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By the light! (Sharpedge's Devotion OP PVE Guide)
thefabricant
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 5,248 Arc User
Contents:
1. Preface
2. Character Creation
3. Powers (At-wills)
3.1.2 Powers (Passives)
3.1.3 Powers (Encounters)
3.1.4 Powers (Dailies)
4. Boons
5. Justice
6. Bulwark
7. Light
8. Gear Choices
9. Advice for new players
10. Class Synergies and Bugged Mechanics
11. Conclusion
12. Change Log
1: Preface
To start this off, a lot of this information comes from testing done by both myself and the few other devotion OP's who exist in this game. We are a rare creature, far less common then our tanky brethren and I will put this down to there being firstly no good build for the devotion OP on the forums and secondly to the misconception that we are the weaker/less powerful paragon path. Originally, I was not going to write this guide and rather wait for Isaac to finish his guide, then add my comments below, however, due to this misconception and due to the fact that I am feeling burned out and would like a guide I have put some input on to exist on the forums, I decided to push forward and create a guide for the benefit of the heal OP's in the community. Bear in mind, as a 100% PVE player, there is nothing in this guide that covers PVP. If you want a PVP heal OP guide, I am afraid to say, turn your eyes away and look somewhere else, because this is not it. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the work of Isaac the Adequate@jaegernl, another heal OP who I have done a lot of work and testing with, without his work, much of the information of this guide might have been missing and I expect he will also likely be publishing his own guide. Finally, remember, the devotion paladin is a support character, if you do not like helping other players and working with a group, then this class is not for you. If you want insane DPS, Lazalia's GWF guide is on the GWF forums, this class is not for you. All of this being said, let us take a look at the class:
1. Preface
2. Character Creation
3. Powers (At-wills)
3.1.2 Powers (Passives)
3.1.3 Powers (Encounters)
3.1.4 Powers (Dailies)
4. Boons
5. Justice
6. Bulwark
7. Light
8. Gear Choices
9. Advice for new players
10. Class Synergies and Bugged Mechanics
11. Conclusion
12. Change Log
1: Preface
To start this off, a lot of this information comes from testing done by both myself and the few other devotion OP's who exist in this game. We are a rare creature, far less common then our tanky brethren and I will put this down to there being firstly no good build for the devotion OP on the forums and secondly to the misconception that we are the weaker/less powerful paragon path. Originally, I was not going to write this guide and rather wait for Isaac to finish his guide, then add my comments below, however, due to this misconception and due to the fact that I am feeling burned out and would like a guide I have put some input on to exist on the forums, I decided to push forward and create a guide for the benefit of the heal OP's in the community. Bear in mind, as a 100% PVE player, there is nothing in this guide that covers PVP. If you want a PVP heal OP guide, I am afraid to say, turn your eyes away and look somewhere else, because this is not it. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the work of Isaac the Adequate@jaegernl, another heal OP who I have done a lot of work and testing with, without his work, much of the information of this guide might have been missing and I expect he will also likely be publishing his own guide. Finally, remember, the devotion paladin is a support character, if you do not like helping other players and working with a group, then this class is not for you. If you want insane DPS, Lazalia's GWF guide is on the GWF forums, this class is not for you. All of this being said, let us take a look at the class:
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2.1: Race
The choice of race for the devotion OP is broken down into 3 options (with the 4th optional dragonborn for the rich ofc), the Drow, the Human and the Half Elf. The reason the Drow is a valid option is because of the Darkfire racial bonus, however, I would say Drow is the weakest of the 3 choices and that one should choose either Half Elf or Human. If you are choosing Half Elf, you will want +2 points in Charisma for stamina regeneration and AP gain (your 2 most important features)
2.2: Starting Point Rolls
I would suggest rolling for 16/16 with Con and Cha, which would be 18/18 if you chose Half Elf and 18/16 if you chose human and 16/18 if you chose Drow. The most important stat for the heal OP is Charisma, due to the immense strength of your daily powers and the healing capacity of sanctuary (your shift mechanic).When allocating points from then on out, I would suggest Con and Cha all the way, although as a heal OP you do not benefit too much from the bonus to Con, unless you are playing in a really good party, you will likely have all the aggro (This build generates a lot of threat through healing) and so you will want some tankyness to keep you alive in the not so good groups. Also, having that extra HP and dr allows you to function as an off tank when needed.
