[SWL] Guide: How to DPS

This is a repost of my DPS guide on Reddit[redd.it]. The reddit post will always contain the most up to date version of the guide if the contents here look out of date.

Update December 2019 - This guide is likely horrendously out of date, since I stopped actively playing around the release of the Agent System back in 2018. I would suggest checking the official SWL Forums[forums.funcom.com] for up to date information.

Updates

December 2019 - This guide is likely horrendously out of date, since I stopped actively playing around the release of the Agent System back in 2018. I would suggest checking the official SWL Forums[forums.funcom.com] for up to date information.
Patch 2.1.3 - Added agnostic/wrist signet information and Hallowed Cache talisman.
Patch 2.1.1 - Added Plasma-Forged weapons, added Raid talismans.
Patch 2.1.0 - Removed CC resilience mechanic, gadgets no longer trigger GCD, rewrote weapon analysis.
Patch 2.0.3 - Guide creation.

Key Concepts

Hatred

The aggro mechanic.

• 1 point of damage generates 1 hate
  
• "High amount of hate" abilities generate 10x the normal hate
  
• Aggro naturally switches at 110% hate

Basically going over 11x the damage of the tank is bad. If this is happening, consider bringing group utility, unslotting some attack talismans, or using the detaunt gadget to reduce the amount of hate generated.

Positioning

Generally speaking, DPS should be attacking from behind the boss. This avoids any sort of cleave mechanic and gives the tank a small bit of time to react while the boss is turning if the tank loses aggro. Add aggro should also be kited towards the tank, not away.

Interrupts and Purges

In general, tanks will be expected to interrupt while DPS will be expected to purge. However, due to high incoming damage in later content DPS players should be prepared to interrupt if the tank asks.
Casts with a purple cast bar cannot be interrupted by abilities, but may still be prevented by other mechanics such as line of sight (LOS) or range.

• For example, the Antimony Misinitrix (first boss of Hell Raised) casts "Macroshock" which is a highly damaging chain attack that targets a random player. The cast can be normally interrupted, but if the boss cannot see the person she targeted when the cast finishes, the cast will not complete.

Utility

Buffs
Buffing will generally be a healer role, as buffing does not require hit rating (with the exception of Chaos buffs) and healers have the greatest build flexibility. However, some content that requires heavy healing may shift this role to DPS. Current major buffs include:

• Opening Shot from Shotgun increases the group's critical power by 30% for 8 seconds.
  
• Savagery from Fist increases one player's damage by 15% for 6 seconds.
  
• Enigmas from Chaos have the chance to increase the group's critical power or evade chance, among other effects.

Debuffs
Debuffs will generally be a DPS role, as they usually require hitting the target. Current major debuffs include:

• Exposed is applied from abilities and increase all damage dealt to the exposed target by 10%.
  
• Glaciate is the passive for the Elementalism ability Ice Beam and causes all attacks against the target to deal additional damage based on the attacker's combat power.

Cleansing
Cleansing can usually be left to the healer, but some situations may call for DPS contribution to cleansing. Useful group cleansing skills as a DPS include:

• Cleanup from Shotgun
  
• Clean Slate from Pistol
  
• Wild Surge from Fist

Death

A dead DPS does no damage. Reconsider those risky attacks (such as dancing with the machine tyrant in Hell Raised 6) if you are not confident in your ability to survive.

The Numbers and Mechanics

The DPS role is all about the numbers and understanding the mechanics behind the numbers. There is a TLDR further below for those who aren't interested in the math.

Combat Power (CP)
Nearly every damaging ability in the game does its damage based on a coefficient of Combat Power. Combat Power is determined using the formula:

Combat Power = 0.075 * (Weapon Power + Attack Rating)

Global Cooldown (GCD)
Actions are generally limited by a 1 second global cooldown, meaning each second exactly one ability can be used. Gadgets as well as some abilities, usually noted in their descriptions, will ignore and not trigger this GCD.

