Short Questions

Raeche

To anyone with the adaptation artifact power:

How do you change your statpack?

Edit: Reincarnate works!

Meyvitch

Is there a way to get a left-handed person (me) to turn into a right-handed person? This dude's missing his left hand. Plus, I'm right handed anyway and prefer to have my character that way.

Lin

Umm... what.

Saybre

I think he means because wielding things defaults to the left hand. Which you can get around by doing WIELD RIGHT <item>

Alexina

EDIT:
Saybre knew the right syntax. (see the pun? hurr hurr)

Lin

That feeling when you've played a game for over ten years and learn something new about a very basic command.

Arbre

Arb's left-handed and I'm not, so that's a fun thing to do (this is relatively unrelated).  I figure out how -I- do it, then reverse the hands.  Not many people have figured out she's left-handed though.

Zun

I've asked this a million times but answers vary and I'd like to hear the consensus. For end game bashing (93 to 100)  what is the logical order for trans'ing miniskills and why? Also, considering I don't have all-the-lessons-ever, let me know when several miniskills are roughly equal and I should learn them all at the same time. Thanks in advance!

Eleanor

I kind of love that Aetolians are left-handed by default. An interesting disconnect, but only if you stop to think about it!

Raeche

As far as I know:

Elemental resistances for spellshapers and xorani. As to which one first - they are all about equal.

Antidotes can wait. Fitness (for asphyxiation) can wait as well.

Aldric

Do remember though that both fitness and philosophy increase your endurance and willpower regeneration respectively. If you seem to go through either rather quickly, it wouldn't hurt to pump some lessons into those as well. 

Daingean

I almost always trans the regeneration that's required. That's totally a YMMV thing though, as I tend to play multi-attack classes that drain my respective pool rather quickly.

Constitution is my next trans, because of the ability it offers on trans, followed by whichever one you're missing the resistance to - in my case, as a glowmonk, my cold resistance was the weakest. I would suggest the same for you - go in order of your resistances, and lack thereof, unless you have no racial / class bonuses to anything, then just take a look at what they seem to hit with most often.

Xan seems to LOVE cold attacks, so transing that quick is useful. Antidotes is the last one I'd do - it's practically non existent outside of xorani harem girls as a bashing damage type.

Alexina

I'd start with fire (helpful for spellshapers, xorani, and argoboles/phenkyres), followed my cold (spellshapers, xorani, malevolents, darkwalkers), and magic resistance (spellshapers, xorani, various tiyen/fengard/drakuum mobs). Also, depending on your class, reincarnating as resilient might very well be worth it.

Orisae

Once I got over my fascination with Philosophy (I still want to try Psycombat with someone ) I opted for magic resistance first (spellshapers), than cold and fire. Threw some constitution in there for good measure.

Antidote was my last.

Shinji

Do undead count toward house score?

Arbre

No. Only embraced vampires.

Raeche

What is the class with the highest DPS for bashing?

Alexina

That depends whether you want to include artifacts or not.

EDIT:
It also depends on whether you want to include critical attacks or not, too (i.e a multi-hit class will bash faster because of crits).

Raeche

Alexina said:

That depends whether you want to include artifacts or not.

EDIT:
It also depends on whether you want to include critical attacks or not, too (i.e a multi-hit class will bash faster because of crits).

Could you tell me whatever you know?

With and without artifacts.

Alexina

Basically, some classes scale a lot with artifacts.

Monks/Daru have the fastest DPS because they basically gain three times as many crits as other classes. Their crits will be weaker (because damage is split over the combo, so an ANNIHILATING punch won't be as much as a Luminary's smite or a Cabalist's decay), but that does not really matter much because you will most likely be killing the mob with a 10,000 damage crit and a 50,000 damage one will just waste its damage. Overkill helped alleviate this discrepancy, but multi-hit classes still bash faster than single-hit classes.

If you are looking for straight up DPS in the bashing attack itself, sciomancers/ascendril and vampires are pretty much the top classes when artifacted out. Both would do 2000+ damage with their attacks (Sciomancer without the hunt_sciomancer artifact power), which is useful in some situations. If you are trying to bash the Volcano, you need to do about 18000 damage to mobs that take 50% reduced damage (fire elementals and daemons), meaning that your 2,000 damage attack is halved into 1,000. An annihilating crit on that bumps it to 32,000 damage, which means you could actually use overkill damage to kill one mob and take the next one down so it is almost dead. This also seems particularly useful when killing certain honour mobs such as the elder lava daemon or the old Dreikathi dragons (all of these had 'bad' effects when you attacked them, meaning a monk combo could trigger this three times each round whereas frenzy or staffcast only is one attack). Terdarim deal less damage (about 1,700 per attack when artifacted, roughly) but they're good at bashing because of their high health pool.

Without artifacts, I think Syssin/Carnifex/Templars have decent dps, but again, crits win out if you're just trying to get through areas as quickly as possible. On the bottom of the pile, you have decay (cabalists/indorani) and smite (although it was a -long- time ago since I bashed as luminary). Vampires/teradrim/sciomancers are pretty weak without artifacts, too.

DPS is not as important as survivability when it comes to bashing, or at least that is my opinion. Bashing as Experienced statpack in the Volcano with orb/book tattoo/elite membership experience bonus means that I get roughly 110 mobs' worth of experience instead of 70. Praenomen is without comparison the tankiest class in the game, but Templars are a close second (they can still bash with shields, right?). Almost all of the attacks in Xaanhal are stopped by reflections (though watch out for the mage, the high mage, the harem girls, and the masters at arms' area attacks). Passive healing is always nice, but not nearly as nice as damage mitigation. Taking less damage makes bashing so much easier. It is the reason I barely even hunt as monk anymore, despite my pile of defensive artifacts.

