The purpose of this document

This is a guide for any L70 player who just wants to make the transition from Mod 15 to Mod 16
as painless as possible. Also, this is a general guide, not a class-specific one. I will not tell you
which powers and feats to pick, for example - there are enough class-specific guides out there.

Later on you should read through Rainer’s mini-wiki - it is the single most useful source of
information on Mod 16. See here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fP_cUugHdsObvQDzLFijGA-
mVm_qLmSy0MI62aTLkDM/edit#gid=119945880

When you start the game for the first time after downloading Mod 16, you will find you have
quite a few things to do - both involving your gear and your build. Expect to spend at least an
hour or two just setting things up before you can really start to play.

If you used to rely on a high Lifesteal stat, you face some adjustment, as that stat is gone. My
advice is to pick some Insignia healing bonuses (see “Mounts” below), and if that is not enough,
select some companions with an “Incoming Healing” bonus or even boons that boost Healing
potions.

Recovery is gone as well, and some players may feel that long cooldowns are a problem. If you
do, try to boost Recharge speed.

If you feel you are not doing enough damage in Mod 16, you probably need to improve your
power rotation or boost your stats (see below).

Mod 16 had some serious issues when it was first released on PC, but most of them should be
fixed by now, so console players should have a smoother ride.

A few things to do at the start

You may find that some things have been moved to your inventory, including some companion
gear or enchants used by companions. Companions now use only companion-specific items
and those items now only take runestones. Start by cleaning things up a bit, so you have
decent free inventory space.

You need to reallocate points to your primary stats (STR/DEX/etc). There are some issues
there, such as a Cleric will either need WIS for outgoing healing or INT for magical damage, but
overall, this should be fairly obvious.

Next, if you have any Eldritch runestones or insignias of Leeching/Vigor, visit the Antiquities
Scholar and exchange those.
The Eldritch runestones are obsolete, and you get unbound bonding runestones instead.
Regarding the Leeching/Vigor insignias, you get an insignia choice pack in exchange for those.
When opening those packs you can pick any regular insignia. You need to plan your insignia
bonuses carefully, however, so don’t rush and open the boxes before you have a plan.

Now start the Undermountain campaign. Go to Sgt. Knox and pick up the quest “An Important
Invitation” from the table behind him. You get sent to the Moonstone Mask, and after a brief
chat, you get assorted items from a treasure chest. Most of those are identical to the Vistani
gear, which you should have already, so you can just remove the slotted enchants and then
convert the items to RPs, but there are three special items - new pieces of companion gear.

Those items might have only a single runestone slot, but the stats they give are higher than
other companion gear you might have at this point, so you should use them. You will replace
those three items as you progress through the Undermountain campaign, however.

Initial purchases
In addition to the companion gear just mentioned, there is a handful of items you really should
obtain before you start the Undermountain campaign for real if you do not have them already.

First, you need three bonding runestones per character. No more, no less.

Or, in the words of Monty Python: “Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the
number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two,
excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.”

Your long-term goal will be to get 3 R15 Bonding runestones, but at the start, just get the best
Bonding runestones you can afford and work on improving them.

Second, you need runestones for your companion gear. You can use the exchange vendor
(Antiquities Scholar) to exchange enchantments for runestones, but beware that those
runestones will then be bound, and you cannot exchange them back. The safest option is to get
Empowered runestones for all offensive slots, as they give Power, which is not capped.

Third, if you have enough trade bars and if you do not have a Deepcrow hatchling already, get
one (or, wait until the next trade bar sale event and get it then). If you do not have the trade
bars, save up AD and wait for the Deepcrow’s AH price to drop.

For further information see “Companions” section below.

Fourth, you need a good summoned augment companion. The Deepcrow hatchling makes a
decent summoned companion, although it is not the “best” one (that would be the Bulette Pup).,
but in a pinch any Augment will do, as long as it is at least of Epic quality - ideally it should be of
Legendary quality, though.

Fifth, you might want to exchange some weapon or armor enchants. The drawback of using the
exchange vendor is that the resulting enchant will be bound, but whether this is feasible
depends on which enchants you already have and whether they are still viable in Mod 16. For
example, Negation and Feytouched were useful and popular in Mod 15, but now they are
generally perceived as inferior to, say Vorpal, Bronzewood or Barkshield. I am not giving
specific advice, just pointing out that you need to consider this carefully.

Do not rush and exchange regular Enchantments right away. I recommend waiting until you
have gotten your level 80 gear and at that time consider which stats you need to improve.