GCD also applies to most effects that trigger "on x", such as "on hit" or "on crit", including energy gain from critical hits. These effects are usually limited to triggering once per second per target.

Base Damage per Second
Base DPS is defined as the minimum amount of damage that can be done each second. Excluding fist (which for some reason is 1.026), single target basic attacks have a damage value of 1.18CP.
The value of energy can be determined from taking the coefficient of any power attack, subtracting the value of a basic attack, and then dividing by the amount of energy used:

3 energy:           (2.53 - 1.18)       / 3 = 0.45
5 energy:           (3.43 - 1.18)       / 5 = 0.45
5 energy channeled: (5.20 - (2.5*1.18)) / 5 = 0.45

Regardless of the power ability used, energy always has a base value of 0.45CP. Power abilities thus all have the same sustained DPS number, and their difference lies in the time it takes to do damage.
Primary weapons regenerates energy at a base rate of 1 per second, which means single weapon base DPS is 1.18 + 0.45 = 1.63CP.
Secondary weapons regenerates energy at a base rate of 1 per 2 seconds, which means duo weapon base DPS is 1.63 + (0.45/2) = 1.855CP.

Multihit Attacks
According to the developers, multihit attacks have been normalized such that they will produce similar damage and critical per second numbers compared to their single hit counterparts. There's a lot of math[www.swl-forums.com] that goes into this which results in:

1 hit  per second: 100.00% critical chance/100.00% critical power effectiveness
2 hits per second:  58.58% critical chance/170.71% critical power effectiveness
3 hits per second:  41.26% critical chance/242.37% critical power effectiveness
4 hits per second:  31.82% critical chance/314.26% critical power effectiveness

Multihit attacks do still have a distinct advantage in having multiple chances to trigger "on hit" effects. However this also applies to enemy on hit effects too. The most notable example of this being Ur Draug's Strength from Beyond:

You start using Burst Fire. 
The Ur-Draug's Strength from Beyond hits (Normal) you for 2148 filth damage. 
The Ur-Draug's Strength from Beyond hits (Normal) you for 2008 filth damage. 
The Ur-Draug's Strength from Beyond hits (Normal) you for 2098 filth damage.

As of Patch 2.1.2 Ur-Draug no longer returns damage for each hit, however other enemies (such as Lava Golems) still do.

Damage over Time (DoT)
Any DoT effect which is reapplied before the existing effect has expired will cause the existing effect to immediately deal the remainder of its damage before applying the new DoT. The only exclusions to this are DoT effects which stack, such as Dragon's Breath shells from Shotgun - these DoTs will instead add a stack up to the maximum number of stacks and refresh the duration when they are reapplied. DoTs are able to crit, but will not generate energy or trigger effects on crit.

Ground Effects
Some attacks, such as Elementalism Manifestations or the Shotgun elite Bombardment, create persistent ground or area effects. These effects will stack with other similar effects and are able to crit, but like DoTs will not generate energy or trigger effects on crit.

Criticals
The base damage value of 1.855 assume 0% crit chance. Since a critical gives energy as well as additional damage, overall damage will scale following the formula:
(1.855 + (Critical Chance * 0.45)) * ((1 - Critical Chance) + (Critical Chance * (1 + Critical Power)))
So for example, with 500 combat power, 10% critical chance, and 50% critical power, expected DPS will be 1.995CP, or 997.5 DPS using only basic and power attacks.

Weapon Specialties
Some rough theorycrafting was done here[docs.google.com], but basically weapon specialties add approximately 40% damage. Therefore, when choosing a weapon, make sure to utilize the weapon specialty and not ignore it.

Weapon Expertise
Expertise from weapons adds up to an additional 7.5% critical chance and 30% critical power to abilities and passives from that weapon. This value is not reflected on the character sheet, so it will need to be manually added when performing any DPS calculations.

Too much math - TLDR
Each weapon pairing has the same starting point of 1.855CP base DPS. This damage is modified by choices in (listed by order of affect):

Gear

• Glyph stats
  
  • Being below hit cap for content will reduce damage.
    
