By the light! (Sharpedge's Devotion OP PVE Guide)

thefabricant

Confirmed that slashers mark no longer damages friendly members of the party, ty for bringing that to my attention, the guide has been updated accordingly.

Also, added my choice of powers to the build links instead of just showing feats, however, I do recommend reading through my explanations as it provides a much greater insight into how the class plays.

jaegernl

Hey Sharp!

Sorry I took so long to comment on your guide. I'm not on much at the moment, and when I am, I'm just gathering AD through Skirmish Hour and some silly leveling Dungeon.

Anyway: Excellent work on the guide. I fully agree with just about everything. There's a couple of things I'd like to point out, though. Or rather, give a slightly different perspective.

Under Gear Choices, you mention the recommended enchantments. As a Dev Justice myself, I rarely slot Cure Wounds now, as Oath Strike, Vow of Enmity and using Sanctuary when moving around keeps my party alive quite well. This leaves room for Radiant Strike, which is absolutely awesomesauce and quite a decent tool for applying Plague Fire stacks. It's not as dead an enchantment as it might be at first glance. Sure, you'll have to do the Radiant/Sanctuary/Radiant routine, slightly shortening the animation duration, but it does work.

Considering Vorpal, I'm on the fence. On the one hand, it does very much improve the soloing experience and I used to get insane crits with Divine Judgement with it, but on the other hand, the extra severity for critical heals seems superfluous to me. There's already no middle ground when it comes to healing. People are eighter at full health, or they're dead by a one-shot. Rarely, if ever, people die because of a failure to heal in time. Or it's their own fault, as they move out of range.

Another Enchantment worth looking at is a Transcendant Holy Avenger. It's uptime isn't spectacular - 33% in longer fights, but much higher during fights in trash phases due to the ICD resetting when moving from one group to another - and it procs a Heal-over-Time. Now, this I'm not 100% sure of, and I should really test it, but that heal gets applied 5x, and gets broadcast around through Bond of Virtue, and procs Prism and Burning Guidance, theoretically. Pretty nifty.

You give Heroism a 5/10. Don't completely agree with you, there. Once you get your Recovery, AP Gain and a Mythic DC Sigil, with some liberal but responsible use of Relentless Avenger (Don't forget to use it on your teammates during moving from one group to another! It builds AP!) you should be able to keep Shield of Faith *and* Heroism up at a near 100%. As it's our only reliable source of a good amount of Temp. HP, I love it. It also provides a much needed CC-immunity when fighting Dragons, Tiamat or Lostmauth - although I wouldn't recommend using a Daily as a Prismatic Paladin in Tiamat - and the extra DR isn't bad eighter. However, when you're still slowly filling the AP bar, or don't use Relentless, Shield of Faith is the absolute best choice.

Shield of Faith and Heroism combined, together with say Relentless Avenger and even Valorous Strike - which adds some DR - plus the DR from Holy Avenger make a Devotion OP a pretty decent tank. I've tanked ELOL, VT and MC with good success, as long as the DR bug doesn't rear it's ugly head. I've also tanked ETOS without our little lagtastic setup, and it went just fine.

Looking at the Gear and Boons provided with Strongholds, plus slowly upgrading my enchants, I think hitting 150-200k HP isn't unrealistic. This means we're looking at 300-400k HP with Heroism, while capping our DR without using Sanctuary: I'm sitting at 50% DR right now. Add 15% from Heroism, 5% from Valorous Strike and 20% from Holy Avenger for a total of 90%, 10% over the cap. Combine this with the insane healing output of Prism + Bond of Virtue, and the decent to completely overpowered damage output - depending on the party setup - of Prism + Burning Guidance, I'd wager there's a big-arsed balance pass coming our way. Honestly, I feel a properly built Dev Justice OP is the most overpowered class in the game right now.

thefabricant

jaegernl said:

Hey Sharp!



stuff

@jaegernl
Completely agree with you. With the fixes to dr, I feel that it is worth considering dropping soulforged entirely for negation. The dr from negation, added to the power of shield of faith turns a devotion pally into something extraordinarily tanky. Whilst heroism is good once you can spam 2 dailies at a time rather then 1, I still leave it at a 5 as that is out of the reach of most players and for the majority, they will only be using shield of faith. On the topic of weapon enchants, I am thinking more and more that frost might be the way to go, as it is something that is rarely used and it provides the additional benefit of actually acting as pseudo cc, as whilst monsters have high cc immunity, they are powerless to prevent you from reducing their recovery to nothing and then they use their abilities much less frequently. Either way, weapon enchants really are a luxury for the dev pally and I would say one of the less important gear pieces, which is out of the norm in comparison to most classes.

