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Author Topic: Combat Speed  (Read 7961 times)
Numtini
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on: July 01, 2012, 06:00:45 PM

It takes a ludicrous (other adjectives would include tedious and boring) amount of time for me to kill anything. I'm a blood mage so it's 5 builders, then two DOTS one eating 3 and the other 2. Repeat four or five times for a total of 30-45 key presses and maybe a minute per mob. Am I doing something wrong? Is this kicking it old school and I can heal so I must be punished by not being able to kill anything without it being tedious? (I haven't even chosen any healing items because my killing is so slow.)

Mostly I'm just looking for a sanity check of whether this is what the game is like or I should go looking for what I'm doing wrong.

If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
Falconeer
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Reply #1 on: July 01, 2012, 06:15:06 PM

I honestly can't say anything about blood magic, so I should refrain from posting. But one thing I can tell you is that a big part of the game is tweaking your build AND your rotations in order to kill things faster.

This is not so obvious at first, especially when you have so few skills that it seems there isn't much you can do except builder and consumer. But even with the very few basic skills you can (usually, as I said I know nothing about blood magic) find a better, more efficient, way to do the job.

EDIT: Do you have a second weapon already? If you don't.. GET ONE. A second weapon means you can do two finishers cause your builder builds for both weapons and if you have a second weapon finisher equipped (along with a second weapon in the offhand) you just have two finishers with just one round of builders. It's like a free finisher. Check the weapons for sinergies and see which ones work well with Blood Magic in order to be able to get some nice passives from that weapon skill sets early on.

Bottom line, if you are wielding only one weapon at the moment you are definitely doing it wrong (and it's not your fault. Again, not enough explanations handholding).

Another thing the game doesn't really explain very well is which ones are the mobs that you are supposed to kill in 5 seconds and which ones are supposed to take you a good 40 seconds. The con system is obscure at best. So look at their HP. 2400+ HP when you are using just QL1 stuff might take a while (still not a minute!).

I think you might be doing something wrong, 1 minute per mob sounds really too much. As I said, about 40 seconds is what it takes for the ones that are supposed to be stronger than you (Beach dudes with one deformed arm), but that's only right after the start. Golems later on take up about a minute to me, but this is not a game where you will end up grinding mobs that much anyway, so I wouldn't worry too much. Combat "grows" on you. To give you an idea, dungeons in this game have NO trash mobs.

Also, you might be "glancing" a lot. Glance in this game is the equivalent of a "miss". If that is the case you have to get a better weapon (higher QL) and raise your QL level (or your +hit stat) from for that weapon spending AP on its DPS role. This is not explained anywhere, but glancing isn't just a mob defending succesfully or a RNG result, it's a sign that you missing too much, probably due to level differences or not enough weapon skill.

Hope it helped a bit.


EDIT: Added stuff about the second weapon.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2012, 06:18:41 PM by Falconeer »

tmp
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Reply #2 on: July 01, 2012, 06:27:17 PM

Worth to keep in mind the game is perfectly playable without any heals (save for occasional consumable use if you pull one thing too many) at least in first 2-3 zones. As such you might want to roll with full offense-oriented skillset and equipment for the most part, and only switch to the healing configuration where the situation may actually warrant it.

edit: and yeah from the description it sounds you're only using single weapon? In which case picking up second weapon is something you'd really want to do -- like Falconeer said resource builders generally work for both weapons equipped, so for each resource building phase you can unload 2x the amount of heavy-hitting skills.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2012, 06:30:29 PM by tmp »
Furiously
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Reply #3 on: July 02, 2012, 01:06:53 AM

There are also generally skills higher up in the circle that do crazy damage.  I'm pretty much just using rifle skills and one finisher from the pistol line. Finally got a rifle skill that lets me build (Some built skills are slower than others) quickly and then do two big finishers.  Also make sure you are using attack trinkets. I have a set of heal ones I drop in for dungeons.

palmer_eldritch
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Reply #4 on: July 02, 2012, 03:07:36 AM

The game certainly isn't supposed to punish you for being able to heal. Of the nine weapons, three are healing, three are tanking and three are "support" (eg buffing). They all have a role other than DPS, and they are all supposed to be DPS as well. However, I haven't played blood. In beta, blood was the most overpowered weapon so maybe they over-nerfed it for all I know.

But as Falconeer said, you do need two weapons. I'm not sure what goes well with blood - blades or elemental might be good choices though? Blade and blood should work well together for single targets while elemental and blood should work well together for multiple targets.

