Skalds

Tuthmes

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Whats the best spec for a skald these days?

Is it the straight forward 50sword, rest <euhm> battlesongs?
 

Keitan

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Tuthmes said:
Whats the best spec for a skald these days?

Is it the straight forward 50sword, rest <euhm> battlesongs?

46 Battlesongs 47 Hammer and rest parry i think ^^ thats what mine is specd innit
 

Dr_Evil

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I'm 50+19 hammer, 43 bs, 2+19 parry. Nothing after 43 bs (red speed) I find worthy, and I have MoParry4 so parry is not a problem.
 

Limitless

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47 hammer, 46 battlesongs, 5 parry.. thats the one and only spec you should know ;)
 

Zoia

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46 BS, 44 hammer and 17 parry here.
I've tried pretty much everything between 40-48 hammer and the difference isn't even noticable. I'd rather have a little more parry personally, since i mostly solo.
If you don't solo, you might as well spend all points in weapon after you have the level of BS you want.

As long as you get 43 BS for the best speed, it's impossible to spec a skald wrong and it really wont matter. Unless you're going 50 weapon, i would take 44(for the 44 DD) or 46(best DA) in BS.


If you want to use Malice 2-h, that leaves you with axe or hammer.
Hammer is nice for the rare snare and you can also have Battler as a 1-h for the /use2. Imo, Malice/Battler is one of the best weapon combos you can get.
With axe i guess you can go Malice, Traitors or something. Axe have some good damage positionals and an anytime ASD.
Sword is SoK, Battler or Traitors? With sword you kinda have to go 50 weapon for Ragnarok though.
Skald champ weapon is pretty much useless, btw.

If you can't decide what spec to take, roll a die. :p 1=44/44/21(BS/W/P)...2=46/44/10,...3=46/46/10,...4=46/47/5,...5=44/48/10,...6=43/50/2
When i respecced my skald last time, i wasn't paying attention. I was going back to my original spec(46, 46, 10), but clicked parry a couple of times too much and had to take 46, 44, 17.
Never thought it was worth a respec stone to fix it. ;)
 

Dr_Evil

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In many situations I prefer the HoT charge on champ weapon over the battler charge. I have both, and decide wich one to wear in the 1h slot depending on what I'm gonna fight. As 2h I use Malice when solo (proc is too op to avoid), and switch to Sun club if I meet someone who's crush resistant. In group I switch between many hammers depending on what we're fighting.
 

mercury

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Zoia said:
.....but clicked parry a couple of times too much and had to take 46, 44, 17.
Never thought it was worth a respec stone to fix it. ;)

With last patch you get a free Mythic respec
 

Chosen

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Same as Zoia, I have had two skalds I've played alot. And the best spec I find is 44 hammer, 46 bs, rest parry. But I was more of a solo skald then group skald, I know Tivook had 50 sword in the NP group, and really enjoyed it. Cuteypie was also another solo skald with 44 hammer.

It really depends on what type of player you are, and the difference between 44 and 47 hammer aint much, so not worth it!
 

Calo

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I had also 44hammer 46bs rest parry.

Worked like a charm.
 

Chosen

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Calo said:
I had also 44hammer 46bs rest parry.

Worked like a charm.
Hush Calo, don't scare him away by telling him you specced the same
 

Tuthmes

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So is the differance between the 35dmg add and 46 huge enough to make it worth spec'ing 46bs?

Anyhow in a strange way these post help, though it makes me /ponder again also :p Anyway thx for the input, will give some more thoughts i guess!
 

Chosen

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Well, you miss out the best speed etc, and 35bs for a skald is too low. Youll get resisted alot=) And getting the only single mezz we got resisted, is a no no for us skalds in a solo fight=)
 

xenia-

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Same spec as Zoia here also, 44 hammer, 46 BS, 17 parry - tested more or less every other spec (as Im sure most skalds have) - basically red da is cool for solo or grp when speedwarped and gives you 2 red DDs (lvl43, 44), 44 hammer is just for followup to rearstyle, and parry the leftovers really (Skald defense still sucks no matter what people try to tell you but its better than nothing and if you dont put some poitns into parry you cant really whine about defense either :) ).

Sword, axe are viable too but both solo and grouped you cant beat the utility of the hammer snares imo.
 

Chosen

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Not to mention Hammer gets one of the best anytime styles(?) Provoke! At 17(?)
 

xenia-

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Dunno if its the best anytime, but it is really good - very very low end usage (more an issue solo than in grp I find) and decent GR, similar to other taunts.
 

Chosen

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xenia- said:
Dunno if its the best anytime, but it is really good - very very low end usage (more an issue solo than in grp I find) and decent GR, similar to other taunts.
One of the best, you get it at such a low level, and the small end costs help GREATLY when solo! Never had a problem with end in a solo fight if fully rested because of that style! Its a life saviour!
 

