AP generation

devlin

So the DC changes went live today on console, and oh my, was I in for a shocker. Didn't realize how much I depended on divine chains for that perma daily life.

No one seems to have discussed this, with the few comments I've seen saying cooldowns (on HG) is the bigger issue then generating ap but that is just not the case for me.

I feel like my only choices are to

a) abandon the uptime of empowered abilities (such as ebts) and instead focus on casting normal encounters
and/or
b) abandon any hope of the double daily life.
and/or
c) perhaps use more heal encounters (currently using DG, BTS, and randoms as my third) and spam the crowd (despite them not needing the heals)

While there are some workarounds (DC sigil, cheesing artificers/artificat "missing" or forgegammer bug), I was wondering what y'all are doing to maximize ap gain without those aforementioned workarounds?

Any advice would be grand. I am currently DO righteous (though see a jump back to AC in my immediate future). I have around 20,435 recovery and 107% ap gain. Certainly could be better but I don't think I should be struggling this much with those stats.

It's only been a day mind you so maybe some experimenting would be all it takes, but I've played around a little with my powers/feats and have thus far come up wanting. So what say you fine folk? Are you double daily'ing across FBI or is that just fantasy?

schietindebux

I can´t do double dailying all time, only if I pop DC Sigil tbh.
I also have issue to cast devine encounter in between.
I run hastening light and holy fervor 100% all time as AC/DC, by that I am "ok" with AP generation, spamming encounter.
mSP is a lot of work with my rightous DC and I have issues healing up the party at 1. and 3. boss, using healing word, Devine Glow and BtS/FF, poor hps. But rightous capstone, condeming gaze and bear your sins are too good to drop imo for a virtous build.
I run furious intervention and healing action 5/5, wich is a good choice imo.
Dailies are my buffs and powerbuffs, my uptime of let´s say eBtS is awefull, but I miss a flaisnail 25% and don´t run the Burning set.
If I get that Fey weaponset done, things might get better.
My recovery is far worse than yours, since I focus on power > recovery, guess like 13k buffed, and I also slot one 12er azure in my companion to have a moderat ammount of crit, beside the silvery enchants in offense.

devlin

I'm debating going back to AC. With TI being basically mandatory, I hate having to choose between holy fervor (which is what I use) and any other option.

Maybe I just have unrealistic expectations. I thought I'd (as a DO) be perma hg'ing with 1 or 2 flame strikes / divine auras in between. But reality is that I can barely keep hg going (not including sigil).

I don't particularly think it's a stat issue (unless I need to pump my recovery through the roof?). I am hoping perhaps stupidly there is a simple solution but probably not.

It's just weird. I was THE daily casting machine, and now I think I may just be the worst at it (amongst my group of lads).

rapo973

devlin#3775 said:

So the DC changes went live today on console, and oh my, was I in for a shocker. Didn't realize how much I depended on divine chains for that perma daily life.

No one seems to have discussed this, with the few comments I've seen saying cooldowns (on HG) is the bigger issue then generating ap but that is just not the case for me.
I feel like my only choices are to

a) abandon the uptime of empowered abilities (such as ebts) and instead focus on casting normal encounters
and/or
b) abandon any hope of the double daily life.
and/or
c) perhaps use more heal encounters (currently using DG, BTS, and randoms as my third) and spam the crowd (despite them not needing the heals)

This is something I was afraid of when it came on PC.
First you have to set the objective: spam dailies as much as possible. I'm not saying that it's always the best thing to do, but if it's something you really want, then go for it.
Slower AP generation is a fact, double dailies is possibile, but it has now a cost and a new trade off must be found.
Some requirements must be met. You already cover the first one: high AP gain stat and eventually high recovery. As you wrote, add some well known features like artificier's persuasion, artifacts like the DC sigil or the hearth of the [colour] dragon (forget the Gond hammer, it's bugged and it will be fixed sooner or later).
I had to give up the power stat from the mount, moving again to the quick action power by the flail snail (or similar mount).
No need to say that a cloack that give APs while in combat is important.
Then I select encounter powers that have a low cooldown or have the best AP gain: currently AS, DG and BtS work well in my case. AS is not always needed, but when in combat it's a good source of AP.
My rotation is: [enter combat] Artifact [at the beginning or after a daily] + BoB (buff power) + AS + 3X divinity DG (fast cast) + emp BtS + DG-> Daily, usually HG first (hastening light on) -> start gain, doing my best to stack divinity, but the priority is now to cast encounters/at-will to stack AP for the next daily.
Every feat that give AP: I have 4/5 GoH for example.
I plan to test the new fey weapon set: I will have it legendary at the incoming 2XRP event.
I had to give up the speed to stack divinity: no more divine fortune, I currently slot hastening light + off hand feature and holy fervor. I need more time to build divinity - slower emp BtS, but I compensate a bit decreasing the cooldown of the encounter powers of the team (and to have AP quickly) and increasing the AP from off-hand feature.

With all the above, I can have both AA + HG on with a decent uptime. The cost is clear: less unbuffed power, less emp BtS, which are not trivial choices. As I told before, it's a trade off. The best solution to have all the buff? DO DC + AC DC together.

devlin

Ok. Well thanks guys! I felt like I was taking crazy pills when most people were saying it's basically business as usual.

The double daily using sigil is disappointing since we could already do that (at least aa, hg, aa onward). I can now drop one more hg at the end before coming back to reality but that comes at the cost of no ebts (and any other benefits from divine powers). Not particularly worth it.

