Announcement

**Skyros** · 12-21-2017, 06:30 PM

II. Skill Information and Discussion
Before we start on skill rotations and builds, let’s discuss first on AH’s main skills and how they work:

Execute- One of Arch Heretic’s main skills. Provides 2 hits, and each hit gains 1 Nightmare Bubble. Under Arch Heretic Transformation, Execute gains a -20% Damage Received debuff for 10 seconds, a +20% Action Speed increase and a wider area.

Evil Hand- One of the Arch Heretic’s best skills. Has a short cooldown and applies a -20% Elemental Resistance debuff for 10 seconds. Under Arch Heretic Transformation, Evil Hand gains an additional 50% damage increase and the ability to chain [Nightmare] Savage Attack using the Normal Attack Button.

Carnage- The Arch Heretic’s bread-and-butter skill in terms of gaining Nightmare Points. Carnage has a CTC-system and always starts with 20 stacks. Each cast has 2-hits and each hit gain 1 Nightmare Bubble. Holding the Normal Attack Button casts Carnage continuously. Under Arch Heretic Transformation, Carnage gains a +20% Action Speed increase and a wider area.

Savage Attack- One of Arch Heretic’s strongest burst skills. Has a designated-targeting system (just like Artillery’s Cannonade). Under Arch Heretic Transformation, Savage Attack gains an additional 50% attack damage and the ability to be chained with [Nightmare] Evil Hand using the Normal Attack Button.

Devastation- BOOM! BOOM BOOM! (‘nuff said) Devastation is pretty much straightforward in it’s normal state. Has a 5-second cooldown however consumes 30 Nightmare Bubbles per cast. Under Arch Heretic Transformation, Devastation gains a 1-second delayed explosion giving Devastation an additional 150% damage together with a 20% Action Speed buff.

Death Gate- Launches you to air with a ridiculous amount of i-frame time (i-framed throughout the skill cast time). Pretty straightforward, just cast and let em riiipp! High damage but limited with high CD (ulti durr).

Soul Steal- Arch Heretic’s main recovery skill. Has a cap healing (147000 HP at Level 12) and an extremely wide AoE. Soul Steal is the main way in where Arch Heretics can recover the HP cost of Pain to Gain.

Evil Stain- Arch Heretic’s core passive. Evil Stain gives a 0.5% STR gain for every Nightmare Point. In 100 Nightmare Bubbles, Arch Heretics gain a total of 50% additional STR. In Arch Heretic’s skill rotation, taking advantage of Evil Stain’s STR bonus is fundamental.

Pain to Gain- Arch Heretic’s main Nightmare Point generating skill. Pain to Gain gives 30 Nightmare Bubbles in exchange of 10% Max HP. With the [Enhanced Buff] Pain to Gain, Pain to Gain gives 20 additional Nightmare Points per cast, giving a total of 50 Nightmare Bubbles for 10% of maximum HP.

Land Corruption- Creates a Corruption Zone that gives Arch Heretics a +30% Action Speed Buff and a fixed HP recovery (1400 HP per hit at max level; 0.1 internal cooldown). With CM1, Arch Heretic’s main skills recover 1 second of Land Corruption’s cooldown.

Guilt Attack- Arch Heretic’s main skill chainer. Guilt Attack can be cast by pressing the Normal Attack Button during Sliding Step. Guilt Attack gives 1 Nightmare Bubble per hit. Holding the Normal Attack Button after casting Guilt Attack chains it to Carnage. Each SP invested reduces the skill cooldown by 1.

Deadly Blow- Arch Heretic’s evasive skill. Pressing Spacebar Button during any skill animation activates Deadly Blow. With CMII, Deadly Blow gains a 50% attack damage increment per second with a max of 1000% additional damage. Deadly Blow has an i-frame for the whole skill animation duration and each SP invested reduces the skill cooldown by 1.

Arch Heretic- The Transformation Skill. Grants Arch Heretic an Attack Power increase in proportion to Strength, changes Sliding Step into Quick Dash and improves the Arch Heretic’s main skills.

Sawblade- One of Arch Heretic’s burst skills. Both the ‘rising’ and ‘throwing’ motion of Sawblade deals damage. CMIII improves Sawblades skill cast time, increasing Sawblade’s damage by 80% and instantly throwing the Sawblade.