Limitless

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get fuckin 47 hammer, 46 songs, 5 parry if youre a troll :) will hit like a truck.. i know i did.
 

Dr_Evil

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Chosen said:
Well, you miss out the best speed etc, and 35bs for a skald is too low. Youll get resisted alot=) And getting the only single mezz we got resisted, is a no no for us skalds in a solo fight=)
Nobody said to go lower than 43 BS (red speed), also it doesn't matter if 1 of the DDs gets resisted more than the other, it still interrupts! Mez will be lvl42 anyway no matter spec.

xenia- said:
Same spec as Zoia here also, 44 hammer, 46 BS, 17 parry - tested more or less every other spec (as Im sure most skalds have) - basically red da is cool for solo or grp when speedwarped and gives you 2 red DDs (lvl43, 44), 44 hammer is just for followup to rearstyle, and parry the leftovers really (Skald defense still sucks no matter what people try to tell you but its better than nothing and if you dont put some poitns into parry you cant really whine about defense either :) ).

Sword, axe are viable too but both solo and grouped you cant beat the utility of the hammer snares imo.
You haven't seen my defence then, I parry the pole armsmen! :p

But I agree it's not worth speccing for Parry, as it's only MoParry that can really help.

Kimkasper
 

Chosen

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Dr_Evil said:
Nobody said to go lower than 43 BS (red speed), also it doesn't matter if 1 of the DDs gets resisted more than the other, it still interrupts! Mez will be lvl42 anyway no matter spec.

Hehe, sorry, I read it wrong. Thought it said a diffrence between 35 BS and 44 BS:p
 

Tuthmes

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Chosen said:
Hehe, sorry, I read it wrong. Thought it said a diffrence between 35 BS and 44 BS:p

Yeah mebbe should formulated it differently, ie. is the 46dmg add worth spec'ing for. Can't get 46battlesongs and 50weapon :| and i dunno how huge the dmg diff is between 44weapon and 50. Bin looking at the style of axe/hammah/sword and all 3 seem good. Stylewise, axe seems better for solo'ing and hammer got a snare on backstyle and sword got ragnarok. Then again i dunno if its so important to have snare styles when you got perma end.

Anyways i think i made up my mind and will be goin for 44hammer, 46bs, rest parry. Prolly gonne play in group with it more then solo.
 

Chosen

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Tuthmes said:
Yeah mebbe should formulated it differently, ie. is the 46dmg add worth spec'ing for. Can't get 46battlesongs and 50weapon :| and i dunno how huge the dmg diff is between 44weapon and 50. Bin looking at the style of axe/hammah/sword and all 3 seem good. Stylewise, axe seems better for solo'ing and hammer got a snare on backstyle and sword got ragnarok. Then again i dunno if its so important to have snare styles when you got perma end.

Anyways i think i made up my mind and will be goin for 44hammer, 46bs, rest parry. Prolly gonne play in group with it more then solo.
If youre playing youre skald skillfully, then the best damage add is good to have. And with 44 hammer, you get a good behind snare style(That you can use after having mezzed youre enemy), and a good followup "Sledgehammer", that does a good deal of damage.

Only weapon imo, worth speccing up to 50 is sword because of the last style called Ragnarok, that is an awesome backstyle. But as a solo skald myself I have NEVER regretted being hammer. The Provoke is a must because of the low end cost. The good axe styles cost to much endurance, and you'll end up hitting them with shitty damage(If you got no endurance left in the battle that is).
 

Zoia

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Tuthmes said:
Yeah mebbe should formulated it differently, ie. is the 46dmg add worth spec'ing for. Can't get 46battlesongs and 50weapon :| and i dunno how huge the dmg diff is between 44weapon and 50. Bin looking at the style of axe/hammah/sword and all 3 seem good. Stylewise, axe seems better for solo'ing and hammer got a snare on backstyle and sword got ragnarok. Then again i dunno if its so important to have snare styles when you got perma end.

Anyways i think i made up my mind and will be goin for 44hammer, 46bs, rest parry. Prolly gonne play in group with it more then solo.
I ran out to check how much difference 6 more in hammer would be, just for you! :)

Fully buffed(224 quick), with 10 melee spd and 20% haste charge, i got these caps with my Malice:
44+14 hammer: Provoke-588, Conquer-613, Crushing Blow-633
44+20 hammer: Provoke-608, Conquer-633, Crushing Blow-658

That's an increase of about 3.5-3.9%. On average you might hit for 50-70% of your cap, giving you maybe 10-15 more damage per hit?
That's a little bit more than what you'll get from speccing for the best DA, but with the lv 44 DD as well, it's pretty even. In a group, the DA will also help the other meleers, if there are any. :p
You're not really supposed to be killing a whole lot in a group either, but parry is also useless in groups...
Though if you want to solo some, 17 in parry is better than 2 or 5. More parries = more parrystyles = higher DPS. Also less damage taken. However, if you're fighting 2 enemies, your parry is halved. :p
So you see, we're talking about small percentages here. So small you wont even notice it.

