Lucky Pathologist DC-dps-DO

dps debuff build, the minor buff from powers is not the kind of buff expected by those looking for buff builds. It works ok with hdps / multiple non-pug dps.

Where this guide starts? Goal?

At 70’s campaigns struggle. Where most DC’s quit. This is a grind / F2P build keeping the astral diamond cost minimal. It sacrifices everything for speed up of soloing endgame campaigns.

As the gear score advances the stats viability shift from early levels questing power+recovery to soloing campaigns critical chance+armor penetration towards the high end party epics with power+critical chance continued at Akaya’s build.

Preferably you already have tier4 powers. Thus not in need of guild experience gain / power boon structure and are ready to trade it for armor penetration boon structure.

Gameplay considerations

solo PVE endgame campaigns – this is primary goal

• boss – do they exist?
• hard mob – almost everything. survival AoE control powers + control companion
  
• mid mob – dps AoE control powers + control companion
• easy mob – quick death AoE
  

party PVE endgame queues – stay away from random party

• epic queues
  • boss – survival split by damage mechanics
    • AoE leave it to tank, just Shift key away
      
    • DoT AoE again dodge sliding, running with TAB dps
    • light DoT everywhere not my job. powers tray downgrade.
      
    • heavy DoT everywhere not my job. rely on party.
    • dps bursts
      • prophetic action
      • Underdark Impenetrability ring
    • after bursts heal boosts from feats and tmpHP from feats
  • twins – kite one and boss the other
  • mobs – not my job. rely on party. just stay in buff/proc distance and try not to slow others down.
• normal queues – too easy

Build limits

play style : RIGHTEOUS feats with DPS because

Campaign dailies are rarely done in party. Therefore decent solo campaign progress is the goal.

Solo dps kills stuff. Neither solo tanking nor solo healing kills.

game design options

• dps decisions
  • lowest weapon damage of all classes
  • horrible dps delivery times
  • weapon mode normal casting animations are slow
  • weapon mode (blue) divinity casting is quick
  • TAB mechanic damage appears to be horrible. Pimp it up.
    

  • DPS feat clusters

    Pick at least 4 DPS options out of 6 but preferably lock on divinity. The AP makes huge difference with party but when soloing campaign it’s nearly useless.

    • heroic at least 1 AP from heal
    • heroic divinity dps
    • paragon dps from AP through daily powers
      
    • paragon AP boost selfish
    • paragon AP boost everyone is deep mutually reachable
    • paragon divinity dps option two is deep mutually reachable
• survival decisions
  • average armor class of all classes
  • feats provide little to no solo campaign bonus
    • HP – synergy of stronghold boon with heroic feat “fill type” with tenebrous. The boon structure is far far away in the top half guilds. Most likely not available.
    • temporary HP self – feat “fill type” with massive icd. use powers instead
    • temporary HP everyone – feat chance of constant pool and use powers too
    • powers boosted with feat requireing healing to proc from virtuous path
      
    • powers that are feat independent
• survival + tanking
  • feats for tank build are almost nonexistent with minimum bonus
  • tanking does not kill
• party consequences of being primarily dps/debuff
  • premade party shall not fear
  • melee stays compact in the tiny spot
  • damaged ranged need training to run closer to target for healing and survival

Any strengths?

• DC attributes pack a lot of charisma which comes with combat advantage. Use it to max since it’s better then solo AP dps.
  • 3 companions (part 1/3)
    • intellect devourer (event: call to arms – gate crashers) 3*def, upgrade to blue for 4 second stun every 10 seconds
    • staldorf (event: day of the dungeon master)
    • blink dog (sharandar tower of celadaine)
  • artifacts
    • lantern of revelation
    • kessell’s spheres of annihilation
    • sigil of the trickster
    • black ice beholder
    • horn of valhalla
• lucky feats with 1/3 or 1/5 or 2/5 points spent. Balance of chance at frequency is much like the over time with cooldown
• automated mechanics from feats
  • AoE on any encounter (no, too deep)
  • AoE heal on crit dps (me)
  • DoT on crit (it’s lowest weapon damage stretched at 15s chunks delivery and the brand of the sun at-will power will proc the DoT related debuff)
  • DoT on crit with debuff (worth points during early campaigns and low guild boon structure levels)
  • automatic HoT AP (no, too deep)
  • automatic Heal AP (a bit, useful at party)
  • automatic DoT AP (a bit)

