Light Star: Behold! Light of the Celestial!

l1ghtstar

Light Star: Behold! Light of the Celestial

Celestial set is usually used for healing. But, typical of me, I went with a Celestial ranged, similar to Gem Star: ranged with tough + support capabilities. This build works around Celestial's current state-high energy costs (imo), no in-set energy unlock, etc.

Behold! Light of the Celestial!

• 1. Radiance. This energy builder is nice. It allows you to target yourself, which procs the Revitalize feature in Intelligence's spec tree.
• 1. Seraphim (Rank 3). Besides the passive being thematic, the passive offers you great survivability and buffs your heals quite well. No Presence needed.
• 5. Celestial Conduit (Rank 3). Main source of damage. It is quite energy hungry to spam it, which is what I recommend we do. The power has a .5 activation and the first tick kicks in almost right away, since this power is meant to tick every 1 second. The damage is pretty decent for PvE content, and is comparable to Gem Star's Telekinetic Assault.
• 8. Illumination (w/ Brilliance). This'll turn your Celestial Conduit into a pseudo AoE. Usually, it's best to target your most threatening foe, spam Celestial Conduit on that target, and it'll drop the other baddies too.
• 11. Conviction. Self Heal, since we have such good cooldown, this works real well at 2 secs interval activation. Works better than Regeneration (consider it a pseudo-Regeneration), especially if the heals crit often.
• 14. Expulse (Rank 3). Very Beautiful power. Thematic, and awesome. Well, performance wise, it's your only real true spike AoE source of damage. The damage is pretty good though, with not much of a charge. Sucks that it HAS to be charged in order to work.
• 17. Molecular Self-Assembly. It's natural to pick this energy unlock, as we have several powers on cooldown.
• 20. Force Shield (w/ Force Sheathe). Sort of thematic (think of a 'Sun'), and the advantage offers another source of incoming energy to fuel your Celestial Conduit.
• 23. Evasive Maneuvers (w/ Sleigh of Mind). Buffs your dodge by flat chance and drops agro. It?s cool when you have 2 stacks at times xD
• 26. Imbue. I kinda miss the old Imbue, but at the same time I like this new Imbue. It grants 12% crit chance & severity. So your crit chance will never be 39%-it'll be higher with perma Active Offenses from this and Nimble Mind.
• 29. Ego Surge (w/ Nimble Mind). See above.
• 32. Concentration. I wish Celestial had it's own specific toggle. Bring back Aspect of the Celestial!! For now, I guess this'll do, as given the powers and stats, this and Inertial Dampening Field are the only worthwhile options. But still, Concentration buffs Celestial Conduit & Expulse's damage.
• 35. Masterful Dodge. You know what this is for.
• 38. Power pick of choice. Worthy Mentions: Another self heal, like Empathic Healing, Bountiful Chi Resurgence, Life Drain, etc, or Ego Sprites, Pyromancer's Blades, or another source of damage while you damage. I have a Necrullitic Elixir thus why in Light Star I didn't take another heal besides conviction. But! If you don't have a Necrullitic Elixir, Bountiful Chi Resurgence will do just the same.

l1ghtstar

Stats

Primary Ego

Secondary Dexterity

Secondary Intelligence

Specializations

Ego

• Force of Will (2)
  More Defense for yourself.
• Insight (3)
  Cost Reduction.
• Sixth Sense (3)
  Buffs your crit chance.
• Follow Through (3)
  Crit Severity Increase

Vindicator

• Aggressive Stance (2)
  Buff your defense.
• Merciless (3)
  More Crit Severity!
• Focused Strikes (3)
  Make your Celestial Conduit crit more often.
• Mass Destruction (2)
  And make your Expulse crit more often.

Guardian

• Fortified Gear (3)
  More Defense to stack.
• Ruthless (2)
  Crit Severity.
• The Best Defense (3)
  More Defense and Offense via Aggressive Stance stacking.
• Find the Mark (2)
  Make it easier to crit on your foes.

Mastery- Ego Mastery.

Gearing.

Here's the most optimal set up that I've found for this build.

