Unknown2012-09-12 21:34:50
Hello all! I've come over from another realm and I was looking for some advice concerning being a BlackTalon. I ask here, because I've rarely seen many people around within my guild so far to ask questions of. I went BlackTalon as I prefer being able to handle uneven odds (such as fighting 1 or more people alone) if I must. I plan to do both solo and group pvp once I'm able to. My main questions are, what skills are absolutely required to participate and have fun in pvp here? I've already been convinced Discipline transed is a must. I have enough lessons to trans 6 skills total right now.
Also, I'm trying to decide which is better, Dreamweaving or Ecology and also, if I really need to take the Crow skillset all the way ( the carrion stuff seemed odd, anything really of benefit there I'm just not catching onto yet?).
I do not plan to buy any arties at this time, though I do have about 500 dingbats, I was told to get a pignose and map (any other suggestions?).
And of course, any advice on druid tactics, how to time this sap thing, and anything else is welcome.
Thanks you!!!!!!!
Also, I'm trying to decide which is better, Dreamweaving or Ecology and also, if I really need to take the Crow skillset all the way ( the carrion stuff seemed odd, anything really of benefit there I'm just not catching onto yet?).
I do not plan to buy any arties at this time, though I do have about 500 dingbats, I was told to get a pignose and map (any other suggestions?).
And of course, any advice on druid tactics, how to time this sap thing, and anything else is welcome.
Thanks you!!!!!!!
Ushaara2012-09-12 22:05:46
Don't know anything about druids I'm afraid, but before you spend those dingbats, you shouldn't need a pig nose since as a druid you'll be able to scent through one of your totem spiritbonds.
Xenthos2012-09-12 22:07:36
Ecology's probably better on the whole, between those two choices.
Don't get a pignose. You get that skill in Totems automatically (spiritbond to wolf). The map is nice, though.
You want to trans your guild skills, you want at least to Conglutinate in Planar. For PvP, decent resilience is helpful; you'll also want at least Green in LowMagic.
Don't get a pignose. You get that skill in Totems automatically (spiritbond to wolf). The map is nice, though.
You want to trans your guild skills, you want at least to Conglutinate in Planar. For PvP, decent resilience is helpful; you'll also want at least Green in LowMagic.
Unknown2012-09-12 22:29:36
I see that Faeling gets a bonus, but it looks to be most productive in combat and timing mugwump would be better, is there a common choice between the two or another option?
Thanks for the notice on the pignose! Are there other dingbats that would be useful?
Thanks for the notice on the pignose! Are there other dingbats that would be useful?
Xenthos2012-09-12 22:53:02
I'd say hold onto the dingbats for a while, wait for something to catch your fancy.
Faeling isn't so great early on especially (very squishy). Mugwump has much the same problem though.
Faeling isn't so great early on especially (very squishy). Mugwump has much the same problem though.
Unknown2012-09-12 22:53:44
Well, I'm human right now and almost 84, do I need to hit demi before it's safe to switch?
Xenthos2012-09-12 23:02:03
MarieIam:
Well, I'm human right now and almost 84, do I need to hit demi before it's safe to switch?
84 is probably not a bad level to start going with Faeling. Especially if you stack on +health things (as many as you can locate).
Enyalida2012-09-12 23:38:06
As far as trans skills go, I'd definitely trans your secondary and tertiary. I would get close to trans with druidry, but if you're trying to conserve lessons, don't get Fury or Scarab (you can even scrimp on regrowth, if you want). If you have something else you want to get, it's probably more worth it.
That leaves enough lessons for two skills transed, yes? I'd go for combat next, and then either Discernment (For realitycheck, which you'll need to break mage demesnes) or Lowmagic.
EDIT: IMO, I'd take Dreamweaving. Here is how I see the skillsets:
Ecology:
Pros:
- Better dmp.
- More variety of afflictions
- Movement utility
- Good at pushing low level affs to groups (through smudges)
Cons:
- Weaker afflictions
- Lesser reliability
- Lesser synergy with sap
Dreamweaving
Pros:
- Better affs for sap
- Better passives
- Reliable (via sleep attrition)
- Good at assisting focus firing
- Sleep immunity
Cons:
- No dmp.
Personally, I don't get why people like ecology (except for bashing, it's drastically better for that), or would choose it over one of the other three options for druids, but it's your choice!
That leaves enough lessons for two skills transed, yes? I'd go for combat next, and then either Discernment (For realitycheck, which you'll need to break mage demesnes) or Lowmagic.
