Hey there,

I play Burke, an Orclach Serenguard.

Now, I keep waffling between all of the weapon specs and Moon and Stag, and was wondering if I could get a general idea of how strategies differ between specializations and what would work best with Orclach stats.

I will eventually have Forging and level 2 weapon stat runes.

So, for example, would Pureblade Moon be the best to maximize the inherent bonus of orclach and push my weapons to ungodly levels while giving me int and mana regen so I can actually use Regeneration or Surge as an Orclach? Or would Stag be better for increased dexterity, and the gore instakill to combine with Bonecrusher for damage kill potential?

Pros and Cons please, I'd like to stay Orclach. Thanks a ton!

Good questions. I think it really is just a matter of preference. I can't speak for stag as a warrior, so I hope someone else takes that up.

As a moonie, I've found it to be pretty defensive and supportive. As a moonie, you'll be able to start resurgems, which can be pretty useful both on the battlefield and being the daily neighbourhood superhero.
Drawdown is really great and the AB should make you drool.
Moondance shine is one of those skills that really depend on the phase of the moon. It's either really underwhelming for the power cost or super amazing. Infact, that's one little drawback to moon - that it depends on the time of day (which can be overcome by going into a draped manse) or the phase of the moon. Lots of things aren't nearly as potent on New Moon, and Drawdown and Shine both don't work at all in New moon.

The bright side is, this is also when Dark is most powerful. Dark is a really underrated skill in my opinion. I'm not sure why it isn't used more. It passively strips defenses and gives nasty hidden affs and the only drawback is that it runs off an enemylist.

You'll find Moondance Full to be an amazing life saver as well. Moon aura also makes you superdooper tanky.

I'd say the skill is really great in making you a surviver and giving you those little buffs. It isn't so great offensively, really, but drawdown does help a great deal. As a warrior, pulling off things like dark will be a little tricky and situational. Waning is also a great skill, but really only useful in groups where you're likely to lock-up your opponent long enough for the aeon to have any negative effect.

Succumb probably won't be useful to you at all unless you happen to be coordinated with a moondancer and helping them get a mana kill.


I really don't know how stag -feels- in battle, but I think it might be more offensively oriented. Swiftstripes and increased dex from stagform are pretty nice. Staghide makes you amazingly tanky. Sacrifice is a great support skill that can really help your side out as well...
Ancestralcurse is sort of like the analogue to Dark but doesn't strip defenses...
I'll leave a staggy to talk about the staggies

All I can say is, one isn't really better than the other. It's mostly a matter of preference and battle style.

Bonecrusher? Why not pureblade to take advantage of your racial ability?

As an MD I find Moon to be a pleasant skill, but as a warrior, some of the skills would not be the same for you. Drawdown is good because it gives you buffs, including +10 stats to your weapons, but you probably won't be moonbursting (Moonburst being an attack that drawdown gives you, and which is wiccans' main damage-attack) a lot as a warrior.

Contrary to what Rivius says, drawdown does work on new moon. You can't gain drawdown on new moon, but if you already have the def up it still works. Shine goes into dormancy and has no effect during new moon.

Apart from drawdown and shine, your main things will be waxing (heals your health, requires and takes eq), full (power cure, heals several random afflictions), waning and dark. Rivius has covered much of this.

The thing to remember about Moon abilities is that they're coven-based. Light, Harvest, Resurgem and Rage all require covens. In practice, as long as there are Moondancers around, you probably won't need to lead a coven. Nor do you need the Moon skill to join in a coven - just to lead one.

I can't speak for Stag, having been MD from the start, so I'll leave that to someone else.

Edit: Oh, moon also has shafts, which hides some exits in a room. It's useful to stop people running away.

Both are nice. I'd say if you remotely want to PVP go moon, hands down. Stag is great utility, though, and amazing for hunting from medbag and totem.

I prefer the flavor. I was and am wondering if the extra 10/20(?)/10 for the PB weapons is amazing and stackable with runes and drawdown or not so much.

Thanks everybody! Orclach resistances, especially with Drawdown and Fullplate, look pretty great, so I'm probably going to go with that. Any thoughts on the weapon specs? I heard Axelord was nice for Execute, but Blademaster/Pureblade seem to be the most popular by far, and there are no Bonecrushers due to BC just "being a bad spec"? Beating people down with morningstars seems awesome in my head, but if it's not going to work, why bother, you know? Plus I might need those extra PB Orclach boosts in order to make up for the 13 dex.

