FF viability?

devlin · September 2016

Hi all,

It seems to me that FF is basically the poor man's BTS. I do like the visual feedback I get from FF more as it allows me to see who is getting hit with the buff, but other than that it seems to be inferior in every way.

Obviously, if their are two DC's in a group/raid/whatever, it is beneficial for 1 dc to use BTS and 1 DC to use FF, but when being the sole DC in a group (dungeon run or whatever), is there ever a reason to use FF over BTS? I guess I'm just wondering if there something I'm missing.

(PS. I made a previous thread regarding fire of the gods despite the answer being somewhat obvious. This one may be as well. But I'm a new player on PS4 and just a relative idiot in general, so I feel the need to ask these potentially dumb questions. Sorry in advance)

putzboy78 · September 2016

its good for pvp, since its targets and not aoe. Outside of that we use it as you describe. I have meet some DCs that use it as a dps power instead of DL since you can't miss with it; however, its far less potent.

ghoulz66 · September 2016

Because the power is faster, and the buff radius isn't picky like BTS, it's not bad for speed runs.

michela123 · September 2016

BtS and FF have the same buff radius.

dfnce · September 2016

I use some form of AC righteous+3 faithful in solo to get fastest recharge of divinity, and playing with such build encourages to use fast, auto am abilities like FF.

Buff bot, super party usefulness - BtS wins.

jazzfong · September 2016

michela123 said:
BtS and FF have the same buff radius.

Edit: Michela is correct, Bts and FF apply buff area centred on caster and the aoe is same as HG.

michela123 · September 2016

jazzfong said:

michela123 said:
BtS and FF have the same buff radius.
You sure? Last time when i checked, FF is centred on you covering around 60' while Bts is around 40' of the projectile. I dont think they have the same buff radius.

Yes, the radius is 50' from the caster (same as Hallowed Ground).

rapo973 · September 2016

Here it's reported 80' for both. Not sure if this page is updated or not.

http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Devoted_Cleric

michela123 · September 2016

80' is the max distance from which you can cast BtS. If you stay too far, allies that are close to the mob aren't buffed. Anyway the area is pretty big, it's rare to miss someone.

silverkelt · September 2016

its useful when you have two dcs.. sorta, its more effecient if you have a righteous using empowered pod and a AC using empowered BTS, but if you have two AA, then one using bts, one using FF, that would work as well.

devlin · September 2016

silverkelt said:
its useful when you have two dcs.. sorta, its more effecient if you have a righteous using empowered pod and a AC using empowered BTS, but if you have two AA, then one using bts, one using FF, that would work as well.

Thanks all for your responses! Specifically to the above quote, I am typically in situations (generally in dragonflight and/or master demo) where I (DO basically a ghetto version of putz) and a fellow guildy (AC ghetto version of jarek) are there.

He is generally using BTS, with myself FF. I could perhaps see using POD when in dragonflight (one mob), but isnt POD less effective when there are numerous adds?

Perhaps the reasoning is that you dont really "need" that extra damage against the adds (as they die relatively fast anyway), but does POD make the one boss (in this case I guess demo) significantly faster/easier with POD than using FF? Is 12.5% damage resistance debuff (I think PoD is 12.5%?) to one mob better than a 15% damage buff toward all mobs?

silverkelt · September 2016

I was speaking about boss fights, in most typically runs im in, mob packs melt faster then I could keep up buffs, I try to hit HG on any large mob tops or large mob pack groups and AA on smaller ones, while spreading condemened as fast as possible.

FF is ok to use during mob packs, but if you have a higher geared group, you will maybe use it on every other or third mob pack anyways.

mamalion1234 · September 2016

i have other question with condemned gaze-doom-bear your sins debuff value is 100%. IS any other power i missing that adds more ?( do not post armor-artifacts-companions or a race i am asking something from the class.)

diogene0 · September 2016

FF has one use as a lonely cleric in a dungeon, it has the fastest cast animation of all DC spells in divine mode. So if you're looking at a one rotation kill, use it instead of chains to cast bts sooner, and unlike bts, it's trivial to target with it.

When I started using bts, I had issues to target with it, and sometimes i casted it on a far, far away mob instead of the one i wanted, which made it look "bugged" from my perspective. While this is funny, this does make it a difficult spell to use as it takes a bit of practice. FF does not.

michela123 · September 2016

mamalion1234 said:
i have other question with condemned gaze-doom-bear your sins debuff value is 100%. IS any other power i missing that adds more ?( do not post armor-artifacts-companions or a race i am asking something from the class.)