What else can we build around this frame

• ignore aggro
  • aggro management neither kills nor works when solo. use control powers, companion and dodge
  • aggro management in party? rely on party, do not start the fight
  • solo squishy aggro should not last long enough uncontrolled to be dangerous with AoE on righteous avatar
• be picky with the weapon damage mechanic
  • solo DC non-dps paths based around minimal weapon damage? a joke.
  • little chance of constant temporary HP is nice
• be picky about near death mechanic
  • leave heavy hits to tank since tanking feats provide DO no extras, avoid it unless AC
  • near death heals
• partial ignorance of unnecessary healing when tired of campaigns and doing epics
  • white glyph
  • seal artifact power
  • healer companions
• charisma attribute required by combat advantage provides AP with cooldown benefits. AP feats are near useless when soloing. Full divinity bar spent and 5 points in AP feat makes a difference of 1% out of 100%.
• half of the heroic feat choices are nearly irrelevant to solo campaign and affect only deviation preferences. Domain synergy can be relevant very early with the alliance gear and incomplete set recovery pieces.
• Party epics would benefit more from heroic AP but primary focus is solo where HP/tmpHP makes more difference.
• No damage is lost with maximum charisma attribute due to combat advantage. The setback is missing 2% healing from attributes. Heals will underperfom and need layered backup plan.

Cookie cutter

Objections, i know. The priority: keep DC progress in-game at any cost such as pug survival or party buff.

Race

• tiefling – the below 50% target health damage bonus offsets for Avatar cooldown
  • synergies
    • fire archon companion (winter event starlight parcel drop)
    • @campaign – feat Avatar of the Divine cooldown gap on mobs
    • @boss – expect aggro change and death because of desequencing powers at 50% health.
    • @PvP + tab ranged dps + movement available mechanic for catching near death chickens running into safety. The build is not PvP and it is proven to not work against PvP specific builds. Do not expect to survive long enough to use it.
  • maximize the combat advantage with first line of 18 charisma roll (25 max level) and know your weakness: that’s minimal crit you will have to work it up a bit more.

• human – all-round race. Never ever pvp after campaigns? Better then tiefling. The 3 extra heroic feats can provide more ap from heal / crit / divinity / survival. Worth it.
• metallic dragonborn  – if you have it unlocked… both power and crit are always nice to have.
• sun elf – makes better anointed champion or virtuous rather then DO righteous

Class mechanics

• Divinity encounter powers for fast delivery of survival methods including dps.
• TAB light – make it useful and learn to use it during emergencies
  • it’s continuous – make it crit near continuously
  • it has dual function – dps and heals (primary focus dps)
  • self loop mechanic – not a heal build so ignore this
  • survival method with dps on the move, synergy with control powers
  • survival method doubled with dual ened function – dps heals you
  • survival method AoE epic the pimped dps heals melee party, near aimless heal delivery to melee that can behave almost like HoT ultimately combining functionality of Virtuous and Faithful. Autodelivery minus the 20 stack storing that’s traded for tmpHP chance with HoT like continuation
  • at solo campaigns it just does not deliver because of armor penetration, use boon

Feats

maximize divinity then reachable synergies

• heroic (owerflows in the domain synergy with the early recovery gear, later some better place. If you are returning player then you most likely have 1 respec token and other one free respec which can make this painless)
  1. Solo? Almost useless points. At least 1 point is in the AP heals just in case of future changes.
  2. panic survival, at least 1 point in tmpHP and crit bonus to cover the attributes crit gap
  3. crit pimping
  4. yes even the horrendous ICD point. Only point with area name: “IWD”. With decent mount or stronghold boon relocate the point to divinity (or cleansing)
• paragon
  • faithful
    1. more TAB dps pimping. still this will require white dragon enchantment and artifact seal boost to be anywhere near healing build. But at least even pugs can stand a chance.
    2. aww heals from 1 and a chance of panic survival roll
    3. divinity must have
  • righteous
    1. dps and a bit of AP buff
    2. automated survival mechanics
    3. and beyond towards the end Avatar = dps and survival through divinity sequence mastery

Trade bars path:

If you stick to recovery pieces which makes things a bit slower and boring in the stagnant campaign phase this build can still be relevant with alliance, elven, dusk, dragonflight end. Except alliance it takes either effort or carry group to obtain. Starting with synergy in alliance gear and cheap incomplete set is an option. But late use of domain synergy really means you are not heading towards akaya but faithful in party like twisty’s build. That 1 point not allocated is explicitly left for you to examine your situation and decide.

Solo grind path with a bit of premade party:

I suggest you skip the alliance and grab ichor from dHE. Drow gear does make things tiny bit faster with a crit+pen and this also is suggested respec with the lostmauth set. The longest phase of crit+penetration before the penetration happens and campaign grind is almost over. Before the power+crit switch to party epics akaya’s build.