  • Critical rating and Critical Power will increase damage.
• Signets at legendary level add approximately 30% additional damage.

Build

• Energy management to maximize energy generation while eliminating energy waste. Each point of energy gained and spent contributes, at minimum, an additional 0.45CP to damage.
  
• Special abilities and passives add approximately 40% damage.
  
• Weapon specialties add approximately 40% damage.
  
• Elites have varying value, either in pure damage or utility but will on average add around 10% additional damage.

With the assumption that elites contribute 10% additional damage, specials/passives contribute an additional 40% damage, specialties contribute an additional 40% damage, and signets contribute an additional 30% damage we can calculate a rough expected DPS by the formula:

(1.855 + (Critical Chance * 0.45)) * ((1 - Critical Chance) + (Critical Chance * (1 + Critical Power))) * 1.1 * 1.4 * 1.4 * 1.3 

So our earlier assumption with 500 combat power, 10% critical chance, and 50% critical power doing 997.5DPS with basic and power abilities should be averaging around 2.2k DPS without signets and 2.9k with signets. By adjusting the above formula with your personal crit/crit power/signet/passive/speciality contributions, you can arrive at a rough theoretical DPS figure for comparison with your real (virtual) world performance.

Gear Requirements

DPS gear has a large direct effect on damage output, and should be composed of a full set of attack rating talismans and a mix of hit, critical, and critical power glyphs. It's also useful to have a few Health talismans to use in cases where your maximum HP is not enough to avoid instantly dying to raid-wide damage.

Elite 1

Elite dungeons are the first content in SWL progression which requires roles. According to the developers, elite 1 is tuned to a character who has finished the story mission and has all superior (blue) items with 1 epic (purple) item. In general, you should be able to do around 1K DPS to pass DPS checks.

1. Aim for a full set of standard (green) glyphed superior (blue) attack rating talismans.
   
2. Glyphs are useful, but not necessary at this difficulty. Glyph priority is as follows:
   
   • 5% glance reduction from hit
     
   • Critical Rating
     
   • Critical Power, but no more than 2 Critical Power glyphs.

Lairs

Lairs are the next step in SWL progression after elite 1 in order to obtain signets. According to the developers, lairs are tuned to a character in full epic (purple) gear.

1. Aim for a full set of superior (blue) glyphed epic (purple) talismans.
   
2. Glyphs are more important at this difficulty. Glyph priority is as follows:
   
   • 18% glance reduction from hit
     
   • Critical Rating
     
   • Critical Power, but no more than 2 Critical Power glyphs.

Regionals

Regionals are the "final boss" of lairs. I don't believe there has been developer commentary on regional boss tuning, but from what I've seen it's tuned to a character in fully leveled epic (purple) gear.

1. Aim for a full set of epic (purple) glyphed fully leveled epic (purple) talismans.
   
2. Glyphs are extremely important at this difficulty. Glyph priority is as follows:
   
   • Around 31% glance reduction from hit
     
   • Critical Rating
     
   • Critical Power, but no more than 2 Critical Power glyphs.

Elite 5

Starting from Elite 5 difficulty, dungeons reintroduce the old TSW nightmare mechanics as well as significantly scaling up the health and damage of bosses. I don't believe there has been developer commentary on elite 5 tuning, but from what I've seen it's tuned to a character in full mythic (yellow) gear. In general, you should be able to do around 4k DPS to pass DPS checks.

1. Aim for a full set of epic (purple) glyphed fully leveled epic (purple) talismans.
   
   • 450 Item Level roughly requires a fully leveled set of epic talismans/glyphs/signets in each slot at the minimum, with possibly 1 mythic to compensate for the lack of wrist signets.
2. Glyphs are extremely important at this difficulty. Glyph priority is as follows:
   
   • 22% glance reduction from hit
     
   • Critical Rating
     
   • Critical Power, but no more than 2 Critical Power glyphs.