That was probably Condemning Gaze. It tends to multi-stack when you hit mobs with AoE skills.

silverkelt · September 2016

Actually you can do the same condemned stacking with DG, both are inconsistent processes to achieve, Ive hit as many as 6 extras on a mob pack and zero extra's on the same mob pack on another run.

If you practice on dummies, they appear to his this almost every time, so its a odd, I would say you can apply extra condemned stacks, about 25-30% of the time give or take in regular runs. The # will always be inconsistent, whatever is making this happen, isnt easy to test and bug report. But since its so inconsistent, its hard to call it game breaking, sometimes you will see a massive dps gain, other times very little.

michela123 · September 2016

The bug occurs when you apply the last stacks with an AoE skill and:
n° of mobs hit > n° of stacks remaining to proc the debuff
(i.e. mobs have 4 stacks and you hit 2 mobs with DG)

When it happens, the debuff is spread among the pack: each mob can have 0-15-30-45-60-75% effectiveness.

devlin · September 2016

Thanks for all the responses.

Going back to the PoD vs FF discussion. Would the best rotation (assuming you are a DODC and had an ACDC partner running DG + BTS) be normal PoD + divine whatever (maybe dDG in case the AC misses/messes his rotation) + an empowered FF for maximum DPS?

Follow up question to if you dont mind. When running in a group as the sole DC in group, which of the following rotation would you consider to be better DPS increase for the group (including my own dps as a DODC crit build)?

Option 1
HG - normal PoD - dChains x 3 - empowered BTS

Option 2
HG - normal DG - dDG x 1 - dChains x 2 - empowered BTS

Option 3
HG - normal PoD - normal DG - dDG x 3 - empowered BTS

Option 4
Something else entirely.

bvira · September 2016

devlin#3775 said:

Option 1
HG - normal PoD - dChains x 3 - empowered BTS

Option 2
HG - normal DG - dDG x 1 - dChains x 2 - empowered BTS

Option 3
HG - normal PoD - normal DG - dDG x 3 - empowered BTS

Option 4
Something else entirely.

For trash: Option 2
For boss: HG-DG-PoD-dBtSx2+dDGx1-empowered BtS (dBtSx2+dDGx1 is faster than dDGx3)

diogene0 · September 2016

devlin#3775 said:
Thanks for all the responses.

Going back to the PoD vs FF discussion. Would the best rotation (assuming you are a DODC and had an ACDC partner running DG + BTS) be normal PoD + divine whatever (maybe dDG in case the AC misses/messes his rotation) + an empowered FF for maximum DPS?

Follow up question to if you dont mind. When running in a group as the sole DC in group, which of the following rotation would you consider to be better DPS increase for the group (including my own dps as a DODC crit build)?

Option 1
HG - normal PoD - dChains x 3 - empowered BTS

Option 2
HG - normal DG - dDG x 1 - dChains x 2 - empowered BTS

Option 3
HG - normal PoD - normal DG - dDG x 3 - empowered BTS

Option 4
Something else entirely.

I don't recommend using divine mode divine glow at all unless your party needs emergency heals. The casting animation is way too long and you're wasting about a second casting it and thus, significantly dropping your uptime on buffs that matter like break the spirit. The real buff value of BTS isn't a straight 40%, it's rather 1,4*uptime. So keep that in mind when you're doing your rotation. PoD is also too slow to be worth starting with it and it requires the kill to happen in 15-20s otherwise you're better off using divine chains to charge HG faster.

So the rotation I'm recommending is, for trash fights:
All this is assuming you're in a buff party with good players that do significant damage.

Small encounters:
divine chains x2, empowered break the spirit, brand of the sun, sacred flame until stuff is dead.

Medium encounters:
divine chains x3, empowered break the spirit, at wills.

Large encounters/boss fights with adds:
HG, divine chains x3, empowered break the spirit, at wills.

Single target boss fights lasting less than 20s:
HG, divine BTS x3, empowered BTS, PoD, normal divine glow.

Of course for large encounters with several waves/spawns you should probably switch to a smaller encounter model as the encounter progresses depending on how many npcs are still alive or still have yet to spawn.

bvira · September 2016

diogene0 said:
I don't recommend using divine mode divine glow at all unless your party needs emergency heals. The casting animation is way

2xdChain + 1xdDG has the same speed (or no noticeable difference) as 3xdChain but dDG gives players 12.5% dmg buff.