2.3: Name and Deity
Entirely up to you.
Here I have broken down every single heal OP power in the game, how they work, what I think of them, how I rate them (on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being awful and 10 being incredible) and finally, which ones I suggest you choose. They are broken down by type, to make it easier to read them. I know this is a lot of reading, but for anyone who is serious about playing the devotion OP class, this is a resource well worth using.
3.1.1: At wills
It is important to note that none of the bonuses provided stack with themselves and so you can only gain the bonus of one specific buff once, although if you use both your at wills, you can benefit from 2 bonusses.
Radiant Strike: 8/10
Radiant Strike, when used, allows you to lunge at an opponent and upon use, gives you the radiant buff which increases the damage you deal by increasing your armour penetration and damage by a flat out 5%. It is important to note that this is a multiplier, so it is multiply your dr by 1.05 and not add 5% to dr. This power is an excellent tool, both for increasing the damage you deal in combat by using it to enter combat and also by allowing you to be more mobile in combat. You can use this to lunge from 1 foe to another, assuming they are not tightly packed together, making this a quick way to traverse the battlefield and escape potentially lethal red zones if you don't think you have enough time to just waltz out.
Valorous Strike: 6/10
Valorous Strike is an attack that when used applies the Valor buff to you, which increases your damage resistance by 5% (Multiplicative) when it is up. As you are not as a heal OP actively trying to tank things, the bonus this provides is nearly irrelevant for you and so this at will is not as strong as its contenders.
Oath Strike: 9/10
Oath Strike synergises excellently with the Heal OP class. Upon the final strike of the flurry of blows, the power of your healing is increased by 15% for 10 seconds and a heal is unleashed. Depending on your build, the power of oath strike, your tab mechanic and your daily can be the only things you need to keep a party at full life. Added to this, it also provides a constant stream of damage and as a heal OP, this will be the ability that takes up most of what you do in combat actively.
Cure Wounds: 7/10
Cure wounds is what I would label a build specific at will. For a light paladin, it is excellent as you don't need to engage in combat in order to actively heal people. The issue with cure wounds and my primary dislike for it is that unlike your other options, there is no additional bonus on top of the healing it provides. It is a flat out healing tool and provides no additional benefits. That being said, it is so good at what it does that it still deserves to be ranked well, its just that depending on how you build your paladin, it may or may not be necessary.
It is important to note that with the exception of Aura of Vengeance, no paladin passive stacks with itself. If you have 2 paladins in a party, it is therefore optimal, unless you are using Aura of vengeance, to both use different passives. Furthermore, for the group to actually benefit from your auras, you need to stand up close to them, so no standing at the back out of range, all paladins are close in combat.
Aura of Courage: 10/10
This passive is what I would term a party wide storm spell. When you or your allies (this includes companions) deal damage, they then deal an additional 1% of your HP as damage. So say you have 80k HP, they then deal an additional 800 damage, before buffs. More realistically, you will have 100k HP+, which amounts to 1k damage+. This at first does not sound like much, however, the damage dealt by aura of courage is buffed by other effects, such as buffs provided by clerics or wizards. It cannot crit and it will not proc off of itself (so cannot self loop) also, it receives no benefit from power. However, due to what this power does, it can in some groups, depending on the number of buffs, amount to the same effect as giving every single member of the party storm spell. Therefore, this is an excellent party wide damage buff and should definitely be taken. Also, it is important to note that nothing procs off of it, so you cannot apply the plaguefire debuff via Aura of Courage and the lostmauth set bonus or burning guidance will not proc off of it either.
Aura of Truth: 4/10
Aura of Truth causes enemies within its radius to deal 5% less damage, the debuff increasing by 2.5% per increase in rank. The problem with this passive is it only seems to work some of the time and also that, this passive does not fit with what you as a heal paladin are trying to achieve. Due to this, the power is not a strong choice for a devotion OP and if it gets used, let a Protection OP be the one to use it. If you are in a party that needs that debuff which only works some of the time, the party will not succeed in the dungeon anyhow. Therefore, this passive is not worth a slot and gets a low ranking.
