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Introduction
Self-Introduction
Hi friends! I’m Kahlua (Obliviare#8246). I really enjoy playing healing classes in MMOs and Dragon Nest is no exception. I’ve recently seen quite a few questions on how to play Physician – so here’s my guide!
I’ll put the usual disclaimer here: feel free to change what you like to fit your own playstyle.
[If you're interested in learning about other classes, we have a Class Guide Archive! - Naka]
Class
Physician is one of the three viable healers in the game. As a healer, your primary responsibility is to stay alive and help keep your team alive. I cannot emphasize the STAY ALIVE part enough. If you die prematurely – unless your party is incredibly experienced – you have effectively ruined the run and wasted everyone’s time.
In addition to healing, you have many other responsibilities including buffing/debuffing, doing damage, giving your party members food, and applying CC/movement speed boosts. Compared to Saint or Light Bringer, Physician brings strong burst damage and (food RNG!) stronger party buffs in return for weaker healing, sustained DPS, and utility.
Skills
Tinkerer
[Slip and Slide]: This is really nice for CC-ing enemies, helping you run away from suction/spacebar mechs, and moving around (a lot of the times, Tumble is used to DPS). Maxed for duration. Don’t use this outside of mechs if other players in your party find it bothersome.
[Force Bump]: I use this off cooldown. Due to your CM3, it’s good damage, good for slight position readjustments, and it summons a cute slime that you mercilessly explode for damage. When using this skill, don’t aim it too close in front of you or it can become difficult to hit with your [Poison Pop]. Along with [Napalm], this is also your best pushing skill.
[Yum-a-tron]: The iconic Academic buff. Gives your party food. Eat the food for incredibly strong but RNG buffs. The damage, final damage, cooldown, and action speed stack with your other buffs – crit% does not. I like to eat the habanero peppers if your team doesn’t let you wax, but leave the rest for other players. Eat the useless foods during mechs if there is too much food on the floor.
Alchemist
[Slime Shake]: Your unique party buff. Always have this up – it gives you 25% cooldown reduction, 50% buff to your INT stat, and effectively increases your healing by 10%. It also gives your party an 8% increase in offensive stats, which stacks with the Kali/Assassin party buff.
[Slime Surge]: This summons a slime. If you have 6 alchemy bubbles, its first attack will always be the ice attack, which grants 1 ice stack (5% unique dmg increase). If you don’t have an ice stacker in your party, summon this at 6 bubbles and [Sacrifice] it after its first attack. Otherwise, sacrifice it immediately as the cooldowns line up nicely.
[Sacrifice]: Due to [Slime Mastery], when you sacrifice your summoned slime, this gives a 5% damage buff and minor heal over time to party members that are in the sacrificed AoE. Your summoned slime follows you decently well so try to group with your party before using this. Keep this buff 100% active or as best you can.
[Injection]: This gives you 10% action speed for 25 seconds. If you use this on a party member, this will also give them 10% action speed for 25 seconds. Most classes love this, but some do not. This can also break your party members’ super armor and debuff them according to your weapon/offhand skill jades. Keep this buff active on yourself as much as possible. Use this on your party members when you can (low priority) – 10% action speed is really nice for DPS (also especially useful in IDN Dragon Phase 1 to help people push crystals faster). Every hit of injection that you land reduces its cooldown by 2 seconds. Landing all 5 hits renews its cooldown, making this a spammable skill. This skill also generates 3 alchemy bubbles.
[Disease]: Good damage, I like using this off cooldown and/or before double [Toxic Spill]. This poisons the enemy and gives you bubbles.
[Toxic Spill]: Your main DPS/healing. Left click for more damage, right click to [Expunge] (heal). This is a party heal for 10% max hp, and also heals them for 20% of your attack (magic damage) every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. If you choose to use a heal, its cooldown is reset. This skill explodes the poison debuff on the enemy, and has surprisingly long range. I like to instantly use the EX version of this right after, so make sure you have some form of long duration poisoning that you can explode both times. This skill consumes alchemy bubbles to deal extra damage.
[Toxic Twirl]: Gives 3 alchemy bubbles; use this to enable [Toxic Spill EX]. You can cancel its animation by doing [Roto-Whirl] --> [Toxic Twirl] --> [Toxic Spill] --> left click. Do this quickly. Cancelling this animation properly can speed up your DPS rotation by quite a bit. You don’t have to cancel this every time, since it can be really nice to reposition. You can left click during this skill for extra movement.
[Poison Pop]: Use this off cooldown if you can. Make sure you land it on your slime generated by [Force Bump]. Poisons the enemy.
[Toxic Surge]: I personally don’t use this. The total damage is technically better, but the cast time is too long. I take 1 point as a prerequisite for Physician skills. Voice line is 10/10 though.
[Volcano Punch]: Reduces enemy elemental resistance by 20% for 10 seconds while also giving you 2 alchemy bubbles. Keep this debuff active at all times.
[Frosty Fist]: I put extra points here. Good for alchemy bubble generation. Gives a short iframe while using this skill.
[Frost Fangs]: Adept tree ultimate. This skill is fantastic DPS since you can just pop it and move on. Consumes alchemy bubbles to deal extra damage.
[Ground Zero]: The damage is actually not bad, but I don’t feel that I have time for this in my rotation and would rather keep bubbles for other skills.