I thought most of our OP Lusternian warriors were Bonecrusher, but I could be mistaken.

Nope. BC is generally considered the weakest spec now. Some of us are stubborn and still won't switch (mostly because we have over 3000 credits invested in weapon runes).

You of all people should be able to afford pliers!

As for Moon vs. Stag, Moon is nice since it increases tankiness a lot, buffs weapon stats and damage/health, and all of that passively. That way, you can concentrate on using your weapon attacks.
Stag does have staghide, but that only protects against cold damage, so it's not nearly as universally good as drawdown for tankiness. Aside from that, though, Stag has:TRUEHEART facepainting, providing 50% resistance to domination (and angel/demon beckoning), PARADE, which actively lusts the victim to you, HEADBUTT, which forcefully moves people and is a physical movement (works in distort). Should also work on prone people (in contrast to athletics tackle), but I'm not sure of that one. MEDICINEBAG (works like improved healing potion) and SWIFTSTRIPES (balance recovery bonus) are useful, too.

As for your idea of a damage warrior, just forget that. It's not going to happen before warrior damage gets overhauled (which may well never happen at all). That doesn't mean damage is completely useless for warriors, but it should in no case be your focus; even if you max out everything for damage, you won't get anywhere solo with damage against most people.

That's a little disheartening, but I guess it helps me decide.

So I think I'm gonna go Moon Pureblade to take full advantage of my native weapon bonus and curtail the orclach fire weakness, but I have a small question. I don't especially like the katana vibe, so I was wondering if a greatsword or bastard sword along with my lvl2 stat arties, moon aura, dwarven runes, and native bonus would work as well. What are the weapon stats to aim for if not damage?

Loads of precision and speed. You want to be hitting as fast as possible and dealing as many wounds as possible. From what I can tell, you can essentially dump damage on your pvp weapons, though some is good.

Not using a katana shouldn't be a huge difference, since you can still just build it as a speed weapon, it's just the floors on damage and precision aren't as low, so you'll be missing out on a few points compared to someone who is min-maxing.

The damage floor difference can be pretty significant if you're still going for high speed, actually.

I've seen people pitch around 200-220 speed base as effective for a 2-hander if you max out precision, though, but that was a while back. No idea if sentiment on that has changed. So that -might- work on a great sword, but maybe not. I wouldn't bother with a bastard, since that might have a mandatory point of damage too many.

Aren't the differences in the floors only like 10 points? Do they make a really noticable difference?

No, it's a fair bit more than 10 points. 33ish points for just speed-spec weapons versus prec-spec weapons, and that's one-handed weapons. And that's the smallest gap. It only goes up for the balanced-spec and damage-spec.

I was pretty sure they went in and made all types of weapon the same, after it was pretty clear that only one sort was ever going to be used competitively.

No.

The minimum temper values as outlined here are still enforced today.

I will say, however, that it is a lot more restrictive on PVP than PVE. You can still get up to 280 speed base on the balanced class weapons if you'd rather use those to bash, and the damage difference won't mean much of anything as compared to speed-classes. Damage stat in general means very little for bashing, and the only people who have ever swore that it does make a noticeable difference used max damage, which means you're not getting max speed anyways.

Not a whole lot makes a difference in bashing except over the very long term, really. I don't notice a difference between dwarf and faeling bashing, honestly, and probably won't unless I actually time it. I think I still kill in the same number of hits even with the large difference in int and cha.

For fighting, you pretty much need to be getting a katana if you're going pureblade (or rapiers for blademaster, hammers for bonecrusher, etc), you're really shooting yourself in the foot otherwise, especially if you're getting runes.

Moon is probably the better choice if you have the lessons to trans it. If you stack forging runes, artifact runes, drawdown, and orclach PB bonus, you can get some insane precision going on.

Also, feel free to ask all us old timer SG stuff IG, we've got a clan dedicated to that kind of thing (once you graduate novicehood).

Melville suggested 250 speed to me a really long time ago. (I think I was Ur'Guard then?)