Aura of Vengeance: 3/10
Aura of Vengeance deals 15-35% of your weapon damage to anyone who attacks you or your allies (or your companions). The problem with this power is twofold. Firstly, you (or your allies) need to be able to continuously take damage in a quick set of bursts, in order to make it do anything and Secondly, the base damage of this power is so low, that its effect is almost negligible. The only time this power actually does anything is if you set up a resonance field with 2 heal OP's and a HR, thereby making it situationally powerful, due to broken mechanics that need to be fixed anyhow. Once again it is important to note that nothing procs off of the damage Aura of Courage deals, so it cannot be used to apply debuffs, although once again, it does get the benefit from buffs and debuffs that are already provided.
Aura of Wisdom: 9/10
Aura of Wisdom causes you and your allies to gain an extra 10% recharge speed increase. Nothing fancy here, it does what it says on the tooltip (for once).
Aura of Restoration: 5/10
Nothing fancy, works like the tooltip states. The problem with it though is that what it states it is doing, isn't very much. To put this in perspective, when specced light, your lay on hands can heal for over 100k without buffs and your tab mechanic can crit for over 1M. There is no character in the game with that much life that you can heal, making this essentially useless. You do not need that extra bonus to healing, you over heal, by far, already.
Aura of Divinity: 2/10
This passive releases a wave of healing every 3 seconds to heal up to 3 wounded allies. So basically, it does nothing. You have so many HoTs already and so many ways of healing, this will heal maybe 3 times in an entire dungeon run if you have it up. Just....don't use it, there is no reason to.
Aura of Life: 4/10 (8/10 when fixed)
This power is like an automatic soulforged enchant for the party, it revives everyone in its radius and provides them with some healing. The problem with it, is it ignores the soulforged enchant, bypasses it and applies resurrection sickness. This means that it can actually contribute towards a party wiping and yet even broken, it is still better then some of the heal OP's other passives.
Aura of Valor: 1/10
You are not a tank, therefore any passive that deliberately causes you to generate any more aggro then you already do should never end up on your bar. What is even worse is because of how quickly you heal, this power will never actually do anything anyhow. I can foresee, maybe some extreme circumstances where this is useful as a devotion OP, but other then those, this would be a 0/10.
Aura of Solitude: 4/10
This is good when alone and rubbish in a group. It causes you to deal 12% more damage and healing when there are no allies nearby. Bear in mind, your companion counts as an ally, so if you want to use this, its augment 100% of the way.
Burning Light: 9/10
This power releases a wave of energy that damages and stuns enemies, applies a DoT to them and heals allies. In a group, except for boss fights, you will want to use this and alone, this never leaves your bar. It is important to note that only the first hit has a chance to proc things and the dot can't actually proc anything at all. Furthermore, the dot never crits, so the dot will not interact with the lostmauth horn and only the initial wave of damage.
Sacred Weapon: 2/10
This power increases your damage and your healing. The problem with it is, the strength of your healing is already excessive, no, we don't need to heal for 3x a party members life and the bonus to damage is so small that we might as well just take another encounter power. All in all, the devotion OP has some really nice encounter power choices and this is just not one of them.
Smite: 7/10
Due to the DoT and HoT, I consider this to be like a single target version of Burning Light. That makes it really good, however, it also begs the question, why not just use burning light instead?
Bane: 5/10
Bane allows you to decrease the damage dealt by enemies by 10% and increases the damage you deal to them by 10% when the enemy is marked by bane. You can stack bane on a target up to 3 times and putting it on a target again refreshes all stacks. Alternatively, you can use it on multiple targets. Alternatively, you can use it on an ally to make them take 10% less damage and deal 10% more damage. At the end of the day though, this tool, whilst good, pales in comparison to some of the other tools a heal OP has and so therefore, does not earn a spot on the toolbar.
Templar's Wrath: 4/10
Well....It does something, unlike Sacred Weapon. The temp HP it gives though is so small it might as well not exist, about 10k temp HP and the damage and stun pales in comparison to Burning light. Therefore, this power is not worth using and is ranked poorly in the heal OP arsenal.
