Obviously a debuff is not using armor pen & crit for offence slots, they'd go with power. That was implied in my answer but as the old saying goes "you can lead a horse to water...". Maybe I should put things more simply in future so you can understand them?
Why is this obvious, power has no relevance to debuffs. Your recharge speed can impact debuffing but power doesn't impact any debuffs whatsoever.
As 400 power represents somewhere between 0.5% and 1% for in-combat power on a DPS or (averaging) 3% total team DPS increase
and that's only if they are within range of your power sharing mechanics. Which is not guaranteed especially for ranged dps that like to spread out all over the floor.
I would say the power selection determines the difference between a dps dc and a debuff dc. Wether you stack armor pen or which companions you use is the difference between max/min'ing. Everyone plays a balance between personal dps and team dps. It's not even a constant thing. If I only ran in 4k skilled groups my balance would be totally different than when you know that sometimes you run with 2k groups. Sometimes you need to solo content whereas sometimes you need carry a team and sometimes you are just speeding up a run. You know what you need to do and who you do it with, you draw that line for yourself because its different for everyone. Can you afford a stable of companions? can you even afford bonding? Just cause you can't afford bonding and as such can't afford a sellsword doesn't make you a debuff cleric. The definition of debuff cleric is the power and feat selection not the wallet they have for optimizing.
Another reason why aiming for ultimate optimization on a cleric, of all things, is not feasible is because the cleric, by its very nature, is a teamplay class. Any cleric who mostly runs group content with a justice paladin (I've seen more than a few cleric+something else duo players) and who uses Avatar/Hastening Light, for example, will never see the recovery stat as particularly useful. And it's extremely interesting that you'd argue that debuff DCs should ignore ArP because Kaelac established a link between debuffs and RI several mods ago. https://web.archive.org/web/20160114183446/http://laggygamerz.com/forum/index.php?/topic/382-kaelac’s-guide-to-damage-tenacity-reisistance-and-debuffs-in-neverwinter/#2 While we don't know for sure if this has changed, it probably hasn't since a few similar "odd" game mechanics are still in the game (like how deflect can still affect many control effects).
Stat priority on a cleric varies a lot based on what you plan to accomplish, who you run content with, whether you plan to focus on PvE or PvP, the current meta, etc. In particular, we're talking about someone who is obviously new to the game here, so by the time his character has progressed enough to start running challenging content the meta may have already changed completely. If you've been around long enough then you know that the Neverwinter meta changes drastically every few mods, and good players should learn to take this into consideration.
One of the few things that remains constant is playstyle (which includes what powers you slot/power selection). AP gain "attack" DCs have been around since beta, for example, even though people have only started to really notice them in the recent year (as the AA-spam builds). Popular builds like debuff/buff DCs and (for some reason) hardcore healer DCs are also nothing new. So there is definitely merit in arguing that playstyle is all that makes buffer/debuffer/healer/etc. DCs different from each other.
Post edited by tyrtallow on
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. So there is definitely merit in arguing that playstyle is all that makes buffer/debuffer/healer/etc. DCs different from each other.
I tend to agree with you here, but what @putzboy78 is saying is correct as well. Imo the DC is made of "layers" and "components" that can be mixed in many ways. The foundation (the first layer) is given by the selection of the powers and the feats which are used to define a "raw" classification of the DC. On top of it, a number of "components" (companions, weapon set, artifacts, enchantments, etc) can be added to build the second layer of specialization. What is important to understand about the DC is not "what" you do, but "how" you do it. The same result can be achieved in different ways, but how you achive that result has an influence of the overall interactions between the other components. A clear example is the AA spam, you can achieve it mixing up some ingredients: - AP gain/recovery - gift of haste - Artificer's persuasion - Holy burning set - Mounts - DC sygil - artifact cloaks - companions (example: sprites)
How you mix them is matter of choices, but you have to be aware that while you're doing it, you're defining some constraints at the same time. Example: if the AA spam is mainly based on the burning holy set/DC sygil, you are forced to stick with them loosing the opportunity to move to a better set. If you rely on high AP gain/ high recovery and gift of haste (my case), I pay my low crit chance to proc fire of the gods + low dps + a low efficiency of my dps, but I don't have to stick with a specific set or artifact. Another example: if you don't have Divine Fortune + Bountiful Fortune, your divinity gain will be lower resulting in slow rotations and low buff/debuff frequency. This is a must for a real buffer/debuffer and it has nothing to do with playstyle.
