Dango's Physician Build/Guide

Dango's 70 Physician Build and FAQ

===== -Introduction- =====

If you want to know about my experience, I've been playing Physician since release, and I guess you could say that I'm your "go to" player when it comes to physician theories and builds. These builds, FAQs, and explanations are based off my many years of experience of committing to and playing the class of Physician as a whole. I do quite a bit of testing myself, but if there is anything you don't agree with, feel free to criticize/ask and I'd be happy to respond. I'm more commonly known amongst the NA servers as Chiyaru.


In order to avoid too much confusion, I will specify the use of terminology below, due to the fact that not every server uses the same type of skill name, and that this guide is also intended to help a few friends whom I know on the SEA servers.

Magma Wave = Ground Zero

Magma Wall = Magma Monument

Poison Break = Toxic Spill

Poison Charging = Toxic Twirl

Poison Ulti - Poison Pool, Toxic Surge

Icicle Expression = Frost Fangs

Icing mass = Coolant

Love Virus = Lovesick

Heal Shower = Good Vibrations

Disease = Contagion

Hypnosis = Sleep Escape

Injector = Injection

Phantoms = Bubbles (buff/meter system for alchemists)

Note: There will be a few other terms that I use that don't go by the original terms (ie: ice hand) but they will be self explanatory.

===== -Skill Builds- =====

You honestly have several choices here. Due to it being 70 cap, some things have been obviously ruled out, such as Frost Fangs/Icicle expression being a much more superior ultimate among the alchemist branches. These are the builds that I currently recommend.

Overall PVE build: http://yadnss.herokuapp.com/bF7310--J13--R-4-73B0-AN1WFs0JWFA3P0-F31--------------------.5K0- The last 5 SP are of your choice.

Raid type PVE build (I currently use this one): http://yadnss.herokuapp.com/bF7310--J13--R-4-73B0V8N1WkP0JWFA3P0-F31--------------------.5K0 - The last 5 SP are of your choice.

Main PVP build (Ladder and Softban hybrid): http://yadnss.herokuapp.com/bF7310k1J13--3-4-73B0-AN1aKN0-WFA3P1-F31W0--B-F---W--3------.5K0


Role: Before I start going into any specifics, you need to understand that your main role in the game is a support. Due to the recent buffs, sure you do amazing damage output as it is, but if a teammate is hitting rather critical conditions, you should always go out of your way to heal that person first before committing to DPS.

===== -FAQ- =====

Regarding the build, I'm gonna dispel a few specific questions amongst these.

Q: Magma Wave versus Magma Wall - Isn't Magma Wall stronger?
A: Definitely, Magma Wall is a lot stronger but the reason I don't max it is due to the fact that if you do not max it, you're forced to reduce either injector or slime heal to 6 SP, and that takes quite a toll on your overall damage and support capabilities. Alternatively, you can keep Injector+ and Slime heal at 9, while reducing Magma wave to level 10 under the condition that you use a technique necklace. That way, you can actually max Magma Walls and keep your support capabilities in check without losing much damage on Magma wave either.

Q: Why is icing mass level 11 on the raid build?
A: This requires a bit of ice stacking knowledge. After the T5 update, Icing mass ice resistance reduction isn't a flat 30% anymore. It starts at 15%, and goes up by 1% per level. At level 6, it becomes 22%, and at level 11, it caps back at 30% ice resistance. What makes Icing mass such a great ice resist debuff skill is not the the ice resistance reduction, but the long duration of 8 seconds. However, If you're aware of how ice stacking mechanics work, any skill that has more ice reduction than the skill that is currently applied will be overlapped. For example, if you use Icing mass at level 1 (-15% ice resistance), and an Elestra immediately uses Icy gust (pre nerf -30% ice resistance), their Icy gust debuff will immediately overlap yours  which results in a 3 second debuff instead of your 6 (at level 1) seconds of debuff. This is problematic for the team and elestra as a whole since it vastly reduces the chance of keeping multiple layers of ice on the enemy.  However, if your icing mass debuff is maxed, icy gust will not overlap your debuff and it will remain at a steady 8 seconds until your elestra is ready to add more ice stacks and continuously debuff therefore allowing them to ice stack easier and possible even give them a chance to toss in a DPS skill under their rotation.