Also, the game generally gets much easier when something goes snap in your head and the skills system starts to make sense. It's more important when you have more ability points and therefore more abilities to choose from, but even at the early stages, understanding the skills system really helps. It took me ages (I have the advantage now of experience from closed beta but it took me a while in closed beta to get to grips with it). So if it seems a bit hard figuring out how to make your character effective, you can at least rest assured that it is hard, it's not just you. Hope that helps a little!

Lantyssa
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Reply #5 on: July 02, 2012, 07:36:04 AM

How far along are you?  I'm only in Kingsmouth, using Blood/Claw and I rip apart groups.  I've taken low-level passives from other trees for better synergy.

Blood Spike  (builds resources)
Prey on the Weak  (builds resources)
Hog Wild  (consumes all Fist resources)
Infection (consume 3 Blood)
Exsanguinate (consumes 5 Blood)
Blood Shield (very quick resource builder; heal/barrier, too)
Angelic Aegis (consume 3 Blood)

Corrupted Blood (to give Blood Spike a DoT)
Dark Potency (extra penetration rating due to all my afflictions)
Lick Your Wounds (free self-DoT)
Killer Instinct (every 4th attack is unavoidable)
Angel's Touch (boosts Angelic Aegis)
Mind Over Matter (Elemental; crits add a DoT)
Huh

Basically Blood lets me draw things in and can mostly be used even if I don't have full resources.  The three attacks it gives are Damage + DoT, Chain Damage + DoT (+ AoE), High Focused Damage + DoT.  Then it has a quick heal/barrier which can be spammed for resources, and a large heal/barrier for "owie" type situations.

Claw gives a fast attack option and area damage.  Because Infection does extra damage if something dies while its DoT is active, it's beneficial to spread damage around with Hog Wild.

The passives are chosen to mostly boost combat effectiveness and add even more DoTs.  Lick Your Wounds is just invaluable for solo play.

[Maybe we should start some build threads?  Solid low-level builds, intermediate, and high-level ones.]

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
Numtini
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Reply #6 on: July 02, 2012, 08:06:08 AM

I'm doing much better now that I added a second skill. From the big deal the dojo made of picking a skill, it wasn't obvious that you could just pick up a weapon and go with a second skill. I knew I was supposed to get one, but from the dojo "oooh pick skills now, big choice" quest, it made me think it was far harder to get the second skill.

If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
Lantyssa
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Reply #7 on: July 02, 2012, 08:12:50 AM

Yeah, that's not really clear.

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
tmp
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Reply #8 on: July 02, 2012, 08:33:43 AM

Yah, the whole 'you have to choose one' song and dance they're doing without any mention that hey, you actually might want two not one... isn't very helpful. To the contrary.
Falconeer
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Reply #9 on: July 02, 2012, 08:42:59 AM

Yeah, and seriously, one GOLDEN rule they should print everywhere in bold letters but it's actually nowhere:

You can only equip Active Skills for the two weapons you are wielding, but you can equip Passive Skills from ANY tree regardless of your weapons.

Also, the bonus and stats on your two weapons do not stack with each other. They apply (and dis-apply) on the fly when you use an Active Skill that belongs to that weapon. That's why for example they never have bonus HP. Basically they are modifiers for the Skills, not for your character. So the stats on your hammer only apply to hammer Active Skills and the stats on your shotgun only apply to Shotgun Active Skills and so on.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2012, 08:50:01 AM by Falconeer »

tmp
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Reply #10 on: July 02, 2012, 09:03:56 AM

Also, the bonus and stats on your two weapons do not stack with each other. They apply (and dis-apply) on the fly when you use an Active Skill that belongs to that weapon.
Worth noting this leads to some difficulty when comparing abilities -- as the game is rather dumb and calculates everything based on the power of weapon you have currently equipped, not the weapon you'd be actually using when you execute given ability (even if you have that other weapon also equipped) If the weapon for given skill is of different QL or colour than the one equipped... the numbers can be quite off.
HaemishM
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Reply #11 on: July 02, 2012, 10:11:08 AM

This game goes to new lengths to not tell you jack and shit about the stuff you really need to know. I still don't understand how to raise the QL of a weapon I have, or where to buy toolkits for the crafting.

Falconeer
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Reply #12 on: July 02, 2012, 10:39:02 AM

Haem, you do not raise the QL of a weapon. You raise your skill with a weapon (spending Skill Points, SP, in the N menu) and that allows you to equip weapons of a higher QL. That's it.