Raids

Raids are 10 man content expected to follow the same scaling system as Elite Dungeons (with the same gear requirements), with Elite 5+ introducing old NM mechanics from TSW. Raid composition is generally designed to be:

• 2 Tanks
  
• 2 Healers
  
• 6 DPS

Although many groups will only use 1 healer in favor of an additional DPS.

Manhattan Exclusion Zone (NYR)
The first raid available in game is the Manhattan Exclusion Zone, generally abbreviated by players as NYR or less commonly as MEZ. NYR raids will generally be composed of:

• 2 Tanks
  
• 1-2 Healers
  
• 6-7 DPS, with at most 2 Melee DPS due to buff circle mechanics.

Gear - Weapons and Talismans

Weapon

Weapons have many unique effects which will add additional damage or alter playstyles. A full list of weapons can be found here[docs.google.com].

• Shadow-Bound weapons add about 0.15CP DPS.
  
• Anima-Touched weapons add about 0.28CP DPS.
  
• Flame-Wreathed weapons add about 0.375CP DPS.

Weapon Affixes

Math on affixes can be found here[docs.google.com]. In order of general usefulness:

• Energy generates energy thus increasing damage. Theorycraft has shown this to be around a 1-3% increase. Some weapons (pistol/shotgun/elementalism/blood/chaos) do not gain additional benefit from having more energy while other weapons (blade/hammer/fist/assault rifle) do, so the value of the energy suffix is also dependent on the weapon.
  
• Havoc increases the effectiveness of critical attacks. Theorycraft has shown this to be around a 1.5% increase.
  
• Destruction adds additional damage when the target is at low health. Theorycraft has shown this to be worth around 1-8%, depending on current gear levels and enemy health with higher gear levels/lower enemy health decreasing the value. It is however important to note that the additional damage is added during the "execute" phase, in which complex mechanics or DPS checks appear, but will also not be active at all above 35% health.
  
• Efficiency will allow elite abilities to be used more frequently. Theorycraft has shown this to be around a 1-1.5% increase, but note that elite abilities will no longer align with buffs abilities. Much more useful for elites where the effect is more important than the damage (such as Ice Beam's passive Glaciate). Note that efficiency is much less effective when stacked with other CD reduction, reducing cooldown by around 4-5 seconds alone but only 2-3 seconds with a legendary cooldown signet.
  
• Alacrity increases movement speed allowing for better positioning.

Talismans

Listed below are the best in slot DPS talismans currently available in the game. The benefit from an extraordinary item compared to its non-extraordinary counterpart is minimal, so it is generally better to have a 3 pip normal talisman over a 2 pip extraordinary talisman.

Head - Ashes of Elder Things/Ashes of Crushed Cities. This slot triggers on damaging the same target 3 times.

• Ashes of Crushed Cities has twice the output of Revenant Ashes on single targets, but Revenant Ashes deals damage in an AoE. Ashes of Elder Things is the raid drop, but until the CP coefficient is determined it's difficult to determine it's effectiveness, although based on the other raid items it will be 3x as powerful.

Finger - Cobra Ring. This slot triggers when purging or interrupting.

• Cobra Ring contributes 0.5 * 0.45CP = 0.225CP, while Skadi's Ring contributes 0.25CP. However, the damage from energy scales while flat damage does not.

Neck - Egon Pendant. This slot only triggers when attacking a target under 50% HP.

• Egon Pendant increases damage by 1.75% for each target affected as well as adding 0.06CP per hit, or roughly 0.16CP total. Spectral Essence contributes approximately 0.08CP, Seed of Aggression contributes 0.11 * 0.45CP = 0.0495CP but scales with energy, and Choker of Shed Blood contributes 0.25 * 0.20CP = 0.05CP.

Wrist - Iron-Sulfur Bracelet. This slot only triggers when hitting an enemy who is exposed (or debilitated for Iron-Sulfur only).

• Iron-Sulfur Bracelet deals additional damage to exposed and debilitated enemies. The effect of Fleshwired Fetter to increase the duration of exposed is interesting, if it didn't have such a low chance to increase it by such a small amount.

