new dc questions

bluey22

i have a 14k dc, and i want to be ready for tong. i have a basic understanding of the class, but most of the info from guides starts hurting my brain. so i wanted to ask some questions and see if i can get some simple answers (or as simple as can be).

first and most importantly, what is the difference between ac and do? from what iv gathered ac is more of the healer and do is dmg. is it just that smiple? cuz if so i dont see why the 2dc meta exists. so more info on that would be great.

secondly, and what might help answer the first question, is what are the must have's for each build? now i have 3 loadouts, 1 for dmg (which i dont need help with, my dc can solo dailies and thats all its needed for), 1 for a do buff build, and 1 for an ac buff build (i want to be able to fill either role that is needed for a run). so what feats, powers, class features, and so on do i need for each paragon? i have the power points to max out each power ill need equipped at all times so specificly knowing what goes where is where i need the help. most guides seam to go off of useing only 1 loadout, and i dont want to waste points in a power i wont nead for that loadout otherwise id try again with guides.

and third, im on xbox, so mod 13 hasnt hit yet. i know of the upcoming changes (sort of), and i have respec tokens stacked from the winter festival, so although rebuilding isnt an issue, is there going to be much of a change, or anything i should start prepping for now?

vorphied

We have a long and contentious thread on DC feats, so I'll refer you there if you want to examine the pros and cons. If you can filter out the snark, the information is decent. It basically boils down to what kind of party setup you're building for. When in doubt build a couple of different loadouts feat-wise and try them out to see what works best for you or if you can even tell the difference (that's how bad many of the DC feats are IMO).

For class powers Hastening Light is a strong choice for both AC and DO. AC is basically expected to run it, and it's great for DO as well; more encounters for everyone. I don't bother with Holy Fervor on DO since I can already generate enough AP to keep up Hallowed Ground in a party with characters that are reducing my cooldowns.

Chains is bread-and-butter for DO for dungeon trash. For AC it's not going to hurt anything, but I wouldn't use it for end-game dungeons. With the poor offensive capability an AC main has, using that slot for Exaltation on a strong DPS will be the better option. In short, yes, have Chains leveled, but DO will make more frequent and more effective use of it.

Daunting Light is mainly your solo cannon as DO. If you wind up in a non-standard party where you are the primary DPS by a wide margin, it will also be your boss killer, but going back to end-game again, you won't be using it much there. Like I mentioned before, I don't even slot DL in tong unless I have to kill Defiant Souls myself. For trash, Chains is much easier to use and generally more effective since the AoE is much wider and the delay much shorter without spending Divinity.

vorphied

bluey22#7852 said:

i have a 14k dc, and i want to be ready for tong. i have a basic understanding of the class, but most of the info from guides starts hurting my brain. so i wanted to ask some questions and see if i can get some simple answers (or as simple as can be).

first and most importantly, what is the difference between ac and do? from what iv gathered ac is more of the healer and do is dmg. is it just that smiple? cuz if so i dont see why the 2dc meta exists. so more info on that would be great.

secondly, and what might help answer the first question, is what are the must have's for each build? now i have 3 loadouts, 1 for dmg (which i dont need help with, my dc can solo dailies and thats all its needed for), 1 for a do buff build, and 1 for an ac buff build (i want to be able to fill either role that is needed for a run). so what feats, powers, class features, and so on do i need for each paragon? i have the power points to max out each power ill need equipped at all times so specificly knowing what goes where is where i need the help. most guides seam to go off of useing only 1 loadout, and i dont want to waste points in a power i wont nead for that loadout otherwise id try again with guides.

and third, im on xbox, so mod 13 hasnt hit yet. i know of the upcoming changes (sort of), and i have respec tokens stacked from the winter festival, so although rebuilding isnt an issue, is there going to be much of a change, or anything i should start prepping for now?

Trying to be brief...

- Difference between AC and DO is most importantly the way they are built. Most effective AC setup is typically Power above all else with a great helping of Recovery and getting some extra Power from the Assassin's Covenant mount insignia bonus (read: Black Ice in defense slots feeds this bonus nicely). A pure AC isn't particularly concerned about dealing damage in a party and does so as a side bonus; it won't be a lot. Your main function is to buff, debuff, and share a portion of your Power stat with your party. You're also expected to maintain the Anointed Army daily 100% without outside assistance. DO is not the primary power share (and Weapons of Light no longer stacks, regardless), so DO will typically build offensive stats including Power and Crit, enough ArP to function, and enough Recovery to maintain buff and Hallowed Ground uptime. Personally I don't believe in stacking insane Recovery on DO; if I can keep up HG 100% with CD reduction bonuses from party members, that's enough.