Also, decided to stick some video footage in the OP, for anyone interested in how it plays in ecc, ty for the footage

jaegernl

In an earlier comment I mentioned LIght's Shield and it's 2,5% DR. Well, I took that before I knew what kinds of crazy amounts of Damage Reduction a Paladin could stack. I'm so far overstacked now, it's been a complete waste of feats that a future respec will fix. Right now, I'm not at all worried about it, though.

Might switch to Dominating Presence, because as the dungeons have become a lot easier, parties get spread out more, as people have started running ahead again.

thefabricant

jaegernl said:

In an earlier comment I mentioned LIght's Shield and it's 2,5% DR. Well, I took that before I knew what kinds of crazy amounts of Damage Reduction a Paladin could stack. I'm so far overstacked now, it's been a complete waste of feats that a future respec will fix. Right now, I'm not at all worried about it, though.

Might switch to Dominating Presence, because as the dungeons have become a lot easier, parties get spread out more, as people have started running ahead again.

I have considered this as well, atm what I am really considering though is dumping a ton of currency into my pally and gearing him up, then swapping my main from CW to OP. I could probably get my OP to 3/4k, if I actually invested some effort into it.

jaegernl

As you probably know, Isaac is running at around 3.2k IL now, and is comfortably tanking T1's and Temple of the Spider. And yet the point you make in the guide that Devotion Paladin isn't as gear-dependant as say, a GWF, still holds.

However, a completely tricked out Paladin just feels good. Red zone? Screw that. I'll just stand here. You don't tell me what to do. A cry for help in Legit? Zone in, help the party in question beat whatever they're dealing with, grab your loot, zone out.

I've been toying with the NW Unblogged equipment tool, and as it looks now, I should be at around 150k HP, 20k power (which means 4k power or a 10% boost to your party), 10k Recovery for the AP gain and 60% Res Ignored at the end of this mod.

My fear, however, is that as this mod progresses, and people get Stronghold boons, first tanks will become superfluous (partly, they already have) and then healers are next. We might still offer a few buffs and decent DPS, but a Righteous DC > Devotion Justice. So, if you decide to drop AD, spend it in enchants that are unbound and still hold market value.

thefabricant

jaegernl said:

As you probably know, Isaac is running at around 3.2k IL now, and is comfortably tanking T1's and Temple of the Spider. And yet the point you make in the guide that Devotion Paladin isn't as gear-dependant as say, a GWF, still holds.

However, a completely tricked out Paladin just feels good. Red zone? Screw that. I'll just stand here. You don't tell me what to do. A cry for help in Legit? Zone in, help the party in question beat whatever they're dealing with, grab your loot, zone out.

I've been toying with the NW Unblogged equipment tool, and as it looks now, I should be at around 150k HP, 20k power (which means 4k power or a 10% boost to your party), 10k Recovery for the AP gain and 60% Res Ignored at the end of this mod.

My fear, however, is that as this mod progresses, and people get Stronghold boons, first tanks will become superfluous (partly, they already have) and then healers are next. We might still offer a few buffs and decent DPS, but a Righteous DC > Devotion Justice. So, if you decide to drop AD, spend it in enchants that are unbound and still hold market value.

True, there is a major concern that in well geared parties the paladin becomes redundant due to the buffs from gf + righteous dc, however, with the fix to the dr bug, we are now the single greatest relief an undergeared group can have. We can prevent any group from being 1 shotted by monsters and so long as people aren't 1 shotted, we can keep them alive through heals. That is where the power of this class comes from. Most groups aren't overgeared and in all of those groups, the devotion pally shines.

thefabricant

Update:
After testing I conclude that feytouched is the BiS weapon enchant for Dev OP, it actually increases the damage dealt by burning guidance, making it the only one that does so and therefor BiS.

omgitszeph

thanks for the active and informative thread, this truly is the go to guide for OP devotion Paladins. This class is so amazing, is there anything we can't do and do well

bayledomon123

Hello. I am a new OP player and therefore only lvl 25. I plan on going Devotion with the Justice tree. My goal is to be a great healer in groups but still be able to solo. I've been reading the posts here and I am unclear what stats I should be trying to get when I pick between what armor/rings/belt/etc...what should be the order? Oh and to clarify is arp, armor penetration? Thank you all for all the information. It is a lot to digestion.

thefabricant

bayledomon123 said:

Hello. I am a new OP player and therefore only lvl 25. I plan on going Devotion with the Justice tree. My goal is to be a great healer in groups but still be able to solo. I've been reading the posts here and I am unclear what stats I should be trying to get when I pick between what armor/rings/belt/etc...what should be the order? Oh and to clarify is arp, armor penetration? Thank you all for all the information. It is a lot to digestion.

