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smulch
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 625 Arc User
This is the spreadsheet I've been working on to min-max gear. Figured I might as well share it.
https://1drv.ms/x/s!AtSv9IijSGVIgQDdzpjiAZFtxOYl
Enjoy the hard work I did to min max
Feel free to ask any question
https://1drv.ms/x/s!AtSv9IijSGVIgQDdzpjiAZFtxOYl
Enjoy the hard work I did to min max
Feel free to ask any question
1
Comments
Aura of Courage boost your damage. Therefore you need Radiants, Demonics or Draconic for your defensive slots for additional damage from AoC. Also, artifacts that boost HP are also good: Eye of the Giant, Horn of Vahalla, and GWF Sigil, etc...
Now onto the main artifact, go for the Decanter for adds and soul sight crystal for bosses. If you are lazy, pick one of these two as your main for stat purposes. For me I'm using the Decanter as I needed a bit more Armor Pen for Resistance Ignore.
Primal Gloves vs. Terror Gripes/Jaw Rippers - you are missing out on bonus damage from the Terror/Jaw gloves by using the primal gloves for additional power. Your power should be coming from bonding and from the OP and DC, not yourself. Getting % bonus damage is always better than additional stats.
Another piece of gear to consider is the Ras head piece from the T3 hunt. This piece provides additional damage.
The feet, again bonus % damage is best way to go and the best one for a CW is the enduring boots.
Chest piece is the Ras for the bonus damage to range powers.
As for companion gear: Grave Striker +5 and +4 are the ones you want for added power. The neck a good one is the Bold for Crit and Armor Pen if needed otherwise go with the Fierce for the Crit and Power stats. I recommend full on Black Ice on the companion for maximum amount of power and recovery to the character through bonding.
Mount Insigna go with the new Insigna that provides power and recovery or go with Dominance, Skill, or Aggression based on the Primary and Secondary stats you are trying to build up.
I would than use Demoinc, Black Ice, Brutals, or Savage on my character based on needed stats.
You will end up with around 70K power, 30K crit and 12K Armor Pen and 12K+ recovery.
I do feel that many players focus on stats and feel that the gear and enchantments are BiS but when in reality BiS is situational in this game. For instance, the BiS chest piece in Ravenloft zone is the blue chest piece you get in the gear bundle as it provide 5% damage bonus in that zone and CR. If you go into FBI, the BiS gear is till the FBI gear for the bonus damage. I personally go for all around gear including my artifact as I am lazy and want simplicity on my characters as I do play 3 characters regularly.
My BiS gear is the Ras Hat, Hag Rags, Terror Grips (working on getting Jaw Rippers), and Enduring Boots. Artifacts are Decanter, GWF Sigil, Eye of the Giant, and Horn of Vahalla, Ring of Shadow Stalker +5 and +4, MC3 Waist and Neck and Primal pants and shirt. From there I use Insigina to flush out my Action Point gain and Combat Advantage stats to have those hit the 1200 stat. From there I get Dominance for added power and companion stat. Than I use all Black Ice on my companion with Grave Striker +5 and +4 and I use the Fierce neck. I use 4 Demonic on myself and the rest of the offensive enchantments are a split between Black Ice and Brutals.
Once I get the Jaw Rippers I will be adjusting my character again for the loss of Armor Pen but it will be a matter of swapping out 2 if not 3 of my black ice on my character for Demonics.
The thing is though, even with max stats a CW is still just 2nd fiddle to a well built SW, HR, TR or GWF. CW are IMO the 2nd rate buffer and 2nd rate dps. Any serious group that is not doing 10 man content will forgo a CW for a HR or SW as buffers and would go with SW, HR, TR and GWF as a dps.
My CW is my favorite character to play but I know that CW are where the SW was a year ago after STK/SOMI went live.
For the artifact, it's far better to use a heart of dragon and purposely miss than using either of those options unless the boss melt in seconds, in which case it is better to use the soul sight crystal. Soul sight crystal, however, is always best to use on Atropal due to the way the fight works. This is because you can get 25k recovery and action points permanently from artificers by missing on purpose with dragon heart artifacts.
Primal gloves gives 5% power which, for me is a little over 2500 power, which is also 250 recovery, in addition to the other stats. While the effect is worse than terror grips/jar rippers, I feel like the cumulative stats are enough to out weight the 3% damage on encounters.
The ras helm has been tested and is just terrible.