Luck - Cold Silver Dice. This slot triggers on critical hits.

• Cold Silver Dice contributes 0.22 * 0.45CP = 0.099CP, while Gambler's Soul contributes 0.10CP. However, the damage from energy scales while flat damage does not.

Waist - Barbelith Wire/Jaguar's Cord. This slot triggers on hitting an enemy facing away from you.

• Jaguar's Cord provides movement speed, while Barbelith Wire has a chance to slow and reduce hate. Both are generally useful.

Occult - Razor Fossil. This slot triggers whenever an enemy is defeated.

• Razor Fossil gives a short damage buff, stacking up to 5 times. The additional damage from Sigil of Ambition is great for questing, while Avaritia's Effigy provides a small speed boost, which can be useful especially for Melee DPS.

Gear - Glyphs, Signets, and Gadgets

Glyphs

Glyph stats greatly affect damage output. The 3 glyphs stats relevant for a DPS are:

• Accurate: Hit Rating, 50.85 gives 1% glance reduction
  
• Fierce: Critical Rating, 157.50 gives 1% critical chance
  
• Devastating: Critical Power Rating, 28.85 gives 1% critical power

Current known glance reduction caps are:

• 5% for Elite 1
  
• 18% for Lairs
  
• 22% for Elite 5
  
• Around 31% for Regionals Bosses

The ideal split at end game will be:

• 1 Accurate (hit) glyph - Glanced hits do 70% less damage and do not cause their effects (such as debuffing or interrupting).
  
• 5 Fierce (critical) glyphs - Critical heals generate energy, making critical rating more desirable than critical power.
  
• 2 Devastating (critical power) glyphs - Makes critical attacks more effective.

Glyph placement does not affect the value of stats that are given, but do affect versatility if you intend to do multiple roles. There are a few things to keep in mind:

• Weapon glyphs are only active while wielding that weapon. If you place hit only on one weapon, the other weapon will have a higher glance chance.
  
• Critical Rating is a universal stat. All roles benefit from Critical Rating due to the energy generation on critical mechanic.
  
• Critical Power mostly benefits DPS and Healers. Tanks only gain a small hate generation increase due to low critical chance.
  
• Hit mostly benefits Tanks and DPS. Healers only gain benefit from Hit if they are Rifle healing or attempting to interrupt/purge.

Signets

Head - Per weapon, with a choice between cooldown reduction and increased output. DPS will almost always want increased output except for elites which provide beneficial effects (such as Fist's Primal Instinct). Weapon agnostic signets are not very viable for DPS, but do offer more utility.
Neck/Finger - Per weapon. Should match the primary weapon. Weapon agnostic neck signets are viable but highly dependent on build.
Wrist - Modifies Ultimate Ability (wings), with a choice between cooldown reduction and increased output. Increased output will be more useful since there is only one wing in the game at the moment, and it adds a 10 minute debuff to targets which are hit. However, lower cooldown may be more useful in the future as more wings are introduced.
Luck - On crit effects. DPS should choose between Laceration and Sadism.
Waist - Modifies gadgets. DPS should choose between Time and Space Alteration or Matter Creation.
Occult - Modifies active dodge. DPS should choose between Contortion, Quickness, and Acrobatics.

Gadgets

Gadget usage does not trigger and is not affected by the GCD. A full list of gadgets can be found here[docs.google.com].

Builds

Sorry, no actual builds here, as builds are highly subjective to preference due to weapon specialties. What I will instead write here is (admittedly subjective) information on the viability and general design of builds.

Viability

When discussing viability, there are 2 considerations:

Melee vs. Range
Melee weapons (Blade/Hammer/Fist/Chaos) have simpler specialities, while Ranged weapons (Blood/Elemental/Shotgun/Pistol/Assault Rifle) have more complex specialities. This is to balance melee characters having to pay more attention to their positioning compared to ranged characters.

