A Mod 16 Primer

obsidiancran3 · April 2019

Sorry it’s on Google Docs, but I’ve been busy the last few days.

This isn’t a “final build guide”, it’s intended as information to get you started on Mod 16.

I’d love input from those who specialised in Oathkeepeer on Preview!

TL:DR
Int & Con 20, Cha as much as you can get.

Key stats: ArP, Crit Strike, Accuracy, Defence. High Combat Advantage is good.

Key stats should be 72k at 80 and 57k for level 70.

For scaled content the following are not scaled: Boons, Artifacts, Weapon Damage, Equip Powers (gear, companions, mounts)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DQbQUJhRSBxc5N-a3LxQLpdruD69mRbzcSSvdWGL79k

infoxycation · April 2019

Thanks for the guide! Being relatively new player I am very much overwhelmed by the Mod 16, I want to give the Oathkeeper a try but can't decide whether I need to put points into WIS or not, same about Key stats and all. Any help would be appreciated!

majorcharvenak · April 2019

Alright @obsidiancran3. You got me hooked. Much of it looks like a pretty solid work in progress so I'll give you my thoughts on the Oathkeeper side and would welcome feedback from my fellow healing pallies with any ideas, thoughts, suggestions and experiences they've had with the class. The key thing I noticed and something to remember is that we BLEED divinity. By that I mean many of our best damaging and healing encounters (even at-will with Cure) comes with a cost, so my approach was to keep the cost to a minimum for a bit more flexibility. This worked for me though YMMV (Note, I tend to run with a legend augment though I switch to an active comp if needed):

Feats:

Spirit of Austerity - Never thought I'd say this, but SoA is probably the way to go for the heal side in some group content and actually works fine for solo play. The ~60% Divinity cost savings on make up for the 50% reduction in its damage imho. Putting Smite (I get around ~ 25K on a non-crit hit/80 divinity) on par with Divine Touch and Bane (100 Div) on par with Divine Shelter (120 Div) in terms of cost. I would recommend it over Enduring Spirit as it seemed I got the most benefit from ES it I popped SW while low on divinity and the Divinity Regeneration was about 36 points a sec. (Hard to gauge as the ticks aren't all that steady) I rarely go below 500 divinity (with SoA) in the solo content unless in places like Barovia where the scaling is wacky and some of the HEs are murderous. To all, ymmv as to whether you're comfortable with the reduced damage or if you want to kill stuff very quickly but have either little divinity or you like to standing in the Lion-o pose asking for the Sword of Omens to restore your divinity.

Critical Touch and Emissary of Warding - Very nice synergy between the two feats. Critical Touch procs often and if timed boosts the barrier provided by critical touch to almost half my HP total (248K HP). It allows good protection if need to channel divinity without interruption of blocking incoming hits. I'd recommend them for Oathkeepers for Solo and Group Content.

My Rotations for Solo:

At wills - Valorous Strike, Radiant Strike/Divine Fulmination (Nice opener and for ranged attacks, especially if you have a comp that can pull some aggro)
Encounters - Smite/Bane (Single target or AoE whichever you need), Divine Touch, Circle of Power/Banishment (Former when I wasn't running Spirit of Austerity, Latter when I picked up SoA)
Dailies - Radiant Charge/Divine Judgement (Trash/Bosses), Lay on Hands (gawd help me!)
Class features - Blessed Wander, Composure

My Rotations for Group:

At wills - Divine Fulmination (you can do damage at range while waiting for Critical touch to proc), Valorous Strike/Cure (for top offs if DT/DS doesn't heal them to full, CT isn't also slotted and you have a good tank)
Encounters - Divine Touch, Circle of Power, Bond of Virtue (Boss fights)/Cleansing Touch (Good for top-offs for only 30 divinity/~24K heal per pop and in heavy stun, paralyze, or poison environments)
Dailies - Sanctuary/Shield of Faith, Lay on Hands (I avoid the damaging dailies, except in skirmishes where I tend to go with my solo rotations)
Class Features - Pulse of Life/Aura of Vengeance, Composure (need all the divinity regen bonuses you can get)

As you can see I tend NOT to slot more than one cooldown related power at a time with either a 1 damage/1 heal or a 2 heal set up on my encounters, 1 damage daily either 1 or 2 healing dailies. Its a bit more conservative playstyle than the pre-mod 16 Burnadin/Flexadin playstyle I utilized but it allows me fairly steady progression from mob encounter to mob encounter and (I feel) keeps the divinity loss at a minimum. That's my two coppers. What's yours?

obsidiancran3 · April 2019

> @infoxycation#3896 said:
> Thanks for the guide! Being relatively new player I am very much overwhelmed by the Mod 16, I want to give the Oathkeeper a try but can't decide whether I need to put points into WIS or not, same about Key stats and all. Any help would be appreciated!