As you mentioned rapo, the best is just taking a do and ac (much easier to do when loadouts come), but in a sole dc group, I am definitely struggling.

rapo973

devlin#3775 said:

Ok. Well thanks guys! I felt like I was taking crazy pills when most people were saying it's basically business as usual.

Let's say that the final effect looks like a business as usual (dailiy spam), but it requires some adaptations and awareness if you want to max the AP generation. Maybe other DCs have found different solutions and configurations: I'm very interested to discuss them.

putzboy78

DO doesn't need double dailys. What's the second daily going to be, hammers, Flame Strike, not worth it. The only instance where a second daily is useful is if you need to run divine armor. But lets be honest, its a "daily", should we really be casting dailys as often as encounters? I personally feel this is part of where cryptic has really screwed up the power creep. Power creep should be in a low return stat like power, but double dailys, etc are much more significant when overstacked.

I mentioned that the fix to the divine chain generating ap (in multiple forums) would probably be the biggest change (perceived nerf) from the dc perspective but obviously it was broken and been abused for the last 5 mods.

devlin

Well I mean I agree in principle Putzboy. When you think of "dailies" it's not something you inherently think would be spammed. That's something I agree with...in principle.

But I mean daily spamming is a big part of nw currently and DC's certainly aren't the only class that has (had) ap generation allowing for the spamming of dailies. I mean, even in the patch notes, the devs indicate that aa power share was nerfed in part due to allowing for "easier" double dailies.

Whether the power creep as you mention is ultimately bad for the game is a valid concern. But I'm no martyr so if it IS possible to do, I'd like to do as good as possible (hence this thread).

You're right that DO doesn't particularly need to double daily though I did originally have the idea to cast hg, then spam fs for hastening light purposes (this has gone out the window since I apparently neeeeed holy fervor). But as I mentioned, I'm not sold on DO yet and may return to AC. This was more an ap generation thread in general then DO specific.

rapo973

Following the same logic, a 100% crit chance should not be possibile: it's self contradicting because it's not a chance anymore, but a seamless damage multiplier, trivializing the "chance" concept.
So I assume that the daily spam, like the 100% crit chance, is the result of a long term investment where a player focuses on a very specific feature.
Now that some bugs are fixed, a strong AP generation requires some investments and awareness of the things you get and the things you loose.

rjc9000

devlin#3775 said:

Well I mean I agree in principle Putzboy. When you think of "dailies" it's not something you inherently think would be spammed. That's something I agree with...in principle.



But I mean daily spamming is a big part of nw currently and DC's certainly aren't the only class that has (had) ap generation allowing for the spamming of dailies. I mean, even in the patch notes, the devs indicate that aa power share was nerfed in part due to allowing for "easier" double dailies.



Whether the power creep as you mention is ultimately bad for the game is a valid concern. But I'm no martyr so if it IS possible to do, I'd like to do as good as possible (hence this thread).



You're right that DO doesn't particularly need to double daily though I did originally have the idea to cast hg, then spam fs for hastening light purposes (this has gone out the window since I apparently neeeeed holy fervor). But as I mentioned, I'm not sold on DO yet and may return to AC. This was more an ap generation thread in general then DO specific.

Well... we "do" use our daily attacks very often every day.

That technically makes them daily attacks, right?

(and even though this is the case, I somehow feel complied to save my daily attacks because I apparently won't gain another one within 10 seconds...)

------

While I'm here, I need a bit of help with dailly attacks: my AC DC can't seem to put up double dailies without fudging my uptime on AA.

I run a Dragonheart build because I love the speed.

Any tips for me?

sadus671

Has anyone considered PoD instead of BotS? I know BotS reduces incoming damage, but only increases damage when empowered (someone fact check me here). Prophecy always increases damage to mob by 12.5 and then 27.5 when empowered.. about the same as BotS.

So it seems like a trade off of AP gain vs. mob damage reduction.

devlin

sadus671 said:

Has anyone considered PoD instead of BotS? I know BotS reduces incoming damage, but only increases damage when empowered (someone fact check me here). Prophecy always increases damage to mob by 12.5 and then 27.5 when empowered.. about the same as BotS.

So it seems like a trade off of AP gain vs. mob damage reduction.

Well in principle you are correct, except that

a) PoD is slooooooow to cast compared to BTS which I am not a fan of when trying to keep my rotation/ap gain going.

b) While 27.5% vs 30% is indeed close, you are gaining that boost to your damage different ways (PoD reduces the defense of the target (thus increasing your damage) and defensive debuffs cap is 200% (100% of which is accounted for through armor pen). It is fairly trivial currently to hit the cap (for example a DC without PoD could do BYS (10%) + CD (15%) + DG (17.5%) + Trans Dread (8%) = 50.5%). So your group would need to apply 49.5% more defensive debuffs to hit the cap. Maybe some groups depending on make up would have an issue, but for the most part its pretty easy. The 30% of BTS however, is a straight damage "boost" and has no cap so is significantly (in most scenarios) better.

c) PoD is a damage boost against a single mob. The eBTS buff is against everything for 8 seconds.


Related to this thread, I've since swapped back and forth between DO and AC a few times (mah zen!!) while trying to decide, but have lowered my crit pretty substantially and replaced with recovery (through enchants/artifacts/boons). I've also been trying to just shoot out healing words as often as possible which seems like my best 'reg" casting AP gain power. My double daily life (without sigil) is getting a little closer. I think the AP gain boon from SP campaign (assuming most people take that one over the stun), + the extra 500 recovery boon (small help but still), + the Fey weapon might just make this thing possible.