EDIT: IMO, I'd take Dreamweaving. Here is how I see the skillsets:
Ecology:
Pros:
- Better dmp.
- More variety of afflictions
- Movement utility
- Good at pushing low level affs to groups (through smudges)
Cons:
- Weaker afflictions
- Lesser reliability
- Lesser synergy with sap
Dreamweaving
Pros:
- Better affs for sap
- Better passives
- Reliable (via sleep attrition)
- Good at assisting focus firing
- Sleep immunity
Cons:
- No dmp.
Personally, I don't get why people like ecology (except for bashing, it's drastically better for that), or would choose it over one of the other three options for druids, but it's your choice!
Placeus2012-09-13 04:29:42
I'd add Environment to up to tumble to your list of required skills - it's necessary for solo and group PVP.
(You'll also learn chop on the way which I think is a BT requirement for griefing serens)
(You'll also learn chop on the way which I think is a BT requirement for griefing serens)
Asmodea2012-09-13 06:12:49
Placeus:
I'd add Environment to up to tumble to your list of required skills - it's necessary for solo and group PVP. (You'll also learn chop on the way which I think is a BT requirement for griefing serens)
BT Don't need chop, they just mulch :P
Unknown2012-09-13 12:23:34
HS can't mulch elder ravenwoods, and BT can't mulch elder moonharts. We can only mulch normal trees. The special elders need to be chopped! :D
Unknown2012-09-13 14:55:34
Are there any good strategies as a dream weaver? I was told I will need to train my crow to do a sleepmist spell so far
Unknown2012-09-13 17:13:18
Embed memoryloss!
Enyalida2012-09-13 17:27:55
No one can mulch an elder tree of any stripe, regardless of it being their own type or not!
I wouldn't embed memoryloss either. It's a nice blackout when you do so (~2-3 seconds), but a DRASTICALLY longer one if you use it actively. Usually you'll be focusing on a single target in a group, so it's better to embed a hindering mote to slow down the rest of the group and use memoryloss on the focus fired target actively. I like epilepsy, as many systems will automatically eat kafe when hit by a mote, nullifying amnesia, daydreaming, and narcolepsy.
EDIT: Instead of sleepcloud you can also go with beastspit (morphite). Remember that with allergies, you can reduce poison shrugging by 50%!
I wouldn't embed memoryloss either. It's a nice blackout when you do so (~2-3 seconds), but a DRASTICALLY longer one if you use it actively. Usually you'll be focusing on a single target in a group, so it's better to embed a hindering mote to slow down the rest of the group and use memoryloss on the focus fired target actively. I like epilepsy, as many systems will automatically eat kafe when hit by a mote, nullifying amnesia, daydreaming, and narcolepsy.
EDIT: Instead of sleepcloud you can also go with beastspit (morphite). Remember that with allergies, you can reduce poison shrugging by 50%!
Sidd2012-09-13 23:13:38
In the days of allergies, Ecology I think is the way to go.
Training beastsleep is good for eco as well. (btw don't get beast spit just to spit morphite, beastsleepcloud is guaranteed sleep hit vs poison chance to shrug, but beast spit is good in general for lots of other poisons)
The reason I would take ecology is because allergies at max level drops poison resist substantially. On top of that you can throw in a snakebane for ever lower resistance though I don't think you really need to.
With that you can either beastsleep/dbl morphite fetish for prone/sleeplockish and hit things like dbl calcise (broken legs), dbl mactans (shivering for off-eq, frozen for extended balancetime) and a variety of other poisons contortrin(recklessness), mantakaya (more paralysis), dulak (stupidity) AND you can beast spit poisons too like senso(slickness) and ibululu( sensitivity).
Dreamweaving has it's perks, but I think overall Ecology synergizes with sap locks a lot better now as you are pretty much guaranteed poison hits (and you can know they hit with keeneye in combat). You can throw in a timed mountainsmudge right before sapping to lay one some broken legs and prone (it's a chance to break legs, it might break arms, but it definitely prones iirc).
I played BT for awhile, and Vadi does as well but he's currently on vacation. Throw some tells my way and I can help you out more or answer more questions that you may have.
Training beastsleep is good for eco as well. (btw don't get beast spit just to spit morphite, beastsleepcloud is guaranteed sleep hit vs poison chance to shrug, but beast spit is good in general for lots of other poisons)
The reason I would take ecology is because allergies at max level drops poison resist substantially. On top of that you can throw in a snakebane for ever lower resistance though I don't think you really need to.
