My 1st Freeform: Healer w/pet & melee

bradge

CRITIQUES WELCOME!

I purchased a freeform slot during the sale earlier this month and set out to make a better healer than my beloved but limited level 40 Mind archetype character. After expensive experimentation I came up with a usable build. But I'm only level 28 with it and wished to offer it for critique in case I'm making newbie mistakes that will rear their ugly head later.

My goals for my build and the importance of each one:
( 1 ) Strong healer
( 2 ) Survivable
( 3 ) Melee focus for damage
( * ) Bonus goal: a pet

CHARACTER NAME: Everyman

THEME: understated power

ORIGIN OF POWERS: innate biology (mystical, energy, and science powers okay; demonic isn't)

APPEARANCE: A fairly nondescript human in jeans and a t-shirt except for his slightly pointed ears, cat-like eyes, and talons on his otherwise human-like wrapped feet. The non-human traits are deliberately very low-key and I doubt many notice them.

EQUIPMENT: I purchased the Questionite store's Armadillo secondary armor set for the 25% physical damage resistance bonus. But I won't buy any more of the set as the full set doesn't seem worth it.

NOTES: I've been floating a pet power and my travel power as I level up. I discovered that being a healer with a pet can be (for me) so much fun! The ones I've enjoyed the most with this build were Attack Toy!!! and Arctic Beast. The teddy bear seemed especially effective with this build, but the wolf was easier to keep tabs on and healed up (the toy often would be out of range of my heals). Both worked well. I'd like to keep that pet dynamic without going overboard and ceasing to be a solid healer. Pets aren't essential, but they were very enjoyable for me.

This build's damage and survivability is better than the Mind archetype was for me (excluding pre-nerf Ego Storm with Malevolent Manifestation). He crits often. His highest damage was a 6K hit during an Alert but that was in a previous build using Ego Blade Annihilation while buffed by others in the group; damage is lower without EBA.

PowerHouse (Link to this build)

Name: Everyman

Archetype: Freeform

Super Stats:
Level 6: Presence (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Ego (Secondary)

Talents:
Level 1: The Hero
Level 6: Jack of All Trades
Level 9: Field Ops Training
Level 12: Survival Training
Level 15: Command Training
Level 18: Sniper Training
Level 21: Shrug It Off

Powers:
Level 1: Psi Lash
Level 1: Ego Weaponry (Rank 2, Rank 3, Thought Sever)
Level 6: Ego Blade Dash (Head Shot, Nailed to the Ground)
Level 8: Aura of Radiant Protection (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Iniquity (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 14: Conviction (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 17: Mental Discipline
Level 20: Mindful Reinforcement (Rank 2, Revitalizing Boost)
Level 23: Force Shield (Rank 2, Rank 3, Force Sheathe)
Level 26: Electric Sheath
Level 29: Palliate (Absolve)
Level 32: Rebirth
Level 35: Resurrection Serum
Level 38: Arctic Beast (Rank 2, Rank 3)

Travel Powers:
Level 6: Athletics
Level 35: Scarab Tunneling

Specializations:
Presence: Repurpose (3/3)
Presence: Selfless Ally (2/2)
Presence: Moment of Glory (3/3)
Presence: Force of Will (2/2)
Warden: Slaughter (3/3)
Warden: Ruthless (2/2)
Warden: Elusive (2/2)
Warden: Upper Hand (3/3)
Arbiter: Enforcer (3/3)
Arbiter: Ruthless (2/2)
Arbiter: Preservation (2/2)
Arbiter: Enhanced Gear (3/3)
Mastery: Warden Mastery (1/1)

braxzana

I never used Iniquity for healing so I don't know how useful that is. I normally use Arcane Healing or Empathic or Psionic Healing.

That said, it looks pretty solid.

You MIGHT have energy concerns since I don't see an energy unlock and I'm not sure if Mental Discipline gives you any energy. You also don't have INT, REC or END as a superstat.

There was one ego sword power whose 3pt advantage I never took... until I DID, and it was AMAZING for energy recovery (if memory serves)...

bradge

braxzana wrote: »

I never used Iniquity for healing so I don't know how useful that is. I normally use Arcane Healing or Empathic or Psionic Healing.

That said, it looks pretty solid.

You MIGHT have energy concerns since I don't see an energy unlock and I'm not sure if Mental Discipline gives you any energy. You also don't have INT, REC or END as a superstat.

There was one ego sword power whose 3pt advantage I never took... until I DID, and it was AMAZING for energy recovery (if memory serves)...

Thanks for the critique.

I could add an Energy Unlock, but none of them would offer much energy return with this build. Ego Reverberation would be the best option and I tried it together with Ego Blade Annihilation, but the returns were just okay rather than stellar, and if I wasn't blading it provided nothing. Plus EBA swallows a lot of power although it does increase damage. However I would have had to lose two abilities to add EBA and ER.

