PC - Mod 16 Damnation Build

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

Hey All,

This is the build I’ve been using on 16 for group play.
For running content without a tank I run 950 gear because I end up with all the aggro and ‘tanking’ unless I’m running with other high dps players to share the load. What the 950 gear is doesn’t matter much, as long as you hit cap.

In testing only 2x Sniper’s Perk (Ebonized Ring and Hag’s Rags) stack, having a third source does nothing. Also 2 Ebonized rings don’t stack.

I’m still missing the Alabaster OH.

My enchants are all Black Ice and Brutal in offence, and I need to replace them with Radiants. Which is basically how Enchants work in 16, they tweak your stats to get to cap and once you can stably reach cap more power is better, much like % Damage buffs.

I tested Tenebrous on my Paladin, and at 24% proc chance and 100k Power it just wasn’t improving things enough to make it worthwhile bothering with testing on the Warlock.

I’m significantly short on Combat Advantage, and definitely need more Power, so these are my focus areas.

I need to update this pic, as I’ve gone back to Parting Blasphemy in the second column of feats, just gives a bit more burst and I now run Dark Spiral Aura as my second at-will.

Otherwise, the selected powers in the picture show what I use for ME bosses, and other single target situations. For dungeons replace KF with HG while the target is above 50% health.

For multi-target situations I swap ACC for Dust to Dust and run FB, HFR, CB as encounters.
A degree of patience helps optimise this a bit, as you are dependent on FB and HFR to keep Curses so you can trigger CB.

Companion:
I have a blue Ioun Stone of Allure as summoned. I’m not sure if that will stay as I have a Glorious box, but I’m not sure what to get with it.
I do need to spend some time tweaking gear and enchants on the pet to help improve my stat situation.

The notable Equip Powers are Redemption and Siege Master’s Discipline. The others are just stat tweaks.

Mount:
I have Swarm for Combat Power and Rapid Accuracy because I need more Accuracy. The insignia bonus that are noteworthy are Artificer’s Persuasion and Gladiator’s Guile. I still have Shepherd’s slotted, but frankly use dailies so infrequently that it’s kind of pointless. The daily problem is class wide.

Options I’m looking to adjust to are: Barbarian’s Delight/Revelry, Magistrate’s Patience/Restraint, and Knight’s Defence/Rebuke.

vorphied · May 2019

Thanks for posting!

Quick feedback since I’m otw to work:

- Tenebrous are worth it. You will easily clear 300k HP when your build is complete (thus more Tenebrous damage), and you will have no issues meeting stat caps. The extra 5-6% damage provided by Tenebrous exceeds the diminishing benefit of the extra Radiants you would otherwise be slotting.

- No Pity No Mercy should almost never leave your bar; giving yourself CA is that good. I would only remove it for highly stationary boss fights, because the 5% bonus from Dust to Dust isn’t worth much when you’re missing CA.

- For single-target, you leave a lot of damage on the table if you don’t take Risky Investment. I’d keep the Soul Desecration build for AoE and maintain Risky Investment for the dedicated single-target loadout.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

I have 460k HP on the Paladin.... at 24% proc rate they were just not effective enough to bother with, especially considering I desperately need 15k or more power on my Warlock just to match the power the Paladin has with the Tenebrous. (The lack of any high rank Radiants on AH at the moment isn’t helping.)

I’ll have to take another look at NPNM. I’m still messing around with the passives, but on Preview it didn’t impress.

As to Risky Investment, if the only viable single target is running it we have a problem. I just don’t have the mechanics at hand to check

vorphied · May 2019

obsidiancran3 said:
I have 460k HP on the Paladin.... at 24% proc rate they were just not effective enough to bother with, especially considering I desperately need 15k or more power on my Warlock just to match the power the Paladin has with the Tenebrous. (The lack of any high rank Radiants on AH at the moment isn’t helping.)

I’ll have to take another look at NPNM. I’m still messing around with the passives, but on Preview it didn’t impress.

