Build suggestions? Assassin/treasure hunter and Bard/Tamer

[aerandor]

Ok, did a bit of research and I want to create two new characters, both PvM. I'm interested in what you think of these builds:

Bard/Tamer

STR 100
DEX 50
INT 75

Animal Lore 100
Animal Taming 100
Vetrinary 100
Provoking 100
Musicianship 100
Wrestling 100
Magery 100

I would start with 50/50 taming and magery. Basically, he would use pets for fighting in combination with provoking for gold. The magery would be to get out of bad spots and back-up in case I need to defend myself for some reason. Not sure if Wrestling or Anatomy or Eval. Int would be better. Also don't know if the 75 int is high enough. Thoughts?

Second Build:

Assassin/treasure hunter

STR 100
DEX 100
INT 25

Fencing 100
Hiding 100
Stealth 100
Detect Hidden 65
Tactics 100
Poisoning 100
Magery 35
Lockpicking 100

I would take 50/50 Lockpicking and Poisoning to start with. Basically, I want this character to be a traditional dungeon delving rogue, sneaking up on monsters and opening treasure chests. Not sure if the 100 lockpicking is necessary though, also if the 65 detect hidden is at a good level or not. Also had heard that remove trap is useless, otherwise that would be on here. I'm not sure if the cartography skill would be fitting for this build or not as well. Also, should I stick with gm tactics? He's supposed to be more of a backstabber than a toe-to-toe fighter. Any ideas?

Lastly, any equip suggestions for these characters would be great. For one thing, I wasn't sure what armor, if any, would be useful for these builds.

[Jill Stihl]

Couple of brief points spring to mind -

As the first build has no weapons skill I can't see any reason to go for 50 dex? It doesn't affect bandage times or stuff like that so 25 dex / 100 int would be more suitable imho.

Your second build seems to be lacking a way to heal their self too.

Armour - None on the first build, your mana regen will be slow enough as it is without slowing it further. On the second build the traditional chainmail suit seems suitable as they are essentially a dexxer not using much magery.

Both builds involve skills I'm not too experienced with so that's the extent of my input I'm afraid.

[aerandor]

Noted the dex/int suggestion. As far as healing, I'm planning on just having a stock of greater heal scrolls/potions for him to use when hiding/stealthing. Regarding fencing though, if I'm not going to take parrying, would it be better to go with a short spear or with a kryss as far as DOT goes?

[archaicsubrosa77]

For the Assasin if you are just trying to DP monsters

Stealth
Hide
Fencing
Lockpicking
Magery
Med
Poisoning....

That way you just hit them once and run, if there are a ton then you can summon
A few things, keep reflective armor and magic reflect up, cast invisible as soon as you get in the clear and it probably wouldn't hurt to have a dress macro for armor. While they are draining down from the DP you can pick your lock and loot.

For the provoker tamer I'd drop Music and provoke to 60 Vet to 80 and GM meditation... you wont provoke all the time but that really isn't necessary.

[Pirul]

I've always encouraged people to use singular builds and playstyles, however in this particular case I'd like more info on what you plan to do with each of your chars.

Let's start with the provo/tamer. What type of pets do you see yourself rolling with? A white wyrm? A couple of dragons? or maybe a pack of rabid hell hounds? If you're gonna be using WW's or Dragons, you really don't need the provoke skill. You can basically gate hidden into any room in the game with a couple of dragons and let them do the work while you heal them. The only places where this might not be feasible are the Terathan Keep and the Ophidian Lair...but neither would be heading in there with a pack of HH's. Those are the only 2 places (and /maybe/ cyclops valley) where I think it's better to be a bard than a tamer. Any other place, a tamer with 2 or 3 dragons takes the cake. In other words, I think having taming and music/provo on the same template is PvM overkill. I think Meditation, Hiding or Resist (in that order) are better skills for a tamer.

Jill made the right call on the stats, and I see you're thinking of modifying it. I also think it's the right call to start with 50 Mage/50 taming.

Equipment for this char should include the basics for any mage char plus bandages: plenty of regs (I personally roll with aroundd 75 ea, some people go with 150, some with 50, to each his own), plenty of potions (don't forget red pots, as they come in VERY handy even if you don't have a wep skill, I go with about 10 ea except green [0], white [2 or 3], blue [0] and black [0]), 150+ bandages, a rune marked to a stable and a rune marked out of town (in case you or your pets accidentally go grey), a gate scroll or 2, and somewhere around 10 trapped pouches (at least).

