Build Guide - Dominator

Introduction

Without sugarcoating it, T4 is one of the roughest spots for Sages, for a couple of reasons. With enemies getting more resilient, DoTs become hard to use reliably without high Effect Hit Rate, and Summons can be punched through pretty easily if your Sage doesn’t sport high base stats. With all that said, Sages do get access to a few great healing-related skills as well as new Dark attacks to flesh out their builds some more. If anything, don’t lose faith, as T5 is an excellent tier for Sages, greatly enhancing their performances in every way.

New Important Skills

• Phantom Light - Phantom Light turns your overhealing into Shields, on top of improving the healing output of all your Healing Skills. This skill is a must for any healer.

• Rejuvenating Rain - A simple single-target heal that can be spammed each turn.

• Mantra of Blessings - If you play with a DPS carry or you’re helping your friends in co-op during scoring events, Mantra of Blessings is a great Buff. You’ll prefer playing more defensive options in difficult dungeons if you don’t have a carry with you, however.

• Decoy Clone - Same as Mantra of Blessings, this skill is perfect for scoring content where you can boost the damage of your team, ideal if you want to push a hypercarry’s damage even higher with good positioning.

Builds

Single Target

• Dark Starburst and Chaos Rune deal good damage without having to rely on Erosion stacks, which makes the damage output less RNG and also makes the lack of Effect Hit Rate a bit more forgiving, at the cost of lowering the damage ceiling you can achieve.

• Conversely, if you can reach High Effect Hit Rate, you can swap the Chaos Rune for another Erosion skill like Mana Blast.

• You can also add in the Frenzy Totem and use the Soul Pact Resonance instead of Shadow Vengeance or Night's Blessing , depending on the rarity of your skills and your overall stats.

AoE

• Dominator doesn’t get any new AoE Technique or Charm, so you have no choice but to use your old AoE build for the entirety of T4.

Healing Build

• Use Healing Touch instead of the Frenzy Totem if you need more Healing.

• Last Charm slot depends on your experience:

  • If you die early in the fights, use Shadow Vengeance .

  • If your allies die quickly, use Resurrection instead.

  • If you don’t need any extra survival tools, Mantra of Blessings is the way to go.

Stats

Secondary Main Stats

Below are the recommended secondary stats to look out for when gearing up. Having the right secondary stats is important for maximizing performance, but significant “power/gear score” upgrades or pieces with better additional stats can overwrite this priority.

DPS

The stats when playing Dominator are much the same as when playing Arcanist, with Effect Hit Rate becoming even more valuable, with massive differences in DPS between similar builds with optimized Eff Hit Rate vs unoptimized stat spread. If you can’t get enough Effect Hit Rate to guarantee your Erosion stacks landing on bosses, then opt for the Erosion/Direct Damage hybrid build.

Healer

The stats for playing Dominator as a support for the most part do not change compared to when playing Arcanist.

Sub Stats

All item slots will roll a number of additional stats on them, which are chosen randomly from a universal pool. Below is roughly the order of priority to look out for on your gear; however, just because an item has great additional stats doesn’t make it the best choice. Make sure to consider the item's overall power and whether it has the optimal secondary stats as well.

Fantomon

You can equip up to 4 Fantomons on your character's Fantomon loadout. However, only the lead Fantomon can use its ability; the rest only serve as passive stat boosters, so when choosing a Fantomon, you only need to worry mostly about the first one. Here are the ones we recommend.

Best Fantomon

• Nyxarchon: Just like when playing Sage, Nyx is also Dominator’s best-in-slot Fantomon thanks to its great AoE Dark Damage and supportive effect.

F2P DPS Fantomons

• Zeioletus: Before you get Nyx, if you want the next best damaging option, Zei is the go-to, even if they are a significant downgrade in most scenarios, mostly due to their lack of a debuff, no mult-hitting on large targets and smaller AoE. A good F2P stopgap, though.

• Sylvaerie: A buff-based alternative to Zei, which, instead of dealing damage themself buffs you permanently, granting a solid amount of SPD and ATK. Depending on your build and your gear, this can beat out Zei on some accounts. If you have both Syl and Zei and can’t choose, we recommend testing in “test” mode to find which is better for you currently.

Healing/Supporting Fantomons

• Mandragora : This Fantomon provides a solid amount of additional healing output, boosting your ability to keep the team alive. Doesn’t provide any other supportive effects or damage, though.

• Terragon : An alternative debuffing Fantomon to Nyx, who, instead of boosting overall damage, lowers the enemy's attack temporarily. You’ll have to run an attacking technique to trigger this debuff. It can be worth it to support the team.

• Sylvaerie : The bonus ATK from Sylvaerie isn’t useful when healing as Sage unless you’re also trying to do damage, but the additional speed will give you more actions to support the team, making it a viable choice.

Best Support/Hybrid Fantomon

• Pandarial (Releases later into S2): Its CD reduction ability on battle start functions the same as the Archmage Charm, which allows the Sage to heal on Turn 1 in dungeons where Bosses often slap your team from the start with their superior SPD. Once adult, its 2nd passive provides AoE Healing to all allies around at the start of the Sage’s turn. Before heavily investing in Pandarial, keep in mind that an even better Healer Fantomon will be released in S3.

Gems

Sages require 2 different gem builds, one for their Healing/Support build and the other for DPS spec. Keep in mind that starting from Gear level 130 in S2, 2 gems can be equipped per Gear slot.

Healer/Support Build

• Amethyst gems are recommended for the Weapon slot, as they’re the only SPD gems available for that slot.

• You want Amber gems in every applicable slot, which are Off-hand, Helmet, and Boots. The reason is that at similar rarities, the Healing Boost is more efficient to get than SPD on the gem slots, as it’s easier to increase SPD through other means.

• If you run out of Amber gems, your 2nd best option is the Citrine gems for extra SPD, which share their slots with Amber ones (so Off-hand, Helmet and Boots).

• Moonstone gems are recommended for the Armor slot, as the DMG RES is more effective in general.

DPS Build

Because of the Erosion mechanic, Sages generally prefer DMG%, Crit Rate% and SPD over other stats.

• Obsidian gems are used for the Weapon and Off-hand, with Amethyst gems being the 2nd option. Rubies are the 3rd option, lagging quite a bit behind the previous 2.

• Citrine gems are used for the Helmet slot, as it’s the only offensive option there.

• Moonstones are used for the Armor to get some much-needed DMG RES.

• Amethyst gems are preferred over Rubies for the Boots, since Erosion stacks can crit.

Relics

Relics listed as “best” are the targets you should be aiming for when completing an area before moving on to the next, if possible. Securing the “best” relics will be beneficial to your class now and/or will be crucial to your class in the future in higher tiers. “Good” relics should be your next targets or targets to pick up if you can’t secure the “best” ones, as they’ll also help now and in the future.

Best Sage Loong Haven Relics

• Ascension Box: This Relic is hard to get, but the Crit Rate it permanently gives you is strong at all points of the game, making it a strong one to chase.

• Puppet Beacon: Picking up Effect Hit Rate on relics takes some of the pressure off of you needing to find it on your gear pieces, allowing you greater freedom with which pieces you can and can’t use, helping with gearing.

Good Sage Loong Haven Relics

• Demon Crucible

• Skymending Stone

• Martial Sovereign

• Primordial Skybreaker

• Bell of Eternity

• Jade Purity Vase

• Solitude’s End