There’s more to dealing damage than the gear you have equipped, the build you use in combat, and the rotation you have adopted. There’s skill, knowledge, and resources applicable for every player and build that are fundamental in achieving your utmost potential. Making the right preparations prior to combat and having the information in combat in view to act upon, the proper tools at the ready to harness for your benefit, and the experience to execute at every moment are important for delivering the highest DPS.
Preparations for Battle
1A. Make all combat keys accessible. The default keys assigned to your abilities are not all within easy reach of your left hand, making some abilities difficult to use without looking down at your keyboard or forcing you to contort your hand in situations that may require quick reflexes--both of which leave you prone to making mistakes at critical moments. I’ve found that keys 5 through 8 are best re-assigned to any of the seven keys situated around the WASD movement keys or, for those with the right equipment, to configurable buttons on your mouse.
2A. Install add-ons that provide you with vital information and important functionalities. The Secret World user interface obfuscates the presentation of casts, effects, and weapon resources in places on your screen that steal your attention away from the focal point of action. With the following add-ons, you can modify which elements of the UI are displayed and where they are placed before you.
EffectsUI: a highly customizable tool for the display of effects and castbars. Show as many or as few effects as you need anywhere on your screen. I advise, at a minimum, to have the ones listed below and nothing more than necessity demands:
Breaching Shot
Deadly Aim
Short Fuse
Depleted
Uncalibrated
Shorted Out
Vulnerable to Magic
Vulnerable to Melee
Vulnerable to Ranged
Elemental Force
Power Line
Momentum
Castbar of Offensive Target
Place the effects and castbar around the center of the action on your screen, giving important information, such as Power Line, Elemental Force, and your offensive target’s castbar, prominent locations and relegating miscellaneous effects along the periphery, an example of which you can see in this screenshot.
Resource Re-Locator: allows you to adjust the size and position of your weapon resources.
ElTorqiro_AegisHUD: presents a custom AEGIS user interface and enables AEGIS shields and controllers to be swapped automatically or with a single click of the mouse. This add-on is invaluable for automating the swapping of both controllers simultaneously which could otherwise take several seconds to perform manually through the default UI.
Advanced Combat Tracker: an application that collects, parses, and organizes data from the combat logs of everyone around you. ACT is the most powerful tool available to analyze and compare your performance with others. Be sure to install the latest Secret World plug-in and set ACT to record an encounter for 60 seconds (which can be found under the Options tab > Main Table/Encounters > General) for the most accurate results in the majority of dungeon and raid encounters. Adjust the timer as necessary or click “End Encounter” at the bottom left corner in the Main tab to prevent multiple encounters from being logged as one.
3A. Design an ability bar template for use across all builds. It’s easier to play with all sorts of builds when the same kind of abilities are assigned to the same keys, whether they are buffs, builders, consumers, Elites, or auxiliaries. A consistent layout conduces consistent performance. Build muscle memory over time, and you’ll never have to pause to think which buttons correspond to which abilities.
4A. Find DPS builds that best conform to your playstyle. Just because a build may theoretically output more damage on average than another doesn’t mean it will perform as expected when you adopt it into practice. Blood and Elementalism builds are far more difficult to use to their greatest potential than most other builds, requiring that you keep track of multiple cooldowns, manage consumer resources, and sometimes manually place manifestations--which may be an overwhelming number of actions to attend to when you must also be aware of what’s going on around you and be ready to react accordingly. Playing with builds aligned with your strengths and experience will give greater returns than struggling with superior builds that are, as of yet, beyond your level of skill to execute.