Bond of Virtue: 10/10
So long as you are in a party, this never leaves your bar. What it does is it essentially links the HP pools and heals of everyone in the party. When 1 person gets healed, everyone gets healed, making this outright what I term to be the tyrannical threat of healing. If this was a daily power, it would still be an auto include, making this, in my opinion, the strongest supporting encounter power in the entire game.
Cleansing touch: 7/10
Another situational encounter power. It heals a targeted ally and removes CC effects from them and when you use it untargeted, it removes CC effects and heals you. It is important to note that you can activate this whilst you yourself are CC'd, the only exception being prones, making this a power I assume is worth using in pvp, but one that is inferior to others in pve.
Banishment: 3/10
This power essentially time stops a group of enemies for a period of 20 seconds, making them invulnerable to damage whilst CC'd. It is situationally useful and has the potential to be good, however, due to it relying on heavy party co-ordination and teamwork, I do not see this being used unless you and everyone in your group do dungeons regularly and have each other on teamspeak. Furthermore, as it resets the monsters, it essentially gives them an additional chance to hit, making it a potential party killer encounter power. All in all, I advise not using this, even though the dr it gives to the party can be useful.
Divine Touch: 6/10
The damage is ok, the healing is unnecessary. Due to this, it is like an inferior smite and I would not suggest using it. It is a solid encounter power, but there are much stronger alternatives. You may consider using this when playing alone.
Vow of enmity: 10/10
Like bond of virtue, this power is ridiculous in a group environment. Firstly, it is important to note it is unique in that it has no CD but instead functions like a warlocks curse mechanic, only it is limited to 1 target. Once it is put on a target, any damage dealt to that target is converted to healing. Take note, I do not know how much of that damage is converted to healing, due to the absurd amount of heals the class has, it is nigh on impossible to work this fact out. This synergises extremely well with bond of virtue and like bond of virtue, in a party environment it is an auto include on your toolbar. If bond of virtue is the tool that spreads the healing like tyrannical threat, then vow of enmity is like the mark that determines where it starts. I would outright call it a mistake for a heal OP to not be using this on their toolbar in every single bit of group content.
Absolution: 3/10
The shield blocks almost no damage and the bonus healing is irrelevant. This power is not worth a slot.
Relentless Avenger: 8/10
In all non group content, you will want this on your bar, it deals decent damage and it refills a massive amount of AP. In all boss fights in group content, you should use this instead of Burning light. The downside of this encounter power is the fact that it knockbacks enemies, the upside is that it regenerates 1 third to 1 half of your AP per use. This power allows you to permanently keep up your daily power, if it weren't for the repel effect, it would be a 9-10/10.
Circle of Power: 3/10
The benefit from this encounter power only effects you. So basically, it is of no use to a party at all and therefore for a support class, is useless. This is not worth a slot.
Unfortunately, the Heal OP has some truly abysmal daily powers. For group content, there is only 1 viable daily power and for solo content, it doesn't look much better.
Divine Judgement: 5/10
It does ok damage, however, as a daily power it is only useful when playing alone. In a party, there is no reason to use this. This works as it states on the tooltip.
Heroism: 5/10
It keeps you alive and near the front of combat. It gives you your health in temp HP, 15% more dr and CC immunity upon activation. It is a good tool for survival and probably about as good as divine judgement for solo play. It is no shield of faith though.
Lay on hands: 2/10 (0/10 when prism is fixed)
It is important to note that you can just spam use this to keep up prism. As it only consumes fractional AP, it is easy to use this to spam prism faster then with any other daily power. The healing provided by the daily power itself though, is largely irrelevant. It is worse then cleanse, which is an encounter power and it is worse then lay on hands, which is an at will. Don't use this, its rubbish.
