Boons

Campaign Boons

Boons have been in a weird state since their rework a few mods ago. Devs invented the option to take more Advanced and Master Boons to allow them to go on with their 4 Boons per Mod principle. The weird thing is that you can spend Points in all Master Boons now after spending the first 10 Points. Each subsequently taken Master boon increases the cost of the next different chosen Master Boon. By further spending Points on Master Boons you could thus enable the second and third Increment of each Master Boon. Thus you might have the choice to do something like shown in the following Image. Of course this boon choice is not optimal!

A possible but not optimal boon choice! (The image also shows the bugged Advanced Boon costs, because of repeately resetting the boons. Be careful with that!)

The Master Boons got a rework and provide now massive amounts of Stats or Utility, thus choosing multiple Master Boons is indeed good. However, there is a catch: Most of them are extremly unreliable and might not trigger in a run at all! But because the Master Boons are part of our most important Alloction decision, let's rank them!

Ranking of Master Boons

1. Blessed Resilience

   The reason for this Boon choice is the Rank 2 Bonus: +6% Maximum Hit Points (thus +6% survivability) and its high uptime as long as the healer spams heals! It is orthogonal to most stats and thus always a great choice. The 6% Defense and 11% Stamina are just a small Bonus! Notes:

   • Bug (Positive): The Rank 3 Stamina replenishes 1% per tick. However it ticks 11 times and not 10!

   • Best in Trials, okayish in dungeons.

   • Companion heal (like Angel) can also trigger it.

   • Its negative part is that its uptime is dependent on your healer, which might be asleep and thus might never trigger. In trials you have luckily 2 healers!

2. Focused Retaliation 6% Deflect and Deflect Severity at 20% chance to trigger? Great, even though both stats are questionable! Can be kept easily active in mob groups via Linebreaker and Enforced Threat. It has no cooldown! Barely triggers from KV, because not KVs Encounter Ticks trigger it, but reflected Damage from KV! Thus not so great on Bosses as uptime is very unreliable there! It has no bugs!

3. Life Lessions The DPS best Boon. Even great for Tanks, as our damage part is more skewed towards additional bonuses. I have logs with over 8% of my damage coming from it. Great Boon! Notes:

   • Bug (Positive): Rank 1 is 100 Magnitude + 50 Magnitude per rank (= 150-250 Magnitude). Its damage is neither increased by Physical Damage Boost nor Magical Damage Boost. It cannot crit.

   • Bug (Positive): Rank 2 DoT hits also together for 100 Magnitude + 50 Magnitude per rank. It also triggers 11 times instead of 10 times! Thus it deals 220 / 275 Magnitude! Its damage is neither increased by Physical Damage Boost nor Magical Damage Boost. It cannot crit.

   • Negative: The Rank 3 Heal replenishes 10% of the damage Dealt by the ONE At Will that trigged Life Lessons! This is nothing and thus pretty useless R3 bonus!

4. Blessed Advantage Blessed Advantage provides 15% Recharge Speed, 6% Power and a tiny Heal for 2% Maximum Hit Points (increased by Incoming Healing, but still not noticeable). The 15% Recharge Speed is the main reason to choose it. Its uptime is questionable though as with Blessed Resilience. Might help from time to time though.

   • Bug (Positive): The Rank 1 Heal replenishes 0.2% per tick. However it ticks 11 times and not 10! Useless Heal anyway.

   • Best in Trials, okayish in dungeons. Trials are why it is ranked before Enhanced Application!

   • Companion heal (like Angel) can also trigger it.

   • Its negative part is that its uptime is dependent on your healer, which might be asleep and thus might never trigger. In trials you have luckily 2 healers!

5. Enhanced Application This might be confusing why such an overpowered bonus with decreasing the next taken hit by 30% is ranked so low. The reason is that it literally never triggers at the right moment and that its bonus is eaten by a small random hit. Also with 5% Chance to trigger it is triggered really rare in boss fights. Okish in Mob groups though.Might be taken as a 5th Boon! The heals are fine with 3% and 6.6% maximum Hit Points.

   • Bug (Positive): Rank 2 Heal over Time triggers 11 times instead of 10 times! Affected by Incoming Healing!

   • The Damage Reduction is calculated by multiplying with 0.7. So the usual Mitigation Formula!

6. Blood Lust This boon is great on dps, but regarding its rank and its bonus and its rare trigger chance a no go for tanks. The 18 Points costs can be better used on Power that is 100% reliable!

   • The Blood Lust Debuff (3%) works!

   • The Rank 2 Bonus also deals 150 Magnitude (with R3 Increment). Its damage is neither increased by Physical Damage Boost nor Magical Damage Boost. It cannot crit.

   • Bug (Positive): The Rank 3 provides 0.5 + 0.5% AP Gain per rank. Does not change much anyway!