Arch Heretic Main Skills Damage Chart:

Skill Name	Coefficient	Total Skill Damage	Skill Damage/CD	Damage Distribution
Execute	1	1,512%	151%	0.4+0.6
Evil Hand	1	3,636%	260%	(0.2*3) +0.4
Carnage	1	1,306%	1,306%	0.5*2
Savage Attack	1	4,395%	176%	0.4+(0.2*3)
Devastation	1	4,390%	878%	0.5*2
[Nightmare]Execute	1	1,512%	151%	0.4+0.6
[Nightmare]Evil Hand	1.5	5,454%	390%	(0.2*3) +0.4+0.5
[Nightmare]Carnage	1	1,306%	1,306%	0.5*2
[Nightmare]Savage Attack	1.5	6,592.5%	264%	0.5*3
[Nightmare]Devastation	2.5	10,975%	2,195%	(0.5*2) +1.5
Sawblade	1.9	15,010%	500%	(0.0520) +(0.0615)
[CM III] Sawblade	1.8	12,798%	427%	0.12*15

Note:

[Nightmare] Devastation’s Coefficient is derived both from Devastation’s listed skill damage % and [Nightmare] Devastation’s listed skill damage %. The explosion damage is approximately 1.5x that of Devastation’s listed skill damage %.
Sawblade’s coefficient is calculated on Sawblade’s ‘rising attack’ listed skill damage (7900%). The ‘throwing attack’ damage is 90% (7110%) of the ‘rising attack’ damage.
[CM III] Sawblade’s coefficient is calculated based on Sawblade’s ‘throwing attack’ listed skill damage (7110%).
Death Gate isn't discussed in the Skill Chart due to time-restrictions (Portal Bug got me) and therefore has not been tested as of the moment. Will insert when I find the time (and if DN is not ded)

DISCLAIMER: Before starting the discussion on Skill Rotation, let me put on a disclaimer that this part on forward is based on my experiences on playing as an Arch Heretic and therefore, open to discussion and adjustments from other experienced players. Also, Skill Rotation is discussed first as the Skill Build will make much more sense after discussing the Skill Rotation.

Arch Heretic Skill Rotation:

The goal of this Skill Rotation is to establish that Arch Heretics have a burst-oriented rotation, supplemented by filler DPS. One of the main things that make Arch Heretics unique as a Spin-off class is that instead of managing Bubbles (in this case, Nightmare Bubbles) in order to transform, AHs manage bubbles in order to cast their deadliest skill- Devastation. Also, this Skill Rotation ensures us that the Evil Stain Passive (0.5% STR gain per Nightmare Point) is taken advantage of. So, with all those in mind, this Skill Rotation makes Arch Heretics cast all burst skills under the full effect of your Skill Debuffs and the Evil Stain passive then ending the rotation with a BANG! (literally) by casting Devastation.

(Under 100 Nightmare Points, with full buffs and under Arch Heretic transformation)
Land Corruption -> Execute -> Evil Hand -> Savage Attack -> Deadly Blow -> Divine Combo + Sawblade -> Devastation -> (Chain Carnage) -> Land Corruption -> Execute -> Evil Hand -> Devastation -> Pain to Gain -> Deadly Blow -> (Chain Carnage) then repeat at 100 Nightmare Bubbles or until all damaging skills are available

Execute and Evil Hand opens the rotation as debuffing skills. Savage Attack is chained to Evil Hand for damage, Deadly Blow serves as skill stiffness cancellation for Savage Attack and that sweet damage. Divine Combo + Sawblade is for the CMIII version of Sawblade then, ending with Devastation. The second part serves as a mini-burst rotation to take advantage of Execute, Evil Hand and Devastation’s short cooldown. More importantly, the second rotation puts you at 40 Nightmare Bubbles, where the [Enhanced Buff] Pain to Gain puts at 90 Nightmare Bubbles, then you can just chain Carnage to put you again to maximum Nightmare Bubbles and help hasten your Land Corruption cooldown.

Note:

Even though I did not insert Soul Steal in the skill rotation, Soul Steal is an integral part of the Arch Heretic gameplay, in the sense that Soul Steal heals Pain to Gain’s HP cost. Do note that Soul Steal is a must-cast skill to be inserted in the skill rotation. Now, the point where one should cast Soul Steal is dependent on the user (for me, I’d insert Soul Steal before casting Deadly Blow, so that I can cancel Soul Steal’s skill stiffness using Deadly Blow’s Jump Button activation), so that’s why I did not include Soul Steal on the skill rotation. The same applies to Death Gate.