5A. Knowing the source of greatest damage for a given DPS build helps you choose an optimum build for a forthcoming encounter. Some builds excel at burst damage, some at sustained damage, and others a mix of both. Fist/- or Chaos/Hammer builds center much of their damage in Shockwave, Molten Steel, and their secondary consumer when Elemental Force is active, while their damage in between these periods and outside group buffs tend to taper off until the next round of burst damage is initiated, making these builds dependent on frequent and impeccably timed group buffs to reach the height of their potential. A Pistols/Elementalism build, which is capable of great burst damage itself when all manifestations are in place and Power Line is detonated at nine stacks, tends to favor sustained damage. The speed Elemental Force is advanced is halted for every second you must spend placing a manifestation, increasing the time it takes for you to unleash your consumers during Elemental Force and group buffs; nevertheless, once manifestations are active, the damage they deal along with Hair Trigger make up for lost time through their greater rate of triggering damage procs. A Blood/- or Hammer/Elementalism build can excel at both burst and sustained damage by having the versatility of adapting the strengths of all the aforementioned builds when circumstances call for it, but they demand greater skill and execution to perform to their utmost.
6A. Practice your DPS rotations in the test chamber. All builds have a different feel when used in combat: from the range, animations, cast-times, and cooldowns of the abilities, to the length and variation of their burst and sustained rotations. Fight with your adversaries, not with your builds. Practice will help instill the confidence you need to master your builds by acquainting you with their every nuance, so that, even under great pressure, you never waver in your performance.
7A. Have a spare health minor talisman and either a Pure Anima – Attack Rating or Benefaction Tonic potion ready for encounters that require you have more than the minimum amount of HP. You need not take anything more than as much HP as necessary for survival in order to optimize your damage output. When it is vital to have more health, such as for the Elite Flappy and Eidolan raids, the Tokyo dungeons, and the Nightmare raids, 4,000 HP is enough. Make the best of what you have: a 10.5 or a 10.9 minor health talisman combined with a Benefaction Tonic will equip you with 4,032 and 4,294 HP, and an 11.0 minor health talisman and a Pure Anima – Attack rating potion will equip you with 3,920 HP.
8A. Take advantage of your shortcut bar. Change the hotkeys on your shortcut bar to suit your preferences and place gadgets and Ambrosia on your bar for quick access to them in combat.
9A. Always have sprint enabled before you engage. Jumping before engagement or moving beside the blue barrier along the edge of an encounter can knock you out of sprint and leave you behind.
Performance Optimizations
1B. Be ready to run directly behind the tank upon engagement with the boss to ensure maximum combat time. Every second lost catching up to others to begin fighting puts you behind where your rotation must be in time for group buffs, especially for players equipped with melee weapons.
2B. The right timing on when Deadly Aim, Breaching Shot, and Short Fuse are cast is critical for the DPS of an entire group. There’s no better time than near the start of an encounter, when everyone’s personal buffs are available and rotations are in sync, to unleash the full extent of your power. For the best results, group buffs should be activated either two seconds after engagement, when you anticipate a quick kill, or three seconds after engagement, when the length of combat exceeds the duration of the group buffs. If group buffs go off cooldown while an encounter is still in progress, they should be cast two to three seconds after players re-engage with the boss or as soon as possible, depending on the nature of the encounter. There are exceptions:
The Darkness War, 5th Encounter, Mayan Battle Mage: The boss will stand still shortly after you’ve engaged with him, from which you’ll see an orange orb manifest itself beside the boss and levitate in the direction the boss intends to teleport. Build to four resources, rush into the direction you see the orb moving to, and buff as soon as the boss appears in his new location.
The Ankh, 2nd Encounter, Doctor Klein: The time in which you buff should depend on whether the overall group DPS is high enough to either defeat Doctor Klein before he casts Dreaming Shroud or if it’s high enough to sustain the life of the tank under the effect of Reap and Sew while Dreaming Shroud is being channeled. Sufficiently high DPS can buff three seconds after the Dimensional Reaper is killed, and groups with average or below average DPS can hold buffs until two flashes of purple light shoot upwards from the boss and the tank, signaling the start of Dreaming Shroud.
