Flawless VMA Advice on mDK

Oreyn_Bearclaw · November 2016

Hi All,

My next mission in life is to go for the Flawless Title on my mDK. I have cleared a few times on mDK a while back (before Annulment and Burning Embers changes), but it was not a particularly pleasant experience. mDK has always been my main achievement toon, and I really want to knock this down. I have flawless runs on mSorc and sSorc and clears on every class, so I am no stranger to this place. Any thoughts on a build in here? My thoughts are 5TBS, 2Grothdar (skoria on stage 7), and 4 Infal. I have also thought about a shield spamming Lightening staff build. I could also go for 5 BSW on front bar and 5 Infal on back bar. I have the BSW and Infal staffs to make it work.

If memory serves, mDKs lack burst, heals, and sustain in here. I would love to avoid a resto staff, but I am not sure how viable that is. I am not too concerned about sustain or Flappy wings, as I plan to grab sigils at pretty much every opportunity. I could care less about score, and once I get the title, I probably wont be back on mDK. Any thoughts from people that have pulled this off would be much appreciated. My first thought was something like this:

Fire: Force Pulse, Burning embers, Blockade, Elemental Drain/Harness Magic, Inner Light, Standard.
Lightening: Draw Essence, Eruption, Harness Magic, Inner light, Magma Armor

The idea being to have decent front bar single target damage and back bar AOE for unlimited resources. My concern is whether Embers and Draw Essence are reliable enough heals to drop a resto staff.

My other thought (a little more traditional):
Fire: Force Pulse, Burning embers, Blockade, Harness Magic, Elemental Drain, Standard.
Resto: Draw Essence, Eruption, Rapid Regen, healing Ward, Flex, Magma.

I have done some searches, but most of the mDK builds are pretty dated. Again, goal is flawless title, not Score.

Thanks,
Bear

Masel · November 2016

Avoiding a restoration staff will be difficult on a mag dk I believe... I use my heavy attack build that got me flawless on my sorc (5 aether, 5 elegance and a vma sharpened lightning and sharpened vma resto on back bar) in there, and the only thing that kept me from getting flawless on the dk is the fact that my Internet connection sucks and I get frequent lags that kill me or disconnect me.

Best score I got was 535k, so it works pretty good. Strong sustain through heavy attack return, you can cast your shield new after every attack to never let it drop. waves melt like butter, and you can use meteor and heavy attacks to really burst down bosses.
Very survivable too, I can solo every world boss and some vet dungeons with it.

Masel · December 2016

I taped a flawless run on my mag dk yesterday, so it definetely works in there:

https://youtu.be/FjQPiA5XENk

Arvs · December 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Hi All,

My next mission in life is to go for the Flawless Title on my mDK. I have cleared a few times on mDK a while back (before Annulment and Burning Embers changes), but it was not a particularly pleasant experience. mDK has always been my main achievement toon, and I really want to knock this down. I have flawless runs on mSorc and sSorc and clears on every class, so I am no stranger to this place. Any thoughts on a build in here? My thoughts are 5TBS, 2Grothdar (skoria on stage 7), and 4 Infal. I have also thought about a shield spamming Lightening staff build. I could also go for 5 BSW on front bar and 5 Infal on back bar. I have the BSW and Infal staffs to make it work.

If memory serves, mDKs lack burst, heals, and sustain in here. I would love to avoid a resto staff, but I am not sure how viable that is. I am not too concerned about sustain or Flappy wings, as I plan to grab sigils at pretty much every opportunity. I could care less about score, and once I get the title, I probably wont be back on mDK. Any thoughts from people that have pulled this off would be much appreciated. My first thought was something like this:

Fire: Force Pulse, Burning embers, Blockade, Elemental Drain/Harness Magic, Inner Light, Standard.
Lightening: Draw Essence, Eruption, Harness Magic, Inner light, Magma Armor

The idea being to have decent front bar single target damage and back bar AOE for unlimited resources. My concern is whether Embers and Draw Essence are reliable enough heals to drop a resto staff.

My other thought (a little more traditional):
Fire: Force Pulse, Burning embers, Blockade, Harness Magic, Elemental Drain, Standard.
Resto: Draw Essence, Eruption, Rapid Regen, healing Ward, Flex, Magma.

I have done some searches, but most of the mDK builds are pretty dated. Again, goal is flawless title, not Score.

