U19 Nova Soul - Direct Damage FVS

[Ancient]

NovaSoul (a direct damage epic FVS build)
The NovaSoul is a direct damaged (light/physical/fire) FVS build capable of raid healing, soloing epic elites and can be done as a first life character if desired. This post will simply list the build, the second post contains build videos and the third post contains detailed analysis of different build options/choices.

18 FVS/2 Monk Human
Alignment: Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral
Stats

Str = 8 (base) + 3 (tome) + 2 (ship) + 7 (equipment) = 20
Dex = 12 (base) + 3 (tome) + 2 (ship) + 7 (equipment) = 24
Con = 18 (base) + 3 (tome) + 2 (ship) + 9 (equipment) + 6 (levels) = 38
Int = 13 (base) +3 (tome) = 16
Wis = 12 (base) + 3 (tome) + 2 (ship) + 1 Ocean Stance + 7 (equipment) = 27
Cha = 9 (base) + 3 (tome) + 2 (ship) + 2 (capstone) + 6 equipment = (22)

• For 34 and 36 point builds, put the extra points into Cha for SP or Wis/Dex for saves.

Feats

• Toughness
• Empower Healing
• Empower
• Maximize
• Quicken
• Mental Toughness
• Improved Mental Toughness
• Dodge
• Mobility
• Spring Attack

Epic Feats

• Epic Toughness
• Epic Mental Toughness
• Spell power whatever you want or skill focus spellcraft
• Ruin
• Hellball

Skills:
Max SpellCraft, Heal, UMD, and Jump. During monk levels max Balance.
In epic elites when you face crowds of trash mobs, you are going to be jumping around like an old school arcane so balance and jump are needed.

Enhancements:
Human 17 points

Core 1-4 (con/cha)
Don't Count Me Out (2, filler)
Improved Recover (all 3 ranks)
Fighting Style traditionalist caster (3 for 10 sp)

Angel of Vengence 45 points

Core 1-4
Scourge 3
Just Reward 3
Inquisition 3
Angelic Resistance 3
Smiting all 4 ranks
Wand and Scroll Mastery 3
Intense Faith 3
Efficient Maximize 3
Efficient Empower 3
Zealous Faith 1 (I need to do the math to see what this helps and how much)

Protection 11 points(I'm testing out dumping protection for more points in the Aov tree)

Core 1
Toughness (3)
Awareness (1, filler)
Efficient Quicken (3)This was the reason for spending in this tree

Henshin Mystic 1 point

core 1 (5 fire sp, 5 force sp, 2 fire resist for 1ap. Yes please!)

Ninja Spy 4 points

Core 1
Acrobatic 3 (3 dodge)

Shinto Monk 1 point

core 1 (5 heal amp, 10 positive spell power for 1 ap. Yes again please!)

Epic Destiny - Exalted Angel for healing/offense
Avenging light - 2 AP, Light based SLA, 3 sp with 3 second cool down.
Radiant Power - 3 AP, +30 light spell power
Healing Power - 3 AP, +30 positive spell power
Endless Faith - 3 AP, +10% mana pool, echos to 30 sp
Purity of Essence - 3 AP, +10% heal amp
Renewal - 3 AP, (Active Cooldown: 3secs, 5sp) Heals 1d2 HP per 2 character levels every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. If target is below 50% health, grants celestial shield, which absorbs 50 damage.
Blood and Radiance - 3 AP, Each time you cast a light based spell, you gain Endless Ardor: +1 sacred bonus to positive energy for 10 seconds. Each time you cast a positive energy spell, gain righteous fervor: +1 sacred bonus to light spellpower for 10 seconds. Can stack up to 10 times. Each stack add 10 seconds to remaining duration. TLDR: Up to 30 spell power for light/healing.
Rebuke Foe - 2 AP, Only usable when Endless Ardor stack >=5. Target enemy tales 5% additional damage from physical and light damage for 30 seconds. Can stack up to 5 times, new stacks add 30 seconds to remaining duration. Endless Ardor stacks reset to zero. This boosts both your light damage as well as your physical damage. In a raid, this boots everyone's melee damage, and thus might be a bigger DPS contribution than any other single thing you could do.
Divine Wrath - 2 AP, Area light attack, heals too, looks like a small nuke, whats not to like.
Twists: Energy Burst, Toss Boulder, Wild Shot
This is my default configuration if I am not grinding destiny experience.