For my full heal spec I aimed for 20 Wis, but for general play, not needed beyond your base value.

infoxycation · April 2019

obsidiancran3 said:

For my full heal spec I aimed for 20 Wis, but for general play, not needed beyond your base value.

Thanks! For heal spec I tried to go 21 WIS, 20 INT, 20 CON and 26 CHA but couldn't overheal the attack of group of scarecrows in Barovia with healer companion also, though my stats seems okay for 12.7k ilv, it was weird, probably i don't understand something yet or just need to get used to the mechanics

mythrionn · April 2019

Thank you for the guides. I play paladin as healer and i am wondering if the investement in CHA is really worth it. I think WIS/INT could be better. IMO the outgoing healing and magical damage are more important thant CDR or companion influence. So 20 CON/INT and max WIS would not be better ? I will try it.

For the rotations i mostly agree withmajorchavernak but the last spell (for solo). Indeed i don't play with banishment/circle of power but burning light.

My feats are :

Edit in italic

infoxycation · April 2019

mythrionn said:
So 20 CON/INT and max WIS would not be better ? I will try it.

For the rotations i mostly agree with majorchavernak but the last spell. Indeed i don't play with banishment/circle of power but burning light.

Thanks, I will try with max WIS also, please, share your experience here

And I went with the same feats, let's see how it goes in dungeons.
P.S. The only problem is my starting scores, if to make CON 20, there will be almost nothing left for WIS
My original stats

obsidiancran3 · April 2019

In very simple terms: 4K Power = 4 points of Wisdom. Its very easy to get 4K of power.

On the other hand there are very limited ways of having an always on recharge speed effect. In effect there is no substitute for Cha's impact on Recharge.

Con 20 = 5% AP gain.
Int 20 = 5% Damage buff
Wis 20 = 5% Heal Buff
Cha 20 = 5% Recharge speed.

Because encounter powers give AP, more recharge speed also increases AP gain as well.

Right now the problem is less about healing and more about defense and buggy damage. Healing works, as long as people have reasonable defense and the monsters are not doing excessive damage for their location.

mythrionn · April 2019

I agree with you if you plays with 2 sacred weapon/burning/circle of power light. In that case you need some CDR. But if you play with 2 bane/smite/divine touch, you don't need recharge speed so you can take some damage or outpout healing.
Moreover, the CDR benefits are only for encounter spells which have CD (and undirectly daylies) meanwhile the INT/WIS bonus are for every spell.

majorcharvenak · April 2019

If you're worried about your final stats and point allocation, don't forget about and look for various belts, artifacts, and what not that increase your ability scores.

mythrionn said:
For the rotations i mostly agree withmajorchavernak but the last spell (for solo). Indeed i don't play with banishment/circle of power but burning light.

My feats are :

Edit in italic

Like with all game play as a healer @mythrionn , you do what you think is best that works for you as well as keeping your friends and fellow players up and running when you're grouped. The two I mentioned are options but not the only ones. I recommended banishment and circle of power for a couple of reasons.

Circle of power is for both the added divinity regen and extra outgoing healing bonus while in combat. It might not be completely practical for soloing depending on your situation such as if you're running with an augment. Before companions were "readjusted" on preview It was easier for any active companions to take aggro off you and CoP was easier to use in keeping them topped off. This style still works in a group provided you have a good tank. Pally healers need to squeeze out as much divine regen as we can get as it can be awfully tempting to spam divinity-costing encounters. There is also the issue of maximizing our outgoing healing as the strength of your barriers is tied to how much you heal. Since you're running with Spirit of Austerity, your divinity usage and rate is much more manageable that you probably wont need it (ever) except for dungeons if you need to boost your outgoing heals. Like I said before, as long as what you're doing works for you and your group, you're golden.

Now with banishment, I recommended that one for solo only playing around with it after it was introduced on preview and discovered they finally made it useful. If you remember or weren't here for the prior mods, Banishment was pretty much a waste of a slot. Trash mobs could be caught in it but nothing stronger AND they were immune to any damage. That's not the case with Mod 16 and can be helpful to a healer if they start to get swarmed with trash. It holds them for a few second, and allows for me to quickly reassess and fire off a self heal, or back off, or recharge divinity or mow them down with Radiant Charge or something other than stand there and block. There are multiple situations where I found it useful. It can also be useful in group content (depending on content and mobs) for crowd control and, dare I say, damage mitigation. Held mobs don't do damage. No mob damage is good and desired and means you don't necessarily need to burn divinity in that instance unless you're healing your team for any prior damage they took. Just something to think about.

All that said, the only things I'd recommend to my healing brethren in mod 16 are know your limits and be flexible in your solo play. Do what you need to stay out of the fire circle or burning through scrolls and health stones. Remember your role within parties - we aren't main tanks or damage dealers. Keep your ~~minions, flunkies, meat shields, hired goons,~~ (tongue in cheek) team mates alive to the end by whatever legit means achieve that goal. That's two more of my coppers.

infoxycation · April 2019

majorcharvenak said:

Now with banishment, ...