Thanks,
Bear

If you're going for Flawless I'd definitely run a restoration staff for both rapid regen & healing ward, especially since you aren't worried for score. I run the kind of generic mDK setup that's been kicking since way back still with: Force Pulse, Blockade, Inner Light, Elemental Drain, Shooting Star | Healing Ward, Eruption, Inner Light/FoO, Rapid Regen, Engulfing Flame, Standard of Might. Gear wise I run: 5pc BSW, 3pc Infall, vMA staves (Resto & Destro) & 2pc Grothdarr

Wings I think are still important even if you're using sigils since a lot of deaths come from archers/mages all kind of shooting at the same with some melee stuff going on too. The biggest thing is just to keep up rapid regen and remember to swap to healing ward whenever you start to get like under 50%, most my deaths come from trying to DPS and waiting too long to hit that ward.

With sigils it shouldn't be too difficult, I think the one thing with mDK is to keep up the elemental drain on nearly all the mobs as you'll need it for resources. When you run out you die. Not a lot I can really say besides just focus on managing resources with your elemental drain and paying attention to keeping up rapid regen and healing even before you start to get into dangerous levels of health.

Good luck.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · December 2016

TirvelBalen wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Hi All,

My next mission in life is to go for the Flawless Title on my mDK. I have cleared a few times on mDK a while back (before Annulment and Burning Embers changes), but it was not a particularly pleasant experience. mDK has always been my main achievement toon, and I really want to knock this down. I have flawless runs on mSorc and sSorc and clears on every class, so I am no stranger to this place. Any thoughts on a build in here? My thoughts are 5TBS, 2Grothdar (skoria on stage 7), and 4 Infal. I have also thought about a shield spamming Lightening staff build. I could also go for 5 BSW on front bar and 5 Infal on back bar. I have the BSW and Infal staffs to make it work.

If memory serves, mDKs lack burst, heals, and sustain in here. I would love to avoid a resto staff, but I am not sure how viable that is. I am not too concerned about sustain or Flappy wings, as I plan to grab sigils at pretty much every opportunity. I could care less about score, and once I get the title, I probably wont be back on mDK. Any thoughts from people that have pulled this off would be much appreciated. My first thought was something like this:

Fire: Force Pulse, Burning embers, Blockade, Elemental Drain/Harness Magic, Inner Light, Standard.
Lightening: Draw Essence, Eruption, Harness Magic, Inner light, Magma Armor

The idea being to have decent front bar single target damage and back bar AOE for unlimited resources. My concern is whether Embers and Draw Essence are reliable enough heals to drop a resto staff.

My other thought (a little more traditional):
Fire: Force Pulse, Burning embers, Blockade, Harness Magic, Elemental Drain, Standard.
Resto: Draw Essence, Eruption, Rapid Regen, healing Ward, Flex, Magma.

I have done some searches, but most of the mDK builds are pretty dated. Again, goal is flawless title, not Score.

Thanks,
Bear

If you're going for Flawless I'd definitely run a restoration staff for both rapid regen & healing ward, especially since you aren't worried for score. I run the kind of generic mDK setup that's been kicking since way back still with: Force Pulse, Blockade, Inner Light, Elemental Drain, Shooting Star | Healing Ward, Eruption, Inner Light/FoO, Rapid Regen, Engulfing Flame, Standard of Might. Gear wise I run: 5pc BSW, 3pc Infall, vMA staves (Resto & Destro) & 2pc Grothdarr

Wings I think are still important even if you're using sigils since a lot of deaths come from archers/mages all kind of shooting at the same with some melee stuff going on too. The biggest thing is just to keep up rapid regen and remember to swap to healing ward whenever you start to get like under 50%, most my deaths come from trying to DPS and waiting too long to hit that ward.

With sigils it shouldn't be too difficult, I think the one thing with mDK is to keep up the elemental drain on nearly all the mobs as you'll need it for resources. When you run out you die. Not a lot I can really say besides just focus on managing resources with your elemental drain and paying attention to keeping up rapid regen and healing even before you start to get into dangerous levels of health.

Good luck.

Thanks, Arvs. I actually ran it last weekend with a similar build. I only died twice before the last boss, both were my own fault for letting HoTs expire. I really didnt use that many sigils. I think these things can frankly get you killed sometimes. I think I have it figured out for the most part, just miss the burst I am used to for the last boss. Problem is that my first run on mDK in like 9 months got me my Sharp Inferno. Not gonna lie, it kinda killed the motivation. Haha. Of course, I supposed that is the argument for RNG to prolong content. They got a solid year out of me. That said, probably still going to grind the title. I think it is in my sights, just need to not stand in stupid.

Masel · December 2016

Can only recommend the heavy attack build for it again, I even got on the EU all time leaderboards with it, stupidly easy to get flawless. No difficult rotation, you can concentrate on things that kill you, you can keep your shield up 100% of the time and the damage is strong enough to burst bosses fast, even fast enough to make the daedroth on final boss not even spawn and killing the 8th stage boss in one go.