New player - I need help with speccing

[Valdamar]

I'm an EQ refugee Started playing DAoC a week ago, and being on my summer holidays I've played it quite a lot, learning the game and trying out classes. Enjoying it so much I persuaded some friends to start playing too.

I started with a fighter to learn the game - norse berserker (max axes, extra in parry). The last few days I’ve been alternating between my dwarf skald (target: 46 songs, 44 hammer, 17 parry) and avalon theurgist (target: 45 Earth, 25 Ice, 16 Air) which are both a lot of fun and seemed easy to spec, like most fighters and casters I’ve looked at.

But in RPGs I usually play rogues - its a swashbuckling thing - but I haven’t started any in DAoC yet cos I’m having trouble deciding how to spec them. I guess having 4-5 useful skill lines, and the points to potentially make them all useful, is too much choice. I want an Infiltrator in Albion, although I was considering a Scout too. In Midgard I thought a Hunter would be fun to play alongside my friends’ shadowblade and shaman: kobold + big spear = fun I'm not a powergamer (anymore), I just don't want to hold back my characters with a flawed template, so I need opinions on the following for both PvE and RvR viability:

Hunter - kobold (10 dex/str/con) - 44 spear, 39 bow, 35 beastcraft, 33 stealth
Infiltrator - briton (15 str, 10 con) - 50 critstrike, 50 slash, 34 stealth, 33 envenom
Scout - saracen (15 str, 10 con) - 45 longbow, 42 shield, 34 stealth, 29 slash

Looking for comments on the starting points as well as skills. For the infiltrator are the 50 styles worth getting or should I drop both to 44 and put points in dual wield? And could I assassinate casters by pure melee power alone if I dropped envenom a bit to put more into dual wield, or are d/w styles pointless when you have CS and sword?

Any advice/opinions are welcome. Thanks in advance.

 

[old.chesnor]

I'd go thrust with your Infiltrator. The 50 thrust style Dragonfang is a 9sec stun off an evade. As an Infi you have Evade VII at lvl50, so thats an uber style imho. Also, I personally would not spec CS to 50, the last 2 styles are not worth it imho. I would spec CS to 39 for the Perforate Artery, Creeping Death and Stunning Stab chain, and try to get Envenom to 50 (with items) for Lifebane.

Having said that, I don't know what the availability of +envenom items is like in Albion, as with +envenom items you can apply poisons at that level. E.g if you have 40 in env, and +10 from items, you can apply lvl50 poisons to your weapons

 

[Danya]

"Scout - saracen (15 str, 10 con) - 45 longbow, 42 shield, 34 stealth, 29 slash"

I'd suggest 10 str/con/dex for scout, you'll need the dex for your bow (longbow is 100% dex-based for damage).
Also skill-wise you might be a little low on stealth, maybe drop a few points of longbow in favour of it (you only need about 40 LB, you can get the rest with items.) Definitely don't go below 42 shield though.

I may be a bit off the mark here as I don't play scout of course.

 

[erl]

Your hunter template is good. Only thing I think you should consider is dropping BC to 34 or 32 because you will very rarely charm high level insects as the game is now, otherwise it looks fine.

 

[Sarnat]

Well, most of your templates look good, but I very very rarely would spec a line to 50. Only one melee line (alb thrust) and some magic lines are worth wasting a lot of points for the last style or spell.

For example: any weapon will do just as good damage with 44 or 50 (difference is just a few %), as you can easily get +8 or more with items. No style, except alb thrust style dragonfang, is worth the big pile of points it takes to get it.

Example of magic line that I'd spec to 50 is runemaster suppression, as there isn't really anything to get in the other lines after 44 suppression, which a suppression runie should aim for.

As infiltrator you get 2.5 spec points, which is more than any other class in game. So why not spread them around for a nice even template. For example:

40 thrust
44 critical strikes
40 stealth
32 envenom
32 dual wield

With items and couple realm ranks you should get: 50 thrust 50 CS 50 stealth 40 envenom and some dw.

Yeah, I know, people say dont spec DW as infil, but heck, why would I spec anything more than I have in other lines. The damage the poisons do won't raise as much after 40 as before it. 40 thrust and 44 CS will grant good styles and damage.

Other template I might consider is same but with 50 thrust and 13 DW.

Just don't make the classic 'I spec 50 in this line so it will totally rawk' mistake and you'll do fine.

 

[Derric]

Originally posted by Sarnat

Yeah, I know, people say dont spec DW as infil, but heck, why would I spec anything more than I have in other lines. The damage the poisons do won't raise as much after 40 as before it. 40 thrust and 44 CS will grant good styles and damage.

40 thrust don't grant you any good styles since the thrust styles suck.
32 DW is nothing but a waste.
And stop underestimating envenom...the high level poisons are "uber". (119 str/con debuff is kind of interesting to see in action)

 

[Solid]

Never played an inf, but been on the wrong end of their poisons.

I would recc what Derric said, 50 thrust, 44 CS, high envm prolly 38 (think max Env atm from items in alb is +9, set to increase with Darkness falls) and prolly 37 or 40 Stealth.