- 2x DC is popular because each Path has unique buffs and is also able to maintain one each of the two Empowered buffs (Break the Spirit and Forgemaster's Flame). DO = Terrifying Insight for 20% party damage; AC = Blessing of Battle+Weapons of Light+Anointed Army for massive Power share at higher item levels. 2x DC is not actually needed for end-game, but it can certainly make things easier for a lot of parties.

- Neither cleric is best played as a primary healer IMO. They can be built that way, and they heal well even if not specced into healing, but many parties will use a healing OP or templock for end-game activities that require dedicated heals. IMO a DC in a party is a buffer and debuffer first and foremost. A DO is a respectable supporting DPS and heals incidentally while attacking with Repurpose Soul, while some ACs use healing powers for additional AP gain if they aren't able to comfortably maintain Anointed Army otherwise.

- Prioritize points in powers you will use most for party play and solo essentials, but you will be able to fill them all eventually. Divine Glow, Forgemaster's Flame, Break the Spirit, Chains of Blazing Light, Daunting Light, Prophecy of Doom (DO), Exaltation (AC), Blessing of Battle (AC), Brand of the Sun (DO), Astral Seal, Hallowed Ground, Anointed Army (AC), etc. etc. I would also have Astral Shield and other situational defensive powers leveled since they do come in handy now and then. Leave the junk like Sooth for last/never.

- Rather than writing a longer book about different specs and mod 13 stuff, I'd ask what specifically you're concerned about. The changes to DC were fairly minor and had mostly to do with slightly reducing the effectiveness of a couple popular buffs and eliminating the stacking of Weapons of Light and Bear Your Sins feats.

bluey22

that answers a big chuck of my questions, and seriously thank you for the help. i understand dcs aren't exactly healers, and i have a healadin to use if healing is what i need. but dcs are more effective in dungeons so i figure it's smarter to build up my dc.

im also a step ahead with the black ice enchantments, nice to know my math checked out! also was wayyyyy overstacked in recovery so some changes helped there (more radiants!)

what i really need now is to know which powers/feats for each. it looks like ac will continue to be the dungeon runner, so if i was smart I'd focus on that looking forward to mod 13 if im right. so in the context of an ac running dungeons, what powers/feats do i need? this is the hardest part for me cuz it's hard to keep track of all these percentages while remembering what's going to power, and what's debuffing. so for example, forgemasters flame: is that for the ac or the do? and do i need it for dungeons?

frogwalloper

bluey22#7852 said:

what i really need now is to know which powers/feats for each. it looks like ac will continue to be the dungeon runner, so if i was smart I'd focus on that looking forward to mod 13 if im right. so in the context of an ac running dungeons, what powers/feats do i need?

This sums up the powers nicely -

vorphied said:

... Divine Glow, Forgemaster's Flame, Break the Spirit, Chains of Blazing Light, Daunting Light, Prophecy of Doom (DO), Exaltation (AC), Blessing of Battle (AC), Brand of the Sun (DO), Astral Seal, Hallowed Ground, Anointed Army (AC)...

For either path I always equip: Astral Seal, Divine Glow, Break the Spirit/Forgemaster's Flame, Hallowed Ground, and usually Holy Fervor. The third encounter really depends on the party - whatever they need most for what lies ahead - but usually for me it winds up being Chains or Daunting Light.

For AC: I usually equip Blessing of Battle, always Anointed Army, and usually Hastening Light.
Some of the notable feats for power sharing are Battle Fervor, Ancient Warding, and Weapons of Light

Break the Spirit gives a better damage buff than Forgemaster's Flame, but if you're running with another DC, one should use BtS, while the other uses FF.

vorphied

Basically what frogwalloper said, especially in regards to Break the Spirit being the default when you are the only DC.

For end-game dungeons on AC DC I always use Exaltation with a keybind to auto-target the primary DPS. I rarely deviate from Divine Glow + FF/BtS + Exalt with Holy Fervor and Hastening Light slotted. Anointed Army always, Hallowed Ground in secondary slot in case the DO dies. With enough Recovery, Holy Fervor can comfortably be swapped for something else, but I'm a fake AC and need the help. Blessing of Battle + Astral Seal for the usual at-wills.

If I'm the only DC in tong, I will go AC and equip my legendary AP gain mount ability on top of Holy Fervor and alternate casts of AA and HG. Again, I'm built DO, so my base recovery is low compared to an AC main; I need the extra AP gain if I want to have meaningful double-daily uptime.