Passives
[Chemical Cavorter]: Gives you extra bubbles on your poison and healing skills. Closer range melee skills ([Injection], [Toxic Twirl]) now grant 3 alchemy bubbles instead of 1, and ranged skills ([Disease], [Lovesick], [Good Vibrations]) grant 2 alchemy bubbles instead of 1.
[Element Enthusiast]: Grants an extra bubble for using fire and ice skills that do not consume bubbles. For our purposes, this means [Volcano Punch] and [Frost Fist] grant 2 alchemy bubbles each.
[Bubble Brain]: Reduces damage taken by 0.75% per alchemy bubble you have – up to 15% at max bubbles. This passive is invisible power – just take it and don’t think about it, as it’s not worth keeping max bubbles to be slightly more tanky.
Physician
[Lovesick]: Increases the damage taken on an enemy by 20% for 25 seconds. Keep this debuff active at all times. Also gives 2 alchemy bubbles. This is one of your only long range skills.
[Antidote]: When antidote is cast, you will see a heart shape gradually grow on the ground. While your party members are inside the heart, it will cleanse debuffs every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. The heart shape starts out pretty small, grows rather slowly, and doesn’t have a high vertical range either. I try to use this preemptively if possible.
[Good Vibrations]: Burst healing. This skill is fantastic; it works the same way as [Expunge] but it’s 30% max hp per tick instead of 20% of your attack. Grants 2 alchemy bubbles.
[Toxic Spill EX]: Part of your main damage – you cannot cast [Expunge] using this. Use [Toxic Twirl] to enable.
[Class Mastery 1]: Grants a 10 second self buff that increases magic damage by 13% and dark attack by 30% after using a poison/recovery skill. This is also why landing hits of [Injection] lowers its own cooldown.
[Class Mastery 2]: Taking this lets [Toxic Twirl] activate [Toxic Spill EX Instant].
[Class Mastery 3]: Increases [Force Bump]'s damage by 700%, making it a viable DPS skill. This also changes it to create a poison slime when casting, which you should then explode with [Poison Pop].
Awakening Skills
[Poison Strike]: Your strongest DPS skill. It has a small hitbox – be careful to not cancel your third hit by moving around.
[Slime Pool]: This skill is awesome. It gives you a slime army... they explode! Damage isn’t great but it’s an exploding slime army. Use this as filler or when you are far away from the boss/waiting during mechs.
Invincibility Frames
Physicians don’t have too many iframes, so make them count!
[Roto-whirl] (Tumble): Your bread and butter and your most reliable iframe.
[Sleep Escape]: Use your regular attack when you are getting hit to dodge back. This skill acts as a crisis – if you get your Super Armor broken with a stagger or light impact (no extra effects), you can use this as a free dodge. Manually use this by right clicking after [Injection].
[Frosty Fist]: A relatively short iframe. Casting this by left clicking at the end of your tumble will extend your iframe by a bit.
Skill Build
Not too much to say here. Take all Physician tree skills and your buffs. You can take points away from [Frosty Fist] to max [Ground Zero] for damage or [Sleep Escape] to reduce its cooldown.
Unified Skill: FD Boost
Gear
Stats
Physician has a 0.75 magic damage/Intellect scaling. This server gives max crit for free so stack INT and as much FD as you can. Get magic damage 3rd lines on your Wise crest/talismans.
Essential Crests
[Toxic Spill CDR or DMG]: If your party is good and you don’t need to heal them too often, I would take the DMG option. If you would like maximum healing power, take CDR.
+1 [Yum-a-tron]: More food.
Damage Crests
[Poison Pop CDR] / [Contagion DMG] / [Lovesick DMG] / [Force Bump CDR]
Utility Crests
Not mandatory, but I would consider them for utility.
[Sleep Escape CDR]: For more survivability.
[Slime Surge CDR]: Lets our slime friend live for a while longer before having to sacrifice it (grants possible extra ice attack).
Jades and Title
On rings and weapons, I take 4 mystical + intellect jades for maximum healing. I found 3 mystical and 1 dark attack jade to be slightly more damage but by ~1% or so.
For weapon skill jades, I take [Forsaken Village] (dark defense down) and [Cooperator’s] (crit resist down). For solo play, take [Marion’s] (magic defense down).
For armor skill jades, I take all bonus healing and 1 movement speed. Defensive armor jades are also good. I use [Tree of Life] on my headgear, but you can also consider [Acrobatic] (increased tumble iframe duration).
Title – [Teardrop] for Final Damage and Magic Damage.
Gameplay
Gameplay 101
Start out with buffs – [Slime Shake] --> [Slime Surge] --> [Sacrifice], [Yum-a-tron], [Injection] on your teammates and [Slime Pool] before the boss has spawned. Next, lead off with [Volcano Punch] and [Lovesick] for debuffs into your DPS rotation:
[Poison Strike] --> [Disease] --> [Toxic Spill] --> [Toxic Spill EXi] --> [Force Bump] --> [Poison Pop]
While playing, prioritize Healing --> Buffs --> Debuffs --> [Yum-a-tron] --> DPS. Watch your team’s health bars. Don’t get your heals cancelled mid-animation. For more airtime during stomps, you can basic attack in the air.
Golem Rotation
Conclusion
Huge thanks to CoolCat for some great Physician tips!