Like Derric said,m speccing DW is pointless, just dump spare points into it, lots of infils swear by 20 DW as absolute max to spec in it

 

[Valdamar]

Thanks but hmmm - here was my reasoning

Thanks for the opinions. Decided I'd rather concentrate on the Infi and Hunter, so the Scout is out!

For melee classes I'd only take a spec line to 50 for the style - now on paper I thought the 50 slash and cs chain-ending styles looked pretty good /shrug. I was originally going to do a shadowblade with a 44cs, 38stealth, 34env, 34 l/axe, 25axe template, as that gets a lot of good chains and anytime styles. Having more points to spend for an Infi I thought getting the high end albion styles & the extra damage for a higher skill would partly offset the lack of a 2h weapon (was figuring SBs will always have a bigger opening hit than an Infi).

My original infi template was a saracen with thrust (same template as the briton otherwise), but I kept reading two things on messages boards: 1) thrust is very poor against leather (which other stealthers will be wearing) while slash gets a bonus, 2) slash weapons do more damage than piercers so your PA/CD will do more damage. Plus I prefer the look of britons to saracens - its the hat thing

My aim with the infi character is to assassinate casters, but also take out other realms assassins and archers, or have a good chance of survival if they discover me - I thought slash would be better as stealthers usually wear leather/studded. Plus I also read slash was good vs scalemail so druids/wardens would be viable targets too for assassination. I figured a thrust infi would have to restrict targets to casters and Midgard healers/shaman (for thrust bonus vs chain).

Am I wrong? Please tell me if my reasoning is skewed. Will the greater dex of a saracen infi with thrust make up for the greater damage potential of slashing weapons? Do thrust infis do ok if they run into rangers/hunters/SBs/NSs?

 

[Valdamar]

Umm ok lets see . . .

Just fired up my character creation program and noticed you can go 50 thrust/slash, 44cs, and then either 38 env and 37 stealth or vice-versa - that leaves 1 point unspent (not even enough to raise DW to 2 heh). With that spec would it be possible to get 50 in env/stealth with RR3 and uncommon items (ie not uber rare stuff)?

I'm guessing 50 env is more desirable than 50 stealth, right?

 

[Valdamar]

2h assassinates

Its a daft idea, but could you do PA/CD with an envenomed unspecced 2h stave then switch to your dual thrusters/slashers with other poisons on? I don't know if chance to hit is a function of level or base stat, but I read that staves are dex based.

In retrospect I'm wondering if I should just do a norse SB - I like the idea of a huge 2h damage opening to assassinate a caster, then switch to dual wield - so you can get 3 poisons in. But I can't work out why SBs (and Nightshades) are only on a 2.2 skill base compared to the tempting 2.5 on infi unless its purely cos SBs get the 2h weapon advantage.

Opinions?

Btw the Hunter is working out nicely - lot of fun

 

[old.chesnor]

Shh, don' t tell everyone, but I have seen threads about assassins using staffs to critstrike in Albion and Hibernia. I believe that 1.49 introduced a new range of crafted staffs. Very slow with nice dps. However, I also understand that although staffs are able to be envenomed in 1.48 this is not so in 1.49/1.50.

I tested basckstabbing with my ickle lvl12 NS in hib with a piercers and staffs. The staff BS dealt considerably more dmg

And I believe that NS and SB only get 2.2 because of the 2h advantage for SB, and the DD/shouts for NS. Still doesn;t seem quite right though, as Infils are the top assassins on US atm.

 

[Tomwyr]

Hunter - kobold (10 dex/str/con) - 44 spear, 39 bow, 35 beastcraft, 33 stealth

seems ok to me, but i'd rather go for bow 39, spear 39, bc 42 or 43, rest in stealth.
as a kobold u may have more dex than my norse hunter, but still at bc 40 u'll get a nice dex / qui buff, at 41 the last pet buff, at 42 ur last af buff and at 43 ur last speed buff. while i dont consider speed buff as essentail as af buff, it comes in nice at times, in pve it saved my live quite some times, in pvp i use it more likely to catch up on a guy who's to fast...
i know my stealth isnt brilliant, but this template seems pretty well rounded to me (btw, if i'd redo anything on my hunter, i wouldn't put *any* point in stealth till 40 or so, it just gimps u for xping - even if it's nice to hang out in crauchan gorge fom time to time....)

 

[Valdamar]

Thanks guys

Thanks for the input guys. I think I'm going with:

Hunter - 39 spear, 39 bow, 43 beast, 30 stealth

Infiltrator - 50 thrust, 44 cs, 38 env, 37 stealth, 1 dw

I really liked the look of the hunter's 44 spear style for PvE groups, but now I'm thinking it would rarely be used, and would be useless for RvR, so it's gone.

I still prefer the look of the Albion slash styles up to 50 and especially vs the leather of other stealthers, although with the dex thing and the fact Dragonfang can be a lifesaver I figured I may as well go thrust.