Raeche

Alexina said:

Basically, some classes scale a lot with artifacts.

Monks/Daru have the fastest DPS because they basically gain three times as many crits as other classes. Their crits will be weaker (because damage is split over the combo, so an ANNIHILATING punch won't be as much as a Luminary's smite or a Cabalist's decay), but that does not really matter much because you will most likely be killing the mob with a 10,000 damage crit and a 50,000 damage one will just waste its damage. Overkill helped alleviate this discrepancy, but multi-hit classes still bash faster than single-hit classes.

If you are looking for straight up DPS in the bashing attack itself, sciomancers/ascendril and vampires are pretty much the top classes when artifacted out. Both would do 2000+ damage with their attacks (Sciomancer without the hunt_sciomancer artifact power), which is useful in some situations. If you are trying to bash the Volcano, you need to do about 18000 damage to mobs that take 50% reduced damage (fire elementals and daemons), meaning that your 2,000 damage attack is halved into 1,000. An annihilating crit on that bumps it to 32,000 damage, which means you could actually use overkill damage to kill one mob and take the next one down so it is almost dead. This also seems particularly useful when killing certain honour mobs such as the elder lava daemon or the old Dreikathi dragons (all of these had 'bad' effects when you attacked them, meaning a monk combo could trigger this three times each round whereas frenzy or staffcast only is one attack). Terdarim deal less damage (about 1,700 per attack when artifacted, roughly) but they're good at bashing because of their high health pool.

Without artifacts, I think Syssin/Carnifex/Templars have decent dps, but again, crits win out if you're just trying to get through areas as quickly as possible. On the bottom of the pile, you have decay (cabalists/indorani) and smite (although it was a -long- time ago since I bashed as luminary). Vampires/teradrim/sciomancers are pretty weak without artifacts, too.

DPS is not as important as survivability when it comes to bashing, or at least that is my opinion. Bashing as Experienced statpack in the Volcano with orb/book tattoo/elite membership experience bonus means that I get roughly 110 mobs' worth of experience instead of 70. Praenomen is without comparison the tankiest class in the game, but Templars are a close second (they can still bash with shields, right?). Almost all of the attacks in Xaanhal are stopped by reflections (though watch out for the mage, the high mage, the harem girls, and the masters at arms' area attacks). Passive healing is always nice, but not nearly as nice as damage mitigation. Taking less damage makes bashing so much easier. It is the reason I barely even hunt as monk anymore, despite my pile of defensive artifacts.

So.. if I want to move on to the next stage in bashing after Xaanhal, I will need a tankier class than monk, and your recommendation is either vampire or templar. And I guess the same thing applies for bashing eld, huh? Since there are no crits, it'll be a matter of pure DPS (which means mage/vampire), and the tankiness would help in case you get jumped or there are too many eld aggro'ing at a go.

Alexina

Raeche said:

So.. if I want to move on to the next stage in bashing after Xaanhal, I will need a tankier class than monk, and your recommendation is either vampire or templar. And I guess the same thing applies for bashing eld, huh? Since there are no crits, it'll be a matter of pure DPS (which means mage/vampire), and the tankiness would help in case you get jumped or there are too many eld aggro'ing at a go.

For the fracture, pick the class with the best elemental resists/passive healing you can get. I guess daru would not be bad, since they have discharge. Make sure you're attacking them with an icon as this is the highest DPS you will have when killing eld. To be honest, there is no 'next step' after Xaanhal; Xaanhal is great, easy, fast experience, its only downside being the long respawn time. A somewhat tanky person could do the fire elementals in Volcano, a person with really high blunt audit can kill the earth elementals. You either want to be a very defensive class to take on the daemons or just have tons of artifacts. Don't bother with the smoke elementals at all.

The only other endgame place is Tiyen (I don't even count Arbothia anymore). I've seen people bashing in that area before Tekal, though, so you should be find something to hunt there so long as you pay attention to which mobs you're fighting and watch out for aggros.

EDIT:
Shackle the eld in the fracture if there's too many in a room.

Haven

I always thought the Volcano was a group bashing ground and that's why they're so tough. Is the XP just not worth it as a group?

Kiyotan

I like bashing as a Sentinel, and I recommend it. As Powerful, I am super tanky (also thanks to Barkskin), my 2-hit combo is still relatively quick (2.75), and an annihilating crit will still one-shot anything I'm fighting. Plus, having Vitality while bashing is just about the best thing ever, second only to Discharge. Even if my internet lags, if what I'm bashing hits me too hard, Vitality will fire and save my skin. 

Daskalos

 I find the smoke elementals easier than the daemons...

Eleanor

For the record, the mobs in the fracture place it at roughly a level 80 bashing area. The afflicts and the Threat Of Borscin make it seem harder, but if you're sharking for XP, that's not the place to go.

Piper

I'm eyeing that artifact package with the bow and quiver. On a scale of bleh to hell yes, how useful would that be for a syssin that already has access to a darkbow?

Xavin

The quiver would be very useful, considering when a regular quiver decays it takes all of your arrows with it, and outq-ing arrows wipes color and venom from them.

The bow would be a damage increase. Not super big, but still probably worth it.

And you could use it in other classes, though you would probably want to get aiming for it.

Lin

What content restrictions exist on Aetolian Artisanals? I remember an Artisanal entry on Achaea that had a bit of non-sexual nudity - namely, some manifesting female spirit who happened to be topless - and I was working on something similar. What would be considered acceptable?

Alexina

Only if you refer to her boobs as 'mammaries'.

In all seriousness, I think artisanals/bardics need to be PG13. Not sure if that'd disqualify a topless spirit.