Firstly, nice to see someone playing devotion other then protection Most people go the bubble route Secondly, arp is armour penetration.

Your main stats are in this order:
Armour penetration (till 6k)
Recovery
Defense
Power
Deflection
Crit

I hope that helps

bayledomon123

thefabricant said:

bayledomon123 said:

Hello. I am a new OP player and therefore only lvl 25. I plan on going Devotion with the Justice tree. My goal is to be a great healer in groups but still be able to solo. I've been reading the posts here and I am unclear what stats I should be trying to get when I pick between what armor/rings/belt/etc...what should be the order? Oh and to clarify is arp, armor penetration? Thank you all for all the information. It is a lot to digestion.

Firstly, nice to see someone playing devotion other then protection Most people go the bubble route Secondly, arp is armour penetration.

Your main stats are in this order:
Armour penetration (till 6k)
Recovery
Defense
Power
Deflection
Crit

I hope that helps

Thanks for the quick response. Should I do anything about hpts?

thefabricant

bayledomon123 said:

thefabricant said:

bayledomon123 said:

Hello. I am a new OP player and therefore only lvl 25. I plan on going Devotion with the Justice tree. My goal is to be a great healer in groups but still be able to solo. I've been reading the posts here and I am unclear what stats I should be trying to get when I pick between what armor/rings/belt/etc...what should be the order? Oh and to clarify is arp, armor penetration? Thank you all for all the information. It is a lot to digestion.

Firstly, nice to see someone playing devotion other then protection Most people go the bubble route Secondly, arp is armour penetration.

Your main stats are in this order:
Armour penetration (till 6k)
Recovery
Defense
Power
Deflection
Crit

I hope that helps

Thanks for the quick response. Should I do anything about hpts?

The HP on gear will take care of itself, no need to go beyond that

bkt5789

Hi I am following this build for my healadin on the Xbox. I loved the paladin so much when I came out that I wanted to try both paragons, and surprise! I love both protection and devotion! My goal for the devotion is to replace my cleric. I'm bored of cleric class, but no one else in my small group wants to take the mantle of being the healer. So far I'm level 62 and it only took one day. The Devo was a little more tough but not as bad as trying to level a full support cleric. I'm happy with it and can't wait to get burning guidance, and the rest of the gear. The heals are already comparable to my clerics!

bayledomon123

I'm looking at the Justice Tree can someone explain why you would pick Swift Flash vs Bound by Light. what is the importance of Movement? thanks

thefabricant

bayledomon123 said:

I'm looking at the Justice Tree can someone explain why you would pick Swift Flash vs Bound by Light. what is the importance of Movement? thanks

Its simple really, the only control power you likely to use is burning light, as your other 2 are vow and bond. This means that 2/rds of the encounter powers you have are not benefiting from this. Added to this, 10% is a negligible amount you could slot a companion with an active bonus giving more then that. Furthermore, 30% movement speed is not a negligible amount, it is about 12k of the ms stat and as the class has no dodge mechanic, it is noticeable in combat, allowing you to move around effectively. Finally, monsters have such high control resistance in dungeons and the bonus to control is easily negated by them. Ultimately, when playing in a group, leave control to controllers, paladins aren't good at it and 30% movement speed actually makes a difference.

kur667

Thank you very much for this guide, it has been an enormous help to my understanding, playing and enjoying a Devotion Paladin. I have a question though, you say a Feytouched enchant would be best, which I understand dps wise, but any reason as a supporting character a Terror or Plaguefire would be very helpfull for you and the party as well? where I would think Terror would be a better choice than Plaguefire as the DoT of Burning Light doesn't proc anything?

thefabricant

kur667 said:

Thank you very much for this guide, it has been an enormous help to my understanding, playing and enjoying a Devotion Paladin. I have a question though, you say a Feytouched enchant would be best, which I understand dps wise, but any reason as a supporting character a Terror or Plaguefire would be very helpfull for you and the party as well? where I would think Terror would be a better choice than Plaguefire as the DoT of Burning Light doesn't proc anything?

