Leon-Tak's Purely PVE Guide

Comments

• leontak Member Posts: 7 Arc User

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  
  
  
  For me, I love my defensive valued at 5k+, although I am not yet maxed out (we are all still playing,farming, aren't we?). DR , Defl, Regen stands at a nice value (for a DC) and this segment covers most of your survival skills. I do not take lifesteal into account as our encounters will not be offensive most of the time. Regen is definitely better than lifesteal. Also, the debate between defence and deflect is totally ignorable. If you don't have both, you cant tank as well as you think you could.
  
  As for Enchantments, Silvery for both Offense and Defense.
  You would want to build up more deflection as DR already stand at a nice zone, floating around 35-36%. My deflection now rates at 15% (which I am only using r5r6)
  The regen from this build offers 8.8% of which I am expecting to use pets to push it further
  
  
  
  
  
  Strategy
  Divinity Management & Playstyle
  Always leave 1 pip for your astral shield. There isn't many occurrences where I find that a yellow astral shield acceptable. With proper div mgmt, there shouldn't be an excuse to cast a normal AS. Although some find it acceptable, I for one, do not. In any given situation, keep your divinity as least one pip for AS. Pre-fight throw down a HW to your frontlines. 3 cast + 2 div cast will easily suffice. Your rotation should always be in between 1 to 2.5 pips. Whenever your astral shield is ready, throw down a dAS, then use a HW on your mates, even tho their HP is full. This will start your healing rotation while you throw astral seals on mobs / SF. At anytime your div reaches near 3 pips, throw another dHW to keep it back down. You may even throw 2 dHWs if you know what you are doing. SB when you are low on div, as SB gives generous div and you can easily build back 1 pip using SB. But remember, when using SB, it is best to use the tab swap trick and proc Linked spirit.
  In other words , 1 pip > SB , near 3 pips > dHW
  (I will try to provide a video of short rotation)
  
  Foresight will keep your team in place and divine fortune will get you your divpoints. Healing word and SB with div fortune is a wonder and you are sure to get more than your share easily, which is why you need to let go of holding too many pips.
  
  In most dungeons, you are required to keep healing and staying alive with the penalty of 40% self healing might hinder you from doing your job. Luckily, you are now able to offset your weaknesses with better defensive stats.
  
  In some PVE situations which I will not discuss where n how, your services in DPS may be of use here.
  In those situations, your best assist is Prophecy of Doom for the defense debuff. I usually follow up with Break The Spirit as it will be the highest single target encounter. For the finishing touches, use daunting light. During this time, you should have swapped in Holy Fervor for the AP gain. Your daily can be of HG for party boost or Hammer for personal DPS.
  
  
  Pets & Such
  
  
  
  Add pets to taste, although the recommended pet by me is the cat. The gears for the cat is also another variation to play around. For now, I stick with Sildeyuir set just for fun. In your best practicality, fit them with whichever stat you deem worthy to boost.Also, the enchantments for the gear that you will be donning on it. As previously mentioned, the crit on this build is low, and pet will be your stepping stone to further boost this stat. Just take note whatever HP boost stat does not augment. TBC

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• leontak Member Posts: 7 Arc User

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  TO be continued here
  
  Guilding, Partying, Solo-ing, Questing
  
  As for the gaming term, nothing beats playing games together with friends/families. You get friendly-fire at times, but that is where all the laughter and excitement is about. I'd take the time to look up the guild that you are most comfortable with , language, timezone , guild directions PvE/PvP , loot share mode. You can get more tips by running with guildies, just remember to bear the notion that some people are willing to share , while some are not, some are strict , some are lenient. If your learning curve is somewhat steep, challenge yourself and go for riskier maneuvers. After all, cryptic's penalty on death is so merciful XD compared to many MMOs.
  
  While partying with PUGs, please remember to have pleasant gestures like greetings and thanks. Even a simple hello will do. This way you could at least test the waters if they are friendly , or utterly rude (as some players demand and expect nothing but the best from us DCs). Talk and make friends around. After all, you cant accomplish much alone and if they remember you & your playstyle, you might just be their favourite party healer - which leads to more PvE runs.
  
