This build intends to give your allies a significant amount of energy with Voracious Metastasis while still also being viable for high-level content off of the strength of forced slash procs on high-damage weapons. Easy! Now, about farming that third Fleeting Expertise...
How-to/general gameplay loop:
- Cast Bloodletting(your 3) to gain 272 energy. Then cast Voracious Metastasis(your 1) to regenerate 381 health per second for 3.25 seconds(a total of 1240) and grant every ally in affinity range not currently channeling an ability 17.5 energy per second(a total of 57.5). Loop these until your health and energy, and the energy pools of your allies, are full.
- If using Molt Reconstruct, you'll also grant yourself and those allies 345 health.
- Note that recasting Voracious Metastasis will reset the duration of the heal and energy regen rather than stacking it.
Cast Seeking Talons(your 4) at groups of enemies, then shoot them for those sweet, sweet forced slash procs. A 3.2 second duration is more than enough for most targets.
Cast Blood Altar(your 2) when, uh, there's a defense operative(Sortie, Arbitration, etc) with an enemy next to it? Look, it's more useful than Dread Mirror with 32.5% duration.
Why this choice/other options:
- Replacing Dread Mirror with Voracious Metastasis - It lets you generate infinite health and energy, which should speak for itself-oh, you wanted to know why Dread Mirror and not Blood Altar. Dread Mirror is not actually a good ability when the mirror lasts for 6.5 seconds, and if you're using it to actually kill things, get a better weapon. Blood Altar has some niche use as a way to actually heal allies, which Dread Mirror cannot do.
- Also, Voracious Metastasis being in slot 1 means Simaris cannot disable it if you spam it too much, which can be helpful, especially if you prefer a shorter duration.
- The rank 3 Fleeting Expertise - This gives you a better balance of duration and efficiency than a fully-ranked Fleeting Expertise, since it provides slightly more total energy to allies than with it at maximum rank. It is about half as fast, but if your allies are testing the difference between 36.5 energy per second and 17.5 energy per second, they're using too much energy.
- This is admittedly something of a personal preference, and some ESO builds may prefer it with minimum duration.
Augur Secrets - Provides shields on spending energy, making it very easy to shieldgate and avoid death.
Natural Talent, Primed Sure Footed, and Arcane Resistance - These three are critical, as your biggest weaknesses are Animation Lock, Knockdown, and Toxin Damage, any of which can result in your abrupt and painful death.
Molt Reconstruct - Causes the energy spent on Voracious Metastasis to also immediately heal you and the allies it affects.
Power Donation - Swap to taste. Extra mod capacity, you don't need the full 278% strength to be effective, and it makes your allies a bit stronger.
Tips and Tricks:
- Your reloads are not interrupted by charging Seeking Talons - however, releasing the Talons will interrupt any reloads still in progress.
- Casting Seeking Talons grants approximately 2.5 seconds of invulnerability, even with cast speed reductions, which can accordingly be used to shave that much remaining time off of your reload. If necessary, Seeking Talons can be held until your reload completes, if you misjudged the timing or your weapon's reload animation is longer than the invulnerability.
Recommended Archon Shards:
- 1x Casting Speed Amber Shard, for maximum cast speed and thus maximum invulnerability time from Seeking Talons.
- Any other Archon Shards. Azure Archon Shards are likely to be the most useful, allowing you to increase your max energy and gain innate health regeneration.