Neither burning guidance or light will proc either of them, however, if you cannot afford feytouched, I would consider them decent choices regardless. You are not able to consistently keep up stacks of plaguefire like a CW can, but its still a nice enchant regardless. Terror is a better option, if you have it, but still not great. At the end of the day, most enchantments on paladin fit that category, ok, but not great

angrysprite

kur667 said:

Thank you very much for this guide, it has been an enormous help to my understanding, playing and enjoying a Devotion Paladin. I have a question though, you say a Feytouched enchant would be best, which I understand dps wise, but any reason as a supporting character a Terror or Plaguefire would be very helpfull for you and the party as well? where I would think Terror would be a better choice than Plaguefire as the DoT of Burning Light doesn't proc anything?

If your focus is party support: many Paladins are rocking Holy Avenger for weapon, and ... I think it's Frostburn for armor, but I could be misremembering for armor. And I reiterate - these are with party support directly in-mind because these are designed as party buff/debuff types.

zillahlinas

Thanks for the wealth of knowledge (and need to rebuild all my equipment ) I admit I like the large CON bonus for dwarves.

obsidiancran3

jaegernl said:

My fear, however, is that as this mod progresses, and people get Stronghold boons, first tanks will become superfluous (partly, they already have) and then healers are next. We might still offer a few buffs and decent DPS, but a Righteous DC > Devotion Justice. So, if you decide to drop AD, spend it in enchants that are unbound and still hold market value.

I'm finding that parties can run readily with either a tank or a healer now if they know what they are doing and are appropriately geared. However I'm also finding that the weaker characters (barely 2k) are going to work hard to finish t2s other than ToS. (Note my tank is still 2.6k, so I have some growth room still to change that assessment.)

I've certainly done ToS with my tank and 3 DPS. Just took a bit of adjustment to beat Syndryth as 2 of the DPS were not quite capable of producing the damage needed to just melt her.

bayledomon123

thefabricant said:

10: Class Synergies

These are classes that synergise really well with the devotion OP and why. It will help people when forming groups to be aware of these things, so that they can get the most out of their group.



10.1: Scourge Warlock:

The SW synergises really well because of its rapid dots, self damaging abilities and tyrannical threat. When you use vow of enmity on a target, the more times the target gets hit, the more times the party gets healed. Now, because burning guidance procs off potential heals and not actual heals and because it procs for a fixed amount each time, the massive amount of dots a SW puts out will rapidly trigger burning guidance and absolutely destroy enemies. Furthermore, warlocks bargain causes some strange interactions with aura of vengeance because it damages a party member. I cannot say for sure exactly what happens, but it is good for the party. Also, every single SW hit each individually procs aura of courage, making it deal a ton of damage as it is also a fixed amount of damage.



Where does Burning Guidance come from? Thank you.

thefabricant

bayledomon123 said:

thefabricant said:

10: Class Synergies

These are classes that synergise really well with the devotion OP and why. It will help people when forming groups to be aware of these things, so that they can get the most out of their group.



10.1: Scourge Warlock:

The SW synergises really well because of its rapid dots, self damaging abilities and tyrannical threat. When you use vow of enmity on a target, the more times the target gets hit, the more times the party gets healed. Now, because burning guidance procs off potential heals and not actual heals and because it procs for a fixed amount each time, the massive amount of dots a SW puts out will rapidly trigger burning guidance and absolutely destroy enemies. Furthermore, warlocks bargain causes some strange interactions with aura of vengeance because it damages a party member. I cannot say for sure exactly what happens, but it is good for the party. Also, every single SW hit each individually procs aura of courage, making it deal a ton of damage as it is also a fixed amount of damage.



Where does Burning Guidance come from? Thank you.

Burning guidance is a dread ring boon, you get it on completion of the dread ring campaign.

bkt5789

Hey so I'm having trouble getting dread ring complete I have about 7 thayan ciphers but 0 thayan scroll so I can't speed up finishing the campaign. How do I speed this up? But I almost have my greater negation and greater feytouch enchantment.

Elemental elven set is a little hard to come by. My devo paladin toon is currently five days old and only has like 30 influence in the ice wind dale campaign.

My party composition is a bit tough. My guild has a spell storm renegade cw using ironzergs build, and loving it. Sadly I can't convince anyone that mof spec is also fantastic. He may run plague fire or terror enchant for debuffs. Then we have a righteous cleric whose fantastic, no clue what enchant she plans on running... A protection paladin who is currently running lightning but may switch to plaguefire or terror, a hunter ranger who runs vorpal even though plaguefire would be better for him, and leaving the rest of our party to run a different Debuff. Our item levels range from 2k-2.5k for now but we are just starting to get tier 1.5 gear and farming seals for tier 2 gear.

