Light - The New Super Healer

l1ghtstar

Light

Light is a super sturdy healer that is meant to support any team, even under-leveled and fragile toons.

My Philosophy in what a support toon is best displayed in this video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLN3dPMyXeg

Like in that clip, if your whole team has that much defense, they'll dish out as much damage as they can, without any worries. With that in mind, here's a breakdown of the Light build;

• 1. Radiance
  
• 1. Iniquity (Rank3 or Rank 2 w/ Justice). A support toon wouldn?t be complete without a heal for the team. Even though your team will most likely be hard to gun down with stacked defenses and enemy debuffs, you?ll come across plenty of times when you need to heal them. Iniquity is by far has the highest HPS. Sure it takes from your HP, but it?s easily negated by other powers in this build?
  
• 5. Conviction (Rank 3). Self heal that keeps you up from using Iniquity and serves to proc Molecular Self Assembly.
  
• 8. Sigils of Ebon Weakness (Rank 3) . First step into helping your team (and help you worry less on who to heal), is to slow down your enemies. If your enemies are moving at a snail?s pace, hitting you like a little sissy, you?ll help your team be that much tougher already.
  
• 11. Aura of Radiant Protection (Rank 3). The second layer of defense for your team is to provide them with some more Protection. Ebon Sigils paired with AoRP?s ~77% resistance to team will provide tank level defenses.
  
• 14. Compassion. Toggle that increases heals? potential. Also makes your Protection Field (and Mindful Reinforcement, should you opt to take that) much tougher. Could also serve as a pseudo energy unlocks, which will supplement your energy unlock.
  
• 17. Molecular Self Assembly. Energy unlock. Many of your powers will trigger it, making it the ideal energy unlock.
  
• 20. Bountiful Chi Resurgence (Rank 3 or Rank 2 w/ Resurgent Reiki). Paired with conviction and Sentinel Aura, if you choose it, you?ll have some strong self-healing, thus hardly ever dying.
  
• 23. Protection Field. To add even more protection to your team. Could replace it with Mindful Reinforcement, but I much rather have Protection Field because it lasts longer, relieving you of some micromanagement. Protection Field at rank 3 could be near 3k, which quite nice.
  
• 26. Force Shield (w/ Force Sheathe). Great shield with adv. Provides energy. Looks great thematically. Can be substituted for either Eldritch Shield w/adv or Ebon Void w/adv. Force Shield=Energy, Eldritch Shield=Thematic heal, Ebon Void=Defense stacking.
  
• 29. Pyromancer's Blades. Pyromancer's Blades help you deal damage and allow you to focus your attention in other matters, such as healing your team, while they fight for you. Pyromancer's Blades hits in an AoE, and is thematic [enough] for magic/mystic toons.
  
• 32. Masterful Dodge, for when you really need to. Usually, and currently, you'll probably never, ever have to use this, due to your high defenses and high healing rates. The only time you'll probably use this is when you're really got something hard hitting you, like PvP or Gravitar.
  
• 35. Celestial Conduit (Rank 3). Insert here you damage power of choice. On Light, I picked Conduit for thematic purposes. Though even though Conduit is thematic, it still has the useful purpose of self-healing, should you need to self-heal. The Healing component of Conduit is pretty good too. On the old Dream Star build, Dream Star was equipped with Skarn's Bane for 1.) AoE and 2.) Energy Form debuff.
  
• 38. Worthy mentions-Evasive Maneuvers, Ascension: Evasive Maneuvers along with Dodge gear is quiet good to beef up your defenses. For thematic reasons, I went with no Evasive Maneuvers and went with Ascension. Despite the PvP-related nerf (it is a PvP related nerf), it?s still good. I don?t recall many bosses or PvE content having NttG anyways.

l1ghtstar

Stats

Primary Constitution- Constitution provides a big health pool for Iniquity, lets your better absorb attacks, and support your team with a bit more ease via giving you more time to help others. Con's spec tree is also more attractive than Pre spec tree imo. Pre spec tree seems to be more 'squishier' than con, and I rather make sure I'm alive to keep spamming heals rather than push my heals just little bit more. DR hits hard anyways, you've got compassion toggle + sentinel's brooch for +healing, so Pre spec tree's only other reason to be grabbed is if we were to have holds, which aren't what you'll be focusing on in this build.