Arch Heretic Skill Builds:

Pure PvE Build

Cleric Tree:

Why max Divine Combo? CMIII doesn’t change it into a Dark Elemental skill dood

In the Cleric Tree, Divine Combo 16 mainly serves to suffice the 45-SP requirement. Even though CMIII Divine Combo doesn’t convert the skill into a Dark Element, the potential 2870% skill damage of a Level 16 Divine Combo (also considering that Divine Combo’s CD is changed to 12 seconds due to CMIII) is too good to pass by. There is also the potential where the Devs will change CMIII Divine Combo into Dark Elemental (just like how they changed CMIII Rising Slash into Fire Elemental for Dark Avengers)
If you like, you can leave Divine Combo into Level 6 and dump the 10 SP requirement into Toughness. It is all to personal preference.

Everything else is up to a standard PvE set (Dash, HP&MP Passives, Block, Buff)

Heretic Tree:

Why leave Execute at Level 1? Isn’t Execute one of your Main Skills?

Sad to say, Execute’s DPS sucks (PvE-wise though). As you can see in the Main Skill Damage chart, Execute has the lowest DPS potential out of all Arch Heretic’s main skills. Additionally, in the PvE scenario, you will tend to only cast the first hit of Execute for the 20% Defense debuff.

Level 11 Guilt Attack? The damage sucks!

Leaving Guilt Attack to Level 11 makes its cooldown be reduced to 3 seconds, meaning in every Sliding Step/Quick Dash you do, Guilt Attack is available. This comes valuable when you try to reposition yourself when trying to chain Carnage as a filler skill or during generating Nightmare Bubbles.

Maxed Soul Steal? WHYYYYYY!?

Level 12 Soul Steal grants you a maximum of 147000 HP gain. This works well with recovering the HP penalty of Pain to Gain by inserting Soul Steal in your Skill Rotation. Please do not treat Soul Steal as a healing skill. IMO, Soul Steal is introduced to recover HP lost from Pain to Gain.

Why get Chaos Shield? This is a PvE Build, not a Hybrid/PvP Build

In DNKr’s Golden Goblin patch (expected to come in the January Patch for SEA), Chaos Shield now generates 1 Nightmare Bubble per hit. While still untested, this would make it that inserting Chaos Shield in the second part of the skill rotation means that Arch Heretics can stack 100 Nightmare Bubbles together with casting chain Carnage. For now, Chaos Shield is a good mob gathering skill for DQ and GGN Stage 4.

No Cruel Rush? Why?

Let me drop the bomb- Cruel Rush is useless. It costs 3 Nightmare Bubbles to maintain and has lower damage compared to Carnage. Basically, you would rather keep those bubbles and save them for Devastation, cast Carnage continuously and reposition using the Quick Dash + Guilt Attack combo.

Arch Heretic Skill:

Pretty much straightforward. Max all things. Instead, I’ll just discuss the Enhancement Passives and make a comparison between the choices.
Power Accelerator: FD (A) vs. Dark Attack (B)

In calculation, Power Accelerator A stands out versus the other choice. Why? Dark Attack for Arch Heretic is highly subjective to the ‘law of diminishing return’ (just google that, a lengthy subject). The Arch Heretic has a +40% Dark Element buff in the form of Brutal Soul together with your Jades and Skill/Cash Equipments. Dark Element is extremely easy to stack for Arch Heretics.

Attack Accelerator: 5% Nightmare Skill Damage Increase (A) vs. 5% Additional Damage in Critical Hits (B)

This is a no-brainer choice: Attack Accelerator A always wins. In PvE scenario, Arch Heretics are required to be under Transfomation and in result, always, Attack Accelerator A has a 100% uptime. Additionally, your best DPS skills (Devastation, Carnage, Evil Hand) are your main skills.

Enhanced Buff: Brutal Soul (A) vs. Pain to Gain (B)

If you follow the Skill Rotation, Enhanced Buff (B) is the better choice in order to increase your potential DPS via the ability to cast more Devastations. However, with the future update of Chaos Shield having a Nightmare Bubble generation, Enhanced Buff (A) becomes a more probable choice. This hypothesis is still not tested as the change is still a future content. For now, Enhanced Buff (B) is the better choice in terms of DPS contribution

Arch Heretic EX: 10% Attack Power Inc. (A) vs. 5% Attack Power Inc.; 10% Elemental Defense Inc.(B)

In the PvE scenario, Arch Heretic EX (A) is the better choice. In how Nests/Raids work, DPS-oriented classes are meant to dodge attacks/mechanics, not absorb them. Moreover, having an extra damage increment makes one potentially bypass mechanics by finishing the Nest/Raid faster.

