Early Impressions: Power sets

[Sky]

I can probably do something tonight. It might be a bit early for me to hit Polaris (don't know anything about it, including its whereabouts) and I'm in pretty shaky gear. I do have the blue QL 3 AR from the Venetians, and my sword is either 2 or 3 green. Most of my talismans are 2, though. Haven't yet done crafting, but I might have enough mats for a talisman or two but I;d have to look in the bank to see if I have the kit for it...

Anyway, I'll probably grab Shot of Anima (1st AR outer ring heal) so it might help a bit with things.

[Lantyssa]

I'd love to do some Polaris.  I refuse to PUG, so I haven't done it yet.

It'll just be a matter of if I'm on Latency (Blood/Fist) or duoing on Stheno (Pistol/Chaos) with Min.  I'm better as DPS, but can try and heal if absolutely positively necessary and only have to worry about the tank.

[Falconeer]

Well let's try and meet in the f13 chat channel whenever we are online and see if we can do it. Would be lovely.

[Sky]

This is when I wish I had a monitor I could plop on the desk in the library (mine at home not The Library at work etc). Guys are tromping through my living room for the rest of the day, but I'm home and could totally jump on and play right now (posting from the old lady's laptop which might be able to handle minecraft).

[Tyrnan]

Well let's try and meet in the f13 chat channel whenever we are online and see if we can do it. Would be lovely.

Does anyone else have chat right now? Just logged in and all public channels gone again 

[Seraphim]

Has worked fine here all day, last two hours or so even get to keep #f13 when zoning. Though my faction chat keeps unsubbing.

[Ginaz]

My dps might be a little too high for Polaris if its a QL3/4 dungeon.  I have all but three of the Puritan abilities and I'm able to solo mobs in Blue Mountain with 10k+hp, with my dude having under 4k, and finishing the fight with around 75% of my hp left.   I can still try and do it if people are available.  Also, if anyone wants to try and run Hell Raised (Savage Coast) or The Darkness War (Blue Mountains) let me know.

[Tyrnan]

Has worked fine here all day, last two hours or so even get to keep #f13 when zoning. Though my faction chat keeps unsubbing.

I think I'm cursed. Every time I talk about doing Polaris my chat dies. Maybe the gaming gods are trying to tell me something...

[HaemishM]

I'd be down for a Polaris run. Most of my gear is QL3, though I'm starting to get QL4 in Savage Coast and I just bought a QL5 blade from a vendor.

My problem with the healing is it doesn't seem to be very good. Of course, I haven't tried to specialize in it, mostly focusing on DPS type spec. Using Angelic Aegis seems to do almost nothing for me when I'm soloing, but not having really focused on building my gear for it is probably why.

[Miasma]

There is one self heal in a green misc wheel that does not use heal rating, any other heal is near useless without +heal gear on.  Maybe some of the damage based leeches work okay but I'm not sure.

The game is interesting in that if you are overgeared for an instance you can either just become the tank or remove some of your dps gear so that the tank can keep aggro.  You can even slide in a bit of healing gear and keep yourself up so that the dedicated healer has one less person to worry about.

[Sky]

Ah, didn't even think about gear. I haven't seen a ton of good gear yet, but I'd been building toward a survival (solo) build and early on my inventory was getting so full (before I made the slog to find a bank), I got into the habit of breaking down anything I didn't immediately wear.

[Numtini]

I've only healed Polaris a couple of times. Healing requires a nearly full heal set and even then the amounts healed per cast are tiny. Most other games, it's about mana efficiency and waiting for the right time to cast the right heal. Here you're just spamming constantly. I don't think any of my damage shields last more than one or two hits and you barely ever notice any real jump in the green bars. In that, it's more like DPS.

It also makes it next to useless for soloing. I keep blood shield on my bar and if I get into trouble I kite in a circle while spamming it to build my health back up--usually takes a couple of minutes. It feels and I'm sure looks idiotic.

[HaemishM]

I don't think any of my damage shields last more than one or two hits and you barely ever notice any real jump in the green bars.

