frncsjhnhawaii wrote on 2014-04-01 10:39
With Frozen Blast, Hydra Transmutation, Life Drain, and Shock costing 1452 AP total, it will take me about a year of freebirthing to get that AP. With that said, I have a few questions to ask players who've dealt with ranking those skills.
- How would you prioritize ranking them?
- Would you focus on ranking all of them to certain milestones (r9, r5, r1) or would you focus only on one skill at a time?
Additional info about myself:
- Close Combat Main, uses support Alchemy and Bard skills for crowd control
- 1439 CP (based off of Mabination calculator) at levels 87/17, owns Marble Brigandine
- Reforge/Cash shop? No, only buys pons for style tab
- About to finish Rain Casting
ironwoman wrote on 2014-04-01 17:13
First off, I'd like to question on your methods of leveling. You really should be able to get to 120/30 each rebirth if you're doing 3-week. Completing dailies with occasional MA on weekends should sufficiently provide this leveling. Taking into account that there are AP quests and sometimes AP related events, you can expect unto 3k AP per year.
Secondly, if you are main combat, I'd advise you against getting into the support alchemy skill set and just focus on ranking your main skills. At your level and CP, your skills are in more need of leveling than the unnecessary alchemy skills.
Here are some things about support alchemy: they're useful in only select few situations, so to rank those skills for just the said situations is rather inefficient. For example, you said you're about to finish rain casting. That skill, at least in my view, is only useful for MA, if not for production success rate. A rank 1 lullaby will yield similar result, as well as benefiting max damage from Encore enchant. Frozen blast is also pretty pointless when you can finish mobs pretty quick, or just use pets for stun. Or easier yet, lullaby. Hydra transmutation is actually a very nice skill, but it's not a skill I'd consider support. As for shock, another inefficient skill to rank after Blood Master title came out. It used to be worth it to rank for the title, but now it really isn't. You can still rank it for some sort of AoE damage, but then WM, magic, puppets, and flame burst do better job at this. Life drain has some nice utility, and basically makes you not require HP pots into fights. It also gives nice stats needed for some alchemy skills. But is it really worth the AP and CP cost to rank early on? I don't think so.
My point is this: I don't think you should rank these skills at all right now. Finish your main skill set first, then rank range for actual utility.
Ranking these skills or not is still up to you. If you are still planning to rank these skills after all I wrote, then I'd follow Life Drain-Shock-Hydra-Frozen Blast. If you really want support alchemy, I'd rank Flame Burst before all of the things mentioned.
frncsjhnhawaii wrote on 2014-04-01 18:32
Quote from ironwoman;1211835:
First off, I'd like to question on your methods of leveling.
Secondly, if you are main combat, I'd advise you against getting into the support alchemy skill set and just focus on ranking your main skills.
Here are some things about support alchemy:
My point is this:
1.) Casual Player, I only do the dailies unless there's an event or I'm skill training.
2.) Final Hit, Blunt/Axe Masteries, Berserk, Arrow Revolver, and Lance skills are left to finish in the Combat talent when it comes to strength. ~97 strength that I'm missing from that tab and it's not like I'm going to only work on the support skills, I can always rb into CC or Lance when I want to step up my strength. 500 AP spent on Crash Shot for the 31 dex doesn't feel worth it when I've stopped using range after ranking the basic skills though I can always revisit it if I decide to use Puppetry.
3.) I like raincasting for Fomor Attack and Defeat the Shadow Wizard. I already use r1 Lullaby but having it apply only once per mob and the duration is a bit short for mobs that I can't one shot with a WM crit and have to instead individually Smash each mob.
4.) Thanks =)
ironwoman wrote on 2014-04-01 19:21
Quote from frncsjhnhawaii;1211862:
2.) Final Hit, Blunt/Axe Masteries, Berserk, Arrow Revolver, and Lance skills are left to finish in the Combat talent when it comes to strength. ~97 strength that I'm missing from that tab and it's not like I'm going to only work on the support skills, I can always rb into CC or Lance when I want to step up my strength. 500 AP spent on Crash Shot for the 31 dex doesn't feel worth it when I've stopped using range after ranking the basic skills though I can always revisit it if I decide to use Puppetry.
3.) I like raincasting for Fomor Attack and Defeat the Shadow Wizard. I already use r1 Lullaby but having it apply only once per mob and the duration is a bit short for mobs that I can't one shot with a WM crit and have to instead individually Smash each mob.
If not being able to one shot crit wm is your case, that means you still have str skills to go. Utility won't be as useful if you can get the damage off. You can also invest in a damage gear, which will boost your damage by a big margin.
As for crash shot, that's one of the basic skills you need to complete for range. Crash shot is a wonderful skill to rank, even just for its utility alone.
Just remember that hybriding earlier on will basically reduce your damage output.