Is the anything else that can buff the burning guidance? Does shadow touch and the similar boon from sharandar or ice wind dale proc off of damage from burning guidance?

I'm thinking of running lostmauth necklace with greater charisma sash (which was only 2k ad on xbox which is what I'm playing on) others say lathander set would be better though. It took me a while to explain that lostmauth set doesn't buff burning guidance damage...

thefabricant

bkt5789 said:

Hey so I'm having trouble getting dread ring complete I have about 7 thayan ciphers but 0 thayan scroll so I can't speed up finishing the campaign. How do I speed this up? But I almost have my greater negation and greater feytouch enchantment.



Elemental elven set is a little hard to come by. My devo paladin toon is currently five days old and only has like 30 influence in the ice wind dale campaign.



My party composition is a bit tough. My guild has a spell storm renegade cw using ironzergs build, and loving it. Sadly I can't convince anyone that mof spec is also fantastic. He may run plague fire or terror enchant for debuffs. Then we have a righteous cleric whose fantastic, no clue what enchant she plans on running... A protection paladin who is currently running lightning but may switch to plaguefire or terror, a hunter ranger who runs vorpal even though plaguefire would be better for him, and leaving the rest of our party to run a different Debuff. Our item levels range from 2k-2.5k for now but we are just starting to get tier 1.5 gear and farming seals for tier 2 gear.



Is the anything else that can buff the burning guidance? Does shadow touch and the similar boon from sharandar or ice wind dale proc off of damage from burning guidance?



I'm thinking of running lostmauth necklace with greater charisma sash (which was only 2k ad on xbox which is what I'm playing on) others say lathander set would be better though. It took me a while to explain that lostmauth set doesn't buff burning guidance damage...

Neither of those boons proc off of burning guidance and other then feytouched, there is no way to buff you own damage. Other classes like DC and MoF CW, or SW will increase your damage though. Also, HR with gushing wound will, or running double my build.

To speed up campaign progress, you can get genies gifts or thayan relics, either will speed up the process. You will have to spend AD on it, but it is well worth it. I threw 700k AD this way at the start of mod 6 and it was well worth it to immediately have access to the burning guidance boon.

Also, I go with con belt and losty cloak because of the DR which matters in mod 7 when the bug is fixed. The AP gain on the losty cloak helps to sustain perma daily as well and it has nice stats, making it a good choice.

bayledomon123

Can you explain why you go for ARP over Power? Thank you.

ltblaq

I'm around 2k IL healadin and my ArP is like 500, HELP!!!!! Recommendations on how to boost that with gear and artifacts! Obviously piercing rings and if not running a neck and belt that too can be gemmed stuff BUT if you are looking for a set which would be the best set besides greater black ice? (Of course BiS would be greater black ice with the CON and CHA stats).

thefabricant

bayledomon123 said:

Can you explain why you go for ARP over Power? Thank you.

Power doesn't increase the damage dealt by burning guidance, in fact, it has no effect on BG at all. The main benefit from stacking power would be increasing your heals, but you overheal by miles anyhow. The second benefit to stacking power is you give it to other party members through the light feat. In contrast, arp does indirectly increase the damage dealt by burning guidance. This is because monsters have damage resistance, which decreases the damage dealt by BG and so by stacking arp, it cuts through that defense and increases the damage dealt by burning guidance.

Also, to stack arp, I recommend getting gear for your augment companion of the loyal avanger, this gives power, crit and arp, giving approximately 3k arp in total. The rest of the arp you can geat from a combination of gear on your body and dark enchantments.

obsidiancran3

bayledomon123 said:

Can you explain why you go for ARP over Power? Thank you.

Its a balancing act. ArP makes your Power more effective. Once you have at least 40% resistance ignored you are on track (note a Terror/Plaguefire/Fey weapon enchant changes this), 60% means all your damage goes through to dungeon bosses as well. So having 20K power and low ArP makes that power less effective.

Getting 1K ArP is fairly straightforward;
Alliance Ward Cuirass + Alliance Ward Armet = 1300 ArP.
If you run the Restoration arms and boots you will get some Crit, Recovery and Power as well.

These are gained by completing the T1 dungeons.

You may also get lucky running Lostmauth and have the parts of the Lostmauth set drop, which provide Power, ArP and Crit. The neck is a very powerful option for us due to the AP gain. Of course if you are prepared to grind IWD to get 250k Black Ice the Black Ice set is quite nice as well.

bkt5789

Can more than one person in a party equip the feytouch enchantment and receive he buffs from it? Cause I was told that if two people have it on then one person gets buffed but not the other.