With all the new Magicka DoTs, I’m working on a Warden DPS rotation that can make the best use of them. It seems that there isn’t really room for a spammable, so Deep Fissure will essentially fill this role. Here is what I have so far for a rotation.
Pre-buff with the Netch, then repeat:
Fissure, Scalding, Swarm
Fissure, Winter, Blockade
Fissure, Degen, Bear
Fissure, Reach, Consuming
Fissure, Scalding, Swarm
Fissure, Winter, Blockade
Fissure, Degen, Netch
Fissure, Reach, Consuming
It’s really the same 12s rotation twice, just alternating between the Bear ultimate and recasting the Netch on step 9 (or 21). This will be performed with the following bars. These are set up in such a way that all passive buffs are on the front bar (4% Mag and Mag Regen from 2 Mage’s Guild skills, and 8% Damage Done from 4 Animal Companion skills). This is done because 16/24 skills are cast from front bar, so it will be the active bar 2/3 of the time. The damage done on front bar will actually be more than 2/3, since every Deep Fissure will hit while on front bar (just before casting the next one) as well as every active bear attack.
Front
1. Deep Fissure
2. Scalding Rune
3. Fetcher Infection
4. Degeneration
5. Blue Betty
U. Eternal Guardian
Back:
1. Blockade of Flame
2. Winter’s Revenge
3. Flame Reach
4. Consuming Trap
5. Dampen Magic
U. Eternal Guardian
The main thing I’m looking to discuss is the possibility of moving skills around to improve the rotation. The order they are cast is somewhat arbitrary. Fissure must be cast every 3s, or there will not be enough skills to fill the entire rotation (and no bar space to add anything else). I’ve kept it to where back bar skills are used in pairs of 2, filling the space between Fissures, so there is minimal bar swapping involved. I’ve also attempted to start with a good burst by beginning with Fissure (3 sec delay), Scalding (2 sec delay) and Swarm (slight delay from travel time), on the first cast of these skills you can skip Light Attacks and not even engage enemies until all of these attacks land together. I put the Bear in the middle of the rotation (instead of opening with it) because I plan to wear Master Architect with this build, and the Major Slayer proc will be more useful if most of my DoTs are already ticking. With a bear every 24s, the 10s buff should have just over 40% uptime on me and 2 allies. The second gear set I’m planning is Z’en’s to go for a full group buff build, and because this rotation keeps 80-100% uptime on 5 single target DoTs (Swarm, Scalding, Degen, Reach, and Consuming).
I want Blockade to be fairly early in the rotation to gain the Maelstrom Light Attack buff as soon as possible (but I put it after Winter’s because I find Blockade it’s easier to bar swap after). I also need to use Blockade morph over Unstable to keep the Maestrom effect the full 12s, despite the fact that Unstable is higher DPS.
I also tried to keep similar skills paired in the rotation, like my 2 AoE DoTs are cast together. I would like to mirror the feel of each attack on the same bar slot on front and back (Fissure and Blockade are both on 1 and are frontal rectangular areas, ideally Scalding and Winter’s should be on the same key since they are both ground-placed circular abilities, and entropy/swarm would be consuming/reach on back bar). I’m struggling a little to make this work, while keeping the rotation as simple as possible (preferring consecutive key presses and similar patterns over something like 1,4,2,1,5,3,1).
The rotation above is currently:
1,2,3,1 swap 2,1 swap
1,4,R,1 swap 3,4 swap
1,2,3,1 swap 2,1 swap
1,4,5,1 swap 3,4 swap
It’s not terrible, but I feel like it can be improved before I spend any time trying to commit it to muscle memory. Please discuss, I’d like to hear any ideas on how to make this build/rotation more effective. Thanks.
