The Herald of Galactus dps pve pvp silver surfer
Guide by Velluminous Last update at Nov 19th 2014, 23:38

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Convergence 1
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The Herald of Galactus



This build focuses on drawing in all your mobs with Event Horizon, then smashing them in one giant burst of Power Cosmic!
Since (almost) all the Surfer's power types use Energy damage type and a lot of them are Ranged & Area, we focus on maximizing those types of damage. This is why I use Subspace Rift instead of Board Sweep; Sweep is a Melee/Area, but Subspace does (almost) the same thing as Ranged/Area. EMF is used a lot to burn down tougher foes/whatever remains.




NOTE: Artifacts are actually different than what are displayed above!!! Please read below for what you should use! No idea why this site still doesn't have Gem of the Kursed..


Maxxed Powers:
: Event Horizon : Ranged/Area : Use this to bring all the mobs into one spot and slow them.
: Subspace Rift : Ranged/Area : Damage over time, but more importantly, Enemies take 10% more damage
: Power Unconquered : Passive : +Power and +crit that increases when you use a movement power, and when are you not going to be moving? At rank 32, you'll be looking at around a +750 rating increase for both!
: Electromagnetic Flux : Ranged : EMF or BFG. Gets stronger the longer you hold it down.
: Supernova : Area :Pop this to get more Spirit. Does a nice little explosion as well.
: Death From Below : Melee/Area : Surfer's most powerful attack. Even without boosting "melee", it does a ton of damage.
: Polarity Field : Toggle : + Defense and Health Regen. Boost it to 20 to reduce the max spirit cost.
: Cosmic Resonance : Toggle : +Power, Toughness, and Health. Boost it to 20 to reduce the max spirit cost.


One-Point Wonders:
: Temporal Recall : "At the command of Galactus... you have fallen!! And now... at my command once again... I bid you... RISE!!" -Galactus : This is your self-revive, but has an important "stuns ANYTHING" ability, great to use on bosses or when you need a break from damage and need a few seconds to heal.
: Hyperspace Sidestep : Crowd Control Immunity.
: Board Dash : Melee/Movement : Standard movement, but lets use utilize Power Unconquered. Plus, you get 1 point for free anyways. So long as you don't constantly spam it, you shouldn't burn through any Power Cosmic; Think "Dash-pause-dash" and give a little bit of time for the power to "reset". Yes, each consecutive dash increases the damage, but you've only got 1 rank in it so your damage will be awful anyways.


Powers to Ignore & Why
: Deconstruct : It's actually the least damaging skill Surfer has. I know what you're going to say: "But I use it to get Power Cosmic back!"... Well, even at Rank 20, you will only restore 39 Power Cosmic per target hit with a 12 second (6 seconds if you use reconstruct) cooldown... but Supernova at rank 20 restores 13.8% of your max Spirit with a 4 second cooldown. My Surfer sits a little over 1,300 Max spirit with the toggles (Cosmic Resonance/Polarity Field) turned on. At rank 20, that's around 170 Power Cosmic restored every 4 seconds, and it deals almost 5 times the damage. At rank 32 Supernova, I'm getting 17.7% (232 Power Cosmic restored) and dealing just under 80k damage with the explosion.
: Reconstruct : At rank 20, you're getting 4,872 health restored every 6 seconds IF you're using deconstruct to reduce the cooldown to 6 seconds (Otherwise, you can consider it 2436 every 6 seconds with the 12sec cooldown)... Or, you could just take the 203 health per second (1218 every 6 seconds) that you're getting from Polarity Field (not to mention the defense boost!) and not have to drop 20 points into Reconstruct and 20 points into Deconstruct and be the better herald for it.
Cosmic Beam Array : You'd think this would be a great power... and it is for leveling. But by the time you hit 60, you should retcon out of it! The only redeeming things this power has going for it is that it's a basic, costs no Power cosmic, and hits multiple targets. Unfortunately, at rank 20 the damage is equivalent to rank 1 of EMF!
Refracting Beam : Paying Power Cosmic for a beam that bounces around? We're hitting multiple targets with AoEs here! Get outta here!
Comet's Tail : Honestly, I don't fly through things, but the comet's wake is his 3rd least damaging power. I'd rather have the other 2 toggles for +defense/HP regen and +power/toughness/shares-with-my-team than a damaging ability that requires me to move through enemies (gee, Isn't that what Board Dash is for?).
Soar : It's useful for flying over stuff... but I get 1 point in Board Dash for free and Dash does damage.
Board Sweep : While this ability is great... I'll tell you why I choose Subspace Rift over this one. 1) Subspace Rift has no cooldown; Board Sweep has 4 seconds. This means that if I miss with Board sweep, I have to wait to use it again. If a boss/mob moves out of Subspace Rift, I can just recast it immediately. 2) BSweep is a Melee/Area and SRift is a Ranged/Area. More of Surfer's powers are ranged than melee (4 melee, 8 ranged), so and +ranged bonuses I'll get will apply to more powers and SRift. 3) SRift does about half the damage of BSweep, but doesn't require that enemies be as close to hit.. You'll find enemies are more spread out than not, so in the end you'll be able to hit more enemies with SRift than BSweep. Sure, you could Event Horizon->Board Sweep, but you can only use the signature every 30 seconds to group enemies.
Repulse : High Power Cosmic Cost, 2nd least damaging (Deconstruct is least damaging!), and forces me backwards? No thank you. In the words of Stan Lee: "'nuff said".
Subspace Slipstream : Okay- This one is a hard one to say "Don't Use"... The Power Cosmic Cost is stupid high, but you get 50% refunded IF and only IF you hit a mob with it. So if you can dash back and forth on a boss accurately enough, it could down them in no time at all. Problem is, the Power Cosmic cost doesn't decrease with ranks... so if you miss, it's 344 Power Cosmic down the drain, never to be seen again. Honestly, it has potential... It just doesn't fit this build.