Yes. Absolutely. The blood barriers from Angelic Aegis last no time against any threat of worth, even with a passive added to increase the barriers effectiveness. And that's not even against boss mobs, just normal tougher mobs in Kingsmouth. Either healing is broken, or it's just so different from what we've come to expect in other MMOG's, we just don't know what to do with it yet.

[Rasix]

Like it was mentioned, and I don't know if you're doing it or not, you really have to gear for it.  And you seemingly need a lot of it for it to matter.

For what it's worth, I think I'm going to stick with tanky/melee DPS hammer/shotgun until I'm done with a build I like.  Then I'll work toward something ranged or healerish.

[Falconeer]

I am in game now and the f13 chat lists only myself and occasionally someone else. I guess it's broken to the point of uselessness. This sucks majorly. By the time it will work we won't be doing low level dungeons anymore. Sadness.

[Tyrnan]

Yeah it seems very temperamental right now. I've had it drop 3 or 4 times in the last hour or so and the /chat list f13 command is taking about 10 seconds to complete. Guess they haven't worked out the load issues yet as it was fine today during EU daytime.

[Lantyssa]

I'm perfectly happy to have you QL8 guys drag my slow arse through dungeons.

[HaemishM]

I started making QL3 talismans based around the "Heal" rating. Making one gives me +90 heal rating. Looking at the QL3 drop talismans I've gotten, all the drops are better than what I can create with crafting (4 stat bonuses as opposed to 2 plus whatever I can get with glyphs). Looks to me like to be a dedicated healer requires you gearing in ALL heal rating.

[HaemishM]

Just did a test. Switched out the two talismans I'd created (both QL3's) that each had +90 heal rating on them - so an extra 180 heal rating. I went into combat and used Angelic Aegis - I saw about a 20-30 point difference in healing amount (usually heals for about 154/barriers for 134 - went for about 174-184/164 with the extra 180 heal rating). Barrier didn't seem to last anymore time than it did before. My healing Blood skill is 4. The mob I fought was I think white to me. Full set of +heal gear might net me about an extra what 100-200 HP per heal, with an extra +100 or so on the barrier?

Really not seeing a lot of difference there, but that's about as scientific as I get about these sorts of things.

[Rasix]

Doing the easy math here, that seems like quite a bit of improvement in full healing gear.

[Tyrnan]

At 0 Heal Rating Angelic Aegis gives me 129 heal and barrier. In my healing set I have 573 Heal Rating and it's 232 heal and barrier. So 573 HR yields an extra 206 total healing or ~80% increase if my back-of-the-napkin maths is correct.

[Zetor]

As you level up, the difference becomes a lot more pronounced with unscaled heals. When I was starting out, Lick Your Wounds [1ap passive from fist, small stacking HOT when you hit stuff] was pretty good at mitigating incoming damage since it was a constantly ticking heal for 5-6... but in Savage Coast it was better mitigation to switch in a passive that did slightly more damage (and caused enemies to die faster).

If you don't have heal gear, the static heal 'Turn the Tables' (16pt skill in the pvp 'misc' tree, instantly heals for a decent amount of hp on a 35sec cooldown, it reminds me of GW2 self-heals) is as good as it's going to get, unless you want to use one of the skills that leech (heal you based on damage done), which obviously scale decently with damage gear.

For instance healing you NEED a full set of +heal gear. I've been keeping one in my bags, and funneling +heal random drops to it... it's roughly on par with my main set QL-wise.

[Numtini]

Yes. Absolutely. The blood barriers from Angelic Aegis last no time against any threat of worth, even with a passive added to increase the barriers effectiveness. And that's not even against boss mobs, just normal tougher mobs in Kingsmouth. Either healing is broken, or it's just so different from what we've come to expect in other MMOG's, we just don't know what to do with it yet.

If you think about it, this makes sense. There's no mana. There's nothing to prevent you from spamming your most powerful heal constantly. So they balance the game on you spamming your best heal constantly.

[Sky]

On Polaris: probably going to have to wait for the chat server to be fixed  I managed to get on for a little while last night, was able to join f13, see a couple people in the list and that was it for the night.