24 SP left! What to do?
The extra 24-SP boils into what you prefer. You can dump the extra SP to Execute to boost your DPS slightly. Level 7 Land Corruption gives you a 1400 HP recovery per hit for 8 seconds (this works well when using Chaos Shield) and could help you in recovering the HP cost of Pain to Gain. Getting Toughness (when you chose to get Divine Combo 16) helps for your survivability. Holy Kick 6 helps in ‘kicking mechanics’. These are just all suggestions, your decision on where to spend the left SP is up to you.

BONUS! Personal Skill Build (Hybrid: PvE/PvP)
http://dnskillsim.herokuapp.com/sea/...--0--0-0-00--0

**Skyros** · 12-21-2017, 06:31 PM

III. Heraldry and Jade Discussion
A. Heraldries

The Arch Heretic is a Physical Attacking, STR-based class. These are the recommended Heraldries for Arch Heretic:

Bear (Strength)
Destruction (Attack Power)
Wind (Agility)
Fatal (Critical Chance)
Health (Vitality)
Life Vitality (Flat HP)
Ultimate (Final Damage)
Limitation (Critical Damage)

For Extra (3^rd) Stats, consider this hierarchy on what to prioritize: FD>STR>Attack Power>Critical>Wind
Skill Heraldries:

All of the recommended skill heraldries were tailored in the Skill Rotation. In a more specific sense, all Skill Heraldries were recommended in order to make the said Skill Rotation much more fluid:

Devastation +50% Action Speed- Even with the +20% Action Speed Increase for [Nightmare] Devastation and under Land Corruption’s +30% Action Speed buff, Devastation is still a slow-casting skill (in par of old Grand Cross skill cast time). The +50% Action Speed reduces the risk of Devastation being cancelled together with the risk of the target going out of the AoE.
Evil Hand -20% Cooldown- The -20% Cooldown basically helps the Skill Rotation to be fluid, putting Evil Hand in a 11.2 second cooldown. Execute and Evil Hand being in almost the same cooldown times is good as both are used as rotation openings, debuffing the targets first.
Sawblade -20% Cooldown- Puts Sawblade in a 24 second cooldown. This makes the Skill Rotation more fluid. Sawblade’s 30-second CD makes it that you have to wait or cast filler skills before casting Sawblade, thus making the skill rotation inoperable and potentially wasting Execute and Evil Hand’s debuffs.
Carnage +20% Damage/Savage Attack +20% Damage/Soul Steal -20% Cooldown- the last slot is up to you. Carnage and Savage Attack +20% Damage is straightforward (more damage!). Soul Steal -CD is helpful in recovering Pain to Gain’s HP cost specially above the 3m+ HP line.

Jades:

Dark Attack vs. Destruction
In most cases, as a casual player, Dark Attack % is the must get Offensive Jades. In higher geared character, they might need to swap some Dark Jades to Destruction to take advantage of the stat gains due to the law of diminishing returns. Almost always though, Dark Attack is better than Destruction.
Bear: STR + Vitality/HP vs. STR + Critical vs. STR + FD
The choice between the Defensive Jades is gear dependent. For a casual player, having a +Vitality is a must have for survivability. In some cases, having a +Critical sub-stat is more valuable specially when you have good reflexes and ample knowledge of the class/boss mechanics. The +FD sub-stat is trash for Epic and Unique Jades, L-Grade Jades with +FD stats are considered however, still it is gear dependent.

Do you tend to die in Nests? Get the +Vitality sub-stat
Can you dodge Boss attacks and have no problems with missed Boss mechanics? Mix some +Critical sub-stat until you are in a comfortable HP range. (A full +Critical sub-stat is highly not recommended as most of your HP gain is sourced from your Jades)
Can you dodge Boss Attacks and have L-Grade 95 Jades with FD? Then mix some +FD sub-stat Jades.

This discussion only applies to casual runs (4-man Nests/RUDN 8-man Norm) as in end-game raids/runs, HP is extremely important for survivability.

**Skyros** · 12-21-2017, 06:32 PM

IV. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION/TIPS & TRICKS

Bypassing Devastation’s skill casting animation

Cancelling Devastation by casting Deadly Blow midway promptly halves Devastation’s skill cast animation and removes the skill stiffness. With this, you can free up a Skill Heraldry Slot or change the Devastation +ActSpd plate into a +Dmg plate. However, this requires you to have Deadly Blow up in every Devastation cast, consuming your emergency i-frame skill. (Will provide a Video in the future). This technique depends on the user, as this removes Deadly Blow’s versatility and utility of being an emergency i-frame skill.

