Hello my name is Atherial and today i will be presenting a guide that i created on the series ev not as a tower character but as a viable DPS character. In this guide we will go over all the factors that make a series ev a viable DPS character. The guide will go over how you can created a DPS ev and be optimal as to get the most out of this amazing character.

Warning that the series ev as a DPS character is mainly a boss killer and should not be thought of as a main DPS. It fills the role much as a barb does though it can be more effective in some senarios. The DPS series ev is more of a luxury character and is by no means core to making a effective line up of characters for NM farming and play.

So with all that covered lets get into the guide by going over why the EV can make a proper DPS Character and what abilities the series ev has.

The series ev has two abilites much like all the other heroes in this game. One of these abilites is a defensive skill that is not normally used. Though the ability has some small time uses like opening presents in the tavern. The main bulk of the series EV is in the second ability it brings to the table. Below i will go over each ability in detail.

Ability One: This ability created a decoy that will detonate after a set ammount of time. Upon detonationg it will deal moderate to low damage to all targets around it. The decoy also attracts monsters to attack it giving you a possible distraction. The only thing that this scales with stat wise is the damage it does upon detonation. You may have any number of decoys only limited by the duration of decoys. The duration of a decoy is 15 seconds.

Ability Two: This ability is your primary damage dealing attack. It deals damage based off the base damage of your weapon. When you activate this ability it puts you in a state where you gather mana to charge up your proton beam. Upon releasing the ability a large beam is fired that pierces targets and has a large AoE effect. The beams size and duration is effected by the mana you absorb during the first phase of the ability. We will go into the ability in large detail later on in this guide.

Besides these two abilities the series ev has many other unique features these being.

• They are able to use both staffs and guns allowing for very effective stat stick items.
  
• They are able to use two weapons allowing them to possibly get a extra 999 in one or even two stats along with having a very effective way to obtain high side stats for a dps character.
  
• They have the ability to use a jetpack much like the summoner fly mode. This jetpack is slightly weaker than the summoner but is stronger when compared to the outland rangers jetpack.
  
• The EV 1.75 skin gives a huge bonus to health and damage well being very easy to obtain. Only needing you to do a single NMHC lab run.

These things considered i am going to be continueing this guide assuming that you have and are using the EV 1.75 skin in order for these numbers to be correct. Another thing to consider is that most of the numbers are aproximate as DD has passive deminishing returns i did not have the time and resources to create a perfect repersentaion. I have created charts that show in general what the scaling and returns are like that we can derive a effective way to build a DPS series ev. So before i get to stats we will first go over what weapons you want to try and obtain on your DPS series ev.

In this portion of the guide we will go over what weapon you want to use as a primary DPS weapon. This is the weapon that will be doing the most of your DPS. First off we will cover the ideal weapon followed by two placeholder weapons if you are unable to obtain the ideal.

The Ember Scepter
This weapon is your primary damage item in all situations. It deals a massive ammount of damage compared to all other weapons. The item is rather hard to farm however as it is found on embermount when you beat the map as a apprentice which happens to be no small feat. The map is hard enough without needing to beat the final boss as a apprentice. Pre patch 8.3 one way to get around this is through the use of a exploit where the boss will kill itself in fire. But now another effect way could be to farm the staffs on survival to avoid needing to fight the boss on a apprentice. However you obtain the staff i will now go over the reasons that the staff is so powerful on a DPS ev.

• Decent stat line.
  
• Insane scaling with proton beam.
  
• Good all round DPS weapon.

Beyond this the ember scepter due to it having one projectile has a far high base damage than it shows on the item itself. This was intended to make up for the lack of projectiles when normally attack on a character like a apprentice or a jester. But as i explain earlier the proton beam ability that the series ev has scales off base damage. This means that the damage that the beam scales off is the hidden number which happens to be five times larger In the graph below i have compared the shown base damage to the functional base damage of the weapon.

(for every 1 on the X axis it = 20,000 base damage shown on the item)

This shows that if you have a 100k ember scepter the effect base damage of the weapon is 500k. Where the two closest weapons. The pawnshot and the moby have a hard time hitting 240k with insanely good rolls. Where a ember scepter can reach 120k or maybe even 140k with the same kind of rolls. Comsidering that these then get multiplied by 5 for the effect of proton beam you are looking at well over 650k base damage that this little scepter has.

The reason for the number to be shown wrong is to make it compareable to other staffs interms of normal DPS when used by a normal character. The function that effects the shown value is as follows.
DisplayedWeaponDamageMultiplier = 0.20

If you are unable to obtain a ember scepter for any reason these other weapons are a viable replacement until you are able to obtain a ember scepter.

• Pawn Shot: This weapon is farmed from kings game and use to be the best weapon in the game for a DPS series ev. Tehy can reach 260k which is pretty respectable though it is beat by a meer 50k ember scepter. The stats on these items are also sub par and historically have been a laughing stock of items stat wise.
  
• Moby: The moby is a weapon that drops of Buc Bay and is very close to the damage of a pawnshot. The moby can roll higher stat more often but is less effective at base attacks due to the low fire rate.