• Legion's/Heroic Gloves of Precision-Buff your Crit Chance, if you have one, you'll be looking at higher than 50% crit chance.
• Legion's/Heroic Breastplate of Elusiveness/Agility- Best defense you can grab, Dodge & avoidance.
• Heroic/Legion's Helmet of Speed or Utility (Legion's version only). ? since this build wants to lower cooldown to take advantage of your Active Offenses, this is the most best choice.
• Vigilante's Critical Belt + Vigilante's Armored Bracers + Salvager's Eyepiece
• You want to gear in such a way that you get some Recovery & Endurance in.

Here's Light Star's Stats.

Final Words.

The tactic here is to spam Celestial Conduit as much as you can. The power is pretty nice since it seems to stun your target quite often. Maintaining Imbue/Nimble Mind will help out. If you can grab a Necrullitic Elixir (Not Required), I'd highly recommend it. Seraphim grants a good bonus to heals, even without Presence or Sentinel's Brooch, so you'll be highly survivable. Most folks are well acquainted with Gem Star, and this toon is most comparable to that toon in terms of damage and survivability.

l1ghtstar

YouTube Videos

Light Star in Elite Andrithal

Light Star in Gravitar Rampage

flakbait

Reading your builds and ideas has helped a TON. I like both this idea and Gem Star as a support character that can definitely hold their own. Do you have a sense of which one would solo/level more comfortably? I'm not looking for an easy-button character - I'm just trying to avoid "excessive" micromanaging builds if I can help it. Since I'm building this one in a new character slot I'd rather not have to resort to leveling as my werewolf item. :rolleyes:

Thanks much for sharing your character-building brain on the forums!

l1ghtstar

I'd recommend Gem Star vs Light Star. Light Star is best used when tapping Celestial Conduit. Also, Illumination + Brilliance activation, and so on. Gem Star is more direct, with less need for micro-management than in this build.

Light Star is a build that I needed to make, due to my preference with "Light" stuff. (Man.of.Light, go figure =D ). Celestial won't dish out massive damage, but this might possibly be the best Celestial can do, damage wise. Healing potential is a totally different ball game.

flakbait

I've been planning to do a Gem Star knockoff for a little while now, but I saw this and was figuratively and literally having a case of "Oooh! Shiney!" :biggrin:

I think I'll roll it up tomorrow and smacking bad guys with my glowy brain!

Players like yourself and many (under-appreciated) others, who explain some of the thinking and methodology behind your excellent builds are a tremendous help to players like myself who are just starting to get serious about freeform builds. The older guides are still great, but with all the changes since some of them were written it makes a brutal learning curve much more managable. So again, thanks for your help!

superalfgorn

Looks really good.

I have a question on Seraphim and this seems a good thread to ask it.

Is the Balance advantage even remotely worthy? Disclaimer: I choose Seraphim for a passive for a darkness Ranged Tank, since I do not like Shadow Form from a visual standpoint and it debuffs threat, i.e. not great on a tank.

My reasoning is that since the Balance advantage improves the AoE healing and adds an area DoT it probably helps with threat generation in group settings pulling all mobs to you, at least initially. However to get this you sacrifice bonus healing and damage.

genhicks

Which talents did you use for this build?

l1ghtstar

Sorry for the delayed response. This week has been midterms @ university...

Blanace, the adv on Seraphim might help you out with threat, but tbh, I haven't used Balance adv at all. From Experience, rank 3 Seraphim already aggros ALOT, and if there is no dedicated tank, then typically the seraphim would lock agro in. Currently, went with Gem Star, which uses Seraphim into the Harbinger alert, and most of the time i'd grab agro, as well as in harmon labs. Light Star went in Harmon Labs as well and maintained agro, up until what seems to be the tank pull it away from (which is good!). I'd probably theorize that Balance isn't worth it. if youd want to heal teammates, it'd be better to use a dedicated heal. Balance adv probably won't even perform anywhere near medical nanites, which is saying a lot right there.

Talents, I usually don't provide talents,as talents can be picked up by what you desire/need most in your build, like more energy, a little more dex, etc.

maendor

l1ghtstar wrote: »

Talents, I usually don't provide talents,as talents can be picked up by what you desire/need most in your build, like more energy, a little more dex, etc.

