Post by Kieran on Jul 31, 2011 5:45:14 GMT -5
Introduction:
From my experience, the Disciple is all about doing a lot of damage in a very short amount of time. Although you can do a nice amount of sustainable damage, the Disciple really shines through the awesome crits that you get – and unlike other crit-centered Archetypes, the Disciple has the ability to actively heal itself in light of its crits if you spec yourself a certain way. However, it should be noted that despite the heals, the Disciple is no damage-taker – with a Brawler role and no Constitution for one of its superstats, the Disciple is definitely meant to kill the enemy before it dies itself.
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: Ego Blade
Level 1: Ego Weaponry (Rank 2, Siphoning Strikes)
Level 6: Teleport (R2, R3)
Level 6: Ego Blade Frenzy (R2, Unnerving Rage)
Level 8: Id Mastery (R2, R3)
Level 11: Ego Blade Dash (Crippling Challenge, Nailed to the Ground)
Level 14: Telekinetic Shield (R2)
Level 17: Ego Choke (Garroting Grip)
Level 22: Ego Reverberation
Level 27: Ego Surge (R2, Nimble Mind)
Level 32: Mental Discipline (R2, R3)
Level 35: Travel Power
Level 40: Ego Blade Annihilation (R2, R3)
Talents:
Ego/Dexterity
Ego/Constitution
Dexterity/Constitution
Ego/Recovery
Dexterity/Recovery
Constitution/Recovery
Power Explanations:
Ego Blade: 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. However, I feel that Leeching Strikes is worth the investment, as it gives you a 15% chance per strike to score Ego Leech, which can stack up to five times and reduces the energy costs of your Mentalist powers. Moreover, when you get Ego Reverberation later on, this advantage becomes even nicer, as it increases the amount of energy you gain through Ego Reverberation, which is a nice bit of synergy.
Ego Weaponry: While this power might not seem that great at first glance, it is actually pretty good. With R2, the damage from Ego Weaponry becomes pretty nice, and with Siphoning Strikes, your crits are change so that whenever you score a crit, you gain health proportional to the amount of damage you would have done with that crit, which, in effect, turns Ego Weaponry into an awesome sustainable heal, as the Disciple is all about crits.
Teleport: Teleport works great with a Disciple because you can teleport in right besides your target(s), and start unleashing your ego blades on them. 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. Since Archetypes mostly don't have good energy management and self heals, Teleport allows you to survive encounters where you would normally die. Additionally, teleport allows you to skip the hordes of hallway baddies that are a pain in the rear. Rank 3 is recommended for fastest travel!
Ego Blade Frenzy: This power is pretty nice – with R2, the damage becomes respectable, and with Unnerving Rage, you are able to make sure that your opponent is unable to escape to fight another day.
Id Mastery: A fantastic melee and defensive buff, R3 cannot be highly recommended enough. Id Blade is simply a cosmetic advantage, which is pretty cool as it costs a whopping 0 advantage points.
Ego Blade Dash: This is the go-to PVP power for the Disciple, as with Crippling Challenge and Nailed to the Ground added to the 60 foot range and the 13 base second snare and root factors, this power is PERFECT for shutting opposition down. If you don’t plan on doing any PVP, I’d recommend avoiding Crippling Challenge and spending the advantage points elsewhere, such as other powers or even Head Shot for this one. But if you plan on even slightly doing PVP, this power is to be lovingly embraced and utilized in a way that would make even Meta Knight from Super Smash Bros Brawl blush, if you get my drift.
Telekinetic Shield: While R2 would be nice for this power, it is good to note that because the Disciple has a Brawler role, his shield usefulness is diminished and he gains no energy from blocking with it. Thus, the usefulness of R2 kinda isn’t worth the advantage point cost.
Ego Choke: Ego Blade Breach is an awesome power – there is no disputing that. But the reason I picked Ego Choke is because while Ego Blade Breach is great, it ends up becoming redundant with Ego Blade Annihilation. On the other hand, Ego Choke holds the target as it damages it (can someone say Darth Vader?) and also debuffs the target’s offensive strength by 10% for 15 seconds, which is AWESOME. In terms of playing both PVP and PVE and avoiding redundancy, Ego Choke is the clear winner. However, if you plan on avoiding PVP entirely, I’d recommend grabbing R3 on Ego Blade Breach and then later retconing when you get Ego Blade Annihilation. Of course, if you don’t like spending all that moolah, just stick with Ego Choke – it really is a great power.
Ego Reverberation: This is a nice passive power that will give you energy whenever you gain a stack of Ego Leech. This power also synergizes with Leeching Strikes very well; providing you even more energy. Pretty cool, but because it can’t be upgraded at all, there isn’t much more to say about it.
Ego Surge: This power is a great damage buff at R2 – not only does it increase your damage, but it also gives you ego (based on your level) which helps you break out of a variety of effects. In addition, when you add Nimble Mind to the mix, you gain an 8% chance to crit, which further increases the Disciple’s damage output and also synergizes well with Ego Weaponry combined with Siphoning Strikes in order to keep you alive longer.
Mental Discipline: This power is another great damage buff, as it increases both your damage and your crit chance (based on your Ego Leeches, which even further synergizes with Leeching Strikes). R3 is highly recommended for best results. The reason I didn’t recommend Telekinetic Maelstrom is because while it is nice, the Disciple has many other powers that fulfill the role of Telekinetic Maelstrom. Thus, it just isn’t worth it over the great buff that comes from Mental Discipline.
Ego Blade Annihilation: This is an amazing final power. Doing a ton of damage for a nice amount of energy, Ego Blade Annihilation is very much a huge DPS power that rounds out the Disciple’s arsenal. R3 is thus highly recommended for the best usage of this power.
Talent Explanations:
As for the Talents: Ego increases the damage you gain from your crits and also increases your chance to score crits, Dexterity increases your chance of landing criticals while also increasing your dodge (which thus increases your survivability), Recovery reduces the amount of time you have to spend using your Energy Builder which consequently equates to increased damage, and Constitution allows you to survive longer (which also increases your damage! Yeah... not dying is a good thing...).
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.
Extra Note #2: With this setup, you get Teleport R3! Right now, I’m at the Incheon Airport in South Korea and I’m too tired to think straight, so I’ll come up with a pun for this later.
Conclusion:
And that's it! 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!
From my experience, the Disciple is all about doing a lot of damage in a very short amount of time. Although you can do a nice amount of sustainable damage, the Disciple really shines through the awesome crits that you get – and unlike other crit-centered Archetypes, the Disciple has the ability to actively heal itself in light of its crits if you spec yourself a certain way. However, it should be noted that despite the heals, the Disciple is no damage-taker – with a Brawler role and no Constitution for one of its superstats, the Disciple is definitely meant to kill the enemy before it dies itself.
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: Ego Blade
Level 1: Ego Weaponry (Rank 2, Siphoning Strikes)
Level 6: Teleport (R2, R3)
Level 6: Ego Blade Frenzy (R2, Unnerving Rage)
Level 8: Id Mastery (R2, R3)
Level 11: Ego Blade Dash (Crippling Challenge, Nailed to the Ground)
Level 14: Telekinetic Shield (R2)
Level 17: Ego Choke (Garroting Grip)
Level 22: Ego Reverberation
Level 27: Ego Surge (R2, Nimble Mind)
Level 32: Mental Discipline (R2, R3)
Level 35: Travel Power
Level 40: Ego Blade Annihilation (R2, R3)
Talents:
Ego/Dexterity
Ego/Constitution
Dexterity/Constitution
Ego/Recovery
Dexterity/Recovery
Constitution/Recovery
Power Explanations:
Ego Blade: 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. However, I feel that Leeching Strikes is worth the investment, as it gives you a 15% chance per strike to score Ego Leech, which can stack up to five times and reduces the energy costs of your Mentalist powers. Moreover, when you get Ego Reverberation later on, this advantage becomes even nicer, as it increases the amount of energy you gain through Ego Reverberation, which is a nice bit of synergy.
Ego Weaponry: While this power might not seem that great at first glance, it is actually pretty good. With R2, the damage from Ego Weaponry becomes pretty nice, and with Siphoning Strikes, your crits are change so that whenever you score a crit, you gain health proportional to the amount of damage you would have done with that crit, which, in effect, turns Ego Weaponry into an awesome sustainable heal, as the Disciple is all about crits.
Teleport: Teleport works great with a Disciple because you can teleport in right besides your target(s), and start unleashing your ego blades on them. 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. Since Archetypes mostly don't have good energy management and self heals, Teleport allows you to survive encounters where you would normally die. Additionally, teleport allows you to skip the hordes of hallway baddies that are a pain in the rear. Rank 3 is recommended for fastest travel!
Ego Blade Frenzy: This power is pretty nice – with R2, the damage becomes respectable, and with Unnerving Rage, you are able to make sure that your opponent is unable to escape to fight another day.
Id Mastery: A fantastic melee and defensive buff, R3 cannot be highly recommended enough. Id Blade is simply a cosmetic advantage, which is pretty cool as it costs a whopping 0 advantage points.
Ego Blade Dash: This is the go-to PVP power for the Disciple, as with Crippling Challenge and Nailed to the Ground added to the 60 foot range and the 13 base second snare and root factors, this power is PERFECT for shutting opposition down. If you don’t plan on doing any PVP, I’d recommend avoiding Crippling Challenge and spending the advantage points elsewhere, such as other powers or even Head Shot for this one. But if you plan on even slightly doing PVP, this power is to be lovingly embraced and utilized in a way that would make even Meta Knight from Super Smash Bros Brawl blush, if you get my drift.
Telekinetic Shield: While R2 would be nice for this power, it is good to note that because the Disciple has a Brawler role, his shield usefulness is diminished and he gains no energy from blocking with it. Thus, the usefulness of R2 kinda isn’t worth the advantage point cost.
Ego Choke: Ego Blade Breach is an awesome power – there is no disputing that. But the reason I picked Ego Choke is because while Ego Blade Breach is great, it ends up becoming redundant with Ego Blade Annihilation. On the other hand, Ego Choke holds the target as it damages it (can someone say Darth Vader?) and also debuffs the target’s offensive strength by 10% for 15 seconds, which is AWESOME. In terms of playing both PVP and PVE and avoiding redundancy, Ego Choke is the clear winner. However, if you plan on avoiding PVP entirely, I’d recommend grabbing R3 on Ego Blade Breach and then later retconing when you get Ego Blade Annihilation. Of course, if you don’t like spending all that moolah, just stick with Ego Choke – it really is a great power.
Ego Reverberation: This is a nice passive power that will give you energy whenever you gain a stack of Ego Leech. This power also synergizes with Leeching Strikes very well; providing you even more energy. Pretty cool, but because it can’t be upgraded at all, there isn’t much more to say about it.
Ego Surge: This power is a great damage buff at R2 – not only does it increase your damage, but it also gives you ego (based on your level) which helps you break out of a variety of effects. In addition, when you add Nimble Mind to the mix, you gain an 8% chance to crit, which further increases the Disciple’s damage output and also synergizes well with Ego Weaponry combined with Siphoning Strikes in order to keep you alive longer.
Mental Discipline: This power is another great damage buff, as it increases both your damage and your crit chance (based on your Ego Leeches, which even further synergizes with Leeching Strikes). R3 is highly recommended for best results. The reason I didn’t recommend Telekinetic Maelstrom is because while it is nice, the Disciple has many other powers that fulfill the role of Telekinetic Maelstrom. Thus, it just isn’t worth it over the great buff that comes from Mental Discipline.
Ego Blade Annihilation: This is an amazing final power. Doing a ton of damage for a nice amount of energy, Ego Blade Annihilation is very much a huge DPS power that rounds out the Disciple’s arsenal. R3 is thus highly recommended for the best usage of this power.
Talent Explanations:
As for the Talents: Ego increases the damage you gain from your crits and also increases your chance to score crits, Dexterity increases your chance of landing criticals while also increasing your dodge (which thus increases your survivability), Recovery reduces the amount of time you have to spend using your Energy Builder which consequently equates to increased damage, and Constitution allows you to survive longer (which also increases your damage! Yeah... not dying is a good thing...).
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.
Extra Note #2: With this setup, you get Teleport R3! Right now, I’m at the Incheon Airport in South Korea and I’m too tired to think straight, so I’ll come up with a pun for this later.
Conclusion:
And that's it! 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!