Toolkits can't be bought. Only looted as far as I know. And you will plenty.

tmp
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Reply #13 on: July 02, 2012, 10:40:22 AM

You can't raise QL of existing item. QL is plain equivalent of item level in other MMOs. It's like asking how you can make l.45 sword into l.46 sword. (by getting a new sword that's actually l.46)

Toolkits for everything but consumables are mob drops, for the most part. There might be some exceptions (consumable toolkits sold by vendors, occasional rewards) but they're safe to ignore.
Phred
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Reply #14 on: July 02, 2012, 11:32:19 AM

Also, the bonus and stats on your two weapons do not stack with each other. They apply (and dis-apply) on the fly when you use an Active Skill that belongs to that weapon.
Worth noting this leads to some difficulty when comparing abilities -- as the game is rather dumb and calculates everything based on the power of weapon you have currently equipped, not the weapon you'd be actually using when you execute given ability (even if you have that other weapon also equipped) If the weapon for given skill is of different QL or colour than the one equipped... the numbers can be quite off.

So that means you only have to upgrade one weapon then? Cool.
Falconeer
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Reply #15 on: July 02, 2012, 11:55:40 AM

Ehr, no. If you have equipped say 6 Hammer Active skills and 1 Shotgun Active skill, and say you have a QL10 hammer and a QL1 shotgun, all your Hammer skills will benefit from the QL10 stats on the hammer, but whenever you shoot with the shotgun you will have the stats of the QL1 shotgun. So if you do not upgrade both your weapons, you will end up underperforming with those lower QL weapon's skills.

As I said, keep in mind that:

Weapons do not affect your characters, they only affect your skills, and only the skills of the weapon tree/kind they belong to.
While talismans/rings/etc affect your character, so whatever stats they have apply to everything.


What tmp meant to say is that when you check the tooltip of a skill, it tells you the supposed damage/heal value, but based on what weapon is actually in your character's hands when you check the tooltip, you'll get different values. Meaning, if the last skill I used was a shotgun one, my char will look as if she is wielding a shotgun. That means that all the skills tooltip are modified by the shotgun's stats (so only the shotgun skills are modified), while the hammer skills show values as if I were using a QL0 hammer, since the hammer is not "visually" on my char's hands and so it doesn't gives its stats to the hammer skills. On the other hand, say that I just finished a combat with a hammer skill so my character has the hammer in her hands, then the hammer tooltips will appear modified by whatever are the stats and QL of the hammer, while the shotgun skills will appear as having a QL0 shotgun.

This was absolutely true in the beta and ridiculously confusing. I am not sure if it carried on in release, but based on what tmp is saying it's entirely possible. Haven't checked myself yet.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2012, 12:03:15 PM by Falconeer »

tmp
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Reply #16 on: July 02, 2012, 12:41:21 PM

I think it worked bit different in my experience, actually, or i just got wrong impression -- all skills, for all weapons would take into account the stats of the weapon your character was carrying at the moment, instead of the weapon associated with the skill in question. I.e. if i had equipped ql 4 shotgun, all skills would report damage based on the power attribute of that shotgun. That made it more difficult to compare/decide what ability i should choose as my next upgrade (based on the gear i had available) since in order to make comparison i'd need to check damage dealt by shotgun skill while having shotgun equipped, then manually switch to say, my ql3 elemental trinket to get correct report how much damage the elemental skills would deal with the trinket i actually had at my disposal etc. In any case, it wasn't producing very useful results.
Phred
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Reply #17 on: July 02, 2012, 12:48:20 PM

E
What tmp meant to say is that when you check the tooltip of a skill, it tells you the supposed damage/heal value, but based on what weapon is actually in your character's hands when you check the tooltip, you'll get different values.


Ah I see. Annoying to be sure.
Falconeer
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Reply #18 on: July 02, 2012, 01:00:19 PM

I think you are right, tmp. It's even more annoying cause if you have the hammer in your hands at that moment, your shotgun skills will have the tooltip modified by the hammer stats, but they are actually never gonna use those stats, since when you fire a shotgun skill you instantly switch to the stats of the shotgun. And vice versa.

So whenever you check a certain skill values in the tooltip, you have to make sure you have the right weapon in your hands at that moment, or you'll get unreliable data.

HaemishM
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Reply #19 on: July 03, 2012, 09:53:56 AM

You can make sure you have the right weapon in hand by just firing off a skill that uses that weapon, even if there's nothing in range. The game will try to fire the weapon, which means it switches the weapon first, then checks if there is a target, and even if there isn't, it still changes the weapon for you.

tmp
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Reply #20 on: July 03, 2012, 11:47:02 AM

A number of skills can't be activated if there's nothing in range to target (they're greyed out) so not sure if that's always doable. In such situations you can use shift-R by default to swap the weapons, after hitting ` to unsheath it if needed. Still rather cumbersome and even more so when you're expanding your skills in multiple areas -- i was developing shotgun, elemental, pistols and hammers on one of my characters as example. Switching out of the skill panel every other second to change equipment, then going back to skill wheel to find the abilities i wanted to compare, and remembering the numbers involved... meh.
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