Mod16 Advanced Endgame Guide
Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 8:43 am
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.
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.