PARTICLE BURST::: This one isn't listed on this site yet, but basically it's the poor bastard offspring of the Surfer Nerfs. You'll still get more damage from EMF.



Power Sequences:

Obviously, you're going to be running
and
all the time. Why 20 points in each? Because we're looking at 300 Max Power Cosmic reduction at Rank one, and 186 at Rank 20. That's a difference of 114, which wouldn't seem like much... BUT- Surfer's Power Cosmic regen is based off your CURRENT MAX. So this translates into more Power Cosmic Regen and (more importantly) more time spent using EMF! At rank 30, you're looking at a meager 62 (124 for both) Power Cosmic reduction!

Powers usually go in this order:

->
->
->
->
, and then
to clean up whatever survived the initial onslaught.

Board Dash (for Power Unconquered passive bonus), draw them all in with Event Horizon, then lay it on them! I try to Supernova somewhere in here, because it takes a moment before the energy damage burst happens and it restores Power Cosmic. You can honestly hit Supernova BEFORE Death from Below, have DFB hit, then Supernova explode if you're fast enough. Honestly, use Supernova whenever it's off cooldown.



Boss Killers:
Your Boss burner is
, but you'll need to
and
every so often to maintain your damage and Power Cosmic. You can get a BIG help from the
power. Because it has a stun, that gives you a few extra seconds to get
up and running.

My usual Boss hits goes something like this:
. (You might notice I hit Subspace rift twice; This is to refresh before I start with the EMF burn) I then occasionally board dash, supernova, and start firing up EMF again. Use the big area spells to clear some trash if they spawn, and if you absolutely run out of Power Cosmic, hit Convergence (Ultimate) and don't lay off the EMF until the ultimate is done.



Artifacts:
I went with 4 that I had in my inventory at the time.
Obviously a Gem of the Kursed would be nice instead of Power Prism Shard, but since the majority of Surfer's powers that I use are Area, it works just fine. Plus, it reduces the cost of your area powers.
I like Adv. Super Soldier, solely for the +Health and +Power Cosmic regens, but it also adds some max Power Cosmic and defense in there. It's easy to find, and will serve you well until you get your end-game artifacts.
Xerogen Crystal : a nice little "mini" Hand of Doom in case you don't have HoD or Gem of the Kursed.
Black Tom's Shillelagh : Also a good option here, because it give +damage rating on energy attacks
Advanced Phoenix Feather : For +Energy Damage and a free revive (*That's 2 revives with Temporal Recall!)
Gem of the Kursed : +Crit rating & damage and + Brutal Strike rating & damage
Hand of Doom : Gem of the Kursed's little brother. + Crit rating & damage and +Brutal strike rating

Ring:
Stone of Jordan : +20 to Power Cosmic, +25% Max Power Cosmic, +1 All Powers...
Of course, if you don't have one, you're looking at a cosmic ring. Go with the best you've got.

Costume Core:
The core I have equipped right now has +400 health on hit, 25% SIF, and 1,108 Defense. I tossed on +Critical Rating for ranks 1-4, but will probably be switching this to health later on.



Legendary: Comic Control Rod.
I played with the M'Kraan and Gungnir, but kept ending up back on CCR. Obviously, this is more personal preference than anything, as some people swear Gungnir to everyone/everything... ANYWAYS.... CCR Gives us +Energy damage, which translates into more damage for every power used on Surfer. He has the Energy affix on every power, seriously.



Slot 1: Silver Savage's Morningstar (or Destroyer Energy Rifle) (w/ Energy Enchantment of Fire)
Silver Savage's Morningstar grants: +Energy damage rating, +Damage over Time damage rating, +Brutal Strike rating & Brutal Strike damage rating, and a 5% chance to gain -20% cost reduction to EMF! More importantly, it grants up to +5 to EMF (skill) and +2 all skills, which is a +7 to EMF.
Destroyer Energy Rifle grants: +Energy Damage rating, +Critical Damage Rating, +Brutal Strike Rating, +%Damage to Bosses, and a few other small bonuses.
Go with Destroyer Energy Rifle IF you don't use EMF a lot... Otherwise, use SS's Morningstar.

