Combat revamp from a 45sk's point of view

[Rylight]

<DIV>ok well I have been soloing all day and the server has crashed agian (not surprising) so I decided to kill some time and give my input as a 45 sk about the combat revamp</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1.  LIFETAPS: ok we wanted more powerful lifetaps and we got them. our main tap devour vitea can for about 150-200hp, however I have the master 2 version so I can heal myself for 250hp!! not only that but It can hit for over 300damage, which basically makes it my new nuke. baleful smite is now a lifetap also and I think gives about 175hp, and gives a nice bit of damage. we also got parahs mark which is as powerful as our old devour vitea, but at a more fair powercost.  we also have an aoe lifetap but I have not yet attained that yet</DIV> <DIV>ADVANTAGE: all lifetaps are great</DIV> <DIV>DISADVANTAGE: none</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2.  WARDS.  unholy blessing. this is pretty much another lifetap we get, aka. reactive ward this is an excellent spell and I think will be the main factor in keeping us alive in solo fights and maybe even groups. at my lvl it procs 5 times and gives out 65 damage and gives 100-125 hp back each proc!! the more you get hit the higher your life goes, great deal!! also at a very fair powercost, beforehand I was afraid to use my ward more then twice a battle because it sucked up mana QUICK!! with the amount of dps we are doing it rarely needs to be cast more then 3 times</DIV> <DIV>ADVANTAGE: instead of our hp staying still for a few seconds, it actually moves up now and we also give damage at the same time. great improvement. </DIV> <DIV>DISADVANTAGE: no more running wards. this spell cannot be cast while running, so no more running carefree through ferrot, everfrost, and lavastorm. also it gets interrupted quite a bit.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>3.  CARESS LINE: now we dont have to cast this spell everytime we start a battle (which got really old really fast) we can now use up a concentration slot and keep this up full time. morever it is now a damage shield. anything that attacks you with melee damaga will get whacked back by about 25 damage, and it increases hate over time!! over time you really notice the damage it does, scouts beware!!</DIV> <DIV>ADVANTAGE: damage shield adds up quickly, no more casting it repeativly, i.e one less thing we waste power on and have to watch constantly.</DIV> <DIV>DISADVANTAGE: no longer debuffs piercing and slashing, and only has a 1% chance to recieve a cursed essense</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>4.  SACREMENT LINE:  say goodbye to the bird and [Removed for Content] and say hello to the skellies. If I may quote from another sk "these things come out punching like tyson!" our new pets hit mega hard just about every hit, the down fall is that these things only last 30 seconds now</DIV> <DIV>ADVANGTAGE: hit mega hard</DIV> <DIV>DISADVANTAGE: 30 second recast timer, nerfed x5 with its duration</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>to be continued, something just came up</DIV>

[Gnome mercy]

<P>Very nice job Rylight, thanks for the info I really enjoyed reading it, great job on pointing out some of the advantages and disadvantages it helped me alot really cause im still tyechnically a low level and dont exaclty understand the higher end stuff yet!</P> <P>Great job!</P>

[Deadjest]

<DIV>Good going, I have not had time to log on and down load all this yet so looking foward to hearing more.  =)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[IBSomnifer]

<DIV>Pet - I didn't notice him hitting much harder then my bird did.</DIV> <DIV>Caress - damage shield is good, the 1% to get essence sucks.  it should be 5% at least.  I didn't get 1 the entire time i soloed for an hour...thats just my horrible luck though. lol.</DIV> <DIV>Life taps are gooooood.</DIV> <DIV>Reactive proc heal is gooooood.  just wish it lasted more then 5 times hehe.  This has already saved me more power and more health then any other life tap.  Cast it multiple times a fight....for the win!</DIV>

[EnraptureE]