Saves:
Fort/Ref/Wis
FVS18 11/11/11
Mnk2 03/03/03
GLuck 02/02/02
Insight 04/04/04
GHero 04/04/04
Resist 08/08/08 (Can do better in u19)
Ocean 01/01/01
Epic 03/03/03
Stats 07/07/07 (Can do better)
Alchem 01/01/01
----------------
Total 44/44/44 (Or better)

Dodge:
Acrobatic 3
Flurry of Blows 4
Ocean Stance 1
Dodge 3
Mobility 2
Spring Attack 2
+10 Dodge Item
------------------
25 dodge

Chance to be hit
50% Displace
10% Incorp
25% Dodge
-----------
33.75%

[Ancient]

U19 EE Videos
U19 EE Lessons in Deception, First two fights

Epic Elite Videos
EE Impossible Demands
EE Unquiet Graves

Epic Elite ScreenShots
The Portal Opens
The Portal Opens pic2

Epic Normal Videos
Epic Normal Overgrowth with 3 optionals

[Ancient]

Build Goals

1. A solid raid healer. Since I am not in a raiding guild, I need to a build that performs well enough in raid healing that I am remembered and asked back for future raids. When I'm in a raid, I want to be able to match the healing provided by a typical healbot.
2. Solo Epic Elites. It is a challenge, and I am on my own soloing 80%+ of my play time. This is my build I can play against almost anything.
3. Accessible. I don't have top-end gear (not shabby, but not amazing), so I wanted a build that can start with what someone has and work their way up the equipment ladder. Since this is an epic build, I consider walmart epics a good baseline to begin with.

U19 - Whats new?
Many things have changed since I posted the original NovaSoul build. At the time, DC builds were king and the build was criticized for abandoning the pursuit of high DCs. Now, DC casting struggles to be viable in epic elite gameplay. (A shame, it should be a playable option). With U19, the NovaSoul build got several key boosts:

• SpellPower - Between spellcraft, more levels, enhancement changes and scourge. The same spells/slas now hit for more.
• More offense - Ruin and Hellball provide more epic level offense
• Survival - I pursued many options to increase survival with the previous NovaSoul build. I had many people tell me after the fact that dodge/displace/incorp was the path I should be on. To those helpful people I simply must say... thank you! U19

Questions/Answers

Why not cleric divine disciple?
I tried divine disciple out on the test server. It wasn't a good fit for this build. Divine disciple focuses on light damage, while NovaSoul has physical, fire, force and acid/fire/electric/sonic with hellball. The divine disciple SLAs don't hit as hard as the epic SLAs. Archon plays an important role in charging divine wrath. The epic feats cost a lot of SP which benefits from the larger FVS spell point pool. There are a lot of reasons that FVS is a better fit for this build.

How do you get displacement?
On the test server, I used scrolls. It only lasts 30 seconds, but it is an easy answer that everyone can use. More established players can farm displacement greensteel items (I recommend staves).

Does the build require all those twists?
I worked my way through all the epic destinies as a NovaSoul. Most of your ED experience quests won't be run on epic elite. Avenging light, blade barrier and your other offense is more than enough for epic normal or epic hard. Don't forget to pick up whatever offensive SLAs are in the destiny that you are farming.

Why monk instead of paladin?
Dodge! I was able to get decent saves without paladin, but EE survival depends on the trinity of concealment/incorporeal/dodge.

What does a "typical" combat sequence of attacks look like
Just before engaging, you want to refresh displacement and renewal and check the archon timer. Don't forget to re-equip your staff. Against a large group, it is good to throw down a blade barrier first since you will be kiting anyways. If divine wrath is charged and I think I can cast it without issues, I like to use it early since the 15 second recast means it can be reused multiple times even in a quick fight.

The four concerns for divine wrath are: 1). It requires a hard target and you have to target quickly. 2). It will go off where the target was when you started the cast, so it is best if you are already doing a circle strafe to minimize the chances of the mob moving out of range. 3). It casts slow, so you really want to be in at the start of a jump when you begin casting. 4). It has a counter, so you have to make sure you are ready to go. This is just one of several counters you have to watch. If the divine wrath goes well, you should be at full health.

Next, I usually like to use wild shot against a large crowd. Wild shot works best when targeting something on the opposite side of the crowd. If you just executed a divine wrath, you should be in the middle of the crowd... someplace you don't want to stay long. Target a mob, jump backwards like a kobold shaman, recast renewal (it is very fast) and then begin wild shot while you are in the air. Wild shot doesn't deal well with differences in vertical targeting, so you want to finish the cast on the ground.

At this point, you should be on the ground at the edge of the pack with them closing in on you. This is a great position to use energy burst. Energy burst goes off right right around you, the concerns are 1.) the timer 2.) it won't go off if your target is too far away 3.) You don't want to get swarmed, so sometimes you want to back peddle while casting so the pack gets in range right as it goes off. I sometimes jump cast energy burst, it does not seem to cause issue if it goes off mid-air.