The Ankh, 5th Encounter, the Colossus, Melothat: Along the expanse of the bridge, ahead of where you and Melothat are positioned at the start of battle, are two gates, and once Melothat’s HP is reduced to about 66% (218,531 HP), he’ll halt, belt out a roar, and charge to the first gate, where he’ll kneel down for a short time before he rises again and repeats the process until his HP is reduced to about 50% (165,554 HP). Melothat gains a damage mitigation effect that reduces his incoming damage by 90% while he is charging. The opportunity most advantageous to buff is the moment when Melothat has knelt down in front of a gate--but at which gate you buff depends on how capable the burst DPS of your group is. Buffing at the first gate is a calculated risk. If a group would fail to kill Melothat in time before he rises and unleashes two Wretched Receptacles at the group, his HP will have dropped below 50%, sending Melothat into a rampage, increasing his damage resistance, and trapping the group in between a raging Melothat and a closed gate guarded by an Orochi Dead-Ops and more Wretched Receptacles. A group incapable of executing this strategy should, instead, hold buffs for when Melothat arrives at the second gate.
The Ankh, 6th Encounter, the Colossus, Melothat and Doctor Klein: Buff at the standard time upon engagement. After Melothat has knelt down a third time, switch targets to Doctor Klein, who materializes at the edge of the pool to the right side of the arena’s entrance, and buff immediately. The objective is to frustrate Klein enough to cause him to retreat to the top of the statue by reducing Klein’s HP to about 220,000 before he’s able to complete the cast for his Wave of Mutation spell. This may not be possible if DPS fall back too soon or damage is too low to safely remain in combat. Cast buffs again, whenever they’re off cooldown, after the two Dimensional Reapers Klein had summoned to battle have been defeated.
Hell Fallen: The first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth bosses all enter combat with a red Infernal Mantle shield active, which absorbs 90% of all incoming damage for 30 seconds. It’s futile to cast buffs until one second before the shield dissipates. Instead, use this time to prepare your DPS rotation for burst damage when the time arrives. The Arch-Myrmidon, the boss you encounter second in the dungeon, through the discipline and loyalty of his Myrmidon comrades, reduces all incoming damage 90% as long as a Myrmidon is still alive; however, because the Arch-Myrmidon’s HP is so low, there’s no point in killing the Myrmidons first to weaken their boss’s defenses. It’s faster to ignore the Myrmidons and buff at the standard time.
Hell Fallen, 3rd Encounter, Engine Tyrant Prime and Alpha: Once the HP of the Engine Tyrant Prime is reduced below 40,000, it’ll stampede to the back of the arena and bellow to summon its companion Engine Tyrant Alpha to the field. Ignore Prime and wait until Alpha’s Infernal Mantle shield is about to expire before buffing.
The Facility, 5th Encounter, the Anima Constructs: For this encounter, buffs should be coordinated as a tactical measure in defeating specific targets before they become serious threats. Five Anima Constructs spawn at three intervals over the course of the fight: first, the Psychosecurity Officer; second, the Capsule Breaker and Reality Surgeon; and third, the Elemental Potentialist and Sequence Analyst. Every 20 seconds, the active node you stand besides that grants a massive buff to your damage and health will break down, and the node on the other side of the room will become active. It’s important that buffs coincide with the spawning of the Elemental Potentialist and Sequence Analyst, to minimize the chance their attacks--especially the Lightning Manifestation and Black Hole spells--kill players when the active node they stand besides expires. But it’s imperative that, if a node switch is about to occur within the next ten seconds when these constructs spawn, to instead hold the buffs until players have jumped to the next active node and the constructs are in range for players to attack, so that buffs aren’t wasted while players are busy traveling across the room.
The Facility, 6th Encounter, Halina Ilyushin: In the first of two phases for this encounter, Halina will engage the players until her health reaches a critical point, when she’ll run off into the middle of the room and transform into a more formidable adversary. Using group buffs as you first engage Halina merely hastens the start of the final phase and may leave buffs off cooldown at a time when players are more likely to benefit from them after Halina’s transformation is complete. Unless the player in charge of Deadly Aim and Breaching Shot has their accompanying passives equipped to reduce their cooldowns, it’s better to initiate buffs soon after the start of the final phase when Halina has been locked down by an active node. Another option is if the group agrees to attack Katyusha and hold it in place instead of have a heal-tank kite it around the arena, in which buffs should then be saved for the moment Katyusha is within 20 meters so that its health can be diminished fast, its movement stopped, and players could then attend to attacking Halina without fear of Katyusha advancing within deadly proximity.
Hell Eternal, 4th Encounter, Flagellatrix Superior: The boss will periodically cast Distress Signal, placing a shield of the same name on herself that absorbs 90% of incoming damage for 30 seconds. After the initial burn, all buffs and Elite abilities should be saved for after the shield has expired.
The Slaughterhouse, 2nd Encounter, NKL-107: At intervals of about 25% HP (367,831, 245,221, and 122,610) the boss will make haste for the region at the center of the pylons to discharge Burning Plasma. Because of the great speed the boss moves and its invulnerability to hinders, the tank usually pulls the boss to the back of the room to give players more time to deal damage to the boss before it reaches the pylons. Buff either immediately, if you anticipate DPS being high enough to kill the boss outright, or buff once the boss turns around and begins charging.
The Unutterable Lurker, Elite: For the first phase, buff at the standard time. Once the four Eldritch Guardians are vanquished and you re-engage with the Lurker, prepare your burst rotation and wait to buff for the moment the NPCs arrive to affix the Gaia Incarnate buff circles beneath your feet.
The Bird of the Zero Point Pathogen, Elite: Your first meeting with the boss will be a brief one. It typically gives you about ten seconds of combat time before it casts Zero Point Pathogen and flies off to do a series of aerial maneuvers, requiring that you buff the moment after the tank has secured aggro on the boss to exploit the full duration of the buff effects. Buffs should then be coordinated at the standard time off cooldown when the boss returns from flight.
The internal design of AEGIS changes the paradigm of when it’s optimal to buff. Switching AEGIS controllers to match your target’s AEGIS shields takes at least a second to execute, and if damage is high enough on the target to burn through multiple shields in a matter of seconds, time spent while buffed may be squandered when two seconds are spent switching your controllers. The mechanics of the AEGIS Nightmare dungeons further complicate matters, since not all encounters have targets with multiple AEGIS shields active simultaneously, and of these encounters, some mechanics may conflict with a universal standard on when to buff. Nevertheless, the ideal time to buff tends to occur when a single shield remains so as to avoid the disruptive pauses that come from switching AEGIS controllers and to potentially burn the shield fast enough to deal your full damage to the boss’s HP while you’re damage is still at its highest. A full list of exceptions are detailed below where this ideal isn’t reached.
The Penthouse, 1st Encounter, Uta: This encounter consists of three Utas each equipped with one of the three AEGIS shields. The three sisters are thematically linked in such a way that any great disparities in their health will cause the strongest of the sisters to enrage until balance is restored. An untimely period of burst damage from one player to an Uta can prove fatal, which, consequentially, means buffing while the health of the Utas is vulnerable presents a great risk to everyone in the group since it can be difficult to control the randomness of a single player’s damage potential relative to another. Group buffs are most advantageous in this situation at the standard time as players first engage the Utas in order to more quickly destroy their shields.
The Penthouse, 2nd Encounter, Bird of the Zero Point Pathogen: The boss begins with three AEGIS shields but will fly off as soon as they are all initially destroyed. Buff at the standard time upon engagement. Once the boss has flown off three times and players have destroyed all the hostile Filth Eggs, buff again three seconds after re-engaging the boss.