As to Risky Investment, if the only viable single target is running it we have a problem. I just don’t have the mechanics at hand to check

Try running them on Warlock through ACT and note what % of your damage they are, and you should be able to see why they are good. Remember that your power rating has nothing to do with Tenebrous damage; that damage of the proc is based on your max HP alone if I'm not mistaken. At this point, taking the sharply diminishing returns on Power into account, I would probably need another 20k Power to make up for the damage I'd lose if I unslotted my Tenebrous, and 3-4 r15 Radiants obviously won't come close to filling that gap.

NPNM is absurdly good, but you need to elevate your CA stat, or you won't see the true benefit.

Risky Investment is ideal to run for single-target IMO, but it's not as if you HAVE to use it. I just can't think of a good reason not to.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

Tenebrous is not affected by power, it just fights it for a place on the toon. It is affected by things like Bronzewood though.

I’m well below where Power has “sharply diminishing returns”, I’d need to nearly double my power on my Warlock to hit that point.

vorphied · May 2019

obsidiancran3 said:
Tenebrous is not affected by power, it just fights it for a place on the toon. It is affected by things like Bronzewood though.

I’m well below where Power has “sharply diminishing returns”, I’d need to nearly double my power on my Warlock to hit that point.

Diminishing returns start to be noticeable as early as 100kish. Shortly after launch, I tried checking damage with a training weapon while swapping my power from 117k to 125k. The added 8k power was worth about 3.4% effective damage at those ratings, while Tenebrous was doing 5-6% of my total damage.

Basically there's no way you can replace Tenebrous' damage with pure Power once you hit a certain HP threshold. I'm not trying to convince you to hurry up and slot them right away; I'm just saying that you may want to work them into your build when you're in a more comfortable place with your stat distribution.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

8k Power is 2%, you got 3.4%...that’s not “diminishing returns”

vorphied · May 2019

obsidiancran3 said:
8k Power is 2%, you got 3.4%...that’s not “diminishing returns”

Power is supposed to be 1% per 1000 at base values, not including diminishing returns, no?

Another quick check: going from ~127k to ~135k was about 3.1% of a difference. Yes, it's continuing to diminish with added stat points.

The gist remains the same: you can't get enough Power through other enchants to make up for what Tenebrous can give you in those offense slots.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

No it’s 1% per 4k now.

And mathematically increasing a large value by the same amount as a small value will always give “less return”. But in the game your not really hitting diminishing returns until your flat gain is lower than your actual gain, which happens well past 100k now.

vorphied · May 2019

obsidiancran3 said:
No it’s 1% per 4k now.

Then the formula isn't working properly.

vorphied · May 2019

obsidiancran3 said:
No it’s 1% per 4k now.

And mathematically increasing a large value by the same amount as a small value will always give “less return”. But in the game your not really hitting diminishing returns until your flat gain is lower than your actual gain, which happens well past 100k now.

It could just be me, but I don't see the important distinction. You can easily test and see how gains in Power provide less effective benefit.

99 damage at 78900 Power -> 104 at 86900. If my math isn't wrong, this is basically a 5% increase for 8k Power.

123 damage at 121419 Power -> 127 at 129419. Looks like about 3.2% increase.

I'll be the first to admit that basic math can elude me, but I don't think you need to wait until you achieve massive Power ratings to start seeing diminishing effectiveness. More is always technically better, but you do get to a point where additional Power can be worth replacing with better bonuses that compete for the same slots.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

If I add 1 to 1 it’s a 100% increase.

If I add 1 to 100 it’s a 1% increase.

Power has a linear relationship with its % gain. So no matter how much power you have adding X amount more always increases there % gain by Y amount.

Just like the 1 the relative increase effect of adding Y gain will diminish the bigger the base value.

But the game takes your base value and does further math with it. You’re not really getting diminishing returns until the increase in final effect is less than the Y% gain that linear relationship with power provides.

None of which means that if you have high enough HP and get the Tenebrous to their 30% proc chance that they are not better than having pure power in the same slots.