Now you have hit the group of mobs with 3 AOEs. It may be thinning... maybe not. If you have a hefty number of mobs left, it may be time to break out a hellball. It is an easy jump cast and does ok damage against mobs without evasion. The reason I have it after the other options is that unlike the previous options, hellball does cost quite a bit of spell points. If the mob is looking thin, then a toss boulder/avenging light can help bring down stragglers. Unlike wild shot, toss boulder seems to work best if timed so it goes off at the peak of your jump going down towards your target. If you have a dangerous boss mob, ruin is a quick casting way to hit them hard. Like hellball, ruin costs a good bit of spell points.

End of a cycle of offense, time to recast renewal and check the displacement timer. In the middle of all this, you still have to watch your life bar and cast heal as needed. There is a lot going on.

[Ancient]

Reserved 4

[Carpone]

Gear set?

What's your PRR? It looks like it caps out with whatever an item is providing you (up to 16 from an augment).

The 10% Dodge item is a pretty specific slot/permutation for the Skullduggery Kit.

Where are you slotting your Ghostly item?

What's your Light, Positive and Force Spell Power? How much is your Hellball hitting for?

What's your spell crit chance? I'm assuming you're using a Flawless Blue Dragon Robe:

09 Item
05 Magical Training
08 AoV enhancements
01 Mental Toughness
01 Improved Mental Toughness
01 Epic Mental Toughness
---
25% crit

The Stormhorns quests have a very high mob density, with some trash mobs approaching 10k HP. Do you really think you can solo those EE quests without using mana pots?

I'm a little surprised you aren't doing more to max CHA for additional SP, and increased DC with Hellball/Energy Burst.

[Ancient]

Carpone! You were one of the ones that influenced me to try dodge/incorp/displace (through your posts, I don't think we have ever spoke directly).

This is a pure test-toon, so the equipment is whatever I could pick up off the floor of the dojo. I didn't craft anything, so there is a ton of room for improvement. Your crit breakdown looks about right. I haven't even thought about PRR yet That is something I'll leave for the real server build where I can get a real set of gear. On test, I'm running around with a staff of natt ghan for 8% dodge. It was easy to find in the dojo, but it means that I have to be quick when I scroll cast displacement.

For now, survival is a bigger issue for NovaSoul than spell points. There is plenty of free/cheap offense in this build. But 10% incorp and 30 second displacements don't leave much room for mistakes. This is a huge contrast to my grandmaster scourge (next build I'll post, 16 wiz/2 monk/2 fvs) where survival is not much of an issue, but I'm wondering how the spell point pool will hold up.

I tried both CHA and CON builds. I didn't notice a big help in offense from CHA, but I did notice a big increase in survival with the extra hp. This build doesn't have the survival of a wraith/ninja spy with 25% incorp, It doesn't have the offense of a shiradi, but I still keep working on it because I like having a option of a raid healer among my toons... but I won't abide playing a helpless one

[Pilgrim1]

Avenging light saves for half damage, divine wrath saves for half damage, energy burst saves for half, hell ball saves for half.

Your previous build was charisma based rather then wisdom based because you were able to access good epic destiny abilities that relied on charisma instead of wisdom and you could increase charisma higher then wisdom. Now you are going.. con based. This means that the above abilities will do half damage. I think you should reconsider this. You are also probably better off going something like 12 fvs/6 pally/2 monk or 18fvs/2pally bumping charisma up the wazzo take evocation stuff and getting a decent DC on your spells.

Also I don't see what this build provides that your not better off using druid for the SLA and the irresistible dots/word of balance.

Also that spore ability from primal avatar is a no-save poison dot that works quite well when the mobs are not immune.

[Ancient]

The previous one was con based as well. Chilldude has a cha based version.

The decision to keep this a raid healer was a build constraint. The survival would be much higher as a 12 fvs/6 monk/2 pally, but if I'm going to do that... why not do it right and be a palemaster shiradi? The choice between monk and pally came down to melee mobs being a much bigger threat than saves.

I can try out the spore ability, thank you for the tip... but I seem to remember it being too costly SP wise and lower damage than the other twist options.

[SirValentine]

The decision to keep this a raid healer was a build constraint. The survival would be much higher as a 12 fvs/6 monk/2 pally

How many levels of FvS do you think are required to be a raid healer?

You seem to be implying that such a split couldn't be a raid healer.

[Carpone]

How many levels of FvS do you think are required to be a raid healer?

You seem to be implying that such a split couldn't be a raid healer.

You'll have 615 SP less with 12 FvS compared to 18 FvS, and 145 SP less due to the sliding scale of bonus FvS SP gain (assumes 150 SP Shroud item and Wizardry X). That's 760 less SP total. You will also be limited to Mass CLW + Divine Wrath for group heals. You also won't have Blade Barrier. If you can work within those limitations, then it's doable.

The amount of ki you'll gain from Master Ocean stance (assuming you buy it) won't be enough to sustain Shadow Veil, unless you also dedicate 8 AP in Henshin for Contemplation.

Personally I'm not a fan of Paladin in this split. I'd rather have 2 Fighter for feats.