On power sets: I know folks have been talking about melee dps being undesirable, and I see some reasoning even in Kingsmouth. Annoying to have mobs that keep separating to range, tough to manage aggro, nice to have my 2 AR skills (anima shot and fire in the hole) for that. And at this point, anima shot is a decent heal; to get the misc I'll need the full 16 (or whatever) AP, as I have just enough AP banked for the two skills leading to it...and I am wary of buying skills I don't see myself using.

I tried a couple AR-heavy builds last night - just the full inner rings of AR and blade as I try to chart my next moves. I just don't care for it...and I kept getting chopped up by groups (with a couple aoe options in the rotation). Went back to my blade-centric loadout (gear mgmt didn't save my passives...) and back to kicking ass. Current loadout:

Delicate Strike (b) - single target dual builder, increased Pen with passive; looking to replace
Blade Torrent (b) - aoe dual builder, adds Aff dot with Perfect Storm; my Aff state mechanism
Stunning Swirl (b elite) - aoe plus 3s Imp state
Anima Shot (ar) - single target ar-only builder with leech; my main 'heal' with anima boost
Fire in the Hole (ar) - single target consumer, delayed
Dancing Blade (b) - single target consumer, channeled
Martial Discipline (b) - defensive buff, adds heal with Regeneration; my ohshit button

Lick Your Wounds (f) - regen on hit
Sharp Blades (b) - +10% blade dmg
Immortal Spirit (b) - regen on Pen
Perfect Storm (b) - adds Aff dot to Blade Torrent
Anima Boost (ar) - +dmg +leech to Anima Shot
Experience (ar elite) - +leech
Regeneration (b) - adds hot to Martial Discipline

So barely using AR, four skills built around maxing the leech of AS and a consumer to use up the resource. The downside is, when I'm leaning on AS (due to range restrictions or needing healing), no blade resources are built (though I currently only use the single target Dancing Blade to consume them). Thinking of building something around Aff/Pen and letting Immortal Spirit knock Lick Your Wounds out of the lineup. So as much as I was considering moving into the healing side of AR, I just don't group enough to dedicate the next week or two to it; while there is some decent Aff/Pen stuff I could grab out of blade (with maybe Dark Potency from blood magic)

Anyway, this build kicks the snot out of Kingsmouth content. Decent aoe, decent single target, good melee and some ranged options. No issues moving out of enemy aoe while maintaining dps, the scrapyard is a lot of fun with this build.

[Falconeer]

One suggestion: when we post a build, it might be useful to add things like the total AP spent on it, which once multiplied for 40k tells you roughly how many XP it costs.

I am gonna post my hammer and shotgun build later, which I am sure is far from great but it's giving me a very easy time in Savage Coast, and I am going to try to add those information. I think it's useful to give people an idea of how feasible it is given the AP they have, or how many they need in order to get there.

[Njal]

I finally finished the Assassin deck last night. It has a sweet looking clothes reward but the set itself was really good at killing but squishy as heck. The next thing I tried required massive aoe skills which killed me 10 times and several rebuild before I got through it then I had to switch to single tgt dps for the Black Pharaoh. I guess I'll try to develop a healing build next.

Anyhow I'm up to QL9/10 so if anyone needs any help with dungeons and I'm on I'll be happy to help if I have the time.

[Lantyssa]

My problem with using any of the guns for secondaries is that they're tough to use for resource dumps, as those are tracked on each target.

Magic at least builds up on you, so if something dies, you can still dump on the next target.  Melee is the same, but also builds over time, making it nice for an early hit then more through combat.

Because of that, guns really seem to need to be a primary weapon and/or you have to use AoE resource builders.

[Amaron]

Because of that, guns really seem to need to be a primary weapon and/or you have to use AoE resource builders.

I usually have a single target and an aoe resource builder.  Is everyone else mostly running just 1 resource builder?

[Xuri]

On my blade 'n rifle build I usually try to go with something like this:
1 - single target blade builder
2 - single target blade finisher
3 - aoe blade builder
4 - aoe blade finisher
5 - single target rifle builder (anima shot if needed)
6 - aoe rifle finisher
7 - cc-ability/defensive ability

The aoe rifle finisher can be used on each individual target (after a short cooldown) if needed.

