Nightshade tips please

[Alkoran]

I'm giving you an early warning, this post might get a bit whiney. I've just been reading a few posts on various websites, looking for info on new shade stuff in later patches. Apart from other things I found out that alot of people can solo yellows offten with there shades and almost always out damage the tanks in groups.

I can't do either of these, I have trouble soloing blues for more than 10mins without a death or two. In groups I do less damage than most tanks 2lvls below me.

What am I doing wrong?

Any information would be gratefully recieved (I don't wanna be lame )

(Well I told you it might get whiney)

 

[Aeiedil]

hmmm, i can think of 2 things

1 : is your equipment blue-orange con (get playercrafted leather and weapons for a bit, the extra quality makes a difference as i have said in another thread, wont go into detail, just trust me on this )

2 : how are you specced?


either way i advise you look at Luckie N'mor's guide that I posted a while ago

Luckie N'mor's Nightshade Guide

This will be uploaded onto daocnation soon

 

[Aeiedil]

the guides on DAoC Nation now, a bit easier to read it there

Luckie N`Mor's guide ad DAoCNation

 

[Aloca]

Originally posted by Aeiedil
the guides on DAoC Nation now, a bit easier to read it there

Luckie N`Mor's guide ad DAoCNation

Anyone that have that spec now? ))

Level 50:

Piercing: 39 (Easily modifiable to 50, good damage)
Crit Strike 39 (For the 3-style Perforate Artery combo)
Stealth 40 (Easily modified to 50, benefit of Safe Fall 4 which does come in handy in some areas)
Envenom 41 (Easily modifiable to 50, use of all poisons)
Celtic Dual 5 (Leftover points)

 

[Pin]

Originally posted by Aloca
Anyone that have that spec now? ))

Level 50:

Piercing: 39 (Easily modifiable to 50, good damage)
Crit Strike 39 (For the 3-style Perforate Artery combo)
Stealth 40 (Easily modified to 50, benefit of Safe Fall 4 which does come in handy in some areas)
Envenom 41 (Easily modifiable to 50, use of all poisons)
Celtic Dual 5 (Leftover points)

The sucky spec!

 

[old.Laryssa]

the guide on daoc.catacombs.com got the last updated version.

Level 50:

Piercing: 37 (Easily modifiable to 50, good damage -- get +11 in items, Infernal Malison Rapier (+5 Piercing), Epic Dagger offhand (+4 Piercing), and a Right Bracer of Skill or Master Assassin's Pendant (+2 Piercing) in addition to Realm Rank 3 will gain you the required +13)

Crit Strike 44 (For the 3-style Perforate Artery combo and Rib Seperator, the 3rd Evade style)

Stealth 37 (Easily modified to 50 - Stealth past 50 has no effect)

Envenom 38 (Easily modifiable to 50, use of all poisons - Epic Gloves (+5 Envenom), Epic Jewel (+3 Envenom), and Realm Rank 3 only account for +10 Envenom. However, if you get to Realm Rank 5 ~or~ use an Infernal Jewel of Venom (+5 Envenom) instead of the Epic, you'll have your +12. Also, if you're especially lucky - try to get your hands on one of the old Master Assassin's Pendants, the old ones still have the original +2 Envenom, but the ones that drop now are +2 Piercing.)

Celtic Dual 15 (Leftover points)

 

[Pin]

Originally posted by old.Laryssa
the guide on daoc.catacombs.com got the last updated version.

Level 50:

Piercing: 37 (Easily modifiable to 50, good damage -- get +11 in items, Infernal Malison Rapier (+5 Piercing), Epic Dagger offhand (+4 Piercing), and a Right Bracer of Skill or Master Assassin's Pendant (+2 Piercing) in addition to Realm Rank 3 will gain you the required +13)

Crit Strike 44 (For the 3-style Perforate Artery combo and Rib Seperator, the 3rd Evade style)

Stealth 37 (Easily modified to 50 - Stealth past 50 has no effect)

Envenom 38 (Easily modifiable to 50, use of all poisons - Epic Gloves (+5 Envenom), Epic Jewel (+3 Envenom), and Realm Rank 3 only account for +10 Envenom. However, if you get to Realm Rank 5 ~or~ use an Infernal Jewel of Venom (+5 Envenom) instead of the Epic, you'll have your +12. Also, if you're especially lucky - try to get your hands on one of the old Master Assassin's Pendants, the old ones still have the original +2 Envenom, but the ones that drop now are +2 Piercing.)

Celtic Dual 15 (Leftover points)

That's hardly any better. For a start, what's all this with "easily modified to 50" crap for weapon? Weaponskill doesn't stop increasing at 50. Get it as high as you can.