Presence Secondary- Presence is great a secondary, because taking it as a primary would hit you hard with Diminishing Returns on your heals. Secondary Presence still pushes good HPS anyway.

Intelligence Secondary- Intelligence lowers your cost and cooldowns, which are plenty in this build. With many cooldowns, it'll fuel Molecular Self Assembly quite often, so Intelligence is a viable choice. In conjunction with cooldown reduction gear and Protector's mastery, your Active Defenses (Masterful Dodge) will pop often.

Specializations

Constitution

• Fuel My Fire (3)
  You'll be taking damage obviously, so why not fuel your energy?
  
• Tough (3)
  A nice specialization, which fits well with your theme, being one tough cookie to break. Increase your hit points.
  
• Armored (2)
  More Defense to stack for yourself.
  
• Resilient (2)
  To be honest, one of the main reasons why I went with Con spec rather than Pre spec is for this one. I HATE KNOCKS. This'll at least give you something to help you resist them darn knocks.

Protector

• Fortified Gear (3)
  You're stacking a lot of defenses, and you want more! You can never be too tough.
  
• Unrelenting (2)
  This is awesome! I appreciate this bunch, especially in duels/PvP where your travel powers is off. Also facing Warlord or Hi-Pan with Unrelenting means you can get to your team easier, and do your job- heal'm.
  
• Bulwark (2)
  Quite nice, buffs your max HP. More HP is always nice. Don?t worry about the other part, where your threat is higher if in hybrid. This set up is meant to be in support role, so no worries about the threat.
  
• Exhausting Strikes or Defensive Expertise (2-3)
  Tough choice here, and because these two are really good imo. Exhausting Strikes makes your target hit weaker via EB, so you're indirectly buffing your defenses. Defensive Expertise helps recharge your AD (in this case Masterful Dodge) and goes well with cooldown reduction gear and protector's mastery, highly recommended.

Sentry

• Fortified Gear (3)
  Yup, stack up your defenses, there's no such thing as too much defense.
  
• Sentry Aura (3)
  Even more team defense stacking. Not overkill.
  
• Precise (3)
  Makes your heals and shields even more potent on team members.
  
• Persevere (1)
  I guess the left over can be stuck on this. Small chance to give a small heal to team if you're struck by Single Target attacks, which is bound to happen.

Mastery- Protector's mastery is nice choice. It complete's Active Defense charge time, to ensure you stay alive. Coupled with cooldown gear + Defensive Expertise, you'll have Masterful Dodge for when you need it most.

Gearing

On Light, to achieve high HPS and survivability, I used the Sentinel Brooch mods to buff your heals (in your offensive slots) and got the highest +defense to stack even more defense (defensive slots). Went all out Con, Pre, Int with no other stats, since Con +Pre provide survivability, and Int + MSA provide the energy. Here's a link to Light's current stats.

Final Words.
Have you noticed how many times I mention "stack defenses"? Quite a few times. Again, my philosophy in what a support toon should be is making your team be like Superman, not flinching when a bullet is shot at the eye. Everything ricochets on a truly invulnerable team. Everything in this build stacks well with each other.

On another note, you can change some of these powers to be something other than Celestial powers, but make sure you stick to the fundamental powers. Basically, Radiance the energy builder, Celestial Conduit, and Pyromancer?s could all be swapped for something of the same category. For example, you can grab Summon Shadows instead which are one of my fav pets.

Another point is that Intelligence Primary with Revitalize and Tinkering could provide more some advantages, but I thought "are they worth it?". The main idea in this build is to heal, and sometimes you might not have time to Revitalize...

l1ghtstar

Youtube Videos

Light in a Team Duel
My team didn't take much damage! The true power of a dedicated support build in Champions Online!

Light in Sky Command Defense Alert
TBH, quite boring, but wanted to demonstrate Light's healing potential.

Light in a Warlord Alert
Smooth run to Warlord, which imo, is probably the toughest for a pug.

More Youtube Videos should be popping soon =D

kallethen

I'm a HUGE fan of your Dream Star build (I have a slightly tweaked version for my genie cat toon). So looking at this, I can immediately see the similarities. They both have the same fundamentals. This build seems like a great Celestial focused version, and the different specialization choices look intriguing.