[off topic] As the AA and the high power behavior will be reviewed soon, I'm trying to find a different approach mixing up 3 new ingredients: - Dancing shield - Assassin's Covenant - Shepherd's Devotion - Azure enchantments on every defence slot. This is an indirect way to stack power and the first evidences are not so bad. [/off topic]
Post edited by rapo973 on
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
Comments
I would say the power selection determines the difference between a dps dc and a debuff dc. Wether you stack armor pen or which companions you use is the difference between max/min'ing. Everyone plays a balance between personal dps and team dps. It's not even a constant thing. If I only ran in 4k skilled groups my balance would be totally different than when you know that sometimes you run with 2k groups. Sometimes you need to solo content whereas sometimes you need carry a team and sometimes you are just speeding up a run. You know what you need to do and who you do it with, you draw that line for yourself because its different for everyone. Can you afford a stable of companions? can you even afford bonding? Just cause you can't afford bonding and as such can't afford a sellsword doesn't make you a debuff cleric. The definition of debuff cleric is the power and feat selection not the wallet they have for optimizing.
And it's extremely interesting that you'd argue that debuff DCs should ignore ArP because Kaelac established a link between debuffs and RI several mods ago.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160114183446/http://laggygamerz.com/forum/index.php?/topic/382-kaelac’s-guide-to-damage-tenacity-reisistance-and-debuffs-in-neverwinter/#2
While we don't know for sure if this has changed, it probably hasn't since a few similar "odd" game mechanics are still in the game (like how deflect can still affect many control effects).
Stat priority on a cleric varies a lot based on what you plan to accomplish, who you run content with, whether you plan to focus on PvE or PvP, the current meta, etc. In particular, we're talking about someone who is obviously new to the game here, so by the time his character has progressed enough to start running challenging content the meta may have already changed completely.
If you've been around long enough then you know that the Neverwinter meta changes drastically every few mods, and good players should learn to take this into consideration.
One of the few things that remains constant is playstyle (which includes what powers you slot/power selection). AP gain "attack" DCs have been around since beta, for example, even though people have only started to really notice them in the recent year (as the AA-spam builds). Popular builds like debuff/buff DCs and (for some reason) hardcore healer DCs are also nothing new.
So there is definitely merit in arguing that playstyle is all that makes buffer/debuffer/healer/etc. DCs different from each other.
Imo the DC is made of "layers" and "components" that can be mixed in many ways.
The foundation (the first layer) is given by the selection of the powers and the feats which are used to define a "raw" classification of the DC. On top of it, a number of "components" (companions, weapon set, artifacts, enchantments, etc) can be added to build the second layer of specialization.
What is important to understand about the DC is not "what" you do, but "how" you do it. The same result can be achieved in different ways, but how you achive that result has an influence of the overall interactions between the other components.
A clear example is the AA spam, you can achieve it mixing up some ingredients:
- AP gain/recovery
- gift of haste
- Artificer's persuasion
- Holy burning set
- Mounts
- DC sygil
- artifact cloaks
- companions (example: sprites)
How you mix them is matter of choices, but you have to be aware that while you're doing it, you're defining some constraints at the same time. Example: if the AA spam is mainly based on the burning holy set/DC sygil, you are forced to stick with them loosing the opportunity to move to a better set.
If you rely on high AP gain/ high recovery and gift of haste (my case), I pay my low crit chance to proc fire of the gods + low dps + a low efficiency of my dps, but I don't have to stick with a specific set or artifact.
Another example: if you don't have Divine Fortune + Bountiful Fortune, your divinity gain will be lower resulting in slow rotations and low buff/debuff frequency. This is a must for a real buffer/debuffer and it has nothing to do with playstyle.
[off topic]
As the AA and the high power behavior will be reviewed soon, I'm trying to find a different approach mixing up 3 new ingredients:
- Dancing shield
- Assassin's Covenant
- Shepherd's Devotion
- Azure enchantments on every defence slot.
This is an indirect way to stack power and the first evidences are not so bad.
[/off topic]
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF