Arbiter pve

[Shas_]

Imported and cleaned up from my Forums' ''Mage tank tricks''

Op selfheals + Absorb /sec done very easy.




One of the most overlooked Tank mechanics in the game right now is Soothing Waters. It is an ogcd selfheal that consumes all your charge and is supposed to heal more for more charge consumed (not impressive either way).


Clever use of game mechanics explained in 5 steps:

1) Soothing Waters will consume an Eternal stack to drastically increase the healing done.

2) You can 'spam' it with 1 charge with no internal cooldowns as long as you provide charge regeneration.
Soothing will heal some 2k-8k on you. With an Eternal stack to consume, it goes up to 60k-100k+ , no matter how much charge consumed.

3) 61 Arbiter gives you Ebb and Flow which reduces your gcd for all abilities to 1 second. Frostkeeper, Dominator and Stormcaller provide you with spammable instant Primary Bolts - effectively giving +50% absorb+selfheal potential from the gcd. Primary Bolts are your only source for Eternal Stacks.

4) Soothing Waters re applies your Frost Keeper Crystal Barrier absorption with every use, - on whatever target you have it active.
Soothing Water @self also applies Frostkeeper's Armor.
That's potent self+splash heals as well as two absorbs, +6% hp and -6% dmg taken - every second passively!
Soothing Waters allow you for more Fk Armor+ Crystal Barrier casts /minute than a 61 Frostkeeper!

5) The 63 Mastery Eldritch Swiftness splashes healing based on your healing done with Soothing Waters. (10m radius). This can end up on 300k hps and acts as support heals like Justicar's Salvation.


REsult of this are 2 bis Mage Tank builds for all situations. (have both available if possible)

The Green Tank Full Tank with Chloro heals
Full raidheals as a full tank from Livegiving Veil+ Living Storm

Spoiler:

Difficulty: 3/10
Classification: Already-Bis-Tank with benefits

Arbiter scales Guard off Intelligence. Chloromancer's Natural Awareness gives +25% intelligence, if you lack guard, apply Withering Vine every 6 seconds and get over 1k guard completely for free!

Legendaries(4): Biting Wind | Ebb and Flow | Swirling Winds | Bloom

Buffs: Arcane Ward | Ebb and Flow | Lifegiving Veil | Aqueous Blessing | Energized Vitality


Crystal: Diviner's Crystal

With the max Eternal stage and no other tank gaer but maybe the hp trinket, this one heals itrop alone with minimal effort.
(Refresh Eternal-Living Storm as you are hiding at the last boss and have it passively heal through the los phase np)
It can also heal Raid Rifts and tdnm completely alone. Furthermore, Crystalline Shield allows you to save even the goofyest Tempest mains.

The most important detail:

Living Storm will proc your Lifegiving Veil on every dot tick. It will heal 10-times more when you apply Living Storm with the Eternal bonus. (After a Primary Bolt like Thunder Shock)
Living Storm will be the backbone of your healing done so be sure to apply that one correctly every 10-14 seconds.

St Macro:
! Entropic Veil doesn't add any benefits but it adds a little delay which lowers the chance of Thunder Shock (and it's Veil ticks on yourself) and Soothing Waters to happen at the same time. Creating this delay in Soothing Waters evens out your self healing. (Ticking every 0.5 seconds instead of after 0.1 sec with a 0.8s gap)

#show Thunder Shock
suppressmacrofailures
cast [notactive] Entropic Veil
cast Scatter Strike
cast Thunder Shock
cast @self Soothing Waters
cast Counter Shock
cast Shattered Reflection
cast Break Free
cast Fading Light

Living Storm

#show Living Storm
suppressmacrofailures
cast [notactive] Entropic Veil
cast Living Storm
cast Break Free
cast Fading Light

#some aoe (Threat transfer cd's > aoe spam)

#show Shattered Reflection
suppressmacrofailures
cast [notactive] Entropic Veil
cast Shattered Reflection
cast Jolting Wave
cast Thunder Shock
cast Counter Shock
cast @self Soothing Waters
cast Break Free
cast Fading Light

#Ignore death @self

#show Crystalline Shield
suppressmacrofailures
stopcasting
cast @self Crystalline Shield
cast [notactive] Entropic Veil
cast Scatter Strike
cast Thunder Shock
cast @self Soothing Waters
cast Counter Shock
cast Shattered Reflection
cast Break Free
cast Fading Light

#rupt

#show Freezing Gust
suppressmacrofailures
cast @focus Freezing gust

#Aoe at all costs - pure aoe dmg button trading selfheals

#show Vortex
suppressmacrofailures
cast Jolting Wave
cast Vortex
cast Counter Shock
cast Shattered Reflection
cast Icy Blast
cast Galvanic Strike
cast Thunder Shock
cast Swirling Winds


Taunts: Biting Wind | Frozen Volition | Choking Flood | Icy Command
Cd's: Shield Surge | Mana Aegis | Shield of the North Wind | Crystalline Shield (to use it on others)| Mending Response
Intercept: Shared Agony
Gapcloser: Avalanche
Aoe heal cd: Bloom
Special: Withering Vine | Radiant Spores


How to use it:

Threat:

As you can imagine, spamming Thunder Shock is not amazing for Threat. However, Arbiter has both the worst and the best threat in the game. Instead of running after mobs, you can simply put those two on your allies before/ while important targets show up:
Arcane Projection (one friendly | 6 seconds) - be very careful putting this on anotehr tank, it steals ALL the threat!
Misdirection (one friendly + his battle group | 10 seconds)

Put Misdirection on one of your dd's and let them generate a Threat for you.

When tanking together with a Justicar, you can put Arcane Projection on him(ONLY AT THE START!) This should steal the threat from 4 Cleric hammers and be enough to hold up with him.

Heal & Sustain:

Apply Radiant Spores shortly before the pull.
Pull:
Apply Misdirection on a Cleric, Mage or Primalist dps.
Get a Thunder Shock off as soon as possible. It will provide you with 3 stacks from your Eternal. Apply Living Storm (super important!) and Withering Vine(on demand) to the Boss/ mobs.
While Misdirection and Arcane Projection shoot threat over to you and Living storm does the heavy lifting on healing, you have alot of freedom doing different stuff such as:

Reapplying Living Storm, Withering Vine and Radiant Spores.
Spam Thunder Shock + Soothing Waters.
Click through the dps meter and rant about people.

-> Living Storm will tick damage to up to 9 enemies. Every of those 9 ticks every 0.9 seconds will proc Lifegiving Veil on 10 people.
Which are 16- 160 separate ticks which can procc Lifegiving Veil onto 10 people each.
Simply by letting Living Storm consume one stack on application, it redirects it's 30k bonus into each and every LGveil procc.
One Eternal Stack consumed can be turned into up to 48.000.000 in Eternal infused bonus healing.
Applying Living Storm without it consuming an Eternal stack puts that bonus to zero.


Examples:

Tdnm trash: Without tank gear, you can heal + tank those.
RR: Pretty much self heal all Raidrifts as Tank. Time Bloom right when the Lamassu stomps.
T1/T2. The default build can- and already has solo healed Itrop, council, Beligosh and 3x RR on dps gear. You may have to watch out with the limited healing range in larger places.

Explaining the points spent in Chloromancer:
1 points into Nature's Corrosion can give The Bloom proced Vile Spores a secondary tick to proc Lifegiving Veil. However this is overkill and the healing range will be far more relyable. You can move points in Chloromancer's second row whatever fits you best.

Impressions:

I use the default version on dps gear with the Berserker Trinket on T1 and below and never had any problems with hp and all that.

And yes: You can self heal Tank itrop last boss (if the dps is right ofc). Make sure to apply Eternal Living Storm 1-2 sec before hiding and it will heal enough.

On BoS Isiel: Having adds alive in the second phase is a gain. They damage far less than Living Storm ticks healing off them.

Before afking on full Preserver gear and dieing anyway, give this one a shot.



DRR impression on random T2 gear.
Raw St is around 1.5m, multitarget goes 2m+

The FK Tank Max mitigation for Isiel
Bis mitigation MT/OT done easy.

Spoiler:

Difficulty: 1/10
Classification: Already-Bis-Tank with benefits

Legendaries: Ebb and Flow | Biting Wind | Rime | Earthen Renewal

Buffs: Arcane Ward | Ebb and Flow | Frostkeeper's Armor | Aqueous Blessing | Energized Vitality

-> Replace 0 Dominator with Archon and replace normal Neural Prod with Hail Blast, also giving searing Vitality for a tad more hp- if you don't plan to combatlog. Hail Blast has an interaction that can ruin people's dps combatlogs through cheated damage boni. Better be safe and run Neural Prod as default. It also has no travel time!

Crystal: Hero's Crystal

When to use this over the Chloro Tank?
The aoe heal is good enough and you have bad experience with Seeker Mines on Isiel.
Isiel 2nd phase after 50% hp really is the only encounter right now that needs maximum tank stats. - that's where this version starts to shine.

-> Your Soothing Water will proc Crystal Barrier. Put it on yourself or another Tank and spam absorptions like a Warchanter-light. (70k Absorb/sec + 6% hp).
Combine that with Frostkeeper's Armor (6% less dmg taken for 10 seconds + absorb) for yourself - or on any ally with legendary Earthen Renewal. Leggy Renewal will give you stacks over time. 9 stacks will make it an instant ogcd.

Either standing in the mines and keep 100k hps on yourself or
have Crystal Barrier on the Mt and provide frequent absorbs and mitigation, soothing Water 'Spam' is the key either way.
Frost Keeper's armor gives more absorb, the lower the target's hp is.

#st

#show Hail Blast
suppressmacrofailures
stopcasting
cast Scatter Strike
cast Neural Prod
cast @self Soothing Waters
cast Counter Shock
cast Shattered Reflection
cast Break Free
cast Fading Light

#some aoe (Threat transfer cd's > aoe spam)

#show Shattered Reflection
suppressmacrofailures
stopcasting
cast Shattered Reflection
cast Jolting Wave
cast Neural Prod
cast Counter Shock
cast @self Soothing Waters
cast Break Free
cast Fading Light

#ignore death @self

#show Crystalline Shield
suppressmacrofailures
stopcasting
cast @self Crystalline Shield
cast Scatter Strike
cast Neural Prod
cast @self Soothing Waters
cast Counter Shock
cast Shattered Reflection
cast Break Free
cast Fading Light

#rupt

#show Freezing Gust
suppressmacrofailures
cast @focus Freezing gust


#Aoe at all costs - pure aoe dmg button trading selfheals

#show Vortex
suppressmacrofailures
cast Jolting Wave
cast Vortex
cast Counter Shock
cast Shattered Reflection
cast Icy Blast
cast Galvanic Strike
cast Hail Blast
cast Swirling Winds

Ofc also on the Bar:

Taunts: Biting wind | Frozen Volition | Choking Flood | Icy Command
Cd's: Shield Surge | Mana Aegis | Shield of the North Wind | Crystalline Shield (to use it on others) | Mending Response
Intercept: Shared Agony
Gapcloser: Avalanche
Special: Earthen Renewal | Crystal Barrier (to change it on the fly) | Searing Vitality

How to use it:

Threat:

As you can imagine, spamming a Neural Prod is not amazing for Threat. However, Arbiter has both the worst and the best Threat in the game. Instead of running after mobs, you can simply put those two on your allies before/ while important targets show up:
Arcane Projection (one friendly | 6 seconds) be very careful putting this on another tank, it steals ALL the threat!
Misdirection (one friendly + his battle group | 10 seconds)

Protection & Sustain:

Put Crystal Barrier on the target which will need the most mitigation. Apply Frost Barrier on the target with the second priority (Linkchanter)
Pull:
Apply Misdirection on a dps which you know will pump a lot of damage.
-> Best threat from Clerics and Rogues ca. 6th-7th sec into the fight
Use your #st macro like you paid for it.
You can use Earthen Renewal as a very frequent and potent spotheal for anyone in the group- while also slapping a little shield+ mitigation on them.

GG op selfheal + absorb spam. Apply the threat transfer buffs right and it's mostly one button.

Hail Blast is completely busted and will get PvE leaderboard entries from everyone in the group removed due to new rules.

Before Mystic Archer comes up in the comments:

Between chloro heals and FK absorbs, Mystic Archer's offerings are only the third best. you can use 11 Ma + 14FK with Arbiter- but lose out on the 1sec gcd. That particular one is also inflexible and extremely boring to play in comparison.
61 Arbiter with Ma just happen to die like flies, the Ma bonis are just not performing as good. Better not promote the MA dlc period.



But what about Storm Front? All that Charge spam will not keep it up - Your Armor will softcap at around 84%. You EASILY reach that with T1-T2 dps gear; so the 30% Storm Front in reality does 1% armor at best. Test it.
If you need it at very low gear, both Legendary Misdirect and Swirling Winds will provide 100 charges to apply it.
Otherwise, all the passive heals absorbs/ sec are far more reliable.

-> I am gladly changing or adding good ideas suggested!
-> Many will know those things but over the time playing SFP i honestly have never seen any Magetank utilizing Soothing Waters to it's potential.
I stumbled upon it when testing the Default Chloro version after Grooz mentioned op Thunder Shock heals. Casually tanking some itrop in late 2018, 2nd boss got pulled without a healer but with the trash. So T1 dps gear, no trinket vs 10 mobs (which sunder your armor)+ boss. In the need for even more self healing, I tried Shooting and it was op af. The pull worked out like if it was all planned.

Thanks to Grooz, Hungry, Tarfi, Eilicy and Sheey.

brick*: A tank who just takes hits on max hp - even if max hp isn't needed and he could provide alot more utility, healing or damage for the team./ A tank who thinks having alot of gear does the job by itself.