In general, melee is extremely punishing as most mechanics emanate from the boss and will one-shot non tanks, and melee characters have much less time to react. That is not to say that melee DPS is impossible - it is possible to melee in every single fight of the game - but it is a lot more difficult and requires more knowledge of the fight and quicker reaction times compared to ranged DPS. Having experience in tanking will greatly increase melee DPS effectiveness.

Ramp vs. Burst
Weapon specialties can be categorized into two types of damage:
Ramping weapons rely on high uptime on the boss in order to reach the full damage potential of their specialties. After reaching full damage potential, ramping weapons must continue to attack in order to deal and maintain their specialty damage. If the target is frequently out of range or otherwise unable to be attacked, ramping weapons will need time to ramp back up to their full damage potential.

• Blade relies on high uptime on the target to maximize chi generation and deal damage from Spirit Blade.
  
• Blood needs to build and maintain high corruption levels to maximize the damage bonus provided by Blood Offering.
  
• Chaos needs high uptime on targets in order to continually generate paradoxes to trigger the Controlled Chaos specialty. This has various effects including dealing damage, controlling, or buffing the group. Out of the 3 possible effects, enigmas which buff the group are a ramping effect, While doppelgangers and singularities are burst effects, although with slight delays. As the weapon name suggests, the effect which occurs is random.

Burst weapons are designed to have a small delay before they are able to deliver their damage. However, once that damage has been delivered nothing more needs to be done except starting the cycle anew.

• Hammer builds up Rage with each attack before consuming it to deal additional damage.
  
• Elementalism manages Thermotics using heating and cooling abilities. Although this appears on the surface to be a ramping mechanic, the rate at which maximum damage potential is reached is more similar to burst weapons.
  
• Assault Rifle generates Grenades which are launched to deal damage. Although the main damaging grenade does it's damage over time, the application is immediate and does not require constant uptime to deal damage.

Some weapons can be used as a ramping or burst weapon based on preference and build choice.

• Shotguns have a very versatile specialty in Heavy Munitions. Along with being able to heal with Anima Infused Shells and expose with Armor-Piercing Shells, Dragon's Breath Shells are a ramping mechanic which deal more damage as more stacks of the burning effect are applied, and will continue to do damage as long as the stacks are maintained. Depleted Uranium Shells on the other hand immediately deal a burst of damage whenever a shotgun shell is used. However, shotguns must also spend a GCD every 6 shells to reload their weapon from a random selection of the 4 shells.
  
• Pistols need to continually be attacking in order to utilize both the matching chambers and damage mechanics of Chamber Roulette. However, abilities can be used to skip the ramping matching mechanic, resulting in benefiting purely from the burst damage of matched chambers.
  
• Fist Weapons build fury in order to activate the Primal Wrath ability Frenzied Wrath in order to deal additional damage mostly through application of bleed (DoT) effects. Once Frenzied Wrath has been activated, fists will need to remain within range for its 3 to 5 second duration in order to deal its damage. Although fury generation is naturally slow, it can be significantly increased with abilities.

Design

Builds and rotations should generally keep 2 rules in mind to maximize their damage output:

1. Prevent energy overflow. Every second you spend at 15 energy is lost damage.
   
2. Utlilize the weapon speciality. The speciality provides approximately a 40% bonus to damage.
   
   • Because of this, the ramping weapons Blade, Blood, and Chaos should rarely be secondary weapons if the goal is to maximize damage, as other weapons are able to better utilize the limited resources of a secondary weapon. However, with the right ability/passive/weapon choices, it is possible to skip the normal ramp time with these weapons and use them effectively as a secondary weapon.

Honestly, this section is difficult to write since there are so many variables including individual preference to build design, so I'll just end it here.

Playstyle

Because of specialties, each weapon has a (somewhat unique) playstyle based on whether it is a primary or secondary weapon. Ignoring extraordinary weapon effects, which can completely change the playstyle of a weapon:

Blade

• Primary: Maximize generation of Chi to maintain constant stacks of Spirit Blade.
  