• optional changes
  • +piercing light for –divinity if you have decent armor penetration source at the respec time (high enough guild boon, mount, …)
  • +AP heal heroic instead for -toughness HP if you have campaign buddy
  • power sharing with +weapons of light for dps on damage -righteous suffering taken if you have campaign buddy

At-will

DC at-will dps is a joke never meant to be used for DPS.

• seal – self serving hDPS heal
• brand – paragon feat synergy DoT debuff
• seal + brand = automagic
  • divinity over time builder
  • with the +1 AP on heal heroic feat this also builds AP over time (solo? still not that great)
• seal + brand + divine fortune = singularity that can get better only in party with proximity heals and artifact power.

encounter powers

Primary tool and key/tray acrobatics.

Yes the Foresight does not work well enough when locked on the Avatar with divinity.

Know your priorities: campaigns, campaigns and more campaigns so don’t drag pugs too often down running them into epic disaster. Yes you are DC with some points in healing because of divinity, yes you are in game and yet you are mostly not available for epic queues unless requested by prepared premade, ironic?

Balancing the allocation of the 4th point towards solo campaign, survival or large event boosting? Survival for the premade

group respect. The alliance and insignia mods relaxed the debuff requirements during dragonflight.

daily powers

Secondary toolbox. Not so great for solo DPS so allocate carefully. Grab burning set and party members for AP.

Companions

• combat advantage
  • intellect devourer
    • summoned and upgraded to blue
    • loyal master items
    • 3x defensive eldritch
    • source of power+apen and survival stun AoE arc 4s/10s
  • staldorf
  • blink dog (tiamat heads summon for combat advantage grant in situation where it can not happen)
• race synergy
  • fire archon
• companion / build synergy
  • damaran shepherd from gateway minigame
• alt sumon when survival @boss needed: lizardfolk shaman or battlefield medic.

Grind gear

recovery penetration -> power penetration with a bit of crit -> power crit with maxed penetration

The guild armor penetration is cheaper then crit mount and that one is cheaper then armor penetration mount and crit severity boon is hardly available for this build early.

Shift as both campaign and guild boon progresses. The feat allocation shifts from domain synergy early when giving up on alliance and incomplete valindra towards healing action heroic feat towards lostmauth set completion

• elven assault coif (p+pen) -> elemental elven assault (p+pen) -> elemental elven recovery (p+cri) -> dragonflight restoration coif (p+cri)
• drowcraft surcoat (p+cri) -> elemental drowcraft restoration surcoat (p+cri)
• drowcraft braces (r+pen) -> elemental drowcraft raid braces (r+pen) ->  dragonflight restoration braces (p+cri) + elemental dragonflight restoration (p+cri)
• drowcraft cuisses (p+cri) -> elemental drowcraft restoration cuisses (p+cri)
• amulet of valindra’s favor + sash of charisma -> lostmauth set (or black ice set)
• burning set with astral seal and terrifying insight

Deviations from solo campaign and the progressive adaptation

• into premade party epics and campaign buddy, consider greater lathander and tiamat sets too
• no gear changes, no build progress, no ambition = imperial
• just minimal gear changes, no respec = valindra neck+charisma belt -> imperial set

Artifacts and artifacts gear

Attributes do the recovery+AP trick the dps on artifact sets focuses at the apen+crit weak spots.

Numbers are for armor penetration+crit gap affecting solo play.

The sorted order is for purple artifacts cadv+crit+pen

Focusing the cadv+power+crit with decent armor penetration source does not make much difference. Unless you have maxed out armor penetration.

Enchantments

If you fail to manage mobs to have both combat advantage and stun arc then the pwr+crit is survival emergency plan. That’s why you wear it.

• utility – 3x azure + dragon’s hoard + quartermaster
• offense – brutal (pwr+crit)
• defense – savage (hp+ls)
• intellect devourer
  • offense  – savage (crit+apen) and radiant (pwr)
  • defense – dark (ls to keep it alive for the 3x eldritch runestones bonus)

Guild boons

• @campaign: armor penetration for the campaign comes with defense if you don’t want to spend on the blue stun companion upgrade (stables)
• @campaign+epic: chance to switch power or armor penetration as needed (barracks+stables)
• @more epics: power and critical severity for more epic chores (higher-end guilds)

Tray

• campaign
  • divine fortune + terrifying insight
  • hammer of fate + [ hallowed ground / divine armor IWD ]
  • brand of the sun + astral seal
  • break the spirit + sun burst + divine glow
• epic queues or crowd events – not primary goal. just make ends meet.
  • divine fortune + prophetic action
  • divine armor + hallowed ground
  • brand of the sun + astral seal
  • encounter powers situational
    • break the spirit + [ daunting light / chains / prohphecy / astral shield ] + divine glow
    • [ bastion / healing word ] + [ astral shield / warding flare ] + [ divine glow / warding flare ]