Not too sure why you are bringing them up since it's what I'm using. Same go for rings and the amulet.
I'm actually bored of my 17.8K CW and as of late and been playing a fresh OP.
I agree that the Ras Manca hat is bad; the proc is garbage.
As far as % damage increases go, there are some situations where flat stat bonuses may prove superior, but in a fully buffed situation it's difficult to compete with multiplicative damage bonuses. Also, increases to the Power stat make less and less of an effective difference in DPS the more ridiculous your buffed Power becomes; if one CW is at 205k Power and the other is at 200k Power, one would be challenged to detect a real difference in performance.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
In most dungeons, fighting mobs is somewhat trivial in the run. Will the 10% buff of the Decanter really make a noticeable difference on mobs that die in the blink of an eye?
I would argue that Black Dragon Heart is the superior choice on mobs, as it helps speed up the running sections of the dungeon: the real longest part of the dungeon.
Whether you find missing enemies to be practical or not will vary, though I found the best times to use the Dragon Heart were when mobs were re-spawning or after clearing a pack of mobs.
The thing with the bracers is that they are a percentage increase and not a fixed amount. As your own base power increase, their effectiveness also increases. If they worked after buffs, they would be very close to a 5% damage increase (the formula would be X/X+1 where X is your power %. Instead, the bonus is worth about 1,10% to 1,25% dps increase (You get around 1/4 of your power from your base power in high power share groups). Then there's the recovery portion, which is also worth a few points. Finally, there's the extra stats on the item itself that you'd be missing. All in all, if it's inferior, it is by an extremely small amount at BiS stats. Also keep in mind that not 100% of our damage comes from ranged or encounter powers, so that 3% increase isn't a direct 3% dps increase.
I can't check for the next few days but I routinely "snapshot" the movespeed buff after combat for 15sec. Companion's gift falls away faster than the movespeed. The way I usually check my buff strength is by seeing it reflected in the AP Gain number.
It's nice having all that extra recovery, but with Hastening Light, Aura of Wisdom, etc., etc., I don't really see the need to spam a Heart.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
That's without consumables
Edit, actually, I've seen up to 648k
I'll get around to trying it more on my CW if I can stop role-playing as The Flash long enough to change characters.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
You just blew my mind with that one. I had never tried looking up LMAO. That tip is so much appreciated. Thank you very much.
It only seems to work with the blue heart. It didn't work with black (which I was using before).
Thanks again!
Starting to think that could out weight the 3% damage boost at full stam.
I think I will try this on the next week. When you say doesn't work do you mean cast and teleport for cancel animation ?
if yes, Do you know if it works with the Red heart because it match the 1000 Power of DC sigil and Soul Sight Crystal,
to avoid rebalancing stats between AoE and Single Target loadout.
Thanks
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
12-15 minute t9 and 8-10 minute CoDG. Most of that time is spent on adds and not even bosses and most adds melt so fast that having an extra 10+ in a run is not really worth it IMO.
As for CR, yeah I get why the dragon artifact is used, but outside of that one piece of content I see no reason to use it and even than the benefit from my experience on my DC is minimal.
The best thing from the dragon artifacts is the movement bonus and being able to use it more often really has its benefits, especially when doing speed runs when you don't have a GF.
For Tong, it doesn't get much use outside of combat since the zone is huge but with few fights. It's really just a movement speed buff at that point.
Just came from a random HE in the Well of Dragons, where a GWF wiped the Nelfeshne boss, topping at of 1.5 million damage/sec. His ACT debuff effectiveness was only 175%, yet laying down 1.5 m IBS, Prominence at 1/4 million per hit, etc etc. We're not talking a pre-made buff here. These are the guys you compete against for that DPS spot in the runs that matter.
To a lesser extent it could have been an HR or TR.
So, it's great and all that you maximise cleverly what you have to work with, but, seriously, what's the point in getting a few more % damage out of a CW? You go from being 54% behind the pace to being 52% behind?
For me, all you prove with BIS maximization of class damage, is that picking CW as damage class is a very poor decision.
When I do run with GWF, most runs take longer for some reason. T9 typically without a GWF it is under 20 minutes. With a GWF in there we are talking around 22-25 minutes. CoDG - we go from under 10 minute run to around 15 minute runs.
This is all on my CW. GWF don't offer the group any real damage buff or produce enough single target damage to be as effective as a TR. SW provide the pillar for the other dps and that adds to the burn. GWF are inferior to even CW because what they do bring is self DPS nad lately it is not as effective as many of them believe.
