Looking at choosing a second skill

[Baramy]

Hello, I am seeking advice on choosing or keeping my second skillset.

I am partial to Mentalist as my primary skillset and currently have Bard as my secondary.

I figured the waves and songs would stack but you need to cast a wave every couple of seconds and it seems to stop my songs from playing. Having to retoggle the song every time would be super annoying in the long run.

If this is not the case and I am doing something wrong I would like to know but I am looking at Hammer / Unarmed / Staff / Ice as alternative secondaries.

Running around as an animal does not interest me.

I also wanted to be able to do more damage than I am doing currently as it has been a bit hard to solo as mentalist/bard.

I noticed hammer has electric abilities like mentalist does, but in gorgon explorers character builder I do not see any flat electrical damage mods for gear.

Thoughts appreciated.

[ShieldBreaker]

If it is damage you are looking to increase of the four (Hammer / Unarmed / Staff / Ice), Hammer is the way to go. Unarmed and Staff both might take a little longer to kill stuff, but have ways for keeping you alive longer. Ice magic not too bad on the damage, has more options to survive and CC. It is also all range so you don't have to get into hit range of melee attackers to use.

If you are using cloth armor, you can learn to add a +% to electrical damage. This takes up Enhancement Points so you can't add other things like a full set of pockets or mods. Fairy Gear, some have a built in +% to electrical damage and I think it counts are cloth armor so you can add even more.

[Baramy]

What about hammer makes it the way to go? Damage potential? How is hammer defense? I see craftable defense mods.

[ShieldBreaker]

When compared to ice, ice doesn't even have an epic attack. Unarmed is close in damage, even maybe better overall if you can trigger Vulnerable and your setup with skills to exploit that. Staff not bad damage but a bit short of hammer, but can make up for it with defense stuff. But then for hammer you can a equip an Artistic Buckle and get an addition damage boost from that better than most belts, your knockdown attack adds another 25% damage to target for a short time, then you got all sorts of Treasure Effects that give bonus damage on knockdowned and high rage targets.

I don't bother with hammer's defense skills, when I'm worried about defense when using hammer I use Shield as my secondary or Battle Chem for the Extra Skin buffs. They do look like some nice defense Treasure Effects for mostly Way of the Hammer and Look at my Hammer, but I don't build my gear around using those.

With Hammer you have to worry about longer cool downs, and high power costs. You are going to have to rely on mentalism if you want rage control. You might just have to try each skill and find which best fits your play style.

[Tagamogi]

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I am partial to Mentalist as my primary skillset and currently have Bard as my secondary.

I figured the waves and songs would stack but you need to cast a wave every couple of seconds and it seems to stop my songs from playing. Having to retoggle the song every time would be super annoying in the long run.

I also wanted to be able to do more damage than I am doing currently as it has been a bit hard to solo as mentalist/bard.



I think the songs stopping to play may be a bug. I have a friend playing bard/mentalism, and he has complained about his songs stopping before. It seems that 95% of the time, songs and waves work together just fine for him though. I'll see if I can get him on here to comment.

Also, his damage seems quite nice to me - he has this nifty metal-armored build that allows him to tank, aoe and heal, and it's a bit scary to watch in action at times. :) I usually do more damage than him when we duo but then I'm also either 10 levels above him in twinked out gear, or using archery.

[Entropyy]

I am the Bard friend that Tagamogi was mentioning! I have been playing Bard/Mentalism for a couple of months now and I don't have any issue with the Mentalism waves canceling my Bard song. Aside from the Bard songs bugging on a few occasions when then instantly toggle themselves off for no reason (still not sure why that happens) they seem to work very well together. The biggest culprits for the Bard song toggling off in combat are movement and knockbacks. Its really important to make sure that you are in range of enemies when you try to use other Bard or Mentalism skills otherwise your character will auto-move to get in range and that turns off your song. Knockbacks also count as movement and turn off your song which can be really annoying as well.

It takes a little bit of practice to get used to standing still in combat, but once you get the hang of it it makes your Bard songs very very powerful. Mentalism also has a lot of long range attacks that assist you in not having to move so they pair up nicely. Not to mention you have a lot of sustainability between the healing and other utility spells both Bard and Mentalism offer.

If you are still having issues or ever need assistance feel free to message me in game or send a PM on the forums :)

[Baramy]

The songs fixed themselves the next time I logged in.

Decided to give Hammer / Mentalist a go and the damage seems to be alot higher.

I get that song of discord is a free aoe damage while you are not moving and in combat but I feel like hammer has way higher single target damage which if the trash mobs die almost instantly, the single target damage is what it comes down to when soloing boss content.

I am probably going to stick with this as it feels kindof like a paladin to me with hammer offering damage mitigation and armor regen while mentalist can be outfitted for armor, power, health regen. There is the lightning synergy between the two too.

If I could go hammer / bard though I would because casting the songs is a heck of alot less annoying than casting a wave every 20 seconds.

In short I am pretty set on hammer and now am weighing options for the best way to support it.

Also I really have no way to put the numbers of healing and regen into context, yes more is better but how much hp / armor / power does a geared level 70 player have?