Stats
One of the most important changes in Mod 16 is the system of stats and counterstats. For a
more detailed explanation as well as the “target” numbers to aim for, see here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12AXzQrEQOeGZfAk7YolOH7YWE7qTmWe49sCwH-
RATDg/edit?usp=sharing

Your primary goal will be to get your most important stats up to an acceptable number. Many
stats have a “cap”, so keeping them balanced is a secondary goal - you do not want to waste
points.

Initially, when you are just starting the Undermountain campaign you might not be anywhere
near the cap on some of your stats. In order to make the campaign easier, focus on the two
most important offensive stats, Armor Penetration and Accuracy and try to get them as close to
60.000 as you can. This might for example mean switching out a guild Power boon for an
Armor Penetration one and then switch back later once your Armor Penetration from gear is
high enough.

Powers
No matter what your class is, all your powers have changed. This guide will not tell you which
feats to pick or which powers to use. You can either go and find a good guide that is specific to
your class, or spend some time with a Training Dummy and experiment, until you have a power
rotation that works for you.
 Boons
Instead of getting specific boons from each campaign, you now get boon points that you can
spend in any order you like. There is no single “best” distribution of the boon points - it depends
on your class, role and playstyle. Here is an example:

Now, this should absolutely not be taken as a general recommendation, but there are a few
points to consider. The Master boons and Tier 5 depend entirely on your class/role and
playstyle. As for the rest, picking Power and HP is a “safe” option, but you might want to focus
initially on stats that are significantly below the target value - but be prepared to respec later as
your gear improves.

Avoid the Critical Chance boon - it is next to impossible not to cap that stat through gear, and
the cultist/demo/demonic boons are of questionable value once you have finished the respective
campaigns. The healing potion boons are only useful if you consume a large amount of them,
but quite frankly, you shouldn’t be doing that in the first place, so I would avoid those too. On
the other hand, it is hard to increase secondary stats like Companion influence or Movement
speed, so those may be good choices.

Companions
Just to illustrate how important a good companion is, here are the current stats of my primary
character, with no companion (left) and with a summoned, legendary augment (right).

You will get three pieces of companion gear just by doing the Undermountain campaign.

One of those three pieces was a bit problematic on PC, as it would drop from a mob, and if you
were in a group at the time, only one person in the group would receive it. This is supposed to
have been fixed now as this was changed to a quest reward. Another item is given after doing
one of the Expeditions. It has been reported to be only given out if you find all 9 relics in the
expedition, so make sure you do that - if you miss it, you have no way of getting it later.
As mentioned before, having a good augment as summoned companion is highly recommended
and you should get it to Legendary as soon as you can.

You also want a set of 5 companions for your offensive/defensive/utility slots. The selection of
those depends on which slots your class has and what role you are filling. A Healer might want
companions with a bonus to outgoing heals, while a Tank might want a companion like the
Energon for extra HP and a DPS might want a Power bonus from companions like Deepcrow
Hatchling and Alpha Compy.

Your selection of companion bonuses depends on which companions you have in your
collection. See Rainer’s document (see above) for information on the bonuses each companion
gives to help you select companions that best suit you. The bonuses improve as the
companions increase in quality, so your long-term goal will be to have all five companions at
legendary quality.

Note that your summoned companion can do “double-duty” as one of those 5 companions, but it
does not have to.

Finally, you have a “bolster” bonus, which depends on the quality on the 5 best companions in
the same category as your summoned companion belongs to. In the example below, that would
be the “Creatures” category.
In this example, there are 3 Legendary companions (3% each) and 2 Epic ones (2.5% each), for
a total of a 14% bolster bonus. However, this means just a 14% bonus to the base stats of the
companion, which in turn means that it is really not worthwhile to raise companions to
legendary, just for the bolster bonus.

Also note that you gain nothing whatsoever from a high bolster bonus in other categories than
the one which contains your summoned companion.

Mounts
The primary change involving mounts involves insignia and insignia bonuses. Some insignia
bonuses which were good in Mod 15 are now next to useless, while the removal of Lifesteal has
made other bonuses much more relevant than before.

Here is one example of possible insignia bonuses:

Barbarian’s Revelry, Survivor’s Blessing and Champion’s Return provide a nice, steady source
of healing during combat. Combined, they pretty much eliminate the need for healing potions in
my case.

Wanderer’s Fortune helps with getting all the RP that is needed to refine the new artifacts,
weapons, artifact gear, enchants and runestones. You will need a few million RP.for all of
them.

For the last bonus slot, I recommend either Gladiator’s Guile or Oppressor’s Reprieve, but it is
not as straightforward as the other 4. Artificers Persuasion is also a good choice for some
classes.

Author: Adinos/Tanya, Civil Anarchy