With that you can either beastsleep/dbl morphite fetish for prone/sleeplockish and hit things like dbl calcise (broken legs), dbl mactans (shivering for off-eq, frozen for extended balancetime) and a variety of other poisons contortrin(recklessness), mantakaya (more paralysis), dulak (stupidity) AND you can beast spit poisons too like senso(slickness) and ibululu( sensitivity).
Dreamweaving has it's perks, but I think overall Ecology synergizes with sap locks a lot better now as you are pretty much guaranteed poison hits (and you can know they hit with keeneye in combat). You can throw in a timed mountainsmudge right before sapping to lay one some broken legs and prone (it's a chance to break legs, it might break arms, but it definitely prones iirc).
I played BT for awhile, and Vadi does as well but he's currently on vacation. Throw some tells my way and I can help you out more or answer more questions that you may have.
Enyalida2012-09-13 23:42:01
I'd say quite the opposite, actually. Even with guaranteed poisons (With allergies and snakebane), it doesn't bring anything all that wholesome to the table, at least not anything that can be done better by another tert available to Druids.
For example:
-Dbl morphite: Great, but without a kill method in mind, and without any way to drop metawake, generally underwhelming.
-Dbl Calcise: Broken limbs do not stop rubbing cleanse. This works great assuming you can prone the target first (Via double morphite, most likely), and get this in before they cure out. Even still, 2 calcises on a prone target won't hold them down and allow you to do anything else at the same time.
-Mountainsmudge: You Cannot time smudges. They have a random time before they begin to burn. You can time other things to a burning smudge as it's always the same amount of time from that point to the end, but before it burns it's anywhere from 0-5 seconds before it starts burning, in my experience.
The poison affs in general are nice, but not enough to hold a sap lock on their own with the demesne. Smudges take far too long (currently) to setup and use for what they do.
If you want sleeplocks, go dreamweaver. If you want to freeze, go to shaman (though I would not recommend it for a BT) for the two passive freezes, and the on command confusion.
I would reverse the statement about perks. Ecology has its perks (more dmp being the most significant), but dreamweaving synergies sap locks a lot better. Passive off-eq, off-balancing afflictions, nice blackout, passive command interruption (Through sleep every .5 seconds at max sleep), and better locking 1v1. In groups, it's just as useful, though it's focused more on a single target than a group (unless you're clever with hallucination motes), but that's okay... as focus firing is how combat works in Lusternia.
For example:
-Dbl morphite: Great, but without a kill method in mind, and without any way to drop metawake, generally underwhelming.
-Dbl Calcise: Broken limbs do not stop rubbing cleanse. This works great assuming you can prone the target first (Via double morphite, most likely), and get this in before they cure out. Even still, 2 calcises on a prone target won't hold them down and allow you to do anything else at the same time.
-Mountainsmudge: You Cannot time smudges. They have a random time before they begin to burn. You can time other things to a burning smudge as it's always the same amount of time from that point to the end, but before it burns it's anywhere from 0-5 seconds before it starts burning, in my experience.
The poison affs in general are nice, but not enough to hold a sap lock on their own with the demesne. Smudges take far too long (currently) to setup and use for what they do.
If you want sleeplocks, go dreamweaver. If you want to freeze, go to shaman (though I would not recommend it for a BT) for the two passive freezes, and the on command confusion.
I would reverse the statement about perks. Ecology has its perks (more dmp being the most significant), but dreamweaving synergies sap locks a lot better. Passive off-eq, off-balancing afflictions, nice blackout, passive command interruption (Through sleep every .5 seconds at max sleep), and better locking 1v1. In groups, it's just as useful, though it's focused more on a single target than a group (unless you're clever with hallucination motes), but that's okay... as focus firing is how combat works in Lusternia.
Sidd2012-09-14 00:02:05
Enyalida:
I'd say quite the opposite, actually. Even with guaranteed poisons (With allergies and snakebane), it doesn't bring anything all that wholesome to the table, at least not anything that can be done better by another tert available to Druids.
For example:
-Dbl morphite: Great, but without a kill method in mind, and without any way to drop metawake, generally underwhelming.
dbl morphite is for prone, nothing more nothing less, if you knock them off kafe with it, it keeps them prone longer (no metawake obv), no point in sleeplocking because the demesne will wake them up
-Dbl Calcise: Broken limbs do not stop rubbing cleanse. This works great assuming you can prone the target first (Via double morphite, most likely), and get this in before they cure out. Even still, 2 calcises on a prone target won't hold them down and allow you to do anything else at the same time.
