[Wisp] is already an incredible team support and a solo tank with absurd evasion skills. What else could she possibly be missing from her kit?
Swapping her Sol Gate for [Hildryn]'s Pillage, we can get beyond 400% strength Reservoirs, 7.9x damage Breach Surge, and an insane 100% shield and armor stripping Pillage. This build makes it a breeze for you and your team to flatten hordes of level 200 enemies.
No required operator school, no required weapon configuration, no required archon shards, and no required companion!
Ability Strength is our highest priority here. Wisp continues to benefit beyond 400%, but this is a minimum requirements for Pillage to complete a strip of shields / armor. Then Range for Breach Surge and Pillage, then Duration for Reservoirs and Breach Surge. For proper minmaxing, Ability Efficiency is dramatically reduced, meaning this build must also consider some energy solutions.
NOTE: This loadout works just as well on either [Wisp] or [Wisp Prime]. Note that [Wisp] will require one additional Forma which [Wisp Prime] comes with already.
WARNING: Currently, Overframe doesn't display or calculate [Archon Intensify]'s conditional correctly. [Wisp]'s total conditional Ability Strength is actually 423%.
WARNING: Currently, Overframe doesn't display [Archon Stretch]'s conditional correctly. If you or any of your teammates deliver Electricity to enemies using a Reservoirs shock buff, you'll get 10 energy over the next 5 seconds.
Her mod layout is a little tighter than I would have liked it, but I feel that this is manageable and has a few nice flex slots for mods. My goal is to make [Wisp] work with [Hildryn]'s Pillage with as few external requirements. No required active school, companion, shards, etc. However, [Growing Power] still asks that you use a weapon that can proc status effects. Sorry.
I avoided Umbral mods because of the cost of Umbral Forma and how restrictive it is to change any other mod with that configuration. I agree with the public consensus that Umbral mods improve Wisp's tankiness in solo play, but my build is intended to be slightly cheaper, more co-op friendly, and much more flexible. But if you're really feeling it: [Archon Intensify], [Transient Fortitude], and [Augur Secrets] would be the first to go in favor of having all three Umbral mods. I wouldn't run just two.
Flex slots and replacements:
- [Archon Intensify] can be swapped out for [Precision Intensify] for a much more consistent 400% Ability Strength for ONLY Pillage. This is only worth it if you're struggling to [Reach] the full stripping capability of Pillage. As you supplement her build with Archon Shards, Pillage becomes easier to satisfy and Precision Intensify becomes less worthwhile.
- [Archon Stretch], which can be swapped out for Energy Conversion for more consistent 400% Ability Strength (or almost any other mod, 16 capacity is a ton to work with)
- Fused Reservoir, which can be swapped out if you prefer managing your Reservoirs yourself
- [Primed Sure Footed], which can take Fused Reservoir into the exilus slot instead, saving at least 8 capacity if you decide to forma differently
- Adaptation, which can be swapped out if you prefer jumping and using Wil-O-Wisp for survivability. You can rotate Primed Sure Footed and Fused Reservoir as needed to fill the Vazarin mod slot
The general loop for this build is:
- Hold 1 and lay down fully-fused Reservoirs for a health boost and other buffs
- Wrack up at least 155 kills for Molt Augmented
- Trigger [Archon Intensify] when your Reservoirs buff anyone's max health or heal anyone's lost health
- Trigger [Growing Power] by shooting for a status effect proc
- Press 4 to start Pillage and strip 100% of enemy armor OR strip 100% of their maximum shield
- Press 4 again to stop Pillage and your restore shields and overshields
- Press 3 to Breach Surge and stun everyone, no matter where they came from
NOTE: Keep in mind a quirk about Pillage: It will always remove enemy shields first (if they have any at all), then armor. Pillage's effect on enemies WILL stack, so you'll want to recast Pillage multiple times to remove a group of enemy's shields and then their armor afterwards.
[Archon Intensify] adds an additional 30% Ability Strength when your ability causing healing, which [Wisp]'s Reservoirs will do.