I would spec a NS as:

44 CS
44 Pierce (or higher, but never lower)
34 Stealth (you really don't NEED 50 stealth - and drop to 32 or below if you get a respec at RR5+)
33 Envenom (you don't NEED lifebane - get the top debuff from RR4 and you're fine... and drop lower if you get a respec at RR5+)
15-19 CD depending on autotraining (yes, it's leftover points, but CD is important and worthwhile to put _some_ points into)

 

[Chameleon]

Originally posted by Alkoran
I found out that alot of people can solo yellows offten with there shades and almost always out damage the tanks in groups.

I can't do either of these, I have trouble soloing blues for more than 10mins without a death or two. In groups I do less damage than most tanks 2lvls below me.

What am I doing wrong?

When solo, always use 2x piercers and not shield. You chance to hit with offhand is greater than chance to block.
Hit your insta cast spell as near to the beginning of the fight as possible, and then hit it again as soon as it becomes available (lights up again).
Use a dot on one wep and I would suggest a str/con debuff on the other.
If you are killing mobs that you can attack up close, always open from stealth with your bs/bs2/PA chain. If you use this method, have a slower wep in your main hand for bs/pa, then switch after the opening combo to a quicker mainhand wep. This allows you to also apply a dot, str/con decrease and maybe a disease too, using 3 weps.
If you are attacking mobs which you need to pull one out of a baf zone, hit it with as many castable dd's as possible ..... but be sure not to be mid-cast or have another queued when it reaches you.
Use garrote/achiles at the start to get your target 'hindered' and 'slowed'. After that, my advice would be to conserve endurance by only using reactionary styles after that.
You can, if the situation fits, cast a dd, turn and run until the timer allows you to stealth, then turn and PA it just before it reaches you. This takes some practice.
You really need orange con armour and weps. Ideally get these spell crafted to increase your stats and +skills.
You need to have pierce and cs fairly high, with stealth high enough to be able to get close enough to 'open from hidden' without being 'de-stealthed'. Up envenom with spare points to get the next level potions, as you progress a few levels. Luckie's guide help with level progression spec.
Also, take a look at the bestiarys on some of the more popular sites and pick mobs which you get a bonus on using piercers (i assume you use piercers). These tend to be furrry animal types, but include others too.

Well hopefully some of that might help.

 

[Pin]

Re: Re: Nightshade tips please

In general I would agree with Zenich, apart from some points...

Originally posted by Ch@meleon
Use garrote/achiles at the start to get your target 'hindered' and 'slowed'. After that, my advice would be to conserve endurance by only using reactionary styles after that.

The 'hindered' (snared) and 'slowed' (attack-speed decrease) effects are broken on damage, so basically useless when exping. Using Garotte and Achilles Heel when solo is BAD due to extreme endurance costs and the defensive penalty on Garotte (means you get hit more often).... (but having said that, I don't know what the Pierce line is like for other style options).

Originally posted by Ch@meleon
You need to have pierce and cs fairly high, with stealth high enough to be able to get close enough to 'open from hidden' without being 'de-stealthed'. Up envenom with spare points to get the next level potions, as you progress a few levels. Luckie's guide help with level progression spec.

While levelling I would advise putting almost all your points into weapon and envenom. Relying on from-stealth attacks for PvE just slows everything down, and envenom (debuff and DoT) is massively useful for levelling.

 

[boni_ofdavoid]

Im guessing your weapon spec is too low, you may have split you points across too many of your abilities. For the first 25 levels keeping your pierce quite high (near your level) is a good idea.

Warning - NS can be as good as tanks, but they require both skillfull play AND very good equipment. If your new to DAOC do yourself a favour and try a different class first

 

[Chameleon]

Personally I'd use garrote/achilles once in the fight, usually at the start. You will see many ns using it frequently in-fight. Try it and see how you get on with it is the best advice.
Opening with hidden attack moves is the defining feature of the ns ..... so I'd use it. You will find your targets severely damaged purely from your opening chain.
I levelled to 50 the old fanshioned way and it worked great for me That'd be my advice if you wish to solo yellows any time you can't get a group ...... which will be often. Pick the right targets and you can manage oranges, but I wouldnt bother as it simply increases down time and overall seemed to result in slower xp due to d/t and the fact that xp wont be greater by much, if at all.
Well the more and varied advice, the better imo. Give them a try and the best methods to use will soon become apparant.
Oh yeah, duo'ing with a warden works nicely too if you've got a mate with one or you see one solo in lfg window

 

[Kicks]

if your going for BG and upped your stealth you will have problems soloing at points I had a nightmare with blues around the mid 30's in TC and so shoved alot of spec points in pierce and that sorted me out a bit

 

[Noche]

str/con debuff mainhand, always. Other then that read above ppl´s comments, NSs don´t really have very good styles before 12 spec in CS (hamstring), depend on ya lvl, at low lvl (before lvl 20) NSs really sux (ofc equipments do matter too)

 

[Cloak_]

I kept my wep skill at my lvl till i hit lvl 39 (thats where it stopped doh!)