The only reason to go 50 weapon would be for the style.
Ragnarok is worth it if you're sword as it's the only backstyle in sword. It does decent damage and having 1 backstyle instead of a chain is good.
Tyr's Fury(axe) has good damage, but it's a followup from a frontpositional. Not too usefull in group fighting and 50 weapon may not be the best choice for soloing.
As we could see, the overall damage increase isn't that much higher and against classes with decent defence, it's not always easy to land 2 styles in a row.
The 50 hammerstyle is a 2nd off parry and with 50 hammer, that leaves you with 2 parry. You then have to get lots of MoParry to make it worth it, which you probably wont have since you'll mostly be grouping.
The hammer back and side snares are nice though, both in group play and against runners when you solo. In group play, where you will often be interrupting and stuff, i'd say snares are more valueable for a skald than a style that does maybe 20 more damage.
My Conquer(0.74 GR) cap was 633. Crushing Blow was 658(0.88 GR) which would be similar to Ragnarok(0.85 GR) if the weaponspec was the same.

To put it short, 46, 44, 17 and hammer is a good choice! You don't need to spend a lot of RA points on MoParry to be able to solo now and then and you have them nice snares. You also get to use 2 of the best weapons in the game. \o/
If you don't want the good old cookie cutter spec, you can try 46, 47, 5. You'll hit an amazing 1.5-2% harder, but will parry an incredible 6%(3% if you're fighting 2 people) or so less. ;)
 

Tuthmes

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Thx for the test Zioa! And yeah think all 3 nfd alliance groups (yup thats 24 rvr players) that have rerolled to avalon are making a tank group.
Funny though, even how small the differance there might be between spec's, it still gives food for thought...
 

guid0

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Tuthmes said:
Thx for the test Zioa! And yeah think all 3 nfd alliance groups (yup thats 24 rvr players) that have rerolled to avalon are making a tank group.
Funny though, even how small the differance there might be between spec's, it still gives food for thought...


I dont find it funny :p i wish i could choose a different playstyle by changing my specc like all other classes in the game can. Atm i can only be shitty at everything no matter how i specc :)
 

Calo

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They should give skalds a boost tbh.

We never have anything changed :(

All the classes get cool stuff or get nerfed, skalds just stay ... speedbots :(

But surely the most fun char to play imo
 

xenia-

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I dont really think skalds are that bad atm - its just that alot of other classes got quite abit of loving lately. You could however argue that e.g. the addition of celerity charges was stealth love for a 2h class with midgard basedmg bonus, solo at least.

VNboards is filled with whine also and I suppose it is justified to some extent since we were promised love a year ago or so. Main issue is probably how skalds are classified as a music class while many think they are tanks :)

Anyways if we ever receive some love I hope its groupfocused - being swapped for a serious dps class in grp is the worst danger to the class imo - solo is a different ballgame and alot of the people whining seem to forget that if you wanna solo you need a bot, you need hastecharges, you need celerity charges, you need spec af, you need SoM, you need mezz bt, you need purge, you need ip2, you need fa2 etc. etc. etc. :p - just like any other serious soloers are doing.

Apart from that its all about playstyle too, kite ftw dont stand toe to toe with a class that rips you a new one in 15 secs and so on :)
 

Chosen

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xenia- said:
I dont really think skalds are that bad atm - its just that alot of other classes got quite abit of loving lately. You could however argue that e.g. the addition of celerity charges was stealth love for a 2h class with midgard basedmg bonus, solo at least.

VNboards is filled with whine also and I suppose it is justified to some extent since we were promised love a year ago or so. Main issue is probably how skalds are classified as a music class while many think they are tanks :)

Anyways if we ever receive some love I hope its groupfocused - being swapped for a serious dps class in grp is the worst danger to the class imo - solo is a different ballgame and alot of the people whining seem to forget that if you wanna solo you need a bot, you need hastecharges, you need celerity charges, you need spec af, you need SoM, you need mezz bt, you need purge, you need ip2, you need fa2 etc. etc. etc. :p - just like any other serious soloers are doing.

Apart from that its all about playstyle too, kite ftw dont stand toe to toe with a class that rips you a new one in 15 secs and so on :)

Well, Skalds is probably one of the most balanced class out there, hence there hasnt been a change, but for us that have played skalds for year and years, some changes wouldnt be bad! We have done the same thing over and over again! Give us a new something cool I can insta push :D
 

genitsaros

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best spec for a twoll skald is 49hammer 44bs rest parry

hits like a truck and has the last red dd
but dmg add is yellow not big difernce from red...
 

Chosen

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genitsaros said:
best spec for a twoll skald is 49hammer 44bs rest parry

hits like a truck and has the last red dd
but dmg add is yellow not big difernce from red...
Ehm, 49 hammer compared to 44 hammer is like no diffrence:p And you wont even get the last style, since that goes at 50 hammer.
 

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