3.15.07 DSC Creation Guide

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Updated Fri, Jan 02, 2009 by Ralsu

Disciple Creation
Guide

by Ralsu

Archetype: Healer
Primary Attribute: VIT
Continents: Kojan, Qalia

October 23, 2007
The Disciple is the most melee orientated of the healer classes and is the only healer class that has counter attacks. She looks and feels like a martial artist because of her weapon and armor choices and fighting style, but the Disciple is first and foremost a healer. The Disciple uses melee attacks to heal her allies and replenish energy. She also can use her inner energy to form powerful bonds with her allies and enemies.

All healers use vitality for a bonus or a penalty to healing, so vitality is easily a Disciple's primary attribute. Vitality also increases in-combat regeneration. After that (and even about vitality), opinion varies widely. Wisdom gives the Disciple a large pool of energy to cast healing spells, but healing can be achieved other ways for the Disciple. Intelligence makes it harder for enemies to counter a Disciple's heals and allows the Disciple to detect who has aggro more easily. Some people believe it could also help your chances of success when using Feign Death. Dexterity increases the chance to dodge and parry and the likelihood of scoring a critical hit. Strength increases melee damage, but the Disciple also gets a buff for strength and dexterity.

Building a good Disciple takes some careful planning at the character creation screen and requires you to learn a handful of tactics in the lower levels.

I. Selecting the Right Race

Disciples of all races start with the same attributes, but the choice of race can affect how many points the Disciple automatically gets placed into its prime attributes.

Starting attributes:

STR	CON	DEX	VIT	INT	WIS
35	30	25	35	35	50

Each character gets 20 attribute points (AP) per level, starting at level 10. 6 of your AP are placed for you automatically--one per attribute (STR, CON, DEX, VIT, INT, WIS). 4 points are assigned to attributes based on your race if you are not a human (humans are kojani, mordebi, qaliathari, and thestran). You can place 10 (14 for humans) wherever you want to within soft caps of 5 per level.

Additionally, characters get racial bonuses to their soft caps. These are called preferred stats and allow characters of a race to flesh out in a way that reflects the traits of the race. Non-human races get 4 bonus points to soft caps (usually two or three attributes only) while human races get 6, 1 for each attribute. Thus, a human can be more balanced, while a non-human becomes more specialized.

The table below shows the attribute scores at level 50 before gear and buffs for the Disciple based on the race selected. We've highlighted the best results for the primary attribute for you. It is possible to reach the soft cap for three attributes as a human, but those soft caps may be lower than those attainable by other races.

II. Racial Abilities

The other important factor to consider when picking the race for your Disciple is racial abilities. With their short durations and long recasts, racial abilities are less important than attributes in the selection process, but they can be used to pick between races that are otherwise equal. The racial abilities are listed below.

Kojani: Spirit of Jin
This ability will immediately restore 45% of energy and hit points to the target. This ability has a diminishing effect on any target that has benefitted from this ability (used by another player) in the last 10 minutes. Recast is 30 minutes.

Human Ingenuity + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Ingenuity
Harvesting: +5 Lumberjacking

Goblin: Hex of Ghalnn
Whoever is afflicted by this hex will return 3% of the mana and hit points for every hit that is made on them. The effect lasts for 60 seconds. Recast is 15 minutes.

Small Race: 2% bonus to evasion
Crafting: +10 Reasoning
Harvesting: +5 Mining

Half Elf: Symbol of Jin
This ability will apply a rune to every member of the group for 60 seconds, which will mitigate damage by 15%. Recast is 30 minutes.

Human Ingenuity: + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Finesse
Harvesting: +5 Skinning

Orc: Fury of Ghalnn
For the next 7 seconds after this ability is activated, you will receive a 10% increase to damage and 100% of all the damage you do will return to you in the form of hit points. Recast is 15 minutes.

Large Race: 2% bonus to mitigation
Crafting: +10 Problem Solving
Harvesting: +5 Quarrying

Raki: Planar Shift
While this ability is active, you will gain a 50% mitigation to all spell damage. Recast is 30 minutes.

