What skills/build are you guys using, and how is it working out?

I tried Hammer/sjield a while back (mostly becasue i wnated to level up shield for speed boost) and was rather dissapointed too. Hammer dmage to power cost to cd seems a bit off. Maybe its becasue i didnt had right mods(i picked what i found nad crafted missing parts when needed), but hammer dmg for most part looked... well its not that bad, i woudl say good even, but considering downsides (hih PC, relativly high cd's, increased rage generation) it didnt seemed like good enough.

And shield was even more dissaponting. Too little surivability, only good things are armor restoration, and strong buffs for core/nice attacks dmg.

Admittedly I haven't played Shield to end well enough to expertly comment, or even tried it paired with a skill other than Fire Magic, but it does seem more utility than DPS focused. I don't particularly mind that in some skills though, it has a useful purpose playing second fiddle to a more damage-focused skill like Fire Magic (or others, I'm sure). Barring Captain America, the shield is pretty much relegated to a support/defense item in combat anyway.

If the devs were so inclined to copy one WoW feature as it pertains to shields, however... shield throw would be nice. : )

I never expected shield to ahve good dmg. My problem is that only thign its really good at is restoring armor. Staff, Ice Magic, BC, even unarmed all have better dmg mitigation, while also offering dmg/group utility. Beside armor restoration, only rason to pick shield is for speed boosts, or eventualy bonuses to core/nice attacks - addmitivly they are actualy strong, but not sure it makes shield worth it.

As a side note - hmmer shield was only build where i actualyw a sable to make use of Rapid Recovery. Usign seismic slam to slow mobs down, and then pushign them back with FMYF was givign me just enough time to finish casting it.

I think I may go Hammer/AH in light of this thread instead of Bard/AH. For whatever reason, I always choose the hardest path in life and games.

I'd assume Animal Handling has the same output of Psychology, since they're both skills gotten at the same point.

Right now, my main skills are Fire/Ice (72/70) and in Animal from, Lycan/Psych (71/76). I also have 6 others at 70+ so I have played and tried a lot, some for specific reasons, like Flying and/or Speed buffs. (BC, Archery, Sword, Druid, Staff & Rabbit)

Lycan/Psych is amazing single target damage and I haven't even augmented fully yet, while with Bite bonuses, it still does great with the AoE Bite mod. You Were Adopted is my biggest attack, so that is limited to single target. Aside from that, I do enjoy playing Lycan/Psych, fun build overall.

My latest is Fire/Ice, it's amazing. Again, not even augmented out yet, but I am working on it. It is already showing it's power, the AoE's alone is like being a one-man army (aside from GK/Labs). It can be power hungry and sometimes a bit kamikaze-like, but overall, it's a fun build IMO. Even the single target spells, you can Mez, Hold and with the right mod, there is even an AoE stun after 10 secs using Tundra Spikes. Ice Magic is nice, but you'll want something else paired with it that can offset the immune or resistant mobs to Cold, which is majority of the mobs in Kur/Gaz. Fire worked well for that.

Out of the others I've played, Archery/Sword were the first two I maxed out, great DPS, but power hungry if you want to go all damage anyway. Archery is high damage, and some have said it's even overpowered. Maybe it is, maybe not, but I can see how it can be. It's also very versatile with the Mangling Shots stun and the Snares Mez spell, then just blast away with the heavy shots, aimed shot and the elemental damage. (Poison/Acid/Fire Arrow) You pair Archery with Druid being the support, it's about unstoppable. Sword is nice, it's typically what it should be, pure damage and even rage control is the other option. Rage control is nice and all, but against certain mobs, a single rage setup didn't seem that effective, but then I haven't modded rage items either so maybe it does work well with a better setup. Archery is really fine on it's own, anything else paired with it is a bonus IMO. If you're soloing a place like Gaz Keep on your own, then yes, I will agree it's a bit overpowered.