  Nothing much to be said on solo and questing, but if you happen to pass by grinding lowbies, I am sure they'd appreciate any kind of free heal. I recall when I was farming Waukeen boxes in Hotenow, I randomly heal people and call out "free DC for hire" and Samaritans would PM you and say keep up the good work. It's nice to know there are people (and not bots) around and you left that good impression for them. For those who don't know how to appreciate a good healer, just say "nice healing" at the end of the runs. This will make any DC's day shine XD
  
  I am proud to say Leon-Tak hails from "KILLING IS MY BUSINESS" and we are a PvE guild, with little to moderate interest in PvP. Our timezone is +8GMT but I know some guildies play on odd hours regularly too. We do not tolerate drama and soap series.We run dungeons on a daily basis, and we share loot with a log record. Applicants who wish to join us , please send a mail to our recruiting officers @mospeda1, @petpet2, @jack69ass. Hope to have you onboard our team.
  
  
  
  Thanks Column
  My appreciation goes to :
  First and foremost my IRL gf for letting me play many nights on this game XD,
  Mos for all the good times we have running dungeons and inspiring me to write this guide, Queen for all the bits n pieces , Clara W for insights and opinions throughout the gaming term, Tree - for just being there, Avandra S being the comparative DC, Superwoman for being a "pushy" CW , Chang'e - my ex boss in our old guild, zaka1209 for runs and tips, a reach out for Grievance Guildies , Quantum Guildies, Different Lifestyles Guildies, Chillin Guildies , and more importantly Killing is My Business Guildies!
  
  Also, a bow to all haters for suspecting this build as hacking (in PvP). A warm e-hug for all the good people out in Protector's Enclave. I wish you all good luck in your runs and fights !!

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• hidahayabusa Member Posts: 634 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  I would swap Angelic Gauntlets with Exemplar's Youth gloves. Recovery is quite important also.
  
  Lately I feel that Deflection isn't really worth it. I mean, you spec and roll over a stat that works 15-20% of the times and still gets damage through. I understand that it may catch THAT attack that will give you the edge on surviving, but I completely ignored it (apart from the rings and neck...because they are the best defensive stats), and went full HP and the typical Regeneration. So my HP are 32k and my regen at 900ish, makes up for almost 8% ticks which is amazing.
  
  Also the Sacred Flame temp HP wouldn't be negligible if you specced on Deepstone Blessing rather than Enduring Relief. I guess it makes more sense to have 10% more potent heals when you are free to cast Sacred Flame and when you press your 'oh-**** button'.
  
  One more point is about Bountiful Harvest. I don't think that you need 2 points in it. The more points only increase the already big time it lasts. 30 seconds is more than enough to re-proc it again.
  
  And finally, there is no better survival mechanism for the DC other than the Healing Step. Call it PvE or PvP, having insta Temp HP and 100% stamina regeneration for 10 seconds is AMAZING.
  
  I am a WIS/CON Dwarf for obvious reasons (gets bonus on both stats) running almost the same gear. Looking forward for your analysis on Weapon and Armor enchantments.
  
  link to char: Durik Healbeard

  * Notorious Dwarven Bear Cavalry Leader *

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• jack69ass Member Posts: 34 Arc User

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  awesome build leon tak.. i'm not taking linked spirit and deepstone blessing a.t.m.. but i'm seriously considering to respec and take them... probably sacrificing moontouched and enduring relief.. since i use sacred flame as my at-will most of the time.. i think deepstone blessing>enduring relief.. but i dont know.. just my opinion and i still havent try it out..

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• morsitans Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 1,284 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  Surprised you'd go for human: aside from the def bonus, they don't offer anything worthwhile. 3 extra heroic feats, when we barely have enough decent heroic feats anyway. You could have no points in healing action (it really is terribad) and one less in bountiful fortune, quite easily. Or maxed BF but only two points in holy resolve (not a huge difference between the tempHP from 1-3, to be honest: it's mostly the 'save you from instant death' aspect that's handy, and you get that with only 1 point). If you're going down the dex/con route you'd be better off with the standard PvP trolltank halfling approach, but in all honesty literally any other choice but human would be good.
  