Stealth i auto trained till 44,

Never relied on stealth to solo just pull and kick ass

 

[old.Sko]

delete shade and roll something useful.

 

[Marwolaeth]

First things first....

That's hardly any better. For a start, what's all this with "easily modified to 50" crap for weapon? Weaponskill doesn't stop increasing at 50. Get it as high as you can.

I've seen this mentioned many times before but never anywhere found it explained other than here on BW forum....can someone please tell me where this info comes from because until then I'm going to ignore it...

Second question is what level are you Alkoran? I also had alot of difficulty soloing anything above a blue con up until lvl 21 when I got my hands on the perforate artery CS style. From then I was able to solo yellow con mobs. At 22 I fully spell crafted out a suit of leather armour + crafted weapons and now orange cons are a viable option too as long as I have the right kind of poisons loaded.

I just PA, fire off insta dmg then press hamstring with garotte as backup (in case I evade) and keep going until out of end or mob is dead then regen endurance and go off for the next mob.
specs atm :
stealth 20 + 5
CS 21+5
pierce 19 + 5
cd (about 5 + 3)
envenom 10 + 5

(only just levelled though and not spent lvl 26 spec points yet)

oh and end spec I'm aiming for is
stealth 34
CS 39
pierce 44
Envenom 33
CD 25

Give or take a point here or there since I auto trained stealth to lvl 16, WOW!

 

[Pin]

Originally posted by Marwolaeth
I've seen this mentioned many times before but never anywhere found it explained other than here on BW forum....can someone please tell me where this info comes from because until then I'm going to ignore it...

Look at your character page for the WeapSkill number. That number directly influences:

a) The chance that you bypass block/parry/evade;
b) The damage you do when you hit something.

That number increases when you raise your damage-stat (for pierce this is Str and Dex) and when you raise your weapon skill level (total Pierce skill). This number does not stop raising when you reach 50 skill, it carries on going.

My Inf has 68Thrust. Fully buffed he has 1431 WeapSkill. With 67Thrust it was 1422. If you want to stop and leave yours at 50Pierce total, then you'll get about 1270 WeapSkill fully buffed, and other 'Shades who have higher levels of Pierce will hit for more damage with only base buffs.


But ignore me if you want.

 

[Noche]

Dunno about "harder" part (supposely above 50 it´s 100%-150% dmg) but it definately affects to-hit, again the evade is told to not be affected by it through a test or sth, need to take a look first.

 

[Pin]

Originally posted by Noche
Dunno about "harder" part (supposely above 50 it´s 100%-150% dmg) but it definately affects to-hit, again the evade is told to not be affected by it through a test or sth, need to take a look first.

No, you have that the wrong way around. To-hit is not affected by weaponskill. Evade, block and parry are.


The damage calculation for Camelot basically goes along the lines of:

[WeaponSkill]*[WeaponDmg]*[Level-difference-based Constant]*[Random number with bounds based on Weapon spec, defined as 'variance' by Mythic]/[Target's Armour Factor]


Thus, get a higher weaponskill you hit harder. Get a better weapon you hit harder. Hit a lower level or lower-armoured opponent you hit harder. The random number means you won't hit for the same damage every time unless you hit a cap.

 

[Marwolaeth]

so where does attack speed come into the equation? Heard this was supposed to be a big factor in calculating damage.

 

[Pin]

Originally posted by Marwolaeth
so where does attack speed come into the equation? Heard this was supposed to be a big factor in calculating damage.

the formula is just a rough guide to damage per second. multiply it by [Weapon Delay] if you want a damage per hit figure.

 

[Rubric]

Nerf old threads. Call for an archive of the old shite.

 

[Pin]

Originally posted by Rubric
Nerf old threads. Call for an archive of the old shite.

There's nothing wrong with old threads if there's something useful to be said in/about them.

 

[Marwolaeth]

LMAO, hadn't noticed the date of the orignal post

 

[Everhate]

Don't be afraid m8 surely it will be the equipment a nice equipment is around 80% of the victory with tanks, and a bad equipment is a sure death (soloing). With crafted and spellcrafted equipment I can solo red mobs with resistance against piercing at lvl 19. And yes, ns are down in a few hits but critical strike styles uses to hit harder than any other style.