Mod16 Advanced Endgame Guide

[Ziek88]

Links to Other Places
Start with the Basics
Phel has this guide written on going from 70-80 and what to do when you reach 80.

Class Specific Guides
Please go here

Master Expedition
Phel's post links to here and sums it up pretty well.

Janne's Things
This is full of useful information about Neverwinter. Mostly calculations. It is usually fairly up to date and accurate. I currently use it for its Power benefit calcaulations. It has been very useful in the past for seeing how buffs/debuffs interract as well.

Rainer's Repository
This is full of useful information about almost everything. Companions, Mounts, Insignia bonuses, Enchantmants. Well organized and makes finding what you want much easier.

General Information
Best first big investment
Bonding Runestones. These will give you the best and longest return on investment. They have been and are very likely to continue to be extremely beneficial to any build. Invest heavily in upgrading these first as they will help you every mod. Other investments have risk of losing all value as soon as a new mod comes.

Best Time for Big Upgrades
Right at the start of the mod. With each new mod there are often things that lose all of their value that were good in the previous mod. We never know what things that will be until the mod actually comes. This is why I say invest in upgrades early in a mod. That will give you a long duration to benefit from your new goodies. Then hoard resources for the next mod.

Multiple Loadouts
Every character has 2 loadouts. You'll need both. Every character requires an AoE and Single Target rotation. This cannot be avoided. If you are lucky you may be ablet to get both in 1 loadout. If not, you may need as much as 4 loadouts minimum if you have a support and a DPS spec and want to be both.

Warning about Power
Power is listed as having no cap. While this is true, it is misleading. Power suffers from diminishing returns. At 100k power the benefit of power is at 50%. Even at 50k power, adding 3% damage takes 4500 power. The returnes diminish rapidly the more power you have.

Item Level has no Value
Item Level does not mean stronger. I like to say Item Level with correctly allocated stats. There are many cases where items of lower item level actually perform better than high item level. Consider what gear will do for your build and ignore item level. It is a bad metric for character strength.

Combined Rating is what now!?
You may have noticed almost all new gear has a stat called "Combined Rating". The number listed is applied to every stat excluding HP and Power. If a piece says 500 combined rating you will get 500 Crit chance, crit resist, armpen, defense, accuracy, deflect, Combat advantage and awareness. Then you get the rest of the stats listed on top of that.

Companions - Augment or No?
There is a lot of choice here so it is important to consider what is best for you. A class guide may help narrow that choice if you unsure. I do want to clear up Augment vs Companion. Companions bring abilities. They can do damage, heal, buff or debuff. There are a lot of options. They however lose to Augments in the amount of stats they give you. For ease lets say you have 3 max rank bondings stones. That is 70% each or 210%. From a Companion you will receive 210% of its stats via bondings. If you have an Augment summoned you will actually gain another 100% of its stats. An augment gives you all if its stats PLUS the bondings meaning 310%.

The question really boils too do you need the extra stats?

Enemy Rating
Each dungeon/zone has an enemy rating. Level 70 is 7000, level 80 is 10,000 and Lair of the Mad Mage is 18,000. This number tells you what the enemy stats are. Armor Penetration, Critical Resistance, Accuracy and Awareness are equal to the enemy rating. Defense, Critical Strike, Deflect and Combat Advantage are the enemy rating + 50,000. Keep in mind everything in the game has a 5,000 critical strike bonus and a 10,000 combat advantage bonus that gets added as well.

Mechanics and Concepts
Movement
Phel wrote a guide covering this. Refer to it for endgame movement practices

Party Composition
This is simple now. 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 DPS. All variants of each type are viable currently. Having one of the DPS excel at AoE and one excel at single target is ideal.

Order of Engagement
Always always always let the tank go first. Even if you can handle the enemies hitting you, the tank going first can get them in a nice small bundle. This is ideal for making efficient short work of mobs. Otherwise they scatter and the tank wastes an entire rotation (20 seconds) just taking aggro from you.

Positioning
The healer and DPS should all be behind the enemies. Tank should be in the face of enemies. While moving around cannot always be avoided, try at least to be behind the enemy when a big damage rotation is coming. Thus takes advantage of Combat Advantage which is a large piece of the damage dealing puzzle. Also less likely the enemy attacks you there.

Wombo Combo
Mostly in boss fights a strong tactic is to look for a damage window. This is a period where the best buffs are floating around and the DPS dumps their heaviest hitters. Given buffs can be coming from multiple party members it is good to know what buffs everyone can bring and to coordinate them as a group maximizing output in a small period of time. Creating and using damage windows will make dungeons easier, faster and more likely to succeed.

BiS Gear
Best Weapon Set
Burnished is the best weapon set for all classes but requires beating LotMM a bunch to get. Alabaster would come in second but requires luck to get. Burnished has a chance of still being best mod17.

% Based Damage Gear
Some old level 70 gear is better than new level 80 gear. Best examples are Fured Kiuno of the Bear, Heels of Fury, Terrored Grips and Hag's Rags. Consider this when selecting gear.

Best Artifact Set for DPS
Demon Lord's set still wins. The % damage increase surpasses any other artifact set in the game. It's old and it still has no competition. It may not even be bad for Tanks and Healers to slot this. I have it on my tank and the added damage just means more aggro gain. There is also a case for Lostmauth. When Paired with Tenebrous enchantments on a class that hits a lot of little damage instead of a few big damage tenebrous would proc a lot more and potentially be ideal with the extra hits of lostmauth.