I find Lightstar builds fascinating and have 'borrowed with pride' a couple myself. Many of them tend to concentrate on 3 stats and will often have a picture of the character's stats included in the description; if you look at that picture, it is possible to work out what talents have been picked.
Have to confess I find it kind of fun to do. lol

seanwmcginnis

REEEEEALLY late to the party, but I have a question: why Expulse instead of Vengeance? I ask because a.) I'm knock-averse, and b.) Vengeance is ranged.

Thanks for the great build! Just what I need...another alt.

l1ghtstar

Updated stats.

l1ghtstar

seanwmcginnis wrote: »

REEEEEALLY late to the party, but I have a question: why Expulse instead of Vengeance? I ask because a.) I'm knock-averse, and b.) Vengeance is ranged.

Thanks for the great build! Just what I need...another alt.

Sorry, went M.I.A for a bit. You might have already decided on which powers to take, but your question is still worth answering.

I find Vengeance to be slow and less powerful than Expulse. I prefer to knock an opponent as that'll buy you some time by pausing the incoming damage (that's if they're not dead already). Also, if you have noticed, when you knock a baddie, they'll also spend time getting back into your face to deal damage to you, which you can then knock them AGAIN =p That also goes into your question as to Vengeance range vs Expulse PBAoE.

Lastly, I'm a sucker for graphics, and I think Expulse is beautiful

ztarztormer

Good Lord this build is AWESOME! Works wonders in PTS powerhouse :biggrin:

Just a quick question: EGO seems like it'll make leveling a tad easier just because of the sheer damage boosts in its spec tree. But I was wondering if, at level 40, it might be viable to retcon to INT primary?

The pic you provided shows your INT is insanely high. Plus with INT Mastery, all your other non-super stats would get a bit of a boost to about the same level as the other stats in your pic.
Of course I imagine the damage wouldn't be as high as with EGO primary, but it might be more well-rounded.

Thoughts?

l1ghtstar

Hi!

Int can be a viable Primary, especially coupled with Revitalize, however, I suggest Ego Primary due to the damage specs, like crit chance/crit severity, which will not be as easily attainable, if at all in the Int spec tree. The focus of this particular build is to make the most out of what's available to Celestial, in terms of damage output potential, which isn't much =/

Hope it helps

ztarztormer

After about three days of almost exclusively leveling a variation of this build on Live, I hereby slap myself upside the head for not trusting the might of EGO Primary.

Mind you, it was a little dicey from about lvl 14-23, but once I was able to get MSA, Force Shield, and Evasive Maneuvers, it all fell into place. Now I just need to add in Imbue and Ego Surge to make it a can of celestial whoop@$$

Me gusta :cool:

amazingproton

For EGO, you have 11 Points in there. You can only get 10.. so one of those 3s must be a 2.. Which would you prefer?

glissa

ztarztormer wrote: »

After about three days of almost exclusively leveling a variation of this build on Live, I hereby slap myself upside the head for not trusting the might of EGO Primary.

Mind you, it was a little dicey from about lvl 14-23, but once I was able to get MSA, Force Shield, and Evasive Maneuvers, it all fell into place. Now I just need to add in Imbue and Ego Surge to make it a can of celestial whoop@$$

Me gusta :cool:

I know this first hand; Look at my Celestial "Wrench" build I posted a while back. I'm pretty much close to hitting 40 with it, and it literally mops the face with most solo missions. The ones with more tough minions are a little more sketchy and you'll need a bigger group to trounce them (Dr. Destroyer Returns, for example) but an Ego-base makes celestial worthwhile since you get double on the bump for the damage bonuses.

l1ghtstar

Sorry for the late reply. Been away from the forums.

I didn't specify my reasoning, but I put that because some folks want more severty than crit chance, and I dislike going into that debate. I personally prefer more crit chance.

Either way, I'm currently testing on the PTS on a new stats and specs for this toon. Seems to be quite promising, if I can make it better than the current set up. Possible updates soon to come.