Animal Reflexes: 10% bonus to run speed.
Crafting: +10 Reasoning
Harvesting: +5 Reaping

Qaliathari: Swiftness of the Sands
For this next 10 seconds, you will evade all melee attacks and spells. Recast is 30 minutes.

Human Ingenuity + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Ingenuity
Harvesting: +5 Lumberjacking

Dark Elf: Spawn of Haelufir
This ability allows you to summon forth a small drake for a short duration. The type of drake you summon will be based on class and level. Each type of drake will have a variety of effects at their disposal, ranging from group auras, to breath attacks. The higher level drakes will also learn spells that are sympathetic with their associated class. Recast is 30 minutes.

Elven Wisdom: 2% reduction in mana cost
Crafting: +10 Finesse
Harvesting: +5 Skinning

Kurashasa: Symbiotic Armor
When this armor is active you will be protected by a proc (a process that fires under certain conditions). In addition to a rune that mitigates 25% of all types of damage, you have a chance to apply an effect to all enemies within a 20 meter point-blank radius when you attack, cast a spell, or receive damage. Anyone affected by this debuff will become snared and slowed. Recast is 30 minutes.

Animal Reflexes: 10% bonus to run speed.
Crafting: +10 Reasoning
Harvesting: +5 Skinning

Mordebi: Curse of the Ancients
This ability stuns the target for 8 seconds, and reduces the aggro range to 0. The target will not assist/aggro while stunned, and the effect does not generate any aggro. Recast is 30 minutes.

Human Ingenuity + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Finesse
Harvesting: +5 Reaping

III. Levels 1-4 Tactics

Like most classes, Disciples will probably find themselves soloing throughout their early days. At these levels you’ll want to grab all the quests you can to help you gain more experience. You’ll find the Disciple class very capable of soloing. From the very start, you will notice that you have very little downtime in between kills, in order to really take advantage of this, you want to be in a fight as often as possible.

Unlike the healers you may be used to, the Disciple not only wants to be engaged in up close combat; they need to be to reach their fullest potential. This is not your typical healbot. While healing is the Disciple’s primary focus, we have a wide range of skills and abilities that allow us to do much more than just that.

At level 1 you start with two abilities and the tactics will be fairly straight-forward. Void Hand will be your primary attack; it deals normal melee damage plus a little extra. You’ll notice that as you use Void Hand you will be accumulating Jin. Your second ability, Lao’Jin Flare, requires two Jin. This is a fairly small instant cast heal (roughly 75 points). At these levels you will probably not find yourself using the heal that much. But it is important to remember that Lao’Jin Flare does have a cool down attached to it, so you can't spam it. Go ahead and think of it as a patch heal to put on top of other heals or to save someone's life long enough to get off a bigger heal.

At level 2 you get Blessed Wind. This is a fairly high endurance attack that will also put a small heal over time on your defensive target. You'll probably continue to use Void Hand as your main attack, but Blessed Wind can give you a little boost here and there. Blessed Wind build up 1 point of Jin.

By level 4, perhaps you’ve noticed that you always have close to a full stock of Jin. Don’t worry: your new attack, Cyclone Kick, should undoubtedly help you with this. This is a moderate damage attack that requires 3 Jin to use.Your other skill is a new heal, Breath of Renewal. This is a fairly quick heal that costs energy to cast and will be more than enough to keep you alive.

IV. Endowment of Life

With Cyclone Kick, you will also be able to use your first endowment, Endowment of Life. Endowments are not listed in abilities until you discover them by doing your attacks in a certain order. The Endowment of Life is a healing effect you will get from using Blessed Wind followed by Cyclone Kick followed by Void Hand. You must perform the moves in that order, but other moves can come in between so long as less than 8 seconds pass between any two moves in the combo. Since Cyclone Kick costs 3 Jin, you can open a fight by using Void Hand twice. Then you can use Blessed Wind to start the chain. You'll have the 3 Jin needed to use Cyclone Kick. You complete Endowment of Life with another Void Hand. You'll get a nice heal of roughly 180 points at level 5 and scaling as your level increases.