Battle Chemistry is nice, good set of AoE's (that also DoT) along with the Golem pet that can buff and attack with you as well. You can program the Golem to do about anything you want it to, like straight support or attack or both. I more so use BC for the sprint buffs to go along with my speed set saved in a separate load-out. It's still good on it's own paired with like Archery for some crazy AoE fun.

Druid is a good support skill and it can deal some damage, especially with Cosmic Strike, but it's cooldown is too long to be efficient on it's own for overall damage. You'll want a decent damage build to go with Druid from my experience anyway. I typically use it for the Flying these days.

Staff is nice, can dish some damage, but seems more so on the defensive side, where-as you can pair it with a high damage build (ie: Archery, Ice or Fire depending) and just use the defensive buffs, like Defensive Stance (being just bout invincible for a bit aside from elemental damage) and blast away taking minimal to no damage at all. It varies on your damage and how fast you will kill the mobs obviously. Staff alone is sup-par, but like most builds, depends on the mods you're stacking too.

And lastly, Rabbit...it was a fun build, I played around with it with Ice Magic, cause...why not. ;) Don't expect Rabbit to do much for damage, as it even states in the description, but overall it's something fun to play around with when you want something new and different. The Ice Magic was obviously carrying most of the damage output.

These are just my opinions based on my own experience. As with any games, everyone plays their own ways and how you go about things. I like to try new things, so I'm always exploring new options, I am not set on one thing, maxing out and then moving on. I see that often that some have maxed out 2 skills, aug'd all the way and then quit playing, seems pointless to me, but again, to each his/her own. You play how you want, not how everyone else is playing. This IS Alpha after-all, you play to try new things see how things work and "test" what you can/want. =)

Sorry for the crazy amount of text, but I wanted to explain my own experiences thus far. Have much more to do yet...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crissa

I'd assume Animal Handling has the same output of Psychology, since they're both skills gotten at the same point.

---

How so?

You get Charm Rat on the newbie island, but that's not part of the Animal Handling skill tree. You end up buying Animal Handling from Gisli the stable guy in Serbule after getting off the newbie island... so it's more similar to Fire Magic in that way. I *think* the only combat skills you get on anagogue are sword, unarmed and (potentially) psychology.

Or by 'same point' do you mean the early game in abstract? (pre-Elt, pre-Khur, etc.)

Used to be you needed feed rat to start it, and that's on the starter island.

You also get bow from starter's island.

Very off-base assumption to compare animal handling to psych. Psych is one of the major cc skills, animal handling doesn't even compare right now as a lot of its kit isn't 100% functional. "Same output"....? What.... You can get mentalism in the same area you get fire magic, I wouldn't stack those two up against each other. We're talking output here right? Maybe you forgot about creature weaknesses. Different skills will deal more dmg to certain types of enemies. Anyway...

@OP - I run a number of diff. builds:
(For animals I tend to always mix in Mentalism as it's the skill I used to cap some of them.)

Lyco + Mentalism/Unarmed - Wolf has a strong kit and mentalism gives me healing and another bar of different damage. Unarmed is nice for cc but also as I have capped meditation the higher lvl combos are very handy and fun to mess around with.

Spider/Deer + Druid - I initially levelled both of these with mentalism but wanted to experiment with different types of skills, testing synergies and that. I like the poison stacking spider build but also the 'support-y deer with burst'.

Spider + Necro - Seemed a bit trolly to me initially but managing all the pets is "neat". Not my thing but I'll admit it was fun to play with for a time.

I mainly experiment with animal forms as in human form it tends to be easy mode, (Fire magic etc etc etc yawwwwn), not to mention various other difficulties that are presented in animal form but eh. Animals don't have a lot of skills they can use, besides their own skill bar they have access to Psychology, Mentalism, Animal Handling, Necromancy, Unarmed and in some cases Druid. (Some may say Battle Chem. but be real guys...)

I have been playing with Cow and Pig too, I like unarmed/ment on them much like wolf, if pig could run druid would be nice but what can ya do.

(As a side note, survival instincts is ---very--- helpful while lvling animal forms)