  As for paragon feats...hrm. I wouldn't go 5/5 on divine advantage: this implies you're going to be NOT healing someone who's surrounded by monsters for almost 5 seconds, which given your loadout and rotation scheme, seems unlikely. 2 seconds (2/5) is probably enough in my book. And it frees up points for RRoT, which is quite nice.
  
  Overall, there doesn't seem to be a consistent approach to crit management: you've got 3/3 repurp soul, which is obviously a no-brainer (see "how many feats do we have that are even worthwhile?", above) and 2/5 restoration mastery, and taken weapon mastery (again a no brainer) yet you've not really focussed on crits otherwise, and in fact have stated several times that "this isn't a crit build", when with a tiny bit of work it totally could be. And would probably benefit substantially from it.
  
  In all honesty, stacking masses of defense, deflect and regen for PvE is only really necessary if you are regularly expected to be the tank, or if you want to play in the laziest fashion possible. With even a little bit of attention to positioning you should never need that much defensive capacity, especially since you spam HWs everywhere, every one of which will be giving you backheal ticks. Regen and deflect are primarily useful in PvP, where you can expect to suffer constant CC, massive spike damage, and being the centre of attention for everyone on the other team. In PvE they're overkill. Plus you need to stack a surprising amount of deflect to get up to 15%.
  
  If you funneled some of that deflect/regen into crit, you could easily turn that 20% crit chance into 33% or so, and that's the difference between repurp soul proccing every 5th hit to every 3rd. At 33% base crit chance, with a rogue in the party you can expect to see serial crits fairly frequently, and of course, crit astral seals give critical heals (which are always lovely). And if you're doing random solo stuff out in sharandar or whatever, crits are always nice. A good crit non D'd divine glow will happily kill a whole gang of witherers, and a crit daunting light will ruin the day of almost anything. (Incidentally, you could get the points for divine glow by dropping them from lance of faith, or similar. You're never going to use it when you have sacred flame. I'd consider getting searing light, too, just for lulz: in divine mode, with bunched up monsters, it's one of our highest damage skills. It can hit 25 targets).
  
  Finally, regarding moontouched...yes, HG is primarily used for the defense/damage buff it gives, but adding the heal to it means you pretty much have a guaranteed +25% health to everyone in your party (even the ones off soloing stuff like idiots), because the radius is gigantic. I think of it as a few seconds of "not needing to pay much attention to the CWs and TRs": it usually provides a handy breathing space to allow you to reposition and work out exactly where your next astral shield will be most beneficial.

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• hidahayabusa Member Posts: 634 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  I agree that Deflect is worthless in PvE, but Regen and Defense stacking are not. Exemplar's gear, brings in Regen, Recovery and Defense in big chunks. It's good to be prepared for the worse, especially if you have the same healing potential as getting to use full epic sets. I've come to the conclusion that if your team stays in AShield, you keep Astral Seal up on popular targets and you follow an easy rotation of healing, you don't need 5k Power, 35% crit and Miracle Healer to keep people rolling.
  
  However, if the $h~t hits the fan, you will be needing your defense and Regen for kiting purposes. It's unfortunate that DC's mechanics are not supported by its epic gear sets. I hope that this will change in the next module. Running with blues and getting better results than running with full t2 isn't really good.

  * Notorious Dwarven Bear Cavalry Leader *

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• morsitans Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 1,284 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  Hrm. I'd argue that if your team stays in Ashield and you're sealing everything, you shouldn't need regen. And the bigger the heals are, and the more frequent the seal-crits are, the better.
  
  I'd tend to favour a good purp set for PvE (giving decent crit, recovery and power) and then only swap to my regen-heavy PvP set if I'm expected to tank or kite everything, or if the team is terrible at aggro management/CC. Plus this means I don't have to remember to swap armour before signing up for a dungeon (remembering to swap powers is bad enough :P).
  