<P>Heh, I agree with what you said, as a 45 SK meself.  I fought off n on all day & only got 1 essence.  I really had to plan to use the pet, or I'll not be able to summon one at all soon.  The 1% needs to be upped to at least 3 or something, cause with it being on all the time, its not giving me any in return adequately.</P> <P>I find overall, I take more dmg, have 600 less hps, but, use less power, kill same said mob & am near full health in the end.  Me soloability has pretty much stayed the same, with less downtime.</P> <P>Worst is 10 lvl under agro.  I ran to RE for a quest & for some generic testing & by the time I got to the door, I was half hps.  I died in Feerrot, the new scary zone & then died trying to get out.  If you die on the far side, lets just say, getting outta CT area is... interestingly deadly.  It seems most mobs went from grey to heroic green or blue.  Nasty.</P> <P>Still, I like most of the changes so far.  I lost 2 AE's which sucked as I loved doing em >< I've just pretty much concluded, I need to get to 50 asap, or I won't be able to do anything in old zones that used to be safe or the new ones heh.</P>

[IBSomnifer]

<DIV>Another thing we need to have changed is the insatiable hunger group buff.  Its a fast cast timer...but the recast is 60 seconds AFTER you cancel it.   I ahve used that buff to pull agro off other group members multiple times.  It was my second shout really.  Now its gone :/</DIV>

[SonnyA]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> IBSomnifer wrote:<BR> <DIV>Another thing we need to have changed is the insatiable hunger group buff.  Its a fast cast timer...but the recast is 60 seconds AFTER you cancel it.   I ahve used that buff to pull agro off other group members multiple times.  It was my second shout really.  Now its gone :/</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>The fact that you use a buff as an AE taunt is a clear sign that something was broken. Now it's fixed and there's no longer any need to resort to that kind of "creative thinking".</P> <P>If you have trouble getting tainted essences, try taking on groups with multiple mobs. The difference is that it now has a chance to proc everytime you get hit. Before the revamp, you had to hit something to get the chance. So you just need to be hit by mobs 5 times as often, as you hit something, to break even. And since we get hit a LOT more after revamp, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. The Brood Mother encounter in Everfrost is nice. There are 10 or so mobs there.</P> <DIV>If that doesn't work either, then strip down and visit Zarvonns tower and aggro everything. If the mobs can hit you.. haven't tested it yet.</DIV>

[Nataenel]

<P>49 SK here..  Initial thoughts on the combat revamp;</P> <P>As has been mentioned the 1% chance to get essences needs to be looked at.  I'm not convinced it's even working, but I have no hard facts as I wasn't watching my stash closely.  At that rate, though, there will be a lot of SK's with no essences.</P> <P>Melee attacks:  At 49 I believe I have 4 non-AOE melee attacks.  Of those one requires a shield, and another requires a two-hander, so that effectively leaves me with 3 melee attacks.  I may be alone in this, but I find that a bit inadequate.  I have more spells than melee attacks as all of the AOE attacks are spells.</P> <P>Our best melee attack (Dreadful Wrath) has been turned into a spell. It still does nice damage, but with a 2 second cast timer, it will be relegated to pulling unless I'm off tank in a group.</P> <P>I purposefully selected what I thought were melee attacks when selecting training skills, only to find all my selections were buffs not attacks - buffs that were rendered obsolete by a later combat ability.  I may have missed something in the descriptions, but the point is I didn't see a way to add to melee attacks with previous training selections (i.e.: Raltur's Siphoning strike, etc.)</P> <P>The Harm / Malefic / Ruinous Touch line are on 15 minute timers now, which is nice.  I think most of us save this ability for dire situations, so maybe not that great of a boon but still nice.</P> <P>Group buffs - We have an intercept line that allows us to take damage intended for a group member.  I want to say this lasts for one attack, but I'm not positive.  We have the Armament and Evasion lines we had previously which are largely unchanged.</P> <P>Self buffs.  We have quite a range of self buffs now, and can have them all up at the same time. No more running out of concentration.. In fact, I find with all my buffs up that I still have a concentration slot open.. </P> <P>I'm looking forward to more playing around with the new abilities to get more familiar as I'm probably missing things.</P> <P> </P> <P> </P>