For DO I slot Divine Glow + Chains + BtS/FF for trash. For bosses it's Divine Glow + Prophecy of Doom + BtS/FF. If the party is extra squishy and/or failing mechanics that debuff them, Prophecy can be swapped out for Astral Shield; if they can't kill enough Defiant Souls at Ras Nsi (rare, but I've had to do this on one occasion), it can be replaced by Daunting Light. Hallowed Ground with Divine Armor as panic button. Terrifying Insight never leaves the bar, and I personally like to use Hastening Light on DO as well. Brand of the Sun and Lance of Faith for trash; Astral Seal in place of Lance for bosses to help proc Cleanse when needed.

bluey22

ok, heres what i have:

for at wills, astral seal for both, blessing of battle an ac and brand of sun for a do.

dailies is pretty obvious, hallowed ground for both and anoited army for ac. the second daily on my do is the hammer but im not useing it, just hollowed ground.

encounters im unsure of. what iv been able to narrow down is divine glow for both, exaltaion for ac or prophecy of doom on a do, then break the spirit preferably but if with another dc then i could swap it with forgemaster's flame. i took out chains cuz it looks more like a dps power. and i couldnt find a place for daunting light (none of this has been applied to my dc yet, just making an outline on paper)

for class features i have holy frevor for both, and on a do terrorfied insight, but still need a second one for an ac.

as far as feats i focus on getting the power shareing ones (weapons of light ect.) so that puts my ac build with just the first parts of all 3 paths (from what iv researched that looks like what im going for). and for my do buff i just go full righteous.

does that all look accurate?

frogwalloper

Concerning Chains/Daunting Light

Not only do they help keep trash from piling up so dpsers can focus on the main event as Vorphied pointed out, but more importantly they're a good source of AP. I view them more like Action Points per second powers rather than simply dps.

- not saying they're required or anything, just my take on them

Can't really help with the feats... Those things make me stupid.
If I had 100 retrain tokens, I'd probably use them all by the end of the week.

bluey22

the reason i put chains aside is i already have my dps loadout done and working. its similar to the do you guys are describing just more speced for dps. i have 3 loadouts total (free one from the winter promotion), so the SECOND do build is strictly for dungeons and buffing. with the 3rd being the good ol' ac build as normal for dungeons. i also figure it might help fill either role needed for runs to make things a little easier. but even after mod 13 hits, and like you both have pointed out, the do build still might be needed for certain groups so i look at it all as a solid investment, especially for making back the ad.

but aside from looking into feats a little more this basiclly covered it all. for perspective my dc was useing astral sheild and bastion of health (was given some very bad advice when i started my dc and havent been able to find good help til now!). so now my dc will actualy buff instead of just looking pretty, so thanks for the help!

pitshade

Hammer of Fate is not a great power. Use Flamestrike if you need to do damage. In groups if running DO, my second daily is Divine Armor since, timed properly, can save lives in certain events like Cry of the Atropal.

Daunting Light is good for DO during trash clearing even if you arent built for DPS. Reason being that both it and Divine Glow build AP outside of combat.

fisherman1000

This is good info. I have similar questions to the OP in this thread. I am a new player that reached level 70 a few weeks ago. I want to be an AC/DC most of the time. From what I have read, ideally an AC should have 30k+ in power otherwise they should go DO. So for bosses being an AC, the general consensus is that I run divine glow, exhaltation, and FF while having AA up as much as possible. So now my real question here is what about rotation of these powers? What is acceptable to divine and what is not? Ideally I want to cast my FF/BTS fully empowered as much as possible to help the dps...correct? To fully empower it then I need to cast 3 divine powers. Do I divine divine glow 2-3 times? Do I divine exhaltation? Any help would be much appreciated. I want to help my team as much as possible but I have no idea really what more experienced groups would want me to do when I am confused about this stuff.

rjc9000

vorphied said:

If you can filter out the snark, the information is decent.

What snark?

fisherman1000#5631 said:

From what I have read, ideally an AC should have 30k+ in power otherwise they should go DO.

DCs should be going DO all the time.

Unless you're one of those magical 1337 AC DCs who somehow have 55k+ Base Power, can spam AA & HG every 6 seconds can keep up up BoB, cast EmpFF & Exa every 8 seconds, and can deal with enemy mechanics at the same time.

Or if you are fighting Ras Nsi as a soloDC.
Or if you are teaming with a far worse geared AC DC.

vorphied

> @rjc9000 said:
> If you can filter out the snark, the information is decent.
>
>
> What snark?