Anybody wanting a great support build (as in "keep your team alive"), look no further.

falchoin

Given the design philosophy of damage mitagation and stacking defenses over straight healing I'm a little surprised you opted for Compassion over IDF. Make that resistance and damage debuffing work for ya even more since flat damage absorb happens after.

Were the benefits of extra healing, damage and energy from Compassion enough to overrule IDF?

l1ghtstar

Thanks for the bump!

Kali! from my experience and testing, yes, compassion is a bit better. If you recall the old Dream Star (<--Link) build, I recommended IDF. I'm just stating that for proof that I have experience with it.

I let go of IDF because 1.) your defenses and self heals mitigate dmg so well, that they wash out most dmg. Only big spikes hurt, which you can easily recover from. 2.) Team wise, Protection Field (which Compassion als buffs) and your heals (in this build Iniquity) also heal for great amounts that also washout small dmg. AoRP and Ebon sigils do such a great job too.

I'm not saying IDF is not viable, it is, but simply, I tried both and feel that the build is sturdy enough to not need IDF.

s3rju

sneaky MoL very sneaky of you awesome work on this one tho! :biggrin:
I was debating whether I wanted to target you or the pvp specific built for ebon pwnage guy, and now I know I chose wrong!

amazingproton

One thing I found missing from the build, which I cannot understand... is where are the Talent Points going, and what Ranks are you using for each power.

any light upon this subject would be awesome... pun not intended.

kelbornx

Nice update to the Dream Star build. This is almost exactly how I adapted Dream's build to suit my playstyle. Except Fireball > Conduit for my toon's theme. Always thought IDF was overkill and that Compassion would be useful. I also had swapped Eldritch Bolts for Radiance. Good to know I do some builds right, lol.

@amazingproton: He talented for the Super Stats. You can tell because in the screen shot all of the other stats are at 10. Enduring, Brilliant, Intimidating, Healthy Mind, Shrug It Off, Diplomatic. This maximizes your Super Stat benefits at 40. You could also stack END, REC, and EGO to boost other aspects of the character, or whatever you please. Talents are really a playstyle preference. I like to take what I don't Super Stat but is still useful for leveling, then recton it (only costs like 20g for talents/spec retcon) at 40 to stack my Super Stats.

As for ranks, he listed most of them in parentheses. When people don't list all advantages it means it's up to your discretion.

amazingproton

kelbornx wrote: »

As for ranks, he listed most of them in parentheses. When people don't list all advantages it means it's up to your discretion.

At the time I made that comment, he did not have ranks in with the powers.. you can tell that it had been edited sometime within the last couple days, yet my comment is several days ago.

agentnx5

Hmm... You've given something for me to consider for my AoRP character: CON v. PRE as the primary stat.

My currently level 40 dedicated healer, Ynnea is PRE, CON & INT. She can spam inequity heals of nearly 5000 HP/s. Her weaknesses are revealed only by Gravitar on occasion, trauma debuff, and experienced PvP team battles: knocks and those who can see through her perception stealth. She doesn't have as much HP as a CON primary build, so it's very important I'm micromanaging her well. She's also using Seraphim and Sentinel Mastery (which interworks lovely with her hold).

This build however uses something I think could operate with great effect: Ebon Sigils + PRE secondary stat, AoRP + PRE secondary stat + support role, and IDF. That's not a bad idea, if you don't worry about damage and instead focus on heals or pets.

I never would have thought about using CON for a build like that but it actually makes a ton of sense and turns you into a mobile shield generator of sorts. The knock resistance in the CON spec tree inparticular is worthy of a pause to consider.

A noteworthy downside is that CON mods have relatively recently surpassed Gambler's Gem cores in price (it's been trending this way gradually). This build you suggest will be VERY expensive to give it anything above R5 mods.

mashugana

Thank you for this build! I restarted my level 40 Sorc with this build and love it. One question though - my Sorc is my ONLY 40. So while I am focused on teaming, I do like to solo some as well. Would you tweak anything for solo? Add another damage or pet power maybe?

Thanks again.

l1ghtstar

Hi!

In response to your question, I'd much rather add a pet than add a dmg power. Since the main purpose of the build is to support + heal, dmg is an after thought. Not much here will buff your dmg, so I'd recommend you grab a pet. Since you're sorcery, one of my favorite pets that I'd recommend is Summon Shadows. On the extra power pick, you might want to fill that with a pet summon....