Shield of Opness....errr Faith: 10/10
The mechanics of this party wide CW shield that never pops is quite complex. Firstly, it creates an additional layer of dr over some allies in the area (not sure how large the area is, it seems massive though, it might actually cover the entire instance, also, not sure how many, but it is not everyone as in tiamat, it will shield a large number of players but it always seems to shield the caster last, so as it exceeds its target cap, I do not get shielded) that blocks 50% of incoming damage. This is unmitigatable dr (arp has no effect on it) and it does reduce piercing damage. Secondly, because its an additional dr layer, it can reduce damage beyond the dr cap. So if a tank natively has 80% dr and is capped, then shield of faith is applied, they will then take only 10% of incoming damage and block 90%, because shield of faith is blocking 50% of that remaining 20%. Secondly, shield of faith stacks with itself, so if you have 5 paladins in a group all using shield of faith, the party will be taking 1/32 of the damage that is incoming without even having any dr whatsoever. Due to these mechanics, there is not a single method of reducing damage that is more effective then this. In Tiamat, if there were theoretically 25 devotion OP's using this, they would take 1/33554432 of the incoming damage....essentially just round down to 0. Of coarse, they wouldn't kill the dragon, but that is besides the point. This daily power by itself allows me to swim in the lava in the lostmauth fight without dying. Ask those who have done dungeons with me, they know
Healing Font: 3/10
This puts a fountain on the ground that heals allies who are standing near it. Its another one of the many healing mechanics the class has, but doesn't actually need. Once again, bond of virtue and vow of enmity heal so much, that things like this become worthless.
3.2: Taskbar
I would suggest for both solo play and Aura of Courage and Aura of Wisdom. For Both I would suggest keeping shield of faith and divine judgement in the bar for dailies as well. Finally, for solo play I recommend burning light, Relentless Avenger and Vow of enmity Whilst for dungeons I suggest Relentless Avenger/Burning light, Vow of enmity and Bond of virtue. For At Wills I recommend Oath Strike and Radiant Strike.
These are the boon choices I recommend, the only ones I will give feedback on are the final boon choices, as the rest are mainly stat choices which I will discuss further on in the guide. I would recommend finishing dread ring though first, it will be the campaign that has the biggest impact on your performance.
4.1: Sharandar
Dark Fey Hunter
Fey Precision
Elven Haste
Elven Ferocity
Elven Resolve:
4.2: Dread Ring:
Reliquary Keeper's Strength
Illusory Regeneration (I always thought regen in this game was an illusion myself)
Forbidden Piercing
Shadowtouch
Burning guidance:
4.3: Icewindale
Encroaching Tactics
Refreshing Chill
Sleet Skills
Cool Resolve
Avalanche:
4.4: Tyranny of dragons/Rise of tiamat
Dragon's Claws
Dragon's Gaze
Draconic Armorbreaker
Dragon's Blood
Dragon's Fury (maxed)
This is the section in which I provide a build for a Justice Specced OP. Bear in mind, my OP is specced Justice, However I did try out light as well. I strongly recommend Justice over light, it is more interactive, more fun and more importantly, I feel that because it does more then just heal, it is the stronger path over all.
Divine Call (Justice):
Because of Vengeful Judge, Justice has the option of using Divine Call in a manner the other 2 paths don't necessarily have and using it to reset the cool downs on your encounters. After using your encounters, you can then use divine call to take them off cool down and use them again, if you are using relentless avenger this is good for building AP and if you are using burning light it is good for dishing out damage via the procs burning guidance from the vow procs plus the heal. This is an option not available to the other 2 paths.
Feats list:
If NWcalc's link doesn't work for you:
http://postimg.org/image/kl8k0i29d/
for Humans:
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/op?b=2zw4:z8d8kb:dfpp:5ud3y,1x6335i:1uu550v:1000000:1uu5000&h=1&p=ood
If NWcalc's link doesn't work for you:
http://postimg.org/image/zfsk0xmgh/
Analysis of Choices:
I will not go into too much depth here, but rather outline some key features.
Toughness VS Steadfast:
You will notice for humans I did not take the extra 9% HP Provided by toughness, but rather only invested 1 point for an additional 3%. This was because for humans I did not need to invest those points there and I could get away with allocating them to the more efficient points in steadfast. With 2 points of steadfast and 20 con, you gaining an additional 10% HP, as opposed to 9% in toughness, making it a more efficient choice. Other races do not have this luxury.
Light's Shield:
It is important to note that this can be directly compared to stats. 2.5% DR is worth 1k defense, unlike the other available choices, 1k defense is something easy to stack, making it the least desirable choice as it can be made up somewhere else.
Dominating Presence:
I don't feel this does enough to justify using. If you stand up front and participate in combat, all allies will be surrounded by your auras anyhow, making this a poor choice.