After testing it in random queues with random people I actually found this skill really useful for trash packs. It works very well when the mobs are grouped!

Also the game is starting to look like normal mmo finally, which was both surprising and pleasant for me. Tank should start the fight and generate so much threat as possible, because in case if DPS starts the fight it's harder to generate threat, so if healer starts to heal, the mobs attack the healer at once and then it turns into a total mess.
I really like this to be fair, finally the tanks and healers can feel themselves according to their roles. I wish only the other players would understand it faster :P

majorcharvenak · April 2019

Amen to that @infoxycation#3896 ! I was in a VT PuG yesterday and we got wrecked for this very reason. It started off rather well with the tank keeping and holding threat, DPS clustered around to mow the mobs down, me dropping DT for barriers and timed them for CT procs/EoW synergy and then things all went to pot when folks started to slip back into their old habits - Folks running ahead of the tank, aggroing the mobs, not avoiding the red, not having good target prioritization. It wasn't just the rest of the team, my positioning was off for Aura of Life support, I should have also slotted either Cleansing for top offs, banishment for mob control, and maybe Divine Shelter since I knew the guys were running all over the place and away from where the tank was which was my focus. Lessons learned all around. Its a new game it will take a little more time for everyone to get the hang of things again.

majorcharvenak · April 2019

Remember when I said to be flexible?

My Healer powers selection for grouped Master Expeditions -

At wills: Divine Fulmination/Valorous Strike (When mobs get too close)
Encounters: Circle of Power, Divine Touch, Cleansing Touch (good for the top offs and clearing the negative effects the traps bring)
Dailies: Shield of Faith, Lay on Hands

Discovered today (either its a bug or it maybe WAI, I'll need to check) that Sanctuary can be interrupted if you take damage. Found that out in WoD during a Demonic Heroic when the Nalfeshnee Boss hit us with his AoE. This stinks because it completely wastes the daily. Shield of Faith is a decent substitute if used while in Circle of Power for the DR buffs and the extra boosts to outgoing heals. Helped me keep the party pretty much topped off during my runs.

If you're running with a good tank but end up with a group of knuckleheads chasing Paingiver and/or running all over the map, swap Touch for Shelter. Its a higher cost for a slightly lesser heal but considering you don't have to aim it, it makes it worth considering.

mythrionn · April 2019

Hello guys,
I did my test too so i spend some points in INT and WIS. I am not at home but my stats are like

STR 11/11
DEX 12/12
CON 17/14
INT 20/17
WIS 21/22
CHA 22/27

I think this is pretty balanced, i didnt feel great difference between the two config so i stay with my mixed configuration.

During dungeons

AT WILL : Divine Fulmination / Valorous Strike (mostly to proc prayer of opporunity and critical touch)
ENCOUNTER : Circle of Power / Divine Touch / my last depends of situation it can be Bond of Virtue or Burning Light or Bane
I prefer burning light above banishment because it deals some damage and it had a lesser CD. I chose bane for very easy dungeons
DAILY : Shield of Faith / Lay on Hands
I chose divine judgement for very easy dungeons

infoxycation · May 2019

I ended up with such stats when I am healing the group content

It feels not bad at all.
Then for mob packs my
encounter powers are: Divine touch, Banishment, Circle of Power;
at-wills are: Cure Wounds, Divine Fulmination;
dailies really depend on the situation: Radiant Charge for additional control and damage and if tank doesn't need any specific support and if he needs - Lay on Hands; Shield of Faith I keep in almost each fight, just for some case.
For boss fights my
encounter powers are: Divine Touch, Circle of Power, if the party is doing fine then I may slot Smite, and if they run around like headless chicken, then Divine Shelter. If boss summons many adds - Banishment.
at-wills are the same: Cure Wounds, Divine Fulmination;
dailies also really depend on the situation: Shield of Faith, Sanctuary (like in Castle Never last boss, when he does high damage to the party after his raising hands phase), Lay on Hands if the tank needs additional support.

So yes, to be flexible is a really good idea.
----------------------------

Also, sorry for asking in this thread, but did you notice some problems with threat generation when you play paladin tanks? I saw the topic from preview server, but, it seems, the problem still stays and also I didn't really understand the reason of it. I have noticed it in the dungeons like Demogorgon or just now in Castle Never that very often paladin tanks loose aggro even to my heals (and its threat generation should be reduced, right?), and if there is some very high ilvl dps, then pala doesn't hold aggro at all often, why is that? Some broken mechanics? Or they use the wrong rotation? But it definitely shouldn't be like that.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

Probably wrong rotation.

Demo aside. That’s giving me problems.

A Mod 16 Primer

Comments