  Building around a "if **** hits the fan, I'll still be ok" mindset is...somewhat counterproductive if it hampers your ability to stop **** hitting the fan in the first place.

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• hidahayabusa Member Posts: 634 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  Two sides of the coin really. If you have a team that runs with you all the time, then building proactively works. If you PuG, then getting reactive is much better. Especially when something bad happens in PvE, most of the times doesn't involve certain members dying because you didn't heal them, but mostly because they screwed up on something and got one-shotted.
  
  Edit: In other words, I haven't yet seen a fight that fails due to the healer being incapable of keeping someone alive, when that individual did its job. So most of the times that a situation arises is due to some failed kiting or some bad positioning. If that individual manages to come out of this, I am able to top him with Divine Healing word and channel heals.

  * Notorious Dwarven Bear Cavalry Leader *

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• morsitans Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 1,284 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  Yeah, that's kinda my experience: usually it's not "healer dies, then everyone else dies because OMG WHAR HAELZ?", but more commonly "TR decided to solo a thoon hulk on a cliff edge" or "CW decided that singularities look best if you stand inside them" or similar. If I frontload healing ability (power/crit/whatever) then I'm better equipped to heal peeps through those latter scenarios, whereas a regen/deflect/defense blue set would be better for handling the former.
  
  Not to say there aren't situations where full regen blues are better: if you're kiting FH because you couldn't find a GF, then probably blues are going to be more useful. And if you're doing epic dread vault because you hate yourself, then blues are also probably going to be more useful.

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• hidahayabusa Member Posts: 634 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  morsitans wrote: »

  Not to say there aren't situations where full regen blues are better: if you're kiting FH because you couldn't find a GF, then probably blues are going to be more useful. And if you're doing epic dread vault because you hate yourself, then blues are also probably going to be more useful.

  
  Most of the times I PuG, or run with 1 friend. You can't imagine what we've come across most of the times. I feel more like a Hunter in WoW rather than a healer. So yes, Regen blues are amazing for me so far, both in PvP and PvE.

  * Notorious Dwarven Bear Cavalry Leader *

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• esteena Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 1

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  These are my stats with stone.
  
  you might need to add some regeneration.

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• morsitans Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 1,284 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  He's got regen (see screenies of equips), it just that the actual "health regen" amount doesn't ever show on the char sheet (because why fix bugs, eh?).
  
  I wouldn't mind seeing a screengrab of his actual stats though (power, crit etc) rather than just the derived stats (crit chance, damage etc), since derived stats can be quite misleading: I usually roll with AP gain of +50% for instance, but that's because of holy fervour, not massively overstacked recovery.

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• leontak Member Posts: 7 Arc User

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  esteena wrote: »

  These are my stats with stone.
  
  you might need to add some regeneration.

  
  Hi, sorry for the late update. Yes, I do have regen.

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• leontak Member Posts: 7 Arc User

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  Hi Morsitans , as for the crit , I plan to build up using my pet, and enchs if I may.
  On the deflect/regen is mainly due to the playstyle. I often run ahead and I soak up the mobs so I favour deflect/defence/regen before crit. But of course, to each his own and I'd post my stats after toying with the pet boost
  Cheers

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• encadi Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 67

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  I dont understand his Initial stats, seem impossible to get that

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• encadi Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 67

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  Alsoa re you sure about leveling Dex and Con? seems very anti cleric and coutne intuitive

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• hidahayabusa Member Posts: 634 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  It's been all the fuss since GCTRL's guide in the same thread hit the forums. He used a halfling DC with DEX/CON fitted for PvP. Obviously counter intuitive and generally flavor-less, but yet effective. I guess that all 'top' PvPers will be rolling Halflings for the same reasons.
  
  However, DEX and Deflection is only good when you are PvPing.

  * Notorious Dwarven Bear Cavalry Leader *

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• encadi Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 67

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  But this is a PVE cleric?

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• hidahayabusa Member Posts: 634 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  This is what it states in the post header.
  