But I have no idea where that point is, hopefully someone can show that.

vorphied · May 2019

obsidiancran3 said:
If I add 1 to 1 it’s a 100% increase.

If I add 1 to 100 it’s a 1% increase.

Power has a linear relationship with its % gain. So no matter how much power you have adding X amount more always increases there % gain by Y amount.

Just like the 1 the relative increase effect of adding Y gain will diminish the bigger the base value.

But the game takes your base value and does further math with it. You’re not really getting diminishing returns until the increase in final effect is less than the Y% gain that linear relationship with power provides.

None of which means that if you have high enough HP and get the Tenebrous to their 30% proc chance that they are not better than having pure power in the same slots.

But I have no idea where that point is, hopefully someone can show that.

I suppose the angle I'm taking here is simply that adding more Power to your existing Power stat provides less and less of an additional benefit. I do appreciate that it's not technically a diminishing returns issue, but the distinction appears to be basically academic.

The side conversation about Power has been interesting, though

I wish I had the actual ACT logs to review, but I've been lazy and getting the logs from a guildie in my runs. I have to set mine up again.

schietindebux · May 2019

1000 power is 0.5% damage increase following Jeannes calculator

x (1+power:100000) x other multiplier involved
so in case your power goes from 100000 to 101000 you deal 0,5% more damage (multiplier 2.0 vs 2.01)
100.000 power vs 150000 power is a 25% damageincrease following that math
rest of multiplier:
1.weapon damage, comparison mod 15 vs mod 16, 3198 vs 4320 weapondamage = 35% more dps !
2. magnitude
3.crit+critseverity
4. CA+ CA severity-whateever CA severity is ment to be
5.(1−I[hitDeflected]⋅0.5)
6.∑debuffs
7.damageTypeBuff
8.∑CompanionActiveSpecial
9.∑WeaponEnchantmentProc

schietindebux · May 2019

Those double buff from sniper perk {+3% ranged dps} is 6% +dps=12k power more or less and damage gain from power should be linear imo not deminished, but I did not understand those math exactly, when running that calculator it also takes into account crits and noncrits same as CA.
Dealing damage, having 100.000 power at statcaps (arp, crit, accur) having 100% critseverity and 100% CA all time that multiplier is x5
Adding 1000 power, that multiplier is going up to 5.025 -> 5.025/5= 1.005 ->0,5% plus dps

5.025/5=1.005, so 1k power is indeed 0,5% +damage at statcaps

If no crit and no CA= basedamage multiplier x2
Crit (50% capped at 100% severity) and no CA= multiplier x3
Crit (50% capped at 100% severity)+ 100%CA= multiplier x 5 ->showing how important Combatadvantage is in the end, a 66% damageincrease ! That´s why @vorphied said NPNM should never leave your bar

Lifting critseverity from 75% to 100% , it´s a 5,2% plus damage having combatadvantage , and 9.1% without combatadvantage at optimal stats

lifting your power from 100.000 to 150.000 you deal basedamge x6.25, a 25% damageincrease.
Using multiplier like doubleperk 2x3% ranged, Shadowalker x2.5 at 25'', Shirt x3 >75% stamina =11,5% it is equal to 23k power in optimal conditions

https://jannenw.info/pages/mechanics16/stats

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

@vorphied I did some ACT testing with the Paladin again tonight and she gets 10% damage from 4x Rank 13 Tenebrous. (I note that her Staff of Flowers is 13% of her Damage for the same test.)

She has now got 492k HP (so close!).
She gets Tenebrous props from 8-33k and should get 40k. So they are good, but the tooltip isn’t very accurate.

If I can sell some stuff on AH for current going rate I will be well enough funded that I will be able to revise the Warlock’s enchants. At which point the Tenebrous will be worthwhile.

vorphied · May 2019

> @obsidiancran3 said:
> @vorphied I did some ACT testing with the Paladin again tonight and she gets 10% damage from 4x Rank 13 Tenebrous. (I note that her Staff of Flowers is 13% of her Damage for the same test.)
>
> She has now got 492k HP (so close!).
> She gets Tenebrous props from 8-33k and should get 40k. So they are good, but the tooltip isn’t very accurate.
>
> If I can sell some stuff on AH for current going rate I will be well enough funded that I will be able to revise the Warlock’s enchants. At which point the Tenebrous will be worthwhile.