I LOVE the idea of your assasin/opportunist. The only change I'd make is drop DH for tracking. DH at 65 is pretty much f'ed, as GM DH only works about half the time vs. a good hider, and that's targetting his exact tile...65, not even worth it. Tracking would be much better as you can use it while hidden, and pretty much stealth up to the person, if you need to bring him out of hiding you can always use purple pots for that. GM LPing is mostly used to pick lvl 5 treasure chests, there is only one dungeon chest that requires GM LPing that I know of, and it is for a rare spawn, nothing else spawns in that chest. If this is not your treasure hunter, I'd be content with 95 real LPing (lock DEX at 10 when macroing LPing, when you reach 95 shown LPing which is the highest you can macro, then raise DEX up, this will allow you to macro .2 or .3 more in LPing...and trust me, you want that extra .2 or .3). Tactics is only used to calculate an attack bonus, it DOES NOT improve your chance to hit, so it is not a necessity for this particular template. You might want to use those points to GM magery, which will allow you to gate, letting you come in hidden into dangerous spots, and to finish off pesky monsters that tend to cure themselves when they get low enough in health. Another thing to consider is if you're hellbent on taking fencing. With the recent update to the katana's speed it just became a VERY decent weapon. Better than a kryss IMHO.

Regarding your stats, I wouldn't necesarily take DEX all the way to 100 as you won't be fighting toe to toe with anything, all you're doing is taking one swing and running to hide. I'd go with something like 100 STR, 40 (45) INT, 85 (80) DEX.

Equipmentwise: Remember stealthing with armor on is harder (or impossible), so I'd stick with light armor, as the idea is for you to not be taking melee damage anyway. I'd go with the long spear simply because you're gonna get a harder hit with the 1 hit you're getting in, and carry a kryss in case you need to hit several times in rapid succession. I think the best fencing weapon is the warfork, but it's neither the fastest nor the hardest hitting, so not sure if it'd help this particular template much. If you go with swordsmanship, you'd take a hally and a kat. As with any dexxer, take a lot of potions (additional to the ones mentioned on the previous template, I'd bring 5 or 6 blue ones), and as any mage, take a good amount of regs. DP pots are expensive, so I'd carry only 5-6 of those in case you loose them. I'd also recomend taking an invis item with you, as a good escape will be to equip that and stealth away, even moreso now that the reveal spell only reveals 2 tiles (and for your recall/invis macro, which this char should undoubtedly have).

[aerandor]

Let's start with the provo/tamer. What type of pets do you see yourself rolling with? A white wyrm? A couple of dragons? or maybe a pack of rabid hell hounds?

I was thinking more toward the pack, mainly to draw aggro while I provoke. I heard that WW/dragons tend to cause chaos when there is more than one at a time. Even though it sounds awesome

I LOVE the idea of your assasin/opportunist. The only change I'd make is drop DH for tracking. DH at 65 is pretty much f'ed, as GM DH only works about half the time vs. a good hider, and that's targetting his exact tile...65, not even worth it. Tracking would be much better as you can use it while hidden, and pretty much stealth up to the person, if you need to bring him out of hiding you can always use purple pots for that. GM LPing is mostly used to pick lvl 5 treasure chests, there is only one dungeon chest that requires GM LPing that I know of, and it is for a rare spawn, nothing else spawns in that chest. If this is not your treasure hunter, I'd be content with 95 real LPing (lock DEX at 10 when macroing LPing, when you reach 95 shown LPing which is the highest you can macro, then raise DEX up, this will allow you to macro .2 or .3 more in LPing...and trust me, you want that extra .2 or .3). Tactics is only used to calculate an attack bonus, it DOES NOT improve your chance to hit, so it is not a necessity for this particular template. You might want to use those points to GM magery, which will allow you to gate, letting you come in hidden into dangerous spots, and to finish off pesky monsters that tend to cure themselves when they get low enough in health. Another thing to consider is if you're hellbent on taking fencing. With the recent update to the katana's speed it just became a VERY decent weapon. Better than a kryss IMHO.

I was going for DH mainly because (as I understand it from the wiki) it's useful for locating dungeon traps and traps on dungeon chests. Since I'm going for a dungeon delver, this is more the use I intended than for trying to find other players. I appreciate the incite on LP, definitely gonna do that. Also, I was under the impression that tactics directly affected the damage your weapon does by -50% to +50%, which seems significant when I'm wanting to hit hard, not sure if anat works different from this. That's suppose to only give a +20% max to damage. As far as the weapon, I was unaware that the katana was now improved, I was choosing based off the discussions I found regarding how these weapons worked during OSI's T2A, which made the case that the kryss was better DOT. Although now that you mention it, it would be better to go for the hard hitters primarily, since I'm hoping to finish off the monsters quickly. From the sounds of it, sword would be a better route.

