It's nothing special. It's just all 7 rays. You'll get pretty much the same effect with 5 or 6 rays in various alignments since sun does NOTHING and papaxi's effect is minimal. (Not useless though.)

Skills.

Isn't that the exact same thing that I said?

Without reading most of this thread, my SD alt did just fine (better than Chade) with Trans Night/Wicca and Fabled Hexes although hex aura would have helped a lot. I gots to agree with Sham in another thread SD are a little OP in comparison to other classes but I'm guessing Dia is working on balancing them out.

i read this i loled

and this..missed it out in previous post

Hello, novice Shadowdancer here. Unlike Vorld's alt, I want to focus primarily on RP / moneymaking / PvE, but I want some PvP punch so I can fight back or run away from most people without dying in 2 seconds. Should I get Hexes as my third skill ?

I don't expect to trans any guild skills soon, I have a few credits coming in March but I want to use those on Herbs (for the moneymaking part) or Influence if there's any left over (for the PvE part). I'd still like advice on what to aim for in guild skills and the third skill, I won't be spending on them right now but I like to plan ahead.

If you just need to run away, you only need to be able to cure properly for the most part...healing would help though. If you want to kill people you pretty much need hexes, though.

Healing gives the nicest benefit early on for PvE. "Oh look I can diagnose myself!" At inept 0% "Oh look I can use ego to recover health!" At Inept 50%, you can get both without 4-5 lessons I think. The next useful, and most used, skills in Healing would be Senses (return sight/hearing) Neurosis (cure your insomnia so you can go to sleep when you want to) and Breaks(cure your broken legs when you fall out of glomdoring’s trees after forgetting to cling) Those are between Apprentice and Capable. Though, after those, the next useful thing in PvE is at Mythical(mania, curing stupidity from lizards in the desert) and Mythical 33%(curing astral insanity), I’m still working toward those myself.

If you are going herbalist Astrology is without par for letting you Astroglide(Master in the skill) up to Astral to collect sparkleberries. You’ll need a Master skill in Planar as a pre-req for astroglide though, and Sparkleberries are quite up there on the Herbalism skillset (Mythical) so if you don't plan on getting near trans soon this won't help you right away. Astrologers do get +10% ego at Novice, and +10% hp at Adept, both at random times, and a Sphere to increase intelligence(more damage with nature curse/nightkiss) at Gifted, and a Sphere to increase charisma(faster influencing, more ego) at Gifted 50%. Oh one of the lowest and nicest skills is Astrosense though, it’s free scrying like Mages/Guardians in the cities get, it’s almost worth getting the skill just by itself.

The best long-term things for a Wiccan to work toward are Trans Moon/Night (+int, +damage reduction, more damage(Shadowdancers additionally heal themselves each time they use the skill, and moondancers gain a lvl1 mana regen)).

Getting sprite/nymph are useful PvE as well (in wicca, at Virt 0% and Virt 66%)Sprite recovers mana, so you can just keep hunting without worrying about running out, and nymph ticks randomly, usually about once a fight, but only on non-aggressive creatures, and pacifies the thing you are attacking until you attack again.

Night has a few jewels early on which would be affordable and useful, Garb(resists), Penumbra(ego boost plus ego regen), Cauldron(shadows), Flight(speedy escape), and Drink(healing/curing in shadows), but everything after that and before Trans is strictly PvP oriented. Drink is at 66% Gifted FYI.

Since you mentioned Influence I’d really recommend Penumbra, and astrology, with a little participation from other guild members, and if you’re a glom spec’ed faeling, you’ll really mop up denizens quickly. Also, if you are using begging you’ll be gaining a fair amount of gold. You’ll of course want to devote lessons into the influencing skill if you’re taking this path. Adept 0% for your second begging attack (alternate for most effectiveness) and Expert 50% for influencing armor.

Finally, I recommend Elryn's Scrying Pool. You can search around there yourself for what skills look interesting.

I hope I've been helpful somewhat.

Edit:It's been mentioned before, and I agree with Shiri. Hexes are the best option for Wiccans PvP(quick, reliable dispensation of an array of afflictions). I know I didn't touch on Hexes anywhere else in my post, but that's because it has no PvE applications, and is pretty much cut and dry as a skillset. You draw hexes, you throw them at people, you have an option to use power to mask their effect, and eventually throw two at once with power. As you learn more and more you just have the ability to use different hexes, to give other afflictions.

Thanks, both of you have been very helpful. Looks like I could start out with Healing, get some useful low-level curing abilities by learning up to Capable (maybe Adept) and switch to one of the other two later for a small lesson cost.

I honestly wouldn't bother doing that as it isn't worth the loss. If you know you're going to change, I'd suggest you put the lessons elsewhere and not use any on healing. DO select healing as a skillchoice though, that gets you a nice diagnose-like skill and doesn't cost any lessons.