Nice! I did notice that Tenebrous will be a higher % on classes with lower damage output (naturally), but you should still see a respectable return even on a DPS class.

@schietindebux Thank you for the info!

markhawkman · May 2019

What's your armor pen stat? The way I understand it that basically acts as a magnifier for your power stat.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

> @markhawkman said:
> What's your armor pen stat? The way I understand it that basically acts as a magnifier for your power stat.

I’m well over cap for ArP, so I get full effectiveness there, I need a little more Accuracy to get 100% effectiveness all the time in LotMM.

——
At 1950 iL I can run fine as the third DPS in LotMM.

I tried a Risky Investment build and it just didn’t work better. The simple fact that it only buffs Encounters and getting more than 2 stacks in most fights was nearly impossible meant that it just wasn’t more effective.

I also ended up running ACC/NPNM as passives so that I would always have curse available and routinely have the CA buff.

We did 3 runs each of about 35-39 minutes, no dps over 22k. At my effectiveness you need to play smoothly to not let a mimic through, but that’s the only real trouble point.

The dungeon is doable, it doesn’t need maxed iL, it needs good play with the right gear (which will not get you max iL).

vorphied · May 2019

> @obsidiancran3 said:
> > @markhawkman said:
> > What's your armor pen stat? The way I understand it that basically acts as a magnifier for your power stat.
>
> I’m well over cap for ArP, so I get full effectiveness there, I need a little more Accuracy to get 100% effectiveness all the time in LotMM.
>
> ——
> At 1950 iL I can run fine as the third DPS in LotMM.
>
> I tried a Risky Investment build and it just didn’t work better. The simple fact that it only buffs Encounters and getting more than 2 stacks in most fights was nearly impossible meant that it just wasn’t more effective.
>
> I also ended up running ACC/NPNM as passives so that I would always have curse available and routinely have the CA buff.
>
> We did 3 runs each of about 35-39 minutes, no dps over 22k. At my effectiveness you need to play smoothly to not let a mimic through, but that’s the only real trouble point.
>
> The dungeon is doable, it doesn’t need maxed iL, it needs good play with the right gear (which will not get you max iL).

@obsidiancran3 When evaluating Risky Investment’s usefulness, I feel like we need to compare it directly to its alternative, which offers a buff only to Wraith Claw damage and to nothing else.

The perma-puppet feature isn’t necessary for single-target since you’ll be running Hadar’s Grasp for Risky Investment synergy. Soul Scorch helps to reduce HG’s CD so that you can stack more quickly. There is no boss fight in LOMM where you can’t easily build max stacks except for the Boreworm.

For AoE I absolutely recommend Soul Desecration simply because the only Puppet-summoning power there is the Accursed Souls daily.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

It takes stacking 6x Soul Scorch to get 1s off cooldowns. Then the slow cast time of Soul Scorch affects things. It takes me about 10s for HG to refresh with this method. That’s too slow for Arcturia and the Boreworm to build more than 1 or 2 stacks between phases.

Maybe it’s easier to build the stacks at higher iL, but for me the limit seems to be the cast timers on at-wills and Soul Scorch combined with the effectiveness of the party.

In the end I lost DPS trying to build stacks.

This may end up being simply a matter of “what works for me”, vs what the theory on paper says. For me I get faster cooldowns with the puppet cooldown feat and have to worry less about if interrupting a perfectly timed rotation is going to trash my dps and have more freedom for rotations in order to maximise dps I can generate.

I don’t consider myself a good player, carefully timed things and animation cancelling techniques all don’t work for me. (CodG was never doable for me for eg) So that could be why I will never get the peak performance from Risky Investment.

