New to Game, help with build

Hey everyone!

So I played SotA ages ago and just came back to give it another try. Huge fan of the game direction and all, but I've been having an issue when it comes to building a template for my character. Im not one to Min/max too heavily as long as what I end up with is viable and functional thats enough for me so long as its fun.

Basically i'm wanting to do a cleric type build with a focus on healing, mace and Shield, Heavy armor, and Sun Magic. I'm not sure if this is really doable, but i'm going to give it a shot. OI would love some advice or pointers from anyone else who may have tried something similar, or even has another idea to help the build out a bit.

I'm going to stick with chain armor as I have heard just terrible things about plate. is there anything i am missing? Thanks in advance guys!

 

Sounds doable to me.

 

1 thing I could suggest is to maybe consoder Cloth gloves. Gloves are TERRIBLE for fizzle chance, and considering you are going for Mace & shield, you might wanna give yoursepf a chance. Now Life magic is very easy on Fizzle chance, so just get your skills up a bit, get the fizzle chance reduction passive in the focus tree, and like I said use Cloth gloves and you should be good to go with your build Idea!

 

So full chainmail with Cloth gloves? Thanks for the help! Figuring out my build has been the hardest part of hopping back in SotA, but this seems fun.

 

I say try with full chain (so that you get the set bonus) and only change it up if it's not working out for you.

 

One precision about this, the set bonus works per piece now, so if you can fit in all pieces in chain you will get a 10% effectiveness bonus on some heavy skills, otherwise If you use Cloth Gloves it will be 7.5% bonus.

Barugon is right though, try it with chain gloves first, but if some spells fizzle too much, change them for cloth (before changing anything else). Also fizzle chance goes down as your skill level goes up, so a skill with too much fizzle at level 1 could become very feasible at lvl 80, so look back to your gear options as you level the skills up!

 

Crendels Healer Build (Long Live the Syndicate)


GEAR:

I use a mix of cloth and chain. My cloth is Carapacian Epic with the masterwork/enchants on intelligence, spell crit, and focus. My chest is Meteoric Chain with intelligence and life attunement. My hand slots are situational but my primary build is a Pine wand (get the best you can). My secondary could be another wand, but I find myself using the shield more (Testudo). If you choose shield I recommend making sure it has the Testudo move rate penalty debuff. With both wands I am at 182 attunement and with the shield 167. I am adventure level 96 and skill buffed are health 638 focus 1031 (1049 wand) str 87 dex 50 int 121 (117 wand). Always seek extra attunement if you can.



FOCUS: you increase it by your adventure level by your skills and your gear. The two innate skills that directly increase your focus are Heightened Awareness and Train Intelligence. Leveling past 80 in your innates takes a huge sum of xp, but is worth it. Work to get your two innates to 60 then level up to 80 when you can. For Heightened Awareness level 1-60 takes 133k xp, from 61-80 takes 753k xp, and from 80-100 5.1M xp. For Train Intelligence level 1-60 takes 266k xp and 61-80 takes 1.5M xp, and going 80-100 10/3M. Another innate that affects focus is Inner Calm (Focus tree) which reduces focus cost of all spells.


Focus regeneration has many variables. One thing to keep in mind is the higher your focus pool the higher your total regen along with food and devotional buffs. The only intelligence food buff of worth is Darkstarr Fried Oysters, but it is pretty useless at higher levels so focus on whatever gives you the best focus regen. For a devotionals I go with Truth (+5 intelligence), Honor (+1.5 focus per second regen), and blessing of Skill (+5 Adventure Level).


SKILLS:

As with your innates level these skills to 60 then 80 then choose your GMs carefully.

Skills buffs that affect focus and focus regen are Spell Binders Stance and Aetheric Feedback (both in Focus Tree). As stated before increasing your intelligence affects focus so always keep your Enlightenment (Sun Tree) buff active.


Sample Primary Combat Deck

1-Healing Touch

2-Healing Ray

3-Healing Grace

4-Healing Blast

5-Purify (or Purify Burst but I prefer the reduced focus)

6-Valiant Warden

7-Testudo

8-Aetheric Feedback

9-Spell Binders Stance

0-Optional (Knights Grace/Banish)


Sample Secondary Combat Deck

1-Inner Strength

2-Healing Ray

3-Fortifiy Defense

4-Glancing Blow

5-Defensive Stance

6-Douse

7-Optional (Ice Shield/Shield of Crystal)

8-Inner Strength

9-Enlightenment

0-Celestial Blessing


For the “Optional” slots if in light armor I recommend Escape from the Light Armor tree if doing a mob boss. If in a group grind there is no need for Escape so think more utility, for example stacking stuns from the Air tree (see below for explanation) or or do ranged DPS (Searing Ray/Banish Undead). You can extend your buffing duty and do another HoT like Elysian Illumination or you can also put Douse in there and be responsible for Dousing the party…lots of options. If you do damage as a healer your healing spells will be slightly nerfed, so keep that in mind if you need to be healing more than DPSing.