Best Active Artifact
Wyvern-Venom Coated Knives is showing to be the single best artifact. It appears to stack so if a full party fires one off that is a full party 60% damage buff. Nothing else comes close. Tank, DPS, Healer. Doesn't matter. This thing is top notch. It also reduces enemy damage by the same amount.... that is a very nice 10 second window.

Tenebrous Enchantment
1 of these for tanks can make up 5-15% of a tanks total damage. Do not equip more than 1. The tooltip is misleading and the way way tenebrous damage is capped makes more than 1 non beneficial.

[Ziek88]

This is just a start. There is more to be added and I encourage other preview testers to leave tips I can add or topic suggestions.

[CanisBlack]

Have you figured out anything for Compaions? Assuming you've been on preview to get a look at the way they're changing things for them.

[Ziek88]

I have but not enough to add to this guide yet. There is a lot still unconfirmed and pieces not working correctly. Companion tuning won't be a significant part until players reach 80 and are preparing for endgame. The main guide above is aimed at simple steps to get to that endgame. Then once endgame picture becomes clearer I'll migrate the guide in that direction.

This is what I know so far.

Companions still equip 3 runestones and 3 pieces of gear. The gear they can equip is now limited to companion gear only and companion gear can only slot Runestones. The gear slots are no longer type specific. You can equip any type (ring, necklace, weapon) in any gear slot as long as it is companion gear. They have said a trade will be available so players can exchange enchantments for runestones since most people had enchants on their companion equipment. The leveling 70-80 campaign gave me some reasonable companion gear.

Eldritch runestones no longer exist. They are including a trade so players with eldritch can trade it for an equal rank bonding. Bondings and eldritch have been merged. Bondings now work exactly like Eldritch did but with the bonding % bonuses.

Your summoned companion is mostly cosmetic. Some may give a slight advantage over another but it is very small. Basically everyone doesn't have to have a chultan tiger summoned anymore.

Companions in general are a less significant part of your build. They are still a massive boost to your stats but having a perfect companion lineup doesn't make or break you. Some emphasis that used to be on companions has been moved to skill based play and gearing of your actual character.

There are some clear nerfs. The biggest reason for high level bondings was massive power sharing from supports. A DC with 50k power could give you 106,000 more power through your companion bondings. Since powersharing abilities aren't coming along to mod 16 this is gone. Actually playing mod16 this feels fine. Most supports hated being powershare bots and endgame was balanced around this crazy boost existing. The removal allows them to make endgame more approachable.

The changes sound huge but the group most effected are people who had the 5 BiS companions upgraded fully with all top end gear for them. For everyone else this is a buff. I am one of those maxed out BiS people for my companions and I was initially concerned but seeing where the game is going and how this change fits in I'm pretty happy with it.

[tornnomar]

Okies, time to pipe in here:)

First of all, Thank You Ziek! for these amazing posts! Your time and effort is noticed by all.

There really isnt anything to add here except maybe to add that Companion Influence is no joke. Dark enchants used to give movement in utility slots but now instead give companion influence with a strength addition. In my climb to 80, my Tiger was whackin and a crackin enemies left and right.
The one issue I have noticed with comps is that they are sluggish right now. So if you are on preview, stop everyonce in awhile to let the comp catch up.
I have managed to get all new lvl 80 gear, plus two new artifact weapons, a new artifact and new neck waist pieces that I have upgraded fully. The difference is staggering.
It leaves me just shy of 20k item level.
I did level all the way to 80 wearing the Barovia hunt gear and using Primal Weapons with little to no isuues, unlike Elemental Evil when the cap was raised to 70, by about level 63, it was time to change gear.

As a main TR, err, now just Rouge, I find reinvigorating. It doesn't feel static anymore. I can't just walk in and pop smoke bomb and stand there until everything dies. I must actually play the toon now! Which I like.
The powers, boons, feats are all straightforward now and are very clear at they do, or don't do. For example, a Clerics Chains of Blazing Light used to do damage and lock down movement....well the damage is gone, but the lockdown remains, perfect for an increased radius Daunting Light that with the right setup launches instantly instead of a long animation build up.

My main concern was the Rouge, and I must say that I am satisfied with what they have done with the class.

[Ziek88]

I went through the endgame portion and updated it for greater detail covering stats and how they interract.

[Ziek88]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... =119945880

I've added this link to the main post. Really well done compilation of information for mod16 for anyone trying to plan ahead. Obviously all of this is subject to change but can still be useful.

[Ziek88]

Last week there were some big changes to stats on preview. Biggest being the ratio is now 1000:1 and enemy stats are no longer 1 number for every stat. I've started updating my info but it will take me a bit to sort it all out. They gave numbers for level 70. Have not yet found numbers for 80 and the new dungeon.

Oh and that lovely enchantment trader is not Bind to Account.

*Update*
I have adjusted most of the info and added some info on stat balancing in mod16. The only out of date info now is enemy ratings at level80 and the new dungeon. If anyone stumbles accross that info please let me know.

[Ziek88]

Updated for enemy stats of level 80 and Lair of the Mad Mage. I "think" they are correct. Lair of the Mad Mage is really the target. Don't bother stat balancing for level 80. Included screenshot of what the stat caps look like.

[Ziek88]

Sorry it took so long after launch to finish this. I wanted to make sure I knew things before make recommendations. This is now updated fully for the current state of the game. I will try to keep it up to date as things change. Mod16 still feels to be in flux.