  But that doesn't mean anything

  * Notorious Dwarven Bear Cavalry Leader *

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• lazuree Member Posts: 52 Arc User

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  Here's my perspective on defensive stats:
  pvp and pve are two different worlds...
  1) you do not need regen and deflect; the only reason they are so loved in pvp is because the dc is focused by everyone and we become a human punching bag often becoming cc locked; the regen and deflect gives us a chance of not being cc locked/surviving the cc chain
  in pve, we will not encounter this focus since they fixed cleric aggro awhile back; even so we have dodges and the red is clearly visible to dodge therefore healing and dodging should be enough to keep you alive; in the rare instances you do get hit there is defense
  2) defense is good for pve and negligible in pvp; in pvp dc's are debuffed by enfeeble, cleric debuffs, knight's challenge, etc... defense is negated by all of these effects so no matter how high it is stacked, the dmg will find a way through
  in pve there are not all these debuffs against you so defense reducing incoming dmg is great
  
  3)hp is good for both pve and pvp; in pvp it will help any regeneration have higher ticks. In pvp, it will aid in healing yourself in others due to certain dc skills/feats/armor (moontouched, seeker's beacon bonus from MH armor)
  
  4) offensive stats are better for pve b/c it is more about healing rather than survival; it does not take much to survive in pve other than dodging and kiting; dodging and kiting doesn't need high defensive stats it's more skill-based. In addition, stronger heals will help the team more and if you are low on hp, healing yourself is always an option even with the righteousness debuff
  even if you run ahead defense and your own heals should be enough, in addition to two dodges; imo, healing is much stronger than regen b/c it ticks at a constant rate no matter how much hp you have
  
  sorry for the rant, i just wish more ppl were more "heal-oriented" in pve b/c whenever I go in a pug on my cw/tr alts the dc's always disappoint me

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• hidahayabusa Member Posts: 634 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  The way that the damage is done in PvE leaves no place of burst healing in dungeons. If someone screws up you'll only save him if he is not super squishy or if he is lucky enough to be saved by a Singularity or any kind of massive pushback. Damage mititgation and mid-healing potential are more than sufficient to cover 200% of the needs of T2 dungeons.
  
  I only feel annoyed by healers that focus on Crit and Power and get 2 shotted when something goes wrong. And in PuGs most times, things go wrong.

  * Notorious Dwarven Bear Cavalry Leader *

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• leontak Member Posts: 7 Arc User

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  Yes, all the more reason bcos most DCs focus on PvE based healing and honestly, I find overhealing a waste. How often do you find you are required to perform all three encounters + daily to turn the tables around ? Not many I hope, because if u r in a dungeon otw to the boss, and you find yourself exerting heavy heal work, I cant imagine if the party can survive the boss. If by all means , you are the single reason the party reaches the boss, your capabilities alone wont push the team thru to finish the boss.
  
  The reason I go with a tankier DC in PvE is bcos I really don't need so much overhealing. Maybe your theory on glass cannons stacking with each other work better (glass cannon DPS + fragile powerful healer) , but in my playstyle, I don't mind taking hits for the team.

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• morsitans Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 1,284 Bounty Hunter

  November 2013 edited November 2013

  I do enough solo stuff to be pretty good at OMG OMG THE FLOOR IS RED "find the spare patch of non-doomground" hunting, and cleric threat seems to be almost non-existent these days (if I get aggro, I just wander by basically anyone else on the team and BAM: the threat is gone) so I rarely feel the need to be tanky. At least, not "3k+ def, 1k+ deflect" tanky.
  
  Of course, if you like to use your skooshing to get INTO trouble so your team doesn't have to, then yeah: I can see how extra tankiness could be advantageous. And of course, the biggest advantage we bring is mitigation anyway, and that's non-scaling.
  
  
  A lot of healing is less about "can we survive this" and more about "how lazy can everyone get": if you take astral shield and then some orbital lazors, everyone has to play more cautiously. Take shield, sunburst and HW and suddenly people are pulling every monster on the map because chances are: you can heal them through that.

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