NOTE: Archon [Intensify] only triggers when your or a teammate's health actually improves due to your Reservoirs. This means that either someone must gain a max health boost or be missing health that gets healed by a Reservoir for you to get the 30% strength for 10s.
[Growing Power], [Intensify], [Blind Rage], [Transient Fortitude], [Augur Secrets], and Molt Augmented are all standard approach to maxing Ability Strength. For Pillage to fully strip, we need to be at a minimum of 400% Ability Strength.
- Growing Power has a 6s window after triggering a status effect with weapon,
- Archon Intensify has a 10s window after healing,
- and Molt Augmented will require at least 155 of its 250 kills for you to hit exactly 400% Ability Strength assuming the first two are active.
NOTE: If you're up against just armored enemies and find yourself struggling to perform a full armor strip, it may be advantageous to swap [Growing Power] for [Corrosive Projection], as the 25% Ability [Stretch] of [Growing Power] only helps remove 6% of enemy armor conditionally, but [Corrosive Projection] removes 18% totally unconditionally.
[Primed Sure Footed] is generally too useful a utility to pass up, but until you obtain it you can move [Fused Reservoir] into the Exilus slot, ignore the forma in that slot, and save 8 capacity for something else.
[Primed Continuity] makes up for Ability Duration lost to [Transient Fortitude]. This should make most of [Wisp]'s skills last just over 30s, which is comfortable. Ability Duration is good for Breach Surge's blind... and that's about it. But that's not bad! You would normally want low Ability Duration for Hildryn because it helps auto-cancel Pillage, but the blind effect from [Wisp] is a pretty significant utility for damage avoidance.
A more experimental mod choice is [Archon Stretch], which I've intentionally left unpolarized so it can be a flex slot. Increased Ability Range is nice for both Reservoirs and Breach Surge, especially if you plan on running her in co-op. The conditional for the mod synergizes with Wisp's Reservoirs nicely, as your Reservoir's electricity status effects will give you a near-constant supply of 2 energy per second.
A somewhat controversial mod choice is Adaptation. This is a very classic damage management mod. There is an argument that double-tapping Wisp's Wil-O-[Wisp] skill for 3s of invulnerability AND her passive ability to become invisible when airborne makes her highly survivable without needing mods. In practice, I feel that air gliding between Reservoirs through Steel Path levels makes combat less interesting, makes your input economy worse, and diverts enemy firepower towards your teammates in co-op. I would rather tank a few hits and give everyone an easier time aiming. If necessary, you can refuse to forma this slot and forma [Archon Stretch]'s slot instead, and [Adaptation] can can swapped out as a flex slot.
The final piece to the loadout is Arcane Energize. I treat this as a flex slot. You could replace this with Molt [Vigor] (45% Ability Strength after you use an Operator Ability), allowing you to slap out [Augur Secrets] or even [Growing Power] and take something else that helps your energy or otherwise improves your gameplay experience. Then you're dependent on operator skills, but if you run Zenurik anyways, you can reduce your energy problems very quickly.
As expected, most shards you put on Wisp can just be dedicated to Ability Strength. If you spend all 5 slots on it you can get anywhere from 50-75% Ability Strength, which will allow you to make significant adjustments to the mods shown here (even replacing [Transient Fortitude]!)
Some higher priorities (parantheses show the benefits of the Tau shard):
- R4, +10% (+15%) Ability Strength
- B4, +150 (+225) Armor
- Y4, +25% (+37.5%) Casting Speed
- Y3, +50% (+75%) Effectiveness on Energy Orbs
- Y1, +30% (+45%) Maximum Energy is filled on Spawn
Ability Strength allows for mod replacement or just making buffs stronger and Pillage easier to max.
Armor improves survivability. Just a single B4 practically doubles her armor.
Casting Speed is a nice quality of life. [Wisp] makes frequent enough use of her skills for just a single Y4 to make a noticeable improvement.
Energy Orb Eff. and Max Energy on Spawn both help solve energy problems, which varies person-to-person.