Btw fully empowered BtS is a 30% dmg buff not 40%.

diogene0 · September 2016

bvira said:

diogene0 said:
I don't recommend using divine mode divine glow at all unless your party needs emergency heals. The casting animation is way
2xdChain + 1xdDG has the same speed (or no noticeable difference) as 3xdChain but dDG gives players 12.5% dmg buff.

I suggest you double check: there is an uncancellable animation lock on DG, and it's much longer than chains.

bvira · September 2016

diogene0 said:

I suggest you double check: there is an uncancellable animation lock on DG, and it's much longer than chains.

That only applies to the normal version or if you're using more than one dDG consecutively.
Try dDG -> BtS vs dChain -> BtS they really are about the same speed.

mrtehpuppy · September 2016

diogene0 said:
I don't recommend using divine mode divine glow at all unless your party needs emergency heals. The casting animation is way too long and you're wasting about a second casting it and thus, significantly dropping your uptime on buffs that matter like break the spirit.

I am going to have to disagree with you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhp3b0H2lQk

This video here will illustrate the timing cost of using one divine mode Divine Glow and 2 divine mode chains compared against 3 chains and for the sake of thoroughness, 3 divine mode divine glows.

The "second" you stated it costs to cast a dDG in reality is 0.12 second. Considering the benefit of using an extra 12 hundredths of a secondto grant the affected ally(s) with a damage boost of 12.5% and combined with the fact that eBtS has an uptime of 8 seconds and that a full divinity charge from at-wills plus the proposed encounter rotation of 2xdCoBL, 1xdDG, 1xeBtS equals a complete rotation time of 6 seconds... I'd say it's more than worthwhile to cast divine mode Divine Glow

jazzfong · September 2016

Nice work, i always use D.DG and 2x Chains as a DO, but as an AC if your AA is really strong, just use 3x chains to maintain ur AA uptime and dont care abt D.DG.

putzboy78 · September 2016

for me it really depends, yeah i use chains on trash, but mostly DG on bosses since chains isn't even slotted

lerapiso818 · September 2016

Yeah depend on boss :
no adds = pod
adds = chains

Anyway, I always use one dDG in my rotation

mrtehpuppy · September 2016

jazzfong said:
but as an AC if your AA is really strong, just use 3x chains to maintain ur AA uptime and dont care abt D.DG.

See I still don't know about that. I mean I can't speak factually for having a strong AA 100% up is more efficient or not because as much as I personally am built to have a heavy hitting AA, I'm not a "perma-AA" build having mostly ignored Recovery (5k) in favor of 60% RI and additional crit (plus I'm on console and we still have the very clearly broken Power sharing) and as such, my AP gain per cast is (i'm assuming) rather low compared to those of you guys here built for the task of perma-AA. I haven't sat down to see exactly how quickly I can go from empty AP bar to full with my current setup. I probably should do that... could be interesting to see the results. But I'd need someone's help who had both a higher Recovery (10k-15k+) than I, and the ability to (and willingness to) record a clip of them going from AA cast to rotation to AA cast (and without DC sigil as that would muddy the outcome unnecessarily).

ANYWAY, now that this thread has gone WAY off topic lol. I'll try to bring it back in by saying, FF can also be viable IF you are an AC who isn't worried about AA uptime, and who IS interested in stacking empowered casts. Also for solo play if you're seeking higher DPS for solo play like if you're attempting to solo a dungeon maybe. But otherwise I'd agree with the overall sentiment here and say yes, it's fairly useless.

(sidebar, thanks for not picking on the video guys lol. I threw it together in an effort to be quick and accurate but as I was only trying to prove a point and not advertise anything, I didn't put much/any effort into the visual quality...)

jazzfong · September 2016

U dont need high recovery to have perma AA nor mythic dc sigil nor AP weapon, u just need to have a gorgon, embellished appa or even better, a snail to maintain 100% AA uptime by spamming chains and having an efficient divinity recharge loadout.

As a sidenote, no one will use FF in pve unless there is another dc using Bts. Imo not worth at all since FF has higher cd and lower buff value. Dont forget bts also lower ur threat and halve target dmg. FF only have a slight advantage in casting speed which is nothing for me.

ijonum · September 2016

BTW, with HG on the ground the Chains do not regenerate AP. Is it so with AA as well?

rapo973 · September 2016

No,it isn't.

FF viability?

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