Was a reference to how discussion of Righteous feats vs. healing++ feats tends to get unnecessarily...spirited. I didn’t want to rehash the same arguments in this thread, but hopefully the OP and others can pick through the less constructive parts and make informed choices.

vorphied

I’ll typically stake my spot as DO and then swap to AC if the other DC really can’t or shouldn’t be doing it. Usually the other DC has some self-awareness as far as what they’re best at if we’re talking tong.

If the AC has a little less power but can otherwise do the job, I’ll stay with DO since I’m actually built for it and will add more party DPS that way than through very slightly higher power share. If we’re talking a massive power difference, though, AC it is.

putzboy78

tiberiusrex#6660 said:

playing around with the ac at the dummies just now. I've got my power at 37. I can get it up to just under 40k but I don't have quite enough recovery to keep a constant daily up. at 37 I can keep up the balls permanently but only with the use of empowered sunburst. I know the regular sunburst irritates people. just how bad is it against the newer end game bad guys? is there a better alternative because I have to start off with a regular sunburst in order to clear it so I don't accidentally do a empowered sunburst instead of exultation or ff.

is there a better hot to use to quickly get your meter up? I don't know if i have enough focus to be a decent acdc. it's hard enough keeping track of where I am as a do but alternating too! lol. i'm old.

you can't base the power off what you get on a dummy, you have to look at base power only not with bonding proc's, etc. Check this thread to see what counts as base power

https://arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1227832/reference-power-sharing

edit: sorry @grrouper - i was typing the response at the same time as you apparently, so i duped your response

vorphied

If you're a DO build and need to masquerade as AC, the epic or legendary AP generation mount active bonus can also be a handy fix to offset your lack of extremely high recovery. Getting AP boosts from various sources (artifact neck, offhand bonus, boons, accessory kits, etc.) helps as well.

As others have said, a high power rating doesn't help nearly as much on AC if you can't keep up AA in a fight, so I'd agree that uptime should be a top consideration when you're deciding whether or not your group would benefit more from you going AC vs. the other DC (or the non-existent DC if you're solo). An AC who can't maintain AA doesn't bring as much to the party compared to a DO who simply has to stay alive somewhere in the same room to increase party damage by 20%. If the DO is really good, they might actually hit buttons

vordayn

tiberiusrex#6660 said:

is there a better hot to use to quickly get your meter up? I don't know if i have enough focus to be a decent acdc. it's hard enough keeping track of where I am as a do but alternating too! lol. i'm old.

Healing word - but you have to target allies AND enemies to achieve the best AP return. It doesn't seem to do well out of battle either. It has 3 casts before it goes on cooldown.

It is a good source of AP generation in battle and is not particularly taxing to cast.

pitshade

Healing Action feat can be useful with Healing Word if you are struggling. Exaltation has great AP gain as well. Sprite pets and as mentioned Quick Action help a lot. Holy Fervor, and Hastening Light of course.

putzboy78

why not just look at @michela123 ap gain table? https://arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1234463/base-ap-of-dc-skills

pitshade

Augments don't count for base power.

mebengalsfan

putzboy78 said:

tiberiusrex#6660 said:

playing around with the ac at the dummies just now. I've got my power at 37. I can get it up to just under 40k but I don't have quite enough recovery to keep a constant daily up. at 37 I can keep up the balls permanently but only with the use of empowered sunburst. I know the regular sunburst irritates people. just how bad is it against the newer end game bad guys? is there a better alternative because I have to start off with a regular sunburst in order to clear it so I don't accidentally do a empowered sunburst instead of exultation or ff.

is there a better hot to use to quickly get your meter up? I don't know if i have enough focus to be a decent acdc. it's hard enough keeping track of where I am as a do but alternating too! lol. i'm old.

you can't base the power off what you get on a dummy, you have to look at base power only not with bonding proc's, etc. Check this thread to see what counts as base power

https://arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1227832/reference-power-sharing

edit: sorry @grrouper - i was typing the response at the same time as you apparently, so i duped your response

I hear so many AC DC state that they are the bomb as a DC with 50+K power standing still. Yet many don't realize it is the base power they share and what is included in base power stat vs. buff power stats and one type of buff the player receives that is not included in power sharing is Legendary companion shared stats. I was talking with one DC that even put radiant R14 on their companion so they could share more power.

If the devs changed it so that the DC can share power they receive from Legendary companion than I can see going for more power on the companion; otherwise go get recovery, crit and armor pen needed for end game content.