I will have to watch to see if I have energy problems later on.

For now:

-- I play in healer mode, which helps with energy regeneration.

-- Iniquity is an instant heal that uses one's health instead of energy. That helps a great deal with energy management although Iniquity can kill you if you're careless. The specialization Selfless Ally provides self-healing equal to 10 percent of your outgoing healing. Combine with healing bonuses, this means I can use Iniquity, lose a little health, and then gain even more than I lost -- so long as I had more than half health to begin with. If I am lower than half health, then using Iniquity more than once or twice is fatal.

-- Force Shield with the Force Sheath advantage provides energy (as if you had double your actual Ego statistic) whenever you block any damage and this lingers even after you've blocked. So long as I'm getting attacked, my energy is fully replenished. Since I fight in melee range and generate aggro from healing, I usually am getting attacked... unless I'm in a group.

-- I can also use Mindful Reinforcement with the Revitalizing Boost advantage, and I receive back energy from spent shields. This is most useful for gaining energy when in a group.

-- Ego Weaponry provides up to 5 stacks of Ego Leach, which amounts to a 25 percent reduction in the cost of using Ego Weaponry and any other Mentalist powers. Since Ego Weaponry is cheap to begin with, with the discount I can spam it constantly without running out of energy and still have energy to spare for Conviction (a self-heal) or other abilities that use more energy. I can do this even with the 10 percent increased energy cost for all skills due to having a controlled pet out and the additional penalty for using Mental Discipline.

-- Electric Sheath also converts some of the damage received to energy for 12 seconds per activation.

-- When all else fails, I can use Psi Lash. A few clicks and my energy is full again. I only have to do this on rare occasion thus far.

chuckthestar

I've often considered a Seraphim healer / ego blader based on crit, and using Form of the Tempest.

For those who aren't aware, Form of the tempest activates on crit heals as well as crit damage, so the stacks would always be there no matter what you did. And the character, while losing the healing potential of compassion, would gain healing potential in the form of crit (note that a crit healer wouldn't use iniquity or BCR since they can't crit).

And of course, seraphim increases your ego blades damage. So combined with crit and form of the tempest the damage would be rather high.
Siphoning strikes would be ridiculous. A shot or two and health would be full.

Of course, that build would look quite a bit different, right down to the spec choices. But I'm not sure if DPS is a priority here, or if ego blades are just flavor for your build.

---

Anyway, to critique your current build: I would advise compassion for this build (as opposed to the build I was discussing above). Your current build is losing a LOT of healing potential by not using compassion, but still has low DPS in spite of using a DPS-oriented form. It doesn't seem to be an effective tradeoff. Additionally, you're using Force Sheath and revitalizing boost out of energy concerns when compassion would easily produce a ton of extra energy for you.

With your build you want to stack PRE *anyway* for healing and AoRP potential, and compassion might just do more damage from all the presence scaling than your offensive form does. There's still a lot of adjustments to be made to optimize the build, but the concept is really cool and it has potential!

bradge

chuckthestar wrote: »

I've often considered a Seraphim healer / ego blader based on crit, and using Form of the Tempest.

For those who aren't aware, Form of the tempest activates on crit heals as well as crit damage, so the stacks would always be there no matter what you did. And the character, while losing the healing potential of compassion, would gain healing potential in the form of crit (note that a crit healer wouldn't use iniquity or BCR since they can't crit).

And of course, seraphim increases your ego blades damage. So combined with crit and form of the tempest the damage would be rather high.
Siphoning strikes would be ridiculous. A shot or two and health would be full.

Of course, that build would look quite a bit different, right down to the spec choices. But I'm not sure if DPS is a priority here, or if ego blades are just flavor for your build.

Healing was the priority, but ego blades was chosen as flavor.

I did try Empathic Healing instead of Iniquity and Conviction but found I was significantly less effective as a healer, perhaps due to my slow reaction times as a player. Iniquity allowed me to do last-minute saves of other players at a longer range. With Empathic Healing, those players died, whether they were out of range, I lacked enough power to save them, or they were too low in health by the time I noticed them.

Would Psionic Healing or Arcane Vitality be better?

You do have me curious now about your build idea, although I don't think I'd abandon mine. How would your tempestuous build look?

chuckthestar wrote: »

Anyway, to critique your current build: I would advise compassion for this build... Your current build is losing a LOT of healing potential by not using compassion, but still has low DPS in spite of using a DPS-oriented form... Additionally... compassion would easily produce a ton of extra energy for you.

With your build you want to stack PRE *anyway*... and compassion might just do more damage from all the presence scaling than your offensive form does. There's still a lot of adjustments to be made to optimize the build, but the concept is really cool and it has potential!