Prism:
This is one of the selling features of Justice. When you activate a daily power, prism activates, which causes all allies (people other then yourself this time, got to love consistency) to be healed within a 20 second time period whenever you are healed. It has no ICD, no target cap and I suspect it is instance wide or at least has a massive area. Take note, that every single time bond of virtue or vow of enmity attempts to heal you either directly or indirectly, it will then shove these heals onto everyone else, which will subsequently get shoved back onto you by bond. All these heals have a chance to proc burning guidance, which then damages your avowed target, which then procs vow again, creating a giant loop.
If I find I Bulwork specced heal OP who knows what they are doing, I will include their spec here, suffice to say, I will not be exploring this option myself.
This is the section where I am providing a build for a light specced heal OP. I will outline some of the choices, however, bear in mind that I did test out light for quite a while, I am currently specced Justice as I feel it is the stronger path. For the sake of a more complete guide and those who want to bask in the light, I have provided this section for you.
Feats list:
If NWcalc's link doesn't work for you:
http://postimg.org/image/6nlshgesx/
for Humans:
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/op?b=2xhb:z8d8kb:dkjb:5ud3y,1x6332i:1uu5000:1000000:1uu5uu1&h=0&p=ood
If NWcalc's link doesn't work for you:
http://postimg.org/image/8gop5rzzl/
Analysis of Choices:
I will not go into too much depth here, but rather outline some key features.
Toughness VS Steadfast:
You will notice for humans I did not take the extra 9% HP Provided by toughness, but rather only invested 1 point for an additional 3%. This was because for humans I did not need to invest those points there and I could get away with allocating them to the more efficient points in steadfast. With 2 points of steadfast and 20 con, you gaining an additional 10% HP, as opposed to 9% in toughness, making it a more efficient choice. Other races do not have this luxury.
Light's Shield:
It is important to note that this can be directly compared to stats. 2.5% DR is worth 1k defense, unlike the other available choices, 1k defense is something easy to stack, making it the least desirable choice as it can be made up somewhere else.
Dominating Presence:
I don't feel this does enough to justify using. If you stand up front and participate in combat, all allies will be surrounded by your auras anyhow, making this a poor choice.
No T5 feats:
I feel that both Deific intervention and Holy bonds do not do enough to justify using. The problem with Deific intervention is it relies on you dying to actually become useful. In other words, to be quite frank, its a dead feat. To add insult to injury, its a dead feat that has a CD, because quite obviously we are going to abuse this feat by dying often enough to make proccing it worthwhile... In the case of Holy bonds, I do not feel the extra recovery is worth wasting 5 points on, in comparison to the extra healing you could get.
Here I will outline some gear choices. This is the part of the guide that will be the most vague, as there is no ideal set of gear choices with no set bonuses, only ideal stat lines. Due to this, I will outline only essential pieces of gear and some gear recommendation, then focus mainly on the stat line. I do feel though, that heal OP is the class which is the most budget in the game, at this moment in time. For new players, I will strongly recommend this class, as well as provide some advice for gearing up this character on a tight budget.
8.1: Stat line:
Ideally, the stat line you want till have 6k arp, 6-8k recovery, 6-10k crit and the rest in power. For defensive slots, just stack HP, with the dr from shield of faith and your gear, dr will be no issue. The reason you should stack arp so high is firstly to be able to actually deal some damage to things on your own and secondly because for some reason arp has some bearing on the effectiveness of heals. (I have never understood the devs reasoning for this) The reason you need some crit is so that you will get critical heals which are more effective then regular heals, determined by critical severity. Recovery is important so you can keep up your daily powers and power is just a sink that is always effective.
8.2: Recommended enchantments:
Upon further testing I have discovered that feytouched is BiS for devotion paladin and strongly recommend getting a hold of one. It is one of the very few things that actually scales up BG's damage, thereby making it a huge boost. It isn't noticeable at lesser, but at normal or higher it becomes immediately evident. This item is a must get. For defense, either a negation or a soulforged enchantment.