[Ancient]

How many levels of FvS do you think are required to be a raid healer?

You seem to be implying that such a split couldn't be a raid healer.

The area heal options would be very limited. With the epic destiny changes, just about any class can patch heal... but the group healing options are fewer and far more limited.

[Bromuro]

Carpone! You were one of the ones that influenced me to try dodge/incorp/displace (through your posts, I don't think we have ever spoke directly).

Gear set?

I'm playing a Wis based toon that used to have Necro/Evo focus but now is adapted to no fail dc for EH, and light dps for EE. I really need to re build it but i am working in another toon right now. Anyway, for what it worth my Gear is:

Head= Helm of Blue Dragon (EH) +3 Insight Wis, +1 Excep Wis, Heavy Forti.
Neck= Con +8, Natural Armor +6
Trinket= Planar Focus of Erudition +3 Insight Cha
Cloak= Stormreaver's Tablecloth, Featherfall.
Belt= GS 45 Hp, Smoke. Displa clickie.
Gloves= Gauntlets Of Immortality, Insight +2 Con, and DB.
Boots= Treads of Falling Shadow (EH)
Bracers= Grater Conval of Super Parrying.
Armor= Flawless Blue Dragonscale, False Life +35.
Goggles= GS 300 SP ConcOpp.
Ring1= Stormreaver Prophecy (EE), +1 Excep Char.
Ring2= Verik's Healing Amp.
Quiver= Quiver of Alacrity
Weapon= Twilight, Element of Magic with Impulse/Radiance

That's my main set, it cover all basics for my taste and some other things too, it was hard to decide and figure it out with so many options out there but it works really nice.

On the healing line of thoughts, it's really easy now since all toons added somekind of self healing, renewal/cocoon works really well, and just in case when it is needed u can cast some masses. I never had any trouble healing raids (and i HATE to babysit/heal).

Cheers!!

[Alkot]

I'm playing a Wis based toon that used to have Necro/Evo focus but now is adapted to no fail dc for EH, and light dps for EE. I really need to re build it but i am working in another toon right now. Anyway, for what it worth my Gear is:

Head= Helm of Blue Dragon (EH) +3 Insight Wis, +1 Excep Wis, Heavy Forti.
Neck= Con +8, Natural Armor +6
Trinket= Planar Focus of Erudition +3 Insight Cha
Cloak= Stormreaver's Tablecloth, Featherfall.
Belt= GS 45 Hp, Smoke. Displa clickie.
Gloves= Gauntlets Of Immortality, Insight +2 Con, and DB.
Boots= Treads of Falling Shadow (EH)
Bracers= Grater Conval of Super Parrying.
Armor= Flawless Blue Dragonscale, False Life +35.
Goggles= GS 300 SP ConcOpp.
Ring1= Stormreaver Prophecy (EE), +1 Excep Char.
Ring2= Verik's Healing Amp.
Quiver= Quiver of Alacrity
Weapon= Twilight, Element of Magic with Impulse/Radiance

That's my main set, it cover all basics for my taste and some other things too, it was hard to decide and figure it out with so many options out there but it works really nice.

On the healing line of thoughts, it's really easy now since all toons added somekind of self healing, renewal/cocoon works really well, and just in case when it is needed u can cast some masses. I never had any trouble healing raids (and i HATE to babysit/heal).

Cheers!!

You seem to have come up with a build alot like my fvs, i seem to have worked a bit more on DCs tho. gear setup is a good deal different also.

I do like the better saves that you have but looking at new EEs 44 reflex will still be bow.

[AtomicMew]

One suggestion would be to go 17 FvS/2 paladin/1 monk. You lose out on evasion, but without paladin splash you don't really have the saves for EE anyway.

1 monk also gets you all the important monk enhancements.

I don't see defensive stances from shintao, does that not work how I think it does?

I'm also unsure that the extra dodge is worth the loss of PRR from heavy armor.

[Ancient]

I don't see defensive stances from shintao, does that not work how I think it does?

Didn't they nerf that to become deft stance?

[Miow]

Crazy question would it be plausible to do light damage as a 12 fvs 6 cleric 2 paladin(this even possible?)

[AtomicMew]

Didn't they nerf that to become deft stance?

Oh, didn't know that ;o

[Ancient]

Crazy question would it be plausible to do light damage as a 12 fvs 6 cleric 2 paladin(this even possible?)

It is possible, but your casting levels would hurt on the slas.

[samsonov]

This one seems a pretty good and solid character. But how about leveling this one to level cap? Do you use only spells for dealing damage or do you use some melee as well while leveling? I do have a 34 pt character with FvS past life, but unfortunately I was to quick to TR it, so I don't have any ED's on it

[mikarddo]

On skills you mention Jump. However, with a simple 30 jump clicky belt, GH and 8 epic levels you already have more than 40 so why use skill points?