I've updated my build exchanging Mental Discipline for Compassion. What other adjustments would you recommend? I am guessing the stereotypical Sentinel specialization for the Sentry aura that guarantees anyone with a pet has maximum Compassion? I had avoided that route because it seemed the tree only had a few useful skills for this build. But it would be the easiest way to maximize Compassion.

jonesing4

chuckthestar wrote: »

I've often considered a Seraphim healer / ego blader based on crit, and using Form of the Tempest.

For those who aren't aware, Form of the tempest activates on crit heals as well as crit damage, so the stacks would always be there no matter what you did. And the character, while losing the healing potential of compassion, would gain healing potential in the form of crit (note that a crit healer wouldn't use iniquity or BCR since they can't crit).

And of course, seraphim increases your ego blades damage. So combined with crit and form of the tempest the damage would be rather high.
Siphoning strikes would be ridiculous. A shot or two and health would be full.

Of course, that build would look quite a bit different, right down to the spec choices. But I'm not sure if DPS is a priority here, or if ego blades are just flavor for your build.

Chuck, your post made me descend into the mouth of madness and try to come up with a build along the lines of what you've suggested. I made this thread soliciting advice, thought I would plug the thread in here since there might be some crossover appeal to folks looking at this one.

Thanks, carry on!

bradge

jonesing4 wrote: »

Chuck, your post made me descend into the mouth of madness and try to come up with a build along the lines of what you've suggested. I made this thread soliciting advice, thought I would plug the thread in here since there might be some crossover appeal to folks looking at this one.

Thanks for the cross reference. I looked at your build but I am reluctant to return to Empathic Healing for the reasons I mentioned in my post above. However I will definitely keep an eye on yours in case I find something someone suggests that i can use with my build.

jonesing4

bradge wrote: »

Thanks for the cross reference. I looked at your build but I am reluctant to return to Empathic Healing for the reasons I mentioned in my post above. However I will definitely keep an eye on yours in case I find something someone suggests that i can use with my build.

You're right, Empathic Healing can be kinda tricky... you're asking for trouble if you let people get too close to the bottom, as it's pretty lousy in emergency situations. I mainly picked it because I like using maintains on crit builds (they seem more effective, but I'm sure that "seem" is the operative word there). Hopefully I can use Mindful Reinforcement as the emergency lifesaver and then hit teammates with EH while they're bubbled.

If you're not building around the mega-crit gimmick, though, you've done the right thing by going with Iniquity, it's a really good power.

bradge

jonesing4 wrote: »

If you're not building around the mega-crit gimmick, though, you've done the right thing by going with Iniquity, it's a really good power.

I definitely tried to boost crits, but not to the level of a specialist. My reluctant switch to Compassion instead of Mental Discipline, and Sentinel for Arbiter, has reduced my crit chance however. I also removed Mindful Reinforcement in favor of Protection Field, because Iniquity is so fast I mainly use shields as a preventative rather than a spammable save. I replaced Arctic Beast with Attacks Toys because of their synergy with Sentinel Aura and Selfless Ally.

I'm also experimenting with my superstats. I replaced Ego and Con with Dex and Int for a while, which seemed more effective.

Here's my current version of my build.

PowerHouse (Link to this build)

Name: Everyman

Archetype: Freeform

Super Stats:
Level 6: Presence (Primary)
Level 10: Intelligence (Secondary)
Level 15: Dexterity (Secondary)

Talents:
Level 1: The Tempest
Level 6: Jack of All Trades
Level 9: Field Ops Training
Level 12: Survival Training
Level 15: Command Training
Level 18: Sniper Training
Level 21: Shooter

Powers:
Level 1: Psi Lash
Level 1: Ego Weaponry (Rank 2, Rank 3, Thought Sever)
Level 6: Ego Blade Dash
Level 8: Aura of Radiant Protection (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Iniquity (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 14: Conviction (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 17: Compassion
Level 20: Protection Field (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 23: Force Shield (Rank 2, Rank 3, Force Sheathe)
Level 26: Electric Sheath (Rank 2)
Level 29: Ego Blade Annihilation (Rank 2, Mental Acuity)
Level 32: Resurrection Serum
Level 35: Molecular Self-Assembly
Level 38: Attack Toys (Rank 2, Rank 3)

Travel Powers:
Level 6: Inky Ooze Tunneling
Level 35: Teleportation

Specializations:
Presence: Selfless Ally (2/2)
Presence: Grandeur (3/3)
Presence: Moment of Glory (3/3)
Presence: Force of Will (2/2)
Warden: Slaughter (3/3)
Warden: Ruthless (2/2)
Warden: Elusive (2/2)
Warden: The Best Defense (3/3)
Sentinel: Caregiver (3/3)
Sentinel: Sentinel Aura (3/3)
Sentinel: Moment of Need (2/3)
Sentinel: Genesis (2/2)
Mastery: Warden Mastery (1/1)