See above, amazing how synergy works
-Mountainsmudge: You Cannot time smudges. They have a random time before they begin to burn. You can time other things to a burning smudge as it's always the same amount of time from that point to the end, but before it burns it's anywhere from 0-5 seconds before it starts burning, in my experience.
you can time smudges reasonably well with the demesne, you don't actually need to get them exactly right anymore with the balance loss on sapping. Fire smudge, sap and the smudge just needs to hit between the sap and demesne tick. Anyone can do that, even you.
The poison affs in general are nice, but not enough to hold a sap lock on their own with the demesne. Smudges take far too long (currently) to setup and use for what they do.
I disagree, between extended writhe times and laying on affs with poisons, you can definitely perpetuate a saplock long enough to kill someone.
If you want sleeplocks, go dreamweaver. If you want to freeze, go to shaman (though I would not recommend it for a BT) for the two passive freezes, and the on command confusion.
I would reverse the statement about perks. Ecology has its perks (more dmp being the most significant), but dreamweaving synergies sap locks a lot better. Passive off-eq, off-balancing afflictions, nice blackout, passive command interruption (Through sleep every .5 seconds at max sleep), and better locking 1v1. In groups, it's just as useful, though it's focused more on a single target than a group (unless you're clever with hallucination motes), but that's okay... as focus firing is how combat works in Lusternia.
Again, I disagree, while I think that DW is nice and definitely a viable option, I would use Ecology over it, for the reasons I stated. It's a different play style definitely, but it's very easily doable and I'd rank it above DW, especially for BT.
Lehki2012-09-14 18:22:16
So Runes still isn't a good choice? I haven't really played seriously since before allergies were implemented, had hoped Runes had gotten some loving in the meantime.
Rivius2012-09-15 18:42:00
Dreamweaving is vastly superior. No competition.
In a 1v1 situation, sleep attrition alone will always wear your opponent down in your demesne and once they've reached the point where they're constantly falling asleep at max allergies, they tend to get the majority of their commands stolen trying to wake. With the new induce command, you can take metawake off right away before a sap to guarantee this pretty easily. Induce also lets you do a pile of other very flexible and silly, silly things I don't want to get into.
Then there's the fact that they can give daydreaming and epilepsy as motes, and if they're clever, they can hide some pretty debilitating things under memoryloss.
In fact, memoryloss is so ridiculously overpowered that it's pretty hard to fail to saplock someone as a dreamweaver.
Also, in regards to demesnes waking someone up, the solution is actually fairly obvious and something druids have been doing since way before allergies. You simply dampen those effects that cause damage.
In a 1v1 situation, sleep attrition alone will always wear your opponent down in your demesne and once they've reached the point where they're constantly falling asleep at max allergies, they tend to get the majority of their commands stolen trying to wake. With the new induce command, you can take metawake off right away before a sap to guarantee this pretty easily. Induce also lets you do a pile of other very flexible and silly, silly things I don't want to get into.
Then there's the fact that they can give daydreaming and epilepsy as motes, and if they're clever, they can hide some pretty debilitating things under memoryloss.
In fact, memoryloss is so ridiculously overpowered that it's pretty hard to fail to saplock someone as a dreamweaver.
Also, in regards to demesnes waking someone up, the solution is actually fairly obvious and something druids have been doing since way before allergies. You simply dampen those effects that cause damage.
Sidd2012-09-15 19:45:27
Rivius:
Dreamweaving is vastly superior. No competition.
In a 1v1 situation, sleep attrition alone will always wear your opponent down in your demesne and once they've reached the point where they're constantly falling asleep at max allergies, they tend to get the majority of their commands stolen trying to wake. With the new induce command, you can take metawake off right away before a sap to guarantee this pretty easily. Induce also lets you do a pile of other very flexible and silly, silly things I don't want to get into.
Then there's the fact that they can give daydreaming and epilepsy as motes, and if they're clever, they can hide some pretty debilitating things under memoryloss.
In fact, memoryloss is so ridiculously overpowered that it's pretty hard to fail to saplock someone as a dreamweaver.
Also, in regards to demesnes waking someone up, the solution is actually fairly obvious and something druids have been doing since way before allergies. You simply dampen those effects that cause damage.
That's the thing, you don't need to sleeplock, why would you even bother with it? Why put all this effort in when you can just damage someone out because sapping someone is ridiculously easy no matter what tert you are, even runes and shamanism shouldn't be a problem to saplock the best of curing with how allergies works.
If anyone thinks the last allergy report is going to make any difference in how OP allergies are, you are wrong, you can still get max allergy levels in no time.
Dreamweaving is not 'vastly' superior. It's a different method and just as viable, but I think Ecology has the edge, especially for BT.