Both of these weapons can be a viable option but if at all possible the ember scepter is the way to go with your primary DPS weapon.

Due to the series ev being able to use two weapons we need to figure out what off hand weapon we are going to use. This weapon acts just like the jester second weapon giving stats but not allow it's effect to be used unless it is selected by switching weapons using X on your keyboard. So below i will go over a few viable options for the offhand weapon.

Rockshatter: The best off hand weapon has tog o to the rock shatter in general. It is a event weapon with the perfect stats for our DPS series ev. Another bonus to using this weapon as a off hand is that it does a considerable ammount of damage compared to the other offhands we are going to be considering. There is a large downside to this weapon and that is the price and rarity of this item due to being a event item. This item can fetch between 70 - 110 cv on market and otherwise is not able to be farmed.
Rockstatter Stats
600 hp / 999 h-dmg / 600 ab1 / 999 ab2

Clava: Much more realistic option and can sometime match the stats on a rockshatter. They can double cap on two DPS stats and give a large number of stats to your character. This is what most people will end up using on the offhand. Though it lacks in damage it is not needed to since you will only be using those fireballs to kill things and your beam to destroy bosses that stand in your way. Clavas are farmed on akatiki jungle but can also be bought for between 30 and 55 cv depending on the interest in the item.

Flame Throwers: These are here more for style points but do have some strange uses when it comes to clearing monsters. They do a large upfront damage but are short ranged. Below i have made a list of possible flamethrowers to run in the offhand.

• Death Wish - Cheap event item that has a good stat line. The item was balanced to deal a good ammount of damage and can definately be used as a off hand DPS weapon if you want a flamethrower.
  
• Ember Flame - Drops off embermount as a ranger but can also be gained on a summoner or jester. Can roll nice stats and does a decent ammount of DPS.

Those are the secondary weapon options that we have for the series ev now it is time to go over scaling and what you are looking for on gear and in stats on items.

The series ev has three primary stats that you want to put points into. These are the main stats you are looking for on gear. besides capping your resists for NM which i assume that you understand already and if not there are many other guides that can assist with figuring out the basics. Below i am going to go into each of these three priamry stats.

Hero Damage: This is the main stat that you want as it not only scales your beams damage it also scales your basic attacks. It also has a better late game scaling on the beam damage over going for all ability two. This stat should be your primary focus when building your DPS series ev.

Ability Two / Proton Charge Beam: This will be your secondary skill when building a DPS series ev. Though this is a secondary stat it is still very important that you get a high total in it. This stat scales your beams damage by a large ammount in the early levels before it drops off and in the lategame is passed by going hero damage.

This considered you want to go with a 5:4 ratio between hero damage and ability two. This way you make sure that you have the first strong levels in ability two but scale your hero damage to get high damage beams and normal attacks. In the chart below you can see a approximate scaling of the two skills leveling indivigually.

















(note: this was recorded with the jetpack bounty hunter. But still the chart stays the same just it would have high dps numbers)

Hero Health: Hero health has a very strong scaling on the series ev. expecially with the series ev 1.5/1.75 skins. You want to obtain as much health as possible without losing hero damage and ability two. This means you want to focus on getting it on every item that you use so you can hit a comfortable 3 - 4k with very high end gear.


















This graph shows the scaling of hero hp on the ev all the way up to 6000 by ratios of 250 health. Note that it does have deminishing returns but they are small to the point of being unnoticable. It is not uncommon for a series ev to be able to hit 800k - 900k health when geared in a good set of DPS armor.

Next we will go over some of the strong points of the series ev as a dps class and some other information that you need to consider before making one of these interesting DPS characters.

This is a very useful DPS character to have but it does have some downsides. Below i will go over some of the downside and bonuses to using this character as a main DPS on you character pool.

Pros

• Very high sustain damage
  
• Very durable
  
• Fairly fast moving
  
• High AoE damage

Cons

• Bad on specific bosses
  
• Requires a large ammount of mana
  
• Expensive to build

As this character is mainly a boss killer what matters is it's matchups verse each boss. This can also be used to figure out what bosses you want to bring your DPS ev to. Note that just since the character can beat the boss does not mean it has a good matchup. Also likewise even if it has a good matchup that does not mean that every player will be able to beat said boss with the character.

Good Matchups

• Goblin Mech
  
• Demon Lord
  
• Phoenix
  
• WW bosses
  
• Mega Snowman
  
• Mega Cupid
  
• Mega Turkey
  
• Spider Queen

Bad Matchups

• Old One
  
• Dragon (unless you have rockshatter)
  
• Kraken
  
• Djinn King

In conclustion the DPS ev is a very strong DPS character that is often overlooked and undervalued. I hope that this guide along with a few other people starting to use them can change this and make them a common place DPS character. So i have been Atherial i hope you enjoyed this guide and maybe found it informational. If you would like to see my other guides i will include them in the below section.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments or message me directly.

Updated for Patch = 8.2

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=804527941
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1099764885

I want to give a huge shout out to DDRnG. They are a active DD group that has a large ammount of activitys and i am sure that if you needed help in anyway you can find it there. The below link will take you there.
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/DDRnG