• Secondary: Manage stacks of Spirit Blade so that ideally each blade attack will be affected by Spirit Blade. Measure Twice, Cut Once is a useful passive for secondary blade.

Hammer

• Primary: Maximize generation of rage to trigger enraged effects
  
• Secondary: Maximize generation of rage to trigger enraged effects. The passive Anger Management is a useful passive for secondary hammer.

Fist

• Primary: Maximize fury generation to use powerful wrath abilities.
  
• Secondary: Maximize fury generation to use powerful wrath abilities. Of note is that most Wrath abilities do not require energy which helps with the secondary weapon energy shortage problem. The ability Savagery is also one of the few abilities which can affect other weapons.

Blood

• Primary: Maximize Corruption without killing yourself.
  
• Secondary: Not too great as a secondary as it is difficult to maintain meaningful corruption levels with limited resources.

Chaos

• Primary: Maximize generation of paradoxes to trigger Controlled Chaos. Resonance Cascade is a near requirement for Chaos builds.
  
• Secondary: Not too great as a secondary as it is difficult to generate meaningful numbers of paradoxes with limited resources.

Elemental

• Primary: Maintain high heat levels through the use of heating and cooling abilities.
  
• Secondary: Maximize heat levels and cool using only passive heat dissipation. As a secondary weapon, the overheating mechanic can be ignored.

Shotgun

• Primary: Count and utilize shells to maximize damage. Alternating Dragon's Breath and Depleted Uranium shells every reload will maintain 5-6 stacks of the Dragon's Breath effect as well as the bonus damage from Depleted Uranium. Odds and Evens is a useful primary shotgun passive.
  
• Secondary: Maintain Dragon's Breath for longer fights or use Depleted Uranium shells for shorter fights. Shell Salvage and Combat Reload are useful abilities for secondary shotgun.

Pistol

• Primary: Maximize the duration of time spent with matched chambers.
  
• Secondary: Maximize Red chamber matches. The Six Line ability and Fixed Game passive are useful for this purpose.

Rifle

• Primary: Maximize generation and usage of grenades. Jungle style is a notable passive to help with this.
  
• Secondary: Not too great as a secondary due to the bulk of AR power being in it's spammable grenades.

DPS Quick Notes

Elite Dungeons

DPS in dungeons usually involves killing things while not standing in or near things that kill you. Unlike tanking, most things that are dangerous to DPS will have very obvious telegraphs so the details below assume you know how to not stand in those. Some fights may require ability changes to deal with mechanics.

For fight specific mechanics, refer to this guide[redd.it].

Lairs

DPS in Lairs generally consists of heavy AoE damage for the lair, and single target damage for bosses. Bosses have many unique mechanics, but will generally involve killing adds and avoiding telegraphs.

For fight specific mechanics, Posid has started compiling tactics here[redd.it].

Raids

DPS in raids generally consists of managing positioning and killing adds.

For fight specific mechanics, Tipsui has a guide for NYR here[redd.it].

Regionals

• Aspect of the Long-Toothed - DPS is straightforward, but the boss has a lot of health. Death from Hounded can be prevented by interrupting the boss as it walks to the targeted player, then having the targeted player move out of line of sight of Rundown.
  
• Aspect of the Many-Limbed - Stand behind the boss as she has an infinite cleave radius in an approximately 180 degree arc in front of her, but not directly behind as she emits a posionous fart which will instantly kill. Cast Web will root a random player and deal heavy damage but can be interrupted. Vile Birthing will need to be interrupted when she transitions between phases, during which she targets a random player to follow and must be lead into sunlight.
  
• Aspect of the Great Winged - Avoid the whirlwinds which spawn, and try not to lead them into your allies. The debuff Eye of the Storm indicates that you will be followed by a whirlwind. The black whirlwinds which spawn while he is on the ground can be killed, but the white ones that spawn while he is in the air cannot and must be kited.

[Ariel]

Thank you so much