8.3: Artifact gear:
This is the only set in stone part of the gearing section. You will want the mainhand and offhand artifact weapon, which is awarded for reaching level 70 and completing the quests in spinward rise. For the cloak I recommend Lostmauth's cloak, for both the AP gain and the good stat line. For the belt, I recommend the Con/Cha belt, depending on how tanky you want your character to be, but rather Cha then Con. Finally, for your bottom row of artifacts I suggest the devoted sigil, the OP sigil, the lantern of revelation and the wheel of elements (primary artifact).
8.4: Companions:
All DoT companions are useless. I tried them out and none of them proc off of burning guidance or anything else, so any companion that deals damage whenever you do, can be discounted. Those include the whererat thief and scorpion, for those wondering what constitutes a DoT companion.
I recommend Companions that buff critical severity and for an active companion, I recommend an augment for most players, but an active companion that can activate companions gift on bonding runestones for those players who can afford it.
8.5: Artifact MH+OH Bonus
For the main hand artifact bonus, I recommend Oath Strike or Valorous Strike (Depending on whether you prefer oath strike or valorous, I prefer using oath to valorous, Isaac prefers the reverse, its a matter of taste) and for the Offhand I recommend the Aura of Wisdom Bonus.
New Players, rejoice, this is the class for you. Due to the unbalanced and overpowered nature of the heal paladin, this class is ideal for new players or budget players, as expensive gear is largely irrelevant and the only thing that really matters is an ok stat line and the ability to play the class. Furthermore, as it is a support class, not a dps class, players will be less inclined to kick you from a group on the basis of being undergeared, because it will waste their time trying to find someone better geared then you who is a support. I recommend running skirmishes as a new player and saving up AD, in order to buy Draconic Rank 7 enchantments for both offensive and defensive slots. The reason I recommend them for new players is because they are super cheap and because you will not be capped on any stats, these will help you in all areas regardless. Furthermore, because of their price, they are super effective for getting your character a high enough item level to actually get into tier 1 and tier 2 dungeons. I also recommend finding a good guild and joining the legit channel:
Section expanded on
Here is an example of some budget gear you can run t2's with, you can see it in action in this vid here:
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.
10.2: Devoted Cleric (Righteous):
The righteous clerics buffs and debuffs also empower the damage dealt by burning guidance. As counter intuitive as it seems, running more then 1 healer in the group can actually speed up the clear speed. I have done some burning fast clear throughs of t2's with a cleric, devotion OP, tank and 2 dps.
10.3: Control Wizard (Master of Flame):
Once again, the smolder mechanic, as well as ray of enfeeblement for bosses can push up burning guidance's damage to over 11k/tick, making it go from merely hard hitting to ridiculously hard hitting. The synergies here are mainly in the form of debuffs.
10.4: Devotion OP
How could devotion OP NOT make this list. Stacking them makes shield of faith stack, for massive reductions in damage. All the extra heals due to overlapping bonds of virtue and stacked vows of enmity cause burning guidance to go absolutely berserk and time itself melts and gives in due to the sheer pally power.
11: Bugged Mechanics:
Aura of Life ignores soulforged and adds resurrection sickness, making it useless as it can actually kill the party.
Sometimes the paladins sanctuary does not feature correctly and acts like the GF block, only it provides no dr, unlike the GF's block and no healing, like the pallies block should. Furthermore, sometimes monsters seem to straight up ignore the fact that you are blocking and do ridiculous amounts of damage that blocking should have mitigated. This is often termed the "shield bug".
Aura of Vengeance procs echoing light, allowing for rapid reduction of cooldowns.
I will add to this list later, but expect many more mechanics.
In conclusion, I think that the devotion OP is as strong as the Protection OP, but in a different way. The devotion OP is, in this game, what you would term almost a pure healer. It far exceeds the Clerics ability to heal and in a weak group, it will probably be valued more then a cleric, however, the cleric is a much better character in the areas of buffing allies and debuffing enemies. Due to this, I feel that a strong party will definitely value a cleric more then a devotion OP, however the game still has room for the devotion OP and what they have to offer. At the moment, due to certain mechanics, I feel the devotion OP is actually OP and is unbalanced and that the class will need re-balancing, however, I hope this guide will provide any enterprising heal OP with the tools they need to get started.