Slot 2: Mechanical Arms of Doc Octopus (or Herald's Armor) (w/ Health Enchantment of Cattle)
However, Mechanical Arms of Doc Ock grants +Area damage rating & +Area critical rating. Also, there's a small chance to cause the target to bleed over time (see Slot 1: Silver Savage's Morningstar for an increase).
Herald's Armor offers quite a bit of defense, which surfer is sorely lacking... Slight (5% is highest I've seen) chance to block all damage on an attack, but it's not enough to be reliable.
Again- Go with Doc Ock's Arms. If you don't have them, go with Herald's Armor until you do.

Slot 3: Love of Shalla-Bal (w/ Health Enchantment of Cattle)
Larger radius for Area powers, +Eneregy stat, lowered Power Cosmic costs for all powers, and +Multiple Ranks to all World Sculptor powers. Sure, we're only using 2 World Sculptor powers, but more ranks in those powers 1)Decreases their Max Power Cosmic reduction, meaning MORE Power Cosmic Regen! and 2) Increases the +hp regen & defense that Polarity Field provides. No brainer here.

Slot 4: Mantle of the Keeper (w/ Health Enchantment of Cattle)
+Area damage rating, +% damage to bosses, +RIF & SIF, and +Multiple Ranks in Power Cosmic. Since 5 of our primary attack powers come from this power tree, this is really a Best In Slot.

Slot 5: Shield of the Silver Savage (w/ Energy Enchantment of Fire)
+Ranks in Starfarer, but we really only use Death From Below... Granted, DFB is Surfer's most powerful attack. Other than that, we're looking at +Crit Rating and +Crit Damage Rating. There might be something better out there, but I don't know what it is off the top of my head. Maybe Mask of Algrim for +Health/PowerCosmic/HP Regen/SIF/+1 All Powers?

Medallion: Pyro
I prefer Pyro's +Energy damage boosts, but a lot of people would rather go with Dr. Doom for the increased power duration (which is GREAT for Event Horizon and Subspace Rift.)

Uru-Forged: Uru-Forged Belt with Voice of the Spirit Walker

Belt offers +200 Energy damage... Voice of the Spirit Walker adds +300 more Energy damage rating, in addition to +300 Defense and health, and 30 max Power Cosmic. The +30 XP is just icing. I'd say Bowazon, but heck if I can find a Tyr rune... Voice of the Spirit Walker is easy enough for anyone to get, though the Saturn rune may give you a bit of trouble if you can't play on Saturdays...

Team-Up:
Havok. Guy gives a major boost to Energy AND Health.

Synergies:
I don't own all the characters... In fact, I'm missing 6. Two of the synergies below, I'm missing the characters (Human Torch and Squirrel Girl), but would use them, no hesitation. Anyways, here's the synergies that caught my eye that I think would be best for Silver Surfer.
Must-Have Synergies:
Hulk: (3% Health / 3% Health)
Human Torch: (2% Area Power Damage / 2% Area Power Damage)
Iron Man: (2% Ranged Power Damage / 2% Energy Damage)
Ms. Marvel: (2% Energy Damage / 2% Energy Damage)
Suggested Synergies:
Cyclops: (2% Energy Damage / 10% XP)
Deadpool: (10% Rare Item Find / 10% Special Item Find)
Gambit: (+5 Bonus Credits / 10% Rare Item Find)
Silver Surfer: (3% Movement / 2% Energy Damage)
Squirrel Girl: (2% Damage vs Bosses / 2% Damage vs Bosses)
Storm: (+15 Power Cosmic / +15 Power Cosmic)
Wolverine: (2% Brutal Strike Chance/5% Brutal Damage)
Questionable Synergies:
Invisible Woman: (2% Energy Damage / 2% Deflect Projectiles)
Jean Grey: (3% Mental Damage / 3% Energy Damage)
Scarlet Witch: (2% DoT Power Damage / 2% DoT Power Damage)



Notes:
Feel free to comment and ask any questions you have about this build... Just keep in mind that I'm not at the computer every day (I have 2 kids that raise hell whenever my back is turned... Seriously, my house is probably on fire while I've been writing this build guide), so it may take me a day or two to respond. If you think you have any way to improve this guide (Artifacts / Relics / Uniques / Point Allocations / etc) then by all means feel free to say something. Obviously I'm not perfect and I'm sure anything written by myself is far from it as well.

Update Nov-19-14: Added the additional 2 points to Subspace Rift, cleaned up the note about it. Changed Preferred Team-up to Havok.