Sample Passive Bar

1-Insturment Sheet Music (Harp of Invigoration)

2-Ressurection

3-Potion Focus

4-Potion Health

5-Potion Regeneration

6-Smelling Salts

7-Optional

8-Light/Night Vision

9-Teleport/Recall

0-Dash

As for the others use your judgement


ATTUNMENT:

This is increased by your skill levels in the specific tree and your gear. For a Healer I recommend Carapacian Epic Cloth with two wands. You should have your gear crafted with the goal of intelligence, focus, focus regen, spell crit and life attunement (socketing). You will need something like 150 Carapace Beetles (to compensate breakages pre R54) and the best place to farm them is Grunvald Shardfall (PVP zone). But I get about 15 an hour so…yah painful.


SPECIALIZATION:

Healing:

There are many benefits that scale with your level. This is incredibly costly so make your decision wisely.


- Healing touch cast/lock time divided by (1+ LifeMastery). This means faster charging for big heals.

- Healing ray, speed boost.

- Purify, instead of doing a single purify, will turn into a purify over time, repurifying every 3 seconds for 1+(lifeMastery x 9) ticks, so 10 ticks over 30 seconds at mastery 80.

- Banish Undead, increases the Minimum Damage it can do by Life Mastery % (Base is 10-35 so at mastery 80, it will be 20-35 base). In the Rise Lich room I hit aoe for 175 and crit in high 200s.

- Resurrection, cast and lock time reduced by (1+ lifemastery), so cuts time in half at mastery 80.

- Healing grace, reduced focus cost.

- Healing Blast, reduced casting and lock time.


My second is Heavy Armor for the Valiant Warden boost, but many go with Focus. (I am still in debate on this, but my second build is a heavy armor DPSr so I know I am not totally min/maxed but it works for me)


PLAY STYLE:

I believe the Healer should keep the Harp of Invigoration up at all time. SO make sure you are ranged if you can with the tank as he is doing enough button clicking, taking anything off their plate is a god send.


When the tank starts the pull I cast a stacked Healing Grace and then Spell binder stance. I DO NOT look at anything but the group health bars. I could care less about the screen because focusing on the groups health is paramount. If for some reason many of the health bars are taking damage I may look up to assess if there is an issue and call it out via voice chat. BUT most important is to focus just on the group health bars. I keep my target on the tank (“F” keys) and if needed will touch up the group with healing grace as this HoT is plenty to keep them alive. I use keypad (Razer Nostromo) and mouse to heal, I try not to use the mouse to click as it takes a bit longer to move click the mouse.

When things start to go bad I will use Healing Ray and dependent on the fight I may be close enough to the tank to use healing touch. You’re the healer and can tell people where to stand. I try and group the ranged in one spot and usually stand with them so healing touch is also an option on them. Most efficient use of both skills is to stack, but time isn’t always on your side. If in full cloth click escape glyph to keep agro down and always make sure spell binder stance, aetheric feedback and a shield are up. Remember the longer you don't do damage or move the more your heals will do as you get a modifier for doing neither.

Another play style option is AOE air stuns. I can use them in lue of heals. I can stun lock large groups of mobs with those spells and that means I don't have to heal, so this is s a judgement call but for me it works great. Essentially I am a healer/crowd control if needed. BUT I don't stun unless I feel it is worth the commitment of losing the gains to heals due to stillness and not doing damage plus the huge possibility of gaining agro.

This leaves healing blast, WOW, just WOW. I crit heal for 600+. Now that sounds great and it is...but the agro it generates can be a total headache. So use it only when needed. Like most all games the tank and the healer are the only talkers in chat (in my opinion). So if you feel you have gained the agro call it out to your tank and let him pull the mobs off you. Don't do the chicken dance and run, Healing Grace yourself then Healing Touch and let your team do their job.


Now for Testudo and Valiant Warden (always stacked). 9% damage resistance (GM) Testudo can be a very nice bump, still waiting on a long term determination but right now I find this a great buff I can keep on the tank. I do love Valiant Warden, some will argue the tank should cast but I disagree. Put the VW on the tank and you increase his overall hp as you are now taking some of his damage. This means when the Lich or Ancient Dragons hit you are effectively making your tank a much heartier tank. When doing mob bosses you should not get that much agro so just keep a healing grace on yourself and enjoy.


Last thing is call out your Resurrections, I find it most helpful for another person in the group to have this duty but either way make sure you say “resing XXX” and wait for that person to respond “got it”. Many times the Res doesn’t work and we need everyone on their feet.


Most every fight is situational and changing the deck is something I find myself doing a lot. When I am doing Superstition Canyon Control Point I tweak a bit differently than dragons or Lich platform in the Rise.


Good Luck and Happy Healing

Crendel

 

For full healing I either go cloth and shield or chain and no shield, imho. If you want dull set bonus.

Shield fizzle tends to be the make or break. Wand can offset most of it.

 

My Mage: Good speed and not much fizzle.
Chain chest - the rest leather - cloth cloak / all armor made with exceptional materials and enhanced / masterworked twice.
Dagger - Dexter
Wand - Sinister (off hand)

 

Mind blown.

So many things to learn in this game. Of COURSE the gloves matter more, but I never even considered it.