Plus, having pets will not only do damage for you for when solo'n, but for teaming situations, they'll allow you to focus on your team members' health more easily.

Hope it helps!

kallethen

I'd agree with getting another pet power for damage, especially if it's Shadows. Works great for the old Dream Star build.

I also grabbed the 3 secondary Cyber Augmented gear from the Q-store, which grant a 25% bonus to non-physical damage (and they increase your superstats, so it's a win-win).

EDIT: BTW, I swapped out IDF for Compassion in my toon based on Dream Star, and love the results so far.

slowecsl4pwe

Hi,

Your build looks very intriguing and I wanted to give it a try. From looking at it, it doesn't appear to be a leveling build but a level 40 retcon. Without a good AoE attack it looks like tough going. If you were going to level it, would you take Skarn's Bane like in the Dream Star build?

I had a question on one of the powers, you said when choosing Bountiful Chi Resurgence so that when paired with Conviction and Sentinel Aura you would have strong self healing, but you don't take the Sentinel tree. If you don't have Sentinel Aura ticking, will you build stacks of Compassion reliably when you throw Iniquity or do a self heal, or does it matter?

Thank you for the great build ideas.

l1ghtstar

Yo!

definitely, not a lvl'n build. I HIGHLY recommend you retcon into it at 40.

As far as attacks, choose any attack of your choice. As mentioned, Light has Conduit solely for thematic reasons. Grab whatever floats your boat!

I did mention Sentinel tree, and also mentioned "should you choose it". Guess I forgot to add a little discussion on that You can drop Protector tree for Sentinel, but imo, the only thing that's worth much is the Sentinel Aura. Were not really holding/controlling much here, so I recommended Protector since it offers alot more nifty stuff, like more health, defense, walk/run speed, etc.

Hope that answers your questions!

kelbornx

You can always "layer" attacks on top of the build. Train your damage of choice, then at your next power pick untrain it, train the new power, and put your damage power back on top. This way you don't have to spend all your Gs or waste a RetCon at 40 when you want to swap the damage powers out. I took Fireball since it's a little themey for a mage character.

I would dump Protector unless you PvP often. Sentry + Sentinel is great for PvE unless you take aggro a lot. If you're getting beat on Proctector will help you out more, but imo half of what you're taking (Fortified Gear, Unrelenting) is wasted unless you're actually being targeted. Bulwark is nice for more fuel for Iniquity, but then again Sentinel Aura is more healing to "refund" the cost anyway. So potatoes potatoes really. It all comes down to playstyle preference.

If you do take Sentinel:
Sentinel Aura 3/3
Caregiver 3/3 (+12% Heals/Shields on other players)
Rejuventated 2/3 (67% chance for your HoT to grant 6 energy; think BCR)
Genesis 2/2 (-20% cost to CC and Heals/Shields)

Remember that Compassion only stacks if you heal an ally. Iniquity is fine for keeping it up. You're gonna need to do some spot healing. Sentinel Aura is great for stacking it because it doesn't require you to do anything. I can't remember for sure, but I'm fairly certain that Sentinel Aura healing a pet will stack Compassion. Don't quote me on that though.

amazingproton

kelbornx wrote: »

Remember that Compassion only stacks if you heal an ally. Iniquity is fine for keeping it up. You're gonna need to do some spot healing. Sentinel Aura is great for stacking it because it doesn't require you to do anything. I can't remember for sure, but I'm fairly certain that Sentinel Aura healing a pet will stack Compassion. Don't quote me on that though.

I remember Compassion Stacking by healing myself... so that is something to look at..

kelbornx

Tooltip in game and the wiki both state ally. I just tested and yes, it does stack on self heal. Only toon I ever took it on already had Sentinel Aura, so I never bothered to test before. Yay for another wrong tooltip.

helbjorn

This is somewhat conditional and inconsistent. Compassion will not stack from ticks of Sentinel Aura on yourself, and doesn't stack from healing ticks of Devouring Essence. I have seen stacks from Conviction and the self-healing component of Mindful Reinforcement.

When soloing, I can get stacks of up to about 3 or 4, but that is rare. Obviously, in a group, I get to 8 very quickly and stay there the whole time.

kallethen

slowecsl4pwe wrote: »

Hi,

Your build looks very intriguing and I wanted to give it a try. From looking at it, it doesn't appear to be a leveling build but a level 40 retcon. Without a good AoE attack it looks like tough going. If you were going to level it, would you take Skarn's Bane like in the Dream Star build?