Q: What should our main rotations be?
A: You should always debuff first before considering your next options. That being said, it should look along the lines of this:
Debuff with Love Virus, Disease+, and Icing mass -> Does any teammate need a heal?
>>Yes -> Go to their help first, and then DPS unless another ally needs help
>>No -> Dish out every DPS move you have on the boss.
Always remember to keep at least 10 bubbles before doing a full DPS rotation,  that Poison Charging+ helps with positioning your heals AND grants more, and that you should always have Slime buff up before you do any healing unless it's a very tight emergency.

Q: How does Poison Break+ Heal work?
A: If you look at the description, your heal scales off of base damage. In other words, it scales off the % coefficient of your current skill. For example, at level 13, Poison break magic damage coefficient is 496%. That means that your Poison Break+ heal (without Slime buff or Cleric aura) will heal for your Magic damage * 4.96. 

Q: Does damage plate affect your Poison Break+ heal?
A: No, it does not. It's been tested and confirmed that the damage plate only affects your damage output and not your heal. The only things that affect your heals are actual skills that increase incoming healing and therefore, for supporting potential, cooldown crest is better than damage crest. However, damage crest undeniably does more damage.

Q: How does bubble skill work on the academic tree?
A:  It provides super armor until the bubble breaks. It's great for use against skills that deal low damage but knocks you away. 

Q: How's the skill curve on Physician?
A: It's surprisingly high. It's not the hardest, but it's among the harder classes to master. The reason is that there are so many things that you need to keep track of. You need to pay attention to your party members for their HP; You need to pay attention to how many bubbles you have; You need to pay attention to all 24+ of your skill cooldowns to manage bubbles; You need to be aware of your team's positioning so that you don't miss your heals; You need to pay attention to how many debuffs you have up, etc. There's a lot of things that you need to focus on at once, and it consists of a lot of multi-tasking and meter building. 

Q: Injector Heal transfer. What is it?
A: This is technically a glitch that is exploited amongst many good Alchemist players. Due to the low priority on Injector, if you Inject into a boss who is getting hit by many skills at once (ie: You inject into a boss who is getting hit by a Spectray Ray+, Moon blade dance, and Consecration), you will heal for all of that damage * 12%, instead of just Injector+ alone, therefore healing you for ridiculous 6 digit values if placed right. However, this is only a self-heal and should not be mixed up for a team heal.

Q: Heal shower. Should I use it to DPS or Save teammates?
A: This is a matter of Support versus DPS class. Remember that you are a support, and the cure AND heal is so much more useful to save teammates than to use it for a DPS moment. Say your team goes for a burst, so you use your heal but after overcommitting too much, they're about to die under burn and Poison Break+ isn't fast enough to heal them. That's when Heal shower should be coming in, but if you used it to DPS.. well, you just let your teammate die.

===== -Equipment- =====

As a support, your main priority should be amplifying your heals. Only and only under the conditions of Legendary grade weapons should you consider capitalizing on elemental damage.

For 70 cap, your main equipment you should aim for either
7 set - New moon (Maximizes magic damage and is a great alternative until you receive L-grades) 
or 
4 set New Moon, 3 set DDN L-grade (Maximizes all int, magic damage AND elemental damage).

However, once bDN comes out, i suggest aiming for a 2 L-grade weapons and 5 S-grade armor. Only use Magic damage, Int, and Vitality jades for these. 

As for crests, the only crest you really need is Heal shower cooldown and Poison break cooldown plates. The rest are luxury, but due to the T5 updates, I HIGHLY recommend getting Magma wall and Magma wave plates as well.

One thing I will say is DO NOT GO FINAL DAMAGE. Physicians aren't built for Final damage, and unless you can fully afford a full set of Crescent Moon equipment and mix your plates with magic damage and FD, I really do not suggest Final Damage at all. Sure it's amazing damage, but in exchange, your heals get shot down by that much more. 

Credits to:
Sachi (NA DN), Smiles (NA DN), Lanaya (SEA DN) and Vlaine (NA DN) for helping me with Ice stack knowledge.

This is it for now, and I do hope that this helps a lot. Feel free to comment and post below if you have any questions~ If you're wondering, I didn't go yellow text so people wouldn't get blinded when trying to read my walls o_o

-Dango