Implemented links in the ToC, as per advice given by @scathias here: Advice given Thanks
Truly excellent guide, the synergy between Healer and Tank is so important with mod6 and it's great to have a guide for a healing pally available to expand on what we pally's have been doing when it comes to research. I know that the time I've spent with DC's in guild on balancing what best helps the group when it comes to tanks and healers has been very time consuming.
I will be recommending to all our healing pally's to look over your guide and see what they can incorporate into their existing builds to be better players.
Sincerely,
Teal'c
--Win or Lose we Booze--
1% of 100k is 1k, not 10k.
Thanks for picking that up, I must have been mad when I wrote it down
AFAIK thougness affects HP from gear and enchants while the CON bonus does not. Therefore I feel that toughness is actually the better choice.
The links point to unfinished nwcalc pages. There are only a few powers and feats taken.
I have just fixed the links, the reason they were broken appears to be because I was moving points around at the base of the skill tree using the 3 human points to do so. Whilst I was not actually allocating points in an impossible way, it seems if you try to do that, nwcalc breaks the links.
My Preview Character was sitting at 36% Damage Resistance, which directly translates to a monster effectiveness of 64%. When I feated Light's Shield, mob effectiveness dropped to 61.5%, meaning it adds a flat 2.5% DR on top of your normal DR. The DR from Light's Shield will not show up on your character sheet, though, but I can say without a doubt that it works.
Whether or not it's actually worth feating is a matter of debate. I personally took 5/5 there, because I'm not a fan of the other choices that were left to me. Impassioned Pleas isn't worth it to me, considering Bond of Virtue procs Vengeful Judge like a mad man. Most of my damage comes from other sources than at-wills, so I passed on Wrathful, too. Echoes of Light and Divine Call takes care of encounter cooldowns. The other ones are just poopoo. I could've taken Weapon Mastery, but considering I slot Radiants for Defense, and Offensive slots can slot one or two Azures for added crit, I considered extra DR to be of greater value.
First question I have is: My friend who I play with is just hitting level 70 so we can play together. He is a protection paladin so we will be able to double up on auras. With his build his max HP blows mine away so Aura of courage will definitely be taken by him. What would you suggest I should take besides Aura of Wisdom. Along with that I will not be taking Relentless Avenger when playing with him because the knockback will cause problems for him and annoy him, what do you suggest taking? With just the two of us Bond of Virtue seems like it would not be that great due to the lack of extra people. Any Suggestions?
Second question is: What do you suggest being the first abilities for upping to rank 4? I have three points post seventy so far and chose Aura of WIsdom, Shield of Faith and I think oath strike was the last point. I am happy with these but not sure where I should place my points next.
Thank you again for this great guide. This has reinvigorated my love of the class and desire to play a lot more. I cant wait to get my last dread ring boon! Keep up the great work!
Edit: Two more question, what enchants do you use in your utility slots?
And when using Burning Light do you charge it all the way full each time or vary it?
I would recommend running aura of vengeance when running with him, in conjunction with aura of wisdom. The reason for this is because the part will be taking much less damage with him tanking, making many of the other auras less effective. Whilst it doesn't do much, it still does something, making it the best of a bad set of alternatives in this situation.
I would recommend still using bond of virtue, its power scales with the number of people making it hugely effective, even with just 2 of you, it effectively doubles your healing, making it a potent tool. Out of the abilities listed, I would take the abilities I ranked the highest to rank 4 first, with bond of virtue being the very first to get the upgrade.
For utility slots I use dark enchantments, although dragon hoards are also good. Dark enchantments give the benefit of movement speed, which is the best stat in most cases. Another good enchantment to run, whilst counter intuitive, is azure enchantments. These are worth running if you have just hit 70 in order to keep gaining overflow experience rapidly, that way, you can upgrade skills to rank 4 as quickly as possible.
Finally, Burning light depends on the situation. If I feel I am in a non threatening situation where I can afford to get the maximum benefit, then I fully charge burning light. If I expect I will need to use sanctuary or divine call, I will cast it quickly or interrupt it part way. That is also true if I am using aura of vengeance and it is proccing frequently, as it can activate echoing light and allow me to spam it like an at will.
I hope that helps.
Thank you!
Great guide regardless.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I think they "fixed" Slashers Mark. So in that case, does any of the feats/powers you suggest change?
I will test this out, once confirmed I will update my guide accordingly.