The latest thing I hear now from GWF is they need to fix the SW. I also hear that the dev gave the TR to much of a damage boost. I also hear that the HR need to go back to being trapper. What I am hearing is GWF are not happy that they are no longer the top DPS class and are being left behind for HR, TR, SW and even GF. The reason this is starting to happen is that players are waking up and realizing that damage matters on bosses and not on trash mobs. With this change of attitude by the community the GWF is simply not a needed piece in the puzzle any more for completing content in a timely manner.
One group I run with even stated, we don't bring along GWF any more cause they are not as capable as other classes. Their limited in what they bring to the group and will only bring a GWF along if it is a friend or someone alts. Otherwise, they don't pick one up. I run with support players as that is what I play on my CW, OP and DC.
I do run with GWF it is this; they are good but in real end game content give me any other class over a GWF because the GWF is worst than the one trick pony GF. At least the GF buffs the other DPS damage by 30% with ITF.
So, you're talking about something else not actually relevant to the point being made.
I'll bet you that the best GWFs are outgunning the best of all other classes, in spite of what you said though - keeping to the point of BIS maximisation of class damage potential. If you're talking about the potential of a class, there's a big problem in judging the potential by what you're seeing in the player base. The biggest issue is that many GWFs are somewhat recent defections from other classes, looking to make it into the meta as DPS - and they're not particularly good at it. I'm sure that you can agree that there is a very wide range of skill/capability being demonstrated these days, playing GWF. You're addressing a post about BIS damage potential, and you can't color that with what the average mob of players is doing.
What I posted, were some results experienced and recorded of a GWF doing crazy single target damage, even without arranged pre-made buff support.
Don't under-estimate the still highly relevant role of the GWF in meta parties. These are structured to focus buffs on a primary DPS, and the GWF is amazing at (self) buffing that effort. If you wanted the a CW to play the DPS role, it's comparatively under-whelming. The CW buffs, essentially for itself, pale into insignificance compared to the GWF buffing itself.
So, I take your comments about the GWF, and how it just lately stacks against other DPS like TRs, HRs and SWs. I still say that, at BIS gear and skill potential the best GWFs are out-gunning the best of all others. Don't be fooled. We're at a lull between modules, and there are relatively few players playing the end-game content. The big boys were done with the content a while ago, and you're probably seeing recent over-representation in end-game with TRs and SWs flexing their "new muscles", and enjoying it.
This is The Library, though, and CWs aren't figuring in any of that. There's no DPS joy, and though we get a run as support, we're in the bottom half for buff/debuff capability as well. CWs are supposed to be versatile. We're supposed to be able to choose between being support (Oppressor), damage (Thaumaturge), or a blend (Renegade).
As far as being a competitive class choice is concerned to tough end-game content, we're rubbish at DPS and passable as a support when the activity has died down and few are actually running.
The clearly most interesting and rewarding game time is when new tough modules release. When that happens, just watch all the good GWFs pop their heads up, and the support meta flock to them as a safe, lower risk option - while they figure out how to optimise the new run.
They will be vocal in the forums and get the ear of the DEVs as disgruntled players, while we continue to be as insipid and accepting as we have been in this forum - and will continue to get the same level of care and attention as we've "enjoyed" the last 3 years.
This isn't at all my experience with a strong GWF, unless perhaps they are playing main DPS for a low-buff group. While CW can provide more damage bonuses to the party compared to GWF, this doesn't add up to much unless you're in the unusual situation of having multiple strong DPS (which, outside of Cradle with its 10-slot makeup, means lacking buffs). The sheer damage the GWF puts out should easily counter the added benefit the MoF brings, provided that the GWF is at least as strong as the MoF.
I used to be more in the camp of "CW is a great supporting DPS because of X, Y, and Z", but truly? SW does it better. While a proper DPS MoF will (or at least should) definitely exceed the single-target damage of a Templock, the Templock effortlessly fills the healer role (for any situation except one where enemies cannot be damaged) while improving party damage and providing a 20% movement speed buff to the entire party during fights and for 5 seconds after. Support SW is simply a more efficient choice for most content because of all of the benefits it brings.
Unfortunately, Cradle is currently the only place where I feel that a CW (MoF) truly has its own place. Again, CW is obviously capable of completing any content, but it's still Miss Congeniality at best in the DPS Pageant.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH