Post by Kieran on Feb 2, 2011 20:40:48 GMT -5
Introduction:
From my experience, the Grimoire is a jack of all trades - having some crowd-controlling, some average DPS, and some healing. Ultimately, the official description of the Grimoire is pretty accurate – it doesn’t fall behind any other Archetypes, but it doesn’t soar over them either. This allows the Grimoire to be a great all-around player, able to dish out good damage while also supporting the party and debuffing the enemy. However, from personal experience, I've found that the Grimoire also does great at soloing (you just HAVE to take Teleport though, otherwise you’ll die… a lot) and also works very well in a party.
Generic Preface:
All of my builds are meant to be equally playable in both PVE and PVP. Because of this, if you're a PVE-only kind of guy, feel free to remove the PVP advantages (mainly Nailed to the Ground and Crippling Challenge) and replace with the next Rank up - or allocate the advantage points somewhere completely different, as it's ultimately up to you. I would like to say though that even though my builds can do PVP, they also built to perform great in PVE, so it isn't like you're losing anything by having that PVP aspect to the build.
Powers:
Level 1: Eldritch Bolts
Level 1: Eldritch Blast (R2, Crippling Challenge)
Level 6: Teleport (R2)
Level 6: Sigils of the Primal Storm (R2, R3)
Level 8: Aura of Primal Majesty (R2, R3)
Level 11: Pillar of Poz
Level 14: Eldritch Shield (R2)
Level 17: Vala's Light (R2, R3)
Level 22: Circle of Arcane Power (R2, R3)
Level 27: Skarn's Bane (R2, R3)
Level 32: Sigils of Arcane Runes or Sigils of Ebon Weakness (R2, R3)
Level 35: Whatever travel panics your disco.
Level 40: Hex of Suffering (Nailed to the Ground, Runes of Lethargy)
Talents:
+5 Intelligence/Presence
+5 Intelligence/Recovery
+5 Presence/Recovery
+5 Intelligence/Endurance
+5 Presence/Endurance
+5 Recovery/Endurance
Power Descriptions:
Eldritch Bolts: This is your energy builder and nothing more - I wouldn't recommend any of the advantages because the energy gain from Accelerated Metabolism isn't that much, and the damage is too low to warrant upgrading.
Eldritch Blast: This is going to be one of your bread-and-butter attacks. It has pretty good range and can do good damage when fully upgraded, so you'll wanna grab Rank 2. Meanwhile, Crippling Challenge applies a powerful debuff to your target while simultaneously breaking through and disabling for 10 seconds your opponent's block, this turning this power into a good one for both PVE and PVP.
Teleport: Teleport works great with a Grimoire because you can teleport in right besides your target(s), pop off your Sigils, and mop up. The best part is that if you’re fast enough, the baddies will only target your sigils because of the brief second of invisibility you have when you come out of a teleport. This allows your sigils to tank for you and allows you to Eldritch Blast your enemies to death while your health bar thanks you. Also, I would highly recommend this power over any other travel power because it allows you to get out of dangerous situations very quickly and painlessly. Say you’re surrounded and being pummeled to death by a number of baddies – all you gotta do is pop into teleport, launch straight up, and keep going until you lose aggro. If you’re in a building, just use teleport to retreat the way you came until you’re in the clear. Additionally, teleport allows you to skip the hordes of hallway baddies that are a pain in the rear. Rank 2 is recommended for faster travel.
Sigils of the Primal Storm: Another of your bread-and-butter powers, this not only does great DOT damage, but also serves as a tank of sorts (as outlined in the teleport description). Definitely take up to Rank 3.
Aura of Primal Majesty: This power is one of the main reasons why the Grimoire is such a great party player. Not only does it vastly increase your own Characteristics, but it also boosts your teammates' Characteristics in a fifty foot radius. You’ll very much want to take this up to Rank 3.
Pillar of Poz: This power is good in a pinch, as it allows you to knock back all enemies surrounding you, but other than serving as an “oh crud” power, it really isn’t very good. The damage gained by Rank 3 is negligible compared to other powers in the Gimoire’s arsenal, and furthermore, each rank increases the knockback distance. This may not seem like a bad thing until you realize that if you knock your enemies outside the range of your sigils, then you lose a major source of your damage. By increasing the knockback, this power just makes it harder and harder for you to do good damage with your sigils, so this power is best left untouched advantage-wise.
Eldritch Shield: As this is the only defense that Grimoires get, you’ll want to take Rank 2 in order to increase your survivability.
Vala's Light: The reason I recommend this over Arcane Vitality is because while Arcane Vitality makes for a great single-target heal, it makes for a mediocre party heal, as the amount healed decreases with the number of people you’re trying to heal at once. On the other hand, Vala’s Light functions as a decent single-target heal, but also serves as a great party heal. Since the Grimoire is partly a support Archetype, Vala’s Light is just more useful in general than Arcane Vitality. Because it’s your only heal, Rank 3 is a must.
Circle of Arcane Power: This power serves a great way for the Grimoire to supply a continuous amount of DPS and party support. It’s important to note that while using it, you must not move too far away, otherwise the Circle will deactivate. So it makes you stationary, but it does a great job of providing you with energy and reduced energy decay, so it’s definitely worth it. Rank 3 is also a must.
Skarn's Bane: This power is a great source of DPS. Unlike Eldritch Blast, this power must be maintained – meaning you have to constantly hold down its assigned key in order to use it. While Eldritch Blast sends out a blast of energy, Skarn’s Bane fires out a steady stream of energy that does damage per “tick”, which in this case means per 0.5 seconds. While Warlock's Malice might seem like a nice advantage to grab, Skarn's Bane's 50 foot range in addition to the self root limits its reliability. Not that Warlock's Malice isn't a great advantage - it is. I just feel that R3 is a better investment in this case. However, it is your call: R3, or R2 plus Warlock's Malice. Either works, and it really depends on your personal preference and playstyle.
Sigils of Arcane Runes or Sigils of Ebon Weakness: This power choice is solely dependent on your personal playstyle. Sigils of Arcane Runes is a great source of DPS and is awesome because you can cast this while Sigils of the Primal Storm is recharging. On the other hand, Sigils of Ebon Weakness is a phenomenal debuff that can severely cripple a mob or a boss. So ultimately which one you pick is dependent on what role you want to play. If you want to be completely focused on DPS, then you might want to pick Arcane Runes for the steady source of DPS. But if you want to be able to support your party by applying a powerful debuff, then Ebon Weakness is the way to go. Which one you choose depends on whether you want to be good at PVP or not. With a pure PVE perspective Ebon Weakness is the way to go, as it will provide a HUGE benefit to your team. But in PVP, your opponents are just going to hop right out of your Ebon Weakness sigils, making this skill fairly useless in PVP. Concerning Arcane Runes, it is a pretty powerful DPS skill in PVE, and it is a great damaging skill in PVP. So ultimately, if you want to go pure PVE, I'd highly recommend Ebon Weakness. But if you want to do both PVE and PVP, I would instead very much recommend Arcane Runes. Regardless of which one you choose, though, you’ll want to level it up to Rank 3.
Hex of Suffering: When you first look at this power, you might think that it isn’t that great because its DPS output is fairly low. If you thought this way, you would be correct – this power doesn’t do very good damage. But the value in this power comes from its advantages: Runes of Lethargy roots your target for 8 seconds while Nailed to the Ground cancels out all travel powers for 5 seconds. These advantages makes this skill invaluable in PVP for the purpose stopping cold all those annoying jerks who spam teleport to no end.
Talent Explanations:
As for the Talents: Intelligence lets you do more damage and have faster cooldowns, and also reduces the energy cost of each power. Presence increases your heals, recovery means you are able to rely less on your Energy Builder, and Endurance grants you more energy overall.
I recommend getting the ones listed because by choosing +5s for +8s essentially gives you two extra Talent points than you would get by sticking with +8s (10 compared to 8). Additionally, there is a complex system of Diminishing Returns for most Characteristics once you get beyond 200-220, so over-leveling your stats can have marginal results later on while balancing them out guarantees that you have good, high level stats in multiple Characteristics.
Extra Note:
I would like to quote GammaBreaker on the subject of Crippling Challenge's side effect: "Crippling Challenge, while an essential block-breaker in PVP, is also a *taunt* in PVE. It will make whatever you're shooting come over and sock you in the chops. Even if it's a cosmic boss being tanked by a Behemoth."
So please be aware of this when you use a power with Crippling Challenge. And again, ultimately, if you don't like this or don't want to do PVP, feel free to remove it and spend the advantage points elsewhere. But do know that Crippling Challenge is almost required to play PVP, as it is a powerful debuff and it breaks through blocks.
It's really your call, though.
Conclusion:
Well, that’s all for now – if you have any input or advice for improving this guide, please feel free to let me know! Also, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me either by PM or in-game! And if I have errors anywhere in my guide, please let me know and I’ll fix them as soon as possible!
UPDATE:
Upon realizing an important mechanism for Crippling Challenge, I have updated the build to place it on Eldritch Blast by taking away one rank from Eldritch Shield. Additionally, I invested the extra advantage point into Teleport so that you can now satisfy your Need For Speed - PUN INTENDED!!!
UPDATE #2: I have updated the description for the choice between Sigils of Ebon Weakness and Sigils of Arcane Runes, so please read up on that before picking one over the other.
UPDATE #3: Just now (2:09 P.M. on February 8, 2011), I noticed that I never removed the bad recommendation for Accelerated Metabolism from the description of Skarn's Bane, so please note that I do not recommend the addition of Accelerated Metabolism to Skarn's Bane.
UPDATE #4 (02/22/2011): After some more testing, I have found that I prefer R3 with Skarn's Bane over Warlock's Malice. See the Skarn's Bane description for my reasoning.
From my experience, the Grimoire is a jack of all trades - having some crowd-controlling, some average DPS, and some healing. Ultimately, the official description of the Grimoire is pretty accurate – it doesn’t fall behind any other Archetypes, but it doesn’t soar over them either. This allows the Grimoire to be a great all-around player, able to dish out good damage while also supporting the party and debuffing the enemy. However, from personal experience, I've found that the Grimoire also does great at soloing (you just HAVE to take Teleport though, otherwise you’ll die… a lot) and also works very well in a party.
Generic Preface:
All of my builds are meant to be equally playable in both PVE and PVP. Because of this, if you're a PVE-only kind of guy, feel free to remove the PVP advantages (mainly Nailed to the Ground and Crippling Challenge) and replace with the next Rank up - or allocate the advantage points somewhere completely different, as it's ultimately up to you. I would like to say though that even though my builds can do PVP, they also built to perform great in PVE, so it isn't like you're losing anything by having that PVP aspect to the build.
Powers:
Level 1: Eldritch Bolts
Level 1: Eldritch Blast (R2, Crippling Challenge)
Level 6: Teleport (R2)
Level 6: Sigils of the Primal Storm (R2, R3)
Level 8: Aura of Primal Majesty (R2, R3)
Level 11: Pillar of Poz
Level 14: Eldritch Shield (R2)
Level 17: Vala's Light (R2, R3)
Level 22: Circle of Arcane Power (R2, R3)
Level 27: Skarn's Bane (R2, R3)
Level 32: Sigils of Arcane Runes or Sigils of Ebon Weakness (R2, R3)
Level 35: Whatever travel panics your disco.
Level 40: Hex of Suffering (Nailed to the Ground, Runes of Lethargy)
Talents:
+5 Intelligence/Presence
+5 Intelligence/Recovery
+5 Presence/Recovery
+5 Intelligence/Endurance
+5 Presence/Endurance
+5 Recovery/Endurance
Power Descriptions:
Eldritch Bolts: This is your energy builder and nothing more - I wouldn't recommend any of the advantages because the energy gain from Accelerated Metabolism isn't that much, and the damage is too low to warrant upgrading.
Eldritch Blast: This is going to be one of your bread-and-butter attacks. It has pretty good range and can do good damage when fully upgraded, so you'll wanna grab Rank 2. Meanwhile, Crippling Challenge applies a powerful debuff to your target while simultaneously breaking through and disabling for 10 seconds your opponent's block, this turning this power into a good one for both PVE and PVP.
Teleport: Teleport works great with a Grimoire because you can teleport in right besides your target(s), pop off your Sigils, and mop up. The best part is that if you’re fast enough, the baddies will only target your sigils because of the brief second of invisibility you have when you come out of a teleport. This allows your sigils to tank for you and allows you to Eldritch Blast your enemies to death while your health bar thanks you. Also, I would highly recommend this power over any other travel power because it allows you to get out of dangerous situations very quickly and painlessly. Say you’re surrounded and being pummeled to death by a number of baddies – all you gotta do is pop into teleport, launch straight up, and keep going until you lose aggro. If you’re in a building, just use teleport to retreat the way you came until you’re in the clear. Additionally, teleport allows you to skip the hordes of hallway baddies that are a pain in the rear. Rank 2 is recommended for faster travel.
Sigils of the Primal Storm: Another of your bread-and-butter powers, this not only does great DOT damage, but also serves as a tank of sorts (as outlined in the teleport description). Definitely take up to Rank 3.
Aura of Primal Majesty: This power is one of the main reasons why the Grimoire is such a great party player. Not only does it vastly increase your own Characteristics, but it also boosts your teammates' Characteristics in a fifty foot radius. You’ll very much want to take this up to Rank 3.
Pillar of Poz: This power is good in a pinch, as it allows you to knock back all enemies surrounding you, but other than serving as an “oh crud” power, it really isn’t very good. The damage gained by Rank 3 is negligible compared to other powers in the Gimoire’s arsenal, and furthermore, each rank increases the knockback distance. This may not seem like a bad thing until you realize that if you knock your enemies outside the range of your sigils, then you lose a major source of your damage. By increasing the knockback, this power just makes it harder and harder for you to do good damage with your sigils, so this power is best left untouched advantage-wise.
Eldritch Shield: As this is the only defense that Grimoires get, you’ll want to take Rank 2 in order to increase your survivability.
Vala's Light: The reason I recommend this over Arcane Vitality is because while Arcane Vitality makes for a great single-target heal, it makes for a mediocre party heal, as the amount healed decreases with the number of people you’re trying to heal at once. On the other hand, Vala’s Light functions as a decent single-target heal, but also serves as a great party heal. Since the Grimoire is partly a support Archetype, Vala’s Light is just more useful in general than Arcane Vitality. Because it’s your only heal, Rank 3 is a must.
Circle of Arcane Power: This power serves a great way for the Grimoire to supply a continuous amount of DPS and party support. It’s important to note that while using it, you must not move too far away, otherwise the Circle will deactivate. So it makes you stationary, but it does a great job of providing you with energy and reduced energy decay, so it’s definitely worth it. Rank 3 is also a must.
Skarn's Bane: This power is a great source of DPS. Unlike Eldritch Blast, this power must be maintained – meaning you have to constantly hold down its assigned key in order to use it. While Eldritch Blast sends out a blast of energy, Skarn’s Bane fires out a steady stream of energy that does damage per “tick”, which in this case means per 0.5 seconds. While Warlock's Malice might seem like a nice advantage to grab, Skarn's Bane's 50 foot range in addition to the self root limits its reliability. Not that Warlock's Malice isn't a great advantage - it is. I just feel that R3 is a better investment in this case. However, it is your call: R3, or R2 plus Warlock's Malice. Either works, and it really depends on your personal preference and playstyle.
Sigils of Arcane Runes or Sigils of Ebon Weakness: This power choice is solely dependent on your personal playstyle. Sigils of Arcane Runes is a great source of DPS and is awesome because you can cast this while Sigils of the Primal Storm is recharging. On the other hand, Sigils of Ebon Weakness is a phenomenal debuff that can severely cripple a mob or a boss. So ultimately which one you pick is dependent on what role you want to play. If you want to be completely focused on DPS, then you might want to pick Arcane Runes for the steady source of DPS. But if you want to be able to support your party by applying a powerful debuff, then Ebon Weakness is the way to go. Which one you choose depends on whether you want to be good at PVP or not. With a pure PVE perspective Ebon Weakness is the way to go, as it will provide a HUGE benefit to your team. But in PVP, your opponents are just going to hop right out of your Ebon Weakness sigils, making this skill fairly useless in PVP. Concerning Arcane Runes, it is a pretty powerful DPS skill in PVE, and it is a great damaging skill in PVP. So ultimately, if you want to go pure PVE, I'd highly recommend Ebon Weakness. But if you want to do both PVE and PVP, I would instead very much recommend Arcane Runes. Regardless of which one you choose, though, you’ll want to level it up to Rank 3.
Hex of Suffering: When you first look at this power, you might think that it isn’t that great because its DPS output is fairly low. If you thought this way, you would be correct – this power doesn’t do very good damage. But the value in this power comes from its advantages: Runes of Lethargy roots your target for 8 seconds while Nailed to the Ground cancels out all travel powers for 5 seconds. These advantages makes this skill invaluable in PVP for the purpose stopping cold all those annoying jerks who spam teleport to no end.
Talent Explanations:
As for the Talents: Intelligence lets you do more damage and have faster cooldowns, and also reduces the energy cost of each power. Presence increases your heals, recovery means you are able to rely less on your Energy Builder, and Endurance grants you more energy overall.
I recommend getting the ones listed because by choosing +5s for +8s essentially gives you two extra Talent points than you would get by sticking with +8s (10 compared to 8). Additionally, there is a complex system of Diminishing Returns for most Characteristics once you get beyond 200-220, so over-leveling your stats can have marginal results later on while balancing them out guarantees that you have good, high level stats in multiple Characteristics.
Extra Note:
I would like to quote GammaBreaker on the subject of Crippling Challenge's side effect: "Crippling Challenge, while an essential block-breaker in PVP, is also a *taunt* in PVE. It will make whatever you're shooting come over and sock you in the chops. Even if it's a cosmic boss being tanked by a Behemoth."
So please be aware of this when you use a power with Crippling Challenge. And again, ultimately, if you don't like this or don't want to do PVP, feel free to remove it and spend the advantage points elsewhere. But do know that Crippling Challenge is almost required to play PVP, as it is a powerful debuff and it breaks through blocks.
It's really your call, though.
Conclusion:
Well, that’s all for now – if you have any input or advice for improving this guide, please feel free to let me know! Also, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me either by PM or in-game! And if I have errors anywhere in my guide, please let me know and I’ll fix them as soon as possible!
UPDATE:
Upon realizing an important mechanism for Crippling Challenge, I have updated the build to place it on Eldritch Blast by taking away one rank from Eldritch Shield. Additionally, I invested the extra advantage point into Teleport so that you can now satisfy your Need For Speed - PUN INTENDED!!!
UPDATE #2: I have updated the description for the choice between Sigils of Ebon Weakness and Sigils of Arcane Runes, so please read up on that before picking one over the other.
UPDATE #3: Just now (2:09 P.M. on February 8, 2011), I noticed that I never removed the bad recommendation for Accelerated Metabolism from the description of Skarn's Bane, so please note that I do not recommend the addition of Accelerated Metabolism to Skarn's Bane.
UPDATE #4 (02/22/2011): After some more testing, I have found that I prefer R3 with Skarn's Bane over Warlock's Malice. See the Skarn's Bane description for my reasoning.