When I leveled my toon based on the Dream Star build, I selected an attack power early on. Each time I got a new power slot, I untrained my attack power, chose the next power on the build list, and then re-chose my attack power. I started with Rebuke until I was able to select Skarn's Bane, which was the attack power of choice with the Dream Star build.

So, my advice would be to do similar. It worked well for me.

amazingproton

To add onto what Kelborn's new review of how compassion works.. I do suppose you can consider yourself an Ally

carrionbaggage

helbjorn wrote: »

Compassion will not stack from ticks of Sentinel Aura on yourself, and doesn't stack from healing ticks of Devouring Essence.

Both of these situations do generate Compassion stacks, as long as the power(s) actually heal lost health and the healing occurs after Compassion's internal cooldown.

Devour Essence does seem to behave oddly, though. If you begin the maintain while your health is full, the remaining ticks often won't generate stacks even if they heal lost health.

I haven't noticed any problems with Sentinel Aura self-ticks.

l1ghtstar

kelbornx wrote: »

I would dump Protector unless you PvP often. Sentry + Sentinel is great for PvE unless you take aggro a lot. If you're getting beat on Proctector will help you out more, but imo half of what you're taking (Fortified Gear, Unrelenting) is wasted unless you're actually being targeted. Bulwark is nice for more fuel for Iniquity, but then again Sentinel Aura is more healing to "refund" the cost anyway. So potatoes potatoes really. It all comes down to playstyle preference.

If you do take Sentinel:
Sentinel Aura 3/3
Caregiver 3/3 (+12% Heals/Shields on other players)
Rejuventated 2/3 (67% chance for your HoT to grant 6 energy; think BCR)
Genesis 2/2 (-20% cost to CC and Heals/Shields)

In this build, I focused on surviving the worst of the worst possible situations. I do PvP occassionally, as seen in the YouTube vids posted in this guide.

I dumped Sentinel Tree from the previous version (the old Dream Star build <- click) because:
1. The build already has great healing and survivability without Sentinel Aura. Two stacks of BCR + Conviction "refund" your Iniquities.
2. Genesis, imo sucks. With the availabilty of cost reduction gear, -20% cost on heals and shields wouldn't impact it much. Gotta get in-game for exact figures, but I'm estimating that it'll be somewhere around 2 end cost - not much. Get back to ya later, with exact figures.
3. Rejuvenated isn't worth it in this build as energy isn't an issue here. Int + MSA + plus Iniquity costing health and not endurance, support role, etc.... Point is, this build doesn't suffer energy issues.
4. Caregiver - it's probably the only other that's worth it (alongside Sentinel Aura).

In short, Protector tree offers the opportunity to survive, and that Unrelenting spec... it helps alot during Warlord + Hi-Pan alerts! Becoming tougher yourself for when you do get targetted is never an option to 'dump' imo.

Verdict- As implied in the guide, it's really up to the player to choose Sentinel Aura or Protector. As mentioned, I have experience using both (see the old Dream Star build linked above), and feel that the options given in Protector are worth the consideration. "You survive, they survive."

theravenforce

Specs section...Exhausting Strikes...when used with Radiance produces the same effect on allies as it does on enemies so just be careful when using this build...I remember debuffing my team mates...in Gravitar >_>!

bummr

How do you guys Iniquity at level 1? Its not possible....

carrionbaggage

During character creation, the game forces you to choose an attack power so you aren't tickling villainy into submission with just your energy builder. But if you visit a Powerhouse trainer after you exit the tutorial, you can "Undo" that attack power and replace it with Iniquity (provided you took Radiance from the Celestial tree as your energy builder).

Happy birthday, thread. You're two years old.

bummr

carrionbaggage wrote: »

During character creation, the game forces you to choose an attack power so you aren't tickling villainy into submission with just your energy builder. But if you visit a Powerhouse trainer after you exit the tutorial, you can "Undo" that attack power and replace it with Iniquity (provided you took Radiance from the Celestial tree as your energy builder).

Happy birthday, thread. You're two years old.

Thanks, Did not know this... I am a new player just looking for a decent healing character to start with