So having a build that works for my skill set is what matters.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

And to be clear it’s about a 10mil difference in damage for me, in favour of my build.

Swap on boss, play RI all the way, or just run my build, for me the difference was negligible with boss swaps, and in my build’s favour strongly when I played just 1 build.

So RI doesn’t work for me in a meaningful way.

vorphied · May 2019

obsidiancran3 said:
It takes stacking 6x Soul Scorch to get 1s off cooldowns. Then the slow cast time of Soul Scorch affects things. It takes me about 10s for HG to refresh with this method. That’s too slow for Arcturia and the Boreworm to build more than 1 or 2 stacks between phases.

Maybe it’s easier to build the stacks at higher iL, but for me the limit seems to be the cast timers on at-wills and Soul Scorch combined with the effectiveness of the party.

In the end I lost DPS trying to build stacks.

This may end up being simply a matter of “what works for me”, vs what the theory on paper says. For me I get faster cooldowns with the puppet cooldown feat and have to worry less about if interrupting a perfectly timed rotation is going to trash my dps and have more freedom for rotations in order to maximise dps I can generate.

I don’t consider myself a good player, carefully timed things and animation cancelling techniques all don’t work for me. (CodG was never doable for me for eg) So that could be why I will never get the peak performance from Risky Investment.

So having a build that works for my skill set is what matters.

All of what you said is fair enough; if something doesn't work for you, you should of course play how you want.

Arcturia's fight never lacks a target for more than a few seconds, so building stacks is only interrupted if you get cocooned at an inconvenient time.

The reason I don't like the Puppet-associated cooldown feat is that the thing is so slow to react. In a fight where there is only one target that never moves, I imagine that the Puppet might provide better cooldown reduction, but some fights are rough on summoned critters because of boss teleportation, adds, and/or CC. Maybe I'll build it into one of my spare loadouts and test a bit.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

I hear you the puppet, but it seems to be more responsive now. Not to say it always attacks the right thing in Arcturia once golems are up, but it ports over to attack the mimics fine.

schietindebux · May 2019

If Risky Investment or Soul Desecration, I do prefer RI at static bosses and SD at the ones that make me run arround, a huge difference did not show up, since there is always some points where I loose those stacks, in need to run arround, being disabled, cc´d or simply cocooned.
I do better with Soul Desecration combined with recovery from Soul Scorch, Puppet feat seems far slower to me in terms of encounter reset somehow.
I also tried KF, CB, HG combined with Parting Blasphemy to have better burst at those mimics with good results, since CB becomes 225 and HG becomes 250 mag, wich is far better burst than 10% buff from Warlocks Curse for that short period.
At bosses in case of CA from other sources , ACC+Deadly curse should beat all other imo.

vorphied · May 2019

KF, CB, HG is my go-to for all single target. I tend to leave Parting Blasphemy on even for single-target now. Because the Warlock’s Curse 10% bonus applies to cursed targets, my assumption is that we’re missing that benefit on many encounter uses since we are constantly removing said Curse and then having to reapply it. I haven’t actually tested to see if this is the case, though.

schietindebux · May 2019

Only work arround is skipping all Curse consum, leaving you with KF, FB and HR, wich will not do better.
On another topic I do see a little disbalance actually concerning endcontent, Soulweaver is somehow not asekd for since DC has the ability to revive dead dead player and OP can shield, wich prevents sudden death quite better, same as warlock has only one healing spell from impact , nothing else.
looking at ACT there is Shatter Spark... and then there is nothing to be mentioned any more. The power got 400 mag, far lower than most spells from other healer. Even passive heals are pretty low. Only transfusion tactics seems to be from some utility.
Regarding endcontent warlock is not that much from interest actually.

vorphied · May 2019

> @schietindebux said:
> Only work arround is skipping all Curse consum, leaving you with KF, FB and HR, wich will not do better.
> On another topic I do see a little disbalance actually concerning endcontent, Soulweaver is somehow not asekd for since DC has the ability to revive dead dead player and OP can shield, wich prevents sudden death quite better, same as warlock has only one healing spell from impact , nothing else.
> looking at ACT there is Shatter Spark... and then there is nothing to be mentioned any more. The power got 400 mag, far lower than most spells from other healer. Even passive heals are pretty low. Only transfusion tactics seems to be from some utility.
> Regarding endcontent warlock is not that much from interest actually.