[Sasaki Koji]

<DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Nataenelas wrote:<BR> <P>49 SK here..  Initial thoughts on the combat revamp;</P> <P>As has been mentioned the 1% chance to get essences needs to be looked at.  I'm not convinced it's even working, but I have no hard facts as I wasn't watching my stash closely.  At that rate, though, there will be a lot of SK's with no essences.</P> <P>Melee attacks:  At 49 I believe I have 4 non-AOE melee attacks.  Of those one requires a shield, and another requires a two-hander, so that effectively leaves me with 3 melee attacks.  I may be alone in this, but I find that a bit inadequate.  I have more spells than melee attacks as all of the AOE attacks are spells.</P> <P>Our best melee attack (Dreadful Wrath) has been turned into a spell. It still does nice damage, but with a 2 second cast timer, it will be relegated to pulling unless I'm off tank in a group.</P> <P>I purposefully selected what I thought were melee attacks when selecting training skills, only to find all my selections were buffs not attacks - buffs that were rendered obsolete by a later combat ability.  I may have missed something in the descriptions, but the point is I didn't see a way to add to melee attacks with previous training selections (i.e.: Raltur's Siphoning strike, etc.)</P> <P>The Harm / Malefic / Ruinous Touch line are on 15 minute timers now, which is nice.  I think most of us save this ability for dire situations, so maybe not that great of a boon but still nice.</P> <P>Group buffs - We have an intercept line that allows us to take damage intended for a group member.  I want to say this lasts for one attack, but I'm not positive.  We have the Armament and Evasion lines we had previously which are largely unchanged.</P> <P>Self buffs.  We have quite a range of self buffs now, and can have them all up at the same time. No more running out of concentration.. In fact, I find with all my buffs up that I still have a concentration slot open.. </P> <P>I'm looking forward to more playing around with the new abilities to get more familiar as I'm probably missing things.</P> <P> </P> <P> </P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Well, first Dreadful wrath was never a melee attack <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. Long range disease spell like it is now, except you swung your sword down casting it and it looked AWESOME. i want them to put it back to 1s cast at least and put that slash animation back in.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Harm touch gets regular use.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Caress lines 1% chance is crap, should be 5% or more.</DIV>

[Nataenel]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> SonnyA wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> IBSomnifer wrote:<BR> <DIV>Another thing we need to have changed is the insatiable hunger group buff.  Its a fast cast timer...but the recast is 60 seconds AFTER you cancel it.   I ahve used that buff to pull agro off other group members multiple times.  It was my second shout really.  Now its gone :/</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>The fact that you use a buff as an AE taunt is a clear sign that something was broken. Now it's fixed and there's no longer any need to resort to that kind of "creative thinking".</P> <P>If you have trouble getting tainted essences, try taking on groups with multiple mobs. The difference is that it now has a chance to proc everytime you get hit. Before the revamp, you had to hit something to get the chance. So you just need to be hit by mobs 5 times as often, as you hit something, to break even. And since we get hit a LOT more after revamp, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. The Brood Mother encounter in Everfrost is nice. There are 10 or so mobs there.</P> <DIV>If that doesn't work either, then strip down and visit Zarvonns tower and aggro everything. If the mobs can hit you.. haven't tested it yet.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Uh..I didn't notice that, but if getting an essence requires you to be getting hit, that means we won't be getting essences if we're not MT.  Ick!</P> <P>Also, what you're advocating is a little silly I think.. We should have to go somewhere to let grey mobs whack us for a couple hours to get some essences?  That can't be how this was designed.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Essences were a little bit too plentiful in the pre DoF days, but this is borked. We have to (A) be getting hit, and we'll  (B) get an essence 1% of the time.  I'd rather have it be a chance when *I* hit a mob, not when a mob hits me. That needs a bit of re-work by the powers that be.  <BR></P>