The Penthouse, 3rd Encounter, Filthy Amalgam: For groups with players equipped with uncommon quality level 9 AEGIS controllers and capacitors, I advise the player in charge of Deadly Aim and Breaching Shot slot the Calling the Shots and Breach Party passives on their ability bar to reduce the buff’s cooldowns to 60 seconds. This encounter has three critical DPS checks you must overcome to stand a chance at defeating the Filthy Amalgam. The first check comes when the second Infected Colossus spawns. You have 25 seconds after the primary AEGIS shield of the Colossus is destroyed to kill him before the shield regenerates or risk having the tank be pummeled by the boss and the Colossus for the remainder of the encounter. The second check is the Filthy Amalgam’s Cybernetic shield. It generates 270 strength every second and will replenish 32,302 more strength 60 seconds after it was initially depleted. And, finally, you have two minutes and twenty-five seconds from the time the boss spawns to kill it before succumbing to the filth. Therefore, buff on the secondary shield of the second Infected Colossus, the Cybernetic shield of the Filthy Amalgam, and once more after group buffs are off cooldown and the boss’s HP is exposed.
For those who far exceed the gear requirements the Penthouse was designed for, buff instead when the Demonic shield of the boss remains.
The Manufactory, 2nd encounter, Manticore Imperious-Class Tank: Along the periphery of the arena are three Manticore Towers comprised of AEGIS shields that will regenerate the health and shields of the tank and each other after a brief time has passed, as long as a shield on one of the towers remains active. In most groups, it’s important that buffs are cast as players engage the towers to ensure their shields are destroyed in sufficient time. Otherwise, groups with high DPS can hold buffs for when the Demonic shield remains on the tank.
The Manufactory, 3rd Encounter, the Phalanx-Class Cyborgs: The Cyborgs begin combat invulnerable to all damage. Their weakness lies in each other. The Juggernaut Cyborg is weak to the Displacer Cyborg’s Full-Force Quantum Blast, the Swoop Cyborg is weak to the Juggernaut’s Shield Recharge, and the Displacer Cyborg is weak to the Swoop Cyborg’s Target Pacification. If any Cyborg is hit with the wrong spell, all players will die; nevertheless, if their weaknesses are exploited, they’ll become vulnerable to taking damage for a short time. The Juggernaut and Swoop Cyborgs won’t cast their key spells until their defenses have been disrupted, and when they do cast them, the Cyborgs will become invulnerable to damage again. Therefore, the order in which the Cyborgs must be disrupted, their AEGIS shields destroyed, and their health reduced is:
Juggernaut Cyborg (Demonic shield)
Swoop Cyborg (Cybernetic shield)
Displacer Cyborg (Psychic shield)
The death of any one of the Cyborgs will permanently break the defenses of the remaining Cyborgs and cause them to enrage. Group buffs should then be coordinated seconds after the Displacer Cyborg is defenseless.
The Manufactory, 6th Encounter, Scorpious-Class Prototype Mech: When all three AEGIS shields present on the boss are depleted, it’ll charge to the far left side of the arena, stop in front of the door, and attempt to break through it. You have a limited amount of time to reduce the HP of the boss on three separate occasions to 70% (405,555), 33% (199,750), and 0%, before it escapes the manufactory. Buff each time it reaches the door.
The Manufactory: Breached, 1st Encounter, Experimental Abomination: Ten seconds after engagement, the boss will cast Vile Excretion, which hinders everyone and is followed by a series of filth pools that appear underneath the players, requiring that they cleanse themselves of the hindered state and make a narrow circuit in the tight confines of the arena to avoid a quick death to the filth. This is proceeded with another Vile Excretion cast 20 to 25 seconds after the start of the initial one and concluded when players sharing an AEGIS shield will be at random engulfed by Ravenous Pods. It is this period after you endure a cluster of Vile Excretion spells and players are subsequently freed from pods is when you have an opportunity to buff unabated.