V. Levels 5-10 Tactics

Now level 6 is where you should notice an increase in your ability to kill things. With the new finisher Falling Petal, you will be able to down things much quicker. Falling Petal is only usable after you get a critical strike with one of your other abilities. Luckily, you get them quite often after a Cyclone Kick.Falling Petal also buffs your defensive target so that heals cast on that target for the next 5 minutes give extra hit points. The boost isn't much, but it's there. Practice using it with other people as your defensive target so that you'll be in the habit of buffing your tank at higher levels. At only 10 endurance, you will want to use it whenever possible to maximize your damage output. Falling Petal also adds 1 Jin to your pool.

The other ability you receive this level also adds to your damage and is your first Focus Bond. Like most focus bonds, Touch of Woe requires 2 Jin to use. When you have this maintained on the enemy, it will take a small amount of damage whenever it attacks. This can be very useful for creatures that are higher in level and harder for you to hit, but don't waste your Jin putting this on weaker enemies. Just pound those into submission.

There is another aspect of the Disciple that will first become available when you reach level 8. Counter Attacks are usable after a dodge or feint. Dodge is a defensive maneuver that when used successfully will open up the counterattack Kiss of the Slug. Kiss of the Slug reduces the enemy's strength and damage output for a few seconds. The combination of Dodge and Kiss of the Slug will not be very useful against most 2-dots in your level range. Against tougher foes, it can help reduce the damage you take considerably. Keep in mind that you can use Dodge to simply avoid a hit that would have landed. You do not have to follow it with Kiss of the Slug.

Soul Cutter is another ability that is more useful for groups than solo play. This attack doesn’t have amazing damage but it reduces the aggro you have on a creature, meaning he will want to attack you less. In a group situation, this attack is best used before the creature is already attacking you. This level also brings with it a slower but more powerful heal called Astral Wind. When using this, you want to make sure you or your target have enough life to survive the 3 second cast time.

You have achieved level 10! You will now have the solid foundation to what the Disciple class is all about. At this level, you get a few new things that will make you all the more valuable to a group. While this class can solo very well, you will almost always find grouping to be the best XP and loots. Astral Walk is an ability that can only be used while in a dungeon and will bring your group mate directly to your location. Reincarnate resurrects your friends if they happen to fall in battle. You'll also want to use Summon Symbol of Unity, which places a stone in the pack of an ally that can be used to resurrect the Disciple if he happens to die. You want to put one on all of the group that doesn’t get its own resurrection spell.

This is the level where you get your first buff, Wisdom of the Grasshopper. This increases the physical damage you will put out and reduces the physical damage you receive(by increasing strength and dexterity), so you want to have it on you at all times.

Also pay attention to the new focus bond called Kiss of Heaven. This defensive focus bond heals your defensive target over two minutes for a huge amount. Keep in mind that heals build aggro, so if you put this on your tank, be sure to use Soul Cutter pretty often. Finally, Touch of Discord does some massive damage (4x normal damage + over 100 more!) while building 1 Jin.

VI. Managing Jin

Jin is a staple of the Disciple class. How you manage this in tougher fights can be the difference between victory and death. Out of combat you will lose 1 Jin every 30 seconds. A great way to go from one fight to the next without losing Jin while solo is to carry some throwing stars for pulling. The throwing stars will give you a much-needed ranged attack and allow you to get "locked" into combat mode between pulls faster. In groups, make sure you have the puller targeted and use your Assist macro to target the incoming enemy. Then be ready to throw a star as soon as the new mob is safely away from any crowds. Harvesting also marks you as in combat, so you can feel free to harvest a node and retain your Jin.

VII. Conclusion

As healers, there is always the added pressure of holding the group's life in your hands. Disciples must learn to pay attention to a lot of things--more than just the life bars. For endowments, be sure to check that the creature you’re targeting has enough life for you to successfully do it or that you have another mob left to target. It's possible to switch targets when performing Endowment of Life, but you definitely don’t want to realize you’ve had a corpse targeted for the last few seconds as a group mate dies. Good healers are easy to recognize and always sought after by guilds and groups. When the fighting gets tough, healers (more than anyone) need to have a cool head and quick reactions. And this only comes with experience. So good luck and happy hunting!