High health
Cooldown reduction
On-cast effects.

If you want to use this build on Nightmare difficulty, you'll want to shift your focus on Barrier generation.

What Skills Should You Level Up?

For the most part, leveling El's Mercy to 10 is a good way to approach skill leveling with this build. You'll be dealing enough damage when you combine yourother abilities, which means you can hold off on upgrading those ones later. Leveling up El's Mercy increases your Attack Damage, the bonus damage on your fourth hit, and the Attack Speed you gain per stack.

After El's Mercy reaches level 10, you have the following choices:

Upgrade Discipline for a faster and more consistency combat flow.
Upgrade Umbral Edge for stronger damage windows.
Upgrade Frostbite for thicker barriers and more Cold damage.

When picking a Chaos reward, prioritize Max Health over everything else. The higher your health, the more damage Heavy Strike will do, and the longer you'll live in general. After breaching the 1000 HP mark, feel free to upgrade your other stats.

Best Vesper Constellations in Shape of Dreams

Shape of Dreams Vesper Build Constellations

We'll be setting up our Constellation tree with the stats mentioned above. Newer players will need to level Vesper up first before they can unlock some of the passives below:

Constellation Star	Effect
Pulverizer (Vesper - Destruction)	Increases Attack Speed by up to 15%
Aggressive Stance (Common - Destruction)	Increases Attack Damage by up to 8
Hurricane (Common - Destruction)	Increases Attack Speed by up to 10.5%
Reckless Fury (Vesper - Destruction)	Reduces max health by 20%, but increases Attack Speed by up to 30%.
Efficient Extraction (Common - Imagination)	Increases Dream Dust gained from dismantling Memories and Essences
Threat Detection (Common - Life)	Reduces Dodge cooldown by up to 22%
Trial Survivor (Common - Life)	Increases Armor by up to 12
Tough Skin (Common - Life)	Increases Maximum Health by up to 140.