The Manufactory: Breached, 3rd Encounter: Players are pitted against a clay golem, four consecutive waves of mobs chosen at random from a pool of nine possible scenarios, and a boss encounter with a jinn. If one of the first two waves consists of the ak’ab, ice golem, mummies, or padurii, buff once their Demonic shields are exposed. Otherwise, hold buffs for the jinn. Use the Sanitation Protocol if the later waves of mobs overwhelm you prior to the jinn’s arrival. Whatever you do, don’t waste buffs on the wendigo, since its Lean Winter spell regenerates health and AEGIS shield at a rate faster than players can be expected to overcome through damage alone.
The Manufactory: Breached, 6th Encounter, Savage Dream: Active on the boss at all times is Puissance of the Dreamer, a buff that either mitigates or multiplies the damage the boss receives depending on the number of stacks it has, which begins at twelve, and cannot be purged except by hinders in the second and fourth phases. Until the first and third phases conclude, stacks of this buff will remain at twelve, making it ineffective to deal any sort of damage to the boss.
The first and third phases begin with the boss casting Discharge Filth, a spell that generates five filth pools at random locations in the arena, and the boss will do so twice more at fixed intervals. The objective for the DPS is to clean up as many filth pools as possible to clear a path for the group to attack the boss. The phases end when the boss charges to one end of the arena and casts Big Freeze. After this point, Puissance of the Dreamer becomes vulnerable to purging from the application of hinders, exposing the boss to taking damage at normal levels when the stacks are reduced to five and upwards of 900% more damage with one stack.
It’s vital that buffs are activated either when the boss begins to creep towards the door or when it has three stacks of Puissance of the Dreamer, whichever comes first. Because you have thirty-five seconds to attack the boss in each of these two phases, delaying buffs any later may give the DPS two fewer opportunities to cast their Elite abilities off cooldown, which can mean the difference between success and failure if the overall group DPS borders on the minimum necessary to kill the boss before it reaches the other side of the arena.
No matter when group buffs are cast, if there’s uncertainty on when to buff, players should communicate when buffs are to be coordinated and adjust their builds and rotations in accordance with the agreed upon plan. The principle here is not to dictate the buffing policy for all groups but to prepare your greatest damage for every situation, even when the buff timing is not the most favorable.
3B. Use gadgets and Ambrosia in sync with group buffs. A wide variety of gadgets can increase your DPS potential immensely, as long as you know which ones to use and when to activate them. Here’s a list of the five best ones and how to acquire them:
Advanced Stimulant – Crit: Grants 276 Critical Rating for 20 seconds. Applies a 2 minutes cooldown to all Stimulants.
Advanced Kickback – Crit: For 20 seconds, whenever you critically hit or heal you gain 425 Critical Power Rating for 4 seconds.
For details on how to craft these two gadgets, I refer you to the Stimulant and Kickback sections of TSWDB.com’s Crafting page. Each gadget requires a Gadget toolkit mark 2 to craft, which can be purchased in the auction house. Alternatively, more powerful Epic-level versions of these gadgets drop in the Elite Flappy raid.
Torment Configuration: Increases the direct damage you deal by 10% for 8 seconds. Applies a 3 minute cooldown to all Curiosities.
Obtainable as one of six epic gadgets that may drop from killing bosses found in the storage containers at the Tokyo docks. These containers require keys to unlock and come in three rarities, of which the rarest is blue. The keys drop at random from biohazard containers rewarded to you by completing missions all over Tokyo. Storage containers unlocked with blue keys contain bosses that have an increased chance to drop an epic gadget upon their deaths.
Orochi Personal Devastator: Increases damage dealt by 2% for 2 seconds. Every 2 seconds, the damage increase value increases by 2% up to a maximum of 10%. Once the damage increases reaches 10%, the effect will expire. Applies a 3 minute cooldown to all Curiosities.
Included with the purchase of the Issue #12 Collector’s Edition.