[Falconeer]

I am using both AOE and Single Target builder right now, but it's only because I am not needing the extra slot for anything else. Otherwise I would just run with single target builder and switch to the AOE one out of combat if the enemies or the area I am in it require it. That's what the Gear Manager should be for, but since it's not working well I am lazy and I keep both at the moment.

[Zetor]

My setup (slight variation on the ele/shotgun cookie cutter dps build):
- ST builder (ele because of the longer range)
- ST ele finisher nuke
- ST ele finisher nuke #2 (boss build) -OR- ele AE finisher (normal build)
- ST shotgun finisher
- self heal (I use Turn the Tables, but anything with a leech like anima shot would work here)
- DPS cooldown #1
- DPS cooldown #2

Works fine for almost everything. I mostly use the shotgun finisher for added burst when needed, and save 5 shotgun resources for when my DPS cooldowns are up.

[Segoris]

I only run with a shotgun consumer on my bar, and I just make sure to use that up before using my Elem resources. I started doing that because I agree they are less friendly, but it has worked out okay. I'm considering using a Chaos finisher though in place of shotgun, but the damage of Out For A Kill in shotgun is just so nice with only having a 4s cooldown (ele dual weapon builder with .5s cast makes me almost able to use OFAK on cooldown too so it adds up nicely).

Though this is speaking from a primarily ranged playstyle, if I was melee I don't think I'd really touch guns as I'd use Ele as my back up

[HaemishM]

I'm currently running (Blade/Blood):

1 - Single target blade resource builder that exploits Afflicted state
2 - AOE blade stun w/ a cooldown that doesn't build resources
3 - AOE blade focus attack that consumes all blade resources
4 - Single target blade focus that consumes all blade resources
5 - Boiling Blood - builds resources for both weapons
6 - Angelic Aegic - single target heal/barrier consumes 3 blood resources
7 - Blood focus attack - does damage + damage over time for 2 blood resources - if I hit it a second time while the DOT is still active, do a shitload more damage

I forget my passives but I know that I have a bunch that cause afflicted state so that my #1 blade ability can be more effective as a resource builder and one that makes my blade focus ability stronger if the target is impaired by my #2 blade stun. Plus 2 passives that increase the damage of my blood and blade skills respectively. I think I just replaced the #6 heal with another damage ability though. I haven't had a chance to use it yet.

[Segoris]

My setup (slight variation on the ele/shotgun cookie cutter dps build):
- ST builder (ele because of the longer range)
- ST ele finisher nuke
- ST ele finisher nuke #2 (boss build) -OR- ele AE finisher (normal build)
- ST shotgun finisher
- self heal (I use Turn the Tables, but anything with a leech like anima shot would work here)
- DPS cooldown #1
- DPS cooldown #2

Works fine for almost everything. I mostly use the shotgun finisher for added burst when needed, and save 5 shotgun resources for when my DPS cooldowns are up.

Hmm, so are you running something like this ?
Blaze
Combust
Thor's Hammer/Electrical Storm
Out for a Kill
Turn the Tables
Anima Charge
Short Fuse

I'm asking since I'm curious why you'd save your shotgun resources when they are limited to each target and ele builds resources (not counting cooldowns) possibly faster than any other spec

I'm kind of lost what else the 2nd dps cooldown could be, since I won't go anywhere without Molten Earth.

[Zetor]

From memory, it's something like

Ignite
Thor's Hammer
Flame Strike / Electrical Storm
Raging Bullet (same as Out for a Kill, but has a point-blank bonus)
Turn the Tables
Anima Charge
Do or Die

and I have a ton of passives that improve (and exploit) crits and strikes.

Yeah, I do use the shotgun consumer when I can. It's just that a lot of bosses have melee-unfriendly phases that also happen to be shotgun-unfriendly (dat 6m range!), and in AE situations I typically want to ignite/electrical storm spam instead... so I weave in Raging Bullet at the tail end of electrical storms to add some damage to a target.