TSW Regeneration Build Guide
TSW Regeneration Build Guide by gabrion2
A few notes first.
I’ve seen several people here post that passive healing abilities in TSW are sub par. Often people try them out only to realize the benefit of a passive that heals you 20, 30, or 40 HP/second is inconsequential past very early content and doesn’t warrant locking out a passive slot that could be used to DPS enemies down that much faster. Usually this is true, but this build I’ve been using is one way to make passive “regen” work.
The concept is an aoe DPSer that passively heals without ever actually casting a healing spell, and does it very well. For some context, I wanted to try this build out of the box, so I started building toward it in Kingsmouth. By the time I got part way into the City of the Sun God, wearing QL7-9 greens, I learned about the “nightmare” roman legion area in the first part of Egypt. I went back there and with no blues other than a QL8 weapon from Egypt tokens, was able to farm packs of 5 zombies or the 6 legionnaire packs in that area. I’m not bragging, but several people in that area asked me about my build, as they were having trouble doing the quest there (which I soloed with no trouble at all…once again pre-any items from Trans). When I got to Trans, still in my mostly QL 8 or 9 gear, with a few 10s from those roman mobs, I immediately went to the signet quest from the church and soloed it no problem, pulling 4 nightmare ghouls at a time.
Again, I’m not claiming this is THE uber build, just one that I found I could take on content presumably above my QL without ever being at risk of dying. That said, it has some limitations. DPS only really shines when you have the luxary of pulling 5 mobs at a time. Now that I’m in Trans, I’m working on ways to increase my single target DPS, but the nice part is still knowing it’s very hard to die.
Pros:
-Very high survivability
-Second weapon option is pretty much open
-Probably some of the best AoE DPS achievable
-Forgiving
Cons:
-Single target DPS lacking (partially rectifiable with second weapon choice, but still going to be sub-par due to only one passive slot open to augment dps)
-Not something you want to take into a dungeon
-Affliction based can cause problems against some mobs.
So the build…
Required Actives
-Clearing the Path
(seriously, that’s it for required actives, lots of leeway to build other stuff)
Required Passives*
-Arterial Pulse
-Immortal Spirit
-Circulation
-Advantage Me
-Bloodsport
-Empowerment
*As the thread has progressed, it has been pointed out that all of these aren’t really required. The idea is that Empowerment, assuming good crit rating, plus a few passive HoTs will be good. Which ones you want and how many is up to the individual.
Optional Actives**
-Forking Paths (I used this till Trans, when I decided to try out Chaos)
-Blaze (Used this early on for single target)
-Escalation (Trying this now)
-Karma (again, part of my new incarnation, but not needed if you dont want to chaos)
-Call for Eris (not far into chaos, so this seems like the best single target consumer available for my secondary weapon.
-Martial Discipline/Illusion/whatever defensive CD you want (maybe not necessary a lot, but I like to keep one defensive CD)
-Stunning Swirl/The Art of War (used the former early on, the latter once I got enough points).
-Surging Blades/Spiral of Death (not necessary at all, I just like mobility)
Optional Passives**
-Healing Sparks (if you run a burst of some sort…you can even replace advantage me with this if you like)
-Leaching Frenzy (testing this now, seems ok, but I don’t parse so can’t say with certainty if it’s worth it the way the HoT passives are)
-Shoot em up (if using a frenzy builder, use this instead of bloodsport)
-Aidelon (obviously if you wanted to go blaze for single target, though this is changing soon so…)
*Note: Lick Your Wounds doesn’t fit because (unless it’s changed), it’s one of the few HoTs that can’t proc empowerment.
**This was my initial list just thrown together and it’s woefully inadequate. Many other good actives/passives can be added to the deck and have been discussed in the thread, I just haven’t listed them all here.
Gear – I ran 100% dps gear up till Trans, where I found a blue QL10 healing piece that I added in. In retrospect, having 1 or 2 healing pieces makes a decent difference on empowerment procs (which is very important), so even when leveling I should have had 1 or 2 heal pieces. I glyphed crit every chance I had. Crit is most important stat. Yes it gives you a little DPS increase, but it’s really there for empowerment procs. I also put some pen on just because it’s annoying to be blocked.
So, in case it isn’t 100% obvious, here’s how the build works. Pull a group of 5 mobs. Hit them once with a builder to set afflicted, then use Clearing the path. Your attack with auto pen all of them, plus Arterial Pulse will create one AoE dmg effect per mob (so 25 instances of dmg from Arterial Pulse with each Clearing the path). Alternate between your builder and CtP, using your secondary consumer whenever it’s at 5 resources. In the mean time, you have a HoT from circulation, a HoT from Immortal Spirit (thx to auto pen), and a HoT from Advantage Me (most of the time…with focus on crit rating and doing AoE attacks, I see this up pretty much all the time). If you went the burst route, you have another HoT from Healing Sparks. Each of these HoTs have a chance to apply Empowerment on each tick, which is really the key to the regen power of this build.
Even in Egypt, with pretty crummy gear all focused on DPS, I’m sure I was self healing around 200/second. Yes that sounds like a tiny number compared to what actually healers do, but keep in mind this is all without ever casting a healing ability. Now that I have some healing gear from Trans, the base healing from the HoTs alone is around 150, with Empowerment doing over 200/proc. Add in ~100 HPS from Forking Paths, or however much Leeching Frenzy+Escalation+Karma adds in, and it’s easy to see why not having set foot in a dungeon, this deck can still gather up nightmare ghouls in Besieged Farmlands and finish a fight against them at 100% health.
Feedback appreciated, but be nice!
If you do find yourself in trouble, the build includes a few get out of jail free cards – Martial Discipline/Ilusion and Art of War. I know the latter gets a lot of negative press vs impair immune mobs, but I still find it worthwhile just because in an AoE setting you are guaranteeing 10 glances, which is usually helpful in the rare case that your HP regen has lagged behind enemy dmg output.
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Here’s a short example video of one version of the build. It includes fights against some very easy normal mobs as well as some nightmare mobs.
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