AE Overcharger: Converts 15% damage to current AEGIS damage type for 10 seconds. Applies a 2 minute cooldown to all Curiosities.
A rare drop from the Opener of Kimon boss in Tokyo, who can be found materializing at one of these locations on the map at random times:
743, 849
451, 897
309, 925
149, 933
36, 837
Because of their lengthy cooldowns, gadgets are all best activated when you’re prepared to deal the greatest amount of damage within their effects’ duration, and that is often when group buffs are active. Use your stimulant and kickback as you first engage the boss or when you begin your DPS rotation in preparation for group buffs; though, the exact timing depends on how long you anticipate fighting your target. If the battle will last for 20 seconds or fewer, use your stimulant and kickback the moment you engage your target; otherwise, delay their use for three seconds.
The Torment Configuration, Orochi Personal Devastator, and AE Overcharger are all Curiosities and thus share a cooldown, and so you must choose which gadget is appropriate for a specific encounter. Whether you use the Torment Configuration or Orochi Personal Devastator depends on which one you own: the Torment Configuration is probably better and should be used prior to casting your Elite and consumer abilities under the effect of group buffs; whereas, the Orochi Personal Devastator can be used along with stimulants and kickbacks or even a few seconds before so that you have the most powerful damage buffs active for your Elite and consumers.
And Ambrosia is a consummable that provides full resources for a given weapon. As long as you have time to consume these resources during buffs together with the rest of your burst damage, and these consumers have cast times of no more than one second, it’s better to consume these bonus resources than spend the remainder of the buffs’ duration casting builders. Just be aware that Pistols, Shotgun, and Assault Rifle consumers all have at least a 4-second cooldown.
4B. Remain close to the boss so you’re always in range to attack. Unless necessary to avoid cleaves, chain attacks, and telegraphed hazards, most circumstances do not require you to be any farther away from the boss than within melee range. Any sudden movements from the boss could disrupt your ability to deal further damage. Therefore, even if you have short- or long-range weapons in your builds, it’s best to stand close to the boss when you can to ensure maximum time in combat.
5B. Use an auxiliary weapon to deal damage. In nearly all instances in the classic Nightmare dungeons and Elite raids, there’s no risk in forgoing Death From Above as long as you are properly situated. Timber with the Augur signet is usually the best choice to make, for its instant cast and high potential damage output fit well in the limited time frame Elemental Force, group buffs, and short burns last.
Scorched Earth with the Imprint signet is a possible alternative on select bosses that remain stationary, but, because of an internal bug with the ability, specific bosses cannot be damaged with Scorched Earth, including the Primordial Dweller, the Ur-Draug, the Manticore Imperius-Class Tank, the Unutterable Lurker, the Eidolan of the Outer Dark, and perhaps others I am unaware of. Another bug, present in the simple ground targeting feature and related to the ability’s limited area of effect, places Scorched Earth behind your target, compelling you to manually place it yourself in front of your target if you hope to deal any damage.
It should be noted that the fifth and sixth encounters in Facility are two encounters where it tends to be riskier to go without Death From Above than for what it’s worth taking a damage-dealing ability instead. Your time in range to attack the bosses with an auxiliary weapon while besides an active node is often not within your control for its bonus damage to be reliably beneficial.
Final Words of Advice
Results supersede theory. Any theory, however well-developed, is relevant only so far as it’s applicable in practice. Builds generated to be optimal under specific conditions fail to account for every variable and may not work so well when the assumed conditions differ from your own. Without realizing it, as you accept the guidance from authorities, you may be limiting your potential even as you are expanding it, if, through your acceptance, you close your mind to greater possibilities. Re-evaluate whether the weakest active and passive abilities in your builds can be replaced. Consider how you can shorten a rotation when its length exceeds the duration of a fight. We need curious minds to continue questioning the collective wisdom and re-examining the underlying principles on which our builds are established if we’re to ever discover how far we can take our DPS performance.