Soul Steal heal as recovery for Pain to Gain HP cost.

Soul Steal is Arch Heretic’s main recovery skill. At Level 12, Soul Steal has a max recovery cap of 147,000. The cap makes Soul Steal’s recovery potential dependent on one’s maximum HP stat.
To put this in perspective, for casual players, the 2m HP is a good baseline for survival. At the 2m HP baseline, Soul Steal Lv.12’s recovery cap is worth approx. 7% of your maximum HP. This means that in 2 casts of Soul Steal, Pain to Gain’s 10% HP cost is fully recovered (Soul Steal has a 12-second CD, while PtG has a 30-second CD).
The situation above puts it that Soul Steal can only recover PtG’s HP cost under a certain HP stat. In this case, in HP below or at 3m, Soul Steal is a stable recovery skill. Above 3m HP, Soul Steal cannot cope up with Pain to Gain’s HP cost.

Evil Stain STR bonus and Arch Heretic bonus Attack Power in proportion to STR

Arch Heretic’s Attack Power increase by 12% of STR works in connection to Evil Stain’s +STR % Passive. Simply, upon Transformation, Arch Heretic’s bonus damage directly calculates the available STR in the character and applies this buff for the whole duration. How does the Evil Stain passive affect this you say? Simple. Every point of Nightmare Bubbles increases STR by 0.5%. Taking advantage of this at max Nightmare Bubbles increases the Arch Heretic Attack Power bonus. What’s more, is that consuming Nightmare Bubbles does not reduce the bonus damage as long as you did not re-cast the Arch Heretic Transformation skill.

(Will add photos/videos and more Tips/Tricks when the Portal Bug is fixed)

**Skyros** · 12-21-2017, 06:33 PM

V. Acknowledgement

SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING:

To Xenocho for helping me with the Skill Table calculations, etc.
To spacem for creating the DNSkillSim
To the other Forumers (too many to mention) for giving me the inspiration to create a guide (and for modeling my guide's template)

Changelog:

v1.1

(12/22/17) Fixed minor grammatical errors and some tabular discrepancies; changed some terms to establish accuracy (Credits to Xenocho for the suggestion)
(12/23/17) Highlighted the 'Disclaimer' section.

**Skyros** · 12-21-2017, 07:00 PM

Reserve 002

**Xenocho** · 12-21-2017, 07:11 PM

Well written which provides good coverage of the class. A good read for those interested in learning the class.

A few comments:
- Execute gives 20% defense debuff? Does that mean it reduces the target's defense by 20%? If not, you may be referring to damage debuff; using the word 'defense' may create confusion, similar to how you mentioned elemental defense debuff. The reason I raise this point is that in DN, we have a 'defense' value and the debuff has nothing to do with that, so it should not be worded that way. Let me know if you agree or disagree with this.

- For your table, numerical values should use the same decimal points: either 1 decimal place or none to make them look standardised. Also, they should be justified to the right so that its easier to look at.

- When you list skill damage, is that the total damage of the skill after including the coefficient or is that the board damage listed on the skill description?'

- I noticed you didn't talk about the ulti nor is it listed in the table too.

**Fuggy** · 12-22-2017, 11:34 AM

" Attack Accelerator: 5% Nightmare Skill Damage Increase (A) vs. 5% Additional Damage in Critical Hits (B)

This is a no-brainer choice: Attack Accelerator A always wins. In PvE scenario, Arch Heretics are required to be under Transfomation and in result, always, Attack Accelerator A has a 100% uptime. Additionally, your best DPS skills (Devastation, Carnage, Evil Hand) are your main skills. "

I picked B instead of A.
This SS is a recent rudn hc raid i went and ''additional damage'' comes in 2nd on my dps meter.

I reckon is very hard to prove A is better than B, but for me is far from a no-brainer choice.

Attached Files

**Skyros** · 05-19-2018, 06:11 AM

As per DNKR's recent May patch on Arch Heretic's skill balancing, much of this guide (particularly the Skill Rotation and Tips and Tricks sections) is going to become obsolete.
While I am planning to update this guide, I will postpone such plans further in order to accomodate the huge changes brought by DNKr's May Patch.
Until such time, I'll be drafting a new guide with the intent of transferring the guide content into GoogleDocs for a more user-friendly interface together with the class changes to be posted in the near future.

Announcement

A Guide on how (Sword) Whip ‘em Good! (An Arch Heretic PVE Guide)

A Guide on how (Sword) Whip ‘em Good! (An Arch Heretic PVE Guide)

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