[Nataenel]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Sasaki Kojiro wrote:<BR> <DIV><BR><BR>Well, first Dreadful wrath was never a melee attack <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. Long range disease spell like it is now, except you swung your sword down casting it and it looked AWESOME. i want them to put it back to 1s cast at least and put that slash animation back in.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Harm touch gets regular use.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Caress lines 1% chance is crap, should be 5% or more.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>heh..it wasn't?  What can I say, I'm a Troll.  With my puny int score, I assumed :  I swing sword, sword hits bad creature = melee attack.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Takes too long to use in battle for my liking at any rate.</DIV>

[IBSomnifer]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> SonnyA wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> IBSomnifer wrote:<BR> <DIV>Another thing we need to have changed is the insatiable hunger group buff.  Its a fast cast timer...but the recast is 60 seconds AFTER you cancel it.   I ahve used that buff to pull agro off other group members multiple times.  It was my second shout really.  Now its gone :/</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>The fact that you use a buff as an AE taunt is a clear sign that something was broken. Now it's fixed and there's no longer any need to resort to that kind of "creative thinking".</P> <P>If you have trouble getting tainted essences, try taking on groups with multiple mobs. The difference is that it now has a chance to proc everytime you get hit. Before the revamp, you had to hit something to get the chance. So you just need to be hit by mobs 5 times as often, as you hit something, to break even. And since we get hit a LOT more after revamp, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. The Brood Mother encounter in Everfrost is nice. There are 10 or so mobs there.</P> <DIV>If that doesn't work either, then strip down and visit Zarvonns tower and aggro everything. If the mobs can hit you.. haven't tested it yet.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>HAHAHa...how do u think that group buff was broken?  it buffed the group...and in doing so it naturally [Removed for Content] mobs off.  Any ofther class in the game buffs someone with something and it has a hate increasing effect.   As nata said...you and the devs shouldn't be advocating us to farm low lvl mobs just to get a spell component for our pets.  I relaly don't think it was designed to be that way.</P> <P> </P> <P>As for having too few spells and attacks now...i kind of feel like that now.  But we really only lost 1(plague sword) which wasn't replaced by another damage spell(it should be).  We currently have at 50..dreadful wrath, sickening anger, divour vitae, soul rend, baleful smite, wicked coil, destructive slam, pariah's mark.  thats 8 with shield, 7 with 2 hander i think.. unending pain.</P>

[Vitriol]

<P>I also took the Devour Master 2 and love it.  I also don't like the recast timer on Insatiable Hunger.  I was having major agro control problems last night, we were going all out on DPS though.  Also, what are we supposed to use for the arm HO symbol now?  I didn't see any other spell flashing, but that might have been because I reinstalled Fetish's Nightfall when I couldn't see half the contents of my bags.</P> <P>I miss the two AoEs also.  Our reactive lifetap should be castable running.  I can understand the dreadful wrath running nerf, but now that the Caress line will make mobs chase you forever, we need a running castable ward/reactive tap.  Caress % needs severe uppage and frankly, summon essence needs to be a proc on our offensive stance for non-MT situations.</P> <P>Oh, and MTing last night, I was actually waiting around several times for recast timers to refresh.  Heck, I was even casting Righteous Blow.  I wasn't casting the pet much though, maybe that would make the difference.</P> <P>I would be interested to see hotkey setups of some of the higher folks.  I basically went with DPS order.  Will try to post a pic when I get back in game.</P> <P>FYI, if you are working on killing guards for faction, you simple MUST have an unequip macro.  Those guards can two-shot you.  I have to make mine tonight =p.</P><p>Message Edited by Vitriolic on <span class=date_text>09-14-2005</span> <span class=time_text>09:58 AM</span>

[Meryddian]

<DIV>Beh... being able to cast the ward while running not only usually saves my own butt, but the butt of those who don't understand the concept of staying w/in range of the healer(s). /sigh...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Any further thoughts on the new Mastery 2 spells?</DIV>