Yeah, I agree that avoiding Curse Consume powers isn’t a reasonable workaround.

I have concerns about Soulweaver not only because of the comparatively low magnitude of healing, but also because spark generation requires targets. I haven’t done LOMM on Soulweaver yet, but I can’t see it going well at the Boreworm if any boulders are missed or if the Warlock is low on Sparks when it begins.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

If you run Warlock’s Curse over Parting Blasphemy then you are going to manage things differently. It’s about leaving curse for longer so more hits go through.

You don’t have to skip curse consume powers just because you run WC, you just have to change the order of rotations.

schietindebux · May 2019

> @vorphied said:
> > @schietindebux said:
> > Only work arround is skipping all Curse consum, leaving you with KF, FB and HR, wich will not do better.
> > On another topic I do see a little disbalance actually concerning endcontent, Soulweaver is somehow not asekd for since DC has the ability to revive dead dead player and OP can shield, wich prevents sudden death quite better, same as warlock has only one healing spell from impact , nothing else.
> > looking at ACT there is Shatter Spark... and then there is nothing to be mentioned any more. The power got 400 mag, far lower than most spells from other healer. Even passive heals are pretty low. Only transfusion tactics seems to be from some utility.
> > Regarding endcontent warlock is not that much from interest actually.
>
> Yeah, I agree that avoiding Curse Consume powers isn’t a reasonable workaround.
>
> I have concerns about Soulweaver not only because of the comparatively low magnitude of healing, but also because spark generation requires targets. I haven’t done LOMM on Soulweaver yet, but I can’t see it going well at the Boreworm if any boulders are missed or if the Warlock is low on Sparks when it begins.
>
>

Actually outside a pretty good performing group I think Soulweaver is more a burdon in endcontent. I run with OP wich was the smoothest way, DC was good when teammember died, but having issues with Divinitygain, esp. at 2.boss.

vorphied · May 2019

> @schietindebux said:
> > @vorphied said:
> > > @schietindebux said:
> > > Only work arround is skipping all Curse consum, leaving you with KF, FB and HR, wich will not do better.
> > > On another topic I do see a little disbalance actually concerning endcontent, Soulweaver is somehow not asekd for since DC has the ability to revive dead dead player and OP can shield, wich prevents sudden death quite better, same as warlock has only one healing spell from impact , nothing else.
> > > looking at ACT there is Shatter Spark... and then there is nothing to be mentioned any more. The power got 400 mag, far lower than most spells from other healer. Even passive heals are pretty low. Only transfusion tactics seems to be from some utility.
> > > Regarding endcontent warlock is not that much from interest actually.
> >
> > Yeah, I agree that avoiding Curse Consume powers isn’t a reasonable workaround.
> >
> > I have concerns about Soulweaver not only because of the comparatively low magnitude of healing, but also because spark generation requires targets. I haven’t done LOMM on Soulweaver yet, but I can’t see it going well at the Boreworm if any boulders are missed or if the Warlock is low on Sparks when it begins.
> >
> >
>
> Actually outside a pretty good performing group I think Soulweaver is more a burdon in endcontent. I run with OP wich was the smoothest way, DC was good when teammember died, but having issues with Divinitygain, esp. at 2.boss.

I hear you. DC can do the 2nd boss with few issues, but it depends largely on how diligent the party is about not feeding boulders to the worm. I also hate that Divine Glow feels like a wasted encounter slot but is so useful whenever high Divinity output is required.

I plan to get my Paladin up and running at some point and really trying for myself, because I have seen some great results from Oathkeeper.

PC - Mod 16 Damnation Build

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