7. Death's Bulwark Another possibly confusing ranking. The reason for this is that Death's Bulwark and Deathly Rage are only triggered if you lost 50% Hit Points in one hit! No, Shielding does not count. Nor does premitigated Damage. It must be 50% Hit Points. You don't want this and definitly not regularly. Should never trigger and thus would also never give something. There is curretly no content for it. Not even MDoM, where it might trigger!

8. Deathly Rage Same as Death's Bulwark with the difference that the bonus is less required after taking -50% Hit Points. Best part is, it has no bugs!

Now the question is how many of those Master Boons you want to take. I recommend taking 3 to 5 Master Boons. More is not useful as you would loose other noteworthy Advanced Boons and Tier 1-4 Boons! A new toon can get 116 boon points (35 from Adventures, 44 from Campaigns, 37 from Legacy Campaigns). Old toons can get two more boon points: One gained several mods back due to a bug and one from the old Tyranny of Dragons campaign, which vanished when Tyranny of Dragons was transformed into an Adventure. Let's go through the other Tier 1 and Tier 2 options first, before looking at a boon distribution!

Noteworthy Tier 1-4 Boons

• The 20 Boon Points in Hit Points are our best take for survivability! 4% Hit Points in all situations? Great take!

• Critical Avoidance can also be safely taken as we have to choose 10 Points from Tier 1.

• 5 Points in Awareness is also interesting, as we wantto cap Awareness at all costs!

• Marathon Runner for 12.5% Movement Speed. Always taken!

These 4 were the must takes from the Tier 1-4 Boons. The following are options we probably still have Points to spend on:

• Necrotic Mastery: -5% incoming damage and +5% Damage against Undeads! Great take as we fight many undeads! This is helpful in the new trial Crown of Keldegonn and some Reaper Challenge dungeons as there are quite many undead enemies in older content like Castle Ravenloft, Tomb of the Nine Gods and Cradle of the Death God.

• Demonic Mastery: -5% incoming damage and +5% Damage against Demons! Also great take as demons are common enemies in NWO!

• 5 Points in Defense is a choice if we have the Points open. Defense gets less interesting when close to the cap and we have some unreliable bonuses anyway to overcap it (Blessed Resilience, Ghosted).

• 5 Points in Deflect and Deflect Severity if we have Points open.

For most other Tier 1 to Tier 4 Boons are probably no Points open.

Notes on remaining Tier 1 - 4 Boons

• The next 25 boon points would be spend on Power and Combat Advantage to increase aggro

• Afterwards points count be spend on:

  • Investment into the potion boons for up to 15% more heals on potions and a (good) chance to trigger +2500 Power Stat, 5000 Hit Points (multiplied with the HP multipliers) and 5% every second for 30s (150% Maximum Hit Points)! For the potion boons: Even though they offer a high potential of stats (+2500 Power and 5000 Hit Points!) and heals (+150%), potions are barely used with good healers and thus the stats are never applied.

  • Critical Strike, Critical Severity and Accuracy.

• The other Boons should be never taken:

  • There are just not enough strong enemies to justify the damage and damage resistance boons against Cultists and Dinos.

  • Gold Gain and Control Resistance are just not worth it.

Noteworthy Advanced Boons

The most important Advanced Boon is Forte as maxing it increases Defense by 2% and Accuracy and Critical Avoidance by 1%. The second choice in the Advanced Boons also just costs 1 per Rank, thus spending on a second Advanced Boon is recommended. The following options are notworthy next:

• Recharge Speed. Unless there is a strict time frame to get enough AP to the Daily Power, Recharge Speed beats AP gain. The reasoning behind this is quite simple, the Encounter Powers add either more aggro or damage resistance and thus increase aggro management and survivability.

• AP Gain for better uptime of Dailies between mechanics and Artifact Calls.

• Incoming Healing for bigger Barriers from Healers.

• Stamina Regeneration, if secondary Artifacts do not feature Stamina Regeneration. For me it is a no-no!

Outgoing Healing and Control Bonus are not viable.

Example Boon Distribution

I went with the following setup (8 Boons missing):

Guild Boons

The Guild Boons shall be chosen based on the situation and the stat priorities. For the offensive Power this is probably Power. For the defensive Boon this is probably

• Hit Points for lower Item Level or when Awareness is capped

• Awareness for fights where MEHP is important (Halaster) and when uncapped and with Hit Points over ~550 000.

• Critical Avoidance for fights where MEHP is important (Halaster) and when Awareness and Hit Points are in a good shape.

As utility Boon Revive Sickness is important for fights where one may die (for whatever reason). Obviously this is a bad choice in Hardcore Runs with no deaths allowed. The Group Potion Boon is then the choice to go. (Ignoring the use cases for the Mount Speed Bonus and the Treasure Hunter Boon when one may collect Masterwork Profession nodes.)

PvP Boons are ignored here.