Equipmentwise: Remember stealthing with armor on is harder (or impossible), so I'd stick with light armor, as the idea is for you to not be taking melee damage anyway. I'd go with the long spear simply because you're gonna get a harder hit with the 1 hit you're getting in, and carry a kryss in case you need to hit several times in rapid succession. I think the best fencing weapon is the warfork, but it's neither the fastest nor the hardest hitting, so not sure if it'd help this particular template much. If you go with swordsmanship, you'd take a hally and a kat. As with any dexxer, take a lot of potions (additional to the ones mentioned on the previous template, I'd bring 5 or 6 blue ones), and as any mage, take a good amount of regs. DP pots are expensive, so I'd carry only 5-6 of those in case you loose them. I'd also recomend taking an invis item with you, as a good escape will be to equip that and stealth away, even moreso now that the reveal spell only reveals 2 tiles (and for your recall/invis macro, which this char should undoubtedly have).

So would chain be too heavy then? Maybe stick to leather or studded? Thanks for all the advice, it will help out immensely I'm sure.

[Pirul]

I was thinking more toward the pack, mainly to draw aggro while I provoke. I heard that WW/dragons tend to cause chaos when there is more than one at a time. Even though it sounds awesome

That only is a problem with WW's as they will mass curse and can hit your other pets. Dragons don't mass curse, so you can go out with 5 dragons and have little to no trouble controling them

I was going for DH mainly because (as I understand it from the wiki) it's useful for locating dungeon traps and traps on dungeon chests. Since I'm going for a dungeon delver, this is more the use I intended than for trying to find other players.

ALL locked dungeon chests are trapped, so you can start from there.

So would chain be too heavy then? Maybe stick to leather or studded? Thanks for all the advice, it will help out immensely I'm sure.

I believe anything over 18 AR would be too heavy. Mix and match, and find the best suit for you.

[archaicsubrosa77]

Without resist you should only tame dragons inside wind. Go after the WYrm, if it doesn't kill you PK's will.
And dungeon chests are always trapped.

[archaicsubrosa77]

On the assassin build I gave you can drop med to even 80, twenty tracking is really all thats required to scope the area. And really GM magery is good for gating in stealthed. Just a heads up.

good flavor provoker template

Silent songstress

Stealth
Hide
Magery
Med
Wrestling
Music
Provoke...

[Pirul]

Without resist you should only tame dragons inside wind. Go after the WYrm, if it doesn't kill you PK's will.

You ever play a tamer? This guy has tamed at least 50 dragons in Destard, and TONS of WW's without too much trouble. See any resist there? (OK, you got me, he got 0.9)

[archaicsubrosa77]

Okay you can tame from certain points that break LOS, but between you and me....a provo tamer is best suited for chest runs. I can see a tamer without resist + hiding as putting a Wyrm on a hook for alts on standby. Supposedly why you have tracking I imagine...that or linking guild message to when a mare arrives in a macro.

So yeah I mean if you were a provo tamer just doing Level 5's. That temp he originally posted is almost good to go...as long as he stayed out of reach.

Meditation
Magery
Music
Provoke
Taming
Lore
Vet

Seems like a better bet in that case. Unless you are a fall guy for an ambush, a stealther or just plain crafty...zero resist should stay out of hotspots. Pets are a drag when you need to GTFO in a hurry.

[Pirul]

I have tracking because I'm too lazy to macro vet, I just raise it playing. As I said in another thread, I have never afk'ed mare tracking plus I don't think you can macro getting a "trigger" out of a tracking menu (at least not with Razor). I use hiding to hide from the mobs and let them aggro on my pets without having to command them and faster eroding loyalty. Also to run away after taming dragons and wyrms and hiding to break aggro on me.

You can't break LOS taming wyrms, just man up and keep GHeal precast.

...zero resist should stay out of hotspots. Pets are a drag when you need to GTFO in a hurry.

Recall out, pets are easily replaceable.

[aerandor]

Any thoughts on tactics for the assassin? I'm still trying to figure out if it actually increases damage or not. Thanks.

[archaicsubrosa77]

Any thoughts on tactics for the assassin? I'm still trying to figure out if it actually increases damage or not. Thanks.

GM tactics brings your damage up to 150 percent...50 tactics is base
But I like the idea of just backstabbing crits and letting them die slow while I am picking locks...
Thats more my style XD

Why do you need tactics when you are using DPed weapons? This is a PVM build right?

viewtopic.php?p=1325

[Pirul]

I agree that tactics is not a priority for this build as you are not going for DOT.